Box Nine

by Jack O'Connell

  She scans the landscape, a full circle, but there’s not much she can see beyond tree-shadow and gravestones. She crawls toward the base of the nearest tree and looks around, then starts a crouched, small-step run toward the train car. She moves less than twenty yards when her left foot plants into a pile of dried leaves and catches on something buried underneath. She falls to her knees, lets her body go all the way to the ground, then rolls on her side, swinging the Uzi around to her front. She stops a second, stays on the ground, takes a breath, and sweeps a cautious half-circle in front of her with the Uzi’s barrel. Then her eyes spot something protruding from the leaf pile and it’s another second before she realizes it’s a human hand. She leans back to the pile and pushes leaves aside until she finds what she’s tripped over.

  It’s Charlotte Peirce’s body.

  There’s a black hole in the center of her forehead. The diameter is somewhere between a quarter and a half-dollar. There are charred burn marks visible around the outer edge of the hole. The bottom half of the face is obscured by a heavy coating of dried blood. Fat streaks of blood run everywhere down the neck. The bottom lip looks to be missing from the face. Rust-colored, blood-soaked leaves bulge from an uneven gap that was once the mouth.

  Lenore spots a small pink and red mound next to the head and avoids looking closely. The odds are good it could be a human tongue.

  Though she knows it’s a futile gesture, Lenore reaches to the neck and feels for a pulse. The flesh is cold to the touch, already turning into something else. Lenore retracts her hand. She knows there’s another, much larger hole in the back of her head. And that a lot of blood and skull-bone and brain matter have exited into the dry earth below.

  She freezes for a minute, tries again to concentrate on breathing. But words come through the earpiece.

  CORTEZ: I’m already a motivated buyer. There’s no need for a display. My time here is limited.

  WOO: Duk [finger snapping sound], the tape. [Muffled, shuffling noise] [A voice, high, breathless, possibly hyperventilating]

  VOICE: Rourke [gasp] don’t [gasp] let this [garbled speech].

  WOO: Put him on his knees.

  Lenore’s body starts to shut down. Calculation and strategy run from her brain. Her breathing is inaudible. Her feet feel like stone, like if someone lifted them, they’d break away from her ankle in a soft, granular rain.

  They’ve got Ike. Ike is the guinea pig, the demonstration model. The Paraclete is Woo. And he’s got Ike, on his knees, on the floor of an abandoned train car. He wants to stuff Ike full of Lingo and watch the display. He wants to put on a show for a customer.

  CORTEZ [annoyed]: I’m not interested in sideshows, here. I’m on a very rigid schedule.

  ROURKE [nervous]: Really, Mr. W—

  WOO: Gentlemen, trust me, it is as much for my benefit as your own. I need to believe in a product, to truly get behind it, to know days, weeks, years down the road that I’ve supplied a worthy item. It’s something of a matter of family pride. [Sharp clap of hands] Duk, my case.

  IKE [hysterical, wheezing]: Rourke, you can’t, Billy, Donna—[choking sound]

  ROURKE [edgy]: This was not part of the—

  WOO [to his assistant]: Watch your fingers, Duk. We can’t be too careful these days.

  WILSON [pleading]: Billy—

  ROURKE [through teeth]: Shut the fuck up.

  CORTEZ: With all due respect, sir.

  WOO: This will take just a moment.

  [Various sounds, possibly including: a zipper pulled open, subdued male or female crying-noise, throat-clearing, whispers]

  WOO: Rub the throat, Duk. Just like you’ve done with the dogs. He’ll swallow.

  She gets to her feet, lets her fingers find and set the Uzi for use, takes deep breaths. Then she starts running, not a sprint but a serious jog, surefooted, planting and pushing off, rhythmic, no undue danger to the ankles, the whole time calculating timing, when she’ll reach the open door, who she’ll cut down with the first blast. The whole time in her ear there are the sounds of gurgling, gagging, small choking noise.

  CORTEZ [quietly]: I don’t believe in showmanship.

  WOO [mimicking his tone]: There’s nothing but showmanship.

  She pulls the receiver from her ear and lets it fall. She makes the leap from the ground to the train’s interior in the space of a last running stride. Her presence is sounded by the heavy clump of her feet hitting floor. She comes down in the middle of the whole group, parallel to Rourke and his girlfriend, Cortez to her left, Freddy Woo to her right. All the faces are lit only by the yellow gleam of swaying lanterns suspended above their heads on some unseen hook. They all look like they’re badly made up for some shoestring slasher movie. She sees the huge, bald Oriental next to Woo, must be Duk, start to bring his hand around to his back. She pulls in on the Uzi’s trigger like it was made of rubber, like the right kind of touch could flood her with pleasure. It makes a siege of firecracker pops, made odd and loud by the acoustics of the train car. She releases the trigger at once. Duk’s body is knocked back and down, hits the floor with a sound she knows she’ll recall in dreams.

  “Spit it out, Ike,” she screams.

  Ike’s on all fours now, like he was someone’s father ready to play Bronco. He comes downward in the front, onto his elbows, his back slanting, shoulders practically touching the floor. His face is obscured. She can see only a thick line of saliva arcing from mouth to floor.

  “Spit it,” again, screaming.

  She pokes at Woo’s chest with the stunted barrel of the gun and says, “You’re a fucking dead man,” then without taking her eyes off him, she takes a step, brings a leg up until she’s straddled across Ike’s back, brings a free hand down and around to his face, and forces a long finger into the mouth and down toward the throat. There’s a fraction of a second of pause and then she feels the heaving start to build in the chest. In a single motion she pulls hand and arm free and dismounts. Ike begins to vomit onto the train floor.

  Sounds start to become recognizable. First, there’s the halting whimpering from the girl, Donna, interlaced with small slapping noises from Rourke, trying to silence her.

  “Hit her again, asshole,” Lenore says, and Rourke looks up, face all shock and fear, to see the Uzi swing toward him.

  No one speaks for a second. Lenore lets the situation sink in, then says, without looking at him, “Here’s your big chance, Freddy. You’ve got people out there. A waiting car. Go ahead.”

  Woo says nothing. He looks quickly to Cortez, who stays rigid, arms folded across his chest.

  Lenore lets a hand fall down, sweeps Ike’s hair up off his forehead, wipes away sweat with her palm.

  Woo’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. “There’s a tremendous amount of money …”

  “Oh, Christ,” she says, almost rolling her eyes.

  “More than you would think.”

  “I can’t believe you can’t do better. Mr. Language. Jesus.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Wilson says.

  “Help her out,” Lenore says to Rourke, looking at Woo. The girl starts to fall toward the floor, slowly, still in the grasp of Rourke’s awkward arms.

  “Excuse,” Cortez says, clearing his throat and motioning toward the graveyard with a slight tilt of his head.

  Lenore exhales, then nods back to him. Cortez lightly touches Jimmy Wyatt’s shoulder and the mute picks up the briefcase of money and jumps out of the boxcar.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Woo says, his head hung out past his shoulders, not ready to accept what he knows is about to happen.

  Cortez starts to follow Jimmy, then stops for a moment next to Lenore.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Woo repeats, tight-lipped, a tick beginning in his left eye.

  Lenore chucks him lightly under the chin with the Uzi barrel. “Learn some new words,” she says slowly, then turns to Cortez. “You get to that cave in the mountains down there, make sure it has two exits.” />
  Cortez nods, puts a hand on Mingo’s shoulder, and steers him toward the doors.

  “Will the Aliens find you?”

  Cortez shrugs.

  “You want Wyatt to take care of anyone outside?”

  She shakes her head no, stops, shakes her head yes.

  He pauses as if he had something more to say, then takes an off-balance step and jumps down from the train car, followed by Mingo.

  “Pathetic choice,” Woo says to her.

  “There was no choice at all, Freddy. I cut no deal. I don’t take dime one out of this.”

  He makes a face to indicate how ridiculous this sounds to him.

  “Believe what you want. I didn’t know you were the producer—the Paraclete, right?—until five minutes ago.”

  Woo holds up his hand in a stop sign and mutters, “Oh, please …”

  Lenore cuts him off and says, “You whacked Peirce, you fuck.”

  Woo breathes through his nose and holds up a second hand. “You’re making a terrible mistake, Lenore. There are so many things you just don’t know. Your sister detective made some pathetic character judgments. It was her associates who judged her expendable. When all this is over it will look like she was one more dirty cop who made one more stupid decision—”

  “A couple things you should know, asshole. That diner you hit. That motorcycle chickenshit drive-by. You killed a friend of mine. And your visual aid here”—she strokes Ike’s forehead—“this is my brother.”

  Woo goes still and silent. Across the car, Rourke says a weak, “Oh, shit.”

  A small grin finally breaks on Woo’s face and he says, “So now you take me in.”

  “Now who’s kidding who?”

  “I’ve got people outside. You know that.”

  “Great. The Duk-man here will have some company. You can all sit around, play Scrabble in hell. You’ll have a real edge, Freddy.”

  “They’ll have heard the gunfire.”

  “I’ve got a feeling they were told to expect some gunfire.”

  “It doesn’t stop with me, Lenore. I have friends. There’s a great big family. People in position. You know the saying about City Hall.”

  “Impress me some more, dickhead.”

  Woo takes a breath. “All your talk about will. All your words. It comes down to this, Lenore.”

  “You know, Freddy, there’s a reason the Families put the gun barrel in the enemy’s mouth. You know that, right, Freddy?”

  “I’m unarmed. Defenseless. A prisoner. You can just execute me? You think so?”

  She raises her free hand to his mouth, pinches in the sides like some cliché of an elderly woman admiring a child’s face. She turns his head from side to side.

  “Courage of my convictions, Freddy.”

  She hears the metal-click sound of a safety being snapped off. She steps back slowly and turns enough to see Rourke, on one knee, one arm extended forward, hand gripping a small revolver.

  Woo begins to laugh and says, “Even the mailman carries a gun. I love this country.”

  Lenore pivots very slowly as Rourke, caught somewhere between terrified and adrenaline-high, says, “Don’t, do not, just stop.”

  “Okay, stupid, just listen. I’ve got a bead on you right now. I’ve got tension on the trigger. You might get a shot off. But I’ll be firing back. My body jerks back, the weapon fires, I swear to you, this will happen.”

  Woo makes his move. It happens in seconds. He goes down and up into her, his shoulder coming under her, knocking the Uzi upward toward the ceiling. A small burst of gunfire sounds and stops. Lenore loses balance, falls backward, hugging the gun into her chest to maintain position. Woo is on top of her, one hand pushing the weapon down against her so she can’t get control, another struggling to pull something from the inside of his coat.

  Then it’s out, an open razor. A long straight razor, a barber’s tool from a generation past. Woo manages to get a grip on her throat. He makes a sweep that passes near the end of her nose. The miss charges him up and he pushes harder on her neck, brings the razor up more slowly this time. And his intention becomes clear. The thought gels in Lenore’s brain: He wants to cut up my mouth, he wants to cut out my tongue.

  Now he makes a jab motion instead of a sweep. The blade slides into Lenore’s upper lip and at once a rush of blood flows down over her mouth. There’s no pain, but the shock of the action gives Lenore enough of a jolt to throw him to the side. He pulls the blade across the back of her hand as he passes. Blood spurts and runs, and she tries to keep a hold on her weapon. Woo gains balance and begins to come at her again, backhand, a wide arc.

  There’s a round of gunfire, a series of low-caliber pops. She turns to see Cortez, outside the train car, bent in a practiced shooter’s stance. The bullets enter Woo’s body chest-level. For an instant he makes the helpless, jerking, seizurelike spasms of a man in an electric chair. The body erupting in short, violent twitches. Then he pitches forward and his head lands facedown in Lenore’s abdomen.

  She rolls to the side, angles the Uzi toward Rourke. But Ike is in the line of fire, a knee planted on Rourke’s chest, hands around the throat, coming downward with his head, cracking the bridge of his forehead into Rourke’s nose, eyes, skull. The revolver is a few feet away from them. Lenore slides out from under Woo’s head and it thumps to the floor. She crawls toward her brother, picks up Rourke’s gun, then pulls Ike off him.

  She turns back to see Cortez climbing into the car. She watches him toe Woo’s limp head until he’s satisfied the man is dead. Then he bends down and picks up the briefcase full of Lingo.

  “I forgot something,” he says.

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “The deal,” he says, “was left very vague.”

  “I need it. To explain.”

  “You’ll find another explanation,” he says, and she realizes his gun is casually pointed toward her. “That’s one of your strengths, Lenore. You’re so good with words.”

  “Don’t,” she says, tensing muscles.

  “I’m leaving now, Lenore. Wyatt and Mingo are waiting for me.”

  He starts to back toward the door. They stare at each other until he turns and jumps to the ground.

  The girl, Wilson, is curled up, weeping, gagging, trying to breathe, in a far corner of the train car.

  Ike sways under his sister’s hand, falls off Rourke, whose face is a lumpy puddle of blood, torn skin, visible bone.

  They sit, their bodies fall into one another. The only sound is Wilson’s choppy, eerie, infant-noises and their own attempts at regulating their breathing. The train car is already starting to fill up with a smell, something heavy, primal. Something without a specific word attached to it.

  Lenore pulls in some air and tries to speak, but the sounds are unintelligible. Ike looks up at her, crunches up his eyes and mouth, brings his hand up to her lips in a useless effort to stop the bleeding. They both know, at once, it’s more a sign of concern than something pragmatic.

  Ike takes his hand away, dabs at his pants leg, then reaches around to a back pocket and produces a white handkerchief. Lenore takes it from him, presses it up over her mouth. She knows it will be saturated in a minute.

  They manage to pull Wilson down from the car, and the three of them huddle into one another for the walk to the Barracuda. Lenore lets herself scan the graveyard just once. It’s possible she spots two or three bodies, lying prone, refuse left by Jimmy Wyatt. It’s just as possible the figures in the distance are piles of clumped leaves that will blow into different formations by morning.

  She distracts herself from studying the landscape further. She looks down at her feet as she walks. She tries to keep her tongue tucked in a far corner of her mouth. But her resolve is gone. And the tongue roams on its own, dipping into the mess of blood and open flesh, tasting, against her own better judgment, the flavor of her own juice.

  It’s Thanksgiving morning in Ike’s kitchen. The radio is delivering a blow-by-blo
w of the Main Street parade, an endless march by an infinite number of helium-filled cartoon characters. Super heroes. Comical sidekicks.

  RAY: … And now, passing City Hall in a special seat high atop the lead float, waving to the cheering throng as he goes, this year’s grand marshal of Quinsigamond’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade, the leader of our fair community, the voice of the people, the city’s own Mayor Victor Welby …

  Lenore sits in the rocking chair, wrapped in an oversized terry-cloth bathrobe that Ike had intended as a Christmas gift. Her legs are pulled up underneath her. Her head is resting on a throw pillow at her shoulder. She holds a mug of steaming tea between her hands, in her lap.

  Ike wears an almost matching robe over flannel pajama bottoms. He has white tube socks over his feet. His hair sticks out in the back in birdlike tufts. He has a full loaf of bread spread out on the kitchen table and the toaster’s going nonstop. So far he hasn’t burned a piece. He’s in the process of making bread stuffing for the small turkey that’s now roasting in his oven, filling the kitchen with the familiar smell of every Thanksgiving in their mutual past.

  They’re both a little dopey from Valium and the brandy Ike has added to the tea.

  “What a waste,” Lenore says, the words obscured, softened in places by her swollen lips and dozens of stitches.

  Ike understands her and shakes his head. “You do it for the smell. You need that smell.”

  “Dr. Z said to stay on soft food and liquids for a week.”

  “So what is stuffing?” Ike asks. “Soft food. Like the epitome of soft food. And I can still eat the turkey.”

  “What a sport.”

  “Tomorrow I’ll make you some turkey soup. Broth. Good for you.”

  Dr. Z is a friend from the city clinic who owes Lenore more than a few favors. He sedated Wilson and let her sleep in an empty room, then phoned Zarelli at 4 A.M. What happens from here, tomorrow and the weeks ahead, Ike neither knows nor wants to know. He hasn’t slept yet. Right now, he wants only to be in this kitchen, these familiar walls. He wants to move through well-known motions. Movements that involve cooking, eating, feeding.