Saboteur: A Novel

by J. Travis Phelps

  Taro tasted it first. “I’m no drinker, but if I were--” he said savoring the taste.

  Downy could see no reason not to and tipped it up himself. He choked a bit at first, but then just let the flavors wash over his tongue. He thought he could feel it creep down all the way to the pit of his stomach. He grabbed again at the flask and swallowed furiously.

  “Amazing,” he said and the combination of drink and drugs now had him slap happy.

  “Those girls take a vow to stay virginal, the ones who press it, but that doesn’t affect the taste one way or the other I can assure you,” Taro said laughing, putting his hand on Downy’s shoulder affectionately.

  The cab was clearly on Main now and he pressed his face to the window. It was beginning to spit rain against the windshield, but there it was off in the distance the marquee lights blinking in the night, “Woody’s Tavern.” The cab pulled to a noisy halt in front of the place. The two men pulled themselves out, Taro returning to the window to pay.

  “Hey pal, this is one great tip. Thanks, man. I worked for thirty years and this one is…I gotta say is the bigges—,” the cabbie was almost coming up out of his seat as they walked away.

  “Why does everything look so strange?” he said, stopping to look up, swaying a bit as he stared up at the blinking sign. “The sign’s never all lit up like that.”

  Taro pulled him along without a word through the front doors and Downy could hear one of his favorite tunes from the jukebox far in the back. Billie Holiday urging into the microphone:

  speak low,

  when you speak love

  our summer day withers away

  too soon…too soon

  our moment is swift like ships adrift

  we’re swept apart too soon…

  He turned to see Taro watching him with a bemused expression.

  “This music makes you feel good, yes?”

  “I love Billie Holiday, man.” he said but his eyes were scanning the room, not paying attention.

  Taro leaned in to speak to him. “I get it very well. I hear what she says, though I don’t know this music exactly.”

  “She’s moaning for us all, for how fast life is. “Whaaa,” Downy heard himself say and then Taro caught him by the arm as he fell backward.

  “Easy.”

  He wobbled unevenly against the bar. He couldn’t remember seeing the place so clean or crowded. Everyone wore suits, so he reasoned it must be a party of some sort, and it looked like they had made room by clearing out lots of things. The boar’s head on the wall was gone.

  “I’m ok. Hey, who are we here for? You said I’m friends with--”

  He looked to the balcony and could see smoke pouring out of the corner booth.

  “I’ll go up first,” Taro said. “Stay behind me, ok?”

  “What’s up there?”

  The two men walked silently and slowly to the top of the stairs. He could see a man in the corner, smoke rolling out over the balcony, a pair of spectacles just like--

  Downy suddenly rushed past Taro.

  “Charlie!”

  “My dear boy, come and give an old friend a hug.”

  He locked Charlie in a wild embrace, staring intently, shaking almost violently. “I can’t fucking believe it!”

  Charlie away, taking a step back, locking eyes with Taro. He had seen the look on Charlie’s face before only once in Cairo when they had been held at gunpoint--raw fear.

  “You’ve arrived early,” Taro said blankly. “Have I given you cause to mistrust me?”

  “And you’re right on time as always, Mr. Taro.”

  Downy walked weakly in a circle around and around looking his friend over in disbelief.

  “What the fuck are you doing alive? How is this?” He squatted to his knees on the floor, putting his hands to the ground to feel it beneath him. Tears streamed down his face.

  “I’m not, Noah--not really.”

  “That’s a matter of semantics only right, Professor Patterson? Isn’t that what you once told me? Tell me how does that semantic seem now?”

  “Noah, I’m beyond sorry for all of this.”

  “Sorry for wh--”

  “He would have you believe I am alive, but he would unleash the dead on the living without a care for what it might do.”

  Downy looked to Taro who crossed his arms, looking unfazed. Charlie’s gaze hardened.

  “I have been living in exile for all our sakes, as all dead men must, permanent exile.”

  “Shouldn’t we all sit down for a drink Charles?” Taro said politely. “Three of your scotch’s, no?”

  Taro slid into a booth in the corner beckoning them to sit down. A waitress appeared as they sat.

  “Hello my dear, could you bring us three of your best scotch?” Taro said smiling warmly.

  “Of course,” the girl said enthusiastically. “Hey I love your toga!”

  Downy heard the comment, but couldn’t take his eyes away from Charlie.

  “Oh and one more thing, could you bring us a newspaper if there’s one about?”

  “Let me check to see. Maybe there’s one in the back still.” The girl scampered away with a flip of her skirt.

  “Have you given him a pill?”

  “Of course, it’s the polite thing to do. You’ll remember you couldn’t be bothered, Charles.”

  Downy sat with his hands clenched on the lip of the table as if he were holding on while the rest of the world spun around him. His lips moved in a near silent whisper.

  “Can somebody please tell me what the hell is going on? Does he know about Samara?”

  He spoke before thinking and immediately regretted it, even in his altered state.

  “What about Samara?”

  “She’s de--.” He couldn’t even say the words. “She’s gone, Charlie. I’m so sorry.”

  “You bloody fucking monster you.”

  Charlie rose up out of his seat and reached for Taro, but the waitress appeared with the drinks, so he sat back down.

  “Here ya go gentleman,” she said, “and here’s today’s paper. War’s almost done they say. Can’t wait for those boys to come home. I’m so tired of this job, ready for my man to get his ass home,” she said with an awkward laugh.

  “If they surrender tonight this place is going to go off” she said looking down to the crowded floor below apprehensively.

  “That’s perfect, dear, thank you,” Taro said handing the drinks around the table. “Come now, Charles, we all know the Samara isn’t in such a bad place really. What is one death when she has so many to spare?”

  “Why have you brought me here?” Patterson said pounding his fist against the table.

  “I’d like to see everyone get back what they’ve lost Charles and you and I both know what that means.”

  “Impossible. I will not. What did you do to my daughter you son of a bitch?”

  Taro’s hand shot across the table gripping Charlie’s throat before he could get out another word. “Do you think this is a fucking negotiation you insolent little muppet you? I will have my dignitas, my honor, and so shall he in fact.”

  Taro had Patterson by the throat still, now pulling him in closely, almost spitting as he spoke. Downy stood up unevenly, grabbing Taro’s arm pulling it away. Taro fell back and seemed to grow calm, closing his eyes.

  “It’s as I have always said Charles, a man never serves his emotions and his best interest simultaneously. I’m going to let you two get reacquainted and read the newspaper, then we can talk about what to do next. I’ll just be down at the bar. Please drink to your heart’s content, on me. Charles is quite the student of history, as you well know professor, but I’ll let him tell you his own version of events first. I’m sure it’s accurate, from his perspective at least.”

  Patterson seemed to go limp as Taro walked away. He turned to Downy and looked him over. “Whatever are you wearing, my boy?”

  “It’s a--some kind of sheet I think. Taro had me put it on.”

>   “I guess he’s planning to take you tonight then.” Patterson poured the shot in front of him down his throat violently. Then he grabbed the one Taro had left untouched and did the same. “Let me look at those pupils for a moment.” Patterson lifted his chin and looked to the left and right. Downy’s eyes were as wide as saucers, pools of black. “Did he tell what it is you took?”

  “Yeah, I’m on acid right?”

  “Don’t get nervous, it’s an absolutely distilled and pure form. Created in a lab and strictly controlled. You won’t even have a hangover, so drink up.”

  “Am I dead, Charlie? Are we both dead?”

  Patterson suddenly laughed warmly.

  “Oh, no. Do you feel dead, Noah?”

  He looked around the room. This place doesn’t look the same. He looked down at the newspaper in front of him. He could see half a headline in bold,

  AMERCAN FORCES ENTER BERLIN: FURORS WHEREABOUTS…

  “What the hell is this some kind of movie set?”

  “It’s good he gave you the pill.”

  Downy looked bewildered waiting for Patterson to speak.

  “Our first incursion into the timeline occurred October 29th, 1998, two full years before anyone expected it possible. It was a complete success, Noah. At first, we were just sending inanimate objects through and bringing them back. Then we started collecting things, rocks, pots and pans, some coins. Like taking a tiny fishing net into the ocean and seeing what you catch. Then we realized we could send people. It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from now.”

  “What are you talking about, Charlie?”

  “You aren’t where you think you are, Noah, not at all.”

  “I don’t know where the fuck I am or how I’m out of jail, or got put in for that matter. They said I killed Sam Charlie, I would never--”

  “Look at the date on that newspaper,” he said pointing.

  Downy picked it up. “Why did she bring this? It’s old.”

  “It’s today’s paper. It will take a while for you to accept this but you’ve skipped from your timeline to a new one, Noah. It’s helpful at first to think of it in those terms, like a skipping record. The needle has landed in a new spot.”

  “It’s the drug isn’t it? I’m hallucinating, you said it was pure, you’re dead Charlie.”

  “No, the drug is protecting you. Without it you’d be unconscious, in fact. It helps your subconscious mind adjust. The part of this of which I’m least proud is that I’ve let you down so completely. I know you truly believed in my genius, as I once did, but I am under no such illusions now.”

  He put his hand to Patterson’s shoulder as if to corroborate.

  “You’re alive though and that’s--what did you mean when you said you weren’t really--”

  “It was the only way to save everyone after we realized what was happening.”

  “Who Charlie? What are you talking about? What was happening?”

  “All those things I found, Noah, those beautiful things, the incredible luck of locating the place where Caesar himself fell, I had help. I cheated to get it, all of it. It should have stayed where it was, lost. The past is an utterly dangerous place. I brought back much more than I ever realized. I fucked up so completely, so horribly, and now my dearest Samara. What has he done to her?”

  “You’re not making sense, Charlie.”

  “I know what he’s capable of, we all do. That’s why we’re trying to stop him.”

  “Are you trying to convince me it’s 1944, Charlie?” he said holding up the paper.

  “I won’t bother. You’ll accept things as you go along. I want you to realize that Taro is doing this so he can manipulate you, Noah. He is incredibly talented at manipulation. You need to hear it from me at least, I certainly owe you the truth.”

  “Please Charlie, tell me what’s fucking happening?”

  “It started this year, in 1944 actually--”

  Chapter XIII

  Patterson pulled his spectacles up on his face and drew a deep breath. “This year, 1944, a group working on aspects of nuclear fusion discovered something which was then unimaginable. No one knows their identities for sure; they’ve always existed with the greatest of secrecy. Some say they first came together to protect the secret. Whatever their original intent, there were already men of lesser conscience ready to use what they found. The science, you see, insisted it was possible to jump from one spot in time and appear somewhere else. Time could be adjusted just as easily as space. I’m no physicist, Noah, but that’s the essence of it. They dared not give it a name at that point mind you. It would take the work of another lesser known physicist to put the cherry on top. In 1967, a young, ambitious grad student from Harvard physics discovered the code for the MMI, the meta-matrix that governs our positioning in the space-time field. He developed the POND. The name’s an acronym. It’s called a Position-Optic Nano Dilator. Later they discovered they could also use existing geologic data to guarantee safe travel. Water levels were easy to measure going back tens of thousands of years. You can’t have people suddenly popping up just anywhere. They used the data to determine where the safest passage points could be placed in any time frame. It turns out bodies of fresh water work best. Once that code was deciphered it was like having a map of everything. Places, space, time itself. His name was Jacob, Jacob Tannehill. At the time, even I refused to acknowledge that his actions were dangerous. But none of us knew how far he’d already gone.”

  “So you never died on the boat at all with Nazim? How could you let us b— “

  “It was a necessary evil, that unfortunate accident, and one that has cost me everything, my very soul in fact.”

  “So Nazim was telling the truth? He really does believe you’re still alive?”

  Patterson’s eyes registered sudden alarm. “What do you mean?”

  “He must think I’m dead.”

  “No Charlie, I spoke with him and he claims to have seen you only weeks ago.”

  “Christ in heaven what has the fool done? It’s moved again, Jesus.”

  “Did he see you, Charlie?”

  “Whoever he saw that man is likely dead now or the Vestals have him. Noah, I must ask, have you been noticing anything strange, small changes in the things around you?” Patterson’s eyes watered over as he yelled for the waitress to bring two more drinks, “Mak’em doubles.”

  “I don’t know, nothing really.”

  Patterson looked scattered, confused.

  “But now you’re here, which means you must return at once, Noah. This place is hell itself. I live here in exile. I am forbidden any future as well. I’m watched at every turn.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, the Vestals will come very soon. Taro knows there’s little time. But what he’s offering you, you mustn’t believe whatever he says.”

  “Who are the Vestals?”

  “They’re purists, very ancient, maybe their zealots I don’t know, but they monitor the MMI. They’ll never let Taro escape. They won’t let any of us escape. They believe in the absolute purity of the line.”

  Downy leaned over the balcony and could see Taro in a crowd of women toasting and laughing.

  “Who the hell is he?”

  “I wish there were a simple answer. I only know who he used to be. Now he is the man who would undo everything. He’s taken a horrible risk bringing you here. That name Taro is an interesting appellation. You should look it up.”

  “He said he could help me find out who killed Samara, Charlie. Is he lying?”

  “It’s me he blames, that’s what this little meeting is all about.”

  “What?”

  “He would say I am the cause of her death. Please tell me she didn’t suffer, Noah,” he said as tears raced from the corners of his spectacles.

  “I don’t think so…I…”

  “He’s a cold butcher, Taro, when he needs to be. I know it.”

  He saw the waitress approaching with their drinks and noticed for the
first time her stockings. They reminded him of the old Betty Page pin-ups. The wood of the tables was untarnished and the collection of graffiti that had accumulated over the years was missing. Could it be true? Was he really sitting having a drink with his dead best friend in the past? He felt dizzy, mad.

  “Tannehill had been using the Pond for years already when he made his big announcement. Restraint was never Jacob’s strong suit, I’m afraid. I didn’t question his help finding all those beautiful things either. He led me to what he wanted me to find and then acted as if it had all been my idea. I was a fool. I am a fool.”

  “All right boys, here’s four girls in two glasses. I’ll be keeping my eye on you two,” she said with a wink.

  “Thanks,” Patterson said demurely.

  “Tell you what. Your pal down there sure is making friends with his deep pockets. He’s good for it, yeah?”

  “Oh yes,” Patterson said with a tone of half disgust. “Money is no object with him.”

  “Thank God. You know sometimes people get all liquored up and make promises.”

  “Can I ask a rude question?” Downy suddenly blurted out.

  “Sure, hun. Go ahead.”

  “What year were you born?”

  “Ah you had me scared, that’s not so rude, 1916, hun. Well, am I too old or too young?” the girl said laughing.

  “Neither,” he said smiling awkwardly.

  “Ok, let me know if ya need anything else.”

  She was being polite, but he could sense she knew something was amiss with their little party. She looked back over her shoulder at the top of the stairs. Downy inexplicably flashed back to his first time using pot in high school. The realization of how much acting people do just to keep the ball moving in life. How scripted life becomes, how scripted it is. It had made him sad then, but it had also filled him with a kind of empathy. People tried hard even when they didn’t believe.

  He looked down to the balcony again and there was Taro, who’d been staring at him for some time unnoticed. He raised his glass in Downy’s direction and then handed the drink to a beautiful, young girl who was now on his arm. Taro leaned into her ear whispering, before she turned and blew a kiss in his direction.