AFTERLIFE

by Marcus Sakey

  He’d found the pain.

  “Lunch. Kind of a get-to-know-you thing.” The new boss wore a tailored black suit with a white blouse, top two buttons open, revealing a delicate silver pendant. Her hair was down, and her perfume was clean and citrusy. Word was she’d been handpicked by the director. Hard to know what that meant, but no one had been happy to hear the ASAC job had gone to someone from DC. “You pick the place.”

  It wasn’t passive aggression, the restaurant he chose. So what that he’d applied for the ASAC position himself, and thought he had a good shot? That didn’t mean that he was trying to make her uncomfortable. Okay, sure, she’d probably meant something a little more formal. A restaurant with silverware, for example.

  She parked in front of a check-cashing place and they stepped out into a sweltering afternoon, the air gritty and filled with the rumble of trucks. The block was aggressively ugly, carpet wholesalers and chain stores and cracked concrete with weeds growing through it. He gestured to a taco joint painted a shade best described as Kermit. “Hope you don’t mind eating with your fingers.”

  She’d smiled like she knew what he was doing, and okay, maybe it had been passive aggression. “L’Patron, huh? Smells good.”

  They waited in line and talked small. Fans whirred in the tiny kitchen, fighting a losing battle against the smoking grease. The radio blared ’90s power pop. When they finally reached the counter, he made the you first gesture. But instead of ordering, she paused, looked right at him. “Can I trust you?”

  There was something in it, a swagger that he dug. Brody turned to the cashier, said, “Four carne asada and two tilapia tacos, please. Elotes. Oh, and pickled veggies.”

  Under swirling grey skies, in a dead city, Brody stood opposite the dark restaurant. Hands in his pockets, then out again. Arms crossed.

  It was the same, but not. The same hangover color scheme, the same cracked sidewalk, the same payday loan place. But no people, no smell of grilling meat or rumble of trucks.

  Just silence like he’d never heard before.

  “Oh, merciful god,” ASAC McCoy said, around a mouthful of food. She held the taco in both hands like she was afraid someone would take it away. “I want this for lunch every day forever.”

  “Right?” He was halfway done with his first carne asada, hadn’t meant to be, but goddamn did these guys know what they were doing, a serious char on steak still pink in the center wrapped in homemade corn tortillas.

  “Nice pick, man.” She sucked juice off her fingers. “Everybody else is choosing these boring places. Eddie Huang took us to a hotel restaurant, for god’s sake.”

  “Fail.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Big fail.”

  His teeth had just sunk in, and he kept going, took the bite, chewed it slowly. Thought. “It’s a sort of test, isn’t it? ‘Get to know you’ means more than one thing.”

  Her smile came and went fast, but it was made of moonlight.

  “Huh,” he said, and wondered if there was a reason he hadn’t gotten her job.

  Brody stared. The memories gnawing sharp as rats in his gut. He forced himself to take a breath, then another. Some part of him wondering what he was breathing. He was dead. Did he need air? Was this air, or just a pale reflection of it?

  The brutal logic of the echo kept running in his head. He supposed he’d gotten lucky with the fire extinguisher. It was a simple mechanical device, just gas under pressure. If there had been an electronic or chemical component, he’d be dead now.

  Dead. Ha.

  He couldn’t stop cataloging the things that were no longer. A dead world with no energy of its own. No fire, no heat, no computers or cell phones. No steaming showers or hot meals.

  But really all that meant a thing to him was, no Claire.

  “After that I worked gangs, posing as a money man for Sinaloa. Funny,” he wiped his mouth with his fourth napkin, “I thought undercover, I thought, you know, Serpico. Long hair, no showers. But instead I had a budget to buy Ermenegildo Zegna suits, Barker Alderney shoes.”

  She laughed. “I liked it better when the bad guys dressed disco. With snakeskin boots.”

  “Not me. Those suits were nice.” He shook the ice in his cup. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Ever work undercover?”

  “You’re asking, bean counter or cop.”

  “No.” He paused. Shrugged. “Okay, yeah.”

  “Bit of both,” she said. “I got my law degree at Georgetown, fifth in my class, and I shot 97 percent on my last firearms quarterly. What’d you shoot?”

  “Um. Less.”

  She barely registered his words, just leaned in, fire made form. “Do I have my eye on the big chair? Yes. Did the director give me this job? Sure. Was it because I earned his respect? What do you think?”

  He dropped his napkin, leaned back, hands up. “Whoa. I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Brody opened his mouth, closed it. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  She’d been about to say something else, he could see it in the way she aimed the taco at him. For a moment she hung on the edge, ready to engage. Then, when he added nothing else, she pulled back slowly. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Just not what . . . nothing.”

  When Brody tugged the door, it opened. The squeak was familiar, a detail his brain had collated and stored. But instead of being hit with a blast of smoky air and the smell of grilling meat, the place smelled faintly dusty. The interior was dark, the tiny kitchen past the counter falling into shadow.

  Even in the dim light, he could see that the chalkboard listed today’s special. Napkin dispensers stood beside squeeze bottles of salsa. The trash was full of balled-up waxed paper and aluminum foil. Chairs were pulled out from the tables, cocked at angles. Like he’d wandered into some sort of practical joke, everyone told to hide a minute before his arrival.

  Then he realized the truth. The chairs held people. It was the dinner rush. He was surrounded by people. The chairs were pulled out because people sat in them right now. The place was probably packed, a line out the door. That two-top might hold college students on a date. A mother might be offering a spoonful of corn to her son, telling him to try it, you don’t know if you like something until you try. Hell. Claire could be here.

  If anyone is hiding, it’s you.

  Brody wanted to grab a chair and toss it through the window. To topple the trash bin and hurl the salsa bottles and rage that he was here, he was right here, for the love of Christ, he existed, he was among them.

  When a dead man screams, does anyone hear?

  “My dad,” Claire said.

  “Cop?”

  “Hmm? No. He was in the lighting business. Custom stuff, restaurants, cars. But my mom was sort of . . .” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Checked out. She was an okay mom and all, but just not really present, you know? I don’t think she had the life she’d imagined.”

  “What was that?”

  “You know, I’ve got no idea. Princess of Monaco?”

  “Good work if you can get it.”

  “My dad, though, he and I always understood each other.”

  “Example.”

  “Okay.” Her eyes on him but far away. “He bought this old sailboat on a whim. A 1978 Beneteau he’d spotted rotting behind a gas station. Thing was a wreck. We patched the fiberglass and rebuilt the engine and put in new teak. Took like a year, every weekend we were out there.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten? No, eleven.”

  “So were you just passing tools and stuff?”

  She shook her head. “Some dads with daughters wish they had sons, so they try to make them into boys. Mine was more like, ‘Why wouldn’t I teach them both the same things?’ He was fine with me getting my ears pierced and wearing skirts, but he also had me using a circular saw when I was seven. I did most of the engine work because I could wriggle back there. I think about it so
metimes, the way it felt to be crammed in. Sweat in my eyes, the smell of diesel and oil, something digging into my back.”

  “He teach you to sail too?”

  “That’s the best part.” Her laugh was great, full throated and unabashed. “Day we launched was the first time it occurred to me to ask. We’re at the marina, the crane is lowering it into the water, we’re both petrified it’s going to sink right to the bottom. But it floats, just bobs there pretty as anything. We cheered and hugged and slapped hands. And then I asked him if we could take it for a sail. He looked at me funny, and said, ‘Monkey, I don’t know how yet.’”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Hand to God.”

  “Then why’d he buy a sailboat?”

  “Well, the ‘yet,’ right?”

  Brody paced the empty restaurant. Trying to control his breathing. Hand tracing chair backs. Out the window, the buildings were just dark shapes against dark clouds. His ghostly silhouette trailed in the windows.

  This was where they’d sat. These two seats at the window counter. The wood stained and scarred, the stools uncomfortable.

  Brody pulled his out and sat down.

  Claire glanced at her watch. He took the cue, said, “Time to go?”

  “Yeah.”

  He piled their baskets on the tray, then started to stand. Halfway through, he realized she’d made no motion to leave. Brody looked up, questioning, and their eyes met.

  They’d been looking at each other the whole time, but this was different. It was like something stuck. She didn’t blink, and neither did he. They just looked at each other. Openly. Honestly. Too long.

  He felt something shift inside him. Like the hesitant instant when an airplane first took to the sky, the wheels only a bare breath above ground. And he could see that she felt it too. A vertiginous moment, a galvanic shiver of recognition.

  Oh, he’d thought. Oh. Hello.

  Brody laid a hand on her stool. The vinyl was cool and worn. He spun it to face him, just as it had been. Only weeks ago. Only a lifetime ago.

  The sob tore through him, a physical thing yanked free. He clenched his fists until his hands shook.

  And sat, alone, in an empty restaurant in an abandoned world, trying not to remember.

  SEVENTEEN

  By the time the sun broke the edge of the lake, the sky was bright blue from horizon to horizon. With no clouds to dance on, the sunrise felt explosive, molten metal pouring across the waves. The water lapped gently, and from the harbor came the steady metallic ping of a halyard against a mast.

  Claire thought, The first sunrise of a world without him in it, and something in her tore like tissue.

  After fleeing her apartment she’d ended up driving aimlessly, cruising the streets of this city gone strange. Around four, dangerously tired, she realized she had to stop. The parking lot of Montrose Harbor had seemed as good a place as any. She lay in the front seat of her car for two hours, exhausted and restless and unsleeping, then gave up and wandered out to watch the day begin.

  It’s time to go to work. Pack it away and go do your job.

  She watched the waves and thought about Will’s ruined body. Remembered that smile of his, how it always made her feel like they’d been together forever, like they were meant for each other. Was it only yesterday morning that she’d indulged in the ludicrous, luxurious fantasy that maybe they were?

  Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry.

  Claire dug out her phone, thinking she’d call Dad. She wanted to hear that delighted tone of his, the one he always had when her name came up on his screen. The one that reminded her what it felt like to be four years old and safe in strong arms. She could smell his aftershave, imagine the scratchy stubble on his chin.

  But it was early. He’d answer, but he’d answer worried. He’d ask what was wrong, and she might tell him. And if she did that, she’d start crying, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop.

  She forced herself to stand up, her body stiff and joints creaking. She took one last look at the water, and had a desperate desire to be out on it, gliding over pewter waves and leaving everything behind.

  Instead she walked back across the withered grass to her car. The dash clock read 6:57. Her apartment wasn’t more than a ten-minute drive from here, and on the way to the office. There would be time to shower.

  Then she remembered the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

  Claire stepped back into cool morning air, walked to the trunk. Long hours were part of the job, and she’d learned to stash clothes everywhere. She changed right there in the parking lot, too weary to care if a morning jogger caught a glimpse of skin.

  Back in the car, she set the heat to blasting, then flipped down the visor. Did what she could with her hair. She’d have to stop at a drugstore on the way in to grab a toothbrush.

  “Okay,” she said, staring into her own eyes. “Get it together. Everyone is counting on you.”

  Her grief would have to be her own, and walled away. There was a killer out there. A city of millions living in terror. She couldn’t afford to be distracted. If she got distracted, someone else would die.

  It wasn’t a lover you lost yesterday. It was an agent under your command. Got that?

  Do you?

  The room was quiet, none of the usual joking and theory trading. Around the table agents sat with expressions ranging from shell-shocked to furious. They all looked exhausted, and plenty looked like they’d been crying. Somehow she hadn’t imagined their grief. But of course they felt it; they’d known Brody far longer than she had.

  Claire took her chair and a deep breath. Everyone looked at her.

  She put her hands on the table. Picked up her pen, uncapped it, recapped it, suddenly remembering that it was Brody’s. The day before yesterday she’d been trying to sign some routine documentation, she couldn’t remember what, overtime, maybe. Her pen had left only scratches on the paper, and he’d slid his across the table. It wasn’t fancy, just a drugstore Uniball, but it had been his, and she’d forgotten to give it back.

  Suddenly Claire realized that she’d been sitting silently gazing at the pen, and she wasn’t really sure for how long. She looked up. “You all know what happened yesterday.”

  Agents around the table and lining the walls stared at her. Wanting her to give them what they needed. Strength, inspiration, focus. A reason this all made sense.

  “Will Brody was one of us. He was—”

  Warm. Impulsive. Impossible. Beautiful. Mine.

  “—an exceptional agent. An exceptional person. He literally gave his life to protect someone else.”

  And why? Damn it, Will, why couldn’t you just have yelled and thrown yourself at the ground like a normal person? Why did you have to tackle a stranger and take the death meant for him?

  “We’ll all mourn the loss. I’m not a religious person, but today I believe in Heaven.”

  None of you know what we were. What we could have been.

  “Because Will Brody deserves one. And I know he’s there.”

  She paused. There was a scream building, and she wouldn’t let it out. Claire took a breath, and folded her hands across the pen. Waited until she was sure she could speak without a tremble. “I’m not going to give you a rah-rah speech. I know you’re already doing everything you can.

  “I’m just going to say this: Officially, every murder is the same. Inside this room, we know the truth. Will Brody was ours. It’s personal.” She took a moment to pan the room, making eye contact with every agent there. “And we’re going to crucify the fucker who killed him.”

  There were somber nods and vicious smiles and, in her breast, a wind howling across a barren and frigid plain.

  “Now. Status?”

  Morning briefing.

  Psych profile revisions.

  Yellow flags.

  Coordination with CPD.

  Update call to the director.

  Confirmation of DNA match from the cigarette butts.

&n
bsp; Budget allocation for overtime hours.

  Review of preliminary report from the Evidence Response Team.

  Media management in preparation for the press conference.

  Press conference.

  Update call to the director.

  Coordination with citizens’ groups.

  Phone meeting with the mayor.

  Fifteen hours.

  Two hundred thirty-eight e-mails.

  Fifty-four phone calls.

  Eleven cups of coffee.

  Three distinct moments she almost lost control.

  One tuna sandwich choked down at her desk, then thrown up in the ladies’ room.

  No new victims.

  EIGHTEEN

  Brody had returned to the hotel last night—where else to go?—but the others had read his expression and kept their distance. Kyle broke the unspoken barrier just long enough to help him “check in” to the hotel; the locks were electronic, so the process involved a crowbar. The room was stylish and elegant and painted in shadow. Brody had wondered if there was someone in the bed right now. Flipping channels in their underwear, or reading a book. He wondered if they’d feel him crawl in next to them.

  “Don’t leave, or you’ll have to smash the door again.” Kyle gave him a bottle of lukewarm water and a weary smile. “Try and sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

  To his surprise, Brody had passed out almost immediately. There had been dreams, a woman with white hair and something about a boy alone on a ship, but he couldn’t recall any details and suspected that was a kindness.

  After he’d risen, used the toilet that didn’t flush, and brushed his teeth with his finger, he headed down. There were plenty of curious looks thrown his way as he moved across the lobby, and he’d done his best to ignore them. Lucy and Sonny had been sitting together, and something the biker said made her laugh with her head tilted back. Outside, the morning was cloudy and cool. Though everyone was armed, no one seemed anxious. They mingled, chatting and eating cold breakfast. Arthur sat cross-legged in the street, surrounded by a ring of children. The teacher seemed fainter in the light of day, a biology textbook held in one grey hand, but his voice was animated and the kids were paying attention. On the bridge, the sentries played poker, only occasionally glancing up to scan the street.