The Eulogist

by Liz McKinney Johnson

  "Hold it for me. Push against it."

  Lily positions herself against the plywood, arms straight, legs braced. I slowly let go, transferring the resistance. The opening retracts.

  "Push harder."

  "I am pushing harder."

  Her elbows buckle and the panel clangs back into its original position.

  "Shit!" She whines from the other side of the plywood. "Let me try again."

  "No," I say, frustrated with how hard this is, how long it is taking. "Find something to pry it open with. Something that will give you some leverage."

  "Like what?"

  She steps around and peers out at me. Her fingers lace through the weave of the fence.

  "You look like a prisoner," I say. "But I’m not sure which of is in and which of us is out." I cover the tips of her fingers with my palms. The criss-cross of the metal feels rough but cool.

  "I’m in," she says.

  She flexes her fingers. The light scratch of her nails sends an electric jolt through my arms, down to my knees and back up into my crotch. That’s the kind of electrical circuitry my dad never had the chance to teach me about.

  She smiles at me, but with her swollen lip, it’s more of a smirk. She is so beautiful. Bits of sawdust tangle in her hair, two buttons are gone from her filthy sweater. So beautiful.

  "What am I supposed to find?" she asks.

  I force myself to look past her.

  "I can’t see very well. Is there any lumber? You need a 2x4, something long and skinny."

  She turns away from the fence and disappears into the shadows, returning in a few minutes with a length of rebar.

  "How about this?" she holds it aloft like a spear. "There’s a whole pile of these pole thingys."

  "That’ll work. Shove it in between the plywood and the fence and push out. Like a lever."

  Lily follows my instructions, creating an opening I crawl through with relative ease. I stand up and survey the yard. The building itself is only about 100 feet away. Tarp-shrouded piles of materials dot the landscape, probably more pole thingys.

  "We’ve lost a lot of time. Let’s go."

  I grab Lily’s hand and we hurry toward the building. My eyes adjust to the diminishing light. When I was little, my dad would bring me to his job sites every so often. Things were more easy-going back then, not so many rules and regulations, everyone looking over their shoulders for a liability claim. He’d just plop a hard hat on my head and I’d follow him all over. He’d let me carry spools of wire or I’d just sit and watch him work. I used to like to play with those bright-colored wire caps, sticking them on the ends of my fingers the way some kids do with black olives. Monster claws I called them. I wonder what he’d think of me now. I’m sure I didn’t turn out the way he’d imagined. A white collar instead of blue to start with. No wife, no kids, no bass boat. Then there’s the whole lying-about-who-I-am issue. It’s like the motorcycle hellion whose kid’s a nuclear physicist. The banker’s boy who chooses French romanticism over fiduciary responsibility. Things rarely turn out as planned.

  Lily and I reach the perimeter walls of the lab. The upper levels are only framed and still open to the weather, but the first floor is nearly done. I run my hand over the smooth stone surface.

  "Pretty fancy."

  "The first floor walls are faced in granite."

  "There must be an opening somewhere. You’ve seen the plans. Where are the most windows?"

  "This is the back. There’s supposed to be an emergency exit somewhere. But the only side with windows is the front."

  "Then we’ve got to go around front."

  We run, hugging the side of the building like urban commandos. The front of the structure faces the main boulevard. There’s no traffic at this hour but we are well within view of anyone who might happen by. If time is still ticking by as I originally anticipated, I expect at least two someones to happen by at any minute.

  The light from the street is brighter on this side, casting a shadow through the chain link, projecting a diamond pattern across the front of the building. Lily was right. There’s a main entrance with an arched canopy and on either side are openings for three large windows. No glass yet. Each of the empty squares is covered in plywood.

  "We need something to punch out the plywood. Something like the rebar you had before would be great."

  "The what?"

  "The pole thingy."

  "Are you making fun of me?" Lily asks, punching me in the shoulder.

  "No, no, not at all. ‘Pole thingy’ is much more descriptive and probably a better name."

  She punches me again.

  We scour the ground nearby for anything useful. A few scattered scraps of lumber, an empty nail box, a plastic tarp. Nothing substantial.

  Lily walks up to one of the window openings and pushes against the plywood. It flexes inward then pops back into place.

  "It’s not very sturdy," she says, pressing on it again.

  She turns her back to the opening. I expect her to walk away and continue to help me look for a battering ram. Instead, she spins and plants a horse kick smack dab in the middle of the plywood panel. It crashes in on itself, landing flat against the cement floor. I stare in disbelief.

  "TaeKwon-Do, "she says calmly, stepping through the opening and dusting off her pants. "It probably just had a couple little nails holding it in place."

  I follow her through in stunned silence, making a mental note to not get on her bad side.

  We stop and listen for approaching footsteps. Even more than the earlier crash of the gate, we both instinctively know this latest disturbance ought to bring running anyone in the near vicinity. There’s nothing. No traffic outside, no one moving inside, only our breathing, which seems about as loud as an idling steam engine, but is probably not quite that noisy.

  "Now where?" Lily asks.

  "The offices. Where are they from here?"

  "They face Alder Street. We have to go that way."

  Lily points into the distance. Light spills in our open window hole and sneaks through various chinks in the other boarded-up ones. There are also gaps in the tarps protecting the upper level framing. It’s enough to see. I grab Lily’s hand and start to run. The interior of the lab is a vast open canvas interrupted only by periodic columns and piles of lumber and insulation.

  I head for the darkest corner, figuring the entrance to the offices would be at the back of the lab rather than the front. Black sheeting is suspended across the far back corner creating a plastic curtain. Behind it is a doorway. A locked doorway.

  "Try one of your keys."

  Lily digs in her pants and pulls out her key ring. She jams first one and then another key into the lock. Neither work. She jiggles the door handle.

  "No way I can kick this thing down. It’s solid."

  "Shit."

  "Now what?"

  "Shit."

  "You said that already," she says, impatiently, still rattling the door.

  "Crap."

  I slap the black plastic out of the way and stare back into the cavern that will soon be a bustling lab. I’m sure there’s another door somewhere, and I’m also sure it’s locked just like this one.

  "We could break the lock," Lily suggests.

  "That’ll take too long."

  "Then what do we do? We’re stuck."

  "Give me a minute to think before you give up, would you?"

  I look around again. We can’t go through. We can’t go around. What’s left? I tilt my head back.

  "Up," I say.

  Lily follows my gaze up the wall. The cement terminates at about eight feet. Above it is open metal framing. No sheetrock. If we can get up there, we can climb through to the other side.

  "How high can you jump?" I ask, keeping my voice deadpan, not taking my eyes from the top of the wall.

  "Are you nuts?" Lily barks, stomping her feet in time with her words.

  "Just kidding," I say, smiling down at her. She punches me. That shoulder is get
ting sore. "No jumping. We can ride up."

  Rubbing my bruised pec, I point to a scissors lift parked on the other side of the plastic sheeting.

  "You know how to work that thing?" Lily asks.

  "Can’t be that hard. Come on."

  We climb up onto the lift platform. A key dangles from a small control panel with two levers, forward/reverse and up/down. There are arrows and pictures too, in case I’m confused by the words alone. I turn the key and the small motor rumbles to life. Once again, we are making more noise than a barrel of monkeys while having less fun. I push the lever forward and the tires slowly roll toward the wall.

  "Is this all the faster it goes?" Lily asks.

  "We’re only going a few feet."

  We bump to a stop against the wall and I push the up lever. The platform unfolds. There’s a chunking sound as the supports lock into position every few feet. Lily grabs hold of the rail. We reach the limit of the lift about a foot below the top of the wall.

  "Fourth floor, ladies lingerie and gloves," I say, releasing the lever and killing the motor.

  "Aren’t you ever too scared to make a joke?"

  I sigh and sweep a clump of hair out of my eyes. Cynicism can be a pain in the ass. People think you don’t take anything seriously. On the contrary, the cynic is usually the most serious one of the bunch. He’s not swayed by polite conversation or the masquerade of good manners. By making light and poking fun, he dulls the truth he sees more plainly than those around him.

  "Here’s a secret," I explain. "The funnier I get, the more frightened I am. Once we make it into the offices, I’ll be a laugh a minute."

  I climb up onto the railing of the lift and peer over the top of the wall.

  "There’s a stair landing just a few feet down on the other side," I report back to Lily. "We can climb through and jump down to it, which is great news since I was not looking forward to my original plan of jumping down to the floor and breaking both my legs."

  "You scared again?"

  "Yes I am, but I’ll go first."

  I grab a metal stud and hoist myself onto the top ledge of the wall. Squatting there like a gargoyle, I try to judge the exact distance to the landing. It’s not too far, but it’s also not a straight leap down. The stairs are off to the right. I launch myself from the wall in what I hope is a diagonal trajectory and thud onto the landing in a graceless heap. Lily’s head pokes up over the top of the wall.

  "You okay?"

  "Piece of cake," I say, scrambling to my feet and dusting myself off. Both my shins are vibrating, like someone’s rubbing sand paper up and down them. "Your turn."

  Lily follows my lead, except instead of tumbling down like a clod, she lands on her feet, elegantly, effortlessly, like a cat.

  Things on this side of the wall are in the last stages of work, but there’s still a long way to go. No wonder the investors were getting pissed. The cement floors are unfinished. Tools and torches and welding tanks line the stairs down to the bottom floor. Must be building some kind of fancy railing. Lily and I run down the stairs.

  "I recognize where we are now," Lily says. "Follow me."

  She takes off down a hallway. I follow, dodging paint buckets and carpet supplies. Lily stops in front of a door, yanks the keys out of her pocket and opens the lock. Inside is a roomy office with a large desk and several filing cabinets. She flips on the light; I immediately flip it off.

  "No lights," I hiss, holding my hand over the switch in case she tries again. "We don’t need to advertise where we are."

  "We won’t be able to find anything without the lights."

  I dig around in my pocket, searching for the "hey-stupid-you-forgot-to-turn-on-the porch-light-again" squeeze light I keep on my key chain. "We can use this," I say, pointing at Lily and squeezing it on. She flinches.

  "Sorry."

  I sweep the room with my tiny beam. Three tall file cabinets are lined up in the corner. Thank you, Howard, for being such a tidy sonofabitch. The cabinet drawers are labeled alphabetically. We’ll have to think like Howard. "P" for patient? "M" for Michael? "D" for dead? Lily pulls open a drawer.

  "Shine that thing over here," she orders.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Looking," she explains in a clipped voice, over-stating the obvious. "Which is what you should be doing."

  "We can’t just look through everything; it’ll take too long."

  "Not as long as standing there." She waves me over. "Move closer with the light."

  "Shit, nothing but financial statements," she says, slamming the first drawer and yanking open another. "Are you really sure they’re here?" She glances up at me. I relax my grip on the light and it blinks out. Lily blends into the darkness.

  It’s quiet in the dark, but it’s a loud quiet. Maybe it’s because you’ve stripped away one of the senses, allowing the other four to pick up the slack. Touch, taste and smell are there for you, but it’s hearing that really steps up to the plate. If you’re quiet long enough, you start to notice the rumblings, the noises of the dark. The tick of a clock, a scurrying creature, the shattering of glass. Something always pierces the silence.

  "Turn it back on, Charlie."

  "What?"

  "Turn on the light," Lily whispers, obviously annoyed to be standing in the dark. "We have to keep looking."

  "Sorry." I squeeze and shine the light across the folders in the drawer. "See anything that looks familiar?"

  "I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for so, no, nothing looks like anything." She drops down to her butt on the floor. "You’re right. This is going to take too long."

  Lily drops her head into her hands. My fingers are cramping from squeezing the light. We’re searching in all the obvious places, which is obviously wrong. We’ve forgotten the crucial question. What would Howard do? We can’t think like ourselves; we have to figure out what Howard would do if he were trying to hide something.

  "What would Howard do? I ask out loud, excited at the revelation. "Where would you put the files if you were Howard?"

  Lily lifts her head up and stares right into the little light.

  "Not in a file cabinet," she blurts out and jumps back to her feet, immediately understanding. "Of course! Not in a file cabinet. Something else, like a briefcase or a box."

  She grabs the light out of my hand and searches the other corners of the room. Nothing. She falls to her knees and aims the light under the furniture. It sweeps along a small conference table, a credenza, the enormous desk. I see the beam hesitate.

  "What? What do you see?"

  Lily’s head disappears under the desk. The light goes out and I hear a heavy object thunk onto the desk.

  "You hold the light," she says, pressing it back into my palm. "It’s one of those portable file boxes."

  I turn the light on the plastic box Lily has found. She snaps open the lid and rifles through the folders inside.

  "This is it, I think this is it. Look."

  She pulls out a folder and opens it on the desk. Two metal tongs at the top hold a thick sheaf of papers. I train the light on the folder and Lily flips the pages. They’re notes, mostly handwritten, each page with a date stamp. Halfway through is something that looks like a copy of a police report.

  "Stop. What’s that?"

  Lily flips back to the page and we read along together. Last seen at 7:00 pm on April 20th driving east on Marshall in a blue Buick Regal with Illinois plates. Wearing a tan pantsuit and light green car coat. No note or phone call left behind. No previous episodes of wandering off. Car answering the above description found approximately 45 miles out of town along the golf course maintenance access road, engine running, doors open, no sign of anyone, not even a footprint in the dirt. It appears to be some kind of missing person report and goes on for a couple pages. I glance at the folder’s tab, Mildred Everhouse.

  "That name," I say, repeating it under my breath. "I’m sure I recognize that name."

  The entire room begins to glow, but it’s n
ot from the thrill of discovery. The squeak of brakes causes us both to turn toward the window. The glow recedes, followed by the slam of one car door, then another.

  "Time’s up," I hiss. I grab Mildred’s file, jam it back into the box and slam the lid. "Let’s go."

  "Is it Howard?" Lily asks, following me out of the room.

  "It’s not the Good Humor Man."

  "You’re scared again, right?"

  "Right."

  TWENTY FIVE

  "Head back to the stairs." I push Lily in front of me and give her the file box.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I’ll be right behind you. I think the gentlemanly thing to do at this point is position myself between you and the two guys who are trying to kill you."

  "They’re trying to kill you."

  "Run," I say, pushing her again. "Shut up and run."

  The file box bumps against Lily’s leg as she takes off down the hall. Behind us I can hear Howard and Gavin. Lights flip on as they close the distance. Lily hits the back hallway and sprints for the stairs. We might just make it. I glance backwards to check on our pursuers, breaking the first rule of escape, "Never, ever look back."

  "Charlie, hurry," Lily calls. She’s not bothering to whisper anymore. Her voice is loud, shrill.

  I turn around just in time to see, but not avoid, a roll of carpet pad. My foot clips the top of the obstacle and throws me off balance. I’m down. Almost to the freakin’ stairs and I’m down. I hear Lily scream. The hallway lights flash on over my head and I scramble to my feet as Howard and Gavin round the corner.

  "Stay where you are," Gavin shouts, raising his arm level with my head. He’s wearing a short black pea coat that makes his bulky frame look even heavier than usual. At the end of his arm is his hand. In his hand is a gun. A gun is pointing at me. How bizarre. A gun is pointing at me. I was right. All along I was right. However, being right about someone wanting to kill you is not the winning ticket. This is one of those times when being right is horribly wrong.

  A true child of the cinema, I instinctively raise my hands over my head. "Don’t shoot."

  "Charlie!" Lily, half way up the stairs, is shouting again.