Resurrection Express

by Stephen Romano

  “You guys have Internet in this dungeon?”

  He jerks a thumb towards a computer set up in the corner on a table, next to some piled-up stuff that looks like swag: new clothes, a display case of jewelry, a stack of Blu-ray players still sealed in the boxes.

  “Be my guest,” he says.

  I get up and walk over to the hospital bed. The doc whistles while he works. And I was right the first time—Bennett’s wound is awful. The bullet took a nasty chunk off her shoulder, the skin all gouged and blue. “You gonna be okay, kiddo?”

  “I ain’t a kid.”

  “You’re right. What you are is a very rich girl right now.” I pat the briefcase and set it next to her on the carpet.

  “I like that song,” she says, her voice wavering in the fog.

  I narrow my eyes at her. “What?”

  “Rich Girl. By Hall and Oates. I used to really love them.”

  “More eighties, huh?”

  “Actually . . . that’s going back to the seventies. A lot of people don’t know that about Hall and Oates. I raided my dad’s record collection a lot.”

  “I never knew he liked those guys. He only listened to hair metal when I was working under him.”

  “People change, I guess.”

  “Yes they do.”

  Her dad.

  My teacher.

  Goddamn.

  I squeeze her hand a little, looking at the doc.

  “How long will it take to get her fixed up?”

  “She’s in pretty rough shape,” he says, not looking up from his work. “Her wound should have been treated sooner. But she’ll stabilize in a few hours. I have to keep her under observation for at least twenty-four. Did Kim tell you how the money works?”

  “No, not really. What do I owe you?”

  “Five yards for the house call. Five large for the treatment. Drugs are on the house.”

  I pull out a stack and peel off five bills, then another five grand. He stops working long enough to fan through the green, smiling. Rolls it up and stuffs it in his coat pockets. Slips on a new set of rubber gloves and goes back to work. His face is filled with shame and secrets, all pushed down hard. Guess she could be in worse hands.

  “Looks like you’re holing up here for a while,” I say to her. Then I turn to Eminem. “How secure is this place? You guys got people in the lobby?”

  He laughs. “What the fuck do you think?”

  “Don’t worry,” says the fat one. “This motherfucker is locked up tight.”

  That sounds like grim death coming out of his mouth.

  Good.

  Bennett starts breathing a few bars of a tune I don’t recognize. Something about going too far and it doesn’t matter anyway. The words drown in the lull of her own voice, drugged and floating between worlds. I’m reminded of all the lives I could have lived. All the records I could have memorized, like any other kid. Hall and Oates. Madonna and Metallica. I could have had all of that.

  But we both chose to be here, she and I.

  We both chose to be our fathers.

  I pull out the second of my ten Walmart phones and dial Kim’s number. Goes right to voice mail. I try a text instead. She pings back immediately. Women.

  ARE WE HAPPY, BABY?

  I click it quick:

  WE’RE HAPPY. AREA SECURE? NEED A PLACE TO WORK.

  A few seconds, and:

  ME CASA, U CASA. B OUT 2MORROW @ CHECK OUT TIME.

  Okay.

  • • •

  Four hours of sleep has officially caught up with me.

  I’m going on adrenaline and diet soda.

  I ask Doc for a shot of something. Need to be focused, even if I’m ghost tired. He asks if I’ve ever done speed before, and I tell him not much. A little back in the old days, when I was prepping big projects. My dad was worse. The Doc taps five white pills into the palm of his hand and tells me to be careful with this stuff. I dry-swallow three of them and chase it with a Coke from the wet bar. This place is probably good until morning, but I can’t take that chance. Two hours and I run.

  Then again, maybe I shouldn’t.

  Maybe I should just let them come get me. I have what they want, in a safe location. I could make a deal with them.

  No. Not yet. Play from strength.

  Find Hartman first.

  • • •

  I visit the bathroom, try to get my key back, but nothing happens. While I’m in there, I stash the girl’s Colt Python under the sink.

  I take the bag of weapons into the next bedroom and shove them under the bed. I throw a few things into the Gold’s Gym bag. Things I need to keep safe.

  And some insurance.

  I walk out of the suite with a Ruger SR9 in my waistband, tell the Zebra Force I’ll be back in ten minutes.

  I walk down the hallway, every shadow an enemy.

  • • •

  I go back to the parking garage and get in the car, drive it out of there. I smell the city and take it in for the first time since I got here.

  Houston is different from other metroplexes in America. No zoning. New York is a grid, Chicago is clusters. Houston is chaos. Gotham City, only smaller. Buildings from the forties squat shoulder-to-shoulder with brand-new high-rises. Aboveground railcars run near the bus station, a block away. They used to call it Space City in the seventies. They don’t call it that anymore. It smells like hard concrete and oil floating on top of seawater. Can’t keep myself in it for long.

  I find a five-story long-term ramp two blocks away. Get a ticket from an automated meter and pick a cherry spot on a floor where all the cars are really expensive. Some inspection tags expired by a few months. Guys on extended business trips. My ride will blend in okay here.

  I park the car next to a green Honda. It’s a late model with an inspection sticker that went south just a few weeks ago—maybe belongs to a rich kid on a backpacking trip through Europe or something.

  I shut off the engine and pop my trunk, unscrew the recession in the floor where the spare tire goes, stash the Gold’s Gym bag in there. Set the spare on top. Slam. Lock it up tight. I drop the keys into a little magnet box I bought at Walmart, stick it under the chassis, near the main transmission shaft.

  Now, my insurance policy.

  • • •

  The last thing I do is drop one of my cell phones on the passenger’s seat.

  Just in case.

  Okay.

  I walk back to the hotel, looking at everything.

  Everything’s looking at me.

  I really need some sleep.

  Up the service elevator again, I run into an old black maid who gets snippy with me. I tell her I’m visiting a friend and want to surprise him. She says that’s no excuse and that they have a health code in this place. I don’t argue with her. Put up my hands. She gets off on the ninth floor.

  “Remember the health code,” she says again, and she sounds irritated with old on top now, like a schoolmarm getting her period early. “Next time use the stairs.”

  “No problem,” I say.

  “Don’t ‘no problem’ me, mister! It’s never a problem to do what’s right!”

  The elevator door closes on her while she’s shouting and I’m still putting up my hands, trying to look innocent.

  Damn, that was dumb. Should have kept my mouth shut.

  If anyone comes asking, she’ll remember every detail of our conversation—ladies like that always do. They have nothing better to fill their lives with.

  Real smooth, Elroy.

  • • •

  The Notorious fat guy blows pot smoke in my face again when he opens the door for me. He’s still got his Glock in the other fist. Looks at me funny, like I’m an imposter. Backs away slowly and lets me in.

  The Internet connection is down. I try wireless, using my rig.

  Five networks in range, I piggyback on one of them, using my invisible shield to move fast and silently inside someone else’s system. I don’t use the cell relay. Only a
ghost could catch me. I sneak into ten people’s houses across Texas in five minutes. Ask about some things that will get me noticed.

  Remo’s gone for sure. Murdered. They found his body in a parking lot two nights ago, heart carved out of his chest. It’s been on the news.

  The Fixer is still maintaining radio silence.

  But he hasn’t washed up anywhere.

  Yet.

  No word on the street about the helicopter sale—not from anyone aboveground. I’m not fool enough to contact my lawyer directly. Hell, I don’t even know the guy’s name. Dad set up everything with these people. It was all double blind, while I was in the joint. I can get to my safe deposit box tomorrow, if the money’s still there, if Hartman hasn’t gotten to the Fixer yet. But that’ll take time and I need tonight for more important moves. The seventy-five grand in the trunk of my car will have to do me, plus my walking-around money. It’ll be enough.

  Jayne Jenison now.

  The lady in black.

  There’s a lot on her, but I have to look real hard. I find an old e-mail account drifting in the breeze, but she did a Sarah Palin on it a long time ago. Everything important erased. Some clues, though. The names of a few companies, a few senators. Nothing unusual for a private citizen who lobbies against gun control.

  But she had me going after Cheyenne Mountain, man. This one’s got her finger on the triggers of much bigger guns. What the hell is she up to?

  Who is she really working for?

  I talk to my wireheads again. I have important questions, and now I’ve got cash to pay for the answers. The money brings them all running this time.

  I get back in my secure chat room with six major players who know their way around government contracting and security. One of them is a guy who used to build guidance systems for nuclear warheads. Another guy had a hand in the 2000 presidential election. I tell them all what I’m looking for. I give them names. They name their prices. I say okay. It has to be cash, night deposits, but they know I’m good for it.

  I ask about defense grids. I ask about rich people stockpiling women. I ask about every speck of dangerous military blackware created in the past several years, and the people who are running scared from it. I get names. Big names. Dictators. Guerrilla leaders. Feared terrorists with track records. Half these people are dead already, the other half vanished off the face of the earth.

  I think about Jayne Jenison, and how easy it was for her to kill me on paper, just after Hartman took out Toy Jam.

  Jesus tap-dancing Christ.

  Is Jenison behind all this?

  Did she kill all these people—and is it real or just on paper? Does she really have a daughter who was kidnapped? And what about Toni?

  One of my hackers wants to see some of the code I decrypted.

  I send him a sample.

  He tells me he can’t fucking believe what I’m sitting on.

  I tell him yeah, I know.

  Two of the guys in the chat room bail—right after using a lot of colorful adjectives to explain that they never wanna hear from me again. The other four triple their fees. I say okay.

  Now that we’ve separated the men from the boys.

  • • •

  Bennett passes out on the hospital bed, zonked.

  “She’s fixed up okay,” the doc says, mixing a drink from the bar, a dry martini. “But she still needs time. I can stay with her until she’s okay to move.”

  “Is that gonna be extra? I want her taken care of, man.”

  “The five grand covers everything. I’ll make sure she’s good.”

  I press some more bills into his hand. “She wants to go to Florida. Can you find her a ride?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Can’t be an airplane. Has to be more off the grid.”

  “I have a guy I can call.” He looks at the cash in his hand. “But it’ll take a little more than this probably.”

  “How much?”

  “Another grand should do it.”

  I give him two. What the hell, right?

  “Make sure she gets where she’s going. And don’t spend all the rest in one place.”

  “Sure thing.”

  He finishes stirring the drink and sips at it slowly.

  • • •

  For the next few minutes, the doc nurses his martini, smoking cigarette after cigarette, looking nervous as he flips through channels on the big-screen TV. He ignores the two homies, who throw down some poker in the dining room nook, doing a lot of cussing, playing for real money. Their guns are on the table. I peel an eye at them, from my work at the rig. A couple of hard dudes, no doubt—maybe too hard.

  I hope Bennett will be safe with them.

  But I can’t . . . think about . . .

  My eyes close by themselves and I slap myself.

  Damn.

  So tired.

  Whatever the doc gave me, it doesn’t seem to be jump-starting my intellect that well. But it’s doing an odd rumble in my guts. Maybe it’ll at least help get that damn safe deposit key out. Not that I really need it, but would be a hell of a lot healthier if I didn’t have to bust the lock on a safe deposit box in front of God and all his security cameras.

  No word back from anyone online. My guys are digging. Nothing on Gmail.

  My eyes close again and I slap myself again.

  I take the other two pills, chase them with warm sweet caffeine.

  I switch off the console and fold it up in my pack, carry it with me into the main bedroom. Gotta do some thinking before I bolt out of here. Have to focus. My next move has to be a location near downtown, where I can get back on the Internet and find David Hartman. It hurts my brain to think about him, or any of my plots. I almost smell the roses, but I fight it off. I’m so goddamn tired. This bedroom has a marble walled shower recessed into a stylish annex all done up in marble and chrome that looks like something off the set of Clash of the Titans. The old, good one, I mean. My dad took me to see that when it came out in the early eighties. I was eight years old. All of this other business was ahead of me. All of this—my life, played in target-blips and info-bursts, just before I run again.

  I splash my face in the sink. I sit down on the chromed toilet seat. My guts are rolling and rumbling. Nothing comes out. Dammit.

  I pull up my pants and move over to the door of the bedroom and close it.

  Unzip the long bag and pull out the shotgun—feel the weight, check the chamber, full load. These Mossbergs are monsters. I hold it in my hands for a few minutes, just standing there in the room, feeling anxious, feeling tired. Can’t lose it now. Have to think about a few things.

  I sit in the center of the room cross-legged and watch the door, the shotgun across my knees. Only one way into this room. If anyone comes through, they get shredded.

  I watch the door.

  It doesn’t open.

  I can hear my bodyguards arguing over cards in the next room. The TV tuned to American Idol. The doc sucking back martinis in there, earning his dirty money by hanging out with gangsters, or whatever the hell we are.

  I breathe slowly, taking myself out of the room.

  Trying to see the plot.

  Their plot.

  Jenison’s plot.

  Were you ever really within my reach, Toni?

  I still have to find you.

  And to find you, I have to get Hartman.

  And to get Hartman, I have to stay off Jenison’s radar.

  I have what she wants. Hartman wants it, too. My friends in this town will be my enemies by morning. I have to deal with them all. Gonna be sticky. I start in just a moment. I’m in the future now, with Toni. She sees me and she smiles, though I can’t see her face. I realize I’m dreaming as she comes for me and her hands melt in the thick air, turning into long tentacles, with thorns that pierce my flesh, but in a gentle way, a way that hurts as it loves me, a way of love because it’s tough . . . because they’re not tentacles at all . . . they’re roses creeping on vines .
. . slashing as they envelop me . . .

  I’m dreaming and I have to wake up.

  I hear the sounds of men arguing and the blare of a TV commercial about maxi pads, just on the other side of all this.

  I have to wake up.

  I smell the raw vegetation of the vines and the sweet smell of the roses as they invade my heart and my mind, filling me with wet dirt and sick perfume and the reverberating boom-crack of the magic bullet that took my one true love away from me.

  Have to focus.

  I hear something shatter, and there is a scream . . .

  Have to . . .

  • • •

  My eyes open and I’m still sitting in the room. TV still blaring outside the door. The shotgun in my lap. My watch says it’s nearly one in the morning.

  My body just gave up for four hours, shut down without a warning. That never happened to me before, not even in prison. I feel like someone just used my head for a toilet. What the hell did the doc give me?

  I get up and wash my face in the sink. Look at myself in the mirror. I need a shave, need a shower. A new set of eyes. Mine have bags that go all the way around them. My head’s tingling—what’s left of the drugs that didn’t work.

  I pick up the shotgun and go over to the door, open it carefully until I see movement in there. I go into the room, not aiming the gun at anything. The movement in the room was from the TV. A rerun of Melrose Place.

  Then the smell hits me.

  • • •

  The doc got it the worst.

  I only look as long as I have to.

  The two homies are next to him on the couch, missing a lot of themselves. Most of it’s on the floor.

  The smell. It’s so bad.

  If there were any shots fired in this room, it wasn’t enough to bring anyone running, and this was mostly a hack-and-slash job. Real hands-on work. Knives, maybe power tools. God. It took a long time for these guys to die. There’s deep red all over the walls.

  And . . .

  Oh no.

  Bennett.

  • • •