Internecine

by David J. Schow

  I was fully aware I was planning to sashay back into the world of the walking dead, oblivious to sniperscopes, and utterly without resources of any kind. Dandine had been a crutch, an expert to whom it was too easy to defer. Now I was making a conscious choice to exacerbate a situation that a hundred other people would have the common sense to leave alone. I think the part that bothered me the most was “common.” Few of those imaginary hundred people would wish to be dismissed as common. But then, what was the difference between them and me?

  Katy duly delivered some rolling cash, fresh clothing, and a private cellphone number I promised not to utilize. She even kissed me on the cheek again, asked not to know what was going on until it was over, and left. Her special scent—spicy, not floral—lingered in the hospital room after her. I thought, my God, if she’s for real, I am a dead man, in a good way. And if she had never heard of Norco, and not been poisoned by their tendrils, I had to accept her as genuine.

  (Unless, of course, she was smoothly lying for some future advantage, which is, I’m sure, the first thing you thought of, too. Nurse Strock? They could easily have cast her because she would remind me of my ex-wife. Katy? A familiar face to buffer the lies; a friendly. My medication? Mixed to order, to drop my guard and increase my fear. It would have been child’s play to infect me with a low-grade flu that would keep me a-dangle on the edge of hallucination. There were probably homing devices in the cast on my wrist. Where do you stop, once you start dropping impediments in your own way?)

  Everything else, I did on my own. Have you ever pulled an IV tap out of the back of your hand, and discovered how much it bleeds? Not recommended. I’ll bet you’ve never de-catheterized yourself, either, but I’ll spare you that joy.

  I shucked the foam collar (no way to work around it) and the sinews in my freed neck gave a spookshow creak. I buttoned up the shirt Katy had delivered, my eyes avoiding the tape on my chest. The best I could manage for hiding my kohled eyes was to wear my sunglasses, my Mr. Lamb “disguise.” My tongue firmed the bite wing against my loose teeth. I could stash it in my pocket if I needed to smile at anyone. Or snarl.

  Sneaking out of a hospital is easy if you’re dressed in civilian clothing. Merely jump one floor up or down and wander the halls. If a staff member eyeballs you, ask about visiting hours, and inevitably you’ll be told they’re over and you have to leave the building. Cedars-Sinai was half a block from the Beverly Center, on the buffer zone leading to the Beverly Hills shopping district, Rodeo Drive, and all that. People, anonymity.

  An hour to wire my act together. An hour to slip into the world, too loud, too blaring (except to my stunned right ear drum), moving cautiously, my joints like broken glass held together by razor wire. Most of an hour to pace my breathing and find a rental car. If I had known what had been going on while I was in the hospital, I would have tried to move with more alacrity, even though I already missed that cushy bed, and the ministrations of the lovely Vanessa Strock.

  Less than an hour, considerably, to initiate the complicated process of back-calling and message drops I ordinarily used to contact the individual known only as the Mole Man.

  “You look like you mighta-could use some legally vague narcotics, there,” the Mole Man told me. “Say the word and the Mole Man can fix you up on that number. He would say it’s good to see you, but—can we be candid? You look like thirteen miles of donkey road, my friend.”

  “It’s been an interesting week,” I said. I had already thanked him for coming—twice—and he had waved it off. And I had already warned him that some of the questions I had for him might prompt him to leave our table and make for a fast exit. He seemed unconcerned, and I thought to myself, I haven’t seen this guy for two years, at least.

  We met in the Mole Man’s usual corner slot at Vermeer’s Dome, an overpriced Santa Monica eatery; to this day I don’t know why it’s called that. Perhaps I’m not cool enough to plumb the agenda of a fine food boutique that name-drops one of the world’s most famous Dutchmen without having a scrap of his artwork in evidence anywhere; perhaps that was the elegant point of it all. The trend factor, here, consisted in the absence of anything a conventional Earthling would interpret as a “table.” Beneath arching skylights—hence the “dome” aspect—flowed amorphous islets of stainless steel conformed into uncomfortable, booth-style seating arrangements, and organized around nervous scatterings of little alabaster pedestals of varying height, like outcrops of flat-top mushrooms, underlit by blue neon. These served as staggered surfaces upon which food was offered, if not precisely “served,” from machine-stamped aluminum menus that specified “beef,” “shrimp,” “spud,” “sprout,” and so on—monosyllables with no hyper-adjectival descriptives. “Meat.” “Drink.” Illumination on their preparation was left to the waitstaff, which was comprised of young, blemish-free acting hopefuls, regimented into starched white linen and instructed not to be intrusive, not to butt in too often, and not to show much emotion, especially the phony kind designed to enhance tips. It was a place in which it was easy to spot newcomers, who usually mistook the mushrooms for some kind of bizarre seating. The bar was potent and open to special requests. No prices were listed on the metal menus, either.

  This was the second or third time I’d met the Mole Man at this place. I think his theory was that all the patrons here were in vampire mode, on the prowl for celebrities, and once we were recognized as not being some hot personality or other, we thereafter became completely invisible.

  The Mole Man lived up north; Santa Barbara or Montecito, I think, where (he mentioned once) he had bought the former home of the director who had done the film version of War of the Worlds in 1953. He drove down to Los Angeles to conduct face-to-face meetings with various clients, never on a set schedule. I knew his number from our dealings at Kroeger (it was a voice mailbox), and I had used it. The man would not have shown up at all, had he not been: (1) intrigued, (2) bored, or (3) in the mood for a bit of secondhand adventure that would surely reap him a healthy payoff. Our dealings had always been cordial and productive; now I was trying to push it all two steps further. I didn’t necessarily want him to know how much I was counting on him, right now.

  “It’s strange,” I said, “but I don’t think I’ve ever asked your name. Too much of a hot button.”

  “Oh, you asked, matey. More than once. Last time you asked was in ’02, when the Mole Man came down to help with that grocery strike thing—putting the nice-face corporate spin on the poor bosses? Yeah, you asked him, then. He didn’t tell you. But if you want, now, since it’s just you and him here and we’re sorta, y’know, deepening the relationship, he might be able to give you a name to use. I mean, a name that’s not, y’know, a nickname.”

  The Mole Man had always done that, I remembered—spoke of himself in the third person, as though the man sitting across from me was a simple intermediary for a more shadowy master. As I have said before, he was soft and round and inoffensively furry, with lightly downed cheeks and a ruler-straight line of baldness extending directly back from his thick eyebrows. Above that latitude, not a follicle. He emphasized the demarcation by wearing glasses in heavy black frames that lent his head (and therefore his gaze) a sense of direction, an “aim” for his attention. He had those wayward, extralong stray hairs at the peaks of his eyebrows. They quested past the glasses like antennae, or curb feelers.

  Whenever the Mole Man spoke, he tended to overtalk, and occupied his hands with a lot of stage business—refolding his napkin, fiddling with his wristwatch and a couple of thick gold rings, stirring his drink unnecessarily. He lapsed into a more intimate, first-person address, which had the effect of drawing me into a closer confidence, as it was no doubt intended to do. “I mean, excuse me if I’m wrong, but this smells personal, am I right?”

  “Yeah. As personal as it gets.”

  “Then the Mole Man has advised that you may call me Mr. Tiburón.”

  “That’s funny—a guy I got involved with insisted on giving me a
code name. Mr. Lamb. In fact, no one I’ve encountered over the past week has used a real name. It’s all a swamp of fake identities.”

  “Oh, that’s like cover fire,” Tiburón said. “Throw enough pseudos into the mix, and if something real comes along, it just gets lost in all the noise. Standard diversionary stuff.”

  “Thank you for talking that way. It makes me feel less insane, like someone else comprehends all this spy-versus-spy crap and hidden language.” He had also tactfully refrained from comment on my black eyes, or the cast on my left arm.

  “Please. The Mole Man, as you know, does not judge. He merely arranges information. He does not supply; he suggests. And he never demands, especially of those who respect his protocols. And he would not have answered your call, if not for the pleasure of renewing your acquaintance. He has always suspected there was more to you than meets the eye, Mr. . . . Lamb.” Tiburón winked. “There. See how easy it is to be someone else? Now, before we begin, the Mole Man has a request of you. Not daunting. More of a social thing.”

  “Name it,” I said.

  “The Mole Man would enjoy it very much if you were to schedule some time, in the future, say, when you are not so preoccupied, and engage in some investigation into the ins and outs of the finer red wines, something in which he has recently acquired an interest. Rather, attenuated the interest that was already there.”

  “Sure.” I was going to have to do a lot of homework to sound credible, but who was I to refuse this man?

  “Splendid. That will please him,” said Tiburón. “Now, let’s refresh our drinks and address your needs.”

  “I don’t quite know how to begin. I guess I should just say the word—NORCO—and see how you react.”

  He didn’t.

  To my credit, I was able to lay out the backstory for him in less than ten minutes. He nodded and paid attention. I finished by saying, “I suppose I need two things: Where to find them, and something to use as leverage so I don’t get shot the instant I show up on their doorstep.” It felt as though all I was asking for was simple—wealth and fame.

  Tiburón steepled his fingers; then spoke from behind them. “That First Interstate address that you had? Not what you need. That is a facility they call Processing. You need Administrative. That is item number one. You have mentioned a name that might provide you with the bargaining power you seek; that is item number two. What is important is the connection between the two—the fact that gives power to the knowledge. That is item number three.”

  Have I mentioned that the Mole Man’s custom was to bill per item?

  He wrote down a few notations in cribbed, almost miniaturized print, on a perfect square of white paper he had materialized from some pocket, then left it atop one of the smaller mushroom tables after tapping it with his finger. The name he had listed as item #2 came as a shock, and I’m glad I didn’t have a mouthful of liquid when I read it. I turned the page back for his scrutiny.

  “Then I need to find this person,” I said, tapping the name.

  “Ah. That would be item number four. My information is twenty-four hours new. And the Mole Man shall assume that you and he have a deal?”

  “Positively,” I said. “Wine included.”

  I don’t know which sensation tickled me more—feeling reconnected after talking to the Mole Man, or having gotten away with lying my ass off to him about the wine.

  All I really had to do was look for the car cover. Odd, how obvious it seemed. My old eyes would never have noticed it.

  I dry-swallowed two more of the painkillers provided by the Mole Man’s pet pharmacist—item #5 on my coronary-inducing bill. Driving one-handed, I looped my rental Taurus through the slightly illegal U-turn at Sunset and La Cienega. About a half-block east, a cluster of two-story bungalows were grouped behind sad, dying trees near a municipal bus stop. The buildings looked rain-blistered, their faded olive paint flaking. They still had the shake-shingle roofing that had been demonized as a Southern California fire hazard. The garden area up-front, off the sidewalk, was a barren pond of damp dirt where decorative flora had given up growing. A posted sign spieled off details of the complex’s imminent demolition for “commercial development.”

  Over the hump of sidewalk, a bumpy, hot-patched drive tilted south at a sixty degree angle to a madly uneven parking lot, gouged out of leftover hill-space below. Here, the bigger, older trees still held dominion, buckling the pavement, but generous with their shade. One of the cars down there had that “parked without a pass” look; another seemed as though it had been in its slot for months since it was mottled with grime and pigeon shit. Next to that, back in the far corner of the lot, I found the automobile with the protective cover lashed down tight, almost a grunt tuck.

  Zetts’s GTO. I checked anyway.

  “Hey, brah, how’s yer hammer hanging?”

  It was as stupid as a slasher movie cliché. Zetts was perched in the tree above the car, a cartoon vulture staking out a cheap laugh. It startled me. Afternoon light glinted off his tong shades. He was wearing a big-ass lumberjack shirt and was halfway through a virulent-yellow doob.

  “Sorry, dude,” he said, all friendly. “You just looked so determined, like, serious, right?” He levered from the crotch of the tree and dropped about ten feet to earth. Then he got a good look at me and wiggled his head. “Ho! Nothin’ personal, but you look like rat scat.”

  “You should see the other guy.” It was a weary joke, not as good as what Dandine might have said.

  He peered closer at my eyes, in hollowed purple. “Makes you look kinda goth. Want me to sign your cast?”

  “Maybe later. Thanks for the flowers. That was sweet.”

  “Yeah, yeah, eat me.” He searched past me. “You don’t have like bad guys on your tail or anything, I hope?”

  “Just me,” I said.

  “Then I won’t ask how you knew how to find me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sheee-it, man, you ever try asking Mr. D something like that? Waste of breath.”

  I moved back to my own car. “Here. Brought you something. Peace offering.”

  He sniffed and watched, all eyes, as I handed him a plastic-bagged T-shirt. He unfurled it so he could read the logo: MEIN HERZ BRENNT. “Cool. Dude, I don’t think I’ve had a new T-shirt in like forever.”

  “Least I could do for clobbering you on the head.”

  “Naaah, let’s sweat that minimally, man—Mr. D warned me; it was part of the plan.”

  I knew better than to pursue that one . . . especially considering what I had in mind for Zetts’s immediate future. “What became of your house?”

  He narrowed his lips and shook his head; a goofy dog with a passing pester. “History. You guessed, right?”

  “I hope it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Nah. Blame sucks. Let’s skip it. Besides—check out my new hide. Defini-nootly superior and majorly cool.” He pointed the way toward a security-gated rear entrance to one of the supposedly condemned bungalows. “Shit came down the pipe, I had a good two-four to evack. A buck and a quarter of time, right? That was right after that heinous action scene at Park Tower. I got in there long enough to mop your wheels; that was my job for that day, according to Mr. D.”

  “You got to that car we had? The Audi?”

  “Affirmative. Sprayed it; got the fuck outta there.”

  “Where’s Dandine?”

  “I was kinda hoping you could tell me, boss. I’m like incognito since I had to, y’know, relocate.”

  “You mean ‘incommunicado.’ ” As Dandine would have said, look it up.

  “Yeah, whatever. I knew you were in the hospital. That wasn’t part of the plan that Mr. D laid down. So I guess he got misfiled. We might as well be comfy while we wait to hear.” He ambled to the door in his accustomed hipshot stride and punched a key code that made the gate buzz. “Sexy, huh?”

  Inside, Zetts apparently had the entire structure to himself. Strewn inside the entry were motorcycle and car parts
. The next room appeared to be wallpapered in what resembled fine-mesh, brass-colored chainlink. It was even on the ceiling. Into this room, Zetts’s computer setup had been transplanted intact.

  “No hard wires,” he said. “Totally electronically secure. No lines in, no lines out. All encrypted micro wave at fifty-two hundred characters—better than what the NSA has.”

  Upstairs was Zetts’s flop: futon, kitchen, weight gym, a lot of high-end entertainment gear. His cherished megaposter for Hot Rod Girl finally had enough wall space.

  “Wicked boss, yes?” he said, eyebrows up. “Y’want a Hot Pocket or something? How ’bout a draft?” Next to his fridge was another, smaller, older unit, with a beer spigot sticking directly out of the middle of the door.

  I had to crack a smile at this hog heaven. “But this place is supposed to be condemned. Says so, outside.”

  “That’s the beauty part. The signs are for show. Special arrangement. This place will be standing for the next ten years, minimum.”

  “Thanks again for the flowers.”

  “Aw, dude. You stood up for me with Dandine. You know Doc Savage. You helped out. You got me this swell T-shirt. And I owe ya for those tapes, bro. Superiorly sexy stuff. All that oral-anal action gave me some ideas about, y’know, Beckah? Sweeeeeet.”

  He was talking about his virtual girlfriend. Not an actual person who could be compromised or murdered. Maybe he had something, there. Maybe Zetts was wiser than all of us.

  “It’s all on its own drive,” said Zetts. “I uploaded everything, basically in chronological order.” His new crib had plasma screens at almost every vantage. He diddled a keyboard and there was the late Alicia Brandenberg, doing it with Jenks, doing it with Ripkin, and doing it with several other marks I didn’t even know. Zetts had been playing with editing software, and had assembled a sort of greatest-hits reel that was pretty assaultive. Naturally, he had tracked it with his favorite big-hair metal bands—a totally eighties soundtrack for Alicia Brandenberg’s idea of ritual native dance.