The House of Broken Backs: A Joanna Mason Novel

by Amy Cross

  "The way you dropped your families?" Carver asks.

  "They were just props. I needed to blend in with society, so I got myself a few wives and children. I'd have chosen one eventually, once I'd retired. I wasn't too far away from that point, you know. If you assholes had just stayed at your usual level of incompetence for a little longer, no-one else would have died and I'd have settled into a nice, comfortable retirement. There would have been no more deaths."

  "Apart from the people in that warehouse behind you," Carver points out.

  "They're not people," the guy replies with a half-smile. "They're just products to be sold to the highest bidder."

  "There's no way out of here," Carver continues. "If you think you can somehow swing this situation to your advantage, you're wrong. We've got this place completely surrounded. You still have a chance to do the right thing here and let those people live. I don't think you really want to kill anyone else, do you?"

  "How did you find me?" the suspect asks. "I'm sorry to change the subject, but I'm genuinely curious. I went to great lengths to keep this place off the map, so I'm confused. Did someone tip you off?"

  "Care to answer that one?" Carver whispers to me.

  "I don't think he'd like the answer," I reply, keeping my voice down.

  "Stop whispering at each other!" the guy shouts. "This match is starting to get too short to hold! I want you all to get the hell out of here, and I want..." He pauses, and it's as if he knows that he can't get away. "Hell, do you know what?" he continues. "There's nothing you can give me. I know you won't honor any agreement we make, so I might as well just torch this whole place. Believe me, you'll be grateful in the long-run. The people in this barn, they're basically just animals. They're no use to anyone, not anymore, so why bother spending time and money trying to help them out? They're better off dead."

  "That's not a decision for you to make!" Carver shouts. "Step away from the door and put the match out!"

  "Time's ticking," the guy replies. "This is starting to hurt! Hell, at this rate, I might drop the match by accident!"

  "We can talk," Carver continues, "but not until you've put that match down. Do you understand?"

  "He'll do it," I whisper. "You need to drop him before he gets a chance."

  "If I shoot him," Carver whispers back at me, "the match will fall anyway."

  "It'll probably go out in the process," I point out. "Even if it's still burning when it hits the ground, it might not land in the gasoline. At least there's a chance." Removing my gun from its holster, I take aim at the guy.

  "Do not fire," Carver hisses at me.

  "He hasn't even made any demands yet," I point out. "He's just stalling. He's enjoying this! Can't you see it in his eyes? He wants to feel important, and I guess killing does the job."

  "Time's up!" the guy shouts, and a fraction of a second later he drops the match.

  Everything seems to freeze for a moment as the little burning piece of wood falls to the ground. The flame is still visible as it lands, but it's quickly extinguished by the impact and everyone seems to be waiting to see if the gasoline ignites. I keep my eyes on the guy and see that he's just staring at us, as if the fate of the building doesn't even matter to him. Finally, however, I spot a flicker of emotion in his eyes, and I realize that I was right: he was hoping to ignite the gasoline when he dropped the match just now, although I imagine he'll claim otherwise later.

  "It's okay," Carver whispers.

  "It's not gonna burn," I reply. "I think it -"

  Before I can finish, Carver fires once, hitting the guy in the shoulder and sending him tumbling back against the wall of the barn before dropping down to the ground.

  "I guess you're right," Carver adds after a moment.

  As we hurry across the yard and up the steps, I realize that there's a sound coming from inside the barn. Carver goes to check on the suspect, who has already started trying to get to his feet, while I head to the door and peer into the barn's dark interior. There's a powerful smell of gasoline, along with the stench of human excrement. It's pitch-black inside but as I step forward I realize I can see lots of human forms in the gloom, most of them huddled on the ground with just their painfully thin, bare backs visible. As I make my way along the walkway, I can honestly say that I've never seen such a horrific scene; I always thought I'd become immune to the sight of human suffering, but this is something else entirely and eventually I stop and simply stare down at the hunched, naked figures.

  After a moment, one of them looks up at me, staring with terrified, wide eyes.

  I open my mouth to tell him that everything's going to be okay, but no words leave my lips. The truth is, I know that I can't make any promises, and even if I could, they wouldn't understand me. These men are more like animals, and it looks as if they've been treated as nothing more than property. As the smell becomes overpowering, I turn and hurry out of the barn, just in time to find that the suspect is being led away.

  "Wait!" the guy says, turning to look over at me. "You have to tell me. How the hell did you find this place? It was that bitch, wasn't it? It was Claire!"

  "No," I reply, thinking back to Claire's attempt to persuade me to shoot the guy if I got the chance. I'm glad I wasn't put in a situation where I had to contemplate that option, because I'm not sure what I would have done. "No, it wasn't Claire."

  "Then how?" he asks. "You at least owe me an explanation."

  "No," I tell him after a moment. "No-one owes you anything. We found you, and that's all that matters."

  He stares at me, and I can see that he's desperate to know how we tracked him down. As police officers lead him away, Jordan Carver comes over to join me.

  "So are you still sticking to your story about how you found this place?" he asks after a moment. "More of your famous intuition?"

  "Absolutely," I reply, trying not to let him realize that I'm exhausted. "How else could I have done it?" I pause for a moment, amused by the look of irritation in his eyes. "What's wrong?" I add. "Annoyed?"

  "Inspiration is one thing," he says firmly, "but finding this place is another. Are you claiming to be some kind of fucking clairvoyant, Detective Mason?"

  "I'm not claiming anything," I tell him. "We found the place, didn't we?"

  Instead of answering me, he follows the rest of the officers into the barn. Rather than joining them, I step down into the yard and watch as the suspect is led into the back of an ambulance. We still don't know anything about the guy; hell, we don't even know his real name, and I swear to God, I want to unravel his entire life story. I want to know what kind of person could do something like this, and how a mind could become so twisted. Finding the barn was just the first step; getting to the truth about this psychopath is next on the list.

  Feeling something wet on my upper lip, I press a finger against my left nostril and see that there's a spot of blood. Worried that I might faint again, I hurry back to my car.

  John

  There's a way out. There has to be. There's always a way out.

  As the paramedic examines my shoulder, I'm vaguely aware of a distant pain; still, it's not enough to make me cry out or ask her to stop. Sometimes, pain is good; hell, sometimes pain is the most vital thing in the world. Right now, for example, the throbbing pain in my shoulder is louder than my heartbeat, and I feel strangely calm as a result. I'm content to stay here, flat on my back and staring at the ceiling, while my shoulder is padded ready for the journey to the hospital. My right wrist is handcuffed to the bed, but it's not as if I'm planning to go anywhere. I need to think carefully about my next move. There'll be time for action later.

  "Okay," says a police officer, climbing into the back of the ambulance and taking a seat next to the trolley, "I'm gonna need a name."

  "Cantard," I reply, not even bothering to look at him.

  "I'm gonna need your real name," he replies calmly.

  "Cantard," I say again. "Brian."

  "Right," he mutters, writing something on a c
lipboard. "And what was your name before that?"

  "I had several," I continue. "They were concurrent, so I can't really put them in any kind of order."

  "Okay," he says with a sigh, "why don't you just give me your original name, huh? The one you were born with? The one on your birth certificate."

  I pause for a moment. "I'm sorry," I say eventually, "I don't think I recall that one."

  "You don't recall your birth name?"

  "Sorry."

  "What about your parents' names? Can you tell me those?"

  Another pause. "I'm sorry, but no, I can't."

  "Because you don't know them, or because you're refusing to cooperate?"

  I can't help but let a faint smile cross my lips. "Yes," I say calmly.

  "Yes? Yes what?"

  "Just write what you want."

  "Okay," he continues, clearing his throat. "Let's start this again. Have you ever officially changed your name as a matter of public record?"

  "No."

  "So your original birth name is still valid."

  "Not to me."

  "In a legal sense," he replies. "Let's just end this charade right now, okay? You're gonna cough it up eventually, so let's do it now and just get it over with so we can move on."

  "No."

  "You think you can keep it hidden forever?"

  "Yes."

  "You can't. We can check your fingerprints, your DNA, your dental records -"

  "You won't find anything," I reply, interrupting him. "I was always very careful. Before all of this started, I mean. It was so long ago, and I can assure you that nothing remains of my original identity. I can't stop you wasting your time, but I promise you, you'll never find the answers you're looking for." Finally, I turn and look at him, and I'm shocked to see that he's younger than his slightly gruff voice had suggested. "My original name is gone," I tell him, "just like my original life."

  "It was that bad, huh?"

  I feel a flicker of emotion run through my body, but only for a fraction of a second. "I suppose you could say that," I tell him.

  "You have to be known by some name in order for the legal process to go ahead," the cop replies, sounding a little tetchy. "You can't keep changing it, either. If you're really not gonna offer up your real name for the time being, we'll have to go with one of the names you've been known to use in the past." He checks one of the sheets of paper on his clipboard. "How about John Sutter?"

  "John Sutter is dead," I reply quickly. "He died when his house burned down."

  "But you're John Sutter," he points out.

  "I was for a while," I continue. "The original John Sutter was..." I pause as I realize that perhaps I shouldn't give away too many of my trade secrets. "You'll never unravel it all," I add after a moment. "Do you want to know why? The truth is, I'm too smart for you. You're all assuming that I made a mistake somewhere, and that you'll be able to start getting to the bottom of who I really am and where I really come from, but you don't have a chance. I didn't make any mistakes."

  "That's confident talk," he replies drolly, "coming from a guy who just got shot and arrested."

  "You don't know what you're talking about," I mutter, annoyed by the fact that he's daring to contradict me.

  "Fine," he mutters. "You know what? The guys down at the station can deal with your bullshit. I was just trying to save some time, but you'll crack eventually. Just for the record, though, you don't look particularly smart to me right now. You look just like all the other criminals we catch, day in and day out."

  I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. This moron is overstepping the line, and I'm tempted to leap up and pin him against the wall. Then again, I'd just be wasting my energy: idiots never truly learn, and we smarter members of society have no need to spend our time trying to educate and rehabilitate less fortunate intellects. What this world needs is a cull of all the idiots.

  "Let's get going," the cop says as he sets the clipboard aside.

  "We're taking you to hospital to get this wound looked at," the paramedic says as she pulls the rear door shut. "It should be a fairly simple procedure to get the bullet out. You shouldn't have any lasting damage."

  She keeps talking, but I zone her out as the ambulance starts up. These idiots have nothing to say to me, and I'd rather be left in peace so that I can come up with a new plan. In a way, I'm quite glad that the full extent of my business empire is going to be exposed. Sure, there'll be those who think that I'm just some kind of common criminal, but I don't care about the opinions of idiots. What matters to me is the knowledge that I'll go down in history as someone who actually made something out of his life. After all, how many other men have ever even held bags containing fifty million dollars' worth of cash?

  I waited all my life for my true nature, my full ego, to finally get a chance to come out. Now that it's here, I have to say, I'm rather enjoying it.

  Joanna Mason

  "You look exhausted," Carver says as he joins me in the observation area. "When was the last time you slept?"

  "No idea," I mutter, watching through the one-way mirror as the suspect sits alone in the interrogation room. For the past couple of hours, Carver has been trying to get answers out of him, but the asshole hasn't given us anything to work with. I thought that once we caught him, the case would move forward, but now I realize that unless he breaks and gives us his real name, we'll never be able to truly put this one to bed. Granted, it's kind of amusing to watch Carver throw himself up against a brick wall over and over again, but the lack of progress is starting to grate.

  "Go on," Carver continues. "I can handle this. I'll tell Schumacher -"

  "No," I say firmly, even though I'm exhausted and I feel as if I'm going to crack at any moment. "We have to find out his real name. Until then -"

  "I'll do that," he replies, interrupting me. "You already did enough, Jo."

  "That's just what you want," I mutter.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Nothing."

  I stare at the suspect, but I'm painfully aware that Carver has his gaze fixed on me. I feel as if, now that the case is reaching its conclusion, our so-called partnership is starting to become even more strained, and Carver is trying to find a way to score a few extra points. Since I'm the one who managed to locate the facility where the guy was holding all those men, Carver's desperate to be seen as the one who manages the interrogation. The truth is, I'm almost too tired to bother fighting him.

  "Are you okay?" he asks eventually.

  "I'm peachy," I reply, trying to sound calm.

  "I mean your health -"

  "None of your business."

  He pauses. "This is my area of specialty," he says after a moment, turning back to look at the suspect. "I've cracked harder nuts than this guy. Give me twenty-four hours, and I swear to God, I'll have his name, his date of birth and his goddamn life story. I will this asshole writing his autobiography by sundown."

  "I admire your confidence," I say quietly, unable to stop staring at the suspect's icy, determined expression. To be honest, I'm pretty sure he's not going to break. Carver and I can spend the rest of our lives trying to get answers out of him, but he's just gonna sit there and act like he's so goddamn superior. The thought of trying to get him to talk to us is daunting, because for perhaps the first time in my career, I genuinely think that there's no way we can succeed. I hate being beaten, but I think that on this occasion, this 'nut' might be too hard to crack after all.

  "So why don't you tell me how you really did it?" Carver says after a moment.

  I turn to him.

  "Don't tell me it was intuition," he continues, with a faint smile. "The rest of these idiots might buy that bullshit, but I know how things work, Jo." He waits for me to say something. "Come on," he adds eventually, "tell me how you figured out where to find that facility out in the middle of nowhere. You found a clue, right? Something you kept to yourself so you could get ahead of us?"

  "Like I said -"

  "Bullshit!
" he replies. "That's bullshit, Jo. You went away for a few hours, and then when you came back you said you'd found it, but I'm not buying the idea that you had some kind of moment of inspiration, okay? You don't have magical powers, so there has to be a method to the way you worked it out."

  I stare at him for a moment, and finally I realize that this question is driving him insane. "It's really killing you, isn't it?" I say with a smile. "It's really pissing you off that you don't understand how I did it."

  "I don't believe in intuition," he says firmly. "Not like this, anyway. You can't just pull concrete facts out of your ass."

  "I can," I tell him, enjoying his frustration. "You want to know how I did it? I did what I always do: I just focused real hard on all the facts, and I waited for the answer to pop into my head, and then finally everything just came together and I knew, I mean I really knew, the coordinates. After that, I just needed to have total confidence that I was right, and then I had to persuade you and the others to believe me, and the rest was history. We got there just in time. Another few minutes, and he'd probably have been gone forever." I pause for a moment, and finally I can't resist adding a little flourish. "Sometimes, I actually find myself wondering if it's not just a little supernatural..."

  "Bullshit," he replies firmly.

  "I'm serious," I continue. "I just let all the information circulate in my head, and then eventually the answer just pops out. It's like I have a second brain in there, doing all the hard work in the background and -"

  "Bullshit!" he says again, this time with more frustration. I've got him right where I want him.

  I can't help but smile. "I'm sorry your brain doesn't work that way," I tell him, "but I really think you should be more grateful. I mean, if I hadn't had the location just flash into my head like that, you'd still be running around searching for this guy. Hell, he'd be long gone by now. Face it, without my intuition, he wouldn't be in custody right now, so whether you like it or not, and whether you believe it or not, it's real, and you'd better get used to it, 'cause if you stick around, you're gonna need me to save your ass again from time to time."