Cruel Devices

by George Wright Padgett

“Sorry, sir, but the light is red,” the cabbie said in a Pakistani accent.

  “Run it. I’ll pay for a ticket. Just go.”

  “Can’t do that. There are cameras on the lights up there. And by the time the ticket came through the mail to me, you’d be long gone.”

  Gavin slammed himself backward into the backseat of the cab. “Have it your way. Just don’t expect a tip.”

  “A tip is not necessary, but I have a perfect driving record, and I do not wish to have a ticket on it.”

  “Whatever.” Gavin sulked for the remainder of the ride. When the cab passed the bus stop where he’d seen Ms. Hodges the day before, he leaned forward. “Okay, now, listen. When we get there, I want you to stay parked outside. No matter what happens, stay there. Keep the meter running if you like, but stay there until I release you to go. You understand?”

  The cabbie sounded unimpressed. “Stay there. I understand.”

  “Even if a bunch of cop cars descend on the place, you stay.”

  That statement got a look over the shoulder at Gavin. “Are you robbing the establishment that I’m driving you to?”

  The cab slowed, nearing the curb.

  “What? No, you’re not my getaway car. Get back on the road.”

  “Promise to me that my cab won’t be used in anything illegal or dangerous.”

  “It won’t, I promise. Just drive, please.”

  A few minutes later, they arrived at the destination. Gavin psyched himself up and then bolted from the car. “Don’t drive away. I’ll be right back.”

  The cabbie nodded indifferently.

  Gavin made his way up the sidewalk and burst in the door of the antique shop. The familiar stench of mothballs and mildew accompanied the ringing tin bell above the door. He bounded down the dilapidated corridor of junk, this time unconcerned about knocking over the stacks of antiques. “Béla!” Gavin shouted as he advanced to the counter. “Béla, where are you?”

  Puma Jacket—wearing a black tank top this time—was obviously startled to see Gavin. This was good. Gavin would get him to confess before he knew what was going on. He clicked on the recording app on his phone. “I know what you and your brother did. Where is he? Where’s Béla? He needs to hear this, too.”

  Gavin waited for the man to appear from behind the curtain as before.

  “He is not here, you pöcs. He’s at jail!”

  Gavin was stunned. Had the police already picked him up as a suspect? He had to regroup. “Uh… good… then. It’s just me and you!”

  “Get out of here, little man,” Puma Jacket commanded as his hazel eyes burned through Gavin. “You call the 911 for cops to come yesterday, and they take him. They take my brother—his warrants.”

  “No, wait… they came for that? Outstanding warrants?”

  If Béla’s in jail, that only leaves Puma.

  “What about the dancer, Misa Kawaguchi? Look, I know that you two have some type of transmission device hooked into that typewriter and that you killed that girl to make it look like I did it. But I have an alibi! I have a half a dozen people on my hotel floor that can attest to my whereabouts last night, so your little scheme to blackmail—”

  Puma yelled, “Anyád picsája!“ as he produced a sawed-off shotgun from behind the counter. Gavin stumbled backward at the sight of it.

  “Hey, man! Put that down, the cops are due at any—”

  Puma pumped the gun as he shouted “Baszd meg! No more cops!”

  Anticipating the blast from the shotgun, Gavin stumbled backward the length of the store to the doorway.

  He ran down the steps to the cab as the cabbie put away the car’s CB radio. “See, I’m still here,” the driver boasted in a deadpan voice through the open window.

  “Shut up and drive!” Gavin yelled, ducking deep in the backseat. “Get us outta here!”

  The cab driver was all too eager to drop Gavin at the place where he’d left his rental car parked at the bookstore from the day before.

  As he promised, Gavin gave the man no tip. In return, the driver muttered something under his breath about karma as he drove off.

  Gavin sat in his rental car and collected himself. Within the last twenty-four hours, he’d gotten wet from a sprinkler system, been knocked unconscious, had a knife pulled on him, been spat on, gotten involved in a murder that he didn’t commit, had a shotgun aimed at him, and started smoking again. He decided that he hated Connecticut.

  He had to regain control over the situation, and quickly.

  After a few minutes, he came up with a plan. He put the car in drive and headed to a pharmacy.

  Ten minutes later, he returned to the car with a plastic bag containing a carton of cigarettes, a lighter, a pack of latex gloves, and a box of mint-flavored Nicorette gum.

  Upon returning to the resort, he made his way quickly through the lobby in hopes of avoiding people. He was nearly to the elevators when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw Thad.

  The man ushered him discreetly over to the side of the lobby and whispered, “Sorry, Mr. Curtis, I didn’t want to shout out your name and draw attention to you.”

  “Uh, thanks, I guess. What did you find out?”

  “The security officer hasn’t met with me about the surveillance tapes yet. Sorry. I stopped you to say that Ms. Garner called the front desk again and they relayed the call to me. I told her that I’d spoken with you a little while ago and that you were doing fine.”

  Gavin had completely forgotten about checking in with her.

  Thad passed a quarter-size sheet of hotel stationery with a note and number. “She wants you to call.”

  “I got the number,” he said as he wadded up the note. “You didn’t tell her about anything that we talked about, did you?”

  Thad regarded him with confusion.

  “How I asked about the door locks or anyone going into my room?”

  He sounded relieved. “Oh, none of that, but—”

  “What? But what?”

  “It might have slipped that I was excited that you were writing a story here at the resort.”

  “Is that all? Don’t sweat it.” Gavin pulled a hundred from his pants pocket. “Thad, it is of the utmost importance that no one—I mean no one—interrupts me today for any reason.” He slipped the bill into the man’s lapel pocket. “Don’t want to chase away the muse and all.”

  The concierge responded as if he were taking a solemn oath. “Mr. Curtis, I fully understand. I do a bit of writing myself, and when I get started, I tend—”

  Gavin extended the index finger of his free hand and pressed it against Thad’s lips. “Shhhhhhh.”

  Thad shrugged as he pulled back from the finger with embarrassment. “Uh… Yes, sir.”

  As Gavin moved to the open elevator and pressed the button for the seventh floor, he called out, “Maybe I’ll name a character after you if you don’t mess this up!”

  The elevator slid closed with Thad beaming like an expectant father.

  The room was noticeably colder than it had been when Gavin left a couple of hours before. Tossing the keycard and plastic bag onto the dresser, he made his way to the thermostat. The temperature displayed an even seventy-eight degrees, but it was much cooler than that. He aggressively mashed the arrow key until the digital readout stopped at eighty-five. Next, he slid open the balcony door at the end of the suite to allow the warmth of the July sun into the room.

  The kid on the bike was back at it again. Gavin didn’t know why, but this teenager doing stunts in the parking lot annoyed him to no end. Gavin contemplated filling the latex gloves with water and tossing them like water balloons at the little punk. He only needed one pair, and the package contained an even twenty-four. On any other day, it would have been an amusing way to spend the afternoon, but right now, there were more pressing matters.

  Focus, Gav, focus.

  He tore open the package and snapped a glove onto his left hand. Obviously, his fingerprints already covered the outside and keyboard
, but he was taking precautions for what he hoped to find inside. If Béla or his jackass brother had installed a transmitter in the typewriter, their prints would be all over the device. He’d simply pluck out the radio or whatever it was, present it to the police, and be in the clear.

  The only problem he foresaw with the plan was that the antique would be impounded as evidence, leaving him without a gift for Billy’s party. There was no way around this. It had to be done in order to implicate Puma Jacket.

  He sighed as he wiggled his fingers into the second translucent glove.

  Gavin approached the desk, and his heart skipped a beat as he saw the sentence typed at the top of the page.

  DON'T LEAVE THE HOTEL AGAIN.

  He turned and slowly looked around the room. After checking under the bed, in the closet, and in the bathroom, Gavin finally returned to the desk.

  Was this some elaborate prank? He scanned the area for concealed miniature cameras. The only thing that he couldn’t resolve about it being a hidden-camera show was that no one knew he’d taken the typewriter. He wasn’t even certain that Béla and his brother knew, when he thought of it.

  But they had to know.

  His heart beat wildly as he typed.

  WHG ARE YGU?

  The machine was ice cold to the touch. He retyped the question, this time without mistakes.

  WHO ARE YOU?

  Gavin stared at the letters, awaiting a response. After a minute or so, he strained to listen. He put his ear near the device, expecting to hear a modem, a hum, or something—anything. All he heard was the sounds of kids cheering on the stupid bicycle boy from the lot below.

  Gavin proceeded with his original plan: locate the transmission device, remove it, and take it to the cops. He tilted the machine on one side and then the other, searching for a way to gain access to its inner workings. It felt like a block of dry ice through the latex. How could it be that cold?

  With every seam heavily welded, there was no way for him to peek inside. His million-dollar imagination placed him in a dimly lit bunker at the height of the Cold War. Pictured there were Russian spies—make that Hungarian spies—transmitting top-secret launch codes and the like from this heap of metal.

  He lifted the machine above his head for the light of the desk lamp to shine inside the circular opening of the paper feed. He shook it several times in hopes of dislodging a piece of it. The keys swayed as they made jangling noises, but they revealed nothing.

  Gavin remembered the banana-shaped flashlight on the rental-car key ring and wished that he’d detached it instead of giving it to the valet. He had to get a better look inside.

  The midday sunlight beckoned to him from the balcony. At least it would be warmer out there and have better light.

  Grabbing the device and clumsily sliding the door open, he made his way to the cast-iron furniture. He placed the typewriter on the small table with care. Even in the natural light of day, the machine gave up no secrets.

  Gavin was perplexed. There had to be a way to change out the roll of paper if nothing else. He cautiously tilted it onto its back, looking for a latch.

  He wished the bike kid would shut up. There was a congregation of delinquents below now. “What a little punk.” He tried to ignore the distraction, but it was too much. The teenage crowd was chanting something—probably the boy’s name—and Gavin needed to concentrate. He had to figure this thing out before the blackmailer or blackmailers lowered the boom on him.

  Where were all of these kids’ parents?

  “Concentrate,” he ordered himself, returning the typewriter to its level position.

  Somehow, the bicycle boy was doing figure eights while standing on the hub of the front wheel. The stunt was impressive enough for Gavin to stop and watch for a few seconds. More hoots and hollers came from below.

  Gavin returned his attention to the typewriter. The whip-crack strike of the keys filled his ears as he typed a pangram.

  TWELVE ZIOGURATS QUIC6LY JUMPED A FINCH BGX.

  He retyped the line, this time making sure to activate the shift register in the proper places.

  TWELVE ZIGGURATS QUICKLY JUMPED A FINCH BOX.

  Upon completing the line, he pressed his ear to the device, hoping to hear something. He remembered the static and electronic gurgles of his first fax machine from years ago. There was nothing like that here, just silence except for the stupid bicycle kid and the ruckus from the kids down below.

  “Shut up!” Gavin yelled, but the command either went unheard or was ignored by the teenage mob.

  He pressed his ear to the cold metal of the machine—still nothing. He typed.

  THE CRAZY EXPERT IN WOVEN PAJAMAS QUICKLY STABBED A GHOST FROG.

  He tried to listen, but the little stunt show in the parking lot grew louder. “Shut up, you stupid punks!” Exasperated, he snapped off the gloves and tossed them on the ground.

  He thought he heard something within the machine, but he wasn’t certain. Gavin lifted the device and held it to his other ear.

  More applause, with added whistles.

  “Argh!” He furiously pounded at the keys.

  THE BIKE KID SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

  This time, the carriage return snapped back as quickly as a bear trap, ringing an unseen metal bell from within the antique. Out of reflex, he pulled back from the abrupt retort of the mechanism. The smell of lavender returned. “Warm,” Gavin mumbled. “The keys are warm.”

  Bewildered, he reached for it. He stopped short when he heard a scream.

  The high-pitched shriek of a young girl’s voice from the ground level pierced his psyche. Gavin jumped up and made his way to the rail of the balcony. Other voices joined the screams below. There was a figure on the ground. The entire crowd of teenagers shouted at once in a cacophony of sound, the music of panic.

  The bicycle boy must’ve hit one of the other kids—no, wait. It was the kid on the bike. He was the one sprawled out on the ground. Had a car hit him? No, the cars were perfectly aligned in their spots. Was it a stunt gone bad?

  “Hey!” Gavin shouted. “Up here!” It took a moment for a girl in the crowd to determine where the voice came from. She blocked the sunlight with her forearm as she looked up at the seventh-story balcony.

  “What happened to him?” Gavin yelled.

  She cupped her hands and shouted back, “Glen had a seizure! Call 911, mister!”

  Gavin rushed in and dialed 911. He got a woman at the front desk instead, who took forever explaining how the phone system routed emergency calls to them. She told him that she was alerting the EMS team and would also dispatch the resort’s on-site nurse to the scene.

  Gavin rushed back outside. There were already a couple of adults hunched over the boy. The shiny BMX bike lay on the pavement outside of the huddle of people working to revive the kid.

  Anxiously tearing open the carton of cigarettes from the drug store, he unwrapped a pack and shoved a cigarette into his mouth. He paced the length of the L-shaped balcony for a better look, but he had a poor vantage point. He contemplated going down to the lot, but what could he do there? He dismissed the idea moments later when the flashing strobes of the ambulance appeared. The vehicle’s siren added to the symphony of chaos already in progress.

  He sat back in the deck chair, watching the show through the balcony’s metal guardrail.

  He hadn’t noticed it before, but the two lines that he’d typed were different in color from the greasy, black characters he was accustomed to from the machine. They were just as oily, but the letters had a dark burgundy tint to them. He inspected them, running his thumb over the words, “SHUT UP.”

  “Owww!” Gavin quickly yanked his hand away as if he’d accidentally touched a live burner on a stove. “Son of a—”

  Out of reflex, he stuck his thumb between his teeth and sucked on it. Then he pulled it out and examined the small, red mark on it.

  He stared at the typed lines of text. The color of the sentences grew darker, transforming
to the blackened characters he was familiar with.

  “That’s impossible,” he said. “And how could it burn me?” Even more outlandish was how the kid had fallen from the bike at the exact moment that Gavin had typed the line.

  Had he made that happen, or was it a coincidence?

  It had to be a coincidence, but somehow, deep inside, he knew it wasn’t. He’d unintentionally caused this.

  Gavin warily stepped away from the machine. Retreating into the coolness of the hotel room, he slid the door shut and studied the device through the glass.

  Unlike whatever had happened to Misa Kawaguchi, the female dancer, Gavin had seen this unfold before his own eyes. There was no involvement of Béla or his stupid gangster brother on this one. It was just him, the boy, and the typewriter. As crazy as it was, he had to face the fact that the kid had been fine until he’d typed the line of text.

  He lit another cigarette and locked the latch on the sliding door.

  There was no reasonable explanation for any of this. It was impossible. Nevertheless, the evidence was below him on the asphalt.

  Was this what the Hungarian trio had feared? He tried to remember waking up in that dank warehouse—the way they had acted when he had thrust it at them. What had they said? They weren’t afraid of him. They were afraid of it. Why, then, had they typed the phrase “I’m coming through” on it? Who was coming through?

  He’d never given much credence to Ouija boards, tea leaves, and the like, but something was happening here.

  Was the device like sticking pins in some voodoo doll? What would happen to Puma Jacket if Gavin typed in, “The thug stabbed himself”? Could it reach that far? He fantasized about watching a news story about a Hungarian man fatally slipping and falling on his own switchblade.

  Gavin knew he’d never do such a thing, even though he hated that jerk. He was no killer. He could imagine a thousand and one deaths for him, but to actually do it or cause it to happen was way out of bounds.