by Dan Glover
"So Danners tells you're into information technology, Reilly."
"I am at that, Liza."
"Would you be open to lending us your expertise if the need arises? We'd make sure to compensate you, of course."
Sure... I can do that, Liza. Are you involved with anything now?"
"Possibly... we're going to San Diego tomorrow to talk to a prospective client. We'll be working down in Mexico if we decide to take the case. It'd be handy to have someone back here we can count on for support."
I hate the FBI, Liza. When I applied I had no idea how all-consuming the job would be... especially after 9/11. Up until then a man could spend a dozen years making special agent in charge, pull down well into six figures a year in some out of the way place, put in his thirty, and retire with full pay plus health care for life, still a young man, or at least youngish anyhow.
2
All of a sudden everything changed. The sudden glare of a terror attack on domestic soil caused the director to issue mandate after mandate and as in all else in life shit ran downhill to pool in the lowest spot... him and his fellow agents still trying to put a spit shine on the turd that was called the FBI. Hell, maybe he expected too much. No one else seemed to be complaining.
Then it was 2007, the first truly smart phones were appearing on the market, and what did his superior think of them? A passing fad. Wouldn’t catch on, Cooper. Forget about it. God, where did they find men like that? Supposedly Matt Murk, special agent in charge, was a highly touted graduate of Cornell or some such Ivy League institution that had been around since the Flood or so it was rumored. Reilly soon learned those cocksuckers earned their promotions not by hard work and diligence but instead on account of the blue fucking blood pumping through their goddamned gold plated veins.
Now here it was, seven years later, and every swinging dick had a smart phone in their pockets. Of course the same mopes who told him they were just a fad, to forget about smartphones, were the same ones claiming to have foreseen the digital revolution. Assholes all. The only ones that weren’t busted out of the Bureau pronto, or resigned. No fucking future. That's what they all wrote on their resignation papers. Or so he imagined.
These days most every agent Reilly had the misfortune of meeting was old school. Nine out of ten couldn’t even log onto a computer without help. And now a new revolution was coming... within a year or two those old desktop monstrosities would be replaced with tablets the size of a dime store novel... people'd be able to carry them everywhere they went. Yet the morons in charge at the FBI consistently hid their heads up each other's arses lest the 21st century caught up to them unawares.
"You know me
3
"And Danners are no longer an item... right, Liza? I don't want things to be awkward."
"Yes, I know, Reilly. That's why I called. It isn’t a problem... if you feel more comfortable I'll be your contact."
She was smart, this one. Sharp looking too. How the hell had she gotten tangled up with Danners Forthright? With her pizzazz Liza McNairy could write million dollar checks to herself and not have to worry about them bouncing. Supposedly the old faggot had a sixth sense when it came to locating people but Reilly never believed in that shit. No... there had to be some angle Danners was playing... one that no one else had figured out yet. But they would. And when that happened, the old queen would be shunted off to somewhere over the rainbow. Until then... he supposed he should tag along for the ride.
"That sounds great, Liza. Call me anytime."
Give that faggot the boot and let's you and me partner up, baby. We'll take 'em by storm. With your looks and my expertise, there'd be no stopping us. Hell, for all he knew he might've actually had a chance with the woman if he hadn’t come out the way he did... let on that he was queer. The fact of the matter was, he could never be sure. Some guys liked batting from both sides of the plate and maybe he was one of them. But then again his predilection towards pink tights and matching tees probably gave him away.
Don't ask, don't tell. That was the mantra that he lived by. Or tried to. But then here came little queen Danners Forthright frolicking into his life. What the hell was the attraction? He liked the man, sure, but not in any sense of the word as a lover. They'd never even done it. Christ, he couldn’t remember even holding hands with the man. So why the hell did Danners suddenly seem to think they were an item? Or did he?
Now here he was avoiding the man like he carried the sickness. Who was that bitch wandering around New York City back in the 19th century causing an epidemic to break out? Typhoid Mary. That was it. Yep. Dapper Danners Forthright, Omega man of the 21st century. Stay the fuck away from me, kind sir.
Mexico? Why on earth would they take a job in Mexico? Maybe one of the drug cartels lost a shipment and hired the fabulous psychic and his bimbo blonde sidekick to help track it down.
Chapter 3—Lissi and Lizzi
(Born the Fool)
1
It wasn’t his fault he'd been born an idiot. He had other skills. In fact, the less he knew the better. He suspected if he ever grew certain of his circumstances the well of prescient tendencies that he drew from would dry up and disappear like the queers and the queens loitering in the cuts on Santa Monica Boulevard at dawn.
He never understood why Liza McNairy stayed with him. Not because they were lovers... though if the dreams he'd had lately presaged anything at all that too would someday change. Liza was one of the few people he'd ever met who was as damaged as he was and he meant that in only good ways. Most folk had no idea of the struggles others fought each and every day. All they thought about was their own shitty lives... how to acquire more of whatever particular poison they chose.
"I'm a twin, Danners. My sister is named Lissi, which rhymes with sissy. She calls me Lizzi which rhymes with fizzy."
"So when do I get to meet her, Liza?"
"You don’t. At least not anytime soon. She died when we were fifteen years old."
"Jesus, I'm so sorry, lover. I had no idea."
"We just celebrated our twenty fifth birthday last week. I always bake a cake for her too."
That's just a little too fucking weird, Liza. How can anyone process something like that? Baking a cake for your twin sister who's been dead for ten years? Can you say Miss Havisham slaughtering lambs three times really fast? Do you let the cake sit on a table and rot for a year and then bake another one?
At least he wasn’t the only demented denizen of the city. Of course his perversions ran quite a bit deeper than Liza's though the girl surprised him from time to time nevertheless. Like the night he walked into his bathroom unannounced and caught her shooting up. Looking back, he was sure she did it purposely just so he'd know the sort of character he was getting involved with. There were some addictions to which words could not do justice and hers was one of them.
He ignored it for the most part. Took her into the seedy parts of town to score when she asked. Straight into Compton and right back out. Shopping. Take me shopping, Danners. Never tried to talk her into kicking but he did let her know that such habits weren’t appreciated in his presence. Not that he had any room to complain. Just because he wasn’t a smack addict didn’t mean he was clean. No... his vices were more private isolated affairs that only occurred when the lights were off.
"How did Lissi die, Liza? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking."
He had visions of a traffic accident. Some lethargic drunk running her down, her body lodging beneath the car and being dragged for miles while parts of her came loose and rolled into the gutters—an arm here, a leg there, maybe a few toes and fingers everywhere—until finally all that was left was the head stuck up in between the muffler and the floorboard and when the police finally stopped the man and looked beneath the vehicle her eyes were still blinking. Stop it, Danners. You're not going to sleep again tonight.
2
"There was a fire. I got out. She didn’t."
She shrugged while tilting her head to the side as
if that was that. Story over. Done with. All there was to tell. He had more questions but it didn’t seem right to pry. In time, maybe, Liza would open up to him and if not, that was her prerogative. Him, he disliked talking about his past too. If someone brought it up he might say a few words but then drop it. Resurrecting old bones did no one any good, at least as far as he could see. Let the dead enjoy their rest.
He especially hated Mother's Day. Why would anyone want to honor a mother like his? Love? There was none. Had he ever even cared for her? The question tormented him for years until he made peace with the fact that some people were never meant to be parents and his mother was one of them. He was a mistake. An accident. The result of a one night stand gone terribly awry.
She tried to abort him, or so she said when she got angry, which was often. Not once, she claimed, but twice... she used a metal coat hanger bent straight to try and scrape him off the wall of her uterus. To stress her point she'd often use that same instrument or one remarkably similar to beat him bloody all the while scolding him for messing up the floor with the piss and the blood pouring forth from his body. When he got older, after she'd vanished from his life, he realized she was probably lying to him about trying to abort him. Probably.
Even before mother left him in Union Station, he was afraid of trains. Every night he'd dream of riding, riding, riding... going someplace so far away it took days and nights to reach, and yet knowing all the while that when they finally made it to their destination, the life he'd known would end and a new one begin. Mother would evaporate into the vast pool of people crowding in upon him and though he was surrounded by others he'd forever be alone.
Like everyone else in the world, Danners Forthright was a creature of habit. He had his routines that he performed each morning and every night. Rituals. Little tricks that helped him over the rough patches of growing up with a woman who'd be certifiable in any court of law and yet who no one took the time to check if she had the temperament to raise a son, even after multiple trips to the emergency room to repair little mishaps like broken bones and mysterious cuts and burns sometimes so serious they required skin grafts.
What right did he have to know what had happened to Liza's twin sister, Lissi? None at all. He should keep his mouth shut. If Liza wanted to share, she would. If not, then it was none of his business. Yet it all seemed such an integral part of her life... the loss of Lissi, the subsequent estrangement from the rest of her family... the heroin habit she developed. Maybe if she talked about it, she might learn to face whatever demon was driving her to self medicate.
But that was all bullshit spouted by those who'd never been where the Liza McNairys or the Danners Forthrights of the world had. Deep pits of desolation so profoundly depressing that one either died outright from the knowledge such places existed or else they emerged somehow changed and not always for the better.
"I'm sorry, Liza. I shouldn’t have asked."
"No, it's okay, Danners. It's just that I miss Lissi. You know, everyone told me how time would make the pain grow less and less until finally it'd go away. But it never has. Or maybe I need to be more patient. You know?"
"I know, sweetie."
3
"How about you? Any brothers or sisters?"
"Not that I know of, sweetness. I never knew my father, though. For all I know, I could have a dozen siblings or more."
"How is it you never knew your father, DanDan?"
"That's just how it was when I was a kid, Liza. By the time I got old enough to ask the right questions, my mother was dead, and as far as I knew I had no other family."
"Don’t you ever wonder?"
"For a long time, I did. You don’t grow up in a succession of foster homes without imagining you have a father somewhere who might be searching for you. "
"Didn’t you ever do your thing, sweetie? You know, have one of your dragon dreams?"
"Sure... lots of times. It's funny. I can find other people. I can locate bodies that've been buried for decades. But I could never use my gift or my curse or whatever you want to call it to find my own father or anyone else close to me. Maybe he simply never existed at all. Remember that book, The World According to Garp?"
"Oh... the movie, sure, the one with Robin Williams."
"Yeah, they did make a movie of that story, didn’t they. But did the movie ever show how Garp was conceived?"
"I don't follow, DanMan. I'm not sure they go into that part. Or maybe I missed it."
"I never saw the movie, but in the book, the author tells how Garp's mother was a nurse in charge of caring for disabled war veterans. You know, the worst cases... the ones in comas, with traumatic head injuries. She noticed one particular boy always had an enormous erection. The only name on his records said Technical Sergeant Garp. So one night when she was on the floor all alone, she..."
"Oh you pervert, you."
"I didn’t write the story, Liza. I'm just telling you what happened."
"And you think your mother might have done the same thing?"
"Maybe... isn’t that better than knowing she was raped by a total stranger and that was why she hated me her whole life?"
"Your mother didn’t hate you, Danners."
"Yes she did. She brought me to Los Angeles and left me by myself at Union Station. I was six years old. Liza. You don’t do that to someone you love... right?"
"I'm sorry, sweetie. That must've been tough."
"No, not really. What was tough was living in Detroit in an all black neighborhood and being teased incessantly because I was effeminate. I still have dreams where I'm floating in Detroit River upside down after jumping off the MacArthur Bridge... the one I had to walk across every day to go to school. Sometimes I think that's what really happened and all this is just a dream I'm having as my brain slowly dies."
"Do I look like a dream to you, DanMan?"
"Sometimes..."
Chapter 4—Eduardo Ramirez
(Seems Like Old Times)
"Didn’t you work the Eduardo Ramirez case, Hank?"
"Jesus, Liza... that was right after I got promoted to detective. Sure I did. Went nowhere though. Happened in the land of volcanoes and hot tamales. The mother was all kinds of batshit crazy... kept talking about demons rolling up out of the ground and dragging her boy under. Kicking and screaming from what she said. How do you deal with leads like that?"
"Well, mommy dearest is dead now and sister-sister is asking questions. We're heading down to San Diego to meet with her. I was wondering if you might still have any of the old case files lying around that we could get a peek at."
"Mi casa es tu casa, la novia. Come on over sometime the day after tomorrow and they'll be ready. I'll have Marcy make copies."
Jesus... Liza McNairy. He'd wanted to screw her in the worst way. But something made him keep his distance for once... was it a sort of brother-sister thing? Maybe that was it. Looked out for her. Trusted her. And Hank Lupo didn’t trust many people. Hell... he'd go to bat for Liza McNairy any day or night. Knew she had his back too. That's how things were supposed to work. Not all fucked like it was today. Goddamned rookies coming up and just looking to take your badge. Spoiling to turn each other in over the slightest infraction. Not like it used to be.
Why in hell had she taken up with that jailbird? Danners Forthright should be getting his mail by way of gopher now instead of walking around like a billboard for Gay Man in Paradise. He'd come within six hours of being executed for the murder of an eight year old boy. The prosecution claimed he waited for the boy to get off the bus and kidnapped him. The body was never recovered. Goddamned pervert.
Some gay cocksucking liberal asshole of an attorney got the man a new trial. Hell, things didn’t even go that far. DNA analysis proved he wasn’t the perp. The District Attorney cut Forthright loose. All charges dismissed. Not only that but the lucky bastard got a wrongful arrest settlement from the city. Some twelve million dollars is what Hank heard. And all of a sudden the goofy motherfucker began show
ing up on television claiming to be some sort of psychic. That's what got him in hot water to start with. Some people never learned.
Were they lovers? Doubtfully. Somehow Hank couldn’t see Liza McNairy cuddling up with some fairy butt-pirate wearing a pink tutu and playing grab the wanger with any man who eyed him up for more than two seconds. Men like Danners Forthright made him want to puke. He was the antithesis of all things male. He ought to do the world a favor and do a Larry—call me Lana—Wachowski and change sex. At least then people would know where they stood with him... with her... with whatever.
Why did he tell Liza yes? Hell, he shouldn’t be giving out old case files. Not to amateurs. The Captain would have his sack stretched out and nailed to a board if he discovered Hank was giving out shit to just anyone who called. But he wouldn’t. Find out, that was. Who was going to tell him? No. No one questioned Hank Lupo's authority when it came to the cold case unit. Not even his superiors. They knew he'd get the job done if at all possible. And if not, then no one could do it.
Thing was though, McNairy and Forthright had solved four old cases in just the last two years. He kept track of that shit. High profile too. Cases that all the authorities had given up on. Of course unofficially. No cold case was ever deemed unsolvable. But some were simply past their prime. Like this Ramirez thing. Kid vanished from a resort town in Mexico. Hell, it wasn’t even his jurisdiction. But the mother was a citizen of the United States and so the State Department got involved. To no avail. Nothing to go on. No witnesses.
And then the Captain went and got a wild hair lodged crossways way the fuck up inside his asshole about helping out the governor, who happened to have a friend of a friend who was somehow related to the kid. Through marriage, maybe, or divorce. Who the hell knew? No one really said. Just that it would be looked upon as a favor if Hank could take a peek at things. See where it all went wrong. Like he was some sort of soothsayer. But what could he say? He did as asked. And failed just like all the others. Hell, even the Bureau got involved. The U.S. Marshall Service too.
