by Paul Neilan
Sidowsky told me to be at his place at ten sharp. It was past eleven as I dragged myself up his front steps. I was moving a lot slower than usual.
The door was unlocked. I let myself in.
There was music from down the hall, winding out an open door. I heard a voice rising and falling.
I was on the mat. Sidowsky’s gun belt dangled from the coat rack. I pulled his pistol from the holster. Made my way down the hall, into the sound.
I took it slow. Didn’t have much choice. I stepped into the doorway.
Sidowsky was lying with his pants down, handcuffed to the headboard of the bed, a belt around his neck. Beatrix leaned over him, a cucumber in her hand.
I stood there. I blinked.
Beatrix, in a brown-and-yellow bowling shirt, stopped, turned her head.
“This is exactly what it looks like,” she said, smiling. “What can I tell you. My man likes to bring his work home with him.”
“Drop the cucumber,” I said.
“You’re no fun,” she said, still smiling. “Or are you? You’re a tough one to read.”
She waggled the cucumber at me like a novelty cigar.
“Like they say, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Harrigan,” she said.
“Cut him loose,” I said.
“He’s not going anywhere, either way,” Beatrix said. “It’ll give us time to talk.”
“Cut him loose,” I said again.
“Oooh, I like that,” she said. “Commanding. Yes sir.”
She unlocked the cuffs, slow and deliberate. Sidowsky lay there supine. Stupefied. Like he’d been drugged or mesmerized.
“It’s just a little role play with my man,” she said. “I don’t know what you think is going on.”
I didn’t either. But I didn’t like it.
She unbuckled the belt from around Sidowsky’s neck. Pulled up his pants, sliding farther down the bed. She was working her hips, slow and deliberate. The music was getting louder, coming from all around the room. I heard the voice, above and below, the record skipping.
Everything you have is yours and not stolen…Everything you have is stolen not yours and…Everything you have…
She’d sidled to the end of the bed, by Sidowsky’s feet. She was poised. Coiled.
I turned in the doorway, shielding my bad side. Raised the gun in my good hand.
“Stop moving,” I said.
She smiled at me in a leer. “I can’t,” she hissed. She rolled her neck, her head dipping, serpentine.
“The safety’s still on,” she said.
“No it isn’t,” I said, my eyes never lifting from hers.
“A girl’s gotta try,” she said, still leering. “Doesn’t she?”
“Chair,” I said, the gun on her. “Now.”
She scissored her legs across the floor, like a snake over sand in the desert. Sat in the rocker by the window. Eased it back and forth, slow and deliberate, as the rain slapped the glass. There was something hypnotic in all her movements. I shook it off. I held on to the gun.
“I suppose you want to know how it started,” Beatrix said. “I do too. Sometimes I remember what he said to me, all those years ago. Look at them. They’re pawns. They don’t even know they’re playing. They don’t even know it’s a game. But you? You are a queen. And I am the hand that moves you.”
Rain brushed the window. She rocked back and forth.
“I was only a girl then,” she said. “Most women are. I’ve never met a man. Do you know any, Harrigan?”
“You couldn’t find one at the Dunwich Academy?” I said.
In a flash of her teeth I saw the animal moving underneath. She saw me see it and her smile went wider. Curving. Rictus.
“Dunwich,” she said, her voice slipping like a mask. “Dunwich was a proving ground. They should’ve never let us go. But now that we’re acquainted”—her words creaked with the rocker—“I can tell you what you want to know.”
“Basil Fenton,” I said.
“He was business,” she said. “Now Eddie Lompoc, that was a pleasure.”
Her face changed. The angle of her chin, slanting. She was still smiling.
“Eddie Lompoc was the salt of the earth. Dump him in the ground and he’d ruin the fucking dirt. All seriousness though, he could sniff out an angle like a truffle pig. Steal a joke like one too,” she said, the same dead-on Eddie Lompoc impersonation. I felt a crawl up my spine. “One night onstage he says Nobody talks about Schrödinger’s neighbor. Does a bit about the housewarming gift Schrödinger gave him when he moved to the neighborhood. Dead cat. Funny stuff. And when this red-haired twist called him on it, maybe he called her on a few things too. Thought he knew what she got up to, when she wasn’t onstage herself. Maybe he wasn’t wrong. Not entirely. He was always too smart for his own good, that Eddie. And a little too stupid to realize it. Never saw the cucumber coming.”
She worked a pantomime. Made a face like Eddie would have, deadpan. Rocking back and forth.
“Eddie Lompoc, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “Let’s all give him a hand. Right up his ass, like the fucking puppet he was.”
“Et fenestrae clausae,” I said.
“And the window closed,” she said, her voice creaking again. “I gave that one to the Rev. You don’t know what it’s like, living in that house, Harrigan. Or maybe you do.”
She looked at me, dragged a finger down her cheek like a tear.
“I see the way you are,” she said. “How you watch people. I see you, Harrigan. We’re not so different, you and me. We look for a lot of the same things. The same weaknesses.”
She stretched her arm up, reaching for the ceiling, pulled at her elbow. “You’d be good at it, you know,” she said, bending, sighing into the stretch. She wagged her chin back and forth, her face a pendulum, slow and deliberate. “You do know, don’t you.” She smiled. “How did I miss that?”
“You’re playing for time,” I said, gripping the gun tighter. “It won’t work. We always lose.”
“But I’ve still got a joke,” she said.
“I figured you would,” I said.
“Nobody talks about Schrödinger’s funeral,” Beatrix said.
Funeral Director: Once again, Mrs. Schrödinger—
Mrs. Schrödinger: Call me Anny.
Funeral Director: Yes, of course. Anny. Once again, I am deeply sorry for your loss.
Mrs. Schrödinger: Yup.
Funeral Director: Now, will it be an open or closed casket?
Mrs. Schrödinger: Neither. He’s being cremated.
Funeral Director: I see. I was under the impression, however, per the instructions I had previously received—
Mrs. Schrödinger: I don’t give a goddamn what instructions you received or what anybody’s wishes were. I am not putting that man in a box, for reasons I’m not going to explain, and which frankly are none of anybody’s business.
Funeral Director: Of course, of course. I apologize. At this most difficult time—
Mrs. Schrödinger: My daughter’s not even coming. I don’t blame her. I shouldn’t be here either. Burying this fucking psychopath.
Beatrix dipped her fingers into her shirt pocket—Erwin written in looping script on the pocket flap—and pulled out a joint. Her other hand found a lighter. I watched her light it, slow and deliberate, blow the acrid smoke at me. It slipped like bitter fog across the room.
Funeral Director: I see, uh, yes. But, I must say, uh, there’s no smoking here. Even in bereavement, with medicinal, uh, herb, such as it may be—
Mrs. Schrödinger: I’ve got a question for you.
Beatrix inhaled, held the smoke in her lungs.
Mrs. Schrödinger: What’s your name?
Funeral Director: Gerald.
Mrs. Schrödinger: I’ve got a question for you Gerry.
Beatrix loosed another cloud at me.
Mrs. Schrödinger: You like cats?
Funeral Director: Cats? I, uh, no. No I don’t…Do you?
Beatrix blew another stream at me. Held up the joint, still smoking.
Mrs. Schrödinger: Now how about we burn this motherfucker down and see where it takes us?
Beatrix rocked forward in the chair.
“Well, Harrigan,” she said, holding it out to me like a torch. “What do you say? No need for a cyanide pill when you can smoke yourself to sleep. Take the easy way, for once. You don’t like it here either. I can tell. Come with me.”
“I’m not finished yet,” I said.
“I am,” she said, looking at the half-burned joint in her hand. “Suit yourself.”
I stood in the doorway. She sat there, puffing away, rocking back and forth, spewing smoke at me with a smile until it was gone. Until the thin wisps strung between us went stale and dissipated. Until the gun was heavy in my hand. Until Sidowsky started moaning in the bed, struggling up from the fever. Until first light crept into the window’s dark, spattered glass. Until the look on Beatrix’s face changed and the film settled over her eyes. Until she stopped rocking and was still.
I stood in the doorway.
friday
I left her there in the morning, her body rigid in the chair, Sidowsky shaking his head, wondering how he’d explain it to the boys downtown. How he’d explain it to himself.
I was having a drink back at my apartment, too wired to sleep, when I heard a knock at my door.
“Harrigan,” Aoki said, standing under a clear umbrella. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
I stood out of her way, took her olive drab jacket and hung it on the hook.
“You look like you’ve been through the ringer,” she said.
“And back again,” I said.
“I know the feeling,” she said, shaking her loose hair. “Nice place you’ve got here.” She looked at the map of the world, torn and lying on the floor.
“I’m redecorating,” I said.
“Looks like you’re taking your time with it,” she said.
“I always do,” I said. “Drink?”
She sat down at the table across from me while I poured her bubbles. “This brings back memories,” she said, clinking my glass.
“Let’s hope we’re not interrupted this time,” I said. “You can tell me all about yourself.”
“Maybe later,” she said. “Right now I’m worried about Sloan.”
“So am I,” I said. “She liked handling that gun.”
“You have no idea,” Aoki said.
“What are you doing with Parallax?” I said. “The Fraction’s a nasty business.”
“Like I told you,” she said, taking a drink. “I’m looking for a way out.”
“fvrst chvrch mvlTverse can get you off Grid,” I said.
“I’ve heard that rumor,” she said. “But what then? You’re stuck picking up garbage for them. That’s not what I want. And if they can take you off, they can put you back on.”
“I thought you were working together,” I said. “They’ve been carrying your people all over the city, under the cams.”
“They’re not my people,” Aoki said. “I don’t have any people.”
She took a drink. “They move us around, but we don’t trust each other,” she said. “Nobody does. That’s why I’m here.” She looked at me, across the table. “They couldn’t find Anna but they picked up that coder, Anton. The one who wrote Mirror Mirror with Stan Volga. Sloan’s got him locked up at the apartment on Hawthorn. He keeps babbling about the Queen of Pentacles and Snow White. I don’t know what she’ll do to him if he doesn’t talk.”
“He’ll talk,” I said. “He just won’t make any sense. Why bring it to me?”
“Anton said you were his friend,” she said.
“I don’t know how that rumor got started,” I said.
“You and Stan Volga and a girlfriend, Shelly,” she said.
“She’s Zodiac,” I said. “Virgo.”
“Shit,” she said. “He didn’t mention that.”
“She knows he’s missing,” I said. “She was tracking him at The Accelerator. The alarm’s already tripped.”
“You have to get him out,” Aoki said. “It’s not safe for him there with Sloan.”
I finished my drink, thought about another, looked at her.
“What do you want me to do?” I said.
* * *
“It’s Aoki,” she said into the screen outside the building on Hawthorn. When the door opened I followed her inside.
“I’ll get Sloan out of the apartment,” Aoki said. “You’ll have to take care of Alvarez. He’s up there too.”
“That’s not a problem,” I said.
“Anton’s locked in the isolation tank,” she said. “And hurry. I won’t be able to keep her out long.”
I waited around the corner as she went up the stairs. A few minutes later I heard voices in the stairwell, and then Aoki and Sloan came out and walked down the hallway, through the front door. I went up the stairs, two flights, into the hallway with its threadbare carpet and broken overhead light. I stepped lightly down to the last door on the left, stood there, listening. I didn’t hear a thing.
I eased the door open, slow. Saw Alvarez sitting in the chair with his back to me, facing the screen. He was plugged in, his hair spilling down his back, while on-screen he combed the mane of a lady centaur with a bejeweled silver brush.
I crept up behind him, slipped my arm around his neck and leaned my weight on him. He was too shocked to struggle much, legs kicking as he flailed, and then he was out. I left him slumped in the chair, went through the doorway, into the other room, where the isolation tank was set against the wall. I unhooked the latch, opened the lid. Anton was staring at me, wide eyed, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“I was in another dimension,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ve never slept so good in my whole life.”
I helped him out of the tank. He was shaking all over.
“I have so much to tell her,” he said. “Can we plug into that screen? Is he OK?”
He walked towards Alvarez, still slumped in the chair.
“We need to get out of here, Anton,” I said, hustling him through the room. “Before they come back.”
“The lady with the long hair was nice,” he said. “The other one wasn’t. She wanted to know about Mirror Mirror, but I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t know how. Even in there, in the dark, it’s so confusing.”
He looked back at the isolation chamber, longingly.
“Your girlfriend’s been looking for you,” I said. “Shelly.”
“She found you?” Anton said. “That’s good. She didn’t think you were real. She never believes me. I don’t believe me either, anymore. I’m not sure if any of this is real. The Queen of Pentacles won’t tell me. She makes me think it is, but then they brought me here in a garbage can. Two bald monks in gray robes, like druids from the future. It doesn’t make any sense. What if he was right about the Navajo Rangers and the secret really is your hair. The monks didn’t have any. That would put them at a disadvantage, wouldn’t it? And what if—”
“Anton!” I said.
He was drifting over to the screen, his hand outstretched in a trance.
“Huh?” he said. “Oh. Sorry.”
“We need to go,” I said. “Now.”
“Did you find him?” Anton said as I closed the door behind us. “Did you find Mirabilis Orsted?”
“I talked to him,” I said.
“What did he tell you?” he said, following me down the hall.
“He told me to get out of the city,” I said, taking the stairs fast. “By Sunday. Before the comet comes.”
“That was for me,” he said. “The Queen of Pentacles said he’d have a message I needed to hear, but that it would have to come from you. Like a herald, secondhand. She said I couldn’t get too close myself.”
“She’s not wrong,” I said
as we went outside. “You’ll need to leave town. Don’t go back to The Accelerator. Don’t go home. Don’t tell Shelly.”
“Why can’t I tell Shelly?” he said. “She’s going to be so mad.”
“She’s been tracking you for Zodiac,” I said. “Keeping tabs on Mirror Mirror.”
“Shelly?” he said. “That’s why the Queen of Pentacles didn’t want to meet her. She’s been protecting me. And herself.”
“Looks that way,” I said as we came to the corner. “Now it’s time for you to go.”
“What are you going to do?” Anton said.
I was asking myself the same question.
* * *
My phone vibrated. I picked up.
“Harrigan,” Leda Dresden said. “Still hanging around?”
“I’m here,” I said. “Just barely.”
“Can you meet?” she said.
“Where?” I said.
“Muscle Beach,” she said. “By the mural.”
“What mural?” I said.
“You’ll see it,” she said.
I found a bus stop down the street where a woman was muttering “Vidalia onions fucking hate themselves. Only radishes know why” over and over again. When the bus came I got on, found a seat in the back behind two guys in stained ponchos, one of them watching a screen.
“What the fuck is that?” Ollie said, pointing out the window.
“It’s a building,” Wayne said.
“I know it’s a building,” Ollie said. “Why does it say Morgan on it?”
“That’s the name,” Wayne said. “It’s the Morgan Building.”
“Who names a building?” Ollie said. “What kind of sense does that make? Hey Larry, you mind if I come in? Yeah sure, be my guest. Or stand there on the sidewalk talking to yourself, what do I care. I’m a fucking building. And who the fuck is Larry?”
“Would you shut the fuck up?” Wayne said. “I’m trying to watch my show.”
“I don’t get it, why do you want to look at somebody else’s house?” Ollie said. “You don’t even know them. What’s that hanging on the wall?”
“It’s a wagon wheel,” Wayne said.
“What the fuck is a wagon wheel doing on the wall?” Ollie said. “Where’s it going?”
