Bolt

by Bryan Cassiday

  He hadn’t noticed anybody tailing him to the park.

  “Did anybody follow you here?” he asked Deirdre.

  “I didn’t see anyone. Is somebody watching us?” she said, becoming apprehensive.

  “I don’t think so. We have to be careful, though. That’s why we should limit our phone calls. They can be intercepted.”

  She groaned. “I hate all this paranoia. It’s making me antsy.”

  “Where’s your husband?”

  “At work.”

  A mallard squawked, shot out of the pond with a splash, ruffled its feathers, and soared a foot over their heads on its trajectory into the sky, startling them, emitting another squawk as it flew.

  Deirdre let out a small scream of surprise and covered her chest with her hand. Brody ducked.

  “Are you OK?” said Brody.

  “You’re the one that had a heart attack,” said Deirdre, gathering her composure.

  “It wasn’t a heart attack. It was food poisoning.”

  “It’s all this paranoia. I can’t stand it.”

  Chapter 21

  Marcello was sitting at a McDonald’s in downtown LA eating a burger. He liked burgers. They even had McDonald’s in Calabria. Golden arches all over the world linking humanity with burgers. And yet he didn’t feel linked.

  He tried hard to be like other people, to feel the same emotions they felt, so they wouldn’t attack him. It never worked out. In the end, he didn’t care what anyone thought. They sensed this, and it infuriated them all the more.

  The only thing he ever really felt was anger and hate. He had to pretend to feel the other emotions. He went to a psychologist once out of curiosity. She said he was a narcissist and a solipsist in danger of becoming a sociopath if he wasn’t careful. Her diagnosis was wrong. He already was a sociopath. She was lucky he didn’t kill her for her mistake, or kill her on a whim.

  He was the only one that existed in this world. Nobody else was real. How could you have feelings for others if none of the others were real? he wondered. The world was a virtual reality game for him alone to play.

  It was a fun game till people got in his way. Even though the people weren’t real, they could get in his way. Then he got angry.

  He chewed on a French fry. He loved McDonald’s French fries. Their fries were better than those at fancy restaurants.

  He wished the mastro di giornata would call him with orders from the capo crimine. All this waiting was driving Marcello crazy. It was the worst thing about his job. He spent most of his time waiting. He was bored.

  He had dreams of killing his targets with a crossbow, impaling their bodies with arrows so they would look like Botticelli’s painting of St. Sebastian, with so many arrows that their bodies would resemble porcupines.

  It was odd going through life as a sociopath. Lacking feelings for others he found it hard to keep himself amused.

  How did you amuse yourself when nobody else existed? he wondered.

  A dirty bum with long greasy hair and large liquid brown eyes shambled up to Marcello’s polystyrene table and held his wobbly hand out toward Marcello.

  “Can you spare some change?” said the bum.

  “No,” said Marcello, and went back to munching his French fries.

  There was no reason to give him any money because he didn’t exist, decided Marcello. The bum was an image projected in the pointless game Marcello was playing on a virtual reality machine. Didn’t the bum know he didn’t need to eat because he wasn’t real? What did he need change for? He didn’t need food.

  Marcello didn’t like bums. He had to work for his money. Why didn’t bums have to? He especially didn’t like bums he couldn’t stand downwind of without wanting to retch, particularly while he was eating.

  He yawned.

  He should be purchasing a weapon, since he had flown unarmed to America to avoid touching off alarms at the airport. He didn’t want to buy weapons until he knew the identity of the target and where they lived. The mastro de giornata would give him a phone number to call to purchase a weapon when the time was right, or he could buy one on his own, as long as it wasn’t a gun, which would require a waiting period.

  “The Martians are coming,” said the bum.

  “I know, buddy. I know,” said Marcello.

  “Do you have a ray gun to fight them off with?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  The bum nodded in agreement, his expression earnest, and shambled away from Marcello, intent on panhandling at another customer’s table.

  Two seventysomething guys were discussing their testosterone levels and their PSA readings at the next table.

  A twentysomething brunette wearing a black dress and red vinyl boots swung over to a table in Marcello’s line of vision.

  He wanted to tie her to a tree and shoot her full of arrows turning her into a human pincushion, creating his own painting of St. Sebastian with a female model to rival Botticelli’s masterpiece. Marcello’s fancied image of her was arousing him. Arrows sticking out of her voluptuous, nude body. Blood trickling down her smooth ivory flanks, down her belly, down . . .

  Chapter 22

  Brody returned to his apartment.

  Sitting at his desk he logged into the Elysian Fields website.

  Myshkin: Anybody there?

  Margaux Hemingway: Yes. How are you today?

  Myshkin: I’ve got a question. Do you lie about having epilepsy?

  Margaux Hemingway: No. Why should I?

  Teddy Roosevelt: I do.

  Caligula: I do, too. People look down on you if you let them know you’re an epileptic.

  Teddy Roosevelt: It makes them feel superior to you after they find out about it.

  Margaux Hemingway: I don’t think so. People want to help other people.

  Teddy Roosevelt: They look down on you or they feel sorry for you.

  Caligula: Crocodile tears. Or they avoid you altogether after they find out. Did any of you ever experience that?

  Teddy Roosevelt: Yes. I got drunk with one of my friends once and told him I had epilepsy. I never saw him again.

  Margaux Hemingway: Then he really wasn’t your friend.

  Myshkin: The way I look at it, it’s nobody business. If somebody asked me point-blank, I’d lie and say no.

  Caligula: Revealing your condition in a job interview won’t help your chances of getting a job.

  Teddy Roosevelt: I’ll drink to that. They’re gonna think you got a disease and you’re not fit to hire.

  Margaux Hemingway: Is it that bad? Are people that cruel?

  Teddy Roosevelt: Business is business. You’re better off keeping your mouth shut.

  Caligula: I would never volunteer the information to anyone.

  Margaux Hemingway: I’ve told people, and they sympathize with me.

  Teddy Roosevelt: That’s not my experience. Employers want to hire healthy people, not someone who has a habit of passing out and convulsing.

  Caligula: I consider myself healthy. I don’t believe epileptic seizures affect job performance.

  Margaux Hemingway: I don’t either.

  Teddy Roosevelt: I’m just telling you their viewpoint. I don’t think it’s right.

  Myshkin: I lie about it because I believe it’ll cost me clients if people find out the truth.

  Teddy Roosevelt: There’s nothing wrong with lying about it.

  Margaux Hemingway: You make it sound like there’s something dirty about our condition.

  Teddy Roosevelt: Of course, there isn’t. But you can’t change how people think.

  Margaux Hemingway: Why not? If people are more educated about epilepsy, they won’t be scared of people who have it.

  Caligula: Maybe they think it’s contagious, like leprosy or something.

  Teddy Roosevelt: People can be so stupid.

  Margaux Hemingway: Don’t you feel guilty about lying about your condition?

  Caligula: Not at all.

  Teddy Roosevelt: Me neither. All this st
uff about transparency is bullshit. Some things are nobody’s business.

  Myshkin: I agree.

  Margaux Hemingway: Well, I talk about it with my friends, and I feel better about it. Like I’m talking with you guys.

  Caligula: I’m outta here.

  Teddy Roosevelt: Sounds like a plan. My wife just walked in.

  Margaux Hemingway: I didn’t realize how late it is. I’ve got work to do. Bye.

  Brody signed off.

  Chapter 23

  Deirdre was sitting on the sofa in the living room sorting through her mail that lay on the coffee table when Valerie walked in from the pool in a lavender bikini, drying herself off with a pink bath towel, followed by her boyfriend Nick Davis, a tall, muscular dark-haired guy pushing twenty in blue bathing trunks.

  Valerie was holding a leash with a studded leather collar attached to Nick’s neck. The pointed steel studs projected half an inch high an inch apart from each other. He was carrying a transistor radio that was blasting Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.”

  “Have you seen Busby, Mom?” said Valerie.

  “What?” said Deirdre, squinting and gesturing toward her ear as she looked up from a gas bill she was inspecting.

  “Have you seen Busby?” Valerie said louder.

  “No, dear. Don’t drip on the rug. The carpet will get moldy.”

  Valerie rolled her eyes, continuing to dry herself.

  Deirdre glanced around the room and saw no sign of the dog.

  “I haven’t seen him lately,” said Valerie.

  “I’m sure he’s around someplace,” said Deirdre, returning to the study of her mail.

  “Wanna toke a joint, Nick?” said Valerie, pulling on his leash bringing his face closer to hers.

  “Yes, master,” said Nick.

  She cut him slack with the leash and headed out of the living room. He followed close behind her.

  Deirdre opened the next letter, which was addressed to her, hand-printed in black ink in block letters. It looked like the writer had used a stencil to form each neat letter. No return address. She opened the envelope, withdrew the letter, and unfolded it.

  In the same precise stenciled letters was the question: Where Is It?

  She turned the letter over. There was nothing else on it. No return address, no signature, no date, no salutation.

  Some kind of prank? she wondered. Where is it? Where’s what? What did it mean?

  Was the sender one of Valerie’s friends playing a joke on her? Deirdre wondered. What was the point? Why would one of Valerie’s friends send a letter to Deirdre?

  Deirdre double-checked the address. Maybe she had opened it by mistake. Sure enough, it was addressed to her, Deirdre.

  “Honey, do you know where my blue suitcase is?” said Lyndon, entering the living room, face hectic.

  “The one you took to Cabo?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Isn’t it in the bedroom closet?”

  “That’s what I thought. It’s not there. Did you move it?”

  “I didn’t. Maybe the maid did.”

  “The maid isn’t supposed to move things without permission.”

  “I didn’t move it, is all I can tell you.”

  She debated about telling Lyndon about the letter in her hand. She wanted to tell him about it, but part of her suspected he might have something to do with it. On the other hand, why would he be behind such a cryptic letter? Uncertain what to do, she decided to put off her decision. She could always tell him some other time.

  “Why do you want it? Didn’t you unpack it already?” she said.

  “Uh, yeah. I left some business papers in it.”

  “It’ll turn up.”

  Concern etched on his face, Lyndon left the living room.

  Deirdre had to talk to somebody about this letter. She saw it as threatening, though she had no idea what it was referring to. Where is it? She had no idea what it was referring to.

  Chapter 24

  Sitting at his laptop in his apartment, Brody felt his cell phone vibrate in his trouser pocket.

  Raising the cell phone to his mouth he answered it.

  “We need to meet,” said Deirdre.

  “Where?”

  “At the Marina tennis club. I’m having a lesson there.”

  Brody took down the address and drove his Mini to Marina del Rey, where the onshore wind was kicking up.

  In a white tennis outfit with Day-Glo orange sneakers Deirdre was running on a green-painted asphalt tennis court surrounded by a chain-link fence volleying with her thirty-five-year-old tanned, wiry instructor who was wearing a sky blue Nike headband in his blond hair.

  Brody entered the gate in the chain-link fence, watching them, and wandered over to Deirdre’s metal bench, which had a Turkish towel draped over the seat back.

  California was a great state for tennis, decided Brody. You could play all year round.

  Deirdre used a two-handed backhand to return the instructor’s serve. The lime ball didn’t clear the net. Noticing Brody she signaled to the instructor to take a break. The instructor nodded and wandered off, twiddling his tennis racket.

  Sweating, racket in hand, her brief pleated skirt swaying in the breeze and fluttering on her thighs, Deirdre strolled over to Brody.

  “Could you throw me that towel?” she said, holding out her hand.

  Standing up, Brody latched onto the towel on the bench and flung it to her, admiring her toned legs.

  She caught it and wiped off her sweaty face.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  She made sure nobody was in earshot.

  “I got a weird letter in the mail today,” she said, standing next to him, toweling off. “All it said was, Where Is It? No return address. No signature. It’s creeping me out.”

  “Do you have it with you?”

  Deirdre draped her towel over her shoulder, walked over to her bench, retrieved her purse, opened it, and extracted the envelope.

  “Did you show it to the cops?” he said.

  “No. It might be a practical joke.”

  “It doesn’t make any threats. Why not sign it?”

  “It gives me the creeps.”

  “I don’t wanna touch it and leave fingerprints on it. Could you turn the envelope over?”

  She flipped it over. Nothing on it.

  “Could you pull the letter out so I could read it?” he said.

  “My fingerprints are all over it.”

  “That’s to be expected.”

  She withdrew the letter, unfolded it, and showed it to Brody.

  “Looks like the sender used a stencil to print those letters on the envelope and on the letter to disguise his handwriting.”

  “I’m worried the stalker might’ve sent this.”

  “Could be. If it’s supposed to be a prank, it’s not funny. What is it referring to?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “It’s not a threat, so the cops wouldn’t pay any attention to it. Best to leave them out of this.”

  “You think it’s harmless?”

  “I didn’t say that. If the stalker sent it, it’s ominous. He’s playing mind games with you.”

  “What should I do?”

  “We should take it seriously.”

  “Yeah,” she said, face grim.

  “I know a cop who owes me a favor. I could have him examine the letter for fingerprints in the LAPD forensics department. They can also check the mucilage on the envelope for DNA.”

  “OK,” she said, handing him the envelope with the letter inside it.

  Brody removed a handkerchief from his rear trouser pocket and took ahold of the envelope.

  “Did you tell your husband about this?” he said.

  “No. He might be the one who sent it. I don’t want to give him the pleasure of knowing it’s stressing me out.”

  “Why would he send it?”

  “In retaliation for my sending a PI to follow him.”

  “If he knew Rakow
ski was following him.”

  “If he didn’t have Rakowski killed, who did?”

  “The local cops think he was mugged.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Brody wondered if Rakowski’s death had anything to do with Lyndon’s suspected espionage activity.

  “I don’t either,” he said. “His murder has all the earmarks of a professional hit.” Brody paused. “Do you know Eileen Quester?”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “She’s Rakowski’s partner in his PI firm. She didn’t seem to care Rakowski was dead. You had no contact with her when you hired Rakowski?”

  “None.”

  “All broken up, she wasn’t.”

  Shrugging, Deirdre plucked her towel off her shoulder and tossed it on the bench. “I need to get in another set before I go home.”

  She angled toward the service line on her side of the net and signaled to her instructor to resume play.

  He looked like a handsome guy, decided Brody. He wondered if they were banging each other senseless when they weren’t banging balls. Brody chided himself, the mind of a PI is an open sewer. It had to be for the kind of work he did. Sometimes the stench was so bad he struggled to breathe.

  Brody left the tennis court, doubting he would find Lyndon’s fingerprints on the anonymous letter he was carrying.

  Chapter 25

  Marcello answered his satphone in his cramped motel room, eager for action.

  It was the mastro di giornata.

  “You might run into trouble in LA,” he said.

  “What kind of trouble?” said Marcello.

  “The kind that might get in your way.”

  “Namely?”

  “The Sinaloa cartel, the Jalisco New Generation cartel, Los Zetas, and MS-13. They’re all active in LA right now. They all have sicarios.”