Part 7
MIMES
Danny Jordan knew something was about to happen because the kid was acting strangely. When he approached the teller’s window, Danny thought, here we go.
He watched the teller, figuring she’d signal if she was in trouble, but she was new and didn’t know him. The Assistant Manager knew him, though, and when he rose from his desk, Danny realized she’d tripped the silent alarm.
The kid realized it too. He split.
Danny moved to intercept him, then threw himself clear as a .357 appeared, exploding twice.
Danny followed him into the street. The kid spun and fired, the bullet going wide as he dodged around a Taurus and cut across the path of an oncoming BMW.
The Beamer braked and fishtailed. As the shooter ran down the street, Danny jumped the hood and gave chase.
They threaded through the traffic, ignoring the horns and middle fingers, then the kid leapt onto the kerb, scattering pedestrians. He collided with a woman and as the bodies went reeling, Danny kicked his feet out from under him and grabbed his arms.
FBI Special Agent Daniel K Jordan patted his pockets before remembering his handcuffs were in his briefcase, and his briefcase was at the bank.
“Shit,” he said.
***
An ambulance appeared.
“Who’s the wagon for?” Danny said.
The cop shrugged and cuffed the kid. Danny stared at him, thinking: What did you do?
In the lobby, tellers cried or looked on as medics got to work. They were bent over someone Danny couldn’t see, loosening his clothing and preparing to lift him. When they got him on the gurney, Danny felt a chill.
“How old is he?”
“Fifteen,” a medic said.
“Stray bullet?”
“In the back. Tell me you got the guy.”
Danny said he did.
“Don’t expect anyone to kiss your ass,” the medic said, tossing him the boy’s wallet. “Nobody called his family yet.”
***
His name was Jack Isidore.
Danny knew the family. Filthy rich and politically connected. Small wonder nobody made the call.
When Danny informed the mother, she said, “I didn’t need this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is the man in custody?”
“Yes-”
“So where’s the boy?”
“Baltimore General.”
“A hospital? I don’t want him there. Take him out. There musn’t be any tests. I appreciate that this may sound strange….”
No shit, Danny thought.
“….but nobody examines him until I arrive. Nobody.”
“Mrs Isidore, Jack was shot with a high calibre firearm. A hit anywhere on the body is usually fatal. He’ll need-”
“I’ll decide what he needs. Call the hospital. Tell them I’ll push for assault charges against anyone who disobeys my orders.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then this conversation is over,” she said, and hung up.
Danny called the hospital.
“Thank God it’s you.”
“What’s the problem?” Danny said.
“Not on the phone. Haul your ass down here.”
He did.
In an employee lounge, a medic told him he’d laid eyes on Jack Isidore and thought he was dead. The kid wasn’t moving or breathing.
“Then he opened his eyes and said, I don’t feel anything. Like he’d just come back to life. I asked his age, he told me and we talked a little, but he was so damn calm it scared me.”
“He wasn’t in pain?”
“He wouldn’t even break a sweat for me. Situation like that, you heat up. You take panic breaths. But I swear, I could put a mirror under his nose – nothing.”
The medic lit up, offering the pack to Danny, who said he didn’t.
“Then they put him on the gurney and I saw it for myself: no blood. No exit wound. From a .357, can you believe that?.”
“You take his vitals?”
“Yeah, and I was expecting a heart rate of forty bpm, blood pressure maybe forty over sixty. What I got was….” He shook his head. “I didn’t get shit. No pulse. Even his pupils wouldn’t dilate. Now what do you call that?”
“You’re the doc. Get a blood sample?”
“Didn’t have chance.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s when he socked me – not dead for a dead guy. Then he tore out of the wagon and was gone before we stopped.”
“Cute,” Danny said.
***
The Isidore place was a five-bed, three-bath brownstone with shuttered windows, a drive the size of a soccer field and a two-acre backyard. Five million in a commercial sale, Danny reckoned.
He was thinking how much he hated these neighbourhoods when he saw something that made him drive straight past.
The front door was open.
He parked outside Bagel City and walked back down.
A huge pool dominated the rear. There were no lights on in the pool or the house. The curtains were drawn.
Maybe this was a carefree neighbourhood where people didn’t lock their doors.
Maybe.
Danny entered through the pool doors, whacking his shin on a low table. “Shit,” he said, and turned on the lights.
Someone had worked the room over. Drawers fell from a chest onto the hardwood floor, their contents scattered. It hadn’t been a robbery, though: Russbriger suits, Guccis, you name it, all slashed to ribbons.
Danny never removed his gun unless he intended he use it, had never fired it except at the range, but as he moved through the house, something made him unbutton his holster.
The kitchen: cupboards, drawers, and refrigerator units emptied onto the tiles. Utensils, herbs and food sat in a pool of dark, congealed blood.
Following the trail, Danny found Mrs Isidore leaning against a cupboard, legs spread at seemingly impossible angles until he realized they weren’t spread at all. They’d been severed below the knee. Her hands, amputated at the wrist, rested in her lap.
“Jesus….”
As Danny covered his mouth, the body flopped like a rag doll, and Mrs Isidore’s head rolled off her shoulders and across the floor.
***
Danny hung on the toilet bowl for five minutes, heaving until there was nothing but noise, then wiped his mouth and returned to the kitchen.
His eyes were wet, the room was blurred and his throat burned with bile, but he had no difficulty locating Mr Isidore, tied to a chair in another part of the room. Three fingers were missing from each hand and there were multiple stab wounds to the chest, stomach and abdomen.
What had happened here?
Was Jack Isidore responsible?
Phone unhooked. Danny pressed redial, and when a voice told him he’d reached The Tabard Inn, he hung up.
He’d seen enough. Crossing into the master bedroom, he eased through the doors and sucked in the fresh air before someone levelled a .38 at his head.
“Freeze!” a cop said.
***
You could say this for Montgomery County: they had a comfortable jailhouse. Danny was able to grab forty winks before the door at the end of the corridor opened and two men appeared.
“That him?” the first one said.
FBI Special Agent In Charge Richard Decker nodded.
When the cop was out of earshot, Decker said, “I’m sure there’s a sane, rational explanation for all of this.”
Omitting any reference to the medic’s statement, Danny said he’d gone to the house on a hunch after Isidore skipped out on the paramedics and found the bodies by accident.
“Textbook,” Decker said.
“Stranger stuff has happened.”
“Yeah, we employed you. Did the kid do it?”
“I guess.”
Decker sighed.
“Go home,” he said. “Get drunk, or laid. I’m putting you on something else tomorrow. Traffic duty, maybe.”
“You won’t find him.”
“Thanks, Dick Tracy, but I’m sure we’ll manage. Ever wonder what the I in FBI was for? Now, when you leave here, you’re going where?”
“To see your old lady.”
Decker soured.
“I’m going home,” Danny said.
“Without a detour. I might let them throw the key away next time.”
***
The clerk at The Tabard Inn was adamant that nobody named Jack Isidore was registered – until he saw the photo. Then he remembered the young guy in 312. Mr Philip Richards.
Danny rode the elevator to the third floor and hung around while the corridor emptied, then stood outside the door and listened. Someone was watching TV in there, laughing at a sitcom.
The door opened to reveal a paunchy guy in a Charles Manson t-shirt. Danny badged him and said, “Philip Richards?”
“Next door.”
“The clerk said he was here.”
“He was. Paid me to swap rooms. Fifty bucks.”
An early warning system. Cute.
The door slammed in Danny’s face.
314 was locked, so he slipped out a four inch lock pick and had it ajar thirty seconds later.
Big surprise: the room was empty. Danny began rifling through the drawers when the bathroom door opened and someone stepped out.
The man, a stranger, said, “Wasn’t expecting company.”
“I’m obviously in the wrong room.”
“Obviously.”
“You the occupant?”
“For the last five minutes. What’s your story?”
Danny showed his badge. “I’ll need to see some ID.”
Dr Jacob Slade of Syracuse, New York, obliged by producing his driver’s license. Danny didn’t linger over it too long before handing it back.
“Sorry to have troubled you.”
“No trouble,” Slade said, and Danny left the room.
Moving his car to get a better view of the hotel entrance, Danny sat and waited. Slade, or whoever he was, was a no-show and it was turning dark when Danny’s cell rang.
Slade’s voice said, “Special Agent Jordan.”
“That’s my real name. Tell me yours.”
“Dr Jacob Slade.”
“That’s an anagram of Jacob’s Ladder.”
“Aw, c’mon, Dan. We don’t need names. If I can pull yours out of thin air, that tells you something about me, doesn’t it?”
“What did you find in that room?”
“Jack and shit. He’s long gone, and you know it. But riddle me this, Dan: what would you have done if you’d walked right in on him?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Plenty. I’ve known him a while now, and he isn’t much of a talker.”
“I’ll say.”
“You weren’t supposed to see his handiwork, but you got to the house ahead of me. Won’t happen again.”
“You his handler or something?”
“Man, I love the way you assholes talk. But I guess that’s close enough for country dancing.”
“So it’s your job to bring him in.”
“I’ve said enough.”
“You didn’t want to talk, you wouldn’t call. At least tell me what I’m dealing with.”
“Something you couldn’t hope to understand. Although, with your bulldog tenacity, you probably won’t quit. Want to prove yourself useful? Head up to West Virginia.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because a Chevy owned by the real Philip Richards is headed there. Unfortunately for him, he’s dead and lying in the trunk. I’d go there myself, but I’m a lover not a fighter, can you dig it?”
Danny sighed.
“I’ll see you,” Slade said.
“Wait. Who are you, really?”
The line went dead.
***
Nobody emerged from the hotel, so Danny went to the library and got the Richards address from the phonebook. Hours later, he pulled up outside a rustic two-storey cabin, a Chevy in the driveway.
Vaulting the gate, Danny ducked and slowed as he approached the rear door. In thirty seconds, he had the lock open. Then he paused.
Hearing nothing, he moved inside.
The far door, leading to a dark hallway, was ajar, so Danny stepped through. There was light under the living room door.
He crept forward, pistol held chest-high, and curled his other hand around the handle. Swinging the door wide, he stepped inside, taking aim at the shape in the centre of the room.
At a lifeless body slumped in a chair, Isidore bent over him, knife in hand.
Danny fired.
Three bullets hammered into Isidore’s chest, pitching him through the window. Danny approached the glass just in time to see him get to his feet and run.
As the kid disappeared into the night, Danny followed. Darkness swallowed him up and he paused, letting his eyes adjust.
Movement. Danny reacted to it, too late.
A kick to the groin bent him double, then his head was roughly jerked back. A blade caught the moonlight, then arced down towards his throat.
The first bullet struck Isidore in the chest, knocking him sideways before two more rounds slammed into his back, pitching him forward. A net fell before he could recover, a man at each corner. Moments later, he was bound and helpless.
Danny got to his feet and brushed off when a familiar face appeared.
“Congratulations,” Slade said. “You led him straight to us.”
***
“You saw chez Isidore, didn’t you?” Slade said.
They were two miles outside West Virginia, heading home.
“Great place to live. Aspirational. People play golf, shop at gourmet supermarkets and send their kids to private schools.”
“Kids like Jack Isidore,” Danny said.
“Let you in on a little secret? He’s not really a little kid.”
Danny waited.
“They’re called Mimes,” Slade said. “Simulacra children. All the pride of parenting, none of the problems. Purchase one, enrol him in private school, and savour the moments when he trounces your neighbour’s kids in class.”
“How’s this legal?”
“Can’t be illegal if nobody knows.”
“We know.”
“Well, aren’t we privileged?” Slade laughed and said, “Anything that’s commercially viable is legal, Dan.”
“The smartest kid in the most expensive school,” Danny said. “Yours to own.”
“Exactly.”
“Except he doesn’t bleed or feel pain.”
“He thought he was normal, so when abnormal shit happened, he became self-aware. Wanted to know more. Wanted to experiment.”
They drove a while.
“I’ve been here before,” Slade said, “if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Figures. So what happens next?”
“Some rich kid killed his parents and split. Terrible tragedy, just awful. But, you know, these things happen.”
“They ever find the kid?”
“Usually they lose interest after thirty days.”
Danny sighed.
“You were pretty slick back there,” Slade said. “Ever consider moving into my line of work?”
“After tonight? You can kiss my ass.”
Slade laughed and said, “You can let me out here. And Dan? What did you do tonight?”
“Stayed home, jerked off.”
“As usual.” Slade opened the door. “It was nice meeting you. Now beat it, okay?”
Danny watched him go, then swung into traffic and drove home.
Part 8
DAWN OF THE MCDEAD
It began when two men in Richard Nixon masks robbed a Casino in Modesto, California. Lyndon Johnson drove the getawa
y car.
After that, shit got strange.
***
They left the car in a part of town known as Grand Theft Central, keys in the ignition, and switched to Farrow’s ten-year-old Volvo. They crossed the state line, arriving in Brayleston early the next morning.
It was a flat, grey, ugly town where the ramshackle houses were too close together and the neighbours didn’t talk. The main businesses were fast food restaurants and liquor stores. Nobody wore a suit and tie, and even the babies didn’t smile.
They were there to see Chinese Al, who was Korean and went by Jack. He’d gotten the name because he looked like Al Leong, a villain in Die Hard, and didn’t like it, said if the cops knew you were named for a screen badass, they’d swoop.
Al/Jack owned Laundromats and used car lots and could make dirty money disappear. You gave him a stolen quarter-million and, for a fifteen percent handling charge, received laundered cash plus documentation that kept the IRS happy. After that, they’d go their separate ways, Farrow to Miami, Morgan to Boston and Warbeck to staring at his apartment walls.
Until then, they were stuck in Brayleston.
***
“Believe it or not,” Morgan said, “this is a historic place.”
“Bullshit,” Warbeck said.
They’d been in Brayleston for three days. There was no library, no theatre, no park, and if you wanted something to do after 6pm that didn’t involve booze, you were shit out of luck.
“I’m serious. The name comes from Old English.”
“What’s it mean?” Farrow said.
“’Burial place near a town.’”
Warbeck sighed.
Located on the other side of town was the mall, the newest and nicest looking building for miles. If you entered from the street, it was all parking machines, but an escalator took you up to another floor with elevators and more escalators, which in turn rose to a floor full of chain stores hawking overpriced junk.
Still, it was what passed for culture in the asscrack of the world, and it was a million times better than staying home. They had a discount bookstore and a multiplex, at least, so for the next few days, Warbeck watched blockbuster movies, read remaindered bestsellers and ate at a health food store. The prices burned a hole in his wallet.
Next day, the town dropped dead.
***
They were coming out of the multiplex when it happened.
The movie was a write-off, all noise and special effects, and as it faded from their memories, Morgan and Farrow went to get burgers while Warbeck looked around for a Chinese restaurant. He found one, but the staff were teenagers and the prices ridiculous, so he bailed.