Painful Truths

by Brian Spangler

  “You did this?” I asked. My voice shuddered as a surge of unexpected emotion came over me. I rubbed my hand on the freshly painted wall. I had overlooked the whiteboard paint when I arrived. “You did this for me?”

  “I’ve seen your designs—scary, but beautiful—thought a bigger canvas would help,” he explained. “And I also put a small step stool next to your desk in case you need to reach higher.”

  Staring up, I could see that the whiteboard paint reached the ceiling. The fuzzy overhead light glinted off its surface. I couldn’t say anything. Having an entire wall for my Wile E. Coyote designs—that was one of the sweetest gestures anyone had ever made me.

  “It’s . . . it’s beautiful, Brian,” I managed to get out.

  Nerd came over to the wall, reached above me to touch the paint, testing it. “It’s ready for a test drive,” he said, pinching and rubbing his fingers. “I painted the lower areas first so it would be dry by morning.”

  I hugged him then, surprising the both of us. The smell of tacos and sweat covered me, but I didn’t care. His body tensed and I could tell he was uncomfortable, startled even. I kept our embrace brief.

  “Thank you,” I told him. I immediately began to draw a map of the city where Theodore Holst worked as a bike messenger. I had plenty of canvas now, and could sketch his routes and timing and plan his murder.

  FIFTEEN

  MY LATEST DESIGN WAS nearly complete. And as Nerd suspected, I’d needed the help of a step stool after all to reach the highest points of our new whiteboard. Every foot, every inch, every blank stretch of the canvas had been touched, erased, and touched again, detailing the planned murder of Theodore Holst. A petty thief who’d promoted himself to murderer. We never did find any details on the bike messenger’s release. Nerd raised it as a concern. I listened, but told myself it was just a matter of time before Nerd found what we needed, found what he needed to feel comfortable with the case. I stuck with what we did know—Theodore Holst had murdered a school teacher, and someone wanted him dead.

  “That looks somewhat amazing.” I heard from the loft. “Looks like a map of the city.”

  “Bird’s-eye view, at least. Just the beginning. I’ll plan a few trips to the city, do some research, and refine the design,” I said, turning in time to see Nerd lean over the loft’s railing. The wood creaked against his weight and instinctively I shot my hand up and yelled, “Careful!” He glanced at the banister and then back to me with a familiar expression—I’d seen it on Michael’s face from time to time.

  “No worries,” he said, thumping the wood. “Solid. It’s not that far of a fall, anyway.”

  “Just be careful, okay?” I warned, realizing at that moment that I needed Nerd a lot more than he needed me. He was the keeper of our money, and I had bills to pay.

  “And don’t forget to save it,” he said, pointing to my design.

  “Save it?” I asked, confused by what he meant.

  “What I mean is, take a picture,” he answered, pantomiming the motions. I reached for my phone, loving the idea. Of course I’d save it, collect my Wile E. Coyote designs as part of Team Two’s company history. It’d be digital too—a hidden file in some Deep Web bit vault that only Nerd and I knew how to access. “And then you have to erase it and delete it from your phone. It’s not safe.”

  “Erase it?” I yelled up to him, intentionally raising my voice. “Haven’t got any place to save them yet. I’ll need your help to find a place to store them. Then I’ll erase this. Okay?”

  “You do already have a place to put them. Check your desktop!”

  I followed his direction, moving my mouse cursor aimlessly around the screen, going nowhere.

  “Down in the lower left corner.”

  I continued moving the cursor until it found the outline of a folder.

  “Where’d you come from?” I muttered. The folder was just an outline, disappeared when I hovered over it, like a ghost. Suddenly I was twelve again, rolling up a design for safekeeping in my secret box. I felt a smile crease my lips, the kind you can’t hold back when giddy excitement takes hold of you. Nerd wasn’t about to let me go through all the fun of designing on the whiteboard wall only to throw it away. He’d thought ahead and given me a place to store my work safely. And I’d been wanting a new secret box. I wanted one like the kind I’d stashed beneath the floorboards of my old room. Only now it was digital and “in the ether” as he liked to say.

  “I see it . . . Well, wait. I sort of see it, and I see where you’re going with this. Love it!”

  “I knew you would,” he said, clapping his hands. The sharp sound bounced off the high walls, surprising us both. “Reset assured, digital will never betray you.”

  “I suppose not,” I said, agreeing. “So, I’m assuming the folder is safe?”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Nerd answered. I peered up to the balcony again to find him grinning from ear to ear. “The folder—that particular folder—is hosted in oblivion. An untraceable, an unfindable search . . . An un-everything server. Better yet, anything you store in there is encrypted. So if by some miracle the Feds gained access to the folder, which won’t happen, it’d be gibberish to them. I also topped it off with just one password. If the Feds, or anyone, try to get in and miss three times . . . poof!” He threw his hands outward, mimicking an explosion while sounding a faded rumble.

  “Forever?” I asked, wondering how I felt about the permanence of forever. But I did want to save a copy—save something. My gut sank, realizing the risk of saving the designs. I supposed poof was the right way to do this. I waved my hand and added, “We can’t have any traces. Nothing saved if the front door is compromised. No replication. No exports. No caches. No anything.”

  “Exactly!” Nerd stated, hanging the syllables in a cheer.

  I clicked on the outline, my cursor sitting on the ghost folder. A small prompt appeared on the screen, showing me a blank password field. No words to tell me what to do—just a small white box with a black cursor winking at me. I typed in my name, thinking Nerd had used something obvious as a password, expecting we’d change it. The prompt shook angrily and then shivered for second before disappearing. Strike one. I clicked on the ghost folder, forcing the prompt to appear again, then quickly entered Nerd’s name. The box shook and shivered, repelled by my offering. Strike two. When the password field showed for my final attempt, I cocked my head to the side and glared up and Nerd.

  “Almost entertaining,” I told him.

  “Want a hint?”

  “No,” I answered. “There’s nothing in there?”

  “Empty,” he confirmed.

  “So if I miss on the third attempt, you’ll reset it?”

  “This afternoon,” he answered, and then ran his hand along his neck. “You’ll kill a little work, but it will be a good test.” I stared at him, stared at his neck, and the password came to me. I typed it in. MurderForHire. Too easy. We’d need something cryptic, but I’m sure he realized that. This was only a test.

  The password field sprung open to show me a new window with populated with a set of subfolders. One folder was labeled with his name, the other with mine. And there were more folders. One labeled Designs and Bank and Business, and even a folder labeled Trash. The box wasn’t just for my designs—it held everything we were doing.

  “Got it!” I shouted.

  “Shit,” he said with a bitter smile. “Maybe we should consider a no-password solution? Use biometrics instead.”

  “You just know me too well,” I told him, letting him off the hook. “But I like the sound of biometrics.” I raised my hand, splaying my fingers and then making a fist, presenting my thumb.

  “Biometrics it is!” he exclaimed. “Fuck passwords.”

  “Fuck passwords,” I repeated, relishing the idea of a secret folder accessible only by my fingerprint. I grabbed my camera and sought a spot on the other side of my desk, backing up to try and fit the entire wall onto my screen.

  “Use the lof
t,” he suggested. “Take the picture from up here. Perfect view.”

  “Any thoughts on the design?” I asked, surprising myself. I’d never done that before—never showed anyone my designs. I shifted nervously, feeling self-conscious about asking his option. As Nerd studied the wall, I walked through the approach, following his lead while he scanned from left to right.

  “Going with an accident?” Nerd asked, looking for clarification. He leaned forward, studying the details. The pit of my stomach felt empty, roiled as I waited. “Detail is crazy good.”

  “Maps,” I said, motioning to my computer. “The challenge we’ll have is that bike messengers work in the daylight, so the city will be a solid crowd. That’s why I’m thinking an accident. Traffic accidents happen all the time, but making it a fatal accident? That’s going to be a challenge.”

  “What if you create an accident and then act like you’re a good Samaritan, trying to help? Only you get close enough to him to finish the job. Use Needle. A lethal dose.”

  “Without being noticed,” I added, liking the idea.

  “The ring was designed to be inconspicuous,” he said. “Like you said, pulling off a fatal traffic accident could be tough. The rest of the details are on you.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said sharply. I twisted Needle around my finger, engaging the syringe, and teased the point with the tip of my finger. “We’ll need something fast acting and a small dose,” I said.

  “I’ll get on it,” he quickly answered. “Got the idea from seeing something posted the other day. Small amount and painless. And very fast.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “Tell me more about the accident.”

  I turned back to face the wall, encouraged by his interest and because I wanted to show off. Presenting one of my designs was another first. I went on to explain the plans, running back and forth like an excited professor at the front of a classroom auditorium. Nerd raised questions where he should have and left the majority of the details alone. He even caught a few things I’d overlooked. I would have caught them eventually, but it was good to have him there, to have him check my work. And as for the finer details, he was right—those were for me. They were part of my obsession, and one of the reasons we were in the business of doing what we do. When I was done explaining, I placed the blue plastic cap onto my dry-erase marker, closed it with a snap, and put it down. My design was ready, but I wanted to see all of it the way Nerd saw it.

  The dusty loft had already started to take on Nerd’s personality—that is, there was a lot of technical stuff up there, most of which looked alien, but all of it meticulously organized.

  Like books on the shelves of the library, I told myself. He had a place for everything and everything looked oddly at home above our office. I stepped around the makeshift cardboard tables and shelves, heading back toward the banister to see my work. From there, I simply stared. The awe of pride came in small waves.

  Nerd had finally given up on his long day, leaving me alone in the office. It was quiet, almost eerie, but I wanted to stay. I checked the time and saw that I had another two hours to myself. Half of that would be taken up by a trip downstairs, handing Carlos a check for this month’s rent and chitchatting. The other half was mine. A quick shower would clean the rainbow mess of dry-erase marker from my hands. And maybe I’d spend five minutes with the showerhead’s full-body massage mode on.

  I deserve a gift.

  The idea of a quick shower came with a soft flutter, but as I made my way from the loft, my toe found the edge of a box. I tumbled, hitting the wood floor with a harsh thump. I cursed at Nerd for leaving the old newspaper boxes there, then laughed at my own clumsiness.

  I waited before getting back to my feet and struggled with the pain in my foot. Eventually, I was on my knees and facing the box that had tripped me. Unlike the others, this box hadn’t made it into Nerd’s cardboard pyramid along the wall. The box was open, and I glimpsed the topmost newspaper headline. Nerd had been searching for treasure, not realizing he was uncovering my past. “Should have just told him to throw them away.”

  I dug into the box, thumbed the days and months of headlines like a historian traveling back in time. I descended into a small pocket of history where I saw fires and political corruption. I saw racial stirrings and robberies.

  And I saw murder.

  I gritted my teeth when I came across a page with these tall, blocky words: Grisly Murders—Fifth Body Found! I read the date: June 30, 1982. I was seven years old. But it wasn’t the headline or the date that first caught my attention, it was the picture of the man on the front page.

  I remembered him.

  I remembered the black widow’s peak and the sideburns covering his cheeks. He looked like Elvis Presley and I remembered that he had even sung “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

  That was when my mother had given me the cue, telling me it was time while she picked up the next verse, joining him in song. I put the leather noose around his neck and pulled. He choked and bucked while my mother continued to sing, her voice filling the car with the lyrics. “Take my whole life too . . . For I can’t help falling in love with you.”

  SIXTEEN

  I RARELY GO INTO the city, let alone downtown. It’s not that I don’t like people, I just don’t like so many all at once. Drizzly and cold, my teeth began to chatter, and I rushed to close my thin jacket. Raw wind crawled out of the north, snapping at the skyscrapers, telling me I’d dressed completely wrong for this trip. The calendar had been tricked into thinking it was winter again. I made a mental note, telling myself to prepare better for the weather on the day of the hit.

  A sudden rumble shook my feet, and a gust of air warmed me. I stopped at the mouth of a subway entrance and waited for another humid breath. The fleeting heat came to me like a moist kiss, but my abrupt stop caused a heavy woman behind me to topple with a grunt and screech. I reached out to take hold of her hand and help her up. She slipped from my clutch, her thick fingers catching the edge of the entrance wall, her fingernails scraping the concrete until she regained her balance. She quickly threw me an obscene gesture and shouted some profanity before disappearing down into the subway. Ready to apologize, I held my tongue and eased into the crowd at the edge of the cozy opening. At least I’d stay warm for a minute more before continuing, I reasoned.

  Our latest mark, our “case,” lived and worked downtown as a sometimes-employed bike messenger. Lucky for us, he’d held his current position a few months now, firming up a routine and a set of delivery routes we could count on him taking. Today would confirm his schedule, and we could set up the hit for the end of the week.

  “The world won’t miss you,” I muttered, pinching my lips together to stop my chin from trembling.

  I really had considered Nerd’s warning about this case, how he hadn’t been able to develop a profile for the Deep Web contact. I just decided to ignore what he said and to take the case anyway. Messenger’s crime was a particularly heinous one, catching my attention, telling me who he really was. He was a killer but he hadn’t killed unintentionally or because of circumstance. He’d killed because he was a hunter.

  I shook my head, recalling the court records. He had been working as a janitor at an elementary school when he killed a second-grade teacher. He’d killed for the joy of it, for the control and power of taking a life. He’d killed for the wrong reasons. I wondered if there had been others. I suspected there were. And if the school teacher was his first victim, then surely there’d be more. He’d kill again—because he had to.

  I peered down at the victim’s picture I kept on my phone, finding motivation in her bright eyes. She was just starting, I thought. She was new. Janice Evans was only twenty-two when she met Messenger. She’d moved to the city from a small town, taking her first job, a teaching job where a chance smile from a young man might have been the welcome sight she needed. I imagined how she might have believed the school’s janitor was a sweet man, a safe man, a man who’d maybe ev
en brought her coffee. But her first evening with him was her last. I just hoped she went quickly. I hoped death found her first, found her before the pain did and before Messenger got started. I’m not the squeamish type, but the things he did—the biting and the missing teeth—turned my stomach. I think someone was smart enough to post the hit on Messenger because they recognized she wouldn’t be his last victim.

  I reached my stop and climbed back to the street. A bus rattled along and belched a black cloud. I coughed and waved off the noxious fumes before crossing a busy intersection. I watched my step on the wet sidewalk, stopped looking at Janice’s photo. Nerd’s warning was more difficult for me to discount than he would have believed, his concerned voice playing in my head and leaving me feeling overly anxious about the case. Nerves and excitement were a deadly mix, like chasing a shot of whiskey with vodka. But I didn’t have time to be nervous, so I shook out the concerns and mentally committed to the case for the hundredth time. After all, we weren’t coming into this completely blind. Nerd investigated what he could, researching Janice’s family, researching bank records and wire transfers, connecting the posted contract to a Bitcoin wallet. The Dark Net stayed true to its name, leaving us without any idea of who we were working for. Nerd was good—our flashlight in the dark, revealing the truth behind the Deep Web posts—but he hasn’t been able to turn up anything this time. And strangely enough, I found some comfort in not knowing who was paying us to kill Theodore Holst. If we couldn’t see them, I hoped they couldn’t see us.

  The clacking sound of bicycle chains rushed past me, buzzing like flies. Two messengers raced around a turn, yelling for me to watch where I was going. I had tensed at the sight of them, darted out of the way. But as they passed, a prowling sense of the hunt came upon me, and I quickly put Nerd and his warnings in the back of my mind.