The question of why they’d taken my clothes was answered right away. Jetpack was wearing them, including my fedora. I looked at this with alarm, thinking immediately of how vulnerable I was now—not only paralyzed but also susceptible to being hijacked. Any other Jed who slipped into me now would find the experience rather uninteresting, of course, but I still hated the thought that my protection was gone.
From a shelf under the workbench, Elsa withdrew a canvas bag about the size a little clutch purse, its odd shape making it look like it was full of gravel. I knew what was in the bag—the rest of the Chavezium from her dump truck heist.
Everything was about to slip away from me—the Chavezium, Elsa, even Jetpack Jed.
It was easy to picture what she’d spotted when she’d looked down the street after Cosmo’s sudden appearance. Whatever he’d done to Guillermo and Osvaldo to get control of the machine in our proper world, it had been serious enough to keep Guillermo from shutting things down after Cosmo had crossed over. I imagined the blue glow of the portal visible in the dark garage, the light shining through the door that Cosmo had doubtless left open. The circle of light must have been like a beacon to Elsa.
Not knowing what was waiting for her on the other side, Elsa had grabbed her insurance policy—my double—while preparing to leave the world she’d been trapped in. And now, with my clothes and hat, Jetpack would easily be mistaken for me when they crossed over.
I could picture the scene on the other side: Jetpack passing through first, a gun’s barrel touching the back of his head as Elsa’s arm emerged from the portal and then the rest of her. Maybe Cosmo had tied up Guillermo and Osvaldo. And maybe he had done something to knock them out. If they were awake, they’d see this pair come through the opening, believe it was me in Elsa’s control, and then watch them go, helpless. If they were incapacitated, then Elsa’s ruse would be for nothing.
Either way, Guillermo wouldn’t think to send Carmelita through the portal to look for me. He’d send her after Elsa instead, believing she was still holding me captive. And Elsa would be waiting for her, not caught off guard this time by Carmelita’s superior strength and technology.
I wanted to shout, to lash out, to curse Elsa Schwartz and the damned Nazis who’d spawned her.
But I could do nothing—just watch.
Elsa nodded toward the side door, and Jetpack went toward it.
Good dog, I thought.
Before leaving me there, she bent down toward me, but not getting close enough to get caught in the paralyzing beam she’d created. She’d put on a light jacket after zapping me, and now she reached into it, pulling out the little notebook that I recognized as Klaus Lang’s journal. “You were hoping to get this back from me, weren’t you?” she said with a smug smile. “And now it’s going away along with me and all these little crystals.” She patted the bag of Chavezium. “I should just kill you, you know. But…” She shrugged. “If I find the gateway closed in that other house, I’ll still have use for you. You should hope I don’t come back, yes?”
Then she stood and walked away, saying nothing more.
And then, the final insult came.
Just as she was closing the door, the lights flicked off, leaving me alone and motionless in the absolute dark of the garage.
I cursed her in my mind.
I thrashed and kicked and bellowed in my mind.
And when I thought of Guillermo being tricked, possibly hurt, and having to watch the charade unfold when Elsa and Jetpack crossed over, I thrashed and kicked and bellowed even more, all of it silent and still.
I killed Elsa over and over in my mind, strangling her, beating her to death with my fists, stabbing her, shooting her, even flying her high above Chavez Ravine with the jetpack I’d permanently borrowed from Elvira Ruiz and then dropping her unceremoniously from an impossible height.
Eventually, my rage must have exhausted me. I fell asleep there in the dark, unable to move or to even tell when my eyes had closed—blinking and falling asleep apparently being two more autonomic bodily functions that Elsa’s paralyzer had no effect on.
When I opened my eyes, the garage was still as dark as the stuff that bubbled in the La Brea tar pits off of Wilshire. I noticed right away that my neck hurt, and realized next that my head had dropped forward in my sleep. My arms, too, had dropped to the floor from the way they’d been folded across my stomach when Elsa had arranged my unconscious body and then froze it.
Still, I wasn’t free. My best guess was that the Chavezium in the paralyzer was running down, its power depleted at having been steadily engaged since before I had revived the first time on the garage floor. It took some effort to raise my head again—like someone was pulling it in the other direction—but I could do it. And when I had, I worked at moving my arms so my palms were against the floor. Imagine the resistance your body feels when you’re submerged in a swimming pool and trying to do something as basic as walk along the bottom. Now imagine that the pool isn’t filled with water but rather something thicker—oatmeal maybe. That’s what it felt like trying to get my palms to touch the floor: not impossible, but nowhere near as easy as it should have been.
Once I had my palms on the concrete floor of the garage, I gave a push with my right hand while extending my left farther from my torso. Slowly, my body starting listing to the side. When I had just about fallen over, I was able to grab the edge of the hovercar and pull myself even farther from the influence of Elsa’s paralyzer. It felt odd having mobility in my arms and upper torso while my legs were still trying to navigate a pool full of oatmeal, but eventually I reached a point where I was free of the beam that had held me fast, probably for several hours.
I got to my feet and used the car as I guide, following its body around to the front of the garage where I was able to reach out and find the main door. Then, sliding my hands along the door for reference, I reached the wall. Following that, I got to the corner opposite the workbench, turned, and soon reached the side door. It took a moment’s fumbling, but I finally found the light switch—which resulted in my being temporarily blinded in the sudden brightness of the garage’s overhead lights.
Not caring that I was in my underwear, I opened the door and ran outside. The night—or early morning—was warm and a few clouds hid the half moon. There was no way to know how long I’d been incapacitated. What I did know when I rounded the corner of the garage was that Mulligan’s garage door was closed. If there was still a glowing portal inside, I couldn’t see it.
I raced across the space between the houses and tried the door even though I knew Elsa would have locked it from the inside. And, of course, the knob was like a solid hunk of steel.
“Damn it,” I whispered in the night.
I took a few steps back and looked up at the house. All the windows were dark. I had no idea what time it was but assumed it was late into the night, so the darkness of the house wasn’t remarkable. More than likely, the house was empty regardless of the hour, with Peter Mulligan in the city jail and his wife probably in some safehouse provided by her lawyer, recovering from the trauma she’d endured at her husband’s hands before and after the murder of Penny King.
Regardless, I felt a strong urge to get inside the garage.
Racing back to Jetpack Jed’s, I re-entered the garage and found the clothes my double had discarded in his quick—and simple—effort to disguise himself as me. The clothes fit perfectly, of course. I slipped on the pants and shirt, fastening the pants but not bothering to button the shirt. When I went to slip on his shoes, though, I got a little surprise. The left fit fine, but the right one felt wrong. I pulled it off my foot and looked at the shoe, finding a removable lift inside. With the lift removed, the shoe fit.
I discarded the lift and turned back toward the door, stopping as I went to grab the paralyzer from the floor. Even if the Chavezium inside the device was dying, I didn’t like it being active still with the wire wrapped around the trigger, so I started working at the wire as I trotted
out onto the street again.
By the time I was back at Mulligan’s house, the wire was off the device, and I had stuffed both into the pockets of Jetpack’s pants. I ran up the stairs to the front door and knocked. Then I stood there out of breath and waited, having already decided that if no one answered, I’d go back downstairs and kick in the garage door. Sure, someone might call the cops, but if the portal was still open—which I doubted—I’d be long gone before they showed up. And if the portal was closed, I could hightail it back to Jetpack’s in the dark and be safely inside when the police arrived. If anyone gave me trouble, I’d say I was Jetpack Jed. These pants had a wallet and keys, after all, to help me verify my identity. At that point, I’d threaten to throw a “big star” tantrum, complete with intimidating references to my lawyers.
None of those scenarios needed playing out, though. Maybe a minute after I knocked on the door, the porchlight switched on. It felt like a police spotlight had just nailed me to a crime scene as I stood there.
Then I heard a woman’s voice from inside say, “Who’s there?”
She sounded suspicious. It wasn’t the “who’s there” someone would offer up if they expected a neighbor dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar. It was instead a “who’s there” that dripped with fear and paranoia and maybe a little bit of regret.
“It’s Jed from down the street,” I said.
“I don’t know you,” the woman said. “And it’s the middle of the night. Please go away.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” I realized that I’d had no plan for this possibility. All my plans had involved the house being empty. I decided there was nothing for it now. “Is that Katrina?” I asked, taking a chance.
Hesitation on the other side of the door and then a meek, “Who did you say you were?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you. But if you’re Katrina Mulligan, then you met a man not long ago who gave you a phone number for a lawyer. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
The woman’s voice dropped even more. “Yes,” she said, a tremble in her throat.
“That was me, Katrina. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
All I got was silence.
I tried again. “Katrina, you were in a bad way in that hotel. I helped you out. Now I just need a very small favor in return.”
She hesitated a few seconds before saying, “What kind of favor?” Her tone still seemed fearful.
“I just need to get into your garage. Just for a minute.”
“Is it…is it about the murder? Everything’s gone from then. Penny’s car…all of it.”
“It’s not about the murder. I just need to get in there and look around for a minute. Then I’ll leave you be. I promise there’s nothing to worry about.”
Silence again. I was starting to worry that this avenue was a dead end, but then I heard the lock click. The door opened a crack, and I could see a sliver of the woman’s face in the darkness.
“It’s me,” I said. “You remember, don’t you?”
“I do,” she said, sounding a bit less anxious. “You really just want to look in the garage?”
“Yes. That’s all. I promise. In and out in two minutes.”
“Well…I guess,” she said. Then she opened the door all the way. The damaged version of Katrina Mulligan whom I’d rescued from an abandoned hotel had been transformed. The porchlight revealed a woman who wore a robe that probably cost more than my car, her dark hair cascading around her shoulders. She still had the same badly healed broken nose, though, and when I looked in her eyes, I saw the same timid rabbit who’d gotten herself into an awful bind. The fancy clothes could serve as misdirection, but they couldn’t hide the damage that was just under the surface if a person really knew what to look for.
“The garage is just through there,” she said, pointing through to the doorway into the kitchen.
“Thank you,” I said, bolting past her and heading through the dark room. There was a light switch beside the stairway, and I flicked it on before racing down the wooden steps two at a time.
When I got to the ground floor, I looked around but saw nothing. The side door was locked, and I twisted the bolt and threw the door open, looking out into the dark neighborhood and toward the spot where Elsa would have been standing when she spied the open portal. Then I looked back into the garage, trying to imagine where her line of sight might have been directed and hoping to see a faint glow of the portal there. But there was nothing.
I let out a sigh and hung my head.
“What’s wrong?” Katrina asked from a spot halfway up the stairs.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Thank you for letting me in, though.”
“It can’t be nothing, or you wouldn’t have been so desperate.”
I smiled and nodded. “You’re right. It’s not nothing. It’s just that what I was hoping to find here is gone, and I don’t know if it’s going to be possible to find it again.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding her understanding even though my answer had been terribly vague. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said even though I didn’t believe it. “You’re all right now?”
She shrugged. “I’m back home. Peter’s in jail. Things aren’t exactly all right, though. I don’t expect they ever will be again.”
I nodded and said, “Everyone’s different, but I can tell you from experience that sometimes you can go through the biggest upheaval imaginable—no, even worse than anything you’d even thought possible—and then find out that you’ve got more strength than you imagined. The kind of strength that can help you build something new out of nothing.”
“You’re very kind. I don’t know that I’ve got that kind of strength in me, though.”
“Well…like I said, everyone’s different. You might surprise yourself.” I nodded toward her, my eyes on her arms, which were covered in the long sleeves of her robe and folded across her chest. “Have you been able to stay off the junk?”
She blushed at this and then nodded. “My lawyer…she’s seeing to it that I get help. Quite a lot, really.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
I felt a moment’s light-headedness then and felt my peripheral vision darkening a little. It was enough to cause a spike in my adrenaline and probably a shift in my demeanor, as I caught a look of alarm on Katrina’s face.
And then I was kissing her. We were on the stairs, and she was a few steps above me, our arms wrapped around each other. Katrina was shorter than me, but with us standing unevenly on the stairs, I was able to look right into her face. I held her firmly, pressing her to me, and I felt her squeezing me back. The kiss was deep, and her eyes were closed. I could tell it had been going on for a while.
It took only a second to realize that I’d been hijacked again and then to loosen my hold on her body and pull my lips away from hers. I felt in control again but at the same time, not. It would have been easy, too easy, to let myself continue on the trajectory my double had started me and Katrina on.
“Do you really have to go?” she asked as she opened her brown eyes and peered longingly into mine. “I’ve been so lonely.”
“Katrina…” I said. “I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s…I haven’t been myself lately.”
I hated falling back on that lousy excuse, but I could think of no better way to explain myself.
“It’s all right,” she said, smiling. “I don’t mind.”
She raised a hand from where it had been on my neck and played with a lock of my hair that had likely gotten mussed in our embrace.
“I’m glad you didn’t mind, but…” I pulled farther back from her, dropping down onto the next riser, hoping not to confuse the situation and also not wanting to say or do anything that would send a mixed signal. My heart was beating rapidly, and I’m sure hers was, too. Had she resisted my stepping away, had she insisted on pulling me to her again, I can’t say what might have happened.
; Then I recalled what she’d said when we’d broken our embrace.
“What did you mean just then?” I asked. “When you asked if I really had to go?”
She tilted her head a little and gave me a bit of a confused look. “You said you’d see me around. It seemed like the funniest thing to say at that moment. You know…”
If my heartbeat had been leaning toward slowing, it kicked into a higher gear now. This was the third time I’d heard that line—or something close to it—from people after regaining control from my invasive double with the predilection for prurient behavior.
“I understand,” I said even though I didn’t. “I…I honestly don’t remember saying that. Or anything. Can you tell me exactly what happened? From the beginning?”
Now her brow furrowed as her apparent confusion increased.
“Do you mean from when you knocked on the door?”
“No. From…” I had to think about it. “From when you said your lawyer had given you lots of help.”
She nodded, but I could see it was a little patronizing, like she was agreeing to a simple request a certified idiot had just asked her. Still, she obliged.
“You got a look on your face, almost like you were seeing me for the first time. But, you know…really seeing me. The way a man sees a woman. You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have to. You just came to the stairs and…I came down a few to meet you. Then we kissed. Are you saying you don’t remember any of that?”
“No,” I said. “And when did I say the part about seeing you around?”
“Just before you pulled away. You opened your eyes and said, ‘I’ll see you around, baby,’ and then you went right back to kissing me for a few more seconds.”
The Fedora Fandango: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 5) Page 10