Layne wasn’t looking good. I dialed 911 and put my phone on speaker to free up my hands. I fought to force air into Layne’s lungs while informing the operator a person was choking to death and needed immediate medical attention,
It was an exercise in futility. The killer was getting better at flattening windpipes. From the way Layne Lackey was folded against the wall, I was guessing they used a stomp. Probably started off with a shot to the groin, considering the way Layne was cradling his junk. But if you were kicked in the throat, wouldn’t your hand go there instead?
“You crotch something?” I asked, but Layne was past answering.
With a sigh of resignation, I shoved my hand down Layne’s pants. There was a flash drive nestled behind his privates and I would go to my grave knowing Layne Lackey kept everything Bic-smooth. I was looking for a place to boil my hand when I realized the killer had walked right past me.
“Help’s on the way,” I told Layne’s lifeless body. Maybe the paramedics could revive him. If Layne Lackey beat the odds and lived, he could clear my name.
Or I could catch the killer myself.
The lounge door burst open before I was halfway across the room. A wiry guy, maybe twenty-five years old, rolled over the threshold. A heavier man executed a tactical entrance behind him, clearing the room with an imaginary rifle. A third man blocked the door. Air rifle played spokesman.
“Face Street Justice!”
I walked forward, palms out. “The killer is dressed as the Black Knight. Let’s get him.”
“On the ground, citizen’s arrest!” Air rifle commanded. He was wearing a hockey goalie mask with a silver skull enameled on it. If it wasn’t for the muffled lisp, he might have been intimidating.
“Y-yeah!” said wiry guy. He had gone full tactical ninja, from split-toed boots to a hooded facemask.
I didn’t break stride. “I don’t have time for a playdate.”
They were more posing than taking up any kind of stance. Every second they held me up, the Black Knight got farther away.
Tactical Ninja was closest. I didn’t want to hit him in the head—I wasn’t looking to alter the kid’s future. I just needed him out of my way. I flicked my fingers in his eyeline and took out his leg. He was wearing hard knee pads but had nothing shielding his thighs. My shin connected an inch above his knee, chopping down like an axe right on the sweet spot. He issued an involuntary yelp as he tumbled over.
I stepped through and blasted a thrust kick into Air rifle’s hip-thigh junction. It was a tough spot to guard. The force sent him into the door frame. Before he could recover, I swept out both his feet with a switch low kick. He hit the tile hard and stayed there.
The guy blocking the door was dressed like a steampunk wizard. He swung a cane, topped with a brass globe security should have never let through the door, at my skull. I tracked the arc of his swing and didn’t bother to block it. The cane bounced off the door frame and back into his head as I floated a right hand into his solar plexus, fast and light. It took a second, but he went down, melting slowly into a crouch. Been there, felt that.
The final Street Justice member, a young woman, was stationed outside the door. She was armored everywhere but her midriff and pointing a chunky black object at me. I ducked out of the line of fire and swept my arm in a tight arc. When our forearms connected, I jerked down hard. She snapped forward a step and involuntarily tossed what she was holding.
I blurted an apology as I sprinted away. Pointing toward the remains of her digital camera, I said, “Tag me in that.”
I wove through the crowd, hunting for a black motorcycle helmet. Friday was the slow day, but there were still ten thousand people in the convention center. The Black Knight wasn’t a featured guest, which meant he would have to exit through the main entrance. I followed the far wall around. It was the long way, distance-wise, but it was also the least congested. Paramedics were coming from the opposite direction. I pointed them toward the VIP lounge without breaking stride.
I hit the food court full tilt, sending hot dogs and nachos into orbit. “Killer Brand!” the troll shouted again, stretching the two words into a sentence. The gate guards were more confused than concerned. I didn’t bother asking or explaining as I blasted the door open with my shoulder. The lot was packed with people and cars. I jumped on top of a table advertising the best cellular network in Fresno and checked the lot a section at a time.
I heard the Black Knight before I saw him, his tires peeling out as his motorcycle issued a pitched roar. He was still in costume. It was the perfect getaway outfit, helmet and all. I recognized his ride right away. Any fan would. It was a Triumph Bonneville.
The same model Jove Brand used.
4
I had been making a fist for so long it hurt to stop. The flash drive was still buried in it, no worse for wear despite the places it had been and things it had seen. Layne Lackey thought it was more important than his own neck and I was going to find out why before Stern slapped on the cuffs. If Layne had the evidence proving my innocence he claimed he had, maybe he knew who the killer was, and what the hell I had been dragged into.
There was no reason to go back inside. Everything I needed was in my pockets. Ditching my jacket—the big salmon beacon it was—brought relief, like I was shedding my skin. There was no going back now. I owned two of the three originals and hadn’t seen the last one in eighteen years.
I thought about calling Yuen but was concerned that contacting him would make him an accessory. I exited the lot with no direction. My old beater couldn’t play MP3s, much less read a flash drive. Was it better to get some distance from the convention center, or stop at the closest library? Having never been a wanted man before, I was at a loss.
A big-box store up ahead made up my mind. I turned in and parked on the far side of a panel van. The automatic doors didn’t care I was in a hurry. I made for the display models and shoved Layne’s flash drive into the fanciest laptop. A prompt asking if I wanted to run ALBION.EXE appeared on the screen.
Yes, I clicked.
The screen went black, then the WARDEN crest came to life, antlers and all. It was no shock Layne Lackey had a flair for the dramatic. He had designed JoveBrandFan.com as if visitors were agents accessing the WARDEN database. The same code or HTML or whatever websites were made of was installed on the flash drive. Having been to JoveBrandFan.com more times than I cared to admit, I knew how the interface worked: mousing over each letter in WARDEN made an option expand. W opened the Watchlist, A the Armory, and so on. I chose D for Dossiers out of habit. This is where Layne Lackey would pile the freshest dirt he had dug up on me. A pop-up flared to life.
Warning. Access for Gamesman only. Please confirm.
The same “terms and conditions” rigmarole present on the JoveBrandFan site popped up, giving the choice of Aye or Nay. I clicked Aye.
A list of file folders appeared, each styled to look like a WARDEN dossier. Some were stamped complete, like the Sir Collin Prestor dossier, and some were not, including the one on Ken Allen. Each person featured was linked to the Jove Brand series, either in front of or behind the camera. There was a Kit Calabria dossier. A vibration erupted in my inner ear and spread throughout my body. How much had Layne uncovered about Kit?
When I clicked the dossier on Kit, it triggered another warning box.
Please confirm your identity, Gamesman.
I stared at the cursor blinking in the dialogue box. Should I type Layne Lackey? Jove Brand? Ken Allen? After seven seconds of wondering, a pop-up appeared, blinking red.
SELF-DESTRUCTING
I waved an employee over, a high-school kid who needed a shampoo.
10 . . . 9 . . .
“Help.”
8 . . . 7 . . .
“Uh, you can’t use that here,” he replied, looking around for a higher power. “Dude, is that you?”
6 . . . 5 . . .
I followed his finger to find my face on every screen in the store. The footage from B
eautiful Downtown Burbank was playing silently with FORMER BRAND FLEES SECOND MURDER SCENE under it.
4 . . . 3 . . ..
I yanked the flash drive and made for my car. I couldn’t have the police looking at its contents before I found out how many skeletons Layne was storing on it. Particularly any skeletons tied to Near Death. Plus if the cops plugged the drive in now, the last seconds would tick out. Knowing Layne Lackey, it would literally self-destruct.
I used my phone to locate the nearest shipping service. Being the subject of a manhunt was not pleasant. My pulse throbbed in my neck. Every traffic light on the way was red. If I sent the flash drive to myself, a van vulture was going to snatch it out of my mailbox.
What did files about Near Death have to do with Sir Collin’s murder? It was the only movie Kit touched, and my only connection to Jove Brand, and we both had dossiers on Lackey’s flash drive.
I burst into the shipping store like I was crossing a finish line. I surrounded the flash drive and a note scribbled on a shipping label in an excessive amount of bubble wrap. The cushy bundle my life depended on went into the smallest, toughest box money could buy. Big packages didn’t fit in mailboxes. People stole big packages. Overnight rate was the fastest I could get it to a Ms. June Wedding. Having played a part in Near Death, June had a dossier as well.
My mission accomplished, I called Special Investigator Stern and asked what she was doing for dinner.
When forced to eat out, breakfast was the best low-carb option. An omelet wasn’t my first choice for a last meal, but prime suspects couldn’t be choosers. Prison food would not match my macros. Well, I had always wanted to try intermittent fasting. When life gave you lemons it was time to break out the monk-fruit extract.
I dined al fresco, taking my time, savoring the fresh air and sunshine. A gentleman would have waited for Stern to order but I had serious doubts she’d let me finish. No one pointed me out and screamed “Murderer!” in the two hours it took her to get there. Maybe I wasn’t such a hot commodity.
Stern pulled up in an unmarked, flanked by a pair of state patrol cars. She didn’t approach with her weapon drawn, so that was something. I set down my fork and put my elbows on the table.
Stern pointed at the nearest wall. “Place your palms flat with your legs wide.”
Once I assumed the position, Stern searched me. I wasn’t one to kiss and tell, so let’s just say Stern would have found Layne Lackey’s flash drive. She braced an arm against my back to keep me from turning toward her. “You pay?”
My mouth had gone bone dry so I nodded too many times instead of talking.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
In a demonstration of skill, I complied without face-planting into the wall. “I’m turning myself in, doesn’t that earn me any credit?”
“Not fleeing the scene would have earned more,” Stern replied.
As Stern cuffed me, she read my rights without inflection, letting the sentences run together to gloss over my essential liberties. She didn’t tell me I was under arrest, she just arrested me. She didn’t mention any charges. Art clearly did not imitate life.
“Let’s go, Allen,” she said, opening the back door of the unmarked. I lowered myself in and maneuvered for a position that didn’t strain my shoulders. There wasn’t one. The flurry of activity had helped me escape the dread, but it was catching right up.
Stern cranked up the AC before pulling out of the lot, the two of us all alone. The oversized rear-view mirror gave me a look at her face. I assumed the opposite was also true.
“I don’t get you, Allen.”
“What’s to get?”
“Lackey has been ruffling your feathers for years, why now?”
“You’re inquiring as to my motive?” I shuffled to the edge of the seat in search of relief. “Good, because there isn’t one. I didn’t kill Sir Collin and I didn’t kill Layne Lackey.”
“The Collin Prestor thing is also a mystery,” Stern admitted. “Whatever he said to you in his dressing room must have really honked you off.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Now Lackey. You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking there was a new factor. Maybe he dug something up and put the squeeze on you.”
“Like what?” Layne Lackey’s last text message popped into my head. I know what happened. I have proof. Couldn’t have Layne done me a favor and typed I know you didn’t do it?
“Who knows?” Stern said. “Maybe you’ve been at this a while. Maybe Lackey did what we’re doing right now, comparing unsolved murders to your convention schedule. Looking at cold cases with crushed throats.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“We’ll see what the eggheads turn up. They already found out those gloves are vintage. That’s the kind of gift the giver would remember. And these convention centers have cameras everywhere.”
“Good,” I said. “The sooner you review the footage the better.”
“In a hurry to be punished, Allen?”
“In a hurry to be cleared. I hope there were a hundred cameras in that lounge.”
Stern stared at me for so long I got nervous she was going to run us off the road. I tried lying on my side. It didn’t help.
“Sit up, Allen. For safety.”
I ignored her, turning on my back instead. After what felt like an hour, Stern asked, “What’s on your mind, Allen?”
“That it’s time to get a lawyer.”
Stern sighed. “And here I thought we were developing a rapport.”
Stern booked me at the nearest state police station, where I formally requested a lawyer be provided for me. Good thing public defenders were free. Then again, you got what you paid for.
I had a cell all to myself, which was good because I could touch opposite walls both ways. Still, there was plenty of room to knock out a body weight routine. I tried to sleep, but every little noise snapped me awake. Would a hacker be able to get into Layne Lackey’s flash drive? Where did one enlist a trustworthy hacker? Did the murders have something to do with Near Death, or was I only a convenient patsy?
Near Death was not a labor of love. It was a necessary evil, a Hail Mary to save the Jove Brand franchise. Nineteen films spanning fifty years, the product of the most successful independent production studio in film history. All because Kit Calabria’s father, Big Don, sat down at the card table with Jove Brand’s creator.
They didn’t make writers like Bowman Fletcher anymore. He was the product of an entire generation going to war. When Fletcher wrote about killing, he didn’t have to imagine what it was like. He just had to remember.
No one knows who Bowman Fletcher really was but it’s believed he was a spy himself. That deep divers like Layne Lackey never uncovered his origins adds credence to the theory. Layne postulated the Jove Brand stories were a form of therapy: Technicolor tales designed to make sense of the senseless. Never glorifying, but forever justifying.
But Bowman Fletcher only wrote when the darkness came for him. The rest of the time he manically blew through money, usually at the card table. “Jove Brand knew the odds. He also knew they didn’t apply to him,” Fletcher began in The Gamesman Afoot, the first Brand novel. It was carved on his tombstone.
Big Don Calabria was a giant in his own right. A smuggler during the Second World War, he plundered Axis ships to unload war spoils on the private market, often selling them back to their original owners. When the cards were dealt, neither he nor Fletcher would back down. The stakes rose every round, until Fletcher had wagered away the Caribbean estate bought with the proceeds of his best-selling novels. Fletcher wanted his private paradise back and he only had one thing left to wager with:
The film rights to Jove Brand.
Four sevens versus a royal flush. The odds of those two hands occurring at the same time were so astronomically small, they might as well be impossible. Recounting the tale on JoveBrandFan.com, Layne Lackey suggested that should anyone face a notorious pirate at the card table,
it would perhaps be best to have a third party shuffle the deck. Those in attendance recalled that Big Don Calabria didn’t look surprised when the cards were turned over.
Big Don had cleaned Fletcher out. The two of them locked eyes, the pirate’s dark pools and the soldier’s icy orbs. How many bodies had they stacked between them? In the end, Fletcher decided that particular gamble wasn’t worth it.
The next day, Calabria met Fletcher in the estate he now owned. Fletcher had drawn up the rights contract on the same typewriter that had birthed Jove Brand. It was already signed. Big Don, eager to seal the deal, added his own name. He didn’t bother reading the details, which was where Bowman Fletcher got his revenge. His weapons were words, and the lawyers have been using that contract as ammunition for a half century.
Having gotten what he wanted, the former pirate gave Bowman Fletcher his house back. Big Don needed the author at his desk, churning out future volumes to one day become Calabria productions. It wasn’t until Big Don got that contract in front of his lawyers that he learned his treasure was not bought, but forever borrowed.
The chief provision of the infamous Brand rights contract was the expiration clause. If a Jove Brand film wasn’t released every three years, the rights reverted to the author, or the author’s estate in the event of his death.
Thus began a race the Calabria family had run nineteen times, often crossing the finish line by a hair. No one was looking to help them. The big studios were too busy praying the Calabrias would drop the baton so they could scoop it up.
Every Brand film had been independently funded, often from nebulous sources the Calabrias never disclosed. Once released in a limited run, the distributors accepted defeat and Jove Brand was seen on screens worldwide. Each film was expected to top the last in a series of increasingly costly spectacles to satisfy audience expectations.
It all came to a head with A Beautiful Disaster.
The growing volume of my lawyer laying into Stern on their walk to my cell brought me back to reality.
Jove Brand is Near Death Page 5