The Man Who Wouldn't Die

by A. B. Jewell

  “You said PI. I’m not a private investigator.”

  He laughed. “You will be. You’re like me. You’ll never last in this racket.”

  Goddamn if he wasn’t right about all of it—the racket and those jackasses Hansel and Gretel. That’s why I had been paying close attention the night before and knew how to follow my way back through this southern-style mansion to the tunnel on the ground floor that started in a mudroom behind the kitchen. Place was already growing cobwebs and I couldn’t believe this family would throw it all away like so many shanties.

  As I passed through the kitchen, I picked up the time on the microwave clock: 4:45 A.M. I couldn’t quite see or hear movement outside, but I knew it was there, just sensed it. The spiders, they had to be out there. But unless they were working with an inside man (or woman), they didn’t know about the tunnels. I dropped down, making my way on the wooden-rung ladder. The cool air stung—in a good way. I was still half asleep and Taser-worn. The gun in my jacket added a layer of comfort. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought enough to sleep with it under my pillow the way Terry would’ve done. Sometimes he liked doing this when we were on vacation, just because. Even when there wasn’t a care in the world. The Second Amendment, he said, never sleeps.

  As I made my way down the tunnel, I asked myself a bunch of questions. Like: How come the Tarantulas went for the capture not the kill? How had they found me? That last question I wasn’t too exercised about because, like I said, I’d gotten to the point where I always expected to be found. There was always some way or another to find anyone. Hiding wasn’t the game anymore; it was being ready when they got to me. But they also knew just what bedroom I was in, so unless they’d been ransacking the estate, they might’ve gotten a tip. Or maybe the surveillance tools had become so precise that they could figure out what bed I was in and what I was dreaming about—a monkey and a gene.

  I was at the end of the tunnel, facing a ladder going up. I did my Hansel and Gretel trick, visualizing the path home. If my memory was right, I’d pop out of this tunnel into the nut-free snack lounge. So the question was: What was on the other side of the tunnel door? More Tarantulas?

  I put away the Taser and yanked out my firearm. Checked the chamber. Ordinarily, if I’d been going by the ATF style manual, this would have been at least a two-man job. One guy pulls out a smoke grenade, then pops open the top, then both guys, each wearing a gas mask, emerge back-to-back, guns leveled and firing at the first sign of life. Nothing worse than tunnel duty.

  The tunnel opening wasn’t made of much. A thin metal plate on the bottom supported the wood flooring on the other side. I strained to listen and felt sweat grease up my trigger finger.

  I destroyed the covering in one explosion. The door flew upward. Then I shrank a foot down the ladder. My theory: the flying top would’ve elicited firing from all but the calmest dudes. But there was no firing, no sound. So either I was home free or dealing with a real pro.

  I led with my pistol.

  Nothing.

  No light, no sound, no shooting.

  I climbed into the room and I flinched again, waiting for a shoe to drop. I let my eyes adjust and tried to remember the layout of the house from the tour Mrs. Donogue had given me. I’d need to pass the kitchen, a library, something she called the TED Talk detox room. As I did my Hansel and Gretel visualization, I walked, a left and then a right, down a long hallway, passing pictures of Captain Don from his earliest years, then up some stairs. I soft-shoed it when I was past what I recalled were bedrooms. But with the desalination plant humming, I had some noise cover.

  Up another set of stairs, past the swimming pool. Here I stopped, thinking of my conversation from the night before with Mrs. Donogue when she showed me the indoor pool as she was walking me to my bedroom. There was a tanning bed in there that left you with no tan, sparing dangerous UV waves.

  “So just a bed. What’s with this place?” I was finally irritated enough to ask. “The weird design, open-air rooms, total nonsense. It’s an . . .” I’d looked for the word: “abomination.”

  “It’s how Daddy wanted it.”

  “He wanted everything strange, backward?”

  “There’s nothing backward about innovation.”

  “I think he was mocking you.”

  “How dare you!”

  She’d had her hand pulled back like she might slap me.

  “Don’t even think about it. That nonsense might work with your husband, but it’s only going to make me mad. You’re not paying me near enough to treat me like another of your servants.”

  “Don’t you dare!”

  “You need some truth, lady.”

  “They’re not servants. They’re low-wage helper-partners.”

  “You’re a fruitcake.”

  “I do wonder, though, if Daddy was losing it.”

  “Yeah, how’s that?”

  She didn’t answer. Not with words. She stared into her reflection in the pool, leaving me with the clear feeling that she was still holding out on me, but I also remembered feeling that she was being square with me in saying that she thought her father had been losing it. So what?

  As I recalled the unsatisfying end of our previous night’s conversation, I found myself standing outside Captain Don’s master suite. It was time to refocus. If there was something going on inside, someone waiting for me, I couldn’t hear it because of the water plant. Another blind entry. I held my breath again and put my hand on the knob. Gun drawn. Leading with the pistol, I flung open the door.

  Crickets. Not even. Just the slightly louder industrial hum.

  Everything just as we’d left it. A mess. Master Suite à la Book. I reached to my right and flicked on the light, then changed my mind. Too bright. I sidled to my right to a doorway that looked like it led to a closet. Eyes on the windows, scanning for Tarantulas. Without averting my gaze, I opened the door. Then a quick glance to confirm that yes, it was a closet, and then a stab inside at the wall, where I found the switch and clicked on the light. I cracked the door open six inches, enough to give me some light without shouting my whereabouts. Then I took a few swift steps to the bed because I was pretty sure that the pile of books on it was the one I’d come for.

  It had been in my dream. The face of a monkey on a book. An image that Mrs. Donogue had described to me from an alleged Instacharm message from her dead father. She’d told me: picture of a monkey and the word “gene.” At the time, I’d thought “gene” was a name. But my subconscious had put the pieces together, maybe. The thing I’d dreamed about—I’d seen it when we were noodling around in here. And seconds later, I’d found it. I could tell in an instant it was what I was looking for.

  The book, with the monkey on the cover . . . it had a funny weight . . . too light. It wasn’t right. I carried it over to the closet to get some better light.

  I stepped inside the closet, keeping the door ajar. This was the part of being a PI that made the job worth the aggravation—not the X amount per day plus expenses but finding the lies. Sure as it was almost dawn, I could tell this wasn’t a book at all. It looked like a book, sure. The cover had a monkey’s face and the title The Selfish Gene.

  But it was hollow. A crafty shell. A well-constructed hiding place.

  I opened the cover, and sure enough, there weren’t any pages, not in the usual sense. Just a few pieces of paper, folded into a square. I unfolded them. I knew in a second that this wouldn’t be an easy read. It was some kind of gibberish with a few words I understood, like “herewith.” Then symbols and numbers and other such nonsense.

  I gritted my teeth. Did some dead guy really send an Instacharm message to his daughter that then led me to this evidence? I shooed away this invasion of my brain. I’m not meant for the supernatural, if that’s what this was.

  Exiting the closet door, I tracked out of the suite, following my mental bread crumbs back to the tunnel that would get me the hell out of this place. I was halfway down a long hallway when I heard a voice
, distant, muted. Damned if it didn’t sound like a cry for help. I tried to discern the origin of the sound. Just around a few hallway turns. Not my problem, right? None of this was my problem.

  Shit, I couldn’t help myself. Someone was crying out. I took a few turns and homed in on the sound. It was coming from behind a thick wooden door. Even though it was muted by the closed portal, I could make out the plaintive wail. I opened the door.

  Oh hell. There were husband and wife, Tess and Lester, each of them tied up on a bed, next to each other. First thing I thought was: professional job. Solid knots on the limbs, mouth tape that had fallen askew on Mrs. Donogue. Through the edge of the tape she called out, sort of. “Fit . . . Wat . . . gu . . .”

  Blood trickled from Lester’s forehead.

  I turned around to shut the door so I could untie them and saw a whir of movement. Everything went black.

  Fifteen

  WATER SPLASHED ACROSS my face. I blinked and blinked. Splash. I made out a fuzzy image of a guy with a cup.

  Splash.

  From the distance, I heard a voice: “What do you think you’re doing?” The voice belonged to another blurry figure, just entering the picture from my ten o’clock, somewhere behind the guy with the cup.

  “Sorry, boss, I—” said the guy with the cup, but he got interrupted.

  “Nope, don’t apologize,” this man said, someone else. This third man said: “Deuce, what did you do wrong?”

  Deuce.

  That name woke me up.

  Deuce.

  Shit, I thought; it’s gotta be that Deuce. Otherwise known as the Tarantula number two. Deuce, he went by. The operations guy in the spider clan. Full name was Jorge Franz McStein, or rather, that was his full pseudonym. His given name was not known, not by the authorities, not by me, at least. It was him all right, I realized through fluttering eyes. He was walking toward me and the guy who was standing next to me, the one splashing water in my face. Then, trailing Deuce, came the third guy.

  I had an instinct to reach for my gun or bring up my dukes. But when I tried to move my arms, I discovered that was a no-go. I was tied to a chair. I looked down, my neck being about the only thing that wasn’t firmly secured by rope. The chair was secured to the ground. Even a cursory twist of my arms and a shake of my legs told me I was in deep. My head was killing me. Felt like I’d been blackjacked.

  Pings of water dripped from the ceiling, hit the floor, and exploded into my brain, like a hangover mixed with a migraine topped with a Green Day concert. Looked to me like we were in a damp basement or the empty engine room of a boat. It was the kind of place where no one hears you scream.

  “Deuce, what did you do wrong?” This was repeated by the third guy, the one trailing the Deuce. He was tall and thin, khakis and a button-down. Way out of place in this dungeon.

  “But it’s a drought, Dr. Simons,” Deuce protested.

  “Bob is fine,” the man responded with feigned patience. “So how could you put it to . . .”

  The tall thin man calling himself Bob looked at the guy splashing water in my face, and that guy said, “I’m Daryn—with a Y.”

  “Deuce, so there’s a drought, and I think that upsets you. So what’s a more effective way to put that to Daryn?”

  I blinked. Was this real? I definitely recognized Deuce, stocky, shoulder-length hair, a surfer look that belied his cruel intensity; then there was a Tarantula named Daryn, someone I’d not seen before but whom I recognized thanks to his traditional biker vest that showed off biceps and spider tattoos. Then the mystery dweeb called Bob.

  “Daryn,” Deuce said, “if you waste water throwing it at this douchebag, we’ll wind up totally fucked. On account of the drought.” He looked at the dweeb for some sort of validation.

  “Almost, Deuce. Close. Put it in terms of how it makes you feel. Don’t blame. Own.”

  Deuce turned back to Daryn. “I feel like when we waste water that it will make things harder on our children and their children. And that makes me feel like I want to beat your face with a tire iron.”

  “I feel like that would hurt,” Daryn said.

  “We’re making progress,” Deuce said, slapping the Tarantula on the back. He looked at me. “Greetings, Mr. Fitch.”

  “Fitch.” I could taste blood.

  “Fitch, how does it make you feel to be tied up after having your skull nearly caved in?” He chuckled.

  I eyeballed the SOB.

  “Do you know why you’re here, Fitch?”

  “You wanted to take the afternoon off from selling dope to kids.”

  “Tough talk for the guy about to eat my fist.”

  “Deuce . . .” the doctor said.

  Deuce nods. “That hurts my feelings, Fitch. And I think it will hurt my fist when I sink it into your face.”

  “Better.”

  I heard myself say: “Get on with it.” Whatever it was, they should do their worst and I’d save my dignity.

  “Dr. Simons here—”

  “Bob, Deuce. Call me Bob.”

  “Bob here is one of the world’s foremost experts in developing progressive corporate cultures, and in helping organizations attract and retain talent. That’s critical in our business—any business, frankly, these days. You train people, teach them your culture, expectations, build trust, develop their ability to prison-rape and then, boom, next thing you know, they’re on the market. You put ‘Tarantula’ on your résumé and you’re golden. Isn’t that right, Daryn?”

  “I get calls from recruiters all the time.”

  “I bet a year ago you’d have taken those calls,” Deuce said.

  “Not without fearing you’d kill me and my wife and my children and their children.”

  “Do your children have children? That’s not in your dossier. I digress. Bob’s at Stanford, in the psychology department.”

  “I’d rather that stayed between us. Can he sign an NDA?” Bob said.

  “Not without fingers,” Deuce says. He chuckled again.

  “I’m not doing anything unethical,” Bob quickly inserted. “Academia is brutal these days, so we’re all taking corporate consulting gigs. It’s just that I like to keep my private business between me and the client. It’s good for the client too, a competitive advantage, if competitors don’t know you’re putting best practices to work.”

  I must have smirked at how ridiculous this was because Deuce said, “You think this is a joke?

  “I’ll tell you what’s not a fucking joke.” He took two steps forward. “Ruining my son’s ConfirMitzvah. His big day. That was not funny. He worked on his service material for two years with the best priest and rabbi money could buy and who also would agree to work together on a service with someone who was bapcized.”

  “Make some damned sense, Deuce,” I heard myself say.

  “Bapcized—half circumcised and half baptized. That was its own drama, trust me, seeing as how his mother’s family is staunchly agnostic, but we are way ahead on this stuff. Anyhow, that’s how many years we’ve been waiting for his ConfirMitzvah, since his bapcizm, and then, the very night before, you put my lights out.”

  He was talking about how I let him have it the night we busted him in the Adderall scam. Of course, his lawyer had him out practically before they could press his fingerprints. Nothing ever stuck. But he had a whopper of a fat lip the next day for the kid’s event.

  “So I need you to apologize.”

  “Deuce.”

  “Right, doc.” Then to me: “I would feel a lot better if you’d apologize—not to me. I’m a big boy. To my son.” Deuce turned his head away from me and to the other side of the room. I could see that there was a door at the far end of this dungeon. “Dutch Abraham, get your ass in here!”

  In walked a mini version of his father. Stocky, surfer hair, just much younger, and within seconds I knew, much gayer. Just something you pick up on when you’ve spent years in the business—of being gay.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Son, we
have a guest.”

  He looked up at me, eyes lingering for a second. “Hi, I’m Dutch Abraham, nice to meet you.”

  “Ordinarily, he’d give you a firm handshake but that’s not possible on account of the fact that you’re tied up. But just know we’re very serious about our manners. In fact, that’s why we’re here today, right, Scruffy?”

  The kid looked down; evidently, he didn’t like being called by his nickname in front of company.

  “Dad, Mom says I have to finish my homework.”

  “Eh, listen to her. I thought it was a free-play week. Anyhow, this is important. Fitch, our guest here . . . he was the guy who blindsided Daddy the night before your ConfirMitzvah. He wants to say something to you, don’t you, Fitch?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Look, guys, it was unfortunate, what happened,” Deuce said. “But doc here says that we can learn from everything, especially things that seem unfortunate. Daryn, do you remember when Lennox took his shipment of batteries and tried to go to Europe rather than delivering them to Walmart?”

  “Batteries?”

  “Yeah, batteries.” Deuce leered at his henchman.

  “Oh yeah, the batteries, boss. I remember.”

  “And that was unfortunate because his job was to get those to Walmart.”

  “Right, Walmart. I remember.”

  “And we gave him a polite but firm talking-to.”

  “A talking-to?”

  “C’mon, Daryn, stop looking at your phone. Or you’re also going to get a nice, polite firm talking-to. Where was I? This thing with the ConfirMitzvah. It’s been lingering long enough, creating unnecessary tension that, frankly, is easy to move past if we just confront it.”

  “Very good, Deuce,” said the dweeb.

  “Fitch, we’ll have you out of here in a jiffy if you’ll just apologize to Dutch Abraham.”

  “Out of here.” Daryn chuckled.

  “Go back to your phone,” Deuce said.