Fatal Journeys

by Lucy Taylor

  “What the hell, Eddie? What are you doing?”

  “I wanna see your camera.”

  “Are you blind, you damn fool?” Kurt pointed to the camcorder on the dresser. “It’s in front of you.”

  “The other camera. The one you use to film yourself when you rape little girls.” He started ransacking the closet, tossing clothes onto the floor. “I saw you, asshole. That was me opened the door on you tonight. I saw you, I heard your voice, and now I get why you needed to be in a different hotel than Danny and me—you needed privacy.”

  Cunning and fear flared in Kurt’s eyes, twisting his face into something hateful, unrecognizable. Then it vanished as fast as the memory that spawned it and he was Kurt again, with his loose, crooked smile, easy-going, unfazed. “Well, shit, Eddie, you had me going there for a second. I thought this was something serious.”

  “I find out a man I grew up with, a man I’ve known all my life, a real man, I thought you were—you’re out there raping babies and you don’t call that serious!”

  “That’s the second time you’ve used that word rape, and that’s effing enough. Nobody’s raping anybody. And let me ask you this, what were you doing in Toy’s joint? Looking for some young stuff yourself?” He made a show of yawning and scratching his ribs. “It’s Thailand, Eddie, it’s an effing foreign country. Our rules don’t apply. So the chicks you’ve been doing look like they’re eighteen—maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Who’s to say? I like ’em young, always have. So what? Eighteen or eight-years old, man, they’re all effin’ whores.”

  The sound that exploded from Eddie’s throat was guttural and choked, a combination war cry and moan. He plowed into Kurt, driving punches into his face and gut, pummeling him onto the floor and pounding his face until there was a fine mist of blood on the carpet. He forced Kurt’s arms back, whipped off his belt and tied his wrists. With another belt from Kurt’s closet, he secured his legs.

  Meantime, Kurt’s eyes were coming back into focus. Eddie grabbed the .22 and jammed the barrel under his chin.

  “One chance or I swear, I blow your brains out. The other camera, where is it?”

  Kurt’s eyes clicked to the TV set bolted to the ceiling. “Up there. On the strut behind the TV.”

  Eddie pocketed the gun, climbed onto a chair, and retrieved the second camcorder. He didn’t watch much, just enough to verify what was on it and that Kurt’s face was clearly revealed. After seeing it, he figured he had no choice, hadn’t really had one since he opened the door to that room. He fished in the pocket of his slicker and went into the bathroom for a minute or two. When he came out, Kurt had flopped off the bed and was inch worming his way across the floor toward the door. Eddie resisted a powerful urge to kick in his head.

  Instead he hauled him upright and threw him onto his back on the bed.

  He held up the hyperdermic he’d prepared in the bathroom. When Kurt saw it, he started babbling desperate, weepy promises, but Eddie wasn’t listening. He stuffed a wash cloth in Kurt’s mouth.

  “Guess I’ll owe Danny an apology for taking this,” he said, “but I think he’ll understand. Way I recall, we agreed that if one of us was too far gone to be saved, we’d put him out of his misery with a smile on his face. So this is better than you deserve. And this is me, Eddie, putting you out of your misery.”

  ««—»»

  The rain had begun to pour, obscuring his departure, when Eddie descended the fire escape into an alley behind the hotel. A few blocks away, he found a pay phone in a 24-hour convenience shop and called the Tourist Police, using the emergency number he’d seen plastered on posters in touristy sections of town.

  There was still a couple hours of darkness left that he prayed he could make use of. He headed off toward the Numbah One Noodle Shop.

  ««—»»

  It was mid-morning by the time Eddie returned to his hotel, after briefly detouring to toss Toy’s .22 into the river. He thought how nice a drink would go down right now, but instead fortified himself with a cup of coffee from the pot brewing on a counter in the lobby. When he knocked on Danny’s door Lek opened it clad in one of Danny’s shirts, her long hair damp and glistening around her shoulders.

  Danny was slouched in a chair, watching a kickboxing match on TV. He saw Eddie and scowled, “Where the hell’ve you been? You forget what day it is? Danny Pinchero’s Grand Exit Party!” He took in Eddie’s beaten up face. “Holy shit, you look like ten miles of bad road.”

  “Tough night,” Eddie said.

  “And where’s Kurt?” Danny leaned forward, craning his neck as though Eddie’s body was a scrawny shrub Kurt might be hiding behind.

  “He’s not coming.”

  Danny’s face crumpled like a wadded up tissue. “What the fuck? What kind of friend doesn’t show up for a buddy’s last day on the planet?”

  Eddie swallowed. His hands were twitching so bad he was scared to take them out of his pockets. “Kurt wasn’t the man you and I thought.”

  “You mean he chickened out? He couldn’t even come to shake my hand and say good-bye?”

  “He can’t be here, take my word for it.”

  Eddie expected a barrage of questions, but Danny absorbed the news with surprising stoicism. He waved his hand. “Fuck him then, fuck Kurt Anderson. Let’s get down to business.”

  “Look, Danny, I…”

  “You gotta catch the bus to Bangkok in a couple of hours to make that flight back to the States, don’t you? So let’s do this. I’m ready, man, I’m so ready. You know why? Cause while you were off paintin’ the town, I stayed here and, you know what, I prayed. First time in years. Lek prayed with me. Oh, we couldn’t understand each other, but she’s got a real soothing presence, know what I mean? Now I’m right with the Lord. I’m ready to haul ass and go.”

  The shivers weren’t confined to Eddie’s hands now. They were traveling up his forearms into his shoulders. Pretty soon he was gonna have to pull his hand out of his pockets or Danny was gonna think he was diddling himself.

  “Danny, I don’t think I can do this.”

  “What?” Danny stood up and poked a finger into his chest. “You can’t back out now, buddy. Man-up, for Christ’s sake! We signed a pact!”

  Eddie looked down at the finger jabbing his chest. If the offending digit had belonged to anyone but Danny, he’d be swinging at the guy’s jaw. But now his throat felt like it was closing, and he had to gather himself to speak.

  “Listen, Danny, I did something, okay? Something real bad. And I know we made a deal, but don’t ask me to do this—”

  “Wait just a damn minute!” Danny gave his forehead a theatrical slap. “I get the picture! The smack’s gone, is that it? You snuck off and had yourself a little party last night. Kurt, too, I’ll bet. That’s why he’s ashamed to show his face.”

  “No, no, Danny, you got it all wrong. Something else happened—just let me explain—”

  “Shut the fuck up, you sorry-ass liar!” He stared hard at Eddie and then he started to laugh. The laughter began low in his chest and then deepened, rumbling up from his belly, like a volcano suddenly coming alive after decades of dormancy. His face turned splotchy red and tears spilled from his eyes.

  Eddie felt a new kind of terror now. He thought Danny was losing his mind.

  “If you could see your face,” Danny said finally, still guffawing. “Jesus, Eddie, you look like you’re about to keel over. Don’t sweat it, bro. I’m just yanking your chain.”

  When Eddie looked uncomprehending, he went on. “You’re the one who said I’m allowed to change my mind, right? Well, I fuckin’ changed it. Forget the China White. I don’t give a shit what you and Kurt did with it. I got a better plan.”

  He glanced at Lek and then looked quickly away, as though not wanting her to know she was to be the topic of conversation. “This girl here, Eddie, she tells me she’s twenty-two, but I think she’s closer to thirty. Over here, kind of life she’s living, thirty’s like Methuselah. It won’t be lon
g before she’s used up and worn out and then what’s she got? Nothing. Most of the money she makes goes back to her family in the mountains.”

  “Jesus, they all say that,” Eddie said, but Danny silenced him with a look.

  “I’m not an idiot, Eddie. I know she’s a hooker and practically everything she says is a lie, but what choice does she have? It’s a shit life. I just met her, I don’t love her and I sure as hell don’t think she loves me—but she seems to like me a lot or pretends to and she’s sure given me a good time so far. The thing is, I’m on my way out and she’s not. And I’ve got a little money and not too bad of a house and I got American citizenship which still means something here and there. So what the fuck, I’m gonna stick it out. I got a translator to discuss it with her and it’s all set. She’s gonna go back with me to the States and we’re gonna get married. I leave her what I got, which isn’t much by our standards, but it’s a fortune to her. After I kick the bucket, she can stay or she can go, but now she’s a little bit ahead of the game and I get to die feeling like I did something good in this world. I think that’s important, you know? To feel like before I croaked I made things better for somebody.”

  “But you don’t even know her, Danny. It’s not like she’s family or anything, she’s just a—”

  Danny held up a hand. “Don’t say it. I want to do this.”

  Eddie started to stay something, but stopped when he heard footsteps approaching. Someone knocked on the door to his room across the hall from Danny’s. Before he could stop her, Lek opened the door and said something in Thai.

  The boy from the front desk stood holding a folded piece of paper, which he handed to Eddie. “Lady who called said it was important, to make sure I give you the message in person.”

  As Eddie read the note, his mind went into overdrive, trying to figure out how fast he could get out of Thailand, what he’d do if cops were waiting for him at the airport, and what kind of alibi he could establish with Danny and Lek to prove he’d been with them in the wee hours of the morning. Then he decided that was the old Eddie’s way of thinking. He’d done what he had to do. If Ilsa was planning to turn him over to the police, then so be it.

  “I gotta go, Danny.” Impulsively he leaned over, bear hugged Danny, and bussed Lek on the cheek. “If I’m not back in time to catch the bus to Bangkok, you and Lek go on without me. Don’t miss that plane.”

  “Wait a second! What’s going on? You didn’t tell me what happened to Kurt!”

  “He decided to stay in Thailand.”

  ««—»»

  Outside a light drizzle fell, warm as spittle.

  As he got close to the noodle shop, traffic was gridlocked, pedestrians darting every which way, the satellite dishes from a couple of news vans gleaming like giant toadstools in the rain. He pushed his way through the crowd of onlookers until he spotted David Abbott conferring with a squat, stern-faced guy who had the look of a plainclothes detective. Behind the noodle shop, a bus was loading up kids, some crying, others looking blank-faced and stunned. Ilsa was squatting down, saying something to each one as they boarded the bus, a safari hat shielding her face.

  Eddie stood to one side, grateful for the rain, which transformed the scene before him into a monochromatic blur of smeary outlines and indistinct faces. The warm rain running down his back felt icy now, as though mere proximity to the noodle shop had caused some kind of thermal shift. In the torrid humidity of the Chiang Mai morning, he realized he was freezing.

  Abruptly Ilsa looked up, her gaze uncanny in its accuracy, as Eddie tried to pretend he hadn’t seen her. But it was too late now. He held his ground as she stepped under the police tape and strode over.

  “Jesus, Eddie. You look like death’s leftovers.”

  “Thanks. Got your message. Can’t believe you remembered where I was staying.” He tugged down his rain hat as a couple of policemen passed by. “Looks like the police decided to raid the place after all.”

  “That they did. David got a call from a cop friend at eight this morning telling him it was going down.”

  He made a show of looking around. “Don’t see that son-of-a-bitch Toy. Did they haul his ass off to jail already?”

  “No, they hauled it down to the morgue.”

  “Well. A morning full of happy surprises.”

  Ilsa said nothing, and Eddie shuffled his feet as the silence expanded uncomfortably.

  “I didn’t think you’d show up,” she said finally.

  “Why’s that?”

  “You had a busy night. I figured you’d either be sleeping in or fleeing the country.”

  “That some kind of joke?”

  “Am I laughing?” She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, and ducked her head down to light it. Exhaling, she said, “Aren’t you even curious what happened to Toy?”

  “Not really. Dead’s dead.”

  They stood watching as the bus pulled away, the rain rat-tatting off the roof, streaming down the windows, obscuring the heads of the children that Eddie imagined must have their faces pressed to the glass, wondering what would come next. Or maybe not. Maybe they were like him, and they stared straight ahead, pretending none of it was happening.

  “Amazing the way coincidence works,” Ilsa said. “The other day at the bar I told you the police would need to find a dead body on the premises to get motivated to do anything—for the record, I was being sarcastic, not issuing instructions. This morning, a street cleaner finds Toy’s body stuffed between the garbage cans behind the shop. Apparently he came outside in the early morning and somebody shot off the top of his head at close range.”

  Eddie shrugged. “Guess God answers prayers.”

  “If God’s in the vigilante business.”

  “Cops find the gun?”

  “I’m guessing it’s in the river. I know that’s what I would have done with it.”

  “Yeah, me, too. Think they’ll send divers down?”

  “Why? You worried?”

  “What would I have to be worried about? After I left your place, I went back to my hotel and conked out. Slept like a baby.”

  She groaned like he’d told a lame joke. “I’m surprised at you, Eddie. I figured you’d have the lying skills of an accomplished sociopath, but you sound like a little boy explaining how the cat threw up on his schoolwork.”

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  “Well, first of all, David’s sources with the police said that early this morning someone called in a tip that a pedophile was sleeping off a bender in room 216 at the Mandarin Orchid and that the guy’s camcorder was there full of child pornography, a lot of it shot at the Numbah One Noodle. So they go there and find the guy beat up, with ligature marks on his ankles and wrists, sleeping off some kind of tranquilizer.”

  “Sounds like someone with a guilty conscience.”

  “So he beat himself up, then shot a needle full of sedatives into his neck?” She flicked rain from her face. “Pretty strange, huh? Just a perv and his Camcorder, taking a nap. They said the name on his passport was—”

  Her words struck him like a barrage of stones; he felt stunned, annihilated. He whirled on her. “I don’t want to hear the asshole’s name! I don’t need to know the details! A bad guy got what was coming to him, that’s not good enough for you? Why you got to keep yapping about it?”

  They stood in silence after that, the lights from the police cars shedding streams of color into the slate rain as the remaining children straggled onto the bus. When finally it pulled away, Ilsa tossed down her cigarette and said, “Something’s wrong with you, Eddie.”

  He tried to feign the calm detachment of a man who had nothing to hide, all the while feeling as though his guilt glowed as brightly as bloody hand prints sprayed with Luminal.

  When he didn’t reply, she squinted and tilted her head like someone trying to puzzle out a riddle. “It’s almost noon and you’re sober. Shouldn’t you be shit-faced?”

  “Felt like giving my liver a day o
ff.”

  “Right. And what happened last night, you had nothing to do with any of that?”

  “You kidding me? I’m just an old drunk who got his ass kicked trying to play hero.”

  She studied him and in that gaze Eddie saw sadness and resignation but also something else that might have been a grain of acceptance—or gratitude.

  “If you say so, Eddie. But you don’t want to be having this conversation with the police. That being said, aren’t you getting homesick for Detroit?”

  “You got that right. I’m taking the bus back to Bangkok in a few hours and flying home tonight.”

  “Then you better get going.”

  He wanted to kiss her, but settled for shaking her hand. “You take care of those kids, Elsa.”

  “Ilsa,” she muttered as he trotted off into the rain.

  ««—»»

  The spring that Danny Pinchero died was the coldest in seventeen years, and Lake St. Clair remained frozen deep into the spring. A freak snowstorm came in early May, an arctic blast slamming down out of Canada, whiting out the skyline, the lake, the world. Eddie drove down to the ice and stepped off into white nothingness, the snow gusting so heavily that his boot prints filled up almost as fast as he made them. He thought about Danny and Kurt and he let himself rage, cursing and crying out there in the bluster and screech of the wind, his voice drowned out by the storm, his tears frozen.

  With Danny gone and Thailand behind him, his whole life felt out of whack and confused, like a jigsaw puzzle missing key pieces. His emotions ran the full spectrum from pissed off to really pissed off to murderous, but he was running out of furniture to smash and slugging walls just bruised his knuckles. He’d tracked down Ilsa’s email address through the rescue group she worked for and wrote to ask her what happened to the guy at the Mandarin Orchid. He was hoping to hear that the bastard would be out of prison about the time Detroit ran out of cars, but she never responded, so after some resentment over being ignored, he let it go. He tried to feel good about the fact that he’d chosen to dose Kurt with Danny’s liquid Valium instead of the lethal smack, but he still nursed a dangerous fury—Kurt had grown up with him and Danny on Gratiot Street, how could he have turned into a monster and how could he, Eddie, not have known?—so that snowy spring afternoon, all he could do was stomp out onto the ice and scream his rage into the cold, howling white.