The man walked slowly toward the car, glancing about nervously. “Looking for me, Cochise?”
“I’m Dan, are you looking for me?”
Though on the phone and even in person his voice sounded better suited to a teenager, Bedbug looked to be at least in his late thirties to early forties. At closer quarters Daniel saw he was sporting a five o’clock shadow, a dangle earring in his left ear and two small hoops in his right. He wasn’t wearing a watch, but several thin plastic and rope bracelets adorned his wrists and every finger on both hands sported a ring. His cheeks were sunken but the rest of his face consisted of sharp and exaggerated angles, his features cartoon-like, nose long and thin, mouth large and lips substantial, chin pronounced and chiseled. “Are you now or have you ever been an employee, representative or in any way associated or affiliated with any law enforcement, military or governmental agency?” he asked as if he’d just read it from a cue card.
“What?” Daniel shook his head. “No, I—”
“Yeah, I know, it’s Kool and the Gang.” Bedbug grinned like an imbecile. “I just dig asking that.”
Daniel stared at him expressionlessly.
“You brought the shit with you, yeah?”
“In the trunk,” Daniel told him.
“And what am I looking for?”
“What I need may have already been deleted but—”
“Nothing’s ever deleted, man.” Bedbug laughed quietly.
“I just mean I couldn’t find anything myself.”
“Nothing is ever deleted,” he said again. “It just hides. Deletion’s a myth, it’s all a scam. You can’t erase time and space and matter, man, it can’t be done. It’s all energy, and you can’t delete it just like you can’t delete a dream or a thought or a pond or a tree or a cloud or a mailman or a fucking jelly doughnut. You can alter it, but you can’t destroy it. There’s no such thing as deletion. It’s a bedtime story for the kiddies, dig? If the information you want was ever there, it still is and I’ll find it. You just got to know how and where to look is all. Thing is, you got to tell me what you need or it’s a total turd hunt. Needle in a stack of needles, yeah?”
After what Elliot told him, Daniel had tried his best to prepare himself for this guy, but apparently it hadn’t been enough. He looked in both directions, checking the block. The last thing he needed was a policeman strolling by or passing in a cruiser. It probably looked like he was negotiating a drug deal. “Look, is there somewhere we can go and—”
“My place is down the alley there, second floor pad above Karl’s stockroom, nice and private.” Bedbug dug a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo from his coat pocket. “It’s where I’ll take your stuff and get to work.” He stabbed a cigarette into his mouth dramatically then ignited the lighter. “If you ever get around to telling me what the fuck it is we’re doing out here.”
“Sorry, it’s a bit complicated.”
“Well try to break it down for me, Stephen Hawking.” Bedbug drew on the cigarette, snapped the Zippo shut then returned it and the pack of butts to his coat pocket. “I’m already bored and freezing my stones off.” He plucked the cigarette from his lips and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke. “Besides,” he said, offering a series of jittery movements reminiscent of the involuntary ticks often displayed by drug addicts, “I don’t like being on the street for extended periods. It is in no-motherfucking-way conducive to my peace and wellbeing. I never know when I’m under surveillance.”
“Surveillance?” Daniel looked around. Could the man in the Explorer be connected to Bedbug somehow? He wondered. Could anyone have found out that quickly that he was meeting with him, and if so, who would care to the extent that they’d have him watched? He considered telling him about the man in the Explorer but decided to keep that to himself for now. “Who has you under surveillance?”
“Feds, spooks, the American Gestapo, whatever, doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“It’s all part of the decay, all part of the rot and the lies. It’s not a sound-bite, man, it’s not an MTV quick fix, you see? It’s not Face the Nation or Dateline or Primetime or the nightly fucking network news or Entertainment Tonight. It’s deeper than that, man, much deeper and truer than all that. But they don’t want you to know about the rot, not really. They don’t want you to know it’s a slight-of-hand misdirection magic show. It’s all tricks. And tricks are for kids, motherfucker, didn’t you hear the rabbit?” He took several fast and angry drags on his cigarette. “Now are we doing this or what?”
“I need you to find any chat sessions or transcripts that involve my wife, Lindsay,” Daniel said, explaining the particulars in detail as best he could. “Any conversations you can find on the chat messenger program, her nickname is ADGURL32—girl with a ‘u’—and anything else unusual in the files.”
“People have different definitions of ‘unusual,’ amigo.”
“Anything that’s beyond the mundane or everyday kind of thing found on most computers, also, anything that mentions someone named Russell, I want that too.”
“Your wife play around online a lot? You know, cyber sex, web cam sex shows, phone sex, hooking up for real with people she met online, any of that shit?”
“No.”
“No or could be but I don’t think so?”
“It’s possible,” Daniel sighed. “But far as I know she didn’t do those things.”
“That it?”
Daniel had struggled with whether or not he’d tell him about the incident the night before for fear he might think him crazy, but after meeting Bedbug that was no longer a concern. “The other night something strange happened. The computer turned itself on somehow and went to a web site of some kind. I couldn’t override it, shut it down or control the computer while the site was displayed.”
“You got hijacked,” Bedbug said. “It happens.”
“It was more than that.” Daniel shuffled his feet and put his hands in his coat pockets. “It was difficult to see, there were lots of shadows and distortions but there was a woman and…”
Bedbug nodded as if he understood. “Some freaky porn or something, right, some really jacked up shit?”
“No,” he said through a fog of breath. “It was my wife.”
“Did it look live or like a tape?”
“Live, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“So was she doing some other guy or something?”
“She was just…there. Then some photographs came up on the screen. At least I think they were photographs. They may have been reproductions or recreated poses, I can’t be sure, but they were identical copies of private photos we had of her that no one knows about.”
“Obviously somebody knows about them, Sherlock.”
“I couldn’t see her face completely, there were a lot of shadows, but I know it was her. The minute she opened her eyes I knew it was her.”
“You’re sure?”
Daniel nodded. “The thing is—I know this sounds crazy, and it is—but it couldn’t have been her, not really, because my wife, she’s—”
“Dead, yeah I know, a hit-and-run driver a few months back, some fucking junkie.” Bedbug puffed on his cigarette, his demeanor shifted to something closer to concern. “My condolences, man.”
Startled, Daniel moved a bit closer to him. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, because I’m a magical motherfucker,” he said, raising his hands and wiggling his fingers as if casting a spell. “How the hell you think? I checked you out. I don’t meet anybody I don’t check out first, way too dangerous.” He rolled his eyes to indicate this should’ve been evident. “Guys like you are easy, takes me about five minutes. I know all about you. I know you’re unemployed, for example, but you got decent balances in your bank accounts and killer credit, so I guess I don’t have to worry about getting paid.”
“You went into my—”
“If I wanted to clean you out or fuck with you I would’ve already. Chill, I’m not a thief or a terrorist. I’m
a revolutionary, man. I’m about deeper waters, things that—”
“Paying you isn’t a problem, all right? You’ll get paid.” Daniel already felt thoroughly violated and he’d only met this man five minutes ago. “I just want to know what that was the other night.”
Bedbug took a hard drag on his cigarette then flicked it at the curb. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Daniel said evenly, “I’m sure.”
“May not be what you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seen her anywhere else?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“Didn’t say you were. Seen her anywhere else?”
“No, but sometimes…” Daniel looked away, up the street. “I feel her around me.”
If Bedbug found his statement hard to believe or amusing he gave no indication. “I’ll take a deep online look at your wife and check out everything I can find. She’s only been gone a few months so everything’s still fresh. And whatever that site was, there’ll be traces of it I can find. Even if it wasn’t a website, I can—”
“If it wasn’t a website then what the hell was it?”
“Don’t worry about it yet.”
“Yet?”
“Let me get in there and check it out, OK? I find anything unusual I’ll let you know.”
“Do whatever you have to do, but do it discreetly.”
“OK, like, would you tell Sartre how to ruminate on existentialism? I mean, really, man, I’m not some office temp who needs instruction on how to work the freakin’ copy machine, you with me?”
“No offense,” Daniel said. “I just need discretion on this.”
“Who is this Russell cat you mentioned?”
“Some guy, he’s been calling me. He said his name used to be Steven but now it’s Russell. He claims he knew Lindsay and keeps saying she’s alive more than I know. I’m trying to make the connection in terms of how they knew each other, or if they did at all. I think he’s from Youngstown, Ohio but I’m not certain.”
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
Daniel shook his head in the negative, walked around the back of the car and popped the trunk. “It’s all in here.”
Following him, Bedbug glanced inside. “So it is.”
“How long will it take you to get back to me?”
“Depends on how much shit I have to sift through before I find the pieces you want, man.” Bedbug grabbed the tower and hoisted it up and under his arm. With his free hand he stuffed the PDA in his coat pocket then scooped up the laptop. “I’ll give you a jingle.”
Daniel slammed shut the trunk. “Let me give you my cell and home phone numbers.”
“Don’t be a retard.” Bedbug laughed. “I could find out how many times you diddled your dong last week, think I can’t get a couple phone numbers? It’s under control.”
As the man walked away toward the alley, something else occurred to Daniel, and though he was hesitant to mention it, he threw it out there anyway. “One more thing I think you should know.”
Bedbug turned and looked back at him. “Hit me.”
“My mother said she saw her too, on a different computer, one at my sister’s house.”
His expression remained unchanged. “OK.”
“But my mother suffers from Alzheimer’s. She says lots of crazy things. It probably means nothing, but I figured I should mention it anyway.”
“Everything means something, man, which means there’s truth in everything, see?” Bedbug watched him dully. “But to see truth, you got to expand your mind. Thing is, never go looking for truths you don’t want to find, yeah?”
“Whatever truths you find, I want.”
“Ask and you shall receive, baby.”
A burst of cold wind fired down Washington Street, stirring the debris in the gutters and rattling the bones of old neighborhood ghosts long forgotten.
With an ironic smirk, Bedbug slipped back into the alley.
NINETEEN
Daniel hadn’t gone more than a couple blocks when he saw the dark green Explorer in his rearview mirror. Traffic was heavy, and it was a few car-lengths back, but it was definitely the same one that had been parked on his street and definitely following him. Whoever this guy is, he thought, he’s not very subtle. Rather than continue on toward his apartment, he circled back around onto Washington Street then cut through Chinatown. The tail stuck. As he moved deeper into Chinatown he began searching for a parking space. When he finally found one, he pulled in quickly, killed the engine and got out of the car, prepared for a confrontation.
But the Explorer drove right past and turned at the corner. Even had he hopped back in the car and gunned it, his odds of catching the SUV in such heavy traffic were fairly low. He’d been able to make out a man behind the wheel but little else in the way of details. With no idea where to go or what to do, he dug some change from his pocket, fed the meter, and began to walk.
For this time of day the streets were unusually busy and bustling with people, the majority shoppers from out of town, as the holiday shopping season had officially begun. Normally he’d have been out there with them, looking for sales or searching the prettily decorated display windows for something Lindsay might like. Now, he couldn’t possibly care less, and found himself uselessly occupying space, his mind racing with dark thoughts.
Even in the midst of all this insanity, he had nowhere to go, nothing to do. He needed to talk with Bryce but knew he wouldn’t be available until later in the day, and the last thing he wanted to do was to go home and sit in that empty place waiting for the next horrible phone call or visit from the Explorer, so he went with the flow of walkers and let the nearest wave scoop him up and carry him off with them.
The small neon sign stopped him less than a full block later. Set free from the surging throng, he slowly faded closer to it, focused on the window as if he’d never seen anything quite like it. Next to a blinking neon dragon, the words: CHINA DELIGHT glared at him in bright red letters. A small takeout place sandwiched between a bank and a Chinese bakery, it was a favorite of Lindsay’s and his. On the night she’d died, he’d come here and ordered dinner for them just as he had countless times over the years. Yet now, as he stared at the sign it felt like a lifetime ago.
The kitchen table littered with small white boxes, chop sticks and fortune cookies…his laptop…he’d gone on the laptop a while and then turned on the television…the news…he’d been watching the news. Something about escalating gas prices and three more marines killed in Iraq by a roadside bomber. The formal picture of a young African-American man not yet twenty, clad in his dress uniform and standing before an enormous American flag, the date of his birth and death listed below like the markings on a tombstone…A local young man from Dorchester…Bright eyes, a winning smile… nineteen years old…dead…blown to pieces on the other side of the world…what a shame…And next, Britney Spears discusses her new CD…
The ringing of the telephone…
“Mr. Cicero?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Daniel Cicero?”
“Yes, who’s calling?”
“Mr. Cicero, this is Officer Cooney of the Boston PD. I’m afraid there’s been an accident, sir, an accident involving your wife.”
“Oh my God, is she all right? What kind of accident?”
“We’re sending a car for you now, sir, there’ll be an officer there momentarily.”
“What’s happened? Is she hurt?”
“There’s been an apparent hit-and-run, sir.”
“Christ almighty, where—where are they taking her? Is she badly hurt?”
“The officer on his way there now can discuss that with you, sir, we just needed to make sure you were at home.”
“Please, I need to know if she’s all right.”
“I don’t have a lot of information available, sir, I’m sorry, but you can discuss it—”
“No, goddamn it, tell me! Tell me now! Is she all right?”
A hor
rible silence… a deadly, damning silence…and then he knows…he knows…
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Cicero. Your wife is deceased.”
Daniel felt something touch his arm.
A young woman in a beret—perhaps a college student—stood next to him, her waiflike face flushed from the cold. One hand disappeared into the large purse she was carrying and returned with a tissue. “Here,” she said, holding it out to him. “It’s OK, take it. Come on, the food there can’t be that bad.”
Before he could even think about stopping himself, Daniel laughed. “No, I was just perfecting my making-an-ass-of-myself-in-public skills.”
“We all feel pain. There’s no shame in that, it’s how we’re designed. The pertinent question is: why do we feel it?”
As he took the tissue from her hand, he noticed how attractive yet basic and practical her clothing was, the colors muted. Her dark hair was thick, her ice-blue eyes arresting, and while it wasn’t exactly a sexual attraction he felt, she exuded such warmth it left him completely at ease in her presence. It was as if he’d known this kind stranger his entire life. “Thank you.”
“Hang in there,” she said sweetly. “None of us are alone, not really, just seems that way sometimes.”
“You think?” he asked.
With a wink, she slung her purse back over her shoulder and walked on, quickly absorbed into the sea of humanity.
Daniel looked back at the sign, and his reflection in the window. Tears streaked his cheeks. He wiped them away with the tissue then looked once more for the young woman. She was long gone. Wearily, he made his way back to the car.
* * *
The cemetery where Lindsay was buried was located on Cape Cod, just outside Falmouth and a little over an hour and a half from Boston. Lindsay’s parents, who owned a summer cottage in the same town and had always loved the location, purchased four plots and presented two of them to Lindsay and Daniel as a gift.
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