State of Decay

by James Knapp

  “It . . . wasn’t my fault,” I said. Nico hung up his phone, still looking at the body.

  “I didn’t do it,” I repeated, standing up. My legs buckled a bit, and I was having trouble catching my breath. Blood was spreading all down the guy’s neck, seeping into his shirt. Nico looked over at me.

  “I need to get you out of here.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I said.

  “I know, but you’re not supposed to be in here.”

  “But I—”

  “Now.”

  He turned me around gently and put his palm on my back, guiding me out of the room. I caught one last look at the body in the wheelchair as he closed the door behind us.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  He took me back to the conference room and handed my coat to me.

  “Go back through the lobby,” he said. “You were never in that room, understand?”

  “I blew it, didn’t I?” I asked.

  “Just the opposite,” he said. “I’ll be contacting you again. Soon, I hope. For now, though, it will be better if no one here knows about your involvement, understand?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I think maybe my mind was blown a little, and I couldn’t interpret it all. Was it me? Had I somehow killed that man?

  “Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder, and a shiver went up my spine.

  “Go back out the way you came,” he said. “I’ll contact you again soon.”

  Before I could say anything else, he left, heading back to the room with the dead man. I noticed there was some blood on my shirt, so I zipped up my parka to cover it up. As I headed back toward the elevators, I passed a group of people moving quickly in the other direction, but they didn’t pay me any attention. On the trip back down the elevator I kept waiting for an alarm to go off or something, but nothing happened.

  I pushed open one of the front doors and went back out into the cold, leaving Nico and the dead man behind me.

  Calliope Flax—Alto Do Mundo

  As soon as I got close to his place, I knew I shouldn’t be there. It was way the hell on the other side of town—that was the first thing. The twerp was way off his turf, hitting that bar and ending up in the tank with the rest of us. No wonder his friends were crying their eyes out; the dumb shits were probably scared stiff.

  Not this one, though; I’d give him that. He’d had it all worked out and cut himself loose, no sweat. If he was scared, he fooled me.

  He tapped the top of my helmet and pointed left when we got to a set of lights. A ways back, the streets got cleaner; then they got dug out; then they got plowed. Now there were even little green trees in a row right down the goddamned sidewalk. The road was smooth, as though it had been paved not too far back, and all four lanes were packed full of sports and luxury jobs full of uptight snobs. All down the walk, it was long coats, shiny shoes, and leather gloves. Every guy looked like he ran a bank, and every woman looked like she was on TV. All of them looked at me like I was the worst piece of shit they’d ever seen.

  When I looked back at Luis, he was smiling. He was getting a kick out of the whole thing, but I wasn’t. At the light I thought about gunning the engine and giving those assholes something to get tweaked about, but I was tired. I just wanted to dump him, pee, and get the hell out of there.

  “How much farther?” I yelled back at him. The light turned red, and I rolled to a stop.

  “We’re almost there!”

  When I looked back at the walkway, a bunch of people looked away. Right then, I caught the blues in my rearview.

  Great.

  The light turned, but before I even got a chance to move, I got waved over by a cop on a bike as he cruised down the edge of the walk. When he was on top of us, he chirped the siren.

  “It’s us!” Luis yelled.

  “No shit, asshole.” I pulled off and he came up alongside me, while another one rode over to back him up. Just like that, there were two cops in my face.

  “Sir, cut your engine!” the first one yelled. I cut it while the other one walked over, talking in his radio.

  “Remove your helmet, please, sir,” he said.

  I pulled it off, then planted it in Luis’s gut, and he grabbed it. The cop saw my face and frowned.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he corrected. His eyes did a sweep up and down me, looking for metal. They stopped on my left tit.

  “What’s in your jacket?” he asked, still staring. He’d found the lined inside pocket, but he couldn’t see in.

  “Nothing,” I said. “What’s the problem?”

  “What’s in your jacket?”

  “My ID.”

  “Your ID should be readable at all times,” he said. “Remove it, please.”

  Keeping my hands where they could see them, I unzipped halfway and reached in slow, then pulled the ID from between my two pairs of brass knuckles. He watched closely while his buddy stood in back of him like he was his goon.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, holding up the card. He stared at it for a second.

  “You’re from Bullrich Heights?”

  “Is that a crime?”

  “Ms. Flax, what is your business in this area?” he asked.

  “Is it against the law for me to be here?”

  “What is your business in this area?”

  “Just visiting.”

  “Isn’t it a little late in the season to be riding a motorcycle?”

  “You’re riding one.”

  His eyes started moving across the bike, then made their way back to my jacket pocket.

  “Step off the bike, please.”

  “What, are you kidding me?”

  “Step off—”

  “Sir?” Luis piped up. They looked over at him.

  “Sir, I’m Luis Valle.”

  “I got your information,” he said. “Weren’t you in jail not two hours ago?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “It was a misunderstanding and I was released. I couldn’t get in touch with my parents, and I didn’t have fare or a rail pass. This woman was nice enough to give me a lift, that’s all. She’s just helping me out.”

  The cop stared at me for a little longer, then back at him.

  “Really,” he said. “She’s just taking me home, and that’s it.”

  He sighed and waved to his goon, who turned and went back to his bike, talking into his radio.

  “I’m not going to write you up for the ID violation or the helmet violation for your passenger,” he said. “And I’m going to pretend I didn’t see your trick pocket there, miss. From now on, keep your ID where it can be scanned, and if you’re going to ride two to a bike, then both of you need helmets. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Luis said.

  “You take him straight home,” the cop said. “Then you turn around and go back where you came from. Understand?”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “Move along.”

  He and his goon got on their bikes and took off, and I grabbed back my helmet and put it on. They were two blocks off when I fired my engine back up and left a strip on their pretty goddamn road and a cloud of blue smoke in their pretty goddamn air.

  “Sorry about—” Luis started to say.

  “Shut the hell up,” I shot back. “And keep your mouth shut the rest of the way!”

  He had some sense, since that’s what he did. He just tapped and pointed until we got to his street.

  “Nice place,” I said when we rolled up.

  “Thanks.”

  He hopped off and jumped up and down to warm up.

  “Can I use your john?”

  “Huh?”

  “I need to pee.”

  “Oh,” he said, looking up at his building. “Um . . .”

  “Jesus, never mind.”

  “No, it’s okay,” he said. “I just don’t know if my mom—”

  “You live with your parents?”

  His face
went red and he frowned.

  “It’s just for college. The rent—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It doesn’t make me a pussy.”

  “Look, can I pee here or not?”

  “Fine.”

  I followed him up the steps to the front door, where he flashed his ID at the security eye. It blinked and flashed a white light at us.

  “Hello, Luis Valle, second class,” it said. “Who is your guest?”

  “A friend.”

  “ID please.”

  I pulled out my ID and showed it.

  “Hello, Calliope Flax, third class,” it said. “Mr. Valle, due to multiple violations including assault, illegal possession of a weapon, public drunkenness, and speeding, your guest is considered a medium-high security risk and will require verbal authorization to enter. Do you authorize entry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” the eye said. “Please proceed.”

  He opened the door and we went in.

  “Shit.”

  The hall was wide, with some kind of flat red carpet and fancy lights down the walls. Big plants in big pots were in between the lights. The place looked like a straight-up palace.

  “This way,” he said.

  He took us down the hall to an elevator, then up to the one hundred thirtieth floor, where he and his parents lived.

  “What are you going to tell your mom?” I asked as he flashed his key at the door and opened it.

  “That we’re dating.”

  “In your dreams, asshole. Anyone else live here?”

  “Just my sister.”

  It turned out it wasn’t a problem, since no one was home. He hit the lights and dropped his keys on the counter, but no one showed up or said anything.

  “Guys?” he called. The place was quiet. “Guess they’re out,” he said.

  “Bathroom?”

  “Down there,” he said, pointing. “Go. Go pee.”

  My boots clomped on the wood floor as I went down the hall to their head. The door was dark wood and had a brass knob. I pushed it open.

  “Shit.”

  “Put the seat down when you’re done,” he called.

  “Funny.”

  His toilet was almost the size of my living room and ten times nicer. When I walked through the door, it smelled better too. There was a big white sink and a huge white tub with jets in it that was big enough to soak in. All the faucets were brass, like the doorknob, and everything was shiny and clean. It looked like a picture in a magazine.

  The toilet looked as shiny as the rest of it. It seemed wrong to sit there, but I really had to go.

  When I was done, I started to head out when I caught a look in the mirror over the sink, and for some reason it made me stop. The mirror was huge compared to mine, carved around the edges and framed with shiny brass. I saw myself standing there in the middle of it, and compared to everything else, I just looked dirty. Beat-up jacket, big black eye, and busted lip. The bandage over my other eye was the cleanest thing on me. My picture didn’t belong there with the rest of it, and this was just their shitter.

  When I looked down, I saw a bar of clear soap in a tray, and next to that were two more that were wrapped in colored paper.

  Just like that, I didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t belong there. If his folks did come home and saw me, there would be a shit storm.

  When I left the toilet, Luis almost plowed into me on his way back from wherever he went. He looked jumpy.

  “What’s your problem?” I said.

  “Nothing,” he said. He rubbed his face, and when he was done his grin was back, but not all the way.

  “Trouble?”

  “No.”

  “Thanks for the bailout, then. I’m out. Nice can.”

  “Wait.”

  I was at the front door, one hand on the knob. When he said it, I knew something was up. I knew that before I got out of there, there was going to be a catch. No one gives you shit for free; there’s always a catch.

  “What?”

  “Actually, something kind of came up.”

  “While I was in the john?”

  “I made a call.”

  “It must have been a quick one.”

  “It was,” he said. “I can’t stay here.”

  “So don’t.”

  “I need another ride.”

  “Look.” I sighed. “You’re cute, and thanks for the help, but I’m not a taxi. Got it?”

  “Just one more. I promise that will be it.”

  “Why can’t you stay here?”

  “It’s complicated. Please?”

  “Where?”

  “Your place?”

  There’s always a catch. . . .

  “I’m out of here.”

  “I’ll pay you—”

  “Pay me? For what?”

  “Just to give me a place to crash for a few hours,” he said, putting up his hands. “Just so I can make some calls, and then I’ll be out of your hair. I’ll even buy dinner. Please, I’m in a bind—”

  “Jesus—”

  “What if I said I could bump you up to a two?”

  That stopped me. It had to be bullshit, but it did stop me.

  “I’d say you must be in trouble.”

  “I am.”

  Right when he said that, I saw it was true. He was pretty much full of shit, but right then, he was for real.

  “I’d say you’re a liar too.”

  “Not this time,” he said. “If you help me, I’ll try.”

  I didn’t see how he could pull that off, but then, who knew? He was some kind of tech geek, he had rich folks, first class . . . maybe he could rig it. What was there to lose?

  “Why’d you bail me out?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “I gave you the shiner.”

  “Oh.”

  For the first time that day, I felt like I could laugh. It must have been a pretty good punch.

  “Come on,” I said, and the grin came back, but like before, not all the way. It never came back all the way again.

  With what I know now, I guess I get that.

  Nico Wachalowski—Restaurant District

  The restaurant Faye had suggested in her text was a noodle house sandwiched between two buildings where the streets and sidewalks were so crowded, it was difficult to get through. Cars sat bumper to bumper just beyond banks of frozen snow, while people shouldered by each other on either side of the road so that all I saw in front of me was a carpet of hats and scarves. If I hadn’t taken the subway, I’d have never made it.

  The restaurant was bigger on the inside than it looked from the street, but the lobby was filled to capacity and probably beyond it. Brushing snow off my coat, I looked around to see if I could spot her.

  I’d meant to break the date. I didn’t have the time to spare, and I didn’t know what I would say to her. We’d been close once. It was more than a friendship. I didn’t have any excuse for disappearing like I did.

  Then there’d been the interview with Zoe Ott.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected out of her, but it wasn’t what I got. I figured in a best- case scenario she might have some kind of tip for me, and when she first came in I stopped hoping for even that. In person she seemed disturbed, and from the smell of it, she’d been drinking. My first reaction was to send her home.

  She did something, though. Somehow that pint-sized woman with the bony shoulders and shaky hands sat down across from an ex- military killer and started pulling information out of him that no one had been able to get him to give up. She’d managed that, as best I could tell, just by asking him. I couldn’t shake the way that strange little woman had controlled that situation.

  Then either the guy killed himself, or the person that hired him did it remotely. That left me sitting in an interrogation room with a corpse, a camera I had shut off, and a civilian who probably had a substance abuse problem. The inevitable question as to why I let her in there in the first place, I didn�
�t have a good answer for. The meeting with Faye would make me scarce for an hour. That’s what I told myself.

  “Nico?”

  I looked across the room and saw her standing by the far wall, waving. She smiled, but her eyes looked nervous. The lower lids were red and she had dark circles under both of them. She looked tired, maybe even sick, but I smiled too in spite of myself.

  The last time I saw her, we argued. I told myself it wasn’t as though I never expected to see her again, but when I saw her like that, I think I hadn’t. In some ways, she looked exactly the same, but the picture of her in my mind looked much younger. Had it really been that long?

  Making my way over to her, I could see she wasn’t sure how this was going to play out. Neither was I, to be honest. When I got close enough, I offered my hand.

  She shook it, her smile turning into a smirk that took me back. Gripping my hand, she pulled me closer, then got on her toes to hug me.

  “I missed you,” she said in my ear, but she didn’t let the hug linger. I found myself a little disappointed when she pulled away. When she did, her eyes darted to the scar on the side of my neck. She didn’t ask about it; she just made a note of it.

  “Come on,” she said. “I got us a table.”

  We sat down, wedged between the window and two businessmen who were talking animatedly. She reached across and switched on the noise screen, tuning it until the chatter of the businessmen faded into the general din.

  She ordered hot noodles that came with an egg sitting in another bowl next to it. I got some kind of spring ramen.

  “Since when are you a vegetarian?” she asked, peering down at my bowl.

  “I’m not.”

  She picked up the egg and cracked it, dumping the contents raw onto the noodles. She stirred them with her chopsticks, letting the egg congeal as the steam rose in little clouds between us. When she looked back up at me, her eyes darted to the scar again.

  “Ask,” I said.

  “What happened?”

  “I was injured,” I said. “It happened when I was in the service.”

  “How far down does it go?”

  “Pretty far.”

  She looked back at my face.

  “Were your eyes always that blue?”

  “No. They’re replacements.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s good to see you, Faye.”

  She smiled, but her eyes were sad. She looked like she wanted to say something but was having trouble with it. I’m not sure if I did it to spare her or to spare myself, but I spoke first.