by E A Comiskey
“Six, eh? Any bodies?”
“Nope. Not that I could find. In fact, not a single out of the ordinary death in a twenty-mile radius for months. Last one I could find was in the summer. Wife took an axe and gave her husband forty whacks after finding him in bed with the babysitter.”
“Bloody, but not out of the ordinary. Nothing but good old human nature at work there,” Richard said.
“Indeed.” Stanley placed the last glass in the rack, took the towel from Richard, and dried his hands.
“So, what do you make of it?”
“No idea, old boy, but I thought a stake-out might be in order.”
“A stake-out?”
“Do you have a better idea of how to figure out what’s on the streets of this neighborhood, or some other way to pass the time while Burke is out with Albert tonight?”
Richard had to admit he did not. “I looked through the books you left in the bedroom while you were gone.”
“What books?” Stanley took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and cracked the seal.
“I just told you what books. The ones you left in the bedroom. You going senile in your old age?”
Stanley’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “If I was, I don’t suppose I’d know it. I’m sure I don’t know what books you’re referring to, though.”
Richard harrumphed. “Well, maybe it was Burke. Anyway, I read a bit about Umbra and I was thinking... Seems strange someone so reclusive would, all of a sudden, show up in front of the paparazzi at some high-falootin’ shindig in the city. I mean, this Umbra fella is a ghost in the shadows. Ain’t no one seem to know anything at all besides a name that makes everybody’s guts go watery.”
Stanley took a dainty sip of water. “I had the same thought. It leads me to wonder about John Jones.”
“We got time between now and nightfall to do some digging,” Richard pointed out. Ferreting out dirt on Jones promised a more interesting afternoon than staring at the nonsense flashing across the television. He remained determined to keep that part of his life in the past.
They set up a little office with laptop computers and a fresh pot of coffee on the dining room table. When Richard opened the browser, the song sparrow on Maddie’s clock chirped out the hour. By the time the wood thrush started singing, his back hurt and his eyes burned. He closed the laptop with more force than was probably advisable.
Stanley stretched, his spine snapping like someone walking on bubble wrap. “You look frustrated.”
“Well, for one thing, there’s too dang many John Jones’s in the world. It’s like trying to do a search for every book in the library that has the word and in it. They’re all on Twitter, too, twatting about politics and award shows.”
Stanley smirked. “Tweeting.”
“What?”
Stanley twisted back and forth and shook his arms. “They’re tweeting, not twatting. There’s a significant difference.”
“What’s the difference?” Richard asked.
“Google it. Anyway, common names are always fantastic choices for aliases.”
“I thought of that, but he seems to check out. I musta read two dozen articles about his good old days at the University of Illinois and all the money he made with that photo app startup.”
Stanley closed his computer. “Yes, it’s a clear trail all the way back to his early days. Right back to when he got into trouble in high school.”
“I read about that, too,” Richard said. “His dad died, and he cracked up a bit. Ran into trouble with the law. Ended up in some sorta halfway house with a kid who knew about computers.”
“Did you see anything about how his father died?” Stanley asked.
Richard couldn’t remember any specifics, other than having the impression the loss had been sudden and unexpected.
“How about where Mom’s been all this time?”
“Nothing,” Richard told him.
“Ever come across the other kid’s name?”
Richard checked the notes he’d scribbled down, squinting at his own shaky chicken scratching. “Anthony.”
Stanley rubbed his chin with the backs of his fingers. “Sounds Italian, don’t you think?”
The dots connected in Richard’s mind, but no clear picture formed. “Kid was in juvie in the Chicago suburbs. Half the boys there are probably Tony or Vinnie.” He twisted, trying to work the knot out from under his right shoulder blade. “I got one thing here that’s pokin’ me like a piece of dry hay in my undershorts.”
“That does sound unpleasant,” Stanley said.
Richard chose to ignore that and stick to business. “It ain’t nothing I can think to do anything with. Just strikes me weird. In an interview with some business rag, they asked him about a trip to the rainforest. They were trying to make it out like maybe he went there on some big mission to save the savages or, maybe he was trying to convince them to give up the secret location of some vast resource or something, but he denied it all. Told them”—he consulted his notes again, to make sure he got it right—”‘I barely spoke to another soul from the time I left the airport. I just sat under the trees and communed with the shadows. When I came home, I was a whole new man.’”
Stanley didn’t appear to be impressed. “So?”
Richard shrugged. Now that he’d said it, he was hard-pressed to say why it stuck out at him. “I don’t know, really. It’s just the timing. Wasn’t a month after he got home when he had the big press conference and told everybody he was gonna fly to Mars and take the cream of the crop with him. Something about that—”
The front door slammed hard enough to shake the house and they caught a flashing glimpse of Burke, long hair hanging in thick waves around her shoulders. Maddie came in a moment later, looking five years older than she had when she left. “I swear she refuses to see reason!” she exclaimed without preamble. “Sometimes, I look at that child and wonder how we could share any DNA whatsoever.” She sighed and patted her own tidy hair. The silver roots visible the day before had disappeared after the trip to the salon. “It’s like she doesn’t even care that she’ll be hobnobbing with the world’s elite. She’d rather be tromping through a swamp in those god-awful, hard-toe boots of hers. How can we be related?”
Richard had no good answer, but he empathized deeply with the sentiment.
Chapter Eleven
Burke
Burke hadn’t been on a date in two years and that suited her just fine. She’d tried the relationship thing in her younger days and found herself chasing self-esteem on a treadmill while her smarmy, good-looking husband banged a Swedish underwear model. Her divorce had cost years of her earnings, but she came to realize it was the best money she’d ever spent.
Nowadays, she lived as a forty-something divorcee, spending her days traveling around in an antique Cadillac with her grandfather and their... Stanley.
Before that, she’d been a forty something divorcee who spent her days working out in a gym and reading.
The jury remained undecided in regard to which version of mid-life was preferable, but either indisputably trumped the soul-sucking abyss that was marriage to a narcissist.
The point is, for Burke, dating held less appeal than stalking a foul-smelling, four-armed swamp monster through the alligator infested wetlands of the Florida Everglades. As far as she could deduce, her agreement to go out with Albert from IT meant one of two things. Either she had a butt-ton of respect for Stanley Kapcheck and his wild hunches or being back in her mother’s house had officially robbed her of the last tattered remains of her sanity.
When the little dweeb greeted her by petting her hair as if she were a sheep at the county fair, she almost turned around and called off their date. Then Stanley appeared out of nowhere and tucked her into her coat. Her mother pressed the silly little purse they’d picked out to go with her dress into her hand, and before she knew what happened, she was watching the reflection of her scowling grandfather standing on the front step in his stocking feet recede
in the side mirror of Albert’s tiny humming insect of a vehicle.
A voice in her mind screamed for Albert to stop. Sudden certainty that she would never again ride in the Cadillac flooded her imagination with such force that her fingers twitched in the direction of the door handle. She could tuck and roll at the stop sign and walk away with no more than bruises.
How would I explain that to my mother? No one hates dating that much.
It’s not a date. It’s a hunt.
Oddly, that was the thought that calmed her enough to remain in the car.
Yup. Crazy, for sure.
The gala celebrating Coleum Corporation’s impending victory over the bonds that had tied humanity to Mother Earth since the first people emerged from the salty waters of her womb was being hosted on the rooftop of the tallest sky scraper on the I-94 corridor. A clever idea—hosting this particular shindig among the clouds.
Albert squeezed into a line of traffic inching forward along the circular drive in front of the building.
Burke continued to tune out his stories about how Super IT Man saved the day by informing someone all they needed to do was unplug and re-plug their modem. He scrubbed a virus from a laptop. He replaced a mouse-chewed charger. He remained so entranced with his own genius that not much was required of her in the way of conversational participation. She grunted and nodded every so often and he prattled on and on for the entire forty minutes they spent in the car.
Free from the burden of thinking up things to say, she studied the other vehicles around them—a Honda Accord, a Mercedes S-class coupe, a snazzy little Jaguar convertible, a Ford Expedition. Apparently, folks on every rung of the corporate ladder had received an invitation to the big soiree. Valets in puffy red coats opened doors on economy and luxury vehicles alike and whisked the cars away in the general direction of an adjacent parking garage. How very equal opportunity. And odd.
Again, that hissing voice in the base of her brain ordered her to run.
From what?
No answer.
Stop being stupid.
Run.
From what?
No answer.
She focused on the slow breathing that would draw adrenaline-diluting oxygen into her body.
When they finally reached the building’s front doors and she escaped the confines of the little hybrid, the fresh breeze blew away the last vestiges of inexplicable nerves.
“Take good care of my baby,” Albert told the man who opened his door, then he snorted obnoxiously.
Burke rolled her eyes at the guy on her side of the car and imagined that the smile he gave in response carried a sympathetic undertone. As Albert’s date, she’d been labeled an object worthy of pity by the hired help. Fantastic.
At the entrance, a man with skin several shades darker than her own freckled beige, and a build approximately the size of Albert’s car, checked their invitation, scanned Albert’s employee ID, and peeked inside the absurd little purse. He failed to notice that the lipstick-shaped thing was actually a single-shot pistol loaded with a silver bullet. A girl could never take too many precautions.
Dating might not be at the top of her things-to-do list, but that didn’t mean she remained oblivious to the bouncer’s undeniable hotness. She winked at him.
His gaze darted to Albert and back to her and his left eyebrow twitched upward. “Enjoy the party,” he rumbled in an excellent Barry White baritone.
Yeah. Sure.
Burke trailed along behind her runty little escort, determined to keep in mind it was a hunt, not a date. Yes, a hunt. An adventure. Let the good times roll.
Chapter Twelve
Richard
The little dweeb had shown up right on time to pick up Burke. Points for promptness, but his suit looked like something out of the 1972 Sears Catalogue, and when Burke politely asked for “Just a moment, please. I’m afraid I’ve misplaced the lipstick I was hoping to take with me,” he told her he’d never known a Black lady who spoke so nicely.
Richard had waited gleefully for her to kick the dipstick in the face, but she just ground her teeth and walked away. Such was her loyalty to her position as a hunter. Richard grinned in pride.
His smile faded when the dingus made eye contact with him. At least three dozen different comments raced from his mind toward his lips. The one that burst out was, “You’ve got a lot of room for growth, Buddy.” He huffed. That was inadequate by a long shot, but Burke returned before he could say anything else.
“You come home safe, kid.” There. Those words said exactly what he meant.
She offered him a tiny smile and a promise that she would, and then she followed the egghead out into the night. He stood on the stoop and watched them drive away.
“Dad, come inside.” Maddie’s voice rang out from inside the house. “I’m making popcorn. There’s a Jeopardy marathon on channel thirty-six.”
Richard went inside and shut the door. The click sounded too loud. His guts crawled. He hated the idea of sending the kid into a hunt by herself. He hated the idea of her being with that snot-nosed little dork. He hated being cooped up in a house where he was made to feel like an old man.
Stanley emerged from the kitchen with a full tea service on a tray. “Come watch television with us, Dick. Sometimes a man has no choice but to wait.”
He wanted to tell Stanley to stick it where the sun don’t shine, but he’d been working on keeping his cool—becoming a better man and all that.
In the living room, Maddie beamed at him. “It’s been a long time since I had anyone to compete with when I watch this show.”
Wow! Madeline believed he was a real threat when it came to this trivia stuff? He’d assumed she viewed him as a doddering old fool, but maybe she had some respect for his intelligence, after all.
Maddie went on, “Now that you’ve introduced me to Stanley, it’ll be a true battle of the wits.”
Richard plopped onto the couch. Friggin Stan Kapcheck.
Richard dutifully stared at the television, munching on bland, butterless popcorn and sipping nasty tea that smelled like roses, but after half a dozen episodes, he thought he’d scream if he heard one fact about world geography or nineteenth century French poets. His mind kept returning to Mrs. Dister’s story. From the bedroom window, he’d be able to see just about the entire neighborhood. Maybe he’d be able to catch a glimpse of something and figure out what was going on.
“I’m going to bed,” he declared.
Stanley stretched extravagantly and nodded. “Yes, it is about that time. I think I’ll turn in, as well.”
The two men retired to the bedroom to see what they could see in the Neighborhood Where Nothing Exciting Ever Happens.
Chapter Thirteen
Burke
Coleum Corporation’s lobby boasted a soaring ceiling adorned with Art Deco-inspired features and a black and white marble floor that caused the clicks and clacks of dozens of high heels and shiny leather dress shoes to bounce around like the clatter of beans in a maraca. The racket set Burke’s teeth on edge and left her yearning for the days when she spent most of her time alone in a room with Dan Brown’s latest mystery novel.
The men and women surrounding her smiled brightly at one another, greeting each other and making small talk. No one acknowledged Albert from IT, not even the long-haired, bearded guy in the powder blue tuxedo with the ruffled shirt. A little pinprick of pity struck her heart and she warned herself to be careful lest she start feeling truly sorry for him. Then where would the night end up? With sympathy kissing?
I think not. All the crazy voices in her head agreed on that much, at least.
In groups of a dozen or so, guests piled into golden-doored elevators like so many cattle being driven down the chute toward the transport truck. Elaborate light fixtures around the upper edges of the big metal box cast long shadows that crawled up the walls of the small enclosed space.
The hairs on Burke’s neck stood up. Her reptile brain hissed again. While others watched
the numbers above the doors, she studied the blurry reflections of faces avoiding each other’s gaze in the mirrored doors. A great many monsters looked human to the naked eye but appeared as their true, undisguised selves in a reflection. So far as she could tell, all the people sharing the cramped space were actually people—or, at least, they were the kind of monsters who could easily pass for people. Someone reeked of way too much Channel Number Five. No one stank of sulfur.
They reached the top floor, the doors slid apart, and all the probably-humans stepped out onto the plush carpet. The herd flowed around the corner and down a long hallway lined with glass doors and windows that showed nothing more exciting than oodles of conference rooms and meeting spaces with impressive views of the city stretching in both directions. The murmuring voices blended into one soft susurration, infinitely quieter than the racket in the lobby, but somehow more unsettling to the part of Burke that still thought the tuck and roll at the stop sign at the end of her mother’s street would have been the wise choice.
Why am I so nervous? What’s out of place, here? What does my gut know that my brain refuses to see?
She asked herself the questions she’d learned to ask over the past half a year of intensive on-the-job hunter training. These were the questions that had kept Stanley alive for the past century and a half. If she trusted his instincts so much, it seemed only wise to put some small amount of faith in her own.
At the end of the hall, they climbed a short, steep staircase guarded at the top by two more beefcakes in fancy black suits, and stepped out into a wonderland.
On the street level, the night had carried the promise of winter’s bitter domination of the coming months, but up here among the clouds, the folks at Coleum Corporation proved they were undaunted by the terrestrial limitations that so often held the rest of humankind back. Sub-freezing temperatures and a light snowfall were no reason to move a party indoors. Rather, enormous heaters and stunning glass-and-stone fireplaces blasted out heat that raised pleasant goosebumps along Burke’s arms. A vast white canopy with rainbow colored silk banners draped from center to edges protected the space from falling precipitation while leaving the sides open to the breathtaking scene of glittering lights laid out across the surface of the planet far below them.