Dead City

by Sean Platt

  She touched his side, fighting an odd blend of emotions. The touch was sensual, but Ian stood away from it, fishing through his laundry for a shirt.

  “You’re not going to kiss me good morning?”

  Ian turned. He’d already flicked on the light, and the look in his blue eyes, for a reason Bridget didn’t entirely understand, made her sad. The glance lasted only a moment, and he came to her sincerely, sliding beside her but still atop the covers, kissing her with feeling.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m going to have to hurry. I don’t know why I slept through the alarm.”

  Bridget had heard the alarm. It had gone off for nearly a full minute before she’d reached carefully over Ian and killed it. She couldn’t explain, even to herself, why she hadn’t woken him.

  “You were out too late.”

  Ian looked back. She’d only made a statement, not an accusation. He looked like he might respond to the latter with an excuse. But if she was only saying, he didn’t need to rebut.

  Of course, he did anyway.

  “I just had that thing with Smyth.”

  “He’s never made you work late before.”

  “Well, this thing with Alice … this thing with the Yosemite documentary has caused a lot of problems.”

  “I haven’t heard about any problems on the news.”

  “Good. That means PR is doing its job.”

  “You’re not PR, Ian.” To her own ears, Bridget thought her tone sounded on the verge of pleading. She wouldn’t beg. They were only having a discussion, not a fight.

  “Exactly. I’m strategy. The people who actually make a difference in what’s done rather than just the smoke and mirrors.”

  “What were you and Raymond working on that had to happen at night?”

  “It would bore you, Bridget.”

  She turned and slid her legs to hang off the bed’s edge. Ian was dressing facing away from her, and her pivot turned her away from him. She put on a shirt and slid her feet into slippers. He’d stung in the tiniest of ways. Usually, if Ian used her name, he shortened it affectionately to “Bridge.”

  “And the nighttime work in your office. Reviewing … videos.” Her mind spooled back to the poking around on his computer, the files and history he’d left behind, the drive filled with something that had gone missing. Was it possible he’d been reviewing different videos? Or video conferences over a secure connection?

  “Will you be working late tonight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can we have lunch?” She laughed, pretending this was the light banter it appeared to be. “I think I can clear my schedule here for long enough to come down to Hemisphere.”

  Ian turned his head, his torso still facing away. Again, she saw that strange expression in his eyes. It looked almost like regret. Or guilt.

  “Not today.” He paused then said, “Tomorrow?”

  Bridget felt herself prying, knowing that each time she added another casual question, everything felt less casual. She was a hands-off wife. She didn’t butt in; she didn’t meddle; she enjoyed hearing Gabriella mouth off but didn’t usually gossip on her own. But there was something else she’d been thinking of lately, though it hadn’t bothered her for their entire marriage: She’d given up a career to mind this house for him. At first, when Ana had been small and they’d had less, it almost made sense. But today, with cleaning services and little vacuuming devices and a girl in school all day, she was a woman adrift. It should sound opulent, and Gabriella certainly seemed intent on believing herself to be quite the deliciously kept woman. But for Bridget, it often felt idle and lonely.

  Gabriella filled her hours with affairs.

  Bridget wouldn’t ever do that.

  And yet Ian, who was far busier than she was, seemed like maybe he’d found time for one of his own.

  Bridget stood. Knowing she should be angry and feeling sad instead, she swallowed her pride and circled the bed, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  “I’ve missed you lately.”

  Ian’s head ticked back to look at her — not full on, but halfway. Then his eyes were forward again, and he continued to pull on clothes for a day that was apparently too busy for her.

  He opened the door to the hallway, avoiding the bathroom, probably because she’d be in it.

  “I won’t be late,” he said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  PLOTS AND SCHEMES

  IAN PEEKED INTO THE LIVING room and saw Analise watching TV, sitting on the couch with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. They’d told her not to do that. Ana was neat enough when she ate, but she kept setting the bowl on the cushions beside her. Three or four times now, either she’d shifted or one of the adults had come to sit beside her, and they’d had to extract milk from the fabric.

  He’d say something later. When he said hello, which could happen around the time he put on deodorant, combed his hair, and brushed his teeth. He felt scatterbrained, unable to find his footing. Every turn inside his house felt like a decision worth weighing, whereas mornings usually happened on autopilot.

  Ian backed away from the living room, feeling like a shit for not at least going out and saying hello. It was about the same level of terrible he felt for being so terse with Bridget.

  He shook the feeling away. This was a short-term issue. It was for the best, for everyone. Nobody needed to know that the house was being watched, that the phones (said Alice, anyway) might be bugged, that their computer activity might be getting logged. Bridget already knew some of it, and that had probably been the point. But now that he knew, Ian would do his best to keep it from them.

  Nobody would call. He’d already talked to the phone company, and that already-should-be-unknown number had been changed.

  Nobody would drive by the house. He’d spoken to the gate guards. Never mind the possibilities that the Hemisphere vehicle (or the Panacea vehicle; the more time he spent in Alice Frank’s world, the more he saw the lines blurring like she did) belonged to someone already inside the gated community. Never mind the more troubling possibility: that the vehicle had indeed come from outside, and a bribed security guard was to blame — a guard who, Ian surmised, would let them in again while informing them that Ian Keys was now rather nervous.

  So no, Bridget didn’t need to know about this. Ana certainly didn’t need to catch wind. Somehow or other, this responsibility had settled on Ian’s shoulders. He hadn’t asked for or instigated it. He certainly didn’t want it. But facts were facts. He could either hide while spooks subtly threatened his family, or he could stand tall. Given that he’d already had that supposedly conciliatory chat with Archibald Burgess, it seemed that playing nice with Hemisphere wasn’t doing much good.

  Secrets were funny things. Once enough people knew them, everyone stopped fighting to keep them suppressed.

  Which meant that the faster he could help Alice, the faster everyone could know what Burgess and the strange men didn’t want Ian blabbing about. Then it could be over, seeing as it was never supposed to have started.

  There was only one problem.

  Ian was ready to blow the whistle, but had no idea which specific whistle needed blowing.

  He ducked into the den and shut the door. He dialed.

  “Ian?” said Alice. “Is something wrong?”

  “I thought about what you said. I’m in.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes. Sorry. I just thought you were already in.”

  “Whole hog. End to end. I couldn’t sleep most of the night then dozed right through my alarm. Do you remember old zombie movies?”

  “I think the whole world remembers old zombie movies.”

  “That’s how I feel today.”

  “Are you hungry for brains?” She paused then said more soberly, “Okay, that went too far.”

  Ian rubbed his face. He was too tired to feign outrage. Right now, the world’s reality felt heavy in
all its absurd ugliness. Even feral deadheads didn’t preferentially eat brains. It took lots of puzzling to get through that tricky skull problem, so most of them ate arms and thighs, like diners at KFC.

  “I just want it all to be over.”

  “Last night, you thought this might all be a big misunderstanding.”

  Ian couldn’t believe he’d ever believed that. It felt like it had been forever since he’d looked on Hemisphere and Archibald Burgess with the same wide-eyed delight as the rest of the nation. Yesterday morning, he’d set off for work feeling guilty for looking at public information, intent on turning his snitch in for the greater good if he ever discovered who it was.

  “If someone’s just screwing with us, then worst-case scenario we just end up asking some questions. Knowledge never hurt anyone.”

  “If they’re telling the truth, then it doesn’t matter,” Alice said.

  “Right.”

  “But I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Keys, there’s something Hemisphere desperately wants to keep from the world.”

  Ian closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you say so.”

  “Anyway, I have good news.”

  Ian perked up for five seconds of optimism then let his posture slump back to exhausted despair. What could possibly be good enough to matter? As long as someone was watching his house from black cars, there were problems afoot.

  “What?”

  “You know how I said our mutual friend seemed to be nudging me toward August Maughan?”

  “Yeah.” Ian wouldn’t exactly say the source had nudged him toward Maughan … but Burgess, probably inadvertently, certainly had.

  Alice sounded like she was pushing down something very exciting. Ian wished she was in the room so he could slap the enthusiasm out of her, as horrible as he’d felt the past few days.

  “I found him.”

  “Bullshit. Maughan is — ”

  “Going to be joining us today,” Alice finished.

  Ian’s mouth unhinged. Just last night, they’d been discussing Maughan as a wish-list item, or perhaps as people once discussed the final days of Howard Hughes. It had seemed logical that Maughan would be necessary to complete their conspiratorial triad — the brains required to interpret Ian’s insider Hemisphere data into an A-ha! Alice could share with the world — but finding the famous recluse was another problem entirely.

  “Turns out we have Bobby Baltimore in common,” Alice said, answering the unasked question. “And he saw my documentary about Yosemite. He said something’s been nagging him, too.”

  “Something or someone?” Ian peeked out the window, looking for black vehicles with watchers inside. He was thinking of the ghost that had been leading them, and wondering if their mystery person had got to Maughan.

  “I don’t know. He seemed nervous. You saw the thing at the Good Life Awards? Where everyone is suddenly chattering about him and Holly Gaynor?”

  “I saw something.” He hadn’t had time for the details. Lately, Ian hadn’t had time for many of the things that mattered most.

  “I should have recorded the call. I’ve lost most of it in my head. I was really tired. He actually woke me up. But he mentioned Holly. And Yosemite.”

  “Because of the documentary.”

  “Because of Yosemite.” Alice huffed, sounding frustrated. “I don’t remember. But that was important. And Bobby. He says he needs to talk to Bobby anyway. And that you might, too.”

  Ian was still looking out the window. He didn’t like this, even though Alice clearly did. Too much felt planned, like a script. Too much felt coincidental. Maybe he was being paranoid, having spent half his sleepless night peering through this same window. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was setting them up, arranging three problems in a line like targets in a row.

  “He’ll join us. Today at noon.”

  No, Ian didn’t like this at all. Not after Burgess. Not after this overwhelming sense of growing suspicions, and the sudden instability of his world.

  “Did you get his phone number? Can you call him back?”

  “I did,” Alice said. “Why?”

  Feeling himself stepping into the middle of this fray he’d merely been observing, Ian bristled from a sudden chill. As if someone was behind him, watching his every move, breathing down his neck.

  “Change of plans. I’ll meet you at eleven, not noon.”

  Ian told her a new place. Somewhere that, if someone was playing them all, would be much harder to regroup and surveil in the time between then and now.

  Alice, sounding confused, agreed and said her goodbyes.

  The feeling of being watched and overheard reasserted itself as Ian lowered the phone, sharpened by a tiny squeak from behind him.

  Like the squeak of a loose board in the hallway’s hardwood floor.

  Ian turned. The study door was slightly ajar, and through it he saw the flash of swinging red hair.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  DAWN

  JORDACHE AWOKE IN DANNY’S ARMS.

  Morning light was streaming through the window. She didn’t remember falling asleep; it had sneaked up on her the way sleep did, taking her away to slumber like a thief in the night.

  She remembered what had come before, though. That had crept up on them both, and although it had been something with its own momentum, Jordache had found herself letting go, finally letting it happen. She was hardly virginal by anyone’s definition, but with Danny, taking it slow — stalled traffic slow, so far — had felt prudent.

  Men lost interest once they nabbed what they were after.

  She rolled halfway, careful not to disturb Danny on the other half of the cramped, quasi-queen-sized bed in the tiny trailer bedroom. His always affable, usually laughing eyes were closed. Without them, he looked like a different person.

  Great. Now you’ve really fucked up, Jordache told herself.

  But then another voice inside said that she hadn’t fucked up at all. Another voice — a naive voice, certainly — seemed to think that maybe now, because of this, he’d be with her forever.

  Jordache blinked. Sat up. She remembered she was naked but was amused to realize she’d left her socks on. They were little low-rise things that vanished inside sneakers, but somehow they’d survived her feet’s departure from those shoes. Survived the romp. Survived despite Danny’s tendency to mock people for things like … well … like having sex with their socks on.

  She pulled on a huge shirt — one of Weasel’s, far too large even for his tall frame. She’d never noticed it before, but a distinct scent of Weasel struck her as the fabric slid into place. It was the difference between him and Danny that made her nose know it. Weasel had had a working man’s smell. Danny smelled more like soap and clean living. It wasn’t that either was good or bad. They were just different.

  Jordache stood, wondering why the hell she was thinking about scents at all.

  Probably latent regret. Probably her own baggage, sure that Danny would change like her ex had. Her brain was comparing one guy to the next, certain in its way that they were two links in a never-ending chain of meaningless encounters.

  Probably her mind continuing to expand as it had been, too. It was so strange. She wanted to read more. She was more curious. Danny had talked a bit about that last night, oddly enough. They’d discussed “neuronal plasticity” — a phrase he almost seemed to have just picked up from a word-of-the-day calendar, given his careful enunciation. The discussion was almost a lecture, as if he’d just learned it and wanted to tell her how true it was. How the brain, if it had a good enough reason to do so, could adapt in ways that were practically mind-over-matter, no medical intervention required.

  It’s not the drug. It’s your brain.

  But Jordache had a hard time believing that. She knew what she felt. She also knew, throughout all of yesterday, what she’d feared. The panic of having to step down had only been compounded by Danny’s silence in response to her texts. But as things turn
ed out, he’d only been playing. Refusing to respond so he could appear at her door and surprise her.

  Dirty trick.

  But it had worked. She’d been so happy and so in love with her eleventh-hour savior, she’d fucked his face off.

  Jordache snickered at herself in the silent trailer. It was a crude way to put it — more defenses rising into place. There was no need for that now. She’d broken their stalemate by giving it up. Now it was up to Danny.

  Jordache stood then padded lightly into the bathroom.

  When she looked into the mirror, she saw Weasel standing in the shower behind her.

  Jordache spun around so fast, she nearly fell. She stood with her back to the sink, chest heaving gigantic breaths, heart having gone from baseline to hummingbird in half a second.

  The shower was empty. Of course. Weasel didn’t live here anymore. Technically speaking, Weasel didn’t even live anymore. He was either dead in the old way or dead in the new way, but definitely one or the other. She’d watched the clarifiers take him away. Once, obsessively watching Bobby Baltimore’s hunting show for a sign, she’d thought she’d seen him. Only once. But he was probably still out there somewhere, worse than deceased, shambling along as a ghost of himself.

  Not in her shower.

  Not influencing her ideas about Danny right now. Not planting subversive thoughts in her head. That was Jordache, and Jordache alone.

  She turned back to the mirror, heart still racing. And of course the reflection behind her showed all clear.

  Guilt. Not for Weasel’s sake, but all on her own.

  You’re not a slut. You’ve known Danny for half a year. Six whole, sex-free months.

  Jordache’s eyes closed, like a taunt. Opened. And of course, she was still alone in the bathroom.

  Danny is a good man. He takes care of you. He might even love you. And he still will, even now, even after we crossed that last line.