Kill Monster

by Sean Doolittle

  The calm firmness of her tone gave Ben a chill. Deputy Curnow handed him both cups of coffee and sprang into action.

  Nineteen minutes after that, First Floor IT’s fallen member was airbound via medevac chopper to the University of Nebraska Medical Center in central Omaha, thirty miles away.

  ‘Fall in behind me!’ Deputy Curnow shouted to them over the whop-whop-whop of the UNMC medevac’s rotor blades. The helicopter lifted off the cracked asphalt of the fire station parking lot, taking Tiff and Jeeter away with it. ‘I’ll lead you there in the cruiser.’

  And I have more questions, his eyes seemed to say.

  By the time they pulled into the UNMC visitor’s entrance, Ben had given Anabeth and the others his quickest possible version of events surrounding one Reuben Wasserman, water carrier. He’d also called Charley thirteen times using Jeremy’s phone. No answer. Nor could he raise Christine.

  ‘Take her,’ Gordon Frerking said, handing over the keys to the Vandura while Jeremy and Devon followed Deputy Curnow into the building. ‘Please be gentle.’

  Ben’s panic had reached desperation level by now, and Gordon’s unsolicited goodwill nearly overwhelmed him. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’d give you a lift myself, but Jeeter’s my boy,’ Gordon said. ‘I should hang here. Besides, his crazy hot sister will be arriving any minute. She’s going to need comforting.’

  Anabeth smirked. ‘How sweet.’

  ‘Anyway. Me being you, I’d vamoose before Deputy Dawg comes back out here to ask why you’re bleeding through a canvas shop coat. I’ll tell him you had a family thing.’

  Ben didn’t know what to say. ‘Gordon. Thank you. I’ll—’

  ‘Need wheels,’ Gordon finished, waggling his phone. ‘Just leave her parked when you’re safe, I can track her on this. Speaking of, there’s a prepaid in the glove box. Use that until you get your own phone back.’

  Anabeth eyed him sideways. ‘Gordon, why on earth would you need to keep a drop phone in your glove compartment?’

  ‘Emergencies and Craigslist,’ Gordon said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I owe you,’ Ben said seriously. ‘More than you know.’

  ‘Go get your kid. I’ll keep you updated on the prepaid.’

  ‘I’ll go with him,’ Anabeth said, giving Gordon a quick hug that seemed to catch him pleasantly off-guard. ‘Tell Jeeter I’ll be back just as soon as I can. Don’t you three leave this hospital.’

  ‘How could we? You’re our ride.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Look, this isn’t—’

  ‘You’re in no state to drive,’ she said. ‘And clearly you need first aid.’

  ‘Thank you, really, but I’m fi—’

  ‘I’ve been fine before. I’d recognize it if I saw it.’ She grabbed the keys out of his hand. ‘Step one, find Charley. Step two, tweezers and Bactine. We’ll figure out step three from there. Sound good? Good.’

  Before Ben could speak, she’d already climbed in behind the wheel of the Vandura. She looked back as if to ask, Are you coming or not?

  He stood there with Gordon on the sidewalk in front of the medical center, blinking his eyes in the October sunlight as strangers passed him on their way in and out, heading to and from their own private triumphs and tragedies.

  Gordon patted him on the shoulder. ‘No offense, bro, but I kinda would feel better if Abe did the driving.’

  THIRTEEN

  Although Ben had never bothered to spend even a moment actually getting to know the man, Antonio Montecito had always struck him as the kind of guy who would keep his spare house key in one of those fake landscaping stones from Hammacher Schlemmer. Possibly this was an unfair evaluation on Ben’s part, rooted in humiliation and hurt feelings. Also, possibly, it was because of the time he’d watched Charley stoop into the flowerbed to retrieve the spare house key from one of those fake landscaping stones from Hammacher Schlemmer.

  He rang the bell and pounded on the door for five minutes before resorting to the same stone in the same flowerbed, only to find a nine-button combination panel tucked into the stone’s underbelly. He took the man-made rock down to the curb, placed it beneath the front tire of the Vandura, and asked Anabeth to please drive over it.

  Abe looked dubiously up and down the quiet, sun-dappled street. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

  ‘It’s a completely terrible idea,’ Ben said. ‘But Christine’s the last person I know who still keeps a calendar on the fridge, and I need to see what’s written on the today square before my mind flies apart. Open to suggestions.’

  Crunch.

  As soon as Anabeth saw him giving her the thumbs-up signal, she pulled a cautious three-point turn in the street and headed back to the Walgreen’s on Pacific for first-aid supplies. Meanwhile, Ben stooped and fished the house key from the pile of thermoplastic shards near the curb. Three women in tennis caps and ponytails jogged past him, gave him a skeptical once-over, and carried on their way without breaking stride. None of them was Christine.

  Her mobile phone, on the other hand, was inside the empty house.

  This was the first thing Ben discovered upon illegally entering. He found the device abandoned on the marble breakfast bar next to a forgotten pair of sunglasses and deduced that she’d run out somewhere and left these items behind – a point he would be sure to bring up, after all this was over, the next time she gave him a hard time about mislaying his own phone. Her lock screen showed twenty-four missed calls, all of them from him.

  The second thing he discovered was that the house wasn’t empty after all.

  ‘Aaaah!’ cried a shrill voice behind him, startling Ben half out of his skin.

  He spun on a heel to find a panting, wide-eyed Francesca Montecito standing frozen in place, one hand to her mouth, the other clutching a set of car keys over her heart. She was dressed in sneakers, hip-huggers, and a Huskers sweatshirt cut to show off her navel ring. Her cheeks were flushed, her still-damp hair pulled back under a military cap.

  ‘Geez, kiddo,’ he said. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack.’

  ‘I scared you?’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Ben waggled his fingers. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Dude, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I need Charley. Nobody’s answering their phones, and I didn’t think anybody was home.’

  ‘So you just came in?’

  ‘I rang the bell first,’ he said. ‘A lot.’

  She rolled her eyes and plucked the telephone receiver from the wall nearby. ‘I was in the shower.’ In a moment, she spoke to somebody on the other end of the line, recited a long number, and hung up again. Ben understood that he must have tripped a silent house alarm when he came in.

  ‘Sorry about that, too,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Save it.’ She showed him the black plastic canister attached to her key ring. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t get pepper-sprayed. I almost peed myself.’

  ‘I’m glad neither of those things happened.’

  ‘Seriously, man.’ She looked closer. ‘What happened to you, anyway?’

  ‘Look, Frankie, I really am sorry – I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just need Charley. Are you the only one here?’

  ‘Dad’s out of town. Christine’s gone for the day with friends. Don’t remember where.’

  Ben struggled to remain patient. ‘And Charley?’

  ‘Still sleeping, as far as I know.’

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. It was a Saturday, and it wasn’t noon yet. Of course Charley was still sleeping. ‘Could you do me a favor and tell him I’m here?’

  ‘Sorry, no go.’ She raised her palms. ‘That room is radioactive.’

  ‘Then can you show me where to find it?’

  ‘I don’t really think you’re supposed to be here. My dad would shit a brick.’

  ‘I won’t tell him if you don’t?’

  Francesca shifted her weight, finally rolled her eyes. ‘Down the hall, left, down the stairs, left again. You’ll see the Stic
ky Fingers poster.’

  ‘Thanks, Frankie. We’ll be gone in ten minutes, I promise.’

  ‘I’ll be gone in five.’ Francesca popped in earbuds as she headed on through the kitchen. ‘Lock the door, put the key back where it goes, and if anybody finds out I let you stay in here alone, I’ll tell ’em you tried to touch me in my swimsuit area.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Ben nodded. ‘You’re all right, Francesca. I owe you one.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  They went their separate ways, then, as if they’d bumped into each other on a public sidewalk instead of inside her home – Francesca toward the garage, Ben ever-deeper into the cavernous, magazine-quality Montecito household.

  He found Charley snoring in his basement bedroom, just where his new stepsister said he’d be, his unanswered phone on the pillow beside his head. Ben shook him gently, then harder, raising his voice until he was practically shouting in Charley’s sleeping face. At last, the kid’s eyes cracked open: ‘Unmm.’

  ‘Morning, sunshine. Roll out. I’ve got a surprise for you.’

  ‘That’s not spaghetti.’

  ‘Charley.’ Ben patted him lightly on the cheek. ‘Wake up. Here we go.’

  Gasp of breath … open stare … gradual uptick in consciousness level. Finally: ‘Dad?’

  ‘Shake a tailfeather, gorgeous. Jack White is putting on a VIP clinic at Ground Floor Guitars. Buddy of mine got us tickets.’

  ‘What?’ Charley sat ramrod straight at the edge of the bed, eyes ablink, sheets still tangled around his legs. His shaggy, jaw-length hair looked like a rabbit’s nest dug up by a crazed badger. ‘No, he isn’t.’

  ‘Fine, stay here, then,’ Ben said, thinking: Other than mangling his childhood, this is the cruelest thing I’ve ever done to him. ‘I’ll text you pics from there. This whole room smells like feet, by the way.’

  Charley looked at him. ‘Dad. Are you being serious right now?’

  Not for the first time, Ben noted how much his son was changing, and how fast; cheekbones emerging, chest and shoulders firming up, voice gaining depth and resonance. His nose and forehead thrived with ripe red acne. It pierced Ben’s heart every time he saw the kid – not just watching his guileless little boy disappearing before his eyes, but seeing it in such clear, striking, time-lapsed increments. That’s just how it is when you don’t see him every day, Christine had told him recently, intending no malice, or at least not much. Malicious or not, she’d been 100 percent right, and the truth of it had been depressing him ever since.

  ‘Actually, I was being kind,’ he said. ‘It smells worse than feet. Also, I’d brush my teeth if I were y …’

  But he was now talking to an empty bed. Charley had leapt up so quickly, disappearing into his own personal bathroom with such miraculous haste, that it was almost as if he’d never been sitting there at all.

  They pulled up beneath an oak tree at the curb in front of the big brick house just as the garage door opened. Out rolled a teenage girl driving a late-model Subaru, bopping her head to music only she could hear.

  Lucius glanced over. ‘Boss?’

  ‘Let her go,’ Frost said, watching the car turn out of the driveway and tool away down the street. ‘I admire her sense of timing.’

  ‘What if she comes back?’

  ‘Then her timing will no longer be fortunate.’ He looked at Lucius. ‘It’s impossible to admire the unfortunate, don’t you find?’

  ‘Yeah, boss.’

  ‘Speaking of which, Aberdeen? How is our charge?’

  From the backseat: ‘Still out.’

  Frost glanced over his left shoulder toward the young man once again drooling liberally upon the Town Car’s window glass. He shook his head. ‘I do hope we haven’t incinerated this poor young man’s mind completely.’

  ‘No disrespect, boss, but would it matter?’

  Frost sighed. ‘Not overmuch, I suppose.’ He looked at the house. He looked up and down the quiet, tree-lined street. It really was a lovely neighborhood, if you liked newer things.

  Malcom Frost preferred older things.

  They waited for several minutes, listening to the tick of the cooling engine beneath the Town Car’s hood. Otherwise, the street remained quiet. Frost finally nodded. ‘Aberdeen, be a good fellow and take the back. Lucius—’

  ‘Front. Got it.’

  ‘Please ring the bell first. We’ll begin courteously and proceed from there.’

  Just as Lucius unfastened his seatbelt, an acorn fell from the overhead oak, striking the roof of the Town Car with a sharp, hollow ploink. Lucius moved so quickly for a large man that Frost never failed to be impressed by the display. Even with one arm still half-tangled in the seatbelt strap, Lucius had his gun out of its holster and pointed above their heads in perhaps the same amount of time it would have taken most men to break wind.

  Frost chuckled, patting his driver soothingly on one seam-straining forearm. ‘Upon reconsideration, boychik, maybe you go around back instead.’

  While Charley was getting ready, Ben flew around the room, stuffing as many piles of dirty clothes as he could into the drawstring gym bag he found hanging on the closet door.

  He ran out of space before he ran out of time, but not by much. Charley emerged from the bathroom in cuffed jeans, hand-painted Chuck Taylors, and a Western-cut flannel shirt with pearl snaps. His eyes were bright. He was practically vibrating with excitement, wearing the first unselfconscious grin Ben had seen on his handsome, zit-ravaged face in ages. It appeared that he’d even smoothed his hair with tap water – an out-of-character extra step that made Ben feel even worse for lying to him than he felt already.

  ‘Record time,’ Ben told him. ‘I like the shoes.’

  ‘Mom did ’em.’

  ‘She’s still got it.’ He hooked an arm around Charley’s neck and pulled him close, smelling freshly-applied Speed Stick. ‘Come on, we’re already late.’

  Charley craned back. ‘Why are you all bloody?’

  ‘Tripped coming up the front steps. No big deal.’

  ‘Don’t you want to … is that my bag?’

  ‘You’re at my place tonight. I grabbed what I could see.’

  ‘That’s next weekend.’

  ‘Boy’s day out. Already cleared it with the boss.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘For really real. But we gotta pick up the pace, here.’

  ‘I thought I was grounded.’

  Good grief, Ben thought. Again, or still? ‘We’re temporarily lifting your sentence. Consider yourself lucky. Can we pretty please go now?’

  Charley pumped his fist. ‘This is gonna be sick!’

  Somebody’s gonna be, Ben thought, and steered Charley down the carpeted hall toward the stairs. Up on the main level, on their way through the foyer, he said, ‘Hang on a sec,’ and veered back toward the kitchen. He scribbled out a hasty note on a piece of scratch paper:

  I have him. Will call you. –B

  He wrote Christine’s name on the other side, tented the paper, and left the note sitting beside her cell phone and sunglasses on the breakfast counter. While he was doing all that, Charley rooted around in a cupboard, emerging with a prepackaged granola bar. ‘Where is everybody?’

  ‘Search me,’ Ben said. He remembered his original intention and checked the calendar on the fridge. The entry scribbled on the today square read AppleJack Festival – Neb City – Heather yes, LaDonna yes, Angie maybe. ‘Francesca let me in on her way out.’

  Something passed across the kid’s face: quick, subtle, uninterpretable. Gone in a flash.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Huh? Nothing.’ Charley waggled the granola bar. ‘You want one?’

  Ben almost said no, then realized he was starving. ‘Got any bacon and eggs in there?’

  ‘Ha, ha.’

  Ben held up his hand. ‘Hit me with the rabbit food, then.’

  Charley tossed him a second bar and they headed toward the front door together. Ben had been hoping th
at Abe would be back by now, and his heart sank when he opened the door to a bare, sunny driveway. There was a demolished combination rock still visibly littering the street out front. He hoped Charley wouldn’t notice. How to explain?

  Anyway, the empty driveway and the busted keyholder weren’t what bothered him most. What bothered Ben most was the giant slab of beef in a suit and sunglasses coming up the front walk.

  Charley said, ‘Who’s that guy?’

  Ben didn’t know. Maybe the universe had finally decided to rule in his favor for once and put Tony Montecito under federal investigation for something?

  But the big man in the black suit addressed him specifically: ‘Ben Middleton?’

  Shit. Ben shielded his eyes with the back of one hand. ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ The man continued up the sidewalk. ‘Isn’t this lucky?’

  Down the street, beneath the same oak tree where he’d first confronted Reuben Wasserman, now sat an anonymous-looking black Lincoln, its windshield blanked by sun glare.

  Charley sighed. His tone was disappointed, but not surprised. ‘Dad, what’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ben answered honestly. He held the front door open and stood to one side. ‘Why don’t you go back in the house while I figure it out?’

  That was when they saw a second slab of beef in a matching suit and sunglasses entering the Montecito foyer.

  From inside the house.

  Coming toward them.

  With a gun.

  FOURTEEN

  Ben slammed the door closed, heart suddenly racing. He stepped in front of Charley and turned back toward the first man, thinking, This definitely isn’t about Jeeter. How could it be? They’d left the hospital less than an hour ago. Besides: something about these two didn’t look local. Or official. Suits or no suits.

  The man coming up the sidewalk was still twenty feet away. Ben didn’t like the way the guy looked both ways as he approached the front steps … then both ways again. He didn’t like the way the guy held up his gloved hands in what appeared to be a calming gesture, like an overdressed ranch hand approaching a pair of spooked horses.