by Nick Keller
“Why?”
“How do I know you're his wife? I would have to know you’re actually his wife.”
“Why?”
“Ma’am.”
“Wouldn’t you spy on the man regardless, especially if we contract it?”
Bernie removed his hat from his head, itched his scalp. She was right. There were no investigator/client protocols that required him to know her name. Ultimately, Bernie had become a mercenary for hire. And that required only that he receive payment, on time.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s discuss payment.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Eighty an hour, plus expenses. Special circumstances might increase cost, given the situation, and …”
“Eighty?”
“Yeah. That includes my,” he scrambled through his top drawer, found a flip pad, whipped the pages desperately until he came to what he was looking for and read, “My guarantee of complete autonomy and …”
“I’ll just give you a thousand to start.”
His eyebrows went up. No invoice. That was good. Bernie tightened his lips, said, “Okay. The contract can be emailed.”
“No, fax,” she said.
“Fax?” He sighed impatiently. “Alright, do you have a fax number?”
“Yes. Do you have a pencil?”
Bernie waved his pencil between two fingers. “Yeah.”
“Okay, here’s the number.”
Bernie scribbled the fax number with the phone held on his shoulder and said, “Fine. You can expect that in about twenty minutes. How can I reach you?”
“Don’t worry about that. You fax me the contract now, then I fax you instructions on what I need. You receive payment from me. Then, you can, you can do your thing, your magic.”
Bernie cringed, then heard the word, “Cash,” over the phone.
He thought about it puckering his lips. It wasn’t a bad arrangement. No risk on his part. Certain payment. He shrugged, said, “Yeah that—that works.”
The fax transactions went smoothly enough and just like that, Bernie sent off his very first contract as a private investigator. He despised P.I.’s. He’d worked with them in his capacity as a formal L.A. cop for over two decades, from time to time. They were a stingy lot, always worried about their bottom dollar, always insisting on being the one that caught the bad guy, even at the expense of justice. Mongrels. Peckerwoods. All of them.
Now he was one.
At some point in the afternoon, and he couldn’t say when exactly, good for her word, the woman, his very first client as an L.A. P.I., had a manila envelope with his office address rushed to his mailbox. Bernie keyed the box open, reached in, felt the package folded into halves and smiled. He pulled it out. It was sealed so he ripped it open with a finger and looked in. A thousand dollars. Not bad for his first day’s work. It made him grunt, vaguely pleased with himself. Now, there was a job to do.
35
Heaven Talk
“Tell me this time, what did you see?” It was that voice again, more breath than sound. It was like a ghost in the room, yet William could feel Graves’s breath on his face. The creature was sitting at the head of the table leaning directly over him. William blinked unable to speak. “Some say there are visions of a tunnel, and at the end those that have gone before us stand waiting. They want to receive us. Faces of old friends, people we cherished in life. Did you see them?”
William looked apathetically away trying to ignore his captor. He felt like Graves had only brought him halfway back to the world. William lingered in an in-between place, only gathering half-images of the world around him, everything faded in and out. There was nothing but overwhelming thirst. Empty throat. Dry, like sand. He wondered if this was only an extension of death.
Graves continued murmuring in his airy, ghastly way, “Others believe we see a spirit animal, a horse or mother steed coming from the dark. They say it’s wreathed in flame like life from death, and it approaches to carry us into a new light. Is this what you saw, William?”
William attempted a response. His mouth opened and closed, withered and dry like a hole in the sand, but all that came out was mumbling. All he could do was breathe—in and out—in slow controlled breaths. He couldn’t swallow.
“Maybe, as others believe, we try to pass into another body. We move like, like energy, searching out new positive space. Is that what you saw?” Graves said. A tear accumulated making a trail down the unbroken side of his face. “Tell me, please,” he begged.
William closed his eyes. What had he seen? He couldn’t remember. There was nothing but a dream of the past. Or was it a dream at all? Had he ventured back to another piece of his timeline, exploring his youth? Or were those his final memories before dying?
“Was there God?” Graves said. “Did you see the face of eternal light, William?” When William didn’t answer, Graves adjusted his position moving around to the side of the bed. His gaze never left, never wandered away, always stayed on him, locked in need. “Will there be more? Is this all there is? Tell me, what is there?”
William speared a look into Graves’s eyes. His mouth opened and he raggedly grunted, “Water, asshole.”
Graves leaned away, curious, putting the words together. Then he smiled with understanding. “Of course.” He went to the sink.
William rolled his head back and forth blinking and adjusting his vision. A tear moved down his face. He wished it would break over his lip and fall onto his tongue wet and warm.
He tugged weakly on the restraints. It was hopeless. This table had housed Mark Neiman at one point. Before him, Angela Newman. How many others had there been? How many deaths had they suffered?
Graves was the angel of death.
Yet he’d brought William back from the brink twice. How many more times would there be?
Perhaps, he was also the angel of mercy.
“Here, drink.” Graves returned with a pitcher full of water and began feeding it to William. He felt the liquid pour into his mouth, slather his tongue, lubricate his throat. He felt it revive him with every gulp bringing strength back to his body. But how long would it last, and would it really matter? “Better, my friend?” Graves said, putting the pitcher away.
William didn’t answer.
“Now,” Graves said, lowering down to William’s eye level. “What did you experience?”
William frowned at him, refused to answer.
Graves put his hands on William’s face in a gesture of pleading and repeated, “What was there? What did you see?”
William jerked his face away. He could sense Graves’s anger begin to rise. The man seethed audibly before demanding, “Tell me what you saw!”
William jerked a look at him and sneered, “Nothing!”
Graves processed the outburst with a forlorn look. He said, “Nothing. There—there must be something.”
William turned his head away and stared off at the distance.
Graves stood, started pacing. “No, I—I don’t believe that. There must be something. Nothing—even nothing is something. There was something.” He knelt suddenly by William’s bed and cried, “What was it, William. What is there?”
William speared a look deep into Graves’s eyes each an icy blue, the left one rimmed with those hideous bulges of flesh, and said, “There’s nothing for you, Graves. You’re going to die. Then you’ll be gone. And the world will be done with you.”
Graves gave him a rictus look that was somewhere between acrimony and betrayal, and leaned away from him. His eyes frosted over. Without saying anything he got up and lumbered away like a lost soul disappearing amongst the shadows.
36
At Work
All the streets over here were named after Greek gods. Apollo. Venus. Jupiter. Christ almighty. Who did these people think they were? This particular stakeout would happen on a street called Achilles. That made perfect sense.
He found the house. The goddam thing looked like a big Lego, all right angles and squares, two sto
ries tall with a concrete balcony and steel railing. It was a split-level with a terrace and a low, flat roofline on one end. It made him snuffle to himself as he drove by unassumingly. No one would live in a house like that. No real person. It was total 80’s dead tech.
He pulled a U-turn and sidled up to the curb a few houses down. It was dusk, just after eight o’clock. He was in for a long wait, but he didn’t mind. He’d been in the cold for too long, not hunting crime, not pounding the hot city streets for bad men. This was where he belonged. It was a strange feeling, something almost forgotten. It made him grin.
He checked his supplies. 35mm Cannon. Wide-angle lens. A pair of military-grade binoculars with an infrared doohickey that could snap heat signatures in the dark. A French dip hoagie from Herbert’s (pronounced A-bearz.) He was ready. Everything was still, yet on the verge of action. Time to be patient. Fuck.
He reached across his passenger seat and slapped the glove box open. It was impulse, something he’d spent years programming himself to do in such times, and six months trying to unlearn. The glove box was empty. No flask, no whiskey, no Jack. He clenched his jaw angry with himself and smacked it shut grumbling, “Shit.”
And suddenly he was alone, reminded of how he’d gotten here. Everything he had been barely half-a-year ago was gone, wiped away. Iva. His career. He was a hole in the world, a big zero having to start over. He couldn’t even take a drink, and oh how he missed the sting of whiskey, the heat of it. Nothing was comfortable anymore. Not even staking out a chump on the move. This whole venture suddenly seemed a waste of time. All he could do was sit and breath and die a little more. It made his stomach churn, like he was going to throw up. Even distraction wasn’t distraction anymore. How could a man endure this without going fucking crazy?
When he looked back up the sun had fallen. It was full-on nighttime in the Hills. Had it been an hour? Two? He looked down into his lap. The hoagie sat bleeding oil through its paper wrap. He hadn’t even eaten it—not a single bite. Christ, what would Iva say?
What would Iva say?
Headlights banked onto the street a block up. It caught his attention, made him glare through the windshield. He watched the car arc into the driveway of the Lego house.
He made a tiny, desperate noise snagging the binoculars and lifting them to his face. He couldn’t see anything. He looked them over, toggled the heat-signature setting and brought them back up. The night blew up through the lenses, all deep blacks and shades of blue-green. He could see the shape of the car as it pulled to a stop, its engine compartment radiating color. The door swung open and a man stepped out. His head and hands showed green. Bernie adjusted the binoculars for clarity.
The passenger door opened. Another person emerged—smaller, slender, wearing what appeared to be a dinner dress. A woman. When she moved around the front of the car, they took hands and started toward the Lego house front door.
“Uh-huh, yeah,” Bernie mumbled.
They disappeared inside and were gone. He pulled the binoculars down, adjusting his eyes to the night. After a few seconds a light came on upstairs. He grinned. The bedroom.
Bernie’s view was broken by a neighbor’s tree. He’d have to move. He started the engine crept along the curb. Once the bedroom was in full view, he rolled to a stop. He hunkered low in the seat, eyes peeled on the upstairs window. Someone moved around in there. A single person. Man or woman—he couldn’t tell. Then, the light switched off. Let the screwing begin.
“Dammit,” he groaned. He hadn’t snapped any photos. It was too dark. Nothing would show up. He sighed. At least he knew something was up. Someone was banging away up there, cheating on someone else. This was going to be a long night.
He looked at his wristwatch. Ten o’clock on the dot. “Mmm,” he grunted. Lots of waiting to do. He picked up the hoagie. It was cold. He unwrapped it from its paper and stared at it. “Ah, the life,” he said, and opened his mouth to take a bite, but froze.
Shit just got a little worse.
The downstairs light flipped on. The TV room.
Bernie lowered the hoagie. “What?” They were watching TV. No humping. “They might as well be hot-damn married,” he said pathetically.
He put the hoagie away, grabbed the binoculars. Yep—two people, one on the couch, the other in a chair, watching some show. They weren’t even sitting together. No hanky-panky.
“C’mon, guy,” Bernie whispered, “just bang this broad and—Gah!” he barked out.
An eruption of light showered through his bino lenses frying his ocular nerves and forcing him to slam his eyes shut, hard. Afterimages shone under his eyelids like bright red sunspots in the dark. He shook his head blinking, trying to focus. The world came back as if fading up from a blackout. He inspected the binoculars angrily, looking for a malfunction or some manufacturer’s sick joke. Something caught his attention hovering around on his chest. He looked down and choked a blast of terror.
A tiny red laser dot was on him. Sniper scope!
He wheeled over in the front seat of his car expecting a bullet to dart through the windshield. The dot was on his driver seat now, but it moved, snaking over toward him. Bernie screamed backsliding over the car’s console and onto the passenger seat, jabbing his kidneys with the gearshift. The dot was on him again, sitting on his chest. He swatted at it like a fly. It found its spot—his sternum.
Bernie cried out reaching behind, snagging the door handle and throwing the door wide open. All knees and torso, he ejected himself from his car and hit the pavement of the sidewalk, hard and heavy. The hoagie from Herbert’s (pronounced A-Bearz) landed in the street and split apart into cold cuts and lettuce. Looking up, he watched the red dot glide up over the dashboard and out onto the hood of his car, then move toward him as if looking for him, hunting him.
“Oh fuck, oh shit,” he groaned, turning over to his stomach, staying low, and stomach-crawling toward the rear of his car. Once there, he pulled himself up into a squatting position. Peeking up over the trunk lid with only his eyes he could see an arrow-straight laser beam showing faintly through the night. Its dot was still gliding over his Chrysler, but he could follow the beam. It led his gaze directly across the street toward the Lego house. Someone was up there on the split-level roof hiding in the moon shadows scoping him out. He squinted. He could see the person. He was standing there perfectly exposed, just shoulders and a head, black against the night sky.
Bernie gnashed his teeth, pissed off, and jerked his .45. The killer was a full two-hundred feet away standing on that flat Lego roof, and it was dark, but Bernie was a good shot. He leveled his firearm steadying it over the trunk lid taking long, slow careful aim. The red dot zinged over to him, stopped on his forehead. He made a muffled, frantic noise dropping back down.
“Shit shit shit.”
His mind raced. What to do, what to do. The dot moved across the trunk of his car and sat on the sidewalk not three feet away, to his left. It moved in a tiny circle. Bernie watched it through huge, frantic eyes as it glided back across the trunk and came to rest on the street, just to his right. It made another tiny circle. This jackwad was communicating with him, making him understand the gravity of his situation. The only barrier between Bernie and a bullet was his car. Any movement to the left or right meant certain death. He was trapped. He was fucked.
But, this son of a bitch had him dead to rights a few moments earlier as he sat inside his car. Yet, he hadn’t fired at him. Why not? In fact, not a single shot had been taken at all. Bernie heaved in desperate thought. Maybe they didn’t want him dead. He groaned feeling helpless. He had only a single option. Taking a huge breath and holding it, he holstered his .45 on safety, and stood slowly up from the street coming up over the rear of his car, hands up, not moving.
The red dot went to his chest, made him scrunch his face up, waiting. Nothing happened. The dot moved away, into the street and stopped. Whoever it was up on that roof was tracking him along. Bernie huffed angrily. No choice. He stepped for
ward moving across the street, following the dot as it led him. He went across the Lego house driveway and to the concrete terrace wall. The dot moved along, begging him forward. Bernie growled and hefted himself up the wall to solid ground. A voice said, “Stop.” He did so turning to look up on the roof putting his hands back up.
His would-be shooter was twenty feet away, still no more than a dark silhouette in the night. He was smallish, but definitely male. He stepped forward along the low edge of the roof coming to the ledge. Pausing a moment, he dropped down landing firm on both feet. Moonlight shone on him as he stepped forward from night.
Bernie felt his anger turn his ears hot, make him see through a field of red. He sneered, “You little mother …”
“Don’t do anything crazy, Mr. Bernie,” Jacky Lee Hobar pleaded, hands forward in a gesture of peace, showing him the red laser penlight.
“You son of a ….”
Jacky took a step back. “Mr. Bernie, please.”
“You little piece of …”
“You wouldn’t listen to me,” Jacky said, defensively. “I had to do something!”
Bernie’s eyes went red. His face flushed hot with anger. He quivered, trying to contain himself. Jacky Lee Hobar shrank back, closed his eyes, prepared himself for a pummeling. Bernie had to tell himself not to kill the kid. That was illegal. So, he ripped the laser light from the kid’s grasp, snapped it in two like a pencil and threw it far into the night.
37
Plea
A taxi. The little cumquat had taken a taxi to get to Hollywood Hills, had it drop him off a few blocks from Lego house. He’d snuck through the night to get there, slinking between shadows, avoiding automated burglar lights and home surveillance cameras. It’s why he’d chosen that particular Lego house. It was backed against a tree line with an alley running along its rear fence, right up to the terrace. Plus it had a split-level yard with a low roof. It gave him both access to high ground as well as egress if he needed it. The little bastard was crafty if nothing else.