Then the man under the fedora pointed west across a green glen to a structure rising into the sky. A mist surrounded this structure, but Lexi was still able to make out its azure metal façade.
“Welcome to the Tower’s latest factory,” said the man under the fedora.
Chapter 13
As they crossed the glen of muted grays and languid browns, Lexi formulated theories. “Can I see your badge?” she asked the man under the fedora.
“No.”
To distract herself from a growing unease, Lexi calculated the size of the factory, came up with a sum of twenty-five acres. As they stood at the western face of the structure, where the loading bays stood with closed mouths, a dull bronze man door opened.
They entered, the DeLorean-haired woman first, followed by the driver and Lexi. The man under the fedora brought up the rear, closing the door behind him.
A long warehouse appeared on the other side as soon as their eyes adjusted to the darkness lingering below blinking fluorescent bulbs thirty feet overhead. Unmarked boxes stacked three pallets high filled the warehouse, punctuated by the occasional prosaic box labeled TOILET PAPER, or SANITARY SOAP. A man with wrinkles on wrinkles met them and led the way across in a painfully slow toddle. For a factory there was remarkably little noise, a mere back up beeper of a tow motor echoing in the distance.
The ancient man—whose ramrod posture Lexi found unsettling—led them from the warehouse to a set of doors leading into a hallway. If the warehouse was dark the hallway more than made up for it with a procession of glaring lights augmented by a pristine white paint job.
With all thought of the outside world now shunned by distance, they were led into a small room furnished with four chairs and a steel table.
For a moment Lexi thought she heard the faint tones of the Third Movement, but the moment passed and all was silent. The ancient man disappeared through a door opposite the one through which he had led them. A moment later searchlights banished the darkness with an audible click and liquid light attacked their corneas. Their half of the room stood brilliant, yes, but the other half sat in darkness so absolute it seemed it could never have possessed light. The door on the dark side squeaked open.
Footsteps.
No one spoke for thirty seconds. Then the old man emerged from the shadows carrying a silver tray loaded with four full glasses. As he set the drinks down Lexi noticed faint blue veins stretching underneath pock-marked hands. She also watched her mysterious captors to see if they would betray knowledge of the old man, but they just mystified as she.
When the old man set the fourth glass before her, he looked down and said, “Don’t look so scared, it’s just filtered water.” He smiled, displaying an improbable set of pearly whites.
Lexi nodded and took a sip, watching as he retreated into the shadows. There followed a moment when the only sound was the hum of the too-bright lights. She could sense a presence in the shadows, but not through normal senses; it was silent, motionless, impenetrable. The man under the fedora reached out for his drink and held it forward. His associates mirrored the movement. They sniffed, then drank.
Apparently this was what the presence lurking in the shadows had been waiting for. It cleaved the darkness with a sharp accented voice.
The accent was familiar, but Lexi couldn’t place it.
“In the evolving course of my work I have been systematically thwarted by certain groups, individuals and events.” He stopped as though to catch his breath, but the only sound was the electronic droning hum of the searchlights. “Hence, a change is necessitated. I must actively intervene—even to the detriment of certain persons—if I wish to accomplish my design.”
“And what are your designs?” the man under the fedora asked.
The room was getting hotter by the minute. Lexi poured the water down her parched throat. It settled like a blast of Alaskan wind, cooling her from the inside out. She observed sweat stains on her companions, even on the blouse of the DeLorean-haired woman, and the driver’s head was drooping and bobbing like a buoy.
Something’s wrong.
They twitched and shifted. Considering their obvious and growing discomfort, Lexi felt oddly content—even disinterested. The heat wasn’t so bad, and the lights weren’t as bright as she had at first thought. The migraine was gone.
“To make this a safe world, Mr. Lewis,” Dorl, for surely it must be Dorl, explained. “That has always been my design and, were it not for enterprising and ignorant persons, subterfuge and secrecy would not be necessary and you would possess the power to counteract the coming threat.” An unsettling pause. “I cannot allow the few to destroy the many. Sacrifices must be made.”
The driver dropped his head to the table and stopped moving. Lexi watched indifferently. The DeLorean-haired woman tried to reach out to him but she too conked out. The man under the fedora lunged into the shadows but dropped to the floor, making a wet, sloppy sound. It was this that finally convinced Lexi that these people were not employed by Mr. Dorl.
She stood up in a daze but did not fall. “What . . . what’s going on?” checking the pulse of the woman just as the old man entered and dragged the man under the fedora into the shadows. “She’s not breathing,” Lexi said in an apathetic tone.
“You remain ignorant of the threat, Alexis,” Dorl said. His voice was unnaturally steady and crisp. Misunderstanding was not an option. “I have spared your life in honor of that ignorance. Our true enemy grows closer every day. If you choose to make me your enemy, as your forebears did, then so I shall become. Stop chasing me and enjoy the bliss of your ignorance.”
She could feel Dorl departing, in some inexplicable way. The ancient man returned and hefted the driver up and out of the room. When he came for the DeLorean-haired woman, Lexi asked him his name.
“It’s Silas, mum.” He sniggered. “I guess your companions never heard of a Mickey Finn. It is a dangerous thing these days, being a fool.” He snickered then grew serious. “You need to listen to him. He is the only one who can save us.” He dropped the drivers’ keys onto the floor and disappeared into the shadows. A moment later the searchlights clicked off and Lexi was plunged into a world of darkness.
Solitude and a nameless fear surrounded her, burrowed into her flesh and nested.
She woke in a cocoon of blankets with the sun breaching cracked blinds. Slithered out of bed and threw open the blinds to view the world hanging in her window, as glossy as any movie poster, and almost too vivid to be real.
Lexi rubbed her face and conquered the languid manner in which we wake, but found that she could not recall the events of the night before. The sound of banging filled the two-story house until her cell rang Ode to Joy. “What?”
“Lexi!” a shrill voice answered. “Where have you been? Who’s in the house with you? Open the door, come on.”
An image of a solemn drive out of Batavia filled her mind’s eye; her heartbeat seemed to dislodge. She could feel it beating in her head. Shuffled downstairs to the door. “Hi Simon,” she said as she turned to find some Excedrin.
Simon flung Lexi around and embraced her.
“You lied to me. Linnux told me about Everything Fits. I can’t even describe how stupid that was. You had no idea—”
“Well obviously I survived so what is the big deal?” She downed two tablets and a glass of water that was somehow weak, plainer than usual. A tap of a button and Beethoven filled the sun drenched room with ambitious modulation.
“Survived? You were gone for two days and when you show up it’s in a different vehicle? I had to have your truck towed here, you know. What the hell is going on?”
“Two days?” they were yelling over the symphony now. She rubbed her face as the image of a man under a fedora slathered in shadows clouded her vision. Lexi jerked and her legs gave out as she saw the man collapse in her mindscape. Simon caught her.
“You all right? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “I think I we
nt to the storage units, but then . . . I can’t remember.”
Later that day, after Simon left—reluctantly—the Dakota taxied Lexi over to Willow House to see Linnux.
“Amnesia?” Linnux stammered. “You don’t think they probed you or anything, do you?”
“Eew, gross. No, I think if I really did meet Mr. Dorl, he probably just wanted to find out what I knew.” She sat on his mussed bed while he dithered with the computer.
“That just proves my theory then that the people who took you were working for him. Never question a genius.” A knock on the door followed his boast. Linnux flinched.
“Oh, hey,” the behemoth greeted Lexi. “Just wanted to tell the Wizard I’m glad he’s back.”
“Thanks man,” Linnux waved but did not get up. The behemoth left. “Tell me you at least remembered the flash drive and camera.” He spun in the chair to face her, favoring his leg.
She shrugged helplessly.
“Great.”
“I’m sorry, I looked everywhere for them. I’m almost positive I brought them inside, but between the gun-blazing car chase and the amnesia I just can’t be sure. So we got nothing?”
“Nothing,” Linnux echoed. He clicked a few more keystrokes before slamming the laptop closed. “And apparently your good friend Detective Simon Square-Jaw was kind enough to warn the SCIA about our activities. Leave it to a cop to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Now whatever Dorl is planning he’ll have no obstacle from us.” He winced.
“I don’t think he’d go that far. Maybe we should drop this whole thing.” The words felt forced. “Wait and see if something suspicious shows up on the news.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. Haven’t seen the news lately, have you?” Linnux flipped on his little twenty-two inch tube. Alison Van Heusen was rambling off the latest developments in the unfolding space saga starring Wormwood. According Alison NASA was making yet another round of claims, this time saying that Womwood would come within the mesosphere, much closer than previously estimated.
“At least that’s something to look forward to,” Linnux mused. “It should appear as big as the moon when it passes.”
Lexi remained for a few more minutes, letting relief wash over her at the thought of how close they had both come to being killed.
On the way home she tried ignoring that new metallic clanging sound emanating from somewhere in the front of the rusty truck. Probably the shocks dying. She veered left and headed west on Bank Street Road, toward the storage facility, in hopes of jogging her memory.
Then the phone vibrated.
“You have a deadline, Miss Montaigne,” her literary agent warned. “I need to see the first half so I can tell Worth that the project is proceeding on schedule.”
“The first half is complete. All I have to do is format it and send it.”
“That’s fine. By the end of today.”
She turned up the Third Movement to drown out the lingering whine of her agent. When had the necessities of life become so trite and meaningless?
Splotchy rain should have but didn’t slap any vacationing memories to the surface.
But the sight of Everything Fits did dredge up a grizzled image of a man smoking, the red dot of his cigarette piercing the gloom. The vision sagged like water splashed on a wet painting. Nothing else came, even after Lexi got out and inspected Gramps’ unit.
The misty rain continued and the phone buzzed again. “What?”
“Get to the station,” Simon ordered. “We need to talk about that bullet casing you gave me.”
Chapter 14
“What took you so long to get here, where were you?” Simon demanded an hour later.
The station resounded with cawing phones and ringing palaver. Officers marched from one desk to the next, sometimes ferrying a low-level criminal with a vocabulary comprised entirely of four-letter words.
“I visited Linnux and then I had to stop at home to send out my manuscript.”
Simon’s eyes scanned hers before wandering down her torso. Seemingly satisfied, he waved (dismissing his doubts?) and retrieved an evidence bag from his desk. The crumpled bullet Lexi had dug out from the Dakota lay snug in the corner of the thick plastic bag.
“This is a 10mm cartridge from a Smith and Wesson model 1006.” He managed to smile and frown simultaneously.
Well ain’t he a regular thespian?
“You do realize I am a psychologist, not a gun enthusiast?” Lexi quipped. A female officer bumped into her and glowered before walking away. “Well that was rude.”
“The S&W 1006 has a little more kick than the police issue nine millimeter,” Simon whispered. “Only a division of the FBI and maybe select agents in the CIA carry the 1006.”
Lexi squinted and looked around as she comprehended. “Are you saying the government was chasing me, that government agents killed that guy in the Camaro?”
Simon nodded slowly.
“This doesn’t make sense,” she grabbed the bag and stared at the slug as though trying to penetrate its secrets. “Then why haven’t any agents, you know, questioned me?”
“I don’t know, but until we found out, I want you to stay with me. I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe at my place. It could have been rogue agents who burned down your house and shot at you.”
During his speech Simon’s voice escalated an octave and he blinked eight times. Lexi felt the eyes of the station roving over her. Why is he lying?
“You can stay with me, at night if you want,” she finally managed. “But I am not moving; all my stuff is in Gramps’ house, plus, I have two cranky cats to tend to. No, if the government wants me, it can frigging come and get me. I’m tired of this crap. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Simon opened his mouth, probably to argue, but Lexi cut him off.
“No, I am sick of these cat and mouse games! I just want it all to be over.” As she ran fingers through her hair, pleased with the liquid feel of the raven strands, Simon put his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged him off—a nervous tic she could tell he was still not accustomed to. “I never should have taken up Gramps’ obsession.”
“Okay,” Simon sighed. “I already put in a few calls to the FBI. If I hear anything I’ll let you know. And I’m coming over tonight and that’s final.” He kissed her for the first time at the station and Lexi resisted the urge to resist. His lips were warm and smooth and moist. How the hell had I suspected him of . . . of what, of his involvement? Ridiculous, she chastised. Right?
Eight days of relative peace followed, and after the Yankees bowed to the Tigers in the ALCS, Lexi assumed everything was back to normal. “Damn Yankees. Every flipping year.”
Simon kept her company each night. Her agent seemed pleased with the book thus far and, having given up the inherited obsession, Lexi found she was able to focus and make steady progress on Universal Psychology. She cut only once during these eight days, when, after chastising Simon for not giving her space, she experienced remorse.
It was on that night of cutting that a revelation occurred to her: she had been cutting for so long that it no longer produced the tranquil state, the elegant euphoria that had been its allure since daddy died; she had become an inveterate cutter, a bloody addict. So she vowed to give it up, knowing she never would, which in turn compelled her to cut.
The cycle of the addict.
She was listening to the staccato beat of the Overture to the Sun from A Clockwork Orange, finishing the chapter titled, So Your Brother’s a Schizoid, when Simon called.
Fifteen seconds later Lexi dropped the receiver.
She left the house without locking the door. Walked alone through a world of shadows and biting cold. The pleasant aroma of autumn and the cheerful songs of chirping birds vanished, replaced by the lurid stench of rotten meat and a melancholy song of ravens and jays. I will not cry, not until . . . I see it.
The Batavia City Morgue in GMH stank of bleach and body fluids: the stench that proves death has won at last, as
it always does.
“Lexi, I told you I would handle this,” said Simon as she entered Autopsy Room 3. “You shouldn’t be here, not yet.”
He wasn’t even there, not really, and neither were the mortician and the silent bodies.
But he was; his blond hair so brilliant it was white, his thin and sinuous body lying prostrate and naked and undignified for the rude patchwork of bruises marring his young flesh. And though his face wore an expression of contentment, the deep crimson hole in his stomach just inches above his navel suggest otherwise.
Death is an ugly bitch.
Stepping closer, Lexi covered her mouth. “Linnux.” She trembled. Then, just as the aching-jaw-prelude to tears struck, her mind went rigid. This was a friend, lying on this cold godless table. This was a good, innocent boy.
With a slap of the face and a shake of the head, Lexi dispelled these emotional thoughts. She would need to be clear-headed and cold-hearted if she wished to find his killer.
“Tell me how it happened,” she whispered to the mortician. “Tell me everything.”
The mortician, an elderly English man with a snow-white beard explained that Linnux had died of exsanguination due to a stab wound between the eleventh and twelfth ribs which nicked the first lumbar vertebra. “He bled out in roughly two minutes,” the man said in a voice immune to death and pain. “He would only have felt cold and a steady decrease in his breathing. He did not suffer long.”
Lexi, who had managed to breathe again and put her hands down, turned now to Simon. “You didn’t catch the guy, did you? You would’ve told me that first thing.”
“He was gone by the time we got there,” Simon confessed. He tried to embrace her but she shrugged out of his hug. “I’m sorry, Lexi, but there weren’t any witnesses. There are camera’s in the Willow House lot though, so we’re looking into that.”
“When did it happen?” she was pleased with her stoicism—pleased and shocked. A rage, pure and simple overtook her logical mind and she grabbed Simon by his welder’s jacket. “How could this happen on a college campus, in the same place where he’d been attacked only weeks before?”
The Fifth Descent of Lexi Montaigne Page 8