Reluctantly, Dolan reached out across what felt like nine feet of open space and took the business card. He held it at the very end of his burn-scarred fingers. It seemed to vibrate. Words wouldn’t come, so Dolan just nodded.
“That was a wise decision, young man.” Mr. Cranston turned. He walked away without waiting for a response. Dolan watched him go, his right hand still holding the business card, which he lowered to his side and finally tucked into his right pocket. Strangely enough, Mr. Cranston no longer seemed inebriated. He walked briskly and efficiently down the long line of cars. He paused, took out his keys, and a burgundy BMW that was lightly beaded with rain drops chirped happily and unlocked itself. Mr. Cranston got in and drove off.
Suddenly Dolan felt sleepy and cranky, and it almost seemed like the whole thing had been some kind of a weird dream.
He walked down the main drag, heading home. The sleepiness persisted, unusual for him this far from sunrise. A police car passed by slowly, the cops inside taking his measure, but before they could stop to roust him, someone else sped through the stop light in a truck weaving back and forth. Their siren whooped once, kind of a solo war cry that reminded Dolan of a Confederate soldier, and then the cops hit the siren full on and took off in an explosion of color and sound.
Snake Dolan walked home and immediately went to bed.
He slept poorly.
*
The twenty bucks didn’t last long. In fact, the cash ran out faster than a political promise. Dolan had to go to the Salvation Army and endure some preaching to get a bit of food the day before his next check was finally due. Then the slimy, fat landlord gave him some bullshit about needing the space and having to raise the rent if Dolan didn’t want to move out. He claimed some company had come by and was going to buy the building. Dolan told him he was flat broke right now, which was true, but would make good soon. He got up that Friday and went straight to the mail box to collect his money.
But the check wasn’t there.
Dolan went back to the mail box three times that day just to be sure. The money had always showed up on time before, but not this time. When he called the VA, he got the runaround. They told him it had been sent out and that maybe someone had stolen it from the mailbox, and if so, he’d have to fill out some forms and wait until his claim was processed. Their estimate was a few more weeks to cancel the first one and issue another. When he told them he’d be out on the street, they recommended he just go to a homeless shelter and wait.
Frustrated, Dolan finally remembered the earlier event by the coffee shop. He searched his pockets for the business card, but it wasn’t there. He’d misplaced it somehow. He was now completely broke and without a single job lead to follow. He went for his usual walk that night, a sick feeling of dread growing inside.
When he returned to his room, the fat landlord had changed the locks. That motherfucker…
Dolan banged on the landlord’s triple-locked door, though he knew the man wouldn’t open it. He’d just call the police and have Dolan taken away. Stuck with the clothes on his back and no money, Dolan went back out into the cold, struggling to remember the ad he’d seen in the paper, the name of the company looking to hire. He couldn’t quite remember it. He’d felt odd and groggy for days now, though he couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Dolan was even more out of tune with the world than before.
Hopelessness nearly overtook him. The night tried to swallow him up. And that brightly lit liquor store seemed especially appealing.
Dolan stood outside in the night, unable to bring himself to ask the sparse collection of patrons for their spare change. His stomach rumbled with hunger. His throat felt parched. He watched the store with an idea growing in the back of his tired mind. The bored, stoned store clerk took frequent bathroom breaks and left the front of the place unprotected. He read porn magazines and rarely looked up.
Snake Dolan stood in the dark outside, planning his move. He’d grab one tall bottle of Wild Turkey and some beef jerky and cookies. He’d get in and out in a heartbeat. The bell would sound and the clerk would return but only to find the place empty. Meanwhile, Dolan would race down the side alley with the bottle and make for the safety of the park. A lot of homeless folks camped out there at night, sometimes huddled together for warmth, setting trash fires they had to run from if the police decided to roust their camp.
I’m down to this, Dolan thought. I can’t believe I’m down to this. I just want to forget. I have to forget.
He stood in the dark, his cold breath billowing like dragon smoke in the air. The clerk flipped through a porn magazine, absently picking at his dried zits. He found something to study intensely. It was a fold-out photograph. He took the magazine with him and headed for the john behind the counter. Dolan walked briskly inside, grabbed some junk food and a bottle of whiskey and was out the door just after the bell sounded. He’d pulled it off without a hitch. He marched down the alley, forcing himself not to run and attract attention. Guilt chewed like a rat at the corner of his mind. It felt like his newly won integrity had just been run through a shredder.
The park was at the end of 5th, near Huston Street. Some of the homeless men had set fire to a trash barrel and they were all warming their hands and sharing bottles of cheap rotgut wine. Dolan stood for a time on the sidewalk perhaps twenty yards away. He opened the bottle of whiskey and sniffed. The pungent odor was at once disgusting and erotically tempting. Dolan remembered the old AA saying: “One’s too many and a thousand’s not enough…”
He walked over to a cold park bench and sat down with the bottle on his left and the junk food on his right. His ass nearly froze. Dolan ate some beef jerky and a couple of cookies and felt a little bit better. He’d find something. There was always something. Maybe he could do some manual labor or gardening. He could stand with the undocumented workers who hung out on the corner by the hardware store and ask for a day job of some kind. He’d get out of this. There had to be a way.
Dolan stood up. He examined the burn scars on his hands. They stung a bit in the chill. He took the whiskey bottle over to the group of ruddy-faced old men who were warming themselves by the trash barrel and he gave it to them without a word. A toothless fellow with a boxer’s ear smiled and nodded and offered him a drink. Dolan shook his head. He turned and walked back into the darkness with absolutely no idea where to go next. The moon was nearly full and the streets were damp but brightly lit. He’d made his choice and now he’d just have to live with it.
Snake Dolan walked down the sidewalk, angling in the general direction of the Salvation Army, thinking maybe he could at least score a bed. Once he had some cash in hand, he’d have to go back to the liquor store to make amends and pay for what he’d stolen. That’s what he’d learned would keep him sober. And he had to stay sober to have any chance at redemption.
Dolan turned down 4th street. The shops and fast food restaurants were closed. The neighborhood was beginning to slide into true poverty, so a number of buildings were boarded up. One had red tags all over it and had been marked for removal. Dolan stopped by an antique pay phone on a pole. He leaned on the cold metal to catch his breath. The battered phone and the metal support were both covered with graffiti and gang signs. The coin-gobbling gadget was easily as old as the building. The moon hung above the condemned structure like a giant unblinking eye. Dolan looked up at the wrecked edifice, the broken windows and splintering boards. This world was dying. He wondered if he had a red tag on his soul.
He tucked his hands into his pockets to keep them warm and felt something rubbing the burn scar on his right hand.
The business card.
It hadn’t been there the night before, Dolan was certain of that, but suddenly he could feel it with his fingertips. It was vibrating in some strange way, just as it had the first time. The card was still there. He took it out and studied it in the moonlight.
LIMBUS, Inc.
Are you laid off, downsized, undersized?
Call us. We employ. 1-800-55
5-0606.
How lucky do you feel?
Dolan threw his head back and laughed out loud. He was standing in the damp darkness on a trash-strewn and condemned city street, out of work, hungry, and struggling to stay alive, without even the spare change to use an out of commission old pay phone that wouldn’t have worked anyway, yet at least he’d been able to stay sober tonight. Hell, maybe that was as lucky as he was ever going to get.
Lucky enough, I guess.
An odd sound caught his ear. Dolan wasn’t sure he’d actually heard it at first because the ring tone was so out of date, and the ancient pay phone was clearly out of order. It had to be out of order. The thing was dented and cracked and the land line would have been disconnected decades ago.
And yet it was ringing, a strange, brittle sound sent here from another century. Slowly, carefully, his flesh rippling with unease, Dolan lifted the phone to his ear. He swallowed dryly.
“Hello?”
“You’ve reached Limbus, Inc.,” a mellow baritone voice said. “This is Recruiter Goodfellow speaking.”
“Odd.” Dolan’s breath caught in his throat. “I didn’t actually call you. Not yet, anyway.”
“Well you’ve got me on the line now,” Recruiter Goodfellow said. “Are you the gentleman Mr. Cranston referred to us, the fellow with a good deal of military experience?”
Dolan surrendered his skepticism. He had nothing left to lose. There was no other play to try but this one. “Yes, I met your Mr. Cranston and he gave me his card.”
“Ah, I see,” Recruiter Goodfellow said. “Then the card called us for you. It does that sometimes. Would you like to come in for an interview, Mr. Dolan?”
Dolan exhaled a white cloud of frosty air. It was starting to rain again and he shivered from the cold. “How the hell did you know my name?”
“We are very good at what we do, Snake. Would you be willing to work for us?”
“In what capacity?”
“Perhaps as something of a mercenary? We could use a man like you.”
Dolan closed his eyes and shivered again. He just wanted a warm bed and some money in his pocket. He just wanted to forget. He kept his lids down and saw bright tracer rounds and dirt-encrusted entrails and heard someone screaming in pain, but his body did not go tense. Not this time. Maybe the war was finally over, the one inside his head. Maybe he’d just needed to accept his fate and to be willing to die to finally feel better. Strangely, in a way, Dolan didn’t much care, not any more.
“How much does the work pay?”
“Enough.”
“That’s pretty vague, Mr. Goodfellow.”
“We promise it will be worth your while,” Goodfellow said. “You will be well compensated.”
That sounded pretty damn good right about now.
“Where do I sign up?”
“Come on in.”
“What?”
The front of the condemned building trembled and gave off a strange creaking sound. Dolan dropped the phone, which had abruptly gone dead, and studied the front of the abandoned property. The front door was opening. Ice and dust flew up like talcum powder as an uncluttered entrance appeared. A bright light flowed out and Dolan felt the rush of warm air as it flowed out into the night. He walked up the steps. He could smell food and fresh coffee and even the long-forgotten fragrance of a woman’s perfume.
That was nice.
*
When Snake Dolan stepped inside of Limbus, Inc., he half expected to hear someone playing jingle bells, because Recruiter Goodfellow was a Santa type, rotund and white bearded and ruddy cheeked. He wore a black suit Dolan figured to be worth the price of the average man’s car, and on his wrist was a Rolex identical to the one worn by the mysterious Mr. Cranston just a few nights before. These guys did all right at this firm, whatever the hell it was. They were fat cats for sure.
Goodfellow closed the door behind him. The inside of the building was warm, brightly lit, completely modern and spotlessly clean. Strange fantasy art adorned the walls, imagined planets and what appeared to be alien life forms. For some reason, the odd change in environment did not seem unnatural. Not at this point, not after all that had already happened. In fact, Dolan had a very strange sense of déjà vu, as if he’d done all this before, or perhaps it was just that this was an event destined to happen.
Goodfellow was accompanied by a Viking-sized blond nurse in hospital greens. Two heavily muscled men in suits stood back against the wall with their arms crossed. Dolan immediately recognized them as ex-military by their physical bearing and short haircuts and that thousand-yard stare in their eyes. He nodded respectfully and they nodded back. They were professionals for sure.
“Perhaps you’d like to have something to drink and to get cleaned up a bit before we have our little talk?”
Dolan felt foolish and intimidated. He wanted to gain some respect. He wanted to have something to say in all of this. “I sure could use some coffee, sir. As for the rest, I can freshen up later.”
Goodfellow nodded. “As you wish, Mr. Dolan. Follow me, please.”
He turned and walked to a large, ornate wooden set of doors. He opened them and ushered Dolan into a plush, wood-paneled office. Recruiter Goodfellow left the nurse and the guards outside. He ordered them to stay with a dismissive wave of his plump fingers. Dolan stood blinking in the bright lights, abruptly aware of his body odor and filthy clothing. He instantly regretted his stiff-necked decision to negotiate first. He was in no position to strike a good bargain.
“Have a seat,” Goodfellow said.
“I’ll stand, sir. I wouldn’t want to mess up your furniture.”
“Again, as you wish.”
Recruiter Goodfellow went around the huge desk. He plopped down heavily in the plush executive chair. He leaned forward with his elbows on the polished glass and moved some papers to one side. “I suppose you are wondering about this company and how we found you. You must have questions by now.”
Dolan stood at ease. “Yes, sir.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot answer them.”
“I see.”
“You have done covert ops before, Mr. Dolan, so you likely know that you will have to take all this at face value. We are a top-secret operation, much larger and more powerful than any you may have encountered before. Limbus is a Latin word, Mr. Dolan. It means an edge or boundary. We push things as far as they can go. We make and change history, figuratively and sometimes literally. We go to unusual places to accomplish great things. You will be doing very important work. You will be treated with the respect your services deserve.”
“Go on.”
“Only two conditions apply before we go any further. You are to follow orders without debate, and you will never be able to tell anyone you worked for us. Do you understand and agree to those parameters?”
“Certainly, sir. I know the drill. Now, what is the assignment?”
“I can’t tell you yet,” Goodfellow said. “Nor can I even be specific about what you will be paid for carrying out the assignment, should you choose to accept the job. I can only promise that, should you succeed at your mission and survive, you will not need to spend another night on the street.”
“No offense, but that’s pretty damn vague.”
Goodfellow shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Dolan eyed a plush, needlepoint chair. Fuck them. They deserve my dusty ass print on their furniture.
“Okay if I sit?” Dolan asked, seconds after having sat down.
“Certainly,” Goodfellow said dryly, almost as if he’d read Dolan’s mind. He looked through some of the papers on his desk. Dolan wondered why he’d still use paper instead of computers and tablets, but knew that wasn’t his business. None of this made logical sense. Not the trashed building, the funky neighborhood, or the chance encounter with Mr. Cranston. But it all seemed appropriate and natural. Still, all Dolan knew so far was that these people had money, and that some other ex-military types worked for Limbus, Inc. H
e’d seen the two outside. There would likely be more. Men who were well-dressed and healthy and very well paid. So at least the job offer, whatever it was, was for real. And that meant a chance to forget and start over. He wondered why he’d been chosen if they had so many trained operators already, but that would have to wait. Just get hired. Right now, nothing else mattered.
“You are extraordinarily proficient in hand-to-hand combat, yes?”
“I can look after myself.”
“And you have handled dozens of deadly weapons over the years. It says here you were even a member of an antique gun club at one point, and before your home burned down, you were quite the collector. You owned a small but enviable collection of antique firearms from the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, and the two great wars of the 20th Century. They were all destroyed in the fire. Is all of that accurate, Snake?”
Dolan did not respond. The question was rhetorical and they both knew it. Recruiter Goodfellow and his operation knew everything there was to know about him. They held all the cards. Dolan figured it was better just to wait, watch, and listen. He did not miss that Recruiter Goodfellow had called him by his nickname—for a second time, now.
“You have had your eye on me for some time, haven’t you?”
Goodfellow nodded. “We’ve been nudging you our direction and waiting for you to see the light.”
These people are something else…
Recruiter Goodfellow set the papers down. He leaned back in his chair with his hands over his ample belly. He looked even more like a plump department store Santa than he had just moments ago. “Incidentally, why did your team members call you ‘Snake,’ Mr. Dolan?”
“I had a way of sneaking up on people. One time I hid in the grass without moving for two days waiting for the target to show.”
“So you were a sniper?”
“Not that time. I did it with a knife. Come on, Mr. Goodfellow, you already seem to know my back story. Why don’t you get to the point?”
“Do you accept the job?”
Limbus, Inc. Book II Page 3