Mr Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

  “I don’t know much.”

  “You know about Chain. You’re looking for it, looking for buyers, looking to make a killing. And you never told old pal Vassily about it.”

  “Which, as we established, was my bad.”

  “Trying to cut me out of deal.”

  “Vassily, how the hell did you find those people?”

  “They found me, mostly. Well, Brady found me. Brady—little blond man.” He demonstrated with his hands. “Brady has interests. Wants to keep our interests in line with his.” So Vassily and I were officially our. That was a good sign for my continued existence outside of his belly.

  “Brady contacted you about the hit on the model.”

  Vassily nodded. “Some little thing.”

  “Little?”

  He shrugged. “Relativity. What is little to me is big to you. What is big to me is little to God.”

  “Right. Did he say why he wanted the model dead?”

  “No. But Brady is some kind of… patriot.” In a Russian accent, that word sounded like a curse, specifically one that describes a deviant sex act with a close blood relation. “Wants to keep government safe. Eh. Whatever is good for business is good for me.”

  Mina was involved some kind of political assassination plot? Bullshit. I’d known Mina for… not long enough to make that kind of judgment. Still, it didn’t wash. Political assassins would either be more ranty, or much more vacant. Really, they’d be more like Raul Diaz. Brady should track his ass down.

  “I can see wheels turning,” Vassily said.

  “Buyers, Vassily. I can make us both very rich.”

  “Good boy, Nicky. Can you find this Chain?”

  “I think I can, Vassily.” After all, it was in the trunk of my car.

  “You and me, Nicky. We kick enough up the ladder, you get stripes, I get… more.”

  “Sounds like a win-win.” Sounded like Vassily was planning to get the Chain and kill me anyway. But that was a damn sight better than him killing me right then.

  “Yesterday, you asked me about contract on Colin Reznick. You are Colin Reznick. Who is trying to kill you?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “Not me.”

  “What a relief.”

  Vassily reached into his coat and produced a knife. “Catch is here.” He pressed on the black rubber handle and a triangular blade popped out, serrated and ugly. He put the blade away and pressed it into my hand. “Maybe you had it on you all along. Maybe you cut your way out. Maybe you escaped.”

  “Sounds plausible.”

  “Good job, Nicky.”

  Vassily left. I wiggled the knife into position, balanced against the arm of the chair and my palm. I wasn’t sure how I was going to cut myself out without slashing my wrists. I hit the catch. The blade popped out.

  The door opened. I dropped the knife. It landed right between my legs. I opened them quickly and closed them. Getting that knife back was going to be a bitch.

  I looked up. Oana Constantinescu was there, shutting the door with the same move the Whale had just done. She was looking at me with the same stern expression, too. “Oana. Is this because of all those times I made fun of your name?”

  She flushed a bit. “Stop screwing about.”

  “Look, I know that Daphne wants you to kill me. Before you get started, I’d like to give you some reasons why not. Number one, I’m a big fan of the Olympics and bronze is really good.”

  She cut me off. “I’m not going to kill you.”

  “That’s reassuring. Not to tempt fate or anything, but is there a reason why? I’d be surprised if it was because of that Olympics thing.”

  “I’ve been watching you.” It even sounded creepy when a tiny woman said it. “You’ve protected Mina Duplessis several times.”

  “I didn’t want to toot my own horn.”

  “Daphne believes you killed Mina and are only pretending to hold her as a hostage.” That last part was true. I was pretending to do that.

  “And that would interfere with Daphne’s plan,” I supplied. “After all, how could she arrange to have Mina killed in a public place if I were to off her quietly?”

  Oana’s face hardened. “You have proof?”

  “I have suspicions.”

  “I have those, too.”

  I asked, “Why are you here? With them? I mean, two of them are actively involved in trying to kill Mina.”

  “Keep your enemies close. They’re convinced you’re some kind of traitor, which you are, but not to me.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I have to protect Mina, and you have done this, so even if you’re betraying the organization, our goals are the same. Where is Mina now?”

  “Were you not… uh… were you at the parking garage?”

  “I was. We came out onto the roof—there was some kind of light overhead that vanished. Vassily hit you over the head and we came back here.”

  “Mina is… missing.”

  Now I’d made her mad. “What?”

  “We were both in that parking garage, but after the bullets started flying, we got separated. I don’t know what happened to her.” It’s always important to be honest when lying.

  “Can you find her?”

  “Was planning to do that once I got out of here. You know, assuming you aren’t all going to have me killed.”

  “Vassily the Whale wants you dead.”

  “To be fair, he wants most things dead.”

  “I can help you,” she said. “Can you get out of this room?”

  I looked at the door. “Yeah, I think so, as long as there isn’t a padlock on the other side.”

  “There’s not. When you get out, go straight ahead and at the first intersection, go right. You’ll find a high window. That will be unlocked. Understand?”

  I nodded.

  She said, “Find Mina. Try to find proof that Daphne is setting her up. If we can prove this, we can bring new leadership to V.E.N.U.S. Maybe someone with a stronger conception of loyalty.”

  “That all sounds great.” I wondered which hippo would take over, and if there would be a ritual combat. I pictured them all in Starfleet uniforms, equipped with unlikely polearms. That didn’t help.

  “If you need to contact me, use this number.” She handed me a slip of paper that looked like a fortune, with ten numbers grouped in twos. Common trick: it didn’t look like a phone number at first glance.

  Oana didn’t make any sound when she moved, and somehow even managed to open that massive metal door silently. So we were the core of a new V.E.N.U.S., an organization dedicated to the continued breathing of one Miss Mina Duplessis. It was a refreshingly concrete goal that didn’t lend itself to schisms.

  I opened my legs. The knife was lying between them, blade up. All I could think about was the story in Clerks that ended with the kid breaking his own neck. What a way to go, and all I could look forward to was a knife in the mouth.

  I was leaning forward with my mouth open when the door opened. I sat bolt upright and hid the knife. Oana or Vassily? Neither.

  Neil. He shut the door and scampered over. “Colin, are you okay? It’s all I can do to keep these maniacs from doing something horrible.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” There was a pattern emerging. “So I take it Stan doesn’t want me dead.”

  “No. I looked into it as much as I could, and I didn’t find anything. Then Oana calls and tells me you’re nosing around V.E.N.U.S.”

  “You know Oana?”

  “We… uh… we dated.”

  “On whose orders?”

  Neil squirmed. “Stan’s.”

  “Stan was at a V.E.N.U.S.-sponsored fashion show… wait. How long was I out?”

  “Six hours, I think? You got knocked out, and I think it became sleep. You were snoring when we taped you to the chair.”

  “Stan was at a fashion show last night, then. Do you know why?”

  Neil shook his head. “Why?”<
br />
  “No, I was asking you.”

  “Then I don’t know.”

  “Neil, what the fuck are you doing with those people? I mean, this little cabal that looks like a grab bag of shadow organizations. What are you supposedly after?”

  “You.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “We all want the Chain of the Heretic Martyr, and when we have it, the plan is to kill you. Stan knows I’m involved in this, and now he knows about your whole information-gathering web.”

  My stomach started to breakdance. “He knows?”

  “He was really impressed that you infiltrated all of them, even if you didn’t infiltrate that far. Looked like great foresight to him.”

  “Glad he was impressed. What do Stan and the Masons want with the Chain?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. But if we get it, we can call the shots, at least with regards to the Templars… That’s Knights Templar, if you don’t know. Not to mention V.E.N.U.S. and the Anas.” The weird part was that Neil was lying to me. He was trying to talk like a fanatic, but he was coming off like someone selling way too hard. He was offering me sixty bucks for a jellybean.

  I had to draw him out. “Leverage is good,” I said. “Depends on who has it. The Chain is important to everyone, but I don’t know that anyone should have that kind of power.”

  “What were you planning to do with it?”

  “Get it off the streets, for one thing.”

  “What if there were a place it could be taken? Off the streets? In the right hands?” he said slowly.

  “I’d be willing to listen.”

  “We’ll talk. When this is over, we’ll talk.”

  “I don’t know if you’d noticed, but I’m locked in a bunker in San Pedro.”

  “San… how did you know?”

  I gave him my best annoyed/cocky smile. I probably looked like a giant asshole.

  “Right. Can you get out of this room?” I didn’t bother to look at the door. I just nodded. He reached into the pocket of his hoodie and handed me some car keys. “Gray Taurus, parked a block north.” He stuck the keys in my pocket, which was more than a little uncomfortable for both of us. “I’ve got to go. I only had a small window to say hi.” He scampered back out.

  They say that good communication is the key to any successful relationship. This little conspiracy of theirs really should sit down and compare notes. The problem was that somehow they had all found out about my conflicting loyalties and they were openly planning to kill me, even if they seemed to have private reservations.

  It was a long time before that door opened again, and I still hadn’t managed to fellate the knife out of my crotch, but it was beginning to look like I wouldn’t need it. I shifted a little to keep the knife out of obvious sight and I waited to see who the next one through would be.

  It was the gray-skinned guy, grinning ear to ear.

  “Wow,” he said. “The famous… you!” I didn’t want to be famous.

  “Let my right arm go and I’ll give you an autograph.”

  “I’m afraid that doing so would result in my immediate dissolution and all that entails.”

  I wasn’t sure what it all entailed, but I didn’t think that now was a good time to bring that up. I tried to ape his speech patterns and at the same time make it sound like this was how I wanted to talk all along. That was a challenge.

  “I’m a little afraid that my dissolution is imminent.”

  “Negative, negative. LAM would prefer your continued existence.”

  LAM, from a sketch by Aleister Crowley of his spirit guide. Show that sketch to any alien abductee and they get immediate post-traumatic stress disorder, if you take my meaning. It meant that gray-skin was working for the Little Green Men, which I had guessed as soon as he’d opened his mouth.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Hubba hubba,” he said. “Your cells are missing three electrons. You have the signs.”

  “Uh-huh.” These types were all alike. Mind-wiped one too many times, brains replaced with a gestalt. The problem with the gestalt was that it had the mental capacity of a six-year-old with a large and outdated vocabulary. “Do you have a designation?”

  “Victor Charlie.”

  “Well, VC… want to… uh… explain the actions of LAM in the relocation of my… uh, lady friend?”

  VC frowned, which only made his eyes pop out further. “Lady… friend? The dame! Bore the designates, relocated, examined, unfit except as container.”

  “The dame is not to be… whatever LAM was going to do, don’t.”

  “LAM is amenable to an exchange. The dame hits the skids, you enter the celestial temple.”

  “Listen, Viet Cong…”

  “Victor Charlie.”

  “That’s what I said. What does LAM want with the Chain?”

  VC let out a truly horrifying giggle. “LAM wants what LAM wants. Neil Greene called me, LAM sent me, I am here.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  VC leaned in close. His breath smelled like a hospital. “The others want to give you the dirt nap. LAM would prefer your continued existence.”

  “We went over that. Are you going to help me out?”

  VC reached into his coat. This close, I could see the back of his head. There were sections where the skin had come loose and was hanging in small flaps. He removed a syringe from his pocket. I flinched.

  “You’re not sticking me with that.”

  He giggled. “Negative. Sticking you would give you the dirt nap. Molecular acid.” He carefully put the syringe along my right arm and squeezed. Smoke, a hiss, and the tape melted. “Be still, or your appendage suffers dissolution, dig?”

  I could hear the acid eat through the tape and start to work on the chair.

  “Victor, I’m curious. Does LAM have any agents in… uh…” I gave him Raul’s address.

  VC blinked. “The question doesn’t conform to the required parameters.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  VC blinked again. He had completely lost the thread of the conversation. I was worried that he would start drooling from those rubbery lips.

  “Never mind.”

  He giggled again, and this close I could see through the shades. His eyes were completely empty. In that moment, he reminded me a little bit of Diaz. “LAM awaits the exchange.”

  “Where?”

  “The desert. Go east. LAM will see you from a thousand eyes, and you will see LAM.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  VC backed off and flashed a peace sign. “Twenty-three skidoo.”

  With that, he was out the door. Four down…

  I waited for two reasons. One, I wanted to give that acid as long as I could to settle down before I put my bare skin any closer to it than it already was, and two, I was expecting Brady. He didn’t disappoint.

  He came in more smoothly than the others had. Still worried about being seen, but nowhere near the nervousness of Vassily, let alone Neil.

  “Hi, Brady. I was just wondering, is that your first name or your last?”

  “Is David Antonucci even your real name?” That was my Hermetic Secret Service name, so I could say for certain where Brady was from.

  “I’m sorry about my handler,” I said.

  He nodded. “Thank you. Hazards of the job, I’m afraid. I am glad she didn’t live to find out about your duplicity.”

  “I think it’s closer to quintuplicity. Is that even a word?”

  Brady didn’t smile. I don’t think he knew how. “Let’s talk, Dave. You know, the others want you dead. I’m the only thing standing between you and them.”

  Oh, Brady. If only you knew. “Then talk. What do you want from me?” I tried to keep the accent off you.

  “They want the Chain of the Heretic Martyr. They think it will settle the troubles here, assuming, of course, it goes to their group.”

  “So I gathered. You think I have it?”

  “I think you were looking for it before
most people knew it was in play. That tells me that you have the best chance of finding it.”

  “Tell me something. How did you find that out?”

  “Apparently your… quintuplicity hasn’t gone unnoticed. You were careful enough that it took a long time to uncover it, though.”

  “By you, I take it.”

  Brady didn’t smile, but the corners of his watery eyes crinkled. “No.”

  So there was someone. Someone else, that is. Someone who decided to link these five freaks? Someone who wanted the Chain?

  I said, “The assassin at Union was for me.”

  “That much I do know.”

  Someone who wanted me dead. Me specifically. Why? It hit me like Diaz’s rock. I blinked, gasping for air as it all rushed out and over me. There was another me out there. Someone flitting through the conspiracies. Someone who knew what I was because they were that, too. Someone who had maybe put this group together. Someone who knew what they knew and more. I thought about Diaz: the girl, the girl, the girl.

  Brady steepled his fingers. He had small hands, but long, graceful fingers. “What? You know something.”

  I tried to cover. “It’s not every day you find out that you’re targeted for death.”

  Brady didn’t look like he bought it, at least not entirely. “No. Not every day. So, tell me, Dave. Do you know where the Chain is?”

  “Call me Jonah,” I said.

  Through his teeth: “Jonah. Do you know where the Chain is?”

  “I think I was closing in. Can you tell me something? Who stole it from the Templars originally?”

  “Unknown. Several factions have motive, of course. I can tell you this: it wasn’t the Guardian Servitors of the Anorectic Praxis and it wasn’t V.E.N.U.S.”

  Which practically confirmed that Eric had been the one to steal it, an inside job to lift it from the Templars. There was something else nagging at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “You still haven’t told me what you want, Brady. I’m going to guess that you and the people out there don’t see eye to eye on everything.”

  “No, not everything. Tell me something. Why are you protecting Mina Duplessis?”

  “Just thinking about what the man said that jumped naked into a cactus.”

  “What?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”