Mr Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

  “She wasn’t at the parking garage. Where did you stash her?”

  “Stash her? She’s not porn.” Brady glared. “Why do you want her?”

  “I want her out of play. She’s confusing the issue, bringing in the gender war where it isn’t needed.”

  “I can do that—but I’m the only one she trusts.”

  Brady reached into his coat and dropped a leather wallet in my lap. My picks. “You might need these to get out. I imagine you can get out of some duct tape without too much help.”

  Yeah, I only needed one person to help with that.

  “Count slowly to one hundred and make your break. I’ll have cleared out the others by then,” Brady said.

  “No problem.”

  Brady nodded and was gone. My doppelganger was going to have to keep a closer eye on his foot soldiers to keep them from working at cross purposes even as they thought they were on the same side. It was enough to give me an aneurysm. I tried my right hand. It came loose. I grabbed the knife from between my legs and cut myself out of the silver web. Had it been a hundred yet? I’d forgotten to count. I counted to fifty, figuring that was enough. The door was locked, but I made short work of that with my picks.

  I peeked out into a large, circular concrete room covered in rusted piss stains. There was more trash, more graffiti. It was abandoned. There were double doors, but I remembered what Oana had told me. I looked to the right and found a short hall. This was the remains of a bathroom. She was right; there were windows, the kind you see in basements, about seven feet off the ground. I saw grass poking up into the white light streaming in. I thought of the parking garage.

  I jumped, tapped the window. It was open. I jumped again, caught the edge, and hauled myself into the sun.

  -THIRTEEN-

  Faces are important. So important, in fact, that the human mind naturally creates faces where none exist. It’s a phenomenon called pareidolia, and it’s why people keep seeing Jesus in toast. Basically, given vague information, the human mind will fill in the blanks until it has a face, then fill in a few more until the face has some significance. Helps us feel like we’re not alone in the world.

  We grant faces to things we can’t see, as well. The terrifying experience of death becomes the Grim Reaper. Holiday cheer becomes Santa. We do this because it makes them feel less like forces and more like people we could know in our lives. People we could have over for dinner. People with families and pets. People we could club over the head and loot if things got dicey.

  I was thinking about my phantom enemy, and I gave him a face, or the faceless equivalent: a name. Mr. Blank. It helped a little. Granted, there was a decent chance I was thinking of Mrs. Blank, or Ms. if she didn’t want to give away her marital status, but for now I thought of Blank as a guy. I was looking forward to actually slapping a face on him, probably because it would be a face I’d already seen.

  As I popped out of the window, I got my bearings. It looked to be a little after noon. I was in San Pedro, on an open hillside overlooking Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean. A breeze whispered in, cool on my freshly duct-tape-waxed wrists. The hillside was dotted with old bunkers, built during World War II when everyone was convinced that the Japanese were ready to launch an invasion. At least, that was the official explanation. The real reason was something I didn’t like to think about very much, and which was why I didn’t go on cruises. Well, that and my being under fifty years old.

  I ran to the street as best I could with a throbbing head and feet that were still half-asleep. One block north meant inland. A quick walk, and I found Neil’s Taurus. The keys even worked.

  I drove, trying not to think about Mina. That I had to get her back was a foregone conclusion, but going off half-cocked wouldn’t do anyone any favors. VC had offered a deal, but whether he was telling the truth or not was anyone’s guess. I couldn’t even be sure he knew the difference between the truth and a lie.

  Lunch was McDonald’s, and crappy food never tasted so good. It was more about comfort than anything else. My head hurt and my confidence had just been pantsed in front of its entire eighth-grade gym class. Diaz had been after me all along. Diaz knew where I lived. Chances were good his handlers knew where I lived, which meant going home wasn’t an option.

  Unless Diaz had followed me home from some point in the previous evening’s adventures. My V.E.N.U.S. affiliation seemed to be more or less common knowledge; maybe he had picked me back up there. Maybe he had been too messed up from his conditioning to impart any sort of useful information to anyone who’d ask. I could think of one way to find out, and I needed to talk to the guy anyway.

  I drove back to my car, and it was right where I’d left it. I checked the trunk. Phones, all there. Rock and chain, there. The weird flail was sitting on top of some old comics, and the gray dust had taken root. In places, it was beginning to turn into the same crust I’d seen on Diaz’s coat. It looked a little like one of those growing rock gardens you could buy in the backs of comic books, only the Day-Glo stalactites were a uniform glowing gray.

  I picked up Colin Reznick’s phone and texted Neil: “Car where you found me. Thanks.” I threw on a clean shirt and my badge.

  Considering where the cops picked Raul up, he would be at Hollywood/La Brea. They would still be holding him for another twelve or thirteen hours, and if I knew people, there would be one detective who noticed the mirror image that was the other man in the house. On a normal day, I’d be getting a call from one of my employers to put that detective off the scent, to lose a piece of evidence, or even do some surreal intimidation. This wasn’t a normal day.

  I drove back into Hollywood. The streets were packed. It occurred to me that it was Saturday. The police station was busy, cops streaming in and out, cars lined up outside. The desk sergeant gave me an annoyed look, so I flashed my badge. “Detective Saroyan,” I said.

  “What can I do for you, detective?” He needed a couple thousand more cups of coffee.

  “You picked up a man yesterday for harassing a family in Hollywood. Talking crazy, trying to get into the house, saying he lived there?”

  The sergeant was suddenly suspicious. “What do you want him for?”

  “We’ve had a couple similar incidents in Van Nuys. I was hoping I could talk to this guy.”

  “You’re about two hours too late.”

  “Why?”

  “We were transferring him to Burbank…”

  “Wait. Why were you sending him to Burbank?”

  He shrugged. “We get the orders, we send him. Not my problem.”

  “And…?”

  “And, when we took him to the parking garage, a guy came out with a gun and had your guy dead on the ground before we could do anything.”

  “The shooter—you arrested him, right?”

  The sergeant gave me a look that said: Do I look stupid to you?

  I said, “Can I talk to the shooter, then? Maybe he has some kind of connection to my home invasions.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  The sergeant let them know I was coming back, and soon I was sitting in an interrogation room. I rested my arms on the rusted metal table between the two bars that looked they should be helping handicapped people use the bathroom. I kept still. No need to telegraph any nervousness. It wasn’t like the guy would be carrying a gun. As far as I knew, Detective Arto Saroyan’s name was still off the conspiracy radar. No telling how many of the rest of my names were compromised, how many IDs I’d have to burn, assuming I was going to live through this.

  The door opened, with a uniform escorting a familiar face in shackles.

  Eric Caldwell, Knight Templar.

  The uniform clipped Eric’s cuffs to the bars on the table, nodded to me, and left the room.

  “Squire Max?” Eric whispered. I think he was actually a little bit shocked.

  “How about we leave names out for the time being? I understand you haven’t given yours up.”

  “Fair enough.”

&nbs
p; “First things first. I know you stole the Chain of the Heretic Martyr.”

  Eric was probably a good liar, but he wasn’t faking the confusion on his face. “Is that what you told Sir Richard?”

  “You didn’t steal it?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t even know it was missing.”

  Great. It wasn’t an inside job. Or if it was, it wasn’t Eric. Instead, I tried the one thing I knew for damn sure he had done. “Why’d you kill Diaz?”

  “I didn’t.” He sounded serious and even slightly smug, in a terrified sort of way.

  “According to everyone in this building, you shot Diaz to death. You’re being held for murder.”

  “Oh, I shot him. Three times through the heart.”

  “You’re going to have to walk me through this one. Why wouldn’t that kill him?”

  Eric dropped everything other than the fear. “Because Diaz is a vampire.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “There are vampires out there. Diaz is one of them.”

  “Okay, I’m going to say this slowly. There. Are. No. Such. Things. As. Vampires.”

  Nearly religious serenity: “Yes, there are.”

  I suddenly wished for the Vic Mackey interrogation pack: a phone book, bottle of booze, and a loaded handgun.

  He went on. “I have proof. Go to my apartment. Look for a book called Year of the Condor. It’s a big hardback, in the back of my closet. You can’t miss it. There’s a sticky note that’ll prove it.” He gave me an address in Irvine.

  I sighed. “If you were so sure he’s a vampire, why did you shoot him?”

  “I used silver bullets, but I can’t be sure they worked.”

  “Silver bullets are for werewolves.”

  His eyes went buggy. “Werewolves are real, too?”

  “Oh, Jesus. All right, why were you the one sent to kill Diaz? Why not your friend in the gay bar?”

  Eric’s expression hardened. “You might not want to mention him again.”

  “Right, right. He’s the top dog. The head honcho. The big cheese. El jefe. The big kahuna. I could keep going.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “You were responsible for Diaz. Why did you send him to kill me?”

  Eric jumped like he’d been electrocuted. “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t activate him?”

  “No… I… Max, you have to get me out of here. Get me out of here and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “No. No way. I need assurances. Get me out of here and I’ll take you right to Diaz’s handler.”

  “The girl,” I said.

  I didn’t think it was possible for Eric to look any more scared. “You’re gonna get me out?”

  “I’ll do what I can, but that’s not much. Short of a jailbreak, which is about as likely to work as me playing starting center for the Lakers. Statistically, the best bet is to wait for your bail hearing, but you seem antsy.”

  “And you don’t want more brainwashed assassins trying to shoot you.”

  “Wait, what?”

  He frowned and tried to talk me through his cocky threat. “You know, more assassins coming after you for whatever you know.”

  “No, you said ‘shoot.’ It was pretty distinct and I have good ears.”

  “Yeah, shoot. You know, with a gun?” He didn’t mime it, but I could tell he sort of wanted to.

  “Right, with a gun, because that’s what you guys give them. Not homemade flails. Of course.”

  Eric broke into a nervous smile. “Yeah. You okay?”

  “Oh, I’ve suffered some head trauma recently.”

  I got a weird look for that one.

  Eric sighed. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not getting bail. Five cops saw me shoot that bloodsucker.”

  I thought about yelling at him about vampires and their lack of existence, but it was probably pointless until I had a look at his “evidence.” “You’ll get arraigned, some hardass judge will refuse you bail, and they’ll ship you off to county. You’ll never get there, though, because you’ll get out at the courthouse. Security’s lighter, and you can sneak out of there.”

  “In this,” he retorted, pinching the shoulder of his bright orange jumpsuit and giving it a dubious wiggle.

  “Orange is a nice color on you.” He didn’t find that funny. “Give your guys the slip, make it to the men’s room on the third floor, go to the last stall. Move the panel in the ceiling, and you’ll find a suit there. I’ll plant it as soon as I leave.”

  “How do I get out of my cuffs?”

  “Fucking magic,” I said. He didn’t get it. A little sleight of hand and I made a lockpick appear. “Please tell me you can work a lock.”

  He nodded. “A little.”

  I slipped him the pick and he palmed it. “When are they taking you over?”

  “Two hours.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you outside of the west exit. When this is all over, there’s something you need to remember: you spill your guts, then you get the hell out of LA, got it?”

  “I understand.”

  “You’re not a fucking Templar. You’re in ghetto witness protection.”

  “What if it goes bad?”

  “It’s already gone bad. That’s what being in police custody for murder means. Smile.” I had Reznick’s phone out, framed him, and snapped a picture. I went to the door and knocked. The uniform let me out, and I resisted the temptation to give a significant nod in Eric’s direction. It wasn’t a question of if the cops in the building were loyal to something beyond the safety of the citizenry of Los Angeles, but what they were loyal to. Sometimes I wished everyone would just get their conspiracy tattooed on their foreheads: combination third eye and Hello My Name Is badge.

  I sighed and went back to my car.

  On the stereo: “Party.”

  I picked the proper phone and dialed. Familiar voice, complete with a teenaged-Dracula accent. “Hello?”

  “It’s Jonah Bailey.”

  “Have you found her?” Oana said.

  “I have a location, but I need your help. Meet me in MacArthur Park in an hour.”

  I had a stop to make first; I picked up a suit downtown for cheap and planted it where I had told Eric it would be.

  Then I drove over to MacArthur Park. My ID guy had an office nearby, in the back of a newsstand. I parked at a meter and made my way up a sidewalk that looked like the hide of an elephant with skin cancer. Each little blemish was someone’s gum, turned black from dirt and car exhaust. The newsstand was actually a shop, its formerly glass walls plastered with a collage of magazines and beer ads. It managed to look like circus pornography, despite the absence of clowns or bare breasts.

  I walked in, passed the sleeping man at the counter, and headed for the back. I opened the door marked “Employees Only,” went down a short hallway that looked like it should be part of an abandoned hospital, and through a men’s room door marked “Out of Order.”

  My ID guy was Javier dos Santos. He looked a lot like Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver, down to the male-pattern baldness and glasses like satellite dishes. Javier blinked at me as I walked in, focusing past his fluorescents.

  “Hey, John. Another ID?”

  He had everything he needed to mock something up: laminators, a nice lit table, lights, X-Acto knives, an old computer. I felt like I’d wandered onto the set of The Andromeda Strain.

  “Yeah, but not for me.” I handed the phone to him. “Picture’s in there.”

  He plugged it into the computer and retrieved the picture of Eric. “I take it you want me to change the color on his jumpsuit.”

  “Yeah, make it navy or something.”

  “What name you want?”

  I thought about it. You could take the boy out of fifth grade… “Holden Balzac.” I spelled it for him.

  “Got it. How complicated?”

  “Just enough to pass casual inspection. I ne
ed this yesterday.”

  “Double normal.”

  I handed him the cash.

  He said, “Come back in an hour.”

  MacArthur Park was a small expanse of rolling green hills, palm trees, and a lake with a fountain in the middle. It was also a magnet for every crackhead, junkie, and wino within five miles, and that lake was only good for stashing bodies. I picked a bench and tried to avoid eye contact.

  Oana was on time. She came walking in from the east side, strolling casually down the path. She wanted me to know she was alone. I waved her over to my bench. I had a nice view of the fountain, even if the bench was probably going to put a splinter in my ass.

  She didn’t waste any time. “Where is she?”

  I squinted at her through the sunlight and fatigue. “Government installation out in the desert.” A blatant lie, but I wasn’t sure how well she was going to take the truth. She knew VC, so it was possible that she was more initiated than I thought.

  “And what do you need me for?”

  “Look, I’m basically a bagman. I have some skills, but I’ve never been asked to do any of them in the Olympics.”

  She nearly smiled at that. It was probably a laugh-out-loud moment for her. “So you need the services of a gymnast.”

  “I need the services of a dirty-tricks specialist. In point of fact, I’m going to ask two other people. People that we’re not going to be able to trust.”

  She frowned. “Who?”

  “The Whale, for one.”

  “No! When the others found that you’d escaped, things got… tense. There were threats. Vassily nearly twisted Neil’s head off.”

  “Lovely. Look, the Whale can be a handful, but we need a brick shithouse.”

  “My English is good, but I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means someone like Vassily. Big, dumb, and violent enough to attract some attention.”

  “He’s not that dumb. Who’s the other?”

  “You don’t know him, but if anything, he’s worse than Vassily.”

  “I don’t think this is the best idea.”

  “You and I need to be solid. We go in, we get Mina, we get out. That’s what matters, right?”

  She threw me a curt nod like she was signaling the timekeepers before a vault.