Mr Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

  “Death by chupacabra.”

  -FIFTEEN-

  Oana didn’t come around until we got back to the car. I found a hole in the fence big enough for all three of us. Mina was silent, maybe listening to Tariq’s distant cursing or the drum sounds he made whenever he hit one of the little monsters with his knife.

  Finally, when we were just climbing the hill, she said in a queasy voice, “At least he won’t be trying to kill us anymore.” She didn’t like that she was relieved, and I didn’t like it either. I liked it even less that it had been my plan.

  I didn’t say anything. It was still possible that she was playing me. Also possible that she was fishing for a sign of conscience, or maybe she was trying to lighten the mood.

  She nearly tripped over my car before I hit the key to unlock it. I stuck Oana in the backseat, then opened up the trunk. I handed Mina my sportcoat to complete the most unflattering ensemble possible. She looked like Captain Picard’s lawyer.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “It was just lying in the back. No big deal.”

  “Not what I meant.” In the moonlight, skin turned to silver, she was beyond beautiful. There was still fear in her eyes, her breath still quick. She was close to me, almost too close. Her lips parted, and I saw dark movement past teeth that shone like stars.

  Of course, I’m emotionally stunted. “Yeah, don’t mention it.” I got into the car. Mina did, too, but she slammed her door.

  Oana stirred in the backseat. Mina turned around as I started the car. Oana was a little disoriented, and the broken nose wasn’t doing her any favors. “I can’t move my hand.” She sounded like she had a cold.

  I heard rustling. “It might be broken,” Mina said.

  “Painkillers in the glovebox,” I said.

  Mina found them. “Here,” she said. I heard Oana swallow them, and I felt bad for not having any children’s Tylenol, and then I felt bad for smiling a little at that thought.

  “What happened to Tariq?” Oana asked.

  “He’s out of the picture,” I said.

  “We’re going to get you to a hospital,” Mina added.

  “I’m fine.”

  I said, “Bela really did a number on you, didn’t he? Look, it’s okay not to play hurt, and it’s okay to have bacon every now and then. While we’re at it, glitter just looks silly on athletes. I don’t care how feminine it’s supposed to make you.” Mina and Oana were staring at me. “Right. We’re taking you to a hospital.”

  They were quiet after that. I caught Oana wincing at every slight bump, cradling her wrist.

  On the stereo: “I Need Your Love.”

  Mina said, “I really didn’t think I’d miss Boston.”

  I turned away a little so she didn’t catch the smile.

  We drove back into the city. Mina didn’t want to leave Oana alone at the hospital, but the little gymnast insisted. She gave me a look that graphically detailed all she would do to me if harm befell Mina, then gingerly shuffled into the ER, minuscule against the iodine shade of the walls. I’ll give her this: she was tough for a tiny person. Hell, she was tough for a linebacker.

  When Oana was out of sight, Mina turned to me. “I need you to answer a question for me.”

  “Sure, shoot.”

  “No. When I ask it, no in-jokes, no cryptic comments. You have to actually answer the question.”

  “Okay, got it.”

  “What were those things back there?”

  “Chupacabras.”

  “Wait. I’ve heard of those.”

  “Yeah. They’re little blood-drinking monsters. Cryptids. Whatever. They’re mostly known for attacking livestock, but they’ll go after humans in a pinch. They’re great security.”

  “Wait. You told me there are no such things as vampires.”

  “There aren’t. Those were chupacabras.”

  “Which is Spanish for ‘vampire.’”

  “No, it’s Spanish for ‘goatsucker.’ Spanish for ‘vampire’ is… I don’t know, probably vampiro or something.”

  “They drink blood. They had wings like a bat and fangs. Those were vampires.”

  I was getting a little heated. It’s just because every single person, once they learn about one of the cryptids that are out there, insists that vampires are next. “Look, those weren’t vampires. If you showed one to a fourteen-year-old girl and she started swooning, I’d concede the point. Until then, there are no such things as vampires.”

  She let that sink in. Then, “I think those were vampires.”

  I almost lost it. I took a deep breath. I looked at her. My eyes narrowed. “The button again.”

  Her innocent look was less than convincing. Apropos of nothing, she blurted, “I need shoes.”

  “I thought those things were like footie pajamas.”

  “They are, and I think I’ve already made a couple holes in them.”

  “Soon as the stores open, then.”

  “And I need something else to wear.”

  It wasn’t quite dawn yet. The newspaper, that flimsy dinosaur, was practically wet when I bought it. We stopped at the first Denny’s we found that was open. The hostess didn’t give us a second glance, despite Mina’s outfit and the cut over my eye. I cleaned up a little in the bathroom and joined Mina in a booth. She already had coffee for both of us. She probably wouldn’t have had any poison on her, and I didn’t think the silver bodysuit had any pockets.

  “You drink coffee, right?”

  “It’s practically a job requirement,” I said.

  The waitress returned, and Mina ordered breakfast, and lots of it. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since she’d eaten, but the way she was ordering, it was probably measured in the eons. I ordered a burger and regretted it as soon as the waitress walked away.

  Mina started packing her coffee with enough sugar and cream to turn it into an off-white paste. She fixed her eyes on me. “Okay. Tell me. All of it.”

  I thought about lying to her, but I had an unspoken rule that I made up on the spot: never lie to a person after their first alien abduction. I started with the revelation I’d had when the gang of five interrogated me in the bunker in San Pedro. I told her about Mr. Blank.

  “Someone like you?” she said. “So he wants you dead. Over something you saw? Something you know? Something you have the potential to put together?”

  “Any one of those things. Possibly all three. I don’t know.”

  “He has plans, then. What, to end the world?”

  “The apocalypse is hardly important enough to kill anyone over.”

  “What?”

  “The world ends every couple years or so. It’s no big deal, just a minor re-ordering of priorities.”

  “You say these things, and it’s like you’re trying to make me make silly faces at you.”

  “Those faces do cheer me up.”

  “Then whatever is a big deal, then. That’s what Mr. Black wants.”

  “Mr. Black is some other guy on some other job. This is Mr. Blank.”

  She blinked.

  I said, “Sorry. Reservoir Dogs.”

  “Mr. Blank,” she said, accenting the word. “Okay. Can you explain my… I guess the term is abduction?”

  I did. I told her about the Genesis Stone, and the role it played in the apocalypse back in ’69. I told her about who wanted that. I told her about what happened to Eric Caldwell.

  “What about the old guy in the gay bar?”

  “I’m thinking that the old guy might be our Mr. Blank. Oh yeah, and I learned from Eric that his Candidates use guns.”

  “I’m lost,” she said.

  “If the Stone is missing, I need to know why the Masons never thought to mention it. I’m the kind of guy that could have helped them get it back. They might not have told me exactly what it was, but they never said they were down one rock. It would also be nice to find out how Raul got his hands on the weapon.”

  Our food arrived and Mina tore into it. I nibbled, using the si
de of my jaw Mina hadn’t kicked yet, and scanned the paper. No mention of anything related to what we were doing. Not that I was surprised. What, there was going to be a headline about me? I’d be in a hell of a state if I was looking for clues in the paper.

  On impulse, I took my Assassin phone from my pocket and checked the call records. I didn’t recognize the number the thing had called from. I dialed it.

  A normal voice answered. “Jack In the Box?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Glendale Boulevard in Echo Park.”

  “Were you there a couple hours ago?”

  The voice was nervous, but in fairness, I was asking stalker questions. “Uh… yeah?”

  “This is going to sound strange, but a couple hours ago, was there a seven-foot weirdo with big red eyes using this line? Hello? Hello?”

  Mina had a triangle of pancake on her fork as she watched me. “You know, not everyone lives in this world you made.”

  “I’m beginning to realize that.” I shut the phone and put it away.

  “How did you make it, anyway?”

  I picked up a French fry and drew a Voorish Sign in my ketchup. “Are you asking my secret origin?” She gave me a “keep going” gesture with her fork. “If you’re looking for my radioactive spider or rocket from my home planet, there’s not really a flashpoint event. I have a hunch that this life is sort of like prostitution. One day, you’re an aspiring actress, you go a little too far, and suddenly you look up and you’re blowing a hobo for his methadone.”

  “Seeing that rock coming at your head, that was your methadone-addled hobo.”

  That wasn’t a question I had to answer for either of us. “Student loans,” I said instead.

  “Student loans.”

  “You know that year after college when you have no idea what you’re going to do with yourself? You’ve been in school for so long that’s all you know. After I graduated, I kept having this nightmare where I started school all over again. So in my dream, I’m this twenty-two-year-old guy in the first grade. It was like Billy Madison. You know, the Adam Sandler movie.”

  “I don’t like Adam Sandler movies.”

  “Yeah, but did you see that one? Doesn’t matter. My point is that when I graduated, I realized I was lacking a few things. Goals, for one. An idea of what to do. And, most importantly, any sort of marketable skill. Not one.” I watched the syrup get tacky on her fork. “What I did have, were student loans. I had to pay those, so I started looking for jobs. Craigslist, Monster, pretty much every place that listed any kind of job. I looked for the ones that had no experience required. I had some office jobs, but it turned out that I’m no good in an office. I was legitimately worried that I’d snap and kill everyone. So, one time I answered a job for security work. It was for a club that was a front where the CIA met with the local Kosher Nostra. I went in with a feeling about this place, so I used my old fake ID from high school. I was on the right side of a coup, but I didn’t do anything other than carry some messages. I did more odd jobs, and I started being able to recognize the codes in the job ads and websites. I just showed up where I was needed and did what had to be done. And now I’m as you see me.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Does it matter?”

  She thought about it. “Yeah, it kinda does.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What, you’re going to tell me you forgot it?”

  “More like the other way around.”

  We ate the rest of the meal in silence. I paid the check and we walked back into the parking lot. The sky was turning red. I used my Mason phone to call Neil Greene.

  His voice was thick. “Hello?”

  “Neil, it’s Colin. We need to meet.”

  “What, now? It’s like…”

  “Five-thirty in the morning.”

  “Where?”

  “The Temple. And call Stan. I want him there, too.”

  Neil was wide awake now. “I said he was impressed, but you don’t have that kind of authority.”

  “Tell him I want to know why he’s not looking for the Genesis Stone.” I hung up on Neil and drove us to the Masonic Temple.

  On the stereo: “Didn’t Mean to Fall in Love.”

  Sunrise in Burbank is not romantic. Even, hypothetically, had Mina and I been making out, as opposed to standing silently about five feet apart, even if the Russian mob hadn’t marked her for death and a would-be mastermind wasn’t hunting me, it wouldn’t have been romantic. Really, best-case scenario, the sun peeks over the Verdugo hills and turns the industrial wasteland pink, and for a minute, you can pretend you’re in a John Waters movie. Doesn’t exactly scream romance.

  The look on Stan’s face when he saw Mina was pretty priceless. It was around six, and Stan hadn’t shaved, so he had a silvery layer of fuzz on his craggy cheeks. He was blinking sleep out of his eyes and moving a half-step slow.

  Mina was still in the bizarre costume the Little Green Men and I had assembled, and it affected the way she stood, sort of one leg forward, hands clasped below her waist, alert against the constant threat of cameltoe. Mina was still impressive, though now constantly tempting the mental use of unfeminine adjectives like “sturdy,” yet also inspiring immediate regret if any actually passed the frontal lobes.

  Neil drove up right as Stan made it to us.

  “Neil didn’t tell me you would be bringing a friend, Brother Reznick.” He managed to make “friend” sound both leering and distasteful, like a Thai hooker who reveals his penis after the money’s been spent.

  I resisted the obvious reply, since that put Stan in the driver’s seat. “Did Neil tell you everything?”

  “He told me you were… we need to speak in private.”

  “You can talk in front of her,” I said.

  “No.” He was using a special-ed-teacher voice on me. “No, I can’t. This is business, between members.”

  Mina said, “No pun intended.”

  Stan glared. “You should…”

  I snapped, “Oh, shut the fuck up. Do you know who she is?”

  Stan looked at Mina. He had been at the show the previous night, but had he seen pictures of her before that? He was struggling to recognize her, but this was Mina, sans makeup, sans push-up, sans dress. This was some brassy redhead that was giving him crap on his front doorstep. He finally said, “No.”

  “Exactly, big guy. It’s called ‘caution.’ Look it up.”

  Neil approached, seeing Stan turning red, watching the metaphorical smoke rising from his head. “Hey… everyone.”

  I dove in. “Now, why did neither one of you tell me the Genesis Stone was missing? You didn’t even have feelers out for it, by name or otherwise.”

  Stan broke into a huge smile, one of those smug asshole smiles that were etched in cocaine back in the ’80s. “That’s because it’s not missing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s perfectly safe. I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but it’s in our vault, under guard, completely safe. I saw it yesterday.”

  I mumbled, “So did I.” Then, louder, “I want to see it.”

  “Absolutely not. You don’t have the rank. You wouldn’t understand the mysteries.”

  Neil said, “Stan, maybe we should let him. You said yourself that Brother Reznick’s initiative meant he was going to advance. Maybe this will help him? Besides, show him it’s where it should be and he’ll calm down, and we can find out why he thinks it’s gone.”

  Stan thought it over for about a millisecond, then threw a curt nod at Neil. He led the way into the Temple. The guard in the foyer patted me down and did the same to Mina. She didn’t kick him, but that might have had more to do with the 9mm in the man’s shoulder holster than an improvement in her mood. Stan gestured, and the guard produced a black blindfold that he handed to Mina.

  “What’s this?” she said, looking at it with bewildered distaste.

  “Put it on,” Stan said. “If we’re letting you in, w
e’re doing so blind. There are things in there that a non-initiate couldn’t possibly understand, let alone a woman.”

  “Yeah, ESPN and circle jerks are pretty big enigmas.” She put the blindfold on. I went to her and put her hand on my shoulder. She held on. I tried not to read anything into that.

  We went past the meeting hall, behind where the pulpit should have been. At that moment, we were officially deeper into the Temple than I had ever been. There were a few halls, some doors, and stairs descending into darkness. Stan led us there, and for a moment, the paranoia kicked back in. Being led into basements is never fun, and that doesn’t change no matter how many times my job has required it.

  The basement was clean and modern, and here and there were uniformed guards, suddenly sitting bolt upright as we walked past. They gave Mina a strange look. Considering how she was dressed, she might as well have been an alien. She was probably the first woman who’d ever been down there, and I started thinking of the guards as subterranean mole-men. I could practically hear them thinking: What’s that strange creature with the extra heads coming out of her chest? Does she wish us harm?

  Neil gave me a weird look when I giggled a little. I shook my head at him; it would take me too long to explain and probably wouldn’t be funny when I was done.

  Halls, guards, guns: this place was secure. No matter where I looked, there wasn’t a giant hole leading from the sewers. There was no false ceiling for cat burglars to creep around in. The guards looked like they belonged, and both Stan and Neil seemed to recognize them. Maybe they were right. Maybe the rock that had come at me was just a rock. Maybe the Little Green Men had turned Mina and tricked me to get her into the Mason vault. Maybe Mina had hidden lasers in her eyes.

  Maybe I needed to get some sleep.

  There was a vault, which Stan opened. The plan was gaining steam. The vault was huge, with a door thicker than Vassily. No way we could have broken it, and yet Stan opened it for us. Inside, the vault was bare, except for a single thing: a rock. It was exactly the size and shape of the one in my trunk, only this one was sitting on a pedestal like a Mesoamerican relic in an adventure movie.

  “See?” Stan said.

  Mina took off her blindfold. I felt her eyes on me. I knew what she was thinking.