Mr Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

  I saw Neil coming through the gate on the other side of the park. He crossed the faded baseball diamond and even waved, like we were a couple of friends. Maybe in his head, we were. It was hard to tell what he thought. We were definitely friendly, despite his being part of duct-taping me to a chair. He joined me on the bench.

  “You look like crap,” he said.

  “Good to know.”

  “You’ve been up to your neck in this whole thing, huh? Did you ever find out who sent that Manchurian Candidate after you?”

  I felt like I’d been hit in the face with ice water. Neil knew about my multiple loyalties. Neil was at ground zero for the theft of the Stone, and there was always the chance he had been the one who gimmicked the phone book. He wanted the Chain: that suggested links to the Templars or the Anas, both of whom had ties to Diaz. There was a serious possibility I was sitting next to Mr. Blank, and Statler was just a red herring.

  I tried to hide it. I said, “No. Still coming up empty on that one.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was masking relief. “What about the Chain?”

  “That I did find.”

  He couldn’t hide the eagerness. “Where is it?”

  “Sorry, Neil. You’re going to have to tell me where it’s going first.”

  He looked past me and nodded. Fuck. The bag went over my head and cinched tight. It rubbed against my cut. Neil barked, “Stop moving! You’re only going to hurt yourself!”

  I tried to curse at Neil, but the bag turned it into some kind of animal growling. I hoped it meant something really mean in Bear, Cat, Wolverine, or whatever the hell mammal I was mimicking. A hard cylinder jabbed into my side, and I almost had time to swear again before the current went through my body. I saw white, felt twisting agony, and smelled burned toast. My body went limp.

  There were hands on me. I was hoisted over a shoulder and hustled from the park. I heard a car door open, and I was thrown in a backseat and a big body smashed me against another big body. I felt plastic cuffs tighten around my wrists. The car rumbled, started, and moved out. I heard Neil talking, riding shotgun.

  “Stay calm, okay? There’s nothing to be worried about.”

  “Neil? Have you noticed that I have a bag on my head? I feel like I’m about to star in an al-Qaeda recruitment video.”

  He sounded a little worried. “It’s just a precaution. You don’t have anything to fear from us.”

  “Then let’s take the hood off and talk about this like people who aren’t going to shoot each other.”

  “Are you going to… look, it’s best if you keep the hood on. The orders were specific, and if you show up without the hood, we’ll be in trouble.”

  “Jesus, who are you taking me to see, your mom?”

  Neil didn’t say anything to that. This didn’t feel like an execution or, more accurately, how I thought an execution should feel. Neil couldn’t hide the fear in his voice, and some of that fear sounded directed at me. The steroid hulks on either side of me were shrinking away, almost like they didn’t quite want to touch me. I briefly thought about impersonating Gozer, but that would probably work better if I’d had the foresight to bring a terror dog. That, and my lack of sleep, made me giggle a little. The hulks both flinched.

  I decided to keep quiet, but I ended up drifting off again. I woke myself up when I snorted, and I felt the guys beside me tense up. The car was slowing down. It stopped, shut off. I heard the doors open, and I immediately smelled seawater. My first thought was concrete shoes. I wasn’t sure if the Kosher Nostra kept that tradition up. It seemed like maybe the worst way to die, if not the most creatively horrifying. One of the hulks hauled me out of the car, and I felt a clean breeze.

  One hulk on either side held my bicep. They walked me forward, and part of me was pretty sure that they were going to run me into something for a good laugh. Neil said, “Careful, there’s a step in front of you.”

  On a lark, I believed him. There was a step. He warned me about another, and I humored him. I heard a door open, and then we were going down a hardwood hall. I smelled thick incense, and up ahead I heard a party: a wall of conversation coupled with light clinks and sloshes. The sounds got louder, and then there was a hush. Instinct told me I was standing in front of and above the party, at the top of a short staircase. I felt eyes on me.

  A knife cut my cuffs. The bag was whipped off my head. I expected bright light, but no. The room, a ballroom, was lined with black candles and draped in red cloth. In the center of the room, there was what looked like an altar set within a dry fountain. There were guests: the men in black tuxes, the women in red cocktail dresses. I blinked.

  A familiar voice called out, “The guest of honor!”

  Everyone broke into polite applause. Some of them raised their glasses at me. The crowd parted for nothing. No, not nothing. I looked down and saw Paul Tallutto, the leader of the First Reformed Church of the Antichrist. He was the primordial dwarf who had been present at Mina’s show on Friday, the same show at which I had seen Stan Brizendine. The little guy had his glass raised—a normal-sized glass, so it looked like he was slurping on a Big Gulp filled with booze.

  Paul smiled at me and beckoned me to step into the ballroom. I did. I wondered if I was supposed to kneel or crouch when I talked to him. What was polite? I didn’t think pissing off a Satanist, especially in his own home, was a good idea. This whole “guest of honor” thing seemed like one of those “fair is foul” rites that was going to end with me naked and riding a goat.

  “Looks like a nice party, Mr. Tallutto.”

  “Please, call me Paul.” He was leading me over to the bar. The guy on the other side looked so self-consciously evil I could barely take him seriously. The scar down the left side of his face I could handle, but the dead white eye seemed like a little much. He held out a martini. I took it. Paul said, “What would you like me to call you?”

  I glanced around the room. I saw Neil leaning against one wall, watching me. So he was a Satanist. Now that I didn’t see coming. Was he a Satanist because he really liked the message, or was it a family thing? Did he really believe in Hell, or was he hedging his bets? Did he sin all the time, or did he block off parts of his schedule? Probably more importantly, what the hell did they think I was?

  I said, “Uh… Sam is fine.”

  “Sam it is.”

  A pack of Paul’s bottle-redheads squirmed through the crowd. Two flanked him, and one cozied right up next to me. I offered her a weak smile.

  “Mr.… uh, Paul, what’s going on?”

  “A party in your honor. I have to admit, I was a little surprised you were right under our noses this whole time.”

  “Had to be under someone’s nose, I guess.”

  Paul laughed like a Japanese schoolgirl. I was getting distinctly nervous. He wasn’t scared of me at all. “That’s good. Just remember, what’s mine…” a gesture at the women, although from his height, he was basically nodding at their crotches, “…is yours.” Same gesture at my crotch. That made me uncomfortable. I felt like I was being propositioned for a threesome, and not the good kind. Before I could awkwardly cite erectile dysfunction, Paul strutted away, cradling the backs of shapely knees.

  The woman next to me, who was trying to accomplish mitosis in reverse, said, “So, you want to go somewhere? There’s back rooms and stuff.”

  It had been awhile. She was attractive. I was tired, sure, but I could get untired. She looked willing, maybe even into it. I couldn’t really tell, but I didn’t think it mattered to her. I nearly shrugged, then I tried to picture her kicking an attacker in the head. I couldn’t.

  “Maybe later.”

  “I could get a friend.”

  I spat out a mouthful of martini. “Uh, yeah. Right. Later. I need to talk to some people.” I fled like she was a burning building stuffed with asbestos and C4. Neil saw me coming from across the room. He was severely underdressed, holding a glass of red wine and failing to blend in. His eyes got wide, and he tried to fin
d an exit, but I was already on him.

  I prompted him: “So, you’re a Satanist.”

  The fear completely dropped as he gave me a “well, duh,” look. “So are you.”

  “Everyone thinks I’m being judgmental when I say that. I was trying to start a conversation.”

  “Well, yeah. I’m a Satanist.”

  “I take it Stan doesn’t know.”

  “Lord, no. Have to be a Christian to be a Mason. By the way, what’s your real name?”

  “Everyone has a different one, huh? Vassily called me Nicky, Oana called me Jonah… incidentally, how are they?”

  Neil shrugged. “I haven’t spoken to any of them since we left you at the bunker.”

  “You wanted to turn the Chain over to the Satanists?”

  “Brady wanted it back. He stole it from the Templars, don’t ask me how, and handed it over to me. I gave it to Paul, and Paul lost it, I guess.” He lowered his voice. “There’s been coup-talk ever since we found out he didn’t have it anymore. That’s sort of what this whole party is about.”

  I scanned the room. “Who’s supposed to take over?”

  Same look. He was getting good at that.

  I said, “What, me?”

  “Well, you are the Antichrist.”

  Apparently I was getting good at spitting my martini across the room.

  Neil said, “You are, aren’t you? The signs point to you. I saw the way you played Vassily, Brady, Oana, and that freak Victor. No one but the Antichrist could do that.”

  I tried to control the coughing. “Yeah, right. I’m the Antichrist.”

  I could tell Neil wasn’t quite buying it, even if he wanted to. God bless him, or in his case, Satan curse him. I wasn’t sure how it worked. I’d slept through the indoctrination, but I remembered there had been a video.

  A soft clinking drove our conversation underground. Paul was standing at the head of the room, surrounded by his harem, all of whom looked like giants next to Mini-Ming. He held a glass of red wine and was tapping one of those tiny grapefruit spoons against the side. It was sort of cute, in a Black Lodge kind of way. I thought about using my authority as the Antichrist to make him say “I am the arm.”

  “Where is he? Where is the guest of honor?” He made a show of looking for me, but I was the only guy underdressed and with a face that looked like I’d gone three rounds with Georges St-Pierre. Paul found me and nodded me over. “Sam, please join me.”

  I approached. If he had a knife, he could definitely reach my junk, and I was hoping to use that at some point in the future. I wound up next to him, and two of his floozies draped themselves over me.

  Paul said, “Sam Smiley has given us hope for our future. Before Sam, we were content to be led by those who merely followed the example of our lord, but now, we have his actual offspring. Everyone, let’s raise our glasses and…”

  His voice trailed off. I followed his eyes to the front of the room. Had I been talking, my voice would have trailed off as well.

  It was Mina. She was at the top of the stairs, eyes locked on me. The way she prowled into the room, I could swear I heard jungle drums. A grin played on wet lips, a glimmer shot through eyes like stars. She was an expanse of blue in the red and black. I nearly fell for the whole act, but my paranoia leapt in like a heroic Secret Service guy. Had she been here the whole time? She was a redhead, so she sort of matched. Had she been waiting? Was she a Satanist? Was that necessarily a bad thing when her breasts were that…

  Focus.

  I realized what she was doing. She had listened. At the intersection of perception and belief, she had found magic. This was her Reagan haircut. She had found a way to simultaneously belong and violate the rule of the conclave. She held the room in her cleavage. Paul couldn’t stop her even if he could remember his name at that moment. She was on me, pushing the other women away. I didn’t mind. I felt her breath on my face. She leaned in and kissed me.

  The kiss wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. No tongue, but she did taste like strawberries, so that was a plus. She pulled away, but kept both hands on my lapels. “Excuse us. I’ll have him back in a minute.”

  She dragged me through one of the curtains into a hallway. She leaned in again, and so did I. I opened my mouth, hoping to encourage her, but when I looked, her eyes were on the way we had come, and she was worried. She whispered, “Are you okay?”

  I recovered and hoped she hadn’t noticed my faux pas. “Yeah, I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

  “Rescuing you.”

  “Why did you think I needed rescuing?”

  “I followed you to the meeting. I saw them put that bag on your head and tase you, so I tailed them here. I got a little closer, snuck around a little, and made my move.”

  “Wait. You followed me?”

  In the dim light of the hall, I couldn’t tell if she blushed or not. It seemed like she might have. “I, uh, I forgot to give you my number. You know, if you found out the hit on me was still on. So you could warn me.”

  “Oh. You realize you just wandered into a coven of Satanists to tell me that, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I tried to think of something appropriate to say to that. I couldn’t. “I think everything is going to be fine. I got a crotch-stabby vibe from Paul for a second, but they think I’m the Antichrist, so it’s going pretty well.”

  “Then why the hell did they tase you?”

  “They have a whole fair-is-foul thing. You know, they like to invert established social norms. It’s why they put a midget in charge.”

  “I thought he was a primordial dwarf.”

  “I stand corrected. But with these guys, a hood and a taser is sort of the equivalent of a firm handshake and a how-the-hell-are-you.”

  “Well, if fair-is-foul, wouldn’t that extend to the party? If you’re the guest of honor, wouldn’t that actually mean something bad?”

  “You might be confusing Satan with Bizarro Superman.”

  “You’re the one who laid out the rules here.”

  In the other room: a splashing sound, the sharp scent of copper, and an “oooo!” Mina and I exchanged a look. We peeked through the curtains. The fountain-altar in the center of the room had been activated. Blood flowed up through the altar and down into the fountain, drenching everything. The guests were applauding with a little more gusto. Paul stood nearby, holding a curved sacrificial blade. A few of the Satanists dipped their cups into the fountain and drank deeply.

  Paul said, “Don’t fill up on the goat’s blood. Pretty soon, there will be real power flowing through that.”

  Mina and I ducked back into the hall.

  She said, “We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “Yeah.” We went toward the back. “Mina?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  She shrugged, trying out a cocky smile. “Aliens, Satanists, what’s the difference?”

  “They both seem to have it out for the livestock, don’t they.”

  -TWENTY-ONE-

  There’s a problem with knowing everyone. Ingrid Brady had put the thought into my head, and now I couldn’t get rid of it. She’d given it to me without knowing it, and now I had to go through with what the thought had inspired. And that meant I had to see Fabian Strudwick.

  Mina’s car was a block or two away. Once we had left Paul’s kitchen, we ran across the grounds and into the streets. I remembered Mina’s car from the other day, right before she’d kicked me in the head. It was a good sign for my continued neurological health that I had memories around that event.

  By now, the Satanists must have figured out that we were gone. I wasn’t sure if Neil had spotted my car at the reservoir, but chances were they’d be sitting on it until I got back. That would be fun. I was pretty sure I was going to need it before the night was over.

  She drove while I slumped in the shotgun seat. Mina’s car was fairly neat. There was a wallet of CDs on the floor even though she had an iPod plugged
into the stereo. There was Kleenex and lotion; throw in a laptop and that was a pretty good Saturday night for me. The iPod wasn’t playing Boston; it was playing some kind of British Invasion music that I couldn’t stand.

  I said, “I know who Mr. Blank is. Statler. Eric Caldwell’s friend from the gay bar.”

  “You’re sure this time? Because you were dead set on Ingrid Brady before this.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s working for him. He had her kill Eric in order to protect the organization when Diaz got arrested.”

  “So why do you have that horrible expression on your face?”

  “Because I don’t like where we’re going.”

  “And that is…?”

  “How are you with new gods?”

  It was a legitimate question. Some of the groups were devoted to old gods, and by old, I meant anything before Joseph Smith. Old gods were deities like Yahweh and Satan, Eris, Athena, or Set. That last one was an Egyptian snake god whose cult had died out a couple years before. Turns out praying at cobras is the second-worst antivenin in the world. Anyway, there were also the new gods, whose cults were usually spread digitally. Deities like Anamadim or J.R. “Bob” Dobbs. I explained this to Mina. She seemed to take it all in and trust I wasn’t winding her up.

  “Another cult?”

  “Another cult. Just be aware that their god is very, very real.”

  “Well, some people believe…”

  “No, I’m talking about ‘you reach out and touch him’ real. And he might touch you back.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “Good, that’s what I was going for.”

  Some cults were spread by the internet. This cult worshipped the internet. A single incarnation that had a form of consciousness. Unfortunately, like the internet, said consciousness was petty, prone to rants, incredibly vast, and utterly inhuman. Fabian Strudwick was its high priest and one of the most unpleasant people I had ever met. I liked to think that statement carried a certain amount of weight.

  I explained some of it to Mina. No one really knew when the internet had gained consciousness, or even really if it had consciousness the way we knew it. With all the information in the world at your fingertips—not that it had fingertips, but bear with me—you would become more than a little fragmented, too. Even though by any human standards it was the smartest thing there was, it lacked the human quality of collating the information in any sane way. It also had a serious problem with memes.