Travis has a piece of paper in his hand already, reading it over while Steve had been talking. He has it close to his face as he leans forward to the computer, lowering it onto the keys to refer to it as he looks at me on the screen.
“There’s a series—ow,” he winces, as Steve backed his chair over his foot.
“My bad. Want a Red Bull?”
“Man, you know I don’t drink that shit. You get any of those five-hour energies?”
Steve’s cheek spreads back in a gee-whiz sort of expression.
“Damnit,” Travis says, then, “Yeah, get me one of them. But next time you go down to the Koreans, you better—”
“Guys, what?” I stop them.
Travis refocuses his attention.
“Okay, so this guy stays here and there but then,” he turns the paper to me and it’s a fuzzy map, one I can’t make out, “there’s this one spot in north Philly. Nowhere near anything important, the congressional staff, nothing. It’s like he goes out of his way to be in this crummy neighborhood.”
“And?”
“And we’re fuckin’ lookin’ into it. We just got here. We’re checking for local conventions, no matter how unlikely that is. If he’s keeping his specks out, then what’s there? Rule out the fact that it’s cheap, since it looks like he’s got money…it just stands out, it doesn’t make sense. What’s he doing there?”
“Where’s Augustus?” I ask, squinting at the screen in case I don’t see him in the background.
“Hezell—” Steve’s back, trying to speak with a mouthful of Chinese food.
“Dude, spittin’ noodles and shit…” Travis backs up, brushing himself off, grumpily mumbling under his breath.
Steve finishes and continues, “He’s still a day off in his travels. He’ll be here in the morning. He’s got his equipment with him but he – like you – had some obligations. He’s got a constant line on us though. Why?”
“Ask him—write this down. Find out who owns a black Lincoln four door town car with the plates A51-7171. I couldn’t see the state but it wasn’t here.”
“Does this have to do with this Mans el-Ray Pasquale dude?”
“No, it’s unrelated. I’m not too worried about it but, see what he can do.”
“Um…” Steve stuffs a bunch of food into his mouth, switching seats with Travis at the computer.
“You leave any steamed dump…lings…?” but Travis trails off as Steve shoots him an apologetic look.
Travis is gone off into the dark background, grumbling.
“Let’s see,” Steve continues, swallowing a mouthful of food, “Aug’s gonna be here tomorrow, probably. You’ll be here Wednesday. Trav’s gonna go get a room in the hotel in north Philly, see if he can figure out what the fuck this guy was doing there…” he looks around at the papers scattered across the table top, “…the hotel here’s nice. Got a pool and a gym, you’ll like it.”
He shoves more food in his mouth.
“I’ll check back tomorrow when Aug’s there,” I aim at ending the conversation.
“Oh, one more thing – I seriously doubt this guy died of complications from pneumonia,” Steve says, tossing aside the cardboard container he had been eating from.
“Why’s that?”
“Call it a hunch…”
FORENDER
Under the pretense that he’s only doing it for her sake, David lets me take Lizzy out the day before the party.
I let her choose where we go – she picks the aquarium.
“The ocean contains 99% of the living space on earth,” the tour guide starts her spiel in the lobby, heading to the Deep Sea Life portion. She’s wearing a tan cap and light brown skirt, one that looks like a cloth that’s been wrapped around her waist three times, each further ascending her thin legs to end around the kneecap.
Her nametag reads: Bethany.
It causes me to brandish a smirk; I don’t know why.
Then I notice…
She’s smiling back, continuing her speech.
“The Pacific Ocean alone is larger than the entire land surface combined,” she goes on, her eyes leaving me and returning to the small group of five.
We’re standing behind a much larger-in-frame family of three – big daddy, bigger mother, and medium-sized teen boy in a red shirt under moderately fashionable overalls – as they stand side-by-side between the pretty tour guide and us. They don’t sound as if they’re from around here, more Southern.
“Why did she smile at you?” Lizzy asks in a low voice.
“Huh?” my eyebrows crowd to the bottom-center of my forehead in surprise and worry as I look down at Lizzy.
“Why did she smile at you?” she asks in the exact same tone of voice, as if to let me know she didn’t believe I hadn’t heard her the first time.
“I—she did? Who?” I stumble.
“Why is my dad mad at you?” she says at normal volume.
“What? Shhh,” my voice stays low; I don’t want to ruin the presentation.
“The highest land elevation is two thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-five feet where…” the guide looks between big daddy and medium-sized teen, having heard Lizzy and I talking, “…the ocean, on average, is over twelve thousand feet deep. The Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean, is the deepest area, almost thirty-six thousand feet. That’s nearly seven straight miles down.”
“No, I want to know. Why’s he being so mean to you lately?” she stops, looking up at me.
The tour guide stops.
“Is there a problem?” she asks, politely.
“I’m sorry, you can go on ahead. We’ll catch up in a moment.” I try to retain some charm but it sounds more rushed and frustrated.
“That was rude,” I tell her once the guide and family have left.
“I don’t care. What’s going on? Is it something bad?” she asks, staring up with harsh eyes.
“Whoa, where’s this attitude coming from?” I’m taken back by her forceful, angry tone.
She sounds like David.
“If he’s mad, I’m pretty sure I should be, too. He doesn’t get mad. What happened to you in that hotel room?”
“I can’t—”
“The hell you can’t,” she interjects, “I’m the one that stole the medicine from the hospital…” I look around to see if anyone’s listening, “…not my dad, not Uncle Chris, me. It was me. So you have to tell me. It’s a rule.”
I’m absolutely astonished. Frozen.
Then I decide to do what Kate does and treat her like an adult.
“Um…okay.” I breathe. “A man I used to know came to me. He said something very important, something very bad is going to happen in Philadelphia. We – this man and I – we weren’t friends but…I’m the only person this man knew that could stop it. I’m the only one with the resources. But, um…well, he poisoned me, too.”
“Why?” she asks, worried.
“Because…” and I wait to find the right phrasing, “…because if I weren’t around, he could use some of my resources. And also because…I wasn’t always the-the best person. I made bad decisions and…getting myself involved with him was one of them. But he’s gone. And your daddy’s mad because I have to go to Philadelphia. But I have to, I can’t just do nothing. A lot of people could be hurt. I have to make sure this man wasn’t lying – and, honestly, I doubt he would have done what he did if it weren’t true.”
“Why’s he mad at that?”
“Because he cares, sweetie.” I kneel down and get in front of her. “He’s afraid something might happen to me and…and he doesn’t want me to go.”
“Is it—are you going to come back?” she asks, a scared look in her eye.
“Absolutely.” I nod my head and hug her close. “Absolutely, my beautiful. Always…always…”
A VERY BOTHERSOME PHONE CONVERSATION
And two days before I leave, an unnecessary burden is added to an already over-burdened slate.
“Hello?”
“
Is this Mr. Ridley?”
The voice is low, menacing, and old, gruff.
“Who am I speaking to?”
“Just listen, bucko,” the voice is unnervingly calm. “You were acquainted with a young man—” there’s a muffled commotion as he asks someone near him a question, then comes back, “a young man named Sam Cranston. He was,” the man grunts out a cough as he audibly flips through papers, “in this little fairy school of yours. D’you remember him?”
“Who am I speaking to?” I ask again, more forcefully.
“A family friend of uh his, and it’d do you well to just answer ma’ fuckin’ questions. Remember ‘im? Darkish hair. About—” again, the muddled sound of covering the phone while he asks something to someone on the other end, “—about five eleven. Maybe a hundred-seventy, hundred-eighty pounds. Ringin’ any bells?”
“Yes.” Silence. “What do you want?”
“Whoa-ho-ho look at the chops. Whatever you say, bucko. I got papers here says he may have been involved in some fairy nonsense at a massage school you own. True, right?”
“Yes.”
“…go on,” he says, incredulously – almost comically.
“What do you want?”
“The point, huh. Well, looks like he’s disappeared. And the last place anybody’s seen ‘em was—” a muffled question, “—a few weeks back, the night of some nonsense at your fairy school. We been watchin’ you since – you ain’t the cleanest fella, are you, bucko? Got a bit of history, nothin’ severe, Philly wants you for questioning…but then we saw you murder that fella the other day…”
Silence.
“Nothin’ to say there, bucko? Huh? It was coldblooded, watched the whole thing. My associate filmed it all on his phone, broad daylight. I mean, wow. Brutal…still not talkin’? Good. So as far as I’m concerned, you ain’t right in yer life in some way – probably dangerous – and you was the last fella’ to see him alive.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.”
“Uh, well then – looks like you got a new problem. Until he comes back, I’m personally holdin’ you responsible for his disappearance. Prove he’s alive, somethin’. Otherwise, I’m gonna assume you murder’d him, too – like that poor junior the other day – and I’m gonna get yah, one way or the other. Got nine days from right now. You find him or the cops find you.”
Click.
a brief interlude about the seven devil nation
The Chemist, The Engineer, & The Poison of Amerwoncik
Steve from Cincinnati had created a brown, tar-like compound. Its texture was sticky, it smelled of tea leaves, and when set in heat for an extend period of time, it melted into a muddy-colored, cement-like puddle; however, when the compound was smoked in a wooden pipe, it smelled of its strongest ingredients (tobacco and opium) while providing the smoker with euphoria, focus, and a lack of stress. Side-effects were limited, mainly just fatigue from an excessive use of the brain. We nicknamed the tar-like compound “Hacker” since it was to be smoked instead of ingested; it was designed for someone like a hunter, someone setting off for something dangerous and energetic. It had to be smoked because of the chemistry of the elements and their involvement with the body: Only if the compound was smoked would it work as long, remaining in the lungs, blood stream, and fat lipids for up to three days. It’s what I took with me when I went heading off into the forest after the roving group of bandits. Aside from the euphoria, the anti-anxiety, and the immense focus, the drug also slowed the metabolism and decreased the brain’s need for R.E.M. sleep – a person could wake refreshed after four hours.
There were three test subjects through the various stages of the drug: Steve himself, Travis, and me. It started out as a dangerous process, as one of the ingredients in Hacker was the Amerwoncik plant, an indigenous, psychotropic plant that a local band of assholes had been using when they stole from the villages during their hunt for me. Townspeople had been dying because of it.
Steve was fresh out of college with a masters in chemistry and a focus on rational design and the creation of new medications through existing ones. I had hired him to help me work on some ideas I had but he turned out more helpful than I expected. Within a week of the townspeople asking Sensei Ki-Jo’s help to stop the bandits from stealing and poisoning the innocent, Steve had narrowed down the base toxic compound of the poison to the secretions of the indigenous Amerwoncik plant. The bandits were mixing it with other local herbs and Steve had found that the toxin could work as an anesthetic or paralyzing agent, and as a psychotropic compound, though it was a tight balance mixing the toxin with other elements, often causing the dosage to be fatal.
“It’s sort of a simple little mix,” Steve told us when he made the antidote to the poison, so that we might save the next villager that showed up because someone in the village was dying from it. “Simple medicines, common ones used in an overdose of heroin, ecstasy. Things to prevent cardiac arrest. A few other things. Nothing hard to find, you could easily substitute this for adrenophenylbarbitol which is in any hospital stockroom. Using this drug, adrenophenylbarbitol, however, could turn the drug to a positive. It’s impossible to completely shut down the glands producing the effects, it’s just your brain that stops receiving them. Slow down the effects, maybe tinker with it a bit, and this plant—this Amerwoncik plant—it could easily be a positive. We could turn it into something else, negate some of the negative effects, turn it into a positive for us.”
And that led to the “Hacker” compound.
Once Steve had the final product, Sensei Ki-Jo smoked it nonstop until his violent death (which was soon after).
Aside from the Hacker compound, Steve had also made each of us a new daily compound. When he made his own, it had taken him three years; now that he’d already been through the trail-and-errors of his own “daily vitamin”, he figured the chemistry to such a precise degree that it only took him two weeks for Travis, Sensei Ki-Jo, and myself to get one. The vitamin was designed individually for the taker, specifically to correct hereditary ailments that Steve had assessed through blood-testing: it supplied nutrients depleted by the subject’s specific metabolism; properly corrected the subject’s endocrine system, balancing things such as serotonin, adrenaline, testosterone, and so on; and, all the general vitamins a body needs every day.
We hired Steve for an internship but he had proven himself so useful that, in order to keep him with us longer, we offered to not only pay him for staying but pay for all of his college debt as well as whatever amount it would take for him to eventually pursue his PhD. Steve accepted but it was the teamwork, not the money, that persuaded him in the end; the fact that Travis and I were there to work with and help, that we grew into a team, that’s what became appealing.
After the intense and often excruciating training he had given me, Sensei Ki-Jo seldom made an appearance – his house was more like a factory, where I was in charge of the daily life, the hiring and so on, while Sensei Ki-Jo ate two meals a day and spent the rest of his time watching the forests around his house, smoking the Hacker, and rocking in his chair. To Steve, Travis, and I, it added an extra sense of purpose, the presumption of working for a man that remained in the shadows.
Travis had actually been the first hire. Augustus and Nigel were the third and fourth, rounding out the team as a computer expert and doctor, respectively; but they didn’t come till many months later, not until after the bandits and the poison, after Sensei Ki-Jo died and we relocated. For several months, it was just the three of us. Travis had arrived a young savant and idealist – 20 years old and finishing a PhD in engineering. I originally sought an engineer to help develop stealth weapons, my idea to combine a manufacturing engineer with a medicinal chemist; in the end, we had things we could use as weapons but it was more a partnership between three smart people, and it took such a short period of time before we each felt that, together, we could accomplish damn near anything.
I never would have won against the bandits if it were not f
or Steve’s Hacker and topical wound compound, and I never would have survived the massive attack that came later without Travis’ electronic sterilizer and re-designed field sutures, or Sensei Ki-Jo’s self-sacrifice.
the blue sky
THE DAY I MURDERED BARTLEBY
My hand had wrapped around the cold glass of water, enjoying the condensation slipping over my fingers, and I took a hearty drink. As the glass lowered, the other patron got my attention by sitting across from me.
“Looooong time,” he drew out the words, low and menacing.
I stared at him, blank; recognition was quick.
My face remained vacant.
“I told you if I ever saw you again, I would kill you.”
“So be it,” Bartleby answered.
We looked into each other far deeper than the eyes. This man had ordered the murder of my brother and the kidnapping of Lizzy some six years back. My gaze bore a hole into his heart, looking for what he had stored there – why, after all this time, have you finally come? He glared back, his eyes unblinking – I was the man that had killed his “father”.
He looked like shit, unshaven and dirty and covered in disheveled dark hair.
His eyes were sunken, his skin sallow.
“Since I don’t have as many resources anymore – you saw to that…” he clicked his teeth, looking around is if uninterested in the past, “…you need to get back to Philadelphia. There’s a man there – hear this name, repeat it – Mans el-Ray Pasquale. You need to speak with him. Repeat it.”
I did right off to save time – I wanted him out of here.
“Say it a few more times, write it down. He’s expecting you. He’s going to tell you about an oncoming event that’s going to happen right in – you guessed it – Philadelphia.” He looked around, bored. “Is it true that you own this buffet?”
And I glared at him.
Twenty minutes after leaving the buffet, I met Bartleby at a spot we agreed upon, somewhere quiet, somewhere people wouldn’t see us. We chose to meet in the open in case of an attempted ambush; it didn’t really matter as his side could have tried to ambush me at any point, or they could just show up late and snipe me out. They hadn’t thus far, though, and I believed he would be alone.
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