Catskinner's Book (The Book Of Lost Doors)

by Misha Burnett

  He seemed to notice his cigarette, took a deep drag, then turned to Alice. “Now, ma'am, I understand your concerns, honestly, and I want to help. But these days, I can't just pull people off the street for a psych eval unless I have some kind of evidence that they represent a clear and present danger. 'The guy looked goofy to me, your honor,' just ain't good enough. Not that I'm doubting your professional expertise, but I need to cover my ass.”

  He looked up as we approached the group. “And who the hell are you?” he asked, not belligerently, just exasperated.

  “Ergot poisoning,” Godiva said.

  He blinked at that. “Okay, Miss Ergot Poisoning, what are you doing here?”

  “It's Dr. Ergot Poisoning. Millerson, CDC.”

  “Charmed. Now we've got, what, a food poisoning outbreak? And how did I end up ass deep in feds without anybody letting me know you were going to be in my town?”

  Alice and Russwin were both staring at us. Alice recovered first. “Dr. . . . Millerson. Good to see you're okay.”

  Russwin was still staring.

  The cop shook his head. “Ergot. That's what, a poison mushroom? Makes people go crazy, right?”

  Godiva nodded. “It's a fungus, usually found in contaminated grain. I've reason to believe that there may have been organic foodstuffs that contain significant amounts of contamination.”

  He sighed. “This crowd is certainly loony enough.” He pulled a radio out of his jacket pocket. “Advise the EMTs that we may be dealing with ergot poisoning.” A pause. “Ergot, Echo Romeo, Golf, Oscar, Tango. It's a fungus. Have them check for it, okay?”

  He put the radio away and looked at me. “Do I want to know who you are?”

  “Ozryck, DEA.” I held out my hand, but he didn't take it.

  “And DEA is here . . . why?”

  I looked over at Russwin. “I'm on loan.”

  He raised his eyebrows at that. “On loan, huh”—a phone rang in his pocket—“hold that thought.”

  He stuffed his radio in one pocket, pulled a small phone out of another. “Clarke.”

  “Okay.” He held up his hand—quite unnecessarily—for silence.

  “Yeah. . . . I got that. . . . Right.” He closed his phone and glared at each of us in turn, ending at Russwin.

  “Okay, Deputy Special Agent Mister Russwin Sir, why don't you, your shrink,” a nod to Alice, “your doctor,” a nod to Godiva, “and your library book,” a glare at me, “leave my crime scene, if this is a crime scene, and if it's not too much trouble, my city. In fact, why don't you all go back to Washington? Or, really, any place you like—so long as it's not here.”

  Russwin nodded, looking contrite. “Thank you for your cooperation, Captain Clarke. I'm sorry for any confusion.”

  Captain Clarke turned away without another word and began waving over some uniformed officers. We slunk away.

  I was heading around to the front parking lot, but Godiva caught my arm. “Your van's over here.”

  Russwin and Alice were still going the other way.

  “Wait,” I said, “Uh, where . . .?”

  “We'll meet up at your motel,” Alice replied.

  “Okay.”

  It was good to be back in my van. It didn't look like anything was missing. I could check under the spare tire for the cash I'd hidden there later.

  It was good to Godiva back with me. I was kind of surprised how natural it felt to look over at her, sitting in the passenger seat, lip syncing along to the radio. I got on Highway 55, going north.

  “Take 44,” Godiva said.

  “But the motel's off 70,” I pointed out.

  “We've got a stop to make first.”

  “Is this part of your plan?”

  “Yep.”

  “Make sure the right one wins? Wins what?”

  “The struggle for Morgan's old job.”

  “How do we make sure the right one wins?”

  “I dunno yet.”

  “Oh. Well, who is the right one?”

  “I'm not sure.”

  I drove along quietly for a while. When the interchange for 44 came, I took it, going west. I considered asking more about her plan, then decided I'd probably be happier not knowing.

  How long do I need to rest before you can come out again? I asked Catskinner.

  a day, perhaps.

  We could stay hidden that long. Probably.

  Godiva was staring out the window.

  “So,” I asked her, “are you really a doctor?”

  “Huh?” She looked over at me. “I was. My license's not current.”

  “What happened?”

  A sigh. “I woke up one morning and realized that I didn't want to spend my life cleaning up other people's blood and shit, and I owed too many people too much money to do anything else.”

  “Oh.” I thought about that. “Yeah, I guess that'd be bad.”

  A shrug. “So when Dr. Klein offered a way out, I took it.”

  “Where'd you meet her?”

  “I met her at the candy store. She turned around and smiled at me—you get the picture?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Never mind. I met her at the hospital. She was a pharmaceutical rep. Heh. That was just a sideline. She was in a lot of other businesses.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Get off at Lindbergh.”

  I signaled and started getting over, then looked over at her. “Where are we going?”

  “The Good Earth.”

  That didn't sound right. “Why? Morgan's dead.”

  “Somebody's going to be there. We need to know who.”

  Did we? Did I need to know who was cleaning out Morgan's store? Godiva seemed to think that there were good guys and bad guys, and the good guys would help us. I hadn't seen any good guys, just a succession of people trying to kill me. They'd almost succeeded, too. I'd never been pushed this hard, this long. Was that the point? Was their plan to just keep sending threats at me until my body rebelled at Catskinner's control? Did they know that I had such a limit? I hadn't, not until I hit it.

  All I had was questions, and no good answers. Put that way, maybe Godiva was right—at this point any information would be welcome. I felt like I was doing a jigsaw puzzle with too few pieces. And no picture on the box. Plus some of the pieces were on fire. Also every time I got a piece out of place a trap door would open in the ceiling and drop an alligator on my head.

  I sighed. What's the worst that could happen?

  we could die.

  Everybody dies.

  not everybody dies today.

  We can't run forever.

  we can run as long as we have to.

  Not me. No more. I'm sick of running.

  russwin has weapons. he will protect you while you rest.

  We don't know what we're facing.

  it doesn't matter what we're facing if we turn away from it.

  Yes it does. They will follow us. They will find us. They will kill us.

  kill them first.

  Maybe Godiva can figure this out. Maybe she can make a deal.

  i will not die a slave.

  A different kind of deal. Some way to end the fighting.

  there is no end to fighting except death.

  I refuse to accept that.

  I looked over at Godiva. She was watching me, her face serious. She could tell that I had been talking things over with Catskinner, I realized. “Well?” she asked.

  “Let's go see who's at the Good Earth.”

  She smiled. “Yeah,” she reached out to put her hand on my arm. “One way or another, we have to end this.”

  She glanced out the window, then back at my face. “Catskinner,” she said softly, “I promise you that I won't let anyone enslave you or kill James. I can do things, too—not the same things that you can do, but I can keep us all safe. Trust me.”

  Well?

  i think she is wrong, but thank her.

  “He says thank you,” I said.

 
She smiled. “Did he really say that?”

  I nodded. “He also said he thinks you're wrong.”

  A bark of laughter, followed by a groan of pain. “Note to self: don't laugh.”

  “This isn't a good idea,” I said. “I'm exhausted, you're cut open. Let's just go back to the hotel. We can check in on the Good Earth tomorrow.”

  Godiva turned to look out the window. “Pull over,” she said softly.

  “Where?” We were passing a strip mall, I tried to see what had caught her eye.

  “Anywhere.” A deep sigh. “We have to talk.”

  “Okay.” I pulled in, found a parking place. Turned off the van. She was still turned away from me, looking out the window. I waited.

  “They told me to bring you there. To the Good Earth,” Godiva said without looking at me.

  “They?”

  “The ones that grabbed me and Alice from the parking lot. After they separated me from Alice, but before they knocked me out. They told me to get you to the Good Earth, as soon as possible. Today, if I could.”

  Oh. Well, that explained that. “Did they say why?”

  Another sigh. “They said that you could still make a deal. They said that they just wanted to talk.”

  I nodded, thought it over.

  “Did they tell you not to tell me?” I asked her.

  “No. That was my idea. I was going to just lead you there. But I can't.”

  I started the van again. “Thanks for telling me.”

  I pulled out of the lot and back onto Lindbergh.

  Beside me Godiva murmured something. I looked over at her, she was leaning over, her face in her hands.

  “What?” I asked her.

  She looked over at me. “Are you going to kill me now?”

  Oh, for God's sake. Now she was doing it, too. I took a deep breath. “No, Godiva, I am not going to kill you now. I'm going down to the Good Earth, and I'll talk to whoever is there.”

  “But—” surprise filled her eyes. “You don't think—I mean, it's sure to be a trap.”

  I remembered what Russwin had said. “Yeah, it's a trap, and we know it's a trap, and they know that we know, and so on and so forth. We go anyway, or we run away. I'm tired of running.”

  Godiva nodded glumly.

  “Besides, maybe it isn't. Like you say, there's a lot about this that doesn't add up. Maybe they really do just want to talk.”

  “I'm scared.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “Me, too. But I'm also angry. I'm sick of this shit, all these weird-ass things jumping out at me. I'm sick of being Dr. Junior Frankenstein's Science Fair Project, I'm sick of everybody talking about things I'm too stupid to understand—”

  “James, you're not—” Godiva began gently.

  I drowned her out, “and I'm sick of everybody asking me if I'm going to kill them all the time!” I turned to glance over at her. “I mean, Jesus, I thought we had something for a minute there. I like you. I thought maybe you liked me. I thought maybe, for the first time in my life, I might be able to get close to somebody without scaring them away. Oh, God... from the first minute I saw you, I wanted to protect you. I've been doing everything I can to keep you safe. I trust you. I thought you trusted me.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “No. No, Godiva, you do not. Because when you trust somebody, you don't FUCKING ASK THEM IF THEY ARE GOING TO KILL YOU!”

  I turned back to the road. Luckily, the traffic was light, my eyes were blurry. I blinked and felt tears on my cheeks.

  “I'm sorry.” It sounded like she might be crying, too.

  “Yeah.” I took a deep breath, got my voice back under control. “There's a lot of that going around.”

  We drove on in silence for a few blocks.

  “I do like you, James. It's just . . . I've had kind of a rough week,” Godiva said.

  I looked back at her and she flashed me a brave little smile. I smiled back, and it felt good.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “It hasn't been easy for me, either.” I held out my hand to her.

  Her smile got bigger, and she took my hand. “I promise, on days that I don't have my abdominal wall incised I'm not nearly so irritating.”

  That made me laugh, and laughing made some of the tension flow out of me, and made me realize just how scared I was, and how fear made me lash out at everyone, even the one person I was sure I didn't want to hurt.

  Godiva laughed, too, even though it made her wince.

  Laughing, we pulled into the lot of the Good Earth.

  The white pick up truck was still the only vehicle in the lot. I wasn't sure what, if anything that meant. I parked the van and wiped my hands on my jeans.

  How do you feel about this? I asked Catskinner.

  i don't like it.

  Me, either. I got out of the van. I heard Godiva getting out of her side, and turned to her.

  “You don't have to—” I began.

  “Hush,” she said, “I'm going with you.”

  I didn't argue. Instead I opened the door to the shop and the three of us went inside.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “and they all lived happily every after. until they died, of course.”

  The bell above the door rang flatly as I pushed it open—odd, I didn't remember that from the last time I'd been here. The view was the same, though. A shelving unit directly ahead, filled with a random selection of stuff. I turned right into the spiral, Godiva keeping step beside me.

  The same confusing mishmash of stuff on the shelves, wind chimes and mirrors and charcoal briquettes and energy drinks without any order that I could see. Godiva frowned at the shelves as we passed, nodding now and again, as if she was working out the filing system.

  Me, I was much more concerned with the figure in the center of the spiral maze. There was a figure standing there, I could tell that much through the shelves. It was moving, picking things up or putting them down, sorting things on the counter, maybe. It didn't seem to have noticed us, but it was hard to tell because what I could see of its head seemed strange, over sized.

  A turn, a turn, a turn, past paperbacks in some Asian language and cheap automotive tool kits and stacks of paving stones. Beside me Godiva muttered, “Feng Shui on steroids—”

  “Huh?”

  “This place is an energy trap,” she explained softly. “By placing opposing elements across from each other he channels energy—chi—into the center of the spiral. It's really quite clever.”

  And I thought he was just a lousy merchandiser.

  The figure in the center of the spiral didn't seem to take any notice of us. There was something just wrong about the silhouette I glimpsed through the shelves.

  What is it?

  it is a collection of decay.

  Which made me wonder if Catskinner could even see the figure in the middle or was just talking about the crap on the shelves.

  We had reached the center. I held out my hand to stop Godiva—whatever was here, I wanted to encounter it first.

  It was Keith Morgan. With a little portable TV where his head should be.

  “Well . . .” I said. “This is revolting.”

  a collection of decay.

  Yeah, I could see that. Morgan's body didn't look good—even more than just the whole missing head thing. His skin was pale and dry and his flesh seemed to sag, somehow, like it wasn't his muscles holding him up but some kind of interior framework. There was dried blood crusted all around his neck and spattered across his T-shirt—this one showing some pink-haired busty anime character.

  There were . . . things . . . running from the bottom of the TV and into Morgan's neck—wires and tubes and metal struts. To avoid looking at them I looked up at the screen. It showed a face. It was the woman in red—Agony Delapour.

  That figured.

  Godiva came around me and stopped, staring at the altered body. She looked at me. “Yeah, that is revolting.”

  She looked back at the figure. “So . . . I guess you're the new b
oss?”

  On-screen Agony laughed. “New? Oh, no, I've always been the boss. This—” the arms of the body moved to indicate Morgan's torso“—was just a useful idiot.”

  “He seemed to think otherwise.”

  Agony turned her head to face me through the screen. There had to be a camera somewhere in that mess of tubes and wires, but I didn't want to look for it. “Of course he did—he was an idiot. Which is what made him useful.”

  “But his usefulness came to an end,” Godiva suggested.

  Agony shrugged. “It happens.” A sigh. “There's a lot to be said for letting one's underlings think they're in charge, but the downside is that sometimes they just won't do as they're told.”

  “And then you need a new idiot,” I said.

  Another laugh. Her laugh was bright and cheerful just as if she wasn't speaking through a remotely operated desecrated corpse. “Fortunately, there's no end to those! The only way to approximate infinity, you know.”

  “And I suppose that you think you're in charge?” Godiva asked sharply.

  “On my good days. Now, Godiva, I see you brought Adam to me, thank you so much.”

  “Actually, I brought myself,” I pointed out. “Godiva told me about your conversation, and I came of my own free will.” It seemed very important for me to say that. “Also, don't call me Adam. It's not cute any more.”

  “She just trying to get under your skin,” Godiva said.

  “No, not really.” On the screen, Agony looked down, as if she was looking at the body under the TV. “Now, Mr. Morgan, his skin I got under.”

  I'd had about enough of this particular freak show. “Okay, I'm here. What do you want?”

  “Well, first I wanted to apologize for all the trouble you've had lately. Really, none of it was my idea.”

  I wasn't buying it. “The last couple of things that tried to kill me were after I met you and you told me Morgan was out of the picture.”

  Agony sighed. “Yeah, I know. If you attack people, they tend to defend themselves. But it wasn't anything you couldn't handle.”