Get Blank (Fill in the Blank)

by Justin Robinson

  This had gone well. I came into town and wandered into and out of a police ambush, only to get whacked by the mob. I should teach a class. Goddamn it, Mina was depending on me. There had to be a way out of this. Some way. I’d find it. I just had to stay calm and clear and I could work it out.

  I got the clearest picture of Neil, lying headless on his floor, the stuff that had been him leaking out like a river delta. And naturally, my thoughts turned to Lebanon.

  There are celebrities in the Information Underground. Well, not really celebrities, since that would be missing the entire point of being a clandestine operative of a group that can’t officially exist. But yeah, there were guys who people told stories about, and who knew if they were true? The surefire way to be a rockstar was to be connected with one of the big conspiracies. Even people at home, never heard of anything know the big ones: the Moon Landing, the Fluoridators, Jonestown, Jim Morrison, and so forth into the black depths of paranoia.

  Lebanon was involved in the biggest one of all: Kennedy. Supposedly, he was one of the grassy knoll shooters, though he never said one way or the other. I met him right after Castro died. Oh yeah, Castro died. Surprise! Anyway, I was working for Scorpio, this double-black cell in the CIA whose purpose seems to be ensuring that anyone who wins an election in Central America gets a free bullet with it. They called me in and paired me up with Lebanon, who by this time had shriveled into this pruny mass of elbow skin. We were going on a trip through the Southland, hitting every local playhouse, dinner theater, and concert hall we could find. Lebanon spent the first few days doing nothing more than grunting at me, and I figured I was in for a long haul of a whole lot of nothing, until day three when we saw an especially terrible version of Our Town out in this one-horse called Tulare, and he demanded to be taken to a bar.

  Long story short, Lebanon got drunk. And not normal drunk. This guy was from the age when you could put whiskey on Cheerios. He got 1960s Mad Men drunk. And pretty soon he got to ranting. See, what was eating Lebanon was that back in the ’60s, he had done his level best to kill Castro, and nothing worked. He ran it down, from top to bottom, and it started to sound like he was under the mistaken impression that Castro was actually the Roadrunner. He tried exploding conch shells, a poison pen with a spring-loaded needle, smearing Castro’s scuba gear with LSD, camera guns... each one got progressively more ridiculous, and seriously, you can look these up, they’re a matter of public record now. What really chapped Lebanon’s ass was he had gone through all this time and money, and wouldn’t you know it, Castro gets whacked by the North Koreans using one of the CIA’s old plans: LSD-dosed monkeys released in his bedroom. A dead Castro wasn’t much use, but a Castro in the CIA’s pocket was much more useful, and that’s how we installed Arnold Shapiro as dictator of Cuba.

  Lebanon showed me some of the photos of Castro’s bedroom after the North Korean hit. Not much of Castro left, not even so much as you’d know it was him. Just bananas, some gobbets of flesh, and monkey shit everywhere. I imagined the CIA shrugging and saying, “bear got in.”

  No monkey shit in Neil’s place. Or bananas. And I could tell it was him, for the most part. But the sense that the scene was wrong somehow kept scratching at my head. I felt the thing that would break it, just out of reach. I groped for it, caught it...

  ...and the car stopped. Any rational thought was gone, replaced by the cold fear of the prehistoric monster now lumbering toward the trunk. No time to escape. The trunk opened and Vassily hauled me out with one hand, tossing me into the dirt. We were by the side of an access road and from the looks of things, somewhere in the Santa Monica Mountains. Below, the city glittered outward toward the black of the Pacific. Even farther, I could see the winking lights of oil derricks. This was as secluded a spot as you’d get in LA. The only illumination up here came from Vassily’s headlights and a little slice of waning moon.

  “I don’t suppose the fact that I’m retired matters?”

  “You’re not retired, Nicky. Dead yes, retired no.”

  Vassily opened up the back door of his car and removed a shovel, tossing it to me.

  I looked at it. “You just drive around with a shovel in your car?”

  He grinned. “I have couple errands to run tonight.”

  “You mind sharing what those are?”

  He laughed. “Oh no, Nicky. I am not some comic book bad guy who tells you his secret plan before he kills you.”

  “You look a lot like the Kingpin.”

  Vassily looked momentarily puzzled, although with the harsh shadows pooling on the underside of his face from the car’s headlights, it mostly just ended up making him look more evil. “Dig,” he said, nodding to the ground.

  I dug. Because of the proximity to the ocean, the soil was fairly soft. That might be the saddest silver lining ever: the dirt was loose enough to make digging my own grave fairly easy.

  “So you broke out of prison and you’re going to settle some scores today, huh?” I asked between huffs and grunts, and for a moment even regretting not being in better shape before I remembered that would have just enabled me to dig my own grave quicker. I didn’t bother to wait for any confirmation to my question. “So why do I get the position of honor?”

  “Because you are stupid man, Nicky. You walk into my club and think you would walk out again?”

  “In my defense, I thought you were in prison.”

  “You thought prison could hold me? You are very stupid man.”

  It was hard to argue with that sentiment in my predicament. “And you’re sure there’s really nothing we can do to settle this that doesn’t involve the words ‘shallow’ and ‘grave?’”

  Vassily passed a flipper-hand over his shaved head. I half-hoped it would make a sound like someone rubbing a balloon, but that was wishful thinking. “You betray me, Nicky. Not once. Not twice. Three times.”

  “Three times? Really? That doesn’t sound right at all.”

  I hit some rocks in my grave. Had I been as stupid as Vassily seemed to think I was, I might have thrown them at him. Sure, he hadn’t pulled the pistol out of his jacket, but it wasn’t like that was enough time to attack a guy who—and I can’t emphasize this enough—is supposed to have beaten the shit out of a bear with his bare hands.

  “First time, you are feeding information to other groups. Freemasons, V.E.N.U.S., and the Feds. Should kill you for last one alone.”

  “I never actually gave anything up on you guys,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t believe it. It was like admitting infidelity, but denying there had been any cuddling afterwards.

  “Sure you didn’t. Lots of money there, and you just turn up your nose? Not Nicky Z. You are gambler, loan shark, bookie... your whole life is money.”

  No, you psycho, the fake ID I made up to impress you is obsessed with money. While this probably wasn’t the first case of someone’s creativity conspiring to murder them, it was certainly the one that concerned me the most.

  “What was the second time?”

  “Chain, Nicky, remember? You knew where Chain of Heretic Martyr was. You and me were going to sell it. Earn your stripes, remember?”

  I did remember. I even had a little flashback to the bunker in San Pedro where I’d been taped to a chair while Vassily proposed that particular business arrangement. It probably would be cold comfort to the Whale if I explained that a) I live by a simple code: do unto others before they do unto you, and I wasn’t going to sit around and let him stab me in the back for the Chain, since in his case it would involve literal stabbing; and b) I still had the Chain, it was sitting in my trunk not a mile from his club, and it was currently bolted to another artifact many people would pay in the high millions for.

  “I never found the Chain,” I lied.

  “Don’t lie to me, Nicky. It hurts my feelings.”

  “You have feelings?”

  Vassily shrugged.

  “All right, what was the third time?” I asked.

  He was silent, staring down at me
in the steadily deepening hole. It was not a good position, because with every shovelful of dirt, I was making Vassily loom ever larger in the blue-black sky. He was starting to look like a planet with shitty taste in clothes. “The... probing.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I actually do feel a little bad about that one.”

  I had used Vassily as a very large, very loud, very Russian distraction during my rescue of Mina from the Little Green Men. Vassily wasn’t going to win that fight, and honestly, just walking away from it was impressive. Sure, he was walking a little funny, but I wasn’t going to make that joke.

  “You feel bad? You feel bad?!” Vassily looked poised to jump into the hole with me, and that didn’t bode well. Getting shot I could handle. Getting eaten by a man-mountain, not so much. “They melt my cars. They capture me and my boys. They take us up in ship and... and...”

  Look, I can’t say for certain. I mean, I was terrified. I thought Vassily was going to lose his shit at any second and beat me into something like uncooked Chicken McNugget slurry. I was trying very hard to keep things light. But I swear I saw the headlights of his car glint off a single tear shimmering on that titanic white cheek.

  Vassily never finished the sentence, though I had a pretty good idea of what had happened on the ship.

  He looked down at me and said with finality, “That is why you are dying tonight.”

  I swallowed. Things were getting a little dark. I still had no idea how I was going to get out of this situation. I didn’t accept that there was no way out, but with every shovelful of dirt deposited at the lip of the hole, it was looking more and more like an actual grave. And graves aren’t like pancakes; you can’t just put a strawberry-and-bacon happy face on it and call it a day.

  “Right, so... can’t help but wonder about my girlfriend?”

  “She dies, too.”

  “Already put that in motion?” I asked.

  He stared at me. Finally: “All right, Nicky, all right. She is not hard to find, I think. When I do, maybe I bring her up here, have her dig you up. You’d like that? Be together forever?”

  “Personally, I’d like you to let us go. Maybe some gift certificates to a nice restaurant or something.”

  “No nice restaurants, Nicky.”

  “So, what, like Olive Garden?”

  “Very funny. You are making me think maybe I should kill you now.”

  “You sure you can track her down, huh?”

  “She is model. I found her once, I can find her again.”

  “I see.”

  Vassily inspected the hole. It was about three feet deep. “I think that’s big enough.” He pulled a gold-plated Desert Eagle from his jacket.

  “Vassily, look. We can talk about this, can’t we? I have information. Lots of information!”

  “Sorry, Nicky. This is the end of road for you. Goodbye.”

  He leveled the giant gold pistol at my head. The barrel got bigger and bigger until it was a black moon in a golden sky. The bullet would be so big my whole body would vanish into a little bit of pork-smelling confetti. I barely saw the giant man and his huge, fat, mitten hands enveloping the grip. He’d turned into a shadow behind the monster weapon that was ready to rocket me from my time on earth. I tried to think. There had to be a way out of this I just wasn’t seeing. But all I could think of was the barrel of the gun positioned right between my eyes.

  The gunshot was a rapid pop-pop-pop, and the sound was like someone punching ham. I didn’t think I’d hear it. You’re supposed to not hear a thing: you’re there, and then you’re not. It’s over, lights out, time to go home.

  There was another gunshot, this one an ear-shattering choom as loud as a Godzilla fart. The stench of cordite settled over me and my ears rang. I fell to the soft earth of my grave. The gun choomed twice more.

  I opened my eyes, wondering why I wasn’t feeling the sensation of having several new holes punched through my body. My hands crept over my chest and, in a stupid moment I wasn’t planning to admit to anyone later, my forehead. I was unshot. Above me, over the ringing of my eardrums, I heard more gunfire, some close, some far. Flashes accompanied it. One of the headlights shattered and the world was a little darker.

  I peeked up over the side of the grave. Vassily was crawling away, swearing in Russian, his Desert Eagle pointed off into the brush. By the light of his remaining headlight, I could see multiple bullet wounds across his massive chest. In the undergrowth, where Vassily was shooting, I saw a sustained flash and heard pop-pop-pop again. Dirt kicked up around him. Another bullet buried itself in his gut. I don’t think the Whale noticed.

  I thought briefly about waving to my rescuer but decided against it. After all, just because someone wanted Vassily dead didn’t mean they wanted me alive.

  Vassily looked over at me. “You stay!” he shouted.

  I hit the ground as he fired, dirt raining down on the back of my neck.

  The chatter of the gun brought a fresh round of cursing from Vassily, and this time his answering gunshots didn’t throw more dirt on me. I waited until I could hear the clacking sounds that said Vassily was reloading. I poked my head up to make sure, just as he was ramming home another clip into the butt of his gun. I pulled myself up over the side, stumbled once, nearly fell, and bolted for the edge. The turnoff fell into a deep slope, dotted with California walnut trees and chaparral.

  “Nicky! You stay!”

  I felt like I should have said something pithy to Vassily, but I just jumped over the side. The choom followed me a second later, but I was already eating dirt and sliding down the hill on my ass, then on hands and knees as I tried to get to my feet. The gunfire and Russian cursing continued. Finally, I was able to stand, forearms, knees, and palms burning from where the hill had probably skinned them, and started down again as fast as I could. Finding the right mix of speed and caution wasn’t easy, but I had good motivation. On one hand, I had a Russian mobster at the top who was quite clear in his desire to murder me. On the other, this hill was fairly steep, and I didn’t fancy sliding down it on my face.

  “Nicky! You get back here!” Both guns fired again, getting quieter as I descended, hopping and running at turns, the stones in my shoes biting back with each step.

  I hit the first stand of oaks and breathed a sigh of relief. Something between me and Vassily. I still wasn’t sure Vassily wouldn’t remember who he was and get up, ignoring the machine-gun fire in order to eat both the phantom gunman and me. Still, having some trees as shelter went a long way to restoring my peace of mind.

  I glanced back up to where Vassily’s remaining headlight still speared off into the darkness. There was a single shot from the Whale’s pistol and the light winked out, almost like the bastard knew I was looking. More shots fired and pretty soon, the chattering stopped.

  The shots from the pistol continued for a few more volleys and then they stopped, too. I swore. Would Vassily follow? Could he? How the hell many times had that guy been shot?

  I turned back into the darkness and plunged into the trees. The branches scratched at my face and hands, but I kept moving through them as fast as I could and tried not to take a header into one of the trunks. I couldn’t hear much over the sound of my blood or the persistent ringing in my ears from the gunshots. For all I knew, Vassily was following me like the boulder in the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

  The trees were growing denser, multiplying as I got closer to flat ground. I pressed through them, not even trying to be quiet.

  I smelled it first. Like a skunk, although not quite as powerful. Less of a diesel stink and more rotten milk. It might have been a coyote, but that was a lot of stench for one canid.

  Then I heard other sounds. Heavy footfalls. Cracking branches from something very large moving through the same terrain I was. The deep huffing of something powerful sucking in great gusts of air. And that’s when I knew for certain that I was not alone in those trees.

  Bigfoot was there with me.

  [7]

 
SUPPOSED “EXPERTS” LIKE TO CALL HIM “SASQUATCH,” probably because it sounds more formal than “Bigfoot.” It’s a derivative of a word in some Native American language that roughly translates to “hoax that will cost the white man millions in tourist dollars.” Daniel Boone called the big ape-like mammal he shot a “Yahoo,” but there was no way that would stick, not even after Bigfoot founded that company. Every place he shows up, he gets another name: skunk ape, yeti, alma, Momo. He doesn’t really give a crap what you call him, so I’m sticking with Bigfoot. Anyway, that name showed up in the ’50s, when people started finding his footprints around. It’s not the most creative name, sure, but let’s be honest: the guy has some seriously big feet.

  On the West Coast, he keeps to the forested areas. He wouldn’t have come this far south had Los Angeles not been such a Mecca for people like us. He spends most of his time in Northern California, in the forested corridor between the 5 and 101 freeways that makes up the Trinity, Klamath, and Redwood National Parks. When he’s in LA, he usually sticks to the San Gabriels or Griffith Park. If he has a meeting in town, I mean.

  Bigfoot pops up in a surprising amount of conspiracies, and it’s a testament to the guy that even I’m not sure of all of his exact ties. He’s mostly featured in Little Green Men stories, though he has cameos in the weird Himalayan Buddhist groups, too. As near as I can figure, he collects cash from a couple different secret societies, though I have exactly zero idea how he spends any of it. Or on what.

  To the public at large, the conception of what he looks like is the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film. It shows a pretty convincing sequence of a large primate striding along some rocky terrain. The movements are relatively inhuman and in line with the differences in physiology you’d see in an ape that size and with that posture. It’s been analyzed over and over again by experts around the world and not a single one has ever seen the zipper.