Concrete Underground

by Moxie Mezcal

  "Not really," she replied. "As long as you're sure he'll hold up his end of the deal."

  "Holy fucking shit," I said, my jaw dropping.

  My search of the archives returned dozens on articles. But the name Cobb wasn't showing up in the articles themselves, it was in the by-line.

  "Have you ever heard of a reporter named Patrick Cobb who worked for the Morning-Star back in the nineties?" I asked, looking up from the screen.

  She folded her arms over her chest and sighed. "Are you serious? You've never heard of Patrick Cobb?"

  I shook my head.

  "And you claim to be journalist," she muttered. "He's a cautionary tale. If you'd ever actually shown up to any of your journalism classes at college, you'd have heard all about him."

  I shrugged. "I never really saw the point, so can you just give me the Cliffs Notes version?"

  "He was one of the best, most fearless investigative reporters I've ever met, back when the Morning-Star used to be a real newspaper instead of a sad corporate lap dog. He was also a good friend," she explained.

  "So what happened? Why's he a cautionary tale?"

  "About ten or eleven years ago, he wrote an article alleging that the US military was selling arms to right wing paramilitary groups in Columbia. In it, he quoted an unnamed source, a commissioned army officer, who claimed to have been ordered by his superiors to distribute the weapons to the death squads through his soldiers. They were supposed to be there training the legitimate Columbian army. After the article was published, it came out that the quotes were bogus and the officer never existed."

  "Oh, I do remember hearing about that," I said. "But didn't the bulk of his story later turn out to be true?"

  "It didn't matter, by that time, Cobb had already been discredited and fired from the paper. The right wing lambasted him as a prime example of the liberal media agenda run amok, and the left wing turned on him to prove what good, patriotic Americans they were. The national media turned on him and vilified him. At first he tried to defend himself, saying he had been misled, but after a while he gave up and just faded away. I ran into him about four years ago. He was a drunk, doing odd jobs and unable to hold onto any steady work. He was also completely paranoid and delusional, convinced that his fall from grace had been a deliberate plot orchestrated against him."

  "Orchestrated by whom?" I asked.

  "He didn't say for sure," she said, then paused, as if debating whether she should continue. "It's funny you should bring him up, though. At the same time that he broke the Columbian story, he had another on the back burner. It was a piece about human trafficking, girls being brought in from impoverished countries to work in the sex industry – southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Eastern Bloc. There had been a big police raid on some brothel; all the girls working there were undocumented and basically being held as prisoners. Cobb was doing some digging for a follow up, and I remember him telling me about a few people in high places who might have been connected. One was an up-and-coming young executive whose internet startup had only been around a year or two but was already making waves in a big way. Care to guess who?"

  "Fuck," I groaned, not needing to say his name out loud for confirmation.

  "Why do you want to know about Cobb, anyways? Is this part of your favor for Maxwell?" she asked.

  "I think I met him," I said. "Do you have a picture of him?"

  Sharon stood there motionless, studying me skeptically. "Yeah," she replied. "Let's go check my files."

  I followed her to her office, where she opened a file cabinet and thumbed through it, then pulled out a folder. It was full of photographs and newspaper clippings about Cobb, which she laid out on the desk and picked through to find a clear head shot.

  The intervening years had not been kind, for sure, but it was unmistakably the man from the flophouse.

  "That's him," I said, taken aback. "He's the guy who hit me with the baseball bat last week."

  "What?" Sharon shook her head, trying to wrap her brain around the implications. "What does Patrick Cobb have to do with your story?"

  She looked to me for a response, but my attention was diverted to another photo on Sharon's desk. This one showed her and Cobb lined up on a stage along with a couple others holding plaques. Another row of people stood behind them on a slightly elevated platform. It was the woman at the far right of the back row who had caught my attention.

  "Who is this?" I asked, holding up the picture.

  Sharon squinted. "That's Jacinda Ngo. She used to be the head of Apex Computers. This was taken when Cobb and I won Feinman Journalism Fellowships. Apex was one of the sponsors, and she was a judge."

  "She's dead," I said.

  "Yeah, she died in a boating accident several years back," Sharon replied.

  "No, she died last week," I corrected. "They found her body in a ditch at the side of the highway."

  "I thought that was a vagrant," Sharon objected. "Why do you think it's her?"

  "Hang on," I said, pulling my phone out to call Nick. When he answered, I switched it to speaker so Sharon could hear. "Hey, it's me. You remember how you said someone on the force thought he recognized the woman in the ditch as the head of some computer company? Was the woman he was thinking of named Jacinda Ngo?"

  "Actually, I think that was it," he conceded hesitantly. "Why?"

  "Long story, I don't have time to go into it now. Do you think you can get me a picture of the body, like just take a photo of her face with your phone or something?" I asked.

  "They cremated her already," he replied, "but I'll fax you some of the photos the medical examiner took."

  "Yeah, that'll work," I said. "Thanks for your help, Nick. And I hate to say this, but I kinda need them ASAP."

  "You always do," he groaned before hanging up.

  I looked back to Sharon, who was shaking her head in disbelief. "What the hell is going on here?"

  I explained in as little detail as I could manage about the body found in Max's airplane and the nature of my deal with Max, conveniently leaving out the bit about me dreaming the whole thing. I also recounted my visit to the flophouse and my run-in with Cobb. And though it wasn't immediately clear how, I was sure that the two were somehow related.

  "Did anyone at the flophouse know what Cobb was doing there?" Sharon asked.

  "I didn't get a chance to ask. Just as I was coming downstairs, I ran into one of Max's thugs, and he didn't really seem like he was in the mood to entertain questions."

  "You should go back and check it out," Sharon said, almost absently, her eyes looking off into the distance, as if she were trying to sort something else out.

  "It's strange," she added. "Whoever sent you in there to get that blue box, why didn't they just get it themselves? I mean, they knew where it was, they knew when Cobb would be gone."

  I nodded. "I wondered about that, too. The only thing I could come up with was that they knew Max was after it If he showed up or had someone watching the building, they might have been recognized, whereas I could come and go without raising any alarms."

  Sharon nodded, agreeing with the logic.

  Just then my phone started playing the White Stripes' "Blue Orchid". It was Nick calling me back.

  "I don't know how to tell you this," he started. "In fact, I'm not telling you this. Officially, I am telling you that the department requires that you submit a formal public records request in writing to view the file."

  "Got it," I said. "So what about off the record?"

  "Off the record – and I mean really off the record," he added cautiously, "the pictures are gone."

  "What do you mean gone?" I asked.

  "I mean gone. Missing. And not just like someone lost them or swiped them. There are no negatives, nothing in the electronic files. There is absolutely no evidence of what that corpse looked like."

  * * *

  11. She's Not Who I Thought She Was

  Later that afternoon, I called up Columbine. "I've got some new info ab
out our murder mystery. Wanna come along with me to go snoop around some unsavory elements?"

  "Sounds fun, I'll come pick you up," she answered. "You are all hipster Philip Marlowe and shit."

  She showed up ten minutes later in a light blue Volvo blasting Ida Maria. She wore a black trench coat, giant sunglasses, and a huge wide-brimmed hat. I assumed she was going for some kind of Mata Hari look.

  I gave her directions to the Casa Salvador, and on the way there I shared with her the revelations about Patrick Cobb and Jacinda Ngo.

  We walked inside and found the manager slumped in a chair behind the front desk watching a TV news report about some young hot shot lawyer who got caught breaking into the county morgue to steal the spleen from a corpse.

  "Do you need a room?" the manger asked without bothering to look up from his little TV screen, his nose covered in thick bandages.

  "No," I said, and took out a business card. "I'm a reporter. I was hoping to ask you a few questions."

  "If you're not here to rent a room, then I don't have anything to say to you," he responded gruffly.

  "Okay, we're here to rent a room," Columbine said and laid a hundred dollar bill on the counter. "That should cover it, right? So let's chat."

  He snatched away the bill before I had a chance to object, then looked suspiciously between the two of us. "What do you want?"

  I showed him a photograph of Cobb. "Recognize him?"

  "Yeah, he stayed here. He left the same night you came by – the night that faggot in the leather pants broke my nose and you just sat their holding your dick."

  "Better you than me," I shrugged.

  "Do you remember anything unusual about him?" Columbine cut in. I had to keep from grinning; she was playing the part perfectly.

  "And if you actually make it believable, the little lady might be willing to drop another C-Note on that room," I chimed in as I took out my notebook.

  The manager snorted and looked back at the photograph. "You're lucky, you know. Most of the time I can't keep track of who comes and goes in this place; after a while they all kinda blend together. He stood out a little, though."

  "What made him different?" I asked.

  "Well the first time I saw him, he came in with one of the girls. Then later he came back to stay himself. That's a little weird," he said.

  "Why's that?" Columbine asked.

  "Because anyone who can afford to pay for one of the girl's services can usually afford to stay in a nicer place than this dump," he explained.

  "Oh," she replied meekly, realizing what kind of "girl" the manager was talking about.

  "Who was the girl he came in with?" I asked while.

  "I dunno, some Asian chick. Like I said, they all blend together, you know."

  I placed some more photos on the counter. "Was it any of these women?"

  "Couldn't say," he repeated. "If you really want to know, you should talk to Stella upstairs in room 309. She knows all the girls."

  I nodded. "Okay, let's get back to the man, then. About how long ago was it that he came in with the woman?"

  "About a week ago. Then it was a day or two later that he checked in." He pulled out a file of index cards and flipped through. "Yeah, it was Tuesday that he checked in. He only stayed two nights. The third day, Thursday, he paid for but left early. Actually, I think he left while you were upstairs."

  "Did he have any visitors while he was here?" I asked.

  The manager shook his head. "Not that I noticed. He stayed in his room pretty much all day, kept to himself, and only went out after dark. I kinda got the impression that he was hiding out. I guess maybe you're who he was hiding from, huh? "

  I smirked. "Could be. We'll go upstairs and see Stella now."

  ---

  I knocked on the door to room 309. When it opened, I immediately recognized the woman who answered from my last visit here; she was the blonde who handed me the phone in the hallway.

  She smiled wearily when she saw me. "Well, now. I honestly didn't think you'd be back."

  "Stella?" I asked.

  She nodded. "At least that's the name I give Johns."

  "My name's D Quetzal. I'm a reporter," I said, showing her my card. "And this is Columbine."

  "I know who you are," she replied to me. "He said you'd be coming back to ask questions. I said, 'Patrick, you knocked that boy out cold with a baseball bat. If the good Lord gave him any sense at all he's gonna stay far away from here.' But now here you are. So I guess you'd better come in."

  She stepped aside to let us pass. Her room was laid out like Cobb's, but she had done a lot more to personalize and decorate it. She had placed a small wooden vanity with chipped paint in the corner and covered the walls with photos of old movie starlets. A small ornate lamp with a purple shade sat on the nightstand and gave the room a violet glow. She pulled the chair from the vanity over and offered it to Columbine. The she sat herself on the edge of the bed and motioned for me to sit on the foot locker.

  "Sorry I'm not really set up for entertaining," she chuckled.

  "It's fine," I said as I sat down and took out my notebook, "I'm just a little taken aback. Are you saying you talked to Cobb about me?"

  "Last night," she confirmed. "He came to say goodbye."

  "Where was he going?" Columbine asked.

  Stella didn't answer, but instead looked at her reproachfully.

  "Do you know him well?" I cut in.

  "No, I only met the man last week. We talked a little bit, that's all," she answered.

  "The manager said the first time he came in here, it was to see a woman. Do you know who she was?"

  Stella nodded, so I handed her the stack of photos I had tried to show the manager. She flipped through the pictures quickly, then suddenly stopped at one and her posture deflated. Finally, she flipped it around to show me; it was Jacinda Ngo.

  "It's a beautiful picture of her," she said. "God, she looks so young. And look at those clothes she's wearing, so glamorous."

  "Did you know her well?" I asked.

  "Better than most," she answered. "I met her a little less than ten years ago, and our paths always seemed to cross from time to time. She called herself Isabel."

  "Isabel," Columbine repeated and took the photo back from Stella, whose eyes were beginning to well up. Columbine's own face had fallen, too, clearly empathizing with the other woman's sorrow.

  "It's such a shame," Stella added morosely.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  Stella looked up at me, a little surprised. "She's dead. You didn't know that?"

  "I did," I responded, "but how did you?"

  "Because I was there when she died," she said matter-of-factly.

  Columbine and I looked at each other in stunned silence.

  "How did she die?" I finally asked, still reeling from her revelation.

  Stella's face turned bitter. "Well, Patrick killed her, of course."

  "Hang on," Columbine said, shaking her head in astonishment, "I think you better start at the beginning."

  "It happened last Monday night," Stella began. "I saw them come upstairs together and go into Isabel's room. I didn't think anything of it, of course. But then later I happened to be walking by and heard Isabel crying through the door. I went inside to check on her and found the two of them sitting on the bed.

  "Isabel was holding something in her hands," she continued. "It looked like a photograph but I couldn't really see it clearly, and she folded it up and handed it back to Patrick before I could get a closer look. She looked up at me with tearful eyes and said to Patrick, 'I want Stella to be there when it happens. I want to hold her hand. I need a friend, someone to keep me from getting too scared.' I remember those words clearly.

  "Patrick looked surprised and asked her something like, 'Are you sure you want to go through with this?' She said she did, and I of course had no idea what they were talking about, but I followed them just the same, downstairs to a car parked in the little alley on the side of
the building. Once we got there, they explained what was going to happen, and I was horrified. I tried to talk them out of it, of course. But I could tell from Isabel's eyes that it wasn't going to do any good. 'I need you to do this for me, Stella. I need you to just trust me and help me get through this,' she said. 'But I understand if you can't.'

  "How could I say no? I took her hands and held them as tight as I could and looked her straight in the eye. Then the most incredible look came over her – she looked relieved, at peace. Then Patrick came up behind her and wrapped the rope around her neck and strangled her.

  "When she finally stopped moving, I helped Patrick lay her down on the back seat. Just before he drove off, he promised he'd come back to see me, to explain."

  "Did he come back?" Columbine asked.

  "He did," Stella said. "The next day he came back and checked into the same room where Isabel had been staying, room 313."

  "What did he say?" I pressed. "Did he explain why she wanted to die?"

  "Well, I don't suppose anyone could have ever really explained that – why someone would want to die. That's the type of thing you can't make someone understand; the only way to get it is to experience it yourself. But I suppose you're asking more about a sequence of events, and Patrick did at least try to explain that much to me as best he could.

  "The thing you have to understand first off is that Isabel had a past. She never talked about it of course, but it was obvious to anyone who would care to see that she wasn't born into this life. But then I'm sure you know a little more about this than me, what with your picture of her and all. Patrick knew about her past, too, which is why someone hired him to find her. Well, find her and kill her."

  Columbine winced at her words. I objected, "But Patrick Cobb wasn't a killer; he was a reporter. That doesn't make sense."

  Stella smiled at me indulgently. "It's amazing what desperate people will agree to do for a dollar. But as it turns out, you're right. Patrick wasn't a killer. When he finally found her, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he warned Isabel that people from her past were after her and offered to help her escape. To his surprise, however, she told him that she didn't want to escape. She said she was tired of running, tired of pretending to be someone else. She said she had spent ten years hiding from her past, and she always knew that sooner or later it was going to catch up with her. So she asked Patrick to finish what he had been paid to do."