by Andrew Post
Brody crushed out the cigarette on the hay-strewn floor and took the cell, loaded with information that he was glad he could share with Thorp immediately, back to the house.
“So, you think Abigail Schwartz was friends with Nectar?” Thorp asked, holding Brody’s cell and going up and down through the document.
“I assume they at least knew of each other. Paige mentioned that Nectar was friends with someone named Abby. Either way, I can’t imagine a group like that would have a lot of members. They’d want to keep it small and personal, close-knit with people they could trust.”
“And this woman is dead?” Thorp asked, holding the cell delicately as if he were cradling the dead woman’s hand itself.
Brody solemnly nodded.
“What do you think happened? They got into some kind of tiff amongst themselves and some hippie psycho killed Nectar and this … Abigail Schwartz chick?”
That was the military talking, if Brody ever heard it.
“I don’t know.” Brody wanted to change the subject. “So, you didn’t have your Gizumoshingu on all day today?” He wondered if the raid at The Glower had made the news, if they had his prints or if the unsmiling photo from his jigsaw was displayed on every sidewalk-mounted screen and cable news affiliate in Chicago with Wanted: Killer pasted below it.
Thorp shrugged, not looking up from the phone. “I had it on, yeah, just for noise. But nothing really came up.” He stopped, his hands lowering. “Why? Is this why you were all dirty? Did something happen?”
“On,” he told Thorp’s ordi in the next room and it obliged, the Gizumoshingu springing to life, slowly focusing the image. He faced Thorp. “I was in the nightclub, trying to get Abigail’s body scanned for prints, and the police showed up. Someone tipped them. I don’t know who, but it seems a bit coincidental to me that I barely get in there when they arrived.”
He omitted the fact they had a Darter, because that would undoubtedly lead Thorp on a different path. Their shared history with the vehicle would surely come up, and Brody wanted to stay on topic. “I barely made it out. I mean, thank God for that rusty piece of shit out there because if I had to call you to send a cab, I really would’ve been screwed.” He stopped when he saw Thorp’s furtive expression, which meant he had a prank lying in wait for Brody or he was trying to find the right words to say something he didn’t want to say. “What?”
“Okay, so don’t be mad, but I went to the Probitas website.”
Brody steeled himself. “And?”
“There’s nothing outside of forms to fill out if you’re looking to hire them, really. A place to sign into if you’re an employee. I tried Jennifer Sullivan’s name with all the common passwords. You know, one-two-three-four and—”
“And?”
“Well, it’s nothing I can do anything with, but I looked online for some software and e-mailed the guy, the app’s author, and asked how much he’d take for it.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s called CITC—chisel in the cake.”
“So it’s a hacking app.”
Thorp nodded.
“What’d you find out?”
“Nothing yet. The guy hasn’t gotten back to me. Once I get the chisel, I think I’ll be able to get in and see if maybe these numbers on the letter they sent to Nectar are like a code or something. Maybe it’ll tell us who sent the letter and who knows where she is.”
“All right. I think that might get us somewhere.” Brody turned toward the living room. The ordi was still on and Prize Mountain was giving away an entire house to a lucky couple, but the sound of the cheering audience was momentarily replaced with a double beep. Brody stepped into the living room and bent down to read the news alert as the small text crawled along the bottom of the screen.
“—is believed to be the dead body of Abigail Schwartz, Chicago resident. Her body was discovered during a raid on The Glower. SWAT units discovered an upstairs area investigators are calling the lair of a serial killer. One unidentified man was seen at the club, but police officers were not able to apprehend him. He is believed to be Titian Shandorf, the proprietor of the nightclub. Shandorf is a registered sex offender, a murder suspect in more than six cases, and he is wanted for the rape of three women in the Chicago area, drug running, and leading a prostitution ring. If you have any information about Titian Shandorf or the murder of Abigail Schwartz, please contact your local police department.”
Brody shut it off.
Thorp’s cheeks were red, his eyes narrowed to watery slits, and his hands kneaded the air. “That fucker. Jesus Christ, I’ve been reading about that freak for years. He’s wanted for all kinds of shit, but somehow he keeps opening these clubs and every time he opens one—this shit happens. I hope they catch the son of a bitch.”
Thorp slumped down into the seat. He stared at the empty bin of Nectar’s files and forms. All that was left inside were a few crumbs, motes of dust, and a single strand of hair.
Brody returned to the kitchen, the house silent. He folded his arms, leaned against the counter, stared at his friend. The snow had stopped falling outside, and the sun had started to break apart the clouds. A mass of half-melted white slid off the awning over the back deck, cascading to the ground in a heavy whomp. “Do you want to leave it to the cops, then?”
“No. I mean, if we could get the guy ourselves—that’d be great. If he killed Abigail, there’s probably a chance he’s got Nectar somewhere, too.” He put his face in his hands, the light smattering of hair on the crown of his head wagging back and forth as he vigorously ground his face against his palms. “But if they couldn’t catch him those other times,” he said, voice muffled against his hands, “they probably won’t be able to do it this time, either.”
“There’s a lot of red tape.”
Brody remembered Detective Pierce giving him the backhanded compliment of saying that, yes, he was a vigilante and it was wrong—but at the same time, Brody was getting results where he couldn’t. Probable cause wasn’t a good enough reason to be granted a search warrant anymore. People were allowed to keep their private lives kept private unless there was an insuperable pile of evidence against them. Going on names and addresses like Brody did was the old-fashioned way. And in a day and age of scanners, cars preinstalled with tracking bugs, people getting followed all over the globe just by a piece of laminated plastic in their pockets—the willingness to beat the pavement and a keen sense of observation obviously still worked.
“How would we even begin to look for him? It’s not like we can go door to door and ask for the guy. He’s probably not even in Illinois anymore. Hell, he’s probably your next-door neighbor.” Thorp laughed, a heavy desperation lodged within it.
The mood definitely could be lightened, but Brody couldn’t see any possibility of that happening for quite some time. “So, is that it?” he asked, arms still crossed.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, are we doing this?”
Thorp counted the laces of his boots, then met Brody’s eyes. He nodded, waggling his chin so subtly it was as if he were giving cues to Brody, his pitcher on the mound. “Yeah,” he said, his voice just as soft and barely perceptible as the nod, “we’re doing this.”
Thorp pinched out the single strand of hair by one end. It caught tiny breezes cutting through the house only it could feel, swaying, stretching out, and recoiling slightly into its soft, natural bends.
Watching Thorp, Brody said, “This will be different, going after Titian. This … shuffles the cards.”
Watching the strand’s slow crawl through the air as it stretched, then curled once more, he said, “Yeah. It does.”
“And you still want to go through with it?”
Thorp set the hair down in the corner of the container, nodded.
“All right.” Brody unfolded his arms, but the weight of them still being knotted across his chest remained. He swallowed, and it got stuck somewhere behind his Adam’s apple. The back of his head burned sl
ightly, as if he had just drawn in a breath of air-conditioned wind after being out in the heat for weeks. It was the same sensation he got every time a woman with a black eye said, “Yes, I want you to do this for me.”
And as he always did in reaction to hearing that clink of the hook being freed from the chain about his neck, he took immediate stock of what was available to get the job done. Brody looked at Seb’s Fairlane parked behind the house. The driver’s door still hanging open, the dome light shining a sickly yellow. The monitor set into the dashboard was also on, displaying the map of the local area, the grid of Illinois farmland. Thorp’s house mapped as a beige square. The surrounding farms marked in red, denoting private property. The fiercely green triangle in the dead center representing Seb’s car itself, parked and angled due east—back toward Chicago.
It couldn’t be helped; his mind was already set in motion on how to take the next step.
Brody buttoned his filthy coat and said, “Come outside with me.”
18
They sat in the Fairlane, Brody poking at the touch screen and keying through the personal settings menu.
Thorp looked around the haggard interior. “Whose car is this again?”
“It belongs to an asshole named Seb,” Brody answered distractedly.
“Seb? What kind of name is Seb?”
“I think it’s short for Sebastian.” Brody tapped onto the security menu and swiped his finger down the monitor, scrolling the list of options. With all the smudges and grime and overlapping fingerprints, it was hard to see the small, white text. He cupped his hand over the monitor to cut the dome light’s glare and found the setting that he was looking for. He smiled, elbowed Thorp in the ribs to get his attention off the junk heaped in the backseat.
“What?” Thorp said, squinting at the dashboard monitor. “I can’t read that.”
“Okay, so here’s the thing. This car has a security feature. If it’s ever stolen, the owner can track the car with their phone.”
“Well, don’t turn it on,” Thorp cried, slapping Brody’s hand away. “Any guy that has someone’s nuts hanging from his mirror, I sure as hell don’t want him here. Besides, you stole his car. You don’t exactly want him to find where you’re keeping it, do you?”
“It’s not me I want him to find. I want to find him.”
“Why? You have a car now. Fuck the guy. Let him take the bus.”
“Listen to me, would you? I don’t know any criminal types out here. I need a card-carrying member of the Chicago underbelly. And Seb is all I’ve got. I’m positive a shithead like Seb and Titian Shandorf have at least crossed paths or Seb can lead us to someone who has.”
“And you think letting him find you with his stolen car is the way to do that? Imagine you take the car back to Chicago and turn that thing on. Okay? Imagine you’re hiding in the backseat ready to jump the guy when he gets into his car. Now imagine that it’s not just him but every one of his goddamn friends piling in and they rip you limb from limb right there in the McDonald’s parking lot and throw your pieces to the seagulls.”
Brody stared at Thorp, completely stunned at the degree to which his morbid imagination could plunge. But he had to admit that Thorp had a point. What if Seb came to fetch his car and he wasn’t alone? It was a possibility that he was glad Thorp had explored, since it hadn’t crossed his mind.
Brody looked at the slider on the car-finder feature waiting to be moved from Off to On. He took a deep breath and patted Thorp on the shoulder. “I suppose I’m going to need to visit that stockpile you have in the basement, then.” He got out.
Thorp stood, talking over the battered roof of the Fairlane. “I meant I should go with you.”
“Out of the question. You on a crowded street with a gun? No offense but I don’t think that’s a stellar idea.”
“Fuck you, man. Do you recall how our scorecards compared from the practice range? I can shoot. Besides, when was the last time you picked up a gun?”
Brody rolled his eyes. “Ten years ago.”
“When do you suppose was the last time I picked up a gun?” Thorp asked, thumbing his chest.
“I give up. Yesterday while I was sleeping you had one to my head?”
Thorp’s expression hardened. “Not funny.”
“Sorry, sorry. I don’t know. Tell me. When was the last time you held a gun?”
“Once a week without fail, I go down to the bog and set up a row of bottles and take them out, all down the line. Fifty yards out. And I do not go back inside until I have them all down.” He mimed firing, even providing the imaginary gun’s kick, scanning left to right, ending with pointing the invisible rifle at Brody. “I was in the top of our class. And not to dig up the past or anything, but I did pull the trigger in one incident when it really counted.”
Brody felt jarred by being forced to recall that alleyway, the bear trap, the prosthetic limb, the kid at the end of the alley, the look on the kid’s face—terror accompanying his softening determination. Brody’s rifle butt to his shoulder, ready to fire, but his trigger finger: frozen. The three-round burst directly next to his ear—everything ringing now—turning slightly and seeing the snaking twist of gray escaping the gun in Thorp’s hand. Thorp’s face tight and shiny with sweat, his eyes bulbous, mouth hanging open. A thousand things happening at once.
“Fine,” Brody said and headed toward the house. “We’ll leave in an hour.”
They didn’t speak for a majority of that time.
Brody made himself a ham sandwich and cut up an apple and, on his way to the back porch with his plate, took another cigar from the countertop humidor. He watched the sun dissolve into the horizon. The farthest clouds vibrantly purple surrounded by an otherwise gray sky.
He savored the sandwich and ate each quadrant of the fuji slowly. He was doing so because he considered Thorp’s suggestion about Seb having friends. And in doing so, he couldn’t eat without taking into account that this could very well be his final meal.
00:59:59.
He’d enjoy seeing the moon, when it could be glimpsed, while it lasted. He’d recharge the lenses as soon as they died out, and once they were recharged, they’d depart for the city.
Abigail Schwartz. Brody tried drawing a line between her and Nectar, imagining them as friends, having a night out on the town. Perhaps they were lovers. After tiring themselves out with a protest, their arms sore from holding up hand-painted placards all day, maybe they would sit and stare at the sky like he was doing now. He wondered if they spent time together at Mother Nature’s Womb for any other reason besides planning their next protest. He whispered their mantra aloud again, and at the end of the third recitation, he tugged the collar of his shirt. They needed to visit the gardening shop, if merely to cross it off the list of possibilities.
Brody bit off the end of the cigar and spat it away. He watched the chewed nub sail over the railing into the yard, and that was when he noticed again the dangling wires looping in inverse arches from one tower to the next across the width of the land. He studied the three wires running in parallel from one derrick to the next, heavily contrasted in their thick black housing against the sky beyond. He stared and pondered.
The connection between Nectar, the Probitas letter, and Titian just wasn’t fitting together. He had the different tectonic plates of clues and people, but no matter which arrangement he put them in, nothing comprehensible could be distilled—no clear Pangaea could be found.
The sliding glass door opened, and Thorp emerged with a small leather pouch and a gathered tangle of clothing in his hand. He sat down in the Adirondack chair next to Brody, the old wood creaking under his weight. He unzipped the leather pouch and spread it out on the small table between them.
Brody glanced over and saw a few spools of thread and needles arranged in their individual holders. He recognized the wad of filthy clothing as the pants he had been wearing earlier that day. They were stained with pink patches of commingled blood and drywall dust.
&n
bsp; Thorp untangled the pants, handling the garment gummy with dried blood bare-handed as if it were fresh from the dryer.
“Never figured you for much of a tailor,” Brody commented, taking a puff from the cigar.
“When you live alone and work a field without a wife, it’s a skill you pick up pretty quick so you don’t have to run to town for a new pair of pants every week,” Thorp said with a grin and threaded the sewing needle with one eye closed.
“Thanks,” Brody said after a moment. He finished the cigar and ground it out on the heel of his boot. He set the cigar butt on the table next to Thorp’s sewing kit. “About before. I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Thorp looked up, harpooning the thread at the edge of the ragged gap and then pulling it out, up, and away. His expression was quizzical; the question wasn’t meant to be sarcastic in the least.
“For saying that shit to you. It wasn’t good. About the crowded street and not trusting you with firearms. I know you’re a crack shot. And the whole thing in that alleyway. I’ve been meaning for a very long time to call you and thank you for that.”
Silence for a moment. Then, “It’s all right. But for curiosity’s sake, why didn’t you?” Thorp asked without looking up from his sewing this time. “I mean, I’d do it again if I had to. Wouldn’t bat an eye. But I could’ve called you too. Never mind. That was a dick thing to ask.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t call. I suppose there was a kind of … hesitation to connect with anyone after I went on to Alexandria. I wanted to push it back as quickly as I could and just move on to the next thing in life, and … I never considered that you were stateside probably looking for someone to talk shit over with.”
“I coped,” Thorp said, nearly finished mending the pants. “I pretty much did what you did. Put it behind me, got out of Chicago. Started over with a clean slate, tried to stay busy. Little did I know that only a few months later I’d start buying these things off the Internet.” He nodded at the military crafts congregated on the lawn. “When you’re done with the past, that’s when it’s finally buried, but until you are you keep building monuments to it whether you want to or not.”