The Readymade Thief

by Augustus Rose

  Lee was about to kick out the vent cover when she heard a door close, then footsteps. Something metal scraping against a wall. She could sense him below, pacing the length of the shaft, trying to figure out where she was. She felt a light tapping against the steel, then a blow hard enough for the metal beneath her to buckle. She stopped breathing. Then a third blow came, and something nearly pierced her arm. He pulled it back, and a shaft of light came up through a three-inch gash in the metal. Another blow, and another gash opened up just behind her. Lee scrambled forward as fast as she could, a mouse in the walls. He tracked her as she went, sending the spear blade through the thin steel of the duct at intervals, missing her each time by inches.

  With the light coming through the gashes in the steel, Lee could see, maybe fifteen feet ahead, the vertical access shaft that she knew must lead directly to the surface. He sent the spear up just ahead of her and left it in this time, thrashing back and forth in front of her, and Lee leapt back instinctively. He must have heard exactly where she was, because he yanked it out and Lee surged forward just as the spear emerged through the metal behind her. She found the vertical outlet shaft and pushed her way up.

  He was still down below, she could hear him pacing, then thrusting the spear up through the duct with a grunt. Lee kept her feet braced against the puckered seem of the shaft and held herself there, her muscles beginning to collapse under the strain. Even after she heard his footsteps leave the room, she held herself, working it out in her head. He might be faking an exit, waiting for her to return. She had no choice; she’d have to abandon her plan.

  Bracing against the sides of the shaft with her feet and arms, she made her way up a few inches at a time. It was slow and punishing on her legs, tiring her quickly. She passed a horizontal shaft with a fan enclosure blocking her way forward. Lee knew where she was now, and knew from before how long it would take to get to the top. By the time she got there, he would be waiting.

  She crawled forward instead, squeezing between the blades of the fan until she got to an open vent, then dropped into a maintenance room. She popped open one of the large metal fuse boxes and began flicking switches, two at a time, sensing the power go out in the complex level by level. When the lights in the maintenance room went out, she felt for the rest of the switches in the dark.

  When they were all off, she sat and let the darkness in, breathed it in and let it fill her lungs. As she gave Tomi a silent thank-you for everything he’d taught her on their creeps, she felt her internal radar begin to realign itself. Soon she could almost see the room through the blackness: the propane pipes and huge valve handles that circled the room, the clunky old industrial furnace, the coils of fat wires running from the walls.

  Lee let herself out of the maintenance room and into the spiral staircase. She felt her way up the winding steps, past one landing, then another, until she reached the hatch. She heaved up on it with her shoulder. She could feel the blackness open up around her, the space expanding, as she climbed up onto the rubber mat of the dance floor. She made her way across the room in the direction of the entrance corridor. The door to the stairwell up would be at the other end.

  Lee was halfway down the corridor, moving quickly, when she heard a grunt, followed by labored breathing, and something clanging around in the dark space ahead of her. She couldn’t see the Undertaker, but in her imagination he was enraged and sightless, stumbling at her with the spear, assaulting the air in front of him like some lunatic threshing machine.

  She moved backward through the dark, using the walls for guidance. She heard him swear, then the sound of metal scraping down the wall. Unbalanced footsteps coming toward her. Lee pressed herself against the wall, but he was confused, stumbling in the dark, and she could hear him bouncing off both walls as he approached. Then a moan began to rise from somewhere in the darkness. He lumbered toward her, and Lee moved silently from one wall to the other, trying to anticipate his careening advance.

  Her heart was thumping in her ears, playing havoc with her senses. The smell of sandalwood was everywhere now; she was swimming in it. She lost track of which way the stairwell was, and she nearly lost her balance as his hot grunts grew close enough to feel against her cheek. He was right there, in front of her. He’d stopped moving, too, though she could hear him breathing, heavy and labored, as panicked as she, and she knew that he sensed her as well. He had stopped to listen.

  Her heart was so loud within her she was sure he could hear it, and the more she tried not to breathe, the louder it got. Still, she stayed motionless. She could hear him move forward again, just a step, testing the space between them, and Lee squatted low, moving toward him, guessing by what was left of her instinct which side of the corridor he was on and moving as silently as she could to the other.

  She felt a movement of air in front of her face and heard the spear clank against the wall. Lee crouched lower and eased forward. He was in front of her now and a little to her left. The darkness gave nothing away, but it amplified his presence and his shallow panting breaths. Lee inched forward a bit more; when he grunted she dropped to the ground. She felt the spear pass over her head and heard the crack of metal against concrete and the splintering of wood and felt the broken spear tip hit her shoulder. Lee gasped involuntarily, and that was all it took. She tried to spring up, but he had ahold of her hoodie. He heaved her up, then slammed her hard against the wall. The blow sucked the air out of her even as she kicked out helplessly against the dark weight of him.

  “I did not want it to come to this,” he whispered. “Know that.” He had her pinned against the wall with his shoulder, and she could feel him reaching for something in his pocket. As he brought his hand out, Lee felt the measure of his breath once more and slammed her head forward as hard as she could. She felt his nose crumple against her forehead, and he rocked back, just enough for her to drop and roll to the ground. She felt the air shift, felt something slash through her sleeve and across the skin of her arm. But then she was on her feet and sprinting forward.

  Lee stopped just short of the stairwell. He was stumbling in the dark behind her. She ascended steps three at a time, skidding awkwardly through the first landing, allowing herself one hand along the wall, until the wall ended at the large steel door to the outside.

  Lee grabbed the handle and shouldered into it. It didn’t move. She paused, tried to breathe, felt panic taking over again. She took one breath, two, three, four, until she found a rhythm. She reached into her jeans and pulled out the lockpick set. It was a military-grade steel door, but it was also antiquated, probably fifty years old or more.

  Lee felt through the picks until her fingers landed on the rake. She pulled it out and then a tension wrench. She found the lock with her thumb and inserted the wrench, twisting it until she found the direction of the mechanism, then held the torque. She pushed the rake into the lock, but her fingers were slick with blood, and it dropped to the ground. Holding the tension wrench in the lock with one hand, she felt around with the other on the ground. It wasn’t there. She felt against the wall and everywhere in the vicinity. Nothing. Lee pulled the wrench back out and crawled around the landing on all fours, feeling for the thin pick. Finally, on the top step, she found it. She wiped the blood off her hands and picked it up. She heard a door slam shut downstairs.

  Scrambling back to the door on her knees, Lee inserted the wrench again, then the rake. She jiggled along the tumblers until she heard the clicks she was looking for. She turned the wrench and shouldered open the door, which emptied her out into a morning light so blinding she nearly stumbled back. Lee let the door close behind her. The outside world blurred into focus, and she stared down at herself. Blood from her cheek ran down her chest, and the sleeve of her sweatshirt was heavy with blood from her arm. She allowed herself a look at the gash: a red six-inch channel that ran the length of her tricep.

  She was cutting through the weeds and underbrush to get to her egress poi
nt at the rear wall when she passed the little utility shed and saw what was inside. She could hop the fence and be gone in thirty seconds, but she stopped.

  The rotted door of the shed broke open on the second kick, and Lee moved around the generator to the three gas cans lining the back. Two were empty, but the third was full. It was as tall as her thigh, and Lee had to drag it two-handed out of the shed. Her arm spasmed in pain. The rusty outlet vent was at the base of the clown’s head, half covered in weeds and dried brush. Lee cleared it, exposing the dark shaft. At the bottom would be the lab.

  Lee unscrewed the cap. She took off her sweatshirt and stepped on it, then grabbed hold of one sleeve and pulled as hard as she could. It tore off at the shoulder. Lee stuffed it into the can. She maneuvered the can up onto the lip of the shaft and pulled out the old brass lighter. As she flicked the cap and struck it lit, Lee thought of Mr. Velasquez. She touched the flame to the fabric, and it coughed alight, burning the hair on her arm. She stepped back and tipped the can forward with her foot. It fell, tumbling, a ball of orange flame lighting the black walls of the shaft. There was a pop followed by a bright yellow flash from down below. Then nothing. It must have extinguished on the way down. Fuck. But there was nothing more to be done.

  Lee turned away and was heading toward the rear wall when she heard a muffled boom from somewhere deep below. She turned to see a sudden burst of flame erupt from the shaft. A lazy cloud of dark smoke followed.

  The flame was gone in an instant, but it had licked one ear of the great plastic clown’s head, which caught fire quickly, spreading to the clown’s painted curls and its enormous bowler hat. The fire was pluming black smoke, and great globs of burning plastic dropped to the ground, bubbling near Lee’s feet. She stepped back. The fire had wrapped around to the clown’s nose when the door of the Silo opened, spilling out the Undertaker, followed by a thick cloud of gray smoke. He fell to the ground coughing, and then the nose of the clown collapsed and dropped in one bubbling red mass of burning plastic onto his shoulders. He screamed and flipped over, tried to tear his jacket from his body, when another mass fell onto his chest and neck. The man arched his head back with a horrible gurgle, and his eyes rolled back and met Lee’s for only a moment before she saw the life leave them.

  She stood over him, looking down, the clown’s head only a black mound of burning plastic behind him. In one hand he held a green neon glow stick, what he must have found to light his way back to the surface. She reached into his coat pocket and took back the little ball.

  · BOOK VIII ·

  In Advance of the Broken Arm

  TWENTY

  THE keys to Steve’s car were in her bag, probably melting somewhere down below, so she took a bicycle someone had left against the gate. The ride back opened wide the wound on her arm, and by the time she rolled into the city outskirts and passed the old paper mill that had been one of her first creeps with Tomi, Lee had dark branches of blood running down her whole left side, soaking big ruddy blooms into her jeans. She was dizzy with fatigue as she dropped the bike in the alley and stumbled through the backyard.

  Mrs. Velasquez opened the door without expression, though Lee knew she recognized her, and Lee broke down there in the doorway, stuttering, “I’m sorry,” before the tears came so heavy she could not get another word out. The woman took Lee’s hand and led her into her home without a word. She sat Lee on a chair in the kitchen and examined the gashes on her cheek and arm, then handed Lee a glass of water and disappeared. From her seat in the kitchen, Lee could see into the living room, where the twins were watching television.

  Mrs. Velasquez returned with a small box, a woven drawstring pouch, and a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol. She took a clean rag from the kitchen and soaked it beneath the faucet, then wiped the blood from Lee’s face and neck, her arm. She helped her out of her shirt and wiped the blood from her breasts and stomach. Then she took the bottle of alcohol and poured it over the wounds, not caring when Lee clenched her jaw and hissed with pain. She soaked a new rag with alcohol and wiped the wounds down. Lee watched as the woman removed a needle and thread from the pouch and began to thread the needle. The woman spoke English, Lee knew, but never said a word.

  As much time as she’d spent with Mr. Velasquez, as close as she’d grown to him, she had never been in his home. It felt strange to be here now; how normal everything looked, how much smaller than the man she’d grown to revere. She heard something behind her and turned to see Angela, the daughter, staring at her from the doorway. Vasco Jr. and Tino had left the TV and stood behind her. When Lee met their eyes, they turned away and returned to the living room. Lee had held the boys in her lap not so long ago, reading with them and playing games. They were shy now, like strangers again.

  Angela came into the kitchen and sat across from Lee and watched as her mother took the needle and pulled it through the gash on Lee’s arm, then circled it through and did it again, and again. Lee closed her eyes and tried not to scream, or cry, or emit anything more than a low hum, which came through her clamped teeth no matter how hard she tried to keep silent. Halfway through, Mrs. Velasquez offered Lee a bottle of whiskey to drink, but Lee refused, smiling thinly her gratitude. Mrs. Velasquez returned to her task without smiling back. The woman had done this before, Lee could tell. Maybe she was a nurse, like Lee’s mom, or maybe this was simply a task she’d had to do before. Lee wondered how much the woman knew about Lee’s role in her husband’s death, whether she blamed her.

  “Where is the father?” the woman asked.

  Lee stared down at her belly. “Dead,” she said. She felt the woman’s eyes on hers and looked up. “He was just a boy, not much older than me.”

  “You loved him?”

  Lee nodded. She knew that was true, whoever Tomi was.

  The woman didn’t say anything more. When she was finished, Mrs. Velasquez put away her needle and thread and capped the alcohol bottle and wrapped Lee’s arm in clean white gauze and over that a brown elastic bandage that she fastened with two clasps. She examined her work, testing the bandage and running a finger along the stitches of Lee’s cheek. Satisfied, she indicated for Lee to stand and follow her. Lee did, into the bathroom, where the woman had already had the bath full. A folded striped towel was on the toilet seat. She shut the door behind her and left Lee in the room, and Lee took off her shoes with some difficulty, her arm already stiffening, then stripped off her remaining clothes and stepped into the bath. She lay soaking there, her bandaged arm hanging off the side, until the water grew lukewarm, falling asleep briefly, then jolting back awake.

  Lee got out of the water and dried herself carefully. The woman had put a clean shirt beneath the towel, a white, short-sleeved man’s shirt. She recognized it as one of Mr. Velasquez’s. She pulled it on. There was also an improvised sling made from a torn T-shirt, and Lee put this on as well. The throbbing in her arm had subsided a bit. She went to the mirror to take herself in. A bit of fullness had come back into her face and arms, and her hips had even widened a bit. The light rise of her belly pushed her back forward, giving her body the curve of an ocean swell. She gave her eyes one more long look, examining the cracked green icicles of her irises. The whites were bloodshot, but otherwise her eyes looked okay. Lee thought about the drug she had ingested, and her mind went to her baby, and for the first time it came to her not as a flapping tendriled parasite but as a perfect little human form.

  When she returned to the kitchen, she found that Mrs. Velasquez had left a plate of food for her on the table, beans and tortillas and pulled pork, and Lee ate gingerly, balancing her hunger with the pain in her cheek. When she was done, she put the dishes in the sink and came into the living room. The woman was gone and the children were gone and the house was silent. Mrs. Velasquez had left a pile of blankets on the arm of the couch, and Lee knew it was an invitation to stay the night at least, and a small part of her broke inside at the kindness of it. But she’d allowe
d others to take care of her for too long.

  • • •

  The streets were quiet but beginning to populate in the early New Year’s morning. Lee kept her face down as she pedaled. When she got to the museum, she circled around, then left the bike against a tree and walked to the back. It took all her strength to pull the grate up with just one arm. Once she had lowered herself down, Lee didn’t have the strength to pull it back, so she left it there and descended. Moving through the bowels of the museum again was slower with her arm in a sling, but she pulled herself through the dark tunnel an inch at a time, allowing herself to rest when she needed to. Every time she did, it became more difficult to get moving again. She wanted so much to sleep, to drop right there and let the blackness take her. She’d formulated the plan on the ride from the Silo. Life meant so little to these men. But what did mean something—everything—to them was Duchamp’s last work. Destroying the thing would erase everything they believed in. And every time she stopped and felt her fatigue begin to drag her down, her rage would flow in and take over.

  In this way she finally made it through the maze of drainage tunnels and up the ladder into the subbasement of the museum. Again she stood amid the centuries-old sculptures and paintings and artifacts. She walked through a gauntlet of statues, looking up to the faces of men whose memories had been idealized in stone, whose histories had been turned into aura. It was nothing; Lee felt nothing. Their eyes were dead; they stared unblinking.