by Jamie Quaid
The minute I entered, I was ready to sell my soul to live here. Gorgeous dark wood floors and real wood molding, a huge bay window overlooking the street letting in what feeble gray the day provided. On sunny days, the room would be flooded with light. High ceilings, electric sconces in antique brass on the cream-colored plaster walls—I didn’t have a stick of furniture I could move into this place.
“Check the kitchen and bathrooms,” Jane warned pragmatically. “These old houses have rotten plumbing.”
“You want rotten plumbing, you should live in an RV,” I muttered, remembering all the campground outhouses from my youth. I worshipped good showers. Even the ones in the dorms had seemed like heaven to me.
We passed through the solid-panel swinging door into the back of the apartment. Modern remodeling had done some serious damage to the Victorian charm back here. What had once been a bedroom had been turned into a small kitchenette and dining area. The kitchen had more cabinets than my current one, but the appliances and countertop were just as old. I tested the gas burners and they worked. The refrigerator was running. I couldn’t have asked for more.
I wondered what the landlady had done with the previous tenant’s furniture if he’d disappeared without a trace. I opened a cabinet and found some chipped dishes and cheap glassware. Maybe they came with the place.
Leaving Jane to explore plumbing, I took the door to the next room. It led to a small hall with a bathroom to the right, behind the kitchen sink. Straight ahead, at the back of the house, was a reasonably spacious bedroom with a closet on the same wall as the bathroom. Whoever had divided this old house into apartments had made the best of every available inch.
The bedroom had a sliding glass door to a porch overlooking the backyard. Nearly speechless, I wandered out, testing the old wood for rottenness before putting my weight on it. More dead plants. The prior tenant must have had a green thumb, and these poor plants must have been missing him.
The backyard was a collection of old tires and dead appliances. From this height, the balcony overlooked the ugly white metal storage tanks lining the harbor. But if I looked past all that, I could see the water. There was a sailboat opening its canvas, heading out for sea.
I was in love. I needed this house. In sheer exuberance, needing to share, even if Max was in my imagination, I dug out my compact, flipped it open, and held it up to the view. With Jane still in the kitchen, I felt free to whisper. “Take a look at that, Max. A room with a view!”
“The Zone,” Max said so clearly in my head that I almost dropped the compact in shock. “You can’t live in the Zone. You have to get out of there. I mean it, Justy. They’re going to warp you.”
I turned and looked at the mirror in amazement. Max was just as visible as if he were looking into the glass instead of me. I either had to accept that I’d taken a buggy trip from reality, or that Max was truly talking to me. “Max? Is that really you?”
He didn’t look too happy but his head made a nodding movement. “Looks like it. I can really see you here. You look amazing, kid.”
My eyes teared up as I stared at his familiar, wry smile. I loved that little half-moon scar on his cheek. I touched the mirror to stroke it. I could live with crazy. “I can talk to you here,” I whispered. “You’re stronger near the Zone.”
“Looks like it. I should have made you get out while I could. My bad . . .” He faded away.
Oh, crap. I leaned against the rail and looked down to the moss-covered brick patio underneath the porch. If I’d needed further proof that I was really talking to Max, finding him here ought to have given it. Now if only I could figure out where he was . . .
With a sigh, I tucked the compact back in my bag and returned to watch Jane examine the plumbing beneath the sink.
“You should have taken plumbing classes,” I told her. “More profitable than reporting.”
“My dad’s a plumber. No thanks. No leaks that I can see. The toilet flushes. The shower works. Now if she’ll only take nothing down and nothing per month, I could take this place.”
I snorted. “This is my find, and besides, no way are you raising a kid here, dimknob. I warned you that the Zone is a disaster waiting to happen, and it’s just down the block. Let’s see if we can perform a magic act.”
“If the Zone is really dangerous, what are you doing down here?” Jane asked, wisely enough, as we headed back downstairs. I was still feeling no pain.
“Apparently, I’m already warped. I fit in. Don’t do that to your kid.”
I didn’t want to believe Andre, but I didn’t have much choice. I hadn’t been precisely normal when I’d first moved to Baltimore. I’d been emotionally bruised by my wandering childhood, physically and, while I hated to admit it, probably psychologically damaged by the fall, and overall jaded by what I’d seen of ivy-covered towers. After the riot and my arrest, I’d been hammered by cops and school officials and my cynical mind. No wonder I’d felt at home here.
A kid needed a clean slate, not nomadic statuary and big-breasted chimpanzees.
Mrs. Bodine sat on the old boot bench in the foyer, waiting patiently. “Did the movers leave it neat? I had them take the last tenant’s furniture down to Goodwill, but I haven’t bothered hiring someone to clean.”
“No scrapes on the floors and no holes in the walls,” I assured her. “It will be convenient to my work, but I’m afraid my budget is limited while I’m paying on student loans. How much are you asking?”
To my ultimate shock, she actually named a price lower than my current rate; behind me, Jane choked and coughed. In another minute, she’d knock me over the head and steal the place. “Does that include utilities?”
“Yes, dear, but not cable. And if you use too much hot water, we run out,” she warned.
“Parking on the street?” I asked, ignoring Jane breathing down my neck.
“We don’t get many cars here,” Mrs. Bodine said apologetically. “There’s an alley behind the fence in back that leads to the drive. I don’t know if the gate works.”
The Miata might be toast within a week, but at this point, I was beyond caring. I kept telling myself the house was outside the Zone as I knew it—albeit by a few blocks. “Would it be all right if you keep your last tenant’s deposit and I pay him back should he ever show up?”
She looked at me shrewdly. “Do you have the first month’s rent?”
“I do. And references from my current landlord. I’ve never missed a payment.” That wasn’t a lie. I was very responsible. In that one area.
I wrote her a check to impress her.
She gave me the keys and nodded approvingly. “Andre says you’re a good girl. I think you’ll do.”
Oh, double crap. Was there anywhere the man wasn’t?
15
Okay, I’d moved a thousand times before, but they’d always been “have to” moves. This one—this one was for me. I wanted that gorgeous old Victorian. I was quite willing to forget surveillance vehicles and hot-air corpses in my excitement. Being closer to Max-in-a-mirror was actually a plus in my new mood.
Jane dropped me off behind the tenement and promised to locate her guy with a truck. I think she was a little jealous of my good fortune, but she really didn’t grasp the price I’d already paid for working in the Zone.
Well, it wasn’t exactly a price. I hesitantly glanced at myself in the dresser mirror before heading off to work. I was still short, still had a hawk beak and crooked teeth. But the swingy curls and great legs . . . Even partially concealed by a skirt, the legs looked good. I needed to go shoe shopping.
The mirror thumped as if a fist had struck it, and Max appeared. He was blurrier here outside the Zone, and I shivered at what appeared to be smoke swirling around him. He looked both furious and worried.
“You need help, Justy,” he pleaded inside my head. “Get out!”
But he was gone before I could rebut. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know,” I told him, keeping my hands on the glass, just i
n case he was listening. “But my choices are kind of limited right now.”
A final week of school, and then I could land a real job, pay someone to clear my record, take the bar exam, and get on with my life. Hopefully.
While untangling my life, I had mostly done just enough to survive, to skate by. Except now I seemed to have taken on a few additional causes—which I wasn’t handling very successfully, I reminded myself before I got too cocky. I still didn’t have the funds to hire the Geek to hack the bank. I was pretty clueless with this detection business—both literally and figuratively.
Afraid the bugging devices could suck information out of my neighbor’s cable lines—which was where I stole my Wi-Fi—I didn’t even dare Google the names Cora had given me for the diplomatic plates. I dragged out my backpack of textbooks, added my netbook and some cleaning supplies. I stuck some instant coffee, a pot, a few other kitchen necessities, and a change of clothes into a shopping bag. I wasn’t hanging around to be spied on any longer.
The turds in the Escalade knew where I went every day, so I just gave them the finger as I sallied out the front door to my Miata. Let them think what they would of my excess baggage.
After taking the interstate and ascertaining that I wasn’t being followed, I veered off before the bridge and circled back to the Victorian to drop off my stuff. Then I drove straight to Chesty’s and parked in the alley. The guy in the suit leaning against a telephone pole on the corner spoke into his phone. I still couldn’t believe anyone was actually bothering to stalk me, but if they were, I was giving them no reason to suspect I was anything other than a student and an underpaid flunky. I was still hoping they would go away when they got a taste of just how boring I was.
I should have asked Schwartz if there was some way of bugging telephone poles and Escalades, but I really needed to know whose side he was on. I’d taken him for the straight-and-narrow sort. Lying—or fudging the truth—on a police report pushed him closer to my territory. Or maybe he’d been corrupted by the Zone.
I didn’t anticipate being ambushed the moment I walked in the back door of Chesty’s. I nearly dropped my deposit bag as one of the cooks emerged from the kitchen, grabbed me, and lifted me from the floor in a bear hug. He chattered in what could have been French or Hindi for all I knew.
The rest of the cooking staff poured into the hall to pat me on the back or head or wherever seemed reachable. At least some of these spoke English, and I gathered I was being awarded a hero’s welcome.
No one seemed to think it was unusual that I was three inches taller and not limping. Apparently, keeping my head down and my mouth shut meant no one had known I existed, until now.
I noticed Sarah wasn’t anywhere about, and I wondered if she’d fled our fair bar for safer territory.
“I didn’t do anything, folks,” I protested. “I was just there. How’s Diane? Has anyone heard from her?”
“She’s all right,” one of the English-speakers said. “Andre told her to take the week off. Ernesto is pissed, because she’s one of our best workers.”
“Did Ernesto actually do anything about the lighting in the alley?” I asked, more comfortable with these practicalities than with being lauded as some kind of hero.
Still, I was fine with the big bowl of spicy chili and the plate of tacos they set in front of me once they’d led me into the kitchen. My breakfast donuts had worn off.
“New lights installed first thing this morning,” the cook said proudly. Tall, skinny, and younger than me, if I could judge by the acne hidden by beard scruff, he held out his hand. “Jimmy Jones. I’m the soup and bread chef.”
I had a notion there were fancier terms in fancier restaurants, but this was the Zone. For all I knew, Jimmy stole tires for a living before he landed here. Chances were pretty good he never graduated cooking school.
“Pleased to meet you, Jimmy. This chili is delicious.” I had to wonder where people in the Zone bought ingredients, but I wasn’t insulting my newest best friend by asking. I might as well get used to chemical poisoning if I wanted to eat anyway.
The others introduced themselves, and I tried to keep a running list in my head, but the brain cells were limited. At least I knew I had pals in the kitchen who wouldn’t be trying to lop off my head in their knife fights. Not soon, anyway.
I noticed the gray-haired weirdo carefully bagging a plastic chili bowl on the other side of the kitchen. “Who is that?” I whispered to Jimmy, tilting my head in the guy’s direction. Surely, if the kitchen was feeding him, he wasn’t one of the spies.
“Crazy guy, used to work at the plant,” Jimmy whispered back. “May still work there for all I know. Andre said to feed him, so we do. Sometimes he brings us what he calls his latest invention, but we’re all afraid to test them after one blew up the pantry.”
“He gives me the willies,” I murmured back. “He keeps staring at me, and he looks kind of familiar somehow.”
Jimmy shrugged. “We just call him Paddy. Don’t know more.”
At least he’d not attacked me with a tire iron. He’d simply warned me away from his family, so I guessed I’d label him harmless.
Paddy ambled off without giving me a second look. I scraped up the last of the yummy chili and carried my glass of Sprite out of the kitchen as the head chef yelled at everyone to get back to work. The waitresses wouldn’t be in for a few more hours, but preparation was already under way for the evening crowd. I got out of their way.
I nearly dropped my glass in astonishment when I entered the bar and found Max’s pals Gonzo and Lance sitting there.
“Tina, looking good!” Lance bellowed as I juggled the glass to the counter and ran around to give the big lug a hug. “Cool place to work. How can I get me one of these jobs?”
I laughed. He was eyeing the nude murals on the wall and the stage, which seemed to have mutated to babes with whips and leather just for these boys here. Who needed artists when we had the Zone?
Max’s biker buddies were about as reliable as six-year-olds. They did what they wanted, when they wanted, and no more.
“You’re the wrong sex for bussing tables here, buddy. And they already have a bouncer.”
“And I bet he’s a fairy. Can’t let the studs in with the mares.” Lance nodded wisely. He wore his dirty brown hair in a ragged ponytail at his nape. A scar from a knife fight marred his otherwise nice jaw. He never said, but I had a feeling he was one of Max’s college friends who’d gone off to war and come back a little warped.
I punched his bulging bicep, but the leather jacket could take the blow. “Macho turd. Now put me down and tell me what’s brought you down here. And why do I think Max wouldn’t approve?”
“He hated the Zone,” Gonzo rumbled, dropping some oily mechanical parts on Ernesto’s clean bar. Gonzo resembled a Mack truck more than anything human: big, square-built, shiny roof, with a few teeth missing from his grill. But he was a mechanic par none, including Max.
Yeah, mirror-Max clearly had no fondness for my workplace, but he’d never said anything in the months we’d been shacking up. I really hadn’t known the man, I was realizing.
“Why?” I asked. “And why didn’t he tell me?”
They looked uncomfortable. Even with my new five-five height, I was only half their size, and there were two of them. They still looked as if I was about to whip them.
“I killed a man last night,” I told them casually and watched their eyes widen with question marks.
I didn’t feel casual. I still wasn’t entirely certain what I’d done, but a man was dead, and even if he was a demon—or worse yet, a government spy—I’d sent him to hell.
I’d sent him to hell. Like Max.
Not ready to go there yet—especially after that last fiendishly smoky image. So I got in their faces.
“He was hurting someone and I had to stop him. See, I’m a big girl now. If there’s something I need to know, spit it out.”
Gonzo redirected my question by holding up a greasy c
able. “The brakes were cut.”
That stopped me in my tracks. Gonzo wouldn’t have hauled just any old brake line down here. I went behind the bar and poured whiskey for them and topped off my Sprite with vodka.
Gonzo shoved another mechanical piece at me. “Steering mechanism tampered with.”
“My Escort?” I whispered, staring in disbelief. I couldn’t tell a cut brake from a fishing line, but the cable he was showing me had been neatly severed at least partway.
“Max didn’t like the Zone. The Zone didn’t like him,” Lance said enigmatically. “Babe, I think you better get out of here.”
That was what Max kept telling me. From hell. Or purgatory. Or my imagination. I took a stiff drink of my Sprite. The boys did the same with their whiskey.
“He never said anything when he was alive,” I said angrily, newly fortified with alcohol. “Why didn’t he make me leave then?”
“You were his best spy. A few of us helped him out a time or two, but we get too busy and you’re steady. His old man is some bigwig at Acme and Max didn’t like him knowing he was watching.” Lance took another swallow and wiped his mouth. “Max should have told you, but he didn’t know this was all going down so fast.”
Crap. I was mourning the bastard, when all I was to him was a spy? I contemplated taking out my compact and stomping up and down on it. “Who was I spying on? I never told him anything that everyone down here doesn’t know. And what does his dad have to do with anything?”
Lance shrugged. “He didn’t talk about it much,” he admitted under my glare. “He just wanted his dad hanged from the highest tree and you were one of his ways of gathering evidence. His dad has something to do with the chemical companies that make nerve gas weapons. It’s all hush-hush.”
“You think his dad killed him?” I asked in horror, finally connecting the dots.
“Someone was sure hoping to get you or him or both.” Gonzo pensively examined his oily parts. “We kinda thought you ought to know as soon as we found out. Max liked you a lot. He’d want us to help you get out of here.”