She called out, “Don’t you even think about moving!”
He lowered his face to the floor in defeat.
“I want you rested when I get home. I have plans for you, Mister.”
She was still talking on the phone! He scrambled onto his knees and crawled to the opposite hall entrance way, pulled himself out of sight and staggered onto his feet. He was running now, he could see the main doors, but there was a foyer there, and a guard, maybe? He slowed, staggered and gripped the wall to keep upright. Weeks of bedrest had weakened him in an alarming way. His chest was on fire and he felt wobbly, unstable, and about to drop. Come on, Payton, this is your own life you’re saving. Coru won’t be showing up. This is all on you now. Make this happen.
He peeked around, saw he’d assumed correctly. There was the guard. He was reading a magazine and eating a sandwich—fully absorbed. But nothing would be so absorbing he’d miss a grown man walking past him and out the door.
Rounds. They would be doing rounds. If he didn’t get out now, he never would.
Could he… could he fake confusion, get close enough to knock the guy out? He’d never win a tussle with this guy.
Could he don a medical smock, pretend to be a doctor? Yeah, doctors have fresh angry red track marks from their forehead to their jaw all the time. The faded raccoon-eyes bruising could not be explained away in any fashion.
Payton chewed his lip, scanning the foyer for inspiration, anything to use. There was a wooden carving of something on the front desk. It looked good enough to clock someone with. He’d never get near it without being seen.
A big-headed figure appeared at the door, hammered against the glass. “Hey, hey you in there, is this the place that helps people in trouble?”
It was Dom! Payton’s heart leapt with hope.
The guard looked up, studied Dom, then set down his sandwich, folded his magazine and stood up in resignation. “Now they’re bloody well volunteering,” he groused. “I should be getting a damned finder’s fee.”
He made his way to the door, a noticeable limp slowing the process. Dom’s eyes never left the guard, following his progress with a display of urgency. Payton slipped from the hallway, and in four steps had the carving. Six more steps and he raised the carving, connecting with the guard’s head as hard as he could. The guard went down without a whisper.
Payton grabbed the keys from the guard’s belt and with shaking hands unlocked the door.
Dom pushed inside and closed it behind him, his eyes bugging out at seeing Payton’s face. “Holy, Payton! What—?”
“Help me get him back into his chair. It might give us time.”
“Here, I’ll do it. You look like you’ll fall over if I blew on you.” Dom lifted the guard over his shoulder and hustled him back into place. After arranging the guard’s unconscious body in a manner that looked natural, Dom darted back with a lightness that belied his bulk, and he and Payton slipped out the door, locked it behind them and tossed the keys into the shrubs.
“Where’s the car?” Payton gasped after a block, already winded.
“Right where I said it would be, behind the hospital.” Dom gripped his arm and guided him to the crossing lights. “We cross here.”
The lights changed, and they hurried to the other side, Payton’s steps beginning to drag.
“Hang in there, kid, almost there.”
Gratitude swept through Payton, his body suddenly soft like putty. He stammered, “Th-thanks, Dom. If you—.”
“Save it kid. Let’s get out of here first.”
Payton nodded, “Right,” and allowed himself to be guided first into the alley, then into the backseat of an old, outsized black car. Weazer was waiting in the front passenger seat, his demeanor tense. His eyes widened at seeing Payton’s face, but he said nothing. He just handed Payton a clean blanket, which Payton was surprised to find he needed. He was beginning to shiver.
“Keep your head down,” Dom instructed, guiding the car from the alley, his head swiveling as he checked everywhere, looking to join traffic and certainly to see if they had been noticed or followed. “Looking good,” he said, his tone restrained. “To the cop shop first?”
“Yes.” Payton dug into his pocket for the stolen phone. “Do you have a paper and pen?”
Dom nodded toward the glove compartment. Weazer found them and handed them over.
Payton scribbled a note to go with the phone. “I can’t go in. I’ll be too easily recognized.”
Dom said, “Weazer has that covered. He’ll say some guy paid him to bring it in. He’ll claim the guy told him to say it is important, then he’ll walk right back out. Weazer can disappear anywhere. Just give him thirty seconds and he’s gone.”
Payton handed the phone and note to Weazer. “Just walk in, give them this. You don’t even have to talk. Just hand it over and walk out. I don’t want you involved with these guys. They have connections everywhere.”
Weazer nodded, then bobbed his eyebrows at Payton’s face. “Couldn’t talk your way outta this one, huh?”
“Nope.”
Weazer handed him a knitted cap. “We brought you this to cover your tats—keep you on the down low. Don’t know how we’re going to cover that kick-ass scar, though.”
Dom glanced back at him through the rearview mirror. “You got street creds now kid. I’d like to see anyone take you on.”
“Scary?” Payton laughed weakly, grateful to find they treated him no differently with him looking this way. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he’d imagined.
Both Dom and Weazer nodded. “Oh yeah,” they replied in unison.
Or maybe it was.
Dom drove in silence for several minutes, then said, “We’re dropping you off here, Weazer,” slowing the car and parking on the curb. Weazer jumped out and hurried into the cop shop. He was back in under a minute. Dom had the car moving away from the curb before Weazer’s door was closed.
Payton murmured more to himself than to his two friends, “There can be no connection to us, no matter what.”
Weazer asked, “You hungry?”
Payton sat up, pushed the blanket away and took an interest in the passing neighborhood. He had no idea where they were, but it felt good to be here. Anywhere but Harmony House. “I could eat.”
Weazer handed him a wrapped sandwich. “Saved this for you from supper. It’s good.”
“What did you have?”
“I wasn’t hungry. Knew you would be.”
“Thanks.” Payton tore into the sandwich. Swallowing his first bite, he stretched open the corner of his mouth with a hooked finger and pulled, showing Weazer his missing tooth. “Got my cherry popped.”
Weazer laughed with him, though his eyes looked sad. “Now you’re talkin’! So, what you been up to the last few months?”
“I was working on a plan. A good one.”
Weazer raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in gentle mocking. “How’d that work out for ya?”
Payton swallowed another bite. He was hungrier than he thought. “Better than expected. I’ll lay out the details later, when I’m done crapping my pants with fear.”
There was another long silence, Dom driving, Weazer looking out for trouble and Payton inhaling Weazer’s supper, each knowing that soon, very soon, they would be having a major sit-down, with Payton telling all.
“Where to?” Dom asked, meeting Payton’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “The park?”
“I can’t make it up Tree.”
“The shelter?”
“It’ll have to be.”
Dom nodded. “About time you came in from the cold.”
6
THE SWEEP
SLEEPING at the shelter was an acquired art, it seemed. It was a noisy, farty place, filled with smelly men for at least one of three reasons: Safety, sleep, and to steal. Since Payton had nothing with him worth robbing and was a recent escapee from certain death, he slept like a baby the first night.
In the morning, the men were sh
uffled out, everyone heading out to his soup kitchen of choice, or favorite begging corner. It was a sunny day and the future looked good. Dom stayed behind to square away the beds while Weazer, who had acquired a handsome watch—Payton didn’t ask—left for the Pawn shop, anxious to turn it into coin. They agreed to meet at the Cambie Soup kitchen at lunch where Payton would finally explain everything.
After a breakfast of oatmeal, coffee, and an orange, Payton donned his new cap, despite the sun, and hiked slowly over to the park. Testing his limbs, he was happy they seemed to operate as they had before the mugging. All he needed was some exercise to recover, to build up his strength again. Glancing around before he approached Tree, and seeing no one looking his way, he ducked into the woods wondering if his little home would still be there.
Looking up, it seemed to be intact. He wondered—could he still climb into it? He’d done it as a pudgy newbie. He stepped back, took a leap, snagging the first low branch with his uninjured arm. Geez! It was killer!
Still, he hung on and managed to swing himself up and into the main trunk and branches, where he took a moment to catch his breath and let the sharp pain in his ribs subside. Taking his time, he climbed, arriving at his platform with shaking limbs but immense satisfaction. Inside one of his cheap second-hand novels, which he had hollowed out with a knife, was a roll of bills. Not a lot, but enough for his next move. Pocketing it, he leaned back against the trunk and gazed out at the ocean through the thicket of tree tops and thanked God he was still alive.
What would happen at Harmony House, he had no idea. Something, he hoped, something that couldn’t be ignored, no matter how connected that place was. Now, all he had to do was keep his head low and his eye on the prize. Find Zhang and the Woods. Soon, very soon, he would be in the position to do just that.
He climbed back down, again careful, now knowing what an injury meant to a homeless person and struck out for the main post office. It had been a month. Maybe he had mail. But first, he had a stop to make, in the interests of staying alive.
He hiked up town and away from the city center, where the street side shops were still open to passing foot traffic and the sight of a homeless person was rare. He went into a costume shop. He was wearing his nice clean donated clothes still—they would have to go—but for now, he looked good, except for his face. He approached the man who ran the place and explained he’d been in a terrible accident and couldn’t live with the scar any longer. Was there makeup that could help with his face?
The owner was delighted at being presented with such a challenge. How did Payton know this? Because the owner trilled, “I’m delighted to be presented with such a challenge.”
Payton was led to a table and was pressed into the seat.
“Please, call me Ted,” the owner said, gripping Payton’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, moving his face from side to side, scrutinizing his challenge. “Yes…I see the problem.” His words were not unkind.
“Can you help me?”
“Can I help you? Why of course I can help you! I’ve worked in the theater for years. I can do magic and I’ll teach you my magic. You, young man, will be your handsome self once again.”
Payton smiled faintly. He’d never been called handsome before, so while this was a first and flattering, he wasn’t going for handsome—he was going for removing the target on his back.
Two hours later, he walked out without a facial scar, a smart, natural looking brown wig, brown contact lenses to disguise his green ones, and a sack full of supplies. It had cost him his apartment money, so it was back to the shelter or to Tree, but he would be safe. Walking along the street, catching sight of himself in the windows as he passed, he was looking at a stranger; a modestly dressed, slender, dark-haired man who moved with ease and purpose with the others along the street. When had that happened?
He stopped at the Good Will, purchased a shirt, tie and sports jacket and wore them out of the store, leaving the Harmony House clothes behind.
Now he entered the main post office with confidence and inquired after his mail.
Success.
Onto the bank.
Another hour later, he walked out with a bank account, a bank card, and a new identity, thanks to his stolen birth certificate and social insurance number. Not only were Paul Whistler and Payton Wisla both gone, but the up and coming Michael Eggers, new to Vancouver and looking for work, had arrived. He promised he would return to the bank with his new home address as soon as he was settled.
They’d bought it.
He hurried to the Cambie Street soup kitchen, but Dom and Weazer weren’t here, though the place was still bustling with customers. He must have missed them. He wasn’t worried. He was pumped to be walking around town looking like anyone else, with ID, with credentials, and no scar on his face or tattooed head Mark Peterson could use to identify him. He grabbed a quick bowl of ham and pea soup and a couple of buns, then was on his way again.
He stopped in at a stationery store—this, on the third floor (he had at last arrived)—and bought six sheets of thick cream paper, in case of error, and an expensive ink pen. After much consideration, he committed to the expense of the cheapest briefcase he could find to carry his important papers and to project his new image of busy, purposeful, I-have-somewhere-important-to-go persona. He even tossed in a bag of colorful jelly beans at the check-out, indulging the kid he still felt himself to be under all this fakery.
The store clerks were friendly and helpful here, only three stories up from the dirty streets, and presented an entirely different world. The customers smiled as they passed him, never guessing at the ugly scar he’d disguised, or that he was a homeless pretender here in their privileged midst. Here music played through the mall, the store fronts were dressed to impress shoppers with money and he was accepted as one of their own. It was both good and scary at the same time; good to belong and scary he could be exposed at any moment.
Now he needed letters of recommendation, in order to get work, then a place to live. These he would sneak into the library and create for himself. Things were looking up.
Well, not the best up, but better than yesterday’s up. Yesterday at this time, he was counting the hours to his escape while playing the invalid in a nest of vipers. Today he was an ordinary Joe, stopping at the library to do a bit of research and print off a few sheets before heading home. What could be more ordinary than that?
He created a lovely degree for himself from an obscure college back east, in historical studies with a secondary degree in political science and a third in economics, just to cover his bases, printing them at the self-help printer on the heavy cream paper he provided. Ducking out of sight, he signed the bottoms with a flourish with the pen he’d just purchased. He then photocopied all three documents several times.
He had plans for the stock market in this time period and needed a base from which to operate and that meant he needed credentials. They were so stuffy about the credentials here. Why not have a means test and be done with it? Either you had the chops, or you didn’t, right? How you got there wasn’t important; getting there was.
He then spent a few hours researching Moses Zhang, following rabbit trails that mostly led him nowhere, but he was accumulating information. It wasn’t a ton, but unless there were two Moses Zhangs, he felt he was on the right track. The guy was an enigma, involved in many fringe enterprises, slowly but surely shifting them into mainstream. There were no photographs of him, anywhere, only a canned bio every information outlet seemed satisfied to run in place of real information about Moses Zhang. There was a common thread in all the articles: The mysterious man behind the project, the elusive Moses Zhang, the shy benefactor, M. Zhang. The invisible millionaire, Moses Zhang. Hey—Zhang was a millionaire? He could do worse.
And never a picture of the man.
It seemed Moses had popped out of nowhere a year ago, spearheading some crazy project in Seattle, Washington, its sole function to jettison unwanted waste out into space.
It was touted as the last, best, and final solution to the planet’s massive waste problem. It sounded laughable, but surprise, surprise, the project was a go. People were on board with it. People were also rallying against it. There was a big protest march coming up this weekend, in fact.
Coru had told Payton that Zhang was a zealot environmentalist. In Payton’s mind Coru was a zealot environmentalist in his own right, but still. The message was the same: Zhang was looking to clean up the planet as was his brother. The two had been fast friends once, back in their university days, but had had a parting of the ways in how they’d clean up the mess humans had visited on earth. Coru was all about getting down and dirty, working elbow to elbow with others, mostly Surface citizens, to clean, restore, rebuild, replant, while Zhang had wanted to go back and reset, whatever that meant. Zhang wanted it to never happen in the first place.
A fine philosophy when you’re talking about a broken dish, not so fine when you’re talking about the history of humankind on planet Earth.
Judging by what had been happening on Cloud Rez before Payton and Coru had taken the wild chance of jumping through the Time Bore after Zhang, Zhang had already made changes that were affecting WEN 2341. What changes had he made? And what more had he done since Payton had been here, trying to get his footing in order to stop Zhang?
Through his research, Payton learned Zhang was also buying up dying commercial properties in the seedier parts of town, in Vancouver and Seattle, turning them into gold mines. It seemed he had a nose for what would be the next up and coming “thing”.
Payton snorted at reading this particular reporter’s observations and murmured, “Yeah—when you’ve studied the histories, it kind of works out that way. Insider insights and all...”
That was okay. Payton intended to use that same method to raise himself up as well, high enough that he could get close to the mysterious Zhang and …
Cursed Apprentice (Earth Survives Book 2) Page 8