Whispers of the Dead

by Kope, Spencer

  My second request isn’t work-related … not really. It’s just something that’s been bugging me, and if anyone can get answers, it’s Diane.

  * * *

  On the way out of the lobby, I ask Jimmy to wait a moment and then veer off and make for the front counter. I hand a sealed and stamped letter to the brunette wearing the REBECCA name tag. “Can you put this with the outgoing mail?” I ask, getting a courteous nod and a big smile in return. When I turn around, I see Jimmy strolling my way.

  “Wow, that took a while,” he says.

  “It took me, like, three seconds, what do you mean?”

  “I was talking about the letter,” he clarifies. “Isn’t that the same one you were writing four days ago?”

  “No, I mailed that the day before yesterday. This is a new one.”

  “Really?” It’s less of a question and more of a verbal musing. “You don’t think that’s a little bit overkill?” he adds. “After all, we’re heading home this afternoon.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Whether I’m home or I’ve been gone a week, she’s going to love getting it. Everyone likes getting mail, especially when time and thought have gone into it. That’s what’s missing from email and texts and tweets and all the other electronic noise out there.”

  “So it doesn’t matter if she gets it and you’re already home?”

  “Not at all,” I reply. I pat him on the shoulder and make my way past him toward the lobby door. “You know,” I say, “if you and Jane were to—Jimmy? Jimmy?” I turn around just in time to see Special Agent Donovan, Super G-Man, blush as he hands a letter to Rebecca and softly asks her to place it in the outgoing mail.

  I bite my lower lip trying not to grin.

  Jimmy is full of surprises, the greatest of which seem to spring from his ability to admit when he’s wrong. There are plenty of things I’d give Jimmy a hard time over, but writing letters home to his family isn’t one of them.

  When he catches back up at the lobby door, I place my hand on his shoulder and give him an encouraging smile.

  “Shut up!” he says, cutting me off before my lips open.

  And just like that the moment is over and I’m hustling to catch up to him in the parking lot. Breathing the throaty Dodge Charger to life, Jimmy gooses it a bit as he pulls onto the main road. “What’s the first address?” he says as he readjusts the rearview mirror.

  I check my notes and read off the address on Rancho Tierra Avenue. “You want to get onto Highway 62 eastbound for eight or ten miles. When you see a massive Armed Forces archive and vehicle maintenance facility on the north side of the road, you’ll want to turn south.”

  “Which house is that?”

  “The one he was living in when Chelsey Lane had her little accident,” I reply. “Is Tony meeting us there?”

  “Something came up this morning. He said he’d call when he’s free.”

  We ride in silence and soon find ourselves merging onto Highway 62. “What came up?” I ask.

  “With Tony?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shrugs. “Some chatter on the terrorist grapevine. They just got an alert out of EPIC,” he continues, referring to the El Paso Intelligence Center that operates out of Fort Bliss. “September eleventh is just days away and this time it looks like Fort Bliss itself might be targeted.” He shakes his head. “We picked a helluva time to come to El Paso.”

  “It’s just another alert,” I mutter. “Nothing will come of it, just like the one before, and the one before that.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe that’s what they’re counting on,” Jimmy says. “What if they want us to get so numb from seeing one report after another—one alert after another—that we just start ignoring them altogether? Our guard would be down and we’d be easy pickings.”

  “That almost sounds paranoid,” I say.

  “You might be right; just don’t forget the old saying.”

  “Yeah, what saying is that?”

  “It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.” He grins at me and punches the accelerator, pushing me back in my seat. I’m starting to think this car is having a deleterious effect on him.

  * * *

  Larry Wilson’s former home is a modest rancher, about fourteen hundred square feet, with nice landscaping and surrounded by a decent-looking neighborhood. There’s a FOR SALE sign in the front yard when we roll to a stop at the curb. A separate placard underneath the sign reads FORECLOSURE. Larry Wilson made a good living as a truck driver, but he spent too much time in the county jail after waiving his right to a speedy trial. As the months ticked by and his mortgage went unpaid, it was only a matter of time before the bank moved in.

  They also repossessed his car.

  Almost makes you feel sorry for him … almost.

  My eyes wander three houses to the east, to a teal two-story with the white shutters: Chelsey Lane’s home. Or at least it was before she found herself at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck.

  Slipping off my special glasses, I fold the arms neatly into place and then slide them into their case. When I raise my eyes once more it’s all around me, omnipresent and irrefutable: mocha shine as thick as hail from a summer storm. It fills my vision and sets the question to rest: Larry Wilson is the El Paso victim. Where the rest of him is we have no way of knowing, but his feet landed in a Styrofoam ice box on the floor of a prospective federal judge.

  “Want me to call him?” Jimmy asks, pointing with his phone to the FOR SALE sign at the edge of the yard. Putting my glasses back on, I glance over at the sign and take in its overdone imagery. A mid-forties male real estate agent grins back at me from the two-dimensional surface with the words Just Call Booth scrawled across his chest.

  “Booth,” I muse aloud. “I thought that name went out of favor after Ford’s Theater.”

  Jimmy studies the sign and the name. “I kind of like it,” he says. “Why let one guy ruin a perfectly good name for the rest of us?”

  “Would you name your kid Adolf?” I counter.

  Jimmy starts to answer, but then thinks better of it. Holding the phone up, he says, “Is that a yes or a no?”

  I take another look at Booth with his five-dollar salesman grin and Photoshop-perfect complexion, and then shake my head. “No. We got what we wanted here. Let’s go see what Fiz the felon has to say.”

  As we rumble back onto Highway 62, I point Jimmy toward the center of El Paso, to Yancey Street and the apartment of Fiz Moshiri, Wilson’s former cellmate. After circling the block twice looking for the address with no luck, I slip my special glasses off and quickly find Larry’s shine on the sidewalk, which then leads to a two-story fourplex in the middle of the block. There’s no street number on the building, but the mocha shine leaves the sidewalk and makes its way up the stairs to the apartment on the left.

  There’s more.

  “He’s been here,” I tell Jimmy as the hair rises on the back of my neck. “IBK’s been here.” My eyes follow the ice-blue shine. “It looks like he walked right up the stairs to the apartment.”

  “That’s bold.”

  I nod.

  There are nine cars filling the tiny parking lot, of which only three look roadworthy, so Jimmy avoids it altogether and parks at the curb. I give him a look as we exit the Charger and he dutifully taps the lock button on the key fob.

  We cross the stained parking lot, which is so full of oil drippings that Jimmy suggests setting up a fracking operation. Reaching the stairs, we ascend to the second story and turn left.

  The doorbell button is hanging from two wires, so Jimmy knocks loudly and we listen for any sign of movement from inside: there’s nothing. Jimmy knocks again, louder this time, but still there’s no answer.

  It’s not really that unusual.

  At the first sign of company, seasoned ex-cons like Fiz sneak a look through the blinds, or out a peephole, or at a security monitor. If it’s someone they don’t recognize, especially if that someone looks like a cop,
they just hunker down and wait till they leave.

  Jimmy hits the door again.

  “FBI, Mr. Moshiri. We’re not here for you; we just have some questions about your roommate?” He follows this with three more hard raps.

  The door to the adjacent apartment opens a crack and a sliver of face peers out: just an eye, half a nose, and part of a mouth. You can’t tell if it’s a man or woman and the muffled voice that follows only adds to the confusion. “He’s not there,” the sliver says.

  Jimmy steps toward the door, not too close and not too swiftly. People who open their door just a crack tend to spook easily. “FBI, sir,” Jimmy says. “We need to ask your neighbor about his roommate. Do you know where he is?”

  “He ran out,” the omnigendered voice replies. “It’s the bugs. He ran out because of the bugs.”

  “The bugs?” Jimmy says.

  “They’re in the walls; they’re in the ceiling; they’re everywhere. Can’t get rid of them, I’ve tried.”

  I lean in close to Jimmy and whisper, “Fifty-one-fifty,” and he immediately nods his agreement.

  Every law enforcement agency has a code to describe subjects with mental disorders. It could just be some harmless and completely sober person who can’t find his pants because he’s wearing them as a hat, or it could be more serious, like someone hearing voices that tell him to kill.

  Sliver appears to be more of the pants-on-the-head variety. Bugs in the walls and under the floorboards is not an unusual claim from those suffering from mental illness—and those could be the creepy-crawly type of bugs, or the electronic listening type. Both are likely to produce a certain level of paranoia.

  In California, the code for a mental is 5150, or fifty-one-fifty. Like everything else from California, the code has spread far and wide and has been generally adopted as slang for anyone who’s a bit crazy or reckless. Tattoos containing 5150 are now common in jails and prisons, and some gangs have even added the code to their name: apparently it’s scarier when the other gangs think you’re a little cray-cray.

  Oh, and Van Halen released an album titled 5150 in 1986.

  It went platinum.

  “What’s your name?” Jimmy asks Sliver.

  “None of your business; Bob, my name is Bob. Just don’t tell anyone, it’s classified.”

  “I promise,” Jimmy replies. “Do you know where Fiz went, Bob, or when he’ll be back?”

  Bob’s cyclopean eye darts to the left and then to the right before he answers. “He went to get the canisters. The canisters kill the bugs; kills them dead. He’s bringing one for me too. He told me so. He always brings one for me.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?” I ask, moving up next to Jimmy.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Bob fires back, as if seeing me for the first time.

  Pointing at Jimmy, I say, “I’m with him,” and start to back away, but Bob slams the door before I finish my first step.

  “Great,” Jimmy mutters, staring at the ugly door.

  Stepping closer, he knocks several times, but Bob won’t answer. Little noises tell us that he’s still at the door, probably watching us through the peephole. I contemplate picking imaginary bugs off my arms and shoulders, but decide it’s probably not wise to mess with someone’s mental health. Jimmy eventually gives up knocking and we start down the stairs.

  Bob has a parting gift for us.

  “He has to pay tribute to the king,” he shouts through the door. “No one gets the canisters without paying tribute. Fiz has a special arrangement.”

  “Thank you, Bob,” Jimmy shouts back.

  Halfway down the stairs I turn to Jimmy and say, “‘Thank you’? For what?”

  He just shrugs.

  Walking around to the passenger side of the Charger, I start to open the door and then pause. Getting Jimmy’s attention, I tilt my head up the street. He studies the old man who’s shuffling our way. “Isn’t Fiz supposed to be in his mid-forties?”

  “Forty-seven,” I confirm.

  “This guy looks closer to seventy. I don’t think it’s him.”

  He slides behind the wheel and sticks the key in the ignition … but doesn’t start the car. Getting into the passenger seat beside him, I close my door and together we watch the scrawny, scruffy old man hobble up the sidewalk. He’s stooped over clutching something tightly to his stomach, which only adds to the image of a hunched old man.

  Sure enough, he turns into the grimy parking lot and starts up the stairs. Jimmy and I exit the Charger and hurry to catch up, just as Bob’s door pops open a full foot and the old man passes a dark cylindrical tube through the opening.

  Then, just like that, the door slams shut.

  No words are spoken.

  The old man—Fiz—turns and makes his way to the apartment on the left.

  “Mr. Moshiri,” Jimmy calls, taking the stairs two at a time in his rush to intercept the ex-con before he gets inside his apartment. I follow close behind, taking the stairs one at a time; I’m pacing myself.

  The old man turns and gives Jimmy a squinting stare. As I reach the second story it becomes clear that he’s not as old as he first appeared, but on the other hand, I don’t think I’ve seen forty-seven so poorly represented. The guy looks like he got curb-stomped by the Grim Reaper.

  “Who are you?” Fiz barks.

  “FBI,” Jimmy replies, flashing his badge. “I’m Special Agent Donovan, and this is Operations Specialist Craig. We’re looking for Larry Wilson. You wouldn’t know where he is, would you?”

  “Haven’t seen him for nearly a month,” Fiz says, still clutching the package close to his stomach. On closer inspection it appears to be a plastic grocery bag, and he’s guarding it carefully. “Larry stayed here a couple days, then just up and disappeared. He was talking about a trucking job in Colorado, so I figured he was back on the road.” Glancing at the door, he adds, “All his stuff is still inside if you want to take a look. I didn’t touch none of it.”

  “Thank you,” Jimmy says graciously. “We’d appreciate that.”

  Unlocking the door, Fiz leads the way into the one-bedroom apartment, followed closely by Jimmy. I linger at the door a moment and pull my glasses down the bridge of my nose just far enough so I can see over the top. Glancing about quickly, I see that the ice-blue shine doesn’t enter the apartment, but it’s obvious from the foot impressions and hand marks that IBK spent a few minutes at the door.

  To what end I don’t know.

  It’s puzzling.

  Fiz steps into the kitchen and places his package on the counter. Looking at the bag, then at us, then at the bag again, Fiz reaches in and pulls loose one of the dark cylinders he handed to Bob.

  “Want one?” he says reluctantly, holding the twenty-ounce beer up for our inspection.

  “No, thank you,” Jimmy replies. “We’re on duty. Besides, I don’t normally get my beer on until noon.”

  “A man of restraint,” Fiz says. “I admire that.” He raises the can in salute, clearly relieved that he won’t have to part with any of his stock. Popping the top, he chugs down half the beer in one long undulating gulp before coming up for air. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and belches the words, “It’s good,” before remembering himself and quickly apologizing.

  “Beer?” I say. “That’s the bug killer you gave to Bob?”

  Fiz looks confused. “Who’s Bob?”

  “The guy next door,” I say, motioning with my thumb.

  “That’s Stu,” he chuckles. He stares at me for a long moment and then shakes his head. “Bob,” he mutters. The name comes out like the punch line to a bad joke.

  Jimmy clears his throat. “About Larry; you said you still have his stuff…?”

  “Yeah, it’s over here.” He walks to the couch and pulls a dirty white pillowcase out from behind it. Before handing it to Jimmy, he wipes a whole warren of dust bunnies from the side and bottom, then shakes the filth from his hand and watches it fall to the carpet. “He didn�
��t have much; least not here.”

  Jimmy takes the bag and upends it on the coffee table.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Fiz grumbles. “Dump it out.”

  Rather than retrieving his gloves from the kit in the car, Jimmy pokes at the pile with an unsharpened pencil he plucks from the mug on the counter next to the phone. About half the pile is clothing, which still doesn’t amount to much: a couple pairs of folded socks, one pair of mostly clean underwear, two T-shirts, and a pair of shorts. There’s also a toothbrush, a travel-sized tube of toothpaste, some wart cream, a new addition of Hustler magazine, three pennies, a nickel, and a ticket stub from the local movie theater dated August 10.

  “I’m taking this,” Jimmy says, plucking the toothbrush from the pile while being careful to stay clear of the bristles. “The rest of it is of no use.”

  “What you need a toothbrush for?” Fiz says.

  The ex-con appears to have just three or four of his own teeth, one of which stands like a solitary gray stone at the front of his mouth, so the question is almost funny. I’m tempted to say, Oral hygiene, but Jimmy has a way of knowing when my internal filter and my mouth are struggling with one another, and he quickly says, “We need to check for his DNA.” He points at the brush head. “If Larry really is missing, we may need his DNA profile to…” He hesitates, not sure how Fiz will take the next words. “Well … to make sure it’s really him.”

  “DNA … yeah,” Fiz says. “I heard some stuff about that. It’s like science fiction come to life; Jurassic Park and all that.”

  “Just like that,” Jimmy says, not even trying to set him straight. “So you and Larry were cellmates, right?”

  Fiz nods. “Six months.”

  “Did he ever say anything about getting threats, either while in jail or after he got out? Nasty phone calls, letters, that sort of thing?”

  Fiz shrugs. “That girl’s family lit into him pretty good in court; least, that’s what he said. He tried to act all depressed and upset about it, but I don’t think he really was. You get to know a guy after six months in a cage together.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “What makes you think he wasn’t upset?” I ask.