Faces in the Fire

by Hines

  Kurt swallowed, unsure how to respond.

  “Not just brain trauma, though. Your whole body. It looks like you’ve had several broken bones—a couple ribs, an arm, both of your femurs.” Todd cleared his throat, leaned back. “You know how painful, how serious, a broken femur is, Kurt?”

  Kurt fidgeted, felt his foot tapping on the floor. “No.”

  Todd smiled. “That’s just it. You do know. You obviously do. You just don’t remember it. I’ve discussed your case with more than one physician, and they’re frankly amazed you’re alive. Amazed anyone was even able to put you back together, because it looks as if all your injuries happened at the same time. Except—”

  “Except what?”

  “Well, when someone has major injuries—a cracked skull, a fractured femur—you would find an indication of repair. Surgical scars, titanium screws in the leg, that kind of thing.”

  Kurt nodded slowly. “I don’t have any of those things.” And he didn’t. So far as he knew, he didn’t have a single scar anywhere on his body.

  “You don’t,” Todd confirmed. “Further complicated by the fact that we don’t have access to your medical records. One doctor said he’d seen injuries similar to yours before, a rather miraculous case herself—except, of course, she recovered with the help of many surgeries, lots of physical therapy.”

  “What kind of accident?” Kurt heard himself ask quietly.

  “A skydiving accident. Her chute failed.” Todd leaned across his desk, smiling. “So what do you think, Kurt? Maybe you just dropped out of the sky.”

  43.

  A dull ringing brought Kurt out of his trancelike state. He blinked his eyes behind the welding hood, obviously for the first time in a while; they were dry, cakey.

  The ring again. His cell phone in his pocket, he realized. Kurt was old school when it came to phones; he still preferred a plain old ring to any song or tune or ringtone. Phones in his childhood rang; phones should always ring.

  He spun the valve on the cutting torch closed, pulled off his gloves, tipped up his mask, and dug into his pocket. He managed to pull the phone out and answer it midring.

  “Hello?” he said, his voice thick and scratchy. He swallowed, trying to moisten his throat; like his eyes, it was dry and parched.

  “Kurt, Kurt,” a woman’s voice said. “How are you?”

  Macy. His agent. His business manager. His whatever. The person who worked with the outside world so he didn’t have to. He swallowed again, cleared his throat.

  “Macy. I’m good.” He didn’t return the pleasantries.

  “Listen, I bet you’re working right now, so I’m sorry to interrupt you.”

  “Yeah,” he said, sniffing, taking in the acrid, sharp tang of the acetylene inside his shop. He hadn’t turned on his fans, but at least he’d left open the front overhead doors to ventilate the area.

  (A catfish in a pool of orange)

  He closed his eyes, pushed the thought from his mind with some effort. Odd, to have that image working its way into his mind while he was in the midst of this project with the silk dress. The hands and face.

  “Listen,” Macy said. “How many complete pieces do you have on hand right now?”

  He looked around his workshop, taking stock of the various welded sculptures. Some looked like trees, some like multilegged creatures, some like giant stalks of plants. Most—okay, maybe all—had a melting face of some kind hidden inside the iron leaves or branches or legs. It was what Macy liked to call his “overriding theme.”

  He cleared his throat, tasting the bitter smoke of the welding torch. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe eight or so right now. Working on another.”

  “Eight? Hmmm. We’ll need more.”

  He paused, waiting for her to continue, but she obviously required an acknowledgment. She was excited, he could tell; she always liked to play this kind of cat-and-mouse game when she had some kind of big news to share.

  “We’ll need more for what?” he asked, playing along. It was the easiest, quickest way to get back to his work.

  “For a show. A gallery show.”

  “A gallery show?” he asked, hoping his tone sounded interested, knowing it didn’t.

  “Yeah. No more sending lackeys around on the arts-and-crafts circuit, selling your work for a thousand bucks. We’re gonna get you in with people who will spend ten times that much. Just need—oh, I don’t know—a dozen pieces anyway. And something big. Something grand, to serve as a centerpiece. A big wow, you know? Do you have something that might work for that?”

  Kurt took stock of the sculptures again. None of those. Not really. Maybe the new piece with the arm. He turned to look at the giant plate of iron he’d been cutting, felt his breath stop for a few moments.

  “You there, Kurt?” Macy asked. She laughed, mistaking his silence for surprise. Not a bad thing, really. “I know, this is big. I mean really big. But don’t get caught up on the main piece right now. You’ll come up with something, and we have a couple months.”

  Kurt continued to stare at the image he’d been cutting from the piece of iron. “Yeah,” he said, his throat clicking, drier than ever. “I think maybe I can come up with something.”

  “I just wanted to call, let you know, so you can start thinking about it.”

  “Sure, sure. Thanks, Macy,” he said, continuing to stare.

  “Oh, thank you, Kurt,” she said before hanging up.

  Kurt let his arm drop, still clutching the phone. In front of him, he knew, instinctively, what he’d been wrestling from the thick plate of iron with his cutting torch. And it wasn’t one of his “overriding theme” melting faces.

  It was a triangular pattern with an irregular back side on it. A dorsal fin.

  A dorsal fin for a catfish.

  Behind him, the ghost in the silk dress sniffled, then went quiet again. Maybe sensing it wasn’t connecting with him. Not right now, anyway.

  The phone rang again. Evidently Macy had forgotten to tell him something.

  He hit the talk button and placed the receiver to his ear again.

  “Kurt?” a man’s voice asked. Not Macy at all. It was John Cross from Cross Trucking.

  “John. How are you doing?” Kurt continued to stare at the dorsal fin he’d been cutting out of the iron.

  “Well, not so good,” John answered. “I’m running short right now. Hoping you could maybe deadhead it out to Seattle for me, pull back a load to Chicago.”

  John Cross called once a month or so, asking him to do some OTR trucking. Kurt had driven for Cross Trucking for a few years until he’d stumbled into his iron art. Truth was, the art was doing well—upcoming gallery show or not—and he didn’t need to do anything else for money.

  But he still liked to get out on the road every now and then. Think about upcoming projects. Bring along a few items from his wardrobe of wearable ghosts, listen to the stories they told.

  Kurt thought of the dead man’s shoes from lot 159 and smiled. “Sure, John,” he said. “I think I can make a quick trip for you.”

  17.

  After several sessions with Todd, Kurt decided to call the other name Marcus had given him. Jenny Lewis, the private detective.

  He didn’t really want to. But not knowing was like an infection, and if you ignored an infection, it created more problems. Maybe even killed you, eventually. So he dialed her number, set up a meeting, gave her what little information he had about his own past, and waited.

  Now here she was, at the bar where they’d agreed to meet, looking nervous. She sat, ordered a Diet Coke, and shook Kurt’s hand. They waited quietly for the barmaid to bring her drink before they got around to the business of discussing what she’d found.

  The detective nodded to the barmaid when she returned. She took a sip, looked at Kurt, seemed unsure how to start the conversation.

  Kurt offered a smile. “I see you drink the hard stuff,” he said, nodding at her glass.

  “Diet Coke. Breakfast, lunch, and
dinner of champions. You?”

  He smiled. “Same. More of a Diet Pepsi guy, but I suppose it isn’t my bar.”

  She seemed to relax. “We shoulda met at a soda fountain. The barmaid’s in the back snickering at us.”

  “No such thing as a soda fountain anymore.”

  Jenny looked thoughtful. “No, I don’t suppose there is.” Another sip.

  Her obvious discomfort was making him nervous. Maybe he shouldn’t have called her after all, but . . . well, Marcus had given him her name. After listening to Kurt’s full confession, Marcus had written Todd’s and Jenny’s names and phone numbers on a piece of paper.

  “Call them,” he had said. “Todd will dig into your head, Jenny into everything else—and they’ll both be quiet about it.”

  Out of a sense of duty to Marcus (and he’d love to hear what Todd might say about that), he’d called her. And now here they were, in a bar, drinking diet sodas.

  “So,” she said, “on with it, I guess.”

  Kurt didn’t like this. When he’d first met her, he’d been reassured. She seemed unflappable, someone who could keep her cool. Now she seemed . . . scared.

  She opened a thin file. “There’s not much to go on, as you know.” She paused. “I ran a check on your New Jersey driver’s license. It’s a fake. No such registered driver.”

  He waited. “Okay,” he said.

  “Thing is,” she said, “as fakes go, this one’s good. Real good—has the holographic image on it and everything, which is something your typical guy-with-a-printer-in-his-basement operation can’t do. So, you had to have some resources to get this.”

  Kurt shifted uncomfortably, thinking of the ten thousand dollars in cash he’d found stuffed into a nylon money belt and strapped to his chest after . . . after the fire. He hadn’t told Jenny about that. Or Todd. No need to.

  “Now,” she continued, “I did a check of Social Security numbers registered to Kurt Marlowes with your birth date. Wanna guess how many hits I got?”

  He itched at his cheek, and she continued without waiting for an answer. “Nada,” she said. “I did a criminal background search on the name, first in Jersey, then across the country. Some hits, but nothing that seemed like you.”

  She handed him a computer printout, but he didn’t stop to read it, so she continued.

  “Missing persons, wanted persons, tax liens, traffic tickets, unclaimed property . . . I threw everything I had at it, and you weren’t a blip on anything, Kurt.” She picked up her drink and took a long draw, grimacing at the carbonation. “So basically,” she said, her eyes searching his face, “you don’t exist. At least not on paper.”

  He sat quietly for a few moments, sighed. “Can’t say this is a big surprise,” he said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t get that impression, either. But I have some advice for you, if you’ll take it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Stop.”

  His throat was dry and scratchy, so he took a drink of his own. “Stop,” he repeated.

  “You—or someone close to you—took great pains to conceal your identity,” she said. “Someone who has a lot of resources. That’s two possibilities: government spooks of some kind, or the Mafia. Either way, it’s bad news. You ever consider your amnesia might not be accidental?”

  He shook his head.

  “I think there might be a very good reason why you don’t remember anything: because you’re not supposed to. And I think the only reason you might be alive is because you’re a clean slate. Long as you stay a clean slate, you’re safe. You start digging into your past too much, you might show up on someone’s radar. They might opt for some other way to keep you quiet.” She took another sip. “A more permanent way.”

  Kurt thought of his recent conversations with Todd, the discussions of brain damage and broken bones. He—and Todd—had assumed he’d been through some kind of tragic accident. But what if he’d been through something much worse? What if someone had beaten and broken him, wiped him clean, put him on the ground in California with cash and a few pieces of paper? For what reason? He shuddered as he thought about it.

  Jenny closed the folder on the table in front of her and pushed the rest of it toward him. “Thing is, if you’re gonna do anything from here on out, you need a legit footprint.”

  “A footprint?” He opened the folder and started to page through the papers inside: Social Security paperwork, bank statements, employment records.

  “Like I said, you’re a ghost right now. You graduate from that trucking school, apply for a job somewhere, what are you gonna do when they ask for a Social Security number?” She nodded at the folder. “Now, you have one to give them—a Social Security account with a full history of contributions, an employment record, a credit score. It’s all in there. A full history for Kurt Marlowe.”

  He looked at her. “How’d you do this?”

  She gave him a disgusted look. “What do you think this is, amateur hour? Told you I checked the unclaimed property databases. You know there’s billions of dollars that go uncollected each year in unclaimed property, estates with no heirs?”

  “No.”

  “Well, just call that investment capital for the kinds of things I do.”

  He stared at her, dumbfounded, for a few moments. “But . . . why are you doing this? You don’t even know me.”

  “I know Marcus, though. Known him a long time, since before—well, since before his trucking days.”

  “What days were those?”

  “Prison days.”

  Kurt narrowed his eyes. “You met Marcus in prison.”

  She shook her head, evidently unimpressed by his wit. “No, I met Marcus long before he went to prison, when we were both on a traveling sales crew.”

  “So what’d he go to prison for?”

  She smiled, a bit wistfully. “For a couple years. Let’s just say he got out of traveling sales the hard way. And after that he helped me get out of it. I think Marcus may be the only person ever truly rehabilitated by the United States penal system. In any case, I owe Marcus. And I think you do too.”

  “More than you know.”

  She nodded. “You showed up with that acceptance letter in your hand; Marcus knew it was a forge. But he knew it was a good forge, and he also knew it wasn’t yours. He’s been watching out for you since.”

  Kurt stayed silent, unsure how to react. If not for Marcus, and Jenny, and Todd, he’d probably be dead by now.

  “Then I guess all I can say is thanks.”

  “And all I can say is you’re welcome.”

  “But there’s one thing bothering me,” he said.

  “Shoot.”

  “If it was the government, or the Mafia, or whoever wiped me clean . . . wouldn’t they fix me?”

  She gave a grim smile. “Oh, I’d say you’re in a fix.”

  He shook his head. “No, what I mean is . . . Todd talked about some extensive injuries, but no signs they were treated. No pins or surgeries or anything. And then, if they didn’t want to kill me . . . wouldn’t they just give me a new identity? Brainwash me, make me think I’m someone else? Give me that legit footprint you’re talking about?”

  She bit her lip. “That’s what worries me,” she said. “I think there’s something about you that’s wrong. Dead wrong. Something happened. Something didn’t go according to plan, and you fell between the cracks.” She finished the last of her drink, smiled humorlessly. “And if whoever did this starts seeing some of those cracks, we’re both drinking the wrong thing.”

  58.

  Kurt downshifted the big Peterbilt and hit the Jake Brake as he followed his headlights down Fourth of July Pass between Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. Few places he could hit the Jake Brake anymore—most city ordinances restricted their use—and he loved to hear the throaty roar of the diesel’s engine holding back thirty tons of weight. Just one of the reasons why he often said yes whenever John called him in a bind.

  He’d picked up a forty-fo
ot storage container, fresh off the docks in Seattle, and now he was bound for Chicago. Not a bad route, really; he could make it in three days if he pushed it, then deadhead it back to Montana.

  On his feet he wore the dead man’s shoes. Not typically the kind of shoes he would wear, to be sure—he preferred lug-soled work boots, and these were somewhat dressy slip-ons—but what of it? The shoes felt right. More than that, they felt electric. Something about them made long-dormant parts inside light up, crackle with anticipation.

  He even liked the tags on the inside of the shoes. They displayed a large symbol that looked like a reversed numeral 3, with other strange writing beneath the symbol. He’d seen that kind of writing on old Soviet Union propaganda posters, vodka advertisements, that kind of thing, so he guessed the writing was Russian.

  Best of all, fueled by the ghost inside the shoes, his mind, as he drove the long miles following the white line of Interstate 90, was filled with constant images of the comforting catfish swimming in a pool of orange, unfettered by constraints.

  Like Kurt himself on the open road.

  So when he first heard the voice on the CB, he almost missed it. He wasn’t listening, wasn’t paying attention; only the mention of his name pierced his consciousness.

  “Give her a ride, Kurt.”

  Kurt looked at his citizens band radio. Yes, he was sure it came through the CB; he’d heard the hiss of static and squelch just before the voice spoke.

  Like most truckers, Kurt still used the citizens band radio. And like most truckers, he could only stomach it in small doses; far removed from the good-buddy days of C. W. McCall’s “Convoy,” it was now a wasteland of mindless egos and arguments. So he really only turned it on when he was near major truck stops or metro areas. Sometimes good for local weather or traffic or speed trap information, but mostly interesting in the way reality crime shows were interesting.

  Kurt thought of all this as he stared at his CB radio, because the unit was turned off.

  Which meant the voice had to be coming from his wardrobe of wearable ghosts. And the only problem with that was: he’d only brought along one item of haunted clothing.