12 Bliss Street

by Martha Conway

  She rolled back to Christian’s computer and stared at the screen. The decompression program didn’t have any apparent problem with the file, and the video was now loading all right. Still, she wouldn’t know whether it had actually decompressed correctly until it began to play.

  She’d done this before. She’d been burned before. Sometimes everything goes smoothly and you’re so happy until you open the file and what you see is a big blank nothing.

  Nicola turned the screen slightly to cut down on glare. The sun was low now, just about to dip under the horizon, and the last of its light streamed through the window. The video stopped loading and started to play, and, oh thank God, it was not blank—she could see the same bed she remembered from the snuff video. A poster on the wall. A metal side table. And then there he was—Chorizo. Not his face, but the side of his body and his hand as he reached up toward the camera. That was it. The video ended abruptly.

  Quickly, she searched through the other files Davette had sent. There were ten of them. They were all videos, probably. She knew she shouldn’t take the time to decompress them and then view each one individually—Davette was going to do that—but she couldn’t stop herself. I’ll make a file for the police, she told herself. Something to substantiate this ridiculous story.

  An hour later she was almost done. It was after six. Lou called just as she was opening the last video; he had found the articles about the pigeons, and yes they were all killed by large doses of methadone, which the seeds had been coated with.

  “He was practicing,” he said. “I bet he has it in pill form. He crushed up the pills and coated the birdseed with it. Then, when he was sure it would work, he gave the girls a couple of pills and told them they were something else, like Ecstasy or something. You can swallow them with water or, if your stomach gets easily upset, with milk. Depending on the dosage and your tolerance for drugs, two can kill you.”

  “I didn’t know you could overdose on methadone,” Nicola said.

  “If you take enough, sure. It’s like morphine. It’s morphine based. He probably gets it from a junkie who is trying to get clean, but to tell you the truth it’s going out of fashion at detox programs. At least in New York.”

  “You’ve been to a detox in New York?”

  “I followed around a junkie for a while. Now that was an easy job. Anyway, all I’m saying is there might be only one or two detoxes that dish methadone these days.”

  “So maybe he couldn’t completely cover his tracks.”

  “Unless he got it on the street, third or fourth hand.”

  “Right.” Nicola watched the end of the video clip. Again there was the bed, the poster, the girl, but nothing as incriminating as the first clip with the bracelet. “Do you have anything else?” she asked Lou.

  “Whoever he gets it from can’t be pregnant or have kidney problems or a biliary tract disease. No one would prescribe it for them. What is a biliary tract disease?”

  “A disease in an organ that carries digestive bile,” Nicola said. “Like your liver. What else?”

  “Alcohol increases its effect. It’s not all that hard to overdose on if you’ve been drinking too.”

  “And Carmen says Robert drinks,” Nicola said. She stopped the video clip and looked at her watch. “Anything else?”

  “One last thing, and this is kind of interesting—apparently there’s a very quick and effective antidote if you do overdose,” Lou said. “Of course, you have to get to the emergency room within a couple of hours. It’s called Narcon.”

  “Narcon?”

  “It reverses the effects.”

  “Even for pigeons?”

  “I don’t know about pigeons. It’s probably never been tried on pigeons.”

  Nicola looked at the computer screen again, then renamed the last video and saved it to her police file. “This is probably enough,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “I’m going to the police with what I have.” She gave Lou the station address and told him to meet her there.

  “And I’ll bring these printouts, too,” he told her.

  But almost as soon as she hung up, her cell phone rang again.

  “Did you forget the address already?” she said, answering.

  “What address?” asked a low voice.

  Nicola felt her jaw clench. She recognized that voice.

  It was Chorizo.

  Twenty

  Nicola felt her heart give a sudden hard beat and she looked back at the computer screen as though she was afraid Chorizo could see through the phone to what she was doing. She carefully extracted the disk from the computer, then wrote on it “Police.”

  “I thought this was … was someone else,” Nicola said. She swallowed. It was important to sound normal but at the same time her mind seemed to be casting out in all directions. Why was he calling her? Had she even given him this number?

  Chorizo said, “This is Mehmet Pamuk.” It was the name he had used at the café. His real name? “You remember me,” he said.

  “Mehmet—but…” Nicola paused. This was awkward. She tried to think what might be the normal thing to say, if she was just that girl from the café who knew nothing more about him than whatever it was she had known then. “How did you get this number?”

  “A boy gave it to me. Said his name was Dave.”

  “Dave,” Nicola repeated. Her face suddenly felt like wood.

  “Yes, a total stranger to me,” he continued in his low silky voice, “who seemed to think I would give him some money in exchange for, I don’t know, information I guess. He wanted to meet me. Turns out he had some interesting … ideas about me.”

  Nicola didn’t know what to say. How far had this gone? “All right,” she said.

  “He mentioned your name.”

  “You met with him?”

  Chorizo laughed. “Listen,” he said.

  There was a pause then she could hear a couple of short, shallow breaths. “Hey, Nicola,” said another voice.

  “Oh my God, Dave.”

  “Yeah, WAL, right? I mean me.” His voice sounded a little slurred.

  “Dave, sit tight,” Nicola started to say but Chorizo was back on the phone.

  “Oh,” he said, “he’s sitting tight. Very tight. Listen, I want you to do something for me. Are you listening? I want you to bring me that disk you have. The copy you made of that video. In fact, bring me the whole laptop.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Nicola said. “That’s not going to stop anything. I might have copied the video onto twenty computers by now.”

  “Well, actually,” Chorizo said, “it’s you I want.”

  * * *

  Nicola agreed to meet Dave and Chorizo at the Polo Fields in twenty-five minutes—fifteen minutes longer than he suggested because she claimed she was in San Bruno. She didn’t know what else to do—she had to get Dave away from him. “But how do you know I won’t bring the police?” she asked.

  “Because I don’t think you’ll want to see the inside of Dave’s head spread all over the pavement,” he had answered.

  She pressed the off button then dialed Lou’s number again. “Lou. Listen fast,” she said when he answered. “Chorizo just called me. He’s got Dave. And I’m pretty sure he’s given him methadone.”

  “He’s got Dave? How did that happen?”

  “More bumbling and idiocy. Listen. You have ten minutes to call up your uncle the doctor and get a dose of Narcon, and you have ten more minutes to get yourself and it to the bookstore on Irving Street. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Why the bookstore?”

  “It’s on the way for us both. Plus I want to see if they have anything that will tell me how to use it.”

  “Use the Narcon?”

  “I don’t know how much methadone he gave Dave.”

  “Nicola, I don’t like this,” Lou said.

  “I know, but I was thinking. All the information he has he got from Dave. Dave doesn’t know about Carmen, remember? She was
hiding in the bathroom when he came. And he doesn’t know we know about the Golden Gate Arms. If this man wants to get rid of me he’s going to take me there. Not to his house or anywhere that can be easily traced back to him.”

  “You don’t think he can be traced to his own hotel?”

  “I don’t have time to argue. It’s the logical choice. Just get the police and go there.”

  “I don’t like it, Nicola,” Lou said again.

  “Neither do I,” she said.

  After she hung up Nicola looked around for her bag from the gun shop and began ripping open the package for the strobe-light-and-screamer key ring. Then she pulled out the other self-defense weapons. Was there anything that wasn’t wrapped in about four hundred yards of hard plastic? Pretty soon everything will come with its own tool to open it up with, she was thinking.

  “Ow,” she said, pulling her hand away. She had cut her finger on a plastic edge. “Shit.” Nicola looked around her office for something—what?—some kind of inspiration. But it was just a room full of toys. Her brain felt locked. She didn’t know what Chorizo was planning to do—kill her, probably.

  I’m way out of my depth, she thought. Was it true that there was a moment of peace before even the most violent deaths? She was tired and it seemed to her she’d been running around forever doing the next vital thing like a small crazed ant.

  But she didn’t have time to question what she was doing. She didn’t have time to think. Dave—bumbling, naive, high-school Dave—was loaded up on methadone and being held by a man who killed women on film.

  Nicola grabbed her computer case then pulled on her coat. Just keep it moving, keep it moving, she told herself.

  * * *

  She got to the Polo Fields with about eighteen seconds to spare. Her purse was filled with self-defense weapons. The vial of Narcon was wedged into her bra. She felt skittish and at the same time unable to focus completely. Like she’d had too much coffee and not enough food.

  Lou had met her at the bookstore with the Narcon, and before she left he kissed her—an amazing, I-will-see-you-soon kiss. As Nicola turned and parked she could still feel the pressure on her lips. Was she being incredibly stupid coming here? She was probably being incredibly stupid coming here.

  But the police will be waiting at the motel, she told herself, when we show up.

  She didn’t know why this wasn’t more comforting.

  Nicola cut off the engine and sat for a moment looking for a car with someone waiting inside. The polo fields were below her, past a group of thick conifer trees with long two-story trunks and branches that spread out from the top. It was cold and windy and the park seemed deserted. RESTRICTED, a sign read. And further on: NO PARKING OR STOPPING.

  Nicola got out of her car with her laptop, her heart pounding. The wind hit her suddenly, like a fist through her hair. She stumbled a little. The grass was long and brown and resembled the matted fur of a dog. A man in army fatigues walked past her holding a black and white toy collie on a leash. She wanted to say, Could you just stay here a minute? Help me make a trade? The man lifted his head in greeting, then pulled at the leash.

  In twos and threes the street lamps began to come on, casting a slight orange tint onto the road. At last a blue four-door Toyota pulled up. Chorizo rolled down his window partway.

  “Laptop?” he asked. She showed him the case. Chorizo unbuckled his seat belt and got out, shutting the door carefully behind him. He looked up and down the road. Nicola tried to swallow. She watched the wind blow his hair up and to the side.

  “Where’s Dave?” she asked.

  Chorizo motioned to the back, where Dave was slumped against the window. But his eyes, Nicola noticed, were open.

  “Do I get to negotiate?” she said.

  “No.”

  She handed him her computer case and tried to keep her voice steady. “This is completely ridiculous. My computer isn’t going to help you at all. Plus I have all my tax files in there.”

  “Give me your purse, too.”

  She handed him her black bag.

  “Now,” he said, “let’s get out of this wind.”

  “Wait. You have to let Dave out first.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “That was the deal.”

  Chorizo said, “I don’t think that was the deal, Nicola.”

  He smiled and put his hands on her. There was no one around anywhere—where the hell was everyone when she was being forced into a car? As Chorizo pushed her inside she noticed that Dave was handcuffed to a chain soldered onto the door. Both doors had chains soldered to them, she saw. Were these for a girl? Someone who changed her mind?

  “I see you’re looking at my equipment,” Chorizo said. He was pulling handcuffs out of his pocket. “They’re just a precaution really. I did them myself.”

  “Use them much?”

  Chorizo unlocked the cuffs and flipped one band open. “Actually, this is the first time. But a warrior keeps himself prepared.”

  “A warrior? You’re a warrior?”

  “I like to think of myself as a spiritual warrior.”

  Nicola raised her eyebrows. “You kill spirits?”

  “Hah,” Chorizo laughed. “I never thought of it like that.” As he was cuffing Nicola to the car door, Dave looked over and smiled a gentle little bird-smile at her.

  “Nicola,” he said. “Hey.” For once he spoke without sounding snide. He was really very high, Nicola saw. His face had a soft, vacant look to it and he seemed younger and, well, nicer.

  “Hi, Dave,” she answered. “How’s Chorizo been treating you?”

  Dave shrugged and moved the hand that was chained to the door as an answer. Chorizo went back to the front seat with Nicola’s black bag where he began searching through it with both hands.

  “I wish people would stop doing that,” she said.

  “Doing what?”

  “You’re messing with my organization.”

  He took out her driver’s license. “Nice picture. The red was a good choice. Let’s see now, 3584A Santiago. That’s interesting, I didn’t know there was a 3584A. That would be where, behind another house? Oh I have it, the Russians.”

  “You’ve done some homework. But why do you care?”

  Chorizo didn’t answer. He put the driver’s license in his pocket then continued to rummage through her purse. He found the pepper spray and the can of mace.

  “I see you also have The Cry For Help. But what’s it programmed to—fire?”

  “The recommended setting,” she said.

  “You don’t have much faith in your fellow man, do you?”

  “These days, no.”

  He threw the defense items onto the street, also the X-acto knife and bungee cord she had thrown in on impulse at her office. “Let’s see your coat,” he said. He leaned over and put his hand into each of her coat pockets and she could see the line of gray hairs on his head that seemed to start from the temple and work their way up. Chorizo pulled out a bobby pin from one pocket and a coupon for a free latte from the other, threw those out the window, then he sat back in the driver’s seat and fastened his seat belt.

  “Aren’t you going to frisk me?” Nicola asked. She could feel the slight, hard edge of the Narcon needle next to her breast. It had a special plastic cap and was smaller than a pen.

  “I’m hoping,” Chorizo said.

  He started the motor and made a U-turn then began driving back through the park. The car smelled strongly of aftershave lotion. Chorizo looked through the rearview mirror, then at the side mirror, then through the rearview mirror again.

  “No one came with me,” Nicola told him.

  “Of course not,” he said, though he did not sound entirely sure. “You’re a smart girl.”

  Girl? Nicola fell forward as they turned, then righted herself without hands. I’m almost getting good at all this, she thought.

  They were snaking back to the main road. Nicola felt herself breathe a little more slowly—C
horizo was right, it was good to get out of that wind. They would go to the motel, she told herself, and the police would be there. Just keep that thought.

  “Do they really play polo?” Chorizo asked.

  “What?”

  “At the polo fields.”

  “Oh.” Nicola stared out the window. “It’s mostly used for soccer matches now.”

  There was nothing to see. Already people were beginning to leave the city and fly back east or fly to the mountains or fly across the water to Hawaii for the holidays. Chorizo checked the mirrors again then turned on the radio. There was news of a runaway train in Michigan, and a progress report on an international war crimes tribunal.

  “I met that man once,” Chorizo commented.

  “The dictator?”

  “He is thinner than he looks in the pictures. Some sort of colon problem, I believe.”

  Was he nervous too? He kept checking the mirrors, and this chitchat. Maybe he’s never done it this way before, Nicola thought. Maybe he’s never picked up a woman who knows what he’s done.

  But was that better for her, or worse? She looked down at her chained wrist. One thing, she would definitely need to stay on her toes.

  “Did he really murder his own brother?” she asked.

  “I don’t know all the politics.”

  “Well, I think it’s appalling.”

  At that Chorizo laughed. “Oh you Americans. Do you know what America’s motto is? If we don’t like it, you can’t do it.”

  “Hey,” said Dave. “That’s good.”

  “It’s true that fratricide is generally frowned upon here,” Nicola said.

  Chorizo stopped for a red light. He looked down at his hands and after a moment began pushing back the cuticle on his thumb.

  “So what did you do to this one?” Nicola asked.

  “Dave? Oh just a little downer. Maybe two.” Chorizo smoothed the skin around his thumbnail. “Listen to me, Nicola. I’ll give you a tip.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never cut your cuticles. They prevent bacteria from entering the lunula.”