Machine City: A Thriller (Detective Barnes Book 2)

by Scott J. Holliday

  Barnes smirked. He nodded.

  “What was it you said?”

  “I bet Jimmy Hoffa’s in there.”

  Franklin smiled. “That’s right.”

  “Just a theory.”

  Franklin continued to his car and pulled open the driver’s-side door.

  “Wait,” Barnes said, catching his old partner before he ducked into the vehicle. “Two questions.”

  Franklin set his forearms on the car’s wet roof. Raindrops collected in his hair and dripped onto his shoulders. The low dinging of the vehicle’s door-ajar indicator sounded off repeatedly. He said, “Shoot.”

  “Who would I have been?”

  “On the machine?”

  Barnes nodded.

  “Flaherty, himself. I know you never liked the guy—hell, not many of us did—but he was a thorough detective, and damn good with that machine. Instead of taking notes”—Franklin tapped his temple—“he recorded his memories. Felt it was the more reliable method.” Franklin shook his head. “Pretty much everything was locked down when the police servers were archived, but I know he stashed some of the stuff he was working on”—he swirled a finger in the air—“out there on the web. What’s the second question?”

  “Who would have the stones to abduct a police detective?”

  Franklin began ducking into the vehicle. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  Barnes watched Franklin drive down to the next block and turn. His taillights flickered as he rolled the stop sign. Once the sedan was out of sight, Barnes pulled the folded envelope from his pocket. He read the return address again—DILLMAN & ASSOCIATES ESTATE LAW, NEW ORLEANS, LA. He tore the seal apart, retrieved the letter, and read it:

  Barnes,

  Find me on the machine. It’s about Ricky.

  Freddie Cohen

  2

  Freddie Cohen, middle school bully to Barnes’s younger brother. Barnes hadn’t thought of him in years. As he understood it, Cohen came into some money, bought up a chain of Piggly Wiggly grocery stores in the suburbs of New Orleans, and moved down there to operate them. Word had it he’d become a big shot in the Big Easy, a string puller with the local crime syndicates and the government. The letter was from an estate lawyer, though. Maybe someone opted to pull old Freddie’s string instead?

  A memory bloomed in Barnes’s mind. Elementary school. Seventh grade. The kickball diamond. Ricky had come home late for taco dinner the evening before, walked out of Whitehall Forest with a knot above his left eye. He’d convinced Mom and Dad that he’d fallen out of the boys’ tree fort and bumped his head, but big brother knew better. That night, in the dark stillness of the bedroom they shared, Johnny piqued his ears to the sounds of Ricky’s muffled crying.

  “You didn’t fall out of the fort,” Barnes said.

  Ricky didn’t respond, just sniffled.

  “Freddie hit you.”

  A silent moment, and then Ricky said, “Don’t hurt him, Johnny.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s not like other people.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s just . . . it’s okay, ya know? I’m not mad at him.”

  “I am.”

  The next day Johnny Barnes found Freddie Cohen on the diamond. The kid was holding the kickball hostage and yelling at the younger boys the way a bully does—the way an insecure, overweight kid with an advantage does. He was red-faced and terrifying, so long as you were too small to consider retaliating.

  Johnny wasn’t too small.

  “Hey,” he said, stalking toward Freddie. The minced gravel crunched underfoot like the teeth Johnny planned to knock out, the bones he planned to break. The scents of dirt and sweat invaded his nose. His hands shook with adrenaline, his heart raced, his eyes felt like they were bulging. The sixth-graders quickly formed a loose circle around the expected seventh-grade combatants. “You hurt Ricky.”

  “So?” Freddie said.

  Johnny feinted forward. Freddie stepped back. He dropped the kickball to bring up his fists. The ball bounced and rolled away.

  “Just being fat don’t make you tough,” Johnny said.

  The other children snickered.

  Freddie’s hands fell. His wet lips quivered. He stood there with his arms at his sides and his head low. Barnes took two steps and shoved him. The bully fell and whumped the ground. He flailed like a turtle on its back.

  The circle of snickers rose into laughter.

  Johnny knelt beside Cohen and moved his face within inches of the bully’s own. He smelled like Jolly Ranchers. Johnny gripped the kid’s chin with one hand, squishing his cheeks and pushing out his lips. Cohen stopped squirming. His nostrils flared, his brow was wet. His frightened eyes were sunken deep and peering out from puffy slits.

  “Touch him again,” Barnes said, “and I’ll really hurt you.”

  Cohen stared up at him, his buried eyes pleading.

  “Got it?”

  Freddie nodded.

  Now sheltered from the rain beneath his front porch awning, and with Freddie Cohen’s simple letter in his hand, Barnes found he felt sorry for the overweight kid. He recalled their ten-year high school reunion when Freddie played big shot throughout the evening, buying everyone drinks and practically gorilla-slapping his chest as he brayed about his successes. Barnes had slipped out the back door, convincing himself he was sparing Freddie another altercation, but the truth was that he’d felt sorry for him then, too. He’d relived that so-called fight many times throughout his school days and in the years afterward, never able to admit he felt guilty over it. In the presence of others he’d reveled in the fact that he was able to drop that witty comment at just the right time, not twenty minutes later. He’d reveled in taking the bully down a peg and standing up for his kid brother. The story was told in the school hallways, at recess, at lunchtime. There were always high fives to be slapped, shoulders to be punched, and more laughter at Freddie Cohen’s expense.

  But there were no high fives from Ricky, no shoulder punches, no laughter. He’d heard word of his big brother’s deed, and his only response had been, “Thanks for not hurting him.”

  The brothers were in the woods beyond their trailer park home when Ricky spoke those words. It was the following afternoon, the same Saturday when Ricky died. They were walking along the banks of the Rouge River, heading out toward their tree fort with an eight-foot two-by-four between them, the board snagged from that construction site on Middlebelt where all the new condos were going up. The plan had been to cut it into sections and make steps to replace the rope that took them up to their fort.

  They stopped when they came across a coin purse lying on top of the leaves. It was a black rubber thing with a Batman logo on the outside, the kind of purse you squeezed and the mouth gasped open.

  The boys exchanged a glance and dropped the two-by-four, their saw, their hammer and nails. Johnny picked up the purse and squeezed it open. Six quarters inside. That worked out to three games of Mania Challenge—mano a mano, Dynamite Ricky versus Hurricane John—on the cabinet at the gas station just the other side of the tracks at Calvary Junction.

  “I’ve seen that before,” Ricky said. “I think it’s—”

  “Who cares?” Johnny said. “Finders keepers, right?”

  Ricky shrugged, palms up.

  The boys sprinted out of the woods. They came to the back patio breathing hard. John snatched up his BMX, but Ricky hesitated. His bike chain was badly rusted. Dad had bought them new chains earlier that week and John had already switched his out, but Ricky hadn’t.

  “Come on, Johnny,” Ricky said. He gestured toward his orange-and-brown chain. The thing looked as brittle as candy. “Help me.”

  Barnes mentally slammed a door on the memory of his brother’s death. He’d made peace with it long ago and refused to let the seed regrow. Still, the damn thing tried to sprout its way around his mental barrier. The memory was like living vines slithering beneath a door and over the t
hreshold, fingering through the cracks, pushing through the keyhole. In his mind Barnes shouldered the door to keep it closed. He stomped the vines on the floor, punched at those probing their way through the cracks and holes.

  The sound of shattering glass grabbed Barnes’s attention. He looked through the screen door to see Jessica in the kitchen, her hands over her mouth, the broken remains of a glass bowl at her feet. Barnes went into the house.

  “You okay?” he said.

  She pulled her hands away from her face. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She showed him defensive palms. “I’m fine.”

  “Let me help you,” Barnes said. He bent down to pick up some shards. The mess was complete with steaming spaghetti noodles and marinara sauce.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Just go upstairs and clean up. I’ll make something else.”

  “We’ll order a pizza,” Barnes said.

  Richie’s voice came from upstairs. “Yeah! Pizza!”

  Barnes smiled.

  Jessica said, “Just go.”

  “Hey now,” Barnes said. He reached out to her, but she drew back.

  “Just. Go.”

  “Okay.”

  Barnes started up the steps to the sound of pattering feet above—Richie making a break for his bedroom. By the time Barnes reached the top step, the only sound was Jessica’s sobbing between clinks of glass dropping into the trash.

  Richie’s door was open a crack. Barnes lightly rapped on it, opened it. “What’s up, Dynamite?”

  The boy was lying prone on his bed, face smashed into the pillow he’d scrunched up beneath his chest. The room was neater than young Johnny and Ricky had ever kept theirs. Everything was in its place and situated just so. Barnes resisted the urge to knock a few dolls off a shelf and say, “Live a little, kid.” One doll in particular stood out, the iconic Eddie Able figure Barnes had bought the boy for his birthday last month. Eddie was a freckle-faced, towheaded cherub dressed in whatever career he was able to do. Your choice—a policeman, doctor, carpenter, whatever. Pull his string and he spoke, his mouth moved, his head turned, his eyes blinked. I’m Eddie, and I’m able! I love you! Barnes had chosen a fireman’s getup for Eddie, including the red hat and suspenders, yellow jacket, and yellow boots. It was precisely the same version Ricky had gotten when he’d turned five some thirty years ago.

  But Barnes’s son had frowned when he unwrapped the gift. He’d looked at it, confused. It was the same with the Batman backpack he’d opened only moments before.

  Jessica gave Barnes a sidelong glance.

  “What?”

  “Thank your father for the gift,” Jessica told Richie.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Eddie Able was quickly supplanted by the refurbished iPad mini she’d gotten the boy, and the doll was left to collect dust on a shelf above the toys Richie actually played with. Based on the less-than-enthusiastic response, Barnes canceled the surprise visit from a real live Eddie Able for Richie’s party that weekend, some guy in a fiberglass head and clown-size shoes. Barnes kissed off his $200 deposit.

  At least the kid used the backpack.

  “What’s wrong with Mom?” Richie said, his voice muffled by the pillow.

  “She’s okay,” Barnes said. He came over and sat at the foot of the bed. “Just having a tough time, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  Barnes sighed. He thought for a moment, then said, “Remember last month, when we lost Goldie?” There were two remaining goldfish in a tank downstairs. There had been three—Goldie, Whitey, and Bugs. Goldie went belly-up in July. The resulting backyard burial was fit for an Egyptian king. “Remember how sad we all felt?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Mom feels like that right now, I think.”

  Richie turned to Barnes, his eyes wide. “Did Whitey die?”

  “No.”

  “Bugs?”

  “No,” Barnes said. He smirked and tousled the kid’s long hair. “Nobody died. It’s just . . . sometimes mommies and daddies can feel sad, even if no one died, ya know?”

  Richie smashed his face back into the pillow. “No.”

  Amen to that. Jessica’s sudden turn in personality was as perplexing to Barnes as it was to Richie. The other morning she had awakened him by sliding over to his side of the bed wearing only a smile. Things got underway nicely, but she seemed to lose steam and after a few minutes gave up and slunk off into the shower. That afternoon he found her out in the backyard, down on her knees in the grass with her hands over her face. When he approached her to ask what was wrong, she jumped up in a rage, shoving him backward and slapping him all over. He tripped and fell over a plastic water table. She stood above him with dirty knees, fists clenched.

  “What the hell?” he’d said.

  She just turned and went back into the house with no explanation.

  What could he tell Richie?

  A strange, breathless voice emerged in Barnes’s mind. “Ask him. If he. Wants to play.”

  Barnes went rigid with fear. Blood drained from his face. He’d beaten the voices, hadn’t he? He hadn’t heard one in . . . Jesus, who knew how long? Yet here was this voice from within. And worse yet, he didn’t recognize it.

  “Shhh,” Barnes thought. It was the same way he’d quieted the voices in the past. He closed his eyes and fought off a shiver.

  “Dad, are you okay?” Richie said.

  “Yeah,” Barnes said. “I’m okay.” He took a beat and then opened his eyes. “Did you wash your hands for dinner?”

  “Are we getting pizza?”

  “Go wash up.”

  Barnes went downstairs to find that Jessica had cleaned up the kitchen, but she wasn’t there. He discovered her on the living room sofa. The lights were off. She was sitting in the dark, staring at the blank television.

  “I’ll order a pizza,” he said.

  “Use that voice speaker thing,” Jessica said. Only her lips had moved. Her eyes remained fixed on the dead screen.

  Barnes turned his eyes to the small black tower on the kitchen counter. Barnes got gooseflesh just looking at the speaker, never mind having a conversation with it—the robotic female voice was nearly the same as the one from the machine.

  “No thanks,” he said. He held up his smartphone. “I’ll go old school.” He called Ziti’s, placed an order for pickup, and disconnected the call. He slid his phone back into his pocket. Freddie Cohen’s envelope was in there. He pulled out the letter and read it once more.

  It’s about Ricky.

  Again, Barnes’s elbow pits went cold, his scalp tingled. He rubbed a hand through his hair.

  The machine. Just the thought of the device was anathema to Barnes. He recalled the prick of the needle entering his skin, the tubes and suction cups, the sterile feeling of the serum moving through his veins and entering his brain. The machine was invented to aid detectives in homicide investigations, to let them investigate the victim’s death firsthand. Sure. And Coca-Cola was invented to cure morphine addiction.

  Machine usage had spread like proverbial wildfire. First came recreation, then came punishment, then came baby in the mind-fuck carriage. Machine junkies—munkies—walked the streets like crackheads on the hunt for a rock roast. They weren’t themselves anymore but innocent people victimized by a virtual reality machine that, by the preexisting definition of the word, wasn’t technically virtual. It sure as hell wasn’t television. Nor was it a mask you put on so you could ride a computer-generated roller coaster or be tricked into thinking you’re bungee jumping. The sound wasn’t in stereo, the vision wasn’t HD. The fear you felt was real, the pain you absorbed was real, the death you experienced.

  The ax.

  The lingering push and pull had been the most difficult part of riding the machine. The aftereffect of other people’s memories fighting for time in Barnes’s mind. Ignoring them was akin to trying not to think about a purple dinosaur.

  And there it was.

  But he’d done it once before. He’d beaten the
voices and regained himself. He could do it again.

  Couldn’t he?

  He said, “Be right back,” and snatched up his jacket and keys as he headed for the door.

  3

  Barnes pulled into the alley behind Ziti’s Sub and Grub in Corktown. He killed the engine and rubbed his hands over his face. His heart beat to match the tempo of rain pounding the windshield. It was dusk now. A streetlamp at the corner zapped into life. Its hue made diamonds of the raindrops on the glass. Barnes pulled the keys out of the ignition. His hands shook so badly the keys jingled on the way to his pocket. He hopped out of the pickup truck and closed the door behind him.

  The rain’s humidity gave weight to the grease-trap stench of the alley. A nearby dumpster was a rusted skeleton of its former glory, the dual lids long since missing. Black and white garbage bags peeked out from the shadowy depths, sleek with rain, bloated and overrun with rat-size holes. The cinder-block wall along the back of the alley separated the restaurant from a field of weeds as thick as saplings, the field in which Andrew Kemp’s body had been found. The teenager who, through the latter’s use of the machine, took over Antonio Reyes’s mind and turned him into the infamous Detroit serial killer, Calavera. Reyes, or Kemp, whichever you preferred, was currently at the Bracken Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane. Last Barnes knew, Calavera was reliving each of his victim’s deaths weekly on the machine. Reliving Barnes’s near-death, too. They’d recorded the three days leading up to Calavera’s capture at that boxcar in Whitehall Forest, recorded every moment of Barnes’s physical pain and mental misery, including the bullets blasting holes in his body, so the pain could be transferred back to the man who originally doled it out.

  Barnes touched the scar above his heart, felt the tickle and sting. Same with his right shoulder and left knee. The scars metaphysically burned, seeming to recall the salt Barnes had poured into them while they were still open wounds. He grinned to imagine the agony Calavera had endured on the machine. It might be outlawed for use outside of prison walls and psych wards—save for the ill who qualified for med cards—but on the inside the machine still doled out plenty of punishment. Not just physical pain, and not just torture, but as Barnes knew all too well—the voices. Even his own voice would be in Calavera’s mind, tormenting the killer from within.