“No,” Barnes said.
Verbatim cracked a smile.
Barnes didn’t smile back.
“Okay,” Verbatim said. “You know how, like, when you crumple up a piece of paper, no matter what you do after that, I mean, even if you flatten it and take an iron to it or something, it can’t ever be the same again?”
Barnes nodded.
“That’s what it’s like when you put someone else’s memories inside your head, only the piece of paper is your brain. This stuff here”—he held out the bottle—“won’t leave so many crinkles.”
“How do you know this?”
“It’s just chemistry,” Verbatim said.
“How much?”
“Two hundred.”
Barnes handed him the money.
“Are you looking to be,” Verbatim said, handing Barnes the bottle, “or not to be?”
“Come again?” Barnes said.
“Be someone else,” Verbatim added, “or just not be you?”
“What’s the difference?”
Verbatim looked off. His knee rocketed up and down. “Did you smell the ammonia in the hallway?”
“Yes.”
“Couple hours ago a crackhead a few doors down poured ammonia all over her baby’s face. They say the kid will be blind if he lives at all. Just two months old.”
“Jesus.”
“She said the kid was crying for no reason, but that’s bullshit. He was probably hungry, and she was trying to sleep off the dope. Out of her mind. Too lazy to feed him, so she doused him with ammonia. Hear that music from 34? That’s her boyfriend in there. After the cops took her away, he cranked up the volume. A guy like that is looking not to be, know what I mean?”
“Then I guess I’m looking to be,” Barnes said.
The door to the bedroom burst open, startling Barnes. He reached toward the .45 inside his jacket but stopped short. There was a .38 Special in his face. The gun shook wildly in Josh’s hand.
Barnes showed open palms.
Verbatim rolled his eyes. “What are you doing, Dad?”
“Sandy says he’s a cop,” Josh said, eyes wild.
“I know he’s a cop,” Verbatim said. He gave Barnes a sidelong glance. “Everyone in this building knows he’s a cop. But he’s a munky, too. No offense.”
“None taken,” Barnes said, “but I’m not a cop anymore.”
“Shut up,” Josh said. “Sandy says you’re the cop who—”
“Yeah,” Barnes said, cutting him off. “I’m the cop who caught Calavera.”
“He’s a fucking hero, okay?” Verbatim said. “Quit screwing around.”
“Your wallet,” Josh said. “Hand it over.”
Barnes sighed. He looked past the barrel, past Josh’s hands, and past the track marks on the man’s arms to find his eyes. “I got about a hundred bucks, but I won’t give it to you, so you’re going to have to shoot me.”
“I will,” Josh said, cocking back the hammer on his revolver.
“Likely no one will hear the sound,” Barnes said, “particularly considering the music in 34. And even if they do hear, they probably won’t care.”
“That’s right,” Josh said, “now hand it over.”
“Do you have a decent mop?”
“What?” Josh said.
Verbatim smiled.
“Shooting me,” Barns said, “puts my brains all over the walls and drops my body right here on the floor. That means cleanup. From the looks of the place I’m guessing you don’t have a good mop, which’ll run you about twenty bucks. Plus, you’ll need a bucket, which is another fifteen, and then legitimate cleaning supplies, which’ll be another ten to twenty depending on the stains. Already that’s what, forty-five, fifty bucks? And unless you’re planning on rolling me up in a rug you don’t have, you’re going to need to chop up my body and put me in heavy-duty garbage bags, which’ll be another ten for the bags and maybe thirty for the cleaver. You gotta get a sharp one, or you’ll be at me all day. You’ll need towels, too. A lot of them. Probably twenty bucks’ worth. All totaled, we’re talking at least the hundred bucks you shot me for, maybe more, just to get my rotting body out of this shithole unit.”
Verbatim bit the back of his hand to stem the laughter.
“The fuck you talking about?” Josh said.
Barnes sighed. He pretended to do sign language with one of his upturned hands while he said, “Killing me isn’t worth the money.”
Verbatim burst out laughing.
Josh turned the gun on his son. “Why are you laughing?”
In a flash Barnes snatched away Josh’s gun and had the poor sap in a wristlock, down on his knees. Barnes slipped the .38 into the back of his waist, beneath his jacket.
“Hey, man,” Josh said, wincing in pain from the wristlock, “I wasn’t really gonna—”
Barnes cranked his wrist.
“Ow! Come on. That hurts.”
Barnes produced his .45. He placed it firmly against Josh’s forehead. The addict’s eyes crossed as he looked at the barrel.
“Look at me,” Barnes said.
Josh looked at him.
“You know those little fish,” Barnes said, “that attach themselves to sharks?”
“Remoras,” Verbatim said from behind.
“That’s right,” Barnes said. “Your son’s a smart kid, Josh. You should listen to him more often.” He increased the pressure of the wristlock. “Ask me why.”
“Why?” Josh said through gritted teeth.
“Because he’s the shark in this little family, and you’re a remora. Understand?”
Josh closed his eyes and nodded, forehead still against the gun barrel.
Barnes released the man’s wrist and holstered his gun. “Stay here a minute,” he said. “Verbatim. Come with me.” He walked down the hallway toward the front door of the unit. The woman on the couch hadn’t moved. He walked out into the building’s hallway and held the door open behind him.
Verbatim appeared in the open doorway.
“What’s your real name, kid?”
“Robbie,” Verbatim said, “or Robert, I guess, but people call me Ver—”
Barnes shook his head.
The kid smirked and looked down.
Barnes held up the bottle of serum. “How do I know it’ll work, Robert?”
The kid looked up and held Barnes’s gaze. “I guarantee it. Why did you lie?”
Barnes shook his head. “I didn’t—”
“Yes you did,” Verbatim said. “You’re a cop. Why’d you say you weren’t?”
“I’m not.”
“But you’re trying to find Little Cher, aren’t you?”
Barnes gave the kid his dad’s .38. “Keep it away from him. He’ll just shoot his dick off.”
14
The machine was still in the motel room at the Fleabag, inside that hollowed-out television, still plugged in. The LED light pulsed. Barnes connected the serum bottle, picked up the suction cups, and set them on the bed. He disconnected the needle and took it into the bathroom along with his fifth of Jack Daniel’s. He cleansed the steel with the alcohol, careful not to prick his fingertips. When it was done he drank from the bottle.
“Eddie Doe One.” The familiar voice.
“Shhh. I know.”
He went back to the machine, attached the needle, and pulled out the keyboard tray. He typed “EddieDoeOne” into the machine’s search field. One file returned from the Echo Ring.
Barnes closed his eyes. For a moment he just sat still, savoring the darkness, the silence. When they were first dating, Jessica, who was teaching fourth grade, told him she’d sometimes stand outside the classroom door with her eyes closed before going in. She’d just savor that moment of quiet. “It’s the only peace I get for the rest of the day,” she’d say. And then her face would come alive with that heartbreaking smile. The smile she was now sharing with Dr. Hill.
Barnes picked up the needle. He found an empty spot between the colorful Ban
d-Aids and tapped his vein. He applied the suction cups to his temples and bit down on the spine of the Gideon Bible. He pressed “Enter,” twisted the knob from “Idle” to “Transmit,” closed his eyes, and lay back on the bed.
Click.
Hiss.
His body arched.
The Vitruvian Man test pattern.
Please Stand By.
“Prepare for transmission.”
On a pixelated video screen the Insane Warrior pounded Dynamite Tommy over the back with his forearm. He then threw Tommy off the ropes, clotheslined him, and pinned him.
Michael Doe was playing the wrestling arcade game Mania Challenge but was no good. The match was over. The machine had won.
Michael stepped away from the cabinet and Barnes looked around at a room full of toys and games. The smell of new carpet. Arcade cabinets lined the near wall, pinballs along the far wall, a ping-pong table in the center of the room. Dollhouses were stacked in a corner flanked by action figures all over the floor. A steel door across from the arcade cabinets sealed the room. It was dead-bolted.
Michael walked across the space and plopped down into a red beanbag chair. He picked up two He-Man action figures—Mer-Man and Skeletor—and began pitting them against each other in a fight. One of Mer-Man’s interchangeable arms was the wrong color. Orange, so it must have come from Beast Man. The shoulder socket was loose from too many switches and it popped off while Barnes played with it. His wrists hurt from where Michael had been handcuffed. He pulled back his shirtsleeve to reveal red raw skin, threw down the action figures, and folded his arms over his chest.
A sound brought Michael to his feet. He turned toward the door and watched the keyhole spin as the dead bolt was unlocked. Barnes stepped backward, away from the door, until he bumped up against a pinball machine. A man entered the room. The same man who had picked Michael up in his fake police car, posing as an officer, telling him his parents needed him to come home. Michael jammed his hands into his armpits.
The man held the door open and stepped aside.
A large-as-life Eddie Able with a fiberglass head leaped into the room and threw his white-gloved hands to his hips. He was dressed as a doctor, complete with stethoscope and white coat. His eyes were big and blacked out. He had the trademark blond hair in a permanent curl, button nose, and a dimpled chin.
Michael began to shake.
Eddie pumped something in his left hand. Something clicked inside the glove. When he stopped, a recorded childlike voice from within the head said, “I’m Eddie, and I’m able!”
Barnes’s bladder felt tickly, his throat dry.
The figure pumped its left hand again.
“Let’s play!”
Eddie moved like a mime. He gestured theatrically toward the arcade cabinets and then toward the pinballs, the action figures, and the board games on the shelves, offering Michael his choices.
Michael said, “I want to go home.”
The figure stood up straight. It pumped its left hand again. The recorded voice said, “Being friends is twice as nice!” Eddie once again gestured around the room, repeating Michael’s choices.
Barnes reluctantly pointed to Mania Challenge.
Eddie rapidly pumped his left fist. When he stopped, the recorded voice sounded off, “Yippee!” Eddie clapped his thick gloves together before his fiberglass visage. He gestured with a big wave for Michael to come over.
Michael made his way to the arcade cabinet.
Eddie performed a bow and offered Michael the first player side of the game. Barnes obliged and Eddie, towering over young Michael, took the second player side.
Dynamite Tommy versus Hurricane Joe.
The match started, and Eddie Able proved to be as inexperienced as Michael. Barnes felt frustrated to play a match with such little strategy. Punches were missed, headlocks were overturned, clotheslines whiffed, and spin kicks were off by a mile. His mental reactions were quicker and more advanced than Michael’s unchangeable physical responses.
Luckily, Eddie Able was just plain horrible.
Eventually, Michael, as Dynamite Tommy, pinned Hurricane Joe.
Eddie pumped his left hand several times. When the clicking stopped, the tinny voice within the head said, “I’m sad.” He rubbed his thick white fists at the corners of his eyes to mimic crying.
Michael said, “Please, can I go home now?”
Eddie shook his big head no. He leaned in close to Michael and put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.” He gestured again to Mania Challenge, asking for a rematch.
Michael shook his head.
Eddie pumped his hand a few times and then stopped. The voice said, “Let’s play!” He gestured toward the board game shelves.
Michael nodded.
As they turned away from the game, Barnes noted that Tyrell Diggs had stationed himself on a stool near the bolted door. The man’s eyes were half-open. His body sagged. Exhausted. Had Michael not kicked and beaten the door for the first half hour of being in the room, he might not have noticed that the keyhole on this side of the dead bolt was still turned perpendicular to the floor.
Unlocked.
Michael ran to the board game shelves and pulled out Connect Four. He showed the box to Eddie. Eddie rapidly clapped his hands for a second and then began pumping his fist. Barnes started toward the gaming table with Connect Four. When Eddie’s clicking stopped, the recorded voice said, “Mommy doesn’t love you anymore, but I do!”
Michael stopped.
Eddie performed a finger snap, as if to say darn it, and started pumping again. This time, when the clicking stopped, the voice said, “I’m Eddie, and I’m able!”
Michael situated the vertical board game on a small table. He set it up so he would be looking over Eddie’s shoulder at Tyrell Diggs while they played.
The game began. Michael dropped a yellow token into the center slot.
With his thick white gloves, Eddie struggled to pick up a red token from the table. Once he got one, he moved the token toward the game, but it fell before he could slot it. The token bounced off the table and onto the floor, where it rolled toward the pinball machines.
“Goddammit,” Eddie said, pounding the table and using his real voice, not a recording. He sounded like a hissing snake.
Tyrell’s eyes opened at the noise. He looked around sleepily.
“I’ll get it,” Michael said. He hopped up and ran across the room, found the token under a pinball machine. He brought it back and handed it to Eddie. “See? It’s okay.”
Eddie pumped his left fist a few times. When he stopped, the tinny voice said, “I love you!”
Barnes sat down at the game.
Eddie played his token, blocking Michael’s lateral move along the bottom row.
Michael dropped a token.
Eddie, now challenged to pick up another token, held up a finger in the triumph of a great idea. He placed the thick finger on a token and slid it across the table until it dropped into his opposite hand. He held both hands high, like a boxer who’d just won a fight.
“Smart,” Michael said.
Eddie fingered his fiberglass temple and nodded.
Michael looked past him to see that Tyrell Diggs’s eyes had once again fallen closed.
Eddie slotted his token, blocking Michael’s move again.
Michael picked up a token and said, “Watch this.” He placed the token on the table like a football on a tee. He then flicked the token across the room. It landed near the pinball machines and rolled under.
Eddie mimicked laughter by throwing both hands over his fiberglass smile and tittering about.
“I’ll get it,” Michael said. He hopped up and moved across the room, quickly but quietly. He crawled under the pinballs to search for the object. As Barnes moved beneath the machines, he heard a light bump from behind, something thumping down on the indoor/outdoor carpet.
Michael spotted his token, deep beneath the shadows of the pinballs. He belly-crawled toward it. From behind he
heard a faint noise: cli-cli-cli-cli-click.
Michael wrapped his fingers around the token. When he picked it up, he also got something else, something the token had been covering. He sat up and separated the two items, examined the new one. A tooth. It was covered by a single brace and a little twist of wire that’d been snapped off.
The clicking sound stopped, followed by a creak from a poorly oiled hinge.
Michael came out from beneath the pinball machines with the token and the tooth. Eddie was standing over him, a pistol in his right hand, now gloveless.
White male, Barnes thought.
The safe on the wall was open, the discarded puffy white glove resting halfway inside. Eddie’s chair was tipped over, the cause of the thumping sound Michael had heard. Tyrell Diggs murmured, half-asleep.
Eddie pumped his still-gloved left hand. No other part of him moved. When the clicking stopped, the recorded voice said, “Eddie doesn’t like tricks.”
Michael held out the token. “I found it.”
The huge fiberglass head tilted to one side, curious. Eddie pumped his hand. “Being friends is twice as nice!”
“Yeah,” Michael said.
Eddie pumped again, once. “Being friends is twice as nice!”
Michael nodded, still holding out the token. “Twice as nice.” His opposite hand shook so badly that he dropped the tooth. It fell to the carpet.
Eddie looked down. For a moment the figure just stared at the tooth, gun in hand, but then it began pumping, pumping, pumping its opposite hand. Just when it seemed like the clicking would never stop, it did. Eddie brought the gun up and pointed it at Michael’s face as the voice from within the fiberglass head said, “Wouldn’t it be bliss if you never got old, like me?”
Barnes continued to hold out the token, his body rigid with fear. He smelled gun oil and burnt powder.
Eddie turned his big head to look at the token. He reached out tentatively with his white-gloved hand.
Michael dropped the token.
It rolled across the carpet.
Eddie followed the token’s path with his pitch-black eyes.
Michael ducked beneath the gun and punched Eddie Able in the crotch.
The figure made a huff sound and dropped to its knees.
Michael ran for the door.
Machine City: A Thriller (Detective Barnes Book 2) Page 12