New Orleans is one of the easiest cities in the world in which to get—and stay—lost. Another reason to call it the Big Easy. There are lots of reasons though. Easy to get anything in Nawlins. Lost, especially.
The safe house in Slidell will be Carlos’s next stop. Nearly on the other side of Pontchartrain, and hidden well enough in a nondescript lower-middle-class neighborhood blocks from the highway. But he’s committed to stay here until the deadline passes. The deadline that will show him whether or not things are actually worse than he’s feared. If both Patrick and Paula don’t show, that means one of two things. Either they haven’t been able to shake their tails...
... or worse. They could be dead.
Or, maybe one of them is the traitor. That would be a third thing. Even worse than the other two.
God, don’t let it be that.
He hikes up his party dress and checks the holster that holds the small black semi-automatic .38. Seven shots. He better not need ’em. Slid into a leather pocket on the side of the holster is a silencer. He takes a swig of the rum and wipes some lipstick off the glass with a gloved hand.
He’s the only one who knows the location of the safe house in Slidell. If Paula or Patrick are late, they’ll have to go to ground until he hides the new plan in plain sight on the Internet.
Who knows what’s happened to Doc and the boy, Carlos thinks. He hasn’t heard from them in weeks, and if they’ve been captured or killed, most likely he wouldn’t hear about it at all. He dials again, punching in the autodial code that will ring the doc’s next burner phone.
No answer.
The absence of any news at all has been telling. The silence, deafening. No strange explosions in out-of-the-way places. No city streets becoming war zones, explained away as industrial or chemical disasters. No nationwide manhunts using concocted stories to draw the populace into searching for a mysterious Dr. Alexander and his robotic friend.
No news is good news.
Still, there have been rumors. Some hints of black boats and Coast Guard vessels searching ships and fishing boats in the gulf, but nothing big. No cryptic messages from the other BDD assets who are busy scouring every bit of chatter they can find, looking for anything peculiar.
Maybe they’re still out there. Hiding and waiting for me to help them.
Carlos straightens his dress and glances at his watch. It’s almost ten, and that means the deadline is about to pass. He grabs the backpack and throws it over his shoulder. Steps back into his pumps.
There’s a knock at the door.
Three sharp taps, a pause, and then four more.
Carlos waits. Sets the pack down behind the door.
Again, three sharp taps, but this time there are only two more after that.
Carlos reaches down for the pistol with his right hand and moves to open the door with his left. He thumbs off the safety, cocks the pistol, and places the barrel, head high, against the door. Then he pulls open the door slowly.
It’s Patrick, alone. His eyes meet Carlos’s momentarily before his head drops and he brushes by Carlos and into the apartment.
Carlos puts the gun behind his back and decocks it, and when Patrick is sitting down on the settee, Carlos places the gun back in the holster without being seen.
* * *
“Small talk later. Tell me everything you know,” Carlos says as he walks to the counter. He points toward the rum. “Drink?”
“We don’t know much of anything,” Patrick says. “Hell yes on the rum.”
Carlos pours him a drink and walks over and hands it to him. Patrick’s hands shake as he takes the glass.
“You all right?” Carlos asks.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Drink’ll help.”
Patrick takes a sip and looks at Carlos as his boss sits daintily in a maroon Louis XVI chair.
“You look kind of hot,” Patrick says, trying to smile but not quite looking comfortable enough to pull it off.
Carlos smiles back, but his is more of an obligatory recognition of Patrick’s joking uneasiness. “Drink up.”
Patrick swallows about half the rum in his glass, then lowers it to his lap. His hands still have a slight tremor.
“The feds who raided the apartment missed me entirely,” Patrick says. “You know, I’d gone down to the car and was having a smoke behind a big van when they pulled up. Totally lucked out. I thought about trying to warn you, but they were in the building in seconds. So fast, man. I couldn’t believe it!”
Carlos shows no reaction. He just keeps his eyes locked on Patrick. “You didn’t fry the gear, but go on.” That was one thing that had bugged Carlos since Atlanta. Why hadn’t Patrick hit the button? It would’ve taken half a second. It had taken Carlos only slightly longer than that—a simple check of a flag in the network cloud, once he’d safely reached New Orleans—to confirm that it had never happened.
Patrick’s face flushes. “I screwed up. I froze. No excuse.”
“Go on.”
“So I walked to the nearest MARTA station and took a train to North Atlanta. Used an alternate ID and credit card to get a bus ticket, and I was gone. Like we planned.”
“We didn’t plan on leaving Paula holding the bag, Patrick, but we’ll get to that. Why haven’t you contacted me?” With an inconspicuous stretch of the neck, Carlos looks down at his phone, which is next to him on an antique end table. Just out of Patrick’s line of sight. An almost unnoticeable red square appears in one corner of the screen.
Damn.
Carlos sighs and looks back at Patrick. His mind goes cold as ice, and crystal clear.
Patrick glances down at his hands as he fidgets with the glass. He unconsciously spins a skull ring he wears on his index finger and taps it lightly against the glass.
“I was scared, man. And I thought they had you. Seriously. I thought that for a pretty long time.”
Carlos glances at the phone again. The red square is still there. He’s wearing a wire. Carlos shakes his head and bites his lip, trying not to give too much away.
“When did you find out they’d missed me?” Carlos asks.
“About a week ago.”
Carlos tilts his head. “And still you didn’t call.”
Patrick’s eyes rise, meeting Carlos’s cold glare. His lip quivers.
“I know. I know, Carlos. We’ve been through a lot of shit together, the two of us have. And I wanted to, really I did. But I was afraid. I knew they must have been on to you. Just knew it. I just freaked out, man. I have a family, you know?”
“I have a wife, too, Patrick,” Carlos says. “You remember Brenda?”
“Yeah,” Patrick says, and takes a sip of his rum. “How is she?”
“Well, I haven’t seen her in over a month,” Carlos says, looking Patrick directly in the eyes. “Because I’ve been waiting here for you and Paula.”
“Paula’s gone dark,” Patrick says. “Don’t know why. She’s not returning my calls.”
She’s probably figured you out, you son of a bitch!
Carlos glances at the phone again. Just to make certain. Patrick is definitely wearing a wire, but he doesn’t know that Carlos’s phone is jamming both the location and the audio transmissions. Not much time, though. Whoever’s out there will be coming.
“Another drink?” Carlos says as he stands and reaches for Patrick’s glass.
“Sure.”
Carlos crosses to the counter, and with his back to Patrick he pours them each another double. As he does, he reaches down, draws the pistol, and removes the silencer, which he slowly twists onto the barrel, making sure not to move his arms or shoulders too much.
Patrick could be watching.
It all makes sense now, Carlos says to himself.
And it does.
It all runs through Carlos’s mind like a filmstrip, clicking forward with each turn of the silencer.
Patrick was there when the first warehouse in Ohio was raided, back in the beginning when the doc was getting his new papers
and the plan was being implemented. Patrick was the guy who slipped up when hacking Social Security, and almost got us nabbed that day. Patrick was also there when the Atlanta condo was raided—and he conveniently stepped out just before the raid came down.
All the clues. Typical. It was all there.
Son of a bitch!
Carlos remembers telling Patrick about the doc and Frank heading down that Ohio highway in the Ford Excursion right before the getaway SUV was blown up by a freaking missile. Carlos sees it in his mind’s eye. Sees Patrick returning to his desk and immediately using his cell phone.
Patrick’s working with whoever’s trying to kill Doc and the kid.
Carlos glances over at the door. They’ll be coming through there any second now. Guns drawn. And they’ll have the back entrance covered as well. And from there they’ll take me... where? Wherever it is, I’ll never crawl out again. Some hole somewhere to be tortured, or Gitmo, or worse.
But there’s another exit they won’t know anything about.
He thinks back to Atlanta. The narrow escape through ancient halls...
God bless old cities!
Time to go. Carlos turns, extends his arm, and points the gun at Patrick, who sits back, visibly shocked.
“But—”
“But nothing.”
No time for talk. Carlos pulls the trigger twice, both shots hitting his friend in the head. Patrick is thrust backward, overturning the settee and sprawling onto the hardwood floor, blood pumping from his wounds and spilling from his mouth. He’s dead, surely enough, but his body writhes and his legs kick out in spasms. Real death doesn’t happen like it does in the movies. Almost never. Bodies usually don’t just stop moving instantly just because the man is dead. Death, in real life, is hard to watch.
Carlos walks forward, points the gun at the trembling head, and matches the gun’s motion with the movement of Patrick’s gyrations. There we go, like a pattern, or a song. And he pulls the trigger one more time, hitting the head just behind the right ear.
Better to make sure.
Grab the pack and hurry into the kitchen. Through the pantry there’s a door, way in the back, hidden behind some carpets and drop cloths that hang there specifically for that purpose. Unless you know it’s there, you’d never even suspect it. Through that door, a wrought iron spiral staircase. These buildings used to have servant quarters below, and Master didn’t want his help using the main doors.
Down the spiral stairs and into a narrow passageway. Another tunnel, only this time above ground, sandwiched between two buildings. The smell of flowers and piss and dried-up booze. Carlos unscrews the silencer and drops it down a drainpipe that was designed to remove water from the interior of the structure during floods. The silencer will bang down into an evacuation pipe. Even if someone finds it, it won’t do them any good. The gun and the holster go down the pipe too. Clean break.
Out the wrought iron gate covered in climbing vines and into a street overflowing with revelers, all dressed up and maybe they have somewhere to go. Maybe not. Carlos, dressed as a transvestite, fits right in.
CHAPTER 17
“How can these things be?”
It’s Mose Shetler asking, and I’ve just told him the story. The whole sordid, fantastical story of what Ben is and what I’ve done.
“How can a boy be a machine? How can a machine be a man?” Mose asks. He throws his hands into the air, then brings them down slowly, where they rest on the table. Palms down.
I just look at Mose and don’t answer. I’ve explained it all to him already. I’m hoping he’s asking rhetorically; I don’t know if I have the heart to go through it all again.
“This is the devil’s handiwork,” Mose says. The disgust in his voice is almost palpable.
“That may be true,” I say, “but so was Adam as he fell, and you believe we all come from him. And the fact is that the boy inside there—the boy in the robot suit—he’s an Amish boy who hasn’t done anything wrong. He was just born with a crooked body and nothing else. He didn’t ask for any of this. And he’s Amish, Mose! He’s Amish. Your people don’t desert your own, and I know that if you knew him... if you knew Frank before he was Ben... you’d see why I did what I did.”
Mose looks me in the eye. “I see what he is, Fred. Or whatever your name is.”
“Dr. Christopher Alexander.”
“I see what he is, Doc, and I have to tell you that this is not what should be done.” Mose was shaking now. “This thing should not be done!” His hands tremble and he is clenching his teeth. “Nobody should do this thing. Ever! It is for God to decide who lives and dies.”
“Yet you go see doctors,” I say, gently. “You ask me to heal your cows.”
“We don’t make monsters out of people,” Mose says. “This is not something that should be done. Even by you English.”
I stand up and put my hands into the pockets of my broadfall pants.
“What would you do to save your boys, Mose?”
“Not this!”
“How do you know?”
Mose chafes at the question, but he can’t answer it.
“He’s not a monster, Mr. Shetler. He’s an Amish boy who just wants to live a life in peace with his people.” I look back at Mose. “And that’s all he is.” I walk to the door. “The rest... well, the rest he can learn.”
I leave the kitchen and walk down the stairs. It’s growing dark, and I stroll to the barn where Ben has been hiding since the incident.
Immediately after he changed—after Mose saw him and we found out that John wasn’t injured—I went and got Ben a change of clothes. Now he sits on a hay bale in the loft, looking out the hay door at the moon.
I don’t want to disturb him. I hope he’s processing what happened, but Ben is not a normal man. Heck, he’s not even a normal eleven-year-old boy. He has that problem with empathy that’s part of his autism. And I don’t know if he understands everything that has happened, or if he even cares. So I just tell him to come on to the house when he’s ready, so we can eat.
As I turn to leave, Ben calls to me.
“Doc?”
I turn back and see that he’s still looking at the moon. “Yes?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Or scare anyone.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“Polly was going to hurt John. He... It could have been bad.”
“I know.”
Ben turns to me. He looks like a young man. Like an Amish young man who’s worried about other people. A young man who loves. Who cares.
“I wanted to save his life.”
“And you did, Ben,” I say. “I was there. I saw it.”
“Save his life,” Ben repeats as he turns back to the moon.
“I know.”
“I got Polly back in the pen,” he says. “And I told her I’m sorry I almost killed her.”
* * *
Mose meets me as I arrive on the porch of the dawdi haus. His hat is in his hand, and he struggles to look at me.
“Mose?” I say. “Is everything all right? Is John okay?”
“The boy is fine,” Mose says. “As fine as can be. He’s had a fright.”
“Good,” I say. “Well—I mean... good that he’s all right. I’m sorry that Ben frightened him.” I think for a second and add, “And Ben is sorry too.”
Mose steps up onto the porch, putting his hat back on his head. “I talked to John, and he says that Ben... that that thing... saved his life.”
“It’s Ben,” I say. “Just Ben. Not a thing. And he did, Mose. At least, most likely he did. We can’t really know, but John was down on the ground. Lying just where Polly was trampling as she moved backward, and... it wouldn’t have been good.”
I stop and take in the coming darkness and the peaceful atmosphere of an Amish homestead. So different from the cities I’ve known since my youth, and from the bars where I’d be drunk if I weren’t here. Even different from the countryside I knew as a boy. I take in the fragranc
e of the farm all around me. Fresh mown grass, the sweet incense of manure and fertile soil, newly painted fence, and an acrid hint of kerosene.
“Listen,” Mose says to me. “I’ve had time to think about it, and I’m glad Ben was there. I’m glad he had the strength to save John. Of course I am.” Mose hesitates, breathes deeply before continuing. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. We live by rules here. By the Ordnung. We have elders, and a bishop, whom we trust to help us and guide us in difficult situations.” Mose sits down on a small oak bench and sighs deeply before continuing. “If you say that Ben is safe, then maybe we can explain it. Maybe they’ll understand.”
“They won’t,” I say.
“That’s up to God.”
I sit next to Mose and push myself back. “I may have to take Ben and run... if it looks like he might be turned in to the authorities.”
“That’ll never happen,” Mose says. “We may need to ask you to leave, but we’ll never do that.”
“How can I be sure?”
Mose stands again to leave. “I’m not giving up on you. Or Ben either. Not right now. So you don’t give up on us.”
I stand too, awkwardly, but I don’t know what to say.
“We’ll meet with the elders,” Mose says, “and then we’ll leave it to God.”
My eyes meet Mose’s and register acceptance, but I don’t answer, and as Mose steps off the porch he adds, “And John wants to talk to Ben. Is it safe?”
“I believe it is.”
“Then, okay.”
* * *
The next morning, John, Ben, and I meet at the milking barn at the regular time. It seems that John and Ben have talked, and there is an uneasy peace in the morning air. The two friends work together to get the cows milked while I focus on Polly. And this time, I make sure she’s tied securely and that her head is in the stanchion as she feeds on sweet grains and oats, with just a little molasses stirred in for taste.
As we’re cleaning up and the boys are taking the cows back to pasture, and Polly back to her pen, Mose enters the barn. He sees that I’m alone, and I can tell that he wants to talk.
“How is our Polly?”
I place the sterile pail upside down on a cloth on the workbench, and Mose walks over to stand with me. “She’s doing great. She should be back with the others in three or four more days. She could probably go tomorrow, but we’ll keep her back a few days and keep an eye on her.”
Brother, Frank Page 17