by Josh Cook
Mrs. Geyer opened her mouth to respond but Horn-Rims continued before she could.
“Mrs. Geyer, I don’t want Frank to go to prison. Everything points to a good kid who made a mistake that just happened to be next to a big-ass set of stairs. He’d done the same stupid thing five feet in the other direction and I’m not here talking to you. But he suffered a major emotional trauma and needs help. Bringing him in will be the best way to get him that help.”
“What proof do you have that any of this nonsense is true?”
“Frank’s fingerprints were found on the inside of the emergency exit door. Blood was found in the stairwell. Mrs. Geyer, I want to help Frank. But I am a police officer. I need to bring the criminal to justice first. I could certainly just arrest him and bring him to the station for questioning. And he would talk. You know he would talk. He would talk in the car on the way to the station.
“However, if you, your husband, and Frank come down to the station and Frank confesses, I will ensure that his sentence consists of mandated therapy, probation, and house arrest. I’ll even forget about your obstruction of justice.”
“Cops make those promises all the time, detective. Those are not promises cops can keep.”
“Well, Mrs. Geyer, I can keep those promises.”
“Oh, really? And why is that, detective?”
“Mrs. Geyer, I am the one and only Horn-Rims. I keep my promises.”
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BARRY ROCHECHOUART
Forty-seven fucking minutes. Max sat in his car and Trike sat in Lola’s car. In the parking lot of the John Wilson Murray Memorial Armory for forty-seven minutes. The fire trucks blocked three of the four exits. Once they moved, it was gasoline-powered Lord of the Flies.
There was a line at the wings joint too, just to top it off.
Fucking finally at the office, they took off their coats and Trike made a quick call on his cell while Max checked the agency’s phone and e-mail for new messages. Trike unlocked all his desk drawers. He unpacked the takeout on it, putting an order of fries under it. Max sat down in a client chair. They ate without speaking for seven minutes.
Abruptly, Trike stood up and walked to the window. He stood there, hands in his pockets, looking out. While looking out he said, “What if something happens, Max?”
“Something always happens, boss,” Max said through a wing.
“What if she gets hurt?”
“Jogging. Riding the bus. Driving. Life is constant … risk of harm.”
“This is different, Max.”
“This is, boss.”
Trike returned to his desk.
“Give me a cold case, Max,” he said.
“A cold case, boss?”
“A cold case, Max. Something unsolved from that American Old Bailey you carry around above your shoulders.”
“Preferred … genre, boss?” Max asked.
Trike shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “I need to keep my mind completely clear of assumptions and preemptive conclusions to be perfectly open to whatever message Joyce tells us, however he tells us, and, given the situation, The Joyce Case neurons won’t stop assuming and preemptively concluding. Anything that’ll occupy some neurons would be crackerjack.”
Max finished a wing. Used two napkins to wipe his fingers clean. Adjusted himself in his chair. Took a moment to find an effective unsolved case.
Everything Trike did not say to Lola, every gift he did not give her, every time he did not see her, was preserved, perfectly, with everything else in his brain. Nearly all of those nots were correct, and Lola was somewhere, in some state.
“All right, boss. I’ll give you the basics and we’ll go from there. If you don’t like the basics, I’ll find … an alternative.”
“Basics away, Maximize.”
Max cracked his fingers, cleared his throat, and gave Trike the basics. “In the late seventies, a struggling art gallery owner named Barry Rochechouart got together with a highly technical but visionless painter and two other friends in the art world to create the artist Cashel Fitzmaurice, a self-taught son of a dock worker—”
“An Irish dockworker, no less,” Trike said.
“Rochechouart designed the paintings, the highly technical painter painted them, and then Rochechouart and the other two touched up the paintings with errors someone self-taught might make. Throw in a year and a half of hype, a backstory involving a physically abusive alcoholic father—”
“They made the Irish dockworker an abusive alcoholic?” Trike asked.
Max shrugged. “Times were … different. When the fraud was exposed, that fact became a … sticking point.”
“Good.”
“But before the fraud was exposed, everyone in the art world was talking about the troubled, talented, and mysterious Cashel Fitzmaurice. But people want mysteries solved, and Fitzmaurice’s was. But the cold case comes after the fraud was exposed.”
“And here begins the part of the story Max believes will be of particular interest to one Trike Augustine.”
“That’s the plan, boss. Now, after the exposure of the … creative identity, the Cashel Fitzmaurice paintings … drifted. Some original owners kept them, others gave them away, some were confiscated for evidence, and others were just … lost. And then, after anger over the deception had cooled for a decade, the paintings were seen not just as public extensions of a particular identity, but as works of art. Even though they knew each painting was a dishonest collaboration, or because they knew that, collectors, critics, and other appraisers decided that the paintings, as collaborations, were actually pretty darn good. Then pretty darn valuable.”
“And with value comes crime,” Trike color-commented.
“Three different new collectors found themselves with a painting called ‘Intractable and Irresistible.’ Only one was listed in the original catalog.”
“Fuck yeah!” Trike exclaimed.
Max held up a wait-there’s-more finger. “The copies are identical except for one detail. The painting includes an incorrect proof of a famous unsolved math problem, and each painting has a different error.”
“Oh, fuck the duck truck, yes. That is delicious. You, Max, are a fucking champion.”
“I do my best, boss.”
“Load me up with whatever you can print off the Internet, especially about the life and times of Barry Rochechouart and the unsolved math problem.”
“What about … wings?” Max asked.
“I’ll wings while you print, you wings while I brain.”
“But—”
“It is the only way, Max. My intriguer is erect. It pulsates with impatience,” Trike demanded.
“Your sense of punishment is … swift and precise, boss,” Max said with grudging admiration, heading to his computer to produce the printouts.
It took him twenty-three minutes of searching and printing to get Trike started, including color printouts, which they absolutely could not afford, of the painting’s three iterations.
Trike spent thirty-two minutes reading the printouts and processing the data, after which he leaped to standing behind his desk and began talking through his reasoning.
“I am tantalized by the possibility that all three paintings, the original and the two fraudulent copies, were physically painted by the same person, but, though that fact may become relevant, it will not help identify the original. The first question, and what might be the most difficult of the cascade of questions this cold case represents, is: Who made the authentic fabricated error? It could be the painter, Rochechouart, in his design of the painting, or either of the other two tasked with adding calculated imperfections.”
Trike gestured as though about to escape from behind his desk, but froze in that posture. “And so we must begin by forgetting completely the existing errors and reconstruct, as much as possible, the errors each potential error-inserter would make. Given that the error, in and of itself, has nothing to do with the artistic technique of the painting, I believe it is safest
to assume, at this point in the process, that Rochechouart is its source. We have to assume Rochechouart understood that whatever was offered in the painting as a solution to the Riemann Hypothesis would be incorrect, and so, once enough of the intractable problem was included to make it identifiable, he had the freedom to be intentional and the freedom to be random.”
Again, Trike jolted as though beginning to pace his office, and again, he froze in the preemptive posture. “So, while we wait, Max, I’m going to need a lot more about the Riemann Hypothesis and even more about Rochechouart, especially the nature of his mathematical education, both formal and informal. After that, I’ll need to examine as many of the Cashel Fitzmaurice paintings as—”
Trike stopped when he heard the door to the outer office open. Someone walked lightly across the room.
AND THE LADY DREW A GUN
The kidnappers propped Lola up in the middle backseat of the car and blindfolded her. Poorly. Two thugs scrunched in beside her. One bound her wrists. Poorly. The car drove out the back alley and turned away from the armory to avoid notice by those evacuating the building. At least the kidnappers did that right.
Lola realized she’d acted herself into a puzzle. She knew the ether or chloroform on the rag bit didn’t really work, but in the moment, Hollywood’s images reached her brain before reality’s facts. Chloroform was just as likely to kill you as it was to knock you out, and the point of ether was docility, not unconsciousness.
Since they weren’t driving at emergency-room pace, they either meant ether or didn’t know a damn thing about chloroform. And if they meant ether they either knew she was faking or didn’t know a damn thing about ether.
The evidence indicated that they made the same mistake in planning that Lola had made in haste; they kidnapped her the way it happened in movies. The movie meant she should struggle to groggy consciousness.
Lola made waking-up noises.
“Now just relax, Lola,” a reedy tenor voice said from the front passenger seat. “We’re going for a little drive. If you’re a good girl and don’t try anything funny, no one will get hurt. If, however, you decide to misbehave, I cannot in good conscience assure you blood will not be spilled. We just need to get a message to that insensitive, sociopathic, over-intelligent, autodidactic, lovesick little puppy nipping at your heels. So behave. And relax.”
Lola did not react. It was the plan.
The car seemed to take every offered turn, meaning, though the ride lasted a least an hour, they could not be far from the armory. They were still downtown somewhere. But that only narrowed the location field slightly. There were plenty of places a group their size could enter and remain unnoticed.
When the car stopped, the reedy-voiced man said, “Take her out, pick her up, and spin her around. We don’t want to take any chances.”
The backseat doors opened. One of the thugs grabbed Lola under her arms and dragged her out. She put up as much of a struggle as she imagined someone nauseated and light-headed from ether would put up, as the other thug ran around the car and grabbed her feet.
They spun her around. Way too fast.
“Slow down. You’re not a fucking carnival ride,” the reedy voice commanded.
The thugs kept their footing despite their initial velocity. Barely.
“Now take her inside. Do not say a single word.”
“You got it, James.”
Lola heard a flat fleshy thwap. A palm striking a forehead.
They took her up a short flight of stairs into a building and down a hallway, spinning her every twenty feet or so. They took at least one left turn, but spun her enough to confuse her mental map of the building. After five spins, another door was opened and Lola was brought into a room and set down on what felt like linoleum tile.
“Tie up her feet, as well,” James directed.
The binding on her wrists was adjusted. Rope was wound round her ankles, but she was tied up only in the loosest sense of the word.
“Good. That’s perfect. You stay here and keep an eye on her. Do. Not. Say. Anything. You two, come with me.”
Lola heard the door open and close. She assumed she’d been left with her guard. Lola shifted into a more comfortable position and found she leaned against what was likely a sturdy table leg not far from the door. The blindfold was loose enough that she could see over its top edge and beneath its bottom edge. She saw a twenty-minute portion of the clock on the wall.
She assessed her security situation.
One confirmed exit of the room. First floor of a building. Schematic of the building unclear. No apparent imminent threat of bodily harm. One guard who might or might not be armed. With the basics established, Lola wondered more about her situation.
“Not everybody knows how to tie a decent knot,” she thought, “so maybe that’s just poor preparation. But why leave me with just one guard? Even if they don’t know my training, they were there when I threw my first attacker. Even if they assume the knots are enough, they know how physically incapable they are. Unless they needed every other member for whatever message is being sent to Trike.” Lola’s train of thought was interrupted by a rumble in her stomach. “Fucking Ball,” she thought.
The twenty minutes passed. The thug shuffled nervously about. Hummed short portions of old show tunes.
If a message was being sent, it was being sent now. Things were happening separately from Lola about Lola.
After what she guessed was another twenty minutes, the door opened. Someone whispered back and forth with the guard, but no one came in or left. After a minute, the door closed. She deduced her guard was given additional instructions.
The pace of his pacing increased. He was nervous. Agitated. Unsure about his instructions.
He started mumbling. Eventually, he settled into a steady rhythm, repeating words and phrases. Lola listened to the loop. After a few dozen iterations, she discerned what he was saying.
“Safety. Chamber. Squeeze, don’t pull.”
Someone had hastily told him how to use a handgun.
A professional kidnapper had a specific goal for the kidnapping. As long as that goal was being pursued, the hostage was safe. A gun might be waved. A face might be slapped. But no trigger would be pulled or throat slit. A professional with a handgun was not going to shoot you by accident.
But an amateur with a gun could shoot anything and anybody at any time. Lola was not about to hang around an armed idiot.
And she was fucking starving. Trike and Max probably got wings on their way back to the office. The bastards.
Lola shifted around as if trying to prevent her legs from falling asleep. She positioned herself to see the thug’s feet as he made his nervous circuit. When they faced away, she struck. The blindfold fell off with the velocity of her forward somersault. On the upswing of the somersault, Lola shrugged off the poorly tied rope around her wrists, catching the gun hand as she rolled to her feet. The thug swung around in a wild panic, providing more than enough momentum for Lola to guide into a dramatic throw. The thug was on his back. The gun was in her hand.
When his lungs regained the required air, he leaped up as much as he could, threw the door open, and ran down the hallway wailing, “Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’s freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
The gun wasn’t loaded. At least the kidnappers got that right. Lola wiped her fingerprints off and left the gun in the room. She finished untying the rope around her ankles. Took a deep breath. Cautiously entered the dark hallway.
She slid against the wall, away from whatever reinforcements the thug might rally. She encountered a number of doors, but all were locked. At one point, she bent around a water fountain. The architecture was distantly familiar.
A hallway presented itself. Lola took it, sliding down its left wall. This hallway ended at a set of large double doors. She heard voices approaching. The doors were unlocked. She silently pushed one open and slid through, holding it ajar a crack to listen to the voices. A flashlight circle stopped at the intersection.
“Sir, she’s gone already,” James said.
“I’m not surprised,” a new voice said.
“What should we do?”
A pause suggested a gesture. “Let her go. Someone trying to catch her will get hurt. We’ve got what we needed out of her.”
“Yes, sir,” James said.
The two walked away. Lola let the door close without a click. She felt herself in a large open space. She took a deep quiet breath. Directly across from her, about one hundred feet away, she saw a thin film of light about the width of a door along the floor. She walked toward it, sliding her feet along the slick floor, her hands out in front of her.
Her father’s first advanced lesson was about the two brains; one did the thinking and one did the sensing. Most of the time, the thinking brain talked without stop, which was how it should be. People are supposed to do a lot of thinking. But sometimes the situation moved too fast for thought. Reaction was vital. Conclusion secondary.
The air was cool and felt recently but not currently conditioned. It smelled clean, perhaps mildly disinfected. There was the loud quiet of open spaces and distant machinery. The texture of the floor made things click.
She was in a school gymnasium.
The light’s source was a door, an unlocked door. Lola slowly pushed it open. She was in an alley behind the building, lit by streetlights.
“Lola,” a woman’s voice said behind her.
Lola spun around, knife drawn. She saw a compact woman, shaped like Hollywood tells us indomitable Eastern European woman were shaped. She wore a ragged buttonless sweater over a stained and deteriorating housedress, a pair of teal stretch pants, and at least three pairs of socks. She drew as Lola drew.