Trust Me

by Jeff Abbott

  ‘This is your mom’s place?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Chris said grudgingly.

  The irony that she was providing Chris studio space above her gallery, when it could probably command a substantial rent, was not lost on Luke. The whole interchange had the feel of a high schooler mouthing off to his mom, trying to look cool in front of a new friend and revealing that he was simply an insecure jerk. But Luke said nothing.

  Chris had five locks on the door and it took him a minute to work all the keys.

  Five locks, Luke thought. What are you up to that you need five locks?

  Inside, the studio – which doubled as a living space, with an unmade bed shoved in a corner – smelled of paint, of stale coffee and weed, of unwashed shirts. Exposed brick walls and clean skylights were the best features. It was expansive, room for a big talent to spread its wings, but the art Chris painted was very bad. Angry. Smears of red and black, a brown earth hanging above a closing red hand, penciled figures of suburbanites running from flowering napalm fires. Ugly, Luke thought. Another painting showed an array of fists, connected with a spider’s web of lines, flame arcing along the threads. A graffiti swirl of paint, spelling an obscenity in cheerful rainbow colors, in a font favored for children’s books. A final one, two teenagers, scowling, fire erupting from their heads as though they were volcanoes. The two painted faces looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t place them.

  ‘Nice.’ Luke didn’t know what else to say and he was afraid to make no comment at all on the art. How did one compliment death? Did this crap sell?

  ‘ Nice? It’s not at all supposed to be… nice.’ Chris’s face reddened.

  ‘I’m sorry. I meant to say it looks accomplished. Insightful. Compelling. Forgive my exhaustion.’

  Chris took a deep breath, as if drinking in the praise through a straw. ‘I’m influenced by the photojournalism of war, and I transpose that on an American setting.’

  ‘I’m sure they must sell well,’ Luke lied.

  ‘Hell no. They’ll never sell. They’ll be recognized as great art one day, but not while our diseased culture remains.’

  ‘How do you pay the bills?’

  ‘My dad builds homes. Thousands of them.’ Chris smirked. ‘You can’t believe the waste you see in the modern suburban home. The sheer extravagance of it all. Money that could feed half the world.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Well, but people need houses,’ Luke said.

  A light flared in Chris’s stare. ‘Build large apartment buildings. Much more convenient, much less ecological impact. Burn the cities to the ground, man, and stack the apartments high. Much less waste.’

  ‘That’s grim,’ Luke said. ‘You would have been a good architect in the Soviet Union.’ He wandered past the paintings and as he turned back to Chris, Chris was less than a foot away, a devil’s curling smile on his face.

  ‘After I help you,’ Chris hissed. ‘Are you laughing at me?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I’m sorry.’ He’d made a misstep. Chris didn’t carry the single-minded stare that he’d seen in Snow and Mouser. The light in his eyes was something entirely different in its heat. He had to make Chris tell him what he needed to know, but carefully. ‘I’m really surprised you trusted me with the money. You don’t know me.’

  ‘I know your words. That’s the same, to me.’ Chris lit a cigarette, offered the pack to Luke, who shook his head. His anger seemed gone, quick as a snap of fingers. ‘So. What’s the information you have about the wreck in Ripley?’

  ‘It was a bomb.’

  ‘Old news. Next?’ He smiled. ‘I bet you know who put it there.’

  ‘Yes,’ Luke lied. ‘The government.’ He thought this story was exactly the kind of meat that Chris liked to chew.

  ‘Ah. And you have proof of this, in exchange for my many kindnesses to you?’

  ‘I think I can find the proof. If I had the right kind of help.’

  ‘Help.’

  ‘I need to know if you’re part of a… group that can help me.’

  ‘Group.’

  ‘The Night Road.’

  ‘You want to know if I’m part of the Night Road.’ He looked, to Luke’s astonishment, as if he might laugh.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a really good lie,’ Chris said. ‘Better than I expected.’

  ‘I’m not lying. I…’

  ‘I want in.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘In whatever group you’re a part of. Is it called the Night Road? I like it, kind of a twist on the Shining Path. The Peruvian terror group. They’ve lasted a good long time.’

  Luke blinked. He’d made another misstep. ‘I’m not part of any group. I thought your group could help me.’

  ‘I don’t care for liars. You know what I mean. The group your step-father is putting together.’

  Luke crossed his arms. ‘You know him?’ Oh, God, what if he’d contacted Henry, told him Luke was coming here.

  ‘Yeah.’ Chris exhaled a stream of smoke. ‘I joined the online groups because no one believed as I did. None of my family, none of the people I tried to be friends with…’ He caught himself and said, ‘None of my friends. But you don’t really belong to anything in this world. The people in the internet groups, they’re nothing but talk, sound and fury, signifying very little indeed.’ He pointed out the painting of the fists connected by lines of fire. ‘That’s what the online communities should be, fire and action and burning this dirty nasty world to ash so we, the right and noble people can start again, but they aren’t.’ Now he turned his gaze to Luke and Luke’s blood chilled. This guy, he realized, wasn’t just angry, he was clinically crazy. The triumph in Chris’s eyes was bent, wrong, ugly. ‘The new group you’re in, you’re shutting me out now. That just won’t do.’ The smile slid back onto the white mouth.

  ‘I told you, I’m not part of any group.’ He was suddenly more scared of this guy than he had been in the cottage kitchen with Mouser. Chris’s soft, false grin was a mask for a different, twisted darkness.

  ‘Your stepfather contacted me, Luke. A month ago. Wanted to meet me for coffee near the airport. I recognized him from CNN yesterday, talking about you.’

  A thrum of horror touched Luke’s chest. ‘Did he say why he wanted to meet you?’ This was it, proof that Henry had taken Luke’s research – and personally reached out to the extremists. And he’d pissed this one off.

  ‘He found me through the IP address I used to post from. He said he admired the beauty and logic of my arguments. My passion. It’s not the kind of invite I get every day. I went and I had coffee with him. He wore a heavy cap, and different glasses, and he spoke with a Southern accent he seems to have lost when on television. But it’s him.’

  ‘But it didn’t go well.’

  ‘I can see judgment in eyes of lesser people. I’m a threat to folks, their sense of security. Because I’m smarter and more talented. Mother tells me everyone’s jealous. It explains a lot. But I wasn’t good enough for him.’ The awkward happiness he’d shown earlier was gone, replaced by a simmering fury. ‘Can you imagine?’

  He was a threat because he was crazy, Luke realized. Not focused, not disciplined like Mouser or Snow. The army doesn’t want the crazies, neither does the Night Road. Crazies are a risk.

  Chris had not been invited to the party.

  Luke looked past Chris’s shoulder, searching for a weapon, a way to defend himself. His gaze fell again on the paintings: the fists bound in a web, the two sullen teens. With a wrench of his gut he recognized their faces. The Columbine gunmen. ‘Maybe my stepfather didn’t properly assess your potential contribution.’

  ‘He wanted to know if I’d ever thought of turning my words to action. Did I have computer skills? Was I able to get money easily, did I have contacts in the drug world? Please. I don’t cloud my head with drugs. I’m a decent guy who’s just sick of hypocrisy. And I guess being a painter just isn’t enough.’ The sneer deepened. ‘I never heard from him again. If he was contac
ting me about world-changing work, it stands to reason he was contacting others. People he’d found on the discussion boards who can make a difference. So.’

  ‘So.’

  ‘You’re valuable to him. You’re my invitation into his private club.’ Luke took a step backward. ‘You’re wrong. Dead wrong.’

  ‘You beg me for help, and now you won’t help me. Story of my life.’ His anger turned into a pleading whine. ‘I could be of real value to you guys. I can help you change the world. I could finally…’ He stopped and in Luke’s head he heard the sad simple truth: I could have friends.

  What was it like when even the fringes rejected you? He saw an abyss in Chris’s anguished stare.

  ‘I am really, really tired of being told I’m not good enough. I caught you when no one else could. So let’s you and me call your stepfather, and see what we can work out.’

  Luke closed the three steps and he slammed his fist into Chris’s jaw. It surprised them both. Chris crumpled and the pain from the blow rocketed up Luke’s arm. ‘Did you tell my stepdad I was coming here?’ Luke yelled.

  Chris fingered blood from the corner of his mouth. ‘You hit me. You can’t hit me.’ He sounded like a first-grader, outraged by a breach of playground etiquette.

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘Yeah. I sold your ass. I give you back, I get in the Night Road, I get to show how I can shine.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘They should be here for you soon. I just wanted you to know I’m much smarter than you. Much smarter than they are.’

  ‘You’re insane.’

  Slowly Chris got to his feet, as though feeling his arms and legs for the first time. ‘The martial arts studio next door. They teach krav maga. You know the beauty of krav maga?’

  ‘Now you’re raving.’

  He gave a disgusted huff. ‘Krav maga is Israeli self-defense. I joined because when the war comes, I wanted to be ready. People said I fought like I enjoyed it too much. They kicked me out.’ He rolled his eyes at this bit of insanity. ‘But I learned enough to break your bones. You’re not going anywhere.’

  And he rushed at Luke.

  17

  The first series of precise blows sent Luke reeling across the scattered sketches on Chris’s table. His face, already bruised from Mouser’s blows, hurt bone-deep. He was going to get the snot beaten out of him by this freak.

  ‘No quarter is given in krav maga,’ Chris said, with the calm of a lecturer. He paused to pick Luke up, hammer his chest and face with a flurry of fists, and shove him hard toward the scrawled paintings.

  Luke crashed into the bad art and a table of paint supplies. He blinked past the pain in his jaw and his chest, and saw Chris sauntering toward him, snapping fingers, dancing on the balls of his feet. Luke’s hands fumbled for an improvised weapons. His fingertips roamed across brushes, spilled water bottles, a dried, dirty palette. His hand closed on a metal canister.

  A spray paint can.

  ‘I’m Necessary,’ Chris said. ‘To be given a high place in the emerging order. Everyone then will know my name. Know my art. Know my

  …’ Luke’s back was to Chris and as Chris lifted a foot to hammer a kick into Luke, Luke spun and fired a jet of red. A scarlet mist caught Chris in the face. He howled and lurched back. Crimson frosted his eyeglasses and Luke slammed a chair into his chest. Twice, hard. Chris fell.

  ‘They’ll know,’ Luke spat, ‘you don’t know when to shut the hell up.’ He ran for the door with five locks. He pulled on the knob but it held fast. He had to get out of here; this guy was nuts and maybe Mouser and Snow were on their way.

  Looking at the garish paintings, he hadn’t noticed Chris lock the door behind him. He flipped the deadbolts. Still the door was locked. It required a key.

  ‘You’re not leaving.’ Chris staggered to his feet. Bleeding hard from his nose, like Luke was. Smiling through blood and red paint. ‘Not when you’re my ticket to glory, man.’

  ‘Give me the keys,’ Luke said.

  Chris fell against a table and Luke could see a huge shard from the chair lodged near his ear, creating a bloody mess.

  Luke charged toward him.

  Chris yanked a drawer open.

  Luke thought it would be a gun. Chris wouldn’t rely on fists now that he’d been hurt. Luke saw the fire escape on the other side of the window and ran for it.

  A trio of shots shattered the window seconds after he stepped out onto the fire escape and slid down the stairs. Glass hit his hair. The sound was loud, bright in the afternoon air, cutting through the hubbub of traffic sounds of Wicker Park. He clattered down the fire escape and dropped onto the hood of Chris’s Porsche, denting it with his weight.

  He heard Chris howl above him like a wounded creature.

  Luke bolted out into a wide street, stumbling into the path of a taxicab, which berated him with a long drawn honk of the horn. He broke into a hard run. He had to get off the street before Chris saw him. He ran behind another squat building, decorated with garish neon, into a web of alleyways. Turn right, turn left, he came up behind a bakery that gave off a motherly scent of chocolate and almonds and a corner bar, open early for happy hour.

  At the end of the alley was a construction fence. Luke scrambled over it and he heard the wail of a siren. Police. Fear opened like a fist in his chest. Someone had called, probably reporting Chris’s shots.

  He ran through a passageway that backed a block’s worth of restaurants and storefronts. He thought of hiding inside a Dumpster but hiding might mean capture. He had to get free and clear of the neighborhood.

  At the end of the alley, fronting onto a quiet street, a police patrol car wheeled past. Luke ducked behind a Dumpster. Peered around its edge.

  The police car was gone.

  He ran from the Dumpster’s shadow and tried a doorknob. Locked. He ran down to another door. Tested it. It opened onto a small kitchen way. Two men, short, Latino, glanced up from scraping a grille. Hamburger scented the air and he heard a radio playing a murmur of Spanish music.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said, sidling past them and one of the cooks said, ‘What the hell, this isn’t the front door,’ in rapid Spanish.

  Luke ignored him and hurried out onto the dining room floor. The restaurant was a small, spotless diner, a few tables, a chalkboard announcing burgers, sandwiches, a lunch special of meat loaf and garlic mashed potatoes. A few late lunchers sat huddled at the tables, including most of the wait staff. A waitress was erasing the boards to write the dinner specials.

  Luke ran past her and the smells of comfort food and out onto a street. This avenue was busier, filled with cafes, a scattering of funky clothing shops, an Irish pub.

  The police car turned back onto the street, toward him. He stepped into the nearest business, a small flower shop. The air was thick with the smell of blossoms and clean water. No one stood at the counter but the door’s attached bells jingled his arrival.

  He saw a heavy plastic curtain – behind it were large plastic containers of cut flowers. He moved past the curtain, headed toward the back door.

  The front door jangled behind him.

  ‘Hi, officer, can I help you-’ He heard a voice say on the other side of the curtain. Then silence.

  The police had seen him come in. They were looking for him. Or his movements had incurred suspicion. He reached the back door, eased it open, closed it behind him. Through a small window he saw the officer move into position on the other side of the window.

  He stumbled into the alley; it was already shadowed, the afternoon light dying in the narrow passage.

  ‘Officers!’ Chris practically screamed in his ear. ‘Here he is!’ His face was red with the slash of paint. He closed arms around Luke.

  ‘He shot up my studio, he’s nuts!’ Chris screeched through his painted clown’s grin.

  ‘Police! Stop!’ The cop hurried out into the alley.

  Luke froze. ‘Help me,’ he said. ‘This guy tried to shoot me.’

  The officer took a measur
ed look at Luke’s face, seemed to study the hair, the bruises. ‘Luke Jameson Dantry. On the ground, now.’ The officer barked his orders.

  Luke obeyed. ‘I’m unarmed,’ he said. ‘He fired the shots, sir, not me.’

  ‘Just like a criminal,’ Chris said. ‘He’s lying. I caught him.’

  ‘You on the ground, too,’ the cop ordered.

  Chris obeyed.

  Luke felt the officer patting him down, heard the clink of cuffs being removed from a belt. It took it back to the horrors of the bed in the cabin. ‘No, I don’t want to be handcuffed, please, please don’t, I’m not the bad guy here.’ His voice rose into a yell. He yanked one hand away, buried it under his chest.

  The officer fought to regain control of Luke’s arms. ‘Stop resisting! Are you Luke Jameson Dantry?’ the officer yelled.

  ‘Yes, sir, and I have information on a dangerous group of people, please don’t, please don’t cuff me, please-’

  The officer started yelling into his shoulder mike, still trying to slap the cuffs on Luke while Luke bucked and kicked. Luke turned his head and he saw a figure at the end of the alley.

  Snow. Smiling at him.

  Luke screamed, ‘Officer, look out!’

  Her hand came up and Luke didn’t see the gun but the short sharp th-weet s were loud in the shadowed alley. The cop dropped mid-sentence, two holes painting his face. The blood hit Luke’s hands and he retreated behind the trashcans.

  Done, a snap of the fingers. Luke could hear her walking toward him, the click of her boots on the pavement. Not rushing, because she didn’t know if Chris was armed. He felt he could read her mind, understand her approach.

  ‘You’re Chris, right?’ he heard Snow say as she came forward. Friendliness in the tone.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Chris stood, with ugly triumph. His genius had finally been recognized. ‘Are you here to help me?’

  ‘Baby, I am,’ Snow said, and she shot him.

  Chris collapsed against the Dumpster. As he died the surprise faded from his eyes, replaced by the blankness of a world without anger.

  ‘Come on, schoolboy, time to go home,’ she said as she approached. Luke saw the policeman’s service piece, still holstered, and yanked the gun free.