by Guy Adams
"Is everything alright sir?" the clerk asked, noticing the look on his face. Don't knock it, Tom thought, if the guy has so much money he forgets to cancel his cards then that's his problem.
"Great," he said, returning her smile and dropping the keys into his jacket pocket.
Back outside, Carruthers was gazing up at the buildings like he had been doing all morning.
"You look like a tourist," Tom noted.
"In many ways that's just what I am," Carruthers admitted, "what I've always been, in fact."
"Glad somebody's enjoying this," Tom replied, leading them to their car – a cheap compact, Tom hadn't had the enthusiasm for decadence this morning. "I'll drive," he said (much to Miles' relief… the last time he'd been behind the wheel of something he'd crashed it).
Carruthers climbed in the back, his enthusiasm for the ride ahead finally outweighing what was left of his hangover. "I hope we get to stay on the road a little longer than last time," he said, tying the seatbelt around his waist. As much as I hate to admit it, these infernal devices are more exciting than I had previously given them credit for."
"Exciting?" asked Tom, lighting a cigarette off the dashboard lighter, "my reputation precedes me…"
He stamped on the gas and the car jerked onto the road, forcing Miles to thrash back and forth in his seat.
"You must really want to see my breakfast again," he complained, fixing his seatbelt in place before noticing that Tom hadn't bothered with his. "Buckle up?" he asked.
"Nah…" Tom replied. "Those things rumple your clothes."
"Says the giant rumple in a hat," joked Miles.
Tom grinned and headed towards the interstate.
17.
"So," said Hughie, as he pulled off I-4 and onto Highway 192, "what's the interest in this place?"
The stranger shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure as yet," he admitted. "Just an itch… half a suspicion."
"Didn't think you seemed the type to move into real estate," Hughie admitted.
"You'd be surprised," said the stranger with a smile. "I'd like to own all of this one day."
Hughie didn't reply to that, he sensed it to be true and the idea chilled him.
"Some places just have a charge to them, Hughie," the stranger continued, "a quality that makes them stand apart."
"Feel that way about Hooters."
The stranger took a moment to understand that, flipping through Hughie's mind until he hit on images of waitresses in orange hot pants. "My, Hughie but you're positively chipper today!"
"No, just fatalistic." And this was true, hitting his third day – and still not dead – in this creature's company he found a certain apathy had kicked in. He imagined convicts on Death Row felt similar. His chances of long-term survival were pretty remote but he was damned if he was going to quiver in fear over it.
The construction site was soon visible, the yellow cranes rising and falling, the backhoes and front-loaders scrabbled around in the dirt picking up the scraps.
"What an industrious little species you are," the stranger said, as they pulled in, clapping his hands together with enthusiasm.
The site's foreman was a man that Loomis had never quite known how to handle. Corben Alliss who wore his clichés with a confidence that was staggering. He strode back and forth amongst the excavations in skin-tight jeans and boots so big he looked like a cartoon character from the waist down. His hard hat was carefully placed over a DA so extensively greased that you could have fried his head in minutes given a large enough skillet. You'd have had to take the rhinestone sunglasses off though, they were so heavy they'd likely have snapped that skillet in two. From the neck up Corben Alliss thought he was Elvis. From the waist down he looked like Dudley Do Right. If it wasn't for the fact that he looked like Charles Atlas in the middle he'd have heard a lot of jibes during his working day. As it was, his strength and more, his willingness to use it – Alliss was only too happy to let rip with the slightest provocation – saved him from a lot of slurs or chuckles. To Loomis, a man who spent most of his time obsessing about how he appeared to others, the foreman was an utter enigma.
To the stranger he was simply a creature of passing interest.
"Help you?" Alliss asked as Hughie parked the Olds and the stranger got out.
"Doubt that," the stranger said, walking straight past him.
Alliss looked at Hughie and the car he was getting out from the behind the wheel of. "That Loomis' car?" he asked. Knowing damn well it was.
"That's right," said Hughie, wondering what solid and believable reason he could give for driving it.
"Yeah," said the stranger, "I took that little shit apart and stole his ride." He turned and smiled over his shoulder. "That sound about right, Hughie?"
Hughie made a blustering noise, utterly at a loss to what he was supposed to say to that. Alliss fixed him in a stare from behind his ludicrous sunglasses. All Hughie could see was his own nervous face looking right back at him.
"Funny guy, huh?" Alliss said eventually.
"Hilarious," said the stranger, walking back over to him. He reached out and nudged those rhinestones down with a delicate finger so he could look directly in Alliss' eyes. For a moment Hughie thought the foreman would reach out and start a fight. He gritted his teeth, waiting for the violence – not for one minute worried about the stranger, he knew who the victor would be if this came to blows. It didn't. Alliss looked at the little man and found he had no urge to fight. If any of his staff had seen this they would have been at a loss to explain it. Alliss took one look into the stranger's eyes and found the only urge left in him was to knock off early, drive home, lock the door and hide there until he could be absolutely sure this man wouldn't be there when he stepped out again.
The stranger smiled and carried on walking towards the diggers. For a moment Alliss nearly called after him, warning him to wear a hard hat if he was going to wander around. Then he decided there wasn't a thing that could touch this weird little man and kept his mouth shut. He looked at Hughie, those glasses of his still dropped onto his cheeks, then ran off to far side of the site and his office. He would stay there until the police came a couple of hours later, utterly unable to explain the atrocities that had occurred in the meantime.
18.
Tom wasn't a frequent driver. Usually he was too blind drunk to be capable. Walking was frequently hard and he'd been practicing that every day of his life. Nonetheless he managed to keep the car on the road and not smack into any other vehicles. He considered this a solid gold achievement as he pulled off the Interstate and onto the highway.
"So many cars," Carruthers commented. "Do you people ever get to where you're going or do you just drive around all day?"
"Americans do love their cars," Tom admitted. "Personally as getting drunk in them tends to be frowned upon I've never seen the appeal."
"Nor do many come fitted with pianos," Miles added.
"This is true."
Seeing the cranes ahead, Tom swung the car off the road just a little short of the site entrance. "If we want Loomis to still think of us as rich weirdoes we'd better leave the car back a bit," he suggested. "It doesn't scream wealth."
"Unbelievable," said Carruthers as he clambered out of the back, "you have metal boxes that ferry you around at the most miraculous speeds and yet you can be embarrassed by them?"
They walked the last stretch alongside the road, turning into the site entrance alongside Loomis' Olds. Hughie was sat in the driver's seat, very much tempted to rev the thing up and drive like hell. The sure and certain knowledge that he wouldn't get half a mile before the stranger forced him to run the car off the road – or worse, into the path of another car – was the only thing that stopped him. Leave or stay, he certainly had no intention of seeing what the stranger got up to. The man had a spring in his step this morning and Hughie knew that could only mean some bad shit was going down sooner or later. He saw the three men walk past him but spared them no attention. They were beneat
h his radar. After they had passed a thought flashed through his head… he really should have warned them not to go in. Not that they would have likely listened.
19.
Miles, Carruthers and Tom had no real idea what they were looking for, they were just following the impossible leads of coincidence and going where the House told them. By rights that should have meant they were prepared for pretty much anything. They weren't.
"Well," said the stranger, "fancy seeing you three here!"
"Shit." Tom stopped in his tracks, the other two following suit. "He shouldn't be here yet, right?"
"It would appear our information is somewhat off kilter." Carruthers replied.
"Why does that not surprise me?" Miles moaned.
The stranger strolled casually towards them. "Not expecting to see me either then?" he said. "I do hope you haven't all abandoned my old address, I'd hate for the world to fall apart while I was busy trying to have fun on it."
"Just the three of us," Miles said, "we needed to pop out for milk."
The stranger chuckled. "Good old Miles, always reliable for a cocky remark in case one was short."
"I try to please."
"And you succeed! You really do." The stranger was right in front of them now, big easy smile, friendly as an uncle at a wedding. "But seriously," and the smile dropped, "what are you three up to, eh? Checking up on me is it?"
"As if you didn't expect us to do just that," Carruthers countered.
The stranger chuckled. "Actually, I rather thought you'd have had your hands full." He shrugged. "Not that I mind, nothing personal but I can't say your presence has me quaking in my shoes."
"We might surprise you!" said Carruthers.
Oh God, thought Miles, don't say things like that… all that does is encourage him.
The stranger smiled again. "You think?"
"Where's Chester?" asked Tom.
The stranger glanced at him. "There really is very little in you but hate and cheap scotch."
"And whose fault is that?"
The stranger said nothing, just sighed and strolled back and forth in front of them as if thinking very long and hard.
Miles felt a painful throb in his head, clapping his hand to it. Carruthers likewise. Tom didn't react, he was used to his brain popping at regular intervals. The stranger stopped pacing, having read all he needed to and thought on it briefly.
"Charming," he said. "You really were hoping to put a stop to any antics I might have had in mind weren't you? Not much of a plan of course, but then, in all fairness, it's hard to scheme against Gods isn't it?" He smiled for the last time. "We're such a horrid and capricious lot."
The pain having lessened, Miles looked around, noting that the diggers had stopped their engines, their drivers climbing out of their cabs and walking towards them. Other workers, those who had been measuring foundations or cutting wood, supervising the delivery of girders, concrete or hardcore, even the handful that had been taking a quick smoke or sharing coffee from thermos flasks: they all started walking in their direction.
Back in the Oldsmobile, Hughie Bones, who had been unable to resist craning his neck through the window to try and follow events, pulled his head in and closed the window. His hand hovered by the ignition key once more, undecided as to whether he wanted to leave or ram the car down there and try and provide a bit of support to the three guys. The radio suddenly clicked on, the stranger's voice interrupting the usual drive time rock to give a simple announcement. "Sit still, Hughie, try and remember whose side you're on, yes? Let the kid with the bottle have his fun."
"I think we're about to take a beating," said Miles.
"A bad one." Tom agreed, shifting on the spot, cautious of someone sneaking up behind him.
"Don't be so unimaginative," the stranger said. "If I wanted you torn apart I'd do it myself."
As one, the workers stuck their hands in the air, like criminals in an old movie. Then, they dropped downwards as if the ground had vanished beneath their feet. In a way it had, liquefying and bubbling. It solidified again swiftly, every single worker now embedded in the soil. They left nothing but a thrashing garden of hands, like grapevines, twitching and clenching as their owners fought to breathe dirt.
The stranger pushed his way past them and towards his car. "There's bound to be a few spades around," he said, "if you want to try and dig one up before he dies." He turned to face them. "You know, if you'd like to 'surprise me' with regards your abilities."
He continued on his way to the car, not bothering to look back again.
Miles began to run, looking for something to dig with.
"There's no point," Tom said.
"We have to try!" Miles dropped to the ground near the closest hand, scrabbling at the earth with his hands, bending back his nails as he tore at soil and grit.
"You'd never get him out in time," said Tom, "that was the whole point."
Behind them the engine of the Olds roared into life as it did a U-Turn and headed back out onto the highway.
"Carruthers?" Miles was getting nowhere, grabbing the hand as it began to tire, spasming now rather than clenching with any strength.
"I'm afraid Tom's right," Carruthers said, sitting down on the ground. "I antagonised him so he did this to put us in our place. Nothing so simple as hurting us physically of course, no… that would be too gentle for a creature like him. He has to stick the knife in where it will hurt us the most, right in our damned pride and consideration."
All around them the hands were stopping their spastic dance. Drooping like unwatered plants, dead fingers dabbing the earth.
"Fuck this," said Tom, walking back to the road.
"Please, Carruthers…" said Miles, "Roger… we can't just leave can we?"
Carruthers sighed. "We can't stay here either, not unless we want to answer lots of impossible questions. None of which will help these poor souls one jot."
Miles knew this was true but, even as he got to his feet and began to walk away, he felt so worthless he could retch.
"We knew this would be hard," said Carruthers, standing up and putting his arm around Miles' shoulder.
"Hard I could deal with, this is just impossible."
There was the roar of a car engine and Tom shot past them, haring up the highway.
"Jesus!" Miles shouted. "That's perfect that is! Where the hell does he think he's going?"
"I think I can guess," said Carruthers, "though I do hope I'm wrong."
20.
"You nearly left me there didn't you, Hughie?" the stranger asked, stretched out in the passenger seat.
Hughie thought about lying but really couldn't see the point. "Yeah," he admitted, "or try and get in the way of you hurting those others."
The stranger nodded. "But you didn't, so I forgive you."
"That makes it all alright then."
21.
A few hours later, Tom drew to a halt and dropped his head against the steering wheel of his car.
"Not like you Tom," came Elise's voice from the passenger seat. "Never had you down as a coward."
"Shut up Elise," he whispered, "it's not about cowardice, it's about priorities."
"And what priorities might they be?" she asked. "These priorities that see you abandon your friends by the side of the road."
"No friends of mine."
"Best you've got."
"I've got you."
Elise lit a cigarette from the dashboard lighter. "I'm dead honey, and the dead are lousy friends."
"Not dead everywhere though, are you honey?" he said with a smile, sitting up and opening the driver's door.
Elise stared out of the window. "You know, I never did visit Florida," she said, looking out at the sun. "Seems nice."
"You didn't miss anything," Tom replied. "You know what they say about the place. This is God's waiting room… where people go to die."
"I'd fit right in."
"Not the Elise I know," he replied, getting out and slamming the car
door behind him.
He walked into the departures entrance of Tampa International, hoping Loomis' credit card still had enough life in it for a ticket to New York.
INTERLUDE
Leo Gets His Break
Leo drove Sepulveda Boulevard until his head had emptied and the tears that he would show no one had dried. By the time he pulled up outside the Van Nuys apartment block where he slept and dreamed of Burbank zip codes he was almost his old self. The groceries had grown warm on the passenger seat. He carried them up the external stairway and, once inside, dumped them on the kitchen sideboard to warm a little more while he drank a cool beer from the ice-box and smoked a cigarette over the balcony.