About half a dozen people were out in the water with their surfboards. Cole watched as one of them caught a wave and danced inside the crashing tube of water before shooting himself out again. Then Cole watched another one. This one cut violently across the face of the wave, like she was trying to scar the water. Cole knew that he wasn’t going to find what he was looking for in the water. He wasn’t looking for a surfer. He was looking for someone immersed in the memories of a surfer. Cole’s eyes scanned the beach, looking for someone alone, someone out of place, someone who didn’t belong there. Cole ignored the fact that he could have easily been looking for himself, a pale, middle-aged man, wandering the beaches while lost in a daze.
Cole didn’t see anyone who stood out. Everyone was either young and tan or was on vacation with a girlfriend or a family. Cole walked down the beach toward a colorful row of surfboards of various sizes, all leaning up against a wooden fence. As he neared the surfboards, he heard a voice call out to him. “Buenas,” said the man, with an accent that had once been American but had evolved into something altogether different. “You interested in a surfing lesson?” Cole looked up. The man talking to him was sitting casually on the wooden fence next to the surfboards. He was probably in his late twenties. He was wearing only a surfer’s wetsuit, and his skin was tanned a dark brown, lean muscles visible all over his body. He had long blond hair that hung over his shoulders in tangled knots.
“I don’t think so,” Cole answered the man. “Not today, anyway.”
“You sure?” the man asked. “It’s a good day today, a good day to learn. The waves are breaking really clean. It’s not going to get any better than this.”
“I’m sure,” Cole said, glancing back at the water and the waves. He wondered what memories might emerge from his subconscious if he actually tried to catch a wave. He wondered how powerful those memories might be. He turned back toward the man. The man looked the part. He was exactly what Cole wanted him to be. “How often do you teach somebody like me?” Cole asked him.
The surf instructor jumped off the fence and walked over toward Cole, sizing him up as he walked. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of,” the man said to Cole. “I’ve taught plenty of people like you. Surfing is the most natural thing in the world. We’ve all got it inside us.”
“I’m not afraid,” Cole told the surf instructor, returning none of the man’s joy. “I was just wondering how often you teach someone like me. You’d remember it, right? You’d remember teaching someone like me?”
“What do you mean, ‘someone like you’?” the instructor asked. “I teach a lot of different types of people how to surf.”
“You teach a lot of people like me?” Cole asked, spreading his arms in front of the instructor so that he could get a good look at all of him. Cole knew how out of place he looked, a pale, white-haired, middle-aged loner. “I can’t believe that’s true.”
The instructor’s smile never wavered. “All types, man,” he said. “I teach all types.”
“Come on,” Cole prodded. He considered telling the man that he was a cop but worried that being a cop might close more doors than it opened. “Look at me. Do I look like I belong here? Listen, I’m looking for a guy, an old friend. He probably looks as out of place as I do.”
“Pura vida, man. This is Costa Rica. Everybody belongs here,” the instructor said as if he’d had practice dodging questions like these before. “So do you want me to teach you how to surf or not?”
“How much for the lesson?” Cole asked.
“Twenty-five dollars for an hour. Forty dollars and we stay out there until you’re too tired to paddle anymore.”
Cole reached into his backpack and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. He handed it to the instructor. “Okay, so you’re not going to tell me about people you’ve seen. I get it. Then at least tell me where the next big party is. That’s all I ask.”
The instructor plucked the hundred dollars out of Cole’s hand, smiling. “That’s easy. There’s a full moon in three days. That means you gotta go to Johnny Dragon’s.” The instructor stared in disbelief at the hundred-dollar bill in his hand. “You could have gotten that information for free.”
“Nothing is free. That hundred-dollar bill means that you never spoke to me. You got it?”
The instructor nodded. “I never tell nobody nothing, anyway.”
“So, Johnny Dragon’s, huh? Where is that exactly?”
“It’s just south of town, right on the beach. You can’t miss it.”
“Three days, huh?” Cole held out hope that he would find the Memory Vampire sooner than that, but he would wait if he had to. The surfer nodded. “And just what is Johnny Dragon’s?”
“It’s the vortex, man. You go once and it keeps pulling you back. The full moon means it’s toga night. You’ll see.” Satisfied, Cole began to walk away. The instructor’s laugh followed behind him. “Let me know if you change your mind about the surf lesson,” he called after Cole. “I’ll give it to you for half price.”
Cole kept walking, trying to keep from getting lost in the haze of persistent memories. They wouldn’t leave him alone. So many moments. So much beauty. And all of it had almost been lost. And now, even as Cole fought to keep them alive, they were buried inside him along with his own squandered memories. He decided to walk north toward town. Apparently, he needed to find a place to stay for the next few days. He kept his eyes open as he walked, kept looking around him for someone who looked like his mental image of the Memory Vampire.
Cole walked past Johnny Dragon’s on his way into town and knew instantly that the surf instructor had steered him right. It was a youth hostel for backpackers, a stretch of beach lined with hammocks and tents, backed by a building full of dorm-style rooms and a couple of bigger, private units. The dorm rooms were ten dollars per person per night. A tent cost seven dollars, and if you only wanted a hammock, you could stay for five bucks. Everything came with a locker and a lock. It looked pretty tame in the daytime, but Cole could only imagine the debauchery that would go on there at night. The full moon was coming. If Jerry’s meeting with the surfer had even a hint of truth to it, and if the killer was within fifty miles of there, Cole was convinced he’d be at Johnny Dragon’s for the full moon toga party, bathing in memories.
Cole kept walking north past Johnny Dragon’s. It was late afternoon by the time he made it into Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. It was a sleepy little town, especially during the day. When he got there, Cole decided that he needed to get into the shade. He found a bar with some seats overlooking the sea. He ordered a drink and began talking to the bartender, hoping she could help him find a room. He didn’t want to stay at Johnny Dragon’s. He had more specific needs. He wanted something cheap but also private, a place where he wouldn’t have to worry about stashing the gun he’d snuck into the country in his luggage. Cole knew how to get a gun through customs. The bartender gave him the name of a little place in town that had a room Cole could rent indefinitely for less than twenty dollars a night. That would do just fine.
Chapter 49
Cole searched the beaches and bars around Puerto Viejo de Talamanca for three days with no luck. He’d always known that the odds of randomly bumping into his target were low. Deep down, Cole always knew that the only way to guarantee that he’d find the Memory Vampire was to go to a specific place where he knew the Vampire would be, at a specific time when he knew the Vampire would be there. Finally, three nights after he’d arrived, the full moon rose over the black ocean, and Cole was confident he would finally find his man.
Cole could hear the party long before he saw it. The sound ricocheted over the sea and through the jungles surrounding Johnny Dragon’s. The music was loud. Cole followed the sound, walking down the dark road beneath the light of the full moon. He wasn’t alone on the road. Other people were heading to Johnny Dragon’s too. They were heading there for the party. Cole guessed that he was the only one heading there in search of a killer, one who murdered people and
stole their memories.
—
Cole left his room late. He wanted to be inconspicuous, so he couldn’t risk getting to the party too early. That meant that by the time Cole could hear the party, Carter was already immersed in his first memory. He’d been looking forward to Johnny Dragon’s toga party since he’d first heard about it over a week earlier. The memories had been flowing for days now, like water pushing through the breach in a broken dam. Even the ones that Carter had already experienced were coming back to him with more clarity than they had before. He’d been able to immerse himself in some memories for a second and even a third time. They had everything: surfing, parties, sex, drugs, all night road trips into Panama, mornings waking on a boat in the sea with no land in sight. Carter never wanted it to end. He knew that it would. He knew that the surfer’s memories had limits and that they would eventually go stale again and that he would have to find new ones to replace them. But, for now, they were everything. Dear God, the things he remembered.
—
When Cole arrived at the party, Carter was on the beach, lost amid the scantily clad backpackers dancing around him. Cole didn’t see him at first because Carter was sitting down, leaning against a palm tree, unable to stand under the weight of the memories in his head.
The same party that flooded Carter with the surfer’s memories barely did a thing for Cole. Cole guessed the party wasn’t triggering any memories inside his head because he didn’t have a single one that could compare to the raucous debauchery around him. If anything like that party had existed in any of the memories Cole had inherited, somebody else surely would have stepped forward to claim them before they passed to Cole. Somebody else would have wanted them.
The party was lit only by the full moon. Light came from the sky and from the moon’s reflection on the dark waves pulsing in from the sea. The next brightest source of light was the glow-in-the-dark paint strategically covering the body parts of so many of the half-naked revelers.
Even feet from the ocean, the sound of the waves was completely drowned out by the music blaring across the beach. The only sound louder than the music was the random, enthusiastic scream shouted out to the world by partygoers for no other reason than to remind everyone that, against all odds, the exuberance of youth existed right here, in that moment. The music was some sort of rhythmic, bass-heavy reggae. Cole could actually feel the music run across his skin as he circled the party. He knew how out of place he must have looked, but nobody stopped him or questioned him. Only once did somebody approach him and ask to buy drugs, assuming the only reason somebody like Cole would be at a party like that would be to sell kids new ways to get high. Cole apologized for not being able to help and kept on walking, searching for the only other person at the party as out of place as he was.
—
As each new immersion passed, Carter would stand up and walk to another part of the party. Then a new sound or smell, or the sight of a bare breast covered in nothing but neon yellow paint, would unleash more of the surfer’s memories and he would have to stop moving again as he became entranced by the new memory. The night wore on, but Carter barely felt it. He’d become so immersed in the surfer’s memories that time was becoming meaningless to him. He couldn’t tell if he’d been at the party for two hours or two days.
—
A beer suddenly appeared in front of Cole. He looked down at it and the hand holding it. He followed the hand to its owner and recognized the surf instructor whom he’d met three days earlier. “The least I could do is grab you a beer,” the instructor said. Cole accepted the beer and took a swig. “I told you this would be the place to be, right?” the instructor shouted to Cole over the throbbing beat of the music.
“You did,” Cole answered him, tipping the lip of his beer bottle toward the instructor in a salute. He had to give the kid credit. Cole had already made two laps of the party, though, and he was becoming nervous that the killer might not be there. Cole was sure that if the killer was anywhere near that spot, anywhere within a hundred miles, he’d be at this party. The problem was that the killer had an entire world to play in. It had always been a bit of wishful thinking that Cole would be able to find him simply by trying to imagine what he would do if he were in the killer’s shoes. There was always a chance that it wasn’t that simple, that Cole and the killer weren’t that much alike.
“Did you find your friend?” the instructor shouted at Cole.
“No,” Cole answered loudly enough to be heard over the music, but quietly enough not to attract attention. “I’m still looking for him.”
The instructor laughed and it reminded Cole of Jerry’s laugh, only with less weariness and more joy. “I think he’s down by the water. You were right, man. He’s a hard guy to miss. I hear he’s been creeping out some of the girls.”
Cole took another swig of his beer. His heart sped up. It began to race in his chest. He did his best not to show it. “Down by the water?” Cole asked.
“Yeah,” the instructor confirmed. “You might want to get him under control. I think he may have taken something that he wasn’t quite ready for.”
“Thanks.” Cole immediately understood exactly what he’d taken.
“No problem,” the instructor said, and then walked away, leaving Cole alone again.
The beach sloped only slightly as it ran from where Cole was standing to the water. Cole looked out over the mass of young, scantily clad bodies moving to the beat of the music. The music was the only thing he could hear, and he could hear it with his whole body. Thump. Thump. Thump. The world bounced to that beat. Cole scanned the edge of the water, glancing in between the bodies, those painted with neon glow-in-the-dark body paint and those that simply looked like silhouettes dancing in the moonlight. Then his eyes stopped. Cole spotted someone through the twisting and turning bodies, like staring through the windows of a passing train. He was just standing there, the only one on the beach not swaying to the music. The surf instructor was right. Cole watched him for maybe a minute or more. He was still, pale and motionless, staring around him as if in a daze. He would have stood out, anyway. He was older than almost everyone else at the party. He was older than Cole. He was far from fat but, unlike the surfers and hikers around him—unlike even Cole who was, if anything, too skinny—the man’s gut tugged awkwardly at the front of his T-shirt. He didn’t seem to match Bon’s description, the one that Jerry had confirmed, but Cole could see the immersion in the man’s face. This had to be him. Maybe he’d merely been changed by time. Maybe he’d simply grown a bit older and a bit flabbier since he met with Bon. Maybe Jerry hadn’t noticed the change. Cole started to walk through the mass of young bodies toward the sea, closing in on the man he was certain he’d been searching for. He could barely believe that he’d found him.
Cole could feel the bare skin of other partygoers rub against his own as he walked toward the water, unable to avoid brushing up against the toga-adorned partiers as they danced around him. The music kept pounding away in his head as he pushed forward. Thump. Thump. Thump. Cole was getting closer. The man who Cole believed to be the Memory Vampire barely moved. He would only turn his head every few moments to look somewhere new. Either the killer didn’t have Cole’s ability to pull himself out of a memory or he simply didn’t give a shit. Cole looked into the dumb, euphoric expression on the man’s face and guessed it was the latter. After all, that incredible, transcendent high was why the man had come here. He wouldn’t bother wasting any of it on decorum.
—
Carter had stopped walking around the party. He was in too deep now. Every time he turned his head a new memory came to him. He was almost overwhelmed by them. He wasn’t sure how much more his brain could take, but he was willing to push it all the way to the edge. So he stood still and looked around, trying to take it all in, pushing himself to remember more and to remember deeper. Then, as he scanned the party for more triggers, he noticed another man just standing there, like him. Through the neon-painted bodies,
a thin, pale man with white hair and black eyes was staring at him. Carter didn’t know if the man was real or if he was a ghost from some strange memory. He had lost the ability to differentiate for the moment. To Carter, the man looked like a monster, like the angel of death visiting earth.
—
Carter’s and Cole’s eyes met. For a moment, they were linked, connected in spite of the joyous havoc surrounding them. That’s when it suddenly dawned on Cole that he had no idea what he was doing. He had no plan. Lucky for him, serendipity in the form of a few half-naked bodies intervened. While their eyes were still locked, a group of young partiers walked between them. The two men lost sight of each other for a split second, and Cole used that split second to disappear. He ducked away from Carter’s sight line to a place where he could still see Carter, but it would be hard for Carter to see him.
—
When the pale man with the white hair disappeared, Carter became even more convinced that he had merely been the shadow of a memory. It was a different type of memory, though, one he wasn’t as accustomed to. It was disquieting. Maybe it was one of the surfer’s early memories leaking through, one the Company had tried to suppress. Carter didn’t really care. All he cared about was that, for a moment, it pulled him out of the memories he wanted. A moment earlier he’d been awash in memories. Now he stood there, not moving, trying to get a single memory back.
—
Cole continued to watch Carter from a bit farther away and from a more discreet angle. Cole could see that he’d pulled the killer out of an immersion. He needed to think up a plan fast. He wasn’t ready to confront him, not there, not yet. He looked around, searching anywhere for answers, finding it hard to think because of the incessant music. Then his eyes fell on a woman standing near him. She stood out because, unlike most of the partiers by this point in the night, she was still wearing her toga, only the material she’d used to make the toga was so thin that it was nearly transparent, and she’d painted each of her nipples with bright orange glow-in-the-dark body paint. Cole walked toward her. She was laughing, talking to a tall, athletic man with tanned skin and flowing black hair. “Excuse me,” Cole said, interrupting the woman’s conversation. Cole knew that, to these people, he must have looked like a creature from another planet. “I was wondering if you could help me with a small favor.”
The Memory Detective Page 26