All the Things You Are

by Declan Hughes

  But for all these differences between them, our eyes gradually begin to find what they have in common. And it dawns on us that every single painting depicts the same scene. The scene is a window, which is dark, but which either reflects, or is surrounded by, not just bright light, but fire light. Sometimes it is the merest flicker, sometimes it is in full blaze. And in the window there are two children. Sometimes you can make out their little faces; sometimes they are abstracted until they are mere shapes; sometimes they are death’s heads, skulls or ghouls. But in every picture, it is the same: two children, gazing out in fear, at the flames that will devour them.

  I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plan

  Charlie T is actually quite relaxed about the whole reconnaissance thing in Ripley Fields. For a start, there’s no problem spotting the aunt and the two girls, and since there’s a predictable route they’re taking, house by house, he and Angelique can keep their distance. And unless they live here, or close by, it’s most likely they’ve driven. There’s a bunch of cars parked down near the entrance to the estate. If that’s the way they’ve come, well, it would be hard to give chase without drawing too much attention to themselves. He could wait in the car, but that doesn’t allow for the possibility that the targets are residents here. So there’s a limit to how bad things can get.

  And that’s what concerns Charlie T the most: that he’s going to get embroiled in a course of action with Angelique alongside, and end up endangering her, and as a result, himself, the kids, the entire fucking enterprise. Not to mention wanting nothing to do with her harebrained fucking scheme to kidnap the kids and try and extort money out of their father. This is of course also in the context of trying to stop beating himself up over Angelique being here at all, and what a walkover he seems when she wants her way. What Charlie is hoping, basically, is for nothing whatsoever to happen, him and Angelique to drive their car load of yuppie trinkets back to Chicago, hit the bars for a few, decant themselves up to her apartment, pop open the vial of amyl nitrate she filched from the hospital and ride each other into merry, raw oblivion. The idea that Angelique can be both the ultimate porny girl and a, well, the, possible mother of his children … this happy dream fills Charlie T with a warm, horny glow. This would be everything he could possibly ask for. The only problem is what kind of life can the two of them have together if he does the work he does? Against that, what other kind of work can he do? Tending bar is not going to keep him remotely satisfied, let alone Angelique.

  As if in answer to his prayers, if they can be called prayers, his phone throbs with a text message. It’s from Mr Wilson: Client says it must all go down tonight.

  Charlie T fires back: Does client have an address for mark?

  And by return: You’re in the field, Charles – improvise. Client says it’ll be worth double.

  Double? That’s not bad. Not enough to clear his debt, but a start. All right. Let’s make the conditions a wee bit more secure. The targets reach the house on the far corner and start working their way back towards them. He draws her into a copse of trees between two big neo-Colonials and lays it out for her quietly.

  ‘Angelique, pet, something’s come up, I need you to wait in the car. OK?’

  ‘What’s come up?’

  ‘Instructions.’

  ‘What instructions?’

  ‘I can’t really go into that.’

  Angelique gives him that look, the disappointed-in-him look, makes him feel about five years old.

  ‘Charlie. Instructions are for kids. Remember where we’re going with this. Whoever that guy is, Mr Weirdo—’

  ‘Mr Wilson.’

  ‘Whatever. The point is, you need to be the sole trader here, not an employee. You’re the one who does the work—’

  ‘The intelligence is part of the work – a crucial part.’

  ‘My point exactly. And where is the intel on this job? You don’t have a name, an address, you’re left to improvise. With my assistance, I surely don’t have to point out. So if this Wilson guy is not upholding his end of the bargain, well, you’ve got to stand up for yourself. A deal is a deal, am I wrong?’

  She’s not wrong. She’s not wrong. And man, she looks hot being not wrong, the streetlights glistening in her hair, her sticky lips red and full, her cheeks hot with passion, with fire. As if she can read his thoughts, she pulls him close and kisses him, rubs a thigh against his hardening cock.

  ‘And the best thing is,’ she whispers in his ear, grinding herself against him, ‘I think I know how they got here.’

  ‘How?’ he says.

  ‘You notice they’ve all got mud on their boots? The girls are wearing Uggs and there’s mud stains halfway up them? And she’s got hiking boots caked in mud as well?’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed, but I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘Well. It’s dry tonight. It hasn’t rained in over a week. The ground is hard. Where did they get the mud from?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Ripley Fields. Lake Ripley. There’s a lane way between houses over that side, we passed it our first time around; I don’t know for sure, but I’ve a pretty good idea it leads down to the lake. Maybe there’s some kind of walkway down there, a lakeside path or something. I’m ready to guess that’s the way they came, that their house is accessible from the path. And if that’s so …’

  Charlie T jumps in and has to reduce the volume immediately, so excited has he become.

  ‘If there’s adequate forest down there – and it’s wild enough up here, so there’s no reason to expect it isn’t – it could be perfect. Out of sight, easy to separate the kids, to spook them … that’s really smart, Angelique.’

  ‘Don’t you mean “partner”?’

  Charlie thinks a bit, and grins. ‘I do.’

  My Kind of Town

  Danny still has some of the sportswear he pulled off the rail in Gene Peterson’s office: basketball tops and shorts, shiny man-made fibers unpleasant to the touch, and when the elevator doors open he flings them in front of him, head height, before he can see who it is he’s flinging them at, and follows, head down, right shoulder exposed. Hit them low in the tackle, that’s about as much football coaching as he can remember, let’s hope it’s a cop or a security guard and not somebody’s grandmother or a pregnant lady, no, it’s one of Chicago’s finest and he’s on his back, grabbing at Danny’s feet, but Danny is driving his heels and steps off the cop’s shoulder.

  He can hear him scream as he runs up the incline towards the exit, up past pallets of crated supplies for the different offices in the Ainslie Building, hears the cop on his radio now, crackle and spit, flutter and wow, up past parked cars and a hugely fat security guy by a barrier who’s coming out of his cabin.

  Fuck this. Danny heads for the side furthest from the fat guy and vaults the barrier and runs up the slipway and nearly collides with a car coming down it and the slipway routes around into an alley but there’s a set of metal steps and Danny piles up them and there he is, the roar of the street, North Michigan Avenue. Tribune Tower opposite and what did Claire say? North? That’s left, two cops coming out of the entrance to the Ainslie, shit, Danny skids out on to the street and plods around the outside of a CTA bus moving slowly, cars honking, honk back if he could, fuck them, keep your nerve, keep your nerve. He navigates back toward the sidewalk by Nordstrom’s looking for the underpass; there are the steps, down and three blocks. Go. Go.

  There are voices shouting, but he can’t be sure if they’re cops or people he bumped into or knocked over, or if they’re even shouting at him. Don’t look back, out of the underpass now, cross Rush Street, past the Meridien Hotel, Nordstrom’s again, how big is that fucking store? Cross Wabash, Christ, he’s out of shape, right side of the street, he can see the red sign on the corner, Grand El Station, past the Hilton Garden Inn and down the steps.

  Danny fumbles in his pockets, looks at the vending machine, $2.25, he pulls three dollar bills out and stuffs them in and waits for the machi
ne to whirr and grabs his ticket and walks towards the turnstile.

  ‘Sir?’

  Oh, shit.

  ‘Excuse me, sir? You, guy in the gray suit?’

  There are people staring at him. His breath is coming hard, hot sweat seeping down his face. He’s lost the momentum. He turns around. A thick-set African-American man in navy pants and a yellow and red CTA reflector coat is holding his hand out toward Danny. In it are three quarters.

  ‘You a millionaire today, sir?’

  ‘Far from it,’ Danny says.

  ‘Then pick up your change. Maybe you will be someday; stop throwing your money away.’

  Danny takes his change. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Best believe I’m not going to be a millionaire, giving it away,’ the CTA guy says, and wheels away.

  Danny goes through the turnstile and down on to the north platform, still watching for cops, still breathless, still jumpy. But he is smiling too, for the first time in he can’t remember how long. It’s nice to be nice. Even Chicago’s still the Mid-West.

  Chicago and Clark underground, up into the light for Clybourn, and then Fullerton. He’s stopped panting by now, but he’s still sweating like a pig. He gets off the train, and takes the down escalator, and follows the Exit signs and comes out on to West Fullerton Avenue beneath the tracks. There’s a jumble of construction work on the street and the sidewalk opposite is closed, concealed behind green mesh fencing. Danny looks this way and that. This way, there’s a Dominick’s pizza restaurant. That way, there’s a parking lot. In front of the parking lot, there’s a tall, spindly tree with rust colored leaves. And in front of the tree, there’s a woman dressed in black with long auburn hair. He walks toward her, trying to keep his expression steady, and he sees by her face, Christ, her beautiful face, that’s she’s trying to do the exact same. He looks over his shoulder, and doesn’t spot anything, no cops, no one following, but when he looks back at Claire, his eyes flashing, red for danger, red for passion, her eyes flash right back at him, the two of them again, at last, looking at each other.

  ‘I’ve got the car right here,’ she says, her voice tight, almost choking, almost laughing with the tension of it all.

  ‘Good,’ he says, and he’s almost laughing himself, adrenaline lighting him up. ‘Good. Let’s go.’

  PART FOUR

  Trick or Treat!

  All Alone

  Donna wonders whether they take her for some kind of prissy church-mouse school-marm Mid-West mom. Then she reminds herself that that, after all, has been her entire plan, her way of coping with, that is to say, avoiding, life. But it doesn’t take long for her reptile self to reengage. First time, the dude with the Badgers hat and the sexy redhead were neighbors, civilians, just a couple on their way home. Second time, they were what the cops would call people of interest. This is the fourth time Donna has spotted them, and she was never even a lookout when she ran with her bikers, she was a diversion, a moving violation in a skirt up to there and a top down to here, get you an eyeful while my boyfriend raids the till. Are they amateurs? The guy looks like he knows what he’s doing. There’s something evasive about him, as if he knows to keep his face out of the light. But the redhead in the kitten-heel boots and the ribbon of skirt, apart from the obvious, what is she for?

  Oh, stop it. They could be here for myriad reasons. They could be a young couple out for a leisurely Halloween walk who want to remind themselves of the joys of trick or treating, this being the only neighborhood in which such a thing is possible. Maybe she’s pregnant, and they’re here to envision the future. Maybe they’re pedophiles, sizing up prey. There’s an innocent explanation for everything.

  ‘I think we’re done, girls,’ Donna says, tamping her voice down a panic tone or two.

  ‘There’s a few more houses over there,’ Irene says hopefully, looking towards a section of the estate they’ve not been through.

  Donna glances at their bulging tote bags. ‘Yeah, but where would you put the stuff they give you? No more room in those sacks.’

  ‘You could put it in your pockets,’ Barbara says. ‘Since you’re not doing anything else.’

  ‘I’ll put you in my pockets. Pumpkin time, princesses.’

  ‘Are we taking the scenic route again?’ Barbara says.

  ‘Mud is the new sand.’

  ‘It’s kind of dark down there,’ Irene says.

  ‘Well,’ Donna says, ‘that’s what you’ve got those bats for.’

  Donna looks behind her several times as they cut down the lane between two houses and down the wooden steps and set out along the path, but she sees no one – no sexy redhead, no guy in a Badgers hat, no zombies, no werewolves. In truth, the walk is quite well illuminated from the houses perched forty or fifty feet above it and from the faint but resilient moon. It is muddy, though: the water level has been high and has seeped through into the path; the trees resound to the mulch and slap of their duck paddle steps and Donna feels the splashes on her cheeks and brow. If only she had a mask herself, she thinks, and not for the first time.

  One side is banked high and steep with mud and scrub. Lakeside there are stands of trees and occasional clearings with picnic tables and moorings for small boats. After about half a mile, the path follows the lake away from Ripley Fields and the slope gets a little less precipitous and more trees appear to their right. It’s darker now, without the houses, but they are only minutes from Donna’s house. The girls aren’t minding the dark so much. They are excited and full of plans.

  ‘If we get two tubs. Do you have two tubs, Aunt Donna?’ Irene says.

  ‘Tubs. What do you mean, tubs? Like, bowls?’ Barbara says.

  ‘They’d have to be big bowls, for all this. No, tubs, like you’d put plants in.’

  ‘They’d be covered in mud. We don’t want tubs.’

  ‘Basins. I have a couple plastic basins.’

  ‘That’s what we need. And we can put our stuff in them, separately. And see what we’ve got.’

  Barbara always lags behind, and Irene always skips ahead, and that’s how Donna sees Irene stopped, thirty feet in front, a figure approaching her: the redhead from Ripley Fields.

  ‘Irene,’ she yells, scanning the trees on her right for the guy in the Badgers hat. She spins around to see Barbara halted, staring, then spins back.

  The redhead reaches for Irene and it looks like she’s got some kind of cloth in one hand to muffle or gag or subdue her, and the Glock, which has been out of the clutch since they started down the walk anyway, is in Donna’s hand and her hand is pointing at the redhead.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Donna says.

  And as she speaks, she catches the guy on her right, the guy in the Badgers hat, moving slowly through the trees, heading past her towards Barbara. She sways, trying to cover him too.

  ‘Get away from her,’ she says, and she can see something glint out of the corner of her right eye, but this motherfucking redheaded bitch has some kind of rag or gag over Irene’s face, trying to chloroform her? She should shoot the guy she thinks has the gun, but she gets things in the wrong order because she is so incensed and shoots the redhead instead, in the middle of her face, and then she nearly has enough time to shoot the guy as well; she wheels around and he is staring at the redhead where she dropped like he can’t believe what just happened, and Irene is screaming, she’s kind of being dragged down by the weight of the dead woman. Donna pivots and brings the Glock up and squeezes the trigger and feels like she’s running in a dream and thinks if I don’t hit this guy God knows what will happen to the girls and sees a firework’s trail across the sky illuminate the leaves on the surrounding trees and these are the last things she will ever feel and think and see.

  It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie

  The salon is closed, and Detective Nora Fox can’t get Dee St Clair on the phone, so she goes to the apartment building on East Wilson and raises the building superintendent, whose name is Steve and who, with long dark hair and a goatee, is kind of
cute, and actually looks a bit like Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters and is also younger than she expected, which is a change from the police officers looking younger every year, she supposes, although maybe not a welcome change. Steve, who has somebody blonde with him, is uneasy about giving her Dee’s key and Nora talks about a potential missing-persons situation and a double murder case, and Steve still looks doubtful and mentions a warrant and Nora holds her hand up and says:

  ‘Steve, there are children in danger. Tonight!’

  Even though she doesn’t realize yet that in fact, there are children in danger. Steve goes to get the key. She can see that he feels obliged to come with her and she doesn’t want that, and neither does he on account of she can smell the blonde’s perfume and hear the clink of ice in a glass and if she were him she’d be in there and avid because blondes tend to wilt from lack of attention so she tells him to try Dee on the phone every ten minutes and if he gets through, to let her know.

  In the apartment, Nora quickly notes a laptop on the couch by the glass wall overlooking the lake and then comes to rest at a recessed space off the main living room that seems to do dual duty as office and dining area. There’s a brown mahogany table here, and its surface is piled high with newspaper cuttings and photocopies of news stories, some loose, some collected in ring binders. Nora checks her time. It’s seven-thirty. It’s not late. Not yet. She sits at the table and begins to work through the paper.

  Danny and Claire are on the I-90 from Chicago, headed for Madison, or for Cambridge, they’re not sure which. Danny hasn’t been able to talk to Donna, but he’s left her messages saying they will come to her and collect the kids, or alternatively if she wants to come to Arboretum Avenue, although that’s probably unwise given the house has been cleared out, so in fact, if they manage to get to her place, could they spend the night?