by Hines
Dark Suit rose, turned toward him. Lucas followed the motion and clasped his hand.
“Um, what should I call you?” Lucas asked hesitantly.
“Ah. Well, I guess you could call me Saul.”
“Saul. Why?”
“Because that’s my name.” He began to walk away, toward the steps that led to street level. Up above, the guitar abruptly stopped pumping out its lonesome wail. “We’ll see you on Tuesday . . . Humpty.”
Lucas stared across the station for a few minutes after Saul’s departure, thinking as a few more trains pulled in and emptied their passengers.
Finally, he opened the briefcase again. He considered the folders and wrapped brown packages inside for a few moments before unslinging his backpack and transferring them to it.
Up above, the guitar began in earnest again, yet another bluestinged riff that sounded faintly familiar to Lucas; the tune, in an odd way, felt hypnotic. He listened to a few bars, closing his eyes as the chords seemed to fill the air around him. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and looked around him, trying to see if anyone else was listening to the music. Another train stopped, emptying fresh passengers onto the platform, but the sounds of the crowd didn’t seem to overpower the music from above at all.
Curious, Lucas stood and went toward the concrete stairs, his pack strapped to his back and the now-empty briefcase clutched in his hand.
At the bottom of the steps, he paused. A few people coursed around him. The music beckoned, and now he could hear a faint growl of someone singing, accompanying the tune. No distinct words that he could make out, just a dark growl that punctuated the chords strummed on the guitar.
He kept his gaze above as he climbed the stairs to the street level, pulled along by the siren sound of the music. At the top of the stairs he paused again, seeing the guitarist sitting on a crate near a bench. Lucas was aware of traffic noises, shuffling feet, honking horns, but somehow they all faded into the distance. The guitar and the low, guttural voice of the musician forced it all to the background.
The musician threw back his head and let out a wail, then launched into an intricate solo, making the guitar wail along with him. His eyes were closed, as if he were in pain, but Lucas could see a glint of white teeth shining in the light. A porkpie hat perched on the man’s head and seemed in danger of falling off, but it refused to move in spite of the musician’s gyrations. Through it all, the man kept his left leg bent, perched against the crate, as his right leg stretched in front of him and tapped out a beat.
Lucas stared around him again, noting the people moving up and down the stairs without taking notice of the wondrous sound in their midst.
He smiled, felt his feet taking him toward the figure on the crate.
He stopped in front of the musician, and as he did, the guitarist straightened his head again and opened his eyes. Another smile, another flash of white teeth. He nodded his head to Lucas, continuing to play but lowering the intensity of the music.
Lucas felt a smile come across his own face, found himself fumbling in his pocket and pulling out a few bucks. He dropped them into the man’s guitar case, feeling like a robot; his own movements seemed stiff, awkward in the presence of . . . of this amazing sound.
Another nod from the guitarist as his fingers moved on the frets, shifting to a new tune but somehow flowing from the last one. The musician spoke.
“You wanna hear somethin?” he asked, continuing to play.
Lucas opened his mouth, but it was dry. He swallowed, feeling a click in his throat. “Just . . . this,” was all he could stammer.
The musician nodded. “You look like a man who could go for one of the old-time spirituals,” he said. His eyebrows arched, and he held Lucas’s gaze as his fingers etched out a new tune. The man threw back his head and began to sing in that low, feel-it-in-your-bones tone.
Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down
Oh, yes Lord
Sometimes I’m almost to the ground
Oh, yes Lord
Although you see me goin’ along so
Oh, yes Lord
I have my troubles here below
Oh, yes Lord
Nobody knows the trouble I see . . .
Lucas smiled. Could be his theme. The man opened an eye and peeked at Lucas, who nodded back encouragement. For a few minutes he stood, transported to another world filled only with shifting chords and plaintive singing; the man performed the song, and Lucas simultaneously felt like crying and laughing. The music gripped him deep inside, matching the Dark Vibration that was always there. But while the music played, the Dark Vibration didn’t demand to come to the forefront. It stayed in the background, comforted by the sounds.
Finally the musician finished, going back to some filler. His eyes opened again, the smile spreading from his mouth across his whole face.
“That’s . . . amazing,” Lucas said.
“Ain’t it, though?” the man said. “You feel it. Not many folks do.
Not many folks do at all. They hear, but they don’t feel.”
The familiarity of the phrase struck Lucas; it sounded so much like They look, but they don’t see. He understood this man very well, he thought.
The musician’s eyes took on a faraway look for a few moments, as if lost in some memory. “Hard to feel it if you don’t understand,” he said.
“Understand what?”
Another gleaming smile. “Ah, that’s the question, ain’t it?”
Lucas listened to the musician play for a few more minutes, then turned sadly back toward the steps that would lead him underground again. As he turned, the man spoke behind him once more.
“You just keep listening, son,” he said.
Lucas spun around, thought a moment. “You just keep playing, and I will.”
“Got yerself a deal there.”
Lucas listened to the sounds of the guitar fading away as he retraced his route to the underground. Back in the station, he scouted the platform and backtracked through the security door to bypass the gates, then out to the back tunnels of the Metro system. A few hundred feet down the catwalk adjacent to the rails, he paused and threw the now-empty briefcase out onto the tracks; it tumbled to a stop, resting askew on one of the rails. In a few minutes, the next train would rumble through, pushing the case back toward the station, mangling it in the process. He smiled, thinking about potential bugs or tracking devices hidden in the soft cloth lining of the case; let Saul’s spooks kick around the dark stones on the floor of the Metro station, looking for broken pieces.
He turned down an access tunnel and toward the basement of a nearby office building he’d called home some months ago.
Of course, there was also the matter of the files and the wrapped packages Saul had given him; they were just as likely to carry tracking devices, so he couldn’t very well take them with him. He’d hide them in the basement up ahead and come back to them at a later time for closer inspection.
Then it would be time to pay a visit to his good friend Donavan.
Even down here, in the bowels of the Metro system, he swore he could still hear the music from above.
But that was impossible.
TEN
DONAVAN WASN’T HOME; LUCAS COULD TELL THAT AFTER A FEW MINUTES of watching his apartment. Amazingly enough, though, the key was still hidden under the planter. When Lucas let himself into the apartment, it was immediately obvious Donavan hadn’t been back since his last visit; the nearly empty bag of chips Donavan had left in the hall was still there, undisturbed.
Lucas made his way through the apartment, cataloging images and comparing them to the ones he had in his mind. The bed, still unmade, with one pillow on the floor and the other plumped into a small hump. The dirty dishes next to the sink, unrinsed. The mail, haphazardly opened, sitting on the small end table in the living area.
Donavan hadn’t come home after the meeting last night; that was obvious. The question was: Where had he gone? Stayed with Snake or one o
f the other Creep Clubbers? Or was Donavan avoiding his home, in hopes it would help him avoid Lucas? Possible. Maybe even probable after his walkout the night before.
Wait. Viktor Abkin’s house—that’s where he had to be. Probably getting more shots for his big “project.” At least it kept him out of the way for the time being; once Lucas talked to Viktor, Donavan’s precious project would be done.
Lucas went to the bedroom and woke Donavan’s computer, then opened the Web browser.
First he typed in the numeric IP address to make sure the geopatch he’d attached to Saul’s shoe was active. It was. Lucas would come back to that later.
He started to leave the site, then thought better of it and checked the locations of the geopatches attached to Viktor, Ted, and Anita again. As expected, Ted and Anita were at the Abkin house, while unsuspecting Viktor whiled away his time at the bar.
Next he pointed the browser at the Creep Club home page. He entered Donavan’s username and password, and was relieved to discover it still let him in.
Still no new posts on the page, though. There was no telling when Donavan would sign on and change his log-in information, so Lucas’s online link to the Creep Club was already iffy.
He needed a real link to them. Maybe he’d be working with Saul, maybe he’d be working alone. In either case, he was sure he wanted to pay another visit to Creep Club. Eyes wide open this time.
He checked his watch. He’d left his meeting with Saul about an hour and a half ago. Now it was time to log in to Donavan’s geopatch site.
He considered, for a moment, whether or not to barricade the front door of Donavan’s apartment. Donavan could return at any time, especially since he hadn’t been here at all in the last twenty hours or so. But he doubted Donavan would be surprised to see him there; in an odd way, Donavan had seemed to welcome his presence in the apartment.
He was fairly certain the apartment was under some kind of surveillance. Maybe Donavan even had a few tricks hidden inside the walls or ceilings. And again, this did nothing to change his plans. He was only here to use the computer and then would be on his way. He could always return later, when Donavan was back.
The front door was locked; that was good enough for now.
Lucas recalled Donavan’s numeric IP address in his mind’s eye, then keyed it into the browser window; instantly, a satellite/map hybrid of the greater DC area began to load on the screen. In a pane off the main window, he clicked on a drop-down text box and selected the number of the geopatch he’d affixed to Saul’s shoe. A few moments later, a red dot began glowing on the screen as the image zoomed; it stayed stationary as he watched it for a few minutes.
Nodding, Lucas clicked on the history link and traced the geopatch’s movements since its activation ninety minutes ago. Looked like Saul had made two brief stops, then a third at his current location, where he had been for the last fifteen minutes.
Lucas made a mental note of the three addresses, filing them away in his memory banks. He had some exploring to do.
AS LUCAS FOLLOWED SAUL’S RECENT TRACKS, HE THOUGHT THE MAN’S first stop was innocuous enough: a local coffee shop, carved out of the lobby of a blue glass building just south of the Washington Monument. Lucas went inside the shop to look around, ordered a latte to give himself a caffeine kick. Brushed nickel tables and chairs circled the L-shaped bar, with bright drop-down lights overhead. Everything in the coffee shop was sharp and angular—no soft curves or lines.
Something like Saul himself.
Lucas sipped at the latte—hotter than molten lava—as he pulled up the image of the computer map in his head. The next location he’d known immediately when he’d seen its address: the Lincoln Memorial.
It wasn’t exactly a short walk from where he was—almost a mile—but he felt like hoofing it. Walking would give him some time to clear his mind, keep him off the Metro for a while.
Half an hour later, he stood in front of Honest Abe, looking up at the giant marble face. The mammoth statue of Lincoln, he thought, looked sad, as if seeing something that disappointed him.
Lucas took another sip of the latte, now only slightly cooler, and walked to the top of the steps, standing by one of the giant columns to take in the general area. Trees and lawn stretching away from him, leading to the Walking Mall’s shimmering sheet of water. Washington Monument and Capitol Hill, wavering in the hazy distance.
His eye stopped on a long, low concrete bench adjacent to the base of the steps. It felt right: it was open, offering a long view in any direction. This felt, to him, like a place Saul would . . . would what?
He wasn’t sure of that. Yet.
He walked down the steps to the bench, sat on it. Yes, Saul had been here. After another sip of the latte, he decided to give up on it and stood to walk it over to the nearest trash can.
He looked across the long stretch of the Walking Mall, toward Capitol Hill on the other end. His next destination was near the Hill, and he’d already done a bit of research on the address. A government office building, but no online records to indicate exactly what kinds of offices the building housed. A quick Google search revealed no private businesses or official government divisions using the address.
He moved north toward the Foggy Bottom Metro stop, where he could catch the Orange or Blue Line to Capitol Hill; he had less than an hour to work with if he was going to make his meeting with Viktor at Split Jacks.
He listened to his feet shuffling on the pavement as he walked, replaying the events of the past few days in his mind. Immediately, the world around him began to squeeze in. For a moment he wished he were in a dark, smooth place—a cool place—with his menagerie of totems surrounding him. The photos, the wonderful photos, the smiling faces and the scarf and the trinkets.
Lucas made himself take a few deep breaths as he continued walking. Had to keep it together right now. The itch was there, to be certain, but he could live with the itch for now. He’d be back home tonight.
A few blocks from the Metro stop, he went into a giant brick office building whose entrance was guarded by a spraying water fountain, feeling tiny drops of the water pricking at his face like grains of sand as he walked by. Inside the building, he moved confidently to the stairs and down them to the basement.
He’d spent a lot of time in this section of town, to be sure. He was, after all, something of a permanent tourist. He’d come here from . . . well, from the orphanage, drawn by the bright lights. But like anyone else, he wanted to see all the machinations of government, the memorials and statues and gardens and cemeteries. So he’d infiltrated many office buildings in this area, and the images of the buildings—their floor layouts, their utility grids—were carefully filed away inside his mind.
In the basement he pushed open a glass door, obviously not the original door to the basement, and went into the darkness beyond. After a few steps, just as he’d remembered, a motion detector flicked the light switch and illuminated the way for him. He took a right just past some built-in storage areas framed by wire and came to a door marked Danger: Electricacal Hazard in big, bright letters.
Most people shied away from danger signs. Lucas knew there was little danger from electrical hazards behind the door; instead, there was a short passageway that led to an underground tunnel and, eventually, a door to the Metro system.
A few minutes later he stood in a Metro car, crowded on all sides by commuters, their faces mute masks of indifference, headed to Metro Center or L’Enfant Plaza to catch different lines to their homes in Maryland or Virginia.
He let his gaze drift around the car, focusing on the distinct faces, trying to picture what their homes must be like. This one, a stocky man with a perfectly coiffed head, he imagined in a small condo. A divorced father of two, he sat forlornly in his seat tonight because this wasn’t a weekend with the kids. The condo would be immaculate, because this man—Lucas decided his name was Dexter—was fastidious, ordered. The living room would be more of a great room, with a large picture windo
w out the front and—
Lucas shook his head, consciously clearing his thoughts. Something was wrong inside his own mind; usually, when he invented these elaborate stories for the people he watched, he focused on their lives and loves. Now, he found himself fixating on their homes, wondering what they looked like inside, how the people he stared at would interact with their surroundings.
It frightened him, this new feeling. Frightened him the way a new junkie might be afraid of the next score: you want it, oh yes, but you’re trembling because you want it.
He dropped his gaze to the floor, closed his eyes, tried to appear as if he were getting a bit of shut-eye on his own commute.
But behind his closed eyelids the cinema of imagined possibilities continued to play, and by the time he arrived at the Capitol South stop his mouth was dry and metallic.
The way a junkie’s mouth would feel in the midst of a deep craving for another hit.
Saul’s building—or what Lucas assumed to be Saul’s building—was an old one several blocks from the Hill. That meant it would have room in the utility chases, as well as unused spaces and other creases where he could fold his body into the building itself.
It was past typical office hours now, but he didn’t really believe this was a typical office, did he? Officially, at least in terms of Google and phone listings, no business or government agency used this building. Even its location seemed to isolate it; in a largely residential area, it was surrounded by row houses rather than other commercial buildings. And yet here it was, heavily fortified with scanners and guards just inside the front entry and signs posted on the building’s exterior warning “unauthorized personnel” to stay away. He loved those kinds of signs; they always led to easy entries.
He took out his spotting scope for a closer look. Inside, on three of the building’s five floors, he saw fluorescent lights illuminating office spaces. Still plenty of light right now, at least an hour or two from sunset, but people seemed to turn on overhead fluorescents from force of habit. That meant there was probably still a fair amount of activity inside. Even at this hour. Even on a Friday night. Interesting.