by Andrew Grant
The factor I hadn’t bargained for was the length of the guy’s arms. What he lacked in speed, he made up for in reach. He just stretched out, grabbed me by the collar, and hauled me back up to the landing. Then he flung me forward, slamming me into the wall. I spun around and collapsed onto the floor. The blood from my nose was gushing again, running down the back of my throat, choking me, so I rolled onto my front, struggled to my knees, and half spat, half puked the warm sticky mess onto the carpet.
Carolyn’s going to kill me, I thought absurdly.
Before I could move he was on top of me again. He seized my belt as well as my collar and launched me forward, even harder. Only this time he didn’t throw me straight. I veered sideways, away from the wall, and crashed against the spindly wooden uprights that support the bannister rail. Several gave way under my weight, leaving nothing between me and a nine-foot drop to the solid floor below. I scrabbled and flailed my arms, desperate to arrest my momentum, but couldn’t find anything to hang on to. My eyes clamped shut and I braced for the long fall. But it didn’t come. I stayed where I was. Poised on the brink. Then I was conscious of strong fingers clamped around my right elbow.
I’d been saved by the same long arm that had nearly killed me.
The guy helped me to my feet and I moved slowly as we made our way along the landing, trying to shake off the residual dizziness. He urged me forward, but I dragged my feet even more. Then, when we were ten feet from my bedroom door, I broke away. I dived into the room, slammed the door back into place, and forced my trembling fingers to work the lock.
Step one was complete. I was bleeding and bruised, but I’d done it. A burst of triumph exploded within me as I grabbed the dresser and started to pull, eager to finish the job. It moved easily at first. Then it slowed. And after eight inches, it stopped dead.
Strands of the carpet’s long pile had wrapped themselves around its legs, snagging them like silky ropes. Cursing, I crouched down to free them. The edge of the door slammed into my arm. A whole section of the frame cartwheeled into the room, coming to rest at the foot of the bed. And then the guy appeared, lashing out with his foot and leaving me flat on my back, surrounded by splintered wood.
Thursday. Early evening.
I’D HATED PLAYING CHESS WHEN I WAS AT SCHOOL.
Not because I couldn’t understand the rules. Not because I was terrible at it. In fact, I usually won. But because of one kid. The only one who could ever beat me. And even then, it wasn’t the losing that got to me. It was the expression on this kid’s face. An expression that said, Is that the best you’ve got? Really?
I saw that same expression on the guy’s face as he stood in my bedroom doorway, looking down at me sprawled on the floor.
“Are you a moron?” He stepped toward me. “Or do you just like pain?”
“Wait!” I scrabbled away and pushed myself up until I was sitting with my back against the bed. “You don’t understand. I’m getting you the memory stick. I just didn’t want you to see where the safe was. That’s all. I’m sorry. It was stupid of me.”
“There’s no safe. And no other memory stick.”
“There is. I swear. The safe’s right here.”
“OK. Show me. But no more stupid stunts.”
“Of course. May I get up?”
The guy nodded.
I hauled myself back to my feet and shuffled toward the bathroom door. A picture was hanging on the wall next to it. A half life-size print of Lichtenstein’s VAROOM! from the days after I’d graduated from posters but couldn’t yet afford the real thing. I reached out, pretending to swing the frame away from the wall. Checked the guy’s reflection in the glass, to make sure he wasn’t moving. Then lifted the picture off its hook and flung it at his head like a giant square Frisbee.
I didn’t wait to see if I’d hit my target. I just charged through the bathroom door, locked it behind me, and looked around for a weapon. I don’t know what I expected to find, but as I scanned the towels and toothbrushes and shaving stuff I felt like I might as well have been in the cuddly animal aisle at a toy store. Then the door crashed open behind me so I snatched up a bottle of Carolyn’s shampoo—plastic, unfortunately—pivoted, and threw it as hard as I could at the guy’s head.
He leaned to the side and it sailed harmlessly past him.
“Tell me something.” He took out his gun and used it to gesture toward a point on the wall to the side of my head. “What’s with all these cartoons? You’ve got them everywhere. With all the money you’ve got, couldn’t you have bought any real art?”
“Real art?” I ignored the echo of Carolyn’s sentiments, reached out, and took down the picture he’d just pointed to. “Let me enlighten you. This was painted by Roy Lichtenstein in 1964. Each one of the dots was drawn by hand. If it were real, not a copy, it would be worth a few million dollars. And if you look closely, right here at—”
I jabbed at the guy’s throat with the corner of the frame, but he saw it coming. He slapped me on the forearm with his left hand, knocking the picture out of my grip. It smashed into the wall above the bath and fragments of wood and glass rained down into the tub. Then he whipped his arm back the opposite way, slapping me on the side of the face and sending me staggering into the corner of the room.
“Listen!” The blood stung my tongue, making me lisp. “I’ll give you the memory stick. There’s only one, but I guess you’ve figured that out by now. And one of the paintings? The cartoons? It’s real. It’s worth a fortune. I’ll show you which one. You can have it. You can take it, if you leave me alone.”
“One of these kid’s drawings is worth something? Which one?”
“I’ll show you.”
“Tell me.”
I didn’t reply, shaking my head, trying to clear my vision and wondering what on earth I could try on him next.
“Having trouble with your memory?”
He reached out and grabbed my collar and belt. Then he launched me sideways into the little set of shelves where Carolyn kept the clean towels and her spare potions. The wooden framework shattered and I half fell, half rolled onto the floor, surrounded by a scattering of dainty bottles and jars.
“Stand up!” The guy seemed eleven feet tall, looming above me.
I felt around in the debris for anything I could use to fend him off, and my fingers closed around a plastic bottle. A liquid—more of a thick green slime—was oozing out of a crack in its side. I waited until he was only inches away. Then I slammed the bottle down on the floor between us, covering a row of tiles with shiny, slippery gel.
The guy stepped over the puddle, grabbed me by the collar, lifted me to my feet, and punched me in the stomach.
“The valuable painting. Remembered where it is yet?”
I would have answered if I could have breathed, but as I struggled to suck in air he lost patience and shoved me backward into the bathtub. He planted one of his feet on my throat. Then he worked the lever that closed the drain.
“Last chance!” He was reaching for the faucet.
I couldn’t believe he was going to drown me over a painting, but I changed my mind the instant the first drops of cold water hit my face. I started thrashing around, desperate to lift my head to safety, but his foot was pinning me down. My arms and legs were banging against the sides of the tub, and I could feel broken pieces of picture frame digging into my back. My right hand pulled back from something sharp and the sudden pain drove a desperate thought into my head. I reached out, forcing my fingers to seek whatever had just hurt them. It was a piece of glass. Triangular. Narrow. Maybe eight inches long and two across at the wider end. I scrabbled to get a grip. Then I raised it up and slashed furiously at the guy’s leg.
I’d aimed high, and judging by the pitch of his scream and the volume of blood that sprayed in all directions, I must have hit something important. He released the faucet and staggered back, howling. I didn’t see what happened next. All I heard was a hollow thud, then silence. I sat up cautiously, still ga
sping for breath, and peeped over the edge. The guy was sprawled out on his back, one leg—the one I hadn’t stabbed—tucked awkwardly beneath him, his arms pointing straight out, and a crimson halo of blood crowning his head.
I had no medical training. I didn’t physically examine him. But there was no doubt in my mind. He was dead. He had the same subtly relaxed contortion I’d seen once before, in the body of a guy who’d thrown himself on some electrified train tracks.
There was only one difference. The other time, the cause of death was suicide.
This time, the cause of death was me.
Thursday. Evening.
IT HAD NO LOCKS OR BARS, BUT FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR THE bathtub held me as securely as any jail cell could have done.
In the end it was the relentless dripping of the water that forced me out. I’d turned my head to stop the drops from hitting my face, but the sound—one splash every second, like clockwork—was driving me crazy. So I stretched up to turn off the faucet, and whether it was the movement, or the sudden silence, the spell was broken. I climbed over the side and, stiff from the beating and the cold, I hobbled away from the bathroom.
I’d gotten almost to the front door when one of my senses finally returned. I couldn’t go outside in those clothes. They were sprayed with blood, soaked in water, and covered with fragments of glass.
I returned to our bedroom and pulled on clean clothes, not really concentrating, just grabbing whatever was closest to the front of my closet and transferring my few remaining possessions. But before I could leave again a strange force drew me back to the bathroom door, like I was a mawkish spectator at the scene of a grisly car wreck.
I looked in at the body, steeled for a wave of revulsion, but it never came. The guy’s remains no longer looked like a he. More like a thing. And then a practical, dispassionate voice started to whisper inside my brain. Things can be useful, Marc. Turn over a rock, and you never know what you might find.
I didn’t take the dead guy’s gun. That would be like inviting the police to shoot me, if I did get caught. I did take his wallet, though. There was no ID, but he wouldn’t be needing the cash anymore. And his credit cards would be safer to use than mine, if I needed access to more funds.
Rifling through his jacket was one thing—I could lift it up, away from his body—but his jeans were another proposition altogether. Sliding your hand into another man’s pocket seemed way too intimate. Inappropriate, even. More so when you’re the one who just killed him. In fact, I nearly walked away without doing it. I would have, if it weren’t for one more insistent thought at the front of my mind. I needed transport. Especially now that a man was dead. The stakes had skyrocketed. I couldn’t risk using my Jaguar, even though it was sitting invitingly in the driveway. And this guy must have had wheels, to follow me here.
My hand hovered above his hip for a moment, then shot forward to grab his keys. He had two sets, clipped together. One was from a rental car company, with a logo I’d never seen before. The other bunch was bigger. And very familiar.
Because it belonged to Carolyn.
Thursday. Evening.
ALL THE FIGHT HAD GONE OUT OF ME, WHICH LEFT ONLY ONE option. Flight.
The last thing I did before running out of the house was grab my passport from the downstairs safe. South America. Europe. Australia. I didn’t care. I just knew I had to get far, far away.
IF THERE’D BEEN ENOUGH gas in the dead guy’s car to take me all the way to JFK, maybe I’d have gone through with it and tried to get on a plane. To put the maximum distance between me and his corpse and Carolyn and whoever else she was hooked up with. But when a little red light started flashing on the dashboard, that brought me back to my senses. Not all the way, but enough to persuade me to pause. So when I neared the next intersection and saw signs for accommodation, I pulled off the highway. I found the smallest and drabbest of the motels that were clustered around the sprawling cloverleaf. And I let the dead guy’s credit card stand me a night’s room and board.
I had no desire to eat or watch TV or even to get undressed. I just threw myself down on the bed. On top of the covers. The light was off. The curtains were open. My mind was still blank. But sleep refused to wash over me, so I lay still and stared up at the ceiling. It was stained. Maybe from a water leak. The line of vaguely round marks looked like the instrument panel in the dead guy’s car. They reminded me of my first product. My life had seemed on such a promising track, back when I was developing that. How on earth had it led me from there to here?
Despite all the miles I’d driven that night, I felt like I was only going backward. I couldn’t see the way ahead at all. And that made me think of something Roger LeBrock had said, a hundred years ago, back on Monday morning. He’d justified his decision to fire me by claiming I focused only on the past. That I had no eye for the future. I could have punched him for it, at the time. But now I was wondering if he had a point. Because my entire career was based on understanding what people did. Not who they were. Like myself. Was I a criminal? A thief? A fugitive? A murderer? I had no idea what the truth was anymore.
MY BODY HADN’T MOVED by the time my eyes opened the next morning—sleep having crept up on me at some stage—but my brain had been busy. It was telling me that things were nowhere near as hopeless as they’d seemed in the wee small hours. Because I had a key advantage. The memory stick. It was still safely tucked away in my pocket. And assuming the virus was on it—and it had survived the ordeal in the bathtub—that meant my lifeline was still within reach. The drawback was, I’d need help making sense of the secrets it held.
Asking for that kind of help wouldn’t be easy. And wouldn’t come cheap. I had to call Information to get the number I needed, because it wasn’t a friend’s. What would have been the point? And it wasn’t a colleague’s, because I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have the stomach for what I had in mind. Greed can only take you so far. Instead, I asked the operator to connect me with a guy who’d be motivated by something else. The chance to step out of my shadow, once and for all.
The number I asked for was Karl Weimann’s. I’d used him before, to torpedo Carolyn’s career change. It seemed poetic to use him again now. And if Carolyn got caught in the crossfire, so be it. All was fair, after I’d almost been killed in our own bathroom.
“Karl?” He took an eternity to pick up. “Marc Bowman. Got a minute to talk?”
“A minute for you, Marc. Then I have to run.”
“I’ll keep it brief. The deal is, I’m working on something new. It’s big.”
“The Supernova?”
It was interesting he should ask that. The Supernova was the idea I’d had on the back burner when I started at AmeriTel. The one I’d been talking to Carolyn about, right around the time the photo of her and Weimann must have been taken.
“No.” I forced myself to stay on track. “Something else. The Nova was going to be big. But the new thing—it doesn’t even have a name yet—it’s going to be massive.”
“Sounds interesting. But why are you telling me?”
“Because I’m offering you a slice.”
“How big of a slice?”
“Say, twenty-five percent?”
“What would I have to do?”
“Meet me. We’ll talk about it.”
“OK.” He paused. “Where and when?”
“Today. My hotel. The Buckingham. In Harrison, just off the 684. Let’s say, noon?”
“No can do. Too short notice.”
“Well, it has to be today. It’s a limited-time offer. Other people are interested. This thing’s going to be huge, and you’ll kick yourself if you snooze and lose.”
“OK.” He paused for longer. “You’ve got me. I’ll be there. What room number?”
“I haven’t checked in yet. I’ll text you as soon as I do.”
“I’ll be watching my phone. Ciao, partner.”
Friday. Morning.
CAVEAT EMPTOR.
Buyer, beware. The ol
dest rule in the book when it comes to business. And however you chose to read my proposition—whether Weimann was buying a slice of my product, or I was buying a piece of his expertise—I was going into the deal with my eyes open.
I called the Buckingham and reserved two rooms in the dead guy’s name, then I left the motel. I hadn’t formally checked out, but since I was wearing the sum total of my possessions, and I had no wish to run the gauntlet at reception again—dopey as the clerk had seemed the night before—I didn’t waste the time.
I recalled passing a giant Target store on my crazy drive from home, so after a brief stop at a gas station—one with a pay-at-the-pump option—I set off to find it again.
I parked close to the entrance and headed for the electronics aisle. First into the cart was a pair of Sony laptops. I didn’t need the bells and whistles, but when you’re shopping with a dead guy’s credit card, why hold back? My next pick was a handful of memory sticks—the same brand I’d been using at AmeriTel. Then a few changes of clothes, in a variety of colors. Three baseball caps. A pair of reading glasses—the weakest they had. And finally a suitcase, to carry everything in.
THE HOTEL WASN’T QUITE where I thought it was, but after five minutes of rising anxiety I tracked it down. I found an out-of-the-way space to leave the car, put on the glasses and one of the hats, and made my way to reception. The clerk looked surprised when I asked for the rooms I’d booked to be at least four floors apart, but when I mentioned teenaged kids and stopping en route to an anniversary getaway, he grinned and said no more.