• • •
There are screams that linger here, even though the rooms are empty.
Jollie can hear them, just like she can hear her own heartbeat, pounding in her head, as she follows him. The breath of the three men on all sides of her, making it impossible to escape.
The hall is a hundred feet of marble floor and ceiling, like in a mausoleum, white and piercing, lit by overhead florescent tubes. Doors every few feet on either side. They lead to dark open chambers.
So much death, on every side of her.
And I’m dead too, she thinks.
• • •
Jollie’s tears are gone, but her heart drops to the floor when they enter the operating room. It smells like cold steel and anesthetic here. And something else too. A weird undercurrent of something. Smells raw and rough, but she’s never sensed anything like it before. It’s also very dark, except for a lamp that illuminates something that looks like a dentist’s chair on rollaway wheels.
She can’t see much else.
“It’s just past midnight, Jollie,” Darian says. “A perfect time to die.”
• • •
Darian removes his jacket and hangs it on the wall.
He tells her to have a seat.
She sits.
And the men surround her, one of them strapping her arms down to the cold steel of the chair, another doing her legs. The restraints are thick, heavy duty leather and steel. The pale, stark light from the lamp shines right in her face, almost canceling out the rest of the room, making Darian into a strange silhouette as he rolls a tray of metal instruments over to her. The light glares off his tools, sparkling. She stays calm.
Darian smiles at her, peeling a fresh stick of gum. Pops it in his mouth. Snaps on a pair of rubber gloves.
Finally, Jollie speaks: “So this is the special room?”
“No, my child. This is my special room. The children are spared, whenever possible. Some things should only be enjoyed by those who’ve earned the right.”
“By being bad?”
“By growing up.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
“You are scared, Jollie. Just moments ago, you were crying like a little boy cries. Are you going to tell me that’s all gone away now?”
“No. But . . . I wasn’t crying because of you.”
“I know that. You’re sad because of your friends. Because of what happened to them. All that’s left now . . . is this.”
He picks up an instrument, which looks like barbed wire fused to a razor sharp blade. It glints, just inches from her eye.
“Do you know what that is? We call it a Wirchcow 9.7. A next-generation autopsy knife. Surgical tools all have names and designations and histories that go back to the beginning of the profession. This one is brand-new on the market—designed to scrape away layers of scabby flesh on burn victims, post mortem. Have you ever seen a live burn victim? They actually have to be peeled regularly or the skin becomes infected. They don’t even feel the pain, Jollie, because their nerves have been destroyed. The screaming only comes because they see what we are doing to them with this terrible thing. They see that their flesh is scraped away like black pulpy coal and their beauty is ruined forever. They see their lives grinding into an endless nothing, where all they are is a creature of torn and mutilated flesh.”
The blade, just an inch from her eyes now.
“They see it all, right here, Jollie. And you’ll see it too.”
She hocks up a ball of spit and aims it right at his face, but it hits the Wirchcow instead, dripping there like alien slime. He still just smiles, the air between them sharp and sweet. “One last time. Tell me where the drugs are.”
“You said you were only going to ask me once.”
“I guess I must have lied.”
“And if I answer, you’ll let me go, just like that?”
“No. But you won’t have to endure what’s coming. You’ll join the children. You’ll become their new teacher. Everything will work out just fine.”
She tries to spit at him again, but her throat chokes dry. “Even if I knew what you wanted to know, Darian, I’d never tell you.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Mark never told me anything. He said he had a storage locker somewhere, but he never said where it was. That could be anywhere in the city. He wouldn’t even tell the lady who brought us in. I don’t know anything.”
“You probably do and you don’t even know it. I’ve been here before also. That’s how I found the three of you eventually. Your friend Jackie-Boy told me a lot.”
“Jackie.”
“Excuse me?”
“His name is Jackie, not Jackie-Boy. Jackie-Boy is a little kid’s name.”
“But that’s all he really was in the end. That’s all you will be too. And there’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing whatsoever to be ashamed of.”
“What did . . . what did you do to him?”
“Not much, really. He was almost dead when he came to me. Your friend Mark saw to that. Did he tell you?”
“You . . . you’re . . . a liar.”
“I am many things, Jollie. But I’m sure by now you’ve gathered that I am anything but a liar.”
“Mark wouldn’t have . . . he . . . wouldn’t have . . .”
“Oh yes, Jollie. He would have. And he did. Jackie-Boy Schaeffer was just one other obstacle in the way of his big score. Jackie-Boy described to me how Mark Jones cleaned house during the deal. Told me so many details. It was fascinating to watch his face and wipe his tears away. His whole world was pretty much ruined. I might have been able to save his life in the end, but I don’t think he wanted to go on living. His heart was broken, like all our hearts break eventually. So I loved him, Jollie. The same way I will love you.”
“No . . . Mark wouldn’t . . .”
But.
She pieces together the chronology of that terrible night—remembers that Mark and Jackie went off together to do the deal.
And only one of them came back.
She remembers his words, when she asked Mark directly. Because Jollie sees words and memorizes him. She asked him if he let anyone hurt Jackie.
And Mark said: I didn’t. I mean . . . I think he’s okay.
• • •
She wants to scream again. She forces herself not to think about Jackie, but it keeps slamming into her, over and over.
Mark’s lie. The worst lie of all.
She barely chokes out: “Why don’t you just get on with it, you sick maniac? I’ve had enough of your fucking games.”
“Nonsense. You’ve never had enough of anything.”
He smiles, then winks.
Then reaches up for the light, and aims it right at Andy.
• • •
He was there all along
In the dark section of the room, just out of sight. Spread out on a table with a white sheet over most of his body. He’s not strapped down, but he’s not moving either. She sees him now as the lamp hits his features, and he stirs in semiconsciousness, half his face consumed by some terrible black shadow.
The rest of the lights come on and he stirs some more, almost awake.
Booyah.
The terrible black shadow turns out to be a series of burns that reach across Andy’s skin and through his hair, splitting him right down the middle. The other side is smooth and beautiful, just like he always was. The rest, charred. Her stomach vanishes. She realizes now what that indefinable something she still smells in the air actually is.
It’s Andy.
“Notice how his eyes are completely intact,” Darian says, wheeling the instrument tray over to him. “That’s the interesting thing about many third-degree-burn victims, Jollie. The eyes very often remain. Even the really
bad cases. The genitals very often emerge unscathed as well. This is because of certain instinctive reflex actions that the human body possesses. The eyes always roll back in our heads, for example, when faced with cases of extreme heat. Same with a man’s penis. It’ll just shrink right up and the genitals will suck back into the lower body, while our legs close shut to protect the goods. It might seem a little too good to be true, but evolution has placed the most sensitive parts of our bodies optimally for just such occasions.”
Andy almost moans now, his head lobbing side to side, the rest of his body unable to move. His eyes open, bloodshot and watery. They see Darian. They see Jollie. He almost smiles.
“There. The patient is now very nearly awake and his vision is probably not even damaged. With any luck, he’ll be making babies soon too. After all, the burns only extend to his upper right arm. He was really very lucky. Not so lucky with the right hand, however.”
He grabs it gently and holds the fingers up for Jollie to see.
The awful stitched-up wound.
“The cast he had on his arm when the house blew up was burned pretty badly. It was hard to get off. Almost lost the thumb, Jollie. It was barely still attached to the rest of the hand—as you can see—by an absolutely penny-dreadful stitch-job. I’m assuming that’s Mark Jones’s work, or maybe even yours. Amateur night.”
He turns and looks at her, selecting something that looks like a set of bolt cutters from the tray.
“I think we’ll lose the thumb now. For my brother. After all . . . it was Marnie’s idea to get rid of it in the first place, yes?”
Jollie almost says the word please before he does it.
Andy doesn’t scream at all when it happens.
• • •
Two of the three white suits assist Darian. They work like professional surgeons. One of them even wipes his brow periodically with a piece of gauze. The third man rolls Jollie’s chair closer so she can see every detail of the operation. Darian never takes one eye off his work. Single-minded. Terrifying. A phantom MP3 player somewhere in the room is suddenly playing wordless show tunes Jollie can’t identify.
Andy mouths the words, “I love you, Jollie.”
She doesn’t let herself cry. She says she loves him too.
• • •
Darian spits his gum into a sink filled with blood and sets Andy’s thumb on a white tray. Says his ear will be next. Then they’ll start scraping. Andy Culpepper will be a sight to see in a few moments. Peeled like a blood orange if she doesn’t start thinking hard about what she knows. About the things Mark told her in five years of living together. Where he might have hidden the drugs. Only she would know.
Andy is too far gone to say a damn thing, obviously. Except “I love you, Jollie.” Which he says again, just under his breath.
Darian peels a new stick of gum, smiling.
• • •
She thinks hard, dives deep. Looks back over everything in five years for any clue about that damn storage locker. Her mind moving fast through images, names, dates, faces—anything at ALL.
Darian readies the bone saw, which he says is so much better for removing a human ear than a sharp knife or a razor blade. The serrated action against the cartilage and all that.
She thinks so hard, trying to remember.
Darian says there’s just one last chance to talk before he starts carving the turkey. The air is thick now with the fresh smell of strawberry slime and the burned stench of Andy’s skin.
“So be it, Jollie.”
The show tunes become louder.
The saw goes to work.
• • •
She tries not to watch the blood—looks back over their life instead.
Searching desperately for something . . .
And . . .
Yes. Yes, there’s something.
Something about Mark’s storage locker—and the two of them together in the House of JAM. A moment so amazing and filled with happiness, but also assigned a dark backbeat in the rainbow melee. A note of uncertainty. Just a single drop of black ink in a sky-blue fish tank. But what was the moment? Where is she in this memory? So much depends on this. So goddamn fucking much. Mark, full of smiles and happiness on the best day of his life . . .
The film loop in her head snaps with a horrifying pop as the sound of destroyed flesh reaches her ears . . . and she screams.
• • •
Darian sets Andy’s ear on the white table, neatly next to his thumb. Chews his gum and smiles at his work. Turns back to Jollie, who keeps trying to close her eyes and stay in the past, with the hands of the big men all over her face, clutching at her skin, hitting pressure-points that make her flinch and jerk her eyelids upward. She can still smell burned flesh. The tinny ring of some canned studio orchestra playing the theme from Fame abuses her ears above it all, like a terrible ironic joke, soaked through with blood.
Nightmare.
“Poor Jollie,” Darian says. “Poor Jollie Meeker.”
He picks up the Wirchcow device. Wags it in front of her.
“I’m going to use this to scrape the fresh scabs off the right side of his face now, Jollie. It’s something you’ll never forget, I promise. It has to be done, really, or his wounds will become infected. Usually we wait a bit longer for the tissue to build up, but I think we can make an exception in this case. I’m also going to remove his eyes.”
“No . . . my god, please . . .”
“Just talk to me, Jollie. Tell me your story. Somewhere in there, we’ll find the truth together.”
“Please don’t hurt him anymore.”
“He doesn’t feel a thing, I promise. He won’t even feel a thing later. Not even after I’ve blinded him. He won’t be beautiful either, but that’s okay. We all have our crosses to bear.”
He sets down the surgical device.
Gets right in front of her.
Smiles sadly.
And:
“You were right, of course. About me belonging to METRO. I’ve been with them for more than thirty years.”
12
the most important thing
It takes a second to sink in, then she realizes he’s not lying.
The crushing weight of it nearly makes her heart explode.
He pulls something from his pocket and holds it up for her to see. She almost doesn’t recognize the thing at first.
It’s the cell phone Mark gave her back at the ranch.
“This is a heavy item, Jollie. Issued only to deep-cover guys like me. When I saw that you had it in your pocket, I automatically assumed you were working for METRO as well. I thought it was you who fouled up Razzle Schaeffer’s deal and killed all those people. But I was wrong about that, of course. Mark Jones was the operative. I should have known that, right off.”
“Why didn’t you? You seem to know everything about everyone.”
“Nobody knows anything about anyone, Jollie. Not in this gang. I had to have a heart-to-heart conversation with my boss to know what was really going on. He had some eye-opening information to behold. I have to admit, I was very shocked. I was so sure you were one of us.”
“Maybe I really am. How else would I know what METRO even is?”
“Mark Jones told you, obviously. You said as much. And I figure he was bringing you in, yes? That would make sense. You were made for this job. I knew that when I saw you come out of the fire. When I saw the surges of raw determination that lived in your struggle for life. That’s a power only a few possess—the kind given to us special guys right from birth. So I had to know for sure.”
“Sorry to keep disappointing you.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to poor Andy. I’m now giving you sixty seconds to tell me what I want to know.”
“I could tell you anything right now. To save his life.”
“Oh yes. The old torture-is-unreliable liberal knee jerk, right? I used to call it the ‘Lie of Guantánamo Bay.’ Those guys gave what I do a very bad name. But I blame it mostly on the media.”
“What you do is bullshit.”
“No, what they do is bullshit. What I do is truth. Have you ever felt anything like it, Jollie? The raw power of it? The emotional urgency? This isn’t waterboarding or sleep deprivation or making a man wear ladies underpants and insulting his religious beliefs. This is raw, primal truth . . .”
He moves the surgical tool toward Andy’s face.
“. . . and you now have thirty seconds to start talking.”
“I still say you’re full of shit. You don’t do it for truth. You do it to get off.”
“What if I do? What difference does that make?”
“It makes a difference because it creates different results.”
“It creates perfect results. See, that’s why you started crying before. You’re terrified of me because I’m capable of anything. Because I get off on it. Because I will stop at nothing. That’s when all the best-laid plans go right to hell. That’s when even the most hardened badass will start singing like a bird. Because you know I’m a maniac.”
“When did METRO get you, Darian? How old were you?”
“This conversation is over. You haven’t given me what I want. So . . .”
He moves back to Andy.
Jollie takes a deep breath, keeping her voice very calm: “I bet you went in young, Darian Stanwell. Real young, right?”
He smiles when he hears her say his last name with such serenity.
“They put you to work in different splinter cells. Got yourself plugged in eventually to the Austin drug scene through the Monster Squad. Just your kind of perverts, right? People who trade in flesh, just like METRO does.”
Darian’s blade almost to Andy’s burned skin.
“Eddie Darling recruited you because he thought you were fresh talent, but you had him pretty well fooled, right? You were just a double-blind agent bussed in from somewhere else. And he’s dead now, because you killed him for revenge. I bet you always wanted revenge on him because he never let your brother join up, right? Poor dumb muscle-headed Marnie Stanwell, always holding you back, who never understood what a fucking monster you really were, right up until the minute my boyfriend killed him.”
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