Memory Hole

by Douglas Jern

  From behind the door marked “Employees Only” came the faint sound of a flushing toilet. Zachary couldn’t believe his ears. Had that snot-nosed summer intern of a cashier been taking a dump this whole time? The door swung open and the lanky, greasy-haired youth strolled into the office, scratching his ass absent-mindedly. Zachary half expected him to sniff his fingers afterward.

  “Whew,” exclaimed the cashier. “Never shoulda eaten that enchilada! Sorry to keep you waiting, bro. What can I do ya for?”

  “I need some wheels, not too expensive.”

  “You’ve come to the right place, my man. Reliable cars at reasonable prices are our specialty. I can get you a Dodge Neon for nine bucks a day, insurance included. She’s getting on a bit, but she’ll run all right.”

  “Is the price negotiable?”

  “Afraid not, bro. Wish I could tell you different, but I don’t make the rules.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll take it for two days.”

  “Okie-dokie! I’ll just need your signature here,” he whipped out a rental form from a drawer and slapped a pen down on the counter. “And I’ll have to ask to see some ID.”

  Zachary hesitated, taking a quick look around the office. He and the cashier were the only people there, and there were no security cameras that he could see. He leaned over the counter and said in a conspiratorial whisper:

  “Don’t suppose we could skip the whole ID business, could we?”

  “Well, my man,” the cashier replied in a similarly hushed tone. “I don’t see why not, but I’m still gonna have to see some paper, know what I’m saying?”

  He did. “Fifty bucks sound about right?”

  The cashier appeared to consider this, then gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Just about. I’m afraid we only accept cash in hand, though.”

  Zachary relaxed his shoulder muscles, only now noticing that he’d been hunching them as if bracing for a crash. Sixty-eight dollars was almost all the cash he had on him right now. Had the brat decided to dicker, the whole plan could’ve sunk like a stone.

  You could always threaten him at gunpoint.

  Sure, and add some more inches to his burgeoning rap sheet. No, a cash bribe was better than a bullet.

  He took out his wallet and counted out the bills. The fee for the car plus the bribe left him with two one-dollar bills and some change. He didn’t want to think about how he would eat for the next few days.

  “Okay,” said the cashier after counting the money and slipping the extra wad into his pocket. “Should I sign you up as ‘John Doe’, then?”

  The offhand comment hit him like a slap across the face. The image of John Doe’s body lying in the street forced itself to the front of his mind, dancing before his eyes, taunting him. No! It wasn’t my fault! But how could he be sure of that? He only had Laura’s word for it, but how could he know she was telling the truth? Because she really could read your mind. And if that’s possible, why would it not be possible for Homer to mess with your head, too? Trust her!

  “Uhh, you okay there, bro?”

  Zachary looked at the cashier, dragging himself back into the now. He realized that his forehead had broken out in a cold sweat. He swallowed dryly, then said:

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Call me Harry Flint. Good a name as any, right?”

  “Right-o,” agreed the cashier and signed the form for him. He fished the car keys off their hook on the wall behind him and handed them to Zachary.

  “Car’s out back,” he said. “Just gotta go out the front door and around the corner.”

  “Okay, let’s get a move on.”

  Zachary followed the cashier out the front door. As the glass door swung shut behind him, he saw the moth bump into the fluorescent light again and drop like a stone. Poor bastard.

  20:42 – Zachary

  The drive back to the motel and then to Laura’s neighborhood was uneventful. A police cruiser passed by them at one point, nearly giving Zachary a heart attack, but the officer at the wheel didn’t even look their way. Nevertheless, Laura insisted on lying down in the back seat well out of sight. Zachary envied her. How easy it would be to let someone else do all the legwork and just go with the flow. Then he reminded himself that Laura was the one whose brother had been murdered the same day and decided he ought to cut her some slack.

  “I think we’re getting close,” he said, looking at Laura in the rear-view mirror. “Whereabouts should I park? We don’t want to just roll up to the front door.”

  Laura sat up and looked out the window.

  “Take a right here. My house is on the street after this one. We can leave the car here and cut through the backyard.”

  “Won’t an unfamiliar car raise suspicion?”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “It better not.”

  He turned right into a picturesque cul-de-sac lined with identical houses on both sides, each house separated from its neighbor by a hedge the height of a man. The scene could have been lifted straight from a page of a children’s picture book, down to the mailboxes with their jaunty red metal flags. It was a fancy neighborhood, a perfect snapshot of suburbia, and a far cry from the crummy apartment building Zachary called home. How a freelance journalist and a stage actress, not the most stable of professions, could afford to live here was a mystery, but Zachary was willing to bet that a generous loan from the Bank of Mom and Dad had been involved. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t make him feel envious, but at the same time he could sympathize with the parents, who only wanted to give their children the best start they could. If he were a father, he’d probably have done the same.

  He pulled over at Laura’s request and cut the engine. The street was deserted. No doubt all the resident white-collar workers who weren’t still frittering their lives away back at the office had long since retreated to the safe comforts of their carbon copy houses, shielded from the horrors and disappointments of the world outside. A can of Bud and some Jeopardy, then maybe a quick round in the sack with the missus before turning in. And tomorrow we’ll do it all again. God bless America.

  There was nothing resembling a stakeout vehicle in sight, and why should there be? The whole point of a stakeout was to have a good view of the thing you were staking out, and from this angle Laura’s house was behind two layers of foliage and a whole house of brick and mortar. Any observers would be in front of the house, on the other side.

  “Is there a way inside the house from the backyard?” he asked Laura.

  “There’s a back door, but it’s locked from the inside. I can break in through it, though. We don’t have an alarm system.”

  “You better be quick about it. I’ll keep watch at the back door, but I’m not a one-man army. If the cops come in force, we’ve got to cut and run. Got it?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be in and out in a minute.”

  “Okay, let’s do it, then.”

  They got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition, and ran across the front yard of the nearest house. Fortunately, no lights were on, and there was no car in the driveway. Laura reached the hedge bordering her own back yard and forced her way through it. Zachary followed, stiff twigs scratching him in the face and catching on his coat.

  “I’ll stay here,” he hissed at Laura, who gave him a thumbs-up over her shoulder. Zachary watched her as she weaved past two lawn chairs under a parasol and approached the back door, the upper half of which was made up of a large glass pane. The house was bordered by a narrow trench filled with gravel, which Laura scooped into a plastic bag she had taken from her pocket to make an improvised blackjack. She grabbed it tight and swung it at the glass of the back door, which shattered with a loud crash that made Zachary wince. If the cops weren’t already watching the house, any wary neighbor would be calling them now. Watching her reach through the broken window and unlock the door, Zachary cracked his knuckles and prayed that she’d be as quick as she’d said.

  20:49 – Laura

  Once she was inside,
Laura hurried toward Brianna’s bedroom, emptying the gravel on the floor as she went. She felt a little guilty about breaking in and making a mess of the place, but she had no other choice. Thankfully, this was a nice neighborhood, and she didn’t think it likely that any prospective burglars would be around to take advantage of the broken back door.

  Julius was nowhere to be seen, which was not surprising; the cat must have bolted out the cat-flap as soon as he heard the glass shatter. He’d be okay. Right now, Laura had other things to worry about.

  She entered Brianna’s room and went straight for the bedside table. The top two drawers contained nothing of interest. The third one contained the real reason she’d wanted to come here no matter the risks. She picked it up and put it in the plastic bag. A smile formed on her lips. One step closer now.

  Having secured the item, she ran into her own room, grabbed her backpack, and began to stuff it with clothes and the emergency cash she kept under the mattress. After that, she made a quick trip to the bathroom where she raked her makeup off the shelf and crammed it into the backpack. Now all that was left was to get a wig from Brianna’s coat hanger in the living room and then make like a tree and…

  The muffled voices from outside stopped her dead in her tracks. She couldn’t make out any words, but one of the voices belonged to Zimmerman. The other was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She concentrated and felt the faint outlines of thoughts from outside. Someone was standing right in front of the back door, the smug sense of triumph in his mind palpable even at this distance. She recognized the thought patterns: it was Fred Mullin, the detective she’d met earlier in the day at the station. Zimmerman had been right. They were here.

  And they knew she was here too.

  She was still frozen in place when the gunshot rang out, loud as a bomb in the quiet evening. It was followed by a muffled yell from outside.

  “Laura, we gotta go! Now!”

  The raw edge of panic in Zimmerman’s voice broke her paralysis. Abandoning all thoughts of the coat hanger, she ran for the back door, her pulse pounding a savage beat in her temples.

  20:50 – Zachary

  Fuck. Of course, it had to be Mullin. Who else had he expected? He bit down on the frustrated groan rising in his throat at the sight of Mullin disentangling himself from the hedge on the right side of the house, and then had to clench his hands into tight fists to stop himself from slapping his forehead as Mullin brushed broken twigs and leaves off his jacket and adjusted his hair, as if he were eager to look his best for the daring arrest he was about to make. Why did it have to be Mullin? It made it hard to take the situation seriously. They might as well have sent a pre-school kid with a plastic sheriff’s badge to catch them. This was an insult, no two ways about it.

  Still, he admitted to himself, better Mullin than Leo.

  Apparently satisfied with his appearance, Mullin drew his gun and crept towards the open back door through which Laura had entered the house a minute ago. Zachary muttered an indistinct litany of curses under his breath as he struggled free of the hedge.

  He drew his gun and aimed it at Mullin.

  “Right there is fine, Fred. Hold that pose for me, would you?”

  Mullin stiffened, and slowly turned toward Zachary. The distaste in his eyes was plain. As far as Zachary was concerned, it was mutual. They stared each other down, Zachary’s gun trained at Mullin’s chest.

  “You’re not getting away with this, Zachary,” said Mullin. “You don’t think I’m alone here, do you? One word from me and the whole squad will be on you.”

  “You’d better stay quiet, then.”

  Zachary knew Mullin had a point. Even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here alone. Their time was running out. Any moment now someone might wonder what Mullin was up to and come check. Hell, for all he knew, Mullin could be hooked up with an earpiece, communicating their entire exchange to his men even now. Zachary looked at the door, hoping that Laura had heard them.

  “Move away from the door, slowly.” It was the best he could come up with.

  “Or what?” sneered Mullin. “You’ll shoot me, is that it? Not the best way to stay quiet.”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  He could feel beads of sweat drawing cold trails down his forehead, and his mouth seemed to be full of cotton. That was bad. Worse still was the state of his hands. They were trembling, ever so slightly, and he hoped to God Mullin didn’t see it. Any display of weakness right now would spell doom both for him and Laura.

  Shoot him! He thinks you’re bluffing. If he sets foot in that house, it’s over. You must protect Laura!

  The shaking of his hands grew even stronger, and he became aware of a soft buzzing in his ears, growing steadily in volume, the sound of a million flies congregating on a rotting corpse. Color drained from the world until all he saw was Mullin, a red-faced man in a brown jacket, against a background of blurred gray and white. He couldn’t just shoot Mullin in cold blood. He may be a drunkard, a hypocrite, and a coward, but he was no god-damned murderer.

  Do it! Think about Laura, about yourself! Your lives depend on it. Shoot him! Shoot him!

  Through the gray fog he could see Mullin’s lips moving. The man was saying something, but Zachary couldn’t hear what. The incessant buzzing in his ears, now as loud as a roaring jumbo jet, drowned out everything else.

  He blinked, and his vision cleared enough to reveal Mullin raising his gun at him.

  Do it! Do it now!

  He shot him.

  The world snapped into sharp focus. Mullin’s face was a mask of disbelief, his eyes open wide, their whites radiant in the gloom, his mouth opening and closing without a sound, like he was struggling to articulate a denial of the situation. The walkie-talkie dropped from his hand and landed in the gravel. Mullin took an unsteady step forward, then went down on his knees. He tried to support himself with his arms, but they folded under him like straws as he fell face down on the cold grass.

  Jesus Christ, I killed him!

  Zachary stared at Mullin’s body with childlike wonder. The deafening bang had cleared his vision in an instant and seemed to have sharpened his senses to a degree beyond human limits. Though he would later realize that he’d only remained standing there stupefied for little more than two seconds, it seemed to him then that he with that one gunshot had penetrated the thin fabric of reality and that time had leaked out through the hole. He saw the grass on which Mullin’s body lay, greener than any grass he had ever seen, felt the rich smell of earth fill his nostrils as though he were buried in it. Only his hearing remained compromised, his ears belabored by the loud ringing of the gunshot.

  What are you doing? You have to get out of here!

  His body jerked as if galvanized by a sudden electric shock, and he called out to Laura.

  “Laura, we gotta go! Now!”

  A few seconds later, Laura emerged from the house, carrying a blue backpack. She jumped at the sight of Mullin.

  “Oh my God! Is he dead?”

  “Don’t know. Come on!”

  Zachary grabbed her wrist and dragged her past the body toward the hedge and the car waiting on the other side. Laura went through first, and Zachary took one last look at the scene behind them before following her.

  Fuck. Of course Leo had to be here too.

  The young man came running around the corner of the house, gun drawn, and stopped when he saw Mullin on the ground. He looked from Mullin to Zachary, and his face contorted into a horrific grimace, half rage, half sorrow. Zachary turned his face away and scrambled through the hedge, expecting any moment to hear Leo’s gun discharge behind him, to feel the bullet tear through his flesh and shred his insides. Neither happened.

  Zachary pushed his way through the hedge and ran to the car where Laura was waiting. He unlocked the doors and they both got in as fast as they could. Zachary made a U-turn and drove away, leaving the neighborhood behind. He weaved through a complex path through the city streets, hoping to confuse
any pursuers, but there didn’t seem to be any. It seemed Mullin had been the one bluffing after all.

  They were soon miles away from the suburban paradise, heading back to the motel. Zachary was exhausted but didn’t dare shut his eyes; whenever he did, he saw Mullin in the sights of the gun again, crystal clear this time, lit up by the harsh light of the muzzle flame—a snapshot of a kill shot, smile and say cheese. He wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.

  “Fucking hell, why did I do that?” he muttered, rubbing his eyes.

  Laura, her eyes fixed on the road and cradling the backpack in her lap like a baby, said nothing. The sight of her, with that forlorn expression on her face, made Zachary angry. She wasn’t the one who had just shot a guy. He nodded at her backpack and said:

  “I hope whatever you’ve got in there was worth it.” He made no effort to sound diplomatic, not that it mattered. Laura would see the hostility in his mind even if it didn’t come across in his voice.

  Laura made as if to unzip the pack, hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and opened it. Without a word, she pulled out a gun and showed it to him.

  “It’s my roommate’s,” she explained. Zachary took a brief look at it before turning his attention back to the road.

  “For Homer?” he asked, though that much was obvious. “Have you ever used one before?”

  “No, but you can teach me. It can’t be that hard, right?”

  Zachary shook his head. He had thought the same thing before he first handled a gun. There was so much more to it than just pointing and shooting. Going into a firefight with that attitude would only get you killed.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Laura. “But I need this, okay? I need every edge I can get against Homer.”

  He was about to argue but decided not to.

  She has a point. Two guns are better than one. And you can teach her.

  “Fair enough,” he said. He was already waist-deep in this whole mess. Might as well keep on trucking. “So, what’s next?”