Cookie Cutter Man (16 page)

“I can’t believe I left his keys in the car,” Daniel said.
Both were silent for a moment and Ebin snorted, trying to hold in a laugh.

“Hey, fuck you. This isn’t--”

Daniel couldn’t finish the sentence and keep a straight
face. They laughed hard. Daniel choked on it and sat down next to his brother
in arms. The laughter turned to near hysterics and then a deep-chested sob
before Daniel could do anything about it. He sat, shaking from reaction, and
finally noticed the cut on his knee. His arm and shoulder were a tingling fire,
a rectangular patch of ruined flesh. Road rash, they’d called it in simpler
times, when all he had to worry about was his drunk of a father or getting
caught smoking hash in the high school parking lot, both of which he managed to
pretty much avoid. It was Daniel’s turn to grit his teeth; he pulled a small
but thick chunk of glass out of his knee. He looked at it briefly with the air
of a jeweler examining an exotic stone before tossing it aside.

Ebin had succeeded in wiping most of the blood off his face
and was smoking an unfiltered Lucky Strike.

“Can I get one of those off you?” Daniel asked. “I left my
smokes in the car too.”

“Yeah, but you gotta smoke it the right way.” Ebin said.

“How’s that?”

“Light the end with the logo, so you smoke it off.”

“Why?” Daniel dug out his lighter.

“So if anyone’s following you they won’t know what kind of cigarettes
you smoke.” They shared a small, tired laugh, partly because he was serious.

This made Daniel’s hysterics rise again, but he pushed them
back down and changed the subject. “Do you think there’s more of him? Wills, I
mean?”

“He’s a cookie-cutter man,” Ebin said softly. “There’s
always more of them.”

Daniel fell silent. He had seen Lawrence Wills laid out on a
table with a hole through his head not that long ago. Simon had helped kill the
second and was in turn killed by a third, the one they’d drilled just now. He’d
also seen a few more models from the David Bailey line. How many more were
there? That was a question maybe no one knew the answer to. They smoked the
logos off their cigarettes and went to find a phone.

30 minutes later they were sitting in the meeting room,
every chair filled but Simon’s. Jared sat at the head of the table, his eyes
red and swollen. Isis sat next to Daniel, leaning against him. He held her with
his good arm to comfort her as much as himself. Both Ebin’s eyes had blackened
from the broken nose, and Kismet sat in the corner, unharmed.

“We lost Simon,” Jared said flatly. “He was my half-brother,
you know.” No one had been aware of this, and part of his brain was still
crusted in Daniel’s hair.

“He was a fucking
soldier
...” Jared continued,
giving an odd but fitting eulogy. “He was my brother,
our brother
, and
he put his life in our hands, as well as held ours in his. May he never be
forgotten, and may his life not go wasted, his death not un-avenged. He died
for our cause, fighting our war.” Jared looked up and one tear fell from his
hard cold eyes, but he smiled. “We got it, though. Everything we were looking
for, and I know Simon would have died a thousand times over to help us as much
as he did tonight. He found it all. I’ll finish looking it over tonight and I
want all of you back ...” he looked at his watch. It was about 3:00 A.M.
Friday. “Saturday.”

Soon the meeting adjourned and they all sat around talking
about Simon for a while.

Once everyone began to leave, Jared stood and turned to
Daniel. “Hey, can I get my keys?”

When Daniel crept in through their new door it was just
after 4:30. He’d taken a shower at headquarters; getting what was left of Simon
off of him seemed to take forever. Rob put two stitches in his knee, then
cleaned and bandaged the nasty scrape he had gotten diving out of the car. All
things considered, Jared wasn’t too upset about his keys.

Daniel now sat on the bed and pulled his shoes off. Echo’s
breathing changed; he could feel her stiffen and knew she was awake. He stood
to kick his pants off; when he turned around she was looking up at him.

“Are you OK?”

“I’m sorry I’m late, angel.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Her voice wavered in the darkness.

“I ran into Tommy. We started talking and went to his place
and he doesn’t have a phone.”

“Daniel ...”

He kept his shirt on so he wouldn’t have to explain his
shoulder. “What?”

She sighed and rolled over on the bed, facing the other way.

“Echo, I’m sorry.” She still wouldn’t look at him. “Hey ...”
Daniel put his hand on her shoulder.

“Fuck
off
!” She jerked away from him. “Just go to
bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“But—”

“I thought you were dead.”Echo said.

This struck Daniel like a soft hammer between the eyes and
in the heart, numbing him. He heard it in his head, over and over. Her words
chased his mind down into the rabbit hole where finally, for awhile, it rested.

Some time later Daniel heard her voice from far away and her
hand reached across the universe from nowhere and slowly shook him. He rolled
over on his back and looked up.

“You awake?” she asked.

He nodded, unsure of what she was about to say. He had never
not called
before. Lying there in the light of noon he considered what
he was putting her through. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“I know, but you should have found a way to call! I was
scared, and all I wanted was to have you here, and when you got here ...”

“Echo, I’m sorry. You’re ... look; you’re the only person
that ever asked me to call them to make sure I was OK. I didn’t mean to hurt
you, angel. I love you.”

“I know.” She looked away from him and he saw her in the
crisp autumn sunlight, the nimbus white and Jesus-like behind her head. She was
perfect, if not a little sad.

“Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?” Right
then he would have given her the moon if she wanted it.

Echo opened her mouth to ask him about the pair of glasses
she’d found in his shirt the other day, and bit down on it. She tried to smile
at him instead, and almost made it. “Give me a back rub and watch a movie with
me?”

“I can do that.” Daniel got up, dressed, and had a bite to
eat while she picked out a movie.

After
True Romance
was over, she turned on the news
and Daniel grabbed his weed and the tray from the table next to the couch.

“
Jesus
honey,
look
!” Echo slapped at him until
he looked up from the joint he’d been rolling.

“Oh fuck,” he said in a small voice.

“It’s him, isn’t it? Sam or whatever that was over the other
day?” She squeezed the sleeve of his shirt as she spoke in a voice weak with
awe. Daniel corrected her on the name, remembering how it felt to have pieces
of Simon’s brain clinging to his face.

From the TV: “... was killed last night in a shoot-out with
members of the local police force as well as the FBI. He was suspected in the
1994 murder of three FBI agents and one CIA agent in Tallahassee, Florida, but
disappeared before the authorities could question him. Prior to that, he was a
known member of radical groups here in California and on the east coast.”

The newscaster took a short, reflective pause. “Simon
Victors is also suspected of being involved with this man, Marion Cooper, in
the planning and attack of the popular nightclub Dante’s Shilling earlier in
the week. Anna?” The newsman turned to the anchorwoman.

“That’s right, John. Victors’ apartment was searched earlier
this morning. Found there were blueprints of the club, as well as several
explosives, and the material to make those explosives.”

“That’s
bullshit
!” Daniel leapt to his feet and
whipped the remote control at the television. It smashed against the wall above
it and landed on the floor in several different places. Simon didn’t have an
apartment, he lived at headquarters, and he sure as fuck wasn’t in with Copper.
Daniel thought of how the blood had stung his eyes and dried on his lips;
remembered combing pieces of brain out of his hair in the shower. Simon had
died fighting for something he believed in, something that was
right
,
and his life and death had been falsified and trivialized. Daniel couldn’t stop
the tears from rolling down his cheeks, and these were perhaps what sealed
Echo’s fate.

“You knew,” she whispered.

“Huh?” He turned on her, fists clenching and relaxing.

“You son of a
bitch
!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Daniel turned
back to the television.

The camera switched back to the newsman. “What you’re about
to see is footage from a security camera, showing Simon Victors at the scene of
the shooting last night ... and a caution to those with children in the room,
this following footage is extremely graphic.” The screen filled with a grainy
image.

Simon walked out the front doors, gun drawn, looking over
his shoulder into the dark guts of the office entryway. There was a single flat
crack just as Simon turned. His dark eyes looked directly into the camera and
there was a black splash out the back of his head. Simon fell and the clip
froze. Daniel couldn’t see his own face; it was hidden in the dark, further
obscured by the gore it had been sprayed with. But he knew he was there.

The clip they’d used hadn’t been the highest quality, but
you could clearly see that it was Simon. And just as clearly you could see the
briefcase he was carrying. The silver case like the one Daniel had, that Echo
had watched Simon pick up and carry out of their home, which Daniel carried in
and out every day.

She stared at the screen, and then turned to him. “Go get
it.”

“Echo, wha-”

“Your
briefcase
. Go and get it, and you show me
what’s inside!”

It’s over
, the stranger whispered. Daniel didn’t
trust himself to speak.

“Will you show me?” The hope was leaving her eyes.

“Angel ... I ...”

“
Show me
!” Echo shouted.

“I ... no. I can’t,” Daniel said, almost too quiet for her
to hear.

She looked 10 years older. “Oh god, were you
there
?
Is
that
where you were all night? Killing policemen while I worried
about you?”

“I was with Tommy!”

From the TV: “This is a new breed of American terrorist ...”

Echo wiped furiously at her eyes. “You fucking
lied
to me! About everything!
Everything
!”

“You don’t understand—”

“No, I don’t! I don’t understand where you
go
during
the day any more. I don’t understand the things you
do
...” Her voice
leveled off to a flat calm that was infinitely worse than screaming. “I don’t
understand who you are any more.”

“Echo,
please
, let me explain this to you.”

“
Explain
it? Explain why you’re a cop killer and a
terrorist?”

“I’m not!”

There was fury in her eyes, her lip trembling with something
that went beyond rage.

You put that there
, the stranger said.

“How about
explaining
to me why I still love you?”
Echo asked.

“I can’t,” Daniel whispered.

The color drained out of her face and took with it the wrath
that had been in her eyes. She collapsed back onto the couch, leaning forward
with her face in her hands.

“Echo?”

He was afraid of her answer, but needed to hear it, anything
to block out those sobs that were filling his heart with sadness and
self-loathing.

Echo wiped her eyes. “I can’t be with you any more, Daniel.
All you do is hurt me and hurt yourself and hurt other people.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I can’t live with you, because I don’t know you. You’re
not
my Daniel. You’ve let yourself go bad.”

“I’ll stop!”

“You won’t, though. You
can’t
. Even if you could—”

“Echo please—” Daniel took her hands in his. “Talk to Tom!
It’s nothing like you think.”

She’s leaving you
!

“It’s over.” She stood, holding his hands and pulling him to
his feet.

“But I
love
you.”

“I want to love you, Daniel, I do. But you have to help me
and I don’t think you’re ready to.” She kissed him once; it was the softest,
most tender kiss. But when their lips met, so did their tears, ruining it and
somehow making it better. Making it bitter.

“If you love me, we’ll get through this.” Echo wiped the
tears off her cheeks again and gave him a sad smile. “I promise. But first you
have to get through yourself.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“My stuff is still packed, Daniel. I’ll find someplace to be
until you’re good again.”

With that she turned and went to their bedroom where a
suitcase of her clothes still sat.

She walked back through the living room carrying it. She
stopped at the door, and he thought she would say something else, that
he
would say something else. Instead she walked out, closed the door behind her,
and was gone.

Daniel withered onto the couch. Right now all he knew was
pain. His insides had been hollowed out; all the recent paranoia and violence
had bleached his soul. She had been the one pure thing in his life, the only
anchor that tethered him to sanity and happiness. Daniel cried and held his 9mm
for a very long time, looking at it through a prism of tears, wondering if
everything would be better if he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the
trigger.

It wouldn’t be better but at least it would be over, he
thought, and that was almost enough to make him do it, to paint these new walls
with his blood just as his face had been painted with Simon’s.