Cookie Cutter Man (3 page)

“Oh I am
so
fucked,” Daniel said, not realizing he’d
spoken aloud, any more than he was aware he’d laughed aloud, too.

All this won’t matter if the place is bugged
, a voice
whispered in his mind, and the smile froze and fell off his face. But what
could he do? The voice spoke the truth.

Daniel started methodically, doing a light room-to-room
search. He wasn’t sure what he was after; his vague ideas of what a bug might
look like were gleaned from old spy movies and re-runs of
The A-Team
.

He looked in the most obvious spots first. No reason to tear
up the whole place if they were all on the underside of the coffee table,
right?

But there was nothing on the underside of the coffee table,
the windowsills, or along the shelves in the stereo cabinet. There was nothing
on the TV stand, in the cupboards, or in the lamps. He looked in every room and
found nothing. This didn’t prove to him that there were no bugs or tiny cameras
or microphones, but just the opposite: the more he couldn’t find them, the more
he knew they were there. He just wasn’t looking hard enough.

Daniel renewed his cycle of the apartment, looking in the toilet
tank, the houseplants, and the closets. He took the covers off all the overhead
lights and looked in them. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

He remembered he hadn’t checked the telephone, then it rang,
and he stopped, afraid to breathe.

It rang again. Now he was on the move, down the hall to the
phone on the table next to the couch. He grabbed the whole unit and picked it
up. “Hello?”

No answer.

“Hello?” Louder this time.

“Why don’t you work for us, Mr. Rimms?”

“Who is this?” For Daniel, the world had stopped.

There was silence on the other end.

“Who is this?”

“Work for us,” the voice said. “We can use you.”

Daniel slammed the phone back onto the base and closed his
eyes, taking a deep breath. Sweat ran down his back and his mouth was suddenly
dry, with an inexplicable coppery taste.

In his hands, the phone rang again. He yanked the cord out
of the wall, restraining himself from throwing it across the room like a live
grenade. He put it down and looked at it; somehow sure it would ring one more
time.

And it did, but it was just the bedroom extension going
unanswered.

The world swam before his eyes. The thoughts faded from his
mind, taking the strength of his legs and the fortitude of his stomach with
them. He rushed into the kitchen, sliding across the cool tile on his knees to
the trash, where he lifted the lid just in time to keep from puking on it. His
afore-savored chicken sandwich came up in a hot stinky rush and the sight of it
haunted him until he looked away.

With the taste of regurgitated chicken sandwich heavy in his
throat and nose, Daniel tried to stand all at once, much too fast for someone
in his condition. Perhaps he knew what would happen, wanted it to happen,
anything to escape the feverish reality of now. Black spots blossomed in his
vision, and it was as if someone knocked his legs right out from under him. He
passed out, and on the way down smacked his head on the kitchen sink.

People would later tell him how lucky he was that he hadn’t
hit his head at a different angle. How lucky that the cut on the back of his
head hadn’t been just a
little
worse. How lucky he was not to have
cracked his skull wide open or maybe bled to death on his kitchen floor.

In his later days he’d look back and wish his life had just
ended there on the cool linoleum, before it had a chance to go down the drain.

He came to in a painfully bright hospital room. The smell of
antiseptic and urine was faintly detectable over the cheap air freshener the
janitors used.

“My head,” Daniel managed to say through the grayish haze of
narcotics and pain. Color and feeling started to swim back into his world and
the heavy rhythmic thumping in his skull dulled to a manageable level. He
focused his eyes and propped himself up on an elbow.

“Easy, son. You took quite a whack on the noggin,” a voice
said. At the foot of the bed was an insectile-looking doctor with a pervert’s
grin on his face and a stethoscope around his neck. The doctor was a praying
mantis for a moment, until Daniel blinked himself back to reality.

Dude
still
looked a little like a bug.

“You sustained a mild concussion Mr ... ah–” the doctorbug
checked his charts, “–Rimms ... large laceration on the cranium ... thirteen
stitches ... prescription ...”

Daniel halfway listened, gleaning the minimal amount of
information until Echo walked in.

“Oh sweetie, your head!”

He lay back on his pillow and held her hand. The doctorbug
clucked his disapproval of a loved one daring to interrupt his in-depth and
thoroughly entertaining diagnosis.

“What
happened
to you? I came home and found you in
a fucking pool of blood!” Her voice cracked and she began to cry. He put a
comforting hand on her shoulder and she bent to give him a hug. The doctorbug
left the room, and they were free to talk.

“Were the police really there?” Foggy recollections blurred
in and out of his mind.

“Yes, there were police, and an ambulance! I called 9-1-1
when I found you.”

“9-1-1 ...”

“What was I supposed to do, Daniel? I thought someone broke
in and shot you or something.”

“No, angel. You did good. What did you tell the cops?”

“Well,
they
told
me
you had to give them a
statement when you woke up.”

His head swelled at the prospect of dealing with Johnny Law.
“OK, listen. I saw a roach and–”

“What
roach
?” Echo asked, and then thought of his ...
condition
. “You have to ignore those, remember? You know they had the
whole building fumigated a week ago.”

“I know, but that’s what I’m going to tell them.”

“What are you going to tell
me
?”

“Nothing, until we get home. As far as these fucking pigs
are concerned, I saw a roach and went after it. I slipped on the kitchen rug
and that’s the last thing I remember. OK?”

She stared at him in silence for a moment and nodded. About
10 minutes later the doctorbug returned, this time with two uniformed officers
in his wake. Daniel told them his roach story. They listened, or pretended to;
one was jotting notes, the other was checking out Echo’s chest, both making it
clear they couldn’t give less of a shit about any of it, which suited Daniel
just fine. Soon he was released on his own recognizance and Echo drove them
home in silence. Daniel smoked and kept his eyes open, watching for station
wagons and the faceless G-man.

“Ah! Shut off the light, huh?” Daniel sat on the couch and
shielded his eyes from the jagged halogen glow of the living-room fixture. Echo
lit a couple candles, and then sat next to him.

Daniel opened his eyes and looked around. “What the fuck?”
The place was trashed, totally ransacked. He had made a mess, but not like
this. Two plants were knocked over, so was a lamp. The coffee table was lying
on its side and everything that had once sat upon it was scattered across the
floor. The phone lay against the wall in pieces of plastic and a few tangles of
colored wire.

But I didn’t really throw it, did I? Daniel asked himself. I
thought I just unplugged it.

The chest of drawers no longer had any drawers; they had
been pulled out and emptied on the carpet. Looking over the wreckage brought
agony to the front of Daniel’s brain; he closed his eyes and took a pill.

“Daniel? What happened?”

His mouth was dry. “I didn’t do this.”

“Tell me what happened!”

Sure. But would she believe him? “I was looking for a bug
and—”

“There
aren’t
any roaches, remember?”

“Not a roach. A
bug
.”

“Daniel ...”

“A fucking
bug
! You know a ... a
bug
, goddammit.”

“What are you talking about?” Echo shouted, making his head
quiver.

Daniel took a deep breath. “A bug. A
surveillance
bug. As in, I think we’ve been—”

“You thought our place was
bugged
?” she asked in a
hushed voice.

“
Yes
.”

“Why would you think that?” She was finally able to at least
partially grasp the gravity of the situation. She knew what had been paying
most of the bills.

Daniel looked at her. She sat, glowing gently in the light
from the candle, and he had no choice but to tell her everything. Well,
almost
everything ... being followed by the station wagon, the spook downtown. He left
out the part about thinking the little boy was a cop and what the stranger had
told him, those words still clanging through his mind. Nor did he mention the
phone call he’d gotten. He told her about looking for a bug.

“... but I didn’t do this. No
way
did I do this.” He
wondered if she believed him.

“Daniel ...”

“Was it this bad when you first came home?” he asked.

“What? I ... no. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

Daniel saw more tears swelling in Echo’s eyes and tried to
console her, he put his arm around her and she jerked away, scooting out of his
reach. He could almost hear his heart break, could feel it in his stomach,
bubbling away in the digestive acids.

“I’m sorry but ... I can’t ... I’m going to bed. We’ll talk
in the morning.” She stood and looked at him. “Are you coming?”

“Soon,” Daniel said, his voice coming out low, a whisper, a
nothing.

She nodded and wiped her eyes, then turned and went into the
bedroom. He could hear her soft gasp of surprise when she hit the lights, and
heard the sounds of her cleaning up.

Daniel stood, fighting the dizziness, and walked to the
kitchen. His blood had congealed into a nasty jelly covering most of the cheap
tile. It took him an hour to half scrape, half soak the mess off the floor. He
used an entire roll of paper towels, which now sat as a gruesome lump in the
trash.

Daniel had taken care of the worst of it; the rest could
wait for morning. He knew how to get bloodstains out. Eight hours wouldn’t make
a difference.

The pill he’d taken earlier wore off, and he was weak in the
knees from the pain. He took two more from the bottle the doctorbug had given
him and collapsed on the couch. After they kicked in he would go to bed, but
until then he was liable to pass out again if he tried to walk across the room.

Fuzzy pharmaceutical warmth spread through his tired body,
soaking up the agony in his thumping head in much the same way he’d soaked up
the blood. Daniel dozed on the couch and was almost asleep when the television
clicked on.

The picture was static, a black and white rolling blur that
became a clear image: a face. It was the face of the harbinger that had hopped
into the station wagon and disappeared.

Then the stranger spoke. “Anybody in there? Just nod if you
can hear me.”

Daniel’s tongue had somehow grown a winter coat, sticky and
revolting in his mouth, preventing him from responding.

“OK. This is gonna have to be short, Dannyboy, so listen
good.”

“How did you—”

“Don’t interrupt me. I got a minute from now until they
notice this. Have you been contacted by anyone? Other than me?”

Daniel’s head cleared a little and he understood with a
dawning horror that he wasn’t dreaming.

The harbinger chuckled. “That’s right buddy, you’re wide
awake. This is a live broadcast for
you
, my friend. Now listen, don’t
take any more of those pills they gave you, OK? They’re no good for you, they
fuck your thinking up. It’s gonna be around noon tomorrow before we can get
some real meds to you, so buckle down. It’s gonna be a long night and the
morning will be even worse. Smoke some weed or whatever, but
do not
take
those pills, understand?”

Daniel nodded, and then spoke. “Who are you?”

“I’m Jared. Like I said before; they’re following you,
Daniel. But don’t worry. We’re following them.” Jared’s serious face broke into
a cocky smile.

“Did you call me earlier?”

“No, why?”

“They want me to work for them.” Daniel got an internal
shiver thinking of that disembodied voice again.

“
Don’t
listen to them! They’re the enemy. Dan, don’t
even answer the phone, OK? Just play it cool till tomorrow. Don’t leave the
house until you hear from us. Dig?” Jared looked off-screen for a second, and
the picture began to blur. There was an instant of rolling static again and the
television clicked off. Daniel leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes.

“Who are you talking to?” Echo asked, walking into the
living room.

Daniel bolted upright with gargled surprise. She stood
before him, hands on hips, wearing nothing but her socks and a pair of blue
panties.

“I’m sorry, baby, was it your dreams again?” Echo sat down
by him, took his hand in hers. He tried to look dazed, and decided he didn’t
have to really try. He felt like he’d been smashed in the back of the head by a
slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick, and he knew that line was
from a book but at that moment he wouldn’t have remembered where it came from
if it had been tattooed across his fucking chest.

“Yeah. Must a dozed,” he lied. But maybe all this will work
out somehow, he thought, his tired mind trying to rationalize and play the
optimist.

They’re following you, Daniel. But don’t worry. We’re
following them.

“Let’s go to bed.” Echo helped him to his feet. He fought
off another sickening moment of vertigo, and she led him by the hand to the
bedroom.

“Did you take a pill?” Echo asked him as he drifted off.

“Can’t take no more pills. No good,” he mumbled. He rolled
over onto his stomach, falling into the heavy comatose sleep only those who
have recently sustained a head injury can attain. He had strange,
out-of-proportion dreams, everything tinted the greenish-gray color of mild
nausea, and though Echo set her alarm to go off every hour to wake him as the
doctor had recommended, Daniel remembered none of it.