Get Blank (Fill in the Blank) (13 page)

If there was one group in the Information Underground you didn’t want to piss off, it was Quackenbush Security. These were the guys the CIA called in when things got too dicey. And now we were wandering into their headquarters. Can’t say I liked the timing.

 “Do you know where that is?”

Sure. I had been there a couple times as Erick Levitt, a local burnout with a far-right-wing blog and glowing transcripts from high school. He even had a haircut like his hero Ronald Reagan.

“Nope,” I said.

“Oh!” She rattled off directions that, as a practicing Rosicrusophist, I was expected to remember perfectly.

 On the stereo: “Virginia Plain” by Roxy Music.

Sort of ironic, considering this one was about a group of Civil War-era mystics who attempted to bring both Union and Confederacy together under the obscure Roman god Glycon. Things did not go well. It reminded me a bit of Quackenbush, which was yet another group trying to create a consensus out of some bizarre belief.

 Heather grinned vacantly, watching the street alertly. It was an odd combination, but you get used to it. She didn’t have anything to say to the help, not once the directions had been relayed, and for the time being I was okay with that.

We pulled up in front of the glass and steel office building. My breakfast was desperately trying to escape again. Since Rosicrusophists believe any physical ailment is an expression of inner evil, doing that would convince Heather I wasn’t to be trusted. Which, of course, I wasn’t. Might also blow my cover at Quackenbush, which was much more dangerous that simply digging a grave at the behest of a Russian gangster.

We went into the lobby, and I hoped the guards couldn’t hear my heart pounding. I don’t know how they didn’t. It sounded like the beginning of the
Hawaii Five-O
theme. A receptionist smiled at us and I was positive she saw right through the duckbill.

The elevator dinged right as we stopped in front of it, a bit of convenience that was probably meant to be nice but came off as creepy.

Heather stepped inside and as I made to follow her, she held up a hand. “You wait down here, Jim. I’ll see you soon.”

“Oh, yeah, no problem.”

So I wouldn’t know they’d seen me until the elevators dinged again and a bunch of Navy SEALs boiled out, ready to turn me into a hood ornament. Fun. I wandered back near the entrance, flashed an uncomfortable smile at the receptionist, and commenced to pacing.

The wait was not pleasant. I tried unsuccessfully to block out the fear. Of all the places she had to want to go, it had to be this place. A place not only able to tag me, but one that probably actively wanted me dead. Erick Levitt had called Burt Shaw to a meeting, and it was a meeting Shaw never returned from. The fact I hadn’t physically, personally killed him was unlikely to hold much water with a group who thought the Tonton Macoute were too soft.

The elevator dinged and I did my best not to run. I held my breath as the door opened, certain I’d be looking into the scarred and craggy face of a man who knew how to kill me with my own ears.

Heather Marie Tooms smiled brightly at me and stepped out of the elevator, holding a manila folder. As she got closer, the smile froze on her face ever so slightly. Her eyes hardened. She was searching my face, examining my eyes, my hairline, what she could see of my mouth and chin. I tried not to notice.

She stopped in front of me, the smile completely congealed on her face now. For once, there wasn’t any eye contact, because she was looking through me. I knew for certain, right then, what was in the envelope in her hands. It was a picture of Erick Levitt.

Me.

AFTER FIVE OR SIX YEARS,
Heather’s face
brightened, her eyes met mine, and she chirped, “Okay, let’s go!”

Relief didn’t flood into me so much as it was mainlined into my aorta like an Epipen filled with PCP. I couldn’t quite talk for a moment and my legs felt like they were made of hot rubber.

I followed her to my car. “Where to now?” I asked, my tongue regaining some feeling.

“The Ritz-Carlton downtown. Do you know it?”

I nodded. Of course I did. It was the hotel that looked like a giant dick, at least from the side, which was the view from the freeway. In an act of stunning architectural wishful thinking, it even included balls. I started toward the hotel, settling in for another uncomfortably silent ride with my new charge, wondering how the hell I was going to get out of this and back to what was really important here: Mina.

I went through a couple plans in my head, dismissing each one as progressively more insane, until Heather, still sitting ramrod straight, staring out over the city, bubbled, “It’s so thrilling, you know?”

“What is?” I asked, terrified that she might tell me.

“All of it. I mean, we’re saving the world! One person at a time, sure. But when you get a chance like we’re getting now, you have to just bask in it. You know? Just bask!”

“I’m basking. I’m not really sure in what, exactly.”

She turned to me, and even though I was presently navigating the Santa Monica Freeway, I chanced a look at her. Little tears glittered in the corners of her big doe eyes. “You know I can’t tell you. But you should know you’re part of something really important, Jim. We’re saving the world.”

“Oh, good.” I tried a smile, and against every instinct screaming at me to concentrate on the real danger sitting shotgun, I turned back to watch where I was driving. Good thing too; I hit the brakes to avoid a sudden slow-down.

“We’re very lucky, you and I.” She was quiet for a moment and, stupidly, I thought she might be done. Nope. “Regina tells me you’re not as focused on your studies as you should be.”

“Uh, no. No, I could be doing more. I just want to… you know how almost all of the world’s ills come from misunderstandings?”

“Of course,” she said, nodding. She didn’t mention that the rest of the world’s ills were caused by malevolent people secretly organized against the cult or by demonic ghosts from another planet called eidolons. It would have been gauche.

“I want to make sure I have the material really understood. So when I rise along the ladder of total bliss, I’m really
getting
it.”

Heather nodded. “That’s smart. That’s really smart. I wish more acolytes were like you. What happened to your nose?”

“Nose eidolon.”

“If you want, I have some time and I’m certified. We could try some technosis to spur healing and relieve pain.”

“Really? That would be an honor!” And a colossal waste of time, to boot. “Maybe when we’re done with this mission we’re on. Save the world first, then save my nose.”

“You’re so good. There should be more like you.” She put her hand on my shoulder and I tried not to flinch. Was she actually hitting on me, or was this some weird culty thing to put a wavering devotee in a car with a hot girl and see what happened? Did it really matter when all she was succeeding in doing was creeping me right the fuck out? “I’ll bet you understand more of Dr. Wood’s teachings than you think.”

Rosicrusophists either called him Dr. Wood, despite the fact that his doctorate was honorary, or ULF, despite their staunch denial that he had another name.

“That means a lot coming from someone so high on the ladder.”

I turned off the freeway and pulled up to the Ritz. “I need you to come up to my room briefly,” Heather said. I dropped the car off with the valet, grabbed her bag, and ran after her with nary a shred of dignity. If I was lucky, she would give me my marching orders in the privacy of her room. If I was unlucky, she’d try some cult nonsense. And if I was
really
unlucky, she’d take another look at the photo I was sure was in the envelope and subtract a little hair, add a bandage… Nope, didn’t bear thinking about. She checked in and we rode the elevator up to the 23rd floor. She had insisted on that floor. Conspiracies and that number. It’s like a tic, I swear.

She let herself into her room and I put her bag on the bed.

She turned and, still smiling and staring right into my eyes, she said, with the clipped tone of a mother giving her unruly child a list of chores, “I need you to get me a Dragunov SVDS variant, a Heckler and Koch USP Compact, and a clean driver’s license. Get some identification for yourself as well. Do you understand?”

I nodded. She wanted a sniper rifle, a small semi-automatic pistol, and fresh papers. She was, in all probability, sending me out to illegally acquire my own murder weapons. Wouldn’t be the first time.

She looked me over. “I also want you to get a change of clothes. Shower and shave, please. If you like, you can do that here.”

“No, I’m good. I have a place.”

“All right,” she said, without any kind of inflection to tell me what she thought of that. “If you could do that now? I need you back here by two-thirty at the latest.”

“Right! Um, I need a picture.” I quickly stripped the white sheet off her bed and hung it up on one of the walls. She stood with her back to it and put on a sour DMV face. I clicked a few photos with my phone. “I’ll get on it.” I left her to do whatever it was she was going to do in that hotel room. It wouldn’t be normal, I knew that much.

This wouldn’t end well. The thought rattled around in my head as I retrieved my car from the valet. She had given me several hours to get my errands done—more time than I needed, truth be told—so that left me with a lot of time to worry about my immediate future. I missed Vassily the Whale. At least the danger
he
represented was immediately obvious.

On the stereo: “Star Sign” by Teenage Fanclub.

Never one to miss irony, my iPod chose to blare a cheery anthem about the imminent return of a powerful species of alien whose very presence could drive people hopelessly insane.

My first stop was MacArthur Park, to see my ID guy. I parked at a meter and went into his newsstand, ignoring the sleeping guy at the front. I realized that, to my knowledge, the man had never been awake in his life. I passed him, pushing through the door marked “Employees Only,” down a creepy hallway, and into a men’s room marked “Out of Order.”

Javier dos Santos slouched over his drafting table, working on IDs beneath the enervating fluorescents. He blinked at me as I entered, rubbing a hand over the few strands of graying hair bravely clinging to the other side of his head in the last exhausted vestige of a combover. “John? Been awhile.”

“Sure has. I need an ID.”

“When?”

“Rush job. Couple hours.”

“How complicated?”

“Nothing fancy.”

He nodded. “Picture?”

I handed him the phone. He hooked it up to his computer and grabbed a few. “What name do you want?”

“Ivana Balzac,” I said without hesitation. I’m not proud of my sense of humor, but it had to be done.

He nodded. “Normal rates.”

I almost walked out before remembering something. “Javier... do you remember that girl I came in here with last time? Short? You made a fake ID crack?”

Javier gave me an impressive poker face. I couldn’t tell what he remembered or didn’t. Granted, it had been a year since I had brought Oana Constantinescu into his shop while on another errand for another ID. Still, she was pretty distinctive, what with being four feet of solid muscle who walked like a show pony and wore glitter with a curious lack of irony.

I went on. “She probably came back to you for new papers after that day. I’m not asking for her name or anything, but you have to know a way to get in touch with her, especially if she wanted top-notch work.” I grabbed a pen and a piece of scratch paper off his desk and scrawled my number down. “Give her that and tell her Jonah Bailey wants to talk to her.” I put the scrap of paper on his table, knowing he’d never give any admission he knew what I was talking about by taking it.

My next two stops were in Silver Lake. I probably should have gotten real business done, but I had technically been ordered to do this, so it
was
all business. I could keep telling myself that all day. Truth was, I wanted a connection to her.

Mina lived in a Spanish-style bungalow on a hilly street in the hipster neighborhood of Silver Lake. The living room, which I could see through the large window in the front, was dark. I let myself in with my key.

The place smelled like her, or rather the range of scents that I thought of as belonging to her, even though the bulk were manufactured by shampoo, soap, cosmetics, and perfume companies. She combined them into something brand new, like a fruit salad but sexier.

I wasn’t prepared for it, though, and I had this sense if I just went around one more corner, went into another room, I’d find her there. She’d be a little confused, but happy to see me, and we could have a nice afternoon of doing dumb couple things together.

I was pretty tired from going without sleep and running around digging my own damn grave, so I went into her kitchen and put on a pot of coffee so strong it would have the consistency of paste and be legally considered meth. Mina had made me coffee the first time I had ever been here, when I was also exhausted from something like this. I’d passed out on her couch, and she hadn’t killed me. That lack of murder was the most romantic thing I’d experienced in my life to that point.

There was only a single picture of me in her apartment, and it was attached to the fridge in one of those plastic frames with a magnet on the back. It was a sunny day out in Santa Barbara and we had been walking up and down the pier and Shoreline Drive. Mina, with her ghostly complexion, never went near the beach without a layer of sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, and a scarf. She looked like a movie star doing a really bad job of being incognito and I had been cracking up. She snapped a picture of me and I had my hand up, partially blocking the lens. I had spent a decade being paranoid about getting my picture taken and habits like that die hard. She loved the picture, even though all you could see was a shadowy head and hand, the sun blazing through outstretched fingers. She said it was very me.