Hystopia: A Novel (5 page)

There was a thump of doors and when she peeked again the cops were outside, adjusting their belts. One removed his hat. He slid his hand a couple of times up and over his scalp in a habitual motion and then slapped the brim of his hat against his thigh, as if to shake the dust from it, cowboy-style.

Rake, she said again. She went and gave him a nudge and stood back as he snorted and rolled over and settled back into sleep. So she nudged him again and he finally turned over and said, What the fuck do you want?

Cops, she said.

He sprang up, pulling on his boxers, and went to the window, lifting the slat with his thumb.

What were you doing up?

I was just up.

You were just up?

I was just up.

You use the phone?

No.

Out front, the cops seemed to be in surveillance mode, thumbs in their belts, turning one way and another. A car passed on the road and they turned to watch it.

Cops don’t just appear out of the blue like this. They’re onto something. They sniffed us out, he whispered. This is perfect, exactly. This is hoped-for shit. It can’t get any better than this.

Pulling his shirt on, tucking it neatly, he went to his rucksack and found his gun, held it up, spun the cylinder, opened it for a check, snapped it shut, and said, Take a peek and tell me if they’re coming to the door.

She looked out and saw them moving around Rake’s car, leaning in to the windows, and then standing behind it and reading the plates. One of them held a pad and jotted something down and then went to the cruiser and sat inside, lifting the microphone to his mouth.

He’s calling something in, she said.

Rake pushed her away from the window, lifted the slat, and looked out. Put that stuff in the bag. Pack everything up. We’re in one of those situations. We’re gonna have the pleasure of blasting them both, he said. They’re gonna face something they knew they’d have to face. They just didn’t know they’d have to face it tonight. It’s that simple, he said.

Words tight and sweet. The relief of putting them together. He would start speaking and she’d gather each phrase, take in the scroll of meaning. They moved together with conspiratorial unity. She felt that much. That much was sure. She was with him, at least for now. In her ears a siren still spun, but softer, subdued. This is how it is, a voice said, far off. This is how it’s gonna be. Another voice said: Give in to this and you give in forever. Don’t give in. Another part speaking in the clear logic of survival mode. Lockstep into the formation, the grid of the moment. She had been enfolded in a routine stage set. That part is gone, they said. That part of you’s gonna be there, you’ll feel it, and you’ll want to pick at it like a scab, but don’t pick. You pick, you open it back up and the blood’ll flow. In the dark she felt this. Lockstep to survive. Do what they say to do and you’ll be all right, it’s that simple, really. They were in folding chairs in a group facing each other, going through the routine motions, the Corps Credo on the wall, the windows open slightly and the breeze coming in. Move around it, work around it, and you’ll be fine, a voice said.

Keep an eye on them, he said, reaching under the bed. The double-barrel shotgun was blunt and stupid-looking in the dim light, sawed off, like something carved from a log. He cracked it, loaded two shells, thumbed them tight, and then jerked it shut. All snap and tightness. Old monster, he called it.

The charges hovered: kidnapping a minor out of the Grid and statutory rape to begin with; murder; narcotics, dealing and using, robbery, burglary—he could speak at length about these old-school cops, small-timers like his old man, shifty fuckers who moved with a deliberation you didn’t see in city cops, shrouded in a nonchalance that was highly deceptive. All that tedium of speed-trap stakeouts, parked deep in the brambles, clocking with their eyes, trying to find some semblance of drama in a few streets and a lot of land. His old man had come home from work with a dull gaze in his eyes, laying his firearm on the table.

This’ll kill both of them if we’re lucky. If we’re not, I’m going to have to be quick with this one here, he said, tapping his belt.

I’ve got to use the bathroom, she said.

He turned and gave her a long gaze.
She could feel it. His eyes looking. His eyes boring into her.

Make it quick, he said. You’re gonna answer the door when they knock. They won’t be able to get their eyes off you because they’re not used to seeing flesh like yours, and that’s going to be their death warrant.

The tiles were moldy, the grout gray around the toilet, which was little more than a grim hole gurgling softly to itself. She pulled the shower curtains back, trying not to rattle the hooks, and gazed at the window. It was small, but not too small. She climbed into the tub and pushed it up and looked out behind the hotel. A field opened up into rubble and trash with a shaggy old fence that dipped invitingly in the middle. About twenty yards past the field was a weathered clapboard house with shaded windows. Everything was starting to emerge in the first dawn light.

Into the logic of it. Words clearly spoken. Structure around everything, the lines graphed and solid. Eyes still slightly blurry. As if rising up out of deep water into the fresh light suddenly, but it’s still dark in the hotel room. You can run, but then, that wouldn’t be in the nature of the program, so to speak, someone said. In any case, running goes against the nature of your rehabilitation. You run and you run toward that which was enfolded, so to speak. Or you run around it. You feel it and want to know it and also know that to know it would be to know way too much, so to speak, someone said.

Hurry it up in there, he said.

I just have to wipe.

Wipe fast. They’re down by the office right now.

There’s nothing in my dreams, just some ugly memories, a voice said from behind her.
The restrictions of a drugged state, someone had said. Tripizoid with enfolding is salvation. You can’t say that for most of them. You can say it, but it wouldn’t be true.

Get out there, he said.

She went and stood where he told her, in her nightie, shivering, her nipples rough against the lace.

Just stand like that and tell them something sweet and nice. Give them the works. I’ll let you improvise this time. You’ll be the first thing they see. They’ll be dazed and dazzled small-time pokes. They’ll reach up to rub their unshaven chins and that’s when I’ll step out and give them a blast of pure reality.

He braced the shotgun against his leg while from outside came the distinct clumpy sound of cops who weren’t trying to hide their own presence; cops with an upfront style that reflected the tedium of their lives. At the door they stopped, knocked, and said, Open up, police. One or two beats, and then she sang out, One minute, and then waited another few beats and then said, Hold on, and then another beat and she went and unchained the lock and gazed out at faces leaning in to catch sight of her—she felt it, the light and their gaze forcefully upon her hips and the flat of her belly. One cop had baby fat on his cheeks and small lips and even smaller eyes and a complacent look. He was starting to smile, shifting his weight slightly while behind him the second cop was older, lean, with deep-set eyes, picking his teeth.

Unchain the door, the younger cop said. We have a few questions to ask you.

She took two steps back to give them another view, pirouetting slightly as more light came through and revealed the lines of her body—she could feel it, the cheap silk that had been rubbing against her skin for a week now, beneath her jeans and T-shirts.

We’re not going to bring you in or nothing, the young cop said. His voice passed through his nasal passages, barely making it, and came out squeaking like the air through a balloon and then seemed to loosen as it passed his glossy wet lips. While he waited for her to answer she could hear the calls of sparrows in the fields on the other side of the road and the sound of sunrise striking the bare bones of Big Rapids. The older cop brought himself around and in front of the young one and spoke with a husky voice, his hand down low near his gun.

Now, please open up, he said.

Then the door opened with the blast of a well-placed kick, landing hard against Rake, who was up and around it anyway, his gun aimed high to catch them in the face, and the blast of buckshot fanned against the cheap walls with a muted thump, turning them both into a fury of blood and gore that extinguished the sight of her forever: the sight of her standing there was the last they saw before the blast erased all. One for you, and one for you, Rake said.

A high shrieking in her ears that she recognized from other times, a sense of airlessness as if she’d been sucker punched, and then she was breathing hard, collecting her things, while Rake fingerprinted, marked up the blood on the wall with cryptic designs, a pentagram (sometimes) and a cross (most of the time), and even his name (every time), writing into the furrowed carpet around the men’s legs and then cursing because spreading blood pooled over it.

Get me a fucking towel, he said, and she came and he swabbed the blood, pulling up the carpet and the padding to give him room, and then he smoothed it down quickly and made more designs while she filled the duffel and got the rucksack.

Go as deep into the strangeness of it and leave clear-cut indicators and be certain that what was left behind each time was a record. That was his modus operandi.

Anyone passing on the road, looking carefully, would’ve noticed a crime in progress. They would’ve seen the heels of the two dead men on the walkway, in front of the shabby hotel. They would’ve seen Rake doing a little dance, leaving bloody footprints all the way to the office. They might’ve seen—if they passed a moment later—Rake shooting the night clerk. The bright flash.

PSYCH CORPS BUILDING, FLINT

Singleton and Klein had gone over the map that morning, the long strings and the short strings: red ones marking a murder, blues a possible sighting. The target, Rake, was on a rampage, or had been on a rampage, and he had gone and taken a girl named Meg. One more Grid-breaker going in and taking a girl out of post-treatment, Klein had explained over and over for at least a week.

Now Klein leaned forward with his hands flat on the desk, arching his neck to look up at Singleton.

“You know what I did before I joined this outfit?”

“No, sir.”

Light coming in from the windows—the smoky morning air taking the sun and diffusing it—or the fluorescent fixture overhead talking to itself. The world buzzed in Singleton’s ear.

“I fought in the big one and then I became a historian. You can’t fight in that war—I mean really fight, be in the shit, so to speak, and not become some kind of historian. Let me tell you, history misses the point. Take the Somme, for example. The Big Fuck-up. I mean it was called that when it was happening. You had something like sixty thousand lads—and they were lads—die in the first day of battle. That battle cut the world in two. It introduced pure irony into the world, but do historians mention it? Hell no. Are we willing to call Nam the Little Fuck-up? Christ no. The president keeps her rolling and decides to make a repository for irony, and do you know where it is, Singleton? You’re sitting in it. And I feel duty bound to dissipate some of the excess irony. And do you know how I’m going to do it? I’m gonna terminate this Rake character first chance I get. Now, you might think that’s against the Credo, but the way I see it, he’s going around taking perfectly cured individuals and returning them to their traumatized states, and when we tried to enfold him, to treat him, he became one more in a line of failed enfolds, and the only way to make the wider problem—with the treatment, I mean—disappear, the only realistic way is to terminate him. If you’re gonna build a big repository for the remnants of Nam, if you’re gonna go around believing in the structure of your endeavor, you have to be willing to go out and solve the problem so it doesn’t exist anymore—proof of the problem, I mean. So that’s why I’m going to eliminate him.”

Klein moved back to the map on the wall, touched the pins, plucked the strings gently. “That’s just between the two of us, confidential,” he said. His voice softened and his jaw slackened for a second and then tightened up. He’d be lighting a pipe in a few minutes.

“I don’t really want to go against the regulations,” Klein said. “Or the mission, for that matter. But the way I see it, a situational reality must be faced. We’ve been tracking down these failed enfolds for two years now, and we have cops up north sending the law enforcement liaison down asking for help. They’re sure we know more than we say we know, of course. I’m here to train you, so I feel an obligation to speak the truth. But you should feel an obligation—no, scratch that. You’ve taken an oath to keep this case to yourself. Anything I say in here can be used against you, so to speak. It would’ve saved me a hell of a lot of time and pain if I’d been trained to see that we’re not a perfect organization. The vision we have as an organization, even our building might seem close to perfect, and certainly we’ve come a long way toward fulfilling our mission, but, again, truth to power, there are points at which the means of war, the problem itself, must be tapped to solve a difficult problem. A man like Rake escapes off into a fury of social nonstructure. He comes to us, his file sealed, as per regulations, and then when we try to enfold him, to give him the best treatment possible—although I’ll be the first to admit that he was one of the early test cases, and his reenactment was down in New Mexico—he doubles his trauma, and as I’m sure you know, from reading your manuals and your early training, a failed enfold simply takes the Causal Events Package and amplifies it. Tripizoid, in the case of a failed enfold, doesn’t allow for the proper state of redress. It’s just a drug, and like all drugs it’s still partly—no, scratch that—it’s still a mystery. You’d know about drugs, I assume. You could tell me plenty.”

Singleton looked over Klein’s shoulder and out the window and thought about the agent Wendy, who was probably, right now, listening and nodding and making gestures to indicate she was listening. He thought of her up in Relations, hands in her lap, her eyes fixed on her boss. Meanwhile, the building gave off bad vibes that came of its having been endowed by Kennedy in his third term, when secured by his martyrdom (or whatever the fuck you wanted to call it), as part of his Great Hope initiative. Originally built to serve as a transfer point for veterans coming back into the Vetdock programs, the offices consisted of shoddy government-issue wallboard in preconstructed frames, with flickering fluorescent lights and broad windows facing the front of the building. A sense of mission gone haywire inherent in the walls.