Alexander Jablokov - Brain Thief (23 page)

Inside, the trailer was larger than he had expected. The living room was dominated by a sectional sofa at a finicky orientation thirty degrees off from the walls. A TV screen dominated one wall.

The walls were hung with landscapes. Watercolors, Bernal thought. He brought his nose up to one, a scene of a brook and a curved stone bridge. “Kuepner” it said. “Hopelessly sentimental,” Bernal murmured to himself. Hitler had started out as a watercolorist, so he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised.

What looked like a samurai sword hung above a gas fireplace.

Salvage from abandoned cars was piled on the sofa. Golf clubs, with graphite shafts and titanium heads as complex as the heads of late-medieval maces. Garment bags spilling suits and shoes. Umbrellas. Wrapped presents with the bows still on them.

. . . Umbrellas. What had Muriel said? Look for an umbrella.

Was he truly insane for paying attention to what that DECWriter had told Him?

“Bernal?” Patricia’s voice was surprisingly tentative. “Are you there?”

“Yeah. Where are you?”

A moment’s wonder at his inability to find her in a space so small. “Back here.”

Black umbrellas, red umbrellas, umbrellas with Monet water lilies, and what looked like a hundred black travel umbrellas, many of them with bent and missing ribs. But there, next to a flowered bag, was one with an oddly thick handle. Bernal picked it up. Now that he’d seen it, it didn’t look convincing as an umbrella. It was a small-charge herf gun. Muriel’s gun, which she had disguised and told him to find.

How the hell had this gotten here? Sooner or later, all junk ended up at Ignacio’s. It was clear that he just threw everything into various categories, and that this thing had not graduated from “umbrella” to “high-tech weapon” in Ignacio’s classification scheme.

“Bernal?”

He scooped it up and headed through the well-equipped kitchen, with its racks of cleavers and Garland stove, for the rear of the trailer.

_______

Patricia stood in
 the mobile home’s small bathroom stitching up a cut in her forehead. The sink was spattered with blood. It streaked her high forehead and her hair. She pulled a thread through with a needle and winced. She scooped some white powder off the toilet tank and dabbed it around her cut, then did another stitch.

“Cocaine?” Bernal asked.

“Sure. Anesthetic. Local. Works pretty good.”

“And a vasoconstrictor too,” Bernal said.

“What?” 

“Helps stop the bleeding.”

“Yeah, well. That’s always good, isn’t it?”

“Where did Ignacio go?”

“Out. To get something, he said. Oh, Bernal, I’m so scared.” She leaned against him then, and he put his arm around her. She was small. He could feel her bones.

It was hot in the bathroom. Not steamy. Just hot.

She shivered a little and turned a bit away. She scraped some of the cocaine off onto her thumbnail and held it up to him. Her eyes were downcast as she did so, like a geisha offering a client a cup of tea.

He refused hesitation, leaned forward, and snuffed it up with his nostril. An icicle traveled up his sinuses. He wasn’t used to blow, it wasn’t something he’d indulged in much. It was too physical a drug, too constricting, like being squeezed in a giant hand.

“Finish up, can you?” She handed him the needle and turned her face up to him. She really was small, not the dominating figure of Charis or the challenging one of Yolanda. Just a little girl. Even her teeth were so small that they looked like baby teeth that had never been pushed out.

He’d never done anything like this before. Her eye was just below the cut. It was an interesting puzzle, but he didn’t want to blind her with the needle’s point. She winced as it went in, and the stitch was uneven. The second one was straighter, and the third was the last.

“Thanks,” she said. “All it takes is focus.”

She scooped up another mound of cocaine. He did hesitate this time, but then inhaled that one as well. The effect was muted by his already sizzling nerves.

“I saw Ignacio drive away,” Bernal said.

“Away? That’s good. When he goes, he goes for a long time.”

“Do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

And then she was crying, her face pressed against Bernal’s chest, her entire body shaking. He felt a tug on his shirt. Without really being conscious of it, he followed her lead, out of the bathroom and into the bedroom behind, Ignacio’s bedroom, filled with a bed that left only a few inches to squeeze around it.

Patricia’s touch was almost more than he could bear. He wasn’t just a frozen brain. He did have a few seconds of understanding that he was doing something really stupid, and then she pulled him down into the stinking sheets.

Bernal and Patricia walked quickly down the dark aisles of the junkyard, feeling the time that had passed. But Bernal felt, in addition to fear, a thrill. He’d had sex with Patricia in Ignacio’s bed. He’d just have to face the consequences.

She’d been silent since they had finished, dressed, and run out of the trailer, Bernal only just managing to remember to grab Muriel’s herf gun. Patricia wore a long white jacket, oddly fashionable, that clung to her narrow waist. She looked beautiful and easily broken.

Finally, she spoke.

“He . . . you know, he recruited me here. Out of all the possibilities. And now .. . oh, I don’t know how it happens, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“We can’t go out the front,” Patricia said. “He might be there.”

“I have a way,” Bernal said.

“It was really because of Fartface.” She remembered as they walked. “Poor Fartface ... I guess we shouldn’t have called him that. This was in Pleasant Valley. Residential facility. I kept running away from home. After Merrick died. You remember Merrick.”

“Garage, crossbow.”

“Yeah, him. Anyway, I kept ending up in different places, with . . . guys, mostly. They’d see me, I’d meet them. Mom and Dad were all upset about how I was acting. Blamed it on the accident, juiced the insurance payout, and got me put up.”

He remembered her mentioning some kind of accident the first time they had talked, and she had described meeting the unfortunate Merrick.

“What accident?” Bernal said.

She shrugged. “Car, I wasn’t wearing my belt, Mom bashed into the back of a truck that stopped for no reason on the highway. I hit my head on a pipe sticking out of the back of the truck. I was out for a while.” She touched her forehead, and Bernal noted again the crescent-shaped scar and the cranial depression. Frontal lobe damage could be serious. She’d been lucky.

“Fartface had a home-meth-lab accident, ended up with a bunch of glass in his forehead and a bad attitude. I never learned his real name. He knew about network access, stuff like that. He had some sniffer software he brought in his iPod, did some keystroke logging. Didn’t need it, these psych types are really lame, I mean, they hadn’t changed the passwords for years, and they had them scribbled on stickies on their old monitors. We used our access for the usual shit. I sent naked pictures of myself to prisoners. They like that stuff, and those guys can help you out later. They’d write me back, call me, and we’d work things out.

“Then somebody else called me. Started sending me messages. Not, like, normal. Like from some kind of lockdown, kind of like mine. I didn’t want other crazy people writing me. What good was that? But this person had a plan. This person wanted me out of Pleasant Valley so I could help with something important.”

“Ignacio?”

She paused. “Yeah. Ignaz. He spotted something, I don’t know, in me. The naked pictures, sure. But there are a lot of those. It was something else too. He said he needed me. Said he wanted me to get to Cheriton, however I could.

“So I straightened up and waited. They never have enough slots at those places, so they don’t keep you if you’re not a complete mess. So I acted right, and that was all I had to do. I was out in a month. Then, I made some money. The usual shit, hooking, selling drugs. Not so hard once you get the hang of it.” She paused. “Does that bug you? What I used to do?”

“A little. Sure.”

She rubbed his shoulder, which felt almost more intimate than what they had just done. “I followed a simple rule: Take the drugs, lose money. Sell the drugs, make money. Simple. Got a stake together, then hopped a bus to Cheriton.

“You know it worked out. The way it always works out. I got the job. I work in a junkyard. Good job. Right? And sometimes he’s nice to me. Real nice. Sometimes not. That’s really as good as I’ve ever gotten.”

_______

Out in the
 darkness, a whir. Patricia looked around.

“Do those golf carts move on their own?” Bernal said.

“There are some buried wires that they follow.” She took his question seriously. “But they don’t start by themselves. We should—”

The blow took her in the side of the head, and she fell to her knees.

“Patty,” Ignacio said. “I’m really getting tired of everybody mixing into my business here. Just running a few drugs, but everyone acts as if—”

Bernal hit Ignacio in the chest with the top of his head. He didn’t know much about hand-to-hand, but he knew he had to use as much momentum as possible and move as fast as he could. The impact was satisfyingly hard. They both went down.

Ignacio was big, but he was fast as well.

And he knew what he was doing. He shoved Bernal against a rack, twisted, and got hold of Bernal’s wrist.

Bernal grunted and tried to struggle. But struggle just increased the pain. Ignacio shifted grips, and for an instant Bernal thought he was free. Then there was more pain, and his face was ground into the rack.

“This is it.” Ignacio breathed like an enraged bull. “This is just it.”

With the hand that was not holding Bernal, he searched him efficiently, removing his cell phone, his wallet, his multitool, his car keys.

“You should just leave her alone,” Bernal said.

“You guys should leave my carts alone.” Ignacio always spoke calmly. It was part of his threat. “I need them to keep my business working. Let me know how you got the damn things running, and maybe I’ll be quick.”

Then Bernal heard the sound of running footsteps. Something clanged. Ignacio fell off Bernal’s back. “Run!” Patricia screamed. “Run now!”

Bernal turned, holding his agonized wrist. He caught a glimpse of her as she disappeared down an aisle. Ignacio was on his hands and knees, blood streaming over his face. His one clear eye was focused on Bernal. Patricia had hit him with a suspension strut. He groped for it, found it, started pushing himself to his feet.

Bernal ran before he could get up.

_______

The car parts
 on either side seemed to lean in toward him as the aisle narrowed. There was a cross passage just ahead—

A golf cart pulled out in front of him. Bernal slowed down, then leapt to clear the vehicle.

That instant’s hesitation was fatal. He didn’t jump quite high enough. His shins hit the cart. He spun over and smashed painfully to the ground.

Ignacio was out there somewhere, but he seemed to have decided to use his yard’s transportation system to herd Bernal, so that he didn’t have to strain himself chasing after him.

Because there was another damn cart. This one moved slowly toward him. It was surprising how menacing a golf cart could look.

As he backed away, it sped up.

“Bernal.” Charis Fen’s voice. Hollow-sounding, coming from . . . where? “Look out!”

It was just an instant too late. Bernal lost his footing and toppled into the concrete pit that had been waiting for him just behind his heels.

He and Charis lay together at the bottom of a concrete shaft about five feet square and ten or fifteen feet deep. The sky glowed dimly above.

For a moment. Then someone dragged a heavy metal plate across the concrete, then across the opening. The silence and darkness grew absolute.

“Great,” Charis said. “Just great.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I was just trying to—”

“You knew something was up here!” Bernal spoke before thinking and only realized he was right when he heard his own words. “You think Hesketh is hidden somewhere in this yard.”

“There is no Hesketh, you moron! I came here to save your stupid ass.”

Bernal rolled to his feet. “Are you okay? I mean . .. thanks. Thank you. I landed on you.”

“Believe me, I didn’t plan it.”

“But you think Ignacio has something to do with it. You were watching the yard.”

“I saw you climbing under the fence . . . but when I came up to check it out, Ignacio got the drop on me. He was waiting out front. He knows something’s up. He was ready.”

Before Bernal could apologize for screwing things up, the metal plate over the hole’s top was drawn away, showing the sky again.

They both looked up, but couldn’t see anything.

“The drugs . ..” Bernal said. “The Easter Bunny. I think Muriel came here investigating. So he went to her house to threaten her. The night she disappeared. Ignacio was there. John Rennie saw him.”

“And he finally finished the job.”

“That may be the connection, but I’m not sure that—” Something glanced off his shoulder, and he yelped. “What—” He felt around on the ground, and came up with a car mirror. “What the hell?”

A hum, and a loud scrape.

“Look out!” they both yelled, like it would help.

This time it was an entire car door. It fell between them, bounced off its corner, and landed resting on Bernal’s toes. It was surprisingly heavy. He bent over, got his fingers under it, and pulled his toes out.

“Golf carts?” Charis stared up with puzzlement. “We’re being attacked by golf carts?”

Of course. “Not golf carts,” Bernal said. “Hesketh.” 

“Now don’t start that again ... Shit!” Crumbled concrete and dirt scattered down on them. Something big and dark appeared at mouth of the hole. “You back, me over here. Then .. . when I yell, you jump, boy. It’s the bounce, the bounce’ll kill us. You jump.”

“Okay.-Sure.” Bernal bent his knees.

The black shape slipped down, and, for an instant, looked like nothing at all, like the shadow of something far away. Then: “Now!”

They both jumped. The shape hit, teetered, then fell in Bernal’s direction. Coming down, his knees hit it, and he fell forward across it. Charis caught him before his head hit the ground.

“I’m not going to ask if you’re okay,” she said. “But I can see you’re alive.”

“You’ve lowered your standards,” he said.

“Hey, it’s all about managing expectations. What the—”

The huge engine lay between them. It looked like a V-6. Another moment, and a chrome wheel rim bounced off the engine, then spent quite a while rolling noisily around on its edge before settling down.

“More than one of those golf carts up there,” Charis said. “You think Hesketh is controlling them. Couldn’t it be anyone? Ignacio?”

“I would have thought it was Ignacio, but he asked me how we got them to run, like he had no idea.” Another movement, and a shower of nuts, bolts, and other connectors came down on them. One of them hit Bernal painfully in the head.

He pulled out the herf gun. “Well, didn’t your personal ad say ‘Enjoys walks in rains of car parts’?”

Charis stared. “Where the hell did you get that?” 

“Found it. In Ignacio’s trailer.”

“That’s Muriel’s! She begged it from me the day before it all went down. And you still don’t think Ignacio killed her?”

“I don’t know what I think.”

“Give me that thing.”

Charis opened the umbrella. The thick ribs angled out, past the usual point, until it looked like it had been blown inside out in a high wind. The fabric flapped, clearly just camouflage.

They both peered up. Something heavy was getting dragged across the ground toward them.

“We’ve probably got one shot, if that,” she said. “So we have to make it count.”

She leaned back against the wall, braced her elbows against her chest, and pointed the parabolic antenna up. A dark shape appeared against the sky. Another engine, this one even larger, from an SUV or truck. When it hit, one or both of them would be crushed. There would be no way to escape.

It pushed forward, grinding against the pit’s edge.

The herf gun buzzed. The engine tilted forward. “Damn it!” Charis worked the trigger, but nothing else happened.

“Man,” Bernal said. “Will you look at that?”

The engine had stopped. It leaned halfway down over the edge, but was no longer moving.

“That’s just one cart.” Charis said. “Another one of the damn things can be along in a minute. We’ve got to 
move.
 Come on, come on. Here, let me . .. thank God for this thing, anyway.” She climbed up on the first engine that had fallen. “Up on my shoulders.”

“Me? But shouldn’t I be the one—”

“Look, boy, I outweigh you by forty pounds, and I’m way stronger than you. You going to worry about gender roles, or are you going to get moving? I’ll brace myself, you climb me like a tree. You should be able to reach.” He pulled himself up on the engine and grabbed her shoulder. She was strong muscle under the fat. She bent her knees, so that he could step on one thigh and get himself up. He tried to be careful not to kick her in the face or pinch anything. Despite a couple of muffled grunts from her, he thought he’d done pretty well on that.

Bernal reached up and was able to grab the edge of the pit.

“Can you bounce me up?” he said down to Charis.

“Bounce you 
up?”

“Yes. Just a little, so I can get some grip on this. I don’t... I don’t have enough muscle to pull myself up, okay?”

“Don’t get all defensive. You ready? On three. One . .. two . .. 
three.”

He jumped up, but his shoulder hit the dangling engine, knocking him just enough to the side that he scrabbled and fell back. He froze, back on Charis’s shoulders. The engine tilted and creaked. He thought he heard the cart’s wheels drag across the ground. But finally, it settled and held.

“I’ll have to make sure I slide right up against the wall when I do that,” he said. Charis did not answer. “Okay?”

“Okay. You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“One . . . two . . . 
three
.”

This time, by pushing his chest against the concrete, he made it up and got his elbows on the edge of the hole. He worked his way sideways to a corner, so that he had one elbow on one edge and the other on the one perpendicular. He was pressed right up against the precarious engine, but there was really no other way for him to get enough purchase.

“Okay,” he said.

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

“As ready as I’m going to get.”

A moment of silence, and then she grabbed him by the waist and tried to pull him back into the hole. At least that’s what it felt like she was doing. She grunted, switched grips, and grabbed his shoulder. Somehow, she braced herself against the opposite wall with her feet, and within a few seconds was hanging on with him.

“A couple more seconds,” she said in his ear. “Just hang on.”

He didn’t have enough air in his lungs to answer her.

She jumped over, and ended up facing in, elbows on the edge. Then she pushed herself up and over.

Something grabbed his shirt. Bernal yelped. The engine fell past and hit the bottom of the pit with a crash. His shirt ripped, but he stayed up.

“Come on, man.” He grabbed her hand and she yanked him out.