Blood Day (6 page)

Dez was fiddling with the other cuff.

“Really,” she said, her voice steely. “You need to go. Now. I can’t go with you.”

“The pretty ones are always crazy,” said Dez, pulling the cuff off her wrist. He moved to pull the blanket off to uncuff her ankles, but Sia grabbed his shirt.

“Hey!” he said, as she pulled him closer to her face.

“Get the hell out of here or I’ll kill you myself,” she hissed.

He pulled away from her, breathing hard.

“What the hell, lady?”

“I’ll scream,” she said. “I’m a very important patient.”

“Why the hell do you want to stay?” he said.

Sia hesitated. “I don’t know. But I know it’s important.”

“The hell with that,” he said, pulling the blanket from her feet. “I’m getting you out. You’re delusional.”

Sia began to scream.

“So, you had a visitor last night, I hear,” said Evelyn Hauser, sipping a cup of tea.
 

“Yes,” said Sia.

“Friend of yours?” said Hauser.

“Of course not,” said Sia. “He was the Mover who brought me in here.”

“And why you?” said Hauser. She was sipping tea again, calm as could be, but Sia could feel her twitchiness.

“I can’t help that men find me attractive,” said Sia. “And I can’t stop them from following me when I’m chained to a bed.”

“They didn’t find him last night,” said Hauser. “He ran off and the guards couldn’t find him.”

“Too bad,” said Sia. “I hope he doesn’t come back.”

“Indeed,” said Hauser. She was looking oddly at Sia.

“What is it?” said Sia.

“I’m just wondering why you didn’t go with him,” said Hauser. “You had a clear path to escape. Why didn’t you go?”

Sia shrugged. “I have work to do here.”

“Work?”

“Rehabilitation,” said Sia. “What will it be today? Swimming with piranhas? Swallowing red ants?”

“Electroshock,” said Hauser, frowning. “It’s just…”

“The rules,” said Sia. “I know. Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s get started.”

Hauser stared at her, for a moment at a loss for words.
 

“Sia, it’s not going to be pleasant.”

Sia smiled. “I’m stronger than you know.”

Five

Mike looked at the white door, its paint peeling to reveal corroded metal. What remained spelled
Fishtown Pupp t Theat.
Mike had never even heard of a puppet theater before he met Deacon, and still had no earthly idea why anyone would choose to do business in one. Especially a defunct one. He turned the handle and held his breath as a rush of stale, mildewy air met him. He blinked in the darkness.

    
Voices from the storage rooms below grew quiet as he took his first, creaking step into the building. The smell of dust and rotting cloth filled his nose and mouth. Mike squinted in the darkness, drawing a scratched and battered Zippo lighter out of his pocket.
 

Mike peered around him by the light of the Zippo. He knew what he would see: glass cases on either side of the doorway. Women in wooden masks hung from strings, their white painted faces chipped and their silk robes dotted with dark mildew stains. Giant heads shaped like moons with bulbous noses slumped against the glass, their strings tangled in a heap. Regal girls in stained and rotted taffeta gowns, no bigger than dolls but with eyes that sparkled and followed Mike as he walked past. All of their eyes seemed to peer into him as he crossed the threshold into the theater. The once-scarlet velvet curtains at the stage now hung tattered and ragged and speckled with black. The backdrop had long since been torn or rotted away. Some of the seats had been torn out and carried off. The ones that remained smelled of urine and mold. Water dripped slowly from the ornate ceiling into puddles scattered throughout the theater. Mike found his way to the door, just as Dez Paine had showed him the first time.
 

As he descended the stairs, he closed the lighter and returned it to his coat pocket. He didn't need it. The basement got colder as he neared the bottom of the stairs and a brightness cast a watery light on the boiler room. Mike followed the light down a hallway. He noticed his hands shaking and stuffed them into his pockets. The voices resumed again and were growing louder and more raucous as he approached a brightly lit room at the end of the hall. A hulking man slouched against the wall outside the doorway, slugging at a silver flask and smoking a cigarette.

“You again,” the man rasped. He screwed the cap of the flask back on and put it in his pocket. “What do you want this time?”

Mike swallowed and straightened his back. “I need to see Deacon,” he said, hoping the hulk didn't notice the quaver in his voice. A piece of hair came loose and hung in Mike's eyes and he put a hand up to smooth it. The hulk watched him.

“Little nervous tonight, aren't you, friend?” said the hulk.

Mike looked down at his hand, still shaking a little. He put it behind his back.
 

“It hasn't been a good day,” Mike said.
 

“Who you working for?” He narrowed his eyes and looked Mike over, putting his half-smoked cigarette to his lips. Mike could tell it was a real one. Not a modern one that the Revs sold in the stores.
 

“No one,” said Mike. “Not anymore.”

“You get fired or something?”

Mike looked at him, knowing he looked pathetic, shaky, sick. He felt like throwing up again, but instead he took a breath. “I've been reported.”

“Aw, too bad,” said the hulk. He stopped glaring at Mike. “So you want Deacon to kiss your booboos, is that it?” He ground the cigarette under his shoe. “Don't work like that.”

“I just need a little help,” said Mike, an edge to his voice.
 

“He helped you the last time you were here.”

“This is different.”

“I know your kind,” said the hulk. “You think you're better than us until you get into a bind, and then you come looking for Deacon, signing away your soul, just like that. You're on top of the world again. But you know the best part? When we come to collect, you people always look surprised. Sometimes you get violent. You people have no sense of honor.”

Mike looked at the hulk, wondering what brought him to this life.

“I'll pay,” said Mike. “I always pay my debts.”

“You might not like this one.”

“Whatever it takes,” said Mike. He was surprised that the conversation distracted him, and that he was now feeling better. He nodded. “Whatever it takes,” he said again.

“Whatever you say, Novak.” The hulk shrugged and waved Mike through the door. Mike paused before going in.

“You got a name?”

The hulk frowned. “Why?”

“I might want to thank you later.”

“Matthew,” he said. “Blake.”

Mike nodded. “Thank you, Matthew Blake.”

“You were a little shook up,” said Blake. “I always try to talk you people out of it. I try. It never takes.” He sounded sad, and an emptiness behind his eyes suggested that he had tried many times. He looked away from Mike, shaking a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros.

“Thanks for trying,” said Mike.

“Be careful, Novak,” he said, lighting his cigarette. He met Mike's eyes one last time. “We're not nice people.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“Maybe,” said Blake. “But it isn’t a high bar.”

The room was filled with smoke. Rough men and a few women sat at collapsible tables drinking and playing cards, cigarettes and cigars perched on their lips. Paint peeled from the walls. Across the ceiling, more marionettes hung from small hooks. They were in far worse shape than the ones upstairs in the glass cases. Many were missing limbs, most were so rotted that Mike couldn't even see their faces. There was a painted clown with rows of what looked like shark teeth that had survived unscathed, but once-pretty dresses and curls and tiny tuxedos were moldy and falling apart. Their eyes seemed to escape even the worst damage. They followed Mike as he made his way across the room, choking on smoke and black mold and cheap perfume. Mike tried not to look at the puppets and focused on the man he had come to see.

Deacon was draped across a high backed red chair, looking withered as a dried leaf. He wore sunglasses that seemed to encompass his whole face, but they didn't cover wrinkled paper-thin skin sagging over drooping bones. Mike could see blue veins in the liver-spotted hands that clutched the arms of the chair.

“You're late,” Deacon croaked. There was a small, battered table in front of him, a long, thin knife with a mother-of-pearl handle the only thing upon it. On the other side of the table was another chair.

“Late?” said Mike.

“Sit down, Novak.” Deacon barely spoke above a gravelly whisper, but even amid the chaos and noise, Mike could hear him clearly. He tossed his sunglasses onto the table. His eyes were red-rimmed and tinged with exhaustion, the gauntness of his face giving him a hollowed-out look. Lines crisscrossed across his cheeks and spread out like sunbursts from his eyes. Deacon was a husk.

“I said sit.”

Mike sat, frowning at Deacon. The old man didn't look at him, but surveyed the room.

“How did we get here, Novak?” he said. “I used to be a king. Now look. Rotten ceilings. These fucking puppets. You think any of these assholes wouldn't slit my throat if it did them any good?”

“I don't know, Mr. Deacon.”

“Fuck you with the mister,” said Deacon, finally looking at him with his sad eyes. “Just Deacon. If we're going to do business, Novak, we have to have some kind of relationship here. Trust. How long has it been since you trusted someone?”

“Business?” said Mike. “What do you mean? You don't even know why I'm here.”

He snorted. “I'm Deacon. I know all kinds of shit. You know that better than anyone.”

“I haven't written a story about you in years.”

“Because
they
wouldn't allow it,” said Deacon. “Look, I get it. It was your job. And my business can be…controversial. But can you really say that I'm worse than the fuckers that sent you running here?”

Mike leaned back in his chair. “No.”

“Well then,” said Deacon. “We have an understanding.” He turned his head toward the crowd. “Get out of here. All of you. I need a private meeting.” His voice remained low, but it was as if he had just shouted the orders. Men stopped cutting cards, girls froze with shot glasses raised to their lips, the room became dead quiet. And then, as one, everyone stood up and filed out without a sound.

“See that?” said Deacon, raising a gnarled finger. “That's goddamn respect. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a giant cigar. Using the wickedly sharp knife on the table, he cut off the end. Mike pulled out his lighter and raised the flame to Deacon's stogie.
 

“How did you know I was coming?” Mike said, feeling suddenly eerie in the empty room. Smoke still hung like a curtain in the air.
 

“First things first,” said Deacon, blowing smelly blue smoke out of his mouth. “Ask me something personal. Anything. And then I'll ask you. Let's show some trust.”

“I wouldn't know what to ask you,” said Mike.

“You? The intrepid reporter? Surely there's something you're curious about.”

“Fine,” Mike said. “Why haven't they caught you?”

“The Revs? Blind motherfuckers, aren't they? They don't want to see us. We're under the surface, away from public view. It's why we hunker down in shitholes and keep things quiet. To them, we're the bacteria they try not to think about. Besides, I have powerful friends.”

“More powerful than them?” said Mike.

Deacon shrugged. “Some might say that. But that's two questions. My turn.”

“Okay, shoot.”

Deacon watched him, small and shriveled in his sport jacket, but still sharp as ever.
 

“Did you murder your wife?”

Mike stared at him. He opened his mouth, but thought better and closed it again.
 

“I answered your question, Novak,” said Deacon. “Do me the respect of answering mine.”

“Go to hell.”

“That is not polite, Mr. Novak. It's a valid question if we're going to work together.”

“Why do you keep saying we are going to work together?”

“Did you kill her?” Deacon eyed the knife on the table, like it was a promise. Mike looked away.

“No,” he said flatly. “I did not kill my wife.”

“Everyone thinks you did,” said Deacon. “The famous Kyra Novak murder. It was in the papers, on TV, before they took the televisions away. Weren't you even arrested at one point?”

“It wasn't me,” said Mike, meaning for the words to sound harsh, but they came out as defeated.
 

“Convince me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I can help you, Novak. Say what you will about me, but I've never done business with woman-haters. My Doreen would turn over in her grave. She fucking hated misogynists. And I loved her, so I hated misogynists too. Just because my wife is dead doesn't mean I stopped respecting her wishes. What about your wife's memory? Don't you want to honor her?”

“By going into business with a criminal?” Mike said.

Deacon smiled, a chilling spectacle. His teeth were small and brown and his whole face contracted into a series of wrinkles. Not in the eyes, though. His eyes stayed as cold as the blade of the knife.

“Who's the criminal, Novak?” said Deacon. “I could call them right now. The Movers. Who would they take, me or you?”

Mike swallowed hard. He stared at the wall behind Deacon. He thought of Kyra's face. Her skin had been so soft and smooth, even after she turned forty. Even after she got hooked on Slack and wasn't Kyra anymore. Even after she was dead.
 

“I found her on the floor,” Mike said. There was no emotion in his voice. He was used up. He'd been used up since it happened. He'd told the story to so many cops that he lost his voice for two days.
 

“Found her or put her there?” said Deacon.

“That's two questions,” said Mike. Deacon didn't look amused. Mike sighed. “I found her there. It was the worst thing that's ever happened to me. The day I found her, I stopped living. She hadn't been herself for a long time. She was taking Slack. She had a miscarriage and was depressed so the doctors gave her Slack. But she kept taking it. It was before the Annex, before the Blackout. Before anyone knew who the Revs were or what Slack was.”