Concrete Underground (2010) (29 page)

That was how we were posed when the ground leveled out and we saw Columbine sitting on a large fallen tree branch at the river's edge, watching our approach.

"Awesome. So what, you're just going to nail all of my friends, then?" she called out. "I can't wait 'til it's Anthony's turn."

"What's she mean?" Violet asked.

"He fucked Max," Columbine answered.

Violet looked me over in amused surprise. "Of course he did."

"Where have you been?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Around," she shrugged.

"Why weren't you answering my calls?"

"I guess I was a little sore," she said, her eyes downcast. "I tried calling you last night, and I think your pocket answered. I kept asking if you were there, but you never said anything. Then I heard a woman moaning in the background." She turned her gaze to Violet and added, "I guess I should have recognized the moans."

Violet's face sunk with guilt.

"Hey, check it out, it was still there," Columbine said abruptly, digging a small Russian doll out of her jacket pocket and showing it to Violet. It was painted like the Queen of Hearts from
Alice in Wonderland
and had bits of dirt still stuck to it.

"Is there anything in it?" I asked.

"There used to be a necklace. My mom left it for me when she passed. But I took it out a while ago."

"Col," Violet said gingerly, "honey, your father's dead."

Columbine looked down at the doll, turned it over in her hands a couple times, then said, "Good."

32. Just Another Game

The three of us checked into a motel off of Highway 77 a few miles out of town to the south of Hastings Airfield. The place was a run down sinkhole called The Motley Fool, which I'm sure had something to do with Columbine picking it.

I paid in cash and registered under a fake name. The clerk was a small Vietnamese woman who spoke in broken English and sat behind a window of bullet-proof glass; she didn't seem too eager to ask questions.

On the way over I had explained to Columbine about the notes and her possibly being targeted by the blackmailers. Once we settled into the room, I came up with some precautions we should take until we could be sure Columbine was safe.

"Leave the room as little as possible and stay close by. There's a gas station with a convenience store just across the street, and that should be as far as you'll need to go. If you absolutely have to travel, take public transit or cabs, and try to transfer a few times, make sure you aren't followed. Don't go anywhere you might be recognized."

"I could put together a disguise," Columbine offered. "Maybe a long black wig and a Russian accent - oh, and patch on my eye."

She cupped a hand over her right eye playfully, and I wondered whether this was just some weird coping mechanism or if the whole situation really was some kind of game to her.

"You probably shouldn't call anyone either - from the hotel phone or your cell," I continued. "Tomorrow I'll take the car into town and leave it parked at my place. It's not safe to leave it sitting out in front here. In the meantime, Violet should stay here in case anything happens. One of us should be with Columbine at all times."

"What about my job?" Violet jumped in.

"Look, it's up to you, but if Anthony's looking for you, that'll be the first place he checks. And if Max told him that I was at your house - and I'm sure he has..." I trailed off, feeling like I didn't really need to finish the thought.

Violet shook her head. "This is so surreal. I mean, are we really dealing with a matter of life or death here? It's hard to believe this is actually happening, it feels like at any second I'm going to wake up and realize this is all a dream."

---

None of us felt like going to sleep that night. I gave it my best shot, but couldn't manage to nod off despite my total exhaustion - both mental and physical.

Columbine spent the night laying on one of the twin beds watching late night TV. Violet sat up on the other bed, reading a dog-eared pulp detective paperback. I, meanwhile, sat cross-legged on the floor with my notebook, hoping that in reviewing the information I'd gathered, some kind of clue or explanation would emerge.

After chasing my own tail this way for an hour, I decided to take a break. I went out onto the catwalk outside our room and chain smoked while leaning over the guardrail. Somewhere in the middle of my third cigarette, Violet came out to join me.

"Are you okay?" she asked as she hopped up to perch herself on the guardrail.

"Yeah, I'm just trying to clear my head a little, get some perspective."

She took out one of her cloves, and I reached up to light it for her. "What's your plan for tomorrow once you get back into town?"

"Good question. I'll let you know when I figure it out," I replied with a shrug. "I mean, obviously I've got to find the blackmailers and, I dunno, somehow stop them from hurting Columbine. I guess turning them over to Max would do the trick, but I'd need a lot of hard evidence for that to work. My credibility with him is kind of low right now.

"As far as I know there are three of them left. One was the guy who attacked me the other night at the party; unfortunately, he's worn a mask every time I've run into him. The second is an older man with a ruddy face and a scar on his cheek who drives a blue 1950's Chevy. I've actually seen him, at least, but I still don't have a name. So that leaves Anthony, who I know is connected to all this, but without any proof Max will definitely take his word over mine. I suppose I could go first thing in the morning and try to beat a confession out of him."

I followed that up with a self-deprecatory laugh, but Violet still furrowed her brow with worry. "I know you're joking, but promise me you'll stay away from him. He'd kill you."

I was of course joking, but all the same my pride bristled to hear her undermine my masculinity with such certainty. Which, in turn, made me realize I might not have been joking entirely. An image popped into my head of myself emptying a gun into a bloodied and beaten Saint Anthony.

Violet shivered as she exhaled smoke, then pulled her coat closed tighter. "This is so surreal, hiding out like this. I guess it's just hard to wrap my head around. Why would these people want to hurt Col, anyways?"

I shrugged, "Their note implied that they saw her as a way to get revenge against me. But now I'm not so sure that's the whole story."

"What do you mean?"

I nodded. "After I thought about it some more, I realized there are more obvious targets if they're just trying to get back at me - like my sister for one. So then I took myself out of the equation and asked what would be the primary motive driving the blackmailers now that their plan has gone down the tubes? Obviously, the most important thing would be to stay hidden, especially from Max. With that in mind, the only reason it would be worth the risk of resurfacing to kill someone is if they thought that person could identify them to Max."

"Are you saying Columbine knows who they are?"

"I don't think so," I said as I stubbed out my cigarette. "But they might think she does. You see, there's a good chance that her father was mixed up with them."

Violet's surprise was visible. "But that doesn't make sense. Why would James McPherson blackmail anybody?"

I nodded my head to sympathize with her confusion. "It's still vague to me, just a theory, but I think there might be a power struggle within the Highwater Society - Max and his allies on one side and all the old guard led by McPherson on the other. Max likes to talk about changing the rules of the game, shaking things up to keep life interesting. Inevitably, he starts stepping on people's toes, develops a reputation as a loose cannon. Whatever Highwater is, whatever they're doing, they rely on secrecy; Max's games and his general disdain for subtlety endanger that. Perhaps McPherson got to the point where he felt Max was getting to be too dangerous. Or maybe he started to worry that Max could threaten his leadership. Either way, let's assume he wanted to neutralize Max, but couldn't be seen to openly attack him; suddenly the blackmailers and their cloak-and-dagger nonsense start to make a little more sense."

Violet tilted her head to the side. "I suppose it does, but it's still a little hard to swallow. I mean, you're making a couple pretty big leaps, assumption-wise."

"That's just the problem; it's all speculation," I said. "And once you start down that path, it's hard to stop. Because once you start considering the possibility of McPherson wanting to get rid of Max, you start to realize that it's just as possible that Max is trying to get McPherson out of the way.

"Think about it. McPherson is the one who ended up dead, while Max is still alive. Could Max have been trying to set McPherson up so he had an excuse to kill him? Or maybe it was someone else entirely, a third party scheming to pit the two giants against each other while they wait patiently for an opportunity to make their own play. This is the kind of thing that's been going around in my head
ad nauseum
, leading me around in circles of endless theories and conjecture, like a I'm caught in a Mobius Strip."

"I see what you mean about needing some perspective," Violet said as she turned around flicked her dying cigarette butt off the catwalk. I watched as it arced through the air and was extinguished, disappearing into the dark of the night.

---

Dawn started to peek through the the motel room curtains. Violet had finally dozed off on one of the beds, while Columbine and I sat up on the other, still watching TV - or rather staring vacantly at the screen, only vaguely aware of what it was showing at any given time. I was delirious with exhaustion and still couldn't sleep. Columbine had been going strong all night but was finally starting to show signs of slowing down. She yawned like a cat and stretched out on the bed, laying her head on my lap. I stroked her hair absently while the local morning news started.

"Let's run away together," Columbine purred.

I chuckled absently, only half-comprehending her.

"No, I mean it. We should get out of this godforsaken city. Run far away from Max and the Highwater Society and blackmailers and men in blue cars. We could start a new life together on the road like gypsies, see the world, meet new people, have adventures. It will be awesome."

I chuckled again, this time louder. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Of course. It's not like there's anything left for us here. One of my best friends is dead, another just had my father murdered, and the third is on the run from her psychotic husband. You lost your job and effectively got yourself blacklisted in this town. Name one good reason why we
shouldn't
go."

"Who's to say they won't come looking for you - for us? These people are dangerous; if they want you badly enough, they may hunt you to the ends of the earth."

Now it was Columbine's turn to chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

"You," she replied. "You take it so seriously, but it's just another game to him."

I leaned forward to look down at her grinning face. "What do you mean?"

"Haven't you considered the possibility that none of this is real, that there never was any blackmail? That it's all just smoke and mirrors meant to keep us jumping through hoops and running in circles chasing our own tails for Max's amusement."

"That's pretty far out there," I said.

"So's Max," Columbine replied. "He said it himself - what would
you
do for fun if you were rich and bored and had absolutely no concern for human life or human suffering?"

I opened my mouth to respond but couldn't find any words, so I just sat there slack-jawed, staring at the TV.

"I guess I should be going soon," I muttered, then slowly rose from the bed. "I'm gonna hop in the shower really quick."

I turned the shower on to give the water a chance to heat up and started to undress. Through the closed bathroom door, I could hear Violet and Columbine resume talking just loudly enough for me to hear.

"You shouldn't mess with his head like that," Violet chided. "He's twisted around enough as it is."

"What do you mean?" Columbine replied.

"That stuff about Max and his games, it wasn't funny."

"Who said I was joking?"

Violet made a disapproving grunt and said, "Don't tell me you're starting to get caught up in D's paranoia."

Columbine chuckled. "He
is
a little too into this conspiracy theory stuff, even for me. Sometimes I feel like none of this is really happening, but I'm just playing along with his delusions."

There was a pause. "You really are in love with him, aren't you?" Violet asked with possibly just a hint of remorse.

"We wouldn't be here, otherwise."

There was nothing more after that. I stepped into the shower, wondering if they'd intentionally talked loud enough for me to hear or not.

33. No Matter How Desperately You Want It

The next morning I drove the Volvo out to my apartment to pick up a couple changes of clothes and a few other essentials. However, as I walked up the stairs, I noticed my front door was hanging ajar. As I made my approach, taking care to be as quiet as possible, my mind ran through the various nefarious possibilities of who was waiting on the other side. Saint Anthony maybe, or Axelrod back to put the squeeze on me for McPherson. The masked man and his taser. Max and a .44 Magnum. The ruddy-faced man and his infernal blue car, somehow hidden away behind the couch, ready to peel out and run me down as soon as I entered.

I opened the door cautiously and saw Brad McPherson sitting on the tattered remains of my couch, then thought to myself that I might have actually preferred the alternatives.

"Brad, what have you done to my apartment?" I said in mock-surprise and held my arms outstretched to indicate the vast disarray surrounding us.

"D, always good to see you," he replied in a condescending parody of friendliness. "Please have a seat, I want to talk with you."