Slow Burning Lies

 
 
Slow Burning Lies
 
A Novel
 
by
 
Ray Kingfisher
 
Copyright © 2012 Ray Kingfisher.
The right of Ray Kingfisher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this may be reproduced, stored, transmitted, circulated or copied in any form or by any means without the consent of the author or an implied licence to do so.
This is a work of fiction. Any references or resemblances to real people, events or locations are used fictitiously. Other people, events or locations referred to are products of the imagination of the author and are entirely coincidental.

If ever there was an evening for stories no sane person could make up, then this was it.

Maggie Dolan shooed the stragglers from the Lake’s End coffee shop – so skilfully they didn’t realize they were being shooed – and turned the sign from ‘Come right on in’ to ‘Back at 6am’.

She took a peek outside. The wind had gathered confidence as well as speed on its sweep across Lake Michigan and into Chicago. In the near darkness, swirling litter and the first golden leaves of the year flashed as they caught the occasional car light.

She folded her arms and hugged herself.
If only the custom was as lively as the weather
. She stepped back and pushed the door to.

A foot appeared, as if the wind had dropped it there, and lodged in the doorway.

‘I’m sorry, we’re just closing.’

She looked up at the man. Fear was etched on his face just as surely as ‘Buttermilk Cheesecake’ was chalked onto the specials board. ‘I said,
we’re closed
.’

‘Don’t you remember me?’ the man said.

‘Sure. You’ve been in here a few times over summer, usually with a girl in tow.’ She shrugged. ‘We’re still closed.’

‘I… I really need to talk to somebody.’

The man’s face had looked young and firm when he’d been in before, when he’d smiled and talked and talked and smiled his way into those girls’ affections. But now he didn’t seem quite so handsome, with the odd graze on his greasy pock-marked skin. His coat was filthy and his hair was matted and set at an odd angle on one side. He had a faint gassy smell to him, like he’d just worked a shift as a garage mechanic.

‘So go to a bar if you need to talk,’ Maggie said. ‘I have to close up and get home. I cook for half of Chicago during the day but I’ve got kids to cook for at home.’

‘I’ll pay you,’ the man said. ‘I don’t care how much.’

‘Jeez. You must be desperate.’

She looked again. Something or somebody had knocked that cocky smile off his face and buried it. Perhaps that was what made him look older – he really did seem to have aged years in the few weeks since he’d last visited the coffee shop. Between the flaps of his coat his chest was sunken, like one of the old boys who’d given up on life and spent their nights under the railroad arches.

‘You’re the only person I can trust,’ he said. ‘Please.’

Maggie’s eyes fell on his filthy jeans and mud-splattered sneakers. This was a far cry from the casual but neat clothes he wore before. She let out a spluttering sigh, and half of her mouth smiled. ‘Ahh, what the hell. Call it loyalty. Come on in.’

She stood aside and the man shuffled along to the furthest table from the street, the one that threw little light on his face, and eased himself into the seat with the careful precision of an arrow being placed in a crossbow.

‘So what’s it to be?’ Maggie said.

‘What?’ The man’s face, framed by that dank strawberry blond hair, looked up to her like he was pleading.

She stood by the counter, casting a hand to the wares. ‘You look like you need a strong coffee.’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Just sit.’

‘Just sit?’

He pulled out a wallet and emptied it, putting fifteen twenty-dollar bills onto the table. ‘Sit. And listen. I need somebody to know. And I feel I can trust you.’

Maggie glanced at the money. ‘Hell, it’s a long time since anybody trusted me that much.’ She pulled a chair out from the table, turned it around so the back faced him, and sat astride it. ‘Look, mister. Forget the money, really. I’m as short as anyone else, but I’m no hooker.’ She plucked a wad of gum from the corner of her mouth and pressed it onto a plate.

In truth Maggie felt a little flattered. She was fully aware her appearance clashed with her brash manner just as much as it did with her bright orange apron. Her hair was as mousy and nondescript as it always had been, and what little make-up she had on had been smudged by a heavy day of steam and sweat.

‘Besides,’ she said. ‘I like a good story more than you might think.’

The man stared at her for a moment, his eyes like holes melted in midnight snow.

‘So I’m listening,’ Maggie said. ‘Go ahead.’

The man took a deep and laboured breath, resulting in a guttural cough, then gave his brow a wipe with his sleeve and leaned forward. ‘I’m going to tell you a story,’ he said. ‘A story about a man who used to call himself Patrick Leary.’

2

The man who called himself Patrick Leary sat up in the girl’s bed. He said, ‘I… do…’

It was the closest he’d come to telling anyone.

‘Are you trying to make a joke out of this?’ the girl said.

She must have been about twenty, a few years Patrick’s junior, but probably older, he had to admit, in what those stupid women’s magazines liked to call ‘emotional intelligence’.

He wanted to tell her that there was no way on this scarred and malevolent earth he would joke about it, that humour was not on his mind and never had been where this was concerned.

The words that came out of his mouth were, ‘No, I’m not joking. I just have to go.’ He stumbled out of the bed and hopped a couple of times as he tried to pull his jeans on.

‘Hold on,’ she said.

He did – for a second – and looked across to her naked body, swathed in those pure sheets like a figure from a classical painting.

‘It’s okay, you know,’ she said. ‘It’s not against the law for you to stop the night. You might even enjoy it.’

Patrick tried a smile of regret combined with a shake of the head, and hoicked his jeans up.

‘So I guess I’m just a piece of meat to you, is that it?’

He swept his shirt on and tucked it in without buttoning it. ‘We’re a piece of meat to each other, aren’t we?’

‘You bastard,’ she muttered.

‘I’m sorry, but let’s be honest; that’s just a fact.’

‘So what the hell does
“I do”
mean?’

Patrick paused to think that one through, like he had in front of so many women in the early hours of so many mornings. ‘I… do…’

But then the heat came, as if a sniper was aiming a laser weapon at his frontal lobe. He fought the pained expression that was trying to force itself onto his face, then sighed and buckled his belt.

The girl, Laverne – yes, that was her name – reached under the bedclothes, grabbed something and tossed it towards him. His six foot, square-shouldered frame flinched as a condom flew past him and flapped twice as it first hit the curtain, then the floor, spilling his wasted effort onto the laminate surface.

‘Look, Laverne, I’m sorry.’

Her naked form jumped out of bed and stomped towards him. ‘Well, you’re the only one that is, buster. You’ve had your fun, now get your British ass out of my goddam apartment.’ She strained to take a swing at him but it just ended up as a slap on his shoulder. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Back to your wife or your girlfriend, yeah?’

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Patrick just about had time to slip his shoes on as he rushed through the hallway, and a few seconds later his jacket flew towards him, and the door slam echoed in the drab functionality of the communal stairwell. He descended the staircase, stopping halfway to tie his shoelaces, then looked back to Laverne’s apartment, a little bit of him hoping the door would open and they could say goodbye properly.

He stepped outside and stood still for a moment, taking in a couple of deep breaths of air, air that was still cool and moist from its charge across Lake Michigan. He loped across the road, then turned to look back to the apartment block as he put his jacket on.

‘I… do… bad things,’ he muttered to himself, then started the two mile walk to South Side, three blocks from the waterfront.

One hour and one cold-beer nightcap later, back in the safe silence of his own apartment, Patrick wondered yet again how much longer this would go on. A succession of one night stands was fine in theory – every young man’s dream – but was that all he was going to get out of life? And would he ever get
this hell
out of his life? It certainly hadn’t shown any signs of leaving him in the past three months.

He looked over to the poster of Marlon Brando, and down to the double bed – a bed he’d only ever slept in alone – a bed he’d only ever slept in alone
with good reason
: in his own bed there could be no escape, no sensible reason to say, ‘I’ve got to go, I can’t sleep here.’

He got into bed and turned the light out. Within seconds his eyelids were firmly closed and behind them his eyeballs started to jitter wildly.

*

The noise wasn’t loud, just a muffled voice, enough to make Patrick stir, chew on nothing and swallow it, then turn over and curl up, aware of the nature – if not the detail – of what was to come, but powerless to do anything about it.

The second time he heard the noise he opened his eyes a little wider, then his heart jerked awake.

He found himself alone in a room, sitting on a plush red upholstered chair. As usual, the scene before him displayed an unnatural sharpness – like each object was creating its own light from within. He scanned the room while his eyes took a few moments to get accustomed to the vivid colours. It was sparsely, but thoughtfully, furnished – the cream hessian-lined walls broken by modern art prints that were cheap but gave the room a classy feel. There was a four poster bed with a small table and lamp each side. The bed was smothered by a quilted cover that looked pristine and reached just far enough to tease the bare polished floorboards and no more. A small solid oak bureau desk beyond the bed completed the furniture.

That was it.

This time there were no more clues.

He stood, and looked down at his clothes. The jacket and chinos probably looked smart from a distance, but close up were grubby and as creased as an old man’s face, like he’d lived and slept in them for weeks. He took a sniff and grimaced at the result, then a horn sounded from outside and he stepped over to the window.

He pulled aside the thick, plain curtains, then instinctively held back for a moment, leaning his head to the wall to peer sideways behind them, only then lifting one away from the wall slightly. From the little he could see it was a busy city, mostly white people, a lot of them with blond hair, scurrying in different directions. The architecture of the buildings displayed the same clean and functional lines as the streets themselves. The sky was clear and bright – almost arctic. Patrick guessed it was Scandinavia – or some version of it – but couldn’t place it any better than that.

However, behind his thoughts was a feeling that wherever on the planet he was, somehow it was simply wherever he was meant to be.

He stepped over to the desk. There was a pristine menu on it – written in a foreign language. At first Patrick didn’t understand the words, but the more he stared, the more he understood. Yes, it was Swedish. The first two items were fjord prawns and pickled herring. There was also a pen on the desk, resting on headed notepaper. Just like the menu, the words were in Swedish.

The sound of a door opening instinctively made him step back from the desk. A man appeared and smiled at him. It was a slow, reserved smile, the sort a proud father would display.

The man was of average height and build, with light blue eyes, mid-length blond hair, and eyebrows that were trying their best to lose themselves in his skin. Patrick didn’t recognize him. The man said nothing, didn’t move towards Patrick, but knelt down where he was, and flipped up the quilted bed cover. He slowly drew the tips of his fingers across the blue plastic cases that were now exposed, reminding Patrick how he’d caressed Laverne’s thigh in bed last night.

But was it last night, or was it a whole other world away? Patrick wasn’t quite sure.

The man beckoned Patrick over and he knelt down too, and pulled the cover up from his side of the bed, seeing more of the same cases, seeing that they – whatever
they
were – completely filled the void beneath the bed.

‘Is good,’ the man said in a sharp accent. Then the man grinned, and the grin matured into a laugh, and his eyes joined in the merriment, threatening to pop out of his head, as he stood and beckoned Patrick to follow him.

The man unhooked a pair of sunglasses from his top pocket and slid them on, then withdrew a cloth hat from his trouser pocket and placed it on his head, smoothing the sides down. He nodded enthusiastically to Patrick, who looked down and checked his pockets. Yes, he also had the same two items on him.

It was starting to become clearer. These were tools of his trade.

A few minutes later the two men passed through the hotel foyer as surreptitiously as a lukewarm breeze. Patrick stopped for a moment to look at the people queuing at the desk – the stiffly-attired businessmen and women, the casually dressed media types constantly referring to their ipads, one young backpacker obviously staying here courtesy of ‘Bank of Dad’. There were even a few families.

Patrick felt his accomplice nudge him and they both headed for the exit, then Patrick watched him smile politely as he held the door open for a young couple with two children to enter the hotel.

‘Mum, I’m hungry,’ the boy said in a plummy English accent.

His father’s protective palm dropped to nestle behind the boy’s head. ‘Let’s check in first, you little monster.’

‘I think he’s got worms,’ the girl, slightly taller than the boy, said with a mocking giggle.

And within seconds the happy family were all safely in the hotel foyer, and Patrick and the man descended the steps and walked briskly across the street.

And then – how, he didn’t know – Patrick recogn
ized
the man. It was Kristoff.

As they passed the shops, Kristoff tugged on Patrick’s jacket and nodded to a nearby alleyway. They took thirty or so casual paces down the alleyway until they reached a doorway that was boarded up on both sides. Now Patrick recognized it. It belonged to the disused shop he and Kristoff had visited only two days ago, when they’d smashed its windows and run away. They’d also been there that morning, to check it had been cleared of broken glass and the sides were boarded up with chipboard. It made for a convenient safety shelter.

From within the haze in Patrick’s mind, his purpose here was now becoming clear.

They walked right to the back of the doorway and pressed their backs to the boarding, which even in its short life had garnered a few scribbles of graffiti.

Patrick raised his eyebrows to Kristoff. Kristoff paused, twitching his jaw as he took two deep breaths, then nodded to Patrick.

And now Patrick knew what to do – what he simply
had
to do. He reached into his jacket and took out a phone. He stepped forward and looked left and right along the alley, then returned to the back of the doorway and switched his attentions to the phone. He flicked through a couple of menus, then held his finger, dead still, over the button.

‘Do it,’ Kristoff said, tiny globules of sweat crystallising on his forehead and below his sky-blue eyes.

A smile started to dance on Patrick’s face. He killed it – because this was business – and then brought his finger down onto the send button.

He got his phone back into his jacket pocket just as they heard the blast. They both crouched down onto the concrete floor of the shop doorway and steadied themselves against the vibrations passing through the ground. And then, lagging behind the eruption, a blizzard of glass, concrete and metal fragments rampaged through the alleyway past them. One of the chipboard panels escaped from its nails and slammed onto the floor in front of them. Patrick lifted the lapels of his jacket in front of his face and cowered, pulling his legs in and shrinking his body.

Gradually the sound of the explosion tailed off, only to be replaced by strident screams, alarms, and more screams fading in from the background. Patrick took his jacket away from his face and replaced it with his handkerchief, pressing it to his mouth for protection from the toxic dust. He could see Kristoff doing exactly the same, his face turning crimson and slightly bloated as he coughed energetically.

But the two men waited patiently, and eventually the fog of destruction started to clear. Slowly, tentatively, Kristoff got to his feet and Patrick followed. They shook the debris from their clothes and stepped out towards the street.

Kristoff held out a hand. Patrick shook it and they left in separate directions, Patrick away from the blast and further down the alleyway. He came out onto a wider pedestrian area, where the ground was littered with random shapes – some regular, like beam sections, rods and right angles – but mostly blobs and clumps. However, everything – absolutely everything – was now shrouded in dirty white powder. It could almost have been a Christmas grotto scene.

At first Patrick needed to step carefully over the debris, and after a few coughs held his handkerchief back to his mouth. He stumbled a few times and recovered, then fell as he lost his footing on a thick angled object, clasping it as he held his hand out to protect himself. He lifted the object. His stumble had shaken most of the dust from it and he could see at the thinner end of it was a shoe. At the thicker end the dust had turned crimson, with straggles and shreds falling from it. He brushed the dust from the angle in the midsection of the object and the knee joint silently opened out, straightening the leg. For a second Patrick winced, then he dropped the limb, causing a puff of dust to explode beneath it. He snorted a laugh and walked away.

Soon, as he got further away from the hotel, the debris became sparser, and he was able to break into a jog. He turned a corner and ran for another thirty seconds. Then he came across a momentary scene of organisation amongst the chaos. A woman was guiding people in the direction Patrick had just come from.