Thomas Prescott Superpack (109 page)

He started at the far corner. The corner nearest the roll-up garage. There wasn’t much over there, a couple dozen badly aging wooden pallets, and Darrel made sure his footsteps were silent. The only thing separating him from Samuels was a quarter-inch thick aluminum door. He inspected the pallets, but other than a family of spiders, he found nothing.

He continued down the north wall. There were three large machines. Forklifts. Not the little ones you see zooming around Home Depot. We’re talking industrial forklifts. Huge. Their wheels alone were as tall as Darrel. At one time they appeared to be orange, but they were now covered with a thick layer of black.

On the forklift closest to him, someone had used their finger to write in the thick dust.

Three words. 
 

⠔

“What did it say,” Berlin interrupted.

“That’s the thing. It was written in a language I’d never seen. Not like Chinese or anything. It was the regular alphabet; but unlike anything I’d seen before.”   

Berlin leaned forward.
  “Do you remember the words?”

“Actually, I do.”

Darrel grabbed the napkin that was still sitting in front of me. Turned it over. Wrote a couple words. Pushed it in front of Berlin. I peered down at it.

Q cilito zerultiss.

My breath caught in my throat. I leaned backwards and tried to act casual.

Berlin asked, “Did you Goggle it?”

“Of course I did. No hits.”

Berlin didn’t believe him. She pulled out a jPhone—my jPhone—from the front pocket of her overalls and did a quick search. After a minute, she said, “No results.”

Darrel gave her a look as if to say, “Told you.”

I leaned back. No results. A language that didn’t exist.

Then why could I read it?

⠔

A low creaking.  Footsteps.  A figure. 

“Stop, Police!” Darrel yelled.

The figure crashed through the same door Darrel had entered.   

Darrel had run the 200 and 400 in high school before he’d dropped out. He still held two state records. Darrel crashed through the door ten seconds later. The figure ahead was darting
into an alley a hundred feet to his left.

The sun had set and Darrel spotted the shadow of the man twenty yards in front of him. There was a tall chain link fence splitting the alley and Darrel watched as the man jumped halfway up the fence and was over it in a matter of seconds.

There was a thick chain and lock holding the fence together and Darrel pulled his gun. Mid-stride he popped off six shots. The chain fell and Darrel smashed through the fence. Darrel made up ten steps. By the time they reached the next alley, Darrel was twenty feet behind the guy. He could hear the man’s inhales and exhales.

The man in hesitated at the next straightaway. A hesitation that would cost him.

Darrel took a gamble. He guessed left. Darrel had the angle and smashed into the man, sending him sprawling against the hard concrete. Darrel jammed the gun into the man’s face and said, “Don’t fucking move.”
 

⠔

My eyes were wide. I shook my head and said. “You’re kind of a badass.”

Darrel smiled.
  “Kind of?”

“Okay. You’re a badass.”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

⠔

Berlin and I spent our first night together eating pizza, playing
Scrobble—
she beat me twice—and watching movies. Halfway through the third movie, Berlin fell asleep with her head on my lap. I tried not to think about the pi symbol written on the forklift. I tried not to think about the three words Darrel had written on the napkin. But I couldn’t shake them.

Q cilito zerultiss.
   

A war is raging.
 

⠔

My cell phone alarm woke me at nine. I’d fallen asleep not long after Berlin and had slept more or less upright on the couch. I sneaked out from underneath Berlin, then knelt down and lifted her up. She couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds. I carried her to the bedroom and set her down. For a moment, I thought she was stirring awake, but within four breaths she was back fast asleep. I wrote her a note that I’d be home later and that she could go to the cafeteria if she needed anything to eat. Then I kissed her on the forehead.
 

⠔

“Orange again?”

Isaac smiled. He said, “We can’t all wear two thousand dollar suits that we just picked up from the tailor.”

He reached across the table and grabbed at my neck. My chest tightened. His fingers brushed my throat. He pulled his hand away. He was holding a tiny pin in his hand. He dropped it on the table.

I exhaled.
  I had asked the guard to take off Isaac’s cuffs. The guard said he could only remove one set. Isaac had opted to have the wrist cuffs removed.

I said, “I had a long talk with my friend Darrel yesterday.”

“Darrel?”

“The cop that tackled you.”

Isaac smiled. “That brother is fast.”

“So he says.”

We made small talk for another couple minutes. Finally I said, “Last time I was here, you said that you knew who I was. What did you mean by that?”

He shrugged, but didn’t answer.

“Are you a Born?” The question just came out.

Isaac raised his thin eyebrows. “A Born? I don’t follow.”

I leaned forward. “You know exactly what I mean. Are you a Born? Were you born here in Two?”

 
“Dude, I was born in Alabama.”

“Right. How did you die?”

“Shot.”

“Shot?”

“Yep.”

“Where?”

“Just outside a tonk.”

“A tonk?”

“A honky-tonk. That’s what we call bars down south.”

“Let me see the scar.”

He shook his head.

After a moment, I said, “You’re full of shit.”

Again, he shrugged.

I was getting frustrated and I stood up. I walked to the opposite wall. Turned so my back was to Isaac.

Was I off? Was this guy just another guy? A guy from Alabama? Just another guy that died in a bar fight?

There was a scraping noise and I turned.

Isaac had the pin from my shirt. He was scratching something on the steel table.

I watched him for a minute. Then I walked around so I was behind him. I looked down.
There were two sentences scratched into the metal table. It was the same language as the words on the napkin. The language that didn’t exist.

I walked back around the table. Isaac didn’t take his eyes off me. The words on the table were upside down, but I could still read them.

Ili noomas zin Naskiĝ. Ni noomas zin Vartistojn.

They call us Borns. We call ourselves Keepers.

“Will the defendant please rise?”

The demand came at the hands of the Honorable Judge Robert Giggs. He was the smallest judge I’d ever seen. Seriously, I wouldn’t doubt if he was sitting on two phone books. They probably had to special order his judge’s robes from Neverland. What was left of his cheaply dyed brown hair was swept over his balding pate and he had glasses pushed down to the tip of his long beak like nose. He had an uncanny resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte—apparently, Napoleon had done some damage in Two as well—and that was the precise moniker that had followed him for his long and distinguished career.

A week earlier, when JP had informed me who would be presiding over the case, he had said, “Looks like Napoleon drew the case?”

“Did you say Napoleon?”

“I did.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

His cigar wavered back and forth as he smiled. “It’s a really fucking bad thing.”

During that same meeting, I had been introduced to Barry Lutwig. Since I had yet to pass the Bar—or make that, since the results of my failing the Bar didn’t come out for another month—I couldn‘t officially represent Isaac in court. Therefore, Barry Lutwig, an aging divorce attorney—and an old acquaintance of JP’s—would chaperon me whenever I needed to step foot in the courtroom.

Such as today’s arraignment.

Behind the defense table, from left to right, were Isaac, Barry Lutwig, and then me. Isaac was in his prison orange. It’d been two weeks since he’d scratched his enigmatic message on the steel table. A message I might add, that was written in an obscure language that did not exist. But that I could read.

Freaky. I know.

My initial reaction had been,
I knew it.  He is a Born.  
Followed quickly by,
Keepers? Keepers of what?

In the two weeks since, I had met with Isaac on four separate occasions. There were no more messages. In fact, the words Born and Keeper were never uttered. Never spoken. But they were always in the room.
Born
was on the table, right there in the center. Each letter chiseled out of granite and weighing a thousand pounds.
Keepers
was hanging on the back wall. It was a Vegas casino sign, orange, fluorescent, and flashing.

Barry Lutwig was to my left. He had a thick mop of curly red hair. I would call it a Jew-fro, but I think he was Irish. He had been a fraternity brother of JP’s thirty years earlier. Thing is, Barry Lutwig, still thought he was in a fraternity. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes swollen, and I’d be willing to bet Mr. Lutwig had taken his last drink just a couple hours earlier. I could smell the whiskey seeping from his pores.

Both Isaac and Barry stood.

Judge Napoleon leaned forward and said, “You have been indicted on three counts of 1st degree murder. On the first count of 1st degree murder, the murder of John Kwan, how do you plead?”

Isaac was the picture of poise. Disconcertingly so. He was Tom Brady in the pocket. He said, “Not guilty your honor.”

“On the second count of 1st degree murder, the murder of Terry Robinson, how do you plead?”

“Not guilty your honor.”

“On the third count of 1st degree murder, the murder of Alan Fielding, how do you plead?”

“Not guilty your honor.”

“The defendant may sit.”

Isaac sat. He glanced in my direction. His right eye shut, then opened just as quickly. It took me a moment to realize he’d just winked at me.

What the hell did that mean?

“Now the matter of bail.”

I turned my attention back to the judge.

“The state requests to deny bail your honor.”

The prosecuting attorney was standing. Make that the lead prosecuting attorney. There were three altogether. The lead prosecutor was large and handsome. He was wearing a beautiful suit. Probably another Brooks Brothers. Only not the same one I’d first seen him wearing at the bookstore. That’s right. The lead prosecutor was Big Shot. Jeremy Palace.

JP’s son.
 

⠔

Bail was denied.

The trial was set to start January 4th.

Isaac was escorted out of the courtroom by an officer.

Barry Lutwig slapped me on the back and asked if I wanted to join him for a drink. I declined.
 

⠔

Just as I was leaving the courtroom myself, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Big Shot. He was smiling ear to ear. He said, “Your boy is going to freeze.” Then he punched me in the shoulder—kind of hard, it hurt—and pushed through the doors.

In the last two weeks I’d the law book JeAnn had given me cover to cover.
Freezing
came up frequently. They didn’t have the death penalty in Two. They didn’t want people dying, only to appear somewhere else—Three—and get a fresh start. No in Two, you were frozen. Ted Williams style.

I visualized Isaac being lowered into hyperbaric chamber. The Keeper, whatever that was, frozen for eternity.

I looked around to see if I could catch Barry.

That drink was starting to sound pretty good.

⠔

It had been smooth sailing living with Berlin for the past two weeks. That came to sudden halt the night after Isaac’s arraignment.

Berlin refused to start school midterm—she would start when school picked up after the holidays—so she was with me every waking moment. Or if she wasn’t with me, like when I’d been in the courtroom the day before, she was sitting at home, usually surfing the web on my laptop. Now, I know what you’re thinking, you can’t leave a seven-year-old home alone. Well, Berlin wasn’t your average seven-year-old. She was more mature than the last two women I’d dated. She had a cell phone to call me if she needed me and my neighbor, Margo, an aging woman of around sixty—who had been living in the Two Adjustment House for the better part of twenty years—rarely left her house.

It was two separate compounding events that triggered the tantrum. The first event occurred around six that evening. Berlin and I had spent most of the day at the library. Me flipping through books on law and Berlin sitting quietly and reading. At one point Berlin had put her book down and taken her PSP out of her backpack, but within minutes of her turning it on the battery had died. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she’d grimaced, put the PSP back in her backpack,
then returned to her book.

When we’d arrived back at the Adjustment House, around five thirty, Berlin had asked, “Can we bake cookies tonight?”

“They have cookies in the cafeteria.” Ten different kinds of cookies to be precise.

“I know, but I want to make cookies. It’s something my mom and I used to do all the time.”

This was the first time she’d ever mentioned her mother and it took me off guard. “Sure, we can bake cookies. Haven’t done that in ages. In fact, we’ll cook dinner tonight. How’s spaghetti sound?”

She rubbed her small belly and said, “Yum, yum, give me some.”

I laughed. 

She said, “Okay, you go to the store.”

“You aren’t coming?”

“No, I’m gonna look at apartments online for awhile.”

In the last two weeks, Berlin and I had looked at fifteen different apartments. Berlin had found something wrong with each one.
No dishwasher. I think the people before this had a ferret. There should be a load bearing wall right there. Can a girl buy a window? I want a south facing view. Saw an ant.

Jokingly, I asked, “What’s wrong with this place?”

“It’s a dump. And if I have to share a bathroom with you any longer, I’m going to kill myself. I don’t understand how you are able to get water on the very top of the mirror.”

“I have a gift.”

She laughed.

Just as I was closing the door, I heard Berlin shout, “Oh, can you buy me some Single A batteries?”

I yelled okay.

It would prove to be anything but.
 

⠔

Berlin was still at the computer when I returned.

I placed the three shopping bags on the kitchen counter and asked, “Find anything worth looking at?”

She shrugged. “Three places. We’re looking at them tomorrow.”

“Aye’ aye Captain.”

She smiled.

“I didn’t know what kind of cookies you wanted to make, so I just bought a bunch of different crap.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what baking cookies entailed—being that I hadn’t made cookies since that awkward Christmas when I’d asked for an Easy Bake Oven—but I’d purchased all the ingredients needed to make cookies from scratch; flour, eggs, baking soda, salt, sugar, chocolate chips, oatmeal, raisins, peanut butter, sprinkles, three different icings. All that jazz. Then I’d bought a couple of the premade jobbies as well.
Billsbury
Halloween Sugar Cookies and a yellow tube of
Nettle
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. The latter of which I was squeezing a large portion into my mouth as we speak.

Berlin gasped, “Gross!”

I smiled, the gooey goodness squeezing out.

She laughed then said, “I hope you get salmonella.”

I garbled, “That’s not nice.”

She laughed again. Then she asked, “Did you get my batteries?”

I rummaged around two of the bags, mostly containing spaghetti paraphernalia, until I found the batteries. I said, “I got you the Lithiums,” and tossed the batteries to her.

She caught the Energizers.

Immediately, I knew I’d screwed up.

Her face stiffened. “I told you to buy Single A batteries. These are Double A’s.

I knew that she’d said Single A, but I’d played a PSP before, I knew they ran on Double A’s. “Trust me, those are the right batteries.”

“No, they are not the right batteries.”

“PSP’s run Doubles A’s. I’m positive. Nothing runs on Single A’s.”  I’d never in my life owned anything that ran on Single A batteries.

Berlin thrust the batteries into my stomach and said, “Do those look a little small to you?”

I looked at the batteries. They did appear a little small. They looked like Triples A’s, although in the top right they were clearly marked, “AA.”

Berlin took a deep breath and said, “You know how some things here are the same and some things here are different. Well, this happens to be one of those times when things are different. Here, Triple
A batteries are Double A batteries and Double A batteries are Single A batteries. That’s why I asked for Single A batteries.
Single A Batteries
.”

“My bad.”

Her jaw was clenched. This was first time I’d ever seen her upset.

I said, “I’m sorry. I’ll buy you some Single A batteries next time I’m at the store.”

She ignored me. She was busy rummaging through the seventy dollars worth of cookie accouterment I’d just purchased. After looking at all the ingredients, she started opening and closing cabinets. I’m not sure what she was looking for. She pulled out the small drawer underneath the oven. Shook her head. Groaned.

She looked at me and said, “How exactly are we supposed to bake cookies if you didn’t buy any cookie sheets?”

Cookie sheets! I knew I’d spaced something.

Berlin didn’t give me a chance to respond. She stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door.

⠔

After thirty minutes of asking Berlin to unlock the door and hearing silence, I gave up. I thought about starting on the spaghetti, but I wasn’t sure if cooking the meal Berlin and I were supposed to cook together would compound the tantrum. I didn’t want Berlin to come out in twenty minutes, only to turn around and go right back in when she saw that I had started without her.

To be honest, I didn’t have a clue what the answer to this riddle was. This was the first time I’d ever seen Berlin act, like, well a seven-year-old. Her tantrum had surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. Kids throw tantrums all the time. I’d run into one of my nannies from when I was younger and she had told me how I would throw a tantrum every time she took me to the grocery store because she refused to buy me Otter Pops.

That being said, I found I was a little mad. Not mad, annoyed. I was annoyed Berlin would get upset over such a trivial matter. I didn’t want to think the word, but it kept surfacing in my brain.

Brat.

I thought it best if I left for a while to cool off. Didn’t want to say something in the heat of the moment that I couldn’t take back. And to add fuel to the fire, I was starving. And now I was cranky.

It was after the dinner rush and the cafeteria was quiet. There were about ten people spread out in the large dining room. I didn’t want to spoil my appetite—I was being optimistic that spaghetti would still be made at some point that evening—but I needed to eat something before I went back. I headed to the salad bar, which never changed, grabbed a bowl and filled it with granola, then two heaping spoonfuls of strawberry yogurt. And one hard-boiled egg.