Altered States (33 page)

And I was seriously considering where my life was going from here. After this day. The puppeteers in this play were still pulling their strings. Manipulating and killing for the sake of their pockets. There was still an assassin walking the streets of New Meadows who I was increasingly sure was all Bayliss’ doing as well.

That was the big picture. And I could live with that, if I had to. If it was just me who had to. But Pearle changed everything. It was not just me any more. She was still with Felicity. I’d called her up every day and sent her postcards too. But I was acutely aware that she would not be safe there forever. In fact, would not be safe there for very much longer at all. But I was also aware that I could not hide both of us. Especially because I still didn’t understand how Bayliss had known I was still alive; how he had known how to get to me.

Somehow, this had to end. I had to end it. Increasingly, it was looking like there was only one way to do that.

But first, I had to pay my last respects.

The shade of the tree I stood beneath offered little relief from the heat as I stood back and I watched the ceremony from afar. None of the mourners knew me. And I didn’t much want to introduce myself.

It was a small gathering, everyone clad in black from head to toe, standing motionless like a flock of grieving ravens. I couldn’t hear the words, just murmurs carried on the sticky air. They wouldn’t mean anything to me anyway. Not for the language, but for the sentiment. I am not a religious man. I knew there was no onward journey for Karla now. She had reached the end of the road. She was gone. That was that.

This was another moment in my life when I wished I could
believe
; when I longed for a sign. But none was forthcoming. So, I just stood and mourned patiently in the starkness of my atheistic reality.

Eventually, the service drew to a close and the mourners began to drift away, into a different version of the world from the one they knew before; one with one less person in it.

As I watched, waiting for my moment to step forward, I realised I was not alone in my detached role. I was not the only person observing these proceedings from afar. There was another. A woman, half obscured by a broad tree trunk some way away. She was too distant for me to make out her face, but somehow I was drawn to her. Maybe it was her scent, carried on the tropical air. The woman looked up and saw that I was studying her, and she turned away casually.

I started walking after her briskly. I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to. As I got close enough for her to sense me, she neither quickened her pace nor turned to face me. She just kept walking.

When I was within arm’s reach, I put a hand out to touch her shoulder but then I pulled back. Instead I just uttered one word as we walked almost side-by-side.

And when her eyes met mine, I froze. My heart raced and my breath quickened, but I couldn’t move. She didn’t speak. She gave me the time I needed, and eventually, I uttered her name.

The feelings that coursed through my body were beyond intense, in the way that Jupiter is beyond the end of the road. My emotions for Maria at the time were so deep and conflicting as to make me dizzy, but now I had to try to fit her and all of that intensity into now, into my current reality, and my brain was melting at the prospect. The pieces that my mind was attempting to synchronise were chaotically orbiting my head, but eventually one fell into view.

‘You...’ I began with minimal eloquence ‘...were there last week. It was you I passed in the stairwell.’ I took a step back. ‘You killed Karla.’

Maria didn’t respond. She was always somewhat reserved.

It answered a question from a long time ago. Where do assassins of the drug trade go when the drug trade is no more? They go in search of its successor.

But it raised a lot more questions. Firstly, the obvious one, why was she here? Assassins don’t generally attend the funerals of their victims. The question manifested on my brow and Maria instinctively interpreted it.

‘Karla,’ she said flatly, ‘was my sister’.

I felt my jaw drop open, my eyes grow wide. This wasn’t possible. Karla and Maria were two streams of my life that were entirely unconnected. Or so I thought.

‘I don’t have to answer to you,’ she said as I chased after her. ‘You walked out on me. I’m just doing what I do. Being what I am. What my country made me. I can’t be anything else.’

She stopped walking, bowed her head and released a big sigh. Her whole demeanour changed. Her hard shell softened a little as if she could no longer maintain the pretence of nonchalance. Then she looked up at me with sad eyes.

‘I missed you when you went,’ she said softly, just as I’d remembered her. ‘I knew you wouldn’t stay, but I missed you all the same. And...’

I saw her compassion trying to break out, but it was sealed in too deep, beneath the thick callus that had formed to protect her raw emotions. It is hard to believe that people like Maria can exist in the world, a blend of such extreme traits. But they do exist. Places that are as messed up as this, give rise to messed up people. It’s sad. As I watched her I began to feel my own conflicting emotions bubbling inside again

‘I didn’t kill Karla,’ she said. ‘I was trying to
save
her. My employers are not so dumb as to hire me to kill my own sister. They sent a couple of goons instead. I tried to save her but I didn’t get there in time. I don’t really know what happened. It was a blur. There were two shots. Then there were two people on the floor and I wasn’t one of them. I just had to get out of there as quick as I could.’

Most people looking at her face would have seen a stony expression, hardened through many years of horrific sights. But her face wasn’t completely empty of emotion. Not to me.

‘I’m sorry I got you messed up in all of this,’ she said.

‘Got me messed up in it?’

This was the bit I was missing. Maria took a seat on a nearby bench and I sat down next to her. We were silent for a while, as if allowing the ripples in the universe to settle again. Finally, she spoke.

‘Okay, it makes no odds now. You may as well know.’ She turned toward me just a little. ‘You remember that night soon after we met, you wanted to try some cocaine?’

I knew that when I had visited this country, I had been at my lowest ebb. I had been reckless. I didn’t much care for the world and I only had myself to risk. But I always believed I’d got away with it.

I came here to seek out bad people and make them ... not bad. Make them dead. But meeting Maria had made me realise that even if you think you are doing it for the right reasons – like she had to begin with – taking a life changes you. You cross a threshold and you can never cross back; never return to who you were. And in the end you just end up adding another bad person to the world.

I was surprised that after she had learnt about my purpose in her country – in her bed – it hadn’t changed her attitude toward me. If it had, I would have seen it. But she was a complex character.

I was conceited and complacent back then. I over-estimated my abilities. It was dumb to believe I wouldn’t be affected by mind-altering drugs just like everyone else. And when I came out the other side I figured I had got away with it. I was too short-sighted to imagine there could exist a person who lived so much for the moment that discovering her lover had sought her out as a victim barely fazed her. If it had I would have known.

‘When my contracts dried up here,’ Maria continued, ‘I went to the US. I had every intention of getting out of this game. I went to New Meadows to get in touch with Karla. I actually got as far as standing outside her apartment block on more than one occasion, but I just couldn’t go through with it in the end. To cut a long story short, I ended up getting involved with a bad crowd again, Scrips. Started doing some work for them. My sister was working for the real McCoy and I was working for the fakers. There was an ironic symmetry to that which summed up our entire relationship.’

Maria sat quietly for a moment, seemingly lost in her own sombre thoughts. I was still no nearer understanding how all this fitted together, but I gave Maria the time she needed and eventually she continued.

‘Unfortunately, female assassins are not as commonplace in the US as they are down here, so I kind of stood out. And one day, thanks to some idiot gang member, I got arrested. I was looking at some serious time or even the chair so I had to cut a deal. I didn’t want to grass any of my current clients so all I could think of was you. I mentioned your name and who you had worked for and the next thing I know a smart suit turns up called Smith. They’re all called Smith I think. They got me off and then I had to do what they said.’ She shrugged. ‘But it paid well.’

‘And what did you tell them about me?’

‘Not a lot really. Told them you were alive. I think that was enough. I don’t know how they found you or drew you out. Apart from getting orders to do their dirty work, including messing with some cops, the next I heard was that they wanted to know about Karla. I didn’t even know they knew who my sister was, but these guys have very big databases.’

‘Yeah,’ I confirmed, ‘they do.’

‘They asked me all sorts of odd questions about what she was like as a child and stuff. I don’t know what that was about, but I was in their hands. I couldn’t say no.’

We sat in silence for some time after that, until we both concluded that there was no more to say.

‘Thanks for talking,’ I said.

‘No worries – anything I can do to help shut them down. I don’t hold any allegiance to them now, not after Karla, and they know that. It’s not safe for me back there any more.’

I stood to leave. ‘Sorry for your loss,’ I said, forgetting that loss of life to her was like loss of car keys. I hoped that for her sister at least she would feel something more.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and I think she did.

It may seem odd that I was walking away. This woman had been killing rug dealers for money on the streets of New Meadows on a weekly basis. But in all honesty, I just didn’t know what else to do. However hard I tried I just couldn’t ever think of Maria as anything other than a victim.

I nodded and walked away. As well as mourning Karla that day, I mourned Maria’s soul, which had been taken from her at such a young age.

Maybe it would be my turn to be mourned next.

It was time to face the music.

Uninvited

As I stood at the beginning of a long gravel driveway, contemplating my walk along it, I knew one thing. When the driveway ran out, so did my plan. When I reached the doorbell, everything from that point forward was improv.

A couple of days ago, I’d got in touch with an old hacker friend of mine who thought I was dead. After he was past the initial shock I asked him for a favour; asked him to dig out an address for me. He came through.

The address was that of Zack Bayliss. This was his nice little house in the suburbs. This was where the ending started. One way or another.

I tapped my holster and started walking.

The chime of the doorbell rang regally in the expanses of the house. Shortly, I heard footsteps. I studied the rhythm. It was a woman approaching. So, first improvised course of action: silence this person without any fuss.

Within a split second of the door being opened, the occupant was facing the other way with a hand clamped firmly over her mouth and a gun barrel pressed against her temple.

‘Not a sound or things turn bad,’ I whispered.

Another split second and she was cable-tied to a chair in the hall with duct tape over her mouth. Only then did I stand back and study my victim. Only then did I allow myself to acknowledge who this woman was. And I must admit I was shocked.

It appeared all those rumours back when I was at the agency were spot on. Ms Tanya Scarlett, Personal Assistant, was indeed providing some
very
personal assistance. As I briefly observed her struggles and grunts I noted that there was still something about her. Something that repulsed and attracted me at the same time. It was an indefinable quality and one I really didn’t have time to try to pin down right now.