Cookie Cutter Man (13 page)

“OK, but I don’t see how we’re gonna move our stuff, all we
have is my Mustang.” Daniel wondered how Echo would handle a move now, with all
that had happened.

“I think we can manage.” Jared stood. “Other than that,
people, I want to see you all here by nine Friday morning so we can fine tune
the plan.”

Simon followed Daniel to his apartment building in the
little red pickup and parked out front. “Your girl’s not home, is she?”

“No, she always works on Wednesday.” Daniel resisted a
powerful urge to ask if it
was
Wednesday. Simon just nodded and pulled
his case out from behind the seat of the truck.

Upstairs Daniel sat on the couch and rolled a joint while
Simon inspected the place. He had brought along some special diagnostic
equipment Rob had rigged up and went about checking the telephones, the TV, and
the smoke detectors, muttering about doing Copper’s job. When he finished,
Simon joined Daniel on the couch, putting the equipment back in his case as the
two of them smoked the joint.

There was a small double click, the front door opened, and
Echo walked in.

Daniel jumped in surprise and his hand instinctively started
toward the pistol strapped to his ankle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw
Simon give him a look.

Oh fuck, I almost drew my gun on her, Daniel thought,
scratching his knee with the hand that itched to be hugging the deadly black
finality of a pistol. “H-hey, angel. You uh, get off early today?”

“I never work on Wednesday.” Echo said, giving Daniel a
weird look and sitting down on the couch between the two of them. Simon
suppressed a laugh and Daniel introduced him.

“This is Simon. I work with him.”

“Pleased,” Echo said and they shook hands. Simon handed her
the joint and stood.

“Sorry to run and all, but I gotta get home to the missus
myself.” Simon picked up his case.

“You have one of those too?” She pointed at the silver case
that was identical to the one she watched Daniel carry in and out every day.

“They give them out at work,” Simon said.

“Oh. Well. Are you married?” Echo asked. Daniel happened to
know Simon was single. He was the type of person that loathed intimacy and was
uncomfortable feeling loved. Simon was a man simply born to be alone, and that
was when he was most happy.

“Might as well be.” Simon lied. “She hates it when I’m late
for dinner.”

Daniel forced a chuckle to coincide with Echo’s, and Simon
was off.

“You don’t work Wednesday?” Daniel asked again. It seemed
there was always a light buzzing in the back of his mind underneath all his
thoughts nowadays, trying to surface in the things he said.

She stared at him for a second and he could almost see the
thoughts going through her head. He gave her a “Just kidding” and a light poke
on the knee to show he was.

“My day was good, though. How’s yours?”

She went on to tell him about going out with Teresa again,
they went shopping to look for something for her to blah when she blah blah and
he nodded at the right times and tried to stop the glaze over his eyes from
showing.

“How would you feel about moving?” Daniel asked her.

“What do you mean? Why?”

“I was talking to a guy at work about this apartment
building that has a few units up for rent soon. They sounded pretty nice from
what he told me, and the rent’s less.”

“Welllll ...” She looked around the apartment that had been
her home for nearly three years. “Sure,” she said and turned to him with a
smile, putting one hand on his knee.

“Really? You wanna?” Daniel had expected another argument or
some mealy-mouthed objections akin to “I like it here” or “this is our home”.

“Yeah, if it’s nice. Maybe the change would do us good.” She
leaned her head on his shoulder and he put his arm around her. Daniel softly
stroked her breast until she purred in the back of her throat the way she did
when she was getting really turned on, and her hand squeezed and rubbed and
they had each other in a way they hadn’t since the first couple months they had
been together. On the couch, on the floor, in the caned chair that sat in the
corner. Up against the wall and on the kitchen counter and finally on their bed
in every conceivable way, then again on the bathroom counter and in the shower.
Three hours and four orgasms apiece later they slept.

It was the last sex they would ever have.

“She said yes, but wants to see the place first,” Daniel
said.

“No problem. Ebin can take you over there tonight and we’ll
have you moved by the weekend.” Jared paused for a second and stared at him,
into him, through him. “Daniel, are you all right?”

“What? Why?”

“The job, moving ... everything. This is not too much for
you?”

“No. Why?”

“Simon mentioned what happened last night.”

“You mean with my girlfriend? That day off thing?”

Jared folded his arms across his chest and just looked at
him. Daniel thought of how he’d almost drawn his gun on her.

“Don’t worry, man. Just a brain fart. Pot blob, we used to
call them.”

Jared looked at him hard for another moment before standing
up. “OK then. I have to ask though, you know. An operative’s stability is—”

“I said I was fine.” Daniel also stood up, his eyes never
leaving Jared’s.

“Don’t fuck with me, Daniel. I’m serious. Would you tell me
if you weren’t?”

“Maybe not, but I am. Scout’s honor.” Daniel did the
three-fingered salute and Jared laughed.

“You were a Boy Scout?”

“For about a week, when I was a kid. I got booted.”

“For what?” Jared asked. “Sniffing glue or fucking the
scoutmaster?”

“They caught me eating Brownies.”

Jared laughed.

“You’re a sick man, Daniel Rimms. I guess that’s why I like
you.” He whacked Daniel one on the back and left.

They’re on to you
, quoth the stranger.

Shut up.

First Echo, then Simon, now Jared. Even your
hallucinations think you’re crazy
.

I said shut up!

Said? You thought it and you thought it to yourself. No,
you’re not crazy! They know, everyone but you
—

“Oh shut up shut up,” Daniel pleaded, unaware he was
speaking aloud. He held his head in his hands, a dull ache from deep within
pulsed behind his eyes, filling the capillaries with fevered blood, blackish
veins going in and out of his vision with his heartbeat. The voice finally
stopped picking at him, the headache rolled back and he opened his eyes, took
his hands away from them and—

What the fuck?

—there was a tiny man standing on the tip of his middle
finger, wearing slacks and a nice jacket, waving hello, and it wasn’t a little
man because it had the head of a fly; bulging multifaceted eyes and fuzzy
antenna, and it wasn’t waving but rubbing its forelegs together in the greedy
way flies do, and then his hands were covered in them, covered in flies. Daniel
let out a little shriek and closed his eyes and shook his hands, and when he
opened his eyes again, the flies were gone.

Echo was right
, the stranger whispered from far away.

She couldn’t be. He saw
bugs
. Bugs!
That was all
!
Just like now, but usually not as many. Besides, if all
this
was a
hallucination, what was he really doing? If he was only here in his mind, where
was his body? The thought of it all threatened to bring the headache back, so
he dropped it.

Daniel spent the rest of the day in the basement firing
range, trying every weapon they had. Shooting a gun seemed to be the one thing
that put his mind totally at ease. He didn’t have the urge to go out and kill
anyone, it wasn’t that. It was just shooting, doing something he was good at,
that calmed him. No one bothered him and the thunder from the gun was loud
enough to drown out the voice of the stranger. It was the only way to escape
the hell his mind had become.

“I’m so excited!” Echo squealed next to him on the couch.
“Our new place!”

They had gone with Ebin to check out the apartments. $100
less a month; they could have easily gone for $200 more than what they paid
now, especially with that second bedroom she wanted to turn into a recording
studio.

Echo had become friendly with their apartment manager over
the years and went to talk to her as soon as they returned home. With the
demand for housing the way it was, the manager, Alicia Something Or Another,
said it would be no problem breaking the lease, and of course they could get
the deposit back.

Daniel turned on the TV for visual stimulation while the two
of them talked, when Echo snatched the remote from him.

“What?” he asked.

“Turn it up! Turn it up!” she said, although she was holding
the control. She found the mute button and the newscaster’s voice filled the
apartment.

“—lier this morning when the bomb went off. Fortunately, the
club had been closed for a few hours and no one was present except the two
co-owners. They apparently noticed a suspicious character in their parking lot
and went to investigate, exiting the building. The man they found was Marion
Cooper, the man who police say set the explosives. He was also the only person
killed by the blast—”

“That’s where Teresa worked!” Echo pointed at the blackened,
partially gutted building on the screen.

“Again, the hot-spot night club Dante’s Shilling was
targeted in a bombing around four this morning by this man, Marion Cooper.” The
newscaster disappeared and the screen was filled by a black-and-white of
Copper, the dead-penny eyes that were his namesake undistinguishable in the
hues of gray.

“Holy shit,” Daniel said in awe.

“What? You know him?” Echo asked, her full attention hitting
him square in the chest.

“Yeah I play fucking Pictionary at his house every weekend,”
Daniel said. At that point, sarcasm was the only thing that saved him. He
currently lacked the ability to lie with any degree of efficiency. “It’s just,
why would someone blow up a nightclub?”

“All right! Jesus! Remember I told you she thought they were
in the mob or something?” Echo turned back to the news where the anchorman was
saying there would be more on the story as it developed.

Daniel shook his head. A fucking nightclub, and all Copper
did was maybe five grand in damage and kill himself. And what would Jared have
to say about this?

“Who’s Jared?” Echo asked, snapping him back to reality.

She can read your mind.

“What?”

“You said, ‘I wonder what Jared would say about this’. Who’s
Jared?” Did her sweet smile really falter, even the tiniest bit?

“He’s just a guy I work with. That one that had the
apartments. He ... goes there. A lot. To that club.”

“Oh. Well, we should have him over for dinner as a thank-you
when we get settled,” Echo said. Daniel vaguely wondered if he could ever be
settled anywhere ever again.

The next day they started packing.

“We’ll re-arrange everything in the morning,” Daniel said
and laid down flat on his back, stretching his arms out and getting a nice
crack out of his spine.

“Come to bed, baby,” Echo said and crawled across the floor
to him, putting her tongue in his ear the way she knew he liked and slowly
rubbing her hand up and down his inner thigh.

“I can’t tonight, angel. I’m too da—-”

He was interrupted by a deep yawn that left his eyes red and
half closed. He blinked twice to get them back into focus. Daniel hadn’t slept
well for months now, and none at all the last couple days, which happened to
coincide with all the heavy lifting and manual labor that comes with moving, so
the lack of rest hit him twice as hard. Whenever he did manage to sleep he had
terrible dreams, the worst of which featured him nailing Echo to a cross.

“Aw, my poor baby.” She moved her hand onto his member and
doubled her efforts. He sat up and moved her away gently.

“I’m serious, Echo, I can’t.” He yawned again, and realized
he was turning down sex for the first time in their relationship. He watched
her through bleary eyes as she sat back on her knees, looking truly hurt. “It’s
not ... I just ... I haven’t slept in two days, and all this lifting shit
pulled my back ... I’m sorry.”

She stood up and held out her hand, he took it and she
helped him stand. “I want you to fuck me,” she whispered and put her tongue in
his ear again. There was a stirring in the nether regions, and he probably
could have found the energy to christen their new bedroom, and living room, and
bathroom...

But part of him
wanted
her to be refused. She had
done it to him before hadn’t she? Well, not much, true, but every girl says no
at least once, right? He kissed her in the middle of her forehead, led her to
their bed, and fell into an immediate though troubled sleep.

The next morning she started her period, and it was always
the heaviest for the first two days. She was mad at him for not making love to
her, and he was mad at himself for not making love to her, so she stayed in bed
and he smoked a joint and drove to headquarters.

Ebin was waiting out front for him.

“What’s up, slut?” Ebin greeted him with his crooked grin as
they knocked their fists together.

“Not much, bro. Thanks for helping us move, by the way.”

“No problem. Hey, you’re late, man. Jared’s been waiting for
you so we can start the meeting.”

“What meeting?” Daniel asked and looked at his watch. It was
9:18.

“What meeting?” Ebin mocked, doing a surprisingly good
impression of him. “The meeting we’ve been talking about all week, shit for
brains. Come on.”

They went downstairs and Daniel got sarcastic applause when
he came in the room, mostly from Kismet and Isis. He sat down after mumbling an
apology to Jared.