Shadow Memories: A Novel (The Singularity Conspiracy Book 1) (6 page)

17

Snack Break

people might say
froyo’s just for fags and yuppie girls—not that I have anything against either—but that’s just because they’ve never had it. I sat at the wire mesh table, banana nut swirl cup in hand, legs crossed.

Nothing happened at Manny’s. The camera with the telephoto lens sat on the table.

Otto’s burglars hadn’t snagged that; they hadn’t taken anything, from what I saw.

At least they weren’t petty—television notwithstanding. Their employers were making some money—and willing to share, since they’d doled out twenty grand at the drop of a hat.

Movement across the street. I put the bright red spoon down, wiping my mouth as I brought the binoculars to my eyes.

Yeah, there was the woman all right. I fanned out the contents of the plastic bag. A picture of Chuck and this girl, maybe seven or eight years younger. Clarissa Murphy. Married three or four years. But now, Chuck was knocking on the door of forty, and she was just about thirty. Maybe she was freaking out about her youth being spent with old Chucky. I could only imagine what hanging out with a neurotic bastard like him all day did to a girl.

I’d have sided with her on this one, but then, she didn’t give me any money.

Clarissa was talking with Manny. I didn’t see how he was an upgrade over her current situation, but whatever. I readied the camera and snapped a couple shots. And that’s when this guy swooped in, picked Clarissa Murphy up in his broad arms, swallowed her up in that stupid tweed blazer.

And they started smooching. I was so damn shocked that I almost forgot to take some pictures, but my mind unfroze and my trigger finger started pumping.

Dr. Otto was dipping into the local honeypot.

He should know that where there was honey, there were bees. The couple disappeared into a room behind Manny’s counter. Old Manny shuffled over to the front door and flipped the sign. No one would be able to get any more hardware today.

Then he disappeared behind the counter.

I got up from the table, finishing the last of my froyo, and headed over to the store. I wasn’t sure what the plan was.

I just hoped that I wasn’t walking into some sort of weird three-way.

18

Hardware

For a hardware
store that sold a variety of locks—some of them pretty damn fancy—the technology keeping the riff-raff out of Manny’s shop was subpar. A flick of the wrist, and I was in.

I didn’t have the heart to leave Fox outside, and there were no stray pieces of trash to tie him up with this time. I cursed myself for being a dumbass and bringing him along, but shoved him inside and locked the door behind me.

I drew the shades and then stalked towards the counter, camera padding against my chest. No noise emanated from the back room. Maybe they hadn’t started yet. Or Otto was a terrible lay.

Chuck would be delighted to hear that.

A bolt of light shot out from an open door behind the counter, and I ducked behind a display case of nails. It was Manny, puttering around, murmuring nonsense to himself.

“Where’d I put it, where’d I put it…” he was saying, “They’ll have my asses if I lose it.” He lifted the barrier that kept customers from carousing behind the counter—not that anyone in their right mind would want to hang out for a casual chill with the owner—and headed into the aisles.

My way.

I sucked in deep, clutching the back of Fox’s neck. The dog, for his part, was keeping his shit together. But I didn’t know how much longer that would last.

Manny stopped at the end of the aisle. There I was, crouched with an eighty pound animal, two yards from him. I could smell his smoke-laden breath, the sweat dripping from his pores. Fox began to growl, a low rumble. I gripped his neck tighter, but it was no good.

“What the hell…?”

I slid out from behind the display, giving Manny a fright, and tackled him. You might not think it was a fair fight, and it sure wasn’t, but then, I wasn’t too worried about that. I was more concerned about him screaming and alerting Dr. Otto and his scary minions to my presence.

Manny gurgled and gagged, clawing at my arms, but I had him in a sleeper hold. Cassie taught me that one. Then he stopped moving. I dropped him to the ground with a thud, and for a minute I was worried that I’d killed the old bastard. A quick check of the pulse confirmed that he was just taking an extended not-quite-dirt nap, no doubt dreaming of some all-white utopia.

I dragged him by his ratty shoes behind the counter, then bound his limbs with duct tape. I surveyed my handiwork, then added a piece over his mouth, so he couldn’t blow up my spot. Although, looking at him like that, I still had my doubts he was going to wake up all healthy.

Beckoning at Fox, who was proving quite responsive to my commands, I went to the mysterious door. Reconsidering my weaponry situation—Otto was, after all, a built dude—I revisited a couple of the aisles, grabbing a utility knife. Brutal, but effective. It was more for show, anyway, in case he wanted to get rough.

I returned behind the counter, nudging Manny with my foot. I crouched down to double-check his bonds, which was when I saw what he’d been looking for. Some old piece of junk from our apartment—something of Cassie’s. A heirloom from her father; the only thing she had from him.

It was an animal formed of clay or terra cotta, crude. That ugly piece of crap from the shelf that passed for interior decoration. I could never tell whether the thing was supposed to be a dog or a giraffe, but the couple times I’d brought up the lack of artisan craftsmanship, I was met with a cold look and a long dry spell. So I’d dropped it.

Why Manny or Otto wanted it, well, that was a goddamn puzzler. It sure as hell wasn’t worth anything.

I slipped the figurine into my pocket and told Fox to stand guard. He seemed to kind of understand—in that he didn’t try to follow me through the door.

Stairs, leading down into darkness. I tightened my grip on the utility knife and stepped down.

The things I did to make a living, right?

19

Long Hallways

After feeling my
way down the stairs using the faux-wood paneling as a makeshift guide, I felt my sneakers hit unfinished concrete. Old Manny, he wasn’t rolling out the red carpet for his guests, that was for damn sure.

From the dim light emanating from underneath the doors, I could see that the basement was one long hallway—dingy and miserable, like I’d just entered the Matrix. No sound, which didn’t make me jump for joy. I think it would have been preferable if I’d heard screams, or any sign of human life.

This was just creepy.

Nonetheless, my feet moved forward. The first door was about ten feet away, a faint TV-like glow streaming from underneath. I placed my hand on the knob and turned.

Storage. Old junk piled high, the scene illuminated by a flickering bulb that looked less than a single watt. I sighed and shut the door. The story was much the same for the other doors: overstock, junk, although some of it looked good, sellable even. Antiques—the type that art collectors might like.

While I’d found sufficient evidence that Manny was a terrible businessman—or a hoarder—I still hadn’t found any sign of where Otto and Clarissa had gone. I wasn’t kidding when I said the hall was long. It ran longer than the entire store, and then some.

The next few doors were locked. I didn’t bother picking them; if the other prospects didn’t pan out, I decided that I could always come back.

At the very end of the hall, as if this entire lengthy journey were leading to this one point, stood a steel door. It required a keycard; the blinking red light on the reader next to the handle told me that. I tried the handle anyway, feeling lucky.

Stiff, no give. I crouched down and peered at the locking mechanism. All electronic. I could crack it, given the time and equipment, but I had neither. Plan B needed to be executed.

I pounded on the steel, utility knife poised to strike with my free hand.

Otto answered.

“How the…”

I waved the knife in his face, and he shut up, putting his hands up. This caused him to drop the towel he was holding over his lower half. Turned out Chuck might get those naked shots, after all.

Clarissa exited the bathroom, talking to Otto in sultry tones.

“You ready, baby?” And then she saw me and shrieked. I brandished the blade at her, but this just caused her to whimper and whine louder. I tried a different tack.

“Shut the hell up.”

This quieted it down to a muted sob. I think I heard a
don’t hurt me
or two in there. Otto didn’t have much to say. He was still processing that I was among the living.

I pulled out the camera and started snapping shots.

“You should have stayed dead, you know that? We’ll kill you. Kill you both.”

“Just making an honest living,” I said, pumping the shutter as I wagged the blade at him, “but then, you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar looking parcel lying on the rumpled sheets. My twenty grand. Now, if I could only figure out why he wanted to kill and rob me over some cave, that’d be great.

Money first. I snatched it with an indignant swipe of the wrist and began to clear my voice for the ensuing interrogation.

But that was too much for Otto to bear.

He came at me.

I went to jab him in a soft part with the knife, but the slippery plastic handle jetted from my hands, the metal clanging against the concrete floor. And then Otto’s broad shoulder was in my gut, crunching the camera.

Plastic shards and breath exploded out from my body, like a slow-motion video.

All I could think to do was take the shot, ride it out. So I leaned back, allowing his weight to transfer into me. And Otto was a little too enthusiastic—maybe it was all the testosterone—because it caused him to lose his balance, slip and fall.

I glanced up, and saw that Clarissa was holding my former weapon and pointing it in my direction in unconvincing fashion.

“Don’t cut yourself with that,” I said, “it’s sharp, you know.”

And then I was off down the long hall, every step feeling like a marathon in the murk. I could hear another pair of padded footsteps behind me, but I didn’t dare to look. I wasn’t fast as it was; and, in any event, I didn’t want to see Otto’s well-sculpted body up close again.

Even the tweed jacket was preferable to that.

I flung myself towards the stairs, clearing them three at a time. With a whistle, I beckoned for Fox.

His low growl turned into a bark, though, and I turned around just in time to see him launching towards Otto.

The big man brought his arms up to his face in fight-or-flight instinct, caught well off-guard by the presence of the large dog. But it wasn’t the face that Fox was gunning for.

Oh no.

Otto screamed—a terrible sort of noise, not so much pain but anguish and severe loss—as the dog sunk his teeth into some sensitive material. I put my hand over my eyes, peeking through my fingers at the carnage. Fox released not too long after, but the guttural noises coming from Otto’s throat didn’t stop.

The dog trotted over after a final bark, like nothing at all had happened.

I flicked the lock on the store and dove into the dying afternoon light.

“You,” I said, running away from the shop, “are not going to be licking my face for a long time.”

A block away, I reconsidered my sprinting plan. I was tired, and besides, it wasn’t like either Manny or Otto was in a fighting mood. I rustled the trinket in my pocket and ran my hand through the bills.

I yanked the memory card from the ruined camera and tossed what was left hanging on the strap into a garbage bin. I wasn’t going to come out ahead on Chuck’s case. But I touched the figurine in my pocket again and decided that it was possible I might skate by Cassie all the same.

I looked at the waning light in the sky. Just enough time to make it to the police station.

Today wasn’t turning out so bad, after all.

20

A Trip to the Station

“Here,” Greenville said,
and shoved some paperwork and something that might have once been a leash into my arms, “fill that out and put the damn dog outside.”

“He’s house-trained,” I said, “and he’s got hidden talents.” I thought about Otto clutching his dong and winced.

“Not to me he don’t,” he replied, heading back into his office, “OSHA and regulations say he stays outside, or no reward.”

I did as I was told and returned to the waiting room. The smell of cop and stale coffee hung in the air. I doubted anyone would be bottling this particular scent to sell at JCPenney anytime soon.

Clutching the well-worn particle board clipboard, I scratched my signature into the required slots and affirmed that I wasn’t lying and all that good stuff. Only parts of the story were made up; I figured the gist of it, that was true. Perjury was overblown; if a President could get away with it, it couldn’t be that serious anyway.

I knocked on Greenville’s door, and he beckoned me in, other hand tied up with the phone.

“You said
what,
” he said as I sat down into a lumpy chair, “tied up and the other guy’s bleeding from—look, I’m off duty in about half an hour. No, I’m not sheriff yet, but…fine, I’ll be there.” He slammed the handset into the cradle, then did it again for good measure.

“What’s going on?” I tried my best to make it sound casual.

He shot me a look that could melt lead.

“Just an incident I gotta attend to. Let’s see the paperwork.” I handed it to him across a sea of papers and waited. I wasn’t going to let it get swallowed up in that mess; I’d be ninety years old by the time I saw my five grand.

“It’s all there.” I watched his eyes move up and down in sort of bemused disbelief. “The whole incident.”

“So let’s get this straight.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“You and Johnny Best were having a picnic in the woods when your, and I quote from this report, ‘olfactory sensory device was alerted to a distinct and odiferous chemical scent.’”

“Sounds about right,” I said.

I’d been reading the dictionary.

“And then these men attempted to join your picnic by force, thus…” He stopped, placing the clipboard down. “I’m gonna be straight, here. I got a crime scene with a half-severed dick, and you here blowing smoke up my ass. You helped me get those assholes, so you’re a lesser one, in my book. Follow me.” He pointed towards the door, where I hoped the riches were waiting. I could hear them calling my name.

I tracked him through a single corridor—Seaside Heights PD wasn’t rolling in the state funding—and sat tapping my fingers as he filled out some more forms and requested something from a guy manning what looked like an oversized tollbooth.

But hell, it turned out to be more like a bank—because there it was, the full five grand. I dropped it in the parcel that held twenty of its closest friends—which I’d been clutching the whole time like it was a ventilator and I had the worst damn emphysema on the planet—and set off.

“Hey,” Greenville called out behind me, “you ain’t going to say thanks?”

“Thanks Mike,” I said, “more help where that came from.”

“What about your truck?”

“I’ll get it another time. Got to go see Chuck about his cheating whore of a wife.”

He said something, but I was too far away to hear. Maybe about how I got lucky. I wanted to wash my face in the cash once I got out to the post where Fox was tied up, but I didn’t. I still had one more thing to collect.