The Gift of Illusion: A Thriller (7 page)

He picked up the phone and this time dialed
Simmons’s home number. After a couple of rings, a woman picked
up.

"Hello, is Detective Daniel Simmons
there?”

“May I ask who is calling?”

“Detective Winters,” said Isaac. “I’m
working on a case with your husband.”

Suddenly, Isaac remembered what Chief
Stevens had told him about Simmons, how his cousin had given him
occupational surgery and thrown him back into the sea with a new
pair of gills. He waited patiently for Simmons to come to the
phone.

After a moment, Simmons picked up. “Isaac,”
he said. “What’s going on?”

“Not much really. Did you forget your cell
phone at the precinct or something?”

“I think I did. Left it right on the
desk.”

Isaac had planned to stay in for the rest of
the night unless he absolutely had to leave, but now he felt like
going out for a while, just to unwind and take a break from the
case, or thinking about the case. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Just lounging around.”

“That sounds like you. I know a good
bar.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Well, then you can watch me drink, or you
could get something to eat. I know you like to eat.”

“I can’t deny that,” Simmons said.
“Everybody has their weakness.”

“So you want to go?”

“Sure, I suppose.”

Isaac shut down the computer, jammed the
organizer back in the desk drawer, and left the office. He sat down
beside his daughter sleeping on the couch.

Amy yawned and sat up.

“I’m going to be leaving for a little
while.”

“Work?”

“Not exactly.”

“Where are you going?”

“The Hideaway.”

Amy smiled awkwardly at her father. “That
shitty bar?”

“It's not shitty. You sure you’ll be all
right?”

“I’m fine. Go ahead,” Amy said. “I’ll
probably be going to bed soon anyway.”

Isaac leaned over and kissed his daughter on
the forehead.

2

The neon sign lit the shadowy parking lot
with bright streaks of silver and gold.

THE HIDEAWAY, it read.

Signature beer signs glowed red, blue, and
green through the large dark tinted front windows. A couple of
Harley’s sat lonely in the motorcycle spaces near the front door.
On a Friday night, the entire lot could easily be filled with
twenty or more hogs, half classics, newly polished for the big
night of show and tell.

Oh, darn,
Isaac thought. Tonight he
might not get to witness any wasted wives sing karaoke and shake
their fat asses while their badly tattooed leather jacket wearing
husbands holler obscenities like take it off Margie. Take it
all
off!

He parked the Charger in the center space, a
few spaces over from the Harley’s, and then walked into the bar. He
took a seat on a black bar stool and waited for Charlie, the owner
and bartender, to finish wiping down some spilt beer on the other
side of the counter.

When he noticed Isaac sitting at the bar,
Charlie immediately dropped the wet rag and headed over.

“Isaac,” he said, surprised. “I haven’t seen
you in a while. What you been up to?”

He reached his hand out and Isaac firmly
shook it.

“Same old.”

“You still putting people behind bars?”

Isaac nodded.

“Wow, how many years has it been now?”

“Too many.”

Isaac shuttered to think of the actual
number.
Too many
would suffice.

“So, how’s business?”

“The usual. Friday and Saturday nights we
pull a good number of people in here, but the rest of the week I’d
say we make moderate business. As you can see, Tuesday night isn’t
one of our strongest.”

Isaac swiveled in his stool and peered
around the rest of the bar. Other than a few scattered alcoholics
passed out on tables and two couples playing pool nearby, the bar
was a graveyard.

“Can I get you a beer?"

“Do dogs have smelly farts?”

"Well, yeah." Charlie filled the glass beer
mug until the white suds dripped over the top, and then pushed it
across the counter to Isaac.

Right as Isaac looked up at the Budweiser
clock on the back wall and thought how every bar in the world has
one of those, the hanging bell chimed and Simmons strolled through
the door. He sat down next to Isaac at the bar and ordered an ice
water.

“You sure?” Charlie asked.

Simmons nodded.

“Whatever you say.” Charlie scooped up the
ice and filled the glass with water. He pushed it in front of
Simmons and went back to wiping down the counter.

“Do you come here often?” Simmons asked.

Isaac waited a moment, nearly choking on his
beer, and then burst out laughing.

Simmons smiled. “What’s so funny?”

Isaac tried to catch his breath. His face
turned red as he coughed.

“Do I come here often? Are you trying to
pick me up?”

“What?”

“Cause if you are it’s not gonna work.”
Isaac took a deep breath and wiped some beer away from his mouth
with his hand. “Nothing personal, but you’re really not my
type.”

“Huh,” said Simmons, wearing the ridiculous
Kermit the Frog grin across his face. “I don’t get it.”

“Never mind. And no, I don’t come here that
often. But I did for many years after Linda died.”

“Linda was your wife?”

Isaac immediately stopped laughing, took
another long sip of beer, and stared into the large mirror spread
across the back wall of the bar.

“Yes,” he finally said. “She was my
wife.”

“When did she die?”

“Sixteen years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” said Simmons. “I didn’t know.
How did she die?”

Isaac guzzled the last half of his beer and
then stared down at the empty glass on the counter. “She was
murdered.”

He glanced up at Simmons and saw the
unmistakable look of shock that had become all too common over the
last sixteen years.

“Murdered?”

Charlie came by and refilled Isaac’s empty
mug with a second round of brew. The detectives waited until the
bartender left before continuing the conversation.

“A man named Jacob Walsh broke into my house
one night while I was sleeping. At first, I thought he was just a
burglar, but he had something entirely different on his mind. Jacob
did time in prison for shooting and nearly killing a liquor store
clerk. I was the arresting officer. I testified in court against
him and I guess you could say he didn’t like me too much. The state
released him three years early. Good behavior.”

“He had been planning to kill your wife the
entire time he was behind bars?”

“I guess,” Isaac said. “He tried to take me
out, too. I think he wanted the whole family.” Isaac opened his
coat and pulled down the left side of his shirt revealing the
bullet wound in his chest. “A few centimeters to the left and we
wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Simmons looked closely at the round pink and
white scar tissue that formed a hairless spot on Isaac’s chest. “He
shot you?”

“Then he went upstairs and shot Linda. Four
times in the chest and stomach.”

“That’s awful.”

“And he had one bullet left. Thankfully, I
stopped him before he had a chance to use it.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Yep. After that, an ambulance rushed me to
the hospital. I almost bled to death before I even arrived in the
emergency room.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t.”

“Sometimes I wish I had.”

Isaac finished off the last warm inch of
beer at the bottom of the glass then went to leave a piss. After he
was done, he sat back down at the bar and ordered another beer.

“Do you want to play pool or something?”

Simmons shrugged. “Sure, if you want.”

Isaac walked over to the only empty table,
racked the balls, and grabbed a pool stick off the wall rack. Two
couples laughed, fondled, and played beside them on the only other
pool table.

“You wanna break?”

“No, I think you’d better,” said Simmons.
“I’m not very good at pool.”

“Neither am I.” Isaac chalked up the end of
his stick then slammed it into the white cue ball, pocketing two
stripes before the last ball stopped rolling.

“I thought you weren’t any good.”

Isaac smiled and buried another stripe. “I’m
not. Beginners luck.”

After Isaac finished beating Simmons for the
third time, the detectives left the bar and stood silent in the
parking lot admiring the fresh, cool air, and then said their
goodnights.

When Isaac got back home, he opened the
bottom drawer of the stereo cabinet next to the television and
searched through his old records. Once he found the record he
sought out, he removed it from the sleeve, carefully placed it on
to the dusty player, and plopped down on the couch. Then he dimmed
the light and rested his head against the back cushion.

Seconds later, Chicago's
Will you still
love me?
echoed sweet melodies throughout the still house, and
evoked distant dreams of a time when life seemed so simple—perfect,
sitting at a concert, falling in love.

Just falling in love.

Chapter Four

1

The tall trees hung thick branches over the
dirt road, raining down dead leaves that fluttered about in the
morning breeze. A few of the leaves landed on the blue Escort as it
hiked down the narrow trail kicking dirt out the back of its tires.
James Ackerman stopped the car suddenly as he arrived at a fork in
the road. He looked both ways trying to remember which path he had
taken hours ago. According to the clock radio, it was almost seven
in the morning. He had survived the night hiding out by Catfish
Creek, but there wasn't much time left now. Resources were running
low. This body was getting weaker by the minute, this mind further
exhausted. Death was waiting just over the next horizon. He needed
to initiate new contact, change course, or risk becoming trapped on
a sinking vessel.

James reached underneath the front passenger
seat to retrieve the stone figurine. His gateway. He would only use
it as a last resort. He slid the small statue into the interior
pocket of his sport coat, abandoned the Escort in the center of the
fork, and walked west through the woods. Twenty minutes later, he
stepped out of the woods on to Parker Avenue.

An old gas station was across the street. A
tall, longhaired man climbed out of an eighteen-wheeler and walked
around the corner to the front door of the station.

James hurried across the street and entered
the station.

The store clerk sat behind the counter
staring mindlessly at the morning news on an old eight-inch black
and white television set. The longhaired trucker passed by James on
his way to the front counter.

“Two packs of Marlboro reds in a box,” said
the truck driver.

The clerk reached over his head and pulled
the cigarettes from the shelf.

“Is that all?” he asked.

The truck driver nodded and handed the clerk
a credit card. After signing the store copy, the truck driver took
his receipt and left the store.

James crept up to the front counter and
grinned at the wiry store clerk. The clerk had tanned, leathery
skin, and a small crooked mustache.

“Eddie, is it?” he asked, looking down at
the white nametag pined to the clerk’s shirt.

“Yep. How can I help you, pal?”

James leaned over the counter. “This is your
lucky day, Eddie. I have something for you."

2

James sauntered out into the parking lot and
looked around for his car. He had no idea where he was or how he
had arrived here. He vaguely remembered sleeping in his car, and
walking through the woods, but it had all felt like a strange
dream. Nearby, a longhaired man was talking on a payphone.

“Excuse me.”

The man took the phone away from his ear and
covered it with the palm of his hand.

“Have you seen a blue Ford Escort?”

“No,” said the half-shaven man with a fresh
cigarette hanging from his lip. “Ya lose your car or
something?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a problem. I’m gonna
finish my call now.”

James walked around the corner and passed by
a semi on his way to the back of the building. A few tiny drops of
sweat ran down his face and met at the base of his neck. Rotting
trash and sewage littered the back of the gas station; a stench of
rats, newspaper, gasoline, and beef jerky. There were two dumpsters
but neither held any dump, the trash never made it inside. He found
an orange hose wrapped up in knots on the opposite side of the
building. Just what he needed to calm his nerves, cool water, but
when he turned the nozzle, nothing but a single warm drop fled from
the rubber tube. Frustrated, James threw down the hose and strolled
around the side of the building, back into the parking lot. He
thought of calling the police and reporting his car stolen, but
figured he’d better find out for sure.

While he waited for the truck driver to
finish his call, he wiped away the sweat from his forehead. The
beads of sweat tickled, itched.

A moment later the truck driver hung up the
payphone.

“Hey, do you think you could do me a
favor?”

“Depends. What?”

“Could you give me a lift to my house? Or at
least just drop me off in town? I would really appreciate it. I’ll
even pay you.”

“I don’t think that’d be a problem.”

“Thank you so much.”

James followed the truck driver around the
corner to the semi waiting on the other side. He could feel his
heart beat faster with each second that passed. Muscles tightened
to the point of tearing. His hands vibrated like a resonating
church bell. He tried to calm himself, relax. If he could just get
home, everything would be all right.