Bad Glass (8 page)

By then, the house was once again quiet. The voices were gone, and there was no sign of movement.
Maybe they all packed up and left
, I thought. Or maybe, in the early-morning hours, I’d managed to dream them all away.

Still half-asleep, I got up off the sofa and went looking for signs of life.

I found Charlie in the kitchen, sitting at a table in the breakfast nook. The room looked different in the morning light: the sun poured in through the open curtains, bathing everything in a blindingly bright haze. Charlie was tapping away at a tiny notebook computer. When I stepped through the door, he cast a quick glance up, then went right back to work.

“Do you have a Gmail account?” he asked, still typing away.

“Gmail?” I grunted, wondering if I’d stumbled into the middle of someone else’s conversation. I rubbed at my sticky, sleep-blurred
eyes. “You can’t possibly have Internet access here—no power, no landlines, no cell signal. The military’s got that all wrapped up tight. Right? Communication blackout … all that happy shit.”

“I cobbled something together,” he said with a sly smile. He spun the computer around and showed me the program on its screen. It looked like a simple email program. There was a tab at the top with my name on it (next to separate tabs for Charlie, Taylor, and everyone else), and then, down below, there was space for account information, an address line, a subject line, and a large text field for the body of a message. “If you fill in your stuff, we can smuggle it out. It’ll also capture your incoming mail.”

I stared at the computer for a moment, then, suddenly struck by what I was seeing, spun it back around and checked its rear panel. “The battery … it’s
charged
? Where are you getting the power?”

“We’ve got a source.” Again he flashed that sly smile.

My shoulders slumped, and I let out a disappointed groan. I’d spent over a hundred dollars on an external grip for my camera—one that took disposable batteries in lieu of rechargeable power—and I’d stocked up on a shitload of AAs. Not to mention a second battery for my laptop.

I turned the computer back around and stared at the mail program for nearly a minute. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, tense, itching to write. But who could I contact? Who would understand? My friends in California? My father?
Not bloody likely
, I thought. At this point, there probably wasn’t a soul in the world who had even noticed that I was gone.

As I was thinking, Taylor stormed into the house. She moved in a loud rush, crashing from the front door, through the hallway, into the kitchen. She saw me at Charlie’s computer and let out a deep cluck. “No time for that,” she said. “No time. I told Danny I’d be there at noon.” Charlie pulled the computer back across the table and resumed typing, faster now, trying to get something finished.

“Next time, Dean,” Taylor said. “Next batch.” She pointed toward my bags in the living room. “Now, get dressed and ready to go. You’ve got a lot to see here, and I figure we should start at the top. Which means moving … fast!”

I’d slept in my jeans and a sweatshirt, so getting dressed just meant swapping my shirt for a fresh one and unrolling a new pair of socks. Sabine had left my camera on the floor next to my bags. I slipped it into my backpack and slung the bag over my shoulder.

“You can’t take that,” Taylor said, nodding toward my pack as I came back into the kitchen. “Leave it with Charlie. He’ll keep it safe.”

I shook my head. “No fucking way! I came here to take pictures, and I’ve missed enough already.”

“That’s not the way it works, Dean. Unless you want it confiscated, you leave your camera here.”

I studied her for a moment. There was absolutely no give in her eyes. Reluctantly, I set the backpack down on the table. I dug out a PowerBar, then pushed the bag toward Charlie. “I can take some fucking food, right?” I growled, showing her the foil-wrapped energy bar. “Or do you want to tell me how to eat, too?”

“It’s not like that,” Taylor said, a pinched, hard look on her face. “I’m not on some power trip here. It’s just the reality of the situation.”

Charlie finished typing on his notebook. He pulled a thumb-size RAM drive from the USB port and handed it to Taylor. She gave him a satisfied nod, then turned back my way. “You’ll see,” she said. “It’ll be worth it. I promise.”

I was in a funk all the way across the river. The morning sun had burned away the dark October clouds, transforming the city into someplace new; it was no longer the gray, oppressive maze I’d run through just the day before. The streets seemed wider somehow, the towers overhead not quite so tall. And everything had been washed clean by the torrential rain, wisps of steam curling
up wherever the sun touched the damp concrete. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy this new, sparkling city. I felt naked without my backpack, without my camera.

I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. Empty, my fingers felt awkward, useless.

Taylor gave me time to sulk. She stayed silent as she led me south, walking a couple of steps ahead but glancing back every now and then to check my mood. After a while, those glances started to weigh on me. I felt stupid. Here I was, pouting like some petulant child.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked, trying to regain some dignity.

“The heart of downtown,” she said. “The best place to start.”

After crossing the bridge, she took me west on Sprague. The street here was deserted, but I could hear voices and laughter to the south.

“Mama Cass’s place,” Taylor said, nodding in that direction. “It’s right down there. She gets her food from the outside. Always has fresh-brewed coffee. If you ever need company, day or night, that’s where you want to go.”

I wasn’t certain about my bearings, but I knew that the hotel from yesterday had to be around here someplace.
And the man
, I thought,
the man in the ceiling, deformed, not even human, but still reaching out
. Perhaps it was a block farther south. I stuck close to Taylor.

As we passed, an abandoned building on the north side of the street caught my eye. There were words spray painted across its face, starting way up on the fourth floor. The words stretched left to right in crooked rows, stacked one on top of the other. Each letter was about four feet tall, transcribed freehand in gentle, feminine arcs. The paint was electric blue, laid out in thick, double-wide lines. It was a poem. Or as close to poetry as graffiti could get.

It read:

The last word—
fall
—was inscribed in the narrow space between a window and the edge of the building, plummeting all the way to the ground. The word
will
in the final line was traced over with red paint, making it stand out like an exit sign in a dark theater.

“Who did this?” I asked, halting to study the giant words.

Taylor shook her head. “I don’t really know. The Artist. The Poet … You’ll find stuff like this all over town. Poems, slogans. All in the same handwriting. There’s a giant ‘Fuck You’ facing I-90.” She took a step back, as if trying to pull the whole building into frame. “This one’s new, though. It wasn’t here last week.”

Poetry. The word suddenly clicked inside my head. “Sabine?” I asked. “She could have done this. She said she writes poems.”

Taylor shook her head. “I don’t think so. All of Sabine’s poems are about her vagina.” She smiled at the surprised look on my face, then gestured back toward the building. “Besides, that girl’s
obsessed with the Poet. She wants to find whoever’s doing this … wants to
collaborate
.” She was quiet for a moment, and when she continued, there was a hint of disdain in her voice. “You know, sometimes I wonder if this is all just some big fucked-up art project for her, for Sabine. This whole fucking thing. Nothing but background color and clever commentary. A stage on which she can play. Nothing serious, no. Nothing deadly.”

I turned and studied Taylor’s profile, watching as her eyes scanned the poem. “And me?” I asked. “What about me and my photography?”

“You’re new here,” Taylor said. “You’ll learn. Sabine, on the other hand … she should know better by now.”

She glanced down at her watch and nodded westward. “Now, get your ass in gear. We’ve got an appointment to keep.”

The courthouse was a huge, blocky building at the corner of Lincoln and Sprague. It looked like a giant four-sided cheese grater, with hundreds of small windows recessed in a tight concrete grid. The newspaper building stood across from its entrance, and a cobblestone courtyard occupied the space between the two buildings. Once a well-manicured stretch of land, the courtyard had fallen into disrepair, now cordoned off on both ends of the block and cluttered with dead, skeletal trees. A fountain stood near the courthouse’s entrance, but without water, it was nothing but a twelve-foot bowl brimming with trash and leaves. There were soldiers posted at the courthouse’s front door.

Taylor led me down the street at the building’s side, away from the entrance. She stopped halfway down the block and abruptly turned toward the building. It was ten stories of industrial concrete, a drab, oppressive cliff face looming above us. There was a broken window three floors up, a neat black hole punched through the building’s face. Taylor glanced both ways—checking for witnesses, I supposed—then, in a quick, discreet motion, grabbed something from her pocket and lobbed it up through
that gaping wound. As it sailed through the air, I recognized it as Charlie’s USB drive.

Why?
I wanted to ask, but she started away before I could open my mouth.

I followed her back to the front of the building, tagging along like a puppy dog as she headed straight for the main entrance. The guards smiled as they saw her approach. They must not have felt threatened. They didn’t even touch the rifles slung across their shoulders.

“It’s good to see you, Taylor,” one of the men said, greeting her with genuine warmth. “And your timing’s spot-on, as usual. The captain just left.”

“Awww, that’s a
shame
,” she said, a campy, theatrical quality entering her voice. “And here I thought to bring him a gift!” She started digging through her pockets, searching for something, then stopped with her hand buried deep in her pants. “Ah, here it is!” she said, pulling her hand out and displaying a raised middle finger.

“Think you can give him that for me, Johnny?” she asked, turning to the second soldier.

Both of the guards laughed. “I think I’ll have to give that one a pass,” the second soldier said. “I’m trying to
avoid
court-martials here.”

“That’s a good idea,” Taylor said. “I still need you on the door.”

“Okay, Taylor, enough of your goddamn charm.” Still smiling, the first soldier gestured her over to the side of the door. “You know the drill.”

Taylor nodded and held out her arms. The soldier lifted a portable metal detector from a loop of cord wrapped around his belt. He ran the wand over her entire body, up her front and back and then down the length of her arms and legs. After the scan, the soldier checked her pockets, giving them nothing but a quick, cursory pat. He waved her toward the building, then turned his attention to me.

The guards handled me with a bit more suspicion. I noticed the second soldier inching his gun forward as his partner looked me over; the soldier’s hand came to rest on the gun’s butt, ready to slip forward into the trigger guard. And the pat down was much more thorough, the soldier’s blunt hands running all the way up into my armpits and crotch. He felt the PowerBar in my pocket and made me take it out. He studied it for several seconds—holding it gingerly, as if it might explode—then tossed it over to his partner. I was about to complain, but the soldier cut me short with a curt shake of his head.

“You guys are good to go,” the soldier said, stepping up to the building and opening the door. “You know the rules, Taylor. Nothing to make me look bad.”

“Don’t worry. No anarchy today.” Taylor smiled and patted the soldier on the arm. “I’m just catching up with Danny.” Then we passed into the building.

The lobby was deserted. There was absolutely no furniture here, just one long, muddy carpet runner leading to a bank of elevators on the far side of the room. Lights were glowing overhead, but most of the fixtures had been cracked open and the fluorescent tubes removed. Taylor saw me looking and pointed up toward the roof. “They’ve got plenty of generators up there. The bulbs, however … they aren’t faring too well.”

The elevators were working, but Taylor walked right on by, leading me to the stairwell at the far end of the alcove. The light inside was inconsistent. I glanced up toward the roof and watched the stairwell pulse above me, the light waxing and waning with the strength of the generators. I could hear the electricity pulsing. It was a slow, slow heartbeat.

We climbed up to the third floor.

Taylor opened the door and led the way down a dimly lit corridor. The entire floor seemed deserted. I glanced through a couple of doorways and found row after row of empty cubicles. There was paper scattered across the floor. Upturned lamps on each desk. A couple of abandoned staplers.

All the furniture had been moved away from the walls. It looked as if, abandoned, these office spaces had surrendered to some previously unknown force of physics, something that pulled desks, chairs, and cubicle walls toward the center of each giant room. Maybe, in a thousand years, I’d come back and find a dense singularity in the center of each of these spaces. Nothing but compressed office furniture collapsed in on itself.

“Here we go.” Taylor’s voice echoed back down the length of the corridor, jolting me out of my reverie.

I found her in one of the big, empty rooms, squatting in front of a busted window. She was holding up Charlie’s USB drive. “Easier than smuggling it in,” she said, a sly smile on her face.