Fade To Midnight (9 page)

“Next time, don't fuck the window,” was his laconic comment. “Them bastards are expensive. Now help me take out this trash.”

Bruno and Kev helped drag the bleeding thugs though the kitchen, to the alley where Tony's pickup was parked. Bruno timidly asked if they should call the cops. Tony gave him a look. “Got a death wish, kid?”

Fair enough, after what had happened back in Newark.

Tony ordered them to hose down the bloodied sidewalk, and hang a
CLOSED FOR REPAIRS
sign. Then he'd driven his pickup away.

That marked the moment Bruno stopped following Kev around out of curiosity, and started to do it out of hero worship. Tony changed his attitude toward Kev, too. He'd started staring at him, whenever his back was turned. Wondering what he had back there, quietly washing his dishes. And if it was a time bomb that might blow up in his face.

Tony's chair creaked as he shifted in the hospital chair. “You look like dogshit,” he said. “Rosa sent lamb shank. And rice pudding. She thinks the smell of food will wake him up. Have some. There's plenty.”

The mention of rice pudding made Bruno think of the guy wedged into the broken dessert counter, bleeding out into the cream custard.

He shook his head, and dragged out his laptop. Researching Kev's bad guy was a good distraction, and somebody else had to do it, since it was looking pretty fucking hazardous to Kev's health to do it himself.

“You researching that Otterfen asshole? I told you. You're wasting your time. Put that goddamn thing away and eat something.”

“Osterman,” Bruno repeated, though it was no use wrangling the point. Tony won, by seniority, loudness, meanness. A swift backhand to the mouth, sometimes, too, when Bruno was younger. He still remembered the sting, but he didn't hold a grudge. He also remembered watching Tony drive off, the black plastic tarp draped over those mobsters who had come to kill him. How grateful he'd been when Tony came back hours later, and grimly hosed down the bed of the pickup. No talk, no explanations. It was like the thing had never even happened.

Tony had just eaten a big dinner in the back of the diner afterward, and then sat there, smoking a long series of hand-rolled cigarettes. He stared, head wreathed in smoke, looking fixedly at the back of Kev's head while the guy washed a huge pile of dishes.

Then he told Bruno to stop crying, or he'd pop him a good one. Tousled his hair, violently enough to give him a case of whiplash. Went off to bed, heavy boots thudding on the stairs.

It was like Kev said. Life was full of tradeoffs. Nothing was for free.

But sometimes, even the highest price was worth paying.

 

Noise battered at Kev's brain. Voices, babbling, but he couldn't decode the words. He was stuck in a hole inside his mind. His oubliette.

Here, he could not be compelled. He'd blocked the connections to his voluntary motor functions. He didn't know how he'd done it. All he knew was that here, in this place, they could not fuck with him.

The flip side was, he couldn't compel himself, either. He was safe, but paralyzed. And stuck. No door in this place. No tunnel. No ladder.

It wasn't unconsciousness. His mind was crystal sharp. And he wasn't panicking. Not yet. He'd been in here before. He'd climbed out somehow. It might take a while, but he'd figure it out.

He wondered if this was a coma, but he doubted it. Most people weren't called upon to develop evasive mental maneuvers to thwart brain control. Probably comatose people were curled up in a similar oubliette, fast asleep. Not clawing the walls, like something out of a Poe story. Whoops. Wrong turn. If he kept on in this direction, he'd panic.

Just wait.
The quiet instruction floated up like a bubble from the depths. Be patient, and just wait.

He set himself to calming down the turbulence in his mind with his usual techniques. A white starflower. The Milky Way, spattered out across the night sky. A monolith of black volcanic granite, stark against a snowscape. Still, his thoughts whizzed and spun. He started to get exhausted. Only then did he bring out his secret weapon.

The little angel.

He tried not to use the angel too often. Overusing his talisman would tarnish it, rob it of its protective power. Even daring to think of her too often could overlay false memories over the true, pure one.

It worked, like always. He looked into those clear, solemn eyes, and the whizbang ricochet of desperation calmed. He felt relief, an upwelling of unreasonable joy. Like cool rain on a fevered face.

His brain slid into focus. The static of noise battering him from outside resolved into comprehensible language. A conversation, ping-ponging back and forth over him. Voices he knew very well.

“…bullshit,” a gravely voice pronounced. “They don't teach torture techniques in goddamn scientist ivory towers.” That was Tony's voice, that harsh, cigarette and alcohol roughened rasp.

Emotion jabbed through him, prickly and sharp. Unwilling fondness, anger, and gall. That crusty old bastard. The jolt flipped the switch, reconnected him. He could move now. His eyelids fluttered.

“…course it is,” Tony was replying, to whoever was out there. “Kid's been a pain in the ass since the day I found him.”

“You should have let the guy kill me,” he blurted hoarsely. “But you didn't.” His eyes opened, fastened on Tony's face

Tony stared down, eyes narrowed in shadowy bags of flesh. “Don't mouth off to me, kid,” he said. “A coma ain't no fuckin' excuse.”

Kev's mouth twitched. Tony stared, stone faced. No way could he give in so far as to smile back. To yield was to die. His unspoken creed.

Kev looked up at Bruno. The only time Kev ever saw any familial resemblance between Tony's ravaged face and Bruno's
GQ
good looks was when the kid was scowling, just like that.

“No more comas,” Bruno warned, through clenched teeth. “Or I will kick your useless ass right into the next life. That clear?”

It wasn't a coma, but Kev didn't have the energy to explain. He attempted to move his arm, was cautiously pleased when it obeyed his command. He patted Bruno's cheek, stubbled with black scruff.

“Thanks for caring,” he said.

Bruno recoiled. “Don't patronize me,” he snarled.

Kev gazed at his brother. The beard scruff was stark evidence of how upset he was. Bruno was always shaved, gelled, perfumed, dressed in the best. Today, he wore a wrinkled T-shirt with coffee stains.

He felt a pang of guilt, and struggled into a sitting position, peeling off the tape that held his IV needle into place.

“Hey!” Bruno clamped Kev's hand in his own, stopping him. “What the hell do you think you're doing? The nurse can do that!”

Kev plucked Bruno's fingers off his forearm. “I'm awake,” he said. “I can move. Let me get on with it.”

“On with what? With looking for the monsters of your past? Great! We get to witness you die from a stroke when you find them!”

“I won't have a stroke,” Kev said mildly. “Where are my clothes?”

“Lie back down, kid,” Tony advised. “You look like shit.”

Kev ripped the tape loose and yanked the needle out of his hand. He looked around the room. “Give me that laptop, would you?”

Bruno rolled his eyes. “Are you out of your fucking mind? No, don't answer that. It was a rhetorical question. The answer is, fuck no, and over my dead body! Any more questions?”

“Aw, come on. Does this place have WiFi?”

Bruno's eyes narrowed. “You want to look at that photo again? The one that made you black out for twenty-eight hours?” He glanced at his watch. “And thirty-four minutes? Forget it!”

Kev blinked. “That long?” He rotated his shoulders, rolled his head on his neck. “No wonder I'm so stiff. All the more reason to get right to it. Come on. Be a pal. Hand over that laptop, buddy.”

“No!” Bruno yelled.

Kev sighed. This was going to take more finessing, and Christ knew he didn't have the energy. “I've remembered some more,” he offered. “About Osterman. I was right. He was doing experiments on me. That was why I jumped Patil. He looked exactly like the guy.”

“I saw the picture,” Bruno growled. “I figured that out for myself.”

“Experiments?” Tony grunted, unimpressed. “Fuckin' scientists.”

“Mind control stuff,” Kev said. “Shutting down my brain was the way I used to fight the mind control thing. That's why I'm going into these comas. It's a defensive reflex.”

“That's all great, but Osterman's dead,” Bruno snapped. “And no one around here is trying to control your mind. So there's no point in dwelling on this guy, and putting yourself in another coma. OK?”

Kev shook his head. “There have to be other people who knew what he was doing. I'll start with the other people in that photograph. Hand over the iTouch. I know you always have your toys on you.”

“Yesterday, I dragged you in here, bleeding out your eyes,” Bruno hissed. “You think I'm up for a repeat performance? Fuck that!”

Kev massaged the ropy scars on his head. They throbbed uncomfortably. “It won't happen again,” he assured Bruno.

“Oh, what a comfort! Guess what? I do not trust your judgment!”

“No, really,” Kev wheedled. “I remember Osterman's face. It blindsided me before, but it won't take me by surprise again. I'm picturing that photo in my head right now, every last pixel, and my head is not exploding. I swear to you. It won't get me again.”

Bruno harrumped. “In any case, I've already done it.”

“Done what?”

“Researched the picture,” Bruno said, with a long-suffering air. “I identified everyone in it. Scraped together whatever I could find on the Internet about each one. If that's what you meant to do, it's done.”

Kev realized his mouth was open. “Uh, wow. Thanks.”

Bruno looked uncomfortable. “Shut up.” He dragged an accordion folder out of a duffel at his feet. “The guys with Osterman were Giles Laurent and Desmond Marr. Do those names burst any blood vessels?”

The names fell like stones into the deep waters of his mind, encountering nothing. No reaction. He shook his head.

Bruno opened the file. “Laurent you can cross off your list, because he's dead.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Tony muttered. “There'll be lots of dead guys in this story by the time it's told. Maybe one of 'em'll be you.”

“Maybe.” Kev was unperturbed. “Dead how?”

“Suicide. Six years ago. Software designer. Went to Stanford after his stint at the Haven. Started a company, was doing real well. Shot himself in the head. Left a wife, two-year-old kid. Real tragic.”

“And the other guy?”

“Desmond Marr. Another high achiever,” Bruno said. “Harvard undergrad, Harvard business. Being groomed to take over his daddy's pharmaceutical company, Helix. Medical technology, nanotechnology. Red-hot stock. They just moved down to the Silicon Forest in Hillboro a few years ago. This guy's doing great. Hot shit on a silver platter.”

“Let me see that picture.” Kev reached for it.

Bruno snatched the folder back. “Fuck, no. I found another picture of Marr for you. One without Osterman in it.” He rummaged through his printouts, and pulled out a photocopy of an eight-by-ten.

Kev took it. Blood drained from his face. His ears began to roar.

There were four people in the photo, sitting at a table in front of a red drapery. A white haired man was beaming, holding up a plaque, but Kev's eyes fastened on the other one; the long, distinguished face, the hawklike nose. He'd dreamed that face, thousands of times. The man was older, but it was the man from his dream. The one he'd run to, pleading for help.

No. Not a dream. A
memory.
That man was real, and from Kev's past. From before the wall in his mind. And Kev remembered him.

Oh, fuck. Excitement began to build. His heart pounded heavily.

Bruno leaned over his shoulder, pointing to a younger guy in the corner. “Here's Desmond Marr, all grown up. This is from Helix's corporate Web site. I picked it because it had the best close-up of Desmond that I could find, besides the portrait in his Web site bio. This is an awards ceremony from last year, where daddy Raymond received a lifetime achievement award from the American Medical Association for his contributions to…hey. Kev? What's wrong?” He jerked Kev's chin up, peered into his eyes. “Don't start with that crazy shit!”

“I won't,” Kev said, jerking his chin away. “Relax.”

“Hah,” Bruno muttered. “So you know Raymond Marr?”

Kev shook his head, and pointed at the hawk-faced man. “No. This one.” His cold finger shook as it touched the paper.

Bruno leaned over the photo. “Oh, him. Another big cheese. The CEO of Helix. Founded the company along with Desmond's daddy. His name is…hold on…” He rifled through the printouts. “Charles Parrish.” Bruno waited expectantly, but Kev just shook his head.

“No broken blood vessels? How undramatic,” Bruno muttered. “So, is this guy a white hat or a black hat? Is he your long lost dad?”

“I went to him for help,” Kev said simply. “That's all I remember.”

Tony hawked, and spat into a tissue. “And did he give it to you?”

Kev squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head. “I don't think he did. I remember pleading with him.” He struggled to pull the dreamlike memories into focus. “I think he threw me to the wolves. I scared the shit out of him. That was after the torture, so I was all fucked up. He called security. I threw one through a window. I remember that much.”

Tony grunted sourly. “Of course you threw one through a window. That's your specialty. Can't just be a discreet knife through the eye, oh, no. It's gotta be loud, it's gotta draw attention, it's gotta cost money.”