Pocket-47 (A Nicholas Colt Thriller) (23 page)

I took a long, luxurious bath with a fancy bar of soap imported from Spain, and some bath beads from a jar. The soap box had a picture of a senorita on it with long black hair and ruby red lips. Her name was Susanna Francisca. She was beautiful. I was in love with her. I soaked in the hot soapy water for about thirty minutes. It was one of the top five baths of my life. I got out and toweled off and put on the clothes Strychar had left for me. Boxers, jeans, a polo shirt, socks, all brand new. I wondered if he had a department store hidden somewhere in the house. I wasn’t tired anymore. It’s amazing how a rootin-tootin torture session can get the old juices flowing. I felt brand new. I was fresh and energetic and I smelled like a million bucks.

The revolver’s blast in such close quarters had left a steady tone ringing in my ears, a B-flat I thought. It was annoying, but no worse than the hum after a concert back when I played arenas with my band. It reminded me of those guys and my wife and baby and the plane crash.

There was a bowl of fresh fruit on the dresser. I selected a shiny red apple and bit into it. Wicked delicious. I peeked through the blinds, saw Number One and another Black Beret loading Number Two’s body into the back of a white van. I didn’t know if it was the same van, but it was identical to the one I’d seen at the women’s dorm earlier. They loaded Number Two’s body in what I perceived to be a nonchalant and disrespectful manner, more like a sack of garbage than a human being. Maybe it was a common occurrence for Strychar to become aggravated and capriciously blow someone
away. I felt sorry for Number Two, because he seemed to have qualms about the whole waterboarding ordeal. He’d tried to put a stop to it. I wondered if it was an act, though, a good Nazi-bad Nazi kind of thing. At any rate, Strychar had shot and killed him on the basis of a coin toss, which made Strychar verifiably insane in my book and not to be trusted an inch.

I waited until the van left, and then I waited another half hour. I figured Strychar was back to sleep by then. I got the penlight and a paperclip from my backpack and tiptoed out of the room in stocking feet, hoping to find the combination to the safe.

The house was huge, but I’d been through enough of it to know the basic layout. I found my way to the front door and from there to Strychar’s study. It seemed like a good place to start, good as any.

It was four o’clock in the morning. Complete darkness. I padded my way to the executive desk, gently rolled the chair out of the way, got down on my knees.

I held the penlight in my mouth and started ferreting through the drawers. They weren’t locked, so I didn’t need the paperclip I’d brought. I started with the one on the bottom right. It was a deep drawer with hanging file folders arranged alphabetically, K to Z. Personnel files. I looked in the
M
s, didn’t find one for Massengill. My own file was there, in the Rs for Recore, and I saw that my driver’s license had been verified by a clerk in Dallas named Mildred Bates. Strychar was checking me out all right. I figured I must have passed. Otherwise, I would have been dead by now.

I examined the dates on a random selection. None of them was more than twelve months old. Longtime members like Massengill probably had records in a warehouse somewhere. These were just quick references for newbies. More of the same in the bottom left drawer, A to J on that side.

I checked the middle drawers next, first the right and then the left. Nothing of interest in those, just basic office supplies and some other miscellaneous crap. Post-Its, a stapler, a box of staples, a staple remover, an obsolete typewriter cartridge still in its original
packaging, a Scotch Tape dispenser, a Florida Lotto ticket from ten years ago, a partially eaten roll of Certs, a box of paperclips, a variety of pens and pencils.

Strychar’s junk. Years of it. Everything looked old and neglected. I proceeded to the top right drawer. Strychar’s revolver lay there wrapped in an oily rag, along with a box of .357 Magnum cartridges and a cleaning kit. It was a Colt Python. The gun had a trigger lock on it, but the cylinder opened freely. It had that just-fired smell. I saw Strychar had replaced the spent round with a new one already.

There was a stray cartridge rolling around on the bottom of the drawer. I picked it up, examined it, and compared it to one of the shells from the box. It was identical, but slightly lighter in weight. I guessed the powder had been taken out of it. Whoever had done it had done a good job. You couldn’t tell by looking. It was an impotent dummy round, probably a prop for another one of Strychar’s practical jokes. Maybe some of the newbies were forced to play Russian roulette—unaware of the phony bullet in the same way I was unaware of the dull blade on the guillotine. I decided to play a little practical joke of my own. I replaced one of the real cartridges in the gun’s cylinder with the dummy, and left the real one on the bottom of the drawer. The next time Strychar played Russian roulette, he would empty the cylinder and use the stray for the game, only now the stray was a live round. If it happened to line up with the firing pin—whoops. KA-BLOOEY! Lucius Strychar, you’ve been punked!

Still no sign of anything that might resemble a vault combination. I had two more drawers to go, the top left and the top middle, and then I would start searching elsewhere.

When I opened the top left drawer, it hit me like a ton of numbered Ping-Pong balls.

The lotto ticket.

Why would anyone save a ticket for ten years? If the ticket’s a winner, you cash it. If it’s a loser, you throw it away. Maybe Strychar
had absently tossed it into the drawer. Maybe he had forgotten about it. Or, maybe the numbers were chosen because they held some sort of significance.

I went back to the middle drawer on the right-hand side and retrieved the ticket. 20-21-22-31-34-39. I memorized the numbers, put the ticket back, closed the drawer.

Then I heard a toilet flush.

I switched off the penlight and held my breath. I could hear Strychar’s bare feet flapping on the hardwood floor, but fortunately the footsteps faded as he walked back to his bedroom. I had absolutely no excuse to be in his study, so I’m not sure what I would have done if he’d come in there.

It was almost five o’clock now. The prayer meeting started at seven, so Strychar would probably get up for good around six. That gave me an hour to get the safe open, tear the pages I needed out of The Holy Record, and get the hell out of there. It was riskier than ever now that I’d heard Strychar awake and walking around, but I didn’t know when I’d be able to get back into the house and have such easy access. It was now or never, and never wasn’t an option. Plus, I didn’t want to waste the suffering I’d gone through under the hand of John the Twisted Baptist. I felt like I’d earned the privilege to be there.

I waited until I heard Strychar’s bedroom door click shut. Then I waited a few more minutes, hoping his bladder was sufficiently empty now and that he’d gone back to sleep.

I quietly crossed the room, put my hand on the painting the vault was behind, and then remembered the terrible squeak the piano hinge had made when Strychar swung it out earlier.

Damn.

You could have heard an eyelash land on a rosebud in Strychar’s study. Causing that hinge to squeak would have been like announcing my presence with a megaphone. If only I’d come as prepared as, say, Batman, I’m sure I would have had some household lubricant in my trusty utility belt.

The gun cleaning kit. There had to be some oil in there.

I walked back to the desk and opened the top right drawer. Very slowly, very quietly. The cleaning kit was in a nice wooden case with a hinged lid, and the plastic bottle of oil was right on top. I took the bottle over and squeezed a few drops on the piano hinge. I greased it all the way down, working the lubricant in with my fingertips. I lifted the painting slightly, put some positive pressure on it, and swung it out a couple of inches from the wall. So far, so good. I worked it back and forth a few times, then swung it out until the front of the painting rested flush with the wall on the other side. No squeak. With the vault’s door exposed and gleaming under my little light, I started dialing in the numbers from the lotto ticket.

I hadn’t messed with a combination lock for thirty-some years, since high school. I figured wall safes worked on the same principle as the good old Master I had back then, the one that kept would-be thieves from jacking my Right Guard, my Chucks, and my sweaty tube socks, so I started by turning the dial three times to the right to reset the tumblers. I kept dialing clockwise, stopped on twenty, went the other way and stopped on twenty-one. I continued alternating directions until I reached the final number, which was thirty-nine.

What a beautiful sound, all those tumblers clicking into place. I grabbed the handle, pushed it downward, eased the door open with a gentle tug.

There it was. The Holy Record. I stared at it for a few seconds, thinking there should be some glowing rays and heavenly music, but nothing happened so I reached into the vault and pulled it out.

I sat Indian-style on the floor with the penlight in my mouth and The Holy Record in front of me. It was exactly 5:39. I opened the book to a random page and started scanning the longhand scrawl as rapidly as I could. More celebrity signatures—divine visions—dialogues with Jesus—a missionary trip to the Fiji Islands—and then
today another victory—Brother Philip—Datsun pickup truck burst into flames—

I didn’t get any further. At exactly 5:45, Strychar’s alarm clock squealed like a boiled meerkat.

I quickly closed The Holy Record, stood, jammed it back into the vault. I secured the vault door and swung the painting into place. I made sure all the desk drawers were closed, the chair back in its original position. I left the room exactly as I’d found it. I slinked into the hallway, tiptoed back to my suite.

I took a few deep breaths. My fingers tingled. My inner troll was doing a number on my stomach now, trying to work his way out with a soldering iron. I was getting too old for this shit. At forty-five I was ready to retire, only I didn’t have any money. Maybe I could get the good Reverend to float me a loan before I had his ass arrested and permanently thrown in the slammer.

I had the combination to the safe now. I felt good about that. And, I knew the book contained evidence of terrorist activity.
Datsun pickup truck burst into flames.
I didn’t know the details, but someone named Brother Philip had torched a vehicle and considered it a victory. I would have to get back into Strychar’s study at a
better time, ideally when he was not at home, and smuggle the book out of the complex.

I kicked back on the king-size bed with my clothes on and stared at the ceiling for a while. At 6:01 someone knocked on my door. I got up and answered it. It was Brother Thad.

“I’m supposed to give you a ride back to the dorm,” he said.

“They found me a new room already?”

“Yeah. Actually, you’re in the same room as before. They reassigned Brother Simon.”

I wondered if they had reassigned Brother Simon the same way they had reassigned Black Beret Number Two.

“Let me just grab my things,” I said.

I put the fishing vest on and stuffed my dirty clothes into my backpack.

Thad drove to the men’s dorm and dropped me off at the curb.

“See you in a few,” he said. “There’s breakfast in the chow hall after the prayer meeting.”

“All right.”

I walked inside and took the stairs to my room. The floor had been mopped with a pine-based solvent that made me sneeze. I opened a window to let in some fresh air.

Brother Simon, the saxophone player, was not there. His closet was empty, but there were still some things on his desk: the tin pencil caddy, the letter opener, a cheap electronic calculator, and a little white Bible like the ones they give away in hospitals and jailhouses. I wondered if he had forgotten those items or merely abandoned them. I wondered if I would see him later at band rehearsal and how awkward that would be. I wondered if he would sneak up behind me and slit my throat.

His bed had been stripped, revealing an ancient mattress with a colorful array of stains and a steel bed frame that was probably forty years old and would probably last another four hundred. I looked around. I wanted my old room back at Reverend Strychar’s house.

I threw my backpack on Simon’s naked bed, sat on my own and opened the little white Bible to a page that had been marked with a little red ribbon attached to the book’s little gold-embossed spine. Verse forty-one of Matthew chapter thirteen had been highlighted in yellow:
The son of man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.

Everything that causes sin and all who do evil. That sounded like everything and everybody under the sun to me. What would be left? Just the son of man and his angels, I guessed, living in one hell of a nice shiny sterile sin-free Utopia of a kingdom until one of the angels decided to stage a coup and then here we go again. I tossed the Bible into the trashcan. I had no use for it. God and I hadn’t been on speaking terms for quite some time, since the day a fireball of jet fuel consumed everyone I loved.

The stressful night was starting to catch up with me. I felt drained, achy, and flushed, like I was coming down with the flu or something. I needed several hours of uninterrupted rest. I didn’t want to go to the prayer meeting, but Reverend Strychar was expecting me and I didn’t want to give him a reason to doubt my loyalty and enthusiasm. I needed to play the part for a little while longer, at least until I could get into the safe again.

I walked down the stairs and out into the morning. The sunshine gave me a headache, but the air felt clean and I took some nice deep breaths of it on my walk to the temple.

I got there a few minutes late. The meeting had already begun. Meeting. It was more like a Holy Roller clusterfuck, with everyone shouting gobbledygook and waving their arms in the air. One man was on the floor, apparently having some kind of seizure. Was he full of Jesus or full of the Devil? Impossible to tell. Maybe he was just full of shit. It was all very disturbing. I’d never seen anything like it.