Original art by caithness155 - deviantART Site · Used with permission, no other use is permitted.
Part 1
How had things come to this?
The midday sun beamed down at me as I sat on a wonderfully manicured lawn, the burning orb seemingly amused with my attempts to hold my guts in. If you've never, let me tell you . . . your insides are slippery. And red.
The sky was clear, and everything in suburbia was bright and clean, shiny and new. The trees were lively and lush, the grass I found myself on was green and springy and healthy, and everything was perfect but me. Well . . . I was about as perfect as I ever got, and that's not easy when you're sitting in between two dead suburbanites, one of whom hired you to prevent this kind of thing, and your legs are starting to go numb.
I couldn't see the street from where I was sitting, but I knew that it was lined with clean SUV's and sporty coupes. The garbage cans were all lined up with each other on the curb, and in about ten minutes the sanitation truck would be by. Five minutes after that, the paperboy would ride by on his fifteen-speed, flinging bundle after bundle in perfect, practiced arcs. I needed to get somebody's attention, and those were my best bets.
My eyelids were the second heaviest things in the universe. My head was heavier, I believe, only because it was carrying the eyelids. I never wanted to go to sleep so badly. But hey . . . everything is relative, right? I'd also never wished that my intestines weren't so hard to get a hold of. First time for everything, and all that.
Somehow, I managed to hold on to consciousness and my guts for the next ten minutes, when the garbage men stopped in front of the house I was at. I raised my gun--which had the new vote for heaviest thing ever--and fired three shots.
It took some time, but being that I was in a very nice neighborhood, not too much time, but I finally heard sirens, and I let the world go.
I was sitting in my office with my feet on my desk, wondering where my pizza was. My office was located in a strip mall on the south side of San Marcos, not five minutes from the pizza place I had ordered from an hour earlier. My mood was already shitty because I was broke, the A/C unit was barely limping along, my car had just got impounded, and my damn computer kept freezing up. This pizza situation was not helping.
The last of the petty cash was already allotted for today's lunch, so the only thing I really wanted more than food was a client. Or a repo. Or whatever, something to bring in the green. I had just closed my eyes in an attempt to summon Ed McMahon and a big-ass check when my reverie was interrupted by the jingle of my door opening.
I didn't know who the lady in my doorway was, but I was pretty sure she didn't have any pizza. That was okay, though. She wore a wide-brimmed hat on top of perfect brunette hair, and a heart-shaped face made up well enough so that it didn't look made up at all. All that sat on top of an hourglass figure wrapped in a sundress, with two well-toned and tanned legs coming out the bottom. She stood there for a second, allowing me to bask in her glow. I managed to not sit up and bark, but just barely.
She let go of the door and sauntered in. Then she looked around and faltered a bit.
"Not exactly what you expected?"
She nodded to herself as she took in the, ah, ambience of my office. "No, not at all. But perhaps," she smiled at me, "perhaps exactly what I need."
I swam up out of memory and found myself strapped to a gurney. My middle was still on fire, and it felt like there was something heavy on my chest. Possibly just my imagination, possibly a Volvo. I wasn't sure, and couldn't see.
The lights in the ceiling went by at a steady, almost leisurely pace. If I kept looking, they would hypnotize me, but as much as I hurt, I didn't want that. I needed to feel this.
I needed to hurt because I let it happen.
Her name was Lauren, and she hired me to keep her safe. Among other things . . . I also had to prove her innocence in something, and from the start I knew that I couldn't do both. I should have gotten help. Or turned her down. But I didn't and, well . . . see where it gets you?
Lauren. Right then, as I was being wheeled to an O.R. to get patched up, she was getting stiff. Probably already in a body bag while her beautiful lawn was being trampled by crime scene photographers and homicide detectives. And no one would understand. That hurt to think of, but perhaps I deserved that pain, too.
I tried to make a fist, found that I lacked the strength to do so.
"Not the only strength you're short on, bub," I croaked. Then I chuckled/coughed/spasmed once and decided that humor would not do for the foreseeable future.
What I didn't get was, how had I become so . . . involved in my client? That just wasn't me; it wasn't the way I operated. Other private snoopers, they got all soft in the heart and in the head. Not me. What made Lauren so damn special?
The question echoed in my mind until they put a mask over my face. Then, thankfully, the world went away again.
I had my feet up on my desk while I admired my retainer check. Including the two after the decimal point, there were five digits on it. It wasn't that work wasn't plentiful, had I chose to accept it . . . but there's a limit to how often I can take beer as payment. I don't even drink.
My newest client, Lauren, hired me because she was scared. Her boyfriend had died of other than natural causes; he'd been shot. She'd found my name in his personal effects. He was an investigator, too. Simon d'Argent was his name, and he was very much a top-dollar hire. Occasionally, he'd throw me something to keep me afloat . . . we knew a couple of the same people. Anyway, Lauren said that he was looking into something and it got him killed. And, since she lived with him, she was scared that maybe she was next, a loose end that Simon may have confided in.
This worried me a bit. I mean, Simon d'Argent was no pushover. If I had had to pick someone to back me up on something, someone that was neither a cop nor a robber, Simon would have been my choice. He was tough. He was smart, good with a gun and fast on his feet.
I shook my head. I'd gotten paid, and I was in it to win it, as they say. I would just have to be smarter and faster and tougher than the late boyfriend, I decided, so I folded the check and put it in my pocket. I needed a gun. And some food. I probably needed my car out of impound, too. Following Lauren around while looking for someone else following Lauren around would be a major pain if I had to do it while riding the bus.
I picked up the phone and dialed a friend that worked for San Antonio's finest. He was a homicide guy, and he had also known Simon--pretty well, actually--so chances were that he'd have his ears in the wind for anything about what happened.
"Homicide, Chang," came the voice on the phone.
"Johnny, it's me--" was all I got out.
"No," he said. "Whatever it is, no. The last report I had to fill out after working with you? They'll be planting trees for years. So, no."
"Well . . . maybe, then," said Johnny.
We talked.
Part 2
My eyes flew open, and the first thing I noticed after the tube in my throat—a not inconsiderable uncomfortableness, I think you should know—was that I wasn't dead. While grateful, I tried to ask whoever was there, as politely as I could, to put me back under. Quickly.
Amidst the hollering and scurrying about, I saw her at the foot of the bed, eyes accusing.
"You did this to me," Lauren said.
I denied it. I clawed at the tube so that I could deny it out loud. Someone stopped me.
"You killed me," Lauren said softly, her face a look of hurt and of the betrayed.
No! I lurched up as hard as I could, and somehow there was a scalpel in my hand. What it was for was kind of fuzzy, but I had the fucking thing, and that's what mattered.
Lauren just looked at me, her big eyes full of pain, then turned and walked away.
Into the light.
Right then, I knew what the scalpel was for. I tried to do damage with it, cut tubes or wrists, whatever I had to do to follow, but I couldn't.
The anesthesiologist, woken up by all the commotion, put me back to sleep.
Lauren was a work-at-home kind of gal, so most of my surveillance took place parked across the street from her house. The neighborhood she lived in was more upscale than mine . . . they had trash pickup twice a week. The paperboy's bike was in better condition than my car was. Probably went faster, too.
I had with me all the proper fixin's for a stakeout: a map of the city with Lauren's planned routes highlighted in red, a Thermos full of RC Cola, cold pizza in the backseat, and an old copy of "Grappling" magazine for when nothing was happening.
Nothing happened quite a bit, as things turned out. The only thing of note to happen so far that day was a patrolman coming by to see if I had "engine troubles," he said. I talked him out of running me off, but I knew the car was going to continue being a problem. Instead of an old Camaro, I needed a van to do this right, something clean that I could hang out in the back of and watch the world from.
Lauren came out to her car, arms laden with packages to mail, and I stopped what I was doing to watch her. I was watching her so hard that I almost didn't hear the screech of tires. Some instinct took over, and I jumped out of the car and tackled Lauren to the ground as a black SUV sped past, zigzagging through the space in the street where she had just been standing.
I moved to get up, maybe follow in my car, but Lauren held on to me. She was trembling, and I was very aware of how her breath came in little, soft gasps. She was looking into the street after her would-be killer. She turned her eyes up to me.
"You . . . you all right?"
"You saved me," she said.
I smiled and shrugged, which is hard to do when you're stuck in a push-up over your employer.
"S'why you pay me," I said.
"You moved so fast," she breathed. Her eyes were wide, glistening. I helped her up. As she stood, her necklace shifted and caught my attention. It was a rusty-looking skeleton key on a chain.
"Let's go and send off your mail. I'll ride with you."
She nodded, and we left.
The first thing I was aware of this time was a pounding headache. Except, like, with the volume turned all the way down. My head was full of sharp cotton on swivels, and I wanted it all to go away.
I opened my eyes, and the world refused to come into focus. Double and treble images fought for dominance, so I shook my head to clear things up.
Yes, I know. Bad choice.
There was a fuzzy shape sitting in a fuzzy chair next to my bed. It spoke, predictably enough, in a fuzzy voice.
"Keep still," it said.
This sounded like the best advice ever, so I took it. I laid my head back on the pillow and tried to relax.
"Listen to me," the voice said. "Right now, your life hangs in a very delicate balance. The damage to your stomach was . . . distressing. Extensive."
I croaked a laugh. Distressing, indeed.
"Don't do that," said the voice. "Everything is being held in place very carefully, and they have to go back into your midsection again."
They?
"I'm here to make sure that you get through this. All of it." The shape in the chair sat back, and the room spun a little bit as my tenuous focus slipped.
"Urk," I said.
"Yeah, it'll be like that. Go ahead and rest. You've been talking in your sleep."
"Urk?"
"Yes. I want to hear the rest of this story"
I shrugged as well as I could and closed my eyes.
It was Saturday, and Lauren had given me the day off. She'd promised that she'd cook all her meals, stay inside the house, windows and doors locked, etc. The attempted hit-and-run had really spooked her, she told me, but she didn't feel right taking up all my time. I didn't feel too bad about it; I liked watching over her. I really liked it, which kind of took me by surprise. But, I took the offer anyway.
Every morning since I moved in, I'd swipe the paper off of my neighbor's welcome mat, and it was time to catch up on reading it for the week. Comics, classifieds, obituaries. I was also keen to see what had been written about Simon d'Argent's untimely demise. I had gotten the real story from the police, but I wanted to see what they had put in the paper. Part of Johnny Chang's M.O. was to put misleading, even erroneous information out to the press, and then lay low and wait for someone to correct the story, be it to the media or just to other lowlifes. I'm shocked at how often this bit works.
I was a bit surprised that Johnny was the lead investigator. When he was coming up, Simon was on his way out, and they had gotten partnered up. The way I heard it, they didn't get along so well, but they cleared more cases than any other set of detectives. If they had clicked as well as they should have, they could have been the Green Hornet and Kato.
But, they constantly rubbed each other the wrong way, and they had had some kind of falling out before Simon left the force. Still, they had been partners, and I thought that the department would say that Johnny Chang was "too close" to the case to be objective.
I thought about Simon and Lauren. She was in her mid-to-late thirties—hard as it was to tell that—and he was in his mid-fifties. Not unheard of, but I didn't figure Simon to go for them that young. Or Lauren to go for someone so old. I'd have thought that she'd be more into someone closer to her own age.
Like me.
Part 3
"Like you?" The fuzzy voice was back and sounded amused. I must have looked confused, because the voice then chuckled and said, "Never mind."
The dream/memory was fading, and any ideas of the details about it were fading, too. Just as well. From what I recalled about my last couple of forays into yesterdays, I'd be better off not remembering.
"What day is it?" My voice sounded like a rusty gate opening.
"Today is Tuesday."
My eyes opened. "Tuesday?"
The brightness of the room killed my brain, and I could just make out the fuzzy shape in the chair, nodding its head.
"Tuesday," I said. "I've been here four nights?"
"Yep," said the shape. "All day Saturday was fairly touch-and-go, you had massive internal bleeding. All day Sunday you were delirious, but yesterday, you were pretty easy to follow."
"Who are you?"
The shape shook its head.
"You're not ready to hear who I am just yet." He did something with his hands. "You should rest. You're very tired."
He was right. All of a sudden, damn, was I tired. I closed my eyes.
"Go back to sleep," the voice said, "and tell me what else happened."
The attempt on Lauren's life had particularly annoyed me.
I used my contacts in the department--the ones that were still talking to me--and did a look-up on the plates of the black SUV. I didn't think that that would result in anything useful, mostly because I didn't believe that anyone would be so stupid as to use their own vehicle in an intentional hit-and-run, but hope abounds.
As it turns out, I was only half-right. While the car was stolen, it had been found in front of an apartment building in San Antonio. And, the prints that they found all over the inside of the car matched one Matthew Irish, whose last home of record was in that very apartment building. Mr. Irish wasn't very bright.
His short jacket was full of small-time stuff, so I doubted that he was the one that had pulled trigger on Simon. Two-bit losers like Mat Irish didn't get the drop on Simon d'Argent. I thought about all this as I climbed the steps to Irish's apartment. I knew he would be home, I followed him here. When I got to his door, I kicked it in.
He came at me like a thing possessed, but I had enough lead time to turn his momentum and slam him into the wall. He groped for me, but I had the back of his neck and was pressing as hard as I could, keeping him on the wall. He stunk, bad.
I let up on his neck for just long enough to knee him in the kidneys a couple of times, and he still managed to turn and swing at me. I grabbed the arm and dragged him down, punched him in the face and neck a couple of times.
"I don't know what you're on," I told him, "but you're sure as shit going to feel this when you come down."
I pulled a crescent wrench from my back pocket and began to hit him with it.
My face felt hot when I woke up, and I knew what I had been rambling about. I opened my eyes, but the chair next to my bed was empty. Good.
I reached out slowly, touched the seat; it was still warm. My mystery guest had left when he had heard what I had done. Did he go to inform the police? Was he the police? Well, good luck with that, asshole. They wouldn't find Irish dead . . . at least, not in his apartment.
My vision had cleared, so I took a look around the room, taking stock of my situation. I was in a room with a single bed, had one of those heart rate/blood pressure monitors and an IV hooked up to me. The sun was coming in through a window to my left, and what little I could see through the slats of the Venetian blind was all blue sky.
I still felt like shit, and the soreness in my torso didn't seem to have a definite starting or stopping point. I looked under the hospital johnnie, the big bandage across my stomach covering a sprawling, rambling line of stitches, staples and scabs. It itched, all the way across. Everyone tells me, itchy means healy. I think that's crap.
In the middle of my chest was a large bruise. It felt like, under the skin, there was a shape stamped into my breastbone. I stroked it. Tried to remember where and when I had picked that up. Nothing came to mind.
Brief flashes of Lauren's sun-dappled lawn flickered in and out, superimposing themselves over the hospital room. I closed my eyes against sudden vertigo. Strobing pictures in my head changed from a sunny day to a mouthful of teeth, sharp and shining, inches from my face.
My whole body convulsed, and my hand fell away from my chest. The vision stopped, and I lay there, breathing hard and listening to the monitoring machine go insane. Then everything went grey again, and I heard a solid tone fill the room.
The police were inside questioning Lauren. I knew they'd be coming. Just some routine questions, they had said on the phone--Lauren and I took all her calls on speakerphone now--but that was copspeak for "don't get comfortable."
So I was outside in my rental van. Seething. Not only was I back out in the van instead of in the house, but I was way out of reach if something went wrong. I had a 12-guage pump sitting across my lap and my door ajar, just in case there was any sign of distress from the house.
The past week had been one of my best ever. Maybe not professionally . . . I hadn't yet found out who had sent Mat Irish to kill Lauren, but I was working on that. Hard to do that and protect her, but I would manage. Besides, there wasn't anyone else I could trust with such a . . . a monumental task. Any way I looked at it, I was on my own.
That I was in the van and the police were inside felt like a violation. They didn't care about her. If something were to go down, they would cover each other first. That meant, really, it was up to me to take care of Lauren. As it should be.
I could feel my palms go sweaty against the shotgun at the prospect of something happening to her. On my watch. I knew that it would do no good to sit and worry about what might happen, but I couldn't help myself. Somewhere along the line, Lauren had become . . . precious to me.
The front door opened, and I sat straighter in the van, alert for danger or a call from help. What I got instead was the two plainclothes detectives, smiling and laughing with Lauren. She put her hand on one of their arms, and that cop's smile widened, his eyes stuck on her.
I got a really good look at him.
Part 4
When I startled myself awake, I couldn't see. Again. This time, however, it felt like there was something on my face. I went to touch it, and I found my arms would only travel two inches.
"Huh," I said. They had put me in restraints, maybe blindfolded me. Neither of these things were signs that the day was going to work out well for me.
"You're tied down," said a grizzled voice to my left. It was no longer fuzzy, but I still couldn't tell to whom it belonged. Captain Obvious, perhaps.
"Kinky," I said. "So what, my eyes and ears clear up, so now I gotta wear a blindfold while you're here?"
"Ah," the voice said. "That wasn't my doing. That was yours." I heard some papers rustling, some cloth on cloth. "Let me read this, excerpts from a nurse's statement from what happened after you flatlined."
Flatlined. Huh. I wonder what brought that on?
"Okay, here we go." The voice sounded . . . well, I don't know how it sounded. "After they zapped you, and your heart started beating again, everything was fine. Then, for whatever reason, one of the interns put your hand on your chest and you . . . well, you went berserk." My guest cleared his throat.
"You, ah, sat straight up, screamed so loud that one nurse fainted, then you tried to gouge out your own eyes. You didn't do too hot there, only some damage to your eyelids--you're still pretty weak--but enough that they had to bandage you up and restrain you." Just then, my eyelids started to itch, as if to tell me, See? It's the truth.
"Alright." No, it was not goddamn alright. Game face. "So maybe I freaked out and tried to blind myself. Nobody's perfect." I shook my hands in the restraints a little bit. "A little help here? I won't freak out again. I think."
"Well," the visitor said, "let's see what else you remember before you make that a promise."
The black I was seeing got somehow blacker, and I went away again.
For the next three days after the police talked to Lauren, I made her promise me not to go anywhere, take deliveries . . . anything. I had something to take care of, and I couldn't take her with me while I did it.
I was parked outside a deli not too far from the police station, killing time and waiting for him to show up. I'd have gone in to grab something to eat, but when I tried a candy bar earlier, I found myself unable to. I'd get it close to my mouth, and the memory of Lauren touching that cop's arm and his smile would fill my head. I'd gotten nauseous, so I figured that I had something to do before I could have a good meal. 'Bout time, too. This was my third day at this deli, watching.
Oh . . . and there he was, the bastard. I got out of my car, followed him and his partner into the deli, where they always sat near the back. They didn't even see me, which was perfect.
The partner sat down and the cop I was following went to the back exit, where he went to smoke. I followed my quarry out the back door. He still hadn't seen my face. I grabbed him from behind and pinned him to the wall, the giant muzzle of a .44 holding his head in place.
"Don't turn, don't reach, don't move," I told the cop. "Listen. The Simon d'Argent case; follow whatever leads you got, but if I ever catch you sniffing around the woman you questioned yesterday, I will find you--just like I did today--and I will hurt you."
He shuffled a little bit, made noises about having a badge and being a cop, so I thumped him a little on the base of the skull with my gun.
"You're not listening to me. I don't want trouble, but I really don't care that you're a cop. I want you to leave Lauren alone. She had nothing to do with Simon's death, and someone is trying to kill her, too. So back off . . . I have got this."
He nodded his assent, and I was so happy that I didn't have to shoot a cop this year. They take a dim view of that.
"This may sting a little bit," I told him, and cracked him hard in the back of the head with my elbow.
"Wow," said the voice, waking me. "Taking on ex-convicts, strong-arming police . . . is your work week always this kind of intrepid?"
I ignored the question, as I had a blinding headache and my mouth tasted like sulfur. I thought about trying to scrape my tongue clean with my teeth, but that would be undignified. Especially in front of my visitor, who already knew too damn much about me and my business.
"If you're not going to tell me who you are, maybe you can tell me why you're so interested in what happened? You have a badge? Are you a writer, reporter? Are you another patient here, and this is how you get your jollies when The Price is Right isn't on?" I shook my hands; still restrained. I shook them again in frustration. "Why?"
My visitor sighed. "I have a vested interest in what happened to you, Lauren, and her rusted key. What do you know about the key?"
I had frozen when he mentioned the key, I didn't know why. A vague dread had come upon me; I was scared.
"I don't know anything about a key," I lied without knowing why. I started to sweat.
"Oh, your mouth says no," the gravelly voice said, "but everything else says yes. You know about the key." I felt him tap my head. "In here. You've seen the key, maybe more than once. Maybe you even know what it does. And that's why I'm here."
I shook my head. "Don't. Know. Anything."
"Have it your way," the voice said. "I'm constantly amazed at the ability to deny."
"Stick around, you'll find I'm full of surprises," I said.
He laughed. "I know all about you. Private investigator in your mid-twenties, smart, good with your hands. Quick. You always resolve whatever cases you take on. You can detect the ass off of things. And you do what you do so you can do it on your own terms. Why is that? Is it a problem with authority, or are you afraid of something?"
I said nothing.
"Why is it, someone with your talent is at the bottom of the heap? You turn down jobs that you know you can do. There are things you're shying away from. Why?"
I said more nothing.
"Fine. Okay. We'll talk about it later. But now, you will tell me what else happened this week."
"Eat shit," I said.
He laughed, and then I passed out.
It was Wednesday, and Lauren and I were having dinner in her living room. The lights were dimmed, because Lauren said she had a headache, and we were sitting cross-legged in a rough circle of candles.
"This is good," I told her. "What is it?"
She smiled. "What do you think it is?"
I considered. It was somewhere between pork and chicken, but I couldn't tell what, exactly. I shook my head. "Can't tell. But it's really good."
Her smile widened. "Here, have some wine. It's very red, and a very good year." She poured me a glass.
"This is very nice of you to have me over like this," I said. And it was, too. She had really pulled out all the stops. There were several courses, each of them more exotic than the last, and I couldn't place any of it.
"Well," she said, "I just wanted to show you how much I appreciate all the hard work you're doing. And it's for me, too. Did you taste everything?"
I nodded, and something in her smile changed. The temperature dropped, and all the light in the room seemed to collect in Lauren's eyes. She got up and stood outside the circle of candles, some of which blew out.
"You've been such a good servant," she told me. "I knew--from the first time I saw you--I knew you'd be ideal." She started around the candle circle, her smile widening the whole time. From beneath the neckline of her blouse, she pulled up on her necklace and I caught a glimpse of that key.
I drank in everything she said. I waited for more. And when it finally came, it wasn't in a language I understood. The sounds coming from her didn't sound right, and they hurt my ears. My soul?
I closed my eyes, and I guess I blacked out, because when I opened them back up, the light was normal, and Lauren was kneeling next to me, hand on my forehead. My chest was sore.
"You feeling okay?"
I nodded, and she helped me up. I thanked her again for dinner, then went home and had nightmares. All night.
Part 5
"Did you ever figure out what that whole scene was about?"
I thought about that for a couple of minutes. My visitor--as far as I could tell--didn't fidget or sigh or give any audible sign of impatience as he waited for my answer.
"I think, eventually, the answer dawned on me, yes. But things were too far gone by then." I shifted on the bed a little, thankful for the restraints; they prevented me from scratching my eye scabs, or fidgeting myself, as I normally would when presented with an uncomfortable truth.
"But?"
I nodded. "But none of that part seems . . . real. Like the last two days of my life before I landed here were . . . I don't know, something I watched on television rather than lived."
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I didn't shrug it off.
"You've entered a new world. You should understand, nothing is going to be the same for you."
I nodded, feeling lost, wondering where all my hostility went.
"So, you need to tell me what else happened, so that we can figure out what needs to happen now."
We?
The hand moved from my shoulder to my forehead.
"Tell me."
Black.
I was driving Lauren to a neighborhood not too different from my own. The streetlights, while functioning, were dim and softly glowing. It was almost Victorian by gaslamp, only not as cheery. The block we were on was spotted with vacant lots where old Buicks went to die.
We passed two more blocks just like it, and finally she pointed. "There," she said, and smiled. The temperature dropped in the car, but I barely felt the chill . . . I was with Lauren.
The building I parked in front of was an old, two story townhouse. The dark windows were all on the left and the door was on the right, making a sad, lopsided face. What little yard there was was in bad condition, and there was a pile of yellowed newspapers on the porch.
"I wanted to show you how well you're doing," Lauren said as we mounted the steps to the porch. "The man inside is another private detective I hired, two days before I got to you."
She opened the front door; it was unlocked. The inside of the house was a shambles, matching the outside nicely. And there, huddling by himself on the living room floor, was Lucky Morgan. I guess I could call him a rival, but as far down the ladder we both were, that was kind of a joke. He looked terrible; his huge, blank eyes stared at nothing, his lip twitched and there was drool pooling around his chin. He was near naked, laying in a fetal ball with his face on the floor.
"Lucky," she called.
At the sound of her voice, he started to shiver and moan. I started to feel sick. Her smile brightened. "See, I like the men in your line of work. Such strong wills, such a thirst for life on your own." She knelt down and stroked Lucky's sweaty skull. "Poor little man, he wasn't as full of life as he thought he was. Not like you." Lauren looked at me, and her eyes burned bright.
"You're holding up well. Almost as well as Simon did. Such a will!"
She made hungry sounds and her teeth glistened at me. "You'll be so good for me. But for now, just a morsel will do."
Lauren pulled at her necklace, and the key came out of her blouse. And old rusted key. She knelt over Lucky with it, and when he was just out of my sight, he began to scream.
I woke up and my face was wet. Sometime during my last intermission, the nurse or my visitor had taken he straps off of my wrists, so I brought my hands up and covered my face.
"Easy, man . . . easy," my guest said, clapping my shoulder. I didn't shrug it off or say anything smart-assed; all of the fight and bluster had left me.
"How much more of this do you need?" My voice was hoarse, as if I'd been yelling in my sleep.
"None. We found the pieces of the key, and we can figure out what happened from that. You don't need to do this is anymore. I'll call Johnny. He and Ranger Spenser will come pick you up."
My visitor knew Johnny. I took my hands off my face, removed the blindfold and looked up into the startling blue eyes of Simon d'Argent.
"You're nowhere near as dead as they said you were," I told him.
He laughed.
"No, I'm not. She was keeping me somewhere, some kind of soul storage until she had a need for me. You understand what I'm saying?" He paused. "When you did . . . well, what you had to, you freed me. Now get dressed. You're going home."
I sat and changed, and Johnny Chang showed up with the Texas Ranger to take me home. No jail, no questioning. The Ranger said that there were special instructions for things like this.
Simon went back to his own room at the hospital for tests. On the ride home, Johnny tried to make conversation with me, but I'd had enough of talking. The Ranger made sure I made it inside alright, told me a doctor would be by later, and then they was gone and I was alone. I ordered a pizza and sat on my couch until it came. Lucky Morgan's screams in my head drowned out the TV. I still felt sore, and pizza probably wasn't a good idea, but the hell with it.
Everything about the last two weeks connected, like cars of a train. Everything made sense. And Simon was right . . . the world had changed on me, and nothing would be the same again. That thought in my skull, I went into a fitful slumber.
And I dreamed.
I got the call when the sun was coming up; Lauren was in trouble. I got dressed and grabbed my gun, running like mad, afraid I'd be too late. I left my place and arrived at hers, both in a screech of rubber.
"Lauren!" I called out, catching sight of something at the side of her house. I ran over there, gun in hand and eyes everywhere.
"There he is," she yelled, only not to me. From behind me there was movement, and then my middle was on fire. I started to sag, but Lauren said "Hold," and I held. I blinked and turned to look at my attacker. I didn't recognize him right off, but gradually his face clicked in my head. Mat Irish, still swollen from the job I had done on him. I looked back at her, bewildered.
"I've been pulling his strings, just like I've been pulling yours," Lauren said. "Something important is about to happen, and I need both of you. Right now." She moved to him, and out came that damned key. "Watch closely, my special man."
She held the key like it was a short fencing foil, then lunged, burying it in Mat's chest. His mouth opened in a silent scream, eyes bulging while his face paled. No, not just his face. All the color washed out of him, and Lauren became more vibrant. She removed the key, and he fell, face-first and dead.
She turned to me. "I had to have him cut you open, or you'd still be too strong." She laughed, and the window behind me cracked. "Now darling . . . for you."
Lauren held out the key again, and as she lunged, I raised my gun and caught the key with the barrell. She gasped, looked at my eyes, and I pulled the trigger.
The rusted key disintegrated in a purple flash, and its shrapnel flew back, catching Lauren in the neck. Her sudden, extra smile gapped wide, and we both fell. In her dying throes, I saw her as she really was; blue-black scaly skin, with wings and talons, a pair of curly horns on her head.
Then reality--or whatever--reasserted itself, and laying on the perfect lawn was the ex-con, Lauren and me.
I dragged myself to the wall of the house, holding my guts in and trying not to die. My only thought echoed upon itself, ricocheting across my mind.
How had things come to this?