“Simon?” he echoed. He opened the door a bit more and pushed open the screen so he could see her better. “Simon who?”
“Mendez,” Beth said. “You know who I’m talking about.”
The man looked to and fro across the porch with a cautious gaze. He seemed like he expected a swarm of police officers to pounce from the shadows at any moment.
He thinks this is a trap, Beth thought. He thinks I’m trying to set him up. He’s going to shoot me.
“Calm down,” Simon said, chuckling a little. “Give him a chance. He’s not a psycho, Beth.”
I don’t know that, she mused.
Lobo turned center and stared her down. “Prove it,” he said.
He doesn’t believe me, Beth thought.
“He will. Just tell him what I say next,” Simon said.
” ‘One way or another, I’ll be back,’ ” she repeated Simon’s words.
Lobo’s face softened. Every bit of suspicion seemed to leak away from his features, as well as a bit of his color. His mouth opened and hung agape slightly.
“It’s what he said to you last time you spoke,” Beth said, following through with what Simon told her to say.
“It is him, then,” Lobo said, almost too quiet for Beth to hear. “I thought the son of a bitch was dead.”
“He was,” Beth explained. “But he’s back. And we need your help. Both of us.”
“He’s back?” Lobo said. “Is he with you?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
The man opened the door fully and stood aside, granting Beth access. “Come in,” he said. “Any friend of Simon’s is a friend of mine.”
She walked past the man into the Fog house’s foyer. Despite being broken down to all hell, the place was enormous. At one point, it might have been a bed and breakfast. Now it served as a last refuge for drug burnouts. A safe place for people to get high without wandering the streets, where they were prey to all kinds of criminals — and that was if the police didn’t pick them up.
There was a staircase leading up to the second floor. It had fine wooden railings, but they had been carved at by countless junkies killing the time with their pocket knives. The wooden steps had a long rug that ran all the way up their length, most likely to conceal the many broken boards and depressions that plagued them.
There were some framed paintings in the hall that ran beside the staircase, as if some Victorian family had owned the home before abandoning it, leaving it at the mercy of a pack of Fogheads. Beside these paintings were posters, casually tacked up at whatever angle the designer pleased. They declared concerts for long-disbanded rock bands. There was one for an Iron Maiden tour in the 1980s. Another was from the early 2000s, but Beth hadn’t heard of the band. On the back wall — at the end of the corridor — was a movie poster for one of the Batman films.
“This way,” Lobo said.
She said nothing as he led her into one of the rooms off the left side of the ground-floor hallway. It seemed to be a study of sorts. A large desk dominated the center of the room. There was green felt glued onto the desk’s surface. On top of that sat a small tablet and a short stack of cash. An office lamp illuminated the scene.
“Close the door behind you,” the Fog dealer instructed.
Beth did so with an ounce of hesitation, cringing as the door creaked shut. Part of her felt like she had just sealed herself in her own tomb. Simon reassured her.
“So, I’m always willing to help out a friend of Simon’s,” Lobo started, taking a seat at the green-felted desk, “but I think I deserve an explanation. No one is allowed to bring their problems in this house unless I say so, understand? So maybe you can help me help you by telling me a story.”
Man, where to begin? Beth wondered.
“From the beginning,” Simon replied.
Lobo’s face was hard to read after Beth finished summarizing their story. Part of the way his eyelids rested made him look like he was permanently awe-struck. Yet — within the eyes — the pupils darted around the room, as if waiting for someone to jump out from behind a door and announce that he’d been punked. Regardless of whatever internal suspicions he held, he remained silent throughout the whole exposition. Beth stumbled over some parts, but Simon helped to fill in any blanks that her memory left in the narrative.
“That’s a pretty crazy story, yo,” Lobo said, almost too casually for Beth’s comfort. He snatched a pretzel from somewhere within his desk, offering one to the detective. She declined with a modest wave. “Almost too crazy to believe.”
“It’s true,” Beth replied. “Every word. And that’s why we need your help.”
“No kidding,” Lobo said, chewing on his dry morsel. “You got robot hitmen after you and you’ve pissed off one of the biggest terrorists in modern history. I’d be shitting myself if I were you. No wonder you came looking for help. I’m just surprised it’s my door Simon led you up to.”
“We’re desperate,” Beth said, echoing the sentiment the I.I. shared in her head.
Lobo seemed to think while he tried to swallow the overstuffed mouthful he was chewing on. Once he managed to shove the knot down his throat, he rose from his seat. Beth almost thought he was about to call bullshit on their story and kick her out onto the street, but he offered a warm smile instead.
“Helping people in trouble is kinda our specialty here,” he said. “Like I said: any friend of Simon’s is welcome here. Of course we’ll help you out.”
Beth never thought in a million years that she’d almost be moved to tears of relief at the invitation to take shelter in a Fog house. Yet that’s how she felt — realizing all of
