“So much for that haven, huh?” Thornell said. So he did know about Boyle.
Something popped into my head. I hesitated to mention it. Then, I don’t know why, but I said, “You know Jonesey from the Bones? He’s thinking about organizing a rally.”
Thornell seemed amused. He snorted through his nose. “Really? A chak rally? That’s bat-shit crazy.”
I agreed, then opened the door.
The space on the other side was small, windowless, full of mops, cleaning supplies, and a big pile of rags on the floor.
Only the pile of rags had a nervous laugh. “Heh-heh.”
I got closer, nudged the pile with my foot. It trembled.
I tried to remember how to sound gentle. “Ashby, you remember me?”
“Heh-heh.”
I scanned his body, checked his limbs. He looked like he was in one piece.
I knelt so he could see my face. “I was in the car with you and Frank, remember? Big yellow car?”
He picked his head up a little. “Cool car. Heh-heh. Frank. Frank. Frank.”
I spoke slowly. “Did you see what happened to Frank?”
He shook like his whole body remembered. “It was bad. Heh-heh. They thought I shot the cop, but he shot himself. Heh-heh. I ran and I ran. Frank knows I didn’t do it. He has to tell them or I’ll be executed.”
Damn. He was half in the room, half back in the convenience store. “Right. Frank knows you were innocent. He was in the big yellow car with you and Mr. Turgeon. Do you remember that? You dropped me off and drove away?”
“Frank shoved me. I ran and ran. They thought I shot that cop. They jumped out and came after me.”
“Who came after you? Was it Boyle’s brother and sister? Cara and Martin? Do you know what they look like?”
Stupid question. They’d have hired some local goons.
“Thought I shot the cop. Had a pair of clippers. Needed two hands, heh-heh,” he said. Then he clamped his fists, slammed them together, and made a cutting noise.
“Did you see what happened to Mr. Turgeon? The driver? Guy who looked like an egg?”
He twisted his head. I thought he was nodding.
“Frank?” he said. “Heh-heh. Can you find him?”
This was getting nowhere fast. I patted him on the knees, rose to leave, and said exactly the wrong thing. “I’m going to try.”
He got up, ready to follow.
“I’m coming with you,” he said. “Heh-heh.”
He was the only witness. I figured taking him would be safer than leaving him here. The place was falling apart at the seams, and the Boyles might decide to tie up loose ends. Maybe I could sort through all that gibberish and get some details. Besides, like Thornell, like me, he needed something to do, too.
“Heh-heh.”
But the laugh was already getting to me.
8
Parrots. We sounded like a couple of parrots.
He’d say, “Heh-heh. We’re going to find Frank.”
And I’d tell him, “Sure, kid, sure.”
It was a long drive back. Two or three times as long as it should have been, and I was speeding. All the while, I didn’t have the heart to ask Ashby if he realized we were only looking for Frank’s head. The rest had already been accounted for.
I’ve done stupider things than letting him tag along, but I couldn’t think of any. The really stupid part was thinking I could make sense of him. He was like his own ghost, stuck in what paranormal investigators call a “residual haunting,” a spirit replaying his trauma over and over. It’s not intelligent, can’t chat about the weather; it only plays it routine.
When he wasn’t talking about finding Frank, he didn’t even realize Frank was gone. Every now and then, for half a sentence he’d worry about his “upcoming” trial— you know, the one where he was convicted and put to death? Then he’d spin back to Frank.
“Heh-heh.”
The big thing I couldn’t figure out was why he hadn’t gone feral. Hell, I had enough trouble dealing with my own brain. How far a leap could it be from “heh-heh” to gnashing teeth? Did the brain damage work like a defense mechanism? If the gods watched out for drunks and madmen, God was his autopilot. Meaning, if he couldn’t pay attention to anything long enough to get depressed about it, he’d never get depressed.
Ha. If I wanted to avoid doing the wild thing, maybe I should bash my head with a crowbar a few times. Listening to him, I certainly wanted to.
It wasn’t until we cruised past the No Dumping sign, the land around it barren and lonely even in the daylight, that something different happened. Ashby spasmed like he’d been slapped, and spit out a jumble of words. He was talking so fast I was afraid to interrupt. I pulled over and listened, fishing as best I could in the babbling brook.
I thought about having him walk around, but it seemed cruel. The kid was sounding more and more upset, so I decided to get him back to town.
As the desert receded, Ashby calmed down. It was all, “Heh-heh. We’re going to find Frank,” again.
I had a few ideas about what to do next, but kept losing track of them. I didn’t know if any of them were good, but, afraid I might lose the one that was, driving with one hand I unpacked the new recorder I’d bought with Turgeon’s money. Nearly lost a finger on the titanium-plastic packaging. It was a pretty nice machine. Even came with a suction-cupped microphone, for recording phone calls, or conversations on the other side of a window. Once I got the batteries in and stuffed the microphone attachments into a pocket, I made a few notes, hoping I’d remember how to access the time stamp.
I was almost finished when the air conditioner stopped working. Aside from Ashby’s being such a great conversationalist, now I had to worry about staying fresh. Fucking microbes. Any chak who isn’t a germa-phobe is kidding himself. I thought about getting some of that power body wash, but it might eat my skin away.
Did you know you could melt a chak with a can of Coke? There’s a video up on YouTube. Takes a long, long time.
We reached Fort Hammer proper by the ugly midafternoon. The heat was making all sorts of smells rise off the pavement. I dropped off the car, paid the extra fees the manager slipped onto the bill, and headed to the local library, hoping to get a lead on Martin and Cara. Instead of the car, I had to steer Ashby. The guy couldn’t even turn a corner by himself.
The library was a small stone building with two faux pillars out front. Since it was a public place, technically they couldn’t kick us out unless we caused a disturbance, by, I dunno, eating one of the librarians. It was a step down from the Styx, our local cybercafe, one room about the size of a hotel lobby, with an Internet connection less reliable than a check in the mail, but I didn’t think Ashby would go over well with the Bohemians.
Once I maneuvered the kid through the doors, I felt a blast of cool air. At least it was air conditioned. I wasn’t cooking anymore. I was also relieved to see that, for a change, the Internet was up and running.
The only thing that made me worry was an old beanstalk standing guard at the head of the terminals. He was tall, withered, skin and bones except for the skin part, and his eyes were mostly white. I would’ve taken him for one of us, but a glob of spit on his lip pegged him as a liveblood. He was one of the homeless, trying to get out of the heat. Didn’t blame him, but street folk tend to get territorial, especially around chakz, since we’re the only ones they can push around;
I found two terminals side by side and set up Ashby with some game that had bright shiny lights. My keyboard had the escape key missing, no metaphor intended, but some of the others looked worse, so I settled in and tried to do what I do worst—focus.
