Disintegration: A Windy City Dark Mystery Read online

  I stand in the alley, holding what can only be described as garbage. I’m holding it like it’s my child, the soggy, crumpled box of tissues.

  Up at the north end of the alley, a woman in a long tan coat drifts by, short black hair in a bob. I start to wander that way. A bloop from the other end of the alley, and I see a cop car drift by, lights cranking on, one man in blue facing forward, pointing, the other turning his head to me, his eyes squinting, lips pursed.

  “I’m not the man you’re looking for,” I mumble under my breath. They keep moving. It’s an old Jedi mind trick.

  A tug at my boxer shorts and I spin around almost flattening some little kid. His eyes go wide, but what does he expect groping a half-naked man in an alley? He’s got something in his arms.

  “Hey, mister, she yours?”

  He’s holding my cat, Luscious. She looks sleepy. Hell, she looks dead.

  “What the hell,” I gasp, reaching out for her. The garbage I was holding falls to the ground.

  “I found her under our back porch, we live right over there,” he says, pointing back over his shoulder.

  I stare at him, his short brown hair, tall for his age, blue striped shirt and jeans, Velcroed-on shoes, chocolate or something at the edge of his mouth. He looks like my son, if he’d lived to be ten.

  “She kept making these noises, not like a meow, like she was angry or sick.”

  “Thank you,” I mutter. “Yes, she’s mine. Thank you.”

  “It’s cool. You okay? You’re in your underwear, you know.”

  “I know. I’m fine. Thought I lost something, was in the dumpster, you know….”

  “Sure, I know. Lost a Spider-Man once. My sister threw it out, stupid monkeyhead.”

  “You should get back inside kid, it’s cold out here. Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “Um…it’s Saturday?”

  He squints his eyes and stares up at me, wrinkling his nose.

  “Oh. Right. Well, thanks. I’d give you something but…no pockets and all that.”

  “It’s cool.”

  He wanders back across the alley, and I turn to go inside. My cat’s still warm, but she’s also limp in my arms. Sick, tired, drugged, or dying—I don’t know. I turn back to the kid, open my mouth to tell him that I may have some old comics in a trunk somewhere, maybe a couple bucks for baseball cards or candy, feeling like I’m maybe eighty years old, but he’s around the corner of the garage, and out of sight.

  I head back in, cold and stiff as alabaster.

  Around the corner a tall thin man with a hawkish nose and not-so-short haircut reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Here you go kid,” he says. “You did great. Perfect. Tell your mom we’re square.”

  “Dosvedanya,” the kid mutters, running off.

  “Right. Dosvedanya, buddy.”

  Chapter 44

  “Oh, sorry, sir…um, there are bodies here we need you to identify. I am so sorry to make you come down here, especially after all that you’ve been through already.”

  What? I know, I’m telling him….

  “Sorry. It’s a technicality, but a legal one, and we need you to come down. I promise you we’ll prosecute the driver of the other car to the fullest extent of the law.”

  Chapter 45

  Some warm milk and a blanket, and Luscious is fine. Groggy, but fine. I place her on my bed where she quickly drifts off to sleep. Snoring even. Which is just strange on a cat.

  I sit next to her, rubbing her back, petting her. I run my hand gently over her head, her neck, and down her soft coat of fur. It’s soothing me as much as it is her. More, probably. It’s dark outside now, and for once, I’m not restless. I’m not eager to go out into the black spaces that surround my apartment. I’m not in a hurry to blend into the shadows and disappear. In fact, I think I might like to be seen.

  Chapter 46

  Middle of the night, and I sit up in bed, feeling as if I’m not alone. The door to my apartment is wide open, light spilling in from the hallway. Standing in the frame is a woman, thin with curves, a short haircut, hands on both of her hips. I blink my eyes, and she’s gone.

  I lie back down and stare at the ceiling and think about Holly. Where is she? Why did this arrangement ever work? Or did it? Contemplating the nape of her neck, I drift off to sleep. Tired. Seeing things.

  A banging at the back door, and I’m standing up before I know it. I go to the armoire and pull out the machete I keep stashed in there and head for the kitchen. I want to face them, see them eye to eye, and make them tell me that what I’m thinking isn’t insane.

  I go to open the deadbolt, but it’s already unlocked. I turn the knob and yank the door open. A tan ceramic planter on a stand lies tipped over on the stairs, broken, a brown, dying plant tumbling out of the soil, roots thin and anemic.

  Is that mine? I don’t know.

  I close the door, snap the deadbolt shut, and lock the knob. Easing over to the front door of my apartment, I place my eye up against the peephole, and stare out into the hallway. There’s an eyeball pressed up against the door, and I lurch back, dropping the machete. It impales the floor, nearly taking off my big toe, where it wobbles back and forth, mocking me like a clown at a circus.

  “Motherfucker.”

  I grab the machete, yank it out of the wood, and pull open the door. Nobody is there. I step out into the hallway and look to the right. A door clicks shut. Or was it closed? I look both ways, and there is the faint smell of curry and cigarette smoke. I look to the left, and the hall is dark, the light at the end of the hall burned out.

  “Not tonight,” I murmur.

  Back into the apartment, I close and lock the door. A gust of cold wind hits me from the side, and I turn to see the sheer lace drapes floating in the night air, the kitchen window wide open. Moonlight spills in from the back alley. I walk over and place the machete on the counter, close the window with a gentle shove, and latch it shut. Turning around, I see a single piece of white paper on the refrigerator, held down by a Budweiser magnet. It’s folded in half, once.

  Taking the note off the door, I unfold it. One line. That’s all there is. But I know who it’s from.

  QUIT FUCKING AROUND AND GET BACK TO WORK.

  I wander back to the bedroom and find a blanket draped over my cat, a small, pink fuzzy little blanket. It has a little white cat stitched into one corner.

  It’s not mine.

  Chapter 47

  “Hey, baby…

  “If you want to meet us at the store, we’ll be there for a bit, so come catch up with us. The kids would love to spend a little time with you….”

  Chapter 48

  Hallucinations, nightmares, and all manner of slips with reality—my life is a smorgasbord of dysfunction, lies, and false memories. What to do? Back to fucking work, I guess. And Vlad made that easy.

  On the dining room table sits a new manila envelope, thicker this time.

  A cup of steaming coffee rests by my right elbow, and I’m freshly showered and dressed. I glance at the alarm clock in my bedroom as if I have someplace to be. It’s actually the morning, there is sunlight to be seen, peeking under window shades, haunting the back of dusty drapes.

  I walk into the kitchen this morning to the smell of percolating beans, a familiar aroma, taking me back to my domestic days. I stare at the black and silver machine, shiny and new. It may as well be an octopus. The bag of freshly ground Hawaiian Blend sits next to it, squat and quiet, nothing to add. There is a box of coffee filters pushed back against the wall and no memory at all of how these items came to be. Maybe it was a late night shopping spree, or Holly, or maybe it was all shoved under the door by Vlad, put together by tiny elves while I slept. It smells too good for me to care.

  I flick open the flap, pull out a thick stack of paper, and clipped to the top is a picture. I drop the stack as if it’s on fire, shaking my head back and forth.

  “No, no, no. It can’t be.”
/>   I leaf through the printouts, copies of copies of copies of old police reports, FBI files, pictures of men, some dead, some alive. I hold a picture up to my face, and stare at her. It isn’t the same face, not exactly. The hair is different, a different cut, blond. My stomach is a gurgling cauldron filled with glowing stones and coiling snakes. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked for more information. It’s all here, the deeds that have been done, plenty of ammunition to make the punishment fit the crime. There’s murder of course, several, too many to count, professionally done for sure. The rape is a surprise, and the logistics beg for clarity, but then again, maybe not. Drugs, of course, heroin, coke, pills, pot. Guns as well, they tend to follow. And sex, the trafficking of human flesh, young girls with dark circles under their eyes, and nothing behind the empty orbs but regret.

  I hold up the picture and stare, a weight descending upon me, suffocating and dense. But after last night, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It doesn’t make sense, but then again, what does? Her face is both the same, and yet different, and words float out of her mouth, in French, German, and Russian. My baby. Her liquid gaze washes over me, and a slew of memories crowd my brain, her lips at my ear, her tongue in my mouth, her body slick with sweat.

  A note is scrawled on the back of her picture, Vlad’s handwriting no doubt, two words, very simple, and to the point:

  DON’T HESITATE

  “Holly, baby. What am I gonna do?”

  At least now I know where she lives.

  Chapter 49

  Up at the crack of dawn, dressed and clean, ready to be a real person, and this lands in my lap. I close the blinds and the only sounds I hear for the next eight hours are the sharp cracks of beer cans opening, and the hollow clang of the bent aluminum against the floor.

  As I pace back and forth, the cat gets lost fast, always uncomfortable when I get like this. Mumbling to myself over the course of the day, hands shooting out, eyes squinting as I look everywhere for answers—the ceiling, the corners of the room, in piles of dirty socks and a toilet bowl of perfectly clear urine.

  There is only one thing I can do, no matter what the true origins of our relationship are, the validity of my shaky memories, and the work I am doing. I must go to her.

  When the fridge is empty, and my face has been covered in stubble, I ease out the back door and into the night. Black leather coat and blue jeans, I have a date with a northbound bus and a siren song that I can’t refuse.

  When I look up, I’m already closing in on Logan Square some eight blocks north of me. As I sit in the back of the bus, the evening jumps and dances, fast cuts to ten minutes later, parts of the journey lost. Odd glances from the occasional passenger, eyes away in a hurry when I catch them. Something I did perhaps. A young girl cries in the seat next to her mother as a scowl tightens across her protective jaw, soothing the child as she glares at me. I catch the eyes of the bus driver in his rearview mirror, and he slowly shakes his head.

  There is a ding as I pull the cord and out I tumble into the street. Applause leaks out the door and the little blond girl in the pigtails stares with rage, slowly giving me the finger.

  I keep moving, the rustle of something in my left hand, brushing against my leg. A Barbie doll with no head juts out of my tight fist. Ah. I really am a monster.

  2206 is in front of my face, inches from my nose. Brass letters, rusting at the edges, a six-flat of apartments, the top floor my destination.

  But I’m a professional now, no front door for me. Or is that what she expects? The key. I have a key from Vlad in my coat pocket. Why not walk on in? Why would she be expecting that? A predator, a man at the window, a shadow at the fire escape, that was to be expected. Not my walking in the front door all “Hi, honey, I’m home.”

  Staring through the glass door of the building’s foyer, wood framing the edges, the floor is littered with old phone books, and boot prints, bent envelopes, and soggy advertisements. I slip the key into the front door, and push it open.

  Musty. A row of mailboxes, six of them, all open wide, and empty. Swishes of mud are smeared across the floor and something else. It’s hard to tell in the dark. A shimmer of light slips in from the street, a reflection off a minivan, and there are long strips of red on the tile, and then it all fades to gray. Maybe.

  Up the stairs the railings are coated in dust, a tall set of windows at the end of each turn, empty tree branches waving in the wind, a view of fire escapes, rooftops, and wire. As if I am a child again, tiptoeing out of bed for a glass of water, I make my way to the top of the steps. Cigarette smoke drifts to me on a low murmur of jazz, a throaty saxophone and suicidal horns. I slip in the key and turn the knob. No time to think. If she’s ready, then I’m dead. So be it.

  I push the door open and soft light fills the room. The apartment is empty, with dusty hardwood and blank walls, a candy wrapper scuttling across the floor. Except for a card table, a cheap folding card table and two red metal chairs. In the center of the table is a tall bottle half filled with clear liquid and two chipped tan coffee cups. Sitting there, one leg crossed over the other, a cigarette held out, a serpent coil of gray smoke twisting up into the air, is Vlad.

  Chapter 50

  “What the fuck, Vlad?”

  “Come in, my friend, have a seat.”

  Stone. I’ve turned to stone.

  “It’s okay, no worries. I’m alone. She’s not here.”

  “Holly.”

  “Yes, the lady, she’s not here. She was never here.”

  “No?”

  “Sit please. You make me nervous.”

  The door snicks shut and I sit down across from him.

  “Why not? Sure. Why the fuck not, Vlad?”

  “I apologize for this test. I needed to see what you would do.”

  “Is it true? The file?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that right now. Drink.”

  He pours two fingers of liquor into each mug. We raise the cups and I down it all. I sputter and gasp.

  “What the hell?” I croak.

  “It is my own recipe. Handed down. Too much?”

  “Is that rubbing alcohol? Antifreeze?”

  My mouth fills with pine, my gums are numb, and for a moment I can’t even see. His cup is still in his hand, paused at his lips. A crooked grin runs across his face. Two mountains seep out of the darkness, and clamp down on my arms and shoulders. Muscles and black leather. Long-lost brothers, perhaps. I knew I couldn’t have been the only employee.

  “You’ve been sloppy, my friend. No tattoo for Cammie?”

  “Hey, get these fucking goons off of me,” I say.

  Vlad stands up and heads to the corner of the room, the door closed now, revealing his destination. A small black potbelly stove squats there, filled with fire, a dull glow and sudden rush of heat as he swings the door open with the toe of his boot. He tugs on a thick gray glove and pulls a branding iron off the wall, inserting it into the inferno.

  Still partially blind, I struggle under their hands, but they only clamp down tighter, a rivulet of sweat running down my neck.

  “Vlad, come on. This isn’t necessary.”

  “Isn’t it? I worry. I fret. You disappear, I see cops, I hear rumblings of your twitching body lying in the street, naked in the alley…”

  “Half naked…”

  “We have an arrangement, my friend. This is a gift, to up your street cred, toughen you up a bit. This is not punishment. We all have them.”

  He pulls down the edge of his dirty brown sweater, and there is a backward letter C at the base of his neck. Mottled skin, thick and raised.

  “It seemed the best way to honor her. And…how you say? To kill two birds with one rock?”

  He grabs the hot poker out of the stove and turns to me.

  “Take another drink, my friend. Finish off mine. Trust me, comrade. You want to.”

  I grab his cup, still full of the liquor, and down it. I’m outnumbered, outmuscled, and partially blind. I don’t need to b
e here for the rest of this.

  The room swims as the fading red letter comes closer. It’s an Islamic mosque with a floating star, it’s a crescent moon with its mouth agape. Closing down on my neck there is an angry hiss as it takes hold of my flesh and the room falls away with a snap.

  Chapter 51

  They say that your experiences in life, whether real or imagined, something you’ve seen in a dream or a movie—they all stay with you, they all become part of your past, with equal weight, your emotional baggage, the fabric you stitch together to weave the stained blanket of lies you call a life. If that’s the case, I’ve lived one hell of a life. I can see the soul sitting across from me, and know it’s not real, this man is more machine than soul, and he’s failing the test, his eye twitching. I can see a plastic bag drifting across a driveway, lifting and falling, whipping around in circles as the camera records it all. I can see the box sitting at his feet, and I know what’s inside, I know it’s her, the mother of his child to be, just the head though, and I carry his grief. Faster and faster, a plate of fava beans, I’m crucified on a cross, the masses below me, a bar of soap made from excess human fat, a knife shoved through and embedded in the floor, a gun in my mouth, her body pressed up against mine, a cat at the window, scratching, a knock on the door, a phone ringing, a shower curtain ripped away.

  Some of that happened.

  Before I can push my heavy eyelids open, my favorite film starts up again and I watch it, hoping somehow that they’ve changed the ending. I could have been misinformed, remembered it wrong. Maybe this is the director’s cut, maybe there will be a unicorn.

  The minivan in front of me drifts through the night, a battleship of gray, headlights barely illuminating the road, and I’m right behind them. I’ve come to try and meet them, catch up to them at the store. I see them in there, the two little heads, the DVD playing on the tiny screen, my wife holding a cellphone to her ear, chatting away with somebody, a smile on her face.