Knuckleduster Page 8

  “That’s all right. Probably just a miscommunication on my part. Thanks for checking, anyway.” Brody stuffed his numbed hands into his coat pockets and strolled away. He was sure that even if he managed to walk a whole block from the base, their cameras would still be watching his back.

  He turned a corner, then another, cut down an alleyway, and went into a coffee shop. He didn’t have the means to order anything, but he went into the men’s room and locked the door—they couldn’t deny him that.

  The toilet seat made a surprisingly loud clunk as it hit the bowl, as did the lid when he threw that down as well. He pulled his coat tight around him to prevent it from rubbing against anything filthy—which was to say just about everything in this bathroom stall—and sat there running his hands up and down his face, the sound sandpapery whenever they crossed anywhere below his nose. He would’ve liked to have had this moment to think elsewhere, but it was just too cold outside and too much sensory overload. Between the flashing signs and the yelling people crowding all around him and everything else noisy, smelly, and loud of this unfamiliar world—that of morning, daytime—he needed somewhere as close as he could get to home, here in Chicago. It still wasn’t good enough. This cramped little stall provided some comfort, but it wasn’t complete. The buzzing florescent lights and the sound of all the people out in the coffee shop talking and the light jazz they always play in places like these … he had to create an impromptu shelter from it all, here and now.

  He left the stall, made sure the door was still locked, and clicked off the light. The most noisome of the sounds, the buzzing lights, disappeared from the fug of noise, but the other layers persisted. He returned to the stall and cupped his hands over his ears and, even with it already being dark, pressed his eyes shut until it nearly hurt.

  Now he could think. Process.

  He was certain the security detail would be raised at Fort Reagan because of the stunt he’d just pulled. He wondered if the police would be notified, if they possibly had a holo-capture unit going out front at all times as well as cameras to not only catch someone’s picture but their exact measurements of shape and size. It wasn’t that uncommon anymore at banks and certain government building lobbies. Why not there? He foresaw the police picking him up at Thorp’s place, Thorp going off the deep end, and more messes coming out of it. But with cameras all over the city, wouldn’t it be easy enough to track him from place to place? What about right here to this street, this coffee shop, this bathroom? And what then? … Where is all this coming from?

  Brody released the pressure he was applying to his ears with his palms. He stepped over to the wall and felt around for the light switch. He had never considered himself a terribly paranoid person before, so why was this coming out now? Did Chicago have that kind of effect on him?

  He splashed some water on his face. He disregarded all panic-stricken thoughts and exited the bathroom, crossed the dining area, and pushed out into the cold. But with each step he took, he couldn’t help but think that every bit of this—every swing of his legs, every flick his tie scribbled in the air—was being watched. He told himself to stop, and for the time being, whatever it was making him think that way did.

  8

  Using the reflection of a storefront display loaded to the brim with Christmas trees and other decorations all of red, gold, and green, Brody carefully pulled the lenses out of his eyes as the time remaining flashed ten minutes shy of one and a half hours. He reapplied the sonar to his forehead and carried on down the street, feeling better to remain on the move for reasons beyond him.

  After a few steps in darkness, the street reappeared. A building here, cubic and dull in design came first, then the sidewalk, and then the marching snowman-like shapes of fellow human beings. He donned his sunglasses so as not to attract stares at his eyes and the pearlescent appearance they developed when the lenses were out, then removed them when he reached a fiberglass bus stop shelter. He let the ping settle to a comfortable circumference around him. No focus was needed for that. He could just sit here and see all around him, provided no one moved too quickly.

  Brody took out his cell but couldn’t read anything on its screen, a blank space of the touch pad. The only way he could tell the thing was even on was when he began to dial Thorp’s number; each keystroke made its trademark bleep.

  He hoped he dialed correctly and brought the phone up to his ear, each pulse as it rang hard to hear with the wind pounding in through the open front of the shelter. One ring led into the next and the next. Just as he started considering the prospect of hitchhiking back to the farmhouse, Thorp answered.

  “Sorry it took me so long. I was out in the garden.”

  Brody pictured Thorp sitting in the soot-stained cockpit of the Darter, gleefully riding shotgun to his violent flashbacks, supplying the gunfire sounds himself—chunga-chunga-chunga. “Listen, Nectar isn’t on the new recruit roster at Fort Reagan. Are you sure this is where she signed up?”

  “Last I talked to her, she said she was going to sign up there. It was the one I signed up with, and that was the one she wanted.”

  “Now be straight with me. Did you actually speak with her, or was this something you picked up through the grapevine?” Brody snapped. It was bad enough he had to be in Chicago, but he was on a fool’s errand, half-blind, and without gloves. He was in no mood to beat around the bush.

  A long boxy shape, gurgling like a whale stuffed into a coffee can, sidled up to the curb in front of the shelter. Brody waved the bus on, and only after it had gone halfway up the block could he hear Thorp again.

  “—I am being straight with you, man. She told me she signed up at Fort Reagan. I’m not bullshitting you. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Well, they told me she’s not on the roster. Is there somewhere else I should look? Besides, I’m already here and have no means of getting back to your place.”

  “Where are you? I’ll have a cab sent to you prepaid.”

  “Forget it. I’m out here. I want to at least make a little progress,” Brody said.

  He could feel the grip contracting. He often didn’t feel it until he had a lead, a scent to follow. But already, possibly due to the personal circumstances, the fixation was taking fastidious steps at him. He saw his future, a wall of his room in Thorp’s house, photos of Nectar everywhere, pages of notes, recorded phone calls. Normally, his cases were more of the open-and-shut sort, but he could tell this one was going to be different.

  “What are you going to do?” Thorp asked.

  “I don’t know. You tell me. Where does she live?”

  “Apartment in Wicker Park, apparently.”

  Brody closed his eyes, but he could still see everything around him. The blocky representations of the coffeehouse patrons navigating the charted wire frame of white laid over darkness—archaic arcade game visuals at best. He rubbed his temples, and the image twisted slightly and then corrected when he lifted his fingertips. “Got an address, or should I just start knocking on every apartment door in every complex in Wicker Park?”

  After twenty minutes standing out on the curb with his nose running and his fingers losing feeling even further, he finally saw the cab arrive. Brody allowed Thorp to pay for it since he certainly wasn’t going to walk all the way to Wicker Park. And if he knew one thing about Chicago it was to never use the train. Not unless you enjoyed having sharp things stuck into you.

  He was relieved to see it had an actual living, breathing driver.

  The driver twisted the rearview mirror and peered back at Brody. “Where to, bud?”

  Brody recited the address from memory. Thorp had offered to send it to him, and Brody impatiently told him not to bother. Thorp asked why. Brody reminded him that with the sonar on, he couldn’t read anything unless it had raised or embossed lettering. Something on a screen or a piece of paper didn’t show up whatsoever. “Oh,” Thorp had said, his voice low and morose.

  “You got it,” the driver said and cursed as he nearly sideswip
ed a truck. He had to jerk the car toward the curb, where he all but sent them into a newspaper print-on-demand kiosk. Maybe keeping fingers crossed for human drivers wasn’t such a great idea after all.

  Brody lit a cigarette and cracked the window and watched the pixelated smoke drift out in the frigid vacuum. It took nearly an hour to get across town to the apartment building. Traffic in Chicago never ceased. To Brody, it seemed like every hour of the day all people with a car made it their sole mission to collect at intersections and create a disjointed orchestra by honking their horns at random intervals. The cabbie seemed to be the musical sort as well, because he added his own soprano blats to the cacophony at each and every fourway stop they came across, commenting between his staccato honks that Mondays were always the worst.

  “You know,” the driver said when they got there, “I can’t stand you rich boys paying for cabs ahead of time because I don’t ever get a goddamned tip. It all goes to the fuckin’ cab company.”

  Brody apologized insincerely and got out, slamming the door.

  Nectar’s apartment building was massive, easily thirty stories high, and it took a few seconds for the sonar to see all the way to the top. He stood out front for a moment and allowed the sonar to search for anyone hanging out on the stoop. There was no one around.

  He mounted the steps and found the buzzer, but nothing was in Braille. The names were on printed plaques that had no texture to them. He chewed the inside of his cheek and considered putting in his lenses, but he had just touched the cab’s door handle, seat belt, and seat with his bare hands—God only knew how filthy they now were. On a lark, he tried the door without pressing any of the buzzer buttons. Locked.

  Brody returned to the sidewalk and looked up and down the street. Cars, people on the sidewalk, steam rising from the grates. He had another cigarette and kept it dangling from the corner of his mouth so his hands could remain buried in his pockets.

  He stood in the sun’s warmth along the face of the apartment building and wondered what the hell he was doing out here, risking serious jail time by jumping states while on probation. He thanked his good fortune that Chiffon was understanding. Well, maybe “understanding” was a bit generous, but still. He wasn’t in prison. So there was that. If Brody had gotten assigned to any other probation officer, he would’ve been thrown into the system and outfitted with a wardrobe of powder-blue correctional facility attire, each item with his prisoner number stenciled on the back. For a ghostly and horrific moment, he could almost feel the punch of a shiv entering his belly.

  January. Not long at all. Just the name of that particular month crossing his mind prompted his legs to move.

  He threw his cigarette into the gutter and went back to the buzzer and punched a button at random. No one answered. He tried another and another. No one answered. It was Monday; most people were probably at work. He considered pushing all the buttons at once and seeing what that got him but thought better of it. Systematically, he went down one column after another, trying each button.

  Finally, someone answered. The voice was overamplified and stung Brody’s ears with its surprising volume: “Yes? What do you want?”

  Brody said he was a repairman and was buzzed in. He rushed inside and blew into his cupped hands to warm them.

  The lobby was sparse, with only a fake tree and a series of elevator doors. He walked to a plastic-coated frame that hung between two of the elevator doors and let the sonar feel its smooth surface. It could just as easily be a framed painting of a sphincter as the tenant listing.

  He cursed, went over to where the warm air was blowing up from a vent and stood over it. This was ridiculous, using a faulty device for the visually impaired while looking for someone. He might as well march up and down the sidewalk and ask for each individual’s name. It would probably be as productive as hanging out in the lobby with no idea if Nectar Ashbury even lived here or not. He cursed Thorp’s addled mind. Brody thought of being home, with the windows closed and the heater on full blast and his paints out and a pan of prepackaged lasagna in the oven that he had to share with absolutely no one.

  Brody heard keys jingling. The door opened, and he quickly removed the sonar from his forehead and put it in his pocket. He stood facing the general direction of the person who’d entered the lobby, with what he hoped was a plaintive look on his face.

  He said to the darkness before his eyes, “Can you help me? I’m looking for my daughter. She lives here and I’m blind and there isn’t any Braille on the nameplates.”

  “What’s your daughter’s name?” The woman had a sweet voice, and he knew she would help him. Her boots clicked over toward the tenant list on the wall between the elevator doors.

  He followed but was sure to keep a respectful distance. She smelled like a bakery—sugary and nice.

  “Nectar Ashbury,” he said. Of all the dumb luck, what if he was speaking to Nectar right now? How would she react to this blind guy with a bad haircut and a terribly out-of-fashion coat asking for her? Would she utilize some of that close-quarters combat training she may have learned and deliver a heel to his face that he would never see coming?

  The woman murmured the name over and over, and he could hear the squeak of the pad of her finger as it trailed down the plastic on the tenant list. “Apartment 644.”

  “Six. Four. Four.” Brody was still playing helpless. If the tenant listing didn’t have Braille, the buttons in the elevator car certainly wouldn’t. He hoped the woman would help him just a little bit more.

  She offered to get him there, and he let a wide smile spread across his face.

  They rode in the elevator in silence. He held on to the railing and listened to her click keys on her ordi as they rode up to the sixth floor.

  The doors opened and she wished him good luck. Her generosity apparently expired there. That was fine. He didn’t want her to escort him all the way to Nectar’s apartment door anyway.

  As soon as the elevator doors were closed behind him, he replaced the sonar to his forehead. The hallway spread out before him in both directions. He looked at the nearest apartment. Beside the door was a small plaque with numbers—they were raised digits that could easily be read by the sonar. He made his way to Nectar’s door. He knocked a couple of times and took a step back and listened for any noise inside the apartment.

  Nothing.

  He tried again and this time stepped closer and turned his ear toward the door. A faint purring inside, a refrigerator or a space heater. He hunched down and let the sonar feel around the door. The door fit the frame flush, and the sonar’s ping couldn’t quite probe underneath the door more than a couple of feet. The floor was a jumble of wildly thrown together shapes, nebulous. Either it was covered in sawdust or she had shag carpet.

  Getting up from all fours, he wondered why breaking in had suddenly become a consideration.

  This is just a favor for a friend, he reminded himself. Nectar wasn’t someone on the run. Hell, she probably had no idea anyone was even looking for her. If anything, she was at the supermarket, living her life, the idea of signing up for the military kicked to the back of her mind. Perhaps she had been lulled by the call of adventure the commercials promised, just as they had done to Brody all those years ago.

  Brody took out his cell phone and dialed Thorp.

  As before, it took a while before he answered. “Yeah? Did you find anything?” Thorp asked hurriedly without even saying hello.

  “I’m at her apartment and there’s no one answering.”

  “Shit, she’s already overseas, then.”

  “She isn’t enlisted. This is kind of stupid to be totally honest with you. If you don’t mind, could you get another cab for me?”

  “Can you jimmy the lock on her door?”

  “Are you serious?” Brody asked. “Do you want me to go to jail? Is this some elaborate prank of yours or something? I know you could always be counted on for a semidangerous practical joke back in the day and all, but even for you—this is a
little beyond your typical flaming bag of dog shit.”

  “Come on. This is important. If Nectar’s not enlisted and she’s not home, where the hell could she be?”

  “Have you tried calling her? Have you tried sending her an e-mail?” Brody said through gritted teeth. “Just because she’s not home right now at this very second and she’s not on some roster at the base doesn’t mean she’s been kidnapped or sent overseas.”

  “Kidnapped,” Thorp echoed. “I haven’t even thought of that.”

  Brody groaned. “Listen to me. We’re friends and all, but consider this a serious test of my patience. Anyone else, I’d be giving your money back and saying forget it.”

  “But I haven’t paid you yet,” Thorp said softly.

  “I know. That’s what makes this particular circumstance different. When I get back, you’re going to pay me and I’m not going to refund it like I would with anyone else when their problem is a particularly huge waste of my time.” Brody walked toward the elevator and slapped the call button. “I’m serious. This is really a huge pain in the ass.”

  Thorp said nothing.

  “Hello?” Brody said and looked at the screen, momentarily forgetting that it would appear blank to him. He had no idea if Thorp had ended the call or not. Brody hung up and tried again, but Thorp didn’t answer. He went down to the lobby and tried calling one more time.

  I should’ve saved that rant until after he paid for the cab to get me back to the farm.

  He stood in the lobby on that same heating vent for a few more minutes and tried a third and final time. Again, no answer.

  Brody tucked the phone into his pocket, staring ahead at what he assumed was a window but appeared to be only a stark expanse of blackness. The noose reduced itself by another tiny wrench. It was still there, no denying it. The questions and the possibilities and the repetitious demand to know, to end, to seek, to find, to finish—to follow the trail.