Catskinner's Book (The Book Of Lost Doors) (4 page)

Suicide by cop, they call that. It would take longer with me, because they wouldn't be expecting one unarmed man to be able to do so much damage. All it would take, though, is one good bullet and they've got thousands.

How about it? I thought, Want to go out in a blaze of glory?  

no.

I'm scared. I had a good place here, I was comfortable and I was safe and I had a little house and books and games and I don't want to lose everything again. I don't want to have to run and hide. I don't know what to do, and I'm so tired.

repair the damage. eliminate the threat.

I don't know how.

locate the thieves. kill them. i will kill them. i will make you safe.

I'm so tired.

sleep. i will watch.

And Victor?

move your belongings. burn the building. we don't need him.

So much work.

work tomorrow. sleep now.

I rinsed my pants in the sink until I could stand to get back into them long enough to go down the alley and back upstairs to my apartment. Then I stripped everything off and got in the shower. I was shaking again. Hunger, probably. I needed to eat, but I needed to get clean first.

I microwaved a pot pie, ate it, and then another, and then another. While I was waiting for the microwave I ate chocolate. By the time I finished the third I was starting to feel full, and as the hunger faded, fatigue took its place. I was exhausted, body and soul. So much to do.

Sleep. Move. Burn. Locate. Kill.

Starting with sleep. I got into bed naked and still damp, closed my eyes—

tonight rest

tonight the walking meat that has done this will sleep

tonight they cling to the skin of the world

tomorrow they will fall beneath the shadow of great black wings

they will know fear

they will know sorrow

they will know pain

before they die

—and it all went away. For a while.

Chapter Three

“silence is the song in the heart of all things”

The next morning I woke hungry, but feeling good. I lay in bed for a while, thinking about how to spend my Saturday. Then I remembered, and I got out of bed in a hurry.

The stiffness was out of my limbs, and even my eyes didn't hurt. Catskinner must have been working on my body while I slept. I wondered, not for the first time, how far that could extend. I didn't have a single scar, and I've been wounded plenty of times. I was thirty-something, -six, I think, but I looked twenty. Could Catskinner repair aging?  Could he make me immortal?  

I didn't want to think about that. I got busy instead.

After I ate I went downstairs and into the shop, but I didn't unlock the door or turn the sign around. I thought about putting a note in the window—closed for family emergency, or something—but it was Saturday and we wouldn't have been open today anyway. I'd be long gone by Monday. Besides, it was probably best not to advertise that I wasn't dead. Just in case.

I had about thirty thousand in cash, mostly hundreds and fifties, in the safe behind the counter. I hadn't expected that much. I'd deposit it a little at a time into my personal checking account, as I needed it. Hauling out wads of cash for major purchases makes people remember you. I had a little toolbox behind the counter, and I dumped the tools and put most of the cash in there.

Before I loaded the van I took out the spare tire and wedged the toolbox next to the jack, then put the tire back in. It didn't sit exactly flat, but it was close enough.

Upstairs I took a look around. No sense in bringing the furniture. It had all come with the place and I could always get more. I unplugged my computer and game box and my stereo. I decided to leave my TV, it was big and old. I could get a flat one when I found a new place to settle in.

I got a box and started filling it with books, movies, music, and games. I ended up putting my towels in the top half so it wouldn't rattle. Toothbrush, razor, and clippers out of the bathroom.

I moved it all down to the van, then went back upstairs and got my clothes. Mostly jeans and work shirts. Socks and underwear. I had two pairs of shoes, and I was wearing one of them.

When I was done the van was less than half full, so I went into the shop. I got the shop computer from the front counter, and my coffeemaker. A few more books from behind the counter. What else?  I didn't need the hardware catalogs. I left the stock—such as it was—on the shelves.

A calender on the wall, a desk blotter, an address book, all from distributors, all with places to write down important information. All unused. I guess I didn't have anything important to write down. A poster on the wall showing different kinds of outlets. A mat on the floor that said Come Back Soon!

Even I couldn't see anything in the shop to link me to the place.

I loaded the odds and ends, then went to Victor's office. It seemed strange to see the door open. It was still cool in the room. There was . . .  less of Victor than there had been last night. What was left of him had soaked into the carpet, or maybe evaporated. Maybe both. The wooden chair was on its side in the corner, far from the spreading mass that had been my boss. Carefully I stepped over to it and set it upright and sat down. The funny thing was that it didn't smell, or at least not much. A faint chemical odor, like rubbing alcohol and model glue.

“Hey,” I said softly, “this sure went south in a hurry, huh?”

I shook my head. “I kind of dropped the ball on you, boss. Some kind of screwed up monster I turned out to be.”

I stood. “I'm going to find them, and I'm going to kill them. It's not going to do you any good, probably won't make me feel any better, but I figure it needs doing.”  

I carried the chair out into the hall, and went back in, looked around the room. I couldn't just leave him there, and I had decided not to burn the building down. For one thing, it was brick, and while I'm sure a brick building can burn down, I have no idea how.

But more importantly, fires mean fire engines and police and arson investigators and insurance people—a whole lot of nosy folks poking around in the ashes.

Besides, it was a residential neighborhood and if I did get the place to burn it would probably spread. I may be a monster, but I didn't want to burn somebody's house down by accident.

I'm going to need you to move the desk and the safe, I told Catskinner.

move to where?

Out in the hall. Off the carpet. I'm going to pull up the carpet—it's the only way to get his body up.

I expected him to argue with me, but he just took over long enough to pick up the safe, set it in the hall, and come back for the desk. Then he sank back and let me do the rest.

I cut the carpet away from the walls and rolled it up. There wasn't any way to do it neatly. I ended up with a lumpy bundled that smelled like melted plastic. I carried it into the empty space next door, to the freezer.

Break the lock.

Catskinner didn't comment, just lashed out with my hand and the hasp snapped. The freezer was warm and dry and empty. Victor fit in there neatly. Even with the carpet there wasn't much of him.

Goodbye, Victor. I never really knew you, I never really knew what you were, but you were good to me, for a while. That puts you on a very short list. I'll miss you.

me, too.

The side drawers of Victor's desk were locked, but the long flat one in the center opened easily. A broken watch, a little memo book full of scribbles that weren't English, some rubber bands, a half bag of cough drops, a handful of coins, mostly European, a package of pipe cleaners, a few pens, a red eraser, dried and crumbling.  An old Polaroid snapshot of a woman on a bridge looking away from the camera.

I held the picture in my hands, turned it over. There was something on the back, but the ink was too faded to even tell what language it was written in. I considered taking the picture, something to remember him by.

Instead I just turned the breakers back off, took one last look around the place, and locked up.

I drove to my bank, deposited two thousand in cash, then found a self-storage place up north by the airport. After I rented a locker and put most of my stuff in it, I checked into a Residence Inn and paid for a week in advance on my debit card.

I put my clothes away, a couple of books on the bedside table, made a cup of really awful instant coffee. There was a little kitchenette with a fridge and a stove top, I'd buy groceries later.

I sat on the bed for a while, getting a feel for the place.

Home? No. But I was used to that.

I had work to do. Me and Catskinner both.

And I thought I knew just where to start.

There wasn't any Land Of Tan under “Tanning Salons” in the yellow pages, so tried the white pages. One line,
Land Of Tan, The
, with a phone number but no address. Just like
Quality Electrical Supplies
' listing. They probably had the same phone plan that Victor had.

I didn't really have any idea what to do next. Try calling them?  

Why not? I got a recorded message saying that the business hours were ten
AM
to eight
PM
, Monday through Saturday and to call again later. They didn't give an address. It was just after one on Saturday, so they should have been open. Did that mean they closed up shop after the break-in? Was the Land of Tan set up just as a cover for the break-in? What did Victor have that was so important? Money? Sure, there had probably been a lot in his safe, but enough to make it worthwhile to set up a dummy business to get it? Maybe, maybe a phone number and a van was all they had.

I had too many questions, and no idea how to get the answers. Clearly I needed the Internet.

I'd put both computers into storage, so I drove down and got the one from the shop and brought it back to the motel. I had to go to the office and buy a cord, then spend half an hour restarting the computer until it finally admitted that there was an Internet out there, and if I promised to be good I could look at it.  

I found it by accident. I was looking for reviews of local businesses and I couldn't find any listing for tanning salons, so I was clicking away from the page when a coupon popped up for a Mexican restaurant. There was a picture, a sad looking little strip mall, and there next to Pollo Grande was a space with darkened windows and The Land Of Tan written across the awning.

Hello, there. I wrote down the address and looked it up. South County.

I had a place to start, anyway. I could drive down there and—

kill them all

—talk to them, I was thinking. If anyone was there. Look for clues if no one was. Not that I was all that sure what a clue would look like.

Screw it. I had to do something.

The strip mall was even sadder looking in person. There was a laundromat at one end that had a handful of cars parked around it, then a couple of empty spaces, then The Land Of Tan, then Pollo Grande on the corner. There was a big sign in the lot that proclaimed “Business Property! Great Location!” but it wasn't fooling anyone. I wrote down the phone number. It seemed like a good investigative thing to do.

I parked at the back of the grocery store lot a block away and walked back. There was a lot of traffic on the road—Saturday afternoon, prime shopping time—but no one on foot. It wasn't the kind of neighborhood you walked in, even though it was a beautiful afternoon for walking. South County people.

What if they have another one of those cards, I wondered.

don't look at it.

Great advice. The Mexican place was closed, with a “Visit Us at Our New Location” notice in the window, but no address for the new location. Good thing I hadn't printed out that coupon.

Land Of Tan was closed and locked, the windows tinted with some dark film. It didn't look like there were any lights on inside. The lock on the door was shiny and new and looked like it belonged on a bank vault. Interesting. I decided to walk around and check out the back of the building.

The storefront next to the Land Of Tan had the same dark film on the windows, and the same kind of overdeveloped lock. Also interesting.

The next storefront over was just your basic empty storefront. Big vacant space, clean, but somehow desolate, with that abandoned look that big empty spaces have. Threadbare blue carpet on the floor, brackets for holding shelves but no shelves on one wall, ranks of dusky florescent fixtures—

—I was suddenly facing the street. Catskinner had noticed her before I did. Maybe forty, brown hair with an artful streak of gray in it, short and kind of round, wearing a well-made suit that was tailored to make her look a little less short and a little less round. She had a nice leather briefcase and a warm smile that faltered only a little when Catskinner spun and stared at her.

“Are you Craig?”

With an effort I took my body back, lowered my hands. Let me talk to her.

careful.

Was I Craig? That was an easy one. “No.”  

“Debbie Sawyer.” She reached into her back and pulled out a card. I flinched, but it was just a business card. “I'm the leasing agent.”

I took the card. Sure enough, it said, “Debbie Sawyer, Leasing Agent.”

She was look at me, an expectant smile on her face, so by reflex I said, “James Ozwryck,” then felt like kicking myself. I should have made up a fake name.

“This is a good property, James,” she said. “Don't you think so?”

Actually, I thought it was one step above a ruin, but I nodded.

“We'll build to suit, of course, and since we currently have three spaces open, we can offer a number of attractive alternatives.”

She thought I was a customer. That was better than thinking I was a burglar. Maybe.

“I'm just looking.”  

She nodded, seriously. “Well, do you think a space like this would meet your needs? We do have other properties available if you're looking for warehouse space or manufacturing.”