Authors: Thomas Davidson
The chill air woke her. Her world was dark as a cave.
Rayne lay on the front seat, her feet tucked under the steering wheel, warm in her borrowed boots. She could hear Tim breathing in the back, dead asleep. She pinched the bridge of her nose, fumbled for the phone in her borrowed pea coat, and checked the time: 8:32 p.m.
Almost a two-hour nap. Better than nothing. She released a weary sigh, instead of pulling out her hair and screaming. Here they were, hiding out in Mama Salgado’s garage. Two words summed up her life, today’s mantra:
now what?
They couldn’t stay here long, and risk dragging Martina and her mother into their mess. But they had nowhere to go. She always took pride in being resourceful, dancing a shimmy-shake around life’s bullshit—but this?
She stretched out her legs until her boot heels tapped the door. She heard Tim stir on the other side of the Crown Victoria Motel. Accommodations for two, front and backseat. Twin beds, sans cable TV.
Maybe there’s room service. Maybe some schmuck will show up with a dinner tray and pass it through the side window, feed the fugitives.
From the backseat: “You awake?”
“No,” she said.
“Me neither.”
“How’s your eye?”
“Bless you, Rain Angel. We’re in a ton of shit, getting assassinated on freakin’ WKO-TV, and you keep asking me that.”
“How’s your
eye?”
“We’re
this close
to having a screaming, drooling mob chase us with pitchforks—“
“Third time. Last time.
How’s. Your. Eye.”
“Christ, you’re worse than my mother. It’s…” His voice sputtered out.
“That what I thought.” She rose to a sitting position and turned on the interior light. She leaned over the front seat, an unlicensed ophthalmologist doing a checkup. “Jesus, Tim, it looks worse. It’s red and swollen.”
“C.C. Seymour got a few lucky shots.”
“Tim.”
Tim sat up, coughed. “What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. It’s what we’re going to do. And don’t start, because I’m not listening. We’re gonna save that eye.”
“You do know that if I go back to Mass Eye, I’m gonna get arrested. Unless, of course, everyone in one of the most famous hospitals in America never saw the news. Or maybe, like me, they all have detached retinas and are currently detached from seeing the TV news.”
“I guess I didn’t make myself clear.”
“Imagine me registering at the front desk. I flip them my Tim Crowe insurance card. The lady behind the glass says, ‘Gee, that name rings a bell. Where’ve I heard it before.”
“So we stay on the street and lie low, and not get caught until tomorrow morning or afternoon, or by some miracle, tomorrow night. At that point your eye is purple and swollen and you lose it and go blind. No. Bullshit. Not happening. Questions?”
“You really piss me off sometimes. You get so bullheaded. It’s like talking to a brick wall. Don’t bust balls.”
Rayne reined in her temper. No need to crack heads. No need to grab the ice scraper on the floor and bash his brains in until he listens to reason. She took the proverbial deep breath, adjusted her angle of focus.
“Tim. Think. Wednesday night you went to the movies. Now, 48 hours later, you’re a fugitive waking up in a stranger’s garage, lying in the backseat of a stolen car owned by a dude with a drone haircut, who—uh oh, wait for it—hails from a parallel world.”
He said nothing.
“Help me out.” Rayne tipped her chin up, flicked her hands in the air over the top of the vinyl seats. “Does it sound like our luck is on the upswing, and things are getting better?”
He just looked at her, speechless.
Game, set, match.
“We’re outta here. C’mere.” She leaned over the seat and kissed him. “We save the eye. This is the one thing in our control. After that, we cross our fingers. Somehow, some way, things straighten out. But first, the eye.”
“It’s just that…”
“I know. All the alternatives suck. Except going to the clinic.”
He sighed. “Let’s get out of this garage, and out of Mama Salgado’s life.”
By 9:00 p.m. they pulled in front of the ER entrance to Mass Eye and Ear.
He looked at her from the shotgun seat, his voice not brimming with confidence. “I hope we know what we’re doing.”
“All the alternatives...”
“…suck even more.”
“Trust me on this. I got you back last night, right?”
“Uh huh.”
“What follows is the right move.”
“I surrender. I turn myself in to Officer Moore.”
Rayne attempted a smile, and simply repeated, “Trust me.”
Tim climbed out of the car, clicked the door shut. “Go park. See you soon.”
“Yes,” she said, “I’ll park.”
She watched him reluctantly approach the bank of doors, enter. He paused, turned, gave her a subtle wave beyond the glass.
Outside, someone nearby said, “Hey, move that car.”
Rayne waved back at Tim, mouthed the words
trust me
. Then took off. She pulled the phone from her pocket and thumbed Shay’s number.
After a few seconds, Shay’s voice: “Hello?”
“Shay? Rayne.”
“Girl, I called you today. A stranger answered. She said, listen to this, she said, ‘You the bitch who stole my tablecloth?’ I was like…hey…then she said, ‘Shit, no problem. Love the phone. Y’all can steal my lace bra and thong if you leave a nice high def TV in the dryer. I’ll trade anytime.’”
“What?”
“What
I
said. Exactly.”
Rayne recalled the Laundromat customer. “Forget that. Shay, something’s come up.”
“With you? No kidding.”
“Where you at?”
“Where you think? Gateway.”
“The ticket booth. Is she…”
“Yeah, the bitch from Mars. She’s there.”
Rayne gripped the steering wheel and steadied herself. She’d become the messenger of bad news for good people. “There’s something I have to tell you, and it’s not good.”
Shay didn’t hesitate. “Reggie.”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t make it. He’s gone.” Her voice sounded hollow, but resigned.
“I think so, yes. I’m so sorry, Shay.”
A moment of silence passed between them.
“I guess I already knew it, Rayne. It’s been over a week. If he was still alive, he’d know where to find me. He’d come see me by this time.”
“Reggie, Alex. Some others. When you cross over there...”
She heard Shay take a deep breath over the phone.
“What’re we gonna do?” Shay asked. “Because I am
not
in a good mood.”
The pronoun wasn’t lost on Rayne. She collected her thoughts while heading over the Charles to Cambridge. Her last words to Tim echoed in her head:
trust me.
“You drive to the Square for your gigs, right?”
“My
gigs?
You are
so
kind. You know a professional when you see one. And, yeah, I bring my ride.”
“In your car, do you keep a gas can?”
“In my trunk, next to the bald tire.”
“Good. You feeling dangerous?”
“Feeling nasty all week. Ever since Reggie disappeared. Whenever reality calls me on my cell to say ‘Hi,’ I hang up. I lost all contact with reality. That’s the kinda mood I’m in.”
“Me, too,” Rayne said. “Listen, I need to give you a heads up. And…uh…I need a tiny favor.”
“I kinda sensed that.”
“This could land you in jail, unless you’re slick and quick.”
After a moment, Shay said, “I’m still here. I didn’t hang up. We goin’ to the movies?”
Rayne smiled, then gave the rundown.
TWITTER (random sample)
WKONew
s
@WKONews - 3 hours ago
BREAKING: Explosion heard, smoke seen at car wash where Cambridge attack suspects believed cornered. http://wkonews.to/1xMAbs
WKONew
s
@WKONews - 2 hours ago
UPDATE: Explosion at car wash. Homemade pressure-cooker bombs? Reminiscent of Boston Marathon bombing. http://wkonews.to/1xMAbs
Mark Beast
@MarkBeast666 - 1 hour ago
2 devil worshippers still loose in Boston/Cambridge. Keep checking my website. Updates all day from my basement, the Beast Bunker. http://mb66/1KshKit
Walter B Hooten PhD
@EndtimeHere – 4m
Message 2 every1 w/ a brain. Hurray for EyeSoar for helping cops. I support EyeSoar. U should 2… http://dYck.hed/cr8ZY
Michele
@soccermom – 1m
Who’s the New Earth Order Fascists & where do I join? Fascist sounds like fashion…me a fashion fascist! http://kZgt.edu/sc9Cs
Tickets2Paradis
e
@Gateway - 41s
Bored? Tired of your spouse droning on? Join us at the Gateway. Movies will change your life…http://isOre.crp/dr1ZY
MartinaS
@megoddess - 1s
(re twitter litter) Tweeter twits! I know Rayne. She don’t THROW bombs. She IS the bomb – whereas you morons r full of ****… http://kBlk.tru/wn3Da
O’Henry’s was packed; loud and loaded on a Friday night.
Detective Steve Mariott smelled beer, sawdust and possibly weed as he stepped inside. He and his partner were the only ones wearing suits. A suit in a bar like this screamed
police
. Everyone else wore jeans, sports jerseys, hooded sweatshirts, leather jackets.
Warciniak moved further in, looked across the room. “I don’t see him.”
Mariott followed his partner to the bar.
Warciniak flagged the bartender, and asked, “McLane in tonight?”
“Who?”
“McLane.”
“Never heard of him. So I guess he’s not here.” The bald bartender uncapped a beer, brought it to the far end of the bar, beneath the TV set.
“Is it my imagination, Detective Mariott, or has this been a weird-ass night. I saw McLane last week. How can this guy not know him?”
Mariott just shrugged. He could feel a headache coming on. The whole night was turning into a headache. The investigation, the two suspects, the movie—put it all together, you had a massive migraine. Suddenly he felt tired. Maybe that movie really did get under his skin, like flesh-eating bacteria. Then something caught his eye and he looked up. The TV screen flashed words and a logo he’d never seen before. Apparently a new program.
Jumper Cable TV
Then Warciniak saw it, and half laughed. “The fuck’s that? Jumper Cable?”
Someone in the barroom shouted, “Jumper alert!” All eyes turned toward the TV in the corner.
Mariott watched as a newscaster appeared. From their end of the bar, he couldn’t hear what the man was saying. Words were flashing on the screen:
Got a tip?
Earn reward!
Call #1-800-JUMPER$
“Is this like ‘America’s Most Wanted’ or something?” Warciniak turned to him. “What the hell’s a ‘jumper?’”
Again Mariott shrugged. That incipient headache he sensed? He wasn’t imagining it. A dark tiny drill was spinning inside his brain. If it were possible to get a root canal procedure for the brain, he was now experiencing it. He winced, tried to focus and make sense of the night. The drill in his head kept going; he could almost hear:
eeeeeeeeenggg...eeeeeeenggg…
“Turn it
up
,” someone yelled.
The bartender reached up and adjusted the volume.
The newscaster vanished. The locale changed. A woman in a leather jacket appeared on the screen, holding a microphone. The reporter, standing on a city street, said:
"Thanks, Jack. This just in. A few minutes ago we had another jumper added to the list."
The O'Henry's crowd erupted with shouts and whistles, as if they just won the lottery.
“Oh, wait, excuse me. Make that
two
jumpers."
Fists banged tables as the bar crowd went wild.
Warciniak, eyes glued to the TV, said, “Must be one of those silly-ass reality shows. I’d rather watch a toilet flush.”
Mariott said nothing. The drill in his brain was now an electric power drill. He just wanted to sleep; sleep away all the gloomy thoughts from a long day. Shed any lingering images about a man being cooked in his car. His eyes drifted across the room, then back to the screen.
The nameless beauty with the mandatory blond hair for TV, who knew she was a beauty, which was why she was a TV reporter reporting on TV with her blond hair…
and oh my God the drill in my head is now a jackhammer.
Detective Steven Mariott assumed he’d pretty much seen it all in the course of his career as a civil servant. But he’d never seen those two faces side-by-side on TV. He’d never seen himself on TV. Until now.
Detectives Warciniak and Mariott appeared on the screen.
Smile. Say 'cheese.' Click.
In the shot, they were looking up at a camera. Evidently Mariott’s headache was so bad it induced hallucinations.
The reporter said something about, “…armed and dangerous…” but the rest was drowned out by the barroom noise.
A man stood up in the middle of the room, hands held high. A deranged cheerleader. “Mad doctors without borders! Two mad doctors making house calls!”
A young woman joined in, hoisting a glass mug. With a Boston accent, she said, “Jump the jumpahs!”
Warciniak wheeled around. His eyes had lost their perpetual squint; he was wide-eyed.
The partners exchanged a glance, speechless. The newscast may as well have been beamed in from Jupiter. Jumpers from Jupiter.
An excited voice in the crowd erupted. “He’s
here!
I see the
jumper! He’s right across—”
Another voice cut in: “Where?”
A middle-aged man with a mustache and goatee shot up from his corner table at the back of the bar. His glassy eyes were a cocktail of fear and defiance. “It’s not me—
wait!
A mad doctor
stole
my identity. These dudes, you been hearing it on the news this week, these dudes do
total
identity theft.
Look!”
He raised his right hand and slowly waved it across the room so everyone could see it.
“Hey!” His accuser’s tone had already gone down a notch.
“Look,” the accused insisted. “You know the jumpers
look
like us.
Totally
look like us. But I got the ID chip. The jumpers don’t.” He held up his cell phone in his left hand, and waved his right palm at it. A recorded voice from his cell confirmed: “Perry Joe Rittenhouse; born April 1, 1970; current address, 666 Orwell Avenue, Cambridge.”
“Sorry, bro,” the accuser said.
When Mariott glanced at the accused, his knees weakened. He had to be hallucinating.
The aggrieved party faced the crowd and lowered his hand, put away his cell phone. “That doctor dude on TV, I’m gonna find him. Mess with me?
I’ll set that dude on fire!”
Mariott heard a chant break out as if he were at a sporting event:
“Dee are one…dee are one…”
Others pounded tabletops and said in unison:
“I sore…I sore...”
“Steve, that guy over there…
looks like you
.” Warciniak’s face paled as if he were on the verge of a stroke. He turned, slapped the bartop, and called, “Where’s McLane?”
Beneath the TV, the bartender turned, and his face lit up when he focused on the two detectives. He pointed and yelled,
“Jumpers!”
Half the crowd rose from their seats.
A voice nearby: “Let’s jump the jumpers!”
Mariott scanned the room, wall-to-wall hostility, and put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. Glocks drawn, they backed up. “Cambridge Police,” he said, attempting to sound assertive.
Same voice: “Sure it is!”
“Easy now,” Warciniak said, trying to sound calm. He motioned with his chin at the TV. “Whatever that is, it’s a mistake. I’m Detective Warcin—“
“You’re a
jumper
. It’s time for the drones.”
Drones?
The two moved closer to the entrance. Mariott looked toward the door. Warciniak kept his eyes on the room.
Mariott put his hand out, opened the door, terrified that the crowd might rush them within these walls. If they could just get outside. Then it hit him:
inside, outside
. Something was profoundly wrong. From a nonexistent McLane and Jumper Cable TV, to the truly unidentified flying object flying over a Cambridge street. The world seemed so…
hallucinatory
. They needed to retrace their steps, and re-enter the theater. Get out of Dodge, go back to Square One. It seemed irrational, crazy even, but that was their only option, only route. All else would end in a disaster. He knew it in his gut.
That was the plan.
Four words came to mind:
Man plans, God laughs.
The plan changed when someone tomahawked a beer bottle. Mariott heard a sick, wet sound. A gush of red rain appeared. The side of Dennis Warciniak’s head opened. Warciniak’s free hand flew up, touching blood and tissue. The crowd swarmed, closed in. A gunshot. A young man fell, his eyes bright with fear. Now bottles and anathemas flew through the air. Blood and spit. A thunderstorm of noise as the phalanx closed in. Warciniak was writhing on the floor, getting stomped by a dozen shoes. A woman wearing a Boston Bruins jersey grabbed Warciniak’s gun, shouted “jumper!” and shot the detective in the head.
A second later…
Mariott shot the shooter, tempted to unload on the crowd, shoot his way through a massive hallucination, a surreal fog, where rational thinking clearly did not apply. Reason scuttled, he was now aboard the Wide-Eyed Express. Because there was no logical explanation for what he next witnessed. His identical twin broke free from the crowd. Perry Joe Rittenhouse, the Steven Mariott clone, locked incendiary eyes with Detective Steven Mariott.
Me looking at me.
This stare-down put a whole new spin on the term
self-hatred
. A century on a psychiatrist’s couch couldn’t untangle this.
Adios.
Cold air hit Detective Steve Mariott as he rushed outside. He ran across the street, toward the cemetery. He could hear the angry mob boiling out of O’Henry’s, spilling into the street, chasing the jumper. The mad doctor without borders.
Mariott needed to reach the exit door, the only border that mattered. If he could just outrun the mob, stay ahead of the roaring tidal wave of rage. His partner was dead. His clone was alive. And the mob was coming.
And then things got worse.
He spotted something overhead, following him from up in the air.