The Diabolical Conspiracy (9 page)

He looked at her, trembling as he met her unwavering gaze. “Have…have you killed people before?”

“
Yes.”

No hesitation. And was that even a hint of pride he detected in her tone? He thought it was. For sure there was more than a trace of smugness in her hard expression. She had killed people, hell yes, and she was
proud
of it.

She removed the key from the ignition and tossed the key ring to Mike. “It’s like Nadia told you last night. Just give yourself over to this. Embrace it. You truly have no choice. And don’t think of warning your loved ones because we’ll definitely get wind of it.” She smiled and touched his knee again. “You can pick me up at six tonight.”

“
What?”

“
Pick me up at six. At my place. Is there a problem?”

“
Um…” He sighed and shook his head. “No problem…so to speak…I’m just curious as to why I’m picking you up. You guys aren’t having another meeting already, are you? I couldn’t handle this shit on a nightly fucking basis, no matter what.”

“
Relax, there won’t be a meeting for a while.” She squeezed his knee and winked at him.
What the fuck?
“You’re picking me up because you’re taking me to dinner. And then to a movie. My choice, of course.”

Mike had no idea what to say to this. A real date with Marnie was the thing he had wanted most for many months. But now that it was actually happening, it was just about the last thing in the world he wanted. It was strange how the world turned sometimes. Actually, it was pretty fucked up. How in hell was he supposed to make polite dinner conversation with someone who had just threatened to murder his entire family?

She touched his face, stroked his cheek with her fingertips. “I know what you’re thinking and you need to relax. You’re only getting what you always wanted, after all.” She leaned toward him as her hand slipped behind his neck and pressed him closer. “Now kiss me, bitch.”

He kissed her.

There was nothing else he could do. It was like she said, he had to embrace what was happening.

The kiss became heated, unexpectedly passionate under the circumstances. She broke it off briefly at one point and searched his face, her eyes blazing with intensity. “Say you love Satan.”

He told her what she wanted to hear.

“
Say it like you mean it.”

So he said it again, striving to infuse his voice with a conviction he didn’t really feel. She made him repeat it several more times.

And each time it got easier to say.

10
.

Three months later…

The last call of the day came through at six minutes before quitting time. Mike knew the person on the other end of the line would be a problem caller before she even uttered a word. Three and a half long, soul-killing years on the job had honed his instincts to a sharpness that bordered on telepathy. It was very similar to the way Nadia seemed able to read the minds of conspiracy members, except along a narrower, more specialized path. He heard it in the quick little intake of breath the caller took before launching into a high-volume, barely intelligible tirade about supposedly poor customer service. The moment he heard that he knew what was coming and knew chances were strong he wouldn’t be clocking out for at least another half hour. And he was right. Of course he was. By now he knew every customer type so well he could almost recite everything they might feasibly say ahead of time. This included anticipation of inflection of voice and at which juncture in the conversation they would insert certain stock phrases, including--but certainly not limited to--all-time top-of-the-charts favorites such as “I want to speak to a manager!”, “Isn’t there anyone there higher up than you?”, “I’m reporting you to the Better Business Bureau!”, and (his personal favorite) “I’ll never do business with your company again!”

One could only hope.

Thirty-five hellishly tedious minutes later he was able to wrap the exchange up after offering the customer free shipping on her next order and a one-time use twenty percent discount code. He counted this as a personal victory, as he always did any time he was successfully able to avoid allowing a customer to badger him into giving them something they didn’t deserve. Because he did consider himself at war with the legions of spoiled, entitled assholes out there. Most of them figured they could get something for free if they screamed loud enough, and maybe they could if they lucked into talking to a newer--and more easily intimidated--rep. But Mike was a battle-hardened veteran of the customer service wars and would not put up with that shit. Every now and then someone would call in with a legitimate gripe. Those were equally easy to instantly recognize and, funnily enough, those people were usually far calmer than the sanctimonious, screeching pricks he had to deal with much of the time. He was happy to accommodate the people in this sadly smaller category of callers, and he treated them with the respect they deserved. But when it came to the screamers, he did not fuck around. He allowed them to scream and vent for as long as they liked--and often that was a very long time indeed--but he never budged from the position he knew to be right.

It was a tough, hard-earned mindset.

So it was a pity that mental toughness didn’t carry over into certain other areas of his life, such as dealing with the Diabolical Conspiracy. That was how he thought of it in his head, with capital letters--with the same emphasis all the other conspiracy members used when they spoke the name aloud. He followed their lead in that regard, just as he did with every other aspect of cult membership. But every day he wrestled with the urge to stand up and take some kind of action against the group. His conscience told him he should do something. Maybe even take his story to the cops, as daunting as he found that prospect.

The mayor’s disappearance was big news and the source of endless speculation. The host of theories offered up covered a wide spectrum of highly unlikely fates for a small city mayor. Some posited that Donnie Wilkerson had been the target of a Jimmy Hoffa-style mob hit, while others said he had split town with a secret mistress and a stash of embezzled city funds. It didn’t matter that there was no evidence to support any of this. The media abhors an information vacuum--particularly when the vacuum exists at the center of a major story--so sometimes it simply manufactures “facts” of its own. Mike found it morbidly amusing that none of the wild stories circulating even approached the sheer insanity of the truth.

He could put a stop to it all any time. Today, even. Right now. He was thinking of this yet again as he finally exited the call center and trudged across the now half-empty parking lot toward his car. Though there was a veritable sea of open spaces now, his car was where he’d left it early this morning, at a very distant corner of the lot. The first shift was always the most fully staffed and the lot had been nearly full then. There was a lot of noise and bustle in the morning as his co-workers hurried to make it inside and be ready at their desks before the start of their shifts. Now, though, all was eerily quiet. The dismal gray sky overhead and the slight nip in the air contributed to an atmosphere of oppressive gloom. It made him uptight. And paranoid. He glanced over his shoulder more than once, half-expecting to see Diabolical Conspiracy spies shadowing his every move. Which was absurd, but he couldn’t help it. Ever since that disturbing morning drive with Marnie following his first conspiracy meeting, a large part of him had felt like he was living in a deeply strange satanic version of an espionage novel.

And, yes, he could put a stop to it any time.

Today
, he reminded himself yet again.

Right now.

Soon he would be behind the wheel of his car, engaged again in that most liberating moment of his work day routine. Ensconced once more inside his own vehicle, he would feel free again, unburdened at last of all the daily stresses that were part and parcel of his profession. He was no longer tethered to a desk. He could go wherever he wanted. Home. To the store for groceries. Or to a bar or a movie. It didn’t matter what or where, really, just that his time was his own again and he could do as he pleased. For instance, instead of heading home now, he could turn in another direction and drive to the police station. He could spill everything he knew. He could offer to wear a wire to the next Diabolical Conspiracy meeting. And he could put an end to this crazy fucking shit that had engulfed his life once and for all.

But every time he worked himself up nearly to the point of thinking he would do just that, he would remember that chillingly quiet morning drive with Marnie and shelve the idea. He suspected she had exaggerated the conspiracy’s reach and ability to anticipate and eliminate threats. The rational part of his mind told him it was ridiculous to believe they would systematically begin murdering every one of his loved ones the moment he showed up at the police station. But they had gotten their hooks too far inside him. He believed the hype, despite its surface absurdity. They had gotten away with murder many times before and had never been exposed. In the end, he simply couldn’t stomach even the remote possibility of the people he cared about being harmed.

So he was trapped.

Unless…well, unless he killed himself. Speaking of remote possibilities. But he hadn’t entirely ruled it out. If the situation ever reached the point of feeling completely untenable, it might become a feasible exit strategy.

Until then…

He started to frown as he drew closer to his car. There was something clipped behind the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. A white slip of paper, perhaps, or an envelope. There was something ominous about the way the edges of it flapped in the stiffening breeze, as if it were calling his attention. More paranoia? A quick scan of the scattering of other cars nearby showed no other white slips of paper clipped to other windshields. Of course not. Security would have chased off anyone attempting to distribute flyers on company grounds. No, whatever else this might be, it was undeniably an attempt to communicate directly with him.

Fuck
.

A tight knot of dread formed inside him as he reached the car and saw that it was an envelope clipped behind the wiper. Somehow a sealed envelope felt even more ominous than a folded sheet of paper. He opened the car and chucked his backpack inside before snatching the envelope from the wiper. That knot of dread tightened several more degrees as he saw the block letters printed across the front of the envelope--TDC.

The Diabolical Conspiracy.

Mike slapped the envelope against the palm of his free hand and kicked at a pebble on the asphalt, sending it skittering across the lot until it disappeared beneath a blue Lexus. Which was what he would like to do about now. Fucking
disappear
.

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fucking double goddamn fuck!

He had known it. On some level, he had known from his first glimpse of the thing clipped to his wiper that it would in some way be related to those evil fuckers. He didn’t know how he had known it, but he had, even though things had stayed mostly quiet on that front since that first horrible night. There had been a couple more meetings, but they had been uneventful, almost mundane. There had been no more murders. No more orgies. And the last meeting had been more than a month ago. Yet something within him had accurately divined the true nature of this thing almost instantly. It was almost as if something in the universe had been speaking to him. Trying to warn him. Which he couldn’t interpret as anything other than a very bad sign.

He sneered at the letters written on the envelope a moment longer.

Then he got in the car and tore it open.

The note it contained was terse and also written in block letters: GO TO FAT SAM’S ON FRONT STREET. ASK FOR JASPER. SAY YOU’VE COME TO PICK UP THE PACKAGE. TDC.

Mike read the note several times over, the crease in his brow deepening each time his eyes scanned the cryptic message. Fat Sam’s was a popular burger joint. Locally owned with two locations, one near where he lived and this one, on the opposite side of town. He couldn’t imagine what kind of business the Diabolical Conspiracy could have with Fat Sam’s, nor did he really
want
to know what that business might be.

He shook his head and swore softly: “Fuck me.”

For one wild, heady moment, he considered disregarding the note and just heading home. But he knew he couldn’t do that. When he failed to perform as instructed, he would be punished. Somehow. Some way. Nadia would probably flog him or some damn thing at the next conspiracy meeting. Also, Marnie was waiting for him at home. She had moved in with him at the beginning of the month. Her idea, and one he’d had little choice but to accept. It was possible she already knew of the note and the purpose behind it. Hell, it was even possible
she
had clipped the note to his windshield. The writing didn’t look like hers at first glance, but the block printing had been done with obvious deliberation, perhaps to disguise the author’s identity. Which begged some obvious questions. Why leave a note at all? Why not call him on his cell?