Song of the Red-Legged Birds: Chapter 33, Part 1: I couldn't get away
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With gratitude, Bill
Last week, in chapter 32, Tom met with the President
Chapter 33, Part 1: I couldn't get away
“Tak, can you check the reviews on this bed and breakfast? It’s 7 am, and I smell bacon, eggs, and coffee. An excellent sign.” Holly started talking even though Takeda was sleeping, a habit of hers. He slowly came to.
“Bacon, coffee… good. Yes,” he mumbled into the pillow.
Holly pounced on him like a playful kitten. “Wake up, sleepy head!” She kissed him on the forehead and ran into the bathroom.
He tried to disappear underneath the covers to the sound of the shower turning on. Holly could stay up all night and still spring to life in the morning refreshed. Takeda oozed out of bed like a slug, no matter how much sleep he got.
He sat up and took stock of his new surroundings. Holly had drawn open the shade revealing frosted glass you couldn’t see through. Still, the sun was doing a hell of a job letting you know it was morning. He swung his feet onto the floor and was met with an ankle lick from Triscuit. She’d staked out her master for more than an hour. The lick was code for let me out to pee and feed me.
Takeda pulled on yesterday’s clothes while his brain caught up with today’s slated activities. “Oh yeah, that,” he said out loud, remembering that the plan was for him to go into Wake’s replay device. He tapped the video screen on the wall, which lit up with the date, time, weather, and top news stories. It also had patched-in webcam views of the ground floor where the riots had been last night. All looked clear, though there were remnants of police tape, broken glass, and garbage. Struggling through the debris was a homeless person searching for treasures. A businessman skirted the area like it was an infection. He clutched a cup of coffee and was in an animated conversation with the air.
Takeda walked Triscuit down the hallway to the spot Wake had shown them last night. She looked up at Takeda, expressing that this wasn’t preferable and better not become a habit, and took care of her business. Wake had left some kibble and a water dish. Takeda waited for her to eat before heading back to the bedroom. He could hear muffled sounds of morning discussion and laughter coming further down the hallway, probably in the kitchen. Holly was already dressed and drying her hair when he reappeared.
“What? No breakfast? Oh, I see how it is. She eats first, huh?” Holly patted Triscuit between the ears. The dog fell over and continued to lick the remnants of food left in her mouth.
“You sleep at all, H?”
“A bit. Had weird dreams, like you.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
She was twisting her hair into a complicated braid. “It was weird ’cause I was out in the mountains working, but there was a shitload of those tree men there. I wasn’t afraid though. It was quite the opposite. I felt like they were protecting me, even though they surrounded me. Like, I felt safe, you know? It’s been a few days since I felt that way. I think it’s because I haven’t been in the woods for a while, and everything is mushing together in my head.” She fastened the braid with a hair tie.
“I like your hair like that,” Takeda grinned.
“Settle down. We got shit to do.” She slapped him on the ass. “Come on. I’m starving!”
Ira was nervous about missions that were this straightforward. There was comfort in complexity. Familiarity in a wealth of details. Safety in planning for a multitude of things that could go wrong. But the fact was he hadn’t been in the field for a while, and this was the perfect scenario to get him back into the game. A softball mission. And he’d get bonus points for cleaning up someone else’s mess.
He leaned back in the harness that secured him to the telephone pole and went through the motions of testing the cable lines. He’d spent much time researching and practicing what an actual cable installer would do in this scenario. And not only the physical actions but any conversations he’d need to have with customers.
Overprepare, always overprepare.
This was too easy. Both of the target’s apartments faced the street and had windows that weren’t blocked by curtains or shades. Ira wasn’t staring at the windows though. He’d affixed a tiny camera to the pole so he could look like he was working while observing the apartments through a handheld screen.
Nothing. No movement. No lights. He wasn’t surprised. The other cameras monitoring the streets indicated they’d left last night and hadn’t returned. Hijacking the feeds to those was so easy a child could do it. He unclipped himself from the top of the pole and started climbing down the ladder. When he got to the bottom, he made a show of making notes on a clipboard and looked back up at where he’d been. Then he retracted the ladder and loaded it onto the van labeled ‘People Vision. High-Speed Networks, for Your High-Speed Lifestyle.’
He went up the steps to the apartment and found the outside door wasn’t locked. Ira read the mailbox labels, rang the buzzer above one labeled ‘Super,’ and waited.
No answer.
He rang it again.
Still nothing. Crap, he thought and picked up his toolbox. He went to Takeda’s door, listened for a moment, disarmed the lock, and stepped inside. Thirty seconds, he reminded himself as he walked purposefully through the apartment, looking for signs of life and finding none. A full garbage can with remnants of pizza and some empty beer bottles. A dog dish, no dog. Good. Nothing useful appeared other than a scrap of paper amongst the junk on the coffee table. It said Chimera in pencil scrawl.
Ira left the apartment, relocked it, and went across the hallway to Holly Johnson’s place. He was about to work the lock when a police car screamed by outside. His heart skipped a beat, and he chastised himself for it. You’re out of practice, kid. Act like a professional. A moment later, he was inside Holly’s, searching. He picked up a copy of Anna Karenina from an end table. There was an envelope with a card tucked into it that was used as a bookmark. The card said ‘Happy Birthday’ on the outside over colorful flowers. The inside of the card had a handwritten note that said, ‘I hope you have a wonderful birthday! Love, Mom’. He examined the envelope behind the card. It was addressed to Holly Johnson. The return address was one that he already knew, and he was glad to have it confirmed. It was from Diane Johnson. “Looks like I’m going to Portsmouth,” Ira said.
He locked Holly’s door and made a show of looking his part for the cameras as he exited the building. He was about to get into his truck, but curiosity wouldn’t let him. He turned to the alley. Ira grimaced and pulled on the brim of the hard hat, which was too big for his head. He was tall, painfully thin, and looked like anything but a killer–unless you noticed his eyes. Once, in grade school, a classmate had taunted him. “There’s nothing in there!” the child dared while pointing. It was a rough day for that poor young man, but he was able to return to school in a few weeks.
“Well, be quick about it.” He said out loud, hitching up his tool belt and walking to the head of the alley. He’d heard about sightings before but had never been this close to one. It wasn’t part of the mission, but he had some extra time and couldn’t resist a chance to see what he’d read in the report.
He turned the corner, glancing up at cable wires that weren’t there. Then strolled with purpose and his head on a swivel. There was nothing to see, no sign of anything other than garbage and broken glass. He looked up at the windows, passing Ms. Emerton’s, although he was unaware of it.
Ira turned, thinking that he heard something behind him. Nothing was there. He started to walk again, then wheeled, glass crunching under his twisting feet—still nothing. For a moment, he could swear that the buildings on either side wavered. Bending, leaning, and almost touching each other across the width of the passageway. He closed his eyes and shook his head. His mind went to work crafting an explanation. Your eyes are dry from being up on the pole. After rubbing them, all was normal and vertical again.
He continued down the alley, convincing himself that he wasn’t afraid. You’re a killer, for fucks sake. Stop acting like a little bitch. Ira squared his shoulders and made it to the end. He examined the ground. No puddle, or steam, or anything weird at all. He shrugged and started back for the truck.
Returning up the alley, he noticed that there was no sound. Nothing was coming from the street, and he couldn’t even hear his footsteps. He started walking faster, but as he did, the alley got longer?
So, he ran.
He ran as fast as he could, and the entrance to the alley retreated as quickly in response.
Then it got dark.
He couldn’t hear anything but the thudding of his heart.
His trained response said DON’T PANIC.
He panicked.
Slow drumming started to fill his ears. That’s not my heart… It was fluttering, thumping, wings beating. They battered him about the head, and he waved the clipboard at the unseen monsters.
A word filled his mind. It wasn’t spoken, and it wasn’t his voice. It displaced all other contents. “NO,” thundered in his skull, reverberating against a million invisible walls.
Ira screamed. Even at this moment, he reflected that he’d never heard himself scream before and thought that it sounded pathetic. Yet he kept screaming all the same as he crouched on the ground covering his head.
He ran out of screams and rocked back and forth on his heels, clutching his legs, whimpering.
A breeze touched the back of his neck, and he opened his eyes. The alley was normal again. He stood up on shaky legs and rubbed away the tears. Then he slapped himself in the face hard. And a second time. None of that was real. It was your imagination. You wanted to see something, but you didn’t. Asshole.
He looked down the alley and up at the windows to see if anyone had seen his breakdown, his screaming. Nothing moved. He picked up his helmet with labored movements and set it back on his head. He then looked around for the clipboard. It was a few feet away, face down near an alley wall.
Ira bent down and picked it up. Underneath it was a large jet-black feather. Air escaped him like a punctured tire. He picked it up and examined it with a shaking hand, rolling it back and forth. He felt the feather shudder, then it turned to dust all at once, covering his hand with black silt. Frantically he wiped his hand free of the soot and staggered backward.
This time Ira walked out of the alley with authority. When he reached the end, he sensed that he’d rejoined the world. Cars passed by, and a few people were walking and talking. He could hear again. No one noticed me? It had to have been recorded, like when they recorded the targets. Someone would be laughing at my expense. No, they wouldn’t, asshole! Because nothing happened, we went over this! But the feather… There was no feather either. Shut up, shut up, shut up! Man the fuck up and do your job! He grabbed the sides of his head to quiet the voices.
They weren’t unfamiliar; sometimes they showed up when he’d had to dispose of someone. Sometimes they just decided to mock him for the abuse he suffered as a child. The pills helped with those times. Maybe they’ll help now. He took a small bottle from his cargo pants pocket and swallowed a couple silencers.
Ira got in his truck, double-checked the Portsmouth address, and entered it into the GPS. He was about to pull away when he saw a man about his age in a black suit. He was escorting an elderly woman dressed in black up the apartment steps. The man looked towards the cable truck and, for a moment, seemed interested in why it was there. But then the woman started to lose her balance, and he steadied her. Ira couldn’t make out the words, but the man was getting an earful for his mistake. They disappeared behind the closing door.
Ira adjusted the rearview mirror.
He watched the alley for three long breaths before pulling away.
Next week in Chapter 33, Part 2, “ I couldn't get away,” Takeda takes a trip