Song of the Red-Legged Birds: Chapter 16: Stayin' alive
Turning your back on a stranger
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Last week, in chapter 15, Takeda got the bum’s rush from The Center
Chapter 16: Stayin' alive
Holly walked towards the alley with Oliver in tow. She peered down its length. There was one bare bulb near a door in the back corner. Otherwise, the glow of apartments above lit the passage.
“What would you like me to do?” he said.
“Walk with me a bit. You don’t need to do anything.” She checked to make sure Triscuit was following them.
“Okay, got it.”
She walked as if bracing for an attack. Halfway down, she stopped and picked up a jet-black feather. She held it up for Oliver to see.
“This is what scared you?” He looked at it like he’d never seen a feather before.
“It’s part of it. A bunch of birds flew into the side of the building. Their remains have been cleaned up, for the most part.” She took a few more steps, close to where she’d been this morning, and paused.
“Something was at the end of the alley. It was there, and then it disappeared right in front of my eyes,” Holly moved ahead of Oliver another step.
“What… what was it?” Oliver said, reaching into his coat pocket.
“It was, and I’m not fucking around - a tree. A tree with glowing eyes…”
He pulled out a syringe.
The usually panting dog was suddenly quiet.
“...and it was there, right there,” she pointed, not looking at Oliver.
He pushed the plunger slightly. Bright yellow fluid trickled onto the ground.
“I’m not crazy; it had eyes. Glowing bright red ones.”
She stepped forward again, entranced, almost on top of the spot where it had been.
“Wow,” he said dryly, putting his hand slightly behind his back.
“And then it disappeared into a puddle. What the serious fuck? It was right here….” She bent down to look at the ground, the damp pavement reflecting him, looming over her.
Triscuit growled.
A flyer glided to a stop at the end of the alley.
Triscuit sniffed the air and let out a low grumble bark. Holly whipped around and said, “That must be Takeda; I swear she can smell him a mile away...”
“Huh? Oh…" Oliver stammered, the syringe no longer in view. He was a hair’s breadth too close to her, and he knew it. She sensed it and recoiled.
“Holly?” Takeda yelled. Tris doubled-timed it up the alley at the sound of his voice.
“Hey, I’m down the alley, Tak!” Holly yelled back, not breaking eye contact with Oliver nor expressing fear.
“Hi, Tris!” she heard Takeda say as he rounded the corner.
“You okay? I found your phone and cigarettes on the steps. I texted you a little while ago.” He walked towards her with Triscuit dancing at his heels.
“I’m fine. This is Oliver.” She pointed at Oliver, who was composing himself. “We were shooting the shit. I told him a bit about my weird day, and he helped me get past it,” she said with a tone that expressed something else entirely.
“Oh, cool. Nice to meet you; thanks for looking out for Holly.” She shot him a look. “Not that she needs looking out for,” he said with a grin. She punched him in the shoulder lightly.
“My pleasure. I’m sorry, was it Takeda?”
“Yup,” he shook his hand.
“Oliver Dean, I work over at NeoGeo Turbines. I was headed home for the day and got to talking to Holly and your cute pooch here.” He reached down to pat Triscuit, who withdrew and hid behind Takeda.
“What’s up with that?” Takeda eyed his hiding dog.
“She’s probably a little hungry, hasn’t eaten in at least fifteen minutes,” Holly forced a joke. “Should get her inside to satisfy the beast.”
“Well, I better be on my way,” Oliver said, taking out his phone. “Looks like my partner is wondering where I am. I forgot we were going to watch the Celtics tonight. It was great to meet you all, have a good night.” He walked with purpose up the alley and continued in the direction he’d been heading earlier.
They waited in silence for a few seconds watching him leave. Takeda said all in one breath, “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay? Should I call the police?”
“So, you were picking up what I was putting down, nice; I wasn’t sure. Listen, I’ve had a fucked-up day, so I’m sensitive to the fact that I’m on edge. But that average dude there, Oliver,” she pointed. “There was a moment before you got here that I was terrified of him.” She grabbed his wrist.
“You know the movie trope where the good guy lets the bad guy walk behind them, and you’re yelling at the screen, ‘don’t be stupid, he’s the murderer!’ I got that vibe from ol’ tan pants.”
“That guy? He looks like he enjoys retracing completed word search puzzles for a thrill and turns it up a notch on the weekend by shopping for tube socks.”
“Those guys are the murderers. It’s not the guy wearing a tank top that says murderer on it, open carrying a piece while walking a pit bull with a mohawk. It’s ol’ tan pants, word search dude that’s shopping for a good burying shovel at Megamart while whistling the tune ‘Dance with Me.’”
“Huh. Can’t argue with that.” He looked at his hand and wiped it on his pant leg.
“What’s wrong with your hand?” Holly said.
“Nothing, the creepy murderer has a sweaty handshake.”
She stared at him for a moment.
He stared back.
“Let’s get the fuck inside,” she said.
“Let’s.”
They went into Takeda’s apartment, and Triscuit flopped down near her empty bowl. Holly walked to the window, raised the blinds, and opened it a crack. She dragged a wooden chair over, lit a cigarette, and blew the smoke outside.
“Seamus is going to love that. You know he can smell a lit butt faster than a smoke detector,” Takeda said.
“Maybe he’ll cut us some slack when I tell him there was a murderer outside. What does my lease say about murderers?”
Takeda sat down on the couch across from her. “So, what happened? I can’t remember the last time I saw you talk to a stranger.”
She leaned forward in the chair, looking at the floor for an answer. “I don’t know. I’m not feeling like myself… I went outside with Tris to have a smoke and think. Then tan pants starts to chat me up, nothing flirty, just talk. Before you know it, I’m asking him to help me. Why’d I do that? I’ve parachuted into forest fires. More than a few times I wasn’t exactly sure if I’d make it out. But the alley is scarier. What I saw is scarier.”
She tapped ash out the window.
“I saw something impossible. And the fear I feel… it’s almost primal. You know I don’t ask for help, but I was going to ask you to check it out tomorrow.”
“Of course I will. But, you went down there. Did it help?”
Holly stared out the window, not speaking.
Takeda went to the fridge, took out two bottles of beer, opened them, and touched her on the shoulder with one. She took it. They drank in silence. Takeda knew her well enough to know that she was turning things over. He fed Triscuit, finished his beer, got another one, and sat back down.
“I’m going to say another batshit crazy thing; I’ve got to get it out of my head.” She glanced out the window.
“Let it fly, H; who am I to judge?”
She turned to face him and put a hand over her mouth.” Wait, oh shit, how was your night? Was it fun? Did you get my rainbow?”
“It was interesting. Let’s leave it there for now. Your rainbow was the best part. That was sweet. Tell me your thing first; then I’ll tell you mine.”
“Okay,” she said with a hint of concern. “I think that guy, tan pants… was working me.” She scraped at the beer label with a fingernail, tiny scraps falling to the ground.
“Working you? What do you mean?”
“I mean, he came looking for me; lucky for him, I was sitting outside. He wasn’t passing by. I bet he was waiting. Didn’t he look and talk heartbreakingly average? Like he was an expert in being non-threatening? That fucker word ninja’d me into letting down my guard. I don’t get tricked… or played. I know when someone is fucking with me.”
She was quiet for a moment. Triscuit waddled over to inspect the discarded pieces of beer label.
“Usually,” she added.
“Why do you think he was looking for you?”
“I’ll get to that, and when I’m finished, you’re allowed to tell me I’m crazy. Then let’s go get a bite while you tell me about your night.”
“Okay,” he said.
“We’re walking side-by-side down the alley, and then he’s behind me. He’s supposed to be helping me because I’m scared, but he’s behind me. I crouched down near where the fucking tree man was, and something felt wrong. Maybe that was when you pulled up, and Tris growled. When I stood and saw his eyes - he was different. You know how someone’s face can change? It could be their aura or some bullshit like that. But he was different, threatening. I caught him, and he knew it. You might have saved me by showing up when you did.”
“Wow, I…”
“Hang on. I’m relying on my gut. Maybe tan pants thought he was going to get lucky, and I’m misreading the whole thing? I don’t think so. Now I venture into the wild and wooly area of insane speculation. Two messed up things happened today, actually three. Birds, a tree-man, and Oliver, if that’s really his name. I bet that Oliver’s connected to what Seamus and I saw.”
Takeda rubbed his chin.
“Stop it. I know it sounds like a lame X-Files episode, but that’s why I said that you could call me crazy. What if Oliver came here tonight on a mission to kill me because of what I saw?”
She shook another cigarette out of the pack. Triscuit jumped up on the couch, circled, and flopped her head on Takeda’s lap.
“I’m not going to call you crazy. But that would make a crappy episode. I’d still watch it, though,” Takeda smiled.
Holly stared at him.
“In all seriousness, it does sound pretty out there, but I guess it’s possible. There is one thing that makes it questionable...” He watched as she got up and grabbed another beer.
“Oliver, Oliver Dean, I think that was his name, of NeoGeo Turbines? What else did you learn about him?”
Holly flopped down on the couch next to him and put her feet on the coffee table. Triscuit squirmed between them and sighed.
“He said he was a sales guy. And he said he was divorced after being married to his wife for a long time, and they had a daughter. And, right before he left, he mentioned something about his partner. I’m unsure if that meant he changed teams, or maybe it was a business thing. The only other bit was a weird story he mentioned from his childhood. Whether that was true or not, it’s what disarmed me.”
“So, we have enough here to research if this guy is who he says he is. Let’s start by searching for his business profile on ProFace. If he’s really a sales guy, he has to be on there.”
Holly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Good idea. But, even if he has a profile, it could be fake.”
“That’s true, but it’s a starting point. From there, we can check other linked social media accounts, colleagues, friends, and friends of friends. You know this stuff better than I do. What about the dark web? You’ve been out there, whatever that is,” Takeda said.
“Right before I went downstairs, I’d planned on searching it for anything about tree-men and red-footed birds and shit. Now I’ll bump ole Olly Dean to the top of my search list.”
Takeda got up, grabbed his laptop from the simple wooden desk across the room, and returned it to the couch.
“Seriously, when are you going to replace this thing? I could hear it groan when you picked it up. That’s a joke about how old it is,” she giggled.
“Oh, is it now? A joke? I couldn’t tell,” he said while logging in and opening a web browser in a private session.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“If this were some crazy conspiracy, there’d be a cutscene right after you do this search. You’d see a techie guy working in a badly lit basement with death-metal playing as he monitors your computer in real-time. Then, the camera pulls back, and tan pants is there, looking over his shoulder.”
“Fuck it, H, let’s take that chance. At least for this one search.”
She spread her hands in resignation.
“Here’s our boy. Hah! Is that the same blazer?” Takeda laughed.
They looked at Oliver Dean’s ProFace profile. Next to his photo, a text description said that he was a Sales Executive at NeoGeo Turbines for the past six years. Before that, he was at another wind energy company called WindX. It listed his education as a Bachelor’s Degree in Business from Boston University. His profile also said that he had 500+ connections.
“All right. Maybe Olly-boy isn’t a murderer – unless he had an awful day and thought, what the hell, she’d be fun to kill. It doesn’t rule him out of my crazy theory because this could be fake. But I feel a tiny bit better, thanks.” Holly kissed his cheek.
“Okay then. What would you like to do next?”
“One, I’d like to order a pizza because I’m starving. Two, I want to do a little digging about the tree thing. I don’t expect to find anything, but I have to try.”
“Ordering the usual, from the usual.” Takeda tapped on his phone. “Done, should be here in twenty.”
“Great. Now, how was your night at the center?”
“Oh yeah, that…” he said.
Next week in Chapter 17, “Burned,” We follow Oliver Dean across the city