Liquid fear

CHAPTER FIVE

The fog lifted, though Roland’s eyeballs still felt like wads of cotton. His heartbeat galloped.

He thumbed other cards from the stack. A Visa, with “David Underwood” in raised print, sporting an approval date from two years earlier. A card from AAA promising lodging discounts and emergency roadside assistance for David Underwood. A donor card from the American Red Cross, B positive.

At least we both have the same blood type in case I need a transfusion from myself.

A Blockbuster membership card and a Higher Grounds coffee club card, with three more cup images to be punched before he received a free refill, completed the stack.

Vertigo weaved its gossamer threads around him, and he sat on the bed before his legs turned to sand. He examined his driver’s license again.

No, not MY driver’s license. David’s. And why does that name sound familiar?

The listed address was a place Roland had lived in while enrolled at the University of North Carolina over a decade ago. The crummy off-campus apartment had been beset by cockroaches, rats, and a refrigerator that didn’t adequately chill the beer, and Roland had broken his lease after three months.

If the license was a fake, it was convincing. With the advent of the Department of Homeland Security and increased scrutiny of illegal aliens, the fake-ID business was booming, the cash flow allowing forgers to stay on the cutting edge of technology. Assuming someone knew the right people, a bogus driver’s license could be turned around in less than an hour.

The only problem with that scenario was that Roland had no close friends, much less one who would go to such lengths for a practical joke. Maybe Dick the Jarhead, his first twelve-step sponsor, who had traded in the bottle for a brand of aggressive humor that constantly bordered on violence.

But Dick had died last year from a cerebral hemorrhage. His wacky mind ended up doing him in after all.

A glance at the clock showed fifteen minutes before checkout.

Screw it. Won’t be the first unsolved mystery of my life.

He crammed the cards back in the wallet and wobbled across the room to the chair that held his jacket.

A search of the pockets turned up nothing but lint and a set of car keys. The keys, at least, looked familiar, belonging to the Ford Escort he remembered renting in Louisville, Kentucky. Nearly a week ago.

A week? Without a calendar, he couldn’t be sure of anything. Even the alarm clock might be lying. After all, in a world where your name could change, or someone with a different name could steal your face while you slept, nothing was certain.

Too bad I can’t do a switcheroo with my debt. Wonder if David has a hot girlfriend?

He wobbled to the window by the door and looked out. He was on the ground floor of a three-story building. The skyline might have been Cincinnati’s, but it was too generically midtown American to tell it from that of Huntington, Muncie, Plattsburgh, or Roanoke.

A beauty salon across the street was in need of new vinyl letters. Its sign read “air Empor um.”

Maybe I should drop off a business card. Score some points with Harry Grimes. Show I’m the go-getter type, even on a hangover.

A Marathon gas station, gray-walled warehouses, a chemical silo of some sort, and several urban condominium complexes lined the block. A blue Escort sat out front, presumably his ride.

So where the hell is MY license?

He dug into the wallet again, searching the opposite fold. He turned up a business card bearing David Underwood’s name and a cell phone number from an area code he didn’t recognize. The card bore a conservative but elegant C placed within a bordered rectangle. It was the logo for Carolina Sign Supply.

So “David” had the same employer as Roland, which made a practical joke easier to rig. Except that theory had no legs because no one knew Roland was in Cincinnati, much less which motel room he’d be staying in.

Aside from Harry and his deep-seated need to be of service to a fellow addict, Roland had remained aloof from his coworkers. Because he traveled and serviced his own regional accounts, he wasn’t part of a “team,” and he only checked in at headquarters for the monthly sales meetings. Most of his employer contact was via phone and e-mail.

Laptop?

He looked under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies big enough to mate.

“Maybe David has it,” he said, thinking it would be funnier if he said it aloud. Instead, utterance gave the words a palpability and weight that made the statement not only plausible but menacing.

Six minutes until checkout and his head was still throbbing, mouth still dry, tongue like a dirty sock. He was thrusting the fabricated business card back into its sleeve when he saw glossy paper beneath. He shuffled through the few cards, looking for photographs that would give David Underwood context or maybe clarify the faint tingle of familiarity the name evoked.

Did David have a family? Roland had never had time for children, though Wendy had once gone off the pill, back when she still held out hope that she could cure him solely through the power of love.

Fortunately, considering the ultimate outcome, the seed hadn’t taken root, and the separation agreement had been nothing more than dollars and cents instead of a Solomon-like cleaving of flesh.

Stop it right there. You can’t even remember your own name, and you’re wishing you could BREED? More little Roland Doyles or David Underwoods or whoever the fuck I am, running around playing their own brands of the Blame Game?

Three minutes to dress, pound on the front desk, and get to the bottom of this mess. The anger lit its pissed-off-villager torches inside his chest, ready to storm the castle of his head and build a bonfire.

Self-righteous indignation was an emotion that alcoholics could not afford to acknowledge, let alone embrace.

Anger, hell. In a few minutes, he’d be in a rage. And damned if it wasn’t going to feel good. The Blame Game had a new contestant.

He grabbed his jacket on the way to the bathroom, hoping he’d brought his shaving kit. He was eager to brush his teeth and rid his taste buds of the horrible, sticky residue of last night’s indulgence.

He could worry about contrition and guilt later. The twelve-steppers had stacks and stacks of white chips for that. God was built of forgiveness, and God probably knew the difference between Roland and David. He could start the day with a clean face, if not a clear head.

He nudged the bathroom door the rest of the way open.

A woman lay sprawled on the ceramic-tiled floor. She wore a peach fleece bathrobe, parted to reveal the snowy flesh of her thighs. One arm dangled over the rim of the tub, its hand smooth, graceful, and young. Raven hair splayed across her shoulders, obscuring her face.

Judging from the angle of her neck and the coagulating pool of blood beneath her, she was quite dead.