Hell and Gone

10

Your place or mine?

—Popular saying

THE NEXT TIME Hardie woke up he was surprised to find himself sitting in a metal chair and wearing a fairly nice suit.

He couldn’t remember how he ended up in this room, or why he was wearing this suit. Nothing more than fragments. Flashes in a black-and-gray fog. It wasn’t quite amnesia, because he remembered his name and who he was and what he had been doing just a short time ago—namely, being shot to hell in Los Angeles, California, and being patched together by these two jackass doctors. But after that…?

Was there a car?

He swore there was a car involved.

Pieces of it floated around in his mind, like half-remembered parts of a nightmare. A black car. Needles. Blood spraying out the side of someone’s head. The more he thought about it, the more his heart raced. His brain struggled to put the fragments together into linear order. His brain struggled like a computer trying to reboot itself.

He tried to focus on the memory of the car. There was a car, wasn’t there? It was coming back now. Yeah. Definitely a car. A big, black, scary Lincoln Town Car.

Or was that just a memory of a nightmare?

Relax. It’ll come. Don’t force it, don’t freak yourself out.

You’re only in a suit you don’t remember buying, in a room you’ve never seen before.

No reason to panic at all.

The room was wide with a low plaster ceiling. Paint flaked off the walls. The molding looked like real wood, reminding Hardie of his grandparents’ house in North Philadelphia. There was something very 1920s about it. The only nod to modernity was a fluorescent light above him, which flickered every couple of seconds, as if warning: I could go out at any moment. Appreciate me while I last.

There wasn’t much here, except the chair Hardie was sitting in, a metal table, another chair, and a filing cabinet tucked in the corner. The fading paint on the walls made it seem like other pieces of furniture had been in this room at some point, long enough to cause discoloration.

Hardie tried to listen for any sounds that would give him a clue as to his location—and somewhere was the faint swelling of violins. Maybe. Those could also be in his head.

His head.

Another piece of memory.

Right. He’d been shot in the head.

Hardie tried to reach up with his right hand and it stopped short. Metal dug into his wrist. He looked down with throbbing eyes and saw that he had been handcuffed to the metal chair.

Well, at least that settled a few things. This wasn’t some dumpy hospital room. He was being kept here, and someone had thought Hardie was enough of a security risk to slap some handcuffs on him. Which was funny, because Hardie felt ridiculously weak, down to the middle of his bones. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so drained. Yet he was still conscious. So at least there was that.

His left hand was free. Hardie tried to lift it, but the muscles in his arm screamed in protest. He forced it anyway, to the point where his fingers actually trembled as they touched the side of his head. The side where he remembered being shot. His hair had been cropped very short, and he could feel the rough edges of a ragged scar on his scalp. No stitches; just the bumpy mountain of skin. Hardie’s fingertips traced the wound about five or six inches around toward the back of his head until it faded.

So he’d been out of it long enough to heal. Which was weird.

Because it felt like he’d been shot only a few hours ago.

Right?

Hardie felt the rest of his head while he was at it, and yeah—someone had given him a crew cut. He’d hadn’t had such a short-cropped haircut in twenty years, since back in his military days. He felt the rest of his face, and it was hard. The skin rough. When had they cut his friggin’ hair? Why didn’t he remember that? How long had he been out, anyway?

Hardie sat in the room, trying to put all these memories together, wondering where he was and what they had in mind for him. Because it was clear he had pissed off somebody important—somebody who wanted to go through all this trouble to save his life and bring him to this room, dress him up in a suit, handcuff him to a chair.

But…for what?

There was murmuring elsewhere in the building. Hardie tried to focus on it, but the sounds were too faint. Were they even voices? It almost sounded like the string section of an orchestra, hitting notes that were too far away to place. Maybe bells, too?

After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened. A woman stepped into the room, closed the door behind her with a metallic snick.

It was, of course, Mann. Holding a long cardboard box about the size of a golf club.

“Hiya, Charlie,” she said.

And in that moment, Hardie knew he was really, really fucked.

So this was a revenge thing. Plain and simple. His life had been spared so that Mann could toy with it.

Whatever positive thinking he’d managed to muster up was gone. Mann was here, and she was probably going to torture him before killing him. Probably using whatever was in that box. Or she’d kill him and desecrate his dead body. Or maybe come up with some slow agonizing torture that would eventually, and only eventually, kill him.

“Uh, hi,” Hardie responded.

Mann slinked into the room, strolled right up to the table between them, and rested the box on top. She looked healthy, a little more filled out. And she seemed to have both of her eyes, which was kind of a shock. One of them was a brighter, otherworldly blue.

“Mind if I sit down?”

Hardie wanted to gesture with his hand—Be my guest. But the handcuff prevented him. And he didn’t feel like trying to lift his left arm again.

She took the chair opposite Charlie. The metal legs scraped against the concrete floor as she moved a little closer. “Good to see you.”

“Yeah.”

“No, really. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

Memory flash: Mann with an eye patch. She wasn’t wearing one now, though.

“You’re looking better,” Hardie said.

“Why, thank you.”

“Not to interrupt the pleasantries,” Hardie said. “But if you’re here to kill me, I’d rather you just go ahead and do it. I’m not into small talk.”

Mann smirked. “Me? Kill the unkillable Charles Hardie? I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. Besides, whatever happened between us is…well, ancient history.”

“Doesn’t exactly feel that way to me.”

“Of course it wouldn’t.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t feel that way to the Hunters, either.”

Her eyes narrowed, and now Charlie could see it—the glass one. Her right eye. The unnaturally blue one. So she hadn’t emerged from their little battle unscathed. She’d lost an eye. What was that old saying? It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye? Hardie supposed the fun and games were over. Now it was something else.

“That’s ancient history, too,” Mann said. “Look, as much as I’d love to sit back and reminisce, I’m here for a reason. They wanted you to talk to a familiar face, so that you’d know they were serious.”

“Again with the they.”

“It’s always they, Charlie. Don’t you know that? They run everything.”

“Kind of surprised they didn’t have you killed for screwing everything up so badly.”

This time Mann giggled before catching herself. Her cheeks turned red, and she fought for her composure. “Oh, Charlie, I’ve missed you. No, they didn’t have me killed. They don’t waste assets. And I’m an asset to the Industry. Just like you.”

Hardie tried to put his face in his hands, wanting to press his own eyeballs in to see if they’d stop throbbing. But then he remembered he was half handcuffed. Still, he used the palm of his left hand to rub his forehead. The movement was awkward; his left arm seemed to want to do its own thing, not be pressed into service.

“Do you have a headache?” Mann asked with something resembling genuine concern in her voice.

Hardie said nothing and continued rubbing his head. “Yeah. You wouldn’t happen to have any aspirin, would you?”

“That’s an unfortunate side effect of the memory shot they gave you.”

Hardie looked at her from between his fingers. “Memory what?”

“A shot to erase your short-term memory. Which is why you’re so confused right now, and why you have a really bad headache. They didn’t want you remembering anything about your trip here. Not the sounds of tires on the road, or the way the air felt or smelled. Nothing. So they blanked out your recent past. It’s a security precaution.”

“Exactly how much of my recent past?”

Mann smiled and hummed playfully. Hmm hmm hmmmmm.

“Great,” Hardie said. “You sure you don’t have any aspirin?”

Hardie had to admit it: he didn’t understand a thing about what was going on. Why was Mann smiling and chipper? That made him uneasy, far more than the ache in his skull and the handcuff around his wrist.

Now Mann leaned forward, sizing him up with her eyes. “You’re going to behave, right, Charlie?”

He took a moment before responding. “Sure.”

“Goody.”

Mann fished in her pocket and produced a small key. She stood up, scraping the chair back across the concrete floor, then moved around the table to Hardie’s side. He flinched. She told him to relax, then leaned forward. Her breasts brushed against his shoulder.

Hardie blurted: “You know, you still have a nice rack.”

It was a dumb inside joke between them—at least Hardie thought so. The first time they’d met, she’d been topless, sunning herself on a patio high up in the Hollywood Hills. He hadn’t known she was a professional assassin back then. He just thought she was rich and eccentric and an exhibitionist.

But Mann stepped away and frowned. Dark clouds formed in her eyes. Even, impossibly enough, the glass one. Okay, Hardie thought. Here it comes. Here’s the Mann I know. He braced himself for a punch in the head or a chop to the throat.

Instead, her hands came up and started to unbutton her blouse.

Now, this wasn’t what he expected.

“What are you doing?” Hardie asked.

“For old times’ sake,” she said, then removed her blouse to reveal her bra—disappointingly white and rather matronly. Mann reached around to the back and unhooked it.

“Look,” Hardie said, “I know this is a cliché, but when I said I had a headache, I really meant that I had a—”

When Mann’s bra came away from her chest, one of her breasts came with it. It took Hardie a few seconds to realize that the bra had padding on one side to perfectly match her remaining breast. The left part of her chest was glistening with fresh scar tissue, pink and raw-looking.

“God,” Hardie muttered. “What—”

“The big C. Runs in the family, sad to say. You can run away from many things in life, but you can’t run away from your genes. Happened a short while ago. I’m still getting used to one of the girls being gone.”

Hardie didn’t know what to say. What could you say? Sorry you lost one, but the other looks great? Mann wasn’t a high-school girlfriend. She was a cold-blooded killer. She had racked up many notches on her gun. She’d tried to kill him.

Then it occurred to him. When did she find the time to, like, survive breast cancer? How long had he been out?

“It’s not all bad,” she continued. “Amazon warrior women used to remove a breast willingly, so their tits wouldn’t get in the way when drawing back an arrow. Mind you, I prefer a gun, but I’m tempted to give archery a shot. Certainly would make for a great cocktail-party story, don’t you think?”

Hardie couldn’t look anymore. Mann rehooked her bra, slid her arms into the blouse, rebuttoned it. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you know that you’re not the only one who’s lost something, Charlie.”

“What do you want?” Hardie said. “Why are you here?”

“They wanted you to see a familiar face. They wanted you to know this is for real.”

“What’s for real?”

Mann smiled. “Your new life.”

“We’re in the vestibule of site seven seven three four,” Mann said. “This is a secret maximum-security facility, known only to an extremely limited number of people in the world. We’re somewhere deep in the earth, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Even I don’t know where it is.”

“Right.”

“No, I’m serious. They stuck me with the same memory shot they gave you. When I leave, they’re going to give me another shot, and I’ll wake up in a hotel room somewhere else in the world. Hopefully someplace with a spa and excellent room service.”

“They, again, huh?”

Mann leaned forward, raised her eyebrows. “Creepy, isn’t it?”

Unconsciously, Hardie’s trembling left hand went to the crook of his right arm and then he realized what he was searching for. The needle jab. Sure enough, there was a fabric bandage there, and wine-dark bruising around it. Somebody had given him a shot. Somebody had been giving him lots of shots. Sticking him up as though he were a college student trying to make some extra bread over a weekend.

Mann leaned back. “And when I wake up, my bank account will be fatter. I’ll probably go have a cocktail in the hotel bar. I’m not supposed to say anything to anybody, ever, so I’ll raise a silent toast to you, Charlie. Because you’re going to be away a long, long time.”

“So this is my punishment, huh?”

“Punishment?”

“For messing up your big Hollywood murder plans.”

“Oh, that,” Mann said. “Geez, I’d almost forgotten all about that.”

Uh-huh, Hardie thought. You forget all about about losing an eye. Forgive and forget. Turn the other socket.

“This isn’t about punishment, Charlie. It’s simple economics. You cost our employers a great deal of money. So they’re going to put you to work to recoup some of the losses.”

“Our employers?” Hardie said, but already his mind was reeling. Was Mann actually here to recruit him? Have Hardie join their little team of assassins? Good God—no. Hell, no. Put a bullet in his brain right now, be done with it. Or maybe he’d play ball just long enough to get his hands on a gun so that he could finish off Mann here, once and for all.

“You’ll be briefed down below—and let me tell you, the staff is looking forward to meeting with you.”

Now his patience had run out. “I’m not going to work for you. You can forget it.”

“Work for me? Oh, that’s funny, Charlie. Seriously. No, I don’t think you’d be a good fit for my team.”

“Then what’s this about a staff?”

“I think you’re going to find working with them extremely rewarding. I mean, they’re all truly good people. Heroes, really.”

Again, Mann was fucking with him.

“Oh, almost forgot. I have a present for you.”

At long last she opened the long cardboard box on the table. Hardie thought there could be anything in there. A shotgun. Dozen roses. A slender chain saw.

Instead, Mann removed a black cane and gently slid it across the table toward Hardie.

“A little parting gift.”

“You can shove that up your ass,” Hardie replied.

“That’s extraordinarily tempting,” Mann said. “But before I do that, why don’t you try standing up? It’s why I removed the handcuffs, you know.”

Hardie put his palms on the table and stood up. Immediately his right leg gave out and he slammed his ribs into the edge of the table before slipping down even farther. Mann flew forward and caught his head in record time, her hands grabbing his ears. She yanked forward. Hardie struggled to find his footing, but it was as if his right leg weren’t even there. Left arm—useless.

“You’ve suffered some pretty serious neurological damage,” Mann said, her breath hot in his face. “Your leg probably won’t work all that well for the rest of your life.”

“Bite me.”

Mann bared her teeth. “You saying you don’t want the job? Because it doesn’t matter to me. In fact, it would thrill me if you spit in my face and tell me you don’t want this job.”

Hardie obliged her, launching a wad of saliva that struck her cheek and began a lazy roll down her face.

“I don’t want the job,” he said.

Mann reached out her tongue and slowly licked the spittle from her face, as if savoring it.

“Wonder if Kendra will spit in my face, too, when I show up in her bedroom tonight. Maybe I’ll force her to lick my face, ask her if she tastes her dead husband. Think she’d like that?”

Before Hardie could reply, Mann let go, and Hardie’s own body weight pulled him down fast, the edge of the table slamming into his jaw. Vision went white for a second. The pain like a firecracker in his skull. He spun, landed facedown. Mann was over the table and straddling him as he struggled to roll over. Again, she leaned in close.

“Nothing would make me happier than to kill you, then go kill your family. Because you’re right, Charlie. No such thing as ancient history.”

“You so much as even look at my wife or son I’ll—”

Mann grabbed Hardie’s ears and slammed his head into the floor hard enough to make him bite his tongue.

“Don’t write a check your ass can’t cash, old friend. In about sixty seconds, I’m going to leave this room, take an elevator to the surface, where I’ll receive my shot, and be on my way to have that drink I mentioned. Right after that, they’re going to seal up the entranceway nice and tight and permanent. With cement and steel, just like they do whenever there’s a new arrival to site number seven seven three four. There’s no way out, Charlie. None. That’s the point of this facility—no escape. Ever. All you can do is grab your cane and take the elevator down to your new life. Don’t worry. I’ll be toasting you back in the real world. And if you fail to perform your duties, just know that I’ll be the first one they’ll call. And then I will delight in destroying your family.”

Mann climbed off Hardie’s body, staring at him carefully, waiting for a reaction. Hardie didn’t give her one. After a few moments she made a pfft sound with her lips and left the room.

* * *

Sure enough, after a few minutes Hardie could hear the sound of construction: the banging of steel, the muffled scrape of mortar hoes against some hard surface, the shrill buzzing of power saws.

Which was more than a little troubling.

Hardie pulled himself up off the ground, using his only good arm and only good leg to steady himself on elbow and knee. Balancing himself on that single knee, he reached out and grabbed the edge of the table, slowly working himself up again. He took the black cane from the tabletop. His right leg was still numb and fluttery, like a phantom limb. He needed the table.

He took a series of wobbly steps and, by way of sheer luck, eventually crashed into the door that Mann had used to exit. Hardie balanced himself, grabbed the handle. Locked tight. Somewhere above him, some unseen construction crew labored. Clanging. Pouring. Welding. Sealing.

“HEYYYYYYYYY!” Hardie screamed, so hard that he lost his balance, a misstep exacerbated by a sudden coughing fit.

“HEYYYYYYYYY UP THERE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

No response came. Either they were unable to hear him above the din of the power tools or the construction crew was dedicated to doing their job and their job alone.

Hardie made his way back to the table and sat down and considered his options.

He didn’t have to think long—because his options sucked.

So little of this made sense. It was like snapping awake from a horrible, sweat-soaked dream, only to discover that the world was about to end, the H-bombs were dropping everywhere, and boy, you’re about to wish you’d stayed in that bad dream.

The elevator door was the only way out.

Out was not up; out was down. Deeper into the bad dream.

To his staff—is that what she’d said? What the hell did she mean by that?

The stubborn knot in Hardie’s gut told him to stay put. Just sit here and do nothing. Eventually he’d dehydrate, maybe even be lucky enough to pass out. Just to spite Mann. Write a little message on the wall for her before he finally expired. Hope you choke on the olive in your fancy-ass cocktail.

Yeah.

Sometimes after a tough case Hardie would find himself hanging out on Nate Parish’s broken couch in his Philly PD office. One of the fabric-covered arms had long ago snapped, leaving a perfect V in which Hardie could rest his aching head. Hardie would crash on that couch, sipping a can of lukewarm beer, too keyed up to go home, too tired to move. Once, he’d said to Nate:

“We’ve been really busy lately.”

“We’re always busy. Remember what Pascal said.”

Hardie had no idea who Pascal was—some South Philly mobster he’d never heard of, maybe?

“What’s that?”

“All human evil comes from a single cause—man’s inability to sit still in a room.”

Nate turned out to be right, of course.

Hardie stepped into the elevator cage, slid the old-fashioned accordion-style gate shut. His grandmother’s old apartment building used to have an elevator like this. As a kid he’d constantly worry about getting his fingers chopped off when the gate slid open. That never prevented him from running his fingers over the greasy gate anyway. He pressed one of only two buttons in the elevator—ancient semen-colored circles of plastic adorned with the chipped words UP and DOWN. He seemed to already be UP. That left DOWN. Hardie pressed the button, which lit up. Somewhere, ancient machinery kick-started; pulleys and cables started turning. Hardie’s body jolted as the car slid downward. Here we go.

Going down.

Down.

Down.

Down.

What was down here? Hardie tried to decode Mann’s cryptic statements about this place—site 7734, she’d called it. A maximum-security facility. Buried deep in the earth. (If the length of this elevator ride was any indication, she was telling the truth about that, at least.) But for what? Was he being sent down for human experimentation? Imprisonment? Torture?

Suddenly Hardie got the idea that he may have been better off sitting up in that waiting room and withering away slowly.

After what seemed like an absurdly long time, the cage touched down at the bottom of the shaft. The air was noticeably cooler down here. Hardie braced himself with the cane, realizing that, yeah, he really should have stayed up top. He stabbed the UP button, but now it refused to work. Something clanked, but the mechanism failed to restart. Well, he was stuck with his choice now. Time to see it through.

Hardie reached out with this right hand to slide open the gate. He took a step forward, supporting his weight with the cane. The moment he stepped out of the elevator, he heard the strangest noise.

Applause.