Hell and Gone

26

I haven’t the faintest idea whether this is a rack on which the lovers are tortured, or something with pegs to hold the shining cloak of romance.

—James M. Cain, in conversation with screenwriter Vincent Lawrence

TECHNICALLY, JULIE LIPPMAN was dead.

When she couldn’t find her boyfriend, Bobby Marchione, Julie asked her father, one of the biggest political donors in Pennsylvania, to call in favors from all over. Every attempt—legal or otherwise—was deflected. Nothing sinister, nothing dramatic. Just a firm invisible hand pressing back against her shoulder, and a whisper in her ear: Oh, no you don’t. But Julie refused to give up.

She had taken advantage of two male friends, offering booze and hinting at sexual favors…all in return for unearthing this one little casket in a California graveyard…

And then they showed up.

Men in suits, carrying guns, blasting a warning shot into the air, threatening to blow their heads off unless they dropped to their knees and knitted their hands behind their heads. This changed everything for Julie. Now the invisible hand had a face. What kind of graveyard employed men who wore suits and swarmed out among the tombstones like professional killers?

But Julie kept such thoughts to herself even as she was charged with trespassing, a charge that caused her father great embarrassment and even more expense getting it quashed. In return she had to promise to enter a treatment facility to help deal with her grief. Julie, however, was not grieving. It was impossible to grieve over a person who was still alive. They…

THEY

…had her boyfriend somewhere, and he was being held against his will. She knew this in her heart, but she also knew it in her head. If Bobby was dead they would produce a body. And if Bobby’s body was in that casket, then they wouldn’t have stopped her from digging it up. No body meant that he was alive. And it was just a matter of time before she found him. On her own.

There were attempts at normalcy. Julie was even briefly engaged to a cop whom she’d chatted up one night at a nightclub in Old City Philadelphia to learn what she could about finding missing people. Oh, the horror and scandal in the Lippman family during those few months!

But Julie was too focused on her search for Bobby to focus on anybody, or much of anything, else. The cop went on his way; Julie continued her hunt. THEY were at the center of it all.

THEY kept resisting her.

Until finally…THEY took an interest in her.

Strange people, following her as she came and went from her downtown apartment. Bizarre pops and clicks on her phone. Pieces of mail being delivered late, bent and wrinkled. Some mail not showing up at all. THEY were watching, all right.

Which was exactly what Julie wanted.

The only way to see their faces was to make THEM come after her.

And then one night they did.

Late one icy January night Julie was attacked as she was making her way back from her car. She always parked in the same lot, traveled the same one-block route back to her apartment on Arch Street, right near a massive I-95 retaining wall. The route was desolate and rarely traveled, which made it easy to spot her spotters. In this case, however, the isolation worked against her. The man with the needle came out of the shadows.

Julie Lippman was dead.

She screamed and he punched her in the face, cutting off the sound immediately. Then his hand was around her throat and he was pressing her against the retaining wall and then rudely turning her head and stabbing her in the side of the neck with the needle. She felt the needle slide into her skin. She snapped. It was something in that violation-by-steel that did it; perhaps the instant realization that the same people who stole her boyfriend weren’t playing games and they thought they could just show up and kill her and not lose a second of sleep over it. They shouldn’t be allowed to do this. They shouldn’t be allowed to DO THIS.

Julie Lippman was dead.

She didn’t remember how she escaped, only that she found herself down by an abandoned dock on the Delaware waterfront, heart pounding, fingers raw and covered in blood. She found a dirty Dumpster full of old clothes. She left her own in a bundle by the edge of the dock, like a killer stashing them before making a getaway. She disappeared.

Julie Lippman was dead.

Twenty years ago it was easier to establish a new identity. This was the pre-9/11 world, when certain simple scams, such as applying for a Social Security number using the identity of a dead child, still worked. Much of the first year was spent re-creating herself.

Julie Lippman was dead.

“Eve Bell” was born.

The first part of her new identity came from a faded sign she glimpsed down by the dock—STEVEDORES ONLY, a notice from another era, when Philly had thriving ports. She would be Eve, and the name would always remind her of this moment of her birth.

The surname came from Tim O’Brien’s “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” the story of a young soldier who manages to have his girlfriend, Mary Anne Bell, shipped over to Vietnam.

Bobby’s favorite story.

Eve Bell was everything Julie Lippman couldn’t be. Eve Bell was a professional people finder who kept her own identity permanently buried—to protect her clients, protect herself. Eve Bell found dozens of people over her twenty-year career. Spouses, kids, grandparents, siblings, some of whom were happy to be found, others angry that they couldn’t stay hidden. Eve Bell was smarter than Julie Lippman. Eve Bell was tougher. Eve Bell could take a punch. Eve Bell knew that to wage war against the forces of Secret America you had to become like them. Ethereal. Existing on the fringes of the normal world.

All the while she pursued her original case, hoping to find some trace of Bobby Marchione.

Bobby was her one-armed man; her cure for gamma-radiation poisoning; her one true ring.

The reason for all this.

Then one day a year ago a former FBI agent named Deacon Clark hired her to find his missing friend Charlie Hardie. The case had all the hallmarks of a Secret America grab-and-disappear. She eagerly took the case, once again thinking it would bring her closer to Bobby.

And she woke up here.

Closer to Bobby than she ever would have dreamed.

* * *

Of course, she told Bobby none of this.

She simply said,

“I faked my own death so that I could find you. But it’s me. It’s your Julie.”

“You’re not my Julie,” Bobby said. “You know a little about my life, and you are trying to confuse me. It’s not going to work.”

“Goddamn it, it’s me, Bobby. Your sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong. You used to make fun of me for liking Prince. I still know the combination to your dorm room. Want to hear it?”

Bobby paused before replying, finger hovering on the button.

“It’s twenty-four, three, fifteen, Bobby. Do you remember when you first gave me that combination, told me Pags was going away for the weekend?”

Hardie watched from the ground, where he was still twitching slightly, imagining that little tendrils of black smoke were curling off his body. The underside of Zero’s gurney was full of wires and tricks. The pee tubes and all that medical stuff was a ruse; down here Bobby Whoever was at the center of this facility’s communications hub. Then he saw the grooves on the metal floor, directly beneath the gurney. It took Hardie a minute to realize what he was looking at it. But when he did, hope flooded his heart for the first time since he’d been banished to this place.

“You could have found that information out from any number of sources,” Bobby said. “A simple phone call to a member of the Leland University English department, for instance.”

“It’s me, Bobby. Touch me and you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

“You’re not Julie. You sound different. Smell different. I would have known. I would have known immediately.”

“I haven’t been Julie Lippman for close to twenty years. I had surgery to change my looks so they wouldn’t know I was alive. So yeah, I am different. Just like you. We both became other people.”

From the floor Hardie braced himself as he saw Eve take a step toward the Prisonmaster. The monster’s button finger twitched, as if waging some internal struggle. To zap, or not to zap. Eve was not afraid. She took another step and pushed her breasts against the Prisonmaster’s chest. This was no accidental touch. Hardie could tell.

So could the Prisonmaster, whose finger dropped away from the button.

“You remember, don’t you?” Eve asked softly.

“No…no, you’re not here. You’re supposed to be in Europe now. With your husband and daughters. Two of them.”

“My what? What are you talking about? I’m not married. I don’t have kids. I’m standing right here in front of you. Listen to my voice, Bobby. Touch me. You used to love to touch me.”

“Julie Lippman is in Prague right now, I know this, because they have eyes everywhere, and they’re making sure she is safe…”

“As far as the world knows, Julie Lippman is dead and buried, just like you. A tragic little footnote. The college sweethearts who died a year apart.”

“You’re lying, Julie is alive, and she’s up in the outside wor—”

“I’m standing right here in front of you!”

“NO, YOU’RE NOT, YOU’RE UP THERE AND YOU’RE SAFE AND THEY’RE LOOKING OUT FOR YOU. THEY TELL ME! THEY TELL ME ALL THE TIME!”

But now Bobby shook his head, quickly, in a trembling, pre-seizure kind of way, as if trying to shake something loose from the inside of his brain.

* * *

That was the arrangement.

Bobby would stay down here and run the secret prison, deal with whomever his employers decided to send his way. Over the years Bobby became quite skilled at manipulating the inmates—and they were all inmates, to be sure, prisoners and guards alike. Including Pags, who had long since lost the mental capacity to be in charge of anything, let alone this facility. Pags was good at following orders, but not much else.

In exchange, Bobby’s employers promised to make sure nothing ever happened to Julie Lippman. They would be her silent guardians, using the power of their global reach to keep her safe no matter where she roamed.

They sent Bobby regular reports; he lived vicariously through them.

He would not repeat the mistake of the soldier in that story. He would not dare bring Julie to this living hell, would not let her see what he had become. That was out, forever. But he could still be part of her life, in some small way. He could spend whatever equity he’d accrued to benefit her.

“Is someone telling you about Julie Lippman doing all kinds of wonderful things?” Eve asked. “Bobby, I’ve spent the last two decades looking for missing people. I’ve spent the last two decades looking for you.”

“They were…lying to me.”

“Yeah.”

“You did come after me.”

“I did.”

“Just like the sweetheart.”

“I’ve got the necklace of tongues to prove it.”

Bobby lifted his hand toward his head and began to make the cheesy hand signals, straight from Purple Rain:

I

Would

Die

4

U

And with that last letter, he pointed right at her.

Eve couldn’t help herself. She giggled.

“You dick.”

Hardie hated to interrupt this tender moment, but they were still trapped in a steel room with this crazy ex-boyfriend and nothing but knockout gas outside and bedrock below.

“Bobby…whatever your name is, listen.”

He turned in Hardie’s direction. A frown appeared, as if he were trying to figure out some complex math problem.

“Show us the way out,” Hardie said. “There’s gotta be one.”

“It’s okay, Bobby,” Eve said. “You can trust him.”

A strange look came over Bobby’s battered face. Part hurt, part confusion. “No. You don’t get it. There is no exit. No escape at all.”

Prisoner Zero started to grunt. “Huh-huh. HUH-HUH-HUHHHHHH.”

Hardie wondered what the hell he wanted.

Bobby said: “Shut up, Pags.”

“HUH-HUH-HUHHHHHHHH.”

Zero was pointing down at the ground. The room was dark, but when Hardie went down on his knees, he could see it. The faint lines of a seam, obscured by years of grime and filth. The lines formed a square.

Bobby held up the trigger. “Go near that and I’ll take you out. You won’t wake up from this.”

Eve moved quickly this time, throwing an arm around Bobby’s throat and immobilizing his wrist.

“Julie, what are you—”

“Open it, Hardie.”

“Guh-huh-huh-huhhhhh.”

Hardie placed his good hand on the side of Zero’s gurney and gave it a violent shove. The legs scraped against the metal floor. There it was, on the floor. In plain sight, the whole time. An escape hatch. The Prisonmaster here had positioned his old buddy over the single escape route. Hardie brushed away dirt and filth until he located the ancient handle. He had to scrape away grime with the tips of his fingers until he freed the handle.

“No!” Bobby said. “You can’t open that! We’ll all die!”

“What, another death mechanism? Sorry, Bob. Come up with a new trick. We’re all going. You, me, and Eve…”

Hardie caught himself.

“Julie…and my new best friend up there on that gurney. We’re all getting the hell out of here now.”

“No no no,” Bobby cried. “You don’t understand. There is no escape. Not for me, not for anyone they send here. Do you think I didn’t consider using that hatch myself over the past twenty years? Every day it’s crossed my mind. Every fucking day! And every day I tell myself no, leaving will only punish the ones I love. I would only be punishing you. Because that’s what they do, that’s what they’re holding over our heads. That’s the real death mechanism!”

Hardie remembered the images they’d pumped into his mask. Kendra’s house. The bedroom. Her sleeping form…

Eve told Bobby: “We can fight back. All of us. We can take these bastards down.”

Bobby shook his head and smiled. “You have family, Mr. Hardie. A wife and a son, isn’t that right? They will be dead the moment you leave this facility. They’ll see to it.”

“Not if I get to them first. Who are they? Who are your bosses? I want names.”

“That won’t do you any good. You can’t comprehend the complexity of the Industry—”

Eve said, “I hate to say this, Hardie, but he might be right. Once they know we’ve escaped, they’ll be relentless. They won’t hesitate to take out your family. I know how they work.”

Hardie stared at the escape hatch in the floor. So that was the choice? Stay here and keep his family alive…or leave and put their lives in danger?

Hardie had spent two years in exile because he thought he’d put his family in danger. He couldn’t keep hiding.

Sure, they might be in danger.

But he was the only one who could save them.

Hardie kneeled down, found the handle, brushed away the dust. “I’m going.”

Eve nodded. “Go, then. I’m going to stay here and take care of Bobby.”

“Not going to happen,” Hardie said. “Everybody goes home. All four of us.”

Eve shook her head. “You have a better chance if we all stay out of sight for a while. Ten escapees, they might notice. One, not so much. Not for a while, anyway.”

A strange, giddy look came over Bobby’s face. “You mean you’re staying down here? With me?”

“I’m not leaving you,” Eve said.

“Even after all that I’ve done?”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Okay, then,” Hardie said. He refused to waste another second down here. The hatch came loose after a few violent tugs. The smell was overpowering—wet rock and mold, as though some primordial creature had just woken from an eon-long slumber and released a silent belch.

“Where will this take me?” Hardie asked.

Bobby said, “You should recognize your location once you’re outside. Took me a long time to figure it out. One day they let a detail slip, and it all made sense. They’d want to pick someplace near the university, after all.”

“You know, it would really be great if you just told me.”

“A set of stairs should lead you to the surface. It might be a lot of stairs. We’re pretty far underground.”

Eve touched Bobby’s face, and he leaned into her palm. His mouth opened slightly, quivering. Hardie wondered when she was going to give up the act—that she was this guy’s long-lost girlfriend. It was a stunningly clever move, totally disarming their opponent. What he couldn’t figure out is why she wanted to stay down here a second longer.

“Eve, I’ll send help.”

“Don’t. Take care of your family first. We just have some unfinished business to take care of.”

Some vile thoughts went through Hardie’s mind. He pushed them aside, told himself to grow up. “You’re sure?”

“Go to your family. Besides, I need to check on the others. I’m presuming everyone’s going to be waking up sooner rather than later.”

“I can help.”

“Go,” Eve insisted. “Leave this to me. This is no hardship. I’ve been at war with Secret America for two decades now. Thanks to this place, I now have an army. And we’re going to kick their asses.”

Hardie was two steps down before Bobby spoke to him one last time.

“Doyle, Gedney, Abrams.”

“What?” Hardie asked.

“They’re the ones who put you down here. The ones who fund this place.”

Hardie repeated the names in his head. Doyle, Gedney, Abrams.

He started down the staircase then stopped, turned around, and picked up his old-man cane from the floor. He almost gave Eve and Bobby one last good-bye, but they were otherwise engaged.

Hardie left them alone.

She caressed his scarred, pale face with her fingertips. She hadn’t touched Bobby Marchione in twenty-one years. The last time had been that last night before Christmas break, when he’d brushed her forehead with his lips and whispered good-bye to her. But she touched his forehead, and leaned forward to kiss him there, and she knew it wasn’t really him. The real Bobby had died down here two decades ago. Which is why she calmly wrapped the mike wire around his neck and pulled both ends in opposite directions as hard as she could.

In the movies there was some killer move where you could quickly and compassionately snap someone’s neck by pushing on his chin while cradling the back of his head. Or some such shit.

But Eve Bell didn’t know such a move, so she had to resort to strangling her former boyfriend, sweet goofy Bobby Marchione, with his own electrocution trigger wire, and she was able to see the anger, followed by the hurt and confusion, followed by (she hoped) a little bit of understanding before the light finally went out of his eyes.

It took longer than she could have imagined, almost longer than she could bear.

There it was—her 100-percent success rate.

Eve Bell, professional finder, had cleared her docket. She could take it easy now, couldn’t she? Retire. Kick back, enjoy life. She knew, though, that this wouldn’t happen. She hadn’t cleared her docket. Her success rate was not 100 percent. She had to find the most elusive person of all: a college student named Julie Lippman. Fucked-up spoiled chick who lost her boyfriend and spent the rest of her life throwing a tantrum about it.

Where was Julie Lippman?

Eve thought about it and realized that she wasn’t worth looking for. Julie wasn’t missing. Julie had died a long, long time ago, just like her boyfriend, Bobby.