Secret Dead Men

Six The Face They Feared

The next morning I woke up and brushed my teeth-carefully-combed my hair, and tried to substitute my coffee with a piss-warm Fresca. It didn't work.

It was time for a talk with Brad. No excuses now. Yeah, he'd been through a brutal murder. Sure, he'd watched his wife die. But enough was enough. It was time for him to start blabbing.

Besides, it was something to distract me from the raw, throbbing pain in my newly-crafted face.

I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes and transported myself to the new Brain Hotel room where I'd been keeping Brad. I didn't bother to knock.

There wasn't much to it. Just your college dorm room basics: single bed, wooden desk, metal chair, sink, mirror, wastebasket, couch, mounted shelf. (In fact, I had modeled most new rooms after my own college dorm room, from Nevada State, circa 1963.) Brad was sitting on the couch, fully awake, reading a newspaper. Or at least the pieces I'd absorbed last night. I wonder how it looked-random sentences and images, interrupted by white space?

“Good morning,” I said.

Brad looked at me for a moment, then nodded and looked back down at the paper.

“We have some business to discuss."

“Yes, we do,” he replied, his voice quaking.

“Do you have any questions?"

“Only one,” Brad said.

“Go ahead."

“What year is this?"

I hadn't expected that. Usually, a newly-collected soul will spit out something like, “Are you Jesus?” or “Where's my momma?” or “Where are the gates and the clouds?"

I frowned at him. “Why do you ask?"

Brad folded the newspaper and tucked it between the cushions. “Well, the last thing I remember, it was Sunday, August 31st, 1975, and I was being stabbed to death on my back porch. But today I wake up, and I appear to be fully healed. A rational mind would assume quite a few years-not to mention, extensive plastic surgery-were to have passed for this to happen."

“I saw you reading the paper,” I said. “Check at the date."

“Yeah, I know. It says September 5th, 1975. But if it's September 5th, then how can my body be completely healed?"

I smiled. “Because that isn't your body."

Brad's eyes narrowed. “Oh no?"

“Nope."

“Okay. I'll bite. Whose is it?"

“Nobody's. When you look down at yourself, you're seeing your own mental projection."

“Oh,” Brad said.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Aren't you going to ask where you are?” I said, finally.

“Well there's no need, is there?” he said. “It's clear than I'm dead, and have gone to Hell. To be honest, I had considered the option. But it all felt so real to the touch-my face, the feel of air in my lungs…"

“The brain is a powerful tool,” I said. “Even back when you were alive, everything you think you ‘felt’ came to you through your brain."

“Ah-hah!” Brad exclaimed. “I still have a brain, thus I am still alive."

“No,” I said. “You aren't alive, and you don't have a brain. You're inside mine."

It took him a while to wrap his brain-er, his mind-around the concept. It had taken me a while, too, when Robert had collected me. This was not something they taught in Sunday school. When you got down to it, most people thought death resulted in one of several options: (1.) Absolutely nothing. (2.) An afterlife of eternal bliss. (3.) An afterlife of eternal suffering. Maybe even (4.) Reincarnation, or (5.) Entrance into a higher plane of spiritual being, or something.

No one ever considered (6.) An afterlife in someone else's brain. But I'm here to tell you, brother and sisters, believe. Amen and Alleluia.

Once Brad was relatively at ease with the concept, the questions poured out of him.” If I don't have a brain, how can I think? Or speak?"

“Because you still have your mind, which is connected to your soul. The brain is nothing more than a muscle. Your mind and soul power it."

“So Plato was correct in the Phaedo in that the body is evil and impedes our search for the greater truth?"

“Huh?” I asked. “I'm only trying to explain what's happened to you."

“Yes, I know."

“Okay then.” I remembered Brad had been a college teacher. Jesus, did I hate academics. Always thinking too damn hard about things, trying to describe the world in the most inaccessible, complex ways possible. I preferred journalism: the pursuit of easily-understood fact. Man steals money. Fire destroys building. Mob kills naïve reporter. That sort of thing.

“Okay,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “Here's an easier one. Say I walk out of this room, down the steps, through the lobby and out the front doors of this ‘Brain Hotel.’ What then? Do I float away and go toward the proverbial ‘Light?’”

“No,” I said. “You'd hit a brick wall. The only way out of here is if I allow you take over my physical body. Or if this physical body dies."

“Who gave you the car keys to this joint?"

“Funny you should use that analogy,” I said. “It's how I think of it, sometimes. Anyway, my collector, Robert, entrusted me with the keys. I am behind the wheel, and the sooner you accept it, the better.” I thought maybe I was being too harsh. “Don't worry. I'm a careful driver."

“Oh joy,” Brad said. “What if I kill myself?"

“You can't. You're already dead."

“Fine. What if I kill my ‘mental projection'? Imagine myself to be absolute nothingness?"

“It won't work."

“How do you know?” Brad asked. “You ever want it bad enough to try it?"

This was all going in the wrong direction. Why wasn't Brad looking at the bright side of this whole thing, like I did when I was collected?

“Why are you so intent on killing yourself?” I asked.

“Because I'm looking around here, around this Brain Hotel, and you know what? I notice there's somebody missing. My wife, Alison. Unless you're keeping her hidden away for some reason."

“No,” I said quietly. “She's not here."

“I thought so."

I didn't want to go down this particular path yet. I needed him to feel safe, and maybe even enthusiastic about being here. Then we would discuss his wife. And how he was going to help me avenge her.

“Look, let me show you around,” I said. “I think you're going to find this place interesting."

Brad sighed. “If you don't mind, I think I'll stay here and try to think myself into absolute nonbeing."

“If you like, you can do both at the same time,” I said, trying hard not to sound like a used car salesman. “Our tour begins right here, in this room. At your request, we can craft it into whatever you like-a frontier log cabin, a modern luxury apartment, a country getaway…"

“Maybe later."

“Okay, okay. You want to see the lobby?"

“Anything important there?"

“Of course. There's a movie screen that allows you to look out into the real world through the eyes of my physical body."

Brad narrowed his eyes. “What's there to see now, if you're here talking to me?"

“Nothing, I guess. My real body is taking a nap."

“Sounds exciting."

I ignored that. “There's also a microphone on the lobby desk, in case you need to reach me while I'm in the real world."

“It connects to a telephone, or something?"

“No. You speak into the microphone, and I can hear it in my head."

Brad thought about this for a moment. “Doesn't it get confusing? Hearing all those voices?"

“Ah. Which is why there's only one microphone. Want to check it out?"

“Not particularly."

“Alright-then how about the restaurant? One of the souls here used to be a gourmet chef for one of the best casino restaurants in…"

“I'm not hungry. Which shouldn't surprise you, seeing that I don't have a stomach anymore."

Christ. This was going nowhere. I took a seat next to him on the couch. For a while, we both sat there, looking at the pale green walls, scratching our noses, readjusting ourselves on the couch-the usual timewasters. Finally I said: “Brad, I know this is all a rude shock to you, but time is a factor here. I need to know a few things. Things I'm sure you'll want to tell me. Things that will help make things right."

Brad turned to me. “What things?"

Was this partial amnesia, or was he being difficult? “You know. Things about our mutual friends. The Association."

“The who?"

“The organized crime syndicate that operates out of Las Vegas."

“That's what you call it? I guess it's a good enough name. The Association. Why, sure. I kind of like it."

“I'm glad."

Pause.

“Well?” I asked.

“Sure, I could tell you… things. In fact, I could tell you quite a bit about that particular crime organization."

I set my jaw, waiting for him to fill the silence. Finally, after years of fruitless searching, I would know the truth.

“But first,” he continued, “I need you to do something for me."

This caught me off-guard. “What?"

“I want you to find the bastards who killed Alison."

“That's what I want, too. Once we nail the organization…"

“No,” Brad interrupted. “Not the organization. The two individuals. The assassins. The prick who shot Alison in the throat, and the cunt who sliced me up."

In other words, Brad Larsen wanted me to solve his murder.

Brad insisted on telling me his version of events first. It was fine with me-I'm sure whatever Dean Nevins had pieced together left much to be desired. I poured Brad a glass of Brain scotch-an approximation of Chivas Regal-I'd brought for the occasion. It was a lesson I'd learned from my reporting days: keep your sources well-fed and well-lubed.

“Sure you're not hungry?” I asked.

He gave me a funny look. “Not much point eating, is there? I'm dead."

“Not true. Life inside the Brain hotel can be exactly like the real thing, if you work at it. Do things as you normally would. This includes eating, drinking, sleeping, shaving, showering, shitting… the whole thing. Take it from a man who's been here a long time. It helps.” Another reporter's tip: build some “we're on the same team” camaraderie.

In this case, however, it didn't work.

“Do things as I normally would?” Brad repeated. “Let's see. Normally, I'd wake up in the morning and kiss my wife Alison on the forehead. Normally, I'd ask her if she wanted cereal, or something else, like eggs or French toast. She'd have to help me, of course, because I always end up burning the pieces on the stove."

I could see where this was heading, but I though it best to let him get it out of his system.

“Normally, we would plan our day together-maybe go for a walk, or pack a lunch and walk up the creek bed to read and talk and hang out. Normally I would kiss my wife, maybe even make love to her, and normally we'd spend the rest of the day doing simple chores or listening to music or any number of things I can't do right now because you see, my wife Alison, she's dead!"

I watched his chest heave and his face disappear into his hands. Somehow, through all of this, I'd forgotten the crime at hand. A man and his wife had been murdered in cold blood. Why couldn't I be a wee bit more sympathetic? Come to think of it, this was the root of all of my problems with the residents of this hotel. I scooped them up, expecting them to be so full of fire and spit that they'd heap stacks of evidence on my desk and wait patiently as I brought my years-long quest to an end. How arrogant of me.

But I couldn't find a way to articulate this without sounding full of it. Instead, I walked over to the table and freshened up his Brain scotch, even though he hadn't touched it yet. I freshened my own drink and sat back down. “Tell me what happened, and let's see if we can't piece this together."

This seemed to rouse him from whatever fugue state he'd entered. I thought I heard him mumble, “okay,” but he might have just been clearing his throat.

“The day of the murder,” he started, then corrected himself: “…murders, I was working on a paper."

“Ledger books?"

“No, a paper. A thesis on the love poetry of John Donne. I'm sure you've heard of him."

Only a few days ago, to be honest. Donne was the author of the blood-drenched poetry book I'd found in the Wit Protec house.

“I always worked in the morning hours. It was when my thinking was clearest. I'd read the texts the night before, let them absorb overnight, then wake up and start fresh. I loved our reading time in bed the most. Of course, Alison wasn't much into Donne. I think the book she'd been reading was something by Jacqueline Susann."

Now this Susann woman, at least, I'd heard of. She'd died about a year ago. She was most famous for a novel that became a movie about actresses and housewives taking a lot of drugs.

“Anyway, I know it was morning, because I was working, and I always stopped whatever I was working on by noon to have lunch with Alison. So it was maybe 10 or 11. Alison was listening to music on our portable radio-the only modern appliance we kept in the house, aside from a refrigerator and a toilet."

Flash memory: the radio, still playing when I arrived at the crime scene.

“I remember her dancing around to some silly ballad from a couple of years ago-'Baby, You're Mine’ or something. She was trying to distract me from my work-which I usually hated, but in this case, I couldn't resist how goofy she was being. Pushing her hips into my back, touching my hair…"

Brad pulled his drink to his lips and took a sharp, joyless swallow. I knew I had to snap him out of this mood. Fast.

“Do you remember what radio station was playing?"

“Why is that important?"

“It's not,” I said. “Just another detail."

“I don't remember."

“Okay. Go on."

“Well, this song was playing, and Alison was dancing around, and all of a sudden there was a knock at the door. This is the moment I've been playing over and over in my head these last couple of days. Why didn't I think anything of that knock? After all, I was a government witness, hiding out hundreds of miles from home so that I could stay alive long enough to testify at a federal trial. Why did I think that knock was ordinary, like mail being delivered or the phone ringing?"

I had no reply for Brad. I was about to mumble something stupid when he saved me the trouble.

“I'll tell you why. Because Alison and I weren't raised that way! We didn't have it beaten into our heads from age five that you couldn't trust people! That you wouldn't always have somebody around to protect you, even when they said they were going to! So, for the briefest of moments, I forgot where we were, and I thought nothing of letting Alison answer the door. I went back to a line in my text and started reading again. No, I'll tell what I had really thought: Thank God for the door. Now I can get back to work. Can you believe it? Do you know the selfishness and arrogance it requires to produce such a thought?"

I looked down into my glass.

“Let me tell you-it takes a lot. I was so self-absorbed that it took a full couple of seconds for reality to kick back in, for me to realize where we both were, and what we were doing here, and by then, it was too late. Alison had opened the door. And somebody stuck a shotgun in her face."

Brad was filled with a combination of self-loathing and anger I'd never seen before, even in the most self-pitying bastards I've encountered. It was as if he wanted to nuke the Earth, then save one last bomb for himself to detonate inside his own broken heart. I could allow Brad to finish his own story here, but it took a while for me to drag it out of him, and I'd hate for anybody to wade through all his psychodrama just to glean a few basic facts. (I know I did.) I wished I could have tapped his memory of the murders and played it back in private, so Brad wouldn't be forced to relive it. However, this was not part of the soul-collection deal.

According to Brad, here is what happened:

Alison opened the front door the very second Brad realized it was a mistake. The Killer pushed a shotgun into her face, and Brad remembers an awful second or two passing before anything happened. It seemed as if the Killer hadn't planned to open the door and start shooting. Perhaps he'd wanted to bargain with Brad, or at least make him plead for his life. Perhaps he was shocked somebody had answered the door.

Once the moment of confusion passed, however the Killer fired his gun, and Alison's throat exploded. Brad watched her step back, her knees buckle, her body give out. He was paralyzed. “None of the images held any meaning,” he said. Fortunately his paralysis broke, because the killer cocked the gun and swung it in Brad's direction. Through dumb luck, Brad slid from his desk chair to the ground just as a bullet sped over his head and blew out a large portion of the wall behind him. Brad charged the Killer.

The Killer tried to reload, but was unable to. So he went for a bunt-grabbing the gun with both hands to smash it into Brad's charging body. They collided. Brad spun back into his own desk, collapsing it, papers and textbooks flying willy-nilly around him. He landed on his back. But the Killer was thrown off his feet, too, which probably saved Brad's life-there was no time to reload the rifle.

Brad heaved forward again, as if he were doing a sit-up, and lunged for the Killer's legs as he stood up again. The Killer went down, but hoisted a punch in Brad's direction; the punch crushed nose cartilage. Brad returned the favor once (connecting with the Killer's mouth), twice (bony forehead), and a third time (left ear) before the Killer swung the base of the rifle up into Brad's mouth. Again, Brad staggered and fell on his back. He spat blood and jumped up instantaneously. Needless to say, Brad was angry. And when it comes down to it, the man whose blood is flooded with adrenaline is going to have the edge. The Killer was only in it for the money-otherwise, he wouldn't have allowed Brad any kind of reprisal. Either that, or he was a shitty assassin.

I made some preliminary Notes on the Killer: Inexperienced, yet solid. Trained in the basic areas. Young.

Brad hoisted the Killer up by his shirt and thrust his entire weight against the nearest wall; it was a spectacular collision, to hear Brad tell it. He put his entire shoulder into it. To follow it up, he pounded the Killer's body into walls throughout the living room, then the kitchen. Anytime the Killer tried to push back, Brad used his momentum against him, and flip him into, say, a glass-fronted cabinet, or a Formica countertop. (Which would account for all of the blood-streaked wood and glass found at the crime scene.)

That said, I'm not sure this was the lopsided battle Brad painted it to be. Consider the facts: Brad Larsen is a college professor, and our Killer is a piece of Las Vegas muscle. Even the weakest piece of Vegas meat is still pretty damn tough. True, Brad had the adrenaline rush of watching his wife die. Still, I can't believe Mr. College Boy turned into Muhammad Ali, wiping his kitchen up with the Killer. I have to believe the struggle was dead even, until it reached the back deck.

The back deck is where everything fell apart. As I understand it, the Killer wound up on the ground, and was reaching for a small pistol tucked in the back of his trousers. (Probably for emergencies… and hey, this qualified.) Brad saw him reaching for it, however, and kicked the gun out of his hand quicker than you could say, “Die, you scummy bastard."

Gun went airborne; clattered to the wooden slats. Brad nabbed it. Quoted some poetry at the Killer.

“It was the last thing I'd read before watching Alison die,” Brad told me. “All I could think of through each punch, jab and kick, were the words: Mark but this flea. It kept me alive."

Then, Brad shot the Killer in the kneecap.

“Right then, I knew what I was going to do,” Brad told me. “I was going to take this pistol, and shoot one bodypart at a time. I was going to make this man die slowly, and screaming, in inverse proportion to the time it took Alison to die. I wanted him to reflect on what he had done, and let the lesson burn into his soul before he left this world. First, the kneecap-I'd read somewhere that rupturing the knee hurts like hell itself, but is non-fatal. Then a wrist. Then, maybe an ankle. A shoulder. The other kneecap.

Brad never got to shooting the wrist, because behind him-out of nowhere-came a blinding pain in his back, as if God himself had decided to stick a cocktail toothpick through his entire body. Brad dropped the pistol.

He hurled his body around, only to receive a similar shock to his upper chest, right above his heart. Is this a heart attack from the stress of it all? he'd thought. Am I being struck down before I can completely devolve into an animal?

Not quite. Brad's eyes managed to focus, and he realized somebody was stabbing him.

He lifted his left arm to shield another blow, but the knife plunged right through his forearm. The blade lingered there, caught between the opposing forces of Brad attempts to dislodge it and the Wielder's attempts to draw it back. Brad saw his attacker: a young woman, with red lips. That's all he saw. Call her Killer Number Two.

The knife ripped free and slid back into Brad's left shoulder. Then out again and across his chest, bisecting his right nipple. Down, across three of his fingers.

At this point, Brad did what any sane person would do: retreated. His legs, still fully operational, shuffled him back, out of harm's way, until he tripped over a wooden slat that was a fraction of an inch higher than its companions and crash-landed on his ass. The knife was on him again, pushing into his stomach. Brad rolled, and started to crawl forward. Sharp blows hit him in the back, the fury and power intensifying with each strike. Killer Number Two was trying to nail him to the floor.

Brad's salvation: the wooden railing, three feet away. He crawled for it, despite repeated blows. His hand reached the middle rung, and grabbed it tight. He looked behind him and saw Killer Number One crawling on the floor, too. Crawling for the gun Brad had dropped.

Brad reached for the top rung, wrapped his fingers around it, and was wracked with the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life. It was as if God had pushed the base of his spinal cord into a food processor. He turned his head, and saw the knife buried to the hilt in his right shoulder. Killer Number Two was walking away.

Brad was able to turn his head once more, and saw Killer Number Two bending over to grab the gun Killer Number One was so desperate to reach. He faced forward again and coughed; felt blood dribble from his lips. He placed both hands on the top rung and somehow managed to pull himself up, resting his full bodyweight on the railing. He rolled around to face his tormentor.

Killer Number Two had the gun. She was an attractive blonde. Full, red lips, taut face, upturned nose. That's all he registered before…

“Cool your tool, fool,” she said, then shot him in the chest.

“Are you sure?” I asked Brad.

“That's what she said."

Notes on Killer Number Two: Aggressive female. Young. Very young.

With those four words, Brad Larsen took a bullet in the head and flipped over the railing, landing in the muddy creek.

Well, not quite in the creek. But close enough.

His body flopped in the wet, packed mud. He waited to die, listening to Killer Number Two drag the whining, complaining body of Killer Number One back into the house. Then all was quiet. Leaves in the trees rustled, water gurgled, the occasional vehicle passed by, motor whirring off in the distance.

Brad tried to crawl to solid ground, but the slow, forceful flow of the creek pushed him further and further downstream. In retrospect, the flowing waters probably kept him alive longer. He spent the majority of the time flailing around, hovering between consciousness and oblivion, wondering about Alison.

It had to be a special kind of hell. I can only imagine what it would be like to lie there, cut to death, unable to breathe without pain, let alone able to stand up and go back up to the house to find out what had happened. It gave me the chills.

In time, Brad gave up the ghost. He wandered about the site for a while, lost. He saw his dead wife in the front room of the witness protection house… but he couldn't find her soul anywhere. He wandered by to his dead body. He cried, then wandered some more. And about 16 hours later, I arrived at his side.

“So,” he said, lighting a Brain cigarette. “Now you know what kind of monsters you're looking for, and what you have to do when you find them."

“What's that?” I asked.

“Put them through the exact same agony Alison and I had to live through."

“Not to be technical, but both of you are dead."

“Ah,” Brad said, smiling for the first time since we'd met. “Now you're starting to see the picture."