A Perfect Machine(16)

“Henry Kyllo,” Palermo said, unsure whether his voice had been loud enough to carry over the storm. “Been with us some time now. I had no idea how close he was, though.”

“Kyllo,” Kendul repeated, rolling the name around on his tongue.

Palermo nodded. More snow to sprinkle his elephants, more cold to freeze his photographs into place.

Kendul slammed the door hard, stomped down the caboose steps, crunched across the lot toward the warehouse’s back door.

Palermo rolled up his coat sleeves, caressed the tattoos there, brushed his fingers lightly over the symbols. They felt hot, burning beneath his skin. He made sure the photograph of the girl was still in his pocket, then put on his boots, wrapped a dark blue wool scarf around his neck, put his collar up, and stepped out into the storm.



* * *



“Good?” Cleve grunted as he opened the warehouse door to let Marcton back inside. But Marcton’s gaze was locked elsewhere, toward the street.

“Yo, dingus, wake up,” Cleve said. “I’m talkin’ to ya.”

“Yeah,” Marcton said, slowing down, squinting, still looking toward the street. “Fine.”

Cleve followed his gaze. “What are you so enthralled by, dummy? I swear to Christ you get more spaced out with every passing day.

Marcton’s expression changed, then. He went stonefaced. As he pushed past Cleve, stepping inside the warehouse, he said simply, “Company. Follow me.”



* * *



Hidden in the long shadow of a building across the street from the Runners’ warehouse, a man in a ratty, logoless baseball cap sat in a VW Beetle doing a crossword puzzle by the low light of a nearby lamppost. The tip of his cheap pen was chewed like a dog’s toy. The cigarette dangling from his lips was unlit.

On the passenger seat beside him sat a small spiral-bound notepad filled with the night’s scribbling.

When James Kendul walked out the front entrance of the darkened warehouse toward his beat-up old jeep parked on the street, the man in the car put his puzzle aside, reached inside his fake leather jacket, pulled out a crappy ninety-nine-cent lighter, and lit his cigarette. The ember glowed bright in the dark interior of the car when he inhaled, illuminating the steering wheel, the man’s lap, and part of the passenger seat.

He started the engine, put the car into gear, and rolled out of the shadows, snow crunching under the tires. The heater in the man’s car was broken, so every once in a while he lifted his hands from the wheel and breathed on them.

As Kendul pulled away, the chrome on the back bumper of his jeep flashed, momentarily blinding the man. Every time this happened, he had to refocus his mind, remind himself what he was looking at, or else, he knew from experience, the memory would fade and he would simply drive home, forget about the warehouse, forget about Kendul, Palermo. The whole evening would become a blank, with only his scrawled notes an account of what he’d been doing. But even those would soon cease to make any real sense to him.

The decaying warehouse seemed to lean in at the man as he drove by it, tilting down toward him, its roof slanted at a curious angle. The rumble of his car’s engine lulled him, made his eyelids heavy. Fifty feet. A hundred. Flash of chrome. Refocus. Flash of chrome. Refocus. Concentrate. Remember…

A dream within a dream within the darkness – then suddenly jolted awake when two loud pops split the stillness. The man lost control of his car, tires spinning, careening to one side. He barreled into a parked station wagon. Metal crumpled, glass shattered. His car tilted onto two wheels – the other two useless, flapping strips of rubber on warped rims – then flipped over onto its roof not two hundred feet from where he’d started. Crashed against the side of a red-brick bank building. The tires spun. Snow fell, dusting the little car’s undercarriage. A beetle on its back, legs in the air, trying but unable to right itself.

Glass tinkled, then silence crept in as the wheels slowed down, stopped.

Kendul’s jeep disappeared around a corner up ahead.

The man in the car hung upside down, suspended from his seat belt, unconscious – and unaware that two of the men he’d been spying on earlier that night were approaching his car. One smiled; the other did not. One wore heavy winter clothing; the other did not.

Both were visibly upset about something. And each carried a smoking Magnum at his side.





E I G H T





Pitch dark. Absolute. Save for the tiniest sliver of light wriggling in under the back door of the warehouse.

The man’s baseball cap still sat on his head, though skewed – like the chair he was tied to, tilted at an uncomfortable angle. The man felt sweat drip from the band of his hat, trickle into the corner of his open eyes, stinging. He clamped them shut.

All around him, breathing; some of it short and quick, some deep and slow. Sounded so close, he thought maybe it was just in his mind. Until someone coughed lightly. Someone else wheezed.

The man moved his head around, looking for any sign of where he was, any shape in the darkness. To his left, he caught a glimpse of light, someone moving behind stacks of… stacks of what? He watched the light move closer, intermittent. Brighter, dimmer, brighter, dimmer. Crates of something. Warehouse, he thought. I’m inside.

Footsteps now, echoing around his head, mixing with the chorus of uneven breathing, and the light flitting closer, nearly upon him. A face swam out of the darkness. Round, pitted. Acne-scarred. Breath like sulfur, puffing on him. The candle in this man’s hand was tall and thick, like its carrier. Built for war.