Rabbits(80)

* * *



—

We found parking a couple of blocks away and walked over to the address Chloe had dug up online. As we made our way up the street toward the glowing pink neon sign, I thought I heard someone following us. I spun around, but there was nobody there. Chloe said she hadn’t heard anything, but I was positive I’d heard footsteps and shuffling at some point, about half a block behind us.

Sinplay was located in a low brick building between a bicycle repair shop and a dry cleaner. The building’s bricks had been painted black at some point, but so much of that paint had weathered away that it was almost impossible to come up with a word to describe the building’s color.

There were no cars parked out front, and apart from the pink neon sign, there were no lights on inside or outside the store.

Sinplay appeared to be closed.

We tried calling again, but—just like before—there was no answer.

As we approached the glass door to knock, Chloe noticed something. “There’s a basement,” she said, pointing toward the bottom of the neon sign.

The building had an additional section directly below street level that was accessible only by a small staircase located behind a wrought iron gate. The lower section looked like it used to be a retail space, but now it appeared to be some kind of office or storage area. A significant portion of the window had been plastered with posters advertising various adult products.

“Locked,” Chloe said, rattling the padlock on the gate.

“We should come back tomorrow,” I said.

“Sounds good,” Chloe agreed. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.” She turned around and started walking back toward the car.

Just as I was about to join her, I saw something moving through the basement window. “Wait,” I said.

Chloe spun back to face me. “What?”

“There’s somebody there.”

“Don’t fuck with me, K.”

“I’m serious.”

Chloe walked back over to the gate and the two of us stared through the bars into the basement.

Through gaps in the posters, we were able to make out parts of a black-and-white harlequin-patterned tile floor, and numerous stacks of books and filing boxes. There was light, coming from a source located somewhere in the back of the room, that dimly illuminated the front section of the store.

Something moved in the far-right-hand corner of the window.

“It’s a cat, K,” Chloe said.

“It definitely wasn’t a cat,” I insisted—just as a black-and-white cat jumped up onto one of the stacks of books that lined the other side of the window and began licking its paws.

Chloe shook her head. “Let’s go.”

“I swear, it was bigger than a cat,” I said and leaned forward to get a better look into the dimly lit basement.

“Fine. I’ll hop over and knock,” Chloe said as she started climbing up the iron gate.

“That’s not a great idea,” said a disembodied voice.

“Fuck,” Chloe exclaimed, so startled by the sudden sound that she almost fell.

“What are you doing?” the voice asked.

I followed the sound to a small speaker located next to the basement door.

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” I said, “but we’re looking for somebody named Fatman.”

There was a long silence before a door opened behind the gate and a thin middle-aged man wearing a pink-and-blue faded Beverly Hills, 90210 T-shirt and gray sweatpants—not the kind that one might acceptably wear out in the world—stepped outside. He was holding a large medieval-looking crossbow, which was locked and loaded and pointed directly at my chest.

“It’s not ridiculous, it’s ironic,” he said, looking up at Chloe dangling precariously from the top of the metal gate.

“Is that a fucking crossbow?” Chloe asked.

“We come in peace,” I added as Fatman lowered his crossbow and unlocked the gate, which swung open with a slow comedic creak, Chloe still attached.

I helped Chloe down and the two of us followed Fatman inside.



* * *



—

Fatman’s office wasn’t exactly messy, but it was definitely filled to capacity. Narrow makeshift paths had been fashioned between countless rows of bookshelves, cabinets, and desks. A closer look at the shelves, however, revealed order beneath the chaos. Although each shelf had been crammed full of books and printed materials of all kinds, everything appeared to be arranged in alphabetical order.

The ceiling was low, and the fluorescent lights gave the place the vibe of an old newsroom from the seventies. Movie posters covered a couple of the walls: The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, and The Rescuers Down Under, to name just a few.

Enormous tattered blood-red curtains, which looked like they’d been taken from the set of a late-night talk show from the sixties, covered the entire back wall.

Whatever the hell this guy was doing down here, it looked like he’d been doing it for a very long time.

“You’re the girl from the Magician’s office,” Fatman said as he closed and locked the door behind us.

“That sounds like a Lisbeth Salander vehicle,” Chloe said, smiling.

Fatman ignored her joke. “How did you find me?”