Ben Winters - Countdown City

I knock again, waiting to hear those locks being thrown open, one by one. Nothing. I shout. “Hey, Martha?”

Across the street a window blind snaps open, a wary face peers out. “Excuse me?” I call. “Hey—” The blinds shoot closed again. A dog barks somewhere, down the street, and Houdini twitches his small head around in search of the challenger.

My fist is raised to knock again when the door jerks open and a strong hand grabs my wrist, and somebody in one quick motion drags me inside and kicks the door closed behind me. I’m pushed against a wall, my right arm sending out spasms of pain, and there’s hot breath in my face. A tumble of hair, a crooked chin.

“Cortez,” I say. “Hello.”

“Oh, shit,” he says, the good-humored voice, the laughing eyes. “I know you .”

Cortez lets go of my wrist, steps back, embraces me like I’m an old friend he’s picking up at the airport. “Policeman!”

His staple gun is dangling from his right hand, but he leaves it angled down, pointed at the ground. Houdini is out on the porch, barking like a madman, so I step over and open the door, let him in.

“Where did you come from?” Cortez asks. “Why are you dressed for the mental asylum?”

“Where’s Martha?”

“Oh, hell,” he says, and flings himself into the Cavatones’ fat leather Barcalounger. “I thought you were going to tell me.”

“She’s not here?”

“I don’t lie, Policeman.”

Cortez watches with amusement while I search the small house, working my way through the closets of the living room, opening all the ones in the bedroom and peering under the bed, looking for Martha or evidence of Martha. Nothing. She’s gone, and her clothes are gone: her dressers empty, wooden hangers dangling on her side of the closet. Brett’s sidearm is also gone, the SIG Sauer he left behind for his wife’s protection when he went off to play crusader in the woods. In the kitchen, sunbeams still play across the warm wood table, and the brass kettle sits happily in its place on the stove. But there’s no sign of Martha, and my case has come full circle: It’s a missing person, just a different person than before.

I return to the living room and point an angry finger at Cortez.

“I thought you were supposed to be watching her?”

“I was,” he says, the staple gun lying across his lap like a kitten. “I am.”

“So?”

“So, I failed,” he says, and looks up at the ceiling with theatrical misery, as if to ask what kind of God could allow this to happen. “I absolutely failed.”

“Okay,” I say, “okay,” patting my pockets for a notebook, but of course I have no notebook—I have no pockets—and my right hand is my writing hand. “Just tell me the story.”

Cortez needs no prompting. He stands, gestures animatedly while he talks.

“On Saturday I came by three times. Three times I came.” He holds up forefinger, middle finger, pointer, and his rhythm is like a Bible story: Three times I called your name and three times you refused me. Three times Cortez the thief came from Garvins Falls Road on a bike-and-wagon, laden with supplies for Martha, three times he did a “comprehensive walkaround” to ensure the safety of the small home, checking the doors and windows, checking the perimeters. Morning, midday, sunset. Three times he made sure all was well; three times he paraded himself around with large and visible firearms, so any thugs or rapists would be aware of the presence of an armed defender. Sunday, Cortez says, same thing: morning visit, noon visit, nighttime.

“And I told her, anything else you need, I provide it.” Cortez looks around the living room. “You want a muscular gentleman with a baseball bat sitting on this sofa all night long, you can have that. You want someone on the porch with a rocket launcher, we can make that happen.”

I raise an eyebrow—they do not sell rocket launchers at Office Depot—and Cortez grins, happy to explain, but I wave my hand for him to go on. I’m not in the mood.

“The woman is not interested in protection inside the house, but otherwise she is happy,” Cortez says. “Happy to have us around. As her husband had arranged.”

“Okay. And?”

“Okay, so same yesterday. But then today, I am here in the morning, just the same, and the woman is standing out on the porch, shaking her head and waving her hands.”

“She’s on the porch?”

“Yes, Policeman. With a suitcase.”

“A suitcase?”

“Yes. Suitcase. And she says, no thank you. Like I’m selling Girl Scout cookies. Like I’m a goddamn Jehovah’s Witness.” He puts on a mocking, feminine voice, says it again: “No thank you.”

Martha, oh Martha, what secrets had you hidden in your heart?

“It was like she was waiting for someone,” Cortez says, rubbing his chin. “Someone other than me.”

“Wait—” I say. I’m trying to capture all these details, arrange them in my head. “Wait one second.”

“What is it?” Cortez looks at me curiously. “You need me to repeat something?”

“Nothing,” I say, “No. Just—what day is it?”

“It’s Tuesday.” He grins. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just didn’t know what day it is. Please continue the story.”

What happened next is Cortez told her it wasn’t up to her, with all due respect he had been contracted to take care of her, and this wasn’t her arrangement to undo. If she didn’t want to see him, she could stay inside the house and he or his friend would drop off supplies and protect her from the outside. She insisted, no thank you, told him to leave her be, and then someone hit him on the side of the head.

“Someone hit you or her?”

“Me. I said me.”

“With what?”

“I do not know. Something hard and flat.” Cortez ducks his head, embarrassed. “I was hit very hard. I was knocked unconscious.” He steps back, raises his hands, looks at me wide eyed, like, Sounds impossible, I know, but that’s what happened . “I was out cold for I don’t know how long, not long I think, and when I woke up, she was gone. I went inside and ran up and down, three times I searched for her. But the house was as you see it. She is gone.”

“Holy moly,” I say.

“Yes,” says Cortez drily, and now it’s my voice he puts on, flat and solemn. “Holy moly.”

“So what are you doing here now, Mr. Cortez?”

“Waiting for her. A friend I have, Mr. Wells, is out looking while I wait—often the missing simply return. Ellen, meanwhile, minds the home front. Listen, I don’t care if that girl wants to be found or not. We’re going to find her. That cop comes back and finds her gone, I’m finished.”

“That contract, I think, has been abrogated.”

“Why? Oh—dead?” Cortez does not look saddened by this news. “Who killed him?”

“I’m working on it.”

He pauses, tilts his head. “Why?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll know when I find the killer.”

“I don’t mean why was he killed. I mean, why are you working on it?”

I take one more turn around the small house, Houdini close at my heels. I check the locks on the window, look for fingerprints, footprints, anything. Did someone do this to her, or did she do it herself, slip out from under the protection that Brett had arranged? Was she kidnapped? The suitcase says she was waiting for someone, presumably the mysterious Mr. N. But the mysterious Mr. N. is dead, right?

For a long time I stare into Martha Milano’s empty closet, and then I go back downstairs, find Cortez lounging in the recliner, his cigarette raised like a scepter.

“I tell you, this whole thing, it’s a bad sign,” he says. “Me losing track of someone I’m supposed to look after? That is a bad fucking sign.”