David Ellis - The Hidden Man

“Shut up.” I opened my cell phone and waited for the text message. It arrived, not two minutes later. I’m in. Can I put porn movies on your credit card?

I laughed, a brief moment of levity. Then I said a silent prayer for the only real family member I had left in this world.

When the movie was over, Mother Nature helped out with a rain storm. I used the weather as an excuse to get the car and pull up in front of the theater for Shauna, playing the role of Pete. All she had to do was keep her head down and pop into the car with the bag he had brought. There was not much of a chance that our surveillance could have made a distinction between my brother and my law partner. The identical leather jacket and blue baseball cap would be more than enough, as long as she kept her head down.

“I’m starting to feel like James Bond,” Shauna said. It was twice now she’d helped me fake out our tail, first lending me the car, now switching up with Pete and spending the night at my house.

We hung out in my living room for a while, though it was late and Shauna had an early day tomorrow. It felt like old times, back at State. After I was kicked off the football team for the misunderstanding I had with one of the team captains, I moved off-campus, into a five-bedroom house, which sounds nice until you factor in that eight of us lived there. Shauna was one of those people. We used to kill plenty of late nights, drinking the cheapest beer we could possibly find-how bad could it be if it was “Milwaukee’s Best”?-listening to REM albums, debating whether Automatic for the People was an interesting diversion for the band or a complete sell-out, discussing the merits of the Reagan Revolution, listing celebrities we’d sleep with-anything and everything. Easier times.

In another sense, it felt odd, maybe wrong, having a woman in this house for an overnight stay, the slightest hint of sexual overtone even if it was just Shauna. This was Talia’s house. It always would be.

Shauna stretched her arms over her head and yawned. The movement, however innocuous, brought back a memory from high school, the short interval when we were more than friends. Her eyes linked with mine and I blinked away, feeling like I’d been caught in the act of something forbidden but enjoying it nonetheless. It wouldn’t last, it wouldn’t make sense, not with Shauna, but it had felt more like a lifetime than four months since I’d experienced the sensation. I was still alive. I still could feel.

Shauna excused herself to bed, breaking the tension and leaving me to wonder whether it was mutual. But I had other things to consider at this moment.

I went to my own room and sat up on the bed, thinking things through. At midnight, I turned off the light. The darkness felt appropriate. I sat on my bed in the blackness, trying to focus a mind running wild. It was like trying to corral a bunch of roaches scattering from light. Outside the rain was rattling the window and drumming on the roof. I thought about where Pete was right now. I had to trust that he would be safe, because the alternative was unbearable.

When I was a prosecutor, I was assigned a badge, which I had to surrender upon my resignation from the county attorney’s office. But about three years in, I’d lost my badge and had to get a new one. Law enforcement offices do not have a sense of humor about losing badges, their use in the wrong hands, naturally, being problematic. The office reserved the right to dock a week’s pay upon the first loss of a badge and my supervisor, looking to make an example out of me, took full advantage of that punishment. It was about two months later that I found my original badge. The proper protocol, obviously, was to bring it in, but I didn’t. I didn’t precisely recall why, but it might have had something to do with losing that week’s pay and figuring I’d earned the right to keep it. Shame on me, then. Good for me, now.

In the darkness of my bedroom, I pocketed the badge and my revolver. Shauna, at my request, had parked her car the block over for my use tonight. But I had a thought. I called an audible. I decided to use my own car. First, because I wanted to see what would happen, if my tail was pulling a round-the-clock shift. And second, because I didn’t want it to be Shauna’s car I was driving, should things go wrong.

I backed my car out of the garage, taking care to look both ways for not only pedestrians but surveillance. I continued to look forward and in the rearview as I slowly drove down the street. I didn’t see any lights on any cars. For good measure, once I turned south onto the adjoining street, I pulled over, turned off the car, and killed the lights. I waited for five minutes. No one was following me. That meant something. There was a limit to Smith’s resources.

I drove for forty-five minutes on mostly empty streets and the highway, as the rain pelted my windshield. Rain always made me feel lonely, despairing, but this early morning it seemed to heighten my sense of isolation, allowing me to focus.

The place was on the far west side, a neighborhood that seemed to be on the way up, based on the stores that were being built on the main arteries. It was an apartment building. That was all I knew. I parked near the building and went through the first door, open. To my left in the small threshold were six mailboxes with tiny buzzers above them. Five of the mailboxes had makeshift nameplates. One was empty. I figured the empty one was the one I wanted. But that didn’t tell me which of the rooms inside this building was his.

And that didn’t get me through the locked, automated door separating the entryway from the rest of the building.

I went back to my car and drove on, turning right and then making another quick turn down the alley. Behind the apartment building, six parking spaces had been drawn out diagonally. Five spaces were taken, one empty. I checked the license plates against the one I was looking for. The car wasn’t there.

Good. I kept the car running but got out and checked the rear entrance to the building, which was covered by a beaten-up awning. The door was locked. Nearby, next to the closest parked car, there was an overfilled garbage Dumpster that, I decided, would be the best I could do.

I moved my car back to its original parking space, not far from the front entrance of the building. Then I jogged back around to the alley in back and considered my options with the garbage Dumpster. It was closer to the door than the cars, which helped, but there was about ten, fifteen feet to cover between the Dumpster and the door. Not ideal but I could give myself some help.

I looked through the Dumpster, not particularly excited about getting my hands dirty. I fished out a McDonald’s bag and found some food. I removed an uneaten part of a cheeseburger and placed it right by the door, separating burger from bun to make it a messy scene. I sprinkled a few fries as well, to balance the meal.

Then I removed the small jar of Carmex I had brought. Rather than rub my finger over it for use on my lips, I dug into it with my hand and liberally applied it to the handle of the back door, feeling like a sculptor as I ensured that every last bit of the oily lotion covered that handle.

Then I waited. It was tempting to stand under the awning to stay dry, but that would expose me. So I hunched behind the garbage Dumpster, helpless from the rain, which found its way under my collar and completely soaked my hair. Oh, Talia, if you could see me now.

Counting on the fact that I’d hear a car coming, I listened as best I could through the rain. Every few minutes, I got up and stretched out to stay limber.

It happened a solid hour later, which is what I would have expected but couldn’t know for certain. By the time I heard the tires crunching along the uneven pavement, the unhealthy engine spitting and sputtering, I was soaking wet and probably in the appropriate mood.