Peter Spiegelman - Black Maps

The For Sale sign was still up at the house next door to Trautmann’s, and its windows were still dark and empty. I glanced around the street. No one. I walked quickly up the driveway and around to the back of the vacant house. The yard was a square of brown grass, now dusted in snow. It was bordered in the rear by a low cinderblock wall, and on the far side by a section of the fence that ran around Trautmann’s property. I crossed to the far corner of the yard, where it abutted Trautmann’s detached garage. There was a narrow strip of dirt between the rear of the garage and Trautmann’s tall hedge. I scaled the fence and dropped quietly into the gap.

I crouched, listening, and a low growl came from the other side of the hedge. In the yard behind Trautmann’s, the Rottweiler was running in agitated circles, snorting and grunting. His growls grew angrier, and his grunts became barks. Shit. I moved slowly along the back of the garage and then down the side. The dog quieted down. I stood in the shadows for a minute, getting my breathing under control, listening. Nothing moved. I peered into the small garage window. No car.

The rear of Trautmann’s house was dark, except for some windows on the far side. I crossed the driveway and edged toward them, staying close to the back of the house. As I drew nearer, I saw that they were kitchen windows, set on either side of a metal storm door at the top of four concrete steps. I put my hand on the iron railing and my foot on the first step. I heard a scraping sound and a crackling noise.

And something white exploded behind my eyes, and swallowed me whole.

Something cool was resting on the side of my face, pressing up against my cheek. It was smooth and flat. It was heavy. I opened an eye, and the world was dim and red and tilting away. I shut my eye, but things kept on tilting in the darkness.

Something cool was resting on the side of my face, pressing up.. no. My face was resting on something cool. My cheek was pressed against something cool and smooth and flat. A floor. I was facedown on a floor. My body was loose and liquid and drifting, and I was tethered to the earth only by my face on the floor, and by my head, which was as dense as a crate of mud.

I heard sounds-murmuring, rising, falling, loud bursts. After a while, the sounds became words, many of them, coming rapidly, one after the other. I strained to catch them, but they were like live fish, slippery, wriggling, and I couldn’t hang on. After a longer while, the words became speech.

“Stop whining, for chrissakes, and bring that box from the hall.”

“You’re sure he’s not awake? His arms and legs keep moving.”

“I told you, a jolt like he got, they twitch around. I gave him a pretty good boot in the head, too. He’s not going anywhere. Just keep your pants dry.”

“Shouldn’t we put a plastic thing on his ankles too?”

“Go ahead, if you plan on carrying him around. Me, I’d rather he walk. Listen, take a deep breath and shut the fuck up for a couple of minutes, will you? Make yourself useful, bring that box in here.”

“You fit it all in three boxes?”

“Everything we picked, videos and all.”

“What about the rest?”

“Had a little bonfire on Sunday. Don’t need any of that shit, and I sure as hell don’t want it turning up around here. They’ll be on our butts soon enough, thanks to you. Don’t want to make it any easier for ’em than you already have, huh Millie?”

“I told you…”

“Now is not the time for you to talk. I don’t give a shit what you told me. If you could’ve held your fucking water, none of this shit would be happening and I wouldn’t be packing my fucking bags now.”

“He knew…”

“Didn’t they teach you English at prep school? What don’t you understand about ‘Shut the fuck up?’ Christ… and this was such a sweet deal, too. Bought you that fucking hacienda down in Santa Whatever. Got me my place in the islands. And it had legs. We could’ve run this out for years. But you have to shit your pants the first time somebody asks a question. And calling the Federales… fucking incredible. Make us rush things with ’ole Ricky P. And now this.”

“He knew about Welch…”

“How did you get this far, being so stupid, huh Millie? If he knew so much, he wouldn’t be making phone calls, telling you to meet him on some street corner, you putz. He was fishing, and you were the fish. And he hooked you and gave you lots of line so you could fucking drag him here. And now what? Now I’m getting out of Dodge, thanks to you.”

The voices approached and retreated, accompanied by footsteps, the hard sounds of heels on bare floors. The voices were familiar, but I couldn’t find the names. A twitch shot through my shoulders and arms, and I realized my wrists were bound behind me. I tried opening my eyes. One was pressed against the floor and squeezed shut. The other was sticky, crusted with something. I worked it open, and when I did, the world began to spin and tip again, and I was sliding off the floor. I shut it quickly.

“I’m telling you, he’s coming around. I just saw him blink,” a voice said from close by. Footsteps approached.

“Yeah? Let’s see,” the other voice said, and something hard prodded my broken rib. I gasped involuntarily, and jerked away. “Shit, you’re right, Millie. Get him up.” They grabbed me roughly by the arms and hauled me into a chair. A spike of pain rode up my side, from hip to armpit. I opened my eyes, and the world started sliding. I squeezed them shut and opened them again. And again. Things steadied.

I was in a kitchen. It was a medium-sized, rectangular room, with a door and two windows at one end, a passage into a dark hallway at the other, and all the kitchen stuff massed on the long wall in between. The fittings were circa 1960-something: pea green cabinets, orange countertops, speckled linoleum floor, appliances the color of old mustard. Yellow roller shades covered the windows. A dim, ugly light came down from a fixture overhead.

I was sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair, near a square wooden table. Three cardboard boxes took up most of the tabletop. They were open, and I saw bulky manila envelopes inside. The counters were bare except for an uncapped gallon bottle of vodka, an ice tray, my gun, my cell phone, and some plastic handcuffs, the disposable kind they use for mass arrests. Mills’s briefcase was resting against the dishwasher.

“Yo, earth to Johnny! You in there, pal?” Trautmann snapped his fingers in front of my nose. He was wearing jeans and a black Metallica T-shirt. He had a highball glass in his hand and a big automatic under his arm. His hands were huge, and the red scar on his forearm seemed to glow. There was tape across his nose and bruising under his eyes, and he made me think of the Vandals sacking Rome. He raised his glass and took a big swallow.

Mills stood behind him. He looked a thousand years older than the first time I’d seen him, and his steady stream of chatter had gone dry. His eyes were shadowed, and the bones of his face seemed very close to the surface. His lank hair fell forward over his forehead. He crossed his arms on his chest, hugging nothing. He looked at Trautmann and me like we were zoo animals out of our cages.

“How you feeling, Johnny? Not so hot, I bet.” Trautmann chuckled and took a swig from his glass. He was right. Besides the pain in my side and the dizziness, twitches still jerked through my arms and legs, my eyes were jumping around in my head, and nausea was rippling through me in waves. Worst of all, my brains were Jell-O. My attention kept wandering, like an energetic drunk on a street full of bars.

“Got your wires all jangled up, huh? Sparky will do that.” Trautmann picked something up off the kitchen table and flipped it end over end in the air. It looked like a long, black flashlight, but instead of a lamp at the end, it had a wide, flat head, tipped with two pairs of metal fangs. He caught it and pressed a button and a blue ribbon of electricity arced across two of the fangs. A stun gun.