Tom Piccirilli - The Last Deep Breath

“I think you will when the time comes.” She stuffed the roll of bills in his hand. “Who knows, maybe you really will find your sister in the next six weeks. Maybe you can even help her get a bit part in the film. Isn’t that better than doing damage?”

He thought, No.

After twenty hours on the road Grey started to see double. He pulled over and got a room at a highway motel outside of Oklahoma City. Tired as he was he couldn’t fall asleep, so he spent a couple of hours flipping through the cable stations. He half-expected to find one of Kendra’s movies but there weren’t any playing. He checked the adult entertainment channels and saw he could order an Eva Rains and Harvey Wallbanger film for $19.99. He drew out Ellie’s photo and stared at it, thinking again about how he’d let her go and hadn’t done enough to protect her. He dropped off with the sun still shining and had fitful dreams about Pax beating hell out of old man Wagner, neo-Nazis and monkeys, Monty’s wife’s brains running like undercooked eggs thrown against a wall. He saw himself at the premiere to Killing Time , standing on a red carpet, wearing a tux and smiling and waving to screaming fans. Except they weren’t fans at all, they were just people in pain who couldn’t stop shrieking. And it wasn’t a red carpet at all, it was white and growing more and more stained with lapping blood. Grey kept grinning and waving.

With only six hours sleep in three days, having covered 2700 miles, Grey crawled through the mid-day traffic of the Holland Tunnel, crossed into Manhattan and made his way to the Village. He parked on the street half a block down from STARMAKERS INC.

The New York office looked very much like the L.A. one, stationed between a liquor store and a vintage clothing shop. The same kind of “For Lease” sticker was glued to the glass. Grey stuck his nose up to the window and saw a figure go by and a light snap off.

The door was locked. Grey knocked and the figure in the shadows ignored him. He banged harder and the figure gestured for him to leave.

Grey took the shammy-wrapped hammer out of his jacket pocket and smashed the glass in.

Turned out not to be John Raymond but a girl of about twenty-two who was cleaning out a desk. She looked so much like Ellie that his stomach dropped and he took two quick steps toward her, arms wide as if going in for a hug. He realized his mistake just in time and stopped short, his heels squeaking on the dirty tile floor.

She backed off into a corner and spoke quietly, calmly, like she was talking to an escaped mental patient. “Okay, okay, I suppose I should have opened the door. But now you’re here, so, right…how may I help you?”

He hit the light switch on the wall. Now that he could see her clearly she didn’t look much like Ellie at all. Her face was rounder, eyes bright with a swirl of fear and maybe even droll mischief in them. There was a small space between her front teeth that gave her a little girl appearance. Her hair was a dirtier blonde, longer and more curly. How could he have mistaken her for Ellie?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you were someone else. I’m looking for John Raymond.”

“You thought I looked like that fat bastard?”

“No, I-”

“Let me guess, you’re another satisfied client, yeah?”

“No, not exactly, I just-”

“Well, everyone’s looking for him. The landlord, the folks he reps, his grandmother in Poughkeepsie. She’s eighty-five and calls every…fuckin’…day. These old ladies, they get something set in their heads and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing that can get it out again. He took a powder almost three months ago and he hasn’t paid his bills or his employees, of which I am the last, since. I’m Lace.” She squared her shoulders and put her fists on her hips. “And no, I don’t have any residual checks for you. And I don’t know where your head shots are. And I can’t send you out for auditions. And I haven’t heard back from any casting agents about your screen test. And you can’t have anything in the office because I’m taking it all to sell before I get kicked out of my apartment. Are we square on all that?”

“Yeah,” Grey said.

“Good. This is good, I’m glad you’re being reasonable.”

If Raymond had been gone all this time, with no one in L.A. or New York knowing where he was, then there could only be one of two explanations. He was either dead or in hiding. And that meant Ellie was dead or in hiding with him.

Grey shook his head, his breathing hitching in his chest. A cold sweat broke on his forehead.

He put a hand out to the desk and held himself up.

“Are you all right?” Lace asked.

“Yeah.”

What would Pax do? Pax would have a plan. Pax wouldn’t be chasing his own tail. Pax would do something more than smash windows. Grey imagined him here now, beside him, tall and powerful and in command, cool and ready for anything, in charge. He looked to the left as if he was looking into Pax’s eyes now, reading them, seeing what the next move was supposed to be.

“You don’t look so good,” Lace said. She pulled a bottle of Jameson’s out of the bottom drawer of Raymond’s desk. These agents, they all kept a bottle on hand for nips between clients, and they all had the same taste. “Whatever he did to screw you over, at least you can drink the last few shots of his whiskey.”

Grey ignored the bottle. “Do you know Eva Rains?”

“That fucking bitch. Of course I know her. She’s the one who brought this house of cards down on us all.”

“What do you mean?”

Lace riffled through the drawers, pulling out anything that looked like it might have any value at all. A calculator, an iPod. “I told him a hundred times to cut loose the junkies, but he liked her for some reason and refused to let her go. He set her up with some nice bits on the weekly crime dramas but she always ruined it for herself. But she had a hold on him, you know? She’s beautiful and sexy and a porn gal who can spin around the world with that golden twat and those big fake tits.”

“They’re not fake,” he said, and then wondered why he’d bother. Lace looked at him like she had no idea what he was about and was still worried he might start swinging the hammer again. She clutched the few items to her chest. He asked, “Is there any contact information on her?”

“All right, now I’ve got to ask. Who are you?”

“I’m her brother.”

Lace actually clucked. “Right.”

“For Christ’s sake, it’s the truth.”

“I don’t see the resemblance.”

Grey tried not to sigh. “Does it really matter? Even if you don’t believe me, do you care enough not to tell me?”

“No, I suppose not. She was living with John.”

“Where?”

Lace gave him an address on East 72 nd. “But they’re not there. The apartment might even have been rented out by now.”

There had to be something. Some way to find out what had gone wrong. What had made them run. What had happened to make Raymond stab Ellie with a four-inch blade, if it had been him. Where their bodies were.

“You’re sweating like hell. Are you on the needle too?”

He glared at her. “No.”

She proffered him the whiskey again. “Here, take a swig. You need it. You look like you’re about to fall down.”

He drank deeply from the bottle. The heat went through him and swarmed up into his skull and then down into his chest and across his exhausted muscles. He took another swig. The girl watched him. She still had no clue whether he was telling the truth but she didn’t really care. She just wanted out. His strung nerves began to loosen.

“Can you find out what the last job Raymond got for her was?”