Pavel Kravchenko: Project Antichrist

“Convenient.”

“Coincidental.”

“Why would Whales dispose of one body and leave the other one in the kitchen?”

“Who knows? Got tired, got scared.”

Brome shrugged.

“What?” Brighton asked.

“It’s too… neat.”

“Come on.”

“All of it. Big shot TV star, no surveillance, antidepressant pills, violent outburst in the suburbs, draft. Sounds like a lot of horseshit to me.”

“That horseshit is called circumstantial evidence. There’s a dead guy in the kitchen. There’s a missing gun. There’s an extra bullet casing. There’s even blood that doesn’t belong to either Whales or O’Malley.”

“And he ran,” added Brome.

“And he ran!” Brighton confirmed sharply. “Listen, some cases are just simple, even with no surveillance. Most of these actors are like time-bombs waiting to blow up. All that money makes them crazy. Let me tell you, if Whales survives a day or two, Morgan Chase will have a field day.” Having heard Brome’s acknowledgement of the fact that the suspect had fled the crime scene, which in his mind was as good as hearing the verdict, Special Agent Brighton mellowed again. Brome looked up at him in confusion.

“Who?”

“Who? Morgan Chase? That’s the host of ‘America’s Most Wanted.’ Have you been living on another planet?”

“Oh, that guy,” Brome said. “Are the forensic people done with the bathroom?”

“Eh? Oh, sure. I think so.”

“Excuse me a second.” Circling his partner’s imposing frame, Brome crossed the living room.

In the bathroom, which had a modest pool in place of a bathtub, Special Agent Brome made a face in passing at the mirror and stopped in front of the toilet. He lifted the seat, unzipped his pants and reached into his coat pocket. Extracting a small blue bottle he twisted the cap open, dropped a single capsule on his palm, resealed the bottle and put it back in his pocket. With a flick of his wrist he let the capsule fall into the toilet, urinated over it, zipped up and after a long search located the flush sensor, sending the swirling torrent into the bowels of the building. As he began washing his hands, there was a knock on the door. Ducking quickly, Brome filled his mouth with water from the faucet. In the doorway his partner’s head appeared.

“Sorry,” Brighton said, averting his eyes. “We gotta go. Seems the cops found our guy. He was hiding in one of those faggot bars on the North Side, can you believe it?”

Swallowing tap water and feeling only repugnance, Brome followed his eager partner outside.

The telephone was backstage. The bartender — an obscenely tall, tree-like creature with a massive crown of hair and arms that could easily reach from one end of the bar to the other — refused to let me use it unless I bought a drink. I chose not to argue, although I began to harbor certain irritation on account of no one recognizing me. It was for the best, of course, but it irked me nonetheless.

His heavy hand unloaded a tall, misted glass in front of me. I didn’t know what the drink was, couldn’t tell you what it was made of even if the monster had bothered to give me its name. The last time I’d drunk alcohol prior to that night was at my housewarming party some six years earlier. The medication I’d begun taking shortly after did not mix well with booze.

I popped a twenty into the counter and said my thanks, waiting for him to direct me to the phone. He waited also.

“What? A twenty is not enough to buy a drink here?”

“You have to taste it,” the troll trumpeted over the music. I stared at him.

“You’re kidding, right?” He wasn’t. I looked over at Iris; she only shrugged, but I could tell she was amused.

I picked up the glass and sipped at the edge. It was strong, but I’d be damned if I grimaced in front of that oaf. Taking a hefty gulp, I shot him a challenging glance. He guffawed, held a lighter to someone’s cigarette on the other side of the bar and pointed to the left.

“Through the curtain, down the hallway on the right.”

I swiped the drink off the counter and headed in that direction. The last booth on that side of the bar was empty. Iris took the glass from my hand and said she’d wait there.

As soon as the curtain fell behind me, I felt like I was in a theater, and not in a bar. Certainly not a gay bar. Music, suddenly muffled, seemed far away. The sounds coming from the amphitheater were the hum of a crowd anticipating a play. On the left three steep steps led up to the wooden stage. On it, concealed from the outside world, in reddish twilight, stood a lonely pyramidal stepladder. I stared at it, as though expecting it to go and announce me, for longer than I should have. Finally remembering my urgency, I hurried into the passage, which ended at least twenty-five yards away in a door marked “EXI.”

The peeled pink hallway with doors on one side was empty and brightly illuminated by a cicada fluorescent light mounted on the wall. The first door was locked. The second, with a faded pentagram on it, opened into an abandoned dressing room. Inside, on a night table in front of an enormous framed mirror, rested a black phone, an old model, the one you had to press buttons on. Nothing else in the room. Nothing to sit on.

I picked up the receiver. Dial tone fascinated me. I listened to it for a while, thinking that the disguise really was shit and someone should have recognized me by now. The man in the mirror put his hand up on the wooden frame. I made eye contact.

“So,” I said. “What are you in for?” He eyed me, annoyed.

“You know what,” he replied.

“Well, how is it in there?”

“You know that, too.”

“Not much of a conversation we are having.”

“Are you here to talk to yourself or to make a phone call?”

But that was the thing. I had the receiver in my hand, but I had no idea who to call. Not only did my mind fail to yield a single face it deemed capable of helping me, I also came up with nothing when I tried to at least think of someone who wouldn’t dial police as soon as they heard my voice.

“Call Paul,” the man in the mirror said suddenly. I stared.

Could I really just call Paul after six years? He had been my agent back when I was still trying to get parts in theater. He had been my friend long before that. I had fired him, because theaters were dying and because Jimbo could and did get me places Paul never would. The last thing he ever said to me — when he realized I was being serious — had been an expletive. Yet, his name was the only one presently available. I didn’t know whether it was because my fairy godmother slipped my mind, or there simply was no one else. Actually, I knew.

“Dial Pail,” I said loudly. Nothing happened of course.

“Damn it. What was his number?” I asked my mirror-self. “And don’t say ‘You know.’” He didn’t answer. Then I knew the number. Hurriedly, I punched it in.

Phone rang for ages. It’s been six years, I thought. He probably changed the number a long time ago. Hell, he could have died of a heart attack for all I knew.

There was a click, and Paul said, “Hello.” I almost hung up, but just squeezed the handle in my fist instead.

“Hey, Paul,” I said stupidly.

“Luke?” His voice dropped to almost a whisper.

“That was fast.”

“Did you kill that guy?” I don’t know why I was so surprised, but I was certain then that for a moment my heart stopped beating.

“How?” I breathed.

“I just watched a special about you on the news.”

“Did they say I killed him?”

“They said you’re wanted for questioning in connection to. Where are you?”

I was suddenly afraid to tell him.