James Knapp - State of Decay

“Do you know who that is?” I asked. The picture looked like a still taken from somebody’s point of view as they were standing inside an office or something. Sitting on a desk was a polished stone clock with what looked like a diamond above the twelve. A little Asian woman with a big head was sitting behind the desk. She had an overbite and weird lips, and her eyes reminded me of a fish’s, for some reason.

“Do you?” he asked back.

“No.”

He looked at the picture a little longer, then looked back at me.

“How is it that you are helping your friend, the federal investigator, on his case?”

“I have special talents,” I said.

“But why you?”

“I’m the only one that can do what I do.”

He nodded like he wasn’t even listening. He didn’t ask me to clarify what I had just said.

“I see,” he said, stepping back from the photographs. He took one more look along the walls at the other things tacked there, then moved to the bedroom doorway.

“Thank you for showing me this,” he said. “It was very interesting. Good luck helping your friend. I hope you are successful.”

“Thanks.”

“If there’s one thing this world does not need, it’s more revivors.”

On that note, he moved back to the front door and opened it, giving my apartment one last look before that expression of contempt came back for a second.

“You should tend to this,” he said. “Human beings shouldn’t live in filth like you do.”

All at once, the sort of lighthearted feeling left me and I remembered why I couldn’t stand that guy. My face got hot all the way to my earlobes.

“I should have known better,” I said. “I knew you were a jerk.”

He shrugged as he turned to leave.

“Get out!” I snapped at his back, then slammed the door behind him.

I was so angry. Who did he think he was, asking to come in and then insulting me to my face?

Turning the lock, I stormed back into the bedroom and grabbed the bottle. It took five shots to calm me down again; then I took a deep breath and sat down on the bed next to the photographs.

I meant to look at the one with the big-headed woman again, but I didn’t see it on top of the stack. Pushing the photographs off to the side to spread them out, I saw one underneath that I hadn’t looked at before, and stopped short.

The image looked like a video still of a woman. In the picture she was kneeling down in the snow, holding what looked like a body in her lap while a truck burned a little ways away from her. She had short dirty blond hair, nice cheekbones, and a strong jaw. I recognized her immediately.

I picked up the photo to get a better look. It was the woman from the green concrete room, the woman who carried the split heart. It was the dead woman.

The picture started to shake in my hand. Why did he have a picture of her? What did she have to do with anything?

“It’s how I was,” a woman’s voice said from behind me. I jumped, dropping the picture, and turned to see that she was actually standing there. The woman from the photo, the dead woman from the green room, was standing three feet away. She wasn’t dead this time, though. Her skin and her eyes were normal. She looked sad.

“You know Nico?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She just turned suddenly, her eyes opening wide like she was startled by something only she could hear.

“He’s here—” she started to say, then clutched her chest with one hand.

I waited to see if she would continue, but her eyes just bugged out and her mouth opened and closed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

A second later, blood began to run between her fingers as she held it to her breastbone.

“Hey!”

Jumping off the bed, I stood in front of her, but there was nothing I could do. She wasn’t even really there. She looked down, her face terrified as blood pumped out of the hole that had appeared in her chest. As it did, a black spot grew on her forehead and I watched it form the number 3.

“Help me,” she whispered.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Help me,” she whispered again; then her eyes went out of focus. She began to fall; then she was gone.

Standing there in the candlelight, I waited to see if she would come back, but she didn’t. After a couple minutes, I realized she wasn’t going to. Had whatever happened to her already happened, or was it going to happen? Was it happening right at that moment?

Scrambling, I began searching for my phone so I could call Nico. I couldn’t help her, but if he knew who she was, then maybe he could.

Not long after I saw the bloodbath on TV, I knew what I was going to do. It took a couple beers and some sweet talk, but Luis dropped the attitude. The fact was he was screwed, and I think he knew it. He decided to stick around until I at least got him out of no- man’s-land, which was what I wanted.

Luis was the kind of guy you didn’t want to take your eye off of. He was a sneak, and was too good at palming shit not to be a thief. Not that I had anything to steal, but any guy that could walk in and find his family dead on the floor, then look in your face and act like nothing was wrong could probably do a lot of things. I had to change, so there was a door between us for two minutes, but that was as much time as he got out of my sight.

When I came out, he was still in the can, getting pretty. He messed with his hair in the mirror.

“You all set?” I asked.

“All set.”

“Go warm up the seat. I’ll be right down.”

He put up his hands, but he went. When he was out the door, I threw on my jacket and zipped up. I checked the pockets, but it was all there: the ID, the knuckles, the keys, my phone, and my black lipstick.

The door downstairs slammed shut and I saw him step out and hang near the building. I stepped back and punched up the number from the TV bulletin that came on right after they showed the bodies.

The phone rang twice, then picked up.

“Federal Bur—”

“I can deliver Luis Valle to you,” I said. The voice on the other end stopped for a second, and the line clicked but didn’t go dead.

“Do you still want him or not?” I asked.

“Hold on just one moment, please,” the guy said. The line went quiet.

Through the window, I saw Luis put his hands in his pockets and pace, shoulders hunched.

The line picked back up.

“This is Agent Wachalowski,” a new guy said. “You have information regarding Luis Valle?”

“I can give him to you.”

“Give him to me how?”

“There’s a reward for this, right?”

“Is he alive?”

“He’s alive.”

“Where is he now?”

“I’m not saying where he is right now, but I can tell you where he’s going to be. Am I getting paid for this?”

“Yes. Where is he going to be?”

“You know where the Arena Porco Rojo is?”

“I’ll find it.”

“That’s where he’ll be.”

“Where in the arena?”

“In the audience. I don’t know.”

“When?”

“In a half hour.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Wait, don’t you need my name?”

“I have your information, Ms. Flax,” he said. “Keep your phone on. I’ll find you.”

The line cut.

I headed out and locked the door. It was best anyway. Luis was in deep shit whether he knew it or not, and the Feds might pinch him, but at least they’d let him live. He’d live to fight another day, and that was the best he’d get at this point. Fuck him. He got himself into this mess. He put me in it too. Fuck him.

When we got to the fights, he called his cab, then sat in the bleachers to wait. With luck, he’d get grabbed before I even got in the ring.