Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

When Curtis reaches the corner he immediately tenses, feeling a bad closeness, something wrong, but it’s already too late: a heavy plastic coinpail bumps his ribs and a smooth voice murmurs in his ear. You ain’t wearing anything green, my man, it says. Somebody’s liable to pinch you.

Curtis jerks to a halt. Albedo shoves the pail against his side again; something in it is heavy and solid. Keep on marching, my brother, Albedo says.

A flood of adrenaline sweeps through Curtis’s limbs into his groin; he shudders with the need to piss. Takes a deep trembling breath, lets it out. Walks on.

Albedo came up on Curtis’s left, from slightly behind: exactly the spot where Curtis’s nose blocks his peripheral vision. He knows about Curtis’s eye; Damon must have told him. When Curtis first met him in the Hard Rock the other night, Albedo kept leaning back in his chair: he was testing Curtis, feeling out the limits of his sight. This has been the plan all along. Albedo knows that Stanley’s on his way.

There’s no surveillance by the windows, probably. Cameras watch the elevators for sure — but when he and Albedo reach the elevators, Albedo falls back, giving Curtis plenty of room. Even if Kagami is watching, he won’t see anything.

Curtis doesn’t press the callbutton. He hopes Albedo will talk to him — ordering him to do it, giving himself away — but Albedo just moves past him and presses it himself. A car opens at once, empty, and they step into it. Don’t talk to me, Albedo whispers as he crosses the threshold.

There’s a small lens behind the tinted glass of the instrument panel; maybe a mic somewhere, too. They rise to the top floor, the sixth, in sullen silence, sunset streaming through the glass at their backs. Curtis studies Albedo closely. Albedo doesn’t meet his gaze. He has a cool dead-eyed aspect like some guys get when they’re drunk, but Curtis doesn’t think he’s drunk. He wears a bright-green T-shirt under his motorcycle jacket. His boots and bluejeans are dusty, snarled with burrs and what look like tiny pricklypear needles. Through the frayed fabric at Albedo’s knees Curtis glimpses bloody skin. The handle on the coinpail is stretched slightly by whatever weight it contains, and a plastic bag spread over the top hides its contents. The big hand that holds the pail is raw, scored all over by scrapes and scratches. FIGHT ME — I’M IRISH! Albedo’s T-shirt says.

On Five the door slides open with a low chime, and a turkey-necked old codger with a glossy toupee, a bolo tie, and a poof-banged, decades-younger date on his arm tries to step in. Albedo moves into his path. You goin’ up? he asks.

Goin’ down, the old dude says.

Albedo pushes the guy backward lightly with the fingertips of his right hand. Well, sir, he says, y’all might oughta give that little down-arrow button a tap.

Albedo’s outstretched hand looks like it was worked over with a potato peeler. The old guy stares at it openmouthed. The door slides shut again.

I believe I went to high school with that girl, Albedo says.

As soon as Curtis exits on the next floor, Albedo draws a pistol from the pail, spread-eagles him against the wall, takes away his revolver, and pats him down. Albedo is fast, looking for nothing but wires and weapons. When he’s done he tugs Curtis upright by his collar, aims him down the hall. Open the door, he says.

Curtis fumbles a little at the keycard slot. When the green light clicks on and the handle turns, Albedo lunges forward and slams his shoulder into Curtis’s upper back. Curtis sprawls through the door, face-plants on the carpet. Albedo is right behind him, kicking him in the side, stepping over him, keeping him covered with the little Smith revolver as he clears the suite with his own pistol. Curtis sucks air through his clenched teeth. The Mirror Thief is on the floor, a few inches from his chin. Albedo’s plastic bucket hangs from Curtis’s upraised left foot.

Albedo disappears into the bedroom for a second. Then he reappears, both pistols leveled at Curtis’s face. Albedo’s gun has a thick blunt taped-up suppressor on its barrel that looks like it might have been made from a can of beans. The gun is a matte-black semiautomatic, similar to the one that Argos had this morning. Curtis thinks of the pink column of dust he saw on the lakeside road, and then he thinks: no, not similar, the same. The thought makes him feel sick, and scared, and angry. Angry most of all.

So, Albedo says, another twenty, thirty minutes, you reckon?

Fuck you, man, Curtis says.

Albedo laughs quietly. He seems tired, strung-out. Yeah, he says. I reckon maybe twenty, maybe thirty minutes.

Curtis kicks the pail off his foot, rolls over, sits with his back against the wall. You’re playing this wrong, he says. You’re too late. Killing Stanley and Veronica is not gonna fix anything for Damon. NJSP has issued warrants based on physical evid—

Not for my ass, they ain’t, Albedo says. C’mon, Curtis, don’t act like a retard. I ain’t looking to fix shit for Damon. That boy’s gone and fucked hisself. Which is his prerogative, but he’s damn near gone and fucked me, too. Soon as I clean up here, I’m getting on a damn airplane. And ol’ Damon better be a-wishin’ and a-hopin’ that the Jersey cops get hold of him ’fore I do.

That’s a bad plan, Curtis says. You don’t think—

Lemme give you some advice, Albedo says. Shut your fucking mouth. While you’re at it, start thinking about how I’m gonna round Damon up when I get back to AC. You come up with a fool-fucking-proof plan of which you are an indispensable goddamn component, and you don’t say another word till you got one. Because right about now, Curtis, you are looking mostly like a problem to me.

Albedo slides a chair away from the table with the toe of his boot. Then he sits, puts the two guns on the tabletop — their barrels parallel, aimed at Curtis — and begins to examine his damaged hands, plucking at cactus-spines with his long fingernails. I told Damon, he says. I told him on numerous occasions that bringing you in on this would be a dumbass move of pretty much the highest order. And I bet you wish more than just about anybody — don’t you, Curtis? — that he’d paid me a little more attention on that point. Well, nobody ever listens to my fucking advice. I mean, I told you , didn’t I, that this shit was gonna go wrong, and to make some other plans. Did you listen? Hell, no. I told Damon that he had only one advantage, only one thing working for him in this whole ugly shitstorm, which was that nobody he’d got crosswise with was apt to talk to the cops. And what’s the first thing that ingenious motherfucker does? He brings in a cop.

Albedo glances up, warming to his subject, then jerks and freezes. He’s staring slackjawed at the wall to Curtis’s left; his widened eyes are all pupil. He spasms, blinks hard, gives his head a violent shake. Then he snatches Argos’s pistol from the tabletop. Waving it around as if targeting a phantom housefly. Fuck , he says. He turns back to the wall, sights along the pistol’s slide. No, he says. No way. Fuck.

He fires. Then he fires again. The suppressor swallows the muzzle-blasts, but not the cracks — loud, like a yardstick slapping a table — of the bullets going supersonic. A cloud of pulverized drywall bursts over Curtis’s head, and then the air is full of glitter: sharp stinging grains that strike his scalp. He curses, shields his eyes. Whoa, he says.

A high-pitched cacophany fills his left ear: glass breaking and falling. Albedo has just shot out the big mirror that hung over the room’s dressing table; Curtis couldn’t see it from where he sits. Jesus, Curtis says. What the fuck, man.