Everybody Dies - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 3) Page 17

  Pity party much? Earl asked.

  I considered the scalpel, still in my boot.

  Ha! Do you think you can cut me out of your body?

  “I could try,” I said to the darkness.

  Don’t be a fool, Phin. You can’t ever be free of me.

  You deserve me.

  You and I are one.

  We’ve always been one. One and the same.

  Don’t you remember my voice in your head? When you were a kid, and Hugo came to your bedroom at night?

  Oh, god. I did remember.

  You are your fears.

  You’ve been trying to deal with them since you were five years old.

  You thought I was the boogeyman, talking to you.

  And when you got older, you thought I was God. Remember that, praying to the voice in your head to make all the bad things stop?

  And then I was your conscience.

  And then I was madness.

  And then you got cancer, and in some drugged-out, drunken bender you began to call me Earl.

  But I’m not cancer. And I’m not god. I’m not your conscience, and I’m not madness, and I’m not even the boogeyman.

  I’m just a scared little boy, trying to make sense of a world that does nothing but hurt me.

  I’m you, Phin.

  And if you want to get rid of me, you know there’s only one way.

  Go on. Put the scalpel up to your throat.

  Something warm stung my neck, and I was surprised to see that I already had the blade in my hand.

  I immediately dropped it.

  I wasn’t afraid of dying. I saw the appeal.

  But if I was going to shed this mortal coil, it wouldn’t be at my own hand.

  It would be while saving Pasha.

  I fired up the Bronco and headed to Chicago.

  MILTON

  Bradford Milton, millionaire a hundred times over, prime shareholder in of one of the top ten electronic companies in the world, Supreme Caucasian of the Caucasian Nation, entered his favorite room in a mansion boasting twenty-eight. It was his secret room. His trophy room. Where he nurtured his private obsessions, and where he spent a good deal of his fortune. Had he decided to go public, he would have been recognized as the owner of the world’s largest collection of Nazi memorabilia.

  But going public wasn’t in his plans.

  Milton wasn’t feeling his sixty-odd years today. The arthritis in his knees, normally unbearable in the spring, was but a mere annoyance. His heart, given to arrhythmia, beat true and strong, like a proper race warrior’s. His old, shriveled body felt invigorated, even sexual. Surrounded by his artifacts, Milton transformed from an ailing business tycoon into a leader of nations; a ruler of men.

  He walked past his glass display cases, which held items ranging from a pair of Heinrich Himmler’s eyeglasses, to a brown party jacket—no insignias of course—owned by Josef Goebbels. Signed letters and documents from practically everyone in the Nazi hierarchy, a who’s who of Übermensch, including several original manuscript pages of Mein Kampf handwritten by Hitler while imprisoned in Landsberg, kept in a locked, air-sealed vault next to the cases. Battle plans by none other than Rommel graced the walls. German medals and insignias from the First World War up until the unification were grouped and categorized displayed and mounted on crushed velvet under glass. All told, more than twenty-eight million dollars’ worth of Nazi treasures, gold, art, and artifacts, collected for his sole viewing pleasure.

  Milton dialed the combination on his wall safe. He hummed to himself, a bit of Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner, and absently scratched his bald head. Tiny flecks of dead scalp skin speckled his purple ascot, but Milton no more noticed that than he noticed that no one wore ascots anymore.

  Opening the safe, Milton paused a moment to inspect its contents. A lock of hair, presumably Hitler’s, saved by the Führer’s barber and passed down through the family until purchased on the black market. A silver dagger, also Hitler’s, with an eagle perched on a swastika engraved in the handle. Supposedly the Führer had carried it on him at all times, up until the final moments of the War. And the crowning jewel of the collection: a pair of Hitler’s underwear, monogrammed AH.

  Milton took an obscene pleasure in the fact that the underwear wasn’t clean. At least once a week he would hold the garment to his face and revel in the funky odor. Worth every penny of the half a million dollars he paid for them.

  He indulged himself with one quick sniff, carefully opening the sealed conservatory bag and inhaling deeply the scent of the greatest warrior who ever walked the earth.

  It smelled a lot like funky cheese.

  Carefully placing his treasure back in the safe, Milton spun to view his shrine. He’d only allowed the highest members of his Order into his private enclave. Hector Packer had broken down and cried at the beauty of it. Others had been struck speechless, or inflamed with excitement. After the start of the Great Race War at the Roscoe, Milton would let yet another into his upper echelon. As a reward for the completed task, Hugo Troutt would be allowed to visit this sanctuary.

  Troutt was an interesting experiment to Milton. As with most fringe groups, Nazism consistently failed to attract the best and the brightest. With its recruiting centers located in prisons, how could Milton hope for a pure specimen of Caucasoid, Europid genetics? He’d garnered his share of dedicated, beautifully proportioned young men, but dedication didn’t carry much weight when one had the IQ of an eggplant and the social skills of a bilge rat. Roguishly attractive as they might be, they weren’t Aryan ideals.

  Hugo didn’t have the brain power of Eichmann, or even Eichmann’s dog. But he’d been carving out quite a personal legacy. He’d killed more than a few people over the years, and had gotten away with those murders, even though he had been caught and convicted of lesser crimes. While Milton wouldn’t hire Hugo to do his taxes, he’d proven a more than adequate killer.

  Especially delicious was Hugo’s complete lack of moral conscience. That was an aspect of the man almost as appealing as his obscenely gorgeous body; a body Milton often watched on the many hidden cameras installed in Hugo’s trailer.

  His bathroom cam was his favorite. In contrast to his outrageous size, Hugo had delicate, childlike genitals. Milton had made many recordings, and they reminded Milton of those delightful fountain statues of cherubs, urinating, of which he had several dozen on his front lawn. Milton hoped, one day, to see Hugo, fully naked, in person.

  But first things first. Duty before pleasure. History before hedonism.

  One day, some millionaire idealist would have Milton’s underwear in a wall safe, waiting to be sniffed. But that would only happen if the plans became reality.

  Allowing Hugo to be the on-the-scene orchestrator at the Roscoe was a leap of faith by Milton, though Packer was overseeing every aspect of the operation. If it were traced back to the CN, it would mean the end. Milton had some protection from incarceration in the form of anonymity, but his precious organization would be chewed up and spat out by an angry public screaming for blood.

  The trick was to do the deed but come out of it above suspicion. He’d chosen his targets carefully, had all the mechanics worked out, an alibi ready, and a patsy lined up.

  The waiting was maddening and exciting at the same time, like waiting for the spanking from Father for being a Bad Boy.

  But the waiting was almost over, and the dawn of a glorious new beginning, for America, the white race, and the world, was only two days away.

  The Great Race War was finally about to begin. And Bradford Milton was giddy.

  So giddy that he went back to his wall safe, to reward himself with one more delectable sniff of der Führer’s underpants.

  PASHA

  Pasha slowed her breathing, tried to get the pain under control. Hugo seemed to really like it when she screamed, and she didn’t want to do anything to please him.

  She wasn’t sure where she was. Hugo had put her in the trunk of a taxi and drove for a
long time. Seemed like hours. Again, he’d put duct tape over her mouth and eyes, and when he finally hauled her out of the truck, she was carried into a building, down a flight of stairs, and through a very long hallway that echoed like the corridors at that football stadium. Eventually, she was taken into a room and set down onto a wooden floor.

  “Göth is going to cut off the tape,” he’d said. “Hold very still.”

  Pasha held very still, and he handled the razor with a surgeon’s touch, not nicking her once. Then he put a handcuff on her leg, attached to a meter-long chain, and locked the other end to an enormous iron pipe.

  “No sounds. Not a peep. Or I’ll do terrible things to you.”

  Then he’d turned off the overhead light and left.

  After Pasha was sure he was gone, she began to tug on the chain. It was solid. So was the pipe it was hooked to. She crawled around, trying to explore her area, having seen some sort of shelving unit to her right before the lights went out. As she moved, she kicked up some dust on the floor, and it got in her nose and throat, making her cough.

  She coughed as quietly as she could.

  Pasha wasn’t sure how long it took, but she was eventually able to stretch out in a complete half circle, using the pipe as a radius.

  She couldn’t reach the shelf, or anything else.

  Fighting the urge to cry, she waited in the dark.

  Thirst came first.

  Then cold.

  Then an uncomfortable urge to pee.

  Pasha considered pissing her own pants. Maybe that would revolt Hugo so much he wouldn’t come near her.

  Or maybe it would make him angry.

  She stretched as far as she could, took off her pants, and peed next to the brick wall.

  Time ticked by like ants crawling across an oiled table.

  She thought she heard noises. People noises. Faint, but busy. An office? A business of some kind?

  Or another Nazi camp?

  Pasha didn’t call for help, and her own cowardice made her feel even worse.

  Eventually, she fell asleep, waking up sometime later when the light came on.

  Hugo. He’d brought a plastic bucket which contained two plastic bottles of water, some toilet paper, and a bag of fast food. He set it on the floor next to her, then squatted on his haunches, staring.

  Pasha met his stare, but she was concentrating on her peripherals, trying to figure out where she was. The shelves were lined with… stuff. Weird stuff. Big lights, like the kind they use in movies, but rusty and cracked with age. Baskets. Chairs. A sofa. Milk cartons. A butter churn. Lots and lots of tarps, rolled up and stacked like giant cigarettes. What was this? A warehouse? An old storage facility?

  “Why do you love him?”

  The sound startled Pasha, so deep it vibrated, and she almost yelped. She focused back on Hugo, trying to keep her face neutral.

  “He’s kind,” she said.

  “Being kind is weak.”

  “Being kind is strong. It means thinking of others. Putting them first. That’s how species survive.”

  “I thought nature is survival of the fittest.”

  “Nature is also about caring. All mammals raise their young.”

  “You can survive without being raised,” Hugo said.

  Pasha wasn’t about to argue with him. She tried a different track. “Have you ever had someone try to make you happy?”

  The way Hugo stared at her, Pasha felt she might as well have been speaking a different language.

  “No one?” she asked.

  After a moment, he said, “The CN is good to me.”

  “The CN?”

  “The Caucasian Nation. They treat me well.”

  Pasha nodded, eager for, needing, some common ground. “They do things for you. You do things for them.”

  “They fear me. Just like you do.”

  Pasha took a shot. “Maybe they like you. As a person.”

  Hugo laughed, the sound of a dog barking, showing his horrible, broken teeth. A stench of hot rot washed over Pasha’s face, curling her nostrils.

  “Do you like me?” he asked.

  Pasha had no idea how to answer. Lie and have him call bullshit? Tell the truth and have him get angry?

  She decided upon, “I don’t know you. You’re using me to get to Phin. Like a carpenter uses a hammer. There’s nothing personal between us.”

  “I disagree. I broke your finger. How much more personal can you get?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Fucking?” Hugo said. “You think that’s more personal?”

  Pasha struggled not to look away.

  “Anyone can fuck,” he continued. “There doesn’t have to be caring. There doesn’t have to be consent. It doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t reveal anything. You can still hide while someone is fucking you.”

  Again, she didn’t want to say anything. This was a road she didn’t want to go down. Luckily, Hugo wasn’t looking for her to respond.

  “But pain…” he went on. “Pain is much more intimate. More private. You shared your pain with me. We had a moment. Like that moment when the lion locks his teeth into a gazelle. The gazelle knows it’s dead. The lion knows it can live. That connection is real.”

  “How can you live like that?” Pasha whispered.

  “The world doesn’t matter. You can try to ignore the world. You can try to fight the world. Me? I want to make the world scream.”

  Pasha wanted to change the subject, quickly. Hugo was getting a strange look in his eyes.

  “Thank you for the food, and the bucket,” she said.

  Hugo stood, undid his pants, and pissed into the bucket.

  He turned out the light before he left.

  Pasha began to sob.

  Minutes—hours?—passed.

  Pasha ignored her rumbling stomach. But she couldn’t ignore her thirst, and had to take the water bottles out of the bucket. She shook off the urine and let them dry before drinking one of them, finishing it in less than ten gulps.

  Is this what I’ve been reduced to?

  No dignity?

  No hope?

  She sulked.

  When the door opened again, Pasha almost sobbed when she saw it was Hugo. He had something sticking out the top of his front pocket. It looked like a magazine. The border on top was yellow, and Pasha could make out the letter P.

  “You’re my insurance that Phineas doesn’t try to screw up our plans,” he told her. “If you can behave thirty-four more hours, I’ll let you go.”

  She didn’t believe him, but found herself wanting to. So badly.

  “Why thirty-four hours?”

  “That’s the egg scene.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Aliens,” he said. “Six thousand people are going to die. We need to make a call. Keep absolutely quiet, until it’s your turn.”

  PHIN

  My cell phone woke me up.

  I was groggy and stiff and sore from sleeping in the Bronco, having pulled over into a rest stop on the way back from Decatur. I looked at the screen and saw the name.

  UNKNOWN.

  I knew who it was, and a jolt of adrenaline shocked me into full alert.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “Good morning, little brother. I hear you’ve been up to all sorts of trouble.”

  “Let her go, Hugo. I’ll meet you anywhere you’d like.”

  “Leave Packer alone. If you contact, him, bother him, or post anything about him online…”

  Pasha screamed. I shut my eyes so tight I saw stars through my eyelids.

  Her scream went on and on, and then Hugo came back on and said, “Are we clear?”

  “Yes. Can I speak to Pasha?”

  “You just heard her. Want to hear her again?”

  “Hugo, don’t—”

  Another scream cut me into pieces and then flattened those pieces with a hammer. I thought about hanging up, knew that would make it worse, and held on until the sound ended. And
afterward, the woman I love yelled, “Phin! Six thousand people will die! Aliens!”

  Then the line went dead.

  Aliens?

  Jesus, was Pasha so badly hurt she’d lost her mind?

  I set the phone on the passenger seat, started up the Bronco, and headed to Chicago to meet with McGlade.

  Hopefully he had some kind of lead.

  Two hours later I was in McGlade’s office in the heart of downtown Chicago.

  “Sorry for the mess,” he said, taking me through a plastic tarp. “They’re getting rid of black mold, and the guys are union so they only work six hours a week. We should be done in 2037, as long as they keep their coffee breaks down to forty-five minutes.”

  “I heard from Hugo,” I said. “He told me to leave Packer alone. Then he made Pasha scream.”

  Harry made a face. “Sorry, man. I couldn’t do anything to Packer now anyway. The leverage is the threat of doing it. Once I post the pics, we lose all power. He say anything else?”

  “That he’d meet me on Monday.”

  “Huh. Why wait until then? I can think of three reasons. He’s somewhere far away. He’s hurt. Or he’s got something planned.”

  McGlade might not be as stupid as he seems, Earl said.

  We went into what seemed like an interrogation room, complete with a table, two chairs, and a giant mirror covering one wall. I didn’t ask, but he told me anyway.

  “It’s a TV set. They shot a few scenes of Fatal Autonomy here. You know, the TV show based on my life.”

  Talking about McGlade’s television show was a rabbit hole I didn’t want to go down, because once you went in you might never return. I stayed silent and let him burn himself out. There was simply no other way to deal with him. He was the middle-aged equivalent of a hyperactive child who had to burn off all the sugar.

  “This room cost me, like, a fortune to build, and they only used it once, because my electric can’t handle those huge TV lights. It was the episode Terrorist Sex Junkie Confession. Did you see it? That one was the unofficial tribute to TJ Hooker.”