The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

A Drug Dealer's Trade

Previously: "A Double Trap for Dwayne Macaulay" 

"Okay, I'll do the honors with Dwayne," you tell him. "But I know a way we can help you out."

"With what?"

"Lindsay has to think it's me under a Justin mask, right?" You point to his face, and he nods. You pick up one of the four blank brain bands. "So I'll make a copy of my brain and you can wear it under Justin's mask. That way you can act like I would if I was wearing his mask."

His expression turns thoughtful. "That could work. But what if she makes me take the mask off?"

"Don't let her make you," you suggest.

* * * * *

It's a real production making all the necessary changes. You start by pulling Marianne's brain band out of yourself, which knocks you out. When you come to, Joe tells you that he put the blank band onto you while you were asleep, and shows you the resulting band with your name on it. Then he gets in the back seat and you help him pull Justin's mask off. You pop your brain band onto him, then return the mask. While he sleeps with a sagging jaw, you change out of your clothes and into Dwayne's: a pair of ragged jeans and a black t-shirt. They're both fairly tight on you, and the cuffs of the jeans ride up past your ankles. Funny, it doesn't seem like Dwayne would have been your size or smaller. Then you break out the sealant and close up the inside of Dwayne's mask.

All this time you've been sitting in the parking lot in front of Salvation Donuts, and you keep squinting around and wondering if and when someone's going to come over to see what the two high-school boys are doing in the backseat of the car.

When Joe wakes up again, you ask how he's doing. "Dunno," he grunts, and clutches his temples. "It feels ... crowded in here."

"I'll give you an easy question. What's your brother's name?"

"Brother? I don't have a— Oh!"

His eyes go very wide, and he leans forward, practically putting his face between his knees. He gasps and chokes a couple of times, then looks up with a pale face.

"Robert," he says faintly. "My brother's name is Robert!"

"Sounds like you've got it. Well, it can take awhile to sort things out. I'll let you get used to it while I—"

You break off, and pick up Dwayne Macaulay's brain band between your finger and thumb, as though it were a baby cobra. "I'll turn myself into him," you finish weakly.

* * * * *

"Fuck!" you exclaim in a low mutter. "God damn it!" You hunch low in the back seat and peer through the back window, and the two side windows. "Fuck!" you repeat.

"What?" Justin Orr asks as he drives slowly up the street. "I don't see anything."

Indeed, the street in front of Dwayne Macaulay's house looks deserted, save for the usual cluster of automobiles. He knows each one, down to the scrapes and dents (not to mention the license plate numbers and colors and makes and models). The old, cracked sidewalk is clear of traffic. Nothing is out of place. Everything looks normal.

And that's what's got Dwayne Macaulay's finely tuned antennae—which thanks to his brain band you now possess as well—quivering hard. After what happened this morning, there ought to be someone, or lots of someones. So where the fuck are they?

"Is it okay?" Justin asks.

You shoot a spiteful glance at the back of his head, and fight the urge to push his face into the windshield. "Drive three houses up," you tell him.

"But isn't that—?"

"Shut up. I know what I'm doing." Inasmuch as Dwayne Macaulay ever knows what he's doing. Deep down, you suspect that his paranoia stems much more from his knowing that he doesn't know what he's doing than because he does.

So it makes no sense to stop three houses down from his place and to scamper back toward it on bare feet rather than stopping directly in front of it. But that's what you do after sending Justin away with instructions to hang loose down at the Walmart until he hears from you.

You sidle up to the front door, which is closed. Did you guys close it on your way out? You doubt it, and you squint fretfully at the shaded windows. The cops. Ila's just fucking stupid enough to have brought the cops out here and let them look around. Not that there's anything sitting out where they could find it.

Unless Ila started pulling shit out to get rid of it just before they arrived. She'd be stupid enough to do that, too.

You gnaw on your lower lip as you put your hand to doorknob. You twist it and it opens. You hesitate, then leap through the doorway and shove the door shut behind you. Warily, you glance around.

Searched! The goddamn place has been searched! The garbage sacks have been overturned and contents strewn; the sofa shoved away from the wall; the desk drawers pulled open!

Of course it's a mess, you remind yourself as you fight to still your racing heart. Me and Lindsay and Justin searched it earlier while Dwayne was knocked out.

But that doesn't mean the cops haven't been by and done their own search!

From the hook under the living room desk you retrieve the semi-automatic and shove a magazine into it. You rack a round, and keep the pistol loosely by your side as you make a careful sweep of the place of the place with quivering nerves. It's a good sign if they didn't find the weapon. But maybe someone's here and is hiding!

You start with a sweep of the kitchen, making sure the back door is locked, then return through the living room hop down a short hallway into the back. The bathroom is also deserted. In the bedroom, the bed is a snarled mess of sheets, but there's no one in it, behind it, or under it. You whip open the closet door and push aside the hanging shirts. It's empty too.

You allow yourself a ragged sigh of relief.

Then you push the bedroom door closed and drop to the floor at the foot of the bed.

You hurl back the cheap rug that covers the bare, wooden floor and push your finger into a knothole. You find and squeeze the hidden trigger; there's a click, and that part of the floor drops away on hidden hinges. The trapdoor only drops a foot, but it's enough for you to reach into the secret space under the floor and pull out the two metal briefcases. Your fingertips are slick with sweat as you open first the one and then the other.

The first holds twenty thousand dollars in worn twenty and hundred dollar bills—the patient accumulation of almost ten years of various criminal endeavors, and the seed money for would-be investments. The other holds five thousand dollars in weed—the reserve stash that Dwayne deals down at the river to teens and college students.

You set both cases by the front door, then text Ila on Macaulay's phone: wfru.

There's plenty of time for your fear and anger to build before she replies: home wru?

somewhere kp phon on

ruok?

y

Well, "y" for now. You chew your lip and ponder the set up.

What with having to drive across town, and change masks and clothes, it's been nearly an hour since you left Macaulay in the basement. He'll want to get out, either through a window (likely) or by making a ruckus (if worse comes to worse) and is surely out by now. He won't have any money, though, which means no cab or bus. You doubt anyone, even the police, would give him a lift. Probably he's going to have walk. On bare feet, no less, which will take anywhere from ninety minutes if he runs to three hours if he walks.

But you've probably got less time than that to figure out what comes next.

* * * * *

Fortunately, Dwayne Macaulay is very quick at thinking things through. They may not have the brightest thoughts—or he'd never have wound up with the life he's got—but at least he can get some halfway decent ones when he needs them.

You text Ila again, telling her to come pick you up. As she lives only three blocks away, she's there in just five minutes. You fly down the sidewalk when she pulls up and throw yourself and the two briefcases into the passenger seat. "Walmart, baby," you tell her. "Fast as you can without breaking the speed limit."

The whites show around her eyes. "What happened, baby? Marianne was at your place, there were some kids with her, she—"

"I know, she coldcocked me, dragged me off. She's lost it, baby. She got into some bad shit." You spot a prowler up ahead and frantically order Ila to slow down. "She got into some bad shit," you repeat, "and she's crazy. I have to move the stuff—" You pat the briefcases. "I got away but she's after the stuff, she was threatening to carve me up. Listen, after you drop me off, I need you to go downtown to see Karol Mathis."

"Him?" Ila shrieks.

"It's okay, baby, I'll call him after you drop me off. He'll look after you, send someone to babysit my place, catch Marianne if she comes back after me. He'll fix it, have her put away where she can detox or something." Not fucking likely when it's Dwayne Macaulay in a Marianne Matthias mask. "I gotta leave town for a couple of days, but everything'll be fine till I get back. Talk to Karol if you need anything."

Walmart isn't that far away, so you don't have to put up with Ila's anguished pleas for long. After she's away, you trot over to Justin's car. "Get us onto the street," you tell him as you dive in. "Take Hoover down to Borman, turn left."

He obliges, then nods at the briefcases. "What's in those?" he asks.

* To continue: "The Businessman" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"