The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Businessman

Previously: "A Drug Dealer's Trade" 

You open the briefcase with the money and show Justin the contents. He almost drives off the road. "The fuck?"

"Dwayne keeps his savings under the mattress," you explain.

"What are we going to do with it?" Justin asks in awestruck tones.

"Well, we're not gonna give it back." Justin howls and pounds the steering wheel. "Don't get us in an accident," you snap, for you've got Dwayne Macaulay's horror of attracting police attention, plus an extra helping on your own account. "Just get us downtown. You know where Ben's Barbecue is?" you ask as you take out your phone.

"We're getting some lunch?"

"No. I gotta see a man there. We still gotta take care of the real Dwayne Macaulay, you know."

You sure are glad of the brain-band you're wearing, and the confidence it gives you. Without it, you'd never know enough to make this call; and even if you did, you'd never have the guts to place it.

"It's Dwayne," you tell the man who answers. "I gotta problem. This bitch I know's gone fucking psycho, I need someone to babysit her."

There's a pause. Then Karol Mathis says, in a cool, dry voice, "I'm a restaurateur, sir. I don't who you are or why you think—"

You want to yell, but that would be the exact wrong tack to take. "Her name's Marianne Matthias," you say in a voice half-strangled with self-control, "and she's a relative of mine. I don't do any business with her myself, but she gets into it anyway. I wouldn't be asking you for a fucking babysitter if I didn't think—"

"There's no call for language," he says, then pauses. "What kind of babysitting are you talking about?"

That's better. "She's whacked out. She got into bad shit, or something. She needs detox or maybe just a plain drunk tank. Or something longer than that. She's scrambled her brains up good."

There's another pause. "Is she coherent? Could she ... Can she talk?"

"Oh, she can talk, it's just that nothing she says makes any sense. I mean it's English, the words make sense. But she's all scrambled up. She doesn't know who she is, she thinks she's ... other people. She busted into my house talking like she was my girlfriend, then she started telling me she was my mother, and then she said she was SpongeBob SquarePants."

You flatter yourself that's a smart bit of invention—it'll make anyone think Macaulay's crazy even before he starts insisting that he's Dwayne Macaulay, no matter what he looks like. "If she's like that," you conclude, "who knows what she's going to say, or about, to who."

Again, Mathis ponders your words before replying. "Come by as soon as you can," he says, "and we'll talk about what I can do for you." He hangs up.

"Who was that?" Justin asks as you drop the phone.

"Man who's going to fix things for us. He can find Dwayne, keep him quiet for us."

"How?"

"Because Dwayne Macaulay works for him, that's how." You drum the lid of the briefcase with your fingers. The scowl on Justin's face suggests that he doesn't understand you, but he drops the subject.

* * * * *

Ben's Barbecue is a local landmark, a greasy eatery with scarred wooden tables and sawdust on the floors. The building was once a large gas station/repair garage—little renovation work went into disguising where the old double bay doors once were—but that was at least seventy years ago. A few old-timers might still know who the original "Ben" was, but now it is owned by Karol Mathis, and from behind its down-home ribs and pulled pork, its collard greens and curly fries, its Texas toast and its carrot cakes, he runs the underworld (such as it is) of Saratoga Falls.

You leave Justin in the car with the briefcases and go in alone. But your request to see Karol is denied by the man at the register, who asks you to wait instead. He does bring you a complimentary pork sandwich, though, which you shove into a bag to save for later, for your stomach doesn't need food on it at a time like this. You anxiously wonder what it means that Mathis won't see you.

But twenty minutes later—by which point you're nearly frantic—you are summoned into the back. You navigate narrow hallways made narrower by crates of canned goods to the cramped office where Mathis conducts his business.

He's not alone. A well-dressed man with slicked-back hair is with him. You grimace, even as you relax a little into a chair.

Mathis, a small man with leathery skin and closely cropped gray hair, turns an unwinking stare on you. "So tell me about this person and her medical problems," he order you in a calm and quiet voice.

"She's my aunt. My dad's younger sister. Much younger sister. I have to take care of her, she's a pothead. Her son—my cousin—they're both potheads. Sweet, but—"

"This cousin," Mathis says with a slight frown. "Is he the one you had to buy that plane ticket for?"

"Yes. Maybe that's what did it to his mom," you add in a burst of improvisation. "I don't know her to get into the heavy stuff, but maybe she did. But her brain's broken. I think she's hallucinating. I know she's paranoid, and she's got delusions about being other people."

"Is she violent?" asks the other man. His name is Lionel Brampton, and he is Mathis's shady legal advisor. Macaulay has had to use his services too.

"She busted into my house this morning, assaulted me, chased my bitch out."

The two men exchange a glance. Brampton uncrosses and recrosses his legs. "I assume you don't want to bring charges for ... a multitude of reasons," he says.

"I want her kept quiet," you say. "Out of the way, safe, and quiet, until she sobers up. If she can sober up."

"What could she say," Mathis asks, "that no one would want her to say?"

Your stomach begins to do flip-flops. These men—or Mathis, at least—is quite capable of keeping Macaulay "quiet" by permanently silencing him. You're not sure you want that. Or, at least, you don't want that on your conscience, no matter how awful the man is.

"Normally I'd trust her to say nothing. There's no harm in her, none in her kid. She just needs sitting on," you insist, "until she gets her head clear."

"A private hospital," Brampton says, and Mathis, after glance up at the ceiling, gives a light shrug. "Those don't come cheap," Brampton tells you.

You lick your lips. "How much?"

"For how long?"

"A month?" That should be enough time to figure out another solution.

"Ten thousand," Brampton says.

You've got the money, but Dwayne's instinct is to bargain. "Five," you instantly retort.

The corner of Brampton's mouth goes up. "That's what the hospital would charge."

"Okay, seventy-five."

Mathis tilts back in his chair. "If you don't want to spend any money on this solution, Macaulay—" he says in a musing tone.

"Alright! Jesus! I'll go get it now." You start to rise, but Mathis stops you with a lift of his hand.

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. I think she'll be heading back to my place. If you send someone around there now, there's a good chance you'll catch her."

Mathis grunts, and dismisses you.

* * * * *

That's the first half of the job. The second half is getting the real Marianne to safety, in case Macaulay, on finding himself with Marianne's face and body, makes for her trailer. Besides, if Mathis and Brampton can't find the fake Marianne quickly, they might go looking at her trailer, and accidentally snag the real woman.

She's awake and frying some eggs when you arrive at her place. She's quite bemused by your insistence that she "take a little vacation," but she allows you to drive her down the farthest corner of town, close to Suffolk Wilderness, where you check her into the Donna Motor Courts, a clean but inexpensive dump where Dwayne has conducted "business" in the past. You pay, in cash, for a week's occupancy for her, and leave her with a small stash of weed and two hundred dollars that she can spend for meals at the Sunshine Cafe across the street. You urge her not to go out unless she has to.

But you can tell she's going to go stir-crazy before long.

"I guess we could babysit her," Lindsay concedes with obvious reluctance when you meet with her and the rest of the "gang" that afternoon. You're at the Sunshine Cafe, and you're still Dwayne's mask, even though it's an odd sight seeing him at a large booth with half a dozen high school kids. She glances around, and everyone else at the table shrugs. "Just, like, visit her for a couple of hours after school?" Lindsay asks. "Would that be enough."

"Sure," you say. "Just don't let her get you high. You can play cards with her, she likes that. Or buy some board games. Take her out to the Wilderness, she could use the exercise." So could you, you dumpy cow, you think at Lindsay. "Just for a week, till I get back with Dane. Uh, Evie."

Lindsay frowns. "Why so long?"

""Cos I have to drive. Macaulay can't fly," you explain. "He's got half a dozen warrants out on him. They've got him on a 'no fly' list. I'll have to drive."

"So take the mask off and fly under your own face. Jeez!"

"I'm a minor! And I'd need ID." Your own IDs are at your house, where Gordon Black is, somehow, still impersonating you.

"You've got ID, Justin," Lindsay reminds you.

You suppose you could send Justin out to retrieve Evie. Now that the dangerous part is over, he could fly out and you could play Justin from under a mask. He could take a plane.

And it would spare you having to personally explain things to Evie.

* To continue: "Alone with Yourself and Dwayne Macaulay" 

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