The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

A Change of Partners?

Previously: "Dealing with a Devil" 

Luckily, you keep from laughing out loud: Gary Chen wants to turn himself into Chelsea Cooper, but has to pretend it's so he can deal drugs to her cheerleader friends.

"That's sick, awesomely sick," you exclaim, and you hope your grin looks enthusiastic rather than manic. "Girl like Chelsea's got lots of cred, with her we could have the whole fuckin' school buyin'!"

"Sure," he says, in a slightly dreamy voice. Then he shakes himself. "So how does it work? How do we do the, uh, the—"

"You mean the mechanics? That's a trade secret. As for getting our hands onto Chelsea for the switch?" You rub an itchy spot under the brim of your ski cap. "We can use that fuck room of theirs. Her boyfriend can talk her into it, and you or me can take it from there." You want to see Chen take this bait—Chelsea seems like a spot he can't hurt you from—so you bite back any jokes you might make about his acquiring a fake Gordon Black as a boyfriend.

"When would this happen?"

"Depends on when Matthias can get Chelsea up there. But first we better deal with everyone else."

* * * * *

You start with Caleb and Martin. You still want to protect Caleb's identity from them, and you certainly want to hide how the "body-swap" trick works, so there's some negotiations about the switch-back. At the end of them, Chen withdraws a safe distance; the real Caleb goes down into the basement; and the real Gardinhire gets in the back seat of his own car. Hidden from sight this way, the two guys disrobe. Gardinhire gives you a beady-eyed glare of hate and fear as you lean in the car window toward him. "Close your eyes," you tell him. "No peeking." You grip his forehead, say some magic words—which are amazingly easy to remember—and pull Caleb's face off him. As his head falls forward, you wrap the mask in his clothes and hustle them over to the basement. Caleb is already out of his mask and clothes, the latter of which he has left at the top of the stairs. You pick them up and drop the latter into the car next to Martin.

Then you gesture Chen back over, but meet him halfway. "We'll let Gardinhire get on his way," you say. "Then you can talk to your man Matthias. Tell him we want Chelsea alone up in that loft in the gym. You stick close to him, so he doesn't fuck up, and when he gets it set up, give me a call. Whatever time, wherever I am, I'll come running. Except tomorrow night, I got the country club," you add.

That off-hand reference to his work, and your need to keep at it, seems to disarm him further. "How much prep time do you need?"

You clench a fist. "It's all set, man. Sometimes these things take time, but this one's ready to go."

His nostrils flare hungrily and he looks over his shoulder at Gardinhire's car. "How long's that fucker gonna sit there?"

"He's out, it'll be about five, ten minutes. It's hits a guy hard." An awkward silence falls. "Listen, once you got Chelsea in hand, you know you're gonna be able to get into the girls' locker room, shower, all that with no problem. If you could see your way to—" You mime snapping a picture. "Lots of them, of lots of—"

"Why don't you come in with me?"

But you shake your head. "Tempting, but let's wait and see. Some good snaps, though, they might melt the ice between us quicker."

* * * * *

Within ten minutes, everyone has left: Gardinhire to go home, Chen and Matthias to catch Chelsea. You call down into the basement: "They're gone!"

The only reply is a lot of thumping and banging. Caleb, looking very pissed off, is loading himself up with the supplies you'd started packing before being interrupted. "What are you doing?" you ask as he comes up the stairs. You ask him again after he's passed you without reply. You shout at him as he stalks toward his car. "Hey, the fuck are you—?"

"I'm getting the fuck out of here," he shouts back.

You swear at him, and charge over to his car, wrenching open the passenger's side door before he can stop you. "We have to fucking talk," you say.

"Save it for your new best friend," Caleb snarls back. "Whoever he is, because I don't know who you are anymore."

"The fuck do you mean by that? You don't even know what I told him or what we're doing with him!"

"Is that any of my business? It sure doesn't seem like it, since you're not asking my opinion about anything!"

"Will you shut up and listen? It wasn't like I could fucking consult with you, dipshit, not while they had us in those headlocks! I had to talk to him and straighten things out before he beat your guts into bloody mush and pushed them out your sphincter!"

"Well, thanks, man!" He grips the steering wheel and stares straight ahead. "It's not like I'da been in that position except you keep! Fucking! Up!"

You come very close to punching him in the side of his head, but manage to keep your temper.

"When was the last place I fucked up? Huh? Explain it to me. Yeah, it's been one fucking disaster after another, but when was the last one that was my fault? And anyway, what is the big fucking problem right now that's my fault?"

He says nothing, only stares straight ahead while breathing heavily.

"Because I got Chen off our asses. Off mine, at any rate, and off yours too, since he isn't even sure that you are Caleb Johansson. If you're worried about that, fuck, we can handle that, we'll just stick you in for—"

"That's where it went wrong!" He turns on you with flashing eyes. "When I let you bully me into doing that fucked up switch with Gardinhire. We're right back where we were, except now we've got that psycho even farther up our asses!" His eyes narrow. "And one of us has him even farther up than that."

All the organs in your gut churn and boil, but still you don't lose it. "I bought us time to straighten things out. And anyway, you're out of it now. Look in the mirror."

"But we're not out of it, Will," he says, and visibly struggles with your name. "We're not out of it until everyone's back where they were. And even if that happens, Chen's going to know it was us." He blinks, and his eyes are suddenly bruised with tears. "My life is fucking over, no matter what. Either Chen puts a fucking gun to my head, or I have to run away under some God damned mask to hide!"

"He's not going to— Look, lemme tell you what I've done." You get in the car and close the door behind you

"I've got him right here, man." You point to the center of your cupped hand. "He doesn't know it works, he doesn't know it's masks or any shit like that. But he's workin' with us, now." Caleb's eyes widen with incredulity. "I'm movin' him, talked him into swapping Matthias for a new face. He wants his old one back, or so he says right now, but we'll see how long that lasts after he's had a few days to play around with his new body." You grin. "He can't hurt us, not where he's going to be, and he might not even want to go back, in which case he's more or less going to be on our side goin' forward. And even if he does get his old face back, he's going to be totally simpatico with us after his vacation."

You let the promise hang until Caleb snaps at it: "What? What are you doing with him?"

"I told you, I'm gonna swap him out." You chortle hard. "Gonna swap him out for Chelsea Cooper."

Caleb's eyes almost pop from his skull. "You're giving him that mask? You said you didn't tell him about—"

"I didn't! I'm putting him in the mask—"

"And what about when he needs to take it off?"

The question puzzles you, until you realize his mistake. "No, man, it's a swap like we did with you and Gardinhire! We'll put Chelsea inside Dane's mask— Oh, man, can you imagine what that'll be like for her? Ha! And we're putting Chen inside Chelsea's mask, permanently! We'll have to get one of those brain bands so he can imitate her like we were doing—"

Caleb throws his head back and screams. "I can't believe it!" he yells after he's run out of air and sucked in a new supply. "You just can't help yourself, can you? You keep having to fuck people up by putting them inside masks!"

"Hey, fucker, you started it!"

"And you keep doing it!"

"And this is how we keep him from fucking us up anymore! Anyway, it was his idea!"

Caleb looks you up and down. "Yes," he says. "I'm totally sure it was Gary Chen's idea."

That tears it, but instead of hitting him, you grab up the sacks of supplies and leap from the car. He's already cranking the engine before you can slam the door on him. He takes off, and in a choked voice you curse after him.

You throttle back your fury while unloading the stuff again in the basement; that weird fire is still burning in the corner, but you can't take the stuff back home. You check that you managed to keep the important stuff: the book, the unfinished brain bands, the supplies for making masks. Chelsea's mask.

Wait. It's not here.

You blink and try to remember where it is. Caleb sent you outside to get it, that's right, because it was in his car.

He was driving Gardinhire's Audi at the time.

You groan. It's still got to be there. If it isn't, then Gardinhire has got it.

Next: "A Missing Mask" 

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