The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

A Missing Mask

Previously: "A Change of Partners?" 

You beat yourself on the side of your head. How could you be so stupid as to let Gardinhire drive off with the mask of Chelsea Cooper in his car?

The answer is obvious: You and Caleb were so preoccupied with Chen that you forgot it was there.

After five hard blows to your own skull, you decide there's nothing to do but try to get it back before he finds it.

* * * * *

From your phone you get the addresses for two families named "Gardinhire", and they're on opposite sides of the city. Naturally, you visit the wrong one first.

But Martin's Audi is in front of the other one: a big, two-story slate house on a deep lot with leafy trees, out in one of those subdivisions right on the edge of town not far from Suffolk Wilderness. You case out the Audi's front and back seats, in case you can snatch the mask without having to talk to Gardinhire. You don't see it.

Your lips twitch into a ghastly grin as you mount the steps to his front door. What if his mom answers, and you ask to talk to him, and she finds Chelsea Cooper up in her son's bedroom?

It's Gardinhire's father who actually answers, and you very politely introduce yourself as a classmate of Martin's and ask whether you can speak to him. He lets you inside the foyer and calls to Martin, who in answer comes down a set of stairs tucked into a nook next to a very large dining room. He stops halfway down and looks at you guardedly. "Hey," you call to him cheerfully. "I gotta couple of follow up things to talk to you about, from our study session this afternoon."

Gardinhire hangs back, then curtly nods and takes a step back upstairs. But you gesture outside, and to show him you mean business, you actually go back out. You don't wait for him either, and stride back down the pebbled walk to his car. You're standing by the passenger-side door when he catches up. "Mind if I check out the inside of your car," you ask. "It looks nice." Without waiting for a reply, you get in.

Slowly, he circles around to the driver's side door. You quickly glance about. The mask isn't on the seats, or in the foot wells that you can see. Fuck, did Martin find it already? He's not acting like he's guessed what you're looking for. Maybe Caleb hid it under the seats? You bend to feel, but the door opens, and you straighten back up again.

Gardinhire says nothing. He's not wearing his sunglasses, and he looks very worried.

"So it's all straightened out," you say. "You had a little adventure today, one nobody would believe, but it's all good again." He doesn't reply. "You hear from Matthias?"

"Which one?"

You laugh. "Good point. I suppose I oughta call him 'Chen'. He wouldn't like it, probably, to hear me calling him by some other name."

Gardinhire just looks ill.

"Look, you're out of it," you tell him. "That thing that happened this afternoon, it wasn't personal, it was just a little thing we needed to do to get some info. We got it so you don't need to worry anymore."

He doesn't look reassured.

"But what we talked about in the portable, about being partners?" You break off and look all around, and look into the back seat, down into the floorboards, as though afraid someone might be hiding there, listening—

No mask in the foot wells back there either. You hope Caleb didn't put it in the trunk.

"What I was saying about us being partners, that still stands. You see, Chen and me reached a kind of partnership of our own, and I'm gonna be running his end of the business a little longer. I gotta run it the way he would run it, and what I told you, that's what he'd tell you. So, we're still partners." You punch the glove compartment button with the side of your fist, as though making an emphatic point. It opens. Nothing in it but papers and vinyl envelopes. You close it. "So you still okay with that?"

No reply. You look over at him. He seems frozen in place. He doesn't nod, doesn't shake his head, doesn't blink. Is he still alive?

You jump out of the car, and quickly slip into the back seat. Now Gardinhire's expression changes to one of deep alarm. "What are you doing?" he asks in a very weak voice.

"Giving you some space. You seem kind of freaked out," you say from the back. "Did you hear what I said, about us being partners?"

"Yes."

"And the deal still stands?" You duck down and feel rapidly under the front seats, and under the back. "What did you say?" you ask when you come back up.

"Uh, I think maybe I don't want to be buying anymore?" he says quietly.

If you weren't in front of his house, you'd grab him by the head and convince him he'd said something very different. But you just get very quiet yourself. "You don't want to buy any more? Not for your friends? You've already talked to them about this?"

He licks his lips. "Yeah."

"In the last hour? All of them? Mansfield and Kirk and Canfield and Kelsey and Amanda and all the rest? You talked to all of them? And Trantham, you talked to him too?"

His jaw sags at the revelation that you know who he's been selling to.

And since you've had a moment to think, you see that his pants-shitting regret at being in business with you is probably for the best. So you nod.

"That's okay then," you say. "It was good doing business with you, but all good things and shit like that. D'you already sell Trantham his stuff? Is that a yes? Okay, as I understand it, you were giving him nine ounces. I'll want the profit you got on it, the difference between what you paid me and what he paid you. What was it? Speak up."

"Two hundred and seventy."

"Then bring me two hundred and seventy bucks tomorrow at school. You also bring me one of your friends at school, one of those guys you've been having reefer parties with." You don't snicker over the lame term "reefer party." "I'll start selling to him, so your friends can still throw them. You make the introductions. Don't worry, I'll treat him nice, the way I treated you nice. Only difference is, I'll be charging him four hundred an ounce, the way I shoulda been charging you. So don't tell him you were paying less than that. I don't think you would, though, since you didn't tell them you were making a profit on those parties. Right?"

His head wobbles up and down.

"Excellent. And since we're not partners, you can also bring me the profit you made on dealing to your friends this month. By my calculations, that's another— Four hundred. Got that? Good, I'm real glad we had this talk. Everything's all sorted out." You pat him on the shoulder. "You've nothing to worry about, as long as there's nothing you haven't forgotten to tell me. Uh, is there anything you've forgotten to tell me?" Like, something about a dinner-plate-sized porcelain mask that has the ghostly image of Chelsea Cooper floating in it, that you found in your car after me and partner let you take it back, you cocksucker?

"No," he says.

You stare at him. But you can't challenge him without tipping him to the mask, and if he doesn't know about it, that would tell him about it. So you clap him on the shoulder, tell him you'll see him tomorrow, and slip from the car. He's still sitting in it as you drive off.

* * * * *

You've no fucking idea where Caleb put the mask, and you're not going to call him to ask. Chen could be calling at any moment to say that Chelsea is in position. You've no choice, then, but to rush back to the school and try to get another mask ready before he does. Luckily, you've one last brain-band ready to go.

It's a game effort, but you're still buffing the new mask when the phone rings. You recognize the number. "Yeah?"

You recognize the voice, too. "We got her up in the loft," says Dane. "Get over here."

"What do you mean you've got her in the loft? You mean tied up? You're sitting on her?"

"No, Matthias managed to talk her up there. They're up there now, I'm down in the changing rooms."

"Okay, he's just going to have to keep her entertained until I can get there. That won't be for another—" You look the mask over. "Forty-five minutes?"

"The fuck? You said you were ready to go!"

"I forgot one thing, I'm getting it ready now. Dane's just gonna have to stall her."

"Fucker doesn't know how to talk to girls!"

"I'll be up there as fast as I can! Faster if you let me get back to work!" You hang up.

* * * * *

Frantically you work, but not so frantically as to be careless, and you actually get it done—including a brain band glued to the inner surface—ten minutes before you'd promised. Your heart races during the drive to Westside, and you pray your phone won't ring again. It doesn't, and when you're in the parking lot you call Dane's number. "I'm outside the gym," you tell Chen. "Lemme in?" The door opens a minute later.

"I can't believe it," he says as the two of you run across the darkened court.

"Hey, these thing happen, fucker. I got it done as fast as—"

"No, I mean about Matthias. He's managed to keep her occupied. Even—" He motions you to silence when you come to the foot of the stairs leading to loft. Quietly you ascend. At the top, you put your ears to the door.

Soft voices sound within, a guy's and a girl's.

She's giggling.

You turn a wondering glance on your new partner. He nods curtly.

Then business reasserts itself: "We just bust in on 'em?" he asks.

Well, no. It's best that Chelsea not even see you. But do you let Chen see that the magic trick uses masks?

Next: "Chelsea Chen" 

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