Earlier that day.
Dallas Avia, owner and leader of Avia Investigative Detective Services, was in his cluttered office, trying to focus on documents the Commissioner leaked him. He wasn’t actually a Commissioner. Dallas couldn’t remember his real title, because a grizzled old cop who leaks documents to cool private detectives is a movie character. And in every movie that character is The Commissioner.
He was thinking about his cigarette today. He could feel it calling to him from his back pocket, where it lived in his fake gold wallet in a little plastic tube from an at-home flu test. It had been there for three years, torturing him. Served him right.
It stopped him from thinking about other things.
Dallas grabbed a handful of hard candy from his antique bowl and shoved it in his mouth. Everything in his office was antique. He had a Grandfather clock, some grandmother curtains, an antique glass case full of old tobacco pipes, sea glass, aged whiskey, model ships, fine china, creepy ceramic dolls, and Native American handcrafts. He thought it projected wealth, class, and professionalism. He collected it from estate sales and thrift stores, most of it for under ten bucks. It looked like grandma’s house.
His desk was made of rare wood from an extinct tree. That’s what they told him. It was water damaged from decades stored in a basement. It used to make the whole office smell like mildew before he tried to restore it—then it made the whole office smell like varnish. Opening windows doesn’t make a difference in Sincoke. You don’t get fresh air, just bugs. The 19CE desk wasn’t designed for a computer monitor and keyboard, so it was always cluttered and he was constantly moving stuff around, which caused him to spill coffee on documents and electronics innumerable times. Only one client had ever commented on the wood.
He read four more words, then got distracted by nicotine again. He bit down on hard candy until his jaw ached. He felt it crush down into the pits in his molars. America, his right-hand woman, came and leaned on the door frame.
“Sup Amy,” he said.
“Throw the damn thing out, Dallas.” She could tell what he was thinking by watching his eyes.
“They always say, ‘don’t give up smoking, its all ya got.’ And then I went and fucking did. Now I just got you guys.” He flashed her an unsettling grin. Dallas had a wide mouth full of implants. They were too big, too white, and too even. It looked like there were too many of them. And he didn’t—perhaps could not—smile with his eyes. He braced himself for another lecture about decision architecture.
“I don’t wanna be your chemical crutch,” she said.
“It’s not a crutch, its a test of willpower! It represents my inner-demons.” He put his feet up on the desk. There was someone’s blood on his purple shoes. “Which I must face. Every hour, every second. Like a mantra!” Dallas made an elaborate, Buddhist-style gesture. He learned it during his time with the monks before they kicked him out. He didn’t know what it meant.
“You’re trying to dismiss me with jokes because at least part of you feels silly, right? On some level you know you’re being ridiculous with this cigarette thing.”
“Please don’t psychoanalyze me in front of the intern, America.” He gestured to Lester. He was sitting on the couch in the waiting room, pretending to read a fitness magazine.
America tread carefully whenever Dallas and Lester spoke. They were still adjusting to not trying to murder each other. It was like having a snake and a mongoose in the same cage. It was her turn to dismiss things with a joke. “Psychoanalyzing you is how we pass time around here. And anyway this case is huge. A lot of people are counting on us to find their children. Can you fight your inner demons on your own time?”
“Alright, alright, take my cigarette away for awhile. But pwease pwease pwease don’t throw it away! It’s a little reminder that I haven’t relapsed. And if I do, the nearest substance will be a fairly harmless little cigarette.”
America’s expression softened. “I’m not sure if that’s necessarily healthy, but at least its not actively self destructive? Kinda proud of you, Dallas.”
“Also you guys will have the length of a smoke break to take me out.” America slumped and looked at him incredulously. Dallas made a finger gun. “Kill me in my moment of weakness. Whoever does it gets to take over the agency. That’s in my will.” It really was in his will. “Gorilla rules. Just tell the judge I needed killing. Les will do it. Won’t you, buddy?” Lester pretended to ignore him, but he tightened his grip on his magazine.
“Won’t you, buddy?” Dallas elbowed in his direction.
“Well, it was nice to feel like you made progress for two seconds.” America held out her hand out for his wallet. He made a big guffaw about handing it to her. Some gold paint flaked off of it. She took out his cigarette and took a moment to pick out all the receipts and candy wrappers he had stuck in there.
“Nooo, not my filth! Also careful with that wallet,” Dallas got serious. “It’s antique spy gear—probably older than Dzerassae—it’s loaded with a single bullet.”
Dzerassae was in another office, looking for patterns in their target’s financial reports. Her face wrinkled. “I unloaded it when I caught you spinning it in the air and catching it.”
“You know what? Fair enough. You Gonna sundown tonight, or are you gonna stake out this pervert’s house with me?”
“You forgetting something?” America said.
“Happy birthday?” Dallas said. She didn’t respond, so he leaned forward towards Dzerassae’s office. “Happy birthday Z! What are you uh, a hundred?”
“Feels like it,” she said. “America is referring to your brother.”
“Oh, Ellis,” Dallas said dully. “I’ll swing by and leave a key under the doormat.”
America closed his office door.
Dallas felt tense. He handled it the only way he knew how. “Oooo,” he said, “Dallas is in troooouble! Wait are you actually mad?”
“You told the kid you’d meet him at the train station,” America said. “Your brother is coming in on the ‘Fentanyl Express.’ It’ll be late, he doesn’t know where he’s going, and you don’t know if he has a phone or any money. Plus I think tonight’s a wild night. We’re due for one.” Sincoke’s weather channels were totally unreliable when it came to wind, erroneously predicting it constantly. They cashed in on the hysteria and mystique surrounding wild nights without ever openly mentioning them. America could reliably predict them by observing how people behaved in lines, or in traffic. “You swore to your mother you’d take care of him.”
“She was so eager to get rid of him, she’d have sent him to live with John Wayne Gacy,” Dallas said. “Or our boy Zengrel,” he gestured to the papers.
“I’m dead serious about this. He’s in your care.”
“Oh cut the umbilical cord lady. He’s like nineteen!”
“What were you doing when you were nineteen, Dallas?” America said, prompting a cold look. People used to shit themselves when Dallas looked at them like that. He caught himself and mumbled an apology, surprised and ashamed of himself.
America was somewhat sympathetic. Ellis reminded Dallas of his younger self, and reconnecting with his family was a huge step for him. As his therapist, she needed to make sure he took that step. He was trying to disassociate by burying himself with work.
“I was a social worker for ten years Dallas. Ellis is a troubled young man and I take that seriously. He needs someone, and you stepped up. Too late to step down. Meet him at the train station, take him out for dinner, and introduce him to his new home.”
“We made all these plans before we knew Zengrel was arriving tonight. If you care so much about kids,” Dallas pointed aggressively at the documents. “You know what I mean.”
“Dzerassae worked for the KBG. She can stake out a house on her own.”
“Why don’t you go meet the kid?” Dallas said.
“Because I have appointments tonight, and because it’s your responsibility.”
“My responsibility,” Dallas said as he drew a loaded gun out from under his desk and dropped it on the paperwork covering his keyboard, “is to rid the world of this fucking monster, America.”
America put her hands on his desk and leaned over his computer monitor. Dallas recoiled. She was often frustrated or exasperated with him, but he’d never seen her this angry.
“No, Dallas, it isn’t. Our responsibility is to stake him out, discreetly, and find the missing girls. That is what we told their families we’re going to do, and that is what we are going to do. As despicable as this man is, you will not pull some macho vigilante bullshit and kill him because of your guilt problems, and your tendency to project yourself onto horrible people. Because if you do that, his lackeys and connections will freak out and cover up their tracks. And then we’ll never find those girls or expose his wealthy enablers. You won’t do that because you are not a horrible person, Dallas.”
“OK, OK,” Dallas said. “Yep. Yes. Good. Please don’t hurt me.”
“No promises,” America said. She leaned back. “This is important Dallas. Get over your shit.” She turned and opened the door.
Neither Lester nor Dzerassae looked at her. They aggressively, intentionally didn’t look at her.
“Dzerassae, I’m leaving early to see clients.”
“Just pay her for the whole day,” Dallas said.
America and Dzerassae shared a look. They both knew the agency didn’t have money for that. Avia Investigative Detective Services didn’t take in much money. Dallas founded AIDS with a mission—to take on missing person cases pro bono. He convinced the rest of them to join him. They sacrificed a lot for it.
Many people went missing in Sincoke. The poverty, the constant anxiety and ennui, the remoteness, the way PR minded city officials kowtowed to the rich and buried bad press, it left a lot of cracks for people to fall in.
Someone had to find them.
Ellis was restless in the back of the cab while it bumped around on some poorly maintained prairie road—the kind where if your car broke down you just died. He kept shifting around, randomly leaning forward in his seat, looking out the window, checking his luggage, then looking around the cab. The back seats were scratched up and there was powdery adhesive around the tears, leftover from tape that must have dried to dust. The window between him and the cab driver was so thoroughly coated in initials and penises that Ellis couldn’t see through it.
“Can I initial the glass?” Ellis asked.
The driver shrugged. “People just do it.” He was emotionless. He seemed like he didn’t care if he lived or died. Ellis didn’t have a pen or a knife and it seemed weird to ask for one.
He was a scrappy kid. A little skinny, messy hair. He had his arms folded inside his baggy T-shirt and the sleeves dangled at his sides as he fidgeted around. His resting facial expression could only be described as “disapproving.” The face an old man makes when he sees his granddaughter with blue hair. He looked like he was ready to fight anyone over anything. It often got him into trouble.
Sincoke was as long way away from the nearest town, with nothing but grass, militia bases, cult compounds, homeless camps, broken-down mobile homes, exotic animal farms, and various other buildings that don’t show up on google maps in between. There was no train directly in. There was no airport. Just roads that shipping trucks barreled down all day, to loading docks on Sincoke’s outskirts. Many truckers waited in the driver’s seat while their haul was unloaded. They refused to set foot in Sincoke, not even to empty out their piss bottles, lest the curse take them and they never leave.
Ellis was moving in with a mystery. Dallas was a legend, a rumor, barely spoken of. Their father, who Ellis knew even less about, kicked teenage Dallas out of the house. He visited once when Ellis was very little and living alone with their mother. Ellis’ only memory with his brother was playing Megaman 2 together.Mom cut him off again, but he resurfaced two years ago, claiming to be off drugs and out of the ‘crime business.’ Mom slammed the phone on him.
Ellis noticed sections of train tracks that ran parallel to the road. They were almost entirely consumed by grass. They passed an abandoned train car covered with graffiti.
“Oh sick,” Ellis lurched forward in his seat and craned his neck to see. “Do people live there? Like, off the grid?”
The driver was quiet for a minute. People didn’t hide in the prairie to do anything good. He’d seen some things. “Just do drugs probably,” he mumbled.
Ellis fantasized about sneaking in, stealing their drugs, and burying them. He imagined saving a girl who fell in with a bad crowd. She’d find him and thank him, then he’d say she had the wrong guy and walk off mysteriously. He started ruminating about his friend Tara. She believed in the curse and was convinced they’d never see each other again. She was devastated and had one of her fits. She came up with elaborate plans for them to run away together. He needed to contact her as soon as possible. He didn’t want to leave her alone.
He fucked up. A week prior, he came home and his Mom’s new boyfriend—a thick-necked asshole who only worked out his biceps—was drunk as shit. He threatened to hit her, so Ellis broke a bottle over his head, because what else was he supposed do?
Turns out he was a cop. Ellis had no idea. Motherfucker must have been the only one in town who hadn’t hassled Ellis before. In retrospect it was obvious. He looked and acted like one.
Their town had less than 2,000 people and for some reason the police had military surplus gear, including two helicopters and a tank. They didn’t raid the trap houses or the drug labs, they walked around the library and the pizzeria dressed like space marines, scaring the shit out of teenagers, jaywalkers, and people nodding out in public bathrooms. They kicked down homeless peoples’ tents and stole their stuff. They were bored and violent. Ellis needed to get gone. Mom arranged for him to move in with Dallas.
He felt like he was being shipped to a penal colony. Mom promised Ellis she’d keep that man out of their life. Whenever Dallas called she’d cry and hug Ellis, then microwave him something. Ellis never felt closer to her than when they were united against his brother. Making them live together was a jarring switch, and he couldn’t help feeling abandoned and betrayed. She said it was for his safety, but wasn’t Dallas also dangerous?
It made him think of the weird stuff. The signs he tried to ignore. She left him alone a lot. She pretended not to notice him sneaking out at night. One time he listened to her on the phone, talking about how the ‘look in his eyes’ scarred her sometimes.
What fucking look in his eyes? He tried to look at himself in the driver’s rear-view mirror, but he couldn’t see past all the scratches. He was being paranoid, she was only protecting him from the cops. Desperate times and all. But why Dallas? How could she break her promise so flippantly? She was happy to be rid of him. He tried to acknowledge this numbly, but his stomach churned like he chugged hot sauce. His Mom had been through a lot.
Look out the window.
Tape on the seats.
Mom, Dallas, Mom, Dallas Mom, Dallas Tara Mom
Check your boxes check your bags you’ve got them all. Check again. Look out the window. Tape on the seats. Mom. No. Yes. No. Something else.
Look out the window.
“Alright,” the cab driver said. Ellis snapped up. He saw nothing but concrete—his first taste of Sincoke. They were in a warehouse loading dock surrounded by shipping containers and big trucks.
“Oh.” Ellis hesitated, unsure if he or the driver were supposed to do anything. The driver just sat. Didn’t even look at him.
“Well, thanks man,” Ellis fumbled with the door, opened it, and set foot in Sincoke for the first time. He tipped the guy ten bucks. Ellis had $60 to his name. He got it by stealing DVDs from Walmart and then returning them. The guy at the counter knew what he was doing, but didn’t seem to care. It was really embarrassing.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more money,” Ellis said. “Feels like a bad tip for such a long trip. I guess I catch a bus or something from here?”
The driver said nothing. He waited for Ellis to unload his cardboard boxes and grocery bags, his backpack, his messenger bag, and his guitar case. Then he drove off, leaving Ellis alone with his things in an ocean of gray. It felt more like the middle of nowhere than the prairie. Maybe one of the workers would help him, but they’d probably just tell him he wasn’t supposed to be there. People were always telling Ellis that. The concrete felt cold, even under the blistering sun. He felt it through the holes in his sneakers.
Alexandra was rubbing her temples behind the bar at the Dark Mother,a fancy lounge basked in blue and purple light, with ornate, Gothic furniture designed by local artists. There was a small stage. A curtain blocked off the back half of the building, which she rented to a dominatrix and a photographer. They called it a speakeasy, because Alexandra didn’t have a liquor license. Though technically she could ‘give’ people alcohol and they could ‘give’ her donations. Legally speaking, it was a performance space and an art gallery. In actuality, it was a temple.
Alexandra was a middle-aged woman with a fit body, straight bangs, and a perfectly witchy hooked nose. She looked the part of a high priestess of Thelema. She was there with her girlfriend Amunet, ‘the best thing she dug up,’ when she worked as an archaeologist in Egypt, and their sisters Loretta and Agatha.
Loretta was a stout, chatty woman, wearing a toga with her left breast exposed. Dark Mother had no rules against nudity. “Do what thou wilt’ and all that. Agatha was an anxious baby witch. She was fixated on looking the part, so she looked like she got caught up in a tornado that passed over a Hot Topic and a Spirit Halloween. She wore a lot of makeup to cover up years of drug use. Magic was an opportunity to replace her old rituals with new ones. Alexandra protected and encouraged her.
“No more intersectionality,” Alexandra said, reflecting on what a mess that was.
That night was an experiment. She invited all of Sincoke’s pagans, astronomers, Satanists, and occultists from every tradition and discipline to come together, to try to channel the destructive energy of a wild night toward something deserving of destruction. It resulted in the loudest, most disorderly gathering the Dark Lady had ever seen. Not every union of egoists is pretty. And Blessed Mother, there were some huge egos in their community. ‘Do what thou wilt,’ meant, ‘be an asshole,’ to a lot of them.
“It was pretty funny when those frat boys wandered in and Steve tried to sacrifice them,” Loretta grinned.
“You tried to sleep with one of them,” Amunet said, trying not to sound judgmental.
“I tried to sleep with all of them. Almost did! Then they heard Dark LordDave talking about cum-eating ceremonies and started calling him gay. Things escalated.”
“You know what? I’ll take Sincoke’s insane, ‘everyone-make-their-own-shit-up’ occult community over that Levay stuff.” Alex said, rallying. “That’s why intersectionality is a bad idea. Whenever we organize, it always leads to cum-eating.”
“Essence Consumption,” Loretta mockingly corrected her.
“Speaking of Levay, I found this weird guy skulking outside earlier,” Agatha said. “He was super polite, almost uncomfortably so? Like, weirdly posh and rigid.”
“Sounds like one of ours,” Loretta said, “autism runs strong in this community.”
“I apologize for coming off as stiff,” came a soft, steady voice. A young man walked in. He was a big guy, tall and broad shouldered with glasses, very neatly cut hair, but a messy beard. He spoke and moved very precisely, as if he gave deep consideration to everything he did. He was wearing a black sport coat over a button-up shirt with a tie. He always dressed like this.
“Sergei you are the last fucking thing I need right now,” Alexandra said.
“Forgive me Aleksandra. I am here on a pressing matter, or else I would not disturb you.”
“Go away. You’re not twenty-one, you’re weird, and we’re closed,” she said.
“How old is he?” Loretta pulled her toga over her boob. “Am I committing a felony? Not my first not my last, but ya know.”
“Be not concerned,” Sergei told Loretta, “I have been working on redirecting my libidinal energy towards more worthy intellectual pursuits, such as medicine, psychology, maths matics, and grappling. But, oddly enough, libidinal energy is what brought me here tonight.”
“Really hate where this is going Sergei. Like, more than usual,” Alexandra said.
Earlier that evening, Sergei was reading medical textbooks with a severe and thoughtful expression. He rested his chin on his fist, posing like an Historic Person in a black and white picture. He imagined himself accompanied by a quote. Probably a misattributed one. He had an erection. He wasn’t aroused. He felt a sudden spasm. Uncomfortable, sudden, joyless.
A spontaneous emission, he thought clinically. He closed his medical textbook and placed it on his coffee table, along with books on Gnostic mysticism and Collective Dynamics by Kurt and Gladys Engel Lang. He looked around his room, carefully scrutinizing his packed bookshelves, his weights, his tatami mat, his three computers, his collection of esoteric artifacts, and his large human anatomy models. He was looking for a sign. A clue as to what entered his study.
Psycho-social forces could manifest as tulpa, mental constructs, the things ancient people revered as gods or devils. They weren’t corporeal and they didn’t ‘exist’in the strict sense, but they could effect things. Usually they emerged spontaneously from the collective unconscious. A city full of desperately lonely men could very well birth a succubus. They could also be created—intentionally or not—by an individual or small group. His enemies may have sent something after him. He could have birthed it himself. He was, like everyone else, a slave to his id and his death drive. For now.
With a mumbled evrika, he noticed the head of the male anatomy model was rotated and facing backwards. It wasn’t looking straight ahead. Someone or something was trying to confuse him. It wasn’t a succubus draining his energy, it was an imp meant to distract from the work in front of him.
“But, I couldn’t return to my work, you understand,” Sergei explained to the four women, who regarded his story like a train wreck. They couldn’t look away.
“It’s like we summoned him by talking about cum,” Agatha whispered in Loretta’s ear.
“The head looking backwards could have been a sign that I was missing something,” Sergei said, “perhaps I was being warned against tunnel vision.”
He sought answers. The Pyatnitskovich family had done well after fleeing from the destabilization of Russia in the ’90s. Sergei’s Father was a professor of theology, and they had a tall house in a spread-out neighborhood, with a big enough backyard to build a shooting range. Sergei’s study was in the attic. He climbed out of the window and pulled himself onto the roof.
He stood on one leg and moved his arms around, as one would adjust a TV antennae. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and he shivered as he tuned in to the psycho-social frequency of the city. It was easier on wild nights because the wind carried the psychic impressions further. He felt anger and excitement. It came to him from the endless sprawl to the east, from the built up city center, the rural western district, the forgotten Old City in the south, and the reservation far beyond that. He felt the psychic black hole emanating from the JD Booker Enterprise Building, colloquially known as the Black Cactus. He almost felt his essence being sucked into it.
The city was anxious and anticipatory, like a patient before the scalpel, a virgin bride on her wedding night, someone in a suicide crisis with their finger on the trigger. Sergei felt a chill though his entire body. His eyes opened and he gasped audibly. Something had come to Sincoke. It had been coming. It was here now. Everyone knew it on an unconscious level. And now, something was going to happen. Good, he thought. Sincoke’s stillness was not inherently bad—a bored mind can catch wonderful ideas—but it was due a shake-up. Sergei was a proponent of order, but a healthy spirit requires balance and some things can only be learned through adaptation. The only antidote for Sincoke’s diseased spirit was change.
“Did you change your pants?” Amunet asked, legitimately concerned.
“There was no time,” Sergei said. “I am kidding. My my, long range contact with this force of chaos has me making jokes. Brilliant.”
“Why did you come here?” Alex asked. “I don’t know about any succubi, or whatever.”
“I am looking for this chaotic force,” Sergei said, “so I can ally myself with it, and shape its course. I sensed a strong psychological current emanating from this sacred place.”
Alex sighed. “Sergei, listen, I don’t hate you. I think you try your best. But I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Ever. And I don’t know why you keep coming here. We’re Thelemites, not whatever weird psycho-drivel you’re always talking about.”
“There is much synergy between psychology and spirituality. What is magic if not–”
“–And if there wassome kind of weird chaos force coming to Sincoke, you are the last person I would trust to guideit.”
Sergei took a deep breath and stared at Alex impassively. “I apologize for taking up your time,” he said. Then he left, looking ahead, focused. If he was offended, he had already forgotten about it.
“Mind like a goldfish,” Amunet said.
“Only thing I like about him,” Alex said. “If only he’d remember to stop coming here until his twenty first birthday.”
The four women continued chatting, but Agatha was quieter than usual. Sergei’s allusions to incoming change stuck with her. She did a tarot reading earlier in the evening and drew Death five times. She convinced herself that she wasn’t shuffling properly, but then she dropped one of her cards while she was putting her deck away. She didn’t need to look to know which one it was.
The prairie felt endless. It was easy to lose your sense of time, distance, and direction, because there was nothing but grass no matter where you looked. It was yellow and brown, sparse and thin, like it grew out of the cursed soil already dead. It looked bright gold in the sunlight, like Dzerassae’s hair 40 years ago. Fool’s gold. Cattle starved to death on it. Sincoke was only useful as a hideout or a battleground. She longed for the lush, frosty grass that blanketed the hills of her homeland. She would not have chosen to spend the end of her life here. Sincoke was Limbo, a spiritual dead end, where old women who served a country that no longer exists were sent to be forgotten.
No one escaped. This was reflected in the prairie, where compasses were known to stop working. That wasn’t the curse, it was interference from the military and CIA headquarters. Some things were magic, others were just intelligence operations. Dzerassae was intimately familiar with both.
She stopped to ponder at some pampas grass, one of the many invasive species in the prairie. Its blades looked like ostrich features. It was out of place like her, in her long double-breasted white and black dress, her head and shoulders covered by a white scarf, and the dozens of knives in decorative holders strapped around her waist and arms.
Her knives were considered culturally unacceptable, but it was fine to openly carry a gun. She guffawed. Why would anyway advertise that they needed a gun? She thought about the thousands of cowboys who died in Sincoke’s old boom towns, and their cowardly style of violence. Americans like murder that’s impersonal. Dzerassae believed it should be face to face. You should have to look someone in the eye. You should have to feel the knife go in. If you could stomach that, it was fine.
An ostrich emerged from the tall pampas grass and locked eyes with Dzerassae. They stared at each other until the ostrich heard the sound of a vehicle and ran away. A Jeep Wrangler pulled up close to Dzerassae. Agent white leaned out of the window. The former Texas Ranger was big, and old like her. He looked like an ad for cigarettes in his suit and 10-gallon hat.
“Now you be nice to the locals there, young lady.”
“It saw this shriveled old face and thought I was one of its own.”
“Now don’t go saying that about yourself.”
“What? I’m old. And you make me walk all the way out here.”
“No one made ya walk. And ya look good for yer age. Better’n me.”
“It’s the cigarettes and red meat,” she chastised him. “I keep telling you—you need to eat melted cheeses with sour cream, and warm bowls of starch.”
“You inviting me over for dinner?” She gave him an angry ‘what do you want’ look. “I’ll waste no time on pleasantries.”
“You already have,” she spat.
“Base doesn’t know I’m here, they think I’m tracking tigers.” He waited for her to be incredulous. “There really are escaped tigers.”
“I know nothing about tigers. I know nothing about anything.” She did her usual spiel. “I have not been in Russia or Caucasus in over thirty years. I have no contacts there. I have told you everything! And in exchange I am still prisoner.”
“We both know that ain’t true. You’re not our prisoner, you’re under our protection. And that’s what I want to talk about, little lady. Buncha old pals have come looking for ya.”
She made a loud, dismissive, bah! “The current regime barely knows I exist. I was mere data interpreter.”
“They called you The Orakul,” White said with reverence, “no ‘mere’ anything. And its not the Kremlin, its one of your old buddies. A mister The Wolf. Ring a bell?”
“I worked for KGB. I knew fifty men who called themselves The Wolf.”
White grinned. “Well, when you catch him, send him our way Little Red.”
“You call me pet names because you can not pronounce Dzerassae,” she said pointedly.
“Got me there. Now maybe while I drive you back to city limits you can tell me a little bit about what you’re doing with Dallas Avia.”
“Mister Avia is nice man who give old lady job!” She spat back.
“We have reason to believe he’s targeting one of our assets for his nutso vigilante—y’all excuse me for cussing in front of a lady—bullshit. Dallas Avia didn’t hire theOrakul to help him with paperwork.Now, I always liked you, but wise up and—”
“Do your assets disappear young girls? I am in hiding because I develop conscience, mister White. Since we are not here on official business, I will say I might have liked you too, if you followed gut and stop being boot-licking CIA crony.”
“Can’t fix things outside the system. Independence corrupts faster than power. Sincoke has seen decades of old-school lawmen and inquests. It just dun’ work. You need checks and balances. You’re Marxist-Leninist, you believe in hierarchy.”
Dzerassae handed him Narcan. “On way back, look out for seemingly abandoned cars and vans. This place is rife with civic irresponsibility. I do not want ride, and next time we talk, keep it on record.”
White seemed dejected. There was some affection in her eyes, and he took solace in that. “We been working together for years, thought I’d do ya one nice. I guess I misunderstood how we were. Apologies for insulting your new comrade.” He rolled up his window and drove off.
Dzerassae had been experiencing a nagging feeling that something was coming. She wasn’t apprehensive, just aware. She knew it would be significant, but no one would know when it arrived. She had wondered what it was; but a looming wolf was a clear sign that a story was about to unfold. She wasn’t worried. Clever girls overcame wolves all the time, it had no chance against a wise old woman. But it couldn’t be her story, she was too old and had already been in hundreds.
Dzerassae practiced geomancy. Everything was a symbol and nothing was a coincidence to her. She looked around and tried to divine something about what was coming by observing patterns in her surroundings. The world told things to those pay attention—and no one paid attention like Dzerassae. There was no difference between data interpretation and magic. Shamans and investigators are both just people who notice things others don’t.
Her homeland spoke to her in riddles and half-truths, but the grass here just babbled. It was white noise, unintelligible, and it distracted her. There was a sudden breeze, and the grass made an eerie susurrus. White’s Jeep left tire marks in the ground. The pampas grass was a ferocious outsider that never stopped growing—even though it could be harmful and no one wanted it.
The grass in the wind: discontent, a million voices speaking out at once, saying nothing. The tracks: there could be nothing more American than a Texas Ranger in a Jeep Wrangler; America, where there was no unity, no concept of common good or even commonality. The pampas: tenaciousness. Her conclusion: a singular figure or a small group would take control of popular sentiment and unrest, and make its mark.
Sincoke was choosing a Hero. Such a force should be guided by an old hand.
Dzerassae noticed a few blades of green grass in the tracks from White’s Jeep. She couldn’t tell if they were uncovered by White moving the soil, or if they’d been crushed under the wheel.
Dallas’ argument with America was very sobering, and helped him focus on his work. This case made him very angry.
Theodore Zengrel was connected to an international trafficking ring. Three years ago he was convicted in California. Four foreign, teenage girls were found at his beach house. None of them spoke English, and none of them had passports. He plead guilty to a minor solicitation charge. The detectives who investigated him were unceremoniously fired, witnesses disappeared, and his lawyers kept him off the sex offender registry by making a big stink about a clerical error.
Dallas wondered how much he paid the DA to fix things. It probably didn’t cost him a cent. Zengrel had friends in politics, finance, and tech. Entertainment industry too, but he was a pedophile so that went without saying.
Zengrel bought a downtown apartment in Sincoke during the tech boom that never happened. He laid low there after California. It was AIDS’ first year of operation, so it was just Dallas and America. Some girls went missing in connection with Zengrel and the authorities refused to look into it, so their desperate parents came to AIDS. America did most of the talking. The last thing those poor people needed was to talk to a guy like him.
AIDS promised them justice, but Zengrel abruptly left Sincoke. Who could blame him? He had apartments in Florida, New York, and a private island in the Caribbean. Tonight he was coming back. Dallas was determined to make good on his promise, even if that meant putting a bullet in Zengrel’s head and incurring the wrath of his billionaire friends. No one looked out for one another like the super rich. It’d be nice to make them feel vulnerable for once. If only it could be that simple though. America was right; this was an opportunity to obtain documents, figure out who his contacts were, and most importantly track down missing people. Only God knew how many disappearances were actually linked to him. Then again maybe he didn’t. Zengrel had friends in higher places than God.
Dallas also wanted to know what Zengrel was doing here. No one came to Sincoke for no reason. Fewer still came for good reasons.
Dallas and America—the more social members of AIDS—did interviews in anticipation of his arrival. Every employee they spoke to, ex or otherwise, refused to give up anything. Zengrel may have been paying them to keep their mouths shut, but Dallas refused to believe that many people could live with themselves not reporting child abuse. They probably just hadn’t seen anything. They could have been intimidated. A lot of his employees were undocumented or had criminal records, people who lived in extreme instability even by Sinkie standards. Also its scary to discover your employer is involved with the Balkan mafia or the Illuminati or whatever.
There was another possibility that frightened Dallas even more. Many of Zengrel’s employees hardly saw him, they just maintained his property while he was away, but they still spoke well of him. He seemed like a generous, patient boss. America watched their eyes closely. She sensed some reservation in their praise. They’d seen hints of something wrong, but they were ignoring what was right in front of them because they liked the guy.
Dallas believed most people weren’t evil, and evil people knew that, so they hid. They operated in nooks and crannies, whether that meant assaulting people in basements and alleyways or controlling their lives from private offices. The later liked to sit on corporate boards or get appointed to arcane government positions so they could make the world a worse place in comfortable anonymity. They have a wider reach, and face justice far less frequently than violent offenders.
The third kind of evil, the people person kind, is far worse. They want power and attention. They want everyone to love or fear them. They’re kind and generous to their lackeys to make loyal little vassals out of them. They sometimes develop real affection for the people who get stuck in their orbit, loving them like you would your favorite screwdriver or your car. They love to start cults, start companies, run for office, or in Dallas’ case run a gang. Dallas had a feeling Zengrel was like him. A man who wanted the people he took from to love him.
Charisma is a gift. Using it to alter reality is evil. Dallas might have hated him more for being a philanthropist than for being a pedophile. Philanthropists are the worst, because they obscure the fact that they control the money, and use it buy prestige and cover stuff up.
According to the documents, Zengrel preyed on young women from all socioeconomic backgrounds. He had procurers, sometimes young girls themselves, seek out poor girls and and offer them money to ‘spend time with’ a lonely old man. He’d manipulate rich kids by promising them scholarships, mentorship, or college referral letters. A family—the Becksters—were bragging that they were hosting him on social media. They were upper middle class strivers who liked to party with rich socialites from better cities. They talked about bringing business and culture to Sincoke, but Dallas got the sense they just wanted an opportunity to leave.
They had a daughter. Dallas wondered how far away this guy could smell vulnerable young women. Apparently all the way from his penthouse in New York.
But who was Dallas to talk? He wasn’t a sexual assaulter, but that’s the only line he hadn’t crossed. There are a lot of ways to ruin a life. How many people had he made dependent on him for drugs, work, protection, or housing?
He was still at it. His employees at AIDS could die working for him. And for what? Anything they dug up about Zengrel would get buried again. His arrest would implicate too many important people. Maybe AIDS could expose a few low-ranking members of the cabal. Patsies. People they could afford to send to prison. Dallas used to do the same thing, rank his followers, made sure they knew it too. His jaw felt sore. He’d been clenching it. Another mouthful of hard candy. His cigarette. He could not let any of his detectives get harmed. He was responsible. Responsible for Ellis. He was bad. Wait who was, Ellis or Dallas? Ellis just got into some trouble. Lots of kids get into trouble. Dallas did. They were a lot alike. One of his. His tribe, or his kind? Ellis would need to be watched.
—had to watch over every
Dallas couldn’t let Dzerassae go alone. She was getting old. He got up and walked to the waiting room. Lester was still pretending to read.
“Lester?” Dallas said.
“Piece of crap?”
“I’m your b- you know what? Yeah, sure,” Dallas said, rubbing his sore jaw.
“Suck too much dick?”
“I need you to pick up my brother at the train station.” Lester, who looked like a henchman from a comic book, gave Dallas a blank stare. “Look, I know we ain’t friends. I wouldn’t ask you for a favor, I’ll keep you on payroll.”
“You don’t have any friends,” Lester said.
“Yours are all in prison.”
“They still count. I’m with my daughter tonight,” Lester said. They were quiet for a moment. They both knew that wasn’t really going to happen.
“I’m glad you and what’s-her-name worked something out tonight,” Dallas said.
“None of your business,” Lester said.
“I want you to know,” Dallas grinned with mock good-nature, “that I can laugh all this off because I write your paychecks. But if-” he caught himself and trailed off.
“But if what?” Lester said, but not too aggressively. He wanted to give Dallas a jumping off point. Lester hated Dallas, because he was a violent psycho but he tried to hide it. He justified everything he did. He was a ‘rebel,’ a leader of the dispossessed. Now the self-righteous atonement shit. But Lester did not want to fight him. They were both trying to leave the past behind. Dallas regretted his combative choice of words, but he was still unwilling to look weak in front of an old enemy. He hated himself for it. He hadn’t changed a bit.
“You big strong men don’t have to show off for me,” Dzerassae said condescendingly.
Dallas exhaled. “Have fun with your kid tonight, Lester.”
“What time’s the little punk gonna be at the station?” Lester picked his magazine back up. “I’m only allowed to see Diega for an hour. I won’t be busy all night.”
“Aw dude, thank y—“
“But you have to say you’re a bitch,” Lester said.
“’You’re a bitch,’” Dallas said.
“Damn.”
Ellis was in a bad mood. He gave someone $4 to call his Mom on their cellphone for directions. She acted distracted, like she couldn’t wait to get off the phone.
He had taken three buses (which had all been late) to the only train in Sincoke. It was a little two-car shuttle, basically a bus on rails, that went through the center of town. The last stop was within walking distance from Dallas’ place.
Every bus driver hassled him about his transfer tickets. He handled them all by being obstinate and asking a lot of questions. He could beat most hall monitors—which is what all of these people are—by being more trouble it’s worth. After seven minutes of arguing or answering questions they usually give up on your bus fair, your late fees, the roll of toilet paper you slipped into your backpack, or whatever else they wanted $4 for.
Life, for Ellis, was an endless parade of people hassling him for $4. Society was built on demanding $4 from people. Want to sit in the air conditioning for a little while? $4. Use the bathroom? Get somewhere? Look around? Eat today? Fucking breathe? That’ll be four dollars.
Ellis’s Mom told him to take everything. His shoulders were burdened by a backpack full of clothes, a messenger bag, and a guitar case. He had shopping bags full of stuff tied to and hanging from his backpack straps. The messenger bag kept cutting across his neck and choking him. It was miserable, especially with the heat. It started getting windy as the sun set and the breeze was a relief.
The rest of his stuff, mostly stolen library books, magazines, a couple comics, and a bunch of CDs, were in musty old cardboard boxes. Every now and then someone would help him carry them up stairs or across the street, but most people glowered at him for taking up too much space. He glowered back and tried to look like a deranged delinquent. Be more trouble than you’re worth.
People don’t want to make a scene. Ellis used that to his advantage, but it annoyed him. A lot of shitheads got away with things because people are terrified of looking foolish or drawing attention to themselves. For example, there was a young man loudly reading bible verses next to Ellis on the train. The kid was wearing a white suit, and his blonde hair was neatly combed back. He stood erect with perfect posture. He didn’t move when the train rocked back and forth, even though he wasn’t holding onto anything.
Everyone was clearly annoyed, but everyone was afraid to be the asshole. Ellis decided to do the right thing. He looked up and spoke through gritted teeth.
“Hey man, can you read to yourself?”
The other boy turned and looked down his nose at nasty little Ellis and his dirty boxes. He looked wildly offended.
“What did you say?”
“I asked if you could read to yourself.” They locked eyes.
“Fine, Devil.”
Predictably, Ellis got more dirty looks than the guy who was bothering everyone. People hated shit-stirrers, he thought, they’d rather just accept their situation quietly. The boy kept reading, now just loud enough so that only Ellis could hear him.
Ellis wanted to flip out at him. He deserved it. Feeling the yoke of public shame, he quietly tolerated it. He opened the window and the sound of the wind being sucked into the train drowned out the preacher’s voice.
