Freak City Page 14

  Chapter Fourteen

  Someone had left Todd and Brian alone, and if you did that, there was usually trouble. That was why Maribel always had plans. She had them both scheduled down to a tee; even their beer bouts were on her to-do list. As a professional planner, she had her boyfriend and his best friend arranged for convenience, usually hers, but they were happy enough. If she wanted to go to the movies, they did. If she wanted to go out to dinner, they did. When she wanted a ferryboat ride, they obliged. When she needed her evening, off to the pub they would dutifully go. Neither understood they were under her thumb. Both of them thought they were living their lives, but Maribel was running the show.

  She knew from experience that their idle small minds were the devil's own playhouse. Sometimes, however, she slipped. That Saturday she and Jolene were too busy, the order they had was too big and complex. Often she'd dispatch the boys out on tasks, shopping or deliveries when no risk was involved, but this time it was just too important. She had to let them out of her sight. At first they rambled around in the yard, digging holes for no reason, looking for bones that some dog might have buried some time, if a dog ever lived at that house. There could be a box buried out in the yard holding masses of treasure, you just never knew. After making a mess out of that, they returned to the house but no games were on yet. It was Brian who had the idea to raid Argus' room.

  "Come on,” he goaded his buddy, "let's check this guy out. I mean, what do we really know about him?"

  "Right on,” said his pal, "let's go do it,” so they charged to the front of the house (sliding in socks on the long wooden hallway floor, seeing who could slide best and the farthest) and tumbled into his bedroom. After poking around for a bit they found nothing; a bunch of small paperback books on the floor, dirty clothes, a clock and a lamp on the nightstand. Todd was already getting ready to leave when Brian called out,

  "Hey dude, check it out,” and held out the mystery package.

  "What's up with that?" Todd wanted to know.

  "I don't know, I just found it, under the bed.”

  "Under the bed, eh? Is it porn?" Todd was hoping it was. Brian dumped the contents onto the bed, and rummaging through them gave a low whistle.

  "Some crazy stuff,” he declared. Todd picked up a couple of items, glanced at them briefly, and let them fall back.

  "It's not porn,” he concluded dejectedly.

  "Damn straight,” Brian agreed. "But cool. check it out. Couple box tops!"

  "Big whoop,” Todd retorted. "Come on, man, let's scoot. There's nothing in here."

  "No wait,” Brian said, "I got one of these. Sure I do.”

  "One of what?" Todd replied.

  "A secret decoder ring,” Brian said. "I didn't know they still made them. I've had mine since forever, since like when I was nine. It looks like exactly the same"

  "What's it for?"

  "Duh, secret codes,” Brian said, "like this note.” He picked up the handwritten scrawl.

  "Got to be,” he decided. "Bunch of words strung together, made for the ring. Hang on, I'll go get it,” and he was gone in a flash. Todd went and stood by the window so that he could stand guard in case Argus came back unexpected. He didn't know where Argus had gone, or when he'd return. Someone ought to look out, he decided. Brian came back with the ring and sat down on the bed, with the note in one hand and the ring in the other. He'd also brought with him a pen and some paper. He went through the words one by one; and as he went through them a sentence emerged from the jumble of nonsense like 'elevator', 'storage', 'eleven', and 'lorakeet'.

  "Got anything?" Todd kept on asking.

  "It's coming, it's coming,” Brian waved his friend off. "'Last house last stop',” sure it is, and then this, 'Final hour final day'. You see it goes like this. The first letter of the first word, then the second letter of the second word, and keep going like that until it starts over and then the same thing. And you pass each letter through the ring, you see? There it is"

  "But what does it mean?" Todd wanted to know.

  "Beats the hell out of me,” Brian said. "But look at this stuff. Huh.” Todd was about to pester him with another dumb question when suddenly the front door opened, and Argus and Seth arrived home.

  "Oh damn,” Todd said. "Now we're hosed"

  "Whatever,” said Brian, unfazed. As Argus came into the room, Brian acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

  "I decoded your note,” he told Argus.

  "You what?" Argus was too stunned to get it. The fact of those guys in his room with his stuff was a shock. He'd been trying to stay out of their way, having decided they had nothing to offer.

  "Yeah, this note,” Brian repeated, holding it up, and then showing his paper to Argus. It was Seth, though, who snatched it and read it aloud.

  "Last house last stop. Final hour final day. Man, that's awesome. How did you do it?" Brian explained about the secret decoder and Seth was struck dumb for a change. Todd, meanwhile, snuck out of the room and hightailed it back to his own, where he hid, waiting for Brian to give the all clear. Brian, though, was intrigued. Argus stood listening while Brian and Seth discussed the whole matter in detail.

  "We know where the house is,” Seth told him. "And we know what the day is. His birthday. And now we also know what time. Mystery solved!"

  "I don't know about that,” Argus said. "There's still a lot of loose ends, aren't there?"

  "Let's go through it,” Seth said, and they went through the items, one at a time. A lot of them could be crossed off as explained, but a lot of them still were unknown. The old lady in the garden, for one thing. The toy robots, another. And what about the house key? Seth couldn't answer the first two, but the key had to be to the house, he was sure. And the politician? Brian could answer that one.

  Turned out the frat boy had a thing for the news. "That was an excellent story,” he told them. "There's this guy, see, Daniel Fulsom. Actually he's in a few of these stories, now that I'm looking at them. Remember he owned the Sea Dragons? Well, that was after he got out of jail. He was a bankster, see? Had his own financial mafia going on. One time he owned the whole city council, got them to give him these contracts. All the garbage, the trucking, construction, if it was city money he was getting it. Cheap bastard too. Billionaire but he did shoddy work. Then one of his buildings came tumbling down. Crappy materials, that was the word, but not according to him. He came out with this story that there is this monster, you see, no really, a monster, that ate out the concrete foundation. Took it all out. I forget now exactly his story."

  "Anybody ever see this monster?" Seth wanted to know.

  "Course not,” said Brian, "and anyway, he shut up pretty quick. I just remember I heard it somewhere. It wasn't all over the place. Oh yeah, there's this book, the one in this article here. 'The Witchcraft of Positive Thinking'. Fulsom was all into that. He figured he'd paid his dues with his prison time, but then maybe he didn't, maybe he owed, more than he thought."

  "I don't know what you are talking about,” Argus said. "I thought that was some kind of self help book"

  "Yeah, yeah,” Brian said, "it is. It's got this idea that you can get what you want, but only if you're willing to pay the price, and so of course the more you want, the more it costs. Fulsom, you see, he wanted a lot. It costs if you want to have billions. Well, that's the idea, I guess."

  "How can you pay for money?" Seth was puzzled, "that just doesn't make any sense."

  "You don't only pay in one way,” Brian explained, "like I said about jail. He thought that would pay for his wishes. Turned out that he had to pay more. Loss. He paid a lot in loss, like when Fulsom Towers went down. Seventeen people were killed in that crash. Lucky for him it was night and mostly night watchmen and cleaners in there. Even so, he got sued, by the city and families and unions and everyone. Cost him a bundle, and then there was Sea Dragons stadium."

  "What about that?" Seth asked, "I always heard it was damaged."

/>   "Nothing was wrong with the place,” Brian told them. "Only thing wrong was Dan Fulsom's head. He came to think he was cursed. Rumors were going the stadium was haunted. Strange stuff was happening there. Unexplained and unexplainable. Didn't you ever hear about that?"

  Argus and Seth shook their heads.

  "I guess most people don't know,” Brian said. "A friend of mine worked for him once. Told me I shouldn't tell anyone, so don't say you heard it from me. Well, old Fulsom took to hiding out. Hardly anyone's seen him in years. He's got agents who run things for him, and the agents go around hiring folks to do the strangest things. Like my friend. He says one time they paid him just to go and stand in line for an hour. People say he's gone crazy, totally insane. Talks to the walls. Seeing things. This monster, you see, it lives under the city, and it comes out sometimes and it does crazy things."

  "Like what?" Argus asked

  "Crazy things,” Brian repeated himself. "According to Fulsom, of course. My friend never saw anything. Anyway, Fulsom sold the football team and tore down the place for no reason. Stupid Nebraska Sea Dragons! What a joke. And ever since then, he has stayed out of sight"

  "We've been seeing some crazy stuff too,” Seth said. He told Brian about the old men in the park that Jolene saw, and the kids on the seesaw they just saw, and related what old Captain Havenaard told him too.

  "It seems like it could be all normal taken one at a time,” he concluded, "all of those things don't seem strange necessarily. It's only with all of this stuff together and now, and all of it pointing at him,” meaning Argus, who was still standing in his own room like an intruding guest.

  "Don't look at me,” Argus said, "I don't know anything about anything."

  "Well, it's your birthday on Tuesday,” Seth told him. "I've got a feeling that it's going to be one to remember. Man, this is so exciting"

  "Yeah it's pretty cool,” Brian agreed. Argus didn't feel the same way. He was just wishing that they would just get the hell out of his room.