The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Many Faces of Crime, Part 2

Previously: "The Many Faces of Crime, Part 1" 

It takes maybe thirty seconds to pull on Erik's things: jockeys and jeans, ankle socks and Converse sneakers, the sleeveless tee. It takes longer to retrieve Erik's backpack from his car—a twenty-year-old Pontiac Trans Am that his dad restored and gave to him for his sixteenth birthday—and dump his books out and replace them with the money from the Warehouse, a blank mask and other mask supplies, and Macaulay's pistol. You hike it onto your shoulder, give Will Prescott a wink and a smirk, and tell him to hold the fort till you get back.

* * * * *

You chuck your chin at Brian, the floor manager, as you saunter into Ben's BBQ. "The boss in?" you yell at him, and inhale the tangy odor of tomato sauce, spices, and smoked meats. It makes your mouth water.

"In the back," he says. "You need him?"

"Guy at work gave me a message to pass on."

Brian nods, and you slip around the counter and dodge your way past work stations to an unmarked door. Narrow as the hallways were before, when you could slip through them in Dwayne Macaulay's scrawny frame, they are almost impossible for you to squeeze through in Carstairs's bulkier body. Not to imply that he's "big", for he's quite lean and trim, with narrow hips and a flat belly. Only your elbows bump into the boxes, and you back into a stack of crates when one of the meat carvers, returning from a smoke break, tries to slip past you.

"Come in," a mild voice says in answer to your knock on the door marked "Manager".

For just a flash, you imagine Karol Mathis recognizing you beneath your disguise, and rising from behind his desk with his own pistol to blow your face, mask and all, clean off. But he only looks up at you with an expression of mild annoyance. You shut the door behind you, twist the lock, and grin at him as he frowns.

"Dwayne says you trashed his car," you tell him.

Mathis's eyes freeze, but he says nothing.

"Dwayne called me, said to tell you he got the message."

"Where is Dwayne?" Mathis asks.

"He got your message, that's how Dwayne is." Your grin widens as you set the backpack on the corner of Mathis's desk. "But I saw him, and he's shitting bricks. Bricks shaped like—" You open the pack, and Mathis tenses. He doesn't relax even after you start pulling out packets of twenties and hundreds and dropping them on the desk.

"He said there's fifteen thousand there. He collected it from me night before last, and told me to give it to you. He's on his way out of town."

"Do you know where?" Mathis picks up one of the packets and idly rifles the bills.

"Nope. Oh, he also said to give you—" You take out the mask.

Your plan had been to tell him it was a valuable antique, then when a propitious moment came you'd whip out the pistol and force him to don it, as you'd done with Erik. But now, with the mask in your hand, and him sitting not two feet from you, you ask yourself Why the fuck not?, and just smush it into his face. His chair rolls back and hits the wall, and he slides out of it. You push him into a corner and take the chair yourself after making him set a little more comfortably on the floor.

A tense ten-minute wait ensues. You get one bad scare when there's a knock on the door, and a rattle of the knob. Voices sound inarticulately, then move off. Mathis's phone dings, showing a text from "Nora." (Who?) You set out the rest of the supplies, pack the money away, and lightly drum your fingers while waiting for things to start moving again.

You're able to move a lot more quickly this time, once the mask is out of him, and you get the mask sealed and painted lickety-split. You half expect Mathis to pop his eyes open and grab your wrist as you bend over to put the mask back on him, but nothing happens until you push it into him, after which his eyes open.

And just like that, you are now in control of Karol Mathis's criminal empire.

* * * * *

Not that you want to run it from where he's sitting. That's the entire point of using Dane's mask as a disguise. Which reminds you ...

Oh, but first you question Mathis about his end of the set up at the high schools and the Warehouse. It's none of it very interesting or even very complex, and after thinking about it a few minutes you decide to let things continue as they have been, only without Dwayne Macaulay as an intermediary. No, from this point on, you explain to the compliant Karol Mathis, all the weed that Macaulay used to supply to Westside High and Eastman High, to the Warehouse and the river bank, will be delivered to the Warehouse along with the shipments of liquor and food, and that you—Erik Carstairs—will distribute it from there and return the payments to Mathis. He docilely accepts your decision, and with another wink and a smirk at a compliant golem you leave him.

"What, were you sucking him off back there?" Brian chides as you swagger out through the kitchen.

"More like the other way around," you retort. You jab him with a strong finger. "But don't tell him I said so." You both guffaw.

Back at the motel you divest yourself of Erik's mask, replace your mask on the real football player with that of his own golem, and explain to said golem how he's going to be running things at the Warehouse. But the golem is impatient with the explanations, for he remembers giving them to Mathis himself. So you cut the talk short and have him drive you clear to the other side of town, to Dane Matthias's trailer.

There's no one home, to your surprise, but you remember where there's a spare key. That's when you discover the door isn't even locked. Some of Dwayne's paranoia creeps over you, even though you are out of his brain band, as you and Erik enter the dark trailer, but no one jumps you. After digging through Dane's room to find the mask and requisite wear, you change yourself into Dane Matthias. "Oh, whoa! Fuck!" you moan in what you hope is a very Dane-like way as you study your close-shorn hair in the mirror. It's cut so short that you can't even tell that's it's a coppery-reddish blonde; there only dark roots. "My 'do, man! I look like a fucking, uh, killbot or something."

Hrm, you think. Maybe this isn't going to be as easy as I thought.

Still, you think you can fake your way through long enough to make one last replacement. You tell Erik who to text and what to say, and explain to him how it's going to work.

* * * * *

Gary Chen's eyes sharpen and glitter when they land on you. "I thought we fucking got rid of you," he hisses.

"Oh, come on, man, don't be like that," you whine from the sofa where you're sprawled. "You know what they did to me? You know where they sent me?" You pull at the short tufts of hair on your crown. "Look at it!"

Chen turns his head and blows a fat glob of spit onto the floor. "Fuck you. Like I give a shit. I'd'a done—" He turns again his head again as the Erik-golem steps out from a nearby corner, where he'd been standing quietly. "So the fuck do you want, man? And why fucking here?"

"There's been a shakeup," the Erik-golem tells him. "Dwayne's run off, he's not distributing our shit to us anymore. New pipeline set up."

"Yeah?" Chen cocks his head. "You were getting your shit from Dwayne? Fuck! I got 'sclusive rights at Westside, that fucker was—" He goes up on his toes, rooster-like. "Karol Mathis know what kind of shit Dwayne was pulling. Do you fucking know who—?"

"Change of management there too," you tell Chen. He turns a sneer at you, then does a double-take as you level the pistol at him. "I'm in charge now."

The air is electric as no one says anything. Then Chen laughs.

"Faugh! Gimme that, you dope-head." In two strides he's almost atop you. "Before you—"

But the Erik-golem is faster, and tackles him from behind. You hurl the (empty) gun away and shield yourself as they fall toward you like an avalanche—which was not how you visualized this going down.

But Erik and Chen between them somehow manage to regain their balance, and slowly they twist and quietly they grunt as they struggle. Erik has his arms around Chen and is pulling him back, so that Chen has only one foot on the ground. But he's thrashing furiously in Carstairs's arms, and as his lips peel back and his bright white teeth flash, you realize that's trying to find a way and a place to sink a deep and painful bite into his captor.

He doesn't get a chance. You pull the third blank mask of the night out from under your butt, leap forward, and jam it onto Chen's face. He stiffens, then sags, almost taking Erik with him as he collapses.

* * * * *

Your orders to the Chen-golem are brief and to the point: to keep dealing his weed the way he had been already, and once a month to collect a new delivery from Erik while still paying off Mathis. He accepts your instructions with an ill-suppressed, almost slavering rage, but a few more instructions give you the confidence to send him out to do his job. You send Erik home as well.

Back in Dane's bedroom, you shove stuff on his bed and prop yourself up with your phone to text Caleb to tell him where you are and who you are. You tell him nothing else, of course. Then you ponder what to do next.

You might persevere with your plan to impersonate Dane, but the evening has shaken your confidence a little. Maybe you should switch to Erik's mask, which has a mind band inside it. But you also still like the idea of being someone "unexpected" as a crime lord. A sophomore, maybe?

Next: "The War Chest" 

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