Chapter #26At Home with a Celebrity by: Seuzz   You apologize profusely for having missed the morning meeting; after all, it's got to be a big fucking deal when only one player in a high-stakes, two-player game comes back. Knotts doesn't accept your apology, but she doesn't dismiss it out of hand either. "I heard you went on a tear last night." She shrugs. "But I recorded Muniz's debriefing, and I want you to listen to it. I hit him with a snoozegun at the end of it and bundled him over to the elves."
"Christ, no warning?"
"He came back alone, Kips, you think I wanted to give him even the slightest chance?"
"It occurs to me, Knotts, that all this compartmentalization didn't start until after I mentioned Cupcake's knowing Greystoke's codename."
She just cocks an eyebrow, and turns her laptop around so you can watch the video.
* * * * *
She recorded it through the camera in her laptop. The picture, of Muniz looking tired and grimy, isn't flattering, and the audio is hollow. But you don't have to pause or rewind it at any point to take it all in.
"You came out the station and got on a bus. Why's that?" So asks Knotts, off camera.
"Stoddard made a call," he says. "There were only two numbers on Greystoke's cell, and Stoddard called the most frequently used one." He looks pained. "You downloaded his cell before giving it to Stoddard. Did you get anything—?"
"Just answer my questions."
Knotts pauses the video. "Hermod says the numbers are spoofs," she tells you. "Even if we connected them to names it wouldn't mean anything," she tells you.
"What about texts, browser histories, passwords—?"
"Nothing. Greystoke had a walkie-talkie, and that's all." She resumes the video.
"Stoddard didn't know who answered," Muniz says. "He said that—"
"Quotes, please."
Muniz sighs, and his voice subtly changes, to indicated the quoted nature of what he says next. "Yeah, I'm coming back in. I got a prize. Pause. He resisted and got lucky. He was armed. We both got arrested and taken to the same place, and we both got released at the same time. I've got him now. Pause. Okay, but you find me, because I'm tired. Hangs up. Don't know who that was, but he said to take the 233 all the way to Beechenlea." Muniz's voice changes back. "So we got on the bus. Stoddard called the other number. He said, Hey I'm on my way to Beechenlea and I'm bringing along a friend. Pause, and he puts the phone away. I ask, What did he say? Stoddard says, Brilliant.
"We talk about how we're going to handle it. If there's one celebrity, we wait for an opening, and Stoddard will grab him, but gently, you know, just to get his hands out of the way, and I'll hit him with a snoozegun. If there's more than one, we might have to separate, but Stoddard will pretend to find the snoozegun on me, take it off, and try getting alone with one and using the snoozegun on him. We argue a little about how expendable I am, but not much because—" He shrugs wearily. "We face the fact that I am.
"It takes us forty minutes to get there. We get out. There's a two-story bungalow, part of a multi-house unit. Red brick ground floor, white plaster top floor, low iron fence around the grass. Cupcake's leaning against the fence, arms folded, grinning. We come up to him, and he says, He don't look like no mother-fucking bad-ass to me."
Muniz's voice now begins to bounce back and forth between subtly different intonations as he repeats the conversation verbatim.
"I told you he was armed. Did he leave a hole in you someplace? You got a skin like a rhino, and I ain't just talkin' about your looks. Maybe they'll hit you with it, and you'll get to see what it feels like. Maybe! But come on in, I got pancakes going."
A hand comes in from off screen, giving Muniz some water. "So we go in," he continues. "Nothing too fancy inside. A sofa, a TV. Stoddard pushes me onto the sofa. Cupcake gives him a look and says, Well if you think he'll be okay there."
Knotts, off screen: "Did we get any names for these two?"
"No. Cupcake never called Stoddard by name, and Stoddard naturally couldn't use Cupcake's."
"Well, go on."
"What do you want to do with him, if you don't want to put him here? Doesn't matter, just watch him while I take care of the pancakes. You want blueberries? Just plain tonight. Is anyone else coming over? You're late, so the pickup got changed to tomorrow. We'll put chameleo-boy in the basement until then.
"Cupcake went around a corner, into a kitchen, I think. I couldn't see. Stoddard came to me, motioned me to give him the snoozegun. I did, he put it in his hoodie pocket. He went into the kitchen.
"I heard Cupcake say, I thought you were keeping an eye on our guest. He's ugly. Ha ha, ask him to put on a nice face for you. I hear they can do a girl if you encourage them right. Get what you want out of the fridge. What do you want? My usual.
"Then Cupcake comes into the living room, and grins at me." Muniz shudders. "The light in his eye." His brow furrows. "Then I hear Stoddard saying We're out of butter, and I swear— Cupcake is grinning down at me, he closes his lips up tight, but I hear as clear as a bell from the kitchen, his voice, he says, Hey check out the cute girl jogger. Lucia caboosia!
"I hear a couple of footsteps in the kitchen, moving fast, then Stoddard, real soft, saying, Fuck?"
Muniz gets a real pained look on his face. "Then Cupcake, he laughs and yells, I'm in here with your girlfriend, you fucking Fane wannabe.
"So he's tumbled to us. I rush at him, but there's a huge burst of light that blinds me. I keep running toward where he was, and he was only a few feet away from me, I've got my arms out, but they sweep nothing, and I crash into a wall. I try shaking the blindness from my head, but it's almost like it's something that's stuck onto my retinas. I listen close, and I hear a click, like from a snoozegun, and something heavy falling. I call out. Stoddard? And he answers back, sounding just like Greystoke, of course. I got him. He's a fast fucker, but I got him. Sit down, call for transport while I find some rope.
"I'm not falling for that, though. I ask him, My ex-fiance, what's her name? Because Stoddard was giving me so much shit about it at Davenport's going-away party. And there's a pause. Then Cupcake laughs and says, Fuck you, you're so smart. I feel the tip of the snoozegun at my neck. Then a click.
"So I drop and pretend to be out. I don't know why, but Stoddard must have blown the first charge in the kitchen. Then Cupcake got it away from him and used the second charge on him, but Cupcake doesn't know there's only two charges. Anyway, I'm helpless blind, so I play possum. He ties me up, and I hear him tying up Stoddard. He carries us downstairs, into a basement.
"It's forever before my eyesight comes back, but it's dark, so it's probably even longer before I realize it's back. I get my hands onto a tat that'll shrink me down, and I'm able to get out of the ropes. Stoddard— I know he'll be out for hours. I sneak to the top of the stairs and listen, but there's no noise. I go out in the house, and there's nothing. I look outside, and the car that had been there is gone. I did a very fast search of the house, for any loot, but there was nothing, no electronics, no drives, no paper, nothing.
"I go down to the basement, to get Stoddard and carry him out, when I hear a car motor out front, and then the door. There's a front-loading washing machine in the basement, and I'm in my smallest form, so I hide there and look out. Cupcake comes in, says something I can't make out when he sees I'm gone. Takes a pistol out of his waistband and looks around, but manages to miss me. He goes upstairs for just a moment, not even enough time for me to take a breath, then comes down and stands at the foot of the stairs, pistol out and ready, and waits, not moving. But I also hear noises upstairs, so he must've brought someone back, and they're searching upstairs while Cupcake guards Stoddard.
"I'm trapped for almost twenty minutes before Cupcake goes upstairs again. He's gone for only a few seconds, then comes down with Crazy Ivan. Crazy Ivan takes the pistol and stands guard while Cupcake gets Stoddard over his shoulder and up the stairs. Crazy Ivan follows. I give them ten minutes, then go upstairs again. The house seems empty, and when I see that the car is gone again—or it's still gone—I do another sweep of the house. But I still turn up nothing. Then I leave, jogging hard and keeping to shadows, until I get to a place where I can catch a bus. I came here right away."
Knotts pauses the video. "I gave him another drink, then hit him with the snoozegun," she says. "What do you think?"
"Cupcake was very smart, and then he was very careless," you say.
"That's what I thought. Muniz didn't do anything wrong, of course, he played it exactly as he should—"
"But they gave him two chances of escaping. Funny how Cupcake came back exactly when Muniz decided not to take advantage of the first. A coincidence like that's the mark of bad fiction-writing." You turn to her. "You said you were waiting for a payoff. Was this it?"
Her eyes are bright. "Don't hate me, Kips. But if I had a chance to trade you for—" She stops at the forbidden name, and sighs. "I would."  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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