Conspiracy of Angels (2 page)

I stood blinking in the harsh glare of the floodlights mounted on the roof of the single-story bar. The wide lot held two semis, half a dozen mud-spattered pickups, and a few bikes out front. A couple of neon signs in the windows let me know I could get fresh eats and cold beer—except the “E” in “Eats” flickered dully, making the sign read, “Fresh ats.” I pondered the nature of a “fresh at” while I tried to figure out my next move.

I had an address. It was safe to assume that’s where I lived, but with no car and no shoes, the sixty miles to Cleveland might as well have been six million. Maybe I could use the phone and call a cab.

Throwing my slightly less sodden leather jacket over my shoulder, I picked my way across to the entrance of the pub, the gravel sharp and painful against the raw pads of my feet. The wind kicked up, scattering dried leaves across my path. If it was cold, I didn’t feel it. From about ten paces out I could hear the muffled strains of country music, and I drew up short when I spied a predictable sign on the door:

N
O
S
HIRT
. N
O
S
HOES
.
N
O
S
ERVICE
.

To which was appended in less-regular red letters,
No Shit
.

“Really not my fucking day.” I sighed, then shook my head and went in anyway. The worst they could do was throw me out, right?

I
opened the door to a sensory assault—fryer grease, cigarette smoke, stale sweat and even staler beer. Half a dozen old TVs were mounted at various angles over the bar and seating area. The pictures flickered unsteadily and not a single one had the same color balance. Loud country music blared from the speakers, completely drowning out anything coming over the TVs—and yet none of the TVs were on mute, adding a dull, insensible hum to the chaos. The bass of the speakers completely swallowed the treble, so what little I could hear of the lyrics came out garbled at best.

Considering it was country, maybe that was a mercy.

I flinched as—for an instant—it seemed as if the patrons of the bar were shouting, all at once. There were about ten of them, and the cacophony drowned even the din of the music and TVs, then abruptly receded as I realized almost no one’s mouth was moving. Most of the guys just sat morosely, staring into their beers. The bartender looked up as I hesitated near the door.

He was big, not as tall as I was, but broader again by half. I figured he had about fifty pounds on me, and little of that was fat. He had a hair net beneath which a snowy sweep of ponytail started about halfway back on his scalp. Of all things, he had a beard net, too, covering a plume of white and gray long enough to make a Tolkien dwarf envious. As he regarded me, his ice-chip eyes went ten degrees chillier.

“Sign’s there fer a reason,” he grunted in a basso voice that cut easily through the noise.

I was still trying to work out why I’d heard voices. Was I hallucinating?

“If I had shoes, I’d be wearing them,” I shot back. “Look, I just need the pay phone… and change for a twenty.” I approached the bar, holding out one of my soggy bills. From the look of his stained and greasy apron, he was also the cook. He squinted down at the damp and crumpled money, then took in the whole of my appearance.

“The heck happened to you?” he grunted.

Wish I knew
, I thought, but I just shrugged. Out loud I answered, “Bad day. I don’t imagine cabs come all the way out here?”

He quirked an eyebrow at me. It was one of those old-guy eyebrows where a couple of the hairs had gone wild and grew three times as long as any of the others. They stuck out from the middle like curling antennae.

“From where?”

“Cleveland?” I asked hopefully.

A few of the patrons stole sideways glances at me and snorted over their beers. The bartender let out a bellowing laugh.

“You’re kidding, right?”

It was worth a shot.

That left me with the business card. Glossy black, it had “Heaven” stamped on it in stylish silver lettering. The phone number and address were in red. I had no idea how or even
if
it pertained to me. At least there was a number I could call. That was somewhere to start.

“Is there a hotel nearby?” I asked glumly, just in case Heaven didn’t pan out.

“Roadway Express ’bout a mile the other side of town,” he offered.

“If you’ve got their number, I’ll take that, too.”

Shaking his head, the bartender grabbed something bulky from under the register and chucked it. I caught the phone book with a speed and accuracy that surprised even me, snapping my left hand up and seeming to pluck the unwieldy tome from mid-air. I paused, staring at this. Half a dozen of the bar’s patrons were staring now, too. Whispers surged, threatening to swell into shouting again. I closed my eyes against the sensation, fighting for order in my own head.

“Uh… thanks,” I muttered a little weakly. I tucked the phone book under one arm and did my best to look inconspicuous. At six foot three and covered in lake muck, it wasn’t happening.

Still shaking his head and muttering to himself, the fellow counted out my change and set the money on the bar. I scooped up the bills and quarters, pointedly avoiding touching his hand. Biker Santa jerked his thumb toward an alcove which, according to the battered tin sign tacked above it, also led to the “Used Beer Department.”

“Phone’s back there,” he said, then he abruptly turned around and ignored me.

The pay phone was clunky and ancient, but I hadn’t expected anything less. In this age of ubiquitous cell phones, I was just happy the bar hadn’t ripped the thing out and replaced it with some flashy gambling machine.

It was dented on one side, some of the paint scraped down to the metal. I ran a finger over one of the dents curiously, then froze as I got that electric feeling again. Something blossomed in my mind—not just thoughts this time, but whole images. They came in rapid flashes, like a stop-motion film, each scene super-saturated with emotion. A man in a pale shirt and a cowboy hat pacing on the phone—this phone. A woman on the other end—and somehow I could see her, too. She was seated on a couch with a hideous floral print, a box of tissues open on the coffee table before her. She had a black eye and raw bruises across her jaw and chin.

There were scrapes on his knuckles from breaking two of her teeth. He rubbed the raw, infected skin while he argued.

She was breaking up with him. He couldn’t yell loud enough to berate her, wanted to hit her even then, but she was miles away.

He had a thumper dangling from his belt—something shaped like a mini-baseball bat used to test the tires on his truck. I couldn’t say how, but I knew the nature of the little tool in an instant. Red in the face and raging, he grabbed the thumper and beat it repeatedly against the side of the phone. Then he was screaming into the receiver that she couldn’t do this to him, that he would show her, he would make her pay.

Through hiccupping sobs, she said no more—she wouldn’t let him hurt her anymore.

That was when she grabbed the gun sitting next to the box of tissues. When she closed her lips around the muzzle, the blast nearly drove me to my knees. With a hoarse cry, I tore my hand away from the side of the pay phone. It felt like I was going to vomit again, and my pulse hammered painfully in my head. I tried to breathe through it, acutely aware of the feel of eyes on my back.

What the hell?
Was this some kind of vision? If it was, what was I supposed to do with it—run out and stop her? I didn’t recognize either the woman or the man. Maybe it was something that had already happened. Yet it was so immediate—I could still taste the metal of the gun.

Clenching my teeth against the echo of the gunshot, I tried to get a grip on myself. There wasn’t anything I could do for anyone, not in my current state—even if what I’d just seen was real. I closed my eyes and counted my breaths until my heart resumed a steadier pace. I had to get my own shit sorted out.

Picking up the business end of the phone, I started feeding it quarters. With trembling fingers, I punched in the number for Heaven. I needed answers. With luck, they would be on the other end of the line.

N
o one picked up. I counted to ten, gritting my teeth tighter with each ring. It didn’t even go to an answering machine.

I was tempted to revisit the abuse to the phone, only with my fist instead of a thumper. Knowing how little that would accomplish, I took a deep, steadying breath. Still, I hung up the phone with such force that it made the internal bell
ding
. The coin return vomited quarters and they cascaded onto the floor. I could feel eyes on me from the bar again and I just put my back to them.

After collecting the change, I leaned over the little shelf next to the phone, gripping my head with both hands. All the weird shit spinning around in my brain made it hard to think.

I was just about to call the Roadway Express and ask about a room when something prompted me to try the number for Heaven again. Nothing so clear as a vision. Just a feeling.

Couldn’t hurt. I had the quarters.

The line started ringing. I pressed the phone to my ear, irritably pacing the short distance its cord allowed, looking everywhere but at the people who were glaring at me. The flickering television screens caught my eye, if only for a few moments each. A football match. A poker game—which somehow was a sport now. Local news. World news. Hockey.

By the fifth ring, I was ready to give up on the hunch and just call it a night. Sure, I was going to have to walk at least another mile to the damned hotel, but at the end of that walk there was a hot shower and a soft bed waiting for me—assuming the platinum card in my wallet was legit.

Abruptly, the monotone ring cut short and the throb of very loud, oontzy dance music spilled from the other end. Then there was a muffled voice, lilting and female.

“Club Heaven. Can I help you?”

I opened my mouth and went totally blank. What was I going to say?

Hi, this is your friendly neighborhood amnesiac. I’m lost in East Bumfuck and seeing all kinds of weird shit. Come pick me up, please.

Sure, that would work.

Stammering a bit, I managed, “Uh, this is Zachary. Zachary Westland?” The name still felt foreign on my tongue.

She was silent on the other end, though the pounding music never ceased. I started to worry that she hadn’t heard me clearly.

“Hello?” I prompted.

Pitching her voice a little louder, she repeated, “Can I help you?”

“It’s Zachary Westland,” I said a little more firmly.

“Are you calling about a special event?” the woman asked. She sounded bored. Then I heard a male voice and her giggled response. The pulse of the music suddenly grew muted, as if she’d cupped her hand over the phone. There was the dim exchange of voices, hers and the man’s. None of the words translated, but there was enough vocal inflection to guess that they were—at the very least—flirting.

I scowled, whirling around in the alcove on the short leash of the phone cord.

That’s when I saw it. My face—or at least a reasonable approximation of the face in the driver’s license. It was a police sketch. Of course, considering the kind of day I was having, what else could it have been?

The reception on the TV was terrible, lines marching up the screen and flickering spastically. At the bottom, a little ticker-style announcement scrolled along.

…
wanted for questioning in the Rockefeller Park shooting. Consider armed and dangerous. Notify police immediately.
It was followed with a hotline number, as well as a code for texts.

“Shit,” I breathed and nearly dropped the handset.

A brassy-haired woman sitting at the end of the bar followed my gaze, then did a double take. Her gaudily painted lips opened to make a little “O” of surprise. The sketch was replaced with an innocuous image of a park—nothing but some leafless trees and a statue of what looked for all the world like Mahatma Gandhi. The woman squinted, trying to follow the scrolling letters as the warning repeated across the bottom of the screen.

A sick cocktail of anxiety and fear roiled in my gut.

Not good. Not good at all.

The music on the other end of the phone came through clearly all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said, a little breathlessly. “Were you calling about a special event?” A throaty purr beneath her words replaced the boredom.

“Zachary Westland,” I repeated automatically, as if the name were a talisman, but my real attention was on the woman with the bad dye-job as she debated what to do.

Considered armed and dangerous. Notify police immediately.

“Sir, this is Club Heaven. We’re open from ten pm till three am Thursday through Sunday. We do special events weekdays…” She droned on, reciting from memory. The brassy-haired woman bent to retrieve a mammoth purse from the floor beside her stool. Digging around frantically in its depths, she pulled out a cell phone and retreated to a quieter corner of the building.

“Oh, fuck me running,” I complained.

The girl on the other end of the phone thought I was swearing at her. She cursed right back, her voice rising stridently.

“Look, you stupid bastard, we don’t have a Zachary Westland on staff. Ask a real question or get off my goddamned phone—
hey
!” This last came out as an indignant squeak. There were sounds like a mild struggle over the handset, then another voice came across the line.

“
Zaquiel?
Is that you? Why on earth are you calling this line?” It was the male, no longer murmuring. He spoke in a clear, mellifluous tone, words clipped with a subtle accent that I couldn’t quite place.

The name lanced through me like lightning. Images flooded my head, jumbled and incoherent. The only thing I made out with any clarity was the thunderous music of hundreds of voices raised in perfect song. Beautiful and agonizing, it hit me like a punch to the gut. I struggled to recover, and at the same time, I saw the woman snap a picture of me with her cell.