Minders (32 page)

“I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth,” Lulu said, very serious. “Did James’s monster do this?”

“What monster?” Sadie and Ford asked in unison. Hands shaking, he set the bowl down.

Lulu took a big breath. “He said I couldn’t tell you. Not”—she rushed to assure him—“because he didn’t love you as much as me. Or almost as much. It was because there were
circumstances
. But now this has happened, and I wonder if I had told—” She glanced away but not before Sadie saw the pain in her eyes.

She thinks she’s responsible
, Sadie realized, her heart aching.

“Tell me about this monster of James’s,” Ford prompted.

Lulu frowned, trying to figure out where to begin. “He said there was a monster in our city, taking control of people and making them zombies. They looked okay on the outside, but they were dead inside, and they fed off sadness. James said Serenity Services was powerless to stop it from happening, and you couldn’t trust anyone except little kids like me, but he was going to fix it.” She picked up speed as she talked, the story bubbling out of her. “He had a magic power that made him invisible, and he was going to find the monster and slay it, and then everyone would be free.”

“How was he going to find the monster?” Ford asked, his mind spinning over the words
magic power.

“The monster had a treasure hidden in a stone fortress. James was going to use his invisibility power to hide there, and when the monster went to count the treasure, he’d slay it. And then everyone, you and me and Mom and Copernicus, would all live happily ever after. But he was worried if he failed you’d go hunt the monster even though you don’t have his magic power. I asked him why he couldn’t just give it to you, but he said it didn’t work that way, you either had it or you didn’t.”

Ford was having trouble keeping his eyes open.
Tell her she’s not responsible for what happened to you
, Sadie urged.
You can pass out after, just tell her that.

“But you went looking for the monster anyway,” Lulu pressed on. “Because you’re a hero, like James.”

“No.” Ford shook his head. Her face was an indistinct series of shadows, and his voice sounded like it was coming from far away. “I’m not like James. And what happened to me had nothing to do with the monster.”

“You’re sure?” Lulu asked. “Swear?”

“Swear,” he said and plunged back into unconsciousness.

• • •

The next time he woke, thirty-six hours later, Mason was in the chair next to the couch.

Ford frowned. “What are you doing here?”

Mason glanced at his watch. “My shift. I have another hour. So don’t think of doing anything rash until three thirty. That’s when Mrs. Entwistle comes on, and your mom can’t yell at me.”

“Mrs. Entwistle?”

“Neighbor across the hall.”

“I’m sorry they made you do this,” Ford said.

“I volunteered,” Mason told him. “What else am I going to do while my overpriced scout is out of commission?”

Ford sat up and frowned at the yellow envelope on the coffee table. “What’s that?”

“I found it outside the door when I came this morning.” Mason said. “It was hand delivered. Mysterious.”

Ford’s fingers weren’t entirely steady as he ripped it open, and Sadie knew it was because he was excited. He’d recognized the writing on the envelope.

The card inside was a birthday card. It was unsigned, but “SAFE KEEPING” was written in big letters on one side, and the $5 Bigfoot bill was secured on the other.

Ford clutched the envelope and said, “Come on.”

Mason looked up from his word jumble. “Where are we going?”

“To see Bucky,” Ford told him, making to stand up.

He fell on his face.

“I don’t think we’re going anywhere,” Mason said gently.

Ford glared at him. “We are.” Pushing Mason’s hand aside, he gritted his teeth and stood. He stayed leaning on the couch for a minute until his nausea and dizziness cleared, gave Mason a triumphant glance, and staggered to the shower.

At first the water stung on the cuts and abrasions, but once that passed he closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the hot water pouring over him, and so did Sadie.

She reveled in the way soap smelled on him, the way his fingertips felt on his scalp. She lost herself in the prickly sensation of face wash being rubbed through his beard, of his work-worn hands soaping his chest, his fingers cleaning his ears.

And she loved it when he smiled in the mirror.

On the way out of the bathroom, he stopped to put the toilet seat down
. You’re going to break my heart, Ford Winter
, she thought.

• • •

Four hours after waking up, he was sitting in the passenger seat of Mason’s car across the street from a low-slung cinder-block building. It had a sign that read U DRINK EM PACKAGE–LIQUOR–LUCKY LOTTO on the front and a thick chain and foreclosure notice on the door. It was still light, the evening sun turning the windshields of the used cars on the lot next door gold.

“The nurse told you to stay in bed for two weeks,” Mason said casually.

“And I told you if you were going to be bossy I didn’t want a ride. Guess we both suck at listening,” Ford answered.

Mason grinned. He watched Ford compare the address on the yellow envelope to the one on the building for the fourth time. “I doubt it’s changed.”

“This just isn’t what it’s supposed to look like,” Ford said. He was trying to reconcile the short, squat liquor store with the room big enough to hold fifty miniature-golf holes, not to mention an entire outdoor theater. Next door to the liquor store in one direction was the used car place, and the other side was an empty lot.

“You didn’t see the exterior.”

“True.” Ford nodded and kept nodding as he said, “I don’t think you should come in.”

“That doesn’t work for me,” Mason said, nodding with him.

Ford stopped nodding. “I’m serious.”

He’s serious
, Sadie seconded.

“We said no rescuing.” Ford sounded almost desperate now. “This might be a trap.”

Mason twisted behind the wheel to face him. “Let’s put it this way. I’m not letting you out of the car without me. And if anything happens to me, up to or including death, I won’t hold you responsible.”

“That’s not comforting.”

Mason looked surprised. “Funny, it is to me. Come on.” They got out of the car and approached the liquor store. “Don’t forget, this is an MRP address.”

“I’m not likely to forget that.”

Sadie didn’t know which one of them was more excited, her or Ford, and she couldn’t tell whose heart was the one racing. Being out of commission for six days had left Ford both restless and weak, but the card from Bucky had been like a shot of adrenaline.

The front door was locked, for real, but the one on the side gave easily. It looked like a standard solid metal aluminum door on the outside, nothing camouflaged about it. It opened into…

. . . an abandoned liquor store. Just like the sign said. Sadie looked through Ford’s eyes, watching the play of images fly by as he catalogued and filed what he was seeing. There were three doors—the front door, the door they’d come through, and the door to the bathroom. The linoleum floor showed the outline of shelves, but they were long gone. What was left: the counter—too big to move and not valuable; a three-year-old poster of a Korean pop sensation eating a lollipop; a toilet, ripped out of the wall and turned into a mini-shrine with candles and some plastic flowers in the middle of the floor.

Ford rubbed a hand through his hair, accidentally scraping a cut on his scalp, and winced.
If this was the right place then one of these things had to mark the entrance to Bucky’s lair
, Sadie heard him think. He and Mason spent an hour knocking on walls listening for hollow sounds, testing the door, verifying every set of hinges.

As they prodded the counter a second time, Mason announced, “Toilets and radiators. That’s going to be the name of my community theater company.”

Ford looked up. “Because you never want anyone to come see your shows? I thought you said you were trying to impress some girl, not
de
press her.”

Sadie laughed.

Mason made a broad gesture. “They’re everywhere. Every demo and salvage site we go to. They are the icons of this moment.”

I noticed that too
, Sadie said.

“Or the toilets have no resale value, and the radiators are too heavy to move,” Ford pointed out.

“Still like the name.”

“Good thing you can afford to lose some—” Sadie watched the points of color in Ford’s mind do acrobatics, picturing where the toilet should have been. He crossed to the bathroom, pushed the door open all the way so the knob came to rest against the rubber stopper, and leaned into it until he heard a click. Then he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. The false wall came with it, revealing the passageway concealed behind it.

The passage led to a descending flight of stairs that went to another passage that ended in a flight of stairs going up. As Ford and Mason climbed the second staircase something skittered across the ceiling. Sadie felt the hairs on the back of Ford’s neck bristle. “What was that?”

“Best case? Rats,” Mason answered.

Ford had been mentally compiling a map as they went, so when they reached the top of the stairs he knew they were in the big room where the miniature-golf statues had been, but it was unrecognizable. The fake grass had been ripped up, and piles of smashed fiberglass formed eerie colored mounds, an eye winking out here, a claw there.

The bed was gone from the light blue bedroom, and the partition that had separated it from the other room was flattened. The only thing that hadn’t moved was the radiator.

“Case in point,” Mason said, leaning against it.

The skittering noise came again.

The stairs up to the stage had been stripped to metal slats, but the stage was still there, and the outdoor theater.
Bucky, you sneaky rat
,
Sadie heard Ford think, as he now realized that the theater he’d been searching for was actually a hanging garden, a completely fabricated outdoor space. Even the perfectly ruined walls had been constructed.
Sneaky rat genius
.

“It’s even more beautiful when you realize Bucky built the whole damn thing,” Ford said, echoing Sadie’s thoughts.

“But why do that?” Mason asked. “Why not just move into an old theater like the one he took the seats from?”

“Camoufla—”

A shower of bullets strafed the front of the stage. Ford flattened himself to the ground, groaning as his ribs hit, and tried to make out where the shots were coming from. He spotted one ski-masked gunman in the audience—

Another round of bullets.

—and two more on top of the exterior walls.

Ford popped up and ran toward the back of the stage, shouting at Mason, “Come with me.”

“Divide and conquer,” Mason yelled back, giving a loud war cry and running the other way.

The men in ski masks all turned to look at him, and while they were distracted, Ford jumped on the lever Bucky had used to activate the trapdoor, opened it, and leapt through.

There was no bag this time, and he landed hard on his hurt ankle. It twisted out from under him, and as he staggered to right himself in the darkness under the stage he tripped over something, making it clang. He stopped moving and held his breath. Had they heard? Were they coming after him?

His heart was racing against his ribs, and his lungs contracted.
Don’t panic
, she whispered to him, keeping her breaths long and regular.
Breathe and think
.

It worked. She sensed his attention sharpen as he took in his surroundings: light from the left, a sink across the way, tall shelf full of umbrellas.

Why would Bucky need a dozen umbrellas?
Ford wondered.

There was a—
moan
?

Sadie held her breath, and so did Ford.
Was there someone there?

Another moan.

“Do you need help?” Ford whispered.

The sound stopped. But it was close by, he thought, stepping around a pile of chairs, just—

“Oh, Bucky, no,” Ford whispered, collapsing on the floor next to him. The hair on Bucky’s forehead was matted with blood, his left leg was at an unhealthy angle, one eye was swollen shut, and his lips were caked with blood.

“Who did this?” Ford demanded. Sadie felt his rage sweltering like a foundry in the summer, a hairbreadth away from complete combustion.

He needs water
, she urged Ford, to focus him.
And a blanket. He’s in shock.

“Water,” Ford’s mind echoed, and he twisted around, assessing. Getting to the sink without making noise was going to be challenging.

There’s a blanket to your left
, Sadie told him. He looked to his left and was pleased to see a blanket. He put it on Bucky and started for the sink.

“Gotcha!”
a voice—male, jovial—said, and a volley of bullets from above flew through the stage within inches of Ford’s position.

He leapt back toward Bucky and stood stock-still.

“Lost him. Anyone got a chirp?”

Another guy, this one slightly nasal sounding. “No chirp.”

Chirp? Sadie repeated. What did that mean? How had they known exactly where Ford was standing?

“He’s still down there.” This voice sounded older, and familiar.

The boards of the stage creaked with the weight of the gunmen as they moved over it in slow, concentric circles, searching for Ford.

The one with the sniffles said, “Stupid chippy thinks he can hide from us.”
Chippy
. Sadie and Ford both repeated the word in their mind.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are, chippy.”

Sadie’s mind wouldn’t let go. Chippy. Chip. Could they be referring to—

No
, she protested against the thoughts pushing their way into her head. Her conscious mind dug its claws in, trying desperately to deny it, but she couldn’t.
They were tracking Ford with his Sycnopy chip.