The Brokenhearted (15 page)

He nods, his thick eyebrows knitted together. “I guess not.”

“You’re the only person I’ve told about this,” I say quietly. “Thanks. For listening, I mean.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good at keeping stuff to myself. Comes with living with three people in a one-bedroom apartment,” he says. Then he waves his hand at a giant building rearing up ahead of us. “We’re here.”

When I see it, I stop short and let out an inadvertent laugh, a short, miserable
ha
that disappears into nothing in the silent gray parking lot. It’s an old mall, like Ford said, once named Hillside Palisades. Now most of the letters have fallen off the sign, leaving faded, ghostly letter impressions between the intact
H
and the
ades
.

The crumbling, fortress-like exterior of the mall encloses two full city blocks, with a mostly deserted parking lot surrounding it like a moat.

We slow our pace when we reach the parking lot’s inner depths, and I concentrate on listening for sounds coming from the mall. All I hear is the whoosh of cars from the nearby freeway and the cooing of a few pigeons pecking listlessly at a ripped package of hot dog buns. In the gray light of eleven
A.M.
, the massive parking lot is dead quiet, with fewer than fifty half-wrecked cars scattered sparsely among the rows. All this open space would almost be peaceful if we weren’t about to walk into hell.

We come to a set of glass double doors with a sign above them marked
HEESECAKE
, and Ford pauses with his hand on the door.

“Sure you want to do this?” His dark eyes are full of misgivings. “It’s not too late to change our minds.”

I nod, swallowing down an acid fear rising in my stomach as I bear down on the bar of the other door, expecting it to be locked. To my surprise, it opens easily.

Inside, it’s as busy and loud as the outside is deserted and silent. In the dilapidated marble courtyard at the center of the mall, crowds of people—including dozens of children as young as six or seven—gather in clusters around makeshift stalls. The sound of barkers yelling, people laughing, fighting and haggling, echoes in the cavernous space. There’s no electricity but for a few generators powering a couple of Klieg lights, and the edges of the ground floor are bathed in shadow. I pull my coat tighter around me.

Ford sticks close to me. I’m happy to have him here. “We’re being followed,” he says, pointing downward and behind me, toward a kid of maybe seven or eight with frizzy curls and caramel skin. He has blue hearing aids looped around each ear, and the top of his head is level with my elbow. Ford nods hello and smiles at the kid, and in a second he falls into step next to us.

“Smokestacks, droopies, giggles,” he recites, grinning, not quite able to be as serious as the adults selling car parts, food, medicine, bullets. We turn randomly down another aisle and stand on the edge of a crowd of people encircling a felt-covered table, the air thick with rollie smoke. The dealer throws a set of dice, announcing “sevens” with a flourish of his arms, and the crowd erupts in angry shouts. I keep walking, averting my eyes from a small stage where a woman in a top hat is yelling at three younger women wearing see-thru negligées, black lace garters, and sparkly, cheap-looking high heels. “I need six hundred today, each, or don’t bother showing up here tomorrow,” she says, and I shudder a little at the thought of what they’ll have to do to get it.

The boy keeps looking at me like he’s trying to peg me. “Let’s see, you ain’t here for ammo or biogenics, and you’re not one of the rent girls . . .”

I turn to look at him. “Biogenics?”

He perks up, his posture straightening. “You want BodMod, hearts and parts? Three dollars and I’ll take you there,” he says, holding his hand flat in front of him.

Hearts and parts.
A chill goes through me. “No, little man. We’re okay for today,” Ford says.

I put a hand on Ford’s forearm to get him to slow down. “I want to see it.” I have to see it. Could there really be others like Jax, people here who tamper with human bodies on the same scale?

“You sure?” Ford asks, looking uncomfortable.

I nod. “I’ll give you a dollar,” I say to the kid, “
after
we get there.”

“Two’s about as low as I can go,” he beams, proud of his negotiating.

“Deal,” I say, and I try not to look like I’m following him as we turn right, passing by a few food stalls selling boiled peanuts, blood sausages, and beer, and turn into a long, dark hallway that smells like formaldehyde and under that, the metallic rot of flesh and blood. I’m instantly on my guard, my heart tapping out a warning in my chest.

We walk by a few ancient, ratty recliners set up in front of TVs broadcasting cartoons and soap operas. An old woman, a kid, and a young guy about Gavin’s age are lying in the chairs, their arms hooked up to IV poles.

“Transfusions, chemo, stuff like that,” the kid whispers. “Is that what you want? ’Cuz I know the guy for that.”

“No, I’m good.” I don’t need any more illegal organs, I feel like telling him. One is more than enough. Up ahead, a café with the windows boarded up has been repurposed into a makeshift medical clinic. A bored-looking woman with a candy-colored pink swirl of hair sits at the counter and above her, what was once a coffee menu now reads:

CHOP SHOP

Kidneys
: $25,000 + labor

Prosthetic arms/legs
: $9,000 + labor

Artificial Heart
: $100,000 + labor

Liver
: $15,000 + labor

Pancreas
: $20,000 + labor

Eyes
: $6,000 each + labor

Breast augmentation
: $2,000 + labor

Specialty organs on demand
: inquire within

“Bedlam’s balls,” I mutter, suddenly feeling faint. I grab Ford’s elbow for support, worried I might pass out if I don’t get away from here. “Is that for real? Eyes? Do people actually buy dead people’s
eyes
and reuse them?”

“I tried to warn you,” Ford says, moving me away from the Chop Shop and back toward the main market in the lobby. “This place is no joke. Let’s just do what we came here to do and get the h—”

“Gimme my two dollars and I can show you stuff way crazier than this,” the kid cuts in as we retreat, his blue-lit hearing aids illuminating his whole head in the dim light. “This floor is nothing compared to upstairs.”

“We’re looking for some people.” Ford stops, bending down on one knee and looking at the kid with a very serious, respectful expression that makes me wonder if he has younger siblings at home. “But kid, we can find them on our own. They’re bad people.”

“I know all the bad people in here,” the kid says proudly. “I do errands for them.”

I squint at the upper floors of the mall and see a few Pharm-pumped men milling around, the glint of rifles slung across some of their overmuscled chests. I dig in my jeans pocket for two crumpled bills and pass them to the kid.

“Five more dollars if you can help us find someone,” I say to him. “She’s got blond hair, she wears red lipstick, and she carries a tiny pearl-handled gun.”

The kid puts one thin finger to his cheek and thinks for a second. “What’s her biz?”

“I don’t know. Thuggery, kidnapping, thievery. She has a friend she calls Smitty. Big guy, bald,” I add, hoping a name might help.

He bites a piece of dead skin off his chapped lips and chews it thoughtfully. “Let’s try the third floor. There are a bunch of big bald guys up there.”

We follow the kid up a broken escalator with one of the railings missing. His steps are light and fast, and we almost have to run to keep pace. We round the corner on the second floor and head up another frozen escalator to floor three.

When we get to the third floor, I swallow hard. The vibe here is hushed and tense, with scowling bodyguards pumped full of BodMods standing in front of various repurposed stores. All of them seem to be watching us.

My mouth feels like it’s filled with glue as we walk past an empty lingerie store with live women displayed like mannequins in feathers and lace in the window. A red curtain flutters in the doorway as a woman and a man, both dressed in business suits, walk inside. The kid walks fast in the direction of a derelict bookstore. I follow close behind.

The glass of the bookstore’s windows has been completely papered over by comic book pages and
Dilemma
s so old they’ve turned brown and curl at the edges. There’s just a four-inch-square section at the bottom where we can see in. The kid points downward, indicating I should peek inside.

Ford hangs back, but I squat down and look, and sure enough, I spot a big bald head that could be Smitty’s. He’s sitting on the floor, leaning up against a broken bookshelf, and reading a comic book. A tall pile of books sits to one side of him, and I can see a metal door toward the rear of the store. My eyes are drawn to the door, my fingers tingling as I stare at it. Could Gavin be behind it?

“That him?” the kid whispers.

I nod. The shiny dome of his head is exactly as I remember, a V-shaped divot in the pate of his skull.

I watch Smitty aimlessly flip the pages of the comic book. Then the metal door opens and a curvy blond steps out. Her hair isn’t the white-blond bob I’m expecting. That must be a wig. Her real hair hangs around her face in pretty golden waves, and her whole demeanor is softer and prettier than I remember. But I know from her sharply lipsticked brick-red mouth that it’s her. She grabs a canvas bag from one of the bookshelves and starts to rummage through it. Even with my heart revving like a jet engine, I can hear her singing a few bars from an old folk song:

Of all the crooks in Bedlam, you’re the only one I crave,

of all the crooks in Bedlam, it’s you who makes me brave,

but honey pie, you cheat and lie,

And that is why I gotta put you in the grave.

Her voice is the same scratchy pitch I hear in my nightmares. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, resisting the urge to charge in without a plan. “It’s her,” I turn to whisper to Ford, waving him closer. He leans in, his head just above mine, and looks through the window. When I get up close to look again, she’s got the canvas bag on her shoulder and looks like she’s about to head out.

“She’s leaving. Let’s go,” Ford says roughly, already pushing me down the hall, putting his body between me and the doorway. “You too, kid.
Now
.”

I stumble and almost fall, but Ford’s hand wraps around my shoulder and yanks me up, and the three of us take off fast down a dark hallway reeking of urine off the main shopping thoroughfare. When we’re in near-total darkness at the end of the hall, Ford hurriedly thanks the kid and presses some bills into his hand.

“Don’t tell anyone we were here. You gotta promise,” Ford says, his voice kind but stern.

“Promise,” the boy nods, his face glowing from the blue light of his hearing aids. “You comin’ back?”

“Probably,” I say at the same time that Ford says “No.” He shoots me a surprised look, but I just shrug. Gavin is somewhere nearby, I’m sure of it. I just have to come up with a plan to make them let him go.

“Here’s my biz card,” the kid says, passing me a hand-lettered card.

Rufus Mitz

Hades tourguide, marbles champion, small hands for big jobs

“If you come back, you’ll probably need my help,” he grins, proud of his business savvy.

“Thanks,” I say, and I mean it. We would never have found the bookstore without him. I reach out a hand to ruffle his tight curls for a second before he squirms away.

“I’ll show you a better way out of here, free of charge,” he offers, and we follow him down a set of back stairs filled with other kids his age. I wonder if all of them are orphans or if their parents are here somewhere, working the black market. I wonder if all of them sell drugs, if their bellies are always empty, if they sleep here, but I don’t ask. I don’t want to know the answer.

When we get outside again, Ford gives me a hard look. “Don’t do it.”

“Do what?”

“You know
what
,” he says, “Don’t go back there. Not until you’ve got an army to go with you. Ambush them somewhere else. Not here. People die in this building, and nobody ever knows about it, Anthem. And the setup of that bookstore,” he goes on, pacing the blacktop and flipping his hood up to keep the drizzle off his head. “I don’t like it. If you get inside, you have only one way out. They could lock you in . . .”

I nod, but I’m only half-listening. Because no matter what Ford thinks or says, I
am
coming back. Alone.

By 3 that afternoon, I’m back at home wolfing down a bowl of pasta with sugar sprinkled on top, watching Lily prepare a pumpkin soufflé in the kitchen, thankful for her easy company that doesn’t require me to pretend or really to say much at all. When I hear my parents arrive home from wherever they’ve been, I paste on a bright smile and take a deep breath, waiting as they hang up their coats. Lily looks up from her stirring and winks at me, and I wink back. Under her black Fleet Industries baseball cap, her soft, full face and big green eyes register the fact that there’s been tension in the house—it’s pretty impossible to miss it—and I think she knows that our PR story is a lie, but I haven’t told her what’s really going on.

My mother comes in and gives me a dramatic kiss on both cheeks, her skin still cold from the outside. She sits down next to me at the kitchen barstool and daintily clears her throat. “We’ve been talking, sweetie,” she says quietly. My father comes into the kitchen and leans against the threshold of the door. He nods hello to me and smiles flatly. “And since we haven’t heard anything about your . . . friend . . . it’s probably time to go to the police—”