Now You See Me...

[Polly Smithson]

MILLER-SMITHSON #2, 11/2/96 FROM ? TO 10:28 AM

Error in recording. Tape begins at 10:07 AM.

MILLER: [indistinct] and in exchange you can tell me something about your mother.

SMITHSON: What about my mother?

MILLER: Anything you like.

SMITHSON: What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

MILLER: What do you think it means?

SMITHSON: I think it means you’re a freak who thinks he’s a real wise guy.

MILLER: That’s what you think it means.

SMITHSON: Yeah. [silence] Anything I want?

MILLER: Anything you want.

SMITHSON: Ma always wore green.

MILLER: Was green her favorite color?

SMITHSON: What kind of stupid fucking question is that? Why the hell else would she wear it all the time, asshole?

MILLER: People do a lot of things for a lot of reasons.

SMITHSON: Yeah, it was her favorite color. You’re a real smart guy, anyone ever tell you that? They payin’ you real good? ‘Cause you’re worth every penny, man. ‘Was green her favorite color?’.

MILLER: So your mother wore green a lot.

SMITHSON: Every fuckin’ day of the week. She had just about anything worth havin’, and everythin’ not, in the same ass ugly shade; dresses, sweaters, knickers, shoes. Shoulda seen her on Saint Patrick’s Day. Patron Saint of who-the-fuck-cares and there’s Ma in all her glory, decked out like astroturf. That goddamn kelly green. Said she always did wanna be Irish and that it brought out her eyes, which is horseshit - exactly the same color as Ma’s eyes, incidentally.

You know what brings out horseshit? Jack shit, that’s what.

MILLER: Ireland.

SMITHSON: Huh?

MILLER: Saint Patrick is the Patron Saint of Ireland.

SMITHSON: Christ almighty. Who the fuck wants to be a fuckin’ mick, anyhow?


***

Everybody wore sunglasses on Sunset Boulevard. It was like being surrounded by the world’s worst secret club whose members all walked around with directions to headquarters taped to their faces, smug in the possession of their Ray Bans and Cavallis that guaranteed them a place in the pecking order of plasticized facades that passed for lives here. It wasn’t even really sunny out; the sky was a canvas of mottled bruises, cloud cover riding in from offshore and bulked up by the exhaust fumes of obnoxious SUVs that rolled on through the streets with pretentious music reverberating from their sound systems. It had gotten a little better once she’d hooked the bus out of downtown, but not by much.

Why couldn’t they just squint and scowl like normal people?

Polly Smithson screwed her eyes into slits against the muted brightness of the afternoon, backpack hanging low off of one shoulder as she stepped off the sagging city A-line onto the sidewalk. Everything she owned worth keeping was in that backpack and maybe it wasn’t much but it was heavy. After a week and a half of hauling it around, anything got to be heavy, especially if it got in the way of why you were hauling it around in the first place.

Out of habit her hand delved into the back pocket of her jeans, fingers rubbing the worn edge of a photograph that lived there. It was fitting, she thought, that it had taken up permanent residence against her ass. The subject in the snapshot was certainly a pain in hers and she was going to kick his. As soon as she found him, that was.

And she would find him. Polly was sure of that. Los Angeles was big but it wasn’t that big. There wasn’t enough space in all the world to keep her from Micah. Not enough space in the entire universe.

“Uh-uhn, I know a fine thing like yourself isn’t out here baggin’ it alone,” came a gravelly voice ripe with opportunity, off to her left.

Polly stopped and looked over. A grinning black man was eyeing her up with a wolfish smile, warmth in his eyes and cheer in his stance as he leaned against a shop front, tinted windows behind him plastered with glittery red lip cutouts and Marilyn Monroe posters. He had a blazer on over top a ribbed grey wifebeater, the pinstriped sleeves folded up and bunched around his elbows in proposed casualty. His teeth were impressively, blindingly white.

“You talkin’ to me?” Polly asked. “You know me?”

The man nodded, tongue flicking out in a flash of wet pink. He winked. “Yeah, I know you.”

“You do?”

“I know all a-bout you, sweetheart.”

“You do? Oh, I see,” Polly grinned and took a few steps closer to him, hips angled invitingly. “You think ‘cause you a brother that you’n me got an understanding.” her shoulder came to rest against Marilyn’s face, their knees brushing against one another. Smiles leaned over, all sparkling eyes, taking their proximity as a win.

“Yeah, that’s right. An understanding.”

“Lemme tell you something,” Polly said sweetly. Her eyes went hard. “You ain’t my fuckin’ brother.”

She didn’t wait for the satisfaction of watching his face freeze into narrow-eyed anger at her rejection, just pushed off the wall and started walking again. There was a convenience mart on the corner of the next block, faded Lotto tickets displayed in the window, and there were only two smokes left in the crumpled pack in her jacket pocket. For a moment Polly considered just skipping past, waiting until she got a little further in her trek. She had a lot of ground to cover and so many daylight hours had been capped as she wasted time figuring out the layout of the city that she wasn’t sure even a quick stop was worth it.

Then again, she had a lot of ground to cover and only two smokes.

The lesser necessity won out and Polly pushed into the market with a jangle of bells and a searching eye, backpack swinging around to tuck underneath her arm as she eyed the selection and list prices behind the counter.

“Jesus,” she gawked, unable to reconcile the chunky numbers above a row of Marlboro Reds. There were way too many nines. “Do they coat ‘em in fuckin’ gold here in California?”

[Jim Lewinski]

"Only when they smoke 'em."

The voice came from behind. It was the latest addition to the counter congregation, and it came in the form of a scruffy teenager cradling a Mountain Dew multipack. From behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, bulging eyes beamed, and he invited himself closer - his head sort of bobbed, pulling the rest of his body forward.

"You know," he continued, practically forcing the words through a half-cocked grin, "Because everyone around these parts be pimpin' with da grills, yo!"

The grin exploded into a glaring display of teeth to emphasise the boy's point. His entire body appeared to be electrified, and the loose-fitting clothes clung desperately to his limbs from every gawkish jerk and twitch. In the following silence, a few lonely dance beats sounded from the hulking banana-coloured headphones wrapped around his neck. First, he cleared his throat, then a slice of nervous laughter escaped, punctuated by a piercing cuckoo whistle. The dam burst:

"Course it goes without sayin' that mixing gold-plated teeth with a smoking habit is just asking for trouble. It's your classic triple-threat deal, you know? On one hand you got your risk of lung disease, and I'm talkin' that thick black goopy shit that oozes out of your alveoli, I'm not kiddin', it looks like the pathologist is dissecting a treacle-soaked spongecake down there. And then there's the combined risk of dermatitis and scepticemia - now how's that for a double-whammy? I mean, even the American Contact Dermatitis Society named nickel as its 2008 Allergen of the Year. Do you know why they're called the 3-11's, huh? Because that's the odds those chumps got of contracting gum disease. Ha! The jokes on them anyway because smokin' just makes your breath smell like ass! Nice to meet you, I'm Jim!"

His open hand sprung forth like a piston.

[Polly Smithson]

Polly stared blankly at the little shit bouncing in front of her, trying to thread through the mass exodus of language that spewed out of his mouth. A glance at the weathered clerk behind the counter, who was taking it all in with crossed arms, and then:

"You got fuckin' cancer police here, too?" Polly turned to the kid, her face twisting into an incredulous scowl as she glanced down between them. "What the fuck you got your hand out for, Energizer Bunny, you want a fuckin' tip or something? Fuck off."

[Jim Lewinski]

"Energizer Bunny!" he declared brightly, and turned briefly to the clerk, inviting his appraisal, "Oh, you know, that takes me back, I ain't kiddin'! Buh-BIG BUNNY! Ha!"

He wore a pair of brand new Nike Lunar Eclipse running shoes, which squeaked at regular intervals as he shifted his weight, scuffing his feet upon the tiled floor. The weight of the clerk's gaze did not go unnoticed and he gestured to him with a sychronised nod-shrug.

"Hate to be rude, lady, but can you move it along? I got people behind me here who are startin' to sound like a bunch o' Yankees fans on a good day. Brrrrp!"

[Polly Smithson]

This state was full of loonies. It had to be the sun. Baked them so dry that they walked around with empty heads and not a single one of them could tell the difference because it was a universal malady; how else did you explain the gas prices or the influx of vegans or Bottle Eyes, there?

"You're cracked, you know that?" Polly turned her back on Constable Jim, smoothly pulled a rolled wad of cash from her pocket with two fingers and jerked her chin at the plastic-wrapped packs of cigarettes. "Lucky Strikes. Jesus, twelve fuckin' dollars..."

She peeled a twenty from the roll, tossing it onto the counter in disgust and irritation. Bunny was buzzing behind her like some manic bottle rocket about to go off, close enough that she could feel wafts of disturbed air pecking at her skin. It set her teeth on edge. In a supreme display of self-control, Polly ignored him and pulled out the photo from her back pocket, flashing it to the clerk.

"You seen this kid around? He look familiar to you?" she asked, watching his face as he looked at it. There was no reaction, not even a flicker of recognition. He shrugged and shook his head. "Take another look. Real close. You know this kid?"

This time the scrub actually paused and leaned closer, dragged his disinterested eyes over the captured features and made an effort at studying it. The answer was another shake of his head.

Polly nodded and tucked the creased snapshot back into her pocket, snagging her smokes and her change as she went. "Yeah, a'ight. Thanks anyway. Consider lowerin' your fuckin' prices."

Of course, the kid was rightthefuckthere when she turned around, jostling and squeaking all over the place, and this time Polly snapped, arms splaying out to either side, "You got any concept of personal space or are you one of those freaks who gets his rocks off bein' slapped around?"

The question didn't require an answer but he looked about two seconds away from giving one anyway. Polly didn't want to be held responsible for what would happen if she did so she again yanked out the photo and was saved the trouble of having to shove it in the kid's face by his being mere inches from her anyway. "What about you, spazzo? You know this guy?"

[Jim Lewinski]

"Oh, you guys must be related!" he blurted immediately, his head weaving to appreciate the photograph from numerous angles, "Would you look at that! Sombody call the cops, we got an identity theft on our hands here, people! This guy's got your jaw, your lips, your eyes, and the same cute little button nose - lookit!"

He gave the photograph a delicate prod and beamed, as though it were an infant. The man in the photograph was anything but a bubbly baby boy. He had a strong jaw and full lips framed by a thin goatee, his hair was shaved, and he wore the expression of a man who wished every ill fortune upon his unsuspecting photographer. Deep in thought, Jim rolled his tongue, purring like a moped that's delivered one-too-many pizzas.

"I'm afraid this don't ring any bells, lady. How long's he been missin'? A day? A week? You know there's a police station just round the corner from here. Maybe-maybe-maybe-maybe we-could-go-speak-to-Mike? Good guy! Collects cookie jars!"

[Polly Smithson]

Of over eight thousand days spent walking and breathing on the earth, only one of them had ever tasted Polly's blood spilled by gunfire. It was an innocuous Wednesday, the day that they had lived for back then because it marked a halfway point to one more week of survival. Halfway was more than most people they knew got in near enough anything, let alone something as important as drawing breath after breath in a city that was a dedicated vacuum.

They went for pizza to celebrate, as usual. Two slices of cheese and a half-dozen games of snooker. Congratulations, you're not dead yet.

When it happened it felt like liquid heat. Like those pictures in the National Geographic of iron-hot molten rock spilling out over the lips of ashy mountains. Slumped over the pool table with blood seeping from her leg, Polly wondered why she was feeling anything at all. Weren't trauma victims supposed to go into shock? But there was no absence, only the fierceness of honey-thick fire throbbing deep beneath denim and Micah's hands, Micah's strong, angry, terrified hands holding her up. That's what you did when you got shot: you held on to what you had left.

Just a graze. That's what the doctor said in the ER later. You're very lucky.

Polly roughly jerked the photograph away from Jim. Yeah, she was one lucky penny, alright. Graze after graze after graze after graze; for once it would have been nice for it to be a straight shot instead of the constant stinging fire of a near miss that faded into an ache so deep it killed small and vital bits of you slowly.

Micah was here. He was here, in this neighborhood painted in warmer shades of the same palette that colored the streets they'd raised up from. She knew it with a certainty that was rock solid, bone-true. There were few things that Polly understood so intimately as her brother. What was that? Instinct, genetic ESP? Maybe it didn't even have a name, that sort of connection.

"The police?" Polly pressed her face into Jim's. Her mouth curled into a stiff and nasty grin, slow chuckle issuing forth as she lifted her arm and rubbed away a smudge from one thick lens with her coat sleeve. "That's fuckin' funny, Bunny Rabbit. You're a real comedian. Maybe you oughtta get your ass on Letterman."

With a sneer she turned away, tearing into the pack of overpriced Lucky Strikes with a hunger that seemed misplaced.

"Hey," the clerk interrupted. Polly shot him a glance with hands that were cupped instinctively around the factory-rolled cigarette held loosely between her lips, throwaway lighter at the ready. He jerked a thumb at a sign on the wall.

No smoking on premises.

"You gotta be shitting me," it was just another example of the baffling hypocrisy that she was coming to expect from LA. Shaking her head, Polly finished lighting up and then stalked outside, saluting Jim with two fingers as she went. It had been her intention to move on right away but now there was a point at stake and so she settled outside, slouching against a newspaper box covered in graffiti as she inhaled long and deep.

"Where you at, Micah boy?" she muttered, tapping ash onto the pavement in time with the bouncing of her knees. "All you gotta do is talk, man. I'm listenin'."

[José Luis Flores]

This time, he hadn’t stolen anything. This time.

As his feet pounded against the concrete, José wondered exactly why he’d been given what he’d been given. It wasn’t as if he were somebody who knew what to do with it anyway. Three months later, and he was getting the hang of... whatever the hell it was he did.

He heard another shout from behind him, and he hauled ass down the strip. The 3-11s were far too close for his comfort, and there were too many people to pull whatever the hell what he did was called. He sure as shit didn’t know.

He could hear his sister’s birthday present bouncing around in his bag and swore under his breath. That thing was a collectible and was worth some good damn money. He needed to get some distance and some privacy.

He turned a corner, and blew past a hot celebrity pushing her kid out of a store that sold clothes that were far too expensive to be worth anything. Thankfully this part of the boulevard was more open, and so there was less chance of the gang-bangers pulling out some heat and filling his ass with lead.

His eyes widened as he saw the familiar horrifying colours of the 3-11s in a car, and turned again; they’d seen him and two of them jumped out. He didn’t think they’d have been this fucking angry. And then came sirens; even the goddamn police were getting in on this.

He looked back for a second to see how far they were behind him and looking forward, saw a black chick and a white dude standing in his way, and his momentum kept him from changing course.

“Shit!” was all he managed to gasp out before colliding with the woman, his skateboard flying from underneath his arm.

[Jim Lewinski]

Jim's eyes followed her outside. There was something profoundly sad about the way human beings weave in and out of each other's lives without taking a moment to stop, and look. Seconds ago, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Jim never wore a watch; the days were long and leisure was his albatross, and if there was anything in this world that he had to offer in abundance, it was time. The scientific mind rejects fate, so perhaps he was a fledgling masochist, but either way, he had a new project. The trick was to find a common ground...

"Four dollars for a few cans of Mountain Dew? You fuckin' kiddin' me!? No wonder this country's goin' to shit! Yeah-yeah, I hope your mother rots her fuckin' teeth on 'em, you crook!"

Jim stormed outside, flipping the bird to a rather dumbfounded counter clerk, and zeroed in on the hostile stranger. Intent on playing it cool, he hooked his thumbs into his jeans, and just as he was about to sedate the proverbial sabertooth, she was flattened by Speedy Gonzales.

"Holy shit!" he cried out, leaping away from the wreckage. And once the skateboard ceased clattering at his feet, Jim plucked up the courage to attempt some damage control:

"Heh-hey-hey, lady, are- are you okay?"

[Polly Smithson]

Polly went down swinging.

"Motherfucker goddamn what the-" the pavement sandpapered against her jeans, chewing through the thinned denim knees that gave way without a fight as though they'd decided enough was enough, it was time to bow out. Something in the front pouch of the struggling woman's knapsack burst, a hollow pop of sound that melted into a soundtrack of crackling as Polly's crooked arms and closed fists flew around it, battering at the biological cannonball that had been stupid enough to knock her off her feet.

Finally she got her knees up and pushed hard, knocking the unfortunate soul off to the side as he scrambled akimbo to right himself. Boy was wild with adrenaline and his sloppy, frantic dance was proof of the fact that it was always the ones who couldn't keep a steady hand when hell broke loose who ended up getting caught with their pants down.

"I'm fine," Polly snapped as she got to her feet with Jim's help, crushed cigarette miraculously still in her mouth though it was bent double and swinging like a lead pipe. She tore it out and tossed it aside, breathing heavy. "Which is more than I can say for this fool. What the fuck -"

"There he is! With his little hombres!"

"We got you now, ese!"

Hammering footfalls, a stampede, sounded from up the block, echoing from a pair of grinning Hispanics in loose jeans and foul temper. They were bearing down at top speed and behind them came a terrific screech as an early model Crown Vic deviled around the corner, filled with their hollering support.

Jesus Christ. This was about as bad a scene as it got at three o'clock in the afternoon.

That was when the siren wails drifted in, adding their voices to the symphony of You Are Fucked.

"Oh hell no," Polly snatched her backpack up with one hand and a fistful of shirt of the bonehead who'd smashed into her, jerking him around so he could see her face and the flat promise that lived there. "I don't know what kind of fucking mess you're in but I ain't getting shot or booked today! Move!"

She let him go, glancing back over her shoulder at the rampaging gangbangers . "That means you too, Bunny, haul ass!"

[José Luis Flores]

‘Weird accent,’ was his first, completely irrelevant thought. The second, ‘Shit!’, was much more on topic; the 3-11s were getting closer.

He tore himself from the black chick’s grasp, picked up his board, and started legging it without saying a word. His fucking life was on the line, and every sweet breath was needed to fuel his aching legs, not play nice with some tourist. A damn fine tourist with a nice rack, but one could never say that José was confused about his priorities at the moment.

The sirens were closer, and it seemed that the Onces weren’t unaware of the pigs’ entrance into this little chase. The main problem seemed to be that the police were coming towards them in the direction they were running, meaning that the three mutants were rapidly running out of time to get out of the way of Ground Zero. The Crown Vic had turned a corner and José was sure that they’d be trying to cut them off from any escapes off the boulevard. All he needed was a few seconds though.

A crowd passed between them and the 3-11s, giving the trio a moment’s respite. José turned once more, dodging behind a line of people waiting outside of a shop and pulling into a small space between two buildings. The chick and dude followed him in, and a few moments later, the police cars blurred past, sirens wailing.

His legs felt like rubber, and he managed to get over to the corner, his head poking out to check out the area. Seeing nothing, he collapsed against the wall, his breath coming out of him in deep, heaving breaths.

“Goddamn it,” he gasped. “Goddamn it goddamn it goddamn it.”

[Jim Lewinski]

If there was one lesson his father had taught him growing up, it was that the one thing more important than becoming a man was becoming a gentleman. It was not a good day to be Joe Lewinski. While there was some chivalry in allowing his angry new friend to go first, all that went right out the window as he unceremoniously pushed her between the buildings, barreling in behind. It seemed, however, that despite their frantic dash for survival, his capacity to speak had not diminished.

"Ohhh my Gooood! We're so dead! We're so dead! Three-fuckin'-Elevens! Where did they come from, huh? What do they want!? I was kiddin' about the gum disease! Ohhh..."

[Polly Smithson]

A rough hand clapped over Jim's mouth, the smell of almond oil and gasoline rising to his nose as intent fingers pressed down, pulling at his cheeks until taut hollows formed. It looked uncomfortable - but only marginally more so than being shoved into a stack of discarded packing crates had been.

"Keep it the fuck down or you'll be dead 'cause I killed you, got it?" Polly hissed, lip blood-speckled from biting back a shout when her shin had made friends with an angled pallet. Helpless sincerity danced in Jim's eyes and it steadied her purposeful grip because if the trade off in the corner store was any kind of indication, guy couldn't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it. At the moment, her life depended on it, too, and there were far too many wild cards flying around for the risk to be enticing.

They were in a bad spot. Polly glanced around with a flickering eye that cataloged their position in record time, absorbing details in as natural a rhythm as her heart pumping oxygen through her veins. The walkway between the buildings was narrow, not wide enough to even have a dumpster for refuse and backed by a high brick wall that offered no hope of scaling. There were no fire escapes, one of her trusted backups whose presence she missed with an alarming fierceness in that moment, and the only doorway leading into the alley opened from the inside. One way. There was one way in, and one way out.

What kind of idiot ran his back up against a wall? Even more important and pressing, why wasn't she just leaving the fucker to work himself out of the mire?

"Hey, now ain't the time to take a fucking water break, QB," Polly toed viciously at the gasping kid. He had no idea what he was doing. "Those guys might be pricks but they ain't stupid. In case you don't remember, the police are coming this way and our buddies there don't strike me as the sort to be cooperative, which means they'll be makin' a u-ey real fuckin' fast. I give it two minutes, tops, before they're crawlin' right up our asses and that shit hurts, pretty boy."

[José Luis Flores]

“You think I don’t fuckin’ know that?” he said, braving another look down the street. The cops had managed to stall the Onces for a little bit, but it wouldn’t last long. He’d actually been planning on doing that thing he did once he got some cover, but the addition of the tourist and the white dude messed that up.

He leaned back against the wall, his mind focused on getting himself and these two out of the pile of shit that had just landed on them. He’d vaguely heard the Onces lumping the two with him, meaning that they couldn’t pass off the matter as a coincidence until the danger of the gang had dimmed.

“Can’t run now, or the cops’ll get curious,” he murmured. He looked up at the chick. “You got a strong stomach?”

[Polly Smithson]

"Boy, you better watch your fuckin' mouth," Polly's eyes narrowed. "And what the hell does my stomach got to do with anything? If you're gonna be sick you damn well better do it over there, these are new shoes. K-Swiss."

If that was his way of handling things, more power to him. He wasn't the first scrub to get a little queasy when the ship started to pitch and they were knocking around just two knots shy of a squall. There had been a very distinctive stiffness in the way their unexpected pursuers ran, torsos thrust forward in the leering slope of men who were packing heat. Anyone who knew how to hide it through that kind of frenzy knew how to use it, and knew how to use it in the way they didn't teach at firearms classes, i.e. , the right way.

Frothy wetness against her palm reminded Polly that there was still a personal gag order on Constable Jim. With a hard warning look, she pulled back her hand and grimaced, wiping it down the length of his shirt before she kicked José's foot again. Hard.

"I don't know if you noticed, since we already established you got shit vision, but this is a dead end," Polly said. Just in case José didn't understand the concept, she waved a hand majestically at the solid wall behind them. Never let it be said that Polly Smithson wasn't sensitive to language barriers. "There ain't nothin' to do but run."

[José Luis Flores]

‘Watch my mouth?’

José frowned, and looked back over the corner one more time. The crowds had grown, and the Onces seemed a bit stalled, especially with the police having stopped only a light or two down. The car was still a wild card, but they’d have to contend with the cops too. Not a good situation, but not completely undoable. His first run-in with the Onces had been much, much worse in terms of escape routes.

“Fine fine,” he grumbled. “You haven’t been running half as long as me, so start shouting about my stupid ass when you start hyperventilating and feel sick.”

He tossed a short glance at the white dude and the black chick, and stood up, a soreness in his legs. Settling his backpack on his shoulder and his skateboard under his arm, he waited for the next large group of people to walk past.

[Jim Lewinski]

"Hey- hey, guys. I got a place we can go," Jim blurted, anxious to stop the pissing contest unfolding between his fellow fugitives. He bounced on his feet and eyed the crowds suspiciously, ready to take off like a rocket at the first sign of trouble. It pained him to take his eyes off their only escape route.

"It's on La Raza's turf. The Elevens won't follow us there. You see, it's sorta-like-a-kinda-place-you-can-go-but-not-like-the-YMCA-we-don't-wear-silly-hats but, uh... it's a safe house..." his gaze fell on the skateboarder dude, he gave a nod of encouragement, "For mutants. That's why you're on the run, right?"

[José Luis Flores]

José stopped, and glanced back at the hyperactive white guy.

“Nah,” he finally said, smirking. “I’m running ‘cause I pissed ‘em off. Stole something.”

He’d actually never once called what he did a mutation; the thought hit him once or twice, but he’d shut it down and continued on his merry way. The thought that he’d be a mutant wasn’t scary in itself, but all the shit that went with it was what he didn’t want to deal with. It was kinda like the way his mom explained marriage: you got the best thing you could get, and all the shit you couldn’t see for the glitter. All the shit didn’t make it not worth it, but if you weren’t expecting it, you were fucked. His plan was to just keep his head down, and hopefully it’d go down like those hobbits said on Lord of the Rings: ‘Keep your nose out of trouble, and trouble won’t come to you.’

Or some shit like that.

So then he’d gone and decided that he needed some stuff he didn’t want to pay for. So much for keeping his nose out of trouble.

“‘Bout a month ago or something. Went down there and grabbed myself a new board and all the hardware. One of ‘em worked at the place, or was just there, or whatever. He saw me, decided I shouldn’t be stealing from his store or whatever and called up his friends. They chased me, I got away. Didn’t think I pissed ‘em off this much though. Something else must’ve gone down.”

[Polly Smithson]

"Christ's sake, where did you grow up, Pasa-fucking-dena?"

As far as Polly could tell, no matter which way you cut it, everything boiled down to the fact that this kid didn't know what the hell he was doing and thought he did, a volatile combination within the confines of clapboard neighborhoods that sang with cocaine blues and urban warfare, razor-shaved knucklers skulking around five-a-penny. Shoplifting was small beans and a month was a long time; that kind of trail shouldn't even have existed.

And that was the real kisser, that it did and was so well-cut that they were wedged in a tight trench, forced to try pull a Hilt out of this mess. With building frustration, all bright and simmering somewhere low in her belly, Polly scoured the scant view to freedom, all the while ticking off the seconds as people trickled past. The window was getting smaller and smaller.

Two seconds more and she would have just washed her hands of it and gone rogue, leaving José and Bunny to their McQueen and Garner antics. But two seconds didn't come soon enough and the long-suffering Honda Civic that cruised past didn't have much going for it except it's stereo system, a diamond on a corner whore, blasting Mercy, Mercy Me loud enough to slingshot the entire street back to 1971.

It was a slap. Polly's heart thumped sickly and -

- here, I'm here! I-

***

Casefile PS0809-MA.

Content stored in security box 182-08.

#4 CASSETTE TAPES 1-4, circa 20??, origins unknown (see also: projected psychometry? Audio telepathy? (Ventriloquism?)):

Cassette tape #1, labelled ‘What’s Going On?’’:

Polly, don’t freak out. This is real, okay? I’m not shittin’ you, you’re not going crazy. I can talk to you through this thing and uh, sorry about your tape, but it’s-

Cassette tape #2, labelled ‘Nevermind’’:

Jesus fucking Christ, don’t turn this off-

Cassette tape #3, labelled ‘Master of Puppets’:

Look, we can go through every damn tape in the box, Polly, I don’t give a flying fuck. It’s your goddamn collection we’re fucking up.

Sorry. It didn’t have to be like this but I gotta talk to you, I need you to listen to me. I’m not gonna do anything, Polly, I swear to fucking god, I swear on Ma’s grave when she fucking gets there. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go down. I didn’t want. For shit to go this way. This fucking city, I swear to God.

Look, this is me, a’right? It’s still me, it’s still your brother. I’ll be back soon. Look, get outta here, okay? It doesn’t matter where, go to fuckin’ Canada if you have to but get out of Boston. Get out of the fucking state. I’ll find you. I will find you.

Cassette tape #4, labelled ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’:

All this is for you, okay? Whatever you... Whatever you hear. From that fucker Miller or whoever. Whatever happens. I’m doing this for you. For us.

***


There was only a little bit of consolation in the fact that she wasn't so desperate yet that she'd believe the bullshit her mind sometimes tried to pass off as reality. Polly followed the shrinking digits of the plates, memorizing the string of numbers and letters even though she knew that it hadn't been his voice. Micah almost never did that anymore.

But Jim's voice, that was real. And it carried a promising lead, not some suspended hope wrapped up in a honey-smooth Motown wrapper.

"Knew somethin' was fucking weird about you, Bunny," she said, jerking her chin at him. Tick-tock, tick-tock. "This place is legit, it's prob'ly our best shot at burying our scent. How far?"

[Jim Lewinski]

"W-what? Oh, uh... five minutes? By car," he added weakly.

Something was troubling him, other than the fact there were about half a dozen gangbangers scouring the streets who wanted to spill his young mutant blood, he pointed an apprehensive finger at smirky skateboarder dude. A nervous laugh escaped through chattering teeth.

"Don't take this the wrong way, bud-bud-buddy, but did you just say stole something? You stole something from the Three Elevens? You did? Ohhh, isn't that- er... yeah, isn't that- that's- that's something. Heh heh! I'm on the run with a skateboard thief and an angry black woman and-I-only-wanted-some-Mountain-Dew. Mmmhmhmmm!"