Begin Reading #4
“Look, son, I can’t imagine what I put you through,” Rusty says. There’s a slightly rehearsed cadence to the words. Evan wonders if he ran through them just now with his sponsor.
“No. You can’t.”
“If I had to do it all over again—”
“I don’t want to hear this. Especially right now.”
“If there’s anything you need to hear from me—”
“There isn’t.”
Rusty’s chin quivers just barely. Blake is glaring out the window, but Evan caught the tiny tell of paternal distress and it sets his insides on edge. He pulls a napkin from the dispenser, tries to wipe up the drip of maple syrup.
“I get it,” Rusty tells Blake. “I’ll never pretend to understand what it must have been like for you.”
“So stop.”
A wisp of napkin has torn from Evan’s rubbing and it flutters up from the spot of syrup like a little flag. It reminds Evan of tissue, of toilet paper, spiking his disgust. He grabs another napkin and grinds it free of the surface, balls it up, looks around uncomfortably.
“Sorry. I’ll just—” Rusty’s voice cracks. He scoots quickly from the booth and heads outside. Evan can see him through the glass door, head tipped down, trying to catch his breath.
“This is what it takes,” Blake says, staring through the dirty glass at his father. “This is what it takes for him to see me. When I’m about to get killed.”
“Go to his place. It’s safe.”
“He just left. Just walked out. I was in eighth grade. What kind of father does something like that?”
For all his faults, which seem manifold, at least Rusty has shown up. Like the guard bees, he has chosen what he is willing to fight and what he must protect.
Evan sets down his crumpled napkin. “He is here.”
“Big deal.”
“No one showed up like that for me.”
“When?”
“Ever.”
Blake stares at him. The open expression, along with his curled lashes, make him look a decade younger.
The RoamZone buzzes twice rapidly.
A text from Joey containing an address and location link. The next one features a series of emojis—arm making a muscle, fist bump, Munch-Scream face, skull.
“What’s that?” Blake asks.
“Location of Cyrus’s boss.”
“Ivan?”
“Yes. Is he the big boss?”
“I don’t know. He’s the only guy I talked to. And just over the phone.”
Outside the shop, Rusty is facing away, leaning with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“I’ll find out if it stops with him,” Evan says.
“Appreciate it. Seriously, man. And sorry you got dragged into all our … family shitshow. I’m not at my best. Haven’t slept in three days. Like: at all. I just keep cycling. My brain. Know what I keep thinking?”
“No.”
“If these guys catch up to me … and do what they’re gonna do…
” Blake sips in a jerk of a breath. “Will anyone even care? I mean my mom’ll do her hysterical shit but she does that when the cat gets sick.
But I mean, I haven’t made a mark. No wife, no kids, a failed stupid fucking business.
I mean, protein bars. What the actual fuck.
” He scratches at the back of his head. “Guess I wanted to matter. To someone.”
Evan slides from the booth and stands. “I’m gonna pay Ivan a visit.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Go to your dad’s place. Text the address to me at 1–855–2-NOWHERE.”
“Weird number.”
“Weird situation. I’ll meet you there after.”
Blake picks up the burner phone from the table and shoves his chair back, legs screeching. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
Evan says, “Then don’t.”
A Caribbean-teal sign declaims INNER TIDE.
A cloying name for a float-therapy studio.
The strip mall also hosts a check-cashing joint, a vape shop, and an ornate restaurant called Peking Palace. It’s buzzing, stoners toking on a bench, kids grinding skateboards down a handicap ramp, diners carrying out Chinese leftovers in elaborate tinfoil swans.
Evan finishes smoothing superglue across his fingertips. It dries almost immediately, sealing off his prints. He checks the steady blinking location dot on his phone once more as traffic whizzes by behind him on Pico Boulevard. Then he enters the studio.
A cutesy service menu, curlicue handwriting on a chalkboard, hangs behind a reception desk topped with a slab of driftwood, listing prices and packages.
A middle-aged woman with cat-eye glasses and gray curly hair looks up at him.
“Hiya! I’m Destiny. Ready to float with us? We’re offering a free trial.”
“Sure.”
“Ever tried it?”
“Once or twice. Looking for a new place.”
“Then let’s do this!” Destiny pulls out a clipboard stacked with legal indemnifications.
Tattooed butterflies spiral up her forearms. “You already know the basics. You’ll be in twelve-inches of water heated to body temp and saturated with a thousand pounds of Epsom salt so you’ll float in there, entirely suspended.
We use highest-standard UV and ozone to keep the water hygienic.
Pods are designed to eliminate all external sensory input—sight, sound, touch, all of it.
” She gestures grandly, costume rings clacking.
“A heavy insulated door seals the pod but you can open it yourself if you get claustrophobic. It is dark in there, pitch black, totally lightproof.”
Evan finishes initialing the forms and hands over a driver’s license in the name of Eliot Ness. “How about soundproof?”
“Oh yeah,” she says. “For sure.”
Evan says, “Excellent.”
The private changing room is austere. Teak bench, shower, locker, poster proclaiming LIFE ALWAYS OFFERS YOU A SECOND CHANCE. IT’S CALLED TOMORROW. The enormous round hatch to the tank looks like a submarine bulkhead.
Evan listens through the changing door until Destiny’s footsteps fade.
Then he eases it open and steps into the hall.
The chalkboard motif continues here in the inner sanctum, each client’s name written on a small board framed with woven straw. His reads Eliot, scrawled in Destiny’s florid hand, the “i” dotted with—you guessed it—a butterfly.
He walks the carpeted hall, reading the mini chalkboards. Rae. Skye. Sage. Milo.
And there: ivan. The “i” is lowercase, of course, to allow for a lepidopteran dot.
Evan steps inside the empty changing room.
Ivan has shucked his clothes, including a leather jacket, no doubt on brand but ill-advised given the Angeleno heat. Evan sits on the teak bench and goes through the pockets.
Folding knife, Glock, wallet stuffed with cash, phone.
The phone is password-protected.
Evan takes out his RoamZone, zooms in on Ivan’s driver’s-license photo, and clicks a shot.
With an augmented-reality app, he generates depth maps of Ivan’s face.
Another click converts the image into a three-dimensional hologram.
His RoamZone features scattering-assisted dynamic holography, allowing it to project high-resolution images.
Within seconds, Ivan’s head is floating three-dimensionally in the air above the polyether-thiourea screen of Evan’s RoamZone. Pale and dour with pronounced cheekbones, Ivan’s is not a pretty face.
Evan holds Ivan’s cell phone up to face the holograph, clicks facial recognition, and gains access to the phone.
A few minutes of scrolling unearths a treasure trove of incriminating evidence.
Texts and bank wires, addresses and drop spots, directives from someone named BLACKFISH.
The photo roll is rife with gruesome proof-of-enforcement imagery—a man bound to a chair with an eye gouged out, a closeup of torso bruises with a baseball bat in frame, a body in a car trunk.
Evan changes the password to 000000.
Sets the phone down.
Leaning over, he unlaces his boots and peels off his socks. He lines the boots up parallel and sets the socks side by side on the teak bench.
Then he cuffs his cargo pants up to the knees.
When released, the massive door latch gives a low boom that echoes endlessly in the cramped space. Ivan is zoned out on his back naked, arms spread, a floating snow angel. Orange plugs stop up his ears.
As Evan steps inside, Ivan sits up, tugging the earplugs free. “What’s going on?”
Slightly stooped, Evan swings the door shut. Suction tugs at his eardrums as the soundproof tank seals. The blackness is absolute, the only sound sloshing water and Ivan’s rapid breaths.
Evan stomps on his chest, smashing him to the fiberglass floor, feeling a rib crack. Ivan’s hands flutter up, grabbing at Evan’s leg, and Evan uses the opportunity to break one wrist and then the other. They are encased in this space together, sweat and breath, wrapped in the shell of the tank.
Ivan bucks up, choking and mewling. Bracing against the ceiling, Evan repositions his bare foot higher on his chest, feeling for the clavicle, and stomps again.
The collarbone gives with a snap.
The water rocks violently and Ivan sputters, trying to draw breath. Evan crouches over him and grabs his skull like a bowling ball, two fingers in the eyes, thumb hooked under his chin where the halves of the mandible meet at the midline.
He slams Ivan’s head against the hatch but not hard enough to knock him out. His other hand clenches Ivan’s windpipe, dug around the thyroid cartilage on either side.
“Ivan,” he says softly. “If you give me the slightest reason, I will gouge out your eyes and crush your trachea. Nod if you understand.”
The moist face jerks up and down.
“You’re the damage man for Blackfish. Is that correct?”
Another quivering nod.
“You are a professional. So you recognize that I am too. You will have one chance to answer my questions. If you don’t, you will be blind and mute for the rest of your life. Nod if you understand.”
He feels another nod in the perfect blackness.
“Who is Blackfish?”
The hoarse rush of air cannot shape itself into words. Evan relaxes his grip on Ivan’s throat by 15 percent.
“Jonathan … Hay.”
“Where is he?”
“Office … Century City.”
“Tell me everything about his operation. Including security.”
“Can you … let go … throat?”
Evan gives him another 10 percent.
And Ivan tells him everything.