The drop, p.6
The Drop, page 6
I peek into an office. Papers are strewn everywhere. Furniture is smashed to pieces. No one came to evict the Shengs. No one came to clean up the mess that was made by their passing. The office reeks of piss. Rat turds cover the floor. I am about to leave when I hear it... that sound, that sound that has given pause to hundreds of movie heroines over the years... the squeak of a floorboard. My already jumpy body kicks into overdrive, adrenaline dumping into my bloodstream. I grip the handle of the revolver even tighter.
In the dim interior of the restaurant, I can't tell where it came from, but I'm eager to leave now.
I spin to leave, and there is a man there, a big dark shape. His hands are on my arms, squeezing tightly. His tongue is lolling out of his mouth. I turn my head and feel it on my cheek. Fighting the urge to vomit, I squeeze the trigger of the gun. It explodes in a shower of sparks and smoke, and the man lets me go. He backs away, and I fire again, not caring if I hit him or not. I circle around him and to the door. He stands unharmed in the abandoned sushi restaurant looking at me, his head cocked, and I wonder how many people he has attacked before today, how many people he has put his hands on.
With my ears ringing, I back away keeping the gun trained on the man. I don't really know what I'm doing with it. I took it to the woods one time, in the countryside where my grandma used to live in a rural section of Illinois. I shot at bottles enough to know I'm terrible at shooting a gun. I might have been a little better if I hadn't decided to drink the contents of the bottles beforehand. But if he gets within three feet of me, I'll aerate his brain. I jump as my calf bumps up against the bumper of my Tesla. The man stays where he is, his palms held out to me to show he has nothing in his hands.
I edge around the front of my car, open the door and flop in the driver's seat. The man smiles at me. Only when the engine has started do I put the gun down on the passenger seat. I back out and spin around in the fog-slick street. Then I'm accelerating through the intermittently dark streets of San Fran, wiping the man's spittle off my cheek with the back of my hand. I need sleep. I need a drink. Not sure which order to do it in. Maybe I'll just sandwich a couple of drinks around the sleep. Yes. That seems like the best idea.
****
From "Fan Letters for Murderers," a compilation of letters to famous killers.
Dear Naoko,
I used to be ashamed of my skin and my eyes. The kids at school would call me chink, even though I'm Japanese just like you. They would pull the skin over their eyes tight and speak in that stupid Chinese accent, like Michael Scott doing his Ping impression on The Office. But ever since you came around, something odd has happened. They see me differently now. Britney used to punch me and call me a cunt in the locker room, but now, that’s changed. They want to know if I'm related to you. I'm ashamed to say it, but I lied. I said I was your cousin. But I had to. Now they see me not as something to make fun of, but as someone that has a connection with you. I hope you can forgive me.
I am your number one fan, and you've made my life better than it ever was. So thank you! I love your hair, and maybe, when you come to my town, if you see me, you could wave?
Love,
Yumiko
****
Hotels... they should be obsolete by now. In every city, there are always abandoned homes to stay in, but... with the city stalkers out there, sometimes it's worth it to pay for the extra security. Many people, mostly men who don't have to be worried about being raped in an under-policed, abandoned city, just spend the night in whatever abandoned home they can find. For me... I was planning on getting shitfaced, so I wanted something with a door, something with a deadbolt, and something with an office attendant.
That's how I found myself at a hotel that had formerly been a Holiday Inn Express. Someone had climbed up on a ladder and painted the words, "Jefe's Hotel" over the old sign. As I handed over cash to the night attendant, maybe he was Jefe, I stuck my hip out so he could see the gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans. He was a whole lot less courteous to me after he got a glimpse of that, which let me know that it was the right decision to begin with.
I spent three minutes dragging all my crap from my car, and then I slammed the hotel door closed, locked it, fired home the deadbolt and rammed a cheap ass hotel chair under the door handle just for good measure. Once that was all done, there was just me, a table, a chair, and a six-pack of cheap domestic beer for company.
As I sat in the room's rickety chair, reminiscing about the days of microbreweries, about the days when beer came in more varieties than just bubbly and yellow, I popped the top on a Budweiser. Then I tried to do that thing where you hold the bottle cap between your thumb and forefinger and then flicked it across the room. Of course, when I went to flick it, it just thumped me in the chest and rolled onto the carpeted floor. I never could manage that trick.
The loss of microbreweries, though not the saddest part of The Drop, was definitely up there. At least until the next thing I wanted wasn't available, or until I actually let myself think about... think about all the great beer recipes that were lost due to Whoa-Town. No more shandys, sours, or C.D.A.s. Just run of the mill, post-prohibition lager. They would come back eventually. I knew that, but by the time I was old enough to experience them again, my youth would be gone. I'd be an old lady, like forty or something. I drank my beer, random thoughts of the future tumbling around in my mind. For most people, they spent their dead hours floating around in the past, remembering all the things they missed. For me, I always found myself starting in the past, but making my way to the future. I suppose it was just the way I was wired. A person could go crazy if all they did was focus on the past.
As I downed my third beer and my head began to swim, my phone rang. I turned on the speakerphone and said, "Go, Sebastian."
"Are you sitting down?" he asked.
"No, I'm dancing a jig."
"Hey, if you don't want the job, just say the word. You could always go work at the Times-Picayune. I heard they have a job opening."
"Ha-ha. Would you just get to the point? I'm trying to drink here." I was also watching a reddish-brown cockroach crawl across the floor.
"We found him."
"Found who?" I asked, grinding the cockroach into the carpet with my boot.
"The other guy in the video."
I sit up now, my beer forgotten. "Him?" I ask.
"You know damn well who I'm talking about... the guy in the video."
"Where is he?"
"New Korea."
"Shit."
"I know."
"Shit, shit, shit."
****
A lot of people won't say this, because they're all uptight I suppose, but The Drop actually led to some great things. For instance, going through airport security. With so many fewer people around, there are a whole lot more resources. With more resources, there are more happy people out there, people who are less likely to hijack an airplane and send it crashing through a skyscraper. Also, religious affiliation numbers are way down. People tend to stop believing in God when most of their immediately family dies away, so the whole religious extremist population has withered away to almost nothing.
This also had the added benefit of unpuckering the T.S.A.'s asshole. So, as I breezed through customs, I pondered the circumstances that led to that breezy process, and I wondered if my car was going to be alright. Who the hell leaves a Tesla Desolator parked in long-term airport parking? But the next flight to Korea wasn't for a week, so I really had no other choice. That's another of The Drop's downsides. There's not enough travel to justify nonstop flights across the ocean anymore.
I hustled to the airplane, thankful that Uncle Doswell had ponied up the scratch for my flight. I could have never afforded the ticket on my own, at least not without feeling a shitload of buyer's remorse. Everything was taken care of, so why was I still feeling nervous? Perhaps it was because I was going to New Korea. The Korean opinion of Americans hadn't been favorable there in some time. Naoko Sheng had been just as popular in Korea as he had been in America, as he had been in Japan. He was a beacon for all of Asia. Of course, this meant that The Drop had hit South Korea hard, ripping its youth away along with an untold number of fathers and mothers, and leaving it wide open for North Korea and their government-controlled media to swoop in and unify Korea in a way that no one could have foreseen. Whoa-Town had managed to unify two feuding countries in the span of one year when the combined pressure of the entire world couldn't pull it off in eight decades. Unfortunately, they had also made North Korea, now just calling itself New Korea, the most powerful country in the world. Their original despot, always concerned about what the outside world was doing and saying, had succumbed to The Drop as well. Word on the street was that his favorite song was Puddin' Kick. While the former leader's generals formed a dysfunctional triumvirate with semi-nuclear capabilities, they were so embroiled in bickering that they basically argued to a standstill. But if they ever agreed on a course of action, the rest of the world was wide open for the taking.
I'll just hope that they keep arguing over consensus on decency laws for New Korea while I pay my visit.
Anyone possessed of a logical, untouched-by-propaganda mind could see that Koreans and Americans should be friends based upon a shared past of generally solid diplomatic relations, but that's not the way it had turned out. The first American ambassador to New Korea had been beheaded after the U.S. embassy was stormed by grief-stricken parents of Drop victims. While relations had improved since then, if an American walked down the wrong alley in the streets of Seoul, they could find themselves sharing the same fate as that ambassador and the forty or so staff members and soldiers that had been hung along with him. In the minds of the world, Whoa-Town was a product of America.
For this reason, Sebastian had hired a local heavy to be my guide. I crossed my fingers that he wouldn't be needed, but if there was one thing that I had learned during the last few weeks, in addition to the fact that gas station food did not agree with my guts, it was that this story had the oddest way of taking me to the most dangerous places. Some protection would be appreciated. Plus, I didn't speak Korean and would need a translator.
As we touched down, butterflies infested my belly. In my mind, a nightmare scenario ran through my head. I would step off the jetway only to be swarmed by a mob of angry Koreans. Then I would be squished to death by their angry Korean hands. None of this happened of course. Instead, I landed, grabbed my bag from the overhead compartment, and stepped onto the dimly lit concourse. Two-thirds of the shop spaces were empty, and it was still early in the morning, so the only place open was one lonely coffee stand.
I skipped past it, not ready to make contact with Koreans until I had found my bodyguard. At customs, they gave me a good once over, searching through my bag, and eyeing the pencils, electronic notebooks, and laptop that I brought with me. I couldn't tell if it was just my imagination or if there actually was a threatening look in the eyes of the customs officers.
Once through customs, I spotted my name on a sign, held up by one of the largest men I had ever seen. He wasn't just tall, but he was thick, and it didn't look like the type of thickness that one gained by sitting on the couch and stuffing your face with potato chips.
"Katherine?" he called in perfect English.
I hurried over to him, and he broke into a smile. "Come on," he said, the sign falling to his side. "Let's get you out of here."
I said nothing. The airport wasn't too crowded, but if I had doubts about the customs officers, I had none about the people around me. They did not look kindly upon me. Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing but old people and middle-aged adults, glaring at me out of the corners of their eyes. I stuck close to my bodyguard, which was difficult because for every step he took, I had to take two. We rushed through the parking lot and into a black sedan.
The car rocked back and forth as the incredible bulk of my bodyguard gave the shocks and struts a run for their money. He held his hand out to me, and I shook it. It dwarfed my own, and though it looked normal, the nails perfectly trimmed, it seemed like it was crafted from stone.
"My name is Freddie," he said.
"Katherine," I replied. We lapsed into silence, and Freddie sped along the Seoul highways, weaving in and out of cars.
"Do you always drive this fast?"
Freddie smiled and said, "I always get where I'm going. Don't worry."
"Was it just me, or were those people back there—"
"Ready to kill you?" He laughed, a booming laugh that felt like it rattled the sedans windows. "I don't know. It's hard to know with Koreans. We are slow to anger, but when we go, we really go... and then everyone else will just sort of join in. Who is to say if they were ready to fight?"
"Would you have stopped them?"
"I would have tried."
"Are you good at stopping people?"
"Like I said, I always get where I am going." He smiled, the threat of violence hanging in the air between us.
"Where are we going?"
"Small village. Private. This man was hard to find."
"Is it dangerous?"
"A little... but not too much." He smiled again, and I couldn't help but wonder if his bravado were justified or just a coping mechanism to hide the fact that he was shit scared. Maybe a little bit of both I decided.
The city of Seoul fell away as the sun rose in the east. Giant skyscrapers and tall apartment buildings faded away to a clean and fast highway. It seemed so peaceful out here compared to the awe-inspiring magnitude of Seoul. We drove for an hour. Once, I asked Freddie where we were, but the name made no sense to me, and without seeing a map written in English, I couldn't solidify what the actual name of the town was.
Eventually, we pulled up next to a wall covered in ivy. Freddie steered the car close to it, and then put it into park. He pulled the e-brake and got out of the car. All of the sudden the vehicle was at normal height again. He began peeling off his jacket, and underneath it, I caught a glimpse of a thick, muscular body straining against a plain shirt. Freddie was ripped.
I undid my seatbelt and made to get out of the car.
"No, you stay here. Take a nap. You must be tired." I leaned back in the car seat. "This won't take long," he said. Maybe it was the exhaustion of flying cross country only to get into a car, but I believed him, I believed that this would all be over soon. Of course, my eyelids weighing twenty pounds might have had something to do with it.
He slammed the car door, and then he disappeared over the brick wall, scaling it as if it were nothing. I tilted the car seat backwards and wondered just what I was getting into. It was cool in the car, and I wished I had a blanket. My eyelids became impossible to keep open; then I was gone.
****
I woke up to the sound of gunshots. Panicked, I looked at the ignition to see if Freddie had left the keys. He hadn't.
I pulled the lever and popped my seat upright. Should I get out of the car? Should I stay in the car? Is Freddie dead? How the hell am I going to get home? I don't even know where I am.
Fifteen minutes after the gun shots, with questions still running through my mind, a man approached the vehicle. He was dressed in the uniform of a security guard, black sweater, gun at his hip. His face was wide; his eyes were serious. He waved me out of the car, and I did as I was bidden, wishing that I could have somehow smuggled my own gun through customs, but it was stuffed under the seat of my Tesla Desolator back in America. Without a word, he turned his back and began to walk away, so I followed him.
We walked down the length of the wall, turned a corner, and then came to an ornate iron gate. On a keypad set into the wall, he punched in a code, and the gate swung inward. We walked inside, the gate motors softly whirring as it closed behind us. Before us a driveway wove through an open compound. The lawn was as manicured as any I had ever seen. I imagined an army of gardeners on their hands and knees with tiny scissors, making sure that each blade of grass was trimmed to just the right height.
Trees that had been carved into vaguely recognizable shapes lined the sides of the driveway, and flowerbeds overgrown with lush foliage bloomed in the distance. It all looked expensive and time consuming. I probably would have paved it all over if I was left this house as an inheritance. But I needn't worry about that anymore. I had liquidated every lick of property that had been left to me after the Drop... except for Dad's house, which I hadn't visited in a couple of years. Maybe one day. The memories were too much, and I had no need of anything there. I still paid the taxes on it, though I'm not sure why.
The driveway curved around a gurgling marble fountain as we approached the front of a modern house that wouldn't be out of place in Silicon Valley. For some reason, I had expected something more traditional... like with sliding paper doors or something. Was that racist? I don't know any more.
We stepped through the front door, the guard eyeing me with annoyance. The marble foyer had a stairway leading up the right side, and corridors on the ground floor branched off into different wings of the house. I followed the guard through one of these corridors until we came to a brightly lit sitting room.
Windows lined the perimeter of the room from floor to vaulted ceiling. Vases sat on marble pedestals around the room. They looked antique and expensive, but they could have been cheap knockoffs for all that I knew. On the couch in the center of the room sat a man. He was skinny. His white pants were skinny as well, clinging to his bird-ish, almost feminine legs. His hair, streaked with unnatural blonde highlights, hung down over the right half of his face. Pressed into the temple that wasn't covered by hair was the barrel of a handgun, which looked impossibly small with the hand of Freddie wrapped around the grip.
