Page 54 of Bent Heavens

Carlos Carbajal stared straight ahead at the wall, and Liv could see him only in profile: tangled hair, sloping forehead, brushy mustache. She investigated the right side of his face. His brown skin was shades darker from beard growth, and wrinkles cascaded from his eyes like Monk family fireworks. With his right hand, he picked an object off the plate before him. Liv expected a cigarette lighter, maybe something harder, but it was a container of Tic Tacs. Carbajal thumbed it open, tossed white pellets into his mouth.

“Don’t tell me your name,” he said. “I don’t want to know.”

Here was a man farther off the grid than Lee Fleming had ever been, one who, if the nonfunctional doorbell was an indication, barely interfaced with the outer world. What did she have to lose by divulging the outrageous truth? If he responded like she was crazy, she could say thank you and get the hell out of there.

“We caught one,” she said. “My friend and I. In a hunting trap.”

She watched his bushy right eyebrow lift. Still he did not turn her way.

“I don’t know what you mean.” His tone was artificially flat.

“You do. I know you do.”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“A thing. Like a person, but … not.”

Carbajal looked down at his table of rubble.

“What’d you do with it?” he asked softly.

“We … kept it.”

“You still have it?”

She thought of Doug and A, their uncertain fates. “Sort of.”

“Holy shit. Holy fucking shit, girl.”

Carbajal chuckled, then coughed. His chest resounded with phlegm. He choked on it, his face going dark purple, thick strands of spit glossy in the sunspots. He panted, hocked, and spat on the floor. He wiped his mouth.

“Lung cancer,” he gasped. “On my last goddamn leg here. The mints help.”

Two days of apologies and she was still going: “I’m sorry.”

He flapped an irritable hand. “Look at this place. I’m dead and buried.”

“It … the thing we caught … it said your name.”

“Is that so? I suppose that’s flattering. Probably overheard someone talk about me. Thought I could help, offer protection. Wrong about that, though.”

“So you saw one of them, too?”

“One? Little girl, I saw a whole group.”

“Then why didn’t you say something? Why haven’t you told anyone?”

He slammed the Tic Tac container to the table. “Don’t you judge me. Don’t you dare judge me, little bitch.”

Liv tensed. Little bitch was not little girl. The apartment layout raced through her mind. Estimates on how quickly she might leap from the chair, how many steps it would take to reach the door.

“They wiped me out,” he seethed. “Persona non grata. The good old US of A. But you think they shut me up? You think they shut up Carlos Carbajal? I’ve got a computer, girl. And I know how to use it. I’ve got software and plug-ins that block prying eyes. I’m still out there. People call them conspiracy sites, like that’s a disparaging word. But conspiracy’s the right word. That’s the word you use when there are multiple entities—right?—colluding to enact a secret policy. Log in to any of the top sites. Mr. Brown—that’s what I go by now. Mr. Brown has thousands of followers. Go ahead and check. Thousands.”

All of this was delivered straight to the wall. Mr. Brown rang a shivery bell. Hadn’t Doug, on his birthday night, included that username among those he’d been following on Internet forums? Liv held her breath and waited to see if the flood of words would persist. Instead, he twirled his hand impatiently for a response.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry they did that to you.”

Carbajal blasted derisive air from his mouth. Apologies, it seemed, were repellent, a long-lost language of sensitivity of which he wished not to be reminded. He shook the Tic Tacs in a fist; the sound leaped at Liv like a rattlesnake.