Hardie left them alone.
She caressed his scarred, pale face with her fingertips. She hadn’t touched Bobby Marchione in twenty-one years. The last time had been that last night before Christmas break, when he’d brushed her forehead with his lips and whispered good-bye to her. But she touched his forehead, and leaned forward to kiss him there, and she knew it wasn’t really him. The real Bobby had died down here two decades ago. Which is why she calmly wrapped the mike wire around his neck and pulled both ends in opposite directions as hard as she could.
In the movies there was some killer move where you could quickly and compassionately snap someone’s neck by pushing on his chin while cradling the back of his head. Or some such shit.
But Eve Bell didn’t know such a move, so she had to resort to strangling her former boyfriend, sweet goofy Bobby Marchione, with his own electrocution trigger wire, and she was able to see the anger, followed by the hurt and confusion, followed by (she hoped) a little bit of understanding before the light finally went out of his eyes.
It took longer than she could have imagined, almost longer than she could bear.
There it was—her 100-percent success rate.
Eve Bell, professional finder, had cleared her docket. She could take it easy now, couldn’t she? Retire. Kick back, enjoy life. She knew, though, that this wouldn’t happen. She hadn’t cleared her docket. Her success rate was not 100 percent. She had to find the most elusive person of alclass="underline" a college student named Julie Lippman. Fucked-up spoiled chick who lost her boyfriend and spent the rest of her life throwing a tantrum about it.
Where was Julie Lippman?
Eve thought about it and realized that she wasn’t worth looking for. Julie wasn’t missing. Julie had died a long, long time ago, just like her boyfriend, Bobby.
27
If you go down into the darkness, you must expect it to leave traces on you coming up. If you do come up.
—Derek Raymond, The Hidden Files
A SHORT FLIGHT of steps led down to a skinny hallway, which in turn led to a narrow spiral staircase. Hardie made his way through the hallway in the dark, using the cane for balance. The stale air reeked of something wet and dead and ancient. He was loath to touch anything. Even walking through the passageway in bare feet was disgusting enough.
Then he slammed into the staircase, and he began climbing.
The metal stairs were caked with years of dust and grime and rust. Hardie tried not to think of what he was crunching underfoot. He kept climbing. After a while his heart began to pump wildly, warning him to slow down, take it easy. Hardie would not slow down or take it easy, because he didn’t want to stop and realize that he couldn’t move any farther. And then he’d die here, inside the stairway between Hell and whatever was Up There. So no. No stopping. Keep going. He even thought it seemed like they knew Hardie was ascending, so they had a construction crew working like crazy up top, adding four new flights of stairs for every single flight Hardie cleared. He didn’t care. He kept going…
* * *
And then, the final flight, and a steel door, which Hardie expected to be locked with a dead bolt, possibly even professionally welded shut. It wasn’t. The knob was one of those that turns from the inside, no matter what, even if it’s locked from the outside. The steel door opened up into…
Oh, God.
Another prison?
More cages and bars and walkways and staircases. The only difference was that this prison allowed sunlight to pour through dirty windows. Hardie hadn’t seen light in so long it hurt his eyes.
This prison was also completely deserted, as if the Rapture had taken place while he was underground. Down a hallway of flaking paint, empty cells, dirty floors—nothing. Nobody. Hardie pushed his way through a set of doors. And another empty room. A mess hall, from the looks of the galley kitchen and scuffed-up tile floors, where tables and chairs used to be. Where was he? Why was no one up here?
Another set of doors, another hallway, and finally, within a steel cage, a room with a long table. Lined up on the table were rows of shoes, men’s, all sizes—all of them straight out of the last century. Hardie walked over to the cage door and pulled on the handle. It opened.
Down the hall—murmuring. Hardie panicked. Maybe it was a good thing he’d been alone. Perhaps he’d wandered into the closed wing of a working prison. And once these new guards saw him, he’d be back in the same position. Or worse. There was a push-bar door on the left, leading outside. Should he?
The murmuring grew louder; someone laughed.
Hardie slammed through the door.
The sounds, the sun, the noise—all of it disorienting.
There were people everywhere. Not in uniforms of any kind, but in everyday street clothes. It was sunny out. No, not quite sunny. Just bright, somehow, even beneath a vast, gloomy sky. A cold wind sliced right through him. People were everywhere. That was the confusing thing. Holding bottles of water, laughing, smiling, taking pictures, despite the fact that this looked very much like the grounds of a prison. Barbed wire. Hardie made his way down a steep wide concrete path trying to understand where the hell he was. There was a sign mounted on a concrete wall. The wall had blue-and-tan streaks on it from faded paint jobs over the years. On the wall above the sign were thin red letters proclaiming:
INDIANS
WELCOME
And the sign itself:
UNITED STATES
PENITENTIARY
ALCATRAZ ISLAND AREA 12 ACRES
1½ MILES TO TRANSPORT DOCK
ONLY GOVERNMENT BOATS PERMITTED
OTHERS MUST KEEP OFF 200 YARDS
NO ONE ALLOWED ASHORE
WITHOUT A PASS
Fuck me, Hardie thought. Oh, fuck me fucking stupid.
The most secure secret prison in the world, site number 7734, was located far beneath the world’s most notorious inescapable prison…which was now a tourist attraction.
They—whoever they were—had a sick, sick sense of humor.
He couldn’t wander around like this, wearing nothing but a jacket and trousers. He ducked back into the building, went to the shoe room, and selected a pair of black brogans in his size. No socks, but Hardie didn’t care. Felt good to have something on his feet again.
The murmuring, it turned out, came from one of the gift shops. Hardie buttoned up his coat, hoping no one would notice his bare chest, then eased into the shop. Everybody was busy looking at souvenir rocks, calendars, CDs, comic books. Hardie saw a stack of black T-shirts, sizes S to XXXL. He took an XL, rolled it up tight, moved behind a bookcase, and slid it into his trouser pocket. Stealing from a prison gift shop; this was a new low, even for him. He made it out of the shop without any alarms going off, then found a quiet corner. Only after he put on the T-shirt did he realize what he’d selected: ALCATRAZ SWIM TEAM.
He buttoned up, looked for a men’s room.
Found one. Straight out of the 1920s, fixtures and everything, but kept tidy for visitors. New soap, new paper-towel dispenser, new signage.
And a large clean mirror, hanging over a row of sinks.
Hardie put his palms on the cold ceramic tile under the mirror and looked at himself.
You.
You look familiar.
But you’re not me.
You kind of remind me of…my dad.