THE MOONSIDE
Strip malls mutated to industrial parks as Ochre Street ran from Bakersville and became State Route 42. The steady flash of jaundiced sodium lamps marked time. A radio antenna pierced the horizon, red light pulsing, as the pungent sting of asphalt and smoke filtered into Arthur's car.
"It's like Mordor out here," Harris sat shotgun, face turned to the passenger window. "We sure Miss Leslie's isn't meeting Sauron?"
Arthur massaged the steering wheel. "And we're certain the 'Moonside' in your boss' stolen e-mails refers to this sleazy motel?"
"I don't know," Kavi groaned, lying flat across the back seat, "but there's only one way to find out. It does seem a good place for a felon to take a meeting."
The vista ran on a cycle—industrial park, derelict business, small manufacturer, repeat. Looking out the window piled déjà vu atop déjà vu until it seemed they drove through a waking dream until an alien blue light jolted the Irregulars back to reality. Arthur slowed the car. A neon sign, glowing sapphire against the navy night, announced the "Moonside Motel." Two stories of crumbling concrete and pocked iron sat just beyond, the windows inky dark save a glowing square of office.
Arthur killed the car's lights as they rolled into the parking lot, angling so its nose faced Route 42. The road stretched at a diagonal before them, a wide cone of grey racing into the darkness. A dying elm provided cover without blocking their vantage. The dash clock read 10:32.
"Either of you been on a stake out?" Kavi sat up, reached to a travel mug nestled in the dash cup holder. Her stomach ached and buzzed simultaneously.
"Stakeouts are like hookers," Harris said, "sexy in theory…but up close? Not so much."
"Well, I've got some easy listening to pass the time." Arthur pulled a small silver rectangle from his breast pocket.
Harris looked to the device in Arthur's hand with cockeyed derision. "The fuck is that? God help me if its some Eurotrash DJ’s set."
"It's Sheila Talbot's voice recorder."
Kavi glugged her coffee, desperate for its strength. "You stole her voice recorder? You know we're already accused criminals."
"Stole?" Arthur put a hand to his chest. "Mon dieu! Never. We had a bumbling run-in this morning at Perky's Café and it seems she took my voice recorder instead of hers by accident."
Harris took the device. "Since when do you have a voice recorder, Kite?"
"Since about 11 o'clock this morning," he smiled. "Go ahead, click it on. I think you'll find track five illuminating."
Harris clicked the play button. "Eggs." Sheila's clipped cadence filled the car. "Two-percent organic. Five Granny Smiths." Each item was spoken as if part of a nuclear launch code. "Spaghetti. Tampons, size—"
"Ugh!" Harris jammed to the stop button, device bobbling, before Sheila could divulge her flow. "If I have to hear about that troll's monthlies, I'll die and haunt your descendants, Kite."
Kavi rolled her eyes. "How utterly feminist of you, Harris."
"Troll?" Arthur smiled. "I don't know Harris, she looked quite fit to me. Besides, I would have thought your type included any woman with a working vagina. You do live with your mother, after all."
"I bought the house from her." Harris crossed his arms over his chest "She rents a room. I can only say so many times…she lives with me."
Kavi swiped the voice recorder from Harris' hands. "How many of Sheila's audio notes do we have here?"
"Not bloody many. Something like fifteen. Most of them are shopping lists. One is her pops asking how to delete porn from his internet cache so her mum won't find out about his foot fetish. Like I said before, go to track five."
Kavi hit the track forward key until the LCD display gave its blocky "5." Stomach tight, the car already starting its slight panic spin, she pressed play.
"Why were you not at the jewelers? Did you not receive my post?" A deep, rough voice rattled through the van. Heavy, panic breaths—Sheila's—popped through the recording.
"Who the fuck is that?" Harris scooted to the edge of his seat. The device in Kavi's hand pulled with irresistible gravity. All matter shifted toward this new center of their small universe.
"I have it right here, but—" Sheila spoke through a shaky breath.
"Shut up," the voice barked. "You have one last chance. You're a newspaper reporter, right? Do your fucking job. Report. You'll be the Truman Capote of the 21st Century. Unless you prefer obituaries and police blotters."
"You're asking me to be accessory to a crime." Sheila's breathing dominated the track, her sigh a hurricane. "You already shot a fucking kid. That sure as hell wasn't in any story. How can I trust you?"
"My associate's finger slipped. A boorish but unfortunate accident."
"What if I tell you to fuck off and die?"
The voice broke into an uneven, cackling laugh. The voice recorder's little speaker crinkled and strained to match its perverse joy "Don't make me laugh, Talbot. Your window of opportunity is about to slam shut. In another week, we'll be gone. And a better reporter will sniff out your story. You can book your ticket to the top of the Times Bestseller List or sit in your neon green Volkswagen, surrounded fast food wrappers, wearing a frayed 'Spacehog' shirt and watching life pass you by."
The sound of a door opening cut through the audio track, followed by stomping footfalls. Sheila's breath played the high notes of soul-eating panic. "Where the fuck are you?"
"This is your only chance, Miss Talbot."
With a violent rattle and click, the audio file ended.
Arthur's car dropped to silence. Night's blanket choked the last sparks of dusk, a batting of nimbus clouds keeping the moon at bay. The Irregulars sat in the darkened Subaru, only breaths and beating hearts. None dared to speak. Somewhere in the distance, a lone dog mowled, sorrow echoing over the landscape.
"That voice wasn't any of us," Arthur said.
"He said…," Kavi swallowed hard, the words swelling her throat. A million tiny needles pricked her fingertips, her toes. She saw her children, her beautiful daughters, standing by a closed wooden box, their faces wet with tears which no amount of time would stop. "He said we'll be gone in a week."
Arthur put a hand on Kavi's shoulder. "Deep breaths, love. Don't let the panic win. Focus. We're going to get out of this."
Kavi spun to Arthur, mouth a sharp line. "And how exactly to you suggest we stop a psychopath bent on killing us?"
"No one said anything about killing."
"Well what the fuck do you think 'gone in a week' means, Arthur?"
"Alex Dalkowski," Harris said.
Kavi and Arthur spun to shotgun. "What?"
Harris took the voice recorder from Kavi's trembling hand. "Alex Dalkowski. I went to her office this afternoon."
Arthur slapped Harris' shoulder. "You did what?"
"She wants to be our friend," Harris said.
"Yeah," Kavi said, "like a crocodile wants to be a gazelle’s friend."
Harris shook his head. "I can't go too much into it, but she's not convinced we're guilty."
"She sure as hell has a funny way of showing it," Arthur said, "tearing through my apartment with a horde of cops."
"She gave me all the cops' case files," Harris said. "We can trust her with the voice recorder…or at least a copy of the audio files."
Kavi couldn't believe her ears. Did Harris just say…? She took another swig from her travel mug to make certain the panic and cobwebs in her brain weren't distorting sound.
"Did you say she gave you all the cops' files on our case?"
Harris nodded. "Copies of everything, yeah. She wants what we want: a solved case. Whatever that takes."
Arthur shot back in his seat, clicked his seatbelt in place, and reached for the keys. "Well than what the bloody hell are we doing here? Let's go back to Harris' and—"
Blue Xenon headlights cut over the horizon. Kavi jolted upright from the backseat, threw the travel mug into the dash cup holder. "That's Miss Leslie's BMW."
The Beamer swung into the far end of the lot and parked before the very last unit. Barbara Ann stepped from her car, smoothed a navy skirt (Kavi snorted—she'd changed again!) and made a beeline to the last door. Producing a key from a matching clutch, she unlocked and entered the room. The room's lights blossomed to life, setting the orange curtains aglow.
"She didn't check in," Kavi said.
"Maybe these super-secret meetings of the Midnight Society are an ongoing thing," Harris replied. "Planning a jewel heist probably takes a few nights of work."
"We've got another bogey, coming in hot." Arthur pointed to another car, lower and longer, roaring toward the Moonside.
Harris cupped a hand to the window to get a better view of the oncoming car. "Is that a luggage rack on the roof?"
The Irregulars held their breaths as the car entered the Moonside's blue glow. Instead of a roof rack, the feline-looking car carried red and blue flashers and an antenna bobbing like a tail.
"Bloody hell!" Arthur scrunched his body low in the driver's seat. "It's a fucking cop!"
Kavi reached to the keys dangling from the ignition. One evening in cuffs was plenty for the week. The very thought of another booking, another mugshot, more time in that coffin of an interrogation room, turned her stomach. "Let's make like a tree and get the hell out of here."
"We get one chance." Harris reached over and tapped Kavi's hand away. "Besides, we're not breaking any laws. I know my damn rights."
"I wasn't breaking any laws last yesterday," Kavi said, "but they still hauled me to jail."
The Irregulars winced, muscles marble, as the police cruiser swung past. Its lights glanced the car's nose but passed without pause. Kicking gravel, it swerved to the far end of the Moonside's lot and snuggled up beside Barbara Ann's BMW. A plainclothes man stepped from the police car. He was older, dark skinned and muscular under flannel and jeans, his hair graying.
Arthur gasped. "Police Chief Hardcastle? Now we're getting interesting."
With a terse glance to his surroundings, Hardcastle fished a key from the breast pocket of his shirt, unlocked the door, and went in.
"What…" Harris sat slack-jawed. He blinked against the dark. "What the fuck is going on? I think Kavi’s Evil Library Lady theory is asinine, but even I have to admit something fucky is going on here."
Arthur produced his phone and wiggled it in the air. "Only one way to find out, right? Looks like there's a gap in the curtains down there. What's say we shoot a little home movie?"
Backs hunched and knees bent, the Irregulars tumbled from the car. Kavi, caffeine pulsing through her veins, dropped to her hands and knees and crawled toward the bright office window. Her joints snapped and creaked protest, gravel biting through the knees of her jeans.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Arthur strode past and stopped at the corner of the building. A curtainless window spilled light onto the dark sidewalk.
"I'm being stealthy," Kavi said.
"You’re being batty." Arthur craned his head, peered inside the rental office. A rail of a man, hollow-cheeked and greasy-haired, lounged in an office chair. His chest rose and fell in easy waves under the flicker of a black and white TV.
"Bloke's asleep." Arthur waved Harris on and strode ahead.
Kavi pushed up from the gravel and beat the dust and cigarette butts from her jeans. She followed Arthur with comically large tippy-toe steps. Harris walked backward at their line’s rear. Slow and steady, the Irregulars crept past each of the motel’s first five rooms, pausing at each window to check for hidden laser alarms or ninja assassins.
Dense, foggy light swirled before window number six, moths blumbling through the haze. Harris gulped. With Arthur in a tan polo and Kavi a blue tee, he couldn’t help but imagine them an away team beamed down from the starship Enterprise. Harris looked down, and seeing his own red Weezer T-shirt, took a precautionary step back.
Arthur tapped record and guided his phone toward the small gap between window curtains. Its screen swam with a watery blur of orange light. Pixel by pixel, the software zoomed and adjusted. Zoomed and adjusted. The world around them paused, moths frozen in place, a breath held still in anticipation of this moment. Finally, the algorithm found its focus. A shadowy amoeba emerged from the orange, its borders thrashing. Then, like fingers snapped, the shape popped to focus.
In the crack between curtains, Barbara Ann Leslie crouched knees and elbows to the bed, her face twisted in the agony of pure pleasure, lip bitten and eyes closed. Hardcastle kneeled behind her massive hands clawing at the pasty white of her hip. Time—the cruel bastard—slowed to a crawl. Hardcastle's thrusts filled whole geological ages. Leslie's breasts swayed in super slo-mo. For long, exhaled moments, the Irregulars watched, eyes frozen wide, as Miss Leslie and Hardcastle fucked (rather spectacularly) on the glow of Arthur's phone.
"Oh what the fuck?!" Harris stumbled back onto his ass. He’d seen much too much before sense turned him away "Eye bleach! Eye bleach!"
Harris' cries wound time back to speed. Hardcastle jumped from the bed. Miss Leslie lunged for the sheets as the Chief sprinted off camera, manhood bobbing like a metronome.
"Run!" Kavi screamed.
The Irregulars scattered like cockroaches to light. Arthur, first to the car, wasted no time cranking the ignition. Kavi, a close second, tore at the back door and lunged in. Harris, the unlucky redshirt he was, couldn't seem to find his feet. He stumbled across the gravel lot, falling down to his hands, as Arthur gassed the Subaru toward Route 42.
"Jump!" Kavi held her arms out the side door.
Harris threw himself to the car. He landed stomach to floor, legs dangling over the accelerating road. With a grunt, Kavi pulled Harris to safety as they lurched onto Route 42. In the parking lot behind, Chief Hardcastle yelled shapeless words, fists (and unit) shaking. Harris slammed the door on the diminishing motel and the Irregulars sat, breath flying from concave chests.
"Is… he… following?" Arthur panted.
Kavi twisted in her seat, peered through the rear window. Her eyes strained through the strobe of her pounding pulse. "No. I…I don't think so."
Harris crawled to shotgun and collapsed back into the seat, his chest heaving. Sweat poured down from his forehead. "You…," he tried to speak between panting breaths. "You think Hardcastle knows it was us?"
"We'll find out tomorrow," Kavi slammed her head to the seat. "Shit! This is bad. This is go to directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars bad. Why did I think this was a good thing! Damn!"
"Look on the bright side, Kavi," Arthur slung his arms over the driver's seat and laughed as they shot past the radio tower.
"Bright side." Kavi scowled.
"We proved that Miss Leslie is in bed with the cops."
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