Timecaster

THIRTY-NINE

His eyes were so cold, and his face was so calm, when he said it. Had he always been this way? Could my lifelong friend somehow be a closet psychopath, and I just never realized it?

Teague’s hands closed around my throat, his fingers digging in. I kicked him between the legs as hard as I could. He’d come prepared this time, wearing a jockstrap. My foot bounced harmlessly off his cup.

His thumbs found my carotid artery. If he blocked the flow, I’d pass out within seconds. Panicked, I scratched him across the eyes, then cupped my hands and clapped him on either side of the head, forcing air into his eardrums.

He howled, releasing me. I found my bearings and staggered to the Nife handle sticking out of the wall. Just as I snagged it, Teague grabbed me by my utility belt and flung me across the room, like I was a toy. I kept my hand extended, the Nife away from my body, but I dropped it on impact. The weapon went skittering into the bathroom.

I scrambled on all fours after it, seeing Neil in my peripheral vision. He was in the shower, a lopsided grin on his face, soaping up his new boobs. In fairness, they were pretty spectacular. And they would have been even more so, if he didn’t have all those curly chest hairs.

Teague grabbed my ankle, and began lifting me up. While his strength wasn’t that of Rocket, it was pretty impressive. He must have been hitting the roids for quite some time.

I stretched for the Nife, then stopped myself. The handle was facing the wrong way, and the only part I could reach was the blade. Grabbing a Nife by the blade was about as safe as sticking your hand in a spinning blender. But it was either that, or let Teague rip me apart.

Once I made my decision, I didn’t hesitate. I aimed carefully, then slipped my left index finger under the blade, clamping my thumb on top, just as Teague jerked me upside down.

He positioned me over the ComfortMax toilet, my head inches from the bowl.

“Here’s a good death for you,” Teague said. “Like the piece of shit you are.”

He dunked me. I held my breath, trying to judge if I still held the Nife. I could feel my fingers touching one another, and I didn’t know if that was because I’d dropped it, or because the blade was microscopically thin. I turned my wrist slightly, and noticed the extra weight.

So I had the Nife. Now what?

Teague lifted me up out of the water. I gasped for air, then choked when the automatic bidet kicked on, spraying warm water in my face. I couldn’t adjust the grip on the Nife using only one hand; plus I couldn’t see. Working by feel was a surefire way to lose a few fingers.

“Round two,” Teague said.

Before I could catch my breath, he dunked me again. I coughed, then couldn’t control my lungs, which sucked in toilet water. It hurt more than just about anything that ever happened to me, burning my nose and throat, causing my diaphragm to rapidly spasm. Even worse than the pain was the panic. The need for oxygen was so primeval, so reptilebrain, that it overrode all other brain functions. I lost all rationale, all personality, and became a starving animal whose sole reason for existence was to breathe again.

Teague lifted me up once more. I vomited water, tried to take in air, gagged, choked, vomited again, and finally got some sweet, sweet O2 into my aching lungs.

“Round three,” Teague said.

Not looking, not even caring, I brought my two hands together, feeling for the handle of the Nife. Miraculously, my right hand found it, and then I was bending at the waist, reaching upward, slashing at Teague with the blade.

I was dropped, suddenly, landing on my back. While in the middle of a coughing fit I managed to get to my knees. I checked my hand. My right held the Nife. My left still had all of its fingers, though the thumb was missing the very tip.

Teague wasn’t so lucky. He stared at his right arm, and the bleeding stump where his hand used to be. Then the toilet automatically flushed. We both looked, and watched his severed hand disappear down the drain.

Teague howled, sticking his left hand into the toilet, trying to rescue his right hand.

I raised the Nife, ready to gut him.

“Little privacy here,” Neil said. He must have been thinking the same thing I’d been thinking earlier, because he was shaving his chest.

Neil’s ridiculous, drug-addled actions brought some measure of humanity back to me, just in time. Rather than kill my old friend, I changed my course of action, sweeping my arm down and cutting off his foot.

Teague toppled. I coughed, spat, and got up on shaky feet.

“Hold still,” I told him, “or you’ll bleed to death.”

He nodded at me, his eyes wide with fear. I carefully sheathed the Nife, then stumbled out of the bathroom, heading for Aunt Zelda’s bedroom closet. I quickly found two belts and brought them back to Teague. The blood pooling around him was extensive. I pressed his earlobe, told him to call 911. As he did, I cinched the tourniquets around his stumps.

“Ambulance coming?” I asked.

Teague nodded, his whole body shivering. “My hand is gone. Flushed.”

“I’m sorry about that.” But I wasn’t sure how sorry I really was. Practically drowning doesn’t make a guy very sympathetic.

“You should kill me,” Teague said.

“Not going to happen.”

His teeth were chattering now. “If you don’t, I’m going to chase you to the ends of the earth.”

“I know.”

I checked the belts, and saw I’d managed to staunch the blood flow. I dragged Teague across the floor and raised his legs, putting them on the toilet. Then I covered him with blankets.

After taping some gauze around my bleeding finger, I grabbed the TEV and kicked Teague’s to pieces in case he recuperated faster than I anticipated.

Time to go.

I caught the killer’s trail on the first floor, as he climbed out of the elevator. He still wore the celebrity veil. I chose to follow him going forward, rather than in reverse, because it was easier to track.

Once out in the street I paused and stepped aside as two paramedics ran into the building. They didn’t give me a glance, but I realized that walking around in broad daylight when I was the most wanted man in the world would eventually lead to me getting identified. I remembered the celebrity veil the killer had left on top of the fridge. It was in my utility belt. I put it on over my head, able to see clearly, but unable to be seen.

Then I tailed the killer, going north. He kept a steady pace. No running. No sudden moves. Walking alongside him was an odd experience, sort of like walking with someone in reality. I almost expected to look over my shoulder and see him actually standing there.

After several blocks, he turned left on Adams, heading east. I anticipated him climbing onto a biofuel scooter, or hopping the El, which would complicate things. As I’d expected, we came to a bike carousel. Carousels were miniature pneumatic parking garages. You paid for a predetermined amount of time, placed your bike into the clamps, and the carousel lifted it up and held it for you until you returned. Larger models could hold fifty bikes vertically, saving valuable street space. This model held twenty.

The killer took a plastic parking chit out of his pocket-chits identified to location and row of your bike, which was necessary because Chicago had more than a hundred thousand carousels-and fed it into the meter.

If I had access to the CPD parking records, I could trace him paying for parking and get his ID. Or…

I got a close-up of the chit and read the drop-off time. It was parked here a few hours before Aunt Zelda’s murder. I rewound the transmission, going back to that time, and then paused when I saw a familiar face.

Neil.

He’d parked the bike here. He’d been the killer all along.