Having ruined – he hoped – the Rev’s upcoming evening, he cleaned out the Rev’s secret Cayman account. He’d peeked at it from time to time during his travels to make sure the Rev had followed instructions and was leaving it alone. Yup, it was all still there. He transferred the whole works to an account he’d set up for Adam under the name of Rick Bartleby, for whom he’d also created a convincing identity: Rick was an undertaker in Christchurch, New Zealand. He left Adam a message saying he’d find an account number and a password and a big surprise via the right nipple of Venus. It did him good to picture Adam clicking – finally – on a nipple.
He felt it was only right to send a message to Bearlift as well: let them know they’d been infiltrated by Chuck, say maybe they should do more of a background check on smarmy rear-lickers who turned up out of the blue, especially in new clothes with too many pockets, and maybe alert them to the fact that not everyone found them and their furfucking ways as charming as they found themselves. He signed that message “Bigfoot,” which he regretted as soon as he’d hit Send: it was a little too close to a hint.
Then he went back to his crappy motel and sat in the bar where they had a flat-screen, and waited for results from the Rev-O-Rama Show. Sure enough, the discovery of the bones and shreds of Fenella made the evening TV news all over the country. There was the Rev, covering his face while being led away; there was Trudy, sweet as a milkshake, dabbing at her eyes, saying she’d had no idea, and how frightening to have been living all these years with a ruthless killer.
Smart play, points to Trudy: there was no way they could pin anything on her. By that time she must’ve known about the Rev’s secret stash of cash – the Elders would have questioned her about the embezzled funds – and guessed he’d been planning to ditch her. To head out to an offshore safe house, where he could do some basking, and some fondling of underage children, or some flaying of them, whichever appealed to him at the moment. Because of course she’d known, she’d known about his twistiness all along. But she’d chosen not to know.
He got into his winter layers again and hiked to Cubs’ Corner, where he sent another message to Adam – a short one, just the URL for where the news item on the arrest was to be found. Adam would surely be pleased: with the Rev out of commission or at least seriously curtailed, both of them could breathe a little easier.
But he needed to leave Whitehorse immediately. The criminal justice folks or equivalent could be trying to trace the message he’d sent to the PetrOleum Elder, and, if they succeeded, they’d start sifting through Whitehorse, which wasn’t huge. They wouldn’t be looking for Zeb as such – he was dead – but any looking would be bad looking, and it wouldn’t take them long to crosshair his position. Maybe they already had: he was getting a bad feeling about that.
So he didn’t go back to the motel. Instead he loped out to the nearest highway Truck-A-Pillar stop and hopped a convoy. Once in Calgary, he was able to slide himself onto the sealed bullet train, and after a couple of changes, and before you could say Maybe I Just Did a Really Stupid Thing, he was in New New York.
“A really stupid thing?” says Toby.
“Turning the Rev in and grabbing all his money maybe wasn’t so bright,” says Zeb. “He must’ve guessed then that I wasn’t really dead. You know what they say about revenge – it’s a dish that should be eaten cold, meaning you shouldn’t do it out of anger because you’ll fuck it up.”
“But you didn’t,” says Toby. “Fuck it up.”
“It was almost a fuckup. But I was lucky,” says Zeb. “Look, here comes the moon. Some people would call that romantic.”
Sure enough, there it is, rising above the trees to the east, almost full, almost red.
Why is it always such a surprise? thinks Toby. The moon. Even though we know it’s coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.
Blacklight Headlamp
New New York was on the Jersey shore, or what was now the shore. Not many people lived in Old New York any more, though it was officially a no-go zone and thus a no-rent zone so a few denizens were still willing to take their chances in the disintegrating, waterlogged, derelict buildings. Not Zeb, though; he didn’t have webbed feet and a death wish, and New New York – though no paradise – had more people in it, and therefore more background and cover. More of a crowd to blend into.
Once arrived, he ducked into a shoddy soft-pretzel-infested net café and sent a checking-in message to Adam – Plan A Yay, What’s Plan B? – then cooled his heels while Adam took his time, wherever the fuck he was, whatever the fuck he was up to. His latest terse communication had read merely CU soon.