Excerpt: A Misnomer's Daydream

XVI Brooke Adams and the riders of the storm

It was now five thirty in the morning and Brooke Adams had already knocked on the door three times, progressively louder each time, and would not have even seen the door bell had she not tried the door finally to confirm that it was locked. Having found the bell she pushed her finger hard against it, letting it ring for a full ten seconds before she released it and repeated the process. She was at the front door of an older house in downtown savannah, She assumed it was large as it was three stories tall and looking through the glass on the door showed her it went back quite a ways with a wide stairway leading down just to the right of the door. She remembered reading somewhere or hearing from someone how the Buddhists felt that having stairs lead to the doorway let the demons in and was very NOT feng shui. Well, at the moment she felt a bit possessed anyway so it seemed appropriate enough. When Brooke Adams set her mind to something she became singularly focused, and for one reason or another she was focused on one thing at the moment and that was to get somebody to open this door. She was reaching for the door bell again when she finally saw him coming down the stairs toward her with measured, careful steps. She decided to ring it anyway and gave it six quick but decisive rings which made Christopher Dunne double his pace. She could hear him swearing at her while his still sleepy brain fumbled with the dead bolt.

“For Christ sakes it's five thirty in the god damn morning” he looked out the glass to see this young girl smiling up at him in feigned innocence, hands clasped in front of her waist. He got the lock unbolted and swung the door open at her as she stepped aside and them straight into his house.

“What in the ever loving hell do you want?” he asked her.
“I came to save you.” she replied. “You Dunn?”
“Done with what?” he asked her.
“Christopher Dunn, the go getter local real estate agent I see on TV when I am still up at six in the morning? Yeah it's you, even without the smile.” she looked him over a quick moment, him wearing only pajama bottoms and the hint of a pup tent showing between his legs. “And without the suit and tie. It's you. Nice body by the way.” Brooke Adams set down the back pack she was carrying and started walking down the corridor, looking left and right at the pictures on the wall and in the open library door as she passed. “Kitchen?” she asked him, looking back at him and pointing down the end of the hallway. “You got coffee?”

“What the fuck?” he stammered at her. “I mean, who the fuck?”
She paused in the hallway, turning her whole body toward him to speak. “Look. I'm sorry, okay? We don't have a lot of time and we need to get out of here. I'm Brooke Adams. And I wrote an article for that Alternapress. Two actually, and people died. You wrote for them as well, and you got blamed for blowing up that building. I know who did it, and when he doesn't find me at home he will be coming here.” Christopher was staring at her with a bemused look on his face and she paused long enough to look him over and wonder if he would be any help at all to her anyway. Fuck it she thought. He has a car. And money. I need both those things. “Shock, I know. So let's get some coffee going and I will tell you more and let's get the fuck out of dodge before he finds us. Okay?”

“No.” Christopher replied, thinking that was not nearly forceful enough to get her attention. He deepened his voice when he talked again, as trick he learned watching congressmen go at it on C-span and practiced often in front of the mirror and toward his girlfriend who did not find it the least bit entertaining. “It is not okay at all and I want you out of here before I call the cops.. And what do you know about my article anyway?”

Brooke sighed heavily. This was going to be a pain in the ass, she thought. “fuck it. I will start the coffee. I've been up all night and I really need the caffeine if I am going to be dealing with your crap.” She walked the rest of the hallway, proud of herself for taking charge but also almost trembling thinking he really would call the cops. She spoke loudly to him now, having reached the kitchen and eying the coffeepot on the counter, assuming he was still standing by the doorway trying to figure all this out. “Detective Jacobs, at least. If you are going to call them. Although he might be sleeping. We had a long talk last night about you.” After a long minute of silence she assumed her outburst had worked because Christopher Dunn finally followed her into the kitchen, walking quietly and obviously lost in thought.

“Okay. You are going to have to explain all this to me. Slowly, regardless of how much of a hurry you think you are in. And we are not going anywhere when you are done talking.” Brooke had found the coffee filters in the cabinet but still seemed to be searching for coffee. “it's in the freezer, by the way.”
“Thank you” she smiled at him. “Now we are getting somewhere.”
“So who blew up the building. I assume you mean it's tied into this magazine?”
“Of course it is. Oh, my aunt too. She wrote for them. And now she's dead.

Brooke turned to fill the coffee decanter with cold water from the tap. “So I emailed him. Told him I was going to get him back.”
“Why in the world would you do such a thing? This is for the cops and we need to call them.”

Brooke adams had to think hard for a moment before replying. “You know what a cutter is? You know, those girls who need to put little cuts into their arms just to feel right? Sometimes they are not so little either and sometimes they leave scars and they wear the arm bands and the long sleeve shirts so that everyone can pretend not to notice and pretend that they care if they actually knew somebody like that but they don't know anybody who cuts themselves they just have lots of friends who wear long sleeves like a heroin junkie would but there's no heroin junkies in Savannah so everything is peachy keen and life goes on.”

Brooke paused to take a breathe as she was talking way too quickly again, not that she cared if he was listening or not just that she needed to remember to breathe every now and again. “I tried it a few times. I understand it. A little. I guess. I mean, I pierced my ears six times too, for that pain rush. But it doesn't do it for me and I just don't always feel right and something needs to cut me, inside I mean, something needs to happen for me to give a fuck about this world and I don't really know why I am doing this, to be honest.” she paused again, wondering if he had anything to say but decided whatever it might be would be spoken from somebody who just didn't know anyway.

“You know I got a piece of a toothpick stuck in my teeth once,” she continued, “bugged the hell out of me. For three days. I was picking at it and brushing like crazy and it wouldn't fucking come out so I started wiggling the tooth and wiggling the tooth and digging at it with a safety pin and one of those dentist tools and nothing worked so I finally said fuck it and I did it just like I read in some book once. I tied a string around the tooth and I tied the other end to a door knob and I slammed the door shut and pulled the tooth out. No more splinter.”

Christopher was staring at her through this whole speech and didn't have the words now to express his thoughts so he went with what he thought was the best response. “you are really fucked up. You know that?”

“Of course I know that.” she stated,wanting to smile but sensing that would scare him off. “The point though, is that this guy is a little sliver of a toothpick in my tooth and fuck him if I am not going to get rid of it because putting little cuts on my wrist don't do it for me. Look, I have a dead aunt and a dead uncle. And a cousin dead and another one in the hospital and going to be fucked up for life, physically and mentally. I tricked my mom into going to Atlanta, calling her and saying I was in the hospital there, and I hope she doesn't get back and this guy go after her or nothing. I would love nothing more than to say I have some sense of justice in getting this guy, some sort of moral duty, but really, I don't. A little of course, but not really. Justice is for the cops, and they might find him before me, which is fine. But I am going to get this guy just because he pissed me off bringing me in on all this, and you are going to help me.” She dug a coffee cup out of the kitchen cabinet and poured the freshly brewed coffee into it and handed it to him. “you first.” she told him, with a grin on her face. Christopher Dunn took the coffee cup from her and took a healthy but very hot swallow form the cup, hoping to clear his head.

“So what now?” he asked her.
“Now we get online and hope to hell this dude emailed me back.” She knew what his next question would be so she answered it for him. “Arthur Goode. I got his email. I got onto the Alternapress server. Don't ask me how, I am not even sure. This is one of those fuckers who wants to be caught I think. Or wants to outsmart me anyway. I think he let me in. Anyway, this guy wrote about a homeless guy. The guy died. Jacobs told me about that guy last night. You know detective Jacobs, by the way? He knows you.”

“The big black guy. Yeah, I met him. He told you about this writer guy then?”
“No. the homeless guy.. cut up in half or something, I don't know. But he thinks it's tied in and after he left I found the Alternapress server, like I said, and I saw this guy's article. So it is connected. He wrote about a girl too. She's dead. And he wrote about another guy. On that movie set.”

“And he's dead, I take it.” Dunn stated.
“I don't think so. They haven't found him yet, anyway. Unless Jacobs is hiding stuff from me. No, I hope not because that's my plan.”
“What's your plan? To save this guy?”
“Well, maybe. To catch this Martin guy in the act, anyway. You got a camera by the way? I forgot mine. But I have my cell phone too.”

“Wait. You're serious? Does Detective Jacobs know about this?”
“Hell no. You think a cop is going to help me out?”
“You're using this guy as bait. This isn't right. I... Fuck.” Dunn had a thought but all this was rushing at him way to fast for him to collect it. “You don't know who this guy is at least. Do you?”
“Harold. I know that much. But this Goode does. And I emailed him and I hope to hell he is an early riser and sees my email and answers it.
“I can't do this. I really can't.”

"Dunn. Look at me. You can do this. And you will. You want to save this guys life? You think the cops in Savannah, following procedure and calling in the GBI or the FBI and trying to interview everybody and not believing a word we say will save this guy? Or do the three of us go find this Harold guy and take this Martin dude down and get into the papers as heroes and what do you think that will do for your real estate business? Or your political goals?”
“What makes you think I have political goals?”
“I read your resume. Dude, you have issues deeper than mine I bet. You're going to get to be thirty five and not have a clue who you are and I may be fucked up but I know exactly who I am.”
“Look. We can't do this. You're a kid for Christ sakes. We need the cops to take care of this.”
“I'll tell you what. Give me a few hours at least. Let's talk to this Goode fellow first. You both feel the same and want to talk me out of this we can consider it. But not until I find a bit more solid evidence or whatever at least. Okay?”

Brooke's cell phone began to ring just at that moment making them both jump a bit in their own skin.