The Body in the Elevator

THE BODY IN THE ELEVATOR

ML Space

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by ML Space

All Rights Reserved.

Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.,

www.gobookcoverdesign.com/

Dedicated to the Dirt Brothers

PROLOGUE

I’m in deep shit.

Man, I wish I hadn’t taken that summer intern job. And I really wish I’d never worked late that one night. If I hadn’t, I never would have seen that body in the elevator. And I wouldn’t have a psycho chasing me. Do you know what it’s like to have a killer hunting you, tracking you, lusting to cut your throat? I’d bet you don’t.

If I knew then what I know now, I’d take it all back. I never would have taken that job. I never would have run to the police about that body. I never would have slept with Mia. I never would have gotten mixed up with Eduardo the Mexican. I never would have driven my truck into a flooded arroyo for a bunch of trout.

Well, maybe I would have slept with Mia.

CHAPTER 1

THE BODY IN THE ELEVATOR

My life changed forever that Friday night of June 13th. I sat there flat lining in front of my computer screen, realizing I hadn’t added a sentence to my report for a gazillion years. I pushed my chair away from my desk, rubbed my bloodshot eyes and glanced at my watch. It was almost midnight.

Holy crap, I whispered. Where’d the time go? I bet I was the last one on the floor. I knew my boss was gone—probably screwing off somewhere. He split right after the new guy party he threw me, but not before piling a load of work on my desk and calling me pardner. He thinks he’s a cowboy or something.

I gazed out my small window and watched the action down on the busy street. It was Friday night, and everybody was cruising. Everybody but me. My buddies were probably having a ball. A few of them actually went to South America for two months. I wanted to go, but with no money…why didn’t I have rich parents?

I had heard summer internships were a piece of cake. At least that’s what my buddy Mark said. Of course, he’s never had a job in his life. Guys always say that jobs are a piece of cake when they’ve never had one. All they do is sit on their fat butts talking about work. Anyway, I needed the money so I scored this summer intern job doing environmental work. Any company that wants to do stuff on public lands, like cut down trees or dig out metals and stuff, has to examine what effect their company could have on wildlife and the environment.

So I thought it would be a pretty cool job because we were helping to protect the environment, right? I knew it would be pretty boring compared to going to the mountains or the lake with my friends, but at least I’d make some money for when I went to college in the fall. But I didn’t realize it would be this boring. I never get outside to see any of the places these companies want to fuck up. I just sit here on my skinny butt writing reports. At least I was getting paid for it. And helping the environment. Maybe. A lot of these reports seem slanted in the company’s favor. Like how a company might have to divert water from a stream so they can use it for something. And when they do that, the stream will dry up and kill a bunch of otters. But they don’t want me to say that. They want me to say it will stress the otter population. These companies are a bunch of phonies, if you ask me. But my boss told me that’s how the game is played to get these reports past state and federal regulators. There are plenty of other otters in the world. Maybe too many, he said.

I stretched and looked down at the name tag stuck to my shirt. JACK. My boss threw me a party today because I was the new guy. And he had everybody wear name tags, like I didn’t know them all after I had worked here a few weeks. The job was also boring because almost everybody else was a fossil, so there wasn’t much to talk about. Except work stuff and their kids. I don’t know why adults talk about their kids at parties. They finally get the chance to be rid of them and have some fun, and all they do is talk about them. Go figure. Only one person is under 30, and he’s an engineer. I guess if I ever need to know in which episode of Star Wars the pre–Darth Vader killed the younglings, I’ll know where to turn.

I closed my file, shut down my computer, leaned against my office window, and watched the cars cruise under the overpass. It was going to be another mediocre summer. Mediocre. It’s what my high school science teacher, Ol’ Mr. Stiles, said about me. You’re too lazy ever to amount to anything, Brown. You’ll always be mediocre. Grown-ups shouldn’t say that kind of thing to kids—even if it’s true. It can stick with you forever. But he was right. Grades, mediocre. Sports, mediocre. My height, mediocre. Weight, mediocre. Even the things I do and those that happen to me are mediocre. My friends were in South America and I was stuck writing about goddamn otters. Nothing interesting ever happens to me. Mediocre.

My mind was wandering—otters, mediocrity—sex would be next. It was always next. It seems like I can’t rest my brain for a second. I heard my stomach growl. I guess this time, food was next. The party food had sucked. Everything was rabbit food. I never want to get old. All the fossils were eating that crap and pretending it was just great. But I knew better. Old people eat nothing but vegetables and fruit. Unless they’re fat. I guess I’ll have to be fat when I’m old. I decided to grab a burger on the way home.

I turned off my office light. I did have my own office. That was kinda cool. I closed my door and walked down the hall past the engineering section, holding my breath and stifling a laugh. I didn’t want to catch anything contagious, like their infinite nerdiness. I always held my breath when I walked past their section. It was an inside joke. That is, I didn’t tell anyone about it because it might get back to the engineers. They’re a sensitive bunch. But it’s funny. At least to me.

I might be kind of a nerd ’cause I like to collect spy books and stuff on crime, but I wasn’t an engineering nerd. That’s way off the charts—thick-rimmed glasses, calculators, and three kinds of pens in their shirt pockets, always a tie and white socks, ten-year-old shoes, always anal about everything. And don’t let them fool you—they’re all closet computer video and sci-fi addicts. I shuddered and quickened my pace.

Turns out, I’d outworked the engineers that night. Everybody was gone. I turned off the lights to engineering and passed by the archeology section. I didn’t even bother to glance in their offices before I turned out the lights. They were always gone by four thirty. They sure seemed to have a lot more fun than the engineers.

I walked through our office lobby and opened the front door, closed it behind me, and locked it. My boss, Mr. Slacker, gave me a key my first day on the job. And here I was, alone in an office with a million dollars worth of computer equipment, confidential personnel files, tons of junk I could sell. I’m not sure where or to whom, but I bet I could figure it out. Not that I’d ever do that. I’m honest enough, and I guess I was flattered that I was trusted. Is that nerdy? No, I think I’m OK there.

I walked down the hall with engineer nerds still stuck in my brain. I wondered if maybe engineering nerdism snuck up on you. Maybe it takes over your body one night. Like, you go to sleep, naked (at least I do), and you wake up in a cocoon. When you finally break free and wipe away the cobwebs, you’re wearing black pants, old scruffy black shoes and white socks, and a collared shirt. By the time you get to work, a calculator and a felt-tip pen have materialized in your shirt pocket. By lunch, you have a sudden urge to pull out your calculator to determine, to the penny, a 15 percent tip on the chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes you just ate. I envisioned myself in a big webby cocoon for a second, but it creeped me out, so I stopped.

I made a commitment to myself, right then and there, that if I ever had a sudden craving to watch old episodes of Battlestar Galactica, I’d shoot myself right on the spot.

I pressed the button for the elevator. I started humming an ancient rock and roll tune, like from the seventies, when the elevator bell rang. You know, those elevator bells all sound the same. I think the same company makes every elevator bell in the world. All 13 trillion of them.

The doors opened and there was a woman in the elevator. With a killer, almost naked, body. She stood there, as tall as me, with full-grown curves and dark hair. Her black eyes locked on mine. I froze. She winked, pursed her red lips, and cocked her head to the side, causing her black hair to fall over her shoulder. Then she smiled. A wicked, inviting smile. My imagination ran wild. I must have looked like an idiot. I watched, mesmerized, while the elevator doors slowly closed. I wanted to move—God, I tried to move—but my body wouldn’t respond.

The doors closed. Opportunity knocks only once—and in my case, it knocked and opened the doors for me. But I was too stupid to walk through. Now, that was engineering nerd!

I frantically pushed the button again for the elevator, hopping up and down like a dork, praying for her to come back. What an idiot I am! The elevator bell rang again and the doors opened.

Every vital organ in my seventeen-year-old body deflated. A man with a military buzz cut and thick, hairy forearms stood in the middle of the elevator with a large, full, thick black plastic bag beside him. He regarded me quietly with a steely gaze as I sighed and stepped inside. That’s the way things happened to me. One minute I’m staring into the eyes of a bombshell babe, and the next minute it’s a hairy ape man.

I stood to his left and stared at the white walls of the far side of the hallway as the elevator doors closed.

There sure was a lot of elevator traffic for this time of night. I closed my eyes. Who the hell was she? I had never seen her before. I don’t think she worked in this building. She was certainly no engineer. Unbelievable. Man, I was a dork. In high school, I never had any girl give me a second look. And here was a babe…I wanted to scream. One thing for sure. That inviting face was forever etched into my mind. I mean forever.

The elevator descended. I stared at the floor and then looked out the corner of my eye at the man’s hairy forearms. Man, I hope I never get that hairy. It looked like an ape arm. I noticed he held a rope in his right hand that ran into the plastic bag. He wore latex gloves. He stared straight ahead, stoic, like I wasn’t there. The bag had a funny shape. It was all lumpy and looked like it would fall over if he let go. He must be a janitor—although, most of the janitors in this building were from Mexico. He was definitely not from Mexico. Some gray hair, maybe ex-military…

Suddenly, the bag shifted, tore, and something slipped out. I turned my head and stared. It was an arm. A human arm. A pale, real-deal, human arm. I got dizzy and quickly looked away. I had never seen anything human dead before, but there was no mistaking that arm. It, and whatever it was attached to, was dead.

Wait a minute. Was it real? Was there a whole dead body in that bag? It couldn’t be! If it was, that guy next to me was a killer. Goddamn, with those forearms, he could twist my head off my scrawny neck as easily as cracking open a bottle of beer.

I swallowed hard and looked forward, praying for the elevator to hit the ground floor. The man had leaned over the bag and was now standing arrow straight. I peeked out of the corner of my eye and could no longer see the arm. He must have stuffed it all back into the bag.

I could feel the man’s gaze bore into me. I dared not look. I was frozen in my tracks out of pure fear. There was no place to run and no place to hide. I felt sweat beading on my temples and dripping down the sides of my face.

Isn’t this an awkward moment? the man said. He had an English accent and sounded as if this was simply embarrassing, like I’d caught him picking his nose, or his butt, or something.

What do you mean? I said. My voice rattled like a high-pitched child begging not to be spanked.

The elevator continued its hum as it descended. The number lit above the door read 4. Gallant attempt, Jack.

He knew my name! How the hell did he know that? Was he a mind reader? Then I remembered