Chapter Thirty-Seven - OLIVER
Four hours later Weston Conrad really does look like someone shot him in the head. I went home and got him one of my suits, just to make him look more the Mister part, and he’s just putting the jacket on now and admiring himself in the mirror.
A knock at the door makes us all turn and look. Sparrow enters, her long dark hair the perfect contrast to her bright blue eyes, which are wide in astonishment. “Wow.” She laughs. “If those judges are going for gore, then you’re definitely gonna win, Mr. Conrad.”
We all smile at each other. He does look pretty fucking dead when he closes his eyes. The make-up artist even made his lips slightly blue and his skin an ashen gray.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” Sparrow says. “I could use another actor for the house tonight. It’s crazy. We have a line two blocks down the street and my chainsaw guy called in sick with the flu.”
“Sorry,” I say to Sparrow, going to the door to let her know we need some privacy. “But maybe tomorrow, if West feels like getting made up again. Hey,” I say, thinking of something we forgot to plan. “West wants a picture. Do you think we can borrow some blood and gore to take a realistic picture?”
“Sure,” Sparrow says enthusiastically. “You know what?” she continues, looking at West, who is fixing his black tie. “I can get one of my set designers to help you with that if you want. Is this part of the contest?”
“Yup,” Pax says, joining in. “There’s two contests. One live and one picture.”
“I’d be happy to help you, Weston. Just come downstairs when you’re done and I’ll get it set up.” She leaves and I close the door behind her.
We all grin at each other. Then start laughing.
“This is gonna work,” Pax says.
“It better,” West says, cringing at himself in the mirror. “That fucker had better come clean with everything he knows.”
“Don’t count on it,” Nolan says. “I mean, we should not get cocky here. We’re totally bullshitting him. And he’s not stupid. He’s gonna have lots of questions.”
“Hey,” Mac says. “As long as we get it on TV before Pax calls him, I think we’ll be fine.”
“I think so too,” I say. “OK, you guys finish up the photo. Get lots of them, and make sure you splatter the wall with blood and bone to make it real. Pax and I will go get on the dark market and find ourselves a corrupt reporter.”
“Shouldn’t be hard.” Pax laughs. “You know people are still dying to see us fall. They want us in jail. All we gotta do is implicate ourselves in some dirty shit. Everyone will happy to believe it.”
But neither of us have ever done this before. So I’m not convinced. “Make sure you stay inside when you’re done, West. You can’t go home tonight.”
“What?” he asks.
“Come on,” I say. “You don’t really think that Liam isn’t in town? He is. He’s keeping an eye on us.”
“Then he saw us come in here.”
“Then he needs to see us all leave,” I say. “Give your clothes to some actor downstairs, West. They can leave with Nolan and Mac wearing your clothes, you stay behind. Just down the hall from here is a stairwell that leads to the basement. Stay there until we come get you.”
“I’ll send Cindy over later with food and stuff, OK?” Pax says.
“What are you gonna tell Victoria?” West asks.
“Don’t worry,” I say, feeling his apprehension. He was probably picturing her seeing him dead on the TV tonight. “We’ll take care of everything else. You just play dead and stay out of sight until we get a meeting with Liam. I’ll come back and walk you guys over in a couple hours.”
Pax and I leave, jogging down the same set of stairs I told West to use, but we exit on the ground floor. Sparrow was right. When we get outside there are hundreds of people lining up for the haunted house.
We push our way through and head across to the street to my building. The door is locked when we get there, so I disarm the security system and let us in, then arm it again. We go up to my office and then go through the SCIF room ritual. Once we’re safely inside and everything is locked up tight behind us, I turn the server and computer on.
“OK,” I say, cracking my knuckles. “One dark web reporter coming up.” I look over at Pax and we both wince.
We really have no clue if this will work.
One hour later we have an ad up in six marketplaces and three people have already replied.
“I bet they’re all liars,” Pax says, rubbing his face like he’s stressed.
“Well, we can’t know until we try, right?”
I look at my watch. “I bet they have the picture. I’m gonna go get them and I’ll be back in like fifteen minutes.”
I get up from my stool and Pax takes my place, grunting out his affirmative reply.
When I get to the basement, Nolan, West, and Mac are eating Big City Burritos. West has cleaned all the makeup off his face and the TV is on, tuned to a cable news channel.
“We might have some bites,” I say, entering so they can see me. “Did you get the picture?”
Mac gets up holding his phone out and pulls them up for me to see.
“Holy shit,” I say.
“It’s pretty convincing, huh?” West asks.
It is. It really is. His head looks like a hole has been blown through his brain. There’s even bits of fake skin and bone hanging over one eye and plastered on the wall behind him.
“OK,” I say, looking at West. “Just sit tight. Where did you guys get the food?”
“I went out,” Nolan says, his mouth full of burrito. “I got him water too.”
“OK, well, let’s go. I think this shit is gonna happen pretty quick. You got an actor to play West?”
“He’s upstairs. Some college kid playing usher tonight. We paid him two hundred bucks to change into West’s clothes and walk across the street with us.”
“OK, let’s go.”
We walk back up the stairs, find the actor near the vampire scene, and press two hundred dollars in his hand. “Just follow us,” I say. “When we get to my building across the street, you come in with us and then immediately go out the back and throw that shirt in the dumpster.”
“I’ve got my uniform shirt on underneath it,” the kid says, pulling up the t-shirt West was wearing earlier.
“Perfect,” I say. “Let’s go.”
All that goes off without a hitch and Mac, Nolan, and I end up in the SCIF room a few minutes later, where Pax is laughing up at the TV mounted on the wall as he types.
“What’s going on?” Mac asks.
“These assholes are so fucking greedy,” Pax says.
“How much do they want?” Nolan asks. “What’s a fair price for this kind of thing?”
“Why are you looking at me?” I ask, slightly offended. “This is not my website.”
“I’m just fucking asking, dude. Don’t be a bitch.”
“Thirty grand,” Pax says. “This one wants forty-five.”
“Which one should we choose?” I ask.
“Forty-five fucking grand?” Mac says.
“Who cares about the price,” I say.
“No, dude. We gotta haggle,” Pax says. “Otherwise we won’t be taken seriously. I’m making them prove they really work for the networks they say they do.”
“How?” I ask.
“This guy,” Pax says, pointing to a conversation. “He’s gotta fuck up someone’s mic on live TV. This one is gonna flash the wrong background on the weather report. And this one is gonna have the anchor say some code word I gave him. If he can pull that one off, we’re going with him.”
He’s silent for a few minutes as he types. “OK,” he finally says. “This guy says in the next thirty seconds the live reporter will use the word mysterious.”
We all go silent as Pax turns up the volume.
And yup. Sure enough, that good-looking guy on TV—that upstanding looking citizen who is supposed to report facts and follow a code of ethics that goes back hundreds of years—says our boy’s name.
Pax puts up his hand for a high-five and Nolan gives it back. “Gimme the photos,” he says, refocusing back to the computer. “I’ve already bought fifty thousand dollars in bitcoin. We’re going in, men. Better hold on tight.”
Twenty minutes later that reporter and his associate have a news story people didn’t know they wanted, but won’t be able to take their eyes off.
Mr. Corporate dead from assassination-style killing in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Pax whoops as he stands. “That’s how it’s done, girls. Now let me the fuck out of here, Match. I’ve got a phone call to make.”