Shred of Evidence

I was driving my taxi down the street, eyes open for a fare, any fare, even short haul, because there was nothing coming over the radio from dispatch. The weather was unseasonably warm for that late in the fall; dry too, so there was no rain or cold wind pushing people into cabs. The moon was bright, there was a gentle breeze, and folks were more inclined to enjoy the evening by taking a leisurely stroll to wherever they were going.

I was tuned to 99.5 the Mountain, Denver’s album rock, glad for the company, even if it was only coming from disc jockeys and singers over the airwaves, because that night I may as well have been driving a hearse. I was not a big talker, like some drivers, I was more of a listener. People warmed up to me easily, they got that vibration off me somehow. I got told over and over again, how I was so easy to talk to, and they felt I had a sympathetic ear. That worked in my favor when it came to tips, but I had to get them into my taxi first.

Up ahead I spotted two guys on the corner dressed up like the Blues Brothers: dark suits, white shirts, skinny ties, sunglasses, the whole bit, except one wasn’t thin and one wasn’t fat—they were both Joe Average in build and height. I figured these guys definitely did not look like they were from around here, and I was hoping to score a ride to a hotel downtown, the airport, a movie shoot maybe.

I turned down the radio, getting ready to play the concerned citizen/good Samaritan wondering if he could be of service to these fine gentleman. I could see I’d caught the attention of one of them; he was turning in my direction, holding up his hand for me to stop. That was when the other grabbed him by the lapels, swinging him back to face him, swearing a blue streak. I did not catch what the argument was about before the fists started flying. I’d already put my foot down on the brake, and the taxi remained stopped by the corner as I watched them fight. I should have had the sense to drive on, but I didn’t.

They swung at each other and grappled for a bit before the guy who waved for the cab got the upper hand, pushing the other down to the pavement, serving up a few swift kicks to the ribs then heading in my direction. Before I could react he’d swung open the door and slid into the backseat, breathing heavily. I did not want to get into a fight with the guy, so I pretended I had not seen what I just saw, and asked him, “Where to?” Like he was any other fare.

His reply was “Just drive,” so I turned on the meter and drove. He spent the first five minutes glancing out the back window, like he was expecting pursuit. That made me nervous, putting me in mind of another movie where the main characters dressed like that: the robbers in Reservoir Dogs. Was I catching the tail end of a score gone wrong? What if this guy was really desperate and had a gun?

I was spending nearly as much time glancing in my rearview mirror to keep tabs on him as I was watching the road ahead, bracing myself for the moment when the gun got pulled out and pressed against the back of my head. He was obviously agitated, breathing hard and sweating. What had he and his companion argued about? How high was the danger level? Would my wife catch the bloody end on TV, breaking news cutting into a sitcom rerun or past its prime recycled movie? The kids were already in bed, thank god. Cheryl kept telling me I ought to swallow my pride and ask for my old job back at the hotel. She wanted me to get off the streets because they weren’t safe; there was no telling who I might pick up.

“You know where you’re going yet?” I asked, hoping this might still be as simple as letting him off at a destination of his choosing.

“Go back,” he said in an uncertain voice, after a long pause.

“None of my business, but isn’t that other guy going to want to pick it up where you left off, if you know what I mean?”

“Go around to the back of the building.”

“Drop you in the alley? Sure, if that’s what you want.”

I caught the nod of his head in my rear view mirror. It looked like something was weighing heavy on his mind. I spun the wheel, pulling a smooth U-turn back in the direction we’d just come from. I was all for dropping him in that alley and getting the hell away from whatever bombs were ticking in this neighborhood.

“I’m not a bad person,” he said, in a tone of voice that sounded like it fell far short of even convincing him of the fact, never mind me.

I pretended I had not heard, trying to look as if I was totally focused on the road. He went on talking anyway, as if my apparent invisibility was on par with the priest concealing himself behind the screen of the confessional—there was no doubt he was still there listening.

“I should have known better than to let myself get mixed up in this, but it sounded like such easy money, and it was a chance to act. I’m an actor, see; and it’s a tough business to get a break into, but if it’s in your blood what else are you supposed to do? The stage calls out, a role is there to be filled, the audience waiting for you: watching, listening, hanging on your every word.

“If you can get past the audition, that is. This other actor I’d met a few times, at auditions we both got turned down for, bumped into me in the street one day. He offered to buy me a cup of coffee, tell me about a fantastic opportunity he’d lucked into, and maybe he could hook me up if I was interested, because they still needed people.

“This guy was beaming. Well-fed and dressed sharp, with plenty of money to spend, clearly he was on a roll. I was expecting to hear about some cozy infomercial gig he’d tapped into, and I was ready to sign on no questions asked; to hell with prime time and doing the talk show circuits, a decent paycheck for even acting the fool would do.”

In my rearview mirror I could see him shaking his head, a wry smile crossing his lips on account of how it had turned out in the end.

“Chad was very mysterious about it, said he couldn’t tell me what we’d be doing unless I made it past the audition, which he could set up for me if I was interested. What he could tell me beforehand was how much money I would be making for every gig I did, usually not more than half an hours work—not including traveling time because we got sent to do jobs all over the country. I figured what the hell, I’d give it a try.

“Turned out the audition was three improv pieces. I worked with different partners each time but the basic idea was the same: my partner and I were Men in Black showing up on someone’s doorstep. We were given a few ‘facts’ about the person we were confronting, ‘facts’ we were supposed to use to unnerve and unbalance the person we were visiting without ever letting them clarify why exactly we were there or what we wanted, keep them from calling the police, and leave abruptly. The timeframe for each improv was minimum fifteen, maximum twenty-five minutes.

“You do know what I mean by Men in Black, don’t you? Those mysterious guys who are supposed to show up on your doorstep if you’ve seen a UFO or something Way Out There, and no one knows if they’re from some shadowy government agency, or another planet, maybe even a different dimension?”

“Yeah, I get it. And judging by the outfits, you two were on the job tonight.”

“Me and Blundell? That’s right. He’s an asshole by the way.”

“I figured there had to be a bad guy in all of this,” I told him, but the intended irony was lost on him.

“Blundell? He’s just an asshole; Kuebler is the Bad Guy, the brains behind it all. I can’t believe they strung me along this far, played me and used me.”

“Sounds like the money may have had something to do with it, and a large helping of willful denial,” I said, deciding this guy was way more of a danger to himself than he was to me.

“I know I shoulder my fair share of the blame, but tonight I had enough, and that was what Blundell and I were fighting about. This is wrong, and I’m done with it.”

“If you really want to make things right, don’t you think it would be better if I drove you to a police station?”

“By now Blundell has called Kuebler. All traces of anything incriminating that I know of will be long gone before the police could start an investigation, it’s really a job for the FBI but I doubt anyone in law enforcement will actually look into it. Someone’s probably already in my apartment in L.A. planting evidence to discredit me, just in case I’m stupid enough to talk.

“If I walked into a police station right now, and told them what I know, their first reaction would probably be here’s a crackpot spouting conspiracy theories. Wouldn’t take much effort on Kuebler’s part to make that impression stick. Trying to explain how I was being set up would only dig me deeper.”

“No wonder, you make it sound like these guys are the Men in Black.”

“And I haven’t even got to the part where it all starts with a phone call to Outer Space.”

“How about I drop you right here and forget about the fare, you’re practically there.”

“Drive on, I’ve changed my mind, I’ll go back to see Henning later. You’re probably right about Blundell still being there. Meter’s running, so this won’t be a waste of your time, and I might feel better if I can tell someone the whole story, even of it’s only you.”

So now this guy wanted to tell me the whole damn story, like I hadn’t already heard enough for one night. I did not even groan or roll my eyes, I felt like I should’ve seen it coming; on account of that vibe people got from me—how I was such a good listener. Definitely my cross to bear in this instance, so I tried to think about the money instead, at least the night would not be a total loss.

I hung a left and picked up speed, thinking about Blundell maybe circling around while he waited for my fare to return to the scene of the crime, spotting us in the cab and opening fire. I did not need that sort of excitement and I did not care how slim the chance was of him spotting us, I was going to get out of that part of town as quickly as possible.

“You ever see those ads about making phone calls to outer space?” he asked me.

“What ads?”

“Maybe you flip by them without noticing, but a lot of people go for it, even at $5.00 a minute. That’s what you get charged to have your phone call relayed into space via a parabolic satellite dish.”

“Why would anyone bother, and who would they expect to call them back?”

“Aliens I suppose. Someone out there more developed than we are, superior enough to have the answers to problems we can’t solve by ourselves.”

“But no one has ever actually got a call back, have they?”

“Not as far as I know, but people keep calling out. I suppose they like the idea enough to defy the odds and pay the price, see what happens; or they willfully suspend their disbelief and play it like a game. Some just use it as way to vent or unburden themselves of things weighing heavy on their mind. They send it off into outer space like we used to dump toxic waste into the ocean.”

“$5.00 a minute?”

“That’s what E. T. Tel charges. A company owned by Mr. Kuebler. Aside from the obvious concern that the system used can only guarantee good reception within a distance of two light-years, when there are more than four light-years between Earth and the nearest star, certain people will end up paying a much higher price than $5.00 an hour for their calls.

“That’s because Mr. Kuebler records every call, so that flunkeys can sift through all the drivel to find opportunities he might profit from. He looks for trees worth shaking and sends us out to do the shaking; there’s a different level that takes it from there and another that handles the finish. Kuebler keeps it compartmentalized into cells to protect himself.”

“What do you mean, trees worth shaking?”

“The ones who use the call to outer space as a means to unburden themselves of a guilty secret. The ones who express hidden doubts, yearnings, regrets, shame, whatever Kuebler can use to play them. He likes the profit it makes him, but he loves the game itself much more, he really gets off on knowing their vulnerabilities and screwing with their heads. He’s a seriously twisted prick. Pray he never takes notice of you.”

There was a lot in this story to digest, and I was doing my best to choke it down as we drove past a park where couples lingered on benches, enjoying the evening, oblivious to the taxi going by and everything being said in it.

“But why bother hiring out-of-work actors to play Men in Black?” I asked, “I really don’t get that part, it sounds like unnecessary theatrics; why doesn’t he just send some thugs down to threaten them with what he knows—blackmail, pure and simple?”

“If it was just flat out blackmail then someone eavesdropping on calls at E.T. Tel would be the obvious culprit. With the appearance of the Men in Black anything is possible. Not only does it come at the mark out of left field, catching them by surprise, putting them off balance, it also discourages police involvement because they know how crazy it would sound.

“I’m only supposed to know the part I play, but I’ve picked up enough pieces here and there to get a sense of the big picture. Where the pay off comes for Kuebler is not in hush money from the callers, that would be too simple and straightforward for him; he peddles their influence, access, or knowledge to whoever might stand to gain from it. He maintains the Men in Black theme all the way through, mysterious and ominous, deliberately surreal, so the mark doesn’t realize how they’re being used.”

“You’re telling the wrong person, ” I said, “And too late in the day, I’m sorry to say. I’m just a taxi driver; you needed to be speaking to the FBI before blowing your cool with Blundell, when they still could’ve put a wire on you to verify this crazy shit and shut that bastard down.”

“I know. I blew it. They’ll probably find a way to kill me, and make the death look like an accident or a suicide. All I can really do is go back and try to warn Henning.”

“Henning?”

“Cole Henning, the drummer for the Analysts; he’s the guy we paid a visit to tonight, at the building where you picked me up.”

“That building? One of the guys from the Analysts lives there? I mean, it’s not like it’s a dive but didn’t they make a ton of cash before the guitarist died in that freak accident? You’d think he could afford better accommodations, and would be living somewhere like Manhattan or Malibu.”

“He decided to move here two years ago. He’s expecting New York and Los Angeles to be flooded when the ice caps melt, figures Denver will still be above water. As for the money he made with the Analysts, he gave most of it away to charity. Since the band broke up he’s been keeping a real low profile.”

“So what could your boss possibly wring out of him then? I don’t get it. What kind of mark is he?”

“The death of Nick Kovasevic hit Henning hard; those two were best friends since kindergarten, they were really close. The rest of the band wanted to find a new guitar player and go on, but he refused to be a part of it, feeling it would be a betrayal of his best friend, an insult to his memory. After a lot of arguing they were going to replace Henning too, except he threatened legal action if they tried to record or tour as the Analysts, without him and Nick.

“The lead singer went solo but his first album was a disappointment and the second was an outright embarrassment. The bass player got caught up in the poker wave, using his celebrity status to buy his way into high stakes games where he lost big. Everyone but Henning wants the Analysts to get back together again: the singer, the bass player, the record company, and the fans.”

“So what? If Henning won’t budge, it’s not going to happen. These reunion tours are complicated; if everyone isn’t onboard it can get tied up in the courts forever.”

“My guess is Kuebler figures he can push Henning back on board, and he’s already cut a deal with the band or the record company, or both. Judging by what Blundell and I were given to work with, I’d say Nick was heavy on his mind when Henning made a call into outer space, imagining that his old friend might actually hear him.

“He talked about a lot of things only he and Nick would know about, so if a couple of Men in Black showed up, dropping bits of privileged information here and there, along with scripting designed specifically to push your buttons, then you might wonder if forces beyond your control might be calling the shots and you better go along.”

“So why go back and try to undo this?” I asked him, “What makes you think you even can? What if your explanation just spins his head around even more, so he doesn’t know what to believe? What if you confuse him enough that he loses faith in everything and does something stupid: a deliberate overdose, a swan dive off the balcony, slits his wrists in the bathtub?”

“Oh god, I never thought of that…but surely even suicide would be better than if Kuebler got his way.”

“How could you possibly say that?” I asked, too exasperated to keep my cool any longer. I swerved over to the curb and jammed the brakes, we screeched to a halt. I threw my arm over the back of the seat and glared at him.

“None of those other people we visited meant anything to me, they were strangers I’d never heard of before, but this is the Analysts we’re talking about here. Their music speaks to me; it’s a part of who I am. The way this plays out could forever change how they’re remembered. Reuniting with a replacement for Kovasevic could be a disaster. The whole band dynamic is skewed without his genius, and Henning is confused and fragile. I don’t know if I could live with being partly responsible for that.”

I thought about pointing out how previous jobs he’d been on may have compromised our national security, resulted in the approval of pharmaceuticals before they had been adequately tested, protected lawbreakers from prosecution, lead to massive lay-offs, ruined reputations and put an end to careers. There may have even been a few suicides before the final curtain fell, but looking into his eyes I could see there was no point in bothering. For whatever it was worth, the fate of a pop group was what it took to hit a nerve in him.

“Get out of the car,” I said, “Just go and do whatever it is you think you have to do, but I’m done here. Let me go pick up a normal person.”

“But I need your help with this. You’ve got to go up there and talk to him. You’re a regular guy, straight up, no bullshit—he’ll believe it if it comes from you. If I go back up there he’ll just figure I’m screwing with his head some more.”

“No way. Your mess, you clean it up.”

“But you were the guy who said he might do something drastic. What if you open up tomorrow’s newspaper and find out that Cole Henning killed himself? Do you want that on your head?”

“I’m a taxi driver, okay? That’s all I am. Not a psychiatrist or a policeman, not Bono or David Blaine, not a cowboy or a spaceman either. You do whatever you think you have to do, but I’m done here. Get out of the car.”

He gave up on looking at me with those sad begging eyes, when he could see how unmoved I was by his attempt at laying a guilt trip on me. He shrugged it off in an offhand way that reminded me he was an actor—not a particularly good one, but an actor nonetheless. I was just an audience he wanted to move, and the usual tricks were not working. Halfway out the door he paused and spoke again.

“I’ll probably be dead within the next twenty four hours anyway, so what do I care? Either he believes me or it pushes him over the edge, either way I die knowing the Analysts won’t reunite because of what I did tonight.”

Then he was out of the car and walking away, leaving that behind for me to chew on. He’d left the back door open too, asshole. I stomped on the gas pedal, getting the door to swing shut on its own from the momentum. I kept up the speed for three blocks, eager to put some distance between he and I, but I could not get past what he said. Fucking actor, always with the drama, convinced the World needed to be saved from a potentially flawed reunion of the Analysts, and he was going to do it by any means necessary.

How could he not make a mess of this? He was so obviously the wrong person to go back to talk to Henning, especially after they had just done a Men in Black number on him. I got to thinking I should have kept my cool, made the bad actor stay put in the car, and agreed to go see Henning. All I would’ve had to do was go in the building, ride the elevator up and down a couple of times, then come out and tell him I talked to Henning, even though I hadn’t bothered. He would have bought it, and left feeling he was off the hook.

Could’ve been that easy, but instead I blew it. I should have never let him walk away like that, all primed to do something rash. I pulled another quick U-turn and headed back at high speed, not worried about getting a cop on my tail, sort of hoping for it actually, considering the circumstances. I did not expect the presence of the police to sort any of this out, but I did figure it would throw a wet blanket on anyone geared up to get out of hand, Blundell included.

I double parked outside the building and ran inside, hoping it was not too late to catch up to the actor and talk him out of this. Halfway to the elevator I realized I had no idea which floor Henning was on, or what apartment. A quick scan of the mailboxes in the lobby told me what I needed to know and I headed up the stairs as fast as I could run, assuming the actor would be on his way up the elevator by now, and maybe—just maybe I could head him off at the pass.

When I got up to the right floor the hallway was empty. I found Henning’s door. It was closed. I pressed my ear up to it and listened. No voices, no music, nothing. I crossed to the door on the opposite side of the hall, pressed my ear to it and listened. I could hear the murmur of conversation blended with faint background music—probably a TV program; enough to prove the places were not soundproof, and if the actor was in Henning’s apartment yanking his chain again, there would’ve been enough noise going on to tell.

I waited out in the hall for a while, in case it was only quiet because the awful deed was already done and the actor was in shock at what he’d wrought, cycling a scene from Macbeth or some other Shakespearean play over and over in his head. I would have stopped him if he tried to leave, I would have held him till the police arrived, but no one came out, and when I looked at my watch I realized I’d already been there for almost an hour.

So it seemed much more likely that the actor had been all talk and no action, buggering off to look after his own skin, and I figured I ought to do the same. When I got back down to the street there were no famous musicians splattered on the pavement, and my cab had not been ticketed or towed, so I counted my blessings and called it a night. Why bother burning the gas, if the fares weren’t there to pick up? The shift would’ve likely been a write-off anyway, even if I’d stuck it out.

Besides, I was looking forward to getting back while Cheryl was still awake. Back home, to my relatively uncomplicated life. Where I could tell her I’d come back early because of her, that she was my one and only, my anchor, my true love, my safe harbor when seas were stormy. If by the end of the month I couldn’t catch up on what I did not make tonight there would probably be a few bill collectors calling about late payments but at least there were no Men in Black knocking at my door, and I knew I could talk to my wife about my problems if it came to that, instead of picking up the phone in a moment of weakness and dialing outer space.

When I pulled up I could see the lights were still on, and that gave me such a lift. I was up the walk and through the door in record time. We almost collided in the hall. I could see she looked alarmed, probably worried I was home early because something was wrong. I was so glad to see Cheryl, I just pulled her close and hugged her tight, feeling reassured again by the smell of her, the feel of something right after witnessing so much that was wrong. Took a minute or two for me to realize she was not murmuring sweet nothings into my ear, telling me how much she loved me, she was murmuring because she was really rattled.

“…and these guys dressed in black suits, who showed up out of nowhere, were asking all sorts of strange questions about you. I didn’t know what to do…”

The rest of what she had to say got cut off by a pounding on the door I’d just walked in through. A pounding like your landlord was round because the rent was late, or the police had to ask some hard questions. When I opened the door it was the police, not my landlord, but I knew that already—because the rent was paid.

“Are you James Jeffrey Jackson?” the plainclothes detective asked, flanked by two policemen in uniform.

“Yes, I am.”

“Then I need you to come out and open up the trunk of the cab you drive.”

I stood there for a moment, my mind racing.

“Why’s that?” I asked, but I had already figured out there was a dead body in there. Blundell murdered his partner when he came back, and I left my cab double parked where he could stuff the body in the trunk, killing two birds with one stone. I was just going to have to play dumb on this one and hope for the best, what else was I going to do…tell them about the phone calls to outer space?