Chapter #14Piled Higher and Deeper by: Seuzz   As you loft the last sandbag into the back of your truck, you give thanks—for about the fiftieth time tonight—for having copied Carlos Montoya into a mask. There is no freaking way you'd have got this part of the job done this quickly and this painlessly without putting yourself in his mask.
YouTube video reviewer, busboy, ditch digger ... Carlos has done a little bit of everything since entering high school. It was the latter experience that warned you not to underestimate the amount of time it would take to fill eighty sandbags with dirt, and certainly not to underestimate how hard it would be. And you're glad that he has put on some muscle and given himself some stamina over the past year, because even after pacing yourself you feel exhausted by the job.
The graveyard you raided is the old Masonic Cemetery on Farm Road, near the river. You killed your head lamps after driving in to it and prowled all the way back to the corner farthest from the major roads. You didn't waste time, and went to work on the nearest grave.
You started by cutting out and removing the turf, then digging into the soft, loamy earth beneath. Much to your relief you did not have to dig very deep at all, and when you decided that the hole was getting uncomfortably large, you chopped away some more turf and spread your effort wider. You worked slowly, but the night air was warm and close, so you wound up tossing your shirt aside. Then, since your unbuttoned shorts were drooping, you cast them off too, and finished the job dressed only in boxers, socks and shoes.
The part of you that is Carlos Montoya preened a little at that.
So you weren't too exhausted when you cinched up the last sack. Five hundred pounds, not four hundred, is what you loft into the back of the truck, just to be on the safe side. You remind yourself to buy a set of kitchen scales tomorrow so you can be sure that you measure out enough but not too much for the spell.
It's still an hour before your curfew, so you make it out to the storage complex in plenty of time. Customers aren't supposed to enter after ten, but Carlos's code gets you in the gate—and his face will show on the camera, if anyone inquires about it. With the help of a handcart it only takes you three trips to transport all the supplies for the next spell down to the bay where Carlos put Erik's duffel bag; you shift things around so as to make room for your stuff, then hide it again by moving boxes back into position.
"What did you do all day?" your dad asks when you're back home and on your way up to your room. You haven't seen him since breakfast.
"Oh, hung out with guys, did stuff," you tell him. He frowns in a distracted manner, but says nothing else as you mount the stairs to your room.
* * * * *
You'd love to sleep in the next morning, but it's Sunday and you have to get up early to shower and dress in itchy trousers and shirt. Robert is a pest on the drive out, but the low point comes when your cell phone goes off right in the middle of the service, which earns you a very black look from your father. "So I forgot to turn it off!" you exclaim on the drive home. "No one ever texts me on a Sunday morning!"
Because usually it's only Caleb or Keith who are texting you, and neither of them are ever awake before noon on a Sunday.
But it looks like you've made yourself some new friends. Mike Hollister wants to know if you'd like to come out that afternoon to watch something with him and Carlos. maybe do a video for it for ex cr for your film class? hint hint, he adds.
Well, sure you can, and you tell him so. After lunch, you go up to your bedroom to put on Carlos's brain-band, then head out for an afternoon at the movies.
Mike and Carlos are already there, and Philip Fairfax joins you just a few minutes later. Fairfax is a computer/science brain, and he looks the part in his white t-shirt, khaki trousers, and black-framed glasses. He's not especially interested in movies, and his part in the YouTube effort mostly consists of running equipment while his friends horse around in front of it. But he was intrigued by this week's offering so he is sitting in on it with you. His expression shows bemused curiosity as the TV springs to life.
It's a cult movie from the 1970s that Mike and Carlos have chosen: Picnic at Hanging Rock. At any other time you'd have cut your own head off to get out of watching it: It's an Australian movie, set more than a hundred years ago, about some school girls that go missing, which is the kind of thing that's about as far as you can get from the comic book movies that you prefer to frequent. It is also incredibly quiet and incredibly slow, and it doesn't make a lick of sense.
But you're wearing Carlos's brain-band, so you know it by reputation and are prepared for the worst, and as the film drools across the screen like cold molasses you shut your own brain off and let Carlos do your thinking for you. And he's intrigued—titillated even—by the hints of rampant lesbianism and by the eerie mood. When four girls in their white frocks, in slow motion, walk around a boulder and disappear from view, even as one of a classmate screams wordlessly at them, you and Carlos at the same time let out an awestruck, "Whoa!"
The movie is only two-thirds over, though, when you are distracted by the sound of desk drawers opening and closing. "Dude, what are you doing?" Mike asks. "Dude," he repeats when Carlos says nothing.
Then the lights come on and everyone turns to look at Carlos. His eyes are very wide, and he is frowning deeply. "The cash," he says, and pulls open the left-hand drawer. "I can't find it."
"What are you looking for it for?" Mike says. You keep your own expression carefully neutral.
"I'm not looking for it! I was just getting something out and I noticed it was gone!" His brow furrows. "Did you move it somewhere?"
Mike raises his hands. "I don't touch it, 'cos I don't want you freaking out on me!"
"I'm not freaking out! I just want to know—" Carlos slams the drawer shut, then rapidly ransacks the others.
Philip stops the playback on the TV. "When was the last time you saw it?" he asks in a calm, almost flat voice.
"I don't fucking know! I don't get into it 'cos we're trying to save up for—"
The others start talking over him, telling him to calm down, which only riles Carlos up further. He shuts them up, though, when he slams his palm on the desktop. "Keith!" he says. "That fifty dollars I gave him the other day, that he says he—!" He flushes deeply, so that his face almost turns purple. "Fucker!"
Maybe it's conscience, or maybe you just like screwing with Carlos, but you jump in here so he won't drop all the blame unfairly on Tilley.
"This money you're talking about," you say. "Is it the stash you used to pay for those burgers when I was out here the other day?" Carlos only blinks at you. "Remember? I came out to look at the storage units, and then you gave me some money to go out and buy some food 'cos we were gonna watch something?"
"Yeah," Mike says. "When was that? Thursday?"
"Something like that," Carlos says. You don't like that he has fixed a very steady gaze on you.
"Yeah, we watched the old Clash of the Titans," Mike says.
"Was this before or after you gave that fifty to Keith?" Fairfax asks.
"After," Carlos says. He is still staring at you, and his expression darkens.
"Did you see the money after that?" Fairfax asks.
Carlos's eyes narrow on you. Then he jerks the drawer open again and puts his hand inside it. His frown deepens.
"You gave me some money," you prompt him. "You got it out of an envelope. Did you put it back?"
"Probably," Carlos mutters.
"And I went I got the burgers, but then I had to go home, so I gave them to Philip and Mike when I ran into them outside. Right?" you ask them. They nod.
Carlos sinks back in his chair. "Right. Then Saturday—"
But you don't listen as he reconstructs the weekend. It's enough that you've convinced him of your alibi: You couldn't have stolen the money, since he still had it in the desk after the last time you left. And neither could Keith, since he was banished days before that.
He and the other two talk about it, with Philip trying to get Carlos to walk through everything he did since Friday afternoon. It kills any hope of watching the rest of the movie—which doesn't exactly ruin your day—and when Carlos storms out of the unit, saying he's going to go look at the security footage, Mike tells you that you might as well leave.
"I hope you guys find it," you tell him. "How much is missing?"
"Close to five hundred dollars," Mike says.
"Whew! I'd be really pissed too if someone took something like that much off of me!" you agree.
* * * * *
At home you glue Keith's brain-band into his mask so that you'll have a complete Tilley disguise (should you ever want one), and give some thought to the next stage in your plan: getting a storage unit at Top Shelf.
You could rent one under your own name. That would be easiest. Alternately, you could use your Keith disguise.
But you could also use Carlos's own knowledge of the complex to find and use an empty bay. That would save you at least a hundred dollars.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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