Havana or Hell, part six
#6 of Havana or Hell
XI
Kendall Duran's company, EnDurance Games was registered to an address in Warrington, fifty miles west of Oakfort. I searched the Internet for the address of anyone named Kendall Duran, and found three by that name. One had a dentistry practice in Nerton, another was a real-estate agent from Padstoke, but the third shared address with EnDurance Games. Duran, it seemed, had worked from home. Alone, or with Bill Holman.
I drove to Warrington and arrived at Kendall Duran's 1940s bungalow. Here I parked my car in an abandoned barn close to the property. Both the front and back garden were overgrown with bishop's weed, nettles and elderberry trees - a clear sign of the owner taking only a marginal interest in gardening. I was alone on the property with no neighbors in the immediate vicinity. Off the gravel path, a gray resin zombie was clawing its way through the topsoil. Genuine, hand-detailed eyes were turned skyward and its mouth was frozen agape in a Tor Johnson grimace. I recognized the figure from an in-flight issue of Sky Mall. The figure looked large and impressive in the catalog, but in reality it was closer to a micro-cephalic midget losing a tug of war with mother earth.
So where did you put the North American cougar resin statue? I thought.The one that will crouch in your garden to surprise and delight your visitors with his stunning realism?
I found him thirty feet further up the path, where his phosphorescent green gaze casually greeted the uninvited guest who now approached the locked front door. I felt an almost guilt-ridden obligation to ring the doorbell. I knew Duran was dead, but I was still trespassing on his property. Irritated, I stomped the ground. Coming this far only to face a locked door under the resinated scrutiny of a zombie and a plastic panther was frustration from concentrate.
So, do I break a window or what? I pondered, and looked around for a suitable rock for the job. Then I recognized it, and laughed out loud. It was the $10 Hide-a-key realistic rock. Another timeless heirloom from Sky Mall. So realistic it looks like any other rock in the garden -provided they are also cast in gray resin. Here was one guy, who made most of his shopping from the comfort of an airplane seat. I retrieved the key from the fake rock and let myself into the home of an avid collector of games. Shelves were stacked with piles of board games, volume upon volume of role-playing systems, and cartridges from discontinued consoles. Two computer games had recently been unwrapped and lay on the kitchen table, still in their original shrink wrap: Action 52 for the NES system and Plumbers don't wear Ties for the Panasonic 3DO. Both sought-after collectors' items, but the consoles for playing them were nowhere to be found in Duran's house. He struck me as a man who was driven by an obsessive attention to detail, while being tugged along by sudden and impulsive whims. Two of his own games, Terra Nova and, Bombs over Baghdad were piled on top of a shelving system next to dusty stacks of National Geographic and the faded instruction booklet for Droid Disaster. "An exciting game for two, by K. Duran." Every game he ever invented was credited to himself as the sole creator. Only in the case of_Future Battalion_ did he share credit with someone else. I needed to find out who Bill Holman was, and why his assistance was necessary. My mind was racing with questions. I was getting nowhere and I was trespassing without a warrant. I was overcome by a sudden flash of nausea and my vision dimmed. Another episode, I realized, this time with some disinterest. I had gotten so used to the sudden onset of psychotic breaks over the past few days, they were almost second nature to me now and I decided to roll with it. The noise of tires on gravel reached my ears, and when I looked out of the window a black BMW pulled up to the house. Three men in matching suits and crew-cuts got out. They scouted around. One of the men lit a cigarette and stayed by the car, while the two others passed through the front door without opening it. Yep! I thought. I'm hallucinating a-gogo. The visions were not scary or threatening. In fact, they seemed entirely disinterested in me. I've always found it scary as fuck when a hallucination moves right into your face and disappears, so I quietly moved out of their path whenever they got too close. The two men flitted in and out of the rooms in the house examining everything, while I watched. Part of the time they were solid to watch, and at other times I could see right through them. It was like watching a faded VHS being projected onto reality. One of the men opened a wooden cabinet and took out a red ring binder. He browsed through the papers inside and his mouth moved, as if he was saying something. The other man joined him and nodded, and then they left the way they came, carrying the ring binder.
Slowly, the veil of nausea lifted and my vision cleared. I slumped in a chair to catch my breath and think things through. With the hallucinations gone, I was able to continue my investigation. The wooden cabinet was for real. It was in Duran's study, next to his PC and still closed. I was curious to see what was inside. Maybe I should have been surprised when I discovered the red ring-binder inside, but it felt only natural that it existed in reality. I don't know what I had expected to find in the binder; something marvelous I was sure. Maybe even the missing photos. But all the binder contained was a bunch of monthly bank statements going back two years. Duran had received royalties for his games every six months, in December and July, and his spending pattern was simple. Most of his daily shopping was done at a local supermarket in Warrington. The only thing that stood out was a series of large sums being transferred to an account registered to Van Scoyk Enterprises. The first transfers was for a hundred Dollars, but over the next months, the money transfers grew more frequent, and the sum increased until they reached several thousand dollars every month, right up to the last statement posted two weeks before the games-con in Oakfort. At this point, his account was almost drained. At his current expenditure, Duran would have gone bankrupt within two or three months.
Was he being blackmailed, I wondered. 4G reception was decent in the area, so I did a GOOGLE search for Van Scoyk Enterprises on my smart-phone. The company showed up as the registrant for almost twenty websites: Mi Amigo Cash Casino, Atlantis Winnings, Champion Casino, Surefire Bets among others -all of them were sites related to betting and casinos. Kendall Duran wasn't just a reclusive games designer - he was a compulsive gambler.
I returned to searching for the five missing photographs. But where to begin? The bungalow had only two bedrooms, but the place was cluttered with game pieces and cheap collectibles. Searching through this mess would take weeks. I searched in the lampshades, I searched the fridge and the shaving cabinet. I pulled out the sock drawer, looked under the pillows and poked into the trashcan, with no success. I finally slumped into the desk chair in front of Duran's computer screen. Kendall Duran might have been a brilliant games designer, but he was driven by impulse and by the looks of it, he had a mind that wandered all over the place. Always forgetful, he kept a notebook in his desk drawer where he wrote down reminders to his online passwords. Kendall cycled through three passwords only. Frustratingly, he didn't spell them out, but penned down hints, only he could relate to. Thus his password to streaming services like Spotify and NETFLIX was hinted at with the reminder "smiles." All web addresses linking to social media shared the common password hint: "Horse." Maybe he once had a horse. Maybe he made a fortune betting on one - or maybe he'd lost one. Maybe he had a heroin habit. The clues were as impenetrable as his mindset and I was growing certain I was running in circles and wasting precious time.
The last entry on the list was the single word: "Genesis!" Just a single word with no web addresses attached. Could this be where he had hidden the photos? I knew of two meanings of the word genesis only; it was a book in the bible and the name of a seventies rock group. Sure, you could slip a handful of photos into a CD case, or you could hide them in between the page of a bible. But I had seen neither a bible or a music collection during my search. I glanced over his living room once again, on the verge of giving up. This was stupid. I didn't need his damn schematics and I didn't want to get caught trespassing on some random stranger's property. But something had happened over the course of those last few days. Something I wanted to get to the bottom of. A creator had died, and a demon stumbled into life in an Oakfort back alley. Somehow I got myself mixed up in both events. There's a first for everything. Your first unstable shift, your first fumbling sexual encounter, your first hint at success, your firstborn. Then it struck me. Duran's Genesis was not a reference to God or Gabriel, but to the launch of his own career. I rushed to the cluttered table and grabbed the Droid Disaster manual. I recalled Mike's words. A game without the rule-book, is only a box of plastic. It wasn't difficult to find the box. It was up there on the top shelf, sandwiched in between his other games. I tore the box open, and there they were; the remaining five photographic negatives. Dull and unimpressive to look at, but their contents were worth a killing. I pocketed the negatives and returned the ring binder to the cabinet. In that moment I heard a noise, the same noise I'd already heard, only minutes ago - that of car tires on gravel. I peeked out of the window, and saw the black BMW I had hallucinated pulling up - but this time it was for real, and so were the people inside.
I had fifteen seconds to act, while the three men got out of the vehicle, looked around and the driver lit himself a cigarette. Fifteen seconds later they would be inside the house with me. I made a quiet escape through the rear door and kept low in the bushes behind the house. From their first visit, I knew the men would stay inside for seven minutes before leaving by the front door, and I knew that I'd be safe in the backyard. Once they had driven off, I returned to Kendall's study and checked the cabinet. This time the ring binder was missing, and I realized that what I had seen was no hallucination. My guardian demons had shown me future events, minutes before they happened.
XII
Did the... wand contain anything?
The words of Dr Burris echoed in my mind. Only Burris had shown any interest in the drinking flask, and its contents. Somehow he knew the schematics were up for sale, and he knew I had held them in my hands - if only for a few second. But he didn't know what to look for. So I decided to pay him a visit in his private practice. It was set up in a nondescript building near the harbor in Oakfort, where property is cheap. It's a rough neighborhood and not the most obvious place to set up a fancy medical practice. I double checked the business card he'd given me. A. Burris, Dr. Psych, Maritime Rd 31; Suite 502, and a telephone number. No email and no website. I climbed the staircase, but only made it to the third step before reality began to slip. Queasy, dreamlike and dark; my episodes always start like this, and I rested my forehead against the wall, trying to collect my thoughts.
I had swallowed a handful of Olanzapine and Kisantex before coming here, to keep the voices quiet. But now I was having second thoughts. Annoying and intrusive as they were, Karen and the General had shown themselves to be on my side. They had helped me at the con and in Duran's house. They saw things I could not. Past and future was open to them, but they sure had their issues getting the messages across. Maybe I had been too eager to shut them up, now that the case was getting warm. I hated to admit it, but right now I could sure use their company.
Sorry guys. I shouldn't have shut you up. I thought, and stuck two fingers down my throat. I vomited violently on the linoleum floor, where half dissolved tablets floated around like sandy islands in a sea of coffee and bile. With the meds out of my system, I soon felt my two guardian demons stirring in the back of my mind.
Show me what I'm getting myself into.
Slowly I began to see the outline of people. First only as moving shadows out of the corner of my eye. Then, one by one they solidified and invaded my field of vision. Serious looking men in dark suits coming and going, some carrying electronic equipment and devices with microphones and antennas, and all wearing short haircuts and long ties. A steady stream of shadowy government people went about their business paying me no attention. This one is new, I thought and made a brief stop on the second landing. I had never experienced my hallucinations to be this easy to control. Usually I'll just see something standing lifeless in a corner, or maybe the stray cat scaling my wall. Everything about this was novel, so I followed the busy people as they climbed the stairs. The stream of people continued all the way to the fifth floor. They poured in and out of one particular door, never bothering to open it before they passed through. The sign on the door read "502. A. Burris, MD." I couldn't help smiling. Was it coincidence my visions all pointed to my intended destination?
I didn't even bother to knock before entering. Dr. Burris looked slightly surprised, as if my timing was off. He shook my hand with pretend enthusiasm and pointed to a leather chair. I smelled alcohol on his breath. It wasn't the rounded scent of yesterday's drink that he had just burped. The scent was sharp and fresh; he'd been drinking only moments ago. His handshake was firm but slightly sweaty.
I inspected the office from my chair while Burris took out a manila folder from the top drawer in his desk. My journal was on the top of the pile. Apparently I was his only client. The practice was as clean as his patient file. He had a bookcase in his office, but no sandboxes, no miniature figurines, plushies or ink blots. Nothing here to inspire the imagination, nothing to play around with. The whole office was as generic as a movie set. It was too perfect, too stereotypical and too neutral. I didn't need any voices to tell me that this was a setup.