Excerpt From A Prison for Identities

A selection from A Prison for Identities, the opening story in my e-book, Slow Machine and Other Tales of Suspense and Danger. Get it now at the Amazon Kindle Store!
A PRISON FOR IDENTITIES

“Damn you, Gem, I’ve come here three straight nights to meet you and you never showed up. You let me down, girl.”
Ed was angry and he wanted Gem to know it. He slouched in his chair in the bank office tower food court. From his side of the table, Gem looked like she didn’t care, brushing back her long dark hair and smiling that funny smile of hers that seemed, in spite of its brightness, to say “go to hell.” She sat upright in her chair, her partially unbuttoned blouse displaying her ample cleavage that looked as inviting as ever. He knew, though, not to look, not tonight.
“I had other things on the go, Ed.”
“Like?”
“My mother. Remember? She had a heart attack a few months ago and I have to look after her. I’m all she’s got. She’s hit a rough spot and I had to stay with her in case she needed to go to the hospital. And I told you if I couldn’t make it the first night you should keep coming back here every night during the week ‘till I showed up. That’s what I did, right? I’m here now.”
Ed shook his head and glanced at the store across the concourse from them. A neon sign announced in stylized letters that the place was called Dawn Star. It looked like it sold art work, and damn crazy-looking stuff it was, too. What were those things in the front window? Little statues? His stomach tightened with disgust, mixed with hunger. When did he last eat? Almost a day ago?
“You know Gem, look at that stupid store over there.”
Her big brown eyes narrowed. “What about it? What’s that gotta do with us?”
He nodded at the display in the store’s front window. “Plenty. It’s for people who want to waste money on stupid things. Look at those weird statues in the window. They look like little men, little three-foot high men, and they got no faces. Just blank stone. And the paintings on the walls. Just squares and rectangles, some of them black or white or orange or whatever. I mean, what’s it gotta do with anything? It’s like you. You always gotta go on about things that aren’t important.”
“You mean my mother isn’t important, Ed?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. You pushed me out a few weeks now and I need some help, you know, some support. I can’t even count on you anymore Can’t count on anybody.”
She frowned and her voice went down a few notches. He knew he was getting to her.
“You can’t count on me? What about you, Ed? You don’t have a cell phone and that flophouse you’re staying at doesn’t even have a phone number. How am I supposed to stay in touch with you?”
He smirked. “Who’s staying at a flop house? I’m at a hotel. The Bosley Arms..”
She threw up her arms in frustration. “I know, I know. Five-star all the way. Gold plated cockroaches in the bathtub.”
He snickered and when Gem spoke again, her voice was almost girlish, at least for her, like she was trying to flirt. “Look, I still care about you. I just want you to clean up a bit. Lose some of those friends of yours. Like Billy. I can’t believe you’ve wasted the last five years working as a bouncer in that pig’s bodyrub parlors. I thought you had an honest job as a janitor. Sure, that’s not great, but at least it’s honest. Then I found out the cops caught you in that raid and I had to come down to the division house to get you. I finally find out what you really do for a living. You lie to me about how you earn your money and then you wonder why I kick you out.”
Ed grinned. “Hey, those places were licensed adult entertainment establishments.”
Carmen slapped the table in anger. “It’s not funny. Who knows what could happen to you, hanging around with that damn Billy and his whores. You’re lucky the cops let you go. You could’ve been charged, then where would you be? I wonder if Billy would really help you out. That guy treats you like you’re his servant or something. Have you told him you’re not working in his toilets any more?”
He kept grinning. It was good to have her all keyed up. “Working on it.”
Her eyes flashed poison darts at him. “Stop working on it and start doing it, okay? Talk to him. Maybe after that I can take you back. I can’t have you working with him anymore.”
He fell silent. She was right, sort of. That was the worst thing about Gem. Just when you really wanted to unload on her, she’d say something that hit bang on target and you couldn’t talk back to her. Better to change the subject. Talk about that weird noise that was getting on his nerves, scraping away at his razor thin hold on sanity like a saw-toothed edge.
As he spoke, his voice was thick with fatigue. “What the hell is that noise? Seems like it’s coming from the ceiling?”
She did a double take and glanced across at Dawn Star. “No, it’s coming from that store. It’s like weird violin music, but it’s just a drone. Why would anybody listen to that?
He looked through the front window. A man in a navy blue suit with silver hair, wearing wire glasses and a blonde woman in slacks and a jacket were talking and gesturing at each other. Every few moments they discretely peeked at him. He looked back them as he spoke. “It just opened too. When I first got here Monday it was empty space. The last few days they’ve been putting all that stuff in there, I guess.”
Gem twitched her eyebrow, motioning for him to stop looking at the two people. “I don’t like them, Ed. They keep looking at us, like they’re trying to listen to us.”
He frowned. “You don’t suppose…”
Gem stiffened. She was all business now. “I don’t suppose anything. Let’s just make this short and sweet. Take care of yourself and make sure you talk to Billy, ASAP, all right? Take this. It’s all I got until the bank pays me Thursday. Should help you keep your penthouse suite.”
Gem’s soft hand took his and something rough brushed against his palm. Money? Whatever it was, he clasped it tight in his fist.
She leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, honeybabe.”
She and then choked back a sob as her eyes glistened. That really got her. “You know I hate that name.”
“No you don’t. Not as much as Gemini, the name your folks gave you.”
She laughed. “Well, they were in a commune somewhere up north in the early Seventies. People gave their kids stupid names back then. At least they didn’t call me Sky or Water.”
“Yeah, that’s true. And when you changed your name, you just shortened it to Gem. That’s a nice name.”
The tears were running down her cheeks now. She could barely get the words out. “I’ve really got to go.”
Ed raised his hand in silent farewell as she rose from the table and strode away, head held high, her long, athletic legs carrying her proudly down the concourse. In moments she was gone, the only evidence of her presence a ghostly breath of her perfume in his nostrils.
Ed sat alone in the food court, his head bowed, staring at what Gem had given to him: a crumpled fifty dollar bill. As he stuffed it in his pocket, he blinked repeatedly. He was wavering on the edge of sleep. Or, was he asleep already?
His eyes popped open again and he shuddered at the memory of some dream about a woman’s voice singing about the end of everything. The lights were still on Dawn Star, but those two people had vanished, as had that awful droning. For some reason, the sliding glass door at the store’s entrance had been left open a crack. Ed wondered why that was, but he didn’t want to investigate. He just wanted to get out of here. This place was just a drag.
From somewhere overhead, the sultry recorded voice of some woman singer wailed away. Wasn’t it the voice he’d just heard in his dream? The voice sighed lonely and sad, offering love and comfort to the food court’s shadows and empty chairs.
He rose to his tired feet. How long had he slept there? Minutes? Hours? Too late now. Better just to leave, get moving and get over to Billy tonight. Yes, Gem was right. Have it out with him tonight.
He walked down the concourse, toward the subway entrance. He kept walking, shoving one foot in front of the other, going through the motions, making the moves. Tonight, he would confront Billy. Go up to Eglinton station, to that stupid bar where Billy always hung out and demand to know who the hell was he to expect Ed to slave for him.
His stomach ached like someone had punched him in the gut. Nerves probably. His body was pumping adrenaline, pumping fear. Bile burned at the back of his throat. He made for the men’s room on the left, just a few paces from the subway entrance.
The restroom’s white tiled walls and gleaming mirrors and faucets shone with reflected light from globe-shaped bulbs in the ceiling. More music whispered from a hidden speaker, another woman’s caressing voice promising eternal love, if only you would run away with her.
A faint smell gripped his nostrils. Disinfectant. Stale urine.
He found a stall and locked himself inside. A wave of sleepiness mixed with nausea washed over him. He slumped against the door, his face buried in his hands. Should he be sick or pass out? When was the last time he’d been so tired? Stop thinking about that. Gem’s right. Pull yourself together. Get on the subway and go to Eglinton and tell that bastard Billy off…
What was that? Sounded like a door opening and some footsteps.
Somebody had come in to the washroom. Better to sit tight until the guy was gone.
He pressed himself up against the stall partition. Was that a pair of black leather business shoes outside of the door?
The door rattled. The guy was trying to get in. Who the hell was it?
He tensed and ran a nervous hand into his back pocket. Nothing there but his key chain. Gemma had taken his key to her apartment. All that was left was the useless metal hoop the key once had been attached to. Well, if it came to a fight, he might be able to do some scratching and poking with the hoop before he went down.
The guy shook the door again and pounded his fist.
“Get out of there! I know you’re there, so just get the hell out!”
In a flash, the door flew open and Ed’s eyes caught a blur of a familiar face. The silver-haired man in the suit from that art store!
He grabbed Ed and dragged him out of the stall and shoved him face down to the floor. A nose full of disinfectant and cold tile and then those nice classy, black leather business shoes went to work on him, kicking his ribs, his back…
A pair of hands grabbed his hair. A laser jolt of agony shot down his spine and his eyes exploded with stars…