The Enigma’s Anomaly

“So where do you actually plan on going?” Mikey asks.

“Frank’s got sort of an idea, but mostly just a lot of hypothesizing,” Gerard answers, and they hear him groan through the speaker of the phone.

“Have a little faith in me, please. I haven’t directly steered us wrong, and this last thing was not my fault,” I say.

“Whose fault was it then?” Mikey asks.

“I had a look through the file, and then I burned the part that said how they found us so neither of you will ever know,” I tell him.

That had pissed Gerard off a little bit, because he’d woken up to me outside lighting a piece of paper on fire. I didn’t want him to blame himself, so I let him believe there was every chance that Mikey was at fault. In all honesty they tracked us down, because of the stupidest, tiniest, most insignificant detail known to man. Hair dye. They tracked us using hair dye. Technically they found us because of the address where Gerard’s brand of hair dye was sent. I’m not even going to pretend to know how they found out what brand of hair dye Gerard uses, and how on earth they managed to look through the system of mail orders to correctly identify which address Gerard’s was being sent to, but that’s a problem for another day.

All that matters is that Gerard doesn’t know how they tracked us down, because if he did, he’d surely blame himself.

“So what’s our plan then?” Mikey asks.

“Well I’ve got an old, um, associate. He’s a... detective if you will. Not necessarily a law abiding detective, but he owes me a few favors,” I say. “I’m going to have him try to recon enough information to nail Banks as the son of a bitch he is.”

“And if Banks figures out who he is?”

“Oh he’s got enough identities,” I shrug, “he’ll be fine.”

I’m very positive my friend will be safe. If you could call him a friend. He’s got more identities then Tatiana Maslany. If I thought for one second he’d be in danger from Banks, then I wouldn’t have brought him in.

“Do I want to ask how you know this man?” Mikey asks.

“You can ask but I can’t promise you a truthful answer,” I say. I like Mikey, he never seems to push too far, and keeps his nose out of places it doesn’t belong.

“Just curious, who would you say he is if I asked?”

“He was my old Pokémon card dealer,” I say.

“Very nice. So what’s he going to do then? Infiltrate Banks’ workplace or something?” Mikey asks.

“Oh you have no clue how people in his business work do ya?” I say, shaking my head. He’s just as clueless as Gerard, though it’s cuter when Gerard is so oblivious.

“I don’t make it a habit of reading up on that sort of thing,” Mikey says.

“Well in any case, I’m going to leave the details of his work out, because you don’t really need to know them. Let’s just say my guy will find the dirt if there’s any solid proof of it. If Banks is as good as he’s trying to make us think, then there won’t be a paper trail, but I don’t think anyone is perfect. I think there’s bound to be something he’s overlooked.”

“So where are we going then?” Mikey asks.

“Hotel jumping, I think,” I say and confer with Gerard who nods his agreement.

“Ugh, and what about our stuff? What we left at the house?” Mikey asks.

“Well it’s still our house there’s probably going to be some salvageable stuff in there, but I can’t be too certain. With things like this they’ll tear everything apart just to piss you off. We’ll collect our stuff if and when we get Banks arrested. For now, just assume you’ll never see it again though,” I say.

“Damn,” Gerard says, “I got you a present for our anniversary.”

I look at him feeling kind of special, “You got me a present? I didn’t know we were doing presents! I’d have gotten you something too.”

“Well it’s gone now. It was kind of irreplaceable I guess, but it wasn’t... I mean it was nothing.”

“Still, that’s so sweet,” I say biting my lip for the millionth time in front of him.

“You two realize I’m still here, right? I don’t want to hear this shit,” Mikey’s voice says, expressionless as always.

“Shut up, Mikes, I’m happy,” Gerard says.

“Well if that’s all you had to say, then I think you should hang up so I don’t have to listen to your gushy crap. Whenever you’re ready to leave town or whatever, just come pick me up. I’ll be here,” Mikey says, and I hang up a moment later.

“So how come we haven’t asked this guy before now?” Gerard inquires.

“Because I don’t really want to go back and use the connections from that life. Being with you was about starting over, putting the past in the past where it belongs. I mean it’s not like I’ll be doing the dirty work, I just kind of didn’t want to have to go back,” I say honestly.

“Aw, Frankie,” Gerard says, wrapping an arm around me, “You know I don’t mind it.”

“I get that, but that doesn’t make me proud of who I use to be, Gerard,” I tell him, “I hate to say it, but with this part of me, it’s not about you or us, it’s about me. I don’t like who I used to be.”

“I understand,” Gerard nods.

“So what now?” I ask him, I’m getting tired of being in charge, it’s making my brain hurt. I just want to be a follower for a little while.

“You said we need a car. We should go get ourselves a car. I don’t know where exactly we need to go to do that, but I’m assuming there’s a dealership around here somewhere. It’s a big enough town,” Gerard says, and I nod. It is actually one of the bigger towns I’ve seen in quite some time.

We drive round for about twenty minutes until we come to a very run down car dealership, but at least it’s there at all. Most of the cars look used though, and I suspect that most of them are. There’s hardly any new ones at all, and they all seem to be a little too jaunty or a little too ugly.

Gerard comes upon one that he’s excited about, so I just let him. I don’t know anything about cars except how to steal them. We have a briefcase full of hundreds of twenty dollar bills though, so no pilfering is necessary.

“What is that?” I ask.

“1979 Trans Am, I’ve kind of always wanted one,” Gerard says. He looks elated to have found it, like when you’re at a garage sale and get a really good find for a really good price. Or at a thrift shop and find a really great shirt.

“I don’t really care,” I say, “but if you like it then I want you to pick it.”

I like seeing him that happy, it’s a good look on him. Most looks are good looks on him though. While excited may be a good one, I think ecstasy is a bit better. It’s not my fault that Gerard’s hot, and what can I say? I like a pretty face.

The guy looks at us suspiciously when we hand over a couple wads of cash, and I just raise an eyebrow at him, daring him to turn us down. He does hold a few of the bills up to the sun as if to show us he’s checking it for signs of counterfeit, but he’s doing it wrong. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. I had to check that a lot in my old job, and I got shortchanged a couple of times.

After he decides that the money is real, he makes a show of getting the papers, but we drive out of there an hour later. I grab my big gun, as I’m actually growing quite fond of it. The case was in the trunk so I disassemble the rifle, and stow it under the seat. The revolver is a cheap little thing, but we keep that too, just in case.

Mikey makes a show of disapproval at the choice of car, but he gets in a moment later and we head off down the road to wherever the hell it is we’re going. All I know is that we’re going to find another hotel tonight, and then another, and another, until we’ve got enough stability to assure we’re not being followed. I doubt it this time, because we weren’t being followed last time, I’m just going to make sure we get hair dye from a physical store from now on. We decide that we’ll need to do at least some shopping as all three of us have exactly zero changes of clothes, but I’d rather get away from this town before we do.

Looks like another long day of driving to look forward to.