The Everything Box

  “Like all the rest of you clowns. I got picked up on a job that didn’t go, let’s just say, exactly as planned.”

  “No one sold you out, did they?” said Coop.

  “No.”

  “So who were you working with, Phil?”

  “Fast Eddie Lansdale. You know him?”

  Morty looked at Coop. “Yeah. We’re acquainted. But why were you working with Eddie? He already has a crew.”

  “Why do you think? He was stepping out on them. We had what looked like an easy bank job, so the two of us were going to do it together.”

  “An easy bank job,” said Coop. “Meaning it was a setup.”

  “Give that man a rubber cigar,” said Phil. “Those DOPS creeps knew we were coming before I got to enjoy Eddie’s symphony of morning farts. He’s not a pleasant person to spend time with.”

  “So I hear,” said Coop.

  “But we just saw Eddie,” said Morty. “How did he get away?”

  “He didn’t. We both got caught and the prick traded me to get himself cut loose. The DOPS didn’t need any trained baboons on the payroll, so they took the deal and here we are all together. The three amigos.”

  The Missile shook and ground against something hard. Coop’s spine felt like it had grown teeth and was digging its way out of his doomed body. He was glad he was strapped in.

  “So who wants to play Truth or Dare?” said Phil.

  “Shut up, Phil,” said Coop.

  “You’re very chatty for a ghost,” said Morty.

  “I’m just a people person. Let’s talk about you, Morty.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “How much longer?” said Coop.

  Morty looked at the GPS. “Another five minutes.”

  “Do you have intimacy issues, Morty? Coop has massive ones.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” said Morty. “You should have seen him and Giselle at work. You’d never think she broke his heart and stomped all over it.”

  “Morty . . .” said Coop.

  “Giselle?” said Phil. “Dish, girlfriend.”

  “Not another word.”

  “Sorry,” said Morty.

  “Don’t listen, Morty. I’m his therapist. Tell me everything.”

  “Phil talks big now, but wait until we get inside,” said Coop. “He’s not bad at his job, but you’re going to see another side of him.”

  “Really? He gets worse?”

  “I’ll let you be the judge.”

  “I’m right here, you know,” said Phil. “I can hear every word.”

  “How much longer?” said Coop.

  The Missile trembled. The grinding din from outside grew louder. They had to cover their ears. Then there was what sounded like a minor explosion. The Missile lurched forward and stopped. The drill on the front wound down. The digging arms retracted. Morty hit the outside lights. They were in a dark, open room, full of old furniture, paintings, and crates.

  “Holy crap,” said Morty. “I think we’re here.” He checked the GPS. “We are. We’re in Babylon’s cellar.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t bother with a lot of curses down here. Now we just have to get to his safe and get out. Everyone know what they’re doing?”

  “I get you out of the basement and stay here, keep the Missile warmed up till you come back,” said Morty.

  “Right.”

  “And I make sure you don’t screw everything up,” said Phil.

  “You sure you don’t want me to come along?” Morty said. “There might be more locks.”

  “Not according to the blueprints,” said Coop. “Coming from the bottom of the house, we’re bypassing most of the worst traps. All we have to worry about is the room with the safe.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, Coop,” said Phil. “The more the merrier, I say. Let’s bring ol’ Morty along. Nothing personal, but you can be a grumpopotamus.”

  Morty said, “That’s not what Giselle says. She says—”

  “Shut up. That’s what she says. Morty stays,” said Coop firmly.

  “If you say so,” Morty said. “I’ll be ready to go the moment you get back.”

  “That’s what I want to hear. Phil, you ready to go to work?”

  “Before we go, consider this: there’s probably an antique box down here with all this junk. Why don’t we just take it instead of hopping on the Haunted Mansion ride? What are they going to know at headquarters?”

  “There’s no way I’m going to go back to jail because you got cold feet. Just stay alert and look for traps. We’ll be back double-quick time.”

  “Hey, Morty,” said Phil. “If we croak here tonight, be sure to give Nelson a kick in the balls for me.”

  “You got it.”

  “And give Giselle a kiss. A big one. You know the kind I mean.”

  “I’ll take a pass on that, Phil. Coop is the one on kissing terms with Giselle.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not,” said Coop.

  “You’re not? What the hell is wrong with you? You could die out there.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re an idiot,” said Morty.

  “I know.”

  “Good. Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward your recovery.”

  “Coop, listen to the man,” said Phil. “You could catch a terminal case of dead. Let’s just stay here in the basement and not die together.”

  But Coop climbed out of the Missile and Morty followed. He went up the stairs ahead of Coop until he reached the door. Then he gently laid his hand over the lock and closed his eyes. A moment later, there was a click and the door swung open a few inches.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Coop.

  “Avenge me, Morty,” said Phil. “If this ignoramus gets me killed, avenge me.”

  Morty got back into the Missile. “Shut up, Phil.”

  Coop entered Babylon’s mansion wearing the same skintight suit he’d worn during the Bellicose Manor job. It hid his body heat from any biodetectors. Around his waist, he wore his utility sack of tools, and for this job he’d brought along a small backpack stuffed with expensive DOPS gear, most of which he had no idea what to do with, but it seemed smart to take everything they offered. The overall effect made him look like a hunchbacked hobo scuba diver. He hoped there were no cameras around to snap his picture. If future clients ever saw how silly he looked on the job, it would definitely hurt his work prospects. Of course, worrying about future work felt ridiculously optimistic considering everything that lay between him and the box. Still, it was better to concentrate on not losing his life or any body parts unlikely to grow back than to obsess over the dangers lurking on his journey to the heart of Babylon’s fun house.

  Phil was already scratching around in Coop’s skull, looking for traps, illusions, and dead drops. So far, so good on that front. The first hard curse hit him as he passed a broom closet near the base of the staircase. A second hit as soon as he rounded the corner that led to the stairs. A third curse meant to rattle his bones until they cracked hit him at the bottom of the first step. They all passed right through him, evaporating or leaving scorch marks on the floor and walls.

  In his head, Phil yelled “Geronimo!” each time a curse hit. Another one of his less charming nervous tics. Coop was about to tell him to pipe down when Phil said, “Trip wire on the third step.”

  Coop knelt until he could see light reflecting off the monofilament, then stepped over it.

  “Don’t stand up yet,” said Phil. “There’s another at throat level on the next step to get you if you spotted the first wire.”

  “I see it,” said Coop, ducking.

  “The rest of the stairs look clear. Just be ready for more curses. There are plenty more ahead.”

  “Got it,” said Coop. “You’re not your usual chatty self, Phil. Anything wrong?”

  “I’m just hurt is all. I try to give you advice on your life choices, your fear of intimacy, your fear of death, and here they
come all wrapped together in one nice package and you don’t even mention it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Giselle. I always liked her name. She’s like someone Poe should have written a poem about. Something long and gloomy about a jilted lover spending his last miserable days eating sandwiches on her tomb.”

  A curse hit Coop square in the stomach, bounced off, and melted a nearby Ming vase. Phil giggled. “Nice shot, cowboy.”

  “That one burned a little,” said Coop.

  “Just like love, if you get my drift.”

  “A triceratops with a learning disability would get your drift.”

  “Watch out for the peacock chair on your left. There’s a blowgun in the back,” said Phil.

  Coop stopped and pulled a small graphite glider from a side panel on his backpack. He sailed it past the chair and a dozen spikes, like kitchen knives, shot from the back, embedding themselves in the wall.

  “Ouch-a-rama. That would have been a good one, huh?” said Phil.

  “Good call,” said Coop.

  “How much farther to Goldfinger’s vault?”

  “One more floor.”

  “Uggghhh,” said Phil, like a six-year-old asked to do the nineteen-times multiplication table. “Doesn’t the DOPS have teleportation or something? Why can’t we fly past Babylon’s party tricks?”

  “I forgot my jetpack.”

  “If I believed that, I’d strangle you in your sleep.”

  “You’ve been at the DOPS longer than I have. Why don’t you talk to management?”

  “They don’t listen to ghosts. It’s complete ectoplasmic oppression over there.”

  Coop stopped for a second. “Were you part of the bunch that possessed management a few weeks back? People are still talking about it.”

  “Nope. It didn’t happen. I don’t know about it. I was haunting the squid tank at SeaWorld at the time.”

  “You’re a lousy liar,” said Coop.

  “Enough about me. Let’s talk about you and Giselle. How soon before you need heart surgery again?”

  “Nope. We are not going to do this.”

  “Come on. Throw me a bone. You in an emotional wood chipper is one of the few things I get to look forward to.”

  “Sorry. It’s not going to happen this time.” Beams crisscrossed his vision, trying to cut him in half. Like the others, they passed through him, but one scorched his right boot, leaving him doing a clumsy Riverdance down the hall.

  “Duck,” said Phil as a sword swung out from the back of a picture of ducks on a pond. “Duck. Did you get it? I said duck.”

  “I got it, Phil. Can you spin plates? You’d have wowed them in vaudeville.”

  “My guess is your heart goes back in the Cuisinart just about the time you finish this box job and hit the bricks.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’re jealous. When’s the last time a lady ghost gave you the time of day?”

  Phil didn’t say anything for a minute. “We’re almost there.”

  The curses came harder and faster as they neared the study that held the safe. Two of the curses met at the edge of Coop’s waist sack and started to melt the nylon. Coop dove out of the way before he caught fire.

  “Okay, that was scary,” said Phil. “It might be time for a song.”

  “Don’t bother. We’re here,” said Coop. They stood before heavy wooden sliding doors, like something leading to a Victorian drawing room. “Do you see any traps?”

  “Give me a minute,” said Phil. Then, “Nothing out here, but I bet there are oodles inside.”

  “Here we go,” said Coop. He pushed the doors open and jumped back behind the hallway wall. Nothing came out of the room. No dragon fire. No spikes. No flying badgers with knives for feet. Coop peeked around the corner and looked into an entirely ordinary room. Ordinary except for one feature. A gray metal safe about three feet tall, like something you’d see in any business office, was floating several inches off the floor.

  “Why haven’t you kissed her yet?” said Phil.

  “Not now,” said Coop. “Because I didn’t want to and because I don’t think she wanted to kiss me. I mean, she might have at one point. But the moment passed.”

  “Story of your life, huh?”

  “Just do your job.”

  “I have been,” said Phil. “Let’s be reasonable. From what we’ve both seen, most of the big curses are outside to keep people from getting in. We’ve made it all the way here with no casualties, so I think I’m going back to the Stink Missile and play Crazy Eights with Morty.”

  “You’re not getting out of my brain until we’re out of this house. Now look around for traps.”

  They both gazed around the room looking for trip wires and electronic sensors.

  “See anything?” said Coop.

  “Wait. Have you got a pencil or something? Toss it inside.”

  Coop took a pen from his waist pack and threw it end over end through the door. Twin swords swung down from overhead, snapping the pen in half. They landed with a clatter on the floor.

  “Okay. Is there anything else?”

  “Nada,” said Phil. “Bupkis.”

  Coop took a deep breath, trying not to think about the bisected pen in front of him. “I’m going in.”

  “Relax, Pacino. It’s just me here. You don’t need to chew the scenery.”

  Coop took a step. The floor squeaked.

  “Stop!” screamed Phil. But it was too late. Coop’s body weight carried him forward onto the rigged board. There was a brief sound of gears winding in the walls, then a crack . . .

  And then the whole floor fell away beneath them, dropping desks, tables, chairs, and potted plants down into what looked like a bottomless void. The only reason Coop hadn’t followed the mess down into the abyss was that he twisted and grabbed a wall sconce at just the last minute. He hung there now, too far from the hall to swing back, and there was nothing to jump onto but the safe, which was too far away.

  “Get us out. Get us out. Get us out,” screamed Phil.

  “You’re the one who got us into this. Where are we supposed to go?”

  “Get us out. Get us out. Get us—”

  “Pipe down. Why don’t you try helping?”

  “You’re the one with all the Batman gear. You think of something.”

  Coop reached into his backpack and took a small water pistol. He held it high and shot a stream toward the floating safe. The water evaporated before it got halfway there.

  “Okay. If I follow that line, it looks like there’s just a heat curse. I can handle that. Do you see anything else?”

  “I’m having a moment here, Coop. Can I catch my breath?”

  “You don’t breathe, and this sconce isn’t going to hold forever. Are there any more traps?”

  “I can’t see anything, but I get the feeling there are. Try something else.”

  Coop pulled a paper airplane from his backpack and tossed it toward the safe. Metal scraped above them, and a steel pendulum with a razor-sharp blade that flared out at the bottom swung down from the ceiling, cutting across the width of the room.

  Coop threw three more gliders, triggering three more pendulums. He could feel the breeze of their movement on his cheeks.

  “Consider this my resignation,” said Phil. “It’s been swell working with you, but there’s this kitten puzzle I’ve been meaning to finish back home. I have all the corners done.”

  “Shut up. You got me into this. Let me think. And don’t even dream about singing. I need to count these pendulums.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this wall sconce is loose and we’re going to fall in the next couple of minutes, unless I can . . .”

  Coop leapt into the air as the first pendulum swung past. He just managed to grab the bottom and hold on as it moved in slow arcs, slicing through the air. Phil didn’t say a word. He just screamed.

  Coop grabbed onto t
he shaft of the pendulum and pulled himself to the ceiling. There was a sort of axle there, running from the door straight across the room. From the top of the pendulum, he swung out onto the axle and climbed hand over hand across it, timing each handhold with the swinging of the pendulums.

  It took several sweaty, painful, nerve-racking minutes to get there, but at the far end of the axle, he was finally able to swing down and drop onto the top of the safe.

  Phil stopped screaming. “How did you know it would hold your weight?”

  “I didn’t. But Babylon doesn’t want his safe falling to Shanghai, so whatever hocus-pocus he’s using on it must be strong.”

  “That’s very reassuring,” said Phil. “Don’t mind me if I go back to screaming.”

  “You can scream all the way home in the Missile. Right now, keep an eye out for more traps.”

  “How are you going to open it?”

  “I was cracking safes before I could microwave pizza. Besides, the DOPS smart guys gave me something to help.”

  “Be careful.”

  “What? Do you see something?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t make getting in there as easy as guessing a combination.”

  “Right.” Coop took out his collapsible grip and tapped it gently on the safe’s keypad. Something hissed.

  “Gas!” screamed Phil.

  “Thanks. I have ears,” said Coop as he took out a respirator and goggles from his backpack.

  “You want me to scream it again? ’Cause I can do it louder.”

  Coop touched the grip around the rest of the safe door, but nothing happened.

  “We should have brought Morty with us,” said Phil. “He could get this thing open lickety-split.”

  “Do you really think all three of us could have made it this far?”

  “I think he and I could have made it. You would have lived on in our memory.”

  Coop took a small black box just a little bigger than a cell phone and attached it with magnets over the safe’s keypad. “Okay,” he said. “Time to see if Peculiar Science lives up to its name.”

  “What is that?” said Phil.

  “Living numbers. Sort of like ants, ghosts, and binary code all rolled into one weird organism. If they can’t open the safe I’ll have to do it by hand.”

  “Ten seconds ago you said you were a wiz at that.”