Rock Bottom
Danny Rye knew how to lay low. He knew how to cover his tracks. He knew how to disappear. Spend enough years successfully tracking people down and anyone will pick up a few tricks along the way. Danny Rye, Private I. was set to disappear. Rather, Daniel Jay Smith as his driver's license said, though that was shredded and left at the bottom of a public trash can somewhere in Townsville.
Princess said he could retire if he did his job right, but she hadn't said when. Danny knew he was better off getting out while he could. All he had to do was screw up once, disappoint that dangerous little rich brat once, and he'd be history. In his line of work, he'd banked on the one damning mistake of others plenty of times. It hadn't failed yet.
Unfortunately, the kind of money she'd given him was easily traceable. He'd withdrawn about two hundred thousand and left the rest to rot. It was enough to get by on for a few years. Enough to lead him to another job, another life, in another place.
Yes sir, Danny knew just what to do. He knew just about all the ways he could get himself caught.
This was one of them.
Danny Rye was a forty-one-year-old, divorced chain smoking alcoholic. He didn't jump through windows. He didn't get the girl. Hell, he never got the chance to shoot anyone. Or the urge, for that matter. Danny dealt in information, not action.
That's right. Danny Rye, P.I. never brought back the missing kid, never stuffed the deadbeat into his trunk to deliver to his client, and in general never went further than figuring out what he needed to know and passing it along to the people who actually could do something about it. He'd been good enough at it to attract the attention of Princess Morbucks. He was the glue, the grease, the catalyst--he had no experience with being a mover-and-shaker himself.
Which made his current course even more foolish.
His expert hunches had led him right to what Princess wanted: dirt. He'd captured a rather tender, yet awkward, and wholly disturbing moment on video.
So why just the one picture? No one doubted Princess had the resources to fabricate a still image of her choosing and have it strand up to scrutiny. She'd told Danny she didn't want "evening news." No, Princess wanted nothing less than "Puffgate," and yet the media was scrutinizing her at least as closely as the girls. So why not the video?
Danny was familiar with other tricks of his trade as well, including "the setup." And the girls were clearly being baited.
His last case... No, assignment was the better term. Princess had kept him on retainer for years. When she finally called him out to do more than make a few phone calls and dig up information Princess herself could have obtained if she'd cared to, he'd been told that creating dirt would be as good as finding it.
None of his last assignment sat well with him. Maybe it was Princess's fault for keeping him on too tight a leash for too long, but he'd felt wasted. He resented her for that. And working against the girls, he admitted, bothered him as much as working for Princess.
He'd been twenty-eight when the girls were created. He'd worked in Townsville for years by then. Moved there, in fact, when he realized the endless source of work for someone like him in a cesspool like that.
Danny had seen that city transform under the protection of those girls. In fact, seeing things that often managed to stay out of the local newspapers, he knew better than most just how much the city had cleaned up.
On the one hand, he'd been grateful to speed away from it. On the other hand...
He drove an old, beat up station wagon he'd bought from some guy who'd put up an ad in the paper. Private transaction, cash only on a small price tag--it was the sensible approach for someone in the position he was in.
He parked and took a good look a the phone booth. This wasn't Townsville. In his stay there, he doubted there was a public phone that had survived the last decade. The high mortality rate of public property left Townsville public phones rather spartan. This middle-of-nowhere gas station, however, didn't see so much action, and had an enclosed glass booth.
Danny left the pump running while he stepped inside and closed the doors behind him. He hesitated. It seemed so quiet. Like a bubble in the sea of reality. He looked around, but aside from the lone gas station attendant there was not even another car in sight.
He still felt paranoid. If Princess wasn't looking for him now, she was about to be, and whoever she sicced on him would start at this middle-of-nowhere phone booth.
The phone rang a few times. A man's voice answered. He sounded at least as old as Danny, and about as worn out.
"Hello?" Professor Utonium asked.
"Look, I've got something you need to know. This is very important." Danny had always thought that if there was something that absolutely had to be said, you should just say it before anyone had the chance to stop you. When the time had come, though, it just didn't feel right to blurt this one out without prefixing it with something.
"The picture? That's not all. It came from a video. I think Princess is baiting you. She wants you to lie and she's going to use the video to catch you in it." Danny paused. "Hello? Look, I'm sorry, but it's done. Just be careful, all right?"
On the other end, however, Professor had heard, "The picture? That's not all. It came from a video. Yeah, that's right, old man, I've been watching. And I'm going to put it up on the Web and charge people to look at it. I bet I'll make a fortune!" When this was followed by mocking laughter, Professor grunted and slammed the phone down.
A few hundred miles away, Danny was about to hang up the phone himself.
"Hello, Daniel." The voice on the receiver was not the same as the one that had answered the phone.
"Hello? Who is this?" Danny asked, looking around. The road was still barren.
"We're sorry, the number you're calling from has been disconnected or is no longer in service." The caller's voice dropped in pitch and grew hoarse. "Or, at least, it will be." Just as quickly, it became eerily pleasant again. "We're sorry for the inconvenience."
"What? Who the hell is this?"
Unlike Princess and the girls, Danny had never had any direct contact with Him before.
"Why, Daniel, I must say I'm offended! You and I have been awfully close. At least, you've been close enough to plenty of my handiwork."
Danny immediately hung up the phone and tried to open the door. It didn't move. He tried again, harder and harder. The booth itself rocked slightly, but that was it. He banged on the glass and called out. The man in the gas station didn't seem to notice. He picked the phone back up and started banging on the glass with it. The receiver broke and he cursed, letting it hang limply.
The voice issued from the speaker dangling from the broken phone. "Now that's not a very nice thing to say, Daniel. You know what else I don't like to hear?" Him dropped his pitch for a moment to answer his own question. "The truth!"
Danny eyed the receiver suspiciously. "What's going on here?"
"Oh, I'd like to tell you, but I'd sooner spare you the truth. You see, Daniel, the truth hurts. How much, you wonder? Why, I suppose to get some idea you could, say, turn around?"
Danny did so. The road was not empty now. In the distance, but growing closer, was an eighteen wheeler.
"Some might say the truth hurts like a punch in the face. Or a ton of bricks. Or being hit by a bus." In his menacing voice again, he added. "You and I know better, don't we, Danny?"
Back to blissful ease, Him continued. "Well, I hate to be rude, but I have so much to attend to. We'll have loads of time to discuss these things down at my place." He dropped his voice again, "I'll warm up a spot for you."
Him started cackling. Danny resumed his pounding and shouting. He briefly saw a faint image of the grinning devil in the glass, like a reflection, but he was very much alone in that booth.
The truck loomed nearer. Him's damning laughter echoed throughout the tiny space. Danny's voice already grew hoarse. He called for somebody, anybody. Then he called for the Powerpuff Girls. When half the tires on the truck blew at once and it veered his way, he called for God.
The gas station attendant called for an ambulance. By the time they arrived, it would have done as much good to call for a hearse.