The Last Days of Ray Cobb

Chapter 3

After Ray’s initial introduction to the group, they left him to explore the camp and settle in. It made him nervous. He had come up to the mountains for some epic confrontation with the people who had indentured him against his will and met with no resistance at all. They gave him a choice. Stay or go.

But he knew it wasn’t a true choice. He could disappear. Leave everything he knew over the past few years and find a new life in a new place. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before when everything had fallen apart. The first time, it left him with emotional scars that never faded. Memories that influenced every choice he made. This time, it would leave him with physical scars. The tattoo would remind him he was being hunted. Wanted for murder by the LAPD. A target of whoever Osip Kosbur had deigned to protect him from. And even though Malkin pretended to not care about the tattoo and what it meant, there had been too much effort put into keeping him in the mountains.

A fire that was never meant to kill him, instead merely injure him enough to understand he was vulnerable. The hulking bodyguard who never seemed to disappear. The illusion of choice. Ray came up to the mountains to be free of the bonds the tattoo represented. If he walked down the mountain, uncovered Low Seward’s Audi and drove off to some unknown destination, he would always have a target on his back.

He took a few days to stay in his cabin and recover from his wounds. When he finally emerged out into the snow, the burns scabbing over, he needed to find out what was really going on. Whenever he approached someone busy at a task, they would make small talk with him and give him a knowing smile, but the conversations never deepened past the surface subject. They had offered him an apprenticeship in several vocations, but he refused every one, telling them he wanted to get a larger assessment of what was missing from the group and see how he could input his own unique skills.

From what Ray could see of the group, they were adept at creating the sort of artisan crafts that hipsters at flea markets flocked to, but he couldn’t see how they translated into practical survival skills. Malkin pitched him that each of the tasks were a mask for something else, like Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel-san to paint the fence when he was really teaching him how to block a punch, but Ray had yet to see how knitting potholders would provide much beyond having a stockpile of afghan blankets when the world of men collapsed. Small cliques formed when groups took breaks. The rhetoric spread by Malkin bled into the conversations of those who followed him:

“When the world falls, we will be the shining beacon of light on the mountaintop.”

“Syria, Mexico, El Salvador. These are governments overshadowed by gang control. More than organized crime. Organized chaos. And what’s the result? Crumbling structures, mass migrations, civil wars? We don’t want these things.”

“And yet your worst days, the most destitute and shameful minutes of your existence, pale in comparison to how those cities controlled by ISIS or The Cartel survive. You can still find running water. You can defecate in a fountain knowing you won’t have to turn around and drink the same water.”

These people had given their lives over to the possibility of the downfall of society. One man raving on a street corner was amusing. A group of people spreading it as gospel was a frightening prospect.

But Ray didn’t believe it. The words coming out of Malkin’s mouth didn’t jibe with what Ray saw.

In the dark of the woods, generators weren’t running the lights. There were no solar panels wiped free of snow on the outside of the cabins. The camp was connected to the grid that Malkin claimed to fear. These people weren’t being trained to live off the grid. He was training them for something else. He was training them to be docile. Pliable.

There didn’t appear to be a stockpile of chemical toilets or a system for distilling snow and rainwater. Everything was still flushing and coming out of the taps. Perhaps Malkin was employing a “use it before you lose it” philosophy with the campers, but they still seemed ill-prepared for the dark days he was predicting.

Each group’s task had a purpose. The creation of some piece of a larger puzzle. Ray did his best to keep track of all of it in his mind, but he was also being careful of what food and drink they gave him after his initial drugging. After years spent scraping by for every meal, he tried not to get indoctrinated into Malkin’s three-meals-a-day regimen, but he was weak and depriving himself of calories would take its toll.

Malkin had said that everyone in the camp had come from the streets, hand-picked because they’d learned to survive on their own. But if the Ukrainian savior had been running this scam for as long as it looked like, most of these people had forgotten how to live on the streets. How to depend on themselves. Being able to find the best canned goods in a dumpster behind a supermarket didn’t give you the skills to can your own food when the supermarket didn’t exist. He had sold these people a lie. If Ray had known that Malkin’s empire was based on horse s**t, he wouldn’t have even bothered to make the trip. He would’ve just lived with the ugly tattoo. But several things didn’t sit right with him.

Ray thought that maybe instead of banking on the money-making operation of Shadow Dance, perhaps Malkin was taking in all the profits from items sold at the craft fairs and flea markets, telling the sheep he was using the profits to build up their infrastructure for when the end came, but was really pocketing the profits.

That wasn’t a likely scenario, either. Two or three people each working on their given talent at a relaxed pace, buying materials, plus booth rental at flea markets and transportation costs — Ray didn’t know exact figures, but basic deduction told him those enterprises were probably losing money or breaking even.

Malkin claimed he didn’t know about the details of Osip Kosbur’s goings-on in Los Angeles, but that was a lie, too. The game was too tight. The network too connected. A fledgling group of drug-dealers peddling a new designer drug would’ve started on the ground floor with the junkies and club kids and worked their way up the food chain. The Shadow Dance cartel didn’t do that.

Ray had kept up with the details of the investigation, reading newspapers and hitting the public library for any details of the operation he’d helped take down as he looked for Malkin in the woods. The Shadow Dancers started at the top. A couple of movie stars. And they’d used a high-level agency assistant as their dealer. No one with a business school degree on track to become an agent at one of the biggest talent pools in Hollywood would decide that a drug dealing side business that was merely “testing the market” was a good idea. Whoever had recruited the kid responsible for killing Low Seward, there was no way they were working without Malkin’s go-ahead. The way Malkin had been moving Ray around like a pawn on a chessboard had been carefully calculated. Too smart. Ray was still trying to figure out what Malkin’s end game was, but there was one thing he had figured out for certain — Malkin left nothing to chance.

And now Ray was in it. Apart from being physically unable to fight his way out of the new situation, he had Boom-Boom watching his every move. Whatever trap Malkin had set for Ray, he’d walked right into it. And Malkin made Ray want to find him. Stayed at arm’s length just long enough.

Ray was tired of making the right moves in the wrong direction.

It was late. Some campers had already turned in for the night. But Ray was staying up. He hadn’t seen Deuce for a few days and was waiting for the light in his cabin to flick on.

The kid had been avoiding eye contact since the gathering around the fire pit. Every time Ray had made a move toward him, Deuce magically found somewhere else to be.

Then Deuce was gone. The only other person in camp with a Bear tattoo had vanished. Maybe they gave Deuce the same choice, and he had chosen wrong.

Someone grabbed him by the scruff of his coat. Ray swung around to see his bodyguard and his waif of a girlfriend standing behind him. They had become his constant companions. Ray had to stay in Boom-Boom’s line of sight and Boom-Boom never wanted to be over ten feet from his girlfriend, so Ray had become a de facto third wheel. The lack of s*x was building up and Boom-Boom was becoming more frustrated with Ray’s presence with each passing day.

“You found somethin’ you like doing yet?” Sweets asked. When she talked, she giggled at the end of every sentence. At first, Ray found it annoying that he was being followed around by the human equivalent of an anime schoolgirl, but eventually concluded that Sweets wasn’t all there. He thought her happy-go-lucky attitude resulted from a slow stream of opioids, which Malkin lamented as being a problem on the streets of Big Bear, but then he realized she had a slight mental disability. It almost made him feel sympathy for the D-Battery who was holding him by the neck like a lost puppy.

“Haven’t quite found my calling,” Ray said. He wriggled out of Boom-Boom’s grasp.

“I help with the flowers,” Sweet said.

“Yeah, I know,” Ray said. Since realizing she was a little slow, he’d tuned the sarcasm out of his responses when talking to her. “Figured I might apprentice with your boyfriend.”

She giggled again.

“He doesn’t do nothin’ except keep me company,” she said, oblivious.

“Haven’t been able to since you showed up,” Boom-Boom growled at Ray.

“I’m talking about your other skill set,” Ray said.

“What, like tongue stuff?” Sweets asked.

“Shut up,” Boom-Boom scoffed at her.

“What? You do good tongue stuff.”

Ray smiled and got an idea.

“Maybe I’ll work on my tongue stuff,” Ray said, and turned to the silent camp.

He scanned his brain for the craziness he’d buried there years ago. Things in a dense manifesto that led him to a treasure in the Hollywood Hills. The mad rants of a murderous conspiracy theorist he once thought was his friend.

“Zealots and thieves have overtaken our government!” He yelled to no one. “I’ve watched them squander their resources to line the pockets of their corporate overlords while those of us trying to improve our lives scrounge on the edges of death. They rigged the system so that you’re better off having nothing than having a little. They want you to fight for your tiny piece of the pie. Hoping that your scuffle for crumbs will keep you from seeing that they’ve already cleared the table!”

Doors opened and groggy faces stared at him. A crowd didn’t gather. Instead, they gave the raving, bandaged man his space. Boom-Boom didn’t know how to deal with Ray in this state. Ray could see Boom-Boom vacillating between what to do next. If he grabbed him and put his hand over Ray’s mouth, he would validate everything Ray had been saying. If he clomped him across the back of the head and knocked him unconscious, the other residents might fear he would do the same to them if they continued to follow the rhetoric. So he did what Ray didn’t expect.

“Yeah!” Boom-Boom added. When Ray looked back at him, he gestured at Ray to shut up, but Ray was never good at following directions.

“Leaders think they have the answer to the problems we face. But when they oust the previous leaders from power, all they do is follow their own agendas. We aren’t doing enough here. When the power goes off and you will actually have to find your food, what will you eat? The bark from the trees?”

Sweets giggled, but stopped when she saw Reggie approaching. Ray turned to face him. Malkin’s flock perked up, focused on what was going to happen next.

“Have they given you the weapons to defend yourself?” Ray said, directing his diatribe at Reggie. “Physical weapons and mental ones? Have they given you resilience for resistance or have they taken away your drive in pursuit of meaningless tasks?”

Reggie stopped a few feet from Ray, a lazy smile on his face.

“What?” Ray confronted.

“Oh, don’t let me stop you,” Reggie said to Ray, gesturing for him to continue. Then he turned to Boom-Boom. “Go take a break with your girl. I got this.”

The big man didn’t have to be told twice. He grabbed Sweets by the hand and dragged her off to the cabin to get the alone time he’d been craving.

“Are you going to set me on fire again if I don’t stop?”

Reggie shrugged and lit another one of his stinking cigars. The rest of the group seemed to take their cue from him and went back to their bunks.

“Malkin was really hoping this would work out, but you’re just as stubborn as I pegged you.”

“What did he want me to do? Roll over and help lead these people into the promised land?” Ray said, no longer yelling.

“You have a flair for rousing speeches,” Reggie said.

”Used to listen to someone spout that exact crap on the streets of Los Feliz. Funny how the same words coming out of a respectable mouthpiece can make all the difference.”

“Good to know I’m not the only one who doesn’t believe Malkin’s bullshit hook, line, and sinker.”

“So, what? You’re my buddy now?” Ray asked.

Reggie stepped in closer and lowered his voice. Ray’s first instinct was to jump away, but he didn’t want to give Reggie the satisfaction of showing weakness.

“May not seem like it now, but I’m the only friend you got up here. I’ve got another proposal for you.”

“Why? This could be a chance to be a part of something meaningful,” Ray smiled. “I know there’s more going on here than you let on. I’m not stupid. But fighting has gotten me nowhere. Maybe it’s time I gave in.”

“Come with me,” Reggie said. He started toward a cabin at the top of the hill, the one attached to the greenhouse. Ray didn’t move.

“This is between you and me now. Alone,” Reggie said with his back to Ray. “If you want to kill me, this is your big chance.”