Super Meals: Part Thirty-One

            Adam stumbled down the alley, his stolen lab coat smoldering on his back. His pasty skin was hot to the touch, but he didn’t notice. The sun was high and the pavement was baking, but he didn’t feel it.

            He stumbled against a dumpster that was searing, but his hand melted the paint off of it where he fell.

            Collapsing into a pile of trash, he curled into a fetal position and shivered. A half-smoked cigarette rolled across the ground and he picked it up, then put it to his lips.

            It started to smoke under his fingers and he took a long drag. A deep breath, and his shivers stopped.

            On his back, in the alley, he slept.

            Walter had finally been released, but he was still at the police station. He sat at Mimi’s desk in the shared office space populated by the other detectives, but everybody was ignoring him.

            Including Mimi.

            She had been searching the Internet and scribbling notes on a legal pad ever since they’d arrived. At the top of the page she’d written “Doctor Ralph Quinlan” and circled it, then drawn lines to other circles she’d made on the page. Inside the circles were names and places, like “Manila, Philippines – Angelica Ocampo” and “Reims, France – Lucas Dubois.” At one point, while Walter was waiting to be acknowledged, another officer came by Mimi’s desk and dropped off a folder saying, “Detective Spatchcock? The medical examiner’s office sent this over – it’s the ID and final autopsy report on that dead transient you were investigating.”

            She immediately opened it, scanned the page, then wrote “Walla Walla, Washington – Nathan Alexander,” circled it, then drew a line from it up to Doctor Ralph’s name.

            “Who’s that?” asked Walter.

            “Remember that dead homeless guy I told you about yesterday? The one who was…” She paused as another officer walked by. When he was gone, she said “…special?”

            Walter thought for a moment and Mimi cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh!” he finally said. “Yeah, the…special guy. Gotcha. What about him?”

            She thought about it, then leaned back in her chair and said, “Hungry?”

            “Yeah, actually,” said Walter, laughing. “I am. I puked up all of my breakfast when that guy drilled me in the stomach, remember? All I’ve had since then is your shitty police station coffee and half a stale donut.”

            “What did you expect?” she said, smiling and standing up. She grabbed her coat and said, “Come on, let’s get some lunch.”

            Walter followed her out to her car, asking, “Well? What’s up with the homeless guy?” They walked past a handful of officers and Mimi didn’t speak, just held up a hand to silence Walter. When the officers were gone, she motioned to her car and said, “Get in.”

            They both climbed in and Walter shrugged his shoulders, motioning to her again, but she held up a finger, silencing him as she pulled out of the parking lot. When they were half a block away she finally said, “Okay, we should be good.”

            “Good for what? Do you think a cop killed that guy or something?”

            “No, but…well…” She looked over at him and sighed. “Look, I don’t have the best reputation around the station, okay? That’s why they gave me the job of investigating the death of a homeless guy under a bridge – it’s a shit assignment.”

            “Okay…” said Walter, rolling his eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

            “It’s just…I didn’t want to say anything in the station because I didn’t want anybody thinking I was crazy or making fun of me or anything.”

            “Why would they do that?”

            “Because that guy? From this morning? I think he’s been killing people all over the world and now he’s made his way here.”

            Walter thought about this in silence.

            Mimi drove on.

            Finally, Walter said, “All right, why do you think that?”

            Mimi said, “Look, you ate the food, you had a… I dunno, let’s call it a reaction. That homeless guy? Same thing. We even have medical proof of it from the medical examiner’s office. All morning I’ve been looking this guy up online, and all over the world there have been cases of that fast food place opening up a new restaurant or giving a press conference or something, and he’s there.”

            “Oh, let me guess, there have been mysterious deaths every time, every where?”

            Mimi looked at him, but said nothing.

            “Wait…” continued Walter. “Wait, fuckin’ seriously? No shit?”

            She pursed her lips and turned to look at the road ahead of them, but Walter thought he might have caught just a faint nod from her as she did.

            “Are you fucking kidding me?” he said. “What the actual fuck!? What are we gonna do?”

            “We?” she asked. “I have no idea what we are gonna do. Right now I am going to buy you lunch and then you are going to go home and lock your doors.”

            “What, that’s it?” he asked. “Just go home and…what? Wait for you to save me?”

            “I’ve kinda already done that, remember? Twice.”

            “But can’t you, like, put out an APB on this guy? I mean, you have all kinds of pictures of him and his name and stuff – can’t you, I dunno, just go get him?”

            She tilted her head and rolled her eyes at him again.

            “And where, exactly, do you think he is?” she asked.

            “How should I know? You’re the cop.”

            “Yeah, and like I just said, I’ve got a shit reputation and people don’t like me very well at the station, so I’ve gotta handle this very carefully…” She thought of Jane and the 24-hour deadline the District Attorney had given her and muttered, “…and very quickly.”

            The hotel room was trashed.

            Doctor Ralph sat in the corner, head down, his hands around his knees.

            The portable laboratory was strewn around the room, flung wildly in a fit of rage. The blankets and sheets had been pulled off the bed and tossed, the desk and chair were overturned… The only things not somehow mangled or broken were Doctor Ralph’s suitcase and computer, which were on the floor in front of him.

            He looked up; his hair looked like a haystack after a storm, and he had dark bags under his eyes. It was the worst he’d looked since grad school. He crawled to his computer and unlocked the screen, then activated the voice recorder.

            He stated the date and time, then said, “Research log, subject one hundred eighty nine. Name unknown, age unknown, height approximately five foot, eleven inches. Weight…approximately two hundred to two hundred twenty pounds. Blood type, unknown…” He sighed. “Meal, unknown. Results…let’s call it enhanced speech. Subject’s voice seemed to emit a blast of some sort. No visual phenomena, no apparent personal effects to the subject himself. The force of the blast was not adequately measured, but appears to be at least three or four G’s. Initial impression was that the potential force is much higher, but could not be captured and was not witnessed. Physical sample from subject was given a rudimentary examination but results were…inconclusive.”

            He dropped his head into his hands again and ran his fingers through his hair. Cupping his face in his hands he whispered, “Fuck me…”

            He blinked hard and slapped his cheeks, then said, “Biological sample included traces of foodstuffs from restaurant, reference subject 93 for menu items, as well as bile, stomach acid, bismuth subsalicylate – commonly known as Pepto – but no blood or other bodily fluids. Unlike the previous one hundred eighty-eight subjects, 189 has actually survived ingestion of a…super meal…” He sighed again, hating himself for having to say that, then finished by saying, “Further studies to be performed.”

            He clicked off the voice recorder and saved the file to his secret cloud drive, then said, “Just as soon as I find the fucker again.”