The Mustache Man

Chapter Twenty One

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

“How old are you?” Chance was asking.  

“Sixty two years old.”

“How long had have been here in Denver at the University?”

“Two years.”

“Where is the vault where Carlton works? Is it real?”  Oh it’s real Shul heard himself saying.  Denver.  Underground. Beneath parking garages in downtown Denver.  “Can you take me there?” she asked? No, he heard himself answer.. Only Carlton has the keys.

“How do you know the vault is real?”  It’s real Shul had answered.  Either it’s real or my ex-partner is a street person who makes up the whole thing.

“Who takes care of you when you black out? “  Shul looked up sharpely at Chance. How did she know he blacked out and missed work and Carlton covered him on those nights when he couldn’t stir from the tiny safe world of his apartment?

“Carlton.”

Who was your partner during the god-baby case?”  Carlton he said as if the name invoked a goddess not a human being. Shul didn’t believe in angels but how else to explain this young woman who had befriended him against all those who charged him with incompetence in the aftermath of the god-baby case.

“How do you know anything about Pete Vargas?”  Carlton, always the answers was Carlton.  “Why do you  think there is a connection between the disappearances Carlton is documenting, the total erasing of identities on the web and the vanishing of people from loved one’s lives, their jobs….and way no one misses them except their loved ones.”

“How did you come up with this crazy theory about a theological crime (against God) and the connection with the god-baby case?

Marlston Shul answered through the tunnel that was slowly lifting. So it was going to come back to Marlston, the choirmaster. “ Didn’t you read the whole file while I slept and you turned my apartment upside down?” 

“How do I know Marlston is real and you’re not just some drunk ex cop who lives on delusions of glory and grief?

And then Shul woke up. He tossed the bulldog off his lap. Bert growled at him sounding like a lion with laryngitis.  And he went to the television that had been covered up for two years and he inserted a  DVD and he turned it on.

The sixth Interview. Marlson and Detective Robert Schulman in prison.  Three years ago.

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