Timothy awoke the next morning after a few hours of fitful but unfettered sleep. The bed next to him was empty and unmade. When he had returned last night, he found Marshall doom-scrolling on his phone, hoping to hear details of a sexual escapade he was certain had occurred. He was incredibly disappointed to learn that it had not been the case. Timothy failed to inform him that she had basically extricated herself from the whole situation and believed them both to be crazy. That was information for the morning.
After a quick shower and brushing his teeth, Timothy headed down to the hotel lobby in hopes of catching the final minutes of the continental breakfast. He found Marshall already planted at one of the absurdly small tables, digging into a waffle he had poorly made in the iron griddle. He looked up at Timothy as he approached and grinned.
"Look who decided to join the day," Marshall said.
"I need coffee," Timothy replied.
He shuffled over to the breakfast bar and poured himself a cup of hot black coffee. He set that cup on the counter, grabbed a styrofoam plate from a stack nearby, and began to stack it with a couple of pieces of all that was left: eggs, bacon, sausage, hash brown patties, and melon slices. He grabbed the plate and the coffee cup and returned to the small table.
"So what the fuck did you do last night?" Marshall asked through a mouthful of waffles.
"I met Betsy at Adventureland, and we talked. That was it. I couldn't sleep, so I texted her," Timothy replied as he cut into a sausage.
"And what did you find out?"
"Nothing, really. More dead ends."
"We still going to her shop?" Marshall asked, skewering another piece of waffle with his fork and jabbing into his eager jaws.
"I don't know," Timothy replied sheepishly.
He felt his phone buzz and quickly removed it to see what the art was. There was a message from Betsy.
"What happened?" Marshall asked, suddenly serious. "Did you do something? Did you tell her about the dream?"
Timothy ignored Marshall and opened up the text message. It read:
Betsy: I've been thinking a lot about what you said and…maybe I can believe it. It's so crazy, and I must be crazy to even consider being a part of it, but I am. Trinity is a strange place, so maybe visions aren't that crazy after all.
I think you should still come to the shop today. We might be able to find something.
I hope you will.
"Are you listening to me?" Marshall insisted.
"Yes," Timothy replied, putting away his phone. "I told her about the dream, and yes, we're still going."
"You told her about the dream?" Marshall asked, his voice barely hiding the groan that welled up from deep within.
"I did," Timothy said proudly, his mouth full of newly arrived bacon slices.
"And she wasn't freaked?"
"Nope."
"I call bullshit."
"You'll see."
"Oh, I'll see alright."
A short pause descended upon their conversation while the two men gobbled up the remains of their breakfast plates.
"It happened again last night," Timothy said to break the silence.
"What did?" Marshall asked while dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
"The dream!" Timothy insisted.
"Of course it fucking did," Marshall replied with a slight roll of the eyes.
"It was different this time."
"How so?" Marshall questioned, not wanting to brave the answer.
"I could see a man in the house this time. And there were graves buried by the lake. Freshly buried. The man saw me."
"Timothy," Marshall said, leaning in a little. "I'll admit that this dream house scenario has yielded some results, but it is just a dream. This isn't Vienna a hundred years ago. Some of that can just be subconscious recreating a place you probably saw somewhere a long time ago. It doesn't mean that every last detail really means something, you know?"
"Normally, I would believe you," Timothy replied in as matter-of-fact a manner as possible. "But on this one, I just can't. This man in her life, he knows what happened to her."
"Maybe what happened to her was him."
"Maybe."
"Shall we go see what more you can pull out of your tattooed princess?" Marshall asked.
"She is cute, isn't she?"
"Sure," Marshall said, standing up from the table. "If you like that sort of thing."
"What does that mean?"
"You know, tattoos, piercings, weird hair, daddy issues, that sorta shit?"
"You really are an asshole sometimes," Timothy said, meaning it but also laughing.
"You do you, boo," Marshall said while patting him on the back.
Betsy was eagerly awaiting them when they entered Norris Gifts and Curios later that morning. Her multicolored hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail that revealed even more tattoos than Tim had missed in his many scans of her body art. She was in a white collared button-up with a Hunter green apron draped over the top. The shop was busier than the previous day, but none of them required Betsy's assistance to find the knick-knacks they were searching for. Tim wondered if most of her day was spent waiting for a rotating cast of the same old bitties grumbling over prices but eventually relenting, but not without an out of pocket quip to let the young counter culture girl that she had not bested them completely. He couldn't imagine that anyone his age would frequent such a dusty corner of the commercial universe, but there was Betsy behind the counter, and also his sister. Perhaps he was wrong about a lot of things where Trinity was concerned. Perhaps.
Betsy smiled at them as they entered, her elbows on the glass countertop, her chin resting in her open palms.
"Well, if it isn't good cop and bad cop," she said through her crooked smile, the imperfection of which grew as a turn on the more Timothy saw it. "'bout time you two showed up."
"What?" Timothy replied with a smile that outmatched hers. "Are we not allowed to get breakfast first?"
"Not when there's a plot thickening!" Betsy shot back, her flirtatious coyness growing more pungent by the second.
"Cut the flirty crap, you too," Marshall piped in. "Save the Hallmark movie for after the investigation. I have a life that I kinda want to get back."
"Alright, bad cop," Betsy replied, lifting her hands in mock surrender. "Damn."
"What have you found?" Timothy asked, moseying up to the glass counter and smelling a blend of Versace and Marlboro coming from the other side.
"I've been digging up information on our guy, Luther."
Timothy and Marshall both nod and stare at her in eager anticipation.
"And I haven't found much. The guy had no social media presence, not much in the way of public records, and no arrest record of any kind. If you ask me, this guy sounds like one of those doomsday prepper, off-the-grid types. It's rare that someone has this little of a digital imprint. I mean, he was older, but most people have a social media presence of some kind."
"That's not unheard of," Marshall said, unimpressed by Betsy's thickening thus far. "My dad doesn't have a Facebook and thinks Twitter is something his heart does when it goes into AFib."
"And my mother posts eight times a day," Betsy replied, her eyes rolling. "That's not what's so interesting. Even though there is scant evidence, I did find this."
Betsy grabbed a laptop from behind her and opened it on the glass counter. On the screen was a grand opening announcement for a travel company called Trinity Adventures. Beneath an ancient ClipArt created logo was the slogan "Servicing all your travel needs to Adventureland and all of greater Trinity." Below that was a picture of five men and two women, arms interlocked, all grinning from ear to ear, all wearing the same black polo emblazoned with the logo on its lapel. Timothy looked at the screen and scanned the happy faces standing with the absurd outer glow only used by a designer with no design skills. His heart stopped when he saw Luther's face. He knew the face because he had seen it before. It was the same face from the photo on the mantle of the house by the lake.
"This is Luther," Betsy said, moving her finger to point him out.
Before she could touch the screen, Timothy's finger jutted out and pointed to Luther.
"It's him," he said blankly. "I've seen him before."
"Where've you seen him before?" Marshall asked incredulously, before realizing the answer. "Wait, don't tell me."
"What's so unique about this?" Timothy asked.
"Well, you wouldn't know this because you're not locals," she said, then pointed to the man next to Luther. "But he's the city commissioner."
"Okay..," Marshall said, not following her drift.
"And she is married to the minority owner of Adventureland," Betsy continued, pointing at the woman at the end of the line.
"How do you know this?" Timothy asked.
"It's public information. Anyone can look it up. Also, I've seen them before."
"Why would they be working for a shitty car service company?" Marshall asked. "This thing looks like something I made on Windows 95 when I was ten."
"That's the rub, isn't it?" Betsy replied. "It's from four years ago."
"Does Trinity Adventures have a website or a contact number?" Timothy asked.
"Nothing that I can find."
"Who are these other guys?" Marshall asked, pointing to the others in the photo.
"Don't know yet," Betsy replied. "But I'd be willing to bet they're not nobodies."
"But isn't our guy Luther a nobody?" Marshall asked.
"I never said that," Betsy replied. "I don't know a thing about him."
"Allison was your friend. She didn't ever bring him around or talk about what he did."
"I've already told you what I know about him. Amanda.., I mean, Allison, always came here alone and we didn't talk about her men, current or past." Betsy said, putting particular emphasis on the final word and shooting him a glance that let him know she was unamused by bad cop.
At that point, an older woman, hunched and shaking with light tremors, sauntered up to the counter holding a shopping basket full of dusty china. Ignoring the conversation being had, she thrust the shopping cart between Timothy and the glass counter, then cleared her throat to divert attention to her.
"Excuse me," she said in her best little old lady voice. "Can you tell me if this says $3.99 or $13.99?"
Betsy grabbed the item, knowing full well what the answer would be. She flipped it over and inspected the faded price tag.
"It's $23.99, Mrs. Oglethorpe," Betsy replied.
"Twenty-three dollars?" She cried, clutching her metaphorical pearls.
"Yes, ma'am. You know Mr. Jeffries prices his stuff at market price and don't give me no room to wiggle."
"This is worth five dollars at best," Mrs. Oglethorpe retorted.
"Maybe forty years ago, but prices have changed. Mr. Jeffries is very up-to-date with his pricing."
"Mr. Jeffries is a snake," Mrs Oglethorpe spat. "And a moron."
"I heard that," came a man's voice from one of the aisles behind the front counter.
"Twenty-three dollars?" Mrs. Oglethorpe shouted. "That's highway robbery!"
"It's a fair price, Mrs. Oglethorpe," said Mr. Jeffries as he came around the corner to the front of the store.
He was a big man, maybe six five, and rotund. His face sat deep inside a pocket of fat that started below the eyes and sagged to the top of his chest. The features that did make their way through the morass - nose, ears, chin, but no jawline - were bulbous and soft. To top it all off, Mr. Jeffries sported a close-cropped beard in a failed attempt to resurrect the shape of his chin.
"You can't do any better?" Mrs. Oglethorpe persisted, this time turning up the old biddie charm. "It's such a pretty piece."
"They're selling online for close to thirty," Mr. Jeffries countered, wiping the newly formed beads of sweat that glistened on his brow. "I think twenty-three is in itself a deal."
"You know I don't give two shits about what prices are on the worldwide web! We ladies of Trinity shop local. It should be our demand that sets the price point."
"We don't live in that world anymore, Mrs. Oglethorpe."
"What about you?" Mrs. Oglethorpe said to Betsy, hands still gripping the china. "What would you reasonably pay for this?"
"Nothing," Betsy said matter-of-factly. "I don't collect china."
"You're useless," Mrs. Oglethorpe snarled, gripping the china tighter with her disgust.
"I tell you what," Mr. Jeffries said, growing more exasperated by the second, sweat pouring from his brow. "Would twenty even make you happy?"
"That's still highway robbery," the old woman conceded. "But yes. That would make me happy."
"Are you ready to check out?" Betsy asked.
"I believe so," Mrs. Oglethorpe replied, her demeanor shrunken back to that of a little old lady.
Timothy and Marshall watched as Oglethorpe slowly removed each item from her cart, hands shaking from the tremors, until the entire glass countertop was covered. Her final total was in the three hundreds. When the total was given, she scoffed, but paid with a Visa black card.
It took Betsy close to ten minutes to ring up and wrap all the items in Mrs. Oglethorpe's cart. When she had bagged them up and helped put them in the old woman's car, she returned to her position behind the counter, slightly more frazzled than before.
"Where were we?" She asked Timothy and Marshall.
"Is there at least an address on there?" Marshall asked.
"Nope," Betsy replied. "No Facebook, or Twitter, or Insta. No website. No nothing. Not a trace that this place ever went into actual business."
"So, it's a front," Marshall said.
"Maybe," Betsy said with a shrug of her shoulders. "Or maybe they never actually opened and wiped every trace of it off the internet."
"Which one sounds the least likely?" Timothy asked.
"Both of them," Marshall replied.
"What's the next step?" Betsy asked them.
"I think we need to figure out who everyone else is in that picture," Timothy replied.
"How do you plan to do that?" Betsy replied.
"By asking him," Timothy said, pointing to Austin Campbell, the current city commissioner. "Can you print this out for me?"
Austin Campbell's office was the definition of clean, clinical, and cold. Its white walls were spotless, and the pictures, degrees, and newspaper articles framed upon it were all neatly placed and geometrically accurate. His desk, though full, was by no means cluttered. Everything sat in organized piles, with pens neatly set in holders and pictures of his children arranged with the precision of an interior designer. Even the couch that Timothy and Marshall sat upon seemed unsullied by previous rumps. It was all too clean, too tidy.
Commissioner Campbell ran his fingers over his bald head as though thick, luxurious locks still hung from his dead pores. Timothy wondered if he had phantom hair, or just a lifelong habit not even male pattern balding could quell. He poured over the picture he gripped in his free hand and whistled.
"God, haven't seen this in a hot minute," he said. "Where'd you find it?"
"The internet," Marshall replied.
"How'd you manage to dig this up? Business was closed before it opened."
"You'd be amazed at what you can stumble upon these days," Marshall said, hinting at a knowledge of foul play that he did not really possess.
"I guess that's true," The commissioner said with a smile. "The real question is, why did you bring this? I hope not just for a stroll down memory lane, as I must assure you, it's a small cul-de-sac not worth traversing."
"This man," Timothy said, pointing to Luther. "Can you tell me about him? Where he lives or if he's still around."
"What's with the first degree, son?" The commissioner replied calmly but devoid of charm. "I don't typically abide by interrogation by a stranger."
"It's my sister. She went missing three years ago, and that man was supposed to be her lover."
"You're Amanda's brother?" The commissioner blurted out, his eyes bulging a little.
"You knew her?" Timothy asked with surprise.
"We all knew her. She was like a firecracker to this community. She wasn't here long, but she lit up this community while she was here. Damn shame that she disappeared in them woods. Damn shame. Still ain't found a stick of evidence, though. Some of the folks 'round here just assume she up and left town as silently as she arrived. Luther put up them flyers, but they were no use. Unless someone combed through all them woods out there, they ain't gonna find her, and even then it's a coin toss as to whether there's anything at all."
"You think she disappeared in the woods?" Marshall asked.
"Happens all the time, actually," The commissioner said, his hands dancing through his phantom hair. "Hiker thinks they're a pro, takes the wrong trail without telling anyone, takes a fall, or worse. There ain't gonna be anyone coming by for help."
"Or worse?" Timothy asked.
"There's plenty in those woods looking to kill you," the commissioner replied.
"I can imagine," Marshall said under his breath.
"Do you have another theory?" The commissioner asked Timothy. "If so, I'm all ears."
"The official story is that she was murdered by Richard Crandall."
"The I-10 killer? No shit!"
"Everyone has accepted it. Everyone except me."
"What about you?" The commissioner as Marshall, his eyebrow cocked a little.
"I'm on the fence."
"I see," the commissioner said. "So, you came here to investigate?"
"You could say that," Timothy replied.
"Well, then, take my advice, guys," the commissioner said, folding the printout in two so that the picture was on the inside, then handing it back to them. "You may have come to the right place, but this is where the mystery ends. She's out in those woods somewhere, I guarantee it. Unless you want to go trudging into that abyss, and I certainly don't recommend it, then you may as well accept that fact and just go home. Move on with your life already. It's what your sister would want you to do."
"How do you know?" Timothy asked incredulously.
"It's what I would want if I were in her position."
"But you're not, are you?" Marshall jumped in, snatching the paper from the commissioner.
"Gentlemen, it's been fun, but I must ask you to leave now. I'm very busy."
Timothy got up to leave quickly, but Marshall took his time. He stood above the desk for a moment, staring down upon the commissioner.
"One more question," he said, unfolding the picture and showing it again. "Who are these other people?"
"Goodbye."
They drove back to their hotel in silence, Timothy contemplative, while Marshall seethed. They both knew it was going to take more than a few days to figure dissect the individual strands of the web that Allison had spun in Trinity. For Timothy, it was a cause for excitement. He knew he was in the right place, just searching for the next crumb. For Marshall, however, it was maddening. He knew then that he had to see it through, no matter how long, and it pissed him off.
"I'm hungry," Marshall blurted out. "Let's find ourselves a greasy spoon before we get back to the room."
"Okay," Timothy replied, looking to either side of the road ahead for signs of a home-cooking restaurant. "How about that one?"
Timothy pointed to a faded beige sign that said Dino's in all capitals, and diner in lower case. It looked to have been erected in the sixties and not touched since, one of the many ancient relics that populate the main drag of Trinity.
"Sure," Marshall said. "Looks greasy enough."
Timothy pulled into the all but empty parking lot and parked near the front door. They got out quickly and we're seated in a booth by the window with equal swiftness. Dino's was the textbook definition of an old-time diner. Linoleum ruled the day, as did pleather-covered bar stools and benches, all ringed in the kind of fake chrome that brings to mind a Chrysler or Cadillac in the mind of a Disney kid whose never seen the real thing. In other words, it was the sixties through the lens of happy days. Posters of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe adorned the wall, while a Wurlitzer jukebox played the hits of the era at a comfortably low volume. The only item that stands out as being not particularly period correct is a cartoonish statue of the Blues Brothers that stands by the bathrooms, but it gets a pass based on cool points.
After a moment, they were greeted by a rotund young woman in an aquanet-assisted updo wherein a mask of foundation and make that would have made John Waters proud.
"Good afternoon, gents," she said in a high-pitched squeak of a voice. "Welcome to Dino's. My name is Martha. What can I get you started on to drink? We've got sweet tea, lemonade, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, no, Starry, but that's basically Sprite, right? Uhm, Dr. Pepper, Fanta, High-C, I can make you an Arnold Palmer, or something a little harder like a Budweiser, or maybe a milkshake?"
Timothy and Marshall stared at her, trying to wrap their heads around the stream of words that Martha had strewn together.
"Did I do it again?" She suddenly asked them, cupping her hand over her mouth.
"Do what again?" Timothy asked.
"My boss says I have diarrhea of the mouth. Says I can't stand empty space. Says it's my anxiety, he says. Oh God.., I'm doing it again! I'm sorry, what can I get you both to drink? We've got swee..,"
"I'll just have water," Timothy said, cutting her off before another torrent.
"Water," she said slowly. "Great. And for you, sir?"
"I want one them there Arnie Palmers."
"Coming right up," Martha said with a smile.
Martha disappeared behind the door to the kitchen, leaving Timothy and Marshall in stunned silence. They each took that moment to look around and see that they were the only patrons in the dining room.
"I swear to God this place isn't fucking real," Marshall said, finally. "It's a movie set and we're the only idiots not in on the gag."
"Do you think it was always like this?" Timothy asked him.
"How the hell should I know? I think every theme park town is batty. Have you ever been to Celebration?"
"What's that?" Timothy asked.
At this point, Martha had returned with their drinks, each in yellowed plastic jugs that looked straight out of a nineteen-eighties cafeteria. She removed a pen from her hair-sprayed updo and a notepad from her ample bosom.
"You boys know what you want? We've got beef tips in gravy on special. They're mighty fine. Had myself some last night for dinner, and oh, child, it was delicious. Even Carol over at the health food store loves and she don't love nothin'."
"What do you recommend?" Marshall, knowing full well what he was unleashing, his grin to Timothy relaying the message to hold on.
"That's a hard question, you know? I've had most everything on the menu except the liver. I hate liver. My daddy made me eat liver and onions every Wednesday for my entire childhood. Never developed a taste for it. So, not that, but I guess it depends on what mood I'm in at the time. Like, for instance, today I'm feeling kinda frisky so I might go for a skirt steak with veggies or maybe a pasta. Chef Marco makes a delish pasta. The carbonara is divine with the little bacon bits and that cream sauce…mmhm, I'm gonna be thinking 'bout that tonight when I get off. Other than that, I guess you really can't go wrong with the burger. It's choice cut prime and comes as a quarter-pound patty. You can add another party or do it in a melt. We also got a really good broiled chicken. I like the tenders, the Buffalo sandwich, and… oh my god, the Cali Chicken Club, with the avocado and aioli. That's delicious too. Let me see," Martha said, then reached down to grab a menu before continuing. "The brisket is pretty good, a little fatty for my taste, but pretty good. God, you know who made a killer brisket was Pathways. Damn, I miss Pathways. What a sandwich. Anyway, uhm, the salads are all, well, salads, and the soup of the day is good, if you're into that sort of thing. Oh, and we have ribeye right now, but it's a bit…"
She cut herself off with a squeak and covered her mouth, her face flush with embarrassment.
"I'm doing it again, aren't I?" She said in a soft voice.
"I'm just enjoying listening," Marshall replied with a shit eating grin. "I'll have the patty melt."
"Cali Chicken Club," Timothy said, handing his menu without looking at her.
"Coming right up," she squealed, then hurried off to the kitchen.
"Why'd you egg her one like that?" Timothy whispered forcefully once the kitchen door was closed.
"I just wanted to see if she'd do the whole menu," Marshall replied with a devious smile.
It didn't take long for the cook to whip up their two sandwiches and a couple of orders of fries. Each got to around the midway point on their respective drinks before Martha was parading back out with two steaming hot plates of food in her hands.
"One patty melt," she said, placing the burger in front of Marshall, then the chicken sandwich before Timothy. "And the Cali Chicken Club."
"Thank you," Timothy said with a smile.
"Can I get you gentlemen anything else right now?" She asked with all of her southern charm.
"Actually, you could," Marshall said, removing the printout from earlier and unfolding it on the table. "Do you recognize anyone in this picture?"
"Are you guys like cops, or something? I bet ya'll are, aren't yah? A lot of weird shit happens in Trinity, you know? A lot of people just disappear here. It's crazy! You hear about it all the time. Used to be better, but you know, since they closed the park…ghost town."
"We're not cops," Marshall replied. "But we are looking for somebody. Do you recognize anyone in this photo?"
"Well," Martha said, slightly uneasy for the first time that day.
"Does anything ring a bell?" Timothy asked.
Martha picked up the printout and held it close to her chubby face. She squinted as she looked at the pixelated features of the people in the photo. After a moment, she dropped it on the table.
"I honestly don't really recognize any of them," she replied. "I mean, except the bitch on the right, but everybody knows her."
"Who is it?" Timothy asked.
"You boys really aren't from around here, are yah?"
"We are not," Marshall replied.
"That's the queen of Adventureland. She's the one who closed it and left it to fucking rot. She killed this town," Martha said, dropping all pretense of charm. "She can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned."
Back in the room, Timothy's mind was racing. Two of the three people they had identified from the photograph were closely tied to Adventureland, and, so Timothy believed, helped cause its demise in some fashion or another. He also knew that Luther was involved somehow, though he couldn't quite understand how. The missing persons poster was the only physical tie he could make between Luther and the amusement park. The rest was conjecture, or more precisely, desire. He longed for a through line in this mystery, a thread that led to bigger and bigger revelations before the mystery was solved and they could all go home. Instead, he was staring at an ever-darkening void whose mass was swallowing up his entire life like a black hole. Trinity was holding its secrets close to the vest, only dropping inexplicable crumbs whose pieces could never truly connect.
He looked over to Marshall, who was aimlessly flipping through channels in a relaxed position on the bed. Timothy wondered just how invested his friend really was in solving the mystery that brought them there. If things proved to be much darker than expected, if they found themselves following a more sinister path, how much would Marshall be willing to take? His wounds were deep, but they were different from Timothy's. She was his blood. She was Marshall's love. Or, perhaps Luther's?
His phone buzzed. Timothy grabbed it and saw a text message from Betsy. It read:
Betsy: What did yah find out?!?
Timothy smiled and looked up at Marshall, whose eyes were opening and closing on an episode of The Resident. He wondered why he felt so protective of his interactions with Betsy. Did he really have more than mere colleagues on his agenda? Had he already known it and just denied it? He knew he wanted to fuck her, but he was also a man, and she was his type, if he could ever be known to have type. No, there was more here, he thought. He looked back down at the phone and started typing.
Timothy: Nothing too much. Commissioner turned into a dick when pressed with our questions and stonewalled us. We did find out this woman is the Queen of Adventureland.
He unfolded the paper printout and took a picture. Then, with his finger, he circled the head of the woman in question, then texted that to Betsy.
Betsy: The Queen of Adventureland, huh? Where'd you learn that?
Timothy: Martha at Dino's.
Betsy: You ate at Dino's..?
Timothy: Yeah, what's wrong with Dino's?
Betsy: Oh, nothing. As long as you're satisfied. Was it busy?
Timothy: Not really.
Betsy: Were you the only ones in there?
Timothy: Yeah…
Betsy: I rest my case.
Timothy: Do you want to meet up later?
Betsy: Yeah. Meet me at McCallums around 8 pm. We'll pass the picture around and see what wecan find out.
Timothy: Okay, cool. I'll see you later.
He exited his text messages and saw that it was only a few minutes after two in the afternoon. He looked over at Marshall, who was now asleep, and felt his own eyes get heavy. Timothy lay his head on the pillow and let sleep take him quickly.