Chapter 16: The Call
The storage locker smelled like concrete and neglect, but it had become the closest thing I had to a home base.
I'd rented it six weeks ago under a name I'd invented on the spot—David Miller, paid six months in advance, cash only. The manager had barely glanced at my face before handing over the key. That was the beauty of places like this: they survived on discretion, on not asking questions, on letting people hide whatever needed hiding.
Today, I was hiding $13,600 in cash and waiting for one more deal to close.
The phone buzzed in my pocket. Badger: done. clean exit. commission at the drop.
I allowed myself a small smile. The deal had been straightforward—a buyer in the Heights needed a quarter-pound, a seller in the South Valley had it, neither trusted the other enough to meet directly. Standard brokerage work. Badger carried messages one direction, picked up cash the other. Commission: $1,800.
Two hours later, I stood in the storage locker counting bills under the single bare bulb.
$15,400.
I counted again, slower this time, making sure the numbers were real. Fifteen thousand four hundred dollars. More than the target I'd set seven weeks ago, when I was still learning what this body could do and what this world demanded.
The money felt heavy in my hands. Not just physically—though $15,400 in mixed bills had surprising weight—but metaphysically. This was the price of transformation. The cost of becoming someone new.
I separated $14,000 into one stack, $1,400 into another. The larger pile was for Dr. Vargas. The smaller was emergency reserve, insurance against the unexpected. In my experience, the unexpected always showed up eventually.
The burner phone sat on an overturned crate beside me. I'd been carrying Fisher's number for two weeks, waiting for this moment. Waiting to have enough money to make the call matter.
I dialed.
Three rings. Four. Then a voice—professional, accented, unhurried.
"Clínica Vargas."
"I'm calling about a consultation. I was referred by a dentist in Albuquerque."
A pause. The sound of papers shuffling. "Yes. We were expecting contact. What is the nature of your inquiry?"
"Facial reconstruction. Comprehensive work. I need to look different."
"Different how?"
"Different enough that people who knew me before wouldn't recognize me after."
Another pause, longer this time. When the voice returned, it had shifted—less receptionist, more professional assessment.
"This is Dr. Vargas speaking. You understand that comprehensive facial reconstruction is a significant procedure. Recovery time is three to four weeks minimum. There may be complications."
"I understand."
"And you understand our pricing structure?"
"I was told twelve thousand for the procedure, plus accommodations during recovery."
"Fourteen thousand total, yes. Cash. No records, no insurance claims, no questions about why you need this service."
"That's what I'm looking for."
Dr. Vargas made a sound that might have been approval. "When can you come for consultation?"
I'd already mapped the timeline in my head. Two days to wrap up loose ends in Albuquerque. One day to travel. That put me in Tijuana by—
"Five days from now. Is that acceptable?"
"We have availability. Come to the clinic address you were given. Bring half the payment for consultation deposit. If you approve of our facilities and I approve of the surgical plan, we proceed immediately."
"And if either of us doesn't approve?"
"Then you leave with your deposit and we never speak again." A dry chuckle. "But I am good at my work, señor. Very few clients walk away."
We discussed logistics—travel recommendations, what to bring, what to expect. Dr. Vargas was businesslike but not cold. He'd done this before, many times, for people with reasons they didn't need to explain.
When I hung up, the storage locker felt different. Smaller, somehow. Like the walls had contracted around the weight of what I'd just set in motion.
Five days. In five days, I'd cross into Mexico. In five weeks, I'd return as someone else.
I found a bathroom in a nearby gas station and locked the door behind me.
The mirror above the sink was cracked, spotted with age, barely functional as a reflective surface. But it showed enough. It showed Skinny Pete's face staring back at me.
Gaunt cheekbones sharp enough to cut. Hollow eyes sunk deep in shadowed sockets. Skin that had the pallor of someone who'd spent years poisoning themselves with chemicals. Track marks on the forearms, faded but permanent—scars that would always mark this body as what it had been.
I'd lived in this face for almost two months. Learned its limits, its possibilities, its history. Pete's memories had become mine, his connections my network, his reputation my cover.
But Pete's face had a ceiling. There were doors it couldn't open, rooms it couldn't enter, people who would never take it seriously no matter how sharp the mind behind the eyes. In the world I was trying to build, appearance mattered. First impressions mattered. And Skinny Pete's first impression was always the same: junkie, loser, disposable.
Soon, that would change.
I studied the reflection one last time. Memorized the angles, the proportions, the specific arrangement of features that made this face what it was. Not because I'd miss it—I wouldn't—but because transformation required understanding what you were transforming from.
"Goodbye, Pete," I said quietly.
The face in the mirror didn't respond. It just stared back with those hollow eyes, waiting to become something else.
The walk back to my current motel took twenty minutes. I used the time to plan.
Five days meant five days of preparation. Cover stories for my absence. Instructions for Badger and Combo. A final check on Jesse, who was still drowning in the aftermath of watching people die.
The cover story came first. It needed to be boring enough to avoid questions, vague enough to resist verification, plausible enough that no one would think twice about it.
Sick aunt in California. Family emergency. Had to go help. Might be a month, might be longer.
Simple. Forgettable. Exactly what I needed.
Badger and Combo would need more specific instructions. The brokerage operation had to continue in my absence—momentum mattered, and disappearing completely would raise questions I couldn't afford. But they also couldn't get ambitious. Couldn't take risks that might collapse everything I'd built.
Small deals only. Nothing over a grand. Maintain existing relationships, don't start new ones. If anything feels wrong, walk away.
I'd leave them with operating cash and emergency contacts. Enough structure to function, not enough to get themselves killed.
And Jesse—
Jesse was the complication I couldn't plan around.
He was still in Walter White's orbit, still cooking meth in desert RVs, still processing the trauma of watching Emilio die and knowing Krazy-8 had followed. I couldn't extract him. Couldn't warn him. Couldn't do anything except be there when he needed someone who wasn't trying to use him.
But I was about to disappear for a month. A month during which the Walt-Jesse partnership would solidify. A month during which Jesse would sink deeper into a world that would eventually destroy him.
The guilt sat heavy in my chest. I was choosing my own transformation over Jesse's immediate crisis. Prioritizing the long game over the friend who needed help right now.
But the long game was the only game that mattered. I couldn't save Jesse as Skinny Pete. I didn't have the resources, the credibility, the reach. As Marcus Webb—or whoever I became—I'd have options that Pete never would.
You're rationalizing, a voice whispered. You're abandoning him when he needs you.
Maybe. But staying wouldn't change anything. I'd just be one more witness to Jesse's descent, powerless to alter the trajectory.
The motel room was dim and quiet when I arrived. I sat on the bed and pulled out a notebook, beginning the detailed work of preparing for departure.
Five days. Then everything changed.
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