The woman had promised me five hundred dollars for one night’s work. I was to beat her husband—not badly—and frighten him into never straying again. I was thirty-four, maybe thirty-five years old, and there, leaning against the peeling paint of the cheap vinyl wall of the building, I had given up on ever achieving anything but survival. That was the first night I took pills.
I have never thought of suicide. Indeed, even in my darkest hours, I derided those who chose it. With no potential joy to aspire to, at least I could yearn for its aspiration. At least I could enjoy poisoning my body and stumbling through the night like a half-wit. And I had long ago admitted to myself that despite the base nature of my sordid professional life, or perhaps because of it, for fifteen years I took some measure of satisfaction in what I had done. Inflicting pain and causing fear in those who deserved it may not be righteous, but it had felt just. And I had never, at least as far as I knew, brought harm upon an innocent. I would hate myself if I ever did; I would be
them
.
I sucked in a sharp breath. My last thought froze, turned, and lashed out at me. Heller. Tom Heller. Wayward young drunk … I had brought harm down upon him. I opened my eyes. Through one lid nearly swollen shut and the other wide, Heller was staring at me. He did not blink when I looked up at him. We held each other’s gaze. His battered face, his bruised chest, and broken hand … they sat before me like a testament to my failure. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. The music had stopped—I knew not how long ago.
He forced a smile, and I lamely tried to return it. “Do you want me to flip the tape?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly. “That’s okay.”
“Listen,” I said, rising to my knees and resting my elbows on the table, “I’m going to go and get some stuff for you. Some antiseptic and bandages and something for the pain, okay? I’ll be back in an hour.” I stood up, and to my great surprise, he rose as well.
“No … no, that’s okay, Tom. I have liquor for all that. Let’s just have a drink out on the balcony.”
“Heller, you’re a mess. You need to let me help you. And I need to tell—”
“I don’t need your help. I appreciate your company, that’s all.” He walked, unsteadily and breathing in short, strained gasps, into the kitchen. Grabbing the bottle of bourbon off the counter, he tucked it under the elbow of his left arm, turned, and pointed at the bedroom door. “Please, after you.”
I stood still for a second, and then nodded. He followed me into the bedroom, where I switched on the fan above the balcony door and then slid it open, stepping outside. Heller followed and sank roughly into his chair, groaning.
“Fuck me,” he muttered under his breath. Heller rested his glass on one leg and unsteadily filled it with whiskey, spilling liquor onto his pants. He shivered in the chill, damp air and then handed the bottle to me. I took it and poured myself a few fingers of bourbon. He sipped slowly at his glass a few times and stared out into the gray evening. A hundred questions danced through my mind, but I knew I should bide my time and let him speak.
I lit a cigarette. Heller looked over and wordlessly reached across himself toward the pack. I pulled out a smoke for him. He put the cigarette between his swollen lips, and I held a flame to its tip. “Thank you, Tom,” he said, his tone strangely formal. We smoked in silence for a while, his eyes staring vacantly, mine looking askance at him.
When half his cigarette was gone, he looked over at me. “I never resented you. Even when you were slapping me around or whatever, I never disliked you.” He took a slow drag. “I wish everything was different, but it’s not. Even when you were first coming around for money or to shake me down or whatever, I always had a sense that in another life, we would have been friends.”
“I like to think we are,” I said, my voice tarnished with remorse.
A smile played briefly across his face. “Agreed.” He held out his glass, and I quickly tapped mine against it, spilling a bit of whiskey on the concrete. He raised his glass and held it in front of his face, staring at it as though it were consecrated. Then Heller took a sip and, leaning over slowly with his cloth-wrapped hand held tight to his ribs, set it down.
“Some men came by and did this to me. They asked about you. I told them nothing, okay? I told them I owed you money and then I paid it and that was it. One of them said you’d have some things to tell me, but I don’t want you to, okay? I don’t want to know a fuckin’ thing they want me to.”
“Who?”
He shook his head, dismissing me. “I think the less I say, the better for you. They told me to tell you something and I don’t think I should, but I’m going to. I think it’s going to put you in more danger, but I’d want you to tell me.”
“Heller … Tom, don’t try to carry this yourself. I’ll listen, but I do have things to tell you. I can help you. I need to—I need to help myself, for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t want to know a thing. Not a damn thing. Just lie low. Hide.”
“I can’t do that!” I raised my glass but paused before taking a drink, and then lowered it again. “Look, I hardly know what all I’m involved with anymore, okay? But I know things now that you need to know.” He looked over at me, his one good eye wide but not perceptive. There was a glaze to his visage: the look one gets when too drunk or … or very near … I trailed off for a moment, again unsure if telling him what I knew would set him free or crush him beneath the weight of the whole goddamn world.
“Look,” I continued lamely, “there are pieces that must fit in some logical way, and I need help to … to see the forest for the trees. What happened to you?”
He was silent, motionless. Then, with deep sorrow weighing down his voice, said, “You know, I never really saw a forest. At least that I can remember at all. Just some pictures in a book I read in this goddamn city. I’d give anything to get out. Listen, I’m going to ask you to do me a favor. One favor, and you just have to say yes, okay?”
“Heller, I don’t—”
“You’re just going to have to say yes. It’s just one little favor, Tom. Give me your word. Say yes!” He coughed, and I saw flecks of blood on his lips.
“Yes.”
He nodded and thanked me, looking over. Then he looked back out into the gray. “You can have the apartment. Take all the tapes—take whatever you want. Don’t fight them, Tom. Just lie low and try to be forgotten. That’s the only chance you’ve got.”
“Kid, you have to tell me what happened.”
“No. Just what they said. Just that and the one favor, okay? I always liked you. I blame you for nothing. I always respected you. What they said is, ‘She’s next.’ What you have to do for me—” He rose suddenly to his feet. “—is go downstairs and finish me off if I need it.” He clambered over the railing and without a moment’s hesitation leapt out into the void.
“Heller, no!” I screamed, my voice cracking as he fell out of view. A dull thud sounded from the street below. My knees buckled and I dropped my glass. It shattered beside his, still sitting half-f where he had set it down. I gripped the railing for what felt like an eternity; maybe it was ten seconds.
Then I wheeled and threw wide the glass door. I charged through his apartment, out the door, and leapt down each flight of stairs. Barreling through the vent chamber, I stumbled headlong out into the street, panic mixing with dread. I ran in frenzied circles, trying to find him in the misty night.
“Heller! Heller, please!” I cried out, knowing it was in vain. Finally in desperation, I fell to my knees and began crawling back and forth across the street, covering every square inch. Then before me out of the swirling air was his leg. I froze, petrified to have his death confirmed.
“Heller…,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Tom.”
I crawled forward until I was beside him and could see all of his body. He didn’t need me to finish him off. He had landed with his damaged left eye down, and the side of his face I could see looked peaceful. His exposed eye was half-open, and I gently pushed the lid closed. From beneath his chest seeped blood, black in the night haze, slowly fanning out around him in all directions.
He had died because of me. Trying to protect me, even. Finally he had escaped. At least he had achieved that.
“Thank you, Tom.” I rested my hand on his pale, narrow back. His skin was warm. “I’m sorry.” I stood up slowly and looked down at Heller, knowing that image would be indelibly burned into my mind. His one leg bent, his hands, palms down, near his head. His face.
I turned and went back upstairs into his place. For some reason, after standing still in the spartan apartment for a long while, I had carefully made Heller’s bed. I cleaned up the shards of my shattered whiskey glass and poured out the rest of the liquor from his, cleaned the cup, and put it away on a shelf. I took the Chopin cassette from the tape player and Beethoven’s Ninth from a pile on his table and left forever.
Before seeing Heller’s broken body, there had been two options open: Run away, or face them full-on. Now the choice had been made for me. It was Watley’s choice, but I didn’t give much of a fuck anymore. I just needed to get close enough to wrap my hands around his neck. It was straight back to the Science and Development Research Department for me.
14
There were six armed guards in the lobby of Research. None of them seemed particularly surprised by my arrival. None even drew a weapon. The biggest of them, a boulder of a man with a pockmarked white face, took a few steps toward me and fingered a shock rod, but he kept it on his belt.
“No problems, right?” he growled.
“If you take me to John Watley, no. No problems.”
The man nodded slowly, then looked over his shoulder at the group. “Call ahead.” He turned back to face me and pulled a pair of handcuffs from his jacket. “Standard practice.”
I nodded, feigning resignation, and held my hands out before me. Hell, they worked pretty well on Callahan’s neck. Seven pairs of boots echoed in the bare lobby as the guards walked me to the elevator. The doors opened without anyone pushing a button. Like it was sent from on high. I sighed and stepped in. The elevator shuddered as each man entered; then the doors slid silently shut, and the big guy punched the button for floor ten. Figured it was back to the good old jail cells.
I was wrong. When the doors opened, revealing the same richly appointed lobby, empty for the moment, I was led not right to the holding cells, but left toward the opposite set of imposing wooden doors. Four of the guards held back in the lobby while the big man and an older guy approached the doors. The older guard knocked on the door, paused, and then turned the handle. Both doors swung inward.
Watley I was not surprised to see. He stood in the middle of the large carpeted room—empty but for a big screen on one wall and a stack of folding chairs—dressed impeccably as always. Fallon Ayers’s presence was a bit less expected. He stood beside Watley, eyes on the ground, wearing a gray suit and pressed white shirt with no tie. I missed a step in confusion, and then walked into the room and stopped a few paces from the men, staring at Watley. He held my gaze for a while, then turned abruptly and pulled a chair from the pile.
He unfolded it and set it down, gesturing for me to sit. I did, and Watley repeated the action for Fallon, who also sat. He caught my eye for a fleeting second. His gaze was hard, and I couldn’t tell if he meant me to read hatred or solidarity. Watley got a chair of his own, then waved the big guard over. He knelt beside me and took off my cuffs. No one had said a word yet.
Finally Watley cleared his throat. The patrician air was gone from his voice when he spoke. “We’re going to watch something.” He gestured vaguely at the screen mounted on the wall. “But first, I wanted to ask you if you went to visit your Mr. Heller?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Tell us how your friend looked.” Blood flashed behind my eyes. I took in a long, slow breath and said nothing. “Did you tell him … anything?”
I shook my head.
“Did he give you my message?”
I nodded. Watley leaned forward, elbows on his knees and fingers intertwined. He glanced at Fallon, who lowered his eyes.
“Why don’t you go ahead and repeat it.”
“You’re next.”
Watley leaned back in his chair. “That’s not quite what I instructed him to say.”
“I know,” I whispered. “That’s my message to you.”
Watley’s face was implacable. Then slowly the corners of his mouth rose into a sneer. His eyes were unsmiling. “You’d be a psychiatrist’s dream patient, Vale. Really—I mean that. So cavalier in the face of desperation. It’s like you’ve managed to totally block out reality.”
“I’d say you’re the one who did that.”
Watley laughed. He gave a toothy, genuine smile. The goddamn bastard was smiling at me. The muscles in my neck grew tense. My legs were coiled springs.
“The message, Fallon, was, ‘
She’s
n—’” I was upon him. I dived full into his chest, trying to find an eye socket with a thumb, my other hand on his neck, teeth seeking flesh. His head bounced off the thin carpet. Watley shrieked and tried to push me off as I drove my forearm against his throat.
“Get him the fuck off me!” he rasped.
“Do I shoot him?” the guard shouted.
“Just hit him in the head, you stupid goddamn—”
* * *
The room was as simple as a room can be. One door. A window in one wall. Two chairs and a table. The door was unpainted wood and the walls were white. Four recessed lights filled the room with bright, soft light. Beyond the window was nothing but gray. I had woken up slumped in a corner with a pounding headache. There was matted blood in my hair and on my shoulders; some of it was still damp.
Nearly an hour later, still I sat on the floor, the pain subsiding when I didn’t move. I had gotten up once to look around. The door was sturdy and double bolted. The table, made of cheap pressboard, had a single drawer containing two sheets of paper, one envelope, and a pen. Doubtful that they’d been left there inadvertently. Eventually I had sat back down in the corner and slipped into reverie.
If only Fallon had been shackled and dressed in rags. I couldn’t make sense of this anymore. Couldn’t fathom son against father. Against sister. My first thought upon waking was of the smiling family in the picture in front of a waterfall. Then I had thought of nothing but Rebecca for a long time.