The Bureau, page 17
“Can you have some more books sent to Hughes?”
Townsend regarded him expressionlessly. “Books?”
“He only has a few. They’re pretty much all he has, you know? I’m aware of the harm he caused, but after all these years, maybe he’s due a crumb of mercy.”
“Hmm.” Townsend took a moment to light his cigarette and cast a quick longing glance at the file cabinet where he kept his liquor. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
For no particular reason that he could ascertain, the weight in Kurt’s chest felt a little lighter for the rest of the day.
* * *
The reports had been correct—the mental hospital was haunted. Infested would be a better word for it really, with ghosts lurking in nighttime corridors and flitting across courtyards. Kurt could hardly blame them. Most of them had traveled a rough road while alive and had then died behind bars, forgotten. A hospital administrator admitted that nobody knew where all of the inmates were buried; the place had been in operation since the gold rush, the grounds were extensive, and record-keeping was often sloppy at best.
Anyway, most of the ghosts were harmless, and Kurt let them be, hoping they’d eventually find their way to peace. One haunt, however, had been terrorizing staff and patients so badly that an entire wing had been cordoned off. One orderly had been severely injured when the ghost cornered him in a bathroom and manifested enough physicality to wrench a sink out of the wall and strike the man on the head.
The Bureau had a protocol for getting rid of troublesome spirits. Kurt smudged the area with burning sage, scattered copious amounts of salt, and played “It’s a Small World” on endless loop. It didn’t have to be that particular song. One of his colleagues preferred Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You,” and another swore by “Disco Inferno,” but Disney always did the trick for Kurt.
Sure enough, the ghost spent thirty minutes moaning and throwing itself against the walls before it focused on Kurt’s repeated firm commands for it to go away. Then it was gone, probably for good. Just in case it did make a reappearance, Kurt had a little gadget—dreamed up by some of the tech gurus at the Bureau—that looked like an electrical plug with no cord attached. He had no idea exactly how the thing worked, but he knew from experience that if he stuck it in an unobtrusive outlet, the ghost couldn’t return.
When he was done in Stockton, he decided to take the long way home. Instead of driving down the Central Valley, he cut west to Highway 1 and took his time hugging the coast through Big Sur. He even made a little vacation out of it, spending the night in a hotel near Cambria before returning home the next day.
The next few weeks were busy with the usual things. He, Jason, and Maryann took a tour of UC San Diego, a pretty campus located enviably close to the ocean. Eager for independence, Jason liked the idea of going to school outside of LA. The fact that he wouldn’t be that far—less than three hours—pleased Kurt and Maryann, who also felt as if the upscale community of La Jolla would be a safe place for their son to fledge.
Kurt ran twice a day at work, often accompanied by Edge and Terry. Even Edge seemed relaxed and almost merry as a result of their extended romp in the woods. Kurt handled the usual assortment of minor assignments and worked with some other senior agents on developing training modules for recruits. On some weekends, he and Vaughn met up at Vaughn’s place to watch football on TV and screw. Kurt’s kitchen sink developed a leak, and he spent a sweaty Saturday running to the hardware store and swearing at plumbing.
On an overcast November morning that hinted at possible rain, Kurt and Edge ran some particularly swift laps, leaving Terry cussing cheerfully in their wake. Back in the locker room, Kurt politely managed not to ogle their beautiful physiques. Terry could easily have been a model, and Edge had exactly the kind of muscular body that always got Kurt’s gears going. But perving on your coworkers was not acceptable, and those two were so deeply in love with each other that even thinking about them sexually felt like a major transgression.
Kurt had dried off, put on his underwear, and was just slipping into his shirt when an agent burst into the locker room. He was new to the Bureau, only a handful of years older than Jason, and Kurt didn’t know his name. When the new guy saw the other men in their various stages of undress, his cheeks flamed, making Terry chuckle.
“Um, Agent Powell?” The kid trained his gaze toward the ceiling.
“Yes.”
“The chief wants to see you. Right away.”
Terry chuckled again when Kurt heaved a sigh. “Looks like you’re in demand, Kurt.”
“Great.”
The kid scurried away, still blushing, and Kurt finished getting dressed.
Mrs. Kirschenheiter gave her usual glower when he arrived at the chief’s office. “He’s not here.”
“But he sent for me. The kid said he wanted to see me immediately.”
“That was fifteen minutes ago.”
“I was in the locker room. Next time I’ll just walk up here naked, okay?”
Her face pinched tight, and Kurt struggled not to smile. “Is he still in the building, Mrs. Kirschenheiter?”
“He’s in the tower.” She seemed reluctant to say more, but she clearly forced herself. “Today’s code is 3857.”
“Thank you.”
Nobody entered the tower unless Townsend invited them—and Kurt didn’t know anyone who’d been invited. There were plenty of rumors about what that space contained. A huge bar. A torture chamber. A library. A laboratory. A private zoo. Of course, all of these were pure speculation, but Kurt was about to discover the truth. He grinned as he made his way to the elevator at the center of the building.
He half expected the keypad to reject the code, but after he tapped it in, a light blinked green. A few moments later, the elevator doors slid open. The interior was nice but not spectacular. Polished wood paneling and a marble-tiled floor. There were no buttons to push, which was a little disconcerting, but the doors glided shut before he could change his mind, and then the car rose.
The elevator released him into the center of a large, nearly bare room: glass walls, shiny white floor tile, and plain circular lights set into a white ceiling. Even the exterior walls of the elevator shaft were unadorned and white. Eight white metal cafe chairs, arranged in pairs, faced each of the four directions.
“Disappointed?” The question startled Kurt. Townsend sat in one of the chairs, gazing outward but clearly addressing Kurt since there was nobody else there. Somehow Kurt had missed seeing him during his initial scan of the room, even though Townsend was really hard to miss.
“It’s, um, emptier than I thought it would be.”
“Oh, this place is full and very busy. You just can’t see the activity.” Townsend tapped the side of his own head and winked.
Kurt was used to his boss being enigmatic and decided to focus instead on the important topic. “You needed to see me?”
“Indeed. But come enjoy the view.”
Kurt crossed over to him, footsteps loud on the tile. They were facing north toward the Santa Susana Mountains, with a vista encompassing the Ventura Freeway and orderly blocks of houses. The clouds looked thicker than when he’d been outside, but they weren’t yet heavy enough to obscure the landscape. “It’s nice.”
Townsend huffed a laugh. “Nice. I guess so. It was better when we were downtown. When the Bureau insisted on moving us, I lobbied heavily for what’s left of Bunker Hill, but I lost that battle. Traffic and parking, they said. Pfft. Anyway, this tower was my consolation prize.”
“But… what’s it for?”
“Contemplation, my boy. Considering the consequences of actions.”
If Kurt hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Townsend looked wistful.
“Is that why you brought me here? To think about consequences?” Kurt searched his mind for anything he might have done wrong, any policies he’d violated; he drew a blank. However much he’d fucked up when he was younger, he’d stayed within the lines once he joined the Bureau.
“Not exactly. Tell me, what’s the distinction between good and evil?”
Kurt blinked. “Um, I’ve never given it much thought.”
“Of course you have. You can’t work for the Bureau for eleven years without cogitating on this issue. But in your case, it was a pertinent topic long before you became an agent. While marching through the jungles in Vietnam. While flying high with drugs and pickling yourself with alcohol.”
Trying not to bristle at Townsend’s mention of those uncomfortable memories, Kurt glared out at the gray skies. “I don’t know that I’m qualified to make that distinction, Chief. I never studied philosophy or theology. No college for me, remember?”
“It doesn’t take a university education to develop a sense of morality.”
True enough. But Kurt shrugged.
“Oh, come on, Powell. Let me ask you this: is a being inherently good if they’re human and inherently evil if they’re not?”
“Of course not. You know that better than I do. You’ve had plenty of nonhumans on the payroll here. I’d trust Edge with my life as quickly as I’d trust any of the homo sapiens around here.”
Townsend nodded, seemingly pleased with that response. “Yes, we can agree that humanity is not dispositive either way. So now tell me, how do we distinguish an evil man from a good one?”
Presumably this was leading somewhere, although Kurt didn’t know where. He rubbed his head, running fingers through the cropped curls as he thought. It turned out that he did, in fact, have an opinion on the matter, but putting it into words wasn’t easy. “I guess,” he said slowly, “I don’t really believe in good or evil men. I think there are some people who choose good acts and some who choose evil, and a lot who do a mixture of both. Every one of us has the capacity to go either way.”
“And can someone who has chosen one path change to the other?”
“Does this have something to do with that redemption stuff you were asking me about a few weeks ago?”
“It all has to do with redemption.” After a pause, Townsend pointed at the nearby chair. “Have a seat.”
Kurt did. The chair wasn’t especially comfortable.
“I have a new assignment for you, boy. Or rather, the continuation of an old one.”
“Sir?”
“You and Desmond Hughes are going on a journey.”
Chapter Nine
Des didn’t know if this particular volume had been intended as a joke, but since he was in the habit of devouring whatever books he was granted, he’d read it anyway. He could hardly spurn a book by a fellow Irishman, not even if the subject matter hit too close to home. He’d heard of Oscar Wilde before but only enough to know he was an Irish author. Now as he read the book’s foreword, a chill ran down Des’s back—and not from the cell’s cold air. Wilde had been sent to prison for being gay. He’d written this book, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, while incarcerated. It was his final work. His time in prison had broken him physically and mentally, and he’d died in self-imposed exile, in poverty, only a few years after being released.
“Yeah, but you’re not in here for being a poofter,” Des reminded himself. At least not directly. Falling for another man had put him on the path to this prison, but it was murder that got him locked up. Multiple murders.
Des pushed away the familiar despair and began to read.
His only previous experiences with poetry had been confined to dirty limericks, so this piece was slow going. But that was all right, since the words made his chest hurt and his throat feel tight. Then he reached a stanza near the end:
* * *
And never a human voice comes near
To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
With soul and body marred.
* * *
Des’s eyes stung and blurred and he had to stop reading.
He placed the book back on the shelf. Perhaps he’d try again later.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” he growled as he paced the floor. “You deserve what they’ve done to you. Deserve worse. You should be nothing but dust and bones now, like Larry.”
Although those words were true, they didn’t make his suffering any less.
Wilde had been forty-six when he died. That was.... Shit. Only a few years older than Des was now. In his mind’s eye, Des was still a youth in his early twenties—perhaps because the last time he’d seen his reflection was the day he and Larry were caught.
They’d been staying in an old farmhouse in Kansas. Larry claimed he’d rented the place legally, but Des had harbored doubts when he saw the personal effects of the previous residents—an elderly couple, by the looks of things. But by that point Larry and Des had already killed multiple people and were on the run, so Des hadn’t pressed any questions, deciding to take Larry at his word.
They’d had sex as soon as they woke up that morning, which was usual. Then Larry went off to work in the barn. He didn’t like Des nearby when he worked, which was fine with Des, who’d instead gone for a long walk and admired the fresh greens of springtime fields. When he returned to the house, he showered and spent some time in front of the mirror, experimenting with different ways of arranging his hair. He was in the middle of making lunch when the door burst open and the house flooded with gun-wielding agents.
Des hadn’t put up a fight. Over the years he’d sometimes wished he had. They would have shot him, but maybe that would have been better. He’d surrendered at once, dropping a butter knife and raising his hands high. He’d been facedown on the old linoleum, cuffs being tightened around his wrists, when he heard the gunshots from the barn.
Nobody had ever told him whether Larry resisted or if the agents simply decided to gun him down like a rabid dog.
In any case, that mirror in Kansas, the one with the chipped edge and worn silver backing? That was the last one he’d seen.
He clearly remembered what he’d looked like at twenty-three. He’d been vain then, aware of his good looks and prone to spending a good amount of time admiring them. As he walked the endless circuits of his cell, he tried to picture that face now: lined with age, pain, and hopelessness and framed by the hair he’d once fussed with, now lank, washed only weekly, and hacked once a year by a dispassionate prison guard.
“Would any man want me if I were free?” Assuming they were unaware of his history, of course. Nobody would want him if they knew what he’d done.
“This is a foolish way to spend your time, ya eejit.” That came out sounding so like his mam that he didn’t know whether to smile or cry. He was still considering those options when the lock on his door thunked open.
Des went entirely still, and dread slid ice into his veins. This wasn’t the time of day for the guards. What did they want from him now?
Two guards came through the metal door and entered the small space. Des felt oddly relieved—but even more confused—when Agent Powell followed. With an impatient look, Powell pushed past the guards and halted when he was nearly touching the bars. He wore the same suit as last time, or one exactly like it, and stood very straight and tall, his expression unreadable. He didn’t say anything. Des simply gaped.
It was Des, in fact, who finally broke the silence. “The books are from you?” He gestured toward his shelf, which now held four times as many volumes as before.
“I asked my chief to arrange for some.”
“Did you choose which ones?”
“No.”
So the Wilde was somebody else’s idea of a joke, apparently.
Des nodded at him. “Thank you. Much obliged.”
Powell turned his head slightly to address the guards. “Leave us.”
“That’s against policy, sir,” said the blond one.
“Chief’s orders. That supersedes your... policy.” He said the last word as if it were something disgusting.
“But sir, he’s danger—”
“Is he capable of passing himself through metal bars?”
“Of course not, sir, but—”
“And once he’s magically moved through the bars, is he impervious to the bullets in my gun? Or maybe he can move really fast, like Superman?”
Des hung his head to hide a grin.
The guard sputtered for a moment before giving it another try. “We’re not supposed to—”
“Get out. Now.” Powell said it with such authority that disobedience seemed impossible. And sure enough, the guards scrambled back and, judging by the sound of their footsteps, hurried down the corridor. Without any sign of self-satisfaction, Powell pulled the big door nearly shut.
“They’ve cameras in here, you know,” Des said. “Don’t know if they have sound, but they can certainly watch.”
“I don’t care. I’m not here to tell secrets. I didn’t want those assholes breathing down my neck.”
This time Des didn’t hide his smile. Even if Powell was here to inflict something nasty, at least he was entertaining.
“This is where you’ve spent seventeen years,” Powell said.
“I’m allowed outside for a bit at night. And sometimes I get to visit with the prison doctor. Or a Bureau agent.”
Powell grimaced.
“You don’t care for the décor, agent? I think it’s very minimalist chic. I expect the fancy magazines to ring me anytime for a photo shoot.” He waved his arms as if showing off the ugly plumbing, concrete furnishings, and dun-colored walls. He’d once used his limited rations of paper and pencil to make some terrible drawings of trees and flowers and mountains, then used toothpaste to stick them to the walls. But after the guards tore down the papers and punished Des, his walls had remained bare.
Unimpressed by Des’s theatrics, Powell rested his arms on the bars, his hands dangling into the cell. Des found himself pulled forward as if by a magnet. Someone who wasn’t a guard was in his cell with him—well, a bit of him was, anyway—and he didn’t seem inclined to harm him. Someone was here.
