Inferno, page 22
Two weeks ago, while digging a trench in an attempt to repair the pool’s broken plumbing, a work crew was interrupted by the discovery of a brick barrier. As the excavation continued, the barrier revealed itself to be a wall—one of four creating a vault buried deep in the ground. Oliver was there that day, standing on the lip of the gouged earth when the door was revealed. His anticipation of its opening had been wonderful, the only good thing he’d felt in years.
Despite the protests of Joe Hopkins, the crew’s foreman, Oliver insisted on being among the first group of men to examine the contents of the strange brick building. After all, it was unearthed on Oliver’s property. It was his, and he had every right to be part of the discovery.
And what a find it was. Inside were crates of alcohol, stacked floor to ceiling. Narrow passages cut between them, so that Oliver, Hopkins, and two of his workmen could navigate the length and depth of the chamber.
They must have hidden it here during prohibition, Hopkins said.
And nobody remembered it was here?
Apparently not.
Amazing.
Oliver stepped forward, out of the memory, and drew deeply on his cigarette. He ducked under the cordon of warning tape and stepped over the thick cable feeding electricity to the lights Hopkins had strung in the vault. He looked into the hole. Scabs of dirt marred the brick wall and filled the creases in the door’s planks.
Though he knew this was his property, and he had every right to be here, Oliver hesitated before stepping onto the steep grade that would take him down to the door. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, but he felt wrong, and the sensation brought a distant memory, which made the afternoon chill several degrees colder.
I want to show you something.
Where are we going, Kyle?
Come on. It’s okay. Tour dad showed me this.
Oliver drew away from the hole, just one step, a minor concession to fear. Then he thought, No, this is mine. He dropped his cigarette on a mound of upturned sod and walked toward the door.
Square-faced lights glowed high on the walls, catching the grain of the crates in their cast. Walking through the narrow paths, Oliver imagined he looked much like a giant passing through a city of wooden skyscrapers. The air was thick with dust and the scent of rotted pine and oak. He paused and read the labels stenciled on the sides of the crates; some were still legible, others had faded to little more than stains. Of course, the names meant little to him. He had neither the mind nor the tongue of a connoisseur. Still, he wondered what these aged liquors might taste like after so long. Was time generous, giving the spirits some special properties, or had it sapped them of essence as it did so many other things?
He searched, looking for some indication on the wall of crates for the case that most deserved his attention. Among the labels he could read, he found some self-explanatory—Gin, Scotch Whiskey, Bordeaux, and English Rum—and others told him nothing—Belle of Anderson, Crown Prince, and Old Cabin Still.
The more he explored, the more intriguing he found the vault, and Oliver believed he was working out a pattern in the room’s organization. The pedestrian liquors—the whiskeys, the gins and rums—were at the front, while the middle of the room was filled with more exotic beverages—brandies, liqueurs, and aperitifs. Further back, deeper in the maze of crates, the wines took hold. When he reached the back wall, he recognized the Dom Pérignon crest on two stacks, though the letters were ghosted to indecipherability. Finally, he came to two crates set aside in a corner, not touching any of the other containers. These made him all the more curious for their total lack of identification.
Every other box in the chamber carried some blemish of ink, but not these. To Oliver’s mind, this was the trove he sought—its value corroborated by its anonymity. Using the knife on his key ring, he pried the lid. Aged wood and nails whined against his efforts. The edge he worked splintered. He dug in again and cracked the wood enough to glimpse the contents.
The bottles appeared yellow, but it was too gloomy to tell. They were uniquely shaped—six-sided and nestled together like glass honeycombs. Each bottle was capped in wax that ran in clumped rivulets down the neck. They would do fine, he decided, and set to completing the task of opening the crate’s lid.
Once the boards were torn back, he gazed inside. The case was designed to hold eight of the hexagonal bottles—three to a side, nestling two in the middle. But the two central bottles were, missing, and a profound disappointment settled on him. Though, certainly, the culprit had absconded with the bottles nearly three-quarters of a century ago, he couldn’t help but feel somehow violated.
Oliver carried a bottle of the mysterious liquor to the front of the vault and sat on a crate. He scraped the wax away with his knife, then brushed cream-colored flakes from the thighs of his trousers. Beneath this, a simple cork sealed the bottle, and it pulled free easily. He sniffed, and a sweet yet bitter odor climbed into his nose. Oliver swirled the liquid around in the bottle, and yes, the glass was yellow. Then, he drank. The liqueur cooled his throat instead of burning like so many spirits burned; it numbed his tongue, his stomach, his muscles.
He prepared himself to feel sick, perhaps poisoned, but the drink enlivened his system. Taking another sip, he leaned back on the crate and observed the vault and found it much to his liking.
Unlike Amanda, Oliver didn’t need everything in his world to be polished and precious. Whenever he could sneak away for a week or two on his own, earthier places beckoned him. Dockside bars where the men and women were calloused and broken; musk-reeking video arcades with black-walled mazes, leading from one erotic shadow to the next; sweating alleys, running like veins through terminal neighborhoods—these were his places. They tarnished the silver of him and the secret of their visiting made him feel alive.
Where are you taking me, Kyle?
It’s a special place. A secret.
Lifting the bottle to his lips again, Oliver closed his eyes. The childhood recollection was back, and instead of fighting it, he entertained the memory, remembering a fine young man that he once admired, even worshiped.
Kyle was the son of the gardener who kept the grounds of the Bennett Estate. Two years Oliver’s senior, Kyle was strong and tanned and confident, with a mop of blond hair and sinewy arms corded with veins. He was everything that Oliver was not, and as a boy, Oliver spent hours at windows or pretending to read by the pool to watch his hero work in the yard.
Succumbing to intoxication, Oliver remembered one day in particular. He was twelve years old and following his hero through the wooded area running at the back of his father’s estate. Kyle’s back muscles flexed as the boy pushed aside tree branches and leafy shrubs, leading Oliver away from the house. After hiking across the property, Kyle stopped at a large shed and opened the door.
Come-on. It’s okay. Your dad showed me this.
A ringing came up in Oliver’s head. The sound grew shrill and then flattened out into a massaging resonance. With the monotonous hum buzzing behind his eyes, the memory skipped, turned sharp and painful.
Kyle was angry with him, shouting. Oliver ran away, confused and hurt and needing to be in his comfortable, familiar room. Desperate to be there. Panicked. He raced through the shrubs and low tree branches. Then he tripped on a root. Fell.
A thousand bees surrounded Oliver’s head. The world shattered into a dozen dislocated images, stacked in a trembling array before his eyes, and the horrible words, words spat at him by the gardener’s son, took on the drone of the swarming bees, grinding terrible accusations into his brain.
Oliver opened his eyes and waved a hand in the air to rid himself of the daydream bees. He couldn’t remember why he was running, couldn’t recall why Kyle was so angry with him when Oliver did nothing more or less than what his hero asked, but he remembered running. In his panic he’d tripped and fallen, crashing through a low-hanging beehive.
Over thirty years had been lived and worn since that afternoon, but now, in this place he felt where each of those vicious creatures had stung him. A spot just below his left ear sang a particular ache now.
Despite the chill in the shadowed chamber, Oliver was sweating, and his breath hitched rapidly. The memories he indulged fueled an irrational yet intense erotic response in him, an aching heat that demanded release. Oliver put the bottle down on the crate beside him. He went to the thick wooden door and pushed it closed, cutting off the gray afternoon light. With his back to the door, he unsnapped his pants and stepped out wide to keep them from dropping to the dirty concrete.
He felt like a boy again, locked in his bedroom, his bathroom, a small wooden shack. The stinging at his neck aroused like a kiss, and the hive in his mind dove, tracing along the back of his throat, abrading his esophagus and gathering in his belly before working further into his system and down. The palm on his cock felt rougher than his own, more experienced. The shaft filling his hand was unfamiliar; it was too thick, too ridged with veins.
He squeezed his eyes closed to more perfectly feel the sensations.
The hive in his groin crawled frantically, seeking some means of escape. He inhaled and the bouquet of the liquor, the honeyed bitter scent, filled his head and triggered a painful yet perfect climax.
The thrumming ache of the fleeing swarm tore through his shaft as the imagined bees escaped into the black room. His ragged breath coaxed them out; tears wet his eyes.
In his ear, a single insect buzzed. A moment later, sharp pain flared on his cheek. He made a sound—almost a chuckle, more nearly a pant. Oliver’s eyes sprang open. Before them, tiny pale dots like those following a particularly bright camera flash, dotted the gloomy air. He touched the wound on his cheek, already feeling the welt of a sting rising there. Covering this blossoming bump was a bit of fluid, thick and sticky to the touch. He searched his clothing and the floor for the body of the attacking bee, but found nothing. When he returned his attention to the vault’s gloom, the pale dots were gone.
He shook his head in wonderment. Then, Oliver pulled the handkerchief from his pocket.
Go wash your hands, boy.
In the suite he shared with his wife, Oliver stared at the red welt just below his right eye and wondered on the coincidence that he should have been thinking about bees moments before being stung. The notion amused him. Indeed, he felt so good that he didn’t care about the sour looks Amanda cast at him, as she dressed for dinner.
“What did you do to your face?” she asked, suddenly beside him at the mirror. She held a diamond teardrop to her ear and jiggled it to catch the light.
“Bee sting.”
“There are no bees this time of year,” Amanda said, dismissing his claim outright. She shoved against him to get a better look at herself, and Oliver walked away.
“Let’s just hope that thing heals before Friday,” she said.
“Friday?” he asked.
“Idiot,” Amanda whispered just loud enough for Oliver to hear. “We’re celebrating our find. I’m expecting everyone to attend. It’ll be the usual crowd, and some new faces. I’ve invited that Joe Hopkins because he found the place, and I want the auction director to attend.”
“What auction?”
“Well, we’re not keeping those crates for posterity, Oliver. The auction house is having them removed and appraised. We’ll find out exactly what they’re worth, and I don’t want you out there drinking all of the good stuff before they come, so you’ll have to find another place to sulk until they’re done.”
The gardener’s son led him through the trees and the shrubs. Sweat painted Kyle’s back in a glistening sheen that Oliver wanted to touch. A trickle of perspiration ran along the boy’s spine as he pushed aside branches and stomped forward; it pooled at the elastic band of his shorts, absorbed, turning the fabric at his waist from powder blue to navy. Oliver followed obediently. Something was different about Kyle that day; he seemed on edge, as if having Oliver along was an annoyance, even though he had extended the invitation. At the tool shed, far to the back of the property, the gardener’s son stopped and put his hands on his hips.
In here.
The shed smelled of old grass and gasoline, dirt and paint. The fan of a willow branch curtained a small window high on the east wall.
A hand touched Oliver’s face, and his breath came in tight, painful gasps. The gardener’s son unfastened Oliver’s belt and unsnapped his trousers. A rough hand slid over his belly, under the waistband of his boxers.…
Breathing deeply against a wave of emotion, Oliver lifted the oddly shaped bottle, stared at the amber glass. Something about the drink. Some incredible element of the alcohol. It sharpened his fantasies, gave them a life, made them tangible and teasing.
All but lost in this consideration, Oliver was startled by the sound of someone calling his name. He corked the bottle, set it on the crate and stepped outside, where he met Abe, the groundsman.
“You needed me, sir?” Abe asked.
Oliver told him about the crates he wanted moved. As he spoke the instructions, Abe’s wrinkled old face clouded with worry.
“Mrs. Bennet said …”
“She doesn’t pay you,” Oliver said. “There are two crates. I’ll show you the ones I want. Take them up to the second floor. Room 206.”
He would be moving into that room for a few days. Amanda wouldn’t mind; she never did.
Likely, she was courting a new lover. Amanda’s mood toward him always soured when someone else was fucking her. Probably because her parade of men served to remind her that she’d settled for too little in marriage. They both had, and though Oliver considered leaving many times, the idea of being so completely alone was disturbing. Amanda took care of things—finances, social engagements, what clothes he should buy and when he should wear them. Such distractions were a burden, and he was content to leave them in her hands. Of greater importance, a companion, even one so incongruous to his needs, defined his place in the world and gave him a sense of belonging.
Why he should, in that moment, realize that being needed was wholly different from being necessary, he couldn’t say.
Oliver closed the door to Room 206 and walked along the crimson carpet to the staircase. He paused on the landing, peering over the lobby’s expanse. The crystal chandelier caught his eye. More than ever it looked to him like a giant beehive, made of gleaming clear gems rather than the fragile gray parchment of traditional nests. What wonderful creatures might create such a place? he wondered. This fanciful thought took hold in his mind, and his imagination filled the lobby with a swarm. Like soaring shards of glass, the bees flitted and danced in the air, climbed over the crystals of the fixture, disappeared inside to be warmed by two dozen low-watt bulbs.
The fantasy was all very beautiful to Oliver, who reached out a hand to grasp the carved banister. The people below, oblivious to his imagined swarm, chatted and wandered, read tourism pamphlets, while the air around them lit with a thousand specks of twinkling light.
“Mr. Bennett?”
Oliver started, and his magnificent swarm vanished. He turned away from the lobby and found Joe Hopkins smiling at him.
The foreman was a fit man in his mid-thirties with a brush of black hair framing strong and handsome features. Today he was not in his customary jeans and chambray shirt, instead wearing khakis and a black knit shirt beneath his leather jacket. Oliver returned the man’s smile and nodded his head.
“Mr. Hopkins,” he said.
“Surveying the kingdom?”
“Just gathering a bit of wool,” Oliver replied. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, I thought you might be interested in the history of that wine cellar we dug up in your backyard.”
Truth be told, his interest in the chamber had declined considerably. Amanda saw to that by having the hotel’s publicist push the story to every reporter in town, making a spectacle of the place. It wasn’t his anymore, not in any sense that mattered. Now that the crates of liqueur he wanted were stacked in his room, the speakeasy cellar was merely a curiosity. Still, he didn’t want to seem impolite, and he found Hopkins pleasant enough. He leaned back against the banister and said, “What did you find?”
“We were right about the whole prohibition thing. It was a hooch hut, sure enough,” Hopkins said, grinning at his turn of a phrase. Oliver couldn’t help but notice the thick muscles in the foreman’s neck, pronounced and corded when he smiled. “Davis Cortland had the place built so his guests wouldn’t have to go dry, had it buried deep.”
“Are you saying they had to dig their way down every time they wanted a cocktail?”
“Didn’t have to dig. There was a tunnel connecting that vault to the basement of the hotel. If we’d excavated the east side of the thing, we would’ve found it. Anyway, Cortland had the whole place sealed up before he went to sell the hotel. Bricked up the basement and the vault. Apparently, he didn’t mention it to the buyer, and the place was forgotten.”
“And how did you find out about this?”
“They keep the Cortland family genealogy at the library. It’s all on their computer system, so I just plugged in a couple of key words and Davis Cortland’s journal popped up.” Hopkins paused and ran a hand through his hair. “Near the end there, old man Cortland was in pretty bad shape.”
“How so?” Oliver asked.
“Well, both his sons died within about a month of one another, Both accidents. Cortland snapped. He found God in his own way, and he became convinced that his cellar, that’s what he called the place, was cursed. Actually, he called it damned, but I guess it’s about the same thing. Just craziness. He said that the boys were corrupted, led into sin by a low woman. That’s what he called her anyway.”
“Interesting,” Oliver said. But he already projected the fallout of this discovery, and disappointment pushed in. Surely local journalists would dig up the same information, maybe more. As such, it was just something else to lament, another precious cache forcibly shared with the world and therefore meaningless.
