Metropolis Pt. 2, page 26
“Music wake you?” Murphy asked.
“Yeah, but I should have been up hours ago. Didn’t get to sleep ’til three.”
“Mmm. We’ll get you back home, Nick, or die trying.”
He knew it was just a turn of phrase, but he’d considered it might end like that—someone had tried to kill them twice. “Anything in there tell you who was shooting at us the other day?”
Murphy sat back and sipped his coffee. “It’s a puzzler. I can’t seem to land on any motivation that makes sense. Whoever killed Victoria and Julian would almost certainly be dead by now, but either they were really bad shots, or they weren’t actually trying to hit us.”
“That’s reassuring.” Nick sat and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Well, for what it’s worth, the squad car they put on your home didn’t report anything suspicious last night. I’ve got them calling me on the regular. So, if someone’s hell bent on keeping Victoria’s killer a secret, maybe they’re focused on just you and me, and maybe it’s just scare tactics.”
“That’s a lot of ‘maybes.’”
Murphy shrugged. “I’m not good with reassurances.”
“Well, whoever it is, they may be targeting Dr. Beadys, too. Someone trashed his yacht, did a real job on it.”
They talked for a while, and Nick also told him about the first group session at Remington Hall, his idea that maybe an angry patient had taken Billy and trashed Beadys’s yacht, and that Beadys thought Murphy was obsessive-compulsive and should come in for a session.
Murphy laughed, pulled out his pocket notebook, and jotted something down.
“So, what’s with playing this tune?” Nick asked. “Seems a little morbid.”
“Helps me think. Focuses me on the scene. The victims.”
“Probably obvious, but the refrain sounds like something that might remind Victoria of Julian. The guy was dirt poor. She left him for Edward, who had money and this house. He doted on her, but I have to wonder if he courted her just to stick it to Julian.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Murphy took a bite of eggs. “Politicians use people like assets. They’re borderline sociopathic, if you ask me. But that doesn’t change the fact that we haven’t really ruled out any of our suspects. Which leaves the Times article as the de facto truth.”
“Based on the testimony of a witness we still don’t have a name for, let alone a sworn statement.”
“FOI request hasn’t come through yet. I’ll call a guy at the precinct, see if I can get them to put a hurry on. It would be good to know who came bolting out of the crime scene that night. Speaking of which, I haven’t shown you the upstairs, where it all happened. You want to have a look?”
Nick thought a moment. “To be honest, no. Not right now. I’m just barely holding it together, Murph, and seeing it in real life might mean a trip down to Lou’s for a bottle of Vickers. I’m trying to go without it, if I can.”
“Fair enough. I can’t imagine what it might be like to stand where you were once murdered. Must mess with your head.”
Just thinking about it made Nick a little nauseous. “Maybe it’s Occam’s razor, Murph. Maybe you and I have gotten so close to this thing that we aren’t seeing what’s right in front of our faces.”
“Julian, you mean.”
Nick took another gulp of coffee. The caffeine was starting to kick in. “I think I need to go back to Dr. Beadys, get him to put me in regression, and see if I can learn whether or not Julian was capable of murdering her. Maybe I can get closer to the murder, see what really happened.”
“Worth a try. I’ve got some things I want to look into today, anyway.” Murphy got up and walked to the hallway closet, came back holding his Colt .45 and a shoulder holster. “Take this.”
“You think that’s necessary?”
“You know how to use a gun, Nick?”
Nick took the Colt. “My dad taught me. We went to the range once a month until he died. But I’ve never used one for self-defense.”
“Half the power of a gun is the threat of it. If whoever is trying to put the squeeze on us comes after you while I’m not around, you’re going to be glad you’ve got it. But don’t carry it for me, or even for yourself. Carry it for Jen and Billy. If things do go south, you’ve got better odds of making it back to them safe.”
Nick put on the holster, stowed the Colt, and went to get dressed, pulling on a light windbreaker to cover the gun. Then he called Dr. Beadys to let him know he was coming over.
Nick jumped down off the gangplank onto the rear deck of Dr. Beadys’s yacht. Afternoon sun sparkled on the rippling water, blue skies stretched to the horizon, clouds floated high above the city, and gulls cried for scraps from fishing boats.
Dr. Beadys came out onto the deck, his signature cinnamon toothpick in the corner of his mouth. “It was nice to get your call, Nicholas. I was worried after the way you ran out of here last time.”
“Sorry, doc. But I can’t be the first patient you’ve had that’s been a little freaked out by regression.”
Beadys wagged a finger at him. “Right you are. I just know that you and I have a more tenuous relationship, given the situation with your family. So I must say, your willingness to stay committed to our therapy sessions is refreshing, if not entirely unexpected.”
“I’m not going to lie, doc. Sometimes it feels like you got me by the balls, but the truth is, I need to know how Victoria died . . . how I died.”
Beadys took out his toothpick. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Nicholas?”
“I am. What I saw in regression last time, well, I know now that I lived a life before. Victoria’s life. You might think me slow to see it, but up until I saw myself in her mirror, I figured I was just somehow inside her head. Seeing someone else’s memories.”
“But not anymore.”
“No. I think that’s why the memories hurt like they do. They’re not just nightmares, and they’re not just me seeing through someone else’s eyes. They’re my eyes.”
“Which brings us back to a very real case of PTSD,” Beadys said. “Your dreams since you were young have been the residuals of the trauma of a very real death. In this case your own.”
Nick walked to the starboard rail and gazed out at Metropolis. “I’m not a therapist, doc, but I’ve got to know the truth about what happened, and I think I’m having these dreams because Victoria’s spirit is unsettled about it. Damn, I mean, my spirit . . . our spirit is unsettled about it.”
Dr. Beadys came over and put a hand on his shoulder. “It can take time to acclimate to the reality that you’ve lived before. Go easy on yourself.”
Nick was ready to move past the small talk. “How’s the cleanup going? You get your salon all squared away?”
“The furniture is upright.” Beadys chuckled.
“You figure out who did it?”
“I’m afraid not, but I’ve suspended most of my patient hours while I try and determine who is responsible. Not, mind you, for trashing my boat—I can replace the boat—but for taking your son. Whoever is to blame will meet a legal outcome, I promise you.”
“Thanks, doc.”
“So, then, you mentioned on the phone you want to have a session. You still feeling up to that?”
“Let’s do it.”
Beadys clapped him on the back and led him into the salon. They sat on the slashed couches. Beadys started up the metronome, grabbed his ledger, and began counting Nick down.
As the words and numbers grew distant, Nick tried to focus on Julian. Had he really killed her like the papers said?
CHAPTER 38
NOVEMBER 17, 1928
SHE STROLLS up Broadstreet toward the Majesty Theater. In her purse she carries a ticket to the Marx Brothers’ hit show Animal Crackers that Julian has given her for her twentieth birthday. It’s the matinee show, but the sidewalks are teeming with crowds hurrying to get inside by curtain time. The smell of popcorn and hot peanuts fill the air. Street performers juggle and sing and tap dance, their half-filled hats on the ground in front of them.
She stops and reads the Majesty marquis. She wants to laugh, needs to laugh. As she’s about to go in, someone taps her on the shoulder. She turns to find Julian standing there, holding his ticket.
“I hoped you might still come,” he says.
“It’s good to see you, Julian. You look so much better.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, about that. I’m sorry for the jam it put you and Eddie in. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“And now you are?”
He breathes a long sigh. “Haven’t had a drink or pinch since you sprung me from Southside. I ain’t gonna lie, though, it was rough for a while. How’s Eddie?
“The papers destroyed him. Most of his constituents won’t take his calls.”
“What about you?” Julian asks. “How are you doing? The papers didn’t have a lot of good things to say about you, either. And that’s on account of me.”
She waves it away. “They were always going to smear me. Callahan’s propagandists would have seen to it.”
“The papers are Callahan’s propagandists. They’re all in his pocket. Eddie just thought he could buy them off.”
The theater lights inside the lobby flash. A man with greased-back hair and a purple pocket square lingers just inside, smoking his butt to the nub, and glancing at them from time to time.
“So you were hoping I’d come,” she says. “Why?”
He shuffles his feet, looks up and down the walk. “Well, I’ve been clean for a while now. A while for me, at least. And it’s sticking, Victoria. It ain’t just willpower. It’s like I lost my taste for the booze and coke, for gambling, too. Just the thought of it turns my stomach.”
She wants it to be true because she’s realized she only ran into Edward’s arms for stability, and so she wouldn’t have to nurse a man who seemed intent on killing himself.
“That’s right, I’ve changed. It sounds like a line, I know. But it’s the truth. More than that, I left express work. That’s why I went to see my father, to tell him I was done with Baynes Enterprises. When I told him I was done, that I couldn’t work for him no more, he started to run you down, right to my face, blame all my addictions on you, call you nasty names. That’s when I knew I’d made the right call.” He took her hand.
“I don’t . . . I won’t be like my father. I just needed to tell you that, and that I was clean. I ain’t going back to the way I was before, Victoria, even though you’re with Eddie now.”
She remembers the first time he ever took her hand, at a taxi dance hall at the Pumpernickel. When their dance was over, she made him keep his dance ticket. She wasn’t going to sully that beautiful moment for a thin dime. They’d left the Pumpernickel hand in hand, and started planning art shows for her sculptures, and children that he would bounce on his knee after a hard day’s work.
“I can’t stay with Edward,” she finally says, “even if leaving him means I have go it on my own again.”
He moves closer. “That is not why—”
“I don’t love him. Perhaps I seem ungrateful or like I used him. Maybe I am, and maybe I did. But I think he used me, too. Not all the time. I do believe he’s fond of me. But I always got the impression that it was more about beating you. That sounds conceited, doesn’t it?”
“Not at all. Eddie and I have fought over everything all our lives. It’s the only way we know how to be with each other. You got caught up in it, and I’m sorry about that.”
“I’m a big girl, Julian. I knew what I was doing.”
He smiles. “So you are.”
“I care for Edward, and I think he does most of what he does out of some twisted need to satisfy your father.” She stops to be sure of what she means to say. “But I still love you. I just need you to be the man who kept his taxi dance ticket the day we met. Not a boy seeking his father’s approval.”
“And fucking everything up in the process.”
“So, tell me, what are you doing now?”
His eyes light up. “I work at the brickyard in the Warehouse District. We’re building schools for the kids in Southside. Shop boss thinks they’ll put me on as foreman soon.”
“Sounds promising.”
“What about you? You still sculpting?”
She looks down at the walk. She can’t remember the last time she opened her paintbox. “There wasn’t much time for it during the campaign. And since Edward lost the election, he . . . barely leaves the house and needs me a lot. Besides, he won’t let me to go to the tea rooms. He says it’s not dignified.”
“He’s one to talk. He’s got markers at speakeasy backrooms all over Metropolis.”
“I’ll get back to it one day,” she says. “We have a room I can convert into a studio, if I can convince Edward to let me have it. And why wouldn’t he? There are six rooms in that house and just the two of us.”
“I got a place, too. It ain’t much, but it’s clean. Hardly any cockroaches.” He squeezes her hand. “You could have the side without the cockroaches if you want to make a go of it again.”
He looks the way he did before, and talks the same, too. It feels simple and natural, and that’s all she ever really wanted.
She touches his cheek. “I will miss our cattle car.”
He looks into her eyes. “Are you saying . . .”
She is, and she can hardly believe it herself. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“Never.”
She feels like she’s finally home.
He wraps his arms around her. They kiss. Theatergoers shoulder past them into the foyer. The guy with the greased-back hair and the purple pocket square drops his butt and crushes it with his shoe.
“I love you, Victoria.”
“I wish I had a bust of your head to give you,” she says. “But I sort of shattered the last one.”
“You can make me a new one. I’ll buy the clay.”
“We do have a problem, though. All my things are at Edward’s house. You can’t afford to buy me new clothes and a bucket of clay.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Julian says. “I’ll help him understand it’s for the best. I think he wants me to be happy—look what he did getting me cleared of the derailment investigation.”
“Yes, but just now I don’t think he’s in a state to be reasoned with.” She thinks a moment. “He’s going to Atlantic City tonight for some kind of political rally. He believes his fortunes will change if he finds a new party to represent. It’s the first time he’ll have left the house since the election. We can meet there, late. We’ll get my things and go to your place. Then maybe in a few weeks, once he’s himself again, he’ll see for himself that he and I weren’t going to last.”
Julian raises his ticket. “How about we take in Animal Crackers to celebrate? Maybe some cheesecake over at Marty’s Diner afterward. We got all day.”
They bump their tickets together like a toast. Then, hand in hand, they enter the Majesty.
It’s been a long time since she was so happy.
CHAPTER 39
JULY 14, 1999
“OPEN YOUR eyes, Nicholas.”
Nick opened his eyes and found Dr. Beadys had inched closer and was hovering over him. “Uh, doc?”
“You said you met with Julian Baynes, for a Marx Brothers show.”
Nick scooted down the couch a bit. “Victoria did, yeah.”
“Seems you were something of a tramp in your former life, Nicholas. How does that make you feel?”
Nick leaned forward and shut off the metronome—it’s clacking was suddenly driving him crazy. “That’s a strange question, doc. I better go. I’ve got things to do.”
Beadys put down his ledger. “You’re off to play detective with the obsessive Mr. Murphy.”
“Look, doc. I do think these sessions are helping. I’m getting closer to the trauma. But I’m going to get there my way, which means it’s not only about regression.”
“Nicholas, that is precisely my point. You still haven’t seen Victoria’s murder, which, in case it has escaped you, you must experience through her eyes. It’s going to be more than painful. You’ll be reliving the very trauma that brought us together in the first place. Your excursions and diversions from getting to the heart of this trauma are a common coping tactic. You’re probably not even aware you’re doing it. You’re externalizing the search when you need to focus ever more inward. Trust me. I’ve done this a thousand times. Your avoidance is likely to cause you more harm when you’re finally staring down the barrel of the gun that killed you.”
Even if Beadys was right, the problem was that anything Nick saw in regression wasn’t going to change the official account of Victoria’s death— who would believe a new account of her death based on a hypnotherapy session? He had to stick it out with Murphy, whom he frankly trusted more than Dr. Beadys.
“I’ll be back,” he said, and stood up.
Beadys stood, too. “We are close, Nicholas. We should continue while these images are fresh. You’ve just been with the man accused of killing you in your former life.”
“Not today, doc. But like I said, I’ll be back.”
“Tell me, Nicholas, why are you carrying a gun?”
Nick stopped. “How’d you know?”
“It’s plainly visible when your jacket flares open.” Beadys noted something in his ledger. “Not a wise choice for a man trying to reunite with his family.”
“Listen, doc. In the past week I’ve been shot at and nearly caught in an arsonist’s attempt to destroy records at the Metropolis Library. Now, maybe those are insane coincidences, but no one would bet that line in Vegas. So, for the time being, I’m going to protect myself. And from the looks of this place, you better do the same.”
