Metropolis Pt. 2, page 28
“Or maybe you did,” Wilkins said. “Permanently.”
“Clearly you came here today with preconceptions. Fine. But if you haven’t anything more to ask me about Sing Sing and my imminent release, you can direct your questions to my lawyer.”
Wilkins laughed. “I’m supposed to be the one who yells ‘cut.’”
“Very funny, Mr. Wilkins. But losing Victoria, losing Julian, losing the election, and ultimately winding up here, however mistakenly, has only made me more determined to succeed and give back to the only mistress and enterprise that has ever really mattered to me.”
“And what’s that, Mr. Baynes?”
“Metropolis. It’s a grand city, Mr. Wilkins. I intend to make my mark on it, and I’ll do it not in spite of all these things, but because of them. For them.”
“Sounds a little egomaniacal, if you ask me.”
Baynes chuckled. “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Wilkins took a long pull on his Pall Mall, blew the smoke out in front of his lens, and shut the camera down.
CHAPTER 41
JULY 15, 1999
NICK SHUT the projector down.
“I like that Wilkins,” Murphy said.
“They still do those interviews.” Antony pointed at the projector. “And that guy Baynes in the movie was right—it’s all about self-incrimination, hombres.”
Nick stared at the wall where the projection had been. “You buy Edward’s story?”
Murphy pulled out his pocket notebook. “Don’t know. But it would seem Cornelius Baynes made good on the withdrawal of the forgery charges, since the two went on to consolidate pretty much all travel and shipping in and out of Metropolis. Even the Rockefellers and Rothschilds stayed out of their way.”
Nick closed up the reel in its metal canister and went to put it back where they’d found it.
“Nick,” Murphy said, shuffling over to him. “I know we wanted to put it all back like we found it, but I’d like to hang on to this. Watch it again, when there’s time. I’ll take the heat if we get caught with it.”
“All right, but you carry it. And treat it like you would a bottle of Jack Daniel’s ’48.”
“This Baynes guy.” Antony turned around on his chair. “I’ve seen him somewhere. Did he finally ever get elected for office or anything like that?”
Murphy tucked the reel into his Sing Sing jumper. “Nope. But once you’re aware of the Baynes name, you see it all over the city—buildings, streets, some of the train lines and ports, too. From what I can determine, Baynes Enterprises is still a going concern.”
“Nah, man,” Antony said, “it’s something else. Anyway, never mind—”
Footsteps clanged on the metal stairs beyond the archives door. Voices echoed down the stairwell. Nick picked up the projector and stuck it back where they got it.
Antony stood up fast. “Shit, they gonna see we ain’t got no dirty laundry.”
Murphy grabbed hold of the kid. “Is there another way out?”
Antony paused a moment, then shot across the wet floor to the far corner. Just as he opened it, flashlight beams lit up the room and caught them at the door. A couple of guards peered at them.
“Go,” Nick said.
They splashed down a wet, stinking hall through an inch of water. The red security lights made the water look like blood.
“Stop!” a voice shouted.
They pushed through a door at the end of the hall onto a set of stone steps and started up. At the first landing a couple of old wood filing cabinets sat moldering under dripping water.
“Help me,” Nick said. He and Antony tipped the old cabinets down the stairs, wedging them into the tight space.
Then they started up again.
“There’s no way out, you idiots,” one of the guards called. “Everyone’s looking for you.”
They hit the main floor and stepped into the kitchen, slowed down and slipped past a bunch of inmates stirring big pots of stew.
The door behind them slammed open, and the guards shouted, “Stop those guys!”
The inmates all looked up, spotted Nick and Murphy and Antony in their wet jumpers, and formed a line between them and the guards. One of the inmates whispered, “Get on with it.”
“Thank you, hombre,” Antony said. He led them toward the far corner of the kitchen.
Behind them, they heard pushing and arguing and swearing.
Antony guided them down another narrow hallway with a lot of closed doors. It was dusty and the door windows had shades blocking them. They’d just stepped out into a laundry area, when another door behind them swung open and crashed against the wall.
“God damn it, stop!”
The sound of radio static came, then a beep. “Laundry receiving. Now!” They raced past a bank of washing machines to the laundry dock, where Antony grabbed one of the inmate dock hands. “Riot.”
The laundry crew fell into fighting one another—grunting and cussing and tumbling on the cement dock.
Nick and his friends jumped off the dock to the service road, dove under the laundry truck, crawled into the hollow chamber, and Antony hit the lift lever. The floor plate hadn’t even fully closed before the laundry truck driver took off. The ground whizzed by beneath them until the floor plate locked into place. The axle and wheels buzzed in their ears.
The chaos from the laundry dock faded behind them, and to Nick’s surprise, they passed through the gate and inspection with the same ease with which they came in.
Nick looked over at Antony. “I owe you one.”
“No, hombre. We’re even now. But I remember where I saw that man. There’s a statue of him at Dearborn Stadium, at the main gates. He built our ballpark. He’s a hero.”
Two hours later, Nick and Murphy slumped into their familiar couch seats in the living room of Murphy’s home on Echo’s Hill.
“That was more excitement than I needed,” Nick said.
“My ticker’s about to burst.” Murphy laughed. “But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He took out the film reel, set it on the couch, and fixed himself a drink. “Want one?”
“Yes, please.”
They sat in silence and finished their drinks and a refill before talking through their suspects and everything else they’d learned to try and piece it all together. “We’ve got bits of it,” Murphy said, “but I think the only way we put the nail in the coffin is if you go back to Beadys and try and see the murder itself.” He paused. “You ready for that?”
Nick stared at his empty glass. “Is anyone ever ready to relive their own death?”
“Hell of a thing.”
“What if I crack?”
“You mean worse than you are now?”
Nick chuckled. “I mean it. My boy Billy said it. I might not ever be happy if I don’t figure out these dreams, but even that might not make me happy.”
“Happiness is overrated.” Murphy stared at his little bar. “What we all really need is peace.”
“You don’t think they’re the same thing?”
Murphy sighed. “Not anymore. You see a lot of terrible shit as a detective. The worst of humanity. Now, maybe if I had a wife and kids, I’d be more enlightened about happiness. But a little steadiness after a lifetime of staring down humanity’s dregs will have to do. Anyhow, if you come out of it with some peace in your heart, it’ll be worth the price.”
Nick agreed. And Billy and Jen would want him to try. “So I go in focusing on that night. See if my mind will go there.”
“It might help us close this thing out.”
Nick stood. “Then maybe it’s time you show me the room upstairs.”
Murphy pushed himself off the couch and led Nick up the winding stairs and down the long hall. It was every bit like his dreams. The creaks in the floor, the smell of linseed oil in the wood, the door at the end of the hall.
Nick had to stop in the hallway. He bent over, hands on knees, short of breath. Damn. The images in his dreams were so strong they’d convinced him there’d be screaming. And while he hadn’t seen the murder in regression, there’d been blood and bodies on the other side of the door at the end of the hall in 1928. He knew that to be true.
“You okay, Nick?”
Nick just breathed for a minute. Then he said, “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They walked to the end of the hall, and Murphy opened the door.
Inside, the afternoon sun shone through the windows in thick shafts. The room smelled like old wood. The antique vanity and its mirror still sat against the right wall. The gramophone was still on the mahogany stand between the windows, its horn dusty and tarnished. The armoire and bed were there, too. All of it, just like the dreams.
“Nick . . . Nick?”
Nick slumped to the floor. He couldn’t breathe. This feeling inside him, his impending death, he’d try to carry it into regression. But God, it hurt. He just hoped it would finally open that memory to him.
JULY 16, 1999
Nick sat in his Bronco in the Parkland Harbor. Beadys had told him he could see him at two p.m. Murphy had gone out early, saying he had some things to look into. Worked out great, because Nick needed time to gear up for this regression. He’d driven around Metropolis all morning, just listening to the radio—a simple pleasure he hadn’t taken enough time for lately.
At the designated time, he stepped out of his Bronco and started toward the dock. The sun glistened on the water. Metropolis rose bright and majestic across the harbor. The wind blew a small sailboat along the West River. He stood on the dock for a minute and imagined he was staring down the dark hall.
Beadys met him at the gangplank. “Good to see you as always, Nicholas. Any luck with Mr. Murphy?”
“Just more questions.” Nick jumped down onto the deck. “I think I’m ready to see what really happened to Victoria.”
Beadys’s eyes widened. “Oh my, that’s excellent news, Nicholas. And brave.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Beadys led him into the salon. It had new furniture, a new coffee table, a new wet bar, all nicer than before.
“You’ve been busy,” Nick said.
“Well, this isn’t just my office. It’s my home. I could hardly live or do business in the midst of such destruction, could I?”
Nick sat down on the new plush leather couch. “Must have set you back some.”
“Money follows from doing the things you love well, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I guess so.”
Beadys sat across from him with his ledger and, without further ado, started the metronome. “Now, Nicholas, this will be slightly different. We’ll be trying to take you directly to the trauma that has caused your PTSD. Your mind may try to prevent us, in which case I will have to push you harder with prompts and suggestions. You won’t be cognizant of this, since you’ll effectively be in the past, but it will make the force of the memory more palpable. Very raw and very real. I’ll be guiding you, but more with a switch than a carrot, if you take my meaning.”
“I get it, doc.”
Beadys sat forward on the couch, licked his lips, stared intently at Nick, and started the countdown.
Nick let his mind go to the upstairs room in Murphy’s house.
“Close your eyes and begin to relax . . .”
CHAPTER 42
NOVEMBER 17, 1928
SHE STANDS in the shadow of an old elm tree across the street from Edward’s house. A cool breeze tugs at the hem of her dress, rustles the autumn leaves. The moon shines high overhead, catching in the edges of the gutter and gate and pitched dormers of the grand Victorian house. She waits until all the lights on Eighty-Fourth Street go out. Then, she steps into the street and approaches the house to get her things.
She walks up the driveway, past Edward’s friend’s new Plymouth. Edward told her a friend of his would be parking there while Edward drove the two of them to Atlantic City. She circles around the rear of the house to the back door and quietly keys open the lock, steps inside, and leaves the door slightly ajar. Then, in the dark, she heads toward the stairs.
The creaking stairs smell of linseed oil—the maid service must have been in today. At the top of the stairs, she pauses and catches her breath. She thinks she hears something, ducks into an alcove, but it is only branches scraping the roof in the breeze.
She enters the master suite. She has spent too many long hours in this room in the past few months, avoiding Edward, staring out the window at a world from which she’s been restricted. The moonlight falls across the door to the private bath. The wind through open windows ripples the sheer curtains. It is almost silent, but for the rustling leaves in the front yard and the branches scratching on the roof.
She crosses to her vanity, strikes a match, and lights the two oil lamps. From the armoire she gets a travel bag and lays it on the bed. Then she steps to the gramophone and puts on her favorite record, “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby”—a signal.
She turns and sways to the rhythm and melody of the sweet music. She can’t remember the last time she danced.
Footsteps in the hallway. Julian enters the room. He rushes to her, places her hand in his and his other arm around her waist. They dance together as gracefully as they had the night he’d first come to her with his dance ticket. At last, they can be together ag—
The bathroom door opens, and Edward steps into the room holding Julian’s expressman .38.
“You lying whore,” he spits. “You think I wouldn’t have someone follow you to the Majesty?”
She groans, remembering the man with the greased-back hair and pocket square.
The phonograph plays. Dream awhile, scheme awhile . . .
Julian pulls Victoria behind him and flicks out his switchblade. “Eddie, it doesn’t have to go like this. Please. Just let us leave.”
Edward circles around and blocks the bedroom door. “I might have expected it from her, but I never thought you’d stoop this low.”
The knife trembles in Julian’s fingers. “I love her, Eddie. I never stopped. I just needed—”
“You needed me to spring you from jail, or you’d be up the river by now, Julian. You needed me to make you stop killing yourself. You needed me to make sure you aren’t left begging in the street when Father dies.”
I’d like to see you looking well.
“Edward,” she says, “put the gun down. You don’t—”
Edward points the gun at her head. “I lost everything on account of you! My friends. My business connections. The mayor’s seat.” He jabbed the gun at her. “And my goddamn reputation, Victoria. My reputation! All I had left was you!”
“I’m so sorry, Edward. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Eddie,” Julian says, lowering the knife. “You’re right to be mad. At both of us. But a gun? You can’t take something like that back. And you ain’t cut out for jail, Eddie, trust me.”
Edward laughs. “Oh, Julian, don’t mistake my anger for poor planning. That is, after all, the one thing I’m good at.”
“We’ll go and never say a word,” she says.
“How long, Victoria? How long have you and my brother been running around behind my back? Did you play me for a chump from that first day? Use me for my money? And now come into my home while I’m away to fleece me before running out?”
He is hurt. She wishes she could help him, console him somehow, but it is too late. “No, Edward. We met today by chance—”
“My God!” Edward jabs the gun at her again. “You’re throwing us away after a single afternoon with him?” Then he gets still and bares his teeth.
Till that lucky day, you know darned well, baby . . .
Julian lunges and grabs hold of Edward’s arm. They struggle. Julian nicks Edward with the knife. Edward bats the knife away. Julian grabs the gun with both hands, tries to twist it free.
She screams, grabs a perfume bottle off the vanity, and smashes it against the back of Edward’s head. He backhands her across the face with his free hand. She keeps her feet and looks for something else to hit him with.
Edward tries to rip the gun away, but Julian hangs on to Edward’s arm.
She grabs a vase and slams it against the side of Edward’s face. It shatters, cutting his cheek. He shakes it off and kicks her in the gut. She falls back against the armoire and tumbles to the floor.
Julian nearly pulls the gun away, but Edward throws a powerful left hook, driving Julian into the vanity. Bottles fall from the marble top. Julian stumbles and drops to his knees. She screams. Edward points the gun at Julian’s chest and fires twice.
Julian crumples to the floor, blood gushing from his chest. He groans, stares vacantly at the ceiling, eyelids fluttering.
She shuts her eyes and screams again.
“Open your eyes, Victoria.”
She does. Edward fires twice. Bullets rip into her chest. Pain shoots down her arms. She falls next to Julian, gasping. Edward leans down and shoves a slip of paper in Julian’s pocket, drags his body on top of her, then opens the door and runs down the hall.
Julian’s hand comes to rest on hers. He whispers, “One last time, we’ll lie down . . . one last time, until we fade away.”
Julian stops breathing. She lies beside him. Blood rushes in her ears. And then darkness and silence.
Then she is rising. Her hands and arms are faint, transparent, blue. She floats high above her bleeding body. She knows the note Edward has planted is a suicide note. It will look like Julian killed her then turned the gun on himself. But none of that matters anymore.
Then Julian’s spirit begins to rise, too—the same translucent blue. He floats up next to her, a peaceful look in his eyes.
