Gothic, page 15
“WAAAAAH! WAH! WAAAAAH!” the baby screams, and Tyson turns instinctively toward the damnable thing with every intention of throwing the mother his best what the fuck glare.
When he does, he notices the women aren’t paying attention to the child, nor, it seems, did anyone else in the restaurant appear bothered by the loud cries. “Hey,” Tyson says to the women, but they ignore him.
The baby, however, turns its head.
Its eyes are chalk-white. Its head misshapen. Long, scraggly white hair sticks out from the side of its pinkish skull. Its face is not round and smooth, but heavily lined. Pruned. And red as the inside of a rare steak. When it opens its mouth to wail once more, a black tongue springs from between its fat, cherubic lips like the head of an eel. “WAAAAAAH! I’M POOR!” the infant shrieks, and Tyson feels his stomach drop as it smiles at him, showing jagged brown teeth. “WAAAAAAH! I’M A SCARED SHIT-FOR-BRAINS! WAAAAAAH! WAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAAAH!!!”
The baby thrusts a green-stained hand toward Tyson, mushed peas dripping from its clenched fist of slick fingers. Its voice, when it speaks, is rough and deep. “DON’T BE A PUSSY, PARKS! DON’T BLOW THIS FOR US!!!” it screams, white eyes bulbous, mouth opened wide to expose an endless black maw. “WAAAAAAAH!” It points a pudgy finger at him. “THAT’S YOU! WAAAAAAH! FUCKING CRYBABY! WAAAAAAH! MAN UP, YOU LITTLE BITCH!”
“Tyson? You okay, man?”
Tyson gasps, realizes he’d been holding his breath. He lets it out, his tight chest loosening. “Jesus Christ,” he says, wiping his forehead with the cloth napkin, mumbling to himself. “No no no no no…” He drops the napkin atop his untouched plate, closes his eyes and rubs them hard, runs his hands through his hair.
“Tyson? Tyson, good God, what’s wrong?” Harry stands, reaches a hand across the table.
Tyson pulls his hands away from his head, takes a deep breath and slowly turns his head back to the infant’s table.
The baby is, once more, just a baby. A normal baby eating quietly, its face docile, intent, innocent. A small smear of pea mush colors its adorable chin. Its eyes are blue as sky.
“I’m fine,” Tyson says, and swallows the bile stuck in his throat. He picks up the napkin, sees it spotted with grease, drops it and wipes more sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his coat.
“Hey man, if this is upsetting you that much, I’ll call them back,” Harry says, looking worried. “I’ll have to grovel, but it’s not a big deal, Tyson. I mean… but I think…”
“No,” Tyson says quickly, and raises a hand for the waiter. “No, let’s do it. I trust you, Harry.”
Harry holds his eyes on Tyson a moment more, then nods, looking relieved, and settles back into his chair as the waiter approaches.
Tyson shoves the plate of napkin-covered food to the middle of the table. “That said, I think I’ll have that drink now.”
Thirty-two
“Send him up, please. Thank you.”
Diana hangs up the phone that connects her apartment to the doorman out front, pours herself a mineral water and waits for the detective to arrive.
When the knock comes a few short minutes later, she’s quickly reviewing the information he’d sent via email—looking for angles, for a way to infiltrate this family smoothly, without incident, and convince them to do what’s right.
To give back what is rightly hers.
She jumps up as the steady knocking escalates to the redundant action of chiming her doorbell, as if the man has been waiting ten minutes instead of ten seconds. She walks across the room and pulls open the door, not sure what she’s expecting to see… but it’s certainly not who’s standing in her hallway.
She’s never actually met the private detective in person, but through their phone conversations and the bluntness of his emails she assumed him to be an older man; a grizzled-veteran, ex-cop type. Instead, she finds herself staring at a stranger, one carrying a thick envelope under one arm and the other raised, knuckles out, prepared to repeat the inane banging on her door. He smiles, and when he does Diana almost laughs at herself, realizing she’s made a mistake, that instead of the private investigator coming to meet her, he’d simply sent his assistant instead. Or perhaps a younger brother, or a son.
Because this man is young—much younger than she’d ever imagined—and not grizzled at all. If anything, he’s, well… nerdy. He wears khakis and white sneakers, a blue oxford shirt buttoned to the neck (no tie) beneath a loose-fitting black raincoat. On his head is a tacky, bucket-style fishing hat, beige with a red-and-blue ribbon band. He’s Black and skinny, but tall. Handsome. But young, she thinks again, as if he should be on a college campus instead of skulking the streets for young runaways and bail-skipping criminals.
And horror writers with stolen property, of course.
“Diana?” he says, and she recognizes the voice immediately.
I’ll be damned, she thinks. It’s him.
“Yes, hello,” she says, realizing she must be looking at him with all the uncertainty she’s feeling, because his polite smile becomes a knowing grin, as if he can read her thoughts, if not her expression. She catches herself, realizing she’s being rude about the whole thing. “I’m sorry, it’s just that you’re not what I was expecting.”
“Black?” he says, the grin creeping into his charming eyes.
“Young,” she admits. “For a private detective, I mean. I suppose everyone assumes black suits and fedoras and whisky-guzzling middle-aged men. I blame Hammett,” she says, hoping levity will counter her rude behavior. “But please, come in. I’m so grateful you’ve come.”
Ben Howard steps inside (after carefully wiping his shoes on the mat outside), removes his hat and nods toward the spacious—especially by New York City standards—apartment. “I’m a Mosley man myself,” he says, moving into the living room as she closes the door behind him. “Nice place.”
“Thank you. Would you like something to drink?”
“Nah, I’m good.” He holds up the thick envelope. “This is everything I sent you digitally, plus a few new details. Nothing earth-shattering. Thought you’d like hard copies.”
She takes the envelope and sets it down on the white marble coffee table which neatly centers the only other furniture in the room—a plush red Porter sectional couch and two adjacent Chinese sandalwood armchairs. “Coffee? Tea? Are you sure?”
“Yes, thank you,” Ben says, taking one of the chairs. “So… should we debrief? Go over any questions you might have?”
Diana picks up her soda water and sits on the couch, curls a leg beneath her, letting the other dangle off the edge in a strategic pose of nonchalance. “That would be lovely. There are one or two pieces of information I’d like to tidy up… but I’d also like to make sure, before we talk, that you brought the other thing we discussed.”
Ben smiles and scratches his chin, studies an Ed Ruscha hanging on a nearby wall, the modern painting contrasting elegantly with the more traditional décor of the apartment. The image is a deep, blue-hued mountainscape, the word S I N stenciled across it in bold white letters. “The gun? Yes, I have it.”
Their eyes meet, and she’s surprised at his lack of reaction to her pupilless condition. It’s as if he isn’t seeing her at all. Seeing, rather, about her.
She finds the idea unsettling and pushes it away. “Good. May I see it?”
Ben nonchalantly pulls a small black handgun from the pocket of his raincoat, sets it atop the manila folder resting on the coffee table. “It’s loaded. Six shots. If you need more bullets, I can give you a list of nearby gun stores who will sell them to you, and the type, of course.”
Diana leans forward and picks up the weapon. If Ben is alarmed at all about this, he doesn’t show it. His attention, in fact, has floated back to the Ruscha painting. “It’s okay,” she says, popping open the cylinder, checking the bullets, and clicking it back into place. “It’s really a precaution. You know, protection.”
“Well,” Ben says carelessly, “they’re a nice family. I don’t think you’ll have any problems there.”
“Of course.” Diana sets the gun on the table, reaches for the envelope. “Now, onto other things. As I said, I feel like there are a few loose ends in regard to the sale, and the provenance of the desk as it pertains to the dealer’s acquisition.”
Ben nods solemnly, as if taking it personally that he’d failed in checking all the boxes Diana had asked for. “Yeah, that’s right. That information is in only one place, and there’s only one man who has access. I tried following the ship manifest, but that was a dead end. Whatever port they’d loaded the thing from, there was no record of it. And the other stuff you wanted, same deal. Other than that, though, you have everything you asked for.”
“I do, and I don’t want you to worry. I think I can acquire the last few bits myself before moving forward.”
Ben raises an eyebrow, then sits back in the stiff wooden chair, hands dangling over the polished arms. “Oh?”
Diana gives him her best smile, gratified (and slightly relieved) to see Ben finally break his cool, licking his lips unconsciously and shifting in his seat. Haven’t completely lost it, she thinks. “Don’t worry, Mr. Howard. No guns will be involved. I have other means at my disposal.”
Ben offers his own winning smile. “Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws,” he quotes, shaking his head, and Diana is so surprised that she does something she hardly ever does in front of company, and certainly not with a stranger: she laughs out loud.
Thirty-three
Sarah walks with Violet as far as the subway entrance, then hugs her tight and kisses her goodbye. Their week together is up, and she’ll be back to school in a few hours. Sarah feels she’s losing an ally, and tries to hold back tears when they embrace, but when Violet starts to cry into the scarf at Sarah’s neck, she can’t help but follow suit.
As horrible as the week has been, their bond has strengthened to that of Mother and Daughter, albeit via a pathway of heartache.
Now, if I can somehow repair my other relationship, life can go on, she thinks as she watches Violet go down the stairwell, turn a corner and disappear.
Back at the house, Sarah does her best to busy herself. She debates calling one of her friends for lunch but knows it will inevitably lead to talking about Tyson and she prefers to avoid the subject of him, at least for a while. She considers grocery shopping, but they’re still fully stocked from the party.
The gym? No, too wiped out. A book? A movie? No, no, no.
She considers calling Anton, ask him to come get the desk, to take it away, ship it back to whatever foul port it had been taken from. She’ll get Tyson another desk. A nice one that doesn’t scare the shit out of her, or turn him into a madman.
You’re kidding, right? The desk? Really? The voice inside her head says, taunting, disbelieving, disappointed. Why don’t you blame the coffee maker? Or, wait, I know—the new chair! That ergonomic, overpriced, multi-levered monstrosity is sure to turn any well-mannered man into a drooling, maniacal rapist. Now you’re definitely thinking clearly. Oh hey, let’s throw the television out while we’re at it. Can’t be too safe, ha-ha!
While her inner-voice mocks her, Sarah walks, dream-like, into the hallway and down the stairs. She finds herself standing in front of the office door.
She didn’t mean to go to the office, has no real reason to be there… and yet.
She puts her hand on the brass knob, turns it slowly, and opens the door.
It’s bright inside. Sunlight pours in from the garden windows. There’s no sense of evil, or darkness. It even smells nice. Like wood polish and old books.
And Tyson, she thinks, and feels a pang of guilt. Like an intruder. Like a mistrustful, snoopy housewife. Don’t you mean house-partner? The constant word-fixer springs to action in her head, the one that continually translated “wife” to “partner” or “girlfriend” and seems to never take an hour off. Maybe one day we’ll make it official, and if nothing else I can use the goddamned word WIFE every now and then.
She strolls toward the desk, sneakers silent as she crosses the dark wood, the large oriental rugs. The monstrosity looms before her like a demonic church altar, its black wood glistening in the sunlight, the intricate carvings mysterious and disquieting, its size intimidating. As she studies it, she gets the peculiar feeling that the desk both fills the room and, in a way she can’t put her finger on, empties it as well. As if it was somehow pulling the surroundings into itself, like a black hole, or a gateway to another world. A portal.
Sarah tries to laugh off the thought, but the closer she gets to the thing, the more she can almost feel the pull of it; a strange vibrating energy surrounding it she hasn’t felt before. Her skin prickles and the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She stares at the message carved deep into its face—DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME.
And just who the hell is me? And what exactly is being done in here?
She has the sudden idea—the realization—that it’s not the Bible being quoted. At least, not without a sense of irony, or mischief. These carved words have little to do with the Christian God.
Devilry.
Leaving the carved message for the moment, Sarah walks around the desk, one steadying hand on the back of Tyson’s chair, to face it from the front. Staring at the giant hunk of wood, she suddenly wonders if, perhaps, there’s a totally different reason for Tyson’s binge writing sessions, his out-of-the-blue-sky creative output, his aggressive, out-of-character behavior. A reason that has little to do with desks and strange carvings, and much more to do with a different kind of evil.
Drugs, for instance.
Could it be? She tries to imagine Tyson sitting here, snorting cocaine or popping pills. Was it so very strange? she wonders, and, quite suddenly, feels like a total fool. Of course it isn’t strange! He’s under a tremendous amount of pressure, has been given an impossible deadline… yes, yes! The insane work hours, the not-sleeping, the irritability. It all makes perfect sense.
He probably bought some pills off someone. This is New York City, after all. How hard could it be to find drugs on the street? Hell, maybe he got them from… Harry. Of course, the guy who would be SO eager to keep his prized racehorse running. Oh yeah, she could easily see the bastard floating Tyson a few uppers, or a vial of cocaine, something to get the “old creative juices flowing.” Son-of-a-bitch!
Feeling both sickened and oddly relieved, Sarah slides the chair smoothly out of the way and studies the desk’s drawers. She allows herself a moment to admire the delicate veins of twisted ivy carved around the edges, the bizarre faces etched as drawer handles, the strange symbols and other figures—naked men and women in copulation, varying religious and occult symbols she both recognizes and has never seen before, visages of creatures (likely mythological) staring out from the desk’s corners and along its edges.
It is quite beautiful, she thinks, able to consider it with less animosity now that her concern had switched away from the desk and toward her new—and far less insane—theory that Tyson is simply on drugs.
She steps closer to it, gently rests a hand on one of the smooth veins of carved ivy. Without warning, Sarah’s mind is flooded with the sudden—and quite powerful—image of her body lying upon the stone desktop. Like the dream, she thinks, and shudders, but not with revulsion, or fear.
With pleasure.
With lust.
She has the overwhelming impulse to push Tyson’s notes, his computer, and his stupid lamp off the cool stone slab, let it all crash to the floor. The mad urge to strip off her clothes and sprawl naked across its surface is so intense that she gasps, her fingers already reaching for the button at the waist of her jeans. She takes a moment to consider whether she’ll undress here or in the bedroom. Does it matter? She’s alone, after all.
Maybe I should wait until Ty comes home, and then we can fuck on it, she reasons. He can take me right here. Hell, it’s certainly big enough. Sarah’s hand moves over her body, caressing, feeling the heat from her skin and her head pound luxuriously with an overwhelming sexual desire. She unbuttons her pants, and is about to kick off a sneaker, when a deeper part of her mind springs forward. Alarm bells ring and red flags wave madly inside the part of her neurological makeup that fights psychotic impulses, that seeks restraint, that keeps her sane.
“Whoa!” she says in a breathless gasp, moving away from the desk so fast that her back smacks the hard bookshelves lining the wall. She pants heavily and sweat drips down the back of her neck, tracing her spine like a cold finger. “What the hell was that?” she asks the empty room.
After taking a moment to catch her breath, she steps forward again. Slowly this time, cautiously. She gently presses a fingertip to the desktop, as if testing whether a stove is still hot to the touch.
This time, a new image pulses through her mind.
Once again, she sees herself splayed atop the desk, naked, her pale skin slick from head-to-toe. But this time, the image isn’t sensual. There’s no sensation of pleasure, no erotic tingling below her belly. In this vision, she’s tied down, bound at ankles and wrists. And it isn’t sweat making her skin glisten, it’s blood. Her blood. She’d been cut badly—on her arms, legs, chest, face.
She’s been flayed.
There are hundreds of small punctures and slices, as if she’s been tortured over a period of time, her blood running off the edges of the surface into eager, waiting hands…
Like the dream, she realizes, and pure terror chills her skin. She jerks her finger back and the vision drains away, leaving her feeling oddly empty.
Almost… disappointed.
“Okay, enough of this bullshit,” she says aloud, and takes a deep, shaky breath. “It’s just a stupid desk, Sarah. Now let’s get this over with.”
Before she can think any further or question her actions—or the visions—she reaches for the top left-hand drawer. Grimacing, she pinches the face that serves as a knob, and yanks it open.
Nervously, she looks down into the open drawer and sees… nothing.
