Westside Lights, page 26
“We warned you about her,” said Lee.
“I recall.”
“She is an erratic presence. She should have been dealt with a year ago. Let the police have her and let us get on with our work.”
Once, I’d have been confident that Ida Greene would defend me. She would say that she liked me because I was erratic, that I’d been useful in the past. She would make a crack about how silly Oliver Lee looked wearing a tuxedo at dawn. Instead she shrugged, saying nothing at all.
I was too tired to be disappointed.
The infected Device glowed brighter. It seemed to have a grip on my heart, slowing it down, squeezing it tighter with every beat. Its sickness had spread to its brothers as well. Their light pulsed unevenly, like a dying man’s heartbeat. Was I the only one who could see?
Lee elbowed his brute in the gut.
“Throw her out the window. I’ll buy you breakfast.”
The very large man stepped toward me and I thought I was finished. But as his foot touched the floor, sparks leapt from one Device to another. The Roebling man jumped back. At last, I had their attention.
“Have any of you visited the Misery Queen?”
“We received a full report,” said Cornelia Prime.
“But did you see it for yourself? I’ve witnessed more than my share of horror on the Westside, but this outdid it all. People turned to hamburger. I didn’t know you could do that to a human body. One of you perpetrated that atrocity. One of you alone.”
“That’s not possible,” said La Rocca. “One person couldn’t—”
“Until quite recently, you were all happy to pretend that Gilda Carr, the mad detective, had done it by herself.”
I smacked my hand on the table. The lights surged. My audience stepped backward, pressing their backs to the wall. It was wonderful to see them so afraid.
“What have you done to them?” said Ida Greene.
“The same thing Marka did to the Device on the boat. The thing one of you told her to do. The thing that stripped the flesh off her bones.”
“Turn them off, and we can talk.”
“Turn them off yourself.”
Nobody moved.
“Fine. Then we’ll talk now.”
“What is it you want?” asked Prime. She was doing a valiant job of trying to look as unruffled as Ida Greene, but her panic showed. “Your freedom? That can easily be arranged. A few words to the police and we can find someone else to blame.”
“The Mudfoots, perhaps,” said La Rocca.
“Or the hoodlums who instigated the attack at Spring Square.”
“You could be a witness instead of a suspect. You woke up on the boat, saw whoever it was chopping Marka and her friends into chum, and were so scared you dove into the water.”
The Devices were not quiet anymore. For a year, they had lit our nights in perfect silence. Now, their plates scraped against each other. The glass rattled. There was a smell like searing meat.
“Just say yes,” said Prime. “Say yes and you can go home.”
Twelve hours prior, it’s all I wanted. But without Cherub, home was an impossibility. I shook my head.
Oliver Lee broke. He twisted at the doorknob, pounded on it, threw his shoulder at the wood.
“For god’s sake, help me!”
No one came to his aid. Their eyes, even those of the Roebling man, were on me.
“You might not want to pound so much, Oliver—the Devices don’t look too stable.” I looked at the rest of them. “These lights are killing us. Your headaches, your nausea—these are the reason why. They’re killing everyone in the District, a little at a time.”
“If we’d known, wouldn’t we have stopped them?” said La Rocca.
“You’d think. But turning them off would cut into your bottom line, and you all like money too much to jeopardize that over something as piddling as mass murder. Marka knew, and—”
I doubled over coughing, hacking until I thought I was going to throw up.
When I righted myself, the room was coming apart.
Gleaming silver traced the corners of the room and the lines on the carpet. The burning smell grew sickening and the walls began to float away. Beyond them was the brightest light anyone had ever seen—a perfect silver void.
“God in heaven!” shouted Lee, but his god was nowhere to be found.
Prime, La Rocca, and Mrs. Greene stood back-to-back in the center of the ring of lights. The sparks were constant now, a greasy shimmer that flowed from Device to Device, growing thicker and louder with every passing moment. Van Alen was in the middle of them. The light shone off his flat eyes. It looked like he was trying to smile. The Roebling man was apart from the group, standing behind an empty chair, trying to decide if he wanted to run or fight or simply go berserk. It would be interesting, I thought, to see what he chose.
“This is the gift you gave Marka Watson,” I said. “A light show, a headache, and a very messy death.”
My voice sounded clearer than it had for days, like all the scratches in my throat had been smoothed clean. The walls drifted farther apart from each other. I looked down and saw my feet no longer touched the floor. This was troubling, yes, but in a distant way. Mostly, I felt free.
Marka must have felt this, I thought, in the moments before she died. She’d been desperate for relief from whatever was weighing her down, and for a few seconds there, she must have believed she was getting it. I hoped she died happy. I wondered if I would do the same.
“Please Gilda,” said La Rocca, a sob in his voice. “Turn them off.”
“I don’t know how.”
The walls fell away, and there was nothing but that magnificent silver. Frozen breath streamed out of our mouths as we rose farther from the floor, floating in a glittering nowhere, waiting to learn how we would die.
“What is this place?” said Mrs. Greene. No one answered, because no one knew. Her voice was hoarse. Even she could only take so much.
The Roebling man lost patience. He flung himself across the chair, tipping end over end in the air, and seized the base of one of the machines. His hands fused to the metal. He screamed like someone was tearing out his throat. When he dropped the machine, the skin tore away.
“Dear god,” he yelled, clutching his bloody palms to his chest, spinning uselessly in the air. Again, no god answered.
“One of you told Marka to do this,” I said. “You knew what would happen, and I think that means you know how to fix it. Do it now. Give yourself away and save your life and ours.”
There was just one light now, streaming from every surface, from the void around us, from all the Devices at once. Inside the one I’d overloaded, gears popped. The plates tilted, spinning more and more unevenly, and the light took on the sickly tinge of rendered fat.
La Rocca and Lee grabbed either end of a table that held two Devices and flipped it upside down. The Devices crashed to the floor but did not break. Their spinning plates shredded the wood. The light got brighter still.
Lee grabbed me by the wrist and used my weight to pull himself toward Van Alen. He grabbed the blankets, and Van Alen groaned like a creaking door. Lee pushed off the chair, sailing toward one of the Devices, and used the blankets to grab it. With a guttural oath, he hurled it out of the room, into the sparking nothingness. It rebounded, flying past his head, bouncing off the walls that were not there, spraying cold light that cut his suit to pieces and bloodied the skin of his chest.
I drifted gently across the room, watching my victims struggle. They screamed at each other; they screamed in pain; they fought their weightlessness; they tried to disarm the Devices. In that bright room, only three people were calm.
Myself, soaking in the light.
Van Alen, doing the same.
And Cornelia Prime, floating in her corner like a snake waiting for its moment to strike. Her fists were clenched against her hips. Her jaw was locked tight. Besides me, she was the only person watching the sabotaged Device.
She was the only one who knew.
The plates in the Device split, and Prime snatched the blanket from Lee.
The top of the Device opened like a cracking egg.
Prime leapt across the floor, the blanket wrapped around her fist.
Light spilled out the color of liquid gold.
All around us, the endless light turned to black.
Everyone stopped breathing, stopped moving, except for Cornelia Prime.
She smashed her fist through the Device’s cracking top. The air filled with the smell of her melting flesh. She pulled her arm out of the Device. In the mess of scorched blanket and burning skin, she clutched a fistful of copper wire.
The machine screamed.
With her other hand, Prime flicked through the wiring, seized one piece with thumb and forefinger, and tore it loose.
For a moment as long as the deepest breath, we were nowhere. The room was gone, and so was the light, and so was the void. And then our eyes opened, and we were back at St. Abban’s watching Prime sink to the floor, her ruined hand pressed between her knees. No one else could move. The other Devices spun down slowly. Their light died, and there was nothing but the dawn.
“Get her!” said Lee. “She’s the one—the one that knew. The one that did it! Somebody grab her!”
But he didn’t do it, and neither did anyone else. Ida Greene crouched beside Prime, stroking her hair. I knelt on the other side. Her hand smelled like scorched rubber. It was too burned to bleed. Prime looked up at Greene, her mouth forming unspoken words, tears frozen on her face. Greene smacked her across the mouth. Prime did not fight it. She held there, waiting for another blow. I didn’t have any interest in watching any more pain.
I pulled out the note I’d found on the Misery Queen.
“Did you write this?”
Prime nodded.
Something inside Ida Greene broke. She leaned closer to Prime and asked the only question that mattered.
“Why?”
“I knew Marka from around,” said Prime. Her voice was brittle. “When she noticed the seagulls dying, she came to me. I told her she was imagining things, that even if it were true it couldn’t possibly matter, but after she left, I began to ask questions of my own. I began checking the paperwork that passes between us and the Roeblings. I found notes about construction—some kind of project at the old pillow factory on Varick. I went to see for myself. And I found . . .”
“I know,” I said. “What next?”
“I talked to Bourget. She told me everything. She was very matter-of-fact about it, you know—like it was all just another in a series of fascinating discoveries. She was the one who told me what would happen if a Device overloaded.”
“Why didn’t you tell her to turn them off?”
“I didn’t have the authority.”
“Then why not tell someone who did?”
“She swore she would fix it and, I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to rock the boat. The District was my project. I’d staked everything on it. It was essential that it thrive. The lights were a crucial part. I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
It wasn’t me she was talking to. I don’t think anyone on earth cared about disappointing me. She was staring up at Ida Greene like a kicked puppy. Ida Greene just looked away.
I rapped the floor, and Prime turned back to me, her eyes swollen with tears.
“How did it end?” I said.
“Marka had this harebrained theory that it was bootlegged liquor making the birds sick, making everyone else sick, too. To prove her wrong, I asked her to meet me at the pillow factory. And, poor thing, she came. I told her everything. I begged her not to print anything, to wait until Bourget had a chance to correct her mistake. I tried to explain that revealing this secret would be destructive for everyone. She said I was a fool if I expected a reporter to pass on such a scoop. And so I gave her the crystals and told her they would heal her.”
“You tricked her into killing herself.”
“I told her to use the crystals when she was alone. I didn’t mean for anyone else to die.”
“You must not have known her. Marka couldn’t stand being alone.”
“Are you going to unlock the door now?” asked La Rocca.
“Not until we decide what to do with her.”
“Give her to the police,” said Lee, who was curled in a ball, pressing the dozen cuts that lined his chest to the blanket, staining the floor with his blood.
“There’s no need for that,” said Mrs. Greene.
Lee banged a fist on the carpet.
“Marka Watson deserves justice. She made everyone else in the room fade into the wallpaper. Prime should hang.”
“Justice and the gallows have nothing to do with each other,” said La Rocca. “A Roebling man should know that.”
“It’s true,” said Ida Greene. “On the Westside, we handle our own.”
“Fine!” said Lee. “I don’t care. Just let us out of here so I can get some goddamned bandages.”
I stood, and the whole world seemed to slip one way and then the other. I let myself slide down the side of Van Alen’s chair. The upholstery stank of stale urine. It was a bracing smell.
I stared across the floor at Lee and forced myself to ask the final question.
“What about the lights?”
“That’s company property. They represent a significant investment in research and materials. I can’t simply—”
“Stop it. They stay off.”
I was having trouble sitting upright, but my voice was loud enough to be heard.
“You’re all pathetic. I can’t talk to any of you without being told that you aren’t simply criminals, but honest businessmen. Cold-blooded, sober, rational. Yet as soon as you don’t get your way, you throw a tantrum, razors in hand. You’ve all made a fortune off this place. None of you give a damn about how many people died along the way.”
“Miss Carr—” began Ida Greene, but I cut her off. It shocked her. It shocked me, too.
“Go home and count your money. You’re selling cheap liquor in a country where liquor is illegal. I’m sure you’ll find a way to make that pay.”
I gripped Van Alen’s chair and dragged myself to my feet. I nearly slipped again, but a hand reached out to steady me. Van Alen had me by the wrist. His skin was as dry as paper, but the grip told how powerful he had once been.
“Good god,” said La Rocca. He grabbed the blankets from Lee and packed the least bloody around the old man’s legs.
“I didn’t know he was still in there,” said Mrs. Greene.
Van Alen’s mouth worked up and down. He wheezed faintly. I leaned close and heard him speak.
“Koszler.”
“Heard that, did you?”
“Nothing in the world like killing a cop.”
He smiled like he was remembering a long-lost summer fling. He let my wrist go. La Rocca lit the fire to make Van Alen tea. The air had become oppressive. And so I unlocked the door and went away.
Twenty
I found Cherub in the hallway. He sat against the wall, his arms around his legs. His sodden clothes clung to his skin. When I opened the door, his head rose and his eyes went wide.
“I got here late. I took the wrong stairs, I got lost, I’m sorry, I . . .”
I helped him to his feet.
“What did you see?” I said.
“Bright light, streaming from under the door. Metal clashing. Screams. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Tears collected in the corners of his eyes. I brushed them away. More took their place. Behind us, Oliver Lee and his bodyguard were helping each other through the doorway. Ida Greene was comforting Cornelia Prime, and La Rocca was seeing to Van Alen. I was sick of all of them, so I led Cherub to the stairs.
We stepped out of St. Abban’s to find the sun shining brightly on the bloody wreckage of Spring Square. Birds pecked at the blood spattered across the great light’s base. Whatever had happened back in Van Alen’s quarters had caused it and all its brothers to go dark.
We walked to the river. There was no discussion—it was simply what people in the District did when there was no money to spend or gin to drink. The Boardwalk was crowded with people looking for a way home, but the rising sun had sapped their anger. They were simply hungover and tired.
Across the river, a column of pale smoke twisted into the sky. I pointed it out to Cherub, and he hid his disappointment when I told him it was the wreckage of the Misery Queen.
“I’m sorry I ever got that boat,” he said. “I’m sorry I brought us here.”
“You didn’t do it alone. I wanted . . . I wanted so badly for this to be paradise—the paradise you thought it was—that I forgot to mention when I became miserable. I hid in parties, in gin, in the hunt for that damned bird.”
“You weren’t the only one who hid.”
I felt tears coming. Normally I’d have fought them off, but I was so uselessly tired. This was the moment I’d been trying to avoid all weekend, all summer, all year. I’d been so afraid of it that I’d smashed into it headlong.
“I didn’t think it would end precisely like this,” I said, “but I should have known it wouldn’t go well.”
“We’re finished, then?”
I nodded. Hearts broke. The sun rose a little higher in the sky.
“You’re pure joy, Cherub Stevens,” I said. “It’s not just that I don’t deserve that—I don’t even know what to do with it. For the things I’ve done, if I’m going to atone, I have to be alone.”
The words stuck in my mouth like concrete. I got them out anyway. He scratched some of the dried blood off his cheek. His mouth opened and closed once or twice, but he could find nothing to say.
That night, the lights of the District turned back on. Whatever damage I’d done had been repaired. They spun out their icy light as clear and silent as ever. Few visitors from the Eastside were there to take in the sight, but no one doubted that the crowds would return.
They may have, if it weren’t for the fire.
The Bourget employees fought it, sweat streaming across their masks, their leather aprons providing some protection from the heat, but it was a stubborn little fire, fed by a sticky, tar-like substance that resisted every chemical they had. At last they gave up the battle, and the dead professor’s lights went out for good.
