The Whisper, page 28
“Mr. Arlington, do you remember me?” Jasper asked.
“Of course I do.” The devil gave a light chuckle. “You’re Jasper Newman—the guy who feels sorry for everyone in this world, the guy who wants the same pity in return, the guy who always whines and complains, the guy who’s afraid of his own shadow. Sometimes I wonder what she saw in you.”
Jasper’s eyes widened. He wasn’t afraid of Arlington’s wrath, but he was intimidated to hear the continuance, as if he knew he hadn’t heard the worst part yet.
“You gotta have some balls to show up here like this.” Arlington paused to take another sip of the whiskey and added, “I mean, considering that you know what I know.”
“I didn’t know how much you knew, but even if I had I’m not afraid of you.”
That confession seemed to amuse Arlington.
“How’s that?” he said.
There were two reasons, but the first one was so surreal that Arlington could laugh at it. Jasper went with the second one.
“I’ve got nothing left to lose.”
Arlington sank into one of the empty chairs at the table, letting out a snort of derision.
“That’s quite a dangerous thought,” he said. “If you think that way, you get reckless. If you get reckless, all of a sudden you reveal plenty of things you can lose. The only catch is you reveal them after you’ve lost them.”
Jasper took a seat two chairs away from Arlington. Since his escape from Ashberry Field Hospital, he had the habit of closing his hand—the one with a severed finger—or hiding it in a pocket whenever someone was too close.
“So,” the devil began, “to what do I owe the pleasure? Wanna get back to work?”
“Do you really think you’d want me back?”
Arlington gave Jasper a weak smile. The next second, the smile turned into a giggle. Then the giggle turned into a nervous chuckle. He stopped right before it all turned into hysterical laughter.
“With the current lack of personnel,” he said, “I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question.”
“What do you mean?”
Arlington downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass.
“If I told you each one of your former coworkers is dead, would you believe me?” he said. “Because, honestly, when I found out, I couldn’t for the life of me believe it. I can easily imagine one of them getting shot. Shootings with rival gangs weren’t rare in the old days, you know. I can imagine two of them getting shot, or three, four, a dozen, but every single one of them? How’s that even possible?”
Jasper watched the mist around the devil thicken. Bit by bit, the whisper’s effect was getting stronger.
“You should feel lucky you left the business when you did,” Arlington said. “If you hadn’t, you’d probably be lying in the same pile of dead bodies right now.”
“What happened?”
Jasper knew Arlington would tell him everything. He could feel how desperate the devil was to let it all out.
“They were killed at the docks yesterday night. Fucking Frank Whitney. Jesus, I thought that dickhead was doomed to be the least of my problems forever.”
“The world’s full of surprises,” Jasper said.
Arlington looked at him from the corner of his eye.
“I was prepared for everything,” he continued. “Aside from the fact that everyone knew messing with us was a bad idea, I was always extra careful. Those docks, for God’s sake, they’ve been serving us for decades. The place was so hidden it almost didn’t exist, but somehow those fuckers had it all figured out.”
Jasper leaned back in his chair, staring blankly in front of him. It wasn’t the way he had expected this conversation to turn out. The news struck him so suddenly that he couldn’t understand what he felt.
“When you build a reputation of the most powerful criminal in the city,” Jasper said, “you have to expect that, sooner or later, someone would want to take that power from you. When you have so much blood on your hands, you have to expect that someone would want to return the debt. You got what you deserve, don’t you think?”
“Ain’t that a harsh opinion?” There was a hint of mockery in the devil’s voice. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I got what I deserve, but what about the dealers? Did they deserve that?”
“Someone once told me any industry is a living organism, and you can’t affect a single part of it without affecting any other.”
“Never thought one day I’d be lectured by someone like you. You’re so convinced that I’m some bloodthirsty beast, aren’t you?”
Jasper didn’t say a word.
“You might not know that, but I never killed anyone for sport,” Arlington said. “And I definitely never killed anyone without thinking through the consequences.”
Jasper was waiting for the right moment to segue into the matters that bothered him. Yes, the news that the devil had shared was as overwhelming as it could be, but there were things Jasper kept as a higher priority. He stopped for a second to think if it was obnoxious of him to think that way, but he didn’t stop to think over his next words.
“I’m wondering if you had the same strategic approach to killing Jane,” Jasper blurted out.
For the first time since the start of their conversation, he saw Arlington’s face becoming tense. His hold on the glass seemed to tighten, and the whisper abruptly changed the tune.
“I was with her the night she died,” Jasper went on, “but you probably know that already. I held her hand when she was dying. Do you have any idea what it felt like? All this time I’ve been holding a grudge against you, but I won’t let my hatred cloud my judgment anymore. We have nothing to hide from each other, so please tell me the truth.”
“The truth? THE TRUTH IS THAT YOU’RE FUCKING NUTS IF YOU THINK I COULD KILL HER!” the devil exploded. “DO YOU THINK YOU LOVED HER MORE THAN I DID?”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. I only know that you were the only one with a motive?”
“A motive? Seriously?”
“A motive to kill your unfaithful wife.”
Arlington burst into such vigorous laughter that he had a hard time catching his breath afterward.
“I didn’t know anything about you two until the police pulled the telephone records of the preceding few months.” The remains of laughter lingered in his voice. “You wouldn’t imagine how confused I was to hear your voice on the other end of the line. Here’s some advice. Never use a landline when you have an affair with a psycho’s wife. You were lucky I never kept a close watch on her. I trusted Jane.”
Jasper instantly recalled what Jane had told him on Reisenford Island, “Trust has kept our marriage afloat for years.”
“If it hadn’t been for the investigation,” Arlington said, “I would’ve probably never found out.”
“You didn’t know anything about us?” Jasper asked incredulously. “Not until her death?”
“Atta boy.”
“Can I ask you something else then?”
“I think there’s no need to feel awkward now,” Arlington said.
“What would have you done if you had known?”
“Let’s see… I uh… I would’ve made Jane watch me cut you up piece by piece, and when there was nothing left of you, I would’ve put a bullet in her head.”
They stared at each other for a few moments.
“Isn’t that what you expected me to say?” Arlington said. “Isn’t that what you think about me?” He leaned in and spoke in a lower tone, “You have to accept I loved her. I loved her more than anyone else in this world, and I would’ve never hurt her. She was the only person in the world I could forgive for anything. I always did my best to be a good husband. If, one day, Jane had told me she loved someone else, I would’ve let her go and be happy. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy.”
“She wasn’t happy with you.”
Jasper couldn’t believe he had the nerve to say that. He remembered the days when he’d been afraid to contradict the devil’s opinion, let alone give his own.
“You really think you knew her that well?” Arlington asked.
“I knew that you were cruel, and she wanted to be free. I knew that she was with you because she thought her life couldn’t be any better.”
“Did Jane ever tell you about how we met?”
“She told me everything.”
“And you still think I could be cruel to her?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between the person you were back then and the person you are today.”
“My love for her has never changed. I might’ve not been there when she died, but losing her hurt just as much. Now I wake up every morning thinking,” Arlington said with a sigh, “if I had gotten rid of that bastard a long time ago, she’d still be alive. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was my fault after all.”
“Who are you... what... Who are you talking about?”
“Glen. Your old, good friend.”
Jasper squinted in confusion.
“What does he have to do with this?” Jasper asked.
“Look at that.” Arlington smiled. “Turns out Jane didn’t tell you everything.”
Jasper hadn’t expected Glen’s name to pop up in such a context. That rendered him speechless, which was no problem because from then on Arlington did most of the talking.
Glen Harding was the devil’s most valued and most contemptible confidant. Although Arlington had tried to keep it quiet, some of the dealers had worked for him long enough to witness how exactly Glen had earned that contempt.
It all had started years ago, when the Arlington Building was two years away from opening, when the horsemen were a long way from being called the horsemen and Glen was a few months away from being expelled from Acheart University for very, very, very bad behavior. As it turned out, Glen had known Jane better than Jasper would want. Jasper felt fooled, insulted, and above all betrayed now that he realized how many secrets Glen had kept from him. He also wondered if Jane had intentionally not mentioned his name even once throughout the whole time they’d been together.
The funny thing was that ever since she had told Jasper about the guy who had fucked up her life, he imagined someone like young Glen Harding to fit the role. Jasper was sure, at the age of eighteen, Jane would’ve fallen for this type of guy: decisive, confident, and brutal. Jasper would fill the blank space in the whole picture that Jane had painted with the image of Glen, and somehow everything seemed authentic.
But that was only an image. The Glen Jasper knew would’ve never treated a young girl like that. He would’ve never made her fall in love with him and then watched her walk down the path of self-destruction. According to Arlington, that was exactly what Glen had done.
Everyone who disrespected the devil or his wife had to pay the price. Glen happened to be the only exception.
By the time Arlington started his relationship with Jane, Glen had proved to be the most reliable person. Arlington told Jasper about how many times Glen had saved his life, how many mouths he had shut on his behalf, and based on all that Jasper understood why the devil had been willing to put up with the past that connected his wife with Glen.
Jane, who had steered clear of her husband’s business all along, learned that Glen was still working for him about a year and a half after their marriage, which made her outraged. What outraged her the most was the fact that he had kept it a secret for so long. Jane wouldn’t openly ask her husband to cut all ties with Glen—good wives never tell their husbands what to do—but she hoped at some point Owen would realize on his own that it was the right thing to do.
He did realize that, of course, and he promised to make Glen go away. He kept promising that for the next seventeen years.
Glen knew what position he was in. He always performed his job duties properly, fearing that one small mistake could turn the devil against him. In fact, Glen was the first person Arlington had put in charge of the dealers. Once upon a time, Glen had been responsible for the drug trade not only in a few unfortunate neighborhoods but in the whole city. Then, one by one, Luis, Ben, and Morgan came into the picture, and his responsibilities got split until he found himself pushed out to such places like Foster Valley and Copper Hills.
“You and Glen were close, I know that,” Arlington said, “but ask yourself who was more...”
“No, no, no,” Jasper said incredulously. “He would’ve never done that.”
“You shouldn’t be so confident about what that person was capable of, especially given how much he was hiding from you. Look at things from his perspective. This job was all he had. It was the air he breathed. If you had taken it away from him, he would’ve started choking.”
“And he had to wait for what… seventeen, eighteen years to get Jane out of his way?”
“You haven’t heard the most interesting part yet. October 13th, 1973, you remember that date, don’t you?”
“Jane’s birthday.”
“Her last birthday,” Arlington clarified. “I was late. As always, work kept me busy longer than I expected. When I came home that night, Jane was drunk and, uh...to put it mildly, very upset. At first, I thought she was mad at me for being late, but then the tantrum she threw… I’d never seen her like that before. Whenever we had an argument, we always tried to reason and settle things down quietly, but that time something broke her.
“Later on, of course, I learned that something was you and whatever you two were going through at the time, but then I was simply afraid our marriage was as close to falling apart as it could get. I didn’t want to lose her. I wanted Jane to understand how important she was to me.” Arlington took a deep breath. “But there was only one way I could make her understand that. While she was calling you, trying to talk you into running away, I was on my way to Glen’s. I could’ve picked a better time to talk to him than the dead of night, but I thought I wouldn’t be able to fix anything in the morning. Glen and I had a very…quality conversation. I told him I could no longer choose between my business and my personal life. Not that he hadn’t expected that day to come. The next morning I told Jane that he no longer worked for me, but she didn’t seem that excited about it. Guess she was more excited about the escape she was getting ready for.”
Jasper was looking at Arlington with a gaping mouth. He didn’t know what was harder: to dismiss everything the devil was telling him or force himself to believe that.
“None of that proves that Glen—”
“I started pulling all the strings to find out what Jane was doing at the station that night,” Arlington interrupted him, “and, boy, how bewildered I was when your voice turned up on those telephone records. My first reaction was, ‘How come she chose YOU over ME?’ But my second reaction was, ‘If that’s true, then it makes sense.’ You were the only one at that station with her, which made you the only one who could’ve done that. I wanted to have a word with you as soon as I found out, wanted to hear how you could explain yourself. You were lucky we didn’t talk. Given my state at that point, let’s say… that conversation wouldn’t have ended well. The car that hit Jane was found two months later in the woods outside of Copper Hills. Guess whose car it happened to be?”
Jasper shook his head in disbelief.
“I have to give it to him,” Arlington went on, “Glen was excellent at cleaning up the mess, but this time he fucked up. You know what I think? I think he didn’t care because, like you now, he thought he had nothing to lose.”
“Glen picked me up from Rosaline Park and drove me to his house right after Jane got hit,” Jasper said. “His car… He couldn’t have possibly…”
“Was he behind the wheel of his ancient van?”
“Yes, but…”
“Did you by any chance notice his other car missing once you got to his house?”
“I don’t think that, with everything that was going on in my head at the time I would’ve paid attention to it. But here’s the thing. If the car that hit Jane actually belonged to him, I would’ve recognized it.”
Jasper was almost sure of that. He remembered how poorly the road by the station was lit.
“I highly doubt that,” Arlington said. “Glen had purchased the car not long before.”
“He’d never told me about that.”
“He told me. Gray Ford Galaxy. The police couldn’t track the owner by the registration or serial number. I didn’t think they would, given the kind of cars Paul Novak sells.”
“Glen got the car from Novak? Right before the murder was committed? Sounds like too much of a coincidence.”
“Then it wasn’t a coincidence. Did he come to pick you up right away?” Arlington asked.
“I spent forever walking from the station to Lambert Lane to call him.”
“I bet you also spent forever waiting for him.”
“He lives in Washington Heights. It’s not a big deal.”
Arlington mocked Jasper with a sardonic grin. Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that.
“I really hope Glen died in a lot of pain,” Arlington said. “If Jane meant as much to you as you say, you should take it as a favor.”
Jasper was no longer listening. He was making an effort to suppress the whisper. Lying was the basis of the devil’s whole life, but if he was lying right now, Jasper would be sensing it.
Arlington’s current state of mind and soul perfectly matched his words.
“Glen wouldn’t have done something so extreme for such a shitty reason, and the car…” Jasper swallowed a lump in his throat, standing up from his chair. “He wouldn’t… Do you really think he would’ve left it like that? It all sounds like total bullshit.”
Jasper went around Arlington and came to the window, looking contemptuously at the city below.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Arlington said. “The truth always sounds like bullshit. We always look for simpler explanations. Believing a lie is much easier, because too many people in this world try to bullshit us. Now you have learned too that even the closest people can turn out to be major liars.”
Jasper heard Arlington rise from his chair behind him, but he didn’t turn around to watch the devil’s subsequent actions. His mist had become quicksand. Jasper felt the darkness absorbing him and no longer tried to fight it back.
