The Whisper, page 32
The devil: “It’s not enough for her.”
Glen: “So what’s gonna happen now? Are you gonna get rid of me the usual way you get rid of people?”
Silence.
The devil: “I only want you to quit. That’s all. Think of it as a gift for all the years of good service.”
Glen: “A gift? Thank you, Mr. Arlington! As always, your generosity knows no bounds! WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I’M SUPPOSED TO GO—”
The devil: “Careful. You’re starting to sound like Ben. You don’t want to make the same mistakes, do you?”
Clarice exhaled heavily.
The devil: “It is generous of me to leave you alive, given that there’s not a lot of people who know about me as much as you do. I don’t know where you’re supposed to go now, but I hope you won’t go to the places that would turn you against me. I don’t want you to be my enemy.”
Silence.
Glen: “Did you already tell Luis and Morgan?”
The devil: “I’ll tell them tomorrow.”
Glen: “What exactly will you tell them?”
The devil: “Don’t sweat it. I’ll figure something out.”
Glen: “I uh… I still have a few things to take care of.”
The devil: “There will be someone to take care of them. This is supposed to be the last time we see each other, is that clear?”
The longest silence of all.
You love her more than anything in the world? You’re trying to prove it to her? You’re afraid to lose her, you goddamn bastard? Do you have the slightest idea of what it’s like to lose someone you love? Are you even capable of love, you heartless, rotten, sadistic piece of shit?
Her search for the truth ended much sooner than Clarice had expected. She didn’t know what Glen and the devil had talked about. She didn’t care. Even now that Glen cut all ties with the devil, he still refused to cooperate. He might have no reason to be loyal to Arlington anymore, but he still had a world of reasons to be afraid of him.
Clarice shot out of the house in fury, slammed the door of her car closed, and left without a word. There were plenty of details she longed to know. Where? When? How? She knew it wouldn’t help her prove Arlington’s guilt to anyone but herself; she simply wanted to dispel every last bit of doubt that Owen Arlington deserved the highest form of punishment there was.
Tears blurred the road in front of her, and a few times she had to pull over to get a hold of herself. She could only guess before, but now she was convinced—this was what her life was going to be like from now on: endless hollowness, feeling cold on the other side of the bed, serving one plate at the table, stumbling on Ben’s things around the house, forcing herself to put them away, and then when their child was born being something she dreaded to be—a single mother.
It didn’t take Jasper Newman’s abilities to see how raging her pain was. Still, if Jasper had a chance to look at Clarice at that moment, he would see her mist taking up almost the entire space inside the car. Most of the parasites were floating around her leisurely, overfed and lazy. Smaller ones whispered eagerly, getting every last bit of the poison out of her.
The city lights slipped into her sight as she drove through Upper Acheart then faded away as she entered Brimshore. She was heading straight home, but the thought of the hollowness she was about to dive into was bringing her down. She stopped by a liquor store to get another bottle of bourbon. Clarice thought she’d have a few glasses but ended up finishing the entire bottle. Then she cried herself to sleep, woke up with an excruciating headache, and felt hollow again. Clarice had to buy something strong over and over to dull that feeling.
The following week was a sequence of foggy visions for her, with some more vivid than the others. Clarice distinctly remembered the first time she thought of revenge. She was nestled in her bed, not just sipping but chugging whiskey, her senses dulled, pain still lingering. At one point, the alcohol replaced the pain with an unstoppable force—a force that pushed her toward action. Clarice would have burst if she hadn’t found a way to channel it. She got dressed and for the first time in her life got behind the wheel drunk.
Clarice parked across from the Arlington Building’s loading dock, where she had a good view of everyone who walked in and out of the gates. The stream of deliveries was much lighter now that the sun dipped below the horizon. She knew what gate she had two keep her eyes on, and she was waiting patiently, waiting for God knows what…
Clarice had no idea what she was going to do if she actually glimpsed Owen Arlington come out of the building. In her current state, she was ready to act on impulse. Subsequently, while she kept waiting, Clarice drifted into a thick, drunken sleep. She woke up a little before eleven when a policeman knocked on the window of her car.
Clarice gave it another try the next day, and this time she made it as far as approaching the devil. She had parked the car at the same spot as the day before and was shambling through the crowds of passersby on 41st Street, slowly lurching toward him, her eyelids heavy from alcohol. A few feet away, the realization of her own helplessness suddenly struck her.
Owen Arlington was always surrounded by people. Owen Arlington was the most powerful man in the city, invincible, untouchable. Those were the well-known facts, and if it was that easy to get him somebody would’ve done it a long time ago. Clarice was sure she wasn’t the only one who wanted to get even with him.
On the third day, she changed her strategy. The unstoppable force took her to the edge of the city. She spent nearly two hours driving around Pine Ridge Road, willing herself to drive up to Arlington’s residence. She caught herself thinking that the whole city knew where Owen Arlington lived. It was the kind of information you could draw from any public record, but very few knew what a deathtrap of a house this place was.
As deserted as it might look from the outside, Clarice was well aware that the devil’s pack of watchdogs would be there in no time, should an intruder set the tip of their foot on the property. The whole system suggested that those who lived closest to Pine Ridge Road were the first to show up, and then depending on the emergency those living in distant areas would join. She remembered once when Ben had been summoned in the middle of the night and by the time he had made it there from Brimshore the fuss had already been settled.
You could easily find the devil, but would you be able to get away from him? Clarice left a little after ten. It was a miracle she didn’t get in an accident throughout the whole time of drunk driving.
The fourth day proved futile as well, and Clarice began to wonder if somebody lived in that place at all.
It was the fifth day that turned out to be fateful.
Clarice thought she might’ve been choosing the wrong time all along. She concluded that, with Arlington’s lifestyle, his workday could end much later than she had assumed, and that was true. For the current week, however, Arlington had changed his schedule entirely. It was the week he was doing his utmost to be the good husband; what Clarice in fact should have done was to come a few hours earlier.
On the fifth day, she took off for Pine Ridge a little before eleven. The roads in Rosaline Park were mostly clear. Every now and then an occasional car would drive by, heading out of or to the city. On Pine Ridge Road, she didn’t stumble upon a single vehicle at all. She stopped at the bottom of a gentle hill, next to the driveway that went all the way up to the gates of Arlington’s mansion. It was an excellent spot. If headlights were off, the surrounding pines veiled the car entirely.
After an hour of idling, Clarice turned on the ignition in disappointment and was about to start on her way when in the distant lights of lampposts she caught a glimpse of a small figure hurriedly descending the hill. The figure was running, nearly jumping with glee. As it penetrated the last cone of light, Claris recognized her.
The devil’s wife was another thing you could draw from public records. Although Mrs. Arlington wasn’t as much of a public person as her husband, on those few society pages that included pictures of her, she always looked expensive—expensive dresses, expensive jewelry, expensive air all around her. Jane Arlington was a perfect target for all bored housewives who claimed that she had no personality whatsoever, that she had slept with the right man and gotten the right last name, which had made her life paradise.
But what would those bitches know, right?
Clarice was astonished to see her at this hour, so casually dressed as if she were out for a jog. It might’ve been true if it wasn’t for the huge travel bag Mrs. Arlington carried with her. She walked along the deserted road, stopping every now and then to give her shoulder a break from the weight of the bag.
Where the hell is she going?
Clarice started the car but left the headlights off. She had to follow Jane at a precise distance to avoid being seen or heard. The strong wind, ruffling pine branches, was enough to cover up the sounds of the working engine, and the enveloping darkness of the night was enough to make the car nearly invisible. There were a few times along the way when the outlines of Jane’s figure became vague among the giant tree shadows, but overall Clarice never lost sight of her.
The devil’s wife was out there all alone. It seemed so simple. At last, Clarice’s intentions took some kind of shape.
Clarice kept following Jane while her parasites were toying with the idea—an eye for an eye. Clarice believed she deserved that. It seemed like the universe wanted her to be there at that very hour to make it so easy for her that she would have to do nothing more than to floor the gas pedal to get back at the devil.
Maybe she couldn’t get the devil, but she could get the devil’s loved one, which as Clarice had learned from her own experience could be worse than death. That thought pleased her. A lot. All she wanted was for the devil to suffer. Maybe Owen Arlington would walk free from Ben’s murder, like he had from so many other crimes, but at least he’d walk free with his head down.
At one point, Jane turned left and disappeared into the woods. It was the usual shortcut. In this part of the park, the road was especially twisty. In order to save time, people preferred to walk straight ahead instead of following the sidewalk along the road. Clarice knew exactly where she had to drive to catch up with Jane. She got near RP Station about six minutes earlier and found the darkest spot at the forest edge to park her car.
Standing on a hillock under the feeble light of the only lamppost, the station looked like a small theater stage.
At last, Jane appeared on the stage. She made a full circle around the tiny head house that was currently closed then plopped down on one of the platform benches and leaned back. Jane had been looking up at the clouded night sky till a train arrived. The train blocked Clarice’s sight-line of her for a few minutes, but once it rattled away she saw that Jane was still there.
What is she waiting for?
Jane sat back down on the bench, and from then on time seemed to be getting slower. Every time Clarice thought she was somehow ready to make a move, something held her back. The unstoppable force was indeed unstoppable until it got you this close to your destination.
All of a sudden, Jane hopped up from the bench, staring ahead intently. Something caught her attention, and it seemed to be something Jane wasn’t very fond of; she instantly grabbed her travel bag and ducked behind the head house.
There was a guy coming out to the station light. Clarice couldn’t make out his face. His overstuffed backpack seemed to pull him backward. The guy stopped in front of the road that ran along the railroad, looked all around, and that was when Jane came into his sights. Once she set foot out of the platform, Clarice’s heart raced. Blood pulsed in her ears. Doubts swarmed up in her head, as it usually happened at the most intense moments.
Do you really want to do it? It’s not about what you want. It’s about what you have to do. You’ll never have a better opportunity. Get this over with. But who’s that guy? He’s a witness. You missed your chance. No, you didn’t. Do it for Christ’s sake.
Clarice turned the key in the ignition while Jane was running down the hillock, yelling something at the guy on her way. Clarice didn’t hear her. The roaring engine and her pounding heart drowned out all the sounds around her. By the time Jane was on the road, the gas pedal was flat under her foot. Nobody saw the car coming. It took Clarice less than ten seconds to reach her target.
The moment before the Ford’s windshield got splattered with blood, Clarice whispered to herself, “This is for you, Ben.”
22
HUMAN POISON
Clarice Elliot would forever be a person behind the curtain, but if they knew that it was her interference that had turned their lives upside down, neither Jasper nor Arlington could care less at that point.
Jasper was sitting still on the floor as people swarmed by the elevators and stairwell entrances. Their voices sounded so distant that for the first time since the panic had started he felt completely relaxed. There was a crushed body lying a few feet away from him, a man in his interrupted fifties. His bulging belly seemed to constitute thirty percent of his body. If it wasn’t for the ripped jacket and a partial grayish footmark on the collar of his shirt, his formal suit would probably look exquisite. His eyes were fixed blankly on the ceiling, the kind of gaze Jasper had seen when Jane had given her last breath. Jasper shifted toward the plump man, took his wrist, pulse absent. Glancing at his watch, he learned that the end was forty seconds away.
Jasper couldn’t grasp what was happening to him. Acceptance of things you couldn’t change was supposed to bring relief, and yet he couldn’t help worrying about the people who had ended up here and regretting the peril he had put himself in by coming to the Arlington Building in his futile attempt to know the truth. He dropped the man’s hand and closed his eyes, wishing time could go faster, wishing the end had already come.
All of a sudden, someone put a hand on his shoulder, suppressing all his worries somehow.
The hand radiated soothing warmth, which seemed to make his parasites recoil. Jasper shifted his eyes from the hand to the face, and for a second he thought that maybe he was in no danger, maybe it all was a nightmare this hand could easily pull him out of. Jane looked the same as the last time he had seen her, fresh and rested. She was smiling the same bizarre smile, but it didn’t make Jasper feel uncomfortable now.
He pressed his cheek against her hand, and to his surprise the mist around him began to thin.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Jane sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. She briskly wrapped her hands around his arm, and the thinning mist shifted a little to the left, away from her.
“Wanted to let you know there is still someone who cares for you,” she said.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “It makes me feel better. It really does.”
“I don’t want to make you feel better. I want to get your ass moving.”
Jasper looked over at her with a furrowed brow as if realizing that the person next to him was indeed Jane Elizabeth Arlington, not that utterly self-possessed, well-educated, flawless creature he had seen in his three-year-long dream.
Jane smiled warmly at the confusion on his face.
“How do I know that you’re real?” Jasper said.
“I don’t know. Does this feel real?” Jane ran her fingers across his arm, all the way to the palm, and grasped his hand.
It did feel real. Jane felt real. All of her seemed to be more real than ever.
“All this time, and now you decide to reach out to me?” Jasper said.
“I’ve never left you.”
“You weren’t around when I woke up in the West Side Hospital. You weren’t around when I was locked up in that nuthouse, when I spent my days with a straightjacket on or tried to…” Jasper broke off and raised his left hand with the little finger missing, a keepsake from Ashberry Field Hospital.
“I wasn’t around because you didn’t need me,” Jane said. “You were doing exactly what you had to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were fighting for what you believed in. That’s all I ever wanted from you. You might have made plenty of mistakes along the way, but above all you were trying to make the best out of what you had.”
“And in the end, I have absolutely nothing. I’ve had enough of this, Jane. Whenever I try to change something, everything goes to hell.”
“You have to see the difference between what you can and cannot change. You really gonna give up because you feel like giving up? Come on, you’re one of the few people who knows we’re not always in control of our feelings.”
“I’m in total control of my feelings now. You know that.”
“And this is based on what? On the fact that you can use the whisper, that you think these black worms are your allies? This is not the way to control your feelings. You and they live off different things.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Soon it will all be…” He glanced at the watch on the plump man’s hand again. “What the hell? The time is supposed to be up already.”
“Maybe somebody wants to give you a hand?”
“Or maybe Glen was lying.”
“It’s not the best time to take chances.”
The truth was that the watch was almost a minute ahead of the bombs’ timer—a lucky accident Jasper would never know about.
“It’s not up to me,” he said. “I can’t get out of here. It’s impossible.”
“Then I’m asking you for the impossible,” Jane said.
Jasper looked away with a ghost of a smile on his face. When he turned back, Jane was gone.
The parasites spread evenly through his mist, but what they were whispering meant much less to him now than what she had said. Maybe that was true, and maybe the building was perfectly safe, but if it wasn’t, what could he do? The deadlocks had descended to the bottom floors, but with the time left chances of getting out of the building were rapidly approaching zero.
Still, the remaining people didn’t mean to give up on their lives. Still, they thought it was possible to pull through. Why couldn’t he give it a shot?
