No Way Back

by Matthew Klein

  The woman in front of me is tall, forty years old. She was beautiful once – with dark hair, blue eyes, a complexion like snow. But now her beauty is gone. Her arms are scarecrow thin, her cheekbones protrude like tent poles. Her paleness has turned morbid and cadaverous. Her hair is streaked with grey. She looks as though someone sneaked into her house, late one night, while she was asleep, and loosened a tiny valve on her body, so that all the colour and energy and life drained from her.

  ‘Come in,’ she says.

  I follow her inside. Before she shuts the door, she sticks her head out and looks around furtively, like a nervous animal. Whatever it is that she’s searching for, she does not find. She closes the door and slides the chain. She locks the deadbolt. Then the second deadbolt.

  She leads me into a sunken den. The decor is Miami, 1985, entirely monochromatic. Everything is white – the walls, the ceilings, the pile carpet, the sleek modern coffee table, even the vase that rests upon that table, holding a single white orchid, probably fake.

  My eyes adjust, as they might adjust to twilight, and now I can make out a different colour on the far wall – an abstract painting – a tiny splash of beige. In the whiteness of the room, this single small dab is loud, even shocking.

  The woman gestures to a modern, angular couch. ‘Sit,’ she commands.

  I do. My thighs land with a thud on what turns out to be plastic – one of those couches that feels like a subway bench.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asks.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  She walks across the room. Her steps are silent, and mincing, and she seems to float above the carpet. She stops at a bar, a little cubby decorated with white tesserae, which – until she brings it to my attention – was invisible in the room’s gloaming. There’s a crystal decanter on it. She fills a glass. ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere,’ she mutters, mostly to herself. She lifts the glass, and turns her back, and empties it down her gullet. She fills and repeats. Suitably fortified, she returns to me, with yet another full glass, and sits down in the white chair nearby.

  She’s very close to me, and I can smell the drink. Sherry. It may be five o’clock somewhere, but here in Florida it’s not quite eleven in the morning. She is, I decide, a woman quite after my own heart.

  She fixes me with her pale eyes, and says, in a not particularly friendly tone, ‘Why are you here, Mr Thane?’

  On the table near us I see a photograph of a little girl, with her hair in pigtails. She wears a paper party hat and is blowing out three candles on a birthday cake. I say: ‘Your daughter? She’s very pretty.’

  She looks down at the photo, surprised, as if she forgot it was there. She doesn’t reply. Obscurely, I feel that I’ve said something wrong, but am not sure why.

  I say: ‘Would you mind if we talked about your husband?’

  ‘My husband?’ She straightens in her chair, backing away, as if she wasn’t expecting this subject – not at all – and indeed hasn’t thought about the man in quite some time. ‘My husband is... missing.’

  ‘Yes, I know. And I’m very sorry for that.’ Which comes out sounding too much like a condolence, and so I add quickly: ‘But I’m sure he’ll turn up.’

  No. That’s much worse. I might as well have said: ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up floating in a river. Or dug up by a coyote.’

  Mrs Adams doesn’t seem to notice the faux pas. She fixes me with pale blue eyes, and says, ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right.’

  Now that she’s staring at me, I feel something odd about her gaze. She reminds me of someone. Who, exactly? I study her, trying to discern the similarity. And then, suddenly, it comes to me. Libby. She reminds me of Libby. Indeed, put brown hair on her instead of grey, and restore the curves and flesh that she surely lost when her husband disappeared, and the two women would be very alike. The same pale blue eyes. The same fine bone structure. The same elegant bearing, the same height. It’s uncanny.

  Mrs Adams breaks my reverie. ‘What is it exactly that you want to know?’

  What I exactly want to know is her husband’s relationship with a man named Ghol Gedrosian. According to the FBI, Charles Adams and Ghol Gedrosian were ‘business associates’. It was a business association that apparently ended rather badly, when Mrs. Adams’s husband disappeared from the face of the planet.

  It’s not just morbid curiosity that led me to his widow’s house. There’s more than a little self-preservation, too. It has occurred to me this past week – and it occurs to me even more now, as I sit and stare at his wife, who looks so much like my own – that I have followed very close in my predecessor’s footsteps. Uncomfortably close.

  Today, I am doing exactly what Charles Adams did in the weeks before he vanished: running a company on behalf of a Russian mobster. Ignoring cash disbursements and receipts. Trying to keep things quiet on my employer’s behalf.

  ‘Did you and your husband ever talk about his work?’ I ask.

  ‘We were married, Mr Thane,’ she says. ‘Husbands and wives share everything together.’

  ‘Of course they do,’ I agree. I think about Libby, and her secrets, and her mysteries.

  ‘But yes,’ she says, her voice softening. ‘We did talk about his work, quite a bit.’

  ‘Did he ever mention anything... unusual happening at Tao?’

  ‘“Unusual”?’

  Illegal, I want to say. But don’t. Instead I ask: ‘Did he talk to you about problems he was having?’

  ‘Problems? Oh, my husband had problems. But not the kind you’re thinking of.’

  ‘What kind of problems did he have?’

  ‘He was an addict, Mr Thane. Did you know that? Methamphetamine.’

  I did not know that. I suspected it, maybe, based on what Joan Leggett told me, when I asked her about Charles Adams. But receiving confirmation from his wife, and now learning his drug of choice – the same as mine – I have a strange feeling. I feel as if I’ve been transported into Charles Adams’s body. No, that’s not quite right. I feel like I am Charles Adams, seated in my own house, staring at my own wife. So much of our lives in common. Our love of drugs. The similar women that we married. Our employment, or our partnership – or whatever it is – with a man named Ghol Gedrosian.

  ‘He cheated quite a bit, too,’ she adds.

  And that, as well.

  ‘I think with that receptionist at work,’ she says. ‘What’s her name, again?’

  She looks at me, as if I should know that name very well indeed. I say nothing.

  ‘But, you know,’ she goes on, with sudden and surprising warmth in her voice, ‘when you love someone, you forgive so much.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ I say. And I think of Libby, forgiving me for Cole. And for so much else that I’ve done. ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘But to answer your question,’ she says. She takes a slug of sherry, wipes her lips with the back of her hand. ‘He did talk about work. He was very depressed about it. Not enough sales. Expenses too high. That sort of thing.’

  ‘It’s a hard business,’ I say. ‘I’m learning that first-hand.’

  ‘I’m sure that you are.’ She looks at me significantly. What does she mean by that? She says, ‘It was a constant source of stress for Charles. Maybe that’s why he did the drugs. To escape.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Did he ever mention any names to you?’

  ‘Names?’ She looks puzzled.

  ‘Unusual names?’

  ‘Unusual?’ She stares at me, stupidly. Too stupidly. And it is at this precise moment that I know she’s lying. She knows about the Russian. The man with the most unusual name of all. She knows about him. And she’s not telling me.

  ‘For example, did he mention the names of any of his investors?’

  ‘Let me think.’ Her eyes dart around the room. What is she looking for? When her gaze returns to me, she says, ‘No, he never did.’

  I wait a decent interval for her to add more, but she doesn’t.

  I stand from the c
ouch. ‘Well, I appreciate your time, Mrs Adams. I should really be going.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, agreeing with this notion entirely. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She offers me her hand. ‘Good luck to you, Mr Thane.’

  She turns, and starts from the room. But I stay behind, with the distracted air of someone who has just suddenly remembered something. I snap my fingers and say, ‘Oh, there is one other thing.’

  She’s poised at the edge of the room, on the step leading from the sunken den back to the foyer. She turns to me.

  ‘There is one name in particular that I’m interested in,’ I say. ‘I wonder if you heard it. It’s a Russian name. Did your husband ever mention the name... ’

  But even before I finish, something happens to her. She changes. Her body stiffens. Her face, which was pale before, now completely drains of blood. Her skin turns the grey mottled colour of old melted snow. By the time I finish the question, my words are superfluous, my question already answered. ‘Did your husband ever mention the name Ghol Gedrosian?’ is what I say.

  She tries to recover. She keeps her body motionless. She looks me in the eye and says, ‘No. I’ve never heard that name. Never.’

  She turns and walks to the front door. I follow. She unlatches the chain, and then the two deadbolts – slip clack clack – and pulls open the door. ‘Goodbye, Mr Thane.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs Adams. Thank you again.’

  But just as I am about to walk from the house, she grabs my arm. I look up, surprised. Her index finger is pressed hard to her lips. She has a crazy, bug-eyed look. She reaches into her pocket, takes out a slip of paper, and hands it to me.

  I unfold it. A woman’s handwriting says:

  Do not speak. Pretend that you have left the house.

  She slams the door, and fastens the chain and the bolts, locking me inside with her. She taps a finger to her lips again, and beckons me to follow.

  I do. We walk up the stairs, to a second-floor landing. We go down a short hall, passing a little girl’s room, all pink and gingham. The bed is neatly made, with dolls arranged on pillows. Toys are piled in the corner – a stuffed dog, and cat, a unicorn. On the bureau is another picture of the same girl that I saw in the photograph downstairs.

  Mrs Adams turns, makes sure that I’m directly behind, and touches a finger to her lips again.

  We pass another empty bedroom. And a third. The tour has taken us past every room in the small house, and now it’s clear that there is no one else here with us – not another soul – no one but me and Mrs Adams. So why her insistence that I remain quiet?

  She walks through the last door in the hall. It’s a bathroom. I remain at the threshold, wondering whether I should follow.

  I have followed a lot of strange women into a lot of strange bathrooms, which is what you tend to do when you need to get high. But something about this day, and this bathroom, and this woman, seems different. Peculiar. Dangerous.

  I peer in. Mrs Adams is leaning over the tub. She looks over her shoulder at me, waves for me to join her.

  I do. She unscrews both faucets of the tub, as far as they turn. Water gushes.

  She edges past me, back to the sink, and opens the faucet, full flow. She closes the bathroom door and locks it.

  The sound of rushing water fills the tiny room, loud as a jet. Steam billows up from the bath. When she whispers to me, finally, her voice is so quiet that I can barely hear her words.

  ‘He has ears,’ she whispers.

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘Shh.’

  I say again, more softly, ‘Who does?’

  ‘You know who.’

  I study her. Is she drunk? She did finish two glasses of sherry. On the other hand, she seems steady on her feet, and, more to the point, seems to be a professional – not an amateur – drinker, someone who could have kept up with me, back in my bad old days.

  She asks, ‘Has he given you gifts?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Stop. You know who I’m talking about. Has he given you gifts?’

  I think about it. Two million dollars? A job? Are these gifts?

  ‘There’s a price,’ she whispers. ‘That’s what I want to tell you. That’s what you can’t see yet. Not at first. But he demands his price. I promise you that.’

  Before I can say anything, she touches my arm. ‘Stay here,’ she says. She opens the door and leaves the bathroom. The cool air rushes in, swirling the steam. It condenses on my skin and turns clammy. She returns a half-minute later, holding a shoebox. The bottom has rainbow stripes. The top is purple, with a Stride Rite logo in big childish letters. This box is achingly familiar; my son’s closets were filled with shoeboxes like this.

  ‘This is what he gave to Charles.’

  ‘Shoes?’

  She holds it out. ‘Open it.’

  I take the box. I peek under the lid, cautiously. I see only darkness.

  ‘Open it,’ she says again.

  I remove the lid. Inside are photographs, five by eights. I take out a stack of them. They are colour photos of young boys, nine or ten years old, pre-pubescent, lying naked on a bed. As I flip through the pile, the pictures become worse, more explicit – boys engaged in sexual acts with older men. Horrible acts. Some boys are crying, with tear-streaked faces. Others look confused and lost, with dead eyes. The men – the ones whose faces are visible – have strangely blank expressions. What is it that I see in them? Lust? Fear? It’s hard to know.

  ‘No,’ I say, and push the pictures back at her.

  ‘Shh!’ she hisses. She refuses the photos. ‘Look at them,’ she whispers. ‘These are what he gave to my husband. These were his gifts.’

  ‘Gifts?’

  ‘Even before we married, I knew. In my heart, I suspected. The way Charles looked at boys. Some of the things he said. But he never acted on those urges. Never, Mr Thane. You have to believe me. He was a kind man, a good man. He was weak; I admit it. He had urges. But he never acted on them. Never. Please believe me. Please.’

  She looks at me with wide eyes, begging for some kind of forgiveness, some kind of mercy that I cannot give.

  ‘Do you think it makes someone evil,’ she asks, ‘if he has urges that are locked away, deep inside? If he never acts on them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say.

  ‘That was Charles. There was someone else inside him. But he kept it locked away. And then one day that man came into our life. And he destroyed my husband.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘You know who I’m talking about. Why do you pretend that you don’t? The man who knew what was in Charles’s heart. He knew his secret. Who gave Charles what he wanted. That’s what he does. He gives people what they want.’

  ‘Take these,’ I say, handing her the pictures.

  ‘Look at the next one.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Please,’ she insists.

  I look at the next photo. Through the steam, I see a middle-aged man, balding, kissing a young boy’s naked chest.

  ‘That’s Charles,’ she says. I don’t have much doubt about which one. The one who’s not ten years old. ‘That was at the end. Once they had photographs, they owned him. Charles had to do what he was told.’

  ‘Which was what? What was he told to do?’

  ‘To get things ready.’

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘For you, Mr Thane. He was told to get things ready for you.’

  It occurs to me now, for the first time, standing in this steam-filled bathroom, that the woman beside me is bat-shit crazy. Which explains a lot. The frightened glances. The deadbolts on her doors. The note she slipped into my hand.

  Now I know. Now there can be no doubt. She is crazy.

  ‘I need to leave you now, Mrs Adams,’ I say gently, and hand her back the photographs. This time she accepts them.

  ‘He was going to turn himself in,’ she says. ‘We talked about it one night in the bedroom. We thought we were alone. That no one could hear us. We decided.
Charles was going to talk to the police. He was going to tell them everything. The photos. The money he was given. He was going to tell them about... ’ She stops. ‘About that man. He was going to tell them everything he knew about that man.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘No. The man found out. He punished us.’

  ‘Punished you?’

  ‘He hears everything. He knows your thoughts. He knows your secrets. He is Satan.’

  ‘He killed your husband?’ I say.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘He didn’t kill Charles. Not right away. That’s not what he does. First he makes you suffer.’ She looks into my eyes. She seems very sad, very old. ‘You saw the picture downstairs,’ she says. ‘The one of my daughter?’

  ‘Your daughter... ’ I stop.

  Now I remember what Joan Leggett told me, on that first day that I arrived at Tao, when I asked about Charles Adams. There was a personal tragedy in his family, she said. I didn’t ask what she meant, but now, something clicks, and it fits: the quiet house. The dark hall. The empty bedroom, preserved like a mausoleum. No child’s footsteps. No child’s laughter.

  She says: ‘I left my baby with Charles. My little girl. It was at night. Just for an hour. When I came home, I found Charles on the couch. Passed out.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ I say. I feel the dread rise within me.

  ‘Maybe he was drunk, or maybe he was high. Or maybe they made him sleep. He can do that, you know. And I found my baby here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here,’ she says. She turns to the bathtub, near overflowing. ‘They came into the house, and they took my baby. And they brought her here. They held her under the water until she drowned. She was so blue when I found her. That’s the one thing I will never forget. How blue she was. And how her eyes were open. As if she was looking for me. And she couldn’t find me. She was so blue. So blue.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Later, I don’t remember running from her house.

  But I must have fled. Whether I said goodbye, or just unlocked the door and ran, I do not know.

  It’s not until I’m in my car, driving, with my foot hard on the gas, that I notice where I am, or how fast I’m going. Too fast – the speedometer bumping fifty, in a thirty-five zone – and so I brake, and stay in the flow of traffic, whizzing past McDonald’s and Walgreens and Macaroni Grill.