Ghostheart

by R.J. Ellory

  Such were her thoughts, and in finding some sense of solace in the mere fact that there was silence enough to contemplate such things, she barely heard the door when Forrester knocked on the glass.

  She came to suddenly, rose quickly and hurried to let him in.

  ‘Miss O’Neill,’ he said as he entered.

  He carried no package this time. The story was done, the final chapter had been delivered.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Please come in Mr Forrester.’

  He did, stepping into the relative warmth of the store, making his way across the floor and taking a seat at the table where they had sat and talked on all previous occasions.

  ‘You would like some coffee perhaps?’ Annie asked, knowing that he would decline.

  ‘This evening, yes,’ Forrester said, surprising her. ‘I would very much like coffee, Miss O’Neill.’

  Annie smiled. She was happy to fetch a cup for him, and when she returned and set it in front of him he had removed his overcoat, unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie.

  ‘Your man trouble?’ he asked. ‘This trouble resolved?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘He disappeared.’

  Forrester smiled, sympathy in his eyes. ‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘I think this young man was running away from something in himself, not from you.’

  Annie frowned. ‘What makes you say that?’

  Forrester shook his head. ‘In my experience it is only those who are afraid of responsibility, of the consequences of their own actions, who run away without explanations and apologies.’

  Annie smiled. This had certainly been true of herself. And then she stopped midflight. How did Forrester know what had happened? That there had been no explanation or apology? What had she said exactly? That she had met someone, and that perhaps things were not going as well as she would have hoped? And Forrester had asked her something … asked her whether this man she was involved with had shown his true colors?

  Annie shook her head. She was making no sense. Forrester had merely made an educated guess about what had happened. Perhaps she could be read like a book. Perhaps – in her expression, her manner, her body language – everything she was feeling was on display for the world.

  ‘So you have read the story of Harry Rose and Johnnie Redbird?’ Forrester asked.

  ‘I have,’ she said. ‘I found it fascinating … I think it would make a great movie.’

  Forrester laughed, lifted his cup, sipped his coffee. ‘And your thoughts?’

  Annie leaned back in her chair. ‘Well, truth be known, it ends inconclusively. Harry Rose is in Rikers, and we don’t get any idea about what happened to Johnnie Redbird.’

  Forrester nodded but said nothing.

  ‘Do you know what happened?’ Annie asked.

  Forrester shook his head. ‘There is a little more to the story, yes,’ he replied, ‘but nothing that is written down.’

  Annie was quiet for a time, and then she looked up at Forrester. ‘Can I ask you about my father Mr Forrester?’

  ‘In a little while,’ he said. ‘First we must hypothesize the end of Harry Rose and Johnnie Redbird, and then I will tell you what I know about your father. Is that agreeable?’

  Annie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She didn’t want to speak of some fictional characters in a story, she wanted to speak of her father, Frank O’Neill, but she held her tongue, focused her mind. She believed that here was her only chance to find something of the truth, and she realized all too well that she must be patient.

  ‘So what do you believe might have happened?’ Forrester asked her.

  Annie shrugged. ‘I don’t know … any number of things could have happened. All I know is that Johnnie Redbird wanted his money more than anything else in the world.’

  Forrester nodded as if in affirmation, and then he smiled. ‘I shall tell you what I think happened,’ he said quietly, and leaned back in his chair. ‘I believe Johnnie Redbird went home, back down to Ciudad Juarez over the Rio Bravo del Norte. Went home with nothing to show for his trouble. Went home with a bitter heart and a blackened mind, and the knowledge that somehow Harry Rose had evaded his dues one more time.’

  Forrester paused as if in thought, and then he smiled again, a strange smile, somewhat distant and emotionless. ‘I think he must have read about Harry Rose and thought things like An eye for an eye and What goes around comes around, and despite knowing Harry Rose would never say a word about him, for Harry Rose knew that if he spoke a single word Johnnie would kill his wife and his child without hesitation, he still felt the pain of betrayal. He must have had this sense of security, this personal guarantee, but nevertheless he still figured that somehow, some way, he would finally balance the scales and get back what he was owed.’

  Forrester looked at Annie as if waiting for a question.

  Annie said nothing; her mind was blank. She felt ill-at-ease.

  ‘Harry was in Rikers,’ Forrester went on. ‘That was perhaps the most ironic thing of all, and if Johnnie had only had the nerve to do such a thing, he might have visited him. The governor and the warders would have changed, many years had elapsed, but he was safe down in Mexico, and that’s where he stayed. He must have carried the ghost of his past, a second shadow if you like, and always and forever there would be the sound of Harry’s voice, a taunting sound, the sound of a man reprieved … and even though he believed he was free of his debt, that justice had been seen to be done, Johnnie would not have concurred. He wanted his money. He wanted all of it, and perhaps he began to think that there must be some way of getting it.’

  Annie shifted again. Was it growing cooler? Or was that just her imagination? There was something different in the room, a change in the atmosphere, and she wasn’t altogether sure she liked it. She wished Sullivan were there, wished she’d allowed him to come down with her tonight.

  Forrester cleared his throat. ‘Time passed, years unfolded, and as Johnnie Redbird grew older his thoughts turned to something he had considered time and again for as long as he could recall. He thought of the girl he’d left behind in Hudson Heights, the one who thought he looked like Gary Cooper. He wondered once more if she’d ever had the child he’d fathered, or if the five grand he’d given her had paid for a backstreet abortion and a guilty conscience. For a while he would let it go, but it kept on creeping back, like a stray dog whom he fed at his doorstep and would remain ever hopeful. Harry still owed him the money, and as long as Harry was alive Johnnie believed there must be a way to take it back. He began to think that Harry had lied, that he could not have spent all he had, and he also knew that he had no intention to stay in Mexico for the rest of his life.’ Forrester leaned forward, ever so slightly, but he did lean forward. He smiled in that same unnerving fashion.

  Annie felt a chill close around her spine and start crawling up towards her neck.

  ‘But you don’t kill four men in America and return for your high school reunion now do you Miss O’Neill?’ Forrester asked.

  He didn’t wait for Annie to answer. It was not a question that required an answer.

  ‘So Johnnie stayed in Mexico, and though he tried not to he couldn’t help but think of the Hudson Heights girl. Woke one morning and remembered her name. Even remembered her pretty little face and the way she would laugh whenever he kissed her. He was fifty-seven by then, and the child – if ever there had been a child – would have been twenty-two years old. A man or a woman? He had no way of knowing, but he was smart, and he had money, and all it would take was half a dozen phone calls and a scattering of long green and he could find out. Anyone could be found, he knew that as well as he knew his own name, and though he resisted the temptation there was something about growing old that made him feel it was necessary to know; that it was important to know if he would leave anything behind. If there would be anything to show for his life after he was dead. He also felt that if there was a child then the money he was owed also belonged to that child.
Perhaps, who knows, he might eventually have let go, he might have become old and tired of thinking about Harry Rose. But he didn’t let go, couldn’t let go. There was a debt to be paid, and he would keep on believing that until his body couldn’t draw another breath.’

  Forrester paused, closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them there was something cold and aloof in his expression.

  Annie wanted to say something, wanted to ask him to stop talking, to leave now … please?

  She opened her lips, but not a sound ventured forth. She believed if she had exhaled in that moment she would have seen her own chilled breath evaporating into the room.

  ‘Not until twelve years later did Johnnie Redbird make the calls. He called people who could be trusted to find a dust mote in a tornado. There had been a child. The child was a man. Thirty-four years old. The Hudson Heights girl was dead, dead of an overdose in 1980, and after her death the boy had been shipped back and forth between foster parents and juvenile facilities until he was eighteen. Now he was out there, had a life of his own, and Johnnie – an old man with a hankering for his roots – thought perhaps the time had come to find him. The child had been denied a father, and in his own mind he believed that the denial had been as much Harry Rose’s fault as ever it had been his own. Had he stayed, or had he and Harry gone out to Vegas or Los Angeles together, then perhaps the girl would have come with them, and with the money that was as much his own as it was Harry’s he could have provided for them. At least that much. He thought of his son. He wondered about him. He wanted him to understand what had happened, why he had been left alone all these years. He believed it was necessary for his son to know, for in understanding his father’s life he could perhaps better understand some aspect of his own.’

  Forrester closed his eyes again, but this time they stayed closed.

  Annie glanced around the room, felt the urge to get up, to move, to do something other than sit here listening to the old man describing things that sounded all too plausible to be mere speculation.

  ‘And so he started to write,’ Forrester said.

  Annie looked at him. He opened his eyes suddenly and she jumped.

  ‘Started to write the very words I brought for you. He was grateful then to Oscar Tate Lundy for making him read books and write the alphabet, for giving him no choice in the matter. Reading and writing had somehow helped him out of Rikers, and now it would help his son to understand his roots. He wrote them for him, so he could read and understand how he had been betrayed, how they had both been betrayed by a man called Harry Rose. Harry Rose was their traitor, their own Judas, and for his thirty pieces of silver, silver that had once belonged to Johnnie, he had sold him out to isolation and deprivation and loneliness. It was a new emotion, this sense of betrayal, and there were times he wished for nothing more than to tell Harry what he felt, how angered and tormented and abused he had become. For Harry had possessed everything, and Johnnie had been left with nothing. Not even his own blood. It was his son’s right to know who this man was, to see what he had done, and once he understood he could perhaps come to terms with his own sense of loss, and make his own decision to act. Johnnie turned these things over in his mind as he sat in his room in a small adobe house in Mexico. The heat tortured him, and there were times when he would drink and shout into the darkness. A voice clamoring in the desert for justice, for retribution, for equity …’

  Once more Forrester paused, as if for effect, and then he leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply.

  ‘His son would know,’ he said. ‘He had to know. And if Johnnie could never tell him to his face, then at least he could have him read it, read it and weep, read it and understand that his life had never been his own. Harry Rose had taken his life, and for this – for this crime of the heart – he would pay his dues. And there was another thought. That Harry’s child was out there, and maybe they had the money, and if they had the money then perhaps Johnnie could take it back. All of it. These thoughts came out of a shadowed past like ghosts, or like frightened children running for cover and coaxed out again by the promise of something sweet … these things kept Johnnie going, kept him alive. The sense that there was a debt to be paid, a balance outstanding, and he – Johnnie Redbird – could always find a way.’

  Forrester fell silent. He was breathing deeply, as if his monologue had exhausted him. ‘I believe Johnnie would have found the son, a son who would have been somewhat dysfunctional and out of touch. He – after all – did not have a regular kind of upbringing – born with an absentee father, losing his mother at such an early age, and then being shipped back and forth between numerous and sundry foster parents and juvenile facilities.’

  ‘Yes, okay,’ Annie said, eventually finding the necessary spirit to say something, anything. ‘He’s a loner, a man without a past …’

  She stopped suddenly. She believed, perhaps, that she was referring in some way to herself. ‘And then this father he never knew he had shows up, and they are reunited.’

  ‘And the father tells him of himself, his life, shows him what he has written, and the son discovers the real reason that he was left behind,’ Forrester said. ‘The son discovers the truth about his father and Harry Rose. The son is devastated. His life, the life he thought he had, is smashed to pieces like a car crash. He understands his father’s bitterness and regret, he begins to comprehend the depth of betrayal that Harry Rose had perpetrated against them, and he knows that the money Harry took from his father was also taken from him.’

  Annie frowned. ‘Surely Johnnie would be ashamed of his past?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Forrester said. ‘Perhaps not. He gives his reasons in the pages he wrote. There was a lot of money, a great deal of money, and half of it belonged to Johnnie Redbird. He spent many years in Rikers himself, and then again in Mexico, and all the while Harry Rose denied him what was rightfully his … he felt his son should know the truth so they could do something about it … so they could regain their legacy. They spend time together, a time they never had, and they begin to see eye to eye. They cry together, they talk for hours, they begin to understand that without Harry Rose their lives would have been entirely different. The son imagines how it would have been to have a father. He sees the decisions that were made, how his life has been a war zone because of this man, and he feels the pain and anguish that comes with knowing the truth.’

  Annie looked at Forrester. He spoke with such passion and vehemence it scared her. ‘So perhaps they would speak to Harry Rose, go see him on Rikers Island?’ Annie suggested, glad for a moment to be speaking, to be asking and answering questions. By speaking about these things she could distance herself from them. There was a sense of disquiet that unnerved and disturbed her and she wished that something would happen to make it disappear.

  Forrester shook his head. ‘Redbird could never go back to Rikers. He was an escaped felon, and though many years had passed there might still be people there who would recognize him.’

  Annie was silent, and then she looked up. ‘So he sends his son?’

  Forrester smiled, nodded agreeably. ‘He sends his son perhaps, yes. And the son speaks with Harry Rose to find out if there really was any money, or if Harry lied when Johnnie came to see him at his house.’

  ‘And Harry tells the son where the money is.’

  ‘Or that there is no money, that it is all gone … all of it swallowed up in attempting to defend himself and his family.’

  ‘His wife and his child,’ Annie said.

  ‘His wife and his daughter,’ Forrester replied.

  ‘It doesn’t say whether he had a son or a daughter in the manuscript.’

  Forrester hesitated, and then nodded in affirmation. ‘You’re right Miss O’Neill, it doesn’t.’

  ‘So the son returns to see his father and he tells him that Harry Rose has no money.’

  ‘And Johnnie Redbird is incensed, angry that he has been betrayed a third time by a man he believed to be his friend, and so he considers ho
w he can save face, how he can hurt Harry Rose for all the wrong that has been done. And then there is another thought, that perhaps Harry is once again lying …’

  ‘And the son too … he wants retribution?’ Annie asked.

  ‘The son too,’ Forrester said. ‘The son has regained his father, but he has all these years behind him where he went without anything. No family, no roots, nothing. And then he finds out that there was something that should always have been his, and this old man in Rikers Island has denied him his birthright.’

  ‘But they can’t hurt Harry Rose any more … Harry Rose is in Rikers, and will be until he dies.’

  ‘But they can still reach someone,’ Forrester suggested.

  ‘Harry’s child,’ Annie said. ‘They can still get to Harry’s child, and the one thing that Harry was always afraid of was that his child might find out the truth about him.’

  ‘And so the son goes back to Rikers –’

  ‘And tells Harry that they will find the child and tell them the truth about Harry Rose, what he did and where he was … and see if Harry’s child has the money.’

  ‘And Harry’s child … the child who is now an adult?’

  ‘Will find out the truth and know that Harry Rose has been hurt in return for all the wrong he did Johnnie Redbird.’

  Forrester smiled. ‘Not only that the father has been hurt, but the father was a crazy man, a killer just like Johnnie Redbird, and is now spending the rest of his life on Rikers Island. The child will find the father, but even as he is found the child realizes that everything they ever imagined was a lie.’

  Forrester paused, breathed deeply. ‘It seems possible, does it not? Perhaps even possible that Johnnie’s son found some way to hurt Harry’s child, something deep and meaningful?’

  Annie nodded, but felt uncomfortable. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out. She sat forward in her chair. She felt the power of the story, and the way Forrester had concluded it seemed to serve the ends of justice. Johnnie Redbird had been a bad, crazy man, but in his own way Harry Rose had made decisions that were just as bad, just as crazy, and in some ways had been the worst of them. He had given his word, and then he had broken it. Annie tried her best to see it as something separate, something disconnected from herself, but there was a feeling of invasion, emotional and mental invasion, that she could not shake off. She shuddered perceptibly. She wished she was elsewhere. She truly wished she was elsewhere.