World Without End

by Chris Mooney

  The door closed with a soft click. Stephen Conway lay still in the bed, his mouth parted open, as if posing a question. The combination of Valium and the sleeping medication Zolpidem that Gunther had mixed into Stephen's lunch and soda would keep Stephen under for several hours. What Faust needed to do would take less than a minute.

  The semidark room was lit up with slivers of moonlight. He walked toward the bed, breathing in the air laden with viruses that were now deep inside the soft tissue of his lungs. The thought didn't unnerve him. True, he wished he could be wearing his biohazard mask with its excellent filtering system, but one did not travel outside wearing such things unless one wanted to draw attention.

  Next to the bed now and close to the smell of Stephen's body odor and bad breath, packed with dead tuna and disease, too close to the sickening plague of whatever germs lay incubating on the bed sheets.

  With his latex-covered hand, Faust reached underneath his white coat and removed the thin eight-by-ten-inch envelope wedged between the back waistband of his white pants. He placed it on the nightstand and rested the envelope so that it faced Stephen.

  In the sliver of moonlight Stephen's eyes fluttered behind closed lids, moving in all directions, as if trying to sight an invisible enemy that would at any second descend from the sky and destroy him. He swallowed, his brow furrowing. A sweat had broken out on his forehead.

  What nightmare has gripped you this time, Stephen?

  We never outgrow our childhood pain and fear; we merely catalogue it and, when it becomes visible in our adult life, if we are educated and lucky, we can talk away the anger. Faust did not often reflect on his childhood, but now, staring at Conway, he was aware of the common stigma they both shared: They were both orphans. They had overcome their miserable conditions and had emerged victorious. We are warriors, you and I. We are gladiators.

  Faust bent forward until his eyes were inches from Stephen's. Gently, he cupped the man's face in his latex-covered hands and using his thumbs pulled back Stephen's eyelids. Stephen Conway stared back at him.

  "You don't have to travel this road alone, Stephen. I will be there with you. I will keep you safe. I won't let them hurt you. You have my word."

  Faust took notice of the bandage on Stephen's forehead, directly above the eyebrow. He leaned in closer and, on a clean patch of skin, kissed Stephen on the forehead. Faust eased Stephen's head back against the pillow and exited the room.

  Gunther was dressed as an orderly and was still regaling the two plump nurses at the nurse's station with an animated story when Faust walked up the hall. He could feel Stephen's sweat his essence lingering on his lips.

  An orderly stopped emptying the trash to stare at the odd, euphoric look on Dr. Bensen's face. Amon Faust didn't see the man. He was lost deep in the warm beating drums of his heart, enraptured with the thrill of joint exposure, this act of coupling, of becoming one with Stephen, the memory of this shared, intimate moment now forever sealed inside the great expanse of his scarlet kingdom.

  John Riley leaned back in his swivel chair and rubbed his eyes. For the past two hours he had been working on an Excel spreadsheet on the computer monitor set up in the Pottery Barn walnut armoire that acted as his desk. Numbers danced in his head. The window on his left was cracked open, and he heard the giggles and laughter of children. He opened his eyes, turned his chair around and leaned forward and pressed his head against the cold glass. It was Halloween night, and kids dressed up in their costumes marched up and down Mount Vernon Street with their parents under the glow of old-fashioned streetlights on Boston's Beacon Hill.

  Three years ago, Riley would have been out at a bar getting shit-faced.

  He'd pick up one of those pretty college girls found in abundance at the local bar, The Hill, and then would invite her back to his old place, drink some more, maybe do a little blow. The next morning he would wake up naked and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, his mind would be howling.

  Those days were gone, he reminded himself. A thing of the past. He had shut the door on that world. Forever.

  It was all about second chances. That's what his mother had told him.

  No matter how bad yesterday was, tomorrow was a chance to start over.

  His mother was full of such sayings. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Don't grow old alone. If you can't love yourself, you can't love anyone else. And his all-time favorite: It's all about choices.

  As a kid, even as an adult in his early twenties, John Riley had never paid much attention to her words. They seemed the byproducts of another era, some sort of weird Leave It to Beaver universe where your dad was an actual physical presence in your life, this warm, caring dude who wore cardigan sweaters and asked you how your school day was while smoking a pipe and petting the happy dog wagging its tail at his feet. Right. Real life was your dad dying in an auto accident just before you were born. Real life was a cramped, two-bedroom apartment with cracked ceilings spotted with brown watermarks, worn tread marks in the dark blue carpet, the windows opened to that awful city smell and neighbors arguing in Spanish and Vietnamese in the armpit of the universe, downtown Lynn, Massachusetts, a place where his mom had to work hard for simple things like food and clothes and school supplies.

  And you know the amazing thing? She never complained about it. During those awful early years, she had to work two jobs just to make ends meet. She would drive him to school and then park at Wonderland and then take the Blue Line into downtown Boston to her job as a secretary for an insurance company that gave her flex time and health and dental insurance but couldn't provide the money for the extra things that always popped up, the problems with the Buick station wagon with the big rust pockets what his friends loved to call the Ass Mobile. Three night-shifts a week and weekend mornings at the local Dunkin Donuts covered the numerous car breakdowns but never enough for a new car. But she never complained. The grind of the second job left her with permanent dark circles under her eyes, but she always came home with a smile and would help him with his homework or just talk. After Sunday morning church, she would take him to Friendly's for cheeseburgers and, if there was money left over at the end of the month, she would take him to a ball game instead of doing something nice for herself.

  Not once did she bitch about it. Not once. Why should she?

  Complaining was his full-time job. He had, in fact, carried enough rage for both of them. It came out in odd moments: fights in playgrounds, screaming fits, and later, in college, long bouts of drinking followed by fist fights that left his victims crying and bloodied. He should have seen the warning signs then, but hey, they had been isolated incidents, right? You did that sort of stuff when you were younger. You were supposed to be full of piss and rage, it was okay, this shit happened once in a while. Besides, he had just entered his thirties and was now in full-control, working as a salesman for a hot Internet startup. That part of his life was behind him, right? Oh yeah. Then his mom got breast cancer and everything turned to shit.

  His mom, Patricia Riley good oP Patty all the girls at Double D called her had always been a petite woman the bones of a bird wrapped in skin.

  The oncologist, Rubenstein, was one of Boston's top cancer specialists, the kind of no-bullshit guy John liked. The doctor laid it on the line: The cancer's very aggressive, John. It's going to take a toll on her. Your mother's thin to begin with, which concerns me. John told her to move closer to Boston, where he lived, and insisted on paying her rent. When she didn't argue or put up a fight, he knew right then how scared she was of dying.

  The chemotherapy kicked the shit out of her. She couldn't eat, she was nauseous all the time, throwing up. John would go and get her vanilla milkshakes from the same Friendly's in Lynn where they used to go after church, as if this ritual could prevent her from future harm. She drank the vanilla milkshakes, but the chemo left her as weak and emaciated as an AIDS patient.

  She'll pull through. She's a good woman. Besides, God owes her one.

  Church every
Sunday, never bitches, and oh God, do you remember the time we found the pocketbook in the woods, the one with the wallet stuffed with over four hundred bucks, and good ol' Patty Riley turned it in? Remember that one, God?

  The morning of her final treatment, she didn't buzz him in. He had a spare set of keys, and when he let himself in, he climbed the stairs, thinking she was in the bath. Mom loved to soak in the tub and read her mysteries. When he opened the door and walked through the musty air that seemed too close with the smell of vomit and soap and bleach he knew what had happened to her even before he walked into her bedroom and saw her small body lying deathly still in the tangled mass of white bed sheets glowing with the blades of sunlight from another glorious winter morning.

  They hauled her away in an ambulance, and John, true to form, went out and got polluted, did a little coke. Man, did he love to drink. Loved the way the booze put its arm around you like a close friend and wrapped a thick coat of armor around your skin and kept away the hurt, the fear, and all the doubt, the way it kept you from feeling so fucking empty. At night, when the world was spinning and vomit was close, sometimes Riley wondered if his love for the drink came from his father.

  Thank God for Booker. True friend, he had stepped right in and helped with the funeral arrangements. Conway had come from Colorado. What the hell was Steve doing in Colorado? The guy traveled all over the place as if he were being chased by bounty hunters. Steve was one of those Microsoft-certified engineers who knew how to troubleshoot servers and LANs, and here he was traveling all the time when he could come back to Boston for some serious coin and be with his friends. Good guy and Riley loved him like a brother, but Steve, man, the guy was locked up tighter than a vault. Stuff goes in but never comes out. Was it because Steve had grown up in and around here in all those shitty foster homes? Riley could relate about wanting to get away from your past. A week after his mother's death, Riley was standing at her grave, the sun so bright it pierced the eyes, and, as he looked out at the field of gravestones, he felt the awful, suffocating weight of the truth come crashing down on him. He was alone. He never knew his grandparents, and his mother was an only child so there weren't any aunts or uncles. I'm alone. I'm totally alone. The truth of his life hit him right there and knocked him flat on his ass. He sat there next to her grave, alone, and cried. And then got shit-faced, of course.

  Can't break out of character.

  Steve could relate. Steve had no family, and now neither did John.

  Booker, he came from this great family with brothers and sisters the black version of the Brady Bunch, Conway had said jokingly and what John needed right now was a companion, someone who could understand his pain and fear and not just give him lip service someone who had fucking been there. Book, the guy was living la vida loca and had a beautiful wife and twin boys and a booming private investigation business and a sweet, sweet pad in Beacon Hill, this six-foot-nine black guy who dressed in Versace, looking like a cross between a pimp and a gangster as he rubbed elbows with the WASPs and the blue hairs. Now that was a funny thought.

  The cocaine got way out of control. The days off added up, and Riley lost his job because he wasn't making the numbers. He lost the apartment too, right about the time he got busted for drinking and driving while under the influence big time. He was so fucking polluted he didn't even bother to hide the bag of coke sitting right there on the passenger's seat. Booker had stepped in and pulled some strings and got the sentence commuted to a loss of license for two years and a stay at a drug treatment program not just some court-mandated shithole either. No, this place was in Tucson, Arizona, a place where celebrities went, and Booker had picked up the entire tab. He even helped Riley pack his bags and bought the plane ticket. Booker hit him with it at the terminal inside Logan: Clean yourself up and get your life back on track, JR. If you can't do that, if you're going to be one of these pukes who love their dope more than they love their family, don't bother calling me or coming around my house. My son is not going to have a junkie as his godfather.

  Tough words to hear from a guy you loved and admired, but Riley needed to hear them. They got him through those rough first weeks. Three months inside, doing therapy, and when he was released, he felt cleansed. Born again. All because his friend Booker had stepped in.

  And now look at him. A year and a half later, and Riley had cleaned up his life. Book found him a new gig as a salesman for a solid Internet startup with nice stock options and serious pay that allowed him to buy this two-bedroom condo on Mount Vernon street in Beacon Hill, within walking distance to work, and a hop, skip, and a jump to Booker's palace right around the corner. And then there was Renee Kaufmann.

  Something serious, no more of this bang and scram shit. Riley was thirty-three and tired of running. Time to grow up and be a man. Renee was the director of customer service at the same company where he worked. She was solid and didn't put up with anyone's crap. Beautiful and intelligent and levelheaded women like Renee didn't come around that often. Every day may be a new beginning, but a second chance at starting the life you've always dreamed about was as rare as a true friend. You didn't fuck with it.

  Riley's kitchen phone rang. He leaned back, reached behind his head and picked the cordless off the dining-room table.

  "Hey babe," Renee Kaufmann said.

  "Please tell me you're naked."

  "I haven't talked to you in two days and this is the first thing you've got to say to me?" Renee laughed.

  "You're so classy."

  "So are you naked or not?"

  "Yes, John. I bumped into a Victoria's Secret model and right now we're dressed up in lingerie and are bouncing up and down on the bed and having a pillow fight."

  "And tickling?"

  "Lots of tickling. And butterfly kisses too. We're kissing right now."

  Riley pushed his chair back to the armoire. He clicked a few keys and on his computer screen a window popped up. Renee Kaufmann, a phone pressed against her ear, sat in front of her laptop computer at a desk inside her hotel room in Amsterdam. She was attending the company's customer service conference.

  "You liar," he said.

  Renee's wide, toothy smile made her look like Julia Roberts, only Renee had straight blond hair. Riley's flat-screen monitor showed her in crystal-clear clarity. This technical feat was made possible by a digital broadband line, video-conferencing software and the small black orb the size of a golf ball mounted on top of Riley's monitor the video camera. Renee had a similar one mounted on her laptop. He was testing out this new video-conferencing software for the sales meeting he had in Tahoe next month. Renee's customer-service team would stay in Cambridge and be available to answer customer support questions that might pop up.

  "How's the conference going?" he asked.

  "Good. You should see this place. There's this church right next door that the hotel bought and fixed up so they could have conferences. It's amazing."

  The doorbell rang. Riley ignored it.

  "So everything's going well," he said.

  "Yeah, everything looks fine."

  The doorbell rang again.

  "Dammit," Riley said.

  "What?"

  "Someone's at the door."

  "Then go answer it and come back. I'll just sit here and relax."

  John stood up. He walked past the kitchen and, out of habit, placed the cordless back on its cradle.

  Shit. He had just hung up on Renee and no, wait. The computer microphone headset was already plugged into the computer. He could talk to her on that. Test out how his voice carried over the line.

  Riley walked through the living room and opened the front door.

  A middle-aged man with gray hair parted razor sharp on the side stood in the hallway, wearing a black cashmere coat over a dark-blue suit and black-leather gloves. His face was drawn; serious.

  "Mr. Riley?"

  This dude better not be a Jehovah's Witness.

  "Yes," John said, annoyed. He wanted to get back to Renee, wh
o he hadn't seen or talked to in the past five days.

  "My name is Raymond Bouchard." The man extended his hand. Riley looked at it and said, "I don't mean to be rude, but "

  "I need to talk with you about Steve Conway."

  That weird phone call last Friday, that was Steve.

  Riley felt something in his stomach lining constrict. He invited the man inside and shut the door.

  "Are you alone, Mr. Riley?" The dude looked a lot like a stylish James Brolin tall, and had that Roman profile going for him, thick gray hair gelled so it looked wet and spiky.

  "Yeah. What's going on with Steve? Is he okay?"

  "Bear with me. Please shut the windows and shades in your living room."

  Riley shot the guy a strange look.

  "I know it's an odd request, Mr. Riley, but this is a highly sensitive matter, and I can't risk having someone overhear this."

  A highly sensitive matter. Those words kept echoing inside Riley's mind as he walked into the living room and shut the windows and drew the shades. The room fell silent, cut only by the dry snap and pop of the wood burning inside the fireplace. He turned around and saw the serious look on the man's face, and Riley felt a quickening expanse of air move inside his chest and grow tighter, the way he felt that day when the doc delivered the news about his mom's cancer. The news, Riley knew, wasn't going to be good.

  Jesus Christ, Steve, what have you gotten yourself into?

  "Can I offer you anything to drink? I don't have any booze, but I have just about any kind of soda you want. And coffee."

  "No thank you. Let's take a seat."

  The guy was taking charge right away. Riley walked him down the hall and into the living room. He took a seat in the corner of the leather couch, leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees and faced the fire. Bouchard sat across from him in the leather chair. Behind Bouchard was the armoire, the computer screen had gone dark sleep mode.