All the Flowers Are Dying

by Block, Lawrence

  My memory’s always been good, except for all those things I’ve chosen to forget. Just as Elaine had secretly believed age would never make visible inroads upon her looks, so I’d managed to tell myself I was somehow immune to the erosion of memory that comes with the years. I suppose it’s pride that makes us think things will be different for us, that the universe will grant us a special dispensation. And she did, God knows, look young for her years, and was still as beautiful a woman as I’d ever known. And my memory was still pretty sharp.

  But every once in a while something would come along to remind me that it wasn’t as sharp as it used to be.

  I said as much to Elaine, and she said, “That reminds me. The one thing Monica always dreaded was Alzheimer’s. There’s some of it in her family, and she was terrified she’d get it if she lived long enough.” She winced at that. “She made me promise I wouldn’t let her live like that. She had a living will, but that’s no help with Alzheimer’s, not until the late stages, because there’s no plug to pull. You’re perfectly healthy, you just don’t have a mind anymore.

  “So what I had to promise was that I’d find some way to put her out of her misery. Get her to take sleeping pills, I suppose. We didn’t get into the details. And God knows what I would have done if it came to that, but at any rate I promised her.

  “And she said, ‘Yeah, right, and a fat lot of good that’s gonna do me. Because there I’ll be, gaga, with my eyes looking in different directions and drool running down the corner of my mouth, and you’ll stand there saying, “Gosh, let me think now. There’s something I was supposed to do for Monica and I can’t for the life of me remember what the hell it was.” ’ ”

  Sunday morning TJ showed up early with a bag of lox and bagels and cream cheese. I ate quickly and left the two of them at the breakfast table and rode down to the Village for the eleven o’clock at Perry Street. A lot of old-timers tend to go to that meeting, and I always run into a few old friends there.

  It was raining when I left the house, dry by the time I got to the meeting, raining again at 12:30 when it ended. I picked up the Sunday Times on the way home and the three of us sat around reading sections of it. It was the perfect picture of domestic tranquility, except that Elaine would lapse periodically into troughs of deep sadness. And, of course, there was someone out there trying to kill her.

  I had the Sports section and was reading a story about golf, a pastime in which I have not the slightest interest, when she said, “I think you should read this.”

  “Me?”

  “Uh-huh. Or maybe you already did. About that man who killed the three boys in Richmond, and earlier this month he was executed.”

  “I saw it.”

  “Today?”

  “Yesterday, or it might have been Friday.” The days sort of run together when you’re not doing anything. “I noticed it because I had two conversations about the case just a couple of days before they put him down. Somebody tipped them off as to the location of the missing body, isn’t that it?”

  “There’s a little more in today’s paper.”

  “And people are jumping up and down and saying they executed an innocent man,” I said. “That sort of thing’s been tried before, you know. Say I’m on Death Row, awaiting execution for a murder that I damn well did commit. What I do, I slip some details of the crime to you, and you have a great crisis of conscience and confess to it, supplying details that have been withheld by the police and could only be known by the actual killer. Well, right, and the actual killer told them to you. It’s an old game, and when it’s worked right it clouds the issue, and sometimes you’ll even see a temporary stay of execution come out of it. But it can’t hold up, and it doesn’t.”

  “This seems a little different.”

  “Because the information didn’t come to light until the guy got the needle. And didn’t the tip come to them by untraceable e-mail? You have to wonder why the tipster bothered. He’d held off too long to save his buddy, not that it would have worked anyway.”

  “Maybe he sent the message in time,” TJ suggested, “but it got hung up in cyberspace somewhere. There’s days when some of the service providers are as slow as the post office.”

  “You know,” Elaine said, “there’s a lot more information in today’s paper. Would it kill you to read the fucking article?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “Where is it?”

  “Never mind. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “Can I see the article?”

  “It’s probably not gonna be that interesting.”

  “Elaine—”

  TJ, his eyes rolling, got to his feet, walked over to her, took the paper out of her hand, and came over to present it to me. “It’s nice having a family,” he said, “even if it is what you call dysfunctional.”

  I read the article.

  One or two paragraphs in, I said, “I see what you mean.”

  “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

  “And complicated,” I said. “Let me finish.”

  A Times-Dispatch reporter had thought to contact the authorities at Greensville, where the execution of Preston Applewhite had taken place. The warden there recalled several visits by a Yale professor of psychology named Arne Bodinson. Bodinson’s initials were the same as those of the rather transparent pseudonym of the e-mail tipster, which might or might not be purely coincidental.

  This was where I’d come in, as all of the foregoing had been in the story I read yesterday or the day before—except for Bodinson’s first name, which had originally been erroneously reported as Arnold. Since then, the reporter had established conclusively that no one at Yale had ever heard of Bodinson, Arne or Arnold, that he was not a member of the Yale faculty, nor had he, as his résumé claimed, earned a doctorate from that institution. This prompted the reporter to check with the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where Bodinson had allegedly done his undergraduate work, and where they too had no record of his ever having attended, let alone having been awarded a degree.

  “This is fascinating,” I said. “Did you see where this Bodinson actually attended the execution? As an invited guest of Applewhite?”

  “Isn’t that something? The best thing we ever get invited to is the Mostly Mozart patrons’ dinner.”

  “Least they gave you a T-shirt,” TJ put in. “Bet you Bodinson didn’t get one.”

  “ ‘My Friend Just Got a Lethal Injection,’ ” Elaine said, “ ‘and All I Got Was This Fucking Shirt.’ ”

  I said, “It’s hard to figure this out. There doesn’t seem to be any trace of Bodinson. He was in the area for several days, he kept visiting Applewhite in his cell, but none of the local motels remember him. There’s a picture.”

  “Where? I didn’t see it.”

  “Not in the paper. Everyone who passes through security at Greensville walks in front of a security camera. They don’t have a photo in hand, but they will, once they run through all the stored tapes. Of course, if Bodinson was savvy enough to fake credentials that got him into Applewhite’s cell, he probably didn’t give the security camera a very good look at him. They’ll have shots with his hand in front of his face, or his head turned away. They’ll probably be in tomorrow’s paper, because this story’s going to get a lot of national play.”

  “I can see why.”

  “According to the warden, Bodinson told Applewhite he believed his claim of innocence. Of course we don’t know that’s what he told Applewhite, because nobody heard him but Applewhite, and he’s not talking. But that’s what he said he was going to tell him. But in the meantime he told the warden that he’d be lying to Applewhite for the sake of the study he was doing, that it was obvious to him the man was guilty as charged. How can you figure the son of a bitch?”

  “I suppose more will be revealed.”

  “I wonder. If he knew Applewhite from before, why not just visit him in the normal fashion? You’re allowed to have friends visit. If he was a stranger, what was the point?�
�

  Elaine suggested the man might be a kindred spirit, part of an underground network of predatory pedophiles.

  “Offering aid and comfort to a fallen comrade,” I said, “and keeping it anonymous. He promised the warden he’d try to find out where the missing boy was buried. And evidently did find out, but instead of telling the warden what he’d learned he waited and tipped off the Richmond paper. I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe Applewhite told him, but swore him to secrecy until after his death. Maybe he wanted to be able to die proclaiming his innocence.”

  “It’s all so damn convoluted,” I said. “Applewhite’s just a pervert and a murderer, but Arne Bodinson a/k/a Abel Baker is something else again. You’ve got to wonder where he’ll turn up next.”

  27

  It is, he has to admit, a disturbingly good likeness. It’s in the papers and on television, a full-face drawing of himself, the eyes gazing intently out at one, as in a photograph for which the subject has stared directly into the camera lens. But this is no photo, and must have been produced by a police artist, working in concert with a witness.

  But what witness? Surely not the doorman in the building on Jane Street. The man had barely opened his eyes, let alone had the wit to use them. And the other doorman, the one who’d been on duty when he left, had scarcely spared him a glance. It was his job to vet persons on their way in, not those headed out.

  Then who?

  Oh, of course. The woman in the shop. Elaine Scudder, dealer in art and antiques. The wife of the detective. The friend of the late Monica.

  Yes, he will definitely skin her. Start with her hands and feet, then work his way to the good parts.

  But first there is the problem of the drawing. He can’t move about effectively, can’t do what he has to do, if any passerby is apt to glance at him and sound the alarm. How can he give his full attention to the hunt if he’s at the same time cast in the role of quarry?

  He has a copy of the sketch before him, torn from this morning’s Daily News. How the eyes blaze! He’s only beginning to realize what a sense of strength and purpose emanates from them. Surely this ocular intensity is a continuing development, an ongoing part of his evolution. Aren’t the eyes said to be the windows of the soul? The soul is a myth, surely, but substitute spirit or essence for it and you got the idea. His eyes reflect the person he is, and as he has grown in power, the look in his eyes has evolved accordingly.

  He studies his reflection in the bathroom mirror, where the late Joseph Bohan must have viewed himself on those infrequent occasions when he remembered to shave. Yes, his eyes really do burn like the eyes in the drawing.

  This pleases him.

  He’s also pleased to note the prominence of the mustache in the drawing. It is a dominant feature, it draws the eye, and a casual viewer will remember the mustache and forget the face’s other features.

  And he doesn’t have the mustache anymore.

  That’s a help, but he’s not sure it’s enough. With eight million people out there in the city, it’s not unlikely that one of them will look beyond the portcullis of the mustache and see the face plain.

  His task, then, is to alter his appearance so that he looks less like the drawing. And hasn’t he a long history of reinventing himself? Isn’t his life an unending process of reinvention?

  It would be easy, he thinks, simply to shave his head. He did this once years ago, with no purpose beyond experimentation, and was pleased if not greatly surprised to discover that he has a nicely shaped head, with none of those bumps or craters best left covered.

  Shaving one’s head brings about an instantaneous radical transformation, but nevertheless he knows it’s a bad idea. A man with a shaved head has a commanding presence. The bald pate draws the eye. And the viewer can hardly help but wonder what the shaven head would look like without the razor’s intervention.

  No, the object is to avoid drawing glances. One wants to look different from one’s picture, but still to blend in with one’s fellows. One seeks not to stand out from the crowd but to fade into it, to be perfectly ordinary, invisible in one’s mundanity.

  He’s been to the drugstore, and now he lines up his purchases on the bathroom shelf. He strips to the waist and gets to work.

  First, the hairline. He’s been blessed with a full head of hair, and it’s every bit as full in the drawing as in reality. Eyes that would be drawn to a shaved head won’t look twice at a receding hairline. He uses the little scissors first, clearing a path for the razor, which he then wields with the precision of a plastic surgeon, carefully delineating a new hairline. It begins an inch and a half higher on his forehead, and the recession is more pronounced on the temples. The result, when he’s finished, is a textbook case of male-pattern baldness, lacking only a nascent bald spot at the crown. A bald spot, alas, is not something one can convincingly create on one’s own.

  Keep it simple, he tells himself.

  Nice phrase, that. Keep it simple, easy does it, first things first. He’s been associating with a great gathering of simpletons lately, people he won’t be seeing anymore, but he does like some of their catchphrases, and when he dropped one or two of his own into their midst they generally seemed to like them as well.

  You get what you get, he said on one occasion, and watched their little puppet heads bob up and down in agreement.

  He keeps it simple, and is done with his hairline. Next the eyebrows, and for this operation he will need the little scissors and the pair of tweezers.

  His own eyebrows are by no means bushy, but are nevertheless somewhat prominent. Trimming and plucking reduces their prominence, and it’s remarkable how the change alters the whole appearance of his eyes. Looking out from beneath thinner, wispier brows, his gaze is somehow gentler, less unsettling.

  Next, hair dye. His own medium-brown hair has the advantage of near invisibility; it might draw a glance in Asia or Scandinavia, but in America it is utterly ordinary. That’s a good argument for leaving it alone, but after due reflection he follows the instructions on the package and renders it a shade or two darker. He knows not to dye it black— black hair, even when it’s natural, somehow always looks dyed—and the color he’s selected is very nearly as pedestrian as his own, yet undeniably different.

  He leaves his eyebrows undyed, so that they’ll appear even less distinct.

  His new hairline has exposed skin heretofore untouched by the sun, and consequently lighter than the rest. The contrast is slight, but noticeable all the same, like evidence of the former presence of a ring or wristwatch. He’s allowed for this, however, and he applies a small amount of sunless tanning lotion to the pale areas, and to the rest of his face as well. He’s naturally light-complected, and avoids the sun, so a little color in his face will make him just a little more ordinary.

  And, finally, a pair of glasses.

  Not sunglasses. While they do a wonderful job of hiding the eyes and masking the face, they have the disadvantage of looking like a disguise. Ordinary eyeglasses, on the other hand, are almost as good at concealing the eyes and changing the shape of the face without looking as though that’s what they’re doing.

  His distance vision is perfect, better than 20-20, and, while he’s reached an age when presbyopia could be expected to show itself, his close vision is equally good. He doesn’t even need glasses for reading.

  He wanted real glasses, not a stage prop or a drugstore special. And yesterday he went to a LensCrafters shop and let the resident optometrist examine his eyes. He feigned difficulty with one of the chart’s lower lines, then let the man find a lens that “improved” his vision. It does no such thing, but it is mild enough so that it doesn’t greatly interfere with it. He won’t see any better with his new glasses, but he won’t see all that much worse, and he doesn’t think they will give him a headache.

  And he’ll only wear them when he’s out in public.

  With the glasses on, he stands at the bathroom mirror and shifts his gaze back and forth, from h
is reflection to the sketch to the reflection again.

  Why, his own mother wouldn’t recognize him.

  But that’s something he doesn’t want to think about, not now, not ever, and he quickly wills the thought away. No one will recognize him, that’s the point. Not the readers of the Daily News, not the viewers of Live at Five. The cops, fumbling about in the manner of their tribe, won’t give him a second glance. Matthew Scudder won’t recognize him until the Messer bowie is planted in his guts, opening him up, carving him from asshole to appetite. And as for Elaine…

  Yes, he’ll definitely skin her.

  A problem, of course, lies in the fact that the other residents in his building, Joe Bohan’s neighbors, have seen him as he appeared earlier— without the mustache, he has never worn that here, but with his full head of lighter hair, his paler skin, his fuller eyebrows, his unspectacled eyes. Few of them, to be sure, have had more than a glimpse of him, passing him on the stairs, perhaps. But he’s had several chats with Mrs. Laskowski and passed the time of day with one or two others.

  So it will be best to avoid them, best to minimize his own comings and goings. It might even be prudent to quit the premises and take up residence elsewhere. Not another transient hotel, though. That’s just the sort of place the police check first.

  Perhaps he’ll be able to stay where he is. Time is on his side; after the first fruitless days, the cops, having lost the scent, will lose their zeal as well. The press will tire of showing his picture, and the public, bombarded with new images and new horrors, will begin to forget what he looks like.

  Time takes time. And you get what you get.

  But he waits until dark to leave the building, waits until Mrs. Laskowski will surely have given up the glory of the front stoop for the comfort of her television set. Then, the Jenkins folding knife in his pocket, he descends into the night.

  At another Kinko’s, this one over on the East Side, he logs on and visits one of his newsgroups. He scans the new posts, gives a few of them a thorough reading, then starts a new thread of his own.