“Wait till Charlie wakes up,” he called back, already half out the door. “I’ve sort of drugged his drink.”
“Right…When is that going to be?” she shouted, but Whitman was already gone.
Part VI
December 7
38
As Whitman stumbled away from the Keepers of the Frame, he felt its magic leaving him; he considered what was ahead of him, and bouts of nausea immediately seized him. He staggered near the steps of the National Library.
The doors to happiness had been shut, and sadness—that poisonous, cold sadness that seemed to suffocate his life a little more each day—permeated the air like dust particles. The sky was blanketed with black clouds, the rectangular horizon an axis of mirrored symmetry. He could barely stand, and decided to rest for a second in the dark of Stevenlaw’s Close. He fished the bottle of codeine pills from his pocket and swallowed the rest of the contents.
He understood that this city would haunt him forever—that he was cursed to dream about it, because he had roamed its passageways and kissed its secrets, and both its magic and its poison were in the wound. He closed his eyes; the image of his Edinburgh, his Auld Reekie, would come to carve its magnificent mirage on his soul. Then, without looking back, he gathered what was left of his courage and started toward the flat on Blair Street, leaving everything else behind him. It was December 7, 2002.
—
Whitman stood on the edge of the sidewalk opposite the main entrance, stooped between the patios of basement flats, within eyeing distance of number 40.
He started to make a move, but stopped. There was motion across the street.
A man exited the building and walked up the steps from the basement flat into the street. Five foot three, light-set, salt-and-pepper hair.
Alex thought he would trail the man and find out what he was up to. He expected him to continue up the road, but nothing happened. As the man emerged from behind a truck parked opposite them, Whitman saw that he was carrying a trash bag, which he disposed of in a bin at the foot of the street. Alex knew the man; he recognized him. At first he couldn’t place him. But then he realized he was the man who sold cheese and ice cream from a truck in the Meadows.
Cheese Man. That’s what she used to call him.
He couldn’t believe it. A hundred-year-old treasure map had just led him to Ellie’s kidnapper.
The man returned, walking with a stoop, down the steps and back into the flat, disappearing from view.
—
Elliot saw windstorms, vortices, and girls screaming. He was daydreaming and he knew it. He saw, as well, the dark-haired man; the mystery caller had warned Elliot about him just a few hours before.
The person on the phone had not identified herself. She had said she knew what Elliot was up to, which terrified him at first: someone knew about him. Then he realized this was a blessing; the mystery woman attested to that.
“I’m going to give you a present,” she said. “There are three people who are hunting you. Two men and a woman.” She had a husky voice, which Elliot found soothing. “If you don’t believe me, look outside your window. One of them is right outside your house, contemplating his next move. Go on, have a look.”
He moved the curtains aside and looked through the opening; a man was on the other side of the street, looking toward the flat.
“Don’t be afraid, though,” she said. “He wants something from inside your house, and he has troubles of his own, troubles that will not allow him to call the police.”
“What do you want from me?” Elliot asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” she said.
“Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not. I’m simply telling you.”
“Why?”
“Because I may ask you for a favor one day. To borrow something from the vault underneath your house. Something that’s been there for a long time.” She took a breath, as if it was the most difficult thing in the world. Her signal was cutting off, and her voice sounded far away. “They’re going to try to break in. Tonight. You know what to do.”
Elliot reasoned that if there was a God, surely he must be on his side. In the next few minutes he would get rid of the Pearson girl. She was in the way of the Grand Plan.
Finally he tried to reach out and touch Angela and her daughter, but the bodies of the rest of the girls prevented him from doing it. Dreams he could not control; reality was so much sweeter. Oh, the things he would do to the little girl. And the things he would do to the man across the street. Let him come, he thought.
39
Alex Whitman didn’t know what he would find when he broke into the flat.
The darkness greeted him inside. This was it: he was going to meet the man who was responsible for it all.
He clicked the door closed behind him. There was a sharp beep. He thought he heard footsteps. Then whispers. Childlike whispers.
He tried to switch on his flashlight. It didn’t work. As he felt around its surface for the button, the flashlight dropped on the floor.
He took a moment to recover. In the stillness, he could hear the chatter and drunken claptrap of the passersby outside. He tried to focus his gaze but darkness was everywhere. Trying to control his breathing, he forced himself forward.
The sound of footsteps again. In sickening horror, he realized they were coming from inside the house. And they were moving closer.
He stepped back and tripped over something lying in the blackness. Something with mass and weight. Dead weight.
Scrabbling in the dark, he felt the flashlight nudge at his boot. He scooped it from the floor and switched it on. It worked.
He could see it now and it all made sense. There was no doubt about it.
Reels of nitrate film lay everywhere around him, sprawled on the floor in an assortment of amber, brown, and yellow streaks. There was a pattern, a direction. He flashed the light, following the film remnants.
It was the source of the beep he had heard when he came through the door.
The contraption was shaped like a wide cannon barrel and consisted of a small piece of metal with a wire attached to it and a tangle of electronics dangling below. A small LED display had been activated near its base. The red digits blinked, counting down the seconds.
04:59…
04:58…
04:57…
Whitman studied the descending counter and decided it looked like a bomb.
He swallowed.
He saw a new trail.
Fresh blood. He looked behind himself. It began at the foot of the door, then continued in a pattern, mixing with the nitrate, until it reached the end of the hall. It stopped in front of another door, standing slightly ajar, as if inviting him in. A dim light flickered. He breathed on the door and listened. Faint sounds. Someone whistling.
He clicked the flashlight off and pushed the door open.
40
Charlie slowly opened his eyes. It took him minutes to reach the armchair and attempt to get up. He was stunned, disoriented, and afraid, not recognizing the place he found himself in. His heart beat. Gradually, as wakefulness crept in, it dawned on him that he was in the Keepers of the Frame. The last thing he remembered was having a drink with Alex. He must have drifted off during their conversation.
He got up, at a slow pace, starting to sag a little from dizziness.
A note had been left on the table, his name written on top in large capital letters. Several moments went by before he could reconstruct the sequence of events.
Dear Charlie,
I slipped something in your drink. Don’t worry—nothing too strong…you should be up in a couple of hours. I can’t ask you to come with me, it’s too dangerous, and I knew you wouldn’t take no for an answer. This one’s my fight.
I’m sorry for everything.
Alex
P.S. Serpico’s locked in the basement. Let her out and come and find me after all this is over.
The truth only set in when he hear
d McBride’s shouts from the basement.
41
A woman and a little girl Whitman had never seen before were lying on the floor.
The man was preparing a rope. He was whistling. It was that weird type of whistle one can produce only if they have space between their two front teeth. It was a classic tune: “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” He looked up. Stopped. For a moment he seemed confused, as though he had seen a ghost. “Welcome. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Here it was, then. This was his chance—Whitman’s chance at redemption. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even open his mouth. It was as if the sight of the man had a hold on him, rendering him paralyzed.
“You are so lucky for what you are about to see,” the man said. “Have you ever seen a fire?”
When Whitman took a step forward, the man put his hand up, palm facing him. “Stop right there. Don’t come any closer.”
Until that moment, Whitman hadn’t known why he wanted to see the man. But instantly, he knew what he had to do. Everything else now was small by comparison, submotives in a darker tragedy. He took out his wallet and, with trembling fingers, opened it to a picture. It was Ellie’s picture. He held it in front of him, facing it toward the man who had taken her.
“What?” The man’s expression was puzzled now.
Tears slid down Whitman’s cheek. “Her name was Ellie. She was taken from me. You took her…”
Elliot looked at the picture. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never seen this girl before,” he said.
Whitman inched closer. “Her name was Ellie. Ellie Whitman.” Just the sound of her name coming out of his own mouth could have split his heart in two.
They looked at each other in the half-light, connected by the merest of coincidences, facing each other’s empty eyes, in a place that in a matter of minutes would no longer be.
Elliot eyed the nitrate sprawled across the floor. He was confused more than anything else. He had not expected talk. Talk was confusing.
“Tell me the truth.” Whitman’s bloodshot eyes bored into his.
“The truth is I didn’t have a choice,” he said.
“There’s always a choice,” Whitman said.
“But they love me,” Elliot murmured, “all of them behind the mantel.” He glanced over the woman and her daughter.
Whitman placed his hand into his pocket and produced McBride’s Glock. He leveled it at the man. “Now you die.”
Elliot shook his head, grinning.
Whitman felt his finger tighten on the trigger. The mother and daughter still lay motionless. They looked exhausted, moribund.
“Let them go.”
Without breaking eye contact, the man inched his hands across the table until he found what he was looking for. Staring dead into Whitman’s eyes, he grasped it. Then he made his play.
He lit the blowtorch with the clicker. The chamber brightened slightly. He adjusted the flame to a fuel-wasting bright tongue, making both their shadows shimmer. “Have you ever seen a fire?” he said. “It’s beautiful.” The man knelt by a few reels of nitrate film and let the flame caress their edges. They instantly caught fire, igniting with a whoosh. The flames, as if with a mind of their own, would follow the fuel trail in search of more nitrate.
Whitman didn’t know how he did it, but he managed to pull the trigger. The barrel spat. The weapon’s recoil hit his shoulder with a thrashing blow. The bullet exploded through the top of the man’s left shoe.
Elliot looked at the blood pouring out of his foot. Then he lunged at Whitman. Whitman felt his body at his chest, driving him back onto the floor with a crash. All around them were flames and unwound thirty-five-millimeter reels of decomposing nitrate film in a spray of yellow, blistering froth.
As the decomposing nitrate liquid overwhelmed Whitman’s body, the pain came to him first. His survival instinct kicked in as he realized that the blowtorch had been knocked away during the struggle. Whitman fumbled about on the floor. His hand connected with metal. He tried to pull it toward him, but when he did, he found himself sliding toward it instead; the object was stationary—the metal support of the desk. The flames caught hold of a box of clothes and leapt with enthusiasm far too close by.
Elliot was straddling him on the floor. He latched on to the neck of Whitman’s sweater and tore at it, trying to rip it. He groped for the blowtorch among the nitrate and couldn’t find it. He put his face next to Whitman’s and whispered: “She was beautiful when she burnt. A little princess.”
The air had become denser now. The nightmare was screaming in Whitman’s mind: the howling intensity of the flames. He could see it, feel its heat.
“She stopped screaming after I hit her,” Elliot was saying. “She was silently crying until the end.” Whitman felt something jabbing his torso. He realized Elliot had an erection.
The fire had begun licking its way out of the room and into the hallway. Approaching the bomb. The blood froze in Whitman’s veins.
With the last of his strength, Alex Whitman rammed his fingers into the man’s neck. Anchored by the weight of his body, he pressed hard on his windpipe, jamming into the arteries. Elliot struggled to free himself. He stooped to the side, reaching for something on the floor. Whitman knew what it was before he even saw it.
The beeping sound from the hallway was louder. The LED was counting down to its final minute of life.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Elliot pressed a button on the blowtorch and a double-edged flame shone in the gloom. He threw himself at Whitman. The flame approached his cheek and would have burned his eye out if he hadn’t jumped to one side. He fell backwards onto the nitrate stock and the blood covering the floor. Elliot grabbed the blowtorch with both hands and crashed down on top of him, putting all his weight into the weapon. The flame stopped only inches from Whitman’s chest. His right hand held his captor’s throat, keeping him at bay. Elliot twisted to bite him on the wrist. Whitman punched him hard in the face with his free hand.
Whitman hit him again, as hard as he could. He threw his fist against his face, and the bone of his nose cracked. Elliot gave another cry, ignoring the pain, and brought the flame into contact with Whitman’s flesh. A razor-sharp pain scorched through his chest.
Finish it now.
Elliot tightened his grip, and his victim’s struggling became weaker. He felt his body gradually go flaccid and still. It was a sweet sensation. He began to shake wildly.
Whitman thrust his fist into Elliot’s mouth, splitting his lips and leaving one of his front teeth dangling from its root. Elliot howled, and Whitman hesitated for a second before coming at him again. His hand fell to the side as it recoiled; he found something on the floor.
The barrel of the pistol.
Elliot saw what was about to happen and almost lost his balance. It was too late.
Whitman grasped the gun and, with all his might, swung the butt at his head. Elliot fell to the floor, dropping the blowtorch. He tried to get up. Whitman swung again, harder. Again. The gun shuddered against Elliot’s face. Melted nitrate was smeared across his eyes, lips, throat, and chest.
The flames were close. But Whitman hardly cared at this point. Rage had overcome him. What he had lost flashed through his brain. His child. His wife. His life.
“Where is she?” he was screaming. “Where is she?” He kept slamming the gun against his face without waiting for a reply. With the first blow, Elliot tried to deny. By the third, he was calling for help or mercy. By the tenth, he was choking on his own blood.
Beep.
Beep.
Whitman looked at his bloody hands. Around the room. Then the world exploded.
In his mind he found himself in that bush-filled ravine next to the creek. But this time it wasn’t Pluto inside the hutch; it was Ellie, doused in gasoline, screaming the awful, mad screams. The match had been struck. Whitman was standing next to the cage, facing his daughter, but he couldn’t move
; he was paralyzed. He couldn’t help her. When she saw him, she stopped screaming. She reached from inside the cage and placed her palm on his cheek.
He was awakened by a soft hand touching his face. There was smoke all around. He couldn’t see her. “Ellie?”
The girl was coughing.
“Lily. My…” The girl was coughing in great heaves, barely taking in oxygen. “My mummy won’t wake up. Can you help her?”
The flames were coming in blankets around them.
Out in the hallway, he could barely make out the entrance to the flat. He glared at the bedroom door. The fire had condensed, an autonomous, slithering monster pulling and tugging at the walls and the entryway, blocking his exit.
He dragged the girl to the back of the room, where the fire hadn’t gotten to yet. “Stay here,” he told her. The sound of the fire was blaring; he could hardly hear his own voice.
The wall above the door was swarming with fire, and the flames were migrating onto the ceiling and closer to him. Nearby was an oak chair, unscathed by the blaze. He used its legs to slide the door forward, and then pushed it shut. Stricken by a coughing frenzy, he scrambled backwards to the window, carrying the little girl along. He tried to free himself to raise the window, but she gripped his arm in fright.
“I have to open it!” he screamed, pointing at the window. She was so scared she wouldn’t let go.
He jolted himself free and scratched at the old window lock, trying to heave the windowpane up.
It wouldn’t give.
He looked behind him. The monstrous blaze was inching nearer.
He scrambled forward, grabbed the oak chair, brought it above his shoulders, and hurled it at the glass. The glass barely cracked. He marshaled the last of his strength and tried again; glass shards flew as the chair went hurtling out, propelled onto the ground outside with a crash.
He hurried to the bed and ripped off the covers. He lifted the woman up onto his shoulder and grabbed the child by the hand. He rolled the duvet around them and braced himself for what he was about to do. There was a shrill rupturing sound behind him as part of the remaining wall succumbed to the flames, like a squid’s tentacles reaching down to them from the ceiling. He turned in panic and saw Elliot’s body being engulfed in flames. Pivoting back around, he launched through the window, balling the kid around his arm, hoping the duvet wouldn’t be shredded by the glass. They stepped onto the stone entrance of the building. The kid was trembling, stuttering her wails between cough attacks. Behind them, fiery tongues erupted from the shattered window.
Séance Infernale Page 24