The Genius

by Jesse Kellerman

  Also Freddy refuses to go to church. Victor cannot convince him. He goes alone and prays for the both of them.

  Time passes. The seasons dance. Things change. Freddy comes and goes. Victor lives and dies. The strain hurts him. He wants Freddy to stay and never leave. Days become nights become days and Victor’s eyes blur.

  Stop crying. Stop it.

  Victor cannot stop.

  You’re worse than a broad sometimes. What the hell is wrong with you. I swear to God I ought to knock hell out of you sometimes and you’d get what I mean. You shut your goddamned mouth. Goddammit I will split and you have no idea how fast. I ain’t got to stay here one more minute. I got plenty of people I can go see. You think you’re the only one I know? Fat fucking chance. You got no idea. You can be really stupid sometimes you know that? How the hell are you so thick. You don’t know a thing about the world, you don’t know about things happening two feet in front of you. You just sit there like a chimp doodling. Don’t gimme no pictures, I don’t want any fucking pictures. You really piss me off. You’re pissing me off right now. I swear one day I’m going to bash your fucking face in. Give me that fucking thing. Give it back.

  Victor throws the bottle out the window. It sails to the earth and explodes.

  Oh now I’m going to get you. I’m going to get you for that. You’re nothing, if I threw you out the window you’d be a stain on the sidewalk they’d clean you up faster than pigeon shit. You think that’s a wiseguy thing to do, I wasn’t halfway done with that you son of a bitch. Freddy pins Victor’s arms down with his knees. He opens his fly and his privates fall out. Victor tries to put his mouth on the tip but Freddy slaps him. Don’t you fucking touch it. Don’t you fucking try. Freddy pulls on his privates and says Fuck, fuck. Then Victor is wet. Freddy relaxes, the blood leaves his face. He says All right.

  Victor is twenty-seven. It is the week of the Fourth of July, and a summer rainstorm has caused the bunting to run, red and white and blue in the gutters. Victor stands at the window. Freddy has been gone for two days. Victor no longer tries to predict when Freddy will come back, and as rain streaks the glass he prepares himself for a long and lonesome stretch.

  The key turns in the door. Freddy stands there dripping. Gimme a towel.

  For the next few days Freddy is quieter than usual. He lies on the bed most of the day. Victor thinks it might be the heat, the rain makes the heat worse. He has the weather all written down. He keeps track of every day. He started and he does not intend to stop, it helps him separate one day from another.

  The rain lets up. Freddy sits up in bed. I’m going out.

  An hour and a half later he returns with newspapers. Victor watches as Freddy reads them. He turns pages impatiently, then throws the paper down and goes to sleep.

  The next day he goes out again and comes home with the papers. This time he stops on one page and says Well shit.

  Victor looks at the paper. There is a picture of a boy. His name is Henry Strong. He has short spiky hair. He looks sort of like a squirrel.

  Freddy says I guess he wasn’t too strong after all huh? Then he laughs. He looks at the window. It’s raining. I think it’ll keep up.

  Victor nods.

  Freddy sighs deeply, stretches, and lies down.

  Victor keeps the picture of the boy.

  A month later Freddy comes home with another newspaper. Victor tries to look but Freddy pushes him and says Don’t read over my shoulder. Victor doesn’t know what the problem is but he obeys. The next morning when Freddy is sleeping Victor goes to look. He sees another boy named Eddie Cardinale. Victor keeps that picture, too.

  Summer turns to fall and then to winter. In those months Freddy sometimes brings back papers and Victor reads them. In San Francisco somebody has killed a woman. In Hanoi they drop bombs. Freddy is often in strange moods. He goes out late at night and walks around for hours, returning as the sun comes up over the brick buildings. Often Victor hears him leave and cannot fall back asleep. He sits at the window until he sees Freddy’s shape crossing the courtyard. Only then does Victor close his eyes.

  He wants to follow Freddy on these walks but he does not dare. He can imagine what Freddy would say. Get back in there. Get back you piece of shit. Freddy’s moods make him use bad language, and he does not notice the deep dents he puts in Victor’s heart. If anything Victor’s sadness makes Freddy angrier. Victor does not have the words to describe what is happening between them. But things have changed. He misses the old days when they lay together for hours and Freddy talked to him about things he’d done, tricks he’d pulled and would pull. Now Victor sees that his body repulses Freddy. He stops trying to touch Freddy, and when Freddy shifts around in the bed and splays his legs greedily across the mattress Victor rolls out and sleeps on the floor.

  You dumb piece of shit. You worthless son of a bitch.

  Freddy’s voice becomes Victor’s own, a voice that Victor carries around with him all the time. It tells Victor that he is stupid and it tells him when he is doing something wrong, which is all the time. Though this voice says things that hurt Victor, he still prefers it to silence.

  One night Freddy comes home with another man. He is short and has big red lips. Look at what I drug in. Freddy laughs like a horse and the man takes off Freddy’s shirt. They begin kissing and Victor sits on the edge of the bed, feeling hot. The man gets on his knees and opens Freddy’s pants. Freddy moans. Victor does not watch. The man leaves and Freddy is angry. Whassa matter. Something wrong with me? You got a problem you fuckin faggot? He slaps Victor and then he laughs. He falls on the bed and Victor tucks a pillow behind his head.

  A FEW WEEKS LATER Freddy comes home in a rare good mood. He holds up a can of oatmeal. Remember this? We used to eat this shit for breakfast every day. I can’t believe how much of that I ate. Well let’s have it for old time’s sake huh?

  Victor hates oatmeal as much as he hates anything in the world; but he loves Freddy more, and so he and Freddy use the hotplate to make oatmeal for breakfast. This happens for a week. Then Freddy says You know what I can’t stand this shit. He throws the can out and they don’t eat any more oatmeal.

  Soon afterward Freddy comes home with another newspaper. He shows Victor a picture of a boy with light blond hair and a square nose. His name is Alexander Jendrzejewski, a name that makes Victor’s head hurt to look at it.

  Time passes. Freddy comes and goes, Victor lives and dies. Twice more Freddy shows Victor pictures. Victor keeps them all. He wants to ask Freddy what they mean but he understands that they are a gift, they are special and that to ask is to spoil the surprise. He feels jealous of the boys. Freddy spends a lot of time talking about them and about the weather. Who are they? Victor wants to know. But he does not ask.

  One day Freddy says I need money.

  Victor goes to the box where he keeps the money Tony sends him. He has spent so little that by now he has a bunch as big as his fist. He gives it all to Freddy, who says Christ amighty.

  Freddy never comes back. One month passes, two months, six months, a year, two. Victor begs, he pleads, he confesses. He hurts himself. He moans and prays and bargains. If You will, then I will. Time passes. Loneliness settles on him like dust. He is so lonely that he reaches for the phone.

  Tony Wexler.

  Victor says nothing.

  Hello?

  Victor hangs up.

  Then he makes his most daring offer yet. If You will, then I will. He shakes hands with God and then he takes all his drawings, box by box, down to the basement, where he feeds them into the incinerator. He cries as he does it but he does it all the same. Everything he has drawn in five years goes into the fire until there is nothing left. He takes the elevator to his room and waits for God to fulfill His end of the deal.

  But Freddy does not come.

  Victor feels lost. He does not eat. He does not leave the apartment. He grows ill. He has dreams, he sees Freddy getting on a bus and driving away. In the dreams Freddy will not look at h
im. Victor wakes up wet from head to toe. He has the same dream every night for three weeks, and at the end he rises up and takes a shower. He goes to the restaurant. He has eleven dollars left in his pants pocket that he forgot to give to Freddy. He eats slowly, his stomach aches. With the remaining money he goes back to the store and buys a lot of new paper and some new markers and pencils. He carries everything back to his apartment. It is difficult because he is so weak. But he does it and then he sits down and begins to draw himself a new map.

  • 22 •

  If I’m still writing a detective story—and I’m not so sure that I am—I believe that we’ve come to the part of the book where I tie up all the loose ends and reassure you that justice was served. Those of you expecting a bang-up finish might be a little disappointed with me. I apologize. You haven’t read this far without the right to expect some sort of fireworks. I wish this final chapter had more guns and explosions; I wish there was a knife fight. I actually thought about making something up. That’s how eager I am to please. I’m no novelist, but I could probably spin together an action-packed conclusion. Although—seriously—knowing what you know about me, can you see me rolling through the dirt, both barrels blazing? I didn’t think so.

  The bottom line is, while I’ll do my best to keep you entertained, I’m writing this to get down the unvarnished truth, and even if I’ve summarized, I haven’t flat-out lied.

  Now, if I’m keeping track of my story—and really, you have no idea how difficult this is, keeping everything straight—there are several outstanding questions. There’s the question of who jumped me and stole my drawings, if not Kristjana. There’s the question of how Marilyn and I turned out, what happened to Sam and me, the question of Frederick Gudrais, and finally there’s the question of Victor Cracke. Let’s go one by one, and let’s start with our killer.

  HE HAD A RECORD, and not a short one.

  “Assault, assault, animal cruelty, loitering, indecency, public drunkenness, sodomy, assault.” Sam looked at me. “That’s just the early work.”

  “Before he fell under Monet’s influence.”

  She smiled sweetly. “You’re a twit, you know that?”

  “Where is he now?”

  “His last conviction was in”—flipping pages—“1981. Aggravated sexual assault. He served six of a twelve-year sentence. Well, that’s a crying shame. These days they’d take a DNA sample, it’d be mandatory. I guess he’s either slowed down in the last twenty years or gotten smarter.… But it’s academic. First let’s find out if he’s even alive. I have a last known address for him out on Staten Island, and the name of his parole officer.”

  In his most recent mug shot, Gudrais was smiling mightily, a five-hundred-watt leer that would have creeped me out even if I hadn’t known who he was. His date of birth was May 11, 1938, which made him over forty in the photo, yet his skin was surprisingly smooth, like he’d never worried about anything in his life. We scanned the image and sent it to James Jarvis, who once again confirmed that we had the right man.

  When we spoke to Gudrais’s parole officer, she jumped to his defense, swearing up and down that Freddy had been out of trouble for years, that he was employed and living quietly right where his record indicated. She also told us something surprising: Gudrais had a daughter.

  “My understanding of the situation is they aren’t on too good terms,” said the PO.

  At this point, I assumed we would go storming in like gangbusters. Sam was far more circumspect. To begin with, there was nothing we could do with Jarvis’s testimony. At that time, New York had a five-year statute of limitations on rape—one of the shortest in the country and a justifiable source of outrage for feminists, who would manage to get the law changed the following year. But when Sam started building the case, she was forced to admit to Jarvis that he had no recourse; his portion of it was closed and buried. I had an idea that we could call him as a character witness—an anti-character witness, really—but she said that whatever he offered would likely be thrown out as immaterial or speculative.

  “So then what good is it?”

  “It’s good for convincing some important people to get on board with this.”

  Staten Island gets a bad rap. In its defense, I would like to point out that the Verrazano is actually quite beautiful, my candidate for the most attractive of all the borough bridges. In certain lights, from certain angles, it resembles the Golden Gate, which is high praise indeed. And if you set aside the landfills and strip malls, a reasonable portion of the island itself is pastoral: quaint brick homes, baseball fields limned in hoarfrost; a Rockwellian vision of Real America. I remarked upon this to Sam, busy angling the heating vents behind the steering wheel to dry-roast her fingers.

  “It’s Staten Island,” she replied.

  Last week of February, half past six on the morning of a vicious cold snap, winter’s final twist of the knife. The sun rose on neighborhoods shaking themselves awake. Scarved children waited for schoolbuses. A few joggers tried bravely to keep their footing on icy sidewalks. Windshields needed scraping; dog urine polka-dotted lawns. We headed first to the main police station, near the ferry terminal, where we were met by a lieutenant who shook hands with Sam and said that he knew her dad and was sorry. She nodded politely, though I saw her holding herself in place. That she could still get upset five months later probably comes as no surprise to most people who have lost a parent; but it made me aware of how little sanctity I had in my life.

  They gave us an unmarked car and a cop named Jordan Stuckey, and the three of us drove to the neighborhood where Gudrais lived, at the southeastern edge of the island. Gray sand fronted the gray, windswept Atlantic. Along the beach ran a picket fence, most of it rotted or torsioned into oblivion. The local architecture consisted of bungalows. To me, it evoked Breezy Point. Sensing that Sam felt the same shiver of similarity, and that it bothered her, I withheld comment.

  At seven thirty A.M. we parked outside a squat apartment building and left the heat running. I had been relegated to the backseat, and as a result had to content myself with secondhand reports from Stuckey, who used a pair of binoculars to keep watch on Gudrais’s front door.

  It was a waiting game. Acording to his PO, Gudrais worked at a bicycle shop a mile and a quarter up the road, where he fixed broken chains and so forth. Once arrested, he could be forced to give a DNA sample, but in rather a catch-22, we had to have something tangible on him in order to arrest him in the first place. Since the law allowed us to collect whatever he discarded, we hoped that one such item—a cigarette butt, a coffee cup, a tissue—would yield a usable profile. The important thing, Sam said, was maintaining the chain of custody in order to demonstrate that the DNA belonged to Gudrais and not someone else.

  By eight thirty, all our coffee was gone. Sam, looking through the binoculars, said, “He looks good for his age.”

  “Let me see.”

  “Don’t pull.”

  I let go of her elbow.

  “I think he dyes his hair,” she said. Maliciously, she handed the binoculars to Stuckey, who said in his rumbling baritone, “He’s not just the president, he’s a member.”

  “Excuse me,” I said from the backseat. “Hello?”

  “Keep your pants on,” Sam said.

  I sat back with an angry grunt. From what I had been able to see, Gudrais was tall. He walked at a brisk clip, and although the heavy coat he wore made it impossible to draw firm conclusions, he seemed well proportioned. The tail of a bright blue scarf flew out behind him as he bent into the wind.

  “I guess he walks to work,” said Stuckey.

  “In the snow,” Sam said. “Uphill both ways.”

  We followed at a distance, Sam on the binoculars as Stuckey crept forward, pulling over when necessary. Gudrais mostly kept his hands in his pockets, according to Sam, who gave me the play-by-play of his twenty-two-minute commute. It was incredibly stultifying: “Now he’s pulling his coat closer. Now he’s cricking his neck. Now he’s looking
across the street. Oooh, there’s a sneeze.” She was rooting for him to have a cold, to blow his nose and chuck away the tissue, preferably onto the sidewalk. But other than that first sneeze, he appeared the picture of health, and by the time he arrived at work and disappeared inside, we had gotten exactly nothing.

  The morning crept by.

  “He might go out for lunch.”

  They brought in pizza.

  Midway through the afternoon, he stepped out and started across the street before changing his mind and going back to work.

  "This is really boring,” I said.

  "Yup." "Yup.”

  On his walk home, Gudrais stopped at a corner market, emerging with a single plastic bag. He went straight to his apartment, and we saw the light of a TV come on.

  Sam handed me the binoculars. “Knock yourself out.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  That was how the next day went, too. If you need to reexperience it, I recommend that you go back two pages and read the foregoing.

  At the end of our second day of surveillance we lingered outside his building, I on the binoculars, Sam and Stuckey trying to figure out an easier way.

  “Friday’s trash day.”

  “That might be our best bet.”

  “Mm.”

  “At least we get tomorrow off.”

  “You know what, though. I think—”

  “Guys,” I said.

  “I think maybe—”

  “Guys. He’s coming out again.”

  The binoculars once again were taken away from me. I swore, but Sam was too busy watching Gudrais lope over to the bus stop.

  “All right,” she said. “Now we’re talking.”

  We tailed the bus up Hylan Boulevard, past Great Kills Park to New Dorp. Gudrais got off and walked three blocks to Mill Road and the movie theater. As soon as he went inside we hurried to the ticket booth, where a blank-faced teenager sat snapping gum. Sam asked for three tickets to whatever the man had bought tickets for, please.