by Bassoff, Jon
It didn’t matter which direction I looked, however, I couldn’t stop the feeling of being watched. After sucking down a final drag, I crushed out the cigarette on the nightstand. Then I sat up in bed. A car honked and a victim screamed.
I sat there for a long time, my shoulders heaving and my head pounding. I’d destroyed Turner. Sure I had. But Leider remained, whispering behind the canvas. It was no good. I needed to destroy Leider as well. I wouldn’t be able to sleep with his presence.
I rose to my feet, and stood there swaying side to side. Ever since the killing, my equilibrium had been out of whack. Rubbing my aching temples with my fingers, I stumbled across the room to the floorboards where I’d returned the knife on the night of the murder. With the club hammer and chisel, I pried the boards up and removed the knife, Turner’s blood staining the blade. Dizzy and giddy, melancholy and manic, I moved in front of Leider’s self-portrait and gazed at his terrible face with those evil eyes and sly grin.
Watch yourself, Mr. No Name.
With a high-pitched yelp, I raised the knife high and came down hard, tearing into the canvas. Leider’s face instantly became a gash, his sneer split and swaying in the ceiling fan’s breeze. I kept after him, slicing and tearing and cutting and pulling, doing my best to convince myself that he would no longer haunt me, that he would no longer drag me across a landscape of nightmares, that he would no longer whisper devious plans in my ear. So I destroyed the painting with the violence befitting of the monster, and by the time I was finished, my hair was damp with sweat and my breath was gasping for relief. I dropped to my knees, used my knife hand to wipe my brow. And now I stared down at the floor, at the scattering of torn mouths and sliced skin and crippled eyes, and I tried convincing myself that it meant something, tried convincing myself that you could kill a phantom, but then the phone rang again and I knew it was Leider and I knew there was no escape…
Walking like a man condemned, I placed my hand on the phone and kept it there. Then I lifted the receiver and positioned it against my ear.
He said: “Quite a temper, Mr. No Name! You showed that canvas a thing or two. But your temper is misguided. Remember what I told you? Claire Browning. She’s the one you should be angry at. She’s the whore. I saw what you did to Turner. It would be hypocritical for me to blame you. Tell me. How did it feel? No, I don’t need to ask. I know exactly how it felt. You and I are the same.”
Leave me alone, I thought, but no words came out.
“Did you find the hydrochloric acid yet? I don’t remember where I left it. Listen to me. You need to find it. You need to hide it. They could use it to implicate us. Do you hear me?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid that he’d never leave me alone.
“Hide the acid,” he said. “Please.”
I slammed the receiver down and collapsed to the floor, watched as pieces of my soul escaped from my nostrils and scurried across the hardwood floor like an army of ants.
It was my mind playing tricks on me. Lack of sleep, perhaps. Lack of an identity, certainly. And now I heard knocking coming from the front door. I rose to my feet and walked painfully across the apartment, my legs suddenly suffering from atrophy. The knocking continued, steady as a metronome.
I reached the door and gazed through the peephole. Nobody was there. The knocking ceased. I unlocked the locks, undid the chain, and opened up the door. I quickly glanced down the hallway but saw nothing.
I stepped back inside and shoved the door closed and then locked it. My skin was crawling and my forehead was bubbling perspiration. I needed a drink. I lurched toward the kitchen and searched for a bottle with a little life left. Most of them were empty and kept slipping through my fingers, shattering onto the linoleum. Finally, I found a bottle of Old Crow, misplaced beneath the sink. Longing for relief, I unscrewed the top, placed the bourbon to my mouth and forced it down with a violent gulp. Another drink and another, and then that bottle too came crashing to the ground. Manic, I danced an Irish jig, and now my feet were bleeding, slivers of glass slicing into my skin.
But then I heard knocking again, and it wasn’t my heart beating, it wasn’t my head pounding. Ignoring the pain in my feet, I limped out of the kitchen and back to the living room. Once again, I peered out the peephole, once again I searched the hallways, and once again the person had vanished.
I wasn’t all that crazy but the knocking continued, and now I realized that it wasn’t coming from the door at all. It was coming from the window…
One step, and then another, and I feared that I was damaged beyond repair. But I hadn’t quite reached the window when the phone rang again. I should have let it ring, but I feared what was outside more than I feared Leider’s strange games. I returned to the bedroom, blood from my feet staining the hardwood floor.
“Aren’t you going to let me in?” Leider said. “I’ve been pounding on the window forever.” Then he laughed and laughed, and for the first time he hung up on me—a violent click.
Back in the living room and the pounding was incessant. I walked toward the window, certain that Leider was just trying to scare me, and when I pulled back the blinds, I couldn’t see a thing (keep in mind that it was dark outside and well-lit inside). No, I couldn’t see a thing except for my own reflection, and my own appearance frightened me, caused me to gasp in horror, caused me to turn away in fear.
More pounding. He could keep pounding all night. Max Leider didn’t own me. Max Leider was deranged…
Forcefully, I yanked shut the blinds. Then I began pacing back and forth across the apartment, trying to make sense of things. My head was muddied by whiskey and my feet bloodied by glass. Leider’s face was torn to pieces, but still he was knocking. And now today’s newspaper hung from the easel, open to the headline:
Stockbroker Slain in Own Apartment.
When had the article been written? Beneath the headline there was a picture of Turner when he was alive. Such a handsome man. But not anymore. I read through the article quickly. There were only vague details about the murder (throat slit while sleeping, nothing stolen), and there was no mention of his sexual perversions. I would send the police a letter instructing them about the secret compartment in his desk. Photos of the deformed getting sodomized by a masked man. Dan Turner wouldn’t be such a victim then, would he?
“Hide the acid. Do you hear me?”
Hide the acid. It was beneath the sink. Right next to the dish detergent and the Drain-O and the Windex. A dark plastic bottle of clear liquid, maybe two-thirds full. There was no label, but I knew. It was all a dream, and I placed the bottle and the knife back beneath the floorboards, violence hidden away.
More knocking on the window, and Leider’s voice saying, “You know who I am,” but nobody was outside. Nobody but a ragged-looking fellow with a trench coat and a fedora hat, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He was leaning against the street lamp, his shadow long and lean on the sidewalk. He was grinning and staring directly at me.
“A detective,” Leider said. “Look at him with that trench coat and that ridiculous hat. He’s just an archetype, really. But he’s watching you. How does it feel, Mr. No Name? The voyeur gets some payback, huh? He has no proof or else he would have arrested you already. But he’s very suspicious. He’ll be down there for as long as it takes, just watching you. You’ll break eventually. Look at him. No job other than keeping tabs on poor you. What’s this world coming to?”
I backed away from the window. And now I noticed that the apartment had become oppressive with heat. Sweat was soaking through my undershirt. The knocking continued, the phone kept ringing, and finally I managed to crawl into my bed, where I cocooned myself with blankets and sheets and cried and prayed and cursed until I fell asleep, the nightmare of the real world melding into the nightmares of my dreams.
CHAPTER 25
I might have slept a few hours or a few days, but when I opened my eyes, the sun was streaking through the blinds and everything was quiet. Even the sirens and the
honking of the city traffic were strangely absent. I sat up in bed and stretched my body. I glanced down at my feet. The blood had dried, and I felt only a residue of pain on the skin. I swung my feet over the side of the bed and stood. My head felt remarkably clear and free of cobwebs. Focusing on the breath in my lungs and the blood in my veins, I walked around the apartment, checking out the damage from last night’s panic attack: the torn canvas and shattered glass and discarded newspapers.
And so, just like I had done the first day I moved into the apartment, I spent several hours cleaning and disinfecting, and as I collected the trash and cleaned the dishes and swept the broken glass and bleached the sinks and toilets, I felt like it was a new beginning, and I was a new man.
Yes, a new man, and I knew I could no longer live like a coward. For too long, I’d been recoiling in corners, hiding in the dark. I’d allowed the echo of Leider’s voice to metamorphose me into a Kafkaesque vermin, unable to speak for myself. But no longer. I took a long, hot shower, cleaning my wounds, and calming my mind. I got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and then pulled Leider’s yellow jacket around my shoulder, straightening the collar against my neck.
I grabbed the portrait of Claire and sat down on the bed, studying it. How many other masterpieces lay forgotten in sordid studios? How many Mona Lisas had been shredded by time? How many young Rembrandts became overwhelmed by the world and drank hemlock or slit wrists or bulleted hearts, never allowing us a glimpse at their brilliance? But that wouldn’t be the case with me. The portrait would be seen by another pair of eyes at least. It was time for my cowardice to cease and for my bravery to begin.
Beneath the sink, I located an oversized black trash bag and placed the painting inside of it, ensuring that passersby wouldn’t get a glimpse. I checked my look in the mirror, pulling out the knots from my hair, wiping the filth from my face.
I stepped into the hallway. One of the bearded twins was pacing outside his apartment, mumbling and sobbing softly. His shirt was torn and his eye was swollen. I should have pretended that I didn’t see him, but it was all too pathetic, so I quickly asked if he was all right, and he only shook his head, a single tear falling down his cheek.
“It’s Damien,” he said. “He don’t treat me right.”
“Damien?”
“My brother. He treats me mean. Shouts at me for no real reason at all. And when he’s been drinking, he gets violent. That’s what happened last night. Hit me in the temple. I didn’t do nothing. Nothing at all.”
I didn’t have time for this. “He doesn’t sound like a very good brother,” I said. “Maybe you should find another place to live.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s my brother. We’ve always been together. I couldn’t leave him. But it’s true he don’t treat me right. You think he ever will? You think he can change? He beat me real good last night.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think he’ll change. We are who we are. But I hope he treats you better. I really do…”
And then the door opened and his brother appeared and they were identical except Damien didn’t have a swollen face. He glared at me before squatting down next to his brother and pulling his head to his chest and saying, “Damnit, Ralph, I sure am sorry about last night, yes, I sure am. You can bet that’ll never happen again. Now you just come on inside, and I’ll make you a cup of tea and sit you with your favorite blanket and we’ll play checkers for a spell.” Then the two of them hugged and I could tell Ralph was full of happiness and hope, hope that Damien would treat him better from now on, but I knew better, knew that we can’t stop repeating ourselves…
I left the twins and took off down the stairs, the painting held securely beneath my arm. I could hear their voices echoing: the doctor, the albino, the super, the wig lady, and I knew they meant to do me harm. All of my memories before the tunnel were gone, but I knew I’d done something bad and had to be redeemed.
And then I stood on the street corner, staring at her window, the curtains shut, and I knew now was the time, I knew that this moment would never come again. Like in a dream, I walked slowly across the street, startled and shaken by a delivery truck zooming past me, honking its horn.
I reached the other side and was about to start pressing the door buzzers when there appeared on the sidewalk a man, tall and thin, wearing old-fashioned spectacles and carrying a suitcase. I felt a fright of recognition, but from where?
We made eye contact and he nodded grimly. I watched with great curiosity as he pressed a button, and I was sure it Claire’s button. A few moments and then I heard her sad and desperate voice crackling through the speaker system. “Ryan? Is that you?”
“Yes. It’s me.”
Then the buzzer, and he yanked open the door and stepped inside.
I interpreted the event as an invitation of entry, so without a second thought I lunged forward, grabbing the door before it closed.
I followed him inside, and I had the strange sensation of Leider’s presence, could see his shadow darting across the walls, could hear that terrible whisper: “The blade this time, the blade this time, the blade this time…”
Up the stairs Ryan went, and I followed after him. I’d killed Turner, I could kill him as well. But not yet. The sixth floor, and he shouldered open the metal door, whistling a forgotten melody, and I skulked right behind him, my hand grasping the portrait, my brain trembling uncontrollably.
He rapped on her door and my neurons weakened, leaving me paralyzed in the hallway. The door swung open and Claire appeared, and for a moment I was sure I was dreaming. She was still in mourning, wearing that black dress and that black veil, but I could see her eyes blinking beneath the gossamer. The man, Ryan, placed his suitcase on the floor and she reached out to him and they embraced. They held each other for a long time, and I could hear her crying, saying, “Oh, Ryan, oh, Ryan. I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t go on, Ryan, Ryan.” I remained motionless (other than my nervous twitch) at the end of the hallway, just watching, and now I knew that Leider had been right all along, that she was nothing but a whore, that she was the biggest whore that had ever lived, but still, for some reason, I ripped open the trash bag and held up the painting with two hands, and it was my masterpiece, it was our masterpiece, and Leider giggled, and then Claire’s head cocked and she pulled herself from the embrace and she stared at the portrait for a moment and then another moment, and then she placed both her hands to her head and screamed. Ryan whipped around, his face panicked and distorted. She screamed again and pointed at me, pointed at the portrait. A moment’s pause and then he darted toward me. I spun around and dashed into the stairwell, Claire’s screams echoing against the walls. I took the stairs four at a time, glancing back occasionally and seeing Ryan only a few steps behind me, shouting, “Hey! You! Stop!” Gaining ground, I reached the first floor and crashed through the front door, back into the street.
I couldn’t let him know where I lived so I galloped down the sidewalk, accidentally knocking over a boy dribbling a basketball and an old hunchback carrying her groceries. I ran, I ran. Despite the sun, the air had become bitter cold, and my skin burned. Twenty, thirty minutes I ran, never once looking back, the painting pressed firmly against my chest, protected from the city’s filth and sin.
Eventually he was out of sight, and I was confident that he had given up hope. Breathing heavily, I slumped down against a neglected building, the windows cracked and whitewashed, the door barred. And on the bricks, in voluminous scrawl, the words, Help me. I am being held against my will.
Drained of hope, I leaned the portrait against the wall and pulled my knees up to my chest. A man with thick sunglasses and a walking cane tapped his way past me, and then not a minute later, another blind man and then another. My eyes focused on the building across the street and I saw the sign: St. Mary’s Institute for the Blind.
And now I laughed, and it was a loud, bitter laugh. Because now I
recognized just how blind I had been. And there was no cure for my blindness. Swiveling my head, I took to staring at the painting, finally seeing Claire for who she really was—not beautiful, not pure, not kind. A whore. Plain and simple. Leider was right. A whore.
And then a thought came to me, and I knew what I had to do. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Leider’s knife. With a quick slash, I sliced my forearm, allowing the blood to pool on my skin. As the wind blew cold, I rubbed my forefinger against the wound and then, with a violent swipe, streaked Claire’s painted neck with blood.
CHAPTER 26
For the next week I didn’t leave the apartment at all. Sometimes I stared out my window at Claire’s building. The characters were all there: the little balding man with his Chihuahua; the old woman with her red lipstick and matching negligee; the mother and son, forever bickering; the young girl brushing her blonde hair; the family staring at the television for hours on end. And then Claire and Ryan, Claire and Ryan, Claire and Ryan. The goddamned whore.
The rest of my time I spent working on my latest project—I hardly slept at all. Nothing new, but a reimagining of Claire the Whore. I streaked blood and paint across the canvas, smearing her skin and her eyes, ensuring that her beauty would transform to grotesqueness. Truth, truth, I needed to paint truth. Every soft color I sabotaged. Every lovely brushstroke I destroyed. I used my nails and my teeth to peel away any vestiges of splendor.
And then one night at two minutes past midnight, I heard the phone ring, and I knew that I would never rid myself of him. He sounded panicked, desperate, and despite my misgivings I held the receiver to my ear while I continued my violation of the canvas.