The Bad Box

by Harvey Click

  He cautiously prodded the side of his brain with a fingernail, and instantly he was bathed in a memory so vivid that it seemed he had been whisked back to childhood by a time machine. He was nine years old, playing in the backyard, and his mother was calling him to dinner. His mother, his beautiful mother who had always doted on him, who had kissed away his every hurt and had praised his every deed.

  Her voice was as clear as if she were in the room with him—”Petey! Petey, darling!”—and he had a sudden spasm of horror and remorse. He had done something very naughty, he realized, taking off the top of his head like this. What would Mommy say? Would she be able to kiss it and make it better?

  No, he thought. This is no time for Mom and all her conventional thinking, Sunday school and Cub Scouts, macaroni casseroles and cherry pies, birthday parties and Easter egg hunts. Goodbye to Mom and all that rubbish.

  He reached in with both hands, a prospector digging for Truth.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  One of Gerald McClosky’s rules was never to drink in his office, but today he was sorely tempted to break it. In fact he had been wanting a drink since early this morning, when someone called the office saying he intended to lay claim to the Stonebrenner estate. The Stonebrenner trust was his largest account, going back to the days when the business was his father’s, but there were a few irregularities that put McClosky in an uncomfortably compromised position.

  It was natural enough, after so many years of managing such a peculiar trust, to begin to believe that it would never be claimed, that it had become by default as much the property of McClosky and Son as of Isaac Stonebrenner, who by now must surely be dead. An eccentric recluse leaving instructions that seemed the product of a less-than-sound mind, the decades elapsing with money rolling in and no one coming to claim it, the trust fund growing fat with the great succession of bull markets that had begun in the eighties: all of this might tempt even a highly ethical man such as Gerald McClosky to begin skimming a little here, a little there, just borrowing really, and covering the loans with inflated expenses and cooked figures in the account book, strokes of the pen that had seemed subtle at the time, but now McClosky feared that any two-cent accountant would find them with his eyes shut.

  The appointment was for 11:00, and the clock that McClosky had inherited from his father said 10:58. McClosky wondered if he had time for just a swallow of the vodka that he kept locked in his desk for emergencies. Highly unprofessional, drinking at the office, but vodka wasn’t likely to tell on his breath if he sucked one of the antacid mints that he used for his dyspepsia, and besides it was his fucking office and his sanctimonious prig of a father was long dead and gone, God rest his soul. Just one. McClosky unlocked the drawer, took a large swallow from the bottle, and locked it back up. That felt better.

  The clock began to chime, and before the first chime faded the door opened. A tall man entered, and McClosky sucked in his breath so hard that he nearly inhaled his antacid mint. The man was completely bald and wore a pair of dark glasses and a nice gray suit, but aside from those everyday features he almost didn’t look like a man. His skin was cadaver gray and so sunken that his face looked like a skull. His shoulders were broad, but beneath the suit his body seemed to be as shriveled as his face.

  “My name is Jacob Stonebrenner,” the stranger said in a hoarse whisper. “I’ve come to claim my father’s property.”

  There was a hint of an accent that McClosky couldn’t place, maybe German. He hurried toward Stonebrenner and grasped his hand. It felt icy cold and bony, and the lawyer was shocked when he glimpsed the cracked yellow nails. Then a fetid odor made his head reel; it reminded him of a dead animal in a moldy cellar.

  “May I see your identification?” he asked.

  “Identification is irrelevant,” Stonebrenner said.

  He sat down in the chair facing McClosky’s desk, and McClosky hurried behind his desk and sat down too, nearly falling into his chair because his legs felt weak.

  “It’s true that identification isn’t needed according to the terms of the contract,” he said. “But I’ll need a social security number for taxes.”

  “I’ll supply identification in due time,” Stonebrenner said. “Right now don’t waste my time with these questions.”

  “Of course not. Well then, I have all the necessary materials right here. The conditions prescribed by your father are a bit unusual.”

  “I’m perfectly familiar with my father’s conditions,” Stonebrenner said. “Don’t waste my time talking about them.”

  “Of course not. Well then, we’ll need my secretary to witness and notarize. She should be back any minute now. She had to deliver some papers to a nearby office.”

  Stonebrenner let out something like a hoarse snarl, and McClosky called his secretary’s cellphone. “Miss Berger,” he said, “could you please get back here as soon as possible? Yes, it’s urgent.”

  McClosky put several more antacid mints in his mouth and said, “All of your father’s furniture, by the way, has been carefully put away in the attic and a safe storage unit. The young couple that live there now also farm the land. According to the terms of the rental agreement, you’re to pay them fair market value for this year’s crops or else allow them to continue farming till harvest.

  “Now, perhaps you’re aware that when they rented the place they had to sign an agreement, as per your father’s instructions, which allows you to take possession one week from tomorrow. That means the tenants are required to vacate the premises no later than midnight next Wednesday. You have every legal right, of course, to insist on this clause, though to be honest with you I don’t look forward to evicting them. They’re a nice young couple, and I regret to say they have suffered bad fortune recently. This spring their only child died of a rare disease. I dread that another disruption so soon on the heels will be hard on them.”

  Stonebrenner’s upper lip twisted into an ugly smile, revealing long yellow teeth. “I’ll have a word with them,” he said.

  His voice sounded like the dry rustling of a fly’s wings, and the smell of a dead animal was stronger now. McClosky opened a ledger on his desk so quickly that he nearly tore a page.

  “The books are in order,” he said, speaking in a nervous rush. “You’ll be pleased to know that the trust is very nicely in the black. There have been a few expenses, of course, repairs and fees and taxes, all in the normal course, everything perfectly accounted for with receipts and so forth. Everything is shipshape and neat as a pin. You’ll be very happy when you see what the estate is worth. Of course you’re welcome to double-check the figures, though quite unnecessary I assure you. We’re scrupulously careful with such matters.”

  “Look at me,” Stonebrenner said. He leaned forward and removed his dark glasses.

  McClosky was transfixed by glossy eyes so black he couldn’t tell which part was iris and which part pupil, more like polished stones than eyes. The pungent stench of death was overpowering, and for a moment McClosky saw something grotesquely inhuman, something like an enormous cadaver-gray insect with a skull for a face.

  The grinning insect jaws opened and Stonebrenner said, “You’ll pay back a dollar for every penny you’ve stolen from me. Be grateful if the payment isn’t in flesh.”

  “Yes, of course,” McClosky said. “A dollar for every penny is more than fair. I thank you for your kindness.”

  There was a light tapping at the door, and Miss Berger entered, late middle-aged and skinny as a scarecrow. When she saw Stonebrenner she gasped softly and fell into the chair beside McClosky’s desk. Her notary seal slipped out of her hands into her lap, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Miss Berger, this is Jacob Stonebrenner,” McClosky said.

  She nodded quickly and tried to scoot her chair farther away from Stonebrenner, but its legs apparently were caught in the carpet.

  The lawyer opened his safe and got out the thick envelope that Isaac Stonebrenner had sealed with wax in this very office when G
erald McClosky was only nine years old. He handed it to Miss Berger and said, “I want both of you to examine the seals.”

  They both did, and he said, “Very well, I need both of you to sign this document certifying that the seals haven’t been broken.”

  They did, and he said, “Miss Berger, please notarize the document.”

  “I need to see Mr. Stonebrenner’s identification to verify his signature,” she said.

  “I will supply it in due time,” he said.

  He stared at her with his black polished-stone eyes, and this time she succeeded in getting her chair to scoot back a few inches. She reached for her seal, which had tumbled from her lap to the carpet, and quickly notarized the document.

  “Well then, I’ll go ahead and open the envelope,” McClosky said.

  He broke the seven red wax seals with his letter opener and removed three smaller envelopes, each one also sealed with wax, and a sheet of parchment.

  He read the parchment carefully and said, “This instructs the applicant to write a message on a sheet of paper before the envelope marked number one is opened. Both myself and one witness must agree that your message perfectly matches the message sealed in said envelope. If we agree that it does, the estate will be transferred to you at once. If we don’t agree that there’s a perfect match, you may appeal the decision to a judge, but otherwise you have no right to a second chance. The other two envelopes contain different messages and are to be opened only if the first applicant fails the test and a different applicant wishes to claim the property. Miss Berger, please give this to Mr. Stonebrenner so he can examine it.”

  Miss Berger took the piece of parchment in her trembling hand but didn’t get up from her chair. Apparently she was reluctant to approach Stonebrenner.

  “I know perfectly well what it says, I don’t need to see it,” he said. “I’ve brought my own pencils but I need a piece of paper.”

  McClosky pulled a clean sheet of paper from a desk drawer, and both he and Miss Berger scooted their chairs back when Stonebrenner brought his own up close to the desk so he could write. He pulled several colored artist’s pencils from his pocket and began, but McClosky saw that he wasn’t writing but instead drawing some sort of picture.

  “Mr. Stonebrenner, I believe the instructions say that you must write some sort of message,” he said.

  Stonebrenner ignored him. His hand skimmed across the paper, crafting an elaborate multi-colored mosaic of serpents and insects and signs of the zodiac and strange hieroglyphics. In a few minutes he slid the drawing across the desk to McClosky and said, “Open the envelope.”

  McClosky broke the seven seals and pulled out a similar drawing. Not just similar, he realized as he compared the two—they were identical to the tiniest detail. For some reason the twin images made him feel sick, or maybe it was Stonebrenner’s putrid breath, and he quickly handed them to Miss Berger.

  “My word!” she exclaimed quietly.

  “Do you agree that Mr. Stonebrenner’s drawing resembles the original?” the lawyer asked her.

  “They’re exactly alike,” she said. “Exactly.”

  “Well then, there are some papers to sign, of course,” McClosky said. “I’ll send them to the courthouse and the recorder’s office will issue a new title.”

  He slid the documents one by one across his desk to Stonebrenner, who signed them and slid them back. As the lawyer leaned his head down to add his own signature to the first document, he thought that his eyes were playing tricks.

  Two inches above Jacob Stonebrenner’s signature was the signature that Isaac Stonebrenner had penned decades ago. Never before had McClosky seen two signatures so alike. Illegible but fascinating, they resembled some ancient script of a dead language, the calligraphy of a lost time.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Hamelin was waiting in his Dodge van in front of the lawyer’s office. He sat in the passenger seat with his face pressed against the window.

  As Stonebrenner climbed into the driver’s seat, he noticed drool hanging from the poet’s mouth and oozing down the window. It was a bad sign; it meant he wouldn’t last much longer, and Stonebrenner might need him for a while.

  Hamelin was muttering quietly to himself, voicing his feeble hatred in half-coherent phrases that slobbered from his mouth as meaninglessly as the strings of saliva. Stonebrenner knew that the frail young man plotted constantly to kill him, but at the moment he was too preoccupied to be amused by this absurd conceit.

  Stonebrenner started the engine and pulled away. He was getting used to driving again. He missed his beautiful 1952 Bentley Continental, superior in every way to the wretched junk people were driving nowadays, trash made by trash to be driven by trash.

  The roads turned hilly as they got out of town, and the hills brought memories. He had lived here for 11 years before he was entombed, and there was something to be said for those years, even though so many of their hours had been spent in sleepless vigilance, gazing from the watchtower, not free to drive through the pleasant countryside or enjoy the blessings of his wealth.

  But things would be different after Charles Newman was conquered. Together, he and Angel would triumph against the monster.

  He didn’t recognize the road until he was nearly upon it. He turned right and stared past the drooling poet at the deep woods. He steered the van through a dipping curve and recalled the first time he had seen this road, a few days after fleeing Boston. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming, the same anxiety gnawing at him now as then.

  But today the anxiety was tempered with exhilaration. He was free from the box, breathing country air again and coming home at last.

  There it was on the left, the big barn and the magnificent brick fortress beside it. He pulled into the long driveway, got out, and stared at the yard, the trees, the windows, the steep slate roof with the tall belvedere standing watch in its center. This was his castle, the place of his secret chambers.

  Off somewhere past the house was the cemetery. He couldn’t bear to look at it.

  He went to the front door and knocked. It was opened by a tall sandy-haired man in his mid-twenties, a gangly bumpkin smelling of hay and sweat who stared at Stonebrenner’s face with astonishment.

  “My name is Jacob Stonebrenner. I own this house and the land. You’ll have to move out at once.”

  The young man just stared at him, his mouth gaping. At last he said, “That ain’t gonna be so easy to do.”

  “Did you read your rental agreement? It says one week.”

  The man swallowed, stared, and swallowed again, his big Adam’s apple bobbing. “Well, yes, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But that ain’t gonna be so easy to do . . . My wife . . .”

  “What about your wife? I don’t believe the contract has any special clause about your wife, does it?”

  “Well, no, but . . .”

  “Is your wife here?”

  “She’s upstairs.”

  “Is anyone else here?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” Stonebrenner said. “Maybe we can work out a deal.”

  He pushed past the gape-mouthed young man, through the foyer and into the large front living room, God-awful junk furniture strewn everywhere he looked. If there was a single piece of his own furniture missing, that bucktoothed lawyer was going to pay with more than dollars. He stared at the massive stone fireplace, the sadness of forty lost years lying cold in its hearth.

  “What kind of deal?” the young man asked.

  Stonebrenner turned from the fireplace, stepped up to the farmer with two cat-quick strides, and placed his hands on the young man’s temples. Warm tingling current surged along his arms to the balls of his thumbs. It was a simple technique based on the same voltaic principle used by faith-healers. The only trick was knowing when to stop—a moment too long and the synapses would melt like ice cream.

  The man slipped out of his grasp and collapsed to the floor with a loud moan.

&
nbsp; “Eric?” a voice asked from the foyer. “Who’s here?”

  Stonebrenner turned and saw a young woman rushing into the room. She knelt and grasped the farmer’s shoulders. “Eric! What’s wrong?”

  A perfect wife, Stonebrenner thought, loving and loyal, her long smooth hair the color of wheat, a nice figure, not too thin or too plump, freckles on her pretty young face like splashes of sunny innocence. He peered into her mind and glimpsed her grief over their son’s recent death, glimpsed her husband trying to console her with vapid phrases that he had heard in church.

  The farmer moaned, opened his eyes, and tried to sit up. “God, I’m sick,” he said. He threw up on the floor.

  The wife shot a suspicious look at Stonebrenner. “What’s going on?”

  “Your husband seems to have fainted.”

  The perfect wife helped her sick husband to the sofa. “I’ll get some water,” she said and hurried out of the room. The man moaned again, his head lolling weakly against the back of the sofa.

  “Go fetch a mop and clean up your vomit,” Stonebrenner said.

  The man groaned and touched his forehead. “Feel so sick,” he said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Eric Beers.”

  “Eric Beers, I don’t believe you understand your circumstances. You belong to me, body and soul. When I tell you to clean something up, you do it. God may grant free will, but I don’t.”

  Beers stared at him with an angry, wary expression. He was putting up a remarkable fight, but he got up and tottered out of the room to get a mop. His anger was good; that meant the synapses hadn’t been badly burned. A bit of resentment was fine, so long as obedience followed it.

  The pretty wife came in with a glass of water and a wet cloth. “Where’s Eric?” she asked.

  “Getting a mop. He’s going to clean his vomit off my floor.”

  She glared at Stonebrenner and said, “Who are you, anyway?”