Ascending

by Wright, T. M.

  Lenny nodded uncertainly.

  Ryerson hurried on, "I'll simplify it—"

  Lenny scowled at him.

  "Sorry," Ryerson said and meant it. He continued, "Let's say that . . . that Creosote, here,"—up on his shoulder and looking backward—"became possessed by the spirit of a pit bull. If that happened, it would be reasonable to expect that he would, at times, act like a pit bull, right? He'd have the soul of a killer." He paused. The twinge at the nape of his neck was growing stronger. He continued, "And the point is, Lenny—Creosote already has the soul of a killer. Like all dogs, he's descended from wolves. So if he became possessed by the spirit of a pit bull, well, then, it would probably go a long way toward awakening the wolf buried deep somewhere in his psyche."

  Lenny pursed his lips. "That little dog might have a brain, Rye, but it sure as hell ain't got a psyche!"

  Ryerson grimaced.

  Lenny gave him a puzzled look. "You okay?"

  Ryerson shook his head again. "I don't think so." Arms trembling, he took Creosote down from his shoulder and held him out to Lenny. "Take him, would you? I've got to sit down."

  "Sure." Lenny took Creosote. "What's the matter, Rye? Tell me what's wrong." He began to feel the same sort of twinge that Ryerson was feeling.

  Ryerson sat on the front steps of the Ox Cart Bookstore. A woman came out of the store as he sat down. She stood watching him because he was in her way. After a Few moments, Lenny bent over and said, "Rye, this woman wants to get by."

  Ryerson nodded once, head in his hands, but didn't move.

  "Does he have a problem?" the woman asked. She was round faced and gray haired, dressed for an evening on the town, and she looked as if she spent much of her time smiling. She was smiling now, a smile of concern.

  "I can dance," Ryerson whispered.

  The woman asked, "Did he say he wants to dance?"

  But now the twinge at the nape of Lenny's neck had become nearly as severe as Ryerson's. He put his hand over it while he clutched the squirming Creosote hard to his chest, and grimaced.

  "Good Lord!" the gray-haired woman muttered.

  Lenny plopped down next to Ryerson on the front step of the Ox Cart Bookstore. The gray-haired woman stopped smiling. "Perhaps," she suggested, "you could both find somewhere else to sit." Her smile reappeared, then vanished. "Somewhere not quite so public!"

  Ryerson moaned, "I can dance, I can dance!"

  Lenny simply moaned.

  Creosote belched and snorted in protest at being held so tightly against Lenny's chest.

  The gray-haired woman opened and closed her mouth several times, in rapid succession, then went back into the bookstore. Moments later, she reappeared with the store's manager in tow and pointed a stiff finger at Ryerson and Lenny. "These two, Mr. Kilodney!"

  The store manager, a tall, soft-faced, pleasant-looking young man whose first name was Crad, came forward and tapped Ryerson on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, sir—"

  "I can dance!" Ryerson shouted.

  Crad Kilodney jumped backward in surprise, arms akimbo. His elbow connected solidly with the brick wall of the entranceway, and he yelped in pain.

  The gray-haired woman announced, "Well, now, this is getting very much out of hand!"

  ~ * ~

  In an office building on Bloor Street West, Max Tyler was trying hard to keep his lunch down.

  Creed said, "You want to leave, Max? It's okay."

  Max nodded, then stumbled, hand to his stomach, from Rick Dunn's office. Creed was surprised. Max had seen quite a lot in his ten years working homicide. Perhaps, Creed thought, it was the smell in here, like the smell of a slaughterhouse.

  He set to work.

  What remained of Roberta's body was on its back on top of Rick's desk, arms and legs wide, the trunk reduced to a reddish brown jumble of internal organs, the mouth and eyes opened halfway, as if Roberta were at the edges of sleep. She wore a pleated gray skirt and white blouse, although they existed only as shredded masses at the top of her chest and around her knees. Between those points, the cloth had become an integral part of her internal organs, as if rust-colored cardboard had erupted from her lungs, her heart, her stomach.

  Creed left Rick's office, went to the phone on Roberta's desk, took a handkerchief from his pocket, cupped it in his hand, and picked up the receiver. He called the desk sergeant at his precinct house, told him to get out an APB on Rick Dunn, was asked for a description, and said he'd get one soon. Then he called the medical examiner, the forensics unit, and was about to call out to Max Tyler, whom he assumed was just beyond the office door, when Rick Dunn came in.

  He stopped a few feet inside the entranceway. "Who are you?" he said, looking very surprised.

  Creed answered, "Are you Fredrick Dunn?"

  Rick shook his head. "No, no. You just tell me who in the hell you are, and what you're doing here—"

  "Mr. Dunn, my name is Inspector Dan Creed." He took his shield from his jacket pocket, held it out for Rick to see, then put it back in his pocket. "Are you Fredrick Dunn?"

  Rick said, "Has something happened here?"

  "Mr. Dunn, perhaps you'd like to speak with an attorney."

  Rick shook his head. "Tell me what has happened here, dammit!"

  "There's been a murder, sir, and there are some questions I would—"

  "Who?"

  "Apparently, it's your secretary, Mr. Dunn."

  "Roberta?" A quivering smile appeared on Rick's face. "Someone murdered Roberta?"

  "Is that her name, sir? Could I have her last name, please?"

  "My name isn't Fredrick Dunn. It's Giuseppe Balboa."

  This took Creed aback. "I'm sorry," he said. "Your name is what?"

  Rick went on, smiling cordially, "I'm a friend of Mr. Dunn's. I've worked with him. We are fellow architects." He put his right hand into the pocket of his overcoat.

  Creed said, "Take your hand out of your pocket!"

  Rick shrugged. "I have nothing in here." He kept his hand in his pocket.

  Creed's hand went to the .38 in his shoulder holster. He called, "Max, come in here!"

  Rick said, "Who's Max?"

  Creed's hand closed on the grip of his .38. He called again, "Max, dammit, come in here!"

  Rick said, moving one step closer to Creed, "Is Max the husky fellow in the hallway?" He moved another step closer.

  Creed pulled his .38 out and pointed it at Rick. "Stop right there!"

  Rick smiled broadly. He shook his head. "As I told you, I have nothing in my pocket." He took his hand from his pocket and held it out, palm up. "See. Nothing."

  Creed snapped, "Over there!" and jerked the gun to indicate the wall.

  Rick said, "Over where?" His hand went into his pocket again.

  "Now!" Creed ordered.

  Rick inclined his head downward obliquely, as if ready to do what Creed was ordering him to do. Then his hand came out of his pocket again.

  SEVENTEEN

  The very last thought in Inspector Dan Creed's head was Shit! This is something supernatural! He had never believed in the supernatural. He had believed in telepathy because he had seen Ryerson at work, but he had never believed in spirits, which, as far as he was concerned, were the bulwark of the "world of the super-natural." And he had never believed in demons, or possession, which, also as far as he was concerned, were Hollywood concoctions. But at that moment, as he thought, Shit! This is something supernatural!—as he held the .38 pointed at Rick Dunn's chest—he knew that a haphazard assumption he had carried through life was tragically incorrect.

  He saw two faces in the space where only one face should have been. He saw Rick Dunn's face—flat, broad and large nosed, wide mouth, small, straight teeth, and hazel eyes nearly puffed shut by what he had supposed was lack of sleep. And he saw another face superimposed upon it. The face of a man twenty years younger than Rick Dunn, whose smooth reddish skin was stretched tight because the young mouth was open as if in a scream, and the blue eyes were wide and disbe
lieving and terrified.

  Rick Dunn feinted to his right a fraction of a second before Creed got off a shot, and the slug tore into the door frame.

  Then, with the strength and speed of the two men he was at that moment, Rick Dunn shoved the long, heavy screwdriver hard into Dan Creed's gut and yanked upward, pulling the blade through Creed's breastbone and tearing his heart apart within a second.

  And in the moment before death overtook him, Creed saw this, too: He saw people clustered around his murderer, and darkness around them, and he got a sense of place, and of altitude, and hunger.

  ~ * ~

  At that moment, Ryerson Biergarten, still sitting on the front step of the Ox Cart Bookstore on King Street, cut loose with a scream of pain so piercing and abrupt that a young man walking by looked over, startled, and slammed into a middle-aged woman walking her Pekingese. The woman went over backward. The man went down on top of her. The Pekingese yelped and because the woman, in her fall, had dropped the leash, tore off down King Street. Creosote—who had managed to squirm out of Lenny Baker's arms—tore off in hot pursuit.

  Then Lenny Baker screamed. Not for the same reason that Ryerson had screamed, but because Ryerson had screamed. Ryerson screamed again. Lenny screamed again. The middle-aged woman with the young man on top of her pushed desperately and ordered, in a coarse low voice, "Get off me, you naughty boy!"

  Ryerson launched himself from the step and began running in the direction that Creosote had run. But he wasn't running after Creosote. Although he didn't know it, he was running toward Rick Dunn.

  Lenny screamed again, then pushed himself up awkwardly, and lumbered after Ryerson.

  ~ * ~

  When he looked at himself, Max Tyler did not want to be alive. He saw his intestines dangling down his left side to the floor. He saw what he thought was either his spleen or his bladder bulging to the right of his intestines. Then, though he had never been a religious man, he began to mumble a prayer: "God, let me die, let me die!" because he knew that he was going to die anyway, and he thought it would be better when someone happened upon him if he were already dead. Then he wouldn't have to endure that person's panic, desperation and, at last, the stupid and pleading reassurances that he—Max—would be "all right." Max had given the same kind of reassurances two dozen or more times in his years as a cop. The first time was with a young shotgun-blast victim who was missing half his head and yet still, miraculously, clung to life. "Am I all right?" he asked Max gurglingly. "Am I okay?"

  And Max had told him, smiling a little, "Sure you are. You're fine. You'll be home in no time." The young man died moments later, and Max couldn't help wondering if, at the last moment, he had resented Max, even cursed him silently, for his false reassurance. Max could think of nothing worse than being the brunt of the last curse of the dying.

  He saw someone come around the corner of the hallway. He felt his arm move for the .45 he kept in his shoulder holster, felt his hand grip the weapon, felt himself draw it, aim it, heard himself bark, "Stop right there!" It was conditioning that gave him this fantasy, of course. He said nothing. His body lay still. His breathing grew shallower by the moment. Death was only moments away.

  Ryerson Biergarten bent over him, put a hand on his shoulder. "My God," Ryerson said, "I'm sorry."

  Max Tyler managed a very small smile. Then he whispered, "No problem. Thanks." And, as his spirit drifted off, Ryerson grabbed several images from him:

  The image of Rick Dunn. And the image of the younger man screaming inside Rick Dunn.

  And the image of a multitude shouldering closer and still closer. The image of darkness. The sense of altitude.

  And the image of Max moving through it. The image of Max, the spirit, Max himself ascending with such beauty and such grace. The end of life was clearly the beginning of life.

  "Freeze!" Ryerson heard from behind him.

  ~ * ~

  Rick Dunn stood very still in one corner of a service elevator that served the west side of his building. He was adding up his choices. He knew he was in trouble. He knew his life had taken an abrupt turn. He knew that he would no longer be able to be the same man he had been a month before: the Rick Dunn who went to bed late and got up early and, two or three times a week, shared his bed with someone he'd picked up at a singles bar. The Rick Dunn who wrote his mother in Chicago a long and newsy letter once a month, and got, once a month, a short letter in return which said, in essence, Thank you, son. You help ease my pain. The Rick Dunn who, several years earlier, had been at the top of his profession, who'd even been asked to send a bio to Who's Who. The Rick Dunn who liked to speed over the back roads twenty piles from Toronto in his black Jaguar simply for the thrill of it.

  The Rick Dunn who had always, even as a child, had strange fascination with death and with murder, but who had been able to keep it at arm's length, like some perverse fantasy he took out and studied only in his private moments.

  Now all that had changed. His life had taken an abrupt turn because he had realized at last that what had been a fantasy was really a power demanding to be let out, an authority ordering him to give it free rein. It was clearly something divine, and how could he argue with that?

  But now he had to protect it. And that meant protectng himself.

  He couldn't go home, he realized. Those who sought to usurp his divine authority over the lives of the deficient and who were disguised variously as police, building inspectors, and even as people on architectural planning committees) would be waiting for him. He couldn't go to his country home, either. They knew about his country home by now, and they'd be waiting there, too. He could check into a hotel, of course. And, of course, he'd have to use a different name.

  A janitor got on the service elevator, then. He had a toolbox in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He was in his late sixties, thin, with a great mop of uncombed white hair. He was also nearly blind, so when Rick shook his head angrily at him, the janitor gave a cordial nod, stepped to the other side of the elevator, leaned over, and peered hard at the floor buttons. He knew most of them by touch and could press any floor from the first to the eighteenth without looking. But today he was going to the roof to spend some time with an aging cold-air vent that needed repair. "Spending time" with whatever needed his attention was all that he had been able to do since his eyesight began to fail several years earlier.

  He glanced around at Rick. He saw him only as a large grayish lump and he knew, from the general shape of the lump, and also from the heavy, earthy smell coming from it, that it was male. He smiled, nodded cordially again, and said, "The roof?"

  Rick said nothing.

  The janitor said, "The roof button?"

  Rick shook his head vehemently. The janitor did not see this well; but, having witnessed the same gesture many times before, knew what it was and continued his close inspection of the floor buttons. He smiled sweetly as he looked. He was a contented man because he had purpose in life.

  He set his toolbox down and homed in with a stiff finger on a likely-looking button. He saw it light up when he pressed it, and it was like the sudden appearance of a bright full moon in the darkness. His sweet smile grew broad. He picked up his toolbox, straightened, and turned to face the elevator doors; their closing would be another small event in his life—like the lighting of the elevator button—although he wouldn't so much see it as feel and hear it.

  The successful punching of the elevator button and the anticipation of the closing of the doors had made him forget about the large gray lump that was Rick. So when he saw two lumps side by side, he thought that it might be good to say something—the service elevator was, after all, a limited-use elevator. But then the doors closed, and his new anticipation became reaching the roof and “spending time" with the cold-air vent. He nodded at the two gray lumps—one thinner and taller than the other—and said, "Going up now."

  "I can dance," said one of the lumps.

  This dismayed the janitor; not only because it seemed stra
nge thing to say at that moment, but also because the voice that had said it was warbling and strained, like the voice of a man-sized insect.

  The elevator lurched upward. Some of the janitor's coffee sloshed out onto his hand, but it was only lukewarm, so he merely set his toolbox down again and swiped at the spill with his other hand.

  He felt suddenly as if he were closed in with two angry animals. He felt crowded, pushed on all sides, as if there were dozens of people packed into the elevator. It was a feeling so intense that his body stiffened.

  ~ * ~

  Lenny Baker knew that he had trespassed into a world that was alien to him. He had never before felt so very alone and so confused.

  It was a world that he had followed Ryerson into and now was trapped in.

  It would have been okay—it would have been better, at least—if there was not so much here that was familiar. If this world were totally unlike his own, then he could dismiss it as craziness.

  But this world was real.

  There, far ahead at the horizon, was the great shaft of the CN Tower. Around him, the glass and steel monoliths that comprised the heart of Toronto. And moving purposefully past him, the chic, attractive, smiling Torontonians.

  But between the buildings, around the phallic thrust of the tower, snaking past the chic and attractive Torontonians was that . . . presence.

  He could think of no other word for it. He did not want to think of another word for it. He had strength and will enough merely to witness it, to let his senses record it.

  He realized at once that it was something which had always been available for his senses to record, that there had even been moments—in his childhood, especially—when he had witnessed it. But most of those moments had been fleeting and quickly forgotten, like the moment when something very tasty first passes over the tongue.