by G. K. Lund
Param gave me a quizzical look at this incessant insistence of the priest’s necessity in helping me. His head above the painting, as he still held it up for us, made me look twice. They looked so different these two men. Why was it that Param remembered something about me, when the man who was supposed to know, was dead? Why had my vision led me in the direction of a man who had died centuries ago?
“You’re connected to him through more than this foundation aren’t you? Are you his great-great and so on grandson or something?”
“Think you see a family resemblance between the celibate, French priest and the Indian guy?” Param laughed and set the painting down on the floor to lean against a small chair by the wall.
“French?”
“Mm-hmm,” Param nodded while looking down at the painting. “He lived in Paris.” He turned back toward me. “Why are you so insistent that he can help you?”
“I know the answer to that as much as I understand you recognizing me,” I said. I knew I wasn’t human and I suspected that he did as well. Even if he didn’t understand it.
“Clement would have understood less of this than I do,” Param said.
“You talk like you know him,” I said and heard a snort from Peter. Param pursed his lips and nodded slowly as he thought about this.
“I need a beer,” he said and walked toward the kitchen.
“Um… is that wise?” Peter sat up a little in the recliner and looked at the man with worry.
Param stopped and eyed at him a moment. “You’ve just broken into my house, invaded my privacy. I think we’re all aware I’m an alcoholic.” He indicated the bottles with his hand should we have managed to miss them. “You can at least be straightforward, right?”
“Uh… okay? Maybe you shouldn’t have a beer then. Considering.”
“Don’t worry. I’m one of the functioning ones. For now.” There was an absolute lack of humor in Param’s’ smile as he went into the kitchen.
“This might have been a worse idea than we thought,” Peter whispered to me as we heard Param opening the fridge. “He seems a little…” Peter made air circles with his index finger by his temple while looking knowingly at me. I had no idea what that meant. “And,” he continued with understandable words at least, “now we’re enabling him.”
Param came back with three beers and handed two of them to Peter and me. “So tell me,” he said as he walked past me and sat down on the couch again. “Who exactly told you to find Clement?”
I considered this for a while as I wasn’t sure. Someone else? A part of my memory? The cool bottle I held in the hands felt calming in a way I didn’t think the physical could. Like a focal point. “It was what you’d call a vision.”
Peter snorted again in the middle of drinking from the bottle. Then he realized which one of us had actually said this.
Param only raised an eyebrow. There were fewer things strange about this to him. “What was this vision?”
“I was told to find the father, and that he could tell me the truth. He would have the answers.”
“And you came here expecting me to know where he is…” Param took a hearty swig of the beer. “I can clarify something for you, but I can’t really help you.”
“Okay?”
“I’m him.” He drank again, more this time. Like he was washing the words away with the yeasted brew.
“Him?”
Param glanced at the painting and then at me again. “Je suis Clement Moreau.” The pronunciation came out flawless.
I heard Peter draw breath. Maybe to protest. I was glad he thought better of it.
“How?” I said, paying attention to the man’s face. I was getting better at reading expressions every day. He didn’t seem to be lying.
“How?” he shrugged. “Can’t tell you that. I don’t understand it. Some fluke in the existence of things maybe?”
“Now you’re not clarifying anything.”
He smiled a little then and drained his bottle. “So you have no memory huh?” he put the empty bottle next to me on the table.
I shook the head to confirm.
“As Clement, I lived a relatively healthy life until forty-five. One year after that was made,” he nodded toward the painting again. “Problem is… I remember every time I’m born anew.”
I raised an eyebrow at this.
“Not religiously,” he chuckled. “Literally. I have been aware of many lives since then. Six in total so far.” He stopped and looked expectantly at me. Probably waiting for me to snort at his statements as well. I glanced over at Peter and saw that he had managed to fall asleep. He leaned back in the recliner, his head tilted a little to the side as his mouth was half open. That was just odd. I didn’t think he found Param’s statements that boring.
“You forget that I excel at substance abuse.”
“The beer?” I asked without looking at him.
“Yep.”
I leaned toward Peter and took the half empty bottle out of his hands and put it on the table as well. “Will he live?”
“Oh my God. Of course he will.” Param sounded shocked I’d even ask such a thing. “He’ll be fine, but you’ll need a cab on your way home.”
I nodded at this and handed Param the beer I was holding. He smiled and drank from the bottle. No drugs in that one. So he didn’t like a doubting audience. Good to know.
“Why do you think it’s a fluke?”
“Because as far as I know… I’m the only one.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been around a while, to put it mildly. Never met anyone else quite like this.”
“How does it work?”
He drew breath and took another swig from the bottle. “Don’t know exactly. I die and then there’s a… hole in my memory. I guess you’d know about that. There are fragments of something happening… anyway. At around the age of ten, I begin to realize that all the things… thoughts and memories of other places, times and people, are in fact real. It’s confusing every time. Suddenly my parents are two of many. My personality keeps changing, then it is affected by the others. There were many times I thought I was insane. So did the new families.” Param stared at the floor a while, the bottle in his hand forgotten for a moment. “Can you imagine? Your kid suddenly speaking several languages without having learned them. Knowing stuff they’re not supposed to. Young brains make it difficult to remember and understand what you once knew, but it gets easier as you grow. As the brain adapts. Still… it gets tangled up in here.” He knocked on his head with his knuckles for emphasis.
“And Father Moreau was the first?”
“The first I remember.”
“Something happened to him to cause this?”
“I don’t know what exactly. He… I was in love you know.”
“Something go wrong?”
Now it was Param who snorted. “Besides a priest being in love you mean? Not like we could get married. Edmé was her name.” He actually smiled a genuine smile at the thought of this woman. Then he drank again. “Anyway… she died. It was bad. I died not long after.” He shrugged. “And then twenty years later, and ten more for the memories, I was in a different country, different body, speaking a different language.”
I did know how that felt at least. Still, our situations were not quite the same. “Are you not excited by what you see?”
“As I said, the memories get jumbled. I watch family and friends die over and over again. It doesn’t change. Only the faces do. And every time I remember her anew and remember her dying all over again. It has stuck with me. No, I am not excited.” He held up the bottle to make his point. He wanted to be numb. I could not know how that felt, but I understood.
“So I was told to find the priest, the first one of you because he is still here.”
“That’s my guess. You don’t seem very affected by this information by the way.”
“As I said… they call me Ben, and I look like him, but I’m not him.”
A tin
y hint of the previous fear came back to the man’s eyes at this.
“So who are you?”
“That was what Father Moreau was supposed to be able to help me with.”
“Maybe you remember him somehow. I certainly do,” Param volunteered with a wry smile. He drained the second bottle and put it on the table next to the others. “I have no idea what you are,” he added as he leaned back and folded his arms, “but I see you. The real you and you are not human. Every fiber of my body screams at me to run away when I lay eyes on you, even now. Like you’re a threat to every instinct I have that keeps me alive.”
That didn’t sound uplifting at all. “So I’m some sort of a monster?”
“Don’t know. Not a particularly homicidal one at least. I’m still alive, and you keep dragging that guy around with you.” He indicated the unconscious Peter. “Listen, I can’t tell you anything else. I don’t have the answers you want, but I might be able to send you somewhere you can get help. Maybe that’s why you came here in the first place?”
I sighed, the shoulders sagging unceremoniously as the body exhaled the air. I wanted so badly for this man to tell me what I needed to know so I could leave. Maybe it was never meant to be easy. Without some help, I would be stuck. I nodded my agreement. Perhaps the vision had been more cryptic than I thought despite the clear command.
“Even with all the dying people around me, there has always been a constant in my lives. Somewhere I can go when I start to remember.”
“The Foundation,” I said. “It is in your name after all.”
“That it is. The Winters have always been good to me. Helped me out even when things get bad.” His eyes darted to the bottles. “It’s an old company. One of the ancestors believed me. I knew him as Clement, and… he believed me when I came back.”
“The photos,” I said and pointed at them where they still lay on the floor.
Param nodded but didn’t pick them up. “When the technology came… well, it was an upgrade from paintings. Edward thought it would be good for me to remember what I looked like. Sometimes that’s true.”
“I went to WGI looking for you. They weren’t very helpful.”
“You must’ve met Saphia. She’s protective. Anyway, Winter himself has the contacts. He might be able to help you. I don’t want to promise anything though. Seems you’ve had one too many of those.”
“Yeah.” I stood and remembered Peter. “Thanks for your help, Param.” I grabbed Peter’s laptop and stuffed it into his satchel. “But I think I also need you to call me that cab while I get him out to the curb.”
After that, I would go alone to Winterland.
Chapter 31
The four white buildings loomed over me and everything else as I returned to Winterland. They seemed a little darker than the last time though. I glanced around and saw the streets were not as crowded as usual either. The parking lots outside the visitors’ building where almost deserted, and I saw no one go into the building itself. This did not bode well, I thought as I began walking toward the entrance.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” a female voice yelled. I looked around. Was someone shouting at me?
“Yes you, Ben Reed.”
I turned to see Detective Jones exiting her car and slamming the door shut before walking toward me at a brisk pace, her phone and car keys in hand. Her long hair fluttered behind her and had she worn a long coat instead of her short leather jacket, I’m sure it would have billowed in her wake.
I felt the eyes narrow a little on their own accord at the sight of her, and a pang of uneasiness in the stomach. What was she up to?
“Hello, Detective.” I saw to my silent satisfaction that this simple greeting angered her. She wanted answers. She was not alone in that.
“I asked what you’re doing here.” She stopped right in front of me as she stuffed her keys into her pocket.
“Am I not allowed to be here?”
“I am not in the mood for these types of comments, Reed. Just answer me properly.”
I seriously contemplated not saying a thing but knew she could make trouble for me. Anyway, she was hard to lie to. With the way she always watched people, she would probably know if I lied. I wasn’t particularly good at it yet.
“I’m here looking for someone.”
“Who?”
“How is that your business?” Guess I couldn’t help myself.
“Because I am here on my business, and if you’re involved—”
“How am I involved in your thing?” I noted her voice was back to its controlled self again. She wasn’t the type to yell unless there was a distance to overcome with noise.
“Mr. Reed, so help me God, if you—”
“I’m just looking for the head of this company.”
Jones blinked as she looked at me. Then she glanced over at the four white buildings as if to remind herself what company I was referring to.
“Mr. Winter?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
“I’ve been told he might be able to help me with my memory loss.”
Her eyes narrowed instantly. She still didn’t believe that. Of course, I had in a way been lying. Ben Reed did not have amnesia. I did.
“Explain,” she ordered. Was I a dog now? Who the hell knew, I thought darkly.
“Why are you so interested?”
“Because my case is connected to Mr. Winter, yet he has not been seen in days. And then you of all people come looking for him. I’m starting to sense a creepy factor.”
“What do you mean he hasn’t been seen?” I ignored her comment. “I need to talk to the man.”
Jones relaxed her stance, leaning more on one leg than the other, hands clasped around her phone in front of her. “Just fill me in, Mr. Reed,” she said, her voice revealing her exasperation. For some reason, I found that I did that. Not the whole truth of course. Only that a memory had led me to Param and he had steered me toward my current position. She listened intently and revealed no emotion as the words left me.
“So have you met Mr. Winter before? Since he can help you I mean?”
“No idea,” I said. It might not have been a lie after all. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. I just have to—”
The sound of her cell cut through the open space like a dull knife. She was so busy with her own thoughts she actually jumped at the noise. I waited patiently as she answered the thing, noting her swipe was far more elegant and efficient than my almost pressing the thumb through the screen. The call was short and to the point.
“Hello? Yeah. Not yet. She’s not there? You sure? Okay. I’ll find out. No. I promised Costa no circus. Fine.” And then she hung up. She stared at me with blank eyes as she stuffed the phone into her jacket pocket.
I raised both eyebrows in a disarming grimace. “Can I go now?”
She nodded curtly. Both of us got about five steps before realizing we were going the same way. “You can’t go in there now,” she said as we both kept walking, neither wanting to waste more time.
“Do you own the building, Detective?”
She didn’t answer me. Only stared ahead at our target.
“Am I even your murder suspect anymore?” I knew by now she had other leads, and she had never had enough on me to even bring me in for an interrogation. I might be new to this world, but some things were perfectly understandable. Also, I might have seen situations like these before. It certainly felt like it.
“No,” she admitted, her voice low and sharp. The word forced out. So much grudge in such a short word.
I sighed in relief and hoped it didn’t show. “Then there is no reason for me not to go in there and look for a missing person. Surely he’s not guilty of this murder?”
“No,” she repeated, though her voice was a little softer now.
I grabbed Old Ben’s wallet and got the press credentials out, showing them to her. “I might even be on an assignment. Finding the elusive owner of a large company. It’s not like you ca
n stop the press from doing its job?”
“Shut up, Reed.”
I smiled and stuffed the thing back into the jean pocket. After that, we walked with quiet steps to the large glass doors that led into the lobby of the main building. They did not slide aside for us.
“What the…?” I mumbled as I looked up along the doors. There was a sensor up there, but if it hadn’t detected us by now, raising our hands and jumping wouldn’t help.
“I was afraid of this,” Jones said as she looked around. She managed to find a panel with several buttons on the right side of the massive doors.
“Afraid of what?”
She pressed one of the buttons, and a buzzing noise came out of the loudspeaker. “It’s Sunday.”
I looked at her with no comprehension as to why this was important.
“People’s day off? Family day?” She rolled her eyes at me, as the buzzing noise continued. “You really did hit your head didn’t you?”
“What tipped you off, Detective?”
“Hello?” a voice crackled through the intercom.
“Yes, Hello. Detective Jones, to see Ms. Bishop?”
“Do you have an appointment?” I could almost hear the smile in that question and was reasonably sure I recognized the voice.
“She’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
“She’s not in. Try again tomorrow.” And then both the crackling and buzzing went dead.
“Ms. Bishop, huh? I met her. She’s not helpful,” I said.
Jones turned back toward me. “You think that was her?”
I shrugged. “Same tone as when I was last here.”
Jones actually smiled a little at that. Wonders did happen, I thought as it had to be the first time she was not wholly annoyed with me.
“Well, I can’t wait until tomorrow now,” she said as she began inspecting the doors. Nothing to see, I thought. Only large sliding panels of glass. Gliding panels that were stationary at the moment. “You don’t happen to have any bright ideas do you?” she said without looking at me. Instead, she was following the slight crack between the doors with her fingers, attempting to pry them open.