by Nick Keller
He’d also procured a plain desk, new computer, internet and phone lines, a client couch. He even bought a cheaply painted mural of L.A. he’d hung on the wall over his desk. Getting any shop up-and-running was a financial burden, and a full time job, but hey, it was the American dream, right?
There was a tiny one-room apartment upstairs, and he’d basically moved in, furnishing it with a frame bed, a dresser and TV. It was a threadbare existence but it didn’t matter. No one ever came over.
Bernie parked around back between a forklift owned by the bazaar and a tin-sided building. This was his backyard. It was all concrete and wrought iron fencing. He went in through the rear exit and stopped at the narrow stairway that went up into his living space. He took the first stair, but stopped and went back down into the hallway. At the far end was his office. He looked at his wristwatch.
Not even noon yet.
Grumbling, he took the first stair again, but stopped a second time. He went back into the hall looking toward his office.
Downstairs office or upstairs apartment? Downstairs office or upstairs apartment?
He stood there, completely baffled. He honestly didn’t know where to go, didn’t know where he belonged. So he sat on the stairway. He could hear his own breath in the quiet. This is how far he’d come. An entire life spent on chasing breadcrumbs to nowhere, until the entire culmination of all his moments put him here, sitting on the stairs, unable to so much as decide on where to go in his own space. For six weeks he’d been moving into this place, acquiring the right financial backers, securing all his ordinances, cleaning the place up, painting the exterior wall, ordering the right office furniture. And why? What was it all for? He was just spinning his wheels, putting on a show, making the world happy. But what about himself? He didn’t belong here. He damn sure didn’t want to be here.
He rubbed his lips, scratched his head. God, he needed a drink. He needed to elbow up to a bar. He needed some peace of mind. But most of all, he needed his woman back from the grave.
Surprisingly, he heard his front door open and close. He craned his neck to look down the hallway. Someone had just entered his office. He was sure they’d be mightily impressed. He got up and moved to greet them. Stepping in he came to an abrupt stop not sure if he was excited to see Captain Heller standing there or not. Captain Heller bore the same expression on his face. He laid a manila folder on the desk and said, “Hello, Bernie.”
“Cap?” he said, taking his position behind his desk, but not sitting down. Not yet.
Heller looked around nodding his head. “So, this the new digs?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah—real plush.”
Heller moved to a small coffee pot sitting on a file cabinet and lifted the pot. “This for guests?”
“Go ahead,” Bernie said.
Heller poured and sipped. “No cream and sugar this time?”
“No,” Bernie said. He’d given up sugar in the mornings. Doctor’s orders. He just didn’t have it in him to explain it.
“Okay,” Heller said. “So, I heard you were setting up shop. Had to come see for myself.”
“Here it is,” Bernie said.
“And the house?”
Bernie grunted—you mean the house my woman was murdered in as I lost my fucking sanity? “On the market.” He thumbed to the ceiling. “I’m upstairs.”
Heller said, “Well, it’s streamlined.”
“Yeah.”
Heller put the coffee cup down on the desk. “How’s business?”
“Haven’t opened for business yet. Next week.”
“That’s good news, Bernie.”
“Chasing stolen purses, scoping out cheating hubbies—can’t wait.”
Heller went to the large front window and parted the blinds to look out. “It’s something. Could lead to more.”
“Really save the world.”
Heller flicked the blinds closed and turned around. “You belong in the saddle, Bernie.”
“I’m a cop.”
Heller clicked his tongue, looked down. “Yeah, I’m real sorry about that. Did what I could. Wasn’t enough this time.”
“Yeah, I know,” Bernie said through a film of hard feelings. “Pruitt probably gave our new comish a hand job under his new desk. He had it in for me.”
“What’re you going to do?” Heller said, testing.
Bernie shrugged, said, “Fuck ‘em.”
“Maybe it’s better that way.”
Bernie gave him a sideways look. “Is that why you came here, Cap? You worried for Pruitt?”
Heller asked seriously, “Should I be?”
“Jesus, Cap, it’s been six months.”
“Long enough to simmer.”
Bernie said half-angrily, “Ain’t nothing going to happen to Pruitt. Assholes like that retire fat and happy, collect their retirement pensions for twenty years before they keel over. You know that.”
“You’re probably right,” Heller capitulated.
“Then why are you here?” Bernie asked. “Just checking up on me, is that it?”
Heller took a big breath and paced one way, then the other. Something was on his mind. It made Bernie squint at him. He finally said, “Mark Neiman’s missing, Bernie.”
Bernie frowned, not sure how he felt about that. “Missing.”
“You don’t watch the news?’
“No.”
“Read the papers?” Heller asked.
“No. How long?” Bernie said, getting to the point.
Heller rubbed the grizzle on his chin. “A week. It’s full-scale.”
“Huh,” Bernie grunted. “Any leads?”
“They’re being explored.” Heller cocked his head suspiciously. “You don’t seem overly surprised.”
Bernie chuckled bitterly. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it—exploring a lead.”
“Are you saying you haven’t seen him?”
“You think I’m a suspect,” Bernie said, his voice growing.
“I’m just asking questions, Bernie—Jesus!” The old Heller, finally. “You know the drill. You and him weren’t exactly bosom buddies. Leads, man—that’s all it is.”
“I haven’t seen him since I left, Cap, and you know it.”
“Do I?” Heller said.
Bernie shot him a curious, insulted look.
Heller said, “I talked to Doctor Weisman. Secured an investigations disclaimer.”
“You’re asking questions behind my back?” Bernie said with a growl. “What’d that little weasel tell you? Did he tell you he personally referred me to the bank, got me a loan?”
“Yeah, as a matter-of-fact he did. Says you’re mending nicely. Says the sooner you get back in the world, the better.”
In the ensuing pause, everything cooled. Bernie assumed quietly, “You disagree.”
Heller picked up the file folder from Bernie’s desk and showed it to him. “Says here you’ve displayed all the signs of …”
“Awe, fuck!” Bernie sneered, swiping a hand at him, pissed off. “Yeah, I called the hotline, I’ve done the anonymous group-talk bullshit. It’s real chatty. I know what signs I’m displaying. Look, I don’t know where he is, okay. I don’t know what he’s into, and honestly I don’t give a good goddamn.” He laughed out loud and said, “You got any stolen cars you want to question me about?”
“You don’t have to like it, Bernie, but I still got a job to do,” Heller shouted back.
“That’s grand, that’s just grand!” Bernie said, moving to his door, and jerking it open.
Heller didn’t take his cue. He stood his ground with a frustrated look on his face. “I thought maybe you’d want to know.”
Bernie gave him a nod. “Now I know.”
Heller sighed. There was nothing else to say. He stepped out brushing past him and said, “Take care of yourself, Bernie.”
Bernie watched him move away down the sidewalk, with a sudden spear of sadness sticking him through
the chest. He called, “Cap.” Heller turned around. “The answer’s no.”
“No to what?”
“You asked me if I was surprised at all.” He shook his head. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”
28
Asphyxiation
William woke up groggy, the vague stench of rotting onions still lingering in his nostrils. The last thing he remembered was watching Graves roll Mark Neiman’s body off the table and hearing it smack gruesomely on the concrete floor. He had heard him drag the body away, fading into the darkness of the warehouse. Afterward, two powerful arms pinned him to the floor from behind smothering him with a towel. It was soaked in a thiopental concoction, thus the reek of onions. Then he woke up.
He shook his head forcing himself to come fully conscious. He was no longer chained to the concrete boulder. He was now strapped to an operation table at the wrists and ankles. He jerked his body weight. The table either didn’t have casters on it, or they were in a locked position. He couldn’t move it an inch, couldn’t hardly budge at all.
William inspected the surroundings. That towering water tank sat off to the left. It smelled like moss and grime. There were windows way overhead through which sunlight filtered in. Some of those windows were busted out, and right across the parking lot was an entire subdivision of homes. Someone had to be out on the street, playing jump rope, checking the mail, taking a jog, whatever. Someone would hear him.
He took an enormous breath and let loose a thunderous call for help, but just as before, no sound came out. His throat was numb. Apparently, Graves had given him some local anesthetic that temporarily paralyzed his vocal cords.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. All he could do was lay there, trapped in a very real web like the nameless, faceless people in his dreams, locked down against their will, seeing their fate approach. He had become one of his own victims.
A noise grabbed his attention and he lifted his head to see. Graves was over there with his back to him, hunched over his desk, snarling like a mad animal. He twitched, like he was agitated, plying a surgical tool around in one hand and pulling at his own hair with the other, as if some thorn in his brain were wiggling its way deeper in between the folds of his gray matter. He spoke in snarls, his words laced with schizophrenia.
“Doctors, always with the cutting and the slicing, always with words and words. What do they know. Blank brain. Muddy bloody things!” He punched the table. The whole place rattled. “Useless. Motherless. Godless!”
William stared at him feeling the icy grip of terror take him. This was not the man he’d spoken to before. That man had been a markedly intelligent person, well voiced despite his appearance. What William stared at now was more than hideous. It was monstrous.
“They tried to revive me,” Graves cried. “They tried everything, but they failed. Failures, all of them. Goddamn doctors!” He heaved and snorted like a swine. “They said I died. Died right there on the table.” He smashed a hand on the desk rattling the computer. “Stupid doctors!”
William flinched rattling the table. Graves spun around with horrified mania etched across his face. “No! The patient—the patient’s alive. Don’t let him see you this way. Idiot. Idiot!” He reached for a Velcro pouch on an adjacent desk and ripped it open revealing a row of syringes. It made William shrink and fight against the restraints. He tried to scream but only the lower registry of his voice would contract. Nothing came out but a whisper.
Graves slipped one of the syringes out of the pouch, popped the safety cap off the needle, thumped it once and jammed it into his own arm. His head rolled back as he depressed the plunger. Dropping the needle away he reacted as if a great surge of pain took him at the point of entry and he gripped his arm rolling his fist back and forth. When it passed he blinked and looked up. His breath normalized. His eyes slowly brightened. The human being underneath the monster reemerged. He took a long breath, relieved and muttered, “I’m sorry about that. I—I don’t know what you heard, but, I am sorry.”
William didn’t respond, only looked at him.
“My condition—it affects the personality center,” he said, indicating his brain. “I control it, though. I keep it down. You needn’t be afraid of the monster.”
“Doctor Graves?” William murmured.
He offered a defeated smile and rested down on a surgeon’s stool. “Yes. I was once,” he responded dolefully.
“You were once?” William said.
Graves chuckled and nodded his head. “Well, let’s not be melodramatic. Of course I’m still the man that once was. In many ways, I was always what you see. Time knew it. Fate knew it. Perhaps, I didn’t. But all things are revealed in truth, wouldn’t you say?”
“And the police officer, the other man—had he always been destined to die here, in this place, at your hand?”
Graves chuckled again, perhaps happy for the conversation. “Some would say yes. Others would say no. What would you say?”
“No.” William fought to get free again, but to no avail.
“So you don’t believe in fate and all that.”
William shook his head. His fate had been sealed at birth—the son of a killer, the offspring of a murderer. But he’d spent his life denying that impulse, shedding it away. Fate? No. There was no such thing.
Graves leaned over and picked up the syringe from the floor, now empty. Regarding it, he admitted, “It’s a witch’s brew. I made it myself. Haldol and Klonopin with one part Lithium for mood stabilization. Fast acting. You won’t find a prescription for it, except right here.” He plopped it aside.
“Pituitary cancer,” William said.
Graves tilted his head, impressed. “Ah, very good. Very good, in deed. Yes, I’m afraid so. It’s a strange one, and I’m afraid my case is stranger still. It tells you where to hurt. Tells you where to change. In extreme cases—in my case—it tells you what to think, how to see things. It tells you how to process the world. They call it Pituitary cancer. It’s not, my friend. It’s mind cancer. Rapes you from the inside. Pillages your balance. Robs your thought.” He broke out into hysterical laughter until a rope of drool lowered from his mouth and fell away. He calmed and sat up straight on the stool looking at William with a deep, profound sensibility. “You know this madness, don’t you? I know who you are. Yes, you’re a unique one. You don’t need cancers and glandular maladies. You only need your genetics. Am I right?”
William turned his head away, looked the other direction.
“Your reticence is answer enough. Your secret is known.”
William looked back, indignant. “It was never a secret.”
“Perhaps not something you discussed at prom, though.” He snickered.
William looked slowly away again. Graves had done his homework while William lay unconscious on the table.
Graves said, “Fathers are funny things, aren’t they? Our love for our fathers is matched only by our hatred of them, wouldn’t you say? Maybe it’s a design flaw planted within our basic human construction. Or maybe it’s not a flaw at all. Maybe it’s design’s perfect plan. After all, our fathers teach us both love and hate—for who, if not our fathers, could ever be more like ourselves?”
Graves’s voice lowered and he stared directly forward being pulled by something invisible. “My father was a cruel man. He hated imperfection. Hated it. So, how could he ever love a child? I gained my father’s love only by being perfect—perfect behavior, perfect in school, perfect for the world to see. There was a price, and I paid it. All the provocative matters of life. Friends, imperfect. Women, imperfect. Wants and desires, doubly so. And there I was, a sack of impulses designed to punch and kick and fuck, yet commanded to heel, all the time, heel. And look at me now. Look at me. I am without impulse. I am cleansed of all such needs, sanitized by my father’s hand. And yet perfection still eludes me. I am a monster, a disgusting thing. I am a wretch. Would my father love what he sees, or would he hate it?” Graves became lost in his dreamy thought before sn
apping up, back to the here and now. “What about your father? The great and notorious Oscar Erter. Wasn’t he the same?”
William drew in a big breath and said, “No.”
“It wasn’t like that at all?”
“No.”
Graves gave him an interested look. “Your father never showed you the meaning of hate?”
William gave him a bitter frown. His words were designed to stab Graves, to injure him. He said, “I love my father.”
Graves stared at him, that one perfect eye beginning to sparkle with tears. William couldn’t tell if he was satisfied or conflicted. “I see,” Graves said. “I see. And now you treat it like a weapon. You wound me, William. You wound me.” His hands went to his face, a landscape of crags and broken boulders. “Is this not enough that you mock my pain?”
William forced a swallow realizing he’d angered his torturer. In his own defense he muttered, “The question was yours to ask, Doctor. And mine to answer.”
Graves made an insulted sound like, “Huh,” and stepped forward to stand over William. Slowly, he reached down and pinned William’s head to the table. “Then teach me what you learned.” Graves reached under the head of the table and brought up another leather strap. Like a noose, he slid it over William’s throat and pulled it taught. William struggled suddenly, but he was helpless, pinned flat on his back, unable to move. Graves secured the strap underneath the table feeding the tongue through a small cog device with counter rotating wheels, both attached to a small cylinder piston and a motor. William’s teeth clenched.
Graves stepped away holding a switch device. A cord attached it to the motor. “I want to learn from you. I want you to teach me like a father.” He paused, that one good eye dancing in thought, and said, “No. Like a brother.” He flipped the switch. A tiny whirring noise emitted from the underside of the table as the rotating wheels began feeding the strap through their teeth. Immediately, William could feel the noose around his neck slowly begin to tighten. He wrenched his body one way, then the other. The table rocked underneath him. Graves had to put his hands on it to stabilize it, keep it from spilling over.