Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

Jordan was crossing the street toward them, smiling.

  “Please—” Lauren began, but Joan turned to her and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Call me if you need to. I’m listed.” Then, patting Lauren’s shoulder, she said, “Good luck. You’ll need it.” She waved at Jordan and smiled half-heartedly, then headed back to the diner.

  As Jordan approached and Joan went away, Lauren felt coldly alone, abandoned and trapped. She wanted to back away from Jordan and go—

  —where?

  He was all she had.

  He came to her side, gave her a husbandly peck on the cheek and took her hand as they began to walk. “So, did you learn anything?”

  Lauren was afraid that if she spoke, her voice would reveal her growing panic and her betrayal of their secrecy, but not responding would only be worse. “No. Nothing.”

  “Oh? Well, either she doesn’t know anything or she’s not talking, because I learned plenty.”

  She glanced at him and was disturbed by the contrast between the pleasant, calm expression on his face and his dark tone of voice.

  “For one thing,” he said, chuckling as if he were telling her about something amusing he’d seen earlier, “apparently these Alliance folks are not nice people.”

  7.

  “Is it necessary for you to be so affectionate?” Lauren asked testily, speaking the last word through clenched teeth. They were back in their hotel room, but earlier, outside, Jordan had spent a lot of time with his arm around her, holding her hand, stroking her hair and kissing her now and then on the head or cheek. She hadn’t liked it.

  “As a matter of fact, it is.” Jordan removed another shirt and some jeans from the closet, then turned to her. “A man who knows he’s being followed is likely to be preoccupied and anxious, not relaxed and affectionate with his wife. And a man whose wife has just watched someone die is likely to be very attentive and comforting. Okay? We’re trying to be convincing, remember?” He went into the bathroom to change.

  Lauren sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. He was right. Again.

  “Okay,” she said apologetically. “What now?”

  From the bathroom: “Now we take a romantic twilight tour of the hotel grounds. Guided if possible. Lots of smiling and nodding and admiring comments. And, you’ll be sorry to hear, more hand-holding.” He came out in jeans and a sport shirt. “We pay close attention to everything the guide shows us. Especially the places we’re not supposed to go.”

  “Why?”

  “So that later—” He smiled. “—I can go there.”

  Their guide’s name was Demi—early twenties, blond, wearing an Alliance emblem on the lapel of her blue blazer—and throughout the thirty-minute tour, she did not stop smiling once.

  “You picked the perfect time of day,” Demi chirped, clapping her small hands together once. She led them out of the lobby, saying, “As the sun sets, the lights come up and the grounds are so beautiful.”

  They’re all so happy, Jordan thought. And they were, all of them; not a single employee could be seen wearing less than a broad, white-toothed smile on his or her face and there wasn’t a hint of the rudeness, weariness or even indifference so often found in—and to be expected of—people who dealt constantly with the demanding, often cruel public.

  But why? he wondered. Why?

  With practiced patter and hand gestures that bordered on mechanical, she showed them the vast green behind the hotel—actually, it was a small park—scattered with bright patches of flowers and animal-shaped hedges—lions and bears, elephants and giraffes—a few trees, some benches, and a few tables and chairs beneath bright white umbrellas; in the middle of it all was a small pond with ducks floating lazily on the water. A few people strolled over the impeccable lawn or sat restfully at the tables with drinks.

  “And over there—” Demi gestured to the right, “—is our restaurant, the Crystal Unicorn, where we offer the finest dining in the area from four p.m. to midnight. The restaurant also provides twenty-four-hour room service for our guests, and that includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks and desserts.”

  She was a walking, talking brochure.

  The restaurant, castle-like in appearance with large rectangular windows through which Jordan could see diners huddling over candlelit tables, was connected to the hotel with a covered walkway. In front of the restaurant, rearing up on its hind legs, was an enormous, sparkling crystal unicorn. Adjoining the restaurant was a gift shop, its windows displaying shelves of crystal figurines of all shapes and sizes.

  Turning, gesturing, Demi said, “And to your left is our recreation and fitness center, available twenty-four hours a day to all of our guests. There’s an outdoor pool for summer and one indoors for winter, as well as a steam room, three Jacuzzis, a variety of Nautilus equipment and a handball court. And just beyond the building are four tennis courts.”

  This isn’t a hotel, Jordan thought, smiling and holding Lauren’s hand. It’s a country club.

  Demi faced them, joined her hands before her and cocked her head abruptly, chirping, “Tell me, Mr. and Mrs. Cusack. Do you enjoy art?”

  They glanced at one another, Jordan shrugged and said, “Yeah, sure.”

  She began leading them across the green, around the flowers and hedges, tables and benches, to a red-brick building on the other side. It resembled an old schoolhouse, except it wasn’t old and it was too big.

  As they went up the front steps, Demi said, “This is the Sleeping Lady Art Gallery, featuring the works of Ms. Thorne’s followers, all of whom live beyond this building in a colony nestled at the foot of Mount Shasta surrounded by untouched wooded land.”

  As they went inside the gallery, Jordan wondered if the tour would include the colony. He seriously doubted it.

  Inside, they roamed up and down rows of artwork, some quite beautiful, but most nothing more than what Jordan considered New Age bullshit: paintings of mystical landscapes with castles and unicorns and dragons, that sort of thing. There were mostly paintings, but also a number of sculptures and some pottery and ceramics.

  There was something odd about the work, though, the paintings in particular. It took a while for Jordan to pinpoint it, but after they’d been in the gallery for a while, it occurred to him.

  None of the paintings were signed.

  They strolled the aisles between the displays until they came to a section of small framed drawings, crude drawings, some watercolors, others in crayons, still more in pen or pencil. They were the works of children.

  Jordan saw trouble coming, knew it was a bad idea to linger on this section, and tried to quicken his pace when Lauren clutched his hand tightly and gave a stifled gasp.

  “C’mon,” he whispered. “Look at this over here, honey,” he said, leading her to a sculpture of an egg cracking open to reveal the planet Earth inside. But he knew it was too late.

  Something had set her off. Her hand still clutched his tightly and she seemed stiff, fighting back whatever had disturbed her so.

  They got through the rest of the gallery quickly, but without appearing in a rush, and Demi led them back outside.

  “Any questions?” Demi asked on the front steps.

  Jordan asked, “Is it okay if we take a walk through the woods back there?”

  Demi’s smile stumbled just a bit, but quickly recovered. “I’m afraid we don’t allow that. As I said, the woods are untouched, so there are no trails and it’s very easy to get lost. But there are plenty of woods to see in the area. And we provide trips to the mountain twice daily, where Ms. Thorne gives a full body channel.”

  “I see,” Jordan said, thinking, Figured as much.

  “Well, if you have no further questions,” Demi said, clapping her hands again, “I’ll leave you two alone. Feel free to roam the grounds and take advantage of the facilities. And I recommend dinner at the Crystal Un
icorn. The food is fabulous.” She gave them a finger-waggling wave, turned, and headed back across the grounds.

  As Jordan led Lauren down the steps, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Her voice was a harsh, pinched breath. “He’s here.”

  “What?”

  “Nathan. Huh-he’s here. I know it n-now.”

  “How?”

  “Two of those pictures in there. A crayon and a watercolor. I know it, I’m sure, I’m positive. They’re his. …”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because I know. I’ve seen his work before.”

  “They all look pretty much the same to—”

  “And do you have children? No. You notice things like that, you … I don’t know, you become familiar with the way your child does things and … and two of those pictures were his.”

  “Calm down until we get back to the room, okay?”

  “But I’m—”

  He squeezed her hand and she stopped as he turned back to the gallery. It was flanked by dark woods, tall green trees that towered above its red-brick walls. But there was something else, something he hadn’t noticed before.

  Just beyond the trees, easy to miss if one weren’t looking for it, was a concrete wall. It was about eight or nine feet tall, and although it was hard to tell because of the cover of the trees, it appeared to go all the way around the grounds.

  He’d found it.

  That was where they didn’t want him to go. …

  THREE

  MARVIN

  1.

  Driving his black Thunderbird onto the grounds of the Napa State Hospital, Marvin tried not to stare at the pathetic figures shuffling around on the grass. Some looked fine, while others chattered to no one and others picked at their clothes and hair and faces, while still others—the worst of the lot—limped and thrashed and jerked spastically as they walked through the shafts of morning sunlight shining down through the lush trees.

  Saddest of all was the speed and blindness with which life passed them by; the cars and motorcycles and trucks and buses that sped by in front of the hospital, the airliners and small planes and helicopters that flew by overhead, all oblivious of the men and women on the hospital grounds, living out their days locked inside their own minds, some twisted, others bent beyond the point of breaking, most heavily medicated and many simply gone, lost, living in worlds familiar to no one else, beyond anyone’s reach.

  He felt sorrow for them, but couldn’t stop the shudder that passed through him, the knowledge that it could happen so easily to anyone, to him; one false move by some infinitesimal, mutinous part of his brain and it was over, he was a goner, slobbering and picking or twitching and chattering. …

  He shuddered again as he parked the car.

  On his way into the hospital, a woman walked by, middle-aged, wearing a thin, smock-like dress; she was thin and a little hunched as she shuffled by him, glancing at him suspiciously and waving him away.

  “No, no,” she murmured, “don’t get him near me, don’t wanna see him, he’ll run all over me, mess up my dress, take him away, take it away, take it. …”

  And then she was gone, heading for the grass to join the others.

  He went to the front desk and smiled at the officious-looking woman seated there.

  “I’m here to see Michael Lumley,” he said.

  “Lumley.” She glanced at something on her desk. “Oh, yes. You’re the uncle, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Mm. Doesn’t get many visitors,” she said, looking him over. “No, I’m afraid not. Most of the family … well, you know how it is.”

  She nodded curtly, then gave him directions to another desk down a grey corridor where he could find someone to take him to Michael.

  At the second desk he met a hefty fellow dressed in white with short sleeves and a name tag on his shirt that read TED McCOY. Marvin introduced himself.

  “Oh, yeah, the uncle,” Ted said, checking a clipboard. “Kinda surprising, since he doesn’t get many visitors. Hell, no visitors. This way.”

  Marvin followed him down the grey corridor that smelled vaguely of urine and disinfectant. Through open doors, he heard the cold emotionless sounds of bureaucracy: telephones chirping, papers shuffling, computer printers burping up streams of paper.

  Around a corner, through a couple sets of swinging doors, the odor became stronger, the office sounds faded and Marvin found himself walking past more of the same people he’d seen outside. A young woman leaning against the wall stabbed an accusing finger at Marvin as he passed, her face twisted in anger, mouth working furiously but silently; an aging man smiled at him and said, “Hey, Phil, how’re the horses doin’?”; an old woman stooped down to pet an invisible animal, making dry kissing sounds with her lips.

  Ted spoke up: “You probably already know this, but Mike doesn’t say a whole lot these days. In fact, you’ll be lucky to get anything out of him. He may not even know you.”

  “I expected that.”

  Ted nodded toward a closed door, pushed it open and went in ahead of Marvin saying, “You’ve got a visitor, Mike. How about that, huh?”

  Marvin entered and saw Mike Lumley seated at his window.

  He was slouched in a worn green vinyl chair and wore standard hospital pajamas; his dark hair was uncombed but his beard and mustache were trimmed. He looked overly thin, with tendons taut in his neck, head bowed slightly but eyes open beneath bushy brows, staring through the barred window at the morning outside.

  Ted leaned down and scooted Mike’s chair to face Marvin. “See, Mike? It’s your uncle. He’s come to see you. Whatta you think of that, huh?” Ted’s voice rose slightly, as if he were talking to someone who was hard of hearing. When Mike gave no response—simply stared at nothing, unblinking—Ted turned to Marvin and shrugged. “See? Well, maybe you’ll have better luck with him. I’ll leave you two alone.”

  On his way out, he kicked the doorstop down, propping the door open, but Marvin immediately kicked it back up and said apologetically, “If you don’t mind, I’d like some privacy. It’s been a long time, you know.”

  “Yeah, sure thing.”

  Marvin closed the door, then watched Mike for a long moment, wondering how to start. Reaching into the inside breast pocket of his suit coat, he switched on the micro-cassette recorder; his tie tack was a microphone. He pulled a chair away from the wall and seated himself in front of Mike, leaned forward with elbows on knees and folded his hands.

  “Hello, Mike,” he said gently, smiling. “My name is Marvin Ackroyd. I’m, uh, I’m not—” He chuckled. “—I’m not your uncle, of course. Well, you know that. I just said that to get in here without having to answer a lot of questions.”

  Still no response. Mike’s eyes did not shift, not a single muscle in his face—his whole body—moved in the slightest.

  Marvin took a deep breath.

  “I need your help, Mike. You can help me by answering some questions. Just … just a few questions, that’s all. If you … if you would?”

  Nothing.

  “I need to ask you some questions about your wife.” A pause, looking for something, anything. “Your wife, Hester. Hester Thorne?”

  A long, long silent moment, then—

  —a tremble in the corner of his mouth, almost as if his lips were about to curl into a sneer, then—

  —a twitch in his right eyebrow and—

  —his eyes, for less than a heartbeat, met Marvin’s.

  Marvin leaned forward, expecting him to speak, but he only turned his head to the window slowly, very slowly.

  Doped up, Marvin thought, knowing that wouldn’t make things any easier. Now that he’d gotten some response, he spoke more seriously. “You see, Mike, I need to find out a few things about your wife. There’s not much out there, you know. In the news, I
mean … the magazines, the papers, TV. I need to find out some of the things that aren’t covered by the media. And I thought that, since you were married to her and you’d—”

  “Who sent you?”

  His voice was flat and quiet and thick, perhaps with fatigue or medication or even disuse, and it so startled Marvin that he jerked upright in his chair.

  “Wuh-well, um … well …” He was about to say, I’m not at liberty to divulge that information, the standard confidentiality response, but paused, thinking.

  How seriously did the staff at Napa State take Mike Lumley? When—and if—he spoke, how closely did they listen? What did they believe? After all, this man, according to the police records and newspapers Marvin and Jordan had trudged through before Jordan had left, had stabbed his mother several times, nearly killing her, apparently intending to kill his own wife, and had been a basket case ever since, going from the Vacaville Mental Facility to this hospital, where he had apparently taken to staring out the window and speaking to no one, showing no emotion, no response to anyone or anything.

  If he told Mike something that got as close to the truth as he could safely get, Marvin might have a better chance of getting information from him; and if Mike told anyone about it, who would believe him?

  “Well, Mike,” he said, “I can’t name any names, I’m not allowed to do that, but I will tell you this. I’m working for someone very, very important who is interested in finding out as much as possible about your wife and her, um, her … organization?” he asked uncertainly.

  “The Alliance,” Mike said without looking away from the window.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “What … is this person … lookin’ for?”

  “Well, more specifically, who is this person looking for. It seems someone very close to my client disappeared while seeking information about the Alliance. This person disappeared on a visit to Grover. And my client is anxious to find out where this person is and whether or not this person has been harmed.”

  Mike stared out the window awhile. His thick eyebrows huddled together over the bridge of his nose. “They’re dead.”