Little God Blues

by Jeffrey M Anderson

  She looked at me, dead serious now. “The neurological effects of cocaine…‌it’s like one is leaning over. All it requires is a little push in the right direction and it’s to the floor.”

  “To the floor,” I couldn’t help repeating, shocked.

  She gave me a quick, crinkled nose. “Cocaine is an ideal delivery system; you can mix anything into it. You must understand…‌this was only conceptual. Two clever people trying to out-Christie old Agatha.”

  “Would it be…‌quick?” I was thinking of Kirk.

  “It would be spectacular. Time, well, that wouldn’t matter. You know that phrase from the sixties, ‘blow your mind’? I think it would be like that. A final, dazzling fireworks show.”

  She took a sip of her tea now. There was no ease or comfort between us. Maybe when she had students here, when she was in control, her subjects, her house. Now, she was the one angling for a passing grade. She refilled our cups.

  “This was in 1995. Francine came back last August wanting her Vial.” She pronounced that last word bitterly. “The book project was back on. Her publisher wanted to see the concoction. ‘What?’ I’d said, ‘they want to send it to a lab?’ I’m not certain I believed any of this, but the way Francine asked, putting our, our friendship on the line…‌well, it’s always been difficult to say no to her.”

  I started to interrupt.

  “Please! Please let me get this over with. Just accept this for now.” She went quiet for a long second, as if shocked at this new, more assertive self, liking it, wondering what her life could have been like. “You can’t imagine what it feels like to be responsible for such a thing.”

  “Do you have any idea why—”

  “Francine?” she interrupted, then shook her head for her own benefit. “She knew the danger. It couldn’t have been an accident.” She came up, blinking hard. “I only had it for a few days. It’s like having a loaded gun pointed at you. It changes everything. All of a sudden you have this easy option. It adds a trill to the blood, a little acid to the gut, shallower breaths. Have you ever been in a restaurant near someone famous? You can’t help constantly going back to that face? You’re constantly aware of where it is, how few steps it would take to be near it. Of course you would only be making certain it’s safe. Do you trust yourself at close range? Maybe you’ll take it out, just to ensure it’s all there. You want to look at it, see the color and texture. Snow white, a bit fluffy, a pillow to lay your head on. Your heart is pounding now, you can hear it in your ears. Your life so suddenly…summarized. You can see that texture better out of its plastic bag, like here in your hand. You raise that hand to a few inches from your nose out of sheer devilry. Where does that come from? Is that part of you? You tell yourself you’re in control, just playing, you have no intention of moving your hand any closer. You notice that, involuntarily, you’re breathing haltingly; someone in there wants to play it safe. You put the drug back in its bag, then away. Your heart is beating madly.

  “You find it difficult to sleep. You don’t want it near; you can’t risk having it not near. It would be just like fate to hand you one of those million-to-one accidents. Some delinquent breaks in looking for cash, rifles everything, finds this added bonus. Seventeen. Bang. Dead.

  “You wake up that second morning not having slept all that well, thanks to that poison. Morning follows morning. You start dreaming of a good night’s sleep, something deep and luxurious and long. No! You’re pulled up short; not ‘forever’ long. Oh, it wears, it abrades until you crave any kind of sleep. Yes, you are close to submitting.

  “I had a friend at university, here, in my student days. God knows why I’m telling you all this, but I guess I am. Why must I be so evasive?” It was like she was whipping herself with words now. “We were, you know? Lovers.” She spat that word out. “My one serious time. Dreamy, tentative, smart, not fully engaged with our world. Alistair used to quote Nietzsche. I can’t remember the exact words: The thought of suicide brings such comfort; it has helped me through many a bad night. Words to that effect. We broke up, got back together, broke up again. When it was ‘yes’ the ‘no’ screamed at us, and vice versa.” She trailed off into reflection here.

  I kept quiet. I guessed there was more.

  “He hanged himself.” Her upper teeth worked her lower lip, her eyes on the floor.

  “That was thirty years ago; Francine less than thirty days. It’s his that hurts the most. I’ve never recovered from it.” She tried for a sip of tea but her cup was empty, as was the pot.

  She crossed her trousered legs the other way. She had a way of running her arms parallel to the fluted wooden arms of her ornate chair as if expecting huge G-forces.

  “Francine? Was it always fiction? Or did she tell you the real reason she wanted that drug?”

  “The first time in ’95 I did think it was purely fictional. Last year it was rather obvious it was a game. She knew I knew. But she also knew how, how…‌unpredictable I can get. So she gave me a way out. She was astute like that. She told me her book was about an oppressed friend who needed a last resort, some form of self-defense, against a tyrannical monster. The Big Bad Wolf. Oh, she played up that part all right.”

  “We’re not all wolves, Dr. Drysdale.”

  She nodded in a vaguely affirmative way, unconvinced. We sat quietly for a while in the murky, east-facing living room, the chill winter evening only poorly conquered by the meek lights in this room, the weak heat from her radiators. It was time to turn her face toward the mirror.

  “Francine,” I started. “You think she succumbed to the black seduction of your drug?”

  “It could defeat anyone.”

  “What about Kirk Howell?”

  “Who, who is he?”

  “Francine didn’t tell you about Kirk?”

  “We don’t talk as much as we used to. And now…”

  “You must have seen her about the Vial. Something like September?”

  “That was dirty business. It didn’t exactly promote long follow-up calls.”

  For the briefest of seconds I considered holding back on Kirk. No, that wouldn’t work. Absent this woman, he would be alive.

  “Kirk died of…” my voice betrayed me here, went quivery, “from the same two drugs as Francine. I know they met.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would Francine want to kill him? Who was he?”

  I was shocked. That possibility had never crossed my mind.

  I asked, “Can it be an accident? Can you eat this compound instead of snort it?”

  “No, our perfect murder device would need to be recalibrated to get past the acids in the digestive system.” She read my frown and continued. “Recalibrated means significantly stronger doses. Insufflation, your snorting, only needs a much more subtle dose to be effective.” There was a moment of quiet before she asked, “Who is Kirk?”

  I told her. My hunch was it had to be an accident. I couldn’t see how, though. I went on to tell her about my murder comment and its possible effect on Francine.

  “Poor Francine,” she said. “She had her depressions; she did well to hide them. The dark night of the Russian soul. It’s like a disease she caught over there.”

  I said, “I thought it was love gone wrong. There’s nothing uniquely Russian about that.” I wasn’t sure she had heard me, her reaction was so opaque. “You know, a diplomat? Moscow?” I avoided adding Hardcastle’s name by instinct.

  “Love,” Dr. Drysdale said, shaking her head. It was even darker in this room if that was possible. It had been dark outside when I’d arrived; the same lights were on. It had to be a matter of perception. We listened to the metallic tick of her radiator. A woman next door briefly yelled, “Stop that right now!” Then all was quiet again.

  Still nothing. I went for a prod. “There’s her abortion. That would provoke her soul.”

  “Please!” I waited for her to continue. She did. “The end of an annoying problem. A get-out-of-ja
il-free card. That’s how you men see it. Some of you understand the physical trauma, a few the violation, but mostly you’re too busy skipping down the street thinking ‘dodged that one’.”

  I guessed there was a point coming.

  “All that fades yet something else grows, that gnawing what-might-have-been, the ghost child, ghost teen. You get the idea.”

  It was true that only now, for the first time, I thought of the other path. The child, for some reason it had to be a boy, would be Kirk’s age. Not only Kirk’s age, but the same father. Something large, ominous, in need of consideration was darkening my thoughts. I pushed it aside; there would be time for that on the train back to London.

  “You’re saying it’s murder? Abortion?” I asked, surprised.

  “No, I’m not saying that. Those dark, haunting echoes are similar though.”

  Now was not the time to digress to opinions and philosophy. “The police don’t know about your compound yet. I’ll have to tell them if they ask.”

  She was quick enough to understand I had kept the police away from her. For maybe the tenth time I tried to like her. I was also thinking about the police. Kirk’s and Francine’s deaths were closed, ruled as undetermined and suicide, therefore dealt with. With Claudia there was no body. Possibly, they wouldn’t follow up.

  “A hundred times I’ve told myself, if only, if only, Catherine…” She swallowed. “If only you could live in the same world as everyone else. Me, I live under the power of a cruel god—I’m talking figuratively here. I get up and he knocks me down again. Over and over. He finds it funny that I keep wanting to get up. It’s one’s weakness, and I suppose—one’s strength.”

  It was time to go. I’d had enough of her self-flagellation. At her door, Catherine Drysdale smiled weakly, the lightness of the confessed, the neediness of the dependent. Her fate was all on me now.

  CHAPTER 22

  I repaired to a pub on the way to the train station, ordered a Kirk Howell special, and found a window table in the winter gloom. I was nearly there now. My head was buzzing with facts, suppositions, revelations and confessions. I kept coming back to Drysdale’s description of what it was like to possess that drug, this sleek, black limo idling outside, ever ready to whisk you away to see the fireworks one final time.

  A shot of Jack was enough to escort me out of this graveyard, into a normal life of pub chatter and football highlights up on the wall. On the road Kirk and I would occasionally watch football in a bar in a strange town. Neither of us was all that interested, but what can you do on a snowy Sunday in Detroit? Yes, Kirk. I was getting closer to his story, even as he receded into the uncertain circuitry of memory. Did Francine know that Hardcastle was Kirk’s father? Did Kirk?

  I started writing out a narrative in that pub, wrote more on the train back to London, finished it the next afternoon. It was a speculative exercise that attempted to tie all of the facts, strands, loose ends and theories into one cohesive story of what had transpired between our two protagonists, Francine and Claudia.

  1995. Claudia has been gently nagging Francine about writing her third book. Her reputation alone ensured solid sales. Claudia will give her the motivational speech, a scaled-down version of the one she gives to all of her insecure authors. She’s had a lot of practice.

  Then as an “oh by the way” Claudia mentions a man she’s met. You can see the stars in her eyes. Francine, you have a lot of Russian connections, possibly you’ve heard of him, Constantine Lyubanov?

  For Francine, it’s like being thrown into an ice bath. She knows all about Lyubanov. She needs to warn her benefactor and friend. She does that obliquely, careful to respect those stars.

  I know a Lyubanov; let me check. The one I know is charming, intelligent, courteous and as dangerous as a nest of vipers. Can’t be the same one.

  They exchange a look. Claudia knows exactly what Francine is doing: her main reason, subconscious though it is, for mentioning Lyubanov is so that one part of her can force another part to confront her suspicions. There is a passing off here: Francine knows Claudia has taken in her Lyubanov warning and will do with it what she will.

  It all starts to go wrong, just as Francine could have predicted. Lyubanov finds out about Claudia’s money, or has known about it all along. He is subtle, intelligent, patient and evil. The first application of pressure is gentle. He knows he is capable of succeeding on charm and solicitousness alone. Besides, it cements their relationship. He starts by joking about running away together. When that doesn’t work, the pressure starts. He is a trained operative: never leaves any traces, impossible to substantiate any malicious assertions about him.

  It gets worse and worse. This is in 1995. The details are impenetrable, but no less desperate for that.

  It is no longer possible for Claudia to pretend that Lyubanov is anything other than evil. She is desperate, but Lyubanov doesn’t make mistakes, never leaving any sign of his presence. Claudia has no way of proving anything. She is like the straggling lamb with this supremely confident wolf trotting nearby, enjoying the smell of fear in the air.

  It is now that Francine comes to Claudia with her perfect murder project. They both know what Francine is obliquely suggesting. Thrust and parry. Francine proposes self-defense, and yes, this could lead to murder; Claudia parries with something less drastic.

  It’s all heading toward an uncertain, tense denouement when Lyubanov is arrested, tried and jailed. It’s all too neat. Framed? Hardcastle? Yes, Francine could have gone to Hardcastle. This would have been in 1995, the year Hardcastle retired, so just possible.

  Three years pass. Francine’s book on Russian gangsterism is published, a muted success. She has talked to Claudia about a memoir: “my days in the evil empire.” Her true motive: Hardcastle, a quiet British hero ever in the background. She would sing his praises. In doing so, she would shine a spotlight on our reluctant hero.

  How committed is she to her memoir? Well, she started the research, so says the Iken file, and Lucian Gee. An obvious first step would be to interview Hardcastle, now retired. It’s been several years since last time, when she went to him about Lyubanov. They talk about the old times. She is shocked at Hardcastle’s fading acuity and unreliable memory. She thinks back to those enchanted months in Moscow when she was in love with him. To those “when I’m fifty he’ll be sixty-five” warnings that she had swatted away. Now she is there, and more. How fast!

  Had she planned to reveal the abortion? Yes or no, Hardcastle’s doddery state earns him a reprieve. It is a relief to avoid confronting Hardcastle’s galling ignorance of what Francine had gone through. Her lonely decision, how it shut her off from her youth too early, from the screaming promise that would have been their progeny. An absence that echoed and howled from another, more rightful, world.

  Francine doesn’t mention the abortion, but she can’t let him off completely. When the questions are about their time in Moscow, she will hit him with something not direct, but not far from it. Something like, “I was so naive in those days. I can’t believe we never used any protection.” She had heard about his reputation afterwards, his amorality. He was highly intelligent, ditto his paramour, so why not let the babies come when they will? Didn’t the world need more intelligent people? So she followed up her first question with a second. “You must have a lot of little Hardcastles running around.” Now not so little. Worryingly, Hardcastle, doesn’t understand. “Are you the father of any children?” Just another interview question.

  We can’t know that answer. Maybe lots. Hardcastle mentions a son. He mentions a date. Says something about Hawaii. No more. Clearly he has not kept up with those early details.

  Now, in 2001, the noose jerks back in place. Lyubanov is out. The pressure starts again, so instantly dreadful and vivid. It will all be so indirect. Lyubanov can slip into any locked building. Claudia comes home from work one day to find a strange newspaper (but the one she reads) on her dining room table opened
to a page on which there is a small article about Lyubanov being let out. Natalie’s house is broken into. Long days later Natalie’s beret appears in Claudia’s flat in a way that can’t be down to Natalie, placed, obvious. Wasn’t there the night before. My God, he’s been in here while I slept. Worse, he’s stood over her sleeping daughter.

  She can hardly go to the police about a beret that should be in her flat, just elsewhere. Claudia gets her locks changed. Lyubanov waits, lets that absence create its own tension, lets her feel safe. Then it starts again: footsteps above her in a flat she knows is empty. They will be ominous, psychologically destroying. Disembodied, purposeful, so intermittent that she spends hours waiting for the next ones.

  Claudia knows Jack Ross via Wormsleigh, suggests Ross rents out that flat; her only interest is keeping Lyubanov out of it. Jack Ross knows his friend Wormsleigh could use the rent money, tries with Kirk, who is on his way over.

  It’s the end game. Francine knows this, knows how to negotiate. You don’t ask Claudia to think about it, that conceptual waffling; no, you put it out there, as in here, take it, grab it, grab back your life. It’s time to whip out the cash and close the deal. Here, take this, here, this vial—take back your life. Here. In this way Francine goes to her friend Dr. Catherine Drysdale and obtains the Vial contents.

  Francine discovers the potion has a siren call of its own: this agent of a perfect murder, this vial. She knows from Catherine Drysdale that to ingest this line would mean certain death, an ultimate high that keeps mushrooming, a chain reaction of firing neurons, a firework that flares up, flowers out and fades away into black night.

  That vial brings such liveliness, expands as her world shrinks. Each time she holds it, a hitch in her breath and a knock to her heart. It’s a switch, a portable Might Have Been, a piece of the void. It is immediate excitement, an instantly accessible possibility, to hold your own life, balance it in your hand, heft it. Consider. To surrender your life, not to another, but to yourself. Yes, surrender to this piece of the void. Physicists now postulate that this void is anything but that: it is a black soup of extreme potential, full of dark matter, churning energy and untold dimensions, so wildly unpredictable that at any point it might burp up a universe. A black nutrient broth containing unfathomable surprise.