Prophet of Bones A Novel

by Ted Kosmatka

  The windows were dark. Nothing stirred. Up and down the block, people slept in their beds, oblivious to the world outside their locked doors.

  At Charles’s front door, Paul stopped. He listened. He put his ear to the door. Nothing.

  He knocked.

  A few seconds passed with no sound.

  No shuffle of feet.

  The door didn’t open.

  Paul knocked again, louder this time.

  Again, nothing.

  He turned to leave, but in the dim glow cast from a streetlight he noticed the bootprint planted in the lower middle of the door. He noticed then, too, the jamb was slightly askew, as if somebody had closed the door, and then somebody else had it kicked in.

  Paul tried the knob.

  The doorknob didn’t turn, but the door swung inward, broken from the jamb.

  He pushed inside. The door made a soft thud as it coasted into the doorstop.

  Absolute darkness.

  “Charles!” he called out, moving into the entranceway.

  There was only silence.

  “Charles, it’s Paul. Your door wasn’t locked.”

  His hand fumbled at the wall, searching for a light switch. He found one, and the living room burst into view. He moved deeper into the apartment but saw nothing out of place. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Charles, are you okay? I’m just here to check on you.”

  Every book neatly in its shelf. The room neat and tidy.

  Perhaps Charles was just out for the evening.

  A late-night stroll. A trip to the movies.

  But, of course, these suppositions all felt wrong. It was nine P.M. Paul would have bet his life savings that Charles hadn’t seen a movie in ten years. And late-night strolls could be dangerous. Charles would never have done that.

  Of course, talking to Paul had been the real danger.

  In the kitchen were the drawings from earlier. The birds. Only here was the first indication of something strange. Most of the drawings were stacked on the table, like during his visit, but a few had fallen to the floor. In the middle of the linoleum was a large torn drawing. Paul bent and picked it up. Only half a bird—the missing piece cut a jagged wound across the bird’s upper torso. The top half was missing. Paul looked around the kitchen but couldn’t find the other half of the drawing.

  He moved down the hall, toward the bedrooms. “Charles!” he called again, though he’d lost hope of hearing a response. Now he only prayed that Charles wasn’t home. He pushed open the first door. The bedroom was clean and tidy, the bed neatly made.

  Paul made a quick glance into the hall bathroom, which was empty, and then moved finally to the second bedroom. The last door. He turned the knob and pushed the door open. He flipped the light on.

  He flipped it back off again.

  He closed his eye. He breathed, trying to unsee.

  The second bedroom had been used as a storeroom for art.

  Charles was on the bed.

  Paul took a deep breath and flipped the light switch again.

  One arm was twisted beneath him. The other was draped downward, pointing at the floor.

  His face was nearly unrecognizable. Only by his sweater, and his thin limbs, and his curly, sandy hair was Paul able to recognize him. Paul stepped farther into the room, moving closer. Charles’s eyes were half-lidded, caked in a thick crust of blood. His skull had been crushed in on one side like a dropped pumpkin. His throat was a bloody ruin—flesh torn wide, bright and freshly red, the blood not yet even congealed. A thick wad of paper was balled up and shoved into his mouth as a gag. Without having to look, Paul knew. The missing half of the bird drawing. He’d choked to death on it.

  Blood coated the blue wallpaper in a fine mist. A crushed filing cabinet lay on its side in the corner.

  In that moment, Charles’s throat convulsed, releasing a gout of blood. An outward burst of air guttered through the open wound.

  Paul dropped to his knees as the throat worked again, sucking air this time, collapsing in on itself. A horrible gurgling as the lungs rattled with fluid.

  At first Paul didn’t understand what he was seeing. And then he realized: traumatic tracheotomy.

  They thought they’d choked him to death on his own drawing, but the body still lived. Sucking air through the ruined throat.

  Paul reached out but couldn’t bring himself to touch the dented, crushed-in skull. Wherever Charles was, it wasn’t here. There was no room for him in what remained.

  The gasps came and went over the next few minutes, the space between them growing longer. The final breath happened in a slow rattle. Only then did Paul reach to touch his hand.

  A rage built inside him, that such a thing could have been done to so gentle a man. That a mind such as his had been snuffed out. Paul felt a sudden crushing guilt, because he was not worth a Charles. His life did not balance the loss of the life taken. It was too much to bear. Better that he’d left it alone. Better that he’d died back on Flores.

  For a moment, the rage outweighed the fear, and Paul did not turn away. He didn’t run. He went to the dead man, who hadn’t been his friend but had been a person he respected.

  “I’m sorry, Charles,” he whispered.

  Charles’s face was turned away. There was no forgiveness there.

  “If I had known this could happen…”

  But hadn’t he? Hadn’t he known?

  “That was in Indonesia,” he said out loud, talking to himself. “I didn’t know it could happen here.” A part of him, however, didn’t believe that he’d ever believed that. That it would be different just because they were no longer in that wild place.

  Maybe it was all the same. Everywhere. And you just told yourself stories so you could sleep at night.

  Paul bent toward the man he’d known mostly through stories. He pulled the bird drawing from Charles’s mouth. It came with a dark clot of congealed blood, leaving his broken mouth still slack and open. This was somehow worse, and Paul couldn’t take it anymore.

  This attack had happened hours ago. They’d come here first, before they went to Alan’s. Charles must have given them Alan’s name. Paul realized that Alan was probably dead, too, by now.

  “I’m sorry,” Paul said.

  Then he turned and fled. He took the time to wipe his fingerprints from the doorknob, closed the door, and ran.

  34

  Gavin stood in Martial’s office. The old man glared at him from across an expanse of polished mahogany desktop.

  “There has been an unfortunate series of events,” the old man said. His flat gray eyes bore into him.

  Gavin had learned to keep his face blank around the old man. It was best to show no emotion. Martial had summoned him from bed in the middle of the night and now they stood in his office, watching the tail end of a tropical depression lash at the windows. For Gavin, the last several weeks at the compound had been anything but comforting. He’d become more and more convinced of the old man’s mental instability. He’d seen evidence of it all around him—in the emotional outbursts, the irrational beliefs. Then there was the bizarre state of the facility itself. A thing no sane man would helm. But more disturbing than his craziness was the terrifying reach of the man’s power, a thing he’d also borne witness to in his time at the old man’s side.

  “How unfortunate, exactly?” Gavin said, keeping his tone perfectly neutral.

  “People have died,” Martial said. “More people are going to die.”

  Gavin sat down in the red chair facing the desk.

  “You brought Paul in on this,” the old man continued.

  “I know.”

  “I’ve tried to be … tolerant. Circumstances now force my hand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Events have conspired to leave me no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “He could be of value to you,” Gavin said.

  The old man
shook his head. “He’s a liability.”

  Liability. That was a word you never wanted pointed at you. Not by Martial. Liabilities had a way of disappearing. Of being neutralized. Erased from the equation. It was how Martial conducted business. Gavin had worked for Martial for the last twenty years, but for most of that time he’d been at the periphery. Just another cog in the grand machine, doing his part at a safe remove from the more unpleasant aspects of the business. Here at the compound, however, he’d gotten a firsthand glimpse of how Martial ran his empire.

  “That’s only because you haven’t tried to make him into an asset,” Gavin said. He swallowed hard. Saying this was a risk. Saying anything contrary was a risk.

  “We’re beyond that now,” the old man said.

  “You don’t know that for sure. Considering what happened with Paul’s father, do you really want this on your head? The father and the son?”

  “You yourself said we couldn’t trust him.”

  “There are ways he can be made worthy of trust.” This was a thing Gavin understood far too well. It could be done by a dozen different methods, over the course of several years. You don’t sell your soul all at once. You do it in parts, so that when you wake up and look in the mirror one day it’s gone, and you’re not even sure where you lost it.

  “It is a tricky business,” the old man said, but there was hesitation in his voice.

  “No trickier than the alternative.”

  “What’s your alternative?”

  “I can talk to him. I can reason with him.”

  “And what makes you think we can reason with him now?”

  “We take away all his other options.”

  The old man sighed. “This thing that should be so very simple has grown so very complicated. And you want me to complicate it further?”

  “Out of complexity comes nuance. Maybe he deserves a chance. Considering who he is.”

  The old man coughed into his handkerchief. The handkerchief was red. The old man used red handkerchiefs now so the blood wouldn’t show.

  “So be it.”

  Here Gavin’s face betrayed him. Surprise.

  “You won’t regret it,” he stammered.

  “Don’t speak to me of regret. I’ve a lifetime of regret.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. It is a final chance. But I’m not sending you alone.”

  The old man hit the buzzer on his desk. “Send her in.”

  There was a moment’s pause, and then the door opened.

  Margaret walked in.

  “Sir,” she said, speaking to the old man. Then she turned to Gavin. “Hello, Mr. McMaster.”

  Gavin closed his mouth with a snap. “It’s good to see you’re well,” he said. He hadn’t laid eyes on her since Indonesia. He’d heard she’d made it out all right, but beyond that, nothing else. He wondered if she’d been working for the old man all along, or if she was a new convert to the cause.

  “Margaret has already been briefed on the situation. She’s agreed to accompany you.”

  Gavin realized then that their conversation had been theater. Martial had already made the decision before Gavin had stepped into the room. It had all been artifice—part of the old man’s plan to get Gavin behind the objective.

  “You’ll have your chance to get him on board,” the old man said. “But if he hesitates … if he shows the slightest inclination toward refusal. Then he’s a problem that will be solved in the quickest, easiest way.”

  Gavin looked over at Margaret. She stared straight ahead, her face set in stone.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Gavin said. “I understand.”

  And he knew then that Margaret had been working for Martial for a very, very long time.

  35

  Paul drove north. Just the road for its own sake, the slow accumulation of mile markers ticking off the distance between himself and the disaster that his life had become. Each time he thought of a place he should go, he found a reason it wouldn’t work. Wherever he went, they would find him. There was no place far enough to run.

  And what they’d done to Charles …

  He shook his head, trying to put the images out of his mind.

  If they’d done that to Charles, there would be no mercy for him. Paul considered this while he drove. Perhaps it was fair. First James, now Charles. Two men who’d still be living right now if not for him. Perhaps it was only fair that Paul paid what was owed. He’d caused so much destruction already.

  He pulled off the highway and stopped at a gas station.

  He filled his tank.

  Would they have access to his debit records, he wondered? Would they be able to track him? He imagined it turning up in the murder investigation, once his body was found. He imagined the detectives puzzling over his expenditures, noting the times and places where he’d spent his last days, trying to divine some hidden meaning in the chicken entrails of his credit card statement. Or perhaps it wouldn’t be a murder investigation after all, but merely a missing persons report. He wasn’t giving them enough credit. Perhaps his body would never be found.

  Paul paid at the pump, then went inside and bought a six-pack of Coke and a hot dog. There was an ATM next to the bathroom, so he withdrew the maximum amount, four hundred dollars. That would get him a little distance, at least, though it would no doubt produce a paper trail that the police could follow later.

  And maybe more than just the police.

  A chill crept across Paul’s neck.

  Lillivati.

  Had he used his debit card on the way out to see her?

  Had he put her in danger, too? He tried to remember if he’d stopped for gas in Chicago. He’d paid cash to enter the museum; he recalled that much. He remembered the text then, and his stomach dropped. If they had access to his phone records, they’d be able to track her down.

  And the bone. Jesus. She still had the disk of bone.

  He grabbed his phone. He scrolled down through the texts, and there it was: Should be able to test in a few days.

  “Jesus,” Paul hissed.

  He ran outside, dove into his car, and stomped on the gas. The tires chirped as he headed for the highway.

  * * *

  He drove through the night, careful to keep his speed under seventy-four. It was after dawn by the time he made Chicago, the Tuesday morning traffic already starting to build. He parked his car in the same lot as before, though at this hour there were a lot more empty spaces.

  After parking, he sat and scrolled through his phone list again, looking for her number. He found it, and his finger hovered indecisively over the Call button. Eventually, he put his phone away. The less traceable contact he had with her, the safer she’d be.

  He reached into the backseat and grabbed a book that had been sliding around the floorboard for the last few months. Comparative Embryology. He’d gotten it at a conference last spring and had been meaning to bring it up to his office to shelve with the rest of his collection. Now he was glad he hadn’t. He needed the paper. He ripped a page out of the back, blank on one side. After rummaging for a while in his center console, he located a pen. A few quick shakes brought the coagulated ink to life, and he started writing, opting for short and blunt.

  They know. I’m so sorry for bringing you into this. Meet me with the bone in an hour down at the far end of the Lakefront Trail. After that, I’ll be out of your life. For your own safety, forget I ever contacted you. I’m so sorry. Flush this note.

  He folded the note in half and climbed out of the car. He popped the hatch and pulled out a ratty baseball cap that had gotten wedged in one corner, along with an old jacket. One of the benefits of driving an old car, he realized, was that it had a long time to accumulate various forgotten cargo that might come in handy for surreptitious activities. He pulled the cap down over his eyes. It wasn’t a disguise, really, but at least it made him less recognizable at a distance. Or at least that’s what he decided to tell h
imself.

  He left the parking garage and crossed the street, taking his time as he strolled the walkway around to the far end of the block. The Field Museum glowed bone white in the early morning sunshine, huge and sprawling, contained on all sides by a border of cement walkway. A man in a tattered jacket stood at the corner hawking newspapers. Paul bought today’s issue and found a park bench with a good view of the museum’s south entrance. It wasn’t a great plan, but he was about as inconspicuous as he could manage on short notice.

  Then he waited.

  He scanned the same headline over and over without really reading it—VATICAN PEACE TALKS BREAK DOWN—flitting his eye toward the entrance every ten seconds.

  She arrived at eight-fifteen on the nose, pulling into the small west parking lot in her sporty green Cooper.

  Paul stood and shook out the paper.

  He waited for her to exit her car, and then he moved quickly, closing the distance and intercepting her at the bottom of the wide steps.

  Her face revealed shock, but not fear, at seeing him. He knew then that they hadn’t gotten to her yet.

  “Paul—”

  “Don’t speak,” he told her. “Just smile.”

  The shock changed to confusion, then concern. A moment later it smoothed out to an even expression that might have been interpreted as a smile.

  “We’re going to shake hands like old acquaintances who just bumped into each other, and then we’ll go our separate ways.”

  “Okay…” she said slowly. Her brow furrowed.

  He held out his hand and she shook it. He palmed her the note.

  “I can explain more soon,” he said. “But for now, read the note.”

  He tipped his cap to her. “Good day.”

  “Bye, I guess,” she answered.