A Killer in the Wind

by Andrew Klavan

  What else do I remember before the withdrawal hit full force? I flushed what was left of my supply of Z down the toilet, shaking the Baggie at the water even after it was empty—just in case I got tempted, I guess. I cleaned off the coffee table. I sat on the sofa. I cracked a fresh beer. I turned on the TV with the remote. Skipped past the video of bodies being brought out of the woods. The “House of Evil” surrounded by cops. “A noted psychiatrist says Emory may have been the victim of abuse himself . . .” A school snapshot of a smiling little girl, one of the victims who had been identified. I stopped on the sports channel. Stared at the screen and sipped my beer. I wondered if I’d pumped all five bullets into Emory at once or stood over him after he went down and planted the last two in his head more deliberately.

  Well, there was no point getting sentimental about it. Monahan was right. The bastard deserved much worse.

  It took about two hours for the real withdrawal horror show to get started. Once it was under way—Dr. Lee was right: It was pretty impressive.

  The sportscaster on TV had just finished speculating about some off-season trade the Yankees were planning.

  “If the Yanks don’t fill the holes in their roster, they could be looking at another long season,” he said. Then, he turned in his seat just slightly and looked directly at me. He said, “Aunt Jane is waiting for you, Champion. She’s waiting for you in hell. You’re going to burn down there with her forever.”

  Well, that was kind of creepy—and it got worse. The sportscaster started spewing obscenities at me, a long, guttural rant of unbroken filth. He grinned and his eyes burned through the TV screen. The tirade went on and on and on a long time without commercial interruptions.

  After a while, I found myself lying on the carpet at the base of the sofa. I was curled into a ball, clutching my midsection in pain. The sportscaster did a sizzling, staticky fade into the bowels of the machine. He was replaced by images of horror—images of the children Emory had tortured. I saw them tortured. I saw them killed.

  “A noted psychiatrist says Satan may have been a victim of abuse himself,” the announcer said.

  But at this point, I had other things to divert my attention. There were, for instance, the snakes and spiders covering every inch of the walls, oozing down and spreading over the carpet toward me like a twining, chittering stain. I writhed and screamed in agony and terror as they came toward me.

  And oh yeah, Dr. Lee was right about the vomiting too. That also went on and on and on.

  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. I wasn’t sure whether it was night or day. It didn’t matter. I didn’t want to know. There was only one thing I wanted now. I wanted the strength to crawl to the door . . . to tumble down the outside stairs . . . to reach my motorcycle . . . to get to Harlem . . . to get to Janks . . . to get some more Z and make this agony stop.

  I was in the process of clawing my way across the carpet to that end when I heard the knocking—or no: when I realized that I had been hearing a steady knocking for some time. I rolled halfway over and peered through a blood-colored haze at the door. I fought to focus. Yes. Someone was tapping, lightly tapping with a small fist—a woman’s fist, I thought.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice. Dim. Muffled through the door. “Hello? Can you hear me? Can you get to the door? Should I call an ambulance?”

  No idea—no clue—how I found the strength to climb to my feet. As I did, the room seemed to plunge from the sky in a nauseating spiral. I fell through the air till I smacked against the door.

  I managed to pull it open, staggering back from the effort. Staggering back against the couch and dropping down onto it, hard.

  I sprawled there, clinging to the sofa back to hold myself at least partly upright. I stared at the doorway. It was day, as it turns out—bright day. The doorway was a tall bright rectangle of blue and white. The woman stood in silhouette in front of it.

  “Oh, my God,” I heard her whisper.

  She shut the door and came to me. Bent over me, put her hands on my shoulder, then quickly moved one hand to my forehead. That was my first good look at her. I don’t know if she was really as beautiful as she seemed to me at that moment. It was probably just that she was the first thing I had seen in I don’t know how long that wasn’t all cruelty and ugliness. I gazed at her. I was too racked with cramps and nausea to feel desire. I just gazed up in wonder at the sweetness of her face. She had a tumbling pile of auburn hair falling all around her high cheeks. She had red-gold cheeks dusted with light freckles. She had thin, prim, certain lips that suggested a fine, high virtue. She had large blue eyes so warm with compassion they were mesmerizing. Even through my own stench and the stench of the room, the smell of her reached me, fresh and clean. Her hand on my forehead was firm and cool and gentle.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Here, take it easy. Lie down.”

  She helped me shift back farther onto the sofa so I could stretch out. I gave a cry as I saw the multilegged creatures crawling on the ceiling above us. I pointed at them to warn her they might drop down on top of us, fangs and all.

  “No, no, no,” she murmured. “It’s all right. There’s nothing there. Close your eyes. Lie still.”

  I lay still but I didn’t close my eyes. I didn’t want to stop looking at her. Her face was a consolation. I didn’t want to lose sight of it.

  “I’m sick,” I murmured to her.

  “I know. It’s going to be all right,” she said.

  I think I must’ve fallen asleep as she sat hushing me, because at some point I jolted awake with a start, afraid she had gone, thinking she must have. But no, there she faithfully sat on the edge of the sofa. She had been wearing an overcoat before, I remembered, but it was off now, tossed over the sofa arm. She wore a skirt and a gray cotton blouse. Her hands were folded in her lap and she sat very still, looking down on me with concern.

  “Who are you?” I said weakly.

  “Samantha. From downstairs.”

  “With Ed?”

  “I’m staying with Ed. I heard you through the ceiling.”

  “Sorry.”

  She smiled and laid her hand on my forehead again, a gesture of almost intolerable kindness. “You were making quite a fuss.”

  I ran my tongue around my thickened, rancid gums. I wanted to ask her how she knew Ed, what she was doing hanging around with old Ed. But all I could say was, “God, I’m sick. I’m so sick.”

  “Well, no one could blame you. Anyone would be.” What did she mean by that, I wondered vaguely. She must’ve seen the confusion on my face. “Ed says you’re the detective they keep talking about on TV. The one who shot that monster. Going through something like that would make anyone sick.”

  I closed my eyes. “I don’t remember. I mean, yes, I am the detective. But I don’t remember shooting him.” I forced my eyes open. I regretted closing them, all those seconds I had wasted not looking at her. “I was stoned on some kind of tranquilizers. Don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret.”

  She smiled gently and pressed a finger to her lips.

  “It was the only way I could stand to do it,” I told her.

  “To shoot him?”

  “No.” I laughed weakly. “I could’ve shot him straight. It was the only way I could stand to get in on him. To pretend . . .”

  “Oh, to be one of his . . .”

  “. . . customers.”

  “Yes, that must have been awful.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. The drug was the only way I could get any sleep.”

  “Of course. But you had to see it through. It had to be done.”

  I nodded. I was relieved she understood. It made me feel better. “There was a little girl . . .”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “In the house . . . There was a child. He had her tied up in there. Do you understand? He was going to . . .”

  “Oh, yes, of course, yes. I understand. Of course. That’s why you had to do it.”

  “That’s it.” I was so relieved sh
e understood.

  “That’s why you do what you do.”

  “Right. Right,” I said. “Not just for her but . . . all the others . . .”

  “And there would’ve been still more too, if you hadn’t stopped him.”

  I nodded eagerly. After so much horror, her simple sympathy and understanding moved me—powerfully, deeply. The emotions made my eyes fill.

  Samantha turned her head away as if something across the room had caught her attention. She was giving me time to get control of myself, see. She knew a guy like me wouldn’t want a woman to see him lose it. It was such a kind gesture. Delicate. Womanly. It moved me even more.

  She gave me more time. She didn’t turn back to me, but instead stood up and walked across the room. I wiped my eyes dry with my hand while she wasn’t looking.

  When she reached the corner of the far wall, she settled gently on her haunches. The room was dark. The curtains were still drawn though there was daylight at the edges of them. I had to squint to see her through the shadows . . . the flash of her knee, her skirt like drapery. I saw her fiddle with the wainscoting at the bottom of the wall. She pulled a small section of the wooden panel away, revealing a hole in the wall behind it.

  “My secret hiding place,” she said, still without looking back at me. “Even Ed doesn’t know about it.”

  I watched her through the dark as she reached into the gap in the wall.

  “What is it?” I asked her, my voice rough.

  She stood. She came back to me, back to the sofa, cradling something in her hand. She sat down beside me again and laid the thing on the table. It was a candle—what was left of a candle. She had a pack of matches too. She set the candle upright on the coffee table and lit it. The flame rose, bright in the darkness. I watched her by its wavering light. I watched her set the matches down. I watched her slender, graceful fingers. I checked to see if she was wearing a wedding ring or an engagement ring. She wasn’t. I was glad.

  She turned back to me and I think she caught my glance, maybe even read my mind. She smiled. “Could you manage to eat something?”

  “Maybe. Maybe some eggs. I think I bought a dozen before I came home.”

  “I’ll make some for you. Meanwhile, try to get some rest.”

  She started to move away through the flame-lit shadows.

  “Samantha,” I said.

  She stopped and looked back at me. I had had some idea of asking her why she was here, why she was staying downstairs, what she was doing with Ed. But now, I just gazed at her. I realized I had only wanted to say her name out loud and see her face again. She seemed to understand. She smiled and went out of sight, into the kitchen.

  I lay on the sofa and listened to the jangle of silverware, the clank of pots and pans. I heard the eggshells crack and heard the eggs sizzle as they landed on the hot skillet. Then I smelled them and I smelled bread toasting. I started to feel hungry.

  I lay and watched the interplay of candle-glow and shadow on the ceiling and listened to the noises from the kitchen and smelled the smells. I turned my head toward the candle and watched the flame. I watched a line of wax roll down the shaft to the tabletop. As the wax touched the surface, the heat of it made a little section of the table’s cheap plastic coating whiten and curdle and crack. Later—years from now—I would tease Samantha about how she ruined my table the day we first met. The thought made me smile.

  I felt calm now, wonderfully calm for the first time in weeks, for the first time I could remember. I felt a sense of deep satisfaction, a sense that a great journey had come to an end, that it had ended the moment I saw Samantha. It wasn’t that I loved her already. How could I? She had just walked through the door. But I already knew I was going to love her. More than that. I knew I had been waiting to love her all my life. It was as if I had always known that she was out there somewhere and now I had found her and recognized her on sight. I didn’t know stuff like that really happened. But apparently it did.

  I smiled into the candle-glow again. Then I let my eyes sink shut and fell back to sleep.

  I woke in the dark. After a few seconds, I became aware that something was different. Better. Then I realized what it was. I felt clean inside. The sickness had passed. I had survived the withdrawal. I had kicked the drug.

  I sat up on the edge of the sofa, my elbows on my knees, my face in my hands. Something else came to me as well. I remembered that something good had happened. What was it? Oh yes. It came back to me: Samantha. I recalled that sense of calm and satisfaction. It was still there. The woman I had been waiting for my whole life had shown up. At my lowest moment. Just like that. And everything was going to be all right now. I knew it. It was a great feeling.

  But the apartment was quiet.

  I called out to her, “Hello?”

  There was no answer. The place was empty. Samantha must’ve gone out. I was sorry about that. I missed her already.

  I looked down at the coffee table. Even in the dark, I could make out the plate there. A knife and fork lying on it. Hardened streaks of egg yolk. Bread crumbs.

  I don’t remember.

  I guessed I must’ve woken up at some point. Samantha must’ve brought the eggs to me and I must have eaten. But when I tried to bring the memory of it back, there was a kind of barrier in my mind, a resistance I couldn’t overcome.

  I let it go. I tried to stand up. The room tilted and my legs went weak under me. I sank back down. After a few deep breaths, everything steadied. I tried again. Made it this time. Shuffled like an old man across the room. Found the light switch. Flipped it up. The light came on. It was a deeply unpleasant experience: the visual equivalent of having some guy clash a pair of cymbals together with my head in between them. I debated whether to claw out my eyes to make it stop but decided that would be an overreaction. Instead, I went into the kitchen and started some coffee brewing.

  I went into the bathroom. I pissed and showered and shaved and brushed my teeth. I went dripping naked into the bedroom. Put on new jeans and a new sweatshirt. These were all major plot points in the story of my returning humanity.

  I walked from room to room. I saw that Samantha had cleaned the place. She had cleaned up the vomit on the carpet. Rubbed the stains out. She had taken away the candle and removed the melted wax from the surface of the coffee table. She had turned off the demon-possessed television and pushed it into a corner. Take that, you TV demons. In the kitchen, she had washed out the skillet and left it in the drainer.

  Imagine, I thought. Imagine someone doing that. Cleaning up like that for a perfect stranger. Cleaning a stranger’s vomit off the carpet, cleaning the stains out. Again, it struck me as such a generous and womanly thing to do. I was moved, really moved, deep down.

  I poured myself a mug of coffee and went back to the living room. I went to the window. Opened the curtains. It was early evening. The end of a clear blue day. The people on the sidewalk were hurrying home in their winter overcoats and woolen caps. Their breath was visible in the darkening air.

  I sipped my coffee and watched the scene like it was Christmas morning. I felt good, really good. The Emory case was over and the poison was out of me and now there was Samantha.

  Samantha.

  I went downstairs to Ed Morris’s place. Ed was one of those old guys you see sometimes who seem to be deflating in slow motion. Getting smaller, softer, more slouched and shapeless, bit by bit, day by day. He was a black guy with iron hair and rheumy eyes. Grumpy was his good mood. When he was in a bad mood, he got silent or whiskied up.

  “Don’t tell me I gotta clean your shit up there.” That’s what he said when he opened his door and saw me on the front step. That was his version of hello. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

  “Be thankful you don’t have to dispose of my body, you nasty old son of a bitch.”

  “Sounded like I was gonna. Way you was carrying on. Smell the upchuck all the way down here.” By then he had turned his back on me and gone shambling back into his apartment. “O
nly reason I didn’t call the cops on you is you are the cops, I know they would’ve sided with you, rousted my ass.” I followed him in. Followed his hunched figure down an unlit corridor toward the bright kitchen.

  “They would’ve, too,” I told the back of his flannel shirt. “They’d’ve dug up every evil deed you ever did.”

  “Oh, I know it. Don’t think I don’t.”

  “So quit bitching. You got off easy. Plus I’ve lived to overpay you for another month. What else do you want?”

  “Overpay me!” He was in the kitchen now. He opened the refrigerator. I leaned against the doorway. “I see on TV your boys been doing good work, though,” he said. “Sending that evil motherfucker to hell. That’s a good day’s work right there. You tell them I said good job.”

  “I’ll pass it on.”

  “Whoever done it. TV say he’s undercover. You tell ’em: He’s a good man. Good job.”

  He handed me a bottle of beer. I tipped it to him. “Will do.”

  “Hope he did it slow too. Put one in his goulies. Man doesn’t know how to use ’em shouldn’t be allowed to keep ’em.”

  “True that. There oughta be a law.”

  By now, I was already thinking this was strange. Samantha said Ed had told her I was the detective who killed Emory, but now he didn’t seem to know. The department had shielded my identity, kept my cover. That was standard procedure. So how would he know? Maybe he had guessed. Maybe he was just being discreet or . . . or something. It was strange.

  Ed made it across the room and settled into a wooden chair at the kitchen table—really, just like he was deflating. He already had a beer bottle open there and a plate of some mess he’d been eating. Had a small television set up right in front of him, playing the local news at low volume. He started eating again. Watching the TV as if I weren’t there.

  “Didn’t mean to disturb your dinner,” I told him.

  “What’d you think you’d do coming down here around this time of night?”

  “That crap you’re eating—I did you a favor.”