The Glimpsing

by James L. Black

  “Were you asleep? Is that why I couldn’t get you?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, what time did you go to bed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You never heard your phone ringing?”

  “Listen, I’m fine, okay? I don’t need you checking up on me like I’m some child.”

  “I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay. I thought something might have gone wrong, that’s all.”

  “Well, as you can see, I’m safe and sound.”

  She paused. “What’s wrong with you, Jack?”

  Jack sighed heavily, but said nothing.

  “Jack?”

  “Yes?”

  “I asked you a question?”

  “Nothing is wrong with me, Gabrielle.”

  “Something is wrong. I can hear it in your tone. What happened last night?”

  “The same thing that happens every night. I slept. And now I’m awake.”

  “You mean you just awoke? You’re normally up for hours by now.”

  “Then call an ambulance, Gabrielle! I’m sure they’d admit me for oversleeping.”

  “Jack, I’m just concerned that—”

  “Don’t be. Whatever is going on here, I can handle it.”

  There was a moment of empty silence. Finally Jack sighed, and said, “How did things go with Alderman?”

  Gabrielle was flippant. “He met me when I landed; rolled out the red carpet; whisked me off to my suite. Lovely room.”

  “What time is the first shoot?”

  “In a few hours.”

  “Then you’d better start getting ready.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Don’t take this so lightly, Gabrielle. This shoot is pretty damned important as far as your career is concerned. Alderman requested you specifically. That kind of thing doesn’t happen every day.”

  “Forgive me, but some things are more important to me than my career.”

  “Well maybe that needs to change.”

  Gabrielle remained silent.

  “Listen,” Jack said. “We need to talk. There are some things I’ve been thinking about.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s time. I think she needs to know.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Portia. I think she needs to know.”

  “Know what?” Gabrielle asked, then answering her own question. “You mean about our relationship?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew something was wrong with you.”

  “She needs to know, Gabrielle.”

  “Why, Jack? Why now?”

  “Why not now?”

  She sighed. “Jack, where is this coming from? Why are you bringing this up so suddenly.”

  “I’ll tell you were its coming from. I’m tired, Gabrielle. Tired of skulking around in secrecy. Tired of pretending. I woke up this morning asking myself how long we were going to keep this up. Sooner or later, it’s going to get out. And sooner or later Portia is going to find out. I think it’s better that she know ahead of time, and not down the road in the Enquirer.”

  Gabrielle made no reply.

  “She needs to know, Gabrielle. You need to tell her.”

  More silence. Finally she said, “I can’t do that.”

  “What do you mean you can’t do that?”

  “I mean not right now.”

  Jack paused, then said angrily. “You’re not a stupid girl, Gabrielle. You knew this day was coming. You knew we couldn’t just go on like this forever. This whole thing was doomed from the start.”

  “I know that, Jack.”

  “Then tell her.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is that simple. Just do the right thing… and tell her.”

  “Don’t you dare lecture me about doing the right thing!”

  He paused, mused. “Okay then. You want to fight me on this. Then I’ll tell her myself. But I promise you I’ll be far less gracious than you would have been.”

  “You can’t do that, Jack.”

  “Why not!”

  “Because there might be consequences. Unexpected consequences.”

  “Like?”

  Gabrielle hesitated, sighed again. “When Portia was eighteen, something happened to her. She was in a very serious relationship with a much older man named Collin. He was unfaithful to her, and that marred her so badly that even to this day she’s never told me everything that happened.”

  “Spare me Portia’s life story. What does any of that have to do with you telling her about us.”

  “What I’m trying to get to is that she reacts strangely to relationships. When things go wrong, it’s like she goes into a shell. She withdraws, from everyone and everything. She stops eating, stops talking. It’s very strange. All she wants to do is stay in her bedroom. It was that way when you broke up with her.”

  “So she doesn’t handle breakups well. Who does?”

  “You don’t understand? After Collin, she didn’t date a man for ten years. Ten years, Jack. That’s strange to say the least. And then there’s Thomas McCain.”

  “Who?”

  “Thomas McCain. Portia’s first serious relationship after she started dating again. The man who preceded you.”

  “What about him?”

  “She discovered him cheating as well, with a girl named Holly Grace. She was an intern at his firm; a party girl, fresh out of college, and less than half Thomas’ age. It took Portia six months to get over what he did to her. She lost so much weight that she was briefly hospitalized.”

  “What’s your point with all this, Gabrielle?” Jack asked as if worn out.

  “My point is that after Collin betrayed her, she reacted by not going near a man for ten years. After Thomas’s affair, she stayed locked up in her house for six months. And after you broke things off with her, even though you hadn’t cheated, here we are two months later and she’s just getting back to normal. So tell me, what do you think her reaction will be when I tell her that I’ve been having an affair with you?”

  “You think she’ll hurt herself?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

  “Well, how very convenient is that.”

  “Convenient or not, it’s the truth.”

  “Listen, Gabrielle, I don’t mean to be harsh, but as soon as you get back from Rio, I want this taken care of.”

  “Jack, I know this needs to been done. But you’re going to have to give me some time. She’s just been through so much in the last year.”

  “I can’t help what she’s been through. I only know what needs to be done.”

  Gabrielle paused for several long seconds. “Jack, did you know that Portia has been living in constant fear?”

  “Fear of what?” Jack asked suspiciously, feeling like this was just another of Gabrielle’s ploys to keep from having to tell Portia about their affair.

  “Thomas McCain. That he’ll come back and do the same thing to her that he did to Holly Grace.”

  “What did he do to Holly Grace?”

  “What did he do? He murdered her, Jack.”

  “What?”

  “Last January. The media wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks. Thomas was a high-powered lawyer and Holly was a lovely co-ed. I can’t imagine that you missed that.”

  “I spent most of January in Milan on business. How did he kill her?”

  “Stabbed her to death. Very violently. She had over fifty wounds in her body.”

  “Fifty?” Jack said, surprised.

  “Yes. He butchered her so badly that the police even gave him a nickname.”

  “What was that?”

  “Skewer.”

  “Hmm. Why Skewer?”

  “Because of Holly’s bones. The knife went right through, puncturing them like a meat skewer.”

  “What did Holly do to make him so angry?”

  “There’s plenty of speculation but no one knows for certain. Holly liked to party,
did some drugs now and then. Maybe that wild side got to be too much for Thomas. The police think Thomas himself might have been on drugs when he did it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would have taken incredible strength for him to do what he did. Some of her bones were literally pulverized. And he was so thin that they just didn’t believe him capable of that kind of strength—not without some help anyway.”

  “Did they hang the bastard?”

  “No. That’s what I’m telling you. He’s still out there. He disappeared before the police could arrest him. That’s why Portia fears for her life. She thinks he might come back and try to kill her.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “Why would Thomas want to kill Portia?”

  “Because she did to him the same thing that she did to you: refused him sexually. It drove him crazy. He became so upset about it that he actually raised a hand to her.”

  “Did she report him?”

  “No. He bought her flowers the next day and promised he’d never do it again. Apparently, he’d found a less criminal way to take out his frustrations. Portia discovered his affair with Holly Grace less than a week later.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Like I said, she’s been through a lot in the last year. Between her breakup with Thomas, Holly’s murder, the fear that Thomas might return to kill her, and her breakup with you, I just think another traumatic revelation could send her over the edge.”

  “Well,” Jack said with a pinch of sarcasm, “who could argue with such a vigorous defense as that? But there’s one thing about all this that strikes me as very strange.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If you know all this, if you have such a crushing concern for Portia, and care so deeply about all she’s been through in the last year, then why the hell would you ever have an affair with me?”

  Gabrielle fell silent. She wanted to tell him that the reason she betrayed Portia was love, love for him. She wanted to tell him that she believed the day he came to her door and kissed her on the couch, was no mere accident. It was an act of fate. She wanted him to know that she believed he was changing, that he was putting down his past, and that someday he would love her just as much as she loved him. But she couldn’t tell him that. She wanted to, but the words would not move beyond her lips.

  Answering his question, she said: “You’ve never done anything you weren’t quite certain about?”

  “No,” Jack said flatly. “I never do things I might later regret.”

  With that striking comment, a strong and very terrible question arose in Gabrielle’s mind. What if it wasn’t fate that drew Jack to her house that morning? What if it wasn’t a secret attraction that made him kiss her on that couch? What if the truth was far more sinister? What if it was really just revenge? What if the reason he had no regrets about what they’d done, was because he’d begun their affair simply as a means of getting back at Portia?

  “Can I ask you something?” Gabrielle said.

  “What?”

  “What made you kiss me that morning?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Two months ago, when you came to my house and kissed me on the couch… what made you do that?”

  An awkward hesitation ensued. Finally he said, “I’m not sure. It was just… something that happened, I guess.”

  “Something that happened?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “Something that happened.” There was another pause. “Why? Was it something more for you?”

  “Yes,” Gabrielle whispered sadly. “Something more.”

  Silence drifted in, and held the moment. Finally Jack broke it. “When you get back from Rio, I want you to tell Portia everything, Gabrielle. Because she needs to know.”

  CHAPTER 17 – SKEWER

  Jack cradled the receiver, got out of bed, and moped out of the bedroom into the hallway, his body still racked with fatigue. He descended the staircase, noisily, the bones in his knees and feet voicing their displeasure. Downstairs, he moved into the kitchen. He wasn’t very hungry so he prepared a small meal of just two slices of toast and a glass of orange juice. Food in tow, he moved through the house and into a roomy den. He popped on a television, sat down, and began to eat. He’d finished only one slice of toast and a third of his orange juice before pushing the meal away, feeling nauseous.

  At 9:45am he called Mark Pirelli to discuss Noelle Pieta. He was certain his wasn’t the only agency courting the girl, and he had no intention of losing her to one of them. He told Mark to contact Noelle’s agent and schedule an appointment for Monday at 9:00am sharp.

  For the rest of the morning, Jack did little but lay on a couch gazing at the television. He watched it mindlessly, like a zombie, seeing but only loosely absorbing what he saw. Still, his exhaustion only deepened. He tried closing his eyes for long stints of time, but sleep proved frustratingly illusive.

  He continued in that agitated state until mid-afternoon, when he began to soothe himself with the thought of what lie ahead, when he actually did fall asleep. He’d see Rose again, adorned in that sensuous red dress. And once more she’d become Portia. Then finally, mercifully, he’d have her.

  What trailed behind that thought, however—and this much to his surprise—was a weak, but nevertheless intrusive sense of guilt. After giving it some thought, it occurred to him that for some inexplicable reason, he was reacting to his upcoming encounter with Rose as if it constituted infidelity toward Gabrielle. He tried to suppress the feeling, forcing himself to the conclusion that the prospect of having Portia should supersede anything he felt for Gabrielle, but the feeling continued to nag him just the same. He recognized that a battle was taking shape within him. He wanted Gabrielle just as much as he wanted Portia.

  Jack didn’t leave the den until late afternoon. He lumbered out of the room, yawning widely, heading toward the East wing of the house. The trek seemed as if it were miles instead of mere minutes away. He complained inwardly about having made his house so big.

  He arrived at a large, nostalgic-looking door with an old-fashioned white handle. A ‘QUIET PLEASE’ plaque hung from it. It was the door to his theater room. He opened it and disappeared inside.

  He moved in almost complete darkness, feeling his way down a narrow passageway until it opened up into a very dark auditorium. The digital projector high on the room’s rear wall cast hazy rays onto a silver screen that was more than fifteen feet wide. He waited for his eyes to adjust, and then spotted the two staggered rows of plush, theater-style chairs. The color of the upholstery, a delicious bright red, the same as Rose’s dress, caught his eye immediately. He took a seat in the second row.

  The movies ran at all times here, that thanks to an enormous disc changer he’d had custom designed to play in a continuous loop. Most of the more than five-hundred films were of the action or horror variety, with a few buddy comedies sprinkled in to break things up. It was Gabrielle’s, and, for that matter, most other guests, favorite room in the house.

  As he peered up at the screen, he could finally feel himself relaxing. The crisp blacks and whites of the movie somehow seemed to ease his mind.

  The film was Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, one of Jack’s favorites. The scene was one that had helped make it a classic: lovely Marion Crane showering while the supposed haggardly mother of Norman Bates stands just beyond the shower curtain. And just as the music begins to shriek, the shower curtain is pulled back, and a confused and horrified Marion is butchered with a large kitchen knife, Jack Parke soundly drifted off to sleep.

  The sound that woke Jack was a decidedly loud and bulky thud, the same sound that had startled him badly on two previous occasions. But this time, recognizing whose arrival it meant, a pleased smile warmed his face.

  When he’d opened his eyes, however, what he saw disturbed him. In the first place, everything was horribly blurred, with a gloomy, overcast pallor dampening all color. In the second, it was clear that he was
no longer in the theater room, but back in his bedroom. Though difficult to see, he could still make out the general shape of the wet bar in the room’s corner, the loose reflections of the mirror across from him, the checkerboard frames of the photographs in the gallery, and especially the two tall floor-to-ceiling windows, whose blurred forms gazed at him like a pair of pale rectangular eyes.

  Then he saw her, off to his left near the dresser, at first just a reddish smear near the floor. She slowly rose to her feet, standing erect in one smooth and sensuous motion, like a rising line of smoke. She moved in desolate silence, passing in front of the window on the left, for an instant becoming a hazy silhouette wrapped in a pale glare.

  As she passed in front of the mirror, he was encouraged to see that his vision was beginning to clear, enough now for him to make out the narrowness of her waist, the bulge of her breasts, and even a loose semblance of her face. He hurriedly sat up, urged on by a spasm of excitement.

  She moved around the bed and began to approach him directly. Once more she was consumed by the glare rushing in, now from the other window. She almost completely disappeared within it but, seconds later, emerged and sat on the bed.

  Something wasn’t right, however. His eyes were gaining more and more clarity, and as they did, he saw that the form resting on his bed wasn’t Rose, but a rather thin and gaunt man, dressed in an untucked cardinal red shirt and black slacks. His skin was leathery and pitted, he wore a neatly shorn beard, and his eyes sat in large sockets that seemed like they’d been scooped out with a spoon. He had a small nose but his cheekbones were large and pronounced. A thick mane of auburn-red hair topped his head. He was probably the strangest-looking man Jack had ever seen. And yet he found him oddly familiar.

  Realizing his lost opportunity with Rose, Jack felt the sudden sting of disappointment. That was followed rather quickly by a surge of anger. And that multiplied exponentially as he continued watching the man, who was hunched over and staring at the floor—stupidly Jack thought—with his arms resting along his knees. The man looked incredibly feeble, like he might fall over if Jack so much as nudge him with his foot. Tiny beads of sweat were visible on his brow.