The Inner Circle (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  “Kid,” I said, and there was defeat in my voice. “Please.”

  He was only a few feet away when he stopped. “And what are you going to do when you find out it means nothing?”

  “It won’t.”

  “But what if it does? You can’t keep kidding yourself, Ben. You have to move on.”

  “Okay.” I swallowed. “If that’s the case, I’ll move on. But until then, I can’t.”

  The Kid mulled this over for a beat. “You already booked the flight, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, then I guess you spent your Christmas present a couple months early.” He nodded toward the entrance for me to come along.

  When we went through the sliding glass doors, he paused and looked around the terminal. He unzipped his bag and pulled loose his iPad, hesitated, then handed it to me.

  “What do I want with this?”

  “I figured you could use some in-flight reading.”

  I glanced down at the iPad. He reached out and tapped one of the apps and a screen popped up, mostly all text.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “Do you know anything about Carver’s life? About how he spent his childhood?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly. None of us did. So when I found out about what happened, I got curious and I started doing some research. It’s one hell of a crazy story, I’ll tell you that much. A lot of the information I managed to find was originally sealed and was a major pain in the ass to uncover. I’d meant to talk to Graham about it but chickened out.”

  I glanced down at the iPad again. A voice came on over the intercom announcing that gate three was now boarding.

  “What’s so crazy about it?”

  “For starters,” the Kid said, “Carver’s mother was a whore. Literally.”

  I expected him to smile at this, as he usually did when he made a joke. But he just stared back at me. He didn’t even crack a grin.

  33

  Carver’s mother was indeed a whore. Her name was unknown, her age undistinguishable, but it’s a good guess that she was under the age of twenty. She had worked the streets of New York City, just one hooker among a thousand, and as these things go, she got pregnant.

  Before she could have an abortion, though, her pimp found out. She was called to see him. Expectations of a beating, of him remodeling her face, quickly faded from her mind. As it turned out, her pimp, while angry, had other ideas for her. She was told to relax, to take a couple months off, and if she was going to work, to just give head, nothing else.

  The pimp saw himself as an entrepreneur. There was always money to be made, no matter the outcome. He knew someone who knew someone who paid a pretty penny for children. Newborns went for an especially high price.

  Once Carver was born, he was paid for by a middleman (seven thousand bucks), who drove with at least a half dozen other children—all ranging from newborns to two years old—down I-95 toward Washington, D.C. There the middleman met up with another man to complete the transaction, where he would then receive a couple more thousand dollars on top of what he had originally paid for the children.

  Only thing was, the man he was meeting was an undercover federal agent. The operation had been under surveillance for eight months. When the middleman came to D.C. to make the trade, he was busted, his “goods” taken away to a local halfway house. (Truthfully, the government didn’t care what happened to the children. Once they were put into a government-funded orphanage, any thought of the children left the agents’ heads. Their main goal now was to concentrate on the trafficking that was going on between New York City and D.C.)

  Carver’s time in the orphanage was not a bad one. The staff took good care of him. One nurse, who had graduated from Tuskegee University, had become quite taken with the baby. A name had to be placed on the birth certificate, so the nurse named him Carver, after George Washington Carver.

  He spent his first two years at the halfway house before being put in the care of a young couple living in Maryland.

  He only stayed with them for six months. Out of nowhere the man was laid off from his job; his wife slipped getting out of the bathtub and broke the lower section of her spinal cord. As much as they loved Carver, wanted to keep him, they had no choice but to give him back to the orphanage.

  Carver spent another three years there. Learning to read, learning to write. One monthly report mentioned how Carver was “very attentive” and “showed great promise.”

  He was nine when he was put in the care of a family who lived just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia. The man was a music teacher at a local high school. He was slim and handsome with neatly trimmed hair and a thin mustache. His wife was a pediatric nurse at the local hospital, working mostly nights. She was a few years younger than her husband, with soft hands and breath that always smelled of spearmint.

  Together the couple had taken twelve children into their care over a fifteen-year stretch. They already had two other boys living with them by the time Carver arrived.

  A year later, the family took in two more children, fraternal twins. Their names were Stacey and Kelley. They were twelve years old.

  Less than three months passed before the father began molesting them.

  This was not something new, however, and it was not something Carver—then ten years old—was aware of right away. At the time he didn’t find it strange at all that the father, on the nights the mother was working, visited the girls’ bedroom. That he would shut the door and lock it. Once Carver asked Stacey and Kelley what the father did with them, and they both claimed they played board games.

  Carver thought nothing more of it.

  Then he saw the bruises.

  It happened by accident. He walked into the bathroom one day and saw Stacey naked. She was just coming out of the bath, reaching for her towel—and the moment Carver opened the door and saw her she stopped and stayed that way, frozen, the water dripping to the tiled floor.

  Carver, ten years old, never seeing a girl naked before, did not notice the fact that this twelve-year-old girl had a vagina. What he noticed was the discolorations on the inside of her thighs.

  “What’s that?” he asked, meaning the bruises, and when she just continued standing there, not saying anything, he said, “Are you hurt?”

  “Leave,” she told him. “Get out.”

  Carver left. He waited until she came out wearing her clothes. He asked her again about the bruises but she shook her head.

  “Please,” she said. “Just forget it.”

  She ran away and slammed her bedroom door shut.

  Later that night, the mother away at work, the father again went into the girls’ bedroom. Carver heard the door open and close from where he lay in his bed. He stared at the ceiling, tried listening for any sound. When he heard none, he threw off his covers and started to get out of bed.

  “Don’t,” one of the boys whispered.

  “Why?”

  “Bad idea,” whispered the other boy.

  They both remained in their beds, their covers on top of them, their eyes closed.

  Carver left the room. He tiptoed down the hallway. It was an old house and sometimes the floor creaked. It took him much longer to reach the other end of the hall than normal.

  He came to the closed bedroom door. He placed his ear close to the door, listened carefully.

  From inside came noises. What sounded like crying.

  Carver listened for another minute. He didn’t know what to think. Finally he returned to his room, climbed back in bed.

  “What are they doing in there?” he asked the quiet room, but both boys acted as if they were asleep.

  The next day, during recess, Carver approached the girls.

  “Why were you crying last night?”

  “We weren’t,” Stacey said. “We were sleeping.”

  “But he was in your room,” Carver said.

  Kelley said, “We were sleeping.”

  “But—”

  “
Carver,” Stacey said, her voice urgent, “we were sleeping.”

  It was left at that.

  For the next several nights, Carver couldn’t sleep. He lay in bed, listening to the house settle, until he heard the father open and close the girls’ bedroom door. Then he would get out of bed, tiptoe down the hall, and listen to what was happening inside. Along with the crying was a faint grunting noise that didn’t make any sense to him.

  One of these nights, tiptoeing back to his room, he stepped on a loose board. It creaked. The noise coming from behind the girls’ door stopped.

  Carver hurried to his room, quietly shut the door. He scrambled into bed just as the girls’ bedroom door opened and closed. Heavy footsteps pounded the floor.

  The bedroom door opened. The shadow of the father was outlined in the doorway. The father stepped in but didn’t say a word.

  Carver acted like he was asleep. His eyes were closed, and he opened them just a bit. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the father was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms.

  The father stood that way for another minute, watching the three boys in their beds, before closing the door.

  The next day at recess, when Carver confronted the girls, Stacey said, “Carver, please, just forget it. Nothing happens in there.”

  “Does he do something to you?”

  Kelley said, “He doesn’t do anything to us. Please, stop bugging us.”

  Carver went to one of his stepbrothers next. The oldest stepbrother, thirteen years old, said, “He plays with them in there.”

  “What do you mean? Like a game?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why doesn’t he play with us?”

  “Trust me. You don’t want him to play with us.”

  But Carver remained curious. And it wasn’t until three nights later that he waited until he’d heard the girls’ bedroom door open and close that he got out of his bed and tiptoed back down the hallway.

  The same noises were coming from behind the door. The crying, the grunting, and even a soft whispering, what sounded like the father.

  Carver listened. He just stood there and listened. And then fate played a cruel trick on him.

  Carver sneezed.

  He never had a chance to make it back to his bed. Before he could even turn away, start to take a step, the noises from behind the door stopped. The door opened. The father stood there naked. He grabbed Carver and pulled him back into the girls’ bedroom, slammed the door shut, pushed Carver up against the wall.

  The father growled, “What do you think you’re doing out there?”

  Carver did not answer. He couldn’t. Not while the father kept one of his hands around Carver’s throat, squeezing tightly.

  Something changed in the father’s face. He loosened his grip around Carver’s throat. He smiled and patted Carver on the shoulder and said, “Sorry about that, sport. Didn’t mean to hurt you. You just startled me is all.”

  Beyond him, on the bed, Stacey and Kelley were naked, holding each other, sobbing quietly.

  Carver asked, “What are you doing to them?”

  The father’s smiled widened. “Nothing at all. We’re just playing a game.”

  “What kind of game?”

  “It’s a secret game. You know how to keep a secret, don’t you?”

  Carver nodded.

  “Good. Because it’s important our secret game stays a secret. We wouldn’t want that secret getting out now, would we? If that happened, there would be consequences. You know what a consequence is, don’t you?”

  The smile had left the father’s face. His eyes had become cold.

  Carver may have been ten years old, but he understood the implication. He nodded again and murmured, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” The father patted Carver on the head. “Now why don’t you be a good boy and run back to bed.”

  Carver left. He returned to the bedroom. After he got back into bed, one of the boys whispered, “Told you so.”

  The next day was Saturday. It was raining. They were all stuck inside. Because the father had to help out with some school music program, the mother stayed home to watch them. She stayed in the kitchen, making dessert for a party at the hospital.

  Carver went into the girls’ bedroom. He shut the door. He said, “Why were you naked last night?”

  Both girls said nothing.

  “Why was he naked?”

  Stacey started crying. “Didn’t you hear him?” she asked. “It’s just a game. A secret game. We can’t tell you about it.”

  “Does he hurt you?”

  The girls had nothing to say to this. Carver left. He went downstairs to the kitchen. The mother was there, making her dessert. He stood there and waited for her to notice him. She didn’t. Finally he said her name, and when she turned, he asked his question.

  “Why does the father go to the girls’ room in the middle of the night?”

  The mother was in the middle of icing a cake. At this question, she stopped in the middle of writing out the word Congratulations. She had just finished the a and all it said was Congra.

  “What are you talking about?” she said.

  Carver told her about the secret game.

  The mother’s face paled. She went very quiet. Eventually she said, “He does no such thing,” and turned away from Carver and continued the rest of the word.

  Two nights later, the mother having gone to work, the father didn’t go into the girls’ room. Instead he came into the boys’ room. He stormed in and pulled Carver from bed, dragged him out of the room and down the hall, down the steps, through the living room and kitchen, down into the basement.

  “I thought we had an understanding,” he said. “I thought you knew how to keep a secret.”

  Carver said nothing.

  The father pointed at a large steamer trunk in the corner. “Open it.”

  Carver shook his head.

  The father smiled, his voice going soft and kind. “Open it, please.”

  Carver, knowing he shouldn’t, went to the steamer trunk and opened the lid. It was empty.

  “Now,” the father said, “get inside.”

  Carver shook his head again.

  The smile slipped off the father’s face. His eyes went cold, just like that night back in the girls’ bedroom.

  “I told you there would be consequences, didn’t I?”

  It was the very last thing Carver wanted to do. But he saw the look in the father’s eyes and knew he had no choice. He could try to run, but the father would catch him. And if that happened, he knew the punishment would be even worse.

  Carver got in the trunk.

  “Good boy,” the father said. “This is for your own good, you know. You have to be taught a lesson. A secret is a secret, no matter what. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now be quiet, don’t make a fuss, and I’ll come get you in the morning. And this will be our little secret.”

  The father closed the lid and locked it, trapping Carver in darkness.

  Carver learned something important that night: he was claustrophobic. Within a minute he was kicking the inside of the trunk. Shouting. Pushing up on the lid that wouldn’t budge. He did this repeatedly until he tired himself out and fell asleep.

  In the morning, the father came to get him before the mother returned home from work.

  “Hey, sport,” the father said, smiling. “So did we learn our lesson?”

  Carver said nothing.

  The smile faded. “I said, did we learn our lesson?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The father didn’t seem convinced. And the next night he brought Carver back down into the basement.

  “I don’t think we’ve quite learned our lesson yet,” he said, opening the lid to the steamer trunk. “Why don’t you hop in there and think about it overnight.”

  Carver shook his head adamantly. His entire body had begun to tremble at the idea of spending another night in
that complete darkness.

  “Oh, sport,” the father said. “I don’t think you get it yet. In this house, you never say no to me.”

  Carver turned, meaning to bolt for the stairs. The father grabbed his arm and yanked him back. Carver screamed, “No, no, please, no!” while the father dragged him to the trunk. Carver tried kicking, he tried punching, but none of it seemed to help. So he turned his head and clamped his teeth on the father’s hand. The father cried out, letting go, and backhanded Carver to the floor. Carver, dazed, was not strong enough to put up more of a fight as the father picked him up and placed him in the trunk and closed the lid.

  All the next week Carver did not go to school. He had a black eye from where the father backhanded him. He was confined to his bed. The official reason was that he was sick with pneumonia. The mother had even gotten a note from one of the doctors at the hospital to give to the school.

  The mother came to see Carver the first morning.

  “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

  Carver, his eye swollen, said nothing.

  “Your father is a good man,” the mother said. She carried a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “He’s trying to teach you to obey so you can become a good man just like him someday.”

  Later that afternoon, while the mother went to the grocery store, Carver was left alone. He got out of bed. He walked around the house. He first looked through the kitchen, at all the different knives. He went to check the basement but then thought about the steamer trunk and refused to go downstairs. He went into the father’s study, looked through the desk drawers.

  He found what he was looking for in a shoebox in the father’s bedroom closet.

  A gun and a box of ammunition.

  It took Carver awhile to figure out how to open the cylinder. It took him even longer to figure out how to load the gun properly. Once all six cylinders were full, he closed the gun and took it downstairs.

  That night the mother went to work. The father, after midnight, went to visit the girls.

  Carver lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, while the two other boys pretended to sleep. After a while, Carver threw off his covers and started to get out of bed.