by Ray Garton
Eli was sure that part of the reason he felt the way he did was his preoccupation with Paaxone. It had seemed strange to start his day that morning without taking one of the pills. Everett had called the night before, assuring him that Falczek was on the case and hoped to learn something solid the next day. He’d also said that, according to his friend in Los Angeles, Paaxone was unavailable there, too. Everett was going to try to round up some Paaxone for Eli as soon as possible. Eli told himself he was worrying too much, making himself too anxious, and if he didn’t stop, he was going to make himself sick.
The voices on the radio that had barely registered only moments ago began to irritate him like tiny insects burrowing under his skin—even Chloe’s voice. He reached out suddenly and hit the button hard to change the station. An old Steely Dan song replaced the talk.
The fact that he’d run out of Paaxone was not the only thing bothering him. As the music played on the radio, Eli’s mind belatedly registered the news story he’d heard just before changing the station. Molly Clemens had come out of her coma. Last night, he’d read every story he could find on the Clemens shooting, as well as every story he could find on the attack he’d witnessed on Third Street Monday. Those had led him to the recent story of the fifty-year-old Whiskey Lake man who had gone berserk and stabbed his mother, wife, and a neighbor. All three stories had something in common: antidepressants. But something more than that had kept Eli sitting hunched at the computer last night, looking for more information, trying to confirm his suspicions. And those suspicions had disturbed his sleep all night long.
Eli found himself craving a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked in years, since before he’d married Pamela. But suddenly, he felt as if he’d just stopped smoking yesterday and his body was hungry for a hit of nicotine. He pursed his lips as he thought about sucking on a filter, drawing the smoke into his lungs. It would feel good right about now. Maybe it would relax him a little.
When the light turned green, Eli pressed on the gas pedal and the truck moved forward. When a car entering the intersection from the opposite direction, with no turn signal blinking, shot forward and made a left turn in front of Eli, he slammed his foot on the brake pedal.
“You son of a bitch!” he shouted as he pounded a fist on the steering wheel. He was seized by the urge to make a sharp right and follow the car until it stopped, then get out and chew the driver a new asshole. Uttering a stream of obscenities, he thought better of it and drove on through the intersection.
Steely Dan was replaced by a U2 song, something from the eighties. Eli hated U2. He reached down, hit a button, and switched back to AM, to the news on KNWS.
By the time lunch rolled around, Eli had become preoccupied with the idea of smoking a cigarette. He pulled into an AM/PM Minimart, went inside, and bought a pack. He asked the Indian cashier for a book of matches. On his way out of the store, he peeled off the cellophane wrapper, popped the box open, tore away the foil covering, and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it and stood beside his truck smoking. The first drag hit him like a blow to the face. It made him dizzy and light-headed for a moment, and he enjoyed it.
He thought about what he wanted for lunch, but then realized he wasn’t hungry. He was too tense and anxious to eat.
He finished the cigarette, got back into the truck, and started the engine. When the radio came back on, Chloe was reporting a shooting that had just taken place in the Whiskey Lake Mall.
4.
While Falczek was lunching with Toby Im and Eli was driving his truck, Chloe was in the studio reading the news on the air.
“Eleven more U.S. troops have been killed by another young suicide bomber in Afghanistan,” she said. “American forces have been hit hard in recent weeks by terrorists using young boys as suicide bombers. But today’s bombing marks the first time a young girl has been involved. The nine-year-old girl was strapped with explosives, which she set off as she spoke with a group of off-duty soldiers having lunch outside a café. Two civilians were killed in the explosion and four others injured. Morale among U.S. troops has been damaged by the need to be wary of and sometimes even shoot unfamiliar little boys who may be suicide bombers. As a result of the threat, four innocent boys have been mistaken for bombers and killed so far. Now terrorists have worsened tensions by showing they have no qualms about using little girls as killers. The loss of morale among troops has taken its toll, with three American soldiers committing suicide in the past week.”
She’d stumbled on several lines that morning, which was unusual for her, and she tried to pull herself together during a commercial break. Normally, her delivery was smooth and professional and cool. She had a lot of fans who didn’t give a damn about the news—they listened only to hear her voice. One of those fans maintained a website called Chloe’s Voice that featured pictures of her, audio clips from her broadcasts, and comments from her fans that ran the gamut from rhapsodic to pornographic. Chloe was very good at what she did, but today she was preoccupied, distracted.
Something was eating at Eli.
She couldn’t talk to Kevin about it because he’d known her long enough to know that when things were going too well, she started looking for problems to worry about. He couldn’t get past his suspicion that Chloe was seeing trouble where none existed and subconsciously trying to sabotage a good thing. And he was right—she’d been guilty of doing that plenty of times in the past. But she was not doing it now. Eli was worried and upset about something, and whatever it was, it was getting worse.
He’d been so quiet the night before. He’d eaten very little of his dinner and hadn’t said much, nodding as she spoke, but in a mechanical way, as if he wanted her to think he was listening while his mind was elsewhere. After dinner, he’d kept to himself. He’d spent more time on the computer than usual, his shoulders hunched as he leaned close to the monitor, head bent forward. After cleaning up in the kitchen and watching TV by herself for more than an hour, she’d gone into the guest bedroom hoping to coax Eli to join her, but he’d only grunted and mumbled responses as he read an article online. She’d gotten a glimpse of the headline—something about a murder-suicide. She’d read for awhile, then gone back to the guest bedroom to tell him goodnight. Leaning forward, she’d slid her hands down over his chest and stomach.
“Coming to bed?” she said.
Without taking his eyes from the screen, he said, “In awhile.”
“What are you reading?”
Suddenly, he turned away from the screen, stood, and faced her. “Oh, just, um, some news stories.”
She frowned at him. “Something’s on your mind, Eli. What is it? Talk to me.”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “Sorry, honey, I’m just... preoccupied.”
“With what?”
“Nothing important. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
“But I do worry.”
“I know, but there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll come to bed soon.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
But she’d awakened a few minutes after one and Eli still hadn’t come to bed. She’d been too tired to get up and find him and had gone back to sleep.
That morning, Eli had been groggy and had said little. Chloe had left for work with a bad feeling. Whatever was bothering him, it was serious enough to create a distance between them, and that worried Chloe. Was he doing drugs again? She’d seen no revealing signs of it, but his behavior was disturbing enough.
The commercial break was coming to an end. She took a sip of water, cleared her throat, and took a deep breath. She tried to focus on her work, but Eli haunted her.
Chapter 10
Gall
1.
Victor Gall was born on December 25, just like baby Jesus. But Victor and Jesus subscribed to different philosophies. Put simply, Gall’s philosophy was to do whatever was necessary in order to get whatever it was you needed in life, and don’t get caught. What he needed in life was power. What he needed in his
career was advancement, which would lead to more power. Thanks to his own cleverness and resourcefulness, he was well on his way to getting both.
He was thirty-three, but could pass for a man in his mid-twenties. He worked long hours, slept little, and had no life outside of his job, but he always made time for exercise. His health was his best resource and keeping in shape had always been an important part of his life. He thrived under the pressure of his job, loved the work, and hungered for advancement, for success. More than anything, he hungered for power and had ever since he was a small boy. But at the moment, there was an obstacle in his way.
Seated at his desk in his small office, he frowned down at a name written on a piece of paper. He’d just gotten off the phone with a man who had given him the name. He chewed on the flesh at the edge of his left thumbnail as he studied the name, as if gazing at it could impart to him some knowledge of its owner.
He was tense because of the name written on that piece of paper. That name could ruin all of Gall’s hard work, everything he’d done so far. Something would have to be done. The name was John Falczek.
The Director had been so pleased with Gall. Thrilled, in fact. After all, Gall had saved the day. He had taken a casual remark made by the Director and made it a reality, and he’d done it quickly and with no apparent effort. No apparent effort—Gall wanted to make sure his methods remained unseen. The name written before him could reveal those methods and spoil Gall’s plans.
To the Director, Gall had been a hero. The Director was a big, tall man, about sixty, with a large, balding head, an enormous creased forehead, and a hound dog face. He’d slapped his big hairy-knuckled mitt on Gall’s shoulder and squeezed firmly. There had been power in that squeeze, more than just physical strength, because the Director was a powerful man. He had the kind of power Gall intended to have some day—that power and more. The Director had squeezed his shoulder and had said in his deep voice with that folksy Alabama drawl, “Vic, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were lookin’ to take my job.” And he’d meant it. Gall could see the sincerity in his eyes, hear it in his voice—and along with it, just a slightest touch of fear, suggesting that he thought Gall might really be after his job. That was just what Gall wanted to hear, just what he wanted to see in the man’s eyes. It told Gall he was on the right path, headed in the right direction.
But the Director’s reaction would have been very different had he known how Gall had accomplished his feat. And the name written before him might make that happen if Gall did not take immediate measures to prevent it.
The door opened and Tommy Berring hurried into the office saying, “You wanted to see me?” Tommy was Gall’s assistant. He was 27 but looked like a freshman in college, fresh-faced, clean-cut, with red hair and freckles. Gall sometimes had to bite back the urge to call him Opie. But his wide-eyed boyish looks were deceptive. The kid was frighteningly intelligent and extraordinarily resourceful, tenacious, and loyal. Best of all, he kept his mouth shut and knew when to look the other way. Even better, he was terrified of Gall. Tommy was worth his weight in gold.
Gall handed him the slip of paper he’d been staring at and said, “John Falczek. He’s a reporter formerly with the Washington Post. Find out everything you can about him, about his associates. Everything. I need it fast.”
“Got it.” Tommy spun around and hurried out.
After the door closed, Gall leaned back in his chair and tried to relax. He chewed on the tattered flesh along the edge of his left thumbnail again. His neck began to ache. Relaxation did not come.
2.
Gall’s mother Phyllis was a heroin-addicted prostitute. He had a younger brother and two older sisters. Each of them had a different father, and all the fathers were unknown—not only to them but to their mother as well. He hadn’t gotten to know his siblings very well. Phyllis overdosed when they were all young—Gall had been seven—and while she was in the hospital, they were all made wards of the state, split up, and put into foster homes. He saw none of them again after that and hadn’t particularly wanted to. His mother came to visit him a few times, whenever her feelings of guilt were strong enough for her to track down whatever foster home he was in at the time. Mostly, she just called on the phone to say hello, see how he was doing, and tell him she loved him. Those words never sounded quite right coming from her mouth.
The other foster kids he knew were always in trouble with teachers or the police or the family housing them. They were so disconnected from everything around them, with no tether, nothing to anchor them down, that they seemed to fly in multiple directions at once. All of them. But Gall was different.
He had no control over his life, none at all. He was shuffled from home to home, family to family, school to school. Some were better than others. A couple had been pretty good. But most had been awful. He had no say in how he lived or where he lived. He had no say in the clothes he wore or the food he ate, which people he spent time with, when he slept, when he woke. He couldn’t even choose when to go to the bathroom because each house usually held so many kids that the bathroom was occupied half the time and he had to hold it in and go when he could. The people in his life were unpredictable, unreliable, and out of his reach. It seemed everything was in flux all the time, with no stability, no assurances, nothing and no one he could count on.
This utter lack of power over any aspect of his life was a source of intense frustration from a very early age. The frustration grew into anger, and that grew into rage. But he kept all of it inside. He became intensely determined to change that as he got older, to take control of his life, to have power over his circumstances. But that would not be enough. He wanted power over those around him, as well. He wanted as much control as he could get. He began thinking about that very early, pondering how he would go about getting that power. He felt the need to prepare himself for it, to be ready to seize control the moment the opportunity arose. In fact, he decided it would be best not to wait for the opportunity, but to seek it out and, if possible, make it happen.
He was a precocious child, a voracious reader and a keen observer who absorbed information, remembered it and learned from it. He read whatever was available—magazines, books, pamphlets, product packaging. He read books about engineering and history and science and economy and business and sports, graphic novels and biographies, encyclopedias and dictionaries, novels and short story collections, books of poetry, books of statistics, books of trivia. He drank it all in like a man gulping water after being lost in the desert. He watched other people, studied their behavior, the way they dressed, the way they interacted and spoke. When someone spoke to him, he took everything in—facial expressions, the movement of the eyes and hands, the posture, the tone of voice. He became good at sizing people up, reading them with his eyes and ears. His conclusions about them were usually correct, too. Over the years, he’d worked up a pretty good track record when it came to reading people quickly and accurately.
He paid attention to how people reacted to words, facial expressions, tone of voice. He noticed what behaviors elicited smiles, trust, wariness, anger, and adapted himself accordingly. He learned what people expected from others, what they liked and didn’t like, and each new discovery was filed away, remembered, utilized. This process changed him. He evolved into a young man others enjoyed talking to and being with, and he did so with ease and speed.
Gall knew things would change someday and his impotence would become power. He knew things would change for all the other kids he lived with, too. But for them it would be different. He knew they would become trapped in the patterns they were creating in their lives during their time spent in those foster homes. Those patterns would only lead to more and more loss of control and power in their lives, whether they knew it or not. When he saw powerful men—whether policemen in his neighborhood or world leaders on TV—he knew they did not achieve their positions by spending their early days in trouble like his housemates. They stayed busy, stayed clean, and stayed focused.<
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Gall’s housemates would never become policemen or mayors or governors or presidents. That was the kind of power he wanted—not the power that simply having money provided, but the power that came with position and authority. His housemates would never get into good schools or get good jobs with the records of trouble they were building up as minors. Gall knew that and gave it much thought. He knew that to achieve the kind of power he wanted, he would have to stay busy, clean, and focused. No trouble with the law, no arrests, no jail time. He would need a good education, some letters after his name, some knowledge in his head. He decided very early that he would not be like his housemates, and he kept his distance. Adults called him a loner as a result, but he didn’t care. He had a purpose.
First, he would remain clean. Then he would need to be educated. And he would need money, which was why he always had a job, sometimes two. He worked hard and saved every penny. Working not only allowed him to make some money, it kept him out of trouble. But he knew avoiding trouble would not always be easy, because he had no intention of achieving these things the way most people achieved them. He was impatient, eager.
Phyllis surprised him by showing up on his eighteenth birthday. By that age, Gall had gotten out of the habit of remembering his birthday because it was overshadowed by Christmas and always passed uneventfully, without celebration. That year was no exception. He was living in the home of Daniel and Marie Sexton with four other foster kids. The Sextons were bible-reading, tongue-speaking, church-going holy rollers, and they drove him crazy. He’d put up with all kinds of weird homes, but this one creeped him out. No TV in the house, only religious music, and every time he turned around he was expected to kneel in prayer to a god in whom he did not believe. It was smothering him. But with his eighteenth birthday, everything would change. When Phyllis showed up just before the Sexton’s served their Christmas dinner in the middle of the afternoon, Gall got an idea. It was risky, but he felt risk would be necessary to achieve his goals.