Albert Wensel finally spoke. “Have you been sleeping with this girl?”
Ed fixed Wensel with a glare, trying to match Wensel’s cold expression, though he doubted he could come close. “No.”
Wensel’s face hardened, his eyes becoming slits. “Don’t you lie to me, son. It’s bad enough that Rodney and his gang would take advantage of a young girl. Then you do it too, with your wife barely in the ground! Instead of taking care of her, taking her home... You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“That’s enough,” Tom said, looking pointedly at Wensel. The two of them had clearly discussed this subject at great length already.
Turning to Ed, Tom said, “The girl doesn’t want to be at home, and no one could make her stay there anyway. Just understand, the way you’ve been conducting yourself—it doesn’t look good. You took advantage of a young girl’s innocence. It isn’t appropriate.”
“This is why you brought me here?” Ed asked. “To lecture me on my behavior?” He got up and turned toward the door.
“Sit down!” Wensel snapped. The man in the suit had stepped sideways to block Ed’s path to the door. Ed glanced back at Wensel, who nodded sharply toward the chair. Ed, feeling emasculated, lowered himself slowly back down.
“Now,” Wensel said, “Tom tells me you seem to be having a crisis of conscience over the help you gave us yesterday. Is that correct?”
“I wouldn’t call it a crisis,” Ed mumbled.
Wensel leaned forward, his gaze hard enough to make Ed break out in a sweat. “Let me ask you this, then. Do you support the government of the United States?”
“Sure I do,” said Ed, a little defensively.
“Do you carry any sympathies for enemies of this country?”
“Of course not!”
“Then what exactly is bothering you about all this?”
Ed struggled to find the right words, fearing very much that the wrong response would get him into a whole lot of trouble. “I don’t see why it had to happen the way it did. Did you guys even try talking to him first? Maybe you could have brought him around to your way of thinking without—without...”
It was Tom who answered him. “Ed, you know very well that you can’t change a man by talking to him.”
“But he was a Senator,” said Ed, knowing he was pushing his luck. “If anyone ever finds out what you did―”
“You did it too, Ed,” Tom said quietly. “You’re a part of this.”
“Okay. But if this ever gets out―”
Wensel was scowling so deeply that his jowls were quivering. “What exactly makes you think anyone will find out?”
“Ah,” Ed stammered, “I don’t mean―”
“Let me make one thing clear,” Wensel said, “in case you have any doubt in your mind. You are not to tell a soul about any of this. If you breathe a word to anybody—about this conversation, about your dealings with Tom, anything—I can make you disappear from the face of the earth. There are consequences for disloyalty to the American government. Am I making myself clear?”
Tom laid a hand on Ed’s arm. “Don’t let your conscience make you do anything you’ll regret.”
“Agent Driscoll,” Wensel went on without missing a beat, “would you escort Mr. Terwilliger back downstairs?”
The man in the suit opened the door and looked expectantly at Ed. Ed looked at Kajdas, who motioned helplessly with both hands, then let them drop in his lap. There was nothing more to be said; Ed let the young agent walk him out of the office.
* * *
“Well, now you’ve met him,” Kajdas said after the door was closed. “What do you think?”
Wensel leaned back in Kajdas’ chair. “Disrespectful little guy. But he might be a good candidate.”
“He’s already done a lot for us,” Kajdas pointed out. “I think we ought to leave him alone. Find someone else.”
“It’s the girl that’ll be a problem,” said Wensel, who didn’t appear to be listening. He sat forward abruptly and leaned his arms on the desk. “You’re sure of what he told you?”
“About the voices he hears? Yes, he was quite clear on that. But―”
“Then why are we debating it? He’s a candidate for Summit, and he talks too much. That’s two good reasons. If he’s talking to Rosenthal, he’s probably talking to the girl too.”
“We don’t know that,” Kajdas insisted.
“He’ll tell her. They always do.”
“He might not. At least give him a chance to do the right thing.”
Wensel exhaled deeply and folded his hands. “All right. For you, Tom, I’ll give him one chance. But the minute he tells that girl anything, I’m going through with it. Unless you’d rather send him to Denver.”
Kajdas inhaled sharply. Would Wensel do such a thing to Ed? “No,” he said, “not Denver. Just give him a fair shake and see what he does.”
“One chance.”
29
Bloody Razorblade
Ed was surprised to find Doris sitting on the steps halfway up to his apartment, resting her head on her knees. “ You won’t believe where I just came from,” he said as he walked up the stairs.
When she didn’t reply, he moved closer. It wasn’t until she lifted her head and looked up at him that he realized something was wrong. She looked dazed. “Can I come inside?” she said.
Ed wanted nothing more than to tell her all about his ordeal of the last hour, but he thought better of it and said, “Sure.” He held the door for her and she brushed past him into the apartment. “What’s wrong?” he asked uncertainly.
Doris didn’t answer. She walked to one of the kitchen chairs, but instead of sitting on it, she sank to the floor and sat on the linoleum. Ed got down and sat next to her.
“It was Rat,” she said, so softly that Ed could barely hear.
“Rat? What did he do?”
“The Guru’s dead. Rat did it.”
“Rat.” The Guru... dead? “Are you sure? When did it happen?”
She shook her head slowly, still in shock. “I went into the bathroom. It was sometime in the early morning, I don’t know. Still dark out. He... he was in the bathtub.” She paused, eyes closed, then forced herself to continue. “There was blood everywhere. The tub was full of it. And Rat—he was sitting on the toilet, holding a bloody razor blade. And humming! He was humming a song!”
Ed felt lightheaded. “Rat was attacking the Guru?”
“He was...” She shuddered and started again. Her voice was less steady as she spoke this time. “He carved him up like a piece of meat.”
Ed put an arm around her. Dead. “It was Arthur. He was the one who was tormenting the Guru, making him go crazy. Rat must’ve been working for him.”
“What am I supposed to do now?” she said, sounding utterly lost. “He was all I had. Now I’ve got nobody.”
Ed held her for a long time, leaving her side just long enough to get a box of tissues from the bathroom. When the tears subsided a little, he tried talking to her again. “Did you call the police?”
Doris blew her nose and then let out a miserable laugh. “With all the illegal stuff in the house? The cops would be a real help. I told Rayfield and Lou and Geoffrey to get the hell out of there and never go back. Then I ran.”
“We can call anonymously.” When she shook her head, he said, “Someone’s got to take care of his body. And maybe they can catch that Rat guy and put him behind bars. We need to call.”
“I said no!”
Ed let the subject drop and Doris went into the bathroom. She emerged a while later looking slightly calmer, face washed and hair brushed, but Ed had the feeling she was just barely holding herself together. She sat on the couch and rubbed her temples.
As he sat down next to her, the gnome crept out of the bedroom to see what was going on. Ed motioned angrily for it to go away. It ignored him. When he turned to face Doris again, she was giving him a strange look.
“What’s wrong?” she asked warily. “It’s not
happening to you too, is it?”
Ed shook his head.
They sat there for a long time. She got up to turn on the TV, tuning in to an old black and white movie. They both sat and stared at the picture without following the program.
“You can stay here,” Ed said after a while. “I’ll sleep on the sofa.” Doris smiled at him weakly, but didn’t reply. He tried again: “Are you hungry? I have stuff in the fridge. Let me tell you what I’ve got.” He started to get up, but she grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back down.
“Please stop talking,” she said. “It’s annoying.” Then she began to kiss him. He realized with a stab of panic that he hadn’t brushed his teeth since the night before, but the thought didn’t stick around for long. He hadn’t kissed anyone since Eleanor. It felt nice. But—
“Mmm,” he said, pulling away from her. “Stop. I’m too old for you. I can’t―”
“I lied to you,” she interrupted. She was still so close to him that he could feel her breath on his lips when she spoke. The gnome was still watching intently from the hallway.
“Lied?” His thoughts were all jumbled. “About what?”
“My name. It’s not Doris.” She smiled again, this time with more conviction.
Ed was trying very hard to remember the name Wensel had told him, but conscious thought was not coming easily. “I—I mean, it isn’t?”
Instead of answering, she moved in and kissed him again. He knew he shouldn’t let her, but his willpower drained away rapidly. He slid his hands under her shirt, letting them pause for a moment on her back. She wasn’t wearing a bra. His hands moved around to the front, seemingly of their own volition. She bit his lip and pushed him backward onto the couch.
* * *
Sitting alone in the apartment next door, David Gonzales turned up the gain on the recorder to try to catch what was being said. They seemed to be done talking; all David could hear were the girl’s quiet sighs and the soft sound of clothes dropping to the floor.
David listened for a while. After some time he heard them get up from the couch and move out of the living room. He fiddled with several dials and switches, turning off the living room feed and switching to the bedroom microphone. That done, he checked the remaining tape—there was enough for at least another half hour—then settled back and worked on creating a mental image to accompany the sounds. Not for the first time, David reflected on how much he loved his job. This would be a tape to copy for his personal collection.
* * *
Ed awoke with a start some time later, never having realized that he was dozing. Doris was lying with her head propped up on her arm, watching him with an amused smile.
“It’s Sarah,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“My name. It’s Sarah.”
“Hi, Sarah,” he said sleepily. “I’m Ed.”
Her smile was warm, but there were dark circles under her eyes, and a sadness in her expression that her smile did little to hide.
“I was just dreaming about you,” she said, reaching over to twirl some of his hair around her finger. His hair was getting long; Ed couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in for a haircut.
“Must’ve been a good dream, then,” he said.
Doris—Sarah—looked thoughtfully at the ceiling, trying to recall the dream. “You were walking down a street with a woman. She had brown hair. Very pretty.” She gave him an exaggerated look of disapproval.
“What were we doing?”
“You were buying something from a guy on the street. Some bum selling trinkets. That is, the girl was buying something. You looked like you wanted to leave.”
Ed sat up, his sleepiness gone in an instant. “Do you remember what she bought?”
“No. All I remember is that the guy was ugly. What’s the matter?”
Ed lay back down slowly, looking around for the gnome. He couldn’t see it, although that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. “Nothing, probably.”
They lay there for a while in silence, listening to the sound of the traffic outside his window.
“Ed?” Sarah said in a sleepy voice.
“Hmm?
“Don’t ever die or anything, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So where were you?” she asked.
“Did I go somewhere?”
“You said I wouldn’t believe where you’d been today. It was the first thing you said when you came home.”
“Oh.” He hesitated; he had been ready to tell her everything, just to spite Tom and his fat-jowled boss. But when he thought of Wensel, he suddenly found that telling Sarah no longer seemed like such a good idea. “Tom wanted to meet with me,” he said.
Sarah made a face. “I thought you were through with that creep.”
“This time I think I really am. He did a lot for me when Eleanor died. Turns out he was just trying to use me.”
“Use you for what?”
“Long story.”
“I like long stories.” Sarah watched him expectantly.
Ed fiddled with the sheet. He knew he shouldn’t tell her, but at the same time he was desperate to talk to someone about all that had been going on. There was no one else he could trust. “Put your clothes on. Let’s go out for a bite.”
Looking puzzled, Sarah got out of bed—giving Ed a fine view of the landscape as she did so—and began to search for her clothes. She pulled on her jeans and t-shirt, picked up her denim purse, and followed him outside. Neither of them spoke until they were speeding down the freeway in the Barracuda.
“What is this all about?” she asked him, raising her voice to be heard above the roar of the engine. “You’ve been so secretive about things.”
Ed dropped the car into a lower gear to pass a slowpoke who refused to get out of the fast lane. “You have to understand,” he said, “I was in bad shape when I met him. Eleanor had just died, and Tom got me through it. He’s saved my life once or twice.”
“You said he’s been using you. For what?”
Ed steered the car with his thigh while he lit a cigarette, thinking all the while about how much he should tell her. She wouldn’t be happy to hear any of it, he was sure. “I was short on money. I was getting desperate.” He trailed off there, unsure of how to continue.
“What, did he pay you to do something?”
Ed nodded. “I felt like I really owed him, after everything he did for me. You call him a creep, but he’s not like that. Or he didn’t seem like that.”
Sarah was becoming increasingly impatient with his method of storytelling. “What did you do for him?”
Ed turned to look at her, but found that he couldn’t quite meet her gaze. He looked down instead, and as he was looking down he spotted a piece of paper on the floor near her feet. It appeared to have fallen out of her purse.
“You dropped something,” he said, grateful for the opportunity to change the subject.
“That’s not mine,” Sarah said, but she picked up the scrap of paper anyway, then unfolded and read it. “Oh my God.”
Ed craned his neck to get a look at the paper, but had to swerve suddenly as a car in the left lane honked at him for crossing over the line. “What is it?”
“It’s from him.”
“Who?”
Sarah took a moment to read the note again. “He knew it was going to happen,” she said, a touch of awe in her voice. “Must’ve slipped it into my bag. He wants me to go see Terry.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ed grumbled, irritated at the other driver, who was now keeping pace with him and flashing rude hand signals. “Who’s Terry?”
“Get off there!” she blurted, leaning forward and pointing toward an exit ramp. Ed swerved reflexively, cutting across two lanes amid the blare of car horns.
“Don’t do that!” he growled once he’d managed to maneuver onto the ramp and regain some of his composure. “Who’s Terry?”
“You met him before. Terry Melcher. He was at the Guru’s house
, remember? He’s in the music business.”
Ed shook his head.
“You’ll know him when you see him. The Guru’s trusted him. Terry’s not quite one of us, but he understands what the Guru is―” She trailed off and stared off into space. “What the Guru was doing.”
Even in death, it seemed the Guru was able to make people do what he wanted. “Can we get something to eat first? I’m starving.”
“The note says we have to see him right away; he says Arthur’s up to something and we need Terry’s help. Whatever it is, it has to do with you.”
“With me?”
“Turn here.”
30
Terry and Candice
Ed followed Sarah’s directions onto a winding road that ran along the bottom of a canyon. Melcher’s driveway was partially hidden among the trees and brush at the side of the road; they passed it twice in the deepening darkness before Sarah recognized the turnoff. A sturdy metal gate, twelve feet wide and six high, blocked the entrance. At Sarah’s instruction, Ed rolled down his window and pushed a button, and the gate, which had been left unlocked, opened to let the car through.
Ed was impressed by the sprawling house on the side of the hill, but it made no visible impression on Sarah. He had to remind himself that her upbringing had not been as austere as he’d originally thought.
“Terry’s mother is Doris Day,” Sarah said as he parked next to a flashy convertible in the broad driveway.
“For real? You ever meet her?”
“No. I borrowed her name, though. Probably why Terry’s so sweet on me. Just don’t call me anything but Doris when there are people around.”
The door opened a crack before Ed had a chance to ring the bell, and he saw Melcher peeking out through the opening. Seeing that they were not a threat, Terry flung the door open. “Peace, people,” he said, extending his hand, but as Ed shook it he saw that Melcher’s attention was already on Sarah. “Little Doris,” Melcher said with a laugh. “You’re skinnier every time I see you. You need to eat something, girl.” He pulled her into a hug, murmuring, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1) Page 27