Damnable

by Hank Schwaeble

  “I will. And won’t.”

  He followed her out the way they had come and left the precinct, stepping through the tinted-glass doors into the sun. The concrete and asphalt were starting to warm up, sounds and smells of the city surrounding him, but it still felt cool and damp in the shadow of the building. He set out walking to find Bean’s coffee shop, thinking Detective Wright was plenty smart, very attractive in a no-nonsense kind of way, a woman he normally wouldn’t mind getting to know. Probably a good cop and maybe even a decent person.

  But mostly he was thinking about what it was she was trying to hide, surprised that a veteran New York detective, not the type to be lacking in practice, could be such an absolutely pitiful liar.

  CHAPTER 5

  VALENTINE UNLOCKED THE GLASS CASE AND CAREFULLY removed the book. It was an oversized tome, bulky and heavy, requiring two hands to hold. He carried it across the room and set it down on a velvet jeweler’s cloth laid out across his desk atop a thin rectangle of foam. When he lifted the cover, the sound it made gave him chills. It was a reminder of the enormity of his undertaking: the crackle of antiquity, an echo of eternity. He allowed the ends to spread naturally, easing a roughly equal number of pages to each side. Laying it open had always been a matter of extreme delicacy.

  Its parched natural binding, constructed of tanned human flesh, was brittle and flaking, the pages between them desiccated. Each time he handled it, he donned specially made calf-suede gloves, used felt-tipped tweezers with exaggerated square ends to turn the pages. The slightest twitch of any significance, the barest flinch at the wrong moment, and a piece of the vellum would surely break off. But recently he’d grown far more confident opening it, far less paranoid about its condition. He only needed it to last another week or so. Maybe less.

  The script was in Ge’ez. It had taken him three years to learn it, the last six months of them in Ethiopia. He’d poured himself into the task, studying the obscure language for the sole purpose of being able to understand the text’s meaning directly, without any filtering gloss or interpretation, to be able to read the passages as they were intended to be read. As far as he knew, the book contained the first words ever written by a human being, anywhere. It was not an original, but undoubtedly a copy made directly from the original. The only one in existence. That it was taken directly from the original was crucial. Copies made from other copies were useless.

  He scanned the pages, turning them slowly, gently. The words and passages instantly became familiar as he saw them, but with one lone exception, they could not be memorized. He had tried, had spent countless hours staring at the archaic print, reciting wording over and over and lifting his head to repeat sentences as soon as he’d finished them, only to find that they refused to be learned. The text wouldn’t allow it. Only the meaning could be retained.

  And yet still he knew that passages had changed. He could recall subtle differences each time he read, able to remember prior phrasing while he was reading, but only then. At times he had tried to copy passages as he read them, writing blindly while staring at the pages, but the original would always read differently by the time he was finished, even moments later. Even if he transcribed just two or three words at a time. That was the reason modern translations from copies were worthless. He had to read from the source document. That was the way it was meant to be done. The way Enoch had tried to prevent it from being done.

  He found the passage he was looking for, translated it in his head.

  Belial shall be let loose by the hand of the Brother, fertile with seed. Ye shall know once his three nets are cast and he has arisen through That Not Meant To Be. And the wages of sin shall prevail. But for corruption thou hast made Belial, an angel of hostility. All his dominions are in darkness, and his purpose is to bring about wickedness and guilt. The Blood of the Host shall be washed in the storm. The blood of the Innocent shall close the Gates.

  This passage was the first to have changed, and he was certain it was the only one to change every time he read it, provided he didn’t read it until he felt the book call to him, heard the fluttering of its pages like wings in his mind. Unlike the others, this one he could recite verbatim, this one he could repeat to himself often.

  The Blood of the Host shall be washed in the storm . . .

  That part was new. The passage was nearing completion, reconstituting itself. It would not be long now before the changes would cease, before the book let him know the time was right. He could sense it, like energy in the air. Soon.

  Then the whole of the text would reveal itself, and he will have accomplished the unthinkable, something no other man would have dared consider. It was dizzying to even contemplate.

  “Hey, Boss.”

  Valentine looked up from his desk. He was not easily startled but hadn’t realized Lucas had entered the room, his attention to the book so rapt. He appraised his employee for a brief moment, then dropped his eyes again, setting down the tweezers.

  “I trust you didn’t say anything stupid,” Valentine said. “Having a friend on the inside only accomplishes so much.”

  “No, Boss. I’m real sorry. Cop was just snooping around. Your name didn’t even come up. Honest.”

  Valentine carefully closed the book, carried it back to its case. The padded enclosure for it was form-fitted, with one movable edge to allow easy removal and replacement. It slid snugly into place.

  “I know it didn’t. Just don’t let it happen again.” He placed a gloved hand on the cover, giving it a tender caress. “There’s another matter you need to tend to.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Deborah St. James is in a hospital bed this very moment. I have her room number. Those Carnates I warned you about came close this time, but failed. She’s vulnerable right now. I want you to personally see to her.”

  “What about the cops?”

  “My information is, she is not being guarded. That’s why I’m sending you. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”

  “How, you know, discreet do you want me to be?”

  He closed the glass top to the case and stripped off his gloves. “Do what you need to. Just don’t get arrested.”

  “But, Boss, it might not be that easy. I mean, I might not be able to help it, you know? There’re cops out there that’ll bust me if they so much as recognize me, just for the hell of it. Stuff goes down in a hospital, no guarantee I won’t get nabbed just for being there.”

  “If you do,” Valentine said, locking the case and withdrawing the ornate brass key to it, “the next person I send to get you won’t be my lawyer.”

  Valentine placed the key in his pocket and lightly slapped his hand against Lucas’s cheek, holding it there. He smiled warmly, rubbing his thumb against the man’s face. “In fact, he won’t even be human.”

  “YOU KNOW, COME TO THINK OF IT, YOU LOOK JUST LIKE him. Doesn’t he, Fred?”

  Hatcher smiled politely as she refilled his cup. The man at the end of the counter wearing a tie-dyed shirt and suspenders stared at his laptop and shrugged. He had to be pushing sixty, with long white hair pulled back into a ponytail and a white beard. A hippie Santa Claus, Hatcher mused.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I forgot. Fred wasn’t here. Picked a hell of a day to miss out. But you do look like him. You two must get that all the time.”

  She blushed. Hatcher could sense her discomfort almost immediately, her realization she was referencing a dead man in the present tense. He took a sip of his coffee and nodded ambiguously, certain there was no more than a passing resemblance, if any. He wasn’t even convinced yet he and Garrett had actually been brothers.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  The name tag above her left breast read Cheryl. She was a fairly pretty girl, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, thin-limbed, with honey-colored hair. A faint smattering of freckles was visible over her nose and under her eyes despite a layer of makeup, and a small gap between her teeth gave her smile a hint of down-to-earth sensuousness. He’d been
listening to her version of events for around ten minutes, about how the woman was yanked off her stool, how stunned patrons watched as she was dragged away, how Garrett ran after them. What she had described was a lot of confusion, a lot of chaos. A senseless, random act of violence. A man who tried to do the right thing and got killed for it. Hatcher had known his share of those.

  “Where was he sitting?” Hatcher asked.

  She raised her arm, extended a finger. “Right behind you, in that booth.”

  Hatcher spun on his cushioned counter stool. The booth she pointed to was empty, like most of the rest of the coffee shop. A pair of disposable napkins wrapped around silverware sat on the Formica tabletop, waiting for the next customer. The place had that traditional coffeehouse look—plastic and vinyl and chrome. It occurred to him this kind of joint, and the thousands of others across the country just like it, had probably looked this way since the forties. It also occurred to him that the flat red piece of vinyl on the bench seat was the last place his brother had sat before he died. If this Garrett fellow really had been his brother, that was.

  “What about the guy he was sitting with? Had you ever seen him before?”

  “Nope. Can’t tell you much about him. Kind of chubby, maybe. Not exactly fat. Kind of scraggly blond hair. Maybe light brown. Real thin on top.”

  “Do you know what they were talking about?”

  “No. I don’t think I heard a word of what they were saying. I don’t pay attention to that, anyway. You learn to tune that stuff out.”

  “What’d he do when Garrett ran out?”

  “You know, I have no idea. I think he was up with us near the window, trying to see what was going on, but I don’t really remember. What I do know is, when the dust settled, he was gone. Never saw him before, haven’t seen him since.”

  “So he just paid and left? Didn’t wait around for the police?”

  She frowned, her lips bunching into a sort of pout. “No.”

  “No?”

  “He just left. He didn’t bother to pay. In fact, I think he was gone by the time I got off the phone with nine-one-one. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t expect someone to pay after that kind of thing. I wouldn’t even think twice about it. But this guy . . . this was different. I realized afterward he’d gone back to grab the rest of his croissant and walked out with his cup and spoon.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Messed up, huh? But you learn to keep counts on those things when you wait tables. His were gone. And he had barely touched his croissant. Funny thing was, that detective that came by with the others, she actually asked if I had his cup or his silverware. Weird, huh?”

  It was hard to argue with that. Weird was as good a word as any. “And you had never seen him or my brother before?”

  “No. Not that I can remember. And I think I’d remember your brother.”

  He was about to ask her why that was, until he realized how she meant it. Her smile gave it away. “How about the woman?”

  “No. And her I’d definitely remember.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She was drop-dead gorgeous.” She seemed to catch herself a moment too late, pausing before glancing down as she wiped some imaginary spot on the counter. “I mean, every guy was checking her out. I’m not into that kind of thing, but if I were, I’d have been checking her out, too.”

  “The police told me she’s not dead.”

  Her eyes widened as she raised her head. “Really? Wow. That cop who interviewed me, she didn’t say anything about that. Then again, I guess I didn’t ask. The way that ambulance slammed—I have to say I’m surprised. Didn’t expect to hear she lived.”

  “About the cop . . .” Hatcher described Detective Wright to her, mentioned her voice.

  “That’s her. I hadn’t thought about how she sounded until now, but you’re right. She and some other guy came by a day or two after it happened. She’s the one I talked to.”

  “What did she ask you about?”

  “The lady cop? Same kind of stuff you are, just a lot more of it. Mostly if I had seen the guy who grabbed her before. Said she was following up on my original statement.”

  “And you’re sure he just came in here and grabbed the woman? Didn’t say anything? Didn’t have any words with anyone?”

  “Not that I heard. I’d seen him staring through the window right before he came in. I was going to have the owner chase him off if he didn’t move it along. But we get homeless coming by occasionally, panhandling, you know, so I didn’t think much about.”

  “Why do you think he was homeless?”

  “Because he looked like the kind of psycho who goes around talking to himself. And he looked sick, too. No color in his face. Unless you think kitty litter has a color.”

  “Do you know what hospital they’d have taken the woman to?”

  “No. There’s a bunch nearby. What’s the one right around the corner? Hey, Fred?” She turned to the old guy at the end of the counter. He was still glued to his laptop, occasionally tapping keys. “What’s the hospital right around the corner?”

  “Eastside Memorial,” Fred said, without looking up.

  “Eastside Memorial,” Cheryl repeated. “They may have gone there. I’d bet that’s where that ambulance was heading. Too bad Fred wasn’t here when it happened. Nothing gets by him.” She tilted her head in Fred’s direction. “Isn’t that right, Fred?”

  Hatcher glanced over at the man. As far as he could tell, Fred hadn’t taken his eyes off his computer screen since Hatcher had taken a seat at the counter. Not even for a moment.

  She lowered her voice. “Fred’s a conspiracy theorist. Comes in here in the mornings to use our wireless, chatting on message boards about government cover-ups.” She made little circles next to her head with her finger.

  “I saw that,” Fred said, without looking up.

  Hatcher blew on his coffee and took a sip, thinking some conspiracy theories weren’t quite as nutty as others. “I don’t suppose my brother left anything behind. A business card or something.”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “He didn’t happen to give you his phone number or address, I guess?”

  “No, but I would have sure given him mine if he’d asked. So would that woman he tried to save.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because she was checking him out. On the sly, but definitely watching him whenever he wasn’t looking. He was a good-looking guy.”

  Hatcher nodded, unsure what to make out of that last bit of information. “Do you have a pay phone here I can use?”

  “A pay phone? We haven’t had a pay phone around in years. My boss says people only use those for drug deals or to call Mexico on stolen credit cards.”

  “Where can I find a phone to use then?”

  Cheryl stared at him incredulously for a second, then reached into one of the pouches in her apron and produced a thin phone. “Just don’t call China, okay?”

  Hatcher thanked her and took the phone. It was flat, much thinner than the cell phones he had seen in the past. He realized he hadn’t seen one in almost two years, probably not the latest models even then, and he wondered how much else had changed. Checking the number from the folded paper he’d kept in his pocket, he opened the flip top and hoped he could figure out how to use it.

  His mother answered on the third ring. She told him she didn’t have an address for Garrett. Just a PO box and a phone number. He took down the number. She asked him if he had seen his father yet. He told her he hadn’t, but that he would.

  Hatcher flipped the phone shut and started to hand it back to Cheryl, then stopped. “Do you mind if I make another call?”

  “Go right ahead.” She smiled, leaning forward over the counter. “You know, my number is right there on the screen, when you open it. If you need someone to call you back, I mean.”

  She slid along the counter, wiping desultorily, glancing over a few times as he watched her move away. He heard Fred grunt
from behind his laptop.

  Hatcher punched in the number his mother had given him, put the phone to his ear. For some reason, he really wanted to hear his brother’s voice, hoped Garrett had recorded a voice mail, wondered what the odds were his phone hadn’t been shut off yet.

  The call connected after four rings, and a woman’s voice said hello. It took him a second to realize it wasn’t a recording.

  “Oh, hi,” Hatcher said.

  “If you’re trying to reach Garrett, I’m taking messages for him,” the voice said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Wrong number.” He disconnected before the voice could respond. He stared at the phone for a few seconds before placing it on the counter next to his empty cup. He swiveled his stool to look out the window.

  People were passing by intermittently on the sidewalk, some going one way, some the other, some in pairs, most by themselves. The majority of them had their heads down, not paying much attention to anything but their immediate paths as they crossed between the shop and the street, between Hatcher and where the man others were telling him had been his brother met his death a few days earlier. He watched the cars rolling over the road, all heading in the same direction, one after the other, some faster than others. Imagined a man who resembled him getting hit by one, the life crushed out of him in an instant. A man who may have come from the same womb, shared the same blood. For the first time, for no particular reason that made sense, it felt likely Garrett was his brother.

  “All finished with it?” Cheryl asked, dipping her head toward the phone as she refilled his cup.

  Hatcher glanced over to her and nodded, in his mind still hearing that breathy, raspy voice that answered his brother’s phone, the same voice he had just listened to less than an hour ago. Detective Wright’s voice. He was sure of it.

  “Be nice to him, Cheryl,” Fred said, his eyes still locked on his computer screen, seeming never to have left it. His tone was subdued, almost muted. “I think the poor boy just saw a ghost.”