The Binding

by E. Z. Rinsky

  I shift in my chair.

  “What kind of manuscripts?” I ask, thinking about the story Heald told us about Joseph going down to Egypt.

  Mindy shakes her head.

  “I don’t know—I don’t think she even knows. I sense her research is at a fairly early stage. But still, I thought it was worth mentioning. Pertinent.”

  Courtney nods.

  “Very interesting,” he says softly.

  “So I had a thought,” I say. “Rico was supposed to be the twenty-second book. That’s twenty-two in twenty years, starting with the waitress’s brother. Pretty deliberate. No doubt Oliver could have gone faster if he wanted to. Do you think there’s like . . . is it possible he wants certain victims for certain volumes?”

  Mindy’s eyes open a little wider. “Hmm.”

  Courtney smiles at me, beaming like a proud parent.

  I rub my fresh stubble and again regret shaving off my conversational comfort blanket. “And if so, do you think it could be possible to determine from the content of an unbound volume whose skin he wants for it?”

  Mindy licks her chapped lips. I find her eagerness a bit revolting, given the context.

  “It’s an exciting idea. And I can’t rule it out.”

  “Can you look in the copies you have, see if you can find something?”

  She snorts.

  “Maybe if I had four months to kill. And even then, I only have about twenty hand-copied pages total, each from a different volume. As I’ve mentioned several times, there is a ton of cross-reference. Imagine trying to understand something fundamental about Crime and Punishment by just reading the first five pages. Now imagine those pages are in Russian, and you don’t read Russian, or know anybody who does.”

  “Still, good thinking Frank,” Courtney says, probably unaware of how patronizing it sounds. “The Egyptian thing intrigues me. Doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

  “Because of the hieroglyphic nature of his writing?” Mindy asks.

  Courtney raises an eyebrow.

  “You don’t know what Sophnot means?”

  “No . . .” she says. “What do you mean? I thought it was just a nickname he gave himself.”

  “It’s from the Old Testament,” he says. “It is a nickname—that the Egyptian Pharaoh used once for Joseph. It means something like he who solves riddles. At least that’s what the guy at the prison told us.”

  “You went to the prison! So how did he get out? Did he escape?” Mindy’s voice cracks. “Show me the fucking text from Rico!”

  I clear my throat. Courtney looks to me. The phone is in my pocket, but I don’t reach for it. He turns to Mindy.

  “First we need to address the event in which Frank and I manage to retrieve those books. I know you would like to take them yourself. That’s understandable. But the situation is pretty dire. Sampson thinks we have the books. He said if we don’t get them to him by Friday, he’ll call his friends in the FBI to track us down. He’ll probably tell them we stole forty-eight million dollars from him. It won’t be pretty.”

  Mindy takes off her cloudy glasses and rubs her tired eyes.

  “So why not tell him the truth? That you screwed up the swap.”

  “I didn’t screw up anything!” I snap. “I still don’t think you’ve gotten through your head: The situation was fucked from the start. Besides, Sampson wouldn’t even believe the truth at this point. The reason he thinks we have the books, and is giving us until Friday at all, is because Oliver Vicks told him to.”

  Mindy blinks. “How do you know that?”

  “Because he told us,” I sigh. “Oliver Vicks—I guess it was him, he was using that voice thing—called us last night to tell us as much. Oliver is under the impression that we have the books because of something Rico said, I suppose. So if we just tell Sampson we don’t have them he certainly wouldn’t believe us over his man-crush. And even if he did, he’d still send the feds after us out of spite, for losing them. ‘I’ll clutch at your ankles and drag you down with me into hell’ were the words he used.”

  Mindy plays with a clump of her nappy hair. Licks her dry lips.

  “Wow,” she says. “You two are in trouble.”

  “Well,” I say. “Don’t think your ankles are so safe. I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re in pretty deep, too, whether you like it or not. Oliver knows you were at the aquarium, too, and probably thinks you conspired with us to take his books. If we can’t find the books, or lead the cops to Oliver, he’ll surely encourage Sampson to have you arrested too. Or send those guys in khaki after us. I’m afraid you’re in the same boat as us.”

  She puts her glasses back on and fiddles with her lighter.

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Okay?” I peer at her. “So . . . you’re fine with us returning the books to Sampson?”

  She shrugs. “What do you want me to say? Okay. You made your case and I agree. Can I see the text now please?”

  Courtney looks to me for approval. I turn my palms to the ceiling.

  “Fuck it.” I pull the iPhone from my pocket, unlock it and pull up Rico’s text. “Lord knows we’re not getting anything out of it. And unless we find those books, come Friday our lives are going to be one long cavity search—and that’s if we’re lucky and don’t end up like Rico.”

  She eagerly takes the phone from me.

  “Left books where Sophnot never goes . . . Where they belong,” she reads thoughtfully. “Ya?”

  “Could be a yak. Or a Yakitori restaurant . . .” Courtney starts. I roll my eyes.

  “You make anything of it?” I ask.

  “No clue,” she says, shrugging.

  Is she lying to us? Is she just gonna go straight there afterwards and pick them up herself?

  “That’s why we went to the prison,” Courtney says. “First to confirm that he wasn’t there, and then . . . well if Oliver escaped that might be the place he’d never return to. Maybe Rico made his way there before the guys from the aquarium caught up to him. There would have been enough time.”

  “And?”

  Courtney shakes his head. “It was a stretch anyways. But no, if Rico knew what happened in that place, the prison is the last place he’d stash the books.”

  Mindy’s brown eyebrows furrow.

  “Why. What happened in that place?”

  I sigh. Maybe it’s because I’m too exhausted to think of clever lies, or because we basically have zero leads at this point, and nothing to lose, I explain everything Heald told us. About how Oliver just walked out the front gates four years ago. And then the visit to Becky.

  Mindy listens patiently, growing increasingly perturbed.

  “So if I understand this right,” she says, “You still have absolutely no idea where Rico stashed the books.”

  I grimace.

  “Right. So. Where does Sophnot never go? And why would the books belong there?”

  I study Mindy’s face closely as she thinks.

  “Why would Rico send you a riddle?” Mindy asks. “Why not just tell you exactly where he put them?”

  Courtney sits up a little straighter.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  “No idea,” I say.

  “I mean . . .” Mindy scratches an eyebrow. “He must have been worried that Sophnot or those guys from the aquarium would see this text. And somehow, he thought this was a text that you two would understand, but those guys, or even Sophnot himself wouldn’t.”

  “Or that it would at least give us a better chance at getting there first . . .” I say. “I think it’s probable that Rico only texted us once those guys hunted him down. Maybe after he’d dropped off the books, while he was running. If he just texted us an address and Oliver or the goons confiscated his phone, they’d just head straight there.”

  “Of course, Rico wasn’t exactly in his right mind,” Courtney says slowly. “We think he’d been chained up in that room for years. He was malnourished, probably sleep deprived . . . frantic at the time of writing
this. There’s a decent possibility that it’s not even sensical.”

  We all consider this unsettling possibility for a moment—that we’re reading too much into Rico’s message.

  “I have something that might help us,” she says. “Something I found a few years ago.”

  She grabs her laptop, beckoning us to come closer. We sit on either side of her on the bed. She smells even worse than Courtney.

  She opens a document with a bunch of links to old news articles.

  “I found this stuff a few years ago,” she explains. “Was trying to learn more about Oliver himself. Almost everything online is just about the buildings he designed, articles about ribbon cuttings and so on.”

  I spot a professional headshot of him in one of the open windows. He’s grinning, looks legitimately happy. And I shudder as I study his eyes. It’s subtle, but I can see what Elaine was talking about at the diner: The whites are too white. Glossy, like waxed ping-pong balls.

  Mindy continues: “But then I came upon something I vaguely recalled hearing a few years ago, or maybe even reading, but I just never gave it much thought. Probably because it seemed to make so much sense: He’s not a properly licensed architect.”

  I peer into the screen to read the article, but Mindy insists on paraphrasing it herself.

  “A few years before he was arrested, it was uncovered that Oliver Vicks was a fraud. He’d never gone to architecture school. Never even went to university. In fact, he may not even have made it all the way through high school. He was first hired by a firm in Denver with a phony diploma from a small school in England. This was way before the days of the internet . . . couldn’t Google him. And by all accounts, he knew exactly what he was doing, so there was no reason to ever be suspicious. And once you’re in the company, working, getting contracts . . . why would anybody ever look into your past?”

  “How was he found out?”

  Mindy smiles.

  “His firm had a project designing a huge industrial barn. To house hundreds of cows comfortably, with good lighting and ventilation—unlike the rest of the industry.”

  “A dairy . . .” I swallow. “Sampson’s farm?”

  Mindy nods.

  “Somebody on the architecture side made a mistake in the plans, and only when the barn was nearly done did someone realize it wasn’t up to code. The firm claimed they weren’t liable for the cost of bringing it up to code, because the dairy hadn’t provided all the proper zoning documents or something. There was a civil case, for the damages. They were asking for a million and a half dollars for renovations. Everyone on the design team had to testify including Oliver. But during discovery by the dairy farm’s lawyers they did a fairly standard background check on him, and everything came out. That was the end.”

  “What happened after?” Courtney asks. “Did he keep working?”

  “No,” she says. “Obviously not. You can’t have an unlicensed architect designing buildings. It’s not even safe.”

  “But everything he’d already designed . . .” I say.

  “Was fine, correct.” Mindy nods. “Still, when I first found out about this I got ahold of someone who worked with Oliver on one project, told him I was a reporter, and he told me it was quite a scandal. He was shunned. Totally blacklisted. If this happened today, it would be all over Buzzfeed. Instead, there are just very few records of what happened after that.”

  “Seriously?” I say. “Oliver blamed Sampson for outing him? It’s hardly his fault.”

  Mindy shrugs.

  “Don’t ask me to explain how Oliver Vicks thinks.”

  “So,” Courtney says slowly. “You realized years ago that this was all an elaborate revenge by Sophnot?”

  “I don’t think it’s a revenge thing,” Mindy says. “I figured Oliver just remembered James from the trial, spotted him in prison and saw an opportunity to get a US Senator in his pocket. Obviously it sometimes took on a sadistic flavor . . . advising him to cut off his genitals and so forth, but I think those were just further steps to ensure James’s future loyalty. Obviously I thought Oliver was still in prison. I never imagined that he’d somehow managed to get Rico to steal the books for him.”

  “Well,” I say, spreading my hands. “I think it’s pretty clear now that it’s a revenge thing. He’s extorted forty-eight million dollars from Sampson. My question is, why the hell wouldn’t you tell Sampson this?”

  “I did,” Mindy replies. “He already knew. Sophnot told him before James and I ever met. He told him it was part of God’s plan, that being stripped of his job as an architect forced him into the humility he needed. He thanked James for what happened.”

  I shake my head.

  “Well, there goes that. Was hoping we’d able to prove to Sampson he’s been had by showing him this.”

  Mindy lights up another joint.

  “It’s way too late for that,” she says. “It’s hard to imagine anything that could shake James’s faith in Sophnot at this point.”

  “Shame,” Courtney sighs. “I told Frank earlier today. The only real motivators of crime are shame, love and fear. It appears we’re dealing with a man who is trying to rectify his public shaming.” He sucks in his boney cheeks. “In some ways that’s the worst. Insecure men are always the most dangerous.”

  Mindy agrees to let us sleep there. It takes all my remaining strength to stay upright in the shower for long enough to soap myself up, wash my hair. Don’t bother to brush my teeth—my eyes are twitching and my vision is like a TV screen that’s not getting great antenna reception.

  I don’t even ask Courtney and Mindy to turn out the light for me. My head hits the pillow and immediately I flit into a half-dream state, where I can still hear the two of them speaking quietly, laughing a little, but it feels like it’s a million miles away. And then I slip down into blissful darkness.

  I’m the kind of sleeper who’s still aware of his surroundings—a part of me never goes off alert. I probably could have snoozed until noon the next morning if a soft, high-pitched sound didn’t jerk me awake around three.

  My eyes shoot open, and I’m about to sit up and grab my gun when I realize what’s happening. Mindy is sighing.

  Mindy. Courtney. One bed.

  Would have preferred an axe murderer bursting through the door and slaughtering us all. A little rustle of bedsheets. A slippery sound like a wet suction cup that I pray is just them kissing.

  There’s no way Courtney made a move. It was her. Trying to buy a little book insurance?

  I try to ignore it, fall back asleep, but this genie won’t get stuffed back in the bottle.

  I stay totally still. Don’t want to let them know I can hear them. The awkwardness would just be unbearable. At least I’m facing away from them . . .

  They know I’m right here, right!?

  Indecipherable whispering.

  Rhythmic creaking of bedsprings.

  God. Dammit.

  Heavy breathing. Mindy makes a serious little gasp. It’s almost worse not seeing it, because I’m imagining it. Courtney’s bare boney back, Mindy’s face aglow in ecstasy, her hands squeezing his tiny ass, pulling him deeper . . .

  Jesus, Frank. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.

  “C’mon,” she whispers. Well, now I know I wasn’t imagining all of this. They’re really doing this. Mindy and Courtney are fucking three feet away from me.

  Don’t they realize how goddamn tired I am? How badly I need this sleep? Maybe she knows I can hear. Maybe that kooky bitch gets off on that shit.

  “Hit me.” Her voice is raw.

  “What? What do you mean?” I hear Courtney whisper.

  “Hit me. Hard.”

  I hear a pathetic slap.

  “C’mon, hard. Be a fucking man. Hit me. Punish me.”

  Another slap.

  “Like that? Sorry I’ve never really–”

  “Harder. Punish me.”

  The creaking quickens. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.


  “Hit me. Punish me. Tear my skin. Rip it off,” she groans. “Bind me.”

  Creaking comes to a sudden halt.

  “Stop, stop,” mutters Courtney. “Stop it.”

  Mindy doesn’t respond. The bedsprings get a break for a moment, and I can’t tell exactly what’s happening in the other bed.

  Then she says something softly that gets lost in the buzz of the air conditioner.

  “It’s okay,” Courtney says softly.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. It’s the books.” I think she’s crying. “They change you.”

  A little chill shoots down my spine.

  “It’s fine.”

  A few minutes of silence. Then she murmurs:

  “The language, the complexity, the challenge and epiphanies . . . it’s so exciting. But it’s like a drug. It rewires your brain.”

  “There’s a lot there that you haven’t told us about.”

  “Of course,” she says. She can’t keep the longing out of her voice. “You’d love them, Courtney.”

  One of them shifts in the bed.

  “But they were written by a criminal. A murderer.”

  Mindy never responds to that. They go quiet. After about ten minutes I’m pretty sure both of them have dozed off.

  But I’m completely wired. And their little bout of lust cost me another night of sleep—because I already know there’s no chance I’ll be able to settle down now. I go through the motions, close my eyes and sink deeper into the pillow but the projector in my mind’s eye whirrs to life, playing a hideous loop: Becky’s sunken face, Sampson’s self-imposed mutilation, the deep scratch marks where the leather collar was anchored to the bronze wall, the twenty-two passport-sized photos in the file cabinet. And dancing in and out of each scene is a ghost in a white wax mask molded to Rico’s face.

  I toss around in bed, too hot, too cold. Four in the morning. Five. Air-conditioning starts and stops. Courtney snores intermittently.

  I think about our visit to the grill, about our talk with Warden Heald, about the orgy at the red house . . .

  Wonder how often that happens? Wonder if any of those kids have a clue what’s going on downstairs there.

  Five thirty in the morning, and sleep is a distant memory. My body is so tired it hurts. My jaw kills from the shot I took from the baby bouncer, and my ribs hurt from a hit I can’t remember—maybe he punched me in the gut while trying to strangle me. Legs are sore from all the running.