Easy, mate. This can only be touched by me.
The object that was supposed to bring him luck was a small statue made of a shiny black substance. It wasn’t metallic, so I assumed that it was made of obsidian or some other volcanic rock. It was an intricate carving that depicted an idyllic scene. And it made me feel things that I’d never felt before.
It was stunning. I couldn’t believe the utter detail that had been crafted into it. It was a large Unicorn. A great stallion with muscular haunches, and yet slender in build. The beautiful beast had its great head thrown back, its mane flowing wildly, and the horn – a long, razor-sharp protrusion – pointed toward the heavens.
The appendage wasn’t threatening or dangerous. It seemed like a symbol of virility. A phallic-like object that contained power and life. The creature's majesty was underscored by something upon which I couldn’t put my finger. Something in the way it was wrought. It suggested grace, romance and power long since extinct from this corporeal world.
Jack watched me eagerly as I stared at the statue. I saw him out of the corner of my eye. He had that shit-eating grin that said, ‘once again, I’m right.’ But I didn’t care. I was too busy fixating on the statue.
I did pause long enough to look up at him, and that’s when I noticed that he was wearing the Icarus amulet around his neck. I couldn’t remember him wearing it since he moved to Montreal. Disturbing memories of black blood and bathroom humping churned in my psyche. He fingered it nervously between his thumb and forefinger. I shrugged it off and looked back at the statue, reveling in a climactic spasm of visual sex.
At the Unicorn’s feet lay a woman of beautiful build and melancholy air. Even though the carving was small, I marveled at the detail which the artist had captured. Her voluptuous figure spoke of exotic pleasures. Supple breasts and full but slender hips were only accentuated by flowing hair. Though carved in obsidian, I could almost see the golden strands, and I practically smelled the scent of heather which wafted around them. I imagined her hair flowing over snow-white shoulders. But what captivated me the most was her face.
I had to lean in to get a close look. Jack tensed as I grew close. I’m sure that he was ready to tackle me if I made even the slightest attempt at touching her. But I kept my hands lowered and peered into her downturned face. She stared at a small object in her hands and I strained to discern her eyes through the fine detail.
I wasn’t disappointed. Her features spoke almost audibly of her disposition. Her beautiful eyes were filled with longing and sorrow, and the craftsmanship that captured the emotion was so profound that I nearly shed a tear. I tried to make out the object which monopolized her attention, but was frustrated in my attempt to discern the subject of her melancholy. I thought of asking Jack for a magnifying glass. In spite of myself, I had succumbed to his obsession.
I leaned back in my chair and took a gulp of Scotch. All the while, I never took my eyes off the statue. It was a magical carving, and I was lost in a near-magical trance for well over a minute. But abruptly and uncomfortably, I was jarred back into the material world when Jack began to speak. I cut him off.
"Jack! I have to know who sculpted this, and more importantly, who modeled as the maiden! You have to tell me!” Jack laughed his deep, resounding laugh.
"I'm sorry, old man, but she’s long gone. This is Byzantine. Ninth Century. And it’s one-of-a-kind." The dismay on my face was quite visible.
"She's a beauty, isn’t she? But so is he.” Jack stroked the Unicorn’s back. "This is it, Mal. I bought this last week in Suriname. From a private collector. At first, he didn’t want to part with it…”
“…But you made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Jack winked.
“It was crafted by a Bulgar sculptor known only as ‘the Chosen One.’ Apparently, he had mystical powers. Powers that were infused into each of his creations. His powers were well-known by Khan Krum, the leader of the Bulgarians. Krum solicited his services (a nice way of saying that he threatened to kill his family) in the hope of gaining a ‘strategic’ edge during the storming of Constantinople in 813 AD. But alas, it was not meant to be. The Bulgars fell at Constantinople and the Chosen One paid a steep price. So did his family.” Jack slowly ran his forefinger across his jugular.
“It’s one-of-a-kind. He sculpted less than twenty statues, and each one was unique.” I nodded and took in the story, and while I stared forlornly at the maiden and her seemingly heaving bosom, I lamented. But my senses took over, and I scrambled back over the precarious precipice of fantasy and into reality.
“Interesting story. Quite an addition to your collection, Jack.” He had been sipping on his Scotch and nearly choked on it.
“Addition to my collection?” He put the glass down and peered deeply into me. Mal…no. You don’t understand.” He almost glared at me, as if I was someone he’d known forever; and then suddenly he realized that he didn’t know me at all. I nodded and sipped on my Scotch and craved another cigarette. No, I don’t understand.
“This is not simply an addition to my collection. This is the beginning of it. The thing that will change everything that we know. The fait accompli. The Alpha in search of the Omega.” I kept nodding and gestured for another cigarette, but he ignored me.
“This is the first of what will be a collection, Mal. A collection of unprecedented proportions. This will make the Louvre look like second grade art class. People will speak of it forever.
“I intend to bring together the most profound collection of art the world has ever seen. It will be astounding and disconcerting at the same time!" He seemed elated, but it was not unlike the elation he showed the day he found out he wasn’t going to jail for his violent crime. I nodded dumbly while he kept speaking.
"I will travel the world..."
"You already have." I interrupted and took another drink of my Scotch. Its dry alcoholic flavor was somewhat reassuring, but I was getting a little freaked out. He shrugged.
"...and purchase art. Art with most significant themes and implications. Until I’ve amassed a collection that will make the world envious. Then I’ll build a house around that art. One and the same with the art. A house in which to covet and protect the art!"
He took a voracious swig of his Scotch and I focused my eyes at him. After a moment, he leaned over and caressed the statue as if he wanted to embrace it like a mother bear who protects her young.
“Do the two of you want to be alone?” As much as it was meant to be an ironic diatribe designed to break the tension, I didn’t smile. I stared at him dumbly for what must have been a full minute.
Jack’s life had been all about physical gratification, personal gain and the sheer satisfaction of seeing others suffer. True, I had seen changes in him. I watched him morph into something that I couldn’t understand. But he never worked an honest day in his life. He had an education which only rich kids experience. The education of the upper class. A trial of ignorance characterized by sleepwalking through studies. Drunkenness, debauchery and pure disinterest were the textbooks. Comparisons of personal fortunes were the seminars.
The real trick for rich kids was not to learn or endeavor, but to simply to get by. Marriages and 'professions' were pre-determined, as were the lives of the offspring of those marriages.
So listening to Jack explain his plan to build an art museum confused me. Over the course of the conversations that we had, I had learned to admire his newfound love for something that didn’t reside at the apex of a female’s thighs.
I never really believed that Jack was developing depth. At most, I wrote it off as an obsessive personality that could afford to find new ways to obsess. All that time, I just thought that he had found something novel to covet.
"Mal," he said feverishly, obviously quite excited now by his new project,” do you believe in magic? The supernatural?” I smiled and shook my head. This conversation, or the Scotch, or both, were beginning to dull my finer senses.
“Too bad," he smiled patronizingly.
"I do. Magic isn’t simply mankind's way of reasoning away the longing of something that’s beyond our understanding. It’s about the manifestation of something that is the most sublime of desires. You see, history has proven that by desiring magic, metaphysical forces can be drawn together into tangible quantities of supernatural power.
I believe that the spirits and the forces which swell and ebb around us become dormant, if we forget – or fail to keep them awake – on this physical plane. Art, my friend, is the ultimate extension of that truism." I looked at him and frowned.
“I’m not sure I understand. What do you mean?”
“Art captures the human spirit, the human imagination in all its glory and decrepitude. Art captures time in its grasp and holds it, for all eternity. Art creates times and places that never existed. And by assuming a creationist role, its perfection begins to take on the virtues of God. Art is God, Mal, and God is art. The more we resemble God, the more we become God.”
Jack had unconsciously disproved my opinion of him. I had known him to say relevant things – regardless of significance – regarding philosophical matters. But I never heard him expound on this level. I began to wonder just how much more there was to learn about Jack. It scared me, for it didn’t jibe with the man I thought I knew.
“Jack. Why don’t you golf? Or sail boats, like other millionaires?”
“Billionaires.” I raised an eyebrow and bit my lower lip. I had only been able to speculate on his net worth, but I had no idea he had that much money.
"Congratulations. I'm not really sure I understand what you're getting at, Jack,” he looked like a man possessed with far more than his soul was capable of managing. "What’s with the sudden interest in the supernatural and metaphysics?"
Jack smiled condescendingly. This normally suggested a new tale of his sexual exploits, or just an excessive amount of Scotch. But he wasn’t about to be distracted.
"Mal, when you develop a fine sense of irony – as I have – you’ll realize that every new slap in the face is only another brush stroke by the hand of God." He smiled sardonically. "It's time to make my own brush strokes."
I still didn’t understand, but I wasn't sure I wanted to. I just shook my head and finished my Scotch. I noticed the time and told him I had to go. He smiled and nodded vigorously. This conversation wasn’t over.
I stumbled to my car. Birds were chirping and the air was warm and dry. The sun glared against my cheeks – flushed, I’m sure more by the Scotch than by ultraviolet rays. Things were different. Maybe it was because I felt tipsy, but something was distinctly different.
The image of the maiden was etched in my brain and the look on Jack’s face left me with something that I didn’t want to think about…didn’t want to contemplate. I had known him forever, or so it seemed. During that time I had seen him in a variety of states that ranged from mild lunacy to sheer chaos. Eccentric? Sure he was. But I had never seen him this determined.
That’s what perplexed me. Every time he had a wacky idea or obsession, it normally passed quickly, and he was back to his normal, frivolous self.
He’s not well.
Easy, mate. This can only be touched by me.
For reasons unknown to me at the time, I couldn’t write it off as a random make-work project for Jack. Delicately, I got into my car and placed the key in the ignition. As I turned the engine over, I thought about Elizabeth and doubted that Jack was taking his meds.
So as I put the car into gear I decided to put the entire conversation out of my mind. Even then however, I knew that denial was no longer an option. Things had changed indelibly, and not for the better.
Chapter 29
Not long after my conversation with Jack, business necessitated a prolonged trip to France. We had a client in Paris which gave us access to several major European food manufacturers. Our client had recently signed a contract with a large German company, and required a series of new services. But they needed it yesterday.
Shortly after my thirtieth birthday, I lost almost all interest in business. I became moody, and incredibly bored with work. I did whatever I could to avoid it. But this was a seven-figure contract and since I had no choice in the matter, I wasn’t about to turn down a two-month vacation in Paris.
If I have one obsession which shines through all the others, it’s liquor and women. Paris is the World Capital for both. So it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. I left in mid-August, and for two straight months I did little in the way of work. But I did drink and fornicate as much as was humanly possible. As if time had passed in a blink however, October came suddenly and it was time for me to return to Canada.
I flew back to Montreal as autumn embalmed the land with its solemn seductive spell. When I left the baggage claim and strolled outside, the sun tried to warm my face. But the temperature, moderated by a numbing chill in the air, announced to those it chilled that summer was dead.
Fall whisked me back to memories of university and the new school year. It made me stop and remember. But my memories were tainted with blood, and would be forever.
All I had left were the memories of Jack and two disturbing incidents which would never let my soul be. The vivid image of Jack’s body covered with dark dried blood. And the vivid image of him screwing Elizabeth against a shower stall like a savage rapist. The two were inexorably linked and promised to be imprinted on my brain forever.
I stood on the sidewalk outside the arrivals gate and nervously puffed on a cigarette. Once a casual smoker, I recently made it a habit. A natural choice for a fidgeter, and a fidgeter I was. I had always talked with my hands, and my nervous habit of pacing was a source of consternation for those who experienced it.
I always needed to be on the move. My nervous predilections grew in scope and magnitude over the years. But while others took note of it, I couldn’t have cared less. I had more concupiscent demons to contend with. They were vicious whores who occupied my every waking hour, and they were most demanding.
The cool autumn breeze captured the smoke that expelled from my lungs. I watched wistfully while the fall air slowly swept it away. Sudden random gusts would whisk it around my head or quickly spirit it away, and for a moment I longed to be that smoke.
While the sun warmed my skin, depraved gusts of wind battered my tired face with the slightest hint of ice crystals. Golden orange, greenish brown and blood-red leaves scurried around my feet, as if being swept by an invisible broom.
Two months in Paris afforded me sublime forgetfulness. No-one knew me there and I basked in that oblivion while it fed me like a hungry child. I lost my way in most wonderful satiations, and I fed my mouth while my dick acted like a born-again virgin.
But the party was over and I was home. If the Gates of Hell could be called home. You see, as much as I loved Montreal, nothing in my life had changed.
Jack was supposed to pick me up, but I glanced at my watch. I had been standing at the arrivals gate for twenty-five minutes and there was no sign of him. People moved around me in much the same way the leaves did. They were swept away into taxis, limos or vehicles of friends and loved ones, while I waited. I shivered slightly as I opened my coat and removed my cell phone from its belt clip. Flipping it open, I dialed his number.
The phone rang incessantly while I wondered where he was. Jack was the least responsible person I’d ever known, but I thought I could trust him with a simple job like picking me up at the airport. His voicemail kicked in, which in itself was odd. Even if Jack had been in transit to the airport, one of his servants would surely have answered. When the outgoing message finally clicked in, I was taken aback. First I heard the sound of Jack juggling the receiver, and then an odd scraping noise in the distance.
“I’m not here.” There were muffled reports in the background, as if something heavy was dropped and simultaneously, a thick cloth was placed over the phone.
“Leave a message if YOU DARE.” Jack never had to try to be melodramatic, but there was something in his word
s that made me close my eyes and bite my lower lip.
The message ended with a sudden and deliberate click.
“Jesus,” I muttered aloud, “gimme a break.”
I chewed on a thumbnail and tilted my head to peer into the western sky. After several moments, I replaced my thumb with a Gauloise from Paris, lit it and slowly puffed, pulling the smoke deep inside my chest with a pronounced sucking noise. I held the smoke for a moment, and then quickly expelled it in a blue-gray swirl which wreathed my face with an unpleasant aura.
The sun was setting, and the western sky was painted with troubled blues and pinks and ominous yellows and reds. But the twilight was marred by fierce-looking storm clouds, dark and replete with impending tears. They appeared to be ready to explode with nature’s might, and I knew that this was a foreboding. Something had changed since I left. I sensed it.
A grim shadow fell over my face as I closed the phone. I pinched the cigarette with my thumb and forefinger, pursed my lips around it for one last puff, and tossed it at the ground. Thoughtfully, I placed the toe of my polished Florsheim on the butt and made a sweeping motion with my heel as I stamped it out. I sighed and signaled for a limo.
I don’t know why, but as I poured myself into the car I instructed the driver to take me to Jack’s. I was exhausted, but his message was disturbing and disconcerting.
During the half-hour drive, I had time to think. I barely noticed the familiar highways and streets of Montreal flit by. But my mind was in a new place, a place I didn’t like.
I thought about the dream I had, just after I saw Jack drenched in the blood of two girls. While my memory of that day is vague, the vividness of the dream and the blackness of the blood stayed with me. They will forever.
By the time we pulled into Jack’s expansive driveway, trepidation grasped me like an insecure lover. The sun had fully set and a thick blanket of night fell over Montreal. Heavy drops of rain began to pound the car, making a hollow thudding sound. It resembled lead pellets pelting sheet metal covered with a blanket. The car came to a stop and I stepped out into the torrential night. Involuntarily, I shuddered while rain pelted my face and a howling gust of wind bit into the very fiber of my being.
The House that Jack Built Page 19