The House that Jack Built

by Malcolm James

  Then there was the little shopkeeper who sold me the Icarus Amulet, and ten as-yet unidentified burnt skulls that they pulled from the rubble of my house.

  And Guiseppe diGarmo, the Director of the Library of Antiquities, in Florence.

  Incidentally, as my memory returned and I gleaned some information from the Police, I gradually recalled that after I closed the deal on da Vinci’s autobiography, I used extortion to force him to procure the letters from Pope Gregory VII. Unfortunately for him and luckily for me, diGarmo had a thing for young boys. Once I discovered his nasty little secret, it wasn’t difficult to convince him to give me the letters.

  It wasn’t easy, though. Even diGarmo didn’t have ready access to them. They were tightly-sealed inside a heavily-fortified vault, in the catacombs under the Library. It’s where the Vatican keeps some of its nastiest little secrets. Fortunately, twenty-five million dollars buys the best safecracker in the business. I procured the letters and laughed at diGarmo before I chopped his head off. I killed the safecracker, too.

  And I finally recall the ultimate secret that I refused to share with Malcolm.

  During the end of the Dark Ages and the commencement of the Middle Ages in Europe, there had been a great deal of political and social unrest. A few leaders, such as Alexander and Philip I, exerted a great deal of power and control over the masses, in what constituted the world of the time.

  The Vatican held peasants at bay by reinforcing their hope for salvation, in return for their continued devotion to Christ and the Church. But due to the significant socio-political change that occurred at the time, Pope Gregory feared that an uprising of the masses loomed. That’s when he chose to bring Alexander and Philip into his confidence.

  He revealed a secret that the Church of Rome had known and kept too well, for a thousand years. It was a secret that would have changed the world inescapably and forever, had it found its way outside the walls of the Vatican. And it would have meant the utter loss of the grip and clutch that Rome held over the world.

  Jesus Christ never existed.

  Christ was a fabrication by Jewish rebels and terrorists. True stories, but a conglomeration. A combination of a group of the most prolific Jewish leaders between 28 BC and 98 AD. His ‘life’ was created – at first – to stimulate the Jews into action during the Roman occupation. But during the dawn of the Dark Ages, Christ’s myth was perpetuated to reinforce the hold that the Catholic Church had over the masses.

  The promised salvation of a compassionate Christ was combined with the fire and brimstone from the Old Testament, to instill fear, order and obedience in the general population. As the legend of Christ grew, the Church used the influence and power of his name to sustain order in the world. It became the single and encompassing force that maintained stability and order during a time that was fraught with instability and ignorance.

  I was right. The mere existence of the letters was definitely a reason to kill. Of course, no one would ever kill – or be killed – for them again, for they burned in the fire. I often wonder why I didn’t want them to survive. For I didn’t put them in the room with the Master’s book, the jade statue and the unicorn.

  My best guess is that I decided, once and for all, that they should be destroyed. The mere existence of those documents was a potentially-devastating revelation that the world couldn’t handle today, anymore than it could have handled it then. I won’t deny that my life was insanely misguided. But I guess I had a heart for those things that made sense to me – in my own twisted understanding of things.

  But I’m not sure, because my memory’s still tainted with a muddle of drugs, my psychological affliction and the serious gaps that exist, in-between the things that I did.

  The lawyers spent time discussing my murder trial and how they intended to establish a defense. Of course with my money, I could afford the best defense money could buy. But it was a foregone conclusion that I’d never see the light of day again.

  Unlike the U.S., Canada doesn’t have a death penalty. Or even a life sentence. The maximum penalty for murder is twenty-five years. But there is a convenient little piece of legislation called the ‘Dangerous Offenders Act,’ which empowers the courts to detain a person indefinitely, if that person can be proven to be incapable of rehabilitation, and likely to commit crimes again if given the chance.

  The prosecution fought for it vigorously, and twenty-two months after my incarceration, I was legally declared a Dangerous Offender.

  Chapter 71

  I learned to remember some – but not all – of the ways that my mind blurred the lines between Malcolm and Jack, and the ways that it manipulated the events which transpired. With the assistance of Phelps, the drugs which calmed me and stabilized my moods, and memories that returned in spurts, I came to understand what happened to me.

  Whenever I was at a point in my life when I feared social interaction or was confronted with interpersonal difficulties, my mind favored the Malcolm psyche. Malcolm was the calming effect to Jack’s volcano-like behavior. In grade school I desired Elizabeth and got her, but I could never share or even relate to the relationship that Malcolm and Elizabeth had. As best as I could figure, the pain and agony which I felt because of her was my Malcolm psyche, while the beast in me that toyed with and raped her was all Jack.

  Malcolm was the moderating effect, those times when I became so manic that I nearly snapped. Eventually, I couldn’t shake him and I couldn’t discern between the two people inside my head. Malcolm was the addiction that formed within my soul, and Jack was the needle that administered the drug.

  The memories that I have as Malcolm are a hybrid of things that actually happened to me, and things that I observed happening to the real Malcolm. The two stories became fused together in my mind. Into an elaborate fantasy that dominated me and governed my life, right up to the end. Along the way, I murdered everyone who got close to me. Except Malcolm.

  Things began to unravel when the Police began to put the pieces together. After our encounter in front of Malcolm’s townhouse, I tracked down Elizabeth.

  It wasn’t difficult – I had a GPS tracer installed in her cell phone. When I arrived in Montreal, I was delighted to discover that she too was there. While Malcolm was stoned out of his tree and getting laid by the three hookers that I purchased to distract him, I stalked her along the banks of the Saint Lawrence River.

  She was wandering aimlessly and sobbing, and I watched her for a good forty-five minutes. She was so distraught, she didn’t even know that I was upon her until I got her to the ground and raped her.

  I hacked her head off while she struggled. Which is odd, because I normally slit their Carotid Arteries first. I guess I thought she deserved it: she was such a good person, and I wanted to share something with her that I hadn’t shared with anyone else…she was very lucky.

  God bless her, she fought to the last breath. Even after her head lay three feet away from her body, she still struggled.

  I knew the risks involved. Once is coincidence, twice is circumstantial evidence. When I killed Anastasia, I hid my tracks well. You see, with my money, connections, resources and inherent ability to deceive, I was able to dispose of the bodies and cover my tracks so well, that it was next to impossible for the Police to draw linkages.

  I always had ironclad alibis, a plenitude of alternate identities, and the financial means to move in the shadows. But I’d been on the Police radar since I beat those two girls in Detroit. God, they were a wild fuck.

  They had my DNA and I was flagged as a ‘Person of Interest’ in Anastasia’s murder. And there was the long list of missing persons who were undoubtedly linked to me somehow. But up to that point it was all coincidental, as long as they didn’t have any evidence. And I never gave them any.

  Malcolm – ever the faithful friend – called Bill before I had a chance to suggest it. I guess he had learned something from me. Thanks to Bill’s alibi – backed up by his wife and partner – they couldn’t refute his lie.
As long as they thought Malcolm was with Bill that night, there was no reason for Malcolm to give me up. And there was no reason for them to suspect that I had anything to do with it.

  But everything came crashing down when I forgot that I had an appointment with Fred to finalize changes to my will. After that, it was only a matter of time before I got caught.

  Doctor Phelps suggested that by forgetting about my meeting with Fred, my subconscious was trying to break the spell that entranced me. I thought it was just bad luck on my part. Fred accidentally stumbled into my kitchen to find blood on the walls and Alberto’s headless body on the floor. Arterial blood still pumped out of his neck and onto my linoleum kitchen floor. I was upstairs looking for bedsheets to wrap his body in, and when I returned, I hid behind one of my Michelangelo’s and watched while he called the Police.

  That’s when I went ‘missing.’ Fortunately for me, Fred went outside to wait for the cops. He had no stomach for the sight of blood, the wimp. Before the cops arrived, I managed to spray several pints of my own blood throughout the house. For I kept my own ‘special reserve’ refrigerated, in case it was needed. I don’t trust hospitals. After that, I hid for two days in the Hall of Trophies. I had plenty of videos to watch and my prizes kept me company while the Police investigated the scene of the crime.

  Doctor Phelps theorized that, perhaps the occurrence of being caught in the act by someone who had managed to grow close to me shocked my duality and commenced the unraveling of my elaborate fantasy. My ‘conscience’ was finally jarred into a new reality, as a friend witnessed the horror that heretofore, was only shared between me and my ‘trophies.’ Personally, I thought Phelps was full of shit. It was just bad luck.

  Once the cops left, I returned to Montreal and kept a close watch on Malcolm. He was in a pathetic state of disarray after Elizabeth’s murder. Fuck! He needed work. Even then, he had no idea how I’d set him free when I killed her.

  It wasn’t difficult to track him, either. The poor bastard took time off work and locked himself up inside his townhouse. I camped out in an apartment across the street. I’d had it since I moved to Montreal, just in case I needed to watch him. It was leased under one of my many aliases and had provided much-needed privacy many times. As a matter of fact, it was there that I played my masterpiece of a ‘practical joke’ on him. Pretending to murder a hooker over a voicemail message, only to murder her after the joke was over.

  It was when I saw Detective Mabry visit Malcolm that I became concerned. Malcolm didn’t have the strength that I did. I wondered how long it would take, before they got to him and he caved.

  Even though he was a risk, I chose not to invite Malcolm to join my Hall of Trophies, because I needed him. I’m not the sentimental type, but something about him made him more interesting alive than dead. That could have changed, but Malcolm had a quality I couldn’t shake. Perhaps it was because our personalities were so intertwined, that killing him would have been the same as committing suicide. I don’t know. I just knew I had to keep him alive.

  Malcolm was steadfast though, and I relaxed a bit. That is, until I found out that he was under surveillance by the Montreal PD.

  One day, not long before the movers arrived at my house in Nova Scotia, I watched as Malcolm left the townhouse. After he drove away, I watched with great interest as the pock-marked Detective LaPointe entered his house.

  Things were getting uncomfortable, and I knew that it was time for me to finish what I’d started, before I disappeared forever. So I drove to Nova Scotia and waited.

  I watched and waited. Directed by Fred, the movers did a great job of packing my collection. But I knew that Malcolm was in Montreal, finally piecing together the clues that I’d left for him. Even though I knew that he couldn’t begin to understand what was happening to me, I was disappointed that it had taken him so long to find the Hall of Trophies. I began to despair, for the movers were almost finished, and he hadn’t figured it out yet.

  But good ol’ Malcolm didn’t disappoint. He arrived on the second day of the move, and as he searched my hallways I followed him and watched him intently. Even though I couldn’t speak to him, I like to think that my presence inspired him to finally discover my masterpiece.

  The rest was unfortunate history. I never planned for the house to burn to the ground, but faulty wiring – brought about by structural defects – fucked me. In one of the few rooms in my house that had electricity. Apparently, a support structure collapsed under intense weight, and it tore the wiring as it fell. I knew it was a mistake to use electricity. Fire is much more reliable.

  Timing, as they say, is everything. While I had been surveilling Malcolm in Montreal, some snot-nosed kid at an RCMP forensics lab decided to run more tests on the blood they’d found at my house. I didn’t know that if one looks long and hard enough, one will find that fresh arterial spray is not exactly like blood that’s been preserved over time in a fridge.

  It was a shitty year for me, luck-wise. What are the odds that Malcolm would put it all together, my house would go up in flames – forcing me out of my hiding place – and the Police would arrive with an Arrest Warrant, all at the same time? I don’t know, but if I played the lottery – and I didn’t, because it would have been chump-change to me – I’d have expected to win the lottery first.

  Doctor Phelps and I spent a great deal of time trying to understand the fantasy that I lived, and why things in my mind had unraveled so quickly. He theorized that it was my way of trying to cope with the changes that were happening to me. For my duality was falling apart, my fantasies were colliding and overlapping, and my personalities were merging, as the Police grew closer.

  Phelps felt that by the end, Malcolm had taken over entirely because I could no longer deal with being Jack. He even suggested that burning down the house – for he was convinced that I did it intentionally – was my way of burying ‘Jack’ after I ‘killed’ him. I still thought he was full of shit, but I decided to give him that much, for it helped me gain privileges like real pens and real paper.

  ***

  All this psychobabble was how Phelps helped me to understand things. And with the ‘help’ of the anti-psychotics and the therapy, this is how I came to understand everything that happened, and why I awoke in a Criminally Insane Ward.

  The sessions continued, and he kept trying to eat away at what little of me that I had left. He didn’t want to speculate which of my personalities would emerge as the dominant one, and he often remarked that I didn’t appear to have a dominant personality. That seemed to puzzle him.

  I continued to struggle with most of what Phelps told me, because the events that I had fabricated in my mind were deeply entrenched, very real to me, and hidden behind towering walls of denial. But he kept producing evidence, and my resolve was gradually worn down, like a rock cliff being eroded by running water.

  I wasn’t surprised that with the exception of Bill, I had no visitors other than lawyers, Police and psychologists. I had killed nearly everyone in my life who tried to get close to me. But I often wondered why Malcolm never came to see me.

  I supposed that he couldn’t forgive me for what I did. I wished I could talk to him and explain why I did it, but he’d never understand. Besides, I was sure that he hated me and hoped that I rotted. While I came to accept that as fact, it took me a long time to get there.

  But that all changed, one fateful day nearly four years after I’d been incarcerated.

  Chapter 72

  It was a day like any other day. Or at least the days I’d grown accustomed to living.

  I awoke at 6:30, and daylight shone vainly through a barred window about the size of a loaf of bread. It resided near the roof and eight feet above the floor. It rained, and the shimmering glow of falling droplets created random disturbing patterns on the concrete wall opposite to the window.

  I pulled myself out of bed and sat on the edge of the cot. Pondering, as I did every morning until 7:30, when a rap on the door announced my br
eakfast. I pulled a small plastic tray through the thin rectangular hole in the door and sat it on the edge of the bed.

  I just stared at it. A small bowl of glue-like oatmeal, a tiny dish of half-rotten fruit cocktail, a stale, hard biscuit, and a small plastic cup filled with powdered orange juice.

  I sighed and remembered those marvelous breakfasts we used to have at my house. Crisp, warm rashers of bacon, mounds of freshly scrambled eggs, thick slices of wheat toast and steaming Arabica coffee…I could still smell it brewing in my kitchen. I always had the best. I pushed the tray away from me and wondered for and hour-and-a-half.

  Even then I wondered, through a maze of mind-altering drugs and the eminently painful therapy: how I could believe something that wasn’t true? How I could doubt the unequivocal case made by Doctor Phelps? He had made the most compelling arguments, and there was no doubting my reflection in the mirror, the endless string of meaningful psychological explanations and the disjointed memories that I had. And all the other incontrovertible evidence that had been put before me. I’m Jack. Beyond all reason, all memory that permeated my soul. I’m Jack.

  But something wasn’t right. My fantasy was so real. My memories of being Malcolm, the feelings he felt, the experiences that he had gone through, everything was so compellingly real. I still felt grief over Elizabeth. Still felt the devastation and agony that brought my life down around me the day she died. I couldn’t shake it, and Phelps knew it.

  He often assured me that the pain that I felt was ‘Redirected Guilt.’ As numbingly tedious as I found him to be, he wasn’t quite as stupid as I imagined, and I wasn’t quite as slippery as I liked to believe. He knew. He knew I was fighting it.

  The past few sessions had been quite confrontational, and today I suspected that he was going to tell me that it was time for more shock treatment. My stomach gurgled with a manic mayhem that was surpassed only by the hurricane that pummeled my mind.