Styx

by Bavo Dhooge

  “Yeah, but they don’t wear them when it isn’t raining. And they don’t walk around in a James Ensor mask.”

  “James—?”

  “Ensor. Painter. Lived here in Ostend, was very well known. You really are the new kid in town, aren’t you?”

  Styx told the story of the previous evening, from the Hofstraat to the encounter outside the cabana on the beach. Delacroix never once took his eyes from the road ahead.

  “So you’re saying,” he finally concluded, “that Spilliaert is definitely the Stuffer.”

  “No doubt about it. He’s been living for a year in that apartment in the Hofstraat. We just don’t know who Spilliaert really is.”

  “So if Karel Rotiers doesn’t match the sketch we had made from Spilliaert’s landlord’s description, then we can scratch him?”

  “Probably.”

  “We’ve got a team staking out that apartment, you know.”

  “It won’t do any good,” said Styx. “He won’t go back there. He knows we’re watching the place.”

  “But does he know you’re not . . . dead?”

  It was the first time Delacroix had acknowledged the truth out loud.

  “I don’t think so. I think he assumes I am.” Styx wanted to make eye contact with Delacroix. It was a connection, however tenuous, with the land of the living. But the rookie avoided his gaze. “You think that’s an advantage for us?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” said Delacroix. “But the Stuffer’s dealing with uncertainty for the first time since he started, and that’s probably a disadvantage for him. I still think we need to bring Crevits in.”

  “And I still say no. He’ll just figure out a way to use it to his own advantage. I don’t trust him.” Styx sighed in unconscious imitation of the commissioner. “The Stuffer’s got to be searching for me,” he said. “He’ll want to finish what he started. Maybe we can use that to lure him out of his new hiding place. We have to keep my presence secret for now, don’t let anyone on the squad know.”

  “Not even Crevits?”

  “Especially not Crevits.”

  “Okay,” said Delacroix with a wry chuckle. “As if they’d believe it anyway.”

  “So that’s one problem resolved,” Styx said. “I can’t believe Isabelle told you all that shit. She really thinks we’ve grown apart? I mean, she said that to you? You’re a total stranger.”

  “Most people think it’s easier to tell their secrets to a stranger than to their nearest and dearest.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  He still couldn’t believe it. He wanted to ask if Delacroix had talked with Victor, too. But he decided to save that question for later. He was already wound too tight, and his body wasn’t happy about it. The twitching continued to get worse, and it was no longer confined to his shoulder. He felt a muscle in his neck acting up, too.

  They pulled into the Wellington parking lot.

  “I need to get some air,” Delacroix said. “You really reek, man.”

  Styx had almost forgotten about that.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  But before Delacroix could get out of the car, Styx laid a hand on his arm.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” he said.

  “What question?”

  “Can I trust you?”

  Without answering, Delacroix shook off Styx’s twitching hand.

  “I have to let this all sink in, man,” he said.

  As he walked off into the darkness, Styx sat there, his thoughts in a whirl. How could Isabelle have told such intimate personal details to a stranger? And none of it was even true, that was the part that was hardest to understand. She must be deep in shock, that was the only explanation that made sense.

  With fumbling fingers, he unbuttoned his shirt and looked at the wound on his chest. The blood was completely clotted, but the wound itself was ulcerated. He examined his fingers: three nails were gone, and his fingertips were badly abraded. No, not abrasions but cankerous sores. Shit, shit, shit. The disintegration process was well under way, and things were going from bad to worse.

  A tiny red glow in the distance told him that Delacroix was out there smoking a cigarette, probably in some fancy holder. He wondered whether or not the rookie believed him—and, if he did, if he was prepared to help him. From Delacroix’s perspective, it would probably be better if Styx remained dead.

  The point of red arced away and vanished, and Delacroix reappeared, returning to the car. He stood by the open passenger’s window, looking in.

  “Everything I did was for Isabelle and Victor’s own good,” Styx said. “I hope you can believe me. I would never put them at risk.”

  “Well, this is for your own good, man.”

  In the side-view mirror, Styx saw revolving blue roof lights pull into the lot. One—no, two sets of them.

  He lifted the Glock from his lap. It was so unnaturally heavy. A strange grin danced across Delacroix’s face.

  “Put the gun away, man. You’re not going to use it.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Styx asked, though he knew the younger man was right.

  “I don’t know how much of your bullshit story is true, but I know you’re a cop, or used to be. And cops don’t shoot other cops. You’re not a killer.”

  “You bastard,” said Styx.

  He crawled over the gear-shift lever and settled in behind the wheel. Before Delacroix could do anything to stop him, Styx started the engine and raced away from the approaching blue lights.

  The world whipped past Raphael Styx at warp speed, and neither his body nor his mind could keep up with the accelerated tempo. His ragged hands gripped the wheel, he could barely depress the accelerator with his clumsy right foot, but he roared out of the Wellington parking lot into the Koningin Astridlaan at full speed. In the rearview mirror he saw the two patrol cars pull up beside the helpless Joachim Delacroix, then take off after him in hot pursuit, blue light bars flashing, sirens howling.

  “Bastard,” he muttered.

  Why had he trusted Delacroix?

  He shifted up a gear and raced parallel to the sea, northeast toward the maze of streets that formed the city center, but the cop cars were gaining on him. The yellow streetlights flew past like burning torches. A burst of static came from Delacroix’s radio. He reached to snap it off and heard a voice say, “Attention. You are strongly advised to pull over. You are driving a vehicle that belongs to the Ostend police. I repeat: the vehicle you are driving is . . .”

  Kiss my ass, Styx thought.

  He swung left up a side street that led to the dike.

  Still a cop, Delacroix had said. And cops don’t . . .

  But he couldn’t concentrate on the rookie’s voice in his head. The voice on the radio drowned it out:

  “Please identify yourself. I repeat: please identify yourself. The Ostend police are right behind you. If you fail to comply, we’ll be forced to use other means to stop you.”

  Styx wondered what “other means” the dispatcher was talking about. Helicopters, like in the United States? Only once before had he ever been involved in a chase. Not a carjacker, but a guy who’d stuck up an armored bank transport. He’d managed to pull the asshole over right outside the Kursaal and get in a couple of good shots before anyone else caught up with them. When the ambulance finally got there, he’d suggested that the perp must have hit his head on his steering wheel. No idea why the airbag hadn’t deployed.

  He shut off the radio.

  “Fuck you,” he told the air.

  He checked the rearview mirror. The two cars were still close behind him. He squealed onto the dike, saw apartment buildings and hotels flash by to his right and the sea to his left. In the mirror, he saw the fierce determination on his face. The headlights of the approaching cars reflected larger and larger in his pupils, blinding him.

  The sirens were almost on top of him now. A voice yelled “Pull over!” through a megaphone.

  Ahead, he saw the metal gat
e that gave access to one of the dozens of breakwaters which jutted out from the seawall and ran across the beach to the North Sea. He had two choices. He could follow instructions and pull over. But then what? He had no idea how they’d react to his return. What lay ahead: A media circus and imprisonment? The only other option was to try to escape. There was no third way out.

  So Styx swung the wheel hard left, bounced across the sidewalk, burst through the gate, and felt the tires thunder onto the uneven wooden surface of the breakwater. His pursuers had slowed down, but they were still behind him. He was getting away from them, but there was one problem: in a few hundred feet, the breakwater came to an end, and all that lay beyond it was the sea.

  The headlights in the mirror winked off and on. They were warning him to stop. He had to stop, didn’t he?

  Didn’t he?

  Something in Raphael Styx kept him flying forward. With less than one hundred feet to the barrier at the end of the breakwater, instead of lifting his battered foot from the accelerator and slamming on the brakes, he pushed harder on the pedal and pinned the speedometer needle to the far right of the dial.

  He checked the mirror one last time and saw that the pursuit vehicles had come to a stop. Then, staring out into eternity, he hunched over the wheel and smashed headlong through the barrier at the end of the breakwater.

  The car sailed through the air in a sudden eerie silence, straining to hit escape velocity. But gravity had its way, and Joachim Delacroix’s cruiser fell crashing into the dark waters of the North Sea.

  Raphael Styx sat there, motionless, stunned, as the car filled and sank. A coherent thought formed in his mind: he had to get out before it was too late. He yanked on the door handle and shoved against the panel, but the outside pressure was far stronger than he was. Panicked now, he scrabbled for the button that controlled the windows, but the salt water had already shorted out the car’s electrical systems, and the window stayed stubbornly closed.

  Again, he flung himself against the door, but he was too weak. He had no strength left in his arms. His blood had curdled, his muscles were stiff and useless, his body was a tumble-down ruin.

  The water level rose past his chest, past his neck, over his chin.

  Styx kept his mouth tightly shut. During his time at the police academy, he’d gone through a scuba course, and he’d learned then that he was capable of holding his breath for a surprisingly long time. The doctors had told him he had the lungs of a long-distance runner or triathlete, but there were limits to how long even an athlete could survive before drowning.

  He was completely underwater now. The world had gone totally still. He felt the pressure on his eardrums increase as the seconds ticked past.

  How long had it been? A minute, at least, maybe two.

  He knew that, at any moment, he’d have to open his mouth, and the seawater would fill his body like helium swelling a birthday balloon. Like sand filling the bodies of the Stuffer’s victims.

  But the moment didn’t come, and at last the truth dawned on him.

  He didn’t need to breathe!

  When he finally parted his rotting lips and unclenched his blackened teeth, he didn’t drown.

  He was already dead.

  He was, in fact, undead.

  He had no idea how it worked—it was enough that it worked. He sat tight, letting himself calm down and marshaling his remaining strength. Then he swiveled around and saw that the passenger-side window was still open and swam out of the car like a modern-day Houdini. When he broke the surface of the water, he was far enough from the sunken wreck that the cops at the railing seemed not to notice him.

  After Inspector Delacroix’s visit, Isabelle Gerard went upstairs to say goodnight to Victor, and then went straight to bed. She was at the edge of sleep when the phone rang.

  “Rafe?” she murmured, rolling away from his side of the bed.

  That was a reflex—late-night calls were usually for her husband, not her. But then she remembered she was alone in the bed. She fumbled for the receiver and got it on the seventh ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Styx?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is the Ostend police, ma’am.”

  She came instantly awake.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  She thought of Inspector Joachim Delacroix, who’d been there only an hour before. Was there something he’d forgotten to tell her?

  “Does this have something to do with Inspector Delacroix’s visit?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m calling in regard to the disappearance of your husband, Raphael Styx.”

  “Who are you?” asked Isabelle. “I’d like to speak with John Crevits, please. Can you put him on?”

  “I’m sorry to have to inform you that your husband was killed in the line of duty, ma’am. He’s dead.”

  Isabelle tried to be strong, but, now that the words had at last been spoken aloud, she found herself shaking uncontrollably.

  “I know that,” she managed to say.

  “Oh? Then I expect you also know that he was murdered in a cabana on the beach?”

  “I don’t want to hear the details,” said Isabelle. “I’d like to speak with Commissioner Crevits, please.”

  “But I have to tell you the details, Mrs. Styx,” the voice said. “It’s my—”

  “It’s Mrs. Gerard. Isabelle Gerard.”

  “The problem, Mrs. Gerard—and I hope you’ll be able to help me with this—”

  And suddenly there came a strange burst of laughter.

  “The problem is that his body seems to have disappeared.”

  “Yes, Inspector Delacroix already told me that.”

  Something was very wrong. That gruesome laugh seemed to come from some other plane of existence. It was as if she was on the phone with two different people simultaneously.

  “Who is this?” she demanded.

  “I’m wondering, Mrs. Gerard, if you might know anything more about your husband’s disappearance? I thought you might have some information about the police department’s plans.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Isabelle. “I thought you were—”

  “They’ve given me a nickname, Mrs. Gerard,” the voice said seriously. “I didn’t get to pick it myself, but I suppose I have to live with it. Anyway, if you’ll play fair with me, then I’m willing to share the exact circumstances of your husband’s death with you.”

  “Please, no,” Isabelle begged, realizing at last who was on the other end of the line.

  She had never fainted in her life, not even when she’d heard Rafe’s death reported on the news. But now all sensation in her legs was suddenly gone, and she felt herself about to keel over.

  “Please what?” the voice asked politely.

  “I don’t want to hear it. How did you get this number?”

  “The internet’s a beautiful thing, Mrs. Gerard. You’re sure you don’t want to know what his last words were?”

  “No, don’t, I can’t—”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but your name was alas not mentioned. He knew he was looking down the barrel of the gun that was about to send him to hell, and he stood there and pissed his pants. That was all. He didn’t say a thing. I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Stop it,” Isabelle choked.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to hang up the phone. She stood there with the receiver in her hand, shaking. What am I waiting for, she thought. Why couldn’t she just put the thing back in its cradle?

  “I need to know what they’re up to!” the voice yelled.

  “I don’t know anything,” she whispered.

  “Bullshit! Where is he? Where is that fucking bastard? I have to know! I have to finish my work!”

  Isabelle closed her eyes and thought of Victor, sound asleep in his room. And of Joachim Delacroix, the young man in the garish suit who had offered her comfort.

  “You tell the cops I won’t fall for their trap, you hear m
e? I’ll find out what they’re up to. I’ll find him. And if it turns out he’s in the morgue, I’ll go in there and get him. I’ll get him, and I’ll split him open, head to toe, and cut everything out of him. His goddamn heart, his organs, his muscles, everything, so there’s nothing left but one big gaping empty hole, ready for the sand. Do you hear me?”

  There was more, but the receiver finally dropped from Isabelle’s numb grasp.

  It took a full minute before she remembered where she was.

  “Victor!” she cried.

  She raced down the hall to her son’s room and threw open the door. She gathered the sleeping child into her arms, the little boy who from a distance looked so much like his father, the handsome young man the girls were already beginning to notice. He struggled up from sleep, frightened by her sudden appearance.

  “What’s wrong?” he mumbled, his dark eyes only half-open.

  “Nothing,” she said, stroking his hair tenderly. “Nothing’s wrong, sweetheart. Go back to sleep.”

  It took till late that night before they were able to winch the crashed Opel out of the water. Commissioner John Crevits and Inspector Joachim Delacroix stood side by side at the railing as the rescue crew operated the huge crane. When the car finally broke the surface, Delacroix, a poncho draped over his shoulders, leaned forward, staring, as if he expected to see Styx still sitting behind the wheel.

  The crane deposited the car, gushing seawater from its open passenger window and door seams, on the breakwater, and uniformed patrolmen threw the doors open and popped the trunk.

  The vehicle was empty.

  “Well?” Crevits demanded.

  “I swear,” said Delacroix. “It was him. Styx.”

  “Styx is dead,” Crevits said flatly. “We saw the photos. Even if he isn’t dead, the person you described can’t possibly have been him.”

  “I talked with him,” the rookie insisted.

  “Let’s say you had a little too much to drink, Inspector. If you have any ambition whatsoever, if you want to make anything of yourself on the Ostend police, then I seriously advise you to shut your mouth.”

  “With all due respect, Commissioner, I saw him and talked with him. He was dead, but he wasn’t.”