The red glass erupted, and Frank went over the edge.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A couple of unexpected accidents prevented Frank from falling six stories to his death.
First, in some sort of wild, reflexive desperation move, his left hand shot outward right at the exact moment of impact, clutching at anything that would hold him as he careened over the ledge, ultimately finding purchase on a five-inch shard of broken glass jutting up from the edge of the window frame. The fragment pierced his hand just below the knuckles and held him like a game fish flopping on the hook.
Second, through some innate muscle memory, his right hand remained frozen around the beavertail grip of the Colt as he plunged through the window. The flash of the barrel had somehow drawn Pope’s attention, and in that single frenzied instant elicited an instinctive gesture from the doctor. Pope’s left hand clutched at the six-inch barrel.
And now, in the dying light and gusting winds, Frank dangled from the broken window, his left hand impaled and singing an aria of pain, his right hand still gripping the gun, caught in a tug of war with the doctor.
Pope was hunched over the sill, grimacing in agony, the dusky light reflecting off his grizzled face. He was holding on to the inner frame with his right hand, anchoring himself, his rheumatoid ligaments stretching like old, rusty tow cables, keeping both men from falling.
The doctor’s other hand was wrapped around the gun barrel, averting the muzzle away from him.
“Frank—!” Pope’s voice was a harsh, strangled whisper above the winds.
“If I go, you’re going with me,” Frank hissed between clenched teeth, the pain like a banshee in his brain. His left hand was volcanic, the jagged glass protruding between two carpals. It looked like a rubber hand, like a joke. Blood oozed down his arm and the side of the wall from the wound and the popped stitches in his wrists. But Frank didn’t care. The pain was keeping him alive. He tried to swing the gun toward the doctor.
“GO TO SLEEP!” Pope boomed.
Frank froze, cringing at the burning pain, his legs dangling, his crotch warm and wet. He had pissed himself and he hadn’t even noticed it.
“Go to sleep, Frank,” the doctor urged from inside the gaping maw.
Frank looked down and saw the construction site a hundred feet below him, a circle of rubble and broken rocks. It wavered in and out of focus. Somewhere far in the distance, thunder rumbled.
“Kill yourself,” Pope whispered, barely audible above the cutting breeze.
Frank gazed up at the psychiatrist. Pope’s face was framed in a V of broken stained glass, a wrinkled death mask staring down at Frank. The pain was stitched across the doctor’s brow, his eyes twitching, his flesh like gray elephant hide. “Go ahead, Frank,” he uttered. “Put an end to the pain.”
Frank dangled helplessly, tears blurring his vision, tracking down his face, drying instantly in the wind. These were tears of pain, tears of anguish, tears of self-loathing. Frank’s whole miserable life had added up to this single moment.
Wind buffeted Frank’s pants legs, and he felt weak all of a sudden. Pope was right after all. A single blast to the cranium would fix everything. Frank glanced over at the gun and noticed it was trembling.
Pope’s ragged wheeze from the window: “It’s the only way, Frank. You’re so tired.”
Something glittered in the broken glass next to Pope.
“Go to sleep, Frank.”
Frank noticed the shimmering ruby glass, and all at once he realized the answer.
It came flowing into Frank through his frontal lobe like electroshock, and he realized at once it was the only way he was going to win. The only way. And almost in that same instant he realized that he was going to have to act swiftly because the pain was draining him, taking the last of his adrenaline, and he would either collapse soon, or his hand would tear apart, and he would plummet.
The gun shuddered within the two sweaty fists, and the barrel started to move. Both men gaped at it as though it had a will of its own.
It was moving downward, downward toward Frank, away from Pope, and the sudden expression of hate and raw animal aggression burned in the doctor’s eyes. “That’s right, Frank,” he whispered.
The barrel trembled toward Frank, and Frank watched it carefully. The wind whistled. Frank gazed up at the broken glass.
There was a huge triangular fragment next to Pope, a few centimeters to his immediate left, and Frank strained against the blazing agony of his left hand, strained to edge his body a mere couple of inches. That’s all it would take. Just a few inches to the left.
Tears tracked down Frank’s face.
“That’s right,” Pope uttered.
The gun barrel was almost pointing directly at Frank’s temple now, and Frank’s body was shutting down from all the pain and the shock. The blood was seeping down the stone wall like crude oil in the dim light, and Frank could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
Frank looked up at the glass and decided it was indeed time to kill himself.
“Do it, Frank!”
Frank thumbed the hammer back, swinging the barrel toward the glass.
Kill yourself!
He fired at his own reflection.
The Colt barked, and the face in the glass shattered into a constellation of stars.
CHAPTER FORTY
Pope’s head was directly behind the reflection—in the path of two out of the three bullets—and sudden gouts of blood and tissue erupted as the rosettes of star-dust blossomed, the slugs driving through the dark belfry tower and hitting the far wall. Outside the window, even in the noise of the wind, Frank could hear Pope’s last surprised gasp.
The impact hurled the doctor backward, slamming him against the far wall, leaving a huge smear of blood.
Silence fell suddenly like a funeral shroud landing on the church.
Frank cried out in agony, still gripping the Colt like a lifeline.
He tried to lift his right leg over the ledge, his feet slipping and scuttling against the oily, blood-slick stone. He could hear Chloe’s sobbing from inside the belfry, and the distorted whine of sirens in the distance. He dropped the gun inside the loft.
A wave of nausea and pain smashed into Frank, and he gasped. He was about to fall. He could feel the cartilage in his hand giving way, the fire inside him devouring his breath. The wind bullwhipped the side of the church, thunder rolling off the distant horizon.
Frank finally managed to get his right boot on the edge of the window sill. He let out a momentary sigh of agony. Just a few inches more. He tried to pull himself over, but his body was dead weight now. Dizziness crashed over him, his vision wavering, the side of the building swimming into multiple images. His brain was a cracked lens.
Just a couple of inches.
He put everything he had into wrenching his free leg over the ledge, but he couldn’t make his joints work. His impaled hand was broadcasting fire into every cell, and the pain was radiating down his arm like a bass string being plucked. His body was completely inert. He couldn’t breathe. He wondered if he was going to die like this: pinned to the spire of an abandoned church like some forgotten gargoyle.
Finally, he was able to work his boot over the ledge until he was straddling the sill. The added leverage allowed him to slide the rest of his body up and over, almost as though he were mounting a horse. His heart was hectic in his chest, and a cold fever-sweat had broken out on his face. He was summoning every last scintilla of strength. He knew what he had to do next, and he knew that it was now or never.
He sucked in a breath.
Then he yanked his wounded hand off the spindle of broken glass.
The pain drove him the rest of the way over the ledge and into the belfry, and he landed on the floor with a thud. His hand was shrieking. He let out an involuntary cry, curling up on the floor, cradling his bloody hand. His head was spinning, and he couldn’t see very well. But he could hear another voice across the room.
Chloe so
bbing breathlessly in her chair, the duct tape dangling from her chin.
Minutes passed.
Frank wasn’t sure how long he had lain there, shivering in the shadows, clenching his wounded hand. It was almost completely dark outside now, and it was getting more and more difficult to see in the dim light of the belfry tower. Frank could barely make out the silhouette of Pope’s body in the opposite corner. The gangly doctor had fallen against the baseboard, his back to the room. A puddle of blood was spreading underneath his head.
“F-Fr-Frank?”
Chloe’s broken voice yanked his attention to the other side of the room. She was sitting forward in the armchair, straining against the duct tape wrapped around her midriff. Her face was a battle zone of creases and tears, and her bony shoulders were shivering.
“I’m okay, Chloe,” Frank said, managing to sit up, breathing hard, holding his ruined hand. He yanked his shirttail out of his pants, tore a hank of fabric off it and wrapped it around his throbbing hand.
“Oh God, oh God,” Chloe was murmuring, gaping at Pope’s body.
“It’s okay, Chloe, I’m here,” Frank said, straining to stand up. His body was a rag doll. Every muscle seemed to be cramping fiercely.
“Oh Jesus,” Chloe sobbed.
Frank went over to her, knelt down by the chair, wrapped his arms around her. “It’s over, it’s over, it’s over,” he murmured under his breath.
“Jesus!—JESUS-GOD!” Chloe jerked her head violently forward.
Frank reared back. “Easy, Chloe.”
“Easy?! EASY!?! What the fuck is happening?! What is going on?!”
Frank reached out for her, but she butted her head at him, shaking furiously. Her eyes were wild now, blazing with narcotic shock and outrage. “Get me outta here! GET ME OUT!—please get me out, please, get me outta here!”
“Okay, okay,” Frank said, reaching for the bands of silver tape wrapped around her torso, her arms and shins. The tape was like iron, and Frank’s hands were numb with pain and trauma. It was impossible.
“Please, Frank,” Chloe was saying under her breath, starting to sob again.
Frank fiddled with a leather snap on his belt. Cradled inside it was a Swiss Army knife that Frank had always kept for emergencies while on patrol. Frank yanked the knife free and fumbled its large blade open.
“Please...” Chloe was losing her voice.
Frank carefully sawed through the first layer of duct tape around her tummy, cracking open the tape and allowing Chloe to wriggle partially free. Next he sliced through the tape around her right wrist.
“Frank?”
Chloe’s voice was low and steady all of a sudden, even measured.
“Almost done,” Frank murmured as he worked on the left side, slicing through layers of sticky gray plastic tape. He was concentrating on his work, and wasn’t paying any attention to Chloe’s face, or the fact that the drugs were most likely affecting her reactions.
“Too late,” Chloe said.
Frank looked up at her face, and saw her eyes glittering with fear.
Frank glanced over his shoulder.
Henry Pope was standing there with streamers of blood on his face and the .38 gripped in both arthritic hands.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The secret place in the human brain where voluntary movement becomes involuntary is known as the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. In this microscopic ocean of swaying ganglia and efferent fibers, neuroelectrical impulses pour in from the intrinsic muscles of the eyeball, signaling an emergency, flowing instantly down the axonal pathway, then into the ciliary ganglion, then on through the preganglionic fibers to the parts of the brain that fire movement.
It’s a process that occurs virtually at the speed of light, and in many cases happens automatically.
And Frank Janus wasn’t even aware of it as he whirled in the darkness of the belfry to face the trembling figure standing over him.
“Such a pity,” Pope uttered over cracked, bloody lips, his scalp gouged on one side, the hair matted and sticky with blood. He was aiming the gun at Frank’s forehead.
“No!” Frank’s hand shot up on its own accord, completely involuntary.
The knife sank into Pope’s belly just below the sternum at the precise same moment Pope pulled the trigger.
The gun roared, thrown off-course by the sudden attack, the muzzle flickering upward, the blast devouring a chunk out of the ceiling, a spray of dust and debris erupting as Pope staggered backward, the hilt protruding from his gut. Frank was still gripping the handle as the two men lurched across the room with the doctor’s movement.
Chloe’s scream pierced the air.
The two men slammed into the adjacent wall.
Frank yanked the knife upward with his last bit of energy, severing major organs, and the twosome writhed against the wall for a moment, a tide of warmth oozing out of the doctor. Pope tried to speak but the shock was gripping him. He shuddered in his death throes, sliding down the wall finally, leaving a leech trail of deep red.
Pope landed on the floor and bellowed a death cry, and it sounded like a rusty exhaust stack vomiting pollution into the air.
Chloe covered her ears with her hands, sobbing uncontrollably now.
Frank refused to let go of the knife, refused to back off. Straddling Pope like some psychotic rodeo cowboy, taking big wheezing breaths, Frank was responding to some deep-rooted, lizard-brain fight instinct that he had no hope of controlling. He was covered in blood, his own and Pope’s, and he was gazing down at the old man in equal parts horror and fascination as Pope expired.
The old man shivered for a moment, then sagged against the floor.
Silence fell on the room.
Frank finally let go of the knife, sliding off the psychiatrist and slumping down on the floor next to the body. Frank was a jumble of pain. His own body weighed a million pounds. His pulse was fluttering irregularly, and his piss-sodden pants felt like ice. Was it over? Was it really over? The room was spinning.
Frank felt the darkness closing in like a warm fist.
He turned back to the doctor and stared down at the body in wonder.
Pope was lying there, frozen in death, curled into a semi-fetal position against the wall. His abdomen was ravaged by the knife, his yellow eyes still open. And yet, just for a moment, in the delicate red light, the doctor looked almost tranquil. His left arm had fallen at an awkward angle under his body, and his right arm was folded against his chest. He looked as though he were sleeping.
Just a few more inches, Frank mused feverishly, staring at the old man’s gnarled thumb, and it would have ended up in his mouth.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Frank heard a noise across the room.
Chloe was standing up, the chair still attached to her left wrist and part of her leg.
Her gaze smoldering, her mouth working, she dragged the chair toward Pope, the wooden legs scraping the tile, making an awful racket, her feet crunching through broken glass. Her face was a mask of fury, her eyes laced with hate and barbiturates. Frank didn’t have the energy to stop her.
Chloe yanked the chair over to where Pope lay cold and silent on the tiles, and she started howling at the corpse: “Fucking psychopath!”
Frank decided to intervene, but he couldn’t reach out for her in time.
Chloe’s right leg shot out at the body, her boot striking the dead man in the gut with incredible force. The body slammed against the wall, spattering blood, and the chair tore free, overturning on the floor. Chloe kicked at Pope again, and again, crying, “Fucking monster, monster, monster, monster—!”
Frank struggled to his feet and tried step in between her and the body.
Chloe was out of control. She shoved Frank out of the way with all her might and continued driving her boot into the flaccid remains of Henry Pope. The body was dead weight now, absorbing every blow with a muffled thump. “Touch me with those disgusting, filthy hands—!”
“Chloe—!”
“I’ll show you crimes against God!”
“Chloe!—Chloe!—stop!” Frank finally gave her a bear hug, driving her away from the body.
She fought for a moment in his arms, but she was running out of steam. Frank shuffled her away from the body, pressing her against the opposite wall, whispering that it was over, it was over, let it go, let it go, and soon the rage turned to tears. Chloe started to sob, and she shuddered in his arms, and Frank held her and let her cry it out.
The loft was almost completely dark now, and outside, the dissonant harmony of sirens was approaching. Frank felt his own emotions giving way like a twisted rubber band finally snapping, and he too began to weep.
And they wept in each other’s arms for quite a long moment in that dark belfry room amid the spiderwebs and broken glass and graphic photographs of aborted fetuses. Something was happening to Frank. It was like a shade being slowly drawn. He could feel it tugging at him, pressing down on him, making his eyes burn. He slid down the wall with Chloe still in arms.
They both landed on the floor in sitting positions, their tears drying on their drawn, exhausted faces.
Across the room, Pope’s body lay in the shadows.
“He’s gone,” Frank whispered, his eyelids heavy, his brain shutting down. “He’s gone.”
Chloe nodded and didn’t say anything, just sat there staring at the gaping window.
In the blessed stillness, Frank realized that a part of him was gone as well. And he would never be the same, never. A shade was slowly being drawn over his eyes.
He collapsed in Chloe’s arms, falling into a deep, profound sleep.
A sleep without dreams.
EPILOGUE
THE DARK INSIDE
“To know thyself is to be known by another.”
— Philip Rieff, The Hidden Self
The hearing took place in the federal court building in Daily Plaza, almost exactly a month—to the day—after Henry Pope’s death. It was a closed proceeding, officially the final stage of a three-week inquest. Only the immediate players were involved. The Honorable Judge Margaret Vincent; two attorneys from the DA’s office by the names of Maloney and Nava; a representative from Internal Affairs, Sergeant John (Jack) Musso; a court-appointed psychiatrist named Sebastian Kolh; Detective Sullivan “Sully” Deets; Chloe Driscoll, and Frank. The proceeding took place on the fifteen floor of the federal building, in the judge’s chambers.
The Sleep Police Page 24