by Darren Shan
"For being rude," she growled. There was steel in her voice which I hadn't heard earlier. It sobered the doctor immediately.
"I apologize profusely, Mr. Raimi," he said, bowing to me, no sarcasm.
"In that case I'm off to bed," she said. "I'll see you again tomorrow, Capac?"
"Sure," I smiled. "Good night, Conchita."
"Good night… protector."
Then she was gone.
"One minute," the doctor said stiffly as I tried to sneak out. "You and I have a few things to discuss." He gestured to one of the covered chairs. I sighed and sat. "What happened downstairs?"
"Nothing," I told him honestly.
He snorted. "My charge spends hours away, comes back with a man I've never seen, calmly announces he's her friend and waltzes off to bed as merrily as you please. This from a woman who's hardly spoken for five years. Cut the bullshit and tell me everything."
When I did, he couldn't believe it. "She showed you her arm," he sighed.
"Is that such a big deal?" I frowned.
He laughed curtly. "She hasn't let anybody look at her skin as long as I've been here. When we want to examine her, we have to sedate her. You must be a fakir, Mr. Raimi. What's your secret?"
"I don't have one," I said. "We just clicked. She was lonely, I felt sorry for her and we became friends."
"Just like that!" He shook his head and chuckled wryly.
"Where do we go from here?" I asked. "She wants to visit me every night. I told her she could, but…"
"You don't want her disrupting your life?"
"It's not that. I don't mind her coming. I'm just worried it may not be the best thing. She might be better off with friends her own age."
His eyes narrowed. "Do you know what's wrong with Conchita?" he asked.
"I've read about it. The body grows old before its time and-"
"No, Mr. Raimi," he interrupted. "You are thinking of progeria. This is not the same. There's nothing wrong with Conchita's body. The fault is in her face."
"I don't understand. There's nothing wrong with her face."
"She looks like any other teenager," he agreed, then paused dramatically. "But Miss Kubekik is fifty-eight years old."
I did a double take, then grimaced. "She told me. I thought she was joking. But that means her body…"
"…Is that of a normal woman her age," he finished.
"How?"
"We don't know," he said. "We've been studying her for a quarter of a century and still don't know what's wrong. She was a beautiful young woman. In her late twenties she found she wasn't aging facially. For a while she was delighted, but as the years passed the implications seeped home. She wasn't growing older. In fact she was actually getting younger. She was a woman in her thirties but with the face of a teenager. She was cursed to never look her age.
"She lost her mind. She cut her face, thinking to scar herself beyond recognition. It didn't work. The skin healed in a matter of days. It has something to do with her unique DNA structure. I don't know all the ins and outs-I tend to her mind, not her form. She had a breakdown, the first of many. Later she painted her face to look her age. But she couldn't maintain the pretense. After several hard years, she left her face alone and went the other way. She looked like a teenager, so she became one. She bought youthful clothes, discarded her adult raiments, and began to act like a child. She convinced herself she was a girl, gave up her old life, her friends, her husband, her-"
"Husband? " I stared at him. "She's married?"
"Yes."
"But you call her Miss Kubekik."
"Part of the pretense. There could be no place in her fantasy for a husband. To become a teenager she had to discard and forget him. She blanked him out, denied his existence, refused to look at him when he tried to see her. She took her maiden name and acted like she'd never lost it."
"Christ." I was glad I was sitting down. "She mentioned him to me. Ferdy. That's him, isn't it?"
"Yes. She hasn't been able to wipe him from her thoughts as completely as she wanted. The memories return, remind her of the truth and plunge her into fits of despair. She's not exactly happy as a child but she's content. But when the fantasy breaks down and she remembers…" He shrugged helplessly.
We were quiet for a while, reflecting. Then a thought struck me. "She wasn't desperate tonight," I said. "She talked about him, discussed him openly. She told me her age. She was sad but calm, in control of herself."
"Yes." He rubbed his chin slowly. "That would seem to suggest a new phase. Perhaps she is coming to terms with her disease at last. She didn't actually tell you she was married, did she? Just mentioned his name. Still, it's a step forward. And admitting her real age. We weren't sure she still knew. We'll have to examine this carefully. I'll need to consult with my colleagues."
"What do I do?" I asked. "Do I let her come to my room?"
"Hell, yes!" he grunted. "Turn her away now? You might destroy her. Let her come, Mr. Raimi. Treat her like you did tonight. Be her friend. God knows, it's been long enough since she had one of those."
aimuari
Conchita visited almost every night. She'd be there when I got home, curled up on the bed, glued to the TV. She watched only happy films. She'd had enough misery. She said movies should be for escaping the gloom and hardships of life. We played games but nothing too taxing. Conchita loved games of chance, where the toss of the dice decided all. She absolutely hated chess.
She talked freely about her illness and her past. She could remember everything but it hadn't always been so. At times she'd forgotten who she was, believed she was really fourteen, her whole life ahead. When reality intruded-as it always did-she hated herself all over again. That's when she tried to commit suicide.
She'd made attempts to accept her cursed condition a long time ago, but had failed and given herself willingly to illusions and lies. Now she was trying to be her real self again. She was scared and there were days when she felt she couldn't bear it, but she hadn't succumbed to fear as she had in the past. She said I gave her strength, that she wanted to stay sane for me. I never felt more honored or more worried than when she said stuff like that.
I urged her to meet Adrian. She was reluctant but I sweet-talked her persistently and finally she agreed. They got on great, as I had known they would. I didn't tell Adrian about her disease. As far as he was concerned, she was just a strange little girl. Adrian didn't come every night but popped by a couple of times a week, played games and watched old movies with us.
"There's nothing underhand between you, is there?" he asked one day. "You aren't doing her on the sly?"
"No!" I was shocked. "What do you think I am?"
He shrugged. "We move in dirty circles. You've kept yourself relatively clean so far, but we both know the day of reckoning isn't far off, that sometime soon you'll have to prove yourself to The Cardinal, show your ruthless streak. I hope never to hurt anybody as long as I live, but you're going to have to kill people one day. A man who'd do that… well…"
"I haven't touched her," I said quietly. "There are some things I'd never do, lines I'll always refuse to cross. I won't hurt innocents. Conchita's safe with me."
"I hope you always feel that way," he said softly.
We arranged a trip to the movie theater one afternoon. It was the first time in years that Conchita had ventured outside the Skylight. She walked the streets slowly, awkwardly, like Neil Armstrong on the moon. I suggested calling in to Shankar's but she'd been there years before and feared people might recognize her.
Casablanca was playing. The best film ever. I looked around several times and almost everyone was mouthing along to the lines, like groupies at a concert. But for Conchita the best bit wasn't the classic movie-it was the simple walk in the open air.
The only part of her life Conchita wouldn't discuss was her marriage. I tried broaching the subject a few times but she made it clear she didn't want me prying. I asked her doctors and it turned out she'd been married to a mob
ster, Ferdinand Wain. I asked where he was but they didn't know. He used to visit but had given up on Conchita long ago. The doctors hadn't seen him in ages. But the checks kept coming, so he must be around somewhere, and not doing too badly if he could afford a suite on the top floor of the Skylight. I kept meaning to ask Leonora or Y Tse about him, whether he was in the city or not, and if he was any relation to Neil Wain, the man who'd killed Uncle Theo. But I kept forgetting. It wasn't important. I was just curious.
Ford Tasso called one day, told me to go home and get ready-we were going out that night. He didn't say any more. I rushed back to the Skylight, showered and changed clothes. I was nervous-I always got the jitters when Ford called-and spent the time surfing the TV, wondering what lay in store. The trademark green fog of the city began to creep across the skyline as I waited. I studied it anxiously, afraid it would mean a cancellation, but then the phone buzzed and a receptionist told me a car was waiting. I expected Adrian but the driver was a stranger. "What happened to Adrian?" I asked.
"Who, sir?"
"Adrian Arne. My regular driver."
"I'm afraid I don't know him, sir. I only started a couple of months ago."
"Who sent you?"
"The company, sir. Mr. Tasso requested a driver. I was available. If you would rather another…"
"That's OK. Drive on… what's your name?"
"Thomas, sir."
"Drive on then, Thomas."
He negotiated the murky streets with great skill. The fog was growing heavier all the time but he took no notice. He drove to a building site where Ford and Vincent were waiting by their own car, shrouded in green vapors. Vincent wasn't glad to see me. "You sure we should be taking him along?" he pouted. "He's still a beginner. What if he-"
"He's coming," Ford snapped. "If you don't like it, complain to The Cardinal."
Vincent made a sour face. "I was only saying. "
"Don't."
"So," I said, trying to smile as if I weren't nervous, "what's the deal?"
"Get in." Ford opened the door. When we were out of the damp fog he outlined the night's mission. "We're after him," he said, laying a stack of papers in my lap. "Aaron Seidelman. Owns a stack of factories by the waterfront. We've been trying to buy them for years. He won't sell. We've been waiting for him to die-he's old as fuck and his kids would sell in a second flat-but he's a tough fucker. We can't wait any longer. The Cardinal wants those factories. We haven't come down heavy on Seidelman so far but he signs tonight, one way or the other."
I scanned the papers while he talked. "I'm going along to see how it's done? Another lesson?"
"No. You're going to make him sell." I looked up. Ford was staring out the window.
"And if he won't?" I asked quietly.
"Your call."
I was about to question him further when Vincent hissed and drew a gun. "Ford! We're being watched!"
Ford's head swung round. Through the rear window I glimpsed a figure nine or ten feet behind the car. The muscles in Ford's neck tensed, then relaxed. "You're a dumb fuck, Vincent," he laughed.
"The fuck?" Vincent snapped.
"See his eyes?"
Vincent squinted and so did I. As the fog swirled I saw a man in long white robes with blank, unseeing eyes.
"Shit," Vincent growled, "how was I to know?"
"I've seen him before," I muttered, trying to remember where.
"Wouldn't surprise me," Ford said. "They're easy to spot."
"They? "
"There's a group. All blind and dressed the same way. Religious nuts. They come out whenever the fog's up. I think they worship it. They're harmless. Still…" He tapped Vincent's shoulder. "Let's go. Just because he's blind doesn't mean he's deaf."
I focused on the file as we drove. Aaron Seidelman had been born in Germany in the 1930s. His parents died in the concentration camps. He was smuggled out by an uncle. Fled to France. Worked for a living from the age of twelve. Built up a small business, came here in the 60s, bought loads of old warehouses down by the docks, most of which he'd never done anything with. Old, past his prime, but wealthy and influential.
I burst into his house with Ford, Vincent and two others. He was in a robe and slippers, listening to some classical shit, sipping a glass of brandy. He tried to fight but one of our thugs knocked him down. "Careful," Ford said. "Nobody hurts him unless Mr. Raimi says so."
I walked over to the old man and studied him as if he were one of my insurance customers. He was frightened, obviously, but there was strength in that face. A few broken bones wouldn't crack him. He'd been bullied and tortured before. He hadn't given in then and he wasn't about to start now. He held his tongue. He knew pleas wouldn't work on us, just as violence wouldn't against him.
"Well?" Ford asked. "Do you want to talk to him here or do we take him out?"
"I've never had a Jewish takeout," Vincent giggled. "Does it come with bagels?"
"Mr. Seidelman," I began, "we want your factories. I know you want to keep them in your family but your children don't care. They'll piss away their inheritance or sell to the first bidder who waves a check under their noses. They only want the easy things in life. They're useless, selfish wastrels."
"They are," he admitted. His voice was firm, healthy, unharmed by the years. "But I cannot control the world from my grave. I can, however, safeguard my business assets while I am alive, and I will never sell to one who plans to befoul what I have built. Your blasphemous Cardinal would turn my factories into whorehouses and opium dens."
Opium. Was this guy behind the times!
"I will not let him soil what I have worked so hard for. There will be no revolution, no new order." He smiled bitterly and one of his arms lifted slightly. I glanced down and noticed a faded smear, an old tattoo.
I stood back and studied him again, thinking about the way his lips had lifted, his peculiar choice of phrase. He was fit, healthy for his age, glowing skin, a fine head of hair. For some reason I fixed on the hair and an idea blossomed. I took Ford aside and whispered, "You know how the Nazis destroyed the Jews?"
"Showers and ovens," he replied, staring at me curiously.
"No. Before they targeted their bodies, they wrecked their spirits. Stripped them naked, humiliated them, starved them, beat them, covered them in filth. They deprived them of their humanity."
"Interesting history lesson," Ford snorted. "How does it relate to…?"
"I know how to crack him," I said quietly.
"Then do it."
"Whatever it takes?" I asked.
"Like I said earlier-your call."
"I want him out of here," I said to our thugs. "Stick him in the car. We're going for a ride."
I told Vincent to drive to one of our shops. I'd been there a few times for an old-style wet shave. Y Tse had introduced me to the place. It was late and the owner grumbled at being woken, but he shut up quick when he saw Ford Tasso. He got what I asked for, no questions, and stuffed it in a brown bag. I thanked him and left.
The others stared at the bag, wondering what fierce instrument of torture lay inside. I said nothing. Seidelman was trembling a little but was otherwise showing remarkable reserve.
We drove to the docks. I knew the sort of place I was looking for, a disused factory where the power had been supplied by coal-stoked fires. Large furnaces. We found one after a short search. Dragged Seidelman in and propped him by one of the cold, damp, metal walls. It had been a long time since one of these had been used in the name of evil, but memories last. I knew Seidelman wouldn't have forgotten the fate of his parents.
There were flashlights in the trunk of the car. We trained three of them on the shaking old warrior with more heart than sense.
"Strip," I commanded. Seidelman hesitated. " Strip, you Jewish scum! Now!" The words came with frightening ease, I don't know from where.
Seidelman stiffened. Tears of fury glittered in his eyes. Sneering, he stripped naked and kicked his clothes away. "So," he snarled. "You act the commande
r. Go ahead, young man. You would have fitted in well, ja? But I have dealt with your sort before. I did not crumble then, and will not crumble now. Your kind can never defeat mine. You tried once and failed. So try again. The fool never learns. Try and fail, bastard."
Vincent and Ford were unsettled. They glanced at me skeptically. This wasn't their style. Tasso had tortured men, women and children. But not this way. He'd never tried to squeeze a man's soul.
I stepped forward. Seidelman was quivering like a leaf now, unsure of my intentions. He didn't know how far I was prepared to go. A faint breeze blew his gray hair into his eyes. He thumbed it away. I stepped closer, opened the bag and let him peer inside. He'd been expecting a gun or a knife, something brutal. He was ready for that. But not for this.
His body sagged. "No," he wept. "You cannot do this. I am a human being. You are too. You must not resurrect the past. It is unholy."
"Sign the document," I said softly, running a hand through his hair, soothing him as if he were a child. "Sign or I'll take this out and use it." He stared at me with loathing and fear. "Nein? " I smirked when he hesitated and made a pass at his head. When he flinched, I said again, "Sign."
"You are a monster," he sobbed.
"Yes. Me, Adolf, Hermann. We're all monsters. And you are our victim. Now sign and make the monsters go away. You have a choice this time. It's in your hands."
"No," he said, taking a pen from me. "You destroyed my hands many years ago. And my will. I thought I was strong but I was wrong." He signed his name, gave me the pen and paper, and said no more.
We left him alone, crying, naked, broken. The silence in the car was oppressive. Ford and Vincent thought they'd seen it all. I'd proved them wrong, shown them a new form of cruelty, an older kind.
When they stopped to let me out, Vincent grabbed the bag. "I've got to see what's in it." He opened it slowly, as if something alive and hideous were in there. His face dissolved into confusion as the object revealed itself. "I don't get it," he said. "What's so fucking terrifying about hair clippers?"
Adrian didn't report for work the next morning either. It was Thomas again, silent, obedient, dour. The fog was clearing and we made good time on the way to my office. I called Adrian's agency and asked about him. The woman on switch didn't know him. I looked for Sonja when I got to the office but she was out. I tried calling him at home-no answer. Worrying about Adrian, I lowered myself into my chair with my first cafe latte of the day. I'd barely sat down when the phone rang. Ford Tasso. "The Cardinal wants to see you later."