The Hidden Man

by Anthony Flacco

  Shane could not begin to imagine what Duncan suspected of his son—or what he might have already known about him—that would drive him to use this means of apologizing to the world for creating such a life.

  And now Shane needed to get the hell out. The rush of air into the trap had so vastly accelerated the fire that the entire stage was smoldering, about to burst into flame. He began thinking about the fastest way to sound the alarm, once he got back onto the street. But within moments he was astonished to hear the unmistakable sounds of fire sirens, the big steam engines, and rubber tires squealing to a halt, just outside the front of the building.

  They know?

  There was no way for the fire to be visible from outside the theatre. Not yet.

  How?

  He had only managed to take two steps back into the offstage wings when the entire stage floor burst into flame. The explosion of air pressure knocked him against a big rack of scenery flats. By the time he regained his bearings, a wall of flame blocked him from the front of the house. He looked around for the rear fire escape, remembering its position from before, and quickly spotted it through the rolling black smoke. His legs were already in motion before he decided to run for it.

  The backstage exit did not have any sort of special release handle for emergencies, but that barely slowed him down. He slammed into the heavy wooden door, simultaneously yanked back the draw bolt and untwisted the knob lock, turned the handle, kicked the door open, and hurled himself into the alley before he had time to think about any of it. Within a few more heartbeats, Shane was safely away, running in the opposite direction of the arriving fire units.

  The wet night air thickened into a rolling overhead spray. Before he traveled another full block, it swelled to a persistent drizzle. Good news for the firemen. The miraculous firemen. The speedy fellows who could not have arrived so soon unless they were tipped by whoever started it.

  As soon as he reached the point where the alley emerged into the street, he stepped onto the sidewalk, turned east, and walked away down Market Street and toward the bay. He never looked back at the firefighters while they deployed into action. It felt as if someone might catch his eye and shout for him to return.

  Shane was grateful that he never heard their attacker’s name before he was wiped off the planet by the Last Will and Testament of James “J.D.” Duncan. It made it easier to trust that Duncan did the right thing. Action far louder than words. It left no room for lawyering.

  The fire department’s response was shaping up to be big. Fortunately for the arriving crews, there was no interference from traffic and the streets were mostly empty at that hour. However, the few morning workers who were already out and about had all turned and headed toward the theatre, curious about the action.

  That was the only reason that Shane noticed Randall Blackburn moving along, on the opposite side of the wide commercial boulevard. They were the only two people out there who were heading in the opposite direction.

  On any other day, Shane would have immediately been concerned over Randall’s presence, ready with a dozen questions. Now he only thought of how good it was to see him after this bizarre and terrible turn of events. Shane moved at a brisk trot across the wide street, jumping the emerging puddles and the melting horse piles. Once he was finally across, he avoided calling attention to himself by moving up behind Randall at an easy pace.

  He was only a few paces away when the first twinge of awkwardness sank in. He could not think of how to greet him, under the circumstances. Instead, he just silently fell in beside him and walked along, an arm’s length away. For the first few steps he did not meet Randall’s gaze, as if they were just coincidentally walking along there and unaware of each other.

  “Son of a bitch! Shane?” Randall nearly whispered it.

  Shane turned and saw Randall’s eyes boring into him. He immediately felt a wave of dread roll through him. Shane saw that the flesh of Randall’s face was sunken, making his eyes seem to bulge. His color was pale ash.

  “Hi. Well. This is something. I was just inside the theatre. Mr. Duncan and I were dragged in there by this street thief, but there was a fire. And Randall, Duncan grabbed him and pulled him into the stage pit. They both died down there. I saw it.”

  Randall stopped walking, at that. He turned and looked him in the eyes with more pain than Shane had ever seen on his face.

  Shane went on. “I, ah, guess you’re headed to the station?”

  Randall looked off in the distance and a dry smile slowly spread over his face. He turned back to Shane and nodded. And with that, resumed walking.

  “Where’s the car?”

  “The car. The car is at the station.”

  “Why did you leave it?”

  “I didn’t. I parked outside the theatre, right out front. The captain had his men tow it back to the station to hold on to, until I did my job. Something about using it to help frame me if I didn’t.”

  “So. Now, ah, now you can retrieve it?”

  “That was the deal.”

  “Why are they going to be willing to release the car now? You know, as opposed to before?”

  “Because I did what they asked.”

  “Ah-hah. What, uh…”

  “I set the Pacific Majestic Theatre on fire.” He said it simply, without looking at Shane, and kept walking at a brisk pace.

  Shane kept up with him, but he was already panting. His old stutter returned, the way it still tended to do when things went bad in a hurry.

  “N-no—no. You didn’t seh-seh-set that fire. It was the guy who has been after Duncan all along. There really was a ssssstalker, the way, the way, the way that Duncan feared!”

  Shane ran around in front of Randall and stood in his way so that he had to stop. He stared into his eyes and pushed all of his will into his words.

  “Randall, the stalker lit the fire.”

  Blackburn held Shane’s gaze with a sad smile. “I appreciate what you’re doing, Shane. But I lit the fire. You know those new matches I like, you can strike them on any rough surface?” He pulled out little silver box. “I saved two matches out of this little match safe here. Janine gave it to me. Pure silver. Two fires at each end of the basement. Paint thinner, canvas sets.”

  Blackburn resumed walking. “I used a call box on the street to get the fire department rolling as soon as I left.”

  “Oh,” Shane replied, trying to digest what he was hearing. “So…you’re the reason that they got there early? You saved the place then, right? You called it in early to make sure that it didn’t spread? So without you—”

  “Without me, there wouldn’t have been a fire! I set it.”

  “Oh you set it. I see. And now…you can get the car back, and have everything be all right with the department, because you set the theatre on fire?”

  Blackburn said nothing. They kept walking.

  The mist became a steady horizontal spray, worse than the most aggressive fog. The silence between them would have been awkward, but it was relieved by the watery drone of the wind. The distance to the new City Hall was only a few blocks. They covered it in minutes.

  Shane could sense the depth of Blackburn’s turmoil, but he was having a hard time picturing what he had been told. It made no sense at all. He tried to think of anything else that could have an effect like this on Randall, who was in most ways the strongest man he had ever met.

  Nothing came to mind. He could see that the story of whatever Randall had done and whatever reasons he had for doing it would have to unfold on its own. They finished the short walk in silence.

  LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT

  THE CITY HALL STATION

  VIGNETTE SHIVERED UNCONTROLLABLY BENEATH a hellish drizzle. She had expended the last of her core body warmth, and so her remaining wisps of energy could only move her limbs in clumsy, jerky motions.

  By this point she was so frustrated and angry that she would have screamed for the sheer release of the emotions, if her body were in any condition to
accommodate her. Every terrible scenario she had ever overheard during nine years of living in the home of a police officer leaped to the front of her imagination and tormented her.

  After the long night, those images of disaster gradually metamorphosed into tragic scenes that she ought to have prevented, but did not. Jumbled bits of voices and images fractured, mixed, and re-formed into artificial memories based on her worst fears.

  It was her fault. The Eastern Whore had only managed to get herself selected for murder because Vignette had left her alone, shirking her duty in the public bathroom. It did not console her to know that her presence at that moment might have done nothing more than provide the attacker with another victim. The voices in her new false memories continued to feed fatigue-borne fears.

  She could have prevented it, somehow. The fact that she was Randall Blackburn’s adopted daughter meant that she should know more about such things than the average young woman her age. She could have demonstrated some of that knowledge, but she had not. Therefore, she had not only failed Janine Freshell, but also failed Randall yet once again.

  Because of her, he was going to go for another swim in the sewer for the pleasure of his commanding officers. No one had spoken a word out loud to her but she was already damned sick and tired of the accusations bellowing in her imagination.

  Yes! Vignette wanted to bellow it. Yes, I hated her! She wanted to throw every ounce of her energy into her throat and cause everybody within half a mile to stop and listen.

  Yes, I left the room to avoid her! And no, hell no, I had no desire to risk my life for her. Are you insane? Why would I do that, for a woman like her?

  “It would be obscene!” she hissed under her breath, without realizing that she spoke out loud.

  Her inner turmoil rolled with such power that she could not imagine where its energy came from. She remained alone in the rain-deepened darkness, but inside felt as if she were being torn apart by dogs.

  She could see everyone accusing her this time, and not just the police officers. She could see Shane staring at her in disgust, shaking his head, turning his back. She saw Randall, losing his temper and getting violent with her at last, the way she had always known he would do someday—like any other male human of that size. Men did it because they could.

  Why would he not rage at her, now? Why not do her harm? What was there, really, preventing him from snatching her away and dragging her home and assaulting her behind closed doors, just the way that the Helpers did back at St. Adrian’s?

  He called himself their “father.” But really, what would stop him from doing whatever he wanted to punish her, to hurt her in the deepest way he could? The question hung there.

  Nevertheless, it disappeared completely when she turned at the corner and started back toward the station; she was just in time to see Randall and Shane emerge from the fog just a few yards away from her. They were coming right up the street and heading for the station. Neither one had seen her yet.

  So they were alive, moving under their own power, and apparently not injured. Only an instant had passed, but this much was already cause for celebration. Vignette felt it right away. Muscles that she did not even realize she had been clamping down on suddenly relaxed and stretched out. A huge inhalation came upon her, inflating her lungs on its own power. She gave a deep sigh of relief.

  However, they were only going to be “all right” for another few seconds, before one of the emerging officers spotted them and ran to them with the news. They both looked tired, nearly beaten.

  A movement caught the corner of her eye, and she turned to see that another pair of cops was just walking out the main entrance and heading down the steps. Their path would take them so close to Randall that they were sure to recognize him.

  She called out to them, but the wind gusts blew her voice away like a dry leaf. She stepped up her pace, running as fast as her exhausted body and her cramping muscles and her chilled temperature and her damned rain-soaked skirt would allow.

  “Randall!” she cried out again. Her voice remained tiny against the wind. She called again, then again, rushing toward them.

  The two cops were getting closer, although they did not seem to have noticed her or Randall, yet. They were too close.

  “Shaaannne!” she screamed, feeling her legs give out. Her foot caught in the hem of her skirt. Her body pitched forward into the sidewalk on her forward momentum. The crash to the ground was hard.

  But she ignored the pain, because Shane spotted her just as she was falling. By the time she looked up again, he and Randall were already hurrying toward her.

  She rose to all fours and tried to stand, but her legs immediately buckled again. Now the pain and frustration took control of her, quickly replaced by near hysteria.

  Randall reached her, and she latched her arms around his neck, wailing, out of control. When he realized that she was soaked through and shivering, he started to lift her and carry her into the station, orders or not.

  She cried louder, got him to put her down, and stood with her arms around his neck and her feet barely touching the ground. The sobs tore through her and she had no power at all to stop them. She cried for the pain coming his way, and for having to be the one to deliver the news. She cried for fear of losing his love for her, and for her sense of guilt over hating Miss Freshell the way that she had.

  And right there in that lousy freezing rain, she struggled her way through what she had to tell him. She could tell that she was doing a miserable job, sobbing and breaking down, probably slowing up the story more than Shane would have done.

  But as it happened, she helped him as much as anyone could have, because her great distress focused his mind on the difficulty of getting the story out of her in bits and pieces. It slowed the flow of information and padded its impact. Instead of taking a blow to the chin from a bare-knuckle fist, he got one wrapped in a boxing glove.

  He remained calm enough to gather her up and take the three of them home in a taxi. His silence was deep throughout the ride, but Vignette could not help but notice that at least he had not struck out at her yet. So far, she had not spotted that crazy mad look that men get in their eyes when they are going to hurt you.

  She knew that it was bad, to be worried about her own relationship with Randall at such a terrible time. It was selfish. But she was also nurturing a tiny spark of hope so beautiful and so thrilling that she did not even want to think about it. She just wanted that secret hope to be left alone long enough to grow into a reality, and for the reality to be that somehow Randall would find it in himself not to turn his back on her because his fiancée had died in her company. It felt like wishing for the moon.

  THE NEXT DAY

  THE BLACKBURN-NIGHTINGALE HOUSE

  SINCE IT WAS SATURDAY morning, Shane took over making the coffee and breakfast, letting the big man sleep in. He knew that Randall had returned to the station the night before, for questioning in the murder case. He had finally arrived back home in the wee hours. Shane would have been happy to let him sleep through until Sunday. He set things up so that Randall could eat if and when he wanted to, putting out bowls of fruit and cheese while he brewed the coffee and made up a pot of oatmeal.

  Vignette came downstairs at the first aroma of breakfast. She and Shane met eyes long enough to acknowledge each other’s presence, then she silently took a seat at the kitchen table while Shane moved around her.

  He realized that there was actually some comfort, on this strange morning, in her usual morning role as the brat who has already learned how to dismantle and reassemble the engine of the Ford, but who refuses to learn how to cook. Shane’s usual disapproving annoyance at her felt good to him now. That sense of easy familiarity was like fresh air.

  The case of the Freshell murder was no mystery to him; he witnessed the son stalking Duncan at the restaurant. Clearly, the raging man had also seen Duncan with Freshell. So no matter what sort of thoughts the killer had in his mind at the time, he had initially turned his
focus onto Miss Freshell simply because of her proximity to Duncan.

  No one had asked Shane’s opinion, but to him it seemed clear that she had set in motion the very chain of events that ended with her death. But now, fresh out of bed, it was all too much to talk about.

  Everyone in the house drank coffee or tea with breakfast and usually did little else until that first cup. Shane and Vignette had not finished theirs yet, but the weight of the unasked questions and their useless answers was already tiresome.

  After nine years of mornings together, their connection was nearly telepathic. And so from the mere silence and the fact that neither one glared at the other, along with the fact that they both remained in the kitchen instead of leaving, they both silently realized that neither wanted to fight.

  Shane was glad for Vignette’s gentle side, for that rarely visible side of her that behaved as if she had actually been raised somewhere within a real civilization. The silence between them felt eloquent to him because of that, more so than words.

  By then he knew that he and Vignette would be able to get through the morning together. Randall could sleep for as long as he needed to.

  Upstairs in Randall’s large bedroom, his smoldering internal condition was nothing at all like sleep. He sat in a stuffed chair in front of the doorway to his screened balcony, staring into the view without seeing anything.

  He had built that balcony himself, years before. It was done in anticipation of sleeping out there during summer nights. There had just never seemed to be a reason to actually do that. When it was used at all, it was his place to enjoy the rare feeling of thinking without interruption.

  There was no respite in that today. The same words that had tormented him the evening before, while he sat below the stage and waited for the instructed hour, came back to haunt him now.

  This is what they think of you.

  He failed to walk away from the task. Even while he was putting each match’s flame to the canvas flats, he saw that he had foolishly allowed their coercions to work on him. It all came down to the loss of his career, a falsely shamed reputation, an arranged arrest and conviction, effectively destroying his life from the ground up. It would obliterate his little family at a time when it seemed to him that they needed one another as much as ever.