Countless times René had heard that old chestnut about veterans never speaking of their wartime experiences. Would that it were true for the Cassaroys, who trotted out every scrape and scare like campfire tales made better by the retelling.
Were he not the sole Cassaroy heir and the biological end of the line, the pressure might have been less. And the disappointment. Born prematurely, René suffered from asthma and sundry illnesses in his childhood. He wasn’t classic Cassaroy stock, but he had a passable build and was willing to give it the college try. None of his ailments mattered until he tried to enlist. His scoliosis was so minor it was missed by his pediatrician, and yet the eagle-eyed army recruiter had picked it up in an instant. As had the navy man. The marines. Even the air force. Despite Papa Cassaroy’s considerable connections, René’s application to the CIA didn’t make it past the first round.
No one wanted him.
René was in his mid-twenties when Father threw a clot and cracked his head open on the claw-foot bathtub. Mother, a long-suffering waif out of a Tennessee Williams play, had succumbed to some vaguely defined ailment a few years prior. Father hadn’t seemed to mind—she’d given him only one son of inferior make—and René certainly felt no loss of love when she passed. Yet when Father had gone, he felt not just the lifting of an age-old weight from his shoulders but also an intense loneliness. All the old man’s badgering and bullying had at least been a form of attention, an acknowledgment that René Peter Cassaroy did in fact exist.
His existence was called into further question at the reading of the will, an awful three-hour affair in the solemn offices of the family attorney, René squirming in an itchy tweed suit, the lawyer stroking his fulsome mustache. Father parceled out the family estate to countless veteran causes, leaving René with a measly couple hundred grand. He would no longer be able to live in the fashion he was accustomed to.
For six months he withdrew entirely from the world, holed up in a summer home that had yet to fall under the auctioneer’s gavel. He knew he was a failure in the eyes of his family and the world, but hearing this fact confirmed so starkly by the walrus-mustachioed attorney was almost too much to bear. René had been deemed not worthy of sharing in a Cassaroy fortune that dated back to the 1600s. A two-inch curve of the spine had been enough to bring four centuries of prestige and affluence to a halt.
His father had unwritten him from history.
Perhaps the only benefit of being made nonexistent was that he was able to write a new story for himself. Play by new rules, ones that favored his strengths.
Using nothing more than a lifetime’s education in pitilessness, he had assembled a fortune of his own. He now lived in a manner befitting a Cassaroy, but rather than being bound by convention or tradition, he did exactly what he fucking wanted.
He could control everything. Even—quite possibly—nature and time.
He had received only one noteworthy inheritance from his long, proud lineage of hale forebears, and yet it would prove more valuable than all the family jewels and dusty paintings put together: an AB blood type, present in a mere 4-percent sliver of the population. In this, René was exceptional. No—perhaps not exceptional yet. But it would make him so.
It would precipitate his transformation into something worth looking at again.
Standing before the mirror, droplets from the shower clinging dewlike to the hairs that furred his sloped shoulders, he saw his deficiencies on display. The sea-lion bulge of his pale belly. The half-moons of skin sagging beneath his eyes. The fineness of his hair such that the overhead light shone straight through to the dome of his skull.
Now was the hard part. Bracing himself, he thumbed the light switch to high.
There he was in all his starkness, every flaw captured in the unforgiving glare.
He began his evening restorative process.
Cover-up for his crow’s-feet. A little concealer applied with a cotton disk to take the dark off the bags beneath his eyes. Color corrector for the sun spot staining his left cheek in front of his ear. He’d tattooed on a hint of eyeliner to make his chocolate brown irises pop, but it had been a few years, the ink fading. He made a note to have it redone.
Bottles lined the counter, diligent sentinels guarding against the ravages of aging. He filled his water glass to the brim. Down went three fish-oil pills, translucent and gold. Zinc for his skin, calcium for his nails, vitamin E for his follicles. Lipitor for cholesterol, Prinivil for blood pressure, Singulair for asthma. Concerta for focus, Klonopin to take the edge off, a second dose of Lexapro to ward off depression. Acidophilus for the gut. He washed down three green-tea capsules in hopes of speeding the fat-burning process and then heard David rustling around in the bedroom behind him and popped a Cialis.
With a dropper he applied Rogaine to the thinning area at the back of his head. It didn’t work for the recession at his part, but he sprayed hair filler along the line of exposed scalp, the fibers clinging to his own strands, making them more robust. Propecia would take care of the rest. He wished he could reattain the rich umber shade of his youth, but no matter how often he dyed his hair, it held a fake copper sheen.
It took more and more work and more and more pills, morning and night, to resurrect himself, pull his body into alignment, reassemble his façade. He stared at himself through his father’s eyes, through the eyes of generations of Cassaroys, and saw what they saw: someone pathetic and human and frail.
He felt the Need rise in him, clawing its way up his throat, crying out from his cells. His habits, so expensive, had to be supplied with blood.
There was a reason he kept Dr. Franklin on premises. It was expensive, retaining a physician of his caliber. The medical equipment was expensive. Everything was expensive. René’s life was an extravagant machine that required more upkeep every year. A beautiful monster that needed to be fed.
Dropping the towel from around his waist, René entered the bedroom. David lay nude and languorous, draped across the plush pillows. He cast a glance over a muscled shoulder, and René braced himself for the inevitable flash of disgust that flickered through his eyes before submerging beneath the drugged surface.
It cut him to the quick, that flicker. And yet he couldn’t blame David one bit.
David threw an arm wide, welcoming him to the bed. How handsome he was, with his rosebud lips, soulful eyes, and flushed cheeks. Like something from a Pre-Raphaelite painting.
René approached. “You’re going into town later tonight? For some fun?”
“That’s right.”
The Need clamored inside René’s chest, a trapped bird. “Bring me a fix,” he said.
David tilted his chin down, a lazy approximation of a nod. “Male or female?”
“A few of each,” he said. “Do you think you can manage?”
Of course David could. With his looks and the promise of the chalet, anything was possible.
David rolled over, baring himself. “I can manage anything,” he said.
18
Flesh and Bone
Locked in his room, Evan paced circles in his boxers, waiting for the fire in the hearth to burn down. It was going at a pretty good clip, the roaring cedar bringing memories of his penthouse perched on the twenty-first floor of Castle Heights. The logs had been restocked while he was at dinner and would likely burn through the night.
He moved to the sliding glass door and peered out at the mountain rims, barely visible, deeper black in the black night. The north slope was most gradual; that was probably why René had parked a sniper there. But were there more long-gunners on the other slopes? Evan gauged the rest of the range. A dip to the west looked promising. He’d have to assess it in the cold light of day.
For now he had to keep his head clear. Mind and body. The Second Commandment: How you do anything is how you do everything. Above all else, Jack had taught him to train his focus. To be one thing at a time, one thing and one thing only.
He stretched. The push-ups felt less painful, the bruis
es dissipating. His ribs still ached—Manny’s kick to the gut hadn’t hastened healing—but the pain was manageable. He sat on the bed, crossed his legs, aware of the camera charting his every move. Then he closed his eyes and let the hidden lens fade into inconsequentiality, let his focus turn inward, let himself find the breath and only the breath. It moved inside him, a breeze whispering through flesh and bone. The transience of each instant also held its beauty. This one breath, this single moment in time. This one body, impermanent and perishable and gloriously mortal. There would be this breath and then another, and at some point he will have drawn enough breaths to be still. He could control only how he chose to spend each one. And only in choice was there meaning.
A whip-poor-will was at it outside, whistling into the gloom, lonely and haunting. The roar of an engine came audible, drowning it out. Tires crackled across frostbitten ground.
Evan hopped from the bed, stepping out onto the balcony in time to see one of the G-Wagons slalom up the drive. It skidded to a stop, the driver’s door popped open, and David spilled out. Two men and two women, also in their early twenties, emerged from various doors, pint glasses in hand. A bottle shattered. Peals of laughter.
Snatches rose to Evan, distorted by distance and the wind:
“Nice house, dude!”
“I hafta pee.”
David dug a slender white remote from an inner jacket pocket, raised it over his head, and clicked. Lights flared from beneath the eaves, flooding the grounds.
The young women tittered, wobbling on high heels.
“Whoa,” one of the guys said. “That’s so James Bond.” Gauge earrings the size of silver dollars stretched his lobes to tribal proportions.
David turned a circle, arms raised. A bottle of champagne had appeared in one of his hands. “Well,” he said. “You coming?”
He stumbled drunkenly toward the chalet’s front door, the partyers following in his wake. Shivering, Evan watched until they vanished from view. Then he turned and stepped back inside.
Standing before the fire was a naked woman.
Her jet-black hair, thick and glossy, was swept up in the back, twisted around a chopstick. Wisps fell forward, framing her cheeks, clutching her neck. Her body demanded his attention, but he returned his focus to her face. Smooth, straight nose, olive skin, large dark eyes with prominent lashes.
The woman he’d seen Dex manhandling in the barn.
Red streaks grasped her wrist where the capillaries had broken. Again Evan wondered if the episode had been staged for his benefit. Her appearance here, like this, made it seem more likely.
She spread her arms, a ta-da gesture.
Then a pronounced frown. “Normally men look happier to see me.” Her accent was strong but musical—Croatian? Greek? Serbian? Her hands clapped to her sides, sending a shudder through her strong hips. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like gifts?”
“Not slaves.”
She stepped nearer, taking his hand in hers, drawing him to the warmth of the fireplace. “Let’s make an exception.”
Her mouth was close, her lips full. Heat prickled his skin, not just from the fireplace. She kissed him. It took a good measure of restraint not to kiss her back.
She pulled away, more amused than anything else. Then she pivoted him, tented a hand on his chest, and pushed him gently onto the bed. He sat. She sidled close, her breasts brushing his mouth. He was acutely aware of the camera above.
“Step back or I’ll move you back,” he said.
But instead she eased him gently onto the mattress, leaning over him. Her hair fell like a curtain, connecting their faces, caressing his cheek. It was the first time he hadn’t seen through a promise, maybe in his entire life.
When she looked at him now, her expression was different, her brow pinched, her dark eyes moist. Fear.
He realized that she’d let her hair cover their faces to block them from the camera.
“Then we need to fake it,” she whispered. “Or it will be bad for me.”
He whispered back, “He punishes you when someone turns you down?”
“I don’t know.” Her teeth pinched her puffy lower lip. “No one has ever turned me down.”
“What’s your name?”
“Despi.”
Greek, then, from Despina.
She flicked her hair back over one shoulder. He could feel her against him, all warmth and pressure.
“Please,” she said.
He mostly believed her. And yet it seemed a gambit theatrical enough for René to have dreamed up. He studied the faint pulse in her neck. Thought about the chopstick in her hair.
He gripped her at the waist and rolled her over toward the part of the bed the ceiling-vent camera couldn’t reach. He kept the edge of their bodies in view so as not to give away that he knew about the remaining surveillance.
“Here,” he said.
“Okay.” She was breathing hard. “Okay.”
She sat up on him, tugged free the chopstick, shook her mane of hair. It resettled as if she’d placed it there strand by strand. She let the chopstick clatter to the nightstand, then ran a finger across the yellowed bruise on his shoulder from the beanbag round.
“You are tough,” she said. “But are you tougher than René?” The name brought a faint shudder.
“I know enough not to underestimate him.”
“That’s wise,” she said quietly. “You’ve killed some of his workers.”
“How do you know?”
“The men talk.” She was undulating on him, her shoulder blocking the camera above. “So you did?”
It was taking all sorts of focus and nonfocus for Evan to maintain the ploy. “Yes.”
“That’s what you do? Wait in this little room dreaming up ways to kill your way out of here?”
“Yes.”
Her skin carried the fragrance of jasmine. She leaned forward, pressing the softness of her stomach to his. The tips of their noses nearly touched. Her hips worked and worked some more, her eyes watching him appraisingly the whole time. “How would you kill me?”
“I’d put the chopstick on the nightstand through your carotid artery.”
Her eyes flared. “What an ugly thing. To know something just like that.”
“Yes,” he said.
She rolled off him, threw an arm across her forehead, ostensibly worn out. He slid the rest of the way out of the lens’s purview. She let her head fall to the side so she was facing him. “That’s why they told me I had to take the chopstick when I left. It was an experiment. To see if you’d fuck me or kill me.” Sadness touched her eyes. “You did neither.”
She waited for him to say something, but he had nothing to say.
“That’s what I am now,” she said. “A lamb staked to the ground to test the predators.”
She got up abruptly, slipping off the bed. She was sure to get the chopstick on her way out. When the door opened, Evan heard multiple sets of footsteps outside. It closed, dead bolts clanking into place, one after the other. He barely had time to consider what had just happened when he heard a familiar hissing from above.
“Fuck,” he said.
Gas flooded down on him.
19
Somewhere Much, Much Worse
A hint of cherry blossom laces the air. In other circumstances it might be lovely.
But beneath it is the earthy stink of damp concrete and the coppery tang of blood.
Jack stands stooped, one hand clutching the ball of his shoulder to no avail. Blood sprays through his fingers. His blue flannel shirt saturated. His eyes accusing.
Darkness prevails. There is the spotlight of Jack and nothing else. Evan watches from somewhere in the gloom, spellbound.
They are in Parking Level 3. Or somewhere much, much worse.
Jack’s mouth pulses, his lips locked shut, but Evan can hear his thoughts.
What have you done?
Little boy who I loved as my own, what have you done to me?
Jack
’s mouth opens, but instead of words there is only blood, black as oil, loosed as if from a faucet. It sheets over his lower teeth, pours across his chin, streams down his legs. It pools on the floor and spreads and spreads, filling the spotlit circle and oozing outward.
Evan is helpless, trapped in the darkness. He tries to open his own mouth, but he cannot. When he reaches to see why, bristling sutures poke his tender palm.
His lips have been stitched shut.
Jack’s blood seeps through Evan’s shoes, warm and tacky. It waterlogs his socks, claims his ankles, his calves. He tries to cry out, to no avail. He is a mute witness to what he has wrought.
The warmth is at his waist now. His pants sodden. His shirt grows heavy, clings to his flesh. The blood rises past his clavicles, fills the hollow of his neck. And then he is under, his eyes wide and comprehending, the world below vast and empty.
The universe strained through a crimson filter.
20
No End Point
Young voices lit up the parlor. David was being David—making trick shots on the billiard table, mixing drinks behind the bar, licking salt off a young woman’s gazelle-like neck before throwing back another amber shot and sinking his immaculate teeth into the embrace of a lime. The other girl slumped on the couch, propping up her forehead with one hand and sloppily texting with a thumb. Her iPhone in its sparkly case slipped from her manicured grip. The young men were doing young men things—pounding pints, warring over the foosball table, enacting elaborate handshakes and high-fives.
The Nowhere Man--An Orphan X Novel Page 9