by R. G. Belsky
“Do your daughters play basketball?” I asked Barbara Galvin.
“No.”
“How about your husband?”
Another no.
“David did though, didn’t he? You told me that the last time I was here. You said he was just like any normal kid growing up—liked to spend hours shooting baskets outside in the driveway.”
She didn’t answer me.
“When people die or go away, we like to try to hold onto a piece of them,” I said. “I knew a woman once whose son died—and she never threw away any of his clothes or changed a thing in his bedroom. Left everything the way it was—just like he was coming back someday. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of the memories. We like to remember the way it used to be.”
I looked outside again at the basketball hoop, the one where David Galvin used to play—before he started playing fantasy games and murdering people and writing letters to the media about his bloody exploits. The basketball hoop that no one used anymore. But it was still there.
“What is your point?” she asked.
“I don’t think you really threw away David’s last letter, Mrs. Galvin,” I said.
She sat there for a long time without answering. At first, I thought maybe she hadn’t heard what I said. But then I realized she was going over it all in her mind, thinking about her options. Except she had no options. And she knew that.
She got up and left the room. When she came back, she was holding an envelope in her hand. She handed it to me. It was still sealed.
“You never opened it?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was afraid to find out what was inside.”
I nodded.
“But you didn’t throw it away either.”
“No. I lied and told my husband I had. But I never did.”
“How come?”
“Like you said,” she told me with a sad smile, “sometimes it’s hard to let go.”
Chapter 63
There were two letters inside the envelope.
The first one was addressed by David Galvin to his mother and father. I read through it quickly. Galvin said he was sorry for all the pain he had caused them. He talked about finding God. He begged them to find it in their hearts to someday forgive him. The whole thing had an unreal quality about it. Like he was telling them what they wanted to hear, not what he really believed. (“He’s still playing a game with everyone,” Dr. Whalen had said.) There were no clues in the letter that I could see.
I folded it back up again, put it inside the envelope it came in, and handed it to Mrs. Galvin. I wasn’t sure if she’d read it or not. I think I hoped that she never did. That she would put it back where she kept it unopened. Maybe she was better off with her old memories of the creature named Felix the Cat that had once been her son.
The second letter was for me.
This was the real deal.
Dear Joe:
Congratulations on getting this far!
By the time you read this, I assume that a lot will have happened since my departure. I’m not sure exactly what that will be. But I’ve put all the pieces in motion, all the balls in the air—so it should be interesting. One last game for old times’ sake.
It’s a funny thing about death. Mankind has gained so much knowledge over the years about so many things—medicine, technology, the environment. But death remains our great mystery. We know no more about it today than the caveman did. It is still the ultimate unknown adventure. I’m looking forward to it.
In the world of fantasy, those of us who are Gods never die.
We are resurrected.
We are reborn.
We are indestructible.
I truly believe I can blur the line between fantasy and reality—and live on even after my physical death through my deeds.
There were five of us who played the game—me and four others. (Yes, I know I said there were only three, but I lied. Ha-ha! Welcome to the game!)
We were supposed to be noble warriors. Crusaders. The best of the best.
We took an oath to the death to remain as one powerful force.
But only I kept my word.
The rest were weak. They failed me. All of them, while I sat in this jail cell, went on with their lives. They made money, they became successful—they thought they could forget about me. But they were wrong. They know that now.
I must have my revenge.
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
And I am the Lord.
You and me, Joe, we really are a lot alike.
I felt your passion, your intensity, your energy when you came to see me in the hospital.
That wasn’t why you were chosen, as you will soon see.
But you were an excellent choice.
I know you will do me proud.
It’s funny the way things have worked out so well.
Something—maybe luck, maybe fate or maybe there really is another God out there somewhere—brought everything together for me like this at the end.
I know you don’t understand everything right now.
But you will.
Very soon.
And now one last poem before I depart for eternity:
One for the money (Dodson, the accountant).
Two for the show (Hiller, the theatrical agent).
Three to get ready (Franze and the girl,
who was supposed to be Lisa—
as you’ve probably already figured out . . . )
And four. . . .
Well, four . . . well, four you’ll know.
Make sure to say hello for me.
There were five pictures attached that Galvin must have cut out of an old NYU yearbook.
Himself.
Arthur Dodson.
Linda Hiller.
Lisa Montero.
And one more.
There was also a newspaper clipping that contained pictures of an exclusive social event that had taken place a few months ago.
He had drawn a circle around the face of one of the prominent guests.
The fifth person I was looking for.
The final answer.
The last of the Great Pretenders.
Chapter 64
The house was big and expensive looking.
It was on the water in an exclusive section of Greenwich, Connecticut, where many rich, famous, and powerful people lived.
The occupant of this house had done very well.
I sat in my car looking at it, thinking about all the things that had happened to me since that phone call out of the blue from Andy Kramer.
When this all started, I had a new career, a new woman, a new life. I had security. I had stability.
Now I was back to being a newspaperman again, constantly living on the edge and putting myself on the line each and every day. For better or worse, that phone call had changed my life.
Of course, I thought all along that it had just been an accident that I was the reporter David Galvin picked for this story.
But now I knew the truth.
I got out of the car and walked up to the house.
We always think that we have choices in life. That we control our own destiny. That no matter what happens—like Robert Frost believed—we can still choose the path we want to follow.
But it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes our decisions have been made for us a long time before. And, when that happens, we find ourselves out of options. All we can do then is hold on and try to survive, like a sailor in the eye of a storm who is trying to get home again.
We are always doomed to keep repeating our own failures, someone once said.
I rang the front doorbell.
The person who answered had changed a lot over the years. The hair was a different color and length, there were a few more pounds and some wrinkles and aging on the face too. Maybe some plastic surgery too. A lot of people who knew the occupant of this house eight years ago might walk by her on the
street today, never recognizing her at all.
I knew her right away though.
I should.
I used to be married to her.
“Hello, Susan,” I said.
Part 7
The Great Pretender
Chapter 65
“I knew you would show up here—sooner or later,” Susan said.
She had a gun in her hand and was pointing it at me.
“How could you be sure?”
“You always were a great reporter, Joe.”
“And after you heard about Arthur Dodson, Linda Hiller, and Lisa Montero, you figured you were next on the list. Right?”
Susan nodded. “That’s why I’m carrying this.”
She looked at the gun in her hand, put it down at her side, and then we went into the house.
It all seemed like a terrible dream. A nightmare I was going to wake up from any second.
“Where is Joey?” is the first question I asked.
“He’s at school.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s fine.”
“How much does he know?”
“Nothing.”
“He thinks I’m dead?”
“He doesn’t even remember you. My husband Charles is the only father he knows.”
We were sitting in the living room of her house. Me and the woman that used to be my wife a million years ago. The mother of the child I had never seen grow up. Their deaths had turned my whole world upside down. Now it was happening again.
I looked at a picture on the coffee table in front of me of the three of them. Susan. Her husband, whose name was Charles Matheson and was the CEO of a big corporation. And Joey. Joey was almost ten now. In the picture, Matheson had his arm around him. Father and son. They looked like a happy family.
“I guess I’m looking for an explanation from you,” I said to Susan.
“It’s a long story, Joe.”
“I’ve been waiting for eight years. You went to NYU with David Galvin?”
“Yes, I did.”
I never really knew her, she said.
Everything had always been a lie until her marriage to Charles. Her years at NYU. The time with me. Her entire life.
When she was seventeen, she had run away from home and gone to New Orleans. She supported herself first by waitressing. Then dancing in a topless bar. Later, she started dealing drugs along Bourbon Street and in the French Quarter. She was arrested on a drug rap when she was twenty, skipped bail, and ran off to marry one of the men she was dealing to. He was a mob guy, and he always kept a lot of cash. So when things went bad in the relationship, she simply took off—along with his money. She used it to enroll herself under a new name at NYU, where she decided she’d get an education and maybe make some money on the side dealing drugs to students.
“I’ve always been able to do that,” she said. “Just get up and leave. Switch identities. Start a new life. Different name, different city. I had to do it first when I jumped bail, then again when the mob was looking for their money. It got to be a habit, I guess. When things start to go wrong, I just go. How did you find me?”
I showed her the two newspaper articles that Galvin had left for me. The first was a small story in the Banner about our wedding, with a picture of the two of us. The second was a picture from the New York Times of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Matheson of Greenwich, who were being honored at a dinner by a local hospital for their generous charitable contributions.
“I guess he’s followed what happened to you from jail,” I told her. “Probably kept tabs on all four of you. Then, when he saw this picture in the Times, he made the connection to me as the reporter who’d covered his arrest. That’s why he asked for me in the letter to the Banner. He wanted me to find you. It was his sick joke.”
I remembered the day we’d first met. She’d been tending bar at a place on East Thirty-fourth Street, and I’d just had a big day at the track. I told her about it, and she said maybe she could help me celebrate. We had, I guess, what you’d call a whirlwind romance. We were married a month later. I didn’t think much about it then, I just thought we were madly in love. Now I realized I was just part of her pattern. Meet a guy, run off with him—and then leave him.
“What happened that day on the boat after I went for help?” I asked her.
“A fishing boat picked us up. When I got to shore, I realized that they’d found the overturned boat and thought we’d drowned. It seemed easier to leave it that way. I was ready to leave anyway. So I just left.”
“It didn’t bother you at all how it might affect me,” I said angrily.
“I figured you’d survive.”
“I loved you, Susan.”
“No, you didn’t. You were just in love with the idea of being in love. Hell, you were never even around. Always at the paper or in some bar drinking with your newspaper friends or out gambling away your paycheck. I’m sorry, Joe, but that’s the truth. You’re a nice guy. But you were a lousy husband and a lousy father.”
“And Charles?” I asked, looking down at the picture on the coffee table.
“He’s everything you weren’t as a family man.”
“So when do you leave him?”
“I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love him.”
I looked around at the big house she lived in,
“Are you sure you’re not in love with the money?” I said.
“The money’s nice. But there’s more. Charles has given me the stability I always needed—always really wanted—in my life. I have him. I have Joey. I’m happy. He’s a good man, Joe. He’s the one I was waiting for all of my life.”
I had a lot of other questions I wanted to ask her. About her past. About us. About Joey.
But there was no time for that now.
I needed to know about NYU.
“The thing you have to understand about David Galvin,” she said slowly, “is that back then I thought he was the most fascinating person I’d ever met. He was simply mesmerizing. Good looking. Charming. Brilliant. But it was more than that. If there was one thing I remember about him, it was his eyes. He had these incredible eyes.”
Lisa had talked about how fascinating Galvin was at NYU too—and talked about his eyes in the same way.
By the time I’d met him, Galvin was frail and sick and dying. But the truth is I’d found him fascinating too. Even at the end, he still had some of that mesmerizing quality. And maybe he’d touched my soul a little bit too. I remembered lying in bed with Carolyn after that last interview and thinking about his passion and his intensity. Thinking about how it scared me. And wondering if maybe there was a bit of David Galvin buried deep inside of me too.
“I’ve thought about it a lot over the years,” Susan said. “About how I could fall under the spell of someone like that. I guess the closest comparison I can make is what happened to Charles Manson and the girls around him. I’ve read a lot about Manson since then. The whole helter-skelter thing. Susan Atkins, Squeaky Fromme, and the rest. People who met Manson said they were almost hypnotized by the man. Some of them still are—even after all this time he’s been in jail. I guess I was a little bit like that for a while. Until I realized what kind of a person he really was. And then I got out.”
I had a million questions to ask her. But there was one thing I had to know first.
“The other three—Dodson, Hiller, and Lisa—I think I know their stories,” I told her. “They became friendly with Galvin, got caught up in his pretend games, and didn’t realize until too late how crazy he really was. Then, after his arrest, the three of them went on with their lives as if nothing had happened. They hadn’t killed anyone, but they felt somehow responsible for not stopping him in time. That’s what they’ve had to live with for the past eleven years. Is that what happened to you too?”
I knew what she was going to answer. Of course, that was the way it was. Just like with the other three.
Except I’d
been wrong about so many other things in this case.
I was wrong this time too.
Susan had already told me a lot. She’d told me about the boating accident. Her marriage. Her secret past as a drug dealer, stripper, and mobster’s girlfriend. She said she was a changed person now, and maybe she was. She wanted to tell the truth. About everything.
Sometimes confession really is good for the soul.
“Is that what happened, Susan?” I repeated.
“Not exactly,” she said.
Chapter 66
The first time was easy, she said.
His name was Thomas Macklin, and he was an attorney for some big Park Avenue law firm. Had a wife and kids, but he was known around the NYU campus as a player. He liked to come down to Greenwich Village and hit on college girls. He dressed well, he had a lot of money, he wasn’t too old—only twenty-eight when he died—so he found some takers.
He’d made a pass one night at Susan while she was working as a waitress at a restaurant near Washington Square. She mentioned it to Galvin, who said he had an idea. They’d play a game with Thomas Macklin. A pretend game. She didn’t know it then, but this time they were playing for keeps.
The idea was for Susan to agree to go out with Macklin, giving him lots of reasons as she did so to think he was in for a really good time. She told him the name of a bar they’d meet at. Only the bar was a notorious gay hangout in the middle of a rough area by the Hudson River. And Susan had no intention of being there. Galvin went instead.
Galvin watched in fascination as the notorious ladies’ man, looking extremely uncomfortable, sat at the bar surrounded by gay men. He kept searching for Susan. In order to make sure he didn’t leave, Susan called him several times from a pay phone to say that she was on the way. Each time, she made more lewd suggestions to keep him interested. So Macklin kept sitting at the bar—desperately wanting to get out of there, but desperately not wanting to miss out on Susan either. As time went by, several guys hit on the good-looking guy waiting there by himself. He managed to brush them off. But he didn’t look like he could take much more.