Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense: The Rosary Girls, the Skin Gods, Merciless, Badlands

by Richard Montanari

  “It’s not him,” Bontrager said.

  Byrne halted. “Say again?”

  “It’s some homeless guy. He says a guy paid him to drag the box here. A couple of the uniforms know who this guy is. They’ve seen him around.”

  Byrne looked through the binoculars. Protocol now called for the SWAT officers to clear the scene, and the bomb squad to investigate the suspicious package. Unless, of course, there was a young patrol officer on the landscape. An officer strikingly similar to the policeman Kevin Byrne had been more than twenty years earlier. At least attitude-wise. It was cowboy time. Or cowgirl time, as the case may be.

  Through the glass Byrne saw Officer Maria Caruso roar onto the scene, rip off the top of the cardboard box, then kick it halfway across Logan Circle. Shredded newspaper flew. There was nothing—and no one—inside.

  They’d been taken by the puzzle master.

  It was then Byrne heard the call for backup go out. His partner’s call for help.

  “Jess.”

  | NINETY-TWO |

  | 5 : 40 AM |

  SWANN OPENED THE BOX. THE BASEMENT WAS HOT AND DAMP AND CLOSE. He did not have a problem with confined spaces—he had been cured, forcibly, of this phobia at a tender young age.

  The box had sat dormant for years. It had belonged to an Indian fakir, ostensibly, although Swann knew the man as Dennis Glassman, a slack-handed card man and part-time lawn-care consultant based in Reno, Nevada.

  It was time for the Fire Grotto. The Seventh Wonder. With a twist, of course. This time the assistant would not get out of the cage.

  Swann rolled the box to the center of the small stage. He adjusted his tie. Everything was arranged. Odette was upstairs. He had peered in on her. She was dressed in her lovely scarlet gown, just as he had planned.

  He climbed the stairs to the third floor. The wall on the landing was activated by a key lock and a counterweight. He pushed aside the small painting, unlocked the door. It slid open. Beyond was a short, dark corridor leading to his father’s room. Swann knew that his father had gotten out of the room a few times over the past twenty years—Karl Swann thought this was a secret—and each time Joseph had tightened security.

  He edged open the door to the Great Cygne’s foul lair. The old man was where he usually was, beneath the covers, sheets pulled up over his bony skull. Swann crossed the room, made sure the television was on. It was connected by a direct feed to the camera across from the stage in the basement.

  It was time for Odette. Time for the Fire Grotto.

  As Swann made his way through the maze, he considered how Faerwood had been built on a plot of land that had once been known as Prescott Square. He wondered if the police had arrived at Logan Circle yet. Logan Circle with its Swann Memorial Fountain.

  Prescott Square, he thought.

  The final piece of the tangram.

  | NINETY-THREE |

  | 5 : 40 AM |

  LILLY HAD SEEN THE WOMAN IN THE BACKYARD. SHE KNEW THE WOMAN had seen her. There was no time to waste. Lilly had to stop the woman before she got in the way of her plan. She looked at the blueprint. There was more than one way out of this room. She opened the closet door. To the right were a pair of tarnished brass hooks. She pulled down the hook on the left, then flipped up the one on the right. Nothing happened. Perhaps she had not done it fast enough. She tried again, quickening the process. She soon heard the counterweight fall, and saw a rectangular plate in the floor slide to the side, leading to a narrow spiral staircase. Lilly took off her shoes, twisted herself into the constricted opening.

  She found herself in a corner of the great room. There was classical music playing, and almost a hundred candles burning. She knew she couldn’t risk walking near the main stairs. She knew there was a narrow hallway at the rear of the room, a hallway that wrapped around to the solarium. She stepped into the corridor, turned toward the back of the house, and saw her reflection in a full-length mirror. Or was it? It seemed watery, rippling, like an image glimpsed through ice. She suddenly realized she was surrounded by mirrors, her reflection drifting into infinity. But there was no mistaking that it was not only her likeness she was seeing.

  There was a woman at the end of the hall.

  | NINETY-FOUR |

  | 5 : 43 AM |

  THE HOUSE WAS ENORMOUS. JESSICA PASSED THROUGH A LARGE PANTRY, stocked floor to ceiling with dry goods. She tried a door off the pantry, perhaps to a root cellar. It was locked. She stepped through the kitchen. The floor was a black-and-white checkerboard tile; the appliances were all older, but highly polished and well maintained.

  When Jessica stepped out of the kitchen and rounded the corner into the main hallway, she stopped. Someone stood just twenty feet away. There seemed to be a sheet of glass in the center of the corridor, a glass panel resembling a two-way mirror. Her first instinct was to step back and level her weapon, the classic police academy tactic. She caught herself at the last second.

  The glass began to move, to pivot on a center pin. Before the mirror could rotate fully, Jessica realized that on the other side was a young woman in a scarlet gown. When Jessica stepped closer, the mirror stopped turning for a moment, shimmered. For an instant, Jessica’s own reflection was superimposed on the figure on the other side of the silvered glass. When Jessica saw the composite image—a woman with long dark hair and ebony eyes, a woman who, in a parallel world, might have been her sister—her skin broke out in gooseflesh.

  The woman in the mirror was Eve Galvez.

  | NINETY-FIVE |

  | 5 : 45 A M |

  ALL AROUND HIM, FAERWOOD BEGAN TO BREATHE. SWANN HEARD THE sounds of running children, the sounds of hard soles on oak floors, the hiss of a 78-rpm record on a Victrola, the sounds of his father hammering and sawing in the basement, the noise of walls being erected, ramparts to keep separate the warring monsters of madness.

  In his mind, he was transported back to the first time he had seen his father perform in front of an audience. He had been five years old, not yet part of the act. They were in a small town in Mississippi, a backwater outpost of a few thousand or so, a Sunday afternoon attraction at a county fair not far from Starkville.

  In the middle of the Great Cygne’s opening trick, Joseph looked around the room at the other children. They seemed mesmerized by the spectacle, magnetically drawn to this tall, regal man in black. It was at that moment that Joseph realized his father was part of the world outside the puzzle of his own life, and what he must do to change that.

  He looked in the dressing-room mirror. The Great Cygne stood behind him. Joseph Swann dared not turn around. Though he could see and hear and smell the hot damp of the county-fair tent, he knew he had not traveled. He was in Faerwood, in his dressing room. He closed his eyes, wished it all away. When he opened them again the Great Cygne was gone.

  As he slipped into his cutaway coat. Joseph recalled the day he had cut his father down from the rope hanging over the roof beam. He recalled the deep red welt at the base of Karl Swann’s throat, the smell of vomit and feces. He had taken him to the back bedroom upstairs, not knowing what to do. When his father stirred, a half hour later, it all became clear to him. The Great Cygne was now trapped in his own device.

  As dawn sought the horizon over the Delaware River, as Philadelphia stirred and stretched and rose, Joseph Swann ascended the stairs. It was nearing 6:00 AM, and the greatest of the Seven Wonders.

  | NINETY-SIX |

  | 5 : 4 5 AM |

  WHEN THE MIRROR TURNED FULLY, AND A PAIR OF WALL SCONCES blazed to life, Jessica took a few cautious steps forward, her weapon lowered. She came face-to-face with the young woman whose image she had seen in the mirror.

  “You’re going to be all right,” Jessica said. “I’m a police officer. I’m here to help you.”

  “I understand.”

  “What’s your name?”

  The girl stepped fully into the light. “My real name is Graciella,” the girl said. “Some people know me as Lilly.”

&
nbsp; Graciella, mi amor, Jessica thought. It all began to make sense. She recalled the diary.

  I still hide. I hide from my life, my obligations. I watch from afar.

  Those tiny fingers. Those dark eyes.

  These are my days of grace.

  “Okay,” Jessica said. She knew who she was talking to. “We have to leave. Now.”

  Graciella didn’t move. “This man? This man who lives here?”

  “What about him?”

  “He calls himself Mr. Ludo, but his real name is Joseph Swann. He killed my mother. Her name was Eve Galvez. I’m going to kill him.”

  The girl held up a yellowed piece of paper. It looked like an old blueprint. “I got this from a friend of mine,” she said. “Old guy. Wicked weird, wicked old. He used to be a magician, but his insane fucking son has kept him locked in a room for the past twenty years.” She unfolded the paper. “There are things you should know about this house. Every room has a secret entrance and a secret exit to somewhere else.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jessica asked. “Let’s go.”

  Graciella handed her the paper—the slight shake in her hands betraying her calm demeanor—then stepped away. “I’m not going with you. I’m not ready to leave yet.”

  “What do you mean you’re not ready? Where is Joseph Swann? Where is he right now?”

  Graciella ignored the question. “There’s one more trick to come. It’s called the Fire Grotto.” The girl stepped back. She reached out and touched the switch plate on the wall, then touched her foot to the baseboard. “You’ve got to understand. I cannot let this rest. I will not let this rest. I’m going to kill him.”

  Graciella kicked the baseboard. To Jessica’s left and right a pair of partitions dropped from the ceiling. She was suddenly enclosed in a six-by-six room. The only light was from the beam of her Maglite.

  Jessica was alone.

  | NINETY-SEVEN |

  | 5 : 45 AM |

  SWANN STEPPED INTO THE GREAT ROOM. ON ITS TATTERED CARPETING walked the specters of the past, the many treacheries of his childhood. On the worn, sturdy furniture reposed his victims:

  Elise Beausoleil with her literary ramblings; Wilton Cole and Marchand Decasse and their thieving schemes. So many had come here, prying, threatening to expose him and the many riddles of Faerwood, so many had never left.

  Swann heard conversation in the main hallway. It was not some phantom of the past. It was happening now. Before he could enter, a figure turned the corner. It was Odette, wearing her scarlet gown. She was as young and beautiful as ever.

  “Are you ready?” Swann asked.

  “I am.”

  “Tonight it is the Fire Grotto. Do you remember it?”

  “Of course.”

  Swann offered his hand. Odette took it, and together they headed for the stairs.

  | NINETY-EIGHT |

  | 5 : 47 AM |

  THE WALLS IN THE BASEMENT WERE DAMP AND CLAMMY. THE FLICKER OF the gas lamps drew their shadows in long, spindly forms.

  Hand in hand, Graciella and Joseph Swann walked past many small rooms, twisting and turning through the labyrinthine halls. Some rooms were no more than ten-by-ten feet, bearing long oak shelves crammed with magic paraphernalia. Some were filled with steamer trunks, overflowing with memorabilia and mementoes. One was dedicated to smaller stage props—foldaway tables, production boxes, dove pans, parasols. Yet another room was devoted solely to the storage of stage clothing—vests, jackets, trousers, shirts, suspenders.

  They eventually came to a long corridor. At the end of the passageway were bright yellow lights. As they approached the stage Graciella’s heart raced. She thought of the night her mother phoned, the long dreadful night two months earlier when her world had been turned upside down. There had been so much Graciella wanted to say to her mother, years of confusion and frustration to unload. But by the end of the conversation she found that the hatred that had lived in her soul like a terrible fire for so long had simply vanished. Her mother had been not much older than she was when she’d had her baby, and she had given her up for adoption for all the right reasons. When Graciella hung up the phone she had cried until dawn. Then she had gone into her closet and opened all the boxes she had received over the years on her birthday and Christmas. She’d known who they were from all along.

  Eve Galvez had loved her. That’s why she walked away.

  That night, via her cell phone, Eve had sent her a number of photographs. Photographs of Graciella at two and three and four years old, all taken from far away. Graciella playing lacrosse. Graciella hanging at the Mickey D’s on Greene Road. The final photo was of this monstrous place. The last thing her mother had said was that there had been a girl named Caitlin O’Riordan, and that a man, a man who called himself Mr. Ludo—the man who lived here, the man she now knew as Joseph Swann—had killed Caitlin.

  When the story of her mother’s murder hit the newspaper, and all the flowers that had so recently been planted in Graciella’s heart were ripped from the ground, she knew what she had to do. She made a promise to her mother’s memory that she would finish the job.

  But now that the end was in sight, she did not know if she could go through with it.

  THE STAGE STOOD at the far side of the room. It was about fifteen feet wide. The floor was highly polished; there were velvet curtains drawn to the sides. A spotlight over the center of the stage cut through the blackness like a knife through necrotic flesh.

  Joseph Swann offered his hand, and led Graciella into the wings.

  Between them, the Fire Grotto awaited.

  | NINETY-NINE |

  | 5 : 51 AM |

  JESSICA PUSHED ON THE WALLS, BUT THEY WOULD NOT MOVE. SHE TRIED lifting one of the panels from beneath the chair rail, but it didn’t budge.

  There are things you should know about this house. Every room has a secret entrance and a secret exit to somewhere else.

  She flipped on her Maglite, consulted the schematic the girl had given her. There were lines and notations all over the page. Once she found her bearings, she saw that in this part of the hallway, above the cold air return, there were a pair of dentils in the crown molding marked in red. Jessica pointed the Maglite at the ceiling. She saw that two of the dentils were a slightly lighter stain than the others. She pulled over a chair, stood on it. She pressed the dentil. Nothing happened. She then pressed the other, yielding the same result. She pulled both of them left, right. No sound, no motion. She pushed the two dentils in the center toward each other, and she suddenly heard the wall begin to move. Seconds later, it rose to the ceiling.

  Jessica jumped down from the chair, gulping the air. She drew back to the wall, unholstered her weapon. In front of her was a short hallway with narrow stairs leading up. She climbed the stairs, and found a dead-bolted door at the top.

  She slowly turned the lock, opened the door, and stepped through.

  The room was pitch-black. She felt along the wall, found a light switch. Overhead a bronze chandelier blazed to life, illuminating a room time had forgotten.

  She’d found the Great Cygne’s prison.

  | ONE HUNDRED |

  | 5 : 54 AM |

  GRACIELLA STOOD ON THE STAGE BENEATH HOT, GLARING LIGHTS. TO her left was the Fire Grotto, a steel and smoked-glass cage about three feet by three feet by four feet high. The front had a door that opened out toward where the audience would be, if there had been an audience. The entire apparatus was on a short four-legged steel table with caster wheels. Hanging from the back was the hoop, a three-foot-diameter aluminum hoop attached to a cone of silk fabric.

  It looked exactly like the drawings Karl Swann had shown her.

  Remember the hidden latch.

  Joseph Swann—dressed like his father, in full costume and makeup—emerged from a small room next to the stage. He stepped onto the stage, reached into his pocket, took out a small remote control of some kind, clicked it, then returned it to his pocket. Graciella looked across the room. She could ba
rely make out the silhouette of a small camera on a tripod. She wondered if Karl Swann—the Great Cygne himself—was upstairs watching all of this.

  His son Joseph waited a few seconds, then looked out into the darkness.

  “Behold the Fire Grotto,” he said. He turned to look at Graciella. “And behold the lovely Odette.”

  He reached over, opened the front of the glass-and-steel cage. He gestured to Graciella. She was supposed to get in. She looked inside, her memory overlaying the schematic drawing on the box itself. She glanced to the lower left corner. There, painted the same color as the smoked glass, was the hidden latch.

  She stepped into the cage. In her hands was the item the old man had given her. She’d held on to it so long, so tightly, she’d almost forgotten she had it.

  | ONE HUNDRED ONE |

  | 5 : 54 AM |

  THE ROOM WAS LARGE, HIGH-CEILINGED, CLUTTERED WITH OVERSIZED furniture from another era. Every inch of wall space was covered with yellowed news clippings, photographs, posters. Every surface seemed to yield memories of years spent in isolation.

  In the corner was a large hospital bed, covered in grimy sheets. On the dresser was an absinthe fountain with two spigots. Next to it were filmy crystal glasses, sugar cubes, tarnished silver spoons.

  Jessica crossed to the window, parted the velvet curtains. There were bars on these windows too. In the moonlight she could see she was on the third floor, just above the spiked railing that led around the rear porch. Jessica glanced at the bed. Attached to each brass post were a pair of rusted handcuffs. On the nightstands were a series of easel frames, aligned like timeworn headstones. In the photographs, a young man stood in various poses, all mid-illusion—linking rings, releasing doves, fanning cards.