Never Speak: A Mystery Thriller (The Murderous Arts Series)

by John Manchester

  “She never brought it up. I had the feeling that she was making the best of it, like with everything in her life.”

  “Did she ever talk about her past?”

  “What, before her husband and kids? Never a word, now that you mention it. Why, was she hiding some dark secret?” She laughed nervously.

  “No, no.” The House again, towering over him, now the shabby farmhouse he and Susan shared those last months of hell.

  She must have caught something. “What are you hiding? Sorry. I have no right to pry.”

  “Neither do I, but…” He was a curious bastard. “Do you remember when this change happened in her? Anything around that time?”

  “She was that way the fall before the accident, not in the spring before, so it must have been…Oh.”

  He didn’t push. A long silence.

  She finally said, “I need to think about this.”

  About what? But he held his tongue.

  She said, “I don’t mean to be mysterious, it’s just that I don’t know what’s right. Anyway, I’m glad we talked.”

  “Likewise.”

  “It’s good to know someone else cared about her. Give me your phone number. But don’t call me again, please.”

  I need to think about this. Phil, when Ray asked what he thought happened to Susan, protesting too much, said I have no idea. Was something going on here? He had to know. But with nothing else to work with, the two cryptic statements just chased each other around his brain until five o’clock.

  When the bells rang, he poured himself an extra measure of absinthe. The knowledge of Liz’s lover had ripped the wound of her absence wide open. It throbbed in his chest. But with each sip the pain receded, and he gained perspective.

  Right now Liz was some rough surf, no doubt. But she was just the edge of a sad, sweet ocean. Susan’s betrayal had at the time practically drowned him. Now she was merely a gentle swell out past the shore.

  Karl’s jewel of consciousness? He scoffed aloud. Ray’s memories were his gemstones, the pearls he harvested from this sea. He’d spent much of his life plucking them from the waters, curating them, dusting them off, polishing them to hold gleaming to the light.

  The writing had upped the game. The simple process of making words netted treasures he’d never known existed.

  Ray was deep into the waters, deep into the absinthe when something became clear. Liz, Susan and the rest had all come and gone. And terrible as it was to think, the joy and sorrow they’d brought hadn’t really had all that much to do with who they were. The sting of Liz’s betrayal wasn’t that different than with Susan.

  All along he’d had one steady, one true love. An unrequited love. She never left him, but he could never have her, either. She stood just out of reach, just past the next wave, eternally enticing, eternally breaking his heart. She was the reason he fashioned reliquaries from dead things. The reason the first thing that came to his fingers when he picked up a guitar was dusty forlorn blues.

  His one true love, the past.

  Ray woke. He cracked his eyes and immediately closed them. Way too bright. He opened his eyes again, hand over his brow. Where the fuck was he? He grasped at something wooly. Liz’s afghan. He turned his head and saw the back of the couch.

  He stood. The room spun. He staggered to the wall and leaned against it. His head cleared. He hobbled down the hall, gripped the railing of the stair as he inched his way downstairs.

  Jo’s? Too much trouble. The scream of Liz’s coffee machine triggered a spike of pain above his right eye. The light was still too bright. Liz’s stainless-steel refrigerator gleamed with a jittery penumbra. Everything looked a little blurred.

  He carried coffee and a piece of toast downstairs without dropping them. Progress! He choked the coffee down but couldn’t even look at the toast.

  The diagnosis for these symptoms was no mystery—he had a wicked hangover. But it didn’t make sense. He never, ever had more than one glass of absinthe. Okay, maybe he’d poured a little heavily, but that did not explain this devastation.

  Where was the laptop? Upstairs in the side table drawer. He always stashed it in case of burglars. He humped up the two flights of stairs, panting. Somebody was driving that spike into his forehead now. Red mist pulsed at the edge of his vision.

  The drawer was empty. He frowned. Could it be downstairs, in the desk drawer? No. He hadn’t had it down there. He looked around. Got down on hands and knees, which just pissed off that asshole driving the spike.

  The laptop was on the floor, hiding behind the arm of the couch. The lid was open.

  He picked up the computer and sat, his heart pounding even harder than a minute before. He punched a key and the screen lit up. Word was open. He knew he’d closed the program. His eyes focused on the words.

  Bodine and I were outside clearing brush. It was cold, late winter. Karl appeared, holding something by his side. He lifted it, with the grace of performing a ritual. An old brick. He said, “You need to get me more.”

  Bodine said, “How many?”

  “Ten thousand. And not from some dealer. They would be—he looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth—spoiled. Dig them from old barns, abandoned houses. Make sure no one sees you. Then clean them.”

  I said, “Clean them how?”

  Karl gave me a look of contempt. Shall I tie your shoes for you too? He added, “I need them here, neatly stacked outside the basement, in one week.”

  My mouth fell open—impossible! Karl ignored me but nodded his head once as he caught the look of skepticism on practical Bodine’s face.

  “All right. Ten days. That’s only a thousand a day.”

  Bodine and I drove out that afternoon, found a barn, and managed to collect about a hundred. We obviously had to work harder. Starting the next morning, we rose before dawn and worked until after dark, crawling through the bowels of tumbled down barns, pulling bricks from the crumbling foundations. I alternated between the fear that the police might come and fear that we’d bring the walls down on us. We got filthy and soaked.

  When we finally returned to Karl’s, we huddled out back—no making a mess inside—and scrubbed each brick with a wire brush until every speck of mortar and dirt was gone. It was tough with numb fingers.

  Karl came out once around halfway through the ordeal. He eyed the stack then walked away. We got his point. We’d counted. We were never going to meet the deadline.

  Ray stared at the screen. He didn’t for the life of himself remember writing this. But he had. The only person who knew this story was Bodine, and he hadn’t snuck in here in the night while Ray was sleeping and done it.

  He’d blacked out. Something he’d never done before. Where was that absinthe bottle? He found it tucked behind the couch, like someone had hid it in shame.

  No wonder. It was three or four inches lower than he remembered. He sat on the couch with the laptop again and scrolled down—there were pages more of this stuff. It was obvious why he was so tired—he wasn’t just hung over, but had been up half the night, writing.

  Automatic writing. He cringed. That was old school hokum, spiritualist crap that went with crystal balls and spirits tapping behind curtains.

  His hangover had him on the wrong side of everything, but a stronger feeling was emerging. It screwed his mouth up and had him cold inside, even though he’d turned up the heat.

  Fear. Not just of whoever was out there that didn’t want him to write, but of the part of himself that had written last night. He had no control over it.

  He could stop drinking if he wanted to. It wouldn’t be much fun, but he’d done it before. He wasn’t sure if he could stop writing.

  Filled with the rectitude of the mortally hung over and three cups of strong coffee, Ray resolved to make something of his day. He went down to the gallery, murky with the plywood in the window. He measured t
he frame, called a glazier, left a message.

  He sat at his desk and checked his email. Lou: “We still on track? Waiting for pages.” Ray didn’t answer. He wasn’t sending him last night’s efforts.

  Snail mail clanked into the slot in the door and tumbled to the floor. Bills, bills. Credit card offerings. Something from Lou. He began to tear the envelope open. Stopped and gingerly pulled out the contents. A check for $42,500.

  He headed to Bodine’s. Mingus howled, and Bodine came to the door. Bodine said, “I’ve got something for you.”

  Ray followed him and Mingus up to the office and sat. Bodine disappeared into the closet. He appeared holding a green bottle. He said, “As they say, absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.”

  “Ouch. That’s for me?”

  Bodine handed it to Ray and sat. “Don’t drink it all in one sitting.”

  Ray said, “My lucky day. Look what else I have.” He held up the check.

  Bodine scooted his chair over and looked. Mingus caught their energy and sprung from bed and trotted over and looked too. Doggie treat? He sniffed at the check, then lay on the floor, disappointed.

  Bodine said, “Huh. Not that I didn’t believe you, but this sort of makes it real.”

  “That it does.” Ray’s fingers were squeezing the check like it might run off. “I need this money. And that’s not all I need.”

  “What else?”

  What indeed? It came in a rush. “I need to know. Know if he’s alive. Where, with whom. How he is.”

  Bodine sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of. What’s been calling you is your goddamn curiosity. How far are you willing to go to find out?”

  Ray started to reply, but Bodine interrupted him. “Don’t tell me. I know how far. To the fucking moon. I know you, Ray Watts. Once you get determined, nothing can stop you. I’m certainly not trying.”

  “And I don’t just need to find out. I need to write.”

  “And not just for the money.”

  “No.”

  Bodine nodded. “It’s like how you had to play that guitar. Which was a good thing.” He sighed. “So, you’re still spooked by that brick.”

  “Yeah, but you fixed the problem with my computer.”

  “I believe so.”

  Ray sighed. “More than that is that old taboo. I can hear Karl: Never Speak.”

  “And you’re still listening.” He slitted his eyes and did his Zen Master imitation. A minute later he opened them and gave Ray a crafty look. “Wait here.”

  Bodine disappeared into the closet again, returned and handed Ray a tiny vial. Ray raised his eyebrows.

  “Take a peek inside.”

  A couple of wisps of paper in the bottom. “That’s not….”

  “Blotter acid.”

  “You must be kidding.” But Ray knew he wasn’t. A few years ago Bodine had confided in Ray, “I still trip once a year, around the summer solstice. Every year, religiously.” His eyes twinkled at the pun. Up to now, Bodine’s ongoing psychedelic adventures had been just a part of his myth. But that was real LSD in his hand.

  Ray stared at the vial and tiny teeth of fear gnawed at his gut. He was well acquainted with that drug. Too well acquainted. “Where’d you get it?”

  “My buddy Spider, out in Sausalito. Used to be a roadie for The Grateful Dead. He says it’s Owsley.”

  “Owsley? Come on.”

  “It was made back then, anyway.”

  “And it still works?”

  Bodine nodded sagely. “Mm.”

  “How’s it going to work for me?”

  “There’s a direct line between that substance and Karl. Acid was the thing that opened our eyes to the notion of a spiritual path.”

  “True.”

  “Never mind that Karl turned out to be a major detour.”

  “I think I’ll stick with my poison.” Ray pointed to the fresh bottle of absinthe on the floor.

  “You want to channel Baudelaire? Your buddy Poe? Fine. But those guys were way before our time.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “Acid got us to Karl in the first place. Maybe it can take you there again. Think of it as supernatural intercession.”

  Ray was reminded that while Bodine was essentially scientific in nature, his yearly acid trips suggested a less rational aspect to him. With it came flashes of intuition.

  Maybe he’d just had one.

  Ray stared at the vial, so hard that it seemed to vibrate in the air. Could it be the key to The House?

  He was sitting in pitch darkness, black filled with a million horrific colors. Freezing. Monks chanting, over and over. He started half up out of the chair, his eyes wild.

  Bodine said, “Whoa! Where did you just go?”

  “Nowhere. But now I’m going home.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Ray placed the vial on Bodine’s desk carefully, like it might explode. He carried the absinthe bottle to the door, stopped, and held it up. “Thanks for this. I was almost out.”

  Bodine came over and pressed the vial into Ray’s hand. “I’m trying to help you out here. I really think it might do the trick.”

  Ray stood for a long moment casting a stink eye onto the vial. Finally he took a deep breath.

  “Oh, fuck it.” He pocketed the vial and left.

  Up on Warren Street, he searched for the nearest trash can. It was after eleven, and the town had come to life. Too many people. LSD was still illegal in New York, a lot more so than the little bit of weed up in his rafters. He was aware of his paranoia—folks threw stuff in trash cans all the time, that’s what they were for—but he kept the vial and headed to the bank to deposit Lou’s check.

  He saw the guard by the door and blanched. He sweated out ten minutes in a long line, waiting for the guy to come over and arrest him. Fortunately, the young woman at the window was off someplace that didn’t include old guys like him. Ray pocketed the receipt and made it outside and took a deep breath. He’d send Liz her money tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.

  He headed down to the park on the river. It was in the fifties, but the park was dreary as ever. So was the Hudson, in this final gasp of winter. A desolate scene in black and gray. The last ice was gone from the water. Its sullen surface mirrored the leaden sky. There was no snow either, just bare trees on the island in the middle and on the far banks. Hard to believe they would ever show color again.

  Ray yanked the vial from his pocket and stood to pitch it in the river. But the railroad tracks were between here and the water. He’d never been much of a ball player, doubted he could throw it far enough. It wouldn’t do for some kid to pick it up, suck on those papers, and lose their mind. He stuffed the vial back in his pocket and kept his hand there as he headed home. By the time he got there, the vial was greasy with sweat.

  He needed to give it back to Bodine. If he wouldn’t take it, Ray would sneak the thing into the museum. But not right now. For all his hemming and hawing about trying to write about Karl’s house, he hadn’t actually tried in days.

  He made coffee and brought it up to the couch. He opened the laptop and the K document.

  I reached for the doorknob…

  He willed his fingers to type, but his mind was blank. No words, no thoughts. That door might as well be a massive stone wall, extending up and to the sides beyond sight. He rubbed his thumbs on his forefingers, tapped on the front of the laptop.

  He remembered Lorraine invoking The Kitchen and Dining Hall. They appeared as little flashes of light in the darkness but immediately winked out. Because when he tried to recall, there were no faces, no words, no traces of sensation in his body. Just a vague feeling of gloom.

  He forced himself to picture the porch as if he were actually there. Creeping up the stone steps to the door. Standing with his nose an inch from it. Peering in
one the narrow windows that flanked it. But inside was just blackness.

  But his vision was adjusting to the dark. A dim figure, Karl, stalked back and forth in the hall like he had on stage, like an animal in a cage. Age had sunk his eyes in his head. But they still burned.

  Ray glanced away, but too late. Karl caught his eye for an instant. Ray’s heart lurched in his chest. He turned and fled the porch and ran down the road.

  Though there were no new words on the screen, here on the couch he shrank back.

  He sat paralyzed, pulse racing, barely breathing.

  But he still had to write. He relaxed.

  He could write about something else.

  Iwas what, ten? My buddy Joey would just not stop lording it over me about this mummy he’d seen in a museum. “It was a real one, and it was all rotted.” When Mom brought me to the Metropolitan in New York, I saw my chance. She dragged me through endless corridors, the walls plastered with a million boring paintings. I kept asking, “When are we going to see the mummies?” After about a hundred hours, she finally gave up on my art education and took me to the Egyptian collection.

  More boring stuff in cases. Joey was a dirty liar.

  A sarcophagus. I ran for it. Mom grabbed my hand and stopped me. “You’re going to have nightmares.”

  I broke from her grasp and flew to the case and lifted myself by the edge and looked in.

  My mother yelled, “Ray!” An alarm rang, and a guard barreled over, shouting, “Son, don’t touch that!”

  In the seconds before they reached me and dragged me away I’d seen enough. Enough to last a lifetime.

  Mom was right about the nightmares. In the dream that night I was looking in the casket. Here there were no linens. Just the face, brown skin flaking off like autumn leaves, showing bone beneath. The eyes popped open. They were desiccated and black as walnuts, but they looked right at me. The mummy lurched up and chased me through endless museum corridors, as I screamed.

  It was the worst nightmare of my young life. Except next thing I knew, I was reading everything Edgar Allen Poe wrote.