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

by John Manchester

“I think you’d be wasting your time. They’re not good with stalking. They like to wait until there’s a serious crime.”

  “Like when I’m dead? No thanks.”

  Bodine looked seriously at Ray. “Do me one thing. Promise me you’ll stop writing. Whoever this is, they mean business.”

  “Promise.”

  At five, Ray drank and peered out at the evening street, but it was no good. He was no longer gazing on strangers, imagining their lives. Instead he was looking for Karl—or whoever it was. Bodine had said it was his email that was hacked, but Ray wasn’t sure. What did Bodine know about stalkers? Maybe they hacked his email and had a white van. What had Bodine said, a range of seventy-five feet? It could be in the alley right now, behind his car. But he wasn’t going to look. What would he do if it was there?

  The laptop sat idle next to him. The window from which he’d spied on Susan, starting this whole thing. Now someone was watching him.

  Ray sat in the gallery the next morning. He gazed outside. A kid slouched down the street, head down, with messy hair. Ray leapt up in his chair. Tom! Tom was a kid who’d joined Karl right near the end. He’d sucked up to Karl even worse than the rest of them.

  As if somehow aware of Ray’s intense gaze, the kid turned for a second.

  It wasn’t Tom. It didn’t look anything like him. And Tom had to be at least forty by now. This kid was about seventeen.

  Ray went to Bodine’s. After yesterday’s snow, it was mild, in the mid-fifties. The sun crinkled his eyes, and a gentle breeze off the river kissed his cheeks.

  Bodine was out back with Mingus. “This is the first time I haven’t had to force myself to take him out in months.” The dog sniffed furiously at a soot-encrusted snow bank, then started frantically clawing.

  Ray said, “What’s he after?”

  “Some rotting hunk of shit. Or maybe he knows I had that dead cat. Though I made sure he didn’t see it.”

  “What’d you do with it? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “You look freaked out. That was ugly yesterday.”

  Ray told him about seeing the kid on the street.

  “You’re getting paranoid.”

  “Duh.”

  “I can’t say I blame you.”

  Mingus got what he was digging for and lay down and started gnawing at it. Bodine leaned down and said, “What do you have there?” Mingus growled at him. Bodine stood and looked away, studiously ignoring him.

  Ray laughed, then got serious. “How’d they get onto me in the first place, figure out I was writing?”

  “Who knows you’re doing it?”

  “Lou. That editor. And Lorraine.”

  “You told her you were writing.”

  “Yes.”

  “If gossip had calories she’d be the size of the moon.”

  “I don’t think she told. She’s a shrink now and swore on her shrink bible she wouldn’t.”

  “You believe her?”

  “I do.”

  “What about Lou and that editor?”

  Ray sighed. “I haven’t given Lou any reason to keep it secret.”

  “And it’s his job to do exactly the opposite if he wants to sell books. So he blabbed at a cocktail party.”

  “Or the editor did. He wants to sell books too.”

  “But who’d they blab to?” Mingus had given up on his new toy—it looked like an old shoe—and started rolling in something.

  Bodine said, “Mingus!” He turned to Ray. “We need to get him inside before he does some real damage.”

  As they headed through the theater to the office, Ray noticed a pile of new items against the wall. He picked up a prosthetic leg. “Cute.”

  “I’ve made a new category: Lost Limbs and Lost Lives. It has old X-rays of fatal conditions, death warrants.”

  “That’s dark.”

  “Right up your alley. And I’ve added something to your favorite category.”

  Ray headed over to look.

  Bodine said, “I’m feeling bad that I missed the fact that they hacked your email. You take a look while I go up and give this business the old college try.”

  “You dropped out after a year, but sure.”

  “You get chilly, plug in the space heater.”

  Wasted Creations was Ray’s favorite category because it was closest to his life as a musician and artist. He walked over and looked.

  There were reel-to-reel demos for composers that never got a single job, scores and parts for jingles that never aired; master tapes from never-released albums; scores, complete with parts, from never-performed operas. Ray knew better than most that he was looking at thousands of wasted man-hours. Nothing less than murdered dreams.

  The stuff evoked a combination of sorrow for the poor suckers represented here, and relief that at least he’d sold a good deal of what he’d created over his various careers.

  The newest addition was at the end: remnants of literary slush piles. He saw rejected articles for magazines defunct since the seventies and stacks of yellowed manuscripts, “No” scrawled on them in red pen. He laughed and climbed upstairs.

  Bodine looked up from the computer. “You saw the new stuff. Your book isn’t going to end up there, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Bodine gestured at the computer screen, and Ray came over and leaned over it and looked at a Wikipedia article titled “Blackmail.”

  Ray said, “I don’t get it. The agent’s blackmailing the editor? Where’s Karl come in?”

  “No, the other thing: Susan and the manila envelope. I thought Karl was inviting her back to the group, but is that how he’d do it?”

  Ray sat. “No. He was the king of oral transmission. Aside from those rules, he never wrote anything down.”

  “Exactly. Somebody was blackmailing Susan.”

  “Oh.” Ray lit up. “She was having an affair. Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

  Bodine’s eyebrows flew up. “Susan? You never told me.”

  Ray looked away. “Yeah.”

  “Sorry. ‘Once a cheater, always a cheater.’” He shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s true. But even so, why would the guy…”

  “She tried to break it off.”

  “Maybe. Why are you so worked up about it? Whatever happened with Susan, it was a long, long time ago.”

  Ray groaned. “That wound’s been kind of ripped open again. Liz is banging some asshole. A banker or something.”

  “Ouch. That is gruesome.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Bodine thought. “How would the blackmail work?”

  “She tries to end it, he doesn’t want her to. Then he gets ugly, shakes her down for money.”

  “How romantic. If she doesn’t pay, he tells the husband, blows up her family.”

  Ray said, “Exactly. The husband was testy because he suspected something.”

  “That explains the envelope she shredded. It was evidence of the affair. Compromising photos.”

  “The question is, where did Susan get the money to pay him off?”

  Bodine sat at the pump organ and played silently. Ray walked over to pet Mingus in his bed. He backed off when he caught a whiff of whatever he’d been rolling in. Mingus looked at him, yawned, then closed his eyes.

  Bodine finally said, “It’s an okay scenario. But it could also be seventeen other things we haven’t thought of.”

  “And I don’t know that it’s relevant. What I need to know is how Karl found out I’m writing.”

  Bodine nodded. He teased the organ keys for a minute, then kept playing as he spoke. “So Lou or the editor told someone about the project. And it somehow got to Karl.” He stopped playing, looked at Ray. “Who did they talk to?”

  “Somebody who was in the group, and who’s now in p
ublishing?”

  Bodine kept playing, and a tiny wrinkle appeared above one eye. “I can’t think of anyone who fits that bill offhand.” He stopped playing. “We have to work the other end. Find out who’s talking to Karl.”

  “I’ve already been down that road, with Lorraine.”

  “But it’s the only road we’ve got. And it’s a wide one. She knows so many people I bet she can’t even remember who they all are. Call her back.”

  Ray left. A nasty wind moaned up from the river trying to slip icy fingers in the seams of his coat.

  Back home, he flipped the sign to Open in the gallery and sat and called Lorraine. He left a message, then checked his email.

  One from Lou: “That acid trip is more like it! More, please.” Ray moused over to the Word icon but didn’t click. He would like nothing more than to finish the story and send it to his agent. But he’d promised Bodine.

  He was about to go get his guitar when Lorraine called back.

  “I was with a client. I’ve been enjoying our conversations.”

  “Me too.” Ray told her about the dead cat.

  “Yikes! Either somebody has a weird imagination, or they’re a candidate for my practice.”

  “Crazy.”

  “Cray-cray, as we shrinks call it. Speaking of which—you ever talk to Fred?”

  He chuckled. “I see where you’re going. I did, but I didn’t tell him I was writing. Just asked if he knew anything about Karl.”

  “Hm. If I remember, he hated animals.”

  “No more than he hates people. I don’t think it’s Fred. Anybody else you can think of that we didn’t discuss before?”

  “There’s Beaky.”

  Ray leaned forward. “Freaky Beaky?” He was named for his humongous nose, which perhaps explained the tons of cocaine and God knows what else he’d sucked up there over the years. That didn’t explain all the additional shit he’d smoked, dropped, and shot up. “He’s still alive?”

  “In Attica prison. Major trafficking.”

  “I’m not going to see him there. And I can’t exactly trust him.”

  They laughed. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. “Okay, there is someone else. Crystal.”

  Ray smiled.

  “She left after we did. I didn’t bring her up because …I think she got really hurt.”

  Oh. “Hurt? How?”

  “It’s icky. There are rumors, which I don’t feel comfortable repeating. But maybe she’ll talk to you. And she might be in touch with some of the others. You take care with her.”

  “I will.” She gave him Crystal’s number. He called.

  “Ray Watts. Where are you?” Her voice was a little huskier than back then, but still the voice, triggering the same tingle at the back of his neck.

  “I’m living in Hudson.”

  “We’re right across the river, in Athens.”

  The little town was not a mile away as the crow flew. We. A lover? Or a roommate?

  She said, “I’d love to see you sometime.”

  “Great. What’s a good time?”

  “Any time. I work at home.”

  “Me too. How about this afternoon, around one?”

  “Great.”

  It was a little precipitous after decades of no-see, but he felt like they’d picked up right where they left off, wherever that was. And Crystal was never much for conventional social calendars.

  Ray headed south towards the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, passing the prison on his left and the lowlands by the river on his right.

  He’d met Crystal a few years before Karl. She practiced New Age healing, prescribing exotic substances as alternatives to what she considered harsh Western remedies. She’d had Bassman eating clay for his chronic bad stomach. When Frank had back trouble, she had him boiling herbs that stank up the house.

  Ray stayed away from that stuff, but he’d had one massage from her. Reiki? Shiatsu? An hour on her table and he reassessed her. She might be into some flaky shit, but whatever she did gave new meaning to the words “healing power.”

  When she was done, she had asked, “How was that?” in that magical, lulling voice of hers, which was its own kind of balm.

  He smiled. “You have real talent.”

  She showed up at one of their gigs and came up to him after the set. Without a word she clasped his hands in hers, with the same super-light touch as during that massage. She turned his hands over and stared at them, then looked up at him solemnly. She gave him a big warm hug and was gone.

  Was she just innocently acknowledging the coincidence of talented hands, or was that the beginning of something?

  He didn’t see her for a while, and then she showed up in the group. During long days at The House, he found himself catching her eye. She always smiled back. One day Susan—no dummy—caught him looking at Crystal and stopped him cold with a look. After that, Ray stayed clear of Crystal. He eventually put her out of mind.

  Now ten feet onto the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, Ray’s heart lurched. He slowed to a crawl and stared. A figure with long brown hair stood on the pedestrian walk at about the midpoint, past the opposite lane, their back turned. It was cold for a walk. He stopped the car.

  The person didn’t notice, just stood there.

  Bassman.

  He grabbed the door handle. What do you do with people who are about to jump? In the movies you approached them, except that triggered them to leap, and then you stretched out a hand and they were hanging there, threatening to pull you over....

  This wasn’t a movie. He didn’t have any idea what to do. The man in the tollbooth would know. It was on the other side. Ray took off for it, an eye to the rearview mirror.

  The figure turned and started walking toward him. A girl in her twenties. Ray shuddered and headed to Athens.

  He was surprised to find Crystal living in a modest tract house in an ordinary middle-class neighborhood. He’d expected an enchanted bungalow deep in some forest. But once he was out of the car, the tinkling of wind chimes and composite of sweet, pungent, and plain weird aromas told him he was in the right place.

  She came out from the kitchen and gave him one of her big hugs, then stood, holding both his hands, beaming. Her face was round, with long, curly, honey-colored hair. She wore a spring dress. Which was a bit optimistic, given that it was in the forties, but then she always did look on the bright side.

  He said, “You’re looking good.” She was.

  “You too.”

  In person, her voice had overtones that didn’t carry over the phone. And he’d been too young and naïve back then to get its essential quality: seductive. He followed her into the kitchen, and they sat at a table.

  The walls were covered with shelves of apothecary jars bearing seeds, stalks, and powders, the source of the odors.

  He said, “You’re still in business.”

  “Uh-huh. Tea?”

  His eyes flitted nervously to the jars. She laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ve got plain black.”

  “Sure.” She hadn’t offered coffee. It was probably not on her list of healing substances. He’d live.

  She put on water. He started at a loud whining sound. Circular saw.

  “That’s my husband, Ted. He’s an amazing woodworker. You married?”

  Ah, well. He gave her the short version of the scene with Liz.

  “Sorry. You’ve had some bad luck with women.” She looked at him, into him—checking out his aura? “How’s your music?”

  “I’m not doing music any more. I’m an artist.”

  “That’s far out. Well, how’s your art?”

  “Uh, I’m not really doing art any more either. I’m…”

  She laughed. “What are you doing, Ray?”

  “I’m…writing.”

  She took his hand in that gentle way, a
nd he felt the old vibe. She looked at him. “You have a gift. In another lifetime…” She let go of his hands. “You’re writing a book.”

  “How do you know?”

  Her eyes twinkled. The teakettle whistled. She put bags in two cups, poured, and brought Ray his. She nodded at the other one. “Let me bring this to Ted.” She left the room.

  Bad luck with the husband. But Ray was glad the vibe was still there. And accidents happened with power tools. He smacked himself in the cheek but was smiling.

  She returned and sat. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What’s this book about?”

  “The past.”

  “Your band days. I can’t wait to read it!”

  “Uh, no. After that.”

  “Oh.” She closed her eyes for a second. “The group.”

  The chill that came into her voice as she spoke the words assured him she wasn’t involved anymore. He was relieved. “Coming here over the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, I saw a woman with long hair on the walkway. Just standing there. And it’s a cold day for walk. For a moment…”

  “You thought it was Bassman. That’s why I avoid going that way.”

  She paused and when she continued, her voice was quieter, with a tinge of something—sadness? “Why are you writing this, Ray?”

  She wouldn’t be fooled if he just said it was for the money. He told her the truth. “Because I have to.” The saw started up again. She liked guys with talented hands. “I’m hoping to get free. Maybe heal, even.”

  She slowly shook her head. A tear ripened at the edge of an eye. It burst and streamed down her cheek. “You know, before the group I believed in the light. And I still do. But, Karl taught me about darkness. I’ve cured all kinds of sickness and suffering, when I could.”

  Her voice got that chill again, and Ray understood what it contained. Something he didn’t know Crystal was capable of: anger. “But there are also…stains. Most fade, with time. Some just won’t come out.”

  She closed her eyes, took a couple of slow deep breaths. “But that’s me. Maybe you…What do you need, Ray?”

  “Do you know anything about Karl? Is he alive? Does he still have a group?”