The Thief of All Light

by Bernard Schaffer

  His eyes stayed closed as he moved down toward the pillow and stretched out, groggily thanking her.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “This couch isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world.”

  “I’m used to sleeping on the floor,” he said, then his mouth opened and he was snoring again.

  She draped the blanket over him and pulled it up to his shoulders, making sure it covered his feet. A long tangle of hair covered his face, and she paused to look at him, then bent down and swept it behind his ear. He did not stir when she touched him. She felt the warmth of his weathered face on the palm of her hand and the softness of his beard, wondering whether to wake him. What would she do then? It was probably better not to find out.

  She stopped in the bathroom, staring at the stack of Rein’s folded clothes sitting on the floor while she sat down on the toilet. His pants were clean, despite the deep grass stains and shredded cuffs. His work T-shirt was sun-bleached and ripped on the seams along the underarms. After she flushed, she picked up the clothes to throw them out. He would not need them anymore. As she reached for the door, she felt something heavy deep in his pants pocket, and stepped back, making sure the door was shut and locked. She laid the pants on the counter and reached inside, feeling a long, curved metal handle. She pulled it out, staring at it in wonder. There was a loop at the top of the handle, the size of one finger, as if were to be held upside down, with the curve travelling along the inside of the palm. At the bottom, a blade. Some sort of work tool.

  She clicked open the blade, a hooked, talonlike claw that curved to a point so sharp it would easily pierce another human’s being’s skull. She slid her finger through the ring and gripped the handle, realizing that it was now nearly perfectly concealed. The only thing anyone would see was the ring and a small portion of the blade curving out from the bottom of her hand. Not a work tool, she realized, but an instrument of death.

  20

  CARRIE EMERGED YAWNING FROM HER BEDROOM THE NEXT MORNING. She’d slept well, despite being afraid of the dreams that awaited. Instead, there was nothing. A deep, dark nothingness, until her alarm clock sounded at eight A.M.

  She staggered out of her bedroom, scratching her stomach, eager for coffee. As she rubbed her face and plucked small flecks of crust from her eyelashes, she was startled to realize Rein was standing across the room, staring at her.

  “Oh,” she said. “What time did you get up?”

  “I wake up early.”

  She looked around the living room. “You could have watched TV, or made yourself breakfast or something.”

  “I didn’t want to be rude.”

  “Well, good thing I didn’t sleep in, then. Good morning! Are you hungry?”

  “I’d like to take a shower, if that’s all right?”

  “Sure, of course. Towels are in the lower cabinet.”

  “Thank you,” he said, then moved to pick up his duffel bag and head past her toward the bathroom. As he walked past, Carrie became aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra, just a long white T-shirt and boxer shorts. She looked down, realizing that her nipples were erect and visible. Before she could cover herself, Rein had already left the room, his head kept low the entire time, his eyes covered by his long hair.

  I could have come out of the room naked and he would not have noticed, she thought, unsure if that made her offended or comfortable. The bathroom door closed, and she hurried toward it, knocking twice.

  “I’m going to make food. Do you want eggs?”

  “Whatever you have,” he said through the door. “As long as you have enough and don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind, dude. I’m trying to feed you, is all. What do you normally eat for breakfast?”

  The water came on. “I normally don’t.”

  “Bacon or sausage?”

  “Whichever.”

  “Scrambled eggs or fried?”

  “However you like them.”

  Carrie groaned. “Keep it up and all you’ll get is a bowl of Cap’n Crunch!”

  The door flew open, startling her. Rein was shirtless, his torso deeply tanned and lined with hard-won muscle. She saw softness around his stomach and sides, but his shoulders and chest were broad, and she caught herself staring. Rein’s voice drew her eyes back up to his, saying, “Do you have the kind with the berries?”

  “Of course,” Carrie said, finding herself amused at the idea of the great Jacob Rein eating a bowl of Crunch Berries. “They’re my favorite.”

  “I used to like those,” he said, before closing the door.

  “It’s going to be a good day, Rein!” Carrie called out as she made her way to the kitchen. “I had a dream last night that Molly won the lottery and left so she could surprise everyone. She came riding up to the police station in a big limousine filled with all these balloons. I’m telling you. Today’s the day, so don’t take too long.”

  She listened for his response, hearing nothing but running water.

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, the water cut off. Carrie was ready, standing by the door with her arms full. “Rein, don’t get dressed yet. I need to give you something first.”

  There was hesitation in his voice. “What, exactly, do you mean?”

  “Don’t get any big ideas, pal. I just have more clothes for you.”

  The door opened a crack, and his hand came through to take them. Carrie said, “Not so fast. There’s one more thing.” She pushed the door open and glanced, making sure he was wearing a towel, then set the stack of clothes on the countertop. She laid a pair of long, thin hair scissors on top of them and raised an eyebrow toward him.

  Rein looked at the scissors and said, “No.”

  “Please,” Carrie pleaded. “You look like the Unabomber. If we find Molly and Nubs today, they’re going to run away again in fear. Anyway, you can’t go to that club looking like this. They’ll think you’re a bear.”

  Still wet, his hair came down to his shoulders and his beard draped over his chest. He turned and looked at himself in the mirror and frowned. “I’d ask you if you meant that literally, but I get the feeling there’s another meaning to it.”

  “A bear is a big burly gay guy who’s superhairy. They’ll be so busy trying to dance with you that you won’t be able to ask any questions.”

  He grabbed his beard with one hand and drew it tight, wringing it out and looking down to see how long it stretched. Up close, she could see long silver streaks hidden within its thick mass, and imagined how distinguished he’d look if he turned completely gray. “I’ve been cutting my dad’s hair for years. I promise, I won’t mess it up. At least, you won’t look any more messed up than you already do.” She smiled, then opened the scissors wide to make her first cut.

  Rein’s fingers came around her wrist. “The beard has to stay.”

  “Why?”

  “It helps people not recognize me.”

  He let go of her hand and stood holding his robe, looking down, not resisting. Carrie drew out a finger length of his beard and said, “Then just let me reshape it a little.” Hair fell away from his face as she snipped, soon covering her hands and his chest. “I never had a chance to give someone a duckbill. Always wanted to.”

  Rein grabbed her hand again. “No. No duckbill.”

  “Do you even know what one is?”

  “I know it sounds stupid.”

  She snipped away another tuft from his chin. “It’s just called that because it’s short on the sides and swoops down in the front. If you want, we can call it the 300.”

  “The three hundred what?”

  “That movie, 300? About the Greek guys who fought the other guys?”

  “You mean the three hundred Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae?” Rein said.

  “Something like that. Did you see the movie?”

  “No.”

  “Of course not,” she said, leaning close to keep scissoring. “Why’d I even ask? Anyway, they all had this kind of beard, especially Gerar
d Butler, and oh my God is he amazing.”

  “Molon labe,” Rein muttered to himself, looking down to watch her work.

  Carrie stopped trimming and looked up at him. “What?”

  “Molon labe,” Rein repeated. “A famous saying from that battle. King Leonidas had assembled his men inside a narrow pass called the Hot Gates, and they held off thousands of Persians. Slaughtering them until their bodies were stacked so high, the other Persians had to climb over them. Xerxes, the Persian leader, could not believe what he was seeing, so the next morning before the fighting began, he went down to the Spartans to negotiate. The Persians never took hostages. They never spared anyone, but Xerxes was so impressed with their courage he made them an incredible offer. Surrender, and Xerxes would let them join his army. He would even make Leonidas a general and give him all of Greece to rule over. There must have been a moment where he thought about it,” Rein said.

  Carrie turned him away from the mirror, cutting up along the right side of Rein’s head and removing huge swaths of hair. She worked quickly, only half-listening, trying to get as much of it cut as she could before he realized what she was doing and objected.

  “The Spartans were dead men,” Rein continued, lost in the story. “Leonidas knew it. They all knew it. And now the most powerful man in the world was standing in front of him, offering more riches and glory than any other person on the planet, but the price was the betrayal of everything he held dear. ‘All you have to do is lay down your weapons,’ Xerxes said. And that’s when Leonidas replied, ‘Molon labe.’”

  “I like how you say that. Molon labe,” Carrie repeated. “So what does it mean?”

  “Come and take them.”

  “But they all died anyway, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Guess he learned his lesson,” she said. “He should have taken the deal.”

  Rein scowled at her. “No, he shouldn’t have. His sacrifice inspired the rest of Greece to fight so bravely that they defeated the Persians and sent them back across the sea. It probably preserved democracy for the entire human race so that we have it today.”

  “Yeah, but he was dead.”

  “He died a hero. I call that lucky.”

  “How so?”

  “We all live in darkness, Carrie. Everything around us is dying, some of it slowly, some of it quickly, but all of it will eventually succumb to the darkness.”

  “You’re a really depressing person, Rein.”

  “But sometimes,” he continued, “on very rare occasions, a person gets to swim up through that darkness, even if only for just a moment. They get to thrust their face into the light. It’s something most of us will never know. It’s worth dying for.”

  She made fast work of the rest of his hair, leaving it jagged and shaggy, until his shoulders and chest were piled with trimmings. She spent the rest of the time on his beard, getting it perfect. When it was finished, she turned him around and admired her work in the mirror. Rein turned his head side to side, unsure of what to make of what she’d done to him.

  “One problem,” Carrie said.

  “Now what?”

  “The guys at the club, tonight. When they see this? Look out.”

  “You made it worse, didn’t you.”

  “Oh yeah, totally.”

  * * *

  By eleven A.M., they were sitting inside the Coyote Township police station, surrounded by stacks of paper that had been turned into a bizarre geometric formation to all fit on the round table. Something sticky covered the table, getting on her hands and arms, but she ignored it, not wanting to know what it was.

  At the top of every stack was a name and driver’s license photo of the men they’d identified at the library. Rein pointed and said, “Each one has a criminal history, state ID photo, and prior police contacts, right?”

  “For the most part,” Carrie said. “Some of the guys live in Bumblefuck USA with police departments that don’t work on weekends. I’ve left messages, but I will probably have to wait until Monday.”

  Rein pressed his hands together, rubbing them. “Unfortunately those are the ones we need to look at. Tell me why.”

  “Well,” she said, thinking it over. “I guess he’d want to live in a remote location with limited police coverage. Plus, property is cheap out in the sticks, so if he’s on any kind of mental health disability, he won’t have to work. That leaves a lot of time to pursue his interests.”

  “Good,” Rein said. “Very good. So of these candidates, who do we like?”

  As Carrie shuffled through the stack, she heard someone coming down the hall. No one had been in the station when they’d entered, and the front door had not opened, so that left only one explanation. She kept her head low, without looking, and said, “Hey, Chief.”

  Waylon stopped at the doorway, looking down at the stacks of papers and then at his old partner. His mustache was wet from the coffee cup in his hand. He wiped his mouth, then wiped his hand on his pants, and said, “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Apparently, it’s called a duckbill.”

  He looked at Carrie. “I thought that’s what you did with your hair, like a pompadour.”

  “No, that’s a duck’s ass,” Carrie said.

  “Well, why the hell do they call it a duckbill?”

  “It’s short and swoops down in the front,” Carrie said. “See?”

  Waylon peered down at Rein’s beard and said, “It looks more like a ski slope. Like something you eat is gonna roll out of your mouth and take off flying.”

  “Anyway,” Carrie said, turning back to her papers, “what are you doing here? Did someone call out again?”

  “I got a very annoyed phone call from the radio room, young lady. A very annoyed phone call about you. They said you were making the data girl run a whole bunch of driver’s licenses and criminal histories on a Sunday morning and interrupting their pinochle game.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “What do you think I told him?”

  Rein looked up. “Given my past experiences with police administrators, probably that you were sorry for the trouble and would shut the whole thing down immediately.”

  “I bet you think that’s real funny,” Waylon said. “So tell me what we got anyway. When I heard you were running all this info, I figured you were onto something. I came by to see if I could help.”

  “You’re in luck, then,” Carrie said. “We are just about to crack this case wide open!”

  Waylon’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and he looked at Rein. “She had an epiphany,” Rein explained.

  “Oh,” Waylon said. “I see. One of those.”

  “Don’t you take his side, boss,” Carrie said. “He lives in darkness. He told me so himself.”

  “Listen, kiddo, these things are complicated,” Waylon said. “You have to be prepared for a long, grueling investigation, and in most cases, they don’t turn out . . . like we hope.”

  Carrie continued searching. “Well, I guess you are going to be shocked then, because all we need to do is figure out which of these people to talk to and before you know it, we’ve got Molly and Nubs home safe and sound.”

  Before Waylon could respond, Rein cleared his throat and pointed at the stacks on the table, saying, “We’re still assembling data. Trying to find out which locals best fit our parameters. Once we can narrow them down, we’ll start checking to see if they had any police contacts in the areas of the two kidnappings and murder. Maybe someone ran their tag. It’s not much, but it’s all we have for now.”

  “It’s a lot, Rein,” Carrie said. “It’s going to work.”

  “So how long before we can get enough to start some interrogations? Jacob here might have been the supersleuth, but I always did enjoy a good interrogation.”

  “That depends,” Rein said.

  Waylon’s brow furrowed, knowing he was being set up. “On what?”

  “On whether it’s just her and me doing this or if you can get us some ext
ra men.”

  Carrie’s eyes lit up. “Can you get us the Feds? That’s what this case needs. Bloodhounds and helicopters, Bill. Thermal imaging shit. Please, just call them. I don’t even care if they take the case from us. They can have it, if it works.”

  “That is not what those people do, Carrie. They wait until the shooting stops and show up at the press conference. Take the case?” He laughed. “You’d better understand something. No FBI regional supervisor wants to be stuck out here in Podunk, Pennsylvania. They want to be where the action is. Someplace with upward mobility! The only way to get out of here is to demonstrate a stellar track record. Now ask yourself, Who the hell is going to risk stepping into this mess? For what? What do we even really have?”

  “Well,” Rein said, “we have a missing white female, dark hair, twenty-two years old, who has a history of drug abuse and running away. We have a dead white male, midthirties, found in a van in the parking lot of a nightclub.”

  “How are either of those connected in any way?” Waylon said. He held up his hand to stop Carrie from speaking, “I’m not talking about what we think, or what we suspect, I’m talking about what we can prove. Go on.”

  Rein continued, “We also have a missing white female, blond hair, twenty-six years old, and her daughter. The little girl is white, also blond, and six years old.”

  Waylon let out a long, slow whistle. “Can you see me trying to sell this to the Feds, Jacob? Can you imagine what those yahoos are gonna say to me? And no offense, but what do you think their reaction is gonna be once they realize you’re the one stirring all this up?”

  “Then let me talk to them, Bill!” Carrie said. “If I can just explain it, they’ll have to understand.”

  “When we worked Krissing, up to our necks in dead kids, you know what the FBI did for us? They sent us a publicity person to handle the press conferences. Am I lying?”