The Experiment

by John Darnton

  Jude knew his number by heart.

  "Special Ops."

  The call was answered by a secretary, who put him through.

  "Yeah."

  "Raymond, this is Jude."

  "How're you doing, hot shot?"

  "Okay. How about you?"

  "Good. Still working for the same old rag?"

  "More or less. And you, I see, are still wasting taxpayers' dollars."

  "Flushing them down the toilet as fast as I can. So what's up?"

  "No much. I wonder if you can help me with a homicide up here. A strange case, happened a couple of weeks ago."

  "You know we don't get involved in that. Strictly local. Unless there's an angle."

  "I'm hoping there is. To tell the truth, I'm at a dead end. I was thinking you might have something."

  "Go ahead. Hit me." Raymond's tone sounded dubious.

  "Up in a small town called Tylerville, near New Paltz. The body turned up and hasn't been ID'ed yet. The face was ripped off and the fingerprints were missing—at least all but one."

  "What's so strange about that?"

  "Well, I haven't seen it before."

  "You saw it?"

  "Yeah, the M.E. let me in during the autopsy. I practically embalmed the guy."

  "Jesus Christ. That's not kosher."

  Raymond's stint in New York had broadened his vocabulary.

  "No, and neither was what they did to the body."

  "Aside from removing the face and burning off the prints, what else?"

  "There was this gouge mark on the inside of the right thigh. About as big as a half dollar."

  "C'mon, you have to do better than that. You haven't seen a half dollar in twenty years."

  "You want the exact measurements?"

  Jude flipped through his notebook.

  "What's that?—that sound?" asked Raymond.

  "Nothing. Just my notebook."

  "He let you watch. He let you take notes—who is this guy?"

  "His name's McNichol. Something McNichol."

  "Norman McNichol."

  "Yeah. How did you know? Do you know him?"

  "Know him, shit. Everybody knows him. He's a kook. The ghoul of Ulster County."

  Raymond dropped his voice half a notch and added: "Between you and me, let me tell you something—don't trust the guy. He's a number one weirdo, and he can put you on the wrong path in no time."

  "Here it is. The hole measured exactly 3.6 centimeters in diameter. It was almost perfectly round."

  "So what's that prove? They opened him up like a bottle of wine?"

  "McNichol thought it had something to do with a distinguishing mark."

  "He would. Listen, kid, it could be anything. Some kind of wound he got before, an accident transporting the body. I wouldn't pay it too much attention."

  "Could it be a Mob hit?"

  "Could be. Who the hell knows? If they cut off his dick and stuffed it in his mouth, I'd say you got something. But a little jab to the thigh? It doesn't tell you a helluva lot."

  "Will you check it out on your end? See if you've got anything at all?"

  "Will do, but don't get your hopes up. And anything involving McNichol's bound to be fucked up."

  "Thanks. That's what I needed to hear right now."

  "Hey, kid, let me ask you—you recording this conversation?"

  "You know I am. Standard operating procedure on all my stories."

  "Well, it's not standard fucking operating procedure on my end. So cut it out."

  "Okay, next time it'll just be you and me and whoever else is listening in on your end."

  "Very funny, kiddo. I'll get back to you."

  "See you."

  "Right."

  The line went dead.

  Jude's curiosity had been pricked, and he wondered: could he have misheard? He removed the wire from the receiver, reached into the drawer for the recorder and rewound the type, listening through earplugs. It took him four or five stabs to find the place he wanted. But soon enough, there it was, in Raymond's twangy accent: "Aside from removing the face and burning off the prints, what else?"

  That's strange, he thought to himself, and he played the tape from the beginning to make sure. I never told him that the prints were burned off. 1 just said they were missing.

  He shrugged. It could have been just a lucky guess. But it didn't make Jude feel very comfortable about all these mysteries that seemed to be cropping up around him. In fact, he felt the opposite. Definitely spooked.

  ¨

  Jude wrapped himself in a paisley print bathrobe from El Corte Ingles in Madrid, slipped on rope-bottom sandals from an Eritrean shop in the Village, and padded off to the refrigerator in search of more wine. He was feeling pretty good.

  Their lovemaking had been even better this time. She had been anything but restrained, even wild at times, tossing her long hair with such abandon that twice it had whipped him across the face. For his part, he had let himself go and plunged into a state of surrender that combined a dreamy vagueness with sharp-eyed focus; it shut out everything but their two bodies, turning and moving together perfectly. He shook his head in amazement, as he collared a half-filled bottle of chablis with one hand and pinched together two glasses with the other.

  Damn. He had not lost himself like that for some time.

  When he returned, Tizzie was propped up against the headboard, looking sphinxlike. Standing beside her, he poured them each a half glass, and as she reached for hers, the blanket slid down to reveal her breasts, small but perfectly rounded with the nipples erect. He gave an appreciative nod and raised his glass in a toast.

  "Here's looking at you, kid."

  She reached over to pull the tie on his bathrobe, which fell open, revealing his nakedness, and returned the toast.

  "And you, Louie," she said. "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship."

  He smiled and walked around the bed and sat down beside her, shoulder by shoulder. She asked about the objects in the room, and so he explained the artifacts of his life—where he had gotten them and why he liked them. There were paintings and odd pieces of sculpture and knickknacks from flea markets. She was inquisitive and seemed interested, and he found he enjoyed talking about the objects and noted again that he felt at ease with her. But he couldn't help thinking that this was not the intimate postcoital conversation he had expected.

  "And how about that?" she asked, gesturing toward the half-opened closet, where a black negligee hung. It was Betsy's.

  "That's the remnant of something that probably never should have happened and in any case is over."

  "Don't think I'm jealous," she said. "Because I'm not."

  "Not that type or just not now?"

  "Neither." She sipped the wine, looking thoughtful. "She must have been pissed off if she didn't come back to get it."

  "You're right about that."

  "A critical mistake—leaving clothes behind. You never know who might end up wearing them. It might fit me, for example."

  "Be my guest," he said.

  "Actually, it's not yours to give away, is it?"

  It sounded like a rebuke, and he was quiet, choosing instead to put his arm around her. With his free hand he traced the outline of her body, following the curves and dips until he encountered something; it felt like a seam. He lowered the blanket and looked at her side, where there was a long scar, raised and white.

  "What's that from?" he asked.

  "An operation."

  "I figured that much. What for?"

  "Years ago, many years ago, I was sick and I lost a kidney."

  "A kidney—how?"

  "I was given an antibiotic that didn't agree with me. Gentamycin, it's called—it's fairly common. You get it for a urinary infection, which is what I had. Anyway, in some very few cases, it causes nephrotoxicity. It wipes out the kidneys. So I got a new one."

  "Christ."

  "It's no big deal. It happened long ago. I don't even think about it anymore. I
even like the scar."

  "I like it," he said. And he leaned over to kiss it.

  After another glass and some small talk, he was surprised to find that he was aroused, more aroused than he had been for a long time. He reached over to caress her back, and she immediately turned and moved on top of him. They made love again.

  Afterward, he was daydreaming. His mind flitted over the day's events. He thought of telling Tizzie about Bashir's strange warning and the phone call to Raymond, but it all seemed silly and inconsequential now. Something much more significant was happening to him.

  He wanted to hold her in his arms, but she pulled away after a short while. She couldn't sleep that way, she explained.

  ¨

  The next morning, Friday, Jude had a set-to with Jenks Simons.

  Simons was one of those insufferable, cocky types—every paper has one—who make it a point of pride to know everything that is going on, not in Bosnia or City Hall or some other hot spot, but in the newsroom. He lived not for news, but for gossip. He was rumored sometimes to omit the most compelling morsel from his stories—such as the police knew the murderer to be a man because a bloody fingerprint was found on the underside of the toilet seat—because he enjoyed serving it up at a dinner table. He liked being the center of attention. To make things worse, and to add a firm foundation to the general disregard in which he was held, he was talented.

  Jude bumped into him between the two doors of the men's room—Jude going out, Simons going in.

  "So," said Simons with a smirk, which looked slightly grotesque at such close quarters, "now we know why you got that twins assignment."

  "What? What are you talking about?"

  But Simons had already disappeared inside, so that Jude had to wait for him outside in a busy aisle of the newsroom. He waited a long time—so long that he actually began pacing, which was usually all it took to set off rumors that a reporter was having trouble with a story.

  Finally, Simons emerged, a flicker of satisfaction on his face that Jude was still there. Jude could care less—he needed to find out what Simons knew.

  "So what do you mean?"

  Simons feigned incomprehension. "Mean?"

  "The twins thing. What in hell are you talking about?"

  "Simply that it's obvious why you got it. Because you have a twin yourself."

  Jude was too stunned to speak. He felt light-headed.

  "If you don't have a twin, then I guess it must have been you in Central Park yesterday, rummaging through garbage cans. At least, that's what Helen said—Helen, in real estate news. She said he looked a lot like you. Except of course the way he was dressed—not up to your standard, apparently. She also said that he... I think I'm right in saying he instead of you... I mean, giving you the benefit of the doubt and all that—"

  "Simons, so help me, I'm going to wipe that smile off—"

  "All right, all right. Calm down. What she said was that he looked pathetic. Like a whipped dog was the expression she used."

  Jude looked as if he was about to belt him.

  "Look, take it easy. So it's not a twin. But you ought to know there's somebody going around who looks a lot like you."

  Jude turned and walked away, but Simons made him look back with one last jibe.

  "There, now, wasn't that worth waiting for?"

  * * *

  At noon, Jude ran into Betsy in the cafeteria. He had just finished consuming a mound of spaghetti, when he saw her pay the cashier and venture into what was euphemistically called the dining area, carrying her tray high before her as if it were an offering. He looked deeply into his peaches, but she spotted him and sat down directly across from him. He smiled, but not for long: what he read in her face was disconcerting—solicitous concern.

  "Jude, tell me, are you all right? I mean, you would tell me if you weren't—true?"

  She was thrilled. Only his total self-immolation could make her shine more brightly.

  "Yes. I mean, I'm fine."

  He did not ask why she was concerned—in fact, he had conspicuously not asked why—but he had a feeling that she was going to tell him.

  "I've heard these strange things about you—Simons said you were roaming the streets like a bum. Foraging for food in garbage cans. If it wasn't you, it was somebody who looks like you. What's going on?"

  It struck him that she fancied that she might be the cause of his misery—that he was a casualty of love. That would account for the sprightly tilt of her head.

  "Helen," he said.

  "I beg your pardon."

  "Helen in real estate news. Apparently, she saw someone who looks like me, and she's been spreading these stories. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Betsy, but I really don't know anything about it."

  "I see," she said, looking down her nose at him, almost as if he were rifling through a garbage bin right now.

  In ordinary times Jude could have sloughed these encounters off. But they were getting to him. He was feeling a vague floating anxiety. It had started with that unsettling exchange with Bashir. Too bizarre. A man with a streak of white in his hair. The little Afghan had seemed so damn sure. And now all this talk of a doppelganger. What the hell was that about?

  Jude did not use paranoid loosely. Being a purist when it came to language, he believed the word was bandied about too often in these conspiracy-minded days. But right now if someone had asked him how he felt—assuming, of course, that he would answer truthfully—he would have replied: "Paranoid."

  * * *

  Over the weekend—on Sunday—Tizzie and he had their first fight.

  Saturday night, she had seemed distant and distracted while they were dining at a restaurant on Third Avenue. At one point, he saw her peer over his shoulder, her eyes widening before she glanced away. Jude turned and, looking through the window, he thought he saw someone, a man perhaps, or a shadow, sliding off into the darkness. Tizzie made light of it and said it had been nothing, really, just a horrible-looking man leering inside. She had not finished the main course, and they left soon after.

  The next day, he was feeling ill and decided to stay in bed. Tizzie came over, letting herself in with the brand-new key that he had given her—to him a symbol of a turning point in their relationship, but to her little more than a convenience. She had not, he noticed without remarking on it, given him a duplicate of her key.

  He was running a fever. She busied herself in the kitchen, making him soup and tea. When she brought it to him, he didn't want any. She tried to take his temperature; he resisted. She added an extra blanket, and he took it off. All her fussing bothered him—this female need to nurture—it seemed almost as if she were nagging. He snapped at her.

  "What I really need is to be left alone."

  She flinched. He saw a hurt pass across her face that quickly turned to anger.

  With that, she spun on her heel and walked out, slamming the door.

  He kicked himself: why the hell had he acted like that?

  He called her later and apologized and she seemed to accept it, but her voice had taken on a cold tone, which was disturbing. He was bothered by how much it bothered him. They had known each other for scarcely two weeks and he felt—for the first time with a woman—that he cared for her more than she did for him. He wasn't accustomed to the seesaw turning that way up. Maybe he liked her too much, he thought—maybe that was why he couldn't accept her ministrations.

  From the first, he had felt comfortable in her presence, able to speak his mind honestly and drop the poses that he had adopted with others. He discovered, with a bit of surprise at first, that she seemed to actually like him, and not some image of him, and he relished the candor this brought out in him. Maybe she could finally open him up, the way other women had said they wanted to.

  But did she want to? That was the question. He had thought they were going great guns. If it was up to him, they would move in together, but he was loath to bring the idea up—new honesty be damned—because he sensed that she would not go for
it. Something about her remained out of reach, inscrutable, and it fed a fear in him that her interest in him might soon flag.

  Face it, he told himself, you are more involved with her than she is with you. He wanted to know everything about her—what she'd been like as a child, where she spent her vacations, how her day had been, what she was thinking. She was reticent to fill in the blanks. Some role reversal—he had always been the one accused of being unreachable.

  And now it was the beginning of a new week and Tizzie was away on a trip—she had not even told him where she was going. He kicked himself again for acting like a jerk. When she came back, he'd have to do something especially nice for her.

  On Monday, feeling better, Jude did some book publicity.

  He was still a little mystified by Death Mask's success, thanks in part to the gobs of promotion dished out like scoops of mashed potatoes and gravy. The publisher, coincidentally Tibbett's own company, had gone so far as to mail tiny white death masks to the major reviewers. Jude had to admit he was impressed.

  During the day, he gave interviews about the book. He found it trying—he was accustomed to asking questions, not answering them, and it bothered him that with each interviewer he fell into a set piece of patter. The whole thing was more than a little unreal. He would hear a tape of himself speaking; the words were recognizable, he remembered saying them, but his voice sounded like a stranger's. It was like seeing his picture turning up in the newspaper ads; when he came upon it out of the blue, the sensation was strange, almost as if he were looking at a photograph of someone he vaguely knew

  Christ, he thought. Get a grip on yourself.

  The book signing that afternoon at Words Ink down in SoHo had all the earmarks of a disaster. Jude got there late, trapped in sweltering heat for twenty minutes while the number six train sat in semidarkness between stations and a voice on the p.a. system told them what they already knew—that the train was delayed. He got out at Astor Place, and at that precise moment, the sky opened and let loose one of those torrential summer downpours.