Bedtime Story

by Robert J. Wiersema

  “I’ll be home in a few days,” I said, not sure if she would want to hear it.

  “I’m glad,” she said, surprising me.

  “Me too,” I said, and then nothing. A long silence.

  “So, publicists Monday?”

  “Yeah,” I lied, grateful that she had changed the subject. “Fall books, review copies, interview requests. The usual.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  I didn’t want to tell her that I had nothing on my schedule, that I was just going to kill the day, when she was so busy. “I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”

  “I’m sure you will too. You should get some sleep. You’re going to be a wreck.”

  “Yeah,” I said, a sudden exhaustion falling over me like a warm quilt. “I’m headed for bed, but I wanted to call.”

  “Well, consider your duty done,” she said, warmly. “Okay. I will.”

  “And sleep well.”

  I drifted off there, lying on the covers fully dressed, all the lights in the room on, one hand loosely gripping Nora’s crystal through my shirt.

  III

  GETTING UP THE NEXT MORNING was, apparently, a bad idea. I should have stayed in bed and tried to sleep off the hangover.

  My telephone rang as I was standing in the coffee line in the hotel lobby, voices and laughter and shouting echoing off the mirrors and marble, and I answered it without checking the number.

  “Chris! It’s Tony Markus calling! How’s your day going?”

  His false good cheer made my head pound, and the three ibuprofen I had taken before coming down didn’t even take the edge off.

  “Hello, Tony,” I said, trying not to convey my utter lack of enthusiasm, vowing to myself yet again that I would start checking callers’ numbers, the way Jacqui suggested.

  “So did you make it to the Met yesterday afternoon? And what did you end up doing last night?”

  “Not a whole lot,” I said, thinking that keeping up a constant stream of minimal responses might derail his litany of pleasantries—we both knew why he was calling. “Dinner with my agent.”

  “You’re staying at the Grand Hyatt, right? Right on 42nd Street? How is it?”

  “It’s fine,” I said, taking another step forward in the line. “Listen, Tony, I’m sorry but I haven’t had a chance to get in touch with the estate yet.”

  “Oh, no,” he said, as if surprised that I would even think that he might be calling to check up on me. “I just wanted to make sure you were having a good time while you were here.”

  Like the goddamn Chamber of Commerce.

  “Oh, I am.”

  “And how long are you staying?”

  “Couple of more days.” Back to the pleasantries.

  “Well, we should stay in touch while you’re in town,” he said. “Maybe plan on having dinner Tuesday night?”

  “I’ll have to check my schedule.” Wondering if he was ever going to take the hint.

  “Sure, sure. That sounds fine. I’ll talk to you in the next few days.”

  “That sounds good.”

  I hung up wishing, in my very marrow, that I had never thought to contact Tony Markus.

  Tony Markus hung up his phone and tapped it softly as he watched Chris Knox step up to the coffee counter. He loathed the man. Just look at him, Mister High-and-Mighty, Mister I’ll-have-to-check-my-schedule. Knox had no intention of calling back, no more than he had any intention of handing over the book. Hell, he probably had it in that shoulder bag right now. He had probably brought it with him because he couldn’t stand to be parted from it.

  Or …

  As the thought came to him, he cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. Of course! That’s what he was doing in New York. All that journalist talk about meeting with publicists, setting up interviews, chasing books to review, all that was crap, a smokescreen to obscure his real reason for being here: he was trying to sell the rights to publish the book! He was probably in constant contact with the estate. All that crap about coming to D&K first—he just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t a legitimate claim on the book before he started talking it all around town.

  Goddamn him!

  He quickly dialled the New Jersey number his uncle had instructed him to use last night.

  “Venture Construction,” someone answered.

  Pretty good service for a Sunday morning, he thought.

  “I’m calling regarding the Templeman estimate.”

  “If you don’t mind, sir, we’ll call you right back.”

  The line disconnected immediately. Tony hung up and waited. He could picture it in his head: somewhere, someone was picking up another prepaid cell phone, another untraceable line. Technology had made this sort of thing so much easier.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Tony Marcelli?”

  It was strange hearing the name he had surrendered so long ago again.

  “Yes.”

  “Our mutual friend told me you’d be calling. He said you might have need of our services.”

  “Yes.” He looked across the room at Chris Knox, now sitting at one of the small tables near the coffee bar.

  “We’re going to need some information.”

  “Of course,” Tony Markus said. Shifting the phone away from his ear, he snapped several quick photos of Chris Knox.

  The bartender smiled as I settled onto a stool at the far end of the bar and ordered a drink.

  “To your health,” she said, setting my vodka and tonic on a napkin and sliding it across to me.

  I took my notebook and pen out of my pocket. Flipping the book open, I checked my notes on the Hunter Barlow Library. The place opened at 10 tomorrow morning, so I’d want to be out of the hotel by 9:15 or so. I wanted to maximize every moment: I’d planned on using all day Monday and Tuesday if necessary, but given that I had no idea what I was looking for, or how large a collection of Took’s papers the library had, I needed to make the most of my time.

  Which meant I didn’t want to waste a moment with technical difficulties. Pushing my notebook and drink to one side, I took the cell phone I had just bought out of its bag and tore open the box.

  I spent almost an hour at the bar fiddling with it, checking the wireless, making sure that the essential e-mail contacts were programmed in, familiarizing myself with all the camera controls.

  When I thought I had it figured out, I turned toward the room and took a photo.

  “Excuse me,” the bartender said from behind me. “You can’t take pictures in here.”

  I was startled by her voice: I’d been focused on the camera.

  “Sorry,” I said, turning back around on the stool and checking the photo. “I’m just trying to figure this out.” The photo was blurry, probably because of the low light. “These things are easy enough for an eleven-year-old to use,” I muttered. “Some of us it takes a little longer.”

  “Yeah, my sister’s daughter has one of these,” she said. “She’s eight.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly, as I slid the phone back into my pocket.

  I flipped open my notebook again and leafed through the pages. I’d looked at my notes so often I almost had them memorized—there was no new information there, nothing to surprise me.

  “Let me guess,” came a voice from beside me. I turned in time to see a woman easing down two stools away. “You’re a reporter.” She pointed at the bar. “Your notebook—it looks like what a reporter would use. Like in an old movie.” Her speech was slow, deliberate, ever-so-slightly slurred. The drink that she proceeded to order clearly wasn’t her first.

  “Ah. Right. No, not a reporter. Not really.”

  “So how is someone ‘not really’ a reporter? Isn’t that a binary, true-or-false thing?”

  “Well, I do write for a newspaper. But it’s a column. I’m not really a journalist.”

  “What are you really?”

  “I’m a writer,” I said, hating the way it sounded.

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”
/>
  “Not really. I write books, mostly.”

  I braced myself for the next question, the inevitable Have you written anything that I might have read?

  Instead, she asked, “So what newspaper do you write for?”

  “The Vancouver Sun, mostly,” I said. “In B.C.—”

  “I know where Vancouver is,” she said, almost petulantly.

  I smiled. “Sorry.”

  “Us ignorant Americans,” she said, nodding. “You talk about Vancouver, you might as well be talking about Vladivostok. That’s where you’re from, then, Vancouver?”

  I shook my head. “Victoria.”

  “Nice city.” She nodded appreciatively. “My husband and I spent a weekend there a couple of years ago. He ran in the marathon.”

  “Really? Where are you from?”

  “Seattle.”

  “Ah, well, that’s the thing. Seattle’s practically Canada anyway.”

  “That’s what they say. I’m Marci.”

  “Chris.”

  “So what brings you to the Apple, Chris?” She shifted on her stool to face me fully.

  “Meetings,” I said, before giving her a brief description of my usual June trips to New York: agent, editor, publicists. “What about you?”

  She looked a little sheepish. “I’m the enemy,” she said. “I work for a software company. They needed me here for some meetings.”

  “I feel like such a Luddite, with my notebook and fountain pen.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t understand most of it myself. I’m more of a coordinator. I make sure the guys who write the programs get along with the guys that sell them.”

  “Wow.”

  She shook her head. “It’s a lot of this,” she said, tapping her glass. “A lot of hotel bars, airports, dinners with developers and clients, me not having any idea what anyone is talking about.”

  “The glamorous life.”

  “Something like that. Which reminds me …” She checked her watch and downed her drink. “I’ve got a dinner meeting. Wish me luck.”

  “Luck,” I said.

  “And you too,” she said, laying a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “With your meetings.”

  I smiled, and watched her as she walked out.

  The bartender swept away Marci’s glass and cash and wiped her spot at the bar.

  “You’re calling early,” Jacqui said when she answered her phone, pleased in an unexpected way.

  “I could call back later.” Chris’s voice was slow and thick.

  “I can probably squeeze you in now.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. His voice had that end-of-the-night feel to it, that comfortably drunk, completely relaxed tone.

  “Are you out, or …?”

  “No, I’m back at the hotel.”

  “But you don’t usually turn into a pumpkin for a few hours yet.” She pulled her knees in to her chest and nestled deeper into the couch. “Did you go out for dinner?”

  “I just grabbed something in the hotel lounge. They actually do a pretty good Cobb salad.”

  “For the amount that they probably charge for it. Not getting together with any of your friends?”

  “No. I didn’t really feel like it.”

  She tipped over the line from interested to concerned. Typically, when Chris was in New York, his phone calls became increasingly rare as the days went on. She might get a disjointed, shouted call from some bar, music blaring in the background, Chris slurring and stumbling over his words.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. I just didn’t feel like …”

  He sounded so sad, and she wanted to ask him about Roger, about what he had started to say about his book, but she held back: now wasn’t the time.

  “It just didn’t feel …” His voice trailed off. “Besides, this way I’ll be well rested for my meetings tomorrow.”

  “Right.”

  “How’s David?” he asked, almost talking over her. For a moment, Jacqui thought he might be trying to change the subject.

  She glanced up at their son, still and silent in the bed next to where she was sitting. She had basically moved into the family room with David, sleeping on the couch, eating at the coffee table, keeping him close. He had been alone for longer in the hospital, but she couldn’t help the feeling that she had to stay close, to keep him safe.

  “He’s the same,” she said, almost sighing. “Better now, a bit. We just read his story.”

  “So it’s still working.”

  “It still seems to soothe him, yeah.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I didn’t read to him too much. Just until he started to calm, then I stopped.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re more than halfway through, Chris. Have you thought about what’s going to happen once the book is done?”

  David saw the first Berok at the edge of the path, lying on his back as if he had been tipped over. He had been dreading this moment with a sick feeling in his stomach since they had broken camp an hour before.

  “Sentry,” Captain Bream said, barely looking at the man as they passed.

  The arrow had taken the man in the throat; later, it seemed, someone had run a sword across his midsection, spilling blood and guts into the grass.

  Oh my God, David. This is … Matt said, his voice choked.

  I know.

  The man was smaller than David had been expecting; from the stories and from his glimpses during the attack, he had assumed any Berok warrior to be a giant of a man, wearing the traditional bearskin, the bear’s head crafted into a combination of helmet and mask. This man was wearing a bearskin, but only as a vest over a plain uniform much like the one David wore. The warrior was small, almost frail-looking. He would have been no taller than David. Not Dafyd—David.

  And his face …

  David, Matt said, and David could almost feel him withdrawing.

  David wanted to turn away himself, but he forced himself to look.

  The Berok sentry was just a boy, no older than Dafyd would have been. His hand, still clutching the shaft of the arrow, was small, the skin of his face smooth and hairless, his eyes blue and clear as they stared sightlessly into the sky.

  “Dafyd,” the magus said from behind him, and David spurred his horse to catch up with the captain.

  Did you see—?

  Shut up. David was trying not to cry, trying to rid his mind of the image of the dead boy.

  Then they came upon the camp. The captain brought his horse to a stop and dismounted, joining the small group of soldiers waiting there for him.

  David climbed off his horse and stepped forward uneasily. The smell of flesh was already rising in the air, redolent with the metallic smell of blood.

  At the centre of the encampment was the ashy ruin of a fire, grey and cold. Arranged around it, their feet close for the warmth it would have provided, lay a half-dozen bedrolls, each of them soaked and caked with blood, torn and ragged from untold slashes and stabs of swords. Each bedroll held a body. A few were pierced with arrows, but most had their throats slit, the wounds like dark, bloody smiles under their chins.

  David couldn’t look away, and the images burned into his eyes. No sign of struggle, no hint of a battle, just corpses on the ground.

  The captain and his men were surveying the scene from the edge of the clearing, nodding appreciatively. One of them even smiled.

  Don’t, Matt warned. Don’t say anything.

  David staggered back to where the magus waited with the horses. He stumbled up to the old man, almost falling at his feet.

  “They killed them all,” he gasped, barely able to breathe. “They killed them in their sleep.”

  IV

  TRUE TO FORM, I OVERBUDGETED my time the next morning, arriving at the Hunter Barlow Library almost half an hour early. I walked around the neighbourhood, trying to make my coffee last as long as possible.

  The Hunter Barlow was housed in a large, nineteenth-century mansio
n, part of a strip of similar houses that stretched for several blocks. The tarnished brass plaque on the gatepost read, simply, HUNTER BARLOW. Someone could still have lived there.

  Not that any of the houses along that ornate row were residences anymore. They were a lingering reminder of a golden age, a time when wealthy industrialists and proto-nouveau-riche separated themselves from the hustle and grime of the city by moving farther and farther uptown, distancing themselves with carriages and private parks, a world of wealth and privilege leagues away from the crowds and the banality of actually working for their money.

  I found a bench outside a gated park and sat down. Taking out my notebook I flipped to the last written page, the note I had scrawled after talking to Jacqui the night before:

  “What happens when the book ends?”

  I had just assumed that we could keep reading to David forever. But Jacqui was right, and more than she knew: if David’s life was now inextricably linked to the book, his story wrapped up within its story, what would happen when that story ended? I had read enough of the book to know that it was headed for a happy ending, but that was the story that Lazarus Took had written. If Nora was right, David’s story could end very differently.

  Not a moment to waste.

  The library door was still locked; I double-checked my watch, ensuring that it was after ten, then rang the buzzer.

  “Can I help you?” came the voice from the intercom, almost too quickly. Glancing up, I saw there was a video camera in the corner of the doorway.

  I leaned toward the intercom. “My name is Christopher Knox. I have an appointment to—”

  The lock clicked, and I pushed the door open.

  A young man stood up from behind an antique reception desk and extended his hand. “Mr. Knox, I’m Ernest,” he said.

  He was tall and slim, and everything about him, from his haircut to his sleek suit, subtly suggested money. It was a cool, seemingly effortless air of elegance that he didn’t so much project as inhabit. My chinos and shirt left me feeling like a slob.

  “I understand that you’re here to view the Lazarus Took archive,” he said. “Might I ask why?” His voice was precise and seemingly unaccented—he could have been from anywhere.