Mirror Maze j-4

by William Bayer

  "I'm a detective," he told her. "I like to know where I am, see where I'm going."

  "Life isn't like that," she responded. "Life's more like this, confused."

  Perhaps she was right. But that didn't make him like the maze better.

  If her father's labyrinth was a metaphor for life, he preferred to stand up on the catwalks, where the pattern could be seen and understood.

  "A person could go crazy down here."

  "A person did!" she said.

  He supposed she thought she was that person. But why had her father taken her here to abuse her" One would think that a man, performing an act as forbidden as father daughter incest, would commit it in a private place-an attic or a cellar. But her father had chosen to commit it in this brilliantly lit multimirrored space, a space where the taboo nature of his deed would be replicated by reflections to infinity.

  Standing in the center of the Great Hall, he thought: Now I understand what it feels like to go mad.

  "How can you stand this?"

  "I had no choice," she said. "Now I'm used to it. When you're brought up living above a crazy house, it doesn't seem all that crazy.

  It just seems like… home." He asked her how her parents had died.

  "Accident."

  "The roller coaster-?"

  She shook her head. "Car crash. Dad was on the road and Mom was with him. I was in art school in Providence at the time. It was night.

  They'd been out to dinner. Dad was driving his rig without the trailer.

  They collided headon with an eighteen-wheeler on the truck route between Hagerstown and Baltimore." She paused. "Sometimes I wonder if he did it on purpose, decided the time had come to pack it in." She said that with such nonchalance, he could barely believe she was serious. But when he glanced at the mirrors and saw her expression reflected everywhere, he understood she had been masking her feelings.

  He also understood that it was important to her that he stand with her now at this scene of the crime. Was she merely trying to evoke his sympathy, or was there some other reason?

  "Oh, sure, you're right, a person could go crazy here," she said. "Mom used to send me down here when I was bad."

  "That seems pretty cruel."

  She nodded. "I'd cry and beat on the mirrors, trying to break them. Of course I couldn't. They're three quarters of an inch thick."

  "Why'd she do such a thing?"

  "They were carny folk-big, slick smiles on their faces, hard and bitter beneath. Think about it. The amusement park game is a hoax. All those rides-the point of them is to make you scream. A fun house isn't fun at all, it's more like torture. A tunnel of love isn't about love or romance, it's just a dark wet place where kids can feel each other up.

  The whole thing's a snake-oil show. Even the stuff they sell to eat is bad for you. It's ' their money and smile,', them think they're having fun." But have you noticed how sad such places are?

  That's why they close up when it rains. In the rain you can see them for what they really are-empty, flat and mean."

  It felt strange to stand with her in the center of the Great Hall, looking straight at her but aware that their encounter was reproduced on every surface, repeated down endless illusory corridors. They were alone, except for their clones. How many were there? At least a million, he thought.

  Gelsey understood that he was about to tell her something important. She waited for him to speak.

  "You have to face the fact you've hurt a lot of people."

  Yeah, well, I already know that.

  "The victimizer can be as damaged as the victim. In some cases more."

  Interesting. She felt at once that that was true.

  "When you commit a crime you have to pay for it, and not just as an example to others, to repay society, for re habilitation. You've heard all that too many times." She nodded. "Is there another reason?"

  "Yes. To make you feel better-because you've paid a price. " "Ah, punishment," she said.

  "Yes, punishment."

  "Do you believe in it?" "Do you?" he asked.

  She thought a moment before she answered. "I think I crave it," she finally said.

  "You may have to do some time," he told her as they climbed the embedded ladder back up to the catwalks. "Or you might get off with community service, teaching art to inner-city kids, something like that. It'll be up to a judge. You never know who you'll draw. Carlson will testify. He was pretty bitter when I spoke to him. Maybe you can make a private settlement with him, but I think it would take more than money. You'd have to acknowledge what you did and apologize."

  "I'd like to do that anyway."

  She's sounding good. But is she for real?

  "I don't know what harm the publicity will do you. I suppose it could possibly help-'mirror-obsessed artist criminal." You might get a book contract, a segment on Hard Copy. Ride the hype straight into the Whitney Museum."

  She laughed.

  "What're you looking for down there?" he asked.

  They were back in her loft, sitting in the living area. She was studying him curiously, waiting for him to explain.

  "You know the maze cold, right?" She nodded. "And you don't particularly like to look at yourself in mirrors, right?" She nodded again. "So, why do you go down there all the time? What're you looking for?" She shook her head. "I don't see-"

  "It's that Minotaur, isn't it?"

  What the hell do you know about it? She felt defensive again.

  But he went on: "Here we are, in your studio, surrounded by all these studies of your Leering Man." Janek gestured at the sketches and paintings. "Is he your father? Did your dad look like that?"

  She shook her head.

  "Who is he, then?"

  "He who oversees, controls and knows."

  "Oversees what? Knows what?"

  She laughed at him. "Don't you have manners? Never ask an artist to explain her work."

  He gazed back. "I don't have manners. I'm a cop. I'm still asking the questions."

  She snorted and turned away.

  Knowing she had every right to demand that he respect her privacy, he changed the subject to Diana. That engaged her. She didn't like Diana.

  She described her as "the most evil person I ever met." Then, when she recounted their last conversation, in which Diana had said that she knew Dietz was carrying something valuable and that she had a buyer for it, Janek felt he finally had some proof to support his theory that Diana had been approached by Kane. "Maybe Thatcher told her," Gelsey objected.

  Janek didn't think so. "Thatcher could have given her our sketches. We held them close, but not that close. But no one except my squad and my supervisor knows about the Omega. I'm sure Kane got Diana's address out of Kirstin, then went to her and offered her a piece of the action if she could get the chip away from you." Gelsey told him about Tracy and the note Tracy had left instructing her to get in touch with Diana. When Janek heard that, he had an idea about how to proceed: Gelsey could call Diana, say she'd changed her mind and would I sell the Omega. Then Sue Burke could take Gelsey's place at the payoff.

  Gelsey objected; she didn't want anyone taking her place.

  "Kane's already killed twice for the chip," Janek warned her. "He won't hesitate to kill again." But Gelsey said she wanted to help. "Maybe it'll win me points with a judge. I need that. Please."

  At first he thought she wanted to play a role in the arrest only because she thought doing so might keep her out of jail. But as she talked on, and he understood the depth of her guilt, he realized she was looking for redemption.

  He thought: How can I deny her that? If she were my own child, I'd feel proud.

  "Tell you what I think," he said, looking at her sketches again. Earlier he had noticed a huge half-completed drawing of a monster's head. Now he studied it. "I think your Leering Man is really the Minotaur."

  She stared at him coldly. "Got any more flaky ideas?"

  "You don't buy it?"

  She marched off to the other side o
f the loft.

  "Why don't you answer?"

  "Do you think I owe you an answer?"

  "No, you don't owe me anything, Gelsey. You only owe yourself." It's funny about her, he thought, the way she moves or changes position whenever she feels cornered. He found her body language transparent and was surprised she'd been so successful in the bars. But then he remembered that the woman in the bars was someone else-her mirror twin, her dream-sister-for whose actions she, Gelsey, was not responsible.

  She strode back toward him. "Suppose you're right," she said. "Then what?"

  "The reason you go down into the maze all the time isn't to become mirror-girl. It's to seek."

  "Seek what?"

  "You don't see it."

  "You're so fucking smart-!"

  "Do you always get angry when you know the other person's right? When you talk tough like that, you give yourself away."

  She sneered. "Give what away? Seek what? Speak, Janek! Say what's on your mind."

  "Seek Leering Man, a. k.a. the Minotaur. That's why you go downstairs.

  That's why you paint. It's the same quest. You want to discover who hurt you, who even now makes you hurt. Your shrink told you the answer was down there. But you haven't found it yet. There is something down there, too. You know there is, but not quite where or what. That's the secret, isn't it? That's what you're looking for" Tell me I'm right, and maybe I can help. But if you deny that's what you're after, you'll never find it. Never."

  Later he would wonder what had made him speak to her like that, what instinct had formed the words. He often made leaps, but he didn't think he had ever taken such a chance with someone he barely knew.

  Normally he'd be afraid that if he were wrong he'd lose the person's confidence. Still, his little speech seemed to have found its mark.

  Gelsey responded as if dealt a blow.

  "Dr. Z never talked to me like that. You know how shrinks are?" Janek shook his head. "They're slow. They plod. They try to get you to the point where you think it's your idea." She grinned at him. "You don't deal with people that way."

  He shrugged. "I like to move things along."

  "You're wrong, of course. There is no Minotaur. The monster is just something in my head." "That's what Dr. Zimmerman told you?"

  "It's my conclusion." "Maybe you're right," Janek said. "But still it could be real-not a beast, not half-man, half-bull, but someone who is looking at you, someone your father invited in to watch."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "I'm a detective. To me incest is a crime. That's how I look at it; that's how I understand it."

  "so?,, "So, when you want to understand a crime, you examine everything-the people, the scene, the evidence-and ask yourself: What was the criminal trying to do? I don't mean literally. Your father was abusing you.

  But what was behind that? Why did he do it in a mirror maze, where it would not only be reflected a million times, but where a person standing on the catwalks could see it, too?"

  "No one was up there." She bit her lip.

  "How do you know? You were down on the floor. You couldn't see above the ceiling. But since the ceiling's made of one-way glass, someone looking down could see you." "Wrong," she said, firm in her rebuttal. "When we went down there he'd always lock the door. No one could possibly get in or out. Anyway, I saw the Minotaur on the floor. Just a couple of flashes, but he was there."

  "Hey, you can't have it both ways. One minute the Minotaur's in your head, the next he's real."

  "Fuck you! Why're you doing this?"

  "I'm trying to help you. Can't you tell?"

  "You just met me. What do you care?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe I like you. But not the way you think. I I She screwed up her mouth into an exaggerated seductive smile. "No hard-on, Janek?" He shook his head. "So, what's your game?"

  "I don't play games."

  "You're just a Good Samaritan?"

  "Sounds corny, I admit."

  "Sounds like bullshit. What do you really want)" A good question. He thought through his answer before he replied:

  "I see a girl in trouble. I want to help her work it out."

  She stared at him with her most mocking smile, and then she turned away and began to weep. He turned away, too. He didn't want to watch her cry this time. He only turned back toward her when he felt her take his hand.

  "Hold me. Please."

  He gently took her into his arms. "What's the matter'?" He stroked her hair. "Is it so awful to meet someone who doesn't want your body, who just likes you for yourself?"

  "It's not that," she whispered. "That's wonderful."

  "What is it, then?"

  "The rain," she whispered.

  He hadn't noticed that it had started to rain. Now he became aware of water dancing on the roof. When he turned to the windows, he saw droplets washing the glass. He turned back to Gelsey. She seemed to tremble.

  "It's just a light shower," he said. "It won't last."

  "That's when he'd do it," she whispered, "The park would close, he'd come home early, putter around, make a sandwich, drink a beer, maybe watch a sports event on TV. All the time he'd be giving me these looks.

  I'd know what he was going to say even before he said it. He'd work up his nerve, then he'd smile. ', honey bunch-what do you say we go down there and, you know… play?"

  She was shaking now. He held her tight. He wanted more than anything to help her through this crisis.

  "I'll be okay. I always feel bad when it rains. Then I go down there and spend some time. Maybe I'm looking for the monster-or something.

  Then I usually go into the city, hit a bar and… you know… He did know, of course. And now he also had a pretty fair idea of who that monster might have been.

  Later, when the rain slacked off and Gelsey had pulled herself together, he asked if he could use her phone. She showed it to him in the sleeping area. Before he dialed, he wondered why Kane hadn't found her through the phone company. Even though she was unlisted, a former sheriff's deputy would know how to extract the number.

  "Diana doesn't know my real name," she explained. "They all called me Gelsey. They think it's my first name, not my last."

  Well, that was something; she might be troubled but she was smart. She left him alone to make his call. He could hear her in the loft, moving around.

  Aaron snapped up the receiver on the first ring.

  "Jesus, Frank!" he said. "I thought you were going to keep in touch."

  "Sorry. I got involved."

  "Is she anything like what we thought?" "No," Janek said. "Not at all."

  "Well, it's good you called. A detective named Ortiz phoned from Cuba.

  He was sorry you weren't here, said it's hard to put through a call.

  He'll try again at five. Said it's important you two talk. Urgent, too.

  He underlined that."

  Luis… wonder what he wants?

  Janek put down the phone and went back to the loft. Gelsey was standing at the wall, squinting at her unfinished drawing of the monster.

  "Something's come up," he said. "I've got to go back to the city. I want you to come with me. You can stay with Sue Burke until we wrap this up."

  She shook her head. "This is where I live, where I work."

  "It's not safe. If Kane shows-" She peered at him. "Forget it. I'm not leaving." He could see she meant it. "What if Sue comes here and stays with you-would that be all right?" She shrugged. "I guess she can sleep on the couch."

  "She'll be on duty. She won't need a place to sleep." Janek returned to the bedroom, told Aaron to dispatch Sue to Newark right away. Back in the loft he told Gelsey she'd be alone for about an hour. He described Sue, warned her not to let anyone else in.

  She studied him. "You really care, don't you?" "Yeah, I care," he said.

  "Why's that so hard to deal with?"

  "I think Dr. Z cared, too."

  "I'm sure he did," Janek said.

  Gelsey stood on her
roof watching him leave. Just before he got into his car, he stopped and glanced back.

  "Thank you," he shouted.

  "For what?"

  "Hospitality. Showing me the maze."

  "Oh, that!" Gelsey wanted to say something, but couldn't bring herself to mouth the words. Go ahead, she told herself Ask him. Ask!

  "When am I going to see you again?" she called.

  She liked his face when he smiled. "Tomorrow," he promised. "Soon enough?"

  She gazed at him, then retreated back into her house.

  Driving toward the city, Janek saw Manhattan magnificently displayed, its towers sharply etched against the storm clouds. Approaching the Holland Tunnel, he asked himself how he could broach to her his suspicion about her Minotaur.

  That conversation, he thought, will hurt. She won't want to listen.

  She'll cover her ears.

  But he knew that if he was right, it would be vital that she hear. Help her rid herself of the Minotaur, he thought, and she just may have a chance.

  Betray a Aaron, in an orange and purple Hawaiian shirt, stared at him. Ray, at his desk, leaned forward, waiting for him to speak. What's she like, they wanted to know-the strange mirror-girl" they had been tracking for so many days?

  Janek had great faith in his people; he rarely held anything back. But now he hesitated. Gelsey had confided in him; he would not feel right if he abused her trust.

  He diverted their attention by describing the maze. They listened, mesmerized. When he was finished, Ray said it sounded like something from outer space. Aaron had another thought:

  "You like her, don't you, Frank?"

  "Yeah, I do. It's like she's this troubled kid, she's gone wrong and now I need to save her from herself. There's so much talent there. So much intelligence. It makes me sick to think of what she's done."

  He was pleased that neither of them raised their eyebrows or suggested there was a lascivious motive behind his concern.

  Sue phoned in to say that she'd arrived and that she and Gelsey were getting along. Then, just at five, Luis's call came through. Janek took it in his office. Although it had been only three weeks since he'd departed Cuba, he felt he was talking to an old friend.

  They exchanged pleasantries, then Luis's voice turned grave: