Personal Effects: Dark Art

10

“He knows,” I said to myself, walking the hallways of Level 3. “Somehow he knows when the lights are going to flicker.”

I was still shaking from the beast I’d seen in Room 507. Either I was losing my mind, or Martin Grace was manipulating me. Neither prospect was good.

“Yeah, gotta be it,” I murmured. “Uses it to scare me, throw me off-balance, gain control of the session. He’s shutting me down when I start to get personal.”

My rational side—my personal Leonard Nimoy—spoke up.

Why would he do that?

“Because I’m close. Close to something. Something he doesn’t want me to know.”

And what does that mean? Mr. Spock asked.

“It means that’s my in. If I can’t get in the front door, I gotta squeak through a basement window. Personal. I’ve got to get personal.”

So how can you do that?

I turned the corner toward my office, hefted the Casio synthesizer in my hand.

“I’m working on that,” I said. “Let’s see if he met me halfway.”

I unlocked the office door and went to my desk. I placed the piano on its side.

“Memory card,” I said, and smiled. I pushed a release and a tiny plastic rectangle popped from the device. Before yesterday’s session, I’d configured the Casio to record everything played on its keyboard.

I launched the media player on my PC and slid the memory card into a small reader.

“Did you get curious, you coldhearted sonuvabitch?” I said. “Did you get creative?”

I held my breath as the contents of the card were accessed. An audio waveform appeared on the screen.

I tapped the spacebar. There was silence, and then a very brief and cheerful, if chaotic, series of notes.

I nodded. That had been yesterday’s dinner bell, when I’d played a few keys to get Grace’s attention. I looked at the remaining waveform. The Casio had automatically truncated the “dead space” between this and the next notes, reducing hours of silence into seconds.

The audio program continued to load the file. I listened. Given his pro work, I expected Grace’s music to be jazz. It wasn’t.

It was classical music. Masterfully played classical music.

The song sounded familiar, like something used in a movie. Something Kubrick used in 2001: A Space Odyssey? Or perhaps “The Blue Danube,” or “Also Sprach Zarathustra”? No. Older.

A whirlwind stream of notes, delicate, high things, scattered before booming, menacing low notes. Now, syncopated blasts. It was on the tip of my tongue.

Now a second, much more familiar tune interrupted—this one coming from the satchel at my feet. Beethoven’s Fifth. I grabbed my cell phone. Bum-bum-bum-bummmmm.

Dad was calling. I sneered and let it ring again. I didn’t want to talk to him.

I flashed back to my time with Grace just minutes ago. What had he said? Something about me doing Dad’s bidding, burying the blind man. What did that mean? What did Grace know that I didn’t… and more important, how did he know it?

“Just frickin’ ask him,” I said, and answered the call.

“Zachary. You lied to me.”

I blinked. I lied to him? “What?”

“Please, don’t waste my time, young man,” he said. His voice was calm. If I hadn’t lived with the man for eighteen years—and hadn’t watched him become bitter about his job during the last few of those—I’d think we were about to have an intellectual conversation. I knew better.

“Your hand is in the cookie jar,” he was saying. “I know it and you know it. You’re a liar, and not a very good one at that. Transparent, son. You threw your friends under the bus last night, deflecting, thinking I’d forget. Crass.”

“Dad? I don’t under—”

I heard the ubiquitous crinkle-crack of a newspaper, the rattle-pat of a finger tapping its surface.

“‘A Brinkvale Psychiatric employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that Grace is being evaluated at the facility,’” he said. “Was that you?”

“Of course not,” I said.

The line roared as I heard the paper being torn and wadded.

“Now that, son, is what the truth sounds like. But could it get worse?” Dad said. He was raising his voice now. “Of course it could! ‘Dr. Theodore Peterson, the hospital’s chief administrator, confirmed that art therapist Zachary Taylor—son of New York District Attorney William Taylor—is assigned to Grace’s case.’ Quote, ‘Zachary is a world-class art therapist, and I see nothing wrong with assigning one of my most talented staffers…’”

“Dad,” I cut in. “What’s the problem?”

He laughed without mirth.

“We don’t have an hour for me to enumerate, son,” he said. “First and foremost, you lied to me. You didn’t say anything about Martin Grace when I asked you about work last night. You said you needed to piss. We both know the only thing you did was piss. Me. Off.”

“I didn’t lie,” I snapped. My initial shock was ebbing, but I could feel a high tide of rage taking its place. Getting torn apart in Room 507—and the hours of being haunted by Henry, the truth—had finally found a target. He was pissed off? “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t answer your question. I didn’t want to watch you pull the same bum’s rush bullshit you and Papa-Jean pulled on the Invisible Man, bully me into—”

“—oh, listen to you, you’re—”

“—spilling my guts there—”

“—so righteous, I didn’t raise—”

“—during Gram’s fucking funeral!” I screamed. I blinked, men- tally reminding myself to chill, I was as work, this wasn’t the time. But I couldn’t help myself. “Besides, what I do here at The Brink is absolutely none of your business. I have the same therapist-client privilege as our psychiatrists.”

“Not subpoenaed, not in court,” Dad said.

“No,” I shot back, “but we’re not in court right now, and we weren’t last night.” My fingernails dug into the cell phone’s plastic. “Tell you what, Dad. I’ll confirm that Peterson gave me the Grace case. That’s all you’re getting. Anything else is protected information.”

“I’m your father,” Dad said. His voice rose a half-octave, warmed just a little. “I’m trying to protect both of us. You have no idea what kind of danger you’re in—how over your head you are. If you’ve seen Grace’s dossier, you know what he’s capable of. He hates the weak. He hates… doctors. You’re sharing space with a multiple murderer. Don’t you understand what that means? You’re at risk, above all.”

“I’m not weak,” I said. My mind flashed to this morning’s rounds with the Golgotha patients. “I work with murderers every day.”

“Not like him,” Dad replied. His voice had gone cold again. “And you are. I’m sorry son, but you are. You’re no match for him. She was no match him, she couldn’t help him, and he killed her, tore her open.”

I frowned. “Tanya Gold was a singer, Dad. Not a doctor.”

He paused, and didn’t speak for a long time. I gritted my teeth.

Finally: “I need to know these things, Zachary. You’re supposed to tell me everything.”

Oh, I’d fucking had enough of this.

“Just like you tell me everything, right, Dad?”

More silence. His voice came back, low and threatening.

“What is that supposed to mean, Zachary?”

“We don’t have an hour for me to enumerate,” I said, mocking his voice. I wasn’t about to tell him about Henry. Not now, maybe not ever. “See, no one comes to The Brink unless they’re doomed. Your office is burying this man, Dad, railroading him into a hole so deep and dark—there’s no way a proper psychological evaluation can be made in the time before the trial. Your people have rigged the game, and you think I should tell you anything? What are you really after?”

“Let it go. Please.”

I felt myself straighten in my chair. The sound of Taylor Family Loyalty being strained to its limit.

“No.”

“This is a conflict of interest,” Dad said.

That wasn’t my father’s voice anymore. I was talking to the district attorney now.

The newspaper rattled again, forty miles away.

“I’ll spoon-feed this to you,” he said. “This story is hinting, young man, hinting that Grace’s lawyer can leverage this into an investigation against my team’s practices. Maybe even grounds for mistrial. That’s not going to happen. Grace belongs in The Brink, but not with you. We’re both at risk here. I’m pulling you off his case.”

I felt my jaw unhinge.

“You don’t have the authority,” I said.

“Anyone can make a phone call. This is all going to be over today. I’ve got de Luca heading to Brooklyn in two hours for one last pass, and I’ll be calling Dr. Peterson as soon as I get off the phone. Come five o’clock, we’ll have what we need, and you won’t be working with Martin Grace anymore.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”

“why are you making me, Zachary?” he countered. “I’m doing this for both of us. It’s for your own—”

I snapped the phone shut.

All of my bravado was gone, cut like marionette strings. Like that, just like that—snick!—my chance to change Grace’s life for the better was over.

My eyes trailed from my cell phone to my monitor. This song was the closest I’d been to Martin Grace, and I had no idea what it meant.

I knew the true keys to saving Grace were things like this. Personal things—things that could make a positive effect. They were stories not found in his Brinkvale files, not in The Brink. They were in the world beyond.

Personal things. Positive effects.

Personal.

Effects.

I bolted upright, checked the Eterna on my wrist. Two-thirty. I did the math, cussed, then snatched Grace’s files from my satchel. I scanned the first page and nodded. It was an hour-and-a-half ride on the LIRR, barely enough time.

I schemed for another minute. I’d need help. A lot. The cell phone was in my hand already. I hit the speed dial.

“Welcome up!” Lucas cried into my ear. “What’s shakin’, bacon?”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m with the chica,” he said. His voice went off-mic for a moment, barely audible. “And my-my, is she muy delicioso.”

I heard a woman giggle, say something in Spanish. They laughed. I grinned; I couldn’t help it.

“I need to know if you’re interruptible,” I said. “Like right-frickin’-now interruptible. For a… for a little adventure.”

I heard another chuckle, this one in my mind. Giddy-giddy, pardner.

I closed my eyes, shook my head.

“Dookle, sounds intense,” he replied. “Where do you need me to be?”

I told him.

“Katabatic. On my way, meep meep,” he said.

I hung up, and turned to the walkie-talkie on the desk.

One more call.