Personal Effects: Dark Art

15

The nightmare haunted me long after it woke me, a little after four; I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I paced the living room, fretting about its meaning and obsessing about my state of employment. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in more than six years, but Jesus, I wanted one that dark morning.

It was seven o’clock—time to call. My fate and the fate of Richard Drake hinged on the next five minutes. I’d been reckless yesterday, leaving work early. And there was the embarrassing matter of Dad calling Dr. Peterson, trying to yank me off the case. If I was done at Brinkvale, Drake was, too.

Peterson was a “first to come, last to leave” kind of manager. I dialed The Brink. He’d be there.

The sleepy switchboard operator patched me to Lina Velasquez, Peterson’s ever-present hummingbird assistant, who then put me on hold. As I endured a horrid Muzak version of The Beatles’ “Love Me Do,” I imagined Peterson at his desk, surrounded by piles of paperwork, pining over an office supply catalog. ORGANIZE YOUR LIFE, its cover read.

“Peterson here.”

“Uh, Dr. Peterson,” I blurted, “do I still have a job?”

I immediately blushed, feeling very young, very graceless… and very stupid.

“And good morning to you, too, Zachary.” The old man chuckled. “This must be about yesterday.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, of course you do. In the future, the Brinkvale team would appreciate notification before you take an unexpected leave. Our patients expect us to be completely dedicated to their well-being. I also expect no less.”

I exhaled, felt my shoulders unwind. “Of course.”

“Dr. Xavier did complain about the day’s missing paperwork, however.”

I gritted my teeth. “Of course.”

“But yes, yes, all is well,” Peterson said airily. “Since I have you on the phone, I’d like to discuss your progress with Martin Grace. But first, how is your lady friend?”

“Rachael? Uh…”

“Malcolm told us about the emergency, why you departed so unexpectedly. Something about your lady friend taking a fall?”

“Oh,” I said, smiling. Good old Malcolm. Now I owed him a favor. “She’s all right. Just a few stitches.”

“And your patient?”

I had to be careful here. I didn’t want to lie any more than I already had, but ..

“Honestly, Dra—ah, Grace is resisting treatment,” I said. Peterson gave an mmm-hmm, as if he anticipated this. “But I’ve used some resources beyond his admittance report to learn more about him. Internet, mostly. I’ve found a family member who may tell me something to help, ah, facilitate a better bond. I plan on meeting him in person.”

“You’re tenacious, Zachary,” Peterson said. “Going outside the box. I like that.”

More like inside the box—the lockbox, I thought. And lock-ups, too. Meeting another long-lost relative along the way.

“I’d like to take the morning to see him,” I said.

“That sounds wise,” Peterson replied. “Be sure to follow protocol, identify yourself as a Brinkvale employee. You’ve done off-site interviews before. You’re aware of the responsibilities.”

I bit my lip. Responsibility.

“Listen, Dr. Peterson, about my Dad—”

“Zachary,” he said. “Did I not convince you of your qualifications when I assigned you Grace’s case? Your enthusiasm and dedication are reasons enough, to speak nothing of your talents. Besides, there are people far more important than your father who are interested in the outcome of Grace’s trial.”

I frowned.

“Like who?”

The old man paused.

“The families of the victims, of course,” he said, his voice suddenly hasty. “My point, Zachary, is that your father’s insistence has clashed against my obstinance. Unless a higher authority than your father orders otherwise, you’re the one I want on the job.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I should be back at The Brink this afternoon, easy.”

“Brinkvale, Zachary,” Peterson replied. “And yes, good luck with your interview.”

I thought of the day ahead, of the strangers I would soon meet.

Luck. Yes. I needed all the luck I could get.

I piloted Rachael’s red Saturn, heading to Haverstraw and Claytonville Prison. The long upstate trek was an autumnal art show. Hillside trees rushed by, glowing golden in the early morning sunlight. What would I say when I finally met him?

Hi, Henry. I think every memory I have of my dad from early childhood was actually of you. You’re the loving father Lucas and I should’ve had. So why did you kill our mom?

I thought of the nightmare and my mother’s face, the blood-bubbles streaming from her mouth. Would you be mine?

I shuddered, suddenly desperate for distraction. I switched on the radio, jabbed the “scan” button, growled at the lousy reception. I attached my iPod to the stereo and hit play.

Richard Drake’s piano rendition of “Night On Bald Mountain” surged from the dashboard speakers. This was the only genuine clue Drake himself had provided me—and he wouldn’t have done even that, had he known about the Casio’s memory card.

I listened to the entire song, puzzling over its significance. Did it represent Drake’s time in Russia? His fear of the Dark Man? Something else?

The exit sign for Claytonville emerged on the horizon. I took the exit and drove toward the prison, toward a past I never knew.

As I was processed through Claytonville’s “visitor” system—and as far as I could tell, I was the only visitor of the day—I saw enough to know that to be incarcerated here was to be sentenced to an earthbound Hell.

From the outside: Fence after fence of rusted razor wire and desolate weed-strewn prison yards; guard towers and sharpshooters; chair leg-thick ivy vines enveloping the building’s crumbling limestone walls. The air was still and silent, as if the land itself was too frightened to breathe.

Inside, water dripped from cracked ceilings. Hallways sloped. Stone walls writhed with fearless spiders and cockroaches. The place reeked of piss and disinfectant. Men howled in their cells. Everywhere, the shriek of warning bells and rattling of bars. This was Brinkvale’s Golgotha on its worst day.

A corrections officer—a dull-eyed bulldozer of a man—opened the rusted door of the visitor’s room and waved me in. I was alone, facing a row of ten semi-private nooks. Each nook had a chair. Each chair faced a floor-to-ceiling pane of thick shatterproof glass. Beyond that, a chair for the inmate.

There were no tables in these nooks, nowhere to lean or take notes. Both inmate and visitor were completely visible here. A half-dozen security cameras swept the room. Claytonville trusted no one.

I felt naked. All of my belongings, from satchel to spare change, had been confiscated during processing. A cheap plastic visitor’s pass, which I had to return when I left, hung from my shirt.

I sat down. There was no phone receiver like in the movies. Just a circle of finely drilled holes, resembling a sink strainer, at eye level. I couldn’t quite believe I was here… and I couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

From beyond the glass, a trilling alarm bell sounded. The metal door at the room’s far wall opened.

Out stepped Uncle Henry. A guard followed him.

Henry walked the length of the room, toward me. His stride was slow, deliberate.

“Ten minutes,” the guard said. My uncle nodded.

I didn’t move, but I was reeling on the inside—feeling seasick from a wave of memories. It was an onslaught of half-remembered things, flashbulbs of smiles and high-fives and piggyback rides and love yous; things I thought Dad and I had done and said. But Dad was barely there back then, I realized. It had been Henry, all Henry.

He was tall and thin like my father, but more handsome in a rugged, weathered way. He was bearded now, something he wasn’t in the old photos I’d seen of him. His gray hair graced the shoulders of his orange jumpsuit. A bracelet jangled from his left wrist. It was identical to the Invisible Man’s bracelet I’d seen two nights ago.

I wondered how many years it had taken for Henry to earn the privilege to wear that bracelet again.

He sat before me, his blue eyes cataloging my clothes, my hands, my face.

“I did my part. I stayed away,” he said. His voice was a dusky baritone, low and smooth. “But I knew you’d find me eventually. So curious, just like your mother.”

I was trembling now. Yes, there was anger here inside me, and heartache, twenty years’ worth. And swirling confusion and fright. And a hunger, in my marrow. A need to know.

“Why did you kill her?” I whispered.

Henry’s eyes stared into mine.

“I loved your mother,” he said. “I did everything I could to save her. Your home, the family, had been under attack for weeks. Will, proud and stubborn and skeptical Will, wouldn’t listen. And when it finally came for one of you—likely you or Luke, we’ll never know—it was… intent. It had been paid, paid in blood, and was there to collect.”

I blinked. “Who?”

“The Dark Man.”

A tear slid down my cheek. This was my 4 A.M. nightmare, yes, I was still locked in the dream, locked in the lockbox, I could feel my head nodding now, stupefied, drunk and stoned all at once, nightmare, yes, Could you be mine?, yes, no. No.

“No.”

“It was there,” Henry said. “You saw it.”

I shook my head again, more resolute. “No. I saw you. I saw you kill her. Killer.”

“There were villains that day, son. I wasn’t one of them. I’m sorry you lost her. I’m sorry you came away marked, different. I saved your brother, if that means anything to you.”

“No, it was you,” I heard myself say. Christ, was this really happening? “It could only be you. It must have been. I read the report.”

“Gods as my witness, it wasn’t,” he said. “Claire was my best friend.”

I leaned forward, wiping away my tears with a hand jittering so hard, it was nearly worthless. I wanted to pound through this barrier, pound at him.

“Then who? Who did it? And don’t you talk to me about the Dark Man, don’t you dare say that to me again, fucking lie, you don’t know, you can’t possibly know what kind of misery…”

He looked at me, his eyes sympathetic.

“Of course I do,” he said. “Of course I do.”

“All right. Why?” I asked. “If you’re innocent, why are you here?”

“The same reason you are,” Henry said. “Dark art. I read the Times story about you and Martin Grace. I saw those words—’the Dark Man’—and I knew. I knew you were coming.”

My mind frantically scrambled back to yesterday, to my office. Dad screamed at me about the Drake case. He tapped and tore at his copy of the Times. Taylor Family Loyalty… let it go.

“Lie. No reference to the Dark Man,” I said. I looked up at him.

“I’m talking about today’s story,” Henry said. “There’s a leak at The Brink. Somebody’s feeding the press. They want to sink you.”

“Three minutes,” the guard said.

“Listen to me, Zach,” Henry said. “The Dark Man is a mercenary. It’s a thing summoned from the black to exact vengeance. Terrible vengeance, not justice. Do you understand the difference?”

It’s always personal, I heard my father say.

“It isn’t real,” I said.

“That’s what the atheists say, but God’s still up there.”

He leaned toward the glass, meeting me halfway.

“If Martin Grace is haunted by the Dark Man, then he did something unspeakable, unfathomable. Someone paid the black with blood. Someone wants your blind man to suffer. Just like they wanted us to suffer, all those years ago.”

“It’s a psychological breakdown,” I insisted. “A super-fueled guilt complex, paranoid delusions, conversion disorder—”

Henry smiled. God, I remember that smile now.

“You’ll find the path,” he said. “Or the path will find you. Either way, know this: I’m proud of you. I read in the Post about your other patient, the quilter. You listened to her, you worked through her madness to right a wrong. You believe your patients, Zach. You understand that there is truth—sometimes only a speck, but always enough—in what they say. That is wisdom beyond your years.”

He reached out and pressed his palm against the glass.

“So very proud of you,” he said.

My trembling hand met his. I smiled back.

“‘Dore you,” Henry said.

“What… ?” I squinted at my uncle, not believing.

“Time’s up, Taylor,” the guard said. He took a step toward Henry.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I adore you,” he replied. “I love you, son.”

He stood, nodded goodbye and followed the guard to the metal door. I was out of my chair, walking down my side of the room, keeping pace, wishing for more time. The men paused as the guard tugged at his keys.

“Gram… Gram’s dead,” I called.

“I know,” he said. The guard was unlocking the door now, twisting its handle.

“Why did she cover it up? Why didn’t she ever mention you to us?”

Henry gave me a bittersweet smile. “Because I asked her not to.”

The alarm bell rang. The door boomed closed.

He was gone.