The X-Files: Goblins

TEN

Major Joseph Tonero loved his sister, even if she did have appalling taste in men. With their father gone and their mother an invalid, he had automatically assumed the role of head of the family. He didn’t mind at all. It was not unlike his role in the service, mediating crises between people who were grown up enough to know better, issuing orders carefully couched as strong suggestion, and laying plans for the time when he could trade his uniform for a well-tailored suit that would fit right in on Capital Hill.

So he wasn’t all that concerned with the fit Rosemary Elkhart threw in his office in Walson Hospital. He simply sat back, folded his hands in his lap, and let her rant, pacing the oak-paneled room until she finally dropped into an armchair. Her lab coat fell away when she crossed her legs, and he made no effort not to stare.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen those thighs before.

“So what you’re saying,” he told her mildly, “is that you’re annoyed.”

She glowered, but couldn’t hold it, finally laughing and shaking her head. “You amaze me, Joseph. You absolutely amaze me.”

“Why?”

She sputtered, blinked, slapped in frustration at her bangs. “All that’s at stake, and you, of all people, actually call in the FBI. Leonard’s thinking about running to Brazil.”

The smile he gave her carried no artifice. It wasn’t necessary here; she knew all the tricks of his trade, and had taught him a few new ones herself. “I didn’t exactly call them personally.”

Close enough, her expression told him.

He waved her objection away “I’m not worried about the feds, Rosie, and neither should you be. They come in, they read the reports, they look at a crime scene that’s been cold for a week—”

“And what about Kuyser? She’s a witness.”

“Oh, really?”

Rosemary shrugged a minor concession. “Okay, not much of one, granted.” She toyed with the edge of her coat, just above the knee. “But what about Leonard?”

His expression hardened. “We need him. I don’t like it, you don’t like it, but the Project needs him.” He rose and walked around the desk, stood behind her and stared blindly at the wall while he massaged her shoulders. “Once this little problem—”

She barked a laugh.

“—is settled, once you’re back in the groove, then we’ll see about Dr. Tymons.”

She tilted her head and kissed his hand. “I can do it, you know, Joseph. It’s not hopeless.”

“I have every faith in you, Rosie.”

“A small adjustment, that’s all.”

“As I knew it would be.”

She turned to look up at him. “A week, perhaps two.”

His gaze shifted to her face, that back of his left hand to her cheek, gliding down across her chin. “And… confinement?”

She leaned into the hand, eyes partly closed. If she had been a cat, he thought, she’d be purring.

“None.”

The hand stopped.

“We can’t, Joseph,” she said, easing out of the chair. “We have to trust Leonard’s judgment on this.”

“We already have. Twice.”

“If we confine, we lose.”

He sighed without a sound. He knew that, yet it was so untidy, so uncontrolled. But if the Project was to work, if the Department of Defense was to be convinced, it wouldn’t do to have a psychotic subject. He had little choice. Tymons would continue to be the control until perfection was achieved.

Unless…

He took her hand and led her to the door. “Rosie, if there’s another failure, I don’t think I’ll be able to protect him.”

Her smile was genuine as well, and he suppressed a shudder when he saw it. “You won’t have to, Joseph.”

She kissed him quickly and left, the smell of her, the taste of her, lingering in the office. He savored it for a few seconds before striding back to his desk. The problem with Tymons and the Project was the least of his worries right now. He didn’t much care if the subject wiped out half the goddamn state; with the right slant, a well-chosen word, it would only prove the Project’s ultimate worth. And he had been telling Rosie the truth — his concern over the FBI was minimal as well.

The real problem was that asshole Carl Barelli. The idiot had already called him twice this morning, demanding an appointment, and the major knew well that kind of man — if no appointment was forthcoming, he’d show up on the post anyway and make enough noise to wake the dead.

Not to mention alerting those whose need to know did not, by any stretch of the regulations or imagination, extend to the Tymons Project.

You don’t turn on a spotlight when you’re working in the dark.

That was the problem with goddamn reporters these days — they thought they owned the goddamn Constitution. Barelli would have to be mollified. Having the FBI around would help. So would assurances that he himself was personally monitoring the situation, maintaining constant contact with the CID and the civil authorities. He’d do that anyway; he wasn’t a fool. The fact that he had thought Ulman was a class-A jerk shouldn’t deter him from extending what comfort he could to his sister.

Still, if Angie took up with a serviceman again, he would personally see to it the jerk was transferred to South Korea.

He took his chair and reached for the telephone, his free hand drumming thoughtfully on the desk. He would get hold of Carl, meet him for a late lunch, take him on the two-bit tour, pat him on the back, shed a tear with him for the loss of Angie’s love, and get the sonofabitch the hell off his post. Let him go back to writing about hockey or basketball or whatever the hell it was he wrote about in April.

Hell’s bells, he was only a cousin, for Christ’s sake.

It wasn’t like he was real family.

Goblins, Elly thought nervously; the goblins are back.

She stood in the kitchenette, squinting myopically at a calendar hanging on the refrigerator door. She knew those government people hadn’t believed her, nobody did, but tomorrow was Saturday again, and the goblins would be back.

She was tired of being the only one who saw them.

That young man, though, he might be persuaded. He had the look about him. The believing look. The wanting look. All she had to do was mark one and show it to him.

That’s all it would take.

Once he knew, the others would come around.

She licked her lips and turned to the cupboard under a rust-stained sink. From it she pulled a brand new can of marking magic, shook it, took off the rounded top, and tested it in the sink.

It worked.

She cackled.

Her pale eyes hardened to steel gray.

“So when he took off for California,” said Babs Radnor, a distinct Tennessee drawl in her voice, “I got a lawyer, emptied the bank account, took over the motel, and have become, as you can see, a lady of leisure.”

She sat in her king-size four-poster, two pillows fluffed behind her back. She bordered on the painfully thin, with short black hair brushed behind her ears, hard black eyes, and a voice that husked with too much liquor, too many cigarettes. Her right hand held a floral sheet modestly over her breasts, while her left hand held a tumbler of bourbon and ice.

“I am not a lush, though,” she insisted, waving the glass from side to side. “Like the French, I always have a little something with every meal. It’s supposed to be good for the heart and circulation.”

Carl stood at the low, twelve-drawer dresser and watched his reflection trying to make sense of his tie. “That’s wine, Babs. Wine.”

She shrugged. “Who gives a damn. It’s working, right? So who cares?”

He didn’t argue. Not even twenty-four hours, and he already knew she did not take lightly to contradiction or correction. Nor did she exaggerate when she had suggested without being coy or cute that he would have a much more pleasant evening in her company than the company of a TV, even if it did have free HBO.

It beat all to hell paying for a room.

It also afforded him a way to keep tabs on Mulder and his team. Babs, as she had already proven, knew everything about every blessed person who stayed in her motel. And if she didn’t know, she found out. There wasn’t, she had confessed, a whole lot else to do around here.

“So anyway, I’m figuring one more year, maybe two, sell out and get my buns to someplace like Phoenix, Tucson, someplace like that. Have you ever been to Arizona, sugar?”

He shook his head, damned his tie and yanked it off. He didn’t figure the major would take him anyplace fancy anyway. There was, as the saying goes, no love lost between them, and it didn’t bother him a bit. Tonero was an ambitious little toad, and Carl’s skin crawled each time they met. He didn’t know how Angie could be from the same mother. Still, the guy had been sincere enough when they finally connected, and this lunch thing would give him a chance to see where Frankie had died.

Once he had done that, gotten the lay of the land, he could take the next step.

Whatever that might be.

“On the other hand, San Diego is supposed to have perfect weather, you know?” She laughed hoarsely “The trouble is, it’s in California. They hate it when you drink, smoke, and eat a decent meal, a steak and all. I don’t know if I could stand it. I’m not too thrilled about those earthquakes, either.”

He turned and spread his arms. “So? Do I look good enough to see a major?”

She waggled her heavy eyebrows. “Good enough to eat, if you ask me.”

He laughed and sat on the edge of the bed, taking the hand that held the sheet in both of his. The sheet began to slide. “When I’m done, how about I take you out to dinner?”

“Yeah, right.”

“Really, Babs, I’d like to. Is there a place around here, someplace nice?”

She looked at him carefully.

The sheet made it to her waist.

“If you don’t mind driving a little…?”

His eyes widened comically, showing her his struggle not to look at her chest. “A little?”

“An hour?”

“What’s an hour?”

“Atlantic City. There’s some really nice places at Resorts and the Taj.” Then she stuck her tongue out and laughed, pulled his hands to her breast, and stuck her tongue out again. “Just so you don’t forget.”

He kissed her then, long and soft. “Like I would,” he whispered.

“Liar.”

“Maybe.” He slipped away and stood. “But I’m damn cute, right?”

She didn’t laugh, didn’t smile.

He leaned over and kissed her again, quickly but just as earnestly “See you later.”

“I’ll be here, sugar. No place else to go.”

He blew her a kiss from the door, closed it behind him, and hurried down the long gold and royal blue corridor. Her apartment was above the office, tucked behind the crown facade, and he used the outside back stairs to get to his car, hastily parked there when he had spotted that redheaded agent pull up not long after he himself had arrived. He figured he would run into Mulder sooner or later, but right now he preferred it to be later. The way he figured it, the agents wouldn’t be here more than a couple of days, not on a case that was as cold as this one, and they’d probably eat at least one meal at the Inn.

They would talk while they ate.

Whatever they said, he would know less than an hour after they were done.

It was so perfect, he crossed his fingers to ward off the feeling that it just might be too perfect.

But he wasn’t going to run from it, either. Hell, he got a free room, a free woman, and a chance to sneak up on Dana again. What the hell more could he ask for?

The killer, he answered as he pulled slowly around the side of the building; I want the killer, that’s what I want.

He had another feeling, and he leaned forward, looked up, and saw her standing at her bedroom window. He gave her the smile, and the wave, and when she waved back he blew her a kiss before speeding out onto the road.

What a day this was going to be. Lunch with a uniformed toad who thinks his cousin is a jerk, a little investigative work around town, dinner in Atlantic City, a roll in the hay in a bed so big he could build a house on it.

Life, he decided, just doesn’t get any better.

Leonard stood at the end of the basement corridor, listening.

He didn’t know what he expected to hear. There was never any noise save for the faint grumble of the machines that gave the building its power.

Nevertheless he listened, and wished there were more lights.

A single bulb over the entrance, one down at the far end. Nothing more. No need for more. He and Rosemary were the only ones who used it; Major Tonero was the only one who visited.

Still, he couldn’t help thinking there should be some sound other than the rasp of his breathing.

You’re making yourself jumpy, he scolded as he started toward the Project office. Not that he shouldn’t be. So much had gone right, and so much had gone wrong, that half the time he didn’t know whether he should shout or cry. Rosemary didn’t help either, nagging at him constantly, pushing him, reminding him unnecessarily that this had to be the right one or all support would vanish as if it had never been.

And, he feared, him with it.

Ten yards down he reached the first of three doors on the right — there were none on the left at all.

The first was his private office. No markings, just dull steel. The second door was the same, the Project center within. He glanced through the wire-mesh window and saw that it was empty. Rosemary must still be at lunch.

The third door was closed.

He glanced at it nervously, checked back toward the exit, and decided he had to know.

With one hand in his pocket to stop his keys from jangling, he hurried to it and looked through the reinforced glass judas window.

No one sat in the armchair, or at the desk now stripped of everything but the pen and legal pad. He couldn’t see the bed.

He flipped a switch by the jamb and rapped lightly on the window with a knuckle, and jumped back with a stifled cry when a face suddenly grinned at him from the other side.

“Jesus,” he said, eyes closing briefly. “You scared me to death.”

Above the door was a microphone embedded in the concrete, a speaker grille beside it.

“Sorry.” The voice was distorted, asexual. “I’m on break. I thought I’d drop in. Sorry.”

It wasn’t sorry at all.

“How do you feel?” He approached the door again, warily, as if the face belonged to a superhuman monster that could, at the slightest provocation, smash through the steel. The stupid thing was, the door wasn’t locked. He could walk right in if he wanted to. If he had the nerve.

“How do you think I feel?”

Tymons refused the bait, the invitation to guilt. That sort of emotion had died the first time he had skinned a subject capuchin alive. He hadn’t liked it, of course, but there had been no other way.

Guilt, for the Project, was too damn expensive.

“When do I get to see the results?” It wasn’t a plea, it was barely a question.

“Later,” he promised. Below the level of the window, he crossed his fingers. Just in case.

“I feel pretty good.”

“You’re looking good.”

He returned the smile.

“I’ve almost got it, too.”

Tymons nodded. He heard that every week, every month. “You’d better. They’re …” He couldn’t help a grin. “They’re a little annoyed.”

“It wasn’t my fault. You’re the doctor.”

He had heard that one, too. Every week. Every month.

“But I’ll take care of it.”

Tymons glared and pointed. “You’ll do no such thing, you understand? You let me handle everything.”

The face didn’t change expression, but Tymons looked away from the contempt.

“I’d like my books back, please.”

He shook his head. “That didn’t work, and you know it. The books, the music, the TV. Too many distractions. You need to concentrate on your concentration.” He chuckled. “As it were.”

“I can concentrate, damnit. I concentrate so much my brain is falling out.”

Tymons nodded sympathetically. “I know, I know, and I’ll talk to you about it later. Right now I have work to do.”

Even through the distortion, the sarcasm was clear: “Another little adjustment?”

Tymons didn’t answer. He switched off the communication unit, waved vaguely, and hurried to his office. Once inside, he locked the door behind him and dropped behind his desk, switched on his computer, leaned back and closed his eyes.

This was wrong.

Things weren’t getting better, and no goddamn adjustments were ever going to work.

He sighed and checked his watch — he had almost two hours before Rosemary arrived. Plenty of time to complete copying his files. Plenty of time to take the Army-issue.45 Tonero had given him and go back next door. And use it.

Plenty of time to vanish.

After all, he thought with a hollow laugh, he was the expert at things like that.

Then he glanced through The Blue Boy, and started.

The room was empty.

“Damn.” He flicked a switch beneath the shelf, activating the lights embedded in the room’s ceiling. All color vanished, all shadows.

Still empty.

The bastard had already left.

Like a ghost, he thought, glancing nervously at the door; the damn thing moves like a ghost.

After all this time, he couldn’t bring himself to think of it as human.