Apartment Seven (9 page)

“I don’t need you to tell me who my wife is.”

“Of course. My apologies. I meant no disrespect.”

“Little late for that.”

“What happened between us is over.”

“And what exactly
did
happen between you two?”

He removed his glasses, closed his eyes and carefully pinched the bridge of his nose. “I admit some of the things we did could be considered somewhat inappropriate, even when Jenna’s present situation is taken into account, but at any rate, I never slept with your wife, Charlie. This is embarrassing to admit, but I’m impotent, have been for more than two years now. With us it was more about the fantasy, really, the concept of sex. It was all fun and games, the chase, the flirt, the banter. It became incredibly addictive for both of us. It was a means of escape, really. Would I have liked it to be more? Yes. Was it? Hardly. I’m simply not capable of it. We did…
try
…once or twice, but it amounted to nothing. And while Jenna got caught up in the fun and excitement of it the same as I did, she never had any desire to leave you or take up with me. She made that very clear right from the beginning. We primarily communicated via email, texting or over the phone. In those venues one can be anything one chooses. And I assure you, no one ever chooses to be a lonely, impotent and unattractive old man.” He replaced his glasses and cleared his throat. “I was a safe distraction, and in some ways I’m sure she felt sorry for me as well. Sad but true, I’m afraid. Look at me, Charlie. I’m a threat to no one. She loves you a great deal. She just became lonely and missed the earlier days or your marriage when things were…better…and neither of you had the problems you do now.”

“And here I thought we were happy.”

“Did you? Did you really? Or had you just convinced yourself you were?”

“What the hell would you know about it?”

“Jenna confided in me. I understand it’s the idea that she may have loved me that bothers you. But you, of all people, should know how ludicrous that is. It’s you she loves, no one else. For Jenna to be out having sex with someone else, unpleasant a concept as that is, you could deal with that if you had to, couldn’t you, Charlie? Mindless, meaningless sex you could take if you
had
to. But not love. Well I promise you, Jenna loves you and always has. She has never loved me and she never will.” He sipped his brandy, savored it a moment then swallowed. “I spent the last four days in the hospital recovering from my injuries, but as I mentioned, even prior to that I hadn’t seen her in quite some time. It’s been weeks since we’ve seen or spoken with each other. We no longer have any ties. Emotional or otherwise.” He took up his notebook and a pen and began jotting something down. “You said you’re your last name was
Cerrone
, is that correct?”

“You don’t even know Jenna’s last name?”

Gwynn furiously worked the pen a moment then seemed satisfied with whatever he’d written. “It’s not me you have to worry about, Charlie. Does the name
Errol Charceen
mean anything to you?”

The wind shook the old house. “You know who he is?”

“Yes,” he said. “Do you?”

“We’ve never met, but I know he lives on Ross Avenue in Apartment Seven and that Jenna’s involved with him too. How do you know him?”

“Through Jenna. How did you find out about him?”

I was beginning to wonder if his brains had been scrambled in the beating. “I’ll ask the questions,” I said. “Have you been there? Have you been to Apartment Seven?”

“No.”

“But you know Charceen?”

He looked away, ashamed. “We’ve met. Once.”

“He’s the one who did this to you, isn’t he?”

Gwynn nodded, and with a trembling hand, again took up his snifter and had a sip of brandy. “He came right to the door, dragged me out onto the front lawn and viciously assaulted me. He never even gave me the opportunity to explain things. When the doctors and police asked who attacked me, I claimed it was a stranger and that I had no idea who he was or why he’d done it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“For Jenna,” he said softly. “I did it for Jenna.”

“She’s with Charceen now, is that it?”

“Yes, and he’s a dangerous and deeply disturbed man. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Is Jenna in danger?”

“Of course.”

“Then if she loves me so much what the hell is she doing with him?” I paced about near the door. “Why would she do this?”

“We all have problems. Jenna has her demons just like the rest of us. But I’m afraid you need to ask her those questions yourself, not me.”

“Is she there now?”

“I would imagine so.”

“It’s awfully late, maybe she’s gone back home.”

“She’s there.” He took another sip from his drink. “And she’s hoping you’ll come, Charlie. She’s hoping sooner or later you’ll come and save her.”

“And Charceen?”

“I think you should go and see about that maniac for yourself.”

“You know more than you’re telling me.”

Gwynn nodded sullenly. “All I can say is that it’s happening at once—all of it—and while I know it’s terrifying, it’s all right, it—it really will be all right, Charlie. Regardless of what one does or does not believe, this universe of ours is more than chaos and chance. Reality cleanses itself when necessary. And every now and then we get to see it. Just a glimpse moving through our heads disguised as nightmares, daydreams or hallucinations, those strange and beautiful moments of
déjà vu
or epiphany, when for the briefest time, every mystery in life makes absolute, perfect sense, and then quietly slips from memory. Like a blink of the mind’s eye, yes? The rest is jumbled, as these things often are.”

“I want it to stop,” I said wearily. “I want to go home.”

“Then forget all this, Charlie, and go.” He looked at me with genuine kindness. “Go home. Maybe it’s time.”

Gwynn was right. I had to stop wandering the city like a blind nomad. Maybe when I got there Jenna would be waiting for me. Or maybe she was lost to me and I’d never see her again.

Either way, it was time to go home.

-7-

Cap was waiting, leaned against his cab, chomping his cigar and seemingly oblivious to what had become a brutally cold night. He smiled, his breath madly spiraling around him in the night air.

I reached the taxi and doubled over, vomiting into the gutter.

“So, that went well,” he chuckled in his gravelly voice.

“What the hell’s the matter with me?” I gasped.

“You’re sick, kid. You’re Jonesing.”

I yanked open the door and slid into the back. “Get me home, Cap.”

Within seconds we were rocketing through the streets of Cambridge and on our way back to Boston. I did my best to control my body, but my stomach kept lurching and the nausea was so severe I was sure I’d vomit again at any moment. “I want to go home. Take me home.”

“That’s where we’re going. Not to worry.”

“What time is?”

“Late.”

“I haven’t been home in a long time, have I?”

“Nope, not in a long time, kid.”

We traveled in silence for several minutes. Eventually we slowed to a crawl, and I assumed we’d arrived at the brownstone. But when I focused and looked out the window, we were in a neighborhood I didn’t know. The cab crept slowly along a dark street and finally stopped in front of a lot filled with debris and pieces of a demolished building that had once stood there. Next to it was a rundown apartment building that looked abandoned. I remembered it from my visions in the
Théâtre du Présent.

“What are we doing here?” Despite the cold I was suddenly drenched in sweat. “I want you to take me home.”

Cap looked back at me through the rearview mirror. “This
is
home, kid. Twenty-Eight Ross Avenue. Second Floor. Apartment Seven.”

“No, I want to go to
my
home, our brownstone.”

“Somebody else lives there now, has for years.”

I looked at him helplessly. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” Cap said, his grizzled face softening with compassion. “But you will. Time to pay the ferryman, kid.”

I opened my wallet. It was empty.

“Remember what the book says.” He cocked his head toward the building. “Go on. There’s no turning back, not this time.”

I got out of the cab. The second I closed the door, Cap tore out of there, tires squealing as he disappeared around the corner, leaving me alone on the dark and desolate street.

The apartment building stood before me like a rotting temple to ancient and forgotten gods, gray and crumbling, covered in graffiti, cracked, battered, dark and menacing as the deep shadows surrounding it.

On the wall of a condemned building across the street, a series of posters advertising a visiting French troupe’s production of the classic ballet
Swan Lake
caught my attention. Though ripped and worn from the elements the painted eyes of the ballerina staring at me through the night were horrifyingly familiar.

Moving through the biting cold, I crossed a small section of lot leading to the front steps. Littered with garbage and debris, the terrain was uneven and difficult to negotiate. The entire street looked like it had been bombed and left for dead years ago. Even as I climbed the steps and pulled open the grimy, battered and graffiti-covered front door, it seemed hard to believe anyone still lived here.

I stepped into a foyer and saw a bank of mail slots, an old elevator and a long hallway that led to the stairs. Trash was strewn across the floor, and the walls were marked and cracked, long neglected. The hallway smelled like something had crawled beneath the peeling tile floor and died, its carcass still rotting and filling the air with a pungent stench. The elevator looked so old and decrepit I doubted it was still operational, but the hallway leading to the stairs was even less inviting.

Shadows moved along the far end of the hall, and I thought I heard footfalls somewhere down there. I pushed a hand into my coat pocket, gripped the revolver and listened more intently.

I was not alone here. Someone was coming down the stairs. Slowly.

I took a few steps back, watching the hallway intently.

A figure emerged, hobbling through the shadows on the staircase and into view as it stepped down into the far end of the hallway.

Frail, thin, slightly hunched and dressed in a heavy overcoat and orthopedic black shoes, a very old woman tottered toward me. Ninety if she was a day, she certainly had no business walking around alone in this neighborhood at such a late hour.

“Ma’am?” I asked.

She didn’t seem to hear me, and kept shuffling closer. Her pale skin was badly wrinkled and her hair, white as chalk, was combed straight back from her face in a severe style. But it was her makeup I found the most disturbing. She wore a tremendous amount of black eye makeup for a woman of her years, and her lips were painted with red lipstick so bright it was startling. A black leather purse was slung over one wrist and her other hand gently touched the wall to steady herself as she went. At about the midway point between us she stopped and bent her head forward as if something on the floor had caught her attention.

Very slowly, she raised her watery eyes and looked at me. Her lips curled into a demonic smile. Removing her hand from the wall, she held it out before her and opened it so I could see.

A black tattoo of a scythe covered her entire palm.

As I stared at it, unable to look away, it began to bleed.

Jenna is on her knees next to me. I wrap my arm around her shoulder, pull her in tight against my leg, press the revolver to her temple and pull the trigger. The blast is deafening, and the bullet pierces her skull effortlessly, spraying blood, bone and brain fragments across the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting. I feel the warmth of her blood as it pumps out the jagged exit wound in her temple, trickling down between my fingers and onto my arm. Her body goes limp, and her head falls back, glassy eyes staring up at me with a look of disbelief that I’ve actually done it. In the corner of the dark room Curtis Gwynn lays on the cement floor writhing in agony, bones shattered, face smashed, his body riddled with bullets and wounds that are slowly killing him, a bloody pile of piss and shit and tears.

I realize then that Jenna and I are nude. I let her go. She flops to the floor, lifeless and limp, the blood from her fatal head wound still pouring from her skull to form a crimson halo about her. I run my bloody hands all over my body, spreading her blood across my bare flesh, bathing in it, and as I realize my rage has not yet been sated, I grasp the revolver tight then push it up and into her cunt. Killing her isn’t enough. I need to destroy everything about her, the same as she erased me. Yet even as I do, I understand the ghoul is not me, but someone else, some
Other
I fear and loathe, a foreign agent that has infiltrated my body and mind, my soul…my dreams…