Extinction Game (29 page)

‘Jerry . . .’

‘Look, all I want to know is how things got so bad between you that he would hit you. Because I want you to know, right now, that however much he looked like me or talked like me or
anything else, I am absolutely, positively not that man.’

She stared at me, nonplussed. ‘Who hit me?’

I looked back at her, equally confused. ‘
I
did. I mean the other Jerry did. He assaulted you, more than once.’

She laughed, which I hadn’t expected. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘The diaries,’ I repeated. ‘He wrote about what happened, when things got so bad he struck you with his fists. I just – I really need to talk to you about it, Chloe. If
you don’t want to talk to me, I understand. But I also need you to understand that there’s no way I would ever, under any circumstances—’

‘No bullshit?’ she said, interrupting me and stepping closer. ‘That’s what he wrote? You’re sure of this?’

‘Yes. In the diary I took from here. I . . .’ I halted, suddenly lost for words. ‘Don’t you . . . ?’

She came to stand on the other side of the gate from me. ‘He never hit me,’ she said carefully. ‘Not once. And, frankly, if he’d ever tried something like that, I’d
have taken the son of a bitch down, hard.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know exactly what you read, but it sounds to me like you got it wrong.’

I felt my face grow red.
Could
I have got it wrong? Was it possible I could have so badly misunderstood the other Jerry’s words? I didn’t see how. He had been unsparing in
his description of the pain he had inflicted.

‘Can I come in for a moment?’ I asked her.

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘This is bullshit.’

I’d taken a seat in her living room while she got cleaned up, reappearing after a few minutes in fresh jeans and a T-shirt, her hair damp and smelling faintly of shampoo.

‘All right,’ she said, perching on the arm of her couch and looking at me. ‘Start from the beginning. What exactly did he write?’

‘That you had some spectacularly bad fights. He wrote that he got wound up enough that one time he hit you hard enough that you were knocked out cold.’

‘No,’ she said, her voice brittle, a wounded look in her eyes. ‘He would never have hit me, not in a million years. Sure, we argued sometimes. But never like what you’re
describing.’

‘If you’d read his entries yourself,’ I said, ‘you’d have seen what he wrote.’

‘And I already told you why I didn’t. I was about ready to put them out of my sight by the time you got here.’ Her voice softened. ‘Look, maybe you’re right and I
should have read them. What else did he say?’

I spread my hands. ‘Just domestic stuff. Picnics, up in the north of the island.’

‘Picnics?’ She laughed incredulously. ‘
What
picnics?’

I stood. ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘it’s time we both took a look at that diary.’

She looked uncertain for a moment, then pulled on a pair of boots before following me out the door and back to my own house.

I spread the notebook open on the counter of my kitchen and watched as Chloe flipped back and forth through the pages. She scanned crude illustrations of statues that filled a
few pages in the later entries, peering at the dense scribble surrounding them.

She looked up at me, her expression bleak. ‘I swear on my life,’ she said, ‘none of this happened. Not any of it.’

‘So he was lying?’

‘All I’m saying is that none of this happened.’ When she looked at me, I could see how much strain all this was causing her. ‘What I don’t understand is, why the
hell would he make all this up?’

Something occurred to me. ‘Just to be absolutely clear,’ I asked her, pointing at one of the illustrations, ‘you never visited the statues together either?’

‘Well . . . maybe a couple of times, early on. Years ago, really, not long after we got to know each other for the first time. But not recently. And sure as hell not for a fucking
picnic
,’ she snorted.

I tried to think of any reason why Chloe would be lying to me, but nothing would come to mind. Nor did I believe she was lying. I could see it in the lines of tension in her face, in the way she
held herself. Her consternation and upset was palpably real. And yet, the seed of an idea was growing somewhere deep inside me.

I slid the notebook back towards me, spinning it around and flicking through the pages until I found one particular illustration. What possible reason could he have had for taking the
considerable time and effort to sketch these statues, I wondered, if Chloe was telling the truth and they had never picnicked by them?

At the time the other Jerry had made these sketches, according to Rozalia, he would have been busy trying to figure out whether someone was carrying out acts of deliberate sabotage. Why, then,
would he also suddenly decide to write so many apparently deliberate lies, knowing how much heartbreak they would cause the woman he loved, if ever she were to read them?

I tried to picture myself in his shoes, knowing what I now knew. How hard could it be, considering we were essentially identical? What would have driven
me
to construct such elaborate
mistruths?

‘I’ve got an idea,’ I said, picking the notebook back up and tucking it under one arm. ‘You up for a drive?’

She gave me a strange look. ‘Where, exactly?’

‘North,’ I said, and patted the book under my arm. ‘I’d like to take a look at the statues he drew.’

‘Please don’t tell me it’s because you want to go on a fucking picnic,’ she said, a warning in her voice.

I couldn’t help laughing at that. ‘Kind of, yeah.’ She stared angrily at me and I put my hands up in surrender. ‘Or at least,’ I continued, ‘that’s what
we can tell people we’re doing if anyone asks where we’re going.’

‘But why?’ she demanded. ‘What the hell do you expect to find there?’

‘It’s just a hunch I have, okay? A feeling.’

She didn’t look convinced. ‘Look,’ I explained, ‘
your
Jerry made up two stories, and I think they’re connected in some way. The first is about all the
fights you supposedly had, and the other is about a bunch of picnics that never happened. Not to mention that, prior to all this, he hadn’t written anything in his diary for years. Now, since
we can’t exactly go back in time and
ask
him what he was up to, that means all we have left are those statues he was obsessed with drawing.’

‘You think there’s some reason for all that?’

‘All I can think of,’ I said, ‘is to at least take a look at them. You never know, it might spark something.’

‘I’ll admit it sounds like a plan,’ she said. ‘But I’m too tired, Jerry. I haven’t slept in at least a couple of days.’

‘Chloe . . .’

She stepped towards the kitchen door, and when she turned to look back at me I could see she was fighting back tears. Her voice trembled when she spoke. ‘Tomorrow, okay? I’m
borderline hallucinating, for God’s sake. And then we can go on our pretend picnic.’

I watched her depart, thinking of how badly I wanted to go and see those statues at the first opportunity. I could have gone on my own, but something held me back. I needed Chloe to be
there.

Those diary entries, after all, had been intended for her, and not me.

After she had gone, I sat in my kitchen, feeling frustrated and upset for quite some time. I didn’t
want
to wait until tomorrow: I wanted to go right now. But I knew equally that
I would never do so unless Chloe was also there. She had known my predecessor better than anyone else, after all. She might well have insights or ideas based on that knowledge that might help me
make sense of the faked diary entries.

I decided I needed some kind of distraction until the next morning. Eventually I tossed the notebook down and headed back to the Hotel du Mauna Loa. But when I got there, the only other person
present was Wallace Deans, squeezed into a chair in the corner. He was clearly deep into a binge, if the half-empty bottle of hooch by his arm was anything to judge by. He regarded me with me
watery eyes, and I wondered just how long he had before his liver finally gave out.

‘Maybe you should take it easy,’ I said, nodding at the bottle.

‘Go to hell,’ he slurred at me, his head dipping down to regard the table.

I knew it wasn’t really any of my business, but I pulled a chair up across from him anyway. ‘I heard about what the Patriots did to you.’

Wallace let out a drunken snort. ‘And you think
that’s
what this is about?’ he said, holding up his glass.

I leaned back and grimaced as a cloud of foul breath enveloped me. Now I was sitting across from him, I realized he smelled as if he hadn’t washed or showered in weeks.

‘Okay,’ I said, doing my best to maintain an air of equanimity. ‘So why all the drinking?’

He stared off past me for so long that I really began to think he’d forgotten I was even there. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said quietly.

‘Well, if you—’

‘Fucking
Vishnevsky
,’ he roared, slamming his glass down hard enough on the table to make me jump. ‘Fuckin’
no good sonofabitch
.’

‘What happened, Deans?’ I heard a voice say from behind me. ‘You and your boyfriend fall out?’

I twisted around to see Rozalia standing by the door. By the time I turned back, Wallace had already half-struggled out of his seat, a look of fury on his face. He stumbled and tried to grab
hold of the table, and succeeded only in pulling it down with him as he collapsed on the floor.

I jumped up, pushing my chair back. The last thing I needed was Wallace throwing up all over my shoes.

‘Jesus,’ Rozalia muttered, gazing down at Wallace, who groaned as he tried, unsuccessfully, to sit back up. ‘He stinks even worse than usual.’

I looked down at him uncertainly. I wanted to say something to Rozalia. I knew I had been too harsh on our last encounter, especially now I knew the truth about the diary entries, but she was
acting as if nothing had happened.

‘Maybe we should try and get him back home,’ I suggested.

She gave me a look of horror. ‘I don’t even want to
touch
him while he’s in that state.’

I looked down again at Wallace and, judging by the smell, suspected he had soiled himself. ‘We can’t just leave him like this.’

Rozalia gave a heavy sigh, and I could see from her expression that she was mentally resigning herself to Doing Something About Wallace. ‘You know, I only came here to get something to
eat,’ she said. ‘This isn’t what I had in mind for how I was going to spend my evening.’

We managed to wrestle him more or less upright, but it proved harder than I thought it would be, particularly given his not inconsiderable girth. ‘I thought they made all of us work
out,’ I gasped, standing up after we had got him in another chair. ‘How the hell did he end up like this?’

‘He’s a genius at logistics and networking,’ said Rozalia, her nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘That kind of work doesn’t require too much running around.’

‘C’mon,’ I said to Rozalia. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

Just as we reached down for Wallace, the door banged open and Casey walked in. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he demanded, seeing Wallace slumped between us.

‘Your buddy’s in a mess,’ said Rozalia, standing upright again. ‘He’s going to wind up killing himself if he keeps drinking like this, you know that?’

Wallace made a snorting sound and his eyes flickered open. He waved one pudgy arm as if dismissing all of us.

‘Yeah, well, it’s none of your business anyway, is it?’ said Casey. He gestured towards the door with his head. ‘You leave him to me and I’ll get him
home.’

I bit back my words as Casey reached down and tried to get Wallace to stand up. ‘C’mon, you sorry piece of crap,’ he said. ‘Get the hell
up
.’

‘No,’ Wallace mumbled, twisting away from Casey. ‘All
your
fault.’

‘We tried that already,’ I said. ‘There’s no way he’s going to be able to walk—’

‘I already said, it’s none of your goddam business,’ Casey snapped, glaring at me. He bent down, wrapping one of Wallace’s arms around his shoulder before trying to hoist
him up and off the floor.

‘Hey,’ I said angrily. ‘Don’t talk to me like—’

Casey’s face suddenly turned white, and he let go of Wallace, who slumped back down. It didn’t take much to guess he’d put his back out again.

‘
Fuck
,’ Casey shouted, walking in circles and grimacing from the pain. ‘Lousy stinking
bastard
.’

‘Did you just mess your back up again?’ said Rozalia, without a trace of sympathy.

Casey backed away towards the bar, grabbing hold of it with his other hand, and glared at us.

‘You know,’ I said to Casey, ‘I was trying to help just now. You didn’t need to be an asshole about it.’

‘Don’t bother trying to explain anything to him,’ said Rozalia, her expression sour. ‘Casey’s all about looking out for number one. Isn’t that right,
Casey?’

‘You want to help?’ said Casey. ‘Then just leave me the hell alone.
I’ll
get Wallace home.’

‘You’re kidding,’ I said, looking at him. ‘
Look
at you. You can barely stand upright. How long has your back been like this?’

‘Fuck you,’ Casey snapped. ‘I can do my job better than the rest of you put together, this day or any other.’

I spread my hands and nodded at Wallace. ‘Go right ahead.’

Casey just glared at me.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ I said. I looked at Rozalia. ‘We’ll get him home.’

‘Thanks for volunteering me for the job, asshole,’ Rozalia muttered under her breath.

‘And you should take it easy,’ I said to Casey. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what his problem was, but when I stepped forward, taking hold of Wallace on one side
while Rozalia took the other, he at least had the good grace not to say anything more.

But
damn
, Wallace was heavy.

‘Maybe if we leave him in the street overnight the rain’ll wash the smell away,’ said Rozalia, once we finally had Wallace on his feet between us. I couldn’t tell if she
was kidding or not. Probably not.