In the Night Room (10 page)

—I wish I could, Tom said. Look, people who write detective books, even ones for boys, learn how to get all kinds of information. Because I was worried about you, I did some research into Mitchell Faber and the Baltic Group. What I found out distressed me, and I have to at least discuss it with you.

—You’re a snoop. You went prying around into corners and you found some dirt. Very noble of you.

—Willy, please shut up and listen to me. Let’s begin with the wedding, okay? Don’t you want to spend more time deciding what to wear? And what about the flowers, the food, the music? Where was this hypothetical wedding going to take place, anyhow?

Mitchell had arranged for a private ceremony on the grounds of a magnificent estate, like a country house, a Brideshead kind of place, called Blackwoods, she thought, somewhere up around New Paltz, or maybe Woodstock, but in the mountains, anyhow. If it rained, the ceremony would be held in the library, which was supposed to be gorgeous.

Tom informed Willy that she was talking about a gigantic Baltic Group property called Nightwood, stuck up in the mountains halfway between Woodstock and New Paltz. It was used for top-secret, hush-hush conferences. Cigars, single-malt whiskeys, business suits.

—So the problem is what, exactly?

Well, this wasn’t the sort of place usually used for weddings, that was all. But wedding invitations usually got sent out right about this time—what about hers? And had Mitchell obtained the marriage license and hired the clergyman, or the judge, or whatever? She didn’t know, she didn’t care, she was a passive partner in her own wedding!

She couldn’t think of anything better, Willy said. Who wanted to worry about table settings and flowers and invitations anyhow? She was going to show up at her wedding and get married. Besides, the only person she was inviting was Tom. Why get bent out of shape over details Mitchell could handle better than any wedding planner ever born? Passivity was underrated.

—So Mitchell makes it possible for you to avoid thinking much about this wedding you’re about to have.

If he wanted to see it that way, sure, he should go right ahead. Mitchell made it possible for her to concentrate on her work.

—Is your work going well?

Well, no. It wasn’t going at all, unfortunately. Kind of a settling-in period. Getting used to the new house, adjusting to the idea of being married again, that sort of thing.

—Sometimes I get the feeling, Tom said, that I’ll be lucky to see you again after the happy day.

Willy shook her head in vehement denial. How could Tom say that?

—What does this boyfriend of yours do for a living?

—Mitchell works for the Baltic Group.

—And what does the Baltic Group do? Was Willy up on their happy little empire?

They make money all over the world, that was what they did. How should she know? What was she, a financial journalist?

—Are you aware that you sound a little defensive?

All right, all right. She was smiling at him. Tom Hartland had the gift of telling her the truth in a way that improved her mood. Which meant
he
was a gift. For a moment Willy wondered if she should not marry someone like Tom Hartland instead. Being married to Tom would be fun, apart, of course, from the absence of sex. But maybe they could improvise something. Whoops, I’m out of wine already!

As Willy ordered a second glass for herself, Tom explained what he knew about the Baltic Group: a vast, multifarious development company with headquarters in Switzerland, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C., and the Bahamas. Tied to governments all over the world and staffed by ex-ministers, ex-senators, ex-generals, retired statesmen. Its banking division propped up dictatorships in half a dozen countries. When big overseas contracts were to be awarded, Baltic accepted most of them as if by sacred right.

Okay, he didn’t like them. We already knew this. But what, she wanted to know, did he actually
make
of them?

—Maybe I’m a paranoid left-wing conspiracy junkie, but companies like that are my definition of evil. They interfere with politics wherever they want to gain advantage, they buy cooperation, they ruin the environment, they get up to dirty deals all over the world. You should consider, Willy, that your first husband might have been murdered because of his connection to Baltic.

For a second, Willy heard the ghostly wail of her daughter’s voice. The loss of her husband and daughter swarmed over her, and she began to shake. —Thanks very much, she said. This is hardly news. Whose side are you on, anyhow?

—I’m on your side, but I am concerned about you. No, hold on, don’t get all worked up, Willy.

So what did he want to tell her about Mitchell? It was the reason they were there, he might as well get it out.

—Nobody wants to see you drift into a marriage with a man who isn’t right for you. And that
is
what you seem to be doing, at least to me. Because, forgive me for what I’m about to say, but you don’t really know this man very well, and even worse, what he represents is absolutely counter to your values.

My values?

—Your boyfriend was in Special Forces before being taken on by the CIA, and when he blotted his copybook there, the Baltic Group was more than willing to snap him up. Are you hearing me? Mitchell Faber did something so bad that he had to be drummed out of the CIA. They’re
really
not talking about whatever he did, but it was something special, that’s for sure. Like a massacre, Willy, and I’m not exaggerating. To be buried so deep, it
had
to be something like that. Now he’s a kind of mercenary, except he has only one client and he gets paid really well.

Was he actually saying that Mitchell was responsible for the deaths of her husband and daughter? Was
that
what he was trying to tell her?

—Maybe indirectly, yes.

Now, to her horror, Tom’s life opened before her as a series of broad, sunlit avenues, while hers looked to be spiraling down into a cave, a cell, a speck.

She became aware that Tom had stopped talking. He was looking at her through narrowed eyes, and beneath his well-mannered blond hair his forehead looked corrugated.

—Willy, did you hear any of what I just said?

Everything important, yes.

—Because when you start telling me things about your daughter, I know you need professional assistance.

Willy shot to her feet in a flutter of limbs and other people’s scarves and jackets. It was time to get back, she had things to do on the estate, and the roads would be terrible. Could she call Tom for advice, or for help . . . ?

—I want you to call, he said. Willy?

She was already maneuvering through the crowd between the bar and the tables.

Then it was if she had fallen asleep the instant she entered Giles Coverley’s car, for without transition she went from running through a downpour toward the open back seat to the recognition that she was standing beneath an umbrella held by Rocky Santolini, as he pointed, in the torrential rain battering down on Hendersonia, to a messy obscurity of branches and limbs where the gable over Mitchell’s office window should have been. Beneath his own, double-sized, plaid umbrella, Giles was staring up at the same place, swearing with an astonishing eloquence. The Dellray men stood huddled at the front of the garage. Unprotected from the deluge, Roman Richard was yelling at Vincent Santolini. With his soaked clothing and streaming hair, he looked like a manatee. Willy thought she was going to faint, then that she would scream. She wanted to scream: screaming would make what was happening to her everyone else’s problem instead of hers. She flattened her hands over her mouth.

—We told you this could happen, Rocky said. He thought her horror had been caused by damage to her house.

Roman Richard swung his body sideways, extended an arm, and bellowed something at Rocky.

—I can’t deal with that guy. This is the deal. Out of respect for your husband, we could go up to that room, clear out the wreckage, and staple a sheet of plastic over the opening. Maybe we could save the carpet and whatever else in there ain’t already ruined. Only we need the key, on account of that room is locked right now.

Willy could barely hear him. She was still reeling from the hours subtracted from her day. Everything else was an irrelevance, a minor problem. Hours had not been taken from her; she had lost them, because she was cuckoo, bats, looney tunes.

Giles had wandered over. Mud was spattered across his beautiful shoes. —And it’s locked for a reason, Santolini. Mr. Faber values his privacy very highly. Can’t you do something from the outside?

—What, you want me to
pull
that shit out? Sorry, missus.

—Go in and open the door, Giles, Willy said, wanting to put an end to all this blather.

—I’m sorry, but I can’t do that without authorization from Mr. Faber.

—Mr. Faber won’t be very happy with you if you let his office get wrecked any more than it already is. Let’s get out of the rain.

—This is on your head, Willy.

He spun around and proceeded toward the garage with Willy immediately behind him. Rocky and Vince Santolini trotted off to pick up power saws and rolls of plastic sheeting.

Willy whispered, Did I fall asleep in the car?

—How would I know? Ask yourself how much you had to drink.

Expressing his opinion of the enterprise by leaving muddy footprints on the carpets, Coverley refused to say any more as he marched up the big central staircase, wheeled across the landing, took the next, narrower flight up, and positioned himself in front of the office door. Through its thick, dark wood came the sound of a high wind and the rattling of leaves. He pulled a baseball-sized key ring from his coat pocket, selected a key, held it up in front of Willy, and challenged her with a glare.

—I take no responsibility for this. Coverley inserted the key into the lock and twisted it. The door flung itself open on a blast of wind and struck the startled Coverley full in the face. Rainwater and torn leaves flew past him.

—Christ. Blood dripped from behind the hand Coverley held over his nose. I’m not going to stand here and bleed to death. He moved aside, with an ironic gesture of welcome.

The Santolinis brushed past Willy and went immediately to work in the chaos of Faber’s lair. Saws roaring like motorboat engines, they climbed over the tangle of branches protruding through the roof and the destroyed window frame. Wood chips and sawdust flew up around them as they worked.

—This was your idea,
you
deal with it, Coverley said. A fat streamlet of blood was running down over his chin and dripping onto his shirt.

—I’ll drive you to the hospital, if you like.

—Just make sure these clowns don’t steal anything. He slipped away.

Willy entered Mitchell’s office with hesitant footsteps and a distinct feeling of trespass. A smell of burnt wood that somehow reminded her of Christmas came from the Santolinis’ side of the room. The floor and huge rectangular Persian rug were covered with wet and far-flung papers, and in the absence of anything else to do, Willy began picking these up. Hunkering down to scoop up a long, spilled-out sheaf of documents, she groaned at the mess before her and put out a hand to steady herself. Then her eyes fell upon a flat, intricately carved wooden box propped open on its hinged top. Either the wind or one of the invading branches had wiped it from its accustomed surface and sent it flying. Beneath the box lay a scattering of photographs. Willy duckwalked over to the box, closed its top, and set it down next to her right foot. When she reached out for the photographs, a stray breeze caused them to stir and flutter as if suddenly come to life. Willy caught one in its ascent from the deep reds and inky blues of the densely patterned rug and turned it over to look at its surface.
What in the world is Mitchell doing with a picture of Jim Patrick?
she wondered, only mildly intrigued by the mystery of her first husband’s photograph turning up in her fiancé’s office.

It was not until her surprise at the unexpected sight of her first husband’s face began to recede that she was able to take in what had happened to his body. In the photograph, Jim Patrick’s corpse lay on stony soil beside the car in which his charred body, and Holly’s, had been found. Three bullets had entered his body, and a great deal of blood lay pooled around it. Then she saw that his hands had been cut off. The picture, it came to her, represented a kind of trophy.

She must have made some kind of noise, because Rocky and Vince raised their heads and looked at her, curious as dogs. Trembling violently, Willy waved them off.

That night, she locked herself in her office and tried to sleep as she lay shaking on the floor. She feared for her life: she feared that Giles Coverley would overcome his scruples, enter his boss’s office, and see the photographs scattered on the floor. She was terrified of a knock on her door, but no knock came, and no one knew what she had seen.

The next morning, she managed to avoid being seen by Coverley and Roman Richard as she crept down the stairs, passed from the kitchen into the garage, and drove at a reckless speed down the hill and into Hendersonia, where she had an appointment with her banker.

And at nine-thirty that night, following a most adventurous day, she gave her car keys to a valet in front of the Milford Plaza hotel, took the escalator to the lobby, rolled her suitcase up to the front desk, and checked in under the name James Patrick had wanted her to use on her Gold AmEx card, W. Bryce.

15

Cyrax:

it is an endless

oh, y do I call u buttsecks? is that wht u ask? 8e

And why am I writing that way, you ask, Underhand? I was writing that way, and I will write that way whenever I feel like it, which is to say when you’re acting like a jackass, for the simple reason that it is a pleasure for an ancient laddie-buck (so to speak) like myself to learn a new language every now and again, and presently I am feeling my way around HAXXOR, a language exclusive to juveniles addicted to mIRC and other chat programs. Of course it isn’t a real language, merely a system of jokes and substitutions, but it’s a hoot,
n’est-ce pas
? Between my birth in Byzantium during the reign of Michael II, known as the Stammerer, and my premature (by your standards) but not all that untimely (by mine) death under Michael III, known as the Drunkard, I acquired a good working knowledge of six languages, a matter quite useful to me in my work as a gatherer and disseminator of information. (Since my disappearance from the surface of the Earth and gradual introduction to eternal realms, I have learned perhaps six hundred, including a great many “lost” dialects.) You could say, I was a journalist of sorts. A gossip columnist, to be specific, though of course we did not call it gossip at the time. What we did call it was “news,” and to come up with this commodity on a steady basis I dragged myself here and there about the empire, dropping in on the local satraps and princelings ever eager to have their accomplishments publicized at court.

& y 4m I 73lling u thi5?

Because like you I was a writer, and they felt that you needed One who could communicate with you in a familiar manner. So I, Cyrax, will be your Familiar Spirit.

Underdog, it is necessary for you to LISTEN! Acting recklessly and ignorantly, you have sent winds of disorder, tides of resentment, waves of confusion through the Eternal Realms, or the Other World, or the Other Side, or whatever you want to call it. You have created DIFFICULTY & TROUBLE! You have given a
WEDGE
to
CHAOS
.

Oh how,
you ask, as if any such answer can be simple, can be even what your kind would call Answer. But let me try, Underdown, let me try. My enormous pleasure at the possibility of communicating directly with a 21st Century man—and having him communicate with me!—much outweighs the irritation of having to deal with such obdurate material as yourself.

For the sake of clarity, I will employ the vulgar typographical device known as the “bullet”:

•         7 years after the dawn of your life, your wings brushed this REALM—April your Sister preceded your spirit here as its Guide, and you were CALLED BACK, but only after you had established a FRAGILE CONTACT with HIGHER POWERS, THE WORLD BEYOND, the fringes of THE GREAT HIERARCHY.

•         Since that day, Intimations of Connectedness, Coherence & Secret Order have sweetened your existence: suggestions of a GRAND FORMALITY. These Intimations have proceeded directly from your near Approach to the REALM.

•         April your Sister is ever your guide and will be for a time after your Entrance to the Mysteries, for which you may and should thank the PRIME.

•         Alas, yours was the 1 case in 1,000,000 in which Proximity = Influence, so that what You did in your Realm could, were the correct conditions to prevail, affect us Here, particularly Those of Recent Induction still learning what you call “the ropes.” Recent = within roughly the past 80 years.

•         We Figures & Spirits of the Formerly Living are of 2 Kinds. What I next shall tell you is a cruel simplification, but for our Purposes it will have to do.

•         Those Recently Deceased are of the category
sasha. Sasha
are the Living Dead, Remembered still by those whose time on Earth overlapped with theirs. When the last living person to know a
sasha
departs into Death, the
sasha
enters the category of the
zamani.
(I use a category system of the Kiswahili peoples.)
Sasha
retain sharp memories, cling to urgent lusts & passions, fret & worry abt. their reputations and those of people once known.
Zamani
let such baubles drop from their hands. The
Zamani
’s task is to understand, to see, to Inhabit the correct Position in the GREAT HIERARCHY, and to serve the PRIME.

Oh how duz this rel8 to u?

Fool Underground, & yet I have grown fond & fonder of you. Hold on, here comes a bullet with your name on it.

•         No HELL or Infernal Region exists within the Infinite Space of the REALM. The wicked & sin-deformed have their Places, too, as do the Mad & Criminal, & within their Places endure the
sasha
term in a Kind of Suffering of Recognition. Their Crimes & Misdeeds & Lunacies come back endlessly to them in sharp Relief, & thru their Torment they cleanse their eyes, properly to see.

•         As the
sasha
draws nearer the condition of
zamani,
he is givn knowledge of our great Libraries & allowed access to the Beauty & Wisdom gathered therein. Our Libraries contain every volume written by mankind lost and unlost & Completed if left unfinished by the Author at the time of his/her death. Each volume is as its Author wisht it to be & dreamt it might be, in its Perfect State. Unflawed, Uncorrupted, Undamaged by the fevers & intoxications & hastes & forgetfulnesses of the human Author, Raised Up to the individual Perfection of its Kind. And yes, some few of these Perfect Books have transported or have been transported across the Border, thru the Curtain or VEIL, into yr Fallen & Corrupt world, there to Shine.

•         Wandring dazed within the Treasures of a great Library of the REALM, a particular
sasha
encountered a particular tome, and upon reading same, the which named LOST BOY LOST GIRL, the
sasha
grew maddened and enraged. Ancient Passions & fevers again took hold, and the crack-wit
sasha
roared wild through those small portions of the REALM known to it, howling for justice & retribution & revenge. The name of the
sasha
should be known well to you: on Earth, he was Joseph Kalendar.

•         Spirits as yet barred access to
zamani
may betimes slip from REALM to Realm and enter the plane from which their death had lifted them. There, they may be witnessed, described, and identified as GHOSTS.

•         GHOSTS are of many kinds & arrayed along a continuum from entirely insubstantial (a haze, a wisp, a curl of smoke, and how how how I wish I could smoke, 4 I know I wd a-door it) to entirely substantial & corporeal, at least as to sight, touch, taste & smell, & tho this latter is quite rare, such is the case with yr Mr. Kalendar.

•         For this u have only yrself to blame, Underdone. GHOST-KALENDAR HAS ALL THE ATTRIBUTES YOU PERMITTED HIM IN YR SILLY FLAWD BOOK! Thus: He can change his Form & appear in various Guises, he is in Possession of Great Strength & Subtlety & may show Himself as a savage Beast neither Swine nor Canine but a creature Hideous in-between. He possesses the Power of Invisibility!

If u had never brushed against our REALM, yes, u r right, Undercooked, JK your angry reader wd still be angry but his anger would be confined to This Side, where easily it wd be contained, Suff’red Through, Endured & Understood. BUT!!!!!!!!! U BUTTSECKS, U OPENED THE WEDGE!!!!!!!!!

Wht can I doo, poor poor me?

Oho u are looking for Advice frum Cyrax? Okeydokey, artichokey, Cyrax Sez: U will know the Right Thing when the Time comes. We hope. We trust. We must Nipp this Intrusion in the Budd, and u will be Aided Toward that End.

by whom Aided?

By one of the HIGHER BEINGS, u stupidity, a representative of the class known to u as Angels, beings made Visible in the Class 3 Manifestation, a CLERESYTE (or approximately that) to us, by name in your tongue WCHWHLLDN . . . He is impatient of success in his most unwelcome mission, and u must be wary of his wrath, for WCHWHLLDN’s morality is not yours & in no way prohibits him from inflicting upon you an agonizing death. In his appearance before u on Grand Street u saw how great WCHWHLLDN dislikes detests loathes the tight & unclean surround of Earth. His Task is to CLEANSE.

what is our structure, here, within the REALM??????

u ask what cannot be answered bcuz u r not capable of comprehension & arrogant besides. But this is what we enjoy about your kind & what I in particular like about u in particular, buttsecks. A kind of Valor—blind, unconscious, oft-foolish, never without greed, but of value nonetheless, for are not u in all your measures and qualities the raw material of the REALM, even as to its Upper Reaches? So try this on for size. U have yr Holy Books, Scripture, the Koran, the Hebrew Bible, the Upanishads, necessary to you all & Images of the True and the PRIME, and within Scripture there exist the Gospels, and within the Gospels exists a wise passage about many mansions. Picture each mansion as a Plane or Level, and u will have som idea. With Plane Upon Plane, Level Upon Level, until Mathematics scarce can encompass them all. Of suchlike is the Structure of the REALM, tho of course it is really not.

& why have u received e-mails from departed classmates?

Becuz, as u should have figured out by now, those who knew u and r not long dead, the newest of the
sasha,
being confused and dis-located unlocated, perceived immediately the opportunity to establish thru u contact with their lost world, thence to complain, to beg for help, to ask for directions & mouth off in the lisping baby-babble that is their only mode of speech. Ignore these & leave them 2 find their way or not. For in time, all will find their way, if over millennia. I myself have attained but Level 4, and in this Station I know bliss.

now keep your hands off the keyboard, stop interrupting, and take a few more bullets 2 yr brain:

•         Yr sister April, a tender GHOST in Alice-garb, will manifest herself be4 u when she can, but April cannot act against yr enemy Kalendar 4 they r of the same KIND.

•         WCHWHLLDN the CLERESYTE
can
oppose Kalendar on yr behalf, but in his outrage may destroy u as well as he. He is yr Guardian, yes, but more so he is the Guardian, a Guardian, one of many, of the Lower Realm.

•         U MUST CO-RECK AN ERROR, U MUST MAKE IT RITE! it is what u wr0te that opened the
WEDGE
to
CHAOS
, 4 Kalendar saw the ERROR in yr book & ran am0ck & now u must stay alive although u face a 2ble peril now becuz u created a 2nd Dark Man, did u not? Kalendar was not threat enuf & so u MERGED him with the dark dark villain almost instantly to b in pursuit of yr lovely gamine & now a problem U MUST FACE.

•         Becuz the shite is about to hit the fan the wall the floor the ceiling 2, buttsecks, and u will have 2 b nimble & imaginative & brave as u have never been be4!

what, u ask, is the great ERROR discovered by the madman Joseph Kalendar in yr book & which enraged him so that he found entrance to yr Lower Realm?

What do u think it was? U accused the stupid beast of repeatedly raping & eventually murdering his own daughter, Lily, and HE DID NOT DO IT!!!! Mr. Kalendar is MIGHTILY PISSED OFF, IN FACT U CD SAY HE IS TIGER-PISSED OFF, which is why he wishes to deface the errant book, not to mention its libelous author!

and what then is yr task?

buttsecks, you disappoint old Cyrax, you must do better than this! Yr task, as u should already KNOW, podner, is to get on yore cayuse, hit the trail & go west 2 yr own Byzantium & the beginnings of this story. To Lily Kalendar’s real fate, which has been much on yr mind, after all.

& as if by magick, are u not being sent out very soon to perform the odd & self-referential act u call “Readings”? & is not 1 “Reading” in yr own Byzantium? & is not yr brother to wed beauteous China Beech? GO! ATTEND yr brother’s nuptials! Have u lost all civility and kindness along with yr poor VVits?

& deer buttsecks, if you do, u will have a chance of achieving something extraordinary & incestuous & ravishing unto heart-melt & impossible for every crack-brain author but u!

& know this also: a terrible terrible thrice-terrible price must be paid & paid by u—a great sacrifice, as if the heart were to be torn from yr body & yr brain crackt & yr spirit engulfed. yrs wuz the crime, yrs will be the punishment.

4 now I say no mor.