When the Day of Evil Comes (18 page)

One thing I knew. Sleep was impossible. I needed to get out of that room.

I threw on some shorts and a T-shirt and grabbed my bag, my cell phone, my Bible, and the hotel’s copy of the Greater Chicago Area telephone book, which weighed about twenty-five pounds. I unlocked the latch on the door and stepped outside into the warm night, the air conditioner chattering a farewell as I walked next door to Denny’s.

Thank God for twenty-four-hour diners.

The restaurant was busy. Apparently lots of people eat at Denny’s at 4:00 a.m.

I slid into an empty booth and ordered a cup of coffee.

I opened the telephone book first, hoping blindly that Joseph and Mariann Zocci were listed in the Chicago phone book. Of course, they weren’t.

There were only fifteen Zoccis listed in the Chicago area. I pulled the
Tribune
article about Erik’s death out of my bag and checked the names of the Zocci children. I found one match. Erik’s older brother James Andrew. And there was one “VA. Zocci.” VA. could stand for Virginia Anne, one of his older sisters.

I wrote down the addresses and phone numbers.

I hadn’t brought the business pages with me, so I walked over to the phone booths by the front door and looked up Garret Industries. No listing.

The Chicago public library was listed, though. I wrote down the number and address of the main library, which I guessed would be downtown, near my hotel. I also wrote down the address and phone number of the University of Chicago’s library. I flipped to the back of the phone book and ripped out the simple map of the city.

I returned to my booth and studied the map, sparse as it was. My Complimentary Local Map from They’re Ugly But They Run was more detailed, of course, and would have been much more helpful. But the map was. in the car and the car was parked right outside my room, and I wasn’t going back there until the sun was shining.

A voice interrupted me.

“You needing directions, hon?”

I looked up. My waitress was back with the coffee pot.

“You don’t happen to know where the University of Chicago is, do you?”

“Nope,” she said. “You startin’ school there?”

“No, I’m just looking for a good library.”

“Can’t help you with that. You want some breakfast?”

“How’s the French toast?” I asked.

“Greasy.”

“Hash browns?”

“Greasy.”

“Sausage?”

“Greasy.”

“I’ll have oatmeal.”

She smacked her gum. “Good girl.”

I gave up on the map and stared into space, tumbling the week’s details in my mind, hoping something would lock into place.

The oatmeal came, along with some brown sugar and a little pitcher of milk. It was warm and filling.

I finished my breakfast and opened my Bible, reading and sipping coffee until the sun came up and had hung in the sky a good long while.

I paid out and left my waitress a ten dollar tip. I’d taken up a table in her station for over three hours, and she’d filled my cup faithfully without the slightest trace of impatience.

I walked the parking lot back to the room and slipped my key into the slot, pushing the door open all the way with my foot before I stepped into the room.

The room was exactly as I’d left it.

The sheets were thrown back, the overhead light on. The bathroom door was open, the bathroom light on. Air conditioner rattling.

I checked the bathroom. The shower curtain was still on the floor.

That posed a particularly vexing problem. I pulled the shower curtain out of the room and filled the tub for a quick bath, my physician father’s ominous warnings about hotel bathtubs ringing in my ears. He was convinced that viruses and germs lurked on every surface within reaching distance. My brother and I had spent our entire childhoods paranoid about touching stair railings or faucet handles. Probably the beginnings of my love affair with cleaning products.

I dressed quickly and loaded my things into my bag, grabbing my notes from this morning and my cell phone as I walked out the door. I stopped by the front desk and let the clerk know that my shower curtain had fallen in the middle of the night. She looked at me suspiciously and assured me it would be fixed by this evening.

I studied my map in the car. From what I could tell, the University of Chicago was pretty far away from where I was. I’d probably be better off with the public library, given my rotten navigational luck so far. But I couldn’t find that address on my map.

My cell phone service, I remembered suddenly, had dial-up information. It was one of those tricky, useful little things that I’d never quite learned how to use. Supposedly the operators would look up anything for you. Movies. Restaurants. And, perhaps by extension, libraries. I dialed.

“How may I help you?” the operator asked.

“I’m in downtown Chicago,” I said. “Near the Vendome hotel. Can you tell me where the nearest library is? University or public. Either one.”

“Hold one moment, please.”

I heard him tap keys.

“Loyola University Library.”

Like magic. I wrote down the address and thanked him, congratulating myself on my spontaneous stroke of genius.

I found it easily on my map. It was six blocks from the Vendome.

I decided to go to the Vendome first.

My parking luck ran out this time. No gifts from the heavens today, so I had a hike to the hotel. I was sweating a little by the time I’d reached the lobby and made it to the gift shop.

The gift shop was open and empty of patrons. It was surprisingly large for a hotel gift shop. A lone clerk polished silver picture frames with a blue cloth. I recognized the frames. I had apparently purchased one here recently, for the bargain price of thirty-eight dollars.

“Good morning,” said the man. “May I help you find anything?”

“I’d just like to look,” I said. “Thanks.”

I poked around for a minute, not sure why I’d come.

“Lovely necklace,” he said, a knowing smile on his face.

I touched the stone at my throat. I’d forgotten I was wearing it. “Thank you. I like it a lot. It’s unusual.”

“That designer is very good. We sell quite a few of her pieces.”

“Do you have any more?”

“Right over here.”

I followed him to a lighted jewelry case. He stepped behind it, unlocked the door, and took out a velvet tray of necklaces.

They were lovely. Each one had a heavy, chunky feel to it. They were all done in sterling silver with some sort of stone on a leather cord.

“The designer’s name is Rosa Guevera. She does wonderful work. Each piece is one-of-a-kind,” he said.

“Do you remember this necklace particularly?” I asked. “It was purchased here.”

He frowned. “Not that piece per se. Her pieces don’t stick around very long.”

“Do you happen to remember taking an order for a necklace of hers recently? This one was ordered by phone.”

“I don’t remember it myself, but there are only three of us working here. You might talk to Eloise, our store manager. Was there some problem with the order?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I was just wondering. It was sort of a gift. An anonymous gift.”

“A secret admirer,” he said, smiling.

“Something like that.”

“Lucky girl.”

“Something like that.”

“Eloise comes in at noon on Wednesdays,” he said. “You might stop back by. Or if you like, I can have her phone your room when she arrives.”

“No, thank you. I’ll just give her a call in the morning. Thanks for your help.”

“Certainly,” he said.

I picked up a business card as I walked out, sticking it in my back pocket.

From the Vendome it was about the same distance to my car as to Loyola. It was a nice day, so I decided to take the long route and walk along Lake Michigan. Loyola fronted the lake.

The walkway along Lake Shore Drive was buzzing. I passed by runners, bikers, skaters, walkers, loiterers, tourists, dogs, and one monkey riding on its owner’s handlebars. Frisbee and volleyball were being played on the sand beach. And a bagpiper stood on a rock jetty and played his mournful tune into the wind. I was enchanted.

I wondered if Loyola or the University of Chicago needed any psychology professors. Maybe I could outrun my soiled reputation by moving to the Midwest.

Too soon, I arrived at Loyola and stepped off the walkway onto the manicured lawns of the campus.

Feeling suddenly at home in the anthill atmosphere of the university, I asked someone where the library was and was pointed toward Cudahy Library, in one of the large buildings on the main square.

The faint ring of my cell phone reached my ears from the depths of my bowling ball bag just as I walked up the library steps.

It was Tony DeStefano.

“Ready for this?” he said.

“No. What?”

“Your boy cracked up last night.”

“Gavin?”

“Jenny’s at the hospital with him now. We checked him into Green Oaks.”

“The psych hospital? What happened?”

“He tried to hang himself from the shower curtain.”

I
SAT DOWN ON THE LIBRARY STEPS
, the heat of the sun suddenly blinding, stifling, unrelenting.

“What time was this?” I asked Tony.

“I don’t know. Between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., I think. Jenny heard it. She thought it was the dog.”

“Who found him?”

“Annie did.”

I winced. Annie was their three-year-old.

“At around 6:00 this morning,” he was saying. “Kid was unconscious. Passed out, drunk out of his mind. Annie thought he was asleep. Came and got us because she didn’t want to use the bathroom with him in there. She was afraid she’d wake him up.

“I found an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle in his room. He’d probably been drinking all night. Annie goes in there and he’s all sprawled out, got a belt around his neck, passed out on the bathroom floor, all tangled up in this pink plastic Cinderella shower curtain. He picked the girls’ bathroom for some reason. Probably would’ve killed himself if the rod hadn’t fallen. Thank God for cheap construction. I always knew there was a good reason I’m poor.”

“How is he now?”

“Hung over, probably.”

“He wasn’t hurt?”

“Nope.”

“I’m sorry, Tony. I had no idea he was in that kind of shape.”

“It’s not your fault. That kid’s in the grip.”

“Of what?”

“God only knows. We’d been up the night before, him and me, talking about demons. He told me his stories, the ones he’s telling you, about old Slash Back.”

“Peter Terry.”

“That’s his name?”

“Yep.”

“I always thought demon names would be more exotic. Something sort of Aramaic. Or medieval.”

“I’m sure it’s just an alias.”

“Well, whatever his name is, the dude’s got this kid scared. Scared him right out of his mind, I think.”

“So you think this is in direct response to the demon thing?”

“Gotta be.”

“Is this how demons usually work?”

“Think about all the people in the Gospels. Tortured, basically. They get inside your body and make you sick. Get inside your head and mess with it. Mess with your thinking.”

“You think he’s possessed?” Tony and I hadn’t yet uttered the word. It scared me just to think about it.

“I don’t think so. I seen that before, and it’s got a whole different feel to it. This guy—he’s just scared. Scared from the inside.”

“Like Erik Zocci.”

“Like Erik Zocci. Exactly,” Tony said. “What I can’t figure out is, why them?”

“I’m working on that. I’m in Chicago right now.”

I gave Tony a quick update on my situation, ending with my own version of the shower curtain story.

He whistled. “You got a target painted on your face. Someone’s got you all singled out.”

“Terrific,” I said. “I wish I knew what to do about it.”

“Stand firm,” Tony said, quoting Ephesians once again. “And wear your gear. I mean, God went to a lot of trouble to provide it for you. And never, ever forget whose side you’re on.”

“How’s Annie?”

“Oh, she’s fine. She doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“And everyone else?”

“They’re doing fine. You gotta remember, Dylan. Jenny and me, we spent our whole marriage in Haiti and Nicaragua. My kids don’t spook easy.”

Thank God for that. I dug in my bag for a pen. “Do you have the Green Oaks number on you?”

He looked it up and gave it to me. “Jenny’s probably on her way back. I got class. Her turn to wrangle these kids.”

We hung up and I dialed Green Oaks. They wouldn’t let me talk to Gavin, of course. Without a signed consent, they couldn’t even confirm that he was a patient there. But they did allow me to leave a message and assured me that if he was a patient there, he would receive the message. I left Gavin my cell phone number and asked him to call me, saving the Green Oaks number in my phone so I would recognize the incoming call when it came.

Before heading into the library, I spent a few minutes alone on the steps, praying. For Gavin. For myself. For the DeStefanos. For the Zoccis. For myself again.

Sitting there, watching the sun flick off the waves of Lake
Michigan, students swarming around me, priests and nuns walking briskly on the tidy concrete walkways of this lovely Catholic campus, all I could think was that God had obviously made some serious error in judgment. I was completely in over my head. I was drowning. Drowning in fear, in confusion, in self-doubt. What was He thinking leaving me, of all people, in the target zone?