The 8th Circle Page 12

It had taken a long time to perfect the art of preserving the skin of the wings. His first attempts had been so dry and brown. The trick, of course, was to maintain the fine grain of it so that once it was stretched and hung on a frame, it looked almost translucent. Irish, Scottish, and English skin had worked the best. So pretty and soft, as long as it wasn’t covered with freckles, though it was hard to procure. Mostly he had been forced to settle for the Eastern Europeans, but that skin had often been sallow and needed more decoration. Still he had learned to make do. It occurred to him now that skin the color of black coffee would have made a dramatic addition to his gallery.

  Once the wings had been completed, he had decorated them with ink, sequins, and jewels. All were exquisite, and the sun pouring through the skylight made them shimmer with unearthly light. They fluttered with every puff of air, tiny motes of dust drifting around them like the very breath of magic. His fairy wings. But then he was a fairy child. Hadn’t Mother told him?

  Everyone always said he was such an exceptional boy. He didn’t understand why that had displeased Father so much. Why had an appreciation of lovely things made him so unpalatable?

  Father had never understood when he built a garden in his bedroom and filled it with the butterflies and dragonflies he had collected. He’d tried to explain it was for the fairies. He hadn’t understood why Father was so upset when he saw the pretty white Persian cat curled up among the rocks. He’d broken its neck cleanly and done a magnificent job of hollowing it out and stuffing it. He’d learned taxidermy by reading about it. Didn’t that show his superior intelligence? “Jesus Christ. Is that Lissa’s cat?” Father’s eyes had turned as hard and cold as marbles. “Get that monstrosity out of here. As for you . . .” He’d never finished what he was going to say. Mother had stopped him, but from that day forward, he could feel the burn of Father’s cold eyes in his back. Accusing. Always accusing. Every time an animal had gone missing, Father would search his room. He had to start hunting in other neighborhoods, an inconvenience at best.

  Mason ran his fingers over the photographs that covered the wall in front of him. “You’d understand, wouldn’t you? Your father treated you badly too.” Mason turned away. “Such a lonely little boy. Such a sad man.”

  He pulled out a new black-and-white photograph from a manila folder. The man in the photo had been walking with his head down, but he looked up just before he climbed into the waiting car. Oh, that delicious face with its lovely cheekbones. Those eyes.

  If the eyes were the window to the soul, this man’s soul was an ocean of pain. And he had captured it. In another life, he might have been a photographer or an artist—though in a way, wasn’t he already an artist? Someday, perhaps his talent would be recognized.

  Mason unscrewed his jar of rubber cement and fastened the photograph to the wall. He stepped back, pleased with his handiwork. So pleased that he hugged himself. “We’ll meet soon. Very, very soon.”

  33

  Danny pulled through the gates and parked in front of the Cohens’ house. Andy’s red cashmere scarf flapped in the wind, a gash of color against his whites. He carried two squash racquets.

  Andy slipped into the front seat. “You didn’t come dressed to play. No matter. We’ll pick up what you need at the pro shop.”

  “I didn’t come to play squash.”

  “My partner canceled on me.” Andy glanced around the Mercedes and winced. “Damn it, Daniel. You’ve become a real old lady. Why the hell are you driving this? Nothing says stodgy better than one of these cruise ships. Well, at least I can warm my ass. Why don’t you trade it in for a convertible?”

  “You have one.”

  Andy laughed. “I only use it for funerals. How ’bout a Jag?”

  “How ’bout you tell me about Michael.”

  Andy fingered the racquets, as if buying time while he searched for just the right words. Funny that. Andy never took care before.

  “What about him?” Andy said at last.

  “Jesus Christ, Andy. Michael was looking at more than restaurants. Didn’t he talk to you at all?”

  Andy gave him a tight smile. “Our relationship was less than cordial. You know that.”

  He should’ve told Andy up front what Michael said that night. “It’s just that I think Michael stumbled upon some kind of sex club operation.”

  “He said that?” Andy’s voice hitched. “Did he have proof?”

  Should he tell Andy about his conversation with Alex? Danny figured it could wait. “I thought he might have discovered something, so I started to—”

  “You started to dig into his death.” Andy pulled a slim, silver flask out of his pocket and downed the contents in one long gulp. “Turn here.”

  Andy led him on a series of twists and turns through the streets lined with stately old Chestnut Hill mansions into the slightly more modest neighborhoods of Mt. Airy until they came to Henry Avenue.

  “Isn’t this the long way?” Danny said.

  “We’re making a little detour. Pull over.”

  Danny maneuvered into a spot just off the road. Andy jumped out of the car and headed for the Henry Avenue Bridge, a massive stone-and-cement structure with graceful Roman arches that loomed about a thousand feet over Fairmont Park. Danny followed reluctantly. From where they stood, it just seemed like another stretch of road. Perspective was everything.

  “Teddy Powell died down there the other day. Burned to a crisp. Who gives a shit, right?” Andy turned and grinned at Danny. “You know, they used to call this the suicide bridge. Does it bring back old memories?”

  Danny looked away. He didn’t need to acknowledge the question. Andy already knew the answer.

  June 30, 1996. His third week at the paper as a full-timer, Danny had been driving over this bridge when he spotted the girl who clung like a spider to the streetlight that protruded from the flat stone railing. Amy Johanson. Age fifteen.

  “How long did you talk to her, Daniel?”

  “Four hours, twenty-two minutes.”

  “I remember that story. All those nice details. You always noticed those little things. The smell of the tar from the road being paved. The humid air. The heat shimmers. You had a gift for seeing the grim and the sublime. Misery and beauty. I used to let you get away with writing that shit because people seemed to like it.”

  “About Michael . . .”

  “Amy Johanson. How did she manage to hang on so long? She must have been part monkey.” Andy patted the streetlight. “I don’t think I could dangle for four hours. How do you really think she felt? Do you think she was scared? Or maybe she was having the time of her life.”

  “It was seventeen years ago!” How could Andy bring him here to mock that of all stories? Did Andy believe for a second he’d forgotten her?

  For those four hours, they had gone back and forth until he thought he had won her over, and then, just at the point when he was ready to pull her in, she had said, “Will you remember me?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ll write about you. Just come in. Let me help you.”

  She’d smiled. “I’m free. No one can catch me now.”

  She’d closed her eyes and tilted her head back then loosened her left hand. She’d held it in the air, and he’d watched the fingers of her right hand release their grip. For half a second, she’d seemed to hang suspended. And then she was gone, and he’d heard the screams of the people at the bottom. He didn’t know what haunted him more: the look in her eyes or the remembrance of her hand cutting through the air.

  Danny had gotten drunk for the first time that night. He’d consumed ten shots of scotch from Andy’s special reserve. Andy had found him vomiting into his trash can.

  Now Danny leaned over the bridge to stare at the Wissahickon Creek. It stretched like a slender, brown ribbon so very far below. If he closed his eyes and listened hard enough, he could still hear those screams, see Amy Johanson’s tiny body mangled on the rocks in the shallow creek. He had thought of her when he saw Jane Doe One and her mangled fi
ngers.

  Ghosts.

  “Your first column, if I recall,” Andy said. “I put it on the Metro Page. You were still working the police beat.”

  Danny felt the pressure of Andy’s hand against his shoulder. It took every ounce of forbearance not to shake it off.

  “Do you remember what I told you that night?”

  Danny turned to him. “You told me if I was going to puke, I should have the decency to do it in my own space.”

  “After that.” Andy narrowed his eyes against the sun, and Danny could see the deep grooves in his face, the sagging pouches of tan skin. Andy looked every one of his sixty-whatever years this morning.

  “You said my job wasn’t to save the world.”

  “That’s right. Get the story. Don’t become it.”

  “Michael came to me,” Danny said.

  Andy pulled him to the side of the bridge where the guardrail was crushed down and crowded into him. “Why didn’t you tell me about Michael?” Andy clamped both his hands on Danny’s shoulders.

  When he looked in Andy’s eyes, he saw sorrow and something else. It was dark and cold and made him want to pull away and run. “What was Michael into, Andy?”

  “It got him killed. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  “No. They kill people.” Danny tried to pull free, but Andy held him fast.

  “They?”

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Andy’s fingers dug into his shoulders. “Tell me!”

  “Michael said something about the Inferno. The night he died, I think he was trying to bring me evidence about a group that operates sex clubs, among other things. They leave human hearts as calling cards, for fuck’s sake. I found the woman who went with the heart in my goddamn bed!”

  “God almighty, listen to yourself. You sound like a fucking lunatic!” Andy shook Danny hard enough to make his jaw snap. “And even if by some fucking miracle what you’re saying is true—” Andy took a deep, shuddering breath. “You can’t bring them back.”

  “Are you saying there’s a connection?”

  Andy dragged Danny over the crushed guardrail into the open space between the end of the bridge and the high shrubs that lined the road. He was on the wrong side of the bridge now where the ground sloped off, and the footing was treacherous. Kids cut down this way into the woods to drink, but one wrong step could send you over the precipice to the creek below. Dry leaves and twigs snapped, ominous in the early morning quiet.

  Andy still gripped his shoulders. He leaned close until his face was inches from Danny’s. “How do you think she felt? Amy Johanson? What would make a fifteen-year-old girl jump off a bridge?”

  “She ran away from home,” Danny said. “No one claimed her for almost six months.”

  “A throwaway kid.”

  The hair on the back of Danny’s neck rose. When he tried to pull away, Andy released him so quickly that he stumbled. He grasped for Andy, but he only succeeded in ripping off Andy’s scarf, which fluttered out of his fingers in a blur of red. Danny hung in the air like Amy Johanson before Andy grabbed his arm at the last second. Andy threw his weight backward and dragged Danny through the dead leaves to safety.

  Danny’s breath came in painful gasps, and he could only sprawl on the ground next to Andy. He stared at the blue sky and wondered what had just happened. At last he glanced over at Andy, who lay heaving for breath. Danny touched Andy’s shoulder. His hand shook. “Andy . . .”

  Andy hunched over, his face waxen. Bits of brown leaves and twigs stuck to his clothes and hair. His red scarf, caught on a tree branch twenty feet below, fluttered in the air. “It’s easy to die, Daniel. Now, get me the hell out of here. I need a fucking drink.”

  34

  He had to get out now.

  Zach stuffed clothes into his duffle. All he wanted to do was get to the other side of the roof and down the fire escape to the street. Just in case anyone was waiting, like that big guy in the black watch cap who’d stood on the corner all day. He tried to blend into the crowd that gathered near the newsstand and pretend like he was just waiting for a bus. Well, he could stand there ’til his balls froze.

  Zach had a back way out. He’d jump the roof to the next building in the back. No big deal, no more than ten feet, and he was in shape. He was pretty sure no one knew about that route. Then he’d cross the bridge to Camden and hop a bus to New York.

  Gone. He’d be gone.

  He saw them take Ivy. Man, that’s what happened when you got friendly with reporters. You got dicked every time.

  He probably should’ve just hit the road then, but he needed his cash. They’d been here before he got back, but they hadn’t found his stash. He figured they thought he already blew out of town.

  He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a Coke can. Things go better with Coke, all right. Zach took a knife and hacked it apart. Jackpot. Out popped a bunch of twenties and the occasional fifty. His lifesavings. He didn’t stop to count. He jammed the cash in his pocket and headed out.

  It was bitter cold on the roof, and he paused to zip up his jacket. The distance looked wider than he remembered. More like twelve, maybe even thirteen feet, but he licked his lips, took a deep breath, and went for it. His feet pounded against the asphalt. Faster and faster.

  Five yards from the edge, he saw them right near the fire escape. That big fuck, Lyle, and his sidekick—Zach never could remember his name. Dark silhouettes against the setting sun, Zach knew they’d been waiting for him the whole time.

  Too late to stop now, and they’d never follow. Slugs. He kicked off the edge. Arms outstretched. Airborne.

  His legs scissored, as if he ran on the air itself.

  Yeah, he was gonna make it. He heard two pings hit a pole to his right. One pop hit to his left, but he could see the top of the building. His head roared.

  Then something burned through his back and exploded out of his chest in a spray of red. It couldn’t be. He was so close. So goddamned close. He could see the asphalt rooftop. He reached out his hands, but he couldn’t feel anything. Only darkness.

  35

  Linda Cohen fastened the gold collar around her neck. Andy called it her Cleopatra collar. He’d bought it for her years ago after they first wed. Before he found it necessary to seek out younger, fresher women. Or maybe she deluded herself. Maybe the women had always been there, and she chose not to see them.

  She was dreading this holiday party. It seemed callous to throw such an enormous gala so soon after her son’s death, but Michael would have said they were acting in character.

  Linda’s eyes filled, and she blinked back the tears. They came too often lately, and she hated self-pity.

  “Damn it!” Andy stood in the doorway to her bedroom. His dress shirt gaped open and he struggled with his French cuffs. “Help me with this, Lin.” He shook his arms in exasperation.

  Linda couldn’t help but smile. Andy was such a child. She went to him, took his hands, and finished with his cuffs. Then she attached his studs, knotted his bow tie, and smoothed down the front of his shirt. Perfect.

  She stepped back, and he gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

  “You’re wearing the collar,” he said. “It still suits you.” He rapped on it and kissed her on the lips this time.

  She pushed him away when the need swelled up. “It still suits me.” Hurt crushed her heart, and she folded her arms against her chest.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Lin. I know this has been hell for you.”

  “Did you talk to Danny?”

  Andy’s eyes shifted away, and Linda’s insides chilled. He didn’t do the one thing he’d promised. She wasn’t surprised. She knew how much Andy dreaded that conversation.

  “Andy, you have to talk to him.”

  “He won’t listen.”

  Linda wanted to punch him. “You’re a coward, Andy. I love you, but you’re a coward.”

  “He’ll walk away.”

  She heard the tremor in
his voice, and the anger drained out. It was replaced by a hollow resignation. Funny that Danny should be one person whose approval Andy craved. Maybe because Andy viewed him as his creation, the son he wanted so desperately. If only he’d loved Michael half as much.

  But wasn’t Andy’s failure her own? Hadn’t she cringed away from her own child, even while she pretended to embrace him? Michael, her wretched Caliban. God had seen her hypocrisy and punished her.

  “If you don’t talk to him, I will.”

  Andy’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded. “I’ll talk to him after the party. I promise.”

  36

  “Welcome to the Four Seasons, sir.” The doorman snapped to attention and smiled like he’d been waiting all night for Danny to arrive. “Enjoy your stay.”

  In the lobby, Danny paused to let the old feelings pour over him. Beth and he used to meet here for those romantic weekends. No one made an entrance like Beth. She didn’t walk; she seemed to glide. He never tired of watching her. They’d order room service and make love until they were spent. And talk. Once he thought they would never run out of things to say.

  A year ago, they were right here at the Four Seasons for the same event, the Cohens’ holiday party. They had been dancing, and the orchestra was playing “I Can’t Get Started.” Halfway through it, Beth had begun to cry, silent tears sparkling on her cheeks, and he’d kissed her and said some inanity or another. He couldn’t remember now. Couldn’t remember why she’d been crying, but they’d gone home and made love for the first time in months with a new sort of gentleness. He’d thought they had reached some sort of understanding because he’d wanted to believe they’d rekindled something that night.

  Now a year later, he stood in the lobby of the same hotel. Pretty weird, considering Andy had almost pushed him off the suicide bridge. But he hadn’t. If Andy was crazier than usual, perhaps he had reason. Maybe Danny needed to find out that reason.