The Bright Spot Page 24

  Just then, from behind me, came a girlish voice. “You can’t enter the exhibits without a ticket, sir.” It came from the entrance. I peeked around the case of diaries, thinking she must be speaking to me. She wasn’t, but to Stan, who bore down on her with the slightly stiff-legged gait he used for BG. At first, I thought he was just kidding around. She was even younger than Martha. Tiny. I don’t know why she hadn’t been there before. Maybe she stepped away from her post to go to the bathroom, maybe she was late. Too bad she wasn’t later.

  “Sir?” she squeaked one last time, as Stan’s arm swung from the shoulder in a classic Karloff move and sent her flying into a glass case of flintlocks.

  Dumfries didn’t waste any time. You asked for this, I reminded myself. Everything that happens is your responsibility. I told myself to shut the fuck up. Stan bore down on me, his big shoulders grazing the cases and setting them teetering. My right hand, wrapped tight around the pistol grip, my thumb on the safety, loosened, and I let the gun fall into my pocket, raised my hands in the air. I didn’t say anything. It only looked like Stan. He couldn’t hear me, see me, tell me all about the fucking soul, the goddamn free will. He was the monster. And me, I was fearless, a regular Gunga Din, a fucking R2D2. Take me to your leader.

  Stan bent at the waist and hit my gut with his shoulder, hoisting me onto his back in a fireman’s carry without missing a step. I saw stars, but I’d ridden elevators that were a rougher ride. His wrestling ’ware was still humming, apparently.

  He hit an emergency exit, and the door slammed open into a blinding white world. Everything was turned upside down. Snow-covered trees, a line of blue water, gaily painted boats. An alarm blared.

  “BG! Jesus! Quit clowning around. You scared the crap outa me and Lofton here.” It was Gary. I didn’t even have time to warn him before Stan flattened him with a backhand. He looked up at me as I passed over, bleary-eyed and squinting in the glare. “Nick?” His mouth was full of blood.

  Lofton ran screaming back into the building. He’d have the cops here in no time, for all the good they’d do. Agents were probably already on their way to tell them to back off.

  Stan took the gangplank onto the Susan Constant in two strides, dumped me on deck beneath the mainmast, and joined the rest of the crew, working with unnatural speed and singleness of purpose to get under way, slipping the lines, pushing us off with poles, synchronized like fingers on a hand. Not the usual crew of reenactors, this was Dumfries’ handpicked ’ware crew. No period costumes for these guys except the here and now. Their clothes, filthy from weeks of wear, gave clues to where Dumfries had conscripted them in the name of his cause—collecting garbage, paving a road, guarding a military installation, lying in bed, slaughtering chickens. I hoped the regular crew were safely reenacting some coffee and donuts somewhere and weren’t drowned in the James.

  The sails billowed and snapped, and we headed downstream toward the bay at a terrific clip. I had no idea a sailboat could move so fast—or that I wanted it to. The dock was soon well out of sight behind us.

  The wind cut through my coat and stung my face. Several of the crew, their duties completed for the moment, gathered around me, sitting on the deck like Cub Scouts on a field trip to hell. Several wore uniforms. Some still had equipment hanging off them like they were sales racks in a hardware aisle. Some were themselves the equipment, sex workers dressed in tattered kinky. None of them was dressed for the cold, their flesh tinged gray, their eyes sunken. Half-starved. Above us, framed by blue sky, Stan manned the tiller, staring indifferently into the chill wind.

  I stood, and nobody seemed to mind except me and my gut. I’d worked pitched stages, whirling stages, gyrating stages, pretending to be everything from earthquakes to storms at sea to a plummet into the pit of hell (the fundie had a nightmare)—all a lot less steady than this deck. So why should it be so hard to walk the length of this boat? Its creaks and groans sounded like gruesome laughter as I staggered from face to face, eyes to eyes, searching for someone, anyone, whose eyes looked back at me. There was no one.

  Then I found Murphy, slumped against the bulkhead, still in his wrinkle-free suit, split open and torn in several places, but still not a wrinkle. Nor a glimmer in his dark eyes. He’d lost at least fifty pounds. He must’ve caught up with Dumfries months ago and found himself shanghaied. Good Citizen Nick had given him the clues. The Bright Spot had shown up in his life with a little ray of sunshine to light the way. Leave this whole thing alone, Nick. It’s a dead end. Folks want it that way. Understand? No. I didn’t. It wasn’t a dead end yet. I had a final message for Massuh Dumfries.

  I took the gun out of my pocket and crept below. There were no lights, but shafts of sunlight snuck in here and there and diffused through the musty gloom. Motes floated in the beams. I peered into the dark, musty recesses, giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the light, relieved to be out of the relentless wind. I was reminded of my childhood room. I had the old man to thank for that too.

  It was fifteen by eighteen, six beds. Nicholas’ had been next to mine. There was a chalice-shaped light fixture, milk-white glass hanging from a trio of brass chains dead center of the ceiling, the bottom dark with the shadows of moth carcasses. Or maybe they were angels. They cast a shadow on my bed like a big fingerprint. I was tiny, almost nothing, a doll in a dollhouse. Soon the roof would come off, a big face would appear, big hands reach inside to find me, to take me out to play. I’d wake up screaming. When I was fifteen, they made the mistake of moving me to a room with an exterior window. Life on the street proved comparatively easy. I never looked back. I wondered if Dumfries lost track of me then or whether he knew where I was all along.

  Dumfries wasn’t here. Nobody down here but us ghosts. I reemerged on deck to find the whole crew looking at me. Then they all swung their right arms and pointed into the sky. I looked up, half expecting to see an albatross banking overhead. The only thing in the sky was the speck of a cop copter shadowing us at an unchanging distance. I assumed Suzanne was up there with a good pair of binoculars.

  My eyes came to rest on the crow’s nest. The only place I hadn’t looked. Way up there. My heart froze. Yo, ho, ho, you’re fucking kidding me. I had a fear of falling. The boat was pitched over so far, I’d miss the deck altogether if I fell. No broken bones, just freezing water and hypothermia. “This is nothing,” I whispered to myself. “I’ve been through worse shit than this.” You and the Bright Spot both, Nick. Don’t forget him. He played a pirate once or twice, counting that one from Penzance. He could do this. He still had another scene in him.

  We were heading out into the bay, no land on the horizon. How long had it been since we left the dock? How much time did I have to stand here and find my nerve? If I had all day, I might never find it, and I knew I didn’t have all day.

  I ran at the mast and threw myself onto the rigging, scrambling before I could think about it, as if I were on the clock and we were going for a take before we lost the light, this blue sky, this deep blue sea. I tried to remember the sailor’s moves yesterday, but I couldn’t find the rhythm. I felt like a turtle climbing a ladder. But by the time I reached the top, numb with cold, gasping for breath, my chest aching, I was terrified not only by how far down it was, but also by the vastness of everything all around.

  I pulled out the gun, slipped off the safety, clambered up the ropes into the crow’s nest, my heart racing, but there was no one there. Just something that looked like a harness for a very large dog. I held it up. Rolfe! Rolfe! I thought, and managed a grim smile.

  I looked up. The cop copter was louder and closer and closing fast. A line trailed from the copter’s belly like an umbilical cord. I got the gag. I dropped the gun in my pocket and stepped into the harness. The line had a hook on the end to match the ring that nestled up against my breastbone when I cinched the harness tight. The hook swayed ever closer, like a hypnotist’s watch.

  I’d never played Peter Pan or an astronaut or one of those silly flying kung fu masters.
The closest I’d come to flying was auditioning for a musical Superman that never got off the ground—and they only asked me to sing a song. I thought it just as well until I stood there watching the mother ship coming for to carry me home, and I wished I’d had a chance to get the flying thing down when no place more important than Neverland or Metropolis was at stake.

  I couldn’t think about it. I just had to do it. I grabbed the line on my second lunge and fastened it with a clink. “Man of Steel,” key of D, please. I was abruptly yanked into the sky, swinging around like a botched yo-yo trick, more slapstick than superhero. No one bothered to reel me in as we banked wide and low and sped across the water toward the sun.

  COMMUNION

  21

  Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you

  As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

  That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

  Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

  I, like an usurped town, to another due,

  Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.

  Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

  But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

  Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

  But am betrothed unto your enemy:

  Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

  Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

  Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

  Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

  —JOHN DONNE, Holy Sonnet XIV

  THE BEST THING YOU COULD SAY FOR FLYING WAS that it beat falling, the only thing I had to compare it to. Don’t look down was all I knew going in, and about all I took away. I learned more about cold. If you’re cold enough, nothing else matters. If you’re cold enough, it quickly becomes obvious, you’re dead. With the wind-chill deep into the negative numbers, hatless, gloveless, witless, I lost all fear of falling. I would’ve gladly fallen if it’d been any warmer down below. It was probably only five minutes or so before I spotted his smallish vintage yacht bobbing on the horizon, another five before the copter set me on deck and a couple of ’ware hands took me below. I couldn’t have taken another ten. Fortunately, one thing Jimmy and I didn’t have a whole lot of was time. Time alone, just the two of us. Pete and Re-pete.

  My host, my captain, my creator, once again sat across a table from me, looking just as I remembered him months ago when he claimed I must recognize him, know him, do his bidding, change the fucking world. He was wrong. I still didn’t know him.

  “I’m sorry I had to put you through all that,” he muttered, meaning merely the last half hour or so. “We must have privacy.”

  He tried to look patient as I recovered from the cold, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. He kept glancing over my shoulder out the porthole. Probably sooner than later, there’d be boats and planes on the horizon headed our way any direction you looked. Already, I’m sure, satellites gazed down fondly upon us and chanted our coordinates to the faithful who sought to witness such a momentous reunion. The madman meets his twin forty years later. Our devoted audience might be disappointed. I planned something short and violent.

  He’d given me a thin blanket to wrap around my shoulders, hot cider to drink. I hate hot cider. I warmed my hands on it. I shrugged off the blanket. “How am I doing?” I croaked. I begrudgingly sipped at the hot cloying sweetness to clear my throat.

  He tilted his head, furrowed his brow, me playing an old, old man, politely befuddled. “Doing?”

  Part of me just wanted to shoot him and be done with it, but then me being me, I had to say a few words first. “When I met you, you said it was my job to change things. Well, how am I doing? Have I fucked things up enough for you yet? Have I killed enough innocent people? Sufficient property damage to suit you?”

  He compressed his lips. I’d hurt his feelings. The ungrateful child. “I understand your anger.”

  Don’t you have to have a counseling diploma on your wall to get away with saying shit like that? Especially when it wasn’t true. “No. I don’t think so. You don’t understand shit. You think I owe you something, or you wouldn’t be dragging me here. You’re going to tell me how I work now—give me my operating instructions. Isn’t that it? And then I’m just supposed to do it. Right? Isn’t that what you’ve got in mind? You stick me in hell for fifteen years and forget about me. Then—after I somehow manage to bust out and get a life, a wonderful fucking life, mind you—you show up to give me my mission? Fuck you, Jimmy! I don’t think you understand my anger at all.” My hands were warm now, most of the stiffness gone from my fingers. I wanted them in good enough shape to do what I told them to do.

  I reached into my pocket and took out the gun, slipped the safety off, pointed it between his eyes. I couldn’t miss. “Not that it matters. I’m not killing you because I’m angry, though that should make it easier. I’m doing it because, no matter how many people die, it seems nobody else is even trying to stop you. Even worse, they blame your crimes on innocent people, like Ed’s hate killers, just to let you off the hook, so you can keep fucking things up, and you stand by and let it happen. All because you’ve got a plan, a vision, something they want. I don’t know. I don’t care. This is where I get off. I’ve seen enough of your handiwork. I don’t want any job you’d give me. Understand that ? I’m tired, Jimmy. I only plan to witness one more violent death. Yours.” I raised the gun.

  I wanted him to cower, break down, plead for his life, beg my forgiveness. The prick reasoned with me. “Please listen to me. You can’t kill me. Not yet. Not until I’ve told you why you were made, what you, and only you, can do to change things, to right a terrible wrong. Then you may kill me, if you like, once you know the truth. I’m ready to die.”

  Know the truth. You and only you. My finger tightened around the trigger. The barrel shook. “Get this straight: You’re not ready to die until I say so. And here’s the truth: If I even think you’re going to tell me what more I can do for you, I’ll blow your fucking head off. Understood?”

  Dumfries nodded, looking as calm as a glacier. He might’ve been sitting in the park feeding the pigeons, the nice old man with the slaves. Maybe he was ready to die, like he said. I wasn’t sure why, but that made it harder to kill him.

  He said, “I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to endure, Nick.”

  I winced as if he’d prodded an open wound. I didn’t care one way or the other if he was sorry, but he didn’t actually call me Nick. He used the name I once thought of as my real name, and sitting there, hearing him say it, I had a revelation.

  “I don’t use that name anymore,” I said. “Ever. I just realized something: You must’ve given it to me when you dumped me in my childhood home. Is that right? Did you christen me, Jimmy? When you stuck me in that shithole?”

  He grimaced, filled with guilt, sympathy, excuses. “Yes, I did. I know your time there wasn’t pleasant. I’m terribly sorry. There were limited choices, and once you were there, I couldn’t get you out without drawing attention to us both. I was so closely watched, I couldn’t interfere. And then, well ... you managed to get out on your own. If it’s any comfort, they all went to jail not long after you left.”

  I heard. Word traveled in my circles when somebody who actually deserved it did time—like an urban legend or something. “Jail didn’t seem like enough to me. I wasn’t looking to be comforted. I wanted them to go straight to hell for eternity.”

  “You believe in hell, Nick?”

  This time he got the name right. “Yeah. Of course I believe in it. Like you say, it wasn’t pleasant. But it doesn’t matter what I believe. They were the ones who believed in hell and all the rest of it. Seems only right they should be judged by their own rules.”

  An ironic smile blossomed and faded on his sad, wrinkled face. My smile. Another reminder we were playing from the same genetic script. But we weren’t the same. He’d done things I’d never do. At least I didn’t
think I’d do. God, how I hated him. “You played me, used me to lead you to Ed, so you could murder him. Why? He adored you. He was a harmless old man. Why did you kill him?”

  He scowled. He didn’t look particularly penitent. “He was no harmless old man. He deserved to die for what he did. I used you, yes. You have a tracking program, part of your original installation. I realized I could use you to lead me to Ed, if I could trick you into seeking him out. I hadn’t planned on doing it, but when I saw you and Luella pretending to be ... her and me ...” He choked up. It took him a second to get a grip. “I felt everything all over again. I knew it wasn’t real, but it didn’t matter. It was as if I was sitting there again hoping our great plans would work, terrified something would go wrong. But I also knew what I didn’t know then— that Ed had already betrayed us and would murder her within hours, run her down like a dog, because he couldn’t bear the thought that I was going away with her, that I loved her. It was like going back in time. In here.” He tapped his chest hard. He looked like something awful lived in there. “I decided to do what I should’ve done back then. I’d imagined it often enough.” His boney hands clenched on the tabletop, strangling ghosts.

  “Did you see Ed kill her, or are you just playing the scene in your head?”

  Dumfries shook his white head dismissively. Who needs to see when you have the truth? “No one saw it. But he did it, all right. Agents showed him recordings of Galatea and me together. He went crazy. He hadn’t known how we felt. I intended to tell him, but ... You never could reason with him. He steadfastly refused over the years to understand our relationship was impossible. He would never leave me alone. That night, he showed up at the house, completely hysterical. Fortunately, my wife wasn’t home. He and I had words. He said awful things.”

  “Imagine that. I can’t figure out why he gave a damn about you. Sure he was pissed. That doesn’t mean he killed her. He knew she was essential to your plan to end ’ware, right? Whether you loved her or not wouldn’t matter. Ever listen to his speeches? I think he would’ve done anything to end ’ware. Giving you up would be the least of it. He must’ve been longing to be free of you for years anyway. I met your ex-wife, by the way. Do you know what she said about you?”