ROBERT BOUGHT the prepaid cell phone at a Wawa convenience store in Delaware, snatched it on apparent impulse off the rack and added it to a gallon of milk, a pack of Winston Lights, a loaf of Wonder bread. He didn’t smoke and he didn’t drink milk, so he tossed those out in a Dumpster near the state border, along with the plastic clamshell that had surrounded the phone, but the Wonder bread he kept. Growing up, Robert Spangler had lived on Wonder bread, slathered with peanut butter or surrounding a thin slice of olive loaf. He still saw himself as that kid, gripping a half-eaten white-bread sandwich in his hand as he ran out to the street to play. Wonder bread reminded him of his childhood, when he still held illusions about the bright promise of his future and the goodness of his own heart.
Both illusions had now been shattered by the way she had bent him to her will. Whatever promise his life once held had withered; whatever goodness once lay in his heart had been twisted dark. All that was left was to learn what he had become in the process. And he had the suspicion that the answer would come from that phone.
The advantage of the prepaid phone was that there were no records to tie him to the number. The only link that existed was between the anonymous number of the phone and the fake O’Malley name on the card he had given to the Byrne boy. If the phone was going to ring, it would be Liam Byrne’s son calling, but no longer did he expect that to happen. It was clear the boy didn’t know anything about the O’Malley file, what was in it or where it might be. Robert had sent him searching, and he had shown up at the single most obvious place, the one place Robert knew the file wouldn’t be found. And then, just to scare the boy off for good, Robert had called the police and told them there was a break-in going on at the law offices of Byrne & Toth.
It had been days now, and the phone hadn’t rung. His gambits had worked as perfectly as he could have hoped, there would be no need for any more violence. Robert Spangler should have been pleased. And yet.
And yet he kept staring at the phone, feeling a strange, almost erotic desire, as if he were a high-school boy waiting for a call from the one girl in school he knew would put out. It was an inexpensive black and silver thing, that phone, decidedly low-tech, but as it lay silently on his desk, lying helpless on its back, he couldn’t tear his gaze from its smooth flanks and delicate keys.
He wondered if it was still working, and so, for what seemed the umpteenth time, he called the number with his other phone, his landline phone. This was a minor breach of his precautions, creating a link in a chain that could lead back to him, but he couldn’t help himself, so worried and excited and fearful was he. After a moment the cheap phone shivered to life and rang with a jangling jangle, and it was as if the call were coming not from his phone but from an independent part of his soul, a frightening part, the part that had grown to like the taste of acid.
He remembered the first time he had tried hot and sour soup at a Chinatown restaurant. It was the most unpleasant thing he had ever tasted, a thick, bilious combination of vinegar and heat. After a few spoonfuls, he gagged and pushed it away. But that night he had dreamed of the soup and couldn’t wait to order it again. And again. And now the vile taste of violence, a contradictory combination of power and subjugation all in service to her iron will, had left him with that same perverse craving.
Answer it,
this frightening part of his soul called into his ear in a voice startlingly similar to her own craven caw. “It’s just the ring from my test call,” he whispered to himself.
Answer it, you never know,
came the reply.
Do it. Now. Obey me. Now.
And in that voice was all that frightened him most. Not that the phone would ring and he might have to kill that boy; killing was merely an unnecessary task he had done before and could do again when necessity reared its fearsome head and stared at him with those ice-blue eyes. What frightened him was the part of him that wanted it to ring, wanted to be forced to confront that boy and hold the boy’s head down in a pool of water as he thrashed and then panicked and then calmed. Or point the gun at the boy’s chest and blast a hole in the boy’s heart. Or to place a gun to the boy’s head and blow his brains across the room. These first two he had done already in furtherance of her will, the third was still only a delicious possibility.
No, no, that was wrong, not what he meant at all. A horrifying possibility. Horrifying. Because this Kyle Byrne was just a boy, an orphan, missing his father, trying to recapture a little of what he had lost. Yearning for love and acceptance, that was all. And who knew better than Robert Spangler what it was like to yearn for just those things, or the price that such yearning could exact? Who could be more sympathetic to what the boy was going through? And yet, still, he couldn’t help but stare at the smooth, dark skin of the phone as it lay on the television console, couldn’t help but hope for the ring that would signal a problem and send him off into the night seeking the peculiar satisfactions of a bowl of hot and sour soup.
Oh, God, what had he become, what had she made of him? He didn’t want to be a monster. He wanted to be the boy running out of his house with a peanut butter on Wonder bread sandwich. That boy played and laughed and dreamed sweet dreams, and yearned only for the taste of Coca-Cola in his mouth. That boy would grow up to have a family of his own, make peanut butter sandwiches on Wonder bread for his son. That boy had possibilities.
But that was before, before she made her leap and started whispering to him that maybe he could follow her path, calling him “Bobby dear,” importuning him, making him an instrument of her deepest desires and her unearthly will. And in the process turning a part of him into some sort of a fiend who gloried in the taste of blood. Except he didn’t feel like a fiend, which comforted him a bit. But then maybe fiends didn’t ever feel like fiends, maybe that was what was so fiendish about them.
That was why the phone had become for him something of an obsession, as it reclined before him, open and easy, waiting for the ring that would force him to rise and send him into action. Its ring would be like the sweetest note of her sweet voice, reaching out to take hold and caress the monster she had created. Would he reject its blandishments and prove his utter humanity? Or would he let the monster respond to her caress, to arise and swell and march into the world to seed its darkness? Only the phone could give him that answer.
So he stayed close, sleeping with the phone resting on the empty pillow beside him, bringing it to the lavatory with him or taking it out to lunch. Or now, in the early-evening hours, sitting across from where it perched on the television, sitting in a deep easy chair, naked and alone, staring at the phone with hope and fear all at once, as if that cheap piece of disposable plastic held the very fate of his soul in its silicon chip. Hour after hour. Sitting. Staring. Waiting for the decision.
He wondered again if the phone was still operational. Maybe it needed to be recharged. Maybe something was interfering with the signal. He couldn’t help himself. He lifted the handset off his landline and redialed the number.
The cell phone rang.
He hung up.
The phone kept ringing.
And ringing.
He dialed again and was sent straight to voice mail.
The phone still rang.
He stood up, stepped to the desk, picked up the cell phone, checked
the number. Not his own. He pressed the talk button. “Hello,” he said. “Hello.”
He listened for a moment, and then, from deep inside, a voice he didn’t recognize slithered like a snake from his throat. “So,” it said, this other voice, sibilant and foreign. “It is you. How nice that you called, Mr. Byrne. Shall we meet once again?”
ROBERT HAD PICKED the spot long before the call came in. Someplace remote and yet still covered with the noisome noise of traffic, someplace that seemed public but in fact could be very private, someplace where the danger was well hidden.
He arrived early, parked on the other side of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, crossed at the light, and walked up the traffic ramp that led to the art museum. It was late enough so that the museum was closed, and an array of shadows covered the landscape. He stayed within the lines of darkness as he climbed down the broad staircase to the arcade flanked with the statues of Revolutionary War heroes and then cut to the left at the wide traffic circle. He walked through the grass and past the great columned buildings of the Fairmount Water Works, closed now due to the hour, and headed to a grand gazebo that rested on the very edge of the Schuylkill River.
The rise where the museum now sat, which used to house the eighteenth-century reservoirs that supplied the city its water, acted as a shield to the rear of the gazebo. The Schuylkill River was at its front, with the sounds of water rushing over a low dam, and traffic on the expressway on the river’s far bank, blanketing the site with a continuous muffled roar. On the left was a bend in the river, on the right a small grove of trees blocking the well-lit but deserted row of boathouses. To Robert’s eye it was an almost perfect place for murder.
He cased the area for a moment more, before slipping into the shadow about a hundred feet away from the gazebo, where he could scan the parking lots and roads surrounding the area. He didn’t yet know how the night would turn, he didn’t yet know which part of himself would take control of the encounter with the young Byrne. He was terrified at the probability that he would be forced to use violence, and thrilled, too, and frightened at the thrill, and ashamed of the terror. The only thing he could trust was the solidity of the gun in his pocket.
He leaned against a wall and waited. And waited. He waited up to the time that had been set for the meeting, and then beyond. He let his sharp incisor bite into his tongue and draw blood as he waited.
A silhouette appeared out of the trees in the direction of the boathouses. It looked to be the right size, this silhouette, but something was wrong. It was making its way to the gazebo as if it were the shadow of a wreck of an old man, hobbled and limping. With a crack pipe and a fresh chunk of escape, no doubt. The meeting time was now long past, and Robert was beginning to doubt that Byrne would show, but Robert still needed to get rid of the old man. He pulled a ten out of his wallet, gripped his gun, and made his approach.
“You want to earn some money, old man?” he said in a hoarse whisper to the hobbling silhouette.
“I’m not that old,” said the silhouette with a grunt. “O’Malley?”
Robert’s hand tightened around the gun. “Byrne?”
“That’s right.”
“What happened to you, boy?”
“I fell into a hole,” said Byrne.
“Be more careful next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“There’s always a next time. Go on to the gazebo. We’ll talk there.”
Robert followed the boy as he limped toward the river. Byrne was taking small steps and was bent at a strange angle, as if his ribs had been savaged. Someone had done a job on him already, which was good. There wouldn’t be any question of Byrne fighting back when things turned nasty. Robert gave his gun a caress as they entered the gazebo. The structure smelled furry and sickly at the same time, as if wet diabetic rodents had pissed on its walls. The din of the river hurtling over the dam grew loud enough to swallow a shot. If a body flipped over the dam, at this time of night it might not be found until it floated by the navy yard at the southern tip of the city.
“Do you have my file?” he said.
“No,” said Byrne.
“But you found it, right?” said Robert as he slowly pulled the gun from his pocket.
“No.”
“No?” He felt a slap of disappointment and a surge of relief all at once. He slipped the gun back into his pocket. “Then why did you call?”
“To talk to you.”
“I said I’d talk only if you found my file.”
“I’m not finding your damn file,” said Byrne.
“But you looked.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“My father’s law office. The office of his shady real-estate partner.”
“What about his home? He was supposed to have taken a file cabinet to his home.”
“I checked out his widow’s house, although you got there before me. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t at any of those places. But in the process of searching, I’ve been arrested, insulted, beaten, and I’ve accomplished nothing except adding a dose of blood to my urine. I’m done.”
“You’re not done. We’re never done.”
“Maybe, but I’m not looking anymore. I’m giving up. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I can’t find the file.”
“I’m disappointed,” he said, and part of him truly was, as he fully released his grip on the gun. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and rubbed it over his mouth, catching a faint whiff of its sweet perfume, oil and cordite. “Really disappointed. But I suppose there is nothing more to be done.”
“But there is. You said you knew my father.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I want to hear about him.”
“I thought I made myself clear. I would only do that in exchange for my file.”
“But it’s not your file,” said Byrne.
Robert coolly slipped his hand back into his pocket and around the butt of the gun. “It’s not?”
“And O’Malley’s not your name. And I’m sick of being lied to and pushed around and kicked in the gut. I don’t care who you are or what kind of money you can make with the damn file. All I care about is trying to put together the pieces of my past. You said you had something to tell me about my father. I want to hear it.”
Robert Spangler felt the pimpled grip of the gun as he stared at the boy in the gazebo, and something broke in him, releasing a sweet line of emotion that dissolved the spurt of fear he had been feeling. This Byrne was just a kid, missing his father, doing whatever he could to get back a piece of him. Robert understood, Robert could feel what the boy felt, Robert empathized. Empathy. This was the one remaining gift of the child within him, the Wonder bread boy, rallying over the dark part of his soul twisted into monstrous form by her will.
“How many years has it been since your father died?” said Robert, his voice suddenly soft, even paternal.
“Fourteen,” said Byrne.
“That’s a long time.”
“More than half my life.”
“And you yearn for him.”
“I guess.”
“It’s understandable. Family cuts deep. And whatever comfort it actually provides for us, we want more and more and always more. But know this, young Byrne. In the end it can only lead to disappointment.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Take my advice, you’d be better off forgetting about your father.”
“I just want to know the truth.”
“Ahh, the truth. What the hell is that, boy?”
“I don’t know, but you told me you have some of it.”
“You don’t want to hear what I have to say. You only want me to say what you want to hear. But trust me when I tell you that you won’t ever get all you want. You’ll just grow frustrated and bitter, and you’ll end up doing things that will kill the best part of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m merely giving you some friendly advice. Be careful what you yearn for, because that which you desire most will either complete you or destroy you, and you don’t get to choose.”
The boy stared at him for a moment, still in shadow so Robert couldn’t see what emotions were playing out on the boy’s face. But Robert had done his best to warn him away from a search that could only lead him back into danger. And in the process of reaching out to help a child whose uneasy place in the world was much like his own, Robert had done something good, and he felt good about it, as if he had turned some sort of corner and was freeing himself from her pernicious influence. He was wondering where else this unfamiliar impulse to do good might lead. He was imagining homeless shelters in the city, squalid villages in sub-Saharan Africa in desperate need of wells. His mind was taking flight on wings of selflessness when the boy finally spoke.
“Fuck off,” said Kyle Byrne.
“What did you say?”
“I don’t need your stinking advice. I’m sick to death of advice. It seems to come from every corner now. Winos I pass on the street shout it out. ‘Get your life together.’ I’ve had enough. I thought you had something to say, but it’s clear you don’t. All you have are your lies and your crappy advice, and I don’t want either of them.”
“Watch yourself, boy.”
“I’m done watching,” Byrne said as he started to hobble away. “Go to hell, Mr. O’Malley.”
The name was spoken with an overtone of derision, and just like that the wheel turned inside Robert Spangler and the Wonder bread boy was upended. Now on top and in control was the dark part, perhaps the truer part, formed from love and devotion and obeisance to her iron will. And this part of him, Bobby dear, saw not a flailing boy searching for answers, a boy whose troubles he could relate to and empathize with, but instead opportunity to savor the taste of acid one more time, if the prodding was right.
“You want to know the truth, boy?” said Bobby Spangler to the retreating silhouette, knowing with the instinct of a brother how his words would affect the boy and hating himself all the while. “The absolute truth?”
The shadow of the boy stopped and turned and faced what Bobby had become.
“The truth is, your father was a rogue of the worst stripe. He cheated on everyone and everything. But there’s more than just sexual peccadilloes to stain his name. He violated his professional responsibilities and sold out his clients and his most firmly held beliefs for a sackful of gold. Which means he was a thief as well as a rogue, leaving desolation and violence in his wake, violence that continues to this day. Laszlo Toth was killed for your father’s sins, and let me promise you, the killing isn’t over yet.”
“You’re lying.”
“No I’m not, boy.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to. You’ll prove it for me. And the proof of everything I say is in that file. Find the O’Malley file and you’ll find your proof.”
The boy didn’t respond. He just stood there, as still as the shadow of a tree, and then turned again and hobbled off.
“Call me when you find it,” Bobby shouted to the retreating figure. “And we’ll have a celebration of the holy truth.”