Dead Souls (22 page)

I turn the card over, find the back white, pristine. How does he
do
that?

“Renata thinks . . .” I start to say. “Well,
we
think maybe it's not written all at once. That it comes in stages. Otherwise, you wouldn't go. Right?”

He struggles with that for a moment.

It's 1:00 a.m. We have six hours until Jeb has to be at the Transamerica building. Six hours to focus, to at least get a de
cent proposal for a double deal. It's better news than I thought. But I need Jeb clear. Unobstructed. Confident.

“Jeb,” I say softly. “Jeb, I think I know a way to get us out of this.”

“The double deal?” His voice is choked.

I nod.

“But Alejandro, he said—”

“Alejandro made a double deal himself—that's why he's never been worried.”

“No,” he says. “No, he . . . how do you . . .”

“This isn't a conspiracy theory. This isn't paranoia. I talked to him and he flat out admitted it.”

For a moment, I think this is too much for him—his whole body trembles, his eyes dilate, and I think his mind might snap. So I take everything very slowly, very calmly. I have to conduct him through the next steps, none of which he's going to like.

I CROSS OVER
to Justin's side of the bed, grab a half-full bottle of VOSS and pull the oxycodone from my pocket. I shake four oblong blue pills out into my palm.

“Take these,” I say.

He stares at them like they're toxic, poisonous. Even without Jasmine's clairvoyance, I can tell what he's thinking—is this some kind of self-serving gambit, should he trust me?

Looks like we're all playing paranoia now.

“All right, just take two. But you need to relax and it will help with the pain. If we're going to get through this, it's together. We need each other.”

Something settles on Jeb's face, a weary resignation that
ages him. He takes the water from me, uncaps the bottle, holds out his hand for the four pills, swallows two of them, thinks about it, then takes one more.

Justin hates those pills, only takes a quarter tab if the pain is so bad he can't think.
If I don't have much time left, I want to be present for it.
It occurs to me that maybe I should have kept a few oxycodone back for myself—I don't know if, for the next few days, I want to be present either.

Tears bead at the corner of Jeb's eyes, but he checks them.
Good soldier
.

Are you crying?
My father's voice.
You want something to cry about? I'll give you something to cry about.

For a moment it feels like there are several versions of me standing in the room—a toddler, a young girl, a teenager, a whorish twenty-year-old wearing leggings and an oversize man's shirt. What is it that comes through time, anyway? Because when I see Jeb's face, I see him as a five-year-old, a pubescent boy, and the older man he might still become. And in his face I see my own, that lost look when I got to the Greyhound bus stop and looked up at the destinations, just words on a sign, no meaning.

“And we've got to do something about Dan,” I say. “He can't stay here, not now.”

“What? Where is he going to go, how can we—”

“I wasn't planning to stay.” Dan's voice from behind us, deep and scratchy.

We both turn, surprised, to see Dan suddenly cogent, reaching for Justin's gray knit utility shirt, which I'd left on the floor.

Jeb's shoulders relax, just a bit—Dan's about six months
older and was always the alpha in their friendship. “Dude, you're back.”

Dan quickly slides the shirt over his head and looks furtively at the window, like he's purposely cutting us out of even the periphery of his vision. I recognize the emotional distance. My usual heart
d'jour
.

Jeb takes a tentative step toward him. “Dan?”

Again, Dan doesn't answer and reaches for the jeans instead. Pulls them on—too long in the legs, so he rolls them.

“I'm cutting out,” he says.

Jeb stops, looks like he's been slapped, and slapped hard. “What do you mean you're—”

“I mean I'm
going
.” Dan stands upright, also looking older than he did just a day before. “I've done my . . . I've done it. And now I don't know, maybe I can . . . I don't know. Go somewhere and forget about it.”

“But I
saved
you, man. I got you
out
of there . . .”

There's not even a hint of an internal struggle as Dan crosses the bedroom over to the window with its view of the fire escape and the solid brick wall of the neighboring apartment complex. Twists the window's lock. And to my surprise, it slides open for him easily. It hasn't budged since I moved in three years ago.

“What about your phone?”

Dan ignores us. We're the past, ancient history tinged with bad juju. He's probably thinking about what's next—hitching a ride maybe, trying to get out of Oakland before the police connect the dots and his face gets plastered on the evening news too. Cutting off the wounds that are still open, bleeding.

“It'll just lead them to me. You know that.”

Jeb reaches his burned hand out. “Dan . . .”

For just the slightest fraction of a second, Dan pauses, and I worry that he's changing his mind. But then without a word, a glance, he slips out the window and onto the fire escape, another second or two before he quickly drops down the ladder and out of sight.

Sound of traffic outside, the steady pulse that never ends in a city.

And I'm left with the heartbroken shell of a boy. An asset, ripe for exploitation.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

M
Y IMMEDIATE PROBLEMS LINE UP,
a series of dominoes
.
While I'm hoping the Ambien keeps Justin asleep, there's no telling how it will affect him, the boy in my room is in no physical or mental state to leave, and there's the small matter of finding out if my double deal is even possible. Plus, only six hours left.

And I can't shake the sense that I'm not driving this, that I'm being led, missing something obvious. The window opening, it bothers me. It's never been that easy to open before. The sudden electric outage. If I learned anything from Bernays, it was how to uncover the hidden layers of psychology behind every damn thing made by man in the world, the subtext no one's supposed to see. How a coalition of the seemingly unrelated can lead to an impression, to a view, to perceived reality.
All of us, rats in a maze, thinking we're actually going somewhere
.

I approach the window, slowly push it closed. It slides in the grooves easily, like it's brand-new.
Scratch was here
. He didn't just deliver the manila envelope, slide it under the door—he came inside and saw this room, my things. The six-
pack of Guinness in Alejandro's red refrigerator. The six-pack of Guinness missing from mine.

But how on earth would he know I'd go to Alejandro's? I didn't tell anyone, I didn't even know myself I would go there until after I'd talked to Saul.

Jasmine can read thoughts
. Could she read mine from that far away? Can she read them now?

“Jeb . . .” I say, looking out in the alley below, watching the shadows carefully. “We need to clean you up.”

No answer. I turn and find Jeb trembling—his breath is rapid, shallow, his skin looks cold and clammy. He won't be very useful if I let him fall apart. “Jeb,” I say, taking an authoritative, parental tone. “Take a shower.”

Jeb looks at me, incredulous. Holds out his burned arm.

“A bath then, you'll feel better. You can't be walking around covered in blood.”

This seems to be a thought that requires extra processing, so I leave him to it, walk to the bathroom, turn on the light, and pull back the shower curtain, half expecting Scratch to be behind it. But no, it's just the same old porcelain tub, dull and scratched, with a long rust stain by the drain that looks like blood. I start the water running, warm but not hot.

When I return to the bedroom, Jeb is trying to peel off his shirt, but his hand, it's obvious it hurts too much, even with the drugs. So I reach under the mattress and take out a pair of scissors. An old habit I've never been able to shake off, keeping something sharp and pointy close by.

The aching look he gives me, like I'm planning to stab him with it. Like he's wishing I
could
somehow. End it, his misery.

I ignore him and start with the back of his T-shirt, slicing it
cleanly up the middle, and then continue cutting along the top of his right sleeve. That side slides off with a sigh. Next the left sleeve, and then the fabric falls and puddles on the floor. Jeb reaches for the top button of his jeans, but no, his fingers are too swollen, so I do this too. When I've pulled them down to his ankles, he steps out of his pants, wordlessly heads for the bathroom, and I follow him to make sure he doesn't slip, settles in okay in the bathwater. While he steps in the tub, testing the water's temperature with his foot, I grab a clean facecloth with the vague idea of cleaning his wounds. But when I turn back around, Jeb is sitting in the water, facing his reflection like it's an enemy, clenching his jaws tightly. Holding so much in.

“I don't know what to do,” I say, placing the facecloth gently along the side of the tub. “I'm going to go look it up . . . what's best for chemical burns.”

Smallest of nods.

I remember once, at the New Parish, Jeb said he wished he could fly away, up through the atmosphere into orbit, pass out from the lack of oxygen, and then become a cold satellite himself, alive but not alive. It reminds me of Alejandro's watch story.

He slowly edges his back down into the tub until the water covers his chest, neck, and most of his face. Blood, not his, clouds the water, blossoming into an opaque pink.

A QUICK PEEK
through the door—Justin is, thankfully, still asleep on the couch, although the thought nags that I'd assumed he was asleep before when he was just pretending. But that 10 mg of Ambien is no joke.

So instead I close the door between the bedroom and living room, quietly flick the lock, just to be on the safe side and an easy enough thing to explain away—
I didn't want to wake you, didn't realize the door was locked
 . . .

It's astonishing how much easier they're coming to me, these lies. Almost every single thought I have now comes with a twin, a way to direct perception away from the truth.

Dan's cell rests on the bed, just next to the scorch mark left by Jeb's card. There's a video on it that I don't want to see, but need to. The double deal is important, but so is a narrative that will keep me out of prison after. Dan was right—the police will use the phone's GPS to track him, and I have to explain why it's here.

So I reach down, pick it up. Find the icon for photos, then a still of a white Santa beard stamped 8:45 p.m.

I take a deep breath.

A slow zoom out reveals Dan sitting in the center of the plaid couch, Santa cap jauntily askew, fake white beard and mustache giving the video a pornish feel. Soft music in the background, more fifties Christmas hokum,
“Toyland, toyland, little girl and boy land. While you dwell within it, you are ever happy there
.
”
And inside the getup, like the suit is wearing
him
, is poor Dan looking utterly terrified, hands gripping his britches.

The camera continues to zoom out and now another layer is added, a true David Lynch touch, because there are about twenty girls, all wearing footed pajamas, Santa caps perched on their heads. They sit on Dan's right, his left, at his feet. All captured, captivated, enthralled.

His dark talent grown stronger.

The camera continues to zoom, revealing the coffee table and an array of glass beer mugs, each almost filled to the top with some kind of clear liquid. I have a bad feeling I know what it is.

One of Dan's hands releases his suit pants, and, struggling, like he's trying to force it back down, his hand beckons a girl at his feet to come closer.

A blonde scoots forward, hair flat as a Barbie's. Her face is alight, obviously thrilled to have been chosen for this special treatment, and there's a tangible ripple of envy among the others.

Dan reaches out with his hand, unsteadily cups her chin. Watching a dead soul in the act of completion causes a sublime shiver, like I'm standing on my future grave, looking at my name chiseled in my future tombstone.

His arm, emboldened, like it's operating under a separate consciousness of its own, helps raise the girl up and settles her on his lap. His right leg starts to quiver. The girl though, she doesn't notice his discomfort, and instead, looks inordinately pleased. Drapes a long, lovely arm around his shoulders.

“Have you been a good girl this year?” Dan's voice, the words forced. He glances nervously at the camera, at whoever is standing there for confirmation that this is right, this is what he's supposed to say.

Someone else is in the room, prompting him. Alejandro? Scratch?

The girl crosses her feet and arches her back slightly, provocatively. “No, Santa. I've been a very, very,
very
bad girl.”

Again he glances at the camera. Appears to be listening to something said, although we can't hear it on the camera mic.

He swallows. “Santa punishes those who have been naughty. Sneaky little children.”

A murmur offscreen.

Dan tries for a smile, fails miserably, and then leans into the girl, kisses her on her berry-red lips, a kiss she returns, hungrily. Entranced, she reaches down to rub his thigh. Even with the poor-quality cell video, I can see his shadow begin to darken, but what's truly disturbing is that it spreads to the blond girl on his lap, across the couch, wraps around the legs of the coffee table, then up, around and through the other girls gathered around him, until the whole room is thick,
pregnant
with his shadow. It's like one of those sped-up videos of mold spores spreading and eating decaying matter.

Everything I touched, I corrupted.

Dan reaches down and picks up a mug. He hands it to her, raw despair visible. She takes it, smiling.

Another inaudible murmur off-camera. The lights flick off, then on.

He tucks a strand of her blond hair behind her tiny, perfect ear. But it's impossible to understand
why
, because the Dan I know isn't capable of what's coming next. Is he acting of his own free will? If he wanted to stop, to bolt out of the house, could he? Or are we somehow puppets when Scratch comes to collect, no way to refuse?

The true gravity of my double deal hits then—if I give him access to the millions of souls I think I could trick, what in God's name will he ask
them
to do? What could it trigger? It's not hard to imagine the magnitude—everyone is just waiting for an acceptable reason to cleanse the world of everyone who doesn't think like them, a calamity we're long overdue for. How
much would it take to launch a new dark age, twenty-first-­century style?

Or has it already begun? Guantánamo Bay instead of the Tower of London, chemical warfare instead of Greek fire, anthrax instead of bubonic plague, cops shooting unarmed children, and young people running through the streets of Iraq holding severed heads as trophies in the same age we've identified the Higgs boson particle. All of it captured, recorded, and shared piecemeal on cell phones. Horrific images pressed into our brains willingly or unwillingly, every terrorist group or sadist trying to top the one before to light up the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Christ, think about how much worse the Inquisition would have been with Twitter around.

Dan leans in closer, whispers something in the poor girl's ear. The damned lens zooms in, capturing a soft glaze of her eyes, like she's in a deep trance, sleepwalking.

Without warning, she holds the mug to her lips, drinks, and then she starts to scream horribly, at least until her lower jaw melts away. Then there is just a gurgling, choking sound as her voice box dissolves, the acid eating through her skin from the inside out, and
still
she keeps drinking until her mug is empty, acid pouring down her neck, burning flesh. The mic does pick up the sizzle as the acid eats through her stomach, staining her pajamas with a yellowish, bloody smear.

Dan is visibly shaking, pale. The dying girl on his lap slumps into herself. Her body begins to seize.

Another murmur off-camera.

He squints his eyes tightly, presses his hands against his ears. “No, no, no, no, no, no.”

Again, something inaudible. Is it the words themselves, do
they somehow have power over us? Because he opens his eyes, nods at one of the other girls, her long brown hair tied back from her face in a tight ponytail, and she reaches for a mug.
Oh God, is she going to drink too?

Scratch uses us to wreck the very things we cherish most, rendering the rest of our lives unlivable. Gary shot up his daughter and her classmates publicly, destroying the cherished bubble of his perfect 1 percent life; Mike and Ellen butchered their children. But there's a subtheme here too, something to do with Christmas, or God at least, like a mad revenge grindhouse flick.

Dan gently pushes the dying girl off his lap, stands, and settles her into his spot on the couch—something strangely tender, almost chivalrous in the gesture. I imagine when the public sees this, everyone will blame some kind of drug use, because the reality of what comes next is impossible to comprehend.

Dan steps out of frame—more whispered instruction—and then the ponytail girl, holding the mug unsteadily—a splash hits the carpet, which, off-camera, sizzles—without closing her eyes, without any thought or hesitation at all—throws the cup of acid in her own face. Her skin smokes and melts like butter.

The video ends with her screams.