Chapter Eleven
Impiety
Irving hit over twenty sources in a little over two hours including one who could safely query the police department to confirm this watch list business. It was his talent: organizing raw information, analyzing it, and then creating a piece of art from what he found in the clutter. He balanced truth and the public's tenuous grasp of reality like a surgeon exploring a gunshot wound, with a mixture of urgency and agility. Hack was good at what he did, and very few would dispute the fact. Loathsome at times, granted… but in a good way, he would joke. When he had the opportunity to joke. Mostly, his was a solitary life filled with quiet phone calls to employees whom he might meet once in a lifetime if at all. Still, he was a wholly social creature by nature – he had to be in order to juggle personalities, keep discipline, pat heads, and crack them if necessary. Hack was a man of words, not actions, but
his
words had felled the mighty again and again, thoroughly humbling many of those who had moved through life unscathed by much of anything at all. Hack was truly a man to be feared in many ways, and he loved it. That no one would have known his true measure of fame at the local grocery was a fact that clawed at his ego, but it was better to be known as that nice old man in the bow tie that ran the Standard than to be stalked and beaten every week after his column came out across the nation.
He squinted at his jumbled legal pad and spat into his ashtray. Many of his great pieces had come to be in just this way. Single bits of vital inside information would set him on a course of research and digging that diverged so radically from what the public was seeing that he appeared to be the single voice of reason.
People believed his column because Hack was usually right. It was always a bit of a gamble because HUMINT was sketchy at best. The
human
part of human intelligence was all too often… human.
He traced his fingertips over the legal pad as if trying to find the pulse, the cryptic meaning behind all of these scribbles that poured in from around the city. There was information here that came from new kids in entry–level positions, and some sleepers that he'd run for years to get within earshot of the decision makers. He'd found in nearly a half century of doing so, that what he paid his sources was not often the determining factor in the overall quality of their information. Nor was it a reliable way to judge what they would do in the future, and as fucking annoying as that was, it was absolutely true. There were kids who would grow up in his employee, building entire careers within the companies in which they had been 'placed.' They cost a great deal to get into position, but once there… the pay off could be beyond his wildest dreams–and often had been. Big tobacco had fallen hard, and all over a handful of memos that had crossed the right desk at the right time. A desk that Hack had 'owned.' It had cost him three hundred thousand dollars over nearly twenty years to keep that little desk, but when the smoke cleared, he added a zero to that number and wrote himself a check.
The flip side was noobs like the kid he had inside of the PD. Ray had cost exactly five hundred dollars a month to risk his ass as contract labor for the cops. But he was desperate and that made it easy. Ray knew that if he produced, he'd be rewarded in direct proportion to what he dug up. These disposable kids felt immune to the risks that they took with the promise of a lifeline to hundred dollar bills and occasionally they too would hit on something worthwhile.
A link to NSA was likely worthwhile.
He'd make sure that Ray got an extra bone in his bowl this week.
Chapter Twelve
Inundate
Sleep was no longer an option. His mind felt compressed, squeezed to the point where something would split and spill out into his bed. Images rushed up through his mind unbidden and he swatted at them with thoughts of his own: fantasy, reality, possibility. He ached. Everything ached.
He stood and walked over to the window. The parking lot below was filling up with a new shift, mostly young kids drawn to the hospital by the lure of a cafeteria and janitorial jobs, not medicine. They didn’t talk to one another for the most part, just trotted through the cold morning wind with hands jammed down into their pockets.
The room phone started ringing just before six and didn’t stop. He ignored it. His cell came to life too, a few friends, the cops, and then at 7:02 one that he took. It was a call that he’d just been planning.
“Seth?”
“Hi Whit.”
“Seth, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“I know.”
Another pause.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes.”
“Name it kid,” Whit said. He sounded relieved.
“Do you still have your plane?”
“Which one?”
"Doesn't matter."
"Alright, go."
“Could you send one to Durban.”
“South Africa?”
Seth watched a woman in a wheelchair struggle across the lot outside, details jumped about in his mind. “Yeah. I need some time to think.”
“Are you going to be on it or not?” Whit asked.
“No, but that’s why general aviation is general right?”
“Right. Who is it that you don’t want to talk to exactly?” Whit asked.
“Anyone.”
“It’s done. Tonight too soon?” Whit was scribbling something, the inkwell at his desk clinked.
“That'd be fine.”
“Alright.”
“Thanks. Something else.…”
“Of course.”
“Can I come out there? Stay the night?”
“I’ll send the plane." He flipped some pages. "It can be there in an hour, a little more if there’s weather. Can you get to Dulles?”
“Now quite, but close.”
Scribbles. “I'll have them wait for you. Listen… Seth, I know it’s been a long time,” Whit exhaled. "But I
am
sorry.”
“Did you love Mom?”
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation in his father's affirmation, and for some reason Seth felt a couple of seconds of calm for the first time that day. “What would you do if you were me?”
An urgency crept into Whit’s voice. "Talk to someone.”
Seth closed his eyes and just waited. "That’s it?”
“I really don’t know how to answer that,” Whit finally said. “Sometimes there’s a difference between what a man wants to do and what he can do.”
“Maybe.” He hung up.
A tap at the door turned his attention, and when no one had unceremoniously opened the door after ten seconds, he decided that it was likely
not
a nurse, doctor, reporter or other undesirable. Another tap. He stared at the door, ignored it just long enough to pocket his phone, and then inexplicably padded over in his bare feet and opened it.
No one. He poked his head into the hallway and saw a woman walking away. For several seconds he stared at her slowly retreating form in blue jeans and a grey t–shirt, long hair pulled back into a pony. She was looking down at a paper and caught his glance out of the corner of her eye as she turned to the nurse's station. "Oh, hey," she said from several doors away. She hesitated, and then returned. "I thought maybe you'd gone for a walk or something," she said as she closed the gap. Seth just stared, unsure what to make of this ghost. Until she had turned fully, all he could see was Emily. She tugged her reading glasses off, and offered her hand. "I'm Marley Adams."
They shook. "Seth Meek."
"Yes, I know."
The two stood for a few moments studying one another until Seth cocked his head to one side and said, "You… I thought you were… someone I knew."
A smile, "Don't think so. I work for the hospital."
He eyed the frayed collar of her University of Nebraska t–shirt and then slipped back into his room. She followed, but stayed in the doorway.
"So you're what?" he asked as he sat on the side of his bed. "A therapist or something?"
"I am, yes, or something."
Seth rose and walked to his window, "I'm alright."
"No… probably you're not. You may be at some point, but right now you just want me to get the hell out of here so you can be alone."
"I just need some time," he said after a moment.
"Yeah, I know. It took me about seven years."
He grimaced and watched the dawn creeping up behind the long line of black trees that rimmed the parking lot. He focused nearer and found her reflected in the glass. Again it struck him just how much she looked like Em there in the doorway. A minute passed. Two. "What happened in year seven?" he finally asked.
"Two things," she said after a moment, "I decided to get my Masters in bereavement counseling
and
decided to kill myself."
He stayed at the window feeling the fear press down on him again, "Who was it?"
"My parents, my little brother."
"How?" The blunt nature of his questions didn't strike him as the least bit uncouth. On the contrary, the last hours had stripped away pretense and left him with little more than his raw instincts, brittle and angry. And now, turning back to look at her, his intuition insisted that she was genuine.
Without looking away she said, "Carbon monoxide."
Seth waited for her to go on, unsure of what to say, but when it was clear that she still struggled with the memories he said, "We don't have to talk about it, I don't want to either."
She dropped a palm on top of her head, eyes closed, "It's not that. I've always just felt like," she opened one eye unconsciously mirroring Seth, "like it was just… unfair. Not just because they died. And not because I should have been there…. I would have just died too, I get that."
"What then?" Seth asked after several seconds. He looked past her and into the hall, unfocused. When she spoke his eyes sharpened.
"I've read about what happened to your family."
"Makes sense that you would."
"Yeah," she let her arms fall to her sides. "But the reason that I say it is this, and you won't like it."
"Then don't say it."
"Alright." She watched him. Another minute passed.
"Listen Em, I'm okay…." he said finally, and then went on, "I just need time to sort it all out." There was a long silence, and when he finally looked up from his own thoughts he could see the distress in her face.
"What? Jesus, I'm sorry… what'd I say?"
"More than you know. And that's why I'm going to tell you anyway. You have something here that I never did."
Seth gingerly rubbed his eyes, "What could that
possibly
be?"
"A chance to figure it all out."
He stopped, peering at her through his good eye. Seconds ticked away, during which time he struggled to find words that would make her leave. "Can I ask you something?"
"Yes."
"And you'll be honest?"
"It took me seven years, a master's degree, and a miserably failed attempt at killing my stupid self to learn to be honest, Seth," she said with just the hint of a smile again. "I'm not going to start lying on your account."
He stared at her, rewinding all of the words, studying her steady eyes. She wasn't afraid, and it allowed him to go on without the bitterness that he'd first felt. "Do you tell all of your patients about your parents? Is that how you get through to everyone?"
"Nope," she came up off of the doorframe and walked into the room. They stared out of the window together, and somehow this made it easier for them both. "I don't talk about them much actually. It really doesn't get any easier, Seth. Sorry. It's been ten years for me and I think of them every day."
They watched the dawn break over the trees until Seth could actually feel the sun creeping over his fingertips. He flexed them, wanting to
do
something.
"I called you Em earlier."
"Yeah. I really am sorry, Seth. I know that sounds like a line of bunk, but… that's why I do this. I get it." She hesitated, "We're not the same though."
His mind raced through the reasons that they weren't. Carbon Monoxide was such a painless way to go, a quiet dream that passes into a dream. No blood, no shrieking, no hate. Just a soothing passing from life to death, and for a moment resentment welled up on the inside of him. Not for the veiled admission that her experience with death had been easier, but for giving him the first real line of bullshit. He turned to her with angry eyes, but she didn't reply in kind. Instead, he was stopped short, clipping his words before they cut her down. His sudden, revolting anger was replaced in an instant.
"It's easier for
you,
Seth."
His mouth moved, but there were no words. Finally, "I… I don't…."
"You can do something about this."
"There's nothing...."
"No." She turned then, wiping her eyes and drawing one long slick line of grief across her cheek. "No, you can do anything you want. My parents are just dead. Danny's dead. Everyone is just gone. There's no one to blame and it's fucking awful every day."
He stared at her, unnerved by her rawness. This was really
her
, not a university–built counselor court–appointed to find him before dawn. Some things fell into place. She'd come to find him while still in her crappy old work out shirt, without makeup, and smelling like sweat because she was trying to find something in the people that she was assigned to 'help.' In helping him face off against the fear that threatened every waking moment to bring him again to his knees, she was finding herself. Probably this was exactly what drove her to do it again and again, that hope of incremental salvation–the desire to find just a little logic, some reason, something each time she faced her own fears in her patients.
"You're not afraid."
"No. Livid… but not afraid."
"How?" Seth asked, still just staring at her as unabashed as a child.
She collected herself with a long breath and then said, "Fear can't touch you without permission."