The Conspiracy Club (8 page)

“An alias,” said Doresh, enunciating slowly. “You don’t think we thought of that.”

“I — I’m sure you did. It just occurred to me.”

“Anything else occur to you, Doc?”

“Just that.”

Silence. “Anything else you want to tell me, Doc?”

“No, that’s it.”

“Because I’m listening,” said the detective.

“Sorry if I bothered you,” said Jeremy.

“Tyrene Mazursky,” said Doresh. “It’s funny you should mention her because I just got back her final autopsy report and have it here in front of me. Not pretty, Doc.
Another
extremely not-pretty. Kind of a Humpty-Dumpty situation.”

The detective let the message sink in. No way to put her back together again . . .
another
. . . the same had happened to Jocelyn.

It was the closest, since the murder, that he’d come to being informed.

He nearly screamed out loud. Took a breath, said, “That’s horrible.”

“Tyrene Mazursky,” said Doresh. “Turns out, she was married to a Polish guy, years ago. Commercial fisherman, one of those guys who goes out on the lakes and seines and hauls in whatever comes up. Also, he was part of those crews that go looking for submerged logs — hundred-year-old logs that fell off the barges. Fancy maple wood, they use ’em for violins. Anyway, this guy was a big drunk. He died in a capsize a few winters ago, left her with nothing. Even before that, she was whoring a little, what with him being gone all the time, drinking away his wages. After he died, she got serious. About her profession, that is.”

Hearing Tyrene Mazursky’s life reduced like that froze Jeremy’s heart and his mouth. His hands began to tremble.

He said, “Poor woman.”

“Sad story,” Doresh agreed. “Guess we both know about that, huh? Have a nice day, Doc.”

Jeremy placed the phone in its cradle. Imagined Tyrene Mazursky working the docks. Waiting for her ship to come in.

Jocelyn. Working the wards, waiting to see Jeremy that night.

Men do it to women. That’s what it is.

He sat there bathed in sweat, sour-mouthed, watching as evening darkened the air shaft outside his window.

Finally, he picked up the phone again and punched an extension.

“Chess,” boomed a familiar voice.

“It’s me, Arthur. Turns out Friday’s fine.”

L
ate Thursday, Jeremy found a handwritten message in his box, forward-slanted script, black ink on substantial blue rag paper, the liquid elegance of a fountain pen.

Dr. C:
Friday, 9:30 p.m. I’ll call with details.
AC

On Friday, serious rain arrived, frigid, unannounced, relentless as a military assault. Overtaxed storm drains backed up, and some regions of the city were assailed by filth. Auto collisions played a drumbeat on tight urban skin. The air smelled like mercurochrome. The docks at the harbor grew slick with accumulated slaps of oily lake water, boats rocked and sank, and unshaven men in knit caps and waders retired to dark bars to drink themselves senseless.

Jeremy’s car fishtailed all the way to the hospital. Angela phoned him at shift’s end, sounded exhausted.

“Rough day?”

“A bit rougher than usual,” she said. “But I’ll try to be sociable. If I fall asleep, you can prop me up.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy told her. “Something came up. An evening with Dr. Chess.”

“Dr. Chess? Well, then go, of course. He’s brilliant. What’s the topic?”

Jeremy had hoped for disappointment. “Something erudite. He wasn’t clear about the details.”

“Have fun.”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

“Why don’t you call me when it’s over?”

“It could be late,” said Jeremy. “Dinner doesn’t begin until half past nine.”

“I see . . . how about Saturday, then? I’m not back on until Sunday morning.”

“Okay,” said Jeremy. “I’ll call you.”

“Great.”

Jeremy saw his patients and filled the rest of the day with futile attempts at writing. Two hours were wasted in the hospital library, running searches of behavioral and medical databases, as he looked for backup articles he knew didn’t exist. Rationalizing his folly by telling himself that scientific research moved at a quirky pace, you could wake up one day and find out everything you’d believed in was wrong. But the facts hadn’t altered in six months: If he wanted to produce a book — even a chapter — he’d have to go it alone.

When he returned to his office it was 8:40
P.M.
, and his box was stuffed with mail. He sifted through it, found a handwritten note in the middle of the stack: the same black cursive on blue paper.

Dr. C:
It’s best if I drive tonight.
A.C.

He phoned Arthur’s office, got no answer, tramped over to the main building and down to the basement, where the path lab was housed, found the entire department locked up, halls dim and silent, but for the mechanical whine of arthritic elevators.

A few doors down, the morgue was closed as well. Arthur had left. Had the old man forgotten?

Jeremy climbed the stairs to the ground floor, entered the cafeteria, and poured the day’s eighth free cup of coffee. He sat, drinking slowly, in the company of worried families, sleepy interns, jaded orderlies.

When he returned to his office, Arthur was waiting outside his door, dressed in a black, hooded slicker so long it nearly reached galosh-encased shoes. Puddles spread beneath rubber soles. The slicker was beaded with rain, and Arthur’s nose was moist. The old man had left the hospital and returned.

The hood covered Arthur’s face from eyebrow to lower lip. A few white beard hairs straggled above the latex seam, but the end result was near-total concealment.

How fitting for a man of his profession,
thought Jeremy.
The Grim Reaper.

“Cheers,” Arthur said. “We’ve got ourselves a torrential situation. I do hope you’ve come protected.”

Jeremy collected his briefcase and his trench coat. Arthur regarded the wrinkled, khaki garment with what might have passed for parental concern.

“Hmm,” he said.

“It’ll do,” said Jeremy.

“I suppose it will have to. You don’t object to my driving, do you? Under the best of circumstances our destination’s a bit out of the way. Tonight . . .” Arthur shrugged, the plastic hood rattled, rain sprayed.

The Reaper goes fishing,
thought Jeremy.

Then:
What would he use for bait?

The interior of Arthur’s Lincoln was warm and sweet-smelling, upholstered in a dove gray felt that Jeremy had only seen in much older cars. The engine started up with a purr, and Arthur backed out smoothly. Once they were out of the lot, Arthur sat up straight, big hands resting lightly on the wheel, eyes shifting from windshield to rearview, glancing at both side mirrors, then back on the road.

Alert, but that gave Jeremy meager comfort. The storm had reduced visibility to a few yards. As far as he could tell, Arthur was driving blind.

The old man aimed the Lincoln downtown but turned left just short of the high, distant twinkles that meant skyscrapers. Jeremy tried to follow Arthur’s route but quickly lost it.

East, north, east again. Then a series of brief turns that addled Jeremy completely.

Arthur hummed as he drove.

When taillights flickered up ahead, the old man seemed to use them as navigational aids. When darkness dominated, and the windshield was a matte black rectangle, he seemed equally at ease.

Raindrops pelted the Lincoln’s roof, a frantic steel drum concert. Arthur seemed unmindful, kept humming. Relaxed — more than that,
enjoying
the impossible conditions. As if the Lincoln was set on a track and the drive was no more daunting than a bumper-car circuit.

Jeremy looked around. From what he could tell in the darkness, the Lincoln was spotless. Nothing on the backseat. Before they’d set out, Arthur had unlocked the trunk, revealing freshly vacuumed gray carpeting, an emergency kit, and two umbrellas bracketed to the firewall. He’d deposited Jeremy’s briefcase next to the kit, closed the trunk gingerly.

Hum, hum, hum.

Jeremy felt himself nodding off. When he jolted awake, he checked his watch. He’d slept for just over a quarter hour.

“Good evening,” said Arthur, jovially.

The rain was coming harder. Jeremy said, “What part of town are we in?”

“Seagate.”

“The docks?”

“My favorite part of town,” said Arthur. “The vitality, the sensory stimulation. The working people.”

“The working people.”

“The spine of any civilization.” A moment later: “I come from a long line of working people — mostly farmers. Where did you grow up, Jeremy?”

“The Midwest. Not this city but not far.” Jeremy named the town.

“A mercantile community,” said Arthur. “Any farming in your background?”

“Not for generations,” said Jeremy.

“A farm can be an educational place. One learns about cycles. Life, death, everything that falls in between. And, of course, the transitory nature of it all — one of my fondest memories is helping to birth a calf. A rather sanguinary process. I was seven and terrified. Petrified of being swept away in some great flood of bovine issue. My father insisted.”

“Did that inspire you to become a doctor?”

“Oh, no,” said Arthur. “If anything, quite the opposite.”

“How so?”

Arthur half turned, smiling. “The cow did it all by herself, son. I was made to feel quite redundant.”

“But you became a physician anyway.”

Arthur nodded. “Just a few more blocks.”

S
mells of fish, fuel, rust, and creosote told Jeremy the docks weren’t far. But no water in sight, just rows of stout windowless buildings, stripped of architectural fancy.

Arthur Chess had driven to an oppressively narrow street lined with what appeared to be warehouses. The rain turned the pavement to gelatin; the Lincoln’s headlights were pathetic amber smears that died before they hit the asphalt. No stars, no moon, nothing to use as a navigational tool; the force of the storm induced myopia.

The Lincoln turned onto another unlit strip and reduced its speed. Jeremy saw no blocks, no sidewalks, just one plain-faced building after another.

A sanguinary process.

Predatory bugs. What did he really know about the old man? What had he gotten himself into?

Arthur continued a while longer, glided to a gentle stop, and brought the Lincoln to a rest in front of an unmarked, two-story cube. All Jeremy could make out were slab walls and a narrow door topped by a roll-out awning. Under the awning a bulb in a frosted glass case cast a fan of light. The illumination was of a hue Jeremy had never seen before — pale blue, purple-tinged, clinical.

The moment Arthur switched off the engine, the door opened, and a small man stepped under the awning. The blue light reached his waistline; below that, he was dark, nearly invisible. The illusion was that of truncation.

The half man’s arm extended, an umbrella snapped open, and he hurried to the rear of the Lincoln. Arthur pushed a button, the trunk popped, and when the small man circled back to the driver’s door he held a pair of umbrellas.

He held the door open for Arthur, stood on tiptoes to shield the much taller pathologist, and got wet doing so. After handing Arthur an umbrella, he came around and opened Jeremy’s door.

Up close Jeremy saw that the man was closer to Arthur’s age than his own, and no taller than five-five. Thin dark hair, parted and slicked, topped a round, puckered capuchin face of a type seen on some types of dwarfs. Bright black eyes picked up light from somewhere and sparked back at Jeremy.

Under the eyes, a lipless smile.

The man wore a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie. Once again, he stepped out into the downpour so that Jeremy could benefit from his umbrella. Jeremy moved closer, wanting to share, but the little man stayed out of reach as they ran for the door.

When Jeremy stepped into the pale blue light, his eyes were assaulted by pupil-popping fluorescence.

A tall figure filled the doorway. Arthur was already inside.

The monkey-faced little man waited until he’d passed. Soaked, but still smiling. The three of them stood in a small, white anteroom backed by a white door. The ceiling was acoustical tile. The bright light spewed from an industrial fixture that resembled an elongated waffle. No furniture, no odors, no chill. But for specks, splotches, and pools of gritty water dispersed on the black linoleum floor, a thoroughly inorganic place.

“Laurent,” said Arthur. “Thank you for providing shelter.”

“Of course, Doctor.” The little man took both umbrellas and placed them in a corner. He took Arthur’s coat, then turned to Jeremy.

“This is Dr. Carrier, Laurent.”

“Pleased to meet you, Doctor.” Laurent extended his hand, and Jeremy shook what felt like a knob of knurled oak.

“The others are here,” Laurent told Arthur. His suit, like Arthur’s, was beautifully cut but of another era. Blue-black gabardine, over a white-on-white shirt. The shirt’s collar was fastened by a gold pin. His tie was true black satin. Tiny, narrow feet were encased in cap-tipped black bluchers so highly polished the rainwater beaded on the leather and rolled to the floor.

“Lovely,” said Arthur.

“Everything looks wonderful, sir.” Laurent turned back to Jeremy. His cheeks were flushed. “You’re a lucky young man.”

Arthur pushed open the white door and held it as Laurent scooted forward. The panel closed behind Jeremy with a swoosh, and his eyes adjusted, yet again. Dimmer light. Soft, amber, caressing light.

Before him was a long hallway paneled in a golden, bird’s-eyed wood. Linenfold paneling, hand-carved, was topped by notched edging. Beneath his feet was carpeting of a deeper gold, plush as the seats of Arthur’s Lincoln. The ceiling was high, domed plaster, veneered with pale gold leaf.

Jeremy thought:
A bird in a gilded cage.