Anamnesis: A Novel (14 page)
Read Anamnesis: A Novel Online
Authors: Eloise J. Knapp
“I will.” I took the keys and stashed them
in my pocket. “I think that’s all I need. You’ve been so helpful, thank you.”
Lenora stayed standing. It felt like a cue
to leave, so I stood. “When is the memorial? I’d like to come. I’m sure I can
find a caretaker for the day to watch Richard.”
I glanced at Richard, his chest still
rising and failing with forced breath. “Well, it’s still a ways away. We’re
working on the details, but as soon as I have a definite date, I will give you
a call.”
“That sounds fine,” she said. She escorted
me to the front door and watched as I put my shoes on. “Come by any time. It
was nice to have some company.”
I opened the front door and stepped
outside. After what I just did and discovered, I needed a cigarette. Lenora’s
request made me feel even guiltier. I’d have to add manipulating and giving
false hope to an old lady to my resume of shitty things I’d done. But the lie
was still going and I told her I’d come by again when I had the chance, all the
while knowing I’d never set foot in the house again.
The storage unit was somewhere in Everett.
I used the time on the bus to consider if I wanted to go there, ultimately
deciding I had nothing better to do. That small hope of finding a clue,
anything, was always there. Now that I knew for certain I’d lived with Andrew
Cole, there was a more compelling reason to keep looking into it.
Olivia was mostly right in the parking
garage when she said I was in this for myself. I was in it for myself, but also
because I wanted to do right by Skid’s memory. I needed to be the person he
thought I was. Going to the storage unit in hope of finding more information on
myself was what I
should
be doing.
I used a map at the transit station to
find Broadway and walked there. Everett seemed more alive now, with people
returning from work. Cars filled the streets and pedestrians, though not as
many as Seattle, populated the sidewalks.
A half hour later, the sky was growing
dark and rain picked up just as I arrived at the storage unit facility. It was two
stories and painted an odd combination of purple and orange. The front of the
building sported a clock tower. It was self-service with multiple entrances
depending on which block you needed to get to.
I wandered a while before I found the C
aisle, which stretched down the entire length of the building. Most of the
units there had narrow doors, though there were a few larger ones. My footsteps
echoed. Energy saving lights turned on as I approached.
C12 was one of the bigger units. I
unlocked the padlock looped through the storage unit’s built in lock, then the
next. The door clattered as I pushed it up. There was no light inside the ten
foot square room, making me rely on the hallway light as I took in the
contents.
There was a bedframe and mattress propped
up against one wall. A couch and desk were against the other, two empty
bookshelves behind the couch. In the center resided stacks of boxes and some
black lumpy garbage bags I figured might have clothing. It was strange to think
no one had been in the room since Andrew died. In a way, it was a bodiless
tomb. An entire facet of a human being stored in one place.
I took a deep breath, then entered and
opened the box closest to me. It was full of textbooks. Music mostly, then math
and a few art history. I heaved the box to the side, feeling more confident,
and searched the next one. More books. One contained board games, the other
action figures. Andrew seemed to be a bit of a nerd. Between talking to his
mother and going through his things, I began to feel like I knew him.
Fuck, I did know him. I just didn’t
remember.
Dust was thick on all the boxes, making me
sneeze and cough as I sorted. Eventually I sat down on the couch, sending
another plume of it up. I realized how exhausted I was. The day seemed never
ending and I still had at least an hour and a half left before I’d be back at
my apartment. When I first left the Cole’s house, I felt a sliver of optimism.
Now that was fading. I knew more than I did, but I didn’t see how it would put
me any closer to finding out who was behind Whiteout.
I needed something to take the edge off.
Just something small. I fished around my pockets for the plastic baggie of Xanax
I’d brought along in case things got rough. My body was already relaxing as I
popped the round orange pill in my mouth and dry swallowed it. I worked up some
saliva to wash it down, then leaned my head back on the couch.
I saw myself smiling next to a beautiful
blonde girl.
At first I thought I accidentally took LSD,
then I realized it was a worn photograph taped to the underside of one of the
shelves on the book case. I reached up and touched the picture, still unsure if
it was real. I picked at the tape and pulled it free, sitting straight as I
studied it. It had been folded and unfolded many times based on the fine,
crackled lines throughout it.
An odd feeling came over me, similar to
when Olivia gave me William Grigg’s missing person report. The guy in the photo
was me, but at the same time wasn’t. It wasn’t a version of me I knew, yet
there I was. I tipped the photo closer to the light from the hallway for a
better look. I wore a tan knitted hat and a heavy winter jacket. I looked
young, perhaps seventeen at most. It was snowing, flakes gathering on my
shoulders and the fuzzy ball that topped my hat.
Next to me was the girl I sometimes saw in
my dreams. Not the redhead, but the blond. Her hair was long, to her waist, and
she wore pink earmuffs. Her eyes were a vivid, piercing blue. She wore no
makeup but had a fringe of thick black eyelashes, her cheeks flushed from the
cold. The side of her face was pressed against mine.
We were happy. God, we looked so happy. I
would’ve given anything to be back in that moment. To even
remember
that
moment.
I turned the photo around. On the back the
name
Sarah B, the only one for me
was scrawled.
Her name was Sarah B. At one point, I
liked her. Maybe I even loved her. She might’ve loved me back. A painful jolt
went through my heart. I would never know those feelings again. At least I had
it once.
I folded the picture and tucked it into my
pocket, then searched the rest of the bookcase. There was nothing else. Had I
hidden the photo there? Why would I have done that? To keep it from Andrew? Or
someone else?
With newfound motivation to search
Andrew’s belongings, I started on the boxes again. There were six left, stacked
in pairs against the wall, and two guitar cases. I grabbed one of the cases by
the handle and lifted it up. The case wasn’t closed properly and the guitar
tumbled out of it, hitting the ground.
“Shit,” I muttered as I went to pick it
up.
My hand closed around the neck. I felt
dread overtake me, strong and sudden, even against the haze of the Xanax. I
flipped the guitar over, a beautiful light colored instrument, felt the metal
strings beneath my fingertips. Some part of me told me to stop, begged me not
to look at it. It wanted me to turn away.
I set it face up on the couch and ran my
hand across it. I looked at the scars on my hands, noticed what a perfect match
they were to the strings.
And then it came back to me, fast and hard
like it was happening real time. The memory of killing Andrew, locked away for
almost a decade, finally came back.
I know the someone. His name is Andrew. I
try to bring up his face but it’s blurry in my memory. I can’t make out all his
features. His eyes and mouth melt into dark shapes on his face. Everything I
know about him is hazy, like I’m trying to recall a dream but the more I do the
farther it slips away. Maybe his name isn’t Andrew. How did I get here?
I was sleeping. I’m under the comforters
of a twin bed but I don’t remember how I got here. There’s a green digital
clock on a nightstand next to me that reads 9:34am. Next to that is an orange
prescription bottle with a name on it. Ethan Knight. That doesn’t sound like my
name. I’m not sure what my name is.
Instinctively, I reach out and snatch the
bottle. Shake it. Empty.
My mouth is dry. I taste something
strange, not quite metallic, lingering on my tongue and cheeks. I sit up and
push away the covers, swing my legs over the bed. My head feels bulbous and
sensitive.
The same thought keeps repeating in my
mind; where am I? Where am I?
I feel like I should know the place but I
don’t. It’s a memory. I’ve been here before but not really. The tuning won’t
stop and I wish it would so I could think clearly for a minute. I crush my
hands against my ears but I can still hear it. Note after note. None of them
quite in key.
When I stand I have to brace myself
against the wall before I open the bedroom door. Outside Andrew has guitars
around him, his back to me at the dining room table. It’s too fucking early to
tune guitars. I wish he would stop. I can’t think. My vision is pulsing now.
Andrew is bigger, then smaller.
I’m sweating. I feel it dripping down my
forehead. There’s a tightness in my chest that won’t go away. It’s going to
cave in. My breathing quickens. Andrew’s body is distorted. His limbs are long.
The tuning is grating. I think my ears are bleeding. He’s trying to kill me.
Suddenly I’m walking across the room.
Andrew is asking me what’s wrong, what’s wrong. There are strings like cobwebs
littering the table. I grab one and wrap it around my hands. He’s moving away
from me but I still hear the tuning. That’s how I know he’s a monster because
he makes the noise without actually doing it. His mouth is opening and closing
but I keep hearing the tuning.
The strings cut into my hands. I’m
bleeding.
I rush the monster, knocking him to the
ground. He gets on his knees to crawl away. I jump on his back and wrap the
guitar strings around his neck. I pull hard, as hard as I can. If I squeeze
hard enough it will be quiet and I’ll have a second to think. Fuck I need to
think. I need quiet so I can remember why I’m here.
The monster stops moving. His eyes are
bloodshot, his swollen tongue pushing out of his mouth. The strings cut so far
into his neck I can’t see them anymore. I unwrap the wire from my own hands,
feel the sting of pain as they dislodge from my skin. I’m crying now, sobbing
as I look at the body. What have I done?
Time blisters. I’m lying on the couch
shaking when two men come into the apartment. I don’t know how long it’s been.
They call me Ethan—that must be my name then—and tell me it will be okay. I
tell them I need more pills, because that’s important I think, but they say no
more of those.
“Jesus, just give him some Whiteout until
we can get this cleaned up.”
I want to kill them but I’m shaking too
hard. I can’t even stand.
“We aren’t authorized to do that, they’re
trying to get him off it. We need to take him back.”
They’re going to take me somewhere. I need
my picture. What picture? My head lolls as I look around. There’s something I’m
missing. I can’t leave without it.
“For fucks sake, give him a benzo then,
he’s having a panic attack!”
They give me three oblong orange pills.
They say it will help me calm down and shove a whole bottle of it into my
hands. Soon the world is going dark. They wash the blood off me and lead me out
of the apartment. Everything is getting fuzzy. I’m feeling warm. I want to feel
like this forever.
The shrill ringing of my phone broke me
out of the memory. At first I wondered why my eyes weren’t working. I opened
them and saw nothing but darkness. Then I realized I was lying on the ground in
the storage unit and the automatic lights had turned off. I couldn’t remember
the last time I was in that kind of stillness. It was dark and unmoving, like I
was floating in a void.
I sat up and found my phone. The faint
glow illuminated the boxes around me. I didn’t let my gaze settle on the
guitar. Not after what I’d just remembered.
The number wasn’t one I recognized. I hit
the green answer button. “Who is this?”
“It’s Trisha. Can you meet?”
I looked around myself, dazed. I didn’t
know how long I’d been out, or if there were even any buses left to Seattle. “I
don’t know. I’m in Everett. I’m kind of fucked up right now. What’s going on?”
Her breath was ragged on the other end.
“If we’re going to do this, we need to do it tonight.”
Mustering my energy, I stood up and felt
my way to the hallway. As soon as I stepped out, the lights came on and blinded
me. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. My body was exhausted, like
the memory had taken everything out of me. For the first time, I didn’t want a Xanax.
The men who came for me played God, tossing me pills with no concern for what
it did to me. They gave me drugs like parents put their toddlers in front of
the TV. Whatever you had to do to shut them up.
“Do what? Fuck, Trisha, I don’t even know
what you want.”
“My guy, the supplier, is home alone
tonight. His family is overseas. If we’re going to get him, there won’t be a
better chance than this.”
“Get him? You mean kill him?”
She was quiet.
“Dammit, I never said I was going to kill
anyone.” Anger boiled up inside me. Trisha’s assumption pissed me off. The
adrenaline was a balm for the pain and I let it overtake me. “In fact, if you
don’t tell me what you know, I’ll tell Donovan you’re still pulling tricks and
want to escape him. How do you think that will go?”
“Jesus, E, really? Who do you think he’ll
believe when I say you’ve been coming on to me for years and were jealous when
I wouldn’t run away with you?”
I wasn’t sure. But she was right. It came
back to me being dependent on Donovan. Trisha picked the right person to try
and manipulate. I had nothing beyond my drug dealing and what he offered me.
She had power and information over me and that made me hate her.
Trisha didn’t need to screw me to get me
to do what she wanted. So many times before I recognized she wasn’t the same
girl anymore. This time the realization settled. The Trisha I used to know was
dead.
The truth was, I’d been played. Now it was
up to me to turn it into something else.
“Okay. What do I do?”
“I’m going over there around twelve
tonight once my shift here ends.” She gave me the address of a suite in
downtown Seattle. “Call me at this number when you get there. If you still have
Whiteout, bring it. You’ll have him, I’ll have my money, we’ll both be happy.
Got it?”
I sighed. The night would never end. I
needed a few hours to process the fact I’d strangled a completely innocent
person with my bare hands. It looked like I wasn’t going to get that.
“I’m on my way. Trisha, if you fuck me
over, I’m going to end you.”
I
t was past
midnight by the time I arrived at the suite. I’d been unconscious for an entire
hour in the storage unit, then the rest of the time was spent navigating the
nightmarish public transportation system. There I experienced more of my least
favorite thing; agonized waiting. Plenty of time to think about what I was
going to do, what the worst thing that could happen would be. The time I’d been
craving to think about Andrew was available, but I found myself avoiding it.
Underneath it all I felt something I
typically didn’t dare allow myself; hope. Hope that I could finally get answers.
An affluent guy living in this part of Seattle, supplying Whiteout? He’d know
someone else in the hierarchy. Maybe
he
was the person behind it all. I
could get the answers I wanted and end everything once and for all.
I stopped at my apartment to get my gun.
It was a last minute decision that added time, but I felt better knowing I had
it with me. Then, finally, I was standing outside the building. The spotless
glass front door was locked. The reception desk inside was unattended. I got
out my cell and dialed Trisha. No answer. A minute later, a text arrived.
Down in 5.
The gun dug into my hip. I tugged my
jacket down to cover the gun more, then thought of how obvious I looked.
Fidgeting, glancing around. The epitome of suspicious.
Beside me, the door chimed and whooshed
open as Trisha came out. I hadn’t seen her in regular clothes for years. She wore
no makeup and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with a baseball cap. She
sported jeans, sneakers, and an over-sized Seahawks championship sweater. Not
what I expected for a dancer having a seductive night with a rich guy. She
spared no pleasantries when she saw me.
“Do you have any Whiteout?”
Of course I did. I’d been carrying it
around with me since the day Donovan gave it. “Yeah. Why?”
“Give it to me. I need it.”
“He already knows you’re here. He’ll
assume you’re the one that ripped him off.”
“Then he won’t remember you.”
It seemed too thoughtful of her, but it
was true. I pulled the little plastic bag out that had all the Whiteout,
including the one I’d taken from Skid’s tent, and fished one out for her.
“I want all of them.”
I took my hand back, clenching the baggie
tightly. “No. You don’t need all of them.”
“I do. I’m sure I’ll need the rest of them
at some point. You want to get answers from this guy or what?”
Giving them to Trisha was better than
selling them to random people on the street, I supposed. I surrendered the bag.
It was easy to convince yourself when you had no options.
“Great. You’ll wait outside of his place.
I’m going to slip this to him and I’ll get you once it’s working.”
“What exactly is the plan here?”
Trisha led me to an elevator where she pushed
the up button. It opened right away, still on the first level. It was granite
and dark hardwood inside. Fancy.
“It takes about ten minutes for the drug
to work. He likes to be tied up during sex. He’ll be gagged.” She hit the top
floor button. “He’ll probably get scared fast, then he’ll tell me the code to
his safe. I get all my money and go. You can do whatever you want with him.
Interrogate him or whatever.”
Something felt off, though I couldn’t
pinpoint the specifics yet. There was something in the way she talked about him
that made me feel uneasy. Too much of the pronoun game. Who was
he
?
She’d yet to say his name once in either of our conversations.
We stepped off the elevator on the
twenty-sixth floor and went to the end of the hallway. I hung back while Trisha
knocked on the door gently. Chastity opened it. She wore red lipstick that was
smudged on the right side of her mouth. A long men’s robe covered whatever she
had—or didn’t have—on underneath.
Trisha handed Chastity the pill. She shut
the door without saying anything and slipped back into the suite. Trisha
beckoned me over and I stood with her outside the door.
Maybe my expression gave me away, but
Trisha leaned over to me and whispered, “Don’t worry. This is the guy you want,
Ethan. I swear. He’s the one that gave Whiteout to Donnie.”
I itched for a cigarette as we waited. Wasted
time checking my phone twice, watched as twenty minutes crawled by. What would
Olivia say about this? Would she have known who lived here in this apartment,
told me it was a waste of my time? I wondered if she would have a better plan
of attack. Mine hinged on the mercy of a stripper. Some part of me wanted to
find a critical piece of information and give it to Olivia. Make amends. I
wasn’t sure how I could go back after our fight unless I had answers.
Trisha’s face was tilted down. She stared
at the gaudy printed carpet beneath her. I studied her. She was going through
so much to escape Donovan. She was risking her life, as well as Chastity’s and
my own, to get out. Olivia risked her life trying to find answers. It seemed
like anything worth knowing or having also brought the chance of a quick death.
A thought struck me. “Is Donovan that
bad?”
“Not any worse than the rest of us,”
Trisha said. “Not when you really think about it.”
Chastity opened the door, startling both
of us. She flashed me a smile then turned to Trisha. “I got him tied up really
good. He thought it was Molly.”
“Let’s get this over with. Put some
clothes on, Chastity.” Trisha pushed past her into the suite.
We entered the apartment together.
Chastity closed and locked the door then disappeared down a hallway immediately
to the right. The place was nicer than anything I’d seen before. Like Kaylee’s,
the living space was open and connected directly to the kitchen. The floors
were a grayish stained hardwood, counters white granite. The lights were dimmed
low, reflecting gently off modern looking furniture that was all leather,
glass, and metal. There were champagne glasses and empty bottles on the
counter. Pieces of lacy yellow lingerie and a sparkling red dress were
scattered in front of the living room couch.
The outer wall of the suite was all
window. A thick mist covered most of the city, blurring lights. Even my
favorite cliché landmark, the Space Needle, was obscured.
I followed the sound of grunting down the
hall into a spacious master bedroom. Bedding was rumpled on a king sized bed
with most of the comforter sliding off onto the ground. Our mark lay on it,
both wrists tied over his head onto the wrought iron headboard above him. A pang
of anxiety ran through me as I pictured Kaylee’s body instead of his. My breath
caught in my throat. I shut my eyes but that made it even worse, so I opted to
stare straight at him.
He was in his mid-forties at best with a
pudgy stomach that jiggled every time he moved against his restraints. There
was a tattoo over his heart of an old woman. It was distorted now, the victim
of body hair and stretch marks. Fingernail marks, still slightly red, trailed
down his chest and shoulders. There was a bona fide ball gag in his mouth. Spit
dribbled from it as he tried to talk. I jogged my memory to see if I’d seen him
in newspapers or his face plastered on buses. He seemed familiar, but no name came
to mind.
The room was huge, almost the size of the
living room. There was a sofa facing the bed and a bar built into the wall. It
reminded me how badly I needed a drink.
Trisha sat on the side of the bed talking
to the mark. In the bathroom adjacent to the master bedroom, I saw Chastity
pull jeans and a plain hoodie from a backpack. Her shapely curves disappeared
as she dressed, the mirrored walls reflecting every angle of her.
“Chuck, listen to me. Listen to me,”
Trisha said and slapped him lightly on the face. When he didn’t comply she hit
him harder, enough to snap his head to the side. “I want the code to your safe.
If you give it to me, we all get out of here safe and sound. If you don’t, I’m
going to have my friend here cut your dick off. You got it?”
Tears streamed down his cheeks. He looked
at me, his eyes searching and begging all at once. I shrugged.
“Open the closet over there and push back
the clothes in the center.”
Following orders from a stripper? What was
the world coming to? I gritted my teeth and did as she ordered, walked over to
the closet and opened it. I had to do my part and then Chuck would be mine. All
the pretty fabrics inside oozed money. Pinstriped suits, stiff-collared dress
shirts, and silk ties. It smelled like leather and fine cotton. I shoved
everything aside, revealing the metal door of a safe.
“The faster we get this over with, the
sooner you can be on your way,” Trisha told Chuck. “You got me?”
Chuck nodded, his double chin turning into
four. Trisha smiled and reached around his head to unhook the mask. It left
angry red indents all around his face where it’d been secured. Chastity didn’t
joke around.
“Chastity,” was the first thing out of his
mouth. He had a thick accent that reminded me of Donovan’s. It was definitely
Russian. “I thought you loved me!”
I couldn’t suppress my snide giggle.
Trisha glared at me, but her face melted quickly and she rolled her eyes
instead, the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. Chastity came out of the
bathroom, fully clothed, and smiled at Chuck.
“I love you, baby. I love your money
more.”
He looked at each of us one by one, then
wailed loudly. Trisha’s hand snapped out to hit him again. “This can go real
easy if you just tell us the code.”
“Okay, okay. 49852,” he muttered.
I punched in the code. A little light by
the handle flashed red. I tried it one more time just in case.