Low Life (23 page)
Authors: Ryan David Jahn
Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #Thrillers, #General, #Psychological
‘Why are you here, Mr Shackleford?’ he said again.
‘I wanted to talk.’
‘I’ve already informed your wife that I’m off the case.’
‘That’s not what I want to talk about.’
‘Well, sit down,’ Posniak said. ‘It’s your party.’
Simon sat down in the padded wooden chair that faced the desk, dragged off his cigarette, dropped ash in the tray.
‘Cold in here, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Let’s get to the point. What did you want to talk about?’
‘The night you followed me to the train station.’
Posniak actually blushed.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘research I can do – I’m actually very good at it – but when it comes to tailing people, I don’t know what it is, I have never been
able to do it subtly.’
‘You’re awful.’
‘You’re not here to discuss my trade, are you?’
‘Tell me about Kate Wilhelm.’
‘The conversation would probably go better if you told me about her. I have no idea who that is.’
‘The little brunette you saw me with that night.’
‘What night?’
‘Monday. The night you followed me to the train station.’
‘Night before last?’
‘Night before last.’
‘Little brunette?’
Simon nodded.
‘You mean the photographer, Marlene Biskind?’
‘You saw—’
‘I was there. Then I followed your cab back to the house.’
‘Where a little brunette was sitting on the steps waiting for me.’
Posniak shook his head.
‘There was nobody on the steps.’
Simon tongued at his cheek and looked at the man, trying to figure out why he’d lie to him. If he was off the job there was no percentage in lying – or in telling the truth.
‘Is it money?’
‘Is what money?’
‘Do you want money? Is that why you’re not being honest with me?’
‘Like I want you to pay for information?’
‘So it is money.’
‘Listen, Mr Shackleford. I’m not withholding information. I’m in pain. I want to tell you what you want to know so you’ll leave and I can get back to what I was doing. I
don’t care about scoring a twenty off you.’
‘Then tell me about the brunette.’
‘I’m telling you what I know. There
was
no brunette. You got out of the cab, you walked to the steps, you paused a moment, did some strange little move with your arms like you
were reaching out to grab something with both hands, and then you went into the house. You came out twenty minutes later, stood on the porch muttering to yourself – I don’t know what
about; listening to your conversations with yourself wasn’t part of my arrangement with Mrs Shackleford; she just said she wanted to know where you were at all times – and after a while
you went back inside. An hour or two later Mrs Shackleford came home and an hour or so after that you left again. You spotted me and managed to lose me by getting on the train. You came back some
time later and got your car. I tried to follow you but you spotted me. It was late, I was tired, and in any case there was a transponder on your car. I figured if you wanted to lose me, fine.
I’d catch up with you in the morning. I went home and went to bed. That’s it. That’s the whole night. Now can you please go? I’ve got shit to attend to.’
Simon’s chest felt tight with fear, though he had no idea what he was afraid of. Was it possible he’d hallucinated—
How was he supposed to figure this out when he didn’t even know which pieces of evidence were real and which were hallucinations? What if he wasn’t even sitting here? What if he was
in a rubber-walled room with—
‘I don’t believe you,’ he said finally.
‘I don’t care.’ The guy pulled his hand from his desk drawer and there was a little silver .25 in it. He laid it on his desk with a surprisingly heavy
thunk
, keeping his
hand atop it. ‘I have been more than patient with you. I’ve done my best to tell you what I know. Now I’m telling you to leave. Now.’
After a final drag Simon butted his cigarette out in the glass ashtray and got to his feet.
For a while he just drove around. He knew it was stupid. He should be on the road as little as possible – any place he could be identified was a dangerous place. But he
didn’t know what else to do. He was barely aware that he was driving at all – he was on automatic pilot while his mind tried to untangle this mess – and when it was over he
remembered nothing of where he had gone or how he had ended up in front of the library. He had no recollection of traffic signals or other cars on the road or pedestrians or anything, but here he
was parked on Grand just past Fifth Street. And he was glad.
With a stack of microfilm on the desk to his left and one roll stretched between reels on the reader before which he was sitting, Simon scanned through old newspaper archives.
April or May of last year was when it would have happened. The accident. Jeremy Shackleford had been a professor and Kate Wilhelm had been his student; a late-night car accident involving both of
them might have been controversial enough to get a few inches of newsprint. The papers could milk it for drama – what were they doing together, this man in his mid-thirties in a position of
authority and this college freshman who still lived with her father in Burbank? They could insinuate that alcohol was involved without out-and-out saying it. They could quote anonymous sources who
heard such and such from their own anonymous sources. Or perhaps—
Then he found it.
A picture of the wreck was included with the news story, taken from above. The car was upside-down on top of a tree which the car had, apparently, tipped over with its weight. It was still
burning when the photographer snapped his shot. The piece read:
LOS ANGELES – Famous for dangerous hairpin turns since its completion in 1924, raced upon by famous speedsters such as Steve McQueen and James Dean, and the end of the
line for many who thought they could outsmart it at any speed, Mulholland Drive has claimed one more life, and pushed still another to the very edge.
Two nights ago, April 23rd, at 11:47 p.m., police responded to several reports of a car accident on Mulholland Drive, half a mile from Cahuenga, just past the Universal City Overlook. When
they arrived police found a guardrail had been driven through, and on the mountainside thirty-four feet below an upended 1967 Chevy Nova lay in flames.
There were two people in the car at the time of the accident: Katherine Virginia Wilhelm, 18, a student, and Jeremy Shackleford, 33, a faculty member at Pasadena College of the Arts, where
Ms Wilhelm was majoring in set design. Ms Wilhelm was pronounced dead on arrival at Cedars Sinai, and Mr Shackleford remains in a coma.
Police believe that it was burns which caused Ms Wilhelm’s death but are waiting for a full autopsy. Mr Shackleford was thrown from the vehicle on impact or he would have met a similar
fate.
Ms Wilhelm is believed to have been driving at the time of the accident, but police made no statements as to its cause. They are investigating ‘every possibility’, but have given
no indication as to what those possibilities might be.
Mr Shackleford’s wife, artist Samantha Kepler-Shackleford, came home from ‘a dinner-date with friends’ to find police and reporters waiting for her. She did not know of any
plans her husband might have had to meet with Ms Wilhelm, nor was she willing to speculate as to what the nature of their relationship might be. Immediately after learning of her
husband’s condition, she drove to the hospital to be at his bedside.
Ms Wilhelm’s father, John Wilhelm, did know of the meeting. He said Ms Wilhelm and Mr Shackleford had had an intimate relationship which Mr Shackleford had cut off abruptly two weeks
earlier. A week later Ms Wilhelm learned she was pregnant, and when Mr Shackleford ‘offered to pay for the abortion, rather than do what was right,’ Mr Wilhelm said, ‘she
flipped out. She threatened to tell his wife, and told him she was having the baby whether he liked it or not.’ Mr Shackleford, according to Mr Wilhelm, called the house repeatedly to
request a meeting to ‘discuss the situation’. Ms Wilhelm finally agreed to meet Mr Shackleford at his home in Pasadena. What happened beyond that is known only to Mr Shackleford
himself, who is unable to answer any questions. Perhaps when he regains consciousness, a more complete picture can be painted.
Ms Wilhelm was pregnant at the time of her death. She is survived by her father, John, and an older sister, Karen.
He remembered – a knock at the front door.
He walked to it, his stomach sick. Samantha was gone. She had gone out to dinner with a group of girlfriends, leaving him home alone, and left alone all he could think about was Kate. She was
going to destroy his marriage. He loved his wife. They had a level of comfort with each other that he’d never felt with anyone. And now this little bitch was going to ruin it.
He’d never moved on a student. She’d come on to him. He had fucked up; he should have rejected her. And he certainly shouldn’t have let it continue for a month before getting
up the nerve to end it. But he did not deserve this – her refusing to have an abortion, threatening to make a formal complaint with the college, threatening to tell Samantha. He had told her
he loved his wife, he had told her there was no future in what they were doing – from the very beginning he had told her those things. It wasn’t his fault she hadn’t taken him at
his word. It wasn’t his fault she’d thought she could change his mind.
Goddamn
her.
He grabbed the doorknob – a large reeded faux-Edwardian job that Samantha had picked up at some antique store and asked him to install – and pulled open the door. Kate was standing
there looking sad. Her face was pale and the patches of skin beneath her eyes were dark. She wasn’t wearing make-up. Her hair was lying flat on her head. Her clothes were wrinkled. She only
looked into his eyes for brief moments before her gaze flickered away, darting around the room, lighting only momentarily on any one thing before moving on. He was shocked by how young she
looked.
‘Come in.’
She walked into the house and he closed the door behind her.
‘Do you want something to drink?’
She shook her head.
‘Sit down.’
She shook her head again and just remained there, standing in front of the closed front door, eyes refusing to stay fixed anywhere.
‘We need to figure this out,’ he said.
‘What’s to figure out?’ she said without looking at him. ‘I already told you what I’m gonna do. There’s nothing you can say to change my mind. I don’t
even know why I came here.’
Her arms were crossed in front of her. Her mouth was a hard straight line.
‘But why? I told you there was no future for us – I never lied to you.’
‘You never lied to me?’ She looked up briefly, making eye contact, and then allowed her eyes to drop again. ‘A person can lie with more than words.’
‘But I
told
you—’
Her hand whipped through the air and clapped against his cheek. He tongued the corner of his mouth, felt the beginnings of beard there, and tasted blood.
‘You loved me. You made me think you loved me, and then when you were done you threw me away. Left me with this.’ She glanced down toward her belly.
‘I never loved you,’ he said. ‘And I never pretended to.’
‘You loved me with your body.’
‘That wasn’t love.’
Another slap across the face. He rubbed his cheek. His stomach and chest went tight with anger. He could feel the pink welts rising on his skin.
‘Don’t hit me again.’
‘Or what?’
‘Just don’t.’
There was something defiant in her brief glance at him – defiant and angry. Her mouth twitched. Her hands formed fists. But she remained there, and she didn’t swing again.
He licked his lips. ‘You’re eighteen. You’re a college freshman. You have this child and everything you planned for your future changes. Don’t you understand that?
You’re mad at me now, you want to get back at me now, but in a year you’ll barely remember my name. You’ll move on to other boyfriends, you’ll finish college, and then move
on to a career, and I’ll just be a mistake you made when you were a kid. I’ll—’
‘Stop. Stop talking. I’m not a child so don’t condescend to—’
‘You’re not a child?’ A bitter laugh escaped his throat. ‘That’s exactly what you are. An angry child willing to throw your whole future away on a fucking
tantrum.’
Her hand swung out again, clapping against his face.
He immediately swung back with his open hand, thudding against the side of her head, spinning her around.
‘I told you not to fucking hit me again.’
Simon continued to scroll through newspaper archives. He was confused, and as he read, as memories came to him – memories that were not his own – his confusion
grew, as well as his sense of dread.
What kind of person had Jeremy been?
How could another man’s memories be invading his mind?
He didn’t want to be him any more. He didn’t want to be married to Samantha or have that house in Pasadena, or any of it, not if it meant becoming this person he was becoming. And
that’s what it was, wasn’t it? He was becoming what he had pretended to be.
Simon Johnson had lived a quiet life in which he hurt no one. He had lived a quiet life and each day had resembled the one that came before. He said hello to people and he did his job and he got
too close to no one and he hurt no one because you can’t hurt someone you’re not close to. Simon Johnson had lived a quiet life – but as soon as Jeremy Shackleford broke into his
apartment, everything had changed. Simon had killed him accidentally, but it had changed him, hadn’t it? The coldness he felt over it that matched the coldness of the rest of his life –
and this hot desire for something more that had begun to burn in the midst of it like a single hot ember.
And he had become a monster – he had become Jeremy Shackleford, hadn’t he? Or he was becoming him – was in the process of it. All those things that had been so far below the
surface of his life that they were, for the most part, mere shadows without form – all those tentacled creatures came bursting forth, all those beasts of his low life began surfacing, and
they were ugly, terrible things.