Necropolis (30 page)

“For a submissive, you ask a lot of questions.”

“I’ll stop if you want,” she said. The twinkle was back. I knew what she was after. I supposed it was fair trade. “I had a girlfriend who liked to be spanked a little during sex.”

Sharon pointed to the sideboard and the picture on it. “Like that? From behind?”

I cleared my throat. “Anything else?”

“Oh, much more. But we don’t have time, do we?”

“No.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “I was tied onto a saltire.”

“The X-shaped cross?”

“Yes. St. Andrew the apostle was martyred on such a cross, feeling he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord. The saltire faced the door to the execution chamber. I saw that poor man go in. Dr. Smythe.”

“What time was this?”

She wrinkled her nose, looked skyward. “About seven, I think. Before the place got crowded.” She smiled. “It really cooks on the weekends.”

“He went in alone?”

“That’s why I noticed.
Acquiesce
is not a place you go to be alone.”

“Anyone else in the room before he entered?”

“No. And the doctor was the only one afterwards.”

“How long were you in that position, facing the door?”

She rubbed her wrists as though remembering sweet past pain. “A couple hours.”

I couldn’t hold back a snort. “This is recreation?”

“I was being softened up. Primed.”

“By whom?”

“Vince, one of my partners. He was wearing a hand-tooled leather hood and chaps.”

“A boy to bring home to Mom.”

“Depends on the mom.”

“Did you hear anything from inside the room?”

“Moaning,” she said.

“And you didn’t tell anyone?”

She laughed. “Mr. Donner. Moaning is to be expected.”

“Right.”

She shuddered. “Then the shrieking started. That kind of screaming, you don’t expect. It was horrible.”

“Different from what you’re used to?”

“Oh god yes.” She ran her hand through her hair again. “Mr. Donner, you have to understand, we know where the line is. This is for pleasure. The sickos and the sadists, the ones who are there to do real damage, they’re quickly weeded out.” A pause. “For the most part.”

“But once in a while…”

“When the screaming started, the place emptied in a hurry. We all knew. Someone got past the radar. Someone went too far. No one wanted to be around when the cops showed. Most of us have respectable lives, lucrative careers.”

“You were still tied up?”

“No one would stop and untie me. People were freaked.”

“What happened then?”

Sharon opened her mouth, then closed it. She carefully placed the drink on the end table and wrapped her hands around her knees. When she spoke, her voice was quieter.

“Queenie and Bumpy ran down the staircase. Queenie released me while Bumpy forced the door open, took a step in, and saw the body.”

“Smythe was dead?”

A tight nod. “Bumpy came out looking like he’d seen a ghost. Told Queenie to call the police.”

“Did Bumpy ever go deeper into the room? Out of sight?”

“I know what you’re thinking, but no. He just stood in the doorway, far enough in to see the electric chair. He couldn’t have killed Smythe, not without me seeing it.”

“And that’s it?”

A pause. Then another tight nod.

She was leaving something out. Her delicate little hands, still clasped, were trembling. She looked at the floor, suddenly unwilling to meet my eyes.
 

I rubbed my brow, feeling old. “Thanks for talking to me about this. I know how upsetting it can be.”

“It didn’t happen to me.”

“It doesn’t matter. Witnessing violence can be as traumatic as being a part of it.”

“I just heard screaming.”

“While you were bound and helpless. The killer could have come out and seen you…”

“But it didn’t, Mr. Donner.” The slate eyes were still perusing the hardwood floor, but with a desperation now. Looking for a way out, ready to chew off her own paw.
 

I cocked my head. “It?”

There was a silent moment. Then she said, “What?”

“You said, ‘
it
didn’t.’ Not ‘
he
didn’t,’ or ‘
she
didn’t.’“

Her whole body clamped tight, the barricades snapping into place. “I’m not a linguist, Mr. Donner. So if there’s nothing else—”
 

She would have pulled off the terse dismissal. But when she reached for her glass, her hands were still shaking. The drink went off the table and shattered on the floor. Sharon jumped to her feet with a cry. Her architects were well-trained. Nobody rushed in. Sharon bolted to the sideboard, poured another double and drained it in a single motion. I stood, slipping some cushioning into my voice.

“During trauma we can see things that don’t make sense. Violence doesn’t fit into a neat little box.”

“Get out,” she said.

But her eyes were desperate, full of need. For guidance. For control.
 

There was only one way this was going to play out. “Tell me, and I’ll help,” I said, my voice hardening.
 

Her lips trembled. “I said leave.”

I walked to her. I took a fistful of her hair, forcing her head back until her wide eyes were on mine, her white neck exposed.
 

“Tell me, Sharon,” I said, gravel into my voice. “Now.”

A soft moan escaped her. My fist tightened in her hair. “Call me a bitch,” she said.

“No.”
 

“Please.”

“No.”

She let out a noise, somewhere between a sob and a hiccup. “It was a shadow,” she said in a whisper. “A shiny shadow.”

Her wide eyes searched my face for signs of belief. I didn’t have much I could give her. I walked to the sideboard, poured myself some water from a siphon. It tasted metallic.
 

“So something did come back out.”

“Through the door. From inside the chamber.”

“You said the door was closed.”

“It was.”

“You’re saying this shadow came
through
the closed door?”

“That’s what I said.”

“After the shrieking started?”

“Yes.” She shuddered.

I’d hoped that whatever she’d been holding back would be relevant, but this? This could be anything. Flotsam, a random spike of imagery from a terrified mind. “Sharon, maybe it was a reflection or something. From all the lights, the strobes.”

“No.” Her face had drawn together defiantly.
 

“You’d been tied up for hours. You were exhausted, or in pain, or delirious.”
 

“No!” She was adamant now, angry I didn’t believe her.

“Alright,” I said, pressing my fingers to my temples. “A shiny shadow. I don’t know what that means.”

“It was like an oil slick, but in motion.”

“A moving oil slick.” I had a sudden flashback to my dream and the human-shaped shadow that dragged Elise into the ground.

“You think I’m crazy,” she said.
 

“Maybe,” I admitted. “Anything else?”

“It had a human shape.” She put her hand over her mouth. The vibrating transferred from her lips to her hands. It looked like she was frantically patting her mouth. “Arms, legs, head. An outline, like a shadow, but not on a surface. It went through the air.”

“Like a ghost?”

“No, it—”

“Not like a ghost?”

“I don’t know, Jesus! When you picture a ghost, its edges are blurry. This wasn’t like that. It was sharp, defined.”

Then I remembered Maggie. I’d seen her become translucent. A wrecking ball swung through my ribcage.

“As it went past me, I heard it.”

“It made a noise?”

“Like a… whispering chuckle. An awful sound.” Bright points of fear silvered her pupils. “It went past me, out. Then the house lights came on.”

“No one else saw it?”

Abruptly she started to cry, softly. “No.”

I walked back to her, pushed back a lock of her hair, smoothing the burgundy tresses I had pulled. “Sharon. Maybe it’s time you found a new hobby.”

She sniffled. “Don’t I know it.”

***

They stood staring at me.

“Probably a drugged-out whacko,” said Armitage.

“No.”

“C’mon, Donner.”

“She wasn’t a junkie,” I said.
 

“She believed what she told me. Where that leaves us…”

My spine ached from sleeping on the cot. I never thought I’d be fondly remembering the monstrosity in my Park Slope bedroom.
 

I drained the tea. I had an abrupt urge to smash the chipped cup. I really wanted a beer. I rolled my neck, listening to the grinding glass. I hadn’t thought about booze lately. A radical cure—just die a couple times, ha ha. It was wishful thinking. It wasn’t gone, just in remission. Eventually the cravings would jump from their ambuscade and hit me jackhammer hard. And it would be when I was most vulnerable.

Muffled Ender voices drifted from above:
 

“There are signs so that we may know.

There is time so that we may change.

The dead rise as witness;
 

Witness the incorruptibility of the spirit.

What proof need you now?

When God’s finger moves among us

For all to see?”

Nearby, Max and Tippit were playing cards with two Enders. A tensor lamp cast yellow gloom over the table. It was a strange sight, the shaved monks’ heads and deep burgundy robes, sitting across from the Guido suits and craggy jowls. Both jowls and heads had five o’clock shadows. Max, unsurprisingly, had a superb poker face. Not Tippit. Right now, everyone was folding because he looked like the proverbial feline that consumed the canary. I found myself smiling. Then frowning. Attachments were dangerous.

Maggie had been watching the game, too. I flashed her a smirk and indicated Tippit’s expression. Instead of returning my amusement, she flinched like she’d been stung by a scorpion. She looked away, suddenly preoccupied with straightening her blouse. What the hell?

I slung a question mark at Armitage, who’d seen the strange reaction, too. He rolled his cuffs down and ambled over to her.

“What’s up, Mag?” he asked. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Maggie,” he said again. She examined the cracks in the concrete.

“A straight flush!” crowed Tippit.

“Imagine that,” muttered Max. He tossed down his cards.

I laid a hand on Maggie’s shoulder.

“A shiny shadow,” she murmured.

“Sharon’s story?” I said. She looked up at me. Her eyes were so wide I could actually see nanoswarms in the irises, like schools of fish seen from below, swirling shapes lit by oceantop sun sparkle.
 

“I saw something like that.”
 

“What?” said Armitage. “Where?”

“Alvarez’s apartment.”

My hands tightened the back of the chair. The wood groaned. I knew it! I’d known it back in Red Hook. After Alvarez had gone out the window. Something had been wrong with her story. But I’d never pressed her, had I? I’d let her distract me with talk about impermanence and separation and consciousness. Again, I felt that rustling of dangerous attachments.

“You’re saying you’ve seen this shadow?” said Armitage.

“In the projects. It killed Hector Alvarez.”

Armitage sat back down, his hands dead weight on his thighs. “Oh boy.”

Something about her resolution changed, a subtle shift in colors, like an adjusted TV aerial. “Donner was searching Alvarez’s bedroom. The old man was looking out the window, like his whole life was over. Then all of sudden… this
thing
crossed the room, in a flash, from nowhere. It had a human shape. It was translucent but you could see it shine.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“It
pushed
at him, like a strong wind. It pushed him straight out the window. It killed him.”

I wanted that beer again, bad. “Two independent sightings,” I said.
 

“Boss,” said Max. “This thing’s real?”

“Sharon’s story places this same… phantom… at the Smythe crime scene in the dungeon.”

“With a knife?” reminded Armitage. “A ghost with a knife?”

“If it killed Dr. Smythe, then it killed the doc you found in the laundry hamper, too, right? Hakuri?” asked Max. “And faked a break-in and a robbery to cover it up? What kind of ghost does that?”