Neuropath (19 page)

'Herr
Doktor?'
Mia drawled in mock astonishment.

Thomas snatched the panties from Frankie and stuffed them in his blazer pocket. He flashed Mia a grim smile.

'So tell me,' his neighbor asked slyly. Mia always turned up the volume on his Alabama accent whenever what he called the 'devil' got the best of him. 'What's it like?'

'What's
what
like?'

'Getting nailed by the Law.'

Mia left shortly afterward, explaining that, contrary to appearances, he did have a '
jaawb'
. The rest of the day passed without incident, with the exception of Frankie cracking his bean on the barbecue. The three of them had been playing catch in the backyard. The little bugger had crawled under the side-burner to retrieve the ball, then simply stood up. Bam! Thomas had watched the whole thing happen, and though he knew it was nothing serious, there had been this moment of distilled horror… Frankie on his rump clutching his scalp, a line of blood falling from his maul of black hair. The backyard had roared with the sound of unseen collapses, of great pylons or piers failing, as though the world were but a floor in some building's fatal cascade.

How had everything become so fragile?

Though Frankie insisted he needed to go to the hospital for 'Sergio' (Thomas had no clue where that one had come from), he took them both to the park and hiked down into the gully. Despite his turmoil, the giddy swings between horror (the thought of Neil coming back), thrill (the thought of Sam wriggling out of her panties), and rage (the thought of Nora gasping against Neil's cheek), he actually managed to have fun with the kids. They cleaned up the dozen or so crushed beer cans they found amongst the ferns. In the grotto cool, they counted the waterbugs skating across the creek's rippled back, and he explained surface tension to them. 'Just like Jesus,' Ripley said with a pundit's certitude. (Thomas had no idea where that had come from either).

Small wonder so many parents were bent on cloistering their children. It out and out terrified Thomas, thinking of his two kids panning for gold in America's cultural river. There were just so many sewage pipes, so many shades of Neil. But with things becoming ever more fractured and sycophantic, sending them to private schools seemed like one more contribution to an even more deluded and tribalized future. There had to be some common ground, it seemed to him, no matter how fucked up. People had to relate.

After tucking the buggers into bed and kissing Frankie's 'owwie' a dozen times, Thomas kicked his legs up on the couch and watched an old
Seinfeld
on Nickelodeon. But he found it impossible to laugh. He browsed several personal channels, or 'perches' as they were called, as much to reassure himself of his sanity as anything else. A billion bewildered people, all pounding their fists in the simulacrum of certainty, each with their own peculiar menu of scapegoat cheese. Then he surfed the news-sites, flashing between commercial broadcasts that pandered to mainstream prejudices (information, like any other commodity, was primarily geared toward customer satisfaction) and cash-strapped PBS. Images flashed, and the living room gleamed, darkened, and changed color in three-dimensional counterpoint.

No matter how many times he flattened his palms across his thighs, he always caught himself wringing his hands.

Sam didn't call.

No mention, national or local, was made of Neil or his crimes. Thomas wasn't surprised. The Chiropractor had struck yet again, this time with a cryptic letter to the
New York Times
. Several senators crossed the aisle on the issue of gasoline subsidies. The Russian economy, teetering after the destruction of southern Moscow, seemed to be riding some kind of petrol yo-yo. Of course, there were more eco-riots in Europe—poor shivering bastards. And some 'good' news here and there: bumper crops in Texas, more miraculous rain in the Sahara, church attendance up worldwide.

The world ends here, begins there. But it was never, Thomas reflected, quite the same.

He heard a rattle in the kitchen, jerked his head up over the back of the couch. The kitchen was black. Pale blue danced across the walls. His heart hammered. He heard shifting. A click.

What the fuck?

Over the course of the day, his innumerable fears had roamed the baffles of whatever he happened to be doing. Now they focused on this one thing, became very intense. Heart hammering, he blinked, stared into the black maw of his kitchen, saw nothing. He knew, given the disposition of rods and cones across his retina, that the center of his visual field was less sensitive to light than his immediate periphery, so he tried staring slightly off to his right.

But all he saw was Cynthia Powski diddling herself with I broken glass.

He almost yelled in terror when Bart ambled from the blackness. People might forget dogs were predators, but primates never did.

'Jeezus, Bart. I damn near shit myself.'

Bartender trotted to the couch and laid his chin on the '; fabric, his eyes limpid and imploring.

Thomas curled on the cushions and hugged his big, hapless dog tight.

'No Frankie tonight, Bart?' he murmured into the dank fur. 'Figured you'd chum with the old man?'

Bart's tail slapped against the coffee table, once, twice, then knocked over Thomas's Rolling Rock.

Cursing, Thomas sent his dog scampering away. The beer had been almost empty, but the mess was big enough to warrant a trip to the kitchen. He paused before the black entrance, realizing for the first time that the fluorescent light over the sink was out. Weren't those things i supposed to last forever? At this time of night, the kitchen ; was usually a nook of illumination in an otherwise darkened house. Silver shining in sterile light.

There was a sharp rap on the door to his right.

This time he did cry out.

He clutched his chest as he peered through the window.

It was Sam.

He yanked open the door and she was on him. Fierce kisses. Desperate breaths.

'You let me down,' she gasped. 'Twice you've let me down.' ;

'Sorry,' he said.

'No sorrys,' she said, pausing to stare at him. She smiled mischievously. 'Reparations.'

These are the rules.

I watch.

You set your groceries down, rummage through your purse, looking for your keys.

A man on a bicycle glances at your skirt line as he labors down the street. He likes his legs long and pale.

A bird sings with consumer confidence.

The leaves wave deep green, slow as though underwater. One twitters to the ground, spinning like a dollar bill.

Your door opens into the blackness of air-conditioned spaces.

The sun pricks the eyes of the children playing next door.

You steer your groceries through the dark slot. Recycled plastic rustles against the frame.

I follow.

Closer than your shadow.

Farther than your bones.

Now you lie there, watching my shadow grunt on your back, listening to my animal glory. The blood pools around your lips, your nostrils, as warm as cooling engine oil. You smell it, your life, as pungent as any excretion, and just as slick. You can feel yourself raining across your cheek. Raining down.

You lie there dying, without recognition, without resolve.

Neck broken, you weep without your body.

Meat.

These. These are the rules.

CHAPTER TEN

August 24th, 8.55 p.m.

Why did Daddy have to go?

The air mattress beneath him felt cold and wobbly, unsteady like his belly.

'Why did Daddy have to go?' he asked Ripley.

'Because I
told
you,' was her pouty reply. 'There isn't room, Frankie. Daddy's too big for the tent.'

'There's room,' Frankie said in a small voice.

'You said you wanted to sleep out here alone.'

'No I didn't.'

Ripley beat her arms against her sleeping bag in frustration. '
Yesss
, you did. I heard you, Frankie. Now go to sleep.'

'But I change my mind, Ripley.'

'Frankeee!'

'But
why
,'

When Ripley refused to answer he wriggled away from his sister, stared wide-eyed at the shadows cast by the flashlight across the bellied ceiling. The air smelled end-of-summer cool. Soon he would go to preschool. But the outside was dark, big, and hollow, filled with great nothings and terrible anythings. He heard a dog barking in the distance. It sounded angry.

'Where's Bart?'

'
In-side
,' Ripley said in her dangerous voice.

She thought she was soooo big. But soon he would be bigger, and no one would tell him what to do, and he would save little kids from bad cornfields and booby bullets and dinosaurs. Even
psychos
would be afraid of him. Last week, Mia had fallen asleep waiting for Dad to come pick them up, and he and Ripley had watched a show on psychos—a
cool
show. They had even seen
crime scene
photographs, with blood hanging like spaghetti from the walls. Sickos, Ripley had called them. Bad-bad men, just like Uncle Cass.

Frankie giggled to himself, whispered 'Sickos!' He liked that word, he decided. 'Sickos!' he hissed again. 'Sick-sickos!'

Then he thought he heard a rattle beyond the nylon, and he was frightened again. What if it was a sicko? He swallowed, thinking how big and empty and dark the outside was. A sicko could be anywhere, and Frankie wouldn't know. How could you know if you couldn't see? Maybe that was what the dog was barking at, some sick-sicko hiding in the hole between buildings, waiting to make spaghetti of somebody.

Frankie didn't want to be spaghetti.

'I wanna go see Bart,' he said. Dad said Bart had super senses.

'Quit your whining!' Ripley said like a little Mom. .

'You're not Mom,' he mumbled.

Then he heard it. The sound of feet swishing through dewy grass.
Swish-thump. Swish-thump
…

'
Ripley
!' he gasped.

'I hear,' she said, her voice now as small as his.

Shwish-swish-thump…

He turned to her horror-stricken face. The flashlight lay between them, illuminating her face from below. Earlier that night she had put the flashlight to her chin and tried to make scary faces. Frankie had only laughed. Now she looked scarier than any face in the whole world.

'I don't want to be spaghetti,' Frankie murmured. '
Ripleeeeeeee
…'

They heard a pop from the peak of their pup tent. Ripley clasped the flashlight with both hands, pointed it toward the sound.

Something pointy whisked across the orange nylon.

Frankie couldn't breathe. He wanted to scream, but something clamped his mouth shut.

Another pop. Ripley jerked the flashlight toward the entrance.

It was black-black beyond the mosquito-screen gauze. The zipper started dropping, tooth by shiny tooth.

Click-click
…

Ripley screamed. The zipper ripped down.

Something dark exploded into the light. Frankie felt an iron hand clutching at his stomach.

'I'M A BEAR!' a voice boomed, and Daddy's laughing face bobbed into the light. Ruthless fingers tickled and tickled. Both Frankie and Ripley screamed with laughter and delight.

Crowded as it was, Thomas lay with his kids, joking and poking, until they both drifted asleep. Afterward, he turned the flashlight on its head so that it was little more than a ring of light against the ground, then carefully made his way from the tent.

'Aaaarh,' he softly growled as he did up the zipper, making a face he found funny because he knew how his kids would have giggled had they seen it. He walked to the back patio and took a seat.

He fished a Rolling Rock out of his cooler, popped it, then surveyed the dark expanse of his backyard: the bland fence, the lonely maple, the kids' swing set, the space where he and Nora had once talked about putting an in-ground pool. He felt at once sad and proud, the way he imagined many men felt when taking stock of their humble kingdoms.

Strange the way that word,
mine
, so often stirred shame when attached to things.

That shed is mine
, he thought, taking a drink.
Loser-shed… Mine
.

The significance of small childhood traumas had been all but discounted in psychological circles. Kids were doughty little buggers, those in the know now believed, pretty much idiot-proof when it came to parenting. Only genes, the vagaries of peer socializing, or extreme parental malfeasance could ruin them. Everything else, the experts maintained, came out in the wash.

Thomas disagreed. The small traumas lived like spiders in the emotional cracks of adulthood, catching what they could, and leaving the rest to larger predators. His parents had been poor and alcoholic, but his friends at school had come from relatively affluent households. He'd grown up ashamed, of his last-year's-hit-movie-lunch-box, of his Wal-Mart clothes, of his bruised-apple-instead-of-a-Twinkie. He'd grown up being quiet at lunch time.

Now shame tainted everything he owned. Everything 'mine'.

But as Mia would say, that was the whole point of economic freedom. Shame.

Those kids, though
, he thought to himself. They were a different story.

Heartbreaking pride.

He rubbed his eyes, jumped when he glimpsed the shadow floating along the back of his house.

'Who-the—'

'Just me,' Mia called, holding up his own beer. 'Thought I'd join you for a drink.'

'Jesus, Mia,' Thomas gasped.

'Jumpy, aren't we?'

'Shush,' Thomas said, nodding to the pup-tent in the middle of the black yard. 'The kids just fell asleep.'

Mia nodded and laughed. 'They've been babbling about the great expedition for days now.'

'I promised them before the shit hit the fan last week.' Part of him still regretted caving to their relentless pressure. Thanks to the divorce, it was a parental paradox Thomas knew well: it was hard not to be indulgent in times of family crisis, and harder still not to be stern. 'I figured with all the craziness it would be a good distraction.'

Mia nodded. 'Hear anything new about Nora?'

Thomas grimaced. 'Still refusing to talk. Still behind bars.' The nightmare triggered by Neil's visit had taken a couple of surreal turns in the following days, Nora's imprisonment the sharpest among them. Just thinking about it triggered a sense of disbelief similar to what he'd felt when the Twin Towers had imploded, the sense that someone had switched reels in the Great Projection Room, and now CGI and producer rewrites were running amok in the real world.

Nora refused to believe that Neil had anything to do with what was going on.

She loved him.

Neil and Nora.

'Pooor, pooor lass,' Mia said, mimicking Frankie's lame Scottish accent. He'd been squarely in the serves-the-bitch-right camp ever since Thomas had told him about her and Neil.

'I feel sorry for her,' Thomas admitted.

'You shouldn't. She's a back-stabbing slut.'

Thomas grinned, remembering an old tirade of Mia's on 'honest epitaphs'. 'I thought you wanted something like that chiseled on your tombstone…'

'So?'

'So, don't throw stones—'

'When you live in Israel. Yeah-yeah, so I'm a hypocrite. I've changed my mind about my epitaph, anyway.'

'So what's it now?'

He held up his hands marquee-style. '"Not so funny after all"'

Thomas laughed, though something about the joke mildly repelled him—like glimpsing Q-tips in someone else's garbage. 'You're such an ass.'

A smile cracked Mia's deadpan stare.

'Speaking of getting laid,' he said, 'what's going on with Special Agent Samantha Logan?'

Thomas chuckled. Just hearing her name tickled him. 'She just got back from Nashville. Apparently some televangelist named Jackie Forrest went missing a few days ago.' Hearing about Jackie Forrest's abduction had sent Thomas sifting through the bookcases in the basement, where he kept all the textbook wannabes sent by academic publishers and whatever else he had been too lazy to throw out. He found the book relatively quickly: it was hard to miss, not only because of its garish, gold-embossed spine, but because it had found its way beside a vagrant copy of his own book,
Through the Brain Darkly
. Coincidences could be so cruel.

It was called
The New Hero: Why Humanism is a Sin
, by Jackie Forrest, an eight-year-old relic of Nora's brief flirtation with fundamentalism. He could still remember the rush of relief when she announced her return to agnosticism. At the time, Thomas had thought
he'd
shown her how dim the light of Jesus was compared to that of Reason, but now he imagined that her affair with Neil had been the deciding factor. When it came to her immortal soul, Nora had decided to err on the side of fucking.

'They think it has something to do with Neil?' Mia asked.

'From the sounds of it. Jackie Forrest fits the profile, at least. Half-ass famous.'

Mia shook his head. In the silent moment that followed, Thomas imagined he was either thinking of the preacher shrieking in some dingy basement, or like him, trying not to. Despite Agent Atta's injunction, Thomas had continued to brief him on the details as they arose. Mia wasn't simply nosy, he was relentlessly nosy, and with such I've-got-your-best-interests-at-heart curiosity that he was well-nigh irresistible. Thomas inevitably told him everything about everything, and felt better for it afterward. Mia had a keen eye, and perhaps most importantly, had no problem giving honest feedback.

But this stuff with Neil's personal semantic apocalypse… Sometimes even Mia seemed to regret it. '
When you said he'd gone psycho
,' he had admitted the day before yesterday, '
I thought of blood, knives, and titties in the shower. Not this. This is beyond sick and healthy
.' His Number One Neighbor had strayed into curiosity-killed-the-cat territory, and he knew it.

Mia cleared his throat. 'So, have you got Sam a red wig yet?' A clumsy way of changing the subject, Thomas thought, but a welcome one.

'Huh?'

'You know… To do the whole Agent Scully
thang
.'

'So you had the hots for her too, huh?'

'Huge,' Mia said, warming to the topic. 'If it wasn't for Fox Mulder, I might be straight. You and I would be sitting here talking pussy and football.'

Thomas laughed. 'Aren't we talking pussy now?'

'A privilege of growing up in a bilingual household.'

'Well, to answer your question, no, I haven't bought her a red wig yet. She packs a pistol you know.'

'Probably for the best. She's not Agent Scully hot, anyway…'

'Scuse me?'

'Doesn't have that "I'm-frumpy-let's-fuck" air about her.'

Thomas roared with laughter, then caught himself, remembering the kids.

'Sh-shush,' Mia said, laughing.

'Sometimes,' Thomas gasped, 'talking to you is like smoking a joint.'

Mia had done this many times before, especially during the darkest days of his divorce: distracted him from his troubles, reminded him what it was like to laugh. Thomas pulled two more beers from his cooler and tossed one to his Number One Neighbor.

'So you had a thing for what's-his-face… The guy who played Fox. David Duchovny?'

'Who didn't?' Mia replied. 'Why do you ask?'

'All the girls at Princeton were ga-ga over Neil because they thought he looked like him.'

Always getting laid, weren't you, Neil?

Mia hesitated, reluctant to stray into potentially painful territory—or so Thomas imagined.

'I hate to say it, but old Fox doesn't hold a candle to Neil. Remember how Bill and I would always ask you to bring him over for a swim?'

Thomas smiled. 'You don't have a pool.'

'That was the point. Something Olympian about that man…'

Mia paused, then hastily added: 'Which of course is why he's a fucking raving lunatic. The perfect ones always are.'

It
was
painful territory, Thomas realized. He looked away, at a loss for words.

As always, Mia took up the slack. 'So Sam is hot,' he said, pretending to itemize the proceeds of their discussion.

'You're both covered in pubic-hair burns… I hate for you to think I'm nosy, but her car seems to be parked in your driveway more often than not. You guys getting serious?'

Thomas studied the pup-tent in the darkness, imagined his kids bundled like little larva inside. Warm. Safe. According to Sam, information passed on from the NSA indicated that Neil was somewhere in Florida. Ironclad intelligence—something about purchase patterns and several CCTV images. Atta and Gerard were in Florida now, following up with the local authorities, while Sam continued to comb New England for leads, interviewing family, old friends, that sort of thing. Neil's biometric data had been uploaded into almost every realtime digital video network in the country: airports, train stations, subways, even toll-roads and urban intersection surveillance systems. What the FBI lacked in terms of feet on the ground, it more than compensated for with eyes in the sky—or the ceiling, as the case might be. There was nothing to worry about, Sam had assured him.

Not that he could imagine Neil doing anything. Even if Neil was doing all of this for his benefit, it meant that Thomas was the audience…

And the audience always got to hide in the dark. Didn't it?