Playback (4 page)

Don’t! I don’t want to die!

The dog at the camera continued to turn the crank. A scalded cat, its fur gone and much of its flesh burned off, studied Edison with its orange-rimmed eyes then turned its gaze to the elephant.

No! Please!

The cat nodded ever so slightly. The elephant flipped the switch on the generator. With a searing crack and pop, electricity roared through the wires with the sound of freight train, slamming into Edison’s body and jerking it violently into a silently screaming, smoking contortion. His blood boiled in his skull, burst through his scalp, and poured down his chest in a bright red waterfall.

He jerked awake, panting, sweating. He rubbed his arms, which were ice cold and covered in goose pimples.

“Oh God,” he said, his voice torn and raspy. “Oh, my God!” He shoved a fist into his chest to push the fear back down.

Mina murmured and flipped over in her sleep. She was still smiling her peaceful smile.

***

Saturday, January 10, 1903, Riverdale

Andrew checked the buttons on his vest and jacket to make sure they were in the right holes, straightened his bowler on his head, and climbed off the trolley at the intersection of West 247th Street and Independence. His breath was cloudy on the predawn air, and the street and the sprawling lawns and hedges of the mansions sparkled with frost. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he leaned forward and trudged up the center of the street, heading for home. He could still taste blood in his teeth, no matter how much he tried to spit it out.

He’d had another blackout the night before, coming to in an alley to find a bum pissing much too close to his head. Clambering to his feet, he asked the bum where he was. “I figure about halfway between Bandit’s Roost and hell,” the bum answered, holding up his free hand to gesture, quite serious with his figuring.

Andrew had stumbled from the alley in the faint moonlight, dragging the heavy leather camera case with him, his body stiff and bruised from having fallen at some point. He stepped out into the street and nearly collided with a ragman in his wagon. “Out the way, idiot!” the ragman had screamed. Andrew made his way a few more blocks, where he slumped down on a curb to take stock of himself. A knot on one of his knees. Bruises on his forearms and … He stopped, squinting to see. Blood? Was that blood on his hands? And there—blood on his coat, too? He coughed, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and looked again. Maybe blood. But maybe mud? Or oil? He brought his fingers to his lips, hesitated, and then drew his tongue across the tips. The briny taste was impossible to deny. It was blood.

He felt his cheeks and chin, examined his elbows, knees. There were no cuts. His fingernails had not been ripped. His hands had not been skinned. Yes, there was blood on him, but it was not his blood.

“I’ve got to get home,” he said to himself, finding a little comfort in the sound of his own voice. “Throw this coat away, bathe, and never let mother know where I went or what happened. She worries too much as it is. I don’t need to add more to her burden.”

But what
did
happen?
he wondered as he reached the trolley line three blocks west, then waited an agonizing twenty minutes for the first trolley of the day to come along. He jumped aboard, the leather case swinging, and handed the groggy driver his nickel. Dropping into a seat, he stared out at the countless shops, offices, apartment buildings, and cross streets they passed as they headed north.
What
did
happen?

He remembered the hookers. The skinny blonde. The buxom brunette. He’d fucked them both, felt good for the first time in months, and then filmed the two of them. They were the first humans he had ever recorded, and they were the perfect first subjects. In their own ways they were beautiful and sinful, crass and innocent. He wanted to be able to watch them over and over again as he had watched the snowflakes and dogs chasing each other in the gardens. He’d set up the camera, filmed several minutes, then packed up.

But then?

The hookers started acting in a most disturbing way. They had wanted him to tell them what to do. They were under his complete control. He knew that without question from the way they gazed at him, the way they moved and spoke. He was sure he could have made them do anything he suggested.

And then?

The world had gone black. He’d come to in the alley to the sound and smell of a bum pissing on the brick wall beside his head. And with blood on his coat and hands.

He cradled his head and closed his eyes for the rest of the trip.

Riverdale was already awakening, though it was not yet 6:00
A.M.
Tycoons and other wealthy businessmen were bundling up on their front stoops, tying on wool scarves and white gloves, waiting for their carriages and, in some cases, their automobiles to be
driven around to pick them up. A milk cart trudged slowly up the center of the lane, the horse’s head low, as if it was more than ready to go back to his stall for some grain. The Johnsons’ pretty young maid, Matilda, swept the wide stone walkway to the four-story home. One lone drunk tycoon—Donald Petersen—sat on his elegant porch, laughing at the top of his lungs that his wife had locked him out yet again for smelling of whiskey.

Andrew reached the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the yard of his own sprawling mansion, and noticed a black carriage stopped on the side of the road in front of the house. It looked a bit like a funeral wagon, though there was no lettering on the side to indicate that. Perhaps it was a new doctor, coming to check on someone in his household. And if so, who might it be?

His mother?

“God, I pray not!” he said, and picked up his pace, the leather case slamming heavily against his leg. He reached the tall, open gateway then raced up the brick walk toward the marble stoop and the front door. “Ma?” he called out as he pushed against the door and fell into the foyer. He skidded to a halt, face-to-face with three muscular men in peculiar white jackets.

“My mother?” Andrew managed. “Is she all right? Is she ill?”

One of the white-jacketed men said in an unsettlingly steady voice, “Your mother is fine, Andrew.”

Andrew set down the case and stood tall. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

Andrea came into the hall from the library on the right, her hands pressed to her heart. She’d been crying; her eyes were swollen and red. She was dressed in one of her nicest day gowns, meaning she had not slept the night before. Her dark hair, however, had fallen into mild disarray, with loose strands brushing her shoulders.

“Andrew,” she said, her voice hitching. “Andrew, where have you been?”

“I …” he began. Then he looked back at the three men, who had taken a step closer to him. “No, first tell me who these fellows are. They came in the black carriage, clearly, but there is no indication as to their business.”

Andrea walked up to Andrew and touched his cheek. “My dear son,” she said. “My business has become their business. I have worried about you endlessly. For years I have watched you in your solitude and sadness. I have ached over your despair, which seems to have no rhyme or reason. Your soul is in disorder. Your mind is afflicted. What have I not given you, that you are so miserable? What have I not done, that you have no joy in your life?”

Andrew took his mother’s hand and squeezed it gently. “I am who I am. I’ve told you that before. There is nothing you can do or undo. I’ll find my way, but you can’t worry yourself to death over me. Why won’t you believe me?”

“Andrew—” she began.

He held up his hand to silence her. “Now tell me, who
are
these brutes? I don’t like the looks of them.”

“They are here to help you. They are here to give you the chance to recover, to find some peace.”

At that, the three men lunged forward and grabbed Andrew with their massive hands. Andrew cried out and twisted against their grips, but they pulled his arms up backward, causing a red-hot pain to shoot up to his shoulders and driving him to his knees.

“Don’t hurt him!” shouted Andrea. “You aren’t supposed to hurt him!”

“Leave him to us now, missus,” said one of the men. “We know his type, we can get him where he needs to be.”

“Let me go, you stinking bastards!” roared Andrew. “You have no right to take me anywhere!”

Andrea said, “Be careful with him, please!”

The three men jerked Andrew to his feet, sending his bowler flying. One of them said, “Not to worry, ma’am. It always looks bad when we take ’em ’cause they ain’t got no reason to trust us. We got to use a bit of force to get ’em going.”

“Oh,” said Andrea, her voice lowering. “All right then. It’s for his best. I shall trust you.”

Andrew struggled, kicking out at the men, who were able to keep their legs back enough so he couldn’t make contact. He wrenched his body around, growling, yelling, “Get off me! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

They did not get off him. They dragged him, struggling and cursing, out the front door and down the walkway to the waiting black carriage, where they bound his hands and feet with a rough rope and tossed him inside as Matilda, next door, and Donald Petersen, across the street, paused in their sweeping and drunken laughter to watch, eyes wide and jaws slack.

***

Saturday, January 10, 1903, Bellevue Hospital

They called it a room but it was a cell, six feet wide and ten feet long, in the ward where they put the drunks and addicts, a musty-smelling, locked cubicle with nothing but a cot, a pillow, a blanket, a piss bowl, and a barred window. He’d been stripped of everything but his trousers and shirt, forced into the room, told that some time alone and away from his home would do him some good.

“You need to give yourself the opportunity to calm down, to let all the influences from your past leave your mind,” said one of the doctors, a mustachioed fat man with a pimple on his forehead. “We’ll give you a week of solitary time. You will not be disturbed. You can be alone with your thoughts, to give them a chance to reorganize and
gain focus.” Andrew was certain he saw a sarcastic smile flicker on the doctor’s lips as he reached out to slam the door shut.

Alone with the spot of vague sunlight on the bare floor.

Alone and locked up.

Panic suddenly erupted in his chest, and he felt there was not enough air in the room to breathe. He ran to the door and pounded, shouting, “Opportunity? This is no opportunity! This is hell! You’re out of your minds, you sadistic devils!”

Someone in a nearby cell shouted back, “Ha, young man! This is the drunkards’ ward! And we’re all out of our minds! They want to keep us that way to make their daily pay!”

Another voice answered, “Drunk and crazy, we are! Brains bubblin’ and stewin’ in the juices of our choice!”

“Gin for me!” called another.

“Brandy for me!”

“Oh!” yelled yet another. “I’ll take it, whatever you’re servin’!”

Andrew shouted for them to shut up but they didn’t. It only made them yell more loudly.

He sat on his cot and pressed his hands to his ears, hands that still bore the foul and mysterious traces of blood.

He sat.

He sat.

He curled up on the cot but couldn’t sleep, so he sat up again.

Then he blacked out. Came to, standing by the wall. Had no idea how much time had passed, but he could see he had removed his shirt and torn it into shreds. The spot of sun had moved across the floor, nearly reaching the far wall. It was late in the afternoon. He pounded on the door, which only set the drunks to shouting and howling again.

He sat.

He sat.

And then a slot beneath the door opened and a tray of food was slid underneath into the cell. Before the cover to the slot was lowered back into place, Andrew dropped to the floor and thrust one hand through the slot to catch the wrist of the one who was delivering the food.

There was a gasp. It was decidedly female.

“Let me go, sir! For the love of God, let me go!” Her voice was hushed, as if afraid she would get into trouble for letting herself get snagged by a patient.

Andrew grit his teeth and clenched his free fist.
You can’t sound insane. You have to sound calm
.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I’m hurt. They tossed me in and slashed me with a razor for sport. I’ve got a brutal cut. I took off my shirt to stave the bleeding but it’s started again. I am weak … I’m weak and I fear I will die if I don’t get help.”

The voice remained soft, almost a whisper. “I don’t know what to do about no bleedin’! I just bring the food ’round!”

“Call someone, please. This is a hospital, certainly a doctor is nearby! I need help … or I won’t live much longer.”

A pause, and then, “Let go of my hand and I’ll find a doctor.”

“Will you? Or are you trying to trick me?”

“I will! I don’t want no man’s death on my head!”

Andrew let her go. He pressed his face to the floor, waiting, listening. Several minutes later there were two sets of footfalls on the floor, and a man’s low voice. Angry.

The man banged on the door. “You there, young man! What do you mean to say you’re bleeding to death! There’s nothing we left with you that you could slice your wrists! We take care for our patients!”

“It’s not my wrists, it’s my leg … and left me here. I stopped the bleeding as best I could but the wound’s opened up again.”

“That’s what he told me, Dr. Davis,” said the young woman.

“I don’t believe a word of it!” said the doctor. “Now listen to me—”

“No!” Andrew strained his voice to mimic agony. “You will … listen to me. You will hear me! I’m of the Richard Edmonds family … as well you know. My stepfather is more powerful than your richest doctor … or most well respected board member. I was sent here in good faith … by my mother. Should anything happen to me, my family will come down on your heads … like a boot heel on a worm!”

The man sputtered, growled, then said, “Step back, Dolly, while I check on this man’s condition.”

Keys jingled. The lock rattled. Andrew folded his hands together into a club and stood to the side of the door. He clenched his jaw. He lifted his trembling arms.