Stain of the Berry (38 page)

"Maybe," I mumbled.

"Whassat?" Darren asked, confused.

Jin had begun small, with phone calls in the middle of the night, slashed car tires and petty irritations.

He was probably taken by surprise at how delectable the taste of revenge could be and soon graduated to break and enter and property destruction, then bodily threats and other more serious personal harassment.

"Moxie Banyon was Jin Chau's first fatality," I said, "but what if he didn't plan to kill her? He wasn't a killer-not yet-and he probably only intended to give Moxie a good scare, otherwise, why bother with a disguise? If he intended to kill her, there'd be no need to keep her from seeing his face, knowing who her tormenter was, and actually you'd think he'd have preferred that. But no, Jin expected to walk out of that pool with Moxie still alive and unable to identify him. He just wanted to scare her. Instead her poor heart gave out and she went under and drowned."

Darren gave me a half nod as he considered my theory. "Unplanned, possibly," he allowed, "but a murder nonetheless."

"Yes," I agreed wholeheartedly with that. "It was murder. And it tasted good to Jin. So he again upped his tactics of terror as he pursued enemy number two, Tanya Culinare. Jin isn't a big man or a strong man and, really, not a man of great physical violence, but he discovered he was a master at feats of mental violence, capable of driving a person to their own demise, in effect scaring them to death. So he used this as he went after Tanya and the others. He became their boogeyman. In his mind, this seemed a fitting sentence for those who'd made his life so miserable." I added, "And truth be told, neither Tanya or Moxie-really none of the Pink Gophers-were specifically to blame for the greater woes of life as lived by Jin, but they were handy scapegoats."

Tanya Culinare was a woman of compromised mental strength. I would have to report to her family my findings that indeed, she had taken her own life. She had, of her own volition, taken the steps to that balcony and leaped over the railings that sad summer night. But I'd also report that were it not for the cruel mental manipulations of Jin Chau to which she'd been unrelentingly subjected to for months, she might still be alive today.

"The question will always be," I put to Kirsch, "would Jin eventually have killed them all?" Were the deaths of Tanya and Moxie enough? And what of his final act of love/hate against Jared? Here was a beautiful man who would never return his love. By all reports, Jared did nothing to encourage Jin and treated him with kindness, but that wasn't enough. It could never be enough for someone like Jin. And the 160 of 163

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only way he could think of to fix his pain was to remove the object of his passion. Jared wasn't leaping to his own death, he did not have a weak heart to do him in, and Jin did not have the physical strength to physically kill Jared, so he did what came to mind. He destroyed the object of his affection: Jared's beautiful face.

"Tequila Pigs, huh?" Darren said, giving me a look as if I'd invented the game myself.

"I swear," I responded, a little indignant. "It's a real game-three little plastic pigs, red hooves."

He turned thoughtful. "Who would have thought that three plastic pigs could cause all this trouble?" He made a move toward the door.

"It wasn't just the pigs," I said. Something told me Jin Chau had had many fearful boogeymen of his own to deal with in his lifetime.

We hugged for a very long time, saying nothing, just touching one another and trying to give each other and take from each other some measure of strength, love, encouragement, whatever we had, whatever we needed. Finally we pulled apart.

I was taken aback by my friend's face. It was as if, with the loss of his lover's beauty, so had his own faded. Anthony's skin had grown pale and blotched and slack at the jowls. His eyes were pale reflections of what they once were and his hair was lustreless. He stood in front of me with a bit of a stoop, looking inexplicably shorter than I knew him to be. My heart broke for him and I pulled him once more into my arms.

Again we parted and sat next to one another on my rumpled hospital bed.

"How's the news?" I asked.

"Not good, I'm afraid," he told me through dry lips. "The damage to his face is severe. Even though he'd tried to wipe it away with his sleeve, the acid was in full, prolonged contact with his skin. But he will survive. In many ways, most ways actually, Jared will return to normal. He'll be able to eat, speak, see, hear.. .thank the sweet Lord that none of those abilities were taken from him...he could have lost an eye or had acid in his mouth or...well, never mind that...he will be normal, except...except he will never again look like Jared."

"I'm sure they can do miracles these days with plastic surgery and...and...and other treatments." I was desperate to dispense some sense of hope to this broken man.

He nodded weakly. "Yes, yes, of course. As soon as Jared is able, we'll pursue some options." His face seemed to brighten a bit. "That is what we must focus on now, puppy. The things we
can
do."

I nodded too and mindlessly rubbed Anthony's back, and as I did so I couldn't help but think about the man who came before Jared in Anthony's life, my uncle Lawrence. Would it help Anthony now, at this horrible juncture in his life, to know that Uncle Lawrence was alive? Would he want to seek him out, for advice, support, encouragement, as he had so many times during the course of their strong relationship and even stronger friendship? Or would it be cruel of me, knowing what I knew-that Uncle Lawrence was dying-to give Anthony this hope which one day soon, too, would be taken from him, a second time. Oh God! What should I do? This was too difficult to figure out. I'd had no time to reflect on any of this, to make sense of it, to come to some closure about Uncle Lawrence, his life, his relationship to Sereena, his illness, and his impending death. I needed time. But Anthony did not have that luxury. My friend needed help now.

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decision to leave Anthony in pain?

No, I decided. I
did
have help to give my friend, but, for now anyway, it would have to come from me, only me.

"How are you, puppy?" This was so like Anthony; despite the hell he was living in, he still thought of others. "I know you went through significant unpleasantness out there last night." He gave me a worried look. "Are you okay?"

I patted his thigh with what I hoped was convincing reassurance. "I'm fine, Anthony, really."

"Russell," he began softly. "I know what...what that monster tried to do to you. You need to talk about it."

Something caught in my throat. No, I did not need to talk about it. I did not want to think about it.

I...did not...no. I had nearly been raped. I could barely think the words in my head, never mind say them out loud. It seemed...untrue, it didn't fit with my reality, my view of life, which is, generally, pretty sunny-side-up, despite the crap I sometimes deal with in my line of work. But this.. .this would take time to work through.

"Perhaps later then?" He laid a hand on my arm and rubbed it slowly, his sign of abiding affection, telling me he'd be around when the time was right.

"Perhaps."

"He's awake right now," Anthony said, searching my face with his all-knowing eyes.

My skin shifted yet again and my heart began a rhythmic thrum. "Let's go," I whispered and smiled weakly.

Anthony spoke of meaningless minutiae as we made our way via elevators and endless drab hallways from the ward where I'd been recuperating to where Jared lay in Intensive Care. He needed to talk, mutter, make normal comments on normal things. I tried to join in when I could, but I was reeling with the thought of what I was about to do, about to see, and wondering: how do you react when you first encounter the destroyed face of a friend you love? What could I possibly say? What should I allow my face to show so as to spare Jared's feelings?

The hospital corridors were echoingly empty that time of the morning, the light of a summer day surprisingly grey and cool against the green-tinged hallways and stainless steel gurneys and carts we passed along the way. Every so often I could hear gentle moanings or whispered prayers from behind doors of rooms I did not want to enter and hoped did not belong to Jared. As we got closer my mind began to spin with doubt, with fear, with uncertainty that I could do this. Coupled with an unceasing nausea, I could feel more acutely every scratch, every bruise, every bit of bodily damage I'd suffered at the hands of the same monster who'd put Jared in this hospital. I felt sick over what happened to Jared, over the fact that I'd failed to protect my friend from this. If only I'd worked faster, smarter, figured things out sooner, maybe none of this would have happened.

My pace slowed and finally Anthony, several steps ahead of me, stopped and turned to gaze at me with soft eyes. I stopped too and looked up from the nondescript mottle of the tile floor and saw...salvation.

Only then did I know I could do this. I just needed a little help. Beyond the shadow cast by Anthony was Sereena, her face silently beckoning me forward. And behind her, almost a blur, another figure: Alex Canyon. My heart swelled with something new.

I entered the hospital room of my beloved friend. To me, he was as beautiful as ever, with lips stained 162 of 163

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the colour of sweet summer berries.

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