The Revenant Road (13 page)

19

Labyrinth

I may write fiction but I’m not crazy.

I’d seen evidence of a parallel reality, met the living incarnation of my personal bogeyman, and argued with my dead father in
Central Park
. Frankly, I’d had enough.

I needed to get some semblance of normalcy back into my life. The scowls of distaste on the faces of passing joggers reminded me that I also needed a change of clothes.

I chased down a taxi and waved a small fortune in the driver’s face to get him to take me back to
Brooklyn
. My assistant, Carla, was waiting for me in a limousine when my cab pulled up in front of my brownstone.

“You’re late,” she said. “Juno said if you blow this appearance she’ll start an ‘Authors We Hate Club’ in your honor.”

Carla sniffed and took two steps backward.

“You smell like my Uncle Paco when he forgets to change his diaper.”

“Shut up,” I snarled.

“Yo w
hatever
,” she flipped back.

I made a mental note to fire her. Then I raced upstairs to change.

Othello was sitting on the fire escape outside my bedroom window.  Seeing Marcus’s pet raven perched in the same spot where I sometimes sat and searched the night skies for inspiration only agitated me more.

For the first time, I noticed how large the raven was, the tenacity with which its claws gripped the railing of the fire escape.

“Damn,” I said. “You are one big bastard of a bird.”

Othello spread his wings and chuckled dryly.

I shuddered. The sheer bulk of the pigeon killer suggested hidden armories interred beneath its feathers: lethal secrets waiting in the wings. Othello terrified me and fascinated me at the same time. 

Meanwhile, I’d completely forgotten my scheduled appearance to promote
The River’s Edge
on Juno Kemantari’s afternoon talk show
.

“Stupid,” I snarled, as I ran for the shower.

As I passed my bathroom mirror, I stopped.

“Good God.”

The face that stared back at me looked like something the Lithuanian National Kickboxing Club might have used for a warm-up. My eyes were still puffy and red-tinged from where the red worms had injected their poison. My lips were swollen and purplish, my throat slightly swollen, lending me the appearance of a man recovering from severe anaphylactic shock.

Nevertheless, I dressed to impress: a black sport jacket, white shirt, open at the collar with black Prada slacks. An appearance on
Juno
meant millions of potential new readers. I could little afford to alienate such a powerful ally in my one man War on Obscurity.

I slammed down a quart of the strongest mouthwash I could find and ran for the door.

Othello uttered a loud squawk.

“What?” I snapped.

The raven flapped his wings, sailed across the room, and landed on my telephone.

“What is
that
supposed to mean?” I said. Then I realized I was talking to a bird. “I don’t have time for this,” I snarled, turning to leave.

I got halfway out the door before I turned back, hit the “Saved Messages” button on my answering machine and scribbled down Kowalski’s telephone number. I had about three million questions for my father’s partner.

As I ran down the stairs and hopped into the limo, thoughts of my upcoming television appearance faded to a distant hum.

Selling books was the last thing on my mind.

* * * *

Juno Kemantari was the richest, most powerful she-creature on Earth. She’d worked her way up from the back roads of rural
Mississippi
, collecting scholarships to Ivy League universities and alternately cajoling, seducing and browbeating her way to the top of the American Entertainment\Media anthill.

She was also a royal pain in the posterior, with an attitude that could sour an Olsen Twin at fifty paces.

 JUNO
, however, reached twenty-two million viewers every afternoon. She’d won more Emmys than Alan Alda, produced seven successful mini-series and more TV movies, even co-starred in two wildly popular feature films. A plug on her “Books We Love Club” segment insured a lucky author the kind of instant national attention for which publishers joyfully cannibalize their children.

I was sitting in the makeup room, ignoring the stares generated by my appearance. The makeup artist, a petite blond named Chatsworth, was doing her best to cover my bruises and various swellings when the door opened and bad news blew into the room.

“Show’s been cancelled.”

This from Ryan Snodgrass, JUNO’s Executive Producer and semi-human shield. My publicist, Marc Bloom, levered himself between Snodgrass and me with the abandon of a marine throwing himself onto a live grenade.

“What happened?” Bloom cried.

Juno had a family emergency which required her to leave the studio unexpectedly,” Snodgrass said. “Her assistant is on his way up to... Ahhh. Here’s Trocious now.”

The man who stood in the doorway of my dressing room would have looked more at home thundering down the gridiron than schlepping coffee for TV personalities. He was nearly seven feet tall, coffee-brown, with a shaved skull that jutted up from a bull’s neck and shoulders.

“Obadiah, this is Trocious, Juno’s...personal assistant,” Snodgrass said.

Trocious nodded. Our eyes met, and for the briefest moment an image flashed before my mind’s eye.

Dark. Cold. Up ahead, light, warmth. But not for me...

It was only a flash, a burst of—

    
Vision

—emotion, but I staggered backward as if I’d been pushed by a heavy wind. I would have fallen if Bloom and Snodgrass hadn’t caught me.

“Oh my God,” Bloom said. “Are you okay?”

As my equilibrium steadied, the vision faded, leaving me lightheaded and slightly woozy.

“Here, sit down,” Snodgrass said.

“I’m fine,” I replied.

“You look like shit,” Bloom snapped.

I sat.

Trocious loomed in the doorway, looking down at the three of us like a study in contempt chiseled in mahogany.

“Ms. Kementari extends an invitation to dine at her residence tomorrow night,” Trocious rumbled. His voice was lightly accented with some Southern dialect. Its timbre vibrated the walls.

“Ms. Kementari wishes to apologize for this inconvenience and to discuss future appearances.”

Snodgrass, the Executive Producer, shuddered. I felt his fingers grind the muscles in my forearm.

“Ahhh, thank you, Trocious,” he said.

Trocious stared at me as if Snodgrass hadn’t spoken.

“Is
8:00
acceptable, Mr. Grudge?”

“He’ll be there with bells on,” Bloom snapped.

Juno’s valet loomed, massive arms folded across his thickly-muscled chest. His gaze never wavered from mine.

Alone. Dark. Laughing in the light. Laughing at me.

I shuddered, trying to throw off thoughts of cold, dank places. I was exhausted, probably hallucinating. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to get out of there.

Suddenly I was afraid without knowing why. Something about Trocious, about the shadows gathered around him like a cloak of living darkness.

Kowalski would say something ridiculous right now
.

But something about Trocious held my attention, like the sound of a bomb plummeting out of the sky, or the executioner’s tread as he approaches the guillotine.   

I stood to gain hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of new readers from any future appearances. Juno Kementari was a media connection any writer might have killed for.

“I’ll be there,” I said, “with bells on.”

20

Fire and Fury Over

 
Yonkers
Raceway

I spent the rest of that afternoon staring at my computer monitor and trying to form a coherent sentence. By dusk I’d gotten no further than an opening paragraph that read like the rulebook for the Taiwanese Amateur Train-spotting Club:

Torvino, a man with no problems, fled the decadent suburban sprawl of Atlantic City carrying only a six pack of Marlboro Reds, a serviceable gherkin, and a rusty hacksaw. At his side sat Simba. An ape.

I read that passage for the seventy-fifth time. Afterward, I considered slashing my throat. Meanwhile, Othello eyed me from the windowsill leading to my fire escape. He squawked once, loudly, and fluttered onto the top of my monitor. I’d closed the window, fearing that the raven might fly off and never come back. Despite my reservations, he was the only link to Marcus I had left.

But the pigeon-killer still gave me the creeps.

“Shoo,” I said. “Go over there.”

I’d cobbled together the closest thing to a perch that I could, taking an ancient tie rack that had been left in my apartment by the former owner and setting it in a litter box I’d dug out of my storage unit. The litter box was the legacy of a relationship that had lasted exactly as long as it took for my ex-girlfriend to understand that I really was violently allergic to her pet calico Sam-Sam.

So far, Othello hadn’t shown the slightest interest in my makeshift aerie, choosing instead to occupy the windowsill from whence to conduct his silent surveillance.

“What are you staring at?” I said. 

Othello offered up a casual chuckle.

“Fuck off, bird,” I said. “Go haunt someone else.”

Othello spread his wings and croaked. A moment later, a viscous stream of matter drizzled down the front of my computer’s monitor, obscuring with a white river of raven crap the hopeless drivel on the screen.

I quickly exhausted my voluminous repertoire of cuss words and threw open the window. Othello sailed past me and out into the night.

“Go dig up Edgar Alan Poe, asshole!”

I slammed the window shut and returned to my computer.

Othello’s offering looked like a spatter of lightning against the dark background of my screen saver, a luminous tree that flickered in the light thrown by the computer screen. I stared, transfixed by the lightning crap tree and was abruptly overtaken by the certainty that I was being watched.

I whirled, my eyes searching the dark corners of my apartment. As far as I could tell, I was alone. Nevertheless the feeling of being observed persisted, and for no good reason I suddenly found myself thinking about Lenore.

I hadn’t spoken to my mother since our conversation in her kitchen the day of Marcus’ funeral. I told myself I was just feeling guilty as I scrambled for the phone, but I was unconvincing, even to myself. A feeling of dread had sprung into being in the coils of my gut.

You’re being stupid,
I chided.
She’s probably getting drunk and painting crosses on all the windows.

The phone in my mother’s house rang twelve times before I hung up and hit ‘Redial,’ only to hear Lenore’s no-nonsense outgoing message.

“I’m obviously not here to receive your call. Either leave a message or call back later. Please be brief.”

Beep.

“Hello, mother. Hey. It’s me... Obadiah.”

Stupid. Of course she knows it’s you.

“I’m just... I’m just calling to check up on you. Well, not exactly
checking up on you
. Ahhh...”

You’re wasting time.

I hung up, feeling like a fool. To make matters worse, I knew that when Lenore got my rambling message she would undoubtedly make me feel even more ridiculous than I already did.

I went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of glass cleaner and a handful of paper towels. I thoroughly cleaned my monitor, ignoring the wave of foreboding that seemed intent on clawing its way out of my guts. Then I went back to my story.

Ten minutes later, unable to concentrate and feeling anything but sleepy, I decided to take a casual drive up to Bronxville and pop in on Lenore, an unannounced social call (which she hated, even from me) but, I figured, what the Hell.

I grabbed my keys, ambled out of the apartment and strolled out to my BMW, which was waiting casually at the curb.

I was doing ninety by the time I hit the highway.

* * * *

At
9:39
I crossed into
Westchester
County
via the Cross-County Expressway. I’d calmed myself enough to avoid killing anyone while navigating the complex network of entrances and exits that enfolded the Cross-County shopping center and was heading toward the Yonkers Raceway when a red S.U.V. rolled up behind me and tapped my rear fender.

“Son of a bitch!”

I gripped the steering wheel as my BMW accelerated, pushed forward by the S.U.V.’s greater bulk.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed.

The red S.U.V. surged forward and slammed into the back of my car with enough force to rattle my teeth.

“Jesus Christ!”

I pressed the accelerator, felt myself sink into black leather seats that had been hand-tooled by underfed German teenagers, and my BMW pulled smoothly away from the red S.U.V.  I swerved into the middle lane and waited for the idiot in the red truck to pass so I could read the license plate and call the police. 

The red S.U.V. swerved into the center lane and accelerated. This time it hit my rear fender so hard I momentarily lost control of the BMW and slalomed horizontally across the highway…directly into the path of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.

The driver of the eighteen-wheeler blew his horn as I jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and mashed down on the brakes, correcting the BMW’s trajectory a moment before the eighteen wheeler blew past me with a furious roar, rocking my car on its wheels.

I had slowed to about seventy-miles an hour, my hands gripping the steering wheel for dear life, when the headlights of the red S.U.V. filled my every horizon (and my windshield) with imminent death. The S.U.V. was rocketing
toward
me, heading West
against
the flow of traffic.

The idiot’s going the wrong way,
I thought wonderingly.

I floored the accelerator and swerved just as the S.U.V. thundered past on my right side.

He’s trying to kill me.

That realization brought with it a kind of clarity. I lifted my foot off the accelerator and coasted toward the nearest exit. Behind me, a swirl of headlights and blaring horns informed me that my assailant was causing difficulty for the late-evening commuters in my wake. I glanced up at the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of several cars slewing across the highway. One of them blew a front tire, swerved and flipped over before coming to a halt on its roof.

“What the hell?” I breathed.

In my haste to leave my apartment I’d left my cell phone behind. I spotted an all-night gas station at the foot of the nearest off-ramp and made for the exit. The gas station would have a phone I could use to call for help.

The red S.U.V. roared up beside me.

Fear slammed my foot down on the accelerator. The red truck sped up, blocking my egress from the highway, forcing me away from the exit. A moment later, the driver’s window was lowered and the silver barrel of a semi-automatic handgun flashed in the darkness.

The first shot took out my right rear passenger window. Shrieking wind shattered the bubble of Teutonic silence around me as glass exploded across the back seat. The second shot smashed my rear view mirror: The metal frame bounced off the steering wheel and hit me in the forehead; I barely noticed: My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

The silver muzzle flashed. To my left, the driver’s side window exploded and covered me with broken glass. Up ahead on the right, the exit was approaching fast. I could see the bright neon glow of the all-night service station across from the highway.

Directly in front of me, the concrete barrier separating the highway from the exit ramp reared up like the curse from an angry concrete god. The driver’s strategy became wickedly obvious: By keeping me hemmed in he could either pick me off with the gun or force me into the concrete barrier, but playing “Graffiti Splash!” using my spinal column as the paintbrush was
not
on my list of fun ways to spend an evening.

I twisted the steering wheel hard to the right, forcing the S.U.V. to veer into the exit lane. The big vehicle wobbled, and the silver automatic blasted a volley of high-velocity slugs against the driver’s side of my car. As we pounded down the exit ramp I twisted the wheel again and slammed into the side of the S.U.V.

I skidded to a halt as the red truck swerved, hit the bottom of the exit ramp, and rocketed toward the service station. With a squeal of brakes the S.U.V. fishtailed as the driver struggled to regain control, then it flipped over, bounced onto its roof, rolled once, twice, three times...and slammed into the island of gas pumps in front of the convenience store.

The explosion was heard as far away as the
Bronx
.

* * * *

“Am I under arrest?”

Three hours later, I sat nursing the cup of bile-flavored coffee I’d been handed upon my arrival at the
Yonkers
police department. I was exhausted, still confused about the “accident,” and furious: No one had offered to top me up.

The detective who’d been blowing smoke up my ass since my arrival leaned back and smiled with the kind of avuncular authority that made me yearn for a concealed weapon.

“I told you, Obadiah,” the detective, whose name was McMurray, said. “You’re not under arrest. We’re simply waiting to confirm the ID’s on your dead friends. You’re free to go at any time.”

I stood up and grabbed my car keys.

“However… we’re hoping a man of your obvious accomplishments might shed a little light on why three grown men should be street racing in the middle of the night.”

I sat.  “I already told the state troopers; I wasn’t ‘street racing.’ Those lunatics were trying to kill me.”

McMurray frowned. “And why would they want to do something like that?”

“I don’t have a clue,” I sighed.

I stood up, needing to stretch my legs, but also needing to put some distance between me and McMurray. My statement wasn’t strictly true.

After the pigeon assault in
Central Park
, I was beginning to
get
a clue. But what explanation could I possibly have offered McMurray? That the forces of Evil were after me? That supernatural creatures with a thirst for human flesh were real, and that I was their next target?