Lunar Park

23. the phone call

It was my cell phone ringing. It was lying on my desk, waiting for me to pick it up.

My mind was still picturing the field out by the interstate, and I answered the phone in a daze.

“Hello?”

I could hear someone breathing.

“Hello?”

“Bret?” I heard a voice say faintly.

“Yes. Who is this?”

Another pause.

“Hello?”

The sound of wind and static interspersed.

I pulled the phone away from my face and checked the incoming number.

The call was being made from Aimee Light’s cell phone.

“Who is this?” I didn’t even realize I had fallen into my chair. My heart was beating too fast. I thought clenching my fist would control it. “Aimee?”

“No.”

Pause, static, wind.

I leaned forward and said a name.

“Clayton?”

The voice was ice. “That’s one of my names.”

I stood up. “What do you mean? Is this Clayton or not?”

“I’m everything. I’m everyone.” A static-filled pause. “I’m even you.”

This comment forced the fear to adopt a casual, friendly tone. I did not want to antagonize whoever this was. I would play dumb. I would pretend to be having a conversation with someone else. I had started shaking so hard that it was almost impossible to keep my voice steady. “Where are you?” I moved to the window. “I never got to see you again after you stopped by my office.”

“Yes you did.” The voice was now oddly intimate.

I paused. “No . . . I mean, where would that have been?”

“Did you get the manuscript?”

“Yes. Yes, I did. Where are you?” For some reason I reached for a pen, but it dropped from my trembling hand.

“Everywhere.”

The way he said this was so ghastly that I had to compose myself before returning to my fake clueless demeanor. The voice had scales and was horned. The voice was something that had emerged from a bonfire. The fear it caused was unraveling me.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Yeah, I think I did see you again. Were you in our house on Sunday night?”

“ ‘Our’ house?” The voice feigned bewilderment. “That’s an interesting phrase. One highly open to interpretation.”

I closed the blinds. I sat in the chair again and then stood up just as quickly. I suddenly couldn’t help it. I decided to play along, my voice thick with urgency.

“Is this . . . Patrick?”

“We’re a lot of people.”

“So . . . what were you doing in our house the other night?” I asked casually. “What were you doing in my son’s room?”

“That night it wasn’t me, Bret. That night it was something else.”

“What . . . was it then?”

“Something that is not an ally to our cause.”

“Your cause? What cause? I don’t understand.”

“Did you read the manuscript, Bret?”

“Are any of you responsible for the boys?” I shut my eyes tightly.

“The boys?” I had interrupted his question with another question. The voice was on the verge of not behaving anymore.

“The missing boys. Are you—”

It was as if the voice hadn’t anticipated this question. It was as if the voice assumed I knew where the particular truth of that situation led. “No, Bret. Again, you’re looking in the wrong place on that one.”

“Where should I be looking?”

“Open your eyes. Stop groping for things that aren’t there.”

“Where are the boys?” I asked. “Do you know?”

“Ask your son. He knows.”

The fear curled into quick anger. “I don’t believe that.”

“This will be your downfall.”

The writer had left. The writer was scared and had run away and was now hiding somewhere, screaming.

“What do you mean by that? My downfall? Are you threatening me?”

“I see that a Detective Donald Kimball visited you,” the voice said airily. “Did he tell you about me?”

“What happened to Aimee Light?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Where is she?”

“In a better world than this one.”

“What did you do to her?”

“No, Bret. It’s what you did to her.”

“I didn’t do anything to her.”

“Well, a part of that is true: you didn’t save her.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I’d check the text of that dirty little book you wrote again.”

“I’m not involved with anything that happened to Aimee Light. I’m going to hang up.”

“Though of course I could make things happen.” The voice lowered itself, yet became clearer. “I could get you involved.”

Wounds kept opening.

“What do you mean? How could you do that?”

“Well, you were a mentor to her. She was the young and obliging student. Quite attractive, by the way.” The voice paused, and considered something. “Maybe Aimee Light wanted more from the big famous teacher she was doing her dissertation on.” The voice paused again. “Maybe you let her down in some way. Maybe there are even e-mails to back this up. Maybe Aimee Light left behind a trail that included a note or two. And let’s just say these notes hinted at the possibility she was expecting you to fulfill a promise. Let’s just say that maybe there was the possibility she was going to tell your very famous wife—”

“Who in the fuck is this?”

“—about the two of you.” The voice sighed, then spoke quickly. “Though when I asked about your ‘affair’ it seemed like she was saying that nothing had happened between the two of you. Of course I had taped her mouth shut and by that point she was losing so much blood, but it was pretty clear that the two of you had never fucked. Maybe you were angry at Aimee Light for not putting out. That’s another scenario we could pursue. The rejection was just too much for the writer who always got what he wanted and you snapped.” The voice paused. “I see you haven’t informed the authorities about your relationship with the deceased.”

“Because I’m not connected to anything crimin—”

“Oh, but you are.”

“How?” This was sending me out so much further than I had ever expected: a place beyond strength.

“You were seen outside her house by three witnesses the night her dismembered body was discovered in that very messy room at the Orsic Motel. Now, what were you doing there, Bret?”

“I have an alibi for—”

“Actually, you don’t.”

“There’s no way—”

“You mean the night you wandered around ‘your’ house making some realizations about the past? Everyone was asleep. You were all alone. No one saw you after you got back from Buckley until the next morning when Marta saw you racing to your office because of those attachments. That gives you a lot of time, Bret. By the way, did you like the video? It took you an awfully long time to find it. I’ve been wanting to show it to you for years.”

I leapt back to Aimee. “They don’t even know that body is hers.”

“I could send them the head. I still have it.”

“This is a joke. You’re not even real. You don’t exist.”

“If you think so, then why are you still on the line?”

I had nothing to say except “What do you want?”

“I want you to realize some things about yourself. I want you to reflect on your life. I want you to be aware of all the terrible things you have done. I want you to face the disaster that is Bret Easton Ellis.”

“You’re murdering people and you’re telling me—”

“How can I murder people if I’m not real, Bret?” The voice was grinning. It was presenting a mystery. “Again, you are lost,” the voice sighed. “Again, Bret doesn’t get it.”

“If you ever come near my family I’ll kill you.”

“I’m not particularly interested in your family. Besides, I don’t think you’ve figured out a way to get rid of me, not yet.”

“If you’re not real, how am I going to accomplish that?”

“Did you read the manuscript?” the voice asked again.

I was on the verge of tears. I shoved a fist into my mouth and I was biting on it.

“Let’s play a game, Bret.”

“I’m not—”

“The game is called ‘Guess Who’s Next?’ ”

“You’re not alive.”

And then, suddenly and very sweetly, the voice began humming a song I recognized—“The Sunny Side of the Street”—before a roar overtook the humming and the line clicked dead.

When I laid the phone back on the desk I noticed a bottle of vodka that had not been there when I walked into the room.

The writer did not need to tell me to drink it.