The Tower

Chapter 46

"I enjoyed your little ruse earlier this evening. I can't believe they actually pay you for paltry efforts such as that. So obvious. Plus, Mother hates Orson Welles. Wouldn't be caught dead at one of his films. So to speak."

Jade's entire body tightened when he heard the purring voice. His shoulders and neck tensed, his chest flexed, his stomach grew taut.

The voice sounded like two pieces of silk rubbing together. It was low, smooth, unrushed. Jade felt a tingling in his stomach as the voice calmly continued, the voice from the audiotapes and the videos, the voice he had heard rise from the written transcripts as if they were so many burning bushes. He sat down on the couch, slowing his descent by leaning on the cushion with one arm.

"I'm glad to see I caught you speechless. I've heard that's quite a feat. Are you enjoying having your miserable life falled with me? Pictures? Tapes? Files? You're consumed with me, Marlow. I've seen how you work. With my own eyes, in fact. I'd almost consider it flattering if you weren't such an amateur." Allander chuckled. "I must say, I find the title 'Tracker' a bit overblown. You're more like an errant chaser."

"I'm getting to you."

"Yes, you're just waiting at home to… what? Gather your strength?"

Jade strained to identify any background noises, but the line was quiet. He picked up the map of Woodside from the floor and glanced over it. "Something like that."

Another chuckle. "Yes, yes, I see."

Jade was desperately thinking of how to get a rise out of him, some way to make him angry so he'd slip up. Deny his individuality, he decided. "You think you're smarter than the rest, but you work in patterns. You all do."

"That's right, you keen little copper. Was the corpse's head covered? Were the bodies posed? Were they… violated?" He paused for a moment, and Jade could hear him breathing. "I know the patterns so well I give them to you gift-wrapped. And you know the best part, Marlow? You still can't catch me."

Bluff called. They both knew Allander was right.

"I turned your prison inside out and killed everyone in it," he sneered.

"Not everyone."

"Oh yes. Mustn't forget Claudius."

Allander had lengthened Claude's name to Claudius. Jade caught the reference-Hamlet's uncle, who had murdered Hamlet's father and wed his mother. Another Oedipal figure, Hamlet's rival and the fulfiller of his desires.

"Well, before I go," Allander continued, "I was hoping you could allay my concerns about something."

A beat of silence.

"I was wondering why a grown man with no children would keep a picture of a retarded boy. Couldn't help noticing when I was in your bedroom. You know, Jade-it is all right that I call you Jade, isn't it? — I detect a similarity in the eyes. Between you and the retard, that is. It's amazing what one can find out with a little research."

Jade gripped the receiver so tightly that his entire hand was white. He was shaking all over.

"Just you push me, you fuck," he growled. Not the conventional way to keep a suspect talking, but he knew that Allander would time the call out at fifty-nine seconds anyway.

"Funny, Marlow," Allander replied. "That's precisely what I thought I was doing."

Jade heard him breathing on the other end of the line again, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

"Well, I had better let you get back to your case, hero. It seems you're a bit behind. But don't worry, I'm sure something will break soon."

"Only you, Atlasia. Only you."

Dial tone. Fifty-eight seconds.

Jade held the phone tightly to his ear even after the dial tone had faded to an automated recording. He rose from the couch and hurled the phone across the room. It smashed into a framed print, shattering the glass and bringing it crashing to the ground. The phone's cord snapped, its plastic plug still stuck in the jack.

Deep inhale. From the stomach to the rib cage to the chest. Exhale. Eyes closed. Jade imagined himself sprinting. Control, efficiency. He felt his shoulders loosen up. You never realize how tense you are until you relax, he thought. He walked his body slowly down a mental ladder, amazed at how many steps it took for his muscles to unclench. He was close to his end. The end of the fuse.

Allander had called him a "hero." The word rang through his head like a crash of cymbals. There are no fucking heroes, he thought. They're all dead and we've created playthings to fill the void.

The phone shrieked and Jade pivoted to his side, yanking his gun from the back of his pants and whipping it to aim at the door. His heart jerked in his chest. He couldn't remember ever feeling so jumpy.

On the second ring, he lowered his gun, walked over to the phone that lay among the broken shards of glass, and picked it up. Another ring as he realized he was holding the smashed receiver to an unconnected line. He shook his head and walked into the kitchen to pick up a functional phone.

"It's Darby. Bad time?"

Jade looked at the shattered picture frame and smashed phone lying at the base of the living room wall, and then at the gun that he was still gripping tightly. He let the gun clatter to the countertop. "You could say that."

"I was just calling to make sure you weren't wasting your energy and our time by sulking."

"What gave you that idea?"

Darby laughed. "I don't know. Motherly intuition. You can see how well it's served me in the past."

Jade wanted to say something reassuring, but couldn't find the words.

"We don't hold you responsible, you know. Just keep doing your job and we'll keep doing ours."

"I know," Jade said. "I am."

"Good."

"Get some sleep, huh?" Jade said.

"Oh sure. Then maybe we could play a few holes of golf in the morning."

"Good night, Darby."

He hung up and stared at the phone for a few moments before picking it up and ringing Tony.

"Hey. I need to talk to you."

"Fine. Beer. Pour Little Rich Kid. Twenty minutes."

The idea of going out caught Jade so totally off guard that he actually stopped to consider it. He hadn't realized how claustrophobic he'd felt the past few days, as if the sky were closing in on him.

He closed his eyes to think, and images pressed themselves into his mind-Orson Welles appearing out of darkness, Darby's swollen face, two graves with no grass grown over them yet, the stretch of a scarecrow's arms. A flicker of mania brushed against him, the edge of an obsession. He needed some distance. He was no good like this.

"All right," he said. He ran his fingers through his hair and then across the scar on his cheek.

Allander smiled when he heard the sound of the crashing phone echo down the line from Jade's house across the street. He lowered the cellular phone and slid it into his pocket.

At first, Allander had been content to toy with Jade, to engage in a kind of gamesmanship with him. He had been drawn to Jade's astounding arrogance from the start, but more and more, he was beginning to feel an emotional outrage. There had been the whole issue of the obscene and obviously erroneous article in that tabloid, but there was no need to get worked up over that. Still, he felt increasingly drawn to Jade, in a way that was more visceral than tactical.

He watched the house for a few minutes, enjoying the chirp of crickets issuing from the bushes around him. Pretty soon, the living room light turned off and he heard Jade's car start up in the garage.

Allander cut back silently to his Jeep.

Jade raced across town in his car, cutting in and out of lanes of traffic. Honking incessantly, he revved, swerved, and fought his way along the road, passing other cars as though they were moving backward.

At one point, he got stuck behind slow cars that blocked all three lanes, but he managed to cut over and then back, threading his way through them. As he accelerated past the last one, he smiled as the road yawned empty before him, and he pierced the openness ahead, nosing his car forward around turns and up hills.

He arrived at Pour Little Rich Kid five minutes early.

Jade sat for a minute studying his own eyes in the rearview mirror. He sensed a storm rising beneath the green surface.

Pour Little Rich Kid was a yuppie hangout. Like most bars of its type, it was all windows and mirrors, a spacious loft of a building. The mirrors were essential, for the customers looked at themselves constantly and adjusted their hair almost as often as they looked around to check out members of the opposite sex.

It was not the usual hangout for Jade and Tony, but it was slow on weeknights and the ale was brewed in the back. A large sign showed a twenty-something male wearing a cardigan and holding a tennis racket in one hand. His other arm rotated mechanically, tipping a huge ale to his mouth at regular intervals.

"Black and tan," Jade said to the bartender as he swung his long legs over the bar stool, taking his seat next to Tony. The bartender's nametag had "JIM" written on it in big red letters.

Tony looked over at Jade, who was already nervously laying the coasters side by side on the bar. "Oh, I'm fine, thanks. Yeah, work's going well and Maggie's doing just great," he said, smiling as a smirk spread across Jade's face.

"Oh, I'm sorry, princess. Forgot to ask how your day was."

"Forgiven. What's the word?"

Jade shook his head. "The FBI's already maxed out on the case. I need to know I can count on you if something comes up and I need more manpower."

"Sure, kid. Of course."

Jade straightened the coasters in a line with the edge of his hand. "So, any more big-league crimes in Falstaff? Kids playing mailbox baseball? Petty shoplifting? Overdue library books?"

"Yeah, fuck you, kid. Nothing too thrilling, though, gotta admit. Some guy beat up his girlfriend pretty bad last night, but he was calm by the time we got over there."

"No action, huh?" Jade leaned forward, paying attention to Tony for the first time.

"No. Nothing." He saw the look of disappointment cross Jade's eyes. "You know, some people consider that a good thing."

Jade downed his black and tan, holding the glass upside down as the creamy head slid into his mouth. He raised a finger to Jim, then lowered it and tapped the rim of his glass.

"I had a guy a few years back who beat up real bad on his kids. I was tracking him on a drug case, wound up at this shady apartment in Oakland. Kids all cowering in the background. I got over there and he looked charged, like he wanted to go. Didn't even try to escape. I was just praying he'd try'n hit me. He came on and I dropped him to one knee with a single shot to the gut." Jade's right arm tightened as he recalled the shot, the soft sink of his fist into the stomach just below the rib cage.

"Had a blade out and tried to swipe at my legs. I broke his fuckin' cheek in four places with the butt of my gun." He told the end of the story gazing at himself in the mirror behind the bar. His face had the dreamy look of someone recalling a romantic interlude.

Tony watched Jade with some concern. He cleared his throat loudly and took a long sip.

"How's the kid?" Jade asked.

"Tommy?"

"Whatever."

"He still remembers that time you brought him that-"

"Yeah, well, it was left over."

Tony lowered his head and smiled. "He's good. Starts kindergarten in the fall."

"That's good. Outta your hair more, huh?"

"Yeah. Guess so. Hadda birthday party last week. Clowns and cake and all that shit. It goes by so fast sometimes you can't even see it."

Jade stared into his own eyes in the mirror again. "Clowns, huh?"

Tony glanced over at Jade's expression and laid a hand on his shoulder. "All right. This nun gets into a cab, and the cabdriver asks her what's up with the celibacy vow thing, right? So the nun says, 'Well, maybe I'd consider having an affair, but the man would have to be Catholic, unmarried, and not have any children.' So the cabbie says, 'Well that describes me perfectly. Why don't you come on up here?' And the nun goes in the front seat and gives him a blow job."

"That was quick."

"Indeed. So she finishes up and the guy starts laughing, and she asks him, 'What's so funny?' And he says, 'Well, I'm Protestant, and I'm married with two kids.' And the nun looks at him for a moment, then shrugs and says, 'Well, that's okay, my name's Fred and I'm on my way to a costume party.'"

There was a long, uncomfortable silence as Jade continued to stare at his reflection. He normally knew how far he could get inside his quarry without losing his balance, but something about this case made it hard for him to find the line of demarcation. Allander kept moving, playing, changing. It was almost impossible to nail him down.

"That's the punch line, you see," Tony said. "The nun was a guy, which provides us with good homophobic humor." He looked at Jade's serious expression and stood up, raising his hands in defeat. "Well, as good company as you've been, I'm outta here. Gotta get back to Maggie and 'the kid,' you know?" He tossed money on the bar.

"Yeah."

"See ya later, hotshot."

As the door banged shut behind Tony, Jim walked over. "Hey," he said, "we're closing up."

Jade turned slowly to face him, his eyes unfocused. Jim blanched.

"I'm gonna lock up the front then, so no one wanders in. I gotta cash out in the back. You take your time and I'll let you out when you're ready." Jim spoke slowly as he inched away, a lion tamer backing out of a cage.

Jade ignored him, gazing ahead at his reflection in the mirror. He thought of the sprawling bodies, the wash of blood on the walls, Leah's frightened little face floating above the sheets of the hospital bed. People were dying because of him. He glared at himself in disgust.

He sensed a slight movement in the mirror, reflected from outside. He wouldn't have noticed earlier, but it was late now and the streets were empty. His eyes darted to his left, fixing the spot on the mirror and focusing on the image. It was difficult given the darkness outside and the reflections of the bar's lighted interior.

It seemed like an eternity as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the image outside, but he sat like an animal, head trained on its prey. Finally, he saw the two eyes peering at him from the darkness; he could make out the sweep of the cheekbones and the casually drifting hair. The rest of the face and body faded straight into the night, a ghostly apparition.

But it was enough for him to know.

Jade's lips moved silently. He mouthed the name once before he was on his feet and across the bar in a few giant strides, his bar stool sent spinning like a top.