Cracked (23 page)

Which is why it took me so long to get him to see me. But once he saw me fight, he said he knew that we were actually soul mates. He recognized things in me that he saw in himself. It was rare, he said, to find these qualities in women. He wanted to teach me to take care of myself, so that I would never, ever wind up anybody’s victim.

We were happy, for a long time. We married when I was twenty-five, and my late twenties were for the most part, the happiest time of my life.

Jack started boxing and wrestling more seriously, and he took to it like, well, like I did to crack later. He was a few years older than me, and was finishing his Ph.D. in mathematics and his thesis involved the Computer Science department and had something to do with Artificial Intelligence. He won some big award in the department. I met a couple of his colleagues at school; happy, nerdy types. I liked them, but Jack and I were happy alone together. But they all told me that Jack was in for something big one day. “Very big,” one guy said to me, one of Jack’s mentors. “He has the capability to develop systems that change the world.” Yeah, yeah, I thought. Those nerds with Asperger’s – gotta love them, but they were always so hyped on their own intelligence.

But then Jack slowly started to change, in alarming ways. He started whispering to me in bed at night about a shadowy cult-like group who tracked his movements. At first, I was terrified, alarmed. He had worked on some super-secret stuff when he was doing his Ph.D., and up until now I had no reason to disbelieve anything Jack had to say, about anything. I became a little frightened, for both of us. I shredded everything that might have any of our details, and became much more aware of my surroundings when we were out. I even went online looking at spyware, trying to see what equipment was out there for people who might want to do Jack harm.

But then things changed.

If we were in a restaurant, he started to believe that people at the next table were taping our conversation, even when they had been seated having dinner before we arrived, and we hadn’t planned on going to that restaurant. I began to see that his fears were delusional, that he was paranoid in a very frightening way. He would come home and tell me that somebody was following him. He developed extreme road rage when he was driving. It scared me. He scared me. Sometimes, if I tried to reason him out of his delusions, he would put his face nose-to-nose with mine and yell at the top of his voice, enumerating the details of his conspiracy theory. It was so frustrating for him if I didn’t believe him that I tried to. I tried to see logic in his assertions. After all, he was so much smarter than I was, right? He was Jack. He was all-powerful.

Eventually, I took him to the hospital, when he agreed that something was wrong. He thought he was clinically depressed because he had taken to spending days in bed, unable to get up. The doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia.

That’s when our world collapsed. They put him on Haldol, an antipsychotic, plus Zoloft and Ativan. A dangerous mixture for him, as it turned out, and he became much worse. Bad enough that I was seriously concerned for my own safety, should he decide that I was the enemy. Then, through a year of trial and error, he was on lithium and Ativan, for when he got anxious.

Through all of this, we were both still fighting. For both of us, it released a lot of aggression. On other people. I wouldn’t let him do any real fights, worried about the effects of his drugs and what he could do, or have done to him, but he sparred all the time and worked hours every day on developing his body. And so did I, but I found myself leaning toward defensive fighting. I didn’t want to tap into my own rage; I had seen his. And I figured that if he kept going the way he was, I might need to defend myself against him one day.

Eventually, it all became too much. Some of the family came to visit, and Jack decided that Skipper’s wife Marie – an elementary school teacher – worked for the CIA, and he banned her from the house. He wouldn’t let me use the phone for days at a time. He would cry and beg me to help him, but he had stopped taking the lithium, and refused to go back on it. He had to be sharp, he said, when They came calling for him. He became obsessed with the cult or group that he believed were following him, some organization that bled people of their money and then bled them of their lives. Jack thought he was on their hit-list. He was sure of it. He changed our phone number to an unlisted one and insisted we move.

After one long, harrowing night, during which I saw that Jack was even starting to think that my calm attempts at reasoning with him made me the enemy, I packed up some things and moved in with a friend. He left me alone for a while, then called twenty, thirty times in a row, crying, begging me to come back. I did.

It took six months of this, before I was worn down enough to actually leave for good. Jack was in the process of getting rich quick in the meantime. Despite, or perhaps because of, what was going on in his head, he could sit at his computer and work for twenty hours writing code. Odd behaviour in geniuses has long been accepted, I learned. And the rate of this kind of mental illness is much higher in the higher-I.Q. brackets.

“At least I don’t have to worry about getting it,” I joked to Darren on the phone.

I didn’t take much money from Jack in the separation, other than monthly support for a few years. His own lawyer thought that was crazy, with what Jack was worth by then. But taking away the only person in the world Jack trusted – myself – I couldn’t take away his money too.

I spent the first six months crying. Then I dusted myself off and began my new life as a barfly, then addict. My new lifestyle consisted of doing vast quantities of drugs and watching movies for thirty-six hours at a stretch. I liked it. Nobody bothered me. And on crack, the only problem you have is finding more crack, and the money to buy it with. Makes life very, very simple. And after my years with Jack, simple was what I needed. Wanted.

Until now.

* * *

“And that, Dave – if that’s even your real name – is what I know about Jack MacRae,” I said. “I could tell you more personal things, but I don’t think that would help.”

“So he doesn’t trust easily, or fall in love easily,” Dave said, looking at me. He touched his nose gingerly. I could tell it wasn’t broken, but it probably wasn’t feeling so hot, either.

I shrugged. How could I answer that? How easily does anyone fall in love?

“Do you think he could be with Jeanette?” Dave asked. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, as though he hated asking personal questions. Odd, for a guy who did this for a living, and only hours ago had had a gun on me.

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I didn’t even know about his foster family; he barely mentioned them. But if he’s harming those boys in any way…” I looked out the window, looked at the clouds. “No. Jack loves those boys.”

I was trying to make my voice normal. Thinking about Jack was one of the reasons I had started doing drugs in the first place. This wasn’t helping.

“Do you think he could be a danger to others? I mean, outside a staged fight?” Dave asked.

I took a deep breath. “Yes,” I said. “If confronted, he could be a wild animal.”

“In my experience,” I continued carefully, “Jack wanted people to be able to protect themselves. He was a huge righter of wrongs, in his book.” I paused for a second, then looked at Dave. “But I haven’t seen him in nearly three years. I don’t know what’s happened to his brain. I don’t know what kind of drug cocktails they’ve got him on now, or if he’s running around without any meds.”

“What about the boys, Danny? If he has the boys?”

“Children fall under Jack’s wing of protection. If he has them, which I doubt, but if he does, then they are absolutely safe.”

“But if he believes that we are the enemy coming to get the kids?”

“Then watch out us,” I answered. We sat in silence for a minute, thinking about this.

“Is he proficient with firearms?” Dave asked.

“He wasn’t when I knew him,” I answered. “But again…”

“Yeah. Three years.”

“Well,” Dave said, “I know you can still fight.”

“That was one thing. Lola was a sitting duck,” I said.

“A sitting duck who was very quickly reaching for a gun,” Dave said. “And what about me? I had a gun on you one minute, and the next?” He pointed at his face.

“I can probably still handle myself okay,” I said slowly. “But I haven’t trained in years now. I don’t have muscle left, or speed, not really. And against Jack?” I waved my hand.

“Unless he trusts you again,” Dave said.

“And if he doesn’t, you had better give me that gun and some refresher lessons. Or you are going to have another dead Cleary on your hands.”

I got up to go to the washroom and do a couple of lines of coke, which was now nearly gone. When I got back to my seat I looked out the windows, and watched the lights of Toronto as we approached landing.

The plane landed at the small airport on Toronto Island. A quick ferry ride to downtown Toronto, where another car would be waiting to take us to my apartment. No waiting for luggage, no lineups for customs. It was clearly the only way to fly.

Note to self: buy a private plane.

Neither Dave nor I had any bags. Or any jackets, for that matter. I was still in the sleeveless sundress I had bought in Palm Springs early in the day, what seemed like weeks ago, and Dave in his thin white t-shirt and jeans. I wanted to brush my teeth so badly it was nearly crowding out grief and crack cravings, and I knew I needed a bit of sleep before hunting for Jack and Jeanette. I only had my purse, and I only noticed Dave had a wallet when he checked it on the ferry back to the terminal at the foot of Bathurst Street.

“You’re going to need clothes,” I said. Gene had a few things at my place, and he and Dave were of a similar size, but I wasn’t sure I was quite forgiving enough to be offering him clothes. And it was cold in Toronto, but not bitter cold. Just regular, brisk autumn cold, the kind that makes you want to hug your jacket around yourself as you rush down the street. The kind of evening where you break out the gloves. Dave and I stood in line for a taxi, shivering, but it wasn’t long until we were sailing up Avenue Road towards my apartment. As we cruised through the quiet neighborhoods on the way to mine, there were leaves that had blown into the street, all set now and turning into mulch.

I loved it. I was not cut out for unrelenting sunshine. In this weather, I thought, I could make my brain work better. I could find the boys. I would find the boys.

And I would stay away from D-Man and Gene until they were safe. After that, all bets were off.

Dave and I had agreed that he would come to my apartment with me and check if it was safe. If it was bugged. If there were sufficient deadbolts. That Jeanette wasn’t hiding in a closet with a Glock. Then he would repair back down the road to Yorkville and check into one of the pricey hotels on Fred’s dime, give the concierge a credit card and his sizes to get him some clothes, and we’d start fresh in the morning.

All the way up Avenue Road I was thinking about Gene. I hadn’t had a chance to warn him we were coming. I didn’t know if he was at my place, but I kind of doubted it. He usually didn’t stay there more than a day or two, so he’d probably gone back to his place by now to sleep it off. I hoped. I hoped he wasn’t still sitting on my couch watching the game show channel, taking hits from the pipe. For one thing, I didn’t want him to be surprised in the middle of a perfectly good high by me walking in with a stranger in summer clothes.

I was feeling strong and the goal of getting my nephews back was keeping me that way. But the fact of a rock of crack sitting directly in front of me with a pipe and lighter at the ready would be a test I knew I would fail.

I had the cab drop us off at the side door, jabbering away about how my place might be a mess, that’s the way I’d left it, and warning him that my friend might be there. I didn’t give a shit if Dave was appalled by my living conditions or not, but apologizing for a messy place is hardwired in.

We exited the elevator at the fifth floor, and Dave walked ahead of me. His hand was behind him, resting lightly on the grip of the gun in the back of his jeans. Somehow I hadn’t noticed it. A t-shirt and jeans, and I hadn’t noticed a gun, and obviously no one else had either, or there would have been cops everywhere in the cab line-up at the ferry terminal. Either way, I was glad to see it. The hallway was hushed and empty, and I fumbled with my keys and opened the door.

The living room was neat, tidy, and empty. I exhaled. Gene had cleaned up, a rare feat for him. Bathroom, the same. The bedroom door was closed. Dave opened it with one motion, his gun drawn.

Gene was tied to the bed. Something was stuffed into his mouth, and his face didn’t look much like a face anymore.

I pushed past Dave, who tried to restrain me. He settled for checking the closet and under the bed.

Gene had been beaten past all recognition. I took the gag out of his mouth, and his mouth just stayed open, limply. His eyes were closed, and I checked for a pulse. I was pretty sure I could feel one.

“He’s alive,” I said. “Call an ambulance.” Dave grabbed the phone beside the bed and dialed 911, while I held Gene’s hand. Dave pushed me away and took over, clearing Gene’s airway and talking loudly to him. He pulled his shirt up and examined him for other injuries. His chest was dark red and purple, and his skinny torso looked slightly misshapen on one side.

“Broken ribs,” Dave said. “I don’t know what kind of internal injuries he might have.” He felt again for Gene’s pulse. Then felt again, more intently.

“It’s gone,” he said. He leaned over Gene, tilted his head back, and gave him CPR. I could hear the ambulances speeding up Avenue, their sirens wailing. I counted every time Dave pushed with his interlaced palms over Gene’s sternum, then breathed into his mouth. I prayed he knew what he was doing.

I buzzed the paramedics in and ran down the hall to the elevator to wait for them. Within minutes, they had Gene on a stretcher. He was breathing on his own, but wasn’t conscious.