Darkborn (31 page)

Will took the pieces. He looked at the spine.

Experiments in Time
. By T. W. Dunne.

“There’s a way out, right in there. But we need help. There’s someone. But I can’t do it. Look at me. He’d never see me. No one respectable would see me. But you .
 
.
 
. you’re a lawyer, you’re respectable.” Kiff rubbed his chin. His dry-gulch tongue poked out of his gummy mouth.

Will saw his point. “See who?”

Kiff handed Will another book. New, with a shiny dust jacket. And a photograph of a man on the back of the dust jacket wearing a sport coat and a turtleneck. Will looked at the cover.

The Demonic Realm
. The author was Dr. Joshua James.

“Who’s this — ?” Will said, wanting to add the word “quack.”

Kiff looked strained. “He’s an ex-priest. He was at the Vatican. He’s officiated at dozens of exorcisms. He’s witnessed hundreds of documented cases of possession.”

Will held the book up. “This is help you need?”

“
We
need. I want you to talk to him.” Kiff rubbed his chin as if he knew that Will was only humoring him.

Got to get out of here, Will thought. The smell, the nutty ideas. It’s making my head spin.

“He teaches at Fordham —”

“The Church didn’t kick him out?”

“You can see him, tell him what happened.” Kiff grabbed Will’s wrist. “Tell him what I said about the murders. And then — if he’s willing — I can see him. And we can stop this.” Kiff looked up.

Like the pathetic Christ on the cross.

“Oh, God, I hope we can stop this,” Kiff whispered.

Will nodded.

Humor him, he thought. Move to the door. Open the door.

Go down the stairs.

Leave Brooklyn.

“Okay,” Will whispered hoarsely.

“Promise, Will?” Kiff said. “You can’t fuck up. It’s too important.”

Will opened the door. “I promise.”

The door opened. He heard sounds coming from downstairs. Men at the bar, talking, cursing, grimly whiling away their late afternoon, their late lives. It looked darker down there. The sun was going down, starting its cheerless withdrawal as winter approached.

Will went down the steps, the two unwanted books tucked under his arm.

“Promise?” Kiff nearly shouted.

“I’ll call him,” Will lied. “And I’ll call you. I’ll let you know.”

He felt Kiff watching him, wondering whether he could sense his lies, scared that Kiff might be nutty enough to hurt him.

I’ll change our phone number. Just in case. Keep it unlisted.

Oh, yeah. And I’ll call Whalen and thank him for this little sentimental journey.

He walked out of the bar, ignoring the bartender, who barely looked up.

And out, to where the wind whipped around his jacket and sent bits of newspaper and plastic dancing against the side of the bar.

Will walked to his car.

He wanted to toss the books in the trunk. Out of sight .
 
.
 
.

Out of mind.

He felt as if they stained his hands, marred his life.

But Kiff might be watching from his window, might have followed him. Crazy people do crazy things .
 
.
 
.

So Will opened the back door and tossed the books onto the seat.

He got in and started his Camry — the sound of the engine wonderful, reassuring.

And Will pulled away, forcing himself to drive smoothly, slowly, reining his desire to floor it, to get the hell away from here as fast as he could.

* * *

27

Will didn’t say much during dinner. He stuck some mashed potatoes onto his fork and then adhered some peas to it, knowing that Becca was looking at him.

Studying him.

Fortunately the kids were at the table, chattering away.

Sharon moaning about the California tests — a week spent filling in little circles on an electronically scanned answer sheet.

Beth talking about the new baby mice in her class, so pink, so cute, and why can’t I have one?

Neither of them needed any parental encouragement to go on talking, two conversations at once, chaotic and disconnected but — somehow — perfectly logical at the family dinner table.

It was later, when the kids left the table and started filling the dishwasher, that Becca snared Will.

“You’re not telling me everything about today,” she said.

“No, I’m not,” he said.

And then he got up and walked away to his office.

Where he hid until it was time for the sleepy ritual of goodnight kisses and bedside tales.

Becca didn’t press. She was good at that. She’d give him time, space. One of the good carryovers from their own wonder years, the days of revolution and rock and roll.

Instead, when he finally shut the beside light off, she reached down and fondled Will, playing with him, while she nuzzled his cheek.

For a second he lay there. Unresponsive.

Thinking: Nothing’s going to happen.

Not tonight.

Because of all the stuff that’s in my head. All that crazy stuff. I’m in no mood to be turned on .
 
.
 
.

But Becca was nothing if not experienced, and her deft persistence paid off, as thoughts of Kiff — his rat-hole apartment, his books, his crazy paranoia — gave way to a sudden need.

* * *

28

It was near closing time, past two, heading toward three, and for a Monday, it was late enough.

Kiff sat slouched on a stool near the corner, watching the last slugs of beer go down. Jimmie had his apron off — a signal to his customers. He looked over and winked at Kiff, another sign. He even poured himself a cool one, the very last thing he did every night before closing.

You can’t run a gin mill and be your own best customer, he always told Kiff. Jimmie never had a drink until it was time to kick the bums out.

Sometimes he had to get real direct, and tell them to move it, that it was closing time. But these guys were regulars .
 
.
 
. one a fireman on disability, the other an unemployed, divorced insurance salesman who told his sad story every fucking night, no matter who was there to hear it. Chained to his miserable story .
 
.
 
. trapped.

Sometimes, sitting here, Kiff felt like a vulture. I wait until they leave and then I swoop down and pick over the carcass.

Kiff was supposed to clean the whole place after Jimmie left.

That was his job.

But Kiff didn’t do that. He did a quick run-through with the broom, and then he got all the lights off and made sure the doors — front and back were locked.

The rest, he left until morning.

Until it was light.

Jimmie didn’t know about that. But what the hell difference did it make?

The fireman left, pushing himself unsteadily away from the bar. Then the other guy, the insurance salesman, his eyes red and bloodshot — not just from booze. The poor sucker lived through his bad fortune every night.

They drifted out the front door, letting in a sudden gust of cold air, refreshing, but out of place amid the smoke and the beery stench.

Jimmie tapped the register, removed the money, and shoved it into a canvas night-deposit bag.

“Okay, Kiffer, guess we’re all done for tonight.”

Kiff stood up.

A soldier standing at attention.

Jimmie dug his jacket out of a shelf below the bar. He pulled it on and then finished his beer.

“Guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Jimmie .
 
.
 
.” Kiff offered. “You take it easy …”

Jimmie nodded, heading out the door.

Always an anxious moment for Kiff.

Always.

Because then he’d be alone. From now until ten in the morning.

Kiff half followed Jimmie to the door.

And Jimmie stopped. “Oh, right. Damn, I knew I forgot something.” Jimmie turned around. “We’re nearly out of cans. Just the light shit. Meant to tell you before.”

Kiff cleared his throat. “I’ll get them in the morning.” But Jimmie shook his head, disappointed. “No. We need to get them in the damn cooler tonight. The goddamn thing is working at half power anyway.” He looked up. “Got to get them in tonight, Kiffer. Give them time to get cool.” Jimmie smiled. “Just a couple of cases. That should do us until the morning.” He turned. “Don’t forget.”

Kiff watched Jimmie open the door. “Night.”

“Good —” Kiff started to say, but the door slammed shut.

Jimmie looked back at him and signaled for Kiff to lock it.

As if I need reminding, Kiff thought. As if that isn’t the first thing I’d do.

He turned the Yale dead bolt and then twisted the door lock, all the time wishing he had one of those bars, one of those heavy metal bars that pressed against the door.

And Jimmie didn’t have an alarm system. Too expensive, he said. Besides, you’re here all the time.

Ha-ha. Who needs an alarm?

Jimmie disappeared into the darkness. A newspaper headline danced in the street, swirling from curb to curb.

Kiff turned around.

And for the longest time, he just stood there .
 
.
 
.

He stood there thinking that maybe he didn’t have to do it.

He almost convinced himself that he could do it in the morning.
That would be okay
. Jimmie wouldn’t know, wouldn’t give two shits —

It would be no big deal.

But that just wasn’t true.

The beer would still be warm when Jimmie came in. He’d be pissed. And when he got pissed, he threatened to kick Kiff out, put him on the street.

And that wouldn’t be good. Not at all.

No protection there. None.

So — Kiff took a breath — he knew he had to go down to the cellar and grab a few cases of beer. I can do it fast, he told himself. Real fast. And then hurry upstairs, lock my door.

And wait for morning.

He nodded.

Almost convinced.

The feeling was familiar. And he tried to place it, tried to search through his tired brain, navigating all the sharp turns and dead ends inside his damaged neural pathways. Searching for what event in his past felt like this.

He took a step, ready to give up the mental chase, when he remembered.

It was in Quang Tri, just outside another small, pathetic village that the lieutenant had ordered torched. Nobody asked the lieutenant
why
they torched the villages anymore. After the first few — with the mumbled stories about infiltrators and arms caches and spies growing harder to believe — no one asked.

They just did it.

Kiff got used to the way burning skin and straw mixed. It smelled like a cookout.

We’re doing our job, the lieutenant always said. Search and destroy.

The lieutenant always grinned at that point.

And we’re destroying.

But then an old man, some lucky Cong sympathizer who happened to be out in the fields, told the lieutenant that there were
others
hiding in the caves, yes, way up one of the low hills that surrounded the province.

So they marched up to the hill, to the caves. The lieutenant split everyone into parties of two and three — there were just too many caves for everyone to stick together.

And Kiff remembered how he felt, how he prayed that some other lucky bastards would be the ones to find the hiding VC, that
they’d
get the punja sticks in their gut, or step on a land mine, or have
their
face riddled by an Uzi. Nobody hurried. Everybody listened.

Until Kiff was looking into the third cave. Standing between two back grunts, one from Atlanta with a indecipherable accent, the other from the wilds of Bed-Sty. Neither of them had much to say to Kiff. But that was okay.

It was that kind of war.

They looked into the dark pit of the cave.

Took steps inside.

Something flew out, a bat, a fucking flying squirrel, Kiff didn’t know .
 
.
 
. They didn’t fire at it.