House of Cabal Volume One: Eden (7 page)

Not long after that, Chuck’s mother died of
breast cancer. Aaron had divorced her years earlier, but the news
hit hard, and soon a heart attack struck and ended his life
too.

Successful people didn’t die of heart
attacks, Chuck told himself repeatedly. He was overweight, like his
father late in life, with high cholesterol and blood pressure. But
Chuck had excellent health care. He didn’t always follow his
doctor’s advice. But he managed his stress better than his father.
Chuck had a happy marriage, or at least a happier marriage than his
parents’ had been. He didn’t have to fight about money all the
time.

While I witnessed Chuck’s past, all my
abilities functioned normally. His various connections led to other
destiny threads that led to others. Yet the next hour in Chuck’s
life, presumably the interview, was hazy. I couldn’t latch onto
anything concrete. All I could do was follow him forward in real
time with trepidation, while hoping for the best.

The ocean was calm. Chuck was still parked at
the beach, taking in the view, thinking the water looked serene,
even though, somewhere out there to the north, human remains were
buried beneath the waves in underwater ruins. The rolling surface
reflected the light from the sun in a dazzle of glint and shimmer.
On the beach, a surfboard leaned against an old shed. A portentous
day. An ideal late-summer mid-afternoon.

Chuck turned left onto a gravel road that
would take him the rest of the way to his destination. This drive
was being undertaken fifteen years after Everett found the bugs in
the orange on his way to the House of Cabal and thirty years since
Lane and Kyle had lived it up on this very beach. The bigger
picture was coming together, but if this was yet another dead end
as I feared, I would be out of options. He rolled down the window
so he could breathe in the fresh ocean air. As my anxiety grew and
he came closer and closer to the end of his destiny thread, he was
as relaxed as he had been in weeks.

Not far south stood a two-story structure
overlooking the water. Everett lived there, hidden away on the
first floor. I had to see inside if I was to write my opera, but I
knew the mansion would deny me, just like the House of Cabal.

I would be a failure. My opera would amount
to nothing.

Chuck parked in the driveway, grabbed his
suitcase, and got out.

As he entered through the mansion’s front
door, his destiny thread became indistinct, as did his
surroundings. I thought all was lost, but I noticed a dimensional
tunnel into which I could slip through that led inside. Chuck was
greeted by a man, but I couldn’t tell who the man was, because his
past and future were blocked to me. While Chuck walked down what
seemed to be an unremarkable hallway, I searched the floor and
ceiling for the causes of my dissociative state.

Unknown to the biographer, above us was a
spider infestation and below us was an abandoned research
laboratory where the spiders had been created. The silk strands had
qualities like destiny threads, yet they were made of a physical
protein in addition to being of a primarily temporal nature. I
folded inward and kept my distance, yet still an invisible gossamer
clung to my celestial essence, binding me to the present moment.
The damn stuff was everywhere, and was the reason I couldn’t see
this place and time from the outside.

I centered my focus back on Chuck. He had
gotten ahead of me. I had to find him.

III

In a decrepit dining room deep within the
mansion, Chuck offered a glass of water across the table. A man
with a brain tumor, the man who greeted Chuck at the front door,
took the water from Chuck’s outstretched hand.

“There you go, Mr. Grimes.”

Chuck sat back down.

Generally, he felt at home in other people’s
homes. Success often made the biographer feel invincible. He had
interviewed a serial killer on death row and remarked to his wife
afterward how normal it felt. Interviewing strangers in strange
locations was his normal world. Today didn’t feel normal. He felt
nervous, and he didn’t know why. It irritated him.

He thought it was the room at first. The
light bulbs shone too bright for their fixtures. A mirror reflected
those seated at the table, the mirror’s ornate silver frame long
ago tarnished gray. The room was designed for interrogation, not
relaxed conversation.

Then he blamed Grimes. But what had the man
done exactly? He introduced himself. He led Chuck down a long hall
and into the dining room. He sat in silence, while Chuck unpacked
interview equipment and explained his process. It was all very
straightforward.

And yet as Grimes popped two pills and put
the prescription bottle back into his breast pocket, a chill made
Chuck want to recoil.

“What were those?”

“Oxycodone. For the headaches. Or maybe 20 mg
of Oxycontin. I’ve stopped reading the labels.”

Chuck had a few pages of prepared questions
and a legal pad for notes. He scribbled down the drug names. “You
taking anything else?” He tried to gently clear his throat.
Sun-bleached wallpaper curled off mold-infested walls. His throat
still tickled, and he coughed roughly.

He wanted Grimes comfortable and at ease on
his home turf, but maybe the next session could be away from the
mold, maybe outside on the deck in the fresh ocean air, or even up
the road at the site of the avalanche.

“Why you, Mr. Chuck Pointer?” Grimes hadn’t
looked up for more than a moment; he seemed only interested in the
tape recorder at the center of the table. Chuck had yet to press
record.

“If you want your story out there, you could
do worse.”

Chuck had written eight biographies, sold
four film options, and consulted on three high-profile Hollywood
projects. Only one film had made it through the production cycle,
The Mardi Gras Serial Killer,
but it was enough to cement
Chuck’s status in the publishing industry. In addition to his
mainstream successes, his insight into the morally aberrant made
him a literary darling, and while he still had his vocal critics,
they were nothing he couldn’t ignore if he kept his head down and
focused on the work.

“You’re a gentleman who writes other people’s
stories. Never your own.”

“Not everyone would call me a gentleman.”

“A gentleman is just a man who can remain
straight-faced while listening to other people’s lies.”

Chuck’s wry smile brightened his round,
bearded face, making him look younger than Grimes by a decade,
easily, despite the fact Chuck was fifty-four and his subject was
supposedly only forty-two.

Chuck noted on the pad, “
Fragile like bird
bones.
"

He gently cleared his throat again. “Anything
else before we begin?”

The distant sound of the Pacific occupied
another of Grimes’s pregnant pauses, and for a moment, he forgot
Chuck entirely.

Chuck noted on the pad: “
Inexpressive,
withdrawn. Dazed?
”

And then, with a mechanical movement, Grimes
looked up from the tape recorder and stared directly into Chuck’s
eyes. “At your birthday party, with that hypnotist, with your
writing colleagues laughing and feigning interest in your next
project, I had my pick.”

Chuck swallowed hard and shifted in his
chair. “That’s funny. I thought for sure I was the one that
contacted you.” He refused to believe that Grimes’s mysterious
persona was anything more than an act. “How did you hear about the
party?”

Grimes didn’t answer, still staring.

Chuck chuckled to cover his anxiety. “The
guy, the hypnotist, he had what’s-his-name acting like a chicken.
The talk of the town, I guess. Even my son enjoyed himself, and
that's saying something.”

“Bobby Pointer. Yes, the avant-garde writer.
We considered him. A bit too unstable.” A movement at the corner of
Grimes’s lips and at the corner of his eyes animated his face and
hinted at the vibrant man that once resided behind the hollow gaze.
Everett Grimes was supposed to have been extraordinarily handsome
in his youth. How distant that seemed now. “You think I’m off my
rocker. Don’t you? You think I may be a waste of your time.”

“The House of Cabal was exclusive, not to
mention deadly. I’m not sure anyone else is alive to interview. But
you’re right. Get on with it.” Though Chuck’s tone was mellow, he
had chitchatted long enough. "I understand you grew up in a
conservative household, in a strict religious family. Is that
true?"

"Yes."

"And then you went to the University of
Oregon: a fairly liberal campus. That must have been a big change
for you, striking out on your own for the first time."

"Can we speak off the record?"

"I haven’t started recording yet." In truth,
Chuck had lost confidence the interview would go anywhere worth
taping. Grimes seemed content with one word answers or
deflections.

Then abruptly, that changed.

"I began as an Arts Major. This was back in
the nineties. I thought I could start over, where nobody knew who I
was. But the counter culture. I found it unsettling. I feared
something bad would happen if I engaged in sex or drinking or
partying. The whole college experience was off limits.”

“Why?”

“At the time I thought it was by choice, but
I know a deep part of me thought I would die on the spot if I
sinned. It was like a phobia.

"After college, regret started to eat at me.
I hadn't lived. I started doing things with my girlfriend. Nothing
aberrant, I was just testing the waters. Seeing what the fuss was
about. I bought a case of beer and had a panic attack. I thought
God would strike me dead. But nothing happened. Not even a
hangover. If I could sin without punishment, maybe I could be free
from the fear and the shame that had crippled me. I wasn't really
aware of this at the time, but subconsciously, I think that's what
was going on.”

“Most people go through a wild phase,
especially when brought up within a strict religious family.”

“In their teens. But it happened to me in my
mid-twenties, years after college. I didn't handle it well. Before
going to the House of Cabal, I was primed for a breakdown."

"That's a great place to start. Why can't
that be on the record?"

"That's not for the public. That's for
you."

“You’ve hidden here for what, fifteen years?
No wonder you’re reluctant, but everyone has a past. My readers
want to know the real you. I know it takes courage, but people
respect vulnerability.” Grimes didn’t look convinced. “People envy
those involved with moral deviation. People want a life filled with
excitements and extremes, otherwise, why would they read my books?
And as for regrets, they only make you more relatable."

Grimes sat back in his chair and made a
slight grunt. “That’s the heart of it.”

“Pardon?”

“All the endless hours. You ignore your wife,
your children, and yet all you have to show for it are your books.
Your life will never merit an autobiography. You’re jealous of your
subjects.”

"I've interviewed serial killers."

"Yes."

"You think I'm jealous of serial killers? Mr.
Grimes, I think you have the wrong idea. For one, killing isn't
glamorous. Most killers live in their own private hell. Fame
doesn't solve anything."

"You're famous."

"What’s your point? The work gives me
satisfaction, not the fame. I finish a book and move on to the
next. Your story is next, Everett. You’re the work. You matter. The
House of Cabal is a fascinating mystery. If you have some of the
answers, that’s huge. But right now it’s not about the House of
Cabal; it’s about you. My goal is to know the real Everett Grimes,
inside and out. That’s how I write bestsellers. But if you don't
want to do this, if you want to play games and talk around in
circles, I can tell someone else's story. A lot of people out there
would love to be the subject of my next book. Should I give one of
them a call?"

Chuck saw something out of the corner of his
eye. There was no one down the hall, yet he still had the
unsettling feeling of being secretly watched.

Grimes took a drink of water. “You really are
perfect for this.”

“Are we alone?”

“Not in this house.”

Chuck smoothed his tie against his belly,
irritated by the mysterious answer. “Would you like me to start the
tape now?”

"Not just yet." Grimes snapped his
fingers.

Chuck’s world went black for what seemed like
only a moment. Maybe the lights had flickered.

"Mr. Grimes…"

The crook of Chuck’s arm stung, and he rolled
up his sleeve to see if a bug had bit him. The pain dissipated and
there was a dry speck of blood at a prominent vein, as if someone
had drawn his blood. He scraped off the speck and found that there
wasn’t a puncture wound underneath like he expected.

"Trust me. You'll get what you need and more.
Your readers, they need to know what I thought fifteen years ago,
not what I think now, not what I tell myself. Too much consistency
bias."

"You know about consistency bias?"

"I’m sure you’ve encountered it in your
work.”

“Yes. The mind has a natural tendency to edit
memory so that our identity seems consistent over time. Unless we
monitor the change, we tend to believe we have always held the same
opinions and beliefs as we do now. It was a problem in my first
book. I said as much in an interview. Being so honest only caused
me grief. People don’t want to know how much fiction we take as
fact.”

“To maintain the reliability of the self, we
lie to ourselves.”

“If we realized how much our identity changed
from one moment to the next, we couldn’t function. So what are you
saying? You have journals I can see or something?"

“You’re funny. You still think this is just
another interview. I would like you to listen to my voice. It has a
certain symphonious quality I think you’ll recognize.”