The Arx (19 page)

“Well, I’ve got to get going, Ricky,” he said. “It was nice meeting you. I’ll try to get back and see you again.”

Ricky didn’t move.

“You were right,” Frank said as the nurse arrived. “It was a pretty one-sided conversation.”

“It’s hard to know whether he understands what people are saying,” she said, “but any sort of human contact is probably good for him.”

“I’ll be back,” Frank said. “Like you say, I can keep him company if nothing else.”

Frank rose to leave. As he stood, Ricky finally lifted his head. Frank peered momentarily into Ricky’s eyes, and his gut wrenched at what he saw. Somewhere behind the vacant stare of the quadriplegic he caught a glimpse of the same strange, animal-like expression he’d seen in the eyes of Gloria’s baby the night they met.

He believed he saw something else in those eyes. Whatever medical problems Ricky Augustus might have, Frank was pretty sure a low IQ wasn’t one of them.

Digging into Kaffir

Rebecca felt silly wearing sunglasses and a big floppy hat to a random series of community library branches and Internet cafes as she conducted her promised research on Kaffir and Olmerol. It seemed like overkill, especially after meeting Carla, but following Frank’s instructions in this helped offset her guilt about having gone behind his back.

She had expected to find nothing, but as she dug deeper into Kaffir a disturbing pattern seemed to emerge. Several of the original developers of Olmerol, a statistically significant number, had died or disappeared. On the surface there was nothing suspicious about any of it. The deaths were accidental, and maybe the ones who disappeared just chose not to leave any way to get in touch with them.

But the pattern of deaths and disappearances didn’t seem to extend to newly hired workers.

The independent studies showed the same pattern – a couple of researchers had died unexpectedly before their conclusions could be released. A couple of others had disappeared or given up on their research. But again, there was nothing to indicate there was anything evil going on.

Nothing stood out in the studies that
were
completed, but they had a thread of similarity, as if they were written by, or at least influenced by, the same person. They detailed minor side effects, like trouble sleeping or dry mouth.

Rebecca nervously pulled down the brim of her hat and scanned the street as she exited her final library stop. Was it possible that Frank’s theories were more than paranoia?

“Every time I see you, you look worse,” she said as Frank strolled through the door of her office.

It was Tuesday, their prearranged meeting time. He hadn’t contacted her since their last one and this time she’d stuck to their agreement and hadn’t called him. She felt a fresh twinge of guilt over her meeting with Carla De Leon, and the warmth rose to her cheeks as she remembered agreeing to meet with the VP of Research again.

“I’m fine,” Frank said. “Didn’t get a chance to shave this morning.”

He sat down in front of her desk, facing her. She narrowed her eyes and stared at him.

“What?” he said.

“We’re definitely having a session later.”

He made a face.

“Remember…”

“Our agreement,” Frank completed her sentence. “It’s carved into my brain. Fine, but first, any luck with Kaffir?”

She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“You were going to look into the company, right?”

“Oh, that.” She leaned back in her chair. “It’s frustrating. There might be something fishy, but it could also all be explained away.”

“Fishy how?”

She opened her notebook and referred to it as she told him about her research on the missing workers and the independent studies.

Frank’s eyebrows came together. “So somebody’s doing away with people they don’t like and replacing them with people they do.”

“You could interpret it that way. Like I said, there’s nothing concrete to say anybody did anything to these people. It could all just be coincidence…”

“And nobody ever thought to investigate whether there’s a link between all these events?”

She shrugged and crossed her legs. “I did have one interesting experience when I looked into one of the researchers who died accidentally. He was on a hiking trip with a group of friends when he disappeared. His friends lost sight of him and his body was found later at the bottom of a cliff. The father was suspicious at first, but eventually bought into the idea that his son’s death was an accident.”

“So what’s so strange about that?”

“The son had been doing a lot of his work at home, and his father kept his room exactly the way he left it. I convinced him to let me have a look.”

Frank’s face tightened. “You met him?” he said. “You went to the house?”

Rebecca nodded.

“Don’t ever do that again.”

“Come on, Frank,” she said, smiling. “You’re being paranoid.”

“Promise me you’ll never do that again.” Frank’s fingers dug into the arms of his chair.

One look in his eyes and her smile disappeared.

“Okay, okay. I promise,” she said. “Relax.”

“Anyway,” she continued, ignoring his stare. “I had a look through the son’s room. Somehow the computer with all his notes had gotten lost or stolen. But – there were books on the bookshelf. The father confirmed that his son had gotten them specifically as part of the Olmerol study.

“The books tell their own story. There was one on Thalidomide – I guess that’s not so strange in itself, but combined with the others… There were a couple on autism and two or three on autistic savants. And there were a number on human brain topology, and a couple on animal behaviour.”

“Animal behaviour?”

“I was thinking of Ralphie. There was something almost feral about the way he looked…”

“So was the study ever released?”

“Not under the name of the researcher that died. Another researcher, claiming to use the data collected by the deceased one, finally released it. The conclusions were like all the others, minor side effects but nothing to cause concern.”

Frank was still staring at her.

She flipped the notebook shut.

“Your turn,” she said.

“What?”

“To talk. Who’s this Ricky Augustus character?”

“Dead end,” he said.

“Frank,” she scowled at him, “what the hell’s going on?”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “When I’m ready, you’ll be the first to know.”

It was her turn to stare.

“Well, if you’ve got nothing more to say…” she smiled and shot him an evil glance.

***

“You said it yourself,” Rebecca smiled. “Info dump-slash-therapy session.”

Frank made another face but said nothing. Rebecca grabbed a notebook from her desk and they moved to a corner demarcated by an oriental rug, the area he’d come to call the ‘Interrogation Room’. They sat on opposite sides of a small coffee table. On the table sat a round crystal bowl filled with candies.

“Take your time,” she said, opening the notebook on her lap. “If it gets to be too much, we can stop.”

He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

“Just continue on from last time,” she said, flipping over a page and skimming her notes. “You were chasing a serial killer named Eugene Mastico.”

Frank blinked his eyes, exhaled, stared into space for a few seconds, then started talking. "Mastico liked to dismember his victims. And he loved the spotlight. He knew that the more gruesome the crime the more punch it would have in the media.

“A lot of times he’d send out his version of a press release – just for fun, I guess. He’d include details about what horrific thing he planned to do to his next victim. A few days later, the victim would turn up, just like he said.”

Rebecca shook her head slowly.

“You okay?” she said.

Frank nodded and pushed on. “He started bringing me into his fantasies. He’d threaten to kill people if I didn't follow his instructions. It was all about power and control.

“It got more and more personal. Finally one night he phoned me on my cell and claimed he'd taken a young woman hostage. He said he'd torture and execute her unless I met with him. I had to come alone. I didn’t tell any of the brass about it. I knew they’d forbid me to go. I was desperate.”

Frank's face tightened, and he felt beads of sweat rising on his forehead.

"I drove to the meeting spot – an abandoned parking lot on the Downtown Eastside. I got to the place, but nobody was there. I walked around for a while. At first I thought I got the directions wrong. I remember there was a full moon. It rained earlier and I could see the reflection in the puddles on the ground – a blood-red moon…”

The light in the room started to fade.

“And you were alone?” Rebecca said. Her voice seemed to fade into the distance.

Frank gripped the arms of his chair.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“I got knocked on the head,” he said, now breathing heavily. “I think I was out for about fifteen minutes. I woke up and got to my feet. The guy, Mastico, was standing behind a pile of trash. He stepped out and started walking toward me. I went for my gun, but for some reason I froze.”

Frank stared at the crystal bowl on the coffee table. It seemed to glow, first white, then blood red, like the moon in the water. The table beneath it flexed upward, like the expanding surface of an inflating balloon. It contracted again. The table was breathing, the glowing red bowl rising and falling with each breath. The pressure in the room intensified, constricting his throat, cutting off his air supply.

“Then what happened?” Rebecca said. Her voice seemed to come from far away.

“W…What?” Frank said, still fixated on the bowl.

“What happened next?” she said.

He broke out of his trance and gaped up at her.

“You went for your gun,” she said, “and then what happened?”

He paused, still only half there. “Nothing,” he finally said.

“Nothing? What are you talking about?”

“That was it.”

“That’s impossible, Frank, What happened to Mastico?”

“He left.”

“That’s all? He left? Then what did you do?”

“What?” Frank said again, still shaking. “I went home.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I think maybe that’s enough, Frank.”

“I know I wasn’t supposed to call you,” Rebecca said on the phone the next morning, “but something important came up.”

Frank occupied his usual spot at the kitchen table. He brushed back his unwashed hair with one shaking hand as he gripped his cell phone with the other.

“It’s okay,” he said, still half asleep.

“My friend in the coroner’s office called,” she said. “She convinced him to perform the DNA test.”

“What!” Frank said, awake now and sitting up straight in his chair.

“It’s actually a pretty unusual move,” she said. “They don’t normally take that step unless they’re directed to by the courts or a request from the police, but I guess my friend’s got enough pull. They still have tissue samples taken from Gloria when she was arrested, and a tissue sample was taken from the baby.”

“It should take a few days,” she said. “Isn’t that great news?”

Frank felt like a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. For weeks Rebecca had gone along with his theories about the kidnappings, but there had always been an undercurrent of doubt – about the case, and even, he suspected, about his grip on reality.

“If it confirms what you’ve been saying,” Rebecca said, “the police will have no choice. I don’t think even Grant Stocker could get out of re-opening the case.”

Frank patted his breast pocket for his cigarettes. Nothing.

“So?” Rebecca said. “Now are you going to enlighten me about what’s going on?”

Frank thought back on what he’d uncovered in the past few days, and studied the table top. “I’m working a few angles,” he said, “nothing concrete.”

“Really?” Behind the sarcasm, her voice betrayed a naive confusion that tore at his heart.

He hated lying to her, but the deeper he went the more bizarre and pervasive the conspiracy appeared. She might not believe him. It seemed so far-fetched he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

If half of what Retigo said in his journal was true, even the little Frank knew right now was enough to get him killed. Telling Rebecca would make her a target as well.

“I don’t want to say anything till I’ve got more information,” he said.

He hung up, turned off the phone, and hunted for his cigarettes.

The weight that had lifted from his shoulders descended again.

Two Women Meet

“You’ve got news,” Frank said the following Tuesday as he sat across from Rebecca in her office. He’d been reluctant to come in for their regular meeting – every contact potentially placed her in greater danger. But he didn’t want to risk talking on the phone.