The Traveler

by John Katzenbach

  “Because, because, because . . . well . . .”

  He waited.

  “Because I was alone. My sister and brother-in-law, that jerk, had finally moved out, and I didn’t have to support his lazy ass anymore, or hers, ’cause all they did was lie around fucking like a pair of fucking rabbits while I was doing all the work and bringing home the fucking paycheck so we could at least eat. And so I kicked ’em out. And then the bitch wouldn’t go out with me! Christ, she deserved it.”

  “So you were free?”

  “Yeah! Right. Free. Free to do what I fucking well wanted.”

  Jeffers looked around the room again.

  “Something freed all you men?”

  He saw heads slowly nod in agreement.

  “Talk about it.”

  He saw hesitation.

  Knight said: “It’s different for everyone.”

  Weingarten added: “It can be a big thing, or a little one, but . . .”

  Knight repeated: “It’s different for everyone.”

  Martin Jeffers took a deep breath. All is lost, he thought. Then he asked:

  “Suppose it was more. More than just what you’ve done, suppose you went a step further.”

  The men seemed to rock under the suggestion.

  “There’s only one more step,” said Pope. “You know what that is.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Maybe some of us have,” said Meriwether. “Not me, you know, I’m not admitting anything. But maybe some of us have.”

  “What would allow you to do it?”

  The men didn’t reply.

  Jeffers waited. He, too, said nothing.

  “Why do you need to know?” Meriwether asked.

  He hesitated, trying to choose his words carefully.

  “I need to find someone.”

  “Someone like us?” Bryan questioned.

  “Someone like you.”

  “Someone worse?” It was Senderling.

  Jeffers shrugged.

  “Someone you know well?” Senderling tried again.

  “Yes. Someone I know well.”

  “And you think he’s gone someplace and you can figure it out, is that it?” Parker asked.

  “More or less.”

  “Someone real close?” Senderling asked again.

  Jeffers fixed him with a stare and didn’t reply.

  “You figure we can help you?” Weingarten said.

  “Yes,” Jeffers replied.

  Weingarten laughed. “Well, damned if I don’t think you’re right.”

  “This someone,” Parker questioned, “he’s at it right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you need to get to him to make him stop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Or something . . .”

  “Right,” Jeffers said. “Stop or something.”

  “It’s r-r-r-real important?” Wasserman jumped in.

  “Yes.”

  Miller started to laugh hard. “Well, fuck you, doc. This puts things in a whole new light.”

  “Yes, it does,” Jeffers said. He stared hard at Miller, who instantly stopped laughing.

  “Well, tell us some more.”

  Jeffers hesitated.

  “I think,” he said slowly, “that he’s visiting the scenes of some crimes.”

  Miller laughed again, but less maliciously. “The criminal returns to the scene of the crime?”

  “I suppose.”

  Miller grinned. “Maybe it’s a cliché, but it’s not so stupid. Crimes become memories, you know. And everybody likes to visit their pleasant memories.”

  “Pleasant?” Jeffers questioned.

  The men in the group laughed and snorted.

  “Haven’t you learned anything here?” Miller asked. The rapist’s voice was rife with sarcasm. Jeffers ignored the question and Miller continued: “Everything’s turned around for men like us! We love what we hate. We hate what we love. Pain is pleasure. Love is hurt. Everything’s skewed about and upside down and backwards. Can’t you see that? Christ!”

  And suddenly he could.

  “So,” Miller said, and the men around him joined their heads in nodding agreement, “look for a memory that’s filled with all the worst. And that will be the best.”

  Jeffers took a deep breath, scared of the thoughts that started to gather and form, like great storm clouds in his imagination. He looked up as Pope, grizzled, tattooed, filled to completion with anger and hatred and irrevocable in his antipathy to the world, spoke in a low, awful voice:

  “Look for a death or departure. They’re the same. That’s what cuts you loose. Someone dies and you’re free to be yourself. It’s simple. It’s fucking simple. Look for a death.”

  The first image that flitted into his head was of the darkness trapped in the trees on the night they were abandoned in New Hampshire. I went there, he told himself. I went back to that memory and he was nowhere to be found! That’s where he was supposed to be and he wasn’t.

  But another image forced itself into his mind.

  Another night.

  And not a departure, but a death.

  He slid his head into his hands, ignoring the way the men grew silent in the room around him.

  I know, he told himself.

  I know where my brother is going.

  Jeffers looked up at the ceiling, and the white paint seemed to spin about, dizzyingly, for just an instant. How could you not have seen it? he said to himself. It’s clear. It’s obvious. How could you be stumbling about so blindly? Anger, sadness, hope, and despair all rushed through his body. He knew he had to get there, he knew he had to leave right away. Time suddenly bore its great weight down on top of him and he felt trapped in its vise grip. He exhaled slowly, gathering himself together. He looked out at the men, whose eyes were alive, expectant.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He stood up.

  “There will be no more sessions. Not for a few days. Check the ward announcements for their resumption. Thank you again.”

  He saw a great surge of angry disappointment in the men. They are curious, he thought. They like to gossip and be in the know as much as anyone. He would not apologize, and, instead, he ignored the murmuring, excited sounds from the group, pitching headlong into the darkest nights of his own memory. I know, he said to himself again. I know.

  He thought of the detective waiting for him in his office.

  She will be watching. She will be alert for any change.

  For an instant he felt a terrible sadness.

  Then he turned from the men and walked steadily out. As he closed the door, he heard their excited voices join together. He shut them from his mind, concentrating on the importance of the next hours. He toughened himself inwardly. Be careful. Show nothing, he told himself. Show nothing at all.

  Martin Jeffers stepped quickly away from the door, and the voices faded. He picked up his pace as he headed through the wards. His walk became a quick march, and, finally, a jog, his shoes making a slapping sound as they hit the linoleum floor. He ignored the surprised eyes of patients and staff as he broke into a run, his breath coming hard, oblivious to everything save the knowledge that vibrated in his head. I know, he repeated, over and over. I know.

  He slowed as he entered the corridor where his office was located. He waited, catching his breath, thinking of the detective again. Then, composed, he slowly walked the last hundred feet, devising his escape.

  Detective Mercedes Barren was standing, staring through the window, when Martin Jeffers entered the room. He beat her to the punch:

  “Anything happen? Any news?”

  She hesitated. “That was my question for you.”

 
He shook his head, avoiding her glance momentarily. He stiffened himself. Meet her eyes, he insisted inwardly. So he raised his head as he took a seat behind his desk.

  “No,” he told her. “I’ve heard nothing. I told the switchboard operator that I was to be paged for any call, regardless of whether I was in a session or not. So far, nothing.”

  Detective Barren dropped into a seat across from him.

  “What about at your home?”

  “I left the answering machine on.” He picked up his telephone and opened the desk drawer, producing a small black device. “It’s got one of those playback thingamijigs,” he said. “We can check.” He dialed his home phone number and put the electronic instrument to the receiver. There was a series of squeaks and beeps before the tape started to play.

  They listened to a message from a plumber and a tape-recorded sales pitch for a local candidate. Then the tape hissed emptily.

  “There was nothing in the mail here,” Jeffers said. “But it doesn’t get delivered at home until about four.”

  “Screw the mails,” Detective Barren said blankly. “He’s not sending any postcards.”

  “He has before.”

  “And so we get one. Then we’re only four or five days behind him.”

  “But it would tell us, maybe, what direction he was heading.”

  She knew this might be true. Still, her frustration gripped her. “Screw the mails,” she said again. She sighed. “What about your memory? I have more confidence in that.”

  “I thought he would be there,” Martin Jeffers replied. “I was sure that he’d be there in New Hampshire. It seemed the most logical place to start.”

  “So think again.”

  He rolled his head back. “Aren’t you exhausted, too?” he asked. “Christ, we’ve been pushing. It’s getting hard to figure. Don’t you want to take a break?”

  “I’ll rest when it’s over.”

  Martin Jeffers nodded. He knew she would not stop until his brother was—and then he paused. He would not fill in the remainder with a word, though he realized what she was saying.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll keep at it.”

  He saw her relax, if only slightly.

  After a moment she said:

  “It’s not a difficult proposition, really.”

  “What?”

  “The idea that at any given time one ought to know where one’s brother is. Or sister, for that matter.”

  He thought the question provocative. But he droned his answer.

  “Maybe as children. When we were growing up I always knew. Even through school I always could have told you where he was. But when we became adults, well, adults head off on their own ways. We become independent. We have our own lives. We become more ourselves, less someone’s brother or sister.”

  She shook her head irritatedly.

  “Don’t lecture me. That’s not true. Your own profession tells us that the adult only masks with age and responsibility and morality and ethics all the desires of the child. So force yourself back! Think like you used to, not like you do today!”

  She glared at him with eyes rimmed with equal parts of exhaustion and tension.

  She was completely correct, he realized.

  So, instead, he rose from his chair and circled around her nervously. “I’m trying, I’m trying. My mind is filled with possibilities. But there are a hundred shared moments between brothers growing up. A thousand. Which is the one that triggers him now?”

  “You know,” she said. “You just block it.”

  He smiled. “You sound like me.”

  Detective Mercedes Barren lifted her hands to her face and tried to rub away her fatigue. She smiled faintly. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I push too hard sometimes.”

  Her confession surprised her.

  “But you’re right, too,” he continued. “I’m probably blocking it.”

  His own bare smile joined hers.

  Martin Jeffers looked over at the detective. His stomach clenched as he thought how deep her despair must be. For an instant he thought they should embrace and shed tears together, onto each other’s shoulders, tears for the living, tears for the dead, tears for all the memories. He wanted to touch her in that moment, both angry and sad at the reason they had been thrust together into this small room, in the ever-changing world created and defined by his brother. He felt his hand start forward to touch her arm, but just as swiftly he ordered the muscles to stop, and he jammed his hand into the white pocket of his laboratory coat. Instead, he spoke:

  “Detective, what are you going to do when this is over?” He held up his hand to make her pause before replying. “Regardless of how it comes out.”

  She laughed, but without humor.

  “I haven’t really thought of it,” she said. She shook her head. “I suppose I’ll go back to work, as before. I enjoyed what I was doing. I liked the people I worked with. No reason to change.”

  That was surely a lie, she thought. She expected nothing ever to be the same again.

  She looked at him.

  “And what about you, doctor?”

  He nodded.

  “The same.”

  We lie well together, she thought wryly to herself.

  “Most lives,” she said, “don’t present that many options, do they?”

  “No,” he said sadly, “they don’t.”

  But both were struck then with the same vision: each knew of one man’s life that seemed filled with options.

  Detective Mercedes Barren looked over at Martin Jeffers and for an instant tried to envision herself in his position. Then, as the first empathetic feelings crowded her heart, she hardened herself. Concentrate! she shouted to herself. Remember! She saw the lines that ridged the doctor’s eyes, the gray pallor to his skin, and thought he was indeed filled with remorse. What has happened to me has happened, she told herself. What remains for me is justice, which is not an emotion but a need. He’s still living his grief.

  She wanted to say something, then, but could not think of anything even vaguely appropriate.

  Martin Jeffers was aware of the silence between them, and the suddenly lessened degree of tension. He recognized the moment for what it was, knowing its duration would be short. He leaned back in his chair, stretching. But if he appeared relaxed on the outside, inwardly he was rigid:

  Spring the trap, now!

  “Look,” he said slowly. “You’re absolutely right. We’ve got to keep at this until I figure out where he’s gone. Someone’s life may be at stake—we don’t know. Let’s just do it, okay?”

  Detective Barren nodded in agreement.

  “Here’s what I think,” he said. He glanced up at the wall clock. “It’s getting late in the afternoon. I’ll drop you at your hotel for an hour or so. Just give me long enough to take a shower and get a second wind. Then meet me at my house. We can have a couple of drinks and I’ll pull out every old picture and letter I’ve got, and we’ll try to free-associate an answer to all this. We can set up some sort of chronology. You’ll have to listen to my life story, but maybe if I start to talk it out something will strike true. And anyway, if the phone rings, we’ll both be right there. He’s far more likely to call me at home than here.”

  Detective Barren considered the plan. The thought of hot water flooding her body was seductive. For an instant a voice within her shouted caution and she forced her eyes to set on Martin Jeffers. She watched as he rocked slightly in his seat. She searched for anxiety, for nervous motion, for any­thing other than the discouragement and fatigue that she felt insistently within herself. She saw nothing. He’s already had a hundred opportunities to run, she thought. He won’t. Not until he hears from his brother.

  “Start with a clearer head,” he said blandly
. “See what jumps in.”

  “All right,” she replied. “I’ll be there at, say, six thirty.”

  “Six would be fine,” he said. “And we’ll keep at it until we’ve got at least a good idea where to head. And then we’ll just go. The hospital can cut me some time.”

  “Good,” she said. She felt a sense of body-slackening release at the idea that they would be acting instead of waiting. She felt a hot flood inside her, thinking hard of Douglas Jeffers, feeling once again that she was embarking on his trail. That comforted her, and blinded her to the fact that the murderer’s brother had turned his eyes away suddenly, averting his glance.

  Martin Jeffers pulled to the curb in front of Detective Barren’s hotel in Trenton. He took the car out of gear and turned to her.

  “Look, what kind of sandwiches do you like? I’ll stop at the deli on the way to my place so we can eat later.”

  She opened the car door and put one foot to the sidewalk.

  “Anything’s okay,” she said. “Roast beef, ham and cheese, tuna fish.” She smiled. “Protestant sandwiches. No corned beef or brisket. No mustard, plenty of mayonnaise.”

  He laughed.

  “And some sort of salad if they’ve got anything.”

  “No problem.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “Look,” he said, “be there by six. Let’s get this thing moving.”

  She nodded. “Don’t worry. See you then.”

  “All right,” he replied.

  He watched as she strode across the hotel entranceway and disappeared into the lobby. He thought that the banality of his plan had been its strongest element. She was so focused on her quarry and the evil he rep­resented in her mind that she neglected the more mundane possibility that Martin Jeffers might abandon her. Mingle obsession with exhaustion and one is ripe for the unexpected. For an instant he regretted his betrayal. She’s going to kill me, he thought. Then he realized that the colloquialism that had formed in his head was probably not impossible. She might actually kill me.

  He argued to himself: Be realistic.

  He pulled the car out into the street. Don’t stop. Don’t go home. Do without a change of clothes, or a toothbrush, or anything. Just go. Now. He exhaled sharply and thought of his destination. If I hurry, he told himself, perhaps I can make the last ferry. His mind started to picture the detective at the moment his disappearance became clear to her. He rationalized: This is about saving lives. My brother’s. The detective’s. My own.