The Traveler

by John Katzenbach

  He thought for an instant that his wife had the world figured out pretty squarely: everything was digestion. If the Arabs and the Jews ate more grains, they wouldn’t always be fighting. If the Russians were more balanced in their diet and cut their caloric intake, they wouldn’t forever be thumping their chests and threatening world peace. If terrorists would stop eating red meat and partake of more fish, they wouldn’t need to seize airliners. Republicans ate too many fatty foods, which gave them bad hearts and conservative outlooks, so she always voted the Democratic ticket. He’d once tried to ask her about some of the more substantial members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, like Tip and Teddy, but she wouldn’t listen to him.

  “Well, right before closing shop, I had this visit from a detective. She came all the way from Miami.”

  “Was she on a case, dear? It must have been exciting.”

  “She said she wasn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you bring her home for dinner?”

  “But she was armed. And she had a funny story that makes less and less sense the more I think about it.”

  “Well, dear, what are you going to do?”

  Holt Overholser thought hard for a moment. Maybe he wasn’t any Sherlock Holmes, but he sure could match Mike Hammer.

  “I think I’m gonna take a little ride,” he said. “Don’t worry none. I’ll be back in time for Magnum P.I.”

  He slung his Sam Browne belt over his shoulder and headed out to the big four-wheel-drive police truck.

  Martin Jeffers remained frozen in his seat, watching his brother pace angrily about the room. He tried once to catch Anne Hampton’s eyes, but she was rigid, at the table, pen poised. He wondered for an instant what she must have been through; he could not guess, but knew that it must have been severe to bring about the state of near-catatonia she seemed trapped within.

  His observation surprised him. It was the first reflection he’d had since arriving at Finger Point that at least displayed some rudimentary psychological knowledge. He tried to give himself commands: Use what you know!

  Then he shook his head slightly, just the barest of acknowledgments, signaling to himself that it was hopeless. At this moment, he thought, I am nothing except the younger brother.

  He looked up at Douglas Jeffers and thought: With him, it is all I will ever be.

  He fixed his eyes on his brother, who seemed filled with excitement. He seemed to be assessing the situation with every step about the room.

  “Isn’t it funny,” said Douglas Jeffers in a voice devoid of any semblance of humor, “how one enters into a situation so emotionally complex it cries out, yet there is little, if anything, actually to say to one another? What are you going to do? Tell me I can’t be the way I am?”

  The comment brought forth a short explosive laugh.

  “So,” said the older brother, “tell me something relevant, something important. Tell me about this lady cop.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  His brother stopped and pointed the gun at him.

  “Do you think that I would hesitate for an instant? Do you think that your status as my brother gives you some special dispensation? You came here! You knew! So you knew the risks as well . . .”

  He paused.

  “So don’t screw around with me.”

  Martin Jeffers nodded.

  “She comes from Miami. She believes you killed her niece . . .” He couldn’t state what he knew, and what his mind insisted: You did kill her niece! You killed all of them! “. . . She was the one that broke into your apartment and found the pictures.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I left her in New Jersey.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she means to kill you.”

  Douglas Jeffers laughed.

  “Well, that seems sensible from her point of view.”

  “Doug, please, can’t we . . .”

  “Can’t we what? Marty, you were always such a dreamer. Don’t you remember? All those books I used to read to you when you were little. Always fantasies, adventures, filled with heroes and battling for just causes against insurmountable odds. You always liked reading about soldiers who fought desperate fights, about knights that charged dragons. You always liked the ones where goodness triumphs . . .

  “You know what? It doesn’t. It never does. Because even when goodness wins, it lowers itself and has to beat evil at its own game. And that, dear brother, is a far worse defeat.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Douglas Jeffers shrugged. “Believe what you want, Marty. It makes no difference.” He paused, then continued. “Tell me more. Is she a good detective? What’s her name?”

  “Mercedes Barren. I suppose she is. She found me . . .”

  Douglas Jeffers snarled: “You think she’ll find me, too?”

  Martin Jeffers nodded.

  His brother laughed, raucously, angrily.

  “No fucking chance. Not unless you told her where to come. You didn’t, did you, brother?”

  Martin Jeffers shook his head.

  Douglas Jeffers scowled. “I don’t fucking believe you.” He paused. “Oh, you probably didn’t know you were telling her, but you did. I know you, Marty. I know you as well as I know myself. That’s part of what being older means: the older brother is burdened with understanding, the younger brother is filled only with equal parts awe and jealousy. So, even if you think you left her behind, you probably didn’t. You said something, probably didn’t even know what it was. But you said it and now she’s on her way. Especially if she was smart enough to get to you in the first place. But how close is she? There, dear brother, that’s the real question. Is she outside the door?”

  Martin Jeffers’ eyes involuntarily flicked to the sliding glass doors. His brother laughed again, menacingly.

  “. . . Or is she a little ways behind? Maybe a few hours.”

  He smiled, not with any enjoyment that belonged on the earth.

  “You see,” Douglas Jeffers continued, “after tonight I will be long gone. I thought coming to Finger Point an excellent place to be born again. And not in some silly fundamentalist religious sense. We’ve got a lot of memories, shall I say, floating about around here. That’s a joke. Anyway, here is where it all begins again for me. Starting over. Back to square one, free as the proverbial bird.”

  “How?”

  Douglas Jeffers gestured towards his photo satchel. “Details, details. Suffice it to say, inside the bag is the new me.”

  “I still don’t understand,” Martin Jeffers said.

  “There’s only one thing you need to know,” Douglas Jeffers said abruptly. “The new me doesn’t have a brother.”

  The words punched Martin Jeffers in the core. He thought he would be nauseated and he tried to steady himself by grasping the arms of the chair.

  “You won’t,” he said. “I don’t believe you could.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Douglas Jeffers said irritatedly. “Boswell can reassure you: I’ve never had any qualms about killing anybody, have I, Boswell?”

  They both turned and looked at Anne Hampton. She shook her head.

  “. . . So why should I hesitate to kill my brother? Come on! Cain slew Abel, didn’t he? Isn’t that the deepest secret all brothers harbor? We all want to murder each other. You should know that, you’re the shrink. Anyway, what better route to complete and total freedom could there be? With you alive, I would always know you were out there, one solid, unshakable link to the past. Suppose we bumped together on the street one day? Or maybe you saw my picture somewhere. I could never be certain, you know, never be really sure. You know what the silly thing is? I was willing to take that chance. Right up to the moment you showed up here. Then, as soon as I saw you, I realized how wrong that was. I
f I wanted to live, well . . . you see, don’t you? With you gone, well . . .” He shrugged. “Seems reasonable to me.”

  “Doug, you’re not, don’t be, what do you . . .” His voice trailed off. He was confused and astonished. Martin Jeffers kept thinking: But I came here to save him!

  In a single terrifying leap, Douglas Jeffers crossed the room, thrusting the barrel of the automatic up under his brother’s throat. “Can you feel death? Can you smell it? Can you taste it on your lips? They all could, all of them, if only for an instant, but they could.”

  “Doug, please, please . . .”

  Douglas Jeffers stepped back. “Weakness is disgusting.” He looked at his brother. “I should have let you go, then you would have died, too.”

  Martin Jeffers shook his head. He knew immediately what his brother was talking about. “I was a strong swimmer. As good as you. Much better than he was. I would have saved him.”

  “He didn’t deserve to be saved.”

  Their eyes locked and both men’s minds filled with the same memory.

  “It was just like tonight,” Martin Jeffers said.

  “I remember,” his brother joined in, some of his menace sliding away in recollection.

  “It was hot and he wanted to swim. He took us to the beach, but you said not to go in. You could see the water tossing about. I remember.”

  “There’d been a storm a few days earlier, remember? Storms always knock the hell out of the beach. That’s why. I thought there might be a rip and you couldn’t see it coming at night . . .”

  “That’s why you wouldn’t let me go in.”

  Douglas Jeffers nodded. “But that old bastard called us chicken. He got what he deserved.”

  Martin Jeffers hesitated.

  “We could have saved him, Doug. It wasn’t a bad rip, but he fought it. We were much stronger than he was. Much. We could have saved him, but you wouldn’t. You held me on the beach and said let him swim in his own shit, I remember. You held me and I heard him call for help. You kept holding me until he stopped calling.”

  Douglas Jeffers smiled.

  “I guess it was my first killing. God, it was so easy.”

  He looked at his brother.

  “In their own way they’ve all been easy.”

  Martin Jeffers asked, “Is that what started you?”

  Douglas Jeffers shrugged. “Ask Boswell. It’s all in the notes.”

  “You tell me!”

  “Why?”

  “I need to know.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Martin Jeffers paused. That was true.

  After a moment he asked, “So what are you going to do?”

  Douglas Jeffers stepped back, rising. “I told you, Marty, I should have let you go that night. Then you both would have drowned. That was what should have happened. Do you know that was the last time I ever showed anyone pity? No, I don’t suppose you know that. I took care of you that night. It didn’t matter how hard you fought or how hard he screamed. I wasn’t letting you go into the water to save that bastard. I saved your life that night. I gave you all these good, bad, sad years. Now I’m calling in my marker. Time’s up. Game’s over. All-y-all-y-in-come-free. Don’t you see? All I’m really going to do is what has been delayed all these years: I’m going to let you rush to your own death.”

  He paused. “Maybe you would have saved him. He didn’t deserve it. But maybe you would have. It would have been nice for you to do something brave . . .

  “But you didn’t get the chance.”

  Douglas Jeffers took a deep breath.

  “You’ll never get the chance.”

  He raised the gun, pointing at his brother.

  “You probably have some romantic idea that this is difficult,” Douglas Jeffers said blankly.

  “Well, it isn’t.”

  He fired the gun.

  The echo of the gunshot fled across the black waters and rushed up into the starry sky. Detective Mercedes Barren raced back to the edge of the water, peering into the ink-dark night, knowing that the shot came from the house directly across from where she stood. She could feel the gentle pond wavelets slapping at the toes of her sneakers. Her insides were churning and her head was screaming: No time! No time! It’s happening now! I know it!

  She stared at the water, filled with impotent rage. I can’t swim! Oh, God, I can’t, I can’t.

  Maybe it’s shallow, she tried to persuade herself.

  She knew that was a lie.

  She took a single tentative step into the water. It chilled her heart and she could feel the suffocating darkness start to close on her. She felt dizzy and stepped back. She turned and peered behind her, at the long road back through the woods.

  No time.

  She thought: I am a hundred yards from success. It might as well be a million miles.

  Her half-determination, half-panic swirled within her, filling her with despair and devotion. I will get there, she said to herself, gritting her teeth. I will. I will.

  But she did not know how.

  She turned and looked up the beach. The moonlight caught the water, spinning wan light about into odd figures and shadows. She saw a dark, oblong shape perhaps fifty yards away at the lip of the water. She took one hesitant step toward it, then another. Her mind would not form the word: boat. But her heart shouted orders and she found herself suddenly running, racing across the sandy beach, toward the shape. With each step it took greater and greater form, until, finally, she could see that it was a small skiff.

  I’m coming, she thought. Thank you, thank you. She rushed to the side of the boat and grasped it.

  Then she stopped dead.

  There was no engine. No oars. Just a single mast, without sail.

  Not allowing disappointment to move within her, she slid to the front of the boat. It was chained to a post sunk into the sand. The chain had been padlocked.

  She slipped to the sand, frustration and dismay unleashed within her. She breathed out hard, fighting tears. She thought she could not deal with the capriciousness of life anymore. It’s all wrong, she told herself. Everything’s been all wrong. All along.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh, God, I tried. I tried so hard.

  She stared back at the lights across the water.

  He’ll get away, she said to herself. I was never any closer than I am now. There was always something that would keep me from him.

  I’ve lost.

  She put her head down on her arms, leaning against the gunnel of the boat.

  I’m sorry, she said again.

  The moonlight seemed to make the boat glow in the darkness. It caught the ridge of something white, stuck in the corner of the hull.

  She sat up, instantly curious, a vague sense of reprieve filling her. She reached out her hand and seized a plastic-coated cushion. It had two looped handles on either end. Her hands twitched: a floatation cushion.

  She looked across to the house, where she knew Douglas Jeffers was getting ready to leave, to disappear forever from her grasp. This is it, she told herself. This is your only chance. Then she stared at the water, curling black and bottomless in front of her. She thought of her niece and she remembered the effortless way Susan slipped through the opaque blue pool, graceful, at ease, fearless. “Oh, God,” she said again. She remembered the crushing green fury that boiled around her and slammed her down, tearing her breath away, trying to rip the life from her little-girl lungs. She thought of the promise she’d made as a child and kept as an adult. Her mind filled then with the sum of every nightmare she’d ever had and her entire body revolted, shaking.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  She remembered her father coming padding through the dark house to the side of her bed, comforting her when nightmare awakened her. He
would take his big hands and gently rub her temples, saying to her that he was going to coax the bad dream out of her head. After a moment he would hold his palm up, as if he held the frightening thought in the air before her. She remembered he would say: Goodbye, bad dreams; begone, nightmare. And then he would take a deep breath and blow the unsettling thoughts into some childhood oblivion. She remembered stroking her niece’s forehead the same way so that Susan could settle back into the easy sleep of youth. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She said to herself, Begone, nightmare!

  She took a step toward the water.

  “I can’t,” she repeated.

  But she slipped the loops on the cushion over her arms. She dug her pistol into her belt.

  “I can’t swim.”

  She felt the water curl around her ankles. It seemed to be grasping for her, trying to pull her into its dark void.

  “I can’t,” she said a last time.

  Then she pushed herself gently into the water.

  For the first twenty yards her toes bounced against the bottom and she felt confident. It was in the twenty-first yard, when her legs bounced down, expecting to touch the mushy bottom and found nothing save more fluid, that panic started to grip her. She shouted to herself: Keep going, keep moving.

  She paddled gently with her arms and kicked steadily with her feet.

  You can make it, she told herself with false bravado.

  A wavelet rose up and slapped her in the face.

  It caused her to lose her equilibrium, and she teetered as if on some pinnacle. She twitched, then thrashed, trying to regain control. Another wavelet punched her and she spun about, feeling herself slipping. Black panic started to explode within her, and she struggled to regain her balance. But each movement, no matter how little, only pitched her back and forth harder. She squeezed the cushion, but it bucked and fought her.

  She wanted to scream but could not.

  A small wave broke against her, and she could feel everything sliding away from her.

  No! No! No! she screamed inwardly.

  Then she rolled, turtlelike, the black water suddenly slamming over her head like a closet door shut around her.