A Game of Ghosts

by John Connolly

  ‘It’s some trick,’ he would observe to his new wife, each time they drove by the Buckner house, ‘to make everyone like you when you show no signs of liking anyone else in return.’

  And his wife would tell him to hush, and hush he would, even as he stared at the Buckner residence receding in his rearview mirror, and wondered why he felt a prickling on his neck at the very sight of it.

  Kirk Buckner heard the smashing of glass from the kitchen as he was upstairs trying to rehang a closet door. He swore in a manner that would have shocked even the most lax of Primitives: he had one screw inserted in the top hinge, but he didn’t think it would be enough to hold the weight of the oak. He carefully shifted a block of wood into place to support the door before he released his hold, then went to the top of the stairs and called down to Sally to ask if she was okay. He received no reply, which was when he started to worry. He took the stairs two at a time and entered the kitchen to find the floor covered in pieces of broken glass and an uncooked vegetarian lasagna. Sally was standing rigid before the mess, her arms by her sides, her hands clasped into fists. Her whole body was trembling.

  Kirk couldn’t see whatever she was looking at, but he could almost sense it, even smell it some. The kitchen was noticeably colder to his right than to his left, and he caught the faintest hints of vegetal dampness and burning, like a fire in a swamp. It was how he always knew that one of them was present. Unlike his wife, he did not have the gift of seeing the departed. It tended to pass from mother to daughter, but not to sons. The menfolk did occasionally glimpse them, but only in the most exceptional of circumstances, most frequently on the deathbed – with the notable exception of the Cousin, Donn Routh, but Kirk preferred not even to think of Routh.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  Sally began to cry. This in itself was shocking to him. She never cried.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘The Cousin is dead.’

  30

  Parker and Angel filled three suitcases with Eklund’s files, including the one relating to Oscar and Claudia Sansom. Parker then photographed the map on the wall, and the surrounding material. He didn’t want to risk taking it down and disturbing it. He would do his best to re-create it from the images when he was back in Maine.

  With that, he and Angel turned out the lights and left the basement, although they could only close the door behind them because Angel had been forced to fry the locks to gain entry. Angel unplugged the jammer – the device heated up like hell’s own oven after extended use, and he didn’t want to risk incinerating the house – but left it switched on and concealed behind a bookcase. It would run down in an hour or so, at which point the alarm would activate. By then they’d be long gone, with no outward evidence of intrusion. With luck, the alarm would be dismissed as a false activation. Louis started the car as soon as he saw them emerge into the snow that had just begun to fall, and within moments they were gone from Fox Point.

  But their departure did not go unnoticed.

  It is said that a falcon, trained to the lure, has no affection for the falconer. The relationship between them is based, in roughly equal parts, on trust and food. Birds of prey are essentially lazy: to hunt for prey requires the expenditure of huge amounts of energy, which is why the bird must be precise in its death strike. To be otherwise is to deplete valuable resources, weakening the hunter. Weakness begets mistakes, which leads in turn to greater frailty. The ultimate consequence for the predator is its own death.

  The man responsible for killing Donn Routh was known as the Collector, and it was he who watched as Parker and the others left the home of Jaycob Eklund. The Collector had moved Routh’s car to a nearby lot. Routh’s body lay in the trunk, and there it would remain. In the present weather, it might be days before the vehicle was noticed. Eventually the Collector would go to Parker and tell him of what he had done.

  Perhaps.

  The Collector was a predator, but he too only had limited resources on which to draw. His once solitary missions to locate, isolate, and slay his targets were time-consuming, dangerous, and not always successful. And so, reluctantly at first, he had allowed himself to enter the orbit of the private investigator Charlie Parker. The truth of Parker’s nature might have been hidden from the Collector – just as, in reality, the essence of the Collector’s own being was partly concealed from himself in order to protect the entity that dwelt within him – but he understood that Parker was both hunter and lure, driven to pursue depraved men even as others like them were pulled inexorably toward him.

  Yet the Collector had been mistaken about Parker. At first he simply assumed that Parker had his part to play in the great unfolding, and was acting as an unwitting agent of the Divine. (And, the Collector occasionally reflected, with something resembling amusement, he was long overdue a conversation with Parker about the reality of God. The investigator had no idea of the truth, none at all.) But slowly it became apparent to the Collector that Parker was much more than a pawn on the board, although his position in the hierarchy of pieces had yet to be determined. Parker had died not once but three times following the shooting at his home, and on each occasion was brought back by the physicians. It would have been noteworthy even for an average man, but given what Parker had already endured in life, his survival qualified as positively miraculous. The Collector had begun to believe that perhaps Parker had not been kept alive by doctors so much as returned to this world by another agency.

  But the man who came back was not the same as the one who had fallen under a volley of shotgun blasts and pistol shots. He had seen what lay beyond, and he remembered. He spoke of old gods awakening, and the Collector knew it to be true. He had felt it, and the Hollow Men had felt it too. The Hollow Men, the soulless residue of the dead, followed the Collector just as a trained bird of prey follows the falconer. He fed them the discarded husks of the ones he excised from the fabric of this world, permitting the Hollow Men to absorb them into their number. Their dependency on him was almost equal to their hatred.

  Finally, Parker had come to the Collector, tracking him down to his last place of refuge, and there he had confirmed what the Collector had already begun to fear: the Collector thought he could use Parker, but instead he had become entrapped, and now he was tethered to block and glove. Worse, the Collector found that he was almost content in his role – or, more accurately, resigned to it. He retained some freedom to roam, but he remained Parker’s beast, and the beast instinctively shadows the master, and will always return to his side as long as it is being fed.

  But Parker had not been feeding the Collector as much as he might have liked – had not been feeding him at all, in fact – and so he had returned to his solitary ways. This led him, eventually, to Donn Routh, a minor malefactor by the Collector’s standards, but worthy of a little time nonetheless, especially because the Collector had encountered such difficulty in tracing and tracking him. It was as though Routh were hiding in fog, and only revealed himself in the spaces between, the clearings in the mist.

  That was why the Collector had not taken Routh on the road. He was curious to see what could have drawn Routh from the safety of his Kentucky lair, and perhaps discover what it was that allowed him to conceal himself in this way. In the end, as if to confirm the presence of the tether, and the guidance of a hand unseen, the hunt had ended within screaming distance of Charlie Parker.

  But once he got close to Routh, the Collector understood that this man was more dangerous, and more interesting, than he had imagined. His lethality was instantly apparent, but so too was his strangeness. The Collector might have thought himself simply to be hunting a degenerate believed to have abducted and killed a young Chinese girl – and he knew that to be true, had detected it in the reactions of the Hollow Men as they circled – but Routh turned out to be so much more than that. The air around Routh shimmered as though from an unseen source of heat, and the Hollow Men had kept their distance until the Collector’s knife began its work.

  And then�
��

  Ah: that was the oddest part of it.

  After his death, Routh was not added to the Hollow Men’s number. They had retreated from the body, like carrion birds detecting poison in a carcass. The Collector sensed their bewilderment and rage, for just as he was tethered to Parker, so too were the Hollow Men tethered to him. They had no love for him, because he had caused them to become what they were, and no loyalty beyond his ability to assuage their misery by introducing others to it, but they were his creatures regardless.

  So Routh had been watching Parker – or maybe, like the Collector, he had come to Providence anticipating one outcome and instead had been presented with another in which Parker was involved. Whatever the truth, Parker was connected to the mystery of Donn Routh, and the Collector wanted to be near when, or if, an explanation was offered.

  The Collector felt no surprise that Routh should be linked to Parker. He was long past such feelings.

  I should have known, the Collector thought. No matter how far I fly, it seems I must always return to Parker’s glove.

  31

  Parker considered returning to Maine that night. It was a question of balancing the risk of staying near what he was trying not to think of as the scene of the crime against the tiredness that he and the others were already feeling. In the eyes of the law, they had just burglarized both an office and a house, and engaging in burglary – as Angel in particular knew, from long experience – was a stressful way to pass the time. In the end, they compromised on leaving the state of Rhode Island. They retrieved Parker’s car and drove in convoy until they found a small motel just over the Massachusetts border with what looked like a pretty decent bar adjacent to it. They took a booth by a window, where they ate hamburgers and drank bottles of Sam Adams on special.

  As a precaution, the material they had removed from Eklund’s house was being stored in compartments concealed in the trunk of Louis’s Lexus, although Angel thought it unlikely that Eklund’s alarm would have gone off yet, and Parker didn’t believe anyone had noticed them removing the paperwork from the house. Still, nobody ever went to jail for being too vigilant.

  Angel finished his burger, then took three bottles of pills from the pockets of his jacket, shook two tablets from each, and knocked them back with a mouthful of water. Parker watched the process with one eyebrow cocked high.

  ‘That’s a lot of pills,’ he said. ‘Who are you – Bill Cosby?’

  ‘I’ve been getting pains.’

  ‘The size of those bottles you’re carrying around, I’m not surprised. What kind of pains?’

  ‘Man …’

  ‘Come on, what kind?’

  ‘Pains in my insides. They come and go. Headaches, too.’

  ‘You see a doctor?’

  ‘No,’ said Angel. ‘I just stole all these pills.’

  There was a pause. It took Angel a moment to realize that sarcasm might not be effective in this case. He’d stolen a lot of things in his life.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen a doctor.’

  Parker glanced in Louis’s direction, but could not catch his eye.

  ‘Anything I should know about?’ he asked.

  An awkward silence descended. Louis was staring out the window. Angel was spinning a beer mat on the table. Eventually he conceded, with palpable reluctance, ‘The doctor said I ought to have some tests.’

  ‘And, of course, you made the appointment straight away.’

  Louis released a sound like a poison dart being shot from a pipe, but still didn’t speak.

  ‘I’m working on it,’ said Angel.

  ‘Working on it how, exactly?’

  ‘Jesus, when did we get married? I don’t see no ring. Look, I don’t like doctors, and I don’t like hospitals.’

  ‘You’ll like dying a whole lot less,’ said Louis, intervening at last.

  ‘I’m not going to die.’

  ‘Yeah, ’cause you’re immortal. Says so on your résumé, right beside “honest” and “values neatness”.’

  ‘You’re spoiling my evening,’ said Angel.

  ‘You know what would really spoil your evening?’ said Louis. ‘Fucking dying because you were too scared to go get some tests. You need to do like the doctor said.’

  ‘Fine! Okay! It’s only been a week. If I’m dying, you think a week is going to make any difference?’

  ‘Oh, so you an internist now?’

  ‘Hey, I know my body.’

  ‘I know your body, and the only surprise is that it’s still upright and in one piece.’

  Their server drifted over, drawn by the sound of raised voices. She was in her fifties, and if she didn’t look like she’d seen it all, then she’d seen as much of it as she cared to.

  ‘Everything all right, boys?’

  ‘Our friend here has pains,’ said Parker, ‘but he won’t go get tests like the doctor told him.’

  ‘Oh, for the love of God …’

  Angel folded his arms and let his forehead sink down on them.

  ‘My first husband was like that,’ said the server. ‘Didn’t matter how sick he was, he wouldn’t see anyone.’

  ‘And what happened to him?’ asked Angel from the tabletop.

  ‘He died,’ she said.

  ‘No shit,’ said Angel. ‘What of?’

  ‘Someone shot him.’

  Once again, there was silence for a time.

  ‘We’ll just take the check,’ said Parker.

  ‘Sure thing.’ She patted Angel on the back. ‘Go see a doctor.’

  ‘I did see a doctor. That’s how all this started.’

  ‘Well, go see another.’

  She left them.

  ‘I hate Massachusetts,’ said Angel.

  ‘Because they speak wisdom,’ said Parker. ‘Make the damn appointment.’

  ‘Tomorrow. Anything for peace.’

  ‘We’re going to stand over you to ensure that you do.’

  ‘I hate you all.’

  The server returned with the check.

  ‘Is he making the appointment?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Angel. ‘You talked me around with your story. I don’t want to get shot.’

  Parker paid the check. He saw Angel wince slightly as he got up from the booth, and tried to recall if he’d noticed it before.

  ‘Quit watching me,’ said Angel.

  ‘You want us to get you a wheelchair?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘We could hire a nurse.’

  ‘I said I’d call. Leave me alone.’

  They left the bar and headed across the parking lot to the motel. A passing car illuminated a man stepping from the driver’s seat of an expensive gray BMW parked by Louis’s Lexus. He approached them slowly, and Parker felt as much as saw Louis tense instinctively, but the man held his hands out from his sides to show that they were empty. Parker scanned the lot, but saw no one else nearby. Whatever this was, it wasn’t an attack, and unless someone in Massachusetts law enforcement had recently won Powerball and thrown a contribution into the state hat for some German engineering, it didn’t look like police business. Louis relaxed a little, but Parker could see that Angel had shifted position to shield his partner’s right hand from view. Parker guessed there was already a gun in it.

  The man before them was just a shade less than six feet tall and wore a dark wool car jacket over black trousers. His leather shoes, only barely spotted with mud and slush, had thick rubber soles for grip. His hands were gloveless, and Parker could see that the final two fingers on the left were contorted, either as a result of some ancient injury or a birth defect. The tips sat against the palm, giving the impression that he was making an awkward pistol with his digits. He wore a wool cap with the peak tilted back. The eyes beneath it were very blue and very cold. Any capacity for warmth they might once have been capable of exhibiting had long since been excised from them. It was like staring into a clear, dead sea.

  ‘Help you?’ asked Parker.

  ‘I’d like you to
come back to Providence.’

  The voice was peculiarly flat and vaguely androgynous. It held no depth or roughness, no traces of individuality. Parker tried to gauge the man’s age: the smoothness of his features suggested mid twenties at most, but he carried himself with a certain confidence, even arrogance. Apparently alone and without a visible weapon, he felt no compunction about confronting three strangers in a darkened parking lot – three strangers, what was more, who almost certainly numbered guns among their possessions.

  ‘And why would we want to do that?’

  ‘Your interests may intersect with those of my employer.’

  He didn’t elaborate. Either he had a flair for the dramatic, which was entirely possible, or he didn’t think and behave like a normal human being, which struck Parker as being increasingly probable.

  ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘I work for Mr. Caspar Webb.’

  Louis spoke for the first time in the conversation.

  ‘Caspar Webb is dead.’

  Those arctic eyes flicked to him.

  ‘Yes, I believe he is.’

  32

  Organized crime – or the Italian variety of it – had been in decline in New England ever since the death of Raymond Patriarca in 1984. Senior figures expired, went to prison, or turned informant, and internal family feuds further weakened those who remained. Providence, which had been the New England Mob’s base of operations since the 1950s when Patriarca ran it from the National Cigarette Company and Coin-O-Matic Distributors on Atwells Avenue, was abandoned in favor of Boston. And all the time, the FBI continued to hammer away at the Office, as the Patriarcas’ operation was termed, leaving others to thrive in the shadows.