Beyond Blame

by Stephen Greenleaf

  EIGHTEEN

  It’s not what we do that disturbs our dreams, it’s what we don’t do. Action admits of ambiguity; inaction is absolute. We embrace the rationale that inertia is for the best. In the long run. All things considered. Given the circumstances. But the undone deed seldom admits to such evasion, and we live lives shadowed by the consequences of timidity.

  I was about to acquire another such shadow myself, since I was about to leave the anonymous addict lying where she was, as she was, what she was. Because Cal was urging me to come with him. Because there was nothing obvious to be done for her. Because the Chinese say that if you save a life, you are responsible for that person forever. I wondered what the Chinese had to say if you let a life expire. I stood up with a grunt and left everything behind me but an image needled into my brain like a loser’s bleak tattoo.

  Cal led me out of the apartment building through the rear exit, onto the concrete slab in the back. The parking area was occupied by a VW van and a Toyota pickup with a homemade camper unit built into the bed. The sides of the camper were cedar shakes, the roof a peaked chalet. Smoke was drifting from a crooked smokestack, so I assumed the fairy-tale conveyance was where Cal was taking me, but he trotted past the pickup and headed for a small square guest cottage that was hidden behind some boxwood bushes on the far side of the parking area.

  The cottage looked in better shape than the main building, less battered and bruised. Cal trotted up the steps. I expected him to plunge inside, but he stopped short and knocked at the door in an incongruous burst of etiquette. “This is the Maniac’s place,” he told me. “I mean, he crashes here sometimes. He’s got a whole bunch of places he hangs out, but I don’t know where all of them are.”

  “Looks like he’s a good housekeeper,” I said.

  “His women keep it up for him. And even the stoners and the blood know better than to fuck with the Maniac’s pad.”

  Cal started to knock on the door again but I put out a hand to stop him. “Hold on a second. Who was the girl we left back in the apartment building?”

  Cal tried to shrug away the subject. “She goes by Needles. I don’t know her real name.”

  “She mentioned another girl to me.”

  “Who? Lisa?”

  I shook my head. “Sherry.”

  “Sherry who?”

  “Sherry Misteen. Do you know her, Cal?”

  Cal labored to look blank and blasé. “Sherry. Yeah. She and Lisa were real tight for a while.”

  “What happened between them?”

  “Who knows?” His shrug was comprehensive.

  “Where’s Sherry now?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Needles says she’s dead.”

  Cal jerked as though I’d slapped him, then examined me to see if I knew anything or was just making guesses. “Is she right, Cal?” I went on. “Is Sherry Misteen dead?”

  Cal’s face cast off its initial wrinkle of concern. “That’s what they say.”

  “Who says?”

  “I don’t know. People, you know? You hear stuff on the street. Half the time it’s bogus, anyway. I mean, all kinds of people are supposed to be dead, and aren’t right? Paul McCartney? All them guys.”

  “How does the street say she died, Cal?”

  “I don’t know, man,” Cal muttered with exasperation. “Probably the same way Needles is going to die.”

  “Do they say someone killed her, Cal?”

  “Naw. Nothing like that.” Cal’s eyes rolled. “Now come on. Needles and Sherry are stale. Lisa’s in here.”

  Cal knocked on the door again, and he must have heard something because he nodded briskly, turned the knob and opened the door. “Come on,” he urged, then paused and eyed me speculatively. “You got a gun?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “The Maniac don’t like guns.”

  “You mean except his own.”

  Cal frowned. “Maybe you better wait out here. You know, till I check it out. If Lisa’s there, I’ll bring her out.”

  When I didn’t respond, Cal disappeared inside the little bungalow. After several seconds I followed along.

  The narrow foyer was dark and empty. From the sharp smell I guessed it had recently served as a cat’s boudoir. The first door off the foyer opened onto a small kitchen, with sink and counter and cupboards, but no appliances and no furniture. One of the girls I’d seen earlier in People’s Park was standing at the counter, her back to me, struggling in the dim glow from a candle stub to open a canned ham. On the counter beside the ham were two bricks of cheese and two bottles of red wine. I wondered if they were bought or stolen. Cal didn’t pause at the kitchen, but went straight to the other room, which took up the entire remainder of the cottage but for the bathroom that smoldered in vandalized putrescence next to the kitchen.

  The living room was a hazy cave of light and shadows, furnished in makeshift fashion—the couch a vinyl car seat, the table an empty spool of phone cable, the chairs a ripped-off park bench and several mounds of fabric bound with twine into bulbous pillows. The only light came from a dozen or so candles arranged around a bowl of something dark and fluid in a way that looked symbolic.

  A tape deck played a repetitive, mechanical rhythm in the style of Philip Glass. All but two of the occupants lay along the walls, smoking dope, oblivious of me and of each other, invisible in the shadows but for the hot dots of their reefers and the milky marbles of their sleepy eyes. But none of those were the eyes that Cal and I had come to see. Lisa’s eyes, like the rest of her, were snug beside the Maniac.

  They were sprawled on the car-seat couch, arms across each other’s shoulders, heads inclined and touching, slumped so that they were lying, chins on chests, rather than sitting. Lisa looked uneasy when she saw us coming, but it was Cal she was watching, not me. The Maniac, on the other hand, gave me his entire attention as he huddled like an armadillo in the soft shell of his field jacket, his eyes red and active, his breath rapid, his lips smacking noisily, his foot vibrating like a safety valve to the man’s compulsive devilment.

  As I approached, the Maniac released Lisa’s hand and slid his own behind his back, slowly, so as not to alarm me. I pretended not to notice that when it emerged again it was curled around a pistol. He didn’t point it at me, but nestled it between his legs and left it there.

  His face was large and square, framed by bangs of dirt-brown hair that crossed his forehead like a tattered hem. His eyes were small, tucked behind a protective squint. He seemed much bigger than he had in the park, more powerful and more threatening, yet it was a man-child’s menace, sporadic and unpredictable. Either that or he used his deranged expressions and his manic gestures as a ploy, to gain the psychological upper hand. If that was his game, it wasn’t entirely ineffective.

  “Hi, Lisa,” Cal said, trying to keep the hurt and worry from his voice, trying to keep his cool. But his roiling body and his halting voice betrayed him, so obviously that the Maniac emitted a burst of wild, belittling laughter.

  Lisa barely reacted to Cal’s greeting, barely managed a brief, high “Hi.” The Maniac noted her reserve, nodded approvingly, and squeezed her more snugly to his flank.

  “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?” Cal went on, undaunted by the Maniac’s thick glare.

  “Am I invisible?” the Maniac blurted. Like his face, the words were bloated, melodramatic, angry. “Do I not exist?”

  “Hello, Maniac,” Cal managed.

  “I am often not where I seem to be,” the Maniac said mysteriously. “I am often where I am least expected.”

  Cal didn’t know what to say to that, so he looked at Lisa again. “Lisa? Can we rap?”

  The Maniac interrupted again. “What brings you to me? Do you need help? Are you like the rest? Like this one? Do you need me as your instrument: to oust the beasts that feast upon your soul?”

  “I just want to talk to Lisa, Maniac.”

  “Ha. Then like th
e others who seek her out you must not have heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “Of Lisa’s vow.”

  “What vow?”

  The Maniac’s grin of glee was followed immediately by a frown of caution. I still had no idea whether he was playing or was truly addled. He might not have known himself.

  “Lisa talks only to me,” the Maniac continued. “As always, I am her instrument. To speak to her you must speak through me. I am Papa Bell. I reach out and clutch someone.”

  Cal gulped air as though it was an upper. “Come on, Lisa. This guy doesn’t own you. Please? Just come outside for a minute.”

  She dared only a flick of her eyes; to the Maniac, then back to Cal. I wanted to help Cal out, but I had no idea how to do it, so I just stayed quiet and kept my eye on the pistol.

  The Maniac finally broke the silence. “So. It appears the lines have all gone dead. So why don’t you get out of here before I have to hang you up?”

  The final words were dense and leaden, unmistakably a threat, shoved forth by a gristly lump of tongue. The Maniac’s free hand drifted to his weapon. Cal took a quick step back, and for the first time noticed me. He made a silent plea for help, but I wasn’t certain I was going to be able to give him any.

  The scene was taking on the trappings of an Elizabethan farce, with Cal and me the jesters, the Maniac the insanely jealous monarch. I didn’t want to leave it that way for long, but I was interested in whether Cal and Lisa were going to work it out. I was pretty sure Cal would come up empty, but I owed him the chance to make it happen.

  My presence gave Cal the heart to try once more. “Lisa? You know I’m your friend, Lisa. Just talk to me for a while. That’s all. That can’t do any harm, can it?”

  Cal’s words fell into an empty world. Lisa was beyond entreaty, knew only the Maniac, obeyed only his erratic will. I sensed it had become my turn.

  I hadn’t much more to ask than Cal had asked, and I had no reason to expect a better result, so I tried a different tack, one which had as its chief stratagem the effort to keep the Maniac talking until he said something I could use. He looked like an obsessive type, and obsessives like to hear their own voices, probably so their obsessions won’t be complicated by dissent or by the always scrambled truth.

  “You’re Ronald Nifton, aren’t you?” I began.

  He left his gun between his legs and clasped his hands behind his head and regarded me peacefully. “Who are you?”

  “Tanner.”

  “More.”

  “A private investigator. I’m looking into the death of Lisa’s mother.”

  “Death. I look into death quite often.” He uttered a staccato giggle. “What I get off on is when Death looks back.” His smile became both mad and maddening. His foot was a blur of movement.

  “I’ve come for information,” I said. “From Lisa.”

  “I can think of no reason for her to give you any.”

  “There’s been one murder. And maybe two.”

  “There are many murders. Bodies, minds, spirits, all are murdered by this world. As The Astral Light discloses, humanity must disgorge its diseased members. What has this to do with me?”

  “You’re connected to the murders I’m talking about.”

  The Maniac rolled his eyes and opened his mouth. His tongue flopped forward briefly, a reptile trying to escape its cage.

  “Connected? Of course I am connected to murder. I am a murderer. Aren’t I, Lisa?”

  “Yes, Maniac.” Her voice was as small as Cal’s slim hopes. She seemed not at all revolted by the Maniac’s grotesque expressions.

  “I’m talking about the murder of Lisa’s mother,” I persisted. “You know Lisa, and you know her father, too.”

  The Maniac closed his eyes. “I know too much. I know more than they believe, more than they will ever allow me to say.”

  “I think you know of another murder too. Her name was Sherry. Sherry Misteen.”

  For the first time since I’d started talking, Lisa Usser did more than listen with an alert passivity. Her eyes locked on mine with sudden sharp ferocity. I felt both hatred and apprehension in her stare.

  “Sherry.” The Maniac seemed truly puzzled, as if the name were new to him. Then Lisa whispered in his ear, and he smiled and nodded. “We knew her as Lady Lancelot.”

  “Then she really is dead?”

  “We are all dead,” the Maniac said with finality. “Death before Disappointment is the teaching of the modern world. Right, Lisa? We die so that we may live.”

  Lisa seemed to accept his nonsense, which was the most worrisome thing I’d seen her do since I’d arrived. Before the Maniac could dismiss me the way he had dismissed Cal, I tried to keep him going.

  “You’re the Nifton who killed that student a couple of years ago, right?”

  He frowned. “I am what I wish to be. My past is what others wish it was.”

  “When did you change your name?”

  His eyes gleamed to match the candles. “My identity was disclosed to me by a box of men. They recognized what I am, and they labled me so that I would not forget. I am grateful for the revelation.”

  “You mean your trial.”

  He raised his brows. “You know of it?”

  “You enjoy a certain fame in legal circles.”

  “Legal circles make you dizzy.” Once again, Nifton’s tongue slipped from his mouth and dangled like a limp, soft sock. His thoughts seem to drift beyond the room, only to return a moment later. “I am a maniac,” Nifton declared, emphasizing each word. “Officially adjudged and decreed. I am also officially without responsibility for my actions. Which leaves open an interesting question, don’t you think?”

  “You mean if not you, then who?”

  “Exactly. I occasionally suggest to the tiresome Christians who accost me along the avenue that according to their tenets the answer must necessarily be God. They do not seem comfortable with the suggestion. But I am merely pointing toward salvation. A ‘comfortable Christian’ is an oxymoron, is it not?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You are not a believer?”

  “I have my own theology, I suppose.”

  “Does it posit a supreme being?”

  “More like a supreme obligation,” I said, then hurried to shift the focus from my own ideas and onto his. “How about yourself? How do you see the subject?”

  “The Astral Light is the one true food for all our souls. You feel the same way, don’t you, Lisa?”

  The Maniac gave her a proprietary pat. Lisa nodded, but halfheartedly. I sensed she was coming off whatever downer she’d been on, was regaining or reasserting a portion of her will. If she was as brilliant as her father, then a large portion of her devotion to the Maniac must have been self-induced, even self-inflicted. I guessed she used drugs to maintain the stance. And I guessed that even drugs weren’t always enough to live with the charade.

  “Tell me more about the trial,” I urged. “Who was your lawyer?”

  “I had an army of them. They understood nothing, but those opposed to me understood even less.”

  “Was Lawrence Usser one of them?”

  I glanced at Lisa to see if her father’s name would provoke a reaction. It did, but it was beyond interpretation. Her narrow face was squeezed to a numb rigidity; her eyes seemed to search for something safe but fail to find it.

  “I know the name,” the Maniac said calmly. “I know the face. I know the mind.”

  “Have you seen Usser lately?”

  “Why would I? I know all I wish to know about him. He is an intensely selfish man, and the consequence is here beside me.” He patted Lisa once again.

  “I heard he helped your sister, Laura, find a job.”

  For the first time I provoked him. He sat up straight and momentarily brandished the gun. “Never say her name again. She has nothing to do with me. The Maniac has no sister. No mother, father, no one. The Maniac is sui generis, sprung from the ear of Ebenezer, the
cunt of Cassiopeia.”

  The Maniac was a fool but not a stupid one. I kept at it, still hoping something would anger him enough to reveal a trail I could follow. “It seems like Lawrence Usser’s got a pretty strong tie to you,” I said. “Getting you off a murder charge; giving your sister a job; letting you take his daughter away from him. He’s done a lot for you.”

  “For me? Or to me?”

  “Well,” I said, gesturing at the room, “this isn’t much but it’s better than jail.”

  “Jail means nothing,” the Maniac boasted. “They cannot jail the mind of a maniac.”

  “They can scramble it up a bit.”

  “Impossible. A maniac’s mind is prescrambled and preshrunk.” His glazed eyes focused again. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m a friend of Professor Usser’s. I’m trying to find out why his wife died.”

  “You think I killed her?”

  “I don’t know. Did you?”

  His smile was easy. “I doubt it. It doesn’t seem to be my style.”

  “You’ve killed a woman before.”

  “Only because I loved her.”

  “Did you love Mrs. Usser?”

  “I don’t believe so. I don’t believe I loved her at all.” He gave Lisa a chilling glance, then reached into his pocket and took something out and popped it into his mouth. Whatever it was would probably take him even further from me than he was already.

  “Did you know her?” I persisted.

  “In what sense?”

  “In any sense.”

  “Perhaps unconsciously. Perhaps in the fifth dimension. Perhaps in a former life.”

  “How about the here and now?”

  “I am more familiar with the there and later.”

  I sighed and plunged ahead. “If you didn’t know her mother, how did you meet Lisa?”

  “She came to me. As they have all come to me.”

  “Why?”

  “For understanding.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of how the dead can become alive.”

  “How is that?”

  “By doing what I tell them to do. By doing what I let them do.”

  “What do you let them do?”

  “Accept their desires; dare the forbidden.” Nifton smiled smugly. “When they learn I have killed the one who denied my passion, killed and yet walk free, they know I tell the truth, risk the truth, am the truth.”