Soon you will receive a letter from my lawyer, and that letter will include a check. A penny for each of the breaths and heartbeats I will never be able to share with you. Please hear my heartbeats when you listen to music and sing along with it as we did. Please hear my breath when the wind blows through your beautiful hair.
Bloom, sweetheart. See the world. Love life, love yourself, love your gifts. And bloom!
In shaky blue ink, she had signed her name. Susan.
Jayme sank to her knees at the kitchen counter, too weak and hollowed out to stand.
Two weeks later, back at school, she changed her major to undecided. The following summer, she bought a Eurail pass and backpacked through Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, England, Ireland, and Wales, then returned to continue her education at a school four hundred miles from her hometown. She started her sophomore year as a psychology major, and spent the next summer driving a rented car from Houston to Mexico City to Costa Rica. After her junior year, she spent the last of Susan’s gift in Australia and New Zealand. Someday, with luck, she would walk across the Great Wall of China.
So no, Ryan, she might have told him. All academics aren’t narcissists. But he had his experiences, and she had hers. Maybe someday she would share hers with him. But later. When she was sure he would understand.
Twenty-Nine
“Whoa,” Jayme said several miles outside of Garrettsville.
DeMarco lifted his foot from the accelerator. “Whoa as in stop?”
“Whoa as in you are going to find this very interesting.” She turned the laptop so that DeMarco could take a glance at Daksh Khatri’s Facebook page.
“Attends Case Western University,” he read with the first glance. Then, “Works at Dairy Queen and the Humane Society.”
He faced the road again. “Sounds like dog hair in the ice cream to me.”
“The photos, knucklehead.”
All eight photos, two rows of four, showed the same thin young man, Indian or Pakistani, mugging with other youths.
“Okay,” he said after a couple of glances. “And the interesting part is…?”
“It’s the guy from the video,” she told him. “The one who stood up just before Gillespie called for security.”
“Carumba,” he said softly.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, DeMarco rapped four times on the door of apartment 17. The Tremont Apartments were comprised of a single yellow-brick building, two stories, a blacktop parking lot, and a half acre of browning grass. Most of the cars in the lot were compacts, few late models, several with rusting dents and smashed taillights. “Definitely not Millionaire’s Row,” DeMarco had said when he pulled into the lot.
Now they stood midway down the second-floor balcony. Competing genres of music could be heard coming from other apartments, accompanied by a baby crying, a mother down below screaming at a child. But no sounds emanated from Khatri’s apartment.
DeMarco glanced at his cell phone. “Just after two in the afternoon. I vote for the Humane Society.”
“I’m surprised,” she said. “I figured you for the Dairy Queen.”
“Oh, we’re going there. The perfect way to cap the day.”
“With chocolate syrup, I’m sure.”
Thirty
A dozen dogs howling, barking, whining in the background. The scents of dog fur, dry dog food, dog urine and feces and bleach and Khatri’s half-eaten box of Thai noodles. All this hit their senses simultaneously as first Jayme, then DeMarco entered the lobby of the Humane Society’s rescue center. The ripe air scratched at their throats. Daksh Khatri, seated on a high stool behind a short counter, cradled a small, sickly looking dog in the crook of his left arm, a wire brush in his right. He looked up when the door opened and smiled hopefully.
“You wish to adopt?” he said, his voice soft and lilting, enunciation precise. He nodded toward the dog. “This is Layla. New yesterday. Part Yorkie and part Maltese, I think. With maybe some Pomsky thrown in. Very loving and calm, as you can see. Or were you looking for something bigger?”
Jayme stepped forward to the side of the counter, leaned down and petted the docile dog. “Hi, baby. How are you? Are you feeling okay?”
“Three children,” Khatri told her. “Always pulling and throwing her around. A doggy wasn’t made for that. But she will be fine. I am fixing her up. Two, three days at most. Then you can take her home with you.”
DeMarco showed his ID. “We didn’t come for a pet, Daksh. We just have a couple of questions for you.”
The young man appeared startled by that, but quickly regained his composure and retained it until the end of the conversation. DeMarco warmed up with the usual questions about his whereabouts on the nights of the three recent murders. Each time, the answer was “At the Dairy Queen.” As assistant manager, he closed up six nights per week. Jayme took notes, including the name and contact information for Daksh’s supervisors at both places of employment.
“You checked out some library material a few weeks before the first incident,” DeMarco said. “Information about the Talarico/Brogan murders, as well as the Cleveland murders.”
“Yes, sir, I did that.”
“For what purpose?” DeMarco asked.
“I was attending a conference the following week. I like to prepare myself so that I am properly informed of the subject to be discussed.”
“Would that have been Dr. Gillespie’s presentation at the True Crime Conference?”
“Yes, sir, it was.”
DeMarco had noticed a brief dilation of Khatri’s pupils just before he answered. He asked, “Did you enjoy the conference? Find it as informative as you had hoped?”
Now Khatri looked down at Layla, ran two fingers over her skull. “It was very good, yes.”
“How do you know Dr. Gillespie?”
“From the presentation advertisements, I think. Or maybe…yes, maybe I heard his name before that. Yes, probably so. When I attended HYC.”
“You were a student there?”
“Three semesters, yes. Before I transferred to Case Western University. I am a sociology major. With a concentration in crime, law, and justice.”
He could no longer meet DeMarco’s eyes. Stroked the little dog almost continuously now.
“If I were to look up your transcripts for your time at HYC,” DeMarco said, “would I see that you were a student of Dr. Gillespie’s?”
“No, sir. No, I do not think you would.”
DeMarco said nothing now. Both he and Jayme kept their eyes on Khatri. The young man’s strokes down Layla’s back were becoming longer and slower. Finally his hand stopped moving. Jayme asked, “How old are you, Daksh?”
“I am twenty-eight,” he said. “In November, twenty-nine.”
“That’s a very interesting tattoo on your wrist.”
He held up his right arm, turned his hand so that she could see the underside of the tattoo as well. It depicted a cobra coiled around the wrist and entwined around itself. “This is Vasuki, the serpent Lord Shiva wears around his neck.”
“It’s beautiful,” she told him. “What does it symbolize?”
“The endless cycle of birth and regeneration. But also the ego. Which, once tamed, can be worn as a decoration. It is a constant reminder to me. To strive always for humility, and to be of service to others.”
“What a lovely thought to wear on your wrist,” she said.
He looked up at her now. “I took his Comparative Religions course my third semester. But I did not finish. I withdrew.”
Jayme asked, “From the class or the university?”
“Both. Same time.”
She nodded. Reached out to scratch between Layla’s ears. “And he’s the reason you withdrew?”
Again he nodded. “We disagreed.”
DeMarco let a few moments pass. Then
said, “The man’s a total ass, am I right?”
Khatri’s head swung around, his eyes as wide with hope as they had been when Jayme and DeMarco first entered the building. “You have met him?”
“We listened to him yammer for most of thirty minutes. I found it difficult to stay awake.”
And now Khatri smiled. Turned to Jayme again. “He says many inappropriate things to females. With you as well?”
“He undressed me with his eyes a couple of times. But I think he knew I’d punch him out if he actually said anything.”
DeMarco asked, “Why did you really go to that conference, Daksh?”
Ten seconds ticked by before the young man answered. “He humiliated me in front of my classmates. Because I disagreed with him. I had no choice but to go elsewhere.”
“So you attended the conference,” DeMarco said, “to try to humiliate him?”
“The man is a charlatan. Forgive me but it is true. He twists everything around to suit his purposes. His knowledge of Paganism, Gnosticism, Hinduism, everything he discusses, is superficial and incomplete. Love is the law, not disobedience and violence. Do what thou wilt, yes, but with love. Love is the law. This part he always cleverly forgets.”
“And you confronted him about this at the conference, didn’t you?”
Khatri shrugged. “I only wished to correct his errors. As always, he would not listen.”
Jayme asked if Khatri was aware that the presentation had been videotaped. He said, “I saw the camera, yes.”
“We watched the video,” DeMarco told him. “A minute or two appear to be missing from the Q&A portion. All we see of you is the part where you stand up. Then him laughing and calling for security.”
“Again he humiliates me!” Khatri said. “He mocks everything I say. I asked why he does not quote the doctrine of Thelema as it is written. Why he perverts the truth and encourages violence.”
“He does?” Jayme asked. “You’ve heard him call for violence?”
“He is too careful to say that word, but his meaning is the same. Resist all authority, he says. By any means necessary. I try to show him that Thelema says no such thing. He will not listen. The truth is of no consequence to him.”
“What does matter to him?” DeMarco asked.
“A few students. He favors them. Because they worship him.”
“Which you never did,” Jayme said.
“Nor would I fear him. Not until the killings began. Especially the girl.”
DeMarco moved closer to the counter. “Are you referring to Samantha Lewis?”
Khatri nodded. “She was one of his.”
“Excuse me?” Jayme said. “Samantha Lewis was one of Gillespie’s students?”
“Oh yes. One of his pets. Maybe his favorite.”
Just then the door swung open, and everyone stopped talking. An attractive young woman in her thirties held the door open as a boy of eight or nine, wearing metal leg braces and using crutches, made his way inside. His smile was huge as he looked up at Khatri.
“She has been waiting for you,” Khatri said to the boy. “Go ahead and bring her out.”
The boy moved as quickly as he could, his mother following. DeMarco watched until both disappeared down the hallway to the kennel area. Then he kept staring at the empty doorway.
To Jayme, Khatri whispered, “The boy has muscular dystrophy. He comes each day to play with Fanny. She is a cockapoo, very old. We should put her down…but for the boy. It would be impossible for them to take her home. The mother has so much to do already. So the boy comes here every day.”
“That’s so sweet,” Jayme said. DeMarco was still gazing into the empty doorway. She turned to him and said, “We should probably go.”
He nodded, turned away and, without another word, headed for the door.
Quickly Jayme handed Khatri a business card, told him they might need to contact him again, and asked him to call if he had any additional information about Gillespie that might be useful. Then she followed DeMarco outside.
Thirty-One
DeMarco moved slowly, heavily to the car. They climbed in and buckled up and headed south out of Garrettsville. Jayme kept waiting for him to say something about their conversation with Khatri, the revelation that Samantha Lewis had not only been one of Gillespie’s students but possibly something more. But DeMarco said nothing.
Finally she said, “You’re being awfully quiet over there. Have you gone into a trance or what?”
“What a sad place that is,” he said.
“The Humane Society?”
“It’s like death row for dogs.”
“Did you want to look at the dogs? Get one to take home?”
He shook his head no.
She knew that he wasn’t thinking about taking a dog home with them, and that he didn’t want to talk about Khatri or Gillespie or Samantha Lewis yet either. Something had jarred another memory loose.
She waited to see if he would pull in at the Dairy Queen but he did not, didn’t even glance out the side window as they passed. Instead he said, “Do you know the song ‘Sky Blue and Black’ by Jackson Browne?”
“I’ve heard it, yes.”
“Could you pull it up on your laptop for me? It’s been a long time since I listened to it.”
“Are you sure? As I recall, it’s a pretty sad song.”
“It’s about forgiveness.”
She took a chance and asked, “Is there somebody you would like to forgive?”
He said nothing. So she opened her laptop and found the song on YouTube and let the music fill their space through the car’s stereo system.
When the song ended, she said, “Do you want to hear it again?”
He shook his head no.
She reached out, laid a hand atop his leg. “Who is it you want to forgive, babe?”
He didn’t answer that question but shook his head and said very softly, as if speaking to himself, “I wish I could. But I can’t.”
Again he had shut her out. Lost in his own darkness. Sometimes she just wanted to scream.
II
Come dance with me, the darkness says
when the night breeze scrapes down every street,
and the invisible people who can find no friend in sleep,
no friend in light,
cling like lovers to their blackened doorways
and fill their souls with the smoke of night.
—from “3 a.m.,” Thomas Huston
For the first time ever, I am seeing life as it truly is. Seeing people as they really are. Magus said only blood could wash the scales from my eyes, and he was right. Experience is what matters, not theory, not faith. Doing, not talking. To think that I used to admire Dashwood and wanted to please him, even be like him. He’s no better than a mini-Yaldabaoth. Preaches salvation but it’s all demented ego. Just one gross slob of ego.
I need to start looking for another lamb. Different neighborhood, Magus says. The person isn’t important but the place is, got to get in and get out without being seen. Even the sheeple are alert now. Can’t be too careful this time. The first one was to get everybody’s attention, mission accomplished. Fear is like caffeine to a drunk, Magus said, though that doesn’t seem like a great analogy to me. Caffeine doesn’t sober you up at all. Good for a hangover but that’s about it. But fear does open up the eyes for a while. A few days, maybe a week, two at the most. Then the drunks get drunk again, zone out, go back to being deaf and blind.
Me, I’m as clearheaded as I’ve ever been. Snuffing out a life is so easy. Which gives a good indication how insignificant a life is. We’re all bugs, nothing more unless we transform ourselves, do a reverse Kafka. Go to bed a cockroach, wake up a warrior. The warrior is always free, even in defeat. The coward is always in prison, even in victory. Because his victory is an illusion, that’s
why. His life is without meaning when there’s no True Will involved. It’s just like Crowley said. “A man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.”
That’s why the thing with Venus has everybody rattled. I let myself be a puppet, and now I have to redeem myself. Magus says I have to write about it sooner or later, have to process it, same as he is doing, trying to figure the best way to use it to further the cause. Nothing happens by accident, he says. Everything is a gift. A man of True Will takes that gift and puts it to use. The sheeple just blink, eat some more grass, piss and shit and screw their lives away. They go back to their invisible insignificant lives, thinking they matter, having their little accomplishments and romances, getting their meaningless degrees and going to their meaningless jobs and filling up their pretty little boxes with all their meaningless toys.
Not me. I’m ready now. Magus wants another lamb, I’ll give him another lamb. Let the blood flow over the altar. Let the tabernacle drown in blood.
I am Erebus, son of Khaos.
Thirty-Two
“Do you think we should include the poetry too?” DeMarco asked.
“Sure. Why not?” Jayme said. They had been reading in silence for nearly an hour, sitting in bed with the box of composition books between them, the house dark but for the two small lamps on the bedside tables, quiet but for the rustle of paper and their own movements and the muted hum of the air conditioner when it clicked on to blow a cooling breeze through the ceiling vents.
“There are also little snippets of fiction,” he said. “Anyway I think it’s fiction. He seldom marks them one way or the other.”
A Long Way Down Page 14
