by R. G. Oram
Harris, now with his head lowered asks, ‘What are you saying?’
‘Your son has the emotional consistency of an infant. He won’t listen to simple instructions when they are given and has created a pile of unnecessary problems. It’s clear by the way he is you can’t control him. You need to deal with him.’
‘What do you expect me to do?’
‘End his life,’ the words dispersed all sound in the room.
Sound returned by Harris’s voice, ‘What did you say?’
‘I don’t need to repeat myself.’
‘He’s my son.’
‘He is standing in the way of your political aspirations.’
More pause; Harris was thinking.
‘He’s sick. That’s all.’
‘Yes he’s sick, but in order to get rid of his sickness you need to give him the correct treatment. Not allow him to do as he pleases and let him satisfy his urges.’
‘Then I’ll take him to a doctor.’
‘Imagine how that will affect your campaign. If your son is receiving psychiatric help, your constituents will see you as a poor parent,’ Frank continued. ‘Also he’ll probably tell the psychiatrist what he did,’ he went on further, ‘Wouldn’t it be more merciful to end your son’s suffering?’
‘He’s not dying from some kind of disease.’
‘Isn’t he? What is a disease? It is an illness. Your son is ill, infected by something which he has seen and cannot or will not forget. It has spread throughout his mind like a virus. Become more aggressive. I’ve seen his room, the experience he had endured has alienated his thinking. He obsesses over it. What else can you do for him?’
‘Please, just give me time to think,’ Malcolm rubbed his temples like he was removing a deep stain from a pristine surface.
‘It won’t stop, there will be others. The demand will increase after each victim. The rest periods will shorten. I will only be able to dispose of so many before someone will notice a pattern. You can’t allow your son continue to live like this.’
‘He’s my boy.’
‘That needs his father to help him.’
‘Jerome….’ Puffed out lips.
‘He would want you to be free. You can commit his name to your campaign, by letting his memory live on through your fight for the seat of the city. Remembering not what he has become, remembering him for the child you cared for and raised. Not letting his name be tarnished and immortalised as a deviant to society, but a person who was loved and cherished by their family.’
Frank let the words sink in. If the man didn’t go along he could easily dispose of him here. He added, ‘When they catch him he’ll be given the injection.’
He had his hands out ready, prepared for the non-committing answer. Frank deliberated on where to strike. Should he jab his fists repeatedly into the man’s stomach? Or wait until Harris turned the other way, aim for the spine, deep strikes to the vertebral column, paralysing him. All Frank needed was to put the man down, then chain him, like Mark Baker, let the lame body fall over the side, taste the waters of the graveyard below.
Words came, ‘What do I do?’ Harris asked, now sobbing freely.
Harris spoke again, ‘All right, what do you want me to do?’
Frank relaxed his tight fists, ‘I want you to go home and make sure your son stays there. I first need to deal with Shaun. Like you said, he knows too much and if he learned of Jerome’s death he’d run to the police. I’ll go to his house. Then after I’m finished there I will come to you and take care of Jerome.’
Harris, with his head remaining down, was a portrait of the submissive man.
‘Now we need to leave,’ Frank said.
Chapter 38
Shaun had said words – the best way to describe the man, and Lewelyn couldn’t have agreed more. Hollowed words, hollowed tone, hollowed emotion. Void, empty, unfilled, soulless. Did the man breathe air? Or sustain a regular heart beat?
Standing outside the room while the two men inside discussed deeply troubling options, Lewelyn listened, almost not believing what he’d just heard. The man with no face or name – only had a voice to acknowledge his existence. But, throughout that discussion Lewelyn had paid close attention to the man’s voice.
The first descriptive word to fix in his mind was calm, except that descriptive noun only applied to a person who continuously fought to control their emotions – this guy didn’t have any. All the words he used were spoken in a monotone. Even when he had said, ‘End his life,’ was expressed without a hint of empathy.
Not revealing anything, not letting Harris manipulate him, not letting the situation get to him. Staying calm and objective all the time, making the executive decision without concern over its repercussions. Spoken as a leader, choosing the right words to manage and motivate his subject. A person who could inspire, lead, manipulate. A vile and crooked influence configured as beneficent wisdom.
And hearing all of it, including Malcolm Harris’s outburst, offered Lewelyn clarity. No dissociative/split personality disorder, no single man with a mental disorder that inhabited two people. It was Frank and Jerome there that night, two men, with divergent personalities. Frank – Organised, Jerome – Disorganised, the former employed to plan, manage and facilitate the murder, the latter, performing it, having it provided for them by the organiser; a guardian who supervises the beginner.
Lewelyn checked his phone, recorder still on. He couldn’t believe how long they had been talking, yet to him it only felt like five minutes had passed. Now the guy intended to kill Shaun and then Jerome – they were the only ones who could bear witness to the case.
Suddenly, Lewelyn heard the man inside say.
‘Now we need to leave.’
They were leaving and would have to come through the door Lewelyn stood in front of!
He started to move backwards, not letting the advancing steps from inside stop him. Still adopting the walking on thin ice routine, Lewelyn had to get as far ahead as he could, at a turtle’s pace, to get out of the torch’s reach (the one flaring in the other room).
The idea of sprinting appealed to him, but that would mean he’d announce himself and all they’d have to do is shoot forward in the tiled tunnel. All it would take was one bullet from one full cartridge. Even a minor injury would still be terminal, the perpetrators had no choice other than to cover their tracks, completely. He didn’t know if one of them carried a gun; almost definitely. Considering what he had just heard, it was a sure presumption.
Sweat dripped down his body, if he wasn’t wearing a shirt the amount of perspiration his body produced could have created a pool of water matching the size of that puddle he slipped on earlier.
Come on! Come on! He kept telling himself.
Hearing the door behind open, feeling the room’s concealed air flow past him.
No choice now, he stopped and put his hand under the lower part of his shirt. Lewelyn faced the door again. The light of their torch shone in his direction. The ray not yet on him, soon it would be as it gained a few feet from its owner’s proceeding walk. Lewelyn drew the handgun up and in alignment.
Unexpectedly, a savage jerk on his shirt collar, biting deeply into his neck; and an unknown force dragged him backwards, ferociously pulling him against his will, before he had time to overcome his surprise.
Chapter 39
What was his occupation? This question always left drums in his head. More specifically what he called his occupation? He made problems go away, disposed of liabilities – buried them; a man for hire. The best word he could come up with was fixer. Making his clients lives perfect again, getting rid of their problems. Most tried to throw money at the problem, all that did was keep the leeches at bay – never quite ridding yourself of them. As long as they had the ability to speak, you would never have peace. Solution, first, deprive them of life, then, make them vanis
h. Leave nothing, when there is little to see few questions are asked. When there is no body, no signs suggesting foul intentions, few assumptions would be made.
Frank’s role was to create and produce a scene of disappearance: Vanishing, evaporating, desertion, flight, departure, loss, exit, retreat.
Few questions would be asked, few theories would be formed.
Leaving Inglewood, Frank recollected everything. Malcolm Harris, letting fear get to him. Like Frank noted before, all that shouting was an act – a performance to hide the begging. Harris pleaded with Frank to help him, the man had not kneeled to him – he should have.
Fear, such a pointless emotion. It revealed what you truly were. Advertising your weaknesses.
Harris wrapped in fear, making himself weak. When this happened to people they became lost, dumbfounded on what to do next, burdening someone else with their problems; submission to another’s control. They practically worshipped you, giving you full autonomy over them. Letting themselves be subdued.
Weakness, fear will not stop someone from killing you, no matter how much of your soul you poured out to them. It separated children from adults. Malcolm Harris was a child – a child who wore men’s clothes. Too afraid to confront his former wife’s lover.
He’d first met Malcolm when he asked Frank for his services. Opened the conversation by saying he’d seen Frank’s advertisement in a magazine; not bothering to ask him if he had a valid private investigator’s licence. They met at a diner, went to the far corner so privacy could be achieved. Harris did not enquire on the price or Frank’s competency, asked him only if a PI could find out for him if his wife was cheating on him.
With every client Frank would always say, ‘As long as you pay me.’
This is his rule.
The actor had an advancement of pay ready for him. He pocketed the envelope of cash and dropped a card on the table, with his occupation, chosen name and phone number on it.
It didn’t take long. All he needed was the licence plate number of the wife’s car and his own vehicle to follow her when she went out. She seemed to prefer the family home to be with her lover which had suited Frank. The boyfriend always parked outside the house, Joan Harris hadn’t seemed to care if anybody noticed. She’d be in the open front door majestically awaiting him. They always kissed before entering the house. Frank parked a few doors away and pressed the moment-capturing button on the camera when appropriate.
He showed Harris the pictures in a different eating place that time. Frank thought the man was going to spit on the camera. Then after placing the camera on the table, getting closer to Frank, Harris asked the man’s name. Frank provided him with the name and an address.
Looking up and around the restaurant before speaking again, reassured nobody would hear him Malcolm asked Frank if he would take him to the man’s home.
Frank in the driver’s seat, Harris in the back. The actor continuously bit his fingers and looked in the rear view mirror to see if Frank was watching. When he thought Frank wasn’t looking at the traffic behind, he dropped chewed pieces of nail on the free backseat beside him.
When the car parked both men got out. Frank had seen Malcolm pause when he saw the lights of his wife’s lover’s house visible through the windows.
Hand on the bonnet, ‘Forget it. Let’s go.’ The actor had said and got back in the car. Frank did too and turned the car around, back in the direction they had come.
No contact came after that. Years passed before Frank saw Malcolm Harris’s phone number on his call screen again. Harris spoke first.
‘I need your help.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s my son, Jerome. I can’t explain it over the phone. I need you to come to my house.’
‘Provide me with something,’ Frank had said, saving himself a hang up.
‘We need your help with something. He’s very sick and needs somebody with him all the time. He says he can’t stop thinking about it. There’s this woman. Keeps saying she doesn’t deserve the gift she’s been given. That she’s better off gone and nobody will care. He’s started cutting himself. Says every day that passes he’ll draw a line down his arm with a knife until he has it. It’s already up to his forearm. Please, I don’t want my boy to go to prison. Can you help us?’
‘As long as you pay me.’
Why does this world tolerate such weaklings? Frank thought.
When walking through the dark corridor, Frank could see defeat written all over Harris. Head tilted down and the heels of his shoes did not meet the ground first; he dragged them along. On the way Harris slipped on some water, falling face first. The man did not get up right away, he took his time. Frank wondered if he would just lie there forever. Wither away by the building’s changing rooms.
He did get up – eventually. Doing it in incremental stages, as if standing was of little importance to him.
No words exchanged for the rest of the way. Getting back to the cars, Frank repeated his instructions to Harris, ensuring the ‘child’ understood them. Only a nod to illustrate his cooperation.
Satisfied, Frank drove away.
On his way to Shaun’s residence Frank tried to decide on the best course of action.
Suicide was one option; hang Shaun by the neck but that involved someone seeing the double’s face.
Burning the home and damaging the corpse’s face was another possibility, then, there was the chance of a quick response from the fire department and a medical examiner who could reconstruct a disfigured face.
The only other option was to put him where the dead detective, Mark Baker is. The distance was a risk but he had no other option. After that he’d deal with Jerome, then the father.
Malcolm Harris being the way he is, would turn Frank in the second he felt intimidated. The man was a liability and Frank didn’t like liabilities. Of course, he would lose a client but there were more out there. At the bottom of the pool, many people had disappeared.
Chapter 40
An unknown presence seizing hold of him, one arm around the neck, the other over the mouth. With continuous shadowing it was impossible to see the confiner, let alone his own struggling hands. Moving in every direction, they stretched and grasped – searching for a solid piece of freedom but only finding air.
Lewelyn attempted to break free from this unknown’s hold. Digging his elbows into the fleshy abdomen; giving them deep excavations. He could feel the unknown’s body restrict when the blows became frequent. The hold obstinately did not slacken and his freedom of speech was still expelled.
Footsteps came just outside, in the corridor. They proceeded closer. Two sets clamoured. The incapacitated Lewelyn ceased his struggle when he heard the footsteps stop. A ray of light haloed alongside the doorway.
Struggling no more he stood as upright as he could, raising his eyes to a modest level, getting ready for what came next. The unknown grappler became inanimate. After an eternity the footsteps went on; the heeled and flat footed tones became shorter with the distance.
It suddenly occurred to Lewelyn, why would this unknown need to cover Lewelyn’s mouth? Did it matter what sounds he made here? Why would his captor take the additional action of removing his ability to vocalise thoughts? The receivers of his worded protests would be only himself, Harris, the man with the actor and this unknown person holding him.
Whoever this person was, they wanted to keep their presence non-existent to all parties but themselves.
Coming to faint echoing of footsteps the unknown’s grip relinquished when doors shut further away. Lewelyn, giving himself enough distance as he could away from the unknown, shone his phone at the height where he guessed the head to be, from feeling hot breaths at the back of his skull.
‘You’ve got sharp elbows you know that.’
The voice he knew, very recent, the additional light from the phone gleamed Thomas Fors
ythe’s silhouette to a full picture. Lewelyn at a loss, a mixture of embarrassment and confusion, asked.
‘What are you doing here?’
Forsythe smirking as if Lewelyn had asked a question that didn’t need answering.
‘You honestly think I was going to take the weekend off after everything that’s happened?’
‘You told me you and your wife were going to San Diego to visit your son,’ Lewelyn just managed to say this with his lower lip being bitten by his furious teeth.
‘Too much has happened. The wife’s gone to see him. I told her I had too much work to do.’
‘Have you been following me this whole time?’ Lewelyn asked.
‘Yes, and a piece of advice for the future, when you’re tailing somebody, make sure you take the occasional look into the rear-view to see whether or not you yourself are being tailed.’
Lewelyn only to himself, acknowledged this to be true. When following Harris and going to Shaun’s the only time he looked in the rear-view mirror was when he slowed down or started getting too close to the followed – his eyes had always been forward, looking at the road straight ahead.
Then it came to him, Shaun; a kind of red alert.
That guy’s going to kill him, he thought.
‘We need to go,’ Lewelyn said.
‘Wait,’ when Forsythe said this Lewelyn was already stamping through the dark filled tunnel; a contrast to his walk down here, not fussing over the precious decibel level.
He could hear Forsythe behind him, attempting to catch up, Lewelyn would have stopped if time wasn’t against him. His steps advanced nicely, doing wonders for his ankles. He saw no light coming through the entrance doors, signifying their current locked state.
