by Cal Moriarty
‘That’s the uplift you promised him, plus a year’s interest, payable no matter what. You had your chance.’
He shoved a pen into Clark’s hand.
Clark stared at the flimsy paper, to where Arnold’s name clawed back everything he owed. And then some.
Cold steel at his temple.
He wrote the rest of the signature tiny, illegible. But its capital letters he wrote large. Large C. Large H.
Cliff Hartman. Just like all the other lines in the ledger Arnold had used. Why wasn’t he using that?
No more cold steel. Footsteps, moving away. An engine. A screech of tires as the goon pulled onto the street.
Peter Pan was open on its spine, pages ripped out, fluttering away across the lot. He picked it up, walked slowly, painfully over to the garbage. He wished he’d shown Sanford that day, maybe after his head had been stitched up, but he’d split out the side door right when Dentist Davies arrived. He could have asked Sanford’s opinion, would have found out earlier that it was a fake, not even risked coming here. But he had just wanted to get out of there.
It must have spooked them, him asking Dougie to use the Peter Pan as a lien to get some of his money back.
All that glitters isn’t gold.
They must have thought he’d rumbled them somehow. Made them hasten their plan. Grab what they could and scram.
Trash or recycling.
He opened the trash can and threw Peter Pan in.
*
He couldn’t even remember getting back from LA the previous week. Or how he’d managed to drive himself down to San Diego and get himself through the airport and on a plane back to Abraham City. The booze on the plane was free, it wasn’t a Faith airline, so it was flowing for the ninety minutes’ flying time from San Diego.
He had checked in with Ziggy. The Faith hadn’t phoned all week. Today was their deadline. And now he sat, staring out the diner window, willing the phone to ring. Willing their call to travel through the airwaves and Ziggy to appear and urge him to the phone.
‘Hey man, what happened to your eye. You look all beat up.’
It was Kenny. He plonked himself down opposite.
‘Tripped over Jack’s skateboard.’
‘You got him skating already? Radical. Go Clark. Did you order?’
‘The usual.’
‘I’m thinking of going for the full rack of ribs. Chicken. Onion rings. The works.’
Kenny always went for the works when he knew Clark was paying.
It was a shame the diner was too quiet to try putting him in a trance again.
Clark pushed an envelope of cash towards Kenny.
‘Thanks, man. Appreciate it.’ He tucked it inside his back pocket. Kenny had run a few signed first editions down to Scottsdale. Some nice signatures, personalized. They’d made a few grand. Clark looked out the window.
‘What’s up?’
‘Just waiting on a call.’
‘A watched phone never rings. Isn’t that what they say?’
‘No. That’s a kettle. A watched kettle never boils.’
‘Hey look!’
Over on the counter TV they were running an advertisement for a documentary. ‘The Hitler Diaries, that’s some crazy shit, isn’t it? All that money for something fake. People are whacko.’
‘Why?’
‘Five million bucks or something. The Times of London and that German paper. How the hell would Hitler have time to write a diary during the war? I don’t have time to write a diary and I’m not invading countries and killing everyone.’
‘Churchill did.’
‘Did he?’
‘And more pages than that. And, if the buyer believes it’s real, then it is.’
‘Is it?’
‘That’s what they’re paying for, belief, not reality.’
‘That guy’s going to jail.’
BANG, BANG, BANG.
Clark turned to see Ziggy banging on the window next to them.
‘Jeez, what’s with him?’
‘The phone. I gotta get it.’
‘Maybe you should get a real secretary,’ said Gloria, refilling Clark’s cup.
‘He tried: they were all out of blondes.’ Kenny laughed loud at his joke.
Gloria wagged her finger out the window, to Ziggy. He frowned. Wagged back. She smiled.
‘Hey, what about your schnitzel?’
‘Keep it under the warmer, can you?’ said Clark.
He was up now, out of the booth. Heading fast toward the door. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. I might even order some pie.’
‘Really?’ She watched him as he ran out of the door and along the path towards the phone, Ziggy following behind.
Clark grabbed up the phone from where Ziggy had left it balanced carefully on top of the box.
‘Brother Clark? It’s Alan Laidlaw.’
Alan Laidlaw. It must be good news if he was calling. If it was bad news he would have expected them to get Peter Gudsen to call. ‘Disciple Laidlaw. How are you?’
‘Good. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the documents.’
‘Please do.’
‘We have sought the Lord Prophet’s guidance through prayer. We held a vigil here at the Mission last night. The Twelve Disciples prayed in unison throughout the night. This is a most difficult situation. The Lord may judge us on our decision for all eternity.’
‘Yes, Brother. He may indeed.’
‘The Letter of Accession, Brother Clark. What’s to say there’s not another one out there somewhere?’
‘You mean the Jeremiah letter, not the Abraham letter?’
‘Yes, or even another one of these?’
‘Why would there be another one of those?’
‘We think this might be a fake.’
‘A fake? Absolutely no way that letter’s a fake. It came through Cliff Hartman, an exceptionally reputable contact I’ve used many times before, with no problems. He’s exceptionally thorough, famed for it.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But after we had sought the sanctuary of prayer, it gave us time to think clearly. Reflect. We had a round-table meeting afterward. We thought perhaps those in Reno might have worked this Letter of Accession and the accompanying letters into the hands of a reputable dealer like yourself and your colleague. Knowing that they would most likely find their way to us.’
‘No, Disciple Laidlaw. The letter and everything that accompanies it is a hundred per cent genuine. It’s been verified by two independent experts.’
‘Just like the Hitler Diaries.’
The fucking Hitler Diaries.
‘The Disciples have all been following the revelations about those. It makes us err on the side of caution.’
‘But these aren’t fake. They’re authenticated as genuine.’ Clark tried not to raise his voice.
‘For the past few months, the Hitler Diaries were authenticated as genuine, son. And now look. Who’s to say it’s not Reno feeding that newspaper reporter stories? And it’s them that have forged this document in the hope that we would buy it, and shame us, revealing to the world that we are engaged in some kind of cover-up to hide the origins of our Faith. Or disguise them.’
‘But if they’d have forged it, wouldn’t Reno have kept it themselves and been shouting from the rooftops that they were the true religion?’
‘No, not if showing us to be deceitful would be a superior game plan. Imagine, they humiliate us and then the document itself confirms them as the true religion. In doing so, they have destroyed us and elevated themselves to what they have always claimed to be . . . the Real Faith. It would be quite the master stroke.’
Wouldn’t it.
‘I would side with the experts, Disciple Laidlaw. They know their business. If they are wrong about this, what else are they wrong about?’
‘Perhaps that’s why, after what’s happened in Europe, so many libraries around the world are carrying out inventories of what documents and manuscripts they hold, compared to wh
at ones they think they hold. We might be doing that ourselves soon.’
Clark felt a shiver down his spine.
He could already gauge the Faith’s answer, but polite ritual meant he had to ask. ‘What was the Disciples’ conclusion?’
‘We can’t proceed now, Brother Clark. We just can’t. Sorry to disappoint you. It’s just not the right time. I will leave the documents at the main desk, there’s a lockable closet there. Please just pick them up whenever it’s convenient.’
Clark had barely mumbled thank you when he heard the dial tone.
He felt short of breath, nauseous. He thought if he moved he would be sick, right there, over his own shoes. Keep it together. He picked up the phone and dialled Debra Franklin. It went straight through to voicemail. He waited for the tone and began to speak. He finished by telling her that the informant would have the documents couriered to her office this week. That they were extremely valuable and the informant would need the receptionist to sign for them. Clark would put a note in that the Faith were trying to buy these documents to cover up that Reno was really the heir to Robert Bright. But he wouldn’t write it in his own hand. He had a far better plan than that.
He wasn’t going back into the diner. He couldn’t. Couldn’t ever. He knew what he had to do. He had to destroy them, before they could use their knowledge to destroy him. The Faith thought they were all-knowing, all-powerful. They didn’t know shit. Clark would show them they knew nothing. No Lord Prophet or travellers from planet Lumina were going to save them. Not now. Not ever.
He jumped in his car and floored it.
People up ahead.
He slammed his brakes on, he could smell the rubber. He almost ate the steering wheel. ‘What the fuck?’ He looked up to see a trail of people crossing in front of him. A man led them. His hand up, guiding them across the road, and halting Clark. He stared in at him. Clark looked along the line of people, three women following the man, strange clothes and a trail of children in their wake. He looked back to the man. Robert Bright. Clark honked the horn, floored the gas, they scattered. When he looked in the rearview, there was no one there.
41
November 4th 1983, 9 am
Abraham City
Marty had stood in the centre of the room. It was so clean, so empty, it was as if someone had scrubbed the whole place down ahead of surgery.
There was an array of bookcases. All empty. A cupboard under the sink, also empty. A tall chair sat at an empty makeshift desk, next to a workbench which was obviously new, and replaced something the surface of which might have given up its secrets.
‘I don’t understand, Detective.’ Edie Houseman looked more amazed than Marty. ‘But this is where Clark always is, when he’s home, working on something or other.’ Together they stared at the empty walls.
Down here, under the house, there was no noise, not a sound. He must have liked it like that. Needed the silence to work.
All work and no play makes Clark a dull, dull boy.
Marty knew then, knew that whatever had gone on in this room, it was his mind, the mind of Clark Houseman and whatever he had created here in this dungeon that held the key to all the death and destruction that had gone on the past week.
Marty had sent a reluctant Edie off to fetch Whittaker from the kitchen, told her to stay up there with the others and send her sister down here in a minute.
Whittaker’s feet stopped on the wooden stairs. He whistled.
‘Wow, this place is clean.’
‘Isn’t it.’
‘What you hoping to find, Mart?’
‘Anything. You still looking for that blast cap?’
‘We are.’
‘Maybe it’s here. Somewhere.’
‘Really? He’s done a pretty good job of the clean-up. Smell that? Bleach, ammonia and who knows what other household products. He’s a good few steps ahead of us.’
Marty just hoped that Houseman wasn’t too far ahead, because they needed to catch him.
He turned the handle and swung the door open.
How different to last time. No longer in a coma, now hooked up to just one machine, Clark was sat up in bed eating grapes with his good hand, on his lap a week-old copy of the LA Times. He smiled at Marty as if expecting him. Perhaps he was. The doctor had refused permission last night, citing some test or other.
‘Good morning, Detective.’
Marty didn’t like to think he looked like a cop. Not that he was ashamed, far from it. He just didn’t want to look like a job. It was rare for people to peg him as a cop. He wondered if Houseman had really been in a full coma the other day. Perhaps he had been semi-conscious and heard every damn word they’d said. And perhaps Good morning, Detective was Houseman’s way of telling him this. His way of firing a shot across the bow. He wasn’t going to be a walkover. Marty hadn’t thought he would be. And now he knew for sure. Marty didn’t speak until he sat down at the side of the bed.
‘Good morning, Mr Houseman.’
‘Please, Detective. Clark.’ Houseman held out the bowl of grapes.
Marty shook his head. ‘No thank you, Clark.’
Houseman smiled a wide smile. It was almost as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If he hadn’t recognized him, Marty would have thought he was in the wrong room.
‘I wanted to ask you some questions, sir.’
‘Clark, please. Sorry I couldn’t see you then. The doctor said no. No visitors. My wife’s coming this afternoon. Edie. I hope she brings the papers. They’re not allowing me the TV or newspapers, except this. Too traumatic apparently.’
That smile again.
‘It’s not a problem, Clark,’ said Marty, smiling right back.
‘It’s about the bombing?’
‘That’s right, Clark. About the bombings.’
Marty didn’t want him getting worked up too early. Didn’t want to ask questions that would put his back up, close down the session. ‘You just let me know how you’re feeling, at any time. We can stop.’
‘Thank you, Detective – they said I had a brain injury. Swelling. I could have died.’
‘Did you see anyone hanging around near your car, Clark, that day or the days before?’
‘I’m sorry, Detective. My memory’s shot.’
‘Do you remember what happened at the time of the explosion? Were you in your vehicle?’
‘I’m so sorry, Detective. I can’t remember a thing. All I remember is having dinner with Edie the night before. Around eight pm. She’d just got back from a few days at her sister’s. The rest is an absolute blank. Mercifully.’
Strange thing to remember in a vacuum of memory loss.
‘You don’t remember bringing your wife breakfast in bed the morning of the bombing?’
Clark was quiet. He was thinking. Thinking that Edie had obviously told them that. And knowing what the next question would be. Clark shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
Marty wasn’t going to let him close it down so easily.
‘She said you often did that if you had a sale to celebrate, or an anniversary, something like that.’
‘Yes.’
‘What were you celebrating that morning?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Because if you could, you’d probably remember that you were just saying you had something to celebrate, so you could wake your wife up to give you an alibi for the morning of the first bombings.
‘You’d made a good sale, maybe the day before, or perhaps that week sometime?’
Marty was leading him to a dead end. If Houseman was clever he’d find a way to turn around, back up.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Really? How far back can’t you remember? What’s your last memory before the bombing, apart from the dinner?’
‘Maybe a few days. It’s all a bit hazy that last week. Just patches of flashbacks.’
‘Do you recall being attacked, perhaps a few days prior?’
‘Attacked?’
; Marty nodded.
‘No. I don’t recall being attacked. Was I really attacked?’
‘I believe so, Clark.’
‘Do you recall perhaps reporting that attack to the police?’
Clark shook his head. No.
‘Is there a reason someone might want to attack you? Perhaps if you could tell us that we could find the person responsible.’
‘Do you think it’s the same person?’
‘We’re looking at several theories right now. Can you remember, right after the explosion, you said that someone was trying to kill you? Do you remember that?’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes, Clark. Can you recall why you might have said that?’
‘No.’
‘Even though you were attacked and then bombed in the space of a few days.’
‘The doctor says it’s the trauma, the memory loss.’
‘Can you tell me where you got the documents in your car?’
‘What documents?’
‘In the trunk of your car. There was an exceptionally valuable collection of documents.’ Marty looked at Clark, waited for him to tell him what they were. He couldn’t claim to forget something he must have been involved with for months before the explosion. If he could claim months’ worth of memory loss, how could he have said someone was trying to kill him less than a few minutes after the bomb had exploded? When he was referring back to either the bomb, the attack or both.
‘I don’t remember any documents. In the trunk? Are they OK?’
‘No. I’m sorry. They’re ruined.’
‘Do you know what they are? Maybe that will help me remember. Can you describe them?’
‘The explosion shredded them into thousands of pieces.’
‘How terrible.’
‘But my colleague and I put them back together.’
‘You did?’ The very briefest of tremors, shock, crossed Clark’s face. He was sat up straighter in the bed now, leaned more towards Marty. ‘What was it?’
Al arrived, almost on cue, moved silently to the other side of the bed. Nodded hello to Clark. Clark didn’t offer him any grapes.
