Carver looks up from the rim of his mug. ‘Let me see that tape.’
12
Mr Ciacci loosens his tie. Behind his desk, the shifting frames of his security monitors carve up the world. ‘Good to see you again.’
Angel pulls up a plastic chair, sits down, spreads his legs.
‘You smoke?’ Ciacci reaches into a drawer.
‘It’s No Smoking.’
Ciacci smiles, extends the pack. Angel takes one, pulling a disposable from his pocket. It’s dead. Ciacci lights up, then throws him the box of matches. He leans back, drumming his fingers on the metal desktop. ‘You won’t regret coming in today.’ He opens a file. ‘You’ve got my word on that.’
Angel takes a long drag. He’ll say whatever it takes. He’ll say, ‘Yeah, I’m with her. No, her family doesn’t know. I am too old for her. I know that.’ He won’t say it’s wrong.
Ciacci is squinting at some faded print. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not turning a blind eye. I had my friends down at the cop shop dig out some old paperwork. I’ve done my homework.’
Angel leans back. Smoke streams from his nostrils. He can do this.
Ciacci blows crumbs off his desk. ‘I see we grew up in the same neighbourhood practically. I used to jimmy car windows for the Fitch brothers – I think they lived on Ashland. Your street, right? The older one would be about your age. Know him?’
‘I moved when I was twelve.’
‘I see that.’ He taps ash into the can by his desk. ‘The Thurlow Home for Boys, 1978 to 1982.’ He squints hard, as if weighing his options. ‘I’m going to be blunt with you, because we both want this over. That’s why you’re going to forgive me when I ask you what the hell you were doing outside a girl patient’s window with this kind of shit on your record?’
Angel looks past him. He cannot react. ‘Me, I’ve never been a spiritual man, but from where I’m sitting, ‘‘Angel’’, this isn’t looking like divine inspiration.’
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘You raped a minor.’
‘I was a minor.’
‘Just. And that’s the only reason you’re sitting here today enjoying the view. Mr Dognini was in no doubt about what he saw you doing to his fourteen-year-old daughter. What was it you used to call him again?’ He glances at the notes. ‘The Dog Catcher.’
‘He used to tie me to a banister in the basement.’
‘You were resourceful. I’ll give you that.’
‘She’d open my fly.’
Ciacci kicks a desk drawer shut. ‘Maria Dognini was autistic.’
‘I didn’t know what the fuck she was. I thought they were saying ‘‘artistic’’. She used to come over after school sometimes and wait for Dognini to finish his shift. She’d sit at the kitchen table making things out of clay. Birds and things. If Dognini went out, he’d tie me in the basement. I’d hear her up there. I was sixteen.’
‘And all hormones, from the sound of it. She told the police she used to take you in her mouth.’
‘Go jerk off somewhere else, will you?’
‘Pretty thing, I guess.’
‘No.’
‘She passed the time though.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’
He turns over a page. ‘You got her to untie your wrists.’
‘I didn’t get her to do anything.’
‘But she wouldn’t undo the others.’ He glances at the notes.
‘The ones around your legs and upper arms. You asked her, but she wouldn’t. She knew you weren’t allowed out of the basement. So it was a case of close-but-no-bazooka. God, you must have been angry. Tied up like a . . . well, yeah, like a dog, I guess.’
Angel throws his butt into the can.
‘And I can understand. Cos this has been going on for a while, hasn’t it? Sure you’re angry. Who wouldn’t be? Angry enough, in fact, to pick up that skinny retard of a daddy’s girl and stick her right on it.’ He nods at the paperwork. ‘That’s how the Biography Channel sees it.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You’re right. Anger couldn’t have been the half of it. You must have felt what? Shame? Fear? Loneliness? The gut-wrenching kind, am I right? Or do you just have a thing for girls with special needs?’
‘That’s not how it was.’
‘Tell me then. Tell me how it was.’
Angel locks eyes. ‘I liked her.’
‘The truth is, I don’t care whether you did or didn’t. Because we got you, Angel. On a new camera that overlooks the rear grounds.’ Mr Ciacci turns in his chair, hits a switch on the console and summons a swathe of green lawn. He doesn’t take his eyes off the screens. ‘I also have a nurse’s statement, reporting an interesting anomaly, as we say in the trade. A Sue Patterson and a Donna Young attended Christina on the night of September 2. That was a Sunday. The night before she woke up from the coma.
‘At the time, I thought it was probably nothing. Around eight-thirty that night the two nurses gave her a sponge-bath, then dressed her again, fastening a long row of buttons on her nightdress, ones that, according to the report, went right up to her neck. Little pearl buttons, they said, with loop buttonholes. Women seem to remember these things, don’t they? Anyway, the duty nurse messed up on the roster. Sue Patterson ended up working a double shift. So, coincidentally, she was also the first to attend Christina in the morning. And she noticed almost right away.
‘She noticed that someone had dressed Christina again. How did Nurse Sue know that? I’ll tell you how. The top button loop was button-less. The buttons had been buttoned wrong. The sequence was out by one. It seems that whoever dressed her again didn’t have the patience, or the time, to start again from the beginning.
‘Now granted, by the time the nurse filed the incident report almost two days later – it was the Labor Day weekend, remember – all the tapes of that Sunday night had been wiped. But when we picked you up the other night, I remembered something. My head’s like a computer, Angel. I remembered I’d seen you in here. In fact, I was sitting in this very chair talking to Mr Carver, as it happens. On that same Sunday night. Know how I know? I’ll tell you how. I’d had to leave my own Labor Day barbecue just as I was about to sink my canines into one mother of a burger.’ He shrugs. Picks up a quarter sitting on his desk and flips it. ‘Heads or tails?’
‘What?’
‘Heads or tails?’
Angel stares.
‘Heads. You come anywhere near either this hospital or Christina Carver ever again, Angel, and I won’t be talking to you. Tails. Whaddya know? Same thing. No, I won’t be talking to you about your sorry fucked-up past. I’ll be on the phone to Metra. I’ll be telling them they got a rapist working their tracks. Why, you got to be on and off those passenger trains all the time in your line of work, am I right? Then, I’m on the phone to the city police. Maybe you don’t know Illinois law, so I’ll paint you the picture.
‘Anyone believed to be a potential sex predator may be ‘‘evaluated’’ by a social worker or mental health employee as a first step on the road to commitment. The main thing to remember is this, Angel: the state rep and the judge only have to find that the person in question has a personality disorder – I told you I did my homework – a personality disorder that makes him ‘‘likely’’ or ‘‘substantially probable’’ to engage in an illicit act. Once that person goes ‘‘inside’’, he isn’t likely to get ‘‘outside’’ again, not here in the state of Illinois anyway. I’ve seen the stats.’
He stubs out his cigarette in the can and reaches for the air freshener on the shelf behind. ‘So, like I said before, I know you’ll be glad you made the effort to come in today.’ He pulls a stick of gum from his pocket, throws its wrapper on his desk and launches it into his mouth. ‘Now, if you have no further questions, Angel, I’ll be only too happy to show you out.’
13
She opens her eyes to the dark. She can smell the night, sultry through her open window. She can�
�t tell what time it is.
He sits down on the edge of her bed.
Half awake, she moves over, makes space for him. Then remembers. She’s leaving. Tomorrow she’s leaving. She’ll tell him tonight.
He touches her shoulder. ‘Christina?’
She reaches up, puts her arms around his neck.
‘Sweetheart.’
Her father’s voice. She lies down again, pulling the sheet over herself.
He raises the light blanket and tucks it under her chin. ‘I’ve startled you, darling.’
‘Dad.’
‘Yes,’ he whispers. ‘Me.’
She can smell the Noxzema on his face. She can see his shaving brush in the bathroom drawer at home. ‘It’s late. What are you doing here?’
‘The doctors say you’re doing a lot better.’
Her words slur with sleepiness. ‘I could have told them that.’
‘I wanted to see for myself. I wanted to see you.’
She waves a hand in front of his face. ‘Hello?’
‘I know. But we’d better leave the lights off. Visiting hours were over at least an hour ago.’
‘Where’s Maggie?’
‘She misses you.’
‘I miss her too.’
‘Listen, ladybug. Do you want to get out of here? Do you wanna blow this popsicle stand?’
‘I can come home?’
‘Not just yet. But you don’t have to stay here. I’ve got an idea.’
She’s waking, slowly. ‘How’d you get in here?’
‘They know me at the information desk. I said I was just going to leave some fresh clothes in your room.’ He taps a bag on the floor with his foot. ‘That’s them. And I said maybe I’d take a peek at you while you slept. Neither of which, I hasten to add, is a lie.’
She turns her face away on the pillow. ‘You took your time, Dad.’ He can feel the force of her frown in the night. ‘You really took your time.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. Really sorry. Dr Sperber told me it was for the best.’
She tugs at the blanket where he’s sitting on it. ‘How could it ever be for the best?’
‘I know, ladybug. I know.’
‘You don’t. It’s been scary.’ She faces him again in the dark. ‘I couldn’t even walk before now without crashing into things. And there have been people . . . Weird people.’
‘I was stupid. Really stupid. And wrong.’
‘Really wrong.’
‘I know. But I’m here. I’m here now. And I have a question.’ He reaches for her hand. ‘Something I need to ask you.’
‘What?’
He whispers into her ear: ‘Are you with me . . .’
She can just make out the glimmer of his smile as he hesitates.
‘Or are you with me?’
‘Dad.’
‘Well, are you?’
She hesitates, turning to the darkness of the window – open as usual in case Angel comes. ‘I am. Okay. I am.’
In the motel room, Maggie lies, stomach down, in the dip of the bed. Though it is hot, the windows are only open a crack – there’s too much noise from the motel parking lot. Large families slamming SUV doors at five in the morning.
She has made sure the DO NOT DISTURB sign is prominently displayed. Yesterday she phoned the motel’s reception desk and asked that the housekeeping staff ignore her room; bad flu, she told the receptionist. Take-out containers, rolls of toilet paper and paper cups from the bathroom dispenser amass on the floor.
She flips from CNN to Twenty-Twenty to the public service announcements: precautions one should take in readiness for a city-wide emergency. She knows everything there is to know now about batteries, back-up generators, bottled water, blackout screens, canned food, carbohydrate bars, first-aid kits, flares, seat-belt cutters and window punches. She has not been able to turn off the TV since Tuesday morning.
Christina dresses in the dark, then unzips the bag her father has brought. She tips its contents out on the bed, goes to her top drawer and lifts out her mother’s nightdress and her own sketchbook. She lays each flat on the bottom, then stuffs the clothes back in.
‘Where does the door at the end of your corridor go?’
She turns back to his voice. ‘To the courtyard.’
‘Is there a gate or something?’
‘No, it’s all walls, to hide the parking lot.’
‘The door’s open. Someone’s stuck a rock in it – I guess to let some air through.’
‘My window. There’s my window.’
‘I wouldn’t want to chance it. How high are the courtyard walls?’
‘Six or seven feet maybe. There’s a bench under one of them. Over to the right, past the fountain.’
‘Could you do it?’
She reaches: for her old self, for her old ease in the world. ‘I could do it.’
‘Okay. Because it seems, sweetheart, I’m about to abduct you. Officially, under the terms of your admission, Dr Bishop is your guardian.’
‘Everything’s crazy.’
‘We need to go one at a time. Here are the car keys. You’ll see it in the lot. There are only a few cars out there. I want you to go first – just to be sure you’re okay. But I’ll be right behind you.’
Her hand is on the door when she turns back.
‘What is it?’
She goes to the window and untapes the sketch. She opens her bag, lifts out the pad and carefully slides it in.
As she opens the door, he avoids the widening span of light. ‘Just climb in the back, open my door, and put your head down on the seat. I’ll be right behind you. Promise. But keep your head down till we get there, okay? Don’t look up.’
Maggie flips channels. As of September 11, says one local report, Fermilab closed to the public.
On Channel 17, she stops. Dr Zhivago.
It’s near the beginning: the bit where Lara paces in the dress shop, not knowing whether her mother is dead or alive in the bed upstairs.
He gives her a head start, then goes to the door and peers into the dark of the courtyard. He can hear her footsteps on the pebbled path. Close to the fountain, she trips a floodlight and backs quickly into the shadows. He waits, gripping her bag in his hand, until he hears her land, safe on the other side of the wall.
‘I’m so sorry,’ says Omar Sharif, turning to her in the flickering dark of the motel room. ‘We did everything we could.’
And tears flood Maggie’s face.
Giles Carver opens the driver’s side, throws the bag in, and picks up the keys. ‘You okay, ladybug?’
‘Yup.’
He switches on his cellphone again, in case Maggie tries to call. ‘Grab some sleep back there, why don’t you?’
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’ And as he turns the key, he starts to breathe again.
Maggie wipes her nose with her hand and heaves herself out of the dip in the bed. She’s all out of tissues. Through the crack in the curtains: the Happy Griddle’s neon grin. It won’t let her sleep.
She finds the bag into which she stuffed some clothes. At the bottom, Jane Eyre. Her mother’s book.
He switches on the air conditioning, glides on to Washington Boulevard and hangs a right on to Route 43. Street lights and store signs blare. He glances in his rear-view mirror. Her head’s down. He feels like he’s plucked her from some danger even he can’t fully imagine.
Not that he doesn’t have his suspicions. The leak. It has to be Sperber.
It was his line about the MRIs and the generosity of Aquinan Services – there was something too oily, too complicit, about him in that moment. He’ll check. He’ll find a way. Watch. Sperber will turn out to be a born-again Christian, a pair of fervent eyes for Aquinan Services, a mole sniffing for some twenty-first-century miracle. God knows, he’s righteous enough. Charmless enough too. Carver can see it now, the moment of conversion: some woman, her buttocks shaking for Jesus, backing into him at a Billy Graham rall
y. Probably the first woman without a serious head injury to show interest. Of course he felt saved by Christ.
Yet if Sperber did send Aquinan Services the video or copy it for them, why would Mr Joseph need to probe David Bishop? The time, the date – it’s all there in the recording.
But Aquinan Services have to be sure. They need to know the video hasn’t been tampered with. They need to check and triple-check its provenance. Because, who knows? Maybe Sperber’s not a closet charismatic, after all. Maybe this isn’t about God. Maybe it’s about beachfront property in Florida. Maybe Aquinan Services looks upon that video, and now Christina too, God help her, as some kind of investment.
Wasn’t there that girl outside Boston? Audrey. Little Audrey. The one in the coma who was supposed to heal people? Hundreds, it was said. They had to put out Port-a-Potties on the front lawn of their suburban Worcester home. They had to get a football stadium for her annual mass. Ten thousand attended in ninety-degree heat. Forty miles away in Brookline, his own mother had thought about going until he asked her if she was out of her mind. ‘Look at this stuff,’ he said, scanning the website. Audrey videos. Audrey T-shirts. Audrey fridge magnets and mouse pads. The Audrey Event CD.
He gears down, changes lanes. Somewhere behind, a horn blares.
So Mr Joseph watches the sleep lab video – or at least the crucial twenty seconds – care of Dr Sperber. He talks to Sperber. Yes, certainly, he says, he can appreciate its value to Aquinan Services.
But a good investor, thinks Carver, knows you don’t take the word of the salesman. You scout around. You read the labelling. The Truth has a shelf-life, and in this case it is precisely one day. Twenty-four hours. 09-11-01. For significance, too, can expire. Mr Joseph knows that the date could make all the difference between Christian revelation and video glitch.
Yet, like most of us, Mr Joseph is also aware that clocks and calendars may be manipulated. And his company can’t pay out wads for a recording that could be subject to error or retrospective analysis. The data needs to be secure. The day has to be guaranteed.
But Mr Joseph only has Sperber’s word for it. Joseph realizes he has to go to the top, to Dr David Bishop. He needs the date of Christina’s visit to the sleep lab confirmed by someone without a vested interest.
The Wave Theory of Angels Page 22
