Agents of Darkness

by Campbell Armstrong

  Teng rebuilt this house of pain over and over. He visited all its rooms, knew them intimately. He opened doors better left shut. But how could he resist going back inside? It was his monument to horror, the place where he worshipped, his temple. He couldn’t turn his face away, or weaken.

  He stared at the ceiling, unable to contain what he felt. He covered his face with his hands and wept in a way that an onlooker would have found unusually disturbing, because it was the deep, dry, silent weeping of a man unaccustomed to tears, a man who refused to yield to a grief that was his constant companion, his daily enemy.

  He lay across the bed, face down. When the anguish diminished, he was drained and cold.

  Vengeance had an abstract sweetness about it and justice a way of bringing small satisfaction, but what could ever replace that part of him ruined by the violent act of irrational men?

  What, he wondered, could replace that joy?

  12

  Clang! The sound of a swaying old Glasgow tramcar woke Charlie Galloway, who opened one dysfunctional eye. He could still see those trams, each with their destinations inscribed on the front. Rouken Glen. Riddrie. Paisley Road Toll. A memory came to him of placing a big old-fashioned penny in a tram’s iron track and watching the great green and orange metal ship sail along in the rain, grind the trapped coin, bend it neatly in two and then, with dignity undisturbed, go floating on toward Springburn or Alexandra Parade or the Broomielaw. These were exotic outposts to young Charlie, foreign places as strange as Algiers or Tijuana.

  But why did he hear tramcars now? He made a great effort to focus his one open eye. He had the impression he lay on a sofa, because his cramped physical position suggested it, but he had no exact knowledge of his whereabouts.

  Clang! Another tram shoogled past, rattling, faces pressed to steamed windows, the conductor moving up the aisle between the seats, issuing tickets from her little machine.

  He tried again to focus. He got both eyes open. The pain that seared his scalp was one broad band from bridge of nose to nape of neck. But he saw enough to understand that he lay on the couch in his own living-room, which was a good sign; he’d made it home somehow, although he had absolutely no recollection of anything except his departure from a late-night joint run by obese Greeks who played poker using Dexatrim capsules as chips.

  Then darkness. No memory of coming home.

  He understood he wasn’t alone in the house, that the clanging he’d attributed to tramcars came from the kitchen, where somebody had been filling a kettle, rattling it in the sink then banging it down angrily on the stove. Charlie sat upright, a grave mistake. His muscles ached, his head was not his own. He was totally dehydrated. His tongue had turned to Velcro. His throat was stuffed with cotton.

  Blinking, he looked at the kitchen door. In the name of God, who had he brought home with him? He put a hand to his head and squinted at his wristwatch, the glass face of which had a mysterious new diagonal crack. Seven-seven a.m. Through closed shutters some thin morning sunlight, already menacingly hot, made a sneaking pass.

  There were voices from the kitchen. More than one person or just some loony who mumbled alone? He slumped back against the pillow and sighed. Breakdown. Alcohol at toxic levels in the bloodstream. Amnesia. Muscular pain. A fever akin to malaria. Eyelids of lead. Atonal music playing in the brain. Tremors. Dryness. These things reduced Galloway to something less than human. He hated the small strident voice in his head that said You paid for this with your own money, Charlie. It was the snide, sniping, snippy voice of the school prefect who appeared to have occasional squatter’s rights in some pristine corner of Charlie’s brain. Your fault, your fault, yah yah yah.

  He groaned as he tried to get up. The sheet that covered him slipped to the floor. He wore only his boxer shorts, red and green tartan and faintly ridiculous, a silly present from Karen last Christmas. They weren’t even a real tartan. Designer ‘plaid’. Clan Bloomingdale. He rose, padded in his socks across the floor, paused in the open kitchen doorway where he was obliged to lean against the jamb for fear of falling. Consider it all from the viewpoint of eternity, he thought. You’re one miserable wee speck in one miserable wee star system among billions, trillions, and your hangover’s nothing in the great scheme of things.

  Sure. That helps a lot.

  The kitchen was filled with small parachutes of sunlight floating through half-open drapes. The two figures in the room were shadowy and faceless with the windows behind them. Shading his eyes, Charlie Galloway realised the pair were familiar to him, although for a second he was so disoriented he recognised neither Clarence Wylie nor Karen.

  He staggered to a chair, clasped his hands on the table, shivered despite the temperature of the room. It was going to be another day of blistering intensity in Los Angeles and across the entire nation, a day of searing melt-down and manic, bug-eyed meteorologists proclaiming record highs. It was a day of unreasonable tides and unpredictable currents, violent undertows in the affairs of men and women.

  Charlie Galloway didn’t open his eyes at the table. The kettle whistled, a strange uneven sound, like that of a small mouse freaking out on very bad speed. Then it stopped. A cup of hot coffee was placed in front of him and he sensed it as a blind man might. Shame and sunlight conspired against the notion of forcing his eyes open. How could he look at Karen or Clarence Wylie? How could he face them?

  “Coffee,” Karen said.

  He sipped the coffee and tried to reassemble all the shards that would make up last night’s ruined mosaic. A slab of buttered toast was thrust before him and he sneaked a look at it, seeing how hot yellow grease oozed down through the pores of the fleshy bread. Bad close-up, Galloway. The stomach churns.

  “I know you won’t remember, so I’ll tell you what happened, Charlie,” Karen said. “You called me at three a.m. You told me you loved me.”

  Galloway blinked at her. She seized some toast with her right hand and ate it as she talked. In her left hand she held a bunch of red grapes, a couple of which she popped into her mouth between bites of toast.

  “You also told me, in that marvellously eloquent way you have when you’re completely trashed, that you were going to drive home,” she said. “When I suggested you take a taxi, since you were obviously in no condition to drive, you said you’d run out of money because you lost some kind of bet.”

  Galloway had a flickering memory, hand-shadows thrown on the dilapidated screen of his brain. He remembered an argument about American football with a man who’d made some spurious claim to Scottish ancestry. Charlie knew nothing about football. To him a tight-end was a sphincter condition. Yet last night he’d made a bet, the kind that came from the assurance of alcohol. The wager concerned the name of the team that won the very first Super Bowl. Of course Charlie Galloway knew that one! He was infallible. Going full throttle. He’d put cash on it. Out came the wallet and down went his last twenty. The name of the first team to win the Super Bowl was … the Dallas Indians, right? No such team had ever existed. Charlie’s twenty swiftly disappeared.

  “I took a cab, Charlie, to some godawful place in Burbank, and I drove you back here in the Toyota. I tucked you up less gently than you might have liked. Then I slept upstairs.” Karen stuck another grape in her mouth. “You manipulated me, Charlie. I knew what you were doing and I allowed myself to be manipulated anyway. And, as per usual, I rationalised it away like an idiot. I didn’t want you to drive. I didn’t want you to kill yourself or anybody else. I didn’t want you to get arrested. Oh, boy, I know all the self-deceptions.”

  She put one hand on her hip and looked at him with animosity even as her eyes became moist. “I swore I wasn’t going to be your goddam chauffeur ever again. And Christ, there I was, running to bail you out. I want a life of my own, Charlie.”

  Clarence Wylie, who had no desire to eavesdrop on marital discord, had slipped out of the kitchen during this conversation. From the corner of his eye, Charlie saw him go inside the living-room and shut the door. Ho
w long had Clarence been in the house? he wondered. Why was he here? Enlisted by Karen?

  The sight of Clarence jump-started a quiet turbine in Charlie’s brain, and another memory of last night took on a shape of sorts. Something mortifying. Something not to think about. The blood of embarrassment rushed to his face. At some time after the ridiculous football bet he’d consulted his address book and … and called Eric Vanderwolf at his private number! Surely not! Disturbing the hotshot in his lair just wasn’t done! Like many drunks, though, Charlie had a communicative urge mystical in intensity. He experienced overwhelming needs to make telephone-calls for reasons too convoluted ever to be reconstructed in sobriety. Seemingly luminous notions occurred to him under the influence. Call this old friend in Yonkers. That forgotten cousin in New Jersey. His former French teacher in Glasgow. An old flame in London. The craving to make connections was a high, a drug, a speed.

  And so after midnight, possessed, his mind congregated by demons who wouldn’t be silenced, he’d called Vanderwolf. He couldn’t remember why; perhaps something to do with a depression passing through him, an insight into his lack of future, of self-esteem, perhaps a highly unlikely wild-eyed notion of salvaging a pride much diminished by unemployment. What did it matter? He’d made the call and the conversation he remembered was a warbled affair, like voices on a distorted tape. Didn’t you once offer me a job, Mr Vanderwolf? Something about me working for the FBI.

  Who the hell is this? Vanderwolf hadn’t sounded like a prospective employer. Sleepy, not a happy man.

  Charlie Galloway. Clarence Wylie’s best friend. Remember?

  Galloway? Oh yeah. I have a vague recollection. You know what time it is?

  What was time to a drunk? Dross, sand. The thing is, I’ve been considering your offer during the past few years and I’m getting nowhere in my present position –

  What offer? What the hell are you talking about?

  Remembering now, Charlie cringed. A mistake had been made. He’d misinterpreted a situation. Vanderwolf was angry, snappy. The job offer was a figment. But Charlie in his cups was a madman and couldn’t stop rolling toward humiliation. Clarence worked a long time for you, and I’ve got many of his qualities. You could find a place for me. I’m conscientious. Loyal. Punctual.

  And drunk, Vanderwolf said. And unemployed.

  Not so, not so, hold on –

  I hear things. Word gets around. You’re a sot, Galloway. You’re a waste of space. Dead air. I never liked you.

  Clarence knows me, he can speak glowingly on my behalf–

  I’m hanging up.

  Well, fuck you.

  A wit to boot, said Vanderwolf before the click.

  Charlie listened to a wind of shame roar in the cavities of his skull. Why did he do these things? Why did he yield to such absurd promptings? If he wanted to self-destruct he could do it quicker with short-fused dynamite strapped to his chest and one burning match.

  Karen was saying, “That was one hell of a good wagon you climbed on, Charlie. It didn’t get you very far, did it?”

  Galloway, dismissing the awful recollection of Vanderwolf, pushed his coffee cup away. He knew what he was going to say and couldn’t help himself. The most abused word in all the English language, a word stunted by torture. Sorry.

  “What’s that you said, Charlie?”

  In glum silence he stared at her, thinking how lovely she looked even with one cheek made plump by grapes.

  “Did I hear sorry, Charlie?” she asked.

  He knew it was coming, the sarcasm, the feigned astonishment, the rhetorical artillery wheeled into position for an assault on his nonexistent defences. He watched her face. The explosion of hurt in her eyes was unbearable to him, all the more so because he caused it.

  “Where’s the Webster’s, Charlie? I’d like to look up sorry, because it sounds familiar. I’ve heard it before but I’ve never actually understood it the way you use it, Charlie. Is there some special Scottish usage I’m not aware of? Is there some archaic connotation that eludes me? Or is it just something you tag on at the end of every drink, like a belch?”

  He looked down at the table, picked at the crust of his toast, wondered why in God’s name he kept bringing this wonderful woman pain. Even after she’d walked out on him, he still managed to twist her heart. By using her, preying on her kindness and concern, he continued to victimise her. Mea culpa. Piss off, Charlie. It was worthless to confront the dragon of remorse with the sword of your good intentions because it always overwhelmed you with fire and black fumes. And it was worthless to say sorry because she’d heard it so many times the word had all the integrity of a used condom.

  She wiped the cuff of her blouse across her eyes. The short hair gave her a severe look, but didn’t take anything away from her beauty. The jeans, he saw, were a little tighter than usual. How many candy bars had she devoured since she’d left him? How many compulsive late-night sessions with Ben & Jerry’s Health Bar Crunch Ice-Cream? He wanted to rise and comfort her – Christ did he ever – but didn’t move. The total wreckage of self-esteem paralysed him. Besides, he wore only the ridiculous boxer shorts and socks. Thus attired, how could he hope to be taken seriously?

  He’d blown it. He’d fucked up. He’d chucked it all away – all his fine statements and grand designs were stillborn creatures. Having set out to prove himself, he’d reached only the most dismal conclusion. He was a sick fool destined to go through life like a man who, having no sense of delicacy or balance or moderation, nevertheless insists on frequenting china shops.

  “I am so tired, Charlie,” Karen said. “You know, when we talked the night before last, I left here feeling something … I can’t explain it exactly. I don’t want to overstate the case and say it was hope. No, that’s too grand. What I felt was this tiny atom of optimism that maybe maybe you meant to quit this time. I drove away feeling surprisingly light-hearted because I thought I’d seen something on your face, a new determination, a resolve of sorts. I thought. I shouldn’t think. Thinking screws me every time.”

  She paused and turned her face up to the ceiling. On each cheek there were tears. “I must be some kind of dimwit. Really. What is it about me that keeps me hanging on? Huh? What weakness? I don’t know who’s sicker, Charlie, you or me.” She was silent a minute, looking at him as if she were seeing him through newly prescribed lenses. “I convinced myself the night before last that there was, well, okay, a chance, a glimmer. Now I see things for what they are. You’ve cleared my head, sweetheart, and for that I thank you.” She smiled sadly. “I’m out of here, Charlie. For good.”

  “For good?”

  “Somebody will come for the rest of my stuff. The lawyers can do the paperwork. I’m bored being your victim, Charlie. I wasn’t born for that.”

  “Wait a minute, hold on,” and he reached for her hand, but she drew it away. He was trembling, afraid. He wished, as every hungover drunk wished, that clocks might be turned back and the immediate past rewritten by a tender, sober pen on soft vellum.

  “This is it, Charlie. This is the point of no return. Face it, we don’t have a hope in hell. I can’t keep hanging in there, not after last night. It’s always going to be the same. Even if you were sober for ten years, and we were back together, I’d still live in fear. I’d still wait for you to come through the front door drunk on your ass. You tell me, Charlie. Is that any way to live a life?”

  “You make me feel like I’m some kind of monster,” he said.

  “Why not? There’s a monster inside you, and you feed it, Charlie. The trick is simple: starve it to death before it’s too late for you.”

  He stood up, walked toward her. She allowed him to hold her only a moment before she stepped away. Her hair smelled of her favourite shampoo, a faint cinnamon perfume. Behind her left ear, half-hidden by the fold of hair, was a tiny pink horseshoe of a birthmark. He had always adored this blemish.

  She covered her eyes with her hands, lost her composure a second, leaned against the kitc
hen table. “This is sad,” she said. “God, this is the saddest thing. I didn’t expect to feel this bad.”

  Galloway tried to say something but his sentence fell off the edge of the world. “I’ve run out of …” He wasn’t sure what he’d run out of. Time? Conviction? He was at some horrible new low here. He couldn’t stop trembling.

  Karen touched the side of his face with the palm of her hand. “I don’t know what’s worse. When hope dies or when love fades. Reality’s a damn hard place to be at times. But you know that better than most people, don’t you?” She took her hand away. “I don’t have any hope and I don’t believe I have any love left either. No hard feelings, but that’s the reality. That’s what I gotta face, sweetie. You too, any way you can.”

  Galloway tried again to speak but there was a catch in his throat. A small death was going on inside him.

  “Your father has this terrific saying, Charlie. It’s a sair fecht. Remember?”

  Of course he remembered. Life’s a hard fight. The old man was always saying it.

  She said, “He’s perfectly right.”

  Charlie Galloway made no response. This was new to him, this particular brand of unmerciful emptiness, this sadness. He’d been sad before. He’d lived for weeks in this empty house. But what was different this time was the absence of a future. The fine crystal that was hope had been shattered right in front of his eyes, and now the air crackled with all the small flying pieces. She’d said she was going for good and he had no reason to doubt her. There was a quality in her expression he’d never seen before, a hard, determined resolve in the eyes, as if she was already halfway to forgetting him. He knew she wouldn’t change her mind. No glib rejoinder, no self-derision, no wisecrack was going to sway her.