Deluge

by Stuart Melvin Kaminsky

  "You like to talk," said Stella, standing above him.

  "It's cultural and genetic," he said. "Most of the people in the inbred town I came from in Australia like to talk, take pride in it, get little work done because they're so enamored of their voices and words."

  "Good," she said. "We have a lot to talk about."

  "I'd prefer to wait till dawn," he said. "I can promise a greater coherence and willingness then."

  "I'd prefer you less coherent and less willing at the moment," she said.

  "Let me guess. Irish and Italian," Connor tried.

  "I'm Italian and Greek," she said. "And you are not Australian, you're Irish and in trouble."

  "Ah, when was I not? How is the good doctor?"

  "Doctor Hawkes is fine," she said.

  "Send him my regards."

  "I'll let you do that yourself tomorrow. Want to tell me what happened?"

  "By 'what happened' I assume you mean the murky events of this morning before I was swallowed by the sullen earth."

  "That's right."

  "Memory fails me," he said, flexing his fingers, starting to feel life in them. "Trauma does that sometimes. I fear I'll never remember. Selective amnesia."

  "Then I'll tell you," she said, sitting in an uncomfortable blue naugahide chair.

  Custus tried to turn his head toward her, but she was now just out of sight. He could hear her voice as he had in the rain-filled hole, in the darkness just hours ago. Was it hours? How long had he been here? Damn. He was waking up. There would be pain now unless he got more medication, agonizing pain in his broken ankle, numbing pain in his side.

  "I'll listen better with something to quell the coming pain in my broken limb and wounded body."

  "When I finish," Stella said.

  "You're tired," said Custus.

  "I'm tired," she agreed. "Want to hear my story?"

  "Bedtime story?"

  "Something like that."

  "Then by all means, though the promise of a powerful narcotic would make me a much more attentive listener," he said. "And I gather that's what you want."

  "It's what I want," she said. "I'll call the nurse when I'm done."

  "Then by all means launch into your tale."

  "You were hired by Doohan to blow up the bar," she said. "He told you the bar would be empty in the morning, that it usually was except for the cook and that the days of rain would keep even determined morning drinkers away. Worse case, Doohan said he'd get rid of the customers, tell the cook to go home because of the weather."

  She looked at Custus, who said, "Not quite, but close enough if it were reality and not a tale."

  "You planted the explosives the night before. Why didn't you bring the bar down then?"

  "If I were telling this fanciful tale," Custus said, "I would say that Mr. Doohan had no alibi for the night, but he had a perfectly good one for the morning when he was supposed to be sitting in the barbaric chair of his dentist, whom he had called with an emergency. The telling touch would be that the dentist would confirm that Doohan did, indeed, have an emergency, a missing filling, an open nerve."

  "But…?" said Stella.

  "Ah, let's see," said Custus. "What if the dentist were not in, what if the storm of the century canceled his office hours?"

  "What if?"

  "He might go to the bar as he did every day," said Custus. "He might, if the tale were true, wait for me to come, try to stop me, get me to put off the sweet experience for another day."

  "But he didn't," said Stella.

  "Let's, to keep the conversation going and not deprive me of the company of a beautiful woman, let's assume he did not? Water?"

  Stella reached over, took the water-filled paper cup from the bedside table and held it out to Custus who pursed his dry lips over the straw.

  "Refreshing," he said. "So, we return to the tale?"

  "So, alibi gone, Doohan hurried back to the bar knowing you were going to bring the place down. You argued in the street. He had a gun, the one Doctor Hawkes found you with. It's registered to Doohan. I'd guess he kept it behind the bar. The two of you argued. You went into the bar. He shot you. You took the gun from him and shot him. A shot hit the wet dynamite. Wet dynamite has been known to go off at the slightest spark, sometimes even spontaneously."

  "A bit too fanciful here for me," said Custus. "I believe I'm falling asleep."

  "I'll keep you awake," Stella said. "The story gets better, much better."

  "How could it?"

  "You had talked Doohan into hiring you to blow up the bar," she said. "You probably gave him a very good price for your services. My guess is you tricked him into providing a paper trail, probably increasing his insurance."

  "Why would I do that?"

  "Because you weren't doing it for the money he was paying you."

  "I didn't do it at all," he said. "I just like talking, imagining that- "

  "Detonators?" she said. "You purchased detonator caps through a low-level drug dealer named DJ Riggs. He can identify you."

  "A drug dealer," Custus mused. "They make fine witnesses, I'm told."

  "This one's a hero. Saved a baby's life this morning."

  "You have the imagination of Rabelais. Down a dark and winding road into a forest wherein dwells an avatar, an avenging angel by the name of Stella. Now, if you would, I'd like that medication and a long sleep. And in the morning, I should like to open my eyes and see not your beauty but the face of an attorney assigned to defend me. In any case, much as I love talking, I'm going to close my eyes and dream of you."

  "Connor Custus," she said, "you are under arrest for the murder of…"

  And even without the comfort of medication, he closed his eyes and was asleep.

  * * *

  Ellen Janecek went to the door of the hotel room.

  She checked the dead bolt and resisted the urge to look through the small glass circle in the door. She had seen a movie in which a man had put his eye to one of those peepholes. A single shot had come through the hole and burrowed into his brain. She had also seen a television episode in which a man had gone to a door after someone knocked and was torn to pieces by a shotgun volley through the thick wood panels.

  Ellen stood at the side of the door and said, "Who is it?"

  "Message from the front desk," came a male voice.

  "What is it?"

  "I don't know. An envelope dropped at the desk. Man asked that it be delivered to you."

  "What man?"

  "I wasn't on the desk when it came."

  "Slip it under the door," she said.

  "I don't think it will fit."

  She looked down at the bottom of the door. There was about a quarter of an inch opening.

  "Try," she said. "If it doesn't fit, just leave it in front of the door."

  "I can't do that," he said.

  "Then take it back to the desk."

  Something scuttled by the door and a thin, white envelope poked under the small opening.

  "Anything else I can do?" he asked.

  Maybe he was just waiting for a tip. He wasn't going to get one, not if it meant opening the door.

  "Nothing," she said.

  "Right," said the man.

  She pressed against the wall and listened. The thin carpeting masked his footsteps. She thought she heard a slight jingle, maybe keys in his pocket. The sound moved away. She reached down, pulled the envelope in and quickly pressed herself back against the wall next to the door.

  She did not panic. Panic was not part of her being. Caution was. He had almost tricked her. She should have known that the call had not come from Jeffrey. She should have known it wasn't his voice no matter how much the caller had tried to hide the truth. But she loved Jeffrey. There was no question about that. She was no child molester, not like the others in the group. This was unfair, but she had grown used to life being unfair.

  She tore open the envelope.

  The note inside read: "Ellen, Another time. Another pla
ce. Adam."

  * * *

  "Mr. Sunderland. Police."

  Paul Sunderland had been reading a book, Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat. Well, he had been trying to read it, but he kept imagining the mutilated bodies of the three people who had been in his group only two days ago. He kept imagining the man he had known as Adam, the quiet, calm man who listened thoughtfully as other people talked. He could imagine Adam standing over Patricia Mycrant with a knife in his hand. What he could not imagine was what the police had said Adam had done with the knife.

  Paul got up, put the book aside. The hotel room smelled musty. He hadn't brought his inhaler. It would be a long night, a sleepless night.

  "Yes?" he called.

  "We think Adam Yunkin is in the hotel," said the policeman. "He just left a note for Miss Janecek."

  "How did he-?" Sunderland began.

  "He called her cell phone. She told him where she was. We've got to move you both to another location. Detective Flack is on the way."

  "Oh shit," mumbled Sunderland.

  "Let's go," the policeman said urgently. "Leave your things. We'll have someone bring them."

  Sunderland was still dressed but barefoot. He moved to the door and said, "I've got to get my shoes and then…"

  He opened the door.

  Somehow he wasn't surprised. Did he know, suspect at some level that he would be facing Adam Yunkin? Paul was at least as big as the man he knew as Adam. Paul was also in good shape. Forty minutes each morning at the gym, twenty of those all out on the stationary bike. The man he had known as Adam didn't appear to be armed, but Paul knew that was certainly not the case.

  "Come in," Paul said calmly.

  Keith limped into the room, closing the door behind him. Could Paul lure him farther in, away from the door? If he could just get him away from the door, Paul could beat him into the corridor. Where the hell was the real cop, the cop who was supposed to be guarding him?

  "Let's talk," said Sunderland.

  "About what?"

  "You," said Sunderland.

  "Nothing to say," said Keith.

  They stood facing each other. Keith stood between Paul and the door.

  "I didn't molest that boy," said Sunderland.

  "You're lying," said Keith evenly.

  Sunderland shook his head and said, "No. The boy lied. That lie changed my life, almost ruined it."

  "In the sessions, you said- " Keith began.

  "I needed the confidence of everyone in the group if I was going to help them. I needed your confidence. I never got it."

  Keith Yunkin hesitated.

  "You're lying to save your life," he said.

  "No, I'm telling the truth."

  Sunderland's eyes met Keith's. He was convincing. Paul Sunderland made his living by being convincing. Keith was not convinced. He took the knife out of his pocket and flipped it open.

  Sunderland played it out, eyes meeting Keith's with sympathy he really felt and with fear, which he hid.

  Paul made his dash for the door. Paul didn't make it.

  * * *

  Mac got to the hotel lobby just before Flack arrived. When they got off the elevator on the sixth floor, they found Mike Danielson, the uniformed officer who had been guarding Paul Sunderland, kicking against the door of a linen closet in which he sat, hands tied behind his back. His head was a hood of blood.

  "Didn't see him," Danielson muttered as Mac pressed a gauze pad from his kit against the wound. "Did he…?"

  Flack untied Danielson quickly. Then he joined Mac, who was headed for Sunderland's room. The door was closed but not locked.

  Paul Sunderland lay on the musty carpeting, pants and underwear pulled down, shoeless, head turned to his left, looking at nothing.

  "What do you see?" asked Flack.

  "Rage," said Mac, wiping blood away from the dead man's thigh. "And this."

  Flack looked over the kneeling Mac's shoulder, saw the letter M cut deeply into the flesh, checked his watch and said, "He got it done in one day, the anniversary of his brother's death, A-D-A-M."

  "One question left," said Mac.

  "What?" asked Flack.

  "Is he done spelling?" asked Mac.

  13

  MORNING. THE MAN KNOWN as JIM PARK, whose name had been Jung Park before he legally changed it, was late for work. He had never been late, not in the six years he had worked for Sunstar Digital Service Laboratories. Damned subway. He would explain the situation to Walter Parasher, whose name before he legally changed it was Akram, which meant "most generous," which Jim sincerely hoped would be his guiding principle when Jim walked tardily into the office.

  It would have helped if Jim were not considered to be the company comic. It would have helped if Jim's efforts at jokes were appreciated or understood by his Indian bosses, particularly Walter. It did help that Jim was brilliant, though he often feared that his skill was not enough to save him in a downsizing. What he did came easily to Jim and so he doubted his value and assumed others could easily do what he did. They could not.

  Jim was an electrical engineer, a research engineer whose task was to use computer technology to chart patterns in the billions of stars around us, and to locate new stars and galaxies.

  Jim never looked through a telescope. Remote scanning devices around the world fed data into the company's computer network and Jim, in his office in Manhattan, separated the noise and dirt of the universe from the objects of interest.

  Jim was thirty-nine, recently married to an Irish American woman named Sioban, who was already pregnant.

  Twenty minutes ago, he had stood on the platform in the damp for forty minutes, people jostling, coughing, bumping into him. Jim was a patient man, but he had to get to work.

  In his hurry, when he got off the train at Union Square, Jim had stepped onto a piece of cardboard in the gutter. His foot had gone through the soaked cardboard and into six inches of filthy water that now clung to his socks and squished inside his shoe.

  Inside the office building now, he recognized no one going for the elevator. None of the familiar faces. They must all have made it on time. How had they done it?

  The elevator doors closed. Only two others in the car. They knew each other, and seemed to be in no hurry. One was a pretty woman in her forties in a black dress and a very broad belt. The other, a man in his fifties, stocky, well dressed, his shoes and feet not wet and reeking of filth. Did they smell the mess on his pants, socks, inside his shoe?

  Jim was breathing hard. He had used his inhaler fifteen minutes after he got to the subway platform. It was a little too soon to use it again, but it was an emergency. He did not want to face Walter reeking and wheezing.

  He reached into his pocket for the inhaler and his cell phone to check for messages and found something else, something hard, metallic, something that had not been there an hour ago.

  Jim pulled the object out and held it before him, adjusting his glasses. There were brown spots on the otherwise gleaming metal. He looked at the other two people on the elevator to see if they were watching. Jim knew what he held. What he did not know and did not expect was that he had just touched something that flipped open the razor-sharp, blood-covered blade of the knife.

  The pretty woman saw the knife in his hand. She let out a sound, not quite a scream, more like an inflated balloon whose mouthpiece had been pulled tight. The man noticed now. He had a briefcase. He reached into it, fumbled for something.

  "No," said Jim, knife in hand.

  The man took his hand out of the briefcase. He was holding a very small gun. The woman was behind the man.

  "I don't- " Jim said.

  The man with the briefcase shot him.

  It wasn't a fatal wound or even a very bad one. The small bullet entered his left shoulder and stayed there.

  Jim dropped the knife and slumped back against the elevator wall as the doors opened.

  "Don't move," said the man, his voice quavering. And then to the woman. "Get help."
<
br />   It was just a little after ten-fifteen and already the worst day of Jim's life.

  For some reason, the meaning of his Korean name, Jung, came to mind. Righteous. His name meant righteous. He felt not the least bit righteous at the moment.

  * * *

  The silver and black metal box about the size of a small carry-on sat on the desk, its cover swung open. Lindsay plugged the black fiber-optic cable into the box. At the end of the cable was a switch and a 400-watt lamp. She set the dial in the box to one of the six wavelength settings. The wavelength she selected would reveal even minute fragments of glass when the light was on. Then she selected a pair of orange goggles.

  They were seated in a conference room connecting to both the corridor and the headmaster's office at the Wallen School. Walnut table and twelve matching chairs. Portraits of Wallen's four previous headmasters and one previous headmistress on the walls.

  Danny wasn't impressed, which would have been a minor disappointment to the board of Wallen, which had spent almost ninety thousand dollars to make the room look impressive and a little intimidating.

  "And that will do what?" asked the headmaster, looking at the metal box on the table.

  Headmaster Marvin Brightman looked as if he had beaten out at least ten contenders for the role of headmaster in a movie about prep schools. He was perfect, lean, tailored suit and tie with blue and white stripes, a cloud of white hair, an intense, handsome dark face.

  "It'll help us in our investigation," said Danny.

  "Can you be a little more specific?" Brightman asked. "They are going to ask."

  "We'll give them an answer," said Danny.

  "It wasn't easy to get permission from the parents," Brightman said.

  "But you got it," said Danny, sitting.

  "I told them, as you suggested, that it is in the best interest of Wallen, the students and the parents, to resolve this situation as soon as possible and eliminate their students of all suspicion."