The Inner Circle (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  I pushed my foot down on the gas even more, as if that would make the car go faster. The speedometer was rising—going from ninety to ninety-five, ninety-five to one hundred—but at some point it would reach its breaking point. Still, there was nothing between the Focus and the Corvette but empty highway, and as the seconds ticked by, the distance between us began to shorten.

  Until, suddenly, the distance vanished almost at once.

  One moment the Corvette was off in the distance ahead of me, barely even a red speck, and then the next moment I was coming up on it way too fast.

  It didn’t occur to me until a second later that the Corvette had stopped completely. That was when I saw the oil directly behind it on the highway. That was when I saw the driver climbing out of the Corvette and bringing up his gun and aiming it right at my windshield.

  I slammed on the brakes just as the driver opened fire. The windshield spider-webbed. I flinched, jerking the wheel. The tires caught in the oil—its fuel line or something had definitely been hit—and then the car started into a spin, its tail end just missing the Corvette. The Focus kept spinning until it slid off the highway completely and then skidded to halt in a cloud of dust.

  For an instant I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. My seatbelt had tightened, making it nearly impossible to breath. The windshield was all fucked up, and the dust was thick outside the windows, so I couldn’t see much. Both guns were now on the floor of the passenger side. I went to reach for mine—I wasn’t about to trust the Abortionist’s Smith & Wesson—but the seatbelt held me in place. I unsnapped the seatbelt, leaned down, grabbed the gun, but didn’t sit back up.

  I waited.

  I counted ten seconds in my head, letting the dust settle, then, still staying low on the seat, bent to open the driver’s door. It disengaged, opened just a little bit. I placed my foot against it and count five more seconds before I kicked it open.

  The shot was almost instantaneous, shattering the window. There was a pause, then another shot. Another pause followed this and I dove out of the car, head first, rolling and then coming back up, my gun aimed on where those first two shots had originated. I fired twice, then waited as the dust settled.

  The driver wasn’t there.

  Behind me then, the crunch of shoes against dirt, and the driver said, “Don’t fucking move.”

  I stayed still for a second, then jerked back, rolling away, and brought up my gun. It was kicked out of my hand. The driver stepped forward, aiming his gun at my face, but I knocked it away just as he fired it near my ear—BANG!—and the slide snapped back, the magazine empty. I grabbed onto his wrist and jerked it down onto my knee, the driver screaming as the bone snapped, and then I rose to my feet and kicked him in the chest, sending him to the ground. By then the dust had thinned enough to see clearly—the Corvette up on the highway, the Focus off to the right, my own gun just feet away—and I started toward the gun.

  Behind me, I heard a snick! and turned to see the driver back on his feet, a switchblade held at his side with his unbroken hand.

  He charged at me.

  I squared my feet, waiting, and then twisted away at the last moment, dodging the knife. I kneed him in the stomach, heard him groan, but he was much quicker than I took him for. Despite his injury, he managed to slice my arm and elbow me in the face. I stumbled back, my glasses askew, and he was on me again, throwing me to the ground. I used my arm to keep the knife away from my face, but the driver kept it there, the blade pointed at my eye. I struggled, and he struggled, sweat beading on his brow, breathing heavy, his teeth gritted, the point of the blade lowering closer and closer ...

  I jerked my head away, pushed his hand gripping the blade to the left, and snapped my head forward into his nose. He stumbled back, letting go of the knife, and I climbed on top of him, used the heel of my sneaker to grind into his broken wrist.

  He screamed.

  The gun lay only feet away, the knife even closer. I grabbed the knife, flung it away, then stood and went for the gun just as a familiar whine rose up in the distance.

  I glanced up and readjusted my glasses.

  The Ducati was headed this way, coming from Hope Springs.

  I picked up the gun and turned back to the driver. He was still on the ground, holding his broken wrist. I leaned down and grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him up and stuck the barrel of the gun in his mouth.

  “You fucking killed that boy’s father.”

  Despite the gun in his mouth, the driver looked back at me with amusement.

  “And you killed one of my people. A close friend.”

  The driver began to laugh.

  I slid the gun back out of his mouth and knocked it against the side of his head. “What’s so fucking funny?”

  He spat blood and grinned up at me. “You, Ben. You’re a fucking joke.”

  The distant whining had stopped. For the first time I was aware of it and glanced up and saw the rider straddling the bike on the side of the highway. In his hand was a gun—maybe the same gun that had killed those two bent cops back in Miami Beach.

  “What do you want?” I shouted.

  The rider made no reply.

  “I don’t need your help. I’m taking care of the situation.”

  The rider lifted the gun and fired. The ground only feet away from me spat dirt.

  “What the fuck?”

  The driver saw my lack of attention as an opportunity. He used his undamaged hand to punch me in the face. I fell back, dropping the gun. He scrambled and picked it up, started to aim it at me.

  The rider’s second shot didn’t spit up more dirt. Instead it struck the driver in the shoulder, sending him reeling to the side.

  I sat back up. The driver was feet away, his hand still on the gun. I stood and took the few steps to where he lay and kicked him in the stomach. He let go of the gun, and I picked it up and again aimed it at his face.

  A third shot echoed across the desert, and once again the ground near my feet spat dirt.

  “What the fuck is your problem?”

  The rider made no response. Coming down the highway was an SUV. Not the same SUV Jesse and Drew had driven into Hope Springs, but a Cadillac Escalade. As it approached the rider, it didn’t slow but swerved off the highway and bounced over the dirt until it came to a stop right in front of us.

  The driver’s-side front and rear doors opened and two men stepped out. Both of them were Korean. They barely even acknowledged me as they grabbed the driver and dragged him to the SUV. By then the driver had stopped laughing; a flash of fear entered his eyes. He tried speaking but one of the men punched him in the face and he went silent. They had him loaded in seconds. One of the men ran around the back of the SUV to the other side, and the other one started to slide behind the wheel but paused. He stood still for a moment, then turned his head just slightly.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said, not looking at me. His English was plain, with a hint of an accent.

  Then he climbed into the SUV—I could see a third man in the front passenger seat, staring ahead—and slammed the door shut. The Escalade spun out in the dirt. It sped back onto the highway and continued west, away from Hope Springs. The rider stayed where he was for another few seconds, straddling the Ducati, the gun still in his hand, before he holstered the weapon and revved the engine and tore off after the SUV.

  48

  It had started raining early that Saturday morning, and had continued into the late afternoon, thick, heavy drops falling from the dark and gray impressionist painting that was the sky.

  I was on the back porch of the farmhouse, sitting on the swing, staring out at the trees and distant peaks. The moisture in the air felt good, especially in comparison with the stifling Arizona desert where I’d just been less than twenty-four hours ago, and the fresh smell of wet earth was surprisingly pleasant.

  Three o’clock in the afternoon and I’d been sitting out here since noon, since we’d had our small memorial service for Jesse
. Standing out by the ever-growing cemetery, rain pattering on the umbrellas, Jesse was lowered into the hole Drew and Mason had dug that morning. Not quite six feet, but it was still deep enough, and with heavy ropes the wooden casket Graham had made yesterday was lowered into the ground.

  A pack of Marlboro Reds was beside me on the swing. The pack had been unopened when I first sat down. Now the pack was half empty, placed on top of the crinkled cellophane wrapper so it wouldn’t blow away.

  I’d finished my last cigarette fifteen minutes ago, decided it was time for another. I was just lighting up when the door opened and Maya stepped out.

  She walked to the edge of the porch, right on the threshold between wet and dry. She stood there for a long time, staring out at the trees, cupping her elbows. Eventually she turned and came to the swing and sat down beside me. Without a word she took the cigarette from my mouth, placed it between her lips, took a drag, then stared at the end of the cigarette and the wisp of smoke on the end crawling up toward the ceiling.

  Like me and Carver, she had stopped smoking awhile back, but some vices are hard to quit.

  She handed the cigarette back to me. I finished it, flicked it out over the porch railing.

  We sat in silence for several minutes before I cleared my throat.

  “Want to know what I’ve been thinking about?”

  Maya did not answer.

  “I’ve been thinking about my daughter. I was remembering that when she was two she asked me one time why it rained. She was picturing that there was actually water up in the sky, like one giant bathtub, and every once in a while God or whoever else was up there pulled the plug and drained the tub.”

  Thunder rumbled out in the distance, almost lost behind the constant patter of rain.

  “And when she asked me I told her the best I could, trying to remember everything I learned in school, about moisture and heat rising and all that. And she sat there on my lap while it rained outside and listened to me and didn’t say a word, even when I was done explaining. And I could see the disappointment in her face, a kind of betrayal, as if she was hoping there was a giant bathtub in the sky, and the whole explanation of why it rained was because God or whoever else just decided to pull the plug.”

  Another rumble of thunder, this one less distinct, the storm finally starting to head away.

  “Casey ... she was a great kid. She always just ... she was always asking questions about why things were the way they were. And it wasn’t one of those kid things where they ask just to ask, because it’s what’s expected of them. She really wanted to know. She wanted to learn. Like why does it get cold in the wintertime and hot during the summer. Why is the sky blue. How does the Internet work. I mean, she asked questions that I’d never asked when I was a kid, just ... you know, content with what was there. I’d never cared why it rained. I just knew that when it rained you closed the windows and tried not to get wet. But that wasn’t Casey. Casey ... well, she was just like Jen. Jen liked to question things too. She wanted to know how everything worked, why things happened the way they did.”

  I fell silent, thinking about that myself, about why things happened the way they did, and applying that to my entire life. Applying that to Carver’s life, to Jesse’s life, to my wife’s and daughter’s lives, to the lives belonging to all the innocent people I’d encountered over the past two years, people caught in the crossfire. Asking the unanswerable question Why do things happen like they do? and understanding that even if there was an answer it probably wouldn’t be good to hear it, that it might make us even more frustrated about being alive.

  The back door opened. Ronny stepped out this time. He went to stand in the same spot where Maya had stood earlier, his arms folded, his shoulders back, watching the rain and the tops of the trees swaying in the wind.

  Maya looked at me, asked me with her eyes if she should leave. When I nodded and watched her get up, start toward the door, I realized that she hadn’t said a word to me the entire time she was out here. She hadn’t said one word, yet she’d communicated with me just the same, from the look in her eyes, the posture of her body, the way she clasped her hands in her lap.

  Then she had entered the farmhouse and my already withering soul felt a little lighter, less substantial, and I understood I truly did love Maya. That I was in love with her, this woman who somehow carried around a piece of my soul so that every time she was with me I felt more whole, more complete, more like the man I had once been in a previous life, content with the world and the things that happened in it.

  I took the pack and lit up another cigarette. I sat there puffing away and waited for Ronny to get to it.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  “How’s the new guy?” he asked. “What’s his name ... Clark?”

  Wasn’t quite what I had been expecting, but oh well.

  “So far so good,” I said. “He’s still freaked out. Especially about what happened back in Arizona. He made me promise I wouldn’t bring my gun with me next time I go see him. I never had it with me before, but like I said, he’s spooked.”

  His full name was Clark William Gorman, Jr. He’d given me his social security number, his home address, even the password to his and his wife’s joint AOL email account, all of which I’d passed on to the Kid and which he’d looked up confirming it all checked out.

  I’d gone to see him before the memorial service, and he had changed into the clothes we’d provided, and when I left him he started to read the story of the Man of Wax.

  Unlike Mason, Clark actually needed glasses. He hadn’t known his prescription off the top of his head, otherwise we would have tried to have a pair of glasses ready for him when he arrived. Instead we had a number of glasses in a box, enough that after trying on about ten of them Clark found a pair that worked okay and which he was wearing now.

  “And what are we going to do about him?” Ronny asked.

  “I don’t know. What are we going to do about Mason?”

  There was no answer to either question and we both knew it. Surprisingly, Mason had adjusted very well, that anger inside him never once showing itself. It had only been two days but he helped out around the farmhouse when needed, doing any type of task like helping Beverly in the kitchen or helping Graham when Graham needed to build the casket for Jesse.

  Another silence fell between us. The rain continued to fall from the gray clouds, still thick and heavy. More thunder sounded out in the distance. For some reason I thought about the bees down at the apiary, all of them tucked away in their individual hives.

  Eventually I said, “Go ahead, Ronny. Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  I took one last drag of the cigarette, flicked it over the railing. Waited.

  Ronny sighed, slowly shook his head. “It’s not worth it.”

  “Say it anyway.”

  “I won’t.”

  “It’s my fault. Go ahead and say it. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “Ben, I’m not going to do that. Your mistakes ... it’s not my job to keep you accountable. I’ve learned all about forgiveness through God, and—”

  “Don’t fucking talk to me about God.”

  He stared at me, his eyes slightly narrowed, his bearded jaw set.

  “God has never done one good thing for me.”

  The rain was letting up, the tapping on the top of the porch overhang less persistent now.

  Ronny said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “Yeah, well. What are you really out here for?”

  “Beverly and I are leaving.”

  “When?”

  “In a couple days. Maybe a week. We’ve already discussed it with Graham and the Kid. Both are fine with it.”

  “Of course they are.”

  “Why are you so dead set against this? Why can’t you accept change?”

  “I can accept change. My whole life is one big fucking change.”

  “I will miss you, Ben. And I will be praying for you.”


  “Thanks, Ronny. I don’t know how my soul has gotten this far without you.”

  He didn’t say anything else. He just sat there beside me for a little while longer before he stood and went back inside, leaving me alone with the rain tapping the overhang and the dwindling pack of cigarettes beside me on the swing.

  49

  Clark looked even more dejected when I brought him his dinner.

  By that time the rain had stopped, God or whoever else reinserting the plug in the gigantic bathtub in the sky. Still the trees were wet, dripping drops on the holding cell’s roof, a soft and arrhythmic beat.

  Drew had come with me, nodded hello to Clark, but then after a minute decided the holding cell was a bit too cramped and went to wait outside.

  Clark whispered, “What happened to his face?”

  He was on the cot, the plate of Salisbury steaks on his lap. He had a knife in his left hand, a fork in his right. The way he was cutting the steaks into small bites, chewing quietly, all that was needed to complete the picture of perfect etiquette was a napkin tucked in the front of his shirt collar.

  “That’s a story for another time. How are you feeling?”

  He took another small bite. Glanced up at me with wariness in his dejected eyes.

  “Not well,” he said, and placed his knife and fork on the plate. “I’m feeling ... sick.”

  “Your stomach?”

  “My stomach, yes, but also my heart. My head. My entire being. My whole body feels sick. I read about half of that”—he gestured at the manuscript on the floor—“and I just ... I keep thinking about Susan and Brett and Matthew. About what’s happening to them right now. I just—I can’t stop thinking it’s somehow my fault.”

  “None of it’s your fault. You did the best you could. In the end, you wouldn’t have been able to save them.”