by E. Z. Rinsky
“Wow,” whispers Courtney.
To say that the Senator’s house is beautiful would be both to undersell it, and to mistakenly describe it as pleasing to the senses. In fact, my first reaction to the house—despite some objectively phenomenal craftsmanship—is nausea. It’s beautiful in the same way as a Magic Eye 3D picture—impossible to imagine how it was made, but the shock to your visual system makes you dizzy and want to throw up a little.
We exit the car and Courtney and I just stare at it for a moment.
From a bird’s eye view, the house would appear as a giant V, and the front door is at the vertex. It feels as if we’re standing in the gaping jaws of the house and are about to enter her throat.
It’s three stories high, and the exterior is roughly half glass, half some kind of polished orange stone, all held in place by a slick steel exoskeleton. The roof is opaque, but through the glass you can see the beams and columns that support it. It’s like seeing a house with half its skin pulled off. The effect of the half-transparency is that various rooms and objects inside appear to be suspended in midair.
It’s phenomenal, but—like some kind of insane amusement park ride—I’m totally content just observing from the outside.
We see what must be the Senator on the first floor, through a transparent wall. He doesn’t wave, even though it’s obvious that we can all see each other. He opens the front door and steps outside. He approaches us, brown leather Oxfords clicking against flagstone. He walks like a politician; slowly, thoughtfully, erect. He’s wearing khakis and a light wool sweater despite the heat. He’s holding a can of Diet Pepsi.
“Hi Mindy,” he says with a booming voice. “Could you please order groceries for all of us? What do you two like to eat?”
Courtney says: “I’m a vegan. So just stuff like fruit and vegetables for me please.”
“Alright,” Mindy says. “I’ll see if I can find a place that delivers twigs and dirt. And you?” She turns to me.
“I don’t mind vegan stuff,” I say.
Courtney looks at me with wide wary eyes, as if suspecting me of ulterior motives.
“I eat less meat than I used to, champ,” I explain, patting him on the boney shoulder and smiling. “You helped me see the light.”
James Henry Sampson turns to us as Mindy disappears around one jutting wall of the house.
“Contracts, NDAs and the passport?”
I hand him the temporary passport, and Courtney removes what’s practically a bound manuscript from his attaché and gives it to Sampson. He leafs through it, alternately sipping Pepsi through a straw and checking that every page is initialed. When he reaches the end and sees the date and signatures he can’t contain a sigh of relief.
“Please excuse the legal formality. Courtney, good to finally meet you in person.” He tucks the contract under his arm and gives my partner a well-practiced handshake. His voice is resonant, warm and reassuring. “And Frank Lamb”—he doesn’t quite smile, but conveys pleasure with a slightly upturned lip, like we’re sharing an inside joke—“I’m glad you decided to come. God bless.”
He’s about three inches taller than Courtney. Lean but with a wide chest, thin salt and pepper hair, round spectacles, slightly ruddy face, cheeks so smooth it’s hard to believe he even needs to shave. It’s tough to get a read on him based on this first impression—he’s very reserved and has excellent control over his facial expressions; typical of someone who spends a lot of time on camera and in the public sphere. It’s not hard to see why he’s a successful politician; if there’s one thing he conveys unequivocally it’s competence. This is a man who’d surely be able to roll up his sleeves and change a flat tire in a cinch, help his son with his calculus homework, or whip up a killer lemon meringue pie in a jiffy. I remember that his origins were as a dairy farmer.
He’s wearing just a bit of very tasteful cologne.
“Courtney explained the confusion which resulted in your current legal problems, and it sounds like you’ve been the victim of a terrible injustice,” the Senator tells me. “I want you to know, it will be my sincere pleasure to right this egregious wrong. I’ve already requested your new documents, and they should be ready by the time you complete the job.”
“I appreciate that,” I say, wondering just how much Courtney bended the truth, and how much of it Sampson really believed. Bottom line is, the Senator probably doesn’t care what I’ve done, as long as Courtney and I get his books back for him.
Sampson picks up his empty soda can and says, “I’ll show you fellas to your rooms so you can put your bags down, and then if it’s alright with you I’d like to get started immediately.”
“Do you think it would be possible to shower first?” I ask, a private shower in a clean proper bathroom suddenly all I can think of. I’ve been bathing in communal, grimy hostel bathrooms for years—the kind where you have to wash all of the crowd-sourced hairs off the bottom of your feet afterwards.
“Of course.” Sampson again gives an almost smile. I think for a moment his face betrays signs of extreme fatigue. “I’m just very eager to have the matter settled. I’ll show you to your rooms.”
“Your house is very unusual,” says Courtney, as we approach the front door, trying to match the Senator’s brisk steps. “Beautiful, but unusual. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Thank you. I think you’ll find the interior even more distinct than the exterior.”
“I think I recognize this architecture from somewhere,” Courtney says. “Is this an Oliver Vicks?”
We’re on the cusp of the front door, but this innocuous observation stops Sampson in his tracks. When he turns to look at us, he’s struggling to maintain his poise.
“I don’t recall asking you to look into that,” he says softly.
This is why Courtney and I work well together. In these critical moments, we’re usually on the same page. In this case, where neither of us have any clue what the hell is going on, the clear dominant strategy is to remain silent, coax him into betraying more information.
We both meet the Senator’s level gaze, trying to keep our faces totally neutral. Sampson’s face doesn’t reveal much, but you can tell there’s something bubbling under the surface. A bit of a twitch in his left eyelid; totally involuntary.
His eyes dart between Courtney and I.
“How did you find out?” he asks.
“I read occasionally about modern architecture,” Courtney replies coolly, obviously just as confused as I am as to why any of this is a big deal. “Just general interest. Thought this looked familiar.”
Sampson taps two of his beaming white teeth with the tip of his index finger, like he’s worried they’ve fallen out, and the fact that they’re still there appears to comfort him somewhat. He takes a deep breath.
“Well, onwards and upwards,” Sampson says and forces a smile. “All part of God’s plan, I’m sure.” He turns and leads us inside. I see that the empty Pepsi can in his hand has been crushed by his grip.
Courtney and I exchange a quick glance behind Sampson’s back. I ask him with my eyes:
Do you know what the hell that was about?
Courtney shrugs.
No clue.
The shower is better than I’d imagined. I spend twenty minutes in there, another ten shaving off my beard, and then a moment I wish could last forever just rubbing the soft towel against my cheeks.
My and Courtney’s rooms are in the north wing of the house. I was wrong about the shape of it. It’s actually a complete X; more or less symmetrical from the outside. From any given location outside on the ground, it’s only possible to see two of the wings.
My room is, mercifully, not transparent, and I have accommodations that wouldn’t be out of place in a five star bed and breakfast: sparkling clean surfaces, fresh linens, my own enormous bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub, entire thing paneled with dark stained oak, floored in polished yellow stone.
The pink-tinted window in my room looks
out onto an outdoor tennis court and lap pool, with stadium lights for nighttime use. The house and sports complex are surrounded by rows of pine trees that seem deliberately arranged to maximize privacy. And the whole estate is bordered by a twelve-foot brick gate. Also visible is a guesthouse, which, if Mindy refuses to step foot in this main house, must be where she went off to.
I pull on a pair of ratty white Jockey shorts and my jeans. Would have loved to go shopping in town before stopping here; these rags have long since reached the point of permanent soiling. Also asking Sampson to borrow some underwear and pants is clearly out of the question. I’m about to attempt a nap when there’s a knock on my door.
“Just a sec,” I call, pull on the same T-shirt I was wearing before, and stride to the door, savoring the fluffy beige carpet on my bare feet. Courtney’s standing there, on a floor of pink-tinted glass, frowning. He doesn’t appear to have showered. Wordlessly, he pushes past me, and sits on my still made bed. I close the door.
“Nice digs, eh?” I say.
“Mmf,” he mumbles. He’s fidgeting with his long fingers.
“What?”
“It seems . . .” Courtney scratches his scalp and exhales loudly. “Wait.”
Courtney removes a little box from his pocket that looks like a radio and places it on the nightstand.
“That will jam any recording devices,” he explains.
“Oh come on.” I roll my eyes. “Why not wear tin foil hats in case he has a brainwave monitor?”
Courtney brushes off my skepticism.
“Well. I know what was bothering the Senator. It seems this house was designed by a felon. A murderer.”
I try to process this unexpected sentence.
“What are you talking about, Court?”
“The guy who designed this house—Oliver Vicks—he’s a fairly well known architect. I remembered seeing pictures of one of his houses some time ago. But I just Googled him. And it turns out that, after designing a host of quite interesting buildings around Colorado he murdered a family. Quite odd circumstances, too, I might add.”
Courtney hands me the phone. I scan the article. Oliver Vicks—prominent architect—killed two parents and their son. Five hours later he was arrested at the restaurant where the daughter of the family worked. He had called the cops on himself.
“Why did he turn himself in?” I furrow my brow.
“Well, it gets a bit more odd. I read a few other articles. The parents were shot in the head. But the son, fourteen years old, they think was killed with the screwdriver Oliver had on him at the café.”
“They think? Couldn’t they tell?”
“Right, well.” Courtney clears his throat.” They never found the son’s body. His blood was everywhere. But no body. Like he’d been, ahem, drained.”
“So he took him somewhere?”
Courtney presses the tips of his long fingers together.
“Apparently.”
“Motive? Did he know them before?”
“Doesn’t sound like it.”
“Bizarre.”
“I know,” Courtney says. “If he had a gun on him already, switching to the screwdriver is a lot of extra, unnecessary work.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, in disbelief.
“I meant it’s bizarre that we’re currently inside of a house that this guy designed. And that Sampson is keenly aware of it.”
Courtney shrugs.
“I guess he just doesn’t want his name in the same sentence as the guy who carried out a grisly murder. He is a politician, after all.”
I hand the phone back to Courtney.
“But . . . how could Sampson be surprised that you knew? If this guy was really a famous architect, it must be well known that he designed this place.”
Courtney picks something out of his eye.
“You’d think so. However there are no photos or mentions of this estate in connection with Oliver Vicks anywhere online, at least that I could find.”
I look at Courtney.
“This is what I was trying to tell you in Budapest. There’s something nasty going on here. Senators don’t fly guys on the Interpol watch list in for holiday weekends—”
“Yeah. But listen Frank, I was thinking.” The tips of Courtney’s fingers start tapping the air, as if playing an invisible piano. “Mindy wouldn’t tell us what’s in the books, but she did mention she’s a postdoc in linguistics. How could a linguistics student keep herself busy with a book for this long? There’s only one possibility: They’re not written in English. In fact, there’s only one reason why Sampson would recruit a linguistics student as opposed to say, a Spanish student or something: They’re not written in any language we know.”
“Fine, but—”
“So they’re in an indecipherable, original language and worth forty million dollars to somebody. Think about that. What if—”
“Dude.” I cut off his increasingly manic ranting. “I don’t care about the books right now. Can we talk about the fact that we’re staying in a house designed by a serial killer?”
Courtney frowns in confusion.
“Why?” he says. “It’s a spooky bit of trivia. But if we’re going to be rational about it, it’s just really not a big deal. This architect designed dozens of buildings. There’s an office park in Denver that thousands of people work in every day that he designed. The buildings aren’t changed by the fact that he’s currently serving three consecutive life sentences.”
I snort.
“Well apparently Sampson thinks it’s a big deal,” I say. “He had all mentions of his home’s architect purged to avoid any negative associations.”
He shakes his head in that subtly demeaning way of his.
“Based on what we know about his political career, I find his paranoia somewhat justifiable.”
I stare at this creature sprawled on my bed. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever understand him. A knock on my door.
“Just a second!” I bellow, then whisper to Courtney: “Look, I know you’re curious what the hell is in those forty-million-dollar books. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also. But screw your head back on, and let’s figure out what kind of mess we’re in. I don’t want to get caught in something ugly. I’m done getting played.”
Courtney’s grimace tells me I don’t need to spell it out: like we were five years ago.
“If he lies to us once, I’m bailing. I swear,” I say.
I shoot Courtney an I’m not fucking around look, and then walk to the heavy cherry door. Pull it open to reveal Sampson, sipping on a new can of Diet Pepsi.
“Enjoy the shower?” he asks.
“It was exquisite,” I admit.
“Glad to hear it. Fellas, I’m sorry to rush, but I’m very eager to get you two started. Would you like to join me in my office?”
I look back over my shoulder at Courtney, who has switched on his poker face.
“Sure,” I say.
“Okay. You’ll want to follow me. This place can be a little confusing at first.”
“I noticed,” I say.
Our guest rooms are on the third—and uppermost—floor of the house. On our way up we took a side staircase that was enclosed in stone walls, so we didn’t really get to see the second floor. But Sampson leads us down a different staircase into a second-floor hallway, which makes my head spin. The floors are the same pink-tinged glass, which is jarring to walk on—impossible not to imagine it cracking beneath your feet. Every couple meters there’s a small white carpet, little islands of sanity. Looking through several transparent walls, across the yard, to the perpendicular wing of the house, certain rooms appear to be floating off the ground, suspended only by a few thin steel beams. Others are walled in stone—creating a sort of vertical chessboard of alternating polished stone and pink or totally transparent glass. It’s not hard to imagine the same mind that conceived of this spatial madness suddenly burning a fuse and going postal.
Beside me, Courtney is also mesmerized by t
he view. I pat him on the shoulder and we tear ourselves away to catch up with Sampson. From behind him, half to get him to slow down, I ask:
“So you live here alone?”
“Yes. I’m divorced.”
“Your wife used to live here with you though?” Courtney prods. Sampson sips loudly on his soda to avoid answering the question.
There seems to be more natural light inside this hallway than there is outside, like the walls are partial mirrors that reflect and magnify every ray of Colorado sunlight. But it’s not dandy and breezy light—it’s way too much. It’s more like every wall is emitting the harsh glare of an interrogator’s lamp, designed to half blind, half disorient.
How the hell could you live in a place like this?
I’m feeling dizzy. I want to go back to my opaque bathroom and close the door.
I realize there are no doors in this hallway. The rooms that open on its sides are totally visible. We pass eight, four on either side. Again Courtney and I stop to stare. Sampson will just have to wait.
Each room is identical to the last: They’re all totally empty, and the floor is some kind of milky blue glass which gives the appearance of a lake surface on a windless day. But the ceiling of each room is lined with a maze of intricate transparent piping, all filled with streams of water. It’s beautiful, in a way. It’s like some kind of postmodern museum gallery, but without paintings. Just bare glass walls and a futuristic plumbing system.
“What do you use these rooms for?” I ask, as Sampson comes back to us, clearly impatient. He doesn’t say anything. “Did Oliver design these rooms?” I ask—really asking why Oliver designed them.
Sampson doesn’t respond immediately. Instead a powerful bicep raises his Pepsi to his lips and he turns and continues down the radiant corridor. I figure the question—like the one about his wife—is going to turn out to be rhetorical, but as we leave the hallway and start down a dizzying spiral staircase made of pink glass, Sampson surprises me with an explanation:
“It’s concept architecture,” he says over his shoulder, a hint of pride in his voice, as he bounds down the steps two at a time. “Inspired by a verse from Genesis which describes the creation of man. ‘And the Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Man became a living being.’”
