Nightjack

by Tom Piccirilli

  “You ever think her sister lied?”

  “No. If she had, you wouldn’t have been ready with the wire.”

  “That’s just careful planning. You’ll be ready with your wire too, when the time comes.”

  Pace thought that was probably true.

  “It wasn’t my fault, you know,” Pia’s father went on. “She wanted it. She used to crawl into my bed and cry and cry if she didn’t get it.”

  “I heard you before.”

  “I did my best to resist but nobody’s that strong. You’d lose the struggle too. When she’s whispering, pleading, nibbling on your ear. Her sister was the same. You know why she turned me in? Jealousy. Plain and simple. It was between them. They both wanted me. They both—”

  “How about if you clam up now, man?”

  Another thing you couldn’t do was you couldn’t shut the dead up once they got going. They went on and on about every shittin’ little thing. You’d wait for them to give up the secrets of the grave, offer clarity about God, the process of demise, the grandeur of deliverance, and instead you just got someone cutting a rug and spouting off about their sickest guilts.

  “So you want to kill me? You want to stick that knife into my gut and twist it?”

  “Daddy, please—”

  “And keep turning the blade, with my blood spurting into your face?”

  “No,” Pace said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she still needs you.”

  “This little slut doesn’t need anyone! She’s got it all figured out! She knows just how to get by in the world. She’s cheap on the street, let me tell you. Three bucks for three minutes, on her knees. How they fall in love with her. They line up around the block. And if somebody doesn’t fall for her, she’ll just chop off their ears. Maybe you’ll be next. You’re gonna look damn silly with no ears, let me tell you.”

  The night was screaming now, but nobody on the dance floor seemed to notice or care, about that or anything. Pace wondered it might take to capture their attention, if a guy talking to a ghost couldn’t do it, if a hurricane couldn’t do it.

  He said, “She needs her daddy. Maybe only for a little while longer, maybe forever. I don’t know. I hope she gets rid of you soon. But for now, you’re still a part of who she is, what makes her so special.”

  “You’re just another lunatic,” the man told him and swung away through the crowd until he vanished.

  Pia stood there with an unsettled expression, as if she wasn’t completely certain what had transpired, or what the consequences were likely to be. Pace drew her to the front of the club, where just inside the door a couple of waitresses were attending to the two bouncers Pace had fought with. Pia followed him into the deluge. He led her to the stolen truck and she said, “I’m sorry about the Jag.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “We’ll never be able to fly to Greece tomorrow.”

  “Probably not.”

  “It’s like the heavens are trying to protect us.”

  “Or protect Kaltzas.”

  “You still don’t remember him, do you?”

  “No,” Pace said. “But tell me, why does he think you had something to do with his daughter’s rape?”

  “Because,” she whispered in his ear, nibbling on his earlobe. “I’m a sick bitch. Didn’t you hear anything my father said?”

  thirteen

  When they got back the house was already going full-throttle with an end of the world party. In droves they approached and said hello, kissed Pace’s cheek, patted his shoulder. He hadn’t seen some of them for a couple of years. Features softened and blurred and redefined themselves. Some personalities were so faded and ephemeral he couldn’t touch them, could barely hear them.

  Smoker, the half-breed outlaw from 1880s Arizona, held up his Colts and grunted in Mescalaro Apache. He’d jumped the rez and wanted Pace to join his men as they raided towns along the Mexican border. A part of Pace wanted to go, to be with his tribe again. Across the room, obscured by a wall of bodies, he saw Dr. Brandt trying to make her way toward him. Every time she got close, the crowd would heave and she’d be shoved aside.

  Thaddeus, friend and companion to St. Paul, was still spreading the word of Christ across a troubled new world. He whispered in Pace’s ear and told him of the death of Paul, beheaded on the Ostian Way at Tre Fontane, just outside of Rome.

  Faust appeared for a moment with tears in his eyes. Behind him to the left, Sariel guided the progress of humanity. The four keys to the four corners of the earth jangled on his belt. Rimmon continued to fight envy in his never-ending battle. The 29,000 legions of burning choirs blazed around the room, lighting the rafters.

  Hayden had brought along Cravenborn the warlock and his demonic familiar Bloomboy, who performed occult rituals in the kitchen. Black motes of energy rose around them as hexes glowed on the walls.

  Pace recognized some of the faces from Le Feu. Jesus Christ, had they followed him here? Had Pia invited them? Or were more identities emerging every minute now, from himself and the others? He couldn’t tell anymore. Dr. Brandt was right about one thing, they were making each other much sicker. He looked down and he was holding the head of St. Paul in his right hand.

  Crumble waddled past chewing on a sock.

  Pace said, “We have to go to Pythos.” It came out sounding odd, and he realized he’d said it in Apache. He touched his mouth and tried to straighten his tongue, get his lips working the right way.

  He knew he was weakening, beginning to slide out of form. He felt himself starting to diminish. His resolve—it was the only reason Pace was even here—wasn’t enough anymore, and he hoped the next guy would do better.

  He drew the knife and pressed it into his palm. Blood welled and a surge of satisfaction filled him, just from feeling the blade entering flesh, even his own. Jack’s mouth began to water. There wasn’t as much pain as there was sudden clarity. The din subsided, the pressure of crushing bodies eased.

  The room emptied quickly, the crowd draining away even as the windows shook from the nor’easter. He slid the knife back into its sheathe and tightened his wounded hand into a fist, holding his own blood in. Symbols had their own power.

  When you couldn’t find any allegories, you made your own. You moved aside when it was your time to go, but you never let anybody push you out of the way.

  Dr. Brandt stood beside him, whispering words a little too faint for him to understand.

  “What?”

  “You did well, bringing her back, Will. Was it terrible?”

  “It was confusing. I think she’ll always be attached to her father despite what he did.”

  “You’re protective of them. That’s a good sign.”

  “A sign of what?”

  “That your primary personality is beginning to re-emerge.”

  He turned to her and said, “You have got to be the dumbest person with twenty degrees that I’ve ever met.”

  “Don’t be insulting, Will.”

  “Get away from me, lady.”

  Pace looked over at Hayden and Faust on the couch, watching him sleepily. Pia joined them, the excitement having dissipated from her. He gestured at the stairs with his chin and said, “Go to bed, we leave for Pythos in the morning.”

  Pia said, “We can’t, the storm.”

  “I have a feeling it’s going to clear.”

  Faust’s scar was hardly even there anymore. There was barely a mark. “We’ll die on that island, you know. In the ruins of some temple to a forgotten god, we’ll be buried alive under a mountain of stone. We’ll be entombed together, breathing each other’s stale air for our remaining hours. He’ll leave us with one dwindling candle to hold back the endless, eternal darkness.”

  Hayden said, “Oh, why don’t you just suck the pipe already, Mr. Happy Pants?”

  The lights flickered and thunder groaned. The roof creaked as if a dozen children outside pounded on it with their fists. Pia moved to the stairway, her lips f
ull and bruised from kissing her father’s throat. “Don’t we still have to go through customs? We don’t just get on a plane and it flies to his doorstep, do we?”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so,” Pace said, but he didn’t know.

  “Then there’s more to come. More things have to happen.”

  Pace knew exactly what she meant. He nodded. “Yes. Probably in the morning. Vindi or somebody will come knocking on the door.”

  “I’m too tired to care right now.”

  “We all are. But don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “I’m a little worried,” Hayden said. On the pad he had written to his mother, Momma, oh Momma, I’m fucking seriously worried right here.

  “I won’t let anything happen to any of you.”

  Faust said, “I wonder if that would be more soothing if someone other than a murderous lunatic had said it.”

  “Probably not much,” Hayden told him, and the two of them followed Pia, single file up the steps.

  Watching them go, Pace had a very strong sense that he was seeing three children going up to bed, maybe on Christmas Eve. Three kids wearing jammies and trailing teddy bears that had only one button eye.

  Dr. Brandt slid onto the couch and he sat beside her.

  “I’m sorry I yelled,” he said.

  “It’s all right. You’ve suffered a great deal today.”

  “Not really,” he admitted. “Actually, it’s been sort of fun. You’re the one who’s suffering worse than any of us. You haven’t accepted yourself the way we have.”

  She turned to face him, and he was reminded of the first time he’d seen her in the hyper-white room, in his straitjacket tied to the steel rails of the bed. What had she felt at that initial moment: Revulsion? Empowerment?

  “The fire’s dying,” he said.

  “There’s more wood out back but it’s too wet to burn.”

  She gazed into his eyes. Analyzing and making assessments. Inquiring and discounting. Distrusting and overwhelmed by anxiety. That stunning, sorrowful face turned on him in full. His heart strained toward or away from something.

  He said it again. “We go to Pythos. Tomorrow.”

  “I refuse,” Dr. Brandt said.

  “You threw in with us for a reason.”

  “Yes, to get away from that man, not to go to him.”

  “There is no way to get away from him. Or anybody, really, if they come at you hard enough.”

  “You would know.” Saying it with an acidic tone.

  “Yes, I would know. The only chance you have is to meet them head on. That’s why we have to face him.”

  “Ridiculous. He owns the entire island and resides in a fortress, surrounded by a private army.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s not a secret. He’s very famous.”

  “You tried to save his daughter, didn’t you? Why would he hold that against you?”

  “He doesn’t. It’s what came after. I should’ve kept her safe. But I couldn’t.”

  “You mean you couldn’t keep her safe from me.”

  “From you. Or one of your alternates. Or someone else on the ward.”

  Pace kept wanting to touch her. Not out of lust, but hoping for reaffirmation. A homecoming of sorts. It would be a lot nicer to make love on the couch than it had been tied to the railings, if that had happened.

  “Vindi said we were lovers. Is it true?”

  “Stop asking that.”

  “Answer it then.”

  “I already have, but you push and persist. No, we were never lovers.”

  “You don’t sound very persuasive.”

  “I’m not trying to persuade you, I’m simply telling you the truth.”

  Even while she sat there, staring bleakly, with many lifetimes between them, he knew she was lying. “Kaltzas thinks you were covering for me.”

  “Yes, I believe he does.”

  “Were you?”

  “I didn’t cover for you. I don’t know what happened to Cassandra.”

  He opened his hand and there was a piece of blood-stained paper in it that read:

  She’s lying. Don’t trust anything she says.

  It was enough to make you laugh, if you weren’t a little worried about laughing at this sort of thing. He quietly wadded the note up and tossed it into the cooling fireplace.

  A low, humming current ran through Pace’s skull. It made him grit his teeth and shut his eyes for a second. When he opened them his other fist was closed. He unclenched his hand and there was another note there that read:

  Don’t trust these notes. You’ve written them to yourself, and you’re completely insane.

  He crumpled that one up too and tossed it after the other. Maureen Brandt didn’t notice. She just sat there, facing front, like a scared girl on a first date in a movie theater, waiting for the boy to make a grab for her tit.

  “You had a laptop and access to the Net,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Your strength is research.”

  “Well, Sam’s is.”

  She either knew who Sam was or decided to ignore the comment. “What did you do while you were online, Will?”

  “Tried to learn about Kaltzas.”

  “Did you find out anything important?”

  “Not really.”

  “Or the island? In case you need to escape? If it comes down to that? If it’s what Jack needs?”

  “No, I didn’t think to look.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not Jack.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’ve been there.”

  “Maybe.”

  Dr. Brandt shifted on the couch and stared at Pace, the condescension mixed with bereavement, the way you feel for the memory of someone who’s been dead for years. This lady, she could never look at you with just one emotion. Everything she felt was in conflict. He wondered how someone could live with that for any length of time. Maybe she’d been in love with Pacella, the cocoa-drinker. Maybe she liked men who took better care of their books than they did their wives.

  She said, “I think Faust is right. I think if you go there, you’ll die.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The course is set.”

  “You’re so self-destructive, Will,” she told him, standing and moving quickly away.

  “Sure. Even I know that.”

  Only somebody who had nothing to live for would sound so cavalier. Pacella had never sounded like that, and neither had Jack, back when he used to write mischievous letters to Scotland Yard. Pace wasn’t sure that he’d ever been afraid of anything. Maybe that was the signature to this aspect of himself.

  He wanted Dr. Brandt’s professional opinion on that sort of thing, but only a diminishing shadow at the top of the stairs remained of her, and then not even that.

  ~ * ~

  The night spoke in a voice of darkness and regret.

  Whispered reminders of lives already gone or waiting to be born. Crying children and quiet lullabies. The words of your mother, the laughter of your wife. The decisive snarl of your eighth-grade gym teacher, barking down at you on the wrestling mats. Hating your father because you thought he hated you. The lost chance to forgive.

  You hung back in alleys and watched the Ganooch boys swagger down the street to their Coupe de Villes. Using grease in their hair like the old days, a couple of them with ducks’ asses. These guys still thinking they were part of the Rat Pack, as if Dean Martin and Frankie were about to bust into song, call them up on stage, share a tall one with them. You never drop the zeppoles. You didn’t even have to be half-good to run through these guys, not even when they were supposedly on their toes. It just meant more muscle packing more heat, carrying more sopping oily bags. Your whole life you thought the mob was full of all-powerful men, and when the time came they went easy as snuffing out votive candles.

  Are you cured?

  Chin in hand, with his face damp, Pace awo
ke sitting at the foot of the bed.

  He glanced over and saw Pacella lying under the covers, looking comfortable and well-rested. He wore a kind of post-coital leer that actually disturbed Pace a little.

  Pacella said, “It’s all right. You did what you were supposed to do.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Just leave. There’s no place for you here anymore. You did what you could. We all have. Now take a powder.”

  “It’s not supposed to work this way,” Pace said. “We’re going backward.”

  “Move aside, crybaby.”

  “So when did you become so tough, huh?”

  Waves lashed the rocks of the shore, sending an unpleasant booming staccato vibrating through the house.

  A contrapuntal to his heartbeat. The rain poured down the panes in vivid designs, some of them recognizable. He saw Dr. Brandt and Jane there, moving across the glass separately, then together. He watched himself performing strange functions of death.

  Pace dried his face with the sheets and glared at Pacella, who was supposed to be long gone by now. The hell was happening when you couldn’t count on the dead wimps staying out of your way?

  He drew the knife and slipped up the mattress, eased himself forward and pressed the blade to Pacella’s throat.

  The guy just kept smiling

  “You’re not William Pacella, are you?” Pace said.

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “You’re Jack.”

  “No, you still don’t get it.” Showing teeth the way Pacella never would, unless Jane was with him. “It’s you. You’re Jack.”

  Are you cured?

  And Pace thinking, I’m not stepping aside for you or anybody else. I’ve got too much left to do.

  fourteen

  Jack had saved the Ganooch for last.

  He’d taken out all the major capos, a few of the made guys, a couple of dirty cops, and about a dozen of the Ganucci family soldiers.

  Big Joe Ganucci, like all the old-time mobsters, pretended to be a regular businessman in waste management and disposal, too cheap to have a first-rate burglar alarm put in. Even now, with the syndicate in shambles, he still believed in a show of muscle, surrounding himself with stupid bodyguards.