Nightjack

by Tom Piccirilli

  “There are drunks everywhere. At least they don’t get mean. Well, most of them, anyway.”

  “It got a little uncomfortable when you were aspiring to have carnal knowledge with Stavros’s leg.”

  “I trust in the power of forgiveness.”

  “It's so different now,” Pia said, looking about the streets. “This morning I hated it.”

  Pace knew what she meant. The city was still too congested and choked with people and traffic. But the beauty beneath had made itself known.

  “I want to visit the Acropolis! Syntagma square and the Plaka. The Archeological Museum, the Cathedral, the town hall. The Temple of Zeus!”

  Hayden finished up the dance and joined in. “The Parthenon. The Theater of Dionysus.”

  “On the return trip,” Pace said, “we'll stay a week and see the sights, all right?"

  “We won't be able to then. We'll be dead.”

  “No one’s going to die.”

  Breathing lustily, her voice growing more and more smoky, Pia said, “You're an idiot, Will.”

  “Don’t be mean.”

  “I’m not, I’m a very loving young woman.”

  Ten minutes later they passed a hotel. “How about we stay at this place for the night?”

  "It's not accommodating enough,” Faust told him. “I would very much like to stay in a five-star hotel. Four at the very least. We should keep our standards high.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we are cultured and civilized.”

  “You pick it then.”

  They continued on through Piraeus, the open air market, heading toward the Plaka District near the Acropolis. The area was made up of pedestrian streets that coiled and diverged wildly.

  “Here,” Faust said in front of a luxury hotel, the Athenian Palace, close to the port where the ferry would take them out to Voros in the morning. Bellboys circled them, unsure of what to do. They’d never seen tourists checking in with so little baggage. “This appeals to me greatly. I haven’t had room service in years.”

  “When did you ever order room service?” Hayden asked.

  The smile on Faust’s lips froze. He stared off into his memory and whatever he saw there filled him with a keen, well-acquainted dread.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It was there for a moment, but it’s gone now. I don’t think I’d like to remember.”

  “You don’t have to,” Pia said. “None of us do. Maybe someday, but not tonight.”

  “It was back when I was in the lettuce.”

  “Don’t think about it, Faust. Push it aside. You can tell it to go away.”

  “The long green spinach!”

  Hayden let out a surprised snort. “The hell? You were a short-order cook?”

  Faust wavered and refocused in a way Pace had never seen him do before.

  “The job was all that mattered,” Faust said. “They put the call in and I came rushing to them, heeling, you see? It’s all that mattered, getting it done, seeing it happen. Accomplishing the task given to me by my grotesque taskmasters. It was beautiful to do and wonderful to see because it meant something at the heart of all things. It wasn’t art, it wasn’t actually a discipline, no matter what anybody said. This was just the gorgeous deed that led to all the other exquisite achievements out there, waiting for me.”

  “I knew it,” Hayden said. “I knew it couldn’t last. I was actually starting to like him for a minute there. Now he’s fucking up my bouzouki songs.”

  “The lettuce, it got me whatever I wanted,” Faust went on. He grinned through his beard. Pace thought, he’s staring like he wants to try himself against me. Like he wants to take me out of the game. Faust glared as if from a different place, looking younger, as if he was moving back in time. “I rolled it in and rolled it for all the most beautiful ladies. In the restaurants, the clubs, all the joints up and down the strip. Park Avenue. The Gold Mile. Philly’s Main Line. Malibu. Beverly Hills, oh yes, L.A., I did a great deal of work there too. If the wine wasn’t perfect I would spit it back in their faces. The women, there were always so many glorious women, they’d kneel under the table and I’d pet the cheeks of their magnificent faces with the loose lettuce. I’d throw it on the floor. It would stick to their sweaty knees. If the waiters or managers or patrons said anything, I’d smash the thick end of a broken broomstick into their faces.”

  “Smack them in the mush!”

  “That’s what I did with the long green spinach!”

  It was the most Pace had ever heard Faust say, on or off the ward. Pia could only stare, and after a minute Faust—the Faust they knew at least a little better than the other—returned. The scar burned a bright pink.

  He said, “Our father who art insane.”

  “You got that right, Major Downer,” Hayden told him. “Can we go inside now? I’m drunk and tired as hell and little hungry, and I’d like to get some sleep before our hideous agonizing deaths tomorrow, right?”

  twenty-one

  The night porter spoke perfect English and wore a stylish uniform with epaulets and an odd looking cap that he kept on the counter. He wouldn’t take the drachmas, insisting on Euros. He hid his discomfort well, fearing that a group of foolish tourists had wandered in without having converted any money. Pace took out a wad of Euros and paid for a suite. Three bellboys eddied about them and took their tiny bags.

  The suite had four lavish bedrooms connected by a extravagant common living area with a huge bar in it. It took Hayden ten minutes to figure out the phone system, but when he did he ordered up several Greek dishes. He didn’t know what any of them were and didn’t care. There were bottles of metaxa and ouzo at the bar and he poured a round for everyone. When the meal came, they shared the dishes and discussed which foods appealed to them and which didn’t. They watched television with English subtitles, napped for a while, and then ate some more.

  Pace left them laughing and went to his room. It was ten o’clock. If nothing else, Kaltzas had given them this night.

  He got undressed, eased into bed, and lay there thinking about how it all might’ve gone differently if Pacella had only known how to write.

  How much could the book have sold for? Enough to keep Jane at home? At least afford her a job closer to home? William Pacella, the dull high school teacher made good, turning a nifty check from a major publisher. Movie rights selling at auction. He’d make a cameo in the film. Jane on the red carpet at the premier, as beautiful as any movie star.

  He wandered into the bathroom. There was a large hot tub with an intricate mosaic tile floor showing a myriad of swimming women. Water nymphs, sirens, mermaids. He turned on the jets and sat in it for a minute and then got out again. What was he feeling?

  Something was wrong with his knuckles.

  He looked down and noticed they were bleeding. A thin trail of blood led into the tub, where the red curled and bubbled through the water. He glanced over the edge and saw several tiles were missing, shattered at the bottom of the tub. He’d must’ve punched the mosaic several times without knowing it.

  These hands, always trying to tell him something.

  A strange chuckle slid from between his lips.

  His own chuckle. His own lips.

  He felt angry. It was a true emotion. And his alone. It was a bizarre, intimate experience, feeling what had always been reserved for others. Pacella was so furious it drove him out of his head. Jack felt it over the smallest transgressions, the kill switch always flicked on in his skull. Smoker had it for the white man, and Jimmy Boyd used it in the ring.

  But why was Pace feeling it now? His job was to walk the line, even if the body didn’t always respond.

  So, what was this for? Probably for the girl, the thief. Cassandra Kaltzas, the siren who had called him to the islands. If the billionairess hadn’t pilfered a few bucks out of the restaurant till, Jane wouldn’t have stayed late to work the books. It was Pace who had remembered the scene, and now it was within him, inside his head. Somehow his own me
mory. He kept feeling the weight of the girl on his shoulder, like he was still carrying her bound body. He’d been around long enough now to begin forming his own hate.

  His bedroom door opened and Pia entered. She was naked. He was still surprised at how lithe and petite and young she was. Her small breasts bounced lightly as she walked to him. His blood began to surge. He thought about what two lunatics would be like in bed and was sort of intrigued by what he imagined. He hoped to hell her father didn’t pop up.

  She stood before him and whispered, “Did you like the way I danced today in the taverna?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I enjoyed showing off for the men.”

  “I could tell.”

  “Do I disgust you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why should you?”

  “Because I’ve done bad things.”

  “We’ve all done bad things.”

  “I’m the worst.”

  “You’re nowhere near the worst.”

  He could put her mind at rest about who was the worst, but now wasn’t the time to tell her about the six inch hunting knife topped with a gut hook that had ripped through Emilio Cavallo’s guts and sent arterial spray across the sacred heart of Jesus. The men’s necks broken from behind. Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jane Kelly, Frances Coles and the kidney pie, the vaginal incisions, the glory of mutilation.

  The moon washed over them, cold and distant but with a divine, immense grandeur.

  “You’re ill,” he said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Yes, there is. Just because you’re sick doesn’t give you a right to hurt someone else. We’re still accountable.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Your hand...is that your blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Having this conversation while they were naked in a suite in a five-star hotel in Greece with a billion years of silver beauty shining in. If you put your mind to it, you could screw up any paradise.

  Her pale blue eyes burned in the dimness. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled him down to her. She took his earlobe in her teeth and held it for an instant.

  “Do you want to know what I did to her?” she asked.

  “To who?”

  “Cassandra Kaltzas.”

  Pace felt very remote. It was part of being disassociated, depersonalized and derealized. Back on the ward in his straitjacket hammock, lost in the dark, waiting for the needle in the neck, Dr. Brandt would utter such words with an intensity akin to poetry. He would sometimes hum along with her voice, turning all her evaluations into love songs.

  Pia moved against him, pulled him down to the mattress, her breasts pressing against his chest. “Will?”

  That lower lip cocked in a half-grin, like she knew something you didn’t, and she was never going to tell you.

  “Yes,” he said. “I want to know what you did to her, Pia. I want you to tell me about that night.”

  “First you have to give me something.”

  Of course, everything had its price. You couldn’t eat a piece of fruit in a garden without having it cost the love of your god.

  “What?”

  “I want you to make love to me.”

  He said nothing, did nothing. He lay on the pillows staring at her silhouette, her white teeth ablaze.

  He thought how she should be at college mixers meeting boys her own age, going to football games. Falling for the handsome quarterback who’d treat her like crap and break her heart just before she realized the sensitive best friend bookworm she’d previously air quote loved like a brother end air quote was actually the better choice.

  Same thing that had happened with Pacella and Jane.

  She took his hand and placed it on her thigh, easing further up over the bedspread so his knuckles brushed against the soft, trimmed hair between her legs. “Why aren’t you touching me? Don’t you like me? Don’t you think I’m beautiful?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You’re not William Pacella. You don’t owe anything to his dead wife.”

  But maybe Pace did. Jane was inside him even more deeply than all the others. The reason he was alive, had been given this life, was because of her. He had Pacella’s face but wondered how he’d stack up against the guy, side by side, in Jane’s eyes. If Jane might love Pace for who he was, even if he didn’t drink cocoa or smoke a pipe. Even if he had never read Chaucer or Proust and had never tried to write a book and fucked it up.

  “Tell me what you did to Cassandra, Pia.”

  “They have enormous hot tubs here.”

  “I know.”

  “Let’s get in. I want to get in with you. I want you to hold me. With those strong hands of yours. I know what you can do with them.”

  Saying it with a kind of love but her knowing smile told him she wanted him to tighten his fists around her throat.

  Despite all he’d done—that all the many hims had done—he still felt slightly offended.

  “Is the knife under your pillow?”

  “No,” he said, although he wasn’t sure. It might be there. Only his hands knew for certain.

  She straddled him and licked the burn scars on his chest, nibbling at the gnarled tissue. He couldn’t help himself. He became aroused and wasn’t sure why he should help himself, why that should be such a necessity.

  How about just letting go for once where nobody died? It was a heavy burden carrying the guilt of a hundred, maybe a thousand, other men. He thought, I have my own hate, maybe it’s time for my own love too.

  “If I cause you enough trouble,” she said, “if I push you too far, will you stab me?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “No, I won’t, Pia.”

  “Jack will.” Biting hard at the scars, talking into them. “Won’t you, Jack?”

  “Why do you want me to kill you?”

  “Why?” She stared at him as her icy blue eyes ignited with the moon. She laughed and stopped herself, started to say something and stopped herself. She began to kiss him and stopped an inch before their mouths touched. Her breath swept across his chin. A throaty snarl broke from her. “Because it would be so romantic.”

  What had happened to the Ganooch and his boys, what had occurred on the streets of Whitechapel, was anything but romantic. She just wanted to go out of this life with some kind of a dramatic display, like her father with the piano wire wrapped around his chest, the mother downing drain opener. Nobody took themselves out of the game anymore just sitting in the car with the engine running, the garage door closed. Where was the grand gesture in that?

  “What was your sister’s name?” Pace asked.

  “I don’t have a sister.”

  “You did. What was her name?”

  “I never had a sister. She didn’t have a name.”

  He shut his eyes and tried to remember. He must’ve heard it at some point on the ward. Perhaps Dr. Brandt had mentioned it in group therapy. He pressed himself and asked the others for help. The kids shouted. Vera. Angie. Nipple Jones. Freddie “Double Tap” Freeman. Lucy. Caramel Skankie. Siobhan. Katie. Yokahama Yolanda. Duchess Crotch Stink. Pookie.

  Katie. Katie, that was it.

  “It wouldn’t be wrong, you know,” she said, reaching down to stroke him. “The two of us making love. We’re both alone. No matter who else hangs onto us, or wants to take over, or tries to shove us aside, we’re still alone. There’s no need to go through the world like that. I don’t want to go through life like that, it’s nothing but torture.”

  “Pia—”

  “Don’t be afraid, Will.”

  “I’m not afraid and my name isn’t Will.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That�
��s okay. Do you want me to give you one?”

  “No, I don’t think so. What did you do to Cassandra Kaltzas, Pia?”

  “First tell me who you are.”

  That one stopped him. “I’m...the In-between man.”

  “In-between what?”

  He watched the moon in her eyes. Nothing came to him. Finally a voice, not his, said, “The sins on the left hand and the sins on the right.”

  “You just mean you’re not Pacella and you’re not Jack. You’re the edge of the coin.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “You aren’t going to let Jack loose to cut me up, are you? No matter what I do?”

  “No.” He drew her closer and kissed her, hard and wanting.

  She pulled away viciously, hissing. She got out of bed and headed for the door. The moonlight receded, following her in a heavy white tide that left him in deeper darkness. Over her shoulder she snarled, “What the fuck good are you to me?”

  Then she was gone.

  He looked down and the knife was in his hand.

  twenty-two

  The ferry to Voros reminded him of the ferry crossing from Port Jefferson, Long Island to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Pacella and Jane would cross the Sound and spend the day driving around the antique shops looking at colossal, centuries old furniture with high five-figure price tags.

  If he had the money he might pick up a music box for her or something else small. A salt & pepper shake set from 1920, a dollhouse piano he could set on his fingertip that cost eighty bucks. Pacella might buy a carved meerschaum pipe stained by ten thousand pouches of tobacco. Even these small mementos of history made him feel vaguely connected to a greater world he didn’t really belong in.

  The tourists heading to Voros exhibited a contained enthusiasm, as if afraid to show too much excitement in front of the locals. Pace let the sea wind blow in his face and tried not to imagine what would’ve happened if Pia had actually wanted to love him last night instead of only wanting to die.

  Hayden said, “We could still probably skip out, you know. Make a run for it.”