The Snow Garden

by Christopher Rice

  “Michael?”

  No response from beyond the double doors.

  Downtown was almost invisible beyond the far rail of the terrace, which took up the remainder of the rooftop. New figures had been added to Michael’s cadre of wax sculptures, all of them apparitions emerging out of the blanketing snow. Beyond, spotlights angled up onto each piece had been partially covered, and the result threw chiaroscuro across their featureless white faces and extended limbs.

  He had loved this view once; it had elevated him above the streets where he had struggled to survive. Living here had once seemed like an accomplishment. Before the walls of Michael’s penthouse had begun to shrink inward, and Randall could taste his desire for renewed freedom and the hope of something close to a normal, autonomous life. But he had failed at that miserably, and now the view welcomed him back like a parent satisfied to see his dire predictions come true.

  Randall crossed to the terrace door, his eyes catching a view of the new sculpture. Male and muscled, it stood on a stone platform, its arms outstretched in an embrace of the driving snow. The perfectly proportioned body was evidence of Michael’s constantly improving technique, and Randall was surprised to see the skin textured with the accurate folds of muscle groups. But the accomplishment ended abruptly at the neckline; as with all of Michael’s sculptures, the face was a blank mask of dry, clotted wax.

  “Michael?” he called out as he turned from the glass.

  He noticed that the much-talked about chandelier had finally been installed, and the result was just as hideous as the sketches Michael had proudly shown him back in July. “It’ll bring life to the apartment, don’t you think?”

  “I think it’s scary," Randall had told him, meaning hideous.

  “I didn’t ask you what you thought.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  It was suspended from a gathering of wires that extended down through the raftered ceiling. Massive ceramic tentacles curled inward, all of them patterned with a Gaudi-inspired mosaic of tiles. Light bulbs were concealed in the cavities of each one, emitting an amber glow onto the black lacquer dining table. The whole thing looked like a giant octopus preparing to rest on the ocean floor. Randall assumed that Michael had loved the impossibility of it, for the electrical company had moaned about how impossible it was to wire, and after that it would be flat-out impossible to install the proper electrical lift system. Michael had shrugged off the advice, opting for an antiquated rotary crank system and vowing he would find some way to hang this insanely heavy monstrosity from his ceiling.

  The double doors to the studio slid open. Randall straightened up against the glass. He felt his best attempt at a smile tug at his mouth, but Michael simply met his eyes briefly and strode to the dining table. Fear forced its way up from Randall’s stomach, tightening__h is chest. Feeling suddenly powerless, Randall was reminded of the quiet, visceral terror he had felt the first time he saw the man who would end up being his last customer.

  Michael had not changed much in the last three months. If anything, he had grown larger, his body encroaching even more onto the particularities of his form and face. His pinpoint black eyes had been , forced into recession by his prominent brow and high, etched cheekbones. His thatch of salt and pepper hair looked too small for the crown of his head, which seemed to have grown, his skull Spreading its plates to enclose a brain flexing ever outward with visions so large they threatened to consume him. His hands, planted on either side of the newspaper, were bloated paws with swollen knuckles.

  Michael Price’s bulk was a product of the anabolic steroids and human growth hormone he injected and swallowed- they threw his hormones violently out of balance. Living here, Randall had learned to both weather and mitigate his drastic mood swings, but now he felt like a child thrown back into the water without a float to hold on to. Michael’s sullen and unreadable silences frightened Randall the most.

  Michael gave a slight nod, and brushed the paper aside. “Old news!” he announced.

  “What?” Randall asked.

  Randall watched as Michael crossed to the living area, picked up the remote and unmuted the television. Randall realized that the fire trucks he had glimpsed on the screen just seconds earlier sat outside the smoldering remains of Eric Eberman’s house.

  Randall sucked in a shocked breath and hoped Michael hadn’t heard him. Michael threw himself onto the sofa, its leather squeaking under his weight, intent on the television.

  “... Neighbors report hearing a gunshot followed by a short, loud boom. While there’s already little doubt that tonight will go down in history for the prestigious university, it seems that the strange twists in tonight’s story won’t stop coming.”

  Two thirty-one Slope Street emerged under the glare of police lights. Gurneys were being whisked down the front walk, their occupants clutching weakly at blankets, poor attempts to conceal the nudity made obvious by their bare shoulders.

  “Police are refusing to address rumors that Professor Eric Eberman, believed dead in the fire that consumed his home, was the former owner of the very house where several members of an off-campus fraternity engaged in a failed mass suicide attempt.”

  Randall groped for a seat on the sofa, knocked breathless by the sudden, violent flow of images and information. He reached over, picked up the remote, and hit MUTE before Michael could protest. Eric and Lisa’s wedding photo filled the screen. He turned to find Michael's eyes on him, his hands folded behind his neck. Suddenly, the only sound in the apartment was the whistle of the wind around the twenty-fifth floor.

  “Grieve. I’ll allow it,” Michael finally said. “After all you’ve done, I guess it’s impossible, for you not to walk away with a small shred of affection for him. But just remember, I wanted him fired. Not dead.”

  Randall dropped the remote on the coffee table.

  “Something to drink?”

  Randall didn’t answer, fearing his voice would release the tide of confused grief he was holding barely at bay. Michael heaved himself up from the sofa anyway.

  “I assume you’ve lost your taste for scotch.”

  Randall shook his head before realizing Michael had his back to him. He swallowed a breath. “Anything. I don’t care.”

  For several seconds there was only the clink of ice cubes against glass, and Randall stared at the rug, keeping his eyes averted from the devastation the television offered. “I guess your wish has been granted,” Michael said. “Considering that you’ve set fire to the place, I won’t force you to go back there and voice your complaints to a disciplinary committee. As you promised to do.” Michael turned. “I doubt they would conduct a postmortem investigation of Eric’s actions anyway.”

  Because he couldn’t help it, Randall looked at the television again.

  A stern-faced policewoman shepherded Kathryn past the glare of the news cameras. Kathryn walked with her eyes on the pavement in front of her, not bothering to brush away the bangs drifting onto her face. Randall told himself to be strong, forced himself to watch, even though this image was the worst. The news of Eric’s death seemed unreal. But seeing Kathryn, one of the only women he had ever loved, reminded him of all he had failed to be. Looking shellshocked as she was led away from the scene, Kathryn was the embodiment of all the great promise he had seen in Atherton, all of it now turned sour and deadly.

  Beneath her image, a news ticker announced sports scores and counted off the hour in four different time zones.

  Randall looked up to see Michael pushing a drink into his face. Who cared how many times he’d told the man he couldn’t stand bourbon? '

  “Headline News picked it up about an hour ago. I’ve watched it twice already.” Michael toasted the television and swallowed half his drink.

  “Congratulations,” Randall said to his drink.

  “You make it sound like this was all my doing.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “If I remember our original agreement correctly, you had four years to expose Eric fo
r what he really is. Excuse me. Was. Four years for you to have your little dream of a college life and put Ben Collins that many more miles behind you in the process. And all I asked for in return was one little scandal. That’s all. This is all your doing.”

  “Can you blame me?” Randall tried to chase the anger from his voice. “After everything you told me about him, can you blame me for thinking he murdered her?”

  “I’m sure he murdered her. But face it, Randall. Your talent is for making older men believe they need you, when the truth is just the opposite. You obviously have no knack for exposing murderers.”

  Surprisingly calm given Randall's backtalk, Michael took a seat next to him. Randall kept his gaze fixed on the television, his drink cradled in both hands.

  “And besides, my concern was for you. You managed to carve out an admirable little niche for yourself there, and if you’d just left this half-assed attempt at a murder investigation alone, who knows? You might have been able to get your degree.”

  “And then what?” Randall took his first sip of bourbon.

  Michael fixed him with the kind of stare he’d use on a guest who had just cracked a tasteless joke in the middle of a formal dinner party. “I’m sure we would have reached a mutually beneficial agreement. We used to excel at those.” He bent forward, elbows resting on his knees. “After all, look where you are. Here. I’ve given you a name you can,actually keep longer than one night. And who knows? If you had bored another one of your johns with that ridiculous story about killing your entire hometown with a train, well, they might have expressed their disbelief with something sharp.”

  Michael grazed Randall’s Adam’s apple with three fat fingers before Randall reached up and clasped them with one hand.

  Their eyes met. Randall swallowed the pride he had managed to accumulate during his period of independence, tried to recall the docile whore he had been for so long. “We both know that there’s no way I could ever repay you for what you’ve given me.”

  “Maybe. But that says more about you than it does me, Ben. Don’t just try to thank me for all you've been given. Give some thought to everything you’ve taken.”

  Randall released Michael’s fingers and got up to walk toward the windows.

  Behind him, Michael continued. “You have a tendency to overcompensate. We both know that, At one time, it served you well. Hitchhiking your way across the country, telling every truck driver a different story that brought you that much closer to New York. But you’re here. And you don’t have to lie to me to survive, do you? Still, it wasn’t enough to out Eric. You had to turn him into a murderer.. . .”

  “He was, wasn’t he?” Randall turned.

  Michael seemed puzzled.

  “He did kill Pamela Milford didn’t he?”

  Michael’s face hardened again. “In many ways. Yes.”

  “Just checking,” Randall muttered, muting his disbelief so Michael couldn’t hear it.

  “Given your past, I can understand why you would feel the need to overcompensate. Go beyond the call of duty, if you will. I had hoped your stay at Atherton might help that. But there are only so many times I can assure you that little Ben Collins is dead and buried.”

  Randall tightened his grip on the glass.

  “I’m not quite sure how I can teach you to be content with who you are. But I do know this. You’re talented. This”—he gestured to the television—“took talent. Lies of course, but at least your lies brought about some justice. Eric’s lies brought only death. And still, I sense there’s a part of you that just can’t stop running.”

  “What would I run to?”

  It took several seconds for Michael’s lipless mouth to curl into a thin smile. “Exactly.”

  Randall took another drink, went to the sofa, and set his glass down. He bent down and kissed Michael’s forehead. “Good night,” he whispered.

  But when he straightened, Michael held his wrist. Fear crept at the back of Randall’s neck as he looked down into Michael’s eyes. Michael’s gaze-and-grip didn’t waver.

  “Thank you,” he said finally, soft enough to indicate that he had struggled to get the words out. His eyes and fingers lingering, he finally released Randall’s wrist. “It’s good to see your brown eyes again.”

  Randall nodded nervously and backed away from the sofa. His steps quickened as he headed for the spiral staircase leading to the second floor.

  Randall’s former room was located at the end of a long, carpeted hallway at the rear of the penthouse. The intended maid’s quarters for the apartment, it was the only room on the second floor. In the two years since he had first visited Michael’s apartment, the man had never ordered or invited him into his bed. Michael groomed him, dressed him, and fed him, but the man had never touched him in a manner that couldn’t be considered paternal. The bedroom’s single window looked out on Manhattan’s eastward landscape, and at any hour of the night the room was filled the city’s persistent, gray light. Randall stood at the window. The trilevel Christmas lighting atop the Empire State Building had gone out, followed by the red GE sign atop. Rockefeller Center. Now, he was waiting for the Chrysler Building’s white curves to go dark., Michael had decided not to bless the bedroom with a phone or a clock, so this had been Randall’s old method of marking the night’s progress when he couldn’t sleep.

  His grief for Eric remained tearless. Despite the fact he now held many of his own images of the man, the one he now recalled most vividly was the photograph of Eric and Michael that he had first laid eyes on a year ago. The pair stood on the front steps of 231 Slope Street, but the house was unidentifiable behind them. Randall was shocked by a slimmer, prettier Michael, but his attention had been instantly drawn to his companion. Randall was moved by the image of Eric’s large, generous eyes, betraying their discomfort with Michael’s arm clamped around his broad shoulders. As Michael’s penthouse began to grow more oppressive, Randall found himself creating an imaginary life for Eric Eberman, becoming more and more infatuated with the mysterious old friend Michael had refused to talk about. Finally, Randall had hatched a plan that he phrased in the coldest of details, but which was secretly loaded with the promise of escape. I’ll ruin Eric’s life, if you let me have mine, was what he meant but never said.

  Atherton hadn’t offered him the escape he craved, and that left Jesse Lowry to be his deliverer.

  In the less than three months he had spent at Atherton University, Jesse Lowry had made regular cash withdrawals from his credit card each week, none of, them in excess of what he convinced his father was needed to cover general expenses. The catch was that Jesse didn’t have any expenses. The meal plan fed him, and only rarely was he required to actually buy dinner for a potential sexual conquest. His only indulgence had been the navy pea coat he wore everywhere. For Randall, Atherton was a golden opportunity. For Jesse, it was little more than a train platform where he could switch cars and ride beyond the reach of his father. His father, who used to get high and visit Jesse’s bedroom when there weren’t any women in the house. Jesse planned to run away from school and make himself over, to become a Randall Stone, who did not bear the guilt of Benjamin Collins.

  On the night before Thanksgiving, after pressing himself inside of Randall and whispering Randall’s real name, Jesse had revealed his one weakness: Even though he had planned his escape for months, he was afraid to do it alone. And who better to guide him and show him how than Randall?

  Randall told him to go by himself. Randall might have earned the burden of yet another murder on his back, but he still had one shot at redemption. And despite all that Jesse had managed to figure out about him, he still had no idea who had financed Randall’s new identity and given him his college life. Jesse foolishly and arrogantly believed that by destroying Randall’s friendship with Kathryn, he had severed Randall’s only tie to Atherton.

  After returning from Eric’s house, Randall had found Jesse’s side of the room cleaned out, and on his desk a bittersweet parting gift
: the number to Jesse’s cell phone. A bullying assertion that Randall would eventually give in, or a last desperate plea? Randall had warmed himself by considering it the latter.

  At the top of the staircase, Randall paused. Darkness concealed the bottom half of the steps, the great room plated in shadows. He reached up and searched the wall, checking to see if the new chandelier had a dimmer switch. Instead, his fingers grazed the metal door of an electrical box. He popped it open and saw the rotary crank for the chandelier. The switch had to be downstairs.

  Beyond the soaring fireplace, the master bedroom was dark. But if Randall used the phone in the kitchen, Michael could sit up in bed at the smallest sound, peer through the fireplace, and spot him directly across the apartment. For a second, he pondered throwing on some clothes and hitting the streets in search of a pay phone. But calling the elevator would result in a soft chime followed by a sudden spill of light across the living room, which would stir Michael, who slept like a great cat.

  The studio. He descended the stairs carefully, trying not to rattle the staircase. Michael kept an answering machine hooked up to the phone there so that he could hear who was calling without stopping his work. It was also one of the only rooms in the apartment that had a door—big double doors that Randall had to wedge his fingers in between and open only several inches for fear of scraping them in their tracks.

  Once inside, Randall slowly slid them shut again. When he turned, he saw the towering metal armature in the center of the room and almost screamed. The giant stick figure sat on a rolling platform, almost six feet tall with a spine, two curled arms without hands, and thin, slightly spread legs. In winter, Michael rolled his just-finished pieces out onto the terrace where the frigid winds gradually solidified the wax. Randall realized why its shadow had seemed substantial and frightening. It was metal. Michael’s confidence must have improved with his technique. Randall had only seen him work with wax armatures, so he could reheat and remold a portion of the figure’s skeleton before he built the body up around the bones. Metal required a firm commitment from the start.