As the news would tell us an hour later, not surprisingly, that face belonged to me.
37
We eventually ended up in a motel in Evanston, not too far away from Lake Michigan. It was a small room with two narrow beds and a chair and a TV and a closet that squeezed in a shower and sink and toilet. When I went to take a piss I couldn’t help but remember Carver’s story and imagined Casey floating there.
Carver’s other team would meet up with us later; right now they were searching the city for new transportation. It was important, Carver explained, that they stay split up at all times in case something happened to either team.
When I came out of the bathroom Carver was sitting in the single chair in the corner using the cell phone to talk to the Kid. Bronson and David were both lying on a different bed, their eyes closed.
Carver said, “Well when you do, call me on my cell,” and disconnected the call. He took the battery out of the phone and tossed them on the bed by Bronson’s feet. He said to me, “I wanted the Kid to know the number, see if he can trace it.”
“You really think somebody set this up?”
“Yes,” he said. “Based on your wife’s job and your own job and your social standing in the community, it doesn’t make sense—if you all went missing, too many people would notice. Normally the people they use are ... well, trash. People with no real job, no real life, who could go missing and nobody would ever notice. The fact that your wife is a lawyer”—he shook his head—“something just doesn’t feel right.”
Silence fell between us. On one of the beds, David began to snore lightly.
I asked, “Why are you doing this?”
Carver was staring down at his hands in front of him, lost in his thoughts. He blinked and turned his head in my direction.
“I told you that quote before, the one by Edward Burke? About how all that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing? I’m just doing my part to keep the evil at bay as much as possible.”
“But ... how is it evil?”
A second later my question really hit me and I wanted to take it back, but by then Carver was speaking.
“Your bio said you’re addicted to pornography. Have been ever since you were in high school. Do you consider that evil?”
I looked away and then looked back. Didn’t really feel like saying anything.
“Okay, how about this—do you consider it good?”
Even though I couldn’t really see him, I just stared back.
“The world’s full of sick things, Ben. Pornography’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a gateway into the other stuff.”
“The other stuff.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to pry, but can I ask what you started looking at in the beginning? Was it just naked women? Almost tasteful?”
Again I said nothing.
“It gets deeper and deeper,” Carver said, “believe me. I’ve worked scouring the Internet for a long time. People get sucked in and eventually get bored. They want to try something new. So they go from softcore to hardcore. Then do you know what’s after hardcore?”
I just stood there. Again had no will to answer him.
“There’s an underground to the Internet,” Carver said, sinking down even further into his chair. “Then below that underground is another underground. A place where the people who can afford it can see whatever the hell they please. Sometimes, if they have enough money, they can even direct what happens. That’s what this entire thing’s about. These powerful people who try to get off on whatever they can. They have the money and so bad things happen and people die. It’s that simple.”
There was another beat of silence.
Carver said, “Remember a while back when President Bush put a task force together against pornography? Most of the nation was like, What, are you giving up on terrorists all of a sudden? They were too hung-up on that question—not to mention their own privacy—to catch the economical purpose in what was happening.”
“Economical.”
“That’s right,” Carver said, nodding, but when he noticed my expression he decided to switch gears. “Ben, do you realize that pornography is nearly a one hundred billion dollar enterprise worldwide? All politicians are puppets, and Bush was no exception. The world is run by those who have the most money, hence the most power. When the U.S. government said they wanted to crack down on Internet pornography, it was a case of simple economics: supply and demand. The fewer websites out there, the more the other websites can charge. Sure people will balk at first, telling themselves they don’t need it. But they do the same when gas prices go up. In the end they fold, because they need it. Just like you need it.”
“I don’t need it,” I said, but the words were hollow, fake even to my own ears. I stood there for a moment, my arms crossed, thinking. “So let me get this straight. This is like an organization or something. A kind of ... club?”
Carver shook his head. “Far from it. These are just people, Ben, people like you and me. It’s not some conspiracy. The way the world’s set up today, we’re content with the entertainment provided to us. The others who can afford it, who get off watching children raped and killed and all that shit, they create their own form. I will say, though, that they are getting bolder. The bombing at the retirement home yesterday isn’t their usual M.O. It raises too many questions, too many possibilities of exposure.”
There was silence again. Now David was snoring lightly too.
Carver said, “Sorry about those two. They’ve been up for the past twenty hours trying to get to you.”
“How long have you been up?”
“Much longer.”
“I don’t believe you about my family.” Even though I couldn’t really see his face without squinting I looked back at him evenly. “They’re still alive. I ... I can’t give up that hope.”
“So what do you want to do? You want to go back into the game? I’ve told you already there’s no outlet. The only way I survived—the only way David and Bronson and the rest survived—is they made their own way out. They walked away. Unless you do the same, you’re as good as dead.”
I shook my head, started to say something else (what, I realized a few moments later, was just more self-denial), when Carver’s cell phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket, put it to his ear, listened for about thirty seconds. Finally he said thanks and disconnected the call, slipped the phone back into his pocket.
“Shit,” he said, rising to his feet.
“What is it?”
“Remember how I told you these people work a certain way? According to the Kid, we’re royally fucked.” He said forcefully, “Bronson, David, wake up,” and hurried past me to the TV.
Both men stopped snoring and opened their eyes and asked what was wrong. By then Carver had the TV on and was scanning through the channels until he came to the channel the Kid had apparently told him to see, what appeared to be a newsbreak. On the screen the newscaster, a deeply tanned man, reported that just an hour ago a Chicago police officer was gunned down while on duty at Navy Pier. One witness even provided police with a picture taken with the use of his cell phone. On the screen a blurry picture of the perpetrator in question popped up—and the moment it flashed on my heart dropped.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. Both David and Bronson sat up in bed, cursing under their breath.
Carver was shaking his head. “This is just great. Now every police officer in Chicago is going to be looking for you.” He went back to his chair, sank down into it, and just continued shaking his head. “Someone must really be pulling strings to keep you in the game.”
I managed to look away from the TV and said to Carver, “What do we do now?”
“That,” he said, staring back at me, “is a very good question.”
38
A little while later Bronson and David went out and brought back Chinese food. We all ate in silence. Neither man hardly looked at me, and I wondered just what kind of game they’d be
en put through, and how far they’d listened to Simon before walking away. They were just ordinary people, seemingly picked at random because they wouldn’t have gone missing, and Carver intervened and helped them understand there was no outlet. He had them trained in firearms, in hand-to-hand combat, and constantly moved them around the country, supported on the extra money the Kid earned legitimately.
When we were done eating, Carver checked in with his other team and found they were still searching for transportation. It wasn’t easy, especially in a major city, Carver said, trying to secure a quick vehicle without stealing it. Then he asked Bronson to set up the laptop.
Bronson pulled a MacBook out of his bag, powered it up, and inserted a wireless card. He typed in some commands, said, “I’m downloading them now,” and turned the laptop around so the screen faced us.
Carver motioned me toward the laptop. “I asked the Kid to email everything he’d saved so far regarding the Man of Wax. It should be ready soon.”
The download only took a few minutes, but it seemed to take an hour. The little Chinese food I’d had—pork fried rice and an egg roll—hadn’t settled well in my stomach and I felt like I might vomit at any moment.
“Finally,” Carver said when the download was finished, “here we go.”
I had to squint to see anything. The majority of the screen was black, except for the small box inside. And in that box was a bare motel room. The position of the camera was in one of the corners, looking down at someone lying on a bed. That someone was me.
Carver said, “It starts with you just sleeping for about an hour.” He clicked the trackpad and the screen cut to me slowly sitting up, reaching for the ringing phone. “Once you put the glasses on the option comes to see that view too.” He glanced at me. “Was that really blood on the bathroom door?”
“I ... I don’t know anymore.” I squinted down and watched myself as I tentatively answered the phone. I could almost hear Kevin’s exasperated voice telling me this was my nine o’clock wake-up call.
Carver clicked the trackpad again and at once the screen changed, this time from my perspective—which felt completely vertiginous because it was just like déjà vu. At the moment I was strolling across the Paradise Motel’s parking lot, glancing at the three vehicles parked there. Soon I would be entering the office where Kevin would be waiting to explain to me that this was California, that yes I had checked in last night, did I wish to see my credit card receipt?
I stared at the screen, completely entranced. “How ... how did they get me there in the first place? I still don’t understand that part.”
“Most likely broke into your house in the middle of the night and used chloroform to knock you and your family out. Our theory is that they then give you a sedative to make sure you won’t wake up. Like I told you, these people somehow have an unlimited supply of resources. They can pretty much do whatever they want. Don’t you remember what was just on the news?”
Sunday, the very last day I was together with my family, felt like forever ago. Sitting at home, watching football. Debating with Jen whether she should cook or just order a pizza. Casey drawing one of her pictures and bringing it to me, so proud of her work, and me smiling at her and telling her, “That’s a hat,” and her giggling, saying “Da-dee.” Except the worst part was, I realized standing in that motel room in Chicago, with Carver hunched over the laptop and Bronson and David standing behind me watching, I couldn’t even remember what it was she’d drawn.
I said, “I don’t want to watch anymore.” On the screen I’d parted ways with Kevin and went back to my room, was now approaching the bathroom door. “Just turn it off.”
Carver clicked the trackpad once more. For a moment the screen was still there, and I was approaching the bathroom door, telling myself this was just some kind of dream and there was nothing on the other side. Then it went blank and it was the present again, yet somehow nothing had changed.
39
I woke in the middle of the night to a cold sweat. The room was silent except for David’s and Bronson’s snoring. They’d let me take one of the beds, Bronson taking the other bed, David asleep in the chair. Carver had said he would sleep on the floor, but when I squinted around the dark room I couldn’t see him. Then I noticed that the door was open just a bit and got slowly out of bed.
We were on the second floor of the motel, and Carver was standing outside against the paint-flaked railing, looking down at the parking lot as he smoked. He heard me and turned slightly, saw it was me, turned back. Took his pack of Winston’s out of his pocket and offered me one.
Neither of us spoke for the longest time. The only noise was the sporadic traffic on the street, the sound of the wind as it rustled the trees by the motel. A few scraps of trash and leaves skittered across the parking lot. The sky was filled with stars. A distant plane was making its approach to O’Hare. It was a sad realization: my life was fucked and still things ran as scheduled.
Finally Carver said, “Couldn’t sleep?”
I finished the cigarette, flicked it over the edge and shook my head. “I had a nightmare.”
Carver said nothing, didn’t even nod. He just gripped the railing and leaned forward, stared down at the ground a floor below us.
I don’t know why, but I told Carver about my dream. He’d asked why I was listed as the Man of Wax and maybe I figured this was the best way to explain it. But even though I told myself that, I knew it was a lie. I was simply doing the same thing I did every time I had the nightmare. I told Jen because just as I helped her out of her nightmares, she helped me out of mine. She held me and told me it was all right, that there was nothing I could have done about it, and I believed her. Of course I didn’t expect Carver to comfort me in the same way, but I’d just had the nightmare again, the same nightmare twice in a week’s time.
Carver listened without a word. He lit another cigarette, offered me a second. I shook my head, though I did want it.
“You think it’s your fault, don’t you.”
I said, “No,” shaking my head. Paused and said, “Yes.” Then said, “I don’t know.”
“I think you do know. It’s what made you drop out of school, right?”
I hesitated, glancing at Carver from the corner of my eye. “Actually, I was failing school. I mean, my grades weren’t that bad, but I knew if I continued I’d never become a lawyer, no matter how hard I tried.”
“Why did you want to become a lawyer in the first place?”
“To be honest,” I said, “I have no idea. It’s just ... all my life I’d been poor. Every month growing up I saw how my parents agonized over paying the bills on time. More than once our electricity had been turned off. Around Christmas both my parents got part-time jobs at the mall, and even that money went to help pay the bills. And I ... I didn’t want that for my life. I didn’t want to be a failure like my parents.”
I took a deep breath.
“But you know something? It wasn’t until I met my wife that I understood my parents weren’t failures. That while you can fail in work, in school, life is something that doesn’t take money. Neither does love. And my parents ... they loved each other. It sounds trite, but even if they were the poorest people in the world, as long as they had each other they would have been okay. They would have been happy. And I didn’t understand that until I met Jen. Until we had Casey. That with them I finally had purpose.”
I shook my head.
“But that night, with that girl ... that’s when I really felt like a failure. That’s when I felt like none of it mattered. Like I’d failed life. I wanted to do something. I tried shouting and couldn’t, but even that would have been enough. Even if I didn’t actually try to help her, at least I could have said something. That ... that might have made a difference.”
“It wouldn’t have,” Carver said, tilting his head slightly to look at me, “and you know it.”
I thought about it for a second. “Maybe. But I ... I just keep telling myself things would
be different had I done something. Maybe I would have stayed in college, become a lawyer like I wanted. Or ... I don’t know. But I wanted to do something, I wanted to help. Even in my nightmare I want to help. I keep telling myself if I move, if I take just one step forward, everything will change. Everything will ... it will be better.”
I didn’t want to get into the fact that, had I never dropped out of college, I probably never would have taken Clive up on his offer and gone out to Chicago, and I never would have met Jen—all factors leading up to the fact that Casey never would have been born. And while this crossed my mind many times before—my mind’s way of finding good in my not acting when I had the chance, to letting that poor girl be beaten into a coma—I had begun to believe it wouldn’t have mattered. Like Jen said, she was my other half, I was hers, and eventually we would have found each other. What good was it having another half out there in the world and never getting the chance to bump into them, to never becoming complete? The world wasn’t that unfair. It couldn’t be.
Carver had smoked his Winston down to the filter and now flicked it over the edge. He gripped the railing, leaned forward, leaned back.
He said, “If I’ve learned one thing over the past three years, it’s this: the world was evil at the beginning, and it’ll be evil at the end. It’s up to us to make sure we don’t get sucked into all that evilness in the meantime.”
I looked at him. The light was bad and because I had to squint I could hardly see his face. “What do you mean?”
He looked at me, stared for a long moment, and shook his head.
“If you haven’t figured that out by now, Ben, then maybe I can’t help you after all.”
Man of Wax (Man of Wax Trilogy) Page 15
