Man of Wax (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  Maybe she was standing on the other side of the two-way mirror right now. I’d barely even acknowledged it since I was brought in here, made to sit down at the table. I hadn’t even stood up. I’d just been sitting in my chair, staring forward, hoping that Simon would take care of his end. Otherwise I didn’t know what I was going to do. Could I really try explaining my story to Detective Rotten Tooth? It was almost too unbelievable to believe myself, and I’d been playing the game for close to a week now.

  But it wouldn’t matter what I said, and I knew it. To all these people I was just a cop killer. In their minds I’d taken away one of their own, a man everyone seemed to have liked, even if they’d never met him before, and they wanted to make sure I got what was coming to me. They all wanted me dead, and I couldn’t say I blamed them.

  • • •

  AT WHAT MAY have been six days later—but was in reality only nine hours—Detective Rotten Tooth made his fourth visit. While he’d looked angry before, now he looked livid. So much so I could see the red in his face, could almost feel the heat radiating off him. He came and leaned down beside me, his shirtsleeves now rolled up, and stuck his mouth only an inch away from my ear.

  “Looks like you’re more than just a cop killer,” he whispered, his putrid breath warming my neck. “The FBI contacted us hours ago. Seems they suspect you were involved in that explosion down in Ryder. They say now it was a bombing. Is that right, you piece of shit? You get off killing old people too?”

  He leaned back and slammed his fist down on the tabletop. A few of the pictures jumped.

  “You want me to bring in pictures of them old people too?” he shouted. “You want me to bring in pictures of all of them?”

  I remained silent. I was waiting for him to hit me, to slap me across the face. He’d probably told those people behind the two-way mirror to take a walk, go get themselves coffee. Maybe he’d asked James Henley’s widow to stay behind. If they had a camera set up, he’d no doubt had it turned off. He could just say I’d fallen off my chair, broke my arms and nose that way. Nobody would ever call him on it, even if I did suddenly start talking and accused him.

  But Detective Rotten Tooth didn’t hit me. He just leaned over me a few seconds more, staring down at the pictures.

  “You’ve been looking at these? You see what you took away from those unborn twins? Now they’re going to grow up without their daddy around. He won’t be there to hear their first words. He won’t be there to rock them to sleep. He won’t be there to see their first steps. He won’t be there to pick them back up when they fall. I hope you can live with that, you sick fuck. I hope you can sleep at night with what you’ve done.”

  A part of me wanted to break down right there. It had nothing to do with what he was telling me, but from the simple fact I was tired. Tired of this entire game I’d been forced into, tired of everything these people had done to me and my family and everyone else. I wanted to tell him I had nothing to do with James Henley, that I had never killed and would never kill a person a day in my life.

  Except Simon, I thought. If it came down to it, I could probably bring myself to kill him.

  “When the FBI gets this all straightened out,” Detective Rotten Tooth whispered, his breath still warm on my neck, “you’ll be coming back here. I can’t wait to see you again. I can’t wait to show you more pictures. You’re going to get what’s coming to you, believe me. I’ll get you to talk.”

  He leaned back and slammed his fist down on the table again. This time more of the pictures jumped.

  “You understand that?” Detective Rotten Tooth said. “I’ll get you to talk. That’s a promise.”

  43

  There were two FBI agents, a man and a woman. They both wore suits and had long stolid faces. They looked at me, a supposed cop killer, just as they would have looked at a five-year-old child with a lollipop in her hand and ribbons in her hair. They gave nothing away with their eyes, with their faces, and when they took me into custody it was with professionalism and grace not many people have the patience to learn.

  My arms and legs were shackled. I was still wearing the clothes I’d put on that morning. I still had no glasses and couldn’t see much as I was led through the police station, got in an elevator with the two agents who hadn’t even said a single word to me yet. I watched the numbers glow as we descended. For some reason I expected us to stop on the first floor but we kept going down.

  Then the doors opened and we entered the basement garage, a cold and murky place that smelled of rubber and oil. I was loaded in the back of a black sedan. A few police officers waited by the cars, their arms crossed, watching us. Some had cigarettes in their mouths, making me crave one. They looked angry, pissed off, disgusted. I glanced at them briefly before the car started moving and then I stared down at my lap, my wrists bound in tight metal. This was the second time in less than twenty-four hours I’d been handcuffed. I’d never thought it could feel this humiliating.

  The agents in the front continued their silent treatment. The driver brought the car up out of the garage and into the city street. It was close to eleven o’clock and the streetlights were lit up.

  The sedan moved through the streets for another minute or two before it slowed and stopped and the back door opened and someone slid in beside me.

  “How’s it hanging, Ben?”

  The voice was familiar but the face was not. This was because half of the face was covered in bandages.

  “I’ve got to hand it to Carver,” the man said. “He’s building himself quite an army and it’s starting to really piss us off.”

  The eye not covered by the bandage glowered back at me.

  “As you can see,” the man said, “I managed to survive that little incident back on the highway. The other two with me were not so fortunate.”

  This man was my one escort from Reno. He had been the one who initially “saved” me from Carver and his people and cleaned me up and dropped me back at the Sundown Saloon. He was the one who had been waiting for me on the other side of the door at Juliet’s place when I tried to walk out. Shit, he had been the cop who had pulled up behind me on that highway after I’d thrown up because I thought my daughter’s remains were inside the trunk.

  The man said, “You can talk now, by the way. Really, Ben, you’ve fulfilled your task. Feel free to talk. Say whatever you want.”

  The sedan had started moving again, driving us through the city streets. I stared back at the man for a long time, then glanced at the two agents up front.

  “Are they really with the FBI?”

  “They are,” the man said. “Does that really surprise you by now?”

  It didn’t. And I didn’t know what scared me more at that moment—the fact that these were corrupt federal agents who had managed to get me out of police custody, or the fact that this was all being done for the sake of entertainment. And not just normal entertainment, where anybody’s free to enjoy the fun, but only a handful, maybe fifty, one hundred, two hundred viewers who had the money and the resources. Carver had said whoever was doing this was well connected and this just proved it. Because the Chicago Police Department would not have given up their only suspect in a murder involving one of their own, even if it was for questioning. They’d probably refused at first, had kicked and screamed, but when it became clear they had no choice there was nothing left to do. No wonder Detective Rotten Tooth was in such a state the last time he came in to see me.

  We left the city streets and got onto the expressway. I squinted at the signs as we passed them. As much as I didn’t want to speak—it was my only form of defiance—I finally found I could no longer help myself.

  “Where are we going?”

  The man beside me simply said, “You’ll see.”

  Twenty minutes later we stopped just outside of O’Hare, in what looked to be a deserted parking lot. The driver parked between two long rows of cars. The man in the back turned toward me, a thin key suddenly in his bandaged right hand, and
started undoing my shackles. Once the cuffs loosened I released a breath, began massaging my wrists.

  “Now what?”

  “Now you continue the game.” The thin key had disappeared and he was now holding another one. He motioned to a car parked just outside my door, a white Chevy Impala. “And no more fucking around, Ben. Got it?”

  “You don’t seriously expect me to drive without my glasses, do you? I can barely see anything as it is.”

  “Don’t worry. You will soon.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Neither the man nor the woman in the front had said anything this entire time. Now the woman cleared her throat. She was holding something that I couldn’t quite make out in the dark. When the man beside me grabbed it, the thing passed in the little light provided by the lamps posted around the parking lot and I recognized it immediately. It was the cell phone the police had been keeping, the only thing of mine I’d had on me when I was taken in.

  “This is yours too,” the man said. He turned the phone on, handed me it and the key. “Make sure not to lose this one. It’s always a pain in the ass shipping out new phones, and I can pretty much guarantee we won’t bother sending you a third.”

  I sat there in the back seat and stared down at the phone and key in my hands. The shackles lay coiled between my feet. The sedan’s engine continued to idle, the only sound in the car.

  Finally I said, “What do I do now?” It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask—though there were a thousand of them, so many I could hardly put them in order—but it sounded good once it was out of my mouth. I still couldn’t see very well, I had to constantly keep squinting, which probably suited the one-eyed man beside me just fine.

  “I can’t tell you, Ben. Remember what I told you before, I’m not your Simon. Wish I was, though. This has turned out to be one hell of a game. Caesar said it might go down as an all-time classic.”

  “Who ... who’s Caesar?”

  The man produced a thin smile. “Don’t worry about that. Now it’s time for you to get going. So scat, Ben. Get the fuck out of here.”

  I opened my door and started to get out but stopped when the man said my name again. He sounded irritated now, his voice not bringing across the grin that had been there seconds before. I turned, leaned down and poked my head in the sedan. He was glaring back at me.

  “We save your ass when it’s in a real fucking pickle and you don’t even have the decency to thank us?”

  “Thank you,” I said, barely even hearing myself, and shut the door. Stood back and waited until the sedan pulled away. I watched it for a couple long moments until it had disappeared from the parking lot—though I knew it wouldn’t go too far, that those three would continue on now as my escorts.

  Up in the sky was the sound of an approaching plane. I looked up, spotted it there among the stars, and watched it for a while. At that moment it was better than doing anything else.

  44

  The cell phone vibrated the moment I started the Impala.

  By then I’d already opened the driver’s and rear-side passenger doors to conceal me from whoever might be driving past as I took a long and satisfying piss. When I was done I got inside. On the passenger seat was a large sport’s bag containing underwear, jeans, T-shirts and a sweatshirt. Even a heavy jacket, much like the one I’d bought back in Wyoming, was stuffed inside the bag. I looked through it for only a few seconds before I realized just how cold it was in the car and turned it on to get the engine warming and the heat going.

  When Simon called, I didn’t answer right away. I kept thinking about Carver, about what he’d told me. The words NO OUTLET flashed through my mind again and again. Was it really true? Would this all lead to the same and inevitable conclusion? Were Jen and Casey already dead? Maybe it was true and all I had left was the chance to save myself. Simon and whoever else had ensured me some time away from the police. Why not just take full advantage and disappear?

  On its tenth vibration I punched the green button and said, “I want to talk to my family.”

  “What, no hello?”

  I was silent. I turned the knob for the heat to come on high but all that came from the vents was cold air.

  “Come on, Ben,” Simon said, “you’re not even going to thank me for bailing you out of that cramped interview room? It’s a hell of a place to be for ten hours, especially when every man and woman in that building is convinced you’re a cop killer.”

  “I already thanked my escort.”

  “That’s great. Now thank me.”

  I bit my lip, clenched my other hand into a fist. It was no big deal to say the words, but at the same time it was. Because even uttering them acknowledged the fact that I owed Simon something, that he had power over me. I’d said it to my one-eyed escort but that was because I was convinced that, had I refused, he would have killed me on the spot.

  “I’m waiting, Ben.”

  “Thank you,” I said, almost spat. I crunched up my face, wanted to smack the steering wheel.

  “You’re welcome. We always look after our own. I understand that business with Carver Ellison wasn’t something you had any control over. I’m sure he told you one hell of a story though, didn’t he?”

  Again I didn’t say anything. I’d spent close to ten hours in silence, and while that might have been no large feat, it sure as hell feels it while a cop is pressuring you to make the slightest sound.

  “Well?” Simon said. “Didn’t he?”

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. I was tired and hungry, and playing Simon’s game was just going to piss me off even more.

  “Yes,” I said. “It was one hell of a story.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That I’m being—”

  I paused. Opened my eyes, squinted to look around the car a little more closely now, just like I’d done driving out of Doyle. At the dash, the radio, the glove compartment, the dome light in the roof.

  “Where is it? Where’s the camera?”

  “Camera? You mean you think there’s just one?” Simon chuckled. “If you haven’t figured it out yet, Ben, there’s always a camera on you. Always. There was even one in the interview room. I’ll tell you, we got the most hits when you got in there. Word has certainly spread about the Man of Wax. Everyone wants to watch, and that’s not including those in the Inner Circle. Here’s a man that will very soon make national headlines, or at least your picture will, because that’s all the press has been given at the moment. Granted, it is a little blurry, but that doesn’t matter. They’re only working on speculation. Hell, they don’t even know your name. Nobody does. Did you know CNN is calling you the Anonymous Bomber? A little presumptuous, I’d say, but even Fox News and MSNBC are running with it. I only wonder what’s going to happen tomorrow when people from your hometown see that picture in the papers. Do you think they’ll recognize you? Do you think they’ll be surprised?”

  “If this is so big, how did I get out of the police station without any trouble? There weren’t any news vans or anything waiting outside.”

  “Of course not. Our agents requested someone they had locked in a holding cell to be shackled and have a coat placed over his head. They took him out the front. It was crazy. Reporters scrambling asking him questions. He was a good boy though, kept his head down and just continued on his way. Misdirection, Ben, that’s what it’s all about. The public falls for it every time.”

  “Every time,” I murmured. The air coming from the vents had warmed considerably, yet somehow I still felt cold.

  Simon said, “That’s right. Remember 9/11, what else happened that day? Of course you don’t. See: misdirection.”

  I opened my mouth, started to repeat the word—I got as far as mis—but then fell silent. I didn’t even want to start with Simon, because I knew he would never stop. He was more than just voluble when he needed to be; he was garrulous through and through, so much so that I sometimes wondered if he would ever shut up. If anything that was his weak
point, the one thing I could exploit.

  “Simon.”

  “Yes, Ben?”

  “Who’s Caesar?”

  There was a long pause on Simon’s end. “What are you talking about?”

  “Caesar,” I said. “You wanted to know what Carver told me. He told me something about Caesar. Who is he?”

  The pause on Simon’s end grew into a silence. I closed my eyes, took a breath. I was beginning to fear my bluff had backfired, that Simon had disconnected and was already approaching my wife and daughter with whatever tools he used to cut off body parts.

  Then Simon chuckled and said, “Nice try, Ben. You had me going for a second, but someone else just brought it to my attention what Jerry said to you a few minutes ago. Fucking idiot. He’ll be dealt with later, you can trust me on that.”

  Jerry, I thought, musing over that simple name. It reminded me that all these men and women had other identities, other lives. They probably had wives, husbands, girlfriends or boyfriends, children, a mortgage.

  “Anyway,” Simon said, “enough of that. Check the glove compartment.”

  I leaned forward, extending my hand ... but stopped.

  “Go ahead, Ben,” Simon near-whispered. “Look what’s inside.”

  I knew I had no choice, so I opened it.

  Another leather wallet, no doubt crammed with hundreds of dollars. A pair of the same glasses that had been in the bathroom of the Paradise Motel, the same glasses Carver had first tried to take away from me in Reno, and which he’d succeeded to take away from me here in Chicago. The frames were thick and cold and I put them on at once, relishing the simple fact that now I could actually see. I didn’t even bother for a second to worry that others who wished to do so were linking over to another page so they could see things from my point of view. All I worried about was now, with my eyes adjusted to make out the slightest detail, I could see what else was in the glove compartment.