Man of Wax (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  He smiled and motioned to the chair beside his bed.

  “Caesar was here, you know. He heard I was sick and he came here, sat right down in this chair. He leaned forward and took my hand and he asked me what he could do for me. I’ve been a loyal member of the Inner Circle for the last twenty years, and Caesar appreciated that. And to show his thanks, he asked what he could do for me, and ... well, Ben, what do you think I asked him to do?”

  There were so many things I wanted to say right at that moment. So many questions. So many actions that whipped through my mind, like me pulling out the gun and shooting him in the face, or rushing forward and choking him. But all that I heard myself say was one simple word.

  “Why?”

  A smile spread again across his withered face. He started chuckling but it turned into another coughing spasm.

  “You still don’t get it, do you? You don’t get to ask me why. You never get to ask me why.”

  Behind me, Carver had begun murmuring something. I glanced back and saw him holding a finger to his ear. He said a few more words and then pointed the gun at Olivia.

  “Is there anybody else here?”

  Her lips pursed, she shook her head.

  “We’re going to check anyway.”

  He stepped into the room and motioned her over with the gun. She didn’t move at first but instead glanced at her boss, who closed his eyes and nodded. With this approval she started toward the door.

  Carver said to me, “Ronny’s coming in for backup. We’ll be around.”

  Howard Abele chucked again. “Do you really think you have a chance against them? Against all of us? You cannot even begin to imagine how powerful we are.”

  Carver ignored him, stared directly back at me. “Do whatever the hell it is you need to do with this asshole. Then get out.”

  Olivia Kemp had already entered the hallway, was standing there waiting. Howard started chuckling again, this time saying, “You think he can do anything? This is a man of wax here, didn’t you know? He’s worthless.”

  Without a word or even glance the old man’s way, Carver left. When he closed the door behind him, he did it so quietly the door didn’t even make a sound.

  After a long moment of staring at that door, my hands clenching in and out of fists, I turned back around to face my father-in-law.

  50

  Howard Abele had stopped chuckling, was now only smiling at me. With his left hand he waved to the chair beside his bed, the chair Caesar had supposedly taken when he last visited. The action was stunted and appeared to cause him much trouble, and he noticed me noticing.

  “Yes, I’ve become quite weak. Can hardly even stand, let alone walk. It’s this damned cancer. Doctors thought it would take me years ago. But I’m still here. Now please, have a seat. We have never had a real man-to-man talk, you and I.”

  I walked over and pulled the chair away from the bed, at a good distance where I thought I could sit and not be forced to smell the cancer reeking off his body. Also, I was afraid that if I got too close I might just continue with my initial thought and strangle him to death. But I couldn’t do that, at least not yet. First I needed answers.

  Before I sat down I pulled the gun from my pocket. It was warm and heavy. I stared at it for a moment before Howard Abele chuckled again.

  “Are you going to shoot me? Are you going to kill me? I don’t believe you will. You’re not strong enough.”

  “Is that what killing is then—strength?”

  The machines continued beeping by the bed, at least three or four of them, all different beeps from different machines but spaced out just right so that it was a constant rhythm.

  Howard Abele didn’t answer. He just sat there, a crooked smile on his face.

  “Why did you do this? You set this entire thing up. Why?”

  “I still don’t understand what makes you think I should answer you. The two of us live in different worlds, Ben. Two worlds that are so different they are galaxies apart.”

  “Your daughter and your granddaughter. You did this to them too.”

  His crooked smile turned to a scowl. “That’s where you have it wrong. Jennifer Abele used to be my daughter. She isn’t family anymore. Neither is the child you both named Casey.”

  Hearing him speak my daughter’s name made me want to raise the gun right there and then. But I kept myself in check. I did my best to remain calm, to remain patient, and just shook my head.

  “So they’re nothing to you, just like that? Because she went against your wishes and married me?”

  Howard Abele said, “Do you know what I am? I am the paterfamilias. I am the father of the family. I have absolute right over my household and children. If I wanted, I would have every right to kill my children, even my wife. And Jennifer Abele—well, she was just like Julia. I actually said this to Caesar and he agreed with me.”

  Hearing him use Jen’s name in the past tense was almost too much to bear. I kept staring back at him, squeezing the gun in my hands.

  “Who is Julia?”

  “Julia was Emperor Augustus’s daughter. She was ... disobedient. In the end she infuriated her father so much he denounced her in public and banished her for the rest of her life. You see, to run a proper empire you cannot bend the rules. Everyone must do their part, and if they do not ...”

  He shook his head slowly, seemed to shrug.

  “Jen married me because she wanted to,” I said. “She didn’t have to listen to you. She was an adult.”

  I caught myself using Jen’s name in the past tense and went to take it back, but Howard Abele was already shaking his head.

  “You still don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if she was an adult. She was still my daughter, which meant I had complete control. And marriage? By the time Jennifer was eleven I had already made an arrangement with a business partner of mine, also a member of the Inner Circle. She was to marry his son Jeremy. Getting them together was no easy task, but once they were finally together ... it didn’t take long for Jennifer to see they were meant to be. And so what if he was cheating on her. I cheated on my own wife countless times. Half the times she knew about it, half the times she didn’t, but it never mattered, and eventually Claire came to understand. She understood the nature of the beast, so to speak. She understood her place in our marriage, how she was never to question or disobey me. She even argued about the arranged marriage and I ended up beating her for it. But then ... then she broke the final straw by giving you permission to marry my daughter.”

  “How does that—” I started to say but stopped. In the silence there was the beeping of the machines, the sound of the wind, the slight rasping coming from within Howard Abele’s lungs. “You killed her, didn’t you? You ... killed your wife.”

  “Like I told you, I could do whatever I wanted. Besides, she was no good to me anymore. She failed to understand the system. I gave her more chances than she deserved, and she forfeited every one.” The old man coughed his raspy cough and said, “None of this sounds familiar to you, does it? Weren’t you ever paying attention in any of your World History classes? The greatest civilization ever to rule this planet was the Roman Empire.”

  A faint echo of something Simon had said to me rose in my mind, but I ignored it and asked, “Why are you telling me this shit?”

  “To be honest,” Howard Abele said, “it’s not for your benefit. It’s for theirs.” And with his weak hand he pointed at my face—only I knew it was the glasses he was pointing at, the camera in the middle. “Not everyone who watches is a member of the Inner Circle. So they must be reminded of the true reason behind all of this. Because these games are only a small part of what’s going on. They’re merely ... entertainment. But these other people, the ones who like to watch for the fun of it, they must understand soon this world is going to change, that it needs to change, and if they wish to survive, they must give full allegiance to Caesar.”

  I was slowly shaking my head. “You are fucking insane. You know what you soun
d like? You sound like some extreme Islamic fundamentalist spouting off what will happen if we don’t all bow down before Allah.”

  The old man stared back at me, his expression grave. “Terrorists?” he said. “You equate us to terrorists? We are nothing like them. Those people, their goal is to destroy the world. We ... we are trying to rebuild it.”

  “Why did you have cameras placed in our house?”

  The old man sighed. “The cancer hit me right away. I wasn’t strong enough to go to work anymore. I was forced to start working out of the house. But then I began letting my business managers run the show. I was still making money so I didn’t care. But I was bored.”

  “You were bored.”

  “That’s right. And I wanted to see what my ‘Julia’ was up to. It was fun to watch. It was especially fun watching you. I always liked watching you. Whether it was sitting on the couch watching TV or jerking off to the Internet, you were always entertaining. Almost more entertaining than the games.”

  “So you’ve watched the games before.”

  “Of course.” A pause, followed by another rasping cough. “Like I said, I’ve been a member of the Inner Circle for years. Back then it was different though. Back then they just locked the players in a room and brought them children or animals every once in a while, forced them to copulate. Other stuff too, which I’m sure you can imagine.”

  I shook my head.

  The smile crooked appeared again, and Howard Abele asked, “What are you thinking right now?”

  “That all that is ... disgusting. That you’re disgusting.”

  “Am I? First I’m insane, now I’m disgusting. But let me ask you this. Is what you’ve been doing all your life not disgusting? Looking at naked women having sex with each other, putting their fingers and tongues in their cunts and assholes. That’s all right then?”

  “It’s”—I cleared my throat—“not the same.”

  “Not the same?” He chuckled again. “You actually believe it’s not the same? That’s rich.”

  I said nothing. Forced myself to keep staring back at him but ended up shifting my eyes to the long window beyond the bed.

  “That’s what I thought,” Howard Abele said. “I had you checked out after the first time Jennifer brought you to meet me. I had a team of investigators bring me everything they could about you. It was bad enough that you came from a poor family, that you’d never done anything with your life and never would. But the incident your freshman year at college was what stuck out most. Not that you did nothing while that girl was being beaten, but that you confessed to the police later you wanted to help. It just proved to me that you were weak. That you would never even begin to understand the new system of the world, the vision Caesar has been working on for decades now. And that girl? That girl no doubt deserved it. Had you just watched for the simple pleasure of watching, I might have actually come to like you. But you said you wanted to help her. And even though you said that, you still did nothing.”

  I was still staring at that window, at the darkness beyond. “Are they dead?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  “To be honest, I don’t know, and I don’t care. This game has nothing to do with them. It’s all about you.”

  At that moment, somewhere in the house, a sudden salvo erupted: four solid cracks of gunfire followed by a second or two of silence, then a continuous series of crack! crack! crack!

  I was up immediately, the gun gripped now by two hands, and started around Howard Abele’s bed. The gunfire continued and I glanced down at the gun in my hands.

  Shit, I thought.

  Howard Abele began chuckling. “Looks like you have trouble. Does that mean you’re going to stand by like a statue and watch?”

  Standing now facing the door, my back to the window, I said loudly over the gunfire, “What did you mean it’s all about me?”

  The smile appeared again. The old man actually looked genuinely happy that I’d asked, despite what was now happening inside his mansion.

  He again raised a hand—his left this time—and motioned for me to come closer. Keeping my eyes on the door, gripping the gun tightly, I took first one step, then another, and leaned down. When he spoke his voice was a harsh whisper that seemed to put the gunfire in as much importance as the machines beeping around him.

  “When you know you don’t have much longer to live—when the doctors have even given you a set amount of time—you start to question everything you’ve ever done. People like to say they want to know if they’ve made a difference but that’s bullshit. People don’t care, at least not deep down. They only care about what they missed out on. What the one thing was that could have really made them happy. They want to fulfill whatever desires they hide in the deepest and darkest part of their hearts. So I started thinking, trying to decide what would make me the happiest, and I came to you.”

  He started coughing then, harder than ever before. The gunfire continued, more sporadic now: a few cracks here, a few cracks there. None of it sounded like it was coming toward us though, so I knew we still had time.

  “Me,” I said. “Why me?”

  “Because I liked watching you. You were always self-conscious about yourself, even when you were alone. Even when you were jerking off at the computer. Those were the best moments, by the way, right when you came and you made that sigh. God, it was perfect. That was when you became the most real. When you became the most human. And I wondered to myself, how would you do if you played the game?”

  The gunfire continued but it had somehow become background, just like the machines beeping and the wind screeching against the window behind me.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. I kept my gaze centered on the door. The gun felt very heavy now in my hands. “There has to be more to it. You didn’t spend all that money just to put me through this hell.”

  “But I did spend all that money. I spent nearly my entire life’s savings so they could do it my way. It’s entertainment. That’s all it ever is. It’s what keeps the world spinning. You were the only one I could think of, the only one that I enjoyed watching the most. I told them I didn’t care what you did, that I had no real request. Well, except for what happened at Hickory View. Phillip Fagerstrom used be a classmate of mine. He was a closet faggot and I hated him. I found out he was still alive and wanted to see him die. I would have preferred you killed him yourself, but it worked out just as well. Come now, I’m sure you’ve learned something valuable from all of this.”

  Footsteps sounded out in the hallway, frantic, and I heard Carver shouting at me. Moments later the door burst open. He came in, guns in both hands, and started to say something. Then his eyes got wide and he aimed both guns at me.

  “Ben,” he shouted, “down!”

  He started firing before I even had a chance to hit the floor. The gunfire which had momentarily become background invaded my world again, each crack so loud they were deafening. It didn’t occur to me until a few moments later that it hadn’t been Carver who first opened fire. No, through the sudden melee of noise I realized that somebody else was firing too. I was crouched behind the bed, my hands over my head, and what felt like stones were raining down on me. Then the chilling kiss of wind began assaulting me and I quickly glanced back.

  The window had shattered. Out in the darkness a man wearing all black was falling to his knees. An assault rifle dropped from his hands as he landed in the scattering of glass shards.

  Carver hurried forward, keeping his guns aimed. Now that the wind had found an entrance to the mansion it was pouring in, chasing away the touch of warmness and stench of decay.

  “What’s happening?” I heard myself say, over the howling of the wind and what I only realized a moment later was Howard Abele chuckling on his bed.

  “Company,” Carver said. He made sure the man was dead, then took his rifle and extra ammunition. He pocketed both of his guns and checked how many rounds were left in the rifle. “We need to split.
”

  “How many?”

  “No idea. We managed to take down six. Well, now seven.”

  Somewhere throughout the house, another salvo started up.

  Howard Abele continued chuckling. The sound somehow overrode the wind and gunfire. During the three times I’d met him I never once saw him smile, let alone laugh, and here it seemed as if he just couldn’t stop.

  I stared down at him. He was smiling back at me.

  I said, “I need a few more minutes.”

  “Fuck no.” The rifle now in his hands, Carver started toward the door. “We need to go now.”

  “Hold on,” I said, and leaned down very close to the bed. In Howard Abele’s ear I whispered, “I have learned something. Reality TV isn’t about the people starring in it. It’s about the viewers. It’s about what they see. Seeing is believing, right? What really happens doesn’t matter at all.”

  For the first time confusion passed over the old man’s face.

  He said, “I don’t ... understand.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  And stepping back, I pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger.

  51

  There were six chambers in the gun, all filled, and I used each and every one of them. The gun kicked in my hand with each shot. I may have scrunched up my face, may have screamed something unintelligible; I can’t remember exactly. All I know for certain is once I pulled the trigger a seventh time and heard the dry click I turned at once and headed for the door. Carver was waiting there, the rifle aimed down the hallway. Behind me, Howard Abele may have tried saying something but it was lost in the wind.

  “Is it clear?” I said to Carver. He nodded and I stepped out, shutting the door behind me. I tossed the gun on the floor. Somewhere down the hall there were a few more rounds of gunfire.

  Carver pulled one of his guns from his pocket. He handed it to me. “Now do you think you can handle the real thing?”