Anatomy of Fear

by Jonathan Santlofer

  He peers up at the sky and whispers, “Thank you.”

  36

  The hotel was better than expected, a modern ten-story businessman’s hotel, sleek and superclean. I checked into my room: double bed, ER-sterile bathroom, TV the size of a mini drive-in theater. I asked the bellhop where I could buy a toothbrush and get a bite to eat and he directed me to a CVS and a local café, where I had a glass of Shiraz and a decent dinner spoiled by a young couple at the next table who were practically making out. I was going to tell them to get a room, but thought it would make me sound bitter, and maybe I was.

  Back in the hotel, I watched the end of CSI, which did a good job of combining glamour and gore, but couldn’t concentrate. I was feeling antsy and frustrated, wondering why I’d come here when I should have been home chasing a phantom, which, according to the feds, I was no longer supposed to be doing.

  I stared out the window, snow coming down, flickering like glitter in a snow globe.

  The snowflakes turn to icicles, steam hissing as they hit the pavement. Somewhere salsa music is playing—the next room?—men and women laughing and dancing as the snow changes to water spurting from an open fire hydrant, spraying the night air with a million tiny diamonds. One of the dancers holds the sketch of my grandmother’s vision. It bursts into flames and burns. My eyes burn too, hot and tired. A woman dressed in white, candles all around her, whispers: Cuidado, cuidado.

  The killer’s sketches are suddenly around me, flapping like injured birds. I grab one and it springs to life. But it isn’t one of the victims. It’s a different body, though one I know.

  I turn and see a man with a gun aimed at the body. I try to stop him, but it’s too late.

  The gunshots startled me awake.

  I blinked, trying to gauge my whereabouts.

  I was in the Boston hotel, steam hissing; voices and music coming from the television. I pulled myself up, shut off the TV, stood in the dark watching flakes of white snow flutter past a black window and looking at my reflection, ghostly and unformed. It gave me a chill, it was so much like the man I’d been trying to draw, there and not there, features blurred or missing.

  37

  Dickie Marwell turned the simple act of entering the small Boston conference room into a three-act play: cape off with Zorro-like panache, Act I; gloves plucked daintily from each finger, Act II; trying out the two identical chairs, sagging into one, jiggling his bottom around in the other, Act III; a deep histrionic sigh as coda.

  He smiled, or tried to. Nothing moved, his face a Botoxed mask. There were pale surgical scars around his ears. Still, I took him to be close to eighty.

  “Can’t we do this in a cocktail lounge?” he asked.

  I was about to point out that it was not quite 10:00 A.M. when he launched into his résumé, starting with, “I used to make movies.”

  “Wait a minute, you’re that Dickie Marwell? I’ve seen all of your films on video and DVD—The House That Dripped Blood, Die, Die Dracula, and my all-time favorite, Killing the Undead.”

  I thought the skin on Marwell’s tight-as-a-drum face might split as he attempted to smile, though the simple act had been rendered close to impossible by the botulism injected into his facial muscles. “The one and only,” he said. “Retired. Beverly Hills paled and my hometown Beacon Hill beckoned.”

  I wanted to ask him everything about making cheapo horror films in the fifties, but I was getting paid to ask other, more important, questions, so I opened my drawing pad to get started.

  Marwell gripped my hand. “What have you done to your cuticles? Good-looking boy like you. My God, it’s a sin.”

  I tugged my hand free.

  “With your looks and name—Rodriguez—I can see it on a marquee faster than you can say ‘Qué pasa, baby.’ No offense, darling, but today it’s all Latin Latin Latin. Am I right, or am I right? I may no longer be in the film biz, but I keep up.” He framed my face. “If I were still making films I’d sign you up in a minute.”

  “Another horror film, huh?”

  Marwell’s hands continued to form rectangles around my mug. “I know a face when I see a face, and you have a face.”

  “Yeah, I always knew that. I see it like two or three times a day.”

  “But clearly not this morning. When was the last time you shaved? No matter. It’s a look, I know. And the camera will love you just the way you are. But promise me you will stop picking at your fingers.”

  I promised. “So, tell me about the perpetrator.”

  “The perpetrator. I love that.” He took a deep, dramatic breath. “Well, I had a party and showed a movie in my screening room, Brokeback Mountain, to make my old-fogy Boston amigos sit up and take notice, and—”

  “Can we cut to the robbery, Mr. Marwell?”

  “I’m the director, sweetie, I’ll say when we cut. And call me Dickie.”

  “Okay, Dickie. The robbery?”

  “Well, after my friends left I was exhausted from all of the party chitchat, you know how it is.”

  I did not.

  “Anyway, I went directly to sleep. Next thing I know, I’m awake, it’s the middle of the night, and oh my God, there’s a man in a black jumpsuit—awful, by the way, so seventies, and he was way too big for spandex—stealing my things! Here, in Beacon Hill, of all places. I mean, really, in Beverly Hills it’s to be expected, but—”

  “Mr. Marwell—”

  He raised a finger. “Dickie.”

  “Right. Dickie. The man? In spandex? Can you describe him?”

  “He had a big sack, like Santa, and he was putting my gold candlesticks in it—a gift from Vincent Price, by the way. I pretended to be asleep. I’m lucky to be alive!”

  “But you saw him?”

  “Indeed I did. A big man. Real rough trade. If I wasn’t so tired…” He laughed.

  I took a deep breath and went through my usual questions—race, shape of the face—and Marwell was good.

  I was doing fine for a while; Marwell had an excellent visual memory, but then something went wrong. When I looked down I was shocked.

  I hadn’t been listening to Marwell at all. That other face in my mind was all I could see—and draw.

  I didn’t want to show Marwell, but he turned it around. “Oh, my, what’s this? You need a Xanax, m’boy—or maybe just a good colonic?”

  I said I was sorry. I didn’t know what had happened.

  We took a coffee break and I asked Marwell a few questions about his life in Hollywood, which he was more than happy to answer. Afterward I tried again and did better. Marwell deemed my sketch brilliant and said if he ever made another movie he was going to call me.

  “You’ll be the new Andy Garcia,” he said. “Only taller.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said.

  I gave the sketch to Nevins, who barely looked up from her desk when she said, “Thanks. Make sure you leave your social security number with the desk so you can get paid and reimbursed for the train and hotel.”

  38

  Denton plucked a paper clip off the file and began to bend it.

  Had Rodriguez actually seen into his head?

  No, that was impossible. But who knew what sort of voodoo shit went through these people’s minds?

  Psychics. ESP. All bullshit.

  But what if it wasn’t bullshit?

  Denton skimmed through the files, father and the son, Juan and Nathan. The father had been a narc. Before his time. Had worked with his current chief of operations, Mickey Rauder.

  Could Rauder know anything?

  He had to know Vallie too. Were they still in contact? Had Vallie said something to Rauder?

  The paper clip snapped.

  No, he was getting carried away. If Vallie had so much as hinted at anything to straight-arrow Rauder he’d have heard about it by now. And so would everyone else. He had taken care of everything. There was nothing to worry about. He was just being paranoid.

  It was Rodriguez’s fault for looking into his head.

>   And Russo’s. For bringing him into the case.

  Oh, yes. I understand all about protecting your reputation.

  Russo’s words echoed in his mind, her thinly veiled threat. She wouldn’t dare say anything. It was her career on the line too.

  Russo. Rodriguez.

  Denton picked up another paper clip and started to twist it.

  Of course if Rodriguez fucked up, it was Russo’s fuck-up too. She’d go down, he’d see to that. One less cop around who could do him damage.

  Terri wasn’t sure why she was looking at the crime scene photos again. Maybe she wanted to feel as if she still owned them, these dead bodies she had come to think of as under her care even if they were now federal property, the bodies flown to Quantico for more slicing and dicing. And Rodriguez was right: What more could the bodies possibly reveal? If the G found anything she and her team had missed, she’d be surprised.

  Rodriguez.

  She had not expected anything like this to happen; she’d been down this road one too many times to be a wide-eyed romantic, and she didn’t need it. But hell, he’d apologized. Apologized. Now that was a first. Maybe she’d been right, that he was different. Not that she was looking for a relationship. Right now, all she was looking for was a solution to this case. Her case. No matter what the G said.

  Maybe she should be happy the G were taking over, let it be their headache, the way Denton thought, right?

  Denton.

  She pictured him, chest puffed out, needling Rodriguez. It would not have surprised her if he’d whipped his dick out. A contest he would have lost. The thought brought a smile to her lips, but it didn’t last. She couldn’t figure it out, what Rodriguez meant to her: Was he the talented cop who she’d thought could win her the case, or the guy she was falling for, or both?

  She cracked open a new jacket: a cabdriver murdered, something that might knock the Sketch Artist off the front page, the press always hungry for a fresh kill. She tried to read the report, but the words blurred.

  Was it too soon to check back with Perkowski and Tutsel, see if they had looked into that old murder book yet?

  Terri closed the file on the taxi driver and stood up. As she had told Rodriguez, she liked to have all the facts—and wouldn’t he?

  By the time I got back to the city it was dark.

  I knew there was nothing in my fridge but a six-pack and a block of cheddar past its prime, so I stopped at the Cupcake Café and bought a wedge of quiche and two cupcakes. Whoever said real men don’t eat quiche didn’t know it was okay if you washed it down with real beer and finished it off with real cupcakes.

  The daytime workers had cleared out of my building, the lobby empty.

  The elevator was a mess, small anthills of dust in the corners, scraps of crumpled paper on the floor. Likewise, my rusty apartment door covered with peeling alarm warnings that had been there since I’d moved in, all bogus.

  I balanced my drawing pad and art supplies along with the quiche and cupcakes in one hand and put the key in the lock. It got stuck and took ten minutes to get out. In the process I dropped the cupcakes. By the time I got inside I was in a really bad mood.

  My apartment looked worse than usual—walls dingy, wooden floors scuffed, my clothes draped over my Goodwill furniture. Maybe it was my overnight stay in a sterile hotel that made everything look worse.

  I asked myself: Is this the home of a man or a teenage slacker?

  I set the food down, plucked my clothes off the furniture and stuffed them into the laundry bag. My bed was unmade and Terri’s smell was still on the sheets. It made me miss her. I flipped open my cell to call, then closed it, went back to the kitchen, glanced across the room, and noticed my iPod was on the floor. I picked it up, saw the crack, and stared at it trying to will it back to life. I felt like a little kid whose favorite toy had been busted.

  One of my big anatomy books had fallen off the shelf and landed on the iPod docking station. But when I checked the shelf it looked secure, and no other books were out of place. It seemed odd.

  I glanced at the drawings on my work table and started sorting through them. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but something seemed wrong. I tugged my drawing pad out from under the table and opened it. I had a really weird feeling and needed to see if my drawings were all there. They were. I looked at the most recent one of the face I’d been trying to draw.

  That’s when I felt it, a presence accompanied by a chill so palpable I was afraid to turn around. But when I did, there was nothing.

  I made a beeline for the closet. My Smith & Wesson was still there, and for the first time in seven years I put in a new clip. I went around the apartment, checking closets, the bathroom, even under my bed, holding my breath, heart pounding. But nothing was out of place. So why did I feel as if someone had been here?

  Santerian gods were in my head, Akadere, who protected the home, Abaile, messenger in charge of moving things from one place to another. I went over to the window and gazed out at Thirty-ninth Street, the face I could not complete shimmering in my mind. The candle my abuela had given me for protection was sitting on the sill.

  There is a man in that room with you, Nato.

  I found a match and lit the candle.

  Dolores Rodriguez had slept fitfully, her mind replaying the vision, her nieto in a burning room with someone evil.

  She had already consulted her shells, and lit candles, made appeals to Santa Barbara, and bought quail eggs as an offering to the powerful Babalu-Aye. But the bad feeling, the algo malo, had persisted. It was the strongest feeling she had experienced since her son was killed.

  She knew her grandson was not a believer, but it made no difference. She spread a clean white cloth over the bóveda, filled seven glasses with water, added a crucifix and a string of rosary beads, glanced up at the photograph of her son, Juan, and asked that he keep a watchful eye over Nato. She believed this was the moment Juan’s ori had been waiting for, that it was being called upon to fulfill his destiny on earth; after that, he would stand before Olodumare and Orunla, and they would finally allow his soul to rest.

  39

  He has had no sleep, but is not tired. He has been here and home and back again, a new drawing tucked into his pocket. He has talked with God. An hour ago he saw the man come home, go into the building, turn on the lights. Now he sees the man in his window.

  Two factory workers, dark-skinned women, come out of the building. He lowers his cap, darts across the street, and gets a gloved hand on the door just before it shuts. The women are nattering away in Spanish and barely notice him. He thinks another time he might just as easily have killed them.

  Inside, the lobby is quiet. He heads to the back stairwell, removes the small piece of wood he wedged into it earlier, and opens the door.

  My abuela’s candle had burned down, leaving a trace of ginger scent in the air. In the last two hours I’d eaten the quiche, washed all the dishes that had piled up in the sink, swept the floor, scrubbed the bathroom sink and shower stall, but had been unable to wash away the bad feeling that someone had been in my apartment. I was overtired but too antsy to sleep. I turned on the television, watched a few minutes of a Seinfeld rerun, but couldn’t sit still. Plus, I was cold. The heat was off and there were ice crystals forming on my windows. I decided to call the super, a mean-spirited drunk who lived in the basement and was quick to turn down the heat the minute the businesses closed for the evening regardless of the temperature. We had argued about this for years, but being the sole resident in the building I always lost. But this was ridiculous; the radiators were stone-cold.

  I called his number but he didn’t answer. I pictured him crapped out in front of his Panasonic, warmed by the booze in his system. The guy was a Dominican and he seemed to hate me, maybe because I was Puerto Rican, and because, according to him, I was a bohemio and a hippi.

  I pulled on a sweater, left the TV on for company, and went over to my work table unsure of why I was going. I blew on my
hands to warm them, then sharpened a new Ebony pencil, and got to work.

  The whole time I was drawing it was as if someone were guiding my hand.

  I’d never really believed in anything that could not be explained, a cynic if you got right down to it, but lately things seemed to be taking on a spiritual significance that was unexplainable.

  When I saw what I’d done I was surprised. I hadn’t realized I’d been stuck in one spot. The detail in the eye gave the face a sense of reality that hadn’t been there before. One of my Quantico instructors always said you had to find the anatomy under the facial expression, and I thought I was starting to do that. There was something recognizable in the face, but I didn’t know what. Had I seen him before? In real life? In a dream?

  My abuela used to say that I was intuitivo, but the only time I ever felt intuitive was when I was doing a police sketch. Now it seemed to be true at unexpected moments, like seeing into Denton’s head, for one. I couldn’t quite believe it, but something had definitely happened in that moment.

  A man in flames.

  It seemed strangely connected to my grandmother’s vision.

  Could Chief Denton be the man in the room, the one my grandmother had warned me about? I glanced back at the eye I had just drawn. It didn’t look anything like Denton’s.

  I picked up my pencil, but whatever force had been guiding my hand was gone. I laid the pencil down and tuned into the ambient noise: television playing; car alarm going off somewhere not far away; and something that sounded like scraping, maybe rats in the walls, which I did not want to think about.

  I got up and tapped my hand against a heat pipe. It was still cold. I plugged in an old space heater, but it sparked and died.