Never Speak: A Mystery Thriller (The Murderous Arts Series)

by John Manchester

  “You will.”

  Ray laughed. “Not today.”

  Bodine glanced over at him. “That’s what you came to talk to me about?”

  Ray hadn’t fooled his friend. But did Bodine sound wary? He rarely betrayed feelings, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have fine instincts. Okay. “You’ve never talked much about the group.”

  “Neither did you, until recently.”

  “But you don’t believe in the taboo about speaking.”

  “I do not. It’s just dirty water under the bridge. Why wallow in it?”

  “Well, I’m a little curious.”

  “A little? You’re slipping.”

  Ray said, “I can see why most of us went with Karl. Zealous Susan, poor Bassman, and weird Fred. But why you?”

  “Ah. Now there’s a question.”

  Mingus had been sniffing every lamppost and building corner, marking off every third, Bodine tugging at the leash to try to keep him on track. “This is why I never walk the damned dog.”

  “He isn’t used to it. You need to get him out more.”

  “No, he’s just a dog. That’s what they do.” They kept walking. “Why me? Karl was a powerful guy, on stage and off. Which, I’ll admit, drew me.”

  “But that was in the beginning. What about later?”

  “Right.” He was silent for a moment, “You know how Karl was always going on about how it’s too hard, you can’t do it, nobody has a prayer in a million years of getting there?”

  “How could I forget. And what exactly was it?”

  “You know, spiritual awakening, enlightenment. I was a young guy. Tell me something was too hard, and that’s precisely what I was hell-bent on doing. The impossible thing.” He shook his head and made a rude sound. Self-deprecation? That wasn’t like him.

  They were a block from Promenade Park. Ray never saw tourists down here, maybe because of the housing projects nearby. Today, there was no one. “Why did you leave the group? Was it all the money you gave Karl?”

  “Where’d you hear about that? Oh. Lorraine. Of course.”

  Ray nodded.

  “That was a blessing.”

  “Really?”

  “Indeed. I’ll get to that. Why did I leave?” He addressed the dog. “Now here’s a tale to curl your whiskers.” Mingus ignored him. “And we’re headed to the right place to tell it.”

  Ray raised his eyebrows, but Bodine was silent.

  They came up a short flight of steps into the park and stood against the railing with the cliff below. The trees across the river were dusted with the light green of fresh leaves. Ray pointed, and Bodine and Mingus looked. Ray said, “Spring’s coming along nicely.”

  Bodine said, “When I left the group it was early summer.”

  “A little more than a year before me.”

  “One beautiful day, seventy, not a cloud in the sky. Karl led several of us men up a hidden back stairway in The House, all the way to the roof.”

  “The roof? I had no idea you could get up there.” What had Bodine said yesterday after the dead cat? That he hadn’t been upstairs…much.

  “Neither did I. The stairs came out on a flat spot between the chimneys. Karl sat us down in a circle. He said, ‘Perhaps one of you is ready to join us.’ In the inner circle. The implication being that it was highly unlikely.”

  Even now, to his shame, Ray felt the envy burn, that he had never been invited up to that roof. Mingus sat still, staring intently at Bodine.

  “I knew this was some kind of test. Karl said, ‘You need to be willing to die for me.’”

  “I remember him saying that too.”

  “Yeah. I figured, the guy’s being his usual dramatic self. I suppose I wasn’t alone in my skepticism, because he gave each of us in turn that you’re-gonna-burn-in-the-pit-of-hell stare. You remember.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “He said, ‘I’m not playing with words here. I mean, literally die for me.’ Karl again stared at each of us, this time for whole seconds. I could feel the others shrink back. I was last. When he reached me, it was hard to hold his gaze—there was a fire in him. He glanced around the circle once more then returned to me and nodded once.

  “I said, ‘What do you want?’ The kind of question which usually would have had him giving you both guns, but he let it pass. He pointed with his index finger, which had that monster ring on it. I looked at where he was pointing. The edge of the roof. The finger moved, tracing a foot-wide ledge that ran around the perimeter above the cornice with those fucked-up gargoyles.

  “He said, ‘Walk that.’ I gave him a look—What, now? ‘Not next week.’

  “I crawled down the ridge of the roof, stood carefully, and stepped onto the ledge.” Now Bodine peered over the railing at the drop to the railroad tracks. “I was a little higher than we are now. I walked, one foot before the other, and finally reached the corner. Karl said, ‘Now turn and continue. Go the whole way around.’ I made it all the way around.”

  “Jeez.” Ray shuddered. As Bodine spoke, Ray was inching back from the rail.

  “By the time I was done, my legs were shaking. I wasn’t afraid—it was just the tension of keeping on track. At that point, I did expect a little bit of positive feedback. But Karl just looked at me. He said, ‘This time with your eyes closed.’

  “I knew Karl well enough by then to know the game—I was going to close my eyes, take a step, and he’d say, ‘Stop.’ And I’d climb back up, and it would be over.

  “Except with the way he’d been getting lately, I wasn’t sure. What if he’d just let me keep walking until I hit the corner? By now my legs were visibly trembling. And it was fear.

  “I said, ‘No. I won’t do it.’ I climbed up the ridge from the edge, all the time with him looking at me with this triumphant grin. He said, ‘You’re not ready.’ I swear, I almost picked him up and threw him off the roof. Instead, I headed downstairs, got in my car and drove away. And never came back.”

  Bodine stepped from the railing and sat on a bench. Ray sat next to him.

  “I remember, you didn’t say goodbye. Just one day you were gone.”

  “That day.”

  “Why’d you go on that ledge? You never bought into Karl’s trip like some of us.”

  “No. It was that macho thing.” He snorted. “Ray, what are you getting me into? I can’t believe I just told you that. That I remembered it.”

  “Sorry. You know why he got you up on that roof?”

  Bodine shook his head.

  “You were another alpha male. A threat to his authority. It was push you into leaving or push you literally off that roof.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You mind if I write about that?”

  “It’s no skin off my ass.”

  Ray was one of the few people who knew that Bodine had come from old money. His father had disowned him when he dropped out of college and pursued rock and roll. The money explained Bodine’s generosity back then. How he was always buying the dope and getting food. How he had a running car when the rest of them had clunkers.

  “How could losing that money be a blessing? And hadn’t your father already cut you off by that time?”

  “There was a trust fund he couldn’t touch. No fortune, but nothing to sniff at either. That fund didn’t fully kick in until I hit a certain age. Which I reached the second year with Karl. The next day, I signed every penny over to him. And I was free. Free of the old man and his plans for me to take my place in the white old boy’s establishment.”

  “So Karl was in it for the money?”

  “I’ve never really thought about it. But no. He’d been a rock star. He had plenty then. It was something else.” He looked at Ray. “Why were you afraid of him? He never got you up on a roof.”

  “He was intimidating.”

 
“True. But that’s circular logic. ‘He was intimidating because I was afraid of him.’” Bodine snorted. “Hey, how about this? It’s right up your alley. Those spooky sculptures of yours with the bones.”

  Bodine pointed back up Warren Street. “All that horror shit you love. Karl was a fucking vampire.”

  Ray scoffed. “You don’t believe in vampires.”

  “He wasn’t drinking our blood. But he sure as shit was sucking our life energy. You remember how tired we got?”

  “Yeah. But we were working hard, not sleeping much.”

  “That’s no different than being on the road. But tell me, did that ever make you so exhausted?”

  Ray tried to recall. As he did, he slumped on the bench. He felt weak, almost faint. Those last months of the group, trying to get out of bed, feeling if he stood up too fast his heart would give out. Struggling to keep his eyes open as he drove to The House. And when he arrived, the only thing keeping him on his feet was the constant fear.

  “Damn. I’d forgotten. No question, I’d never been so beat in my life.”

  “What work did Karl ever do? Did you ever see him so much as lift a rake, let alone a heavy stone? All that browbeating, all those embarrassing questions, they were sucking the souls out of us. Feeding his.” Bodine made a noise of disgust. “I need to get home.”

  They stood and headed out of the park and back up Warren Street.

  Ray said, “Lorraine thinks he was a con man.”

  “That’s the same damned thing as a vampire. Only what Karl wanted was power.”

  “I hope this hasn’t bummed you.”

  Bodine waved his hand. “You’re the one writing the freaking book.”

  “Mingus is sniffing at all the same places he did on the way down and marking them all off again.”

  “My dog has the memory of a gnat.”

  “Or an elephant, depending on how you look at it.”

  Neither of them laughed, and Bodine seemed subdued. They continued in silence.

  When they got to Bodine’s, Ray said, “We should walk more often.”

  “Sure. But you won’t get a roof story next time.”

  Back home, Ray sat on the couch and wrote down Bodine’s ordeal. He could see it attracting a few of those eyeballs. He suppressed the urge to email it to Lou.

  That night he dreamed.

  He’s up on the roof of The House. Susan stands on the ledge, naked, her back to him, a blindfold tied behind her head. He wants to shout, “Don’t do it! Don’t turn the next corner!” But his lips are frozen.

  She turns and walks toward him. She bursts into flames, but keeps walking, smoldering skin flaking from her arms and drifting to the ground like fall leaves. Her nose caves in, the skull appearing, yet she still approaches.

  An enormous black cat slinks from behind one of the chimneys, flashes a set of Dracula incisors, races over to her, and pounces on her back.

  He woke from the dream to a gray morning. He made coffee and headed down to the gallery, flipped the sign to Open.

  He’d dreamed Bodine’s nightmare. He gazed at the rusted leaves twining up the spiral steps and thought of Lorraine and her grapevine. She must have more dirt. And now he had something to trade.

  He called her, told her Bodine’s story. He paced the gallery as he talked.

  She said, “I never heard that one. But did I tell you about the robberies?”

  “Huh?”

  “Karl made some of the guys go out and knock over gas stations, a hardware store. I was afraid at the time of getting busted myself. I think the statute of limitations covers it now.”

  “Why were you afraid?”

  “My job was to get rid of the stuff.”

  “Fence it?”

  “No, it was worthless. Karl would ask for, say, a single tire, specific make. Or a couple of balls of twine, a certain chisel. I buried it all out in the woods. It made me feel guilty as hell.”

  “Huh.”

  “I figured it was one of his tests. Karl trying to see just how far he could get people to go.”

  An old couple out on Warren Street approached the display window. They looked nice. They looked in the window. The woman looked at the man. They shook their heads and scurried away.

  Lorraine said, “Later he sent Beaky of all people to knock over a couple of pharmacies.”

  “No!”

  “Oh, yes. And this time, Karl wanted something of value.”

  “But didn’t Beaky have to get clean as a condition for joining?”

  “He did. That’s the thing—it might have been a test, but it was cruel.”

  “No kidding. Waving dope in front of an ex-addict. What was he getting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ray said, “Wait. Bodine told me Karl was a junkie back before the group. I didn’t believe him.”

  “A junkie? Huh. That really doesn’t fit my picture of Karl. Then again, that picture has evolved.”

  “Was Beaky using what he stole?”

  “I think we would have noticed.”

  “You’re right. He was very different straight. So who were the drugs for?”

  She said, “Well, he dosed us with that acid.”

  “Did he have people in the Backroom on Vicodin or whatever?”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Who knows? Do you mind if I use this for my book?”

  “Not a bit, as long as you keep my name out of it.”

  “Done.”

  “Thanks for all this.”

  “Least I can do for someone I’ve been to hell with.”

  “Hell and back.”

  “Thank God.”

  When he was home, Ray ate exactly at noon. He was sitting down with a salami sandwich when Bodine called. “I’ve got something on the blackmail idea.”

  “Right.”

  “I spent the morning digging into your ex-wife’s finances.”

  “And?”

  “Starting that summer before she died, her cash withdrawals grew from an average of a thousand a month to almost two.”

  “After that manila envelope arrived.”

  “I don’t know exactly when it came but could be.”

  “That’s some serious blackmail.” Ray bit into his sandwich and held the phone away so Bodine couldn’t hear.

  “Oh, there’s more. She had an IRA. Something she inherited, just in her name. I’m not sure old hubby even knew about it. Later that fall, she started withdrawing from that. She siphoned off about twenty grand. The last withdrawal was a week before she died.”

  “She must have really loved her family to protect them like that.”

  “And really been afraid of this guy. Ray, I can hear you chewing.”

  “Then don’t call me at noon.”

  Bodine hung up. Ray went to Jo’s for dessert.

  She came over. “I haven’t seen you in days.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Writing your book. You were doing it here.”

  “Yeah. Uh, I can’t deal with the distractions.”

  She looked over at a table with a couple of young women. “They need a check. And you need…”

  “Chocolate pie.”

  “One of those days, huh? Though you look good.”

  “Every day is a chocolate pie day, as long as it’s yours.”

  She brought the pie. As she headed into the kitchen, he inhaled it. He pondered a second piece.

  Jo returned a few minutes later. “I see you licked your plate. More?”

  “Mind-reader. But I’ll pass this time.”

  She sat, and her smile got strained.

  He said, “What?”

  “I spoke to Liz. She feels badly about how she’s handled things.”

  “She cal
led you?”

  “Yeah. Said she’s worried.”

  “So why doesn’t she call me?”

  “I don’t know. She’s just sniffing around.”

  “She won’t call me, but it’s okay for her to get you to talk to me and report back?”

  “I’m sorry, Ray. I don’t know what to do here.”

  “You’re fine. I’m not mad at you.”

  Ray headed across the street to home holding his collar up against a light rain. Liz was back with a cruel vengeance. Liz and her banker, banging away, not in a hotel king-sized bed but hers, at her apartment, the same one.

  He got inside, slammed the door, sat at his desk. He flashed on what he and Bodine had speculated about—Susan and a mysterious lover. Ray had never met the guy, and he might just be a figment of his imagination, but he still hated the slimy prick.

  He climbed up to his couch and the laptop.

  Denial is a powerful thing. And if you’re truly between a rock and a hard place, it can be the thing that keeps you alive, stops you from grinding yourself to a bloody pulp between two implacable things.

  The rock was the mounting evidence that my beloved teacher didn’t have my best interests at heart. That this group, far from offering salvation, was destroying my body, ruining my marriage. And killing my spirit—whose sustenance was my very reason for being there.

  The hard place was my fear of leaving. Despite everything, it only grew. I was like the gambler who’s holding a pair of threes and keeps tossing in chips until he has too much on the table to admit he might have a losing hand. It would take more than what I had to overcome that fear. Bodine was lucky. His life had come on the line up on that roof, and that had given him the strength to go.

  I wasn’t on the edge of any roof. Just feeling the walls pressing against me, squeezing and squeezing.

  I wasn’t shocked when Bodine left the group. If anything, I was surprised he’d stuck it out as long as he did. But then Ethan was gone. Why him? My eyes were wider, ears keener, looking for some reason. But aside from Karl’s increasing absence, everything was exactly the same. Unfortunately. I suppose in some dark corner of my mind, there was hope—that if others left, maybe someday I might too. But it wasn’t a conscious thing.