“I’d still like to.”
“Thanks, Harry. Maybe one day.”
All this talking of squashed dreams was killing my high, and I could tell Beth wasn’t thrilled to be reliving it all, so I said to her, “Would you like to dance?”
“This isn’t exactly a disco. And I don’t table-dance in public.”
“Then let’s go find somewhere.” I stood and took her hand. “Come on, Beth. I promised you some fun, and we’re going to have it.”
CHAPTER 4
My nightmares were the stuff of nightmares—really bad ones. I don’t remember them all, but the one right before I woke had me without a face. I mean, I had a nose, and eyes, and ears—but they were all smoothed over, like I’d been plastered in paper machete. I couldn’t see, couldn’t smell. But I could hear. I was in a room with a woman. She had me tied to a chair and she kept snipping off parts of me: fingers, toes, nipples. She threatened my penis a few times, but thankfully I woke before that happened.
I didn’t jerk awake bathed in sweat. Didn’t cry out like they do in movies. I simply opened my eyes and thanked God I’d only been dreaming.
A moment later, however, the dream was forgotten, replaced by memories of the previous day. They hit me with the force of a sledgehammer to the chest, a kaleidoscope of images: the machine with the wires, the dead guy, seeing my reflection in the Burger King mirror for the first time, Dr. Singh, shopping at Kenneth Cole—Beth!
Now I did sit up in the king bed abruptly. The white cotton linens to my left were a tangled mess, intertwined with the faux fur runner. On one pillow lay a long strand of blonde hair. I lifted the pillow to my nose and inhaled the faint trace of her fragrance.
So it had been real. Thank God for that.
“Beth?” I said, wondering whether she was in the bathroom. The sound of my gruff voice jarred me. I had gotten used to it the day before, but now it was almost as unfamiliar as the first time I’d heard it.
Beth didn’t reply.
“Harry Parker,” I said, hoping for some epiphany to my identity, some recollection of my past, anything. Nevertheless, the name still meant nothing. My memory didn’t magically return overnight.
But at least it didn’t disappear again either.
I swung my legs off the bed and rubbed my eyes. Given how much I’d drank the night before, I felt surprisingly fresh. Physically at least. Mentally—well, shit, I was almost prepared to go straight to the minibar and start the day with a bottle of Scotch.
Beth. Where had she gone? Why hadn’t she woken me? Had she tried? Had I been too passed out?
I rubbed my eyes, remembering the sex. It had been pretty goddamn amazing, if I do say so myself. And it seemed Dr. Singh was right in regard to all that mumbo jumbo about different memories being stored in different parts of the brain. Because although Beth was the only woman I could recall ever having sex with, I definitely had not forgotten the tricks of the trade. I had her moaning, squirming, scratching, whispering all night long—or at least for a couple hours until she fell asleep in my arms.
After the Rose Club we’d taken a taxi to a disco Beth had recommended. She knew the bouncer, we skipped the queue, and danced for a good hour or so. The place was packed, the music loud, everyone sweaty, everyone grinding. Beth’s wall of caution came crumbling down, and when I invited her back to The Plaza around 1 a.m., she agreed without hesitation.
I looked around the empty suite.
So where the hell was she?
I stood, naked, and went to one of the windows. West Fifty-seventh was already filled with people marching about like ants in search of food.
I turned, stretching my arms above my head—and saw my wallet on the writing table.
“Aw, no,” I said, going to it. I opened the sleeve and practically swooned with relief. The money was all there. Had it been gone, I wouldn’t have cared I was out the cash. I would have cared that Beth had taken it.
Right now she was the only real thing in my life, and I needed her.
I went to the bathroom, to relieve my bladder, and found a note on the marble vanity. Black pen on the beige hotel stationary: “You looked too adorable to wake. Tonight—my place?” And below this, an Upper East Side address.
“You bet, Beth,” I said, and ran the shower.
***
I put on a fresh suit, studied my reflection in the mirror—I still had trouble believing the stranger staring back was me—then called the concierge to arrange a taxi.
“The hotel’s Rolls Royce Ghost is currently available, Mr. Parker, if you would prefer,” he said.
“Just a taxi, please.”
“It’s complimentary for our guests.”
“A taxi, thanks.”
“Of course. For what time?”
“I’ll be down in ten.”
“Certainly. A taxi will be waiting for you, Mr. Parker.”
I hung up. A Rolls? Yeah, that would be discrete for what I was about to do.
I finished fixing myself up, collected The New York Times left in front of my door, then rode the elevator cab to the lobby.
The concierge—his nametag read “Ron”—was a young man with a smile as fake as a fresh-faced politician’s. He led me to the taxi waiting out front by the curb, I palmed him a ten, and he said, “Anything else you need, Mr. Parker, just let me know. Are you a Knicks fan?”
“Nope.”
Ron nodded agreeably. “Well, just let me know. That’s what I’m here for.”
“How about sending a couple bottles of Chivas Regal to my room?”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“How about a past?”
He frowned. “Excuse me, sir?”
I slid into the backseat of the taxi, closed the door on Ron, and told the driver to take me to Brooklyn.
***
Although I had no clue what the shitty apartment building that I woke up in the day before looked like, I recognized a dry-cleaning shop in which I had glimpsed some eastern European woman toiling behind a sewing machine. Only then did I pick out the building a little further down the street, and its black door.
“Do a loop around the block,” I told the driver. “I know it’s around here somewhere.”
The driver was Thai, spoke broken English, and had kept to himself for the last fifteen minutes. I wanted him to circle the block so I could make sure there were no cops or hit men staked out, waiting for me to return to the scene of whatever the crime might be.
All the cars parked along the curbs appeared to be empty.
When we were approaching the dry-cleaning shop for the second time, the driver said, “You see yet?”
“I think it’s that place there with the black door.” I pointed. “Can you pull up out front?”
He rolled to a stop directly in front of the building.
“I’m not going to be long,” I told him. “Two minutes at most. Can you wait right here for me?”
“I wait, no problem.”
I gave him a twenty as a deposit, got out of the taxi, and ducked into the building, where I paused at the bottom of the staircase to listen.
I didn’t hear anything.
I started up the steep, narrow steps. They creaked loudly. Anyone lying in wait for me would surely hear me coming, and I almost considered turning around and leaving. Almost. Because I needed answers. Were they worth my life? No. But I was being paranoid. Nobody was here. And it was just two minutes, in and out.
I continued up the steps and soon caught the first whiff of decay—a strange sweet scent, almost like cheap perfume, or a moldy apple.
When I reached the second floor I found Moby Dick in the same spot he’d been the day before, only now gravity had dragged the heavier red blood cells to the lowest parts of his body, leaving his face a ghostly white, and ugly purple splotches on the back of his neck and arms. The cloying stench emanating from the billions of bacterium eating him from the inside out nearly made me gag, but I steeled my stomach, covered my nose with the cro
ok of my arm, and knelt next to him. Flies buzzed everywhere, searching for prime real estate to lay their adorable little maggots. Shooing them away, I patted down his pockets and retrieved a wallet and a smartphone, which I stuffed into my own pockets.
I went to the room with the Dr. Who machine. The machine was too large to take with me, so I flipped it over, searching for a label, a product number, something to give me a clue to its purpose or identity. Finding nothing except unremarkable black plastic and a series of heat vents, I committed the placement of every knob, every dial, every detail to memory. Then I collected the laptop and returned to the main room. I dumped the laptop into the cardboard box in the corner, burying it beneath manila folders and other stationary so the taxi driver didn’t think I was looting the place. I scooped the box into my arms and was about to leave when I hesitated. I glanced at the door that led to what I suspected was the bathroom.
I had to know.
Going to it, I shifted the box to one arm, twisted the bronze handle with my free hand, and toed open the door. No Vincent Vega on the shitter aiming a MAC-11 at my head. Just a white porcelain toilet with dried piss on the seat and a crusty sink affixed to the wall below a cracked mirror. On the dirty tile floor a cockroach almost the size of a small mouse lay on its back, its hair-thin legs and antennae twitching as it died a slow death.
Releasing the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding, I got the hell out of there.
***
Back in my suite at The Plaza I set the box on the bed and went through Moby Dick’s wallet first. His name was Charles McCarthy. The wallet was filled with receipts, grubby five and ten dollar notes, worn business cards, and, sheathed in plastic inserts, a photo of a woman who was likely his wife, and a photo of a child who was likely his son. Aside from half a dozen bank cards, there was a Macy’s voucher, a coffee shop card with one hole-punch short of a free coffee, and a dozen other miscellaneous items. This made me reflect on my wallet, which now seemed sterile in comparison. Where was all the miscellaneous junk that people kept that they didn’t need?
Nevertheless, this thought came and went without further contemplation because I was too anxious to examine the other stuff in the box. I went through the reams of paper first, but was soon disheartened. The pages were crammed with nothing but mathematical equations and symbols that were as alien to me as a foreign language. Inside the manila folders were more pages, these covered in messy handwriting. They didn’t compose a journal. Just notes, scribbles, none of which I could make sense of. Whoever had written them had done so in a broken stream of consciousness, mentioning a string of scientific nonsense in one sentence, then a reflection on life in the next. At the bottom of one page, underlined twice, was, “Knowing is knowing that you don’t know.” The fat guy was either a genius, a nutjob, or a philosopher—or perhaps all three.
I whipped the manila folder I’d been flipping through across the room in frustration. Loose leaf fluttered to the bed and the floor.
I didn’t know what I had been expecting to find—a tell-all confession written by me and addressed to myself—but there was nothing of the sort.
I powered on the laptop—the battery held a full charge—though my initial optimism on the ride back in the taxi had already curdled into dark pessimism.
I scanned the desktop. There were the usual programs you find with any operating system, and a few I didn’t recognize. I opened the latter ones. The information that popped up was as meaningless as all the crap in the box.
Still, I wasn’t about to give up. I would search through every file and folder on the computer until my fingers bled. First, however, I needed a stiff drink—badly. Ron the concierge was true to his word, and two bottles of Chivas Regal had been sitting on the writing table when I’d returned. I opened one, took a belt, went to the window—and contemplated smashing the glass with a chair and leaping to my death.
The thought was so startling I took an involuntary step backward.
Fuck, Harry, what’s wrong with you? So you don’t have a past. So you may never recover it. So what? That’s worth ending your life over? People have it a lot worse than you, you cowardly son of a bitch. A lot worse. People have lost their legs in car accidents. People have had their faces burned off with acid by jealous exes. People have had their families murdered in front of their eyes maybe for no reason other than the fact the perpetrator was a sick bastard. People have been chewed in half by sharks and brain-zapped by lightning. And what’s your problem? You can’t remember the first girl you kissed, or whether you’ve ever been to Hawaii. Poor you. Poor Harry.
And by the way, have you already forgotten about that $750,000 in your bank account? Go buy yourself a first-class ticket to the Philippines, buy a luxury hut on some tropical island, and spend your days and nights drinking all the whiskey you want, and fucking all the twenty-year-old girls you can get your dick up for.
I tipped the bottle to my mouth, ruminating on the island fantasy, when my eyes fell on the dead guy’s smartphone. It rested on the bed, next to his wallet.
“Shit,” I said, crossing the room quickly. I’d been so focused on the box and the laptop I hadn’t considered checking the phone.
I snatched it up and shook it awake. However, it turned out to be brand new, or at least factory reset: no photographs, no videos, nothing in the calendar or other apps. No contacts. It was as though he’d bought it to use a few times before disposing of it.
And why would he do that, Harry? I thought, navigating to the call log. To make calls that couldn’t be traced back to him. Calls to the kind of people I would very much like to have a word with.
According to the log, he had one missed call yesterday afternoon at 2:43 p.m.—or right about the time I’d rung the mystery number in my wallet from Grand Central.
“Jesus,” I mumbled.
I scrolled through the other calls. Twenty-six in total over a three-day period. Thirteen incoming, thirteen outgoing.
And all to and from the same number.
CHAPTER 5
After several minutes of deliberation, I dialed the number. It was answered halfway through the second ring. “Charlie?” the voice on the other end of the line said. Male, hushed, the way you might speak while standing on a train and not wanting to disturb others. “Charlie?” the man repeated, louder. “Hey, Charlie, you there?”
“This isn’t Charlie,” I said.
“Barney!” the voice exclaimed.
I didn’t say anything. My heart spiked in my chest. My stomach seesawed.
He knew me.
Or did he? Because why was he calling me Barney?
“Goddamn, man,” he went on, “what the hell is going on? Where’s Charlie? Why haven’t you done it yet?”
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Did something happen? Something happened, right? What happened? Where’s Charlie? You know I can’t be talking to you. Why are you calling me from Charlie’s phone? What the hell is up, Barn? I’m at work. I can’t talk now—”
“Meet me in Central Park in thirty minutes.”
“Central Park? What are you talking about?”
“Thirty minutes. Out front the zoo. Wear a baseball cap.”
“I’m not meeting you in Central Park, Barn! I can’t be seen with you! And what the heck are you talking about baseball caps? I don’t even own a baseball cap.”
“Then I’ll be at your work in fifteen minutes,” I said, bluffing. I had no idea where he worked.
“Are you crazy?” He was no longer speaking in a hushed voice. He was close to shouting. Maybe he’d stepped outside, or into his office and shut the door. “Don’t you dare. You hear me, Barn? You show up here—that’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard. How do you think you’d even get in? One retina scan, there’ll be a dozen guns pointed at your head in seconds. What’s wrong with you? Calling here, calling me. Is Charlie there? Let me speak to him.”
“Charlie’s dead.”
Silence.
&nb
sp; “Dead?” the man repeated.
I said, “Central Park in thirty, or I come to you.”
A long pause. “Damn you, Barn.” Another pause, even longer. “Central Park. The zoo. But I’m not wearing any stupid hat.”
***
It was midafternoon, barely a cloud in the blue sky. The zoo was brimming with tourists and families and children. A safe enough meeting spot as any, I thought. I didn’t believe the guy on the phone was going to slit my throat. He didn’t sound threatening. Scared, confused—but not threatening. Still, better to meet somewhere public.
I waited a hundred yards from the zoo entrance, partly obscured by a tree. I’d been lurking in the same spot for twenty minutes now, as it had only taken me ten to reach the zoo from The Plaza.
At five to noon—forty-five minutes since the phone call, fifteen minutes later than agreed upon—I thought I spotted the man I had spoken with. For starters, unlike the dads and boyfriends and out-of-towners, he was dressed in a gray business suit and blue necktie. Secondly, he checked his wristwatch a half dozen times in under two minutes, all the while looking this way and that.
He was relatively young, thirty-five or about, freshly shaven, cropped hair, a tanned complexion. He wore dark sunglasses and had the arrogant, impatient air of a Hollywood talent agent.
I left the tree and approached him. He noticed me when I was twenty feet away. He pushed himself off the zoo’s low wrought-iron perimeter fence. When I stopped before him, he extended his hand, surprising me. I made myself shake it. Then, to my greater astonishment, he pulled me into an embrace and patted my back. “Sorry about Charlie, Barn.” He released me and stepped back. “So what happened? Heart attack? Am I right?”
“I have no idea.”
“Had to be,” the man said, shaking his head. “What else, right? Right?”
“I have no idea.”
“No idea? Goddamn it, Barn—you know the risks I’m taking seeing you. You gotta do better than ‘no idea.’ Tell me what the hell’s going on.”
Dark Hearts: Four Novellas of Dark Suspense Page 10
