The Downward Spiral

by Ridley Pearson

“I got your diagram.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Tricky of you to deliver it like that.”

  “You know me,” Sherlock said.

  “Got the measurements for you.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “A hundred and forty-four square feet.”

  “Missing,” he forced himself to say.

  “Yes.”

  He had trouble speaking, but there was no stopping him. “The bath water. Other side of the bookshelf. A meter or so of bookshelf.”

  “Where it was damp? Four feet. I measured, remember?”

  “The code,” he said, his one good eye blinking slowly. Expressive. Deep. Richly blue.

  I probably blushed again.

  He was nodding off. I was watching him fall asleep and there was something so intimate and peaceful about it. I wanted to pat him or stroke his cheek, but he looked so banged up I didn’t dare touch him.

  “The code,” he mumbled again.

  I wondered if he was already dreaming.

  CHAPTER 15

  AT 2:00 A.M., JAMES SLIPPED OUT OF BED, INTO his slippers, and sneaked quietly down the Bricks Lower 3 hallway. Lower 2 adjoined Lower 3 in a staircase area with an exit to the outside and a janitor closet tucked under the rising staircase.

  Father had shown James the closet and its removable floor panel back in October. He’d told his son stories of his discovery of the utility tunnel years before when he’d been a student at Baskerville. It was a father-and-son secret that James held dearly.

  It was a gloomy and claustrophobic area filled with pipes and wires and a low ceiling that prevented standing. But it was private and secret, and therefore to James and boys his age more like a fort than anything else. He used it as a meeting place.

  Its limited space was crucial to James’s plan. He’d asked two boys to meet him.

  Quietly lifting the steel floor plate, James spotted Ryan Eisenower’s buzz-cut hair atop the boy’s oversized head. James climbed down into the cramped space and joined him.

  “Where’s Bret?” James asked.

  “Haven’t seen him. Didn’t know he was coming.”

  “Do you know what this is about?” James asked.

  “Probably. I think so.”

  “You either do or you don’t. So let me ask you again: Do you know what this is about?” James understood the importance of expressing superiority. A certain tone of voice and eye contact could establish a confidence that others would not challenge. Size didn’t seem to matter. Likewise, physical strength, for Eisenower was twice James’s physique. It was one’s sense of purpose that made one person more of a leader than the next.

  “I’m pretty sure I know what this is about.”

  “Good,” James said. “Then say that the first time I ask.”

  “Who put you in charge?” Eisenower growled.

  “I did. You complaining? It sounds like you’re complaining.”

  “No.”

  “We’re good?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” James settled, brushing concrete dust off his hands. Though twice his size, Ryan Eisenower was maybe half his bandwidth. James felt a sense of the primitive rising from within him. Maybe it was the heat of the tunnel that resulted from the overhead pipes. Maybe it went back a million years to fire-lit caves. Competition. Survival. Domination. The same forces that fielded varsity teams, that gave way to tug-of-war contests in the spring. Boys weren’t boys, they were cavemen in Vineyard Vines and Under Armour.

  James knew this. Crouching, he shuffled forward and slugged Eisenower in the stomach without warning. He swung his elbow out like a wing and cuffed Eisenower on the ear. Kneed him in the chest. Prepared to elbow him in the back. But Eisenower grabbed and pulled James by the legs, tackling him onto the concrete floor. James, the wind knocked out of him, managed to kick Eisenower in the chest, which stood the boy straight up. Eisenower’s head banged into a pipe. The boy blinked, seeing stars.

  James took measure of the low-hanging pipes as he drove his shoulder into his opponent, knocking Eisenower over. He took the kid by the shirt while straddling him.

  “Don’t you ever do me any favors without checking with me! You got that?”

  Eisenower’s face bunched, part anger, part shame. “We were just helping you out. Sheesh! Some kind of thanks!”

  “You messed things up. You got it all wrong. Sherlock saved my sister, you idiot! He deserved a medal, not a beating!”

  “What?” It was Bret Thorndyke, just coming down the short ladder-like concrete steps into the tunnel.

  “You two went to town on the wrong guy at the wrong time!” James said, spinning to face Thorndyke. Not nearly as big and powerful as Eisenower, Thorndyke was nonetheless an upperclassman, older than James, and therefore more frightening. He was also an athlete, agile and daring. Thorndyke presented James with a different kind of opponent. His childish look—in NY Knicks pajama bottoms and a Baskerville Athletic Department T-shirt—belied the threat within.

  James knocked him down quickly and leaped to straddle Thorndyke while pinning the boy’s arms. Thorndyke bucked to get James off. James reached for his throat.

  “Are you listening?” James asked, marveling at the sense of control having his hand on the boy’s throat afforded him. He felt intoxicated.

  Thorndyke worked hard to nod in response. James lessened his grip.

  “I know it was your idea, Bret.” James glanced back to see Eisenower getting up, but the fight was gone from the boy’s eyes. This in stark contrast to the one beneath him. “I know you like that kind of thing. This kind of thing.” He squeezed the boy’s throat tighter. “You love it, don’t you? But you and Boy Blunder got it all wrong.” James relaxed his grip, seeing the redness and swelling of the boy’s face. James didn’t remember tightening his grip like that. “Never again. Do we under—”

  Thorndyke heaved up and threw James off. James twisted his leg in the process. He rolled, but Thorndyke throttled him with a series of blows. James would have been beaten unconscious if Eisenower hadn’t pulled Thorndyke off and held the boy.

  “You listen to me,” Thorndyke growled at James, struggling to break free of Eisenower. “You try something like this again and I’ll finish you.”

  James recovered nicely. “No, Bret, you won’t. You hurt me and you will pay in ways that I won’t be able to stop. If either of you don’t want to work with me—for me—I could care less. So be it. Good riddance.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Thorndyke said.

  James said, “You beat the snot out of Sherlost, and while he may have deserved it for being the dork that he is, he didn’t for anything he’d done, which is why you will never do me a favor without me asking for that favor. We’re mates, the three of us, and there are more of us, many more, than you know about. There will be more, soon. What I’m doing here is for real. It’ll continue after we graduate. I can do it with or without you, believe me. You might want to remember that. It may not make much sense right now, but it will soon enough. Change is coming. You want to be part of it, you need to pay attention. Strict attention.” James was up and inches from Thorndyke’s face. James nodded to Eisenower, who loosened his grip on Thorndyke, who brushed himself off. All three boys were white with cement powder, red-faced with rage.

  The fiery look in Thorndyke’s eyes said he wanted to go at it again. But something about James—the same unnameable something James had possessed his whole life—stopped Thorndyke.

  The older boy stepped aside, allowing James to squeeze past.

  “Thank you,” James uttered, once at the bottom of the ladder. “What you did shows loyalty, and I appreciate it more than you know. But we need to work as a team.”

  He climbed out of the hole, expecting some kind of rebuttal from Thorndyke, for he was the type to want the last word.

  But neither boy dared to speak.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE BASKERVILLE COMMON ROOM, THE LARGE lobby area of couches, comfortable chairs, and game
tables, was shut off from the dining hall by a pair of massive double doors. It served as a holding area and gathering place for all students prior to meals, as student waiters prepared the hall. Teams of like-minded students tended to cluster in circles, their backs to others. Girls huddled by themselves. Boys huddled by themselves. Jocks huddled. Nerds huddled. A few foursomes played bridge. Rabid hunger, social anxiety, potential and failed romance all made for a mixture of loud voices, and generalized cruelty.

  James spotted Thorndyke and Eisenower approaching. Maverick Maletta trailed them by half a step.

  “We have some unfinished business,” Thorndyke said. Eisenower nodded.

  “Did you not pay attention in Cummings’s class when he lectured about cliché? That’s pathetically unoriginal, Bret.” James stood up, nose-to-nose with the boy.

  “Outside,” Thorndyke said. “After lunch. The Dumpsters.”

  “And again. Are you binge-watching The Sopranos or something?”

  Some strays, sad-looking students who could never find a circle with enough social gravity to bind them, turned to observe the confrontation. James, whose sense of personal space and his surroundings had heightened since the warning from Crudgeon and Lowry, lowered his voice.

  “Do you sleep through World Religions?” James asked. “Or are you familiar with the quote ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known’?”

  “You’ve lost it.”

  “No, actually. Quite the opposite. You and I are face to face, but I happen to see through a glass, darkly, and I happen to enjoy it. Savor it. You messed up, and for that I gave you and Ryan here a little tune-up as a reminder to stay in line. You want to meet out at the Dumpsters, fine. But I’m going to leave you there, facedown on the asphalt. And if by chance I don’t, if I should take a lucky punch from you and go down myself—and I don’t rule out that possibility—then you had better not sleep at night, you had better bring a baseball bat into the shower with you. Because I like where this is going, Bret. I get off on it. And I finish what I start, and I start only those things that are winnable. You start this up again, you will not like how it ends. I’m committed to seeing this through, Bret. How about you?”

  If James leaned any closer they’d be touching noses, or leaving butterflies on each other’s cheeks. His dry windpipe made his words ghostly and ominous.

  Then, as if a switch had been thrown, James became an entirely different person. His eyes brightened, his snarling lips swept upward into a smile. Even his voice mellowed and sweetened.

  “Alexandria!” he called out to a girl just passing. Her shoulder-length colorless hair needed attention, her hunched posture correcting. Her skin could have benefited from a reliable acne cream, but that was not an uncommon problem at Baskerville. Hidden within the ruins of neglect was a pair of interesting green eyes and a face that might someday mature into being “almost pretty.”

  “Lexie the Loser?” Thorndyke murmured.

  James took the boy by the neck of his shirt and twisted it to where he choked him. He hissed into Thorndyke’s ear. “You say that again and you won’t have teeth.” With his other hand, James grabbed Lexie by the upper arm, and quickly let go so he didn’t seem too aggressive. “Hang on,” he called to her as he pushed Thorndyke back.

  “James?” she said. Timid. Cautious, but not afraid. Curious, but not convinced. A deep voice, like she was speaking into a well.

  “You like sailing, don’t you?” James said.

  “I do. Yes. Very much.”

  “You sitting with anyone at lunch?”

  “Me? With nine others, like everyone else.”

  “Can I join?” James asked.

  “It’s mostly girls I sit with, James. In fact, it’s all girls.”

  “Neutral territory? Randolf’s table?” Though seating wasn’t assigned, each table at lunch and dinner included a single teacher who kept order and tried to instigate conversation. Randolf was a math teacher and liked by all.

  “What’s this about?” Lexie asked.

  “I just . . . want to sit with you, I guess.” The lying came far too easily.

  “It’s a dare, isn’t it? I’d rather know up front, James. I don’t know you well, but I don’t think of you as cruel. If you need me to play along for you to win the dare, if it’s nothing too demanding, I’m happy to do it.”

  “It’s not a dare.”

  “James? Please. Tell me, and we can get this over with.”

  “Is that really your opinion of yourself?” he asked.

  “Should I be immune? ‘Lexie the Loser.’ That’s rough when you’re on the wrong end of it. And inaccurate, I might add. What have I ever lost at, that you know of, James? That others know about? No one at this school knows me that well. Sure, they judge me by my looks, I suppose. The fact that I’m quiet. I’m sure you do, too. And I won’t say I don’t care, because I do. Believe me, I care. But a loser? Never.”

  “I don’t call you that. That’s high school stuff. It’s for idiots who can’t think for themselves.”

  “Cummings’s table?” Lexie proposed. An English teacher. The conversation might be a little intense, James thought.

  “Ms. Morgan’s,” James suggested. The art teacher. Neutral turf.

  “Done. Whoever gets there first saves a seat for the other,” she said. “If you burn me, James Moriarty, if you leave me standing and unable to find a seat, or waiting for you to take one I’m saving, I will never, ever, forgive you. Understood?”

  Lexie had pluck. Backbone. Mettle. Who knew? James thought. “Our fathers were friends, weren’t they?” he asked.

  “I think. Maybe. Business acquaintances at least,” she said, being more specific. “My father’s on the city council and I think yours knew him through his work. I was so sorry to hear about your father, James.”

  “Well, at least we have that in common,” he said, trying to make light of it. But she wasn’t amused. “Whoever’s there first,” he repeated. “No tricks.”

  “Hmm,” she said, “I wonder.” She headed off, her incredulity trailing her like the train of a gown.

  CHAPTER 17

  “IT’S NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING.” LEXIE SAID in her pleasantly deep voice. “But I’m still curious as to why you would sit with me, James.”

  “I heard you’re a sailor. So am I. When you said you never lose, did you mean—?”

  “I meant I never lose, James. I made the Headmaster’s Society last session. A four-point-one—the only student in our class to make it. Suddenly, I’m ‘Lexie the Loser.’ Sticks and stones, right? And yes, that includes sailing.”

  James set down his milk. Wiped his lips with his napkin. Lifted his fork to attack the pork. Thought better of it and placed the fork gently onto the side of the plate. “I promise, it isn’t a dare,” he said.

  “Well, then it’s something you aren’t explaining.”

  She was as perceptive as she was smart, he thought.

  “Why can’t I just like you?” he asked.

  “You can, but you don’t, because you don’t know me.”

  “Then help me get to know you.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I’m interested,” James said.

  “No, you’re not. We’ve never said two words to each other. You want to talk about losers? The guys you hang around with are losers. You don’t fit in with them, James. What’s that about, anyway?”

  “Ouch,” James said.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that,” Lexie said. “I tend to lack a few filters.” She smiled sweetly and James saw an authenticity he liked.

  “Sailing,” he said.

  She giggled at his changing the subject. “Yes. Real fun.”

  “You don’t lose.”

  “Not lately.”

  “How long is lately?”

  “Five years. Club cup for five years. We race 470s. They’re a—”

  “Trapeze dinghy. Two-handed.
Summer Olympics.”

  Another of her smiles. Not the same as the first. Wry. A bit flirty.

  He returned to eating. If he took his time, all the food for seconds would be gone. “You’ve never had a crew like me.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Won’t know until you find out.”

  “Then I’ll never know, will I?”

  “Ouch again,” James said.

  “Is there an invitation in there somewhere that I missed?” she said.

  “Our boats are on the Cape. Put up for the winter.”

  “Mine is in Nahant, and ready to sail.”

  “Winter sailing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Does the idea scare you?” she asked.

  “Hypothermia. Death. Isn’t it supposed to?”

  The second smile again, the one felt at the back of his neck. They laughed together.

  “Being scared of something,” James said, looking directly at her, “doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a try.”

  “Danny Double Entendre,” she said. “Am I supposed to melt into a puddle of Jell-O and start batting my eyelashes?”

  “Are you?”

  “Not going to happen,” she said.

  “Good,” said James.

  “If I’m supposed to invite you, you shouldn’t hold your breath.”

  “Best crew you’ve ever sailed with,” said James. “You won’t know until you try.”

  “You and the lines. Is that the only one you know? You’re lying to me about something, James. I won’t allow you to hurt me.”

  “Why, because you like me?”

  “Not even the least little bit,” she said with a smile.

  They ate in silence. Serving plates passed. James loaded his plate repeatedly. They stole looks at each other. She smiled more than once.

  CHAPTER 18

  I SAW THE FOLDED POST-IT NOTE STUCK TO THE wood panel of my dining hall chair. Before I sat down, as I swiped my skirt beneath me, I snagged it.

  Computer center, ASAP.

  I wadded the note into a ball and let it fall to the floor beneath the table.