Deviant Behavior

by Mike Sager

  Turning into the alley, they moved in single file past a shot-out streetlight, past an abandoned station wagon, an abandoned minivan, a blackened steel drum surrounded with milk crates and broken chairs …

  And there he was, in a dark pool of blood beneath the weed tree.

  Kwan knelt down, pulled off his right glove with his teeth, placed his fingertips on Seede’s neck, looking for a pulse. His eyes narrowed with concentration.

  48

  Jamal stood on the roof of Metcalfe Mansion with his hands on his hips. “Holy shit,” he said, genuinely impressed by the view.

  Salem pointed to the southeast. “There’s the White House!”

  “And the Washington Monument,” said Freeman.

  “The stone bone,” Jamal laughed.

  Hatfield threw him a look.

  The metal catwalk led across the roof, to another door, thick and armor-plated, like a ship’s hatch. Before Thornton could place his palm on the light box, the door opened.

  Detective Massimo Bandini emerged from the chamber, followed by Sojii. “Where’s Metcalfe?” he demanded of the butler.

  “Sojii!” exclaimed Jim Freeman. Instinctively he opened his arms. The girl ran to his embrace.

  Hatfield froze. He was, after all, derelict from duty. Then it occurred to him: What the hell is IAD doing here?

  “What do you mean, ‘Where’s Metcalfe?’” the butler demanded. “He sent for you. He’s in there.”

  “Yeah? Then you find him,” challenged Bandini.

  The group followed Thornton into the crystal chamber.

  The ceiling was closed, the room was dark. Sitting on their pedestals, lit from beneath, the five skulls glowed.

  At the center of the room, on the floor in front of the fifth pedestal, was a puddle of red nylon—Metcalfe’s tracksuit. Also in evidence were his black bikini briefs, white ankle socks, and Reebok workout shoes.

  Hatfield walked over to the pile of laundry. He pulled a pen from the breast pocket of his shirt, fished out a platinum and diamond Rolex chronograph. The band was still clasped shut. He checked the time against his own watch.

  “This thing stopped ten minutes ago,” he said.

  Epilogue

  Dulcy sank, noodlelike, into the passenger seat of the four-door Saturn, a gleam of contentment in her eyes. On her feet she wore a pair of disposable rubber slippers. Little wads of cotton formed barriers between her toes, the nails of which had just been lacquered a vampish shade of red. The sun streaming through the windshield was warm on her skin; the breeze off the Pacific was cool. She stretched luxuriantly, stared into the cloudless blue sky. “There is nothing like a manicure/pedicure,” she sighed.

  Seede issued a supportive grin. “That’s great, honey,” he said. “Now could you please close the door?”

  “Yeah, Mom.” Jake poked his head between the sand-colored bucket seats. He was six years old, missing his two front teeth. “We’ve been waiting for, like, two hours.”

  “Actually, it’s only been twenty minutes,” Seede said, reaching into the back, giving Jake’s calf a squeeze. The skin was soft and pliant; the muscle had surprising bulk. Three foot eight, fifty-two pounds, the eating-crying-shitting machine had become an ally.

  It was late September 1997. They were parked on the main drag of a small coastal town in southern California. Nearly five years had passed since the Seedes left Washington, courtesy of a sizable check from Hollywood. (The movie was still “in development.” It would probably never get made. No matter: the studio’s drop in the bucket had been more than enough to push the reset button on their lives.) During that time, of course, history had continued its march. NASA had succeeded in putting Pathfinder on Mars. Britain had returned Hong Kong to China. A sheep named Dolly had been cloned from the udder cells of a ewe. Princess Diana of Wales had been killed in an auto accident. Conflicts raged in the Middle East, the Balkans, Chechnya, and Nepal. In Africa, hunger, AIDS, and tribal genocide ruled the day. In Indonesia a large chunk of the rain forest was on fire. Perhaps the sky was falling: it was certainly full of particulate matter, which made for breathtaking sunsets. The world’s population had reached five and a half billion. Humankind muddled through.

  On the home front, the handsome guy from Arkansas—who’d kicked off his first presidential term on a hopeful if misguided note, seeking to normalize the country’s relationship with homosexuals in the military—had embarked upon his second term, promising “A New Nation for a New Century.” (In the end he’d be impeached by Congress for receiving a blow job in his office—a scenario fantasized, no doubt, at one time or another, by every human male who ever had an office.) The war on drugs continued apace—the can’t-miss, law-and-order platform having been co-opted by the Democrats. Jails and prisons across the nation were overflowing; more were being built. At the same time, according to the government’s own figures, the use of cocaine and marijuana by teenagers was steadily rising, the use of ecstasy and crystal methamphetamine had reached “epidemic” proportions, and there was a glut on the market of cheap heroin from Afghanistan.

  Shortly after Metcalfe disappeared, leaving behind a small puddle of laundry and personal effects, Thornton discovered a file of documents in the study off the master bedroom. Included was a notarized statement recognizing Salem Irene Clark as Metcalfe’s legal daughter and heir, granting her a small trust fund, a healthy allowance, and a seat on the board of directors of the Metcalfe Foundation, effective immediately. Also included were the results of the DNA tests, authorized by Detective Massimo Bandini, which confirmed Metcalfe’s parenthood. (After an intradepartmental hearing on charges of misconduct and abuse of police authority, Bandini and John O’Rourke were allowed to take early retirement with full pensions; they continued to be employed on a contract basis by the Metcalfe Foundation.) In return Metcalfe had asked only that Salem name her first son—if ever there was one—Bertram Hedgewick Metcalfe IV.

  As it turned out, the name would go to Salem’s first adopted son—the little boy from the squalid R Street rooming house. After his mother’s death, Child Protective Services had never been able to locate any kin—neither could they find any record of his name. When Pastor Steinschmidt passed this information along, Perdue Hatfield knew immediately what he had to do. He married Salem, adopted the boy, and quit the police force—in that order, over the period of a year. The trio now lived in Metcalfe Mansion. Hatfield ran a company that provided security to performers and venues in the greater DC area—ushers, bouncers, bodyguards, transport, counterterrorism, full service. “You’ll be safer than a pig in a blanket,” he promised his prospective clients in his proud, backwoods drawl.

  In granting Sojii’s petition for emancipation as a minor—brought pro bono by the Pope’s former consigliore, Waylon Weidenfeld—a DC superior court judge named Jim Freeman as Sojii’s guardian and trustee. Jim died in 1995, due to complications of AIDS. He and Sojii had lived together in his Corcoran Street showplace until the day before his death. On his last morning, he awakened in his fifteen-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, sat bolt upright, and demanded to be removed immediately to a hospice, his entry into which had been carefully prearranged: nothing killed a property’s value like a dead body in the master suite. He died that evening with his friends gathered around—a gem of a man, a pro, fabulously organized to the last. The house would eventually sell for $476,000. He and Tom paid seventy-five.

  Also departed: Wayne Tony, of liver disease; Larry the Pharmacist, of an overdose; Bo Franklin, of a massive stroke suffered during a night of heavy partying with two female friends. (Seede liked to imagine the bitches killed him with an orgasm.) Kwan Johnston was confined to a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down after a shoot-out with a rival gang. Jamal Alfred was living now in Orlando, where he’d squared up with his bottom wife, Debbie. With Salem as a silent partner, he’d opened a Ford/Lincoln/Mercury dealership. Thanks to the new Mustang and the line of trucks, he was doing well. And every three months, he got
a new Lincoln to drive. As for the Pope of Pot: following his death from pancreatic cancer, DCCJ officials incorrectly reported the cause to the media as lung cancer, sparking a fierce round of smoked-himself-to-the-grave happy talk by evening news anchors across the nation. It was a death, as the Pope himself had correctly predicted, that launched a thousand quips.

  After Jim’s death, Sojii moved into Metcalfe Mansion. Along with Thornton Desmond—who’d been granted a sizable pension but had elected to stay on to oversee the staff—she often helped care for little Bertie IV. Sojii was due to graduate in June from Georgetown University with a dual major in psychology and philosophy. Though she never met her mother again, in real time or through scrying, she did find, as the years went by, that the mysterious faux meeting in the boutique had helped to give her a sense of closure. In any case, the fact of her mother’s abandonment would always be there, a part of her personal landscape.

  In addition to college, Sojii was employed full-time by the Metcalfe Foundation, charged with unlocking the secrets of the Master Skull—and, ultimately, with determining the fate of Bert Metcalfe III. With no body in evidence, and no proof of his death, Metcalfe’s legal status remained indeterminate. A police report had been filed; an all points bulletin had been issued through Interpol. Over the years, with the help of the budding World Wide Web, Sojii had established contact with many crystal skull groups around the globe—a staggering number of people had strong opinions and intricate beliefs. Under her direction, the foundation had summoned many of the world’s brightest minds to Metcalfe Mansion. Provided a handsome stipend, they were asked to ruminate upon the tiny billionaire’s disappearance. There were many hypotheses; a volume was being prepared for publication. The science guys proposed answers from the fields of biology, chemistry, and physics; the religion guys invoked their gods; the star watchers their aliens; the philosophers their philosophies; and so forth. As is the case with all of life’s greatest conundrums—Is there a God? What is our purpose on Earth? What happens after we die? Why can’t we all get along?—the bottom line was this: there is no good answer, you just have to live with the unknown.

  Each year on Metcalfe’s birthday, a large public party was held on the grounds of the mansion. As the story of his mysterious disappearance spread, the day became more widely observed. In time, a growing number of people began to think of Bertie the Hedgehog as a sort of modern Moses—a man summoned to a mountaintop by a higher power. They waited expectantly in the valley for his return.

  Dulcy pulled the car door shut, a weird muffled thunk, owing to the revolutionary dent-proof material employed in the construction of the highly rated family sedan. “What we really need is a second car,” she said.

  “We have the motorcycle …” Seede offered.

  “You haven’t been on that thing in a year. You should just call the Salvation Army and take the deduction—they’ll haul it away for free.”

  Alarmed, Jake poked his head up front again. “Daddy said I could have his motorcycle when I get older!”

  “I said,” Seede clarified, “that when you got to the NBA you could keep it for me in your garage.”

  “With my Humvee and my monster truck, right?”

  “And one of those cute little two-door Mercedes for your dear ole dad.”

  “And season tickets,” Jake reminded him.

  “And season tickets,” Seede confirmed, “so I can always watch you play.”

  Seede started the engine, checked the rearview mirror, pulled into traffic. It had taken time to adjust to driving. Depth perception—a critical faculty he’d definitely taken for granted. At first he’d tried a glass eye. It had to be cleaned and assiduously maintained, bathed in various solutions, sterilized. Viewed from his left side, it gave him the appearance of a wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s—an uncanny likeness, not quite alive. In the end he’d elected to forgo the prosthesis in favor of a simple black patch, which served also to obscure some of the ropey scarring that radiated from his temple. It was not a pretty sight, but it was him.

  Following his rescue by Kwan and his homeboys, Seede had been rushed into an operating room at George Washington University Hospital, where specialists in brain, eye, and craniofacial surgery took turns addressing his injuries—depressed skull fracture, broken orbital bone, crushed eyeball, severed optic nerve.

  He awoke two days later in dim light, vaguely nauseous, feeling like he was floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean, the victim of a shipwreck. Over the next few hours, as he drifted in and out of consciousness, as the morphine in his system began to dissipate—he wasn’t yet aware that he could push a button and self-administer—the details of his immediate past returned to him, first in flickering snapshots, then in longer snippets, like video clips.

  With his unbandaged eye, he looked around the room, which he could see now was not a room at all, but rather an ICU bay, machines beeping and blinking, a curtain pulled around for privacy. There was no cheering public to comfort him, no blanket of accolades to keep him warm, no great American tome to hold his hand. He thought about Dulcy, playfully pinning back the curtain of her bathrobe to reveal her swelling tummy. He thought about Jake, smushing a Play-Doh man, laughing uproariously.

  I could have died, he told himself.

  A sinkhole opened at the center of his being; into the void flooded a molten river of panic and remorse.

  He felt like someone who’d just this instant hit his head on a rock at the bottom of a murky pond and felt his neck break.

  What have I done?

  The Saturn labored up an incline, through a canyon, the steep slope on either side overgrown with fragrant eucalyptus and coastal sage. Cresting the hill, they went through a traffic light, then turned left into a parking lot.

  A line of portable toilets stood sentry in the foreground; beyond was an immense grassy field. Here and there, knots of children were shouting and kicking balls. Parents lounged on blankets and beach chairs, whistles blew. In the distance you could see the ocean. A pair of red-tailed hawks and a lone para-glider wheeled in the thermal updrafts.

  The doors opened and the Seede family emerged, reassembled itself into a tight threesome on the grass behind the car. Seede sank to his knees, a pair of size-two soccer cleats in his hand. Jake offered his right foot—for balance he rested his sticky palm atop his father’s bald head. As Seede pulled the laces tight, tied a double knot, the boy plucked absently at the elastic strap of his father’s eye patch. Every Halloween, Jake insisted on dressing up as a pirate. An eye patch figured prominently in his costume.

  “A’ight,” Seede said, finishing off the second shoe, recalling a bit of ghetto dialect lest his son forget his roots. He offered his fist for a pound, the culture’s latest iteration of handshake; his son met him halfway, knuckle to knuckle, a miniature fist that very much resembled his own. The boy gamboled off to join his friends.

  Retrieving a bag of soccer balls from the trunk of the Saturn, Seede took Dulcy’s hand. With time, with couple’s therapy, with the infusion of the new money and a chance at a new start, Seede and his wife had managed to get the wheels back onto their marriage, to set it moving forward again. Of course, as the one who’d upset the applecart in the first place, wormy though it may have been, the onus had been on Seede to repent, to renounce, to earn back trust. This he did with due diligence, becoming in time the very model of a husband and father. For her part, Dulcy never accepted any responsibily for Seede’s descent into madness—at least she never said anything out loud, though certain hints and nonverbal clues (beyond the boilerplate urged by the therapist) suggested she had heard and acknowledged some of his complaints. For a while Seede resented this unfairness, the uneven standards and unspoken truths that were required to make a domestic partnership work. He couldn’t help but wonder: Why should he have to be the big guy? Why should he have to be the one to suck it up? Why should he have to admit fault when fault was clearly shared?

  As the years passed, as his experience compou
nded, generating as it did a few percentage points of wisdom, Seede came to realize that this was the way things were, the way they were going to be. Yes, he could have divorced her, he could have found someone else, someone with a different set of pros and cons, but the vision of the hapless weekend dad was deterrent enough. And besides: he still loved his wife; he had never stopped loving her. And he loved his son with a lightness and with a gravity that he was only beginning to understand. Together, as corny as it seemed, the three of them were truly a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. How smug he had been in his own certainty. How little he had really known. Compromise, he now understood, doesn’t always mean that everyone gets exactly what they want. It’s the price you pay for being part of something bigger than yourself. It’s the price you pay for not being alone.

  The couple crossed the field at a comfortable pace, moving westward, toward the area reserved for Jake’s team. From their vantage point on the bluff, they could see clearly the curvature of the Earth; the cerulean waters shimmered in the slanting light from the late afternoon sun. Living near the ocean, facing the limitless horizon every day, Seede had a constant reminder of his place in the order of things, small but not insignificant. He still had his lofty goals; he still wanted to make his mark; he still wanted to do what he wanted to do.

  It just so happened that some of what he wanted to do had changed.