Legacies

by F. Paul Wilson

  Alicia looked at Jack and wanted to cry. How could she have so underestimated this man?

  Yes, she thought, it is a start.

  She realized that for the first time in her life she had control—power—over a set of these prints. And power over the negatives too. How could she do anything but destroy them?

  She reached into the envelope and pulled out three or four prints, eight-by-ten sheets with glossy color surfaces—no, she would not look at them—and fed them into the top of the shredder. Whirring, grinding, then thin little strips cascading from the bottom, twisting into a tangle of paper spaghetti.

  Yes! It worked. The images were destroyed, all coherency lost in the hundreds of divisions. No one but a madman would try to put them back together, and the more strips she added to the tangle, the harder it would be. A hundred, no, a thousand years to reconstruct even one image.

  Sensing that this might be some sort of watershed for her, Alicia dug into the envelope and pulled out more to feed into the whirring maw. She felt tears running down her cheeks and heard herself laughing.

  This felt so good… so good!

  12

  BZZZZZZT!

  A woman in tears was bad enough. Never failed to bum Jack out. What do you do? What do you say? But a woman laughing and crying while she was feeding a paper shredder…

  Very scary.

  But the tears and the laughter soon slacked off, and then she started talking about it, and that was worse, because it made him wish that Ronald Clayton were still alive… so that Jack could kill him… very slowly.

  "I did it for my daddy," she said. "That's how it was. A part of me sensed it was wrong, or bad, especially when it hurt, but my daddy wanted me to do it, and I didn't have much choice. And after all, he was my daddy… the man who took care of me. He wouldn't really make me do something really bad. Not my daddy."

  Her tone was remote, as if she'd cut all emotional ties with the child she was talking about.

  BZZZZZZT… more prints into the shredder.

  "And that was the really sick part of it. Beyond his perversion. That he would take his own child, someone who depended on him, who looked up to him and trusted him, and use that bond of trust and dependency to make her do exactly what he wanted in front of his camera. But that's part of the pedophile's nature: he gets off on the power over the young and weak and small, the power to corrupt innocence through unspeakable acts."

  BZZZZZZT!

  "Of course, I didn't know they were unspeakable then, but there had to be something wrong because I was never allowed to mention them. And some time before I reached ten, the picture taking stopped. I guess I was too old then. I guess the people he was trading pictures with liked their little girls under ten. Whatever the reason, it stopped and… would you believe?… I felt sad. How sick is that? Not because of what I'd actually been doing, but because my father no longer seemed interested in me. He'd never been warm or even vaguely nurturing—the words 'remote,' 'uninterested,' 'disengaged' don't even come close—but at least… at those times… when I was doing those things by myself or with Thomas, I'd had his… attention. Now I didn't even have that. Can you imagine?"

  No. Jack couldn't even begin to imagine. He felt his gorge rise as he thought of someone making Vicky do what he'd seen in the few prints he'd glanced at, and fought the urge to grab the phone and call her to make sure she was safe at home with Gia.

  BZZZZZZT!

  "But as I grew older, I learned, and I realized what I had been a part of. I tried to tell myself that it had never happened, that I'd imagined it all, dreamed it, but I knew no imaginings like that could have originated in me. How could I make up those perversions? No… I must have been there. And so I worked on blocking them out, making myself believe they'd never happened, and I was doing pretty well at it… until my early teens when I started developing. That was when I woke up one night and found Thomas with his hand on my breast wanting to 'do it, just like we used to.' I managed to fight him off, but that was confirmation, and it brought it all back. I began sleeping with a knife under my pillow."

  Jack didn't want to know this much about her, but didn't see how he could stop her. And it wasn't as if she was talking to him. She was talking to the air. He could have been a mannequin.

  "I knew then and there that I had to get out. But how? I was too young to support myself and I didn't want anything—anything—from that man. And I know you're probably thinking, 'Why didn't you go to the authorities and—" She stopped and looked at Jack. A wry ghost of a smile twisted her mouth for an instant. "Okay, anybody but you would say that. But how could I? Exposing Ronald Clayton meant exposing myself. It meant making those pictures public. Even now the thought of it makes me want to crawl into a hole, but can you imagine how that prospect looks to a teenage girl? I mean, a pimple on the chin is a reason to hide when you're a teenager. Making my 'sins' public—because I knew that everyone would think I'd been a willing participant—was unthinkable."

  BZZZZZZT!

  "So I worked on getting out. And I mean, I worked. I was pretty much asexual then. I was repulsed by the notion of anyone, boy or girl, touching me, so I became a bookworm. I all but lived in the public library, studying, studying, studying. I got straight A's. I found a book on how to 'package' your child for a scholarship. Well, no one was interested enough to package me for anything, so I packaged myself. And it worked. I got a full academic scholarship to college at USC. That allowed me to move out of that house. I left in August before my freshman year and never looked back. Last night was the first time I've crossed that threshold since."

  BZZZZZZTl

  "In college I worked a job while I booked my butt off. I found summer work at resorts that offered room and board as part of the job. I got into med school. A full ride to med school is all but impossible, but people will loan money to doctors-to-be. So I borrowed up to my lower lip to cover the expenses, and I'll be paying those loans off for another ten years, at least. But I did it. I got through it. And the thing that kept me going was the determination not to allow myself to become a victim. There's that expression about living well being the best revenge? Well, I may not be living well, but I'm getting there. And on my own. This is my revenge. I refuse to be his victim. He had power over me once, but he'll never have it again."

  BZZZZZZT!

  "But it wasn't going to be my complete revenge. As the years passed I began to wonder about my mother's death… wondered if it was really an accident. I mean, I don't know if he inherited money from her or carried a large insurance policy on her, or anything about his finances, but I know he never could have indulged his perversion with Mom around. But with her gone, he was free to do what he wanted with Thomas and me. So that was my revenge fantasy: discover some evidence of foul play and send him to jail, where he'd have no power, and everyone would have power over him. But of course, that's impossible now."

  BZZZZZZT!

  Jack didn't want to know the answer, and yet he had to ask.

  "Did he ever… touch you?"

  She shook her head. "No, thank God—as if God has anything to do with this. No… he just liked to look, and our pictures were currency he could use to get more pictures to look at."

  BZZZZZZT!

  She looked up. "Got some more?"

  Jack shook his head. "Nope." He pointed to the huge tangle of shredded paper mounded around her feet and the shredder. "You got them all."

  "No," she said. "Not them all. Nowhere near them all."

  "It's a start," Jack said.

  All the steam seemed to be seeping out of her. She was deflating before his eyes.

  "Thomas has a set," she said softly. "He has what he calls the master collection."

  "What's that?"

  "That's what he calls that man's personal collection of—what did you call it?"

  "Pictures of children being sexually abused. Why would he want that?"

  "To blackmail me, I think. But I think he's bluffing. He's in so many of those pic
tures… exposing me means exposing himself. He's sunk pretty low, but not that low."

  "Yet," Jack said. He had an idea. "You know where he lives?"

  She nodded. "Not far from here. Why?"

  "I've got a few questions I want to ask your half brother. Want to come along? Can you face him?"

  She hesitated, then, "Yes. I can face him. I want to face him. Are we bringing the shredder?"

  "Nah. Too bulky. But I'm sure we can think of other ways to get the same results."

  Alicia stood and reached for her coat. She seemed really into this.

  "Let's go."

  13

  They were waiting in the darkened, stuffy, slightly rotten-smelling front room of Thomas's apartment when he got home.

  Alicia had watched with amazement as Jack, using just a few little wirelike tools, got them through one door after another in Thomas's apartment building. They'd been waiting only twenty minutes or so before they heard the sound of a key in the lock. Jack sprang up and disappeared, leaving Alicia sitting alone.

  Thomas stepped in and turned on the light. He froze like a deer in headlights when he saw her.

  "Alicia? What are you—?"

  Jack moved from behind the door then and slammed it closed. Thomas jumped to his left and stared at Jack.

  Alicia saw the color leach from his pocked face.

  "Who?"

  "A friend of your sister's," Jack said, grabbing him by his collar and shoving his pear-shaped body across the room. "Sit!"

  Alicia was startled by the snarl on Jack's face. He looked so… feral. Not at all like the man she'd opened up to less than an hour ago. Which was the real Jack?

  Thomas stumbled and came up against a chair. He folded his ungainly body into it.

  "What do you want?"

  "Answers," Jack said. "And maybe to look at some pictures."

  "You can't do this," Thomas cried. "I'll call the police!"

  Suddenly Jack had a little pistol in his hand and was pointing at Thomas's left knee. Then he shifted his aim to the right.

  "Which knee first, Alicia? You choose."

  Me? she thought, panic rising. Is he serious? What's he doing? And then she remembered what Jack had told her when they'd entered the apartment: I may have to get rough with him, but whatever I do, play along.

  Jack aimed the pistol at Thomas's crotch. "Or how about here?"

  Okay, she thought. I'll play along.

  "I'm thinking," she said.

  "Alicia!" Thomas wailed. "Don't let him! They told me about him! Please don't let him shoot me!"

  She noticed a dark wet stain spreading across the crotch of Thomas's slacks. He must have heard some real horror stories about Jack.

  "Then bring out 'the master collection' you told me about," Alicia said.

  "Okay! Okay! I'll do it. It's in the bedroom. I'll get it."

  He got up and hurried past Alicia with Jack trailing him.

  "'I'm thinking,' " Jack whispered with a wink as he passed. "Beautiful."

  And now that she was alone, she took a look around. This was the first chance she'd had to see the apartment in the light. The place was a mess, littered with dirty clothes and dirty dishes and food containers. And that smell… her best bet was that it came from a pizza box sitting on the windowsill near the radiator.

  The two men returned moments later, Thomas carrying two cardboard boxes, and Jack carrying a third… and another gun.

  "Look what Thomas has," Jack said. "A cute little .32."

  But Alicia had eyes for only the boxes.

  He has the collection, she thought with dismay. He really has it. Part of her had been hoping he'd been bluffing.

  "That's all of it?" Jack said.

  Thomas nodded vigorously. "Yes." Still standing, he turned to Alicia. "Yes, I swear."

  "Why, Thomas? Besides its blackmail value, why would you want to keep that filth? It's a catalog of degradation."

  "It wasn't so bad. I mean, what's the big deal. No one got hurt."

  Jack raised a fist and Alicia thought he was going to hit Thomas, but he glanced at her and she shook her head. All her life she'd wanted never to talk about this part of their childhoods—now she couldn't stop.

  "No one got hurt? What about you? What's your life been like? Have you had even one intimate relationship?"

  I know I haven't, she thought.

  "You think I don't know what a loser I am?" he said, narrowing his eyes as he looked at her. "I know. Believe me, I goddamn well know. And it's Dad's fault. That's why I deserve the house. I need it. You don't. You've done fine for yourself. You're a doctor."

  "You don't know a thing about me," Alicia said softly.

  That overcoming line she'd fed Jack was just that—a line. A mantra. Maybe if she kept repeating it, she'd come to believe it. Maybe it might even become the truth. But she had a long way to go.

  I may look "okay" on the outside, she thought, but inside I… I look like this apartment.

  "You 'deserve,' " Jack said, his voice acid. "You 'need.' You make me sick. You wouldn't know what to do with the windfall you'd get from broadcast power."

  Alicia caught her breath, wishing Jack hadn't let that slip, but then she saw Thomas's legs buckle. He dropped into the chair behind him. If his face had been white before at his first sight of Jack, it was even paler now. And when Thomas started babbling, she realized Jack's "slip" had been calculated.

  "You know? Oh, dear Christ! How'd you find out? It was last night, wasn't it." The words tumbled out. "Goddamm it! We turned that house upside down and couldn't find shit! You two waltz in and—wait—do you know where the transmitter is?"

  "Come on," Jack said, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of the chair. "We're going for a walk."

  "What?" Thomas's knees looked rubbery as he got to his feet. "Where?"

  "Outside."

  "Wh-why?"

  Alicia was asking herself that same question.

  "Because you don't have a fireplace here." He held up Thomas's .32. "I'll leave your training pistol here. But bring those boxes with you."

  14

  "Give us about an hour with the fire, guys, and I promise you it'll be nice and hot when you get back."

  Alicia had followed Jack farther west, down the slope toward the Hudson River, as much in the dark as Thomas as to where he was going. He'd stopped at a trash can fire in the mouth of an alley and handed a twenty to each of the three men warming themselves by the flames.

  Now they laughed and grinned and low-fived each other as they hurried off.

  "All right," Jack said, pointing to Thomas. "Get to work."

  Alicia looked around at the dark, empty, forbidding streets. But she didn't feel afraid. Jack seemed to be in his element, and in complete control.

  "You're not listening to me," Thomas said. He'd been talking nonstop since they'd left his apartment.

  "Start feeding the fire," Jack said. "And not too fast. We don't want to smother it."

  Thomas finally got the idea. He reached into one of the boxes he'd carried here and pulled out a fistful of photos. Alicia watched them flutter into the can, curling and blackening as the hungry flames consumed them, destroying forever the hideous images they bore. She was in there, with Thomas, but other children were there as well… forced or duped like her into performing an obscene dance…

  She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling almost giddy. She reminded herself that it was only a token, but still… now there would be one less set of prints in existence.

  But Thomas didn't seem to care about the photos, seemed only half aware of what he was doing. All he cared about was the transmitter.

  "The transmitter's the key, you know," he said, starting in again. "If you know its location, I can make us all wealthy beyond your wildest dreams."

  Jack appeared uninterested. "If we have the transmitter, why do we need you?"

  "Because your ownership of the technology will be challenged the instant you try to sell it."

 
"And yours won't?"

  "Anybody trying to patent it will run into a wall. That's because…" He paused. "Let me back up and explain this. Then you'll know why you need me."

  "This oughta be good," Jack said, glancing at her.

  Alicia shrugged. "Just as long as you keep feeding the fire."

  Broadcast power was all fine and good. But first she wanted to see those photos reduced to ash.

  "I found out about Dad's invention when I stopped by to visit him one day."

  "You stayed in touch?" she said. She found that hard to believe.

  "Not really." He shrugged. "I was a little short, and he wasn't returning my calls. So I stopped by. Anyway, he left me cooling my heels while he talked on the phone, so I wandered around and noticed he'd left a couple of lamps burning here and there around the house. It being noon and all, and me being a good, ecologically minded son"—he grinned here, but Alicia wouldn't respond and Jack only stared at him—"I, uh, went to turn them off. But as I did, I noticed these little wires sticking up from the bases of their bulb sockets. I looked closer and realized that the damn lamps weren't plugged in. What was powering the bulbs? Had Dad developed some sort of battery-powered lamp? Out of curiosity, I began to tinker with one. By the time he finished his conference call, I'd figured it out."

  "I'll bet he was thrilled," Alicia said.

  "Hardly the word for it. Royally pissed was more like it. He started kicking me out, but then changed his mind. That mystified me then, but I understood why later. Dad wouldn't tell me anything about the technology itself, but he did explain why he didn't want word to get out about it just yet. You see, his invention isn't completely his. It utilizes a number of discoveries he made and technologies he developed while working for various universities and corporations over the years. Those organizations hold the patents on those technologies. They'd claim the lion's share—or possibly all—of the profits from his invention. So what he was doing was searching for a way to maintain ownership once he revealed it. He leant me the money I needed on the condition I kept mum."