statue-still in the downpour.
When Jeff was within reach, he grabbed Graham’s arm and squeezed tight, not sure if he’d intended to hurt him or if he was only hanging on for dear life. “ You,” he snarled. “What do you know about these people?”
He stared at him dully. “What people?”
“Don’t fuck with me.” Jeff turned and started them both down the street, hand still clamped on Graham’s arm. “You told me to stay away from Jessica Bell. You said you heard things, saw things, knew things.”
“You’re hurting my arm.”
“Tough shit, start talking.”
“Where are we going?”
As they reached the first alley they’d come to, his question was answered. About halfway through, Jeff spun him around and pushed him against the wall. Ernie slammed the bricks, grimaced and began to cough.
“It didn’t have to be you!” Graham said. “It could’ve been somebody else!”
“What does that mean?”
He doubled over and coughed harder until he hacked up a big ball of phlegm. “It didn’t have to be you,” he said again, spitting it out. “You could’ve been kinder to me, you-”
“I tried to be kind to you.”
“No,” he said, wiping his mouth, “you tried to get rid of me.”
“What do you have to do with all this?”
“Your wife, she was kind to me. Eden was kind. Eden is kind.”
“I told you to leave my wife out of it. Eden has nothing to do with this.”
He laughed, his chest gurgling. “Wouldn’t you say she’s your life?”
Jeff hadn’t expected the question, and it took him a moment to answer it. “Yes, of course.”
“Then she has everything to do with it.”
“She doesn’t even know anything’s happened.”
He nodded in agreement. “And she never will.”
“Tell me what you know.” Jeff raised his fists. “Or so help me I’ll beat it out of you.”
“I’m not the one you need answers from. Talk to Hope.”
“Who is he? Who is he really?”
“I don’t know.” Ernie’s bloodshot eyes blinked rapidly in the rain. “I only know he’s using magic…black magic…whole lot of black magic.”
“You can’t really believe that.”
“You’ll believe it soon enough.” He smiled his brown-toothed smile.
Jeff brought his hands to his head, ran them through his drenched hair.
“Could be you already do,” Ernie went on, “but you’re just too scared to admit it.”
“What do you mean when you say it didn’t have to be me?”
“You’ll understand…eventually.”
“No,” Jeff said, lunging for his throat and pinning him back against the alley wall. “No, you’re gonna tell me now.”
Ernie struggled to break free but couldn’t. “You’re choking me, I-I can’t breathe!”
“Tell me what you meant, you fuck!”
“You should’ve stayed away from them like I told you,” he said, gagging. “If you did they would’ve found somebody else and none of this would’ve touched you or your life.”
“How are you involved in this? Are you in on this with them?” He choked him even harder. “Are you one of them?”
“No,” he gasped.
Jeff released him. Ernie’s legs gave out and he slid slowly to the ground, finally plopping down on his behind in the middle of a puddle. He crawled onto his hands and knees and struggled to get up but didn’t seem to have the strength. The rain kept coming, pounding them down. “I’m just a man,” he said, weeping suddenly. “I made some mistakes but I’m a good person. Why do I have to live like some piece of trash in the street? I don’t deserve this. I never hurt anyone.
What did I ever do to anybody? What did I ever do to you?”
Ashamed, Jeff looked away.
He punched the ground, splashing at the puddle with his fist as his body bucked with emotion. “No one gives you anything in this life! You have to take it! Even if you don’t want to, there’s no other way! Life leaves us no choice but to rip it away from somebody else so we can have ours! It’s the nature of things, our nature!”
“No. It’s a lie someone like Foster Hope relies on us believing, because without it he’s powerless.” Jeff stumbled away, head spinning.
When he reached the mouth of the alley, he looked back. Ernie Graham was on his knees, head back and hands reaching for the sky as if to grab hold of something only he could see, some sliver of peace and salvation perhaps, promised by veiled and forgotten gods no longer believed in, safely hidden away in storm clouds and concealed by a relentless rain.
Nothing seemed real anymore. The world took no particular notice.
It just kept churning, bustling all around him as he moved through the city streets, another lost soul barely cognizant of the driving rain. All he could think about was Foster Hope, those horrible emerald eyes, the white hair, the lined face, the big false teeth, and then he’d fade to black and Steven Wychek would take his place, terrified but surrendered to the inevitable as he launched himself through the plastic-covered window and plummeted to the alley below.
The brownstone…
Jeff stood across the street. If they’d already vacated the building he certainly wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d actually expected to find it empty. Regardless, he’d been drawn there. He’d dismissed his desire to simply return home or go to Eden’s office and take her out of there and explain to her what was happening and why together they needed to leave the city and go somewhere else, to put this madness behind them like the bad dream it was and move on with their lives. They’d find jobs, a safe place to live in a quiet little town, maybe have a couple kids and have real lives, real love…peace…
He crossed the street, climbed the steps and tried the door. It opened.
Once inside, he continued on to the reception area, his eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light and bringing everything into eventual focus. The sound of rain softened, but the same annoying dripping sound echoed along the hallway. It smelled musty and old here, as if nothing alive had moved within these walls in a very long time. Rather than going into the meeting room, this time he followed the hall to the rear of the building instead.
Like a tunnel, the dark hallway turned and emptied into a large open room that looked almost like some sort of old ballroom. It was large, with high ceilings, no interior walls, old hardwood floors, plaster walls and a ceiling marred with age and littered with spider web cracks. Void of furniture, it was completely empty but for someone kneeling in the center of the room, rocking slowly in the shadows. He couldn’t be sure if it was a man or woman, as they were wrapped from head-to-toe in a sheer dark cloak, like an ancient burial shroud.
Jeff remained in the doorway. The person’s whispers, the cadence like prayers or chants, bled across the open space, but they seemed unaware of his presence. Even when the familiar clacking sound of heels hitting the floor broke the silence and Jessica Bell entered the room from a door on the far wall, the person continued rocking, head bowed and undeterred.
As she crossed the room in her business suit, towing a suitcase on wheels behind her, he saw her nude and atop him in the hotel room, her breasts wet with perspiration, her hair a tangled mess, her legs tight against his hips as she bucked and rode him, her hands pressed flat against his chest and her eyes wild and alive and burning with the crazed passion and fire of a woman possessed.
She stopped a few feet from him, looking almost pleased to see him. “Jeff,” she said, “what are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?”
Jessica smiled, and he felt himself stir. “Same as the others, looking for answers you won’t find, not here
