Barren studied the fool in front of him. He could read him as plainly as auroch tracks. The man was stupidly ambitious, and therefore worthy of contempt. Barren decided to play with him.
“I’m in … Riker’s Island?”
“Good. Now do you know where that is?”
“It’s either in New York City or a place in a … Mar-vel co-mic.”
The detective leaned back.
“How do you know which?”
“I’m learning to read. Co-mics. I’m here. The guys have them in there. I read that Riker’s Island is a place that holds bad guys and … super villains.
Bossier was an ardent fisherman of the shoals and bays of the criminal sea. He sometimes took the Riker’s duty out of curiosity, just to see what sorts of people were getting caught in the net. This was an odd fish.
He flipped through the thin processing file for this detainee. “Where are you from?”
“The Source.”
Bossier looked up, prepared to give this guy the don’t-be-a-wise-ass speech. He stopped. With the certainty of a mug shot or a positive DNA and prints match, or a rap sheet of prior convictions — none of which existed anywhere for this man— Bossier knew that here was a killer. He knew it from the man’s eyes. They were steel marbles, glistening ball bearings, that saw everything as prey.
“What do you do?”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Like?”
“A … dame.”
The sneery way he said it was so stupid it was funny, like a bad amateur Bogey-impressionist.
The man was creepy, but there was no basis to hold him. His processing form made that clear. This one would have to be thrown back in to the sea.
“You want to get out of here?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Looks like you’ll be out tomorrow afternoon.”
Bossier got up and left.
A guard returned Barren to the group lockup. Once there, Barren persuaded one burly inmate to retrieve some scissors stashed in a wall crevice. The man, a hardened felon who specialized in brutalizing his victims, cut and snipped Barren’s hair with the careful detail and pandering chit-chat of a docile barber. He fashioned it as Barren indicated, pointing to a cluster of detainees with Mohawks. He then used soap and a little blue scraper to meticulously shave Barren’s beard.
Thus transformed, Barren sat on the edge of his cot, feeling the strange tingle of newly exposed skin and the anticipation of a stalk. A hunt that would result in his prize.
At ten the next evening, after four days at Riker’s Island, Barren was released back into the city. He was now equipped with an educational jumpstart, second hand clothes, and twenty dollars in his pocket.
Chapter 11
OCTOBER 20
Just as Barren emerged from Riker’s Island, the train carrying Cadence plunged into its last night run before arriving in the city. She fidgeted and worried. She was happy to be getting there and anxious about the strangeness that seemed to stalk her.
She looked at the black glass and cut her eyes away.
She awoke at five in the morning, stirred by something vague, perhaps only the train jostling, and obscured by an urgent need to pee. She leaned up from her reclined seat and looked both ways down the aisle. The overhead lights were dim and the absence of reading lights meant the few passengers were all asleep. 9-11 Man was a snoring shadow sprawled across his seats. She eased up and looked at her own nest. She shrugged and got up and then stopped. The valise was in plain sight. She leaned over and pulled it up and moved it down two rows and shoved it beneath an empty seat. She pulled a blanket from the overhead and disguised the valise as a dark pile. Now she really did have to go, and she headed for the women’s bathroom in the next car.
As she slid the lavatory door shut, the light flicked on and the mirror over the sink caught her movement. She looked at it. It was blighted from the inside with some amoebic gray sprawl that ate the upper left corner. She sat and her face moved down and stared back from the mirror bottom. It seemed to loom up from the sink, obscenely decapitated and somehow balanced. Just to be sure, she made full eye contact. A woman knows her face, and the one looking back at her was ever so slightly off. She thought about talking to this image but hesitated. Who knows what truths might spill out in such an encounter?
She stared for a long time, then changed her mind. She inquired out loud, “
Her voice answered, “Because if I don’t, I’ll stay like I am now … empty. When you are an orphan, when that full truth dawns on you, all the other truths you don’t know and can never ask about get really big. If Jess is alive, he’s the only shot I’ve got. He’s someone real to ask the hows and whys. Maybe he’s even someone to blame.” She thought for a second and came to her bottom line. “If I don’t do this now, I
“And?”
“And, there’s something else going on. I can feel it. It’s like … there’s something out there after him …” Then she let it slip out “… and me.”
She stopped, embarrassed but mostly fearing that the image might actually take up its half of the conversation independently. Thankfully, seeing no further response, she retreated to her old cynical refuge. She pursed her lips and raised her hands, palms up, and gave her reflection a taunting “who knows?” shrug. She finished her toilet and her image duly rose as she stood.
She turned her back to the mirror to unlock the door. It was stuck. She jiggered it and then slammed the door with one knee. Beneath the banging and the metallic rattles, she heard a splash of water. This was followed by a liquid, squelching sound, and a soft splish, as if a foot was stepping carefully into water. Her mind imagined that her “second” was crawling out of the mirror and wash basin to meet her. Only it wasn’t anything like her own image anymore. It was some deep-sea gargoyle rising behind her. At any second a pallid, fish-fingered arm would piston out to grip her shoulder. She couldn’t turn to look. Not to see that. Her hands jiggered the lock over and over, like some dumb wind-up toy, until it fell open and she stumbled out. Turning to kick the door closed, she saw only an innocent wet spot on the floor.
As she re-entered her car, she heard the doors at the other end swoosh. A small figure, not a child, looked back from the shadows and disappeared into the next car. She looked at her seat row and began to move fast down the aisle. The train rocked and creaked. She made her way toward her seat, two-arming along the aisle seat backs for balance. 9-11 Man was still snoring. She looked down at her nest, her sanctuary. Something was wrong. Her backpack was now on the seat next to the aisle.
Her hands were like frightened birds as she reached down and picked it up. Makeup and toiletries spilled out of the newly open side pocket. Her pocketbook, still with money and IDs, lay on the floor. Jess’s journal had been rifled, but appeared to all be there. Then she panicked. The valise! For a moment she forgot where it was. She edged backwards to its hiding spot. She tore at the blankets.
It was exactly where she left it. She checked the clasp, then opened it. The contents were just as she’d left them. She blew in relief and took it back to her seat. Just a petty thief, she thought.
She pondered this for a few moments, and then went to the emergency phone and called the conductor. After awhile, he arrived and conducted a desultory and inconclusive search of the train. She didn’t talk about the
