When I looked up from the words to catch my breath, Peter was there in the apartment, standing nonchalantly up against the wall, arms folded in front of his chest, a troubled look on his face. But that was all that was familiar about him; his clothing was in tatters, the skin on his arms was seared red and black. Dirt and blood streaked his cheeks and throat. There was so little left of him that I remembered, I am not sure whether I could have recognized him. The room filled with a foul odor and suddenly I could smell the awful stench of burned flesh and decay.
I shook off a sensation of dread, and greeted my only friend.
'Peter,' I said, relief flooding my voice, 'you're here to help.'
He shook his head but didn't voice a reply. He gestured once to his neck and then his lips, like a mute signaling that words were lost to him.
I pointed back at the wall where my story was collected. 'I was beginning to understand,' I said. 'I was there at the release hearings. I knew. Not everything, but I was beginning to know. When I walked across the hospital grounds that night, for the first time, I saw something different, didn't I? But where were you? Where was Lucy? All of you were making plans, but no one wanted to listen to me, and I was the one who saw the most.'
He smiled again, as if to underscore the truth in what I was saying.
'Why weren't you there to listen to me?' I asked again.
Peter shrugged sadly. Then he reached out a hand that seemed almost stripped of flesh, like a skeleton's bony fingers reaching for my own. In the second that I hesitated, the hand reaching for me faded, almost as if a fog bank had slid between him and me, and after I blinked again, Peter was gone. Wordless. Disappearing like a conjurer's trick on a stage. I shook my head, trying to clear my thinking, and when I looked up again, filmy, slowly taking shape very close to where Peter's apparition had been, I saw the Angel.
He glowed white, as if there was some harsh, unblinking light within him. It blinded me, and I shaded my eyes, and when I looked back, he was still there. Only ghostlike, vaporous, as if he was opaque, constructed part of water, part of air, partially by imagination. His features were indistinct, as if they were slurred about the edges. The only thing sharp and distinct about him were his words.
'Hello, C-Bird,' he said. 'There's no one here to help you. No one left to help you anywhere. Now it is just you and I and what happened that night'
I looked at him and realized that he was right.
'You don't want to remember that night, do you Francis?'
I shook my head, not trusting my own voice.
He pointed across the room at the story growing on the wall.
'Close to dying time, Francis,' he said coldly.
Then he added, 'That night, and this one, too.'
Chapter 31
Francis found Peter outside the first-floor nursing station. It was pill time, and patients were lining up for their evening medications. There was a little jostling back and forth, a few whiny complaints about this or that, a shove or two, but mostly things were orderly; if there was anything to suggest that this was just the arrival of another night in another week of another month of yet another year for the majority of them, it was impossible to see.
'Peter,' Francis said quietly, but unable to hide the tension in his voice, 'Peter, I need to speak with you. And Lucy, too. I think I saw him. I think I know how we can find him.' In Francis's fevered imagination, all that was necessary was to pull the files of the three men who remained behind in the release hearing room. One of them would be the Angel. He was certain of this, and his excitement spilled into every word.
Peter the Fireman, however, seemed distracted, barely listening. His eyes were fixed across the hallway, and Francis followed his gaze. He looked over at the line and saw Newsman and Napoleon, the hulking retarded man and the angry retarded man, three of the women with dolls and all the other faces that filled the Amherst Building with familiarity. He half expected to hear Cleo's voice booming forth, with some imaginary complaint that the goddamn bastards had failed once again to address, followed by her unmistakable cackling laugh bouncing off the wire bars that separated the station from the corridor. Mister Evil was behind the counter, overseeing the evening dispensing of medications by Nurse Wrong, making notations on a clipboard. Every so often Evans would look up and glare in Peter's general direction. After a second, Evans reached down and grasped a small paper cup from an array in front of him, then exited the station and made his way through the lineup of patients, who parted like river waters to let him pass. He came over to Peter and Francis before Francis had had time to say anything else to Peter about all that was troubling him.
'Here you are, Mister Petrel,' Evans said stiffly, almost formally. ' Thorazine Fifty mikes. This should help quiet those voices that you continue to deny hearing.'
He thrust the paper cup at Francis. 'Down the hatch,' he said. Francis took the pill, popped it into his mouth and immediately slid it with his tongue to a place behind his teeth, cheeking it. Evans watched him closely, and then gestured for Francis to open his mouth. Francis complied, and the psychologist took a perfunctory glance inside. Francis could not tell whether Evans had seen the pill or not, but Mister Evil spoke quickly, 'You see, C-Bird, it doesn't really matter to me whether you take the medication or you don't. If you do, well, then there's the chance you'll get out of here someday. If you don't, well, take a look around…'
He gestured widely with his arm, finally bringing it to rest pointing at one of the geriatric patients, white-haired, fragile, skin as flaccid and thin as paper, an afterthought of a man locked into a dilapidated wheelchair that creaked as it moved.'… And imagine that this will be home for you forever.'
Francis breathed in sharply, but didn't respond. Evans gave him a second, as if he expected a reply, then shrugged and pivoted toward Peter. 'No pills for the Fireman this night,' he said stiffly. 'No pills for the real killer here. Not this imaginary killer you keep searching for. The real murderer in this place. You.'
Evans's eyes narrowed. 'We don't have a pill that can fix what's wrong with you, Peter. Nothing that can make you whole. Nothing that can restore the damage you've done. You're going to leave us despite my objections. I was overruled by Gulptilil and all the other important folks who've been here to see you. A real sweetheart deal. Going to some fancy hospital and some fancy program a real long ways away to treat a nonexistent disease that fictionally plagues the Fireman. But no one has a pill or a treatment plan or even some sort of advanced neurosurgery that can truly fix what the Fireman has. Arrogance. Guilt. And memory. It doesn't make any difference who you become, Peter, because inside you will always remain the same. A killer.'
He looked closely at Peter who stood motionless in the middle of the corridor. 'I used to think,' Evans said with frigid bitterness in every word, 'that it was my brother who would carry the scars from your fire for the rest of his life. But I was wrong. He'll recover. He'll go on to doing good and important things. But you, Peter, you'll never forget, will you? You're the one who will be scarred. Nightmares, Peter. Nightmares forever.'
With those words, Mister Evil turned abruptly and went back to the nursing station. No one spoke to him as he passed by the line of patients, who perhaps were not aware of many things, but recognized anger when they saw it, and carefully moved aside.
Peter glared after Mister Evil, but contradictorily said, 'I suppose he's not entirely wrong to hate me. 'What I did was right for some and wrong for others.'
He probably should have continued with that, but he did not. Instead, he turned to Francis and said, 'What were you trying to tell me?'
Francis glanced around to make sure none of the staff were watching him, and he spit the pill out into his palm, sliding it into his pants pocket in the same motion. He felt pummeled by conflicting emotions, unsure what to say. He finally took a deep breath and asked, 'So you're leaving… But what about the Angel?'
'We'll get him tonight. But if not tonight, then soon. So, tell me about the release
