Twice

Dax turned around to look at Jeffrey but saw only a shadow behind him. “Here we go,” he said after a moment, shining his light into an opening in the wall that led to pitch-nothingness. “Just where she said it would be.”

A flight of metal stairs took them into a new layer of darkness where whatever brightness had carried in from the streets above was extinguished by a damp and utter black. The silence was so total that Jeffrey could hear his breath and Dax’s, too. The stairs had led them to a narrow walkway, and at the end in the beam of Dax’s flashlight they could see a metal door with no handle. Jeffrey felt like they were in a tomb. They approached the entrance and stood for a moment.

“What do we do?” said Jeffrey.

“We knock,” said Dax, raising a big fist to the metal and banging hard.

Jetty Murphy reminded Lydia of nothing so much as Golem, the creature from The Hobbit that dwelled in darkness guarding his precious ring. Bent over and twisted like an old branch, he was so thin that his elbows looked like knobs and his collarbone stretched against his skin. His overlarge head seemed to bob on the end of his neck as if he didn’t possess enough strength to support it. Black oily curls hung past his shoulders. He cupped his hands together over his mouth and his fingers were long and ghoulish, with nails bitten to the quick, his eyes black saucers set in gaunt features. He rocked on his haunches in the chair across from Ford. An armed guard stood by the door and Lydia stood beside him.

“Do you remember me, Jetty?” asked Ford. He’d seated himself across from Jetty and sat relaxed, leaning back in the chair. Lydia noticed how he’d molded the expression on his face to a look of benevolence, of understanding.

“Of course I remember you. I’m crazy, not stupid,” Jetty said bitterly. He dropped his feet to the floor and pulled himself upright so that he was sitting with a straight back. He raised his chin in a gesture that seemed to mock dignity.

“It was a long time ago,” said Ford gently, running his fingers along the edge of the table. “Even I have a hard time remembering that far back. How long ago was it now?”

“Ten years or so,” Jetty answered with a shrug. “What do you want?”

“Something’s come up, Jetty. I think you can help me.”

“Help you?” he said, laughing a little, as if such a thing were beyond imagining. But Lydia saw a brightening in his expression, like he had something someone wanted and it was a new feeling for him.

“I want you to remember that night for me again. Tell me again what you saw.”

“What’s in it for me?” he said, looking over at Lydia quickly and then back at Ford. “Can you make me a deal?”

He leaned forward quickly on the table and Lydia felt the guard twitch at her side.

“Sit back, Murphy,” he barked at Jetty. His voice boomed off the cold walls and filled the room. Murphy jumped back as if he’d been shocked.

“It’s okay,” said Ford, looking at the guard. “Me and Jetty go way back. Right, Jetty?”

“That’s right. Way back,” said Jetty, relaxing and casting a smug smile at the guard.

“I can’t make you a deal, Jetty. I won’t lie to you. But I might be able to get you a few privileges, put in a good word at your next review. I’ll tell you straight that you don’t have to help me. But I’d really be grateful if you did.”

Something about the way Ford had softened his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, the way he leaned in slightly toward Jetty, seemed to have an impact. Jetty looked less hopeless, a little less edgy. Lydia had to remind herself that she was looking at a rapist and a murderer, but it was hard not to have compassion for someone who just seemed so weak, so desperate. Ford lifted a bag that had been sitting by his feet filled with candy bars and a carton of cigarettes.

“I remembered that you used to have a sweet tooth, Jetty.”

“We’re not allowed to have that stuff here,” he said, casting a sidelong glance at the guard and a longing look at the bag.

“I’m sure I could get them to bend a few rules if you help me today, Jetty. What do you say?”

Jetty shrugged, trying and failing to look nonchalant. “What do you want to know?”

Ford took a Baby Ruth from the bag and slid it over to Jetty, who grabbed it up, ripped the wrapper off, and shoved it in his mouth in one movement. He pressed the bar into his mouth, chewing at it frantically, smearing chocolate on his face, as if he were afraid if he didn’t eat it fast someone would snatch it from him. Lydia looked away. It was pathetic. She wondered what had to happen to a person in his life that he wound up here, like this.

Ford took a photograph from his pocket and slid it over to Jetty, waiting patiently for him to finish eating. When he was done, Jetty wiped his hands on his jumper, leaving long streaks of chocolate up his leg. He reached for the photograph and stared at it.

“It’s a painting. But does this face look familiar to you?” asked Ford.

“Yeah… yeah. It’s the man I saw that night. The one I told you about.”

“Tell me again what you saw that night.”

“I was behind this building looking through the garbage. I was a junkie then and I was always looking for something to sell, you know. I heard voices up above me… loud, scared. It sounded like two men and one woman.” He was talking fast, the sugar making him hyper.

“Try to remember now, Jetty, did you hear anything that you could understand? Did you hear what they were saying?”

Jetty closed his eyes as if trying to transport himself back to that night.

“I heard the woman. I heard something she said.”

Ford looked surprised. “You did? You didn’t mention that ten years ago.”

“Didn’t I?” Jetty shrugged. Then, “You don’t believe me?”

“Sure I do. What did she say?”

“She said, ‘I don’t love you. Not like that. I never did.’ She screamed it. I mean, she was screaming her lungs out. And then another voice, said, ‘You’re lying. It’s time to surrender.’ He was yelling, too. That was all I could understand.”

Lydia caught the word and remembered what Julian had said to Dr. Barnes, that she’d chosen to surrender.

Ford looked at Jetty and couldn’t decide whether the guy was full of shit or not. Jetty had given a statement and testified in court ten years ago and had never mentioned those words before. But why would he be lying now?

“Then there was a, like… I don’t know how to say other than it was like a roar. It was scary, man. I almost bolted, but there was a lot of good garbage. Then I didn’t hear anything for a while except a sound that could have been the woman crying, like a low wailing. And then, when I thought it was over and started looking in the trash again, the back door of the building came slamming open and a giant man with long gray dreads, just like this,” he said, lifting the picture, “came out. He turned, but I was behind the Dumpster, he didn’t see me. It was dark, but I saw part of his face. Then he ran. I don’t know why, but I followed him. But he just disappeared… he rounded the corner of Prince and Lafayette and he was gone. That’s it. That’s what I saw.”

Ford was impressed that this man who was so fried from drugs and medication remembered anything at all. Except for the conversation he claimed to have overheard, the details of the story hadn’t changed much in ten years, though Ford didn’t remember Jetty telling him that he’d seen the man’s face. He would have remembered that; they would have had a sketch done or something. As far as he knew, the man in the painting was a figment of Julian Ross’s twisted imagination and Jetty was just embellishing his story to make himself feel important.

“And you’re sure that this person in the photograph is the person you saw?” asked Ford.

“You wouldn’t forget that face if you saw it,” said Jetty, and Ford could see Jetty believed it to be the truth.

“You sure you didn’t see anything else when you rounded the corner? Think back. A cab speeding off, a door closing… any hint of where he could have gone.”

“There was a subway station.”

“When we went down into that subway station, there was a metal gate. It was locked up. He couldn’t have