The Serialist Page 4

  “What’s all this we business?” I asked.

  “Come on,” she said. “The tutoring season’s almost over. Let me work this one with you.”

  “We’ll see.” I tried to assert myself. “Maybe you can observe me. If it even happens.”

  “Cool,” she said. “I’ll run some numbers.” Whatever that meant. What difference did it make? She never listened to me anyway.

  Next, I had to go through a whole rigmarole with the Bureau of Prisons, get my fingerprints taken and my background checked. I was given a list of instructions about what not to bring or do. The most chilling was Do Not Wear Denim. It was what the convicts wore, and in case of a riot or other disturbance, the guards would try to avoid shooting the guy in cords.

  I also met with Clay’s attorney, Carol Flosky. Her office was down near the courts on Park Row, in a building that I would describe as decrepit yet lawyerly: creaky elevator, dark hallway, the missing black and white octagonal tiles in the once-fancy hall replaced, indifferently, with off-green bathroom squares. Her office had books and files stacked from the floor to the ceiling, and leaks pinging into pans, but it was a big room full of big furniture, all leather and wood, and it held a big view of the courthouse from across a plaza, as well as an impressive young woman who answered the door.

  Black-haired, shapely and sleekly petite under glasses, hairpins and a dark wool suit, she introduced herself as Theresa Trio, legal aide, before showing me to Ms. Flosky, who was disheveled, blond and fiftysomething, in a cardigan with glasses perched on her hair. She stood behind her desk, smoking, and waved me in. I put my hand out for a shake.

  “Nice to meet you,” I began.

  “Fuck no!” she screeched.

  “Sorry?” I froze, smile drying on my face, hand still limply in midair.

  “Yes, yes,” she added while shaking her head no. I realized she wasn’t speaking to me, just staring while she talked on her phone’s headset. She waved impatiently at a chair heaped with files. I lifted the stack and sat, holding them in my lap and pretending to be fascinated with the only artwork in the room, a trite black-and-white photo of some leafless trees poking out of some snow. There was an ashtray the size of a dinner plate stuffed with butts and the room had that deep, sour smoke smell, as if they cured hams in there at night.

  “Total dog crap!” she yelled right in my face.

  I smiled and nodded.

  “That’s right, you douche!”

  It was making me feel a bit odd to sit there blankly while she looked straight at me and barked, “Yes! No! Bullshit! Fuck!” so I turned to the window and watched the courthouse steps. It was a gusty day, which seemed to heighten the sense of being behind glass, as if I were watching a silent film. People pushed uphill, their bodies strained and wavering, hair and trousers flapping in the wind. Dresses and skirts clung deliriously to their mistresses’ curves. A hat rolled down. A plastic deli bag took off in a giddy spiral.

  “OK, let’s get something straight right now,” Flosky said. “I think this whole thing stinks.”

  Not sure whom she meant, I pointed curiously at myself.

  “Yeah, you,” she said, and aimed a nail at me. “El stinko.”

  “Huh,” I said, trying to be noncommittal. “I see.”

  “But Darian wants this, so there you go.” She waved her cigarette, drawing a little daisy of smoke in the air, then sat and took a long, thoughtful drag. “Let’s be clear. I’m not privy to the substance of what he wants to discuss with you. Nor will I be if this goes forward. It’s totally between you two.”

  “OK.”

  “But!” I flinched as she stood back up. “There are a few items we need to discuss. One!” She held up a thumb. “He’s offering you a fifty-fifty split, which I assume is all right with you.”

  “Yes, certainly.” Fifty percent was very generous. Claire had urged me to push for thirty-five and settle for twenty-five. On the other hand, she explained, Clay’s share would go to settling debts, including what had to be enormous legal bills, and then right into a victim’s fund, since he wasn’t allowed to profit from his crimes. I suppose it was easy to be extravagant with money you’d never see. Still I said, “Thank you very much.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Flosky answered. “It’s not my money.” Not yet, I thought. She held up two fingers.

  “Which brings me to item B. Not one word of what he tells you, not one thing that you learn, nothing what-so-fucking-ever is to be published, released, given out in an interview, leaked or in any manner disseminated until after Mr. Clay’s death, natural or not. Which means, if I have my way, you won’t see squat for a long, long time.” She smiled. “And neither will I.”

  I tried to smile back, but her face went blank on me. “Hello?” she said. “Hello?” She tapped her headphones. “Jack, you bastard, what the fuck are you trying to pull?”

  Waving and nodding, I backed away. Theresa Trio, clattering away on a keyboard, with plugs in her own ears, didn’t speak or look up either, so I showed myself out and reported back to Claire.

  “Damn it,” she said, when I told her my tale. “I knew there had to be a catch.” She liked the fifty-fifty part all right, pronouncing it “sweet.” But if Clay got his death sentence overturned, or commuted, or indefinitely delayed, then I got nothing. However, the lawyers Claire consulted calmed her down. Clay, they assured her, was a dead man. His case had run its course, and his execution was set, for three months hence, when he would most certainly die. The only things that could save him now were a stay from the governor, which was politically unthinkable, or a new appeal, for which there was no legal basis. Perhaps this was why he had decided to speak, to unburden his heart, if he had one, and leave it all behind when he passed from this world, leave it behind with me.

  12

  I took an evening train upstate. I had to be at the prison early to go through the extensive entry process and decided it was better to head up the night before and stay in a nearby hotel. Then, after being frisked and cleared, I’d meet Darian Clay.

  It was only then, on the train to Sing Sing, when the nervousness and excitement of the last week faded away, that the other, deeper nervousness, and excitement, began to surface: I was on my way to meet a multiple murderer. I was on my way to meet, and possibly even work for, an evil man. And not evil like the mean health food store owner I worked for when I was fourteen who made me scrub out the gluten press. Clay was truly evil, in a way almost no one really is. He was not just someone who had done wrong, out of selfishness or stupidity, fear or hate, characteristics which are all too typically human and easy to understand. Clay was different, alien and apart. Whatever the root of his crimes, he had crossed a line and obliterated his own humanity: he had become a monster.

  And I was scared to meet the monster. I admit it. I was squirming in my seat. Absurdly frightened, like a child touching a haunted house on a dare, scared of nothing in broad daylight, or like when, eyeing a shark in a glass tank, we step back, just in case. Frightened also of setting foot in the prison for any reason, even as a guest. Wasn’t there always a small chance of not being let out? And then there was the deeper fear—contamination: superstitious, primitive, but for that very reason unshakable, the fear that evil could somehow be infectious, that contact with the monster could damage me, do something weird to my “soul.”

  Frankly, I was feeling like I wouldn’t have minded being back home, in my old bedroom, which I’d turned into a study, sitting at the same desk where I’d composed my boyish poems, dreaming of a journey from Zorg to a warm, moist planet where the inhabitants wore masks over their heads and identified each other by their genitals, or else plotting the race to stop the biggest shipment of tainted crack ever to hit Harlem and expose the corrupt white politicians who were secretly backing it. Only one man stood in their way. Mordechai Jones.

  Outside the window, as darkness fell, and the train sped north, and the city faded into country, we also seemed to be climbing back into winter. There w
as still snow up there, on the dead fields and silent buildings, and along the phone wires and fence posts. The spare trees were empty, except for the pines, which were black clumps now in the dark. Up top, where the mountains were iced, the sky was very clear and there were an uncountable number of stars. And sitting across from me, riding backward through space, which I couldn’t stand because it made me sick, was Theresa Trio, legal aide.

  Trio had some papers for Clay to sign and would also act as my escort, showing me the way to the hotel and prison and walking me through the process, although our meetings with Clay would be separate. She was dressed for travel now, not business, in jeans and a parka that she removed in the overheated train to reveal a baggy ACLU sweatshirt. A button on her backpack urged me to Spread Peace In the MidEast. I noticed something else too: she wasn’t afraid.

  “You’re not scared?” I asked, with a smile. “Making this trip?”

  “No,” she said. “If you try anything, I have pepper spray.”

  I laughed. “You know what I mean. Going into the prison. Meeting with a killer.”

  “Wrongly convicted man, you mean. I work for his lawyer.”

  “Right. Sorry. Anyway, all I meant . . .” The conversation was getting away from me and I regretted starting it. I was tempted to just shut my eyes and pretend to fall asleep. Start snoring maybe. “All I meant was that it must be interesting. I mean being a lawyer, you have to deal with a lot of criminals and just unsavory types.”

  “Like porn writers?”

  “Ha.” I laughed again. “Good one. That’s two in a row. I’m an ass, I know. I can’t help it. Maybe as a lawyer you can relate.”

  She smiled a bit now, despite herself. A narrow, grudging smile.

  “Anyway,” I said, shrugging. “Whatever. Never mind.” I turned and stared out the window. Trees. Snow. Stars. As far as I could see it looked exactly the same, as if we hadn’t moved at all.

  “Actually I’m not a lawyer yet,” she said. “I’m doing an internship. I’m a volunteer aide.”

  “Oh yeah? And why with Flosky?”

  “Because I think capital punishment is barbaric. Because even if Clay, or anyone else on death row, were guilty, then fine, they are murderers, but it would be criminal too for us to kill them. There’s no way, as a society, we can do that and be civilized.”

  “Since when were we civilized?” I asked. “Is that even up for debate? Not that I disagree,” I quickly added. “I oppose it too. I don’t feel comfortable with the state having that power. Not many rich white guys on death row.”

  “Exactly!” she declared, sitting forward, and finally seeming to warm a bit.

  “But still,” I couldn’t help adding, “I can’t help thinking, someone killed those girls, someone did those things, and that person is evil, and doesn’t that evil bastard deserve to die?”

  “Well, if you feel that way, if he’s evil and deserves to die, how could you as a good person, as a civilized man, be doing this job right now?”

  “You keep saying that. Who says I’m such a good person?” I asked. “I’m just a writer. Don’t worry, once you’re a lawyer, you’ll understand.”

  She rolled her eyes, the smile vanished, and she withdrew the slight offer of goodwill she’d extended. The conversation was over. She reached into her purse, put on her glasses, and settled in to read Crimson Darkness Falls by Sibylline Lorindo-Gold.

  I had never seen anyone reading one of my books before. I assumed of course that someone somewhere must read them, and early on, I admit, I even went to bookshops to see my false names on the shelf, and lurk around like a bird-watcher waiting to see that elusive species, the reader, flit in and pick on me. But it never happened, not once, and my image of the person for whom I wrote remained a vague smudge, less real than my own characters.

  My first impulse was to tell her. But then I realized it could be a bad move to let her or her boss or Clay know who I was, or who else I was. Besides, she’d probably never believe me anyway. And what if she did but thought I sucked?

  I cleared my throat. “Any good?” I asked, as casually as I could manage.

  “What?” She looked annoyed.

  “That book. Is it any good?”

  She nodded. I guess that was better than a no, but hardly satisfying.

  “What’s it about?”

  “Sorry?” I was clearly bugging her now.

  “What’s it about?”

  She gave me a withering glance and sighed. “Vampires, OK?”

  “Huh, interesting.”

  “Look, don’t give me any shit about my taste in books, Mr. Slut Talker.”

  “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. I heard her books were pretty good actually.”

  She looked up and met my eyes, to judge if I was teasing or not.

  “I think she’s great,” she said.

  I think I may have blushed. I know I had to look down. She’s a fan, I thought, a real fan. Of mine. And then, because I can’t leave well enough alone, any more than I could stop flipping ahead in books, I had to have that next thought, the one I shouldn’t be thinking. I can’t help it. It’s part of being a writer, or a poet, even a bad one. Although I was joking with Theresa, in fact we poets are indeed savages: civilization depends on repression, and we always think that next thing, however unthinkable, and however unspeakable, we speak it too, if only silently, in writing, to ourselves. And so I looked at Theresa Trio and wondered if, under that loose sweatshirt and jeans, anything soft and pink had been pierced. If anything tender needed a little bite.

  As she read on, I tried to follow the story with her in my mind, guessing what she might be smiling or frowning over. In the early chapters, my heroine, Sasha, a college student majoring in archaeology, is offered a summer internship in New York, cataloging the collection of a wealthy, reclusive couple. I’m happy to report that Theresa read that part with rapt attention, furrowing her brow, twisting her hair, even, once, chewing her plump lower lip in dramatic sympathy when, on her first night in New York, Sasha takes a walk and is nearly raped in Central Park, only to be rescued by a wolf that mauls her attacker. But then, just as we (Theresa, Sasha, and I) got to the steps of the mysterious couple’s elegant townhouse, when the mounting suspense should have been nigh on unbearable, she abruptly shut the book and went to sleep, closing her dark lashes, and leaving behind one slender finger trapped between the pages to hold her place until we got to Ossining, where there was fresh snow on the ground.

  13

  From Crimson Darkness Falls by Sibylline Lorindo-Gold, chapter 3:

  I arrived as instructed, just after sundown. A light rain was beginning to fall. As I stood there, clutching my suitcase on the steps of the townhouse, everything around me—the fog-haloed lampposts of hallowed Sutton Place, the dark skyline, the raindrops disappearing soundlessly into the river—seemed beautiful and unreal. I, Sasha Burns, a small town girl, was being invited to inspect the private collection of Aram and Ivy Vane. Schenectady had never seemed so far. A sudden wave of fear went through me and I wanted to run, to race back to Penn Station and catch the first train home. It’s only nerves, I told myself, but it felt like something more, a primitive animal reaction, like when one of Dad’s hunting dogs smelled mountain lion. Then, before I had a chance to ring the bell, the lock clicked and the massive door swung open. Cautiously, I stepped inside.

  “Welcome,” a deep, vaguely foreign voice reached me unseen. “Please do come in.”

  It was a magnificent room, a long, high-ceilinged chamber with fireplaces roaring at both ends. A chandelier glowered from above. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held rare volumes in old tongues. There was little furniture—a few Persian rugs and some beautifully preserved antiques—but a grand piano dominated one corner, a violin resting on its lid. Then a man emerged from the shadows. He was tall and whip-thin, dressed all in black, his hair prematurely gray, I thought, since his strong, handsome face didn’t seem older than midthirties. Wide forehead, dark skin, straight, noble nose. The only
irregularities were his full, almost feminine lips, the scar that ran from his left temple to his jaw, and his deeply green eyes, eyes that seemed to glow in their sockets like jewels sleeping in a mine where light had never reached.

  “I am Aram,” he said, taking my hand in his. “I am so pleased you could come. Allow me to present my wife.”

  He gestured and I gasped. Somehow a woman had appeared beside me without my noticing, as if out of the fog and smoke. And not just any woman. The most beautiful creature I had ever seen. People say I’m cute—thin, blond, blue-eyed and fastest on my track team—but I’d never thought of myself as glamorous or sexy and this woman made me feel like a tomboy. She was tall and voluptuous, with a filmy black dress hugging her ripe curves, jet-black hair falling to her hips, and a pale, perfect oval of a face with blood-red lips and the saddest, most beautiful eyes, like two black tears about to fall.

  “Good evening,” she said, “I’m Ivy. You must be exhausted after your trip. Let me show you to your room.”

  The next few days passed in a blur. A wonderful blur. During the day, I was alone in the library, helping to catalog the magnificent collection. I had never seen such artifacts: not only Sumerian, Egyptian, Aramaic, Hebrew and African, but Chinese, Japanese and Indian as well. This sounds nerdy, but unpacking those treasures and cleaning the dust from them with a tiny sable-haired brush was heaven. Only two thoughts bothered me: One, why had such priceless pieces never before been seen or recorded? And two, why me? True, I majored in archaeology at a pretty good state school, but the closest I’d come to a project like this was weighing Iroquois arrowheads at camp.

  Aram explained that they wanted to maintain their privacy and prevent any word of their holdings from leaking out. Also, they claimed to find my youthful naiveté refreshing. They were bored with life, they told me, as they sat before huge feasts, watching me pig out on truffles and caviar but never swallowing a mouthful themselves and only touching the wine to their lips. I, certainly, was the furthest thing from bored. They were fascinating: they spoke a dozen languages, played championship-level chess together, and accompanied each other on piano and violin, switching off as the mood changed, from Bach to Schoenberg. They competed to see who could recite the most Shakespeare but gave up just before dawn, with a draw.