Dark Debts (22 page)

“Per istam sanctam Unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus . . .”

Michael didn't feel anything when Father Donahue touched his forehead. Suddenly, he realized he was above everything, looking down. He could see the top of Father Donahue's head. He could see Vincent and the doctor, his own body—even his face. He didn't feel frightened, merely confused. He knew he wasn't asleep and dreaming. On the contrary, he felt keenly alert. He wondered if he was dead, and if so, why he hadn't gone anywhere. He was still wondering what he should do when he heard someone call his name. He looked toward the voice. There, in the corner of the room, stood a beautiful woman in a maroon velvet dress with ivory lace around the collar. She was smiling at him, her eyes full of kindness and love. He recognized her from photos he'd seen. She was his mother.

He opened his mouth to speak but found he couldn't. Instead, she spoke to him.

“It's all right, sweetheart. You're going to be fine.” Her voice was gentle and it calmed him immediately. “You're going to be around for many years,” she said, “because there's something you have to do.”

Then, as suddenly as she'd appeared, she was gone, fading before his eyes. He wanted to run toward her, to stop her from leaving, but he couldn't move. He felt himself being pulled back toward the bed, as if by a strong undertow. He had a sensation of dizziness and for a brief moment lost all sense of being anywhere. Then he felt himself open his eyes and look up at Father Donahue, who looked back at him, surprised.

“Grandpa,” he said to Vincent, “I saw my mom.”

Ignoring that, Vincent asked him how he felt. Michael kept trying to tell them what had happened, but they wouldn't listen. They were preoccupied with the sudden improvement in his condition. Two days later, he was strong enough to get out of bed, and a week later he was back at school.

No matter how hard Michael tried, he couldn't get a rise out of Vincent. It wasn't that Vincent didn't believe him; it was that Vincent acted like Michael was casually reporting something he'd seen on TV.

“Grandpa, I'm serious. I saw my mom!”

“I believe you.”

“But . . . she's dead.”

“I know.”

“Dead people can't just come back and talk to you.”

“Apparently they can.”

“What is the thing I'm supposed to do?”

“I don't know. But you will, when the time comes.”

“But—”

“Michael, what was the one thing Jesus told every person He cured?”

“Not to sin anymore.”

“Besides that?”

“I don't know.”

“He told them not to mention it to anyone. Which they all promptly ignored, but that's not the point. Why did He try to keep the miracles quiet?”

“I don't know.”

“Because He knew that faith based on magic tricks is a shallow faith. He didn't want them all to get so caught up in the supernatural that they didn't hear what He was saying to them. All you need to worry about is the message. Stop worrying about how the message came to you.”

The logic made sense, but Michael had never been able to follow the advice. The vision changed his entire personality. Up to that point, he'd been outgoing and gregarious, and loved running around the neighborhood and hanging out with his friends. Afterward, he felt too removed from them to be very interested. He spent a lot of time alone in his room—reading, writing, thinking. Wondering about the other reality . . . this realm that was out there, somewhere just beyond his reach. Trying to keep himself ready for this mysterious thing he was supposed to do.

Michael had been convinced that Danny Ingram was the thing. He still could be. Maybe he'd blown it. Obviously he'd blown it. A tragedy with that much forewarning should have been averted, and he should have been the one to avert it. He asked himself, for the billionth time, if it would have ended differently if he had taken it more seriously before it was too late. He'd never know the answer, but it didn't really matter. It certainly didn't matter to the Ingrams.

He finally fell into a ragged sleep.

I
t was almost dark when he woke. He changed clothes and went downstairs. Barbara was on the phone. He could tell by her forced-patient tone that she was talking to Monsignor Graham, even before she looked over and rolled her eyes.

“Mortuary,” Michael mouthed, and she nodded.

He left a note in the kitchen, telling her to lock up and turn on the alarm when she went home. He had no intention of being back anytime soon.

He drove slowly through the neighborhood, looking at all Vincent's houses and wondering what to do with himself. He'd lied about the mortuary—he'd already called from the hospital and been told there was no reason for him to go there. Vincent had already picked out and paid for everything. Michael was glad about that. Faith or no faith, rooms full of coffins gave him the creeps.

After weighing the options, he got onto I-85 south and headed downtown. He'd decided that a trip to The Varsity, his favorite fast-food restaurant, would solve both his problems: hunger and the need for a religious experience.

The Varsity, an Atlanta institution, was a glorified hot dog stand on the outskirts of Georgia Tech. Michael wasn't sure exactly how old it was, but everyone in Atlanta acted as if it predated the Civil War. Tradition and atmosphere were probably larger draws than the actual food, although the latter left nothing to be desired. Michael had loved the place all his life. So had Vincent. It had been “their” place. Vincent used to say that when he died and before he went to Heaven he was going to stop by The Varsity for a fried peach pie. Remembering that, Michael smiled to himself and wondered if he was going to The Varsity just to make sure Vincent wasn't there.

He'd managed to hit a rare slow time. He made his way up to the mile-long counter. There was no system for standing in line. The next person to get the attention of one of the surly, red-shirted cashiers, by whatever means, was the next person to be served. Right now that posed no great challenge, but after a Georgia Tech game it was an awesome undertaking, to be risked only by the bravest or most foolhardy.

Michael got a couple of hot dogs and fries and sat in his usual place, an upstairs corner that overlooked Spring Street. He felt somewhat guilty about having an appetite, even though he'd had nothing but coffee in the last forty-eight hours. He was also sad to realize the place wasn't as much of a comfort as he'd thought it would be. He tried to think about all the good times he and Vincent had had here, but he couldn't get his mind off the fact that they'd never come here together again.

The man at the next table was disregarding the
NO SMOKING
sign, and the smoke from his cigarette was drifting straight into Michael's face. Michael waved it away and looked over. He was planning to ask the guy to put the cigarette out or move, but the words stopped in his throat the minute he got a good look. The man was in his midthirties, wearing an obviously expensive black leather jacket that did nothing to offset some intangible smarminess. He was staring at Michael intently, with a look that said he was
hoping
Michael would say something so he'd have an excuse to vent a lot of pent-up rage. Michael quickly turned his attention back to his food. After a second, he glanced over. The guy was still staring.

Oh, for Pete's sake. Like I need this.

Michael picked up his tray and moved to the other side of the room. When he glanced up a few minutes later, the guy had turned in his chair so he could continue to stare at Michael.

He has that look.

Did he, or was Michael just imagining it? No. It was a real thing, regardless of its meaning. It showed up in the eyes, as if they were glazed over by a film of something very nearly colorless, like the thinnest possible coating of milk. No sign of life underneath. Soulless eyes.

Michael had seen the look before—in fact, had noticed it often in the course of his travels, even though he didn't know what it meant. The first time he'd seen it was when Vincent had shown him the Winecoff Fire scrapbook. One of the clippings showed a photo of a man who had been suspected of starting the fire. The alleged arsonist, a career criminal named Roy “Candy Kid” McCullough, was the son of a well-known murderer who was executed in Georgia in 1933. McCullough had the look so blatantly it seemed as if someone had tampered with the photo. (In fact, Michael had half suspected that this was what had happened, until he got out into the world and noticed the look over and over again.) Michael had always been fascinated by McCullough, since he had no one else to blame for his own parents' deaths. (Certainly more comfortable to blame an ex-con than to blame God.) The rumor was that McCullough had gotten into a heated argument with another participant in a big card game that had been taking place on the third floor. He had stormed out, threatening to get even, and had returned a couple of hours later and set the place on fire. Apparently he had bragged about it to several of his friends, but the authorities had never been able to come up with enough proof to make an arrest. In the meantime, McCullough was convicted of another crime and sentenced to life in prison, and the police let it go at that.

Of the many things he'd read about McCullough, there was one description that had returned, during the Danny Ingram episode, to haunt Michael. It came from a book written by a man who had known McCullough in prison:
“Nobody could be better to you than Candy, if he liked you, and nobody was more dangerous than he was if he hated you. . . . Don't know that I'll ever understand how Candy could be a warm friend one minute and totally heartless the next, void of any basic human emotions.”
Michael could never understand such a thing, either, before he met Danny. Now he understood all too well.

The Danny Ingram affair had started simply enough. In the middle of an ordinary day, Michael had received a phone call from Kevin Ingram, an old St. Pius classmate whom Michael barely remembered. Kevin, who now lived on Long Island, had tracked Michael down through the magazine; he needed advice. He was having a horrible time with his oldest son, and the priest at his parish had been very little help and, in fact, was now becoming annoyed by Kevin's continued pleas for assistance.

“What kind of problem is your son having?” Michael had asked.

“I think he's possessed.”

Michael had laughed. Not because he didn't believe in possession (though he didn't) but because he thought Kevin was joking. Most parents of fifteen-year-olds were convinced their kids were possessed. When there was no laughter on the other end of the phone, the realization had hit Michael—the guy wasn't kidding.

Michael had asked why Kevin thought such a thing, but Kevin's answers were vague:
“Weird things happen around him. And he's not himself anymore. Plus there's this thing . . . can't describe it, it's a feeling . . . the air in the room gets thick and it bears down on you, like gravity has suddenly doubled or something. I know this doesn't make any sense. You have to come feel it for yourself.”

Michael had agreed to go over to the house and feel it for himself.

The Ingrams lived in a beautiful, solidly upper-middle-class Cape Cod in the suburb of Plandome, on the north shore of Long Island. Kevin was an investment banker and his wife, Maureen, was an attorney in private practice. Their house was decorated in perfectly coordinated fabrics and expensive antiques. A little too heavy on the hunt prints for Michael's personal taste, but it definitely reflected careful attention to detail and two sizable incomes.

Danny was in his room, where, according to his parents, he'd been all day. He'd been told Michael was coming and apparently was not thrilled about it; he'd been in a morose stupor for hours. Still, the way things had been going, Kevin said, they preferred catatonia to the other options.

“What's been going on?” Michael asked.

“A lot of weird stuff,” Kevin said. “Things happen . . . lights go on and off . . . the toilet flushes itself . . . one night I was in the den paying bills, and the TV just came on by itself. When I pushed the button, it wouldn't go off. I finally had to unplug it.”

“Things fall off shelves,” Maureen chimed in. “A couple of times, the gas flame on the stove shot up about a foot high, for no reason.”

“What makes you think Danny's responsible for all that?”

“It didn't start happening until a few months ago,” Kevin said.

“About the same time Danny started behaving strangely.”

“And how has he been behaving?”

“He has these bizarre mood swings,” Kevin said. “Before all this, he was a pretty normal kid. A little shy, but nothing to worry about. All of a sudden, he starts flying into these fits of rage, without any warning or provocation.”

Maureen nodded. “He throws things, screams—and he uses the vilest language you can possibly imagine.”

“The rest of the time, he's just kind of sullen and morose, hardly talks to us anymore,” Kevin said. The pain of it was obvious in his voice. “Every now and then he's his old self, but not very often, not anymore.” He shook his head, then added: “And there's that feeling, you know, like I told you. Sometimes it's a lot stronger than other times, but it's around all the time.”

“Father, I know my kids,” Maureen said in a mildly defensive tone. “When Danny was little, he would get ear infections, but he didn't react to the pain, so there was no way to tell. But I always knew. I'd take him to the doctor and tell him Danny had an ear infection, and Danny would be running around like a wild man, and the doctor would stare at me like I was a lunatic . . . until he looked in Danny's ear and saw that I was right. I'm not saying I'm psychic. But I know when something is wrong, and there is something in Danny that is not Danny.” There were tears in her eyes and she could barely talk. “I don't care how crazy you think I am, I know I'm right.”