The Closer (29 page)

“All right. How—how did he get you?”

“Dosed me. I had a beer from my own fridge… that’s the last thing I remember.” Nikki tugged at the ropes, wished she’d been conscious when she was tied up—she could have tensed her muscles, given herself a little slack. “What about you?”

“It—what happened to me, it sounds crazy. I still don’t believe it. I was working in my office, when suddenly he was just standing there. I didn’t hear him come in or anything, it was like he just materialized. He was wearing this black cloak, and I couldn’t see his face. He pointed his hand at me, and suddenly—I couldn’t move.”

“That’s a new one,” Nikki muttered.

“He tied me to my chair, and took out a pair of pruning shears…” Charlie’s voice broke. After a moment, he went on. “And when he talked, his voice was all distorted. Inhuman.”

“Voicebox modulator,” Nikki said. “He’s afraid you’ll recognize his voice. Might be someone you know—or not. Could be he’s just being really careful.”

“He asked about you. About Jack. I didn’t know much…but I told him. I told him everything I knew. I’m sorry.” Charlie’s voice was hardly more than a whisper.

“It’s okay,” Nikki said. “Everybody has a breaking point. Any luck with the ropes?”

“I—I think I can slide them along the bedframe.”

“Good. Try and find an edge, a corner, anything you can rub them over.”

“There’s something sticking out—I think it’s a screw or a bolt.”

Nikki wasn’t having any luck herself—the Patron had been more thorough with her. “Okay, rub the ropes over the screw,” she said. “It might take a while, but don’t give up. Keep at it.”

“Okay, yes, I will. Oh,
Christ,
my hand hurts.”

“You don’t get us free before the Patron comes back,” Nikki said, “and you might look back on that amount of pain with fond memories….”

Jack prowled through Charlie’s place, searching. He wasn’t sure for what… but his gut told him he was missing something.

The building wasn’t just Charlie’s gallery, it was also his home; he used the upstairs rooms as his living space. Jack roamed from room to room, looking for anything that might tell him about where the Patron had taken its owner.

When he finally stumbled across it, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

One of the rooms was a spare bedroom; Jack had crashed there once after a particularly late after-opening party. When Jack first stuck his head in, he thought Charlie had turned it into storage—paintings were hung on every available inch of wall space. But then he noticed the bed was still in the corner, and a small dresser and wardrobe had been added.

The painting over the bed was of a man lying in a twisted heap on the ground. Leering, demonic angels and a sharp-fanged God loomed over him.

“Salvatore Torigno,” Jack whispered.

It was the same picture the Patron had downloaded to the Stalking Ground, back when Jack was posing as Deathkiss.

“The rope is fraying,” Charlie said. “Oh God, I think this is going to work.”

“Keep going,” Nikki urged.

“It’s coming apart! Almost—there!” Charlie pulled his wrists free with one convulsive yank. He sat up and fumbled at the cords binding his feet.

“Hurry!”

A second later, Charlie was standing over her. His eyes looked glazed.

“Don’t just stand there, untie me!” Nikki hissed.

Charlie looked down at her. He didn’t say a word.

Jack looked around the room slowly.

Every painting spoke of death and despair. Screaming faces and ripped flesh seemed to be the dominant theme. It was a room full of windows into Hell.

Jack walked over to the wardrobe and opened it. He already knew what he was going to find.

Shiny black latex, oiled leather, and chrome chains gleamed from the dozen or so outfits that neatly hung there. Apparently, the bedroom was no longer spare.

“Falmi,” Jack breathed.

Outside, he could hear the pop and snap of firecrackers. Halloween had begun.

Charlie swayed, shook his head. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “Still dizzy.” He bent down and started working on Nikki’s restraints. In a minute he had her free.

She stood and tried to rub circulation back into her wrists. The wooden floor was cold and rough under her bare feet. “Okay, Charlie. Try to find something we can use as a weapon.”

They searched the room, came up with a length of rusty pipe. Nikki hung on to it—Charlie didn’t look like he’d be much use in a fight. She tried the door, and it swung open without resistance.

“Come on,” she said.

“Wait,” Charlie whispered. “He didn’t drug me until after he tied me to the bed—I remember the way out.”

“Then lead the way….”

They crept out into one end of a dark, dusty hall. Pigeon droppings crusted the floor, and the dim yellow glow of a streetlight through a dirty window to their left provided the barest illumination. They went the only way available, to their right.

Jack searched the rest of the room. There was a trunk under the bed; it was locked, but he found a hammer downstairs and smashed it open.

It was full of photographs. The ones on top were of Jack’s family… and the rest were just as horrifying. The trunk also contained a semiautomatic pistol, five pairs of handcuffs, and a cell phone.

Jack heard the lock on the front door
chunk
open.

He picked up the gun, checked to make sure it was loaded and the safety was off. He could hear someone moving around downstairs; he slipped out of the room and positioned himself next to the stairs.

A minute later, Falmi’s skeletal frame shambled up the steps. Jack waited until Falmi had one foot in the hallway, then poked the gun into the dead-white side of his neck.

“Hello, Falmi,” Jack said. “I’ve got a few questions to ask you.”

It got darker as they moved away from the window, until Charlie was a barely discernible blur in front of her. There didn’t seem to be any other doors in the hall. She stepped on something sharp—broken glass, most likely—and winced but didn’t cry out. Her stomach churned, nauseous with the aftereffects of the drug and adrenaline.

“There’s a staircase here, going down,” Charlie whispered. “Careful.”

The stairs creaked and complained under their weight; to Nikki it sounded as loud as gunshots. She thought about booby traps, swallowed, and kept going.

The stairs went down to a landing, then angled to the left. Once around the corner, there was light once more, halogen glare filtering through some kind of grate high in the wall. It was enough to show that the stairwell ended in a door.

“Don’t let it be locked, don’t let it be locked,” Charlie murmured, and pulled on the handle.

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Falmi said. His voice trembled, ever so slightly.

Jack had him cuffed to the chair in the office. He studied the Goth intently, not saying a word. Not moving, not blinking. Thinking.

“I don’t know what this is about, okay?” Falmi said. “Just
talk
to me, all right?”

“Where is he?” Jack asked calmly.

“Who, Charlie? He said he had an interview—”

“Stop it. You know you can’t lie to me—not for long.”

“I’m not lying!” Falmi sounded close to tears. “He had an interview with some new artist he’s interested in, some guy named Stedman—”

“An artist with a young niece, right? An artist that needs a little push… is that where you just came from?”

“I don’t know what you’re
talking
about—”

“Ssssh.” Jack held a finger to his lips. “I understand. After all the buildup, you need to
see,
firsthand. To experience the end result of your ‘art.’ To find out just what you’ve changed me into…”

He stared into Falmi’s eyes. “All right,” Jack said softly. “I’ll give you what you want. And you’ll tell me what I want to hear.”

He didn’t have his equipment with him, but Jack was sure he could make do.

The door swung open.

Revealing a solid brick wall, blocking the entrance.

“What the
fuck?”
Nikki said. She stepped forward, put her hand flat against it. The bricks were cool, pitted, the mortar holding them in place crumbly with age. They looked like they’d been there for decades.

“No,” Charlie said. His voice was loud and echoey in the stairwell. “No, that’s impossible. This is the way we came—it’s the
only
way, goddammit. It’s not fucking
possible.”

Nikki pushed on the wall, tried to find some kind of secret door. Nothing.

“He’s not human. He’s not human. That’s how he paralyzed me, that’s how he did this, he’s some kind of fucking
demon—”

Charlie’s voice was getting high and panicky. Nikki whirled and said “Shut up!” but the snarl she tried to put into her voice sounded shaky, scared.

And then she saw the look on Charlie’s face.

He was grinning.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Nikki,” Charlie said, chuckling. “I just couldn’t resist. I suppose I’m something of a trickster at heart—and after all, it
is
Halloween.” In the dim light, a pistol glinted in his right hand.

“I’ve never done this to someone I know,” Jack said.

He’d wheeled the office chair into the kitchen. He turned the front element of the stove on to high. “But then, I don’t really know you at all, do I?”

“Jack, I know we’ve never been close, but
Jesus Christ—”

Jack opened the silverware drawer, rummaged inside. He selected a large, serrated knife, and a pair of metal tongs.

“Pretend I don’t know what’s going on,” Falmi said.
“Please,
Jack.”

“You should concentrate less on ignorance and more on bargaining,” Jack said. He wedged the blade of the knife between the coils of the element. “Because this session is going to have to be more…
condensed
than usual. This location isn’t secure or soundproof, so I’m going to have to improvise.”

“Bargaining? What the fuck do you
want?”

“The truth.”

“Look, the truth is that I’m scared
shitless,
okay? Can’t you
see
that?”

Jack looked at Falmi expressionlessly. “I saw the paintings in your room. Quite the collection.”

“Those? Those are Charlie’s, he just stores them there, he knows I like that kind of stuff—”

“And the trunk under your bed?”

“What? I don’t
have
a trunk under my bed, just some old art supplies—”

Jack placed a pen and a pad of paper on the edge of the kitchen table, within reach of Falmi’s cuffed hand. “One hand. One eye. One ear,” Jack said. “That’s all I require you to have. Everything else I can subtract…”

He grabbed Falmi’s lower lip, yanked downward to make him open his mouth. He reached inside with the tongs, clamped onto the tip of his tongue. Stretched it out between his teeth while Falmi’s eyes bulged in terror.
“You killed my family,”
Jack hissed.

The serrated knife on the stove was glowing red-hot down its length, white where the blade pressed against the element. Jack pulled it free with his other hand.

“I don’t want you choking on your own blood,” Jack said. “The heat
should
cauterize the stump…”

Falmi scrabbled for the pen, began to write frantically.

Jack looked down, read what Falmi had scrawled.
Warehouse
.

Jack released Falmi’s tongue. “Paintings,” Falmi gasped. “Charlie’s got lots more. Paintings, art, sculpture. Took me there once. Called it his legacy. Maybe that’s where he is now, I don’t know—”

“How do I know it’s not
your
warehouse?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You’re his assistant. You’re in the perfect position to frame him. Plant evidence, register things in his name.”

“But I haven’t!”

Jack stared at him. “No, you haven’t…you kept the paintings and the trunk in your own room.”

“I don’t
own
a fucking trunk!”

“Perception,” Jack murmured. “Art isn’t an object. It’s a sense…”

A sense to be manipulated.

“You know that moment when you’re studying a piece, and suddenly you get it?” he asked Falmi. “I think I just did.”

He turned off the stove, put the knife in the sink and ran some water. Steam hissed into the air.

“Tell me what you know about this new artist,” Jack said.

“I may be gone for a while,” Charlie said. He’d returned Nikki to her room; this time he’d used handcuffs to secure her to the bed and gagged her before wheeling in an oxygen tank on a dolly. “I have some trick-or-treating to do, as well as a costume to pick up. But don’t worry—I’ll be back before this runs out.” The hose from the tank was attached to a military-style gas mask; Charlie slipped it over Nikki’s head, then securely strapped it in place. He fiddled with a small device attached to the tank and adjusted the flow.

All Nikki could do was glare.

“Oh, come on,” Charlie said with a chuckle. He took out a prefilled syringe and uncapped the needle. “Don’t you want to be immortalized? That’s what art is really all about, you know—ego. Artists are all desperate to be remembered. Of course, you’re
not
an artist, are you?” He stuck the needle in her neck and pressed the plunger. “You’re just a whore…”

He turned out the lights when he left, leaving her alone in the dark. Sinking into a deeper blackness.

INTERLUDE