“But,” I said.
Lucas made a farting sound.
“What are you, two?” she said. “Yeah, but. We’ve got enough in the lockbox to put Drake in the CIA, in Russia during the late nineties, and there’s that damning connection to Alexandrov. If what his son said was true—”
“He hated the guy,” I said. “I don’t think he was lying.”
“Then the story checks out, as much as it ever will.”
I nodded. So. This was the information I needed to get past Drake’s smug-faced defense. That day back in Russia, ten years ago—the day he made a terrible wrong turn, a decision that somehow killed Alexandrov and his family—that had sparked his eventual journey to The Brink. This was the pry bar.
Henry’s voice echoed in my mind.
He did something unspeakable, unfathomable. Someone wants your blind man to suffer.
“The Dark Man,” I whispered.
“What’s that?”
“I said I’ll be back when I can.” I glanced at a road sign ahead. Twenty miles to the exit that would lead me to Brinkvale, and Drake. I finally began to feel good about this day, confident again. “Today’s the day, I think. Thanks for the data dump; I’ll be home right after work.”
“Later gator,” Lucas called.
“Be careful, and cool,” Rachael said. “So long, hottie artist.”
“Bye, geek goddess.”
They disconnected. I stuffed the phone into my jeans pocket and drove on. For the first time, I felt truly ready to face Richard Drake. I could now help him confront his past. I could help him forgive himself.
I could help him see.
18
The Brink’s elevator lurched, stopping at Level 5. I might have been puffed up by the footwork Rachael, Lucas and I had accomplished today, but I wasn’t stupid. An hour’s worth of rediscovered confidence doesn’t trump a lifetime of nyctophobia.
I braced myself for the bizarre hallway strobe show.
The doors groaned open. The lights in max were bright and steady.
“Miraculous,” I said, smiling. I walked the hall, whistling and singing the walk-off anthem to Hair, the musicaclass="underline" “Let the sun shinnne… . Let the sun shine… The sunnn shine iiiin.”
Emilio Wallace wasn’t at his post by Room 507’s door. In his stead was Chaz Hoffacker, an impossibly short, unfriendly butterball of a man. He and Emilio were buddies—I assumed it was a watchman thing. I’d tried to befriend Chaz my first week here, but had failed his ironclad compatibility test. He asked me what I thought of Ziggy.
Not Stardust. Not Marley. “Ziggy,” the newspaper comic.
He’d kept his distance ever since. It was for the best, really. His affection for “The Family Circus” was equally boundless.
The man looked up from the comics section of the Journal-Ledger and harrumphed.
“Hey, Chaz,” I said. “Where’s Emilio?”
He shrugged.
“Took a personal day. Said he was overworked, needed some rest. Gig was gettin’ to him. It happens.”
I felt apprehensive about this. Emilio never took time off, he was a Brinkvale legend for that. Then again, he had looked worn down yesterday. Said he needed sleep.
Chaz unlocked the door. Room 507 was dark, as always. But the hallway lights were humming, and I was buzzing, let the sun shine in. I wasn’t afraid. I stepped inside and flipped on the light.
I gasped.
Richard Drake sat silently in his wooden chair, an impish smirk on his lips. Beyond him, to the left, was something new and wonderful and horrible.
I gazed, suddenly punch-drunk, at a floor-to-ceiling mural. Its beauty was eclipsed only by its epic chaos. Vibrant, colorful swirls and manic, jagged lines shimmered on the cinderblocks. There was no message here on this wall, no approximation of form or conscious organization—just zigzags and spirals and broad swooshes. I spotted a scribble-swirl of black up in a far corner, near the ceiling.
I thought of the children in Drake’s photos—the tot-lot ghouls with the vortex eyes—and shivered.
The long box of pastels rested neatly on the table, seemingly untouched. My eyes slid to Drake. His grin widened.
“This is tremendous, Martin,” I said, careful to use his pseudonym and trying not to sound as dumbfounded as I felt. I reached into my pocket and grabbed my cell phone. “I’m going to document this. It’s truly remarkable work, I’m impressed.”
Drake opened his eyes. I snapped a photo of the wall with my phone’s camera.
“Would you tell me what it means?” I asked.
“I would, Mr. Taylor,” Drake replied, “but I can’t.” His voice as smooth and cruel as ever. “Last night, I heard growls, scratches and oily smearings against the stone. It sounded like people fucking. But I did not draw whatever is there. You’ll have to ask the Dark Man what it means.”
He pointed now, with uncanny precision, to the room’s corner.
“He signed his work, did he not?”
I grabbed the room’s other chair and placed it before him. It gave a creaky shriek as I sat.
“Martin, I admire what you’ve done here,” I said. “It’s breathtaking.”
“I’m sure it is. It took everything you had not to wail in terror.”
Two days ago, I would have been alarmed at this “outing” of my fear. But I had a better bead on Richard Drake now. Then, he was an audio engineer, determined to infuriate his therapists. Now, he was a government-trained mindbender, an interrogator, someone who lived to sense weakness and rend wills. I couldn’t match his skill—I wasn’t naive enough to believe that—but I had one important fact on my side.
“The Dark Man did not draw that,” I said, “because the Dark Man doesn’t exist. We both know that. In fact, we both know I can access the security tape for this room if I wanted, to prove that he didn’t. I’d see you in night-vision footage, working on this art project.”
“I prefer to think of ‘him’ as an ‘it,’” Drake said. He raised a finger. “It’s like talking about God. The Creator is beyond human reason, and therefore beyond gender. So is the Dark Man. Don’t anthropomorphize it, Mr. Taylor. Its teeth are obsidian razors. Its claws are ebony ice. The only human thing about it is its insatiable appetite.”
He folded his hands and stared into space.
I stayed quiet. This was a chess game. I was white, he was black—and black had dominated the board from the beginning, had deflected nearly every advance I’d made, had punished me for trying to play.
It was time to castle.
“I know who you are,” I said.
The blind man kept smiling.
“I know who you were,” I said.
Drake’s eyelids fluttered.
“I know about the CIA,” I said, “and Russia, and Operation Red Show and Alexandrov…”
His face went bone-white. His eyes blinked madly now.
“…land I know about what happened to his family…”
“Stop,” he whispered.
“…and I know you were discharged from the Agency…”
“No.”
“…and that you came back, terrified…”
“God damn you, stop.”
“…and I know you abandoned your son after Lucy and Jenny died, after Ms. Walch’s daughter was killed—”
“STOP!” Drake screamed. A mist of spittle sprayed from his lips. His green eyes flicked back and forth, doing madman’s math. He was a coiled thing now, sliding lower and lower into his chair. Its wood growled beneath him.
His breathing went high and ragged. I watched him closely. If he began to hyperventilate, I’d grab Chaz. We’d take care of him.