The tape was quiet but we could still hear Bernard breathing. Eventually he spoke, but this time his voice was void of emotion, a detached monotone that could have been anyone. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
No one moved until the tape reached the end and the player clicked and stopped with a loud, eerie finality. We sat in stunned silence until Rick removed the cassette and tossed it back to me. I caught it and returned it to the envelope it had been mailed in, no longer wanting to touch it.
“Well, that was fun,” Donald said. “Think it’s available on CD?”
Rick stomped about, hands on hips. “Yeah, good, make jokes, asshole.”
I cleared my throat and rose slowly to my feet. “We need to sort this out.”
Rick whirled around, faced me. “You know what he was saying the same as I do.”
I nodded. “We also know Bernard had problems.”
“No one in their right mind hangs themselves,” Donald added quickly. “And besides, you can hear him at the end of the tape, he’s clearly disturbed.”
“Doesn’t make him a liar.” Rick arched an eyebrow. “Does it?”
“Not necessarily, no.”
“He was saying, without actually saying it that…” I shook my head in disbelief, still hopeful none of this was happening. “He was claiming he’d killed people.”
“Thank you, Inspector Poirot, what would we do without you?” Donald rolled his eyes and took another mock draw on his still unlit cigarette. “Look, this is Bernard we’re talking about, Bernard, for Christ’s sake. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He had some problems, yes, we all agree on that. He had a habit of stretching the truth from time to time, but he didn’t—this is absurd—Bernard wasn’t some—”
“Did you hear that shit at the end of the tape?” Rick asked. “That’s a quote from the Bible.”
Donald shrugged. “I assumed as much. So what?”
“This is bad shit.” He looked to me, eyes imploring support. “Alan, this ain’t Bernard making up some story, and you know it. We all know it. This is a suicide note; remember that. Pretty stupid time for pipe dreams, no?”
Rick had a point. The end was a time for truth, confession and hopefully redemption, not further deceit. But were Bernard insane, would he have even known the difference?
“He said when the seasons change we’d understand,” I finally replied.
“Spring is still a few weeks off,” Donald mumbled.
“This might explain our nightmares,” I said.
Donald looked at me, his face failing to conceal the fear. “The… nightmares.”
Pacing near the window, Rick came to an abrupt halt, mouth open and eyes wide. “What nightmare?”
I exchanged glances with Donald then said, “We’ve had similar dreams where—well—where Bernard—”
“Says goodbye,” Rick said, finishing the sentence before I could. “There’s people—or something like people—with him.”
“Christ.” Donald’s hands were trembling so badly that the cigarette in his fingers snapped in half. “There’s no way this is happening, this can’t be real.”
Rick moved closer. “Not making fucking jokes now, are ya?” He looked at me, what little color he still had in his face draining away as I confirmed his question with a quick nod. “And in the dream, do you know why they’re there, these people?”
I nodded again, feeling dead inside. “To take him—”
“To Hell.”
We turned in unison to Donald. He was shaking violently, still trying to occupy his hands with the frayed cigarette filter. “Why would they want to do that?” he said in a loud whisper. “Why would they want to take Bernard to Hell?”
“Because he wasn’t lying,” Rick answered. “Because everything he said on that tape is true, and when the seasons change we’ll understand.”
“Maybe we should turn this tape over to the police,” Donald suggested.
Rick scoffed. “And tell them what? Hi, we think our friend—you know, the one who just offed himself in his cousin’s cellar—killed some people. Here, listen to this tape, he sounds completely out of his fucking mind on it, and doesn’t mention anything specific, but we thought we should turn it over to you guys.”
“Well why the hell not?”
“Because we’ll look like fucking loons ourselves if we do that.” Rick resumed his pacing. “Besides, what if this shit is true? What if Bernard really did do something? I don’t want to get involved in all that, I don’t want the cops fucking snooping around my life and me just because we were friends. Who knows what kind of fucked up shit we might bring down on ourselves if we get involved?”
Donald seemed to think about what Rick had said for a moment then turned his focus to me. “Alan, what do you think?”
“I think at this point we don’t know what that tape means,” I said. “It could be a confessional to murders and it could be nothing but the delusional ramblings of a mentally ill man at the end of the road, just hours away from taking his life. Either way, I think it needs to stay with us for now.”
“I agree,” Rick said. “Definitely.”
“And if something should happen,” I continued, “and in the following months we learn there is something to all this, then we can decide what to do from there. I just think going to the cops now is a bit premature. Besides, I’m not even certain what we’re dealing with here is—I don’t know if the cops could help.”
“I’ll hang onto the tape,” Rick said, “put it away somewhere safe.”
Donald’s fight to regain control of himself had worked, at least for the moment, and he appeared more levelheaded, less shaken. “Granted, our dreams are strange,” he said. “The fact that they’re so similar and seem to have meaning beyond the norm is a bit unnerving, and that, coupled with the things Bernard said on the tape is frightening, but we can’t lose control here. We have to maintain our own sanity and try to approach this in a logical, unemotional manner.”
“You do what you want,” Rick said. “But I’m gonna keep my eyes open. This is some bad shit—you mark my words—and I bet we don’t know the half of it.”
I checked my watch. “I gotta go, I’m working tonight.” I headed for the door, then hesitated and looked back at them. “And that shit Bernard said about Toni isn’t true. He was always jealous of what we have. If I had it to do again I’d marry her in a heartbeat. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Donald grimaced. “You don’t have to—”
“The best thing that ever happened to me.”
Rick had resumed his position at the window. “Snow’s starting to accumulate,” he said absently. “One last kick in the balls from winter. Motherfucker never dies quietly.”
Few things do.
CHAPTER 6
Located near the water, across from a long-abandoned and decaying factory, the car dealership occupied a large lot between an auto parts superstore and a Chinese restaurant along the tail end of a boulevard less than a mile from the state highway. My shift was eleven at night until seven in the morning, when the owner showed and opened for business. Once an hour or so, I was to take a quick stroll around the property, but mostly the shift would be spent at a salesman’s desk positioned in the front window, which despite the periodic snow squalls gave me a perfect view of the entire lot as well as most of the street beyond. It wasn’t an armed detail, which was good, because I’d never been comfortable strapping on a gun for the money I made. I carried a baton and a handheld company two-way, and usually passed the time either reading a paperback or listening to a portable radio I always brought with me. If anything happened, I was only there to put a call in to the police so they could handle it. I was a babysitter in costume, dressed like I was something more, something official, keeping an eye on a bunch of used cars no one would want anyway.