Текст книги "Trust No One: A Thriller"

Автор книги: Paul Cleave

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

His name is Jerry Grey and he’s a crime writer and none of this is real, none of this is real.

Blood on Jerry’s hands.

His name is Henry Cutter and he’s a crime writer and none of this is real, and even he’s not real, he’s a figment off Jerry Grey’s imagination. Jerry uses him to make money. Jerry uses him to tell stories.

Blood on Jerry’s shirt.

His name is Jerry Henry and he is a dementia patient and this is a dementia dream, a dementia attack, and none of this is real, he’ s in a nursing home and everything is okay.

This isn’t the nursing home. This isn’t his house. Nothing is okay.

Jerry Grey. Crime writer. Not real.

The dead girl on the floor is a stranger. She is facing him. There’s a knife on the floor next to her, this stabbed girl and he wonders, he wonders . . . who is she?

He wonders . . . why is he here?

He wonders . . . where is here?

He is sitting on a couch in a lounge, just him and the dead girl on the floor, surrounded by nice furniture, nice paintings, all the mod cons of life you can’t take with you. The curtains are closed. The girl is naked. Her hair is blond and her skin is pale and her eyes are blue, so open and so blue. There’s a bathrobe on the floor a few feet away from her. It’s speckled with blood. When he tries to stand he finds that he can’t. His legs aren’t with him, and, and . . . who is this woman? He looks down at his hands. His left one is curled into a fist. He opens it. Inside is a pair of earrings. Diamond earrings. There is blood on his right hand. He closes his eyes and the woman disappears. He feels tired. He wants to sleep now, he wants the dream to disappear. He sways a little, and then he lies down. He reaches around with his eyes closed and finds a cushion. He tucks it under the side of his face. He curls his legs up and rocks softly back and forth, relaxing.

He opens his eyes.

The girl. The knife. The robe. It’s all still here.

He is Jerry Cutter. He is Henry Cutter. He is a crime writer. He is a criminal. He is the Breaking Man who killed his wife.

And this girl?

He gets up off the couch. The room tilts, not much but enough for him to reach out and grab the wall. Music is coming from somewhere in the house, something he doesn’t recognize. He peeks beyond the curtain to the outside world. It’s daylight out there.

His name is Jerry Grey. He is lost. He is confused. This may look real, it may feel real, but it is not. This is probably Suzan with a z. This is the book he wrote. He is inside the pages and soon somebody will save him.

When he moves, the girl’s eyes follow him until he’s south of her body. He picks up the robe and covers everything except her face. He crouches next to her and studies her features, this girl, this stranger, who is she?

Her cheek feels warm. She hasn’t been dead long, but she is dead—there’s no denying that—CPR isn’t going to help. The paramedics could be two seconds away and there’d be nothing they could do except stare at all the blood. Death is in her features, in the way she is looking at him, the way her face is sagging, the way she seems to be turning gray in front of him. She must be in her midtwenties, maybe even thirty. She smells like soap. He stands up. He looks around the lounge as though expecting to see an answer, maybe even somebody standing here who can tell him what is going on. He has never been here before, he’s sure of it.

Haven’t you? Henry asks, and he’s had conversations with Henry before. Not in the Before Days, back when things made sense, but the After Days, when the Alzheimer’s really began to take hold.

“Did I do this?”

What do you think?

Jerry looks down at his hands. He’s still holding the earrings. He tucks them into his pocket. “Is she from one of your books?”

Oh, so it’s my books now, is it?

“They’ve always been your books,” Jerry tells him. “So is she?”

He sits back down on the couch as Henry thinks about it. He wonders just how insane he really is. Dementia. Shooting his wife. Confessing to crimes and holding a two-sided conversation with himself. Who is more crazy—him or Henry?

I don’t think this is one of your books, Jerry. I’m sorry to be the voice of reason here, but it does all seem very—

“Real,” Jerry says. “I need to call the police.”

Oh you do, do you? And tell them what? For all you know you wandered away from the nursing home, you got lost and confused and you knocked on a random door and when nobody answered you came inside, and this is what you found. If you call the police, they will come here, they will arrest you, and that’ s the end of the story. Even if you didn’t do this, that’s the end of the story.

“So what do we do?”

We quit wasting time and get out of here.

He shakes his head. The girl, the wide open eyes, staring at him, studying him. Blaming him. “I have to call the police.”

You said that already. You’ll be in jail before you even know what hit you.

“I didn’t do this.”

I know. I believe you.

“Do you really?”

It could have been a deadbeat boyfriend, or a jealous BFF, or an overly friendly neighbor.

“It could have been anybody,” Jerry says. “So what do you suggest I do?”

You’re a crime writer, Jerry. If you get arrested, you can’t use those crime-writing skills to figure out what happened. You have to run.

“What does that mean?”

If this was a book, what would you do?

“Call the police.”

No. Pretend this isn’t real life.

“This is real life.”

Of course it is, but you’re missing my point. Are you deliberately being stupid?

Jerry closes his eyes. He can’t stand the dead girl looking at him any longer, but even with his eyes closed he can still feel her gaze. He opens them back up. He looks at the bloody knife on the floor before adjusting the robe to cover the woman’s face too. “What is your point?” he asks Henry.

Think of this as your book.

“Okay.”

And in the books when people should go to the police, what do they do instead?

“Anything but go to the police.”

Exactly.

“So what do you suggest I do then?”

Pour gas over everything and burn the place down then get the hell out.

Jerry shakes his head. “I’m not doing that.”

You should.

“No.”

Then wipe down everything you touched, including the wall where you steadied yourself a few minutes ago. Find the laundry and grab some bleach and pour it over her body. Take the knife and dump it a few miles from here. Make your way into town. I have an idea—make your way to the library. We’ll figure out the rest from there.

“The library?”

Libraries relax you. You used to spend a lot of time there after school, and you used to read book after book, wanting to grow up and be an author. It was those days, those library days, that shaped you into the man you became.

“Sick?”

An author, you idiot.

He walks into the dining room. The music gets louder, and he thinks it’s coming from the bedroom. There’s a clock on the wall. It’s seven fifty in the morning. He finds the laundry and goes through the cupboard and finds a half-gallon container of bleach that is just short of being full. He carries it into the lounge and looks at the dead woman. How can he pour bleach on somebody whose name he doesn’t know?

The same way you killed somebody whose name you don’t know.

“So I did kill her?”

It’s possible. But if you didn’t, then staying here is a mistake.

He heads back into the dining room, then into the hallway, and in the corner by the door is an A Place for Everything shelf that has keys and sunglasses and a handbag on top. He opens the handbag. Inside is a purse, and inside that is a driver’s license. Fiona Clark. Twenty-six years old—the same age as his daughter.

“My name is Jerry Grey and I’m a writer,” he says, putting the license back. “My name is Jerry Grey and none of this is real.”

But it is real. There’s a dead girl in the lounge to prove it.

W MINUS SEVEN

The wedding is one week away. There’s no chance of forgetting this, buddy, not with Sandra mentioning it every hour. The wedding has become this big, all-encompassing thing that always seems so close but never actually happens, and of course big, encompassing things often come with problems, the latest of which is with the flowers. Our florist is a very pretty woman by the name of Belinda Something Last Name, who reminds me a little of Sandra Something Last Name (just kidding there—Sandra has your last name, at least for now). Same winning smile, same bubbly personality. She’s like Sandra’s much younger sister, if Sandra had a much younger sister (does she?). Belinda has been around a few times now to meet with Sandra and Eva, and she’s always full of smiles, and she always asks how you are in a tone that makes you believe she really wants to know.

At the moment they’re stressing about the flowers. There’s been some weird insect outbreak and the sources Belinda uses have had large percentages of their crops ruined, the insects eating half of them and shitting on the rest. Belinda may have to order from somewhere further away, as all florists are, and that means they really need to lock in what flowers they want, as the original ones are hard to get now, creating a shortage on other types too, which means, of course, the prices are all going up. Your crush on Belinda waned a little at that point, but her sad smile at this tragic turn of events won you over. Then you got bored. Then you got thirsty. Then you excused yourself and went into your office. Then you snuck out the window so you wouldn’t set one of the alarms off and went for a walk, because you should be able to walk, shouldn’t you? And get some fresh air?

You didn’t go far. Just far enough to pick up some cigarettes. You walked to the corner store, which is a little short of a mile away, and you bought a pack. Jerry Grey, who can predict how stories end, can probably predict what happened next, right? That’s right—when you got outside you put a cigarette into your mouth and before you even lit it you knew you don’t smoke. You never have. And right in that moment you remembered that it’s Zach Perkins who smokes, the detective from some of your books, and then you remembered that even he gave up smoking a few books ago. Right in that moment you also knew that the captain was real, that you were sick, and it was all going to unfold just like the counselor said.

You tossed the cigarettes and walked home. Belinda’s car was still parked outside. You climbed through the window and lay down on the couch and thought about what had just happened, and wondered if there would be other times you would think you were one of your characters.

Thank God you didn’t think you were the Bag Man!

The Bag Man, in case you’ve forgotten, stabs women in the chest and then ties a black garbage bag over their heads. He was in book five, and showed up again a few books later.

The Alzheimer’s isn’t going to let you go, Future Jerry, and it’s bringing with it a few quirks, along with the bigger ones of mixing up your character’s dirty habits as your own. One quirk is that you talk to yourself now. You’ve caught yourself doing this a few times. You don’t just talk to yourself, but you have conversations with Henry, your favorite writer in residence. Nothing deep and meaningful, but he’ll occasionally say something like You should put that into the journal or You deserve another drink. Henry isn’t a real person, and you’ve never seen him as such, but that hasn’t stopped him from making small talk.

The other development is the drinking really has become your best friend, though Sandra would tell you he’s the friend that doesn’t leave when the night is over. She knows you’re drinking—but doesn’t really know because she can’t catch you. All the slurring and unbalanced walking you blame on Captain A. You are planning on cutting back before the wedding—if you’re going to forget Eva’s name when you’re giving her away at the altar, you’d rather it be from dementia than from being a raging drunk.

Good news—your problems don’t seem as bad anymore. You’re caring less and less about the real world.

Bad news—the bad news is that the good news above really should have been bad news. Not only have you accepted what’s happening, but you’re ready. Bring it on, Captain A. Do your best. Oh, and in case Future Jerry can’t say it, let me say it—fuck you, Captain A, and the disease-ridden whale you rode in on.

Back in the lounge, the girl, Fiona Clark, hasn’t moved. She hasn’t gotten up and fled his imagination and taken all that blood and violence along with her. Is somebody due home? There are photographs around the room—one on the bookcase, one on the TV stand, a couple hanging on the walls, and in them is a recurring character, a good-looking guy around Fiona’s age, embraces and kisses and laughter. A recurring character who could be at work, or on his way here.

He finds a bathroom. He washes his hands under hot water and scrubs the blood away. The music has been replaced by the low hum of bantering DJs. He can’t hear what they’re saying. He uses a towel to dab at the blood on his shirt, but only manages to darken and smear it. He uses the towel to wipe down the taps and the basin, then wraps the towel over his hand and uses it to open the wardrobe door in the bedroom. There are only women’s clothes in here, so the guy in the photographs doesn’t live here, but then he finds a jacket that is big enough to fit him that the guy could have left behind, or belongs to an ex-boyfriend, or the father, or even the victim herself. He puts it on to cover his bloody shirt.

He wipes down other surfaces in the house, including the container of bleach that he doesn’t use, nor can he even remember for sure if the bleach would have helped. He can’t bring himself to set fire to the place. When he’s done he crouches next to Fiona and searches for something to say, but what is there? Sorry? Sorry I stabbed you in the chest? He cleans the knife in the kitchen sink then wraps it in the towel. He heads for the front door. There are ads on the radio now. Jingles. He pats down his pockets to see what he has on him. He doesn’t own a cell phone, so he grabs Fiona’s, and while he’s at it, he takes all the cash from her purse, which turns out to be ninety dollars. When he reaches for his own wallet, he finds a neatly folded black plastic garbage bag tucked into his back pocket. He has no idea why he has it.

Don’t you? Henry asks.

He takes the SIM card out of the phone and wipes his prints off and has one foot out the door when the song his daughter wrote comes on the radio. He recognizes it immediately. When she finds out what he’s done, it will destroy her.

Then make sure she doesn’t find out.

He tosses the SIM card in the garden as he leaves. The towel with the knife wrapped inside is tucked under his arm. He’s not sure what street this is, let alone what neighborhood he’s in. Everything looks middle class, nothing too run down, most of the cars parked on the street or up driveways are Japanese imports, most of them around seven or eight years old. He walks to the end of the block. The street signs don’t mean anything to him.

He needs to dump the towel. He keeps his head down as he walks. Soon an intersection has to make sense. He reaches a park two blocks later. There’s a bunch of playground equipment in the middle but, thankfully, no kids, which means he can sit on the bench and not have anybody rush over to call him a child molester while he’s collecting his thoughts. There’s a trash bin twenty yards away. He figures it’s a good dumping spot, then figures it’s actually a really bad one, that the police will end up looking here. They’re going to look in every trash can and dumpster within a five-mile radius. Looking at the trash bin and thinking about dumping the evidence gives him a sense of déjà vu. Has he done this before? Or was it one of his characters?

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t even tell you what today is.

He needs to bury the knife. Or throw it into a river. Dump it in the ocean or send it into space. He takes the plastic bag out of his pocket and shakes it out, then puts the towel and the knife inside and rolls it all up. If he really had killed that woman, he’s sure he would know it. He would feel it somehow.

Like Sandra?

Sandra, dead because of him. He should do the world a favor and take the knife back out of the bag and become Henry Cutter and cut, cut, cut his way into oblivion. There is no mystery here—he killed his wife, he killed the woman he found on the lounge floor, and quite possibly the woman the police were asking him about.

He starts to shake. He can’t catch his breath. He’s a fool, a silly fool for wanting to escape the nursing home to prove his innocence because all he’s done is hurt somebody else. He is Jerry Grey, a crime writer, but really he’s nothing more than a confused old man who isn’t even old, but made old by the Big A. Jerry Grey, creator of worlds, killer of women, confused madman.

He’s a monster.

He’s the Breaking Man.

He doesn’t know what to do.

God help him, he doesn’t know what to do.

W MINUS FIVE

You saw Doctor Goodstory yesterday and again this morning. He said Captain A is going to make this a pretty quick journey because you are now in the advanced club, all the way baby, from zero to a hundred in just a matter of months. Aside from being tired a lot more often, you told him you don’t really feel a lot different. Sure, you feel muddled sometimes, but otherwise very much yourself. When you got home, you printed out the Ray Bradbury quote you like so much, and put it into a frame where you can see it from your desk. Things really do feel like they’re all over now, just like the quote says.

Sandra and Eva are still running around like the sky is falling. You spent this afternoon with them at the church Eva is getting married in, Saint Something or Rather. It’s a really pretty stone church with lots of beautiful gardens out the front and a cemetery out the back, a horseshoe ring of poplars and oak trees separating the two. You can’t deny there’s a creep factor to the place, what, with all those bodies in the ground only a minute away from where Eva and Rick are going to exchange their I dos. Of course that’s the old horror writer in you thinking that. You’ve probably forgotten this by now, Jerry, but your first few manuscripts were about vampires, and zombies, and shape-shifters. Back then if you knew the real horror was waking up at three in the morning confused while taking a piss against the bedroom wall, that the real horror was stepping out your back door and stepping through a memory wormhole, then you’d have written a successful horror novel years ago. Eva getting married at a church by a graveyard—the failed-to-be horror author can’t help but see the timing of all of this coinciding with the timing of the zombie uprising, the zombies choosing your little girl’s big day for a little big day of their own. You feel bad Eva’s marrying her hip-hop-loving boyfriend in a place like this, but they’re doing it because of you, because

Captain A

Is taking you away,

Yo.

After the church visit, you all headed out to the winery where the reception is being held. Eva and Rick were lucky there, because there was a cancellation, so everything worked out. It’s out in the country a little, mountains in the far distance, vineyards in all directions, a lake, a beautiful building, all of it stunning, stunning, stunning. And expensive. If there is a zombie uprising on the day, just hope nobody tells them it’s an open bar.

The last few days have been full of meeting people and ticking i’s and dotting t’s—the priest, the florist, the band, the caterers, picking up your suit, and you had to go back into town and see the dessert baker again. You had to stand there and nod and pretend you had no idea what was going on between him and Sandra, who again wore her hair down. Henry keeps saying you have to take care of that situation, and you will, after the wedding. There’s the rehearsal in a few nights’ time, where you’ll be shown how to walk in a straight line with Eva on your arm, how to shake Rick’s hand, then how to sit down in the front row next to Sandra. Everybody is worried you’re going to mess it up, that you’re going to make it halfway down the aisle, shit yourself, and trip over the priest.

Oh, another thing, you got the notes today that your ghostwriter has written up. There are some changes he’s planning on making, but none make any sense. He’s even suggested a name change to the novel. They’re going with Burn Time. You emailed Mandy and told her to go ahead, that everything looked fine, because it’s easier just to let it all happen now. Since you can no longer have the title you wanted, you’ve written The Captain Goes Burning on the spine of the Madness Journal so, if you’re wondering why it’s there, well now you know.

Hans came over again today. He brought more gin. You hid it away in the office after he was gone, but you’re not going to touch it, not till after the wedding, then you’re going to drink as much of it as regularly as you can. You’ve always wondered if the difference between being an okay writer and a great writer was sobriety. All the greats—they’ve spent time coked out of their minds or starting the day with a morning Scotch. Future Jerry, there are more days in your past than your future—that has been true for some time now, but even more true now. Spending your days in a nursing home staring out the window while a nurse wipes the drool off your face isn’t the future for you. When the wedding is over you’re going to drink yourself to death. You should get to decide how you want to go out, and that seems like a pretty good way. It does mean this journal doesn’t really have much of a purpose anymore, except maybe as a coaster.

You were out on the deck with Hans when the florist came over to see Eva. She smiled at you through the window of the French doors and you smiled back, and Hans grinned and slowly shook his head.

Got yourself a little crush there, have you?

No, you said, and shook your head.

I hear ya, mate. If things get to the point where you have to go into a care facility, and I’m sure they won’t, but if they do I’ll make sure there are some nurses in there who look like her.

Of course there’s no way he can do that, but the sentiment made you both laugh, and you can’t deny to yourself that if the nurses looked like the florist, then the nursing home can’t be all bad. You told Hans you’d started talking to yourself, and he said everybody does that sometimes, but he thought you meant you were saying things like Hmm, now where did I put the phone? You told him about the conversations with Henry.

Is he asking you to do things? Hans asked.

Like what?

Like hurting people.

You shook your head while you answered. No, it’s more normal than that. Like the conversation any old two friends would have.

He the one who told you to spray-paint the neighbor’s house?

It was a good question, and one you couldn’t answer. If you did spray-paint her house, was it on the suggestion of somebody who doesn’t exist?

At least you can’t leave the house without the alarms going off, right? Hans pointed out.

I can sneak out the windows.

Just don’t let Henry talk you into sneaking out to visit your florist, huh?

He laughed then, and you laughed too, and why not? Everything is funny in Batshit County.

Good news—the weather report is good for the weekend. It’s plain sailing ahead.

Bad news—you’re going to Rick’s bachelor’s party later this week. You don’t want to go, but Rick’s dad has promised to look after you. You’re only staying for the dinner part of the evening. Could be fun. Or it could be a nightmare. Things will be better when this is all over. Not just the wedding.