The Malice Box Page 19
‘I – ’
‘Please. This scavenger hunt we are all involved in has, I’m afraid, an evil core to it. I’m being compelled to take part, I have no choice in the matter. I’m in it, there’s no getting around the fact.’
‘In over your head?’
He heard a sardonic laugh. ‘In so far over my head I can’t even see the sunlight any more. Just the occasional glimmer. When I do see it, it’s so beautiful it would break your heart.’
‘You can run.’
‘No. There’s no hiding from it.’
‘I want to help you.’
‘Thank you. You’ve always been an extraordinary man, Robert, in part by being so ordinary. You’re kind, you’re direct, you’re honest – all with the possible exception of yesterday, admittedly, a necessary interlude – and an amazing thing about you is that you can’t see your own power. You don’t know what you are. The night of the fire, when you saved my life and Katherine’s, our lives were… entangled. Whether we like it or not. Are you familiar with the concept?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Imagine identical twin sisters. They both have an amazing trick. They both only ever wear black or white, but they never wear the same colour at the same time. And they never make up their minds which they are wearing until someone looks at one of them. As soon as a gaze falls upon one of them, her clothes take on a specific colour. Say white.’
‘I like your metaphor. What are their names?’
‘They’re both called Phoebe. But here’s the thing. They have to add up to zero. They have to add up to grey. As soon as Phoebe One’s clothes turn white, Phoebe Two’s clothes turn black, instantaneously. No matter how far apart they are in time and space. Information can’t travel faster than the speed of light, yet somehow it happens, when there’s no way for it to happen. Entanglement is what the scientists call it.’
‘That’s impossible. I’ve heard of this, now that you describe it. It’s what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”. He didn’t believe in it, didn’t like it, didn’t want it. I’m with Einstein, I have to say. God doesn’t play dice, as he said. It’s simply a flaw in our understanding.’
‘Well, it’s been done in the laboratory with photons. The first time was in Paris, nearly thirty years ago. Not with colour but with something they call spin. It’s been repeated many times since. It exists as a physical phenomenon. But I’m not talking about physical phenomena or black and white dresses in our case. I’m talking about souls, Robert. Yours. Mine. Katherine’s. Terri’s.’
‘Terri’s?’
‘We are all entangled. You, me and Kat since the night of the fire back in ’81. Terri with me, and hence with the rest of us, since the Blackout. There’s a level of reality for living beings where we are like those girls, like those photons – where something that affects one of us, affects all of us. Now, answer your Quad when it rings.’
Robert closed his eyes. He tried to keep a lid on his fear. He didn’t understand. He let the Quad ring and ring. Eventually he answered.
‘Robert?’
It was Adam. He twisted round in his seat. No one was there. He darted his eyes around the park. Couldn’t see him.
‘Adam. Where did you go?’
‘Walk. Get up and walk east. I assume you have a riddle?’
‘Wait. No riddles. Not yet.’
‘Robert…’
‘Lawrence Hencott. You went to see him right before he killed himself.’
‘Ah.’
‘How on earthdid you even know him?’
‘Please let’s not talk about this now.’
‘We talk about this right now or I walk away.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Watchme.’
There was a pause. Did he have any leverage? Or had he just lost Adam? And maybe Terri?
After what seemed an age, Adam answered. ‘I had to see him. I was… compelled to.’
‘Why did he kill himself?’
Adam gave a cry of pain. ‘I am… shielding us from… Iwnw… scavengers… I can’t do it… if we talk about this now.’
‘Why did he kill himself?’
‘Please…’
‘Tell me.’
‘To… protect… you.’
The line went dead.
Robert tried to recall Lawrence’s words in the phone call. Hurt you… bullet… scavenger… die.
Had it been not a threat but a warning?
The Quad buzzed again. ‘Robert.’
‘What do you mean, to protect me?’
‘Find the cache first, and I’ll tell you. Please.’
‘Don’t you know where the cache is?’
‘No – not this one, not any of them. They won’t tell me. Don’t trust me.’
‘Who?’
‘Find the cache, Robert. Didn’t they send you a clue?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Check your Quad again.’
‘Who’s sending it?’
‘The Watchman.’
‘Who is the Watchman?’
‘You’ll find out very soon, I’m sure.’
Then the Quad buzzed, and Robert had a new text message:
A living tree’s the place to be
Steer your helm towards an elm
I’m not barmy, I’m just a swami
The first of three, a trinity
How fire entangles, in love triangles
Yet to atone, you walk alone
To survive your desire
Pass the Trial by Fire
At the end it gave two more waypoints.
Beautiful curved railings in black forged-iron lined the park’s paths. Robert followed the path that took him most directly eastwards, scanning his surroundings for a sight of Adam. He came almost immediately to a tree with garlands around its trunk and flowers strewn among its roots. It was an American Elm. Ulmus Americana. He found a plaque on the chicken-wire fence near by. It told him that, on October 9, 1966, A. C. Bhakhtivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his followers sat beneath the tree and held the first outdoor chanting session outside of India of Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare… The Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was there. The event was recognized as the founding of the Hare Krishna religion in the United States.
‘Robert.’
‘Yes.’
‘You have it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Concentrate. Find the cache. Read me the clue.’
Robert read it to him.
‘Did you become a Krishna and not tell anyone?’
‘No. That’s not the point. Just go with the notion of the joy. If it helps, Jimi Hendrix played in this park. It’s also named after the guy who abolished slavery in the state of New York. Look away from the specific.’
Robert wheeled around the tree, looking for a hint of something buried. He looked over it for crannies and cracks… Nothing. Back to the plaque. To the fence. He ran his fingers around the bases of the fenceposts. Nothing. Then something drew his attention higher up in the tree, a hollow well above head-height.
He called over a beaten-up-looking man sitting on a nearby benchand offered him five dollars for a leg-up. They settled on ten. With the man’s back against the tree and his hands making a stirrup, Robert was able to climb up and dig his fingers into the cavity. He felt a fishing line and pulled on it. It was attached to another clear plastic tube.
‘I have it.’
‘Discretion, Robert. Please.’
He dropped to the ground and looked about. No one seemed to be paying attention. Upon inspection, the tube contained an irregular four-sided piece of metal, perhaps an inchlong. It seemed to be made of the same alloy as the Malice Box.
‘I need to put something on the website.’
‘Not yet. This is a three-parter, I suspect. Now walk north. There’s something you need to see.’
Robert slipped the metal shape into a zipped pocket on his trousers. A pattern was forming in his mind, just beyond his ability to recognize it
. He followed the park’s curving paths towards the northern end, where a onestorey building of men’s and women’s lavatories stood, with a gate in between them to a garden behind. He passed a curious structure that on closer inspection turned out to be a fountain, a mythical water carrier atop it on a pyramidal stone roof with the word temperance carved into it.
‘Keep moving, Robert.’
He passed a ship’s flagpole and came to the comfort station. Through the gate he could see a pink marble stela, maybe nine feet tall.
‘Go take a look, Robert. This is death by fire.’
It was a monument, with bas-relief renderings of two children’s faces.
In memory of those who lost their lives in the disaster to the steamer General Slocum, June XV, MCMIV
They were earth’s purest, children young and fair
‘More than a thousand died, mostly women and children,’ Adam said. ‘Look at that little boy’s face.’
‘Are you trying to fuck with my head?’
‘Not in the least, Robert, not at all. But I’m saying Moss’s death will be as nothing if you don’t come further into the hunt.’
‘Further in? What do you mean further in? I already said I want to help you.’
‘The General Slocum caught fire as it headed up the East River. It was a day trip for the children of Little Germany. You’ll notice there isn’t one of those in New York any more. Not after this. The captain beached on North Brother Island in the East River to try to save the passengers. That’s where Typhoid Mary was interned and died, if you didn’t know. The Slocum disaster was the greatest loss of life for any fire in New York City. Biggest disaster before 9/11.’
‘And?’
‘9/11 was, what, about three times bigger?’
‘More or less. Different category.’
‘What we are dealing with here – what you’d be helping to stop – would be perhaps ten thousand times bigger. We can stop it, but only if we continue the game for now.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Death by fire. You need to give me the keys you have so far.’
‘That’s not going to happen.’
‘You need to think. I understand that. You should expect another waypoint soon.’
‘I already have it. Number 101.’
‘Start walking, I’ll be back to you.’
Robert walked through the asphalt basketball courts where kids shouted and hollered, and got a Quad signal at the corner of East 10th, accurate to 37 feet. It showed Waypoint 101 was about two thirds of a mile to the west, near Washington Square Park.
Robert racked his brains as he walked along East 1 oth. Record anything that leaps out at you. It’ll be important.
He passed a red-brick Gothic Revival church, St Nicholas of Myra. Something struck him about it. He stopped and stared till he saw what it was. There were strange sculpted heads on the walls, their faces… peeling away? Cut up? Maybe made of leaves? They were like the ones he’d seen on John Street. They made him shudder.
Across the street he noticed a curios and antiques store, a dressmaker’s mannequin outside on the street, old military and anatomical items in the window. There was another one on First Avenue, across the street from the Coyote Ugly Bar, selling old typewriters, musical instruments, lamps, models of military missiles, a beautiful black girdle. Compared to SoHo, the neighbourhood had a grungier, student-rich feel. He passed a store called Vinyl Market selling techno twelve-inch records.
The GPS signal kept cutting out mid block and returning at the corners. ‘Need clear view of sky’ flashed up on the screen.
As he reached Second Avenue, a church came into view, angled in defiance of the Manhattan grid, its pediment and steeple above a colonnaded porch echoing those of St Paul’s Chapel downtown.
Adam called again. ‘Robert, where are you?’
‘Can’t you tell where I am, like Terri?’
‘I’m not psychic the way she is. I can’t do what she does.’
‘Aren’t you watching me? I’m just opposite St Mark’s in-the-Bowery. I’m crossing the street to go into the graveyard now.’
‘A rich man’s corpse was stolen from there and held for ransom at the end of the nineteenth century, did you know? His widow had to bargain to free his body.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘We’re about ransoming the dead too, my friend. The future dead. Our man Tompkins, the freer of slaves, is buried there. Also your man Thomas Addis Emmet lies in a vault there. The one who’s absent from his obelisk at St Paul’s.’
‘You know about that, huh?’
‘I read everything you posted. It’s part of the game.’
‘I’m going to start needing better answers than that.’
‘Calm down. You’ll have them.’
Emmet’s vault was a stone slab in the paved churchyard. The image of an empty chamber beneath an obelisk teased at his mind. He noticed a large cracked bell in one corner of the churchyard, heavy iron bolts holding it in its frame. The bolts meant something to him too. Indefinable images rushed at him. He placed his hands on the bell, closing his eyes, hearing again the chanting in his dream.
Fat Mary Fat Mary Fat Mary…
He couldn’t. He willed the images away, and with them the fear.
The Quad pointed him directly along Stuyvesant Street, diagonally across the Manhattan grid. Less than half a mile to go. He crossed Third Avenue in front of Cooper Union, past the Budapest-inspired Astor Place subway entrance, one of a handful of reproductions of the original elegant subway entrance designs. As he neared Lafayette Street, a great lamp glowed red to the north atop the Con Ed Building.
He passed alongside a Barnes & Noble bookstore to the corner of Broadway, along what used to be called Obelisk Lane. Now the spire of Grace Church came into view as he looked north. Then, as he crossed Broadway, the Woolworth Building swept into view to the south. The two Gothic towers connected, drawing lines like the threads on the map board in his study. Great sweeping geometries flashed in his mind.
The signal returned again at Broadway. A tenth of a mile to go.
He walked south past cheap low-rise stores and right on to Waverly Place, following the arrow, 460 feet to go. It pointed left on Mercer, then right on Washington Place… 177 feet… directly ahead to the corner of Greene Street. ‘Arriving Destination’ flashed up, 79 feet, pointing directly at a building on the corner of Washington Place and Greene. At around 30 feet the arrow began to go round and round, slowly spinning within its own range of error.
He looked about him for any further clues. Then the Quad rang.
‘Are you there yet?’
‘Standing right at the waypoint.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Washington Place and Greene.’
‘Oh… I see. Yes. Of course.’
‘What am I looking for?’
‘You’re going to need a bit of time to absorb that place. Read the plaque on the building at Washington Place and Greene, north-west corner.’
‘What is it?’
‘More death by fire, my friend. This is what you’d be helping to prevent if you do what I say.’
He read the plaque: ‘On this site 146 workers lost their lives in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire on March 25, 1911…’
‘Oh, God.’
He knew the story, but hadn’t recognized the location. The awful sound of women screaming, falling through the air, some hand in hand, like the poor people who jumped from the Twin Towers, smashing into the sidewalk on Greene Street. Young women trapped behind locked and blocked doors on the top floors as the flames tore through the factory, driving them to the windows. An inferno at their backs. Leaping to their deaths. He could feel it. He could see it. The pain was unbearable. The street resonated with violence. It was not his imagination. For a moment, he was actually there, psychically connected to the pain and fear of the women. He felt energy flare around him and subside. Then it was gone, as suddenly as it
had come. He was like a broken radio, picking up snatches of signals from the air.
Adam was talking to him. ‘Robert, what’s the most precious thing in your life?’
‘My marriage. The memory of Moss. The idea of him, rather.’
‘Once again. You need to give me the keys you have collected so far. There’ll be a ring or cylinder of some kind, a pair of interlocked circles, and the one you get today.’
‘Can’t do that, Adam.’
‘If you don’t, I’ll make sure Katherine learns everything about you and Terri. Everything. We both know her. She’ll leave you.’
‘She wouldn’t believe you.’
‘When did you guys last… never mind. There are pictures. Video. Terri didn’t know, if it makes you feel any better.’
‘What? What has happened to you, you sick fuck?’
‘The only way out is deeper in. You need to give me the keys.’
‘No way.’
‘You need to think about this very carefully.’
‘Blackmail. You. I can’t believe it.’
‘Focus. You have to think of what’s best for Katherine. Now go get the next cache. What’s the clue?’
It was almost the same as before:
A hangman’s tree’s the place to be
Turn your helm to another elm
The second of three, a trinity
How fire entangles, in love triangles
Yet to atone, you walk alone
To survive your desire
Pass the Trial by Fire
A cold detachment came over Robert, the one that possessed him whenever he felt himself under attack. Had they really been videotaped? Did it matter?
He was beginning to see a pattern. He felt himself gaining advantage. He would overcome this. He would not be treated like a plaything. He needed to play for time.
‘The keys. I’ll think about it.’
‘Good. What’s the clue?’
He read it to him.
‘As you go, look out for old Garibaldi.’
As he walked into the park, Robert passed a dramatic statue of the Italian military genius, caught in the act of unsheathing his sword. What was salient? Garibaldi in exile had shared a house on Staten Island with a man called Meucci who’d supposedly invented the telephone before Alexander Graham Bell. A glass vessel was found under the base of his statue when it was moved in 1970, a glass time capsule containing newspaper clippings from the 1880s about his death and the erection of the statue. Something precious, delicate, hidden…