He lifted a cup, his attitude so dismissive that Jason found it impossible to keep his anger in check.
Tyra’s death.
His freedom.
X must have seen the conflict in Jason’s face, yet acted oblivious. “Tell me again, Jason. How long since you left this place?”
“Two months and nine days.”
“And, in that time, did you think of me? Beyond what I’d chosen to share, were you curious about my life before this place? Did you search out the articles, the documentaries? The public record is quite extensive.”
“No.” Jason clenched his jaw. “I left here knowing everything I needed to know about your life and the people you killed. If I forgot half of what you told me, I’d still know too much.”
“Do you know how they caught me?”
Jason did, in fact, know a lot about X’s life before prison. In spite of what he’d said, he’d watched both documentaries, read the articles and police interviews, the in-depth profiles in the glossy magazines. No journalist had all the facts, of course, and no cop alive knew how many people X had actually killed. But Jason could name them all. He knew what they’d looked like and how they’d died and what small flicker of life had drawn X like a moth from the dark. He knew their last words and how they’d begged and what they’d felt like and smelled like, and how X had placed his tongue, once, on a still-beating heart that tasted of salt, and felt like warm vinyl.
When the cops finally caught up with X, even the most arrogant admitted it was blind luck or providence.
But for this …
If not for that …
Now Jason had to wonder. X had raised the subject. That meant some part of him wanted to talk about it. Or it was part of some larger game.
Misdirection.
Distraction.
X’s great advantage lay in the fact that his goals were his alone, and unknowable. He could spend six months plotting a single encounter, or envision, in an instant and with absolute clarity, the long weeks of torture that would lead at last to some poor soul’s death. It was no different in the subbasement. Nothing could be taken for granted. Face value did not exist.
“How did they catch you?”
“I thought you disliked tales of my youth.”
“I do. But you did raise the subject.”
“The story is boring. I’ve already moved on.” He waved his cigarette to underline the point. “To business, then. Reece came for a reason. So did you.”
“Discourse and debate?”
X disliked the tone, but didn’t make it an issue. “Honest discourse,” he said. “Vigorous debate. And when we fight, I expect that same vigor and commitment. Yesterday, you gave me reason to doubt.” X slipped one hand into a pocket. “This is to assure your commitment, to know that in these final days, I have the Jason I’ve so long admired.” He placed a photograph facedown on the table. “Reece brought it just for you. We’ll call it a token.”
Jason reached for the photograph, and X gave him long seconds to take it all in: the young man’s face, the light on his cheek, and the way he stood. “Your parents’ driveway, I believe. He favors you, don’t you think? The intelligent eyes. The generous mouth.” Jason tore his gaze from the photograph of his little brother, and X was waiting with a smile on his face. “So we’re clear,” he said. “So we understand each other.”
25
After the hospital, I stared for a long time at the stranger in my bathroom mirror. He had one good eye, the other swollen shut. A bandage wrapped the crown of his head, and the skin of his face was a camouflage of purples, greens, and iodine browns. The same stains mottled his arms and ribs, and when the stranger took the bandage from his head, I saw cruel black lines where his scalp had been laid bare and stitched back together. I frowned, and the stranger did, too.
That was about our father.
There should have been twenty cops at that bar: bright lights and guns and hard men asking hard questions. Instead, there’d been only me.
I blinked, and the stranger disappeared. I couldn’t remember all of the fight, but the ditch stayed with me: the taste of water, and of his boot, the smell of his skin when, at last, he’d let me breathe. Listen to me, kid. Die or not, I don’t give a shit. But if you talk to the cops or anyone else or come out of this ditch before we’re good and gone, I’ll stomp a mudhole in your face so dark and forever you’ll never see daylight again …
He’d told me to stay, and like a dog at his feet, I’d done it. I’d waited as footsteps faded, and engines fired, and silence came behind. Even then, I’d stayed in the water, deep down in the grass and mud. I’d stayed until the crying ceased, then crawled up and out, into the headlights and the anger and the shame.
* * *
When the new day came, my father did, too. I was on the bed, and down to one emotion, but anger could wear a lot of faces: hostility, bitterness, the cold, quiet fury I’d come to know best.
“Come in.”
I kept my voice flat, and stood because him looking down was not going to be okay with me. He came in, closed the door, and we met in that eye-to-eye place.
“Can we talk about it?” he asked.
“You can.”
His eyes moved across my face and scalp. He made a small gesture, pointing at my head. “You should have left the bandage on.”
“I shouldn’t have needed it in the first place.”
“You’re angry.”
“Because it should have been the cops.”
He nodded as if some suspicion had been confirmed. “You were there for Jason. You were asking about Tyra.”
“Someone should believe him, evidence or not.”
“You’re right…”
“Prison or not, Vietnam or not, drugs or not—”
“Stop, just stop.” He reached for my shoulders, and when I stepped back, he followed, both hands up as if to gentle a horse. “You’re right, son. I’m trying to tell you that. It’s why I’m here. Just listen to me, please.”
But the anger was simple and clean. I understood it. “He’s all alone.”
“I understand that.”
“It could have been me.”
That stopped him cold, but truth could be like that.
“I knew Tyra, too. She was in my car. I’ve been to her house. I’ve seen her angry and drunk and bleeding. What if the evidence said I’d killed her? Would you treat me like Jason? Let them send me off to prison?” My father stepped closer, and I said, “Don’t touch me.”
He looked away, out of embarrassment or decency. “I should have been there for your brother. I see that now. From the first moment, I should have been there. But I was also in shock. Son, look at me.” He waited until I did. “Tyra’s murder was the worst I’ve ever seen, so horrible I’ll never forget it, not a bit of it. And the evidence against Jason is overwhelming.”
He looked lost, but gathered up the threads of his conviction. “When Robert died, it killed me. It killed us all, I know. But then I lost Jason, too, not in the same way, but the boy I’d raised was gone, just…” He opened an empty hand. “But I still had you. I had you and your mother and this chest full of fear, this mountain, Gibby, this mountain of fear that if I slipped or made a mistake, I might lose you, too. An accident. The war.