“Screwed it up?”
“That’s what they’re telling me. We’re having a laboratorial crisis in Northern California!” She folded her arms and watched through cold narrow eyes as the techs drew his blood into vial after vial.
Toward the end of the week, Grace was almost manic over his speedy recovery. He was spending most of the day walking around, or in the chair reading the newspaper accounts of the massacre, the Nideck family, the mystery of the rabid animal. He demanded his laptop. His phone was still with the police, of course, so he asked for another.
The first person he called was his editor Billie Kale. “I don’t like being the subject of all these stories,” he said. “I want to write my own.”
“That’s what we’re dying to have, Reuben. You e-mail it to me. We’re on.”
His mother walked in. Yes, he could be discharged if he insisted. “My heavens, just look at you,” she said. “You do need a haircut, Baby Boy.”
One of the other doctors, a good friend of Grace’s, had dropped by, and they stood chatting in the hall. “And can you believe they have completely screwed up the lab tests again?”
Long hair. Reuben got out of bed to look at it in the bathroom mirror. Hmm. His hair was bushier, longer, bigger, without doubt.
For the first time, Reuben thought of that mysterious Margon the Godless and his shoulder-length hair. He saw the distinguished gentleman of the photograph over Marchent’s library fireplace. Maybe Reuben would wear his long like the impressive Margon the Godless. Well, for a while.
He laughed.
As soon as he walked into the door of the house on Russian Hill, he made for his desk. He was firing up his desktop as the private-duty nurse took vitals.
It was early afternoon, eight days since the massacre, and one of those clear sunny days in San Francisco when the bay is vibrantly blue and the city is still white in spite of its many glass buildings. He went out on the balcony and let the cold wind sweep over him. He breathed it in as if he loved it, which frankly he never had.
He was so glad to be back in his own room, with his own fireplace, his own desk.
He wrote for five hours.
By the time he hit the key to send the text by e-mail to Billie, he was happy enough with the blow-by-blow account. But he knew that the drugs were still clouding his recall and his sense of the rhythm of what he’d written. “Cut where you feel you should,” he had written. Billie would know what to do. Ironic that he, one of their most promising reporters, as they always put it, was the subject of headlines in other papers.
In the morning, he woke up with one thought in mind. He called his lawyer, Simon Oliver. “It’s about the Nideck estate,” he said. “It’s about all the personal property up there and, most especially, the personal effects and papers of Felix Nideck. I want to make an offer on all of it.”
Simon started to advise patience, taking things one step at a time. Reuben had never gone into his capital before. Why, Grandfather Spangler (Grace’s father) had only been dead now five years, and what would he have thought of this rash expenditure? Reuben interrupted. He wanted everything that had belonged to Felix Nideck, unless Marchent had made arrangements otherwise, and then he hung up the phone.
Not like me to talk like that, is it, he thought. But he hadn’t been rude, really, just eager to advance the plot.
That afternoon, after his article had gone to press at the Observer, he was dozing, half awake, looking out the window at the fog rolling in over San Francisco Bay, when Oliver called to say that the Nideck estate lawyers were very receptive. Marchent Nideck had discussed her frustration at not knowing what to do with all that Felix Nideck had left behind. Did Mr. Golding want to make an offer on the entire contents of the house and all its related buildings?
“Absolutely,” said Reuben. “Everything, furniture, books, papers, whatever.”
He closed his eyes. He cried for a long time. The nurse looked in once, but obviously not wanting to intrude, left him alone. “Marchent,” he whispered. “Beautiful Marchent.”
He told the nurse he had an intolerable craving for some beef broth. Could you get in the car and find some, you know, just some really good fresh beef broth?
“Well, I’ll make it,” she said. “Just let me go to the store and get what I need.”
“Superb!” he said.
He was dressed before her car left the curb.
Slipping out the front door before Phil was the wiser, he was off walking, pounding down Russian Hill towards the bay, loving the feel of the wind, loving the spring in his legs.
In fact, his legs felt stronger than they ever had, it seemed to him. He might have expected a little stiffness after so many days and nights in bed. But he was really sprinting along.
It was dark when he found himself in North Beach. He was moving along past the restaurants and bars, eyeing people, feeling strangely separate from them, that is, able to look at them as if they couldn’t see him. Of course they did see him, but he didn’t feel as if he was being seen, and that was something entirely new in his brain.
All his life, he’d been conscious of how people saw him. He’d been far too visible for his own comfort. And now it didn’t matter. It was as if he was invisible. He felt so free.
He went into a dimly lighted bar, took one of the stools near the end, and ordered a Diet Coke. Didn’t matter to him what the bartender thought, for the first time in his life.
He drank it down and the caffeine sizzled in his brain.
He fell to watching the passersby through the glass doors.
A man came in, large boned, with a thick knotted forehead, and sat down a couple of stools away. He wore a dark worn leather jacket and he had two thick silver rings on his right hand.
There was something decidedly ugly about this guy, about the way he hunched forward over the bar, and the way he told the bartender he wanted a beer. The guy seemed to reek of some malevolent power.
Suddenly he whipped around. “You like what you see?” he demanded of Reuben.
Reuben regarded him calmly. He felt not the slightest urgency to respond. He continued to look at him.
Suddenly, in a fury, the man got up and moved out of the bar.
Reuben calmly watched. He knew intellectually that the man had become angry, and that the situation was one which men in general sought to avoid: making a big guy angry in a bar. But none of this much mattered. He was considering all the little details of what he’d seen. The man was guilty of something, very guilty. The man was uncomfortable just being alive.
Reuben left the bar.
All the lights had come on. Daylight was absolutely gone. The traffic had thickened, and there were more people on the streets. An atmosphere of gaiety surrounded him. There were cheerful faces everywhere that he turned.
But then he heard voices, voices from far off.
For one second, he couldn’t move. A woman somewhere was fighting with a man. The woman was angry but frightened. And the man threatened the woman and the woman began to scream.
Reuben was paralyzed. His muscles were tense, hard. He stood there caught by the sounds he was hearing, but utterly unable to place them. Slowly he realized that someone had approached him. It was the surly uncomfortable man from the bar.
“You still looking for trouble?” the man snarled. “Faggot!” He placed his open hand on Reuben’s chest and tried to shove him backwards, but Reuben didn’t budge. His right fist shot up and struck the man right under his nostrils, sending him off the sidewalk and into the gutter.
People around them were gasping, whispering, pointing.
The man was astonished. Reuben watched him, watched his shock, watched the way he reached for his bloody nose, watched the way that he backed up, almost into the traffic, and then sauntered off.
Reuben looked down at his hand. No blood, thank God.
But he had an uncontrollable desire to wash his hand nevertheless. He stepped out in the street and hailed a cab and went home.
Now all this must mean something. He had been overpowered by two thug druggies who’d nearly killed him. And now he was able very easily to defend himself against a big lumbering guy who two weeks ago might have scared him out of his wits. Not that he was a coward, no. He just knew what all men know: you don’t tangle with some belligerent weather-beaten guy who outweighs you by seventy-five pounds and has arms that are half a foot longer than your arms. You get out of the way of violent men like that. Fast.
Well, not now.
And it must mean something, but he had trouble caring what it meant. He was still wrapped up in the details.
Grace was in hysterics when he got home. Where had he been?
“Out, Ma, what do you think?” he asked. He went to the computer. “Look, I’ve got to get to work.”
“What is this,” she stammered, gesturing wildly, “delayed adolescent rebellion? I mean is that what’s happening now, you’re going through some sort of adolescent recharge of your whole system?”
His father spoke up from his book.
“Son, are you sure you want to offer two hundred thousand dollars for the personal possessions of this Nideck family? Did you really tell Simon Oliver to do that?”
“It’s a steal, Dad,” he said. “I’m trying to do what Marchent would want.”
He started writing. Oh, forgot to wash my hand.
He went into the bathroom and began to scrub. Something didn’t feel right about his hand. He stretched out his fingers. Well now, this can’t be. He examined his other hand as well. Bigger. His hands were bigger. No doubt about it. He didn’t wear a ring. If he had, he’d have known before now.
He went to his dresser, and pulled out a pair of his leather driving gloves. He couldn’t get them on.
He stood there taking stock. His feet were aching. They’d been aching all day. It hadn’t mattered much. He’d been enjoying himself and it had been a minor annoyance, but now he realized what it meant. His feet were bigger, not a whole lot bigger, just slightly bigger. He took off his shoes and that felt good.
He walked into his mother’s room. She was standing against the window, with her arms folded, merely looking at him. That’s much the way I’ve been looking at people, he thought. She’s staring, studying, taking stock. Only she isn’t looking at everybody that way, just at me.
“Human growth hormone,” he said. “They found that in my blood.”
She nodded slowly.
“You’re still technically an adolescent. You’re still growing. You probably will be until you’re maybe thirty. So your body puts out human growth hormone still when you sleep.”
“So I could have a growth spurt still.”
“A small one, perhaps.” She was concealing something. She was not herself at all.
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
“I don’t know, baby, I’m just worried about you,” she said. “I want you to be all right.”
“I’m fine, Mamma. Never better.”
He went to his room, fell across his bed, and slept.
After dinner the next night, his brother sought him out and asked if they could talk alone together.
They went up to the roof deck, but it was just too cold. After a few minutes, they settled in the living room before the fireplace. The room was small, like all the rooms in the Russian Hill house, but beautifully appointed and cozy. Reuben was in his father’s leather chair, and Jim was sitting on the couch. Jim wore his “clerics,” as he called them, meaning his black shirtfront and white Roman collar with the usual black coat and pants. He was never one for going around in regular clothes.
His ran his fingers back through his brown hair and then he looked at his brother. Reuben felt that same odd detachment he’d been feeling for days. He studied his brother’s blue eyes, his pale skin, his thin lips. His brother simply wasn’t as flashy as Reuben was, Reuben thought, but he was a good-looking man.
“I’m worried about you,” Jim said.
“Of course, why wouldn’t you be?” said Reuben.
“See, that’s just it. That’s the way you’ve been talking. Kind of soft and direct and strange.”
“It’s not strange,” said Reuben. Why add anything to that? Didn’t Jim know what this had been like? Or didn’t Jim know enough to know he couldn’t know what this had been like? Marchent dead, that house his now, Reuben nearly dying. All that.
“I want you to know we’re all with you,” Jim said.
“That’s an understatement,” said Reuben.
Jim smiled grimly and shot him a sharp flashing glance.
“Tell me something,” Reuben said. “You meet a lot of people down there in the Tenderloin, I mean very unusual people, and you hear confessions. You’ve been hearing them for years.”
“Right.”
“Do you believe in evil, a disembodied principle of evil?”
Jim was speechless.
Then he ran his tongue over his lips and replied. “These killers,” he said. “They were addicts. It’s all much more mundane.…”
“No, Jim, I’m not talking about them. Yeah, I know their story. I mean … do you ever think you can feel evil? Feel it coming out of someone? Feel a person about to do something evil?”
Jim appeared to be reflecting.
“It’s situational and psychological,” he said. “People do destructive things.”
“Maybe that’s it,” said Reuben.
“What?”
He didn’t want to recount the story of the man in the bar. After all, it really wasn’t a story. Hardly anything had happened. He sat there thinking, thinking about what he had felt about that man. Maybe he had a heightened sense of the man’s destructive power or tendencies. “Much more mundane …,” he murmured.
“You know,” said Jim, “I’ve always teased you about living a charmed life, about being the sunshine boy, the happy one.”
“Yes,” said Reuben drawing out the word sarcastically. “Well, I always was.”
“Well, nothing like this has ever happened to you before and … I’m worried.”
Reuben didn’t answer. He was thinking again. He was thinking about the man in the bar. And then he thought about his brother. His brother was gentle. His brother had a remarkable calm. It occurred to him suddenly that his brother had a kind of simplicity that others never achieve.
When Jim spoke up again, his voice startled Reuben.
“I would give anything in this world to make you better,” said Jim, “to have the expression on your face come back to what it was before, to have you again look like my brother, Reuben.”
What a remarkable statement. Reuben didn’t answer. What was the point of saying anything? He had to think about that. He was drifting. For a moment, he was with Marchent, walking up the slope to Nideck Point.
Jim cleared his throat.
“I understand,” Jim offered. “She screamed and you tried to reach her, but you couldn’t reach her in time. That’s going to make a difference, even though you know you did your very best to get to her. That’s bound to make any man feel a lot of things.”
Reuben thought, Yes, that’s true. But he felt no necessity to say anything about it. He thought of how easy it had been to punch that man in North Beach right in the face. And easy enough to do that and nothing else, to let the guy stagger and decide to move on.
“Reuben?”
“Yeah, Jim, I’m listening,” he said. “But I wish you wouldn’t worry. Look, we’ll talk when it’s time for us to talk.”
Jim’s phone was ringing in his pocket. He jerked it out angrily, studied the small screen, rose to his feet, kissed Reuben on the top of his head, and left.
Thank God, Reuben thought.
He sat there looking into the fire. It was a gas-log fire but a good one. He thought of that roaring untidy oak blaze in Marchent’s living room fireplace. He smelled the burning oak again, and her perfume.
You are alone when something like this happens. Doesn’t matter how many people love you and want
to help you. You are alone.
When Marchent died, she was alone.
He had a sudden overwhelming sense of it. Marchent had probably rested her face against the kitchen floor and bled out alone.
He got up and went down the hall. The door to his father’s darkened office was open. City lights glowed in the tall white frame windows. Phil was in his robe and pajamas and was sitting back in his big leather desk chair, listening to music under the obvious black headphones. He had his feet up. He was singing in a low voice with the music, that eerie, disembodied singing that comes from people who are hearing a music we can’t hear with them.
Reuben went up to bed.
Sometime around 2:00 a.m., he awoke with a start. I own the place now, he thought. So I’ll be connected all my life to what’s happened. All my life. Connected. He’d been dreaming of the attack again, but not in the usual repetitive and fragmentary way. He’d been dreaming of the animal’s paw on his back, and of the sound of the creature breathing. In his dream it had not been dog, wolf, or bear. It had been some force in the darkness that savaged the young killers, and then left him alive for reasons he could not understand. Murder, murder.
In the morning, the Nideck lawyers and the Golding lawyers came to a settlement on all the personal possessions. The original handwritten codicil signed by Marchent and witnessed by Felice had been filed, and within six weeks, Reuben would take possession of Nideck Point, a name, by the way, that Marchent had referenced in her papers—and all that Felix Nideck had left behind when he vanished.
“Now of course,” Simon Oliver said, “it’s too much to be hoped for that no one will contest this codicil or the will in general. However, I’ve known these lawyers at Baker, Hammermill a very long time, especially Arthur Hammermill, and they say they’ve been all through this question of heirs and inheritance already, and that there are no heirs to the Nideck estate. When Felix Nideck’s affairs were settled, they tracked every conceivable family connection, and there are simply no living heirs. This man friend of Ms. Nideck in Buenos Aires, well, he signed all the appropriate papers a long time ago, guaranteeing he would make no claim on Ms. Nideck’s wealth. She left the man quite a lot, by the way. This was a generous woman. She’s left quite a bit to worthy causes, as we say. I’ll tell you the sad thing here. A lot of this woman’s money is going to go unclaimed. But as far as the Mendocino property—and the personal possessions on the premises—well, my boy, I think you’re home free.”