David Jackson - The Helper

‘Hey,’ Michael calls after him. ‘Can I lower my arms now?’

Doyle takes the stairs two at a time. He wonders how thin the ceilings are here. Gonzo must have heard the music being abruptly cut off. Did he hear any of the yelling too? Does he know that Doyle is here?

As Doyle reaches door 22, another question occurs to him. Why did Gonzo go to all the trouble of using Michael’s apartment when Doyle asked him to look after Tabitha? Why not simply use his own?

When Doyle leaps at the door and kicks it open, he gets his answer.

There are no sofas or armchairs here. No dining table or bookcases. No television. No normality. Gonzo could not have invited anyone in here without revealing that he was not simply the amusing social misfit or the endearing eccentric. He has gone way beyond that.

A better description might be ‘unhinged’.

Because this place is like a shrine. A shrine to technology.

Arranged in a large circle is a set of desks. There are over a dozen of them. And on each desk there is a computer, facing inwards. All of the monitors are blank, but the computer towers hum softly and their tiny lights wink at Doyle. He gets the strange feeling that they’re talking about him.

He pushes the door closed behind him. Keeping his gun at the ready, he steps through a narrow gap in the circle of desks. When he reaches the center of the arena, he turns slowly, looking at all these computers. Wondering what they’re for.

And then he hears it.

It’s behind him.

The silky-smooth voice of his helper.

‘Hello again, Cal.’

Doyle whirls. He raises his gun. Lines up its sights with the bridge of Gonzo’s spectacles.

Okay, he thinks. What are you going to do now, Doyle? Put bullet holes in a damn machine?

The image on the monitor smiles. ‘Sorry, Cal. Did I scare you?’ He pauses for a second, and when he next speaks, his words are in the high-pitched squawk of the Gonzo that Doyle has come to know and like: ‘Would you prefer it if I talked like this? Is that better, Detective?’

Doyle doesn’t know why, but he keeps his gun trained on the screen. He’s never trusted computers.

‘Where are you, Gonzo?’

Gonzo shifts back to his normal voice, the one that Doyle still finds hard to believe belongs to this man. It feels like he’s watching a ventriloquist act. Any second now the real perp will appear with his hand up Gonzo’s ass.

‘I think I’ll stick with this voice, if you don’t mind. The other one gets pretty tiring after a while. You don’t know how much of a struggle it was to maintain it in front of Tabitha for all that time. I had to keep the conversations to a minimum. Which is a shame, because she was so pretty and intelligent, it would have been nice to have a serious chat with her.’

‘I said, where are you?’

‘Not there, Cal. Not at the apartment, if that’s what’s worrying you. No, I’m long gone from there. I knew you’d figure out my part in all this eventually. Took you a while, but I’d say you were above average as far as the cops of this city go. I know that’s not saying much, but you can take it as a compliment if you like.’

This new Gonzo is so calm, so self-assured. Nothing like the gauche young man he now seems to have discarded, like a snake shedding its skin.

‘How’d you do it, Gonzo? How’d you pull it off?’

‘Pull what off?’

‘The homicides. How’d you get Everett to kill all those people for you?’

Gonzo puts a finger to his chest and raises his eyebrows in surprise. ‘ Moi? No, you’ve got it all wrong. He didn’t do it for me . He did it for himself. He did it because it was his way of helping people. I told you what it was all about in our phone conversations. Helping. Everett helped his victims, I helped you. It’s what makes the world go around.’

‘You helped Everett too, though, didn’t you?’

Gonzo shrugs. ‘I guess I can’t stop myself. It must be in my genes.’

‘Why? What was he to you? How’d you even know he’d be willing to do this shit?’

Gonzo smiles. ‘Take a look behind you, Cal.’

Doyle whirls again. Another monitor has come alive. The image is dark and fuzzy. Doyle moves toward it, squinting to make sense of it.

He sees a bed, with someone lying in it. An old woman. There are tubes snaking out of her. A hospital?

‘I don’t-’ Doyle begins, but then there’s movement on the screen. A figure of a man comes into shot. He moves away from the camera and over to the bed. He leans over the old woman, takes her hand, says something to her. When he’s done talking, he walks around the bed, pulling the sheets out from below the mattress and then tucking them back in again. Smoothing them down. Getting them all nice and neat. When he walks away from the bed, there is sadness on his face and in the slump of his shoulders.

The man is Everett.

He disappears from view. The light goes out and the picture turns black.

‘Nice movie,’ says Doyle, ‘although a little Ingmar Bergman for my tastes. You got anything more upbeat?’

Gonzo says, ‘If it’s drama you want. .’

The same monitor flares back into life. Same image of the old lady. Everett appears again, does the same walk, the same talk. Circles the bed again, untucks, tucks. Gingerly slides the pillow from beneath the lady’s head, plumps it up a little, places it over her face. .

What?

Doyle finds himself being drawn closer to the monitor. He cannot believe what he’s seeing. Thinks, I’m watching a murder. As it happened. Jesus Christ!

The picture fades again.

Doyle turns. ‘The woman. Who the hell was she?’

‘His mother. She had cancer. Terminal. Everett’s view was that he was doing her a favor. It’s how he got started.’

‘Where was that? A hospital?’

‘Not a hospital. Everett’s house. He was her carer.’

‘His house? He filmed this shit? Jesus. How did you-’

‘Watch. There’s more.’

Doyle turns once again. We’re back in the room. No old lady this time. Instead, an attractive young one, sitting on the bed. Everett is on the bed too, next to her. They have drinks in their hands. The girl appears to be enjoying herself. She sways gently as she giggles.

And then she keels over.

Collapses unconscious on the bed. A little something extra in her drink, Doyle guesses.

Everett leans over her and examines her face. He puts two fingers to her neck to check her pulse. Then he gets up from the bed and moves out of shot.

A minute later he’s back again, a tumbler of water and a medicine bottle in his hands. He puts them down on the nightstand while he sits the girl up. She’s limp and unresponsive. He slaps her face a couple of times and she comes round just a little. Just enough to sit there unaided and stare blankly at him.

He takes the bottle and shakes a couple of tablets into his hand. He pops them into the girl’s mouth, then picks up the tumbler and puts it to her lips. He has to tip her backwards to make it go down. He repeats the maneuver. More tablets, more water. Then again. The girl just sits there, taking it. Not aware of what’s happening to her. Not knowing she’s being murdered.

Everett loses his patience. He picks up the bottle again, but instead of shaking a couple of pills out onto his hand, he simply puts the bottle to her lips and tries to pour its contents down her throat. He grabs her by the hair, pulls back her head, forces the whole fucking bottle into her mouth. .

The screen goes blank, and Doyle is glad of it. When he faces the disembodied head of Gonzo again, he can feel himself trembling.

‘She was the second,’ says Gonzo.

‘Don’t tell me. She once took an overdose. Or maybe she just thought about it. Because that seems to be enough for you sick motherfuckers. The slightest excuse. That’s all you need. How’d you find her, anyway?’