James Swain - Dark Magic

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Garrison said. “They have to shut down the city, until this guy is caught.”

“I’ve got his number if you’d like to call him,” Perry suggested.

“I’ll save my breath.”

They had reached Penn Station. The front entrance was blocked by police cruisers and unmarked police cars. Next door, a long line of people was wrapped around Madison Square Garden, waiting to see the Knicks play basketball. It occurred to Peter that not a single one of them had any notion of the danger they were in. Their lives might end tonight while watching some highly paid athletes throw a round ball through a hoop. He’d seen this coming on Friday night, and it was his duty to stop it.

“Let me talk to Carr. Maybe I can get into his head, and find out who stole the knapsack. If I gain his confidence, I can read his mind.”

“Can you read a crazy person’s mind?” Garrison asked, sounding skeptical.

It was a question that Peter did not have an answer to.

“I can try,” the young magician said.

“You’re on, hotshot.”

They sifted their way through the mob of police and entered Penn Station. The terminal was filled with news crews jostling with one another to get a story. Peter kept his head down, and tried to avoid being seen. Entering an elevator, they descended into the basement where the police station was housed. The car landed with a dull thud, and they got out.

Penn Station was a magnet for the city’s homeless, and the plastic chairs inside the station lobby were occupied by dispirited bag people. Garrison approached the booking area, holding his ID in front of his face. “I need to see Dr. Carr,” he announced.

“Carr’s being interrogated,” the desk sergeant replied.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Garrison told him.

The desk sergeant glared at them. Cops were fiercely territorial, and reacted unfavorably when their turf was encroached upon. Perry stepped between the two men, and batted her eyelashes.

“Please,” she said sweetly.

“What’s this about?” the desk sergeant asked.

“We think there’s going to be an attack on the city.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

The desk sergeant escorted them down a hall to a small room with a two-way mirror. On the other side of the glass, Carr was slumped in a chair with a deranged look on his face. The doctor was wrapped in a wool blanket and shaking uncontrollably. A pair of balding, overweight detectives were raking him over the coals. Their voices were harsh, and carried through the glass. “No more screwing around. Tell us who took the knapsack,” the first detective said.

“He was the Devil,” Carr replied, hugging himself fiercely.

“You ever see this devil before?”

“Never.”

“How close did you get to him?”

“Close as I am to you,” Carr replied.

“Think you could pick him out of a book of mug shots?”

Carr cast his eyes downward and laughed hoarsely.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” the detective said.

Carr looked up. “He was the Devil. That was who took my knapsack. The Devil incarnate. That’s all I have to say.”

“He’s been giving us this same line of crap since we hauled him in,” the desk sergeant said, cracking a piece of gum in his mouth.

“Think you can get into his head?” Garrison asked Peter.

“I don’t see why not,” Peter replied.

“Go for it.”

Peter moved for the door. He’d never plumbed the thoughts of a crazy person before, and supposed there was a first time for everything. The desk sergeant blocked his way.

“Hold on a second,” the desk sergeant said. “What are you going to do? Put him under hypnosis?”

“Something like that,” Peter replied.

“You don’t look like a shrink,” the desk sergeant said.

“I’m not. Tell your detectives to stop. I need to be in the room alone with Dr. Carr.”

“No can do. It’s against department rules,” the desk sergeant said.

“Do it anyway,” Garrison told him.

The desk sergeant didn’t like it. He looked at Perry, thinking she might come to his aid. When Perry didn’t respond, he left the room in a huff.

Fear had a smell. It tinged the air like rotting flesh, and so much desperation. The room in which Carr sat had such a smell. It was pouring off the doctor like bad cologne. Peter got up close to him anyway, and pulled up a chair. He sat so their knees were touching. Touching was important. It established intimacy, and created a physical bond. Carr stirred in his chair.

“Who are you?” Carr asked.

“My name’s Peter. I need to talk to you.”

Carr rocked forward in his chair. “You look like that young magician fellow. What’s-his-name. My daughter dragged me to his show once. It was dreadful.”

“You don’t like magic?” Peter asked.

“Hate it.”

“But your daughter does.”

“Katie loved magic,” Carr said. “She always made me hire a magician for her birthday party. Had to have a rabbit.” His eyes glistened with tears. “I loved my daughter so much. When she and my wife were killed, it was a like a piece of my heart was torn out.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t,” he said furiously. “There’s no way you could understand. You’re too young to know that kind of pain.”

“My parents were killed when I was a boy,” Peter said quietly.

“You’re not making that up?”

Peter shook his head. “No,” he added for emphasis.

Carr hugged himself with the blanket. “I’m sorry to hear that. Were you angry after they died? I was so angry after I lost my wife and daughter. I lost control, and did a terrible thing. And now I’m going to pay for what I did. Both in this life, and the next.”

Carr had let his guard down. Peter gazed into his eyes, and read the doctor’s thoughts. It was like watching a disjointed movie, the scenes cutting into each other for reasons that only the doctor understood. In the first scene, Carr was taking his wife and daughter to a show in the city. In the next, a car was tumbling down a ditch on a darkened road. Badly shaken, Carr climbed out, but his wife and daughter did not. It was there that the movie ended. How ironic that Carr’s last good memory with his family had occurred seeing a show in the city. Just like me, Peter thought.

“Tell me about the Devil you saw this afternoon,” Peter said.

“Who told you about the Devil?” Carr asked.

“I heard you tell the detectives.”

“You were listening in?”

“Tell me about him.”

“God sent him to punish me.”

“How did you know he was a devil?”

“Easy. He wasn’t human.”

Carr wasn’t making sense, so Peter took another look inside his head. The doctor sat in the back of a cab with a child’s knapsack resting on his lap. The door flung open, and a man reached in, and stole the knapsack. The man was only there for a brief moment; just long enough for Peter to get a fleeting glimpse at him. What he saw did not make sense. The man’s clothes looked burned. His face was dark. Not black or brown, but a sickly purple color. There was no life in his eyes. Peter wondered if the man was real, or a figment of Carr’s distorted imagination.

“How did you know this man wasn’t human?” Peter asked.

“It was his skin,” the doctor replied.

“What was wrong with it?”

Carr glanced suspiciously at the two-way mirror. He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It was the skin of a dead man. He wasn’t alive.”

“He was a corpse? You saw a corpse?”

“That’s right,” Carr whispered.

Peter felt his body slowly deflate. Carr was insane. Dead men did not hijack cabs and steal knapsacks loaded with deadly nerve agent. The images he’d seen inside Carr’s head weren’t real, but the product of a sick mind. He was wasting time. He needed to help the police find the man with the knapsack. Rising from his chair, he went to the door.