Greg Gifune - Sorcerer

“Well it’s good to know that’s all Ernie’s looking for. I love it, my wife and the bum that lives on our street are on a first-name basis.”

“I had a civil conversation with him that lasted all of a minute.”

“During which you told him your name and apparently our apartment number. Was there any other personal information you felt compelled to share with your new best bud?”

“If because of my kindness he took it upon himself to buzz the apartment that’s not my fault. It’s probably not even his. We have no idea what it’s like to be out on those streets night after night.

We have no idea what that man’s been through. Maybe he broke down.

Maybe he just wanted to spend one night indoors and was making a crazy plea to-”

“There are shelters in the city, let him go to one of those.”

“For his sake I hope he finds one with a free bed.”

“Well if not we can always put good ole Ernie up on the couch, right?”

Glaring at him, she yanked the sheet back from the bed with an angry tug and fired a pillow at him. “Nope, you’ll already be on it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Goodnight Jeff.”

Pillow clutched to his chest, he returned to the den and flopped onto the couch. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “like I need this shit tonight.”

Fine, he thought. Bright and early tomorrow morning he’d get this job done, get paid, make it right with Eden and put this nightmare behind him.

There are no nightmares.

Jeff closed his eyes, but it failed to silence the whispers from his dreams.

There is only the torment of darkness.

The following morning, Jeff hailed a cab. He didn’t know what to expect and didn’t want his car to be identified later if something went wrong. The address scrawled on a small sheet of paper inside the envelope listed an address located in a rough neighborhood in Chelsea, a small city just outside Boston located on the far side of the Mystic River. It also listed the name of the man in Mr. Hope’s debt: Stephen Wychek. Jeff had been through Chelsea but knew no one there and was unfamiliar with the layout. Thankfully the driver was able to find the address, a rundown two-story tenement on a relatively quiet street. But even in daylight, the area looked somewhat threatening.

“Wait for me,” he told the cabbie. “Keep the meter running, I’ll only be a few minutes.”

As Jeff stepped out of the taxi and approached the tenement steps he saw a faded lace curtain move in one of the windows facing the street. He hesitated, looked around. But for a lone elderly woman carrying a bag of groceries farther down the block, the street was empty. He continued up the steps to the front door, opened it and slipped into a foyer. The walls were cracked, the paint chipped and peeling, and a repugnant odor he couldn’t identify hung in the air.

He glanced down at the paper. Alongside the address were the words: First floor. Jeff knocked. No one answered, but he could hear movement inside the apartment, so he knocked again. After a moment, a shuffling sound indicated someone had moved up closer to the door.

“Hello?” he said, leaning closer. “Hello?”

From behind the door came a female voice; nervous and muffled.

“What do you want?”

“I need to speak to Mr. Wychek.”

“He’s not here.”

“Are you Mrs. Wychek?”

“What do you want?”

“My name’s McGrath. I need to speak to Mr. Wychek, it’s very important.” Jeff looked at the dark stairway leading to the second floor. It was filthy and strewn with garbage. “Could you open the door please?”

“I don’t know you.”

“Ma’am, please, my name is Jeff McGrath and-”

“What do you want with my husband?”

“I need to speak with him about some personal business.”

“What kind of personal business? If this is about the car payment the bank already did a repo, came and took it a couple nights ago.”

“It’s not about the car.”

“What bill’s it about?”

“It’s not about any bill, I-”

“Then what do you want?”

With a sigh, Jeff rubbed his eyes. This was ludicrous. He obviously wasn’t going to get anywhere without turning up the heat.

“Ma’am, I need to speak to your husband, understand? Now if he’s not home I need you to tell me where I can find him. This is very important. I’m not playing games.”

“Get out of here or I’ll call the cops.”

Jeff thought a moment. “I don’t think Foster Hope would appreciate that.”

After a lengthy pause he heard locks disengaging. The door opened slowly, but only a crack, the security chain catching. Through the opening, a middle-aged woman with bleary eyes and a drawn face peeked out at him. Her hair was mussed and unwashed, her skin pale and unhealthy looking, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. She also looked deeply frightened. Her eyes were filled with tears and her lips trembled like a scolded child’s. “Please,” she whispered, “please, we…I didn’t know, I…”

“It’s all right,” he said, holding his hands up in an effort to calm her. “I’m not going to hurt you or cause you any trouble. I just need to speak to Stephen.”

“Please,” she hissed, shaking as tears streamed her face. “ Please.”

Jeff forced a swallow. “Tell me where he is. I only want to talk.”

“We have kids,” she said, choking on her tears. “Please, I-”

“I want to help your husband, do you understand? Tell me where I can find him and I’ll do everything I can to help him make this right with Mr. Hope.”

Her watery eyes seemed to focus for the first time, and her mouth fell open. “You don’t…You don’t know what’s happening, do you?”

Jeff looked around nervously, as if expecting to find Hope in the shadows, watching him from the top of the stairs. “Look, I don’t want to be here, but I don’t have any choice. They’re making me do this.

All I’m supposed to do is talk to your husband and try to convince him to contact Mr. Hope. That’s all.”

She shook her head, the tears coming faster now.

“Do you know why they’re doing this? What did he do to you and your husband? What are they doing to me?” Jeff placed his hand against the doorframe to steady himself. “If you know, please Mrs. Wychek, tell me. What’s happening? What have we done? Why us?”

She wiped the tears from her cheeks with a shaking hand, but they were quickly replaced. “Sometimes,” she said softly, “you don’t have to go looking for the Devil. Sometimes he goes looking for you.”

Despite the heat, Jeff felt a sudden burst of cold from deep within him. “Is there anything we can do?”

“Pray?” she asked hopelessly, her hand suddenly fingering a gold cross around her neck.

“Where is your husband, Mrs. Wychek?”

“He’s not my husband anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

“Can you tell me where he is?”

Her sad and frightened eyes looked to the floor. “Yes,” she whispered. “God forgive me…but yes.”

Moments later Jeff was back in Boston. There was a slight break in the stifling heat as an enormous bank of storm clouds slowly rolled in off Boston Harbor. The cab moved through the streets between the theater district and Chinatown, then finally pulled onto a side street and lurched to a stop near a vacant lot strewn with garbage and debris. The driver pointed to a rotting shell of an apartment building just beyond the lot. “That’s it.”

“Crazy,” he mumbled, “no one could actually live here.”

“That’s the address you gave me. You want me to wait again?”

“No.”

Jeff paid him and stepped out. As he crossed the lot thunder rumbled in the distance and a cool breeze provided an unexpected chill. He reached the base of the steps and looked up at the dilapidated, graffiti-covered structure. Most of the windows were blown out and the front doors were missing. He glanced around. The neighborhood was deserted.