Richard Montanari: The Devil_s Garden

He reached the top of the stairs, looked down the hallway. The door to the bathroom had been removed. Scant light came in through the barred window. He turned to his parents’ bedroom. He recalled the day his father and Solomon painted the room, a hot summer day in July, the sound of a Mets game in the background, fading in and out on old transistor radio. Solomon had gotten drunk that Sunday afternoon, and rolled paint over half the window before Peeter had been able to stop him. The glazing was still flecked with blue.

Sweat slid down Michael’s back, his skin pimpled with gooseflesh. The air was close and damp and silent. He crossed the hallway to the space that was once his bedroom. He pushed open the door, the old hinge giving a squeal of complaint. He could not believe how small the room was, how it had, at one time, in the fictional world of his child’s mind, been his tundra, his castle, his western plains, his fathomless ocean. There was no bed, no dresser, no chair. Against one wall were a pair of cardboard boxes, coated with years of filth.

He closed his eyes, recalled the moment – seven o’clock exactly, the time the bakery closed. He had had nightmares about the scenario for years, had even felt a pang of terror at the times when he happened to glance at a clock at exactly seven. In his dreams he saw shadows on the walls, heard footsteps. It all coalesced at this moment. The horror in his closet, the two men who had killed his mother and father, the man who now had his wife and daughter.

Michael stopped, opened his eyes, and suddenly realized it was not a dream. The footsteps were real. He felt the slight buckle of the floorboards, the change in the air, and knew that someone was right behind him. Before he could take the gun from his pocket, a shadow filled the room.

Mischa, he heard his mother say. Ta tuleb.

Then there was fire inside his head, a supernova of orange and scarlet pain.

Then, nothing.

It took a while to realize where he was, when he was. Reality sifted back, laced with the thudding agony in his head.

When his eyes adjusted to the light, he took in the scene. He was in the front room of the bakery, sitting in a chair, next to Abby. In front of them was one of the small wooden cafe tables that used to be near the window of the bakery. Michael could see some of the names still carved into the surface.

On the table was a gun.

Emily sat on the other side of the room, the side on which the three counters of the bakery once were. The glass cases were long gone, but the two large ovens still stood against the back wall. Next to them were dismantled tables, chairs, bookshelves. There was no electricity, no overhead fixtures, but in the thin light slicing through the grimed front windows, Michael could see his daughter clearly. She was perched on a dusty pillow, one of three.

Michael turned to Abby. Her hands were taped behind her, around a copper water pipe bolted to the wall. Her eyes were wide, terrified. She had a gag stuffed in her mouth. Michael’s hands were handcuffed in front of him, but he was not otherwise restrained in any way.

A moment later Aleks emerged from the shadows. He stood behind Emily. “You’ve interrupted my plans,” he said.

Michael eyed the weapon on the table. He shifted himself in the chair, opened his mouth to speak, but found that the words would not come. If he’d ever needed a closing argument it was now.

“The police are already at my house,” Michael said. “You can’t possibly get away with this. They’ll figure it out. They’ll be here.”

“They are already here.” Aleks reached into his pocket, pulled something out, threw it on the floor in front of Michael and Abby. It was a gold detective badge. Powell’s shield. “Where is Marya?”

“I can’t tell you,” Michael said.

In an instant Aleks was across the room, the folds of his leather coat snapping in the still air. “Where is she?” He pulled Abby’s head back, put the knife to her throat.

“Wait!”

Aleks said nothing, did not take the blade from Abby’s throat. His eyes had morphed from a pale blue to almost black.

“She’s… she’s with a friend,” Michael said.

“Where?”

“It’s not far.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you. Just please…”

After a long moment, Aleks withdrew the knife. He reached into his pocket, took out a cellphone. He handed it to Michael. “I want you to call this friend. Put it on speakerphone. I want to hear my daughter’s voice.”

Michael took the phone in his shackled hands, dialed Solomon’s number. When it began to ring, Michael put it on speaker. In a moment, Solomon answered.

“It’s Mischa,” Michael said. “Everything’s fine, onu. It’s all over.”

Solomon said nothing.

“Can you put Charlotte on?”

Again, a hesitation. Then, Michael heard Solomon’s show, shambling footsteps. A few seconds later: “Daddy?”

At the sound of Charlotte’s voice, Michael saw Emily pick up her head. She still looked to be under some sort of spell, but the sound of her sister’s voice brought her to the moment.

“Yes, honey. It’s me. Mommy’s here, too.”

“Hi, Mommy.”

Abby began to cry.

“Are you coming to get me?” Charlotte asked.

“Soon. We’ll be there really soon. Can you put Onu Solomon back on the phone, please?”

Michael heard the transfer.

“Mischa,” Solomon said. “You are coming to collect her?”

Michael knew he had to give Solomon a heads up, but he didn’t know how to do it. Speaking in Estonian would not help.

“No,” Michael said. “I’m going to send someone.”

“Someone from your office?”

“No,” Michael said. He glanced at the gold badge on the floor. “A detective. A detective from Queens Homicide will be coming by to get her. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course,” Solomon said.

Aleks crossed the space, picked up the badge, put it in his pocket.

“His name is Detective Tarrasch,” Michael said.

Michael glanced at Aleks. He did not react to the name.

“I will be ready,” Solomon said.

I will be ready, Michael thought. Not I will be waiting. Solomon knew there was something wrong. Tarrasch was a chess term, a variation on the French Defense Solomon had taught Michael in the 1980s. If Michael knew Solomon, he knew that the old man was already preparing to send Charlotte to another location.

Before Michael could sign off, Aleks took the phone from his hands, closed it. He crossed the room, and began to put things into a shoulder bag.

Michael looked at Emily. With the index finger of her right hand, she touched the floor, and drew a straight line in the dust.

A few miles away, in a small house in Ozone Park, Charlotte Roman sat at the dining-room table, a fresh white sheet of typing paper in front of her, a rainbow of stubby crayons awaiting her muse. In the background, the television played Wheel of Fortune.

Charlotte surveyed the choices of colors. She picked up a black crayon and began to draw. At first she drew a long horizontal line across the bottom of the page, stretching from one edge to the other. She hesitated for a moment, then continued, drawing first the right side of what would be a rectangle, then the left. Finally, she began to complete the shape, carefully connecting the two sides at the top…

…creating the ridge line of the roof, though Emily Abigail Roman was far too young to know what a ridge line was. To her it was just the top of the house. She ran her small finger through the dust, keeping the line as straight as possible. Underneath the ridge line she made two smaller rectangles, these of course being the windows. Each window had a cross in the center, which made four smaller windows. Beneath the windows…