John Connolly - Nocturnes

“An offering to what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe to whatever he believed made him do the things that he did. He talked all the time I was there, but only some of it was addressed to me. I don’t remember so much of it. I was too scared to listen while I was conscious, and when I came to he was dead. I’ve blanked out most of the rest. I didn’t do so good in high school so they sent me to a doctor, a shrink, and he said I needed to confront what happened in that house, but I prefer it the way it is. Hidden. Locked up, just like I was.”

It wasn’t for me to comment on how he chose to deal with what he had endured, but I had a brief flash of a barred cellar door, and inside a small boy was being tormented by John Grady, over and over again. Whatever front he presented to the world, that was the reality of what was hidden inside Denny Maguire’s head.

He retrieved his cigarette from the ashtray, took a drag on it, and continued.

“Mostly,” he said, “he spoke to something that I couldn’t see.”

“What else do you remember?”

“The mirrors. There were mirrors on every wall. I could see him reflected in them. It was like the room was filled with John Gradys. I remember that, and I remember the remains of the other children. They were sitting over by the far wall. I don’t like to recall how they looked. He talked to them too, sometimes, in a way.”

“Do you recall anything about Louise Matheson?”

He shook his head.

“I think I heard the shot that killed her, but I was pretty far gone by then.”

“Why did he keep you alive?”

Maguire pretended to think about the question, but I guessed it was one that had troubled him all his life, ever since Grass had led him from that terrible place.

“I was the only boy he took,” he said. “He spoke to me some, told me about himself, about the house he wanted to create. He hated the little girls, but me, I was different. I still think he’d have killed me, in the end, or maybe just let me fade away and die. Could be he saw something of himself in me. I hope to Jesus he was wrong, but I think that’s what he believed.”

The cigarette had almost burned down to the filter. A column of ash toppled like a condemned building and exploded into dust upon the tabletop.

“Can you remember anything else that he said?” I asked.

He looked at me, then stubbed out the cigarette and rose.

“Like I told you, I don’t remember the details. I do recall that he didn’t talk directly to the other children,” he said.

It sounded as if there was dust caught in his throat.

“He talked to their reflections in the mirrors. He talked to them like they were inside the mirrors, and if those policemen hadn’t come, then he’d have been talking to me that way too. I’d have been lost in there with them.”

And in the gloom of his grim little bar, Denny Maguire began to cry.

The streets around the Desperate Measure were quiet as I walked back to the parking lot at the rear of the bar. I wasn’t sure that I was learning much that I hadn’t already suspected: John Grady was a vile human being, and all those who had come into contact with him remained tainted by his touch.

When I turned the corner, I saw a man leaning against the hood of my Mustang. He was smoking a cigarette in his right hand while the fingers of his left tapped a delicate rhythm against the bodywork. I knew who he was, even as he watched my approach, his eyes lost deep in his domed skull and his lank hair hanging like an afterthought at the back of his head.

“Can I help you?” I said.

The Collector had turned to watch my approach. He looked sickly in the yellow glow of the single light that illuminated the lot, and appeared to be dressed in the same clothes that he had worn to his interview with Matheson. I could see the sole of his shoe gaping like a fish’s mouth.

“I think you can,” he said, “and perhaps I can help you in return.”

“I can give you the address of a good tailor,” I said. “He might also know someone who can fix your shoe. After that you’re on your own.”

The Collector glanced down, as if noticing his ruined sole for the first time.

“Well, well,” he said. “Look at that.”

He shot a plume of smoke into the night air. It went on for a long time, as though he were manufacturing it deep inside his lungs.

“You want to step away from my car?”

The Collector considered it for a moment. Just when it seemed as if I’d have to drive off with him draped across the hood, he tossed his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with his good shoe, then moved a couple of feet away from my car.

“My apologies,” he said. “You work for Mr. Matheson.”

“I think we have a misunderstanding,” I said. “I wasn’t offering to exchange information in return for you finding someplace else to rest.”

I stood by the Mustang, but I didn’t take out my keys. If I tried to open the car door, then I might have to take my eyes off the man in the lot for an instant, and I didn’t want to do that. Matheson was right. The Collector’s appearance, his greasy hair combined with his filthy clothes, was a distraction, a ruse to fool the unwary. His movements were slow and precise because he chose to make them that way. When he wanted to, I sensed, he could move very quickly indeed, and his old coat and tattered trousers concealed strong bones and lean, stringy muscles.

“I suspect Mr. Matheson told you about me.”

I didn’t reply. I wasn’t going to reveal anything to him.

“I know about the picture,” he said.

Everything changed.

“What picture?”

“The picture of the little girl.”

“Do you know who she is?”

He shook his head.

“Do you know who took the photograph?”

Again, he shook his head.

“Then you’re no use to me. Go find another dark place to haunt.”

I made a show of fiddling with my keys.

“She’s at risk,” said The Collector. “If you give me what I want, some of that risk will diminish.”

I wondered if he had taken the photograph, if its placement in the mailbox was all part of his efforts to receive payment for whatever old debt he believed he was owed.

The Collector was smart. He was waiting for me when I reached that conclusion. “But she is not at risk from me,” he said. “I have no interest in children. I merely want my debt paid.”

I took a couple of steps toward him. He didn’t appear threatened.

“And what debt is that?”

“It’s a private matter.”

“Are you working for somebody?”

“We all work for somebody, Mr. Parker. Suffice it to say that John Grady attempted to secure a certain asset before he died. He partially succeeded. A token gesture will be enough to undo the damage. Your client is unwilling to make that gesture.”

“The debt is not his to pay. He has no obligation to you, and even if he had, I don’t see how paying it diminishes the ‘risk’ to the girl in the photograph.”

The Collector lit another cigarette. In the flare of the match, his eyes filled with flames.

“This is an old and wicked world. John Grady was a foul man, and the Grady house is a foul place. Such places retain a residue that can pollute others. If you help me, then some of that pollution may be removed.”

“What do you want?”

“A mirror, from the Grady house. It has many mirrors. One will not be missed.”

“Why don’t you just take one yourself?”

“The house is secured.”

“Not so secure that a man couldn’t get into it if he wanted something badly enough.”

“I am not a thief,” said The Collector.