Jack O'Connell - Word Made Flesh

It’s not that Gilrein can no longer contain himself, it’s that he doesn’t want to. He kicks out at the desk, knocking over the chalice and spilling the sherry, then he’s up off the stool and around the desk, pulling Lacazze out of his chair and backhanding him across the face, hard enough to knock the Inspector to the floor, down onto a bed of ink-infested notepaper. The decanter flies to the back wall and shatters. And then it’s that one easy step over the line of the rational, and Gilrein is down on his knees, straddled across Lacazze’s stomach, the.38 out and the hammer cocked and the barrel pushed into the swollen left cheek of the old man.

They’re both breathing heavily. Gilrein wants to make the Inspector flinch, wants to make him cower under the threat of the gun. But Lacazze just stares up at him, face strained, swollen lips sucking around the mouth of the gun, skim-milk-colored pus oozing down over the chin.

Gilrein immediately withdraws his piece from the face, angles it toward the ceiling.

“Son of a bitch,” he says, following out a line of thought that’s too late in dawning. “You wanted me to do it.”

The Inspector’s head falls back and even though it’s cushioned by all the paper there’s a perceptible thump.

“Jesus Christ,” Gilrein says, rocking back on the old man’s torso. “You wanted me to pull the trigger. You were hoping you could goad me into doing it for you. You cowardly little asshole. Your own goddamn station house all these years. Such an untouchable hump. And you couldn’t even pull your own plug.”

He gets up, drags Lacazze back into his seat. It’s like lifting a corpse.

“I won’t do it for you, Inspector. But don’t let me stop you.”

And he lifts Lacazze’s limp hand and places the Colt in the palm. The hand falls into Lacazze’s lap. Gilrein picks it up by the wrist and brings it up to the head until the barrel is resting against the right temple.

“Go ahead,” Gilrein says. “You’re all set. Just squeeze.”

For a moment it seems as if he will. Focus comes into his eyes and the grip on the revolver tightens. But then he thumbs the hammer back gently and settles it into its cradle. He places the gun down on the desk and shoves it next to the toppled chalice.

“I guess,” Gilrein says, “intellect is no indication of courage.”

Lacazze sits with his head hung back and his eyes closed. Gilrein stares at him, waiting for a reply. When none comes, he picks his piece up from the desk and tucks it in his jacket pocket and walks to the door.

“It’s too bad,” he says, “you can’t use the Methodology on yourself.”

The Inspector’s eyes come open but don’t track to Gilrein, just stare up at the alphabet designs cut into the tin-plated ceiling. In a voice barely audible, he asks, “Why do you think Ceil loved you?”

Gilrein has no idea why he lingers, but he leans against the doorjamb and says, “She just did.”

“You’re sure of that?”

Gilrein nods, makes Lacazze move his head and look forward.

“From the time we are children,” the Inspector says, “we’re taught that faith is a gift.”

“You’re the theologian.”

“I am an unbeliever,” holding his hands up for Gilrein to look at like some parody of St. Thomas’s vision, “and this is proof of my transgression.”

“The Grippe?”

“The plague sent down as a response to my pride and my doubt.”

“Now that’s an enlightened position,” Gilrein says, shifting in the doorway, suddenly intrigued.

“The sick man tends to regress.”

Gilrein steps back into the room and leans his arms down on the desk.

“The more I know about you, the more I hate you, Inspector.”

“You know nothing about me, Mr. Gilrein. You should consider yourself lucky. Your ignorance has protected you.”

“From?”

“From doubt, of course,” Lacazze says, finally coming forward in his chair, folding his hands on top of the desk like a schoolboy, turning his head to the side and spitting a mouthful of green discharge onto the floor. “Do you know the old saying, Gilrein? ‘Act as if you have faith and faith will be given to you’? Are you familiar?”

“I know the saying.”

“Then act on it. Take the gun out and execute me. Do the honorable thing.”

Gilrein stares at him, not completely sure that he isn’t being mocked.

“Ceil would want it this way,” Lacazze says.

“You’re the second person tonight who’s tried to tell me what Ceil would have wanted.”

“Ceil understood the value of vengeance.”

“Vengeance?”

The Inspector’s expression changes to something between disgust and disbelief.

“Are you really this ignorant? Is it possible you haven’t suspected any part of the truth?”

In fact, and of course, he has, some part of him has always done just that, up in the barn loft of Wormland as he slept or maybe in the Checker when he thought he was just concentrating on the phrasing as Imogene Wedgewood sang “Chinese Boxes.”

He looks down at the Inspector, focuses on the old man’s mouth, and makes himself say, “What truth is that?”

Lacazze manages what could be a smile if not for the fact that the musculature of his lips is decaying.

Gilrein steps forward, reaches down, and pulls Lacazze to standing.

“Why am I here?”

The Inspector lowers his voice to show indulgence and says, “Like all neighborhood mayors, the Lord knows the value of his middlemen. You’re here to confess me in His absence.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That,” the Inspector says, “is because you haven’t heard the story yet.”

And he reaches down to his desk, grabs hold of the soaked newspaper, pulls it up, and plasters it against Gilrein’s chest. Gilrein takes hold of the paper and moves a step backward.

“Did you know,” Lacazze says, moving around the desk and taking a seat on the interrogation stool, “that prior to her death your wife had become a very secretive woman?”

Gilrein tries to listen and read at the same time. Droplets of fresh pus have stained the front page of the paper, making it slightly translucent, the words on the next page close to visible, the ink on the title page almost bleeding into the unreadable.

But he can still make out the paper’s title:

WORD MADE FLESH: A JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC COSMOLOGY

And he can still make out the headline of the lead article:

SIX MILLION GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTS: THE HOLOCAUST AS

LINGUISTIC ARGUMENT

BY ANONYMOUS

Someone has crossed out “by Anonymous” and below it, written in sloppy block letters, written with a finger, using blood and pus as a handy ink, are the words

BY BLIND HOMER LACAZZE

“Ceil came to disappoint me in the last week of her life, Gilrein.”

Gilrein looks across the desk at the Inspector, all kinds of meanings suddenly sliding into place.

“You wrote this, didn’t you?” holding up the tabloid.

But Lacazze is already locked into monologue.

“Ceil betrayed me. In the way only a lover can. She desecrated the bond. In time, all things would have been made known to her. It was impatience that killed Ceil.”

Gilrein drops the paper to the floor and stares at the old man.

“She went behind my back. She began to investigate old problems. Without knowing the history. Without understanding how the Methodology had evolved. Pride is what killed our Ceil.”

“You were Blind Homer,” Gilrein says softly.

“She gave me no choice. If she had just left Sonia alone—”

“The Tung belonged to you.”

“If she had just left Sonia alone, there would have been time—”

“You’re Blind fucking Homer.”

A pause, and then the smug expression that Lacazze knows will push his rival over the divide.