The Glass House (14 page)

He glanced out the window a second time and dismissed what he saw out there: the cars, the people, the city—dismissed it all as nothing more than illusion. He pulled Leonard Harrison's Bible out of his desk drawer.

The spine of the old book creaked as he opened it. He found the sound reassuring, he found the heft of the book exactly right and the phrase—end of days—so perfect.

“End of days,” he said aloud to the empty space. He looked
back at the blowup on the wall and concentrated for a moment on the shrine in the centre. A shrine to a catalyst.

He pressed a button on his desk and a large LED screen with a map of the United States slowly lowered from the ceiling. He centred his cursor on the end of the faint dotted line and zoomed in three times. As he did, the line on the map added another dot—it was now a straight line of dots moving into deepest, darkest rural Nebraska. “Number four seeking number three,” he said aloud. “I knew it. I knew you could find her. Now get her.”

He smiled.

Sending Martin Armistaad that newspaper clipping showing Viola Tripping in sunglasses in the rain waiting to enter the church after the bombing at Ancaster College had, he was sure, set the man on his path.

He had no doubt that once Armistaad found Ms. Tripping they would head to the Junction—just as Harrison's masterpiece indicated.

In the still darkness he allowed his mind to wonder.

To be done with it all—to have it all, all done. The end of days—a future devoutly to be wished, one he had longed for since he was a boy sitting in the silence of the cold church waiting, always waiting. Now he knew what he was waiting for.

And Special Agent Hicks was on her way to San Francisco—where she'd find Seth's drawing, just as he'd done right after Harrison left and Detective Garreth Laurence Senior was removed from the Wellness Dream Clinic. And she won't be able to decipher the clues Seth left behind any better than he could, so she'd have to seek out the help of the boy's father. So off she'd go to get the father, number 2, and together following Seth's clues they'd find the boy, number 1. Then they all would head, as Harrison's masterpiece indicated, to the Junction, where Viola Tripping, number 3, and Martin Armistaad, number 4, would shortly join them. Then with all four there—with their catalyst—it will happen. The end of days.

He called up an overlay on the North America map. This one had pi-diameter arcs in both miles and kilometres using Leavenworth as one locus and Harrison's secret room as the other. And sure enough, the points at the crossing of the arcs produced a straight line to the west end of Toronto—to the Junction.

He went to pick up the Bible and found that it was open to a section of Corinthians. For a moment he held his breath, then read where his finger had landed: “For now we see through a glass, darkly.”

He closed the book and left the room. All that night he lay awake hoping, praying, that when this was all, all over, he would not be on the dark side of the glass—looking in.

DECKER WATCHED THE TWO YOUNG
boys in the picnic area behind the bakery hide their pieces of apple pie beneath the table. Their parents were busily perusing a map.
We're at the junction of Highways One and Six,
he thought;
not that many choices from here. West to the coast, east to the Kalahari, north to Angola, south to
 . . . Decker didn't know what was south of Solitaire, but he didn't really care. Whatever was to the south couldn't be more interesting than the two pieces of pie the boys held beneath the table.

The older boy, maybe eight or nine, smiled at the younger boy, maybe six or seven. Conspirators “R” Us.

Decker knew that Stanislavski, the famous Russian acting teacher, often went to the beaches of the Black Sea to watch children play. He claimed that it revived his soul, renewed his faith in the species.

The boys allowed their paper plates to fall to the ground. Another quick smile between them.

“Wasn't that great pie, boys?” the mother asked rhetorically. “Anyone need to use the restroom before we go?” she asked, this time not rhetorically.

The boys shook their heads and hid their smiles.

“Chat nicely with Charles while I'm in the loo.”

So it's Charles,
Decker thought.
Both boys look like their mom and not even a little like Charles. So is this guy their mom's boyfriend or stepfather, or is it just one of those families that allowed their kids to address their parents by their first names?

Then he saw the gleam in the boys' eyes.
Boyfriend for sure,
he thought.

“What are you two scamps up to?” Charles demanded harshly.

Then the older boy tapped the table twice and the boys attacked. Apple pie was the weapon, Charles's face the target, revenge the motive.

And Decker saw it as pure. No hesitation, no tentativeness—in acting terms, no swing—just pure intent.

Decker smiled. A little pie wash was good for the soul, for all concerned.

But suddenly images of his own son as a boy flooded him, and Seth's voice, as if he were shouting in his ear, crying, “You're happy Mommy's gone. You are!”

“No Seth—”

“Don't lie. I can always tell when people are lying or telling the truth. Always.”

Decker held his hands to his ears to try to stop Seth's voice. Then he felt someone staring at him.

He knew he was sliding and couldn't stop it.

It was Trish Spence, back in the Junction. She was yelling at him: “Decker, call home! Fuck, I need your help with this. Canada's Public Broadcaster is being a pill about the hanging boy in our documentary. Remember our documentary—
At the Junction
that we've been working on for two years? Remember? We got a renewal for six more episodes—remember? At any rate, for some fucking reason they are insisting that we cut the hanging boy. And I can't figure out why. So wherever the fuck you are, pick up the damned phone and call home!”

• • •

Trish pocketed her iPhone and opened the door to her three-bedroom condo on College Street. She'd never been a great housekeeper, but the stacks of newspapers everywhere and the pots balanced precariously on every table were now completely out of control.

“When did this start?” she asked the massive accumulation of clutter.

WJ FINGERED THE ANDREA AMATI
cello's strings and once again sensed the deep magic within the ancient instrument. And once again understood that he didn't really know that magic. He could sense it but could never really know it, be part of it, soar with it.

Movement on the flat-screen TV on the wall drew his eyes. The young man manacled to the gurney was awakening.

WJ knew he was already miles deep in felony land—fraud for the Wellness Dream Clinic, and then there was kidnapping of the kid and, of course, the permanent sedation of his rival, the NSA guy. All from following a casual comment from that dumb shrink. That comment led him to start the Wellness Dream Clinic, that led him to the old synaesthete, that led him to the website, that led him to the monk video.

He'd hired IT expert after IT expert—spent a fortune. At one time he had twenty-two experts working around the clock, but no one could trace the origin of the video. No one that is until he sought out one of the original hackers he'd bailed out of jail. A strange slender man who was nearly twice the age of any of the other IT experts—and he wore overalls, had a thick beard and thicker glasses. Petronius Chumley, PhD. He looked like a tall, thin version of George R. R. Martin. In less than twenty minutes
he'd found not only the origin of the video but the young monk's name: Seth Roberts.

Until then he'd felt he wasn't living his life, just passing through it. All his life he'd waited for his life to begin. But now—now he had hope. He had Seth Roberts.

He tapped his fingers on the broad body of the ancient cello, and it seemed to echo the hollowness of his life.

He rosined his bow and put a Yo-Yo Ma recording on his Transrotor Artus turntable and carefully lowered the needle.

Bach's Cello Suite, Number One filled his room, pouring from his six speakers like honey from a jug.

He opened the sheet music and followed along, marvelling at how Mr. Ma found so much more than just the notes—the arithmetic—of the music. How the man found the secrets buried in the music, the magic.

He lifted the arm from the record, placed his bow on the strings of the Amati cello. His mind played back exactly what he had heard Yo-Yo Ma play, then his fingers and bow duplicated it—perfectly.

But even as he approached the midpoint of the first movement, disgust was rising in him. He wasn't playing music. He was aping the music that someone else had discovered. He was nothing more than a mimic—a joke to any real artist. Worst of all, he knew he was a joke.

He remembered when, five years ago, he couldn't bear it any longer and tried to “solve” the problem by seeking professional help. That's when he'd met the shrink who'd set him on this path.

“What does WJ stand for?” was the first question Dr. Crasni had asked him.

“For me,” he'd answered. “What does your name stand for?”

The doctor did a very good impression of a smile, then said, “What I mean is, what do the initials WJ stand for?”

“They don't stand for anything. They're me. I'm WJ, simple as that.”

“Fine.” Dr. Crasni adjusted his butt in his chair and crossed his legs at the ankle. “So, what's your family name, WJ?”

“My name, my whole name is WJ, okay? Got that?”

“Got it.”

“Good. Now can we move on?”

“Sure. So WJ, what brings you to my office today?”

Without hesitation WJ replied, “I think most other people feel the world more deeply than I do.”

Dr. Crasni did his best to hide his surprise at the statement, then asked, “And why do you think that?”

“Because I hardly feel anything about anything.”

WJ watched as Dr. Crasni shelved his initial plan of attack and decided for a bit of history, which WJ supplied: thirty-eight, single, never married, parents both in advanced stages of Alzheimer's in an expensive home up in Marin County—which he paid for—head of the North West Aggressive Hedge Fund, lived in the very heart of San Francisco for seven years, played the cello in a chamber ensemble.

“Are you good?”

“At what?”

“Playing the cello.”

WJ shrugged. His long grey hair fell across his forehead, and he swept it back.

“Are you?”

“Some think I am.”

“And you? What do you think?”

“I play metronomically; I never make mistakes.”

“But it doesn't please you?” the doctor asked.

WJ shrugged again. He looked down at his tiny feet.

“Would you bring your cello to our next session?”

“If there is a next session, Doctor. I'm a busy man.”

“And a lonely one?” Dr. Crasni ventured.

WJ's head shot up, and his eyes narrowed. “I assumed that you provided a service.”

“I think that's a credible assumption.”

“Then what does my loneliness or lack of loneliness have to do with this?”

“I have no idea. I just met you, WJ.”

“But already you have surmised that I am lonely. I have people around me all the time. My bed is a regular Grand Central of the most desirable women in the Bay Area.”

Dr. Crasni nodded for WJ to continue.

“That's it.” WJ looked around wildly, as if he were caged.

“Do these people who surround you and populate your bed bring you any joy?”

“Not much.”

After a longish pause the doctor asked, “Any? Do they bring you
any
joy?”

“No,” he said. Then WJ blurted out, “I don't feel things the way other people do. I see them all around me, people stupider than myself who find real joy, feel real passion for things and people.”

A silence followed.

Finally, Dr. Crasni said, “But you like music.”

“Don't know how to answer that question.”

“It wasn't a question.”

“It should have been.”

“Okay—maybe music's too close. What about films. Do you like the movies?”

“Some, if they're not too . . .” His voice petered out.

“Name me a film you liked. That you'd want to see a second time.”

“Company of Men.”

The doctor stared at him.
Company of Men
was several years back—it was a deeply disturbing movie about a man who so completely couldn't feel that he caused chaos all around him in order to get close to the source of feeling, like a deaf person standing
right in front of the loudspeakers at a rock concert. Abruptly WJ stood and headed to the door.

“Do you dream, WJ?”

“Why?”

“Sometimes our dreams are a portal to our feelings.”

WJ lifted his bow from the strings.

That's where it had begun. A casual suggestion from a man WJ thought was a pretentious fool—that sometimes our dreams are portals to our feelings—began this voyage, set him on this path. He looked up at the image on the monitor and stared at Seth Roberts.

• • •

WJ rested his cello on the floor and mentally surveyed what he thought of as his “realm.” Since the doctor's weird suggestion, for the first time in his life he had followed what others would call a whim. All his life his decisions had been rational—arithmetic—but they had led him to a sterile cul-de-sac, staring at forty with nothing ahead of him except more of the same, followed by a lonely death. A death before he had actually lived. At least that's how it had been until he followed the doctor's advice that had eventually led him to Seth—as a monk, in a video, touching glory.