Man in the Dark (13 page)

By now, Frisk and Rothstein have left the apartment. The moment the door shuts behind them, Flora begins swearing in Spanish, reeling off a long spate of invective that Brick is unable to follow, since his knowledge of the language is limited to just a few words, principally
hello
and
good-bye,
and yet he doesn’t interrupt her, withdrawing into himself during those thirty seconds of incomprehension to ponder the dilemma that is facing them and think of what to do next. He finds it odd, but all fear seems to have left him, and while just minutes earlier he was convinced that he and Flora were about to be killed, instead of shaking and trembling in the aftermath of that unexpected reprieve, a great calm has settled over him. He saw his death in the form of Frisk’s gun, and even if that gun is no longer there, his death is still with him—as if it were the only thing that belonged to him now, as if whatever life remains in him has already been stolen by that death. And if Brick is doomed, then the first thing to be done is to protect Flora by sending her as far away from him as possible.

Brick is calm, but it seems to have no effect on his wife, who is growing more and more agitated.

What are we going to do? she says. My God, Owen, we can’t just sit around here and wait for them to come back. I don’t want to die. It’s too stupid to die when you’re twenty-seven years old. I don’t know . . . maybe we can run away and hide somewhere.

It wouldn’t do any good. Wherever we went, they’re bound to track us down.

Then maybe you have to kill that old man, after all.

We’ve already been through that. You were against it, remember?

I didn’t know anything then. Now I know.

I don’t see how that makes any difference. I can’t do it, and even if I could, I’d only wind up in prison.

Who says you’ll be caught? If you think of a good plan, maybe you’ll get away with it.

Leave it alone, Flora. You don’t want me to do it any more than I do.

Okay. Then we hire someone to do it for you.

Stop it. We’re not killing anyone. Do you understand me?

What then? If we don’t do something, we’ll be dead one week from tonight.

I’m going to send you away. That’s the first step. Back to your mother in Buenos Aires.

But you just said they’d find us wherever we go.

They’re not interested in you. I’m the one they’re after, and once we’re apart, they’re not going to bother with you.

What are you saying, Owen?

Just that I want you to be safe.

And what about you?

Don’t worry. I’ll think of something. I’m not going to let myself be killed by those two maniacs, I promise. You’ll go down and visit your mother for a while, and when you come back, I’ll be waiting for you in this apartment. Understood?

I don’t like it, Owen.

You don’t have to like it. You just have to do it. For me.

That evening they book a round-trip flight to Buenos Aires, and the next morning Brick drives Flora to the airport. He knows it is the last time he will ever see her, but he struggles to maintain his composure and gives no hint of the anguish roiling inside him. As he kisses her good-bye at the security entrance, surrounded by throngs of travelers and uniformed airport personnel, Flora suddenly begins to cry. Brick gathers her into his arms and strokes the top of her head, but now that he can feel her body convulsing against his, and now that her tears are seeping through his shirt and dampening his skin, he no longer knows what to say.

Don’t make me go, Flora begs.

No tears, he whispers back to her. It’s only ten days. By the time you come home, everything will be finished.

And so it will, he thinks, as he climbs into his car and drives home to Jackson Heights from the airport. At that point, he has every intention of keeping his word: to avoid another encounter with Rothstein and Frisk, to be waiting for Flora in the apartment when she returns—but that doesn’t mean he plans on being alive.

So now it’s a suicide,
he remembers saying to Frisk.

In a roundabout way, yes.

Brick is approaching his thirtieth birthday, and not once in his life has he ever thought of killing himself. Now it has become his sole preoccupation, and for the next two days he sits in the apartment trying to figure out the most painless and efficient method of leaving this world. He considers buying a gun and shooting himself in the head. He considers poison. He considers slitting his wrists. Yes, he says to himself, that’s the old standard, isn’t it? Drink half a bottle of vodka, pour twenty or thirty sleeping pills down your throat, slip into a warm tub, and then slash your veins with a carving knife. Rumor has it that you barely feel a thing.

The conundrum is that there are still five more days to go, and with each day that passes, the calm and certainty that descended over his mind as he looked into the barrel of Frisk’s gun loosen their hold on him by several more degrees. Death was a foregone conclusion back then, a mere formality under the circumstances, but as his calm gradually turns into disquiet, and his certainty melts away into doubt, he tries to imagine the vodka and the pills, the warm bath and the blade of the knife, and suddenly the old fear returns, and once that happens, he understands that his resolve has vanished, that he will never find the courage to go through with it.

How much time has passed by then? Four days—no, five days—which means that only forty-eight hours are left. Brick has yet to stir from his apartment and venture outside. He has canceled all his Great Zavello performances for the week, claiming to be down with the flu, and has unplugged the phone from the wall. He suspects that Flora has been trying to reach him, but he can’t bring himself to talk to her just now, knowing that the sound of her voice would upset him so much that he might lose control and start babbling inanities to her or, worse, start crying, which would only deepen her alarm. Nevertheless, on the morning of May 27, he finally shaves, showers, and puts on a fresh set of clothes. Sunlight is pouring through the windows, the beckoning radiance of the New York spring, and he decides that a walk in the air might do him some good. If his mind has failed to solve his problems for him, perhaps he will find the answer in his feet.

The instant he steps onto the sidewalk, however, he hears someone calling his name. It’s a woman’s voice, and because no other pedestrians are passing by at that moment, Brick is at a loss to identify where the voice is coming from. He looks around, the voice calls to him again, and behold, there is Virginia Blaine, sitting behind the wheel of a car parked directly across the street. In spite of himself, Brick is inordinately glad to see her, but as he steps down from the curb and walks over to the woman who has haunted him for the past month, a wave of apprehension flutters through him. By the time he reaches the white Mercedes sedan, he can feel his pulse pounding inside his head.

Good morning, Owen, Virginia says. Do you have a minute?

I wasn’t expecting to see you again, Brick replies, looking closely at her beautiful face, which is even more beautiful than he remembered, and her dark brown hair, which is shorter than it was the last time he saw her, and her delicate mouth with the red lipstick, and her blue eyes with the long lashes, and her thin, graceful hands resting on the wheel of the car.

I hope I’m not interrupting anything, she says.

Not at all. I was just going out for a walk.

Good. Let’s make it a drive instead, okay?

Where to?

I’ll tell you later. We have a lot to talk about first. By the time we get to where we’re going, you’ll understand why I took you there.

Brick hesitates, still uncertain whether Virginia can be trusted or not, but then he realizes that he doesn’t care, that in all probability he’s a dead man no matter what he does. If these are the last hours of his life, he thinks, then better to spend them with her than to wait it out alone.

So off they go into the brilliant May morning, leaving New York behind them and traveling along the southern rim of Connecticut on I-95, then veering onto 395 just before New London and heading north at seventy miles an hour. Brick pays little attention to the passing landscape, choosing instead to keep his eyes on Virginia, who is wearing a pale blue cashmere sweater and a pair of white linen slacks, sitting in her brown leather seat with an air of such confidence and self-sufficiency that he is reminded of her younger self, the one that used to leave him stammering whenever he tried to talk to her. Things are different now, he tells himself. He grew up, and he isn’t intimidated by her anymore. He’s a bit wary, perhaps, but not of Virginia the woman—rather, of the
little cog in the big machine,
the person in cahoots with Frisk.

You’re looking a lot better, Owen, she begins. No more cuts, no more bandages. And I see you’ve had your tooth fixed. The miracles of dentistry, huh? From beat-up boxer to Mr. Handsome again.

The subject doesn’t interest Brick, and instead of making small talk about the condition of his face, he comes right to the point. Did Frisk give you the injection? he asks.

It doesn’t matter how I got here, she says. The important thing is why I came.

To finish me off, I suppose.

You’re wrong. I came because I was feeling guilty. I got you into this mess, and now I want to try to get you out of it.

But you’re Frisk’s girl. If you work for him, then you’re a part of it, too.

But I don’t work for him. That’s only a cover.

What does that mean?

Do I have to spell it out?

You’re a double agent?

Sort of.

You’re not going to tell me you’re with the Federals.

Of course not. I hate those murdering bastards.

Then who is it?

Patience, Owen. You have to give me some time. First things first, okay?

All right. I’m listening.

Yes, I was the one who suggested you for the job. But I didn’t know what it was. Something big, they said, something vital to the outcome of the war, but they never gave me any details. I wasn’t told until you were already on the other side. I swear, I had no idea they were going to order you to kill someone. And then, even after I found out, I had no idea Frisk was going to threaten to kill you if you didn’t carry out the job. I only learned about that last night. That’s why I came. Because I wanted to help.

I don’t believe a word you’re saying.

Why should you? If I were in your place, I wouldn’t believe me either. But it’s the truth.

The funny thing is, Virginia, it doesn’t bother me anymore. When you lie, I mean. I like you too much to get worked up about it. You might be a fake, you might even be the person who winds up killing me, but I’ll never stop liking you.

I like you, too, Owen.

You’re a strange person. Did anyone ever tell you that?

All the time. Ever since I was a little girl.

How long has it been since you’ve been back on this side?

Fifteen years. This is my first trip. It wasn’t even possible until about three months ago. You were the first one to go back and forth. Did you know that?

No one ever told me anything.

It’s like stepping into a dream, isn’t it? The same place, but entirely different. America without war. It’s hard to digest. You get so used to the fighting, it kind of creeps into your bones, and after a while, you can’t imagine a world without it.

America’s at war, all right. We’re just not fighting it here. Not yet, anyway.

How’s your wife, Owen? It’s stupid of me, but I can’t remember her name.

Flora.

That’s right, Flora. Do you want to call and let her know you’ll be gone for a couple of days?

She isn’t in New York. I sent her back to her mother in Argentina.

Smart thinking. You did the right thing.

She’s pregnant, by the way. I thought you’d like to know that.

Good work, kid. Congratulations.

Flora’s pregnant, I love her more than ever, I’d rather cut off my right arm than do anything to hurt her, and still, the only thing I really want right now is to go to bed with you. Does that make any sense?

Absolutely.

One last roll in the hay.

Don’t talk like that. You’re not going to die, Owen.

Well, what do you think? Does the idea appeal to you?

Do you remember what I said the last time you saw me?

How could I forget?

Then you already have your answer, don’t you?

They cross the border into Massachusetts, and a few minutes later they stop to fill the tank with gas, visit the ladies’ and men’s, and eat a pair of wretched, microwaved hot dogs on soggy buns, which they wash down with gulps of bottled water. As they walk back to the car, Brick takes Virginia in his arms and kisses her, driving his tongue deep into her mouth. It is a delicious moment for him, fulfilling the dream of half a lifetime, but one also marked by shame and regret, for this small prelude to further pleasures with his old love is the first time he has touched another woman since marrying Flora. But Brick, who is nothing less than a soldier now, a man engaged in fighting a war, justifies his infidelity by reminding himself that he could well be dead by tomorrow.

Once they hit the highway again, he turns to Virginia and asks her the question he’s been putting off for more than two hours: where are they going?

Two places, she says. The first one today, the next one tomorrow.

Well, that’s a start, I guess. You wouldn’t care to be a little more specific, would you?

I can’t tell you about the first stop, because I want that to be a surprise. But tomorrow we’re going to Vermont.

Vermont . . . That means Brill. You’re taking me to Brill.

You catch on fast, Owen.

It won’t do any good, Virginia. I’ve thought about going there a dozen times, but I have no idea what to say to him.

Just ask him to stop.

He’ll never listen to me.

How do you know unless you try?

Because I do, that’s all.

You’re forgetting that I’ll be with you.

What difference does that make?

I’ve already told you that I don’t really work for Frisk. Who do you think I take my orders from?