29
Davis Tate had been forced to secure himself to the heavy radiator in the living room. The intruder had already attached one cuff to the pipe before Tate’s arrival, so now only Tate’s left hand remained free. At least the radiator wasn’t on, which was something, and the mild weather meant that the apartment wasn’t too cold. The fact that Tate could joke about his situation, even to himself, suggested that either he was braver than he thought, which seemed unlikely, or he was going crazy from fear, which was more probable.
The man from the bar sat in a chair beside Tate, flicking his butterfly knife open and closed, each snick of the blade making Tate wince at the further pain that it promised. The cut on his neck had stopped bleeding, but the sight of his shirt stained red made him queasy, and the smell of nicotine at close quarters had become so strong that it felt as though his nose and tongue were burning.
And the intruder terrified him. It wasn’t just the knife in his hand, although that was bad enough. The man conveyed a sense of implacable malice, a desire to inflict hurt that was beyond reason. Tate recalled an evening in a club in El Paso at which he’d been introduced by a mutual friend to some men who claimed to be fans of his show, nondescript figures with sunburned skin and the glassy eyes of dead animals who were either on their way to, or coming back from, the conflict in Afghanistan. As the night wore on, and more alcohol was consumed, Tate worked up enough courage to ask them what it was they did, exactly, and was informed that they specialized in the interrogation of prisoners: they waterboarded, and starved, and froze, and tormented, but they made one thing clear to him: there was a purpose, an end to what they did. They did not torture for the pleasure of it, but to extract information, and once the information was extracted, the torture stopped.
Most of the time.
‘We’re not like the other guys, the bad guys,’ said one, who told Tate that his name was Evan. ‘We have a set goal, which is the acquisition of information. Once we’re certain that this been achieved, our work is done. You want to hear what’s really terrifying? Being tortured by someone who has no interest in what you know, someone for whom torture is an end in itself, so that no matter what you tell him, or who you betray, there’s no hope that the pain will stop, not unless he decides to let you die, and he doesn’t want to do that; not because he’s a sadist, although that’s probably part of it, but out of professional pride, like a juggler trying to keep the balls in the air for as long as he can. It’s a test of skill: the louder and longer you scream, the greater the vindication of his abilities.’
Tate wondered if here, in his own apartment, he was now looking at just such an individual. His suit was wrinkled and stained, the collar of his shirt as yellowed as his fingers, his hair slick with grease. There was no military bearing to this man, no sense of someone who had been trained to do harm.
But this man was also a zealot. Tate had met enough of them in his time to recognize one when he saw him. In his eyes burned a fierce light, the fire of righteousness. Whatever this man did, or was capable of doing, he would not view as immoral, or an offense against God or humanity. He would hurt, or kill, because he believed that he had the right to do so.
Tate’s only hope lay in the man’s use of a single word: perhaps.
Time, perhaps, to die.
Or, perhaps, to live.
‘What do you want?’ asked Tate, for what must have been the third or fourth time. ‘Please, just tell me what you want.’
He felt and heard the sob catch in his throat. He was getting tired of posing the question, just as he had tired of seeking the man’s name. Each time he asked a question the intruder just gave the blade a double flick in reply, as if to say ‘Who I am doesn’t matter, and what I want is to cut.’ This time, though, Tate received an answer.
‘I want to know how much you got for your soul.’
His teeth were yellow, and his tongue was stained the dirty white of sour milk.
‘My soul?’
Snick went the blade. Snick-snick.
‘You do believe that you have a soul, don’t you? You have faith? After all, you speak of it on your radio show. You talk about God a lot, and you speak of Christians as though you know the inner workings of each and every one. You seem very certain about what is right and what is wrong. So what I want to know is, how can a man who has sold his soul speak of his God without gagging on the words? What did they offer you? What did you get in return?’
Tate tried to calm himself, still clinging to the precious perhaps. What answer was this man seeking? What answer would keep Tate alive?
And suddenly the intruder was upon him, even as Tate tried to kick out and keep him at a distance. The knife was back at his throat, and this time the snick was followed by the drawing of more blood from behind his right ear.
‘Don’t calculate. Don’t think. Just answer.’
Tate closed his eyes.
‘I got success. I got syndication. I got money, and influence. I was a nobody, and they made me somebody.’
‘Who? Who made you this somebody?’
‘I don’t know their names.’
‘Not true.’
Snick! Another cut, except this one was lower, slicing through his earlobe. Tate shrieked.
‘I don’t know! I swear to you I don’t know. They just told me that the Backers liked what I did. That’s what they call them: the Backers. I’ve never met them, and I’ve had no contact with them, only with the people who represent them.’
Still he tried to keep back the names. He was scared of this man, scared near to death, but he was more frightened of Darina Flores and the desolation he had experienced as she spoke of all that would follow if he crossed those who were so anxious for him to succeed. But now it was the intruder who was whispering. He held Tate’s face in his hand as he spoke, and breathed a fug of fumes and filth and rotting cells into his face.
‘I am the Collector,’ he said. ‘I send souls back to their creator. Your life, and your soul – wherever it may lie – hang in the balance. A feather will be enough to shift the scales against you, and a lie is the weight of a feather. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Tate. The manner in which this man spoke left no room for misunderstanding.
‘So tell me about Barbara Kelly.’
Tate knew then that there was no point in lying, no point in holding anything back. If the man knew about Kelly, then how much else did he know? Tate didn’t want to risk another cut, maybe a fatal one, by being caught out in a lie, and so he told the Collector everything, from his first meeting with Kelly, through the introduction of Becky Phipps and the destruction of the vocation and life of George Keys, right up to the meeting earlier that day concerning the fall in his ratings. He sniveled and wheedled, and engaged in the kind of shameless self-justification that he believed himself to be duty bound to shoot down when his opponents tried to rely on it.
And as he spoke he felt as if he were engaged in a process of confession, even though confession was for Catholics, and they were barely above Muslims, Jews and atheists on the list of folk for whom he reserved a particular hatred. He was listing his crimes. Taken individually they seemed inconsequential, but when recited as a litany they seemed to assume an unstoppable momentum of guilt; or was he merely reflecting the feelings of the man seated opposite him, for although his interrogator’s expression never varied – rather it seemed to grow gentler and more encouraging as Tate’s lanced conscience spewed out its poison, rewarding him for his honesty with something that might have been mistaken for compassion – there was no escaping the knowledge that Tate’s soul was still being weighed against a feather on the Collector’s scales, and found wanting.
When he was done, Tate sat back against the wall, and hung his head. His earlobe ached, and his mouth tasted of salt and sour things. For a time there was only silence in the dim room. Even the sound of the traffic outside had faded, and Tate had a sense of the boundlessness of the universe, of stars racing away into the vacuum, colonizing the void, and of himself as a fragment of fragile life, a fading spark from a vital flame.
‘What are you going to do?’ he finally asked, when his own insignificance threatened to unman him.
A match flared, and another cigarette was lit. Tate smelled the vileness of the smoke, the odor that had first alerted him to the intruder’s presence, except now the word ‘intruder’ had become inappropriate. Somehow, this man belonged: here, in this room, in this apartment, on this street, in this city, in this world, in this great dark universe of dying light and distant, spiraling galaxies, while Davis Tate was merely a temporary fault in nature, a stain upon the system, like a mayfly born with one wing.
‘Would you like a cigarette?’ asked the Collector.
‘No.’
‘If you’re concerned about ruining your health, or becoming addicted, I wouldn’t worry.’
Tate tried not to think about what that might mean.
‘I asked you what you’re planning to do with me,’ said Tate.
‘I heard you. I’ve been thinking about the question. Barbara Kelly is dead, so her fate is already decided.’
‘Did you kill her?’
‘No, but I would have, given the opportunity.’
‘So who did kill her?’
‘Her own people.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she was turning against them. She was sick, and frightened, and she feared for her soul, so she set out to make recompense for her sins. By betraying their secrets, she believed that she might save herself. But then there is Becky Phipps . . .’
On the table beside the man lay Tate’s cell phone. With the cigarette clamped between his teeth, the Collector flicked through the list of contacts until he found the name that he wanted. A forefinger pressed itself against the screen, and the number was dialed. Tate heard it ringing. The call was answered on the third ring, and Tate knew from the echo that the recipient’s phone was on speaker.
‘Davis,’ said Becky Phipps’s voice. She didn’t sound particularly pleased to be hearing from him, Tate thought. Bitch. You think you have problems. ‘This isn’t a good time. Can I call you back later, or tomorrow?’
The stranger indicated to Tate that he should speak. He swallowed. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. In the end, he settled for honesty.
‘It’s not such a good time for me either, Becky. Something’s come up.’
‘What now?’
Tate looked at the Collector, who nodded his assent.
‘There’s a man here with me, in my apartment. I think he wants to talk to you.’
The stranger took a long drag on his cigarette before leaning close to the phone.
‘Hello, Ms Phipps,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure, although I’m sure that we will in the near future.’
Phipps took a couple of seconds to reply. When she did, her tone had changed. She was cautious, and her voice trembled slightly. It caused Tate to wonder if she knew the identity of the caller already, despite her next question.
‘Who is this?’ she said.
The man leaned yet closer to the phone, so that his lips were almost touching it. He frowned, and his nostrils twitched.
‘Is there someone there with you, Ms Phipps?’
‘I asked you a question,’ said Phipps, and her voice became even less steady, belying her attempt at bravado. ‘Who are you?’
‘A collector,’ came the reply. ‘The Collector.’
‘A collector of what?’