The Arx (3 page)

Gloria shook her head. Her trembling hands rubbed together between her knees like they were consoling one another. Her eyes drifted over Frank’s shoulder and stopped. Suddenly they sparkled with light, as if the morning sun had risen behind them. Frank turned his head. On a bookcase behind him stood a picture of Gloria holding Ralphie in her arms. He turned back. Just as quickly the light died and her eyes were dark and hollow.

“Look, I believe you,” he said. “You understand that I’m not a cop anymore – there’s not much I can do.”

She nodded.

“I’ll see what I can find out. I’ll call you in the next day or so and give you a status report.”

He stood up and headed for the door. Gloria tugged at his sleeve. He turned back to face her.

“It’s kind of you to help me,” she said. She held out a business card. “I hope you’re not offended, but Janet told me what happened to you. My sister Rebecca is a counselor with Community Development Services. She might be able to help…”

“Thanks,” he said as he took the card without reading it and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. “I’ll think about it.”

He opened the door, then turned to face her and awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder. “Keep your chin up.”

Shit, I’m bad at this,
he thought.

The panic attack started as Gloria’s apartment door thudded shut. The walls and ceiling were already pressing in as he rushed along the hallway. Unable to face the elevator, he flew down fifteen flights of stairs, his anxiety ratcheting up with every step. The knot of reporters on the sidewalk outside her building stared as he doubled over and hyperventilated for several minutes.

Help Gloria? Who was he kidding?

On the way home, he stopped at the liquor store and bought a case of Lucky Lager and a bottle of Alberta rye. After the fourth beer the hollow stare in Gloria’s eyes as she turned away from Ralphie’s photograph had started to fade. After a few more, chased by shots of rye, it was almost gone, and his crushing sense of inadequacy and helplessness had been replaced by a familiar and comforting numbness.

He woke the next morning lying on the kitchen floor, his shirt soaked with spilled beer, the overturned rye bottle lying beside him. He staggered upstairs to the bedroom. As he peeled off the filthy shirt he felt something solid in the pocket. He reached in, pulled out a business card, and stared at it blearily:

Rebecca Hanon, M.Sw.

Community Development Services BC

Community Support Officer

Underneath was an address and phone number.

He tossed the card on the dresser beside him, set the alarm – two hours in the future, and collapsed on the bed.

It was the same dream. He stood in the vacant lot near the street lamp. Again a figure stepped out from behind a dumpster, holding something in its right hand. Again Frank reached for his gun, but was paralyzed. Again the figure approached and again Frank knew who it was. The face pushed out of the shadows, which stretched over its contours like black shrink-wrap. The blackened lips twisted into an insane leer.

“We’re going to play the crazy game. I’ve got a present for you…” the lips sang.

Before Frank could respond the figure flung something large and round at his chest. Instinctively he reached out and caught it with both hands. It was slimy, hairy and warm. His hands were still masked in shadow. He dropped it to the ground and it landed with a wet thud. His breath accelerated as the object rolled slowly toward the light.

A clattering bell demolished the scene. He swatted at the alarm clock and it was silent. He sat shaking for several minutes, then swiveled around, put his feet on the floor, and tried to stand. His legs gave out. He lost his balance, staggered sideways, and bashed his knee against the dresser.

“Shit!” he yelled, rubbing his kneecap. Suddenly he felt sick. He stumbled toward the bathroom, again lost his balance and fell to the floor. It was too late – he threw up on the bedroom carpet. Rising shakily to his knees, he put his head in his hands. His mouth tasted of acid and metal; a throbbing ache jackhammered the inside of his skull.

He turned and peered into the mirror over the dresser. Only his head and shoulders were visible. Squirming floaters swam across his line of sight as he blinked at his reflection: his hair caked with dried beer, his face lined, drawn, and clouded with stubble, the corners of his mouth specked with vomit.

He glanced at the dresser. The business card Gloria had given him lay there upside down
.
He staggered to his feet and stuffed the card in his wallet.

Rebecca Hanon

After two aborted attempts and two panicked retreats back outside for a smoke, Frank dragged himself for a third time down the brightly lit hallway of an aging brick building in Yaletown. The hard polished floor reminded him of a hospital corridor. The meshed glass in the windows reminded him of a prison.

His stomach churned as he opened a door marked
Community Development Services BC
and stepped inside. The reception area was furnished with institutional-looking couches and a metal and glass coffee table strewn with aging psychology magazines. To his relief, nobody was waiting.

Behind the receptionist’s desk sat a cute blonde with glasses, studded nails, and lots of rings on her fingers.

“Can I help you?” she asked, smiling.

“I want to speak to Rebecca Hanon.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

He felt himself blush. He wanted a cigarette. “The name’s Langer,” he said. “I’m sort of a friend of her sister Gloria.”

The receptionist pressed a button on the intercom and talked to somebody at the other end.

“You can go in,” she said. “First door on your left.”

He headed down a short hallway lined with office doors. Muffled voices droned behind a couple of them as he passed by. The target door had a frosted glass insert on which was stenciled:

Rebecca Hanon M.S.W.

Community Support Officer

He scoured his memory for the number of instances that, with the exception of his sister Janet, he’d spent time alone with a woman in the past six months.

Zero,
he concluded as a willowy form appeared behind the glass.

The door opened and the rope around his gut tightened a notch. The face of the woman in the doorway was cute rather than stunning, with a turned-up nose, a smattering of freckles, a small mouth with full lips, and framed by wavy brown hair that tumbled over her shoulders. Her gray eyes hunted constantly, boring into him with questions before they had even spoken.

She smiled, and her face glowed with a warmth and charm that paralyzed him. He wanted to run, but it was too late now.

“Hi, Frank,” the woman said. She reached out her hand, which he shook limply. “Gloria mentioned you. I’m Rebecca.”

“Yeah,” he said. She looked at him expectantly. He stood there like a moron as several uncomfortable seconds ticked by.

“Gloria said…” he stammered, “y-you might be able to help me…you know, with…”

She smiled again. “Gloria’s got an outdated impression of what I do. I haven’t done counseling for several years now.”

Shit, he
thought.
This was a mistake.

“Come in,” she said.

“No, that’s okay,” he said. He turned to leave. “I shouldn’t have bothered you…”

“It’s okay, come on in. We can talk.”

She put a hand on his elbow. He followed, at a loss what else to do.

The window behind her antique wooden desk offered a pleasant view of downtown and, in the far right corner, a tiny glimpse of False Creek. The two closest walls sported posters from opera performances: La Boheme, Aida, The Magic Flute, Lohengrin.

On the far wall were Rebecca’s credentials: her framed degrees and society memberships. His level of anxiety jumped. She sat down behind the desk and motioned for him to sit in a chair facing her.

“I’m sorry about what happened to Gloria,” he said, reluctantly taking a seat. “I don’t know her very well, but she seems like a nice lady.”

“She told me you’re looking into her case.”

He tensed, remembering the interview with Gloria and its aftermath. “I think she’s a little confused there,” he said. “I’m on stress leave from the force. She probably told you. I said I’d do a little digging, that’s all. There’s not much I can do. In fact, officially, there’s nothing I can do.”

“I’m sure it’ll boost her morale just knowing someone with your credentials is on her side.”

Frank laughed nervously. “Hey, it’s not like I’ve got a lot else to do.” He picked up a paper clip from the desk and twirled it between two fingers.

“Anyway,” Rebecca said. “We’re here to talk about you. You understand that I’m not a therapist anymore. I don’t mind talking to you as a friend, in return for your helping Gloria, but all I can really do is refer you to someone. From what Gloria told me, you should be getting in touch with a professional.”

“I’ve had it with shrinks,” Frank said, his hands moving nervously on the table. “They’ve never done anything for me. They’ve just made things worse.”

She gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “I doubt if I can do any better, but if you like we can just talk. Then maybe I can recommend a course of action, or suggest someone who would be compatible.”

Frank nodded.

“What is it that’s bothering you?”

He wanted to get up and walk out, but he felt trapped.

“I can’t sleep,” he finally said.

He unfolded the paper clip, straightening the outer wire into an ‘L’ shape, then folded it back up, then unfolded it again.

“So what is it that’s keeping you awake?”

“Well, I guess technically it’s the alarm.”

“The alarm?”

“Yeah,” he said, concentrating on his paper clip sculpture, “I set it to go off every two hours.”

“You’re having recurring nightmares.”

He looked up, surprised at her perceptiveness. “Y…Yeah. It usually wakes me up before they get too bad.”

“Any other problems?”

He went back to work on the paper clip. “Headaches – but that could be from not sleeping, I guess it could also be from the drinking. And I think I zone out sometimes. Time passes and I don’t know what happened in the interval. But that hasn’t happened for ages.”

“Are you sure?”

He looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Would you actually know? If no one else was around?”

He tensed again. “Yeah, sure…sure I’d know.”

“Gloria mentioned a horrific experience you had on the job. Is that what the nightmares are about?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes moved to his hands. He noticed, set the paper clip sculpture down and laced his fingers on the desk in front of him.

She leaned back in her chair. Her hair fell away, exposing the curve of her bare neck and shoulders. “It was one of your cases…”

His muscles tightened. “I’ve been through all that already.”

“You can take it slow,” she said in a soothing tone. “Start from the beginning. How did you first get involved? It was what – about a year ago?”

Frank nodded.

He picked up the paper clip again and twisted one prong into a ninety-degree angle. “We were after a serial killer.”

He was silent for several seconds, focused on his sculpture.

“Go on,” she said. “You were after a serial killer. It was a difficult case?”

Frank blew out a puff of air. “Difficult – yeah, that would be one word to describe it. The guy was making us look like bozos. We were under a lot of pressure.”

“We?” she said.

Frank stiffened and his work on the clip stopped. He hesitated. “You know,” he said, looking up, “the team.”

She studied him with those penetrating gray eyes. “But it wasn’t just you,” she said. “You had a partner?”

His body began to tremble and beads of sweat rose on his forehead. The blood hammered through his veins and roared across his eardrums like a freight train. The light faded and the room closed in around him. He shut his eyes. A monstrous shape loomed above him in the darkness. The stench of rotting garbage permeated the air, and shadows swam beneath his feet. The lurid purplish light splashed over the pavement. It was coming… he began to shake violently.

“Frank!” he heard a voice far in the distance.

The floor heaved up like he was in the midst of an earthquake. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out.

“Frank!” the voice was much closer now.

He opened his eyes. Rebecca was leaning over him, her hand on his shoulder.

"Frank!" she shouted. "You're bleeding!"

He shook his head to clear away the darkness and stared down at his hands. His fists were clenched and trembling. A trickle of blood ran down the edge of his right palm. He felt pain in his right fist. He opened it. It was covered in blood – the sharp point of the paper clip had been driven deep into his flesh.