For a few days, nothing more happened. Life went back to much the way it had been. Angel and Louis returned to New York. I walked Walter, and took calls from people who wanted to hire my services. I turned them down. I was tired, and there was a bad taste in my mouth of which I could not rid myself. Even the house was still and quiet, as though watchful presences were waiting to see what would transpire.
• • •
The initial letter was not entirely unexpected. It informed me that my gun was being held as evidence in the commission of a crime and might possibly be returned to me at a later date. I didn’t care. I didn’t want it back, not now.
The next two letters arrived almost simultaneously by special delivery. The first, from the office of the chief of the state police, informed me that an application had been made to the District Court for the suspension of my private investigator’s license with immediate effect on the grounds of fraud and deceit in connection with my work, and the uttering of false statements. The application had been filed by the state police. The court had granted an interim temporary suspension, and a full hearing would follow in due course at which I would be given the opportunity to defend myself.
The second letter was also from the office of the chief of the state police, notifying me that my concealed weapons permit was being revoked pending the outcome of the hearing, and that I should return it, along with any other relevant documentation, to his office. After all that had happened, and after all that I had done, things had fallen apart in the aftermath of a case in which I had not even fired a weapon.
• • •
I spent the days that followed the receipt of the letters away from my house. I traveled to Vermont with Walter and passed two days with Rachel and Sam, staying at a motel a few miles from the house. The visit passed without incident and without a harsh word spoken between us. It was as if Rachel’s comments when last we met had cleared the air somewhat. I told her of what had happened, about the loss of my license and my permit. She asked me what I was going to do, and I told her that I did not know. Money was not a huge problem, not yet. The mortgage on the house was small, as most of the cost of its purchase had been covered by the cash the U.S. Postal Service had paid for my grandfather’s land and the old house upon it. There would be bills to pay, though, and I wanted to continue to help Rachel with Sam. She told me not to worry too much about it, although she understood why it was important to me. When I was about to leave, Rachel held me close and kissed me softly on the mouth, and I tasted her, and she tasted me.
• • •
The following evening, there was a dinner at Natasha’s for June Fitzpatrick. Joel Harmon wasn’t present. There were just some of June’s friends, and Phil Isaacson, the Press Herald’s art critic, and a couple of other people that I knew by reputation. I hadn’t wanted to attend, but June had insisted, and in the end it turned out to be a pretty nice evening. I left them after a couple of hours, with bottles of wine to finish and desserts to be ordered.
A harsh wind was blowing in off the sea. It stung my cheeks and made my eyes water as I headed for my car. I had parked on Middle Street, not far from City Hall. There were plenty of empty spaces, and I passed few people on the streets as I walked.
Ahead of me, a man stood outside an apartment block not far from the headquarters of the Portland P.D. He was smoking a cigarette. I could see the end glow in shadows cast by the awning above the doorway. As I drew closer, he stepped into my path.
“I came to say good-bye,” he said. “For now.”
The Collector was dressed as he was always dressed, in a dark coat that had seen better days, beneath which was a navy jacket and an old-fashioned, wide-collared shirt buttoned up to the neck. He took a long, final drag on his cigarette, then cast it away. “I hear things have gotten bad for you.”
I didn’t want to talk to this man, whoever he truly was, but it didn’t seem like I had much choice. Anyway, I doubted that he was here just to wish me farewell. He didn’t seem like the sentimental type.
“You’re bad luck for me,” I said. “You’ll forgive me for not shedding a tear when you go.”
“I think you may be bad luck for me too. I’ve had to move part of my collection, I’ve lost a secure house, and Mr. Eldritch has been subject to some unwelcome publicity. He fears that it will be the death of him.”
“Heartbreaking. He always seemed so full of life.”
The Collector removed his tobacco and papers from his pocket and carefully rolled, then lit, another while the first still smoldered in the gutter. He appeared unable to think properly without something burning between his fingers or his lips.
“Since you’re here, I have a question for you,” I said.
He put the cigarette to his mouth, inhaled deeply, then blew a cloud of smoke into the night air. As he did so, he waved a hand in the air, inviting the question.
“Why those men?” I asked. “Why the interest in this case?”
“Equally, the same question could be asked of you,” he replied. “After all, you were not being paid to find them. Perhaps a fairer question might be: why not those men? It has always seemed to me that there are two types of people in this world: those rendered impotent by the sheer weight of evil it contains, and who refuse to act because they see no point, and those who choose their battles and fight them to the end, as they understand that to do nothing is infinitely worse than to do something and fail. Like you, I decided to pursue this investigation and to follow it through to its conclusion.”
“I hope the outcome was more satisfactory for you than it was for me.”
The Collector laughed. “You can’t be entirely surprised by what has happened to you,” he said. “You were living on borrowed time, and even your friends couldn’t protect you any longer.”
“My friends?”
“My mistake: your unseen friends, your secret friends. I don’t mean your lethally amusing colleagues from New York. Oh, and don’t worry about them. I have other, more worthy objects of my disaffection to pursue. I think I’ll leave them be, for now. They are making recompense for past evils, and I wouldn’t want to render you entirely bereft. No, I’m talking about those who have followed your progress quietly, the ones who have facilitated all that you have done, who have smoothed over the damage that you have left in your wake, who have leaned gently on those who would rather have seen you resting behind bars.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, I don’t suppose that you do. You were careless this time: your lies tripped you up. There was momentum building against you, and the consequences have now become apparent. You are a curious, empathic man who has been deprived of a license to do the thing that he does best, a violent individual whose toys have been taken away. Who can say what will happen to you now?”
“Don’t tell me that you’re one of these ‘secret friends’; otherwise, I’m in more trouble than I thought.”
“No, I’m neither your friend nor your enemy, and I answer to a higher power.”
“You’re deluded.”
“Am I? Very well, then it is a delusion that we both share. I’ve just done you a favor of which you don’t yet know. Now I’ll do you one final service. You have spent years drifting from the light into the shadows and back again, moving between them in your search for answers, but the longer you spend in the darkness, the greater the chance that the presence within it will become aware of you and will move against you. Soon, it will come.”
“I’ve met things in the darkness before. They’ve gone, and I am here.”
“This is not a ‘thing’ in the darkness,” he replied. “This is the darkness. Now, we are done.”
He turned to walk away, sending another dying cigarette after the first. I reached out to stop him. I wanted more. I grabbed his shoulder, and my hand brushed his skin—
And I had a vision of figures writhing in torment, of others alone in desolate places, crying for that which had abandoned them. And I saw the Hollow Men, and in that instant I knew truly what they were.
The Collector pirouetted like a dancer. My grip on him was broken with a sweep of his arm, then I was against the wall, his fingers on my neck, my feet slowly leaving the ground as he forced me up. I tried to kick out at him, and he closed the distance between us as the pressure on my neck increased, choking the life from me.
“Don’t ever touch me,” he said. “Nobody touches me.”
He released his hold upon me, and I slid down the wall and collapsed onto my knees, painfully drawing ragged gulps of air through my open mouth.
“Look at you,” he said, and his words dripped with pity and contempt. “A man tormented by unanswered questions, a man without a father, without a mother, a man who has allowed two families to slip through his fingers.”
“I had a father,” I said. “I had a mother, and I still have my family.”
“Do you? Not for long.” Something cruel transformed his features, like those of a small boy who sees the opportunity to continue the torture of a dumb animal. “And as for a father and a mother, answer this: your blood type is B. See the things I know about you? Now, here’s my problem.” He leaned in close to me. “How can a child with B blood have a father who was type A and a mother who was type O? It’s quite the mystery.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Well, then, so be it.”
He stepped away from me. “But perhaps you have other things to occupy your time: half-seen things, dead things, a child who whispers in the night and a mother who rages in the dark. Stay with them, if you wish. Live with them, in the place where they wait.”
And I asked him the question that had troubled me for so long, and for which I thought he might have some answer.
“Where are my wife and child?” The words burned my damaged throat, and I hated myself for seeking answers from this vile creature. “You spoke of beings cut off from the Divine. You knew about the writing in the dust. You know. Tell me, is that what they are, lost souls? Is that what I am?”
“Do you even have a soul?” he whispered. “As for where your wife and child dwell, they are where you keep them.”
He squatted before me, bathing me in nicotine as he spoke his final words.
“I took him while you were at dinner, so you would have an alibi. That is my last gift to you, Mr. Parker, and my last indulgence.”
He rose and walked away, and by the time I got to my feet, he was long gone. I went to my car and drove home, and I thought about what he had said.
• • •
Joel Harmon disappeared that night. Todd was ill and Harmon had driven himself to a town meeting in Falmouth, where he handed over a check for $25,000 as part of a drive to buy minibuses for a local school. His car was found abandoned at Wildwood Park, and he was never seen again.
• • •
Shortly after nine the next morning, I received a telephone call. The caller didn’t identify himself, but he told me that a search warrant for my property had just been signed by Judge Hight, authorizing the state police to seek any and all unlicensed firearms. They would be at my house within the hour.
They were led by Hansen when they came, and they went through every room. They managed to open the panel in the wall behind which I used to keep the guns I had retained, despite the suspension of my permit, but I had sealed them in oilcloths and plastic and dropped them in a marsh pond at the back of my property, anchored by a rope to a rock on the bank, so all they found was dust. They even searched the attic, but they did not stay there long, and I could see in the faces of the uniformed men who descended that they were grateful to leave that cold, dark space. Hansen did not speak to me from the time the warrant was served until the moment the search was complete. His final words to me were: “This isn’t over.”
When they were gone, I began to empty the attic. I removed boxes and cases without even looking at their contents, casting them onto the landing before carrying them down to the patch of bare earth and stones at the end of my yard. I opened the attic window and let fresh air flood in, and I wiped away the dust from the glass, cleansing it of the words that remained upon it. Then I went through the rest of the house, cleaning every surface, opening cupboards and airing rooms, until all was in order and it was as cold inside the house as it was outside.
They are where you keep them.
I thought that I felt their anger and their rage, or perhaps it was all inside me, and even as I purged it, it fought to survive. As the sun went down, I lit a pyre, and I watched as grief and memories ascended into the sky, forming gray smoke and charred fragments that fell into dust as the wind carried them away.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. “I am sorry for all of the ways that I failed you. I am sorry that I was not there to save you, or to die alongside you. I am sorry that I have kept you with me for so long, trapped in my heart, bound in sorrow and remorse. I forgive you too. I forgive you for leaving me, and I forgive you for returning. I forgive you your anger, and your grief. Let this be an end to it. Let this be an end to it all.
“You have to go now,” I said aloud to the shadows. “It’s time for you to leave.”
And through the flames, I saw the marshes gleaming, and the moonlight picked out two shapes upon the water, shimmering in the heat of the fire. Then they turned away as others joined them, a host journeying onward, soul upon soul, until they were lost at last in the crashing triumph of dying waves.
• • •
That night, as though summoned by the fire, Rachel rang the doorbell of the house that we once shared, driving Walter into a frenzy when he recognized her. She said that she’d been worrying about me. We talked and ate, and drank a little too much wine. When I woke the next morning, she was sleeping beside me. I did not know if it was a beginning or an ending, and I was too afraid to ask. She left before midday, with just a kiss and words unspoken on both our lips.
• • •
And far away, a car pulled up before a nondescript house on a quiet country road. The trunk was opened, and a man was dragged from within, falling to the ground before he was forced to his feet, his eyes blindfolded, his mouth gagged, his hands tied behind his back with wire that had bitten into his wrists, causing blood to flow onto his hands, his legs bound in the same way above the ankles. He tried to remain standing, but almost collapsed as the blood began to flow through his weakened, cramped limbs. He felt hands on his legs, then the wire was clipped away from them so he could walk. He began to run then, but his legs were swept from under him, and a voice spoke a single nicotine-smelling word into his ear: “No.”
He was hauled to his feet once more and led into the house. A door was opened, and he was guided carefully down a set of wooden steps. His feet touched a stone floor. He walked for a time, until the same voice told him to stop, and he was forced to his knees. He heard something being moved, as though a board were being hefted away from something in front of him. The blindfold was undone, the gag removed, and he saw that he was in a cellar, empty apart from an old closet in one corner, its twin doors standing open to reveal the trinkets lying within, although they were too far away for his eyesight to distinguish them in the gloom.
There was a hole in the ground before him, and he thought that he smelled blood and old meat. The hole was not deep, perhaps only six or seven feet, and scattered with stones and rocks and broken slates at its base. He blinked, and for a moment it appeared that the hole was deeper, as though the base of stones was somehow suspended above a far greater abyss beneath. He felt hands moving upon his wrists, and then his watch, his treasured Patek Philippe, was being removed.
“Thief!” he said. “You’re nothing but a thief.”
“No,” said the voice. “I am a collector.”
“Then take it,” said Harmon. His voice rasped from lack of water, and he felt weak and sick from the long journey in the trunk of the car. “Just take it and let me go. I have money too. I can arrange to have it wired to anywhere you want. You can hold me until it’s in your hands, and I promise you that you’ll have as much again when I’m freed. Please, just let me go. Whatever I’ve done to you, I’m sorry.”
The voice sounded by his good ear once again. He had not yet seen the man himself. He had been struck from behind as he walked to his car, and he had awoken in the trunk. It seemed to him that they had driven for many, many hours, stopping only once for the man to refill the gas tank. Even then, they had not done so at a gas station, for he had not heard the sound of the gas pump or the noise of other cars. He guessed that his abductor had kept cans in the backseat of the vehicle so that he would not have to refuel in a public place and risk his captive making noise and attracting attention.
Now he was kneeling in a dusty basement, staring into a hole in the ground that was both shallow and deep, and a voice was saying:
“You are damned.”
“No,” said Harmon. “No, that’s not right.”
“You have been found wanting, and your life is forfeit. Your soul is forfeit.”
“No,” said Harmon, his voice rising in pitch. “It’s a mistake! You’re making a mistake.”
“There is no mistake. I know what you have done. They know.”
Harmon looked into the hole, and four figures stared back at him, their eyes dark holes against the thin, papery covering of their skulls, their mouths black and wrinkled and gaping. His hair was gripped in strong fingers and his head was drawn back, exposing his neck. He felt something cold against his skin, then the blade cut into his throat, showering blood onto the floor and into the hole, splashing on the faces of the men below.
And the Hollow Men raised their arms to him and welcomed him into their number.