Chained to a cot and covered by only the blue plastic tarp, George Houssman shivered and stared at Cosway across the brightly lit and windowless basement. The mask on his face caused his broken glasses to steam; he had to keep pushing them up to let them vent so he could see. He squinted and checked the time at the bottom of the monitor that recorded Cosway’s infection. It was 8 A.M. Friday morning and less than one day after being infected, he was clearly dying. The poor man lay on the sweat-stained mattress staring up at the ceiling, his face bloated, an effect of the angry pustules and weeping sores that covered his naked flesh. As a medical student decades ago, George had seen textbook photographs of bubonic plague; then it had been fascinating, now it was horrifying and cruel … and real. His thoughts hammered away at him: Was all of this on some level his fault? Decades-old regret flooded him; he and Delia should have tried harder to save the boy. Tears of frustration clouded his vision as he watched Cosway’s breath take on the odd, bellows-like quality of someone close to death; not yet the agonal rasps of the last hour, but that was near.
‘Cosway,’ Houssman called.
The sick man turned his head, the effort bringing on a fresh wave of coughing. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he wheezed. Tears tracked into the open sores that had erupted on his cheeks and chin.
It was like Cosway was melting, his blood vessels, and even his cells, exploding out their contents. From what little Houssman recalled from med school, this was what should have happened eventually; but what Albert had developed looked far worse. Plague, he recalled, should take days or even weeks to get to this stage … not twenty-four hours. Houssman couldn’t stop shaking; he gathered the crinkly tarp tight around his shoulders. There was nothing he could do to comfort the dying man. He wondered if there was anything anyone could do. Or was it as Richard had said, that this was something that could not be treated with existing antibiotics?
He heard the cellar door open and looked up. Peter Glash descended, ducking his head to miss a low-hanging beam. His face, like George’s, was covered with a protective mask; his eyes with shiny black and purple bruises from Hobbs’s fist. He glanced at Cosway. ‘It won’t be long,’ he commented. He looked at Houssman. ‘Richard says he’ll be dead within eight hours.’
Peter then checked the camcorder to insure it was still recording. He fished a fresh tape from the breast pocket of his denim work shirt and inserted it into the machine.
Houssman tried to calm himself, to stop shaking. After fifty years of dealing with mentally-ill criminals he was not easily flustered. The difference now, he realized, was that he’d always been able to keep his children safe from his work. Their very real peril was eating away at him, making it hard to think straight. He thought of Barrett and the horrible risks she had taken; it’s what most worried him about her. She’d not developed the skill, the distance that was so important to keep the work at arm’s length. He hated to fault her, but she had jumped right into Glash’s truck, and she was carrying the child of another killer and …
‘Peter,’ he said.
‘What, George?’ Glash’s tone was sarcastic.
‘Why don’t you stop him? What he’s intending is inhuman.’
‘So?’ Glash replied, and then settled in a folding metal chair across from Houssman. ‘Richard wants me to tell you my story. He thinks it’s important. Some of it you know. Pick up your pad. He’s excited about the book you’re going to write.’ His tone was dull. ‘Personally I’d just as soon see you dying in that cage.’ He reached toward Houssman.
George recoiled as Glash took off his broken glasses, wiped the condensation off on his sleeve and then put them back on. George stared into cold blue eyes that held a deep hatred. The bruises on Peter’s face were like a second mask or some kind of circus make-up.
‘He tells me that several of your others have been bestsellers. He wants me to read them. Perhaps I will one day … if I survive.’
Houssman looked at the yellow pad, now over half-filled with his small, careful script. ‘What if I refuse?’
Peter glared. ‘You think my son is joking?’
Houssman tried to quiet his breathing; he didn’t want Peter to see his fear, his weakness. ‘No. I realize this is deadly serious.’
‘Yes, many are about to die.’
‘You could stop this,’ Houssman said, keeping his voice low in case Richard should be trying to listen in.
‘Of course I could; I choose not to.’
‘Why?’
‘Write, and I’ll tell you. It’s all connected, and part of what needs to happen is the recording of it. Should you choose not to do this he’ll kill you … or I will; I’d like that. Your purpose will be gone’ – he paused, and then added – ‘you did have another purpose for Richard. You failed him.’
‘He wanted me to be his father.’
‘Yes. But because Richard is special, you refused. You failed him.’
‘I did,’ Houssman admitted, finding it hard to catch his breath.
‘Correct, you were given something precious – my son; you failed us both. Now I’m going to tell you my story. Either you write it down, or I’ll tell him that you refused and he’ll come down here and put a bullet in your very old head. It’s your choice. You know, as I think about it, I could just tell my story on to a tape – anyone could write the book then.’
Houssman picked up the pad and the pen. The tarp gaped, exposing his thin chest to the damp basement air. ‘I’ll write.’
‘Of course you will,’ Peter Glash said. ‘You’re a smart man. I know what you’re thinking, that as long you’re alive there’s still a chance. You’re wondering if there’s some way you could escape and stop this. I imagine there is some small chance … while you’re alive. That goes to zero if you’re dead. Richard knows where your children live. He knows the names of your grandchildren and what school Faye attends on West Third Street.’ Peter Glash smiled over rotted teeth. ‘Shall we begin?’
‘Yes.’ Houssman seethed, his fear gone, replaced with surging adrenalin at the mention of his children … of his granddaughter, Faye. She’d be arriving at school right now, lining up with her classmates outside the old brick building in Greenwich Village.
‘Good. You think you know me,’ Peter went on. ‘You don’t. You knew that I killed Dorothea; she was a whore. It’s a husband’s right to punish his wife. Richard understands that. That’s why I made him watch.’
Houssman startled. ‘What? I thought he came home after the event.’
‘No,’ Peter said, ‘it was an important lesson. A boy needs to be taught what it is to be a man. Women need to know their place. I made Richard watch.’
Houssman shuddered, his hand shook on the page, imagining the horror of what a four-year-old Richard Glash had been made to witness – this man bludgeoning his wife to death. Tears came to his eyes, as he remembered the little boy and his ever-present sketchpad.
Peter Glash saw Houssman’s revulsion. ‘See, you think you know me, but you don’t. I was born in this house. I was the sixth and last child.’ He stood and looked down at the yellow pad to be certain Houssman was getting it all. ‘Four of us are still alive; we don’t talk much. My sister Bertha died of influenza when she was three. And only my brother Frank visited me while I was in prison. I paid him to do that. Frank is the only other one of us to marry and have children. Don’t you find that odd?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you want to ask me questions to clarify this point?’
Houssman’s throat was dry; he struggled to find his voice. ‘You said four of you are still alive, and you told me about a sister and your brother Frank. Who else died?’ His heart pounded and raced in his chest, the dull, squeezing ache had returned to his jaw.
Glash smiled. ‘Good, you’re paying attention. I’ll tell you about my brother Edward. He was three years older than I and mean. He’d play tricks on me and my sister Katie. He’d lock us in closets and hammer us up inside packing crates. He’d leave us for hours. One time we couldn’t find Katie for over a day. She was down here in the cellar. He’d put her inside a packing crate with no food or water. He took her favorite doll and cut off its head, arms and legs and put it in with her. When we got her out she cried for days. She’d soiled herself and wouldn’t let my mother throw away her doll.’
‘What did your parents do? Did they punish Edward?’
‘My father laughed,’ Peter said. ‘He thought Edward was funny. He thought the cruel tricks he played were amusing. Edward was his favorite. He was the oldest.’
‘What about your mother?’
‘She was weak. Women are naturally weaker than men. She bought Katie a new doll, but she couldn’t stop Edward.’
Houssman, realizing there was more to this story, looked hard at Glash. ‘But you’re not a woman, and you’re not weak. What did you do to your brother Edward?’
Peter cocked his head and met Houssman’s gaze. ‘You are a smart man, aren’t you? A pity that you couldn’t have taken care of Richard. Do you wonder about that? What if you could have figured this out and found a way to take care of him? You failed him, but if you hadn’t’ – he held up his hands – ‘would any of this have happened? I think not. And, if that’s true’ – he cocked his head and now stared at a corner of the room – ‘and I think it is, then this will all be because of you …’ He turned and met George’s steamed-up gaze. ‘But let me tell you about Edward and how I killed him – although my father convinced the police it was an accident. He was fourteen. After that, I became my father’s favorite. It’s why he left the business to me. It’s why my name is on the deed. You want to know what I did to my brother Edward?’
‘Yes,’ Houssman said.
‘He deserved to die for what he did to Katie, just as Dorothea deserved to die for being a whore. Katie never recovered. Edward had done other things to her, terrible things … sexual things. Incest is a grave sin. Don’t you agree?’
‘Yes … What did you do?’ Houssman asked, feeling like an archeologist delving back into prehistory. He’d evaluated Peter Glash decades ago, but none of this had ever come up.
‘We had rats in the basement,’ Peter began. ‘We had to keep them out of the candy. They’d chew right through the crates. If they got in, my father would have to dump it. He’d get very mad, losing lots of money. So every day he’d come down here with Edward and they’d shoot the rats … I asked to help. He gave me a gun and showed me how to use it. We practiced on the rats. When I was able to hit them every time, I came down here and shot Edward in the head. I wanted to be certain that he was dead. I needed to be certain that my father saw that I had killed his favorite son. He asked me why I shot Edward. I told him because of what he’d done to Katie. He deserved to die.’
‘What did he do?’ Houssman asked, as his eyes darted around the basement, now aware that this was a place where many horrible things had occurred.
Glash stared past Cosway toward a windowless corner of the cement-floored space. ‘He said that he understood, and that no one must ever know. I’m only telling you now because it no longer matters. My father told me that we would tell the police it was an accident. He told me that I would have to cry and that I would have to tell everyone that I was very sorry for accidentally shooting my brother. He told me that if I did all of those things, and never told, not even my mother, not even Katie, then I would become his favorite son, and when I grew up he would give me the store. I did as he asked. I cried real tears; they weren’t for Edward, but for what he did to Katie. She never recovered … I love my sister Katie. Edward deserved to die.’
‘How did you manage to keep this building?’ Houssman asked. ‘I’m surprised the state didn’t take it, while you were incarcerated.’
‘They tried,’ Peter said, ‘but my father had the foresight to leave it to me in a trust, just as I’ll do with Richard – they couldn’t touch it. And I always made sure the taxes were paid, and for a while Frank continued the business.’
More questions formed in Houssman’s mind. He couldn’t help but be fascinated by the multi-generational transmission of some variant of autism, with its rigid thought pattern and mathematical approach.
Peter Glash looked at Houssman. ‘The question you really want answered is why I’m doing this. Why I am helping Richard?’
‘Yes,’ Houssman said, again pushing up his glasses so he could see.
‘I was locked away for over ten years. My son was taken from me. He in turn was locked away far longer. How do you put a price on those things? Certain things are priceless … aren’t they?’ He peered intently at Houssman. ‘Aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ Houssman agreed.
‘Time is priceless – we have just so much. The love of a child is priceless. Freedom is priceless. All taken from me and from Richard. We need to be paid for our time and for the love that was taken away. We are taking payment in kind.’
‘You don’t care that thousands could die?’
‘I hope it’s more,’ he answered, getting up, ‘for Richard’s sake. He has the ambition to be the greatest killer of all time. As a father, it’s important to support my child. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Don’t you care that you’ll both probably die?’ Houssman replied. ‘That your son will die?’
‘No, because what we have is not a life.’
‘But your son, don’t you want to see him go on with his life? To maybe have a family, a child of his own?’
Peter Glash shot across the space that separated them and slapped Houssman hard across the face.
His head jerked to the right. The sharp pain and the crack of flesh on flesh shocked him. His glasses caught in the band of his mask.
‘I’m not a fool,’ Peter said, glaring at Houssman. ‘Those things are not possible for Richard. We both know that. He’s being hunted down and they’ll shoot to kill. My son is destined for greatness, and I’m doing everything possible to see that happen. I don’t want just thousands to die,’ he added, moving toward the stairs. He glanced back at Houssman and then at the monitor and Cosway. ‘I want them all to die.’