The whisper, p.29
The Whisper, page 29
Behind his back, Arlington brought a small revolver gun out of the inside pocket of his jacket. After everything that had happened at the docks, he tended to carry it on him wherever he went. The gun was unloaded. The devil took a few bullets out of the same pocket. As he was slowly putting them into the cylinder, he wondered if Jasper was intentionally ignoring him.
The cylinder took its place with a loud clink, but despite Arlington’s expectations, Jasper still refused to react.
Arlington pointed the gun at the back of his head.
“You didn’t count on any different outcome of this meeting, did you?” he said.
Although the devil pretty much expected no response, Jasper broke his silence. His voice was quiet and raspy as he spoke.
“I did, actually.” Jasper smiled sadly to himself. “But I never get what I count on.”
Jasper closed his eyes. He wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere out of this rotten city, out of this gruesome world. He was willing to take that last blow of life.
For the first time in the Arlington Building’s history, the sound of a gunshot shook the walls of the seventy-third floor.
20
TRUE PAIN
He was screaming at the top of his lungs. Owen Arlington wasn’t used to experiencing pain as much as he was used to causing it.
The echoes of the gunshot were ringing in Jasper’s ears until the devil’s cries of pain prevailed. He turned around and looked at Arlington sprawled on the floor, grabbing at the blood-soaked trunk of his pants. A heavy crimson flow was coming out his right leg, a few inches above the ankle. It seemed a little odd. Jasper wasn’t in any way sorry for the devil, but seeing him that helpless made him feel as if all the laws of nature were broken. He had a weird urge to grab him by the collar and yell something like, “Get up! Stop whining like a goddamn pussy! You’re Owen fucking Arlington, for Christ’s sake!” But Jasper didn’t say a word.
Instead, he raised his head to take a look at the man who had shot the devil in the leg before the latter could’ve shot Jasper in the head. The man was tall, his height almost the same as Jasper’s, but it went well with his broad shoulders. He wore a hood over his head, his features veiled by a black cotton mask.
What caught Jasper’s eye right away was the hand holding the gun—the hand, up to the very sleeve of the black sweatshirt, covered with deep burns. The skin had partly regained its natural color but still resembled a desert landscape with hundreds of tiny dunes. Jasper kept his eyes fixed on the man while Arlington filled the silence. His cries had already turned into howls, and now the howls were gradually fading to small, raspy whines.
Who the hell are you? Jasper thought. And how did you manage to sneak into the hall without anyone noticing you?
The answer was simple. The man had had a lot of time to master the art of being invisible. The whole thing he had arranged at the docks would never have failed, because he had personally planned it out step by step. The dealers hadn’t stood a chance; they would’ve never seen it coming. That was what that man always counted on—suddenness, making you feel comfortable, and then coming at you out of nowhere. It took a lot of patience, but he was ready to wait as long as it took to fulfill his purpose.
Considering how long he had been anticipating this meeting, he’d have to admit, it had been quite nerve-racking to stand behind the door, listen to Arlington speak, and wait for the right moment to come. He was overwhelmed to catch the devil pointing a gun at someone’s head at that particular moment. It was even more overwhelming that the devil’s target didn’t seem to mind getting a bullet. Lastly, the most overwhelming part was that the target’s face happened to be extremely familiar. The whole scene looked to him as if it had been staged beforehand.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the man told Jasper.
His voice was unnaturally raspy, as if it were coming from a broken phone receiver. The mist around him seemed to expand as he was looking alternately at Jasper and Arlington. Blind rage filled it up, but it wasn’t directed at Arlington.
Arlington’s revolver was a few feet away from him. The moment he got a hold of himself and rushed to retrieve it, the masked man kicked the gun away. Then he stomped hard on Arlington’s injured leg and pressed on the gunshot wound until the devil began to lose his voice.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” the man uttered quietly.
“YOU BASTARD! YOU FUCKING BASTARD! I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YA!” Arlington wailed.
“You’ve already had your chance. By the way, Jasper, putting aside all the whiny crap, emotional pain is no match to the pain you experience while burning alive.”
As everything fell into place, Jasper let out a sequence of irregular sighs. The man removed his hood and took off his mask. What Jasper saw made him never want to know what was behind it. It was hard to tell if the man was indeed Glen Harding because the dunes of burned skin spread all over his face. Blood vessels in his eyes were swollen. There was a part of his head with a few mops of hair that looked like weeds sticking out of cracks on a sidewalk. As for the rest, the head lacked hair completely.
Jasper attempted to look like he didn’t see anything out of ordinary, but he couldn’t say anything as he looked at that face.
“That’s impossible,” Arlington gasped. “How did you… You couldn’t have…”
“Turns out I could have,” Glen said. “The biggest downside of letting other people do your job for you is that you can’t be sure about anything. Don’t mean to brag, but I have never failed you. As for the others, well… They’d have a lot to learn if they were still alive.” He pressed on the injured leg harder, and Arlington howled again. The devil was about to reach forward when Glen’s gun froze an inch away from his forehead. “I’m kind of insulted, Owen. So many lives taken, so much blood shed, but when all of a sudden you wished me dead you didn’t even do me the honor of doing it yourself. Am I not as worthy as Austin Clover? Or that fat policeman from the East Side?” Glen took his feet off the devil’s leg and stomped on it with more ferocity. “Or any one of those Whitney’s pricks?!” He spoke louder so Arlington could hear him amid his own screams. “OR BEN?!”
Glen stomped on his leg again and repeated the action until he got enough of the devil’s pain.
Those screams were music to his ears.
“TELL ME!” Stomp. “TELL ME!” Stomp. “TELL ME!” Stomp. “TELL ME!”
“It was you,” Arlington hissed through his teeth when Glen had finally stepped back. “The docks… It was all you.”
“You shouldn’t feel sorry for such irresponsible subordinates,” Glen said. “You gave them one simple task, and they screwed it up. They thought it was enough to set the house on fire but never thought it was necessary to make sure I was dead.”
“General Hospital reported your death the same day,” Arlington said.
“I was dead for almost two minutes. It’s so fucked up, right? Had it been a few seconds longer, you wouldn’t have to go through this right now.”
“I saw your gravestone in Acklestone Cemetery,” Arlington said.
“Were you there for the interment?”
Glen took the following silence as a no.
“Then you missed nothing interesting,” he said. “I heard it was really lame. Six or seven people were watching the coffin getting buried without knowing it was empty. Being dead for everyone can be very convenient. Trust me, you’re not the only one with friends who can help in such matters. It really takes a lot to stay invisible, especially with the butter face you granted me, but I got plenty of help. You wouldn’t believe how many people out there want to get even with you. Some of them, like me, have been holding a grudge for years, and now they finally have the chance to get what they want. I’m giving them that chance.”
“Glen,” Jasper tried to interfere.
Glen paid no attention. His face was impassive as he continued speaking with Arlington.
“Will you introduce your friends to me?” Arlington said.
“I would love to, but unfortunately we don’t have time.”
“Then shoot me already and get this over with.”
“Shoot you? No, no, no. Don’t you see? Death is the mildest sort of punishment, too simple. When your wife died, you were the one who suffered, not her.” At last, Glen turned to Jasper. “Did you believe anything he said to you? Do you think I could’ve done that?”
Jasper opened his mouth to say something.
“FUCK YOU!” the devil cut in. “I don’t care what you say. Your words aren’t worth shit!”
“Whoever killed Jane,” Glen went on, “did her a favor. If her past had really been haunting her for so many years, then all at once she got rid of all her worries. Death seems to be an easy solution. That’s why I’m not gonna give it to you. I’m gonna give you something much more,” he said, looking for the most suitable word, “unrelenting.”
Glen pointed the gun at Arlington’s other leg and pulled the trigger. Another gunshot deafened everyone for a few seconds. As the bullet shattered the shin bone, the devil broke out with renewed vigor in his voice. Jasper clenched his teeth, watching Arlington writhe in agony.
“Pain is something you can never forget,” Glen said. “Pain can change one drastically, and tonight you’re gonna get a lot of it. You lost your wife then your people. That must’ve hurt, but I know there’s only one thing you value more than the whole fucking world.” Glen raised his head up to the ceiling. “It’s this goddamn place. The masterpiece you’ve spent your entire life working on. What do you think your life would be like without it?”
Arlington’s breath was growing heavier as he stared up at Glen with his tear-brimmed eyes.
“What are you gonna do?”
Jasper caught something in the devil’s voice that sounded odd. Intimidation, perhaps fear. But the devil knew no fear, didn’t he? Even though he had a lot to lose, he thought he was too invincible to be deprived of anything.
“I’ve already done that,” Glen said, “or rather we have already done that. You see, my friends are very...well-rounded. There are some hidden talents that know a lot about architecture, technology, even chemistry and high explosives. Our revenge is a work of many minds put together. Do you know how fragile this building is? A few bombs in the right places could make it crumble like a house of cards. However, I insisted on having it packed full to make sure there would be nothing to keep it standing. You can, of course, try to find the bombs, but that would be such a waste of time, and we have already wasted four minutes out of the given hour. So, please, make the most of the remaining minutes.”
“Glen!” Jasper yelled, desperately trying to catch his attention. “What the hell are you doing? I know you have a world of reasons to hate this person. So do I. He deserves punishment, but there are a lot of people in this building who have nothing to do with his atrocities. Innocent people work here without knowing what this place is. Are you going to kill them too?”
“‘Innocent’ is a strong word to throw around in this place. Those ‘innocent’ people sit in their offices perfectly aware that this building stands on blood.”
“Jesus...” Jasper stuttered. “This is just a pure genocide.”
“Not if they have a chance to survive. Mr. Arlington will not fail them, right?” Glen looked at the devil with an assessing eye and gave him a lopsided grin.
“I know you’ve been through a lot,” Jasper said. “But it doesn’t give you the right to…”
Glen interrupted him with a heavy sigh.
“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” he said, “but you haven’t changed, still think you live in a fucking fairy tale where no bad deeds go unpunished and the good ones are rewarded. Even after all the violence you’ve seen, after all the times people have fucked you over, after your near-death experience, you still don’t see what this world’s worth? Here’s the thing, I have changed, and I know it’s not worth a dime.”
Glen’s parasites had probably never had such quality nutrition. The mist around him looked like something solid—like a giant block of highly polluted ice, with Glen frozen in it. All along, Jasper was looking at it and wondering if he’d have enough stamina to take his parasites away. Although he doubted it would change anything.
After all, the time was already ticking.
If what Glen had said was true, the bombs would go off at 4:26. The remaining time was utterly, ridiculously short. Jasper suddenly realized he had wasted a few precious seconds staring at Glen, trying to get over the fact that someone so close could be this cruel. Jasper actually thought there was the possibility that Glen had made up the whole story to scare the hell out of Arlington.
His mist told a different story. Scaring the devil would not be enough. Glen was thirsty for making Arlington suffer, making him struggle to choose between his life and its whole meaning.
Glen took the helpless creature that had once been known as the most powerful man in Acheart by the collar.
“I gotta go,” he said. “It’s all in your hands now. I want you to bear in mind that I have no reason to lie. Not now. I didn’t kill her. I’m the enemy you’ve created yourself.”
Arlington bared his teeth in a grin.
“You have to kill me right now,” he said, “because, if I get outta here, I will find you, and I swear you’ll be begging for death.” The devil let out all the rage he had accumulated through a savage outcry: “YOU THINK YOU’RE THE FUCKING HAND OF JUSTICE? YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN ME! AND IF YOU THINK I’M GONNA...”
Glen shifted his bloodshot eyes to Jasper. He didn’t attempt to outshout the devil, and when he said something, Jasper could only understand him by reading his lips.
“We have to go.”
Jasper followed Glen, but before he walked out of the hall he stopped to take a look at the devil. That strange feeling hadn’t passed. Arlington could look pathetic and inspire no sympathy at the same time. At last, Jasper slammed the door between them shut, firm in his belief that he didn’t owe this person anything.
Glen was already passing through the doors of the freight elevator when Jasper called out to him. Standing in the elevator’s car, Glen gazed at Jasper across the hallway.
“You really didn’t do that?”
“Didn’t do what?” Glen asked.
“You didn’t kill Jane?”
Jasper started taking hesitant steps forward.
“We’ll have a better time to talk about it,” Glen said.
“Tell me, please,” Jasper appealed. “It’s important. Did you or did you not?”
“I didn’t.”
As he had heard Glen say that personally, Jasper felt a bit of relief, but there were still doubts he couldn’t battle.
“What about the car? That gray Ford? Arlington said it was...”
“Who do you trust more, me or Arlington?”
Jasper fell silent for a moment.
“You plotted to blow up this building,” he said. “I think I have the right not to trust anyone.”
In silence, Glen put his mask back on and pulled the hood over his head. Then he took a pair of black leather gloves out of his pocket.
He was putting them on slowly, giving Jasper time to make up his mind.
Arlington put up a tremendous effort to roll onto his stomach. He moved his legs with the help of his hands as if those were two detached parts of his body. His every move was accompanied by excruciating pain. Once he rolled over, the front of his jacket got soaked with the blood that had collected around him. The crimson trail followed him as the devil made his way toward the door.
He stretched his shaking hand up to the handle, but every inch of that stretch cost him more pain. The higher he raised the hand, the more pressure he felt on the gunshot wounds. His moans grew louder until the devil gave a piercing shriek as he reached the handle. He crawled out to the main hallway and turned onto his back, struggling to catch his breath. Fibers of the carpet absorbed his blood, though it was hardly visible against its dark-red color.
The devil could hear two muffled voices coming from around the corner.
“The rest of it is true, isn’t it?” Jasper said. “You were the guy who hooked Jane on drugs back when you were both students at AU.”
“You have no idea how things were back then,” Glen said. “Don’t act like you know a damn thing about what’s right or wrong.”
“It doesn’t take a lot to see that what you’re doing right now is wrong,” Jasper said.
“Then what are you still doing here?”
“What?”
“Why do you keep wasting time trying to deal with your own shit? Run to the management office and inform them about the bomb threat. Or come here and try to make me stop this. Let’s see how it goes.”
Those words, the manner in which Glen presented them, the disdain in his eyes—all that made Jasper sick to his stomach. Glen seemed to have become a hybrid of Ben Elliot, Gordon J. Donovan, and Owen Arlington. The people Jasper despised the most came together in the person he had once valued the most.
“Glen, you’ve always been the only person I could rely on,” he said when no other words came to mind.
“Couldn’t agree more.”
“Does it really mean nothing to you?”
“I’m not saying I’m tired of constantly covering your ass. I’m tired of getting nothing in return. All my life, I’ve been looking after you. Do you know who got you transferred to the West Side Hospital right after that car accident? Do you know who went through a shitload of trouble to pay your hospital bills? Me. That’s the way it always has been: me doing something for you over and over again, and you taking it for granted.”
“I’ve never taken it for granted.” Jasper felt suddenly ashamed at the realization that it might not be true. “I’ve cared for you all along. Ever since I came out of a coma, my main concern was whether you were okay.”
