Guilty Conscience

Guilty Conscience, by Scott Speck

It’s 3 AM. The street below is quiet, deserted, but I still can’t sleep.

Folks need months to adjust to the noise of the city, my landlord said when I signed the lease. Tonight, though – this late – it’s quieter than the country in winter. Across the street, rank upon rank of brownstones extend into the distance, silhouetted chimneys smoldering. One coal-black column obscures the spiked crown of the Empire State, while Chrysler’s summit is unobscured. I don’t deserve my own place – so luxurious, and all paid for by him.

I stand inches away from the unadorned window, its mullioned panes extending nearly from floor to ceiling, where my breath condenses on the glass. Then I pause my breathing. And listen. My heart isn’t beating. It’s dead silent, four floors above Toten Street, and my heart… My heart! I flatten one hand across the striped flannel on my chest. Nothing…

My hand flies from chest to neck – two fingers depressing my carotid. There, thank God – slow and regular, despite my anxiety. Of course it’s beating. I inhale, pause, then resume breathing.

It’s so cold out there. He must be stiff with it by now. A streetlamp sputters atop a tilted pole, while someone wearing a dark coat and hat is leaning casually against it.

Beside me, on the worn seat of my wingback, sits a priceless, first-edition – thick leather spine and gilded engraving – The Descent of Man, by Charles Darwin. The volume both beckons and mocks. It was his treasure, after all – the only thing I’d kept from his flat, once I’d wiped down every table, counter, faucet, knob, and handle I’d ever touched. Oh, and… and the reflective brass knobs crowning his bedposts…

I sit on the bed instead of the chair, and leave the 1871 classic to marinate in my guilt.

We’d been drinking hard that night, the two of us. I should’ve hailed a taxi. A half hour later, through a compressed, liquid blur, my fender grazed a Buick – shattered the left headlight and summoned forth its driver, waving and raging as I floored it and vanished into darkness. Four blocks later, I sped through a stop sign, then lost control across black ice and rammed a pole. We got pretty banged up – and he was furious.

“Goddamn you! Closing arguments on Monday – and now this?”

Despite a leaking radiator, my Triumph still limped to his big brownstone, and I helped him through the door and onto the leather sofa. Then a cold, moist steak from the fridge, held against the bloody lump on his forehead…

It’s four AM. Two Butisols and four gulps of Old Forester, and I’m finally slipping under. I switch off the lamp and draw the chilled blankets to my chin.

I’m cast adrift – in a place that’s half like sleep, half like some malevolent, black, leafless forest. I’m running through the trees, sharp branch trips scraping my face and arms. Something’s following at my heels – hard breathing – I know it’s him. I use my arms to slingshot myself around mossy, rain-slicked trunks. I change direction, again and again, and eventually lose him. Leaning against a tree, I struggle against a consuming urge to gulp air. There’s a crackle of twigs behind me. Spinning ‘round, I’m suddenly nose to nose with him – bloodied, sickle-grinned, eyes like liquid black glass, the left side of his skull caved in. Dear God. Then he starts laughing – a chuckle at first, quickly rising into hysteria.

I awaken at ten the next morning. The light filtering through the window is gunmetal gray. From below, car engines grumble, horns blare. Noise – blessed noise! I call in sick, swallow four aspirin, and sleep again until noon. Then it’s off to Bert’s for a late breakfast. I wolf down eggs and bacon and gulp coffee among the thin, acrid columns of cigarette smoke, the clatter of dishes, the murmur of patrons. Then I find today’s Times local section on the counter. I start thumbing through and see it on page three – Prominent New York Attorney Still Missing. My skin flashes with sweat. I skim through the article and learn the police are clueless. At least they say they’re clueless.

On the walk home, snow starts falling. A numbing wind blasts the flakes into my face, and I squint through them and lower my gaze to watch the ground. At the next corner, I wait for traffic to stop. While I pause, I glance across the street and see someone in a dark gray trench coat, slacks, and Stetson. He’s leaning against a metal signpost, near a huddle of folks waiting to cross toward me. No snow clings to him, and his coat never flaps, never twitches, in this gale. And he’s staring at me.

Is that…? As people walk past me, I watch him reach up and lift his hat in greeting. The left side of his head is missing, his face bloody. His shoulders rise and fall, staccato-like, and I realize he’s chuckling. I turn and hurry across the street.

As I enter my building, I see a man, dressed in dark gray, standing in the cage of the lift. It’s halfway between the 2nd and 3rd floors, motionless. His hands grip the bars as he stares down at me. So, I take the stairs. I bound up the steps, a wave of nausea building, and finally burst out on the fourth floor. There, on either side of the entrance to my flat, stand two men – both in coats and hats, both smoking like factories and filling the hallway with a thin, bluish haze. They’re facing me now, and one of them – the shorter, stout one, lifts his hand toward me, the cigarette trailing smoke between his thumb and finger.

“Mister Poe?” he asks, and I nod, my heart pounding, my breathing labored.

“I’m New York City Detective Peterson, and this is Detective Cummings. Homicide. Can we have a word? In your flat, please?” He takes a drag, the ember glowing hot, then funnels the smoke to the side to avoid me. I fumble with my keys and struggle with the lock, and I see them take note as they shoot each other a knowing glance.

“This lock can really stick,” I say, and the bolt finally slides free. As I lead them in, I suddenly hear loud voices – men arguing – from somewhere further inside, in my parlor. I rush ahead, my shoes thumping on the hardwood, then exhale with relief when I see that it’s just my television, with some sort of crime movie playing, the volume at full.

What’s going on? When did I turn it on? It’s been days! The two detectives draw up on my left and right, and we stare together at the round, bubble-shaped black and white screen.

There, on the screen, are Henry and me, arguing, shouting at each other. And we’re not wearing a single thread of clothing. I prepare to lunge for the knob, but both men reach out and restrain me by my shoulders.

My blood runs cold as I see the setting – Henry’s brownstone parlor. I close my eyes as the detectives watch, seemingly nonplussed, as the deadly argument plays out. The shattering glass, the thud of our bodies as we struggle, just after Henry tells me he’s cutting me off – that we’re finished. Then the grating clang of metal on metal as I pull free the fireplace poker. And the hollow thumps, our voices fallen silent after the second strike. Henry’s collapse to the floor can’t come soon enough, and I feel my breakfast rising in my throat as I await that third strike – the fatal one.

When I open my eyes, there’s Henry, stark naked, standing beside my television, his right hand caressing the rabbit ears. Blood drips from his chin and spatters the hardwood. And then he starts chuckling. At first, he seems to restrain himself. Then he gives in, and begins to laugh openly, loudly, and I wish I had that iron poker all over again. Soon, his laughter is booming, rattling the windowpanes and dropping me to my knees. And I vomit…