As I walked back to the house, I tried to think of where he would have asked to meet her. I pictured all the places I’d been to in the past few weeks. An image of Ms. Berkley’s map came to mind, the one of town with the red dots and the triangles, east and west. I’d not found a triangle point to the west, and as I considered that, I recalled the point I had found in the east, the symbol spray-painted on the trunk of an old car up on blocks. It came to me—say that one didn’t count because it wasn’t on a building, connected to the ground. That was a fake. Maybe he knew somehow Ms. Berkley would notice the symbols and he wanted to throw her off.
Then it struck me: what if there was a third symbol in the west I just didn’t see? I tried to picture the map as the actual streets it represented and figure where the center of a western triangle would be. At first it seemed way too complicated, just a jumble of frustration, but I took a few deep breaths, and, recalling the streets I’d walked before, realized the spot must be somewhere in the park across the street from Maya’s Newsstand. It was a hike, and I knew I had to pace myself, but the fact that I’d figured out Lionel’s twists and turns gave me a burst of energy. What I really wanted was to tell Ms. Berkley how I’d thought it through. Then I realized she might already be dead.
Something instinctively drew me toward the gazebo. It was a perfect center for a magician’s prison. The moonlight was on the lake. I thought I heard them talking, saw their shadows sitting on the bench, smelled the smoke of Ducados, but when I took the steps and leaned over to catch my breath, I realized it was all in my mind. The place was empty and still. The geese called from out on the lake. I sat down on the bench and lit a cigarette. Only when I resigned myself to just returning to the house, it came to me I had one more option: to find the last point of the western triangle.
I knew it was a long shot at night, looking without a flashlight for something I couldn’t find during the day. My only consolation was that since Lionel hadn’t taken Ms. Berkley to the center of his triangle, he might not intend to use her as his victim.
I was exhausted, and although I set out from the gazebo jogging toward my best guess as to where the last point was, I was soon walking. The street map of town with the red triangles would flash momentarily in my memory and then disappear. I went up a street that was utterly dark, and the wind followed me. From there, I turned and passed a row of closed factory buildings. The symbol could have been anywhere, hiding in the dark. Finally, there was a cross street, and I walked down a block of row homes, some boarded, some with bars on the windows. That path led to an industrial park. Beneath a dim streetlight, I stopped and tried to picture the map, but it was no use. I was totally lost. I gave up and turned back in the direction I thought Ms. Berkley’s house would be.
One block outside the industrial park, I hit a street of old four-story apartment buildings. The doors were off the hinges, and the moonlight showed no reflection in the shattered windows. A neighborhood of vacant lots and dead brick giants. Halfway down the block, hoping to find a left turn, I just happened to look up and see an unbroken window, yellow lamplight streaming out. From where I stood, I could only see the ceiling of the room, but faint silhouettes moved across it. I took out the gun. There was no decent reason why I thought it was them, but I felt drawn to the place as if under a spell.
I took the stone steps of the building, and when I tried the door, it pushed open. I thought this was strange, but I figured he might have left it ajar for Ms. Berkley. Inside, the foyer was so dark and there was no light on the first landing. I found the first step by inching forward and feeling around with my foot. The last thing I needed was three flights of stairs. I tried to climb without a sound, but the planks creaked unmercifully. “If they don’t hear me coming,” I thought, “they’re both dead.”
As I reached the fourth floor, I could hear noises coming from the room. It sounded like two people were arguing and wrestling around. Then I distinctly heard Ms. Berkley cry out. I lunged at the door, cracked it on the first pounce and busted it in with the second. Splinters flew, and the chain lock ripped out with a pop. I stumbled into the room, the gun pointing forward, completely out of breath. It took me a second to see what was going on.
There they were, in a bed beneath the window in the opposite corner of the room, naked, frozen by my intrusion, her legs around his back. Ms. Berkley scooted up and quickly wrapped the blanket around herself, leaving old Lionel out in the cold. He jumped up quick, dick flopping, and got into his boxers.
“What the hell,” I whispered.
“Go home, Thomas,” she said.
“You’re coming with me,” I said.
“I can handle this,” she said.
“Who’s after you?” I said to Lionel. “For what?”
He took a deep breath. “Phantoms more cruel than you can imagine, my boy. I lived my young life recklessly, like you, and its mistakes have multiplied and hounded me ever since.”
“You’re a loser,” I said and it sounded so stupid. Especially when it struck me that Lionel might have been old, but he looked pretty strong.
“Sorry, son,” he said and drew that long knife from a scabbard on the nightstand next to the bed. “It’s time to sever ties.”
“Run,” said Ms. Berkley.
I thought, “Fuck this guy,” and pulled out the gun.
Ms. Berkley jumped on Lionel, but he shrugged her off with a sharp push that landed her back on the bed. “This one’s not running,” he said. “I can tell.”
I was stunned for a moment by Ms. Berkley’s nakedness. But as he advanced a step, I raised the gun and told him, “Drop the knife.”
He said, “Be careful; you’re hurting it.”
At first his words didn’t register, but then, in my hand, instead of a gun, I felt a frail wriggling thing with a heartbeat. I released my grasp, and a bat flew up to circle around the ceiling. In the same moment, I heard the gun hit the wooden floor and knew he’d tricked me with magic.
He came toward me slowly, and I whipped off two of my T-shirts and wrapped them around my right forearm. He sliced the air with the blade a few times as I crouched down and circled away from him. He lunged fast as a snake, and I got caught against a dresser. He cut me on the stomach and the right shoulder. The next time he came at me, I kicked a footstool in front of him and managed a punch to the side of his head. Lionel came back with a half dozen more slices, each marking me. The T-shirts on my arm were in shreds, as was the one I wore.
I kept watching that knife, and that’s how he got me, another punch to the jaw worse than the one in the station parking lot. I stumbled backward and he followed with the blade aimed at my throat. What saved me was that Ms. Berkley grabbed him from behind. He stopped to push her off again, and I caught my balance and took my best shot to the right side of his face. The punch scored, he fell backward into the wall, and the knife flew in the air. I tried to catch it as it fell but only managed to slice my fingers. I picked it up by the handle and when I looked, Lionel was steamrolling toward me again.
“Thomas,” yelled Ms. Berkley from where she’d landed. I was stunned, and automatically pushed the weapon forward into the bulk of the charging magician. He stopped in his tracks, teetered for a second, and fell back onto his ass. He sat there on the rug, legs splayed, with that big knife sticking out of his stomach. Blood seeped around the blade and puddled in front of him.