Now, Mitch wrenched another strip of paper from the wall and ground his teeth, shook himself, though the movement sent shards of pain spinning through him, to drive out the memory of what the More Man had made him do on that street.
But once you've felt the Head Syrup, The Spirit's Reward, the More Man called it, you'll do anything to get it back.
You want more, the More Man had said, And it's all right to want more. They try to teach us that we should only want a little as it's doled out to us – but it's a lie, a conspiracy to make us slaves to Society, Mitch. The Spirit wants us to have more… and more and more…
The slowed-down sound of electricity crackling. That's what tearing paper sounded like to Mitch, as he tore away another uneven strip of wallpaper. You could smell electricity, a kind of electrical burning smell, when the Reward was coming…
He'd cleared an area of the wall about a yard square, next to the head of his bed. Under it, was just more wallpaper. Another kind of rose pattern. Shit.
He wondered vaguely if they'd punish him for it. Probably not. They probably didn't expect him to be sane.
He had no idea why he wanted to strip away the wallpaper.
On the left side of the flame-shaped patch where he'd stripped the outer layer of wallpaper away, the under-paper showed a long, drip-shaped brown stain.
His hands started to shake, as he tore away more paper on that side, revealing the old wallpaper beneath. More brown stain. Drippy brown stain. Where rainwater had seeped?
No… But he kept clearing it away till he was sure that it was a splash that had come from the bed. You could tell by the way it was splattered outward from the top right of the bed. He pinched a piece of the discoloured underpaper with his finger tips, and brought it to his nose. A smell of rot and iron. It was blood.
He thought, What'd you expect, dumbshit?
But he kept stripping away wallpaper, revealing more and more of the splash – and then a place where the underpaper had been breached. Clawmarks, four of them, ran down the wall here, to the plaster beneath. In one spot exposing a crack in the wall. As soon as he'd exposed it, he felt a little puff of cool air from the crack. And a moment later heard the voices.
And the edge of the crack was outlined in light.
He bent, and pressed his right eye to the crack (an icepick, there'll be an icepick spike coming through the crack into his eye – no, shake that bullshit off…) and squeezed his other eye shut. He could just make out pink shapes moving, in the next room… fleshy pink…
It took a moment for his eye to adjust. Then a piece of the neighbouring room came into focus. A man and a woman fucking on a bed. Fucking without rhythm on the bare mattress. He couldn't make out what they were saying. There was someone else, too, coming into Mitch's narrow field of vision for just a moment, moving to stand by the edge of the bed…
The More Man? He wasn't sure. He could only see an arm, a bit of his side. Then the guy moved back, into the shadows, and there were only the man and woman on the bed.
The couple on the bed were bleeding. They moved in sex like someone crawling across a desert. Like each movement was a fight with exhaustion. Each thrust a heave and a slump, a weak convulsion that was only technically sex. He could make out the knobs of the guy's vertebrae on his back. He looked so skinny, so used up. Blood runnelled down from a torn ear… the ear hanging by a flap…
They were crying, too. Weeping softly, the both of them. "Please," the man on the bed pleaded. "Let us stop. I can't… any more…"
"Yes please, please, please," the woman sobbed. "Just let us rest, we'll do a lot more later. A long, rasping, wracking sob. "Please."
"More," said the man watching from the shadows. "More. More. More. More."
Then the motion of the two on the bed changed. The whole quality of their movement changed. Mitch tasted burning electricity, shivered with lust for the Head Syrup, as the man and woman begin to giggle – hoarse, moronic giggles. Then they began to hump faster, writhing in puppeted semblance of sexual delight.
The woman's leg was twitching… spasming. Her arm flopping like a live fish dropped on hot coals. The man turned his face from her – Mitch couldn't quite see the guy's face but he could see and hear what was coming out of it: a thick vomit of blood.
Vomiting blood but still he humped into her.
Mitch felt the strength go out of his knees. He slid down the wallpaper to the floor.
Then he was up, lurching across the room, throwing himself at the window frame, smashing at it so that glass flew. But he couldn't get it open, it was completely blocked off…
He stared at the splintery geometries of broken glass on the floor by the wall. He could use a piece of glass to slash his jugular…
But then he felt the watcher. He turned, and no one was there, but he could feel the More Man watching him, and he could sense the hand of the Spirit poised over him. Waiting to punish.
They'd never let him kill himself. He'd never be able to get the glass to his throat. The More Man would never let him get away as easily as that…
5
Culver City, Los Angeles
"Hi – I'm Sargeant Sparks. I'm looking for Jeff Teitelbaum…?"
Even the cops here had the irritating California habit of making statements sound like questions, Prentice thought, looking up at the open living room door. So, like, I'm going into therapy tomorrow? And I've got all these abandonment issues?
Well, Prentice always wanted to ask, do you or don't you?
Prentice got up from his perch on the arm of the sofa and stood awkwardly trying to decide if he should let the guy in or wait for Jeff to come out of the bathroom. "Uh, yeah -"
But then the bathroom door banged open and Jeff crossed to the front door. "Yeah, officer, right here," Jeff said, opening the screen door for the cop who stood there. "C'mon in."
Officer Sparks was shaped like a bowling pin, narrow shoulders and wide hips. He wore thick-rimmed designer glasses and an air of weary authority. He had a sad, panda face. He came in carrying a clipboard.
Every so often the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt muttered to itself and cleared its throat of static.
"Have a seat, officer," Jeff said, rubbing his palms against the hips of his khaki shorts. He was nervous, working too hard at not actively hating the cop for being a cop.
"We've been looking into your report about your brother Mitch Teitelbaum?"
"Right," Jeff said "Mitch." He stood by the door as if ready to open it for the cop again as soon as possible.
"And we've gone out to talk to Mr. Denver?"
"You personally?" Prentice asked. He wasn't sure why it seemed important.
"Hm? Yes sir, I went myself. Me and another officer. We came to the conclusion that the boy is not there and Mr. Denver doesn't know where he is. But maybe I should ask – have you heard from him?" He smiled with one side of his mouth. "We're looking for him, too. He's supposed to be in Juvie Hall. For all know he's in the next room sleeping it off."
"He's not here and we haven't heard from him," Jeff said. His voice flat. "What do you mean, sleeping it off?"
"He was doing some time for -" He glanced at his clipboard. "Possession of cocaine. Chances are, he's on a run somewhere."
"He's not a drug addict, he's not 'on a run'." Jeff crossed his arms over his chest, then dropped them by his side, then crossed them over his chest again. "Did you guys search the Denver place?"
"No sir, we didn't have a warrant and we'd need a lot more to go on than the word of a kid you talked to in Juvie Hall."
Prentice considered bringing Amy into it. Her turning up dead, her connection to Denver. The credit card. The stories of the More Man. But it would seem irrelevant to the cop. One thing at a time, please. Just the facts. And it sounded kind of silly to Prentice, now, when he imagined explaining the connection.