Periphery, page 2
“Look,” he hissed. “Over there.”
Andrew turned and panned the street. The crowd of spectators had grown. They stood beyond the police lines in a silent throng, the stone-faced emergency personnel, the civilians eager and hungry, expectant. A sudden image of them all opening their mouths in unison made Andrew shudder as the vertebra in his neck and upper back began to pop.
“You see it?”
“Where?”
“Cross the street.” Comanche’s voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “The dumpster by the fence. You see it?”
“I see the dumpster.”
“Look closer.”
Something in Andrew’s awareness quivered as he examined the trash bin, a perceptual straining he had recently come to understand was not an effort to see, but rather to not see. There was a beer bottle lying next to the dumpster. Its amber glass appeared to be softening in the heat, melting. The cracked and mottled asphalt around the bin stretched to a weather-beaten wooden fence streaked with burnt sienna sulfur deposits from a nearby sprinkler. A desiccated frond from an adjacent palm overhung the fence, reaching nearly to the ground.
“It’s a quintaloch.”
“What?” Andrew was teetering over a precipice he had been approaching for twenty years, ever since the day his father had returned from the police station still caked in dried blood and announced to his wife and son that he was moving out, that it was the only way to ensure their safety, although they had nothing to fear from him. All the scary stuff was out there, out in the light. Out in the open. It always had been.
“That’s what your old man calls them. Quintalochs.”
Andrew wanted to look away, but a feeling of inevitability had taken hold. In his mind, things were clicking and snapping, falling into a terrible alignment nothing could stop. The palm frond held his gaze. There was something unnerving about its size, about the way each long blade bent, then bent again, tapering to a barbed point. They jutted from the central stem like angled spokes that thickened every time he blinked. There were well over a dozen veins, running in twos all the way to the ground before curving toward the bin.
Andrew saw with a start that the frond wasn’t connected to the tree at all. It was simply propped against the fence. What had made him think otherwise? And what about those discolorations on the pavement? Odd the way they continued up the side of the trash bin, as if the two marks were actually part of the same thing, a sweeping curve of antenna for instance.
Enough! He gripped his thighs hard, digging in his nails, relishing the dull, clarifying pain, and as he did the stains on the ground and the sulfur streaks on the fence shifted in unison.
Andrew had once seen a picture in a college psych book, a black-and-white illustration intended to demonstrate the way the brain incorporates bits of visual information into a coherent whole. At first, the image appeared to be nothing more than a random collection of splotches and lines. He stared at the page for minutes trying to discern some hidden connection among the elements. The caption claimed it was a cow, but he saw only visual static, a meaningless jumble of white spaces and shadings.
Just as he was about to slam the book closed in frustration, a dark spot near the center of the picture became an eye and suddenly it was there, complete and unequivocal. Not a cow as the caption said, but a calf, a Holstein calf staring at him with large, sad eyes. Comprehension came in a delicious instant of gestalt, followed a moment later by the realization that he would never be able to un-see the calf.
This was a similar experience, although far more profound. One moment there was nothing, the next moment, something. Some thing that, if drawn by an autistic boy, might resemble a nightmare amalgamation of armadillo and centipede. The crescent-shaped head rested near the trash bin. An elongated eye, shaped vaguely like a beer bottle, gleamed darkly from beneath a bony ridge of plating. One long antenna swept up the side of the dumpster, the other extended out across the pavement. The elongated body was composed of a dozen or more segments, each one boasting a pair of legs thick as broomsticks. Its length stretched from the bin to halfway up the fence, ending in a splay of overlapping discs arranged in a sort of fanning tail.
Despite the impression of being heavily armored, the creature was semi-translucent, its form revealing confounding internal structures, its surface swelling and contracting with a membranous flexibility.
As he watched, the eye began to bulge outward on a thick stalk, rising nearly a foot above the creature’s head where it was joined by a second rising from the other side. For a moment they drifted, turning leisurely one way, then the other in opposing circles. Later, Andrew wouldn’t be certain which happened first, whether someone, himself or Katie, had groaned “Oh, god,” or those terrible eyes had suddenly locked on them.
“It knows I can see it.” Comanche’s voice was a high trill of panic. “It knows. It knows. And once they know you can see them, they mark you. Your old man never told us that part.”
“When you look into the abyss…” Andrew muttered, finally managing to tear his eyes from the dumpster. Comanche was pivoting in a circle, the knife no longer at Katie’s throat but sweeping the air, warding off unseen attackers. Andrew had to leap back to avoid the blade.
“Calm down. Let’s all just calm down. I saw it, man. I saw it. I believe you.”
“I believe you, too,” Katie pleaded as she struggled to stay on her feet. “I saw it too; I swear I did.”
Comanche staggered as he spun, Katie’s legs tangling in his.
“I can’t take this no more,” he groaned. "I’m not…”
As they careened to the ground, the woman’s left hand flew up and out. Andrew darted forward and caught her forearm, then leaned back with all his weight. Comanche went down on his back. Katie landed on top of him. She tried to slide off, but the electrical tape held her fast.
“Let go of me, you fucking maniac!” She jerked her head back, connecting with the side of her captor’s face hard enough to bounce his opposite cheek off the asphalt. Each successive blow carried as much weight as she could lift before bringing it crashing down. “Let go. Let go! LET GO!”
Andrew straddled the sprawled figures and lunged for the arm still gripping the knife, but as he made his move Katie brought her head forward again, hitting Andrew squarely in the jaw, throwing him off balance. Comanche pivoted the knife around so the tip was pointed at his left eye.
“Not going out like this,” he said. His focus wasn’t on Andrew or the inrushing cops or the woman thrashing against him; it was on the dumpster across the street. “Not going to be run down like some fucking rat chased out of its hole. You hear me, you piece of shit? You can’t have me.” The knife flashed a final time and went out, three inches of blade buried in Comanche’s socket.
Katie nearly dragged Andrew down on top of her as she struggled to rise. A cop darted in and wedged a knee between her back and Comanche’s chest. Someone else fell on the arm with the knife, approaching at an angle to avoid the protruding handle.
“It’s all right,” Andrew said. He gripped the sides of Katie’s head, entwined his fingers in her damp hair and pressed until she stopped her struggles. “It’s over. It’s all over. We just need to cut you loose.” Her eyes, wide and vacant, found his. “It’s going to be all right.”
But before he could ask for something to cut the tape with, two burly cops yanked him to his feet and flung him back, nearly into the arms of Officer Brice.
“Quite a performance,” he said, turning Andrew with a pressure on his shoulder that was more shove than tap. “Were you trying to get her killed?”
Andrew reached for the straps holding the Kevlar vest and yanked. “You heard him; he was delusional. I tried to keep him calm.” The vest loosened but did not fall away.
“You let him draw you into a prolonged conversation. You ignored my orders.”
“The radio was cutting in and out. Everything was garbled.”
“Guess that’s why you yanked it out of your ear.”
Andrew released a final strap with shaking fingers and flung the vest and earpiece to the ground. A tremor shuddered through him and he balled his hands into fists as half-a-dozen officers worked to separate Katie and Comanche.
His partner Gary approached wheeling a gurney, followed closely by Jackson Thomas and Tracy Rodriguez, EMTs from Station Twelve who also had a gurney between them.
“All right,” Gary said, positioning the stretcher in front of Andrew. “Let’s get you back to the ambulance.”
Andrew shook his head. “What?” He could barely hear his partner over the roaring in his ears.
“Tracy and Jack can transport the woman. I’ll check you over. Need to make sure you’re not injured.” When Andrew continued to stare, he patted the gurney. “That knife was swinging all over the place.”
The afternoon’s oppressive heat ticked up to something nearly overwhelming, radiating not from the featureless sky but from his cheeks and neck and chest.
“This is for me?”
“Just a precaution.”
“No. I’m fine. Hey,” he called out to the other paramedics. “We’ll take the woman. You two can take Comanche.” The pair exchanged glances but moved on to the handcuffed figure lying motionless in an expanding pool of blood.
Andrew expected some move by Brice to intervene, but he said nothing as they hustled past. Katie was on her feet, a female officer assisting her to the sidewalk. He intersected them when they reached the curb, patted the gurney just as Gary had done, and without a word Katie sat.
“I’m going to check you real quick, make sure you’re not seriously hurt. Then we’ll take you to the hospital for a more thorough exam. Okay?”
Katie said nothing.
Andrew knelt in front of her and placed his hand over hers. “You’re going to be fine, Katie. It’s over.” He wanted to reach up and sweep the hair out of her face like he used to do with Anna when she succumbed to some minor injury and needed reassuring her skinned knee or pinched finger would soon feel better, but even his hand on hers was a gesture bordering on inappropriate. He slid his fingers around her wrist until he found her pulse and began to count.
“It’s not over,” she said before he reached four.
“You can’t think like that.”
“How am I supposed to think?”
“This afternoon was a bad dream.” His fingers probed her neck and jawline where the knife had pressed. He swept his hands down her shoulders, across her arms, turning her palms up before allowing them to fall back to her sides. “That’s all. A dream you’re about to wake from.”
Finding no obvious injuries, Andrew eased the woman into a reclining position on the gurney before he and Gary wheeled her to the open doors of the ambulance bay. “You drive,” he told his partner. “I’ll get her vitals on the way.” When they positioned the gurney to slide it inside, Katie clamped her fingers around Andrew’s forearm.
“Is it still there?”
“No,” he answered, glancing not at the dumpster behind them, but across the stretcher at Gary. They’d gotten along well enough in the eight weeks since they’d been partnered, had, in fact, quickly established a cordial if cool professional relationship—no small feat considering how his previous partnership had ended—but there was nothing of the rapport he had once had with Max. Gary's expression was a carefully composed mask of professional detachment.
“Is it asking too much for you to actually look?” Katie shot back.
“I’ll go snag your bag.” Gary trotted to where Andrew had left his medical kit. Once his partner turned his back, Andrew cast a reluctant glance at the trash bin.
“Well?”
He said nothing.
“You’re hurting me.”
“What?”
“Ease up.”
Andrew realized he was squeezing Katie’s forearm just as she had gripped his. He muttered a word of apology, stepped around to the foot of the stretcher, slid it inside without waiting for Gary, and climbed in after. His partner tossed him his bag and Andrew slammed the doors shut.
“Well?” Katie asked as he took a seat at her side, and when he still said nothing: “It’s still there. I know it is. I can see it in your face.”
The ambulance eased through the intersection. Inside this cool, orderly, rational space Andrew Tate went to work, falling into the familiar routine of recording blood pressure and temperature, checking pupil dilation and heartbeat.
“This isn’t over,” Katie Fife said again. “Not for either of us.” She settled her head on the pillow and closed her eyes, allowing Andrew to work in silence.
But not in peace.
Two
“There he is," said Sid Langston. “Man of the hour.” Engine eleven’s hulking lieutenant rose from the rec room couch and swept his arm out with an introductory flourish. The other two firefighters remained seated, but both turned to track Andrew’s progress as he silently crossed the room.
“Showing the cops how it’s done,” Langston continued. “Training? Who needs training? That’s for pussies. All you need is a Kevlar vest and an attitude. Am I right?” He gave the others a cursory glance. “Marched right in there and talked that guy into sticking a salad fork in his eye. Or was it a steak knife? Point is, you saved the hostage. Fucking a. My man deserves a round of applause. Everyone.” He began a slow, loud clap not taken up by anyone else.
Andrew pressed on to Captain Hamilton’s office door. He knocked twice and twisted the knob without waiting for a reply. The last thing he heard as he shut the door behind him was Gary telling Sid to stop being such a dick.
“You wanted to see me, Captain?”
Hamilton motioned Andrew to the chair in front of his desk without looking up from his laptop. His fingers banged against the keys in sporadic staccatos as he tabbed from one field to the next.
Andrew sat and waited, eyes roving the floor as he tried to assess what he’d seen on that final glance at the dumpster: a defecation or a birth? The question was absurd, repulsive, insistent. Like an afterimage, it followed his mind no matter where it turned, and he doubted it would fade any time soon because whatever that thing – that quintaloch – had expelled from the orifice along its flank had started moving as soon as it spilled to the hot asphalt, its gelatinous surface roiling and heaving, a slime-covered sack of flies.
“You doing okay, Andy?”
“Captain?”
“Hell of a thing to get drawn into. Above and beyond, know what I mean?”
Andrew gripped the chair’s armrest and slid his palms along its length, leaving a slick trail. “Didn’t seem like I had much of a choice.”
Hamilton raised his head for the first time. “We always have a choice.”
“Yes, sir.”
The station captain typed a last sentence and pushed the laptop back as if it were an empty plate.
“No need to ‘sir’ me, Andy. You’re not in trouble. I just want to hear your side.”
“You’ve already heard another side?”
Hamilton settled deeper into his swivel chair with a quarter pivot in either direction and folded his hands loosely over his stomach, only the fingertips interlaced. “I got a call from a Lieutenant Rodriguez at the Eighth Precinct. He got an earful from his negotiation team leader. Claimed you got the hostage-taker all riled up, something about your father.” Hamilton paused a half-beat. “And monsters.”
Andrew could barely remember a time when the mention of John Tate didn’t prompt a tired shame. Until today, he’d managed to kindle a flickering hope he’d seen the last of the man. Since his mother’s death, there was no one to prod him into checking up on the crazy bastard, no one crying into the phone at odd hours to remind him of his so-call obligations.
“He left us, Mom,” he would remind her pointlessly again and again. “Three days before Christmas.” And she, just as pointlessly, would insist that wasn’t the case, that John Tate, former professor of biology, former department head at the University of Tampa, former husband and provider, had done what he had to do to protect his family. Her loyalty was unshakable and utterly baffling.
“Andy?” Captain Hamilton’s thumbs had been turning leisurely circles around one another. Now they met.
“I didn’t provoke him.”
“Tell me what happened.” Hamilton’s tone suggested a desire to be on Andrew’s side, but Andrew also noticed the way his captain’s head ticked from side to side as he spoke, as if unconsciously negating what he said.
“I didn’t insert myself into the situation. I was drawn into it. He demanded I bring him the water. Me, no one else. When I handed it over, he asked if I was John Tate’s son. Said I look like him. At the time, I thought being truthful was the best way to keep from aggravating him further. At least he’d be focused on me instead of the hostage.”
“And now? You still think that was the best course of action?”
“I wouldn’t do anything different.”
Hamilton nodded, what might have been the wisp of a grin tugging the corner of his mouth.
“I think what happened next,” Andrew continued, “was a combination of plunging blood sugar, heat, dehydration, delusion. The man was a diabetic. I know that for a fact.” He counted off each point with a raised finger. “He was an alcoholic. And I’m certain he was doing other shit, crystal meth, coke, something that pumped him full of paranoia and aggression.
“He was going to go off no matter what. If humoring him was the wrong thing to do, I am truly sorry. But I don’t think it was.”
Andrew turned to the office window, his glance sliding down the shuttered blinds. “And if Officer Brice thinks otherwise, he can kiss my ass.”
Hamilton snorted. “Hell, Andy, tell me how you really feel.” The captain leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what the dynamics were between you and this nut job. But from what I saw, you kept your head in a tense situation. You acted decisively when the shit hit the fan. And the standoff ended without the hostage being harmed. As far as I’m concerned, you did nothing wrong.
