No Sleep till Wonderland Read online

  “Right. It’s as good a spot as any.” Ekat pulls the bands, intertwines them tightly around each of my wrists and hands, locking them together. The thin rubber is surprisingly strong. The accumulated bands pinch and pull at my skin. She lifts my arms and pushes my bound hands behind my head. “Sometimes I forget where I put them and find them all over again. Last week, I took one off the toilet handle at work.”

  “It’s my sincerest hope none of these were on that toilet.”

  Ekat pulls my fedora over my eyes; everything goes dark against my will, as is usually the case. Her hands are insects crawling over my body; they caress and tickle but make me nervous too. I wonder if they’ll bite.

  She pulls my legs out from under my ass, which takes some doing. My legs eventually cooperate and hang off the chair frame. I sink deeper into the half-shell bowl of the chair. My back bends and chest contorts, folding in half, folding into myself, a flawed pearl in a giant oyster.

  My wrists are bound but my fingers are free, and I’m able to pinch the brim of my hat, slide it up off my eyes, and back onto my head. Proper appearances must be maintained.

  The lights aren’t on in the apartment, but there are candles. Everywhere candles, and of every size. She should know me and fire don’t mix. Ekat is naked from the waist down and straddles my lap. She’s lighter than a daydream. I’m naked from the waist down too. A show of support.

  My skin is hypersensitive, her slightest touch a detonation. It’s too much. I feel everything and nothing at once.

  There’s music coming from somewhere. It has an odd rhythm, is psychedelic, and not all that appropriate for the moment. The moment is something that hasn’t happened to me in a very long time. She quickens her pace with the music.

  The candle flames brighten even as the wicks burn down, and I’m disappearing into the light. Her arms extend above her head and across the room, across the whole apartment. Her T-shirt and then bra melt off her body as if made out of wax.

  I’m made of wax too, and I’m melting.

  Sixteen

  The cab dumps me in front of my building. I didn’t leave the lights on. The office windows are dark, and I walk upstairs in the dark to my dark apartment. The dark; it’s where I’m normal.

  I shed my sports coat, hat, tie, shirt, my outer skin, onto the couch. The skin bit is a metaphor, though sometimes I don’t know the difference. I don’t turn on a light until I enter the bathroom.

  I blink and adjust, which takes time. Everything has a price paid in time. I brush my teeth, and my visible world is still blurry, still fetal. Things take their shape and form, and I stop and stare at the face in the mirror. It’s the same jumbled one I had when I left. I could draw another picture.

  Further inventory: My wrists aren’t red or raw; they aren’t sore. No rubber bands. My belt is still buckled, and the button of my pants is still there. I can’t remember if that button was supposed to be there or not. Ain’t life a mystery? I decide to take a shower, even though I don’t think I need one.

  I turn on the water and let the steam billow and roll over the mirror glass. I slip off my shoes, kick them up against the back of the bathroom door. The heavy thud they make is deeply satisfying.

  Next come the pants, and I take them off like everyone else; they fall down in their hurry to meet the floor. I step out of them, my socks still on. There’s a rubber band around my left ankle. It’s so thin I don’t even feel it there. I reach down and take off the rubber band, then aim and shoot it at the steamed-up mirror. I catch it on the rebound and put it on my wrist. I’ve never done this before.

  Inside the shower, under falling water, I close my eyes and replay the end of the evening in Ekat’s apartment; the disjointed and fading scenes are still with me, those dream scenes that are both inspiring and frustrating. I’d try to convince myself that those scenes are enough for me, but I’m too tired. So tired that I can’t sleep.

  I dry off and collapse into my bed. Only problem is that my bed isn’t working. It has performance anxiety. No matter how much I flip and flop around, changing positions, I can’t get comfortable and I don’t sleep. I relocate to where I tend to spend most nights anyway, the couch. The couch doesn’t reject me even if I continue to callously scar it with cigarette burns.

  The cruelest irony of narcolepsy is that sleep won’t always be there when you need it. And so tonight, I briefly change identities. I’m my own odd couple. I’m Mr. Hyde’s Hyde. I’m the insomniac me, a completely irrational and infuriating being.

  I lie on the couch, thinking about everything, and hope a runaway train of thought will take me away like it usually does. I try to trigger and invite the narcoleptic symptoms against which I spend my days battling. Nothing works. I yawn and my eyes water and want to close but won’t. Sleep as the wish that won’t ever come true.

  I turn the TV on and off. Late-night talk shows do nothing for me, and the infomercials are more than depressing; they’re harbingers of the end. I’m on the couch and wide awake in America, where my every thought falls apart and dovetails into dire scenarios and conspiracies.

  The minutes and seconds are glaciers, but night eventually becomes morning. I’m witness to the painfully slow transformation. And my transformation back to the narcoleptic me is as painful. Not exactly a here-comes-the-sun moment. I know I’ll spend the rest of my day fighting and losing to the many-tentacled beast that is sleep.

  The sun is up, but it’s too early to do any real work. I try to watch the vapid a.m. morning news shows, but I nod off and wake up and nod off and rinse and repeat. Eventually, I detach from the couch, emerge from the cocoon, but I’m no butterfly. I apply coffee and cigarettes liberally before descending to my office. I check my messages and e-mails. There aren’t any. It’s too early to call Ekat, but I try Gus again. He’s a hard habit to break, and he doesn’t answer.

  I browse and read local news sites and blogs. The fire is still the lead, as are the puff pieces on Fred Carroll, the hero. Good for him. No named arson suspects yet, though one member of the Police Department who spoke on the condition of anonymity said a suspect was interviewed and released.

  There are more articles on Jody O’Malley and her troubles and history with the DSS. Her son is in critical but stable condition. There are op-ed pieces demanding renewed DSS oversight and regulation.

  And I almost miss it. There, on the Boston Herald’s site, is a link tucked away from the bright lights of the block letter, sans serif font of the lead headlines. A digital afterthought, an article on the fire’s lone fatality: Aleksandar Antonov, a Bulgarian man who had an expired work visa. In the opening sentence the Boston Herald describes the man as an illegal alien, of course. Journalism at its finest. His most recent employer, Financier CEO Wilkie Barrack, issued a statement via his lawyer saying that he and his staff mourn the loss of such a hardworking and good man. They empathize with Antonov’s friends and family, while Barrack regrets the innocent but unfortunate oversight of the expired visa. His personal employment practices are something he’ll attend to with greater vigilance in the future. Blah blah blah.

  I lean back in my chair, the jackpot almost too much to take in at once. My alien dream now has context. I slept and dreamed through Detective Owolewa’s a.m. interview, and he asked if I knew anything about the man who died on the first floor, Aleksandar Antonov, the erstwhile illegal alien, to quote the Herald. And the CEO is suddenly back in my life. The reappearance is ominous, unpredictable, a tornado warning.

  I search for more stories and find a blog linked to Nantucket’s Inquirer and Mirror newspaper. A former employer of Antonov’s, Midge Peterson, says that Aleksandar was her custodian for eleven summers. He was kind, friendly, and the victim of the current immigration squabble and impasse in Congress. Peterson, an owner of a small hotel on Nantucket, relies on seasonal employees from Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, and other countries to fill her summer needs, as do many of the local seasonal businesses. Congress has yet to renew the prog
ram that grants work visas to the large numbers of foreigners who enter the United States legally, so Peterson and the hundreds of other businesses have had to scramble to find employees. She’s running her hotel at only half the normal staff, and, consequently, at half capacity. Peterson lost contact with Aleksandar Antonov after he was denied his usual visa. She said Aleksandar, like most of the seasonal workers, could not accept an offer of H-2B status (and be allowed to stay continuously in the country for thirty-six months) as he had to go home every fall. Peterson is planning a fund-raiser to help Antonov’s family in Bulgaria.

  My to-do list is suddenly as tall as the Empire State Building. I guess that makes me the doomed giant ape with a cool name and no girlfriend.

  First, I call Midge Peterson’s hotel, but she’s not available and won’t be for a few days, so claims the clerk. I find an address for Jody O’Malley’s friend Rachel Stanton, the one she was with on the night of the fire. I let a call from Detective Owolewa ring out and go to voice mail. I find a phone number for O’Malley’s and Antonov’s landlord. She answers and tells me that Antonov was renting month-to-month, but she didn’t really know anything about him. I call Ekat. She’s at the gym and in midworkout on the elliptical. She hasn’t heard from Gus yet, and she’ll call me when she gets back. I try not to sound too desperate to hear her voice.

  I nap and smoke and make phone calls, and not in that order. Still, I’m on a roll—for me anyway—but I need to get out, move around, or I’ll lose the rest of the day to my fully fatigued system, and then I won’t be able to sleep again tonight. I stand up, stretch, try a couple jumping jacks, but they’re more like gyrating jacks.

  All right, before stepping out the door and making a little trip back to H Street, I commit to one more phone call.

  Timothy Carter answers after one ring and grunts his name. Someone’s tightly wound. Or just an asshole.

  “Timothy, your good friend Mark Genevich here.”

  “Oh, goody. I thought today couldn’t suck more balls than it already has. I was wrong. What do you want?”

  Charming. His voice jogs the too-clear memory of him strutting into my office wearing his two-month-salary suit, those big sunglasses, and his avarice. Carter oozes the same arrogance and privilege, even on the phone. I say, “World peace and just to hear your sweet, sweet voice. But what I really want is for you to pretend you’re human for a second, and tell me all you know about the unfortunate late Mr. Aleksandar Antonov.”

  “Why do you care about Mr. Antonov?”

  “I’m a people person. And I’ve been hired to investigate the fire that killed him.”

  There’s the briefest of pauses on his end. So brief that I might be imagining it. He says, “Mr. Barrack released a statement to the press concerning Mr. Antonov, and we’re fully cooperating with immigration officials.”

  I don’t say anything. Let’s see if it makes him uncomfortable. Let’s see if it makes him want to say something more.

  “Is that it, Mr. Genevich? I’ve got more important things to do, like clip my toenails.”

  “Ew. TMI, Carter. Though I am surprised you’d deign to even touch your toes, like the rest of us.”

  “What are you talking about? If you have something to say—”

  I interrupt, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I wave my hand in the air, even though he can’t see it. “I’ve been saying it, Carter, you’re just not listening. Don’t bust a pretty cuticle. A few more questions before you hang up in a tizzy. First, forgive the cliché, but I find it odd that our paths would cross again so soon.”

  “That’s not a question, Mr. Genevich.”

  “You’re right. How’s this: isn’t it odd that our paths…”

  “Very odd. Truly, a most unfortunate and cruel fate for me.”

  “Come on. It’s fun.”

  “Anything else? I’m giving you thirty more seconds of my time.” I know he wants to punctuate that statement with “which you can’t afford.”

  “Did you know Mr. Antonov?”

  “Not well, no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means he was summer help, a driver. We chatted, but never for long and nothing more than destination and directions. Nice guy. Always clean. English was good.”

  “That’s lovely, Carter. You should give his eulogy. So who hired him?”

  “I think I’m done with your shtick. Our statement to the press should be sufficient for your needs.”

  I haven’t even started my shtick yet. So I hit him with it. “Did you ever find out who the other Madison was in my surveillance photos?”

  “What? No. And why the fuck would I care? Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Have you found out, Mr. Screwup? Are you daring me to sue you, Mr. Genevich?” He’s shouting. His words are clumsy, have two left feet. The earlier pause might’ve been an audio mirage, but this is legit. He’s way past the city limits of annoyed and entering bothered and concerned.

  Something’s going on here, so I’m going to push him some more. Keep jabbing him in the chest with my big fucking finger. I say, “I’m triple-dog daring you to sue me, Carter.”

  Carter laughs, an ugly sound, capable of killing flowers and other pretty things. “As you wish, Mr. Genevich. Expect some paperwork within a week.”

  “Fuck you, too.”

  I hang up and stomp over to the coat rack by the door. I want to pick it up and break it over my knee, but it’s a good coat rack, loyal like my couch. I spin it, instead, and watch my sports coat billow out toward me. My anger feels good and the temporary adrenaline rush feeds my energy-starved furnace, but I have to be careful to not overload. Mine’s an ecosystem always at the tipping point.

  It’s pushing the midnineties again out there, so I’m going to H Street sans jacket. I adjust my hat and tie, roll up my sleeves. I say to the rack, “He’s bluffing about suing. I know he is.”

  The coat rack, smartly, doesn’t say a thing back.

  Seventeen

  It’s worse than I thought it would be out here. There’s no breeze even though I’m only a half mile from the water, and the sun glowers down at the city like it has a vendetta. It’s too goddamn hot for the old door-to-door, so I head directly to Rachel Stanton’s apartment. Her place is down the hill and about a block and a half away from the fire.

  The two-story town house fits in with the other houses in her row like a Lego piece. Its exterior is light gray with white trim; both could use a fresh coat. A rusty, waist-high, chain-link fence carves out a small rectangular alley with its garbage cans and debris. Tufts of yellow and dead grass vainly poke through the cracked pavement and have nowhere to go.

  I buzz the second-floor apartment, and a familiar woman opens the front door to the building. She’s the scarecrow I saw the night of the fire, the one who grabbed me and begged me to save the kid on the second floor. Maybe I should tell her that I did save him, and then she’d trust me. Or, like the cops who don’t believe me, she’d want nothing to do with me.

  She says, “Hi,” and it’s clear she recognizes me too. I’m just so memorable.

  I extend my hand and say, “Hi, I’m Mark Genevich, private investigator. Are you Rachel Stanton?”

  Rachel has dyed black hair, chop-cut short to uneven length. Thick black mascara rims her paperweight eyes, which are sunk deep into her face. Her look comes from so far away, it might get lost. Dim lights in a cave. She’s wearing a tight black, logoless T-shirt, gray jeans, and large black plugs in her earlobes. She says, “What’s this about?” The black plugs stretching out her flesh are the monstrous periods of leviathan sentences.

  “I’m working on my own search for the arsonist who set your friend Jody O’Malley’s building on fire. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  Rachel is too skinny. She could use a sandwich. Instead she folds her pale arms over her thin chest and she chews on a fingernail. “Jody is here. Upstairs. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone.” Rachel is a recording. No inflection, no life, all static. I wonder
if she’s on something right now, or maybe she’s just sleepwalking through this.

  I hoped and had a hunch that Jody would be here, but fear of success fills my gut with poisonous winged insects, too ugly to be butterflies. I say, “Can I come in? I think you and she and we know some of the same people. I want to make sure I have all the dancing partners straight.”

  Rachel doesn’t say anything. I’m greedy, and asking to see Jody is too much. She unfolds her pop-up-book arms and is going to shut the door on me. But she doesn’t. She hides her hands in her pockets, which is a neat trick, because I thought the jeans were too tight for empty pockets.

  “I won’t say anything to upset Jody. I want to help.”

  Rachel’s bony-shouldered shrug is an anatomy lesson. She turns and walks up the white stairs without me but doesn’t shut the front door. Follow the leader.

  I need to acknowledge my entrance. I say to her back, “Are you doing okay?”

  Rachel doesn’t turn around. The plugs shake her ears like little earthquakes. “I’ve been better.”

  She waits for me on the second-floor landing, and her hands are rocks in those pockets, all inert. The walk up the stairs leaves me winded and tired, my legs heavy and outmoded machinery that I shouldn’t be operating.

  I hear the TV through the closed apartment door. If it isn’t turned up as loud as it can go, it’s at least turned to eleven. People talk and yell, begging for attention and self-worth, in their tinny, one-speaker voices, and a crowd cheers and jeers, filling the background with American white noise.

  Rachel says, “Don’t step on anything,” and opens the door, then slides inside and ahead of me, moving like a river. A blast of air-conditioning is a welcome temporary respite from the heat. The TV goes quiet, but I know the quiet won’t last. I’m right. Their quick and harsh whispers fill the void. I shut the door, its ability to mark boundaries suddenly very questionable.

  The apartment is in a state of recent neglect. The hardwood floors and various pieces of furniture support only a few days’ worth of laundry, magazines, dirty dishes, take-out food bags and cardboard containers.