Glass Houses(20)

Now he sat forward abruptly and turned the television off. He couldn’t go on like this. Whether Henry Tyder was the real thing or a sham, Dennis himself was going to have to do something to resolve his own situation, and do it soon. It was too dangerous to keep the damned thing around the office, even if they hadn’t found it the first time. It was too dangerous to go on hiding himself from clients and friends, too. Eventually, the business would drop off, as if it hadn’t already done it.

He made up his mind. The door to his office was locked. He’d been locking it automatically all morning and trying not to think of what Alexander was making of that. He got up and went to the closet. The closet was used to keep records these days, not clothes, but it was a walk-in and big enough to use for another room, if it had only had some kind of ventilation. He went to the back of the closet, to the place on the wall where there was what looked like a heating vent that had been blocked up. They had taken that off the wall when they searched. They had pulled up the carpets, too. Where did they learn to do these things?

There were two tall cabinets in the back, one of metal, one of wood. Neither of them held files. All the files were on computers now. He went to the wood one and pulled it away from the wall. He shoved it until it was standing just a little sideways to the wray it had been. The wood cabinet had belonged to his father. He had no idea why he still had it. He had never particularly liked his father. He got down on his knees and ran his hand against the place where two pieces of wood met at the bottom. He rubbed and rubbed until he felt the upper one pop. Then he used his fingernails to pry it out. He was worse than sweating now. His bowels had gone liquid and his head was pounding. He got the cell phone out and held it in the palm of his hand.

There were two things he couldn’t allow himself to forget about this hiding place. First, that it had been a good idea because it had worked. The police had torn the office apart. They’d gone through all the files. They’d turned the furniture upside down. They hadn’t found a thing. Second, that if the police ever did find the cell phone in that particular place, his life would be over. There would be no way to claim that he “didn’t really” know the cell phone was there, or that it belonged to somebody else, or that it had been dropped by a client.

He got the wood pieces back in place and then put the cabinet back in place, too. He went out into his office proper and sat down at his desk. He had no need to be this frightened. Even if the Henry Tyder confession was a sham, the police wouldn’t pounce before he’d actually done something to make it worth their while. He opened the cell phone and began punching buttons. Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. It needed to be charged. It had probably needed to be charged for weeks.

Dennis had gone beyond feeling sick. He was hyperventilating. All he needed to do was to have a heart attack now, here, with the door to the office locked. They probably wouldn’t get to him on time. They probably wouldn’t even realize he needed to be got to. Or, something worse, they would find him alive and find the extra cell phone on him and charge it up and see what was on it. Could they do that? Would the material he’d downloaded from the Internet still be on the phone after all this time? He wished he knew more about computers. Part of him was convinced that every single thing he’d downloaded would be ready and waiting for the police as soon as they wanted to access it, but not available to him because he wouldn’t know how to get to it. He wanted to get out into the air. He wanted to go downtown and find something, find someone, find a place to be.

He managed to get himself to stop shaking. There was nothing he could do about the state of his clothes. Sweat was sweat. It seeped into everything and made it wet. He made sure the cell phone was tucked away in his inside jacket pocket. He could recharge it when he got home. He didn’t want to do it here. He wondered what it would be like to be able to have it again. It gave him the ability put his hand out and touch soft, uncorrupted flesh. He wanted to see himself in the eyes of a boy who thought he was God. He wanted to be God, if only for a day. He would change everything.

He got his briefcase up off the floor, put it on the desk, and opened it. There was a little pile of paper inside, but nothing he recognized, and nothing he cared about. It didn’t matter. He closed the case and made sure it locked. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, hoping that he wouldn’t have to make a mad dash for the bathroom. It wasn’t fair. What Alexander was, that was a perversion. Grown men with grown men. Grown men coupled with grown women. That was evolution in action. That was the way the way the human race made babies. That was how we continued ourselves. What he did was not like that. It was not about sex. What he did, what he wanted, that was spiritual.