The Ascent(92)

Something caused me to shiver. I turned around on my stool and looked toward the rear of the bar, straight at the booth where, roughly two and a half years ago now, I’d run into Andrew Trumbauer. What I’d written off as nothing more than a serendipitous meeting was now overshadowed by everything I’d come to know about Andrew. How long had it taken him to find me? How many days had he followed me? Had he been following me straight to the Filibuster? The notion caused my hands to go numb; I set my glass of Diet Coke on the bar before I dropped it.

The booth was currently empty, but if I concentrated hard enough, I could visualize what Andrew had looked like that evening when he’d locked eyes with me from across the room. The way he’d lit a cigarette and grinned at the corner of his mouth, that sly, knowing grin, that perfect Andrew grin …

Then, for no longer than a heartbeat, Hannah appeared in the corner of the bar. She was nude and glistening as if covered by tiny beads of ice, her skin nearly blue, her lips colorless. She was half shaded in gloom, so I couldn’t make out her expression, yet I could see the gleam of her eyes through the shadows. They were wide, staring, heartbreaking eyes.

A hand fell on my shoulder. My heart seized; instantly, I was back on Godesh Ridge, trying to plug up a weeping wound in my abdomen before I bled out into the snow.

“You sure you’re all right?” It was Ricky. “You look like you’re ready to pass out, man.”

I waved him off. “No, no—I’m okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” It had been a year since I’d last seen Hannah’s ghost in Nepal on the Godesh Ridge.

“It’s just, I mean, you look spooked.”

“Forget it, Ricky. Just gimme the check, huh?”

I paid the bill and shoved out into the cool night, positive young Ricky’s eyes followed me all the way out the door.

5



PUSHING OPEN THE DOOR TO MY APARTMENT. I

was immediately overcome by a cold breeze. I closed the door behind me and groped for the light switch. I flicked the switch, but the light didn’t turn on. Across the room, the curtains over the balcony doors billowed out. The doors were open.

“Marta?” I called. She was supposed to be at her place tonight, but maybe she’d changed her mind.

I took a step into the room toward the lamp on the end table when movement caught my eye. I froze. Someone was standing in a darkened corner, partially obscured by the billowing curtain. “Who’s there?” My voice was nothing more than a whisper. “Hello, Tim.” It was Andrew. He stepped out from the corner, briefly silhouetted before the panel of light coming through the open balcony doors.

“Jesus—Andrew?” I couldn’t fathom it. “How did you …? What are you …?”

“Been a while, Overleigh. Been about a year since we last … tangoed.” “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“So are you,” he said and took a step forward. Moonlight washed across a distorted, lumpy face, tracked by numerous scars and dents. He shuffled forward with a limp.

“You went over the edge,” I breathed. “I saw you.” “Yes.” His voice was gravelly, injured. “It was quite a drop. I’ll probably never know exactly how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up, the pain … oh, the pain was exquisite. I wished death upon me countless times, but it never came. And soon I realized I had to take things into my own hands.” His hideous, broken face grinned.

His teeth were chiseled pickets filed to points. “Just like always, I had to take things into my own hands.”

I backed up against the door. I could taste bile at the rear of my throat.

“They did the best they could, but what can you expect from a bunch of Tibetan monks?” He laughed. It sounded like a box of glass shaken, shaken, shaken.

“Petras,” I uttered. “You killed John Petras.”

“Shhh.” He brought one crooked finger up to his disfigured lips. Another step closer and I could see one of his eyes was partially swollen, his forehead a mountainous terrain of peaks and valleys.

“Why Petras?” I wanted to know. “I’ve already figured much of it out but not Petras. He was a good man. What’d he ever do to you?”

Andrew’s lower lip dropped—a grotesque expression of awe, which slowly curled into his hideous trademark grin. “You mean you two imbeciles never figured it out?”

“Figured what out?”

“You never recognized each other?” He snickered, a ticking time-bomb sound.

“What are you talking about?”

“John Petras is the reason you were on that mountain. If it wasn’t for Petras, you would have died in the desert after crawling out of that cave, and none of this would have ever happened to you. Driver finds unidentified injured man unconscious by the side of the road. Something like that, anyway. Forgive me, but I don’t remember the newspaper article verbatim.”

“Petras … Petras was the one who … who found me …?”

“I guess I can understand how you two never put it together. After all, it was quite a while ago. You were going through your longhair stage, too, if I remember correctly.”

I couldn’t respond. My mind was reeling.

“See, it was John Petras’s own fault for stepping in and redirecting