Free The Glass House by David Rotenberg Page B

answered—just that odd hum. When she tried again there was no dial tone on her phone.

12
A TAPE OF MARTIN ARMISTAAD
    â€œTURN LEFT,” YSLAN SAID.
    â€œGeorgetown’s to the right,” Emerson said.
    â€œI want to see Harrison before I see his house.”
    Emerson turned left. Yslan sat back and switched on her iPad.
    â€œWhatcha’ gonna watch? Cat videos?”
    She shot him a look. “How far to the hospital?”
    Emerson’s deep grey eyes turned to her. “It’s a long-term facility, not a hospital.”
    Yslan pulled herself away from the depths of his eyes. “Already? Already they moved him?”
    â€œApparently he didn’t warrant the expense of a hospital bed.”
    â€œBut they need to do tests.”
    â€œThey’ve done the tests. They’re stumped.”
    Yslan smacked her palm against the window. “How long?”
    â€œTill we get there?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œTen minutes or an hour.”
    â€œWhat—”
    â€œD.C. traffic, ten minutes or an hour.” He shrugged.
    Yslan turned back to her iPad and summoned up the last prison shots of Martin Armistaad. They’d been taken two days before his unexpected release. He was smiling, clearly knowing he wasbeing photographed. His teeth were surprisingly good for a convict six years into his sentence. She saved the pictures in a file of their own, then switched to the video of her last interview with the man—and hit play. She braced herself. Before his arrest Mr. Armistaad was number one on her Gifted file. She had met him twice before his incarceration and had thought of him as a vital, and charismatic, if eccentric, individual.
    But the creature on the video who ambled into the prison interview room appeared to be nothing more than a thin, balding man with a greying beard and a vicious case of psoriasis that coated his left arm and shoulder and reached up to his cheek.
    â€œThank you for seeing me, Mr. Armistaad,” she heard herself say.
    She steadied the tablet on her lap and activated the split-screen function.
    The man across the table from her sat and hung his head. He scratched a red patch on his flabby left forearm, and it extruded a yellowish fluid.
    â€œI know you didn’t have to agree to this meeting, sir.” She remembered feeling queasy then. Now she just wanted to vomit.
    Armistaad said nothing.
    Finally Yslan asked, “How’s the food in this joint?”
    With his head still hung low Armistaad said, “The restaurant leaves something to be desired, but if you’re really bad you get room service, so . . .” Armistaad allowed his remarkably light voice to trail off as he raised his eyes to meet Yslan’s. “Pretty eyes,” he said, then corrected himself: “hider’s eyes.” His voice was deepening, no longer light. His head no longer down but rather held proudly.
    Yslan watched herself do her best not to be repulsed. And although she obviously wanted to deny this man a view of her eyes she remained facing him straight on.
    â€œYou don’t know, do you, Special Agent Yslan Hicks?”
    â€œKnow what, Mr. Armistaad?”
    He winked at her then said, “About the clearing.”
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œNothing. Nothing that I could tell you. Something you’ll just have to figure out for yourself.” Before she could respond, he added, “So what do you say we start again. You pretend that I didn’t have to agree to this meeting—I believe we were at that lie, weren’t we?”
    The man’s eyes blazed. The old magnetism was back in full force.
    Armistaad reminded her of Hannibal Lecter, but she dismissed the thought, reminding herself that Hannibal Lecter was a fiction. Then she stopped herself from such sophistry—the man on the iPad screen was as otherworldly as Thomas Harris’s nightmare creation. And he clearly knew it.
    For a moment she wished that