The Devil in Silver

Pepper hadn’t realized he’d stepped backward until he was beside Redhead Kingpin, and the Haint, and Wally Gambino. Those three were holding hands. Pepper joined in.

“Don’t hide now,” Mr. Mack taunted the darkness. “Don’t run.”

No movements inside the doorway. No sounds. This made Mr. Mack feel bolder. He took a step toward the open doorway, the darkened room.

“Wait.” One of Mr. Mack’s group called out to him. Hard to tell which one. That one seemed to be speaking for all of them. And even for the other four, watching from farther back.

Another step.

Wait.

But the caution of the others only fueled Mr. Mack’s brashness. One more step and his foot passed through the doorway.

Then Mr. Mack lost his balance. He fell, headfirst, into the shadows. He didn’t even yelp when he fell.

Mr. Mack was there and then he wasn’t.

Everyone, all nine of them, just stood there, dumbstruck.

Wally Gambino was the first to break the silence.

He laughed.

And not a little laugh, either. A real gut-buster. He had to let go of the Haint’s hand. He leaned forward with his hands on his thighs for balance. And he kept on laughing.

“Old boy took a lump,” Wally shouted.

And that was that. The cloud that had been hanging over all of them parted. The others didn’t laugh, not at all, but they’d all been teetering over a precipice just then. Wally Gambino’s utterly inappropriate reaction bonked them from that edge.

“Be quiet,” Pepper said, after a moment. “Listen.”

They heard this low, insistent huffing coming from the darkened doorway. As a group they moved closer. The ones at the front had the good sense to brace their hands against the door frame to keep from falling in, too.

“Mr. Mack?” Pepper called.

The huffing sound rose again. Its pace quickened but then slowed. A deep breath taken. “I landed hard,” a weak voice said. “On my leg.”

The huffing again. Then a crinkling noise, hard to place.

“What’s that other sound?” Pepper asked.

The same thing—huffing speeding up, then slowing down. A deep breath.

“I landed in a pile of plastic,” Mr. Mack said.

“Plastic?” Doris Roberts asked.

“Wrappers,” Mr. Mack grunted. “From those goddamn cookies they’re always giving us. Got to be thousands in here.”

“That’s probably what broke your fall,” Pepper said.

Pepper remembered Dorry tucking those cookies into her lap at every meal. She must’ve been bringing them to the Devil for years. Of course the Devil would like them, they were as vile as he was.

“How far down are you?” Doris Roberts asked.

“About ten feet, I think.”

Mr. Mack had fallen to the first floor.

New Hyde Hospital, in its relentless penny-pinching, had indeed repurposed a stairwell and made it into a room. When they’d closed off the second floor, they’d seen that this stairwell would essentially go to waste. (There was a main stairwell already, on the other side of the secure door.) And they needed a room where a violent patient could be kept. Now contrary to most news reports—and the storylines of commercial television and movies—the vast majority of mentally ill people weren’t remotely violent. If they hurt anyone it was usually themselves. But it was true that a very small number of mentally ill patients did cause others harm. For those patients, it was necessary to have a room where they could be sequestered. In the case of Northwest, that would’ve meant constructing a reinforced room. And do you know what that costs? Much more than New Hyde Hospital was willing to spend. But they were already repurposing so much of the building for its transition into a psychiatric unit, so why not be creative. Someone who worked with the board (it was actually that legal rep guy who’d used an iPad at Pepper’s meeting after Coffee’s death), suggested that a concrete stairwell could serve their needs as a holding room for any violent patient. The space already had a stainless-steel door, much more resilient than wood, and the walls were reinforced as per the fire code. All New Hyde had to do was remove the stairs. As simple as pulling teeth. Then they’d have one secure room, as legal standards demanded.

“Do you want us to try and get you out?” Pepper asked.

They listened to the huffing and let it play out its natural rise and fall. But after the inhalation of breath, there was no response.

“Mr. Mack?” Doris Roberts called.

“I’m not down here alone,” he finally said.

They heard shuffling. Then a hard clopping on the concrete floor. Then a deep inhalation followed by a short puff of air, like a bodybuilder lifting a great weight up over his head. A moment after that, a heavy whomp, like a fully packed suitcase being slammed to the floor.

A moment after that, Mr. Mack whimpered softly.

Then in the dark, the Devil inhaled deeply again, lifted the old man up with a short puff of air. And again, the heavy whomp of Mr. Mack’s body hitting the floor. Mr. Mack whimpered once more.

“Stop it!” one of them up on the second floor landing shouted.

“Please,” another said.

“Why won’t you leave us alone?”