by Jeff Noon
Where was it leading to?
He turned back to the room. Zelda was standing there, looking at him. She was waiting for something to happen.
“What’s your back story?” he asked.
“My what?”
“Isn’t that what they say around here?”
“Sure, sure it is.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
She held her hand around her body for comfort. “Wellborn picked me up on a corner. About a month ago.”
“Had you met him before?”
“No. That was our first time together.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“What are you, some kind of peeping tom?”
“A private eye.”
“Same species, different family.” She gave a little smile as she said this, as though she knew him already, his failures, his needs.
He asked, “So he took you somewhere?”
“We went to a hotel.”
“Keep going. What next?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“We did the business, of course. What is it with you?”
Nyquist’s face screwed up. “I’m trying to work out why he attacked me, with a knife.”
“A knife? You never said…”
“There it is. Maybe I did you a favor.”
“You mean… it could’ve been…”
“Sure, why not. He needed a victim.”
Zelda bit her lip. She looked anguished. “OK then, here’s the deal. I didn’t see him after that for a week or so, and then we met up again. But he’d changed.”
“In what way?”
She hesitated. “He was… well, he was strange. Driven, taken over.”
“Like an addict?”
“I thought that. But it wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before. He wasn’t skittery, or sweaty. He was just… pure. Whatever it was that had taken him over, he was enjoying it. But he was scared at the same time. Something was bothering him. Oh, I can’t explain it.”
“Did he bring you here, to Melville?”
“Only tonight.” Zelda sat down on the bed. “He gave me the address, and the date and the time. It was prearranged. But he was late, see. That’s why I had a little drink. He was an hour late.”
“But then he turned up?” Nyquist asked.
“He did. I thought he’d want to get down to business right away, but I could tell he wasn’t in the proper mood. He was more agitated this time. I think he was scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know, but he was pacing the room back and forth like an animal caught in a trap. And then he left.”
“Did he tell you where he was going?”
“No, but that he’d back in a short while, and that I was to wait for him here.”
Nyquist thought for a moment. “Did he take anything with him?”
“Not that I could see, no.”
“What then?”
“What then? Well, nothing. I had another wee drink.”
“And then I turn up?”
“That’s right, and now you’re telling me you’ve killed him. I mean to say, this is getting out of hand. This is not the kind of affair I like to get involved in, not at all.”
“What about the times before?”
“What about them?”
“Anything at all. Tell me who he is. What did you talk about?”
“Oh, the usual. What we thought of the latest big stories, and so on. He’d had trouble at work, I knew that.”
Nyquist had never seen Wellborn go to any place of work, not on any of the days he’d followed him.
“Where did he work, any idea?”
Zelda shrugged. “He never told me. But he’d left there recently. Maybe he was sacked, I don’t know.”
Nyquist nodded and he cursed the job he’d been given, and his reasons for taking it on, pure poverty, boredom, the need to get out of the office before he went stir crazy. He should’ve asked the agency for more information. He should have realized that all was not clear.
Zelda looked concerned. “Look, mister. You’re absolutely sure that he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“I mean, you checked, and all?”
“He was dead.”
“He wasn’t breathing? You felt for a pulse?”
“I didn’t need to.”
“Oh bloody hell. You see, now we have to go in there and make sure. Well, you do, anyway. I’m not looking at some poor bugger with his head caved in, no thank you.”
Nyquist closed his eyes. For a moment he felt again his hands around the man’s neck, the shuddering impact of the skull against the wall transferred through the man’s body, to Nyquist’s wrists, to his brain. He’d felt the force of life leaving his attacker.
Nyquist looked at Zelda and asked, “Did Wellborn mention any other people to you, friends, colleagues, family? Any names?”
“No, nothing.”
She fell silent. He did the same. She was looking at him eagerly.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I need my money.”
“You want paying?”
“Didn’t you take Patrick’s wallet?”
“No, it’s next to the body.”
“Well, I need paying.”
“Didn’t he pay you before, at the start?”
“Of course. But I need more now, don’t you see? Danger money.”
He stared at her.
“Oh, don’t give me that look! I’m involved in a murder. I’m one of those accessories, like in the movies – before and after the fact.”
She started to search through the bedclothes.
“I’ve lost an earring.”
“I think you should leave here, Zelda. Run. As fast as you can, and get as far away as possible.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“I always worry,” she said. “It’s part of my job.”
He looked at her closely for the first time. He saw the beauty hidden away, and the tenderness, the inner need. He saw the sparkle in her eyes, almost lost, almost darkened, but not quite, not yet. He saw the loving nature, still there, held deep. And most of all he saw the loneliness. It matched his own. They had both given their best years to a dirty, thankless but necessary task. And now very little remained that was good.
His left arm was hurting. He could feel the blood soaking through the flannel under his jacket sleeve.
Drop by drop, goodness drained away. That was the fact.
He had a sudden urge to hold the woman, Zelda: to take her in his arms, to exchange some kind of comfort in the night, in the hot, drowsy, feverish, blood-stained, story-filled night. It would offer proof of life, to counterbalance the death.
But he kept his distance. “Have you got any pills?” he asked.
“What kind are you looking for?”
“Something to take the pain away.”
She rummaged through her handbag. “I’ll get you some water.”
He looked at the floor, at the emptied-out contents of Wellborn’s suitcase. The clothes, the razor and shaving soap, handkerchiefs, a bottle of cologne, the paperback novel. A thought came to him: this was a strange place to do business with a prostitute, this abandoned tower block.
Zelda returned from the bathroom with a tumbler of water and a couple of tablets. He took them and drank them down.
“Where does it hurt?” she asked.
“Everywhere.”
“Pinpoint it, why don’t you?”
“My arm.”
“Let me have a look at it for you.”
But he moved away from her touch and settled in the chair.
“Play the moody one then, see how far it gets you.”
He took the folded piece of paper from his pocket and stared at the lines of text on it, some of them typed, others written out by hand. The sentences were jagged, as though they’d been cut into fragments.
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“Did you see Wellborn reading this?” he asked. “It’s a letter, maybe. Or a page from a manuscript, a novel.”
Zelda didn’t respond, not in words. But her features were contorted: was it fear they held, or something else, something more desperate, passionate even?
“Do you know about this, Zelda?”
She shook her head.
He could tell that she wasn’t being completely truthful. Again, his eyes scanned the page and this time a word jumped out at him: Wellborn. The man’s full name was written there: Patrick Wellborn. Now why should that be? Perhaps it wasn’t a novel, or not purely fictional: the real world infiltrated the story in some way. He read on a little further and found a phrase he could make out clearly amid the jumble: He told a crooked story. It brought back a memory: the boy in the elevator who had directed him towards apartment 67.
“None of it makes sense,” he said. “How can anyone read this?”
Zelda came close. “Let me see.”
But her words were cut short as the doorbell rang.
One Voice Among Many
NYQUIST HELD her back. He put a finger to his lips. Zelda’s eyes widened as she looked first at him and then at the open door of the bedroom, as though expecting someone to walk in at any moment. Nyquist hurried into the hallway and then stopped. The bell rang a second time. And then a fist banged on the door.
A man’s voice called out: “Wellborn? Did you bring the woman? Are you in there?”
Zelda stood just behind Nyquist. He could hear her breathing cease.
The fist rapped again. “Wellborn! Come on, open up. Dreylock wants a word, there’s a good fellow.” It sounded like a threat.
Another knock, even louder this time.
Then silence.
Dreylock? Nyquist committed the name to memory. He walked to the door and listened closely: people were talking to each other, the words unheard. And then footsteps moving away. He peered through the peephole and then waited a while longer. He opened the door as quietly as he could.
Behind him he heard Zelda whisper, “What are you doing?”
He peeked out and saw a group of people walking away, two men and a woman. They stopped further down the corridor at the door of apartment 67, where they appeared to be in conversation. One of the men had a key; he used it to open the door and all three went inside. Now the corridor was empty.
Nyquist had to make a decision. The door to the stairwell wasn’t too far away. He turned back to Zelda and said, “Come on, I think you should follow me.”
“Oh you do, do you?”
“They mentioned a woman. I presume that’s you.”
“Like I’m the only one in the world, you mean?”
“You want to take a chance?”
“Maybe I should. Maybe I’d be worse off with you.”
“They’re going to find Wellborn’s body.”
He slipped out of the apartment and walked the short distance to the stairwell door. He started down, taking the steps two at a time.
“Wait for me.”
Zelda caught up with him. They passed the door to the floor below and carried on down. A noise rattled down the stairwell after them, the sound of feet pounding on the steps. He could feel the metal framework vibrating. Voices echoed against the peeling walls.
Zelda cried out, “They’re after us. This way.”
“No, we carry on down. The ground floor. Outside.”
But she insisted. “We’ll never make it that far.”
Zelda led the way through the door to the next floor down and together they ran along the corridor until they reached the elevator. She pressed at the button over and over, but the car was in use: the indicator light showed it was stuck on a higher floor. Nyquist looked back to see that the corridor was still empty: the pursuers had not yet reached this floor, or else they had moved further down, not realizing. He looked back to see that Zelda had already moved on, away from the stairs, past one closed door after another.
“In here!” she said.
There was a door a few feet away that looked to be partway open. She went to it and urged Nyquist to follow. He did so and she closed the door behind them.
Here they waited in the dark.
And waited, his hand on her shoulder, his other hand at her side. He held her like that and felt that he was being held in turn, by her, her hands mirroring his in their positioning on his body, as though they were about to start waltzing. But they stood where they were, staring at each other. Zelda’s eyes were wide and glinting and fearful, and Nyquist imagined his must look the same. Or worse.
In the dark.
In the silence.
In the silent dark of the hallway they waited, close together.
Her breath, his breath, coinciding.
In the dark.
Footsteps from outside, and the sound of talking. Nyquist had the feeling it was them, the group of three. Patrick Wellborn’s friends or colleagues; or his enemies. It didn’t matter which – Nyquist was prey, their quest, and he didn’t know why. They probably blamed him for killing Wellborn, that’s all he could imagine.
Zelda pressed tighter to him.
The warmth of her skin: it was a balm against fear.
All was quiet now, so they released each other from their embrace. Nyquist dragged the bolts across on the door, one at the top, one at the bottom. Zelda clicked the switch in the living room, while he checked the bathroom and the bedroom: all empty, all dark, no lights working.
“This must be an empty apartment,” he said, keeping his voice quiet.
“A lot of them are empty, I think.”
They were standing in the living room. She tried the shaded desk lamp: it worked, giving out a small cone of yellow light.
“That’s better.”
“Tell me who Dreylock is,” he said.
“Who?”
“You’ve never heard the name?” Zelda shook her head. “The guy at the door shouted it. They wanted Wellborn to come out and meet Dreylock.”
“I didn’t hear. I was too shivery.”
Nyquist took steady breaths, trying to calm himself.
“I don’t know anyone here,” she added. “I took the elevator to the apartment Wellborn told me about, and that was it. I didn’t see anybody.” Her eyes blinked a few times. “This is block five of Melville Towers. You know it’s meant to be a bad place, haunted or something. People warn you about it.”
“But you came here to meet Wellborn? Why?”
“Oh, I get asked to go all over. I’m used to it. And he was offering good money. Real good. And you’d be surprised what some men find exciting.”
Nyquist frowned. There was something about this woman that didn’t quite add up: he couldn’t tell if she was telling a true story, or a made-up tale. Maybe that came with her job. He asked, “You’ve never brought any other clients here?”
“Clients?”
“Johns. Tricks. Whatever you call them.”
Zelda clicked her fingers. “Clients, indeed! Cheek. What do you think I am, a service agency?” She’d found a drinks cabinet and was busy selecting a bottle in the dim light. “I call them my lovers, actually.”
Nyquist heard the twist of a screwtop cap and then the glug of a drink being poured. The sound made his lips water, but he needed to resist temptation, at least until he was out of this place. Zelda sat down in an armchair. He just stood there a while longer, listening. There was nothing to hear, only the woman’s teeth clacking gently against the glass now and then and the sound of the drink going down her throat.
He sat at the dining table, close to the lamp. “What are you drinking?”
“Gin. Do you want one?”
“No.”
He leaned back in the chair and tried to relax a little. His body was numb, his arm was throbbing just beneath the veil of the painkillers: it was a predator lying in wait, just around the corner in the shadows. And the more he relaxed, the more he was aware of a noise in his head, subdued, but
there: a constant ringing tone. He imagined a violinist’s bow being scraped across the rim of a high-pitched bell.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said.
She poured him a drink and came over and handed it to him. He took a sip.
“Take your jacket off for me.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He removed his jacket and let Zelda roll up his shirt sleeve for him until the flannel was revealed, already soaked in blood. Gently she undid this. The wound was exposed.
“Don’t move a muscle,” she said.
“I won’t.”
She got up and left the room. It was strange, how alone he suddenly felt, in her absence. The night had been cut up into pieces, sliced by a blade into strips, and then glued back together in the wrong order. Fragments were missing. This is what he felt. Nyquist was bereft, and completely at the night’s mercy. And then Zelda came back into the room, carrying a fresh flannel, a bowl of water and a piece of white cloth. She washed his arm with hot water and then dabbed at it with disinfectant. Then she wrapped it in the cloth, a large white handkerchief, making an excellent bandage of it. “I found this in a drawer in the bedroom, and the disinfectant in the bathroom.”
It was soothing. “You’ve done this before,” he said.
“Needs must.” She tied a knot in the makeshift bandage. “There you are. That should keep you going.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Her next words surprised him. They shouldn’t have, not really, for they were often heard in Storyville, a common question to ask of someone, even of strangers.
“Have you written anything of your own?”
He admitted to his sins. “I’m trying to. But the words keep stopping mid flow.”
“Oh, that’s normal.”
“Is it?”
“Let it be. Keep on. Keep writing. That’s what I was taught at school.”
“The letter X is broken on my typewriter.”
“Well don’t use any words with X in then. That’s easy.”
“Everyone tells me it’s important, an important letter.”
“For the kiss at the bottom of a letter? Or like XXX, adult rated?”