The Dead of Winter

by William H Hallahan

  “Yeah. Read the next name.”

  They read the names antiphonically to the bottom of the second column.

  “It’s six minutes of,” said Lyons.

  “O.K. Hang up. Then call Tyler. I’ll wait.”

  Lyons pushed the circuit button down, then dialed Tyler’s number. He answered on the first ring.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s me. Lyons.”

  “It happened! Someone rang my phone at quarter of on the nose and hung up. Were you talking to Basche?”

  “Yeah. Names from the phone book.”

  “That proves it. Someone is needling us. Let me call Basche and I’ll call you back later.”

  Lyons hung up and went back to his foot locker.

  It was exactly midnight when the phone rang again. Lyons picked it up and waited. There was no voice. Just an open line. Lyons waited. The line remained open. It stayed open for a full minute. Then it clicked and the line was dead.

  Four hours and fifty-nine minutes to go.

  At ten after twelve the phone rang.

  “It’s me. Joey. Listen, I just talked with Roger. We figure this guy is trying to stampede us into each other’s arms here like three monkeys in a cage. We both agree we should stay apart until morning, then we can meet and plan our next move.”

  “You figure he can’t get you as long as you stay in your apartment. Is that it?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. If he can get us running, he can tag us.”

  “Were you talking to Roger at exactly midnight?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve been talking to him since I last talked to you. Why? You got a phone call, huh?”

  “Yep. At exactly midnight.”

  “Well, how much more proof do you need?”

  “I don’t need any. Remember, it was you and I who were trying to convince Roger. He thought I was the guy who sanded the floor up there.”

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t think he’s entirely convinced yet, but these phone calls we’ve been getting have him thinking. He knows something’s going on.”

  “That’s exactly what our friend wants him to think,” said Lyons. “We’ve got a tense little triangle here, and this guy figures he can crack it by creating fear and distrust.”

  “O.K. That’s right. But what about our little phone operation? It proved that it’s none of the three of us.”

  “Let’s see how that sets with Basche,” said Lyons.

  “O.K. We need a plan for the rest of the night,” said Tyler.

  Lyons sighed. “We need more than that. We need a plan to find out who’s after us.”

  “O.K. What?”

  Lyons considered for a moment. “I don’t know offhand. Let me think about it.”

  “O.K. In the meantime, I’m going to call you and Roger every half hour for the rest of the night.”

  “I have a better idea. Let’s not answer the phone for the rest of the night.”

  “You mean at all?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Interesting. That way, our friend won’t know if we’re home or not or what we’re up to. Hmmm. O.K. You have a deal. I’ll tell Roger. And I’ll call you—let’s see. How about seven?”

  “Deal.”

  “Ciao. Sleep tight.”

  Lyons resumed packing.

  He looked at the clock at twelve-thirty. Four hours and thirty minutes to go. Two hundred and seventy minutes. He closed the foot locker and latched the metal clamps that held it shut. He packed the two-suiter and left it open on the floor ready to be zipped when he left.

  At twelve forty-five the phone rang. He sat on his couch with a half folded shirt and watched it. It was as though someone were reaching into his room, reaching for his windpipe. The phone was a living extension, reaching for him. It rang again. He put the shirt down and waited. It rang a third time. In the silence of his room it was loud. Frightening.

  It rang a fourth time. And a fifth. And a sixth. That was the end. It rang no more. And the room settled into silence again. A cold, ominous silence.

  Lyons wondered how much time he had.

  By one o’clock he’d shaved and showered and dressed in heavy clothes. He was nearly ready. He drew the shades in his two front windows.

  He made his bed. Then he got out some large bath towels and two spare pillows. He searched through a box in his closet and located a fright wig with a rubberized monster face.

  Quickly now, on the bed he shaped a torso and legs. He laid the fright wig, stuffed with face cloths, on the pillow and then carefully covered the form with a sheet and blanket. Dissatisfied, he removed the covers and reshaped the figure. It took seven passes to make the figure seem natural. Satisfied at last, he covered it with the blanket and sheet so that only the top of the wig on the pillow was visible.

  He raised the shades and stepped outside and looked the street over. It was colder and snowing harder and the wind drove right up the street from the harbor. At least three inches of snow were on the ground.

  There were no lights in the windows. The city was completely sheeted up, hibernating in its chambers.

  Lyons peered into his shadeless window. Very good. It looked like a figure asleep. It looked like Dan Lyons asleep.

  One-thirty. He had three and a half hours to go. The mystery man hadn’t called him at one-fifteen. What did that mean?

  Lyons re-entered his apartment.

  He was shivering.

  He put his lights out at a quarter to two and waited.

  The light from the street lamp threw two distorted squares on his floor. Faint, almost imperceptible shadows of snowfall rippled over his rug.

  A car approached. He could hear the low murmur of its engine. The head lamps lit up the snow-covered cars parked at the curb. As it drew near, bright lights filled the dark apartment, sweeping along the wall. As it passed he heard the rhythmic squeak of its windshield wipers. Silence returned with the passage of the car.

  Ten of two. The phone caller had missed his next scheduled call. What did that mean? Guess. He wanted them to stop answering the phone so he could get them piecemeal, one at a time, during the night without any communication between them, which was exactly what they were doing.

  It was also exactly what Lyons wanted.

  He awoke at a quarter after two.

  He’d fallen asleep sitting propped against a wall in shadow near a window, arms on knees.

  The menacing horseman was no longer approaching the Marine-Rockaway Bridge. He’d coursed the entire length of Brooklyn. His horse stepped, head erect, prancing sidewise, eager, snorting, tense, along Fulton Street, a few blocks away.

  Lyons’ heart was pounding. He’d slept sitting, with his fists clenched, in a sweat, pushed by the shrouded black paladin. A few blocks away.

  Stiff and uncomfortable with hot, burning eyes, he clambered into his upholstered chair and looked wearily out at the snowstorm.

  In his nightmare he’d shot Fleagle again, felt the kick of the rifle again, felt the inadequate elation of revenge and the terrible crack in infinity caused by an irrevocable act. Murder.

  He’d pulled the trigger again. And separated himself from the race of man again. Premeditated murder.

  Two-fifteen. Two hours and forty-five minutes. One hundred and sixty-five minutes. 5:00 A.M. And gone, gone away.

  He raised his head in the darkness of his room. He was listening for the sound of snow-muffled hoofbeats.

  He woke up. Abruptly. Frightened.

  He raised his head from the stuffed chair and looked around the dark room. Snow—heavy snow—tapped on the two basement windows of his apartment, pushed by light, frigid air through the window grates. Black snow shadows cast by the streetlight washed down the panes. And down the rug.

  Something ominous. Something inexplicable warning him. He rolled quickly off the stuffed chair, rolled onto the floor and crept into the shadowed corner near the apartment door, away from the pale light of the street lamp.

  The old wooden clock ticked firmly, measuring w
ithout compromise. 3:40. An hour and a half to go. Under the window his suitcases bulked lumpishly.

  His eyes were just level with the sidewalk. He peered intently through the grates, through the wrought-iron railing beyond, through the thickly falling thick flakes of snow, to the street.

  The street was filling with snow, strangely, top-lit by the streetlight.

  Then the street lamp went out. Suddenly, soundlessly out.

  He crept quickly to the window and pressed against the wall. An aura of blackness shambled slowly over the railing and up to his window. A form? A wraith? A billow of smoke? At his window.

  The flash came just as the window crashed and the couch-bed snorted with buckshot. A stinking cloud of gunpowder billowed into the room with freezing air. The second shot was louder, deafening. Just over his head. Buckshot rattled inside the room, churning the couch and crumbling the plaster wall and laths.

  The gunman broke his gun with the sharp click of metal, ejected the empty shells, reloaded.

  The gunman fired again. The shotgun rocketed another burst into the couch, churning it into a sea of torn cotton batting. He clung desperately to the wall and the hot radiator, fighting the urgent need to cough.

  The gunman was just above his head, outside the grating. Snow blew into the room, falling on him, chilling him, stinging his bare feet. He heard a gloved hand grip a bar of the grate, a dry, leathery scraping. Eyes must be searching the room, seeking the bloodied, shredded corpse on the couch.

  He said a silent prayer, trembling, expecting a full burst of shot to tear his head to a pulp. Confiteor. Oh my God, I’m heartily sorry for having offended Thee.

  Gone. The gunman was gone—over the railing, the diminishing sound of footsteps crunching in fresh snow. The world was filled with the soft, sandy sound of falling snow grains—and the majestic tick of his clock.

  He sat in the dark and waited—waited until the clock stroked the quarter hour. He was shivering, still sick from the great fear, feeling the snow drift into the room on frigid air. He wondered how many other ears listened in dark bedrooms along the street.

  He arose and in the dark looked out on the street. The tracks were pale gray spots in the clear white snow in a luminous white world, lit by a far-distant street lamp. Tracks that led to his window and away.

  He found the phone. He lit a brief match and, by its light, dialed. He heard it ring. And ring. And ring again. Five times.

  “Hullo.”

  “You missed.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s my turn. Don’t go away.”

  “Huh?”

  He hung up.

  14

  Lyons dialed the phone again. He let it ring three times and pushed the circuit button down. He dialed again. It rang three times, and he pressed down the button again. He dialed a third time.

  On the second ring it clicked. “Hello,” said Joe Tyler’s voice.

  “Joe. Dan Lyons. It didn’t work.”

  “What? What didn’t work?”

  “Basche just shot this place to shambles. My bed looks like a cotton factory.”

  Tyler sighed. “You sure? You absolutely sure it was Basche?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Couldn’t be a ringer?”

  “No.”

  “Shit.” Tyler sighed again. “How did he do it? I mean you talked to him on the phone and mine rang.”

  “Two phones maybe. He called me—I didn’t call him. Remember? He could have called from anywhere.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “He’s back in his apartment. I just called him there. I told him I was coming after him. So maybe you’d better keep your door locked.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s liable to nip over to your joint and let you have it.”

  Snow dripped from his heavy hunting clothes and boots.

  Roger Basche stood at his kitchen table with assorted boxes of ammunition. Carefully he laid the shotgun back in its case. Then he opened a square leather-covered box on the table and lifted out a target pistol.

  He held it in his right hand and twisted it in the air, examining it, hefting it, thinking about it.

  He lifted the heavy cardboard cover off a box of ammunition for the target pistol and picked a handful with deft fingers. These he slipped into a pocket of his fur-lined hunting jacket. He unzipped the jacket and slipped the long barrel of the target pistol into a holster-shaped inner pocket, closed the snaps and zipped up again.

  He went next to a liquor cabinet in the living room and selected a silver flask. He uncapped it, squinted one-eyed inside and screwed the cap back on. He put this in an inside jacket pocket.

  From the closet by his front door he got down his binoculars case, removed them and hung them around his neck and down inside the jacket. From a wooden box he selected a pair of snow goggles and a pair of yellow night glasses.

  He turned around at the doorway and studied the apartment for a moment. He glanced at the telephone and then at the chair in his bedroom where he’d sat most of the night.

  Sometime after one-thirty he’d fallen asleep in that chair, slumped against the window casement. And he’d dreamed. He dreamed of that terrain—that flawed country he would never consciously enter again.

  He walked that flinty ground in his sleep, doubtfully, reluctantly. And he came upon the same low-lying shrubs —tamarisks, were they?

  As he stepped nearer, he heard the metal clicking of the rifle again behind him. Several more steps and the game flushed—the doll! Again the doll!

  Basche threw himself down and tumbled, turning as he went. He lay flat on his stomach with his rifle up, searching for his adversary, who tricked him with dolls fired from a skeet shoot.

  The adversary arose from a hummock of sand—a head, down-sloping shoulders and a rifle.

  Basche fired. And as he fired, he knew who it was. Lyons! Lyons was stalking him. Lyons with the doll. Lyons, who could orphan a little girl waiting for her Christmas doll. He could do it without a qualm, a backward glance, by inhuman logic. Lyons was cold—capable of anything. The figure dropped behind the sand. Had he been hit?

  Basche woke up. The snow was impenetrable, flying directly at his bedroom window, faintly lit by city lights and tapping multitudinously on the glass.

  Basche had needed no more discussion. He’d gotten out the shotgun and dressed.

  He was determined to get them both. No witnesses. No one to confess his sins for him in a police station. No one to implicate him. And forever more, hunt alone.

  Car 172 rolled slowly down Remsen Street. The beams of its headlights were filled with slashing snowfall, and the wipers beat dully as the car moved in near blindness.

  The police radio crackled from the dashboard.

  Car 172 stopped before the brownstone building, and the policeman got out. He left the motor running and the door open as he crossed to the sidewalk and stepped over the wrought-iron fence. There were more than three inches of snow on the ground.

  With a five-celled flashlight he probed the interior of Lyons’ apartment. He pressed his face close to the bars on the window and studied the couch and the batting. Warm air from the radiator, flowing through the broken window, touched his face. A streak of snow was on the rug. He examined the bed again, then the rest of the room. The apartment was empty.

  He crossed the yard, stepped over the fence and reentered the car. He resumed his slow drive, heading for Court Street.

  Eyes from several bedroom windows had watched him.

  Joe Tyler was frightened.

  He had the rifle out of the closet. It lay on his bed. He was poking through his closet, looking for some warm clothing to put on—sweaters, jackets, caps, gloves, galoshes.

  He was filled with self-hate. The lifelong bungler. Crazy Legs Joey Tyler, who couldn’t beat girls in a foot race. Goddam incompetent. And he’d really screwed up this detail.

  They were ruined. The three of them were ruined. He’d destroyed their friendship, l
ost the two men he admired most. Proud to be around them. Two completely different men.

  His fault. Entirely his fault. But it had seemed so right. For how else can man at bay in his own city restore the safety and confidence that is absolutely essential to civilized commerce and intermingling except by destroying the predators who prowled his streets like beasts of prey?

  The hell with it.

  Man with his infinite, infinite possibilities. So many marvelous adventures ahead of him. Using earth as a home paradise—a base for stepping into the universe. Into infinity. Damn. Damn. Damn.

  He had to get out of the goldfish-bowl apartment. The roof across the street could sweep every window.

  He dumped a box of shells into his jacket pocket.

  Tyler hoped his eyes wouldn’t fill with tears when he aimed at Basche.

  Basche drove the dark streets of Brooklyn, glad for the hum of his car heater and the rhythmic swaying of his windshield wipers.

  Outfoxed by Lyons again. Three shots point-blank range. He shouldn’t have zapped that streetlight. Too dark to see the bed.

  He opened his glove compartment and found a flashlight. Damn! That would have made the difference. He worked it into his jacket pocket as he drove.

  His car slithered through an intersection, its snow tires biting cleanly into the granular snow. Four or five inches down.

  He peered intently through the windshield at the street signs. It was like driving in a white tunnel. The snow had cut visibility to a few feet.

  Basche shook his head wryly. At least Lyons couldn’t warn Tyler. Tyler would never answer the phone until 7:00 A.M.

  Hurry. Hurry. Safety in silence. Silence them both.

  Basche wondered what Lyons was doing. Lyons. Always Lyons. The brain that never stops. Maybe Lyons was taking a pot shot right now into his apartment window.

  Basche looked at his watch. 4:15. There was still plenty of darkness left.

  He parked his car a few blocks from Joe Tyler’s apartment house. As soon as the windshield wipers stopped, the windshield became covered with snow. Basche opened the car door and stepped out.

  Snow fell thickly through the cones of light cast by the street lamps. It was growing perceptibly deeper. The air had turned colder and the breeze had stiffened.