by Peter Straub
“The girl refused to have me drive them, so naturally I decided to do it. Along the way I planned to inform Davey of his girlfriend’s inventions. Then we’d have an entertaining scene, wouldn’t we?
“Davey was too drunk to see that the girl was furious. He couldn’t drive, and she didn’t have a license. I solved their problem. ‘It’s no good anymore,’ the girl kept saying, but he wouldn’t listen to her. Well, off we go. Davey passed out in the backseat. The girl sat up front with me, but she wouldn’t say any more than it took to give me directions. We got about a hundred miles down the highway, and Davey woke up and started quoting from Night Journey. I wish I had whatever you’re supposed to use to cut through ribs, because this knife isn’t making it. I got through the cartilage and stripped away a lot of the intercostal muscle, but I’m going to have to break ’em off with my hands.”
Dart grasped a rib and pulled, swearing to himself. The curved bone gradually moved upward and then snapped in half. “Good enough, I guess.” He sliced through more cartilage.
“I tried to drown him out with the radio, but all I could find was disco shit, which I hate. Know what I like? Real music. Kind of singers you never hear anymore. Give me a good wop baritone and I’m a happy camper. Ah, getting a good view of the heart now.
“There we are, a hundred miles into the middle of nowhere, Davey spouting Hugo Driver, the girl sitting like a marble statue. All of a sudden she has to pee. Which makes me see red, because we just passed a rest stop, why didn’t she pipe up then? Like a peek into this girl’s mind? ‘Whenever possible,’ she says, ‘I like to pee in the woods like Pippin Little, because I am Pippin Little.’ This seemed like the moment to tell Davey what I know about the bitch, so I do. I have to repeat it two or three times, but he does finally get it. She may be Pippin Little, but she sure as hell isn’t who she told him she was. In fact, it hits him, drunk as he is, that what she was calling herself was a hell of a lot like the name of another character in Night Journey. The girl doesn’t turn a fucking hair. She says, ‘Turn off at the next exit. I can get out there.’
“ ‘If you won’t tell me who you really are, you can get out and stay out,’ Davey yells.
“We’re so far in the country it’s like a coal mine. I get off the highway, and we’re at the edge of these woods. Davey makes a grab for the girl, but she zips out and runs into the trees. Davey starts swearing at me—now it’s my fault she’s a liar. After ten delightful minutes, I finally suggest that his friend is taking an extremely long time to finish her business. He piles out and charges around in the woods for about half an hour. The hell with this, he says, let’s go back to New Haven and this time I’m driving. He gets behind the wheel and guns the car around. All of a sudden the bitch is right in front of the car, and then she disappears. Our hero starts crying. Then he whips a gram out of his pocket, snorts about half of it, and drives away.”
“He left her there?”
“Drove away. Eighty miles an hour all the way back to dear old Yale, that maker of men, not to mention hit-and-run drivers.”
“What happened after that?”
“Crazy Amy got out of the locked ward, and Davey went straight back to mooning over her. Never came back to the Hellfire Club. Boo hoo, we all sure missed him.”
“Is there a Hellfire Club in New York?”
Dart looked up at her, eyes narrowed. “As a matter of fact, yes. In the twenties, a group of alums decided there was no reason the fun should stop on graduation day. More formal than the New Haven thing—servants, a concierge, great food. The dues are high enough to keep out the riffraff, but the essential spirit remains the same. Why do you ask?”
“I was wondering if Davey ever went there.”
His eyes shone. “Might have spotted that gutless hit-and-run artist within the hallowed halls a time or two. Avoided him like the plague, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Darling heart, would you do me a favor? The hammer I bought in Fairfield is in a bag on the backseat. If I’m going to break these ribs, I might as well do it a little more efficiently.”
Entirely amused, Dart stood up and watched her move toward the door. Nora went outside, where the air was of an astonishing sweetness. She looked back and saw Dart just inside the door, holding his arms, stained red to the elbows like a butcher’s, out from his sides. Amusement radiated from his eyes and face. “You should smell the air out here,” she said.
“I prefer the air in here,” Dart said. “Funny old me.”
Heat shimmered off the top of the car. Nora leaned into the oven of the interior and opened a bag on the laden backseat. The long wooden shaft of the hammer met the palm of her hand. Her heart leaped in her chest, and her face grew hot beneath the makeup. She became aware that the thick balloon filled with emotional exhaust fumes was no longer about her. She had not noticed its departure, but it had departed all the same. Dart beckoned her back into the room with a courtly wave.
“Close the door, my dear. Only a tiny test, but you passed it beautifully.”
“You’re a fun guy.”
“I am!” He pointed a red finger at Sheldon Dolkis. “I want you right beside me. You’re a nurse, you can assist. Kneel on a pillow, so as not to hurt your knees. Considerate me. Take one off that scabby bed.”
Nora knelt on the pillow and set the hammer down next to her right thigh. Dart squatted and pointed into the body cavity. “That aortic arch looks more like a slump, and the old pulmonary trunk is like a worn-out inner tube. I want to see his superior vena cavity. Bet it’s a terrible mess.” He leaned forward to peer between the ribs on the far side of the chest, clearly expecting her to do the same.
Nora’s heart jumped like a fish. She picked up the hammer, still wondering if she could actually go through with it. Then she planted her left hand in the middle of his back as if for support and smashed the hammer into the side of his head.
Dart exhaled sharply and almost fell into the open body. He caught himself by sinking his hands into the cavity and tried to get to his feet. Nora leaped up and battered the back of his head. Dart sagged to his knees. She cocked back her arm and whacked him again. He toppled sideways and struck the floor.
Nora crouched over him, the hammer raised. Her heart beat wildly, and her breath came in quick, short pants. Dart’s mouth hung open, and a sliver of drool wobbled from his lower lip.
She dropped to one knee and thrust her hand into his pocket for the car keys. A second later, she was running through the sunlight. She started the car and backed away from the motel. Through the open door, she saw Dick Dart rising to his knees. She jolted to a stop and tried to shift into drive but in her panic moved the indicator to neutral. When she hit the accelerator, the engine raced, but the car slid downhill. She pressed the brake pedal and looked back at the room. Dart was staggering toward the door.
Her hand fluttered over the shift lever and moved the car into drive. Waving his red arms, Dick Dart was racing toward her.
The car shot forward. She twisted the wheel, and the right front fender struck him with an audible thump. Like the girl in the story, he disappeared. Nora fastened her shaking hands on the wheel and sped downhill.
BOOK VI
FAMILIAR MONSTERS
PIPPIN UNDERSTOOD THE NATURE OF HIS TASK. THAT WAS NOT THE PROBLEM. THE PROBLEM WAS THAT THE TASK WAS IMPOSSIBLE.
56
STREETS, BUILDINGS, STOPLIGHTS flew past her, other drivers honked and jolted to standstills. Pedestrians shouted, waved. For a lengthy period Nora drove the wrong way down a one-way street. She had escaped, she was escaping, but where? She drove aimlessly through a foreign city, now and then startled by the stranger’s face reflected in the rearview mirror. She supposed that this stranger was looking for the expressway but had no idea of where to go once she got there.
She pulled to the side of the road. The world outside the car consisted of large, handsome houses squatting, like enormous dogs and cats, on spacious lawns. It came to her that sh
e had seen this place before, and that something unpleasant had happened to her here. Yet the neighborhood was not unpleasant, not at all, because it contained . . .
Sprinklers threw arcs of water across the long lawns. She was in a cul-de-sac ending in a circle before the most imposing house on the street, a three-story red-brick mansion with a bow window, a dark green front door, and a border of bright flowers. She had arrived at Longfellow Lane, and the house with the bow window belonged to Dr. Daniel Harwich.
Her panic melted into relief. She had reached the end of the street before she realized that Mrs. Lark Pettigrew Harwich might not welcome the sudden appearance of one of her husband’s old girlfriends, however desperate that old girlfriend might be. At that moment, coffee mug in one hand, Dan Harwich emerged from the depths of the room and stood at the bow window to survey his realm. A fist struck her heart.
Harwich gave Nora’s car a mildly curious glance before taking a sip of coffee and raising his head to look at the sky. He had changed little since she had last seen him. The same weary, witty competence inhabited his face and gestures. He turned and disappeared into the room. Somewhere behind him, pouring coffee for herself in a redesigned kitchen, very likely lurked wife number two.
Nora cramped the wheel and sped out of the circle, wondering how on earth she was going to find a telephone. She turned left onto Longfellow Street, another treeless length of demi-mansions old and new, all but identical to Longfellow Lane except for being a real street instead of a cul-de-sac and the absence from any of its numerous bay windows of Dr. Daniel Harwich. At the next corner, she turned left onto Bryant Street, another stretch of wide green lawns and sturdy houses, and began to feel that she would spend the rest of her life moving down these identical streets past these identical houses.
At the next corner she turned left again, this time onto Whittier Street, then onto Whitman Street, another replica of Long-fellow Lane, the chief difference being that instead of an asphalt circle at the end of the block there was a stop sign at an intersection, and directly beside the stop sign stood the metal hood and black rectangle of a public telephone.
57
THREE FEET FROM a chintz sofa piled with cushions, Nora felt herself slip into a collapse. She sank a quarter of an inch, then another quarter of an inch, taking Dan Harwich’s unresisting hand with her. Then an arm wrapped around her waist, a hand gripped her shoulder, and she stopped moving.
Harwich pulled her upright. “I could carry you the rest of the way.”
“I’ll make it.”
He loosened his grip, and Nora stepped around the side of a wooden coffee table and let him guide her to the sofa.
“Do you want to lie down?”
“I’ll be okay. It’s letting go of all that tension, I guess.” She slumped back against the cushions. Harwich was kneeling in front of her, holding both her hands and staring up at her face.
He stood up, still staring at her face. “How did you get away from this Dart?”
“I hit him with a hammer, then I ran into him with the car.”
“Where?”
“Outside some motel, I don’t remember. Don’t call the police. Please.”
He looked down at her, chewing his lower lip. “Back in a sec.”
Nora put an arm behind her back and pulled out a stiff round cushion embroidered with sunflowers on one side and a farmhouse on the other. There was still an uncomfortable number of cushions back there. She did not remember the chintz sofa or this profusion of cushions from her earlier visit to Longfellow Lane. Helen Harwich’s living room had been sober and dark, with big square leather furniture on a huge white rug.
Now, apart from the mess, the room was like a decorator’s idea of an English country house. Dirty shirts lay over the back of a rocking chair. One running shoe lay on its side near the entrance to the front hall. The table on which she had nearly cracked her head was littered with old newspapers, dirty glasses, and an empty Pizza Hut carton.
Harwich came back with a tumbler so full that a trail of shining dots lay behind him. “Drink some water before it slops all over the place, sorry.” He handed her the wet tumbler and knelt in front of her. Nora swallowed and looked around for a place to put the glass. Harwich took it and set it on the table.
“You’re going to leave a ring,” she said.
“I don’t give a shit.” He grasped her right hand in both of his. “Why don’t you want me to call the police?”
“Right before I got abducted by Dick Dart, I was about to be charged with about half a dozen crimes. It sounds a little funny, given what happened, but I’m pretty sure that kidnapping was one of them. That’s why I was in the police station.”
Harwich stopped kneading her hand. “You mean if you go to the police you’ll get arrested?”
“Think so.”
“What did you do?”
She pulled her hand away from his. “Do you want to hear what happened, or do you just want to call the FBI and have me hauled away?”
“The FBI?”
“Couple of real charming guys,” she said. “They had no trouble at all assuming I was guilty.”
Harwich stood up and moved to the other end of the sofa.
“If this is too much for you, I’ll get out of here,” Nora said. “I have to find this doctor. If I can remember his name.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Harwich said. “I want to hear the whole story, but before that, let’s see if we can take care of Dick Dart.” He stood up and took a cellular phone from the mantel. Nora started to protest. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything about you. Try to remember the name of that motel.” He went across the room and pulled a telephone book from beneath a stack of magazines and newspapers.
“I can’t.”
“Did it have a sign?” He held his finger over a number.
“Sure, but . . .” She saw the sign. “It was called the Hillside. ‘Like the strangler,’ Dart said.”
“Like the strangler?”
“The Hillside Strangler.”
“Jesus.” Harwich punched numbers. “Listen to me. I’m only going to say this once. The escaped murderer Dick Dart checked into the Hillside Motel in Springfield this morning. He may be injured.” He turned off the phone and replaced it on the mantel. “I suppose you’ll feel safer once Dart is off the streets.”
“You have no idea.”
“So talk,” Harwich said.
She told him about Natalie Weil and Holly Fenn and Slim and Slam, she told him about Daisy’s book and Alden’s ultimatum, she described the scene in the police station, Natalie’s accusation, her abduction, Ernest Forrest Ernest, the Chicopee Inn. She told Harwich that Dart had raped her. She told him about the library and the shopping spree and being made up” she told him about Sheldon Dolkis.
While she spoke, Harwich scratched his head, squinted, circled the room, flopped into a chair, bounced up again, interjected sympathetic, astounded, essentially noncommittal remarks, and finally urged her into the kitchen. After gathering up the dirty glasses and utensils and stashing them in or around the sink, he made an omelette for them both. He leaned forward, his chin on his elbow. “How do you get yourself into these situations?”
She put down her fork, her appetite gone. “What I want to know is, how do I get out of it?”
Harwich tilted his head, raised his eyebrows, and spread his hands in a pantomime of uncertainty. “Do you want me to take a look at you? You should have an examination.”
“On your kitchen table?”
“I was thinking that we could use one of the beds, but if you prefer, I could take you to my office. I have an operation this afternoon, but I’m free until then.”
“There’s no need for that,” Nora said.
“No serious bleeding?”
“I bled a little, but it stopped. Dan, what should I do?”
He sighed. “I’ll tell you what baffles me about all this. This woman, this Natalie Weil, accuses you of beating her, starving her,
God knows what, and the FBI and most of your local police force believe her. Why would she lie about it?”
“Screw you, Dan.”
“Don’t get mad, I’m just asking. Does she have anything to gain from having you put away?”
“Can we turn on the radio?” Nora asked. “Or the TV? Maybe there’ll be something about Dart.”
Harwich jumped up and switched on a radio beside the silver toaster at the end of a counter. “I guess I don’t have the fugitive mind-set.” He moved the dial to an all-news station, where a man in a helicopter was describing a traffic slowdown on a highway.
“The fugitive mind-set,” Nora said.
“I’m only a jaded old neurosurgeon. I lost all my old wartime instincts a long time ago. But I’d better hide your car.”
“Why?”
“Because about a minute after they show up at the motel, they’re going to be looking for an old green Ford with a certain license plate. And it’s in my driveway.”
“Oh!”
The telephone rang. Harwich glanced at the wall phone in the kitchen and then back at Nora before pushing himself away from the table. “I’ll take this in the other room.”
No longer certain of what she made of Dan Harwich or he of her, Nora turned back to the radio. An announcer was telling Hampshire and Hampden counties that the temperatures were going to stay in the high eighties for the next two or three days, after which severe thundershowers were expected. In the next room Harwich raised his voice to say, “Of course I know! Do you think I’d forget?”