by Dan Simmons
The young, colored, female newscaster was smiling the entire time she spent reading the report on what they called the Charleston Murders. Police were hunting for suspects and motives. Witnesses had described the carnage in a well-known Charleston hotel. State police and the FBI were interested in the whereabouts of a Mrs. Fuller, a longtime Charleston resident and employer of one of the victims. There were no photographs of the lady. The entire report lasted less than forty-five seconds.
I turned off the tele vi sion, switched off the lights, and lay shivering in the dark. Within forty-eight hours, I told myself, I would be safe and warm at my villa in the south of France. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the small, white flowers which grew up between the flagstones leading to the well. For a second I could almost smell the salt-sea freshness which came in with the summer storms blowing up from the south. I thought of the tiled roofs of the nearby village, red and orange trapezoids visible above the green rectangles of the orchards which filled the valley. These pleasant images were suddenly superimposed over my last view of Nina, her blue eyes wide with disbelief, her mouth slightly open, the hole in her forehead no more terrifying than a temporary smudge which she would soon brush away with a pass of her long, perfectly manicured fingers. Then, in my presleep dreaming, the blood welled up and began to flow, not only from the wound but also from Nina’s mouth and nose and wide, accusing eyes.
I pulled the covers up tightly under my chin and concentrated on thinking of nothing.
I simply had to have a purse. However, if I was to pay for a taxi to take me downtown to the bank, I would not have enough money left to buy a purse. But I could not go to the bank without a purse. I again counted the cash in my billfold, but even taking change into account, I would not have enough. As I stood there in the motel room, the taxi I had summoned began honking impatiently from the parking lot.
I solved the problem by having the driver stop at a discount drugstore on the way into town. I purchased a perfectly atrocious straw “tote bag” for seven dollars. The cab ride, including the metered time while I had shopped for my treasure, cost just over thirteen dollars. I tipped the driver a dollar and kept the remaining dollar as mad money.
I must have been a sight as I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the bank to open. My hairdo was beyond repair. I was wearing no makeup. My tan raincoat, still smelling slightly of gunpowder, was buttoned tightly to my throat. In my right hand I clutched my stiff new straw bag. Only the tennis shoes were lacking in order to complete the image of what I believe people now refer to as a “shopping bag lady.” Then I realized that I was still wearing the low-heeled deck shoes which did somewhat resemble sneakers.
Incredibly, the assistant manager recognized me and seemed delighted to see me. “Ah, Mrs. Straughn,” he said as I diffidently approached his desk, “a plea sure to see you again!”
I was astounded. It had been almost two years since my last visit to this bank. My savings account was not so large that I should earn such courtesy from an assistant manager. For a few panicked seconds I was sure that the police had already been there and that it was a trap. I was glancing at the customers and clerks, trying to decide which were the plain-clothes officers, when I took notice of the assistant manager’s relaxed manner and satisfied grin. I let out a long breath. I was dealing with a man who took pride in remembering his customers’ names, nothing more.
“It’s been a long time,” he said affably and glanced quickly at my ensemble.
“Two years,” I said. “Is your husband well?”
My husband? I desperately tried to recall what story I had given in previous visits. I had not mentioned . . . with a start I realized that he was speaking of the tall, bald gentleman who had stood silently by my side each time I had come. “Ah,” I said, “you mean Mr. Thorne, my secretary. I am afraid that Mr. Thorne is no longer in my employ. As for Mr. Straughn, he died of cancer in 1956.”
“Oh,” said the assistant manager, his florid face becoming even more flushed, “I’m sorry.”
I nodded and we both observed a few seconds of silence for the mythical Mr. Straughn.
“Well, how can we help you today, Mrs. Straughn? A deposit, I hope.”
“A withdrawal, I fear,” I said. “But first I would like to see my safe-deposit box.”
I presented the proper card, being careful not to confuse it with the half dozen other bank identification cards I had carried for so long in my billfold. We went through the solemn ritual of the double keys. Then I was alone in a small confessional of a space and lifting the lid to my new life.
The passport was four years old but still valid. It was a Bicentennial passport— the one with the red and blue background to the paper— and the gentleman at the Atlanta post office had told me that those would be worth something someday. The cash, twelve thousand dollars of it in various denominations, was also still valid. And heavy. I stuffed the sheaths of bills into my bulging tote bag and prayed that the cheap straw would not give way. The stocks and bonds made out to Mrs. Straughn were not relevant to my present purposes, but they fit nicely over the heavy lump of bills. I ignored the keys to the Ford Granada. I had no wish to go through the effort of getting the automobile out of storage and there would be questions if it were discovered at the airport parking lot. The final thing in the box was the tiny Beretta pistol, meant for Mr. Thorne’s use if events had called for it, but I would not need it where I was going.
Where I thought I was going.
After returning the box with the same funereal solemnity as in the earlier ritual, I stood in line for the teller.
“You-all want all ten thousand out today?” asked the gum-chewing girl behind the bars.
“Yes, as it says on the slip.”
“This means you’ll be closing out your account with us then?”
“Yes, it does.” It was amazing how years of training could produce such paragons of efficiency. The girl glanced over to where the assistant manager was standing with his fingers folded across his stomach like a paid mourner. He nodded curtly and the girl popped her gum in a faster rhythm. “Yes, ma’am. How do you-all want it?”
In Peruvian nickels, I was tempted to say. “Traveler’s checks, please.” I smiled. “A thousand dollars in fifties. A thousand in hundreds. The rest in five hundreds.”
“There’s a charge for those,” said the girl with a slight frown, as if the prospect would make me change my mind.
“That’s fine, dear,” I said. The day was still young, I felt young. It would be cool in southern France, but the light would be as rich as melted butter. “Take your time, dear. There’s no rush.”
The Atlanta Sheraton was two blocks from the bank. I took a room there. They asked for an imprint of my credit card. Instead, I paid with a five-hundred-dollar traveler’s check and put the change in my billfold. The room was a bit less plebeian than the one at the motel with the number, but no less sterile. I used the room phone to contact a downtown travel agency. After several moments of consulting with their resident computer, the young lady gave me a choice of leaving Atlanta at six that same day on a TWA flight which had a forty minute layover at Heathrow before going on to Paris, or a ten P.M. Pan Am flight direct to Paris. In each case I would catch the same late afternoon flight from Paris to Marseilles. She recommended the later flight because it was slightly cheaper. I chose to go first class on the earlier one.
There were three respectable department stores within a short cab ride of the hotel. I called all three and found the one least shocked by the idea of actually delivering items to their customer’s hotel. Then I called a cab and went shopping.
I purchased eight dresses with a label by Albert Nipon, four skirts— one a delightful green wool design by Cardin— a complete set of tan Gucci luggage, two Evan-Picone suits, including one which, a few days earlier, I would have thought appropriate for a much younger woman, adequate amounts of underwear, two handbags, three nightgowns, a comfortable blue robe, five pairs of shoes including a pa
ir of high-heeled black pumps by Bally, a half dozen wool sweaters, two hats— one a wide-brimmed straw hat which went rather well with my seven-dollar tote bag— a dozen blouses, toiletries, a bottle of Jean Paton perfume which claimed to be “the most expensive perfume in the world” and well could have been, a digital alarm clock and calculator for only nineteen dollars, makeup, nylons (neither support hose nor those awkward “panty hose” but actual nylon stockings), half a dozen paperback bestsellers from the book department, a Michelin tour guide of France, a larger billfold, a variety of chocolates and English biscuits, and a small metal trunk. Then, while the clerk hunted for an employee to deliver the goods to my hotel, I went next door to an Elizabeth Arden Salon for a complete make over.
Later, refreshed, relaxed, my skin and scalp still tingling, dressed in a comfortable skirt and white blouse, I returned to the Sheraton. I ordered lunch— coffee, a cold roast beef sandwich with Dijon mustard, potato salad, vanilla ice cream— and tipped the young bellboy five dollars when he brought it. There was a noon television news program, but it did not mention Saturday’s events in Charleston. I went in and took a long, hot bath.
For traveling I laid out the dark blue suit. Then, still in my slip, I set about packing. I put a change of clothes, a nightgown, toiletries, snacks, two paperbacks, and most of my cash in the small carry-on bag. I had to send down to room ser vice again for a scissors to snip off tags and strings. By two o’clock I was finished— although the small trunk was only half filled and had to be packed down with a blanket I found in the closet to keep things from shifting— and I lay down to take a nap before the 4:15 limousine would take me to the airport. I found it pleasing to watch the black digits shift fluidly on the gray display surface of my new travel alarm. I had no idea how the gadget worked. There was much about this last quarter of the twentieth century that I did not understand, but it did not matter. I fell asleep with a smile on my lips.
The Atlanta airport was like every other major airport I had ever been in and I have been in most of them. I missed the great train stations of decades ago: the marbled, sun-shafted dignity of Grand Central in its prime, the open-air majesty of Berlin’s prewar terminal, even the architectural overkill and peasant chaos of Bombay’s Victoria Station. Atlanta’s airport was the epitome of classless travel: endless tile concourses, molded-plastic seating, and banks of video monitors mutely announcing arrivals and departures. The corridors were filled with scurrying businessmen and loud, sweating families in pastel rags. It did not matter. In twenty minutes I would be free.
I had checked my luggage through except for my carry-on bag and purse. An airline employee took me the length of the concourse on a small electric cart. In truth, my arthritis was troubling me and my legs were aching abominably from Saturday’s exertions. I checked in again at the departure area, confirmed that there would be no smoking in my section of first class, and sat to wait out the final minutes until boarding.
“Ms. Fuller. Melanie Fuller. Please pick up the nearest white paging phone.”
I sat rigid, listening. The public address system had been babbling incessantly since my arrival, paging people, threatening that cars left in the loading zone would be ticketed and towed away, disavowing responsibility for the religious fanatics who roamed the terminal like packs of pamphleted jackals. Surely it was a mistake! If my name had actually been called I would have heard it earlier. I sat upright, scarcely breathing, listening as the sexless voice ran through its litany of paged names. I relaxed somewhat when I heard a Miss Reneé Fowler paged. It was a natural enough mistake. My nerves had been on edge for days, weeks. The Reunion had been on my mind since early autumn.
“Ms. Fuller. Melanie Fuller. Please pick up the nearest white paging phone.”
My heart stopped for a second. I could feel the pain in my chest as muscles constricted. It’s some mistake. A common enough name. I’m sure I misheard what was announced . . .
“Mrs. Straughn. Beatrice Straughn. Please pick up the nearest white paging phone. Mr. Bergstrom. Harold Bergstrom. . . .”
There was a moment when I was sure— sickeningly sure— that I was about to faint right there in the Overseas Departure Lounge of Trans World Airlines. I lowered my head as the red and blue room swam out of focus and a myriad of small dots danced in the periphery of my vision. Then I was up and moving, purse, tote bag, and carry-on bag clutched to me. A man with a blue blazer and plastic nametag went by and I seized him by the arm. “Where is it?”
He stared at me. “The white telephone,” I hissed. “Where is it?”
He pointed to a nearby wall. I approached the instrument as if it were a viper. For a minute— an eternity— I could not reach for it. Then I set down my carry-on bag, lifted the receiver, and whispered my new name into it. A strange voice said, “Mrs. Straughn? One moment, please. There is a call for you.”
I stood motionless while hollow sounds signified connections being made. When the voice came it was also hollow, empty, echoing, as if emanating from a tunnel or bare room. Or from a tomb. I knew the voice very well.
“Melanie? Melanie, darling, this is Nina . . . Melanie? Darling, this is Nina . . .”
I dropped the receiver and backed away. The noise and bustle all around receded until it was a distant, unrelated buzz. I seemed to be staring down a long tunnel at tiny figures flitting to and fro. I turned in a spasm of panic and fled down the concourse, forgetting my carry-on suitcase, forgetting the money in it, forgetting my flight, forgetting everything except the dead voice which rang in my ears like a scream in the night.
As I approached the terminal doorway a redcap hurried toward me. I did not think. I glanced at the hurrying Negro and the man collapsed to the floor. I do not believe that I had ever Used anyone that brutally or quickly before. The man writhed in the grip of a massive seizure, striking his face repeatedly against the tile. I slipped through the automatically opening doors as people rushed toward the spasming redcap.
I stood on the curb and unsuccessfully tried to fight down the whirlwind of panic and confusion which whipped at me. Each approaching face threatened to resolve itself into the pale and smiling death mask I half expected to see. I spun around clutching my purse and tote bag to my chest, a pathetic old woman on the verge of hysteria. Melanie? Darling, this is Nina. . . .
“Cab, lady?”
I whirled to look at the source of the question. The green and white cab had pulled up next to me without my noticing. More waited behind it in a special lane for taxis. The driver was white, in his thirties, clean-shaven but with the type of translucent skin that showed the darkness of the next day’s beard.
“You wanta cab?”
I nodded and struggled with the door. The driver leaned back and unlocked it for me. The interior smelled of stale cigarette smoke, sweat, and vinyl. I swiveled to look out the rear window as we swept down the curved drive. Green rectangles of light washed across the window and rear deck of the cab. I could not tell if any of the other automobiles were following us. There was an insane amount of traffic.
“I said, where to?” shouted the driver.
I blinked. My mind was blank. “Downtown?” he said. “Hotel?”
“Yes.” It was as if I did not speak his language. “Which one?”
A great pain blossomed behind my left eye. I felt it flow down from my skull to my neck and then fill my body like a liquid flame. For a second I could not breathe. I sat there, clutching my purse and tote bag, waiting for the pain to fade.
“. . . or what?” asked the driver. “Pardon me?” My voice was the rasp of dead corn stalks in a dry wind. “Should I get on the expressway or what?”
“Sheraton.” The word was a nonsense syllable to me. The pain began to recede, leaving an echo of nausea.
“Downtown or airport?”
“Downtown,” I said, having no idea what we were negotiating. “Got it.”
I sat back in the cold vinyl. Strips of light moved through the fetid interior of the cab with hypnotic reg
ularity and I concentrated on slowing my breathing. The sound of tires on wet pavement slowly penetrated the buzzing which had filled my ears. Melanie, darling. . . .
“Your name?” I whispered. “Huh?”
“Your name?” I demanded. “Steve Lenton. It’s on the card there. Why?”
“Where do you live?”
“Why?”
I had had enough of this one. I pushed. Even through the headache, even through the swirl of nausea, I pushed. The impact was strong enough to make him double over the wheel for a few seconds, and then I allowed him to straighten up and return his attention to the road.
“Where do you live?”
Pictures, images, a woman with stringy, blond hair in front of a garage. Verbalize. “Beulah Heights.” The driver’s voice was flat. “Is it far from here?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Do you live alone?”
Sadness. Loss. Jealousy. A pain-filled image of the blonde with a runny-nosed child in her arms, voices raised in anger, a red dress retreating down the walk. The last sight of her station wagon. Self-pity. Words from a country-western song ringing with truth.
“We will go there,” I said. I believe I said it. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of tires on wet pavement.
The driver’s house was dark. It was a duplicate of all the other shabby little homes we had passed in this development— stucco walls, a single “picture window” looking out onto a tiny rectangle of yard, a garage as big as all the rest of the house combined. No one was watching as we drove up. The driver opened the garage door and drove the cab in. There was a new-model Buick there, dark blue or black, I could not tell in the poor light. I had him back the Buick out onto the driveway and then return. We left the cab’s engine running. The driver pulled down the garage door.
“Show me the house,” I said softly. It was as predictable as it was depressing. Dishes were stacked up in the sink, socks and underwear littered the floor of the bedroom, newspapers were everywhere, and cheap paintings of doe-eyed children stared down at the mess. “Where is your gun?” I asked. I did not have to probe to find out if he owned a firearm. This was the South, after all. The driver blinked and led me downstairs to a poorly lit workshop. Old calendars with photographs of naked women hung on the cinderblock walls. The driver nodded to a cheap metal cabinet where a shotgun, a hunting rifle, and two pistols were stored. The pistols were wrapped in oily rags. One was some sort of long-barreled target pistol, single-shot, low-caliber. The other was a more familiar revolver, .38 caliber, six-inch barrel, somewhat reminiscent of Charles’s heirloom. I put three boxes of cartridges in my tote bag with the revolver and we went back upstairs to the kitchen.