Carrion Comfort

by Dan Simmons

  He brought me the keys to the Buick and the two of us sat down at the kitchen table while I composed the note for him to write. It was not very original. Loneliness. Remorse. Inability to continue. Authorities might notice the missing firearm and would certainly search for the automobile, but the authenticity of the note and the choice of method would allay most suspicions of foul play. Or so I hoped.

  The driver returned to the cab. Even in the few seconds the kitchen door was open to the garage, the fumes caused my eyes to water. The cab’s engine seemed absurdly loud to me. My last glimpse of my driver was of him sitting upright, hands firm on the steering wheel, gaze set ahead on the horizon of some unseen highway. I closed the door.

  I should have left immediately, but I had to sit down. My hands were shaking and a tremor pulsed in my right leg, sending stabs of arthritic pain into my hip. I clutched the Formica tabletop and closed my eyes. Melanie?

  Darling, this in Nina . . . There had been no mistaking that voice. Either Nina was still pursuing me or I had lost my mind. The hole in her forehead had been dime-sized and perfectly round. There had been no blood.

  I searched the cupboards for wine or brandy. There was only a half bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey. I found a clean jelly glass and drank. The whiskey burned my throat and stomach, but my hands were steadier as I carefully washed the glass and set it back in the cupboard.

  For a second I considered returning to the airport but quickly rejected the idea. My luggage would be on its way to Paris by now. I could catch up to it by taking the later Pan American flight, but even the thought of boarding an aircraft made me shudder. Willi relaxing, turning to speak to one of his companions. Then the explosion, the screams, the long, dark fall into oblivion. No, I would not be flying for some time to come.

  The sound of the taxi’s motor came through the door to the garage; a dull, per sis tent throbbing. It had been more than half an hour. It was time for me to leave.

  I made sure that no one was around and closed the front door behind me. There was the sound of finality to the click of the lock. I could barely hear the taxi’s engine through the broad garage door as I slipped behind the wheel of the Buick. For a panicked few seconds I could make none of the keys fit the ignition, but then I tried again, took my time, and the engine promptly started. It took another minute to adjust the seat forward, position the rearview mirror, and to find the light switch. I had not driven a car— directly driven it— for many years. I backed out the driveway and drove slowly through the winding residential streets. It occurred to me that I had no destination, no alternative plans. I had been fixated on the villa near Toulon and the identity awaiting me there. The persona of Beatrice Straughn had been a temporary thing, a traveling name. With a lurch I realized that the twelve thousand dollars in cash was in the carry-on bag which I had left by the telephone at the airport. I still had more than nine thousand dollars in traveler’s checks in my purse and tote bag along with my passport and other identification, but the blue suit I was wearing constituted all of the clothing I now owned. My throat tightened as I thought of the lovely purchases I had made that morning. I felt the sting of tears, but I shook my head and drove on as a light changed and some cretin behind me honked impatiently.

  Somehow I managed to find the Interstate loop and drove north. I hesitated when I saw the green sign for the airport exit. My carry-on bag might still be sitting near the phone. It would be easy to arrange an alternate flight. I drove on. Nothing in the world could have made me set foot in that well-lit mausoleum where Nina’s voice awaited me. I shuddered again as an image formed, unbidden, of the TWA departure lounge where I had been two hours, an eternity, ago, Nina was there, sitting primly, still in the soft pink dress in which I had last seen her, hands folded atop the purse on her lap, eyes blue, her forehead marked with the dime-size hole and a spreading bruise, her smile wide and white. Her teeth had been filed to points. She was going to board the aircraft. She was waiting for me.

  Glancing frequently in my mirror, I changed lanes, altered my speed, and exited twice only to go back down the opposite ramp to return to the freeway. It was impossible to tell for certain if anyone was following me, but I thought not. Headlights burned my eyes. My hands began to shake again. I put the window down a crack and let the cold night air sting my cheek. I wished that I had brought the bottle of whiskey.

  The sign read I-85 NORTH, CHARLOTTE, N.C. North. I hated the North, the Yankee terseness, the gray cities, the deep cold and sunless days. Anyone who knew me also knew that I detested the northern states, especially in winter, and that I would avoid them if at all possible.

  I followed the traffic onto the curve of the exit cloverleaf. Reflecting letters on an over-hanging sign read CHARLOTTE, N.C. 240 Mi., DURHAM, N.C., 337 Mi., RICHMOND, VA 540 Mi., WASHINGTON, D.C. 650 Mi.

  Gripping the steering wheel with all of my strength, trying to keep up with the insane speed of the traffic, I drove north into the night.

  “Hey, lady!”

  I snapped awake and stared at the apparition inches from my face. Bright sunlight illuminated long, stringy hair half covering a rodent’s features; tiny, shifty eyes, long nose, dirty skin, and thin, chapped lips. The apparition forced a smile and I saw a brief flash of sharp, yellowed teeth. The front tooth was broken. The boy could not have been more than seventeen years old. “Hey, lady, you goin’ my way?”

  I sat up and shook my head. The late morning sunlight was warm in the closed car. I looked around the interior of the Buick and for a second I could not remember why I was sleeping in a car rather than my bed at home. Then I recalled the interminable night of driving and the terrible weight of fatigue which had finally forced me into an empty rest area. How far had I driven? I vaguely remembered passing an exit sign for Greensboro, North Carolina, just before I stopped.

  “Lady?” The creature tapped at the window with a knuckle creased with dirt.

  I pressed the button to lower the window, but nothing happened. Claustrophobia threatened me for a second before I thought to turn on the ignition. Everything in this absurd vehicle was electrically powered. I noticed that the fuel indicator read almost full. I remembered stopping in the night, leaving several stations before I found a place which was not all self-service. Come what may, I was not about to descend to the level of pumping my own gasoline. The window slid down with a hum.

  “You takin’ riders, lady?” The boy’s voice, a nasal whine, was as repulsive as his appearance. He wore a soiled military jacket and carried only a small pack and bedroll as luggage. Behind him, cars moved by on the Interstate with sunlight flashing on their windshields. I had the sudden, liberating sense of playing hookey on a school day. Outside, the boy sniffled and wiped at his nose with a sleeve.

  “How far are you going?” I asked. “North,” said the boy with a shrug. It constantly amazes me that we have somehow contrived to raise an entire generation which cannot answer a simple question.

  “Do your parents know that you’re hitchhiking?”

  Again he offered the shrug, a half shrug really, with only one shoulder rising as if the complete gesture would require too much energy. I knew immediately that this boy was almost certainly a runaway, probably a thief, and quite possibly a danger to anyone foolish enough to pick him up.

  “Get in,” I said and touched a button to unlock the door on the passenger’s side.

  We stopped in Durham to have breakfast. The boy frowned at the pictures on the plastic menu and then squinted at me. “Uh, I can’t. I mean I don’t have no money for this. You know, like I got enough to get my uncle’s an’ all, but . . .”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “This is my treat.” We were both supposed to believe that he was traveling to his uncle’s home in Washington. When I had again asked him how far he was going, he had squinted one of his ferrety glances at me and said, “How far you goin’?” When I suggested Washington as my destination he had graced me with another glimpse of nicotine-stained teeth and said, “Awrigh
t, that’s where my uncle lives. That’s where I’m goin’, my uncle’s. In Washington. Awright.” Now the boy mumbled his order to the waitress and hunched over to play with his fork. As was the case with so many young people I encountered these days, I could not tell if the boy was truly retarded or just pitifully ill educated. Most of the population under thirty appears to fall into one or the other category.

  I sipped my coffee and asked, “You say that your name is Vincent?”

  “Yeah.” The boy lowered his face to his cup like a horse at a trough. The noises were not dissimilar.

  “That’s a pleasant name. Vincent what?”

  “Huh?”

  “What is your last name, Vincent?”

  The boy lowered his mouth to the cup once again to gain time to think. He darted his rodent glance at me. “Uh . . . Vincent Pierce.”

  I nodded. The boy had almost said Vincent Price. I had met Price once in an art auction in Madrid in the late 1960s. He was a most gentle man, truly refined, with large, soft hands which were never still. We had discussed art, cooking, and Spanish culture. At that time Price was buying original art on behalf of some monstrous American company. I thought him a delightful person. It was years later that I found out about his roles in all of those dreadful horror films. Perhaps he and Willi had worked together at some time.

  “And you are hitchhiking to your uncle’s home in Washington?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Christmas vacation, no doubt,” I said. “School must be out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “In what part of Washington does your uncle live?”

  Vincent hunched over his cup again. His hair hung down like a tangle of greasy vines. Every few seconds he would lift a languid hand and flip a strand out of his eyes. The gesture was as constant and maddening as a tic. I had known this vagabond for less than an hour and already his mannerisms were driving me crazy.

  “A suburb, perhaps?” I prompted. “Yeah.”

  “Which one, Vincent? There are quite a few suburbs around Washington. Perhaps we’ll pass through it and I can drop you. Is it one of the more expensive areas?”

  “Yeah. My uncle, he’s gotta lotta money. My whole family’s like rich, you know?”

  I could not help but glance at his filthy army jacket, opened now to reveal a ragged black sweatshirt. His stained jeans were worn through in several places. I realized, of course, that dress signifies nothing these days. Vincent could be the grandson of J. Paul Getty and sport such a wardrobe. I remembered the crisp, silk suits which my Charles had worn. I remembered Roger Harrison’s elaborate costuming for every occasion; traveling cape and suit for the briefest excursions, riding breeches, the dark tie and tails for evening events. America has certainly reached its egalitarian summit as far as dress goes. We have reduced the sartorial options of an entire people to the tattered, filthy rags of the society’s least common denominator.

  “Chevy Chase?” I said. “Huh?” Vincent squinted at me. “The suburb. Perhaps it is Chevy Chase?”

  He shook his head. “Bethesda? Silver Spring? Takoma Park?”

  Vincent furrowed his brow as if considering these. He was about to speak when I interrupted. “Oh, I know,” I said. “If your uncle is rich, he probably lives in Bel Air. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” agreed Vincent, relieved. “That’s the place.”

  I nodded. My toast and tea arrived. Vincent’s eggs and sausage and hash browns and ham and waffles were set in front of him. We ate in silence broken only by his feeding noises.

  Past Durham, I-85 turned due north again. We crossed into Virginia a little over an hour after we finished breakfast. When I was a girl my family often had traveled to Virginia to visit friends and relatives. Usually we had taken the train, but my favorite method of travel had been the small but comfortable overnight packet ship which had docked at Newport News. Now I found myself driving an oversized and underpowered Buick north on a four-lane highway, listening to gospel music on the FM radio and leaving my window down a crack to dispel the sweat and dried-urine smell emanating from my sleeping passenger.

  We had passed Richmond and it was late afternoon when Vincent awoke. I asked him if he would like to drive for a spell. My arms and legs ached from the strain of keeping up with the traffic. No one obeyed the 55 m.p.h. speed limit. My eyes were also tired.

  “Hey, yeah. I mean, you sure?” asked Vincent. “Yes,” I said. “You will drive carefully, I presume.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I found a rest area where we could exchange places. Vincent drove at a steady 68 m.p.h. with only his wrist on the wheel, his eyes so heavy-lidded that for a moment I feared that he had fallen asleep. I reassured myself by remembering that modern automobiles are simple enough to be driven by chimpanzees. I adjusted my seat as far back into a reclining position as it would go and closed my eyes. “Wake me when we arrive at Arlington, would you please, Vincent?”

  He grunted. I had set my purse between the two front seats and I knew that Vincent was glancing at it. He had not been able to hood his eyes quickly enough when I had removed the thick pile of cash to pay for breakfast. I was taking a chance by napping, but I was very tired. A Washington FM station was playing a Bach concerto. The hum of tires and gentle swish of traffic lulled me to sleep in less than a minute.

  The absence of motion woke me. I came awake instantly, totally, alertly— the way a predator awakes at the approach of its prey.

  We were parked in an unfinished rest stop. The evening slant of winter sunlight suggested that I had been asleep for about an hour. The heavy traffic suggested that we were close to Washington. The switchblade knife in Vincent’s hand suggested darker things. He looked up from counting my traveler’s checks. I impassively returned his stare.

  “You gotta sign these,” he whispered.

  I stared at him. “You gotta sign these fuckin’ things over to me,” hissed my hitchhiker. His hair fell in his eyes and he flipped it out. “You gotta sign ’em now.”

  “No.”

  Vincent’s eyes widened with surprise. Spittle wet his thin lips. He would have killed me then, I believe, in broad daylight, with heavy traffic passing twenty yards away, and with nowhere to put an old lady’s corpse except the Potomac, but— and even dear, dull Vincent was capable of comprehending this— he needed my signature on the checks.

  “Listen, you old cunt,” he said and seized the front of my dress, “you sign these fucking checks or I’ll cut your fucking nose off your fucking face. You unnerstand me, cunt?” He brought the steel blade to a stop inches in front of my eyes.

  I glanced down at the grimy hand holding my dress front and I sighed. For the briefest of seconds I recalled entering my hotel suite three decades earlier, in a different country, in a different world, and finding a bald but handsome gentleman in evening dress going through my jewel case. That thief had smiled ironically and given a short bow when discovered. I would miss that grace, the ease of Use, the quiet efficiency which no amount of conditioning could impart.

  “Come on,” hissed the filthy youth holding me. He moved the blade toward my cheek. “You’re fucking asking for this,” said Vincent. There was a gleam in his eyes that had nothing to do with the money.

  “Yes,” I said. His arm stopped in mid-motion. For several seconds he strained until the veins stood out on his forehead. He grimaced and his eyes widened as his hand tilted, turned, and moved the stiletto blade back toward his own face.

  “Time to start,” I said softly.

  The razor-sharp blade turned until it was vertical. It slid between the thin lips, between the stained and broken front teeth.

  “Time to teach,” I said softly.

  The blade slid in, slicing gums and tongue. His lips curled back and then closed on steel. The blade grew moist with blood as the tip touched soft palate.

  “Time to learn.” I smiled and we began the first lesson.

  FIFTEEN

  Washington, D.C.

 
Saturday, Dec. 20, 1980

  Saul Laski stood motionless for twenty minutes looking at the girl. She stared back, unblinking, equally motionless, frozen in time. She wore a straw hat, tilted back slightly on her head, and a gray apron over a simple white shift. Her hair was blond, and her eyes blue. Her hands were folded in front of her, arms stretched in the awkward grace of childhood.

  Someone stepped between him and the painting and Saul stepped back, moved sideways to get a better view. The girl in the straw hat continued to stare at the empty space he had vacated. Saul did not know why the painting moved him so; most of Marie Cassat’s work struck him as too sentimental, a soft-edged blur of pastels, but this piece had moved him to tears the first time he had visited the National Gallery almost two decades ago and now no trip to Washington was complete without a pilgrimage to the “Girl With the Straw Hat.” He thought that perhaps somehow the pudgy face and wistful stare brought back the presence of his sister Stefa— dead of typhus during the war— although Stefa’s hair had been much darker and her eyes far from blue.

  Saul turned away from the painting. Each time he visited the museum he promised himself that he would see new sections, spend more time with the modern work, and each time he spent too much time here with the girl. Next time, he thought.

  It was after one P.M. and the crowd in the gallery restaurant was thinning out by the time Saul reached the entrance and stood there scanning the tables. He saw Aaron immediately, seated at a small table near the corner, his back to a tall potted plant. Saul waved, and joined the young man.