She turned around in the cramped booth, wiped the clinging fog off the glass and looked through the window at the long tree-lined street that stretched before her and the now ominous brownstone that stood halfway down the block. West Eighty-ninth Street seemed darker than she’d ever seen it. The shadows longer. If it had been this threatening the day she’d first seen the brownstone, she would have looked elsewhere for an apartment. As it was, she wished she had.
She left the booth, opened the umbrella, and walked up the street through the deepening puddles, invoking the resolution she’d made several nights before on a similarly threatening street and listening to the splashing beneath her boots, intermingled with the distant buzz of automobiles on the avenue behind her. She stopped, momentarily closed her eyes, laughed nervously, then climbed the stone staircase and looked up toward the fifth-floor windows. They were black and uninviting.
She’d eaten supper behind securely fastened doors. To settle her nerves, she’d gulped an additional tranquilizer between the Russian-dressed salad and the mushroom-covered TV steak. And for an aperitif, she’d opened a bottle of Rose.
Sipping from a wine glass…the clocks ticking quietly in the background…she walked across the carpet and kneeled beside the portable phonograph that sat in the corner. She selected the opening act of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, placed it on the turntable, and set the arm.
The speakers cracked noisily, as the needle settled into the grooves. She watched the record circle about the little knob that held it in place. An important invention, the automatic record player. A great advance over the hand-cranked gramophone. She would lend her machine to Mr. Chazen the next time he had a party, so that he could spend more time on the dance floor.
She turned back to the sofa, lay down and listened, rejecting any sounds that might have interfered with the music. Gradually, her eyes began to close. Soon, she was asleep.
She opened her eyes. Without lifting her head, she glanced at one of the grandfather clocks. The hands lay on top of each other; it was a quarter past three. In the background, the phonograph rasped noisily; the record had failed to reject.
She fumbled to the machine, shut it off, walked out of the living room, and swayed down the darkened hallway to the bedroom.
She dropped her blouse at the doorway. Next, her dark blue jeans fell to the floor. Ring and watch were placed on the night table and her stockings were thrown on the clothes horse.
She then stood naked before the four-poster at the end of a trail of clothes. The bed was inviting, so much so that her body slipped effortlessly between the sheets. Within seconds, she was sleeping again.
The rain continued to fall heavily on the darkened street. As the wind increased in velocity, it drove the torrent of water diagonally into the brownstone, pounding the walls. The building’s rain gutters filled; water poured over their sides in cascades and spiraled downward, challenging the high winds that buffeted the water’s descent.
The street was deserted. The night was black, the streetlights rendered ineffectual by the falling sheets of rain that deadened their effect. A torrential stream punctuated by swirling eddies ran along the street toward the drains at either intersection.
A pair of feet sloshed through an alley, where even from the rearmost point, the stone staircase of the brownstone was visible. The figure remained in the dark, avoiding any possibility of detection. Slowly, the figure moved among the shadows until it reached the alley entrance, where it stopped and raised a covered hand to ward off the wind and rain. It stood motionless for quite some times, watching, waiting.
There were no lights burning in any of the immediate buildings. There were no cars. No unexpected sounds.
A pair of eyes glanced up and down the street. Satisfied, the figure hunched its shoulders and hurried across the flooded road into the protected abutment under the stone staircase where it shook the water off its shoulders before turning to the heavy iron gate that guarded the entrance to the basement. A rusted padlock sealed the gate. The figure jostled the lock with its gloved hand, then fumbled in the large pocket of its raincoat and removed a set of keys, the largest of which was forced into the keyhole. The lock wouldn’t open. Again, the figure fumbled in the pocket and this time withdrew a small tube, after which it removed the key, squeezed some fluid into the hole, reinserted the key, and tried again. The key turned.
The figure entered the cellar and closed the gate.
Once again her sleep was pained and uncomfortable, though at first not with the same intensity as the night before. She lay in bed completely nude, rolling from side to side, clawing at the pillows.
The visions of the previous night reappeared, Chazen, the lesbians and the other members of the party. She felt their presence, heard their voices. The singing. “Happy birthday, dear Jezebel, happy birthday to you.”
The sheets dampened from perspiration. The blanket fell off, propelled by a compulsive kick; the pillows followed.
And she heard the pounding.
At first it was barely audible, then almost ear-splitting.
Still sleeping, she raised her palms to her ears and tried to close out the noise. But the pounding increased in magnitude. Louder and louder, then mixed with the clanging sounds of metal.
She awoke disoriented, terrified. She switched on the bed light and glanced quickly around the room. There was no discernible movement. Her tense muscles relaxed; her spasmodic breathing subsided.
“No,” she muttered, resting her head in her cupped hands. “What have I done? What have I done to deserve this?” She dried her eyes with her palms. “What have I done?” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. She looked up.
The slow, methodical, and uneven advance of two pacing feet sounded overhead, left to right and then back across the floor. Once again, she covered her ears. She couldn’t stand it anymore.
She jumped from the bed, picked up her clothes, quickly put them on, then pulled the shade on the rear window so that the bed light would remain undetected from above.
She moved hesitantly down the hallway to the kitchen, flicked on the small oven light, and scanned the Formica counted. The remnants of the TV dinner sat on the edge of the sink, the drained bottle of Rose lay sideways on the meat board and a sheet of aluminum foil lay on the refrigerator. She reached out, clasped the bottle of tranquilizers, and popped off the top; a little white pellet fell into her hand. Should she take it? She had to steady her nerves! More important, she had to summon as much courage as she could from her frail body. But the tranquilizers wouldn’t do that. Nor could they prime her for what lay ahead. She was determined to uncover the secret of the disappearing tenants, and she knew that whoever was upstairs probably held the key to the entire puzzle. In the soft yellow light that bathed the kitchen, she weighted the alternatives. There were none; she had to go up to apartment 4A and get in. The tranquilizers? Useless. She replaced the top and returned the vial to the counter.
She opened the drawer below the Formica table and removed a butcher knife; it gave her comfort and protection. She would not be going upstairs alone.
From the utility pantry she withdrew a flashlight and pressed the button. The light fluttered and went out. She shook the flashlight violently; the beam flicked on and off. Determined, she unscrewed the back knob and jostled the batteries, then closed the flashlight and pressed the on button once more. It worked perfectly.
The wall light off, she walked to the living room, barefoot, and flashed the beam about. There was no one there. Nothing out of the ordinary. Turning toward the bedroom, she listened carefully. The footsteps continued. She took a deep breath, switched off the flashlight, stepped into the hall, and shut the door.
The landing was dark; both the third and fourth stairwell lights were out. She inched her way along the wall to the staircase and twisted the solitary bulb. It remained dead. She jiggled the bulb violently, then turned away and be
gan to climb. Slowly. The steps squeaking horribly. The sounds of the contrasting storm outside filling the air.
Perspiration poured from her body; her brain ached from the unrelenting strain.
Then, suddenly, she recoiled, smashing her head against the wall. She covered her mouth with the back of her palm to prevent an outcry. She whimpered, eyes closed, horrified. She’d stepped on something.
Shaking violently, she tried desperately to pull herself together. She flicked on the flashlight and panned the steps at her feet. There was nothing there. She ran the light up the staircase, completely covering each step. The light came to rest on the edge of the fourth landing. In the full flush of the beam sat the cat, Jezebel, the cat that didn’t exist. The frazzled body was motionless; the green eyes fixed. In her mouth was the parakeet, its head torn open, and its feathers shredded from the tiny body, its once delicate form now battered carrion, dripping blood onto the floor.
Allison shook uncontrollably.
She was angry. That fool Miss Logan hadn’t believed a damn word she’d said. But here was incontestable proof! Jezebel. Spitting and ominous. Mortimer. Dead.
The cat showed her fangs over the shattered body. Allison steadied the knife and took a step upward. The cat put the bird down, arched her back, and hissed. Another step. The cat arched her back even further; Allison took two quick steps. The cat shot out her paw, backed away with a menacing hiss, picked up the bird and ran off into the darkness.
There was silence again.
Allison turned off the flashlight; breathing deeply, she climbed the remaining steps to the fourth floor and slowly walked along the corridor to apartment 4A. She leaned, immobile, on the door frame for several minutes, then tried the knob, expecting it to be locked. Surprisingly, the latch clicked and the door swung open. She looked behind her. There was no sign of Jezebel; the hall was empty. She squeezed her way through the small opening into the living room. She studied the darkness. It was too dark, unnaturally so. Almost as if she were looking through an infinite tunnel in an unmapped dimension. She couldn’t even see the flashlight held ready in her left hand or the steel knife that she held tightly in the right. And if not for her highly tuned senses, she might have doubted her own existence.
The room was silent; there were no footsteps.
Turning on the flashlight, she flicked it over the walls. The furniture was as she’d seen it earlier that day when Miss Logan had taken her through the apartments. She sniffed the air and recoiled. The musty odor was stronger than ever. She wiped her nose to kill the sting and turned toward the grandfather clocks. The faces were clogged with dust; the hands lay still. The fireplace was empty and the living room closets were open. Except for a tattered old umbrella, they, too, were bare.
She angled toward the bedroom hallway. The footsteps echoed again. She shut the flashlight, cowered against the wall and held her breath, fearing that even the sound of her heaving chest might be heard. The living room seemed to shrink around her, the walls converging and the ceiling lowering. Frantically, she turned. She’d left the front door partially open. Every muscle begged her to break for safety. Yet, she knew she couldn’t. The bedroom lay a mere twenty feet down the short hallway. And in it the source of the footsteps, the key to her nightmares and, perhaps, the solution to the mystery of the missing tenants.
Brandishing the knife before her, she moved deliberately down the corridor, shoulder touching the wall, one step at a time.
The footsteps ceased; there was a squeaking.
She reached the open door to the bedroom and extended the knife before her. At first there was no indication of life. She waited, then turned toward the faint outline of the bed. A soft rustling drifted out of the darkness. She pressed the button on the flashlight; it didn’t work. She shook the cylinder violently; the batteries jiggled, but still no light. There was movement; a figure slid through the darkness and stood, back to Allison, against the outline of the rear window.
“Hello,” she called, her voice choked and frightened. There was no answer. “Hello,” she repeated.
The figure stood silent, motionless.
“What do you want from me?”
There was no reply.
She slowly moved toward the form, calling to it in a high-pitched voice. The knife was fully extended; she shook the flashlight in desperation. Never before had she known such fear, such restrained hysteria.
Reaching the figure, she touched its shoulder. It turned, but in the darkness of the room, she could only see the outline of a head. “Who are you?” she begged, tears rolling down her cheeks. The figure stood silent, immobile. She jiggled the flashlight once more. It burst on, a powerful beam of white shattering the darkness and shining directly into the eyes of her father!
He was pallid white, a death mask covering her face. The lips and eyelids were swollen and hideous. Blue veins crisscrossed the crusted skin. His hair was shriveled, his eyeballs opaque. The cobalt scars that coursed along the right side of his face, down the neck and onto the right arm were festered; colorless pus oozed on the surface. And he was naked.
Her hideous scream fractured the night.
Lurching backward into a chair, she fell against the wall, still screaming, then stumbled back and forth, swinging the flashlight wildly in ever-widening arcs. The beam sporadically fell across her father’s charred body, as he painfully moved toward her, his right leg partially paralyzed and dragging behind. She ran backward, colliding with the furniture. The light continued to spray the room. It caught the bed and framed two fat naked women laying in an obscene position. Then darkness.
She ran into the living room, fell over an armchair, and sprawled across the floor, losing her grasp on the flashlight. It flickered out. The sound of the approaching footsteps rang in her ears.
The chair had fallen on her; she pushed frantically to get it off.
The partially open door slammed shut. The figure was standing in front of her only means of escape. She screamed hysterically, shot to her feet and charged toward the door. He grabbed her by the hair with one hand, by the crucifix chain with the other. She swung the knife into the darkness. It dug into the heavy chest. A bloodcurdling scream shook the apartment. Again and again the knife plunged downward as a trickle of blood curled down her arm. More screams…a cry of death. Then a body dropped. She ran toward the door, threw it open, and sprang into the hallway.
The front door of the brownstone burst open; Allison rushed out, screaming, and tumbled down the wet stone steps. She no longer had the knife. Lights switched on in the surrounding buildings in response to the cries; curious heads emerged from open windows. Pulling at her soaked hair in terror, she stumbled through the puddles, falling every few steps from the force of the wind and her own imbalance. Running, falling, she managed to make her way down the block to the corner.
High above the street the old priest, awake, but still motionless, sat at the window, hands braced in front of him.
The rain continued to fall.
The wind blew fiercely.
The house stood dark and silent.
13
“This way, ma’am.”
“I hope this won’t take too long.”
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”
“I’m anxious to see her.”
“That’s up to the man inside.”
The detective opened an opaque glass door.
“Thank you,” said Jennifer Learson, as she walked by the man and into the room.
The detective looked at the lettering on the door. It was marked Bellevue Hospital-Police Interrogation. “Just take a seat on the bench,” he said officiously.
The room was small, sparsely furnished. The walls were discolored; chips of paint hung from the plaster or already lay on the gray cement floor. The furniture was plain, splintered, and untended, a long brown bench along the right wall, a simple square unpaint
ed table to the left.
Jennifer sat down on the bench.
The detective closed the door.
A squat little man with an angular face was seated behind the table. He possessed a pair of black eyes, a long nose with a bump on the bridge, and two unnaturally thin and colorless lips. On his head was an old fedora, which blended perfectly with his oversized suit. His shirt was covered with ashes that had fallen from short chewed-up cigar that hung from his mouth and bobbed about as he ruminated.
He smiled at Jennifer, revealing a beaver like mouth of teeth that stretched across his face and left the impression that the lower part of his head was a huge dental bridge. He held the smile and said nothing. She fidgeted on the bench, unnerved by the unprotected, sterile surroundings and the piercing nature of the little ferret’s ambivalent grin.
“My name’s Gatz, Detective Gatz, with a z.” His voice, a low-pitched twang, was irritating to the ear. The sound emanated from deep in his throat and took much of its form from the unnatural tucked-in position of his jaw, which caused the muscles to constrict and the vocal cords to compress.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, as she watched the misleading smile recede from his face.
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir,” she repeated. Her fingers ran nervously along the pleats of her blue skirt.
“Your name is Learson, Jennifer Learson?”
“Yes.”
He held up a piece of paper. “Home: Three eleven, East Fifty-first Street. Profession: Model.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“I wanted…”
He interrupted. “I trust detective Richardson filled you in?” he asked, glancing at the tall, unresponsive detective behind him.
She paused, then replied, “Vaguely.”
“I see. Well, we’ll try to clarify the picture a bit more. You know Miss Allison Parker, I presume?”
“Yes, sir, but…”
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