Cold Night (Jack Paine Mysteries)

by Al Sarrantonio

  His father served it up on the big plates their mother had bought on sale, the ones that had lasted for years and never got chipped or cracked, even when he or Tom dropped them while washing and cleaning. The coffee smelled good. He saw that his father had put a coffee cup in front of his own plate for him. That had never happened before. Tom was looking at him strangely, but he was smiling, and the strangeness was there only because he was younger and didn't know what was happening.

  "Can I have coffee, too, Pop?" Tom asked his father.

  "Just sit and shut it," the old man said, but he was smiling even though his hands shook a little on the bacon skillet.

  "Damn!" he suddenly blurted out as the skillet tipped back and a dip of bacon grease caught him on the knuckles. Reflexively, he dropped the skillet, and half the bacon slid off to land sizzling on top of the stove. "Goddamn!" he said, holding his hand to his side and at the same time trying to fork the bacon slices back onto the pan. "Got to keep your mind on what you're doing all the time," he said, and then he finally had all the bacon back in place, the heat turned down, and he ran some cold water over his hand and swore once more, though softer.

  "Hope you boys are hungry," he said, though he didn't look at Tom. He was looking at Jack. "You hungry?" Pop asked again. Jack nodded, and something passed between them. What it was he didn't know, but suddenly he was afraid again, as he hadn't been since he had come home.

  But then they were eating waffles, and bacon saved from the ruins of the grease, and he was drinking coffee with his old man and he was happy. He was wearing one of his clean shirts, from his own bureau, and a pair of clean chinos, and his Sunday shoes, and his father was bending over his plate and putting more on it as soon as it was empty.

  "Must be hungry," his father said, and he even filled his coffee cup again when it was empty, though the strong-tasting stuff had gone down hard.

  "Hurry up now," Pop said, "we got to leave soon."

  "Where to?" Tom asked, but Pop turned to him and said, "Not you. You stay here and clean your brother's room. Me and him's got to go out."

  Once more, fear took hold of him, but his father reached his big hand over and put it on top of his own and he said softly, "Don't you ever worry again." He took his hand away, suddenly self-conscious, and there was that slight tremble in it again and he got up from the table.

  "I'll get the coats," he said.

  They went out into the sunshine, and the day was warm and the trees smelled like they should when spring is coming. There were still patches of March snow in the corners, out away from the sun, but the sun was getting high and by the end of the day all the snow would disappear. By the smell of the world they would see no more snow this year. He had never smelled spring like this before, and suddenly it was all through him, in his arms and legs, and he turned to his father.

  "Can we go to a ball game soon, Pop?"

  His father looked down, from far away. He looked through him for a moment, and then he heard. His mouth smiled and then he laughed.

  "Sure. How 'bout opening day at Yankee Stadium?"

  "Could we?"

  "You bet." And then his father held his hand, very tight, and opened the car door for him and closed it after him.

  They drove through the new spring, with the windows down, and then they came to a place that looked familiar, but not the same. He knew he had seen it before, but he knew that this wasn't the way he had seen it; it looked similar, and yet it was different. Nothing was where it was supposed to be, the doors, the windows, but they were the same kinds of doors and windows and the brick was the same color and there was the same kind of green moss between the cracks in the bricks. They parked the car and there was a long ramp leading down, and his father smiled and they walked down it and opened a swinging door and went in.

  It was bright inside, and there were people and there was noise. He saw a few men with cameras and large coats. His father pushed his head gently down and made him walk through. His father kept his head down, too. He started to protest but his father hushed him and soon the men and some of the noise were behind them.

  "Stand here," his father said softly. They stopped by a bulletin board, large and rectangular. Next to it was a water fountain. He saw the men with the cameras down the hallway. They were all looking away from him, toward the outside ramp and the door leading in. He turned the other way and saw a desk down at the other end. It looked empty, though there were voices off to the right, around a corner. He saw someone's hand reach for a telephone on the desk as it rang, but he only saw the arm and then his father was speaking to him.

  "Be very quiet," his father said. His father's hand was on his shoulder, rubbing in a circle, gently, like a massage, but his eyes were out toward the ramp. He looked that way, too. There was a sudden flurry of activity and then someone was coming down the ramp outside, a group of people, and the noise level began to rise.

  He saw the door open and then there was shouting and the men with the cameras started to take pictures. There were bright flashes. He couldn't see anyone, only a dense mass moving slowly down the hallway toward them. His father was gripping his shoulder, but still gently. Then he let go, though his body was still pressed next to him. The mass got closer and spread out, thinning; there were people shouting, "No more! No more questions now!" and then the group was upon them and passing. Two men walked briskly past, looking straight ahead to the desk at the other end of the hall. Behind them were two other men, one of them holding the other by the arm. The other man had his head down but he raised it slightly when he was just by them. The man seemed to sense something. He turned and looked and then Jack saw who it was and his mouth opened to cry out. But then his father was pushing him back. His father said, "Now," and then he stepped forward, deliberately and carefully, and there was something in his hand and he held it up to the man's head and the man tried to twist down and away but his father pulled the trigger. There was a red flash and the man's head exploded, and then Jack was screaming, "Uncle Martin! Uncle Martin!" as the man slid to the floor and his father turned to him and held him tight as other hands reached for them.

  There was an insistent buzzing sound, and then the scene receded from him and turned white. The buzz became a ringing sound. He groaned and opened his eyes. He was in his bed, in his undershirt and pants. It was stuffy in the room and he felt as if the heat had been turned up. There was sweat on the sheets where they stuck to his arms. There was no light but the red pulse of the digital alarm clock which threw a low crimson shadow against the telephone.

  He rolled into a sitting position and pulled the ringing phone off its cradle.

  His hand did not grip it well, and the phone fell, catching the edge of the bed. He fumbled it into his hand and put it to his ear.

  Someone said, "Jack?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd be asleep."

  It was her voice, Ginny's voice.

  "What time is it?" he said, not looking at the digital clock.

  "I thought you'd be up. It's about ten."

  "I was tired." He waited for her to say something but she didn't.

  "You called me," he said finally.

  "Yes. I wanted to ask you something."

  He waited.

  Her voice was hesitant. "I'm leaving in a couple of days, and I wanted to know if I could stop by for those things I left."

  Her voice went away from him. And then suddenly she was with him. He saw her there, on the bed, her hair framing her white face, her eyes unfocused, staring up at him, her mouth open, little whispers of panicky breath coming from her, her arms around him, pulling, pulling, trying, finally trying, both of them trying . . .

  "Sure," he said.

  "I . . . just don't think we would've worked it out."

  "Impotence and frigidity aren't a very good combination . . ." He added quickly, "I'm sorry I said that. I know you tried."

  "I did, Jack."

  "I just thought we could have fixed it up with time,
that's all."

  "I know. I thought so, too. But. . ."

  "Now you don't think so."

  "No, I don't." Her voice was far away. He knew that later he would think about it, the tone of her voice, that it would hurt hearing it in his mind again.

  He tried to lighten his voice. "Didn't meet some other goofball, did you? In a bus station or something?"

  She was very silent this time. "There might be someone else."

  "Might be?"

  "I'm not sure, yet. Not sure if I want there to be."

  "But you're going away with him to find out." The fighting tone was coming back, the dueling stance he had assumed with her so many times.

  "That's not it. I'm going away to think about it. Meeting him just made me sure about you and me."

  Hearing her voice like that, the fight drained out of him. "I think I know what you mean," he said.

  "Do you?"

  Again she was silent. Then, "Good-bye, Jack."

  "Ginny?"

  "Yes?"

  He let the phone receiver nestle slowly into its berth. The line of electricity, the voice turned into electrons, was cut off.

  "Forget it," he said.

  The phone rang again almost immediately. He waited and then picked it up.

  "Yes?"

  "Mr. Paine?"

  Not Ginny; another voice, cold, smooth and efficient.

  "This is Paine."

  "I'm Gloria Fulman." The name meant nothing except something very vague, and as it came to him she added,

  "The former Gloria Grumbach."

  "Yes, Ms. Fulman. What can I do for you?"

  "I thought you'd like to speak with me."

  "I'd be happy to see you tomorrow—"

  "I'd like you to come to my hotel tonight."

  "It's kind of late, Ms. Fulman. And I'm tired—"

  "My sister is being cremated at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, and I will be leaving immediately afterward. If you'd like to speak to me it will have to be tonight."

  "All right. Where are you?"

  She told him, and he wrote it down.

  "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

  "That will be fine."

  He put the phone down again, in its cradle, and stared at it before rising to his feet and pulling his shirt on.

  SIX

  The elevator rose smoothly to the fifth floor. He got off and turned left. Her suite was at the end, double-doored with a private hallway. There was a knocker on the door, and he used it. He saw the bright tiny light of the peephole darken, then the door opened.

  "Come in, Mr. Paine," she said.

  She was better-looking than he thought she would be. On the telephone she had sounded tall, thin and stiff, but she was short and just a little overweight, the kind of chubbiness that adds the right amount of curve to the right places. Her hair was medium short, styled high on top. She looked to be in her mid to late twenties.

  She brought him into a brightly lit living room; Paine counted four other doors and an open pantry leading to a small kitchenette. She obviously liked to spend money on suites, even for one night.

  "The liquor cabinet is stocked, if you'd like anything. Or I have coffee."

  "Coffee would be fine."

  She walked to the pantry and said something. A few moments later a young girl in a maid's uniform appeared with a tray. The service was silver; there was a platter with tea sandwiches on it.

  "You don't travel light," Paine said when the maid had left.

  Gloria Fulman's own coffee cup steamed untouched on the table beside her. She didn't take cream. She didn't smile.

  "I have a favor to ask of you, Mr. Paine," she said.

  "I'm listening."

  "I want you to keep the five hundred dollars my sister gave you, plus the five hundred dollars my father gave you. I will give you five hundred dollars also. I want you to forget about the Grumbach family."

  Paine said, "I can't do that. Your sister signed a contract with the agency I work for."

  "I want to cancel that contract."

  "Ms. Fulman," Paine said slowly, "I work for a man who won't let me do that. There are a lot of reasons. One of them is that there would be more money coming to his agency after I finished the job. Another is that he just won't let me do it."

  "Would you do it, Mr. Paine?"

  "No."

  "I see."

  "I don't think you do. I think you'd like to drop the whole thing because you're afraid of scandal. You'd like to shut the whole mess up now, and let it all die down, and then pick up the pieces and assemble them so that the good name of the Grumbach family goes on. And you're willing to give me a lot of money to do that. Am I right?"

  "I don't know why you're so angry, Mr. Paine. So far I haven't bribed you heavily at all." He thought he detected a trace of a smile but decided that it was just a trick of the light.

  "Mr. Paine, do you think my father killed himself'?"

  "No, I don't."

  "And do you think my sister Dolores killed herself?"

  "Possibly. I don't know."

  "All right, Mr. Paine." He could almost see the tiny gears spinning behind her eyes. She picked up her coffee cup and sipped at it, her expression showing that it was just the right temperature for her now, that she had known all along that it would be just the right temperature at just this time.

  "Is there anything I can help you with?" she said.

  He took the photographs out of his pocket and gave them to her. She went through them, bunching the first three together and handing them back and then bunching the second group and handing them back.

  "Do you recognize anyone in these pictures?" Paine asked her.

  "I understand that money won't work, Mr. Paine," she said. "Good-bye."

  Paine got up. He made a move for the door but she sat where she was, sipping at her coffee. The servant didn't appear to show him the way out.

  Paine crossed the room to the door leading out of the suite. He left it open. When he reached the end of the short hallway, he turned around. Her chair was already empty. The servant girl was there, bent over, collecting the plates and cups onto the silver tray.

  SEVEN

  Paine got into his car and drove out of Westchester. Soon the highway lights got sparser and then disappeared. He kept driving. He turned the radio on and rolled the window down, and the cool night air came into the car and washed out the stale air. He passed a bridge but he didn't turn onto it, and soon the glow of Westchester behind him bled down into the horizon and was gone. He was surrounded only by darkness. Through the windshield he saw stars. He saw a bright dot that he knew was the planet Venus. Next to it, a few degrees away, was another, smaller dot, red, which was Mars. Mars comes to Venus, he thought, Mars fights Venus, and then Mars goes away and everybody's dead but Venus shines on. War and love, the two facts of the human condition. Never mind taxes: there was war and love, and even after war went away love came again until Mars reappeared. Then the whole thing started over again. He looked away from Venus and Mars.

  He drove on, and soon the highway narrowed to two thin lanes and he had to watch the road all the time. There were a few other cars, lazy drivers out after rush hour, coming home from bars, going to bars. He passed one apparently very drunk driver who had been pulled crookedly onto the shoulder of the road, partially blocking the right lane, and stood outside the car arguing with a state trooper whose car flashers mixed red and white, like Mars and Venus, and who had the man leaning back against his car, his head looking up at the spinning sky. No doubt he saw something spinning not up in the sky but in the top of his head, where the alcohol had gone, where whatever it was that was meant to go away probably still lurked, waiting for a few hours of sleepy unconsciousness before creeping back up into the driver's head to torment him again. The red and white flashers disappeared around a turn in his rearview mirror.

  He drove as the night got darker. There was no moon, and Mars and Venus wheeled and sank and then were gone. Over
the hills and low mountains in the coming distance he saw for a moment part of the Big Dipper. In the handle of the Dipper he saw Mizar and Alcor, two close stars that circled one another. He remembered that the Big Dipper was an asterism, only part of a constellation. The constellation was called Ursa Major, but he couldn't see all of Ursa Major because most of it was hidden by the curve of the mountain. Many of the stars were faint, anyway.

  He went into the mountains and then he turned off the highway. There were other roads now, often narrow, with the center line smudged out by rain and salt and winter sanding. He made a turn and there, abruptly, was a shopping mall, with new white lines around it and lights still on in the parking lot. There were only a few cars parked, for night watchmen and teenagers drinking or making out. He looked away from the lights and soon they, too, were gone.

  Another few miles and he turned onto another road and then, immediately, he made a sharp turn onto an up-sloping gravel path. The gravel gave up, leaving hard-packed dirt, and he found himself listening to the sound the dirt made when the wheels rolled over it. There were trees closely bordering the road. He kept climbing at a slow angle, but up ahead he saw a flicker of soft light that resolved into a square of window.

  He stopped the car on a flat space, next to a small pickup. He leaned back against the seat. He stretched, rubbing his eyes with the flats of his palms. He looked at his watch, holding it out toward the small square window of light in the cottage. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. He got out of the car and stretched again.