‘She’s very good,’ said Harry to Richard. ‘I’m fairly sure she could tell us something.’
‘Then find out what that something might be,’ said Richard.
‘It might be messy,’ warned Harry.
‘So be it. Messy is fine. It’s sloppy I don’t need.’
All right, then, Richard the Ringleader!
The homicide detectives now seemed absolutely stymied by the fact that this old woman in a waitress’s uniform was getting the best of them.
‘How did he seem to you when you last saw him?’ asked Detective White.
‘I already said that I couldn’t say when I last saw him,’ said Lillian.
‘Does he usually come home at a particular time?’ asked Detective Black.
‘Maybe he does, I don’t know. I really don’t follow his comings and goings. I’ve got a business to run.’
‘Did you know that he was recently forced to resign from his job?’ asked Detective White.
‘That wouldn’t be any of my business,’ said Lillian.
Having been subjected long enough to Lillian’s dazzling song-and-dance, which almost moved me to tears of thanks for her protectiveness in my favor, the detectives left their card and then left the diner with two coffees to go, compliments of the house. Soon afterward Harry paid for his coffee and took his leave, only to return a few hours later as Lillian was locking up for the day.
Before Lillian had turned the key in the door, Harry came up behind her.
Before Harry came up behind her, I stepped into Lillian’s body and took over its workings, placing her mind in a state of pleasant unconsciousness while I went about my business. This was another new idea of mine that came to me on the spur of the moment. I had no special plan except to keep Lillian safe. I would just have to play the rest of it by ear, and when it was over, assuming all went well, send Lillian on her way home without any alarm in her heart or memories in her head.
‘Please move back inside, Ma’am,’ said Harry, shoving a gun barrel into Lillian’s back and nearly causing her to drop the brown carry-out bag she was juggling along with her purse while she was locking up. ‘And I’ll take those keys if it’s all the same to you.’
Lillian had securely folded and stapled the carry-out bag, so Harry couldn’t have guessed that it contained the life savings of Frank Dominio. As he maneuvered her away from the front window, Lillian said (or rather I said using Lillian’s vocal cords), ‘What is it you want, young man?’
Harry smiled at the casual tone of the question. ‘I would like to rape and rob you,’ he replied.
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. I would like your key to the apartment upstairs. I assume you have one.’
‘I surely do,’ said Lillian. ‘Would you mind if I set these things down on the counter?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Thank you. Now you said you wanted to rob me. Let me see how much I’ve got in my handbag.’
‘Cut it out,’ Harry yelled as he knocked Lillian’s purse to the other side of the counter.
‘No reason to act so rude,’ said Lillian. ‘Just a joke. I know you’re not looking for some small change from this old handbag. I can see you’re not just some worthless drug addict. Not like some people.’
Immediately Harry’s attention became divided between the words he had used earlier that day to describe Perry Stokowski and the business of the moment. For a second he froze into the pose of a classic, gun-pointing hood, not even noticing that Lillian had already turned away and was headed down a hallway into the shadows of the closed diner.
‘What you’re looking for,’ she called out from the darkness. ‘It’s back here.’
‘Hold it,’ shouted Harry.
‘You hold it,’ said Lillian as she opened a creaky door and switched on a light, causing a little room to appear at the end of the hallway.
When Harry entered the little room he saw Lillian standing in the corner and leaning over an old safe that opened from the top. After tuning in the combination she pulled at a metal handle and exposed the contents of the safe. ‘Lots of money in here, boy,’ she said. ‘I was going to bring it to the bank tomorrow, just like I do every Friday.’
‘Take it out,’ Harry ordered.
‘What do you think I’m doing?’ said Lillian. After she had brought out the heavy cloth bag that contained the cash taken in at the diner, Lillian reached into the depths of the old safe and pulled up something else. ‘I imagine you’d be interested in this too,’ she said as she held out a stack of papers secured by a single rubber band. Harry read the words printed on the first page: ‘New Product’, and below these – ‘Frank Dominio’.
‘I knew you were lying to those cops,’ Harry said in a self-satisfied voice.
‘And aren’t you the smart boy for taking note of that. It’s too bad, though, that you won’t be able to walk away with any of this loot, never mind the papers.’
‘What’s stopping me?’ said Harry.
‘Well, for one thing,’ said Lillian, ‘you can’t open that door.’
Harry quickly turned around and realized that the door which had creaked open so loudly had somehow closed behind him without making a sound. When he swiveled back toward Lillian, she said, ‘And for another thing, your gun won’t work any more.’
Harry pulled the trigger of his weapon (not a Glock). But the only thing that emerged from it was a molten blob of metal, which trickled out of the cylindrical barrel like water dripping from a leaky faucet. Then the light bulb in the ceiling began to fade until the room was submerged in blackness.
These were strange phenomena in their own right. But the thing that really unsettled Harry was the sound of something bubbling up from inside the safe, illuminating the room with strangely jittering colors as it rose to the rim and emitted a vaporous stench. Harry gagged and covered his mouth with his free hand. Speaking through his fingers, he said, ‘What’s going on? What is that?’
‘Soup of the day, boy – Cream of Mucous Membrane. I thought it might be something you’d like, you being a sexual offender and all. It does smell some.’
Harry was now choking and gagging at the same time. Finally he managed to cough out a few words. ‘Who are you?’ he said.
It was Lillian who looked into Harry’s eyes, a lurid rainbow of glowing colors playing across her face, her mouth grinning wide. But it was my voice that answered Harry’s question.
‘It’s me, Harry,’ I said. ‘It’s Domino.’
I could have gone on gloating like that for some time if Harry’s cell phone hadn’t started chirping inside his coat pocket. This forced me to rush things, since I wanted to take that call. With lightning speed that surprised even me, I had the phone in my – that is, Lillian’s – hand. By the time it was between its second and third rings, Harry was gone. The skin of his face was still bobbing up and down in the soup as it receded down into the darkness whence it came. The light in the little room switched back on.
I flipped open Harry’s phone and put it to my ear. ‘Hoy-hoy,’ I said, continuing to speak in my own voice.
‘What?’ said the man on the other end, who was Richard.
‘I said “Hoy-hoy”. That’s the phrase first put forth by Alexander Graham Bell as the standard greeting to be spoken into his new invention. Well, it wasn’t just his invention . . . but he ended up getting all the credit for it in the public mind. That’s the old story, isn’t it? Especially when we – meaning you and me – are talking about brilliant and profitable inventions.’
‘Is that what we’re talking about?’
‘You know that it is.’
‘Where’s Harry?’ said Richard.
‘Work not done,’ I replied.
‘I see,’ said Richard. ‘What happened exactly?’
‘Sorry, Richard, but I really can’t say myself what happened . . . exactly. Nothing that Harry enjoyed very much, I’m pretty sure on that score. And while we’re on the subject, you might want to look in o
n Sherry.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Richard.
As I stated earlier, in order to function with any effectiveness in this world you have to make some absurd assumptions. My assumption of the moment was that Richard should have sounded far more rattled by our conversation. But this wasn’t the case at all.
‘That’s three guys out,’ I said, making the mistake of trying to get a rise out of my one-time boss. ‘Four to go, not counting Chipman.’
‘You’re really a very bad man,’ said Richard.
‘Yes, I am,’ I said. ‘But you can take the credit for that.’
‘That’s no more than false modesty coming from someone with such an enormous ego. Too bad you never recognized that in yourself. We could have worked very well together if you had. It must be quite painful to have such big plans without being able to admit what an ambitious swine you really are.’
‘Swine?’ I said, my composure continuing to crack. I had never shared that epithet with anyone at the company.
‘Isn’t that what you thought of the rest of us?’
‘More or less. It’s a common term of derogation.’
‘I suppose it is. I must have heard it used around the office. Or maybe I just dreamed it. I believe that dreams can be quite helpful in our lives. How about you?’
I was beginning to regret having answered Harry’s phone. ‘I think we’ve said about all we have to say to each other. Unless there’s something you’d like to add.’
‘Like what?’ said Richard.
‘I don’t know. Something threatening. Like telling me I’m a dead man, for instance.’
‘No, not at all,’ said Richard. ‘As far as that goes, I already know that you’re not a dead man. But neither are you alive, isn’t that right, Domino?’
Then Richard hung up, leaving me once again with a mind that was racing with incalculable doubts and questions and, above all, fear.
8
ON RICHARD’S ORDERS, Chipman went to see what was what with Sherry. It was just after the close of the work day and the floor on which Sherry’s office was located was quiet and empty, save for a few members of the cleaning staff who moved among the cubicles, emptying out each employee’s trash containers and doing a bit of vacuuming. Knocking lightly on the door of Sherry’s office, Chipman looked around for anyone who might be observing him before slipping into the room and closing himself inside.
‘What the hell,’ said Chipman aloud.
The ceiling light still illuminated the windowless office, but it was dim and flickered at strobe-like intervals. This was done strictly for effect on my part, as was the general disarray of the room, which appeared as if a miniature whirlwind had turned the place all higgledy-piggledy, with bookshelves knocked to the floor, a desk that leaned at a forty-five degree angle against the wall, and the contents of every file drawer and desk drawer scattered everywhere. While there was no sign of Sherry, her purse was among the disturbed contents within those four walls. Chipman saw it at the back of the room, its strap torn off and its leather outerskin crushed like a deflated football.
As he stepped cautiously through the debris, Chipman saw something glinting on the floor, something that blinked in sequence with the ceiling light and which animated the scene around him. Bending down, he picked up the object, which to all appearances was a hand mirror that had been dumped, along with everything else, from Sherry’s purse. Light and shadow skittered across the reflecting surface of the mirror. This was all that Chipman could see at first. But as he inspected the object more closely he noticed that there was also a face in that mirror . . . and the face was not his own. Nor was it Sherry’s face, exactly. But it was the face of something, some Sherry-like thing, some creature from which almost every vestige of Sherry had been distilled and only the Thing part remained. And it seemed to be screaming with what seemed to be a mouth full of craggy teeth that, seemingly, were trying to eat their way out of the mirror.
Chipman dropped the mirror to the floor immediately, instinctively. Then he started crushing it underfoot, stomping on it with the heel of his shoe until the mirror was only a collection of sharp, glittering fragments which he frantically kicked into every corner of the room, thereby dispersing the image of something that had quickened his breathing and made his eyes stare as if they could still see the face in the mirror.
Standing amid the tremulous shadows of that office – its furnishings all atilt, little slivers of a funhouse mirror still shining among the debris about him – Chipman appeared lost within the narrow corridors of dark reverie. But he was brought back to himself when, from somewhere in the chaos of Sherry Mercer’s old office, the telephone began to ring. Chipman scrambled toward the source of that mad warbling sound, which was not at all like the friendly twitter he was used to hearing from the modern phones in the company’s offices. He finally tracked the noise to its hiding place beneath a mound of file folders that littered the floor.
‘Yeah,’ said Chipman, abandoning the formal salutations of the workplace.
‘Chipman?’ asked the voice on the phone.
‘Yes, this is he,’ he said, laughing a little.
‘Where’s Sherry?’
‘She’s . . . I don’t know, Richard. She’s not in her office. Something’s wrong here. The place looks like it’s been ransacked and . . . well, her purse is here but . . . maybe you should see it for yourself.’
‘All right, settle down.’
‘I am settled down,’ said Chipman.
‘You don’t sound like it.’
‘Well, it’s just that . . . there was something.’
‘Listen to me, Chipman. I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer with a simple yes or no. Besides the condition of Sherry’s office and the fact that her purse is still there –’
‘It’s practically ripped apart. Someone must have –’
‘Let me finish. Besides what you’ve told me, the ransacking and so forth, have you seen, or perhaps heard, anything else, anything . . . that might seem out of the ordinary?’
‘Yes,’ answered Chipman as instructed. ‘I saw something.’
‘That’s good, you’re doing fine. One more question – yes or no answer. What you saw, was it something that made you feel as if –’
‘Richard, I thought I was losing my mind,’ Chipman interjected.
‘All right, that’s good.’
‘It’s good that I thought I was losing my mind?’ Chipman said almost belligerently.
‘No. It’s good that you told me the truth. Now, I want you to go home. Leave the building right away. Tomorrow morning there’s going to be a meeting, and I want you to be there. Just watch yourself until then. Can you do that?’
‘I think I can do that,’ said Chipman without a hint of conviction.
‘All right, then,’ said Richard. ‘One more thing –’
Then the phone went dead. Chipman tried to bring it back to life to call Richard back, but it was gone. Tossing the defunct receiver to the floor, Chipman said to himself, ‘I’m going to go home now. Richard said I should go home.’ Then he turned and saw what was written on the door of the office. The words were scored into the wood in precise block lettering, carved quite deeply. And they hadn’t been there before, those words –
WORK NOT DONE.
Chipman suddenly charged the door and opened it, as if any hesitation might result in a loss of nerve that might keep him trapped in that office – looking at those words – forever. But on the other side of the door there was only another door.
WORK NOT DONE.
And behind him there was only a dark wall illuminated by a flickering light.
Chipman now seemed to be listening for something, perhaps the comforting sound of the vacuum cleaners being pushed across the carpeted hallways and among the cubicles of the company offices. He called for help, but there was no one who could hear him. Because he wasn’t in the company offices any more. He really wasn’t anywhere. Nevertheless, he kept c
alling for help . . . and he kept opening door after door: WORK NOT DONE, WORK NOT DONE, WORK NOT DONE . . .
After a while even I could no longer follow him into that place of endless doors and darkness.
Part III
1
MEMO TO: You
FROM: Me
DATE: Thursday Evening
SUBJECT: The Darkness
AS MANY OF you have already realized, I did not give up my intentions of crafting a document that, in an earlier section, I described as my Ultimate Statement. This document, or statement, had merely mutated into a different format – from a ranting declaration into what might be categorized as a paranormal memoir: a work-in-progress of uncertain form, very much like its creator. Among the principal elements to emerge in this latter form was that sinister presence whose sign and symbol had appeared to me as (1) a river of blackness; (2) a constellation of dark stars which filled the darkness behind the darkness of the night sky; (3) ‘dark spots’ that, despite my enhanced perception of the world around me, still obscured certain crucial things from my view, most prominently any knowledge concerning the peculiar –‘non-living’– state in which I now existed; and (4) stains or smudges of darkness which spread across the sky at all hours and grew increasingly prominent each time I knocked the living daylights out of one of The Seven (plus Chipman).
At the time specified above, it was the last of these four phenomena that most preoccupied me, given that I had eliminated no fewer than three persons before sundown (which, of course, was still an hour behind on the clocks in my time zone and would remain so for one more October day). Even during the later hours of Thursday afternoon, following my annihilation of Sherry Mercer and the man I knew as Harry Smith-Jones, the world outside my apartment windows was stuck in a shade of deep twilight as far as I could see.
My Work Is Not Yet Done Page 10