by Peter Straub
APART FROM TWO UI STUDENTS in T-shirts and shorts walking into a bar called Axel’s Tuxedo, the sidewalks outside Jimmy’s were empty. John Ransom was moving quickly away from me, swinging his arms and going north along Berlin Avenue to Shady Mount, and as he went from relative darkness into the bright lights beneath the Royal’s marquee, his lightweight suit changed color, like a chameleon’s hide.
In two or three seconds Ransom passed back into the darkness on the other side of the marquee. A car started up on the opposite side of the street. Ransom was about fifty feet away, still clearly in sight, moving quickly and steadily through the pools of yellow light cast by the street lamps.
I turned around to go up the block and saw a blue car move away from the curb across the street. For a second I stopped moving, aware that something had caught in my memory. Just before the car slid into the light spilling out from the Royal’s marquee, I had it: the same car had pulled over to the curb on Eastern Shore Drive so that we would be out of sight when Sarah Spence Youngblood drove into Tom Pasmore’s driveway. Then light from the movie theater fell on the car, and instead of Sarah Youngblood, a man with big shoulders and long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail sat behind the wheel. The light caught the dot of a gold earring in his left ear. It was the man I had almost bumped into at the hospital pay phones. He had followed us to Tom Pasmore’s house, then to Jimmy’s, and now he was following John to the hospital.
And since I had seen him first at the hospital, he must have followed us there, too. I turned to watch the blue car creep down the street.
The driver bumped along behind John. Whenever his target got too far in front of him, he nudged the car out into the left lane and slowly rolled forward another twenty or thirty feet before cutting back into the curb. If there had been much other traffic, he would not have been noticeable in any way.
I walked along behind him, stopping when he stopped. I could hear the soles of Ransom’s shoes ticking against the sidewalks. The man in the blue car swung away from the curb and purred along the nearly empty street, tracking him like a predator.
Still hurrying along, Ransom was now only a block from the hospital, moving in and out of the circles of light on the sidewalk. The man in the blue car pulled out of an unlighted spot and rolled down the street. He surprised me by going right past Ransom. I thought he had seen me in his rearview mirror and swore at myself for not even getting his license number. Then he surprised me again and swung into the curb across the street from the hospital. I saw his head move as he found John Ransom in his side mirror.
I started walking faster.
Ransom turned into the narrow path between tall hedges that led up to the visitors’ entrance at Shady Mount. The door of the blue car opened, and the driver got out. He pushed the door shut behind him and began to amble across the street. He was about my height, and he walked with a slightly tilted-back swagger. The apostrophe of gray hair jutted out from his head and fell against his back. His big shoulders swung, and the loose jacket of the suit billowed a little. I saw that his hips were surprisingly wide and that his belly was heavy and soft. The way he moved, his hips floating, made him look like he was swimming through the humid air.
I got my notebook out of my pocket and wrote down the number of his license plate. The blue car was a Lexus. He stepped up onto the sidewalk and turned into the path. He had given John Ransom enough time to get into an elevator. I walked down the block as quickly as I could, and by the time I turned into the path, he was just letting the visitors’ door close behind him. I jogged up the path and came through the door while he was still floating along toward the elevator. I went across the nearly empty lobby and touched him on the shoulder.
He looked over his shoulder to see who had touched him. His face twitched with irritation, and he turned around to face me. “Something I can help you with?” he said. His voice was unadulterated Millhaven, flat, choppy, and slightly nasal.
“Why are you following John Ransom?” I asked.
He sneered at me—only half of his face moved. “You must be outa your mind.”
He started to turn away, but I caught his arm. “Who told you to follow Ransom?”
“And who the hell are you?”
I told him my name.
He looked around the lobby. Two of the clerks behind the long desk sat unnaturally still at their computer keyboards, pretending not to be eavesdropping. The man frowned and led me away from the elevators, toward the far side of the lobby and a row of empty chairs. Then he squared off in front of me and looked me up and down. He was trying to decide how to handle me.
“If you really want to help this guy Ransom, I think you should go back to wherever you came from,” he said finally.
“Is that a threat?”
“You really don’t understand,” he said. “I got nothing to do with you.” He wheeled around and started moving fast toward the visitors’ entrance.
“Maybe one of these nervous clerks should call the police.”
He whirled to confront me. His face was an unhealthy red. “You want police? Listen, you asshole, I’m with the police.”
He reached into his back pocket and came out with a fat black wallet. He flipped it open to show me one of the little gold badges given to officers’ wives and contributors to police causes.
“That’s impressive,” I said.
He stuck his broad forefinger into my chest, hard, and pushed his big face toward me. “You don’t know what you’re messing with, you stupid fuck.”
Then he marched past me and out the door. I walked after him and watched him jam the wallet back into his pants on the way down the walk between the hedges. He moved across the street without bothering to look for other cars. He pulled open the door of the Lexus, bent down, and squeezed himself in. He slammed the door, started the car, and looked out of the open window to see me watching him. His face seemed to fill the entire space of the window. He twitched the car out into Berlin Avenue and roared off.
I walked off the sidewalk and watched his taillights diminish as he moved away. The brake lights flashed as he stopped at a traffic light two blocks down. The Lexus went another block north on Berlin Avenue and then turned left without bothering to signal. There was no other car on the street, and the night seemed huge and black.
I went back up between the hedges and into the hospital.
15
BEFORE I GOT TO THE ELEVATOR, a police car pulled up into the ambulance bay outside the Emergency Room. Dazzling red and blue lights flashed like Morse code through the corridor. A few clerks leaned over the partition. A short balding man with an oversized nose got out of the car. The detective charged through the parting glass doors. A nurse skittered toward him, grinning and holding her hands clasped beneath her chin. The detective said something I couldn’t hear, picked her up, and carried her along a few steps before whispering something into her ear and depositing her on the ground again just at the beginning of the corridor. Bent double, the nurse gasped and waved at his back before straightening up and smoothing out her uniform.
The detective held me with his eyes as he moved toward me.
I stopped and waited. As soon as he got into the lobby, he said, “Go on, get the elevator, don’t just stand there.” He waved me toward the buttons. The clerks who had been leaning over the partition to see what was going on smiled at him and then at each other. “You were going to call the elevator, weren’t you?”
I nodded and went to the closed doors and pushed the UP button.
The detective nodded at the clerks. His heavy face seemed immobile, but his eyes gleamed.
“You didn’t call us, did you?”
“No,” I said.
“We’re all right, then.”
I smiled, and the gleam died theatrically from his eye. He was a real comedian, with his saggy face and his unpressed suit. “Police should never go to hospitals.” He had the kind of face that could express subtleties of feeling without seeming to move in any way. “Will you get inside tha
t thing, please?” The elevator had opened up before us.
I got in and he followed me. I pushed the third floor button. The elevator ascended and stopped. He left the elevator, taking the turns that would lead him to April Ransom’s room. I followed. We went past the nurses’ station and rounded the bend of the circular corridor. A young uniformed officer came out of April’s room.
“Well?” the detective said.
“This could actually happen,” said the uniformed policeman. His nameplate read THOMPSON. “Who is this, sir?”
The detective looked back at me. “Who’s this? I don’t know who this is. Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of John Ransom’s,” I said.
“News gets around fast,” the detective said. He led the way into April’s room.
John Ransom and a doctor who looked like a college freshman were standing on the far side of the bed. Ransom looked slightly stunned. He looked up when he saw me—his eyes moved to the unkempt detective, then back to me. “Tim? What’s going on?”
“What is going on?” asked the detective. “We got more people in here than the Marx Brothers. Didn’t you call this guy?”
“No, I didn’t call him,” John said. “We had dinner together.”
“I see,” said the detective. “How is Mrs. Ransom doing, then?”
John looked vague and uncertain. “Ah, well …”
“Good, incisive,” said the detective. “Doctor?”
“Mrs. Ransom is showing definite signs of improvement,” said the doctor. His voice was a thick plank of dark brown wood.
“Does it look like the lady might actually be able to say something, or are we standing in the line at Lourdes here?”
“There are definite indications,” said the doctor. The heavy wooden voice sounded as if it were coming from a much larger and older person who was standing behind him.
John looked wildly at me across the bed. “Tim, she might actually come out of it.”
The detective came up behind him and insinuated himself at the bedside. “I’m Paul Fontaine, and the assault on your friend’s wife is related to a homicide case I’m handling.”
“Tim Underhill,” I said.
He cocked his big oval head. “Well, Tim Underhill. I read one of your books. The Divided Man. It was crappy. It was ridiculous. I liked it.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Now, what was it you came here to tell Mr. Ransom, unless it is something you would prefer to conceal from our efficient police department?”
I looked at him. “Will you write down a license number for me?”
“Thompson,” he said, and the young policeman took out his pad.
I read the license number of the man’s car from the page in my notebook. “It’s a blue Lexus. The owner followed John and me all day long. When I stopped him in the lobby downstairs, he flashed a toy badge and said he was a policeman. He ran away just before you got here.”
“Uh huh,” said Fontaine. “That’s interesting. I’ll do something about that. Do you remember anything about this man? Anything distinguishing?”
“He’s a gray-haired guy with a ponytail. Gold post earring in his left ear. About six-two and probably two hundred and thirty pounds. Big belly and wide hips, like a woman’s hips. I think he was wearing an Armani suit.”
“Oh, one of the Armani gang.” He permitted himself to smile. He took the paper with the license number from Thompson and put it in his jacket pocket.
“Following me?” John asked.
“I saw him here this afternoon. He trailed us to Eastern Shore Drive, then down to Jimmy’s. He was going to come up to this floor, but I stopped him in the lobby.”
“That was a pity,” Fontaine said. “Did this character really say that he was a policeman?”
I tried to remember. “I think he said that he was with the police.”
Fontaine pursed his mouth. “Sort of like saying you’re with the band.”
“He showed me one of those little gold badges.”
“I’ll look into it.” He turned away from me. “Thompson, visiting hours are over. We are going to wait around to see if Mrs. Ransom comes out of her coma and says anything useful. Mr. Underhill can wait in the lounge, if he likes.”
Thompson gave me a sharp look and stepped back from the bed.
“John, I’ll wait for you at home,” I said.
He smiled weakly and pressed his wife’s hand. Thompson came around the end of the bed and gestured almost apologetically toward the door.
Thompson followed me out of the door. We went past the nurses’ station in silence. The two women behind the counter pretended unsuccessfully not to stare.
Thompson did not speak until we had almost reached the elevators. “I just wanted to say,” he began, then looked around to make sure that nobody was listening. “Don’t get Detective Fontaine wrong. He’s crazy, that’s all, but he’s a great detective. In interrogation rooms, he’s like a genius.”
“A crazy genius,” I said, and pushed the button.
“Yeah.” Officer Thompson looked a bit embarrassed. He put his hands behind his back. “You know what we call him? He’s called Fantastic Paul Fontaine. That’s how good he is.”
“Then he ought to be able to find out who owns that blue Lexus,” I said.
“He’ll find out,” Thompson said. “But he might not tell you he found out.”
16
ILET MYSELF INTO THE HOUSE and groped for a light switch. A hot red dot on the answering machine blinked on and off from the telephone stand, signaling that calls had been recorded. The rest of the downstairs was a deep, velvet black. Central air conditioning made the interior of Ransom’s house feel like a refrigerator. I found a switch just beside the frame and turned on a glass-and-bronze overhead lamp that looked as if it had been made to hold a candle. Then I closed the door. A switch next to the entrance to the living room turned on most of the lamps inside the room. I went in and collapsed onto a sofa.
Eventually I went up to the guest room. It looked like a room in a forty-dollar-a-night hotel. I hung my clothes in the closet beside the door. Then I brought two books back downstairs, The Nag Hammadi Library and a paperback Sue Grafton novel. I picked a chair facing the fireplace and opened the book of gnostic texts and read for a long time, waiting for John Ransom to bring good news home from the hospital.
Around eleven I decided to call New York and see if I could talk to a man named An Vinh, whom I had first met in Vietnam.
Six years ago, when my old friend Tina Pumo was killed, he left Saigon, his restaurant, to Vinh, who had been both chef and assistant manager. Vinh eventually gave half of the restaurant to Maggie Lah, Tina’s old girlfriend, who had taken over its management while she began work on her Philosophy M.A. at NYU. We all lived above the restaurant, in various lofts.
I hadn’t seen Vinh for two or three days, and I missed his cool unsentimental common sense.
It was eleven o’clock in Millhaven, midnight in New York. With any luck, Vinh would have turned the restaurant over to the staff and gone upstairs for an hour or so, until it was time to close up and balance the day’s receipts. I went into the foyer and dialed Vinh’s number on the telephone next to the blinking answering machine. After two rings, I got the clunk of another machine picking up and heard Vinh’s terse message: Not home. Buzzing silence, and the chime of the tone. “Me,” I said. “Having wonderful time, wish you were here. I’ll try you downstairs.”
Maggie Lah answered the telephone in the restaurant office and burst into laughter at the sound of my voice. “You couldn’t take your hometown for even half a day? Why don’t you come back here, where you belong?”
“I’ll probably come back soon.”
“You found everything out in one day?” Maggie laughed again. “You’re better than Tom Pasmore, you’re better than Lamont von Heilitz!”
“I didn’t find anything out,” I said. “But April Ransom seems to be getting better.”
“You can�
��t come home until you find something out,” she said. “Too humiliating. I suppose you want Vinh. He’s standing right here, hold on.”
In a second I heard Vinh’s voice saying my name, and at once I felt more at peace with myself and the world I was in. I began telling him what had happened during the day, leaving nothing out—someone like Vinh is not upset by the appearance of a familiar ghost.
“Your sister is hungry,” he said. “That’s why she shows herself to you. Hungry. Bring her to the restaurant, we take care of that.”
“I know what she wants, and it isn’t food,” I said, but his words had suddenly reminded me of John Ransom seated in the front seat of a muddy jeep.
“You in a circus,” Vinh said. “Too old for the circus. When you were twenty-one, twenty-two, you love circuses. Now you completely different, you know. Better.”
“You think so?” I asked, a little startled.
“Totally,” Vinh said, using the approximate English that served him so well. “You don’t need the circus anymore.” He laughed. “I think you should go away from Millhaven. Nothing there for you anymore, that’s for sure.”
“What brought all this on?” I asked.
“Remember how you used to be? Loud and rough. Now you don’t puff your chest out. Don’t get high, go crazy, either.”
I had that twinge of pain you feel when someone confronts you with the young idiot you used to be. “Well, I was a soldier then.”
“You were a circus bear,” Vinh said, and laughed. “Now you a soldier.”
After a little more conversation, Vinh gave the phone to Maggie, and she gave me a little more trouble, and then we hung up. It was nearly twelve. I left one of the lights burning and took the Sue Grafton novel upstairs with me.
17
THE FRONT DOOR SLAMMED SHUT and woke me up. I sat up in an unfamiliar bed. What hotel was this, in what city? I could hear someone climbing the stairs. The sneering face of the gray-haired man with the ponytail swam onto my inner screen. I could identify him, and he was going to try to kill me as he had tried to kill April Ransom. The heavy footsteps reached the landing. I rolled off the bed. My mouth was dry and my head pounded. Adrenaline sparkled through my body. I stationed myself behind the door and braced myself.