All the Flowers Are Dying

by Block, Lawrence

  But of course there’s no one waiting for the elevator, and indeed the entire hallway is empty. He walks to the door of Apartment 14-G, where a glance at the nameplate confirms that this is indeed the Scudder apartment.

  If he had a key—

  But, alas, he doesn’t. And any approach he can think of is likely to prompt the apartment’s male occupant to come to the door with a drawn gun, or to leave the door locked and simply call 911.

  Stick to the plan, then.

  He walks the length of the hallway to the rear stairwell. A few yards from the door leading to it is another door, which opens on a small room holding the chute for the trash compactor and a pair of recycling bins. A service elevator allows the hall porter to clear the bins.

  There might be a security camera in the stairwell, though it seems unlikely that they’d have one for every floor. There’s no camera here, in the compactor room, but tenants are apt to wander in with their trash, and how could he account for his presence?

  He has a sudden vision of a stream of tenants, old ladies carrying shopping bags full of trash, and himself with no choice but to stab them each in turn, dismembering them and stuffing them piecemeal down the compactor chute, desperate to get one out of the way before the next one shows up.

  He chooses the stairwell instead. There’s no camera anywhere to be seen, and if he can’t see it how can it see him?

  He props the door open an inch or two. That’s enough to provide a clear view of the entrance of 14-G without giving his own presence away.

  Now all he requires is patience. And that quality is one he’s always had in abundance.

  36

  I slept poorly, and kept slipping in and out of a drinking dream. I woke up remembering none of the details, but concerned at first that it was somehow more than a dream, that I’d actually had a drink.

  Elaine was still sleeping. I got out of bed quietly to keep from waking her. Our bedside tables each sported a handgun—the nine on my side, the .38 on hers. In the shower, I tried unsuccessfully to come up with some suitable version of The family that prays together stays together. When I got back to the bedroom the bed was empty, and so was her night table.

  I got dressed and went to the kitchen. She wasn’t there, but she’d made coffee, and the .38 now rested on the counter next to the coffee urn. I walked around looking for her, then returned to the kitchen when I heard the shower running. I poured myself a cup of coffee and toasted a muffin, and I was pouring a second cup by the time she joined me. She was wearing a belted silk robe, one I’d given her for Christmas a couple of years back. It had been one of my more successful presents. She hadn’t put on makeup yet, and her scrubbed face looked like a girl’s.

  She asked if I wanted some eggs, and I thought about it and decided I didn’t. She turned on the TV and got the local news, and there was nothing on it that demanded my attention. There was really only one topic of interest to either of us.

  I said, “He may have left town.”

  “No. He’s out there.”

  “If he is, he hasn’t got much time. They’ve got his prints.”

  “That’ll help a lot. ‘Attention—be on the lookout for a man with the following fingerprints …’”

  “The point is the city’s closing down around him. If he didn’t catch a train yesterday, he’ll have trouble boarding one today. They’ll be looking for him at Penn Station. And Grand Central, and the bus terminal and the airports.”

  “He could have a car,” she said. “Or he could kill somebody and take theirs.”

  “Possible.”

  “He’s still in town. I can tell.”

  I’d be quicker to dismiss claims of intuitive knowledge if I hadn’t learned over the years to trust them when I have them myself. And I’d have been especially hard put to argue with her this time because I agreed with her. I wasn’t as certain as she was, but I didn’t think he’d left.

  And hadn’t I felt him watching me on the way home from the meeting last night?

  Maybe, and maybe not. Maybe anxiety was sufficient explanation for the way I’d felt. God knows there was enough of it on hand to do the job.

  I said, “I think you’re probably right. Right or wrong, though, we have to act as if he’s here.”

  “Meaning stay inside.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you. I’ve got the worst case of cabin fever I’ve ever had in my life, but I’m also scared to death. At this point it would be hard to get me to leave the apartment.”

  “Good.”

  “I hope it’s not a permanent case of agoraphobia. I heard about a man once, he used to edit a science-fiction magazine, and he wouldn’t leave his apartment building.”

  “Afraid of aliens?”

  “God knows what he was afraid of. God knows if it even happened, some john told me the story, he used to sell stories to the guy and I think played poker with him. None of that matters. The point is it started with him never leaving the Village, always finding an excuse not to go north of Fourteenth Street or south of Canal. Then he wouldn’t leave the block, and then he wouldn’t leave the building.”

  “And then it got worse?”

  “Quite a bit worse. He wouldn’t set foot out of the apartment itself, and then he wouldn’t leave the bedroom, and finally he wouldn’t get out of bed. Except to go to the bathroom. I assume he would get out of bed to go to the bathroom.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “He was editing a magazine where people walked around on the moons of Jupiter, but he couldn’t get out of his own bed. And finally the men in the white coats came and took him away, and I don’t think he ever did make it back.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen to you.”

  “Probably not. But I bet there are lots of people like that, never going out the door. You don’t have to in New York, you can get everything delivered.”

  “Speaking of which,” I said, “you know how they keep trying to sell us home delivery of the Times?”

  “ ‘Available at no extra cost now for a limited time only.’ ”

  “I never saw the point,” I said, “but if we’re going to stay cooped up like this, maybe I ought to call them.”

  “Where are you going? Oh, to get the paper? You want to bring me…”

  I waited, but the sentence didn’t come to an end. “Bring you what?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “There’s got to be something I want, but I can’t think what it is.”

  I gave her a kiss. She held on to me for a little longer than usual, then let go.

  37

  He is completely tuned in, perfectly focused, and he hears the turning of the lock. There are several doors closer than 14-G, but he knows that’s the one he’s just heard, and without having to think about it he flicks his wrist and opens the knife. It makes a noise equal in volume to the lock, but he knows no one will hear it, because no one is listening for it.

  The door opens. Scudder? Elaine?

  It is Scudder, grim-faced, and he draws the door shut, then takes a moment to look this way and that, assuring himself that the hallway is empty. If he notices the slight gap between the stairwell door and its jamb, he pays it no mind.

  He turns, walks to the elevator, reaches out a finger and jabs the button. He’s wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt and a pair of dark trousers. His shoes are canvas slip-ons.

  Is he carrying a gun? His shirt’s tucked in, which suggests he’s left the gun at home.

  Should he take him now? The man’s unarmed, with only his bare hands to defend against the knife. And he’s not expecting anything, either.

  He’d hear the approach, though, hear his nemesis rushing the length of the hallway at him. He’d turn, he’d prepare himself, and he’d cry out to summon help. The hue and cry would certainly alert Elaine.

  Still…

  The elevator arrives and spares him the decision. Scudder steps inside. The door closes and whisks him away.r />
  Now.

  He listens for a moment at the closed door. Then he draws back his fist and pounds on it.

  Her voice: “What is it?”

  He notes the pronoun—What, not Who. Good.

  He hammers on the door again, puts his other hand in front of his mouth to muffle his voice. Lowering it to a pitch close to Scudder’s, infusing it with urgency, he says, “Let me in. He’s in the building, he got past the doorman. Let me in!”

  Nothing but the truth, he thinks.

  She’s saying something, he can’t make it out, but it doesn’t matter, because the lock is turning. The instant it begins to open he hurls himself against it and it flies back, catching her shoulder and sending her reeling.

  He flings the door shut, turns to her. She’s staggering backward like a drunk in high heels. The wall stops her and she’s trying to get her balance, and her face is something right out of a horror movie, a study in terror, and he holds the knife so she can see it.

  Oh, this is going to be lovely…

  She reaches into a pocket of the robe, comes up with a gun. Holds it in both hands, points it his way.

  “Now put that down,” he says, his voice ringing with authority. “You little fool, put that down this minute.”

  She’s shaking, trembling violently. He takes a confident step toward her, speaking gently to her, telling her to put the gun down, that her only chance is calm cooperation. It’s going to work, he knows it’s going to work, and—

  She pulls the trigger.

  He feels the punch of the bullet before his ears register the sound of the gunshot. It hits him high on the left shoulder, and he knows at once that it’s broken the bone. There must be pain, and doubtless there will be eventually, but the pain hasn’t come yet.

  He rushes her. The gun’s pointing at the ceiling, the recoil must have elevated it, but she’s lowering it, bringing it to bear on him. She fires too soon, though, and the bullet passes harmlessly over his head, and before she can steady herself for a third shot he’s reached her. His left hand won’t work, the arm hangs at his side. He grabs her wrist in his right hand, shakes it until the gun drops to the floor, then lifts his hand and backhands her hard across the face.

  He hits her again, in the pit of the stomach, and when she doubles up he gives her a shove and sends her sprawling. She’s scrabbling for the gun, but he gets to it first and grabs it, then straightens up and points it at her.

  She’s on her hands and knees on the floor, staring up at him. Her robe has fallen open and he can see her breasts. Her eyes look right into the muzzle of the gun. And it’s odd, because there’s no fear in them now. He wonders what happened to the terror.

  Wherever it’s gone, it’ll be back soon enough.

  “In a little while,” he says softly, “you’ll wish I’d pulled the trigger.”

  It would be easier to get the cylinder to swing out if he had both hands to work with. But he manages it, and tilts the gun so that the remaining rounds spill out onto the carpet. He kicks at them, sends them scurrying like bugs across the room.

  “Now that that’s out of the way,” he says, “we can enjoy ourselves. Get up, Elaine. Come on, on your feet!”

  She stays where she is until he draws back a foot and kicks her hard in the ribs. Then she gets up, and it’s delicious just looking at her face, reading her thoughts in the expressions that pass over it. She’s trying to think of something to do, something that will save her, and there’s nothing, and the hopelessness of her situation is beginning to dawn on her.

  And this is just the beginning! Oh, he’s going to enjoy this. He’s going to make it last as long as he can.

  “Take off the robe, Elaine.”

  She stands there, obdurate. He reaches out with the knife and she backs up until the wall stops her.

  His shoulder is throbbing now. There’s still no pain, and the throbbing is like a very strong pulse working in the area of the wound. There’s no blood, either, except for a minimal amount at the very edge of the wound, and he wonders if the bullet could have cauterized the wound even as it inflicted it.

  Is it possible that the wound is healing itself? He’s heard of such things but always dismissed them as comic book fantasies. Still, something is shielding him from the pain, even as something is keeping him from losing blood.

  He wore amethyst for months. Perhaps it worked, perhaps he’s absorbed its essence. Perhaps he is in fact immortal…

  He reaches out with the knife, and there’s nowhere for her to go, nothing for her to do. She unbelts the robe, lets it fall from her shoulders.

  Oh, lovely. Just lovely.

  She’s on her back on the living room floor. He’s naked, his clothes where he dropped them, and he’s on top of her, and it’s good he didn’t let himself reach climax earlier with that fat queen, because all that energy is at his disposal now, and he’s rock-hard and enormous, and he’s inside her, buried in her clear to the hilt, and her breasts are cushioning him, and he’s holding the knife to her throat. And he could lie like this forever, thrusting lazily into her, gripped so perfectly by the envelope of her flesh, forever on the edge of his passion and yet entirely in control of it, able to go on this way for all eternity.

  And, as he moves inside her, he talks to her. He tells her what he’s going to do to her, how he’ll cut her and drink her blood, how he’ll scoop out her eyes like melon balls, how he’ll slice her nipples off, how he’ll skin her alive. His voice is conversational, almost gentle. But is she paying attention? Is she taking this all in?

  With the tip of the knife blade, he draws an inch-long line on her shoulder. The left shoulder. She shot him in the left shoulder, inflicting a painless but paralyzing wound, and he’s merely piercing the skin, drawing a white line that turns red as blood oozes from it.

  He puts his mouth to the cut and tastes her blood.

  And the door bursts open.

  38

  Could I have heard something?

  I don’t think it’s possible. There were two gunshots, and one or both of them might have rung out while I was in the elevator on the way down to the lobby. But it seems unlikely that I could have heard them, or paid much attention to them if I did.

  I was just going out for the paper. Elevator to the lobby, a few steps to the newsstand on the corner, a few steps back. I hadn’t even bothered to take my gun along. I’d thought of it, but it was on the bedside table and I was standing at the door, and it would have been silly, wouldn’t it?

  Maybe we were linked, she and I, and something within me could sense an attack on her. I don’t know how these things work, or if they work. But when the elevator reached the lobby I had the feeling that something was wrong.

  I have to get back there, I thought.

  First get the paper, I told myself, so you won’t look like an idiot when you burst into the apartment and she’s got her feet up and the TV on.

  No. Screw the paper.

  I got back on the elevator. There were other people on it, and it crawled, stopping at three or four floors en route to mine. The closer I got the greater my sense of urgency grew, and by the time I got off at Fourteen I knew with absolute certainty that he was in there. I didn’t know if she was alive, I was afraid he’d had enough time to kill her, but I knew he was there and I had no time to waste.

  I had my key in my hand when the elevator door opened, and I rushed the length of the hall and got the key in the lock and threw the door open.

  There was a chair overturned and clothes here and there on the floor, and she was on the floor and he was on top of her, and even as I registered this he was disengaging from her, getting to his feet, and she was lying there, motionless.

  There was a trail of blood from her shoulder down toward her breast, and I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead, and I couldn’t take time to look because he was there, facing me, and he had a knife in his hand and there was blood on the tip of it, her blood.

  “Matt,” he said. “Now this is
providential, wouldn’t you say? As soon as you and I have concluded our business”—he moved the knife from side to side, like a hypnotist swinging an amulet in front of a subject’s eyes—“then Elaine and I can take our time. It would be nice if you could watch me kill her, but you can’t have everything, can you? You get what you get, Matthew. Don’t ever forget that.”

  Then she was alive. That was all that really registered from his little speech. She was alive. I was in time. If I could kill him then she could survive.

  He stood leaning slightly forward with his weight balanced on the balls of his feet, moving the knife from side to side. He was naked, and he would have looked ridiculous, except for the fact that he clearly knew how to use the knife and just as clearly looked forward to using it.

  There was something wrong with his left arm. It hung at his side. There was a wound, too, a hole in his shoulder, and at first I thought it was an old wound, scarred over, and then I realized she’d shot him, although he didn’t seem to be bleeding.

  That ought to be to my advantage, though I couldn’t see how. A knife’s not a gun, nobody needs two hands to use it properly.

  He was saying something else but I wasn’t paying attention. I’m not sure I could have heard him if I’d tried. I stood there looking at him and he took a step toward me and I couldn’t think of the right way to do this and I didn’t care. I ran at him and threw myself at him, and I felt the knife dig into my middle, and I knocked him sprawling and landed on top of him, and he twisted the knife and the pain was thin and high and insistent, like a scream.

  I got a hand on his throat and bore down, and he tucked his chin down, and I drew back my hand and hammered at his face with both hands. He couldn’t fight back, he had one hand that didn’t work and another that was pinned between our two bodies, and in order to retrieve it he’d have to let go of the knife, and he wouldn’t do that, not while he could twist the knife in my guts and send pain coursing through me like a jackhammer tearing up pavement.