For Love of Audrey Rose

by Frank De Felitta

  Slowly, Janice depressed the cradle, then dialed the Hall of Records, Department of Birth Registrations.

  “Hello?” said a strange male voice. “Room One thirty-one.”

  “Is Cathy there?”

  “She’s on vacation. Can I help you?”

  Janice’s hand went involuntarily to her mouth. She swiveled in her chair, but there was no hiding from the curious stare of the assistant at the next desk.

  “How—How long has she been gone?” Janice stammered.

  “Since today. Is this a personal call?”

  “No, I—Has a man called? A man called about a birth registration?”

  The voice at the other end chuckled with self-importance.

  “We get a lot of inquiries,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly tell you—”

  “February 3, 1975.”

  “No, we’ve received no inquiries for that date.”

  Dazed, she slowly hung up. For a long time, she stared at the wall. When she telephoned Dr. Geddes, he advised her to go home and wait for Bill. They discussed alerting the New York City Police, but in the end, decided to hold off.

  Slogging through the snowdrifts in the direction of Des Artistes, Janice kept her eyes open for taxis. None came. She stopped in a bar to escape the bitter weather. Warming in the humid entrance, she peeked over the heads of the burly men crowded around the long bar and saw the television perched high on a shelf.

  “For New York, it looks like Christmas will be more than white,” the announcer said somberly. “Forecasts range from fifteen to twenty inches and winds are expected to reach thirty to thirty-five miles per hour.”

  A chorus of ribald shouts greeted the report, all epithets of New Yorkers who knew exactly what a storm of that dimension would do to their city.

  Janice left the bar. Miserably, she trudged to the next intersection. Still no taxis. Ruefully, she considered that a horse-drawn carriage from the gates of Central Park stood a better chance of making it home than a four-wheeled vehicle.

  Gradually, a raw premonition made itself felt. From a corner phone booth, she called the Hall of Records just as it was closing.

  “Hello?” she said, breathing hard from the cold. “I called earlier today.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the unctuous voice. “We get many calls.”

  “February 3, 1975.”

  “Oh, yes. There was an inquiry. A man… let’s see… Name of William Templeton. He left about an hour ago.”

  Janice gasped. “Did you—did you show him the birth registrations on that date?”

  “Yes, of course. We’re legally obligated—”

  Janice slammed the receiver down, fighting tears. Urgently, she turned back into a world of swirling white.

  Through the downcoming particles, she saw the gleaming windows of a city bus, like a whale from some macabre cartoon, its huge headlights on, unblinking like morbid eyes, staring into the twilight. She ran to the open door, mounted the steps.

  “How far north do you go?” she asked the driver.

  “Top of the park, then east.”

  Janice paid, then sat down. She could feel the wheels of the bus squirming for traction underneath, grinding, groaning against the road. At every stop, she held her breath, not knowing whether the enormous mass of the bus could be held by the brakes. The windshield wipers, working furiously, clotted with wet snow.

  “This is the worst goddamn snowfall I ever seen,” the driver said, wiping off his window with a white cloth.

  “They say there’s another foot on the way,” a passenger chimed in.

  “I tell you one thing. This city is shutting down. Ain’t nobody gonna drive out in weather like this.”

  Ahead of them, another taxi, trying to make the light, applied its brakes without result. The wheels curved, but the taxi kept on in a straight line, digging huge tracks right through the intersection.

  “Lucky bastard,” commented the driver.

  This time the bus refused to move. The rear wheels ground out a plainsong of high-pitched protest, until it sounded like a scream. Janice held her hands over her ears.

  “That’s it,” the driver said. “Everybody out.”

  “But I—” Janice began.

  “You want to sleep here? I’ve got instructions not to drive when there’s no traction!”

  Dismally, the passengers filed out, looking in vain down the deserted streets. Janice crossed the avenue, found herself at the north edge of Central Park, went quickly across to Park Avenue, cut over, and waded through the snow under bare trees hanging down with the weight of long spears of ice.

  As she crossed into 110th Street, she saw clusters of blue-coated patrolmen slogging through snowdrifts, heading north, where two long shafts of light cut across the clouds.

  At 115th Street, she saw two police cars edging cautiously behind a snow-sweeping machine. The orange lights bounced luridly off the dark buildings, gleamed from the windows. A few boys threw snowballs at her, taunting her.

  She followed the police cars, the only secure footing on the road, until she reached 118th Street. To her horror, she knew by now where the cars were going. Dim shouts rose in the distance, a sound of far-away bullhorns, and taxi horns from congested lanes of traffic.

  A fire truck blocked access to the main blocks of public housing.

  “I have to go through!” Janice protested.

  “Do you live here?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then beat it!”

  The traffic cop turned away, angrily motioning a pickup truck out of the lane, backward, to where the snow was churned up by countless vehicles turning around in the grimy mud.

  Janice ducked under the cross guard and ran toward the dense group of officers in front of the probing spotlights. Their silhouettes had matted together into a single obstruction; only their helmets, denoting different ranks, gleamed in the awesome blue white light.

  Janice turned. From the top window, where the spotlights crossed, she heard a woman screaming. The words were run together, a litany of Spanish and English, waving her arms. Behind her, shivering on a landing, a group of neighbors stood, looking upward at the roof. But Janice could see nothing there, only the rolling clouds cut by the spotlights, and the falling snow.

  “Please,” she whispered to an officer who held steaming coffee in a tin mug, “I have to talk to the officer in charge.”

  “The officer in charge?” he said, smiling. “I don’t think so. The chief is busy right now trying to keep that guy on the roof.”

  “But you don’t understand, I’m his—”

  “Now I suggest you get back behind the barrier with the rest of the gawkers.”

  Drinking coffee with one hand, guiding her with the other, he steered her back to the fire truck, the turning yellow light gleaming rhythmically off his cup.

  Janice struggled free from his grasp.

  “Ask the woman up there!” she yelled. “Mrs. Hernandez! Ask her who I am!”

  The officer glared at her angrily, yet uncertain now.

  “Exactly who are you, ma’am?” he said wearily.

  “I’m Mrs. Janice Templeton. And the woman knows me!”

  “Now you get back across that barrier before I lose my temper.”

  “I’m Mrs. Janice Templeton!” she wept. “And that man up there is my husband!”

  Janice buried her face in her hands. The officer paused, nonplussed and suspicious.

  “I’ll let you tell your story to the chief,” he said tautly, “but if you’re playing games, you’re going to feel very bad in the morning.”

  She mumbled her thanks, and felt him holding her up as her feet slipped sideways on the ice. As they passed the patrol cars, she heard bursts of static and STILL UNIDENTIFIED … THE GIRL SEEMS ALL RIGHT … WRAPPED IN BLANKET … REPEAT, THE GIRL STILL ALIVE AND IN GOOD HEALTH… Soon she was among the blue patrol cars and clusters of uniformed men, many of whom held long guns in their gloved hands, waiting for orders, sipping hot drin
ks.

  When a patrolman offered her a plastic cup, she tried to drink. But her shaking hands spattered steaming liquid into the snow.

  Now Janice saw a news team aiming its video cameras upward, at the roof of 385 118th Street. Directional microphones were pointed at the top window, trying to catch Mrs. Hernandez’s incoherent screams.

  “My God! He’s got my baby! Oh, my God! He’s going to kill her!”

  Evidently, the police had given up trying to calm her down, since they only watched over her head, past the iron guardrail and a rusted fire escape platform. Janice peered

  into the darkness but saw nothing, only the low cloud covers. The snow had stopped falling. A bitter, calm cold froze everything and everybody. Mrs. Hernandez fainted at the window, her last shriek grown dismal and strained. Janice saw her sister gently pull her back into the apartment.

  A tall man in a yellow slicker walked up quickly behind the officer.

  “The chief’s got other things to do,” he said. “My name is Wilkins. I’m in charge. Now, who are you?”

  “I’m Janice Templeton,” she said, intimidated. “And my husband is the man up there.”

  “You sure?”

  “I know it’s Bill.”

  “How do you know it’s Bill?”

  “Because I know what he’s looking for.”

  The officer and Wilkins exchanged glances. Puzzled, angry, suspicious, they were also frustrated by the cold, the hostile crowd that had gathered around, throwing ice balls, and now this woman who had come forward acting important.

  “What is he looking for?” the officer asked as patiently as he could, rubbing his gloved hands for warmth.

  Janice accepted another cup of hot coffee, this time able to keep from spilling.

  “He’s looking for a girl he believes to be his daughter,” she said.

  “What’s he, drunk?” Wilkins shouted. “A psycho?”

  “He’s been in a sanitarium. He escaped yesterday.”

  The officer leaned forward again, remaining polite.

  “What sanitarium is that, ma’am?” he asked.

  “The Eilenberg Clinic. In Ossining.”

  “And what is the doctor’s name?”

  “Dr. Geddes. Ask him to describe me. He’ll know who I am.”

  “Check it out, Cooper,” Wilkins ordered.

  Snatches of radio broadcast suddenly increased in volume: MOVING TO THE UPPER PLATFORM … GIRL VISIBLE … UP ON THE HIGH ROOF … RIFLES MOVE INTO POSITION …

  Wilkins reached into the patrol car and picked up the radio phone.

  “Wilkins here,” he said gruffly. “No rifles. Can’t see your ass from your front end up there. Let’s get the kid alive, all right?”

  He replaced the radio phone, just as Cooper came back quickly slipping on the ice, then grabbing hold of the patrol car bumper. He nodded to Wilkins. His words came rushing out.

  “There is a man escaped from the Eilenberg Clinic,” he said. “Name’s Templeton.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “No record of violence.”

  “All right, miss,” Wilkins said to Janice. “You’re on. Think you can talk to this husband of yours?”

  “I can try.”

  Janice followed Wilkins through the cordon of police. Now she saw, far overhead, weirdly foreshortened by the towering perspective, a man’s form, the white shirt bright against the winter clouds. The face was lost in darkness, but against the chest was a large bundle.

  “Bill!” she shouted.

  No answer, but the crowd sensed something and grew silent.

  Wilkins and Janice went into the main door, now brightly lit with portable lamps and flashlights as well as the main corridor lights. Swinging arcs of the news team followed her, making their shadows leap and swarm. Wilkins angrily slammed the door shut.

  “Scavengers,” he hissed.

  Wilkins led her up the floors, at each of which was a patrolman, armed with a long rifle. Wilkins knocked at the Hernandez door and then forced it open. Two policemen looked up. Huddled against the corner were Mrs. Hernandez, her sister, and two young men Janice had never seen before.

  Mrs. Hernandez turned to Janice, her face swollen and red, the tracks of tears down her cheeks and around to her lower lip, making the once pretty face grotesque.

  “Mrs. Templeton?” she whispered, puzzled.

  “He’s my husband, Mrs. Hernandez. I’ve come to help. If I can—”

  “But why he do this? He say he from Welfare. I open the door. He start talking funny. I try to close the door. And look—my head. He push me down and hurt my head. Then he take my Juanita.”

  “He’s not well,” Janice said. “He’s sick, up here, but he won’t hurt Juanita.”

  “He’s a dead man if he does,” snarled one of the young men.

  “Let’s try the window,” Wilkins said to one of the patrolmen.

  The patrolman led the way to the living room, rammed the window open as far as it would go, and stuck his head out. He drew back in.

  “It’s a bad angle, sir. Especially since he moved back.”

  Wilkins poked his head out and bellowed. “Templeton! Listen to me! That girl is not yours! You bring her back and we’ll get you some proper help! Hear me?”

  They listened. There was only the soft sound below of cold men stepping on new-fallen snow; that, and a derisive crowd hooting from far away. Wilkins turned to Janice.

  “You try.”

  Janice leaned so far out the window that Wilkins braced himself and held on to her.

  “Bill!” she yelled. “Listen to me, Bill! The girl’s name is Juanita! She doesn’t belong to us! Bill! Bring her back!”

  Wilkins pulled her back in.

  “Gorman! There’s a fire escape platform that goes up to the roof. See if you can find a way to get up there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t go up there. Just let me know what it looks like.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mrs. Hernandez burst into wailing, a keening sound as though already mourning the loss of Juanita.

  “Is he—is he gonna jump?” one of the young men asked.

  “I don’t know what the hell he’s going to do, kid,” Wilkins said. “Listen, Mrs. Templeton. Is he religious?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “No priest or anybody he would listen to?”

  Janice thought a moment. Wilkins’s face was only inches in front of her, waiting aggressively, staring at her as though he had trouble with his eyes. They were all watching her and they sensed her sudden uneasiness.

  “Maybe there is somebody,” she said softly.

  “Well, who, God damn it?”

  “His name is Sri Parutha. He’s Master of the Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Greenwich Village.”

  Wilkins raised a gray tuft of an eyebrow.

  “I might have known,” he muttered. “You, uh, wouldn’t know the telephone number?”

  “Yes. It’s 555-2024.”

  “Okay, Cooper. You know how to use the telephone.”

  While Cooper ran down to the telephone booth, Wilkins paced around and around. They sensed when Bill was moving by the “ooohs” and “ahhhhs” of the crowd down below. Mrs. Hernandez rocked back and forth, refusing all comfort, as though she herself had passed the brink of death.

  Wilkins checked his watch.

  “I don’t like this,” he murmured. “That girl’s going to get real sick out in the cold like this.”

  Janice touched his sleeve. Surprised, he turned.

  “Let me go up to the roof,” she said. “If he saw me, he’d become himself again.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I know it. He’s a good man. He’s just frightened.”

  “All right. Let’s take a look at that fire escape.”

  As they went outside into the corridor, Borman came up to Wilkins, who snapped:

  “What about that fire escape?”

  “It’s solid up to the roof. The top step is mi
ssing. Pretty bad ice, sir.”

  “Can we get Mrs. Templeton on the roof?”

  “I’m not sure, sir.”

  “I wasn’t really asking, Borman. I want her up there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Borman, Wilkins, and Janice hurriedly walked to the end of the hall. A thin vertical bar gave them purchase, but the ribbed metal stairs were slippery to the touch. Below was the gaping crowd, unaware as yet of what was happening.

  “Goddamn fire traps,” Wilkins growled.

  Borman swung out into the air, supported by his two arms, his legs then grabbing firmly against the step. Bit by bit, the noise of the crowd solidified and rose, jeering, offering encouragement. Borman extended his hand. Janice grabbed it and swung upward onto the step.

  “Keep your head down until you can verify he’s unarmed,” Wilkins ordered.

  “Will do, sir.”

  Borman, one step ahead of Janice, pulled her, steadied her on the treacherous steps. The frigid wind whipped through her hair. Her hands burned on the cold metal rails. Twice she thought she was falling until Borman tilted her face upward to face the clouds, and not the ground.

  “I’m going to stay just below,” he whispered to Janice. “It’s best he not know I’m here.”

  “I understand.”

  “Say whatever you want. Just bring him down.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Borman paused. “Because, I have to tell you. I’ve been on a few of these. They’re going to choose between him and the girl, Mrs. Templeton, and it’s not going to be him. It’s too cold for her to be out any longer. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  Janice nodded, feeling the bitter wind bite into her cheeks.

  “Now you go on over the top. He won’t see you for a few seconds. He’s facing the street below.”

  Janice felt a steady pressure at her elbow, then at her hip, then her foot, and she felt the roof slide under her, and the hiss of the crowd and the glare of the arc lamps swinging madly, trying to catch her, until she knelt, then stood cautiously on the hard, icy roof.

  Bill turned.

  He was twenty yards from her, across the roof, partially obscured by a series of small chimneys, broken bottles, icy cardboard boxes stacked against one another. His face was unnaturally white, his hair wildly disheveled.

  In his arms, clutched closely to his chest, in blankets, was Juanita. She must have been tired of crying. She only whimpered. For a hideous second, Janice thought the girl had gone into convulsions, but then she saw that Juanita breathed easily enough. Bill clutched her tighter to his chest and edged away along the guardrails of the roof.