Spellbinder

by Collin Wilcox

  Krober was a tall man with a narrow face, unhappy eyes and a knife scar across one cheek. Two years ago, the car wash had been robbed. Krober had been cut across the cheek and stomach. He’d been left for dead, he said, on the floor of the office.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yeah, Carson, I did.” Krober pushed himself back in his chair, bracing both hands on the edge of his chipped steel desk. He sighed once, deeply and regretfully, before he said, “I’m afraid you’re just not working out, Carson. I’m sorry. Real sorry. I’ve known your uncle for years, from the lodge. And I’d like to help. But we got quotas here, you know. Performance figures. And if somebody doesn’t keep to his quota, then the others complain. And that’s what’s been happening. There’ve been complaints. Several.” As he spoke, Krober kept his eyes fixed on the desk in front of him.

  “The nigras, you mean. They complain.”

  Krober raised his bony shoulders, unhappily shrugging.

  “When do I get paid?”

  “Come by tomorrow. About three. I’ll have it for you then. I’m sorry, Carson. And tell your uncle about the quotas, you mind? Tell him it’s nothing personal. Which it isn’t. Nothing personal at all.”

  Without speaking, he turned and left the office, carefully closing the door behind him.

  Insects were already chirping in the gathering dusk as he mounted the two stairs to Uncle Julian’s front porch. Inside the big house, lights shone from all the downstairs windows. In the large living room, to the left, lamplight filtered through heavy velvet drapes, fringed in gold. The light made the velvet glow, a deep rich red.

  He pressed the bell button. Almost immediately, he heard footsteps approaching: hard, heavy footsteps. Uncle Julian was coming. As the door swung open, he realized that he’d stepped back into the shadow of a pillar. He saw Julian’s eyes momentarily narrow, staring into the gathering darkness. Then, as he stepped forward, he saw his uncle’s eyes widen as displeasure replaced puzzlement.

  “Oh—James.”

  The disapproval so plain in the two words said it all. Yes, Krober had called Uncle Julian. Yes, Uncle Julian was angry.

  “Come in, James.” It was a reluctant, resigned invitation. Stepping back, his uncle held the door open. “Come into the study. There, on the right. The closed door. Yes, that’s right.”

  He opened the door, found the light switch, flicked it. The room was small, its walls lined on two sides with bookshelves. The books came from a book club, his uncle had once told him, one book a month. The room’s only furnishings were two leather armchairs, a leather-topped walnut desk and a smaller chair placed behind the desk. A miniature grandfather’s clock stood on the desk, together with two identically framed pictures. The pictures were enlarged snapshots of Uncle Julian and his family.

  “Sit down, James.” Behind him, Uncle Julian’s voice was heavy and slow, expressing a deep, ponderous regret. As he sank into one of the two armchairs, he heard the door close: a solid, somber sound, like a cell door closing. Now his uncle was rounding the desk, sitting down to face him squarely. Uncle Julian was dressed in a sports jacket and sports shirt. An ornamental cord secured by a small sliding medallion. It was an Elks medallion. So, tonight, Uncle Julian—a past president—was going to the Elks club. Carson glanced at the miniature grandfather’s clock. The time was eight-thirty. What was the night’s entertainment at the Elks club? Was it a smoker?

  Smoothing his sparse hair over his round, shining skull with one pudgy hand, Uncle Julian was slowly, ponderously shaking his head.

  “I was afraid of this, James. I was afraid this would happen.

  “It was the nigras. There’s almost all nigras working there. They complained about me. Because I’m white.”

  Somberly regretful, his uncle sighed: a deep, disapproving sigh. Appeal denied.

  “That’s not what Henry Krober said.”

  “Then Henry Krober is a liar.”

  “What?”

  “I said Krober is a liar, if he says the nigras didn’t complain about me. Because they did.”

  “Henry Krober said you weren’t doing the job. He said you worked too slow.”

  “That’s what the nigras said. He believes the nigras because he wants to keep them working for him. That’s because he doesn’t have to pay them anything. Just like he didn’t pay me anything.”

  “Now, see here, James—” It was the beginning of a hard-voiced, hard-eyed warning. Sympathy denied. Understanding denied. Blood-tie denied. Always, his uncle had been on the other side, an enemy.

  “It’s not a fit job for a white man, washing cars.” As he said it, he saw Uncle Julian’s face suddenly flush. The close-set eyes contracted. The small, pursed mouth came set, suddenly hard and angry.

  Always, when his temper rose, Julian’s voice sunk to a soft, silky note, deadly as the sound of a slithering snake:

  “You’re a paroled convict, James. You’re lucky to get any job. Any job at all.”

  “Am I supposed to work with niggers?”

  “If I say so, then that’s what you’re supposed to do. And, in the meantime, I’ll thank you not to call Henry Krober a liar. You might not be aware of it, but he’s a lodge brother of mine.”

  He raised his head until his eyes were level with his uncle’s, coldly staring. Let him see it all—the hatred he felt, and the determination. Let him see all the angry years, and all the silent vows of vengeance. Let him realize—now—that this was the moment everything between them changed.

  In the silence, he heard the miniature clock ticking. He could hear the sound of his uncle’s breath coming harder.

  Until he saw the narrow-set pig eyes falter, steady, then falter again—and finally fall.

  So now, speaking in a low, deliberate voice, tightly controlled, he could say what he’d come to say:

  “I saw my mother, Sunday.”

  A long, watchful moment of silence followed. Then, still snake-soft: “Your mother’s crazy, James.”

  “She said you’re taking her money. The money she gets every month. The checks.” His voice, too, was ominously soft. Again their eyes locked. And now, deep inside his uncle’s eyes, he saw the first flicker of fear beginning.

  So, to conceal it, the other man’s voice suddenly rose, bullying him now:

  “Your mother’s crazy. You can’t believe anything she says. Nothing.”

  “She’s not getting those checks. They wouldn’t let her have them. So you must be getting them. You’re the only one.”

  Now he could see momentary uncertainty in his uncle’s eyes—followed by calm, cold calculation. They were talking about money, Julian’s specialty. So Julian’s voice dropped to a deeper, more confident note as he said, “Those checks don’t have anything to do with you. They’re for your mother, to keep her. And I’m keeping her now. I’m responsible for her, just like I’m responsible for you. So they’re my checks now. I’ve got her power of attorney. They’ve got nothing to do with you. Nothing at all.”

  “They’re to keep me, too. My mother, and me. Now she doesn’t need them. But I do.”

  “What the hell you talking about, she doesn’t need them? She needs them more than ever, boy. And you’d better remember it.”

  “Don’t call me ‘boy,’ Uncle Julian.”

  “Well, then you’d better start talking sense.”

  Now the old, easy bluster had come back in Julian’s voice. The flicker of fearful uncertainty had died.

  So, quietly, he said: “Where does she get those checks, Uncle Julian? Where do they come from?”

  “They come from a bank. That’s all I know—and that’s the truth. They come from the National City Bank, in New York, once a month. And that’s all I know about them.”

  “You know who sends them, though.”

  “Like hell I do. They’re cashier checks.”

  “Then you know why they’re sent.”

  “What’d you mean, ‘why’?”

  “I mean that you know who told the bank
to send the checks. You know who gave the money to the bank.”

  Another moment of cold-eyed calculation. Then, cautiously: “What makes you think I know?”

  “Because I can see it in your face, Uncle Julian.”

  “You can—” A quick, outraged moment of silence. Then, suddenly, a loud bray of laughter. Forced. Faked.

  “You can see it in my face? Is that what you said?” It was almost a merry question, incredulously querulous.

  But, still, forced. Faked.

  “That’s what I said, Uncle Julian.” He could clearly hear his own voice. He was speaking calmly. Coldly. He was in control.

  “Well, then—” Sudden fury sharpened his uncle’s eyes, pinpoints of hatred now. “Well, then, if that’s what you said, boy, then I think you’d better just stop one little goddamn minute to remember that it only takes one word from me, and you’re back in jail. Just one word. You hear me, boy?” Julian’s breathing was harsh and ragged. His face was pasty pale.

  “Don’t call me—”

  Suddenly his uncle was on his feet. Shouting: “I’ll call you anything I want to, you little bastard. Because that’s what you are. You’re a bastard. And those checks, they come from your father. He’s a very rich, very well-known man, your father. But if anyone ever finds out his name, then those checks stop. Which would mean that your mother would go into an insane asylum—a state insane asylum, where she’d be treated like an animal, which is maybe where she belongs. But, just so you understand where I stand—boy—I’ll tell you, right out, that I don’t want her in a state asylum for one very simple reason. And that reason—boy—is that it wouldn’t look good for me to have a sister there. Now—” Balefully blinking, mouth working furiously, still breathing harsh and hard, Julian said, “Now, that’s the truth. That’s the whole goddamn truth. Your mother is the worst thing that ever happened to me. The worst day of my life was when she came back to Darlington carrying you in her belly. She came back with you in her belly and a trunkful of some kind of holy roller pamphlets and some money in her pocket book, and she rang my bell. And ever since then—boy—my life hasn’t been worth shit. So now—” A trembling forefinger pointed to the door. “So now—boy—I’ll thank you to get the hell out of here. And don’t ever come back again. Not until you’re asked. And that’ll be never, I promise you.”

  Ten

  CARSON SLIPPED THE PRYBAR between the door and the frame, gripped the doorknob with his left hand and pressed with his right hand against the bar as he turned the knob. The door shifted, cracked, but still held fast. Had someone installed a bolt on the inside? Uncle Julian?

  He glanced over his shoulder as he shifted his feet, working the bar deeper into its slot. Now he leaned with his full weight against the bar. A sudden shift, a sharp splintering, and the door sprang free. As he stepped quickly into the dark hallway he turned, looked out into the street. Except for a car turning the Maple Street corner, nothing stirred. Closing the door, he slipped the prybar down inside the front of his pants, looped its cord around his belt and carefully knotted the cord. From his hip pocket he withdrew a penlight. Holding the penlight close to his palm, he pressed the switch. Yes, the tiny circle of light was bright; the batteries were strong.

  He was ready.

  Three quick steps took him to the doorway of the small living room. Pale light from the streetlamp outside fell on the familiar shapes: the couch, the armchair, the two straightback chairs, the small coffee table placed in front of the couch. Except for the TV, predictably missing, nothing had changed. Even the odor was the same: musty and rank, the smell of misery—and madness.

  He’d always hated it. Standing in the open doorway of the room, listening, he could hear the lost, lonely echo of her sobs, and her shouts, and the small, strange sounds she made in the night, struggling with her demons.

  Slowly, he turned away. His bedroom was next to hers. The door of his room was closed. As he turned the knob and pushed the door open, he felt his own demons stirring. The familiar shadow-shapes that crouched in the darkness could have followed him from prison, ready once more to conspire with his memories. With their tops swept clean by some mysterious hand, the desk and the bureau were strange, squared-off sentinels, waiting and watching. The bookshelves were empty. His pictures and posters had been taken from the walls.

  It was a stranger’s room, worse than a cell.

  Shifting the penlight to his left hand, he drew a knife from his hip pocket. A snap, and the blade came alive in his hand, gleaming in the darkness. He moved to the bed, standing for a moment motionless beside it, looking down.

  Then, suddenly, he struck—once, twice, three times. Short, savage slashes ripped open the mattress where his head could have been—his heart—his genitals. Each sweep of the blade—each twisting, tearing slash—could have torn his body open, leaving him alone in the darkness, lying dead in the blood and the excrement that would soak the mattress around him.

  It was the waking part of a dream he’d often had, lying helpless on the bed, pinioned, while someone with his face—his knife—killed him.

  He held the knife before him now, turning the blade to reflect the pale rectangle of night light from the window.

  He’d bought the knife tonight, after leaving his uncle. For more than a week—for nine days—he’d thought about a knife, remembering how a knife would feel in his hand—remembering how it could flash in the darkness—remembering how blood could gleam on the silvery blade.

  And remembering, too, that possession of the knife could send him back to prison.

  For nine days, deciding whether to get the knife, he’d been incomplete.

  But never again.

  Never, never again.

  His thumb touched the knife’s locking slide. The blade disappeared into the handle. Its magic was sheathed, releasing him. So, moving smoothly now, he returned the knife to his pocket and stepped out into the hallway. The stranger’s room was behind him. Gone.

  So, swiftly, he walked to the big hall closet, empty now. Because she’d once locked him in the closet, he couldn’t close the door. But, tonight, it was a meaningless problem. Because he was reaching above his head, firmly pulling on a length of rope suspended from the ceiling. One long, firm pull, and the spring-release staircase came down, extending itself as it dropped to the floor at his feet.

  Six steps took him to the attic, smelling sour and stuffy. But there were no demons here—only dirt and dust.

  No demons, and no danger.

  The trunk was against the far wall, where he knew the pale beam of the flashlight would find it. The trunk was unlocked, as he’d expected. With the penlight held in his teeth he used both hands to raise the old-fashioned curved lid. Rusty hinges creaked, feebly protesting.

  Long ago, wearing a bandana wrapped around his head, pretending to be a pirate, he’d raised this same curved lid. He’d peered into the same musty, mysterious interior with the same sense of forbidden adventure and anxious, tremulous excitement that he felt now.

  His fingers had slightly trembled then—as they were trembling now.

  His breath had come in short, shallow gasps; his mouth had been dry—then, and now.

  The trunk’s top tray contained the well-remembered collection of cheap, sentimental junk: old photographs, yellowed playbills, a beaded purse she’d carried to her first dance, bits of broken jewelry and faded mementos from her childhood. Carefully, he lifted the tray and set it softly on the floor beside the trunk. He knew what he wanted—knew where to find it.

  The dark interior of the trunk held a tangled skein of gauzy, sequined theatrical costumes, each one a memento of a play in which she’d appeared. Long ago, he’d climbed the retracting stairway to find her crouched beside the trunk, surrounded by the costumes. She’d been dressed in one of the costumes. Her face had been made up for the theater: eyes and mouth enlarged, cheeks darkened, nostrils deepened. But she hadn’t used a mirror, and her face looked as if she wore a grotesque mask that had slipped. When
she saw him, she began to cry. In the cramped, airless attic, he’d smelled the strong odor of alcohol. He’d never smelled the odor before, never seen her drunk before.

  Quickly, he dipped into the flimsy costumes, trailing their random lengths of satin and gauze from impatient fingers. Soon the costumes were strewn around him, raising clouds of dust.

  If she’d poked her head up into the attic now, as he’d done so long ago, she would find him crouched down beside the trunk with the costumes surrounding him—just as he’d found her.

  An old fur coat, bedraggled as a dead cat, lay at the very bottom of the trunk. He hurled the coat away from him …

  … and lifted out the scrapbook.

  The pages riffling beneath his anxious fingers were just as he’d remembered them: the baby on its blanket, the little girl in the ruffled dress, the teen-ager on stage in her first play, the face in the gospel choir, posing in front of a microphone.

  And, finally, an 8x10 studio photo of the young woman standing raptly beside an older man. The man was posing in front of a TV camera. His eyes were cast reverently up toward heaven. His right hand was raised high in a gesture of grand supplication. The words, For Mary, with God’s love and mine, Austin Holloway, were written in fading ink across the bottom of the photograph.

  The rest of the scrapbook, page after page, was filled with newsclippings, all about Austin Holloway.

  Turning back, playing the penlight’s beam more closely on the 8x10 photo, he could make out a date written by Holloway in the lower left-hand corner of the photograph:

  September 3, 1951.

  Less than a year before he’d been born.

  Raising his head slowly to window level, he looked inside the garage. Yes, the Buick was gone. Uncle Julian was still at the Elks club. The time was a little after ten. Time remaining, at least an hour. More than enough.

  Crouched beneath the line of a hedge that ran along the property line, he moved cautiously toward the house, his feet silent on the thick lawn. Uncle Julian was proud of his lawns. The gardener came at least once a week, all through the year.