The Man Who Would Not Die

by Thomas Page

  Nora Stone reached into her pokebag. She picked out a needle and walked toward the bed, jabbing at the eye with the point. As she approached it, the head flickered on the pillow, snapping from left to right so fast it reminded Nora Stone of a reptile’s frenetic motion, the side-to-side jerks of a chameleon’s head when he senses something. The head moved in a blur, then stopped, the eye still on her. Another jerk and the mouth opened, releasing a drawn-out scream of agony, of someone being tortured beyond all endurance. The scream shrieked up to a woman’s pitch, then stopped as though a switch had been thrown. The head vanished. On came the lights. Nora Stone found herself with the tapestry needle alone in the house.

  The windows were intact, all the toys and shoes were in the tornado chaos they had been in when she entered. The room was exactly as it had been before. But Nora Stone knew it was no delusion. She scribbled furiously in her little notebook. She was sitting down when the Velasquezes returned. Her little travel clock informed her the apparition had spent forty minutes in the house. The dead have no sense of time. Why should they?

  “It is a man in his late thirties or early forties with blond hair and blue eyes. It’s an almost exact replica of C.G. Jung’s experience in a country house in England in 1920. In appearance, I mean. But the presence itself, the way in which he appeared and disappeared—especially disappeared—is something completely new to me.”

  “What was he like?” asked Señora Velasquez.

  “He was very powerful. He tore the room to pieces and he was not even fully manifested. When he materializes completely, everyone will be able to see him. In fact, I doubt anyone will be able to miss him.”

  “Why would he tear up a child’s room?”

  “Oh, I sensed no hostility for your children or you!” she reassured them. “I think it was once his room and he wanted it back. He wanted the toys out so it would be just as it was when he lived in it.”

  “What was unusual about the way he disappeared?”

  “Well! First off, I said he was powerful. Normally ghosts stay around only for a minute or two. For a partial manifestation like this fellow, seconds is more common.” When excited, Nora Stone flew off on tangents few could follow. “War ghosts are longlasting. Such as the ones of what’s-his-name . . . the man who won the Battle of Britain . . . Dowding. Yes, the air marshal. During the battle he was bothered by dead pilots reporting for duty as usual and he personally had to tell them they simply could not fight any longer. Anyway! This man in your house was here for forty minutes.”

  “Madam, where did he go?”

  “That’s another thing. He did not act as if he were in possession of the room, he left kicking and screaming as though he were torn away. I sensed anger and fear. What in the world could frighten a ghost? I have never heard of such a thing! What exactly did he do when your son saw him?”

  Velasquez remembered the pale, earnest face of his terrified son when he came in to sleep with his parents. “He did not do anything, madam, he simply walked up the stairs, down the hall, and looked in Jose’s room.”

  “Well, there!” Nora Stone slapped her needlepoint bag for emphasis. “He doesn’t repeat himself, he does different things. He’s not Hamlet’s ghost walking the same old battlements every night. He must have just died a couple of days ago. He has some kind of purpose.” Nora Stone lowered her voice to a whisper. “He is moving around for a reason.”

  “Do you mean a divine purpose, Madam?”

  “No, nothing that elevated. Hans Holzer, the psychic, has pointed out there’s always a reason for a ghost. It’s always someone who dies before his time is up, like my poor boy who was murdered. Or someone in a violent accident. Sometimes they come back to deliver an important message or to correct an injustice.”

  Velasquez was conscious of the stray breeze that ticked against the kitchen window. In two days, he and his wife and children had been converted from a contented family into a group of nervous wrecks. This woman, despite her evident sincerity, was not very comforting.

  Nora Stone caught his mood and began gathering her things together. “My, my, life itself is such a mystery, let alone death.”

  “Is it, madam?” replied Velasquez courteously, getting to his feet.

  “I always say to Mike, birth and death are quite easy to understand. It’s what comes in between that’s the real puzzle.”

  “When will he leave us alone?” asked Velasquez, opening the door for her.

  “When he’s finished whatever he wishes to do here. You’re such nice people,” she said, embracing Señora Velasquez and shaking hands with her husband. “I just know you’ll find another house as nice as this one.” She twinkled down the front walk to her car.

  Velasquez closed the door and faced his wife. “She said he tore up the room.”

  Señora Velasquez answered, “She said a lot of things.”

  They dashed upstairs to find the children’s room in the same cataclysmic state as they had left it. Not that Velasquez could tell one mess from another but his wife clucked and said, “Nothing happened. I almost believed that woman.”

  “She did not lie. She believed it herself. What do we do?”

  “We stay and see if anything happens. Tonight we leave the children where they are.”

  Velasquez agreed. After all, this was their house now, no matter who had lived here before. “If he comes back, we’ll chase him away.”

  The ghost came back at four in the morning. The freezing cold awakened Velasquez’s wife. She slipped her arm over the cold skin of her husband’s chest and felt his heart pounding as hard as hers. “Emi,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I feel it.” He sat up, watching the dim nightlight flickering in the hall. “Do you hear anything?”

  “No,” she said after listening a moment. Cold air was flowing through the open doors and halls of the house, winding up the stairs like a waterfall going backwards, digging and pulling at all the joints of the house. “She said it would get stronger and stronger until he was completely here.”

  Velasquez threw a robe on. His wife got out of bed and he grasped her arm. “Stay here. He’s in the children’s room again.”

  “I won’t stay alone,” she hissed back at him.

  Together they tiptoed down the hall to the corner room. Velasquez peeked inside and his breath hissed through his nostrils. The boys were gone, the bedding was off the mattress, the windows were broken, and on the bed was a sight Señora Velasquez prayed she would never see again as long as she lived.

  It looked as though parts of a man’s body had been carelessly tossed onto the bed. Close to the wall was a man’s leg wearing gray pants. Above it was a human chest wearing a blue blazer and tie, and on top of that was a neck and the lower half of a face. The head looked as though it had been severed by an ax from the nose upwards, leaving a chin and mouth. The mouth was open, revealing teeth. Behind the teeth, the bedroom wall was visible.

  Both of them were paralyzed with shock. The thing made noises from the mouth, not of pain but effort. The fingers of a single hand dug to the knuckles into the wall plaster by the bedside table as though the arm was trying to hold onto the wall.

  Despite the lack of light, the figure was perfectly visible, wrapped up in its own agony. Suddenly the thing disappeared as if a lightswitch had been turned off and then it was behind them in the hall. Gibbering, gasping, and mumbling, it was at the stairs so quickly they both were caught by surprise.

  For a microsecond, they saw the entire man as he must have been in life. He was over six feet tall, as tall as Señor Velasquez, with a triangular, muscular build, strong open face, and blond hair. He appeared with one hand clutching the bannister as though for dear life. Then the head was thrown back and the man screamed. They pressed their hands over their ears, but the sound reverberated inside their heads. The figure disappeared. Velasquez thought he actually saw him go, sucked through t
he wall, the screaming face the only memory left. The bannister post beneath his clutching hand was pulled out of the floor as he went, and the other posts were bent out of line all the way down the stairs.

  The lights surged on again. The cold was gone. Velasquez looked into the room and saw every toy back where it had been earlier. The finger gouges were gone from the wall, the windows were intact, and the broken bannister was upright.

  Nothing had happened. Yet everything had happened. Neither of them had to say the obvious. They packed clothes for themselves and the children into suitcases, put a few toys and the household accounts into boxes, and left their house by seven in the morning.

  Mr. Fudd awoke Kate Burnham as usual by nuzzling her nose and making her sneeze. She had not slept very well again, and her joints ached as badly as they had when she fell into bed last night. She got up, brewed coffee, and puttered around the apartment watering plants and cleaning rye toast crumbs from the sink counter.

  “Fudd? I feel like somebody is watching me.” She studied the windows in the opposite building. No faces were visible, no glint of binoculars; most of the normal world was at work somewhere. It was an absurd feeling. After all, she was in a security building with a watchman and a triple-locked door.

  This feeling waxed and waned in her subconscious and she was certain it had something to do with Daniel Forrester. But the human brain is a frustratingly labyrinthine organ and she could not understand why the man affected her so. Certainly she would not have slept with him if anything in his personality had been truly frightening. Now she was scared. She felt as if a quiet presence was outdoors somewhere, on the streets, behind the windows, in crowds of people, looking for her. She felt staked out.

  Kate had not planned to see him after Clayton. Now she thought there was no good reason why they could not have a drink together, kick over old times, and part nicely. She found his number in the Marina del Rey directory.

  She dialed his number. The second ring was different in tone, meaning the operator had been signaled. “I’m sorry,” said the operator. “That number has been disconnected.”

  “Do you have a new one?”

  “No. We have no new number for Forrester, Daniel.”

  “Do you know why his phone was cut off?”

  “We’re not allowed to give out that kind of information.”

  “Thank you.”

  Kate hung up and finished her coffee. “Fudd,” she said. “I’m going to abandon you for a couple of hours if you don’t mind. I’m going for a nice drive until I calm down.”

  She was so impatient she walked down the five flights to the garage rather than wait for the elevator. As she drove out onto Ocean Avenue, she watched the crowds crossing the street to the beaches. She paid particular attention to the men. Each time she stopped at a light, she watched faces until they melded together in a blur and she was no longer certain she would recognize him. Naturally, having just gotten into the car, she now felt an urge to get out and walk. At Venice Boulevard she turned left to Lincoln, then turned left again until she was back on Ocean and doing the same routine.

  That was when she saw him.

  There was no missing Daniel Forrester. He was the only man in Venice on this hot day who wore a blue blazer coat and tie. Face blank, he stood on the corner of Rose Avenue about four cars down from her. The light changed and she saw him cross the street in a group of people. Kate leaned out the window, honked, waved, and shouted, “Daniel!”

  He disappeared down the block in a mob of bejeaned men and women carrying surfboards and picnic baskets. She turned onto Rose. There he was, striding away with characteristic long steps, not paying attention to anyone. Kate honked and shouted so persistently that other men waved at her.

  Daniel Forrester’s self-absorbed stride carried him round a corner building on Main Street. By the time Kate got there, he was gone. Puzzled, she drove up and down Main searching the sidewalks and shops for him. He could not have disappeared so quickly unless he had stripped in the street and joined the other sun bunnies headed for the surf.

  In Clayton, Forrester had mentioned a Chinese restaurant on Wilshire he frequented. Maybe some of the people in there knew where he was. She parked behind the restaurant and walked past beaded curtains into a cool, dim dining area. She motioned a waiter and ordered soup and dumplings. “You may be able to help me. There’s a friend of mine named Forrester. . . .”

  “Yes, Daniel Forrester, yes.” The waiter’s smile was a sunburst of cheer.

  “You know him?”

  “He comes here, yes, nice man. He just left. He eats Beef Hunan and beer. Very nice Hunan.”

  “Wait a minute. Just left? Today?”

  “Yes, Two, three minutes ago.” The waiter’s sunny smile transmuted to a frown and he tapped his pencil against his pad. “He was strange today. He was not feeling good, I think.”

  Kate ran that through her overstrained brain but could not make any sense out of it. Fifteen minutes ago Daniel had been over on Main Street and he could not possibly have made it here before her. “Maybe there was something wrong with the Hunan,” she joked.

  “He did not eat or drink. He came in, looked at everyone at the bar, and left. He was not friendly. He is always so friendly.” The waiter smiled again. “But for you, miss, I believe he will be friendly.”

  “Maybe he had jet lag.”

  “He was very, very upset, he just stood there and looked at the bar. Very sad. I could tell. Such a nice man. He almost sold me a wheelchair once.” With that enigmatic remark, the waiter left and returned forthwith with her lunch.

  All right, Kate, crack this little nut open. Obviously that was not Daniel Forrester she had seen on Rose Avenue.

  Dammit, it was him, the clothes stood out so garishly. She remembered other people noticing him. She watched the front door as she ate in case he looked in. At least she knew he was back from Clayton and he was in the area, even if his phone was disconnected. The hell with it! She was in the phone book, let him make the next move.

  After paying for her lunch, Kate walked back to her car. The sun was beating down on the concrete. The food made Kate’s head spin and in her ears she heard a ringing, bursting roar. The parking lot seemed to tilt under the broiling heat and she grasped the hot metal handle of her car door. She rested for a moment, weak on her feet, and wiped sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Then she spoke out loud.

  “Daniel, are you trying to speak to me?”

  The words slipped triumphantly from her mouth like little animals that had been trying to escape for hours. She could not understand why she would say such a thing out loud in a parking lot except that in some way it felt right. Tension was released like a loud scream and the world was knocked back on track again. Everything was in place. Her subconscious had been filled with all manner of muck that seethed and bubbled up into dreams, nerve attacks, and emotional hammerlocks about Daniel Forrester.

  As she poked into her purse for the car keys she saw Daniel Forrester walk by the alley entrance, heading west for the beach.

  “Daniel,” she cried, running down to the sidewalk. “Dan . . .” Her voice died in her throat. From the alley to the streetcorner there was about two hundred feet of sidewalk, fronting on stores that were closed on this Sunday. A woman was dropping a quarter into a newspaper box. She was the only person to be seen.

  Kate walked down to the corner. Forrester could not have ducked into any doorway or made it to the corner. Kate looked across the street at the white buildings blazing in the heat. She stood frozen, car keys in her hand, for perhaps five minutes, looking every which way round the neighborhood, even up in the sky, before getting in her car and heading for home.

  CHAPTER 7

  Arnold Jameson had lived in this mountain cabin backed up against the lake for precisely seven months, the amount of time he ha
d been at the Clayton clinic. It was his fourth home in as many years and he had just been getting it into shape when Armageddon in the form of Daniel Forrester had arrived. Jameson’s north wall had a walnut rack for his Purdy shotgun and the west wall contained a glass-faced antique cabinet for his camera collection. On order was a Navaho blanket which was supposed to arrive later this week from Taos. Sad to say, he would have to live his life without it. By this time next week he would be in Canada.

  Jameson had packed up everything into four suitcases and one box. On the day Forrester recognized him, he had begun negotiating the sale of his place with a Phoenix buyer. Several nerve-racking days had passed. He had expected Forrester to return home the same day he arrived—instead, he’d hung around Clayton while Jameson had been in Canada waiting for the buyer to bite. Finally, a check had arrived in his Canadian bank and he had earmarked the funds for purchase of four acres in British Columbia. Maybe he could vanish in Canada. At least it was worth a try.

  Arnold Jameson sat on his packed suitcase and sipped black coffee. This was the second worst jump he had ever made. The worst was in Nebraska when he had to leave Cheryl, just as he was falling hard for her, just when he was beginning to feel safe. Then he had gotten an innocent phone call from the Nebraska Medical Association inquiring after certain irregularities in his record. Jameson now had telephone phobia. The ring of the phone was so often the whisper of the ax.

  Jameson finished his coffee and set the cup on the floor. The gas was off, the electricity disconnected, the windows shut and locked tight against mountain dampness. After one last phone conversation, he would pull the plug from the wall and speak to no one else. He was waiting for a call from a man named Edward Hausmann. Hausmann was a literary agent specializing in true stories of political coverups, dirty dealings in high places, and uncaught murderers, all sold under pen names, all full of sensational revelations, unprovable and quite profitable because of the lawsuits they provoked. This was Jameson’s brilliant little end run, the move that would allow him to get his act together and come out into the open. It had to work. He was tired of hiding.