He was still waiting when a large chunk of plaster unexpectedly dropped off the plaster-creature and broke into dust and fragments on the floor, making him start.
The creature now looked grimmer and more distorted than ever, with half of its forehead missing. Norman walked across to it and said, 'Fuck you, man,' and kicked it in its bulging, misshapen midriff.
At first he made no impression on it, but then he kicked it again, and again, and its belly collapsed in a shower of plaster and fungus and sodden, discoloured wallpaper. He kicked its face, and its jaw fell off. He kicked its eye, and its eye disappeared. He kicked it and kicked it until it was nothing more than a heap of crumbled off-white fragments, spread across the landing.
He was kicking so hard that he didn't hear the light, quick footsteps on the stairs. He sensed that there was somebody there, but he assumed that it was Brewster, and so he gave the plaster-creature one last kick and said, 'What do you think, man? Bit of impromptu restoration.'
He stepped back, brushing his hands together and admiring the mess he had made. 'I should have been a kick-boxer. What do you think? Eat your heart out, Steven Seagal!'
He took another step back, and turned, but it wasn't Brewster at all. It was a tall, dark man with a blurry, indistinguishable face. He was dressed in black and carrying a walking-cane. Norman leaned forward a little, trying to focus on him; but it didn't seem to be possible.
'Are you here with-?' he began, but the man took one step towards him and he shut his mouth.
'This is my house,' the man told him. His voice was very deep; very courteous; but frightening none the less.
'Well, I don't think so,' Norman corrected him. 'This house actually belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Craig Bellman. I'm Norman Moriarty by the way. I've been commissioned to take care of the restoration work. Are you interested in that kind of thing? You can have my card.'
'This is my house,' the man repeated. 'I thought of it, I created it, I built it.'
'In that case,' said Norman, flippantly, 'you'd have to be Jack Belias.'
The man said nothing, but lifted his walking-cane and gripped it as if he were going to break it in half.
'Trouble is, Jack Belias went off to the house not made by hands; and that was in 1937.'
'When was 1937?'
'What do you mean, when was 1937? Nineteen thirty-seven was, like, 1937. That's like asking when was five o'clock.'
The man took a step closer and Norman could smell his strong, floral toilet-water. 'I'll tell you when was 1937, you ignorant puppy. Nineteen thirty-seven was now; and 1937 was tomorrow; and 1937 was fifty years hence.'
Norman cleared his throat with a sharp barking sound. 'You're trying to say that you are Jack Belias?'
The man came up close and stood over Norman in the same way that the thunderclouds stood over Storm King Mountain. His voice was rich with corruption and threat.
'You don't doubt me, do you?'
Norman lifted both of his hands. It was not only a gesture of conciliation; it was a way of warding Jack Belias off.
Jack Belias took one step forward, and then another. 'You've been trespassing here, haven't you? You haven't been upstairs, have you? You haven't let my little captive free?'
'Listen, man, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you mean. If you want me to leave, I'll leave.'
Jack Belias' voice suddenly rose to a roar. 'You think you can get away with it that easily? You think you can get away with it without being punished?'
'Listen, I'm out of here. I promise.'
But without warning, Jack Belias lifted his walking-cane and struck Norman a cracking crosswise blow on the right shoulder, close to his neck. Norman said, 'Shit, man!' and lifted his arms to protect himself, but Jack Belias struck him again and again and again, so hard and so savagely that there was nothing Norman could do but stagger backwards.
'I don't brook trespassers and I don't brook vandals and I won't brook you!' Jack Belias raged at him. He hit him on the fingers of his left hand, and Norman heard two of them crack.
'Leave me alone!' he screamed. 'Leave me alone! I haven't done anything to you!'
But Jack Belias ignored him, and continued to strike him again and again - on the arms, on the shoulders, on the side of the head. Every time Norman tried to step back, Jack Belias took a step forward. His face was still blurry and unfocused, but Norman could see that it was contorted with anger, his eyebrows locked in a frown, his mouth dragged down like a Japanese demon mask.
He turned, stumbled, and Jack Belias thrashed him across the back. It was the noise that frightened Norman just as much as the pain. It sounded as if a madman were trying to beat a sofa to death. He limped along the corridor with Jack Belias walking behind him, hitting his back and his legs.
'You thought you could get away with it?' Jack Belias kept on roaring at him. 'You thought I'd let you go free?'
Norman ducked, and twisted around, and snatched at the walking-cane. He caught hold of the end of it, and tried to wrench it out of Jack Belias' hand. They wrestled and pushed and grunted. Norman turned the walking-cane around and around like a dock-hand, trying to break Jack Belias' grip. Neither of them spoke.
There was a moment when Norman thought that Jack Belias was going to break the rest of his fingers, but then he suddenly twisted the walking-cane one way, and then the other, and Jack Belias dropped it. It fell on its tip and danced away down the corridor as if it had a life of its own.
Norman gave Jack Belias a single huge shove, and then limped towards the nearest window. His ears were ringing, his jaw was aching, and his body felt as if it had been crushed under a falling joist. He heard Jack Belias shouting with rage as he went back to pick up his cane; and he knew that he couldn't stand any more beating. Jack Belias would kill him next time.
He banged open the window catch with his bruised fist. The gale-force wind instantly blew the windows open, and one of them swung against the panelling and smashed. The rain hit Norman in the face like frozen gravel, and the net curtains blew wildly up into the air.
'Vandal! I'll teach you!' Jack Belias bellowed. He struck at the top of Norman's head, and Norman lost his balance and almost fell down onto the stone patio thirty feet below. He managed to save himself only by catching hold of the window, which swung unnervingly towards him.
For two or three terrifying seconds, he was half in and half out of the window, clinging onto the sill to stop himself from falling, while Jack Belias thrashed at his legs. Then he managed to kick back, and heave himself out onto the narrow stone ledge that ran the whole length of the second storey to the front of the house.
'I'll get you, you bastard!' Jack Belias shouted at him. Lightning crackled over the trees, and for an instant everything was lit in dazzling blueish-white. Then thunder detonated directly overhead, and Norman clung to the wet stone as rain lashed against his back and turned his jeans into grotesque, wet, overweight leggings.
Sniffling with pain, he edged away from the open window and began to creep slowly towards the next. His only fingerhold was a rough, narrow crevice between the bricks. Three of the fingers in his left hand were fractured, and he had to hold them straight, so that he was keeping a grip with only his little finger, with his thumb pressed against the brick facing for balance. Up above him, the guttering was broken, and gallons of rainwater were splattering down the wall and onto his head.
He was clear of the first window when he heard a banging sound. Jack Belias had opened the next window, and was leaning out.
'You really thought that I would let you go? You really thought that I wouldn't punish you! You can't escape from me!'
Norman rested his forehead against the wall. He couldn't go forward and he couldn't go back. Whichever window he went for, Jack Belias would be waiting for him. He couldn't stay here much longer, either. He was soaked through to the skin, and his fingers were aching so much that he almost didn't care whether he held on or not. He didn't want to look behind him because he kn
ew it was a long drop to the rain-slicked patio below.
'Come on, then, what are you waiting for?' Jack Belias taunted him.
Norman edged a little further along. His hair was hanging down over his face in wet rat-tails and he was beginning to whimper. He glanced at Jack Belias again and suddenly saw that there was a metal pipe running vertically down the wall. If he could fasten his belt to that pipe, he could stay out here until help came, or Jack Belias grew tired of waiting for him.
He shuffled further along the wall. Jack Belias reached out of the open window and rapped his cane against the bricks, trying to dislodge him, or at least to frighten him, but Norman knew that he was out of reach. He inched his way nearer and nearer to the pipe, and at last his right hand closed around it. He swayed for a moment, and had a sickening feeling that he was going to fall over backwards, but then he managed to grip the pipe tight.
The most difficult part was unbuckling his belt. He had to do it with his right hand because the fingers of his left were so damaged. Clinging on with nothing but his left-hand pinkie, he swayed two or three times and had quickly to let go of his belt and snatch at the pipe to regain his balance. By the time he managed to thread his belt behind the pipe and buckle it up again, he was crying with pain and exhaustion.
'So you're going to stay there, are you?' Jack Belias mocked him. 'Well, in that case, stay there, and be damned. I hope the crows come and peck out your eyes!’
Norman turned to him. 'Fuck you, man!' he screamed. 'What did I ever do to you? What are you, some kind of sadist? What did I ever do to you? I wasn't vandalising your rotten house, I was trying to restore it!'
'Then you're a bigger fool than I thought!' Jack Belias shouted back at him. 'It is restored! It will always be restored, just as it will always be minted!'
'Well, fuck you!' Norman retorted.
At that instant, the faint leader-stroke of a huge lightning discharge came flickering like a viper's tongue through the clouds above Valhalla, searching for a line of least resistance. It was momentarily attracted by Valhalla's tall chimneys, but then it suddenly forked sideways and touched the copper fleur-de-lys that surmounted Valhalla's lightning-conductor. Instantly it was followed by a massive return stroke, and then another, each of more than 200,000 volts - and then an ear-splitting crack of superheated, air, hotter for one-hundredth of a second than the surface of the sun.
Norman's chest glowed orange from the inside, like a hideous Hallowe'en. Then he literally exploded, and blackened arms and legs were flung across the patio. His charred head, with the stubble of his hair still smoking, rolled into the bushes.
Thunder shook Valhalla and made the window frames rattle. But the window where Jack Belias had been standing was empty, with the net curtains dragged out into the rain like shrouds.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 8:17 P.M.
Pepper looked up.
'What was that?' Effie asked her.
'Lightning-strike.' She paused, her silver eyes darting from side to side. 'But there's something else, too.' She turned to Effie and she looked suddenly bloodless. 'Something's wrong,' she said. 'I felt like - I don't know - I felt like I suddenly lost something.'
'Come on,' said Effie, 'it's just this creepy atmosphere.'
'No,' Pepper told her. She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. 'It's like- something disappeared. I can't explain it.'
'Maybe we should go look for Norman and Brewster, and call it a night.'
'What about Craig? Effie, if you lose Craig tonight, you've lost him for ever.'
Effie said, 'You've done enough already. This is my battle. Mine and Craig's. You've seen that for yourself.'
'I can't leave you here alone.'
'You said yourself that it was me that was causing all this psychic disturbance - me and Craig, anyway. What can you do?'
'I guess I could give you some moral support.'
Effie shook her head. 'There's only one thing that needs to be done, Pepper, and you know it. Jack Belias has to be shown that no matter how many times he tries to break Gina Broughton down, he's never going to do it. He may take over Craig, and he may use me to re-create Gina. But no matter what he did to Gina, she wouldn't give in to him. He whipped her, Pepper, and he abused her, and he tied her up, and he blinded her. She still wouldn't give in to him. And I won't give in to him, either.'
'Well, well,' said Pepper, with a tight, puckered-up smile. 'The daughters of Lilith say thus far and no further.'
'If you like.'
Pepper reached into her kaftan, took out her ouanga, and handed it to Effie. 'I don't know whether it'll do you any good. None of my other spells seem to work around here. But maybe it'll help just a little bit to keep you safe.' Effie took the ouanga and kissed Pepper on the cheek. 'Faith, hope and a home-made ouanga. I can't go wrong.' just be extra careful,' Pepper warned her. 'Time has gone haywire here tonight. It's like all the pages of the book have got stuck together. I mean, anything could happen.'
'I know,' said Effie.
'But I'm just going to have to risk it. I think I was drawn here almost as strongly as Craig was. There's so much unfinished business to take care of.' Pepper said, 'I'm going to go find Norman. I still have this real bad feeling about him.'
Effie watched Pepper leave the ballroom. Now that she understood exactly what she had to do, she felt stronger and more determined than she had ever felt in her life. She had fallen for Craig when he was younger, with his mystical, romantic quotes from Mallarme. She had devoted her life to helping him at work. She had soothed him and flattered him and flattered his clients, too. She had given him too much to let Jack Belias take him now; or to let Jack Belias take her.
She heard laughter in the library. She could smell the cigar smoke even though the doors were closed. She took hold of the handles in both hands, and opened them up.
The library was fully furnished and lined with books; although it was so dense with smoke that she could hardly see anything except the baccarat table, lit with a green-shaded lamp, and the men who were sitting all around it. They turned to look at Effie and their faces were universally despondent - all except for Jack Belias, who was leaning back in his chair and laughing and lighting another cigar.
'Well, well,' he said. 'It looks like the first of my winnings has turned up in person.'
Douglas Broughton turned around in his chair and his expression was desperate. 'Gina,' he said. 'Gina, I really believed that I was going to win.'
Effie walked up to the table and the men turned away in embarrassment. All except for Douglas Broughton, who kept on looking up at her, his forehead crowned in perspiration, begging for forgiveness. And all except for Jack Belias, with that strange square face of his, and those eyes like burn-holes, who smiled, and sipped at his cigar, and smiled some more.
'Forgive me,' wept Douglas Broughton. He dropped onto his knees on the carpet and took hold of her hand. 'Gina, please forgive me.'
She lightly touched his white fraying hair, the prawn-pink scalp beneath. 'Why do you want me to forgive you? For staking your wife at a game of baccarat, or for losing?'
'Oh God, Gina, forgive me for everything.'
'There's nothing to forgive. I agreed because you wanted me to. Isn't that what wives are for, to do what their husbands want them to do?'
Jack Belias made a little beckoning gesture with his finger, and a servant with white gloves came up and poured him another bourbon. 'You're mine now,' he told her, in a tone of voice that was surprisingly matter-of-fact. He scooped up the last of the cards, shuffled them, squared them, and tucked them back in the shoe. 'Your husband can send over your clothes, and anything else you want for your creature comforts. Otherwise, you can go upstairs with Lettie and find yourself a bedroom. I'll be up later, when I've finished stripping my friends here of a few more assets.'
'I'm out,' said Remy Morse, looking at his watch. 'As usual, mon cher Jack, it has been very dangerous, very exciting, and not very much of a pleasure. I wish some day that
a black cat would cross your path and trip you up, so that you break your callous neck.'
'I'm not going anywhere,' said Effie. 'The fact is that I'm not Gina and that you can't win human beings in a game of cards.'
***
Thunder rumbled outside the house, but already it was beginning to move away. Pepper meanwhile was crossing the patio in her wind-whipped kaftan, her bare feet crunching in ashes. She found a triangular trowel that wasn't a stone-age artefact, but a human scapula, a shoulder-bone. Then she discovered more bones, and a whole burned-out ribcage, and a spine. She found a scorched pack of orange Tic-Tacs and a half-melted pack oflime Tic-Tacs. Two small items from Norman's balanced diet.
It was then that she understood the empty sensation that she had experienced in the ballroom, and it was then that she thought of all the days of her life she had spent in bringing up Norman, from a fat white baby who never slept, to a lanky grunting teenager who could tile, and plaster, and cut immaculate dovetail joints, and who never talked about anything but Nirvana, karmic diets, and bringing old houses back to their former glory.
Norman had never been old enough to realise that glory is only the golden shine of arrogance; and that the great houses of the Hudson Valley were monuments built in their own honour by men for whom nobody else would ever pay a penny to build a monument.
Pepper bent down in his rainsoaked ashes and wept and wept, while the last lightning-flickers disappeared eastward, towards Connecticut, and the wind began to die down.
At last, however, she raised her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She turned towards Valhalla, with its spires and its chimneys and its dark, asymmetric windows, and she knew what she had to do. She stood up, and walked back to the front door. She climbed the steps and touched the wolfish door-knocker with one hand, as if she thought it would give her strength. It was there to protect the house against evil spirits. Perhaps this evening it would fulfil its task.
The House That Jack Built Page 33