by Laird Koenig
Eyes sparkling in the firelight, she stared at the door.
She shivered. Never before in this house had she trembled with such a bone-chilling cold.
Perhaps, she thought, she would not be so cold if she turned on the heater.
The heater.
The heater was fueled by gas. In London gas from a heater had killed their neighbor.
"But that was in a tiny, little flat," she told herself. "They found the thick carpet up against the crack under the door. The place was practically airtight…."
She looked at the shining oak of the trapdoor. The cellar underneath was even smaller than that flat in London.
She ran to the kitchen and creeping into the cupboard under the sink, pushed and poked among the boxes of washing powders, plastic bottles of bleach, strong-smelling furniture polish, and waxes till she found what she wanted—a long coil of rubber hose.
She pried the metal from the gas heater as she had seen the man in the shop do and let it fall with a clang.
Exactly as the man had shown, she found the pilot light—a silent, steady, blue flame. She knelt and leaned forward and with a breath—almost like blowing out the candles on her birthday cake—she blew. The flame danced wildly in the dark and was gone.
It took her only a few seconds to detach the gas line from the burner and push the rubber tubing over this little pipe. Carrying the other end of the hose she wormed it down into the crack between the trapdoor and the floorboards.
Down there—would the cellar be airtight?
The door itself was thick oak, solid and without a split or crack. But around the edges was the crack. She would have to pack something around those edges.
Working quickly she tore the newspaper with the crossword puzzle into long strips and with a stick of kindling poked these as wads down between the door and the floorboards. All four sides.
She sat back on her heels and examined her work.
"What if someone comes in and smells gas?" She shook her head answering her own question. "If it’s airtight the gascan’t escape. It’ll stay down there till it dissipates—or whatever gas does—"
To make sure no gas could possibly escape into the room, Rynn went around the four sides giving the caulking an extra poke with the stick.
Air tight.
Why use gas? If the cellar was airtight, the woman down there would suffocate.
Rynn studied the trap. She knew the door was sealed, but what she could not know was how long the air down there could last. What if there was the tiniest leak in one of the cellar walls to the outside of the house? It might not be enough to stop the gas from filling the chamber, but it might be enough to sustain life. She could not take that chance.
Back at the heater’s vent where the man had shown her how the air was conducted through to the outside wall of the house, she checked and saw there was no way for the gas to escape the pipe and the hose.
Now there was only one thing left to do. She knelt at the front of the heater and turned the dial past all the numbers for the maximum supply of gas.
8
RYNN SHUT the front door very quietly and locked it behind her. Buttoning her heavy wool duffle coat under her chin she looked through the trees at the sky. Although the world was wet as a gray watercolor, the rain had stopped.
She plunged her hands deep into her pockets. One jingled the door keys against her wallet, the other carefully felt for the small warm presence of Gordon.
The cold made her face tingle and she breathed greedily as if she could not get enough of this moist fresh air that smelled so strongly of earth and leaves. She wandered under dripping trees, her boots popping acorns underfoot with every step. Drops of rain sparkled on the polish of horse chestnuts. Dead zinnias scraped at her coat.
She drew Gordon from her pocket so he could enjoy the cold air. His pink nose quivered.
"Take a deep breath," she said. "Makes you feel washed and clean... ."
That is when she saw it. Through the black tree trunks, gleaming wet in the gray afternoon—Mrs. Hallet’s dark-red Bentley.
Gordon squeaked.
Rynn’s fist was too tightly clenching the rat. At another squeak and a scrabble, of tiny claws, she dropped him back into her pocket.
Following an instinct, as if by not looking at the car she could deny its presence, Rynn turned away and ran down the lane.
She glanced back only once. There it was, shining out in the wet lane.
A squirrel rattled elm branches.
Gold leaves drifted past.
She tried to put off thinking about the car and what she must do to get rid of it. Did that have to be today? Had she not done all she could do today?
Yes, she had to get rid of the car. Now. But how?
A mile from home she heard the steady honking of a car horn and the blare of rock music. When the sound grew and a car flashed by the crossroads, she saw young passengers her age hanging out the windows waving Wildcat pennants, screaming their excitement. They had won their game. They were loud and happy and young and together with nothing in the world to worry about.
None of them knew the girl who stood alone on the road spangled with wet leaves, but they waved at her.
Rynn raised her hand as if to wave back, but she stopped. The honking and music faded away in the wet afternoon.
Minutes later, from high overhead, the faint call of birds made her look up to see a straggling V of geese beating their wings slowly, slowly, flying south.
She felt desolate and. terribly alone. Those happy kids in the car. Did they ever feel alone and helpless? Why should they? They had families, they had friends. If one of them was scared to death he always had someone to turn to, to talk with. If one of them had to move a car he could ask a brother or sister or telephone a friend—any one of a number of friends.
Rynn told herself sharply that feeling sorry for herself would solve nothing.
But who could she call?
Only once before had she ever felt as entirely alone in the world. She fought the sting of hot tears, but a great sob was rising in her throat. Suddenly blinded with tears and shaking with sobs, she turned and rushed down the lane for home.
As she dashed through her yard she allowed herself only one look at the car.
Still there, the goddamn liver-colored Bentley gleamed out, shining, glinting in the wet.
In the sitting room the gateleg table stood on the braided rug which covered the trapdoor. Rynn, still in her duffle coat at the kitchen counter, had found a service station number in the telephone book’s yellow pages, dialed, and was listening to the voice on the other end with growing exasperation, when she cut in impatiently.
"A neighbor was supposed to drive it," she explained. "My father’s really counting on the car being at the station. You know yourself one can never get a taxi when one really needs one. No, that’s what I already said, the driver doesn’t have to be a mechanic. Anyone at your station who can drive. As soon as he can? Thank you so very much."
She was about to hang up, but at what the man at the service station said next, she froze.
"The keys?"
Rynn’s voice betrayed none of her panic.
"They’re in the car," she said. "I’ll be waiting."
She hung up and stood, still frozen, at the kitchen counter.
It took all her determination to dash through the hall and into the front yard.
The gleaming Bentley was locked. All four doors.
With unwilling steps she returned to the house and carefully locked the front door.
Walking slowly, now leaving her own wet footprints on the floor, she crossed the parlor, drew the curtains tight, turned on a lamp, and stared at the gateleg table and braided rug, running her hand across the shining wood as if she had never seen the table before. With sudden force she grabbed it by the edge and dragged it from the rug, scraping it over the bare floor. She hurled the heavy rug from the trap. Her fingers worked at the hasp till the bolt yielded.
&nb
sp; For a long moment the girl knelt without moving, fighting, gathering all the courage she needed to raise the trapdoor.
Again it was only by hurling herself with that sudden force that breaks fear with action that she was able to fling back the door which fell with a bang against the wall.
She drew a deep breath, held it, and hurried down the cold stone steps.
In less than a minute, like a surfacing diver gasping for breath, she ran up the steps clasping keys in her hand. Still gasping, she swept up the newspapers that had packed the door’s edges, sending them fluttering down into the cellar.
She was lowering the trap when she heard a tapping on the front door.
Her heart stopped.
Not a pound. Not a bang. A tap.
Working frantically she fixed the hasp and spread the braided rug over the door.
Another tap. The girl stiffened.
"Just a minute!"
She was dragging the table back across the oak floor onto the rug, trying to deaden the scraping sound. As the table moved, the jelly glasses in the carton clinked.
Three insistent rat-a-tats on the door.
"Coming!"
Rynn looked at the floor. Were there scrape marks in the wax? She knelt and used the bottom of her duffle coat to polish these away. She stepped back to study the room.
Everything seemed to be back in place.
At the window she peered out between the curtains. Her angle on the front door showed no one.
She was in the hall, her hand already on the lock when she saw Mrs. Hallet’s umbrella—bright candy stripes—hanging on a peg.
Whoever was out there tapped again.
Only after she lifted down the umbrella, hurled it behind the couch, and took a .final deep breath, did she open the door.
Nothing prepared her for what she saw. Here was a man in a shining black-silk top hat and a black cape, a walking stick in his hand.
"Hi," the figure in black said cheerily.
Speechless, Rynn could only stare. A false moustache hung unevenly where it was coming unstuck from beneath the nose. This was no man. This was a boy. How old was he? Sixteen? It was a boy’s face, a small, merry face with very black eyes. Tapping his top hat with his stick, he looked like a happy fox in an animated cartoon she had seen.
The boy flourished his black cape in a stage bow—a magician who has just produced a miracle and now waits for acclaim. He raised his face slowly, his black eyes sparkled, a smile flashed a row of small but very white teeth. The smile was, if anything, too much like that of the boy on the magazine cover. Too sweet for a boy.
"I’m Mario Podesta."
The girl did not answer.
"I’m supposed to drive your father’s car to the station."
Rynn’s hand stayed on the doorknob. "Why are you dressed up like that?"
The black cape swirled and the walking stick tapped the silk hat. “I”—and he stopped long enough to bring the cape over his shoulder with the pride of a matador—“am a magician!"
Rynn looked at the walking stick. "And this is your magic wand."
"Cane," the boy said. "I’m a cripple."
Rynn made no move to stop him as he limped into the room.
She said, "I guess I should say I’m sorry."
"Why? It’s not your fault."
They looked at each other, the girl in the duffle coat and Levis, the boy in shiny black.
"Your moustache is on crooked," she said. But very quickly she added. "I like your cape and hat."
"Yeah?" the boy smiled his beautiful smile. No, the small face was not so much foxlike as elfin. Certainly he was some woodland creature out of mythology. A faun perhaps. Only the dark lines under his eyes saved the face from being too beautiful. The lines were deep, painfully etched, in an otherwise untouched face.
He tapped the floor with his cane. "Saturday afternoon when all my brothers are playing football I’m on my way to put on a magic show. For some rich kid’s birthday party."
"Truly? You’re a real magician?"
"I’d be some asshole to run around like this if I weren’t." Again he flourished his cape. "Sure. Like Houdini. Thurston. Blackstone—”
"Prove it." In her excitement, Rynn smiled and she knew the boy had seen her chipped tooth. She almost clamped her mouth shut when she spoke, "Do something magic."
"All my stuff’s out on my bike." He reached his hand out to her.
What did he want?"
"The car keys for Christ’s sake."
Rynn found herself jolted into realizing why the boy called Mario was here. Dropping the keys into his hand she said, "Here, Mario the Magician."
The boy limped back to the door. "What I’ll do is I’ll leave the car at the station. But not with the keys in it. Leave the keys in it, some guy’ll rip it off."
He looked at the girl whose green eyes were studying him carefully. Her freckles were very dark against her pale skin. She tossed her head to throw her long hair back over her shoulders.
"You don’t understand, do you?" He repeated the words rip off. "Means steal."
"How will my father get the keys?"
The boy sighed a how-can-anyone-be-so-stupid sigh. Clearly he was not only dealing with a foreigner, but one who was also not too bright.
"You’re your father. Right?"
The girl nodded.
"You get off the train. You see the car. But—you find it locked. So what do you do? You ask yourself—'Self, if I were car keys where would I be?’ "
"At the ticket window?"
"Abracadabra!"
Rynn smiled, then she remembered her broken tooth and stopped. "You are a magician"
"Hell, I can make a whole chicken disappear!" The cape fairly snapped as he flourished it.
"I know where you got your name."
"Yeah?"
"Mario the Magician."
"Yeah?"
"Story," she said, "by Thomas Mann."
"Mario’s my real name,"
"Then it’s double magic. Proves you love that story as much as I do."
"Never read it."
He went outside into the misty afternoon, using his cane like a golf stick, to putt a horse chestnut down the front path.
Rynn followed him, her hands thrust deep in the pockets of her duffle coat, to stand in the leaves.
"Look," he said. "I got to get going or I’ll be late. As it is, I’ll have to put my bike in the car and then go from the station."
She watched the absurd little moustache hanging loose. He was about to speak, but he stopped and pressed his upper lip to stick the dangling moustache in place. For the first time Rynn found herself looking at his hands. Small hands, slender, not much bigger than hers. She hated to see chewed fingernails, and the boy’s were ragged down to the quick.
"You want to come that far with me?"
"Where?"
"The station,"
"I have to stay here,"
"Okay," The boy shrugged. He swung his golf club cane, lopping off mummified zinnia heads.
"How much do you charge to drive the car?"
"My father said to chalk it up to customer relations,"
"That’s very kind."
"No, it isn’t. Like I said, customer relations. He’ll get it back on a new carburetor or some damn thing." He looked up into the branches. She sensed he had something else he wanted to say and the girl waited.
"You know you got a broken’ tooth?" Mario made no attempt to soften the announcement with a smile. He announced it as a fact, flatly, the way he had said that he was a cripple.
"How come I never see you in school?"
"I don’t go to school."
“No?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"I have never gone to school."
"You sick or something?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Like you’re suffering from an incurable disease or something? I mean you’ve got to have an excuse."
"Because I don�
��t go to school?" She brushed her hair back from her face. "School is stultifying."
"You haven’t been so how would you know?" With his cane he poked through a gold leaf and lifted it up for a closer look. "I’d sort of miss it."
Rynn picked up her own leaf for study. "The only thing I miss is I’d adore to sit in on sex education. It might be amusing to hear how you Americans muck it up."
Rynn giggled, taking care to keep her tooth covered. Suddenly she wished very much she had said nothing about Americans or giggled, for Mario was turning away from her.
Her heart almost leaped when he turned back. "You know something? If you’re not English, the way you talk and all, you’re a real asshole.”
The boy walked unevenly through the tree trunks toward the Bentley. Rynn watched him study the car. He turned and motioned for her to come to him.
Something held her from crossing the wet leaves to the car.
"Come here!" he called.
Fists in her duffle coat, she ran to the car. Mario was frowning, his moustache even more crooked than before.
"You said it was your father’s car."
"What I said was he needed it at the station."
Mario’s black eyes were boring straight into hers. Rynn met his gaze. The boy was the first to speak.
"It’s hers."
"Meaning?" She watched her breath come out in steam as if to show Mario what he was saying was worth so little concentration.
"It’s Mrs. Hallet’s."
"Oh?" she said. It wasn’t a very effective way to parry his statement, but she felt she had said it with convincing indifference.
"Her Bentley. Only thirty-four thousand miles. I ought to know, my father works on it."
"She’s lending it to us."
"No she isn’t." The boy was not smiling. He had the warm olive skin of so many Italians. Why did he have dark lines under his eyes?
The girl looked away under the pretext of peeling a wet red leaf from the car.
"No." He repeated the accusation.
"You simply cannot say no like that. You don’t know-"
"You think you’re putting me on, don’t you? Only you’re not."
Rynn’s voice became very English, very aloof. "If you don’t believe me, go into the house. Ring her. Ask her." She added an edge as if she were accustomed to giving orders. "Right now!"