The League of Grey-Eyed Women

by Julius Fast

  Anna? She would give him the comfort of her body, but he didn't want that.

  Clifford then. He smiled, a little of the tension easing out of him. Why not call him now? Clifford with his carefully shaved baldness, his immaculate clothes and eternal cigar, Clifford and Pushkin, the white cat who tolerated his master. That was what he needed. A dose of Clifford's cynical sensibility.

  He dialed the number, but there was no answer. He hung up and put on a coat. He had to get out of the apartment, go anywhere, do anything that would keep him from thinking.

  It was cold out with the crisp chill of a late autumn afternoon. The grey, cloudless sky had a hint of snow and Jack lifted his head at the sharp, clean scent of the air. For a brief second everything was clean and alive. How wonderful it would be to walk through the park, to feel the white afternoon light thicken and grow more translucent. He could anticipate every sound and scent of the coming evening.

  Something in him drew back from the idea. He shook his head. Would every moment left be like this, alive and aware, each day increasing in intensity, making what he was losing more and more precious as time ran out?

  He had to cloud his senses, dull what he felt in some way. He found a bar near Lexington Avenue. Liquor could at least take the edge off reality. Inside he sat at the bar and ordered a Martini, savoring the aromatic twist of lemon, the cold, biting gin and the breath of vermouth. He sipped it, listening to a variety show on the TV screen, ignoring the few customers around him.

  Afterwards he left the bar and walked for a while, but he couldn't stand the outdoors and he stopped into another bar for another drink. He hadn't eaten since breakfast on the plane and he knew it was foolish to drink like this on an empty stomach, or was it so foolish? At least he would feel it more quickly, and as for the stomach, was he afraid of damaging this body so close to death ?

  "I am really going to get drunk," he told the bartender, "like I've never been drunk before. Just keep them coming at reasonable intervals." He took out his wallet and peeled off two 10-dollar bills. "This will do for a start."

  The bartender smoothed the black cummerbund over his ample- stomach and shook his head regretfully. "You know I won't serve you that many drinks. You get drunk so I can see it, and I gotta stop serving."

  He looked around the dim room, a quiet, soothing place in spite of its red plush walls and garish bead curtains. The corners of the room were filled with comfortable shadows; through the multicolored beads the lights of the street filtered in in distorted shapes and colors. This is what his apartment should have been, he realized vaguely, something of a refuge and a shelter. He turned back to the bartender.

  "Drunk enough for you to see." He lifted his finger. "That's the rub. What can you see in a place this dark?"

  Unexpectedly a voice spoke up from the stool next to his, a hoarse but not unpleasant woman's voice. "We'll fox him. I'll buy your drinks, and you buy mine."

  Jack turned and smiled, acknowledging the joke. She was a woman on the long edge of forty. Her face, even in the dim light, neither added to nor detracted from her years. Her hair had an unnatural blackness and was carefully arranged in a gleaming bouffant. Her eyes, matching the blackness of her hair, were outlined in heavy pencil. It was a Coptic face with the mystery of old Egypt, but a mask of a face, showing neither intelligence nor stupidity.

  He would have smiled politely and turned back to his drink, but she caught him with her eyes and put one hand on his arm. "No one should drink alone on a weekday night."

  "You mean it's all right on the weekend?"

  "It's never all right, weekday, weekend—" She picked up her drink and stirred the ice. "You drink alone and it's the beginning of the end. Never be a lone drunk."

  "What kind of a drinker are you?"

  "I'm a happy drinker, a loud-mouthed drunk. I get drunk and I get happy and generous and I talk." She slanted a calculating glance at him from the dark-circled eyes. "That's the trouble with the world. People aren't happy or generous, and they don't talk enough. Nobody gives, not anymore. What did they give you for Christmas?"

  "Coal in my stocking. But I'll give you a drink right now." He signalled the bartender. "Two more here."

  "And I'll take it." She finished the drink she had, and when another came she lifted it cheerfully. "To your Christmas stocking—without the coal." She looked down the side of the stool and stretched out an ample, nyloned leg. "Now what will I get in mine?"

  "Nothing as nice as what's in it now," he forced himself to say.

  She grinned, her face suddenly losing the painted, exotic look and coming alive. There was intelligence in her eyes now, but a calculating intelligence. "Hey, I like that. That's class."

  "Class?"

  She shrugged, using the gesture to let him know that pretense was dispensed with. It was a little too pat. "Oh, hell, you know what it's like when you meet a John in a bar. You break your ass being charming, and they act like a bull headed for one thing."

  "You work here?" Jack asked.

  "No, but I'm around a lot and Sam knows me." She signalled the bartender. "Two more, Sam, these are on me."

  Sam brought the drinks and pushed her money back. "Your dough's no good here, Lil. The gentleman's buying."

  Jack smiled. "That's the way it is. Lil ... that's a nice name."

  "I'm a nice girl." She considered the liquor in her glass, her face through the mask was all at once old and tired. "You're a nice guy too." She sounded almost wistful. "I can tell that right off. I know people. What's your name?"

  "Jack. Drink up, Lil. This is my night to get drunk. Remember?"

  "Great. That's just what I need," she said with heavy coyness. "A few more little drinkies."

  But two drinks later his body rebelled. A wave of nausea hit him and as if the alcohol had released some inhibiting force, the pain in his stomach, gone since the injection, returned with brutal force. He slid off the stool and turned blindly towards the door.

  "Jack?"

  He shook his head and barely made the street, then, grasping a parking meter for support, he was violently sick. He hung over the curb, gasping for breath. When the fit had passed, he turned and saw Lil standing behind him. "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, I ... I swallowed wrong." He wiped his lips with his sleeves. "I'm all right now."

  "No you're not all right, not at all." Decisively she took his arm. "You come with me."

  He started to protest, to resist, but only a token resistance. But she was firm, and still holding his hand she tucked his arm in hers and said, "I live down here, just a block. You come along now and I'll fix some coffee. You need it."

  He walked with her, telling himself he was too weak to protest and yet glad of her company. They walked along the avenue, through a light mist of rain tinted red and violet, yellow and green by the neon glow of the city. Then they turned down a sidestreet of brownstone houses with tall stone stoops.

  She freed his arm to fumble for her key, and he stood there, staring at her numbly. Suddenly the street shifted into sharp clarity. "Lil..." he began hesitantly.

  She turned smiling. "We'll be in in a minute."

  "No, listen..." He fumbled in his pocket and drew out his wallet. She watched him silently while he took two fives and handed them to her. "Goodnight, Lil."

  She grinned, taking the money and putting it in her purse. "There are all kinds of ways of kicking a girl."

  "No, it's not you."

  "Sure. I get the message." She turned and opened the door of the house, then slammed it behind her without a backwards glance.

  He walked on slowly, uncertainly. Why hadn't he gone with her? He wanted, needed a woman now so desperately it hurt, but he had never been with a prostitute.

  And Anna?

  Anna was different. She had to be different. He looked at his watch. It wasn't twelve yet, and Anna would still be awake. He called her from a street-corner booth and her voice was at once warm and accepting, without reproach.

  "Jack! It
's been weeks. Are you all right?"

  "Just fine. A little high, but just fine."

  She laughed her throaty, comfortable laugh. "You saw the doctor?"

  He had seen her last before he went to Turel. "He gave me a clean bill," he lied.

  "Well, when am I going to see you?"

  "Now? As soon as I can get a cab?"

  "The place is a mess, but come on along."

  A while later, looking around at the untidy room, at the litter of dirty dishes and garbage on the sink, at the unmade bed, he wondered what he was doing here, and yet he was glad he had come. As untidy as the room was, with all its dirt it was lived in, alive. He knew what he wanted from her, what she was efficiently prepared to give. And why not? He hadn't wanted more than this in all the years since Anita had left him.

  They'd like that at the agency, he thought. They'd like to see him now in this apartment. Freeman, the particular one, the obsessively neat and organized man.

  "You look as if you've had a bad night." She led him into the bedroom, and as he began to unknot his tie she slipped out of her housecoat. She had nothing on underneath, and he looked at her with a curious detachment, feeling desire arise with a cold, automatic reflex. Sex without feeling, without emotion. But that's what it always was with Anna.

  In her thirties, with the still soft, but not fat body of youth, Anna's face was pretty, colorless without makeup. She capped it with short tight brown hair cut like a boy's.

  Putting her arms around him she whispered, "What's wrong, Jack? You wanted to come." She ran her hand down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt, moving her palms over the hair of his chest. "Jack?"

  Disgust and anger filled him, anger at himself, at her, at Stiener, at the whole rotten deal that had been handed to him. And yet, more than anger, there was a sudden, burning passion that bewildered him. Even if he had wanted to resist her now, he was powerless to fight this need. But it had always been like this with Anna, and perhaps that was what he wanted, what he needed. She forced life into him.

  But now his desire was born of anger and cruelty. He pulled her to him savagely, kissing her lips, her cheeks, her throat, but kissing to bruise and hurt, as if in pain and savagery there was a chance at life.

  Anna responded with an intensity to match his own. Her arms pulled him close, and she moaned softly, wantonly. He pushed her down on the bed and kissed her brutally, the force of his lips against her teeth drawing blood, his own or hers. He could taste the salty, acrid sting of it.

  He ran his hand up her side, cupping her breast cruelly, pressing the nipple between his fingers, tightening his grip as he felt her wince. He moved his hand down, over the gentle mound of her stomach, feeling the softness of her hair, searching, probing.

  The violence of his desire, his sexual need and urgency seemed to boil within him, he twisted above her, pinning her arms with his hands. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the apartment door open, saw a man stealthily move inside and close the door behind him.

  He froze as if a bucket of ice water had been flung at him, and turned to watch the intruder move quietly towards the bedroom door.

  "Jack, what is it, what's wrong?" Anna asked, and at the sound of her voice the intruder stopped.

  Without thinking.. Jack sprang from the bed and pulled open the door. He found himself face to face with a bulky stranger. He had a confused impression of torn blue work clothes and sandy hair, a red face and spread hands. He was aware of his own nakedness and vulnerability, and then, as he heard Anna scream, a wave of fury and fear washed through him. The frustration of aborted sexual desire combined with anger left him weak and shaken. Without thinking, he hurled himself forward, his hands outstretched.

  "Don'-gimme-no-trouble..." It was an inarticulate mumble as the intruder met his lunge. For one second they swayed together, then Jack felt himself flung aside with brutal force. He slammed against a table, and a wave of pain lanced through his naked, defenseless body. Cursing, he staggered to his feet and lurched forward again. He had a confused impression of Anna shouting, and then the stranger hit him, a short, hard punishing blow that sent him staggering back.

  He shook his head, and a feral wave of hate exploded in his brain. His lips curled back from his teeth as he leaped forward, his hands clawing, his teeth gouging, fighting, not like a man, but like an animal. The intruder gave way before his onslaught, and the man's retreat added fire to his own violence.

  His reaction in that brief moment was out of all proportion. It was compounded of the days of despair, the sexual frustration and the shock of the burglar's entry. Now there was only one blazing urge within him, to tear and claw and kill, like an animal, like a wolf defending his lair.

  Again he threw himself at the stranger, and the man struck back, but with a kind of desperation, wanting only to get clear, to get away. Anna had stopped screaming, and he could dimly hear her fumbling with the telephone. Then he was flung aside again, smashing painfully into the wall.

  A deep growl rumbled in his throat. If he were an animal, if he were a wolf, he would kill, tear and kill! Again he growled, and abruptly dropped to all fours, his lips pulling away from his fangs, his body lengthening, thinning, his hands and feet turning to claws, his skin to silver-grey fur, his face elongating, his muzzle protruding.

  The intruder's jaw dropped open, and abruptly he screamed.

  Looking up from the telephone, Anna dropped it and cried out in terror, shrinking back on the bed.

  For a moment the man-wolf caught the odor of fear and terror, as sharp and clear as a blow, and it evoked an answer from some dim, prehistoric abyss. His fangs bare, he leaped at the man, raking his skin and flesh with one swipe, the jacket tearing away in his jaws.

  The man screamed again, stumbled to his knees and then lunged forward, fumbling for the apartment door. The man-wolf started after him, then paused as he heard Anna's voice, "No, no ... oh, God, no!"

  He turned from the door, lifting his lips from his fangs, the wolf fighting with its first taste of blood, the man struggling for sanity, for words to explain, to comfort, but only a low growl came out. Realization was like a hammerblow, sending the man part of him scrambling away in terror while the wolf part lifted its grey furry muzzle. The hated odor of fear pressed in on him, but he saw the square window and the moon beyond.

  He howled once as he heard the apartment door slam, and then he leaped forward, smashing through the glass panes of the window, slipping on the iron fire escape, struggling for a footing. He found the steps and he scrambled down them, his claws tapping at the metal rungs. He leaped to the street from the last story, still hearing Anna's screams, and he raced through the alley and down the side street, a lean, grey wolf, his eyes gleaming with reflected light.

  Wolf mind based on instinct and man memory struggled for domination. The wolf felt fear and a snarling antagonism at the scent of man—the man mind remembered the park and green things and drew back as footsteps hurried past.

  Searching for him? Man reason said impossible; the beast knew they were after him. Back into an alley, and then a loose board, another alley and across a street in the shadows. Stick to the shadows, man brain cried. Another street and then, lifting his muzzle, he caught the scent of growing things, the rich, musty odor of earth.

  He set out with a loping run, dodging traffic as brakes squealed and a taxi driver cursed. Another block and then, with a surge of pure joy, into the park.

  With the feel of earth beneath his paws, the shadow of trees around him, the last vestiges of fear slipped off and he was a wolf again—again? Slipping feral and silent through the shadows, the world of smell took shape around him, a world as solid and real as the three-dimensional one of solids.

  On a high rise of rock he lifted his muzzle and howled mournfully at the moon, then slipped easily into the shadows, into the night.

  He ran till the dawn, within the few square miles of Central Park, and then he stretched out in physical exhaustion in a rocky cleft and slept—
and woke at noon, a man again, a naked, shivering man.

  Chapter Six

  He closed his eyes, then opened them again, wincing at the sunlight that burned out of the cold blue sky. He was lying naked in a cleft of rock, leafless branches and trees half screening him from the sight of any passerby.

  Painfully, he pulled himself to a sitting position, staring about him in bewilderment and growing fear. Last night was clear in his mind, every moment of it, the wild race through the park, the mournful howling at the moon, the fantastic world of scent that had opened to him as a wolf.

  As a wolf! He had been a wolf. It was no hallucination, no dream—or was this the dream? How often had he dreamed of wandering naked through crowded streets, hiding in doorways, feeling i growing anxiety? But those had been dreams, and this was terribly real.

  He looked down at his body, and slowly the realization of his predicament sank home, somehow he was naked, in Central Park — it was Central Park, he could see the buildings lining it, east and west. How had he gotten here? Why?

  He leaned forward and hugged his knees. Never mind that, was he to get out? He couldn't walk along the paths in broad daylight Wait till dark? And then what? Even it somehow, he could slink through the park unnoticed, there was still the city. At and hour of the night it was alive. He'd never make it to his apartment unnoticed.

  He got to his feet slowly, raising his head above the cleft of rock that protected him. He was on top of a small hill about twenty-five feet high. The grey lock sloped down to a little stream, and across it a tangled wood of bare trees and then a winding path with benches.

  There were men on the benches, getting the last bit of autumn sunlight, their backs to him. Some were in then shirt sleeves or jackets; most had thrown their coats over the benches One man had stretched out the length of the bench, his jacket balled up for a pillow

  In the other direction the rock fell away, some fifty feet down to a lake filled with row boats, to an iron bridge and beyond the bridge the green angel of the Bethesda Fountain raised her arm in benediction. From the fountain the sound of children laughing drifted to him on the cold air.