by Rona Jaffe
“Twenty bucks,” Pardieu said.
The man nodded and began to walk. Pardieu walked along beside him. His heart was pounding with excitement and he longed to ask many questions, but he remembered he was to say nothing. Are we going to The Great Hall, he thought; at last? Are we?
“What’s your name?” the messenger said, finally.
“Paul.”
The messenger nodded again and did not reply. They walked to an old and very unpleasant-looking inn, dimly lit and grimy, where the man led the way up a flight of stairs and unlocked the door to a small room. In this room was a bed, a wooden chest, and a chair. It was lit from the outside by the brightly colored lamps that glittered in the street.
“I like it dark,” the man said.
Pardieu waited.
The man began to disrobe then, removing his respectable clothing, and Pardieu wondered if underneath this disguise there would be armor or perhaps the raiment of some superior being. “Hurry up,” the man said.
“Hurry up what?”
“Take your clothes off.”
Why? Pardieu did not understand why he suddenly felt afraid. Where were they going with no clothing? He would not give up his pouch of magic spells, nor his sword, for without them he was helpless. He stood there, thinking perhaps he should obey, for he had waited so long for this messenger, and yet …
The messenger was almost naked now, and he only looked like a mortal man. In two swift steps he was across the room facing Pardieu, and he took hold of his robe. “Come on!” he said in a rough voice. Then, with no warning, he placed frantic hands on Pardieu’s most private place, and when Pardieu looked at him in panic he saw that the man was fully aroused.
He had been tricked! This was no man, but a succubus, intent on rape. Pardieu knew of such things, and once a succubus entered your body you were in its power. He flung the spell of paralyzation, heart beating wildly now with fear. The spell did not work! How could this be possible? This was a most powerful demon indeed, but Pardieu had other charms, other spells. He gulped down the remainder of his potion of invisibility. The dragon had not seen him—nor would this succubus now. The succubus was holding him tightly, trying to place its mouth on him, determined to rape what it could feel but could not see. Pardieu was terrified. He twisted to get away from the demon’s grasp, but the strength of his adversary was greater than his own. Fasting and privation had made him weak, and a succubus was a hundred times stronger than even a healthy mortal.
Pardieu unsheathed his sword, and with a last mighty rush of strength he pushed the sword into the monster’s chest.
He was let loose. The succubus’s face distorted with slack-mouthed fear, then pain, and then finally it sank silently to the floor. It was dead. Pardieu turned and ran away, out of that room, out of that vile inn, out to the street, and as far as his shaking legs could carry him.
Robbie found himself on the street—a strange street, in a strange city, at night—and he did not remember how he had gotten there. He caught a glimpse of himself in a store window as he passed, and he gasped. He had a little beard and mustache, his hair was longer than usual, and his face was emaciated. His eyes looked enormous. His jeans and Windbreaker were filthy, and he could see that he had tightened his belt to the tightest hole to keep his jeans up. How long had he been out of it? Weeks? Months? Where was he?
He looked at his watch. It was midnight. This was the underbelly of some city: porno flicks, hookers, junkies, everything garish and dirty. Then he recognized it. He was in. New York. All the taxis had New York license plates. He was on West Forty-second Street, and he had had amnesia, and he was so frightened he could not bear it.
He looked wildly for a phone. There was a pay phone a few blocks on, and he looked through his pockets for change. God, he didn’t even have any money, just a dime and a quarter. There was nothing in his wallet but his identification. He wondered if he had been robbed. There was blood all over his sleeve and the front of his jacket, as if it had spurted there, and it was still wet. Robbie touched himself gingerly, but nothing hurt, and he realized it was not his blood but someone else’s. He had not thought the fear he felt could grow worse, but it did.
His fingers closed on the Boy Scout knife his father had given him years ago, which he always carried out of habit, and he drew it out of his pocket. He opened it. He didn’t even have to open it to know. The handle as well as the blade was covered with blood.
Robbie closed his eyes and leaned against the side of the pay phone, feeling faint. He was starving; his stomach hurt. And he had stabbed somebody. Maybe he had even killed someone—he was out of breath as if he had been running. He knew he was crazy, and he began to cry.
In the booth he called Kate collect at college, unable to stop his convulsive sobs. Crazy, crazy, and maybe a murderer too …
She never answered. He looked up Daniel’s number in his pocket address book and called him collect. He remembered now that Kate and Daniel were living together in Daniel’s room. Why couldn’t he remember what had happened to him since he left Grant? The last thing he remembered was Jay Jay’s party.
“Hello?” Kate said. Her voice was soft with sleep.
“It’s Robbie,” Robbie said, still crying. The sound of her familiar voice wrenched his heart. He held on to the side of the pay phone so he wouldn’t fall. “I’m in New York, and I think I killed somebody.”
CHAPTER 9
“Oh, Robbie!” Kate cried, holding the phone receiver tightly. “Are you all right?” She was completely awake immediately, but the joy of knowing he was alive blotted out—for an instant—the rest of what he had just said.
“Robbie?” Daniel asked excitedly.
She nodded. “Robbie, Robbie, speak to me! How are you? What happened?”
“I don’t know how I am,” Robbie said. “I don’t remember anything. How long was I gone?”
“Almost …” She was going to say “almost six weeks,” but then she realized it would scare him too much. “Almost a month,” she said.
“I don’t know why I can’t remember,” Robbie said. “There’s blood all over my knife.”
“What knife?” Kate asked. It occurred to her that he might be thinking of the sword in the game, and perhaps there was no bloody weapon at all.
“My Boy Scout knife,” Robbie said. “And there’s blood on my clothes, but it isn’t mine.”
“Go get Jay Jay, quick,” Kate whispered to Daniel. “Robbie, where in New York are you?”
“In a phone booth on Eighth Avenue,” Robbie said. “I don’t even have any money. Kate, I can’t remember …”
“Did you call your parents?”
“I can’t,” Robbie said. “What am I going to tell them? They’ll have questions and I don’t have answers.”
“Tell them you’re alive and safe,” Kate said. “They’re so worried about you. We all were. The police in Pequod searched the caverns—they thought somebody murdered you.”
“Do you think someone tried to kill me?” Robbie asked. “Is that why I had to stab him?”
Jay Jay came running into the room with Daniel, wearing his bathrobe. “Robbie!” he said, all excited. “Is he all right?”
Kate shook her head. “We’ll come and get you,” she said to Robbie. “Unless you want your parents—”
“No!” Robbie said, frightened. “Not my parents. I have to get my head together. I can’t handle this.”
Jay Jay and Daniel were listening, close together with Kate as she held the receiver so they could hear.
“I look like a seedy bum,” Robbie went on. “Like I’ve been sleeping in the street. I don’t even know what else I’ve done. I could have done anything.”
“Keep calm,” Kate said. She had the awful feeling she would lose him any minute, that he might hang up and vanish again. “It’s all right, Robbie. We’re here.” She turned to Jay Jay. “Where can he go until we get there?”
“Covenant House,” Jay Jay said, grabbing the receiver. “Look
in the phone book and go to Covenant House. I know all about it because it’s one of my mother’s charities. They won’t ask you any questions; just if you’re all right. They’ll give you food and clothes and let you take a shower, and they’ll let you sleep there free.”
“Are the police after me?” Robbie asked. He sounded as timid and desperate as a lost child, and Kate wanted to put her arms around him and protect him from any more harm.
“Just for disappearing,” she said, taking the receiver from Jay Jay. “Nobody’s after you for anything bad. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“How do I know?” Robbie said.
Jay Jay took the receiver. “Listen, Robbie,” he said. “When you get to Covenant House, tell them your name is Lionel Stander. That’s so we’ll know who to ask for when we come.”
“Who’s Lionel Stander?” Robbie asked.
“An old movie star. Okay?”
“Okay,” Robbie said tentatively. “Kate?”
“I’m here,” Kate said. She took the receiver.
“Kate …”
“What, Robbie?”
“Will you come get me?”
“Of course. We’ll be there bright and early in the morning.”
“Will you help me remember?”
“Yes,” she said. What else could she say? She groped for something that would reassure him. “When you have a good meal and a night’s sleep you’ll feel a lot better.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t remember,” Robbie said.
“Everything’s going to be all right now, Robbie,” Kate said. “You have us, and we’ll stick together. You remember how we always used to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Now you go where Jay Jay told you to, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And then we’ll come get you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And when you get there, you call your mother and say you’re safe, and then you can just hang up. She won’t know where you are. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Daniel says hello, and the three of us will help you through this, whatever it is. I promise. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“You won’t tell the police?” Robbie asked, sounding panicked.
“No, don’t worry. You can trust us.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Robbie said. “I have to get out of here now.”
“We all love you, Robbie,” Kate said. But he had hung up, and she wasn’t even sure he had heard her.
Daniel looked at the clock next to the bed. “We should leave in an hour,” he said. “We’ll take your car. Where should we bring Robbie when we’ve gotten him?”
“My apartment,” Jay Jay said. “My mother won’t care. We have lots of room.”
“And then what?” Daniel said.
“Then we find out if he really killed somebody,” Kate said. She sat down on the bed, suddenly very sad. “I was so glad he was safe, but he really isn’t safe at all, is he?”
“We’ll have to take him to his family and they can get a psychiatrist,” Daniel said. “It’s not murder if he thought he was playing the game.”
“Maybe we don’t have to tell,” Jay Jay said. “Maybe he’s all right now.”
Kate looked at him in surprise. “But the police will find out.”
“People get killed every day in New York,” Jay Jay said. “You never hear about it unless it’s some kind of human interest story, or a famous person. Maybe it will be an unsolved crime.”
“We can’t just cover it up,” she said.
“Why not? Nobody knows but us. Robbie doesn’t even remember. He was supposed to be the victim in this affair.”
“You’re crazier than he is,” Daniel said.
They argued about it all the way to New York in Kate’s car. Jay Jay had insisted on taking Merlin, who hopped around in his cage looking very nervous. Jay Jay had abruptly gotten it into his head that if he left Merlin with his friend Perry, that Perry would hurt him. The events of the night were getting to all of them.
“This could be the end of Robbie’s whole life,” Jay Jay said. “He won’t be allowed back at school—he might even get put away in one of those places for the criminally insane.”
“They’d never …” Kate said.
“It’s a crime to cover up a crime, you know,” Daniel said. “That’s us.”
“Suppose there isn’t any crime,” Kate kept saying.
“But suppose there is,” Jay Jay would answer back.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Daniel said.
“Everything’s always somebody’s fault,” Jay Jay said morosely.
“They’ll kick us out of school too,” Kate said.
“We’re not going to tell them we know,” Jay Jay said.
“I think everybody needs some sleep,” Daniel said.
By the time the sun was up over the skyline of New York the three of them had arrived exhausted. They stopped to look up the address of Covenant House, and then they drove there and parked in a lot nearby, hoping no one would steal their suitcases out of the trunk. They had packed enough things for a few days, not knowing what they were going to do. The neighborhood was part lots, part slums. The large tan brick building looked like a prison, but there was a dove of peace painted on the side, which was reassuring. Jay Jay took Merlin with him.
They walked into a reception room with a few large chairs in it, and a gray-haired woman sitting behind a desk. Through a glass wall they could see a sort of lounge, with brightly patterned carpeting, leather sofas and chairs, and a color television set. There were a lot of kids sleeping on the sofas and chairs, and on the carpet, but none of them was Robbie. Most of them were black. They were all neatly dressed, in pressed jeans, T-shirts, and sneakers. Kate, Daniel, and Jay Jay marched up to the receptionist.
“We’re here to see our friend Lionel Stander,” Jay Jay said.
“This is the wrong entrance,” the woman said. “You have to go around the block.”
They went around the block to another reception room. This one had no lounge, and no residents were to be seen. The receptionist was much younger. “I’ll have to get someone to find out,” she said.
They waited. Finally a young woman came out of a locked door and looked at them noncommittally. “I don’t know if he’s here,” she said. “Who should I tell him wants to see him?”
“Kate, Daniel, and Jay Jay,” Kate said. “He’s expecting us.”
“Wait here, please,” the woman said, and went away.
They waited for what seemed forever, but it was only about twenty minutes. The woman returned. “He’s not here,” she said.
“He might have said his name was Robbie Wheeling,” Kate said. Jay Jay glared at her warningly and she glared back. She did not think this woman was going to turn Robbie in to anybody like the cops.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. She really did seem sorry. “He did come in … Lionel, that is … and he said his friends were coming for him. But he must have left. Maybe he’ll come back.”
Kate felt the fear begin again. “Did he say anything when he went away?” she asked. Don’t let him be Pardieu again … please!
“The last time I saw him he’d had a big meal and taken a shower,” the woman said kindly. “We gave him some clothes, and he asked for a toothbrush and we gave it to him. He was tired and he didn’t want to talk, so then he went to bed. I guess he got up very early.”
Holy Men get up very early, Kate thought. They have to say their morning prayers. Robbie would have been tired; Robbie would have slept. Pardieu would have gotten up.
“How could he just go?” Kate asked desperately.
“The kids go and come all the time,” the woman said. “Maybe he forgot you were coming.”
“He would never forget,” Kate said.
He’s Pardieu, she thought. He’s Pardieu again and he’s gone. She knew Daniel and Jay Jay were thinking the same thing.
“We’ll come back later,” Daniel
said. “Please tell him we were here and we’ll come again this afternoon.”
Jay Jay wrote down his home number. “Please give him this,” he said, and handed it to the woman.
“I’m sorry you missed your friend,” she said kindly, as if she thought Robbie was perfectly normal, just like anybody else, or at least as normal as an unreliable street kid could be. She hadn’t even been fazed by the presence of Merlin. Kate thought nothing could surprise this woman anymore, and she wondered if even Pardieu could have—but she was not about to ask.
Exhausted and miserable, they went to Jay Jay’s apartment. His mother had already gone to work, but the maid seemed pleased to see them and showed Kate and Daniel to the guest room. Kate had never seen such a beautiful apartment, except in magazines. Everything, even the personal objects like a book and some unfinished needlepoint, seemed placed where they were by design, not because anyone actually lived there. If you put people in this apartment, with their everyday mess, it would destroy the whole effect. It was luxurious and glamorous, but entirely without a heart. Jay Jay’s room looked like a movie set, but he seemed to like it.
They sat in the kitchen while the cook made French toast and freshly squeezed orange juice for them. They were all too tired to talk, even to think.
“We’ll sleep awhile and then we’ll go back,” Daniel said.
Kate and Jay Jay nodded. They didn’t know what they would do if Robbie wasn’t there.
CHAPTER 10
Robbie wasn’t there when the three of them went back to Covenant House that afternoon, and although they waited until dinner they realized he might not be coming back for a long time. They would have to take matters into their own hands. Jay Jay automatically took charge of the search. New York was his city—he had lived here all his life—and it belonged to him in much the same limited way the caverns had been his. Daniel and Kate had been here before as tourists, but they didn’t know the special places.
He and Kate and Daniel knew now that Robbie was definitely Pardieu again. Jay Jay called the apartment and told the help that if Robbie phoned they should invite him over immediately, not be put off if he looked crummy, and be nice to him. Now it was a question of logic.