The Night Inside

by The Night Inside (epub)

  “How do you know she won’t stop?”

  “I asked her to and she refused.”

  “You asked her to,” Ardeth repeated incredulously.

  “I went to her at your old apartment and told her to stop searching, that you are in danger unless all believe you to be dead. She insisted that she would accept that only from you. She is very determined. You will have to speak to her, convince her that you are safe only as long as she abandons her search for you.”

  Anger surged through her suddenly, at her past dragged back into her present, at Sara for trying to bind her with ties best broken, at any connection between her wild, unpredictable younger sister and Rozokov. “I don’t want to see her. I don’t know why you did. Why is she looking for me anyway?” she demanded, to the night as much as to him.

  “I suspect that it is because you are her sister,” Rozokov suggested carefully.

  “So? That never mattered to her before, except when she needed someplace to sleep. Why won’t she just let me go? I won’t see her.”

  “Ardeth, we are not invisible here, no matter how we try. I saw the traces of you in the death of that young man in the old house. Someone else may have as well. And your sister, in all her misguided love for you, may provide them with the final clues. The price of her silence is proof from you. It may be the price of our survival. Surely it is not so great a thing to ask of yourself.”

  “If I do it, what then? Even if she stops, we can’t go on trying to be invisible forever.” In the heady heat of the last months that truth had been easy to ignore. In the reasoned chill of the first honest conversation she had had in those months it could not be. And now that it had been acknowledged, she had to do something about it. Rozokov’s obsession with safety had always seemed a denial of the wild power she felt singing in her veins. It was Havendale that should be afraid of them, not the other way around.

  “I know. But we need the time, the freedom, to deal with this threat on our terms, not theirs.”

  “All right. I’ll see her. But then we take Havendale down.”

  “Then we take Havendale down,” he agreed. “So now, if you can bear to be seen with such a shabby creature as I, we should go and watch your sister sing.”

  Chapter 27

  The Gold Rush was packed, the front room full of drinkers and pool players, all the tables at the back occupied by people waiting for Black Sun’s second set. Ardeth and Rozokov worked their way through the crowd lingering by the front doors and moved through the smoky air towards the back room. As they found standing space in an unoccupied corner, Ardeth remembered the few times she had come here to watch the band. Then, she had hated the noise and the smoke and the long hours spent sitting at a table waiting for the show to finally start. Most of all she had hated the feeling that she was either invisible to the people around her—or awkwardly and noticeably out of place.

  She could feel some of that emotion seeping hatefully back, making her feel suddenly exposed in the short black skirt, gawky and unsteady on her black heels. She clenched her fists in her pockets and willed herself to remember what she was.

  Despite Rozokov’s concerns, they elicited no second looks. With his hair combed back, he no longer looked like a half-crazed street person and in the darkness, the shabbiness of his clothes was unnoticeable. On the way to the club they had stopped at the row of street vendors and he had bought her, with surprising courtliness, a long, gold-shot white scarf to conceal her black hair. He insisted that she take off her sunglasses as well, to look less like the description Sara had publicized in her posters.

  “Does she know we’re here?” she asked at last, unwilling to say her sister’s name, here in Sara’s domain. Rozokov shook his head. “Wouldn’t we be better to wait for her outside, at the back?”

  “And look like vagrants or thieves? No, we are safer in here. She has not seen my face in the light and the drawings of you were . . .” he paused and looked at her with a curious air of realization, “harder, stylized.”

  “What am I going to tell her?” she asked after a moment, leaning close to keep her words to him only, over the roar of the music.

  “Whatever you have to. Whatever words she will believe.”

  “Even the truth?”

  “If necessary, even that.” Ardeth close her eyes and put her head against her shoulder. His coat smelled faintly of mothballs. Whatever words she will believe . . . what words are those? What words would I believe? When a voice announced the band, she still had no answer.

  It was harder than she had thought it would be. Only Rozokov’s arm around her shoulder kept her there through it, through Sara’s voice calling her back to her past, through the familiar sight of her sister’s black-clad, auburn-haired form moving on the stage. Though the crowds bouncing appreciatively on the dance floor would sometimes blot out the vision, nothing could block out the sound, twisting things in her heart she thought well-dead and deep-burning.

  They played for an hour, from kinetic dance tunes to ballads full of eerie, ragged harmonies. Seen from the corner, from the distance she fought to maintain, Ardeth realized for the first time what gifts her sister really had, from the sly, sad off-centre view of the world to the melodic sense that could find beauty in contrast and power in voices never quiet in perfect tune.

  Called back for the encore, the band began a slow, haunting tune, a delicate dirge. Sara stood still at the microphone, head bent to conceal her face as she began to sing.

  There’s a girl walking down the street

  She walks just like you

  And I call out your name again

  Though I never mean to

  She turns around and there’s a stranger

  Looking out of her eyes

  And I look away when I realize

  That the thing I was looking for

  Has gone missing

  Ardeth felt her heart contract. That’s me, that’s me she’s singing about. The pain in Sara’s voice was a clear, hard counterpoint to the lilting music, stilling the crowd to silence. Ardeth’s hand went to her shoulder, closed hard over Rozokov’s, clinging to his older, darker strength against a pain that was not nearly old enough to fight alone.

  I used to laugh at you

  ’Cause you were always on time

  You used to yell at me

  ’Cause I was always changing my mind

  And I can’t help but believe

  That it really should have been me

  Yeah everybody thought I’d be the one

  To go missing

  While I was out dancing on the ledge

  You just fell right over the edge

  And disappeared into the night

  With all the missing

  And no one will say it

  But I see it in their eyes

  You’ll be just another Jane Doe

  The dental chart identifies

  As the better part of someone’s heart

  That went missing.

  As the music died, Sara looked up for the first time and said with a weary resignation of repetition, “Ardy, come home.” She left the stage and the applause began.

  “Damn her,” Ardeth whispered, closing her eyes against the sudden lights, the noise of the crowd, wishing she could shut out the tangle of emotion twisting inside her.

  “I did not know about the song,” Rozokov said quietly. “I am sorry.”

  “I can’t talk to her, not after that. Don’t ask me to. Don’t ever ask me to again.” She pulled away from him and started to struggle through the crowd. He caught her arm and pulled her back.

  “What is wrong?”

  “It’s none of your business,” she flared, the black rage that had waited inside her since the asylum surging eagerly towards her heart.

  “It is. You know it. Now tell me.” His grip grew gentler. “My poor dark daughter, tell me.”

  “I . . . It w
as mine, what happened to me was mine. It was the one terrible thing that made me different. And she has to try and take that too. She has to turn me into just another song, her song. I hate her for that.” The words spilled out of her, incoherent and anguished, whispered fiercely against the music and the crowd. “But I never thought . . . all this time I’ve never once thought that anyone would miss me. I never thought that it would hurt her.”

  “You never thought that she might love you at all,” he finished for her. She nodded slowly, feeling the black fog in her mind receding with the echoes of Sara’s lament, her anger fading to dull sadness.

  “And now it doesn’t make any difference.”

  “To what we must do tonight, no.”

  “I’ll talk to her. The truth is, I didn’t miss her yesterday, and I probably won’t miss her tomorrow. Let’s just make our peace tonight and then it really will be over. But,” her voice faltered, “not yet.” He nodded and let her lean against him in the dark corner, and did not protest when she put her sunglasses back on.

  A half hour later, they were in the back alley behind the club, concealed in the shadows of the dumpster. “She might have left,” Ardeth said, half-hoping it was true.

  “She does not usually leave so early.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I have watched once or twice, to be sure.” The back door of the club creaked suddenly, then swung open. A dark figure emerged and dashed down the alley. It hovered on the sidewalk for a moment, peering up and down the street, then the man turned and walked slowly back towards the door. He had almost reached it when he froze.

  “Who’s there?” Ardeth held her breath unconsciously. “I know there’s someone there.” He took an uneasy step towards the dumpster. “Ardeth? Are you there?” asked the unfamiliar voice. She looked at Rozokov in surprise, found no other conclusion in his eyes than the one she had already reached. She stepped out of the shadows, Rozokov behind her.

  “You’re Ardeth?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Sara’s been looking for you. You’re just in time,” he said, voice hard and bitter. “Someone just kidnapped her—and you’re the ransom.”

  He introduced himself and explained what had happened. Sara had left the stage as usual, gone alone to her dressing room. Mickey had been playing pool in the front part of the club, waiting for her, when the bartender had received a call concerning Sara’s missing sister. He had passed it over to Mickey, and over the din of the bar, a cold voice had told him that they had taken Sara.

  “‘You tell Ardeth Alexander—and the monster too—that we want both of them. Remind Alexander that we have uses for her sister. For a while,’” Mickey recited. “I tried to tell the bastard I had no idea where you were but he didn’t seem to believe me. When I went backstage Sara was gone and I found this,” he held up a shiny object, “right where they said I would in her dressing room.” Ardeth recognized the band of silver as one of the many rings Sara habitually wore on every finger. She almost put out her hand to take it but Mickey’s fingers clenched possessively over the ring before she could move. Their eyes met. I know him, Ardeth realized suddenly, though she could not remember where or when they had met. But even that knowledge did not explain the cold anger she saw in his eyes.

  “How are you—or we—to contact them?” Rozokov asked. Mickey held out a bar napkin with a phone number scrawled on it.

  “Call any time, day or night, the man said.” His voice was razor-edged under the flippancy. “If she’s Ardeth, does that make you the monster?”

  “It is not the first time I have been called that,” Rozokov replied with a faint smile. “I would prefer you judge that for yourself.”

  “Can we call from the club without anyone seeing us?” Ardeth asked, the first thing she had said since Mickey’s story began. His voice, quoting the kidnappers, echoed in her mind. Tell Alexander that we have uses for her sister. . . . They must mean the pornographic movies, she thought. Not the other ones. Those died with Roias. They must have died with Roias.

  “Ardeth.” Rozokov’s voice caught her attention, dragged her from the terrifying memory of Suzy and her naked, blood-smeared body on the altar of her death. “It is I they want, I they have always wanted, from the time I began my sleep to the time they woke me up. I will go.”

  “They know about me,” she pointed out. “They want both of us. Do you think they’d let one of us escape after what happened at the asylum?” She turned to face him, caught the fraying lapels of his coat in her hands. “And they’re right. No matter what they did, no matter how deep they buried you, I’d find you. And I’d kill them all this time.”

  “Shall I let you be like Jean-Pierre after all? Let you burn for my mistakes?”

  “We won’t burn,” she said with all the certainty her black rage, coiling like waiting serpents in her heart, could give her. “And if we do, they’ll burn with us.”

  “This battle of the martyrs is very touching, but neither of you have given me any reason not to call that damn number myself and turn you both in,” Mickey interrupted. “If you’ve got one, you’d better give it quickly.” Angrily, Ardeth turned back to him and she saw his face pale for one moment as he faced the fury flaring like flames behind her eyes.

  Rozokov’s chuckle caught her and drew her gaze back to him. “That is a very sensible question. Martyrdom has never been one of my ambitions. I appreciate the reminder of that. As for your answer, when they have what they want, they will undoubtedly kill Sara anyway,” he concluded reasonably. “Her best hope is also ours. Let Ardeth call and discover their terms. Then we can decide how best to proceed.” Mickey looked at them for a moment then nodded.

  “There’s a phone at the back of the kitchen. With any luck nobody will see us and start asking questions.”

  The phone rang twice, then a man’s voice answered.

  “This is Ardeth Alexander.” She said nothing else, afraid of making a mistake that would doom Sara, determined not to let her voice betray any of that fear, or her anger.

  “So soon?” the voice asked mockingly, “And is the . . . Rozokov . . . with you?”

  “No. I don’t know where he is,” she lied, to see if she would be believed.

  “In that case, we have nothing to talk about.”

  “I really don’t know where he is. Whatever you wanted from him, I can give you.”

  “And I can end up like Roias, right? No. The price includes both of you. You find him and be where I tell you, or I’ll let Roias’s successor have your sister. Do you understand?”

  Ardeth closed her eyes in resignation. “Yes. I’ll try to find him. Tell me where you want us to be.”

  He gave her a location and time. She repeated them to the dead air, then hung up the telephone and turned to face Rozokov and Mickey. “He wants us both at the railway lands at 5:00. There’ll be a van to pick us up.”

  “What about Sara?” Mickey demanded.

  “He says they’ll let her go there.”

  “Do you believe him?” Ardeth looked at him squarely, facing the mysterious dislike in his eyes. In the aftermath of the call, she felt terribly weary.

  “No. Whoever these men are, they’ve already killed at least two innocent people on the faint chance that they could know something. They won’t let Sara go.”

  “Then what the fuck are we going to do?” The words came out in a tight whisper.

  “We are going to leave here, go someplace private to think. You will say nothing to anyone, not the police, not Sara’s friends. Go home to her apartment, if you can, and wait,” Rozokov ordered him. Ardeth heard the threads of hypnotic persuasion in his voice and for a moment Mickey started to nod in agreement. Then he shuddered slightly and stepped away from them.

  “No. How do I know you won’t just leave town and let them kill her? And if they do let Sara go, then somebody has to be there to get her. Look, I don’t
give a fuck what these people want with you. I don’t care who or what you really are. I just want Sara back.”

  “If you insist then,” Rozokov said and Ardeth stared at him in surprise. This was the last thing they needed, she thought in disgust, to be saddled with this angry, bitter young man who seemed to have hated her on first sight. “But you will ask no questions and when we are decided on a course of action, you will make no protests.” The grey gaze caught the younger man’s, held it still under the bright overhead lights. “I can make you leave. I can make you forget all you have seen and done tonight. I leave you your freedom and your will on sufferance. Do not forget that.”

  “So you say,” Mickey retorted with a bravado that hung like a lie in the air between them. Rozokov smiled suddenly, with humour as genuine as his threats had been.

  “So I do. Now you must . . .”

  “Wait,” Ardeth broke in. “Sara’s stuff, her purse . . . are they in her dressing room?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Mickey answered.

  “You have to get them then . . . or else Pete and the others will get suspicious.”

  “Right, right,” he agreed then looked at her sharply. “So you can disappear into the night? Nice try, but I’m not falling for it.”

  “Ardeth is not deceiving you,” Rozokov said.

  “Yeah? Then one of you come with me.”

  “And how will you explain me?”

  “I don’t know. You’re my second-cousin twice removed, just in from Timiskaming or something. Good enough?” They stared at each other for a moment, then Rozokov shrugged and glanced at Ardeth.

  “We will be in the alley in a few minutes,” he promised and let Mickey lead him away into the labyrinthine corridors of the club. Ardeth watched them go, then hurried back to the alley, to wait fidgeting in the shadow of the dumpster as each moment they were gone dragged by with agonizing slowness.

  At last, the back door opened and they emerged, Mickey carrying Sara’s black duffel bag over his shoulder. “Did anyone see you?”