by P. N. Elrod
When Maureen—my lover, the woman who gave me her blood, who changed me forever—when she vanished with no word, no explanation, that was a world-ender for me.
She’d never returned.
That too-familiar dark was the fear that I would lose Bobbi, too. Not in the same way, but just as permanently.
Damned stupid to feel like that, but there it was.
It had been a hell of a night. I needed a day’s rest and would figure things out later. The situation would be there when I woke, but my mind would be clear. I’d think of something brilliant then.
Making my way to an el platform, I waited for one of the early trains. It took me to the stop close to Lady Crymsyn. I passed the drugstore where Kroun had bought the cigars. He was a problem that could wait as well.
The club’s outside lights were off. I let myself in and locked up behind.
“Hello, Myrna,” I said to the empty lobby. The light behind the bar remained steady. I listened, but the place was eerily quiet. That was wrong. It should be full of people and music, with Bobbi on the stage singing under the spotlights. Why couldn’t that be enough for her?
I climbed the stairs. My office was dark, the radio off. I changed that, wanting sound and illumination, if only in this small space.
While the radio warmed up, I dropped in the chair behind my desk and had an unsettled moment noticing that things had been changed around. The mail wasn’t in its usual spot, items were lined up, pencils sharpened. In the middle of the blotter was a thin stack of writing paper. The sheets had been crumpled, then spread flat. They bore my handwriting. My hand was usually hard to read—the years in journalism had degraded it—but the lines I’d put down were strangely neat, almost mechanical. In them I had tried to explain the inexplicable. I’d given up and left them unfinished.
Escott had spent hours sitting here. He’d walked in, found me on the couch with a hole blown through my skull, seen the gun, and in the trash found the notes I’d attempted. He’d have read them, over and over.
I couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through in those hours before sunset waiting to see if I would wake up. For distraction he’d cleaned things, made order from the chaos, enforced some form of control in the room despite the cold presence of my corpse. He had sat in my chair, thought God knows what thoughts, and…
How could I have done that to him?
And how had he ever been able to forgive me?
Feeling sick, my face hot with fresh shame, I crumpled the papers again, took a big glass ashtray from a table, and burned them in it. The fire flared and died, the smoke lingered a bit longer. I used the blunt end of a pencil to crush what was left to gray powder. No one else would ever know about this.
The radio now played dance music, but when an announcer came on he was replaced in midword by a polka tune. Myrna was up and about. Of course I’d missed seeing the radio dial move. The polka ended, and some guy spoke enthusiastically in German or Polish. Another polka started. Who on God’s green earth would be in need of such music at this hour in the morning?
“Hi, Myrna,” I said again. “I’ve had a rough night.”
Maybe I could tell her about it, but where to begin?
The less sprightly dance music returned. I didn’t see the dialing knob move then, either.
“I’m spending the day here, if you don’t mind.”
I stared at the long leather couch against the wall opposite my desk. I’d planned to lock the door and sleep the day through on that couch, having done it many times before.
Not tonight. I couldn’t go near the thing now.
At the far end was a hole in the leather back, and a messy spray of dried blood, visible evidence of my attempt to kill myself. The wooden slug I’d carved was probably embedded in the stuffing someplace.
It seemed like some other man had gone through that horror, suffered with and then caved in to despair. How could I have been that man?
I wasn’t.
He’d been Hog Bristow’s awful creation. Some portion of him was still inside, but no longer able to influence me. Maybe with time he would fade completely. I wanted that.
I should leave the couch there as a reminder never to be stupid again, but Bobbi would see the damage and ask questions. She wouldn’t be fobbed off with a lie, and knowing me as well as she did, might even figure things out.
That couch was the scene of an attempted murder. Looking at the bullet hole and stains made me feel like I was my own ghost. No way in hell was I going to keep that hunk of furniture here one more minute. It had to go.
After removing several oilcloth packets of my home earth from under the cushions, I considered how to move it out. It was too big to push through the window. While I had the strength to lift it easily, I was short on space and leverage. The thing was almost too wide to get through the door and had to go in stages, pushed through until it wedged against the wall opposite. I had to crawl over to pull, then crawl back to push, and was sweating by the time I got the awkward bastard clear. How anyone had gotten it into the office in the first place was beyond me.
I manhandled it down the hall and regarded the stairs with aggravation. Certainly I could pitch the whole thing down, not caring if it broke apart, but the marble-tile floors below were of some concern. I didn’t know how much abuse they could take before shattering.
In the end I took the hard road and worked the couch gradually down the steps into the lobby and outside. Once there I carried it toward the parking lot, placing it on the edge of the curb, where it would not block foot traffic. I had every confidence that some scavenger would take it away before the day had passed. The bloodstains and that hole might make someone wonder…
To hell with it. I couldn’t be bothered with “what ifs” and went inside, locking the front doors with a sense of relief.
My office looked considerably larger now. Perhaps I could leave it this way with no couch, bringing in a couple of chairs instead. But the old caveman inside reminded me that sometimes Bobbi and I found a couch to be a very convenient and comfortable place for reclining.
I’d get a new one—but what was the point if she was leaving for Hollywood?
I sat behind the desk and scowled at its tidiness. There was always something that needed to be done, my club kept me damned busy. I always had paperwork, mail to answer, supplies to order; even with the place closed there was work needing attention, and I liked that work. But tonight I had absolutely nothing to keep me from thinking about Bobbi leaving.
Damn it.
Getting hot under the collar, pacing, grumbling about how unfair the world was, eventually speaking aloud, eventually shouting, it came rushing out, all the stuff I couldn’t say to her face.
Just as some tiny bit of normality began to creep back to my life, this had to happen. I didn’t want it. I wanted Bobbi to stay here and for things to be like they’d been. My job was to run a fancy nightclub, glad-hand happy customers, and her job was to be onstage singing to them. Her job was to be my girl, not go running off to be a movie star.
I got louder as what churned through my head got worse. The depth of anger surprised me, and I gave in to it. By God, she wasn’t going to do this to me. How dare she? After all the crap I’d been through, I needed her here. I’d put my foot down—
The glass ashtray flew off the desk. The damn thing launched itself, crashing against a wall, landing hard on the wood floor, scattering ash from the burned notes, making a hell of a noise—yet not breaking.
I yelped and jumped about two miles.
As I stared at the ashtray, it slid half a yard toward me. It was as though someone had kicked it along. The glass grated loud over the wood. It moved again, half as far, then stopped. The place was silent. Even the radio was turned down. I seemed to feel a kind of pressure around me, like a pending storm.
Myrna.
She’d scared the hell out of me. All the anger, too. I would never have cut loose like that had anyone been here, but had forgotten about her. S
he must have gotten fed up. Dames. Always sticking together.
“Sorry,” I said.
The lights remained steady. The radio music came up. Dance music.
She was getting stronger, I thought.
In a much calmer tone—and feeling like a fool for talking to what might well be an empty room—I told Myrna what was going on and the problems it had brought and the fears I had. Whether she hung around to listen was unimportant, I let it pour out until nothing remained.
The room was quiet, but it was different from that earlier angry silence. At some point the radio had switched off again. The only sound was the desk clock ticking and the distant hiss of traffic in the waking streets below.
I’d not made a decision, nor did I feel any better, but the worst was past. Thankfully, Bobbi would never hear any of it.
Maybe things would be more clear tomorrow.
A glance at the clock told me to get moving if I wanted to beat the dawn.
I went downstairs into darkness. The light behind the bar was off. Myrna always liked having it on. Maybe the bulb had burned out again; it often did. No time to check and change it. I continued through to the main room, crossing to the larger bar at the far end.
The three tiers of platforms for tables and booths arranged in an ascending horseshoe shape created a lot of dead space below, but it wasn’t wasted. A small access door led under the seating, and we used the area for storage. Usually I spent the day up in the office when I didn’t feel like driving home, but this bolt-hole was more secure. I’d taken pains over it.
The storage section was sizable, stacked with bar supplies and extra chairs, with an unremarkable plywood wall that blocked access to the rest of the dead space. The wall looked solid, but with Escott’s help I’d put in a hidden door. You had to know it was there, and even then you had to look hard for the trigger to get it open. The door was partially blocked by boxes; I usually entered by sieving through. Inside was a sliding bolt lock so I could seal myself in. I wouldn’t have bothered with a door at all, but Escott pointed out that sometime or other I might have need of one should there be an emergency. The only drawback was that the place wasn’t fireproof.
I vanished and went inside.
The concealed area was roomy, plenty of space for an army cot with a layer of my earth under an oilcloth sheet, a box, and a lamp on the box. It was a near duplication of the basement sanctuary at home. I re-formed in darkness and fumbled quickly to switch the lamp on. Nothing had changed since my last visit, just a little more dust than before. On the cot were several spare oilcloth packets of my home earth and a months-old Adventure Tales I’d forgotten. Well, something to read before the day took me. I had been thinking of writing a story for…maybe I could get back to that. In California, with no nightclub to distract me, I’d have plenty of time to write.
I snarled again. That was too much like giving in.
The cot-side lamp flickered.
“Not now, Myrna. I’m too tired, and it’s too late.”
It went out completely.
Damn her. What was her problem? Probably still mad about me yelling to myself up in the office.
I hated the dark, but had come prepared. On the way down, I’d pocketed one of the many flashlights scattered throughout the building. I took it out, snicking it on.
“So there.” I slid the bolt, officially shutting myself away from the rest of the world for the next several hours.
Stretched on the cot, I opened the magazine and its half-remembered stories, flipping to an editorial page. Nothing like out-of-date opinions for numbing the mind.
The lamp came on again, very bright. I cut the flash and checked my watch. Not long now. No more than a few seconds. I felt the sluggishness sweep over me. It was a sweet lethargy. Things would look after themselves while I got a good day’s rest. I fell gently toward that stupor, carefully not thinking about Bobbi leaving me.
The lamp went off-on-off-on.
Oh, hell.
Something was wrong. My internal alarm finally got the message and shrieked a belated warning. I struggled to stay awake, but was too far over the edge.
At the very last instant before slipping away, I heard the destructive crash as the hidden door was forced open, lock and all, then a shadow blocked the lamp’s light from my now-sealed eyelids.
Too late. Much too late.
I’d made a terrible, terrible mistake—
12
KROUN
THE lines on the map and the written directions bore no resemblance to the actual lay of the road, Gabe decided.
He’d planned to be patient, aware he was exploring unknown territory, knowing it might take a while to find the right turnoff, but after a futile hour of cruising up and down, backtracking, and finding one dead end after another, he was justifiably irritated.
Somewhere he’d missed something. That, or Fleming had written things down wrong.
Or Sonny had given the wrong—
Gabe allowed himself a snarl of disgust, then hauled the wheel around in yet another U-turn. He went back three long miles in the country darkness to the last intersection, where a crooked sign pointed the way to the nearest town. The name held no meaning for him; it was ten miles distant and not on the route.
He stopped the Hudson, letting it idle, and got out to look at the sign.
As he thought, it was loose in the ground. Some fool had knocked it over and put it back, pointing in the wrong direction. A swell joke to play on a nonlocal, yessiree, that’s a real knee-slapper.
Gabe slammed the wooden post into the ground so the sign was parallel with the road, then checked the written directions against the map.
Okay, that made sense.
Back in the car, he turned left from the intersection and covered five empty miles, counting them off and slowing. The trees were thick and grew close to the road, their black branches arching over and meeting high above, making a skeletal tunnel. Snow, unbroken except for animal tracks, lay heavy over humped shapes that marked brush and stumps. Plenty of deer were about; he’d seen a few dead ones on the way up. No roadside bodies mangled by hurtling machines were here, though. If Farmer Jones hit one with the old truck, then it would be fresh venison for supper that night. Country folk knew better than to high-hat a free meal.
The tires crunched a new path through the snow. No one had been up this way at least since the last fall, however long ago that had been.
Some flash of memory had him hitting the brake without benefit of thought, and the Hudson slewed and skidded to a reluctant halt.
He stared at three oak trees on the left, each more than a foot thick and planted so close that the trunks were fused together for about fifteen feet before separating into different directions. Some of their upper branches had twined as well in the struggle to obtain more sunlight. The thing was one huge, ungainly knot. The ground was distorted on one side where the roots were exposed, poking up from the snow in a black tangle, their fight continuing on under the earth. Rot had set in on one of the trees, and in the course of time it would spread and kill the others. Though not in the directions, this was a landmark he recognized; he could not recall details, only that it was important.
Just past the oaks was a break in the woods lining the road, no more than eight feet wide and overgrown, very easy to miss. The snow looked deep, and not even animal tracks crossed it. This was the turn he wanted, the one that would lead to the cabin.
He worked gears, fed the car gas, and urged it in. The Hudson rocked and slid over ruts hidden by the snow until it bumped something that scraped alarmingly along the undercarriage. It pressed gamely on, but Gabe judged that was far enough; no point in breaking an axle. He was well out of sight from the road. Anyone driving past might notice the tire tracks, but he doubted there was much traffic at this time of year. This area was disturbingly isolated.
He cut the motor and got out, feet sinking deep into a drift. There was less snow under the trees, so he floundered toward their cove
r, then threaded cautiously forward. Ahead, he heard the murmur of flowing water, lots of it.
The cabin was a few hundred yards in and dark. He expected as much, but studied the area carefully, looking for fresh prints in the snow as he made a wide circle. No recent visitors. Good.
The structure was about twenty feet to a side, with a stovepipe piercing a roof that extended out over a porch that ran the width of the front. Its one door faced a gradual downward slope that led to a wide black river. The far bank was a thin gray line covered with unbroken pine and beeches.
Gabriel couldn’t remember its name but knew that he had fished there, his legs hanging over the edge of a boat dock, bare feet in the water, a blue, blue sky above, and sweet summer sun pleasantly baking the top of his head. In the mornings and late afternoons, the sun would spark on the water, the reflected light dazzling him.
Very unexpectedly he choked and felt chill, wet trails from his eyes. He swiped at them, embarrassed, ashamed…and suddenly afraid. Men don’t cry. Especially if…but he couldn’t carry the thought further than that; his memory failed yet again.
He’d fished in that river, but not here. No dock was in sight, nor the remains of one. The solitary picture from a long-ago summer vanished from his mind’s eye.
When Gabe refocused, he took in the cabin and grounds in more detail, hoping the sight would kindle some other recollection to explain his bad dreams.
Nothing was familiar. The old wooden building had been constructed God knows how long ago. It needed paint but seemed sturdy, the walls and roof solid. A pump stood in the middle of what served as a front yard, and about a hundred feet to the right, downstream and built out over the river, was an outhouse, the door hanging open. No prints marred the snow between it and the cabin.
The wind kicked up. The place had been silent except for the river and his footfalls. Now he heard the soft whirring song that only pine trees sang, sounding exactly as it did in the dreams—only this time there was no peace to it. He thought of graveyards and ghosts. He didn’t think he believed in ghosts, but if he did, then that was the kind of noise they’d make. Gooseflesh shot up his arms, spread over his spine, and down his legs. He wanted to put his back to something, anything, and had to quell the urge to pull out his gun.