by Ira Levin
But no, Roman couldn’t have taken Hutch’s glove; she had shown him in and shown him out, walking along with him both times.
Guy had taken the glove. He had rushed home with his make-up still on—which he never did—and had gone by himself to the closet. Roman must have called him, must have said, “This man Hutch is getting suspicious about ‘tannis root’ go home and get one of his belongings, just in case!” And Guy had obeyed. To keep Donald Baumgart blind.
Waiting for the light at Fifty-fifth Street, she tucked her handbag and the envelopes under her arm, unhooked the chain at the back of her neck, drew the chain and the tannis-charm out of her dress and dropped them together down through the sewer grating.
So much for “tannis root.” Devil’s Fungus.
She was so frightened she wanted to cry.
Because she knew what Guy was giving them in exchange for his success.
The baby. To use in their rituals.
He had never wanted a baby until after Donald Baumgart was blind. He didn’t like to feel it moving; he didn’t like to talk about it; he kept himself as distant and busy as if it weren’t his baby at all.
Because he knew what they were planning to do to it as soon as he gave it to them.
In the apartment, in the blessedly-cool shaded apartment, she tried to tell herself that she was mad. You’re going to have your baby in four days, Idiot Girl. Maybe even less. So you’re all tense and nutty and you’ve built up a whole lunatic persecution thing out of a bunch of completely unrelated coincidences. There are no real witches. There are no real spells. Hutch died a natural death, even if the doctors couldn’t give a name to it. Ditto for Donald Baumgart’s blindness. And how, pray tell, did Guy get one of Donald Baumgart’s belongings for the big spell-casting? See, Idiot Girl? It all falls apart when you pick at it.
But why had he lied about the tickets?
She undressed and took a long cool shower, turned clumsily around and around and then pushed her face up into the spray, trying to think sensibly, rationally.
There must be another reason why he had lied. Maybe he’d spent the day hanging around Downey’s, yes, and had gotten the tickets from one of the gang there; wouldn’t he then have said Dominick had given them to him, so as not to let her know he’d been goofing off?
Of course he would have.
There, you see, Idiot Girl?
But why hadn’t he shown himself naked in so many months and months?
She was glad, anyway, that she had thrown away that damned charm. She should have done it long ago. She never should have taken it from Minnie in the first place. What a pleasure it was to be rid of its revolting smell! She dried herself and splashed on cologne, lots and lots of it.
He hadn’t shown himself naked because he had a little rash of some kind and was embarrassed about it. Actors are vain, aren’t they? Elementary.
But why had he thrown out the book? And spent so much time at Minnie and Roman’s? And waited for the news of Donald Baumgart’s blindness? And rushed home wearing his make-up just before Hutch missed his glove?
She brushed her hair and tied it, and put on a brassiere and panties. She went into the kitchen and drank two glasses of cold milk.
She didn’t know.
She went into the nursery, moved the bathinette away from the wall, and thumbtacked a sheet of plastic over the wallpaper to protect it when the baby splashed in its bath.
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know if she was going mad or going sane, if witches had only the longing for power or power that was real and strong, if Guy was her loving husband or the treacherous enemy of the baby and herself.
It was almost four. He would be home in an hour or so.
She called Actors Equity and got Donald Baumgart’s telephone number.
The phone was answered on the first ring with a quick impatient “Yeh?”
“Is this Donald Baumgart?”
“That’s right.”
“This is Rosemary Woodhouse,” she said. “Guy Woodhouse’s wife.”
“Oh?”
“I wanted—”
“My God,” he said, “you must be a happy little lady these days! I hear you’re living in baronial splendor in the ‘Bram,’ sipping vintage wine from crystal goblets, with scores of uniformed lackeys in attendance.”
She said, “I wanted to know how you are; if there’s been any improvement.”
He laughed. “Why bless your heart, Guy Woodhouse’s wife,” he said, “I’m fine! I’m splendid! There’s been enormous improvement! I only broke six glasses today, only fell down three flights of stairs, and only went tap-a-tap-tapping in front of two speeding fire engines! Every day in every way I’m getting better and better and better and better.”
Rosemary said, “Guy and I are both very unhappy that he got his break because of your misfortune.”
Donald Baumgart was silent for a moment, and then said, “Oh, what the hell. That’s the way it goes. Somebody’s up, somebody’s down. He would’ve made out all right anyway. To tell you the truth, after that second audition we did for Two Hours of Solid Crap, I was dead certain he was going to get the part. He was terrific.”
“He thought you were going to get it,” Rosemary said. “And he was right.”
“Briefly.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come along that day he came to visit you,” Rosemary said. “He asked me to, but I couldn’t.”
“Visit me? You mean the day we met for drinks?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s what I meant.”
“It’s good you didn’t come,” he said; “they don’t allow women, do they? No, after four they do, that’s right; and it was after four. That was awfully good-natured of Guy. Most people wouldn’t have had the—well, class, I guess. I wouldn’t have had it, I can tell you that.”
“The loser buying the winner a drink,” Rosemary said.
“And little did we know that a week later—less than a week, in fact—”
“That’s right,” Rosemary said. “It was only a few days before you—”
“Went blind. Yes. It was a Wednesday or Thursday, because I’d been to a matinee—Wednesday, I think—and the following Sunday was when it happened. Hey”—he laughed—“Guy didn’t put anything in that drink, did he?”
“No, he didn’t,” Rosemary said. Her voice was shaking. “By the way,” she said, “he has something of yours, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No,” he said.
“Didn’t you miss anything that day?”
“No. Not that I remember.”
“You’re sure?”
“You don’t mean my tie, do you?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Well he’s got mine and I’ve got his. Does he want his back? He can have it; it doesn’t matter to me what tie I’m wearing, or if I’m wearing one at all.”
“No, he doesn’t want it back,” Rosemary said. “I didn’t understand. I thought he had only borrowed it.”
“No, it was a trade. It sounded as if you thought he had stolen it.”
“I have to hang up now,” Rosemary said. “I just wanted to know if there was any improvement.”
“No, there isn’t. It was nice of you to call.”
She hung up.
It was nine minutes after four.
She put on her girdle and a dress and sandals. She took the emergency money Guy kept under his underwear—a not very thick fold of bills—and put it into her handbag, put in her address book too and the bottle of vitamin capsules. A contraction came and went, the second of the day. She took the suitcase that stood by the bedroom door and went down the hallway and out of the apartment.
Halfway to the elevator, she turned and doubled back.
She rode down in the service elevator with two delivery boys.
On Fifty-fifth Street she got a taxi.
Miss Lark, Dr. Sapirstein’s receptionist, glanced at the suitcase and said, smi
ling, “You aren’t in labor, are you?”
“No,” Rosemary said, “but I have to see the doctor. It’s very important.”
Miss Lark glanced at her watch. “He has to leave at five,” she said, “and there’s Mrs. Byron…”—she looked over at a woman who sat reading and then smiled at Rosemary—“but I’m sure he’ll see you. Sit down. I’ll let him know you’re here as soon as he’s free.”
“Thank you,” Rosemary said.
She put the suitcase by the nearest chair and sat down. The handbag’s white patent was damp in her hands. She opened it, took out a tissue, and wiped her palms and then her upper lip and temples. Her heart was racing.
“How is it out there?” Miss Lark asked.
“Terrible,” Rosemary said. “Ninety-four.”
Miss Lark made a pained sound.
A woman came out of Dr. Sapirstein’s office, a woman in her fifth or sixth month whom Rosemary had seen before. They nodded at each other. Miss Lark went in.
“You’re due any day now, aren’t you?” the woman said, waiting by the desk.
“Tuesday,” Rosemary said.
“Good luck,” the woman said. “You’re smart to get it over with before July and August.”
Miss Lark came out again. “Mrs. Byron,” she said, and to Rosemary, “He’ll see you right after.”
“Thank you,” Rosemary said.
Mrs. Byron went into Dr. Sapirstein’s office and closed the door. The woman by the desk conferred with Miss Lark about another appointment and then went out, saying good-by to Rosemary and wishing her luck again.
Miss Lark wrote. Rosemary took up a copy of Time that lay at her elbow. Is God Dead? it asked in red letters on a black background. She found the index and turned to Show Business. There was a piece on Barbra Streisand. She tried to read it.
“That smells nice,” Miss Lark said, sniffing in Rosemary’s direction. “What is it?”
“It’s called ‘Detchema,’” Rosemary said.
“It’s a big improvement over your regular, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“That wasn’t a cologne,” Rosemary said. “It was a good luck charm. I threw it away.”
“Good,” Miss Lark said. “Maybe the doctor will follow your example.”
Rosemary, after a moment, said, “Dr. Sapirstein?”
Miss Lark said, “Mm-hmm. He has the after-shave. But it isn’t, is it? Then he has a good luck charm. Only he isn’t superstitious. I don’t think he is. Anyway, he has the same smell once in a while, whatever it is, and when he does, I can’t come within five feet of him. Much stronger than yours was. Haven’t you ever noticed?”
“No,” Rosemary said.
“I guess you haven’t been here on the right days,” Miss Lark said. “Or maybe you thought it was your own you were smelling. What is it, a chemical thing?”
Rosemary stood up and put down Time and picked up her suitcase. “My husband is outside; I have to tell him something,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“You can leave your suitcase,” Miss Lark said.
Rosemary took it with her though.
CHAPTER 10
SHE WALKED up Park to Eighty-first Street, where she found a glass-walled phone booth. She called Dr. Hill. It was very hot in the booth.
A service answered. Rosemary gave her name and the phone number. “Please ask him to call me back right away,” she said. “It’s an emergency and I’m in a phone booth.”
“All right,” the woman said and clicked to silence.
Rosemary hung up and then lifted the receiver again but kept a hidden finger on the hook. She held the receiver to her ear as if listening, so that no one should come along and ask her to give up the phone. The baby kicked and twisted in her. She was sweating. Quickly, please, Dr. Hill. Call me. Rescue me.
All of them. All of them. They were all in it together. Guy, Dr. Sapirstein, Minnie, and Roman. All of them witches. All Of Them Witches. Using her to produce a baby for them, so that they could take it and—Don’t you worry, Andy-or-Jenny, I’ll kill them before I let them touch you!
The phone rang. She jumped her finger from the hook. “Yes?”
“Is this Mrs. Woodhouse?” It was the service again.
“Where’s Dr. Hill?” she said.
“Did I get the name right?” the woman asked. “Is it ‘Rosemary Woodhouse’?”
“Yes!”
“And you’re Dr. Hill’s patient?”
She explained about the one visit back in the fall. “Please, please,” she said, “he has to speak to me! It’s important! It’s—please. Please tell him to call me.”
“All right,” the woman said.
Holding the hook again, Rosemary wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Please, Dr. Hill. She cracked open the door for air and then pushed it closed again as a woman came near and waited. “Oh, I didn’t know that,” Rosemary said to the mouthpiece, her finger on the hook. “Really? What else did he say?” Sweat trickled down her back and from under her arms. The baby turned and rolled.
It had been a mistake to use a phone so near Dr. Sapirstein’s office. She should have gone to Madison or Lexington. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “Did he say anything else?” At this very moment he might be out of the door and looking for her, and wouldn’t the nearest phone booth be the first place he’d look? She should have gotten right into a taxi, gotten far away. She put her back as much as she could in the direction he would come from if he came. The woman outside was walking away, thank God.
And now, too, Guy would be coming home. He would see the suitcase gone and call Dr. Sapirstein, thinking she was in the hospital. Soon the two of them would be looking for her. And all the others too; the Weeses, the—
“Yes?”—stopping the ring in its middle.
“Mrs. Woodhouse?”
It was Dr. Hill, Dr. Savior-Rescuer-Kildare-Wonderful-Hill. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for calling me.”
“I thought you were in California,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I went to another doctor, one some friends sent me to, and he isn’t good, Dr. Hill; he’s been lying to me and giving me unusual kinds of—drinks and capsules. The baby is due on Tuesday—remember, you told me, June twenty-eighth?—and I want you to deliver it. I’ll pay you whatever you want, the same as if I’d been coming to you all along.”
“Mrs. Woodhouse—”
“Please, let me talk to you,” she said, hearing refusal. “Let me come and explain what’s been going on. I can’t stay too long where I am right now. My husband and this doctor and the people who sent me to him, they’ve all been involved in—well, in a plot; I know that sounds crazy, Doctor, and you’re probably thinking, ‘My God, this poor girl has completely flipped,’ but I haven’t flipped, Doctor, I swear by all the saints I haven’t. Now and then there are plots against people, aren’t there?”
“Yes, I suppose there are,” he said.
“There’s one against me and my baby,” she said, “and if you’ll let me come talk to you I’ll tell you about it. And I’m not going to ask you to do anything unusual or wrong or anything; all I want you to do is get me into a hospital and deliver my baby for me.”
He said, “Come to my office tomorrow after—”
“Now,” she said. “Now. Right now. They’re going to be looking for me.”
“Mrs. Woodhouse,” he said, “I’m not at my office now, I’m home. I’ve been up since yesterday morning and—”
“I beg you,” she said. “I beg you.”
He was silent.
She said, “I’ll come there and explain to you. I can’t stay here.”
“My office at eight o’clock,” he said. “Will that be all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Thank you. Dr. Hill?”
“Yes?”
“My husband may call you and ask if I called.”
“I’m not going to speak to anyone,” he said. “I’m going to take a nap.”
�
��Would you tell your service? Not to say that I called? Doctor?”
“All right, I will,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Eight o’clock.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
A man with his back to the booth turned as she came out; he wasn’t Dr. Sapirstein though, he was somebody else.
She walked to Lexington Avenue and uptown to Eighty-sixth Street, where she went into the theater there, used the ladies’ room, and then sat numbly in the safe cool darkness facing a loud color movie. After a while she got up and went with her suitcase to a phone booth, where she placed a person-to-person collect call to her brother Brian. There was no answer. She went back with her suitcase and sat in a different seat. The baby was quiet, sleeping. The movie changed to something with Keenan Wynn.
At twenty of eight she left the theater and took a taxi to Dr. Hill’s office on West Seventy-second Street. It would be safe to go in, she thought; they would be watching Joan’s place and Hugh and Elise’s, but not Dr. Hill’s office at eight o’clock, not if his service had said she hadn’t called. To be sure, though, she asked the driver to wait and watch until she was inside the door.
Nobody stopped her. Dr. Hill opened the door himself, more pleasantly than she had expected after his reluctance on the telephone. He had grown a moustache, blond and hardly noticeable, but he still looked like Dr. Kildare. He was wearing a blue-and-yellow-plaid sport shirt.
They went into his consulting room, which was a quarter the size of Dr. Sapirstein’s, and there Rosemary told him her story. She sat with her hands on the chair arms and her ankles crossed and spoke quietly and calmly, knowing that any suggestion of hysteria would make him disbelieve her and think her mad. She told him about Adrian Marcato and Minnie and Roman; about the months of pain she had suffered and the herbal drinks and the little white cakes; about Hutch and All Of Them Witches and the Fantasticks tickets and black candles and Donald Baumgart’s necktie. She tried to keep everything coherent and in sequence but she couldn’t. She got it all out without getting hysterical though; Dr. Shand’s recorder and Guy throwing away the book and Miss Lark’s final unwitting revelation.