Afraid to Death

by Marc Behm

  So?

  This was risky. Suppose somebody in one of the other houses saw him and called the cops? He’d be collared for trespassing. He should have an explanation ready. He heard a child call for help, for instance, and climbed over the wall to investigate. Or he was looking for his lost cat. Or he was a historian interested in vintage mansions. Or he was leading a cavalry patrol across the desert and came upon these ruins just by accident.

  Sergeant, what do you suppose happened to the people who once lived in this abandoned homestead?

  Apaches probably got them, Lieutenant. Or maybe they all starved to death when the crops failed.

  Mmm. I’m not so sure. There’s more here than meets the eye.

  Sir! Do you mean to infer that the area is fraught with unfathomable phenomena beyond our comprehension?

  Precisely.

  Then I respectfully suggest we move on, Lieutenant, before any harm comes to us. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

  Then, somewhere in the house’s dark corridor, a phone rang.

  The machine answered. ‘I’m out of town for the moment. Leave your number and I’ll call you as soon as I return.’ Click.

  No, it wasn’t her voice. Or was it? He wasn’t as certain now as he was before. Was it or wasn’t it? Balls!

  Then another voice drawled, this one unmistakably familiar. ‘Hi. Nellie Jarman again. This is the fifth time I’ve called and all I ever get is that fucking answering machine. I can’t stay in Buffalo forever. Where are you?’

  Nel came back to the hotel on Monday morning, looking mussed up and hungover. She’d been arrested for shop-lifting and had spent the weekend in the slammer.

  ‘They put me in a cage,’ she complained. ‘With a ratpack of hookers smelling like old towels.’ She stood under the shower, groaning. ‘What a zoo. I’ve never felt more humiliated and befouled in my entire life. And for what? A scarf not worth twenty dollars. You should have heard the judge lecture me, the haughty asshole.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘They only allowed me one call and I had to get in touch with somebody else.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Do you know what? One of those scurvy girls in the bullpen actually wanted to go down on me! Can you believe it! She kept pinching me, I’m covered with bruises, look!’

  He waited patiently for her to finish her lamenting. But then she stretched out on the bed, nude and dripping, putting an end to all conversation. ‘I need a good pronging,’ she wailed. ‘Forget about the foreplay and just ram it into me.’

  He did. For the first time they made love without – as she called it – une mise en scène. It was better than fantasy, far more honest and unselfish. They both finished quickly and she slept, snoring blissfully.

  He had to wait until she woke. Finally, well past noon, they ordered breakfast and he could question her.

  ‘Where is this gallery of yours?’

  ‘On Ferry Street. Why?’

  ‘You’d better give me the number, so I’ll know who to call if you get busted again.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. The exhibit has been postponed. Which means I’ll have to stick around for a while. What are your plans, Egan?’

  ‘I tried that other number, but it was a dead end. My plans? I don’t have any.’

  ‘What other number?’ she stared at him, lynx-eyed with surprise.

  He showed her the pad.

  ‘Ah yes,’ she dismissed it with a careless wave of her fingers. ‘That.’

  ‘I got some woman on the answering machine.’ Casually, ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Alice’s mother.’

  It was his turn to be taken by surprise. All he could say was, ‘Oh.’

  ‘I thought perhaps she might have heard from her. But she’s never there when I call.’

  He thought it over. It was an explanation – of sorts. Anyway, it was better than this endless fucking conjecture. Maybe he could drop the whole business into the Lacuna after all.

  ‘I think I’ll stick around for a while too,’ he decided.

  ‘Good.’ She walked over to the bed. ‘Let’s do an encore.’

  33

  That voice tormented him. Of course, his childhood memory could have been faulty. After all these years, D minor could sound like D major. Not only that, but his constant anxiety could make any voice become sepulchral and threatening.

  He called the number over and over again listening to the recording. It seemed to have a different pitch each time. He was certain it was her. Then, a second later, he was just as certain it wasn’t.

  Finally, he gave up, convinced he was being even more paranoid than usual.

  But his unease continued, rising out of the Lacuna Pit like swamp-smoke from a bog.

  Now that they had some free time together, Nellie took him on sketching expeditions all over Buffalo, filling her pads with drawings of monuments and squares and the lake and the river. They swam in the hotel pool and ate in out-of-the-way cafes. One night they saw Desire Under the Elms at Canisius College and the next night Phèdre at D’Youville. Both plays were about incest and this led to Nel confessing that Alice, when she was a child, had been raped by her father. She was pregnant at thirteen and had an abortion. That’s why daddy buried himself alive.

  ‘What about her mother?’ he asked.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She has a lovely voice. She reminds me of someone.’

  ‘All I know is that she’s always out of town.’

  They stopped playing their bedtime games. They made love calmly now, almost unconcernedly, as if they were adhering to a quota.

  They were both restive. And expectant.

  ‘What’s happening, Nel?’ he asked.

  ‘Happening? What do you mean?’

  But he didn’t know what he meant. The passing days were like an airport lounge where they waited for a flight to be announced.

  The announcement came two weeks later on Friday morning.

  He was in the shower when the phone rang. When he came out of the bathroom he found her sitting on the edge of the bed, pale and innerved.

  ‘That was the gallery,’ she said. ‘We’re invited to a cocktail party this afternoon.’

  ‘Is that what put you in shock?’

  ‘Shock? I have an épouventable headache. I’m going to jog for a while.’

  He went for a walk in the park and smoked a cigar. He was furious with himself. Why did everything have to be a Red Alert? Maybe she did have a headache. Maybe there was a cocktail party. Why should he doubt it? Where did this sense of creeping peril come from? Fuck all!

  When in doubt, run. He was wearing his money-belt. He could jump in a cab and be at the airport in a half-hour. That was exactly what he was going to do.

  He sat down on a bench instead.

  If the next person who passed was a man, he’d stay. If it were a woman, he’d split.

  He waited.

  He puffed his cigar and blew a smoke ring – a perfect O. He sat there, admiring it as it floated away.

  A little girl and boy came along the pathway, bouncing a basketball between them.

  So much for that. When in doubt, hover.

  At three o’clock they drove up Genesee Street and turned north on Harlem Road. She was driving and seemed to know where she was going. Obviously not to the gallery, Ferry Street was in the opposite direction.

  ‘Where is this place, Nellie?’

  ‘Not far.’

  Then they were on Kensington Avenue. She stopped in front of a closed gate just across from the park.

  The same closed gate in the same high wall he’d climbed over three weeks ago.

  She blew the horn.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘J’en sais rien.’ She shrugged and lit a cigarette. ‘This is the address I was given.’

  ‘Don’t you know who lives here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I do.’

  She looked at him, for just an in
stant letting her nervousness slip past her nonchalance. ‘You do? Who?’

  ‘Alice’s mother.’

  She laughed. ‘Alice’s mother is dead, Egan.’ She blew the horn again.

  ‘That’s not what you told me.’

  ‘I lied. Sorry about that, old buddy.’

  ‘Then whose number have you been calling?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Who have you been calling, Nel?’

  ‘Somebody else.’

  ‘Somebody who told you to bring me here?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was astonished. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘She told you to bring me to Buffalo and to keep me here until she got in touch with you. Is that it?’

  ‘You’ve known that all this time?’

  ‘No. Not really. But why, Nellie, why? What will she give you in exchange for me?’

  ‘Alice.’

  The gate swung open, its hinges squeaking. He could see the house now, at the top of the driveway, all its windows unshuttered, the panes glinting.

  So.

  She was in there, waiting for him … welcoming him, bidding him enter. The time has come, Joe. I’ve waited long enough.

  The front door opened. She came out of the hallway and stood on the steps.

  He leaped out of the car and ran down the block.

  34

  A week later he telephoned Nellie in Tampa.

  ‘Egan! You rascal, where are you?’

  She was herself again, cool and drawling. A good sign.

  ‘Back in LA,’ he lied. ‘What happened with Alice?’

  ‘All’s well that ends well. She lost some weight, but that’s a plus. That obnoxious woman put her on a diet.’

  ‘You mean she let her go?’

  ‘Of course. I kept my end of the bargain, she had to keep hers. It wasn’t my fault you flew the coop at the last minute. But I’m glad you did.’

  ‘Tell me, Nel, why did you have to go all the way to Buffalo to close the deal?’

  ‘Because of Alice’s house. That’s where that blond bitch had been keeping her all these months. Locked up in the cellar! Can you imagine that! No one ever thought of looking for her there.’

  He refused to imagine it. That would lead to an inevitable crack-up.

  ‘She came to see me and told me that if you ever showed up in Florida again, I was to take you directly there and call that number. What could I do, Egan?’

  God Almighty! It had all been planned, ever since she lost trace of him in Tampa. How many other traps had she set for him?

  ‘Egan?’

  ‘It’s okay, Nel. All is forgiven.’

  ‘But you have a lot of explaining to do, buddy. First of all, just who the hell is she?’

  He hung up.

  He wasn’t in LA. He was seventy-five miles from Buffalo, in Rochester, living in a motel on Bay Street.

  His hair was died white, he carried a cane and walked with a fake limp and was registered under an assumed name. He stayed there for three weeks then, when he became too comfortable in the role he was playing and actually began to feel elderly and crippled, he moved across the state to Albany. He threw away the cane and washed out the dye.

  His confidence was returning, he was sleeping more or less soundly again, the Lacuna wasn’t erupting.

  It was difficult, trying not to think about Alice, locked up in that cellar for – how long? – a year? With her for a jailer. What a grisly nightmare! Going to all that elaborate mischief, just to catch him off-guard. Jesus! In fact, the whole scheme was an act of desperation. Capturing him had become her obsession and she was ready to go to any extremes to get her hands on him. What would she try next? Where? When? How?

  Stop.

  This was as far as he permitted his thoughts to delve.

  Anyway, aside from that, things were no worse than usual. He was still free and alive. That’s all that mattered.

  He remained in the Albany area. The most off-the-beaten-track place he could find was a three hundred dollars a month vacation cottage on the bank of the Mohawk River, not far from Niskayuna. The landlord was a Mr. Leopold, who owned an antique shop on River Road. Joe told him he was a writer, doing a book on – he picked a name at random – Talleyrand.

  His new home was just large enough to contain one room, a kitchen and a shower. It was called ‘The Nook.’

  He lived there for four years.

  He hiked and read and bought groceries and watched hundreds of cassettes on his rented VCR.

  A stray cat who visited him every now and again was his only friend. When he first showed up he was reading Zola’s Rougon-Macquart saga, so he called him Emile.

  Time meant nothing to him. One day it was snowing, the next it was August. He grew a beard, shaved it off, grew it again. When his hair grew to his shoulders he shaved his skull too. He stopped smoking cigars and began again six months later. He read War and Peace twice and, just for the hell of it, memorized Macbeth.

  The river frightened him, but he forced himself to take endless walks along its bank, exorcizing the water. Eventually he could wander all the way to Mohawk View and back.

  Mr. Leopold found all this highly equivocal. He’d drop by occasionally to try to be neighborly and to pry. He was in his sixties, chubby and flighty and a nuisance and gay.

  ‘You’re an enigma, Mr. Grayson,’ he’d say, chirping playfully. (Grayson was the name Joe was using these days. Lionel Grayson.) ‘But sooner or later I’ll unmask you.’ A wink. ‘Get to the bottom of you, as it were.’

  ‘If I drop my trousers,’ Joe would reply with weary coquetry, ‘will you lower the rent?’

  And Mr. Leopold would chuckle with delight and shake a finger at him. ‘I never mix business with pleasure. And if the sheriff should ever hear you talk like that he’d run you out of town. This is an uptight community. Oh, by the by, how’s the book coming?’

  But it wasn’t Mr. Leopold, or the sheriff, who put an end to his vacation. It was a bruiser named Frank, who showed up during the fourth year. He was over six feet tall, weighed two hundred pounds, and was Leopold’s boyfriend.

  Leopold brought him to the cottage and used him as bait, hoping to interest Joe in troilism. He was like a proud farmer exhibiting a prize bull.

  ‘Frank knows the ropes,’ he bragged. ‘You can’t fool him. He’s been there and, hah, back.’ And he added mysteriously. ‘He doesn’t pull his punches.’

  Frank just grinned stupidly and fingered his fly.

  He began loitering around ‘The Nook,’ inviting Joe to go fishing with him or volunteering to chop his firewood, making no effort whatever to conceal his mating-dance swish.

  When this didn’t work, he started playing rough. He’d grab Joe in an armlock, hold him tightly and rub against him.

  ‘This is how the cons do it,’ he sniggered. ‘Ever been in the joint, Grayson baby?’

  ‘Let me go, Frank.’

  ‘I could break your fucking arm like this. Or pull it out of your shoulder. Don’t you wish you had muscles like me?’

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Leo says you did time probably. That’s why you’re so freaky. What was you in for? Molesting kids?’

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Make me.’

  He finally released him and swaggered away, fondling himself.

  He was back the next day. And the next and the next, his kidding around becoming more and more painful.

  ‘You wanna know what we call dudes like you, Lionel? PHTG. Playing hard to get. As soon as I have you really warmed up, you’ll be begging for it.’

  Joe didn’t know how to deal with this kind of bullying. The asshole was just too gigantic to fight. And too numb-headed to talk to.

  One afternoon he found him in the cottage, taking a shower.

  ‘Howdy, baby!’ He aimed a cucumber-sized hard-on at him. ‘RWA! Ready Willing and Able!’

  Joe picked up a towel and snapped it at his dong. Frank howled, then came out of the shower with insane eyes, ready to kill.

/>   Joe fled. Frank chased him through the woods, bare-assed, all the way to the road, baying with rage.

  Joe spent the rest of the day hiding in a nearby quarry, wondering how he’d ever gotten himself into this asinine situation and trying to figure out how he could put a stop to it. There was only one answer to that. A full retreat. He couldn’t take any more of this bullshit. In fact, Leopold too was becoming a pain in the ass. And the woods and the Mohawk and ‘The Nook’ were beginning to close around him like a penal colony.

  Time to go.

  Are the troopers prepared to move out, Sergeant?

  All saddled up, Lieutenant.

  We’ll leave at sundown.

  I’ll miss this campsite, sir. Heaven’s breath smells wooingly here, the air is delicate and recommends itself to our gentle senses.

  Quite so. But we can’t stay here forever, Sarge. Besides, one stopping place is as good as another. And who knows! Our next bivouac might be even better.

  At twilight he came out of the quarry and snuck through the woods. He got as far as the river.

  Over on the opposite bank, a hundred yards away, walking along the crest of a high slope, was a tiny figure in black, wearing a blond crown.

  An instant later she vanished, absorbed by the trees.

  No – he was sure there was no one there. Absolutely positive. It had been a trick of the eye … just a … (You’re kidding yourself. It’s her.) No it isn’t … a mirage … an illusion … (You saw her.) I didn’t see her. I thought I saw her. I always think I see her. Everywhere. (Look again.) I am looking. (She’s over there in the trees.) No … she isn’t! (She’ll come over here now and find you.) The beheld takes any shape the beholder invents! Sometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish! (You have maybe a half-hour to haul ass! Go! go! go!)

  He ran to the cottage. The front door was wide open. The money-belt should have been on the floor, under Leopold’s fake Napoleon III buffet … but it wasn’t. It was gone! Fuck all!

  Frank stepped out of the closet, holding it aloft. ‘Is this what you’re looking for, sweetie?’ he waved it at him. ‘Where’d you get all this bread? There’s enough here to go to the Bahamas on our honeymoon!’ He grabbed him by the shirt, shook him. ‘You hurt my cock, motherfucker! Now you’re going to kiss it to make it better!’ He backed him into the wall, hit him with the belt. ‘You been begging for it, now you’re going to get it!’ At this point Emile the cat hopped off the buffet and landed on his shoulders. Frank screeched and jumped aside.