There was still blood on the seat where Elizabeth had been sitting. The note, the crumpled note, still lay on his dashboard.
We are still watching you. Go to your office. Wait.
The light changed from red to green. Conrad saw it from the corner of his eye. He slowly pulled his eyes away from the policemen. He looked straight ahead. He shifted his foot to the gas pedal and pressed it down.
The Corsica moved slowly through the intersection.
It took Conrad a long time to reach the Upper West Side. It was close to ten when he parked the car on Eighty-second Street. He walked around the corner to Central Park West. He shuffled wearily, staring at the ground. His back was bent. His right leg dragged a little. He reached his office building, pushed in through the revolving doors.
The doorman glanced up as Conrad went past.
“Hey, Doc,” he said.
Conrad flashed a thin smile at him. He limped through the lobby, down the hall to his office.
The moment he pushed the door open, he stopped short, stood frozen in the doorway. His mouth was pulled down in a tired, miserable frown. He shook his head weakly, back and forth.
The light was on in the consulting room. He could see it, bleeding through the bottom of the closed connecting door. Still shaking his head, Conrad shuffled in, his head bowed. The door closed behind him. The waiting room slipped into deep shadow.
Conrad limped slowly toward the consulting room. He was going to open that door and find Elizabeth. Elizabeth would be lying there dead. He could already see her sprawled on the floor, her red-gold hair splayed around her head like a halo. He limped toward the door. Not Elizabeth, no. It was Jessica there. The little girl was lying on her stomach in her valentine nightgown. Her face was turned toward him. Her glassy eyes stared.
Why didn’t you come, Daddy?
Conrad reached the consulting-room door. He swallowed and pushed it open.
All the lights were on: the toplight, the standing lamp, and the desk lamp. But the place was empty. He moved into the center of the floor, scanned the room slowly. The analysis couch, the therapy chair, his own leather recliner. The rolltop desk with the mess of papers on it. The bathroom. He moved to the bathroom door and looked in. No one was in there either.
He turned around and faced the room again. He looked at his rolltop desk. He understood what had happened.
The phone was gone. It had been taken out. The papers and journals that had covered it now surrounded the empty space where it had been. Conrad moved toward the desk, shaking his head. He stood and looked down at it. He shuddered. They’ve been here, he thought. And it was as if he could still smell them. It was as if their dark shapes were still hunkering in his peripheral vision.
He reached down and moved some of his papers aside. He uncovered his answering machine. He held his breath. The machine’s light was blinking.
Conrad’s fingers trembled as he pressed the playback button. He watched the machine as it clicked and whizzed. Then the voice began. A new voice, not Sport’s. It was high and breathy and frantic.
“Welcome, welcome, Doctor C.” Then there was a high giggle: Hee, hee, hee. “Now you’re here. And we’re here, man. We’re fucking everywhere. Booga-booga!” Hee hee hee. Conrad turned his face away, closing his eyes. “So anyway, uh, you gotta stay here, okay? Till twelve o’clock. Witching hour. Dum! Dum! Duuuum! Otherwise—you know what. So don’t walk out of that door, Marshal Dillon, because we have got you covered. Uh, abudyuh, abudyuh, abudyuh, that’s all, folks.” Hee hee hee. And the machine clicked off.
Conrad let his breath out in a sigh. He took off his trench coat. He draped it over the back of the recliner. He walked over to the couch and sat down on it. He put his head in his hands and began to cry.
He cried hard. He sobbed. He rocked back and forth. The tears spilled into his hands. He sniffled.
“My little girl,” he said softly. “My little girl.”
For half an hour, he lay on the couch. He stared up at the ceiling dully.
Without your bullshit and your money, your fancy degrees, just man on man—what are you then? You follow? What are you?
He felt the dried tears on his cheek where Sport had spit at him. He closed his eyes.
With his eyes closed, he saw his daughter. He saw her lying dead on the floor. He saw her glassy stare.
Why didn’t you come?
He imagined then—he saw before him—the child’s small coffin being lowered into its open grave. He heard her voice from inside the little box.
Daddy?
He pressed his lips together tightly.
Then, for a moment, he saw his daughter alive. He saw her lying on a bed, her hands tied behind her. The man who called himself Sport was coming toward her. He had a knife in his hand. Jessica was screaming …
He gasped and his eyes came open quickly. He coughed and wiped his cheeks with his hands. Trembling, he stared at the ceiling.
He stared up at the glow of the toplight on the white plaster. He saw the arc of shadow near the wall. He saw a small section of water damage in the corner. He saw the box being lowered into the ground. The child’s body was inside the box, rocking from side to side as the box went down. Her hands were crossed on her chest. It was dark in the coffin. She would want a night-light, Conrad thought. He heard the sound of dirt hitting the lid of the casket.
Daddy?
But now his face was hard, his eyes were cold. When the dirt hit the casket lid, he even sneered a little. He stood on the manicured grass. He looked over the edge of the open grave. Shovelful by shovelful, the coffin disappeared beneath the earth. Agatha said later that his eyes looked like stones as he watched it. She bugged herself and shuddered. “Like stones, Nathan.”
But that had been his father’s funeral, hadn’t it? And by that time, he’d been estranged from the old man for years. At the end, he had gone to see him in the hospital only because Aggie had insisted. When Nathan had come into the hospital room, the old man was lying in the bed under a single sheet. His face, once round and pale, was now thin and very, very white. With the sheet over it, his body seemed like nothing.
“Nathan,” he had said weakly. He had lifted his hand. Nathan had stepped forward and taken it. His father had smiled with white lips. His hand was cold. “Thanks … for coming.”
“It’s all right, Dad,” Nathan had said. He had gazed down at the old man without expression.
His father had taken a laborious breath. “ … wanted the chance to tell you … ,” he said, “ … love … I love you.”
“I love you too, Dad,” Nathan answered automatically. He knew he’d feel bad later on if he didn’t say it. What was the point of making the old man sad now? He gazed down at him.
His father closed his eyes. “Couldn’t … ,” he whispered. Then he let out a low whistling moan of pain. “I couldn’t … help her, Nathan. Couldn’t …”
Conrad gazed down at him. One corner of his mouth lifted in a hard, ugly smile. He was thinking about his mother. About her lying on the kitchen floor. About her struggling and screaming, her nightgown on fire. The silk nightgown with the purple chrysanthemums. He was thinking about all the times his father had told her: “All right, take the bottle to your room; but just this once.” Or: “All right, here’s the money, but only so you won’t go out and steal it.” Or the ever-popular: “Look, don’t try to quit it all at once. Just ease off, stop a little at a time.”
“Couldn’t help her,” his father whispered again.
Conrad’s mouth twisted. He held his father’s cold hand. He gazed down at him.
“Your eyes were like stones,” Agatha said after the funeral. She had hugged herself and shivered. “Like stones.”
Conrad sat up. He got off the couch. He walked unsteadily into the bathroom. He bent over the toilet, his stomach churning. He gagged; gagged again. Then he threw up, a trickle of thin vomit. He’d hardly eaten anything all day.
He wiped his mouth with his hand. He straightened. He moved to
the sink and splashed water on his face. He lifted his head. He looked into the mirror.
Couldn’t help her. I couldn’t help her.
The sad brown eyes looked back at him out of a pasty face. His cheeks sagged, the wrinkles stood out on them. With his sandy hair plastered down by sweat, he looked almost bald. He looked old, like an old man.
Couldn’t help her.
His eyes filled with tears again. One tear spilled over, ran down his cheek. He couldn’t bear the sight of it. He lowered his head. “I couldn’t help her,” he said softly. He shuffled back into the consulting room.
He limped slowly to his recliner. He dropped down into it. He closed his right eye. It had started to flare again when he threw up. The red clouds played and drifted over his vision. The same old sunset from Seminary Hill.
He leaned back in the chair, closed both eyes.
I couldn’t help her.
He thought of Elizabeth. The way she had been tonight. So proud of her pretty clothes, almost giddy. Proud of her makeup and the black ribbon tying back her hair.
I can help you. That’s what he’d said to her. He remembered the way her hands had reached out to him. The desperate way she’d gripped his hands in hers.
Can you? Can you help me? Because I know that bad things have happened. But there could be good things too.
“Oh …” Conrad moaned aloud. He covered his eyes with his hand. Rocked back and forth in the chair in his pain.
There could be good things too.
“Ah, blood, the blood.” He clenched his fists in front of him. He just sat like that, bent forward, his whole body clenched, his face. “I couldn’t help her.”
Then he sagged. He fell back against the chair again. The red clouds swam before him. His hands fell to his sides.
His trench coat was hanging from the back of the chair. When his hands fell, his knuckles brushed one of the pockets. He felt the weight there.
Conrad shifted. He reached into the pocket and took out his cassette recorder. He pressed the rewind button. Stared at the little box as the tape rolled back.
When it was near the beginning, he pressed the button. Tinny and distant, Elizabeth’s voice rose up to him.
He’s always different. The Secret Friend, I mean. I guess I told you that already, but it’s an important thing.
Conrad leaned back in the chair. He held the recorder lightly on his stomach. He listened to her soft murmur.
I liked being near children, even though they’d usually left by the time I got there. I just liked being where they were.
He thought of her face. That rose-and-alabaster painting of a face framed in the gold-red hair … . the place where I worked was on a little lane in the Village. A narrow, cobbled lane …
He thought of her hands reaching out for him. Desperate. Desperate for help, for hope. Her voice went on. It hurt him to hear it. It was a burrowing pain.
Then, one night, I stepped out of the center and there was someone there . . .
He thought of her as she’d been in the car, the way she’d been as they were driving into Manhattan. He thought of her flat, clear, crystal voice singing about the bottles of beer. The dead sound of her voice, like wind whistling through a ruin. Her voice on the tape continued.
I saw his face. His red hair, his white skin, his freckles. He was wearing a dark overcoat and he had his hands hidden in the pockets …
The tape played. He held it steady on his stomach. He thought of Elizabeth in that last moment. That moment when he had paused in the doorway of the car. When she had looked up at him and he had found her again deep inside those eyes. Like a specter standing in the ruin of herself. A solitary soul trapped in there.
And yet she had reached out and given him what he needed. She had given him the number. Her voice went on:
. . . I turned again and ran. I ran down the lane as fast as I could. I ran to MacDougal … And suddenly, someone grabbed me …
He lay like that in the chair with his eyes closed. And he thought of the blood. The line of blood on the seat where Elizabeth had been. That hurt too. To think of that and to hear her voice. He smiled grimly. It hurt; yes. He kept his eyes closed, kept thinking of the blood. Kept making it hurt and hurt more. That was what he had turned the tape on for.
Elizabeth’s voice continued:
I kept thinking: It’s him. He’s got me. So I hit at him … . I kicked and struggled …
He lowered me slowly to the ground … . He laughed …
Because, you see, it wasn’t him at all. It was another man. A young man, handsome. With a sort of round, boyish face.
Conrad let her voice work at him, dig at him. He saw what she described. The Village street. The dark alley behind her. The sudden arm around her waist and then: that face. That round, boyish face. It appeared before him; familiar somehow …
Brown hair falling into his eyes, said Elizabeth. And he had a nice smile—even though I knew he was laughing at me …
The face became clearer in Conrad’s mind. He saw it coming toward him as if out of deep shadows.
I looked past his shoulder, down the alley …
And then, all at once, as with the flaring of a match, the face was illuminated in an orange glow: his brown hair falling into his eyes, his charming smile …
I stood in front of this new person, this stranger, panting …
Conrad sat up quickly.
“What?” he said. “What?”
He stared down at the recorder. Suddenly, his fingers were fumbling over its controls. He hit the stop button. Elizabeth’s voice went off.
He hit the rewind button. The playback.
I ran down the lane …
“Shit!”
He hit fast forward. Play again.
… it wasn’t him at all. It was another man.
Conrad held the recorder up to his ear.
A young man, handsome. With a sort of round, boyish face. Brown hair falling into his eyes. And he had a nice smile …
“My God,” said Conrad. Terry: the young actor. The man she had fallen for. The man who had vanished. Her imaginary lover.
He turned the tape off again. He lowered the machine to his lap. He looked at it, stared at it sideways, as if he expected it to leap at him.
A young man, handsome. With a sort of round, boyish face.
“It was Sport,” Conrad whispered.
Sport was Terry. Her Secret Friend.
Island in the Mist
The mist drifted and coiled over the water of the sound. The water was black out there, black and unsettled. The cold October air was whipping up into a wind and whitecaps licked up out of the waves. Sport could hear them slapping against the pilings of the old pier.
The Correction Department shack sat on a lot just before the pier. It was a battered blue trailer, dark but for the flickering light of a television set at one window. Huddled in his windbreaker, Sport stood at the door and knocked lightly.
The television set went off inside. The shack windows went dark. Sport waited, hearing shuffling steps inside.
A moment later, the shack door opened. A tall, broad figure stood in the shadows, a man with a crew cut over a square, flat, brutal face. He was wearing his gray-blue uniform pants, but his shirt was open and his undershirt swelled with his huge potbelly.
Sport shivered in the cold wind from the sound. “You guys ready?” he said.
“Sure, Sporty,” said the man in the doorway.
Sport nodded. “Let’s go.”
They rode out on the Department’s cruiser: Sport, the guard, and the machinery man. The machinery man sat inside in the cabin. He was a little man with slumped shoulders. His face was all wrinkles and frowns like a basset hound’s face. He sat inside and smoked a cigarette nervously.
The guard was at the wheel, guiding the cruiser over the waves, over the short distance out to Hart Island. Sport stayed outside, out by the stern rail. He squinted through the wind, peered back at City Island, at its pier, its white h
ouses; at the ragged black outline of its trees fading into the mist. Sport’s foot pattered nervously against the deck. His fingers raveled and unraveled. The wry, easy look in his eyes, his easy smile—they were both gone. He stared intently at the disappearing shore. The wind made his hair dance on his brow.
“All or nothing at all,” he sang tensely to himself. “La-da-da. Da da-da-daa …”
He paused. He took a deep breath. He wiped his mouth with his hand.
All or nothing at all, he thought. All or fucking nothing at all …
He mumbled the old song until it was just a tuneless noise lost under the grumble of the ferry’s engine and the hiss of the wind.
“ … la-da-da-da … nothing at all.”
You fuck-up. You fuck-up, he thought.
Fucking Freak, he thought. It was the Freak’s fucking fault, all of it. It wasn’t supposed to have come to this: all this bullshit with the kid; fucking murder … The whole thing was just an idea, just a joke, that’s all …
Sport hummed another bar of the song. Then he let the rest of his breath out silently into the wind. He shook his head.
“Fucking Freak,” he muttered.
It was all the Freak’s fault. His fault that things had gotten so fucked up. His own damned fault even that Maxwell had had to kill him. First, he’d started fagging around with Dolenko. And then, with Elizabeth, he just went nuts. Everything was all his fault from the beginning.
They were supposed to get the number from her, that’s all. It was going to be funny. It was going to be something to do. The plan was, Sport would arrange to meet her, then pull his famous Handsome Guy routine on her. All the little mousies went for his Handsome Guy routine. Next, they would go to an old abandoned brownstone that Dolenko knew about. Dolenko said he and some of his friends used to use the place for parties. He said he knew how to get the electricity working there; he’d done it before. They would fix one of the rooms up and pretend it was Sport’s apartment. Then Sport could bring Elizabeth back there and fuck her till her brains melted. After that, he’d get her talking, ask her about her past … Finally, he could casually ask her about her mother and about the number. By the time it was over, he’d have what he wanted and she wouldn’t even know he’d gotten it. Then, when she tried to find him, he’d be gone-a-roo without a trace.