Short Stories - Metrognome and other Stories

  "Of course. We'd like you to come into Obispo to­morrow . . . or as soon as you can. Official identifica­tion. I'm sorry."

  "Of course you would. I'11 come in the morning. After I make the phone calls. Good night, Officer."

  "Good night, Mr. McCarey. " Brooks studied him professionally, reached a decision. "I'11 be going now. If we can do anything, please call us."

  "Yes. Thank you."

  Dylan remained framed in the doorway, a weaving sil­houette in the hallway light. He watched as the tall pa­trolman was swallowed by the fog. There was the sound of a car door slamming. Rumbling throatily, the blinking red light turned and receded into the distance. He stared until it had disappeared completely.

  Reflex guided him back to the study, back to his desk. A detached part of him was coolly aware of the mournful dialogue of wind and wave below the window. Marjorie, Marjorie. What had they fought about, to send her blindly running from the house, from him? That silly fight over nothing, over a chair. A damned piece of furniture.

  Turning, he looked at it. One little argument and his Marjorie was taken from him forever. One absurd lit­tle

  He froze, his spine rippling like an underground cable in an earthquake. Some unmentionable fear swamped his muscular control of self, and he shivered uncontrollably.

  The back of the chair was altered, different. He could've sworn, would've sworn, he'd originally counted nine faces carved into the seat back. There were eleven now. On bulgy‑eyed, close inspection, one resembled very much, quite impossibly, that of a recently deceased young lawyer and former neighbor, Mark Andrus. The other . . . oh, God, the other . . .

  Long hair formed a cirruslike nimbus around the del­icately rendered face. The tiny mouth was open, forming a deep little gash in the dark wood, while the miniature glaring eyes focused on some unseen but immediate ter­ror. The complete expression was one a person would adopt on viewing some soul‑twisting horror or a train abruptly bearing down on her, the earth cracking beneath her feet, or . . .

  Rocks at the bottom of a cliff rushing up at her.

  Shaking, cold, cold in the heated room, he bent around in the chair. A forefinger reached out unsteadily toward the tiny portrait. His voice was an echo.

  "Marjorie?" He touched the carving.

  It was warmer than the wood around it.

  Dylan jumped out of the chair, hit the desk, backed away from it. His eyes never left the chair. He struck something‑the wastebasket‑and stumbled over it. Strange noises were coming from deep in his throat, a low grunting sound like someone might make while ex­periencing a nightmare in the ‑midst of deep sleep.

  Backing into a wall, he knocked precious books from their shelves and ignored them. A vase full of coleus fell, shattered, and stained the green carpet. Something else heavy was bumped, hit the floor with an imperative cush­ioned thud.

  He looked down. The battle‑ax lay smooth and clean among the dirt and humus and broken waxy stems from the cracked vase. Slowly he reached down, picked up the replica. Its weight blotted out everything else in the study. Cherry glaze blurred his vision.

  Howling like a crippled wolf, he raised the ax over his head with both hands and rushed on the chair.

  At the last instant it rose nimbly on four clawed legs and skittered aside.

  The ax came down blindly, missing, gashing Dylan's right calf. Overbalanced, he spun, swung, and raised the ax again. It went through the picture window with a crys­talline scream, and Dylan followed it.

  Immediately thereafter a dull, distance‑damped thump sounded from the rocks below. Then it was quiet in the study. Through the break, the fog began to enter, march­ing on the sound of winter waves forty feet below.

  "I don't understand." The young girl looked happily at her fiancé. "It was so cheap."

  He grinned at her with the superior knowledge of the older (he was two years older than she and had already graduated college). "Small‑town estate sale, that's all. No dealers to bid against. It was sure a buy, though. What a way to start furnishing our apartment! Wait till Sally and Dave see it.

  "Lot's go. You've got classes tomorrow morning."

  "Mondays, yecch!" She wrinkled her pretty face. "You'll have all day off to admire it while I'm slogging through Haskell's seminar."

  "It.11 be there when you get home." He slid behind the wheel of the van.

  "Isn't it gorgeous, though?" She turned in her seat to stare back at the chair. It leaned up against the convert­ible couch, dogged down securely by rope. She admired the carved arms and lion's heads, the open‑mouthed gar­goyle crowning the back of the seat, and most especially the twelve miniature faces carved into the back.

  Her fiancé frowned, looked in his rearview mirror. "Did you hear someone scream?"

  She smiled at him, took his free hand. "Probably just some kid separated from his momma. I didn't hear any­thing but laughing, dummy."

  "Laughing, screaming, who cares? We got ourselves a helluva buy!" He started the engine, guided the van out of the lot. They laughed as they rocked their way across several chuckholes and depressions in the road.

  Behind them, the chair squatted expectantly as four wooden feet dug a little more deeply into the blue‑red carpet . . .

  THE INHERITANCE

  I love cats. Always have, always will. I'm not allergic to them, and their hair doesn't make me sneeze. I've slept with cats the past fourteen years. They move around, they get your legs hot, and sometimes they snore. But they're great company. I like real cats, fictional cats like Gummitch, wholly imaginary cats, felines large and small. I liked Garfield better when he was a cat.

  However, I have noticed through the years that not every member of the human race feels the same. There are people who like cats even though they're allergic to them: a pitiable situation. There are some folks who are indifferent to their presence. And then there are, astonishingly enough, individuals who outright hate fe­lines.

  There are even those who live in fear of the common house cat, whose phobia is a throwback to the Middle Ages and the terrors of the plague: No argument can alter their opinions, no logic dissuade their antifeline vitriol. In the very presence of a cat they will draw away in fear. It is an attitude I find incomprehensible, indefensible, absurd, and unreasoning.

  Wouldn't it be hilarious if they turned out to be right?

  ". . . My home, Trenton, its contents, and the sum of five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, after other and all taxes have been paid."

  Every eye in the pecan‑paneled room turned to Mayell. She remained composed in green sleeveless dress and pumps, managing not to grin.

  "There are two conditions," the lawyer continued, his tone indicating disapproval of the manner in which the deceased's secretary's skirt had crawled an indecent dis­tance up her thighs. "You must remain in residence at Trenton House for six months to enable the staff there to make a gradual transition to other employment."

  "And the other condition?" Mayell spoke with the chiming notes of a gamelan, displaying a voice sweet enough to match her appearance.

  The lawyer harrumphed. "There remains the matter of Saugen, the deceased's cat. You will henceforth be re­sponsible for the animal's care. Full transferral of the aforementioned sum occurs six months from today, pro­vided that Trenton remains home to its present staff for that length of time and provided that Saugen appears happy, healthy, well fed, and content at that date."

  "That's all?"

  "That is all." The lawyer evened the mass of paper by tapping the double handful on the desk. "This read­ing, ladies and gentlemen, is concluded."

  Mutters rose like flies on a hot day from the small group, from disappointed distant relatives and modestly rewarded servants, from hopeful acquaintances, and from somber‑faced business associates. Some had received more than they'd hoped for, others considerably less. None had fared nearly so well as the late‑Hiram Han­ford's "secretary," the delectable Mayell.

  Of the servants, none seemed as satisfied as
the gar­dener, Willis. None had his reason to. For while Hanford had left him only a slight sum, Willis was heir to much more than was indicated in the formal will. He had in­herited Mayell.

  As she rose and turned to exit the lawyer's chambers, their eyes met in silent mutual congratulation. They had each other. In six months they would have the money and Trenton House. Soon they could live the life they'd endured in secret these past miserable five years.

  "Nice kitty, kitty. Sweet Saugen‑mine." Mayell knelt in the foyer of Trenton and cooed to the yellow tomcat. It slid supplely around her ankles, meowing affection­ately.

  Willis's gaze was appreciative, but it was not wasted on the cat. Instead, he was luxuriating in the landscape provided by Mayell's provocative posture: kneeling, in­clined slightly forward. It highlighted her burnished blond hair, the regular curve of delicate shoulders and hips, the cleavage better described in terms geologic than physiological, resembling as it did other remarkable nat­ural clefts such as the East African Rift.

  She stood, cradling the sleek feline in her arms. It purred like a tiny stove set on simmer. "See, he likes me. Saugen‑sweet always did like me."

  Willis noticed the cat staring at him. It possessed the penetrating, hypnotic gaze of all cats, magnified in this particular instance by overlarge yellow eyes. The black slits in their centers glinted like cuts. He shook himself. All cats stared like that.

  "Good thing he does, too. That parasite of a lawyer will be around in May some time to check on the house and his furry nibs there. Keepin' the house and roses lookin' good is going to be my job. Keepin' the cat the same'll be up to you."

  Mayell hugged the tom close to the warm shelf of her bosom. "That won't be any trouble, Willis. He doesn't seem to miss Hiram much." She gently let the cat drop to the floor. It made a moving, fuzzy bracelet of itself around her left ankle.

  "That's something we have in common." Her perfect face twisted into an unflattering grimace. For an instant Willis had a glimpse of something less attractive hiding behind the beauty‑queen mask. "Five years of my life, gone." She nestled into the gardener's arms. "Five years!" She clung tightly to his rangy, sunburned form. "Only you made it bearable, darling."

  "We're gettin' fair pay back. One hundred and ten thousand for each year of hell." He glanced around the massive old house, at the garish neo‑Victorian‑decor and the wealth of antiques. "Plus what this mausoleum will fetch. And no one suspects."

  "No." She showed cream‑white teeth in an oddly predatory smile. "I didn't think anyone would, not as slowly as I altered his medicine. Ten months, a fraction at a time. Otherwise the old relic might've gone on for another twenty years." She shuddered from a distant cold memory. "I couldn't have stood it, Willis." Her voice and expression were hard. "I earned that half million."

  "Six months and we'll leave this place forever. We'll go somewhere sunny and warm, as far from Vermont as we can get."

  "Rio," she murmured languorously, savoring the sin­gle soft syllable, "or Cannes, or the Aegean."

  "Anywhere you want, Mayell. "

  They embraced tightly enough to keep a burglar's pick from slipping between them while Saugen slid sensu­ously around the perfect ankle of his new mistress.

  "Willis?"

  "Yes, Mayell?"

  They were sipping coffee on the heated, enclosed ve­randa of Trenton, watching bees busy themselves among the spring flowers of the garden. It was Saturday, and the remaining servants were off. They could indulge in each other without gossipy eyes prying.

  "Do you think I look any different?"

  "Different? Different from what, darling?"

  She looked uncomfortable. "I don't know . . . differ­ent from usual, I guess."

  "More beautiful than ever." Seeing she was serious, he studied her critically for a moment. "You might've lost a little weight."

  She half smiled. "Seven pounds, to be exact."

  "And it troubles you?" He shook his head in disbe­lief. "Most women would find that a bit weird, Mayell."

  She ran slim fingers through the tawny yellow‑brown coat of Saugen, a puffball of fur asleep in her lap. "I haven't changed my eating habits."

  He smirked, leaned back in the lounge. "Could be you've been taking more exercise lately."

  She laughed with him, seemed relieved. "Of course. I hadn't thought of that."

  He looked at her in mock outrage. "Hadn't thought of it?" They both laughed now. "I guess we'll have to work at making it stick in your memory."

  A concerned Willis led the scarecrow called Oakley up the curved stairway.

  "If she's as ill as you think, man, why didn't you call me sooner!" Grit and Yankee stone, the elderly doctor mounted the steps without panting.

  "She didn't call me. I told you, Doc, I've been in New York all week, making arrangements for the sale of the house and land. I didn't know she was this bad until I got back yesterday, and I called you right away."

  "Kind of unusual for a gardener to negotiate the sale of an estate, isn't it?" Oakley had a naturally dry tone. "Down this hall?"

  Sharp old birds, these country professionals, Willis thought. "Yeah, She trusts me, and she's suspicious of lawyers."

  That struck a sympathetic nerve. "Got good reason to be. Sound thinking."

  "This is her room." He knocked. A faint voice re­sponded.

  "Willis?"

  They entered. The expression that formed on Oakley's features when he caught sight of the figure in the old plateau of a bed was instructive. It took something to shake an experienced general practitioner like Oakley, and from his looks now he was badly shaken.

  "Good God," he muttered, moving rapidly to the bedside and opening his archaic black bag. "How long has she been like this?"

  "It's been going on for several weeks now, at least." Willis looked away from the doctor's accusing stare. How could they explain that they wanted no strangers prowling the house, generating unwelcome publicity and maybe some dangerous second‑guessing questions? "It's gotten a lot worse since I've been away. "

  He took the chair on the other side of the bed. The hand that moved to grip his was wrinkled and shaky. Mayell's once satin‑taut skin was dull and parchmentlike, her eyes bulging in sunken sockets. Even her lips were pale and crepe‑crinkled though neither dry nor chapped. She looked ghastly.

  Oakley was doing things with the tools of the physi­cian. He was working quickly, like a man without enough time, and his expression was grim, a dangerous differ­ence from its normal dourness.

  A fluffy fat shape landed in Willis's lap. "Hello, cat," he said, absently stroking Saugen's ruddy coat. "What's wrong with your mistress, eh?" The tom gazed up at him, bottomless cat eyes piercing him deeply. With a querulous meow, he hopped onto the bed.

  "Is he in your way, Doc?" Willis made ready to move the animal if the doctor said yes. Mayell put a hand down to stroke the tom's rump. It meowed delightedly, sema­phoring with its striped maroon tail.

  "No." Oakley hadn't paid any attention to the cat, was intent on taking the sphygmomanometer reading.

  "Good Saugen, sweet Saugen," Mayell whispered. Willis was shocked, frightened to see how broomstick-­thin her arm had become. She looked over at him, and he forced himself to meet her hideously protruding eyes. "He's been such a comfort to me while you were away, Willis. He kept me warm every night."

  "You should've called the doctor yourself, Mayell. You look terrible, much worse than when I left."

  "I do?" She sounded puzzled and oddly unconcerned, as though unable to grasp the seriousness of her condi­tion. "Then I must get better, mustn't I?"

  Oakley rose, looked meaningfully at Willis. They moved to a far corner. "I want that woman in the hos­pital at Montpelier. Immediately. Tonight. It's criminal she's still in this house."

  "I told you, I was in New York. I didn't know. The last of the regular servants left three weeks ago, and we were going to do the same at the end of the month. She wasn't nearly this bad when I left." Despite the reason?
?able excuse, Willis still felt guilty. "What's wrong with her?"

  Oakley studied the floor and chewed his upper lip be­fore looking back at the bed and its sleeping skeleton.

  "I don't know that I can give a name to any specific disease, or diseases, since I think she's suffering from at least three different ones. She's terribly sick. Can't tell for certain what's wrong until I get her into the hospital and run some tests. Acute anemia, muscular degenera­tion‑of the most severe kind, calcium deficiency probably caused by reabsorption . . . that's what's wrong with her. What's causing it I can't say. She can't have been eating much lately."

  "But she has been," Willis protested. "I know. I checked the refrigerator and pantry this morning when I made my own breakfast."

  "That so? Then I just don't know where those calories are going. She's burning them up at an incredible rate. Daywalking, mebbee. People don't consume themselves by lying in bed." He checked his watch.

  "I'll want to travel with you to the hospital. It's after five. You have her ready by eight. I'll want to prep the ambulance team. We're ‑going to put her on massive in­travenous immediately, squirt all the glucose and dex­trose into her that her system will take. Try to get her to eat something solid tonight. A steak would be good if she can keep it down. And a malted with it."

  "I'll take care of it, Doc. Eight o'clock. We'll be ready."

  It was hard to keep himself busy while he waited for the ambulance to arrive. He checked the window locks and the alarms. If they were going to be away for a while, best to make certain no one broke in and carried off their valuable furniture. He was still worried about Mayell, took some comfort from the fact that Oakley told him on departing that she would probably recover with proper medication and attention. She had to recover. If she died, his own hopes for an easy life would die with her.

  Not unnaturally, his overwrought mind turned to thoughts of some sinister plot against them. Could some­one, some disgruntled relative left out of the will, be poisoning Mayell in a fashion similar to the way in which they'd polished off Hanford? That was crazy, though. The house had hosted no visitors who might qualify as poten­tial murderers while he'd been there, and Mayell had be­gun to deteriorate well before he'd departed for New York.