Escape the Night (31 page)

“I'm not suggesting that it's true, Peter. I'm just wondering if you've some buried feeling that your father might be angry at you.”

“I
loved
him.”

“Yes, you
do
know what love means, Peter—there can be no doubt you loved Charles a great deal.” Levy's tone grew cautious. “Do you think that's why you've suggested Phillip as your faceless man? Or is there something you can't yet acknowledge?”

“
It's too dark down there for elephants, Daddy
…”

Suddenly, Carey turned on him. “You know, I'm sick of these condescending, bullshit questions premised on my childishness. I'm sick of dreaming my father's death, night after night …”

“Then you can leave, Peter.” Levy's voice was thin. “That choice has always been yours.”

“I've gotten used to talking.” Carey stopped, white-faced. “My father trusted you.”

“But you're not Charles, Peter; that's not your burden.” Levy finished in a lower voice. “This won't be easy for you, as it is.”

Carey felt unspeakably tired; his mind kept drifting, seeing a lunatic collage: an elephant, a faceless man, Noelle. “No. It isn't.”

“The question is, do you truly wish to remember.”

“I don't know anymore.” Carey stared at the floor. “I suppose I'm frightened.”

“Yes, I know. What I don't know yet is why. Will you find out with me?”

Looking up into the sad furrows of Levy's face, Carey felt the ineffable kindness of this man, his father's friend.

“However hard?” Levy asked him. “Whatever the answer?”

Carey shut his eyes. Slowly, wearily, he nodded.

“Shall we continue, then?”

As if guided by an unseen hand, Carey lay back on the couch. The spider was still weaving …

Levy shuffled his notes; Carey heard their order changing, as though the analyst were striving to make sense of a senseless world. As if nothing at all had happened, Levy asked, “You feel some guilt about your grandfather's death?”

“
Charles
…”

“I suppose so.”

“Do you also fear remembering your father's death?”

“Yes.”

“And now you seem afraid to love Noelle—perhaps that she will die?”

There was silence, and then Peter Carey whispered, “Yes.”

“Do you see some thread?”

Carey writhed; so odd, that he had always thought pain physical. “If I understood the nightmare …”

“Your problem's the faceless man, I take it?”

“Yes—him.”

Softly, Levy asked, “Are you afraid he's
you
, Peter?”

Carey felt the question as shock from a sudden blow. “
Me?
”

“More exactly, are you afraid that you do harm to those you love?”

“No, dammit.” In pain and anger, Carey snapped, “It must be Phillip.”

“Do you remember something?”

“
Peter!
”

“Perhaps about Dewey?”

“
It's too dark down there for elephants, Daddy
…”

“Lay off, for Christsakes.” Trapped, Carey lashed back. “Maybe Phil buried Dewey with what was left of my father. He knew I loved him …”

He could not finish.

In their silence, Peter Carey felt tears on his face.

“It's all right, Peter.” Levy's voice was quiet and sad. “I loved him, too.”

“I loved him, too …”

Nostrils stale with cigarette smoke and the trapped stench of his own body, Martin listened to Peter Carey's silence, and then Levy's door closed, and his hour in the van was up.

Martin slid the tape from the receiver and replaced it with another. Then, with the gooseflesh thrill that Englehardt had not yet satisfied, Martin took his secret album from beneath the stereo, and stared at his first picture of Noelle.

She was running for the airplane; he had caught her tensile body in midstride, hair rippling in a coal-black wave. Through the blouse, he imagined the silken tautness of skin stretching across her spine and shoulder blades.

More deeply than the others, he craved to touch her.

“Stay back from Miss Ciano.” Englehardt's directive had borne an intimate distaste. “Once we're set up, you'll be able to see
all
of her …”

Reluctantly, Martin closed the album, chafing at those orders: this morning he felt the anger of a servant, aimed at Phillip Carey.

He disliked Phillip for what he saw in Englehardt: receiving him, his mentor had waved Martin away, eyes lingering on Phillip's face. He had slunk to the elevator like an errand boy: Phillip had stayed, sharing secrets Martin did not know. Now he sensed Phillip Carey in the small man's voice and nerves; their circle had been broken.

He had never seen the man so tender, so caring. Surely not of him …

Angrily, he interrupted his thoughts, and searched for ones more pleasing. His crosstown jaunt was overdue; Peter Carey was already driving down Fifth Avenue, carrying him like a shadow on the brain.

Noelle Ciano was returning.

Martin placed the latest tape of Carey's fear for her in his coat pocket, reaching for the door.

On the stereo behind him, Peter Carey walked into his office and demanded, “What the devil are
you
doing here?” and then the new tape started spinning.

Sitting at the desk, Phillip Carey smiled uneasily. “Out touring Bellevue?” he inquired. “You look like hell.”

“What is it you want, Phil?”

“Civility, for openers.”

“Then I'll see what I can do.” Peter Carey sat behind his desk. Turning to face him, Phillip crossed his legs; the gesture struck Carey as more remembered than spontaneous, an act of self-impersonation. “Something wrong?”

“Does something have to be?” Phillip asked rhetorically; in the awkward silence, he followed with, “How's Noelle?”

“Noelle?” Carey's head tilted. “What about her?”

Returning Carey's stare, Phillip spoke in a second voice, older and harsher. “You're a cold bastard, aren't you, Peter?”

Off-balance, Carey stabbed at the fear he sensed. “Then perhaps you should have let me burn.”

“And missed all this fun?” Phillip's quick, bitter smile worked its way through sour to wry. “You never much liked baseball, did you?”

Carey spoke to cover his surprise. “Not like you.”

“Remember the last time Williams came to Yankee Stadium, with the Red Sox?”

“
Someday that'll be
you,
Peter
…”

The memory slipped away, banished from time or place, leaving only his discomfort. “I would have been around eight, Phil—just before you sent me off to school.”

Phillip watched him. “Well,” he said with care, “it's hard to remember one's own childhood.”

“Do
you
remember Dewey, Phil?”

Phillip blinked. “Dewey?”

“Yes.” Carey leaned toward him. “My elephant.”

“I don't think I recall him.” Phillip's look turned vague. “What made you think of that?”

“
He was
lost,
Peter. In the accident
.”

“I've been trying to recall the accident …”

Phillip shook his head. “To what unpleasant end? Your amnesia is nature's kindness.”

“
Is there some reason, Peter, that
you
might feel guilt concerning your father's death?
”

“My nightmares, too, Phil? Was
that
why you sent me off to boarding school?”

A second too late, it seemed to Carey, Phillip ruefully shook his head. With a thin, ironic smile, he looked at the photograph of Charles. “It's strange,” he ventured, “what things we choose to remember.”

“Not if you love the memory.”

“I loved him, Peter. In my way.”

“In
your
way.” Carey felt a red, frightening anger. “That's such drivel.”

Phillip shrank from his expression. “It was
hard
—you didn't know that side of him.”

“
I don't want it to just be Phillip. Can you understand that?
”

“
Yes, Daddy. I understand
.”

Carey's anger drained; its aftertaste was sour and sad and guilty. “Perhaps I understand more than you think.”

“Then let me talk to you, Peter.” Phillip leaned forward, beseeching. “Please, we won't have these chances forever.”

Watching him, Carey was strangely touched. “What is it, Phil?”

“It's
you
, Peter. I wonder if you'll ever know how much you concern me.”

“
I saved you
…”

“I've been tired, that's all.”

“You've been hostile, and erratic. Oh, I know you don't much care for me …”

For a fleeting moment, Carey felt the undertow of shared affection. His uncle looked so much older, now.

“It's not that, Phil. Really.”

“Isn't it?” Phillip hesitated; Carey sensed him cup their moment of near-friendship in his hands, before he broke it in a dead, flat voice: “Peter, Barth may be offensive, but …”

“Be plain, dammit. Are you planning to sell Van Dreelen and Carey out from under me?”

“I
could
, the way you're acting.” Phillip's gaze broke. “And for your peace of mind, you
should
.”

“
I
won't. My question was, will
you?
”

“I don't know.” Phillip looked away. “You need a rest, Peter. And now you have Noelle to think of.”

“Noelle?” Carey stood abruptly. “What's happened to her?”

Phillip recoiled. “I don't know …”

Suddenly Carey saw the faceless man following Noelle: with a crazy certainty, he jerked Phillip up by the lapels so that their faces were an inch apart. His uncle flinched. “
Peter!
”

“Tell me, dammit—what's Barth got on you?”

“It's not
Barth
.” Phillip stopped himself, straightening with ravaged dignity as he looked down at Peter's hands. “As I said, Peter, it's
you
. Now, will you kindly let me go …”

Carey's grip tightened. “What about Noelle?”

Carey could feel his uncle's breath. Phillip's eyes flickered.

The telephone rang.

Carey turned, fearful.

Phillip managed a pallid smile. “Take a deep breath, Peter, and answer it. This outburst should remain our little secret.”

Carey loosened his grasp, then slowly reached for the telephone. “Yes?”

“It's me,” Noelle Ciano told him. “Still interested?”

Mute, Peter Carey watched his uncle open the door and then walk slowly back to his office, alone.

Carey held her face in his hands. “I thought you were dead.”

“I sent three post cards and a grenade launcher.” Her smile faded. “Was it those Dutch who were killed?”

“
Is there something else that explains those fears that
she
will die
—
something about
you?”

“Partly that …”

“
And now you have Noelle to think of
.”

The loudspeaker announced a flight to Santiago.

“
Tell me, dammit … What's Barth got on you?
”

“Peter? Are you okay?”

“
It's not
Barth,
Peter. It's
you.”

Carey searched her face. “Drive with me somewhere. Please.”

“This business of the elephant …” There was little need to amplify, Phillip thought in despair; Englehardt would surely know. “He won't sell.”

“Then I suggest becoming ill.” Englehardt's telephone voice was habitually soft. “The problem of
Peter
Carey has at last fallen to me.”

“I've
told
you—I don't want Peter harmed.”

Englehardt laughed softly. “In that case, Phillip, you should have let him die.”

The line went dead in Phillip's hand.

Carey stared at the white frame house. “This is the one.”

He had driven them through the sloping Connecticut countryside, snow sparkling in the winter sun; as they moved closer to Greenwich, he had grown steadily more tight-lipped and observant. Braking suddenly, he had stopped on a road lined with low stone walls and rambling wooden houses, staring at the granite pillars of a driveway.

Noelle followed his gaze to the white wooden house beyond. “What is it?”

Carey's eyes were narrow. “Phil invited us here—the weekend of the accident. Driving through these pillars is the last thing I remember. I never came back.”

“But you remember the drive?”

Peter grinned in the small backseat of his father's Jaguar
.

“It's strange.” Still Carey did not look at her. “The road kept unwinding in front of me, so that I remembered as I drove, not just trees and houses, but the wind in my face, even the exact way I loved my father.”

“Jesus, Peter …”

Afraid that she could not understand, he looked into her face, and saw his answer there. “That day in New Hampshire, when we made love in the grass—afterwards you lay back in the sun and fell asleep, naked and half smiling, and when you awoke, I was still watching you. You asked why I looked so intent, and yet so sad. Do you remember what I told you?”

“Almost exactly.” She touched his face. “You said, ‘It's easier for me to remember moments than to believe they'll happen to me again.'”

Carey nodded. “It was important to tell the truth, as best I knew it, so you'd have some chance of understanding me.” He turned to stare at the pillars. “This was the last moment where I believed that my life would be whatever my father and I could make it. After that …”

“And now?”

“I'm losing control—of myself, and whatever's going on around me. I have to learn whatever got me there, from here.”