House Haunted (28 page)

Quietly, he entered the kitchen. Two things from here. A knife he had used and had kept, a bloody dishrag. He found and carried them into the living room.

He watched the knob of the front door. It didn't move. Silently, he went to the front door, picked up his duffle bag from the floor. He brought the duffle bag to the couch (watch the knob, watch the duffle bag), opened it, checked to make sure everything else was in there, put the two objects from the kitchen in and zipped it quietly closed.

He got up, walking over a photograph that had not been pushed under the couch (he looked at it, crinkled, black and white, 1964, the New York World's Fair, his mother in the front seat of a futuristic Ford heading to Tomorrowland, he in the backseat staring blankly at the camera, wearing a short-sleeve shirt that made him look like Wally Cleaver—which one of them had taken the picture?) and kept walking. He hesitated. The photo album was on the coffee table, open. The clippings inside,
Post
headlines,
Times
stories. A picture of Detective Falconi bending over a body. He picked it up, carried it under his arm, went to the bedroom.

Tock-tock.

He went to the window, looked out, saw nothing. The cops on the back street had regained their position next to their cruiser. They were looking at each other; he noticed that one of them was a woman. He put his fingers on the window, began to raise it slowly.

“Hello, Gary.”

His heart stopped, began beating again. For the merest fraction of a second it had sounded like Bridget.

“Don't move, Gary,” the voice said reasonably. That was why he had thought of her: the tone was the same reasonable calm. Controlled.

“Lower the bag,” the voice said.

He lay the bag gently on the floor. The photo album was pulled from under his arm.

“Your hands on your head, Gary. Spread your legs.” Efficient hands moved up and down his legs, around his upper torso, over his arms.

“Place your hands behind your back.”

He felt the cold circlets of handcuffs lock into place above his wrist bones.

“Turn around, please.”

He turned. He saw nothing for a moment. A shadow. Then a man in the shadow. The man was back away from the window light. The light refracted around him, giving only a shape in the shadow.

Gary knew him. He knew his face even as the man stepped out of the shadow into the light; the man's small, stocky frame, perfect, fussy clothes. The exact part in his thinning black hair. Piercing, serious eyes. As if he was his own father.

“Hello, Gary,” Detective Falconi said. He stepped fully into light. Sunlight produced shadows on his face. Sharp, straight nose. Deep-set eyes. His voice was calm. He smiled, a self-satisfied gesture that managed to be free of sarcasm. “Let me read you your rights.”

A dream.

Ricky came out of the shadows into day.

The parlor was filled with clearing sun from the departing rainstorm. But the light was filtering through tall stained-glass windows, making everything dreamlike.

It was in his dark metal closet in the belly of the S.S.
Eiderhorn
, during his two-day trip without food or water, that he had decided that he must be dreaming. Spook had said (he remembered what had happened to Spook—had that been a dream?) that dreams were a place where you went to do all the crazy things you couldn't do in real life. You could fly in your dreams; could be famous; you could fight battles with monsters. You owned your dreams, Spook had said.

So Ricky had decided that he was dreaming. It had all been a dream, the initial contact in Chambers House the day Mr. Harvey had been away, the shivering in his bed, the return with Spook to the house, Spook's death (yes, it had been a dream, hadn't it?), the ride on the ship to New York, the ride with the madman in his van down Broadway. What a nightmarish place Broadway had been in his dream! Not at all like it had been in the earlier dream with Ben Vereen—this Broadway was dirty, with pornographic movie houses and people who looked like they were crazy staggering about or sleeping over heating vents in the sidewalk as other people walked right by them. This Broadway was dirty, with too many cars and taxis, women who looked like prostitutes, people who looked drunk or on drugs. The lights were too bright, there were too many of them, and most of the lights had nothing to do with theater, selling Ninja costumes, hocked musical instruments, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. This horrible cartoon nightmare he had dreamed up was nothing like the real Broadway.

The ride up here away from the lights and over the endless highway had been a dream, with the moon rising over more trees than he had ever seen, the smell of the ocean vanished from his nostrils, the land flat and waterless. He had gone over a dream bridge, over something called the Croton Reservoir, had passed big shopping centers bigger than Trimingham's in Bermuda, but ugly, with bright lights flaring against their flat fronts, all the stores looking the same. In this horrible dream the van had stopped at a small booth, and the madman who drove the van, tapping his hand on the wheel to the jazz coming from the radio, had paid a toll and gone on. The night was so dark, the moon so sickle bright, the land so strange. They began to rise up out of the flat land, into mountains. The dream mountains had looked huge to Ricky. There were trees all around them, dropping leaves like orange and yellow snow in the stabbing lights of the van. The roads got narrow, there were trees all around, half-nude branches throwing leaves down at them. They passed houses, turned, passed more houses.

They turned onto a long, curving driveway, trees pressing close, and then the trees arched back, revealing a dream house: a looming rise of shadows—a deeper shadow against the dark night. It seemed to refuse moonlight, or reflect it back as darkness.

A dream house.

In the backseat of the van, he had begged for the dream to end, pinched himself, screamed at himself for the nightmare to end.

But it hadn't. The madman in the front seat had dragged him out and driven away. And then Ricky lay in the driveway with the dream house,
her
house, rising over him, and then the shadows had parted at the bottom of the house, and the door had opened. Moonlight had brightened to guide him in until the moonlight snapped off like a light and the door closed with finality and darkness came upon him again.

And now, in the day, somehow, his dream continued. Sunlight pushed into the house, dream-tinged through the long stained-glass windows, a red stained-glass circle above each like a halo.

Ricky walked into the parlor. The furniture that had looked frightening in the night, and ominous and sharp-edged in the early morning light, now looked old. Chairs with dusty coverings, rubbed frays on the arms. A pull of stuffing from one cushion on the damask sofa. A chipped corner on a side table. A maroon oriental rug worn through in trafficked spots.

Behind the railing that enwrapped the second floor up-stairs, Ricky heard a sound.

Rabbit-like, he retreated to the hallway.

He waited for the cursing, rolling ferocity of the man in the wheelchair. But it was not his door that opened. It was one on the opposite end of the house. A man came out, closing the door behind him.

He was young, short, thin, with long brown hair in need of trimming. He wore a dark suit with a white shirt and red tie. As he descended the stairs his shoes made a loud, singular clopping sound.

Ricky backed further into the hallway.

The young brown-haired man hesitated at the bottom of the steps.

Suddenly he turned and stared at Ricky.

His eyes had a glassy, dreamlike flatness.

He began to speak in a foreign language.

Ricky searched desperately for a way out. At the end of the hallway was a door. He ran for it. It swung in when he pushed at it, swung closed behind him.

Ricky was in a kitchen, spotless white, trimmed in chrome. There was a long butcher-block table under a window at one end, Breuer chairs around it. A lengthy counter flanked the table; behind the counter, against the wall and under another window—clear glass with a thin strip of ruby stained-glass at the top—ran a chrome sink. More counter space next to that; under the counter, a dishwasher, more drawers.

Ricky heard the
clop-clop
of the foreigner's shoes negotiating the hallway. He ran behind the long counter next to the table, hid down behind it.

The stranger entered the room. Ricky heard the swish of the opening door, a returning whoosh as it closed. He heard one clop, another.

A dream. A horrible, bloody dream.

There was silence. The heavy shoes were walking his way.

Clop. Clop.

Go away, dream.

The shoes stopped. Ricky opened his eyes. The shoes were planted in front of him, shiny black. He could see himself in them.

Go away!

Ricky looked up.

The foreigner's face smiled; his mouth said, “Hello?” in English.

Ricky fainted dead away.

He awoke on the dusty sofa, in the living room. He turned his head, into the fabric, and sneezed.

He sat up.

The brown-haired foreigner was sitting in a frayed chair on the other side of the coffee table. On the coffee table was a tray with a teapot on it. There were biscuits and a bowl of fruit.

The foreigner lowered his cup of tea to its saucer.

“I'm sorry I startled you,” he said earnestly, in careful, excellent English. “I only wanted to say hello.”

Ricky stared at the foreigner, at the food on the tray. He was suddenly ravenously hungry.

“Please eat,” the foreigner said. He put his own teacup down and poured one for Ricky. “I hope you don't mind tea. I'm afraid I don't know how to brew coffee.”

Ricky took the saucer, relishing the warmth of the cup. He sipped at the tea.

It was as good as Brook Bond tea, at home.

“My name is Jan,” the foreigner said. He bowed his head awkwardly.

“I'm Ricky.”

Such a strange dream.

The stranger reached out, took another biscuit.

Ricky ate a biscuit, then another. There were two apples in the fruit bowl. He took one. He broke a banana from its mates and devoured it. He finished his tea, poured more for himself.

“Where are you from?” Jan asked.

“Bermuda.”

The conversation flagged. Ricky ate another banana, another biscuit.

“Are there others beside you?” Jan asked. “I arrived yesterday, late. I'm afraid I've slept until now.”

Ricky didn't like the dreamy glaze in the foreigner's eyes.
He looks like he's dreaming, too.

“There's a man. In a wheelchair,” Ricky said. “I saw him last night—”

“There's one more besides me,” a voice boomed above them.

Ricky saw the man in the wheelchair balanced at the top of the landing. He looked calmer. Slowly, one step at a time, he came down.

When he reached the bottom and rolled closer to them, Ricky saw that his eyes were still over-bright.

A dream filled with dreamers.

“Is there coffee?” the man in the wheelchair said, loudly. “Tea—” Jan began to explain.

“No matter,” the man said. He plucked the remaining apple from the bowl, rolled his chair away from them.

“You were saying?” Jan said politely. “There's a fourth—”

“A girl,” the man in the wheelchair said. “I saw her come in early yesterday. She's in the north bedroom.” He smiled grimly. “I'm Ray Garver.”

Ricky and Jan introduced themselves.

“You and I met last night,” Ray said to Ricky. He grinned. “Sorry.”

Ricky regarded him blankly.
Such a strange dream.

“That's right,” Ray said, fidgeting in his chair. “When the candy-man is home, nobody's alone.” He smiled again. “Little poem of mine. Want to hear another?” He looked at Ricky with his bloodshot eyes. “Forget it. Have you tried the door this morning, sport?”

“No,” Ricky answered.

“Go on.”

Ricky rose, went into the front hallway. He took hold of the door. The knob wouldn't move. He looked for a sliding lock or deadbolt. There was nothing, no keyhole, no turning mechanism on the knob.

“Maybe it's
stuck
,” Ray said sarcastically. “Give it a
pull
.”

Ricky pulled at the door. It wouldn't move. He couldn't even get the knob to turn.

“Try the windows, too, if you want,” Ray continued. “Down here, upstairs. It doesn't matter. They're all sealed. Actually, it's as if they aren't there. It's like they're part of the walls. I tried to put a piece of furniture through one yesterday. Nothing. Not even a crack. There's a back door, too. There isn't even a knob on that one. Nice big porch out back. White wrought-iron chairs. Nice table, too, with a hole in the middle for an umbrella. I bet there's a striped one somewhere, maybe in the cellar. Like to have your tea on the patio, sport?” He laughed, spinning his wheels in opposite directions to turn himself in a quick circle.