Ira Levin (23 page)

    "Where are we going to light ours?" he asked.

    "At Andy's," she said. "I think. The three of us. Is that okay with you?"

    "Why wouldn't it be? Sure, there's no place better." He smiled at her. "For lighting our first candles, I mean."

    "Right," she said, smiling back at him.

    "Should I pick you up at six and we'll go up together?"

    "Just what I had in mind," she said.

    "Happy New Year," he said. They pecked each other's lips. He said, "Call me romantic, but I'm glad we wound up waiting. It's gonna be one great New Year's Eve." t caret ssgSrs caret RS-SI-9

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    Tt That a load off her mind! Andy may have let obsessed backers push him into abetting Judy's murder-for which there could never be any forgiving and forgetting, definitely not-but at least they were tst obsessed backers whose goal was to do good, not his "old man" using him to win an instant Armageddon.

    She took a long, hot shower. Finally she'd get a good night's sleep. Weeks since her last one, with the trip and then Judy…

    She ordered cocoa and petits fours from room service; sipped and nibbled amid satin pillows, watching preparations for the Lighting in a schoolroom in Argentina, at the Air Force Academy, the Wailing Wall, an oil rig in the North Sea.

    The only thing bothering her, as she zapped the TV and snuggled into her warm satin cocoon, was a feeling that Andy was calling her-like the time his head got caught between slats of the crib and he called her without being able to call.

    She snaked an arm out and lifted the handset of the phone-alive and humming; she put it back down. Snuggled into the satin.

    Knew damn well it was herself calling him.

    Should have taken a cold shower, not a hot one. Mom! His voice, in pain, woke her. Daylight fringed the closed draperies.

    She lay listening.

    Felt him, less strongly, but certainly didn't hear him again.

    She refused to let herself trick herself into calling him. Went up to the spa after breakfast and hiked, jumped rope, swam-the glassy splashing in the window-walled pool masking all other sound.

    The bothersome feeling faded away as she sat eating a club sandwich in the living room, watching the Lighting finally becoming real-and so much more richly than she had ever imagined.

    All regular programming had Been suspended. On every channel the Lighting music, the Lighting logo, the Lighting countdown in one corner or another: com30:44:27, seconds streaming, minutes melting. On every channel shrink-wrapped sky-blue-and-gold Lighting candles being ranked on tables and counters, sky-blueand-gold Lighting banners being raised.

    On the Princeton campus. In a women's prison in Hong Kong. In a casino in Connecticut, a hospital in Chad, aboard the

    QE2.

    In an Oslo department store, a nursery school in Salt Lake City.

    Heads talked with other heads about the Lighting's beauty and significance, and about the discord and pain and sorrow that would be darkening the planet at this cosmic milestone were it not, thank God, for Andy, Son of Rosemary, shepherding us into the year 2000 as One Humanity, Refreshed and Renewed.

    Reporters shoved microphones at people and asked leading questions-in a Bolivian shoe factory, a Hassidic community in upstate New York, a firehouse in Queensland, Australia. In St. Peter's Square, in a subway station in Beijing, in Disneyland, Mickey and Minnie waving shrink-wrapped candles.

    Andy was probably watching upstairs. She sighed; they should have been watching together, regardless. Tomorrow night, watching the actual event with him, would be the peak experience of her life.

    She surfed the channels, sipping a Coke, using the biochem book as a coaster. Mombasa, Iraq, Tibet, Yucatan… Everybody in the world would be lighting clean, safe, GC candles!

    The Amish liked TV, spoke readily into the mike about Andy, Rosemary, the Lighting, and the joy of tractors.

    Even the dingbats waiting to be picked up by aliens in UFO'S would be lighting their candles before leaving planet Earth. There would be just enough time, a woman leading a California contingent of three hundred explained; Nostradamus had predicted they would be picked up in the second minute of the year 2000, not the first. Two goes with two, don't you see? on friday morning, calling him was reasonable; she had to finalize their arrangements, she'd never even given him a definite yes. And she wasn't imagining he was calling her anymore,- she had enjoyed a good night's sleep at last. And good melon and coffee and croissant, there in the satin. Maria, who had brought in the tray, had been more excited than she. "I feel like I'm marrying everybody tonight!" she had said, laughing, opening the draperies on an overcast sky. Rosemary tapped Andy's regular number and waited through his message, watching Lighting preparations backstage at the Metropolitan Opera House, com9:37:17. "Andy?" she said. "I want to discuss this evening." She waited, watching the scene at Yankee Stadium.

    Beep, dial tone. She tapped the Number, spoke to the chip.

    Felt good having done it. She checked the crossword puzzle and felt even better; there she was-1 across, Noted mother, eight letters. The Lighting was the day's theme, naturally, and the rest of the puzzle-except 6 down, Noted son, four letters-was tough and tricky, the usual Friday challenge. Almost forty minutes before she finished.

    He hadn't called.

    She tapped the Number again, spoke to the chip, stayed on through the different-number option. "If you wish only to give a message to Andy, press two."

    She pressed two.

    "Please record your message for Andy now." Beep. "Hi," she said. "I want to discuss this evening. Joe's picking me up at six; is that what you were figuring on? Call soon, will you? I have a hair appointment at eleven- thirty." She waited.

    "Thank you, Rosemary. Andy will get your message soon. You may hang up now."

    He hadn't called by the time she left.

    When she got back to the made-up suite, there were double-digit messages on the regular line and one on the private line.

    "Hi, do you know where that son of yours is?" Diane. "I haven't heard from him since Tuesday and the calls are pouring in. Some he's got to return-I mean, like the Pope and the President? I don't even know which site the two of you are going to; I assume the park with the rest of us. Would you please tell him to call me, or call me yourself if you know what's going on? And guess who's writing haiku about you. "Bye."

    She erased it.

    Turned the TV on. Talking heads, at combledccadccea.

    A plastic bag from the valet hung on the pull-out rod between the closet doors. She tore it open, drew free the sky-blue crepe, laid the pantsuit across the bed. She hung the other things away, and got out the gold silk blouse and the gold high-heeled sandals,- put them on the bed too. Rolled the plastic up, popping it, and stuffed it into the wastebasket.

    She stood frowning. Checked the pocket of her slacks for her card.

    She put the shades and the kerchief back on.

    Rode down to the lobby-jam-packed and noisy-and keeping her head down, made her way around the corner from the elevators to the authorized personnel only door,- ran her card through the lock and pulled the door open.

    She carded the elevator door; it split, the cab right there-suggesting Andy had gone out. Maybe he hadn't died of a heart attack after all while she ignored his calls for help.

    She got into the inside-out lipstick anyway, turned, braced herself for lift-off, touched 52. Whoosh as 8-9-10 flicked past. She took the shades and kerchief off, fluffed her hair, waggled her jaw till her ears popped.

    Remembered last time, facing his bearded chin, rocketing up with him faster than she liked-to the view et cetera.

    The red 52 pinged alight as the cab slowed, and split open.

    The sky beyond the black-sbid-brass lounge was wintry gray, darkening already at three o'clock, clouds growing heavier over distant Queens. More snow on the way?

    "Andy?" she called as the brass cylinder closed behind her.

    A woman spoke, a familiar, fluent voice, off to the left and back. "… with our continuous coverage of the Lighting. It's just under four hours away now, and everywhere, in every time zone, people are feeling a new solemnity…"

    "Andy?" she called, following the voice back toward an open doorway. TV pictures shone and shifted in the side wall of the room within, four large screens she could see and parts of two nearer ones, three over three. "Andyf" she called, along with some kids in a classroom on the screen with the sound. She pushed the door all the way open, looking beyond it to the room's other side.

    He was nailed to the wall. Nailed through his bloodied palms, his arms outstretched, his head hanging. In his white GC sweatshirt and jeans, standing sandwiched between the dark wood wall and the back of a black leather couch pushed against him.

    She closed her eyes, swayed, holding the doorjamb.

    Looked again in the shifting light at-not a visionAndy crucified, small pale horns jutting from his bloodied hair. Dead?

    She pushed from the jamb, rushed to the couch and on son of to s emary it on her knees, a hand to his chest, a hand to the side of his neck.

    Warm.

    And a pulse.

    Slow.

    Feeling the throb in the side of his neck, catching her breath, she winced at his right hand-the fingernails grown into claws, four inches of flat-headed metal thick as a pencil sticking out of the bloodied palm. What lunatic had done it? A track of dried blood trailed down the dark wood wall. were his ankles nailed too? She craned her head beside him but couldn't see into the dark behind the couch. His feet seemed to be on the floor, judging from his height and the moderate strain on his arms. She felt his chest stir. "Andy?" she said. Across the room behind her, he talked about the Lighting.

    His head moved, turned toward her, the horns curving thumb-sized from his hairline. She caressed his cheek, wincing. His eyes opened. She smiled at him. "I'm here," she said. "I heard you. I thought it was my imagination! I'm so sorry, darling!" His mouth opened, gasping; his tiger eyes begged.

    She turned to a low black console, put a foot to the floor, and lifted a dripping champagne bottle from a cooler, stood it aside. She took the cooler, turned with it and knelt on the couch again, dipped a hand into water, wet his lips.

    She dipped water onto his tongue, into his mouth; he sucked water from her fingers, swallowed. "I'll get you down," she said, "I'll get you down…"

    He sucked water from her fingers, swallowed, tiger eyes thanking her.

    "Oh my angel," she said, "who tiid this to you? What beast could do this?"

    His lower lip faltered against his upper teeth. "F-f-father…" he said.

    She stared at him. Said, "Your-father?" She backhanded tears away, shook her head. "He was here? He did this to you?" "Is here…" he said. "He is here…" His eyes closed, his horned head fell. 93aret 5zandrtandfts8and-9

    A caret a ybe he was hallucinating, but who else could-HAVE committed such an atrocity? Vengeance for Andy's betrayal of his plan? For the candles being harmless?

    Satan didn't jump out of the kitchen when she found it, or out of the freezer when she opened it.

    She took out the whole plastic drawer of ice cubes, and went with them in search of the bathroom,found it by a bedroom with another window of wintry sky, both rooms ultramesso. In the bathroom she found a few fairly clean towels, a pair of barber scissors, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol; she snagged two neckties from an open bedroom closet.

    Kneeling on the couch, she held a towelful of ice cubes close around his claw-nailed right hand and the thick iron nail sticking out of it. The nail had been rock solid before,- there was no telling how far it went through the rosewood paneling and whatever was in back. She hoped the ice would contract the metal-and numb his hand against the worsening of pain that was already surely excruciating; wasn't that how it had earned the name?

    She made herself wait, watching his sleeping, troubled-looking face. Had his horns sunk in a bit? Or was she getting used to them?