The Black Tower (9 page)

Meat's mom came and stood in the doorway to the living room. She smelled nicely of barbecued pork chops, but Meat, whose throat was blocked, could not have eaten anything.

“If you're so worried about Herculeah ...” she began.

Meat didn't let her finish. “I didn't say I was worried about her.”

“You didn't have to. If you're so worried about Herculeah, why don't you call her?”

“She's at Hunt House.”

“Well. Hunt House has a phone, doesn't it? She called me on it yesterday to ask for a ride.”

“Mom, that's not a bad idea.” He sighed. “Only it's probably an unlisted number.”

“It's not. I looked it up.” She handed him a Post-it note with a number on it.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, genuinely puzzled by this unexpected kindness.

“Sometimes I think I'm a little hard on the girl. I actually felt sorry for her yesterday when we were talking about Steffie. She isn't entirely to blame for the way she is. She's got a private detective for a mother and a police detective for a father. I'm not saying a word against the father—we owe a debt of gratitude to him. He saved your uncle Neiman.”

“And he found my father,” Meat added.

She gave him a sharp look. “A phone call to Hunt House is one thing. I don't want you to go back there. Is that clear?” It was.

He went directly to the telephone. He didn't know exactly what he would say when the phone was answered. It didn't matter. It was just an I-know-Herculeah‘s-there-and-she'd-better-be-all-right call.

With trembling fingers he punched in the numbers. The line was not busy. It was ringing. He was expecting to hear the voice of the housekeeper, or Nurse Wegman, maybe even Herculeah herself. It was none of these.

“Pizza, pizza,” a young male voice said. “Our special today is—”

“Sorry, wrong number,” Meat said. He hung up the phone even though he was a little curious about the special. He dialed more carefully this time. The line was busy. He dialed several more times. Busy. He dialed the operator. He did not like to speak to operators, but this was an emergency.

“I've been dialing and dialing this number,” Meat told her, “and I keep getting a busy signal. It's very important that I get through. A girl's life might depend upon it.”

“I'll check the line.”

Meat waited for an eternity.

“Sir?”

“Yes.”

“That line appears to be out of order.”

“Can you do something? Can you send somebody out there to fix it?”

“Probably not till Monday.”

“But a girl's life might be at stake.”

“I'll report it to customer service.”

“But the girl is Herculeah,” he told the operator as if that would make a difference. It should. “Herculeah's my best friend—actually she's pretty much my only real friend, but if Herculeah is your friend, you don't need any others.”

“I'll tell customer service. Have a nice day.”

And she was gone.

Herculeah stood in front of the door that led to the tower. She listened. The house around her was quiet. The tower in front of her was quiet. Only the beating of her own heart broke the stillness.

The hallway was dark. There were no windows, and Herculeah wished for a flashlight. Or a candle. The book she had been reading to Mr. Hunt flashed into her mind. The girl in the book had also stood at the tower door. She had not had a flashlight or a candle. She had managed to proceed. So would Herculeah.

With one hand she felt for the keyhole. Her fingers found the opening, and her heart raced.

There was nothing like getting to the end of a mystery, Herculeah thought. Nothing like finding the last piece of the puzzle and setting it in place.

She took a deep breath, put the key in the lock, and turned. It resisted.

Another deep breath and a quick glance over her shoulder, and she turned the key the other way. With a click, the old lock yielded. Herculeah pulled the narrow, surprisingly heavy door toward her.

The hinges creaked loudly and Herculeah paused. She knew that anyone who was in the house would have heard that creak and known where she was.

As she waited to be discovered, she peered inside. The air that met her face was dank and cold. She could still turn back, she reminded herself, yet—just like the girl in the book—she could not. She stepped into the dark, unwelcoming interior of the tower.

She crossed the stone floor to the first of the circular stairs and looked up. Above her, the stairs twisted, snakelike, up the walls. They stopped at what appeared to be a trapdoor. Slowly Herculeah began to climb. She knew now that she had no control over the matter.

She continued up the stairs slowly, taking them one by one. Halfway up the stairs, she paused. She heard the sound of the tower door closing below her. Had it been a hand that closed it? She looked down. The thought that she might be trapped made her dizzy.

She touched the wall to steady herself. There was an eerie coldness to the stone beneath her hand.

She lifted her head. She listened.

She heard nothing, but she knew someone was up there, waiting for her.

And whoever it was knew she was coming. The creaking of the tower door would have given her away.

Slowly she took another step and another. Higher ... higher. With each step, her fear grew until it seemed to swirl around her like a dark cape that held no warmth.

Herculeah continued to move slowly, deliberately up the stone stairs. Her steps were silent.

Suddenly she froze. She had heard a noise from the tower room above. She listened.

The noise was unlike anything she had heard before. It was not a human sound, nor was it the sound of an animal—at least no animal Herculeah had heard of.

It was breathing, and yet not ordinary breathing. It was a labored, troubling sound, almost a moan.

Herculeah glanced at one of the slotted windows. She could not see outside, but maybe the sound she had heard was the wind. A storm was coming. She knew that. She had seen the dark clouds. She had felt the rain. And now she could feel the wind moving around the tower.

What was it she had said to Mr. Hunt? “Dramatic things always happen during storms—though it's dramatic enough with something waiting for her at the top of the tower.”

But, no, what she was hearing was not the wind around the tower. It was inside the tower.

Seven steps remained now.

It was just as it had been in the book, she thought, just as she had known it would be. But there would be no Meat waiting outside Hunt House to walk her home and make her laugh.

Six steps remained.

The trapdoor was overhead. Herculeah looked at it for a moment, trying to judge its weight. The wood was heavy. Perhaps it would take all her strength to open it.

She decided she would open it just a crack, just wide enough so she could see what was in the room. Then she could close it if she saw.... Her thoughts trailed off because she had no idea what she would see.

Five steps remained.

What was it she had said to Mr. Hunt? “People have climbed Everest in the time it's taken this girl to get to the top of the tower.”

Four.

But then people want to get to the top of Everest.

Three.

She could go no higher without opening the trapdoor. She brushed her hands together, raised them, and, with all her strength, she pushed on the trapdoor.

Herculeah had misjudged. The trapdoor was not heavy at all. Perhaps it was even on some sort of pulley, because the trapdoor sprang open.

Herculeah did not have time to see what awaited her in the tower room and to close the door if she didn't like what she saw.

The trapdoor seemed to pull her with it. Her momentum carried her into the tower room and left her sprawled across the dusty floor.

She lifted her head. She was not alone.

Meat walked slowly toward Haunt House. His mother had not wanted him to come here, but he had said, “I have to go, Mom, even though I may be in danger myself. I'm sorry if that causes you discomfort, but Herculeah needs me.”

Well, actually, he had not said that. He had written it.

Well, actually he had not written those exact words. The note he had left pinned by a magnet to the refrigerator door said, “I've gone out—save me some pork chops.”

The gate loomed ahead. He could make out the lions with their lifted claws.

He was still standing there, planning what he was going to do and say at the front door of Hunt House when he heard a car approach.

Meat closed his eyes. He knew it was his mother. It would be just like her. She treated him like a child! Probably as soon as she discovered he had left the house, she had grabbed her car keys.

He heard the window roll down. He waited for his mother's voice to say, “Albert Ambrose McMannis, you get in this car this minute.” And he would get in the car like a good little boy—No, he would not!

He opened his eyes, turned and stared into the stony face of the Angel of Death herself—Nurse Wegman.

Meat had never particularly cared for nurses. They were mainly used, in Meat's experience, for carrying out orders too unpleasant for doctors to do themselves, like give shots.

Although Meat would rather it be Nurse Wegman than his mother, he still could not help noticing that Nurse Wegman was the kind of nurse who would carry out the most unpleasant orders with joy.

“What are you doing here?” Nurse Wegman asked.

“I tried to call, but—”

“I know. The phone's out.”

Nurse Wegman waited, looking at him so fiercely that Meat wished car windows could be rolled up from the outside. If any engineer ever found himself being looked at by Nurse Wegman like that, he'd invent one.

“So what are you doing here?”

“I came about Herculeah.”

“Who?”

“Herculeah, the girl who reads to Mr. Hunt.”

“Oh, her.” Nurse Wegman's look got even more unpleasant. “She's here?”

“I think so.”

“In the house?”

“I think so.”

“She couldn't be. There's nobody to let her in. I've fired the housekeeper.”

“If Herculeah wanted to get in, she'd find a way.”

Nurse Wegman's hands—they were big hands—hit the steering wheel in frustration. The horn, as if startled, gave a quick honk.

Nurse Wegman took a breath. “You go home. I had to leave to make a call ... the ... doctor. Mr. Hunt needs the doctor, and the doctor should be arriving any minute. The girl will have to be taken care of.”

“Taken care of?” Meat asked. He didn't like the sound of that.

“She will have to—to go home.”

“Oh.”

“If she hasn't already gone, I mean.”

“I guess she could've, though I didn't pass her on the way.”

Nurse Wegman continued to stare at him. “Well, go on! Go!”

He continued to stand by the car. He couldn't leave. Herculeah was inside Hunt House—he knew that now—and she needed him.

As if reading his mind, Nurse Wegman said, “You aren't needed here.”

Meat wished he could be sure of that.

“Go! Go!”

Still he could not move.

“May I give you some nursely advice?” Her tone was sweet now, but the same cold, bird-of-prey eyes watched him, as if swooping in for the kill.

“I guess.”

“You need to lose some weight.”

Meat drew in his breath. Nurse Wegman rolled up the window. Not until the car was halfway down the drive was Meat able to turn and take a few steps toward home.

When he was out of sight of the house, he stopped. He breathed deeply. He thought.

If I had not just thought about my dad ... if I had not been reminded that my dad was my exact size at this age ... if I had not been the son of Macho Man and a gentleman, I would have said, “And you, madam, need a shave.”

But Son of Macho Man did not stoop to petty insults. He was a man of action.

Maybe he himself could not handle Nurse Wegman, but Son of Macho Man knew someone who could.

On the floor of the tower room, Herculeah lay where she had fallen, but only for a moment.

Then she scrambled to her feet. Her hands were fists. She was ready to do battle. What she saw caused her arms to sag. She took a step forward, moving away from the trapdoor.

Lying in front of her was a small woman. She lay on her side, curled toward Herculeah. Her face was streaked with blood and tears.

Around her lay—like remnants of an old picnic—crusts of bread, empty cups, a half-eaten apple, cake crumbs in an old napkin. Perhaps these offerings were what had been keeping the woman alive.

“Help me,” the woman whispered. She reached out for Herculeah with a hand that trembled.

“What happened to you?”

“Help me.”

“Yes, yes, of course I'll help you. Who are you?”

The woman spoke so softly Herculeah could not make out the words.

“Who?”

This time the words were clearer. “I'm Ida Wegman.”

Herculeah took in a deep breath. “Wegman?”

“Yes.”

“Nurse Wegman?”

“Yes. This man hit me on the head....” Her eyes focused on Herculeah's for the first time. “It's coming back to me now. The man stopped me at the gate to ask directions, and before I knew what was happening, he struck me here.” She raised her hand to the side of her head.