The Dark House (11 page)

The telephone rang. Rollins looked at the phone for a moment before he approached it. It was past ten, late for a call by almost any standard. The telephone rang twice more, then Rollins picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

He received no answer. He listened for the sound of breathing, but heard only dead air. “Marj?” he asked finally. “That you?” He had a queer feeling that it was, but there was no response from the other end of the line. Rollins clutched the receiver with both hands, as if it were Marj's hand. “Marj?” he asked again, a little quieter this time. Still no answer. He almost replaced the receiver, but then couldn't bear to
break his tenuous connection to this sylph. He brought the mouthpiece close to his lips, spoke softly. He wanted these words to enter her consciousness the way her breath had filled his car. “I never know what to say to you, Marj. I always say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing.” Then it occurred to him that it might not be Marj at all. It might in fact be Sloane, or the gaunt man, calling to frighten or to plague him. He froze for a second, then he hung up the receiver and stepped back from the telephone, eyeing it.

A few minutes passed. His eyes were still fixed on the old-fashioned phone when it rang again. Extraordinary. It felt as though he had somehow willed the telephone to ring. He watched the phone ring once, twice, three times. Rollins finally picked it up. “Hello,” he said warily.

“It's your mother.” Her aristocratic voice, with its cool elegance, brought back the full image of the woman who had always styled herself a great lady. Even at this hour, Jane Rollins' voice had pearls in it, freshly polished silver, and thick linen napkins folded just so. But it did nothing to allay his anxieties. He was grateful, at least, that she hadn't addressed him by name.

“Everything all right?” Rollins and his mother didn't speak very often. Hearing her, he had to think that there must be some family crisis afoot.

“I just thought I'd give you a chance to wish me a happy birthday.”

“Oh, that.” Rollins lightened momentarily, but then he felt disturbed all over again that he could have forgotten such a thing. He quickly checked the little calendar that was propped up on a shelf in the bookcase. Today's date, the twenty-ninth, was surrounded by a jagged square of red he'd placed there at the first of the year. “I'm awfully sorry, Mother. Happy birthday.”

Rollins was suddenly alarmed at the thought that his mother might have heard his cries for Marj. “You didn't just call, by any chance?”

“No, why?”

“The phone rang but there was no one there.”

“Oh, I get those all the time. I just hang up.”

On his birthday calls to Mother, Rollins sometimes sang a bit of the “Happy Birthday” song, slightly off-key. As the oldest child, he'd always led the singing in the family, after his father had left. It had
cheered him to think that he had a few family traditions to fall back on. But now, he didn't quite have the heart for it. Without that routine, though, Rollins realized he was obliged to say something personal to his mother, something beyond “Hello,” or “How are you?” He wished that he could merely stay on the line with her without speaking. For as long as he could remember, words had been a strain between them.

“You sitting down now?” Rollins asked.

“Why, has something happened?”

“Oh, no. I just wanted to be able to picture you better, that's all.”

There was a playful quality to her reply: “Well, if you must know, I'm on the red sofa by the telephone in my living room.” He envisioned her in her apartment there at her retirement center, Maple Hill. A small place, crammed with elegant furniture. While he saw her in Boston every few months, he had visited her there only once, two years before. It was shortly after Richard (always better at doing the right thing) had helped move her in following the death of their stepfather, Albert Crossan, a retired concrete supplier whom his mother had met at a bridge party when Rollins was in his late teens. It was Crossan who'd lured her down to Farmington, where he had a big modern house with a swimming pool. Rollins had found Maple Hill utterly depressing, what with all the ghostly geriatrics drifting down endless corridors or going through the motions in the dining room as they waited for the end to come. He suspected his mother did, too. Still, admirably, she had managed to retain a bit of grandeur there, even in her reduced circumstances.

“You remember, it used to be in the library in Brookline,” his mother continued.

“I remember it well.” Rollins could see her sitting there by herself before dinner in front of the fire in the postdivorce years. A highball would be in her hand, one of the fine crystal ones that were not to be used by the children. She was not to be bothered, that was clear, but she could be watched, slowly sipping her two fingers of bourbon, heavy on the ice.

“I'm on my leather chair,” Rollins told her.

“Oh, that old thing you got at the dump.”

“It was a rummage sale, Mother.”

A light exchange, but it brought back other, heavier ones—accusations of hers that he had parried, more or less skillfully, through the years. Aftertremors of the one great shock of their lives—that's how he thought of them.

They discussed the weather for a few minutes, and his mother caught Rollins up on the news that Richard's wife, Susan, was thinking of going back to her job managing a chain of high-end housewares shops. “Now listen,” his mother concluded. “I'm coming to Boston tomorrow to see Mr. Grove”—he was the family trust officer at Richardson Brothers—“about some investment decisions. I thought we might get together for lunch afterward.”

It didn't surprise Rollins that his mother would take such an active role in her financial affairs at her advanced age, or that she would be able to arrange to meet with Mr. Grove on a Saturday morning. It surprised him only that she would save this piece of business for last. He wondered if their conversation had actually been some kind of test—and if this final overture had meant he'd passed or failed it. Had his mother detected some changes in him, ones that she thought she'd better monitor closer at hand?

“That would be fine,” Rollins told her.

They worked out the time: Eleven-thirty in the grand Richardson offices at Post Office Square. “Please don't be late, darling,” Mrs. Rollins closed. “You know how I hate waiting.”

Afterward, Rollins couldn't get comfortable as he lay down on his bed atop the covers. He returned to the telephone and after consulting directory assistance for M. Simmons in Brighton, he dialed Marj's number. He'd extinguished all the lights except for the lamp by the telephone chair. He needed near darkness for this. He was wearing only his pajamas, a fresh white pair, with pale blue piping around the cuffs. When the call went through, he leaned back on the big leather chair. His right hand held the receiver; his left lay on his soft belly as Marj's phone rang—with a seductive, purring sound—four times. Then there was a click and an answering machine came on: “You know what to do.” That was followed by a long beep. Rollins hung up without a word, then dialed her number twice more, just to hear her voice.

R
ollins felt feverish that night. He was afraid that he'd caught something from young Heather. He slept little, and his few dreams seemed rushed. In the morning, the sheets were tangled and damp with sweat.

It was still raining. He could hear the steady, static-like hiss outside his windows, and there was a grayness to the light around his shades. Since it wasn't yet seven on a Saturday morning, he lay in bed until his old worries returned, starting with the Mancusos. Once again, he hadn't heard them come in during the night. But then, he had slept some this time.

He splashed some water on his face, pulled on his bathrobe, and crept down the hall to listen at their door. He heard nothing. “Tina? Heather?” he called out. “You there?” He kept seeing the little girl's pale, moist face as she descended the stairs.

When no one answered, he returned to his apartment and picked up the telephone. He dialed the patient information line at the MGH. When the operator came on, he told her he was trying to reach his daughter, Heather Mancuso. Lying was becoming automatic now. Rollins could hear the click of keys in the background, then a pause.

“How are you spelling Mancuso?”

Rollins told her with a
c
and an
s
. He couldn't think of any other way.

“I'm sorry, there's no listing. You sure she's an in-patient?”

“Yes, of course. Her mother brought her in.” Rollins felt almost indignant.

“And when was that?”

“Two nights ago.”

Rollins heard more keys click.

“I'm sorry. We have no record of a Heather Mancuso on that night either. Perhaps she went to another hospital?”

“Her mother said the MGH.”

“Well, we have no record of her being here, sir.”

Rollins hung up and tried four other hospitals in the area. He described himself as Heather's uncle, godfather, and twice as her elementary school principal. No other hospital had any record of Heather Mancuso, either.

 

On Saturdays, Rollins usually went out for breakfast at a local cafe. With the rain, he was tempted to stay in, but when he checked the refrigerator, he saw that he was all out of coffee beans, and the muffins he'd been counting on were moldy. Just for a moment, he wished that things might get done in his apartment without his being the one to do them. Perhaps he needed a maid. His parents had always employed a cook and a housekeeper, along with their factotum, Gabe. Such assistance hadn't, in fact, been in style when he was a child, but his father, whose own childhood had been spent only on the edges of the privileged life, had insisted on it, and his mother had quickly warmed to all the help. She had, in fact, become quite magisterial with the small staff. Unfortunately, given the size of his apartment, Rollins realized that it
would be ridiculous to have even a part-timer come in. There was barely enough room for Rollins himself.

He wondered if Marj was any good at cooking. Somehow, he doubted it.

He took a shower and, while he was at it, knelt down to clean some grime out of the drain while the warm water pounded on his shoulders and neck. He shaved in the shower, then stepped out and toweled off.

As he was about to leave the bathroom, he noticed that the door was slightly ajar. He'd been pretty sure that he had shut it tight behind him when he'd come in. He secured the towel around him and pushed the door open. He felt a cool breeze on his chest and still-damp underarms as he peered out into his bedroom. “Hello?” he called out. Everything seemed the same: the unmade bed, his clothes draped over the chair by the window, the drapes pulled tight.

He pulled on a polo shirt from his bureau and stepped into a pair of undershorts, then advanced toward his closet. “Hello?” he asked again, feeling a little foolish this time, as he approached the closed closet door. Still, he thought that he should have something in his hand, some weapon, but nothing came to mind except an old tennis racquet in the front hall. He placed his hand on the doorknob and eased the door open. He braced himself, but no attack came. Nothing moved in his closet. He carefully parted the clothes on their hangers to examine the back. There was no sign of anyone, just his usual array of dusty old shoes, an abandoned TV, and a few cardboard boxes filled with winter clothes. He grabbed a pair of khakis off the hanger, and pulled them on. He felt better, but he still checked under the bed. Nothing.

He ventured into the other parts of the apartment. Nothing was amiss in the living room or in the kitchen. He pushed aside the coats in the front hall closet, just to be sure. The locks were still secured on the front door. Everything appeared to be in order.

He absolutely had to relax.

He returned to his bedroom, put on a pair of foul-weather shoes, then added a windbreaker from its hook in the front hall closet. He checked the locks on the windows before he went out, then was careful to set the burglar alarm and dead-bolt his door behind him.

The cafe was down past the laundromat; it was a small place called Della Rosa's. There were just a few people inside, most of them paging through newspapers. He found a seat by a window. He ordered a cappuccino and one of the flaky pastries he'd seen out on the counter.

The waitress brought him his food a few minutes later. She was youngish, in a tight tie-dyed T-shirt. She asked him if his name was Rollins by any chance.

Rollins felt a twinge at the back of his neck. “That's right.”

“I thought it was you.” She smiled. “A friend of yours came in.” She made it sound like good news.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, some guy. Didn't give his name. Asked about you. Said he hadn't seen you in a while. He'd tried to call, but I guess you don't have an answering machine.”

Rollins asked her what the man looked like, and, after pausing for a second to think, the waitress said, “Real skinny, that's all I remember.”

Rollins felt those words in his stomach. “Mustache?” He dragged an index finger across his upper lip.

“Yeah, that's right!” The woman nearly shouted.

“What did he want?”

“Just if I'd seen you around.”

Rollins waited. He sensed he wouldn't have to ask many questions to keep her talking.

“I told him, sure, I'd seen you in here a couple times. You live around here, right?”

Rollins glanced around the cafe. No one seemed to be paying much attention. He nodded.

“Yeah, thought so. Nice of him to check up on you, huh?”

“Isn't it.” Rollins' mind drifted back to the sight of the gaunt man disappearing around the corner just a few blocks away.

The waitress moved back to the counter. Rollins had lost his appetite. He didn't finish his coffee or his pastry. He got up to go. When he reached the register, the waitress asked him if “that guy” had ever gotten in touch with him.

“Yes he did, actually.” Rollins paid the bill and added a decent tip.
“Just the other day. He didn't say anything about coming around here, though. When did you see him?”

“Yesterday, I think it was. No, wait, the day before. I didn't work yesterday.”

That must have been Thursday. Through Marj's binoculars, Rollins had seen the gaunt man talking to Sloane that very night. They might have been talking about him after all.

“How funny,” the waitress said.

Rollins wasn't sure he followed.

“'Cuz, like, he'd just seen you.”

Rollins smiled, doing his best to keep his composure.

“Well, tell him hi for me next time you see him, okay?” she called after him.

“He knows your name?”

“Everybody does. It's Leeann. Pleased to meet you.” She smiled.

Outside, the rain had let up. As he walked along, he was aware of his body, of the bodies of the other people he passed. None of them seemed especially lean, none had mustaches. He hurried down the sidewalk, took a right on Hanover. The rain must have backed up traffic downtown, because the street was choked with cars in both directions. He searched the faces of the drivers and was glad not to recognize anyone. When he reached the door to his apartment building, he clung to the knob for a second, grateful for its cool solidity, before he gave it a twist and stepped inside.

The staircase lights were still out, and it took his eyes a while to adjust to the dimness. At first, there seemed to be a bag of some sort on the front stairs. But then he saw that it was a little girl in a brown dress that reached barely to her knees. It was Heather. A teddy bear was perched on the step beside her. “Hi, mister,” she called out to him. “Wanna play Old Maid? I've got the cards in here someplace.” She rummaged around inside a purple knapsack beside her.

“Heather? That you?” He felt a lifting inside him.

“Yup.”

“You okay? How's the fever?”

“I cooled down. I'm fine now.”

“Where's your mother?”

“Out.”

“And she just left you here?” That was puzzling. Whatever else she was, Tina had seemed like a devoted mother.

“I was upstairs, but I got kinda itchy.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on the shoulder of her dress, then pulled a hand out of her bag. “Oh, here they are. See?” She showed Rollins the Old Maid pack. “C'mon, just one game?” She sniffled again. Rollins handed her a handkerchief from his back pocket. She thanked him and blew her nose into it. She started to hand it back.

“You can keep it,” Rollins said.

“Really?”

Rollins nodded, and she zipped it into the pouch of her backpack. “Thanks, mister,” she said.

Rollins didn't feel safe with her there, so close to the front door. He offered to play upstairs, but Heather said it was boring in her apartment with all the stupid boxes. So he suggested they go to his place. Heather, of course, had no idea how rare it was to receive such an invitation. Still, she brightened as if she had been given a free ticket to Disneyland. She stuffed her teddy bear and Old Maid cards into her knapsack as if she were packing for a long trip, then followed Rollins up the stairs. Her sneakers, with their untied laces, hardly made any sound.

Heather showed no particular interest in the lavish furnishings in Rollins' apartment. She merely dropped her knapsack on the floor just inside the door, wiped her hands on her dress, and asked if he had anything to eat.

Rollins led Heather back into the narrow kitchen. He thought for a moment of offering her the remains of some Thai take-out in his refrigerator, but decided instead on some Milano cookies, which he set out for her on a saucer as if she were a stray kitten. The candlesticks were still out on the table, and he'd propped the original notepaper with the strange seven-digit number back up on it, along with the return fax. He'd been looking at them at odd moments, waiting for inspiration. Now, he quickly snatched them up and set them aside in a pile before she, too, was drawn into the mystery. But it was too late.

“What are those?” Heather asked.

“Nothing important.”

“They looked important.”

“Well, they aren't really.”

Heather took a bite of cookie. “Then why don't you throw them out?”

“I probably should.”

Heather stopped chewing for a moment. “Then why don't you?” She was a persistent little thing.

“I will later, all right? Do you want any milk?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then.” He could feel himself loosening up. He was surprised how much he was enjoying this, the back-and-forth, the sound of another voice echoing off the pale yellow walls in the kitchen, the actual presence of another person—albeit a small, young one—to fuss over and be startled by.

Rollins checked the refrigerator. He had a carton, but, when he took a sniff, discovered that the milk had gone bad. “Sorry,” he said. “Do you suppose water would be okay?”

“Sure.” She sounded disappointed.

He set down a glass. The cookies were gone. “You
were
hungry,” Rollins said.

“Yeah, I was!” Heather brushed off a few crumbs that had stuck to the corner of her mouth. He set out the rest of the bag, but Heather said she needed to use the bathroom.

Rollins ushered her through the sitting room toward his bedroom. He couldn't get over how small she was, how light on her feet. He kept thinking how forbidding his antiques must look to her, just as they had looked to him as a child. But she said nothing about them and merely tagged along behind him without a sound. He paused for a moment before pushing open the bedroom door. It was dark inside, with the shades drawn, and he had to click on the light. He was afraid she might ask about the long row of tapes over his bed, but, instead, as she stepped inside, she fixed on his pictures of antique cars. “These yours?” she asked, bringing her nose right up to them.

“The pictures are,” he replied. “Not the cars.”

“I like that one.” She pressed a finger on the 1937 Pierce-Arrow, leaving a light smudge on the glass.

“Me, too.” He left the smudge there, glad to have something to remember her by. The car had belonged to Rollins' grandfather. He used to take Rollins driving around his Dover estate when Rollins was very young. The property had seemed to him to be the size of a small town; they could drive around almost forever, a plaid blanket over their legs against the early morning chill. But, like so many things, that had all stopped with Stephanie's death; after that, Rollins seemed to spend all his spare time with child psychiatrists, when he would have much preferred to be tooling around with Gramps in the Pierce-Arrow.

Rollins went on to the bathroom to flip on the light over the sink. Heather followed closely behind him. But Rollins withdrew well before she made her way to the toilet. He told her he would be outside if she needed him. He was sitting at the foot of the bed when Heather came back out. She dug a finger under the waistband of her dress. She was such a pretty girl, with her golden yellow hair and sky blue eyes; Rollins felt happy just to look at her. Aside from the rare get-togethers with Richard's kids, he saw so few children. He patted the bed again. “Come here, would you?”