The Light at the End (26 page)

It had already had dessert.

Tuesday morning’s edition of the
Post
featured two stories of note, but only one of them caught Jerome’s attention as he rushed to be late for work.

The other one… the one he didn’t notice… involved a young man named Dod Stebbits. The
Post
didn’t know whether to dub Stebbits’ death a suicide or a murder, so it used both words in its headline and put a question mark at the end. The police, too, appeared at a loss to explain what had happened.

It would have helped if they’d known that Dod Stebbits had been turned into a vampire; that he had awakened, one night later, and found himself too weak to free himself from his bonds; that when the sun came up on Monday morning, the pain was so intense that Dod had finally succeeded in loosening one arm out of sheer desperation; that he’d used the gun to blow his brains out and end the agony; that he had
survived
the gunshot, flopped around on the bed with half his face missing for almost an hour of inconceivable suffering before dying; that it was the sun, not the bullet, that had finally polished him off.

Without that kind of information, though, nobody had been able to make heads or tails of the case. Jerome didn’t notice. His attention was locked on another story: just as strange and inexplicable, but much closer to home.
Unless it kills YOU, boss
, Allan’s voice chanted in his memory.
Unless it kills YOU
. As he slowed to a stop.

Being late to work no longer concerned him. In fact, he dreaded the idea of showing up at all. “Oh, this is terrible,” he moaned out loud. “Oh, I don’t want to be there when Allan finds out…”

But Allan already knew.

“I took the call at eight o’clock, when I got in to open up. The phone was already ringing,” Allan droned. He was numb. He couldn’t feel the words coming out of his mouth, and that was good.
If I just keep talking
, he thought,
I’ll be fine. I won’t feel a thing.

On the other end of the line, Joseph said nothing.

“Somebody’s gonna have to go and… identify the body,” Allan continued, cracking just a little. He did his level best to keep his voice steady. “I can do it… or you can, if you want to… it doesn’t matter. Somebody has to, that’s all. I…”

“I’ll do it.” Joseph’s voice: impossible to read.

“Okay,” Allan said. “That’s fine. That’s… okay.”

“We’re on for tonight, man.” A statement of fact. “There’s no problem with that, right?”

Allan was unable to answer. His breath had started to come out in little machine-gun bursts.
I should have kept talking
, he told himself inanely.
Now I can’t talk at all
…

“Allan? Am I right?” Joseph’s voice was insistent.

Allan cracked.

“
Are you crazy?
” he screamed into the receiver, “
Ian’s dead! Ian’s DEAD, God Damn it! Don’t you understand?
”

“Oh, yeah,” Joseph muttered. “Oh, yeah. I understand. I understand that I’m gonna kill the motherfucker that did it; and you’re gonna help me, or I’ll snap both of your… damn. Allan. I’m sorry…” His voice trailed off in shame.

No longer numb, Allan suddenly felt everything… the anger, the pain, the sorrow, the outrage and utter disbelief that something so wrong could be allowed to happen… he felt all of it burst forward in a torrent of tears that could no longer be repressed or denied. For a full two minutes, it was the only sound to pour through the phone line. Joseph’s shallow breathing was too soft to be discerned.

Finally, Joseph broke the silence. “Allan?” he said. “I didn’t think. I forgot who I was talking to. I… I…”

“It’s alright,” Allan managed to squeeze between the sobs. “It’s alright, boss. I understand.”

“Well… I’m gonna go… to see him now. You think about tonight, and let me know. If you don’t think you’re up to it…”

“Joseph.”

Pause.

“What?”

“We’re on, champ. You just… get hold of everybody, and I’ll set things up here.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Allan’s breath took on a semblance of normalcy again. “I don’t want to say that we owe it to him, but I guess that’s what I mean. I mean… if there was ever a time when I thought I could let this slide, that time is over now. We have to deal with this. We have to stop that son of a bitch.” He paused for a deep breath, trying to calm himself, to stop the shuddering. “Now it’s my fight, too. You know?”

Joseph sighed heavily. “You
know
I know.”

“Alright.” Strength came trickling back to him now: strength and resolve, from a reserve so private that he hadn’t even known he had it. “Call me up a little later and let me know how it’s going. I want to be on top of this. We want to do it right.”

“You got it,” Joseph said with unreserved admiration. “You got it, boss.”

An hour and a half later, Joseph was driving his van through the Village. He had seen Ian’s body, rolled out on the slab. He had identified it positively. And he had left the morgue in a state neatly torn between anguish, awe, and killing rage.

He was smiling
, Joseph silently repeated for the fortieth time, still staggered by the implications.
That amazing little mother was smiling when he died: laughing in the face of death
. The courage in that single act, that single vindication of life, made him respect Ian more than he ever had before. It also, more than ever before, made him wish that Ian were still at his side.

That was where the anguish and the killing rage came in. He’d been careful to check for bite marks on the corpse, hoping against hope that there’d be none to be found. The idea of having to hunt down his best friend was more than he could bear; but as it turned out, that would not be necessary. Therein lay the victory, and the reason behind Ian’s forever grin.

But he died anyway
, Joseph privately moaned,
and nothing’s gonna bring him back
. The loss was a flavor that sat heavily on his tongue: the flavor of bile and dust and blood. All he wanted now was five minutes alone with that wormy little sonofabitching punk. All he wanted was for Rudy to come apart in his hands.

And he would have that satisfaction. Or die in the process of getting it.

Tonight.

Joseph wheeled past MacDougal and pulled to a stop at the curb of West 3
^rd
Street, directly in front of the window with the words
MOMENTS, FROZEN
embossed in bold letters across its surface. The window was too dirty to see through, but the door was open. He left the van idling and leaped out, running up the seven steps and pausing just inside the doorway.

In the back of the shop, Danny and Claire were having an argument. Other than that, there was no one in the room. Joseph cleared his throat loudly when he realized they hadn’t heard him enter. They looked up sharply, and then fell into two distinct postures: Danny shamefaced and grinning sheepishly, Claire pouty-faced and staring holes in the floor.

“Hi. Joseph?” Danny stepped gingerly around Claire and the counter, looking both embarrassed and relieved by the interruption. “What’s up?”

“Did you read this morning’s
Post
?”

Danny looked confused. “Uh, no…”

“Read it.” He looked over Danny’s shoulder at the Rolodex on the counter. “I need Stephen’s address. Do you have it?”

“Uh, no,” Danny repeated, half-cowering as he backed toward the counter. “But I… uh… could look it up in the phone book for you…”

“Fine.” Joseph followed Danny to the back of the shop, watched him flip nervously through the Manhattan White Pages, and suddenly remembered that he’d left his van running. “Omigod,” he yelled, turning to run back to the door. “Hang on a second. I’ll be right back.”

Joseph’s feet pounded against the wooden floor and thudded to a halt in the doorway. The van was still there, miraculously; he considered going out there and shutting it off, then turned to see Danny writing something on a piece of paper. He paced for a minute, and then Danny ran up with the paper in his hand.

“Here you are,” Danny labored, out of breath. “Uh… do you think you could tip me off on what’s happening? I’d really like to…”

“I don’t really wanna talk about it,” Joseph replied gruffly. Danny’s face sagged a little, and Joseph heard a voice in his head say
stop being such a prick, all right? This guy’s on your side.
It was the kind of thing that Ian would have said; it was what Ian would be saying if he were… if he hadn’t been…

“I’m sorry,” Joseph said, looking away. He sighed and frowned miserably. “I’m sorry, man, but I’m, uh, a little weirded-out right now, because… because Ian is dead, and…”

“Oh, God.” Joseph looked over and saw that Danny was genuinely stunned. He was about to go on, to say that Rudy did it, but it had gone without saying. He experienced a flicker of gratitude for the fact that Danny intuited it, understood it, grasped and cared about it. If he were capable of expressing warmth… if he were not so ungodly weirded-out… he would have done it.

“We’re on for tonight,” he said. “We’ll need you at my office by 6:30. Here’s the address.” He dug a messenger receipt pad out of his pocket; the address and phone number were printed in bold type at the bottom of the sheet that he tore off and handed to Danny. “If you have any problems with that, call Allan at that number. Otherwise, we’ll see you then.”

“Thank you,” Danny said. “We’ll be there.” Glancing back at Claire, who had been tuning in the entire time. She turned away at his glance.

“All right,” Joseph said. He met Danny’s gaze, saw resolve and a hungering for acknowledgment there. Impulsively, he extended his hand, and Danny shook it eagerly, smiling.

Then he turned away and tromped down the stairs, heading for his van, the address that Danny gave him clutched tightly in his hand. He glanced at it, and an unpleasant smile creased his features.

Now for that little dick-licker, Stephen
, he thought, hopping into the van and slapping it instantly into drive.
Now’s when the boy pays up
.

Stephen was dripping tears on the difficult first draft of his suicide note when the fists started slamming into his door. He leapt out of his seat, and a fresh bout of bawling erupted from within him. His time had come, as he’d known it would; it had just been a question of day or night, Joseph or Rudy.

“OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!” howled the muffled voice from the other side.

Stephen didn’t know how long he stood there, his fists clenched over his ears, the tears streaming down his cheeks. He wanted to finish the note, but it suddenly seemed pointless. He didn’t deserve to live. He didn’t deserve to have his last words immortalized in the
Daily News
. And the world had done nothing to deserve them, either.

The pounding on the door got louder and louder. He knew that Joseph was going to smash it down at any moment. Hiding in the closet occurred to him, as well as jumping out the window or slashing his wrists. Instead, he just stood there in the middle of the room, sporting nothing but a T-shirt and his BVD’s.

“I HEAR YOU IN THERE, GODDAMN IT, STEPHEN! OPEN THE DOOR!”

Slowly, very slowly, Stephen turned toward the door. He watched it rhythmically bulge out from its frame under the steady rain of blows. He imagined one of those fists connecting with his face, and suicide became out of the question. He didn’t want to die. Not like that. Not at all.

And certainly not like Joseph’s friend, Ian.

He has every right to be furious
, Stephen told himself. He’s seen the story on the morning news, curled up in a ball on impact. There was no doubt as to what had happened.

Nor was there any doubt as to his complicity. He had withheld information; if he hadn’t, maybe Ian would be alive today.

A moot point. Ian was dead, and the door frame was giving out fast. A couple of seconds, either way: it didn’t much seem to matter. Stephen moved very slowly, like a man at a funeral, to the door; and in a voice that sounded absurdly calm, he said, “Joseph? I’m letting you in now.”

He opened the door.

Joseph entered the apartment with his right fist first, laying into Stephen’s left eye with such force that the art student spun full circle before hitting the opposite wall. Stephen collapsed with a groan, and Joseph was inside, slamming the door behind him as he stalked across the room.

“Get up,” Joseph growled. Stephen rolled and moaned and clutched his head. “I said GET UP!” Joseph yelled, hoisting Stephen up by the collar and dangling him there by one hand while the other hand came up to slap him across the face.

Stephen yelped. Getting punched in the head by Joseph was worse than he could have possibly imagined. The world… what he could see of it… was blearily spinning. The flesh around his left eye already felt raw and puffy; it stung like crazy when he brought his hand up to touch it.

“Why I don’t kill you now, I’ll never know,” Joseph rumbled in Stephen’s face. “Ian was worth a thousand of you, you little putz. I
ought
to just kill you now.”

Stephen whimpered and lolled his head.

“Oh, fuck it,” Joseph grumbled, realizing that Stephen was too freaked out to waste his threats on. He tossed the limp form onto the bed, picked a pair of crumpled jeans off the floor and tossed them at Stephen, saying, “Put these on. And some shoes and socks. We’re gettin’ out of here.”

“Wuh, wuh,” Stephen gibbered, uncomprehending.

“We’re
going
,” Joseph hissed, leaning straight down into Stephen’s face, “to your best friend Rudy’s house. You’re going to show me where it is, because I want to know, because I’m gonna kill him. And if you’re lucky, I won’t leave you there as bait. Understand?”

Stephen nodded emphatically.

“Good,” Joseph said, and started to turn away… just as Stephen’s nodding upward stroke went all the way back to make his head strike the mattress in a stone cold faint.

Fifteen minutes later, they were out the door, Joseph dragging Stephen behind him as they clumped down the stairs and out into the waiting van. Joseph shoved his companion in through the driver’s side, then violently motioned for him to move over; a moment later, they were rolling down the street. Only then did Joseph close the door behind him.