The Night Listener : A Novel (28 page)

But I soon began to notice the cold. My toes were turning brittle in my soft-sided California shoes, and every breath I took felt more glacial and invasive than the last. I was on the verge of making some decisive move—ringing a doorbell, maybe—when I realized I had company. Someone in a bungalow across the street was watching me from the shadows of her living room. My first thought, of course, was Donna, though I ruled that out as soon as I saw the woman duck behind a curtain. Her body language suggested someone in her seventies at least, possibly even older, nothing like the person Pete had described. This was just a nervous old lady, I reckoned, understandably wary of a stranger stalking her street after dark.

Then again, I knew so little about Donna. After all, I had never even seen a picture of her. And voices could be deceptive on the phone, especially when it came to determining age. If I doubted any part of Pete’s story, why not the part about Donna being young and vigorous? For that matter, where was the proof that she existed at all? I’d been worrying for weeks that Donna had invented Pete, but I’d never once considered the reverse. Maybe Pete was the real one, in fact, and he’d created this loving, compassionate, perfect mother to aid in his search for a father, to give a man he’d never met permission to love a thirteen-year-old boy.

If, after all, their voices were uncannily similar, who could say who was impersonating whom? It could just as easily have been Pete who mailed me that photo from Henzke Street, Pete who told me that Pete was near death and needed my love more than ever, Pete who invited me here for Donna’s chili, only to back out when he realized he could never pull it off. And—perhaps most disturbing of all—it could have been Pete who flew into that terrible rage when
The Blacking Factory
was cancelled.

All right, could have.
Could have
. Even supposing that was true, where the hell would he live? And with whom? A kid that age didn’t occupy a house on his own, didn’t occupy anything on his own.

Unless he was homeless, of course, operating out of soup kitchens and private post offices, escaping his tormentors the only way he could. But how would he survive in this unrelenting cold? In Man-hattan he could have slept in an abandoned subway tunnel; in San Francisco, in a cardboard box in the park. Here the options for shelter would be severely limited. Abandoned structures wouldn’t stay that way for long.

Unless…

I jerked around suddenly and stared at the water tank. Pete had told me that it was no longer in use, so there had to be an empty chamber inside. It wouldn’t be warm in there, of course, but it would probably be dry enough—and private as anyone could want. A clever kid like Pete could have slipped through that fence the way those taggers had. He could have found his way around with a flashlight and built a nest with a pile of rags, a hideout that no one could find. And he could have brought along a portable radio to keep himself company…

Right, dipshit. Could have,
could have
.

Feeling slightly hysterical, I turned back to the bungalow again.

The old lady had moved from the window and was standing in an alcove near the back, reaching for a telephone on the wall. It didn’t take me long to decide she was calling the police. I’d been there for over a minute, after all, staring at nothing and everything, the very model of a rapist or a madman, and there was no easy way to alter that impression. So I walked away—slowly at first, casually—trying to suggest that I was just a harmless neighbor out on an evening ramble. Once past the old lady’s window I thought about the police again and broke into a run. I ran for at least three blocks, leaping and stumbling and gulping the icy air, then resumed my studied stroll, in case someone else was watching.

Where had all this guilt come from? I wondered. Why had I spent so much of my life feeling intrinsically culpable? I couldn’t see a cop car in my rearview mirror without twisting my guts into a knot—or walk into a store without worrying that a clerk would suspect me of shoplifting. Even my dreams were populated with storm troopers, righteous protectors of decency who broke down my door in the dead of night and dragged me off to justice.

A coffee shop materialized, a place on a corner that marked the edge of a commercial district. It was open, amazingly enough, so I ducked inside, grateful for its aromatic warmth and the comforting drone of other humans. It was a coffee shop of the old school, the kind that still serves one kind of coffee from a Pyrex pot along with the chicken salad sandwiches. To one side lay a hive of red plastic booths, so I took a seat there and ordered a cup of tea and a cherry cobbler while my shoes puddled extravagantly on the floor.

I would have to find the car again, I realized, but that would be easy enough, since I’d parked it next to the water tank. I would head there as soon as I’d thawed out, then drive back to the motel for a good night’s sleep. It was time to be rational again. I could make a few calls in the morning, check in with Ashe Findlay maybe.

He might even have a home address for the Lomaxes, since he had once been close to Donna and had even…

I slapped the table as it came to me. Of course. Donna Lomax
had
to be a real person, because Ashe Findlay had met her. He had met her when she came to New York for some psychiatric convention.

He had sung her praises so much, in fact, that I’d wondered about the nature of their relationship. How I’d forgotten this important detail I couldn’t tell you. Write it off to snow blindness, I guess, or my deeply preoccupied imagination. Or maybe I’d just been looking too hard for answers, forcing an exotic resolution when a simple one failed to present itself naturally.

My stigmata had begun to throb again, since I’d stupidly whacked the table with my damaged hand. I looked down at the scab and smiled at my own madness. I’d been slightly out of control ever since I’d left the airport in Milwaukee. I needed to be gentle with myself, tread more carefully in this hour of confusion. For if Pete had ever loved me, that surely hadn’t changed in the past two days; he still loved me, wherever he was and whatever he was thinking.

And that should be enough for now.

My back was to the door, so I didn’t see her when she came in, but it must have happened some time after my cobbler arrived. She wasn’t visible behind the high walls of the neighboring booth, but I recognized her voice immediately, that fusion of smoke and silk that had charmed me from the beginning. This time, though, the sound of it made me freeze like a cornered animal, as if
she
had been the one who’d been looking for
me
.

“There now,” she said. “Don’t you feel better?”

For one macabre moment I thought she meant me. That she had been there all along and had recognized my voice when I placed my order with the waitress.

But the next time she spoke, it was clearly to someone nearby.

Someone in her own booth: “You’re hungry, aren’t you? I’ll fix you something good when we get home.”

I turned my head and cocked an ear, shutting out the room tone as best I could. But there was no reply—nothing at all.

“I know,” she continued. “You love those burgers, don’t you? But they’re awful on your stomach.”

My mind was racing just as wildly as my heart. This is the moment, I thought, the one I always knew would come. He’s right there with her, less than five feet away: my pride and joy, the offspring of my heart. But why isn’t he speaking?

“Don’t look at me that way,” she said.

He’s been traumatized, I thought. The ordeal of the last few weeks has been too much for him. The cancellation of his book has thrown him into such a deep depression that it’s taken his voice. Unless, of course, he was born that way. Unless Donna had been his voice all along, telling his story on the phone because he wasn’t able to do it himself. Or maybe it was something more gruesome, something that happened later, something to do with the people who’d abused him.

Maybe they had forced him into silence. Maybe they had cut out his tongue when they were done with him.

I closed my eyes against the force of my own imagination. When I opened them again, I made an unnerving discovery: the mirror behind the cash register reflected another mirror that caught the face of Donna Lomax. She was looking down, so I risked a quick assessment: late thirties, long brown hair, strong jaw, handsome fleshy features. Not far from the image I’d already constructed. That might have reassured me somewhat had I not also noticed that she was completely alone in the booth.

She’d been talking to herself.

At that point all I wanted was to get out without being discovered, to avoid a showdown at any cost. But I knew my voice would betray me if I asked for my check, and there was no way to leave without passing Donna’s booth. So I just sat there and sipped my tea and waited for the problem to resolve itself. If I stayed long enough, she might just go on her way. She had probably come in here for the same reason I had: to thaw out before heading home, wherever that might be. All I had to do was keep quiet and bide my time and hope that she didn’t spot me in the mirror.

But keeping quiet wasn’t easy. The waitress returned seconds later with a big solicitous grin on her face.

“How’s that cobbler?”

I smiled back, nodding appreciatively but not making a sound.

“You need another tea bag?”

I shook my head, desperately afraid that the next question would require something more than a yes-or-no. But my interrogator just yawned noisily and moved to the next booth. The one with Donna in it.

“Oh,” I heard the waitress say pleasantly. “You’re back.”

“Mmm. Does twice in one day make me a cocoa junkie?” The waitress chuckled. “Not in
this
weather. That’s what you want, then?”

“Please.”

“What about him?” asked the waitress.

Him? I thought. Had I heard that right? My eyes dared another glance at the mirror, but there was still no one but Donna in the booth.

“No, thanks,” said Donna. “We shouldn’t make a habit of it. He’ll expect it every time we come in.”

What the fuck?

“It’s just those eyes,” said the waitress. “They get to me every time. You mind if I…”

“Of course not,” said Donna. “He needs all the lovin’ he can get.

Don’t you, Janus?”

Janus?
Janus!

Another glance at the mirror revealed that the waitress had already squatted to stroke the Lomaxes’ beloved family pet. I couldn’t see the dog—a yellow Lab, wasn’t it?—but I could hear its murmurs of gratitude. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

“Okay,” said the waitress, rising to her feet again. “We’ve had our fix. One cocoa coming up.”

I looked down at my cobbler, still wary of being nailed as a spy.

But the mere sound of that dog had erased my misgivings. Pete had played with this very animal, I remembered; he had laughed with me about its hatred of vacuum cleaners; I’d even heard Janus barking in the background.

It was such a relief to be in the presence of sanity again.

More time passed. Most of it I spent composing my remarks, rehears-ing the breezy, unthreatening tone I would use when I approached her table. I would admit to almost everything, I decided. I would tell her that I’d flown to Wysong to surprise them, having made a stupid assumption about their address. I would leave out the part about the water tank, which might sound desperate or even a little unhinged.

I wouldn’t mention my role in the book cancellation until I could prove my good intentions. And maybe, if Donna invited me home to meet Pete, I wouldn’t have to tell her at all. I could call Ashe Findlay in the morning and say that I’d seen the boy with my own two eyes and demand that he proceed with
The Blacking Factory
.

Everything would be back to normal again.

Had I thought a little less about my salvation and a little more about that unseen dog in the next booth, it might have occurred to me why Janus was such a familiar sight to the waitress, and why, for that matter, he was even allowed in a restaurant in the first place.

As it was, I didn’t wise up until Donna murmured “Let’s go” and rose—earlier than I’d expected—to make her exit. She and the yellow Lab left the restaurant as a unit, her companion guiding the way as her left hand held tight to his harness.

TWENTY-THREE

THE ELEVENTH HOUR

WHY DOES A SANE man track a blind woman through the snow?

Moments before I’d been full of good intentions, but now I was thinking like a felon again. I could have approached her before she left the restaurant. I could have come clean on the spot. But the very predicament that made her such a “special” person—to use Ashe Findlay’s carefully chosen word—might have made my sudden appearance seem threatening. I was much too close to finding Pete—or finding
something
—to risk the chance that Donna would refuse me access to the boy. So I gave her enough time to get down the block, then headed out the door after her.

Why does a sane man track a blind woman through the snow?

Because he can.

She and the dog were about twenty yards away, standing beneath a streetlight that wore a furry nimbus in the snow. They were waiting to cross an empty street, and the sight was so poignant it was all I could do to keep from shouting “All clear!” I wondered if blindness was a new experience for her or if the dog was just more cautious in this weather. Then I heard Donna say “Forward” and Janus trotted smartly across the street. I waited until they had reached the other side before following them.

Half a block along, they turned left down a side street bordered by a hedge with a thick cap of snow. Then another left past an open field and a cluster of low-slung brick buildings, and I realized we were skirting the junior high school. Both Janus and his mistress moved more confidently here, settling into a steady rhythm, as if the world was finally behind them and home was almost at hand.

I looked around for the star, and sure enough, there it was: a burst of blue behind the dark tracery of the trees.

It made sense now, all of it. No wonder this woman had been so paranoid about motherhood. She’d been entrusted with a boy whose grisly history demanded constant vigilance, but her resources were severely limited. She had no way of identifying Pete’s enemies, no way of knowing when alien eyes were upon him.
Of course
she kept Pete’s friends and counselors confined to the telephone. A world comprised solely of voices put her vulnerable family on an equal footing with everyone else.