The Third Victim (22 page)

“I promised, but I’m not going. I told you that.” As he spoke, he heard his own voice change, dropping to a dull, defensive note. It was a copout. A defeat. With her money and her looks and her tousled blonde assurance, she was forcing him to justify a promise he’d made with Josh’s arms locked desperately around his neck—a promise he’d never intended to keep.

He walked to the center of the room. Standing in front of the coffee table, he stooped, poured a wineglass full of Chablis, and drank it straight down.

“I’m going out for a walk. A long walk. I’ve got some things to think about, and I don’t want to depress you in the process. Don’t wait up for me.”

He replaced the wineglass, turned, and strode to the door.

From above him came the sharp, sudden sound of a doorbell. She was already in the living room, already talking on the phone. “Tom” was the name repeated. Once. Twice. Three times.

Tom Southern, the buyer. A tall, cruel-smiling man.

The phone was clattering in its cradle. The sound of her footsteps was shuffling toward the front door. Now the soft, private sound was directly overhead. Was she walking in bare feet? Were the boards beneath the feet bare? Was the whisper-sound of flesh on wood a message?

Another doorbell-jangle, longer this time. Soft voices came from the entryway. The night chain rattled. The voices continued, inaudible.

Last night, someone had come and chased him.

With the lid of the packing case off, he was standing to face the murmur of their voices. Mixed with the voices he could hear a distant siren. Somewhere across the city, they thought they saw Tarot. With their sirens shrieking, guns held ready, they were—

The door was closing, the chain was rattling, the lock was snapping. Now her footsteps were whispering closer, closer, returning. Taller, he could touch the sound she offered.

Was he taller?

Had he grown?

In the closet, straining on tiptoe, he could touch nothing above, and neither could he now. He couldn’t reach, couldn’t grow taller. But in darkness, grave-rotting, hair and nails could grow. Only arms and legs stayed stunted, refusing to—

A child’s voice, muffled, cried out.

Crouching, knife tightly clutched, he searched the darkness, straining toward the sound. Was it happening again? Was the past changing to the present, and the present fading into the past?

Was Marie Strauss, dead, reaching out for Tarot? The two hadn’t lived at the same time. Yet Marie Strauss, dying, had conceived Tarot. So she’d never touched him. Control was impossible.

Until now—until the child had cried out—control was impossible. Because if she’d died never knowing of Tarot, then Tarot was safe. Ipso.

Except for the sound of the child, crying at night, Tarot was safe. The sound of a crying child was the single link between then and now—the one secret shaft that could penetrate, destroying him. Through this single secret sound, the two women could communicate. A deadly warning could pass between them. The men and the dogs could arrive. From the grave, Marie Strauss was blindly searching, reaching out with flesh-rotted fingers to find him with her fatal touch.

To Tarot, death could be the difference.

When he’d first seen Marie Strauss, he hadn’t known she was married—didn’t know she had a child. She’d lived across the alley in a small white stucco house surrounded by tall, dark-green trees. He’d been in the alley, throwing out the trash. With his eyes down, stacking boxes, he’d seen her leave her gate and come toward him. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d seen her feet and her legs, only from the knees down. He’d heard her steps on the gravel. But he hadn’t looked up, hadn’t turned toward her. So it had been her choice. She’d come up to him, and waited. Trapped, he’d turned to face her. He’d listened to the sound of her words, falling like small colored worms from her mouth—big worms and small worms, wriggling words and dead words. He’d seen her eyes laughing at him, watched her red-painted mouth twist into a smile of obscene invitation, unclean. It had been in the spring—Easter vacation. She’d been alone in the small stucco house; her husband and child were away, on vacation. Through a gap in the tall wooden fence, he could watch her shadow moving on the blinds. Always, when she was alone in the house after dark, she locked the doors and the windows, and pulled down the blinds. He’d heard her in the drugstore, telling the clerk. She hadn’t known he was listening—hadn’t seen him until she turned to leave the store. Then, calling him by name, she’d smiled again.

It had been her last smile—the last time she’d found him with her leering eyes.

Because that night, using the tools he’d brought from St. Louis, hidden among his books and pictures, he’d entered. He’d watched her go to bed; then he’d entered.

And, inside her house, something had changed. Standing motionless in the hallway, he’d felt the night pulsing around him. It had been his first moment of contact. For the first time he’d realized that energy surrounded him in concentric patterns of interacting force fields, flowing rhythmically to join the final cosmic force, releasing him.

Yet, that first night, he’d gone slowly.

She’d been alone in the house. He’d gone into each room in turn: the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, a small empty bedroom, and the toy-crowded child’s room, empty. The last room was hers—her bedroom.

He’d stopped just inside the door, standing motionless. And, looking down at her, he’d watched her change. He’d seen corruption eating at her face like maggots nibbling through melon-flesh, leaving only a twisted, rotten rind behind.

That night, he wasn’t aware that he’d crossed the alley, entered his own home, closed his own bedroom door behind him. He’d found himself sitting at his desk. He’d heard the energy whine slowly running down like some giant generator, whirring to a long, slow stop.

Three nights later, he’d gone directly to her bedroom. Her husband, he knew, had come and gone. He’d come home one day, left the next. He’d left the child behind. Her husband was a salesman—a traveling man.

This time, he’d crossed her room to stand knee-touching her bed, arms folded, staring down in slow, solemn judgment. He’d seen the movement of her eyes beneath the thin, quivering skin of her eyelids. He’d watched her lips twitch, seen the muscles of her throat contract as her head began to move on the pillow. With the movement, he saw his arms unfold, saw his hands lowering, fingers spread. He hadn’t intended to harm her. He’d only intended to hold her motionless in the force field, untouched. Because he knew—suddenly knew—that he could control her. Ipso.

But not the child’s voice, crying out in the night.

He’d heard the cry, seen the room begin to whirl as his eyes sought the sound, to will its silence. But in that instant, released, she’d opened her eyes, seen him, screamed.

When the sound momentarily shattered his control, blackness followed—an instant’s endless void. When he’d come back, he’d found his hands helplessly locked around her throat, trapping him, holding him fast. Her screams had demanded his death—his death, or hers. Then, dead, she’d imprisoned him, trapped him. And all the while, struggling to free his fingers from the soft, yielding flesh that held him, he’d heard the child’s voice, crying.

But upstairs now, the small voice was silent. Even the whisper of her footsteps was gone, fading in the direction of her bedroom.

In the silence that remained, Tarot must wait, preparing himself. All movement must cease, all sound must sink into silence. With force neutralizing force, equilibrium was complete. Justice would be done, because control was achieved. Only time was released, slowly measuring out the final moments, one beat at a time.

J
OANNA TURNED TO LIE
on her left side, facing the window. The night outside was quiet. Only a distant siren and the barking of the Clarks’ dog, across the street, disturbed the heavy, humid summer silence. The Clarks never let Sam, their Airedale, into the house until eleven. So Sam barked stubbornly, in protest. Just as stubbornly, the Clarks refused their neighbors’ often indignant pleas for quiet. Mr. Clark was a blocky, beer-bellied heavy-equipment operator. His wife, also beer-bellied, sold lingerie at Sears. Without fail, the Clarks watched TV until one o’clock in the morning. They’d never had any children, Mrs. Clark had confided, because she’d had her tubes tied. Plainly, Mrs. Clark was mildly obsessed by her sterility. On the flimsiest pretext and the shortest acquaintance, the subject of her tied tubes popped up in Mrs. Clark’s conversation.

It was one solution.

With tied tubes, in her big-bellied middle age, Mrs. Clark could contemplate the future with bovine equanimity.

Joanna’s eyes were slowly closing. Soon the velvet languor of sleep would begin clouding her consciousness. The sound of the siren had faded away. At almost the same time, Sam’s barking had ceased. It was eleven o’clock.

If they’d had an Airedale, instead of a child, Kevin might be sleeping beside her.

Would it have been a good bargain—a husband instead of a child? If she had a choice—if she could have one but not the other—how would she choose?

She’d considered an abortion. For almost a week, keeping her secret, she’d tried to imagine how she’d feel, having had an abortion. Sometimes her half-wakeful fantasies had been surrealistic: the fetus of their child growing in a trash container, to emerge a monster. Finally she’d made an appointment. It had been a lost, lonely week, waiting for the appointment. She’d been new to New York—alone, except for Kevin. She’d ached to talk with someone—even her mother. Once she’d called home, but allowed the conversation to slip into desultory generalities. Finally, on the night before her appointment at the clinic, she’d told Kevin. They’d been at Nick’s, listening to music. It had been a cold, damp night; a late winter’s snow was falling on Manhattan in large, wet flakes. Even inside Nick’s, she couldn’t get warm. She’d sat huddled at the small table, nervously sipping her beer and stealing quick, furtive glances at Kevin. It had seemed, suddenly, as if he were an exciting, intriguing stranger—someone she’d just met, and might never be able to attract. His eyes had never seemed so clear, nor his face so mobile. She’d watched the quick, decisive movements of his hands as he talked about the music and the milieu in which it was conceived. He’d worn a beard then, and his face had been leaner, somehow more ascetic. He’d just had an article on the art of the film published in the
Antioch Review,
and they’d been celebrating.

All day long, she’d rehearsed her speech. It would be short, simple, dignified. Once she’d even written it out on a sheet of the yellow foolscap that Kevin used. But, when she couldn’t decide whether to say “
I’m
going to have a baby,” or “
We’re
going to have a baby,” she’d thrown the paper away. Finally she’d decided to say only that she was pregnant.

Except that she hadn’t said anything else—just “I’m pregnant,” sheepishly mumbled. When she’d finally managed to meet his eyes, she’d seen something like horror in his face. It had been the emptiest moment of her life. He’d said something, but she hadn’t heard it, because of the music. When she’d meekly asked him to repeat it, he’d only shaken his head, unable to look at her. Moments later, the set had ended. Still avoiding her eyes, he’d asked her whether she wanted to leave. Nodding, she’d gotten awkwardly to her feet. She’d suddenly felt as if she didn’t belong there—or anywhere else. It had been the same feeling she’d sometimes experienced as a girl, yearning to join an aloof group of children who wouldn’t let her play with them.

But then she’d felt his hands on her shoulders. He’d stepped quickly around the table to help her with her coat. It had been the first time he’d ever helped her so conscientiously—so gently. Instantly, she’d recognized the gesture for what it was: the ancient expression of the male’s solicitude for the woman who carried his child.

Two weeks later, they’d been married.

And now, after seven years, Josh was sleeping in the next room—happily sleeping, for the first time in weeks. All day long, he’d had his father. And, to prove it, there was a new bolt on the kitchen door. A dozen times, Josh had strode self-importantly to the bolt and flicked it smartly back and forth. Twice he’d lectured her on its operation while she and Kevin smiled at each other above his head.

She yawned, burrowing into the pillow.

Was he drunk?

Merely tipsy?

Morosely tipsy?

He shifted his gaze to the rose-tinted mirror. It was the same mirror he’d stared into last night, taking maudlin stock of himself. Down the bar, last night’s blonde with the bleary eyes was raising her glass to a thin, sad-looking man beside her. It was a ludicrously porcine imitation of the gay, carefree courtesan—La Traviata at the neighborhood bar.

Did the blonde realize that, last night, she’d briefly been a character in a Kevin Rossiter script?

The Long Way Home:
the story of a young man’s search for identity and fulfillment in the hostile world of materialism and cupidity.

Was it still a young man’s search?

Was thirty still young? Could he still qualify for the lead in his own opus? At age twenty-three, with a critically acclaimed off-Broadway success, he could have qualified. At age twenty-three, sitting in this same bar last night, staring into this same rose-colored mirror, he could have cheerfully diddled Mephistopheles, disguised as a greasy-fingered laborer. The drinks would have been on the devil, no strings attached.

Drinks on the Devil
…

It was another promising title—another title without a story. Would Ionesco be interested? Beckett? Collaboration was always a possibility. Every playwright, after all, needed a title. Therefore, he could become the Title Man—the Great Title Collaborator, with apologies to George S. Kaufman. He would print titles on slips of paper—hundreds, thousands of slips. Then he would present himself on his colleague’s doorstep as a scarecrow figure, literally stuffed with ideas. The proof would protrude from pockets, sleeves, pants cuffs, and collar band.