Staring at the radio but not really seeing it, Lavelle said, “Is someone there?”
No answer.
“Is someone there?”
It was a voice of dust and mummified remains: “I wait. ” It was a voice of dry paper, of sand and splinters, a voice of infinite age, as bitterly cold as the night between the stars, jagged and whispery and evil.
It might be any one of a hundred thousand demons, or a full-fledged god of one of the ancient African religions, or the spirit of a dead man long ago condemned to Hell. There was no way of telling for sure which it was, and Lavelle wasn’t empowered to make it speak its name. Whatever it might be, it would be able to answer his questions.
“I wait. ”
“You know of my business here?”
“Yessss. ”
“The business involving the Carramazza family.”
“Yessss.”
If God had given snakes the power of speech, this was what they would have sounded like.
“You know the detective, this man Dawson?”
“Yessss.”
“Will he ask his superiors to remove him from the case?”
“Never.”
“Will he continue to do research into voodoo?”
“Yessss.”
“I’ve warned him to stop.”
“He will not.”
The kitchen had grown extremely cold in spite of the furnace, which was still operating and still spewing hot air out of the wall vents. The air seemed thick and oily, too.
“What can I do to keep Dawson at bay?”
“You know.”
“Tell me.”
“You know.”
Lavelle licked his lips, cleared his throat.
“You know.”
Lavelle said, “Should I have his children murdered now, tonight, without further delay?”
5
Rebecca answered the door. She said, “I sort of figured it would be you.”
He stood on the landing, shivering. “We’ve got a raging blizzard out there.”
She was wearing a soft blue robe, slippers.
Her hair was honey-yellow. She was gorgeous.
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him.
He said, “Yep, the storm of the century is what it is. Maybe even the start of a new ice age. The end of the world. I asked myself who I’d most like to be with if this actually was the end of the world—”
“And you decided on me.”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh?”
“I just didn’t know where to find Jacqueline Bisset.”
“So I was second choice.”
“I didn’t know Raquel Welch’s address, either.”
“Third.”
“But out of four billion people on earth, third isn’t bad.”
She almost smiled at him.
He said, “Can I come in? I already took my boots off, see. I won’t track up your carpet. And I’ve got very good manners. I never belch or scratch my ass in public—not intentionally, anyway.”
She stepped back.
He went in.
She closed the door and said, “I was about to make something to eat. Are you hungry?”
“What’ve you got?”
“Drop-in guests can’t afford to be choosy.”
They went into the kitchen, and he draped his coat over the back of a chair.
She said, “Roast beef sandwiches and soup.”
“What flavor soup?”
“Minestrone.”
“Homemade?”
“Canned.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I hate homemade stuff.’
“Is that so?”
“Too many vitamins in homemade stuff.”
“Can there be too many?”
“Sure. Makes me all jumpy with excess energy.”
“Ah.”
“And there’s too much taste in homemade,” he said.
“Overwhelms the palate.”
“You do understand! Give me canned any day.”
“Never too much taste in canned.”
“Nice and bland, easy to digest.”
“I’ll set the table and get the soup started.”
“Good idea.”
“You slice the roast beef.”
“Sure.”
“It’s in the refrigerator, in Saran Wrap. Second shelf, I think. Be careful.”
“Why, it is alive?”
“The refrigerator’s packed pretty full. If you’re not careful taking something out, you can start an avalanche.”
He opened the refrigerator. On each shelf, there were two or three layers of food, one atop the other. The storage spaces on the doors were crammed full of bottles, cans, and jars.
“You afraid the government’s going to outlaw food?” he asked.
“I like to keep a lot of stuff on hand.”
“I noticed.”
“Just in case.”
“In case the entire New York Philharmonic drops in for a nosh?”
She didn’t say anything.
He said, “Most supermarkets don’t have this much stock.”
She seemed embarrassed, and he dropped the subject.
But it was odd. Chaos reigned in the refrigerator, while every other inch of her apartment was neat, orderly, and even Spartan in its decor.
He found the roast beef behind a dish of pickled eggs, atop an apple pie in a bakery box, beneath a package of Swiss cheese, wedged in between two leftover casseroles on one side and a jar of pickles and a leftover chicken breast on the other side, in front of three jars of jelly.
For a while they worked in silence.
Once he had finally cornered her, he had thought it would be easy to talk about what had happened between them last night. But now he felt awkward. He couldn’t decide how to begin, what to say first. The direct approach was best, of course. He ought to say, Rebecca, where do we go from here? Or maybe, Rebecca, didn’t it mean as much to you as it did to me? Or maybe even, Rebecca, I love you. But everything he might have said sounded, in his own mind, either trite or too abrupt or just plain dumb.
The silence stretched.
She put placemats, dishes, and silverware on the table.
He sliced the beef, then a large tomato.
She opened two cans of soup.
From the refrigerator, he got pickles, mustard, mayonnaise, and two kinds of cheese. The bread was in the breadbox.
He turned to Rebecca to ask how she wanted her sandwich.
She was standing at the stove with her back to him, stirring the soup in the pot. Her hair shimmered softly against her dark blue robe.
Jack felt a tremor of desire. He marveled at how very different she was now from the way she had been when he’d last seen her at the office, only an hour ago. No longer the ice maiden. No longer the Viking woman. She looked smaller, not particularly shorter but narrower of shoulder, slimmer of wrist, overall more slender, more fragile, more girlish than she had seemed earlier.
Before he realized what he was doing, he moved toward her, stepped up behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders.
She wasn’t startled. She had sensed him coming. Perhaps she had even willed him to come to her.
At first her shoulders were stiff beneath his hands, her entire body rigid.
He pulled her hair aside and kissed her neck, made a chain of kisses along the smooth, sweet skin.
She relaxed, softened, leaned back against him.
He slid his hands down her sides, to the swell of her hips.
She sighed but said nothing.
He kissed her ear.
He slid one hand up, cupped her breast.
She switched off the gas burner on which the pot of minestrone was heating.
His arms were around her now, both hands on her flat belly.
He leaned over her shoulder, kissed the side of her throat. Through his lips, pressed to her supple flesh, he felt one of her arteries
throb with her strong pulse; a rapid pulse; faster now and faster still.
She seemed to melt back into him.
No woman, except his lost wife, had ever felt this warm to him.
She pressed her bottom against him.
He was so hard he ached.
She murmured wordlessly, a feline sound.
His hands would not remain still but moved over her in gentle, lazy exploration.
She turned to him.
They kissed.
Her hot tongue was quick, but the kiss was long and slow.
When they broke, drawing back only inches, to take a much-needed breath, their eyes met, and hers were such a fiercely bright shade of green that they didn’t seem real, yet he saw a very real longing in them.
Another kiss. This one was harder than the first, hungrier.
Then she pulled back from him. Took his hand in hers.
They walked out of the kitchen. Into the living room.
The bedroom.
She switched on a small lamp with an amber glass shade. It wasn’t bright. The shadows retreated slightly but didn’t go away.
She took off her robe. She wasn’t wearing anything else.
She looked as if she were made of honey and butter and cream.
She undressed him.
Many minutes later, on the bed, when he finally entered her, he said her name with a small gasp of wonder, and she said his. Those were the first words they had spoken since he had put his hands on her shoulders, out in the kitchen.
They found a soft, silken, satisfying rhythm and gave pleasure to each other on the cool, crisp sheets.
6
Lavelle sat at the kitchen table, staring at the radio.
Wind shook the old house.
To the unseen presence using the radio as a contact point with this world, Lavelle said, “Should I have his children murdered now, tonight, without further delay?”
“Yessss.”
“But if I kill his children, isn’t there a danger that Dawson will be more determined than ever to find me?”
“Kill them.”
“Do you mean killing them might break Dawson?”
“Yessss.”
“Contribute to an emotional or mental collapse?”
“Yessss. ”
“Destroy him?”
“Yessss. ”
“There is no doubt about that?”
“He lovessss them very muchhhh. ”
“And there’s no doubt what it would do to him?” Lavelle pressed.
“Kill them.”
“I want to be sure.”
“Kill them. Brutally. It musssst be esssspecccially brutal. ”
“I see. The brutality of it is the thing that will make Dawson snap. Is that it?”
“Yessss. ”
“I’ll do anything to get him out of my way, but I want to be absolutely sure it’ll work the way I want it to work.”
“Kill them. Ssssmasssh them. Break their bonessss and tear out their eyessss. Rip out their tonguessss. Gut them assss if they were two pigssss for butchhhhering. ”
7
Rebecca’s bedroom.
Spicules of snow tapped softly on the window.
They lay on their backs, side by side on the bed, holding hands, in the butterscotch-colored light.
Rebecca said, “I didn’t think it would happen again.”
“What?”
“This.”
“Oh.”
“I thought last night was an ... aberration.”
“Really?”
“I was sure we’d never make love again.”
“But we did.”
“We sure did.”
“God, did we ever!”
She was silent.
He said, “Are you sorry we did? ”
“No.”
“You don’t think this was the last time, do you?”
“No.”
“Can’t be the last. Not as good as we are together.”
“So good together.”
“You can be so soft.”
“And you can be so hard.”
“Crude.”
“But true.”
A pause.
Then she said, “What’s happened to us?”
“Isn’t that clear?”
“Not entirely.”
“We’ve fallen for each other.”
“But how could it happen so fast?”
“It wasn’t fast.”
“All this time, just cops, just partners—”
“More than partners.”
“—then all of a sudden—wham!”
“It wasn’t sudden. I’ve been falling a long time.”
“Have you?”
“For a couple of months, anyway.”
“I didn’t realize it.”
“A long, long, slow fall.”
“Why didn’t I realize?”
“You realized. Subconsciously.”
“Maybe.”
“What I wonder is why you resisted it so strenuously.”
She didn’t reply.
He said, “I thought maybe you found me repellent.”
“I find you irresistible.”
“Then why’d you resist?”
“It scares me.”
“What scares you?”
“This. Having someone. Caring about someone.”
“Why’s that scare you?”
“The chance of losing it.”
“But that’s silly.”
“It is not.”
“You’ve got to risk losing a thing—”
“I know.”
“—or else never have it in the first place.”
“Maybe that’s best.”
“Not having it at all?”
“Yes.”
“That philosophy makes for a damned lonely life.”
“It still scares me.”
“We won’t lose this, Rebecca.”
“Nothing lasts forever.”
“That’s not what you’d call a good attitude.”
“Well, nothing does.”
“If you’ve been hurt by other guys—”
“It isn’t that.”
“Then what is it?”
She dodged the question. “Kiss me.”
He kissed her. Again and again.
They weren’t passionate kisses. Tender. Sweet.
After a while he said, “I love you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m not just saying it. I mean it.”
“Just don’t say it.”
“I’m not a guy who says things he doesn’t mean.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not saying it before I’m sure.”
She wouldn’t look at him.
He said, “I’m sure, Rebecca. I love you.”
“I asked you not to say that.”
“I’m not asking to hear it from you.”
She bit her lip.
“I’m not asking for a commitment,” he said.
“Jack-”
“Just say you don’t hate me.”
“Will you stop—”
“Can’t you please just say you don’t hate me?”
She sighed. “I don’t hate you.”
He grinned. “Just say you don’t loathe me too much.”
“I don’t loathe you too much.”
“Just say you like me a little bit.”
“I like you a little bit.”
“Maybe more than a little bit.”
“Maybe more than a little bit.”
“All right. I can live with that for now.”
“Good.”
“Meanwhile, I love you. ”
“Damnit, Jack!”
She pulled away from him.
She drew the sheet over herself, all the way up to her chin.
“Don’t be cold with me, Rebecca.”
“I’m not being cold.”
“Don’t treat me like you treated me all day today.”
She met his eyes.
He said, “I thought you were sorry last night ever happened.”
She shook her head: no.
“It hurt me, the way you were, today,” he said. “I thought you were disgusted with me, with yourself, for what we’d done.”
“No. Never.”
“I know that now, but here you are drawing away again, keeping me at arm’s length. What’s wrong?”
She chewed on her thumb. Like a little girl.
“Rebecca?”
“I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know how to explain. I’ve never had to put it into words for anyone before.”
“I’m a good listener.”
“I need a little time to think.”
“So take your time.”
“Just a little time. A few minutes.”
“Take all the time you want.”
She stared at the ceiling, thinking.
He got under the sheet with her and pulled the blanket over both of them.
They lay in silence for a while.
Outside, the wind sang a two-note serenade.
She said, “My father died when I was six.”
“I’m sorry. That’s terrible. You never really had a chance to know him, then.”
“True. And yet, odd as it seems, I still sometimes miss him so bad, you know, even after all these years—even a father I never really knew and can hardly remember. I miss him, anyway.”
Jack thought of his own little Davey, not even quite six when his mother had died.
He squeezed Rebecca’s hand gently.
She said, “But my father dying when I was six—in a way, that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that I saw him die. I was there when it happened.”
“God. How ... how did it happen?”
“Well ... he and Mama owned a sandwich shop. A small place. Four little tables. Mostly take-out business. Sandwiches, potato salad, macaroni salad, a few desserts. It’s hard to make a go of it in that business unless you have two things, right at the start: enough start-up capital to see you through a couple of lean years at the beginning, and a good location with lots of foot traffic passing by or office workers in the neighborhood. But my folks were poor. They had very little capital. They couldn’t pay the high rent in a good location, so they started in a bad one and kept moving whenever they could afford to, three times in three years, each time to a slightly better spot. They worked hard, so hard.... My father held down another job, too, janitorial work, late at night, after the shop closed, until just before dawn. Then he’d come home, sleep four or five hours, and go open the shop for the lunch trade. Mama cooked a lot of the food that was served, and she worked behind the counter, too, but she also did some house cleaning for other people, to bring in a few extra dollars. Finally, the shop began to pay off. My dad was able to drop his janitorial job, and Mama gave up the house cleaning. In fact, business started getting so good that they were looking for their first employee; they couldn’t handle the shop all by themselves any more. The future looked bright. And then ... one afternoon ... during the slack time between the lunch and dinner crowds, when Mama was out on an errand and I was alone in the shop with my father ... this guy came in ... with a gun ...”