A Manhattan Ghost Story (16 page)

“Take him to a doctor,” I suggested.

She smiled thinly as if at a tasteless joke. “Of course, Mr. Cray. I’ll do that. But not in time.”

“What do you mean, but not in time? Call now—take him in now.”

“Oh, you really do have a thick head, don’t you?”

I said nothing.

“I’ll tell you what is happening to you, Mr. Cray. You are an all-but-blind and bottom-dwelling fish, and you are coming up, into the light. And you are not going to like it—no, not at all!”

Gerald grinned at me again. I believed that I grinned back. And he said, “Not in time, mister. Too bad.”

“He’s always had a sense of humor,” Madeline said. “I think it’s important, don’t you?”

I said nothing. I felt like I was watching some kind of perverse sideshow.

She stroked her son’s cheek affectionately—he was still grinning at me. “Do you know, Mr. Cray,” she said, “that cold is really just the relative absence of warmth? Do you know that there are
degrees
of warmth?” She paused a beat and smiled as if I had understood what she was saying, and was happy for it. Then she went on, nodding at her son, “My poor Gerald is not awfully warm, Mr. Cray. But neither is he awfully cold. He’s just a little colder than you or I.”

I took a quick, agitated breath. I desperately did not want to be in that house.

Madeline went on, “You may leave, of course, whenever you wish.” She hesitated; I stayed where I was. She smiled again, a quick smile. “But, of course, you’re not going to. Not at the moment anyway. You’re going to stick around. You’re confused, and I can’t blame you for it. We are
all
confused, Mr. Cray. Even Gerald here is confused, and that poor man you left twitching on Fifth Avenue and those girls hailing a taxi. They are all confused. How different do you suppose their world is from ours, Mr. Cray, merely because it is the world of the dead?”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” I said.

“And neither do I,” she said. “I wish I did—God, I wish I did. But I know really as little about their world as I do about our own. One springs from the other, so I believe that they are equally complex—and equally terrifying. I can tell you what I know about Gerald. I can tell you that I love him and that he is a comfort to me, and that he has pain, Mr. Cray—oh, intense, unbelievable pain. And I can tell you that someday he will leave here; he will leave this house, this street, and he will go somewhere else. I don’t know where. And I can tell you that I used to cry. I used to cry quite a lot. But I don’t cry anymore.

“And I can tell you this, too. I used to go to where we put him, where we buried him, and I used to stare at the place he is, and I have no idea now what I saw there. Or what I felt. Because I have him with me again. Almost.” She stopped a moment, then went on, a clear note of strain in her voice, “Not to watch him grow up, and not to have hopes for him, and not to worry about him. And he will never give me grandchildren, of course. All that is stopped, I think. All stopped. Those are things, I believe, that death stops once and for all.

“And all the other Geralds are out there, Mr. Cray—they are all out on those streets, and in those houses. They are driving taxis, shoplifting, weeping. They are all there. All the Geralds, and all the men in ragged T-shirts. You don’t want to hear this, but you are being made to
see
and so you must hear it. They are all there. Whole and in pieces, buying stocks and doing laundry and watching cable TV. But hear this, too; you are allowed to know them and to see them, but not well, Mr. Cray. Not well at all. Only as well as you know and see the living. Which is why
I
stay in this house and talk to people like you. Because I have only Gerald here. And I love him—cold as he is. I love him.

“You may go now.”

And I did. I went out onto East 73rd Street. I stood at the top of the steps, watched a snowfall start, and thought about Phyllis again.

CHAPTER FIVE

And realized that I still loved her, that I missed her, and that I would go looking for her.

As if I were some kind of super sleuth. A Sam Spade. A Sherlock Holmes. And I thought it would be an exciting adventure. Something to savor and to enjoy.

The snowfall grew heavier and I vomited there, at the top of Madeline’s steps. What else was I going to do?

At the Hammet Mausoleum, Halloween, 1965

Sam told me, “So that’s why I ain’t afraid too much to die. ‘Cuz I got it figured out.”

I said, “You’re scary, Sam. Sometimes you’re scary.”

“Uh-huh. Sure I am.” He fingered the wax dripping from one of the candles. “I scare
myself
, sometimes, Abner.” He repositioned himself on the cement floor so he was lying on his side, his right hand propping his head up. He went on, “What do you say, Abner—we gonna try to call up old Joe Hammet or are we gonna jabber all night long?”

I got a call from Serena Hitchcock soon after I got back to Art’s apartment. She was concerned about me.

“I really do want to talk with you about other books, Abner. That wasn’t bullshit.”

“I know it wasn’t bullshit, Serena. And I appreciate the offer.”

“But?”

“But I have other things I want to do.”

“Have you gone to another company, Abner?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you had.”

“I haven’t gone to another company, Serena. I merely have other things that I want to do.”

“In the way of photography, you mean?”

“No.”

“Am I meddling?”

“No. I appreciate your concern, believe me, I do—”

“But mind my own business?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you going to stay in New York?”

“I think so. It depends.”

“Oh? On what?”

 “On a couple of things. On what I find here, I suppose.”

“And what are you looking for?”

“I’ve got to go now, Serena.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Really. I’m just a little confused—nothing manic. Just a little confused.”

“Abner?”

“Yes?”

“If you ever need someone to talk to, think of me. Okay?”

“Thanks. I will.”

“I mean it, Abner.”

“Yes. Good-bye.” And I hung up.

It came to me that I had to go about my search scientifically. It came to me that I had to make a list of all the things that I knew about Phyllis Pellaprat. A numerical list of things. So I got a pen and sheet of paper from Art’s desk—a sturdy-looking, three-drawer, dark cherry library desk that he’d set up on the east wall of the living room, opposite the fireplace—and I sat down at the desk and made my list:

1. Phyllis Pellaprat is a black woman, 28-30 years of age.

2. She’s very, very attractive.

3. Tall. Nicely put together.

4. Intelligent.

5. A games player.

6. Her parents live on East 95th Street.

7. Their names are Thomas and Lorraine Pellaprat.

8. Lorraine Pellaprat looks much like her daughter.

9. Phyllis was once Art DeGraff’s girlfriend. He beat her up early in December.

I got stuck there. I think that I sat grinning stupidly at the list for quite a few minutes, and then I crumpled the paper up in my fist.

Supersleuths didn’t make lists. Supersleuths had
brains
, for Christ’s sake.

I was drawn very quickly onto the street again. I remembered what Phyllis had said to me and what Madeline had said to me: “You’re not going to like it out there, Abner.” I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to make my way down Fifth Avenue, past all the little specialty shops on Madison, through the little knots of people waiting for buses or going to work, and I wanted to prove them wrong. I wanted to prove Phyllis wrong, and Madeline wrong, and Barbara W. Barber wrong. I wanted to jostle people and get angry when they jostled back. I wanted to enjoy the crazies, ogle the women in tight jeans, be annoyed by the noise of traffic; I wanted to convince myself that Manhattan was a place where the living played out their lives, went about their business, saw sons and daughters born, made careers, got in the way, did stupid things and marvelous things and then died, and were buried. I didn’t want to believe I was a part of anything more than that.

But I was, of course.

* * *

It was 12:15
P.M.
, on the sixth of February, and I was out in front Art’s house, with my back to it and my eyes on the house across the street. There was nothing special about it. It was very much like Art’s house. But someone was watching me from a second-story window: a child, I supposed—a young girl with long hair who was holding the curtain aside with her right hand and apparently did not care much if I saw her looking at me.

We watched each other for quite some time. Eventually I got the idea that her hair was dark—it was difficult to be sure because the sun was creating a glaze of light on the surface of the window—that her skin was very pale, and that she was dressed in a pair of pants and a shortsleeved shirt.

Eventually, someone came up behind her—an adult, I imagined, who looked out the window at me, too, for half a minute. Then, together, they backed away from the window and the sun put a heavier glaze of light on it.

I remembered then: “And they are all out there, Mr. Cray. All out on those streets, and in those houses. They are driving taxis, jaywalking, shoplifting, watching soap operas, weeping. They are all there.”

Phyllis, too. And I remembered: “I used to go to where we put him, where we buried him, and I used to stare at the place he is, and I have no idea what I saw there. Or what I felt.”

Phyllis, too
, I thought.
I can go to where they put her
. It was an idea that made me queasy, and I found myself sitting down slowly on the snow-covered front steps of Art’s house and then grabbing hold of the iron railing to steady myself.

I was looking at the sidewalk in front of my feet when I saw another person’s feet appear there, in front of mine—a man’s feet; he was wearing highly polished red oxfords and gray suit pants. I looked up and saw that he was chunky, red-cheeked, and his eyes and mouth were smiling. He had a small notepad and a pencil in hand. He said to me, in a voice that was high-pitched, but efficient, “I can help you now.”

I glanced down at his feet and saw that he had left footprints in the snow. I thought,
This isn’t one of them. This is a crazy. He leaves footprints in the snow.
I looked up again, at his face. I said, “No, I don’t think so.” He jotted something down on the notepad, his smile softening as he did it. Then his smile strengthened again, and he said, “If you tell me who you’re looking for, I can help you.”

“No,” I repeated, “I don’t think so. Please leave me alone.”

He nodded to his right. I looked. I saw a green and white 1961 Chevy Biscayne—the kind with the flat fins—parked down the street. The man said, “I have a car. Not many of us do, but I do. Could you come with me, please?!” It sounded like a command, which made me angry.

I said, “No, I won’t come with you.”

He jotted something down again on his notepad, then looked at me, still smiling. “You
have
to come with me,” he said, sounding petulant.

I stood then. My strategy was simple. He was maybe five feet nine or ten, a little overweight, not really very healthy looking, despite his ruddy cheeks, and I stand six-foot-two and weighed, then, almost two hundred and ten pounds. I was trying to intimidate him. I smiled a kind of tight, warning smile.

He smiled back, a smile of gratitude. “Good,” he said, and started for his car. He got a few steps, stopped, looked back. “Well, c’mon,” he said, and continued walking. I followed him, watched him go around to the driver’s door, open it—it creaked pitilessly—get in. And I found myself standing beside the passenger door. I bent over and told him through the closed window, “I’ll call a cop.”

He reached across the seat, opened the door. “I know who you’re looking for,” he said. “And I can help you.”

I got in, but left the passenger door open. The inside of the car smelled of beer. Directly in front of me was a cheap compass on a small suction cup stuck on the inside of the windshield. In the dashboard itself, there was a hole where a radio had once been. I said, my eyes straight ahead, “What do you mean you know who I’m looking for?”

The man started the car. It was noisy; the muffler was going. “Close the door, please,” he said. I hesitated, uncertain, then closed the door softly. We pulled away from the curb and started toward Fifth Avenue. I repeated, “What do you mean, you know who I’m looking for?”

“How do you like my car?” he said. “Pretty cherry, huh?”

 “I asked you a question,” I said, trying hard for a tone of firmness.

“Madeline told me,” he said. He came to a stop at Fifth Avenue, waited for the light. It changed to green almost at once. He stayed put. A car came up behind us; its driver leaned on the horn. “Uh-huh,” he said, “Madeline told me all about it, about how you got this little girlfriend, this little black girlfriend and how you wanta—” the driver behind us was still leaning on the horn—”how you wanta get hold of her again. Can’t blame you for that, those black girls—”he shook his right hand in the air—”ming
a
.” He glanced back, leaned out the window, threw the bird to the driver behind us. “Blow it out yer ass!” he hollered, then stomped on the accelerator and took a squealing left-hand turn. He hit the brake hard; I straight-armed the dashboard. There was a truck just ahead. He stared at it. “Goddamned, for crimey’s sake!” he muttered. He stuck his head out the window again. “Hey shit-for-brains-get that freakin’ piece a tin outa the way!”

I put my hand on the door handle; he glanced over, smiled. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he said. I tried the door. It wouldn’t open. I felt the sharp whisper of panic inside me.

“You scared?” he asked.

I closed my eyes.

“Sure you’re scared,” I heard him say. Then I heard him yell, “I said get that fuckin’ piece a crap off a the fuckin’ street!” There was a short pause, then he whispered, “Oh Jesus!” I opened my eyes.