A Manhattan Ghost Story (3 page)

As luck would have it, that Halloween night it was raining, and as the two of us stood at the bottom of the hill looking up—the roof and upper walls of the mausoleum were reflecting the headlights of cars on Route 23A—I said, “Jees, Sam, I don’t know about this.”

He chuckled. It was his duty to chuckle at the scared kid; it was supposed to make the scared kid feel more secure. It didn’t. “What the hell could happen to us, Abner?” he said. “Tell me what could happen.”

I pointed stiffly at the hill. “I could get hurt pretty bad up there, Sam,
that’s
what could happen.”

“How? By sliding down a hill? C’mon, Abner!”

We started up the hill a couple of minutes later.

We made it to the top, of course, though with a great deal of effort, and only after we’d both gotten ourselves filthy as hell and burned on an unexpected growth of stinging nettle halfway to the top (plants that had been put there, Sam suggested, by the Hammets themselves as a way of keeping people away from their “dead relations”).

But when we got to the top and stood in the rain fifty feet from the mausoleum, I had to admit that the climb was more than worth the effort and the pain.

“Look at that, Abner,” Sam whispered in awe. “Just like outa
The Fall of the House of Usher
or something, right?”

“Right,” I agreed.

“You seen that, haven’t ya?”

“Seen what?” I asked.

He wasn’t listening. He started for the mausoleum—the cat’s skull, the Ouija Board, and six new, white candles in a black plastic bag that he held tightly under his right arm. He also had a number of Mallo Cups in the bag. Sam was addicted to Mallo Cups. He ate no other candy. “Mallo Cups are the best, Abner,” he told me time and time again. He had, in fact, a constant, weak chocolate/marshmallow smell about him.

I followed him to the mausoleum. I had a pair of pliers and two screwdrivers—a large Phillips head and a larger slotted screwdriver—in my coat pocket. Our strategy was to unscrew one of the windows and climb in; we felt certain that the door was going to be locked. But the windows—two of them; one high on the north wall, one high on the east wall—had been screwed in from the inside. And the door was indeed locked.

“Jesus,” Sam breathed. He was leaning against the east wall, rain dripping into his eyes, the glare of car headlights on Route 23A hitting him every few seconds. I stood next to him and said “Jesus,” too.

“Goddamnit!” he said.

“Goddamnit!” I said.

“We’ll have to break in, Abner.”

I said nothing.

“I didn’t come all the way up that fucking hill for nothing. We’re going to have to break in.”

“How?” I whispered.

“We’ll jimmy the padlock.”

“How?” I whispered again.

 “With the screwdrivers,” he said.

“They’re my father’s screwdrivers, Sam. What if they break?”

“They won’t break.”

“Yeah, I know—but what if they do?”

“Wimp,” he said.

We were working at the padlock seconds later. And, thanks to several decades worth of rust, we were inside the mausoleum within minutes.

The first thing I said was, “I don’t want to be here, Sam.” It smelled bad; it smelled of damp wood.

Sam chuckled again, but it was quick and unconvincing, and there was a slight tremor to it. “Sure you don’t, Abner,” he said.

“Why are we here, Sam? There’s nothin’ here!” There were six vaults, three on the east wall, three on the west wall. Each vault had a heavy, dark metal door in front of it and a small metal plaque beneath with the name, birth date and date of death of the person within. We read each one—”Langley Hammet: October 12, 1873—October 15, 1951” … “Ariel Hammet: November 22, 1952—June 12, 1953.” (“Boy,” I said, “That’s sad.” “Happens,” Sam said.) “Garner John Hammet: June 1, 1918—September 12, 1947”—until we got to “Joseph William Hammet,” the last vault toward the rear of the mausoleum on the west wall. Sam stopped, knocked slightly on the vault door, and said, “Evening, Joe. All we wanta do is talk, okay?”

Then he went to the center of the concrete floor, crossed his legs Indian-style, opened the plastic bag, took six candles out. “Got any matches, Abner?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

He cursed under his breath.

I said, “I thought
you
were supposed to bring the matches, Sam.”

“I did. They’re all wet.”

The headlights of cars on Route 23A filtered through the grimy window on the north wall and played dully on the ceiling of the mausoleum.

“Fuck it!” Sam said.

“Fuck what, Sam?”

“Fuck the candles. We don’t need them.” He stuffed them back into the plastic bag, withdrew the skull of the cat, put it down in front of him, and said to it, “Hi, Flora.” It had once been his cat. He’d raised her from a kitten and called her Flora in honor of a girlfriend who’d moved from Bangor to Albany a year before and whom he missed terribly.

I nodded at Flora’s skull. “That’s kinda sick, you know,” I said.

Sam nodded. “Maybe a little. I’ll tell ya, it kind of made
me
sick cleaning her off—” He stopped suddenly, put his hand up. “Quiet!” he said.

“What’s wrong, Sam—”

“Quiet! I hear something.” He nodded to indicate the rear of the mausoleum. “I hear something, Abner,” he repeated. There was a small tremor in his voice. I strained to see his face in the darkness. I saw it. He was grinning ever so slightly. I was grinning, too.

 “What do you hear, Sam?”

“A voice. Damn it, I hear a voice!” he whispered.

“What kind of voice?” I whispered.

“An old man’s voice.”

“What’s it saying?”

“I don’t know; I’m not sure.” He paused.

“
I
don’t hear anything, Sam,” I said.

“It’s saying something about cats, Abner.”

“About cats?”

“Uh-huh. It’s saying, ‘Get out of here, get out of here; I’m allergic to cats—they make me itch!’ ” And he broke into a fit of hysterical, infectious laughter that lasted at least five minutes.

And when we had both stopped laughing, I discovered a book of matches deep in my jacket pocket, beneath a rip in the lining, and I handed them to Sam. He took the candles out, lit one, let the wax drip liberally on six evenly spaced spots around Flora’s skull, and set each candle in the wax. Then we got down to business.

The dead were such fine entertainment, then.

CHAPTER FIVE

January 6

I had an appointment in Manhattan with Serena Hitchcock, a senior editor for one of the city’s largest publishers. She wanted to talk to me about doing a coffee-table photo book dealing with New York’s parks and tourist attractions. The possibility of doing such a book was why I’d come to New York in the first place. I had done similar work before, for magazines like
Yankee
and
Americana
, though never a full-length book, and I enjoyed it. It paid well, and it didn’t demand too much creativity, which—I’m the first to admit—is not my strong suit. I’m very good with a camera; I have a fair idea of what the public will and will not like, and when I was working, I almost always delivered on schedule. But I think, after all, that I was to photography what fast-food restaurants are to eating—I was slick and quick, but I had about as much substance as a snowflake. I knew that no one would ever give me a one-man show or do an “Abner Cray Retrospective.” I knew that I would never set the world on fire. And that was okay, because I didn’t
want
to set the world on fire. I think that I wanted no more out of my life than to be reasonably comfortable and healthy, never to go hungry, and never to suffer too much pain, and to find pleasure where I could find it. That’s only what most people want, I think. So I wasn’t asking too much.

I’d never met Serena Hitchcock. We’d talked on the phone quite a few times, though, about photography and New York and books, so I had a clear mental image of her. I saw her as tall, fortyish, and thin, with the kind of smart and calculating sexuality that, I was convinced, only tall, fortyish, and thin women can possess (another tacky sexist fantasy). But when I finally did meet her, she was none of those things. She was short, a little chubby (“pleasingly plump” used to be the phrase), had shoulder-length brown hair, gray eyes, and a pleasant but basically unappealing face, like a Tupperware lady. She was wearing a brown pants suit and had stuck a tiny red rose into her lapel. She’d come out to the lobby to meet me, and as she lead me back to her office, she walked briskly several feet ahead and nodded at some of the departments we passed through—”This is the art department, Abner.” … “These are the copy-editors’ desks, Abner.”—and I said “I see” or “Very interesting,” which she didn’t acknowledge. And when we got to her office, I saw that it was a only a cubicle that fronted West 44th Street, twenty stories below. There were some book covers on the walls, a utilitarian-looking, gray metal desk in the center of the room—snapshots of two chunky, flat-faced kids on it—and a much used, black-cloth-on-metal secretarial chair behind it. The office said very loudly that Serena Hitchcock was small potatoes indeed.

She went around to the back of her desk, sat in her secretarial chair, told me to sit down on a flimsy-looking, armless chair in back of me. I pulled the chair closer to the desk and sat in it.

She said, “Crummy, huh?”

I smiled. “I don’t understand.”

“This office—” she nodded—”it’s pretty crummy, don’t you think?”

“It’s small,” I said, and smiled again.

“It’s temporary,” she said. “We’re renovating our old offices.”

“Oh. Looks are deceiving.”

“Sorry,” she said, and smiled confusedly.

“Looks,” I repeated, “are deceiving.”

Her smile altered slightly. “Yes,” she said, “they are.”

I had a briefcase on my lap, with some samples of my work in it. I opened it, took out some color shots I’d taken in the Adirondack Mountains two summers before, handed them across the desk. She glanced at them, handed them back. “I’ve seen your work, Abner. That’s why you’re here.”

“Oh,” I said, and put the photographs away, the briefcase on the floor.

“We want a big book, Abner,” she said. She took the tiny red rose from her lapel, began fingering it as she talked, her gaze going to it occasionally. “We’re not going to be using a lot of text, a few lines per photograph—most people don’t read anyway—and I’d like you to do a good amount of black and white. I think you’re pretty good at black and white, Abner.”

“Thanks.” I knew it was just something for her to say. I didn’t believe I was any better working in black and white than in color.

She went on, “And I’d like something a little off-key, too.”

It took me by surprise. “Off-key? I don’t understand.”

She looked at the rose; I saw her smile and guessed that she was somehow amused. “No,” she said, and looked up at me. Her smile faded. “You probably don’t understand.” She pushed herself to her feet, went to the window that overlooked West 44th Street, and stood at it with her back to me. “I don’t even care if the people who buy this book notice it, Abner.” Her tone had become low and meditative. “This ‘off-key’ thing, I mean.” She turned her head briefly and grinned a quick, sad grin. She turned back, continued, “They don’t even have to notice. Maybe your angles could be slightly off, or the colors not quite right, and the people—we need lots of people in this book, Abner; it’s what Manhattan is all about—and the people,” she repeated, paused, glanced around again, “should be … just people—like you and me. Just people.” She turned back to the window. “Christ, I’m not making any sense at all, am I?”

It was a good question, but I had no idea how to answer it; I said nothing.

“Do you like this city, Abner?” she asked, her back still turned.

I answered truthfully, “No, Serena, not very much. It’s a good place to do business, but … May I call you Serena?”

She ignored the question. “I despise this city! I live here; I work here—and I despise it.” She nodded to indicate the street. “My brother was killed out there three weeks ago, Abner. Some cretin put a knife into his heart and he died in a couple minutes. Right on West 44th Street, in front of a dozen people. There was no motive; no money was taken. Someone decided to put a blade into him, and that was that.” She shook her head quickly, as if in anger and disbelief.

“Serena,” I began, “I’m sorry, I …” I had no idea what to say. “Right out there on West 44th Street, huh? My God, that’s awful …”

She waved backward at me in agitation. “No, Abner, I’m sorry; forget it. Please. Forget it. I loved him—I loved my brother; we were close, we were always very close. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to burden you.” She turned around, stood behind her desk chair with her hands on the top of it. “Give us a big,
pretty
book, Abner. Make all your angles perfect and all your colors true. Give us something that will draw the tourists here.” A short pause, then, “Tell the big lie, Abner.”

“Sure, whatever you say, Serena. May I call you Serena?”

She sat in her chair. “Your contracts will be ready within the week, Abner. We’ll talk again, then. Thanks for coming in.”

I stood. “Thank
you
,” I said, and I left.

I was on the twentieth floor. I got into the elevator, pressed the button marked “L,” for Lobby, and waited. The doors didn’t close. I stuck my head out, looked right and left, saw that the receptionist was talking on the phone. I pressed the button marked “Close Door” and heard, from down the hallway, toward the receptionist: “Hold that, please.” I pressed the button marked “Open Door.” “Hold that please,” I heard again. I stuck my head out and looked toward the source of the voice. I saw a man ten feet away. He was in his mid-forties, was wearing a threadbare gray suit and carrying a brown attaché case in his right hand. I caught his eye. “Do you mean me?” I said, because he was standing very still, with his left arm raised and his finger pointed. He looked to be in the middle of a stride. I heard this, from the receptionist: “I’m sorry, sir?”

I stepped way back into the elevator; my heels hit the rear wall. I was embarrassed. I heard again: “Hold that, please.”