A Manhattan Ghost Story (8 page)

“Phyllis?” I said. “Do you know that guy?”

She wasn’t listening to me. She was still talking about St. Ignatius, and though she was keeping pace with me, she was still walking very stiffly and was still speaking in that awful, dead, husky monotone. “I saw them put the I-V bags up. I wanted to yell at them, ‘Hey, that’s not going to do any good.’ “

I heard the bus behind us, closing fast; we were a good fifty feet from the bus stop. “We’d better run, Phyllis,” I said, and began jogging toward the stop. I soon realized that Phyllis had fallen behind. I looked back.

She was trying to jog. She was trying very hard. But she was keeping her arms straight and stiff at her sides. And her knees were not bending correctly as she ran; they were bowing slightly outward, as if her thigh muscles had become very weak, and the only connection between her thighs, knees, and calves was in the bones themselves. And she had her head heldhigh, too, so her chin was jutting forward, and a pathetic, tight-lipped, wide-eyed look of grim determination was on her face.

I stopped jogging at once.

She caught up with me. I put my arm out so it fell across her chest and so my hand was clutching her left shoulder. She stopped. “Phyllis …” I began.

The bus pulled up to the bus stop. The small crowd of people started getting on.

“You okay, Phyllis?”

And she answered, her voice a long, shallow wheeze, “I don’t think I’m used to the exercise, Abner. Forgive me. Please forgive me. It’s the cold air—”

“What’s to forgive, Phyllis?”

She said nothing; she looked confused.

“C’mon,” I said. “That bus isn’t going to wait forever.”

Thomas and Lorraine Pellaprat lived in what appeared, at first glance, to be a long-abandoned apartment house not unlike several thousand others in Manhattan. It was a ten-story building, the color of dirty cream, with tall, narrow windows, and it was streaked brown here and there from air pollution. Several of the windows visible from the street had been covered by plywood, and a few others appeared to be broken.

“This is where your parents live, Phyllis?” I said. I was confused; the Pellaprats had looked very much like they had money.

She answered, “Apartment 506, Abner.”

“We’ll probably have to walk up, right?”

“Probably.”

“I was going to bring them a bottle of wine, some rose—”

 “No,” she cut in. “They don’t drink. They used to, but not anymore.”

“Not at all?”

“Not a drop.”

We were standing at the base of the wide, crumbling cement steps. I held my hand out toward them. “Shall we?” I said.

And Phyllis said, her eyes on the middle of the building, apparently on her parents’ apartment, “This is a very special night, Abner. You have no idea how special. This has not been done before.” And she started quickly up the steps, her movements now very fluid and graceful.

I followed.

At the Hammet Mausoleum, Halloween, 1965

Sam said to me, “We’re just having some fun, Abner. Don’t you think this is fun?”

I shrugged. “I’m getting cold, Sam.”

“It’s the demon’s breath on your bones.”

“Shit, too!”

“What are you—afraid we’re going to get caught?”

I shrugged again. “Maybe.”

” ‘Cuz who’s gonna catch us, you know?” He nodded to his right, then his left. “You think these people here could care less? Shit, they’re probably happy for the company.”

“Uh-huh.” Another shrug. “Maybe we should go, Sam. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“We won’t
touch
‘em, for Christ’s sake!”

“Who said anything about touching ‘em, Sam?
I
didn’t. I’m not
sick
—” I changed my position again on the cement floor; my entire right leg was asleep. “Jees, Sam, if we stay here much longer my whole damn body’s gonna be asleep.”

“Quiet!” he said, and his finger went to his mouth. “Shh!”

“Gimme a break—”

“Quiet! I
hear
something!”

I put my hand on the floor, prepared to stand.

“Sit
down
, Goddamnit!”

I sat.

“I really do, Abner.” A short pause. “I hear someone talking.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I have learned this, too, in the past six months; I have learned that even the dead are ignorant.

Phyllis and I had to walk up to Apartment 506. The elevator clearly was not working; its doors were stuck open, and the car itself was stalled several feet below floor level.

“When was the last time you visited your parents, Phyllis?” I asked.

We started for the stairway, to the right, across the lobby. The lobby was dark, but not pitch dark; there were several low-wattage, bare bulbs installed at regular intervals in dull beige, leaf-motif ceiling fixtures.

Phyllis answered, “Not for a long while, Abner.”

The building’s interior was clean—which I’d expected, despite its outward appearance, because the Pellaprats had appeared to be very clean people.

“Have your mother and father been here long, Phyllis?” I asked.

We started up the stairs. They too were lit by the same kind of low-wattage bulbs in the same kind of ceiling fixtures. She answered, “Yes, Abner, I believe that they have.”

The stairs were made of metal, so her high-heeled boots made a lot of noise.

“You don’t keep in touch with them, do you?” It was more a statement than a question.

“We find it difficult to keep in touch, Abner. We always have. We have different … approaches to living, I think.”

We got to the second-floor landing. I looked up, toward the third floor; there was no light. “Be careful, Phyllis,” I said.

She did not answer. She was walking several feet ahead of me, to my right, and as we climbed toward the third floor, I found that the only way I could tell where she was, exactly, was by her white coat and her white boots and the sound her high heels made when they hit the metal stairs—a kind of rhythmic, echoing
clop-clop
noise.

I heard her say: “They liked you, Abner. They didn’t like Art. Art was cruel. And Art had money.”

She was speaking, again, in the same, low, husky monotone I’d heard her use when we were making our way to the bus stop. “Yes,” I said, “you told me about Art.” I quickened my pace on the stairs to catch up with her, but she stayed several feet ahead of me, though the timing of her heels on the metal steps didn’t change. “I still can’t believe it, Phyllis—”

“I remember St. Ignatius, Abner. I remember I hurt, and I remember that I bled.”

I took a chance, then, and mounted two stairs in one stride; “It must be awfully painful to remember,” I began, and found that she still was several feet ahead of me, her heels clop-clopping on the metal steps. “I’ve never had surgery myself, Phyllis.”

“And I don’t blame him anymore, Abner. I did at first—in the first couple of days.”

“That’s very generous.”

“I remember thinking, Abner, how strange it was that there still
were
days.”

“I’m sorry, Phyllis. I don’t understand that.”

“Of course you do; of course you understand it, Abner.”

We got to the third-floor landing. I stopped a moment, to rest, because the air here was stale and hard to breathe. “Want to hold on a moment, Phyllis, until I can catch my breath?” She kept walking. “Phyllis?” I called. I saw her white coat and white boots merge with the darkness. I still could hear the clop-clop of her heels on the metal steps, and I called to her again, “Phyllis, hold on, okay?” And I sensed something like desperation in my voice. I grinned, as if to chase it away. “Jesus, it’s pitch dark down here, Phyllis.” The clop-clop of her heels ended. She called back, “Abner? Are you there?”

 “Yes, right here, Phyllis. Hold on.” I started up the stairs, toward the fourth floor.

“Abner, where are you? I can’t see you!” And now I could hear desperation in her voice.

“It’s okay, Phyllis!” I called, and quickened my pace. “It’s okay; I’m coming!”

“Abner, I can’t
see
you; where
are
you?” It was more than desperation that I heard in her voice now. It was something closer to panic.

“I’m right down here, Phyllis. I’m coming up to you.”

“Abner, please, Abner—”

“Don’t worry, Phyllis; I’m coming!” I got to the fourth-floor landing. I stopped. “Phyllis?”

“Abner, where are you?” She was pleading with me.

“Here, Phyllis. Just below you.” I looked up the stairs, toward the fifth floor. I saw nothing. “Where are you, Phyllis?”

Silence.

“Phyllis?” I started for the fifth floor. “Phyllis, are you up there?” I could see the suggestion of light above me. “Phyllis, please answer me.” I heard nothing.

I became aware of a cold draft from above, apparently from the fifth floor. “Phyllis?” I called again. Still nothing. The light was brighter now. I could see that there was another leaf-motif ceiling fixture with a bare low-wattage bulb installed in it. I could see, also, the top edge of the fire door that opened onto the fifth-floor hallway.

I called to Phyllis again. And again I heard nothing. I thought,
This is a kind of game she’s playing
. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe she was capable of such games.

“Phyllis?” I called. I had reached the fifth-floor landing. “Phyllis?” I pulled the fire door open all the way and stepped into the hall.

Apartment 506 was directly in front of me. I stepped across the hall and knocked softly on the door.

Phyllis answered my knock at once. She was smiling playfully, and I could see Thomas and Lorraine Pellaprat behind her, in the apartment—he still in his dark blue suit and highly polished wingtips, and seated in a big, high-backed wooden chair near the far wall, and she in her nicely tailored herringbone-tweed pants suit, in a small, rose-colored upholstered rocker beside him. They had their hands folded on their laps, and they were smiling small, pleasant, friendly smiles. They nodded at me, first Thomas and then Lorraine. Then Phyllis said, “Come in, Abner, come in. Where have you been?”

I stepped in. The apartment, what I could see of it—the living room, the dining area, and a small kitchen—was sparsely decorated. The wallpaper was a slightly shabby but very delicate blue-on-white bird print with a blue-striped border, and the only piece of furniture besides the chairs the Pellaprats were sitting in was an ancient, overstuffed red couch that was standing against the left wall, kitty-corner to the Pellaprats. There were no rugs on the hardwood floors, and when Phyllis moved across them, her heels made sharp, clicking noises, like a tap dancer’s—I got the idea that these people did a lot of dancing because there were numerous scuff marks on the floor.

I had a pleasant evening. They gave me a wineglass half-filled with what tasted like coffee liqueur—which, because it was very bitter, I nursed until we left at 10:30—and we sat around the edges of the room and talked about light, inconsequential things. Mr. and Mrs. Pellaprat stopped calling me Abner Doubleday, though Phyllis had to remind them who I was exactly: “He’s my
boy
friend; you remember. And he’s not at all like Art.” They nodded at this, and smiled oddly, as if they weren’t quite sure who Art was.

We talked about the book I was doing, about the various crises around the world, about life in Manhattan, about roaches—”We used to have them, Mr. Cray,” Lorraine told me, “but not anymore. All you have to do is take away their source of nourishment.” —about baseball, on which Thomas Pellaprat apparently considered himself something of an expert, though his knowledge clearly was centered on the decades of the forties and fifties. And just before Phyllis and I got up to leave, I was invited back: “Come any time you’d like, Mr. Cray,” Lorraine told me. “With Phyllis, by yourself. It doesn’t matter. We’re very informal people.”

“Very informal people, Mr. Cray,” echoed Thomas Pellaprat.

I was pleased. I said “Yes, thank you” several times. I said that I’d had a very pleasant evening, which was essentially true. And Phyllis and I went back to Art’s apartment and made love until early in the morning.

Then she left the apartment.

Which was the beginning of a routine I am only now beginning to understand.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Art called the day after Phyllis and I visited her parents. He was clearly upset.

“Abner, I might come home early; I don’t know-this is just not working out for me here, it’s just not working out for me.”

“Jesus, Art, you sound awful.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I tried to call Stacy, like you said. I tried to call her. But her mother told me she was in New York. What’s she doing in New York, Abner? Why is she in New York? Is she looking for me?”

“Art, I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the
accident
, Abner.” He paused, chuckled humorlessly. “That’s not what the cops call it, of course.” Another pause. “And maybe they’re right.”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about, Art. You’re going to have to spell it out.”

“I thought you knew, Abner.”

“Knew what, for Christ’s sake?!”

Without hesitation, he answered, “That I killed someone.”

I didn’t hesitate either. “You
killed
someone, Art?”

“Yes. Her name was Phyllis.”

“You killed someone named Phyllis?” I made no connection to Phyllis Pellaprat. As far as I was concerned, she was quite wonderfully alive.

“Yes,” Art answered.

“When?”

“A month-and-a-half ago, just before I left. Actually, Abner, it’s
why
I left.”

“Christ, Art!”

“But it’s not working out here. It’s just not working out; I feel so alone—”

“Art, tell me who she was. Was she someone you knew?”

“Of course she was someone I knew. You think I go around killing strange women, Abner?”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“No. I’m sorry.” A pause. “I called to let you know that I’ll probably be back sometime before May—”