Dead of Winter (4 page)

Everywhere.

And it didn’t seem as if it would ever
stop. It didn’t seem as if the underlying vibrant green luster of
life would ever return. Even the sun had been reduced to a foggy
white cyst beneath the pale skin of the sky.

He was starting to feel as if the
whole goddamn season with its twinkling lights and carols, dazzling
storefronts and endless slew of commercials advertising
mind-numbing electric toys, was to blame for the snow. People
expected snow for Christmas and maybe the collective power of that
expectation was enough to make it so. Whatever the reason, he
didn’t like it one bit. Christmas was a time for sitting around the
fire eating marshmallows and fruit cake, for decorating the tree
with loved ones and maybe indulging in a snifter of brandy before
bed, for gifts that meant something and for the excited chatter of
children when they discovered the bounty beneath the
tree.

But now, six days before Christmas,
sitting by his window and staring out at an almost monochrome
world, Jake realized that all that was gone, not only in the minds
of the masses, but from his own life too.

A distinct awareness of family values
and a fondness for the ritualistic aspect of the season had not
been enough to keep his wife alive or his children from growing up
and scattering themselves around the world. Leaving him alone with
the white and an empty house to watch it from.

Clearing the condensation away with a
swipe of his hand, he scowled at the silent fall of snow as
children giggled and flung handfuls of the stuff at each
other.

In his garden stood a long-suffering
walnut tree, a beard of white nestled in its crotch almost like
mimicry of the season’s patron saint.

Jake thought he knew what it felt like
to be that tree – immobile, rooted to the ground, trapped and
powerless to do anything but stand by and watch the passage of
time, unable to run away from the grief, the sorrow and all the
dark things that sharpened the edges of life.

He shook his head, sliding the cover
over the well from which such melodrama sprung and allowed himself
the faintest hint of a smile as a tall, wiry figure in a brown suit
and overcoat appeared, ducked his head against the snow and turned
the corner into Jake’s driveway.

A visitor was just what he needed now
and visitors were seldom welcomer than Lenny Quick.

Jake groaned at the ache in his bones
as he rose from the seat by the window, and he took a moment to
steady himself before making his way to the front door.

“
God’s dandruff,” Lenny
said, snapping his hat against the palm of his hand. He inspected
the hallway as if he’d never seen it before (though he had been
here at least once every week for the last thirty years – with the
exception of that time in early ’90 when pneumonia had kept him in
a hospital bed) before he turned to watch Jake shutting the soft
white world outside.

“
No end to it, is there?”
Jake said, smiling now. Ever since Julia’s death, he had felt as if
the walls were closing in around him, that somewhere beyond the
rose-patterned wallpaper, a clock was ticking. He heard it at
night, faint but most definitely there.
Tick-tick-tick
, the winding down of
his own deathwatch. Company helped silence that sound and made the
ghosts nothing but tricks of light and shadow.

Lenny shivered and brushed the snow
from his shoulders. “It’s suppose to get a lot worse too if the
weatherman is to be believed.” He hung his hat atop his coat on the
mahogany tree in the hall. “Saw on the news Maine’s gettin’
hammered, New York, same. Gonna be a bad one no matter what way you
look at it. Surprised we haven’t gotten more than this already, to
tell the truth.” He led the way into the living room, as if drawn
by the heat. “People have been saying since the summer we’re
heading for the worst winter in years. Hasn’t happened yet though
so I reckon the bad stuff must be getting close.”

Jake followed him into the living
room.

A cheerful fire blazed in the
fireplace, occasionally spitting sparks the fireguard caught. With
Lenny here, the fire and indeed the room, looked almost cozy.
Alone, the flames drew the spirit from a man and made the room seem
hollow and dark.

Lenny took a seat without waiting to
be asked. They had known each other too long to stand on formality.
Jake moved to the sideboard beneath the window, upon which gleaming
bottles stood like soldiers with immaculate uniforms, most of them
empty. He tried to avoid looking at the bleached white world
outside. “Usual?”

Lenny nodded and leaned forward to
show his hands to the fire. “That’d be just fine. I think I’m
freezing from the inside out today.”

Jake poured him a brandy, a whiskey
for himself.

“
Thanks,” Lenny said,
accepting his drink. He watched Jake grimace as he lowered himself
into the seat opposite. “Knees still bothering you?”

Jake nodded. “Morning, noon and night.
Mornings worst of all.”

“
You should let a doctor
take a look before you end up crawling.”

“
I’d
rather
crawl than see a
doctor.”

“
Well it isn’t going to get
any better if you don’t go see someone.”

“
Like who?”

“
Like…I don’t know, a bone
man or something. Doctor Palmer would be a start.”

“
Nah. It’ll ease up once the
cold is gone.”

“
You sure about
that?”

Jake sighed. “No. I’m not, but unless
you went deaf thirty or so years ago, you should know damn well how
I feel about doctors.”

“
Sure I do,” Lenny said with
a shrug, “but is a family tradition of hating doctors for no reason
going to make your life any easier if this cold spell turns out to
be here for the long haul?”

“
We don’t hate them for no
reason.”

Lenny smiled. “You’re avoiding the
question.”

“
I was hoping it would
convince you not to pursue it.”

“
Have it your way, but I
have a twinge of arthritis in my fingers and I have to tell you, if
it hit my knees so bad I could hardly walk, I’d be spread out
before Palmer like a virgin on prom night.”

Jake winced. “I could have died happy
without ever picturing that. Thanks.”

Lenny laughed, a deep rumbling
baritone and slapped his thigh. Jake grinned, but it was
short-lived. Lenny wiped his eyes and when he looked up, his
expression was grave.

“
What is it?” Jake asked,
unnerved by the intensity of his friend’s stare.

Lenny waited a beat, then sipped from
his glass, swishing the brandy around his mouth before he spoke.
“You mentioned dying,” he said, looking down into his drink. “I was
wondering if you remembered the last time we talked about it. What
you told me, I mean.”

“
Vaguely,” Jake replied, too
quickly, averting his eyes from Lenny’s probing glare, a move he
knew belied his words.

He remembered most of it and it shamed
him. The snow had thickened, draining what little light had been
caught dancing in the evening sky and for the gloom, he was
suddenly thankful. In the firelight, the flush of color the lie had
summoned to his face would go unnoticed.

It had happened two nights
ago.

He staggers into the
bedroom with a wail of grief and almost chokes on the breath he
sucks in to power another. The shadows quickly move away from him,
sliding along the walls and slipping beneath the carpet. The room
ripples and sways in his tear-blurred vision, his gut full of
whiskey, heart full of grief and dread. Sobbing, he drops to his
knees beside the bed, repeating her name like a sacred mantra, as
if it could ever be enough to raise her.

Beneath the bed --
so cold, so terribly cold without her
-- lies a shoebox and his fingers find it fast,
first feeling the sides, the lid, then clutching and dragging it
out into the dull light spilling in from the hallway. Urgently, he
rips the lid from the box, wipes away tears and grabs the Colt .45
in his fumbling, trembling hands.

“
I hate the damn thing. Get
rid of it,” his wife had said the day he’d brought it
home.

“
It’s for protection, honey.
Just for protection.”

“
I don’t like it. Bring it
back. What if it goes off by mistake?”

“
It won’t. These things
don’t go off unless you mean them to.”

Like I mean it to
now,
he thinks, and clicks back the
safety.
Clll-ick!
He can feel the shadows around him, pressing down on him,
watches held to their ears, listening. Counting off the seconds to
oblivion.

In lieu of the gunshot
comes a scream, a horrible guttural scream and the gun falls
heavily to the floor, still wearing a bead of perspiration from his
temple. He runs, runs to the phone and misdials four times before
he finally hears the voice he so desperately needs to
hear.

“
You were pretty upset,”
Lenny said, looking strangely embarrassed himself, a look Jake did
not see very often. “You scared the life out of me I don’t mind
telling you.”

“
Yeah,” was all Jake could
think to say.

“
You were going to do it
too, weren’t you?”

“
I guess I was.”

Silence then, and in it Jake
half-expected to hear a ticking. What came instead was a rattling,
as the wind drove snow against the window.

“
We’ve been friends for a
long time,” Lenny said, casting a half-hearted glance at the
window. “Been through a lot together. I wish I was the type of guy
who could advise you on things like this but I’m not qualified.
Maybe if I’d watched more Oprah or that moronic Doctor Phil guy I’d
be able to sort out all of that confusion and fear you’ve got
gnawing away at you, but I can’t.” He jiggled his glass and watched
the brandy lap against the sides. “I know you’re lonely and hurt
and scared and I keep trying to think up ways to fix that but the
truth is…you’ve always been stronger than me, y’know? You were the
one who helped me sort out my problems over the years. You were the
one I turned to when my head threatened to explode with all the
pressure. You were my surrogate big brother, the one I called on to
slay the dragons, even if I’d never have admitted it. Too proud,
you see. Now that you need help, I’m not so sure I’m any good to
you.”

Jake offered him a tired smile.
“You’ve already been good to me. I can’t remember everything about
that call the other night, but I do know by the time I hung up I
was more terrified of that gun than anything else. If I hadn’t
called you…”

He left the sentence die in the air
between them and nodded. “You’re a good man, Lenny,” he said softly
and drained his glass.

Lenny leaned back from the fire, the
right side of his face fading in the deepening gloom. “Nah,” he
said, waving away the compliment. “I was just worried my local
brandy pimp’d go outta business. Where’d I be then?”

Gratitude hovered at the back of
Jake’s tongue but he knew vocalizing it would embarrass Lenny so
instead he raised his empty glass in the air and grinned. “To
madmen, pimps and alcoholics,” he said.

Lenny chuckled and touched his glass
to Jake’s. “I’ll drink to that.”

They both laughed until the wind
thundered against the side of the house hard enough to make them
both jump.

“
So how are you feeling
now?” Lenny asked.

“
I have good and bad days.
If the snow would let up or better still, vanish entirely then I
wouldn’t be able to count this as one of the bad ones. Goddamn snow
drives me crazy.”

Lenny frowned. “Why? It never bothered
you before.”

“
I don’t know. This year is
different. I know it’s ridiculous, but I’m a little afraid of it.
Even back when the weatherman first said it was heading our way I
felt apprehensive, as if he’d said a plague was coming.”

“
I think I’d rather have the
snow,” said Lenny.

“
I wish I could explain it.
It just feels wrong, you know? I mean, I look out that window there
just like I do every other year and I see the same damn thing I
always see in winter – snow and lots of it. But for some reason
this year it looks less like a bunch of ice crystals and more like
some kind of mold, as if the world is going stale.”

Lenny stared impassively, but Jake was
suddenly aware how crazy he sounded and rose from his chair before
Lenny could call him on it.

“
Another?” he asked and
Lenny handed him his glass.

As he refilled their drinks, he
glanced out the window. The sky was darkening, slashes of silver
glowing above the horizon. And still the snow fell, whipped by the
wind into transparent white horses that galloped beneath the
streetlights. Jake shivered.

It’s
growing
, he thought.
That’s what I was trying to tell Lenny. It looks as if it’s
growing, like a scab. And the street is the wound.

He returned with the drinks and set
his whiskey on the mantel while he fed the flames wood from a cast
iron basket.