For Love of Audrey Rose (46 page)

“It’s a lot better on the main road. Pisser of a night, isn’t it?”

Bill coughed. He felt the severe chill penetrating the overcoat, through to his legs covered only with thin pajamas. He felt nothing at all in his feet. Dimly he saw them and thought they had turned blue. Ice melted very slowly from his ankles, sliding off in crinkling little cakes of light.

The taxi swerved, jolted, and finally found traction. The sanitarium very gradually glided past them. Bill ducked as far back into the seat as he could, and he kept his face averted from the driver. For several minutes they drove in silence, and the storm buffeted the car, while the driver wrestled it back to control.

Bill stared wide-eyed at the vision of the night. Headlights swarmed in his mind. It had been a lifetime since he had seen the manic jaws of civilization so close about him. From time to time he saw his own reflection in the dark panes, pale as dirty snow, the eyes deep in sockets of shadow, like two tiny animals hiding in caves.

“You’re going the wrong way!” Bill shouted.

“You’re not going home to Glen Cove?” the driver asked, surprised.

“Manhattan!”

The driver noted a different inflection in the voice than the one he was used to. He peered in the rearview mirror. Bill huddled in his coat and did not look up, but shrank against the door, in the shadow where the driver could barely see. The driver shrugged.

“To the city, then,” the driver mumbled, changing lanes.

The taxi fought its way back around a jug-handle, then up a ramp, and bumper to bumper with traffic on a single lane. Flashing red lights everywhere revealed the touch of a thousand brakes on the slippery road. Then they were moving west again.

The taxi picked up speed, occasionally slipping on ice patches. The city was a hallucination of glimmering yellow and red lights, streaks of blinking neon in the black, and clouds livid with painfully bright reflections.

The driver set his lips hard and fought his way down into the Queens Midtown Tunnel, dipping and rising toward the main heart of Manhattan. He leaned back. Heading north on the East Side Drive, the driver glanced in the rearview mirror.

“Where exactly did you want to go?”

“Des Artistes.”

The driver screwed up his face.

“Where?”

“Home!”

“Home?”

The driver turned. His eyes widened.

“Hey, you ain’t Dr. Henderson!”

A violent screech of brakes, horns, and shouts snapped his head back to the slapping windshield wipers. The cab skidded to the center divider, bounced lightly off it, and regained its momentum as Forty-second Street momentarily came into view.

“I ain’t go no money,” breathed the driver quickly, his eyes darting back and forth. “See that sign? Driver carries no more than five bucks change—”

“Des Artistes!”
Bill roared, leaning suddenly forward.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, mister!”

“Home!”

“You’re a goddamn loony! That’s what you are! I’m taking you right back to the asylum!”

The cab skidded onto the Forty-second Street off-ramp, the driver pressed on the accelerator, the tires whined, spat snow in a long arc behind them, and then Bill reached through the small opening in the glass wall that divided driver from passenger, and grabbed the driver’s hair. With a murderous yank, he jerked the driver’s head backward.

In incoherent rage and frustration, Bill beat the driver’s head back against the glass divider, then bit the man’s finger until red spurted into his mouth.

“Help! Help!” the driver yelled, arms flailing, his legs kicking wildly, smashing into the dashboard.

The taxi began to decelerate, finally crashing into the car ahead at a traffic light. Immediately there was an angry snarl of car horns. Bill looked around wildly. It seemed all of New York poured its alien, annihilating light directly at his heart. In a single, terrible lunge, he was out in the cold, white as a rabbit, stock-still in the middle of the street.

The driver came out, holding his ear, wobbling, pointing at Bill.

“Grab him! He’s a maniac!”

Bill leaped across the snow that divided the road, slipped, and somersaulted in the black overcoat over the ice. His hands emerged bleeding. He picked himself up, and ran in his iced and torn slippers into the heart of the crowds and flashing, swirling lights.

He ran down Forty-second Street, away from the tangle of red flashes, shouts, and glistening roads.

The swirling storm turned to blankets descending in soft folds. Traffic was stalled. Disgusted, police stood by patrol cars.

Pedestrians walked around Bill as he ran from the reflection of his own form in dark windows. Slipping, his ragged slippers torn in half, he went sprawling into a filthy snowdrift.

“Here you go, friend. Up and easy.”

Two strong hands grabbed him under the elbow.

Bill looked into the eyes of two priests. They backed away from the intensity of his stare.

“Dr. Geddes?”

“What’s that? You want a doctor?”

Bill stumbled backward, frightened, tore himself away, retreating down Forty-second Street. He ran into the lights that poked holes in the darkness, glittered through the falling snow. Evil followed him everywhere, and he looked back over his shoulder.

Bill reached an enormous structure that exhaled warmth. It smelled like New York. Gritty, sweaty, oily. Something seemed to click into place. Cautiously, he walked down the stairs, went through large glass doors, and looked around at the rolling, incessant crowds under brilliant lights.

It was Grand Central Station. Bill smiled. He had been here before. In another incarnation. Bewildered, he ducked away from the vents that roared at him with hot air. A group of sailors jostled him. Businessmen pushed him out of their way. A teenager shot past him with a radio blaring rock.

Instinct led him to a kind of bright tunnel. There was a series of urinals. Trembling, he relieved himself. Then he examined his feet. They were soaked, dirty, bleeding, and the toes tingled ominously, as though the flesh was barely alive. He tucked the black overcoat carefully over the pajamas and went to the shoeshine stand in a lobby.

A crippled black boy bent over shining black shoes on metal forms.

Bill waited until the last man left the washbasins, then he went to the stand, grabbed the shoes, and ran.

“Hey—What the hell are you doing?” the cripple yelled.

Bill escaped into the crowd.

He was lost in Central Park. He stopped. The snow was cold and wet on his bare feet, shivering within the black shoes. But he recognized the park. The configuration of black trees, paths, and the hillock over the rowing lake. It triggered primitive memories. Carefully he retraced his steps, then struck out over virgin fields of white.

“Ivy,” he whispered happily.

Nobody heard him. The streets were deserted. New York at night was a study of black recesses in dull white. Snow filled the crevices of soot and oily asphalt. Bill sensed a maze of bizarre patterns gliding by, but he kept his head down, following his black shoes. They knew where to go.

Disoriented now, he walked very carefully. He distrusted each side street that opened up—a truncated vista of fire escapes, back doors, stone steps.

“Ivy!” he called.

But the voice died away. The city absorbed all sounds. Slowly he continued toward the north.

Silently, the soul that had been frightened peered out through the eyes of Bill Templeton. He saw Des Artistes. He stopped. That, certainly, had not changed. It haunted him, that image of a different life. It sent out unpleasant signals in the darkness and cold.

He drifted toward the entrance of the building. A man in uniform beat his arms for warmth. Bill came closer, hesitated. The doorman stopped beating his arms, peering into the blackness.

“Mr. Templeton…” gasped the old man.

“Yes. I’ve come home. It’s good to be home. Very, very good.”

“Yeah… Sure…”

“I want to go in now.”

“Of course. Right this way. Goodness, but you gave me a fright.”

Bill licked his lips, afraid. He followed the doorman into the narrow vestibule, and then very slowly descended the steps into the lobby. The warmth and bright lights frightened him. He retreated. The doorman turned, surprised.

“Right this way, Mr. Templeton.”

The doorman escorted Bill to the elevator. Bill dared to look around him. The walls, the familiar entry to the restaurant and bar had a lurid, dangerous light.

Mario, shocked, stared at Bill.

“P-please, Mr. Templeton. Step in.”

Bill walked into the elevator, leaned against the wall, and saw the doors glide shut. Mario punched a button, and the elevator hummed upward through the building.

“You look great, Mr. Templeton. That is one hell of a coat.”

Bill’s jaw clenched, a nervous reaction to the claustrophobic space.

“We’ll have you upstairs in no time.”

The door glided open. Bill stared vacantly at the wall opposite. Mario waited. Bill did not move.

“You don’t have a key, do you?” Mario asked quietly. “That’s all right. I have a master key.”

Mario walked into the hallway. Bill hesitated, then followed. With each step toward the apartment door he went slower and slower. Finally, he stopped nearly ten feet away, while Mario unlocked the door. A black abyss greeted him.

“Why is it so dark?”

“What? You want me to turn on a light?”

Mario reached an arm into the apartment, flicked a switch, and three soft lights glowed from lamps.

“Where are they?”

Mario turned, shocked at the maniacal roar. Suddenly an immense force hurled him into the apartment. Ceramics showered into fragments, and a table leg crashed upward into his shoulder.

The door slammed, and a livid Bill stood over him.

“Where did they go?” he hissed.

“I—I don’t know, Mr. T-Templeton.”

A rough fist seized Mario’s hair, yanked him to his feet. A bright hailstorm passed before Mario’s eyes, and the pain leaped down into his skull. Bill shook the head violently, side to side.

“Where are they?”
Bill bellowed into his face.

“P-P-P—”

Bill slapped the trembling cheeks hard with two resounding cracks.

“Tell me!”

“P-P-Pittsburgh—”

Bill stared at him in disbelief, then gritted his teeth and threw the diminutive man back against the remains of the coffee table.

“Pittsburgh?” Bill whispered.

“Mr. Hoover’s clinic, sir. The girl was sick.”

Bill wiped his sweated face, then shook himself. He stared viciously at Mario. Mario tried to crawl away, but his arms were entangled in the broken table legs.

“P-please, Mr. Templeton…”

Bill spun him around and wedged his arms behind his back with a belt. He carried Mario, who kicked furiously, toward the main closet and threw him in. He tore the electric cord from a lamp, held it out between two hands, and advanced into the closet. Mario went white, but the cord only lashed his feet.

Bill bounded upstairs. There were violent sounds of drawers being emptied, thrown onto the floor. Objects fell from dressers, more glass smashed, and he kicked something heavy away from him. Then he did the same through every room and closet upstairs until he found what he sought.

Suddenly Bill opened the closet door and seized Mario.

“Mr. Templeton! Let me get a doctor for you!”

“I have to go to the airport!”

“Rest here. Untie me….”

Bill shook Mario until his teeth rattled.

“How do I get to the airport?” Bill growled.

“G-go downstairs. Tell the doorman. He’ll get you a taxi.”

“A taxi? Yes, of course. Mario, I…”

But he lost his train of thought. Furious, he shoved Mario back in among the coats and shoes, then slammed the closet door. Mario heard the apartment door close, and footsteps pattering quickly to the stairwell.

Bill ducked against the rear seat of the taxi. It was late, but he did not want to be seen.

“Don’t turn back,” he muttered.

The taxi driver turned down his radio and leaned back.

“What’s that?”

“I said, don’t turn back.”

“I wasn’t going to turn back, mister.”

Bill muttered to himself, looked out the window as Manhattan slid by. Most of the roads were closed. Only the main arteries were open, and they were clogged with traffic.

“Man must not turn back,” he said. “Forward—always forward.”

The driver turned down his radio a second time.

“Forward,” Bill said louder.

“Where the hell do you think I’m going?”

“We are all voyagers on a dark sea. Voyaging beyond the barriers of death.”

“Well, I ain’t going
that
far.”

They were on a dark road now, and only a few globes of light went by, their poles invisible. They hovered like visitors from Pluto. Bill leaned forward suddenly.

“I’m going to see my daughter,” he said confidently.

“Yeah? Where’s she at?”

“Pittsburgh. She’s been sick.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“No. She just got frightened.”

The driver glanced at him from the rearview mirror, studied Bill more carefully.

“Which terminal, sir?”

Startled, Bill looked in front. A complex of yellow and white lights were visible in the darkness. Signs directed the traffic to various terminals.

“I’m going to Pittsburgh.”

“American?”

“I don’t know.”

“Probably Allegheny.”

The taxi pulled up at the Allegheny terminal. The parking area was not plowed, covered high in snow. There were few passengers, and over the runway the ground crews worked furiously with snowplows.

The driver turned apprehensively.

“That’ll be ten dollars and eighty cents.”

Bill stared blankly at him.

“Ten dollars,” the driver repeated. “Eighty cents.”

Bill’s forehead wrinkled with an effort. He looked troubled. The driver swallowed, tried to estimate the kind of passenger he had.

“Do you have any money, sir?”

“Yes. Yes, I found some in her stocking drawer.”