Ira Levin (25 page)

    …"

    "Now we're getting to the godd partst" he said. "In case you haven't seen where this is heading… I'm talking about Eternal Youth, Rosie. Pick your age, twenty-three, twenty-four, whatever you like, and it's yours forever. No aches, no pains, none of those pesky little brown spots, everything ticking along like the motor of a Rolls." She looked at him as they danced; he nodded. "What I always promise and rarely deliver," he said. "You're old enough to appreciate it, aren't you, and I'll deliver it for you-not only the years you lost but the years ahead, all of them, in a lovely environment totally different from the hellfire crap you've been handed all your life. Room service that leaves this place at the starting gate."

    Turning with him, she said, "Would you stop the Lighting if I-was

    "Oh please," he said, "don't start that business. No I wouldn't. And I can't, it's too late. So it's Eternal Youth, or death when you go downstairs. The gas spreads and stays around; it's heavier than air,- that's why we're up on top here."

    She drew back in his arm, looked at him. Said, "What about Andy?"

    He shook his head. "He stays," he said. "I don't need him anymore and I can't trust him, especially where you're concerned. We can have other kids, all you want; young forever, remember? Think about it, Rosemary. I know it's a tough decision for you to make, given all the circumstances and your background and everything, but you're an intelligent person who can put things together-you knocked me for a loop when you worked out that stuff about Judy-so I'm sure you'll see it's the only decision that makes sense."

    They danced before the glitter and the clouds. He turned her, held her, put his cheek to hers. "Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak

    …" tAzandMandftsziLf

    In the shifting light of the screens, Rosemary sat bent in a chair, her hands folded, her head down.

    Andy reclined on the couch with an elbow on the arm and the afghan thrown back, watching with tiger eyesshaking his horned head, lowering his lips to the straw sticking up out of the Coke can squeezed between the clawed thumb and first finger of his towel-tied hand.

    Joe/satan leaned back in a chair with his feet in black silk socks on the console, watching with furnace- banked-down-to-tiger eyes, eating caviar out of a pound tin with a spoon. He checked his multidialed watch, taking care not to tip the tin. Swallowed and said, "Son of a gun, three minutes and twelve seconds and there they go. Look, the guy on the steps. See? And there, over there, that woman. Uh-oh, look where the candle landed." He shook his head, stuck the spoon straight up in the caviar. "Incredible, the way they can time something like that." He picked up his glass of champagne.

    Sipped. "Those guys were really good," he said. "Where you going?"

    Rosemary left the room.f

    She walked all the way through to the window.

    Stood there, her forehead against the glass.

    Gold dust lay sprinkled over the park fifty-two floors below, gold dust on the ball fields, gold dust in the Sheep Meadow, gold dust glittering as far north as she could see, thinner in some places, puddled with black in others.

    Half the city-Gc's inner circle among them-must have gathered to light their candles down there under the leafless midwinter trees. Drawn by druidic memories?

    Fire burned in two windows in the Fifth Avenue cliff. In Queens, a red glow tinted the clouds.

    High above, slow-moving lights crossed a cloud gap of starry sky-one of the few international flights that couldn't be rescheduled to avoid the hour. But the pilot would have gone back and lit one token candle for all the passengers and crew members, who planned to light their own candles when the plane came down.

    Far below, a tiny horse toppled over on the gold- dusted park side of Central Park South, pulling its carriage over with it. Other horses and carriages lay in a row behind it. Cars and busses stood still, dark flecks and gold dust beside them.

    She wept.

    If she had come up here Wednesday night, when she had first heard Andy calling… If she had not had her guilt to confuse her…

    She shuddered.

    Drew a breath. Wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands. Stood tall and looked out, counted six windows with fires in the Fifth Avenue cliff. Flames now in Queens.

    She heard him behind her. Get thee behind me, Satan. She said, "I'm staying with Andy."

    "And here I thought you were smartst" Andy said.

    She turned to him.

    They looked at each other.

    "Go," he said.

    "How can I?" she asked him. "I don't even deserve eternal old age. I don't even deserve a day more of now." "Go," he said. "Believe me, it's what you should do. You'll be okay."

    "Okay?" she said, her eyes tearing. "I'm going to be okay

    . With everybody in the world dead, and you dead, and me with iim? You're crazy from hunger! You're insane!"

    "Look at me," he said.

    She looked at him. Into his tiger eyes. He said, "Trust me on this one."

    She peered at him. Said, "Really?"

    He smiled. "Would I lie?"

    They smiled at each other.

    She leaned to him, caressed his cheek. She tiptoed, he bent; they kissed lips, chastely.

    Smiled at each other.

    He stepped aside, raising a wrapped hand toward Joe/satan, waiting by the open brass cylinder in his white tie and tails, holding his top hat.

    She stood a moment and walked-crepe swaying, high heels clicking-across the slick black floor to him.

    He ushered her into the redtand-brass cab. She turned-glimpsing Andy standing before the glitter and the clouds, a hand raised-as Joe/satan got in close against her and the cab closed behind him.

    They dropped.

    He put his top hat on her head, tipped it back, fluffed some hair out from under. "Cute," he said, smiling down at her.

    She looked ahead at his white tie. Really tied, no clip- on. "How do we get through the gas?" she asked.

    "Not to worry."

    She looked up at him smiling at her, red 10-9-8 flicking above his head,

    L-B-G1-G2…

    The cab dropped faster. Grew hotter.

    Starting to sweat, she stared ahead at his tie.

    "I can't wait to get out of this monkey suit," he said. "The one inside, I mean. Three damn years now I been wearing it." His hands clawed-clawed-at the tie and the shirt collar, ripped them apart, tore them away with parts of his neck from green-black scales; flung fabric and flesh on brass and red leather.

    She stared up into furnace eyes, white horns arcing. "You said it wasn't hellfire!"

    "Rosemary, baby," he croaked, tearing jacket, shirt, flesh from wet green-black scales, "still LIE! Don't you know that by nowl" He waggled a giant tongue in her face,- she shut her eyes and screamed, his arms hugging her. "ToI ToI" he cried, holding her, hugging her, kissing her head. "You're okay! You're okay!"

    She opened her eyes, gasping, panting. "You're okay," he said, hugging her, "you're okay, you're okay…" She clutched at her paisley pajama top, at a hank of her auburn hair, looked around, gasping, at the room in its early-morning light.

    At the posters of Paris and Verona, the yellowing full- page ad for Luther with the red circle near the bottom.

    She collapsed against his chest, gasping, sobbing, catching her breath. "Oh Guy!" she said. "It was awfull It went on and on, and I slept, and it started again, and went on and on…"

    "Ah my poor baby," he said, hugging her, kissing her head.

    "It was so real!"

    "That's what you get for reading Dracula in bed…"

    She leaned from his arms and looked down at the paperback on the floor. "Bram Stokerl" she cried. "Of course!" She caught her breath as he sat back beside her. "We got an apartment in this old house called the Bram," she said, "the Bramford! First it was midtown, then it was on Central Park West, first it was black, then it was pink, it had gargoyles, it didn't have gargoyles- basically it was the Dakota, only it was rent-controlled."

    "Wouldn't that be loverly," he said, lying back on the bed, yawning, scratching under the waistband of his paisley pajama bottoms.

    She turned around and punched at his shoulder. "And you, you rat fink," she said, "you lent me to a bunch of witches!"

    "Never, never!" he said, catching her fist, laughing.

    "And I had a baby by Satan!" she said.

    "Uh-oh," he said, pushing her (down, climbing over her, "if this is turning into the baby conversation, I'm busy."

    He got off the bed and stepped into the bathroom, pulling the door half closed as she hitched on her knees to the gilt-framed mirror canted from the wall at the foot of the bed. "Oh Godl" she said, ckpping her chest, leaning close to the glass. She stroked her cheeks, grasped her hair, kissed it, eyed her eyes, fingered the skin around them, caressed her cheeks, her throat, her hands. "I was ftfty-eightl" she said. "I didn't look it but that's what I was supposed to be! It was awfull I looked like my Aunt Peg!"

    "Isn't she the cute one?"

    "Yeah, but still-fifty-eight?" She whistled. "Wow, what a relief to be young again! It was so real! The whole thing!" She sat back on her haunches, frowned. "It was 1999," she said. "It was weird. My son and I, we were like… like Jesus and Mary… but very different…" She shook her head, kneeled and studied her cheeks again. Looked really close at them. Checked a teensy spot. "I've got to take better care of my skin," she said.

    "It's good I'm up early. I'm going to go to that open call for Drat! The Cat!" "It was a hit in 1999," she said, checking around her left eye. "A revival."

    "I'll tell them, they'll be thrilled. I mean it, it's a great line to come on with. "Gentlemen, I'm happy to announce you've got a hit! My wife is a psychic and she dreamed last night that there's going to be a revival in 1999!"

    "Since when am I a psychic?" she asked, looking in the mirror, folding her side hair up and under.

    "Hey, this is show biz, remember?"

    She said, "The skates had all four wheels in a line."

    "I won't tell them that."

    She chuckled. "There was a big gold tower at Columbus Circle," she said, looking at the other side of her head with the hair held shorter. "That's where I lived in the part where I was old."

    "Where was 7 then?"

    "Either dead or not famous," she said.

    "Same thing."

    She smiled at his little joke. Said, "I just may let Ernie cut my hair…" The phone rang; she turned, flopped down, found it on the floor on the second ring, picked up the black handset. "Hello?" she said.

    "Hul-lo, my angel! Sorry if I woke you."

    "Hutch!" she cried, rolling over on her back, stretching the cord. "You can't imagine how glad I am to hear you! I had the most awful dream, a coven of witches cast a spell on you!"

    "It was prophetic, that's exactly how I feel; I was out on a bender last night and I'm at the Racquet Club trying to steam away the aftereffects. Gerald Reynolds is here. Tell me, have you and Guy found new digs yet?"

    "No," she said, sitting up, "and we're desperate. We have to be out by the end of the month; that's when everything gets shut off."

    "You shall bless me, my child. Do you remember my telling you about Gerald's apartment? With the jungle and the parrots? In the Dakota?" his "We were just talking about it!" sne said. "The Dakota, I mean! Not-the apartment…" She clasped a hank of hair, held the handset, looked ahead.

    "He needs someone to sit it for at least a year, maybe more. He's going home to work on a film with David Lean. He's absolutely desperate for someone responsible to tend the flora and fauna. He's supposed to leave the day after tomorrow,he had a cousin ready to move in but she was hit by a taxi yesterday and will be in hospital for at least six months."