Magic Terror (19 page)

He pulled in a searing rush of air. Blood and death dragged themselves far into his body and snagged on his flesh so that they stayed behind when he exhaled in time with his mother. Somehow blood had coated his hands, and he left dark prints on the bed.

The rhythm of their breathing halted. His heart halted, too. The giant hands clamped down inside his mother’s body. A breath caught in her throat and pushed itself out with a sharp exclamation. He and his mother drew in a ragged lungful of blood and death and released a mouthful of steam.

The little rower on the black lake trembled on the horizon.

Sips of air entered her mouth, paused, and got lost. She took in two, waited, waited, and released one. A long time passed. Amazed, he noticed feeble daylight leaking into the room. Her mouth was furry with labor and dehydration. His mother took another sip of air and lost it inside herself. She did not take another.

Fee observed that he had left his body and could see himself standing by the bed.

He waited, not breathing, for what would happen next. He saw that he was smaller than he had imagined, and that beneath the streaks of blood on his face, he looked blank with fear. Bruises covered his chest, arms, and back. He saw himself gripping his mother’s arm—he had not known he was doing that.

A ripple moved through his mother’s body, beginning near her ankles and passing up her legs and into her hips. It rolled through her belly and entered her chest. Those powerful hands had found what they wanted, and now they would never let go of it.

Her face tightened as if around a bad taste. Both of them, his body and himself standing beside his body, leaned over the bed. The movement made its way into her throat, then moved like a current up into her head. Something inside him grabbed his essential substance and squeezed. His feet left the ground. A silent explosion transformed the shape and pressure of the air, transformed color, transformed everything. A final twitch cleared her forehead of lines, her head came to rest on the pillow, and it was over. For a moment he saw or thought he saw some small white thing move rapidly toward the ceiling. Fee was back in his body. He reeled back from the bed.

His father said, “Hey? Huh?”

Fee screamed—he had forgotten that his father was on the other side of the bed.

Bob Bandolier’s puffy face appeared above the midpoint of the body on the bed. He rubbed his eyes, then took in the bloody sheet. He staggered to his feet. “Get out of here, Fee. This is no place for you.”

“Mom is dead,” Fee said.

His father moved around the bed so quickly that Fee did not see him move at all—he simply appeared beside him and pushed him toward the door. “Do what I say, right now.”

Fee walked out of the bedroom.

His father yelled, “She’s going to be okay!”

Fee moved on damp, cold feet to the chaise and lay down.

“Close your eyes,” his father said.

Obediently, Fee closed his eyes. When he heard the bedroom door close, he opened them again. The sheet made a wet, sloppy sound when it hit the floor. Fee let himself revisit what had happened. He heard the inhuman, chugging noise come out of his throat. He drummed his feet against the back of the chaise. Something in his stomach flipped into the back of his throat and filled his mouth with the taste of vomit. In his mind, he leaned over and smoothed the wrinkles from his mother’s forehead.

The bedroom door banged open, and he closed his eyes.

Bob Bandolier came walking fast through the living room. “You ought to be in bed,” he said, but without heat. Fee kept his eyes shut. His father went into the kitchen. Water gushed from the tap: a drawer opened, an object rustled against other objects, the drawer closed. All this had happened before, therefore it was comforting. In Fee’s mind Charlie Carpenter stood at the wheel of his motorboat and sped across the glossy lake. A bearded man in Arab dress lifted his head and took into his mouth the last drop from an enormous cup. The warm liquid fell on his tongue like bread, but burned as he swallowed it. His father carried a sloshing pail past him, and the pail exuded the surpassing sweetness and cleanliness of the dishwashing soap. The bedroom door slammed shut, and Fee opened his eyes again.

They were still open when Bob Bandolier walked out with the bucket and sponge in one hand, a huge red wad wrapped in the dripping rubber sheet under the other arm. “I have to talk to you,” he said to Fee. “After I get this stuff downstairs.”

Fee nodded. His father walked toward the kitchen and the basement stairs.

Downstairs, the washing machine gurgled and hummed. Footsteps came up the stairs, the door closed. There came the sound of cupboard doors, of liquid gurgling from a bottle. Bob Bandolier came back into the living room. He was wearing a stretched-out T-shirt and striped boxer shorts, and he was carrying a glass half full of whiskey. His hair stood up on the crown of his head, and his face was still puffy.

“This isn’t easy, kid.” He looked around for somewhere to sit, and moved backward three or four feet to lower himself into a chair. He swung his eyes up at Fee and sipped from the glass. “We did our best, we did everything we could, but it just didn’t pan out. This is going to be hard on both of us, but we can help each other out. We can be buddies.” He drank without taking his eyes from Fee.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“All that help and love we gave your mother—it didn’t do the job.” He took a swallow of his drink, and this time lowered his eyes before raising them again to Fee’s. “She passed away last night. It was very peaceful. She did not suffer, Fee.”

“Oh,” Fee said.

“When you were trying to get her attention in there, before I chased you out, she was already gone. She was already in heaven.”

“Uh-huh,” Fee said.

Bob Bandolier dropped his head and looked down for a little time. He scratched his head. He swallowed more whiskey. “It’s hard to believe.” He shook his head. “That it could end like this. That woman.” He looked away, then turned back to Fee with tears in his eyes. “That woman, she loved me. She was the best. Lots of people think they know me, but your mother knew what I was really capable of—for good and bad.” Another shake of the head. He wiped his eyes. “Anna, Anna was what a wife should be. She was what
people
should be. She was
obedient.
She knew the meaning of
duty.
She didn’t question my decisions more than three, four times in all the years we spent together, she was
clean
, she could
cook . . .
” He raised his wet eyes. “And she was one hell of a mother to you, Fee. Never forget that. There was never a dirty floor in this house.”

He put down his glass and covered his face with his hands. Suffocated sobs leaked through his fingers.

“This isn’t over,” his father said. “This isn’t over by a long shot.”

Fee sighed.

“I know who’s to blame,” his father said to the floor. Then he raised his head. “How do you think this all started?”

Fee said nothing.

“A hotshot at the St. Alwyn Hotel decided that he didn’t need me anymore.
That
is when the trouble started. And why did I miss some time at the job? Because I had to take care of my wife.”

He grinned at nothing. “They didn’t have the simple decency to understand that a man has to take care of his wife.” His ghastly smile was like a convulsion. “But my campaign has started, sonny boy. I have fired the first shot. Let them pay heed.” He leaned forward. “And the next time
I won’t be interrupted.

“She didn’t only die,” Bob Bandolier said. “The St. Alwyn killed her.” He finished his whiskey, and his face convulsed again. “They didn’t
get
it. In sickness as in health, you know? And they think someone else can do Bob Bandolier’s job. You think they asked the guests? They did not. They could have asked that nigger saxophone player—even
him.
Glenroy Breakstone. Every night that man said, ’Good evening, Mr. Bandolier,’ when he wouldn’t waste two words on anyone else—thought he was too important. But he paid his respects to me, he did. Did they want to know? Well, now they’re going to find out. Things are going to happen.” He composed his face. “It’s my whole life—like that woman in there.”

He stood up. “Now there’s things to do. Your mom is dead, but the world goes on.”

All of a sudden the truth came to Fee. He was one-half dead himself; half of him belonged to his dead mother. His father went to the telephone. “We’re going to be all right. Everybody else, watch out.” He peered at the telephone for a second, trying to remember a number, then dialed.

The Sunchanas began walking around their bedroom.

“Dr. Hudson, this is Bob Bandolier.” His imitation of a smile appeared and disappeared. “I know it’s early, Hudson. I’m not calling to pass the time of day. Do you know where I live? . . . Because. . . . Yes, I’m serious. You better believe I’m serious.”

Fee got off the chaise. He bent down and picked up fat black Jude, who began purring. His hands and arms were still covered with drying blood, and his fingers showed red against the black fur.

“Because I need you here right now, old pal. My wife died during the night, and I need a death certificate so I can take care of her.”

Long individual cat hairs adhered to the backs of Fee’s fingers.

“Hudson.”

Overhead, a toilet flushed.

Fee carried Jude to the window.

“Hudson, listen to me. Remember how I covered your ass? I was the
night manager
, I know what goes on.”

Fee wiped his eyes and looked out the window. Some invisible person was out there, looking in.

“I’d say you were a busy boy, that’s what was going on.”

“Call it heart disease,” his father said.

Jude could see the invisible person. Jude had always seen the invisible people—they were nothing new to her. The Sunchanas moved around in their bedroom, getting dressed.

“We’ll cremate,” his father said.

For some reason, Fee blushed.

“Hello, give me Mr. Ledwell,” his father said. “I’m Bob Bandolier. Mr. Ledwell? Bob Bandolier. I’m sorry to have to say that my wife passed away during the night and unless I am
absolutely
required, I’d like to stay home today. There are many arrangements to make, and I have a young son. . . . She’d been ill, yes, sir, gravely ill, but it’s still a great tragedy for the two of us. . . .”

Fee’s eyes filled, and a tear slipped down his cheek. Held too tightly, Jude uttered a high-pitched cry of irritation and sank a claw into Fee’s forearm.

“That is much appreciated, sir,” said Bob Bandolier. He put down the phone and in a different voice said, “That old lush of a doctor will be here as soon as he can find a whole suit from the clothes on the floor. We have work to do, so stop crying and get dressed. Hear me?”

9

Bob Bandolier opened the door as Mr. Sunchana was leaving for work, and Fee saw their upstairs neighbors take in their undistinguished-looking visitor: the black bag, the wrinkled suit, the cigarette burned down to his lips. Dr. Hudson was shown to the bedroom and escorted in.

When Dr. Hudson came back out of the bedroom, he looked at his watch and began filling out a printed form at the dining room table. Bob Bandolier supplied his wife’s maiden name (Dymczeck), date of birth (August 16, 1928), place of birth (Azure, Ohio). The cause of death was respiratory failure.

Half an hour after the doctor left, two men in dark suits arrived to wrap Fee’s mother in the sheet that covered her and carry her away on a stretcher.

Bob Bandolier shaved twice, giving his face a military glaze. He dressed in a dark blue suit. He took a shot of whiskey while he looked through the knife drawer. Finally he slipped a black-handled paring knife into the pocket of his suit jacket. He put on his dark overcoat and told Fee that he would be home soon. He let himself out of the apartment and locked the door behind him.

An hour later, he returned in a mood so foul that when he struck Fee, his son could tell that he was being beaten simply because he was within reach. It had nothing to do with him. To keep the Sunchanas from hearing, he tried to keep silent. Anger made Bob Bandolier so clumsy that he cut himself taking the paring knife out of his pocket. Bob Bandolier raged and stamped his feet and wrapped his finger in tissue paper—another outburst when he could not find bandages, I can’t find any bandages, don’t we even have any goddamned
bandages
? He opened a fresh bottle and poured drink after drink after drink.

In the morning, Bob Bandolier dressed in the same blue suit and returned to the Hotel Hepton. Fee, who had said he was too sick to go to the movies, spent the day waiting to see the invisible people.

Some nights later, Bob remembered to cook dinner, and long after the moon had risen and his son lay in a semiconscious stupor on the living room rug, sucking on his pain as if on a piece of candy, he returned to the knife drawer in ruminating, well-fed, well-exercised fashion, and selected a six-inch blade with a carved wooden handle. Many hours later, Fee came awake long enough to register that his father was actually carrying him to bed, and knew at once from the exultant triumph he saw in his father’s handsome face that late at night, when no one had seen him, Bob Bandolier had gone back to the St. Alwyn Hotel.

Their life became regular again. Bob Bandolier left sandwiches on the table and locked the door behind him—he seemed to have forgotten about the Beldame Oriental, or to have decided that going to and from the theater exposed his son to unwelcome attention from the neighbors: better to lock him up and leave him alone.

One night Fee awakened when his father picked him up from the chaise, and when he saw the gleeful face burning over his, he knew again that his father had been to the hotel he hated: that his father hated the St. Alwyn because he loved it, and that this time at least he had managed to get inside it.

Sometimes it was as if Fee had never had a mother at all. Now and then he saw the cat staring at empty air, and knew that Jude could see one of the people from the invisible world.
From Dangerous Depths
returned to him, and alone in the empty room he played at being Charlie Carpenter—Charlie killing the big dog, Charlie stepping away from the wall to batter William Bendix to death, Charlie dying while Lily Sheehan smiled.