Shivers (21 page)

It overflowed the basin, poured across the table, and dripped onto the floor.

It’s only in your mind,
Henry told himself. But it didn’t do any good.

Henry was a boy again at Orchard Beach. He’d nearly drowned that day, his small browned body buffeted by the gigantic waves—his father’d pulled him out just in time. He’d had a fear of the water ever since.

The substance was filling the room and Henry was drowning in it.

This time his father wasn’t there.

Harry Faulkin came home early in the morning, slightly plastered and amusingly disheveled. He gave the doorman a generous smile, walked unsteadily toward the elevator bank, and got into one of the cars.

He pressed his floor number and leaned against the mirrored wall. Getting a good look at himself, he started patting his hair into place. He hated the way it looked when the wind got at it. He tore off his tie and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket.

He got off the elevator, whistling while he walked to his door, and got out his keys. Once inside he took off all of his clothes and scattered them along the floor on the path to the bedroom.

He headed for the bathroom, where he brushed his hair carefully and gargled with mouthwash. He simply could not stand the thought of a toothbrush in his mouth at this hour. He pinched both cheeks, smiled at himself, then ran over to his bed and jumped in with a war-whoop. Tonight he was glad to be alone. All he wanted to do was sleep, sleep, sleep.

Where the hell was Steven?
he wondered for the fiftieth time. He’d called his apartment over and over again. He’d found out from a friendly source that Vivian Jessup’s death had been classified a suicide, but one of the reporters at the station was still interested in exploring the “missing young lover” angle. He’d wanted to set up a meeting for the two of them. He’d finally given up calling Steven and called a blonde instead. They’d partied half the night away. Oh well, tomorrow was another day.

As for me,
he thought,
it’s been a perfect evening.
Even the weather had turned out just the way it was supposed to. Not a sign of snow anywhere. Something had been affecting the weather but he was damned if he knew what it was.

“Harry Faulkin,” he said out loud. “You have it made.”

He crouched on his knees in the bed and grabbed the curtains drawn across the big picture window which separated the bed from the cold night air and eternity. He liked to wake up and be able to see out across the city without even lifting his head up off the pillow. He threw open the curtains for one last look at his fabulous Big Apple.

Snow.
Everywhere. As far as the eye could see. Millions of flakes sprinkling their whiteness down, down, down into the grimy city streets.

Harry groaned.

When Steven finally got home he was bone-tired and frustrated. Ralph had insisted he go home—he was too exhausted to argue with him —when his operative showed up to watch George’s apartment. There was nothing more to be done that night and he simply had to face it.

It was too late to call Andrea, though he would have loved to have spoken to her, to have heard her voice, found out once and for all where he stood with her. He wanted to tell her how much he liked Ralph. How he’d try, try any thing, to keep them from splitting up for good. He’d take his nose out of his books and papers and blue-pencilled manuscripts and listen more to what she had to say. Hadn’t that been her major complaint? One of a dozen, he supposed.

He looked through the mail he’d retrieved from the box in the foyer on his way in from the street. A magazine he subscribed to. A bill from a book club, a phone bill, and a postcard from an acquaintance vacationing in Greece. And another envelope with his name scrawled in pen across the front, no return address. It had been postmarked somewhere out in Long Island. This he would have to open immediately.

He’d never seriously entertained the possibility that Joey had been kidnapped—he was not a particularly wealthy man—but suppose someone had intended that Vivian Jessup pay Joey’s ransom? Then decided to contact Steven after reading of Vivian’s death? His fingers were trembling as he opened the envelope.

Inside was a letter on plain white typing paper. Someone had used a manual typewriter with a worn ribbon. Some of the individual letters hadn’t printed at all, and it looked as if whoever had typed it had been in a hurry.

Mr. Everson: While I can I must type this for you. You are in great danger, I fear. I know you must be worrying about your brother. I can not phone you as your number is not listed. Please come talk with me. I will explain when you come. If I told you in this note you would think I was crazy, you would tear it up. I can not take that chance. Do not tell
anyone
that you have received this letter, I beg you.
No one
must know or you may very well be responsible for my death. For my sake, for your
brother’s
sake, do not tell a soul. Simply come. To the address below. The night of October 19th. Come after midnight and make sure you are not followed.
Do not come
to the house nearby, just drive into Lot 15 of the beach, and walk out to the lifeguard station that is there. I will meet you inside.

There was no signature, but an “address”— simply the name of a town and a road within it —was printed in the bottom righthand corner. A crude map and directions were scribbled in pencil underneath.

Steven sat down on the sofa and read the letter over and over again, until he was no longer reading but trying to see between the lines, trying to decide how seriously he should take it.

He knew he had to take it seriously. Obviously he had no choice. “For your brother’s sake,” he had read. That must mean that somewhere, somehow, Joey might still be alive.

He wanted to tell Ralph about it, but was afraid to. Yes, the whole thing
could
be a trap. A deserted lifeguard station in the middle of nowhere, with no one around to help him. If he told Ralph, brought him along for security,
how
would anyone know, really?

Yet he was afraid to take that chance. When it came to his brother he simply couldn’t afford to be too rational. If the note said tell no one, he would tell no one. Not Ralph. Not Harry. Not Andrea.
No one.
He would rent a car and drive-out there by himself tomorrow night.

He still had doubts. Walking foolishly into a potential ambush, getting himself killed without even letting anyone know where he was going would not only be suicidal—it wouldn’t help Joey in the slightest.

But he had to take that chance. He
had
to.

He decided to compromise. He would write Ralph a note and mail it to him. That way if anything should happen to him at the beach, Ralph would get the letter a day or two later, and would be able to proceed with the investigation. Even if Ralph dropped the case, the police would have some information to go on.
Someone
would know where he had been. That was better than nothing.

The alternative was for him to also disappear without a trace.

Maybe his letter to Ralph wouldn’t accomplish anything. But it was all he could do. He would not take a chance and jeopardize his brother’s life if he could help it. Not in a million years.

He reread the letter one more time. Then he sat down and wrote his note to Ralph. There—that seemed satisfactory.

He was too tired to keep his eyes open any longer.

Twenty minutes later he was fast asleep in bed.

At first Steven wasn’t sure what had awakened him. His stomach growling again? Street noises? The crazy battling couple in the apartment above? No, it was something different this time. A noise from outside his bedroom window—a cough, or a footfall. Someone was out in the alleyway beside the building.

He looked over at the window, at the light that shone in through the pane. Someone had walked in front of it, partially blocking out the light. Steven gasped as a person’s shadow filled up his bedroom.
It was like a huge, frightening darkness blotting out light and hope.

Then he saw the face pressed up against the pane, looking into the bedroom. A frightful, tormented face that chilled Steven to his very bones. His body started to quiver with horror. He couldn’t even speak.

The face went away. Steven got up, still shaking, and forced himself to walk over to the window. He lowered the blinds with a crash and turned the slats up tight so that he could never see that face again.

But it was too late. He knew that he was in for another sleepless night.

For he had recognized the face, had seen it for an instant with utter clarity.

The man who had looked through the window had been dead for almost three years.

Steven’s
father.

PART IV

Saturday, October 19th

EIGHT

S
TEVEN DIDN’T REMEMBER
at what hour he had finally fallen asleep, but it was daylight now and he didn’t feel like sleeping any longer. One of these days it would catch up with him, this lack of sleep, but for the time being he would just have to settle for whatever catnaps he could manage. He looked at the clock. It was ten-thirty.

He went over to the window with some trepidation, still wary after last night’s vision. That was all he could possibly call it. He lifted up the blind, letting in warm, bright sunlight which filled the bedroom with its glow. Had he really seen what he had thought he’d seen? Now, in the daytime, it all seemed so unreal. Yes, someone had peeked in through his window, but it couldn’t have been the man he had at first thought it to be. Yet Steven could still see the face in front of him now, the face of his father.

It was impossible, he knew that. His father had been incinerated in a fiery crash, buried over two years ago in the earth. The dead didn’t come back except in nightmares. Even now Steven wondered if he’d genuinely been awake at the time he’d seen that figure staring in at him from the alleyway. Perhaps not. Or perhaps it had only been someone who closely
resembled
his late father. That had to be the explanation! Perhaps it had been someone who had information about Joey. Or maybe Ralph had assigned someone to keep an eye on Steven. He’d appreciate it if the watchdog was a little less conspicuous.

Funny how the mind would rationalize. Last night there had been no question about the face in the window. He’d almost been convinced that his father had returned from the dead in his— in Joey’s—hour of need, a ghostly specter come to offer comfort.

Today there were a million doubts.

As he made coffee, his thoughts kept returning to his late-night peeper, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on something else. He could barely bring himself to suggest that his father might still be alive. It was an insane notion, nothing a rational, sensible man would give credence to. His imagination was much too vivid.

He went out to check the mailbox. Nothing. He retraced his steps, walked along the hallway past his door, and went out the back exit to where the trash was kept. He stepped into the alleyway at the side of the building and strode down to his bedroom window. A tall man—like his father had been—could have stretched up on his toes and looked in with relative ease. Standing there now, looking in, Steve tried to imagine what he must have looked like to that stranger—rising from his bed, his mouth wide open in horror, unable to speak.
Who
had stood here last night? Steven saw his bed, unmade, disheveled; his dresser, the top drawer open, socks spilling out. The bookshelf on the far wall, with its dog-eared paperbacks tumbling in disarray. Someone had invaded his privacy, seen him alone, terribly alone. Someone had dared to stare with impunity into his haven against the world.

And Steven dreaded the moment when that someone might
enter
it.

That morning Eric Thorne and Hammond Gratis rode down to work together on the subway. There had been no more dreams or incidents the evening before; both had slept peacefully and well. Hammond complained that the sofa wasn’t the most comfortable mattress in the world, but Eric had no intention of turning his bed over to him—it had been Hammond’s idea in the first place that they “bunk” together. Still, Hammond wasn’t really had company.

“Did you see the snow last night?” Hammond asked as the train stopped at West 4th Street.

“Snow? What snow?”

“Well, obviously it didn’t stick. But it was snowing last night, believe me. I got up around three-thirty to get a snack, and I chanced to look out the window. There it was! Detestable stuff. I’m glad it all melted away.”

The train started to move again, its passengers cramped and uncomfortable. While there was no actual rush hour on Saturdays, it did get crowded on some lines in the early morning. Making way for a very large woman with two shopping bags who was trying to squeeze through to the other side, Eric stepped back and went over toward the window in the front door of the car. Hammond tried to follow, but his way was blocked. He yelled out above the rumbling noise. “And to think I could be home sleeping in bed!”

Eric smiled and looked away, concentrating on the ads above his head. He didn’t mind going into the Institute on Saturday—he had some paperwork to catch up on, and this was the best time to do it. At least Hammond would be there to talk to. Although Gratis himself was already caught up with his work, he’d agreed to accompany him.

Having glanced over the written spiels for coffee, soda, fresh chicken parts, and depositories, Eric checked to look out the front-door window. He hadn’t realized that this car was the first one of the train. He liked to watch as the train moved forward, the tracks raced by underneath his feet, and the little yellow light-bulbs along the wall blurred together into one long yellow stripe. A distant station—at first just a mere hint of faraway light—would begin to take on form and substance as the train approached it.