Tales from the Nightside (6 page)

Well... maybe, he thought sourly, and spent the rest of the evening in front of the television, watching a ball game that didn't interest him, drinking the iced tea without tasting it, and wondering what in hell had happened to his life that it should be so boring, so empty, that he was forced into uncovering mysteries whose solutions were so obvious he didn't want to know them. Hell. A hundred years ago, when he was single, he would have challenged the heat and the summer and the month and the world. Now he only sat and pouted and didn't give a damn at all that the man who just slid into third base was so safe the umpire should have been lynched on the spot. Hell. And it wasn't until nearly midnight that Felicity finally teased him out of his sulking and into their bed.

That night, shortly before dawn, old Ellie Nedsworth's Siamese tom died; her daughter found its left hind paw in the gutter, gouts of bloodstained tan fur scattered all over the street.

Almost without realizing it, Art found himself emerging as the neighborhood's leader. He organized a block search for signs of a dog pack, spurred by reports—though vague and unsubstantiated—that one was in fact roaming through the village. There had been incidents of children being bitten after sunset, and at least two young runaways were thought privately to have been killed by the night-marauding animals. And though they were given every cooperation by Chief Stockton and the police, Art and his neighbors finally decided that Western Road, at least, was not being terrorized by something out of a B-movie's nightmare.

There were, however, no alternatives given.

"Great White Hunter," Felicity said when he finally returned home an hour past dark. "The stupid cat was hit by a car and dragged. Lord, Art, you've seen it before." She grinned and pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. "The story really is that everyone here except Cal wants to be in Ellie's will when she dies."

He opened his mouth to protest, saw the look on her face and grinned sheepishly. She could very well be right—about the cat. The other rumors were, as rumors tend to be, convenient, especially during a summer as boring as this one had turned out to be. And now that he looked back on it, tramping through gardens and vegetable patches, poking in alleys, and beating the brush around the pond in the park seemed more foolhardy than brave, far more romantic than practical. It was, he thought, almost as though he were actually wishing there was a pack so he could prove his manhood.

Felicity took care of that, however, when she stripped off his trousers.

But when they were done, entwined and dozing, he could not help listening to the night and imagining himself fending off a horde of slavering beasts with blood on their fangs and his name in their growls.

The following day, as though in punishment for his imagination, was the first in a debilitating sequence marked by temperatures that remained well into the nineties. The bus was hot and stifling, the riders and driver cranky, and he and Felicity entered into another of their rounds o£ increasingly harsh bickering.

About the raise that did not come when they had expected it and had purchased the new station Wagon on the basis of its place in a revised and now utterly useless budget; about their son's having to attend summer sessions in New York because of a failure in biology during his freshman year at Cornell and his refusal to take his credits at Hawksted College in the Station; about his own reluctance to acknowledge his sullen dissatisfaction with his present job, the lack of extra money definitely not included. Felicity had been after him for over a year to take any one of the several offers he had had, to stop being so pigheadedly and unrealistically loyal to a company that clearly did not appreciate his talent for figures as much as it took him smugly for granted; and, she concluded as she always did, if he was going to stay with the firm in spite of everything, then he should stop bitching about not having any money, time, respect, and the dozens of other things that made his coming home during the heat wave something to be dreaded.

"I see," he said slowly at last, on Thursday night, when the latest skirmish had ended. He reached for the kitchen's screen door. "I suppose you'd rather have me stay in town, is that it? Is that what you're trying to say?"

She did not look up from the table where her hands were clasped knuckle-white. "When you're like this, Art, day after day after... yes." She took a deep breath. "Yes."

He slammed the door without satisfaction and shoved his hands into his jean pockets, walked stiff-legged down the driveway to the sidewalk and turned left. He ignored the muted heavy-summer sounds of televisions and radios, stereos and faint laughter, that hung over the street like the humidity that clung to the foliage in a timid fog; he paid no heed to a convertible blaring past that screamed out-of-date acid rock like a calliope in the hands of a madman; and he prayed once, fervently, that the dog—whatever kind of dog it was—that had killed the Irish setter would take hold of Julius Delarenzo's wattled neck and squeeze until Art got himself the raise, and a goddamned new office.

Love you, too, Julius, he said to the scowling image of his boss that floated about the trees; you goddamned ape.

He walked aimlessly for several blocks, listening to his breathing and the slap of his loafers on the pavement.

He blamed his temper, and Felicity's, on the sodden blanket heat.

Just as he blamed their winter's arguments on the brittle, dry cold.

He counted himself lucky he was not drinking; he wished his son home for someone to talk to; he wanted very much, and suddenly, not to be so predictably faithful that he had to refuse to accept the none-too-subtle blandishments of Carole Neuman across the street, who seemed to be spending more time lately vamping him than she did making dinner for her husband.

Just one quick tumble, he thought, almost wistfully; get hold of those boobs and ride those hips... just one. Just one. And he smiled ruefully as he kicked at a stone and watched it scuttle into the gutter. Guilt. There would be too much guilt. And though his affection for his wife might not always recall those earlier Hollywood-romantic days of drifting gently on the Seine, there was still something... something he could not quite name, though he would never call it love.

Another car, and he blinked, rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes, and saw himself standing in front of Schiller's house. Then, glancing down, he shuddered when he realized the darkness beneath his feet just might be the bloodstains left from the setter. The thought propelled him without thinking through the unlatched gate and up to the door, had him knocking before he knew what he was doing. And before he could turn around, Cal was peering through the screen door and grinning.

He was tall, stooped as a man might be who had carried the height for a decade too long, with a head of blinding white hair that Art had once claimed had to have come from a bottle somewhere. His face, despite the age it proclaimed, was full, his eyes squinting, and his pale lips worked soundlessly for a few moments as he considered.

"Art? That you, Art?" Such astonishment in anyone else would have been close to insulting.

"Me, Cal. Just... you know, just walking around it's so damned hot. Thought I would drop by and say hello."

Schiller opened the door without hesitating, and Art shrugged a
why the hell not?
to himself as he stepped over the threshold.

It was hot inside, but a pair of fans on the counter eased the pressure in the kitchen where they sat at a small round table gleaming wetly from a fresh cleaning. A can of Australian beer appeared in his hand. He nodded his thanks and took several full svvallows to fill in the suddenly uncomfortable silence.

"It's been a while, Art/' Schiller said. His voice was high, thin, a reed waiting for the wind to snap it.

"Couple of weeks, I guess, yeah." He took another drink, another, and passed the cold can over his forehead.

Calvin shrugged. "Could be worse."

Art finished the can—nearly a full quart—and there was another in front of him before he could refuse.

"What can I do for you?”

He didn't know what to say, but he said it anyway: "Cal, we're not exactly brothers under the skin and all that, and I don't want you to take offense—"

"None taken, Art. You must know me well enough for that, anyway, right?"

"—but I can't..."He inhaled deeply. Felicity, he knew, would kill him when she found out. His smile was weak, though it pretended to be hearty. "Look, this is silly, Cal, but... y'know, I can't help seeing all those toys out there every day when I go to work. Now, my wife says it's none of my business, and perhaps it isn't, but... ah, damnit!"

Calvin chuckled, his hands cupped loosely around a beer can and rolling it slowly. "It really isn't your business, you know," he said, not unkindly. Then his grin became mischievous. "But it is damned curious, isn't it."

Art looked at him and away, wondering if he should smile, wondering further if this cadaverous old man were mocking him behind that squint. Finally, he nodded.

"Thing is," the old man said, "they're for my little darlin's."

"Oh?"

"Yep."

"You mean, grandchildren, something like that?"

Calvin smiled again. "Grandchildren?" He leaned back in his chair and look heavenward. "Lord, no! My God, no!" He scratched at one barely shaven cheek. "No, just those little darlin's that come around now and again, off and on, you know how it is. Milk and cookies, a few hours on the slides and swings, and home again.

Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't. Ellie Nedsworth down the street there, she sends over her grandnieces and such when they come up from Jersey. Can't stand them around the house, she says. I keep 'em out of her hair. Mrs. Heidleman—the one what lost her daughter last winter?—she has seven grandchildren and hates every last one of them. She should, believe me. And especially this time of year. You know how it is—the heat makes them restless. Sometimes you can't control them."

Art thought of his son at that age and nodded.

"Course, what with them stupid animals having to up and die right in my front yard almost..." The old man shook his head. "Poor old Ellie, she wanted me to rake the sandbox to look for the rest of that fool cat's body. Can you imagine it? Poor old soul. Crazy as a loon."

Art blinked. "A... babysitter." He felt incredibly foolish when Calvin nodded. "You know, Cal, if you knew how I feel right now—“

"No need," Calvin said, waving a generous hand. "No need at all. Look at it this way—if I hadn't those things out there, you wouldn't have come by, we wouldn't talked. I don't have kids here at night, of course. They're all asleep."

"Just the same, that's all pretty damned good of you, you know that, Cal."

"Oh, not at all. A man moves around as much as I have in my life, he likes to get to know the neighborhood. Best way for that is with the kids. Little ones, the way I look at it, are the best introduction."

"You've been to a lot of places, then?"

They opened another round of beer.

"A few," the old man said. "Don't like towns much, you know. A man my age, I don't like to put down roots I can't yank out when I've a mind to. Been all over, now that I think about it. But this place, the Station, I surely would hate to leave it. Best little place in the country to my way of thinking."

Art nodded his agreement, and they drank in silence while he stared unseeing through the screen door at the back. Then his hand froze as it lifted still another new can to his lips. One of the swings was moving, as if someone had just jumped off. He half rose, almost pointed, then shook his head. Probably some teenager cutting through the yard. Squirrel. The wind. He brushed a hand back through his sandy hair and spent the next hour talking about nothings from baseball to his job. And when it was done—at a signal he did not recognize—he found himself standing on the sidewalk, on the other side of the gate. He looked around the yard; the toys were gone, the sandbox still covered.

But the wind...

"Arthur," he told himself, his words carefully spaced after a long satisfying belch, "you have too many beers on not enough food on a night that's too damned hot. Go home, idiot, and sin no more."

His voice sounded hollow, the words inane, and his temper barely stirred when he saw thin blanket and pillow on the family- room sofa.

The next day began badly: Felicity was still in bed when he left for work; Delarenzo announced that all salaries would be frozen for at least ten months because of the recession; his secretary announced she was quitting at the end of the month to get married; and his son called from New York to say he did not like college anymore, was considering dropping out, and did his father have any contacts in the city so he could get himself a job.

Felicity saved him from murdering the next living creature who walked into the room; she called just before closing and apologized. He apologized. And before she started crying he hung up. Ignored the bus and took a cab from Harley to his front door. Made her dress and took her to dinner at the Chancellor Inn.

Afterward, they made love, with the fan in the bedroom window drowning out the noises of the car racers in the street.

Saturday he returned to the office and finished everything he had filed on his desk. He didn't think Delarenzo would notice, but you never knew, he told himself—miracles sometimes do happen. That night Felicity went off to visit her sister on the other side of the village, and after an hour's prowling through the empty house and finding nothing but unpleasant shadows, he left and headed straight for Calvin's.

The old man was surprised.

"Didn't expect you here for another two, maybe three weeks, Art."

Art accepted the gibe with good grace and a shrug, stared out the back door while Calvin fetched the beers; the swings, their chains winking in the light spilling from the house, were still.

The heat shifted in a desultory breeze that died as though the effort was too much to make.

He drank excessively while the old man reminisced, kept looking to the swings, kept frowning... kept drinking. And by the time midnight had come and gone he knew he was going to have a difficult time maneuvering home. Calvin did not seem to notice. Instead, he laughed heartily at Art's wobbling and guided him to the front.