Son of the Endless Night, page 2
When Rich came out of the bath Karyn was standing in the doorway of their room holding a couple of frosty tankards of draft beer. Snow pelted the windows. Rich took an offered mug, drank deep, gave her a sudsy kiss. Karyn leaned against Rich instead of the door jamb, put her free arm around him.
"What's happening?" Rich asked her.
"Benny and Elise went to dinner. Barbra Streisand's making a movie at Mount Snow, and they had one of the chair lifts tied up most of the day. Wexler's here with that girl from Vogue magazine. The one who looks as if she masturbates with an icicle." Karyn pulled her eyes tight with her forefingers and pouted chillingly.
Rich laughed. "It's a whole hour until dinner. Let's take our clothes off."
"Down to the bare skin? Why should we get undressed?"
"Why do Boy Scouts rub sticks together in the woods?"
Karyn kissed him again, getting a lot of adroit bodywork into the effort. Her eyes went out of focus. "I don't know if it's the snow or the beer or the damn drafty rooms they have up here or that big featherbed. I feel like I've been hostile, and I think we'd better make up."
4
With the vital closeness reinforced, their mood of intimacy lasted well past the dinner hour. They ate a lot: creamy deep-dish chicken pie, four kinds of vegetables, homemade hot breads and fruit cobblers; smiled for no reason, touched frequently. Rich talked about the glorious possibilities of a career in journalism ("You can write about anything. No subject is trivial. It isn't eloquence that matters as much as precision— the right thought, the right word at the right time"), his determination to break into The New Yorker, the almost scalding desire to be respected for his craft.
Karyn nodded, enthralled, and began to think again about marrying Rich. To hell with how her family would take the news. Plenty had already been said about the relationship, all of it negative— there was no chance her father would ever accustom himself to having a common Boston Irishman for his son-in-law. The hostilities would never cease, Rich not being the sort to accept their scorn lightly— but it was her life, God damn it; she wanted above all for it not to be dull. No one but Rich could please her body and engage her mind so well.
After dinner they were fitted into a table in the jammed tavern. Rich and Benny went at it; their social evenings together were one long argument. Benny Childs was dapper, blue-cheeked, in his second year at the Divinity School. He had his eye on a distinguished ministry at one of the affluent churches in New York City, a profitable sideline in glitzy weddings and the kinds of funerals where you needed ten cops on motorcycles to keep everything moving, and the authorship of self-help manuals for the spiritually bushwhacked (God Wants You to Get Yours). Rich respected Benny for his scholarship and enjoyed twigging him about his fondness for luxuries.
"My brother's knees," Rich claimed, "are permanently deformed from kneeling on concrete floors."
"Catholics have always confused physical discomfort with piety," Benny said. "Does it place you closer to God if you shave with cold water and observe Major Silences?"
"Abnegation sucks," someone said, as if proposing a debating topic.
Benny tittered. "I am never closer to Him, nor more profoundly aware of His blessings, than when I uncork a bottle of Pol Roger '71 in the company of a few close friends." He contented himself with what was left of the tepid beer in his mug and hugged the buxom Elise. "Except maybe when I am only a few joyful strokes away from— "
"Ben-jamin." Elise was stern but unblushing. And delicious in an overblown way, with slanty Siamese-blue eyes and a head plump with tight gold whorls. Lately she had begun to wear braces on her teeth, a child's full set that gave her a startling smile, like the maw of a meatgrinder. She placed her mouth close to Benny's ear and laid down the rap about his deportment among their friends, then nibbled that ear as a postscript.
Benny looked up and around with an exhalation of pure bliss and discovered an overworked barmaid at his elbow. "Do it again," he said to her. "Whose turn is it? Mine?"
"How about blessing us with some Pol Roger '71," Karyn suggested.
"If only I could! But my last bottle left me both nearer to God and so broke I had to sell the crowns from my wisdom teeth." Benny puffed on his oversized Meerschaum pipe and focused on Rich again.
"You never have much to say about Conor. Did he ever tell you why he left the priesthood? Loss of faith?"
"I doubt it. He still practices, and all the kids are in parochial school, which is no small expense. I think it was a loss of perspective. Too much of God, not enough of the world he lived in. He had dreams, he said, of being handcuffed under water.''
"All part of the psychoneuroticism of a doomed religion. I'm not saying there aren't good men to be found in the priesthood, but— "
"Excuse me," Rich said, getting up. Benny looked startled, as if he was afraid he had offended.
Karyn said, "It's his kidneys, I think."
Rich glanced at her, smiling abstractedly. "No. I saw Windross over there by the bar. I want to ask him about Polly." And he was gone before Karyn could nail him with a look of icy displeasure.
"Who's Polly?" Elise asked.
"Don't get me started."
Rich caught up to the owner-manager of the inn as he was leaving the tavern. Windross, an expatriate from the Bronx, was one of those morose-looking men who seem unweaned from their mothers even when they are past the age of fifty. He was short and wide and covered his nearly bare, oblong scalp with a few long strands of hair, which did nothing but emphasize its bareness, a babyish vulnerability.
"Excuse me, Mr. Windross?"
Windross looked warily at him, as if expecting a complaint.
"I'm Richard Devon. I was here in August."
"Glad you came back," Windross said with a cursory smile. "We must be doing something right."
"Don't you remember me? I spent some time with Polly."
Windross was jostled, and sidestepped uneasily toward the door. He peered again at Rich. He was a toothsucker, working away at some obstruction or cavity at the back of his mouth. In the yellow light of the tavern he looked seriously jaundiced and not at all delighted by Rich's presence.
"Yes, I do remember you. Polly's friend."
"How is Polly?"
Windross hunched his shoulders. "Prettier every day," he said, somehow not sounding like a proud father.
"I'd like to see her. Has she gone to bed yet?"
There was a high sheen of perspiration on the man's head. He brushed at the moisture with his fingertips, then dived into a pocket of his sagging tweed jacket for a wadded handkerchief. "No. I don't know. What I mean is, Polly's not here anymore." He made sucking noises; his hands worked to explain, as if he'd suddenly been stricken dumb.
"Not here?" Rich prompted.
Windross shook his head, and got his voice back. "This was no place for her— a young girl. No mother. I'm too busy all the time. You see how it is."
"Sure. Where is she?"
"With my sister— living in Canada."
"Oh, Canada."
"That's right. Sorry. I know she'd like to say hello. You hit it off with her real well. Polly liked you."
"She's okay, isn't she?"
"Fine. Polly's fine."
"I was sorry to hear about the fire."
"It could've been worse. Fortunately it didn't put me out of business."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"No, of course not!" Windross said indignantly. "There were only a few guests in the wing at the time. And it was mostly smoke. We had the fire out in ten minutes." He clutched at Rich's sleeve, as if begging an indulgence. He smiled heartily, but there was an odor about him, a sourness. He looked very worried despite the smile. Maybe, Rich thought, the insurance hadn't covered the damages.
Or maybe the state wanted him to put in a sprinkler system he couldn't afford. It was a short season, after all, and even the young moneyed ski crowd wasn't enough to guarantee a profit in a depressed economy.
"Listen, I don't have time to talk now. You see how busy, right? But if there's any extra little thing I can do to make your stay pleasant— " He let go of Rich's sleeve, made a fist, punched the boy's arm lightly, intimately. "How's the room? The room's comfortable?"
"Yes."
"Good." He punched again. "See you around, Rich. Nice meeting you again."
Rich made room for another couple trying to squeeze inside the tavern and watched Windross as he crossed the lobby. The man moved lamely, hipsprung, dragging his left foot a little, wearing out the leather on the inside of the expensive molded shoe he wore.
Karyn came up behind Rich, touched his shoulder. Rich jumped.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking."
"So what's the latest on Polly?" Her expression said, Try to imagine how little I care.
"She isn't here, he told me."
"Oh," Karyn said, and she looked down for a few moments, lips pursed. "Are you satisfied?"
Rich forced a smile. "Guess I'll have to be."
"All the smoke in there is killing my sinuses. Let's go play in the nice clean snow."
"Freeze your tookus."
"We'll thaw out in a hot tub. Do you know what I've been thinking about all evening? How nice it would be to have a baby with you. My sister told me once that she knew the exact moment when she conceived. That must be the best thing that can ever happen— to have great sex, and know at the same time you've made a baby."
"What brought this on?" Rich said, only half pretending to be alarmed.
"Just that crazy thing called love, I guess."
5
He should have slept soundly all night, deep in the four-poster featherbed with a good weight of comforter on top, hip to cozy hip with Karyn. No reason for him to wake up suddenly feeling as chilled and wet as if he'd been swimming in a frigid sea. He shuddered hard enough to disturb Karyn, who stirred and groaned. At the moment he opened his eyes something seemed to pass over the bed: shadowy, yet with weight and menace, like a low-flying bird of prey. Rich caught his breath and sat up slowly, not wanting to awaken Karyn. The chill lingered; his teeth chattered. He looked toward the windows.
There was in the room a mild draft that caused the floor-length diaphanous curtains to swell and tremble, an obscure light that stippled the ceiling with patterns of frost. Apparently the snowfall had stopped. It was quiet in the inn, except for a far-off drunken male voice trying to carry a tune. Presently the drunk gave up. Rich clenched his teeth and blotted his moist face with the edge of the sheet. He looked at his watch. It was five minutes to two. He felt an insistent pressure in his bladder he thought he should do something about. Six beers usually meant at least two trips to the bathroom during the night.
It was awkward trying to creep out of the featherbed and Karyn, disturbed once more, turned over on her left side, groping for him. With her other hand she had a good grip on Moses the Squirrel, who'd had priority as a bed companion since Karyn was ten years old. Rich barely tolerated Moses the Squirrel, whose once-opulent tail was a stub and whose body was lumpy from too many launderings. But he still had both of his white felt front teeth, and an indomitable grin.
"WheregoingRich?"
"John. Go back to sleep."
"Umm. Okay." Karyn sighed. He sat on the side of the bed for a couple of minutes longer; when he heard her breathing slowly and deeply he got up and moved across the creaking floorboards.
Just enough light came into the room to create a small eye-catching luster on the thin band of metal that encircled one of the bedposts. The dark fluted posts were shaped like Indian clubs: narrow at the top, wider where they joined the frame. The band was almost at eye level or he wouldn't have noticed.
Rich studied it curiously. It hadn't been there when he went to bed, he was certain of that. When he touched it he found it was a chain. He traced the minute links to the circle clasp, explored further until he came to a heart-shaped locket that was just a little larger than his thumbnail.
Karyn owned nothing like it— but even as he was trying to fashion a rational explanation, a surge of delirium caused him to grip the bedpost hard with both hands. He trembled, he was weak at the knees. Never mind how it could have gotten there, he knew what it was.
His fingers were blundering and stiff; he needed several minutes to remove the locket from the bedpost. Karyn slumbered on obliviously beneath the comforter, breathing between parted lips, making little liquid sounds as if she were a child learning to blow spitbubbles.
Rich went into the bathroom, closed the door, relieved himself copiously, and then sat on the high rim of the tub holding the locket in his right fist. He breathed deeply but erratically, controlling first panic, then a giddy exhilaration, almost a coke high that twinkled brilliantly through the cells of his body.
The locket was fourteen-carat gold, the chain gold-filled. Together they had cost a little more than twenty-six dollars at the Cambridge Jewelry Store in Chadbury, engraving three fifty extra. A not inconsiderable sum for a guy on a limited budget, but he'd wanted to do something special to show her that someone really cared. And she had come close to tears when he gave it to her.
To my friend Polly, from Rich.
He opened the locket. His picture was there, too, crudely cut, probably with fingernail scissors, from a Polaroid snapshot. It had been Karyn's camera, he remembered. The three of them had taken a picnic lunch to a shady overlook high in the Green Mountains. Polly had asked to keep a couple of the pictures.
And defaced this one. Or so he thought, until he looked closer.
A number had been scratched, perhaps with a pin, across his face.
It didn't mean anything to Rich, not right away. He was still trying to logically assess the finding of the locket, asking all the right questions of himself.
If it wasn't there before we went to bed— and it wasn't— how did it get into the room?
— Somebody brought it into the room, walking slowly across the creaky floor, and fastened it to the bedpost, then went out again, quietly shutting the door.
Good explanation. Was I that sound asleep?
— What do you think, Devon?
I think the door was bolted when I went to bed. I think it's still bolted. Isn't that what I think?
— Go look. If the hall door is bolted on the inside, that means nobody could've opened it from the outside. And if the door didn't open, nobody walked in. Therefore you didn't find the locket. You're not sitting here wide awake on the edge of the bathtub staring at it, with your balls all shriveled up and your head starting to ache.
Rich got up, put the locket on the green glass shelf above the wash basin, ran water, doused his face. The shaking had started again.
He returned to the bedroom, checked the bolt on the door. In place. He wanted just to forget about it, dump the locket on the top of the George II dresser, and go back to bed.
But he couldn't. Polly was at the inn after all, and somehow she'd managed to let him know. And there was trouble. Trouble of such dimension he couldn't begin to conceive of it.
He only knew he had to find out where she was.
Rich dressed quietly and took his Eddie Bauer parka with him. The locket went into his wallet. He walked downstairs to the lobby.
There was a night clerk behind the reception desk, yawning through the pages of the Christmas issue of Penthouse. College kid, tall, with acne that rose from his shirt collar to the roots of his hair. Weren't they using sex hormones now to treat the really bad cases? The doctors around Chadbury probably still advocated plenty of soap and water and less self-abuse. The kid looked up grinning at Rich's approach, swiveled the magazine around for Rich to have a look at the centerfold, a dusky young woman with pinkish hair and slave bracelets.
"You think it's true what they do?"
"Come again?"
"If you look at one of these photographs close enough— you know, with a magnifying glass— instead of seeing tits and beaver you just see a lot of little colored dots."
"Takes all the magic out of it."
"Guy I know used to work in the printing plant where they run these off. He said they rearrange the dots, so they spell out subliminal suggestions. Like Get horny and Don't you want to fuck me? Stuff like that. You can't really see it with the naked eye, but the subconscious gets the message."
"I'll bet it does. Can you tell me where room 331 is?"
"I'm just filling in tonight, don't really know my way around the place myself. Three thirty-one? Wait a minute." He looked under the counter, pulled out a couple of floor plans, laminated in yellowed plastic. "Let's have a look. Uh-huh. Can't anybody be in that room. It's in the burned wing."
Rich chewed his lip in annoyance. "I guess Jerry gave me the wrong room number. I guess he wants to drink all the booze himself."
"What's going on? A party?"
"Yeah. Well, I don't feel much like it anyway. Not if I'm going to be on the slopes by sunup."
"Wish I had your ambition. G'night."
Rich went upstairs slowly, taking the locket from his wallet. He opened it again and looked at the number gouged into the Polaroid photo. Three thirty-one. He had thought it could only be a room number, but perhaps it meant something else. Or nothing at all.
He walked part way down the hall toward the room where Karyn slept, then stopped and just stood there, feeling out of bounds, vaguely intimidated by the shut doors on either side, as if his sleeplessness were illicit. He didn't want to go back to bed, despite the late hour; but he didn't know what else to do with himself. The tavern had long since closed for the night, no hope of getting a beer even if he had wanted one very badly. If there were any parties going on in the inn, the participants were unusually subdued.
Rich let the locket dangle and twist slowly on its chain, gathering light from the small glass tulip of the overhead fixture, dispersing it in moody flashes like a temperamental projector; charmed, he saw Polly emerge in hoarded fragments, her attitudes and self-conscious poses: she had been too pale for late summer, almost unexposed to the sun, long hair like spider's silk winding down and around her face from the force of the wind on an open hillside until it became like a woven mask with only a blue signet showing through— her flattering, enamored eye.
