And suddenly, an iron hand gripped her. Fingers dug into her upper arm. She looked up. A pale, steel-eyed face glared down at her. The cop’s black cap brim jutted toward her eyes. She pointed at King Death.
“Officer,” she shrieked. “Officer, arrest that skull!”
“Come on, lady,” said the cop. “Move out of the way, willya.”
But with an enormous effort, she wrenched her arm free. She staggered forward a step toward the prancing king. She clutched her hair.
“Won’t anybody listen to me? That’s him! It’s happening! That’s the one!”
King Death spun full circle, his arms stretched wide, his knees rising high. He came full around and faced her.
And he pulled up short.
His hands were still out from his sides. His head was slightly forward. The eyes in the eyeholes were staring out at her where she stood not three yards away from him.
Everything else went on. The rapid rhythms of Danse Macabre pattered into the night. The crowd’s shouts rose and fell and rose again. Confetti burst and sparkled overhead. And the great skeleton passed over the sky like a storm cloud. But King Death stood and stared and she stood and stared back at him. The scepter fell from Death’s hand and clattered on the pavement.
And then King Death broke and ran.
He dashed between two puppeteers and lit for the western intersection. Confused, the crowd laughed and applauded. There was another chant of “Hail!” but it fell away. A few more scattered voices raised an ironic cheer. King Death lowered his white skull and charged the crowd, running like blazes. In another moment, he had slipped through a break in the current of human traffic. He was vanishing behind the closing masses.
For a second, the woman in the domino mask could only stand and watch him. She felt a black pool of sweet sleep spreading at her feet, widening all around her. She wanted more than anything to sink down into it, to drift away.
King Death rushed off, down the sidestreet, toward Sheridan Square.
The woman in the domino mask gave a single hoarse cry of pain, and took off after him.
On Seventh Avenue, the traffic was jammed. Car horns sounded again and again in the night air. Costumed strollers went slowly along the sidewalk under a pall of exhaust. Some paused at the windows of magazine stands and antique stores. Others, in ragged streams, still trickled up the sidestreets toward the parade.
The Perkins brothers came jogging uptown from Sheridan Square. They wove through the pedestrians, Oliver in the lead sometimes and sometimes Zach. Sometimes they split apart, running through the open ground at either edge of the sidewalk. Sometimes one of them fell to a fast walk to catch his breath, then started running again.
Zach clutched his red bag by the handles and it trailed behind him as he ran. His boyish face was flushed, his dark eyes were hectic. There was something disheveled and confused in his expression, as if he had just gotten off a plane and didn’t quite know where he was.
Oliver didn’t look at him much though. He just ran. He ran and there was the rhythm of his feet on the sidewalk. He listened to the rhythm and to the staccato of his breath. Let us. Let us go, he thought. Let us go then. You and I. Pat. Pat. Pat. Pat … He ran and felt the rhythm of his heart inside his chest. He felt the emptiness in his chest. Let us go then you and I … The suffocating shroud of exhaust hung over the fender-to-fender traffic; he felt it poisoning the autumn air. The pinkish white of streetlight globes passed above him. Let us go then. He saw Avis sitting on his bed this morning, when she had gently stroked his brow. Let us go. Pat. Pat. The furniture in the passing display windows was like an empty room begging for company. He remembered how Avis’s head had wobbled on its neck only minutes ago. Let us. Let us.
The two brothers turned up Christopher Street and jogged toward the library. They were shoulder to shoulder, both breathless. Perkins stared ahead and ran and saw the library’s turrets above the trees. They were lit by spotlights now. The clocktower brushed at the bottom of the moon. It was almost eight o’clock. Let us go then. He ran and did not think, except in flashes of remembering. The thin, snowy cold against his cheeks as the sled rushed downhill. The weight of his little brother leaning against him on the sled. The library came closer. Let us go. He saw its thin-necked dragon gargoyles jutting into the empty air. He could feel Zachary running beside him.
A cluster of sycamores rose from the library’s back lot. Now, in the shadow of their yellow leaves, he could see the parade on Sixth Avenue. A rolling stage, outlined in purple neon, was passing at the intersection. He saw a hairy giant gyrate on the stage, with attendant dancing girls on either side of him. The music, at this distance, melding with the traffic horns, sounded sour and discordant. They ran toward it, Oliver and Zach, side by side. Oliver carried the black weight in his stomach as he ran. His mind was black and heavy. He did not understand what had happened, how it had happened; how it had come to this. His mind was empty except for images. Avis holding her baby in her arms. The baby reaching out for him. “Pah!” The crowd grew thicker as they got near the parade.
Here, Oliver had to slow again. They both slowed, panting. They turned their shoulders to squeeze past the massing people, who were trying to squeeze their way, in turn, into the avenue crowd. Zach went first. Oliver followed him. Oliver’s sweater was torn, his chest exposed. The sweater and his jeans were wet with Avis’s blood. He could feel it, damp on his thighs, and his hands were sticky with it. He stared straight ahead, at the heads and faces of the crowd, as he pushed toward the library. Let us go then, you and I, he thought. Let us go then, you and I. He breathed through his open mouth. He did not care what happened. He wanted to get to the library fast. He wished he was there now. He would hold Tiffany until the police arrived. He did not care.
The crowd surrounded them, pressed in on them. They were near the corner. Near the library steps. The dancing beast was rolling past on his purple neon float, but the music was louder than ever. Oliver felt it drilling at his temple. He narrowed his eyes against it, twisting and turning in the crowd, forcing himself through, toward the steps. He saw Zachie’s cap turning and pushing forward in the tide ahead of them. Then Zach was rising, up the steps, through the people there, toward the library doors. Oliver reached the steps too. He came up behind Zach. He had held the baby on his chest that morning, he thought. The pots had clanked as Avis made him breakfast in the kitchen. He reached into the pocket of his damp jeans. He brought out his library key.
Zach was already at the doors, the Invisible Zach in his coat and hat. He was waiting beside the black glass doors that were traced in stone. Oliver joined him, and Zach gazed hard at him with his frantic eyes. Zach licked his lips, waiting, while Oliver found the key he wanted. Oliver thought about sledding down the hill outside their house on Long Island.
Oliver pushed his key into the door. In the jangle of music, above the roar of the crowd, he heard the whirling strains of Danse Macabre. He looked up to his left as he turned his key. Let us go, he thought. He saw a giant paper skeleton, a puppet in the parade. It was grinning and bobbing and dancing in the sky above the avenue. The sight made his gorge rise. He shuddered and turned away. He pushed the door open and stepped into the library.
He turned. He saw Zach follow him over the threshold. The door stood open for a moment behind him. He saw the people on the steps. He heard the music, still loud. He heard the voices of the people on the street. And he saw Zachary’s shadowy figure on the spotlit night with the great puppet skeleton floating up the avenue behind him.
Zachary smiled a little, nervously, almost apologetically. “We better hurry,” he said softly.
Oh, do not ask what is it, Oliver thought. Let us go and make our visit.
The library door hissed shut, unlocked now. The noise of the parade grew dim. The Perkins brothers stood in darkness together. They listened to one another’s breathing.
Death slithered through the crowd like a silverfish. The woman in the mask stumbled after.
&n
bsp; Me. Supposed to be me, she thought dimly. Her vision had gone all misty red. It was hemmed in by the black of the mask. She panted and staggered, her arms wheeling. Me. Supposed to be me.
On the busy sidestreet, the costumed people milled and scuffled. There were shouts and barks of laughter on every side of her. Scarred faces swirled by, tortured with hilarity. Rouged lips grinned. Elbows levered up and down as masks sucked at bottles of beer.
She staggered through it all. Her breath came out of her lungs like dragon fire. Lances of pain went up her legs with every step. Her back twisted like a wrung rag. She ricocheted off the shoulder of a garrulous monster and nearly fell. A man, painted black and draped in red, snatched at her. A woman in spangles fell back a step and cried out “Hey!” She reeled drunkenly past.
Ahead, the swift, zigzagging figure of King Death drew farther and farther away. She saw the shiny white skull dodging this way and that, the colorful quilted shirt billowing. The running figure drew closer and closer to the intersection at Christopher Street, where Christopher slanted back up toward the parade. Me! the woman in the domino mask thought desperately. The spittle poured over her lips as she tumbled through the night, as she clawed at the night with her fingers. Supposed to be me! She peered at the dodging figure of Death through the thickening red haze. Nausea made her head spin, made her legs go wobbly. Supposed to be … Oh shit! she thought. She was going under. No doubt about it, fans. She was going down. Her staggering progress slowed. She was falling from each step to the next, bent forward. She was gasping hoarsely, hotly, for breath. The long corridor. Dimly, she remembered it. Crawling over the floor, the carpet against her belly …
He’s getting away! King Death was at Christopher Street now, just at the corner, just about to rush into the intersection. The woman in the flashing domino was still half a block behind him. Still pushing against the wall of pain, another step and another. She was stumbling past the corner of Gay Street now, a small doglegged Village lane to her right. She was remembering the long corridor. The murmuring voice at the end of the hall. Eight o’clock. You have to be there. She had dragged herself down the hall, over the brown carpet that scraped softly at her belly … She remembered the voice murmuring: King Death. The library. You won’t forget now.
“Oh God!” she rasped suddenly. The street and its revelers were swirling away from her in a sickening vortex. She fell. Dropped to her knees at the corner of Gay Street. She wavered there for a moment, her mouth open, the slobber dangling from her lip. Then she pitched forward to the pavement.
“Whoa there, lady!” said a long-haired boy above her. “I mean: party on!”
“Getting away,” she tried to tell him, but the words wouldn’t come. She lifted herself on scraped palms. She could see him, the flash of his moving jeans. King Death had shot past the Christopher Street corner now. The strange, small, waiflike creature was braking at the curb, heels braced against the sidewalk. Around him, the clusters of masked people cheered and laughed and staggered aimlessly. Their elbows went up and down, their bag-covered beer bottles tilted up and down. King Death paused among them for only a moment. Then he dodged around the corner and he was gone, out of sight.
Prone on the pavement, her face barely raised, the woman in the domino mask stared at the spot where Death had been. To the right, she thought. He had gone to the right. He had gone up Christopher Street. He was slanting up toward the junction with Sixth, back toward the parade. Up toward that castle of a building she had seen in her dreams. And also, of course, back toward …
Gay Street.
He would have to go past the corner of Christopher and Gay.
“Oh,” she said hoarsely. “Oh.” She was trying to breathe. Trying to talk, to call for help. King Death had made a mistake. She still had a chance. She could still catch him. If she could just get up … She could run down Gay Street. She could cut him off. If she could just get to her feet …
“Help me. Help me,” she whispered.
A hand slid under her arms. Hot beery breath washed over her cheeks. “Whoa! Whoa!” It was the long-haired teen. He yanked up on her. She struggled to get her knees on the pavement. She braced herself against him as he hauled her to her feet. “Party on, Dudette. I mean, party hearty! I mean … Jesus Christ holy shit!”
The woman in the domino mask had reached into the waist of her jeans and pulled out her .38. The long-haired teen fell back from her, his eyes wide, his chin glistening with drooled beer. He stared at the weapon.
“Whoa,” he said solemnly.
The woman in the domino mask staggered backward a step. “Me …” she explained to him panting. “It was supposed to be me.” Then she groaned. A gritty burst of vomit filled her mouth. The brick high rises around her tilted across the sky. The sky swung back up until it was overhead again. She swallowed what puke she could and spat out the rest. Now where the hell was Gay Street? She turned unsteadily, blinking hard behind the mask.
There. There it was.
“Oh, sweet Jesus!” she gasped as the agony went through her legs again. She pushed off and started running.
At the end of the hallway, she remembered, lay the body on the bed.
The little doglegged lane was lined with quaint brown-stones. It was washed in the misty light of a single street lamp. There were fewer partyers here. The woman in the electric domino stumbled past them swiftly, giving little cries of pain and anguish. She tore around the bend with her gun raised up beside her ear. She could hardly see anything now. Just a blur of light and shadow. She felt the wet on her cheek, in her mask, but she hardly knew that she was crying. She only wished she could tear her head open; that she could reach into her mind and rip out the throbbing memory of that body. That headless body. She had seen it from the doorway. She had dragged herself into the doorway. She had dragged herself up along the jamb and then she had seen and she had reeled back, her arms before her eyes. The sight of the headless corpse had hit her in the head like a baseball bat. Oh God, God, God, she thought, I was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to be her, to be Nancy Kincaid, so she’d be safe! If anything happened, it was supposed to happen to me I It was supposed to be me.’
Now, ahead, yawing under the tilted sky, the junction with Christopher Street came into view. She could see the thicker, swifter packs of revelers there. She could hear their shouts. She could hear the Danse Macabre again, the hammering music of the parade. One step more, she thought, hauling in the air as she stumbled to the corner. One step—and then another … She pushed herself on, the gun up by her ear, the muzzle up beside her flashing mask.
And then she was there, in the intersection. Plunging out of the little alley onto the broader, slanting street. And there was King Death, right there, his skull gleaming white amidst the blackened and reddened faces all around him. He was running right toward her. He was looking back over his shoulder, as if he thought she must still be behind him. The woman in the domino mask halted. She swung around. She lowered the pistol, brought the muzzle to bear on the onrushing skull. A woman screamed somewhere, and then another. A man shouted, “Watch out.”
Death collided with her head-on. He never even looked around; he just ran right into her. She was knocked off her feet, her gun hand flying wide. She went sprawling backward. Her back slammed into the pavement. Her breath went out of her with a loud “whoof.” Still, she reached out, her hands like claws. She clutched desperately at the quilted shirt. She threw her arm around the frail figure of the King. The two of them went down together, clutched together, rolling on the pavement. King Death broke away. Struggled to his hands and knees. With a loud shout, the woman in the domino pushed up too. She was on her knees, both hands wrapped around the gun. She pointed the gun at the death’s head.
“Aa-aa—ah,” she said. It was all she could get out. Her whole body heaved and buckled with her breathing.
A crowd of people was gathering around them. No one said anything. The parade music filtered into the silence. The silence seemed
bizarre. They could hear the wind blowing in the dying leaves.
Slowly, the death’s head turned. The woman in the domino saw the pale blue eyes in the skull’s sockets. She heard the heavy breathing beneath the mask.
“Dead,” the King whispered—it was a strange, high whisper, almost melodious. “You’re dead. You’re supposed to be dead.”
And then he began to cry. It sounded that way, at least. He stayed on his hands and his knees, his skull hanging down, his shoulders hunched. The sounds that came out from beneath the mask sounded very much like sobbing.
The woman in the domino let go of the gun with her left hand. Just as she had in her dream, she reached out for the mask.
Me, she thought.
She felt the fleshy latex in her grip. She tugged it, almost pulling the figure forward. She tugged again. The mask started coming off. On the third pull, the skull was pulled away.
There was a cascade of black hair. The hair was streaked with silver. It spilled forward, hiding the face beneath. Then the figure sank to the pavement, rolled miserably onto its side. The woman in the domino looked on, appalled. It was not him. It was not the face she had thought to see. It was a woman. A woman with a lovely, porcelain face, her rose cheeks splotched with tears. A stranger.
The black-haired woman stared at the woman in the domino and shook her head, sniffling.
“You’re supposed to be dead!” she complained, and she shook her head bitterly.
At first, the woman in the domino did not answer. She stared at the other. Slowly then, she brought her left hand back to the gun. She pulled back the gun’s hammer. People in the crowd gasped and stepped back as the hammer clicked. The woman in the domino trained the revolver at the other’s head. She was still gasping for breath, but she managed to speak clearly.
“Tell me where Oliver is or I’m going to kill you,” she said.
The black-haired woman cried harder, staring into the gun’s muzzle. Her whole body shook.
The Animal Hour Page 33
