by Josh Lanyon
Mist rose from stygian water as he drove through the long covered bridge. The car tires thumped in the funereal silence.
* * * * *
Because his thoughts had been on Marcel all day, it surprised Perry to realize that he was missing Nick as he let himself in the front door of the old house.
He wondered again if Nick would take the job in California. He couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t pass the interview, whatever it was. It was hard to picture anyone more capable than Nick Reno. Of course, it didn’t — shouldn’t — really matter to him, one way or the other, but the thought of Nick leaving was depressing.
He closed the door and turned the deadbolt. Tattered green holiday garland wound haphazardly up the long banister. More garland draped drunkenly from the chandelier. It probably would have constituted a fire hazard, but the chandelier, like most of the original electrical fixtures, did not work. Instead, ugly modern lights had been installed. They glared down on the empty room, highlighting the dust, the threadbare upholstery of the battered chairs, the discarded ladder still lying next to the staircase.
From down the hall he could hear Mrs. Mac’s television blaring the local evening news: traffic accidents and sports results — sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference. Lights shone beneath Jane’s door, and he briefly considered stopping by for a visit.
The thought of Mr. Fluffy discouraged him, his chest tightening at the thought of all that cat hair and dander. Besides, he really didn’t have the energy for small talk. He continued up the stairway, thinking that before the disastrous weekend he’d had his plans for the future to keep him company.
Now there was nothing to look forward to.
Even as the thought registered, he rejected it impatiently. He would be okay once he started painting again. It was just the house getting to him. It felt quieter, more empty than usual.
As he reached the second level, he heard someone knocking from down the hallway. Peering through the gloom, he spotted Jane, dressed in jeans and a bright blue sweater, banging on David Center’s room. As though she felt his gaze, she turned and visibly jumped.
“I didn’t hear you!” she said accusingly.
“Sorry. I was just going to Wat — my — apartment.” He regarded her doubtfully. She seemed…agitated. Not angry exactly, but…for sure not her usual relaxed, amused self. Maybe calling in sick to work had been a mistake. The atmosphere seemed to be finally getting to her too, although Jane previously seemed impervious to atmosphere.
She gave a final smack to Center’s door and asked, “Where is everybody?”
“Mrs. Mac’s TV is on. I could hear it from the lobby.”
“I meant humans,” Jane retorted nastily. “I haven’t seen Dembecki or Teagle. Stein has been out all day. I suppose David — Mr. Center — is still at work.”
“If you call reading tarot cards work.”
Jane snorted, but she didn’t make the expected joke. Perry had noticed that in the past couple of weeks, Jane’s attitude toward David Center had softened. Jane was so self-reliant and contained he had never considered that she might develop romantic feelings — especially for someone like David Center, whom Perry didn’t like. It made him feel lonelier still.
“It pays the bills, which is more than my crap job does.” Abandoning her post, Jane joined him in front of Watson’s door. “Goddamn this place,” she said with quiet vehemence.
“Is everything okay?” Perry asked. Clearly everything wasn’t okay, but he didn’t like to pry.
She shot him a sideways glance and muttered, “Yes, fine. It’s this place. It gets on my nerves.”
He could understand that. But this tired and tense Jane was so different from the Jane he knew. Everyone seemed different these days. Ever since Perry had returned from his aborted vacation.
Or had he just not noticed how odd everyone was in those weeks he had been happily cocooned in dreams of a future with Marcel?
Jane added, as though it was the last straw, “And Tiny has run away again. When’s your new chum, G.I. Joe, due back?”
“What makes you think Tiny ran away?”
She made a disgusted sound. “He’s gone. Nobody’s seen him since yesterday.”
Yesterday, after he had opened Watson’s rooms, disposed of the dead fish, and ducked out before Jane could recruit him to fix her leaking windows? Could this be relevant to the other mysterious happenings at the house? Perry couldn’t see how. “It’s not the first time he’s taken off,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t say it was unusual; I said it was annoying.”
Jane followed Perry into Watson’s rooms, poking curiously through the dead man’s CD and DVD collection. Perry had already checked both out. Watson enjoyed film classics such as Behind the Green Door and the music of Bread, the Turtles, and the Bee Gees.
Jane asked, “Don’t you think it’s creepy staying here? It even smells creepy.”
“The whole house smells creepy.”
“True.” Jane scrutinized the framed print of a shapely blonde nude riding a smirking dinosaur.
“It’s creepier in my rooms.”
Jane’s gaze swiveled from the wall decor. “Sweetie, you don’t still think you saw a dead man in your bathtub?” She was laughing at him, though not unkindly.
“I don’t believe I saw a ghost.”
“A ghost?” Jane looked thoughtful. “A ghost,” she repeated slowly. Then, shaking off her preoccupation, she said, “So what did you do today?”
Perry shrugged. “Looked through old newspapers. Hung out at the library.”
“If you’re just going to hang out the library, you might as well go back to work.” She was watching him curiously. He had told Jane a little about Marcel, but even Jane didn’t know how much he had pinned on that virtual relationship.
He went into Watson’s kitchenette and shook the box of Froot Loops cereal sitting on the counter. “Did you want some?”
“Is that your dinner?”
“Sure. Fortified with iron.”
“Sweetie, you need to eat properly. This stuff is for people saving up for decoder rings.” She watched Perry splash milk into a bowl. “So the California thing is all over?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
Perry shrugged.
Jane wandered around, snooping absently through Watson’s belongings. She said, “You should reconsider talking to David — Mr. Center. After all, this is his area of expertise. Maybe he could hold a séance.”
Through a mouthful of cereal, Perry said, “Huh?”
“A séance,” Jane repeated. “Haven’t you ever seen —”
“How would a séance help me with Marcel?”
“Marcel? Oh.” Jane hastily rearranged her expression. “I wasn’t thinking of Marcel. I was thinking about if the house really is haunted…”
“But I don’t think the house is haunted!”
“I do.”
Perry gaped. “You do?”
“Sure,” she said a little defiantly.
Jane had always seemed so down-to-earth. So sensible. He couldn’t get over this. “Why?”
She said — still defensive — “I’ve heard things. I’ve seen things. Why couldn’t it be a ghost?”
“Because there’s no such thing?”
“You’re just being close-minded.” Catching his astonished expression, she seemed to change her mind about saying more, instead heading for the door. “Well, enjoy your dinner.”
“You don’t have to leave.” He didn’t particularly want to be on his own, and the idea of Jane buying into the supernatural was kind of fascinating.
Jane’s smile was vague. “I’d like to hang out, but I’ve got some things to take care of. Nightie-night, sweetie.”
She’s going to try Center again, Perry thought. When had that started? Maybe it had been going on the whole time. He’d been so wrapped up in his own dreams that he hadn’t noticed what was going on under his nose.
Settling
in front of the entertainment center with his cereal bowl, he began flicking channels. He didn’t own a television, so this was sort of a luxury. He realized with a mild sense of shock that he hadn’t watched TV since he had left home nine months earlier. He settled at last on 1931’s Little Caesar.
This film would have been made around the start of the Great Depression, around the time that Henry Alston and his Ziegfeld Girl were throwing parties for their rich society friends, while the rest of the country starved. No wonder gangsters like Shane Moran weren’t always viewed as the bad guys.
Absorbed, Perry watched the rise and fall of Rico Bandello as though it were history, laughing aloud as Edward G. Robinson snarled, “Yeah, that’s what I get for liking a guy too much!”
By the time Rico ended in a hail of bullets, Perry was feeling a lot more cheerful. He decided he could use a little fresh air before turning in for the night, and a brisk walk would help tire him out before bed. The last thing he wanted was to lie awake listening to the old house creak and crack under unseen footsteps.
Grabbing his jacket, he went downstairs, letting himself out into the moist and wintry night. High above the soggy garden, white clouds slowly transformed themselves into spectral horses and mountains and dragons, then pulled apart like cotton to show the glitter of faraway stars.
Perry wondered what the stars were like in Los Angeles — could you even see stars in the smoggy L.A. skies? He wondered why he was thinking about L.A. — and Nick — yet again. Probably because he couldn’t bear to think about San Francisco and Marcel.
He followed the narrow brick path through the maze of overgrown hedges and shrubs that had turned to brambles, until the path gave way to broken steps and then dirt and mud.
The old crooked tower of the dovecote stood before him. In the insubstantial starlight it looked like a witch’s house. It was one of his favorite subjects. He had made several sketches of it and painted it twice — even selling one of the paintings. He considered the structure.
It was a pretty good hiding place, really, that relatively small cylindrical tower with its interior walls made up of boulins or pigeonholes — assuming someone didn’t have allergies or asthma. Just the idea of that dank darkness made his chest tighten uncomfortably.
But there was no reason to believe Shane Moran and his gang would have dumped their ill-gotten gains before escaping into the woods — what sense would that make?
The bushes rustled behind him, and he whirled, heart pounding in terror. When his eyes verified that there was, in fact, someone standing there — a bulky black shape in the darkness — he thought he might actually faint.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” Rudy Stein demanded. He sounded as shaken as Perry felt.
Perry’s heart resumed beating as he recognized the other man. “Walking.”
Stein said aggressively, trying to cover his own fright, “Funny time for a walk, if you ask me!”
Perry squared his shoulders. “I could say the same to you.”
There was a surprised quality to Stein’s silence. At last he gave a funny laugh. “Yeah, well, you better watch your step,” he said, pointing downward.
Perry looked down and realized he was standing in a puddle.
Stein gave another of those curt laughs. “Have a good night,” he said, and strode off in the direction of the river.
Perry gazed after him, but Stein’s figure was soon swallowed by the shadows.
The night closed around him again and he shivered. That was enough fresh air for one evening.
He made his way back to the house, went up to Watson’s rooms — again conscious of the strained silence within the empty halls — and prepared for bed.
Flossing his teeth, Perry weighed his options for the next day. Running into Stein seemed to confirm his suspicion that something was going on in the old house, and while it wasn’t really his business, the fact that a dead body had been dumped in his bathtub did sort of elicit his interest.
He decided to visit the historical society the next day and see what he could find on the house. He could try church records too. They were always useful in detective novels, although he wasn’t sure what he would be looking for in this case. Records of births and deaths would be the usual thing; perhaps Shane Moran had been a local boy. That would give him possible ideas for where Moran might have stashed his loot.
Perry blinked sleepily at the turn his thoughts had taken.
Shane Moran’s loot? He wasn’t planning to spend the rest of his vacation treasure hunting, was he? How had he gone from curiosity about the history of the house to wondering about Shane Moran’s final heist?
He rinsed and spat water into the sink, turned off the taps, and returned to the unfamiliar bedroom, climbing into the enormous bed. He turned on the electric blanket, snapped out the light and stared up at the ceiling. Shadows flicked across the pale surface as the tree branches outside the house were shaken by gusts of wind.
The next storm front was moving in fast.
For a time he lay in the darkness, listening to the wind and the old house creaking and settling for the night.
Inevitably his thoughts turned to Marcel — Marcel who had probably not given him another thought since e-mailing that apologetic farewell. How could he have been so wrong about Marcel? He had believed they truly knew each other, believed that they might even know each other better because their exchanges were unencumbered by anything physical. Their communications were the open, honest outpourings of mind and heart. For months they had shared everything — from the most mundane things to the most deeply personal. He knew that Marcel felt that he was being sexually discriminated against at work and that he disliked his female “harridan” boss; that he was allergic to shellfish and ragweed; that he loved the apple-raisin bagels at the bakery around the corner but didn’t eat them often because he gained weight easily; that he had been seventeen the first time he’d had sex with a man.
Perry was an expert in all things Marcel. But he hadn’t known the most important thing: that Marcel was still in love with Gerry.
It wasn’t just the embarrassment of all the things he had revealed to Marcel — all those confidences made in the belief that they shared an intimacy unique to them. He had told Marcel things he hadn’t shared with anyone before. Nor was it the realization that he had been a fool — though that hurt plenty.
He was grieving — truly grieving — for the death of that dream. Sometimes holding fast to that dream had been all that kept him afloat. And now it was gone: that foolish little fantasy of cozy domesticity, himself and Marcel living together. It was almost too painful to contemplate now, those snapshots that had previously brought such comfort and joy: grocery shopping together at Whole Foods, brushing against each other in their too-small kitchen as they prepared their wonderful gourmet meals, waking up together…smiling into each other’s eyes as they turned to make love…
He had known from the photos that Marcel would be good-looking, and he was. Tall and boyish, maybe a little plump — but in a cute way — unruly brown hair. True, his hair was thinner in real life, and Marcel had been a little bit older than his photo. He had bright blue eyes — a very different blue from the somber blue of Nick Reno’s. Perry had known he was going to love Marcel from the minute he saw him waiting at the gate looking apologetic and sheepish, in his own good-looking rumpled way.
Perry stared at the Armando Drechsler posters of Mayan princesses and tribal dancers on Watson’s bedroom wall. In the moonlight they looked like giant tarot cards, or travel posters to a mysterious unknown.
It was over now. And though he knew it was silly and melodramatic, Perry felt like his life was over too. He was never going to find anyone. He would live out his days at the Alston Estate just like little Miss Dembecki, until he became one of its ghosts too.
* * * * *
Click. Click. The alarm clock turned over the glowing green numerals of 12:01 a.m. Perry opened his eyes.
Where was he? A
nd then he remembered. He was staying in Mr. Watson’s apartment.
He was drowsily taking stock, deciding if he needed to pee badly enough to make that trip across the unheated room, when he heard it: a low moan.
What the…?
He had to have misheard. Or imagined it entirely. His ears strained the silence.
Nothing but the beat of blood rushing in his ears.
He continued to listen alertly.
He wished he hadn’t awakened. Now he was alive to the sounds of the house: the strange squeaks like floorboards under uncertain feet, the sigh of the wind down the chimney like a whispering voice.
He could imagine what Nick would say of such imaginings. The thought of Nick bolstered his sagging courage. Nick did not believe in ghosts and neither did Perry.
Of course, if some human agent was standing outside his room making spooky noises, it wasn’t so reassuring. Was someone trying to scare him into leaving the Alston Estate?
All they had to do was ask.
Well, not really. He didn’t have any place else to go, and few places were as cheap to rent as his rooms in the isolated old house. And he wasn’t actually that chicken, although he knew no one was ever going to take him for a tough guy.
Something moved inside the closet.
Perry went rigid. He told himself it was his imagination.
But then the closet door banged as though someone kicked it. Perry sat bolt upright. He fumbled for the lamp, knocking the clock off the stand.
Scrambling out of bed, his foot tangled in the sheet and he nearly fell. His eyes never left the white, motionless closet door.
On his feet he reached the closet. His chest rose and fell, his hand shook, and yet something made him reach out, fingers brushing the glass knob.
He yanked open the door.
Chapter Seven
Nick tossed back the rest of his Seven and Seven and handed the plastic cup to the flight attendant as she bumped down the aisle, trash bag in hand. She smiled at him, and Nick gave her a wide, meaningless grin in return.
