Night-Bloom

by Herbert Lieberman

  Outside in the harsh, fast dusk, he could hear the squeal of children playing stoopball in the street below. Lying spread-eagled atop the cover, he continued to wrack his brain for some hint of past guilt. What stupid blunder had he made? How had they found him? Where did they get his name?

  Still awake at 2:00 A.M., lathered in a sweat of irrational dread, he got out of bed, intending to call his sister Renee in Pittsburgh. He meant to dash out t here immediately and seek refuge until the whole affair blew over. But no sooner had he started to dial than he had an image of his brother-in-law, Edgar, remorseless and unforgiving, followed by a humiliating picture of himself begging sanctuary of Edgar.

  He could see the brow lowering, the eyes glinting with scorn.

  Slowly he replaced the phone and slumped into a chair. He would have bolted right then, but he was convinced that the police were just outside the door, waiting in a darkened, unmarked car for precisely such an action. In their eyes, flight at that moment would seal his guilt forever.

  “Who was that man in the bed next to me?” He ransacked his memory for a name. It seemed to him that if he could come up with one his salvation was assured. “It certainly wasn’t Boyd. That wasn’t the name he told me. Or was it? He did give me a name. And there was something else—something strange he told me.”

  He could recall the face, as if he were seeing it just then—haggard, pale, drowsy with sedation. Generally he had a good memory for faces. But this impression was somewhat less vivid because he had only seen the man on his back, recumbent beneath sheets and with plastic tubes dangling from his nose.

  “What is it?” He stood suddenly, peering into the upper reaches of the house. “What is it?” he called once more. “Filariasis,” he murmured as if answering himself. “Chronic lymphadenopathy. Retrograde lymph … Epidemiology Coastal borders Asia, Queensland.” He recited the words, the symptoms over and over again with the hypnotic force of incantation, invoking the old gods he knew had the power to deliver him.

  In his tatty robe and floppy slippers he walked round and round the damp, unlit regions of the house. The dull throb in his head had intensified to sharp, ripping detonations. Waves of sickening pain that came and went. In the bathroom, concealed behind a radiator cover, he found the precious jeroboam of meperidine. Forgetting the dosage he had taken before, he took two additional pills. When he awoke the next day it was 1:00 p.m. and he was lying on the bathroom floor. He had no memory of anything other than a fleeting impression of a bad dream, like a foul taste in one’s mouth.

  The room came gradually into sharper focus. Staring into the mirror above the sink, he noted a drawn, scruffy visage staring disdainfully back at him. Something in those bland, familiar features was different, however. Something askew. But he couldn’t tell exactly what. Then, on the sink top he spied his shaving kit—a mug of shaving lather, a beaver brush still wet with dried soap caked to the bristles as if recently used, and a single-edged barber’s razor his father had given him at age sixteen. He had no recollection of having either taken them out or shaved. But suddenly he knew why his features had taken on that slightly crooked, off-kilter cast. The brow above his right eye had been completely shaved off.

  43

  “Without even knowing it the guy did you a tremendous favor.”

  “Like what? Telling me I hadn’t a friend in the world?”

  “I’m your friend.”

  “Or sweet things like telling me I’m a thorn in the ass of the department. And quite frankly, the son of a bitch says, the department can’t wait for my retirement.”

  Fritzi set a plate of cold sliced cucumbers and tomatoes in front of Mooney. “You got your helicopter, didn’t you? You got your ten men.”

  “I asked for fifteen.”

  “And your snooperscopes.”

  “Sniperscopes.”

  “Whatever. You got all that, didn’t you? And will you kindly remove that article from your person. At my dinner table we do not wear guns.”

  She came round behind him, encircled his chest with her arms and deftly unbuckled the pistol harness. Obediently, almost childlike, he raised his arms and submitted as she unstrapped him.

  “Pissed me off how quickly he agreed. Pissed me plenty. They must want me out real bad.”

  “Their loss.” Fritzi sat down at the small kitchen table opposite him and proceeded to slice their steak. “He did you the biggest favor of your life. Thank him tomorrow for me. Medium or rare?”

  Mooney fumed and clapped a cucumber between his great jaws. “Pink. Not purple like the other night. Jesus, can’t we ever get a potato here? Or a slice of bread? What I’d give for a slice of …”

  “You’re down fifty pounds. What’re you complaining about? You look almost human. I can actually see the bones in your face, and it’s no longer that sick beet-red. Why blow it all now with bread and potatoes?”

  Mooney frowned and held his plate up while she carefully placed an austere portion of lean steak there.

  “And you know something else,” Fritzi went on breathlessly in her gay, chirpy fashion, “personally, I hope the whole thing is a bust so you do have to retire.”

  “Thanks a lot.” He gulped a small gobbet of steak. “I needed that.”

  “Well, it’s the truth. I’m sorry. They don’t deserve you—the lousy way they’ve treated you all these years. You know what Rudy Baumholz used to say?”

  “No,” Mooney grumbled. “Tell me.”

  “He used to say, ‘Fritzi. Any man who gives his whole life working for some organization deserves everything he gets. In the end, they screw you.’ That’s what Rudy used to say.”

  “Three cheers for Rudy. How about another slice of steak?”

  “Stop wolfing your food. Take small bites. Chew.” He held his plate out, a martyred expression on his face.

  “And you know what else is going to happen when you retire from this dumb, thankless job?”

  “Is there any coffee?”

  “You’re going to go to work.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Mooney gulped water with his eyes raised to the ceiling. “Not on a bet. Once I’m done, I’m done.” He went on chewing his steak irritably, as if it were a task.

  “How does manager of Fritzi’s Balloon strike you?”

  The chewing ceased momentarily and he looked up. “A headwaiter?”

  She could see the contempt in his eyes. “Maître d’. Major domo.”

  “A bouncer?”

  “No bouncer. Manager, I told you.”

  “A mortician in a tuxedo. A freak in a starched dickey.”

  “No dickeys. No tuxedos. All smart stuff. Sports jackets. Brooks and Paul Stuart.”

  Mooney made an unpleasant sound. “You don’t by any chance happen to have some pie?”

  “And you know what else?” Fritzi chattered on irrepressibly. “All the free time you want. Whenever you want to go to the track, bang, you got it. No permission required. And maybe if you want to knock off for a couple of months and go, like maybe, to Spain, bang, we go.”

  “On what?” Mooney smoldered. “My miserable pension plus my miserable Social Security?” A short, bitter laugh rippled from his throat.

  “On your wages from the Balloon.” Fritzi spooned out heaping portions of fresh raspberries. “Fritzi pays good wages. Fritzi pays top dollar to the right guy.”

  She had meant to cheer him, but instead, what she saw was regret sinking into despair. Second thoughts on the wisdom of his brash wager with the commissioner stood out all over his face.

  She leaned across the table and with her large, rough palm covered the back of his hand. “You’ve always been a good handicapper, Mooney. Careful. Shrewd. You called these odds. Now live with them.”

  “More likely die with them.”

  “Now let’s have none of that.” She’d grown curt and testy. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself. You know what Rudy would say?”

  “No. And don’t tell me.”

  “You’re a smart fellow.
I don’t think you’re impulsive. The odds had to be there for you to make this bet with the commissioner.”

  “They are. In spades.”

  She thought he looked like some incorrigible child, pleading innocence, seeking vindication. Her eyes suddenly sparked. “What odds do you pay he makes a drop in the next five days?”

  “Make it a week and I’ll give you three to one.”

  “You got it. What about quinellas?”

  “Pick any two consecutive nights between now and next Thursday.”

  “What odds?”

  “Eight to one if you hit the night. Three to one if you hit on a date either side of the drop night.”

  “I got a hundred that says it’s this Friday.”

  “The twenty-ninth,” Mooney said, his spirits noticeably rising. “I hate to take your money, Fritz, but you’re on.”

  She poured coffee. “When’s the first surveillance?”

  “Tomorrow night. We go out from the heliport on South Street.”

  They rose and carried their coffee into the little sitting room that looked out over Seventy-third Street toward the East River. “Now,” she said, sitting down beside him, “tell me all about this funny little guy you met today.”

  Mooney was momentarily baffled. “What funny little guy?”

  “The guy you saw this morning. The one out in Queens.”

  “Oh, Watford.” He leaned back and put his feet up on the hassock. “Strange fellow. Nervous. Jumpy. He kept acting like he was expecting us to beat the hell out of him any minute.”

  “It’s not every day that two of New York’s Finest pay you a house call.”

  “I’d ask him one thing and he’d look at me kind of funny, and answer some other question. Go off completely on another tangent. Middle of the day, and he’s still there in his pajamas. The place was an unholy mess. Stunk from cats, although I didn’t see any around. Just clocks. All these clocks …”

  Dusk had fallen over Seventy-third Street, and they had drawn close in the comfort of the gathering shadows, the odor of fresh coffee lingering on the quiet air. Like figures in a frieze, they appeared as if they’d been sitting just that way, chatting and sipping coffee, for the past thousand years, and would probably do so for the next.

  “But he didn’t know anything about this other man?” Fritzi asked.

  “The Bombardier?” Mooney stared pensively at the rose-streaked twilight sky above the river. “The guy’s a nut case. He doesn’t know anything about anything.”

  They were silent for a time, sipping their coffee. Then suddenly he turned to her. “Listen, I been meaning to ask you …”

  “What?”

  His hands rose outward into the shadows of the unlit apartment. “Us together like this. I mean, I take up a lot of your time.”

  “I’ll let you know when it gets to be a sacrifice.” The fact that she was amused annoyed him. “I mean”—he persisted awkwardly, trying to articulate what had been gnawing at him for days—“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m enjoying myself. You’re good for me. Maybe too good. I just want to go on record as saying I’m not … Well … you know me. I’m pretty set in my ways.”

  “So am I.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to get any dumb ideas.”

  “You know me, Mooney. I don’t have too many dumb ideas.”

  “Well, I mean all this stuff about my managing the Balloon and our going off to Spain together. I don’t like that, see. Makes me uneasy. Like jumping to conclusions.”

  “I don’t jump to conclusions,” she said. Something shrewd and tough leaped in her eyes. He saw now a side of her she had seldom shown him—the side that had made her the proprietor of a highly successful East Side tavern and a woman of not inconsiderable means. “For me it’s strictly business,” she went on. “Like an investment. Like horseflesh. I see a creature I like, I bet him. If I lose, I lose. No hard feelings.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Just so we understand each other.” He appeared momentarily placated. She knew, however, the subject would come up again.

  “We understand each other perfectly.” She smiled, and there was the wisdom of the ages in that smile. “But you know me, Mooney. When I bet, I seldom lose.”

  44

  “The escapement is the Grimthorpe Double Three-Legged Gravity.”

  “Excellent, Charles. Now recite the table of error for the clock signals.”

  Charles Watford spoke earnestly into the shadows of the little sitting room. The sudden chiming of nearly fifty clocks jarred him from his reverie even as the voice of his father receded into the upper reaches of the house.

  “Can you recall anything at all about the man?”

  “No.”

  “His name? What was his name?”

  “No. I told you. I don’t recall.”

  “Think. Think.”

  Watford stared blankly at the worn little settee with the antimacassars and pillows crushed and askew, where the policeman had sat the day before. “Was it Boyd?”

  “No. I don’t think …”

  “Think. Think.”

  Still in his robe and slippers, unkempt and unshaven, he had not ventured out for several days. Much of the brow he had shaved off had started to grow back in. Across the way he could see lights flickering in the upper stories of the house abutting his yard. Within it people walked about like robot figures—mechanical, impersonal, inhuman.

  When he looked again, the man on the settee was gone. He was alone, bathed in sweat, his heart thumping wildly. “I’m guilty,” he whispered. “Guilty.” Of what, he could not say.

  Upstairs in his bedroom, in the rickety pine bureau that had been his since childhood, he found at the back of a bottom drawer, secured within a small leather case, his needle and hypodermic syringe. He rinsed them off under the sink tap in the bathroom and padded slowly back down the stairs into the kitchen.

  “Oh, Charles. Look what you’ve gone and done now.”

  “If anything should come to mind you can always reach me at this number.”

  “Pardon my saying so. You really missed an opportunity not notifying your insurance company at once. It’s not as if you’re stealing, or anything like that. You’ve paid for it. You’re entitled to it. First thing I would’ve done was to get the name of the contractor.”

  When he looked up he was standing in front of the refrigerator, peering at the bright, harsh glare from within. There was nothing much there in the way of food. An open jar of jelly and some overripe vegetables sat about forlornly on the bare shelves. A sweet, slightly disagreeable odor wafted outward on the smoky waves of condensation.

  “I don’t have to take this harassment, Sergeant. I had nothing to do with any bank robbery in Kansas. I know no Myrtle Wells. I want to speak to my lawyers.”

  “Charles, your father will be getting home shortly.”

  At the rear of the top shelf he found precisely what he was looking for.

  “For your own good and mine, I don’t think it would be good if he found you here, still in your pajamas.”

  A quarter of a container of cream that had been sitting there nearly a month had curdled and a green furze had settled like a lacy mantle over it.

  “… Wait till he hears you’ve been sent home from camp.”

  Prizing open the collapsible crush-top lid, he raised the container to his nose and sniffed gingerly. Strong, rank fumes came up at him in waves. The nauseous odor of putrefaction was almost voluptuous. He closed the refrigerator and took a small saucer down from the cupboard above. Even as he decanted a portion of the green curdled substance into the saucer, the voices continued to racket about his whirling thoughts.

  The voice of a man sounded from across the way. It was loud and blustery. It conveyed to him a suggestion of anger and impending violence. “You’ve got a bad temper. You must learn to control …”

  Slowly, fastidiously, Watford inserted his needle into the reeking green substance, drawing it upward into the syringe. With almost h
ypnotic intensity, he watched the fluid creep past the red calibration lines until the shaft of the column was at last full.

  In the next instant he turned and started back up the stairs.

  “I’m coming, Mother. I’ll be right there.”

  “That’s a good boy, Charles. That’s my good boy.”

  Once in his room he lay down and extended his body the full length of the bed. Then, closing his eyes and still holding the needle poised above him, he inhaled deeply several times, like a man about to dive deep into cold water.

  He waited for his breathing to slow, along with the agitated pulsations in his chest. Without further hesitation, he jerked the elastic band of his pajama pant down below his thigh and with faintly tremulous fingers, he sought an ideal location (for him, a point not easily detected) for venipuncture.

  His fingers wandered down over his bare, flat stomach to a spot high up on the inner thigh. He sought a point near the scrotal area, on the inner wall of the thigh. Pinching the flesh there hard between his fingers, and without any hesitation at all, he drove the needle far in.

  There was a momentary prick and a short muscular spasm, followed by the sensation of fluid infused into the vein. With his eyes closed, he gnawed the inside of his cheek and waited until the syringe was empty.

  When at last it was, he rose, rinsed off the needle and replaced it in the drawer. In the medicine cabinet of the bathroom he found several packages of a fairly common laxative he knew to contain phenolphthalein. From his readings he knew the substance to be a pyrogen, having the effect upon ingestion of raising body temperature. While normal dosage was one to two tablets at most, he had unhesitatingly swallowed the contents of nearly two full packages.

  Afterward, he went directly to bed, lay down in the dark and waited.

  45

  Like a huge silvery moth, the helicopter rose and fell, its engines drumming, blades battering the hot air that rose in wind drafts all about it. Each rotation hurled down a shower of dull concussive blows into the steamy streets below.