Jack, leaning against the bar in a white shirt, open at the throat, and a pair of black jeans, motioned with one hand as if to say “You want to come over here, or do you want me to come over there?” A girl beside him at the bar was giving him the once-over, without his knowing it.
Nancy gestured to him, palm up, to stay where he was. Joey was explaining the difficulties of getting what they really wanted -- a Soho loft -- at a price they could ever afford. Nancy briefly commiserated then excused herself. Phillip turned as she left, and she said, “Be back in a minute -- I see someone I know,” and scooted across the room.
The girl at the bar had apparently just said something to him because Jack was saying, “Once or twice -- but not for a long time.” Nancy figured it must have been some variation on “Come here often?” and felt no compunction about cutting in between them.
“You look good in red,” Jack said to her, leaning down to brush her cheek with his lips. The girl at the bar got the message, and pushed off. “Who's the suit?”
“The who?”
“The guy in the blue suit.”
“His name is Phillip Chen.”
“Is he your date?”
It was all very friendly, but still, there was something about the questions that Nancy didn't like. “No, not really, but he is a good friend of mine. . . I told you I had plans tonight, and you said that it didn't matter, that you wanted to see me anyway.”
Jack understood the reproach in her voice, and said, “You're right -- I'm sorry. Forget I said it.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Will you forget I said it?”
“Of course,” and she laughed. “I didn't realize it had been a question.”
“In this place that's easy -- it's almost impossible to hear anything.”
“Looked like you could hear that girl proposition you just fine,” Nancy said, with a smile. For a second Jack pretended not to understand, then he smiled too. “She was my cousin,” he said, and Nancy replied, “Now we're even.”
Phillip was watching them, from across the room, and Nancy said, “I think I'd better introduce you.”
“I promise to behave.”
“You better.”
Phillip pretended to be deep in conversation with Susan Wong's boyfriend when they approached, and Nancy had to touch him on the sleeve. “Phillip, I'd like you to meet a friend. of mine from the institute, Jack Logan.”
They shook hands. “Oh -- so you work at the Institute for Abnormal Psychology,” Phillip said. This seemed to come as a relief.
“Sort of.”
This made him less relieved.
“I'm actually one of the guinea pigs.”
This caused him real consternation. “You're a patient there?”
“Not exactly,” Jack said, and laughed. “I mean, I didn't ax-murder my family or anything.”
“Jack is Dr. Sprague's pet project,” Nancy cut in, before things took a turn for the worse. “Sprague thinks he might have some unusual psychic abilities.”
That didn't seem to help much; now Phillip probably thought he'd shaken hands with Houdini. “Unusual abilities?” he said, looking to Nancy for confirmation. “Like bending spoons, or reading minds? That sort of thing?”
Oh God, Nancy thought; this was not going the way she'd hoped.
“Precisely,” Jack said. “I bend spoons with my brain waves. What do you do?”
“I work for Salomon Brothers.” And then, in case it wasn't clear, he added, “It's an investment banking firm.”
“Yes, I know that,” Jack said. “I had a girlfriend who dated a guy who worked there.”
“Oh, who?” Phillip twitched his head, as if something had just tickled him behind the collar.
“You wouldn't know him; he left, and now he just raids companies on his own.”
Nancy looked more interested to hear this than Phillip. Who was this girlfriend, and when had Jack stopped seeing her? Had he stopped?
“Most of the work I do involves defending companies against raids,” Phillip said, running one finger around the neckline of his shirt. He twitched again, and looked behind him.
“Is something wrong?” Nancy asked, and Phillip said, “I could swear someone had just blown on me.”
“Wishful thinking,” Jack said, feigning a good-natured smile.
This was never going to work, Nancy thought; she had to get them separated. “Who wants the first dance with me?” she said, coquettishly. “It's up for grabs.”
Phillip hesitated, as she might have guessed he would; she'd never seen him dance in his entire life. For that matter, she'd never seen him run. Jack slipped his hand around hers and said, “I'll take it. Excuse us, Phil.”
Phillip, still looking puzzled, watched them walk away, toward the maelstrom of the dance floor. Damn, he thought, I should have spoken up faster. At least she wouldn't be with him now. He loosened his tie, and rubbed at the back of his neck. What a lousy night this was turning out to be -- he could have stayed at the firm and picked up a couple of hundred extra brownie points. Instead he was standing alone in the middle of some abandoned subway tunnel, or whatever the hell it was, with an overpriced drink in his hand. What a waste of time. He shook his head ruefully, and lifted the glass to his lips. When he tried to drink from it, he found something foreign -- definitely not an ice cube -- brushing up against his lips. He lowered the glass, looked inside. Oh. . . it was just the plastic swizzle stick. He fished it out of the glass, and only then discovered that the stick had been bent into a perfect circle, one end stuck neatly inside the other.
“You said you were going to behave,” Nancy shouted, moving in place on the crowded dance floor. There was barely room to turn around.
“I did.”
She shook her head. “I'd hate to see you misbehave.”
“You sure of that?” he said, leering at her.
She didn't even try to make a comeback to that one; the music was so loud it was nearly impossible to be heard over. It was almost entirely percussive now -- just the racketing beat of drums and bongos and what sounded like hollow sticks pounding on a log. The dance floor was a writhing mass of flailing limbs and bouncing bodies. She was sorry she hadn't left her drink in the Torch Room; the glass was almost empty, but there was nowhere to put it down.
Jack, as if divining her thought, said, “Want to get rid of that?”
She nodded.
He took it from her hand, and with one big sweep of his arm, swung it over the heads of the people around them and deposited it on top of one of the black floor speakers.
When he turned back to her, he smiled, and then, almost as if he'd suddenly received some startling piece of news, stopped smiling. He stopped dancing too, and simply stared over Nancy's head.
“Jack?”
He was still staring, and Nancy spun around to see at what. With the strobelights flashing overhead, it was hard to make out anything very clearly; the other dancers jerked about, looking like the flickering images in a nickelodeon. Still, there didn't seem to be anything very unusual about any of it.
“What is it?” she said, turning back to Jack. But he was moving past her now, insinuating himself between the other couples, making his way toward whatever he'd seen. Nancy followed in his wake, dodging and weaving and accidentally stepping on toes; one guy, whirling like a dervish, managed to clomp her good on the shoulder, before spinning off again into another orbit.
Jack was rooted to a new spot now, and looking around in; all directions. At least he could see over everyone's head, Nancy thought; she could barely see three feet in front of her.
She tugged on his sleeve and shouted, “What are you looking
for?”
“I. . . don't know,” he said. “I could swear. . . I could swear. . .”
“Swear what?” The percussion had been joined by voices now, screaming to “do it, do it, do it to some-body.”
“. . . I'd seen her.”
&
nbsp; Who? Who could have given him a start like that? That girl he'd mentioned to Phillip, the one who'd dated a banker? If that's who it was, the relationship must have been a whole lot more serious than she'd thought.
“Jack -- can we go and sit somewhere?”
He was still craning his neck to see around the dance floor, but Nancy was able to guide him gently up the steps, across the walkway set off by the iron railing, and into the first quiet place she could find, a dark little chamber filled with overstuffed furniture and a monstrous reproduction of one of those Easter Island heads. A guy with his hair in a ponytail was lying on a hassock with his feet against the wall, while his girlfriend rubbed his stomach. Another couple was making out in the corner. It was the best she'd be able to do.
“Let's sit down for a second,” she said, and Jack flopped onto a beaten-up love seat. “Now tell me, first of all, who you thought you saw out there.”
“If I told you, you wouldn't believe me.”
“Why wouldn't I believe you?”
“Because I don't believe me. . . What I thought I saw out there, right in the middle of the dance floor, was my mother.” He looked over at her, levelly. “Now -- tell me you believe me.”
Nancy took a second to recover, then said, “You mean your mother isn't dead, after all?”
“She is.”
"What?”
“Dead.”
Now Nancy really was lost.
“She was dead before I was even born,” Jack said, earnestly. “Dead for months.” He took her hands and squeezed them. “You know how Sprague wanted me to get him my birth certificate? Well, I went out to my grandparents’ place, yesterday, to look for it. In the attic I found a bunch of old newspapers; I've got them at my apartment now. I can show them to you. It was kind of a famous case at the time. My mother was killed in a car accident, while she was pregnant, but they somehow managed to keep her alive, on respirators and all, for five more months, until I could be safely delivered.” He was desperate for her to believe him; she could see it in his eyes. “My grandparents never told me, they didn't see any reason for me to know something so terrible. My mother'd been tripping; one newspaper said they found everything from alcohol to acid in her bloodstream when she died.” His eyes dropped for a moment as he said, “Now I know why -Clancy's always acted the way he has about it. But the point is, I was born of a dead mother.”
“And now,” Nancy said, trying to take this all in, “you think you've seen her here at the Underground?” Where was the logic in that?
“I do. . . and it isn't the first time.” He explained how he'd seen her from the pit, at the theater. “That was the night I was relieved of my duties there.”
So now that made sense. . . or at least it accounted for his having screwed up badly enough to get the boot.
“And I think she's been to my apartment.”
But the rest of it, this whole hallucination story, seeing his dead mother -- this was definitely trouble; this was someone coming seriously unhinged, right before her eyes. And why, why did it have to be Jack?
“I know what you're thinking, I know it sounds crazy; I didn't want to tell you for just that reason. But I'm not making it up. I'm not imagining it. It's happening, I tell you. . . and I don't know how.”
The boy with the ponytail rolled off the hassock and onto the floor, laughing. His girlfriend rolled with him.
“That's why I needed to see you tonight. . . I didn't want you to hear it all from Sprague, or some other way. I wanted to be the one to tell you myself.”
Nancy was trying to forget this was Jack she was dealing with, and imagine instead that this was just a clinical case she had to handle. What did her textbooks say about dealing with delusional systems? How would her professors want her to talk to him, reassure him, address his fears? God, she needed to be away from him for a few seconds, to formulate a plan of action. If only she could call Sprague. . . “Jack,” she said, as calmly as she could, “I've got to go ;
back to the Torch Room for a minute; I want to tell Phillip to
leave without me. Okay? Then I'll come right back here, and you and I can go somewhere and talk. Really talk. Is that okay? Will you wait here for me?”
He nodded, mutely, and let his fingers trail off of her as she left. Though the Torch Room was only a few hundred feet away, to get there she had to fight her way through mobs of people -- the club had been getting more crowded all the time -- and without Jack leading the way, it was slow going., Several times guys asked her her name, or if she wanted to dance, or if they could buy her a drink, or, once, take her home that night; more than once, she had to shake a hand free or veer to the left when going right would have been shorter. When she got up the steps to the Torch Room, she saw Phillip, sitting down now, head down, in conversation with the girl from the fashion industry. At least he hadn't been standing around by himself. He looked up only when she got right in front of him, but made a point of not standing. That was very unlike him; he must really be mad, she thought. Nancy crouched down, said, “Phillip, I need to talk to you for a second.” She glanced pointedly at the fashion industry, but she wasn't about to budge. “In private.” She drew him away from the sofa, to the middle of the room. He still wasn't looking her in the eye; a bad sign, if ever there was one.
“None of this is what you think it is,” she said, “but I don't have time to explain. Jack Logan is a very special case at the institute, and he's got a very big problem tonight. I have to stay with him awhile, and be sure he's okay. Do you understand?” She was starting to feel like a Ping-Pong ball between these two. “You don't have to wait around for me,” she said, “I'll be all right. And thank you, Phillip, for being my escort tonight.” She tried to make it sound light but sincere.
Phillip wasn't that easily placated. “That's it?” He looked at her, his face, usually so impassive, a mixture of hurt and j anger. “You drag me down here, and then you dump me for mis maniac?” He debated saying something about the swizzle stick; decided against it. “Just tell me one thing, Nancy. Was mis a setup?”
“I don't know what you mean.” Lord, this was just what she hadn't wanted to get into, a debate.
“Had you and this guy arranged, ahead of time, to meet down here? Was that why you were so willing to let me off the hook, up at the wedding dinner?”
One thing you could say for Phillip, Nancy thought -- he's no fool. But then, neither was she. “No way, Phillip -- this was just an unfortunate coincidence. All I can --”
“Now what's he want?” Phillip was looking behind her. Nancy turned.
Jack was coming up the stairs, glassy-eyed, muttering something. Oh, Christ, Nancy thought -- now it was all going to hit the fan for real. Jack was brushing past the turbaned waiter, who gave him a second look, and heading toward them. But it didn't seem to be them he was looking at. Phillip, as if sensing something was really wrong, sidled in front of Nancy. Jack kept coming.
“Something the matter?” Phillip said, almost as a challenge, when Jack got within reach. But Jack acted as if he hadn't even heard him -- or seen Nancy. “Did you want to do another of your Uri Geller stunts?” He held up the plastic straw from his drink. What, Nancy wondered, was that supposed to mean?
Jack, staring fixedly over the railing at the end of the room, said, “Wait -- please wait for me,” and then, without taking his eyes off whatever he was looking at, said to Nancy, “Don't you see her? There -- between the tracks.”
Nancy quickly glanced where he was pointing -- just beyond the flickering light of the torches, somewhere in the tunnel -- then back at Jack. The buttons on his shirt were open halfway down his chest, and she could see he was breathing heavily.
Phillip had turned and looked too, seen nothing. “Hey, Jack,” he said, adopting a more conciliatory tone, “why don't you sit down and take a break? Why don't we all just -- “
Jack didn't wait for him to finish. He said, “Yes, I'm coming,” but not to Phillip or Nancy, and walked toward the railing
. Before anyone could stop him, he had swung one leg over the iron bar, and then the other. Spreading his arms wide, he leaped from the floor of the Torch Room, and down onto the open train tracks. A few people noticed what he'd done, thought he was drunk, laughed. Susan Wong, standing not far off, said, “Who is that guy?”
Nancy ran to the railing. Jack was about eight feet below her, still crouching on the gravel road bed. The old steel rails ran along both sides of him, under the huge trestles, and on into the blackness of the tunnel.
“Jack!” Nancy called down. “Jack! Wake up! There's nothing there, Jack!”
“Go for it, man -- go for it.” A wiseguy with a Prince Valiant haircut.
“What's he doing?” The girl who'd tried to pick him up at the bar.
“The guy's stoned.” One of Joey's ushers.
There was a crowd assembling at the railing now, some just curious, some egging him on. Jack stood up, brushing the grit and pebbles from his hands. He paid no attention to the cat-calls, or to Nancy. Slowly, but purposefully, he set off down the tracks, his white shirt a pale blue in the spotlights that illuminated the first hundred yards or so of the tunnel. Phillip said, “I'll go get a bouncer or someone.”
But Nancy was afraid there might not be time. She looked hurriedly to either side, where two stone angels, holding torches of their own, guarded the tunnel entrance. Behind each one of them, and above the train bed, ran a cement catwalk, no more than a couple of feet wide. It wasn't much, but it was better than trying to jump the railing.
She ran to the base of one of the angels, climbed up onto it, and edged around until she had reached (he catwalk it protected. Susan Wong shouted, “What are you doing?” Nancy didn't know any more than Susan did; she just knew she had to get to Jack, and bring him to his senses, before something terrible happened.
There was a brief, unnerving moment when she had to let go of the statue, and step down onto the catwalk. She knew it was all psychological, that the pathway was sufficiently wide to walk on -- that's why it had originally been put there, for Christ's sake -- but only if you didn't think about it too much. The flickering light from the Torch Room bathed everything in an uneven orange light, which made depth and distance even more difficult to judge. She flattened herself against the wall, getting a feel for the gritty cement beneath her feet, and threw a glance at Jack. He was passing underneath the second of the huge steel trestles now. If he was saying anything, he was too far away for her to hear it. The brick wall behind her was surprisingly warm and dry. Pipes behind it?
Black Horizon Page 17
