Nothing here belonged to Will but the food, the linens, and the MacBook on the dining room table. The house came furnished. And decorated, so to speak. The previous renter had run a roadside stand specializing in velvet paintings. According to the landlord, that tenant had fallen behind in his rent and had simply disappeared one night, leaving behind some of his stock. The landlord had taken a few of the choicer works for himself and had hung the rest in the little ranch, literally covering the walls with them. Everywhere Will turned he faced yards of black velvet smeared with garish colors—yellow lions, orange-striped tigers, sad-eyed clowns, purple-white rearing stallions, and multiple, idealized studies of good old Elvis. The later Elvis, the glitter-sprinkled, high-collared, white-jumpsuited King of Rock and Roll.
Will had found the collection unsettling when he’d first moved in, but he’d become used to them after a while. Lately he’d found himself actually growing fond of one or two. That worried him.
He picked up the envelope again and stared at it without opening it.
The party.
Lisl talked about little else these days. And she never let up on pestering him to come. She saw it as her big chance to get him together with Rafe Losmara. Rafe, Rafe, Rafe. Will was tired of hearing about him. In a way, he wanted very much to meet the man who had stolen so completely Lisl’s heart. He was curious as to what kind of man could engender that level of infatuation in such an intelligent woman. And in another way he dreaded the meeting, fearing he’d discover that Rafe Losmara had feet of clay.
No use in putting it off. He tore open the envelope.
There it was. After all his refusals she’d gone ahead and invited him anyway. A holiday party, from eight till whenever, the Saturday before Christmas. At Rafe’s Parkview condo.
It sounded nice. Too bad he couldn’t go. Not only would he feel out of place—a laborer mingling with the professors—but there’d be telephones there. Out here he had electricity, a propane tank for heat, and high-speed cable for TV and broadband, but no phone. He had to stay away from telephones.
Then he saw the inscription at the bottom of the inside page.
Will—
Please come. I don’t have many friends, but I want them all at the party. And it won’t be a party at all if you’re not there. Please?
Love,
Lisl
Guilt. How could he say no to that? He hated the thought of letting her down, but he couldn’t go. It was impossible.
Or was it?
Maybe there was a way. He’d have to think on it.…
NINE
1
Will was on his third cruise through the Parkview complex now. He’d passed Rafe Losmara’s condo on each circuit, but each time had been unable to stop and go in. He felt like an awkward teenager, driving past the home of the prettiest girl in school, endlessly circling the block because he was too shy to knock on her door.
No doubt about where the party was. Will could have found it without the address. The gallimaufry of cars cluttering the street in front of Losmara’s unit told the story.
Finally he forced himself to pull his Chevy to the curb, but he kept the engine running.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Decision time.”
Was it worth it? That was the question. He was already an hour late. The smart thing would be to turn around and head for home and forget about Christmas parties.
He could see them standing in the windows, drinks in hand, laughing, talking, posing. He didn’t belong in there. They were faculty and he was maintenance. And he hadn’t been in a social situation for so long he was sure he’d commit some gaffe within the first ten minutes.
But these were all minor excuses. The telephone—that was the obstacle that really counted. What was he going to do about the damn phone? Make that plural. There had to be more than one in Losmara’s three-story unit.
And within minutes of entering a room with one, it would ring that long eerie ring, and then they’d hear that voice, and if Will was close enough he’d hear it too, and even after all these years he couldn’t bear to hear that voice again.
But he had a plan. And it was time to act. Time to take a chance.
Will turned off the engine and got out of the car. At the front door to the town house he paused, fighting the urge to flee. But no—he could beat this. He could.
Now or never.
Without knocking, he stepped inside and grabbed the arm of the nearest person—a tweed arm with a suede patch over the elbow. A bearded face turned toward him.
“Hi,” Will said with all the confidence he could muster. “I’ve got to check in with my service. Where’s the phone?”
“I believe I saw one over on the table next to the sofa in the front room there.”
“Thanks.”
Immediately Will began to worm his way through the guests, focusing straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with anybody, aiming for the sofa. A white sofa. A white rug. White walls. Everything white. The guests looked out of place, obtrusive. They wore every color but white.
There it was. To the left of the sofa. The phone. White, of course.
A simple plan: Locate the phones one at a time, make a beeline for them, and disable them.
The first was right in front of him. He reached for it but a tubby figure suddenly blocked his way.
“Why, Will Ryerson!” said a familiar voice. “Is that you? Praise the Lord, I almost didn’t recognize you in that jacket and tie!”
It was Adele Connors, Lisl’s secretary friend from the Math department.
“Hello, Adele. Look, I’ve got to—”
“Oh, Lisl was so hoping you’d show up.” She glanced around. “Isn’t it strange here? Doesn’t it make you feel funny? I mean, look at those paintings.” She lowered her voice and pointed at the abstracts. “There’s something unholy about them. But not to worry. The Lord is with me. And Lisl will be so glad you’re here.”
“Uh-huh.”
He tried to slip around her but Adele’s girth left no room to get by.
My God, the phone!
“She wanted you here so bad but didn’t think you’d show up. So last night I prayed to the Lord that you’d be here today, and see? Here you are!”
He could feel the sweat breaking out all over his body. Any second now, that phone was going to ring. Any second …
“I’ve got to make a call, Adele.”
“You know,” she said, “not enough people at Darnell appreciate the power of prayer. Why, just the other day—”
Will pushed past her and lunged for the phone. He yanked up the receiver.
Safe! At least for the moment. It couldn’t ring while it was off the hook.
That had been his original plan: Find a phone, lift the receiver, and leave it off the hook. But then it would begin to howl, or someone would see it off the hook and replace it on its cradle. His new plan was better.
Positioning his body between the phone and the rest of the room, Will reached around to the rear of the base and unclipped the jack. This phone was now cut off from the rest of the world. No wire, no calls. Simple but effective.
He hung up the receiver and turned back to Adele. She was looking at him strangely.
“What was so important that you had to almost knock me over to get to the phone?”
“Sorry. Had to check on something. But there’s no answer.” He looked around the room. “Where’s our hostess? I’d like to say hello.”
“In the kitchen, I think.”
The kitchen. Most likely there’d be a phone there as well.
“Thanks, Adele. I’ll see you later.”
Will wove through the living room, banked right around a corner, then left toward the back, and found the kitchen. And Lisl as well. She was placing canapés on a cookie sheet, spacing them evenly before sliding them into the oven.
Will had to stop and look at her. She wore white, the same white as the rest of the condo, a dress of some soft fabric that clung in all the right places, its
whiteness broken only by the red and green splash of holly above her left breast. He had always found her attractive, but she looked beautiful today. Radiant.
Whoever had said white wasn’t a good color for blondes obviously had never seen Lisl.
She glanced up and saw him. Her eyes widened.
“Will!” She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and hugged him. “You’re here! I can’t believe it. You said you weren’t coming!”
“Your little note changed my mind.”
“I’m so glad!” She hugged him again. “This is great!”
As pleasant as the contact was, Will couldn’t enjoy it right now. He glanced left and right over the top of her head, searching the kitchen for the telephone. He spotted it next to the refrigerator—a wall phone.
How was he going to disconnect that?
Gently he pushed Lisl back to arms’ length.
“Let me look at you,” he said while his mind raced. A wall phone—it hadn’t occurred to him. “You look great!”
Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She looked excited. And happy. So good to see her happy like this. But he had to do something about that phone. And now.
“You don’t look so bad yourself.” She reached up and straightened his tie. “But I can tell you’re not used to one of these.”
“Can I use your phone?” he said.
Her brow furrowed. “I thought you didn’t like phones.”
“I never said that. I said I just don’t have one.” He reached over and lifted the receiver. “That’s why I’d like to use yours.”
“Actually it’s Rafe’s”
“Just a local call.”
“I didn’t mean that. Go right ahead. He won’t mind.”
She turned back to the oven. While Lisl inspected the progress of her canapés, Will pressed the heel of his free hand under the base of the wall phone and pushed up. It resisted so he leaned his body into it. If he could get it free he could—suddenly the base came loose and popped off the wall with a clatter. He glanced around and found Lisl staring at him.
“What on earth—?”
He smiled sheepishly. He didn’t have to fake embarrassment—he wished he could have been a little more subtle about this.
“It’s okay. I’m just not used to these things. Don’t worry. I’ll get it back on its plate.”
He saw that the base was connected to the wall by a three-inch coil of jack wire. He quickly unplugged the wall end, then reset the base onto the wall plate. He listened to the receiver. Dead.
“The line’s busy,” he told Lisl as he hung up the receiver. “Can I try again later?”
“Sure.”
“How many phones does he have?”
“Three. There’s one out in the living room and one upstairs in the…” Her voice trailed off. “Did you meet Rafe yet?”
“No. I just got here.”
“As soon as these are done I’ll introduce you.” Her smile was bright with anticipation. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“Great. Uh, where’s the men’s room?”
“Right around the corner.”
“Be right back.”
Will ducked around the corner, spotted the stairs, and ran up to the second story. He glanced in an open door, a bedroom, all in white, the double bed littered with coats, and spotted the phone on a nightstand. Seconds later he was on his way back down to the first floor, light of step, light of heart. All three phones were disabled. Now he could relax a little and try to enjoy himself.
“There you are!” Lisl said, catching him in the hallway as he approached the kitchen. She had her arm crooked around the elbow of a dark, slim man. “Here’s the person I’ve wanted you to meet for months now.”
Lisl introduced Rafe Losmara. Black hair and mustache, fine features, piercing eyes. His open-collared white shirt and white slacks—the same white as Lisl’s dress—emphasized his dark complexion. Will realized then that these two were a real couple. And they were letting everybody know.
As he shook Rafe’s hand, Will experienced a powerful sensation of déjà vu. The feeling had tickled him before when he had seen Rafe at long distance, but here, close-up, it was almost overwhelming.
“Have we ever met before?”
Rafe smiled. A dazzling, charming smile.
“No. I don’t think so. Do I look familiar?”
“Very. I just can’t place you.”
“Maybe we’ve seen each other around campus.”
“No. It’s not that. I get the feeling it was years ago.”
“I lived all over Europe but spent some time in the Southwest. Ever been there?”
“No.”
Rafe’s smile broadened. “Perhaps it was in another life.”
Will nodded slowly, searching his memory.
“Perhaps.”
Another life …
Before coming to North Carolina, Will had spent a long parade of years on New Providence and the surrounding islands; most of that time was lost to him. That had been another life of sorts.
“Have you ever been to the Bahamas?”
“Not yet, but I’d like to.”
Will shrugged and said, “I guess we’ll just have to leave it as a mystery for now. But I’m glad to meet you. Lisl’s told me a lot about you.”
“All of it good, I hope.”
“All of it very good.”
Rafe slipped his arm around Lisl’s waist and hugged her against his side.
“She’s told me a lot about you too. Why don’t you stick around after this is over and we’ll sit down and get to know each other. Right now I’ve got to make sure everyone is fed and watered.” He gave Lisl a peck on the cheek. “See you later.”
Will watched Rafe disappear into the crowded living room. He seemed engaging enough. But what was so familiar about him? It didn’t seem likely he’d met him before—probably just someone very much like him. The answer swam tantalizingly close beneath the surface of his subconscious. Will would have been more than willing to wait for it to reveal itself except that he sensed his subconscious might be warning him about Rafe.
He turned to Lisl.
“Well?” she said. “What do you think?”
Her eyes were so bright, her smile so fiercely proud, Will was powerless to feel anything but happiness for her.
“I don’t exactly know him yet, but he seems very nice.”
“Oh, he is. But he’s very much his own man too. He has his own slant on everything.”
“Is his slant much off beam from your slant?”
He thought he saw Lisl’s eyes cloud over for a minute, but then they cleared. She laughed.
“Sometimes he surprises me. There’s never a dull moment with Rafe. Never!”
Wondering how he should take that, Will followed Lisl back into the kitchen where he volunteered to be her waiter.
* * *
Later, he wove through the crowd with his third tray of canapés, enjoying the job. He wasn’t a stand-around-and-jabber type, and this gave him a purpose. Everyone was friendly. A few had had a little too much to drink and were getting loud, but no one was out of line.
Then the phone rang.
Will froze and almost dropped the tray. How—?
Someone must have plugged it back in. He prayed for the ring to pause and then go on with the stop-and-go pattern of a normal phone call. But it didn’t. The ring went on and on, steadily, relentlessly.
And people noticed. One by one they fell silent under the pressure of that endless ring. The conversation noise level dropped quickly by half, then dwindled down to a single, slurred voice. And soon he fell silent, leaving only the ringing, that damned, incessant, infernal ringing.
Will felt as if he’d been turned to stone. Movement to his left caught his eye as Lisl stepped into the living room from the hallway.
2
That ringing, Lisl thought as she entered the room.
Good Lord, what was wrong with the phone? Why did it go on like that? Whate
ver the reason, it had brought her party to a screeching halt. The living room looked like a tableau—everyone silent, frozen in position, staring at the phone.
Something unsettling, unnatural about that ring. She had to stop it.
She lifted the receiver. A palpable sigh whispered through the room as the ringing stopped. Silence. Blessed silence. She put the receiver to her ear …
… and heard the voice.
A child’s voice, a little boy’s, sobbing, frightened. No … more than frightened—nearly incoherent with fear, crying for his father to come get him, that he didn’t like it wherever he was, that he was afraid, that he wanted to come home.
“Hello!” she said. “Hello! This isn’t your father. Who are you?”
The child cried on.
“Tell me who your father is and I’ll get hold of him.”
The child continued to plead.
“Where are you? Tell me where you are and I’ll get you help. I’ll come get you myself. Just tell me where you are!”
But the child didn’t seem to hear her. Lisl tried talking to him again but to no effect. Without pausing for breath he continued crying for his father, his voice slowly rising in volume to a wail. Suddenly he began to scream out his fear.
“Father, please come get me! Pleeeeese! Father, Father, Father—”
Lisl pulled the receiver away from her ear. So loud. She couldn’t bear the sound of such naked fear in a child. She glanced around at all the strained faces looking her way, staring at the phone, listening to that small voice. They could hear it too.
“—don’t let him kill me! I don’t want to die!”
“What do I do?” she said. “What do I—?”
Suddenly the voice cut off and the abrupt, deathly silence that followed struck her like a blow.
Lisl jammed the receiver back against her ear. “Hello? Are you still there? Are you all right?”
No answer.
She jiggled the plunger on the base. The line remained dead for a few heartbeats, then the dial tone began to buzz.
Lisl turned and stared at her guests. Their pale faces and strained expressions reflected exactly how she felt.
Reprisal Page 11
