Darker Than Night fq-1

by John Lutz

Luther looked at himself in the dirty rearview mirror and smoothed back his hair. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a look to them he hadn’t seen since Kansas City. Eyes of the lost and desperate.

  The afraid.

  He tucked his hair back behind his ears, then opened the rusty old door and climbed down out of the truck. Tom Wilde had driven the van home yesterday, but now it was parked at the curb; Wilde would be inside the building, probably wondering where his apprentice Luther was this fine, bright morning.

  There was a sharp pain in the small of Luther’s back, and one of his legs was stiff. He’d only been able to get comfortable enough to sleep in short stretches on the hard, cracked vinyl of the pickup’s seat.

  He clenched his fists, put them behind his neck, and leaned back at the waist. Something popped in his spine, and his back felt better. He felt awake and strong enough to work today, to lug five-gallon buckets of paint and scamper up ladders. Or he was sure he’d be able to work as soon as he limbered up.

  As he limped stiffly to the front of the building and its entrance, he tried not to think about what happened last night. But that was impossible.

  He’d have to tell Tom Wilde, because Wilde would eventually find out about it. And before leaving for their painting job, Luther wanted to phone Cara, even if it meant he’d be talking to Milford. He wanted to make sure Cara was all right, that Milford hadn’t hurt her.

  If Milford had done something to her…

  Luther decided not to think about that.

  When he pushed open the door and stepped into the storeroom and office, there was Wilde sitting on the high stool at his workbench. He wasn’t dressed for work. Instead of his paint-spattered coveralls, he was wearing faded jeans and a dark blue pullover sweater that would be way too hot in another hour. His shoulders were rounded, his head bowed as if it were too heavy for his neck to support.

  “Tom?”

  “Morning, Luther.” But he hadn’t yet looked at Luther.

  When Wilde did raise his head to look, the light showed bruises on his face, and an eye that was rapidly turning dark.

  “What happened?” Luther asked.

  “Milford was here.”

  “This morning?”

  “Early. He was waiting for me to show up.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That you were finished working here, and I didn’t have any choice in the matter. He used his fists on me to make sure I understood. That was his excuse, anyway.”

  “What’d he have against you?”

  “I was handy. He’d rather have been beating on you. What happened, Luther? What the hell’d you do?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No. He was too busy pounding on me.”

  Luther decided to let Milford keep his embarrassing secret. And there was no reason to spread the story that Cara had slept with Luther. That would be the worst thing for Cara. So if Milford wanted to protect his reputation and wound up protecting Cara’s, too, that was okay with Luther.

  “We had an argument, was all. He lost his temper. Who’d have thought a worm like Milford would have a temper like that? I called him some things, said some stuff I shouldn’t have.”

  “You must have,” Wilde said. “I can tell you there won’t be any making up. Not with a man like Milford. I warned you he’s more dangerous than he seems.” He lowered his eyes again, staring at the floor, then looked up and met Luther’s gaze. “It’s not just that Milford’s capable of hurting people real bad; he’s also got a lot of weight in this town. The folks that know him are scared to cross him, and he can make my work and my life impossible if I side with you. I’ve gotta do what he says, Luther. I have to let you go. I don’t want to, but I have to.”

  “I understand,” Luther said. “You been good to me, Tom, and I don’t wanna cause you any more harm.”

  “Milford was looking for you, Luther. He won’t give up till he finds you. Where’d you spend the night?”

  “Here. In the cab of the pickup.”

  “Jesus! You were here when Milford was!”

  “I guess. I musta slept through it.”

  “Lucky for you.” Wilde dug in his jeans pocket and came up with a wad of bills. “Here’s what I owe you, plus a little extra. It’s all I can do for you, Luther.”

  Luther accepted the money and thanked Wilde.

  “Where you going now?” Wilde asked.

  “I don’t know. I can’t hang around here.”

  “No, I guess you can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, Tom. None of it’s your fault.” Luther moved toward the door. “See you.”

  “You be careful.” Wilde got down off the stool and came over and shook Luther’s hand, then gave him a powerful, awkward hug. “You watch out. Maybe take a bus outta here, but keep watching out the corner of your eye till you clear the town limits.”

  “I might do that, Tom. Thank you. You been good to me.”

  Luther eased out the door and walked away, not looking back. The sun was hot on his back, as if urging him on.

  But he wasn’t going to the bus station. He wasn’t going to leave town, because that would mean leaving Cara.

  Confident that Milford would be working in his office at the mine, Luther wandered around town for a while, trying to figure out where to go. If he got a motel room, Milford would eventually find him. And maybe not so eventually. Life on the streets in a place the size of Hiram was impossible. The homeless were made to move on or were arrested for vagrancy. The sheriff’s department would pick him up the first day.

  Luther had no idea where to go, what to do.

  What now? What will happen to me now?

  He found himself only a block from the Sands’ big Victorian house. Maybe Cara would be there alone. He might talk to her, be sure she was all right before leaving. She might have some ideas.

  He couldn’t be absolutely sure Milford wasn’t home. His pulse quickened as he approached the house and went up the steps to the wide front porch. He looked up and down the block. Unless someone was peeking out a window, he hadn’t been seen. The only unnatural sound was a car alarm beeping insistently blocks away. A bee droned out from the branches of a nearby sweet-smelling honeysuckle and circled Luther as if sizing him up, getting up the nerve.

  A few seconds after he’d rung the doorbell, Cara opened the door and stared out at him in surprise.

  She looked fine, unmarked. Maybe Milford had taken it all out on Wilde.

  “Cara…you okay?”

  “I am.” He saw now she’d been crying. Fresh tears glittered in her eyes. “Milford went to see Tom Wilde,” she said.

  “I know. I just came from there. Wilde had to fire me. Milford beat him up and didn’t leave him any choice. I don’t know what to do now, where to go. Listen, Milford isn’t…?”

  “He’s not here. After coming back from Wilde’s, he went to work. To his office at the mine, where he’s spent most of his time the past ten years.”

  She opened the door wider and touched Luther’s arm lightly with the tips of two fingers, drawing him inside with only the slightest pressure, as if by some magnetic force that bound them with the slightest contact.

  “I needed to come here and see you,” Luther said. His breath caught in his throat.

  He would have said more, but Cara suddenly clung to him and was kissing him hard on the mouth, grinding her lips against his. She moaned and began to tremble, digging her fingers into his back and turning their bodies so they moved back and were away from the lace-curtained window in the door and no one might notice them from outside.

  When they separated, she gazed into his eyes as if at worship and said, “You came to the right place, Luther. Here’s where you finally belong.”

  He believed her. Whatever name was on a mortgage or a marriage license, he was the one who belonged here, with Cara.

  With Cara he was home.

  27

  New York, 2004.

  He knew when she was due ho
me from work, and he’d be watching out the window. Even from twelve stories up, he’d recognize her. He’d seen her leave for work, followed her and observed her eating lunch at an upscale restaurant on Central Park West. She was wearing a light gray dress and carrying a red purse and a folded black umbrella in case of rain. He’d know her by her clothes and by her long dark hair and by her walk, proud and erect, back slightly arched, head held high, her pace slightly faster than those around her. Almost as if she were on parade and could feel the gaze of someone watching her closely, focusing on only her out of the throngs of passing people.

  Maybe she senses it already. Maybe she knows.

  In the end, when destiny and time meet, they all seem to know, seem to understand that they knew all along and were betraying me. They understand the meaning and the justice and that they must pay. They’re struck by the meanings of life and of death simultaneously and see that there is no difference. A blink, a missed heartbeat, a final exhalation, nothing…the buzzing…color the length of light, nothing more. Their final wisdom is the lesson and the gift.

  He glanced at his watch, then went to the window and raised the blind. Pressing his forehead against the glass to gain a better angle, he looked down. Blue distance.

  And there she was!

  He gasped at the beauty.

  Mary Navarre strode along the sidewalk toward her West End apartment, veering slightly now and then to navigate the flow of pedestrian traffic and pass slower walkers. She was wearing the leather strap of her red purse diagonally across her torso as a precaution against snatch-and-run thieves, and she was wielding her folded umbrella in her right hand almost like a weapon with each stride. She might have intimidated those walking toward her, were it not for her smile.

  She used the keypad to enter the lobby, then checked for mail in the brass box with her apartment number above it.

  Nothing but advertising circulars and a notice urging residents to attend a neighborhood meeting to discuss increasing block security against the threat of terrorism.

  Maybe Donald could attend, Mary thought as she relocked the box, then used her key on the door to the inner lobby and elevators.

  As she pressed the up button, she saw that one of the elevators was on the twelfth floor, the other on the fifth. The arrow pointing to twelve didn’t move, but the one resting on five immediately began to descend. It stopped briefly on three, then continued down to lobby level.

  When the door slid open, a heavyset woman Mary had seen before nodded to her and left the elevator in a swirl of navy blue material, trailing a long scarlet scarf. Trying to look thinner. Mary wondered why overweight people so often tried to hide their bulk beneath tentlike clothing that only accentuated their size. Then she remembered stepping on the bathroom scale this morning, and tried not to think about the five pounds she’d somehow gained during the past month. She and Donald, himself getting thicker through the middle, had been enjoying too many rich meals in too many good restaurants lately.

  It has to stop…

  As she took possession of the elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor, Mary swore to herself again that she was going on a diet. Maybe try the Atkins. Her favorite meal was steak with a salad, rolls, and a baked potato, all washed down with a strong martini. She should be able to give up the potato, maybe a roll.

  On twelve, the elevator slowed and stopped, then settled slightly as it found its proper level, and the door slid open.

  As Mary stepped out into the hall, she was aware of the adjacent elevator’s door sliding closed.

  In the apartment she paused inside the door as she often did and admired the spaciousness and tasteful decor, reminding herself again that it was all hers and Donald’s.

  It wasn’t until she went to the kitchen for a glass of water that she noticed the two shrink-wrapped steak filets on a corner of the kitchen table. They were prime cuts, thick and lightly marbled, the way she liked them.

  She stared at the steaks, puzzled. How on earth…?

  When she’d gotten a glass of orange juice this morning, had she accidentally removed the steaks from the refrigerator and forgotten them?

  But she doubted that. She was sure she hadn’t even opened the refrigerator’s meat compartment. She’d had no reason. Besides, she didn’t remember the steaks even being in the refrigerator. Maybe Donald had bought them and planned for a romantic dinner at home this evening. Maybe he wanted to surprise her because they had something to celebrate. That would explain everything.

  “Donald?” Her voice surprised her. It was higher than normal. Frightened.

  “Donald!” Better.

  She went into the living room and called his name again. Kept calling it as she roamed the apartment, peering into all the rooms.

  She was alone.

  As she walked back through the living room, she noticed one of the blinds was raised.

  Something else that doesn’t belong.

  But she made no further connection between the blind and the steaks in the kitchen. After all, she might have raised the blind and forgotten. Or maybe Donald had done so.

  Mary lowered the blind, restoring-in her mind, anyway-elegance and balance to the room. She only absently took note of the smudges on the windowpane, as if someone had leaned against it in order to peer out and down.

  She went back to the kitchen and gingerly touched the shrink-wrapped steaks with the backs of her knuckles.

  They were cool.

  Can’t have been here long.

  Mary sat at the table and stared at the expensive cuts of meat she was sure she hadn’t seen before.

  Donald again? Playing his games?

  She knew he’d deny it.

  This is strange. This is goddamned strange.

  She recalled stepping out of the elevator into the hall, the hiss of the adjacent elevator’s door closing, what she’d felt, how the hair on the nape of her neck seemed to stir. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time. And maybe she shouldn’t think about it now.

  Nothing…it means nothing… Imagination…I am not afraid…

  But maybe I should be!

  Mary put the steaks in the refrigerator’s meat compartment and left the apartment immediately. In the lobby she realized she’d forgotten her umbrella, but she decided not to go back for it.

  She’d kill time down the street at Starbucks, sip a cafe mocha while she browsed through this morning’s paper, and return to the apartment later, when she was sure Donald was home.

  Definitely, they needed to talk.

  The Night Prowler had stood in the elevator on the twelfth floor and waited for her, his fingertip on the button marked open so the door wouldn’t close and the elevator would remain where it was.

  When he heard the adjacent elevator arrive, he removed his finger from open and pressed lobby. The door slid closed just as the door next to it was opening. He actually caught a buzzing glimpse of her gray skirt-its hem, for only an instant-as she emerged into the hall.

  As the elevator plunged, he leaned against its back wall and breathed in deeply. For an instant she’d been so near. The scent of her! Not of her perfume, but of her!

  The scent of her flesh, of her color and movement and smile and glance!

  She knows!

  She might not realize it yet, but she knows. Somehow, on some dark level of consciousness in the ancient country of her mind, she has to be aware of what fate plans for us, of the inevitability and momentum of desire, to know how close we are, united, merged, cleaved unto each other, almost as one.

  Original sin. Original betrayal.

  Almost as one…

  She knows!

  28

  God, this is awful!

  Pearl had a terrible taste in her mouth and her teeth felt mossy. She’d fallen asleep on her sofa watching cable news, and the precarious state of just about everything seemed to have taken over her mind. She couldn’t quite recall her dreams, but they’d left a residue of gloom.

  She’d ha
d dinner alone at home-a small steak, French fries, deli slaw, and a glass of cheap red wine. Satisfying. After doing the dishes at the sink, she’d put on some old jeans and a worn-out shirt and painted in the living room until she got tired. Then she did a hurried cleanup and decided to drink a soda while she watched television before going to bed.

  A new reality TV show was on. Several men and women had been living together for weeks in isolation in a lighthouse on a small island. One of the women had finished last in a round-robin tennis match, and viewers were calling in to vote on which of the men should marry her.

  Huh?

  Pearl had dozed.

  Now it was past one A.M., and on television a man in a blue suit with a red tie was arguing with another man in a blue suit with a red tie about abortion.

  Pearl blinked and sat up. The TV was pulled out toward the middle of the room. Behind it, the wall was almost completely painted. This visual affirmation of accomplishment didn’t afford the satisfaction Pearl had imagined. In her depressed state she wondered why she’d felt the surge of optimism and energy that prompted her to drag painting materials from the hall closet and begin rolling the wall.

  She thought it might have had something to do with Quinn, but when she looked at it another way, that seemed preposterous. Quinn was old enough to be her father-biologically, anyway. Theirs would be the kind of romance you saw in old Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall movies, where nobody noticed or cared that Bacall was young and Bogart was closing in on senility. Or like Fred and Ethel on I Love Lucy. What the hell was Ethel doing with a fossil like Fred?

  On the other hand, Pearl thought, it might not be so bad to be the celluloid Lauren Bacall. Or, for that matter, Ethel. Instead of a woman on the verge of unemployment, and getting hooked on an aged ex-cop everyone thought was a child molester.

  Almost everyone, anyway.

  The talking heads on TV had switched subjects and were discussing the federal deficit. Pearl heard something about “sacrificing future generations.”

  The truth was, the future didn’t look so good for Pearl, Quinn, and Fedderman. They were way out on a limb that some very important people were trying to saw off. Egan was a total asshole, and even Quinn didn’t trust Renz. The local media were starting to get nasty, and Quinn was the only one who thought there’d been any actual progress on the case.