Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  "The bottom one," Clare said patiently.

  He bent down, opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a pair of socks. Then he sat down on the edge of the unkempt bed and put one of them on. He glanced up at Clare and smiled. For a moment, she felt happy. He hadn't smiled much in the past year. But that brief moment of happiness passed as she heard him say, "Give Daddy a big kiss, sweetheart, you're the only girl for me, Rose. Big kiss."

  Clare tried to remain composed. "Stop it, Daddy, I'm not Rose. Rose is gone."

  "A fine woman, Rose Cammack. She gave me two lovely girls, and she is always behind me one hundred percent. Make that one-fifty." He was having trouble getting the other sock around his left foot.

  "Daddy," Clare said, moving toward him, "let me help you."

  Brian Cammack smiled again at his daughter and shrugged his shoulders, giving up on the sock. He shook his head slowly. "You've become a fine young lady. Your father is quite proud of you, Lily."

  Before Clare could correct him again, the phone rang.

  4

  From The Nightmare Book of Cup Coffey:

  The first thing I did was ask Patsy Campbell if I could use her phone. "If it's local," she said firmly. She offered me an RC Cola, which I accepted, needing both the sugar and the caffeine (I was dog-tired from the bus ride), but there was no offer of a MoonPie. Patsy undid the wrapping on one of the round chocolate pies and began eating it even while she spoke. "Eight dollars a day, Mr. Coffey, and no female guests, you understand," she said. Then she led me to the hall phone. "Your room is on the top floor, first one on the left. Bathroom is on the second floor, and I'd appreciate your wiping down the tub after making use of it."

  I watched her pad down the stairs in her fluffy mohair slippers. I dialed Dr. Cammack's number, hoping to catch Lily there.

  Dr. Cammack answered the phone.

  "Hello, Dr. Cammack," I began, "is Lily by any chance there?"

  "You, too, eh?" he said, coughing into the phone. "No, I'm afraid she hasn't been by today, not yet. You might try her at her home. Have you tried there? If you do reach her, ask her to give her father a call, will you?"

  I said good-bye, hung up, and rang up Lily's house over on Howard Avenue. Just like the last time I'd called at two in the morning, her husband answered.

  "She can't come to the phone right now," he told me.

  "Could I leave a message?"

  "Sure, I don't know when she'll be available. Hell, I don't even know where she went. I've been calling all over the house for her. I know she's here somewhere, but that's the trick, isn't it? May I ask to whom I'm speaking? "

  "Oh, forgive me, Mr. Whalen, my name is Malcolm Coffey. We haven't met, but I'm an old friend of your wife's."

  He paused on the line and I heard him whispering my name over and over. "Oh, I know you. She calls you 'Cup,' isn't that right? I feel like I know you very well—she's always talking about you."

  I was happy to hear it. "Really?"

  "Don't you live in Maryland?"

  "Well, actually, I'm here in town right now."

  "She'll like that. Very much. When she sees you, and I know she'll want to see you." There was an undercurrent of trembling to his voice.

  "Well, I'd appreciate it if you'd tell her that I'm staying over at Campbell's Boardinghouse."

  "Lily's really going to like this."

  But as soon as he said this, he hung up the phone.

  Having made no headway in terms of Lily, and exhausted, I carried my bags up to my room.

  My room was larger than I had expected, and contained a rocking chair, a queen-sized bed, and a dresser. Most of the space in the room was already occupied, however, by several other tenants; Patsy was evidently using this room as a storage area for her empty RC bottles. There seemed to be hundreds of them, all stacked neatly in their cardboard cartons. I wondered if the other rooms were similarly occupied. But for eight bucks a night, I could live with it.

  I fell down on the lumpy patchwork-quilted bed. I didn't even bother taking off my jacket or shoes. I felt emotionally and physically drained. It was great to lie down on a bed after what felt like a long day.

  I tried falling asleep, but could not. Images of Lily kept flooding through my mind every time I closed my eyes. I lay on the bed watching the late afternoon sunlight begin to dim. From my window at Campbell's Boardinghouse I could see the top story of the Marlowe-Houston House beyond the chapel bell tower. In the fading light the house, although I suppose it would be more accurately described as a mansion, was a dried blood color, and its windows were dark. Looking at it from my window in Patsy Campbell's top floor room, the Marlowe-Houston House didn't seem as intimidating as it had when I caught my first glimpse of it on my cab ride. It was just a house that bordered a prep school and an empty field. There were probably hundreds like it in the Shenandoah Valley. I could almost put what happened that night twelve years ago in perspective; it was all an accident. This old house by the lake was just that, nothing more.

  At some point I fell asleep and awoke not more than twenty minutes later. It had grown very dark outside. I went down to the bathroom, washed up with Patsy's Lavender Soap (even this bore traces of MoonPie smudge). As I came downstairs into the parlor, I heard an I Love Lucy rerun on TV, and saw only the back of Patsy's becurlered head as she sat on the butterfly-print sofa watching the tube. "I hope everything is satisfactory," she said sweetly. She did not turn her head around.

  I told her it was, and mentioned I was going out to wander around before it got too dark.

  "Well, we do have some exquisite homes and gardens here in Pontefract, may I call you Malcolm? But you might try the Historical Society over on Green Street, in the town proper, they might be closed for the day but there are always brochures and literature available." Now that Patsy was no longer gobbling MoonPies, I noticed she had a delicate gossamer way of speaking, and if you closed your eyes you might even imagine a lovely young debutante. I wondered if that was how she felt on the inside, like a Southern Belle trapped inside a body which ran on RCs and MoonPies. "Dr. Prescott Nagle is the head of our Historical Society, he lectures quite a bit, perhaps you've heard of him?"

  I told her I'd be back in a few hours, and she mentioned that if I was any later to use the key under the porch swing.

  It was 5:00 p.m. when I walked out into the brisk evening, and the houses and trees along East Campus Drive stood out like black cutouts against a deep purple sky. I passed a young couple jogging along. They waved and I returned the greeting. I heard dinner bells and children calling out to each other in the distance, but children are always calling each other on crisp winter evenings when the light begins to fade.

  5

  Rush Hour in Pontefract

  Cup Coffey was just walking across the footbridge that led from the prep school side of town across Clear Lake to what Patsy Campbell referred to as "town proper," when rush hour began.

  Streetlamps blinked on up and down Main Street, which, in spite of its stodgy patrician red brick buildings, took on a yellow-green cast in the evening. The Regency Row Arcade shops were closing down, the Law Offices of Grady, Virginias, and Dabney were being hastily vacated by the three men and their one secretary; Maude Dunwoody's cook, Billy Fine, was molding biscuit dough in the cool white fluorescence of the restaurant's front window; like moths around a lightbulb, several of the good old boys, eternally dressed in plaid flannel, ear-flapped hats and baseball caps, sought their enlightenment in front of Fisher's Drugstore before heading off to the Henchman Lounge for some suds.

  Eight cars constituted the rush hour traffic going east; twelve going west. The westbound traffic was held up at the intersection of Main and Jessup for ten minutes by an eight-wheeler rumbling slowly through town on its way to the interstate.

  Other shops remained open for another half hour—no business would be transacted in that time, but these shopkeepers disliked getting caught in what little traffic there was. But every one had pretty much called it a da
y: Friday, January 2, 1987. TGIF.

  6

  From The Nightmare Book of Cup Coffey:

  It took me nearly twenty minutes to walk from Campbell's Boardinghouse to Howard Avenue—4221 Howard Avenue, to be precise. The house that Lily and her husband lived in was a two-story Victorian, painted a pale blue (although on my first visit it was too dark to tell), with a semicircular driveway, and a giant magnolia tree set right in front, blocking a street view of the house.

  I marched up the front stone steps like a man with a mission. The porch light was off. In fact, the entire house was dark. I knocked lightly, and when that failed to bring anyone running, I slammed the knocker hard against the heavy oak door several times.

  I could swear I heard someone coming to the door, but very quietly, as if on tiptoe. The footsteps stopped just on the other side of the door.

  "Hello?" I asked. "Anybody home?" I felt stupid standing there in the dark talking to a door.

  That was evidently what I was doing, too, because no one answered. I knocked again and waited. I walked back out to the street, stood under the streetlight and wrote out a note on the back of one of my bank deposit slips I always keep in my wallet for just such emergencies: LILY, IT'S ME, AT P. CAMPBELL'S. CALL SOON, CUP.

  I folded the deposit slip over again, and wrote Lily's name in large block letters across it. Then I went back up to the front door and slipped the note between the round brass knocker and the door.

  7

  Warren Whalen peered through the peephole at the man walking away from the house. He waited until he'd seen him go on up the street and turn left onto Main. Warren unbolted the door and slowly eased it open. The porch was completely enveloped in blackness. Warren reached back inside and flicked on the overhead lantern. The paper the man had written on fell out of the door knocker and floated down; Warren managed to grab it before it touched ground. He opened it, read it.

  Warren Whalen had a three-day growth of beard. His jet-black hair shone with grease. His skin was pale, as if he'd been sitting in a dark closet for the past few weeks. He was wearing his favorite suit, a vanilla suit. It was wrinkled and spotted where he'd spilled food on it. His violet eyes possessed a feral intensity as he read the note. He wadded the note up and stuffed it in his pocket.

  Warren went back in the house, shutting the door behind him. He turned the porch light off. He pressed his back against the door. He glanced up the dark staircase.

  Warren Whalen began giggling softly. "This is just too much," he said to the darkness.

  8

  From The Nightmare Book of Cup Coffey:

  After getting lost down a few side streets, I was about to give up my search for the Historical Society. Main Street was the only well-lit area, and I was tired. I kept my hands pushed deep into the pockets of my coat. I finally decided I'd better call a cab or walk back to Patsy Campbell's when I found the street she'd mentioned, Green Street. Like the other streets, it was poorly lit, and I decided that if the Historical Society wasn't among the first few buildings I would give up my search.

  I figured Dr. Nagle would probably have gone home for the evening, but I could at least leave a note for him, as I had done at Lily's house. He might remember me. I trusted that he'd be one of the few Peepee teachers who would think of me in a favorable light.

  I found the building almost immediately, and as I approached the door, a man was just locking it up. I startled him. He almost jumped.

  "I'm sorry," I said, and then recognized him even in the shadows, his silhouette as prominent as Alfred Hitchcock's. "Dr. Nagle "

  "No, I'm sorry, you startled me," he said, extending a hand out of the shadows.

  "You probably don't remember me, sir, but I used to go to school here."

  "Always glad to see alums return home," he said, cheerfully. If I could not see him very well, then it was obvious I was also just a silhouette to him.

  "My name's Coffey, Cup Coffey," I said.

  He moved closer to me, stretched his arms out and grabbed me by the shoulders, trying to peer through the darkness to see me better. He sounded regretful when he said, "Of course I remember you, Cup. I was rather afraid, for your sake, that you'd be coming back this winter."

  Chapter Eight

  EVERYBODY'S GOT TO EAT

  1

  From The Nightmare Book of Cup Coffey:

  Other than his increased girth, Dr. Nagle had barely changed at all in the past twelve years. The first thing you noticed about him besides his salt-and-pepper hair, which still remained thick as uncut wheat despite his age, was the ruddy glow of his face. He had an Irish face, shiny cheeks that were sponged a burgundy shade, twinkling Santa Claus eyes. His face seemed less that of a man than of a large baby. He still propped his round, professorial spectacles upon his slight nose. He wore an old gray threadbare suit, his slacks reaching too far down over his scuffed shoes. I think if he'd been more circumspect in his manner of dress I would not have enjoyed his company so much. He looked comfortably, unabashedly unkempt.

  After some initial hedging and anecdote-dropping while we walked to his car, he invited me to have dinner with him. I protested, saying that I didn't want to intrude, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. "Everybody's got to eat, and besides," he said as he opened the car door for me, "I cook enough for two. You might as well help me out or it all goes down the disposal."

  Dr. Nagle lives in an old red barn out near the overpass. The barn had been converted into a two-bedroom house with a large workshop which had once been stables. He calls it his "barn house." From the front he has a perfect view of downtown Pontefract, if it could safely be called that; Clear Lake and the tops of some of Pontefract Prep's buildings. He stopped his car on the way up the gravel road to his house and pointed off toward the lake. "I have no doubt that this is the spot where Fenton and Trump saw the first settlement burning, which helped precipitate the Great Indian Massacre of 1755. Of course, we dabblers in history now know that it was the early settlers themselves who set their own town on fire. But in those days, it was any excuse to drive the Indians out of the valley."

  "Point-of-fact," I said, and we both laughed remembering all those lectures he used to give in and out of class.

  For all Nagle's dithering, his elderly hesitation, I felt a warm glow in his presence. All the boys in school had loved him the way you love and respect someone who is kind and good and possesses just a touch of craziness. He was one of us, a kid in an old man's suit, and we could laugh both with him and at him. He was one of the few teachers who befriended students, took them on field trips, coached the debate team, spoke seriously with fifteen-year-olds about the state of the world. I truly believe that he looked upon all of us, students past, present, and future, as somehow lost and eternally young. It was his duty to round us up, make something of us, being so lost and eternally young himself.

  "Point-of-fact," he said, "I chose this old barn for my home twenty years ago because I felt the same stability here that I had with my dear wife when she was alive. Out of that muddle of town."

  "Good vibes?" I asked.

  He seemed to consider this offhand remark seriously, saying, "Well, vibes, at any rate."

  Dr. Nagle parked the car next to what had been the old stable. Before we got out of the car, he turned to me. He looked at me directly, just like I was once again a student and he my teacher, and this was a final exam. His chin trebled as he pushed it back against his neck. "You can tell me the truth, Cup, but you must tell me."

  "Sir?"

  "Whatever possessed you to return?"

  2

  Howie McCormick Sniffs a Letter

  Howie McCormick, first cousin to Sheriff George Connally and employee of the US Post Office, sniffed the letter.

  He pulled out his broken-down sofa bed, propped himself up with some pillows, and opened himself a Michelob. He held three purple envelopes in one hand, and with the other took a swallow from the beer bottle.

  "Oh, boy," he said, anticipation like
an itchy humidity crawling across his skin. A grin spread across his face, ear-to-ear.

  He'd been keeping ahold of Betty Henderson's love letters all week, just saving them up for this night. It was a perk he took advantage of as an employee of the United States Post Office in Pontefract. "The secrets of the human heart," he said in hushed tones. Howie didn't notice that he spoke aloud to himself anymore.

  "Kinda new, kinda wow, Charlie," he sang when he finally recognized the fragrance that was sprayed across the envelopes. It happened to be Howie's favorite women's perfume.

  He rubbed the letter across his lips.

  He flicked his tongue like a snake over her initials, scrawled with a flourish at the top left corner of each envelope. "E.D.H.—Elizabeth Doreen Henderson."

  Howie tugged unselfconsciously at his groin.

  He was stretched across the unmade mattress of the sofa bed, wearing a sweat-stained white Fruit-of-the-Loom T-shirt and his candy cane-striped boxer shorts. He kept the heat up high in his apartment.

  For the moment, he set the envelopes down on his bedside table. He reached beyond them for the phone and dialed a number.

  Someone on the other end picked up. "Shaw's Pizzeria, can I help you?"

  "Hey, Gonzo, is it you?"

  "Yeah," the man replied.

  "Good buddy Howie Mc-Cee here, and I'm ready for a Friday Night Massacre," Howie said.

  "That's one Massacre Anything else, Howie?"

  Howie thought for a second, putting his hand over the mouthpiece in case he was thinking aloud.

  "Got everything else I need, Gonzo, my man, but hold those onions, willya? Maybe put on some extra anchovies, I love them little fish."

  After he hung up the phone, Howie picked up one of the purple envelopes again. "The envelope, please," he said. He tore into it like a rabid animal. But when he unfolded the letter, he treated it delicately, like he would a moth's wing if he wanted to keep the dust from rubbing off.