And now something else was happening.
She looked up at Jack, still holding his Colt, aiming it at the door, which was now shredded and splintered, but Jack was being pulled into and surrounded and consumed by a blinding white luminous mist, he was disappearing into it, fading, now almost transparent.
She reached for him, crying out—he caught her hand—she held on tight, a death grip—she felt a gravitational pull of immense force, a blinding white light erased the world, and the Shimmer took them both. The Shimmer took them all.
* * *
Selena was in the Long Hall and she knew it very well, although she only remembered anything about it when she was inside it. It rose up and curved away into the shining blue distance, into a shimmering vanishing point that was always receding. There were lights in the ceiling, embedded in what looked like glass but might have been ice and she ran into and out of the pools the lights cast on the floor, which was also made of glass, but glass so clear she could see through it.
She saw what looked like the lights of a great city far down in the velvet darkness, grids and circles and squares of glittering lights in green and gold and red and blue and violet, streets and lanes and avenues, and other patterns too, leaf shaped with glowing silver veins that might have been rivers flowing in valleys between mountains, and diamonds and spheres and discs of pulsing light.
There were doors—arches set into the glassy walls lining the hallway—hundreds and hundreds of them—perhaps thousands perhaps millions—although she had never gone that far down the tunnel—each one identical—a wide Gothic arch of green stone with inlaid bands of polished steel stretching away into the blue distance—and they were all marked with signs—bars and oblongs and diamonds and circles in some silvery metal that shone with a pale moonlight glow in the haloes of light from the ceiling—signs that seemed to have a meaning that floated just beneath the surface of her understanding, and, if she only had a moment to study them, their meaning would arise and become clear to her... As she ran she scanned the gates looking for something familiar—a sign, a shape—she didn’t know what it would be...and the gates arose out of the blue distance and flickered past her like the blades of a fan turning in a shaft of sunlight—shadow to light to shadow to light—and then they were gone into the shadow behind her...and she ran and ran... And then, there it was.
you know what, tony, I believe you
When he left the morgue, Clete had gone to ground at the Monterey Court, under the name Mickey Hargitay, a name Tessio knew. Clete was hoping that Tessio would look for that name, and would send some people to take him out because they’d be easier to kill at the Monterey Court than inside the Vizzini compound.
And Tessio did call.
He asked for a meet.
Clete thought about it, figured it was a trap, but he said yes because getting into the compound would have been the hardest part of what he planned to do. He didn’t care about getting out.
Didn’t want to get out.
So he said yes.
Clete gunned up—his .357 with a pocket full of auto-loaders, a little hammerless Smith in his hip pocket, and a cut-down M2 Carbine on a shoulder rig hidden under his suit jacket.
It was a full-auto machine and had a thirty-round magazine. He drove to the Vizzini compound with death in his heart, for him and for everyone he could take with him.
The stone-walled compound had two wrought-iron gates as massive as the gates to hell. Two button men stood behind the gates as Clete pulled up to the gates, his Colt Python at his side, the cut-down M2 digging into his ribs.
The left-side guard, a recent arrival from Abruzzo, stepped through a small door in the gate, bent down and put a hard white flash in Clete’s face, held it there long enough for insolence and then stepped away, waving to the other man—the gatekeeper—to hit the button.
The gate creaked and ground its ponderous way along a buried track. The Abruzzi, still a boy, but hard enough, smiled at Clete as he pulled through.
“You are expected,” he said, and the other guard showed his teeth, store-bought in Napoli and blue-white like tombstones.
Clete drove up the long curving drive and parked inside the walled compound, in the midst of a cluster of shiny blue-black Cadillacs and Lincolns and Packards and Oldsmobiles.
There another Abruzzi guard, with a cut-down lupara hooked over his left arm, lifted a hand and with a cold smile invited Clete to walk down the long sloping lawn to where the alligator lagoon shimmered in the moonlight, framed by a stand of saw palmettos.
Eight men, at Clete’s rough count, stood around the edge of the lagoon, four of them armed with shotguns. As he got closer, Clete could see Tessio Vizzini standing in the foreground of the group, watching him come down the long lawn.
He had a machete in his left hand, the tip pointed low and by his side, and in his other hand a glass of what looked like red wine.
Sergio Carpo and Sal Bruni stood near, and the rest of Tessio’s soldiers, six of them, stood around in scattered groups, and all of them tracked him as Clete came into the wavering glow of the torches.
Behind Tessio, Little Anthony sat in a wooden beach chair, naked, trussed up like a roasted pig, coated in sweat, his face streaked with tears.
In the darkness beyond the compound lights the lagoon waters were ruffled and uneasy, and the red glitter of the torches were reflected in the slitted eyes of the gators waiting in the shallows.
As Clete came up to him, Tessio stepped forward and met him halfway.
“I know why you are here, Clete. Your beautiful wife is dead. But we did not do this thing. On my heart, on my honor as a Vizzini, we did not.”
Clete looked past Tessio, to where Tony Vizzini slumped in the lawn chair. Tony’s eyes were wide and Clete could see that he had fouled himself.
“I have put him to the question. He admits that he was at the house. On Florala. He drove by it. With Carpo. In the middle of the night.”
“How did he know where my wife was, and why did he go there?”
“Because Aurelia DiSantis sent him there.”
“Why did she do that?”
“She saw what you and your cousin did to Tony and his people at the Alcazar. She made trouble. She taunted him with it, and then she told him where your wife was. Yes he is a stupid boy, and yes he went down there, but Sergio was with him, and Sergio would never have let him hurt your wife.”
He stepped in close, looked into Clete’s haggard face, saw the loss, how deep the wound was. And although he had a lizard heart, he felt it.
“My old friend, we do not make war on the wives and children. You know this. You have come here to die, and to kill as many of us as you can as you die. With your pistol and that little rifle you have under your coat. And we understand this, and if we had done this infamita, we would have shot you down by the front gates.”
He stepped closer, put a heavy calloused hand on Clete’s shoulder.
“But here you are, alive, and I tell you, we did not do this thing. And if we could bring your wife back, my friend, by putting a bullet into my son’s head, we would do it. Here, take this.”
He reached into his belt, pulled out a heavy Smith & Wesson revolver, cocked it and handed it to Clete.
“Here is my only son, my Little Anthony. If you do not believe me, go put a bullet in his head.”
Clete had to smile at that.
“If I do, your people will shoot me dead before his brains hit the grass.”
Tessio laughed.
“Yes. Of course. But Mary Alice will be avenged, and then your pain will end too. All at once. This is a kindness I offer you, Clete. Go kill him, if you do not believe me. Kill my son. Then die and be at peace.”
Clete took the revolver from Tessio’s hand, checked that it was loaded and walked down the slope to the edge of the alligator lagoon.
He could hear the gators, churning and moving in the black water, hungry, impatient, smelling the blood and anger in the air.
The night was humid and salty and the air was hazy. Flies buzzed around Tony. He looked up as Clete came to stand in front of him.
Clete could smell him from five feet away, and the flies were clustering thick on his skin.
“You went down the shore to kill my wife?”
“You insulted me. In front of my friends.”
“So then you decide to kill my wife?”
“No. I was looking for you.”
“No. You knew I was in New Orleans.”
A dim-witted flicker in Tony’s eyes, and he cut away. His tongue ran over his lips.
“I was angry. Look at me. I have paid.”
“This will burn inside you. You will want to get your balls back. You’ll come for me some day, shoot me in the back. Or come for my son.”
No one spoke.
Clete considered the boy for a while longer, and then, sighing, turned away, letting the revolver come down at his side. The anger was gone. Let it go. Don’t keep it in your future. He started back up the long grassy slope.
A gator hissed in the outer dark, and then thrashed his tail, a white explosion of water that caught the torchlight and sent it glittering back, ruby-red sparks in the white waves.
Tony watched him walk away, a sneer forming on his bruised lips.
“That’s right, fat boy, paid boy. You Mick prick. Walk away. Fuck you, paid boy. Some day, I will kill your fucking paid-boy ass.”
“Tony!” said Tessio, a warning tone. “Enough. Shut the fuck up.”
Clete stopped, his shoulders slumping. He glanced at Tessio, then he turned around and walked back to Tony, lifted the revolver, pointed it at Tony’s head.
“Clete, no,” said Tessio. “He’s just a stupid kid!”
Clete stood in front of Tony, thinking what to say. Finally, after a long silence, he said, “You know what, Tony, I believe you.”
He shot him in the head, and Tony, his skull a blown-out ruin and his brains spattering across the lawn, flew backward in the chair, legs flying.
Clete turned around and shot Sergio Carpo in the chest, because Sergio Carpo was an excellent gun hand, then he pivoted and shot Sal Bruni too, for the same reason—didn’t wait to see either man fall—the other six, panicked, were fumbling for their guns—Clete dropped Tessio’s revolver, tugged the M2 out from under his coat, stood rock still as the six men facing him started a hurried and ragged fire—he felt big rounds hissing past him, felt a blow in his hip that almost knocked him down—saw the muzzle flare of their guns—and then he opened up on them, full-auto, shooting carefully, aiming at their silhouettes, adjusting for the muzzle climb—he had done this kind of thing for a living in Korea—another body blow in his left side—another round scored a shallow furrow in his neck—he wasn’t dead yet...he stood his ground and raked the standing men with fire—and they all went down—back and down—and now the magazine was empty and the bolt was locked back.
Silence, except for the echoes of gunfire coming back across the bay.
Clete stood there, weaving, fighting the shock of his wounds, standing on a grassy slope littered with dead and dying men. The gunfight had lasted about twenty seconds.
Tessio was on his feet, waiting.
Clete reached down, feeling the pain now, his wounds beginning to wake, picked up Tessio’s revolver, walked slowly up to where Tessio was standing, the gun in his left hand, the M2 in his right, until he was five feet away.
“My men,” said Tessio. “Why not me?”
“We have an understanding.”
He flipped out the cylinder in Tessio’s revolver, dumped out the remaining three rounds, handed it to Tessio.
“Why? Why do this?”
Clete studied him, a long silence.
“Mary Alice.”
event horizon
Selena was back in her sunlit room at the Pontalba. It was the afternoon of her fifth birthday. There had been cake and cognac and kisses from Mother, and now she was lying in her soft white bed, wrapped in her soft white sheets, drifting away on the sound of her parents’ voices, talking softly and with love in the parlor.
The brassy tones of “Saint Louis Blues” drifted in through the curtains, a band of players in Jackson Square, carried to her on a scented wind off the Mississippi.
In the middle distance, a riverboat sounded its deep bass note, shaking the air and driving pelicans into the sky. She turned into the sheets, feeling them wrapped around her, tightening.
Too tight.
And too warm, and too wet.
She lifted her hands, and they were red, slick with blood. She pushed the sheets off, writhed herself out of the bed, and now the room that was softly sweetly white was pink and wet and bloody.
She looked down at herself, at Selena in her bed, and saw a bloody mess of ripped flesh and soaked sheets and a dead little girl.
And she stood over her, looking down at her, and in her hand was a knife. She turned to the mirror covered in a linen towel, tore the towel way and looked into it.
A haggard black shape, a woman, her matted hair in a tangle, in a shapeless black shift, covered in blood, holding a bloody knife, panting, staring back at her, eyes wild, mouth open, breathing hard.
“Who are you?” Selena asked the figure in the mirror.
“I am Philomena D’Arcy. Who are you?”
“I am Selena D’Arcy.”
“No, you are not. Selena D’Arcy is dead in the bed behind you. We just killed her.”
“We?”
“Yes. You and I.”
“Who are we?”
“We are Philomena D’Arcy. Will is our brother.”
“Where is Will?”
“In the parlor. We have killed him.”
“Killed Will?”
“Yes, and that bitch he lives with.”
“Why?”
“Because they left us in that place. That prison. Because Will would no longer lie with us.”
“Lie with us?”
The figure in the mirror arched and twisted.
“We used to lie with each other. Like brother and sister often do. And then he tired of us. He chose that other woman. He put us away. In that place. He shut us away. He left us.”
“No. He left you. I am not you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No. I am Selena.”
“Look behind you. That is Selena D’Arcy. She is their love child. We hate her, and we have just killed her. We are in this mirror. You are me, and we are Philomena D’Arcy.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
A long silence.
“I am not you.”
“Yes we are. We have always been Philomena. We came here to kill Bea and Will for leaving us in that awful place.”
“But I know I am Selena! I have been Selena all my life!”
“Selena just died here at the age of five. We killed her.”
“Then why do I know I am Selena?”
“When Selena died the Shimmer came, and we took it, and it changed us. We decided to become Selena because being ourselves is terrible.”
“Then why are you telling me this?”
“Because we can change it. We can go back again and change everything.”
“How?”
“Find our locket.”
“Yes. We need our locket.”
“I know,” said the haggard witch in the mirror.
“Do we know where it is?”
“Yes. It’s where we last held it.”
“In the car? By Matanzas Inlet? The night we drowned Mary Alice?”
“Yes. We were holding it. We broke the chain. Go ba
ck to before we break the chain.”
Go there.
Find it.
Bring it back.
* * *
Jack and Annabelle found a different gate. It opened onto that last night at the beach house, and the storm coming in. They were in the white room, Barbara’s white room at the beach house, and there were three dead men in the hall.
Pandora Jansson was lying on the ground, her chest bloody, dying, but she was still breathing, and her eyes were open. Jack knelt down beside her. She looked up at him, her voice a whisper.
“Jack. Go. Go get her.”
“No. We have to get you to a hospital.”
Annabelle stepped in, pushed him aside.
“No. She’s right. Go. Find Selena. I will take care of Pandora.”
“What will you do?”
“When you come back, we will both be here.”
“How?”
“Just go.”
Pandora looked up at Annabelle, her lips bloody.
“Who are you?”
“You know me. You’ve been talking to me for days.”
“Annabelle?”
“Yes.”
“So, now I’m dead?”
“No. You are not. Not yet.”
* * *
The rental car. Matanzas Inlet. The last place Selena had held the locket. She hunted through the time gates until she found what she thought was the right one. She opened it, stepped through, and she was at Matanzas Inlet.
But it was cold, and not the right time of the year. There was a mist on the water, and a thick fog on the bridge, and she thought, There is no bridge at Matanzas Inlet in 1957, and she stepped out onto the middle of the bridge, wandering, wondering, looking for the rental car, looking for a way back to her locket. And she realized then that she had made a terrible error. The place was right, but the time was all wrong. She had come in through the wrong gate. It was Christmas Eve, the Christmas Eve Jack’s wife and daughter died.
She heard a wind-rush sound, heavy tires on the road. She turned to her right, and saw, from the south, coming fast, a big black car, a Mercedes-Benz, coming north across the bridge, the bridge that shouldn’t be there, and now, from the north, out of the fog, coming fast, a bulky rounded shape, another car.
The Shimmer Page 25
