Carrion Comfort (10 page)

I was tempted to leave immediately. I could have Mr. Thorne get the Audi out of storage and we could be beyond Nina’s influence in an hour— away to a new life within a few more hours. There were important items in the house, of course, but the funds that I had stored elsewhere would be enough to replace most of them. It would be almost welcome to leave everything behind with the discarded identity that had accumulated them.

No. I could not leave. Not yet.

From across the street the house looked dark and malevolent. Had
I
closed those blinds on the second floor? There was a shadowy movement in the courtyard and I saw Mrs. Hodges’s granddaughter and a friend scamper from one doorway to another. I stood irresolutely on the curb and tapped Father’s stick against a black-barked tree. It was foolish to dither so— I knew it was— but it had been a long time since I had been forced to make a decision under stress.

“Mr. Thorne, please go in to check the house. Look in each room. Return quickly.”

A cold wind came up as I watched Mr. Thorne’s black coat blend into the gloom of the courtyard. I felt terribly exposed standing there alone. I found myself glancing up and down the street, looking for Miss Kramer’s dark hair, but the only sign of movement was a young woman pushing a perambulator far down the street.

The blinds on the second floor shot up and Mr. Thorne’s face stared out whitely for a minute. Then he turned away and I remained staring at the dark rectangle of window. A shout from the courtyard startled me, but it was only the little girl— what was her name?— calling to her friend. Kathleen, that was it. The two sat on the edge of the fountain and opened a box of animal crackers. I stared intently at them and then relaxed. I even managed to smile a little at the extent of my paranoia. For a second I considered Using Mr. Thorne directly, but the thought of being helpless on the street dissuaded me. When one is in complete contact, the senses still function but are a distant thing at best.

Hurry
. The thought was sent almost without volition. Two bearded men were walking down the sidewalk on my side of the street. I crossed to stand in front of my own gate. The men were laughing and gesturing at each other. One looked over at me.
Hurry
.

Mr. Thorne came out of the house, locked the door behind him, and crossed the courtyard toward me. One of the girls said something to him and held out the box of crackers, but he ignored her. Across the street, the two men continued on. Mr. Thorne handed me the large front door key. I dropped it in my coat pocket and looked sharply at him. He nodded. His placid smile unconsciously mocked my consternation.

“You’re sure?” I asked. Again the nod. “You checked all of the rooms?” Nod. “The alarms?” Nod. “You looked in the basement?” Nod. “No sign of disturbance?” Mr. Thorne shook his head.

My hand went to the metal of the gate, but I hesitated. Anxiety filled my throat like bile. I was a silly old woman, tired and aching from the chill, but I could not bring myself to open that gate.

“Come.” I crossed the street and walked briskly away from the house. “We will have dinner at Henry’s and return later.” Only I was not walking toward the old restaurant; I was heading away from the house in what I inwardly knew was a blind, directionless panic. It was not until we reached the waterfront and were walking along the Battery wall that I began to calm down. No one else was in sight. A few cars moved along the street, but to approach us someone would have to cross a wide, empty space. The gray clouds were quite low and blended with the choppy, white-crested waves in the bay.

The open air and fading evening light served to revive me and I began to think more clearly. What ever Nina’s plans had been, they had almost certainly been thrown into disarray by my day-long absence. I doubted if Nina would stay if there was the slightest risk to herself. No, she would almost certainly be returning to New York by plane even as I stood shivering on the Battery walk. In the morning I would receive a telegram. I could almost imagine the precise wording. MELANIE. ISN’T IT TERRIBLE ABOUT WILLI? TERRIBLY SAD. CAN YOU TRAVEL WITH ME TO THE FUNERAL? LOVE, NINA.

I began to realize that my hesitation had come from a desire to return to the warmth and comfort of my home as much as anything else. I simply had been afraid to shuck off this old cocoon. I could do so now. I would wait in a safe place while Mr. Thorne returned to the house to pick up the one thing I could not leave behind. Then he would get the car out of storage and by the time Nina’s telegram arrived I would be far away. It would be
Nina
who would be starting at shadows in the months and years to come. I smiled and began to frame the necessary commands.

“Melanie.”

My head snapped around. Mr. Thorne had not spoken in twenty-eight years. He spoke now.

“Melanie.” His face was distorted in a rictus grin that showed his back teeth. The knife was in his right hand. The blade flicked out as I stared. I looked into his empty gray eyes and I knew.

“Melanie.”

The long blade came around in a powerful arc. I could do nothing to stop it. It cut through the fabric of my coat sleeve and continued into my side. But in the act of turning, my purse had swung with me. The knife tore through the leather, ripped through the jumbled contents, pierced my coat, and drew blood above my lowest left rib. The purse had saved my life.

I raised Father’s heavy walking stick and struck Mr. Thorne squarely in his left eye. He reeled but did not make a sound. Again he swept the air with the knife, but I had taken two steps back and his vision was clouded. I took a two-handed grip on the cane and swung again, bringing the stick down in an awkward chop. Incredibly, it again found the eye socket. I took three more steps back.

Blood streamed down the left side of Mr. Thorne’s face and the damaged eye protruded onto his cheek. The rictus grin remained, his head came up, he raised his left hand slowly, plucked out the eye with a soft snapping of a gray cord, and threw it into the water of the bay. He came toward me. I turned and ran.

I
tried
to run. The ache in my right leg slowed me to a walk after twenty paces. Fifteen more hurried steps and my lungs were out of air, my heart threatening to burst. I could feel a wetness seeping down my left side and there was a tingling— like an ice cube held against the skin— where the knife blade had touched me. One glance back showed me that Mr. Thorne was striding toward me faster than I was moving. Normally he could have overtaken me in four strides. It is hard to make someone run when you are Using them. Especially when that person’s body is reacting to shock and trauma. I glanced back . . . again, almost slipping on the slick pavement, Mr. Thorne was grinning widely. Blood poured from the empty socket and stained his teeth. No one else was in sight.

Down the stairs, clutching at the rail so as not to fall. Down the twisting walk and up the asphalt path to the street. Pole lamps flickered and came on as I passed. Behind me Mr. Thorne took the steps in two jumps. I thanked God that I had worn low-heeled shoes for the boat ride as I hurried up the path. What would an observer think seeing this bizarre, slow motion chase between two old people? There were no observers.

I turned onto a side street. Closed shops, empty ware houses. Going left would take me to Broad Street, but to the right, half a block away, a lone figure had emerged from a dark storefront. I moved that way, no longer able to run, close to fainting. The arthritic cramps in my leg hurt more than I could ever have imagined and threatened to collapse me on the sidewalk. Mr. Thorne was twenty paces behind me and quickly closing the distance.

The man I was approaching was a tall, thin Negro wearing a brown nylon jacket. He was carrying a box of what looked like framed, sepia photographs. He glanced at me as I approached and then looked over my shoulder at the apparition ten steps behind.

“Hey!” The man had time to shout the single syllable and then I reached out with my mind and
shoved
. He twitched like a poorly handled marionette. His jaw dropped, his eyes glazed over, and he lurched past me just as Mr. Thorne reached for the back of my coat.

The box flew into the air and glass shattered on the brick sidewalk. Long, brown fingers reached for a white throat. Mr. Thorne backhanded him away, but the Negro clung tenaciously and the two swung around like awkward dance partners. I reached the opening to an alley and leaned my face against the cold brick to revive myself. The effort of concentration while Using this stranger did not afford me the luxury of resting even for a second. I watched the clumsy stumblings of the two tall men and resisted an absurd impulse to laugh.

Mr. Thorne plunged the knife into the other’s stomach, withdrew it, plunged it in again. The Negro’s fingernails were clawing at Mr. Thorne’s good eye now. Strong teeth were snapping in search of Mr. Thorne’s jugular. I distantly sensed the cold intrusion of the blade for a third time, but the heart was still beating and he was still usable. The man jumped, scissoring his legs around Mr. Thorne’s middle while his jaws closed on his muscular throat. Fingernails raked bloody streaks across white skin. The two went down in a tumble.

Kill him
. Fingers groped for an eye, but Mr. Thorne reached up with his left hand and snapped his thin wrist. Limp fingers continued to flail. With a tremendous exertion, Mr. Thorne lodged his forearm against the other’s chest and lifted him bodily above him like a child being tossed above his reclining father. Teeth tore away a piece of flesh, but there was no vital damage. Mr. Thorne brought the knife between them, up, left, then right. He severed half the Negro’s throat with the second swing and blood fountained over both of them. The smaller man’s legs spasmed twice, Mr. Thorne threw him to one side, and I turned and walked quickly down the alley.

Out into the light again, the fading evening light, and I realized that I had run myself into a dead end. Backs of ware houses and the windowless, metal side of the Battery Marina pushed right up against the waters of the bay. A street wound away to the left, but it was dark, deserted, and far too long to try. I looked back in time to see the black silhouette enter the alley behind me.

I tried to make contact, but there was nothing there. Nothing. Mr. Thorne might as well have been a hole in the air. I would worry later how Nina had done this thing.

The side door to the marina was locked. The main door was almost a hundred yards away and also would be locked. Mr. Thorne emerged from the alley and swung his head left and right in search of me. In the dim light his heavily streaked face looked almost black. He began lurching toward me.

I raised Father’s walking stick, broke the lower pane of the window, and reached in through the jagged shards. If there was a bottom or top bolt I was dead. There was a simple doorknob lock and cross bolt. My fingers slipped on the cold metal, but the bolt slid back as Mr. Thorne stepped up on the walk behind me. Then I was inside and throwing the bolt.

It was very dark. Cold seeped up from the concrete floor and there was the sound of many small boats rising and falling at their moorings. Fifty yards away, light spilled out of the office windows. I had hoped there would be an alarm system, but the building was too old and the marina too cheap to have one. I began to walk toward the light as Mr. Thorne’s forearm shattered the remaining glass in the door behind me. The arm withdrew. A tremendous kick broke off the top hinge and splintered wood around the bolt. I glanced at the office, but only the sound of a radio talk show came out of the impossibly distant door. Another kick.

I turned to my right and jumped the three feet to the bow of a bobbing inboard cruiser. Five steps and I was in the small, covered space which passed for a forward cabin. I closed the flimsy access panel behind me and peered out through the streaked Plexiglas.

Mr. Thorne’s third kick sent the door flying inward, dangling from long strips of splintered wood. His dark form filled the doorway. Light from a distant streetlight glinted off the blade in his right hand.

Please. Please hear the noise
. But there was no movement from the office, only the metallic voices from the radio. Mr. Thorne took four paces, paused, and stepped down onto the first boat in line. It was an open outboard and he was back up on the concrete in six seconds. The second boat had a small cabin. There was a ripping sound as Mr. Thorne kicked open the tiny hatch door and then he was back up on the walkway. My boat was the eighth in line. I wondered why he couldn’t just hear the wild hammering of my heart.

I shifted position and looked through the starboard port. The murky Plexiglas threw the light into streaks and patterns. I caught a brief glimpse of white hair through the window and the radio was switched to another station. Loud music echoed in the long room. I slid back to the other port-hole. Mr. Thorne was stepping off the fourth boat.

I closed my eyes, forced my ragged breathing to slow, and tried to remember countless evenings watching a bowlegged old figure shuffle down the street. Mr. Thorne finished his inspection of the fifth boat, a longer cabin cruiser with several dark recesses, and pulled himself back onto the walkway.

Forget the coffee in the thermos. Forget the crossword puzzle. Go look!

The sixth boat was a small outboard. Mr. Thorne glanced at it but did not step onto it. The seventh was a low sailboat, mast folded down, canvas stretched across the cockpit. Mr. Thorne’s knife slashed through the thick material. Blood-streaked hands pulled back the canvas like a shroud being torn away. He jumped back to the walkway.

Forget the coffee! Go look! Now!

Mr. Thorne stepped onto the bow of my boat. I felt it rock to his weight. There was nowhere to hide, only a tiny storage locker under the seat, much too small to squeeze into. I untied the canvas strips that held the seat cushions to the bench. The sound of my ragged breathing seemed to echo in the little space. I curled into a fetal position behind the cushion as Mr. Thorne’s legs moved past the starboard port.
Now
. Suddenly his face filled the Plexiglas strip not a foot from my head. His impossibly wide grimace grew even wider.
Now
. He stepped into the cockpit.