Escape the Night (37 page)

Carey stared after her until she disappeared.

He walked back to the Aristocrat, glancing around him as the doorman whistled for his taxi. “Seen the Krantzes this morning?”

“Oh, they moved.” The doorman kept whistling.

“Moved?” Carey turned on him. “You're not serious?”

“Just last weekend.” A battered cab squealed to a stop in front of them; quickly, the doorman added, “Right here, Mr. Carey,” and jerked open the door.

Carey looked from the cab to the doorman. “Let him go,” he said, “I've got something else to do.”

He hurried back into the building.

The doorman watched Carey disappear into the lobby, and then started inside.

“Pardon me.” Blocking him was a stuffy resident with steel-gray hair that matched her fur. “I require a taxi, please.”

The doorman glanced quickly at the house phone in the lobby; with the habit of years, he nodded, smiled, and opened the door for the woman.

Carey's taxi had not left; the cabbie had flipped open the
Times
and begun reading. “Here,” the doorman announced, and trundled her into the cab.

“The Plaza,” she ordered the cabbie, as the doorman rushed back inside.

In the silent bedroom, Noelle moved toward Peter Carey. She shrugged her shoulders, tossing back her dark hair. Her spine was silver. Carey held out his hand. She took it, turning toward the camera.

The telephone rang.

Still watching, Martin picked it up. “Mr. Carey's on his way,” the doorman said, and then there were three brisk raps on the door.

“Thank you,” Martin murmured, and hung up.

Above him, on the video screen, Noelle lay down on the bed. “Here,” Carey said softly, “let me get your back.”

Through the door, Peter Carey shouted, “Is anyone there?”

“Umm,” Noelle murmured, and then she rolled over on her front and smiled at Martin.

Noelle stood beneath the Dakota's looming and dingy grandeur as a security guard returned her press card through the window of its wooden guardhouse, announcing, “Mr. Sutcliffe is expecting you.”

His languid motion forward seemed to confer some transitory humanity which he might instantly repeal. Riding up the elevator, Noelle switched off her annoyance, amused at herself; she had been preparing to be unimpressed.

Peter would be seeing Levy; she had not seen the ugly man …

Doug Sutcliffe had not been photographed in six years: she must concentrate on that.

Two more guards were posted at his suite; finally, an effeminate man wearing short hair and beard admitted her with an air of parsimony and a total absence of warmth, whispering, “He has only a moment.”

“That's all I want.”

Entering the living room, an enormous art-deco nightmare containing plastic furniture and Warhol paintings, she saw that the young reporter from the
Times
sat listening intently; the Midlands accent still sounded hard to follow.

“It's quite simple,” Sutcliffe's voice was saying. “I've reappeared because people are starving …”

Did you just find that out?
Noelle wondered automatically, and then Sutcliffe leaned into her line of vision.

What had changed was Sutcliffe's face.

When Sutcliffe had abandoned Lethal at their incendiary height, retreating to an estate in the Adirondacks to compose songs no one had heard yet, he had looked mocking and superior, without the character to match. The thin face she saw now seemed closer to ascetic: gentler, but not in a soft way, with eyes like distant points of light. He looked up.

“Keep talking.” Noelle unslung her camera and sat cross-legged on the floor. “I just want to get a feel for this.”

“We're almost through.” Sutcliffe faced the reporter. “The
impact
of me showing up again with Lethal is sheer accident.” His shrug seemed to take in the apartment, the guards, the hovering major domo. “I guess that's how God made it so big—by not being seen. But I'll go with it if I can help feed some people in the third world.”

The reporter adjusted his glasses with a look of bemusement. “But what did you learn by retreating.”

“Musically, or philosophically?”

The reporter spread his hands. “Either.”

Leaning back on the couch, Sutcliffe seemed to withdraw for a moment, his lean frame becoming still. “I had to teach myself reality—like having a stroke and learning to walk again. When I got hooked on rock I was playing at being an idol in shitty clubs, not telling people I was really a draftsman, even though that's how I kept eating, you know. And then one year you're this thing called a superstar and filling whole stadiums with screaming people who can't even see your face and other people are falling all over themselves to suspend the law of gravity for you—drugs, women, anything you like—and you're
still
not real, or afraid maybe you
won't
be if you don't keep getting seen and selling in the millions. There was someone or something different every night until it all got like a blur—you know, the
same
.” Sutcliffe glanced over at Noelle. “I needed to put things back in scale—deal with people one to one, maybe even find out what I was like alone and what songs I wanted to write. You know,” he finished sardonically, “look into the existential void.”

“How is that?”

Sutcliffe held up one hand. “I'm a little tired, you know. It's like method acting—I have to think about how this concert's going to be until I can feel my way into it, ‘cause it's been a while.” To Noelle, he added, “I know you've got your job to do yet.”

The reporter left. Noelle kept busy with her camera. “This won't take long,” she said.

Sutcliffe looked at her keenly. “So what do
you
think?”

“About what?”

He spread his arms. “All this—coming back.”

“Pretty dramatic.” She adjusted her lens. “I've been to Thailand, parts of Cambodia—I like it that you're trying to help.” Looking up, she beckoned with one hand. “A little more toward me, okay?”

He turned, face still slightly averted, eyes grave and contemplative. She snapped one picture, took a second, then stopped, frowning. He held his pose. “What's wrong?”

“Let me take another.” She did that, exhaled, then decided to take a chance. “You, actually. You haven't quite gotten it down yet.”

Sutcliffe faced her. “What down?”

“Secular sainthood.” Noelle hesitated for one last moment, and then plunged ahead. “You know, the ‘I've eaten so many peyote buttons and fucked so many groupies that now I see what other men cannot.' Only now you're wondering whether
this
routine is real.” She picked up the camera, said, “Most people don't get six years off, okay?” and pushed the button.

It was done by instinct: in that split second, she had seen the surprised, ironic smile of a bright man caught between the self-indulgent rock star he had been and the man of contemplation he wished to be. Noelle put down the Nikon. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but that last shot was the real one. You can throw me out now.”

Sutcliffe stared at her. “Will you come to the concert?” he asked softly.

Noelle watched him until she was certain what he'd meant. “I have a boyfriend.”

Sutcliffe looked back at her; simultaneously, they glanced up to see if the bearded major domo had witnessed his embarrassment, and laughed together. When they finished laughing, her smile was genuine. “Anyhow, it's true.”

Sutcliffe reached toward a brass box on the coffee table and handed her a small envelope. “Two tickets, then.”

Opening it, Noelle read the price and took forty dollars from her shoulder bag. “Please,” Sutcliffe said, “that's not necessary.”

She held it out, smiling again. “I've been there, remember?”

He took the money. “I'll see they get it, then. And enjoy the concert.”

“Thank you—we will.” She rose and shook his hand. Holding it for a moment longer, she said, “Good luck,” and left.

Carey was still shaken. “You couldn't dynamite those people loose,” he told Levy. “And just as I knocked, I could have sworn hearing one ring of a telephone, before it was picked up. But no one came to the door.”

“And that's when you had further discussion with the doorman?”

“In which he denied knowing the Krantzes' precise whereabouts or who the buyer was. I don't believe him.”

“Then help me, Peter. Let's take inventory of what threatens you, from A to Z. Tell me, how many of those fears relate to your amnesia?”

“I don't know.”

“What I propose, Peter, is that they all do.”

“Look, she saw the same man twice, no question—the eyes and hanging underlip she describes are not something I've made up.”

“But you've feared for her long before
he
first appeared. Like your sense that Barth is using Phillip, all your instincts keep tying it to your father's death. Or is that too forward of me?”

“No.” Carey exhaled. “I'm afraid that by remembering I'll harm Noelle.”

“Do you know why?”

Carey shook his head. “You asked me if I might feel guilt over my father's death. If that were true, then it's hard to know how that might affect me. It's not pleasant to consider.”

“And yet, in spite of all these things, you're considering my recommendation?”

“Yes.”

“Because you need to know?”

“That, and because of Noelle. I want a life with her.” Carey's voice was soft. “I realize I'm not whole.”

“Then something's changed.”

“I'm in love with her.” Carey hesitated. “I guess I always have been.”

“Well,” Levy said dryly. “That makes two. Noelle, and your father.”

“Yes.” Carey twisted sideways. “I love them both.”

Levy's voice softened. “I didn't mean to make light of your dilemma. Instinct tells you that by remembering you'll cause Noelle some harm—perhaps because of the man who followed her, or Phillip's odd behavior. And yet you feel the damage done to you: the nightmares, the flashbacks, this drive to Greenwich …”

“I'm afraid of losing her if I
don't
do this …”

The sentence trailed off. Quietly, Levy finished for him, “And afraid of losing Charles if you do?”

“You
knew
that?”

“Your connection to Charles Carey—through the firm and otherwise—is very precious to you.” Pausing, Levy added gently, “As it was to me.”

“But you …”

“And now you don't want to sever it by somehow feeling responsible for his death.” Levy paused. “You see, Peter, I know that, too.”

Carey sat upright, facing him. “Then can't
you
see the difference?”

“Yes.” Levy looked away. “
My
memories of Charles are intact. It's his son I'm seeing now.”

“I remember …”

“A demigod, as seen by a little boy. The man I knew loved his son more than his career or pride, or even his life.” Levy turned at last to face him. “Nothing you can ever learn could possibly have changed that for him.” Eyes wet, still Levy did not turn from him. “Nothing,” he repeated. “I promise you that.”

“
You're the boy who I imagined, Peter
.”

“Doctor …”

Levy held up his hand. More steadily, he asked, “Will you, Peter? Will you go to this man, and try?”

Carey's throat was tight. “Yes,” he answered. “I will.”

Martin dialed the telephone, then turned back to the picture.

Once more, as in a dream, Noelle Ciano moved with Peter Carey …

“Yes?” Englehardt answered.

“I've been listening, as you asked. Carey agreed to hypnosis.”

Martin watched the screen, waiting. Very softly, Englehardt asked, “Has he an appointment?”

“Not yet.”

In the silence, Martin sensed resolve flowing through the small man. “Then let me know,” Englehardt said tonelessly, “as soon as he has done that …”

Noelle gazed up at Carey. “You've never done that before.”

“What's that, lover?”

She smiled. “Looked into my face …”

“I'll do that,” Martin said, and hung up.

Soon, he sensed, Noelle would look into
his
face.

Developing the Sutcliffe film at the
Times
, Noelle recalled the roll hidden in her shoulder bag. She glanced at her watch, deciding to grab lunch at her apartment, and then hustled from the building, checking faces for the ugly man, to catch the IRT as it screeched up to the platform.

Now, stepping from her darkroom, she considered the photographs, destroying all but one.

She walked to her bedroom and held it to the light, thoughtful. Then she sat at her desk, writing a brief note. When she finished, she sealed the note and the photograph in a pale-blue envelope, smiling to herself, and left, looking quickly down both sides of the street.

Martin watched Noelle step into Carey's bedroom, and place an envelope on his pillow.

She vanished from the screen.

The system was established: the doorman had called from the lobby, announcing her arrival, and would call again when she left. Resealing Carey's mail, Martin heard the soft click of the deadbolt over the stereo.

He began imagining what message she might leave, should it ever be for him.

The telephone rang. He rose, key in hand.

The light flashed on Clayton Barth's private line. He hit the button, answering, “Barth,” and then Englehardt said, “I wish to consult with you.”

Barth's nerves picked up a faint, insistent message. “Concerning what?”

“It's rather urgent—I've been rethinking your acquisition of John Carey's firm, and I believe it's time to take a rather decisive step. I'll need your permission.”