Out There in the Darkness (6 page)

“All right if Mike and I stop and get some beer and then swing by your place?”

“Sure,” I said.
 
“Just as long as Mike buys Bud and none of that generic crap.”

“Oh, I forgot,” Neil laughed.
 
“He does do that when it's his turn to buy, doesn't he?”

“Yeah,” I said, “he certainly does.”

I was never sure what time the call came.
 
Darkness.
 
The ringing phone seemed part of a dream from which I couldn't escape.
 
Somehow I managed to lift the receiver before the phone machine kicked in.

Silence.
 
That special
kind
of silence.

Him.
 
I had no doubt about it.
 
The vampire, as the landlord had called him.
 
The one who'd killed Bob.
 
I didn't say so much as hello.
 
Just listened, angry, afraid, confused.

After a few minutes, he hung up.

Darkness again; deep darkness, the quarter moon in the sky a cold golden scimitar that could cleave a head from a neck.

A
bout noon on Sunday, Jan called to tell me that she was staying a few days extra.
 
The kids had discovered archery and there was a course at the Y they were taking and wouldn't she please please
please
ask good old Dad if they could stay.
 
I said sure.

I called Neil and Mike to remind them that at nine tonight we were going to pay a visit to that crumbling stucco apartment house again.

I spent an hour on the lawn.
 
My neighbors shame me into it.
 
Lawns aren't anything I get excited about.
 
But they sort of shame you into it.
 
About halfway through, Byrnes, the chunky advertising man who lives next door, came over and clapped me on the back.
 
He was apparently pleased that I was a real human being and taking a real human being's interest in my lawn.
 
As usual he wore an expensive T-shirt with one of his client products on it and a pair of Bermuda shorts.
 
As usual he tried hard to be the kind of winsome neighbor you always had in sitcoms of the fifties.
 
But I knew somebody who knew him.
 
Byrnes had fired his number two man so he wouldn't have to keep paying the man's insurance.
 
The man was unfortunately dying of cancer.
 
Byrnes was typical of all the ad people I'd met.
 
Pretty treacherous people who spent most of their time cheating clients out of their money and putting on awards banquets so they could convince themselves that advertising was actually an endeavor that was of consequence.

Around four,
Hombre
was on one of the cable channels so I had a few beers and watched Paul Newman doing the best acting of his career.
 
At least that was my opinion.

I was just getting ready for the shower when the phone rang.

He didn't say hello.
 
He didn't identify himself.
 
“Tracy call you?”

It was Neil.
 
Tracy was Mike's wife.
 
“Why should she call me?”

“He's dead.
 
Mike.”

“What?”

“You remember how he was always bitching about that elevator at work?”

Mike worked in a very old building.
 
He made jokes about the antiquated elevators.
 
But you could always tell the joke simply hid his fears.
 
He'd gotten stuck innumerable times, and it was always stopping several feet short of the upcoming floor.

“He opened the door and the car wasn't there.
 
He fell eight floors.”

“Oh, God.”

“I don't have to tell you who did it, do I?”

“Maybe it's time—”

“I'm way ahead of you, Aaron.
 
I'll pick you up in half an hour.
 
Then we go to the police.
 
You agree?”

“I agree.”

L
ate Sunday afternoon, the second precinct parking lot is pretty empty.
 
We'd missed the shift change.
 
Nobody came or went.

“We ask for a detective,” Neil said.
 
He was dark sport-coat-white shirt-necktie earnest.
 
I'd settled for an expensive blue sport-shirt Jan had bought me for my last birthday.

“You know one thing we haven't considered?”

“You're not going to change my mind.”

“I'm not
trying
to change your mind, Neil, I'm just saying that there's one thing we haven't considered.”

He sat behind his steering wheel, his head resting on the back of his seat.

“A lawyer.”

“What for?”

“Because we may go in there and say something that gets us in very deep shit.”

“No lawyers,” he said.
 
“We'd just look like we were trying to hide something from the cops.”

“You sure about that?”

“I'm sure.”

“You ready?” I said.

“Ready.”

T
he interior of the police station was quiet.
 
A muscular bald man in a dark uniform sat behind a desk that read
Information
.

He said, “Help you?”

“We'd like to see a detective,” I said.

“Are you reporting a crime?”

“Uh, yes,” I said.

“What sort of crime?” he said.

I started to speak but once again lost my voice.
 
I thought about all the reporters, about how Jan and the kids would be affected by it all.
 
How my job would be affected.
 
Taking a guy down to the basement and tying him up and then accidentally killing him—

Neil said: “Vandalism.”

“Vandalism?” the cop said.
 
“You don't need a detective, then. I can just give you a form.”
 
Then he gave us a leery look, as if he sensed we'd just changed our minds about something.

“In that case, could I just take it home with me and fill it out there?” Neil said.

“Yeah, I guess.”
 
The cop still watched us carefully now.

“Great.”

”You sure that's what you wanted to report?
 
Vandalism?”

“Yeah; yeah, that's exactly what we wanted to report,” Neil said.
 
“Exactly.”

“V
andalism?” I said, when we were back in the car.

“I don't want to talk right now.”

“Well, maybe
I
want to talk.”

“I just couldn't do it.”

“No kidding.”

He looked over at me.
 
“You could've told him the truth.
 
Nobody was stopping you.”

I looked out the window.
 
“Yeah, I guess I could've.”

“We're going over there tonight.
 
To the vampire's place.”

“And do what?”

“Ask him how much he wants.”

“How much he wants for what?” I said.

“How much he wants to forget everything.
 
He goes on with his life, we go on with ours.”

I had to admit, I‘d had a similar thought myself.
 
Neil and I didn't know how to do any of this.
 
But the vampire did.
 
He was good at talking, good at harassing, good at violence.

“We don't have a lot of money to throw around.”

“Maybe he won't
want
a lot of money.
 
I mean, this guy isn't exactly sophisticated.”

“He's sophisticated enough to make two murders look like accidents.”

“I guess that's the point.”

“I'm just not sure we should pay him anything, Neil.”

“You got any better ideas?”

I didn't, actually; I didn't have any better ideas at all.

I
spent an hour on the phone with Jan that afternoon.
 
The last few days I'd been pretty anxious and she'd sensed it and now she was making sure that everything was all right with me.
 
In addition to being wife and lover, Jan's also my best friend.
 
I can't kid her.
 
She always knows when something's wrong.
 
I'd put off telling her about Bob and Mike dying.
 
I'd been afraid that I might accidentally say more than I should and make her suspicious.
 
But now I had to tell her about their deaths.
 
It was the only way I could explain my tense mood.

“That's awful,” she said.
 
“Their poor families.”

“They're handling it better than you might think.”

“Maybe I should bring the kids home early.”

“No reason to, hon.
 
I mean, realistically there isn't anything any of us can do.”

“Two accidents in that short a time.
 
It's pretty strange.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.
 
But that's how it happens sometimes.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Just need to adjust is all.”
 
I sighed.
 
“I guess we won't be having our poker games anymore.”

Then I did something I hadn't intended.
 
I started crying and the tears caught in my throat.

“Oh, honey,” Jan said.
 
“I wish I was there so I could give you a big hug.”

“I'll be OK.”

“Two of your best friends.”

“Yeah.”
 
The tears were starting to dry up now.

“Oh, did I tell you about Tommy?”
 
Tommy was our six-year-old.

“No, what?”

“Remember how he used to be so afraid of horses?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, we took him out to this horse ranch where you can rent horses?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And they found him a little Shetland pony and let him ride it and he loved it.
 
He wasn't afraid at all.”
 
She laughed.
 
“In fact, we could barely drag him home.”
 
She paused.
 
“You're probably not in the mood for this, are you?
 
I'm sorry, hon.
 
Maybe you should go do something to take your mind off things.
 
Is there a good movie on?”

“I guess I could check.”

“Something light, that's what you need.”

“Sounds good,” I said.
 
“I'll go get the newspaper and see what's on.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too, sweetheart,” I said.

I spent the rest of the afternoon going through my various savings accounts and investments.
 
I had no idea what the creep would want to leave us alone.
 
We could always threaten him with going to the police, though he might rightly point out that if we really wanted to do that, we would already have done it.

I settled in the five-thousand-dollar range.
 
That was the maximum cash I had to play with.
 
And even then I'd have to borrow a little from one of the mutual funds we had earmarked for the kids and college.

Five thousand dollars.
 
To me, it sounded like an enormous amount of money, probably because I knew how hard I'd had to work to get it.

But would it be enough for our friend the vampire?

N
eil was there just at dark.
 
He parked in the drive and came in.
 
Meaning he wanted to talk.

We went in the kitchen.
 
I made us a couple of highballs and we sat there and discussed finances.

“I came up with six thousand,” he said.

“I got five.”

“That's eleven grand,” he said.
 
“It's got to be more cash than this creep has ever seen.”