Shivers (9 page)

“Don’t yell at me, Johnny. I just don’t want you to get so upset. What do you think’s going on—a conspiracy or something? There has to be a logical explanation. Things are tough all over these days. The world is crazy. Why don’t you just accept that—for whatever reason—more people each week are reported missing now than were a few months ago.”

“And fewer and fewer are being found.”

“What are you going to do? Kill yourself over it? You have enough to worry about. Your health. Your weight. You’re not the only one with problems; I have problems. Why don’t you ever talk to me, find out what
I’m
feeling?”

“I talked to you tonight. What the hell good did it do? Huh?”

She didn’t answer. She looked away from him, only looking up when she’d heard his footsteps retreat into the bedroom. She wiped her eyes, beginning to tear, and got a towel to clean up the spilled coffee. She put his cup and her own into the sink, put out the light, and checked in on little Bobby.

She was feeling sorry for herself and she knew it. But John had to be exaggerating the work situation; it just didn’t make any sense. He’d been acting peculiar for days now, and it put even more of a strain on their already troubled marriage.

She’d swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, that was it, about how being a woman meant that you gave birth to lots of babies and stayed home to take care of them. She loved Bobby, loved all her children, but often wondered if she’d paid too high a price. She couldn’t deal with all her continual disappointments. Instead she kept telling herself,
Be glad for what you have.
It worked most of the time.
Sure, you’re no beauty queen, you look older every day,
she said,
but you’re as happy, happier than those young sex queens in the movies, what with all their unhappy love affairs, their silicone boobies.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if her life might have been more—exciting, rewarding, what-have-you. Couldn’t she have—accomplished—something? Hell, she knew that going to work, having a career, wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Who says she would have been happy trudging off to work day after day—same faces, same hours, same routine. It always looked so glamorous for the career women with important, high-paying jobs, chic clothes, and slim figures running around in the commercials aimed at liberated women. Work all day. Play all night. But for a dumpy, plain-looking, untalented woman like her, the dog-eat-dog world would not have been kind. Or so she told herself.

She loved John. But sometimes she felt so alone.

She tried once to talk to her husband about the changing role of women, about “alternate lifestyles.” He had listened uncomprehendingly, too much of the old school to be concerned. She believed with all her heart that the new, freer attitudes were right, were necessary. Not every woman had to marry and raise a family if she didn’t want to. Why hadn’t she realized that earlier, so at least she could have experimented? Maybe she’d have stuck to her old life, gone back to the housewifey routine after she’d had her fling. It was the not-knowing that bothered her. And her daughter, their first child, with so much talent—what had she done? Gotten married at nineteen. To a bum yet.

Bobby was fast asleep. Cute little kid. Looked more like her than like his father. Seven years old. Helpless. She went over to the bed and hugged him softly, tenderly. How many children had run away today, she wondered, so many of them unloved, running from unbearable home lives and horrible situations. How many kids would wake up to find a parent gone? What a sad, heartbreaking life it could be, this family life. How sad and unrewarding. She wanted things to be different for this child.
Different.

She pushed the boy over slightly, careful not to wake him, and spent the night at his side.

One room away, her husband was drifting off to sleep. He would have been crying had he not been taught that men don’t cry. He was scared. He felt so alone. What a sad life, he thought. So sad.

There was a wild party at Harry Faulkin’s place that night. And it was still going strong at 3:30. It was his thirty-first birthday and he’d decided to throw himself a bash. Why not? No one could give a party for Harry Faulkin like Harry Faulkin could give himself. New York City’s premiere weatherman would do it up BIG!

He had his multi-level apartment done up in weather motifs. Huge cotton wads were thrown all over the place to resemble clouds. He had special sprinklers installed so that it looked as if the walls were dripping rain. His stereo played a sound-effects recording that imitated thunder, and the lights were gimmicked so that they would flash on and off like lightning. Fans were situated throughout the room, making it windy, and giving the more scantily clad guests a hypochondriacal case of the sniffles. It was absolutely crass.

Everybody loved it.

Some people thought that Harry Faulkin was an obnoxious, conceited jackass, about as much a “meteorologist” as the bubble-brained anchorman were “journalists.” He was pretty and young and helped the ratings, which is why he’d been installed as WNUC’s latest weatherman. WNUC was the home of “FUNNEWS,” the news program that was never boring. Airplane disasters, earthquakes, and mass murders were reported with the same plastic smiles used for “cute” spots about roller-skating nuns. Underneath this “funny” approach was a hardcore conservatism that would have embarrassed Joe McCarthy.

Faulkin avoided most of his colleagues and stayed in one corner with selected guests of the nubile variety. He had been putting the make on a bosomy redhead earlier that evening when someone called him to the phone. “It was ringing and ringing in the bedroom,” a drunken executive said, “so I thought it might be important.”

Faulkin shut the bedroom door and said, “Who’s this?”

“Steven.”

“Steven, baby! Where are ya? Tonight’s the party!”

“I know. Look, I can’t come. I completely forgot about your birthday. I’m kind of upset about something. I just woke up.”

“What’s wrong, pal?”

“Nothing. Look, you’ve got a party to throw. I just wanted to call, say Happy Birthday, and explain why I wouldn’t be there.”

“Well,
why?”
Faulkin listened for a few moments, nodding his head and going “uh hmm.” “You ask me, buddy, your brother’s shacked up with some chick.” He listened again. “
Heeyy
, don’t bite my head off. But the little bugger
is
quite a stud, isn’t he?”

He listened for a few moments more, rubbing his chin with a fingertip. “Well, I’ll see what I can do. But you know how it is. Little kids— everybody’s soft on them. But it’s hard to make a news story over a grown man who’s only been gone one day. And besides, I’m only the weatherman.”

“Do you think I’m being overprotective, Harry?” Steven asked him. “It was just that the circumstances . . .”

“Lots of sexy chicks go joggin’ in Central Park, baby. Your brother
could
have connected with one, and they’ve been makin’ like rabbits ever since. Give the kid a break. Listen, why don’t you come on over? Lots of good booze. Lots of pretty broads. Have some fun. It’ll get your mind off things.”

“Believe me, I thought about it. But this thing has me concerned. I don’t know why—I think Joey’s in trouble. Anyway, the police may try to get in touch with me.”

“Suit yourself. If you change your mind . . .”

“I know. We’ll see.”

They said goodnight and ended the conversation.

Much later as Harry walked back from the bathroom, an attractive, very tipsy brunette tiptoed over to him and planted a kiss on his chin. “Happy Birthday, Harry darling.” She looked around stupidly and pouted. “But Harry, you forgot the snow.”

“ What
did I forget?” he asked, wiping some onion dip off his shirt with a cocktail napkin.

“The snow. The
snow!
You’ve got thunder and lightning and wind and rain, but there isn’t any snow.”

“Oh, shit,” Harry exclaimed, slapping a palm to his forehead. “You’re right. Damn it all. I thought I had taken care of everything.”

“Well, don’t cry, lad,” a bald-headed senior VP said heartily. “Here’s some hail!” At that, he grabbed a few ice cubes from the bucket and threw them at the brunette. She squealed with laughter and pinched him in the ribs. “Stop that, Mr. Harderman!”

“Snow. God damn it!” Harry continued. “It would have been so easy too. Wait a minute!” He snapped his fingers and headed toward the kitchen, ducking arms full of drinks, turning away from the less attractive female faces. It took him ten minutes to cross the room.

He found two people necking in the darkness of the kitchen. When the light came on, they giggled and went back to the party. Someone had thrown up in the sink. He turned on the faucet to wash it away, and looked through the cupboard for some rice. Feeling quite giddy, he knocked over lots of packaged food in the effort.

Someone came up to him. The brunette.

Sylvia was her name.

“What you doin’?”

“Looking for some snow. We have to have some snow.”

“Oh, Harry. You don’t really have to bother. Too bad we can’t have some
real
snow. Snowball fights and snowmen and igloos and snow angels and all that.”

“Please. I
hate
snow. Messy and yuchhy.”

The girl was offended. “How can anyone
hate
snow?”

“Blame my grandmother. She used to tell me horror stories when I was a kid to punish me. Once when I stayed out in the snow too long, she told me about the snow worms, these horrible bloodsuckers that live in the snow and sneak up on ya and eat ya—only you can’t see ‘em ‘cause they’re white. Until they fill up with blood, that is.
Your
blood.”

“Harry.
That’s horrible.”

“So was my grandmother.”

“Uh.” He knocked a box of macaroni to the floor. “I could have sworn I had some rice.”

“Well, it won’t snow tonight, that’s for sure. I heard your weather report.”

“I don’t see how you could have missed it. You do work in the studio, baby.”

She giggled again. “I remember that you said that tonight was to be ‘not too cold and very clear.” And that tomorrow was to be “unseasonably warm, possibly signifying a freak heat spell on the way.”

“That’s right, baby. You listened good. Heard every word.”

“So it can’t snow tonight.”

His hand finally latched onto a box of rice. It tumbled out of the cupboard, and Harry swerved his body to grab it before it hit the floor. He would have gotten it, except that something outside the window suddenly caught his eye—something that was captured in the flashing lights from the living room.

“Baby. Do you see what I see?”

“What?” she asked.

“Look. Out the window.”

Snow.

PART II

Thursday, October 17th

FOUR

S
TEVEN HAD INSISTED
on seeing Detective Albright in person on Thursday morning. Both of them looked awful. Both were preoccupied, carrying personal burdens that made it hard for them to concentrate on what the other was saying. The detective had yet another half-eaten breakfast on his desk. As they rushed through the police formalities, the detective belched, excused himself, and questioned Steven unenthusiastically.

“So your—eh—brother is still missing?” he asked, his teeth crunching into a toasted buttered bagel.

“Yes, he is. Obviously he wasn’t out gallivanting Tuesday night like everyone seems to think he was.” The detective nodded. Steven added irritably, “Don’t you ever eat breakfast at home, like most people?”

“If I ate at home my wife would make me a big breakfast, and I’d eat it, because my wife is a terrific cook. Omelets are her specialty. And I’m supposed to be on a diet, understand?” He chewed the piece of bagel thoughtfully, as if hoping Steven would go away.

“Well, now that we have that out of the way,” Steven said, “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in some additional information I have that may shed some light on the case?”

“Go ahead. What is it?”

Steven told him about Vivian Jessup, her story about Joey’s suicidal threats, her fear of talking to the police.

“If someone from the police were to question her, perhaps we’d be able to get to the bottom of this.”

“She sounds a little batty to me,” Albright said. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have a talk with her. Wanta come with me?”

“You mean, you’ll go? You’ll do it?”

Albright gave him a comical glare. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Sure, I’ll go with you. I could tell you if what she’s saying corresponds to the story she gave me last night.”

“As soon as I’m finished, we’ll leave.” He smiled at Steven. “Want a piece of bagel?”

Steven declined.

They drove over to Vivian’s apartment in silence. Albright cursed a few times at the lousy drivers and the slow-moving traffic, but did not address himself to Steven. Steven couldn’t find much to say either. He was still wondering why the detective had taken time from his busy schedule to check out what could not have been one of his major cases. Not that he was complaining.

They parked down the block from Vivian’s building, disembarked, and asked the doorman —not the one who’d been on duty the night before—to ring the buzzer to the manager’s office.

The manager was a middle-aged woman with a puffy face, bleached hair, and a fattening body squeezed into slacks that were excruciatingly tight on her. “Yes?” she said nervously. “Can I help you gentlemen?”

Albright showed her his badge. Upon discovering that he was a representative of the law, she got even more nervous. “Is something wrong?”

Steven was surprised at the lazy detective’s initiative. He extracted a picture of Joey from his wallet and asked the woman if she had ever seen him entering or leaving the building. When she responded negatively, he asked her a few simple questions about Mrs. Jessup.