The Open Curtain (29 page)

In any case, it was too late. He would have to dispose of them separately now. He would have to ship them away, somewhere far.

Like Chicago, maybe.

Why Chicago?

No reason. Why not?

He gathered the sheets from the closet and carried them out into the kitchen, stopped dead. In the middle of the floor was a trunk, lid thrown open, empty.

But he hadn’t brought the trunk in. It was still in Elling’s rented cab.

But perhaps Elling had realized and turned the cab around and brought the trunk back to him.

But the lock was still on the door. He had locked the door and the door was still locked. How was it possible for the trunk to be here? It was as if he were missing something. Like he was having those blackouts again. He glanced at the cuff of his shirt, expecting to see it stained and spattered with blood.

Wait a minute,
he thought.
What blackouts?

“Lael?” he called.

There was a slight nickering laugh.
You have to try better than that to keep your friends straight, Rudd.

He reached out and took the closet door handle. Still sitting, he turned it, pushed. The door slid slowly open to reveal a large room with perfectly straight walls and regular angles, a carpet on the floor that stretched from wall to wall to wall without gap or seam. A large bed with a woman on it, her ankles tied together with duct tape, her arms hidden behind her back. Her mouth was gagged and she was looking at him with fierce and determined eyes, trying to speak through her gag.

He shut his eyes and kept them shut tight. On his knees he moved far enough back into the room to feel out the door handle and pull the door shut again.

For a while he could hear, through the door, the noise of the girl, the sound of her thrashing. He tried to slow his breathing, tried to focus on the real world, tried to see the streets of New York, his father’s apartment. After a time he felt sufficiently himself to open the door again. This time he found only a closet, the girl gone, bloody sheets draped over the trunk and ready to be packed and shipped. Everything was as it should be.

He dragged the trunk out of the apartment, leaving it on the landing as he turned around and locked the door. When he turned back, he could see one of the elders peering out of the other apartment, watching him.

“Greetings, William,” the man said.

“Please, Hooper,” said Hooper.

“Hooper it is and shall be,” the elder said. “You’re going away, I take it? Traveling?”

“No,” said Hooper.

“Oh. I just assumed, the trunk and all—”

“Not at all,” said Hooper. “Just a few things to be shipped to a friend.”

“Can I be of service?”

“No,” said Hooper. “I can manage, thank you.”

“Well, then,” said the elder, somewhat stiffly, touching his hat. “A pleasure speaking with you.”

When he was gone, Hooper dragged the trunk to the bottom of the stairs and out the front door. A boy was there, just across the street. He looked vaguely familiar. Hooper gestured to him and he came over.

“Sir?” the boy said.

“How’d you like to earn a little pocket money, lad?” asked Hooper.

“Yes, sir,” said the boy, and then stopped and looked at Hooper askance. “For doing what?”

“Just grab a handle and help me lug this trunk to the station.”

The boy smiled and took hold. They started off down dusty streets, past brownstones, along the boardwalks.

“Sir,” said the boy, half-turning.

“What is it, you little scamp?” asked Hooper.

“Did you hear word of the murder, sir?”

Hooper stuttered in his steps but went on. “What murder?” he asked.

“A woman, sir. Killed and then abandoned in a canal. Only the killer didn’t realize the canal went dry at low tide. A trolley man saw the body first thing this morning.”

“I see,” said Hooper.

“Grisly, sir,” said the boy. Turning, he half-looked at Hooper as he continued to shuffle forward. “What do you suppose drives a man to kill?”

“Do I know you?” Hooper asked the boy. “I must confess you look familiar to me.”

“No, sir,” said the boy. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen me in your life nor ever shall again.”

Hooper nodded. They kept on, heading west, toward the train station.

“Shouldn’t you hire a cab, sir?” asked the boy.

Hooper shook his head.

“Well,” said the boy. “You know best, sir. It isn’t very heavy in any case. What’s in it, sir, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Personal effects.”

“What’s meant by that, sir?”

“Just a few things to be shipped to a friend.”

“There can’t be much in there,” said the boy. “Not that I’m complaining.”

It was suddenly becoming dark. Around them, the apartments and brownstones had begun to give away, opening up onto houses set back from the curb and from perfectly manicured lawns. Hooper could see a man, at the far end of the sidewalk, coming toward them.

“This isn’t the way to the station,” said Hooper.

“I’ve just been following your lead, sir,” said the boy. “I’m not to blame.”

The man was coming toward them, walking slowly. Hooper looked about for a street sign, saw not the usual wooden post but on the corner a
pole with a flap of metal painted green and lettered white. Timpview Drive, it read.

Timpview Drive? he
wondered.
Where is that in relation to Penn Station?
He was very lost, he realized, though a moment ago he had known exactly where he was. And now, he found, he was not even sure from which direction he had come.

He turned to the boy, but he was gone, the other end of the trunk resting on the sidewalk. And it was not a trunk, he could now see, but a suitcase ingeniously wheeled at one end, a square of yellow paper reading
trunk
attached to it.

The man was already there, nearly on him. Hooper looked up, smiled. The man nodded, squinting into the darkness, then stopped a few feet shy.

“Nice evening,” the man said.

“Yes, indeed,” said Hooper.

“Not too hot, not too cold.”

“That’s right,” said Hooper.

“You’re a block over, aren’t you?” said the man. “Mrs. Theurer’s boy. Rudd. Married now, aren’t you?”

Hooper began to shake his head and then stopped. Rudd Theurer. Did he know anyone by that name? “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. Rudd.”

“Thought so,” said the man. “I have a way with faces. Mel Johnson,” he said, extending his hand. “You’ve got your father’s face.”

Hooper took the hand, smiled. “You know my father?”

Mel Johnson nodded. “Quite well before he died. A shame, that.”

“But my father’s not—” Hooper started to say, but then stopped.

The man, in any case, wasn’t paying much attention. “What’s in the suitcase?” he asked. “Traveling, are you?”

“No,” said Hooper. “Just a few odds and ends.”

“Where are you living now, then, young Rudd?” asked the man.

“A few blocks away.”

“What street?”

“Over there,” said Hooper. “Just a few blocks that way.”

“Just off Canyon Road? And what’s that on your suitcase? A post-it note?”

“I have to go,” said Hooper. “I’m sorry.”

“All right, then,” said the man, smiling. “Off you go. Nice to see you again.”

Rudd passed the man and walked on, dragging the suitcase down the sidewalk. He would just keep walking, he thought, until he recognized
something. If this Mel Johnson were questioned by the police, he would only say he had seen Rudd Theurer out pulling a suitcase down the sidewalk. And now he, Hooper, had a false name he could use. Perhaps others would mistake him for Rudd Theurer as well. If the police were to sniff out his trail, they would not find him at the end of it but only Rudd Theurer. He himself would be left safe and sound.

And suddenly he began to recognize the buildings, was again in a part of Manhattan that he knew. And what he had thought was an ingeniously wheeled suitcase was not a suitcase at all but a trunk, and the boy who had abandoned him was with him again.

“Well?” he asked the boy. “Where have you been?”

The boy shrugged.

They kept on. Up ahead, Hooper caught a glimpse of the train station. Soon the trunk would be safely on a train somewhere. Where? Who knew, anywhere, the first train out. And then he would be home again, and safe as well.

H
e bought a copy of the
Times
on the way home, from a boy that struck him as somehow familiar, and sat on a bench to read it. He discovered that yes, they had found the body. The canal had been tidal, the water rushing out at low tide. He and Elling had made a mistake. The article spoke too of the hitching weight they had tied to her waist and described it as being “of peculiar make.” What did that mean exactly? Could it be traced? Had Elling rented the wagon under another name?

He folded the paper under his arm and continued home. A few blocks away, he ran into the elders from across the hall, each carrying the Book of Mormon, walking together. He stopped and lifted his hat to them.

“Just going home, William?” one asked as they both stopped.

He nodded. “Hooper,” he said. “I go by Hooper.”

The other smiled. “Of course you do,” he said.

They stayed looking at each other for a long moment. At a loss, he felt the paper tucked under his arm. Holding it out, he said, “Would one of you like to take it? I’ve finished with it.”

“Thank you,” said one of the elders. He reached out and took the paper, then looked at his companion. “Shall we tell him, Elder?”

The other elder hesitated, shook his head.

“Tell me what?”

“The police,” said the first elder. “They came asking after you.”

The other elder looked at the first sternly.

“The police?”

“He gave us a newspaper, didn’t he?” said the first to the second. He turned to Hooper, patted him on the arm. “Watch out for yourself, Hooper.”

He spent nearly an hour outside the building, across the street, watching. It seemed safe. If someone was watching the building, they were discreet enough that he couldn’t identify them.

When it began to grow dim outside, he ducked his head and crossed over the street. He darted in the door.

He made his way quickly to his apartment, fumbled the door unlocked, closing and locking it behind him once he was in.

For a moment the room seemed wavery, as if underwater. He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes and again it was just an ordinary room.

He left the entrance hall and went into the kitchen. He was tempted to look under the skirt of the sink, but resisted the temptation, instead making his way through and into the bedroom.

The room was empty, the closet door slightly ajar. Had the police been in the apartment? He opened the door of the closet, immediately saw the blood staining the closet floor. He began to pace the room. Undoubtedly they had not been inside, he thought, or they would have stayed waiting for him. But how had they known to come looking for him in the first place? And how much time would he have now? Perhaps they were already on their way back to look for him again. No, he must leave, as quickly as possible.

But where?
he wondered.
Where shall I go?

He let his hands stray through the clothes in the closet, finally choosing both a shirt and coat that looked well-worn, on the verge of shabbiness. He took off his own shirt and put the shirt and coat on, found them oddly too big. They were his, weren’t they? Whose else could they be? Was he himself growing smaller somehow? In any case there was an advantage in them being too large; it would make him seem more of a tramp. He would be incognito.

Going back into the kitchen, he searched through the drawers and cabinets. In one he found a boning knife, meant to be held with one’s thumb pressed to a smooth spot dimpled on the guard. He made a few passes through the air with it, stowed it in his pocket. The other pocket he filled with cayenne pepper, loose handfuls for use as a defense.

There was a sound, like a bell striking, though not a bell exactly. He stopped moving, one hand still in his jacket pocket, and listened. The police?

But no, surely not, just a horse bell or the bell of a dray or a clock striking. There was no bell attached to the door of his house, only the ringer, and no one had knocked on the door.

The bell that was not exactly a bell struck again, then struck a third time.

He took his hand out of his pocket, out of the cayenne, and brushed it off on his coat. It was a doorbell, he had to admit, and now began to see—through the furniture, the wood floor, the fireplace, the simple bed—other shapes, other objects asserting themselves more insistently. A carpet that stretched from one wall to the other without seam. A television set. A less simple and larger bed with a slatted headboard upon which lay a woman, bound hand and foot, just barely moving, her eyes glazed and dull.

In the hall mirror, he pushed at his hair. But was that him in the glass? He hadn’t shaved or bathed, he realized, in a number of days.

The doorbell rang again. He moved down the hall, starting down the stairs toward it.