Usher's Passing (4 page)

The elevator ascended with excruciating slowness. As it rose, Rix heard water gushing through pipes, televisions and radios blasting game shows, rock music, and disco; human voices filtered through the old walls like dialogue from nightmares, heard but impossible to understand. Rix crouched on the floor in a corner, his head tucked forward between his knees, his eyes tightly shut.

The door slid open. Rix ran for his room at the end of the dank, dimly lit corridor, fishing frantically for his door key. He burst into the suite, which had a window—now fortunately curtained—overlooking Greene Street. The light that leaked in around the cheap fabric was painfully incandescent. From another pocket Rix produced an antique brass key that had turned a greenish brown over the years; he plunged it into the lock of a white door near the bathroom, twisted it, and pulled open the heavy, rubber-coated door to the windowless Quiet Room.

With an involuntary cry of relief, Rix started to step across the threshold.

And a skeletal thing with bleeding eyesockets suddenly swung down into the doorway to block his path. Its bony arms were reaching out for him, and as Rix staggered backward he thought wildly that the Pumpkin Man had finally found him.

A familiar burst of laughter echoed through the suite. Rix fell to his knees, shaking and covered with sweat, and looked up into the face of his brother, Boone.

BOONE WAS GRINNING. IN THE SMEARY LIGHT OF RIX'S TORTURED
vision, Boone's long white teeth and craggy, rough-hewn face gave him the appearance of a predatory beast.

"Gotcha, Rixy!" he said in a harsh, booming voice that made Rix shudder. He started to laugh again, but then he realized his younger brother was enduring an attack and the grin froze solid on his face. "Rix? Are . . . are you okay?"

"Sick," Rix whispered, huddled on the floor at the Quiet Room's threshold. The cheap plastic life-sized skeleton dangled before him, held in place by a hook above the door. "Hit me out there . . . I didn't have time to . . . get to a quiet place . . ."

"Jesus!" Boone backed away from him a few steps, fearing that his brother was about to vomit. "Wait a minute, hold on!" He opened the door to the bathroom, where he'd been sitting and reading a
Rolling Stone
when Rix had come crashing into the suite, and drew Rix a plastic glass of tap water. It held a tint of rust that was hidden when Boone poured in some of the Canadian Club he'd bought from the liquor store around the corner. "No ice," he said, as he bent to offer Rix the drink. "Sorry."

Rix drank it down. The Scotch and bourbon in his system waged war in his stomach for a moment, and Rix squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that tears oozed out. When he opened his eyes again, the light was dimmer; Boone's expensive-looking dark blue suit didn't glow at him like a sapphire-painted lightbulb anymore, and even the wattage of his brother's teeth had ebbed. The noises of the hotel were quieting, as was the thump of his heartbeat. His head still throbbed savagely, and his eye sockets felt as if they'd been gouged, but he knew he was coming out of it. Another minute or two. Calm down, he told himself. Breath deeply. Take it easy. Breathe deeply again. Christ Almighty that was a bad one! He shook his head slowly from side to side his fine sandy blond hair plastered down with rain and sweat "It's almost over," he told Boone. "Wait a minute." He sat on his haunches, waiting for the low hum of overworked brain circuits to die down. "I'm better now," he rasped. "Help me up, okay?"

"You're not gonna puke, are you?"

"Just help me up, damn you!"

Boone took Rix's outstretched hand and pulled him to his feet. When he was standing, Rix punched his brother in the face with all the strength he could summon.

It was no more than a weak slap to the jaw. Boone stepped back, his grin returning with full force as he recognized the look of black rage on Rix's face.

"You dumb bastard!" Rix seethed. He started to rip the plastic skeleton with the bloody eyeholes—red paint, poorly applied—from its hook and throw it to the floor, but his hand stopped in midair. For some reason, he couldn't bear to touch it. He let his hand fall. "What's the idea of
that?"

"A joke, that's all. Thought you'd enjoy it, seein' as how it's right up your alley." He shrugged and took the skeleton down, sitting it upright in a chair across the room. "There we go. Looks pretty real, huh?"

"Why did you hang it inside the Quiet Room? Why not in the bathroom, or a closet? You knew there'd be only one reason I'd open this door!"

"Oh." Boone frowned. "You're right, Rixy. I didn't think of that. Seemed to be a good place to hang it, is all. Well, it all turned out fine, didn't it? Shit, yes! That damned thing probably scared the attack right out of you!" He let out a braying laugh and pointed at Rix's crotch. "Ha! There you go, Rixy! Peed your pants, didn't you!"

Rix went to the chest of drawers for another pair of trousers and a clean shirt.

Boone sprawled his six-foot-two frame in an overstuffed easy chair and put his feet up on an Art Deco coffee table with blue glass legs. He massaged the side of his jaw where Rix's fist had stung him. He'd rubbed his brother's face in the North Carolina mud for much less an offense. "Smells like a wet dog in this hotel. Don't they ever shampoo the rugs?"

"How'd you get in here?" Rix asked as he changed clothes. He was still shaking.

"Everybody jumps around here when you tell 'em your name's Usher," Boone said. He crossed his ankles. He was wearing beige lizardskin cowboy boots that clashed with his conservative suit. "Know what I've heard about this place? That some of the bellboys have seen a man dressed in black, wearing a black top hat and a white beard, and carrying a cane. Sounds like old Hudson himself, don't it? Poor bastard's probably doomed to spend eternity walking the corridors of the De Peyser. They say his presence makes the air freezin' cold. Hell of a place to spend your afterlife, huh, Rixy?"

"I've asked you not to call me that."

"Oh. Beggin' your pardon. Shall I call you Jonathan Strange? Or what's your name this week, Mr. Famous Author?"

Rix ignored the barb. "How'd you get into the Quiet Room?"

"Asked for the key. They've got a whole boxful in a safe downstairs. Old green things that look like they open mausoleums. Some of 'em have got black fingerprints on the metal. I wonder how many Ushers used 'em? Me, I wouldn't spend one damned night in this old crypt. Jesus, why don't we get some light in here!"

Boone stood up and walked across the room to the window; he pulled aside the curtain, allowing in dim gray light through the rain-specked glass. He stood for a moment looking down at the traffic. His broad, handsome face was almost free of lines, though he was only three months shy of his thirty-seventh birthday; he might easily have passed for twenty-five. His full, wavy hair was a darker shade of brown than his brother's, and his clear, deepset eyes were amber with dark green flecks. He was husky and broad-shouldered, and he looked in the prime of health. "Sorry about your attack," he told Rix. "I wouldn't have pulled such a stupid trick if I'd been thinkin' right. I saw the thing hangin' in a magic shop's window on the way over here, and I thought... I don't know, I thought you might get a kick out of it. Do you know I haven't had an attack for over six months? And the last one wasn't too bad—it was over in about three or four minutes. Maybe I've forgotten how bad they can be." He turned away from the window to look at his brother— and froze.

It was almost a year since he'd last seen Rix, and he was stunned at the way his brother had changed. In the light, all the fine wrinkles and lines on Rix's face resembled cracks in porcelain. Rix's pewter-colored eyes were red-rimmed and weary, his high forehead deeply furrowed. Though Rix was four years younger than Boone, he appeared to be at least forty-five. He looked emaciated and sickly, and Boone saw that gray was spreading at his temples. "Rix," he whispered. "God Almighty! What's happened to you?"

"I've been sick," Rix replied, but he knew that wasn't all of it. In truth, he didn't exactly know what was happening to him—other than that his attacks were vicious and unpredictable, his sleep was continually jarred by nightmares, and he felt seventy years old. "I guess I've been working too hard." He eased himself down into a chair—carefully, because his bones were still throbbing.

"Listen. You need to start eatin' steaks to build up your blood." Boone puffed out his chest. "I eat a steak a day, and look at me! Healthy as a stud hoss."

"Great," Rix said. "How'd you know I was here?"

"You called Katt and told her you were flying up from Atlanta to meet with your agent today, didn't you? Where else would you stay but this old dump when you're visiting New York?"

Rix nodded. The De Peyser Hotel had been purchased in 1847 by Hudson Usher, when it was a magnificent Gothic showplace towering over the rough harbor city. As Rix understood it, Hudson Usher's gunpowder company, based near Asheville, North Carolina, shipped tremendous quantities of powder and lead bullets to Europe through New York City; Hudson had wanted to keep an eye on the middlemen, and had outfitted this suite with a rubber-walled Quiet Room, in case he was stricken with an attack. The Quiet Room had remained virtually unchanged, used by generations of Ushers, as the suite gradually became more tawdry. Rix surmised that his father, Walen, was only holding on to the De Peyser until he got a good offer from a co-op builder. The family rarely left Usherland, their rambling estate twenty miles north of Asheville.

"You shouldn't work so hard. When's your next book coming out?" Boone poured himself another drink of Scotch and sat down again. When he lifted the glass to his mouth, light sparkled off the large diamond pinky ring he wore. "It's been a long time since
Fire Fingers,
hasn't it?"

"I've just finished a new book."

"Oh yeah? When's it comin' out?"

"Maybe next summer." He was amazed that the lie came so easily.

Boone propped his feet up again. "You ought to write a real book, Rix. You know, something that could really happen. That horror shit is junk. Why don't you write a book you'd be proud to sign your real name to?"

"Let's don't get into that again, okay?" Every time he got near Boone, he wound up defending his choice of subject matter.

Boone shrugged. "Suits me. Just seems to me there must be somethin' a little wrong with people who write shit like that."

"I know you didn't come here to discuss my literary career," Rix said. "What's going on?"

Boone paused to take a swallow of his drink. Then he said quietly, "Momma wants you to come home. Daddy's taken a turn for the worse."

"Why the hell won't he go to a hospital?"

"You know what Daddy's always said. "An Usher can't live past the gates of Usherland." And lookin' at you, brother Rix, makes me think he's been right about that. There must be somethin' in that North Carolina air, because you've broken down pretty badly ever since you left it."

"I don't like the estate. I don't like the Lodge. My home is in Atlanta. Besides, I've got work to do."

"Oh? I thought you said you'd just finished another book. Hell, if it's anything like those other three, no amount of work can save it!"

Rix smiled grimly. "Thank you for the encouragement."

"Daddy's dying," Boone said, a quick flicker of anger like lightning behind his eyes. "I've tried to do all I could for him. I've tried to be what he wanted, all these years. But now he's askin' to see
you.
I don't know why, especially since you turned your back on the family. But I think he's holdin' on because he wants you at his side when he dies."

"Then if I don't come," Rix told him flatly, "maybe he won't die. Maybe he'll get up out of that bed and start making deals for laser guns and germ-warfare bombs again, huh?"

"Oh Christ!" Boone rose angrily from his seat. "Don't play that worn-out, holier-than-thou routine with me, Rix! The business brought you up on the finest estate in this country, fed you and clothed you and sent you to the best business school in America! Not that it did a damned bit of good! And who says you have to go to the Lodge if you come home? You always were scared shitless of the Lodge, weren't you? When you got yourself lost in there and Edwin had to bring you out, your face looked like green cheese for about a—" He stopped speaking abruptly, because Rix looked for a second as if he might leap across the table at his brother.

"That's not how I remember it," Rix said, his voice strained with tension.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. The image came to Rix of his brother tackling him from behind when they were children, planting a knee in the small of his back so the breath was squeezed out of him and his face was pressed into Usherland dirt.
Get up, Rixy,
Boone had taunted.
Get up, why can't you get up, Rixy?