The bloodstone, p.19
The Bloodstone, page 19
Turning once more, she unbuttoned the cuffs of her blouse, pushed her sleeves to her elbows and faced the desk. In the next instant her hand moved over an oddly shaped bronze handle just above the writing surface of the desk. The seams of the little drawer were so clogged with dirt and grime that she had thought the handle a decoration. The drawer was small, with dimensions roughly those of a pocket-sized cigar box. Hesitantly she opened it and reached in. Her hand closed on a small stack of business cards. She made an involuntary move to toss them out and then hesitated. Arthur M. Showalter, the card read. Jeweler. A business on Broadway.
Once again she reached into the drawer and withdrew a passport. A thirty-odd-year-old man, according to Showalter’s photo. Distinguished as opposed to handsome.
The crying began then, though at first Chandal did not think anything of it. God, the baby probably needs changing again and feeding again and walking again—whatever made me get myself into a fool mess like this... all for what? Nothing. He loves her—he’s always loved her....
Chandal looked up sharply, the passport still in her hand.
Now the crying was deafening.
Where?
What baby?
She felt a coil of terror unwrap itself in a single shooting spurt until she heard herself begin to scream too, her cries blending with those of the baby’s. She tried to suppress the sob which rose in her throat, desperately restricting the muscles in her larynx. It was useless.
On her feet now, she began to search for what could not be there and yet must be there. So close—just across the desk, it seemed.
Nothing, nothing.
“His crib used to be there,” explained the voice coldly. “Arthur wanted him downstairs so he didn’t have to listen to the crying.”
Chandal still screamed, still groped with trembling hands through vacant space.
“He was a bad baby. He would have grown up to be like his father. I couldn’t have that.”
In a final paralyzing scream, Chandal found her hand clenched tight. She could not open it. Fear had turned to anger. To hate. She walked forward. She remembered now where his crib was. Just there, not three steps from the desk. Violently now, her hand curled tighter. She could feel the handle in her palm. She couldn’t wait to see Arthur’s face when...
Hand raised in a sudden sharp sweep, she paused, looking down into the crib. The hateful little face was screwed up tight. Tiny hands were fists beating the air. With a growl of animal rage, she began to plunge her hand downward....
Chandal paused, trembling.
Silence.
She fell backward, hitting the desk sharply. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks, but she was past being able to relate to that. She could not even relate to her right hand that even now refused to relax.
Only one thing was clear as she donned trench coat and hastily changed from house slippers to flat walking shoes. She had to get out of there. She had to breathe some fresh air. She had to get outside her own madness.
She ran to get her purse, found the keys on the mantel and flung herself through the door as though pursued. What is happening to me? she thought hopelessly. What kind of madness? And felt her hand close around a crumpled bit of paper in her coat pocket. It was Showalter’s business card, held all through the emotional explosion, and then shoved into her pocket almost in ribbons, but still an avenue to explore.
She stopped to hold the card up to the light. A sudden memory of a very old man. “Heavens,” he had said, “but she was such a pretty thing at nineteen, charming and well informed—ah!” Chandal had watched the old man’s faded blue eyes light up. “I have never seen anyone quite like her—never!”
She walked faster. She already knew the place. She had been there several times. She wasn’t sure just when, but she had definitely been there.
She recognized the shop immediately, even from outside, peering in through the glass. Yes, she had been here before. She also recognized the jeweler who sat in the rear of the shop, jeweler’s glass over one eye. Not the older man—this man couldn’t be over forty-five.
“Yes, can I help you?” he asked in antisocial tones.
“Is—is Mr. Showalter here?” Her hand closed nervously around the crumpled card in her pocket.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Oh, well, it’s late. I’m surprised you’re open at this hour.”
“Nine to nine. That’s the only way I can make any money these days.”
“I see.” She paused, then added, “Does Mr. Showalter come in earlier?”
“Not earlier or later. He’s dead.”
“Oh,” gasped Chandal softly and felt a small shudder go through her body. “Thank you. Thanks very much....
“Can I help you with anything?” he frowned, disliking to lose business.
“No, thanks. Ah, Mr. Showalter—he was the same Showalter who lived in the old carriage house on West 71st Street?”
“All his life.”
“Oh, I thought somehow he was only there for a short—”
“All his life,” repeated the man laconically.
“I’m sorry to ask this, but did he die recently?”
“No, about three years ago.”
“Was he married?”
“No.” The man eyed her suspiciously. “Are you a relative or something?”
“Nothing like that. I just wondered. Ah, one more thing. Was he living with children? Niece, nephew...?”
“What?”
“Children. Were there any children living there with him?”
“No. Whatever you’re thinking, you’ve got the wrong man.”
“I see. Well....” The man had dismissed her now, had headed back to his work bench. Chandal still hesitated, now glancing at the blue velvet jewelry pad. An image of a ring appeared. Suddenly she realized she was staring at her ring. Justin had given it to her. She frowned. One of the two sisters—not Elizabeth, but Magdalen, the older, frailer sister—had had such a ring.
Chandal’s head spun sickeningly. Remembering was not pleasant, not pleasant at all. Magdalen’s picture hanging in the basement of the brownstone. Justin had taken her picture, hung it there. The basement had been Justin’s darkroom. Now she wanted to stop the flow of memory, but could not. Justin lying in Magdalen’s lap. How disgusting. Magdalen’s white hair, catching a rosy glint from the rose-colored light shade. Her skin seemed for a moment young, soft and satiny.
“It was all her fault. You can see that, can’t you?”
Blindly, Chandal turned and stumbled from the shop. She could see herself descending the basement stairs of the brownstone. The manikins. There had been manikins and the little door in the corner, the one that led up the side stairs to the attic. It was up in the attic. That thing... what was it—hidden away up in the attic....
She stopped suddenly. Brakes had screeched—a car had missed her by inches. She tried desperately to retrieve her thought. What was she just thinking? Reality pressed in on her. The brownstone faded. She was standing in the middle of the street. Traffic had come to a standstill. People stood staring.
Somehow she started to function. Rapidly she picked her way through traffic and put distance between herself and curious pedestrians. It was only eight-thirty, she noted, still a long time before she was supposed to meet Billy. Her stomach seemed to churn and she realized she had hardly eaten a bite all day. Suddenly ravenous, she ducked into a coffee shop and absorbed herself in a club sandwich deluxe. The food was a vast relief and for a few hungry minutes she felt very calm.
Then she sat, quietly, satiated, and was able to see quite simply and with great clarity that she was in such trouble that escape was no longer an easy matter. That perhaps it was even possible that escape was no longer feasible. Grimly she laid her hands together and closed her eyes. It was funny how her one hope kept boiling down to Billy Deats. That perhaps Billy could help her when no one else could. It was more than a thought, more than a vague hope; it was a consuming passion that drove her headlong down Central Park West, although she knew she was too early, that Billy wouldn’t even have returned from the theater. But she had no self-control, nor reason, nor common sense. Then, blinking, dazed, she came to an abrupt halt in the midst of a large crowd, some thirty or so people gathered in a cluster at the front entrance of The Boulevard. Three police cars waited, their roof lights sending red flickers of spinning light across the confused expressions on most faces.
The high-pitched, sharp wail of a siren stabbed upward from the west. A police emergency truck scurried around the corner and came to a screeching stop between jammed traffic. Somebody is dead, Chandal thought. They never send out those emergency trucks unless someone is dead. The siren was like the distressed cry of a woman moaning at a wake. Its blast quieted as two attendants sprang from the truck. Now, who could be dead? Chandal wondered. Had a woman been mugged? Had a child accidentally swallowed pills, thinking them candy? Had a man suffered a heart attack?
“Stand back, please,” barked the policeman.
Another policeman turned and said, “He’s dead.”
Chandal pushed closer, watched as the attendants lifted a coat away from the body. Whose body? “Oh, my God,” Chandal gasped, and stared down at Billy Deats, who lay crumpled in a heap, his hair streaked and caked with blood, his face swollen, his black bathrobe open from his waist down.
“Move back. Move back!”
People were being shoved now and excited voices were heard everywhere. Still, Chandal could not move, could not take her eyes from Billy’s face, the flesh of his arms and legs that hung flaccid, utterly without form, without life.
Quickly the attendants lifted his body and dropped it into a plastic bag. The image seared Chandal’s mind like a hot branding iron. She knew she would see that broken body, that bloated face for the rest of her life.
With the quick flick of a zipper, the image was gone.
“He jumped from the 10th floor,” shrilled a voice front-right of her.
“What was that wooden thing he was holding?”
“It was a cross.”
Another voice—masculine: “He was holding it in his hands. Some kind of a religious nut.”
“It seemed to me he was actually nailed to it,” a woman explained. “Didn’t you see the palms of his hands? They were both bleeding. And his feet....”
“Don’t be ridiculous. His whole body was bleeding....
Chandal stepped swiftly away and lost her dinner. It did not, however, erase the image from her mind. The image of Billy Deats lying limp upon a large wooden cross. Broken by a skyscraper leap into death. And yet Chandal, like the woman, had seen Billy’s bloody palms, his bloody feet.
She turned back at last and saw Billy’s body being loaded into the white emergency truck. But to her, Billy would always be as she had just seen him. In a shattered cruciform position, lying on the sidewalk outlined in chalk, bathed in a pool of his own blood.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HE HAD KNOWN IT WAS GOING TO BE A BAD DAY AS SOON AS HE headed for the L.A. International Airport. It started, as always, with a series of minor annoyances. The cars on the freeway had been backed up for miles. He had literally come to a standstill in traffic.
Somewhere above the smog-choked city he was sure the sun was shining, but at street level everything was cloaked in a veiled yellowish mist. Cars and pavement shimmered like mirages in the heat.
From his car window there was nothing to be seen but a mass of metal motionless in a pool of choked air that clung to the city like ether. Spring was the season that the natives of Los Angeles were supposed to love best. It had always brought the two months of rain that would wash away the smog. On this particular April morning there was no rain, no clear air, only a veil of poison.
Ron Talon took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one into his hand and tapped it lightly on the dashboard. His eyes moved in slow sweeping arcs, still watching the freeway, checking out the long line of cars that preceded him. “Goddamn it,” he mumbled and checked his watch. If the traffic didn’t let up soon, he’d miss his plane. Everything around him was fairly quiet. There was only the low rumble of distant traffic that was Los Angeles.
Thirty minutes later, Ron hastened down the long airport terminal corridor searching for the right gate. Sweat beaded his forehead because of the oppressive heat and because the traffic had detained him just long enough so that there were only minutes before his flight left for New York.
Just after he entered the boarding gate, and as he was having his ticket validated, he was handed a message by the young woman attendant behind the desk.
Call before you fly. Mimi.
Ron growled, staring down at the slip of paper as though he had never seen a message before. Confused, almost unable to connect with the proper response, he could feel his heart begin to thump. Jesus.
“Is there a phone nearby?” he asked.
“Down the corridor and to the right.”
“Thanks. Do I have time?”
“If you hurry.”
He moved swiftly to the nearest telephone, which was not near at all, and dialed his office.
“Ron Talon Agency. Good morning,” Mimi’s voice shrilled.
“Mimi? This is Ron. What’s up?” he asked warily.
“Hate to bother you, Ron. But Walsh doesn’t want to pay fifteen thousand for ‘Dan and the California Fever.’ ”
“Did you tell him that....”
“It’s the lowest group we handle. Yes.”
“What about Antiqua?”
“He said he has never heard of her.”
“What the hell does he mean, never heard of her. Tell him she’s heading for big things.”
“I did. He said no dice. He wants to talk with you personally.”
Totally exasperated, Ron said, “Mimi, I have no intention of calling him now. So just...
The public address system punched through Ron’s ear and announced last call for his flight.
“Mimi, I’ve got to run.”
“What should I tell Walsh?”
“Tell him—tell him you haven’t been able to reach me.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Until I reach New York. I’ll call you from there.”
“Happy wings!”
“Right.”
He hung up and, feeling his stomach rumble in a vaguely unsettling way, hurried toward his plane.
Wearing a brown blazer, chino pants and loafers, and carrying his Dunlap bag, he boarded the 11:00 A.M. flight, scheduled to arrive in New York at 7:00 P.M.
It was a smooth flight but his stomach continued to churn. He had forgotten to take Dramamine. He ate the small steak, left the eggs, drank the tomato juice and coffee, and was proud that somehow it all stayed down. It showed a certain amount of willpower.
For no special reason he thought of the crucifix packed away in the corner of his suitcase. He had sealed it in an envelope to take to Chandal, almost steadfastly refusing to look at it. Something worried him about the crucifix. He was also worried about his own health. He knew he was far from well, even after the week he had just spent flat on his back. He had lost a considerable amount of weight and his clothes were all too loose. A narcotic veil seemed to hang over his vision, even though for two days he had discontinued medication. More than anything else, it was an inner vibration that worried him, a certain conviction that he wasn’t going to get well. No matter how hard he tried, he could not shake the thought that there was something dreadfully wrong with him.
There was traffic stacked for an hour over Kennedy and his plane was forced to keep circling until ground control finally gave the go-ahead to land. The boarding terminal was out of working order and he had to deplane by the steps. His legs buckled and he saved himself from falling only by clutching the railing, thereby painfully wrenching his shoulder.
At his hotel he found his reservation had been booked for the following night. When a new, more expensive, room was secured, he thought how strange it was that he should need a room at all. Shouldn’t he be staying at the carriage house? Then, staring at the pale green hotel telephone, he realized that perhaps it was strange that he had come to New York at all. It was even possible that Chandal would refuse to see him. It took him a long time to pick up the phone.
Chandal lay face down on her bed, her face pale, strained with hours of tears. She had gone to rehearsal that morning, but had not been allowed to go any further than the box office. At that point she had come face-to-face with an adamant stage manager.
“I’m sorry, but there’s been a complaint brought against you with the Board at Actors’ Equity.”
She had met his timid, but determined young eyes with an icy blue stare. “I don’t give a damn about that and neither does Eric Savage.”
“You can’t rehearse until it’s settled.”
“The hell I can’t!” she cried.
“I’m sorry, but it’s my job to—”
“Your job? You don’t have a damn thing to say about it. It’s Eric’s place to say whether I stay or go.”
With high spots of color burning on his cheeks, the young man took a sealed envelope from his pocket. “Eric has asked me to give you this.”
She gasped, completely stunned, and saw his pitying gaze.
Now, as she twisted uncomfortably on her bed, she could still see the three lines that Eric Savage had written:
“We’ll try to get this ironed out. If not—Rachel is not the only part in the world. Hang in there until you hear from me. Eric.”
It seemed to her that it was merely the final note in her despair. The despair that was wrapped around her own crumbling sanity, Billy Deats’ death, and a sense that everything she did or said was part of someone else’s master scheme and had nothing at all to do with her own life, her own decisions. Some kind of separation was growing complete within her. Who would she be without Rachel? At the end of all this? Who would she be? A ghostly image of Billy lying on the sidewalk, his body blood-soaked and broken, flashed before her mind’s eye. God help me, she thought, now lying flat on her back. She lifted her eyes up to stare through the skylight. She had been trying to pray, but even this fleeting effort was diverted. Her gaze had fastened on the old woman sitting at her window on the fifth floor of the brownstone.
