This was something he couldn’t dump into Lacuna Pit. It was too weird. So weird, in fact, that his curiosity was stronger than his apprehension. Anyway, if it were her voice, she was out of town, so he could rest easy for a while. He decided not to flee. Not yet.
He gave the number to the girl at the hotel’s phone desk and asked her to find its listing. He slipped her a hundred dollars.
A half-hour later she gave him an address on Kensington Avenue.
It was a house, just across the street from Cleveland Park. A huge place, surrounded by a wall with a locked gate.
He followed an alley into the back of the property and climbed up on a dumpster. He could see the rear façade of the house from here. All the windows were shuttered. The grass in the yard was knee-deep, the hedges overgrown, paths invaded with weeds.
He pulled himself over the wall and dropped down to a driveway.
He moved through the thickets, crossed an eroded flowerbed, passed a tumbledown arbor. The side windows too were covered with shutters. On the terrace were flowerpots filled with dead twigs. The paving everywhere was cracked and smeared. A sundial was heavy with vines.
He ran across the yard to one of the back windows. Its shutter was ajar. He pulled it open. He looked through the filthy pane and saw a long corridor, an archway at its extremity leading into a bare room.
The place was vacant, no doubt about it. No one had lived here for years.
So?
This was risky. Suppose somebody in one of the other houses saw him and called the cops? He’d be collared for trespassing. He should have an explanation ready. He heard a child call for help, for instance, and climbed over the wall to investigate. Or he was looking for his lost cat. Or he was a historian interested in vintage mansions. Or he was leading a cavalry patrol across the desert and came upon these ruins just by accident.
Sergeant, what do you suppose happened to the people who once lived in this abandoned homestead?
Apaches probably got them, Lieutenant. Or maybe they all starved to death when the crops failed.
Mmm. I’m not so sure. There’s more here than meets the eye.
Sir! Do you mean to infer that the area is fraught with unfathomable phenomena beyond our comprehension?
Precisely.
Then I respectfully suggest we move on, Lieutenant, before any harm comes to us. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Then, somewhere in the house’s dark corridor, a phone rang.
The machine answered. ‘I’m out of town for the moment. Leave your number and I’ll call you as soon as I return.’ Click.
No, it wasn’t her voice. Or was it? He wasn’t as certain now as he was before. Was it or wasn’t it? Balls!
Then another voice drawled, this one unmistakably familiar. ‘Hi. Nellie Jarman again. This is the fifth time I’ve called and all I ever get is that fucking answering machine. I can’t stay in Buffalo forever. Where are you?’
Nel came back to the hotel on Monday morning, looking mussed up and hungover. She’d been arrested for shop-lifting and had spent the weekend in the slammer.
‘They put me in a cage,’ she complained. ‘With a ratpack of hookers smelling like old towels.’ She stood under the shower, groaning. ‘What a zoo. I’ve never felt more humiliated and befouled in my entire life. And for what? A scarf not worth twenty dollars. You should have heard the judge lecture me, the haughty asshole.’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘They only allowed me one call and I had to get in touch with somebody else.’
‘Who?’
‘Do you know what? One of those scurvy girls in the bullpen actually wanted to go down on me! Can you believe it! She kept pinching me, I’m covered with bruises, look!’
He waited patiently for her to finish her lamenting. But then she stretched out on the bed, nude and dripping, putting an end to all conversation. ‘I need a good pronging,’ she wailed. ‘Forget about the foreplay and just ram it into me.’
He did. For the first time they made love without – as she called it – une mise en scène. It was better than fantasy, far more honest and unselfish. They both finished quickly and she slept, snoring blissfully.
He had to wait until she woke. Finally, well past noon, they ordered breakfast and he could question her.
‘Where is this gallery of yours?’
‘On Ferry Street. Why?’
‘You’d better give me the number, so I’ll know who to call if you get busted again.’
‘That won’t be necessary. The exhibit has been postponed. Which means I’ll have to stick around for a while. What are your plans, Egan?’
‘I tried that other number, but it was a dead end. My plans? I don’t have any.’
‘What other number?’ she stared at him, lynx-eyed with surprise.
He showed her the pad.
‘Ah yes,’ she dismissed it with a careless wave of her fingers. ‘That.’
‘I got some woman on the answering machine.’ Casually, ‘Who is she?’
‘Alice’s mother.’
It was his turn to be taken by surprise. All he could say was, ‘Oh.’
‘I thought perhaps she might have heard from her. But she’s never there when I call.’
He thought it over. It was an explanation – of sorts. Anyway, it was better than this endless fucking conjecture. Maybe he could drop the whole business into the Lacuna after all.
‘I think I’ll stick around for a while too,’ he decided.
‘Good.’ She walked over to the bed. ‘Let’s do an encore.’