Son of the Endless Night, page 20
Snow had been shoveled away from the gate across the drive, and there was a new brass padlock in place. After waiting until there was no traffic on the road Conor climbed over the gate and walked through snow that came to his boot tops down to the brick manor house in the cove. The drive had not been used for several days. Beneath a blue sky the house held its own darkness, a look of perpetual night. The chimneys cold. The windows glazed with frost. Conor found wading through snowdrifts tough on his knees and paused to wipe his streaming forehead and blow his nose. There were some black birds in a barren tree near him, sitting still as stones, voiceless. He pushed on.
The front door of the house, as he had expected, was locked. He looked in through a narrow window to one side of the door, unable to make out much of the entrance hall or the large rooms on either side. He trudged around the house, stopping again and again to peer through double thicknesses of glass at the interior, seeing only the trembling light of day in mirrors, his own faraway reflection within cupped hands, staring lonesomely at the polished sumptuous rooms, at a dining table with place settings for sixteen.
The side door was locked. He reached the back door: up two steps, little flared copper roof above with pointy bridge-work of icicles, trellis sides that held bitter green leaves embedded in ice. The height of a hill directly behind the house probably kept the winter sun off the porch all day. In the bottom of the door there was a big porthole, an iris of rubber through which family pets could come and go.
There were sharply defined pawprints in the snow outside the door: big ones. Dog. The snow had a thick crust; judging from the depth of the prints, the animal weighed well over a hundred pounds. That gave Conor pause.
He looked back over his shoulder and saw, a dozen feet from the bottom of the steps, a still-steaming hole in the snow stained a bright dogpiss yellow around the rim.
If there was a dog in the house, Conor reasoned, despite the unmarked driveway and the absence of vehicles someone must be in residence.
He hesitated, then knocked boldly at the door.
"Anyone home? Hello!"
Conor waited, all ears, for a response, shifting from one foot to another, exhaling mightily, vapor freezing and adding to the fringe of ice already clinging to the red whiskers around his mouth.
From behind the door he heard a whimpering sound.
Dog, all right. No mistaking it. He glanced down at the gray rubber iris in the pet port and backed off uneasily. But the animal had neither growled nor barked at him, as any reasonably alert watchdog should have done the moment he came near the door. Maybe this one was. despite his presumed size, uncommonly timid, or sick. Conor knocked again, more gently.
"Hello!"
Again there was no answer, except for a mild scratching, as of claws, against the inside of the door. A helpless sort of sound. Still it managed to stir the hairs on the back of his neck because he couldn't see the dog, he had only these hints of its presence less than three feet away.
Conor approached the door and knelt down beside the pet port. He put his gloved hands cautiously on the rubber iris and opened it, ready to snatch his hands away if a suddenly snarling dog thrust its head out at him. But nothing happened. He widened the aperture and peered inside.
Momentarily he heard clicking sounds, as if the animal was walking rapidly away across a hard surface. Then silence. Conor saw, through the opening, an expanse of kitchen floor paved with tile, the satiny sheen of side-by-side stainless steel refrigerators. He heard the hum of their motors. A quiet slow drip of water from a faucet. A cabinet clock distantly chiming the half hour. He couldn't distinguish the clicking sounds any longer. But he smelled the lingering rankness of the dog that had been there: damp, not very clean fur. There were little pools of melted snow on the mudroom floor just inside the door.
Conor grimaced and straightened, reaching for the doorknob to help himself up.
The knob turned in his hand. The door opened.
The unexpected release of the latch excited and appalled him. He chewed at the ice in his beard, staring at the narrow space between the door and the jamb.
Then he opened the door and walked in.
"Your back door was open! Is anybody home?"
He waited for an answer, an invitation, not wanting to startle anyone— not wanting surprises himself. A shotgun, for instance, in the hands of the caretaker.
"Mr. Myatt? You here? Name's Conor Devon, I'd like to talk to to you, please sir!"
Another half a minute passed. He now wondered if, after all, he was hailing an empty house. Empty except for the bashful mutt. He observed a few more traces of the animal, little bits of melting ice, a trail leading out of the mudroom and up a short flight of steps to what looked like a butler's pantry. Conor's eyes adjusted to the level of the light inside. As long as I'm in, he thought, no harm in having a look around. His conscience was clear. The back door had been left unlocked.
Carelessly . . . perhaps.
He stamped his feet on a hemp mat near the door to clear the snow from his boots, and used his handkerchief to dry them. Unmannerly to mess up the floors, even if their dog already had made tracks. He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them into the pockets of his storm coat. Then he walked up the steps to the butler's pantry. An uncovered window on the north wall, glass-front cabinets on three sides, a built-in silver safe, chafing dishes and serving pieces laid out on the counters. A can of silver polish, a buffing machine; someone recently had been hard at work, the smell of polish was still in the air. His reflection flowed from one portly tureen to another as he went through a swinging door into the dining room.
"Mr. Myatt?"
Conor stood quietly with a hand on the velvet-covered back of a chair, listening. He looked at the chandelier above the dining room table. An ugly and obviously valuable piece. It appeared to shiver and swing slightly as he stared at it, but his eyes were still running from the cold outside— the movement he sensed might have been illusory.
Or it might have been someone with a heavy tread crossing the floor of the room upstairs.
Conor raised his eyes again, sniffing, rubbing his leaky nose with the back of one hand. The dining room had a tray ceiling, painted white, with deep carved moldings all around, every inch an intaglio. When he focused on the artwork he made out tiny figures: mythological beasts, from graceful unicorns and winged horses to squat epicene satyrs, entwined with nymphs and shepherd boys who played lutes and other simple musical instruments while simultaneously gratifying the females of all species with their enormous erections.
Conor grinned disdainfully, wondering why anyone would want a display like that where they took their meals.
He heard a cork popping from a bottle, and turned convulsively to the far doorway. Then he moved fast, almost running, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He left the dining room and crossed a small entryway with a door to the outside on his left, another door at the foot of a spiral staircase, and a third at the front of the house.
This door was standing half open, revealing plush dove gray carpeting and walls paneled in solid cherry, the hot gleam of gas log flames reflected from the polished paneling. A cozy den. He barged right in.
"Hey!"
In this house Conor seemed always to be entering rooms that someone— or something— had just left. He felt frustrated and annoyed. What was the point of playing games with him? After a moment's hesitation he crossed the den on a diagonal to another door inset between bookshelves and yanked it open. He looked across the broad marble of the entrance hall to another, larger, shadowy staircase. He opened his mouth to call again, and knew he would be ignored.
He shut the den door, almost slamming it, and turned to face the hearth, the yellow fire behind tinted glass. There was a grouping of love seats and armchairs around the hearth, brass firetools on the rough-cut gray stone. A silver tray on a hatch-cover coffee table held an opened bottle of red wine, the cork, and two glasses filled to within an inch of their brims.
Two glasses?
He raised his eyes to the portrait over the mantel.
She was dressed all in black, a Spanish riding costume: bolero jacket, long skirt, boots with four-inch heels, one of those flatcrowned hats with a wide brim. She had a riding crop in one fist, which was planted on her left hip. A tourmaline the size of a robin's egg was prominent on one finger. The other hand, empty, was extended palm up as if in welcome, offering the gift of the wine on the table below. Won't you join me? She had a cocksure smile, with a hearty, desperado gleam of gold oh one tooth, and a scarred cheek. Her vitality was conveyed by the style of the painting: thick strokes, broad slashes of the palette knife. By firelight the paint seemed scarcely to have dried: there was a touch of wetness on the lips, unexpected highlights in the pupils of her eyes.
"Inez?" he said, half aloud, knowing this had to be the woman whom Rich had talked about.
Cordway. That's what she calls herself now. But her name used to be Courdewaye. . . . She's real. I know she's real. The others— I'm not sure.
Remembering his brother's words, Conor found it suddenly difficult to swallow. His throat was very dry. Parched.
He cast a longing glance at the bottle of wine, looked up again at the woman in the portrait. She didn't look threatening or intimidating to Conor. Mischievous was the word ... a merciless tease.
If this was her house— and it had to be— then she was around. He was sure of it now. And he was going to talk to her, if it took the whole damned day before she got tired of her cute disappearing games and was ready to meet him face to face.
Conor dropped onto a love seat and unzipped his storm coat. There were magazines on one end of the big coffee table. Architectural Digest. Town and Country. Nothing he could take an interest in. He sat back and stared at the poured wine, then reached for the bottle and looked at the label. The wine was a Spanish claret. He inhaled at the lip of the bottle. A little sharp and earthy, but maybe the wine in the glasses had been allowed to breathe long enough. He licked his chapped lips, put the bottle down, smiled slightly, took up a belled glass and studied the woman in the portrait.
"With pleasure," he said sardonically, and took a sip. Good. In fact, very—
If she offers you wine— for God's sake, Conor! Don't drink!
A little of the wine went down the wrong way and Conor choked; he put the glass down before any of the wine spilled, pulled out his handkerchief and coughed explosively into it, leaving stains as his face got redder and redder. But at least he had spared the expensive carpet.
As soon as he had himself under control he heard the whimpering dog again.
Conor lunged to his feet and went to the door that opened onto the entrance hall. The whimpering was louder. He started slowly across the marble floor, looking at doors, all of them closed, looking up at the top of the curved staircase.
He saw a gleam of animal eyes next to a baluster in the shadowy upper hall.
Conor stopped and whistled softly.
There was no movement, only a tawny hint of the animal’s body as Conor's eyes adjusted. The eyes of the animal were steady and, he felt, somewhat sorrowful as they gazed down at him.
"Here, pal. What's the matter? I won't hurt you."
The whimpering had trailed off; now it was barely audible. Conor went up the steps slowly, keeping his eyes on the shape huddled down in the dimness upstairs.
He was only a few feet away when he saw that it wasn't the dog he had expected. It was a child's stuffed toy, a big-eyed replica of Bambi, so familiar from the Disney movie he had seen more than once with his children. The toy was about a foot and a half high, with large ears, a plush tan body, and the nubby beginning of antlers. His daughter Hillary, now pushing impatiently toward thirteen and a semblance of adulthood, had her own Bambi, stored on a closet shelf in her room with other childish treasures she had only provisionally parted with.
Conor picked up the toy and ran his thumb across the nap, put it down where he had found it, let out a long breath, and looked around irritably for some sign of the dog he'd heard.
All the doors but one along the upstairs hall were closed. This door was at the end of the hall to his right, and at the front of the house. Diffused daylight painted the wall opposite the door; a soft radiance with a hint of rainbow. He went that way and looked into the room.
It had been a child's playroom or nursery; now there was no furniture, only candy-striped wallpaper, a mural on one wall of the Little Engine That Could, dancing bears and squirrels in applique on another wall. All the walls were nicked and scarred, grubby in places from childish hands. There was a window seat and curtains half parted on a tarnished brass rod.
The room was cold; far colder than the rest of the house. As he zipped up his coat he became aware of a raw powerful odor. The room was flooding with it.
Not dog odor—
Gasoline.
Conor looked around slowly, beginning to shiver but not from cold. He felt unsteady on his feet; he was wrenched by emotion, by sorrow and fear. This childish room was not a happy place. He began to back toward the door, his stomach tightening into a hard knot, pressing upward into his diaphragm, which made breathing more difficult. . . . And the fumes were bad, stifling. He wiped his hazy eyes.
Something lay on the floor near the window seat. He was sure that the floor had been empty when he walked in, but there it was, a square white card. . . . Never mind.
Yet he couldn't, despite his strong desire to get out of the room, ignore the card, any more than he could ignore a letter in a mailbox. Conor put his wadded handkerchief over his nose, the fumes almost strong enough now to knock him over, and crossed the room to the window, where he bent down to pick up the
stiff piece of cardboard, which was like
yes, exactly, the backing on a Polaroid snapshot, and
dry slithering sounds on the wall near him but he didn't look up because he had already turned the photo over in his hand and seen
the gasoline searing his eyes, making them water
seen
what—
what?
Oh Jesus Mary and Joseph what was this?
Now Conor raised his eyes from the photo and, still stunned, took in the merry bears in vests and porkpie hats and their friends the squirrels all topsy-turvy and rearranged in a big hot blare of sun into letters on the wall, spelling out a word of
drowning in gasoline, must get away from
fast!
word of warning:
BEWARE!
said the chubby little animals,
as the sun went out, its light receding in a red threatening storm through which Conor stumbled with a numbed mind to reach the hall. The door slammed shut right after him, almost nipping off his fingers on the left hand, which had been poised on the jamb an instant before.
His eyes flowing, his lashes sticky as pinkeye, Conor retreated almost blindly toward the staircase, nostrils still clogged with the gasoline odor, maybe the whole house would explode in a flash, get out, the Polaroid snapshot was bent double in his fist.
Who were they?
Top of the stairs. He reached for the railing.
And as he did so, Conor heard a snarl at his feet. Then there was a fighting surge of animal fur and hooves and hot breath between his legs; he was upended. He crashed against the railing and nearly broke through it, tumbled and rolled down the stairs pursued by nipping teeth; they came very close to his balls. The snarl, the raging thing all over him, claws— no, antlers— prodding, digging, trying to rip him apart, only the tearproof, down-filled storm coat keeping the antlers away from his flesh. He saw a large mean eye and a long velvet snout, the tawny hide, the two of them crashing down the stairs toward solid marble. It was Bambi, and Bambi was trying to kill him!
Conor hit the floor on his back hard enough to knock the wind out of him, and just before his eyes filmed over blackly he saw the improbable, full-sized beast looming above him with splayed legs and lowered head and magnificent rack, all the meat and muscle behind those pointed tips that hovered inches from his face and throat.
At the instant of catching his breath he lost consciousness, for no more than a few seconds. When he opened his eyes again it still hurt him to breathe and he was clawing at the air in front of him, but Bambi had vanished. He no longer smelled the shocking odor of gasoline.
Conor raised his head, and pain speared through it upward from the back of his neck; his conscious mind was a pulpy churning mass of terror. He was sick to his stomach. He found that getting up on the marble floor was as treacherous as if the floor were made of ice. He leaned against the balustrade and dimly saw the damage he had done crashing down the stairs; he looked around in shock.
The child's toy he had stumbled over was lying on the floor nearby, regarding him with a reproachful pasted-on eye. One leg was torn, and stuffing leaked from the seam.
Conor, struck by the absurdity of what he had done, and imagined, started to laugh, but had to clap a hand over his mouth and lock his throat to keep from vomiting.
Madness.
The shortest route to the open air was by way of the front door and Conor tried it, but there was a multitude of locks and he couldn't get out. He had to retrace his steps, limping, to the kitchen. He averted his eyes from the portrait on the wall of the den, the silver tray with wine glasses; he was deaf to the measured, tranquil tick of the cabinet clock.
As he left the house the nausea passed. He went to his knees and packed snow where his face was flaming. The cold had a beneficial effect on his pulse rate, it refreshed his blood. He quickly put some distance between himself and the house. The tracks he had made, the damage— he'd be lucky if he wasn't arrested. But his mind was more on his feeling of shame, and unease. He'd let himself be spooked, no doubt of it. Was someone— the woman in the portrait— watching from a window now, laughing at him?
