The Five Strangers, page 12
He was pleading with me in a way that made me feel desperate, and I tried to get him to calm down, but he was too far gone.
Rita stepped up and took over. “You come inside with me right now, Mr. Jasper Jesperson Wise. I’m going to give you some aspirin and a nice big slice of quiche and you are going to snap out of it, and I mean pronto. You’ll feel better once you get some food inside you. Have you been eating?”
I remembered noticing he looked scrawnier than usual, and I stared at him critically.
“You’ve lost weight,” I said.
“I got no appetite,” he said feebly. “I get up every morning and I can’t eat a thing. I sleep hard all night and I wake up dead tired. But I’m probably already doomed, so what difference does it make? She wants to kill me, I know it, and she’s sending all her minions to finish me off. Forget about me, ladies. I’m already dead.”
“No, you’re not,” Rita said. “You stop this nonsense right now.”
“You’re a mess,” I told him. “And if you keep this up, you’re going to make yourself sick.”
That made him laugh, and not in a good way.
I asked him if he wanted to come into the house on his own two feet or did he want to be carried, and he could tell by the look in my eye that I was serious.
He mumbled something about the flowerbeds, and I moved in for the fireman’s carry.
“Now, now, now,” he screeched, “no need, no need.”
Somehow we got him inside and seated him at the kitchen table. Rita scrambled around quickly and set a plate in front of him before sitting down herself. He just stared at the quiche, but he did swallow the aspirin and pick at the fruit. When he finally relaxed, he seemed to go into an exhausted trance.
I felt the time had come for a little straight talk.
“Jasper,” I said, waiting until his liquid brown eyes were lifted to mine. “Have you been causing your own accidents?”
He was dumbfounded. He was aghast. He nearly stood up to strike a pose and go off about his innocence, but I shushed him down again, saying I believed him.
There were a few minutes in the quiet kitchen where nobody said anything. The refrigerator icemaker suddenly made a noise, and we all jumped and looked at it.
Then Jasper quietly said, “Possessed. What does that mean, exactly?”
“I’m going to let Ed explain that to you,” I said. “But until you talk to him, promise me you won’t worry too much about it. When you bring in an expert, you have to put your trust in him. I mean, you don’t get a guard dog and then run around your house barking yourself, do you?”
That made him smile. It was good enough for a laugh, I thought, but at that point I was willing to take anything.
“Jasper, honey,” Rita said, “why don’t you take the rest of the day off? You just leave your truck here; I don’t think you should be driving. Taylor’s on her way home now. She’ll drive you, right, Taylor?”
“Sure, why not,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve quite worn out the pavement between Locust Street and his house yet. I’ll even come in and make sure the vampire hasn’t gotten inside yet, how’s that?”
“No! You can’t come in. The house is a mess and you’re so picky. I mean, you’re such a fine lady. I mean . . . oh, please, I can’t fight with you ladies anymore.” He seemed beyond exhausted. “Please just let me get back to work. It’s the only thing that keeps me going lately. I’ll be all right if you just leave me alone and let me get back to work.”
He didn’t say it hysterically, the way he would have said it just minutes before. He said it sadly, like it was the simple truth. We couldn’t understand his attitude, and Rita and I shared a frustrated look.
“Jasper, we just want to help,” I said.
“Nobody can help me. Please, I want to go back outside now. When I’m working, it takes my mind off things. And anyway, I can’t go home.”
“What do you mean,” Rita said. “Of course you can go home. You go home every night, don’t you?”
“I have to go home at night. I need to be there. But it doesn’t feel like home anymore, and I can’t go there during the day. I just can’t.”
I think that’s what made me begin to suspect the truth. While I thought it over, Rita asked him if the vampire was compelling him to return at night. He nodded, though at that point we weren’t sure he was even listening anymore. He sat there, approximately 125 pounds of defeated little man, dressed in worn-out work clothes and smelling of fertilizer.
“That’s all right, Jasper,” I said at last. “Why don’t you just eat what you can, take a little rest inside here where it’s nice and cool, and you can finish up the fertilizing before you go home tonight. Would that be all right with you, Rita?”
She gave me that what are you up to now look, but decided to agree, for the time being.
I left then, but instead of going home, I decided I needed to make one more stop in town.
Chapter 20 – Haunting Sheila
It struck me that Jasper was still talking about Sheila wanting to kill him. And, even stranger, that Sheila was still trying to lure him back, even enlisting other people to talk him into it. It mystified me.
Not that I believed she was actually trying to kill him, but given the way things had gone the first time around, I couldn’t imagine why she wanted him back. She had extra help now, and beyond that, as far as I could see, she was ready to open Beloved of Old any time she wanted.
It bothered me enough that when I left Rita’s house, I walked over to Locust Street to see for myself how things were going at the antique shop.
Instead of being locked or unlocked, the street door was standing wide open now, blasting cold, dry air across the sidewalk.
After taking a peek inside I walked in, calling out Sheila’s name, then Dusty’s, then, just for the sake of completeness, Gardner’s. One of them called out that they were in the back room and I headed that way, navigating a twisty path through the merchandise. They were uncrating a mediocre painting in a magnificent, gilded frame.
“Hey, guys,” I said. “Looks like you’re making progress. Who’s this?” I asked, regarding the somber young man in the portrait. He was wearing clothes that were so dark they blended into the background and made his face seem like it was floating in a charcoal pit.
“We don’t know,” Sheila answered. “It’s amazing how many portraits have unknown subjects. For some reason I find them intriguing.”
She came toward me dusting her hands, though she had been supervising, not working. Dusty grinned, and Gardner smiled broadly, looking at least 70% happier than he’d been before his new workmate had shown up.
“You boys carry on, and don’t damage that frame,” Sheila told them. Then she continued, addressing the three of us in general but staring at me. “Our friend Taylor is interested in paintings. Well, I have a special one to show her in the shop. It’s not for sale, but I think it’ll interest her.”
I thanked her, hoping she wasn’t about to present me with another depiction of mass annihilation like the one with the sailors jumping overboard.
She wasn’t. It was a portrait, done somewhat later than the one still being uncrated, but just as dark and somber. The subject of this one was a lady.
I stared, speechless. It was the portrait from my nightmare. A sad young woman stared straight at me out of dark, painted eyes as if she could see me.
Sheila had the thing hanging over her work desk in the showroom. It was one of those portraits with eyes that follow you around the room, seeming to grip you in a tractor beam.
Sheila looked at me, almost challenging, and said, “Can you guess who she is?”
“I know who she is,” I told her.
“Oh, you do? Who is she?”
“Your grandmother. The one who left all her lovely things to you.”
“How did you know that?” she blurted. Then, speculatively, she added, “But then you tend to make very good guesses.”
“There’s . . . there’s a resemblance,” I said lamely.
“Really?” Sheila placed herself squarely in front of the portrait and studied it. “I always thought I took after the other side of the family. I’m a blue-eyed blond, and as you can see, my grandmother’s hair and eyes were very dark.”
“It’s in the bones.”
“Really?”
“The cheekbones. So high and sharply defined.”
She took it as a compliment and dipped her head.
“What was she like?” I asked suddenly. “You spent time with her when you were a girl. Was she a sweet lady?”
“Well . . . she was a product of her time, of course. Ladies of her social class held a certain reserve, and it was believed that children shouldn’t be spoiled. I remember being in awe of her, but I always liked going to see her and she was always good to me, in her own way. She’d have a maid bring milk and cookies, all very formal, on a fancy tray with a paper doily and a real linen napkin.” She smiled at the memory, and it was the first real smile I’d seen on her face. “The poor maid had a lisp, and she’d been instructed to address me as ‘Miss Sheila.’ Well, you can imagine. Grandmother would have to be sharp with her. ‘Annie, try not to spit!’ she’d say, and the poor maid would just cringe and whisper, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”
The smile had made her face suddenly attractive, and no part of her pleasure in the memory seemed diminished by poor Annie’s lot in life. Annie quickly disappeared from Sheila’s mind, her whole being taken up with memories of Grandmother now.
“How she I loved all her beautiful things! I think that’s why we had such a special bond, Grandmother and me. Everyone else in the family just wanted the shopping sprees to end, but I always loved seeing what she’d brought home from all over the world, and sometimes, she’d let me play with her treasures.”
“Like, dress-up, in old-fashioned gowns and jewelry?” I said, trying to enter the spirit of the thing.
“Her jewelry! Of course not. Grandmother would never have owned the kind of costume jewelry you’d let a child play with. You see that diamond starburst on her bodice? I have it in a safe deposit box at the bank, along with the rest of the parure. I do remember playing dress-up, though, now that you say that.” She pointed across the showroom. “That cheval mirror stood in a corner of the attic. I used to pose in front of it, swishing my skirts and pretending I was going to the ball.”
“What did your grandmother think of that? Did she enjoy watching you? Did she play along?”
“Good lord, no. By that point in her life, she wasn’t up to climbing the attic stairs. She’d send me up and I’d have fun playing by myself among the steamer trunks. I had permission, of course, and I knew what to get into and what to stay out of. They weren’t the kind of clothes anyone would have worn anymore. Later I’d be called downstairs for lunch, and Grandmother and I would have it served in the conservatory. I have such vivid memories! There was a gorgeous view of the Hudson Valley, and it would seem as if Grandmother and I were the only ones in the world. And she’d tell me all about her lovely things, where they’d come from, how she’d bargained for them, and I’d just be fascinated. Afterwards, it was time for her afternoon nap, and I would have to be taken home again.”
“In a limousine, by a chauffeur in full livery?”
She paused awkwardly. “My mother would come back and get me. She and Grandmother . . . .” Unable to find just the right words, she finished lamely. “Families can be complicated.”
“I know. So . . . your inventory. Some of it came from your grandmother’s collection?”
“Some. Not all, of course,” she said, losing some of the magic of remembrance. “There was so much.”
I looked around at the more ridiculous items, wondering why the old lady had even wanted them.
“She collected more and more things as she got older, didn’t she?” I ventured.
“What makes you say that?” She stared at me a moment, then grudgingly said, “As a matter of fact, you’re right. Toward the end of her life, collecting became almost a mania. It’s part of the reason I opened the shop. I couldn’t possibly find the space for all of this at home, and what’s the point of putting it in storage? It should be out among the living, to be enjoyed. I’m sure she would have understood.”
I looked at the painting again and I wasn’t so sure about that. As I gazed, the portrait’s eyes took hold of me and I couldn’t make myself look away. The nightmare came down over me. Surrounded by outsized objects and feeling the stifling air coming through the open door, I was thrown back into that room again. It’s the only way I can explain what I said next.
“She gave me a message,” I murmured.
“What?” Sheila rounded on me. “Who did?”
I continued to stare into the eyes of the portrait, feeling compelled to go on as my voice faded to a whisper.
“You’re on the wrong path. Toward death you go. Stop, before it’s too late. I promise.”
“Hey! Snap out of it,” Sheila hissed.
I blinked, taking in air and forcing my eyes to look away from those in the portrait. Sheila demanded to know what I thought I was talking about.
“I don’t know what I mean,” I said. “But you should stop – whatever it is you’re doing. Stop. That’s all I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out so . . . weird.”
The compulsion to speak had been so strong, and there had been a release when I’d recited the warnings, so I was glad I’d done it anyway. But once my demented-gypsy recital was over, there was really no going back. I just stood there like an idiot, wondering how to leave with some of my dignity intact.
“Somebody told me you like to play fortune teller at the town’s Halloween festival. Is this a sample of your act? If so, I’m not impressed.”
“I said I was sorry,” I told her, closing my eyes and shaking my head. “I don’t know what got into me. Your grandmother’s portrait is so – alive. That, and the way you were talking about her – I guess it got to me. She was beautiful, and it’s wonderful you have her portrait, and a place to keep it where she can watch over you. I – I have to go. I’m sorry if I’ve been . . . oh, hell, I’m sorry. Have a nice day.”
I wasn’t done making a fool of myself, though. As I passed the chimpanzee sculpture, I stroked the head of the one in the middle and said, “‘Bye, Cheeta.”
I heard a hiss of surprise behind me as I walked away from Sheila, but at least the eyes in the portrait weren’t on me anymore.
I don’t remember walking back to Rita’s for my car, and I was already halfway home before I remembered why I’d gone to the antique shop in the first place. I’d wanted to have a word with Gardner – alone, if possible. But the question I had for him could wait, I decided.
Chapter 21 – My Beloved
Flounder Bob’s was packed. I wondered idly if some of Dusty’s acolytes from the sermon on the beach had come to hear him again, but there was no way of telling, since everyone was dressed for the bar, not the beach. Put baldly, they had clothes on.
As Rita and I walked in the door and looked the place over, an arm shot into the air somewhere in the amber-tinted distance and waved at us. Knowing we’d be there, Jelly had been watching for us, and she and Caden had snagged a nice round table up near the primitive stage arrangement where Dusty would perform.
In the few seconds it took to walk across the barroom, I wondered what this meant in terms of a first date, but I don’t really have a handle on modern mating rituals. Nobody actually seems to use the word date anymore. It’s called hanging out now, and apparently it involves far more people than I wanted around when I was dating a guy, way back in the day.
I watched Caden for signs that we weren’t entirely welcome and didn’t see any, so we took our seats at their table and prepared to hang out, modern style.
The original proprietor, Flounder Bob, is no longer with us, bless his friendly old soul, but his son Bobby owns the bar now and is very reluctant to change it in any way. He seems to consider the bar a kind of shrine to his old daddy, and I’m told that it’s a very brave employee who suggests updating anything.
The result is the kind of well-worn ambience that makes everyone instinctively relax when they walk in the door. What light there is is subdued but not gloomy, and what wood remains from the original Bob’s day is holding its own, but showing its age. Many of the chairs rock and feel a little loose at the joints. The place is dusty here and there but clean where it counts, and the limited menu is full of safe choices. And of course the bar offers a wide variety of traditional beverages, the occasional faddy creation, and beer, beer and more beer.
I don’t go bar hopping very often, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in Flounder Bob’s, but it had been quite some time. Bob the elder had already passed on even back then, I do remember that, but as far as I could figure nothing had changed except for Bobby the younger. He’d gotten middle-aged. His lush, light brown hair had thinned and receded, and what there was left of it was gathered into a thin ponytail at the back of his neck. But the smile was still the same, and I was surprised when he remembered me and yelled my name out from behind the bar, welcoming me as I made my way toward Caden and Jelly.
Bobby came across the floor to serve us himself, all happy to see me. He nodded to Caden and pronounced his name, but his greeting to Jelly was on the sly side, and I wondered how much time she was spending in Flounder Bob’s. As to Rita, he was smilingly respectful. He knew who she was, but he needed to be reminded of her name.
“Well, well, well,” he said once the hellos were over. His eyes roved around the room with pleasure. “If this Dusty fellow’s gonna be this big of a draw I’m going to have to keep him on, even if he yowls like a cat.”
“Some of the best country singers yowl like cats,” I said primly. “It’s called character.”
“Expression,” Rita added.
“Soul,” said Caden.
Jelly rounded it off, saying, “And don’t we all feel like yowling sometimes?”
