The Dark on the Other Side Page 11

  Brilliant…brilliant…brilliant…

  And, at the very bottom of the page, dug deep into the paper by the pressure of his fingers on the keys:

  He always knew about it. The dark on the other side.

  Damn the words, and damn the doped-up infantile little hippie who had produced them, Michael thought. But this verbal incantation didn’t bring relief. He saw his words too clearly for the empty things they were. They didn’t describe Kwame, and they didn’t cancel the impact of the words Kwame had used. He makes bigger magic than I do, Michael thought sourly. Heap strong magic…The words haunted him; last night he had dreamed of shadows and waked in a cold sweat, tangled in bedclothes as if he had spent eight hours battling an invisible attacker.

  Still. Dismiss Kwame as a talented junkie, and what did you have left? A series of epigrams, and damned dull ones at that. He was heartily sick of that word “brilliant.”

  Yet as the inconclusive interviews had proceeded, one concept began to take shape. One thing about Randolph that was significant, and hard to explain. Incompleteness.

  Yet you couldn’t say he didn’t finish what he began. He finished his book. As a writer, Michael knew the importance of that; for every completed book there are a thousand beginnings. He had finished teaching his course and he had apparently taught it well, even brilliantly-damn that word! He had not abandoned tennis or swimming until he had mastered both skills, and his retirement from politics had followed a series of almost uncontested victories.

  He mastered a skill, and then he stopped. Was it because he found all of them too easy? No challenge? Or was it because, under the façade of competence, he was somehow unsure of his ability? That wasn’t as ridiculous as it sounded. The severest critic was internal. If a man couldn’t satisfy that, paeans of praise from the outer world couldn’t convince him of his worth. He had to keep on trying, fighting, accomplishing, and never succeeding, because the inner critic was insatiable. So-eventually, suicide, alcoholism, drugs. It had happened before.

  But not, Michael thought, to Gordon Randolph. His life had not followed that pattern. If he had quit competing, it was not in the spirit of defeat. He had not retreated into any of the standard forms of suicide. He seemed-yes, damn it, he was-a happy man, except for one thing, the one thing in which he had not succeeded. The one thing for which he cared most desperately. And none of the pat phrases on that sheet of paper gave any clue to his successes, or to his one great failure.

  Michael reached for another sheet of paper and inserted it into the typewriter. At the top of the page he wrote:

  His wife tried to kill him.

  Was that why he couldn’t make any sense out of the man who was Gordon Randolph? Because, like so many of the others who had known her, he was becoming obsessed by Randolph ’s wife?

  In her way, Linda was an even greater enigma than Gordon. Not because the coalescing picture was incoherent. A beautiful human being-they all agreed on the content of that, if not in the exact words, including Randolph himself. He had groped for words and so had Buchsbaum, but poor old Kwame had caught it. Then what had turned her from a saint into a devil, from a beautiful human being into an alcoholic, a haunted psychotic?

  If I were writing a novel, Michael thought, they would have a common cause-Gordon’s incompleteness, his wife’s madness. But life is rarely so tidy or so simple. Or, if it is, the connections are too complex for us to see.

  The light bulb flickered again. Napoleon muttered. The rain poured down harder. Michael got up and went into the kitchen. He stubbed his toe-the same toe.

  A moving streak shot past him, into the sink and out through the slit in the window, its passage marked by a crash of breaking crockery, which was Michael’s last saucer. Nursing his throbbing toe, Michael restrained his curses and listened. He knew what Napoleon’s abrupt departure heralded. After a moment it came. A knock on the door; simple and ordinary. There was no reason why the sound should have made an anticipatory shiver run down his spine.

  II

  Linda watched the rain ripple against the window of the bus. The downpour was so heavy, it didn’t look like rain, but rather like a solid wall of water against the window of a submarine. The warm, stuffy bus was a self-contained, miniature universe; and the dark on the other side of the window might have been the vacuum of outer space. A few scattered lights, blurred by the rain, were as remote as distant suns.

  The bus was not crowded. Not many people would come into the city in such weather and at such an hour, too late for the theaters or for dinner. The seat next to hers was occupied by a young sailor. He had come straight to it, like an arrow into a target. When he tried to strike up a conversation, she looked at him-just once. He hadn’t tried again. He hadn’t changed seats, though; maybe he didn’t want to seem rude.

  Linda didn’t care whether he moved or not. She was aware of his presence only as a physical bulk; nothing else about him could penetrate the shell of her basic need. Even her physical discomfort was barely felt. Her shoes were still soaking wet and muddy. She had squelched through the ooze of Andrea’s unpaved lane, hoping against hope, even though she knew she would have seen lights from the road if anyone had been at home. She had even pounded on the door, hearing nothing except the yowl of Andrea’s pride of cats. Linda knew she could get into the house without any trouble; but with Andrea gone, there was no safety there. It was the first place they would look. Only a senseless desperation had taken her to Andrea in the first place. She wasn’t running to anything or anybody; she was running away.

  The impulse which had got her onto the bus was equally senseless. She had a little money, not much, and no luggage. If she paid in advance, she could get a room in a hotel; but how long would it be before Gordon found her? If he didn’t want to call the police in, there were other, more discreet, ways of tracking her down. Anna would know what clothes she was wearing. There were hundreds of hotels; but Gordon could afford to hire hundreds of searchers. She wished the bus would go on and on forever, without stopping. Then she wouldn’t have to decide what to do next.

  When the bus reached the terminal, she sat unmoving until all the other passengers had got off, until the driver turned and yelled. She squeezed her feet back into the sodden leather of her shoes. Another stupid move; the driver would remember her, now that she had lingered and made herself conspicuous. He wanted to clear the bus and go home; he stood by the door, tapping his fingers irritably on the back of the seat.

  Linda walked through the terminal and out onto the street. It was still raining. She walked. She walked a long way. In her mind was the vague idea of confusing the trail by not taking a taxi directly from the bus station. Not that it mattered; he would find her sooner or later. But she had to keep trying.

  Finally she came to a brightly lighted street where there were many people. Cars, too, on the pavement. Taxis…Yes, this might be a good place from which to take a cab. She stood by the curb and lifted her hand. Cars rushed by, splashing water. Some had little lights on top. None of them stopped. Linda blinked vacantly as the water ran down off her hair into her eyes. Rain. That meant taxis would be hard to find. She remembered that fact from some obliterated past.

  A taxi skidded to a stop a few feet beyond her and she walked toward it, but before she could reach it a man darted out, opened the door, and jumped in. The taxi started up, splashing her feet and calves with water. She stood staring after it. Another car stopped, almost at her elbow. The driver leaned out and flung the door open.

  “Okay, okay, lady; if you want it, grab it. Hop in.”

  She got in, sat down.

  “Where to?”

  The address was written down on a slip of paper inside her purse, but she didn’t need to look at it. She had known, all along, that she meant to go there.

  “Must be from out of town,” the driver said, pulling out into the street. “Figured you were, that’s why I stopped right by you so nobody could beat you to it. Chivalry’s been dead for a long time, lady. You go
tta move fast if you wanta survive.”

  “It was nice of you,” Linda said politely. “Thank you.”

  She didn’t have to talk, he talked all the rest of the way. She remembered to tip him; it was an obvious thing, but tonight nothing was obvious, every movement and every idea was a long, arduous effort. What she did not remember until it was too late was that she had meant to leave the taxi at some indeterminate corner and walk the rest of the way. Too late now…

  The street was dimly lighted, lined with buildings. In the rain and the dark, everything looked black-sky, buildings, windows. She dragged herself up the flight of steps, her shoes squelching.

  There was no list of tenants’ names outside the door, and no lobby-only a small square of hallway, with the stairs rising up out of it, and two doors, one on either side. Cards were affixed to the doors. She squinted at them through the rain on her lashes. Neither bore the name she sought. She went up the stairs.

  Not the second floor, not the third. Another floor, surely it must be the last. There was no elevator; it had not occurred to her to look for one. She went on climbing. The wood of the stair rail felt rough and splintery under her fingers. The whole structure, stairs and rail, felt alive; it yielded, protesting with faint sighs, to the pressure of hands and feet.

  The light was dim, a single naked bulb on each landing. Luckily for her, she reached the topmost landing before they failed, every light in the building simultaneously, plunging the place into abysmal darkness.

  Linda threw herself to one side, feeling for the wall, for any solid substance in the darkness; heard a door flung open and felt the rush of something past her. Something plunged down the stairs, sliding from stair to stair but never quite losing its footing, never quite falling. It sobbed as it went.

  III

  So much for premonitions, Michael thought.

  It was Gordon Randolph who had knocked at his door. Not Gordon’s wife.

  Randolph ’s dark hair was plastered flat to his head; the ends dripped water. The shoulders of his tan trench coat were black with wet. Wordlessly Michael stepped back, inviting Randolph in with a gesture of his hand. Closing the door, he wondered what he ought to offer first. Coffee, a drink, dry clothes…But one look at his guest told him that any offer would be ignored, probably unheard. Randolph stood stock-still in the middle of the rug. Only his eyes moved, darting from one side of the room to the other, questioning the darkened doorways.

  “She’s gone,” he said.

  Michael nodded. He had realized that nothing less than catastrophe would have brought Randolph here in this condition. He felt profound pity for the tragic figure that stood dripping on his rug; but a less noble emotion prompted his comment.

  “Why here?” he demanded.

  “I went to Andrea’s place first. Nobody was there. I searched the house.”

  “You searched-”

  “Briggs is checking the hotels. Private detectives. But I thought maybe-”

  Michael took a deep breath.

  “Give me your coat,” he said. “You’re soaking wet. I’ll get you a drink.”

  “Thanks. I don’t want a drink.”

  “Well, I do.”

  Ordinarily the relief of movement would have given him time to collect his thoughts, but fumbling around in the dark kitchen was only another irritant. When he came back into the living room, carrying two glasses, Randolph was standing in the same position, staring fixedly at the bedroom door. Michael thrust a glass into his hand.

  “Now,” he said, “you can tell me why you think your wife might have come here. And make it good.”

  For a second he thought Randolph was going to swing at him. Then the taut arm relaxed, and Randolph ’s pale face twitched into a smile.

  “All right,” he said. “I had that coming to me. Get this straight, Mike. There is not in my mind the slightest shred of doubt about you and your intentions toward Linda. This is a pattern.”

  “You mean-this has happened before?”

  Even from the little he knew, Michael should not have been surprised. He was. He was also, though he could not have said why, repelled.

  “Twice before. Both friends of mine. It isn’t you, you know.” Randolph glanced at Michael and added hastily, “Damn it, I seem to be saying all the wrong things. You, and the others, are symbols of something, God only knows what; if I knew, I’d be a lot closer understanding what is wrong with her. I’m grateful that you’re the kind of man you are. You wouldn’t take advantage of her sickness.”

  “Not in the sense you mean, no. I have several old-fashioned prejudices,” Michael said wryly. “Well, you can see for yourself that she isn’t here. What precisely do you want me to do?”

  The lamp chose that moment to give a longer, more ominous flicker. It was symptomatic of the state of Randolph ’s nerves that he jumped like a nervous rabbit.

  “The bulb’s about to go,” Michael said.

  “Not the bulb, that reading lamp flickered too. I hope we’re not in for another of those city-wide power failures.”

  Randolph ’s face was white. Michael thought he understood the reason for the man’s terror. The thought of Linda, lost and confused, wandering the blacked-out streets, disturbed him too.

  “If she should show up, I’ll call you at once. Where?”

  Randolph shook his head.

  “I’ll be on the move. And she’s wary and suspicious. If she overheard you speaking to me, she’d run. You couldn’t detain her unless you-”

  “Uh-huh.” He didn’t have to be specific; Michael could see the picture-the struggle, the screams, the neighbors, the cops…“Anice mess that would be,” he muttered. “Then what the hell do you want me to do?”

  “The ideal thing, of course, would be to get her to see a doctor.”

  The prompt reply dispelled any lingering doubts Michael may have had. Though why he should have had any, he didn’t know.

  “Ideal but difficult, if she’s as suspicious as you say.”

  “She’s suspicious of me,” Gordon said. “That’s why she rejects every doctor I suggest. From you she might accept it.”

  “Well, I could try,” Michael said dubiously. “Be sure to let me know, will you, when you find her.”

  “Of course.”

  He seemed to have nothing more to say; yet, despite his concern, he was in no hurry to leave. He stood, holding the glass he had not even sipped, his head cocked as if he were listening for something. My God, Michael thought incredulously; he does expect her. At any second. Does he walk through life that way, listening for her footsteps?

  “Well,” he said again, “I’ll do as you suggest-if she does show up, which I don’t believe she will. And if I do get a chance to telephone, you’ll be…?”

  “I’ve an apartment in town,” Randolph said vaguely. “Maybe you could leave a message.”

  He put his glass down on the desk; and then, with the suddenness of a thunderclap, without even the usual preliminary flicker of warning, every light in the apartment went out.

  The effect was frightening, disorienting. There was a faint glow from the window-so the blackout was not city-wide-but in the first moment of shock Michael didn’t see that, and neither, obviously, did Randolph. Michael heard his voice, but he recognized it only because it was not his own. The sound was something between a scream and a sob, and it raised the hairs on the back of Michael’s neck. Before he could move or speak, Randolph had blundered toward the door. Michael heard the sound of the door being flung open, and the rush of a body out onto the landing and down the stairs. He moved then, trying to shout a warning; the old, worn steps were treacherous enough in the light, he could visualize Gordon sprawled at the bottom with a broken neck. The anticipated slither and crash never came. The sounds of frantic movement diminished, and ended in the slam of the front door.

  Then, in the ringing silence that followed, Michael saw the glow of the street lights through the window. He let out his breath with an explosive sigh. Once Randolp
h got outside, he would realize that his worst fear was unfounded. The man’s nerves were in a shocking state. Not surprising; it was bad enough to worry about what might be happening to your wife, adrift in every sense in a blacked-out city; worse to worry about what she might be doing to others.

  The lights chose that moment to restore themselves, and Michael blinked and cursed them absentmindedly. He had just had another thought, no more reassuring than the others he had been thinking. Linda had tried once to commit murder. Gordon spoke of a pattern. She had run away before; and what, Michael wondered, had she done on those other occasions? Michael had no illusions about one thing. Gordon might be the most altruistic of men, but on one subject he was beyond ethics. He would protect his wife at any cost-even if the cost were another life.

  It was not a cheerful thought, especially if he accepted Gordon’s assumption that he himself was Linda’s next quarry. Michael shivered. There was a chill draft from the door, which Gordon had left open. He turned; and saw Linda staring at him from the doorway.

  Her face was alarmingly like the one he had pictured in his latest fantasy-white and drawn, with eyes dilated to blackness. The only thing missing was the knife he had placed in the imaginary woman’s hand.

  For a moment they stood frozen, staring at one another. Then Michael got a grip on himself.

  “You sure are wet,” he said conversationally. “You’d better come in and dry off before you catch pneumonia.”

  One small, soaked shoe slid slyly back a few inches, as if bracing itself for a sudden movement. Michael didn’t stir.

  “He was here,” she said. “Looking for me.”

  “Yes.”

  How long had she been standing out there in the hall? She must have come up after Gordon arrived, but before he left; that blind rush of his would have knocked her flat if she had been on the stairs, and there hadn’t been time for her to climb them afterward. So she had been outside the door when Gordon fled, concealed by his agitation and the coincidental darkness.