Rook & Tooth and Claw (6 page)

The white-faced man was gliding toward Wallechinsky, smiling and gliding. When he was only two feet away, he stopped. He grasped his right wrist with his left hand, and twisted; and to Jim’s horror, his right hand rotated, around and around, until it came off altogether. A false hand, carved out of ebony and smothered with ash. But the white-faced man was left with more than a stump. Out of his right wrist protruded a long, wide-bladed knife, which looked as if it had been grafted into his bones. It gleamed in the sunlight, wickedly sharp; and
the white-faced man mockingly waved it from side to side in front of Wallechinsky’s face, because he knew that Wallechinsky couldn’t see it.

Jim said, “George, I want you to step back from the door.”

“Trying to get the damn thing open,” Wallechinsky protested. “There’s no reason why it shoulda jammed.”

“George! Get away from the door! Now! Quick! As fast as you can!”

“Why? Do you think there’s some kinda—”

Jim lunged forward and shoulder-tackled the white-faced man as hard as he could. He went right through him, as if he didn’t exist, and collided with the door, splitting the wood and hurting his shoulder so badly that he spun around, saying, “Shit, shit, shit,” over and over. He had felt the briefest of draughts when he passed through the white-faced man, like a fridge door opened and shut, but that was all.

The white-faced man silently laughed, and circled his arm around and around, so that his knife actually whistled.

“Don’t touch him,” Jim warned him. “You’ve done enough goddamned damage already.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Wallechinsky complained. “Begging your pardon, sir, it’s
you
that broke the goddamned door.”

“Just stay back,” Jim warned the white-faced man, edging away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Wallechinsky. “Stay back from what?”

But the white-faced man had made his way behind him, and was grinning at Jim over his shoulder, and there was something in those milk-white eyes that told Jim what he was going to do.

“Listen,” he said. “You want me to be your friend? I’ll be your friend. I’ll do anything you want.”

Wallechinsky looked deeply uneasy. “Listen, Mr Rook, I’m a married man. Three kids. A wife who’s put up with me for twenty-eight years.”

“I don’t care what it is, I’ll do it,” said Jim.

“Mr Rook, sir—”

At that instant, with a sharp racketing noise, the door was kicked open from the outside, and two police officers came bursting into the geography room. Instantly, the white-faced man whipped up his knife and drew a line of blood down Wallechinsky’s right cheek, a razor-thin cut that Wallechinsky could have scarcely felt, because he didn’t even flinch. The white-faced man turned to Jim and said, “You’ve made me a promise, Mr Rook. I expect you to keep it. Otherwise, I’ll be back for this fellow, and
then
you’ll see what a knife can do.”

He turned around and flowed out of the room as if he were no more substantial than a cloud of smoke from a summer bonfire. Jim was about to call out after him, but now he had two sceptical-looking cops in the room, as well as Wallechinsky and Dr Ehrlichman, and he decided it would be wiser for him to keep his mouth shut.

“You hurt there, buddy?” asked one of the cops, pointing to Wallechinsky’s cheek. A thin scarlet stream of blood was running into his uniform collar.

“What? Hurt?” said Wallechinsky, in bewilderment; and then he dabbed at his cheek with his fingers. “Hey. What the hell happened? I’m bleeding.”

Dr Ehrlichman took a clean squared handkerchief out of his breast pocket. “Here, use this. You’d better have it seen to.”

“How the hell did I cut myself like that?” asked Wallechinsky. “Mr Rook, did you see what happened?”

Jim shook his head. “I don’t have any idea,” he lied. “It just –
happened
– just like that.”

“So who are we supposed to be looking for?” asked one of the cops.

“I’m sorry,” Jim told him. “I must have made a mistake. I saw somebody suspicious in the building, and I thought he came in here.”

“Can you give us some idea of what he looked like?”

“Hard to say. Tall, dark, dressed all in black.”

The second cop turned to Wallechinsky. “You see anybody like that?”

“I didn’t see nobody. Only Mr Rook.”

“Have you
any
idea how you could have gotten that cut?”

“I told you. It just happened.”

“Mr Rook didn’t cut you? Maybe by accident?”

“Mr Rook wasn’t nowhere near me.”

“Okay,” said the cop. “Why don’t you get your face cleaned up, and maybe we’ll talk to you later.”

Wallechinsky left, clutching Dr Ehrlichman’s blood-sodden handkerchief against his cheek. As he did so, Lieutenant Harris arrived, wearing a lurid purple necktie and perspiring furiously.

“So what’s going on here?” he wanted to know.

Jim said, “I’m sorry … this is all a misunderstanding. I thought I saw the same man in black that I saw yesterday outside the boiler-house.”

“The same man in black that nobody else could see?”

Jim grimaced. He couldn’t tell Lieutenant Harris how shocked he was; and how much the white-faced man had unnerved him. If he could hover on the ceiling and change his colour like a chameleon and cut people who couldn’t even see him, God alone knew what he else he was capable of. Besides, even if Jim explained everything,
there was no chance whatsoever that Lieutenant Harris would believe him.

Lieutenant Harris said, “Have you thought of talking to somebody about this guy that you’ve been seeing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well—” clearing his throat, embarrassed, “—I mean like a counsellor; or maybe a psychiatrist.”

“You think this is some kind of hallucination?”

“I don’t know what to think, Mr Rook. You’re a college teacher and from what I’ve gathered from most of the other members of the faculty you’re a very well-respected college teacher. But you teach a difficult class, don’t you? Maybe you’ve been suffering from stress. When people are stressed, you know, they sometimes get their heads filled up with some pretty wacky ideas.”

“I’m not under stress, believe me. My class is fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Lieutenant Harris shrugged. “Okay, you’re fine. So you won’t mind my asking you if you indulge in recreational substances of any kind.”

“I smoke now and then.”

“Did you smoke yesterday?”

“Unh-hunh. I never do it at school. Evenings and weekends only; and then only once or twice a month.”

“So you didn’t smoke today, either?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You know I could easily check that out.”

“Listen, Lieutenant,” Jim told him, “I’m not under the influence of stress or drugs or anything else. Yesterday I saw what I told you I saw. Today … well, let’s just say that I was a little confused.”

Lieutenant Harris stared at him for a very long time without saying anything. A bead of sweat ran down his cheek and he wiped it with the back of his hand.

“Okay, then, Mr Rook. Maybe I’ll talk to you later.”

Jim’s class reconvened after the lunch recess for a session of reading and word-recognition. Unusually for him, Jim went to the classroom early so that he was waiting for them when they arrived. No dramatic entrance this afternoon.

After they had settled down, he stood up and paced to the back of the room. “Before we start reading,” he said, “I want to know if any of you believe in ghosts.”

John Ng’s hand shot up. “My grandfather is a ghost.”

There was a loud hooting of derision from the rest of the class, mingled with spooky whistles and moans of “
woooooooooo
!” but Jim remained serious. “You’ve actually seen your grandfather for yourself?”

“No, but my father said that he visited him when he was in a time of trouble, and stood at the end of the bed, and told him the proverb of the golden carp always trying to swim upstream. He was all dressed in orange and he wore an orange mask, so that only his eyes peeked out.”

“I believe in ghosts,” said Rita. “
And
I saw one, too.”

“Go on,” Jim encouraged her.

“Well, we used to use this beach-house on Santa Monica beach when we were kids and every time we went there we used to see a kid with a surfboard under his arm coming out the door. Always the same kid. Then he used to disappear in the crowd and we’d never see him again till next time. We asked the lifeguard about him and like described what he looked like and the lifeguard said it was a kid who got drowned about seven years before. He came out of the beach-house and went into the sea and like two days later they found his body under the pier.”

“That’s
scary
,” said Sherma.

“I think that’s great,” said Ricky. “I mean the kid
may be dead, right, but he gets to go surfing every day.”

“I d-d-don’t b-b-believe in g-g-g-g—” David Littwin began. Immediately a loud chorus of snoring started up, but Jim raised his hand and the class could tell by the look in his eye that he wasn’t going to tolerate any teasing, not today. “I think that when you d-die your spirit g-g-g-gets reborn in somebody else. Or s-s-something else.”

“Hey, Littwin, just so long as you don’t get yourself reborn as a sports commentator,” Mark put in.

Jim said, “Shut up, Mark. A whole lot of people believe in reincarnation – the Buddhists in particular. Now let’s take it a step further. Does anybody believe that some people can see ghosts when maybe other people can’t?”

Russell said, “Are you trying to tell us the guy you saw yesterday was a
ghost
?”

“I’m not sure what he was. But I think I saw him again today, and believe me, he doesn’t act like a human at all.”

“Mr Rook’s finally flipped,” said Ricky. “Guess you’ve been teaching us dummies for too long, sir.”

Jim smiled, but then he said, “Let me tell you what happened, and then judge for yourselves.”

He walked back to the front of the class, and went up to the blackboard, with the intention of drawing a picture of the black-suited man floating on the ceiling. As he picked up the chalk, however, he saw something moving in the small window in the classroom door.

He turned and stared, and he felt that terrible cold prickling sensation up his back, like centipedes walking down his spine. In the window he saw the face of the black-suited man – black now, as he had been the first time that Jim had seen him. His fingertip was held to
his lips, and his yellow eyes were as threatening as a poisonous snake.

Jim hesitated, and then flipped the chalk back into the tin. “Let’s forget it,” he said. “It’s not your problem. Let’s get down to some reading, shall we? Russell, how about you?
On The Road,
from the beginning of
chapter ten
.”

He didn’t look at the window again, although he was conscious that the man was still there, watching him.

After a few minutes, however, he disappeared. Jim immediately went to the door and opened it, and looked out, but the corridor was empty in both directions, except for a lanky boy leaning over the water-fountain.

Chapter Four

He let class out an hour earlier than usual, and left the college on his way to see Elvin’s parents. He was crossing the faculty parking-lot when Dr Ehrlichman called out to him.

“Jim! Are you leaving already?”

“I’m going to see Elvin’s parents. You know, to give them the class’s condolences.”

Dr Ehrlichman laid a hand on his shoulder. “Jim … I know you’ve been through a tragic experience, but I think it’s essential that you keep your grip on reality. It’s going to be very disturbing for your students if you don’t.”

Jim said, “I guess it depends on what you mean by reality, Dr Ehrlichman. There’s one reality for each of us, and sometimes those realities don’t exactly match. Sometimes it’s hard to know which one you ought to be keeping a grip on.”

“I’m sorry, Jim. I’m not here to get involved in a philosophical discussion. I just have to tell you that if we have any further incidents like today’s, I’m going to have to consider putting you on suspension and requiring you to undergo – well, a psychiatric evaluation.”

Jim had reached his car, a ’69 Rebel SST in its original screaming orange. “I see. We can’t have the staff being as nutty as the students, can we?”

“‘Nutty’ is not a word we use in association with West Grove College, Jim… even for Special Class II. I simply want to make sure that you’re mentally stable and that you’re able to carry out your professional duties without you seeing phantom prowlers everywhere you look and calling the police out willy-nilly. The students come first, Jim, every single time. The students, and West Grove’s good name.”

Jim replied, “I’m aware of that, sir. You won’t hear any more about men in black.” And he meant it. His new-found friend had made it chillingly clear that he didn’t want Jim talking about him to anybody.

Dr Ehrlichman seemed to be satisfied with that. He slapped Jim on the back and walked off with his bald head shining in the sunlight. Just then Susan Randall appeared, carrying an armful of books. She had her hair pinned back and she was wearing a white sleeveless blouse with pointed lapels.

“You’re not headed anywhere south of Santa Monica Boulevard, are you?” she asked him.

“Sure. Do you need a ride?”

“If it’s not too far out of your way. My car’s in the shop and I don’t relish the idea of carrying all these books on the bus.”

Jim opened the door for her and she climbed in. He had never noticed before that she wore a gold ankle chain. He said, “Watch your skirt… I mean you don’t want to get it caught in the door.”

They drove out through the college gates and headed southward on Westwood Boulevard.

“Great car,” said Susan. “I really love classics.”

“This car’s classic all right. It was crap when it was new and it’s still crap.”

“It’s a terrific colour, though, isn’t it?”

Jim shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood for talking about cars. Susan watched him for a moment, and then she said, “You must be feeling pretty bad about Elvin.”

“I’m feeling bad about both of them, Elvin and Tee Jay.”

“You really believe that Tee Jay wasn’t responsible?”

“I don’t know. He
could
have done it. He had the time and he had some kind of motive. But I really don’t believe that he did.”

“Because of this man you saw? The man in black?”

“I’m sorry, Susan. I can’t talk about it any more. I have to get a few things straight first.”

“Okay, whatever. It’s just that yesterday you seemed so sure.”

Jim didn’t answer. They had stopped at the traffic lights at Wilshire and all he could think of was the man in black glaring at him through the classroom window, his finger pressed to his lips.

As the signals turned to green, Susan said, “We’ve never really had the chance to get to know each other, have we?”

“I guess not. Always busy, busy, busy.”

“Ron Philips said you were something of an expert on antique maps.”

Jim turned and stared at her. “Ron Philips said that?”

“Sure. He said you had one of the finest collections of antique maps he’d ever seen.”

Shit,
thought Jim. Ron Philips, the faculty smartass. I’ll garotte him next time I see him. The only antique map I’m an expert on is the well-worn Chek-Chart of Central Los Angeles in the glovebox.

“I’m totally
fascinated
by antique maps,” Susan continued. “I bought a 16th-century map of the Huguenot
settlement in Carolina last year, but it’s only a reproduction. Authentic maps are so expensive, aren’t they? Ron said you have hundreds.”

“Well, not quite hundreds. In fact, to tell you the truth—”

“I’d love to see them,” she said, touching his arm. “Maybe I could come round sometime.”

It was the touch that did it. “That would be great,” he said, thinking: of all the luck in the world, the most attractive woman in the whole school has just invited herself around to my apartment, and it’s all because of some stupid dumbass joke.

“Maybe Saturday?” Susan urged him. “I could bring around some Chinese food.”

“Saturday? Like, this coming Saturday? The day after tomorrow? I don’t know. I’ll have to check my diary. And you’ll have to remember that I keep all the really valuable maps in a safe-deposit box.”

“Do you have anything extra-special?” she said, her eyes bright. “Go on, give me a for-instance.”

“I don’t know. There are just so many.”

“Tell me just one.”

“Well…” he said. “I have a chart of Martin Frobisher’s voyage to Greenland in 1577, when he was trying to find a way through to China.” Thinking: thank God I know some history.

“Oh, I
have
to see that,” said Susan. “That must have cost you a fortune.”

“Yes, well. It’s pretty rare. There are only three copies in existence, and one of those is supposed to be a fake. Trouble is, nobody can decide which one.” You’re getting in deep here, Jim. Don’t say any more.

He stopped outside Susan’s neat white house on Almato Avenue and helped her to carry her books to the door. The
sprinklers had just finished and the concrete path was still wet. “Time for a drink?” she asked him.

“No … I’m sorry. I promised Mr and Mrs Clay I’d be there by four.”

“All right, then,” she smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, she kissed him on the cheek. He stood staring at her as if he had forgotten his lines. This wasn’t a play, and he wasn’t an actor, but he simply didn’t know what to say next.

“Tomorrow, then?” Susan prompted him.

“Oh, sure, tomorrow.” He turned off-balance and brushed against a wet bush. “That’ll save me taking a shower.” Brushing the droplets off his shirt and pants, he walked back to his car. Before he climbed in, he raised his arm in a goodbye wave and Susan waved back. He felt extraordinary. It was just as if his lungs couldn’t remember how to breathe. He hadn’t felt this way for such a long time that he had to pull down the sun-visor and stare at himself in the vanity-mirror to make sure that it was really him.

He looked back toward Susan’s house but she had gone inside now and closed the door. “Maps,” he said. “Where do I get some goddamned maps?”

Inside Mr and Mrs Clay’s second-storey apartment the drapes were half-drawn and Grant and Elisabeth Clay were sitting in the shadows. Jim was let in by a solemn nine-year-old girl with cornrows and white satin ribbons and a very white dress. There were other relatives in the kitchen, drinking coffee and talking in low, respectful voices. A large photograph of Elvin hung above the couch, draped in a black cloth. Beside it hung a crucifix and a 3-D picture of The Last Supper.

Jim went over and gave Mrs Clay a long, sorrowful hug.
He felt her tears through the shoulder of his shirt. Then he turned to Mr Clay and held his hand in both of his.

“We’re going to miss Elvin so much,” he said. “All of his classmates send you their love; and they all want you to know that they’re thinking of you.”

“You found him, didn’t you?” said Grant. He was a short, stocky man with wire-grey hair. He was wearing a formal white shirt and a black bowtie. He spoke well, and he carried himself with supreme dignity. He could have been mistaken for a judge.

“Yes, I found him,” said Jim.

“He was alive, wasn’t he? That’s what the police lieutenant told me.”

“Only barely, Mr Clay. He died just as soon as I reached him.”

“And he didn’t say nothing? No last words?”

Jim shook his head. Elisabeth Clay took hold of his hand and looked up at him in tearful incomprehension. “Why did this have to happen, Mr Rook? What did Elvin do? He wasn’t smart, I know that, but he always worked hard. He was always good, and kind, and Christian.”

“I don’t know why it happened, Mrs Clay. Every time a young man dies, I guess that every grieving mother and father ask themselves the same question. And I guess that they always come up with the same answer. Wrong place, wrong time; wrong friends, wrong situation. Sometimes I think that God turns his back, and doesn’t see what’s happening, not until it’s too late.”

Grant said, “Elvin and Tee Jay were such good friends, that’s what I can’t understand. And I used to like Tee Jay. He was always polite, and called us ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’, and once he took Elvira to the beach. She’s our young one. Eleven now; and all we have left. Elisabeth can’t
have no more children. Not that any child could ever replace our Elvin.”

“Do you believe that Tee Jay did it, Mr Rook?” asked Elisabeth.

Jim said, “Let’s put it this way. I have my doubts. But I can’t say too much about it right now – not while the police are still looking into it.”

A wide, pretty woman in a black dress and a black pillbox hat came out of the kitchen and said, “Would you care for some coffee, and a piece of fruit pie?”

“Coffee would be great,” said Jim.

Grant went up to Elvin’s portrait and stared at it, as if he were willing it to speak. “Elvin didn’t see too much of Tee Jay these past three months. Elvin didn’t know too much about it, but it seemed like Tee Jay was having trouble at home. I can’t tell you much more than that, because it was one of those things that you don’t put a mind to, till something tragic happens, and then you look back.”

“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble Tee Jay was having?” asked Jim.

“The police asked me that, but I don’t have any idea at all. What kind of trouble does a seventeen-year-old boy usually have with his parents? He wants to party; he wants to stay out late; he doesn’t want to do what he’s told. He wants to experiment with alcohol and drugs. I don’t know. All I know is that Elvin stopped hanging out with Tee Jay so much as he used to.”

A young girl in a black-and-white gingham blouse was standing by the door, listening. She said, “Elvin told me that Tee Jay was getting too religious.”

Elisabeth held out her hand. “Come here, honey. Mr Rook – this is Elvira, Elvin’s sister. Elvira, this is Elvin’s teacher, Mr Rook.”

Jim said, “Good to know you, Elvira. I came here to tell your folks how sorry we are about Elvin.”

“Elvin talked about you a whole lot,” said Elvira. “He said you were crazy sometimes, but you always taught him more than anybody else.”

“What was that you were saying about Tee Jay getting too religious?” asked Jim.

“I didn’t understand that, either,” put in Grant. “How anybody be
too
religious? Elvin was religious. The whole family, we go to church regular, always have. Elvin sang in the choir before.”

“But it wasn’t that kind of religion,” said Elvira.

“What do you mean?” Jim asked her.

“I heard Elvin and Tee Jay arguing once. Tee Jay was trying to get Elvin to bite the head off a chicken. He said they should drink its blood, and say some prayers, and then they would never die.”

“You didn’t tell us this before,” said Elisabeth.

“I couldn’t. Elvin and Tee Jay caught me listening and they said I had to swear not to tell, otherwise the smoke would come and get me.”

“The smoke? What smoke?”

“I don’t know. But the way Tee Jay said it, I was frightened; so that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“Okay,” said Jim. “You did good to tell us. Now why don’t you cut me a piece of that pie?”

Elvira went back into the kitchen. Jim turned to Grant and said, “Does any of this mean anything to you? Killing chickens? Or smoke?” He paused, and then continued, “How about crows and mirrors and candles? Or breathing in dust?”

Grant glanced uneasily at his wife. “This isn’t the time to talk about things like that. Nor the place, neither. We’re devout people, Mr Rook. We don’t hold with blasphemy.”

“Then you know what I’m talking about?”

Elisabeth looked up at him and Jim couldn’t understand the expression on her face at all. But Grant said, “Yes. I know what you’re talking about. You’re talking about killing chickens, to please the spirits. You’re talking about crows, which are sometimes crows and sometimes men. You’re talking about mirrors … the kind of mirrors that don’t reflect your own face.”

“Hush,” Elisabeth interrupted him. “You shouldn’t be saying such things … not now, not in front of Elvin’s picture.”

“Maybe there’s somewhere else we can talk,” Jim suggested. Grant hesitated, but Jim said, “I think it’s important, Mr Clay. It may be too late for Elvin but it’s not too late for Tee Jay.”

“Come out on the balcony,” Grant suggested; and so they did, and slid the doors shut behind them. Grant leaned on the railings and looked down at the small concrete yard where children were playing in a sandpit and a group of teenagers were hanging around smoking and playing techno-rock on a huge ghetto-blaster. “Kids,” said Grant. There was no pity in his voice, but there was no judgement, either. “What do they have to look forward to, but this?”

“You were telling me about Tee Jay’s religion,” said Jim.

“I don’t know too much about it, but it’s like voodoo. My grandfather used to tell me stories about it to frighten me, when I was a boy. He told me all about the goofer dust which the priests blow into your face to make you seem like you’re dead, although you’re not. They can stick pins into you and you can feel them but you can’t cry out. Then they bury you, even though you’re still awake.”