The Animal Hour (26 page)

“Shit,” he said aloud. He was a poet, not a cop. It was impossible to work this out.

“Maybe we could call her,” Zach said.

“No,” said Oliver at once. If they gave her warning, she might run off. “The bookstore's right around the corner. Maybe I could go over there.”

“I sure would like to talk to her,” said Zach. His head swung back and forth slowly. He studied the empty air. “I mean, I'm really worried about her, Ollie.”

Oliver drew a long breath. He nodded, let it out. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “So the fuck am I.”

B
everly Tilden was on her way to the NYU Medical Center to visit her father, who had recently had his gallbladder removed. Mrs. Tilden had asked the taxi driver to leave her off on Second Avenue because there was a good Korean grocery there, on the corner of Thirtieth, across from the shopping center. Mrs. Tilden had popped in to the grocery and bought her dad some pink carnations and some strawberry Crumblies. He would sneer at the flowers, she knew, because he was an old-school tough guy. But he'd like them secretly. And though he probably couldn't stomach the cookies yet, he would be able to offer them to visitors. That would make him feel more like a host, more in control.

Mrs. Tilden, tall and trim, strode down Thirtieth then in her fashionable, ankle-length black coat. The flowers, wrapped in foil, were in one gloved hand. The cookies were in a white plastic bag over her forearm. Her purse was strapped over her shoulder. She glanced at her watch as she walked and made a face. It was three-thirty already. She had to make this visit and get home by five at the latest. The Halloween party was at six, and every girl in Melissa's class had accepted her invitation. That meant eleven six-year-olds in a two-bedroom apartment. Bobbing for apples, OD'ing on sugar. Giggling, shrieking … Even with the caterer and the hired magician, there was going to be plenty of hysteria left over for her.

She walked a little faster. She was about halfway between Second and First. A police car came speeding up behind her, sped past her, its siren howling. Mrs. Tilden wrinkled her nose a little at the noise. After the police car turned onto First, there was no other traffic on the street. There were no other pedestrians either. Mrs. Tilden was alone on Thirtieth. But she did not notice that.

Not until the dark figure stepped out into her path.

Mrs. Tilden was on the south sidewalk, passing a row of brownstones. Thin sycamores with yellowing leaves spread sun-flecked shade. A breeze from the river made the elms sway. The light and shadow played and danced. Mrs. Tilden slowed. Her eyes flashed over the strange figure before her, dark and dappled beneath the trees. Mrs. Tilden didn't like what she saw. Not a bit.

It was a woman. She had appeared suddenly. Slipping out from behind a brownstone stoop as if she had been hiding there. She was a bedraggled creature. Brown hair in tangles to her shoulder. Mascara on her wide, pale cheeks. Lipstick smudging her chin. Her cream-colored blouse was splashed with grime, torn at the shoulder, revealing a bra strap. Her dark skirt was streaked with dust. Her feet, in flats, showed filthy, nearly black. But it wasn't this that scared Mrs. Tilden. Homeless people were all over the city; they rarely hurt anyone. No, there was something else about this woman. Her slumped, sullen, determined look. Her eyes—they were foggy—were veiled like the eyes of a snake Mrs. Tilden had once seen on a PBS nature special. Well, whatever it was, it set the alarms off, all right.

On the other hand, the alarms were always going off in this city, and Mrs. Tilden was in a hurry. She kept walking right toward the strange woman. After all, it was broad daylight. The busy corner of First Avenue was just a few steps off. There was even another police car passing by down there, its siren wild. And there had to be other people …

Mrs. Tilden glanced around nervously. No. There were no other people. The block was empty. She was alone.

And at that moment, the woman stepped toward her. Mrs. Tilden, suddenly terrified, swerved to get past. Swerved the wrong way, toward the buildings.
Oh, damn it!
she thought. The woman cut her off, backed her up under the stoop's balustrade.

Good God
, thought Beverly Tilden,
this is it, this is the real thing, it's really happening!

The woman stared up at her dully with those glazed eyes.

“I just escaped from Bellevue,” she said in a harsh whisper. “I have a knife. Give me bus fare.”

Mrs. Tilden was surprised to find she could still think clearly, almost calmly, though she was now icy with fear. She would just give the woman her money, that's all. Just cooperate, that was what everyone told you.

“All right,” she said. “Just a minute.”

She fumbled for her purse, trying to open it with the flowers still in her hand. As always when she felt threatened, a New York tabloid headline screamed in her mind. M
URRAY
H
ILL
M
OM
S
TABBED FOR
B
US
F
ARE
! She fought the thought off. It would be all right if she just cooperated. With a quick curse, she dropped the carnations to the sidewalk. Let the bag of cookies slide off her arm as well. She snapped her purse open.

“I'll give you whatever I have.”

“I just want bus fare,” the woman hissed. “Bus fare. I have a knife.” She held a brass letter opener up before Mrs. Tilden's eyes. Mrs. Tilden would not have thought that would be a very scary thing to see, but it was. She fumbled her wallet open. Picked through it frantically with her gloved fingers.

“I have a token,” she said. “Is a token all right?”

“Fine. Yes. Hurry!”

“I'm trying to get it out.”

“Hurry! They're all after me.”

Mrs. Tilden bit her lip as she hunted the token out of the wallet's cloth folds. They're all after me? she thought. The woman must be some sort of paranoid.

B
LUESTOCKING
H
OUSEWIFE
S
LASHED BY
M
ADWOMAN
!

But she was aware of the sirens now too. All those sirens, lots of them, baying like hounds, like a pack of hounds gathering down on First. Oh God, this really
was
the real thing. This was really serious.

S
ICK
D
AD
'S D
AUGHTER
E
VISCERATED IN
K
ILL
S
PREE
!

“Here it is!”

She held the token up, pinched in her fingers. The woman snatched it.

“Thank you.”

She kept standing there. Glaring up at her. Mrs. Tilden hardly dared to look her in the face, but she sensed her youth. Her young, hot misery and desperation.

“I really appreciate it,” the woman said.

“All right.”

“I'm really a very nice person.”

“I—I'm sure you are.”

“Maybe I better take a five too.”

“For God's sake, take everything.”

“I haven't eaten.”

“Here!” She snatched a fistful of bills out of her wallet. Held it out to her.

“Just a five,” said the snake woman. “I'm nice. I mean it.”

“Please,” said Mrs. Tilden. “Don't hurt me. I have children. Just take whatever you want.”

The woman pulled a bill out of Mrs. Tilden's clenched fist. She was still holding up the letter opener. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate it. Really. I'm nice.”

Mrs. Tilden nodded, trying not to steal glances at the blade, trying to look nowhere.

At long last, the woman lowered the opener. She began backing away. Staring at Mrs. Tilden, but backing away. Mrs. Tilden cringed by the balustrade. Didn't move a muscle. She was excruciatingly aware of how quickly the woman could change her mind. Change her direction and leap at her, hurt her. On First, the sirens kept gathering, siren upon howling siren, growing louder, more numerous. But not one car came this way. Not one other person appeared on the sun-dappled block.

Mrs. Tilden huddled into herself as the woman sidled off. And the woman still eyed her. Still studied her crazily with those creepy, baleful, Nature Special eyes. And then, she stopped.

Oh please
, Mrs. Tilden thought.
For God's sake, please.

The snake woman leaned toward her. Whispered to her in a voice like a sizzling fry pan. “I wish I were you, lady. Watching me go.” Mrs. Tilden stared. The snake woman's eyes filled with tears. She turned away, her shoulders hunched. “But I'm myself,” she muttered dismally, “whoever I am.”

And with that, she shuffled off toward Second.

A
vis was thinking about going outside when Perkins came through the window. She hadn't really been outside all day. She had been stuck in this stupid apartment all day, ever since she got back from Perkins's. She had been reading—a 750-page manuscript called
A World of Women.
Which “might be something for Julia Roberts,” according to the cover letter from Victory Pictures. The cover letter also said she had to finish the book and get her report in by tomorrow. Because Julia was waiting with baited breath to find out what Avis thought, har har har.

Anyway, the novel was garbage; she could hardly follow it closely enough to write the synopsis. And, of course, the baby had to be nursed and changed and played with and kept out of trouble. So by three-thirty, when Perkins came up the fire escape, Avis was only on page 400. The brilliant blue of the autumn sky was starting to fade to violet. She could see this happening above the brownstone cornices and it filled her with a growing sense of claustrophobic despair. She would never get out, she thought. The novel's prose had turned her mind to tar—it would take forever to finish it. And the baby was sitting under the folding card table, making a funny noise by putting his hand in his mouth, so she had to stop and smile at him every two minutes to let him know what a wonderful thing he was doing. And the sky was growing darker by the minute and soon the crowds would gather for the parade and there would be no point to going out anyway and she'd be stuck here for the rest of the night and she hated her life and she glanced up from manuscript to baby to window for maybe the seventieth time—and there was Perkins. Arms spread, face pressed to the pane. Well, her little heart just went pittypat.

She waved him in. Perkins ducked down under the sill and jumped to the floor.

“Pa!” said the baby. And he stuck his arm into his mouth up to about the elbow and added, “Arrragherageraggah …”

“Whoa, nice going,” said Perkins, smiling at him. And then his smile vanished. “I need you, Ave.”

“Jesus.” She stood up. Her head was so heavy with
A World of Women
it felt like a cinderblock. She stared at the poet through her huge, square glasses. “You're all pale, Ollie. Have you eaten?”

“No, I don't need to eat.”

“I have cold chicken in the refrigerator.”

“Avis! My baby brother is wanted for a murder he didn't commit.”

“What? Holy shit! Let me get the chicken.”

“Avis …”

But she hurried into the kitchenette: getting him fed would help her to think. She bent into the refrigerator while he, trying to follow her, was waylaid by the baby. The baby had crawled out to him from under the card table. Perkins gave a quick flinch of annoyance, but the kid loved him; he couldn't just walk away. When Avis brought her aluminum foil-wrapped plate to the counter, Perkins was there with the baby on his hip. The baby pulled at his hair, crying “Pa! Pa! Pa!” and farting happily.

“He's hiding in my apartment,” Perkins said. “The cops'll kill him if they hunt him down.”

“Oh my God,” Avis said. “Dark meat or white?”

“I gotta go out. I gotta see if I can find his girlfriend.”

“Give me the baby. Here, take this.”

She traded a drumstick for the baby. The baby complained as Perkins handed him over.