The Animal Hour (38 page)

And from down there by her foot, there came a deep chuckle. Heh heh heh. A low voice said:

“Nancy.”

And a gargoyle rocketed up at her from underneath the ledge. Its white hand of chipped stone shot into sight and grabbed her ankle. Its wildly grinning face, cracked jaggedly down the center, gaped and gibbered at her. It shrieked with laughter.

Nancy screamed. She clutched her hair in terror. Tried to pull her leg free of the rock-hard clammy grip.

For another second, she seemed to hang there like that, reeling backward on the ledge. And then she lost her footing. Reached out for purchase—but too late. Toppled over, pitched backward.

Tumbled down into the night.

S
o he was not going to be spared this either. Everything, Zach thought, everything was going to be taken away.

He had the girl—this Avis—pressed against the wall beside the door. Her face flat against the plaster, her arms raised. He noticed the way her hands trembled. The way the shiny nail of her right middle finger just touched a long crack in the plaster. Her red knuckles. The open pores on the back of her hand. The downy white hair just beneath her wrist …

Damn it!
he thought.

He shoved the stag-handled pistol into her back hard, making her whimper. He blinked—once, twice—to clear his head of all this garbage, all this
stuff.
He grabbed the doorknob. Pulled the door open. Peeked out into the corridor. Light bulbs on the wall etched every line of grain on the mahogany balusters …

“All right!” he whispered. “Go.”

“Please,” said the girl. She moved reluctantly, her hands over her head. She was crying now. Clear tearstains on her cheeks, no mascara. Water pooling at the bottom of her big glasses. “Please.”

“Go, would you! Make another noise and I'll kill you.”

He grabbed her by one slender arm and flung her out into the hall. He went after her quickly, closing the door behind him.

His teeth were gritted, his eyes burned angrily into her back as he marched her to the stairs. He was not going to be spared this, damn her. Damn her! He was going to have to kill her without the drug, without the vision. It was going to be all these details. All this
stuff
crammed into his eyes. Blood spattering. Whining for mercy. All the beauty of last night ruined. Just ruined. This finally was his punishment from God.

His eyes burned angrily into the back of her hair. Her hair curled above the collar of her sweater. There was a mole on her neck. Her neck looked thin and fragile.
She just had to clean up
, he thought,
she just had to cook for me, had to this, that … Jesus! The idiot.
Well, now she knew everything. Now he had no choice. He had to kill her.

The woman sobbed, her body buckling, as he shoved the Colt in her back to force her up the stairs. He grabbed her shoulder, marched her up quickly.

The baby oh God my baby
… she thought. She was crying hysterically now. She could hardly see through her fogged glasses. Her mind was swimming. How could he be like this? How could this be happening? She couldn't think of anything else …

have to think my baby think

Zach was gripping her shoulder hard. It hurt, his fingers digging through her sweater, into her flesh. The steel-hard gun was pressed against her spine. And she felt his hot eyes.

How can he how can he my baby …

He shoved her against the wall outside her apartment. The impact jolted her. She coughed, bent over, helpless with crying. How could anyone be like this, do this?

Think!

“Open it,” said Zach.

“No,” whimpered Avis. But she was already obeying him. Going into her pockets for the keys. And she thought of her baby stirring in the crib. And his first soft cranking noise as he awakened. What would he do? What would he do when he saw the baby? How could this be happening?

Zach snatched the keys from her hand as she brought them out of her pocket. He held the automatic on her—she stared into its bore. He unlocked the door. He glanced furtively up and down die empty hall.

Scream
, she thought.
Maybe if I just scream
…

But he grabbed her shoulder again. Threw her into her own apartment. She stumbled toward the center of the room. She heard the door shut behind her, trapping her inside. Her whole body shook with crying. Zachary snapped the light on.

Avis blinked. She ran her hand under her nose, wiping away the snot. She tried to force down her sobs.

Look!
she thought.
Look! Think!

She looked around through her tear-fogged lenses. She lifted her eyes to the bare walls. Those white walls with their spiraling water stains. With their plaster cracks like bolts of jagged lightning. The Spartan card table. The canvas chair …

Look! Look!

There was no sign of him! She hadn't thought of that. There was no sign of the baby anywhere. Every single thing the baby owned was in the nursery and the nursery door was closed. And she hadn't mentioned him either. Downstairs, when they'd been talking, she hadn't mentioned the baby once. Zach didn't even know there
was
a baby.

Think

If she could keep him out of the nursery, if she could distract him …

think think think!

Oh, if she could think! If she could just think!

Zachary grabbed the canvas chair with one hand. Swung it around into the center of the room. He was squinting. His head was swimming. The room. Every little detail of the room. All the bits and pieces of it … Jesus, they swarmed on him like maggots on a corpse. They crawled into his eyes, they ate at his brain. The walls, the whiteness of the walls. The rectangular window with the blue of evening there. Water stains like fingerprints. Parquet blocks set in puzzle patterns on the floor.

All empty. Why is it all so empty?

He felt dizzy. He couldn't think. “Sit, sit down …” he said quickly. He jabbed the gun at her urgently. His eyes kept darting from place to place.
So empty.
He forced himself to look at the girl.

She was backing away from him toward the chair. He really did have to force himself to look. Her face … God, it was in his eyes, it filled his vision. The yellow mucus above her lips. The creases at the corners of her eyes, behind her glasses. Lavender framed glasses. Big pores on her nose. Everything seemed enlarged before him. He could barely look at her.
All right, Jesus, please.

He would have sold his soul for one injection of the drug.

“Sit down, would you?” he said. He was really annoyed with her. He was annoyed that he was going to have to kill her and see her face and hear her cries. That she would twist and shake her head and call for her mother, just like the other one did at the end, when she finally realized it was really happening, that there was no escape and she started babbling please mommy mommy mommy … A grown woman. He could not stand to look at it, to hear it. Not without the vision, not without the drug. Damn her.
I'm sorry already!
his mind cried out to heaven. “Look,” he said aloud, “this isn't easy for anyone, okay? Just do what I tell you and it'll work out much better.” Avis nodded quickly, that giant, magnified face going up and down. The square glasses, pooling with tears. The mottled skin. She lowered herself into the chair. Her hands came slowly down. Her fingers fidgeted on her knees.

All right, thought Zach. All right. He had to think this through. It wouldn't all just fall into place like last time. Last time, after it was over, he had sort of blacked out. Gone into some sort of visionary mode of self-preservation. Drawing the blood with the syringe. Cleaning the knife. Making the phone call:
Eight o'clock. You have to be there.
It would not be so easy this time. This time, he had to plot out the details. Like where the hell was Ollie? It was practically seven o'clock. Like what if he didn't fucking come home in time …

You can't worry about that now, damn it. Just think! Think it through!

He was getting frantic. He couldn't keep still. He moved deeper into the room, his heart pounding. He kept the gun trained on the woman as he went around behind her. Her head swiveled to watch him. That face—following him. A pimple on one cheek. The ridges in her orange lipstick.

“Don't hurt me please,” she said. “Okay?”

“Just. Face. Front,” he growled at her. He was trying hard to keep from losing control. “All right? Just face front. I can't … I don't …”

Flinching, she turned around. Sniveling. Lifting her shoulders. Crying. He ought to just shoot her. Blow that face into a blank mask of blood. But he had to plan this out, he had to pin this on Oliver too.

Think!

And what if he couldn't, what if Oliver didn't come back in time? How could he work it all out now, for Christ's sake, with all this shit in his head? All this face of hers and everything … He felt like he was going crazy.

“Would you face front
pleaser
he squealed as Avis stole another glance at him. “Please! Jesus, I'm asking you. I mean, this is hard for me too, you know.”

“Just please …” she said. But she forced herself to turn away from him. “Don't hurt me.”

Think!
he thought.

He was in the kitchenette now. The gun trained on the girl's back. He had to keep swiveling his head, taking peeks at the kitchen. The white cabinets. Silver sink. Knives—there they were. Hanging from hooks under one of the cabinets. He grabbed hold of a black-handled cook's knife. Wrestled it from its hook. Moved back into the living room quickly. Turned the blade in the light. Good. He would cut her throat with that. Quiet. Then the neighbors wouldn't know when it happened.

He wondered what that much blood would look like now. Without the vision. Without the drug.

She wondered what a woman would do in a movie. A heroine in a movie—trapped in a chair with a gun in her back—how would she get out of this?

Think. If I could just …

She strained backward in her chair, both her fists in her teeth. Biting her knuckles. The tears were drying on her cheeks. Her glasses clearing. She was shuddering with every breath. She kept glancing, wide-eyed, across the room, at the door to the nursery.

He'll check in there. To make sure we're alone. He'll check. He'll find the baby. Think …

Like the girls in the movies.

It's a good part for Debra Winger.

No, no, no
, she thought.
Think, think, think!

But these images crowded her mind. Of sharp-eyed brunettes with their hands tied. Of open-mouthed blondes running down hallways. She read these books all day. These screenplays, treatments for would-be films. All these resourceful women, these smart heroines, thinking, always thinking …

And here she was … and what fear had done to her, what it did to you really! She just felt sapped of will. All dazed, trembly and passive as a piece of paper. Her mind was full of static and half images. Why didn't somebody come? Somebody had to come. Ollie would come. God would bring Ollie. She imagined God: a sort of St. Bernard made of wind, whooshing off to get Ollie. He would come through the door now! Now! He would save her. This couldn't happen.

Avis! Think!

She kept staring at the nursery door. Biting her knuckles. Turning to catch quick glances of Zach. Where was he? At the window now. Perched on the windowsill. Peering out the window. Then back at her.

“Face front. Goddamn it,” he whined at her. “You're making everything harder on me.”

She faced front, trembling. Looked at the nursery door. Thought of the baby in there. Turning his head on the mattress maybe. Sleeping under the elephant mobile. Working his lips as if sucking her breast. Starting to wake up. That first soft crank. She had hung over the crib rail sometimes, watching him. Watching him wake up slowly to find her there. To smile up at her his big hello baby grin.

Oh God. Oh God please. Let him sleep. Let him stay asleep.
Ollie would come before he woke up. Ollie would have to come. God would not let Ollie not come to save them, to save the baby. If the baby could just stay asleep till then. If she could just stay alive …

Avis glanced around quickly. Zach was still at the window. Peering out. His lips working, as if he were talking to himself. He glanced at her angrily and she faced front at once. Trembling. Looking at the nursery door. She wanted to talk. She wanted to plead with him to let her be. To …

Stall him!

That's what they'd do in the movies, she thought. Stall him. Distract him till the hero showed up …

Her lips parted. But no words came. Her mind was blank. Heavy. As if it were too much of an effort for her to make words. She felt she had no will to speak, to think. There was only fear. She was only a piece of thin paper. Just trembling, just sitting there …

Zach glanced out the window, looking for Ollie. The little lane was crowded now. Demons under street lamps, their tails curling behind them. Phantoms in black capes going arm in arm, reflected in the plate-glass window of the café. A man in leather hot pants walked with a man in a blonde wig. They all moved together, a single flow toward Sixth Avenue. Toward the Halloween parade.