The Animal Hour (9 page)

“You won't forget now.”

He grinned and pressed down on her.

She cried out. She tore herself out of his grip. Stumbled backward, away from him.

“Leave me alone!” Her voice was ragged with tears.

The gray-haired beggar grinned. He shuffled toward her. The other beggars hunched on the benches grinned behind him. They murmured at her. They glared at her with white eyes.

“Eight o'clock,” said the beggar before her.

Nancy's hands were down now in front of her. Her purse hung open in front of her. She looked down and saw it.
Oh God!
she thought. She jammed her right hand into the open purse.

“Get away from me,” she said. Spit flew from her teeth. “Get away from me, I'm telling you.”

The beggar came toward her on stiff legs. He reached out for her. His eyes seemed completely white. His grin seemed slack. Drool ran from the sides of his mouth into the purple sores under his stubble.

“Don't forget. Don't forget,” he kept repeating.

Nancy felt the cold metal of the gun. She felt the rough grip. Her hand closed around it.

Don't do this!

“I'm warning you,” she heard herself scream.

“The Animal Hour,” the beggar said. “You have to remember. You have to remember.”

“All right!” Nancy cried out. “All right! That's it!” She yanked her hand out of the purse. She held the revolver up in front of her. The muzzle of it wavered wildly. “Get away from me,” she screamed. “Get away from me or I'll shoot!”

The beggar's grin grew wider still. His jaws, his jowls, hung slack. His white eyes looked at nothing. He took another step in her direction. His hand reached for her.

“He dies at eight o'clock. That's the time. That's the Animal Hour.”

“Get away!” Nancy screamed at him. She waved the revolver in his face. “Get away! Get away!”

And then she pulled the trigger.

Z
achary Perkins awoke peacefully that morning. He had had no dreams. He lay in bed with his eyes closed, his mind a blank at first. Then, as the moments passed, he began to imagine a woman.

A sparrow was singing morning songs in the maple tree at the window. There was a breeze three stories below in the garden of Lancer's café. He could hear leaves tumbling lightly over the flagstones down there. He imagined a woman with sable hair, a mane of sable hair.

She was a regal creature. He had imagined her before. She was nude, but armored in her nudity, arched in it, proud. She stood on a raised platform, glaring down at those below. Her flesh was as smooth as a page in a magazine, her skin was as gleaming. She had large breasts that stood erect. She had her hands on her hips. Her long legs were akimbo.

Zachary stirred. He felt his naked body against the sheets. The cool—the somehow wistful—breeze blew in through the window now. It played over his face and made him long for the woman, ache to have her there with him in the flesh. He moved his hand under the sheets, down to his erection. His erection was very hard. He stroked it, imagining the woman's imperious smile. He moved his hand faster. He threw off the bedsheet with his other hand. Breathing rapidly, he opened his eyes. He looked down at himself …

“Christ!” he whispered. “Christ!” His erection shriveled. He stared, saucer-eyed, at the blood.

There were streaks of it—dried blood—on his forearm and the back of his hand. There were brown cakes of it under his fingernails. He rolled his hand over, staring. There were more dried daubs of it on his palm. It looked like paint or chocolate, but he knew what it was. He knew what it was the minute he saw it.

He sat up. His heart thudded in his chest. He couldn't think. He couldn't think of anything. He surveyed his genitals desperately to make sure they weren't damaged. He looked on the floor by his bed and saw his clothes in a pile there. His T-shirt was on top of his jeans and it was soaked in blood, still damp with blood.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “What is this? Where am I?” He couldn't think. His stomach was grinding over like a cement mixer.

He gasped. Someone was at the door. There was a knock—three knocks—quickly—one-two-three.

“Mr. Perkins?” A man's voice, but high and mild. No expression in it. The knocks again: one-two-three. “Mr. Perkins? Are you there?”

Zach's lips moved, but he couldn't speak. He stared wildly around the room. White walls with gray gouges where the paint had chipped. Bookshelves made of bricks and boards, stacked with newspapers and magazines. A dirty braid rug. A broad passage into the other room. He was at home, an East Village railroad flat. His own apartment, his and Tiffany's.

“Mr. Perkins?” The voice at the door was still soft and expressionless. “Mr. Perkins, this is Detective Nathaniel Mulligan of the New York City Police Department. If you're there, would you open the door please?”

The mews.
It came back to him in a burst of light, like a camera flash. He remembered what had happened in the mews.

Oh Christ
, he thought. He put his fingers to his lips.
Oh Christ. They figure it's me. Oh God. They figure I did it. That would be the first thing they'd think.

“All right, Mr. Perkins.” A poster of Dali's
Crucifixion
hung on the front door. Mulligan's mild voice came right through it. “We're coming in now. We have a key from your landlord. If you're there, please don't do anything foolish. We don't want anyone to get hurt.”

All Zachary could do just then was stare at the poster. It was a picture of a modern man, half-naked, his head flung back, his arms pinioned against the sky. All Zach could do was watch fascinated as the detective's voice spoke from it.

“We're coming in.”

Then he heard a key scrape in the door lock. He heard men's voices murmuring. The lock began to turn over.

Terror coursed through Zach like blood, like liquid lightning. He jumped out of the bed.

He was a small man, much smaller than his brother Oliver. His strict diet kept him thin almost to the point of emaciation. Still, he was sinewy, muscular. His stomach rippled. His legs were strong. When he burst out of the bed, he went quickly, a blur of limbs and white skin. He tossed the sheet aside. Scooped his clothes up as he hit the floor. He pressed the pile of clothes to his chest, feeling the squish of his blood-soaked shirt against his flesh. He grabbed his sneakers in his other hand …

He heard the lock turn over. He froze and gaped at the door. A frightened squeal squeezed through his teeth. “Eeeeee …”

But it was only the first lock. The upper lock. There was still the latch below it. He had a few seconds left. Grimacing with fear, he started to lope across the room. He ran on tiptoe, barefoot, trying to make no noise. He heard the key click into that second lock, that last lock. He heard the men's voices again.

“… ready behind me,” one of them said. “Smooth and easy.”

Oh God. Oh God, please
, Zach thought as he ran. He felt the hard braid rug beneath his soles, then the gritty floor.
Oh Jesus please please please.

There was a closet against the far wall, the door only halfway closed. There was a poster on that door too. An ink drawing of swirling clouds and mythic mountains; unicorns in the mist, nymphs and centaurs.
Eternity
was the caption. Zach tore bareass for
Eternity.

Then the second lock turned. The front door opened. Zach slipped through the closet door, slipped inside.

He pulled the closet door toward him as best he could. He stood there, still as stone. He was in among Tiffany's clothes in the close, gray dark. Linen brushed against his nakedness. He could smell Tide detergent, and talcum powder, and the musk of Tiffany's skin. He was huffing, his teeth gritted. His hair was damp with sweat, his eyes were wet with tears.

Oh please, Jesus
, he prayed.
Oh please, please, please.

Just in front of his nose, the closet door was ajar. A line of light fell through it across his eyes. Zach wanted desperately to reach out and shut the door, but he didn't dare. The policemen were already entering. He could hear their voices become louder, their words more clear.

“Steady. It's a railroad flat.” This was Mulligan, his high, mild tone.

“Fire escape in the other room.”

“Closet over there. Bathroom.”

“Burke the closet, Brown the John. I'll move through,” said Mulligan.

Now Zach had moved. He could see them. Not Mulligan—he'd stepped too quickly into the other room—but the two others, Burke and Brown. Burke was a black man, broad and muscular in a plaid jacket, a sky blue shirt. Brown was white; round, mustachioed; he wore a green leisure suit. Each man was holding a small revolver in his right hand. Each had it pointed upright. Each held his hand steady, his left hand wrapped around his right wrist.

They'll kill me
, Zach thought, clutching the blood-soaked clothes to his chest.
They figure I did it, and they'll shoot me. Oh Jesus, please. What could I do? I just wanted something good. I just wanted something good of my own for me and Tiff. Just give me a chance to convince them, Jesus. Please. To get out and convince them. I'll do anything, I swear, I'll tell everyone what I think about you, I'll explain your words to everyone, just please …

He watched as the two detectives moved to their places. They moved stealthily but swiftly, taking long quiet strides. Brown went to the bathroom across the room. He entered and was out of sight. Burke was at the closet door in a second.

Please please please please please
, thought Zachary. He clutched his fists around his clothes, around his sneakers. His whole body shook. He could barely keep his quick breath silent. He hated himself for this, for praying like this. It wasn't like him at all. It wasn't the sort of prayer he believed in. But he was so afraid. Jesus, he was so fucking scared. He clamped his mouth shut to keep his teeth from chattering.

Burke threw open the closet door.

The detective held his gun high, right beside his cheek. He reached into the closet with his left hand. He moved Tiffany's dresses to one side and then the other. He pushed them back and looked down under them. Then he stepped away again.

By that time, Brown had returned to the bathroom doorway. Burke looked at him and shook his head once. The white man answered softly, “Not here.”

Zachary continued to cower. He was in the secret compartment now. He had managed to slip in there as Mulligan gave his orders. It was a small chamber at one end of the closet. He had built it himself: He was an excellent craftsman, a fine carpenter. The door was pivot hung and molded at the edges. It looked just like the closet wall when it was closed. Then, when you put your shoulder to it, it swung around at the middle like a secret door in an Abbott and Costello movie. You could slip right into the compartment and the door would shut silently behind you.

Inside, the compartment was dark and cramped, just big enough to stand up in. With the bundle of clothes in his arms, he had to stand very straight, his back against the wall. But he could jut his head forward and put his eye to the peephole—that's how he watched the detectives moving.

He had fitted the peephole with a wide-angled lens. He could see the bed through it and much of the room on either side. Out in the room, the peephole was hidden in yet another poster. A sketch of Adam and Eve on this one, and a little verse about how Eve was drawn from Adam's rib in order to stand beside him, not below him or above. The peephole was hidden neatly in Eve's left nipple.

Now, as Zachary watched, Mulligan returned to the bedroom. He was a short guy, Zach saw. He did not look like a cop, not like a very tough cop anyway. He had a round baby face under receding curls of sandy hair. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and he blinked repeatedly behind the lenses. His pug features were impassive, like his high voice. He was wearing a khaki trench coat.

“Well, he was here,” he said mildly. He stood with the other two cops beside the bed. It was a cheap double bed with a metal frame. Its sheets were all tousled. Its gray blanket was pyramided on the floor. Mulligan bent down and laid his palm on the bottom sheet. “He was just here.”

Zach's eyes fogged with tears. He licked his lips.
They're going to search the place. They're going to find the red bag under the bed. Then it's over.
He would never be able to explain things now. If they found the red bag, he would never be able to convince them that he was not their man.

“Are the windows open in the other room?” Burke asked.

Mulligan nodded absently. “But Southerland would've seen him if he used the fire escape. He was just here, and he left through the door before we came.”

Please Jesus please
, Zach thought. He leaned closer to the peephole, almost lifting onto his toes. He really did feel like crying: It was half terror and half frustration. How could he have let this happen? How could he have done this to himself? He had had a perfect plan. A perfect way to present the evidence to the police so they would believe it, so it would convince them. How could he let it all go wrong like this? For God's sake—how could he have
overslept?