The Dark Half Read online

  He opened the door, seized Miriam by the hair, and yanked her inside.

  A bare moment later he heard the snick of a deadbolt being released down the hall, followed by the click of an opening door. He didn't have to look Out to see the face which would now be peering out of another apartment, a little hairless rabbit face, nose almost twitching.

  "You didn't break it, Miriam, did you?" he asked in a loud voice. He changed to a higher register, not quite falsetto, cupped both hands about two inches from his mouth to create a sound baffle, and became the woman. "I don't think so. Can you help me pick it up?" Removed his hands. Reverted to his normal tone of voice. "Sure. Just a sec. "

  He closed the door and looked out through the peephole. It was a fish-eye lens, giving a distorted wide-angle view of the corridor, and in it he saw exactly what he had expected to see: a white face peering around the edge of a door on the other side of the hall, peering like a rabbit looking out of its hole.

  The face retreated.

  The door shut.

  It did not slam shut; it simply swung shut. Silly Miriam had dropped something. The man with her--maybe a boyfriend, maybe her ex--was helping her pick it up. Nothing to worry about. All does and baby rabbits, as you were.

  Miriam was moaning, starting to come to.

  The blonde man reached into his pocket, brought out the straight-razor, and shook it open. The blade gleamed in the dim glow of the only light he'd left on, a table lamp in the living room.

  Her eyes opened. She looked up at him, seeing his face upside down as he leaned over her. Her mouth was smeared red, as if she had been eating strawberries.

  He showed her the straight-razor. Her eyes, which had been dazed and cloudy, came alert and opened wide. Her wet red mouth opened.

  "Make a sound and I'll cut you, sis," he said, and her mouth closed.

  He wound a hand in her hair again and pulled her into the living room. Her skirt whispered on the polished wood floor. Her butt caught a throw-rug and it snow-plowed beneath her. She moaned in pain.

  "Don't do that," he said. "I told you. "

  They were in the living room. It was small but pleasant. Cozy. French Impressionist prints on the walls. A framed poster which advertised Cats: NOW AND FOREVER, it said. Dried flowers. A small sectional sofa, upholstered in some nubby wheat-colored fabric. A bookcase. In the bookcase he could see both of Beaumont's books on one shelf and all four of Stark's on another. Beaumont's were on a higher shelf. That was wrong, but he had to assume this bitch just didn't know any better.

  He let go of her hair. "Sit on the couch, sis. That end." He pointed at the end of the couch next to the little end-table where the phone and the message recorder sat.

  "Please," she whispered, making no move to get up. Her mouth and cheek were beginning to swell up now, and the word came out mushy: Preesh "Anything Everything. Money's in the wok." Moneesh inna wok.

  "Sit on the couch. That end." This time he pointed the razor at her face with one hand while he pointed at the couch with the other.

  She scrambled onto the couch and cringed as far into the cushions as they would allow, her dark eyes very wide. She swiped at her mouth with her hand and looked unbelievingly at the blood on her palm for a moment before looking back at him.

  "What do you want?" Wha ooo you wan? It was like listening to someone talk through a mouthful of food.

  "I want you to make a phone call, sissy. That's all." He picked up the telephone and used the hand holding the straight-razor long enough to thumb the ANNOUNCE button on the phone answering machine. Then he held the telephone handset out to her. It was one of the old-fashioned ones that sit in a cradle looking like a slightly melted dumbbell. Much heavier than the handset of a Princess phone. He knew it, and saw from the subtle tightening of her body when he gave it to her that she knew it, too. An edge of a smile showed on the blonde man's lips. It didn't show anyplace else; just on his lips. There was no summer in that smile.

  "You're thinking you could brain me with that thing, aren't you, sis?" he asked her. "Let me tell you something--that's not a happy thought. And you know what happens to people who lose their happy thoughts, don't you?" When she didn't answer, he said, "They fall out of the sky. It's true. I saw it in a cartoon once. So you hold that telephone receiver in your lap and concentrate on getting your happy thoughts back. "

  She stared at him, all eyes. Blood ran slowly down her chin. A drop fell off and landed on the bodice of her dress. Never get that out, sis, the blonde man thought. They say you can get it out if you rinse the spot fast in cold water, but it isn't so. They have machines. Spectroscopes. Gas chromatographs. Ultraviolet. Lady Macbeth was right.

  "If that bad thought comes back, I'll see it in your eyes, sis. They're such big, dark eyes. You wouldn't want one of those big dark eyes running down your cheek, would you?"

  She shook her head so fast and hard her hair flew in a storm around her face. And all the time she was shaking her head, those beautiful dark eyes never left his face, and the blonde man felt a stirring along his leg. Sir, do you have a folding ruler in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

  This time the smile touched his eyes as well as his mouth, and he thought she relaxed just the tiniest bit.

  "I want you to lean forward and dial Thad Beaumont's number. "

  She only gazed at him, her eyes bright and lustrous with shock.

  "Beaumont," he said patiently. "The writer. Do it, sis. Time fleets ever onward like the winged feet of Mercury. "

  "My book," she said. Her mouth was now too swollen to close comfortably and it was getting harder to understand her. Eye ook, it sounded like.

  "Eye ook?" he asked. "Is that anything like a skyhook? I don't know what you're talking about. Make sense, sissy. "

  Carefully, painfully, enunciating: "My book. Book. My address book. I don't remember his number. "

  The straight-razor slipped through the air toward her. It seemed to make a sound like a human whisper. That was probably just imagination, but both of them heard it, nevertheless. She shrank back even further into the wheat-colored cushions, swollen lips pulling into a grimace. He turned the razor so the blade caught the low, mellow light of the table lamp. He tipped it, let the light run along it like water, then looked at her as if they would both be crazy not to admire such a lovely thing.

  "Don't shit me, sis." Now there was a soft Southern slur to his words. "That's one thing you never want to do, not when you're dealing with a fella like me. Now dial his motherfucking number." She might not have Beaumont's number committed to memory, not all that much business to do there, but she would have Stark's . In the book biz, Stark was your basic movin unit, and it just so happened the phone number was the same for both men.

  Tears began to spill out of her eyes. "I don't remember," she moaned. I doan eemembah.

  The blonde man got ready to cut her--not because he was angry with her but because when you let a lady like this get away with one lie it always led to another--and then reconsidered. It was, he decided, perfectly possible that she had temporarily lost her grip on such mundane things as telephone numbers, even those of important clients like Beaumont/Stark. She was in shock. If he had asked her to dial the number of her own agency, she might well have come up just as blank.

  But since it was Thad Beaumont and not Rick Cowley they were talking about, he could help.

  "Okay," he said. "Okay, sis. You're upset. I understand. I don't know if you believe this or not, but I even sympathize. And you're in luck, because it just so happens I know the number myself. I know it as well as I know my own, you might say. And do you know what? I'm not even going to make you dial it, partly because I don't want to sit here until hell freezes over, waiting for you to get it right, but also because I do sympathize. I am going to lean over and dial it myself. Do you know what that means?"

  Miriam Cowley shook her head Her dark eyes appeared to have eaten up most of her face.

  "It means I'm going to trust you. But only so fa
r; only just so far and no further, old girl. Are you listening? Are you getting all this?"

  Miriam nodded frantically, her hair flying. God, he loved a woman with a lot of hair.

  "Good. That's good. While I dial the phone, sis, you want to keep your eyes right on this blade. It will help you keep your happy thoughts in good order. "

  He leaned forward and began to pick out the number on the old-fashioned rotary dial. Amplified clicking sounds came from the message recorder beside the phone as he did so. It sounded like a carny Wheel of Fortune slowing down. Miriam Cowley sat with the phone handset in her lap, looking alternately at the razor and the flat, crude planes of this horrible stranger's face.

  "Talk to him," the blonde man said. "If his wife answers, tell her it's Miriam in New York and you want to talk to her man. I know your mouth is swollen, but make whoever answers know it's you. Put out for me, sis. If you don't want your face to wind up looking like a Picasso portrait, you put out for me just fine." The last two words came out jest fahn.

  "What . . . What do I say?"

  The blonde man smiled. She was a piece of work, all right. Mighty tasty. All that hair. More stirrings from the area below his belt-buckle. It was getting lively down there.

  The phone was ringing. They could both hear it through the answering machine.

  "You'll think of the right thing, sis. "

  There was a click as the phone was picked up. The blonde man waited until he heard Beaumont's voice say hello, and then with the speed of a striking snake he leaned forward and drew the straight-razor down Miriam Cowley's left cheek, pulling open a flap of skin there. Blood poured out in a freshet. Miriam shrieked.

  "Hello!" Beaumont's voice barked. "Hello, who is this? Goddammit, is it you?"

  Yes, it's me, all right, you son of a bitch, the blonde man thought. It's me and you know it's me, don't you?

  "Tell him who you are and what's happenin here!" he barked at Miriam. "Do it! Don't make me tell you twice!"

  "Who's that?" Beaumont cried. "What's going on? Who is this?"

  Miriam shrieked again. Blood splattered on the wheat-colored sofa cushions. There wasn't just a single drop of blood on the bodice of her dress now; it was soaked.

  "Do what I say or I'll cut your fuckin head off with this thing!"

  "Thad there's a man here!" she screamed into the telephone. In her pain and terror, she was enunciating clearly again. "There's a bad man here! Thad THERE'S A BAD MAN H--"

  "SAY YOUR NAME!" he roared at her, and sliced the straight-razor through the air an inch in front of her eyes. She cringed back, wailing.

  "Who is this? Wh--"

  "MIRIAM!" she shrieked, "OH THAD DON'T LET HIM CUT ME AGAIN DON'T LET THE BAD MAN CUT ME AGAIN DON'T--"

  George Stark swept the straight-razor through the kinked telephone cord. The phone machine uttered one angry bark of static and fell silent.

  It was good. It could have been better; he'd wanted to do her, really wanted to have it off with her. It had been a long time since he'd wanted to have it off with a woman, but he had wanted this one, and he wasn't going to get her. There had been too much screaming. The rabbits would be poking their heads out of their holes again, scenting the air for the big predator that was padding around somewhere in the jungle just beyond the glow of their pitiful little electric campfires.

  She was still shrieking.

  It was dear she had lost all her happy thoughts.

  So Stark grabbed her by the hair again, bent her head back until she was staring at the ceiling, shrieking at the ceiling, and cut her throat.

  The room fell silent.

  "There, sis," he said tenderly. He folded the straight-razor back into its handle and put it into his pocket. Then he reached out his bloody left hand and dosed her eyes. The cuff of his shirt was immediately soaked in warm blood because her jugular was still pumping the claret, but the proper thing to do was the proper thing to do. When it was a woman, you dosed her eyes. It didn't matter how bad she had been, it didn't matter if she was a junkie whore who had sold her own kids to buy dope, you dosed her eyes.

  And she was only a small part of it. Rick Cowley was a different story.

  And the man who had written the magazine piece.

  And the bitch who had taken the pictures, especially that one of the tombstone. A bitch, yes, a right bitch, but he would dose her eyes, too.

  And when they were all taken care of, it would be time to talk to Thad himself. No intermediaries; mano a mano. Time to make Thad see reason. After he had done all of them, he fully expected Thad to be ready to see reason. If he wasn't, there were ways to make him see it.

  He was, after all, a man with a wife--a very beautiful wife, a veritable queen of air and darkness.

  And he had kids.

  He held his forefinger in the warm jet of Miriam's blood, and quickly began to print on the wall. He had to go back twice in order to get enough, but the message was up there in short order, printed above the woman's lolling head. She could have read it upside down if her eyes had been open.

  And, of course, if she had still been alive.

  He leaned forward and kissed Miriam's cheek. "Good-night, sissy," he said, and left the apartment.

  The man across the hall was looking out his door again.

  When he saw the tall, blood-smeared blonde man emerge from Miriam's apartment, he slammed the door and locked it.

  Wise, George Stark thought, striding down the hall toward the elevator. Very fucking wise.

  Meantime, he had to be moving along. He had no time to linger.

  There was other business to take care of tonight.

  Thirteen

  SHEER PANIC

  1

  For several moments--he never had any idea how long--Thad was in the grip of a panic so utter and complete he was literally unable to function in any way. It was really amazing that he was even able to breathe. Later he would think that the only time he had ever felt remotely like this was when he was ten and he and a couple of friends had decided to go swimming in mid-May. This was at least three weeks earlier than any of them had ever gone swimming before, but it seemed a fine idea all the same; the day was clear and very hot for May in New Jersey, temperatures in the high eighties. The three of them had walked down to Lake Davis, their satiric name for the little pond a mile from Thad's house in Bergenfield. He was the first out of his clothes and into his bathing suit, hence the first into the water. He simply cannonballed in from the bank, and he still thought he might have come dose to dying then--just how dose was not anything he really wanted to know. The air that day might have felt like mid-summer, but the water felt like that last day in early winter before ice skims itself over the surface. His nervous system had momentarily shortcircuited. His breath had stopped dead in his lungs, his heart had stopped in the very act of beating, and when he broke the surface it was as if he were a car with a dead battery and he needed a jumpstart, needed it quick, and didn't know how to do it. He remembered how bright, the sunlight had been, making ten thousand gold sparks on the blue-black surface of the water, he remembered Harry Black and Randy Wister standing on the bank, Harry pulling his faded gym-trunks up and over his generous butt, Randy standing there naked with his bathing suit in one hand and yelling How's the water, Thad ? as he came bursting up, and all he had been able to think was I'm dying, I'm right here in the sun with my two best friends and it's after school and I have no homework and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is going to be on the Early Show tonight and Mom said I could eat in front of the TV but I'll never see it because I'm going to be dead. What had been easy, uncomplicated breath only seconds before was a clogged athletic sock in his throat, something he could neither push out nor suck in. His heart lay in his chest like a small cold stone. Then it had broken, he sucked in a great, whooping breath, his body rashed out in a billion goose-pimples, and he had answered Randy with the unthinking malicious glee which is the sole province of little boys: Water's fine! Not too cold! Jump in! It occ
urred to him only years later that he could have killed one or both of them, just as he had almost killed himself.

  That was bow it was now; he was in exactly the same sort of whole-body lock. They had a name for something like this in the army--a cluster fuck. Yes. Good name. When it came to terminology, the army was great. He was sitting here in the middle of a great big cluster fuck. He sat on the chair, not in it but on it, leaning forward, the phone still in his hand, staring at the dead eye on the television. He was aware that Liz had come into the doorway, she was asking him first who it was and then what was wrong, and it was like that day at Lake Davis, just like it, his breath a dirty cotton sock in his throat, one that wouldn't go either way, all the lines of communication between brain and heart suddenly down, we are sorry for this unscheduled stop, service will be resumed as soon as possible, or maybe service will never be resumed, but either way, please enjoy your stay in beautiful downtown Endsville, the place where all rail service terminates.

  Then it just broke, as it had broken that other time, and he took a gasping breath. His heart took two rapid random galloping beats in his chest and then resumed its regular rhythm . . . although its pace was still fast, much too fast.

  That scream. Jesus Christ Our Lord, that scream.

  Liz was running across the room now, and he was aware that she'd snatched the telephone receiver out of his hand only when he saw her shouting Hello? and Who is this? into it again and again. Then she heard the hum of the broken connection and put it back down.

  "Miriam," he managed to say at last as Liz turned to him. "It was Miriam and she was screaming. "

  Except in books, I've never killed anyone.

  The sparrows are flying.

  Down here we call that fool's stuffing.

  Down here we call it Endsville.

  Gonna hook back north, hoss. You gotta lie me an alibi, because I'm gonna hook back north. Gonna cut me some beef.