Midnight Voices

CHAPTER 8

Mistake, Caroline thought as she stepped through the door to Harry Cipriani’s the next day. But it was too late for second thoughts — Beverly Amondson and Rochelle Newman were already there, sitting side by side on a banquette where they could both face the room, and even as Caroline considered the possibility of slipping right back out the door again and scurrying up Fifth Avenue to disappear around the corner of 60th, she knew it was too late: Rochelle was already waving to her. As she approached the table, both women leaned forward and tipped their faces up to exchange the air kisses that would demonstrate their affection without marring their makeup, and as Caroline sat down, Beverly reached across the table to take one of Caroline’s hands in both her own.

“How are you?” Bev asked, her eyes fixing on Caroline’s, her face falling into an expression that Caroline assumed was intended to express genuine feelings. “Really?” If you’d called in the last three months, you’d know, Caroline thought. Why had she agreed to come? She glanced around the room. Most of the tables were occupied by businessmen of one sort or another, all of whom would be charging the enormously expensive lunch they were about to consume to their expense accounts, but three other tables were filled by groups of women who seemed to Caroline to look exactly like Bev and Rochelle, their perfectly understated — and perfectly tailored — clothing letting each other know that all was still secure in the world their husbands paid for. Be fair, Caroline chided herself. Bev and Rochelle had been her friends for years, and it was her own circumstances that had changed, not theirs. And besides, compared to Saturday, when she’d agreed to this lunch, things were suddenly looking a lot better.

“I’m actually starting to think I might survive,” she said as Andrea Costanza made her way across the room and seated herself on the chair the maître d’ was holding for her. “If I can stay ahead of the bill collectors for another couple of months, I just might make it. You won’t believe what’s been going on!” Dropping her voice and leaning forward slightly, Caroline began recounting everything that had happened since Saturday morning when she’d met Irene Delamond in the park right up until last night, when Tony Fleming had taken her and her kids out for dinner. Suddenly the air of sophistication Bev and Rochelle had been carefully displaying dropped away, and all four women could have been back in college whispering excitedly about a new boyfriend.

“Now let me get this straight,” Rochelle asked as Caroline finished. “This man lives in The Rockwell, and he likes Chinese food and your children?” Caroline nodded.

“Marry him,” Rochelle pronounced.

But Beverly Amondson was shaking her head. “Too good to be true. Besides, aren’t you getting a little old for the ‘Oh, my God, we both love Chinese food’ bit? Everybody likes Chinese food when they’re dating! And don’t men always pretend to like your children until they get in your pants?” “Beverly!”

Beverly rolled her eyes at Rochelle’s shocked tone. “Oh, come on, Rochelle. It’s perfectly true, and you know it.” “Well, even if it is, I still think Caroline should marry him.” “Marry him?” Caroline protested. “I hardly even know him! He might not even call me again.” “Well, if he does, hang up.”

Andrea Costanza’s words hung in the air, silencing the other three women, and it was finally Caroline herself who broke the silence. “Hang up?” she echoed. “What on earth are you talking about?” “That building,” Andrea said, visibly shuddering.

“The building?” Rochelle Newman echoed. “You mean The Rockwell? It’s fabulous!” But Andrea was shaking her head. “It’s creepy.” She turned to look at Caroline. “What was the apartment you were in like?” Caroline shrugged. “It needs some work, but it’s going to be gorgeous when I’m done with it. She wants me to redo everything.” “Why isn’t it gorgeous already?” Andrea asked archly. Now all three of her friends were staring at her. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that — well, there’s this girl — one of my cases. She lives there with her foster parents, and every time I have to go there, I get the creeps.” Caroline rolled her eyes. “Now you’re starting to sound like the kids.” When all three of her friends looked at her uncomprehendingly, she recounted the rumors the children in the neighborhood had been spreading among themselves. “Ryan even made me cross the street to keep from walking in front of it on Saturday.” “Well, I don’t blame him,” Andrea said. “I’m telling you, the whole place gives me the willies.” “The willies,” Beverly repeated. “That tells us a lot. So because you get ‘the willies’ in one apartment in a building, Caroline shouldn’t go out with someone who lives in another apartment?” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were jealous.” “Jealous?” Andrea echoed. “Why on earth would I be jealous?”

“Maybe because you’d rather Caroline didn’t get a second husband before you’ve gotten a first?” Beverly asked. “Especially one who lives in a building where someone’s been kind enough to take in one of your poor little children.” Andrea stiffened. “I’ve managed not to be jealous of you, Bev, while you’ve plowed through three husbands,” she replied. “In fact, if I felt anything while you were doing that, I think I’d identify it as pity, not jealousy.” “Pity? For me?”

“More likely for your husbands,” Rochelle Newman said quickly, trying to defuse the situation before either of her friends said something they couldn’t back away from. Andrea and Beverly both seemed to be weighing their options, and it was finally Andrea who spoke, making a visible effort to let go of her anger as she made the decision to let the moment pass.

“Who knows?” she said, offering Beverly a smile that was obviously intended to be conciliatory even if it wasn’t quite successful. “Maybe you’re right.” She turned to Caroline. “And Bev is certainly right that my not liking the building is no reason for you not to date someone who lives there. I’m sorry I even brought it up.” “What if she marries him?” Rochelle asked. “Will you go visit her?” “Yes,” Andrea replied. “Of course I will.”

But she’d hesitated a moment too long before she spoke the words, and something in them didn’t ring true.

PART II THE SECOND NIGHTMARE

Breathing.

It was barely audible, but he could hear it whispering in the darkness.

His own?

His brother’s?

He wasn’t sure.

He had no idea how long he’d been in the darkness. When he’d gone to sleep the last time — or at least what he thought was the last time — it hadn’t been completely dark. It had never been completely dark, at least not that he could remember. Always, there had been some kind of light. The night-light from when they were babies, first sleeping in the same crib, then in the twin beds that were as alike as they were.

Could he really remember sleeping in a crib?

Or was the memory just another one of the dreams that drifted out of the darkness?

The darkness… don’t give in to the darkness… remember the light…

Even after the night-light was gone, after his mother had said he was too old for a night-light, there had still been the lights outside the windows. Wherever they’d lived, there’d always been some kind of light.

He could remember a streetlight, a glowing yellow globe at the top of a cement column. It hadn’t been right outside the window, but a little way down the block, so its light drifted up the wall across from his bed, and across half the ceiling.

Another room, where the only light came from headlights of cars passing in the street outside, sending shadows racing across his wall in an endless chase. Those shadows had brought bad dreams with them, dreams in which he was the quarry being chased, but it never mattered how hard or how fast he ran, he could never get away. But back then, back when there was still the light, he always awoke from the dream, always escaped from the nightmare back into the light.

The last room, where the light flooded in all night, from the white, bright streetlight, from the cars and trucks that droned down the street all night long, from the skyscrapers that loomed blocks away, even from the moon when it was the right time of the month.

Those were the lights that had brought the nightmares he’d finally gotten lost in.

The nightmares where he couldn’t run fast enough, where he always got caught and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t escape from the torture that followed his capture, tortures that went on until he thought he was going to die.

Tortures where he could feel his life slipping away until he finally faded away into the blackness that closed around him. But even then the light would finally drive the dream away, except that after awhile he couldn’t really tell when he was dreaming, and when he was awake, because even when he was awake he could still feel his life slipping away.

Then had come the night when he hadn’t escaped the darkness at all.

By then the nightmares were coming so often that he was afraid to go to sleep, but it didn’t matter because no matter what he did, he always slipped into that horrible place from which there was no escape, surrounded by indistinct figures that poked and prodded at him, made every part of him hurt as if he was being stuck with a million needles, whispering among themselves, uttering words he could hardly hear, but that made him more fearful than if he’d heard a wolf howling outside his window.

Now he was trapped in the nightmare, and everything was backward, and it was the light he was afraid of, because now when the light came — any light at all — it brought the figures, and the voices, and the torture.

Was that what the breathing meant?

Were they nearby, and coming for him again?

He opened his mouth.

To call for help?

To beg for someone — anyone — to answer him?

But it made no difference, for no sound escaped his exhausted body.

The breathing came closer, and the sound of whispering voices swirled around him. His nerves began to tingle as he sensed the closeness of the tormentors, and he tried to make himself smaller, to shrink away from them.

A light — dazzlingly white — flashed on, and in the instant before the light blinded him as surely as the pitch blackness of a moment before, he saw the shapes.

The figures circled around him, edging closer.

Trembling hands ending in gnarled fingers reached toward him.

It’s a dream, he told himself. It’s only a dream, and I’ll wake up.

Wake up to the darkness?

He felt himself being lifted, raised from the hard bed on which he lay.

He was being carried now.

Carried to the torture room.

His mind cried out, but once again his exhausted body refused to obey the commands of his mind.

Now the figures were circled close around him, and the whispering voices grew louder and more excited.

For the first time, words emerged from the babble.

“Mine,” someone whispered. “I have a claim. It’s mine.”

The babble increased, and now the jagged nails were digging into his skin. He felt something press against his belly, something hard and sharp. Then he felt a slight popping sensation, and the pressure stopped, only to be replaced an instant later by something far worse.

A terrible pain, slashing upward from his belly, then downward. Almost as if—

He tried to push the thought away, but even as he tried to shut it out of his mind, the image came. It was as if he were hovering in the air, looking down at the carnage that was his own body:

His own body, slit open from his crotch to his throat.

Blood oozing from the gaping wound, trickling through his entrails.

His diaphragm, torn half away, twitching feebly as it tried to draw air into lungs that lay inert in the open cavity of his chest.

His heart, throbbing wildly, then slowing, its beating no longer rhythmic.

Stopping.

Stopping!

He was dying!

This time he was truly dying!

But it was only a dream! A nightmare from which he would awaken into—

The dark?

The terrible dark, where nothing, not even time itself, existed.

He could feel it now, feel the darkness gathering around him. The terrible image of his mutilated body was beginning to fade away, but from somewhere else — somewhere above him, a tiny point of light appeared.

A point that expanded and grew brighter, but was still far away.

He started toward the light, turning away from the terror and the darkness and the phantom figures.

He was running now, running as fast as he could, flying toward the light, a feeling of weightlessness buoying him, lifting him, raising him into the white brilliance.

The dream, the long nightmare from which there had seemed to be no escape was finally ending, and at last he was free.

Free to drift into eternity.