Black House (65 page)

“Ed’s Eats, where we found Irma,” Jack says. “I know.”

“All right,” Mouse whispers. “Good. Now look . . . over on the other side . . . the Schubert and Gale side . . . and to the west . . .”

Mouse draws a line going north from Highway 35. He puts little circles on either side of it. Jack takes these to be representations of trees. And, across the front of the line like a gate:
NO TRESPASSING.

“Yeah,” Doc breathes. “That’s where it was, all right. Black House.”

Mouse takes no notice. His dimming gaze is fixed solely on Jack. “Listen to me, cop. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Christ, you better be,” Mouse tells him.

As it always has, the work captures Henry, absorbs him, takes him away. Boredom and sorrow have never been able to stand against this old captivation with sound from the sighted world. Apparently fear can’t stand against it, either. The hardest moment isn’t listening to the tapes but mustering the courage to stick the first one in the big TEAC audio deck. In that moment of hesitation he’s sure he can smell his wife’s perfume even in the soundproofed and air-filtered environment of the studio. In that moment of hesitation he is positive he isn’t alone, that someone (or some
thing
) is standing just outside the studio door, looking in at him through the glass upper half. And that is, in fact, the absolute truth. Blessed with sight as we are, we can see what Henry cannot. We want to tell him what’s out there, to lock the studio door, for the love of God lock it
now,
but we can only watch.

Henry reaches for the
PLAY
button on the tape deck. Then his finger changes course and hits the intercom toggle instead.

“Hello? Is anyone out there?”

The figure standing in Henry’s living room, looking in at him the way someone might look into an aquarium at a single exotic fish, makes no sound. The last of the sun’s on the other side of the house and the living room is becoming quite dark, Henry being understandably forgetful when it comes to turning on the lights. Elmer Jesperson’s amusing bee slippers (not that they amuse us much under these circumstances) are just about the brightest things out there.

“Hello? Anyone?”

The figure looking in through the glass half of the studio door is grinning. In one hand it is holding the hedge clippers from Henry’s garage.

“Last chance,” Henry says, and when there’s still no response, he becomes the Wisconsin Rat, shrieking into the intercom, trying to startle whatever’s out there into revealing itself:
“Come on now, honey, come on now, you muthafukkah, talk to Ratty!”

The figure peering in at Henry recoils—as a snake might recoil when its prey makes a feint—but it utters no sound. From between the grinning teeth comes a leathery old tongue, wagging and poking in derision. This creature has been into the perfume that Mrs. Morton has never had the heart to remove from the vanity in the little powder room adjacent to the master bedroom, and now Henry’s visitor reeks of My Sin.

Henry decides it’s all just his imagination playing him up again—oy, such a mistake, Morris Rosen would have told him, had Morris been there—and hits
PLAY
with the tip of his finger.

He hears a throat-clearing sound, and then Arnold Hrabowski identifies himself. The Fisherman interrupts him before he can even finish:
Hello, asswipe.

Henry rewinds, listens again:
Hello, asswipe.
Rewinds and listens yet again:
Hello, asswipe.
Yes, he has heard this voice before. He’s sure of it. But where? The answer will come, answers of this sort always do—eventually—and getting there is half the fun. Henry listens, enrapt. His fingers dance back and forth over the tape deck’s buttons like the fingers of a concert pianist over the keys of a Steinway. The feeling of being watched slips from him, although the figure outside the studio door—the thing wearing the bee slippers and holding the hedge clippers—never moves. Its smile has faded somewhat. A sulky expression is growing on its aged face. There is confusion in that look, and perhaps the first faint trace of fear. The old monster doesn’t like it that the blind fish in the aquarium should have captured its voice. Of course it doesn’t matter; maybe it’s even part of the fun, but if it is, it’s Mr. Munshun’s fun, not
its
fun. And their fun should be the same . . . shouldn’t it?

You have an emergency. Not me. You.

“Not me,
you,
” Henry says. The mimicry is so good it’s weird. “A little bit of sauerkraut in your salad,
mein
friend,
ja?
”

Your worst nightmare
.
.
.
worst nightmare.

Abbalah.

I’m the Fisherman.

Henry listening, intent. He lets the tape run awhile, then listens to the same phrase four times over:
Kiss my scrote, you monkey
.
.
.
kiss my scrote, you monkey
.
.
.
you monkey
.
.
.
monkey
.
.
.

No, not
monkey.
The voice is actually saying
munggey. MUNG-ghee.

“I don’t know where you are now, but you grew up in Chicago,” Henry murmurs. “South Side. And . . .”

Warmth on his face. Suddenly he remembers warmth on his face. Why is that, friends and neighbors? Why is that, O great wise ones?

You’re no better’n a monkey on a stick.

Monkey on a stick.

Monkey—

“Monkey,” Henry says. He’s rubbing his temples with the tips of his fingers now. “Monkey on a stick. MUNG-ghee on a stigg. Who said that?”

He plays the 911:
Kiss my scrote, you monkey.

He plays his memory:
You’re no better’n a monkey on a stick.

Warmth on his face.

Heat? Light?

Both?

Henry pops out the 911 tape and sticks in the one Jack brought today.

Hello, Judy. Are you Judy today, or are you Sophie? The abbalah sends his best, and Gorg says “Caw-caw-caw!”
[Husky, phlegmy laughter.]
Ty says hello, too. Your little boy is very lonely
.
.
.

When Tyler Marshall’s weeping, terrified voice booms through the speakers, Henry winces and fast-forwards.

Derr vill be morrr mur-derts.

The accent much thicker now, a burlesque, a joke,
Katzenjammer Kids Meet the Wolfman,
but somehow even more revealing because of that.

Der liddul chull-drun
.
.
.
havv-uz-ted like wheed. Like wheed. Havv-uz-ted like
.
.
.

“Harvested like a monkey on a stick,” Henry says. “MUNG-ghee. HAVV-us-ted. Who are you, you son of a bitch?”

Back to the 911 tape.

There are whips in hell and chains in Sheol.
But it’s almost
vips in hell,
almost
chenz in Shayol.

Vips. Chenz. MUNG-ghee on a stick. A
stigg.

“You’re no better’n—” Henry begins, and then, all at once, another line comes to him.

“Lady Magowan’s Nightmare.” That one’s good.

A bad nightmare of what? Vips in hell? Chenz in Shayol? Mung-ghees on sticks?

“My God,” Henry says softly. “Oh . . . my . . . God. The dance.
He was at the dance.
”

Now it all begins to fall into place. How stupid they have been! How criminally stupid! The boy’s bike . . . it had been right there.
Right there,
for Christ’s sake! They were all blind men, make them all umps.

“But he was so
old,
” Henry whispers. “And senile! How were we supposed to guess such a man could be the Fisherman?”

Other questions follow this one. If the Fisherman is a resident at Maxton Elder Care, for instance, where in God’s name could he have stashed Ty Marshall? And how is the bastard getting around French Landing? Does he have a car somewhere?

“Doesn’t matter,” Henry murmurs. “Not now, anyway. Who is he and
where
is he? Those are the things that matter.”

The warmth on his face—his mind’s first effort to locate the Fisherman’s voice in time and place—had been the spotlight, of course, Symphonic Stan’s spotlight, the pink of ripening berries. And some woman, some nice old woman—

Mr. Stan, yoo-hoo, Mr. Stan?

—had asked him if he took requests. Only, before Stan could reply, a voice as flat and hard as two stones grinding together—

I was here first, old woman.

—had interrupted. Flat . . . and hard . . . and with that faint Germanic harshness that said South Side Chicago, probably second or even third generation. Not
vass
here first, not old
vumman,
but those telltale
v
’s had been lurking, hadn’t they? Ah yes.

“Mung-ghee,” Henry says, looking straight ahead. Looking straight at Charles Burnside, had he only known it. “Stigg.
Havv-
us-ted.
Hasta la vista
.
.
.
baby.”

Was that what it came down to, in the end? A dotty old maniac who sounded a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Who was the woman? If he can remember her name, he can call Jack . . . or Dale, if Jack’s still not answering his phone . . . and put an end to French Landing’s bad dream.

Lady Magowan’s Nightmare. That one’s good.

“Nightmare,” Henry says, then adjusting his voice: “
Nahht-
mare.” Once again the mimicry is good. Certainly too good for the old codger standing outside the studio door. He is now scowling bitterly and gnashing the hedge clippers in front of the glass. How can the blindman in there sound so much like him? It’s not right; it’s
completely
improper. The old monster longs to cut the vocal cords right out of Henry Leyden’s throat. Soon, he promises himself, he will do that.

And eat them.

Sitting in the swivel chair, drumming his fingers nervously on the gleaming oak in front of him, Henry recalls the brief encounter at the bandstand. Not long into the Strawberry Fest dance, this had been.

Tell me your name and what you’d like to hear.

I am Alice Weathers, and—. “Moonglow,” please. By Benny Goodman.

“Alice Weathers,” Henry says. “That was her name, and if she doesn’t know
your
name, my homicidal friend, then
I’m
a monkey on a stick.”

He starts to get up, and that is when someone—some
thing—
begins to knock, very softly, on the glass upper half of the door.

Bear Girl has drawn close, almost against her will, and now she, Jack, Doc, and the Beez are gathered around the sofa. Mouse has sunk halfway into it. He looks like a person dying badly in quicksand.

Well,
Jack thinks,
there’s no quicksand, but he’s dying badly, all right. Guess there’s no question about that.

“Listen up,” Mouse tells them. The black goo is forming at the corners of his eyes again. Worse, it’s trickling from the corners of his mouth. The stench of decay is stronger than ever as Mouse’s inner workings give up the struggle. Jack is frankly amazed that they’ve lasted as long as they have.

“You talk,” Beezer says. “We’ll listen.”

Mouse looks at Doc. “When I finish, give me the fireworks. The Cadillac dope. Understand?”

“You want to get out ahead of whatever it is you’ve got.”

Mouse nods.

“I’m down with that,” Doc agrees. “You’ll go out with a smile on your face.”

“Doubt that, bro, but I’ll give it a try.”

Mouse shifts his reddening gaze to Beezer. “When it’s done, wrap me up in one of the nylon tents that’re in the garage. Stick me in the tub. I’m betting that by midnight, you’ll be able to wash me down the drain like . . . like so much beer foam. I’d be careful, though. Don’t . . . touch what’s left.”

Bear Girl bursts into tears.

“Don’t cry, darlin’,” Mouse says. “I’m gonna get out ahead. Doc promised. Beez?”

“Right here, buddy.”

“You have a little service for me. Okay? Read a poem . . . the one by Auden . . . the one that always used to frost your balls . . .”

“ ‘Thou shalt not read the Bible for its prose,’ ” Beezer says. He’s crying. “You got it, Mousie.”

“Play some Dead . . . ‘Ripple,’ maybe . . . and make sure you’re full enough of Kingsland to christen me good and proper into the next life. Guess there won’t . . . be any grave for you to piss on, but . . . do the best you can.”

Jack laughs at that. He can’t help it. And this time it’s his turn to catch the full force of Mouse’s crimson eyes.

“Promise me you’ll wait until tomorrow to go out there, cop.”

“Mouse, I’m not sure I can do that.”

“You
gotta.
Go out there tonight, you won’t have to worry about the devil dog . . . the other things in the woods around that house . . . the other things . . .” The red eyes roll horribly. Black stuff trickles into Mouse’s beard like tar. Then he somehow forces himself to go on. “The other things in those woods will eat you like candy.”

“I think that’s a chance I’ll have to take,” Jack says, frowning. “There’s a little boy somewhere—”

“Safe,” Mouse whispers.

Jack raises his eyebrows, unsure if he’s heard Mouse right. And even if he has, can he trust what he’s heard? Mouse has some powerful, evil poison working in him. So far he’s been able to withstand it, to communicate in spite of it, but—

“Safe for a little while,” Mouse says. “Not from everything . . . there’s things that might still get him, I suppose . . . but for the time being he’s safe from Mr. Munching. Is that his name? Munching?”

“Munshun, I think. How do you know it?”

Mouse favors Jack with a smile of surpassing eeriness. It is the smile of a dying sibyl. Once more he manages to touch his forehead, and Jack notes with horror that the man’s fingers are now melting into one another and turning black from the nails down. “Got it up here, man. Got it
alll
up here. Told you that. And listen: it’s better the kid should get eaten by some giant bug or rock crab over there . . . where he is . . . than that you should die trying to rescue him. If you do that, the abbalah will wind up with the kid for sure. That’s what your . . . your friend says.”