Mickelsson's Ghosts (76 page)

Upstairs, in Donnie's apartment, Mickelsson dropped the money, all of it, onto the threadbare carpet. She was silent. Though he did not count—nothing could have been farther from his mind—it was clear that he'd given her more than the fifteen thousand she required. Neither of them said a word. She suddenly turned, her hand over her mouth, and fled to the bathroom. He heard her vomiting. He meant to leave, but, strange to say, he found himself sitting down, dazed, in the chair where she liked to read or listen to her records. He imagined himself on his knees, counting the money, but did not stir. His mind was crowded, swollen with the image of the dead man's calm face.

She appeared at the bathroom doorway.

Solemnly, Mickelsson rose, buttoned his overcoat, and leaning on his cane, moved toward the door. She watched.

“Prafessor,” she said.

He opened the door, stepped out, and softly closed the door behind him.

PART THREE

1

He knew, of course—everybody knew—about murderers returning to the scene of the crime, but it was necessary. Partly he felt—for all practical purposes believed—that whatever happened to him from this point on was fated, as all things material are. He seemed not his own man, only an agent—the submissive means by which evil powers he could not understand did their work. Insofar as it was this faintly psychotic sense of abandonment that ruled him, any risks he might take were impersonal. If he was of two minds, one that had fled elsewhere, leaving only the smell of its horror, the other clanking on, and if in that second mind he was sunk deep in the swirling mud of actuality, acting helplessly but with full intent and will, like a pilot fighting his plane through a tornado, the ethical result was all one. Volition was for angels. He must do whatever the instant required, without thought.

Back at home, after he'd left her, and after the shock had partly lifted (he'd lain in his bed unmoving, staring into space the whole night), he'd realized that he should have talked more with Donnie, calming her, making sure she understood her accessory involvement, feeling her out and guiding her. There were a thousand tricks she might pull, if she were frightened enough. She might take however much of the money she pleased, then go to the police with whatever was left and tell them what he'd done. Aside from Donnie, no one but the dead man could say how much there had originally been. “What would I say if she did that?” he asked himself, clenching his teeth with the effort of his concentration. Or she might run with the money and get her abortion in spite of her promise, making his act—terrible enough already—sickeningly casual, obscene. That would enrage him. He did not want ever again to do violence to anyone. A hundred times, that sleepless night, he saw with dizzying vividness how the man had clutched his chest with the side of his useless pistol, his twisted face a mute cry of anguish to the universe, a wail for mercy. The memory made him gag. Nevertheless he would be beside himself, he knew, if Donnie were now to make a joke of it. She ought to be made aware of that, so that she could enter the proper quotient of dread into her calculus.

He had no real idea, as he emerged from his lair to seek her out, what he meant to say to her. (In the rear-view mirror he was red-eyed, un-shaven.) He tried one imaginary conversation after another, each more fatuous and improbable than the last. It grew increasingly clear that, despite his despairing indifference, it was for his sake as well as hers that they must talk, so that, now that his head was clear, he could gauge her mood and figure out how much he could tolerate from her, exactly what forbearance he was capable of. If she intended to go to the police … what then?

It was not as if, like one of those low-born, ever-the-same TV murderers, he had something to protect—his possible future with Jessie, his job and reputation. He cared not a whit about any of that. He was now absolutely on his own, cut off utterly. The question was simply, how much would he put up with? Where no law was left but the animal sense of one's own life's worth—a sense now both poisoned and illuminated by guilt, by experience of the truly disgusting (he now understood) fear of raising one's head among the common, “decent,” ever-witlessly-judgmental herd—how much, if anything, would he think himself worth? He grew angrier and angrier, like one scandalously misused. He found himself increasingly indifferent and unafraid.

But when he reached her apartment at seven that morning, he found Donnie Matthews' door locked and Donnie gone, and though nothing in specific suggested that her absence today was any different from her ordinary absences—except, of course, for the time of day, and the fact that the plastic rose she'd taped to her door was gone—he felt convinced that she was gone for good, or anyway gone for a good long while. After knocking repeatedly, speaking softly to the door, listening for footsteps on the stairs behind him, he turned away, walked down one flight, then stopped again. The fat man's door, twelve feet down the hallway, was as solemnly closed as Donnie's, though he knew that at a touch it would spring open, both the catch and the chainlatch torn loose. How long would it be before the stench of the body—or some wandering draught, or some Jehovah's Witness visiting with a pamphlet, giving the door an accidental push—brought the police? Gloomy daydreams moved through his head: how he might come here at night and bundle the body, wrapped in a blanket, out through the window onto the tar-and-pebble roof, drag it across the roof and drop it with a thud into the alley below, load it into the back of the Chevy or Jeep, if he was able to get the Jeep running, and haul it away someplace, dump it where no one would find it. But even as, out of the corner of his mind's eye, Mickelsson attended to these macabre dreams, he was moving on down the stairs, his left hand sliding gently, ready to grip hard, on the worn railing. Perhaps he should have taken the fat man's gun. In the entryway he paused, the mailboxes a little behind him, and cautiously peeked out. The town's one patrol car was edging by—today it was Cobb driving, not Tinklepaugh—heading toward the outskirts of town. He waited until the patrol car was well out of sight, then ducked his head and stepped out, like a man full of business, onto the sidewalk. The sky was gray and low, building up toward a renewal of the blizzard. A puff of snow moved up the street, slow and formal as a skater. With two hands he pulled his hat down harder, his ears still unprotected, waiting for the first freezing gust.

Behind him, a voice cried out, “Hey! Professor!” He started so violently he almost fell, but he managed to catch himself, then turned to look back past his shoulder. It was the real-estate man, Charley Snyder, bundled up against the cold, elegant even so, hurrying down the sidewalk to catch him. “I'm glad I ran into you. Saves me a trip up to your house!”

Mickelsson struggled to get his face in control. To give himself more time he fussed with his scarf, tucking his head in as if to watch the work of his fumbling hands.

“Any developments on that break-in up there?” Snyder asked.

His heart slammed; then he realized what Snyder meant. “Nothing yet,” he said, and shook his head, ruefully, then horribly winced.

Snyder took his arm, drawing him back toward Reddon's door. “Listen, you mind giving me a minute of your time? Let's go inside, where it's warm.”

Mickelsson jerked his head in a kind of nod, glancing left and right, and made his face rigid, hiding panic and what might appear even worse—impatience, extreme irritation. He moved inside the drugstore with Snyder. The electric door whooshed shut and warm air fell over them.

“You aware of the Lonergan Hill business?” Snyder asked.

Mickelsson looked hard at the bridge of Snyder's nose, trying to pay attention. “I guess not.” He grinned, then dropped the corner of his mouth, teeth still bared, like a man in pain.

“It's a dumping spot—legal, I'm sorry to say; there's plenty of the other kind. Anyway, the Department of Environmental Resources OK'd it. You know how they are. Don't let the name fool you; they work for the companies.” He still had his gloved hand on Mickelsson's arm, as if afraid he might bolt, and he leaned close to speak, as if company spies were everywhere. “They've granted permission that chemicals from at least twenty-three locations be ‘disposed of' there. Eighty-five per cent of it's from outside Pennsylvania—New Jersey and New York. It's bad stuff. Carcinogenic, mutagenic …” He checked Mickelsson's eyes, perhaps saw confusion and impatience, and hurried on. “To make a long story short, we think it's serious. There's at least seventy-five families living on the roads around Lonergan Hill that get their water from wells and springs, every one of 'em in danger of pollution.” Again he checked Mickelsson's eyes, then drew back a little. “You all right?”

“I'm fine,” Mickelsson said quickly. “The heat in here—after you've been out there in the cold for a while—” He laughed loudly.

“Maybe we should go back outside.”

“No, I'm fine.” He gave another laugh, then sternly concentrated his attention on Snyder, waiting for the speech to be over.

“Well, OK, if you're sure.” After a minute he continued, reaching inside his coat and drawing out papers as he spoke, “People may never even know when their water's gone bad. Last Saturday we had a meeting in Harrisburg and a woman told me her family's been hauling water for three years, ever since they found out, completely by accident, that their well had been poisoned by a landfìll. The same thing could happen at the Lyncott fill. Here, let me give you this—all the facts and figures.”

Mickelsson blinked, uncertain whether Lyncott and Lonergan Hill were the same place; but he had no intention of prolonging things by asking. He took the papers from Snyder, glanced at them, then put them in his pocket.

“They've applied for an expanded permit,” Snyder said. “Instead of the original ten acres they want a hundred and forty-six. That's bad business—bad real-estate business and bad human business. The company applying already has a record of illegal and misidentified waste disposal. I'm a county commissioner, as you may know, and we're having hearings on the subject; but for me that's not enough. I have a petition here—” He released Mickelsson's arm and with one hand opened the front of his coat while with the other he reached inside to extract a brown folder.

“Ah!” Mickelsson said, “you want me to sign! Certainly I'll sign!” He took the pen Snyder offered him and quickly signed his name, then wrote his address and put a period after it. “There,” he said. “My soul for infinite power.”

“You're sure you're all right?” Snyder asked. He glanced at the druggist in his high box.

Mickelsson grinned, waved, and without a word hurried out onto the street.

He got groceries at the Acme, enough to hold him for a good long while—several days, anyway—in case he should decide he wasn't in condition to see people. He was convinced that he was safe, had gotten away with it, at least for the time being; and time was always on the killer's side. Nevertheless, since he couldn't trust himself—since remorse walked only a step behind him, cursing him, wringing its pitiful, domestic hands—it would be best to stay close to his house. At the check-out counter he remembered they no longer accepted his checks, and he blushed, wincing, breaking out in sweat, drawing his hands to his face like a man feeling monstrously guilty, perhaps a shoplifter with his pockets full of goods. “I'm sorry,” he said, slapping his forehead, crazily smiling at the check-out girl. “I completely forgot that I'm not supposed to write checks here!” He flung a desperate glance around the store as if thinking he might see a friend who would help.
How stupid,
he thought—and furiously blushed again—
to kill a man for his money and then recklessly throw it all away, not even keep forty-five dollars for groceries!
His distress must have been a pitiful thing to see, because the girl said, “Just write out the check. It's OK, this once. I'll tell the manager I forgot.” He fell all over himself, foolish with gratitude, then finally got himself in control, took off his glasses, and wrote the check, then carefully entered it, the only check he'd entered in months. Then he snatched back his glasses and, all in one armload, carried the four large sacks of groceries out to the car. When the engine caught, a gray, putrid cloud rose not only from the car's rear end but from under the hood as well. No matter. For the moment the thing still ran.
Existence on the edge,
he thought. Everyone, everything. When was it—and why—that everything had gone wrong?

Perhaps there never before was so open a sea.

He tried to sleep, but his nightmares were so menacing he got up again. He should go on a trip somewhere. He should call the bus station, find out what was possible. But he remained sitting on the couch and, for a time, slept.

He couldn't remember having turned on the stereo tuner, though surely there had to have been some flicker of conscious intent in the gesture. In any event, when he switched on the vacuum cleaner he was abruptly made aware that he'd been listening to music, unconsciously hanging on every note, fleeing into it as into sanctuary, though he had no idea what was playing. It was something he'd heard performed one night in Heidelberg. He remembered how the audience had roared its satisfaction. He stood mouth open, gazing down at the vacuum machine—an old Hoover he'd gotten second-hand through the
Pennysaver,
with tape around the bag—then decided to vacuum another time, maybe when the news came on, reinstating the world. He put the machine away and sat down again on the couch to fill and light his pipe, thinking about heart attack and the death of the fat man. He cringed from the memory and bore down with all his mind's force on the music. He would work this thing out. Will power! It was stupid of him not to have done it long ago. Nothing could be more important!