The Dark Stairs R/I (8 page)

Silence.

“What did you mean when you said you couldn't get out?”

In the doorway, Herculeah's mother was holding a rolled sheaf of papers in one hand, a briefcase in the other. She dropped both as she moved quickly over to the desk.

“Have you ever heard of the Bromwell Asylum for the Criminally Insane?”

Herculeah's mother snapped off the recorder before it could play her response. The only sound now was her furious breathing.

“Go home, Meat,” she said at last.

“Me?”

“How many people named Meat are there in this house? In this world?”

Herculeah's mother was so mad she was hissing through her teeth now, and a light spray of spit landed on Meat's chin. He did not dare wipe it off because that might offend her and make her even angrier.

He got up clumsily and moved back out of the line of fire. “I was just getting ready to go anyway. But I felt I needed to hear this.” He pointed to the hidden recorder. He put one hand to his chin in a thoughtful gesture and wiped off the spit.

“Mrs. Jones,” he continued, “the Moloch may be a danger to me. He has seen me several times, and I didn't mean to, but I couldn't help but overhear the words ‘criminally insane.' I need to know if the Moloch has any criminally insane plans toward me.”

“You don't need to hear anything-not on my tape recorder, you don't. This is extremely confidential material.”

Mrs. Jones swirled to point her finger in Herculeah's face. “And you know that, even if Meat doesn't.”

Herculeah looked down at the desktop.

Meat cleared his throat. “Well, I'm on my way.”

There was a silence as Meat crossed the room. He paused as he passed Mrs. Jones's spilled papers to see if he could see anything. He paused again in the hall to see if he could hear anything.

All he heard was Mrs. Jones saying, “Good-bye, Meat,” in such a sharp way that there was only one thing for Meat to do. He left.

When the front door had closed behind him, Herculeah's mother said, “What is the explanation for this?”

Herculeah sighed.

“I want the truth.”

“Well, yesterday ...” Herculeah began and, then as if she'd gotten off to a bad start, she began again. “Yesterday, I got a strange sensation in front of Dead Oaks. There was something that I had to know.”

She could feel her mother's fury. It was actually heating the air around them. Herculeah pulled at the collar of her sweatshirt.

“When something like this happens, I get this terrible energy. It's like I'll do anything for the truth.”

Herculeah still had not looked up to meet her mother's eyes. Her mother's silence was a wall of anger.

“And then, last night, I learned that the Moloch was somehow tied up with the house and—”

“How did you learn that?”

“I saw him there.”

“At the house?”

“Yes.”

She waited for her mother to question her, to make her tell about those awful moments when she was trapped in the basement, but to Herculeah's relief, her mother said, “Go on.”

“Meat saw him too, and we both got—well, it's more than interested.”

“Meat was at the Crewell house too?”

Herculeah nodded. “So today I was sitting over there on the sofa, and I had on my glasses—these glasses that help me think—and I remembered your tape recorder.

“Right away I wondered if you'd taped the conversation with the Moloch. And when I found out that you had, Meat and I listened. I knew it wasn't right, but you know I have a terrible curiosity. I got it from you.”

“Now, listen to me,” her mother said. “The reason I did not want you to know about this case is because of your ‘terrible curiosity,' as you put it. You get into things that don't concern you, and you never stop to think of the danger that might be involved.”

“Oh, maybe, every now and then, there's a little danger, but, Mom—”

“This man—Hamilton Crewell's son—has hired me to find his father's body. He is convinced that his father is dead, but he cannot rest easy until the body is found. It's mixed up in his mind—like a dream.”

“Where are you going to look?”

“I'm going to start with the house. That's where he thinks the body is.”

“Why doesn't he just look himself ?”

“I don't know. He's afraid of something.”

“What?”

“Something that happened in the house. He wouldn't tell me what. He's a very complicated man.”

“Can I go with you?”

“No.”

“Mom, I would love it—looking for secret passages and stuff.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Why?”

“There's something about this I don't like, Herculeah, something I don't trust.”

“What?”

“I don't know myself.”

“Because the Moloch was in a mental asylum?” Herculeah asked, then she went on quickly, “I couldn't help but hear that on the tape.”

“Don't keep calling him the Moloch. He's William Crewell. Mr. Crewell to you.”

“Well, is that what worries you—that he was insane?”

“No, I'm not at all convinced he deserved to be in there. And he has been released from the asylum. I checked on that.”

“Then what?”

“I don't know exactly. I found out that he escaped from the asylum twice. The first time he escaped was about ten years ago, and Mr. Crewell was never seen alive after that date.”

“And the second time?” Herculeah asked.

“The second time he escaped was ... sometime in the fall of 1990.”

“October fourth,” Herculeah said.

“How do you know that?”

“His picture was in the paper the next day,” Herculeah said. “Meat and I looked it up in the Journal. He was in the crowd of people waiting to see if Hamilton Crewell's body would be brought out of Dead Oaks.”

“He really needs to know that his father's dead.”

Herculeah touched her glasses on top of her head. “Mom, when you go in the house, be sure to check the staircase. ”

“Why?”

“Somebody wrote an anonymous letter to the police. It said there was a body in Dead Oaks, ‘down the dark stairs.'”

She broke off. “Mom, please take me with you. You could be in danger. I haven't told you everything I know about this man.”

“Then we're even. I haven't told you everything I know either.”

“Has your mom gone?” Meat asked.

Herculeah relaxed and shifted the phone to a more comfortable position. “Yes, she's gone, Meat.”

“Was she still mad?”

“Not really, but she wasn't happy about us listening to that tape.”

“That was obvious.”

“She gave me a long, long lecture about it.”

“Your mom sort of reminds me of you when she gets mad.”

“How?”

“Oh, nothing. Just the way she said, ‘How many people named Meat are there in this house? In this world?' through her teeth.”

“I never speak through my teeth.”

It sounded to Meat as if Herculeah was getting ready to do it right now. He wanted to add, “But you don't spit on me the way your mom does.” However, in her present mood, Herculeah would probably not take that as a compliment. He decided to change the subject.

“Oh, did you get a chance to listen to the rest of the tape?”

“How could I? Mom took it with her. She does not trust me. Oh, I did find out one other thing. She doesn't trust the Moloch either—or Mr. Crewell, as I now have to call him.”

“What did she say?”

“Just that the first time he escaped from the asylum was ten years ago, right about the time Hamilton Crewell disappeared, and the second time was seven years later when they went in to find the body. That was when we saw his picture in the paper. He's either incredibly slow or—”

“Did you happen to see those papers your mom dropped on the floor?” Meat interrupted. “Remember, when she saw us listening to the tape, she dropped some papers?”

“I didn't see them.”

“They were blueprints, very old blueprints.” He paused to let that sink in and then he added, “Probably of Dead Oaks.”

“It figures.”

“Did she take them with her?”

“Yeah, she wouldn't trust me with anything. Now I'm never going to be able to find out things. She's probably going to get locks.”

“I wish I could have seen those blueprints, don't you?”

“Yes, because I think the reason she has those blueprints is to see if there are any hidden places, any passages where Hamilton Crewell could have been when the police came in the house.”

“That's what I was thinking.”

“My mom's probably on her way to the house right now—with the blueprints—going from room to room. I can't stand it!” She broke off, overcome by the desire to be inside the house with her mother. “You want to walk over there?”

“I can't. I promised my mom I wouldn't go near the place. Also, I really do want to stay away from the Moloch.”

“He called, did I tell you that?”

“You spoke to him?”

“Yes, it was just for a minute. He left a message for Mom and—”

Herculeah froze.

“What was the message? Herculeah are you still there? Answer me!”

“Oh, it was nothing important. I've got to go, Meat. I'll talk to you later. Bye.”

Herculeah continued to sit at the desk for a moment, thinking. Idly she folded her glasses and laid them in front of her on the desk. Then she straightened.

The key,
she thought. She leaned forward intently, remembering.

The Moloch's message to her mother had been, “The key is still there.”

Herculeah drew in her breath. And without even putting on her glasses to help her think, she knew where the key to Dead Oaks was.

She pushed back the chair and rose.

Meat was standing at his living room window. He had been stationed there ever since his phone conversation with Herculeah.

There had been something about her last words that made him uneasy. “Oh, it was nothing important,” she had said. “I've got to go, Meat. I'll talk to you later. Bye. ”

Something was up, and Meat had been at the window ever since to find out what.

Occasionally he would nervously rub his hands up and down his sweatshirt, and occasionally he would wipe his chin to get off spit that had long been scrubbed away. Indeed his chin was pink from being washed hard. When people spit on you, even by accident, it is hard to wash off.

Meat was rubbing his sweatshirt for the fourth time when the Joneses' front door opened and Herculeah appeared.

She had not bothered to put on her jacket, and her hair flew out behind her like a cape. Her hair always seemed to rise, like the hair on a dog's neck, in times of danger, and Meat could see that was what was happening now. His fears rose too.

Herculeah swept her hair behind her, like a gymnast getting an obstacle out of the way.

Meat drew back and rubbed his hands so hard over his shirt that he could feel the electricity.

Herculeah turned in the direction of Dead Oaks. Meat had known all along that was where she was going. He knew, too, that he could not follow.

He sagged against the wall. He was torn between his desire to make sure nothing happened to Herculeah and his promise to his mother that he would not go back to Dead Oaks.

Thirty long minutes passed as he stood there. He was aware that he could be spending his time to more advantage in front of the TV. It was five o'clock, and there was a nature special on the Discovery Channel. Nature specials seemed to soothe Meat, and he needed soothing. Right now he could be watching elephant seals heaving themselves back and forth over the rocks, but he couldn't move.

He sighed so loudly that his mother called from the kitchen, “Are you all right, Albert?”

“Yes, Mom,” he called back.

He decided to go to the TV and tape the nature program. That way, when Herculeah returned, he could watch it. He would really need soothing by then.

He was ready to leave the window when he saw the Moloch. Meat pulled back out of sight and peered around the curtains.

The Moloch stopped at Herculeah's house. He glanced both ways to make sure the coast was clear. Then he looked over his shoulder.

Even behind the curtain, Meat knew the exact moment when the Moloch's searing eyes blazed past his house. He felt those eyes had burned a laserlike scar into the vinyl siding.

The Moloch went up the steps and knocked at the door. When there was no answer, he took another glance around and went to the back of the house. He disappeared from view.

Meat stepped closer to the window, but of course it didn't help him see behind the house. He waited nervously, alternately wiping his chin and rubbing his shirt.

When the Moloch reappeared, Meat almost sank to the floor in relief.

The Moloch looked both ways and then, once again, turned in the direction of Dead Oaks.

Meat swallowed loudly, as if he had something in his throat. Then he called, “Mom, I'm going out.”

“Not over to Herculeah's.”

“I'm not going in the house.”

“She's a bad influence.”