The Violet Hour (18 page)

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Authors: Richard Montanari

BOOK: The Violet Hour
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‘Okay, then,’ he said. ‘Rain check?’
Amelia started her car, put it in reverse, backed out of the space. ‘Rain check,’ she said, not knowing if it meant a rain check for another drink sometime or a rain check to finish what they started one October night.
She hit the button marked P
LAY
M
ESSAGES.
‘
Hi, honey . . . how’s my girls? . . . Missing you and Maddie much . . . Um . . . not a lot going on here . . . Just finished some road food . . . deep-fried something with a side of deep-fried something else . . . thimbleful of wilted coleslaw . . . a warm Dr Pepper, I think . . . Yuck . . . not sure why I bought it . . . I don’t like Dr Pepper, do I? . . . Maddie-bear? . . . Do I? . . .
’
Amelia was standing in the kitchen, the only light the twenty-five-watter in the refrigerator door, a glass of 2 percent milk in her hand, the highest-percent anything she would drink for the rest of the evening. She leaned against the refrigerator, listened, thinking, once again, how close Roger sounded.
‘
And I just wanted to say that when I get home I want to do something . . . you know . . . the three of us . . . maybe go get a couple of pumpkins or something . . . maybe go to a movie . . . okay? . . . Or maybe we could even go down to Legacy Village, do a little early Christmas shopping . . . what do you think? . . . So, uh, I guess I’ll try and call tomorrow sometime . . . let you know exactly when old Roger will be pullin’ into Dodge . . . and, uh . . . okay . . . I guess I’ve babbled enough . . . Sorry, I missed you. . . . Night, you two . . . love you and see you soon . . .
’
There were a few seconds before the click, a few seconds during which Amelia held her breath for some reason, waiting for Roger to say one more thing before putting the phone down, a few seconds when all the sights and sounds and smells of their kitchen, their life together, invaded her senses, especially the autumnal drawings of Maddie’s that were deployed on the fridge (the Kelvinator Gallery of Fine Art, Roger would call it). The best of the one-girl showing was the traditional turkey made from an outline of Maddie’s tiny hand, and it was a solitary tear that struck the floor the moment Roger hung up without saying another word, a single glistening drop of salt water that would surely dry by morning.
28
 
Coldicott and Crowe, Inc., was an antique jewelry emporium in the Old Arcade – the highly ornate, multistory arcade that spanned from Euclid Avenue to Superior Avenue, right around Fourth Street. The store was located on the first level, near the food court. Nicky sat at one of the miniature tables they put out into the arcade, the Barbie and Ken furniture that had chairs big enough for two thirds of the average ass.
From his vantage he could see the entire showroom of Coldicott and Crowe – three women, one man. It was clear just who Geoffrey Coldicott was in that group, Nicky thought. Geoffrey was tall and spidery, about forty, gravedigger-pale, a perfect archetype of gothic jeweler. He had a long, soft-looking body and wore a dark suit that hung upon his shoulders like a prayer shawl. At the moment, Geoffrey was bent over the counter, poring over something with his jeweler’s loupe.
Fortunately, Nicky had found two listings for Coldicott. One was Coldicott and Crowe at the Arcade. The other was listed as Coldicott, Geoffrey D., estate appraiser, same address in the Old Arcade.
All things considered, even if he did write the story, Nicky knew he would have to go to the cops. People on a list seemed to be dying one by one, and the police had to be made aware of that fact, if they weren’t on it already. But before he made that move, he simply had to know what the hell was going on here. He had to know if any of these people knew any of the others. If they had all received this poem in the mail, if this poem meant anything to them. It was simply too good to give up.
He downed his coffee, walked over to a pay phone, made the call.
‘Mr Coldicott?’ Nicky said. He was standing next to the food court at the Superior side of the Arcade. He could see Geoffrey Coldicott through a thin panel of glass in the store next to Coldicott and Crowe, some kind of new age boutique.
‘Yes, this is Geoffrey Coldicott. How may I help you?’
‘Mr Coldicott, my name is Nicholas Stella, and I’m a writer here in Cleveland, working on a story for
Esquire
magazine.’ A tiny lie, and no one had checked yet. Not once. ‘Are you familiar with that publication, Mr Coldicott?’
‘Certainly.’
‘I was wondering if you might have a few minutes to talk to me today.’
‘Can I ask what this is about first?’
‘Well, it’s a matter of some importance, so I’d rather we did it face-to-face. When would be convenient for you? I’m right downtown now, so anytime would be good for me.’
Nicky knew he was pushing. Geoffrey Coldicott pushed back. Nicky saw him straighten up through the windows, his praying-mantis body taking on a defensive posture.
‘I’ll have to know what this is about, Mr Stella. I’m a very busy man.’
‘It involves an e-mail message you recently received,’ Nicky said, wondering just how you were supposed to tell a total stranger that he might be in danger. ‘A graphic file that, I’m afraid, might be important.’
Geoffrey Coldicott was silent for a few moments. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Would it be okay if I stopped by your house later and we talked?’ Nicky asked, reading a little anxiety in Coldicott’s voice. ‘Maybe this is nothing at all.’
At that moment, Nicky saw four or five people walk into Coldicott and Crowe. Perfect timing.
‘Yes, yes, I don’t care,’ Coldicott said. ‘I have to go now.’
‘What’s your address, Mr Coldicott?’
‘I’m in the Golden Gate Villas,’ he said. ‘They’re at—’
‘I know where they are,’ Nicky said. ‘What time?’
‘Six o’clock,’ Geoffrey Coldicott said. ‘Now, good-bye, Mr Stella.’
‘Okay,’ Nicky said. ‘And I really do appreciate your—’
But Geoffrey Coldicott had already hung up, which surprised Nicky. Businessmen, especially retail businessmen, didn’t usually hang up on people. Unless, of course, they had something to hide.
Which opened up a whole new box of animal crackers, Nicky thought. Maybe the wacko here is one of the names on the list. Maybe Geoffrey Coldicott was the psycho in this equation and he had just made an appointment to meet him at the Bates Motel.
29
 
It was the end. Truly the end of it all.
He caught his reflection in the cab window and shook a dangerous fist at the translucent half image he found there. Since childhood, it had always been his way of threatening himself with violent abuse if he didn’t carry out his own orders, saving the actual pain of self-flagellation for later, relegating the deep degradations to the wee hours of the morning.
And Geoffrey Coldicott knew something about pain.
He had told the reporter, or whatever he was, that he would be home by six. He looked at his watch. Five-ten. At least time was on his side.
Because he had always wondered about two things his entire life, or at least that part of his life which began when, as a small child, after his father’s suicide, his mother moved him from Bristol, England, to Painesville, Ohio. Two questions he was certain he was going to live his entire adult life – the part that began five years ago when he had the nerve to move out of the house and into the big city – without ever having answered.
One: What would he do if he met someone like himself, face to face?
Two: What would he do if his collection was threatened?
Somehow, through some strange jog of serendipity, through some violent rip in the fabric of his rather imaginative fantasy life, he had managed to answer both questions within the past twenty-four hours.
When he had sat down at the bar at the Shenanigans nightclub on the west side the day before, deliberately far from his neighborhood, purposely out of his work environment, he hadn’t any real plan in mind. He’d heard they had recently revamped the club and he really did want to see what they’d done with the place, so he had frequented the establishment a few times in the previous weeks. But that, he knew, was only secondary to his underlying purpose. He was there to be someone else. Geoffrey Coldicott the swinger. Geoffrey Coldicott the libertine. Geoffrey Coldicott the brash hedonist.
Just a few moments after he had entered and taken a stool at the far end of the enormous bar, a stranger had entered the nightclub and, it appeared, Geoffrey’s life. The man took a stool immediately to his left and ordered a Rob Roy.
Ten minutes passed. Then the stranger turned and smiled at Geoffrey. ‘Not really my kind of music,’ he said. The DJ was spinning some sort of electronic dance/trance stuff. To Geoffrey it was all static.
‘Nor mine,’ Geoffrey replied.
The man was handsome and athletic, well dressed in a casual, collegiate way. Witty in a deliciously sarcastic way. He said he was in Cleveland on business and was flying out in a few hours. He called himself Tom Macarty. Or McCartney. Or McIlvainey. Or something Irish like that. The music was loud and Geoffrey hadn’t heard him well, so he decided to just call him Tom. Tom was fine. He really didn’t need to know more.
Yet there was something about Tom that was familiar, as if he had come into the store once, or they had met at a house sale or a liquidation sale. No. It went further back than that, much further. College? Geoffrey was usually good with faces, so the idea that he couldn’t place Tom gnawed at him.
The conversation eventually flagged. Geoffrey sipped his drink, tried to think of something clever and urbane to say. Instead, he offered: ‘So what brings you to Cleveland, Tom?’
‘Business first, I suppose,’ Tom said, turning to face Geoffrey fully. ‘But I’m always open to pleasure.’
Tom smiled when he said this, and it both chilled and warmed Geoffrey, who was already into his third gin and tonic, no longer feeling the barstool beneath him, no longer feeling the inhibitions of an overeducated rural kid gone to the city.
Before Geoffrey could stop himself, the words came out.
‘What do you do for pleasure?’
Tom turned slowly and fixed him in a knowing stare, one that loosed something in Geoffrey’s stomach. It was the kind of feeling you get when you are in a foreign country and hear a voice spoken in the idiom and inflection of your native tongue, your region, your very hometown, a kinship that went beyond understanding. It was a citizenship of the soul.
Tom remained silent.
Two cocktails later Tom said he had to leave. Something about a meeting, a plane, something about returning a rental car. He asked Geoffrey if he might point out the nearest entry to the airport, and Geoffrey said that he would.
Tom paid the check. The two men walked out of the bar, across the lobby, to the parking lot, then on to the far end, the dark end. Geoffrey was pleased they had to walk a bit. He felt it gave him time to . . . what? He was painfully unsure.
But halfway across the deserted, moonlit parking lot, Tom supplied him with his answer. He stopped and placed a hand on Geoffrey’s chest, halting him just inches away, staring into his eyes.
The moment drew uncomfortably long until Tom reached into his coat pocket and produced a small stack of photographs. He handed them to Geoffrey. Geoffrey took them, and found that his hands were shaking, his heart stuttering in his chest. Even before he began to flip through the pictures, he knew what they would be, that they were the answer to his question:
What do you do for pleasure?
There were only eight photographs in the stack, but to Geoffrey Coldicott they were a treasure beyond imagination. Each image plumbed a new depth to his sickness, scribed an as yet unwritten chapter of his hunger. By the time he looked at the last one he found that he had begun to weep.
A few moments later, without a word, Tom took the photographs back, withdrew across the parking lot, toward his car. Soon he pulled onto the marginal road toward Hopkins airport and beyond.
Geoffrey Coldicott had not slept since that moment.
That was last night. And now, today, some reporter wanted to take a look at his computer.
It was all too much.
Because he was certain the man he had talked to on the telephone wasn’t a reporter at all. He was a cop of some sort. FBI or federal agent or Internet cop, something like that. Regardless, Geoffrey didn’t buy this business about a mysterious e-mail document. Not for a moment. He had always suspected that somebody, somewhere, knew the sorts of things he was downloading into his computer. He knew that one day they would catch him and there would be a half-hour special on CNN during which they would show his high-school photos next to the shot of him being dragged up Mayfield Road. They would display some of his naughtier computer graphics files (certain bits obscured, of course), and then they would—
The cab turned off Mayfield Road onto Golden Gate, then pulled over to the curb.

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