A Noise Downstairs(72)

Paul looked back into the room. With the typewriter off the bedside table, he could see the time. He thought it had to be around three or four but was surprised to see that it was only 1:23 A.M.

“It’s late,” he protested. “I’ll be waking her.”

“So what?”

“I’ll do it. But let’s put that into your trunk first.”

“Fine,” she said. “But do you think you could carry it? I just about broke my arms getting it this far.”

Paul came out to the balcony and carefully took the typewriter from Charlotte. He felt a chill as he took the Underwood into his arms, cradling it as though it were some demonic infant.

“Let’s do this quickly,” he said.

Charlotte got ahead of him on the stairs, grabbing her car keys from a bowl in the kitchen along the way. She held the front door for him, then hit the button on her remote to pop the trunk on her car. The lid swung open a few inches, and she lifted it the rest of the way.

Paul leaned over the opening and set the machine onto the trunk floor. There was a small tarp rolled up in there, which he took and draped over the typewriter, as though smothering it. Then he slammed the lid.

He dusted his hands together and rubbed them on his boxers, as if somehow touching the machine had contaminated him. He turned and looked at Charlotte.

And fell apart.

“Oh, God,” he said, and started to cry. He put his hands over his face. “Oh God what is happening, what is happening, what is happening.” The cries turned into racking sobs.

Charlotte took him into her arms and squeezed. “Let it out,” she said. “Let it out.”

His arms limply went around her. “I can’t take it anymore, I just can’t.”

“It’s going to be okay. We’re getting rid of it. It’s in the car.” Charlotte suddenly found herself crying, too. “I’m so sorry.” She buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Paul, between sobs, managed to say, “It’s not your fault. There was no way you could know.”

“I shouldn’t have . . . I never should have . . . it was a bad idea,” she said, weeping. “At the time . . . it seemed . . .”

“Stop,” Paul said. His breaths had turned rapid and shallow. “I feel, I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

“Come in. Get in the house.”

She got him to the door. Once inside, she locked it, checked that the door to the garage was also secure, and the two of them trudged upstairs. She managed to keep him on his feet until they reached the kitchen table, at which point he dropped into a chair.

He was still crying. He put his elbows on the table, rested his head in his hands.

“Maybe it’s some kind of nervous breakdown,” he said. “I’m willing to admit that. I don’t know what else it could be. I must be . . . I must be doing these things. I have to be.”

Charlotte had grabbed his phone, which had been recharging from an outlet by the kitchen sink.

“Dr. White,” she said, handing it to him.

He nodded, surrendering. He looked at his hand, which was shaking. “You call her. I can’t do it. I don’t even know if I could hold the phone.”

Charlotte found the number in his contacts, and tapped. “It’s gone to message after three rings,” she said.

“That’ll be her office phone. Keep calling it. She’ll hear it eventually from the other part of the house.”

She ended the call, entered the number again. The fourth time, it worked.

A frantic Anna White answered, “Yes, who is this? Paul, is this you?”

“I’m so sorry,” Charlotte said after identifying herself. “Paul’s in a bad way. A really bad way.”

Calmly, Anna asked, “Tell me what’s happening.”

“He’s shaking, he can’t stop crying. You need to come over. He needs to talk to you, he—”

“Charlotte, if he’s in a psychotic state, then—”

“What the hell is that? How am I supposed—”

“Let me speak to him.”

Charlotte said to Paul, “She wants to talk to you.”

He nodded weakly, steadied his hand as he took the phone, and pressed it to his ear.

“Yes?”

“Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Talk to me.”

Paul didn’t say anything. He seemed to be struggling to find the words.

“Paul?”

Finally, with great effort, he said two words before handing the phone back to Charlotte.

“Help me.”





Forty-Three

By the time Anna White arrived nearly an hour later, Paul had calmed down some. He’d never been a fan of hard liquor, but he’d knocked back a couple of shots of vodka to calm his nerves.

“I hope that wasn’t a bad thing,” Charlotte said once Anna was sitting at the kitchen table, talking to Paul. For someone who’d been in bed less than an hour earlier, Anna was alert and attentive. She’d come over in a jogging suit, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her face devoid of lipstick or other makeup.

“That’s okay,” she said. “How are you now, Paul?”

“Better,” he said.