The Night Watchman(38)

A hot turkey and gravy sandwich. The thick white bread, soaked with peppered gravy, melted down her throat. There were butter beans and green beans. She could have had a mixed drink. But didn’t want to turn out like her father. Instead, a scalding pot of sugared tea. Oh, that went down well. She used the bathroom again. Put her tray out in the hall. Locked the door. Then took her nightgown from her satchel and lowered it over her shoulders. She switched off the light and crept beneath the red blanket, pressing its satin edge against her cheek.

*

The next morning, she woke late and went downstairs. The bar was wilted and grim. A few heavy drinkers who had closed the place and slept in the street, in their cars, or not at all, were slumped over hair-of-the-dog specials. Their eggs came in whiskey shots. The toast came stacked five deep with butter on the side. Patrice ate her egg over easy, sopping the rich yolk up with buttered toast. She drank her coffee black and plotted her course.

“I’m going to the post office,” she told the bartender.

“Heard you did good last night.”

She smiled and put a fork in her purse. She had taken twenty dollars from her stash. Around the corner, she found a cabstand, took a taxi to Bloomington Avenue. As she got out and paid the driver, she had a sudden thought. She showed him the slip of paper with the Stevens Avenue address.

“Is there anything wrong with this place?” she asked.

“Not that I know of,” said the driver.

“Are you sure? Someone said it was dangerous.”

“Never had a problem there,” the man said.

“Thank you.”

So maybe Jack had been trying to steer her away. She walked up to the front door of the Bloomington Avenue place. The same windows were still cardboarded. The seeping sense of misery. As she slipped around back she realized the dog wasn’t barking. She took the fork out of her purse and went up the broken back steps. She stuck the fork into the rotted wood next to the lock and pried it loose. Then she entered. All was too still. Death was in the house. She edged forward, gripping the fork. Her handbag dangled off her other arm.

The kitchen was empty, just a few vile cups on the counter, holding cigarette stubs. Stains and splatters everywhere, old grease fuzzy with dust. Leaves had blown into the dining room, the parlor. Everywhere a soft sinter blanketed the floor. Warily, she crept up the central staircase, the spindles broken out like teeth. There was a window, slightly cracked, grand, of stained glass. Another red tulip and green lances of leaves. A frame of gold and sea-blue diamonds. At the top of the stairs, a central hallway of chipped and dirty white paint with five shut doors. She would have to open them one by one. Holding her breath, she entered the first room, where she found the dog. It was at the end of a chain bolted into the wall.

A pallid thing, all bones, it tried to struggle to its feet, but it collapsed and lay there, too spent to pant. There was an overturned bowl and in one corner a glass jug half filled with water. Here and there, a few dried turds. An open window. She fetched the jug and crouched beside the creature, dribbled water beneath the flaps of its swollen muzzle. After a while, the dog’s throat spasmed. Patrice got up and quickly opened the doors to the next rooms. In each one, a filthy mat, a gnarled blanket, sometimes shit, the smell of piss, a chain bolted into the wall and at the end of each chain an empty dog collar. She examined the chains, the collars. In one room, a line of beer bottles on the windowsill. Behind the last door was a stinking waterless bathroom. Strips of an old sheet. Dried blood. Two wadded-up diapers. She went back to the dog and this time she sat down, dribbled more water into its mouth, put a hand on its ribs. “You know where she is,” said Patrice. “I know you do. Please. I need you to help me find her.”

“She died on the end of a chain, like me,” said the dog.

Four more breaths came and went, beneath Patrice’s hand, before dog gave a great rattling sigh. She sat with her fingers on its ribs until its body cooled and a flea hopped across her knuckles. Then she got up and walked down the stairs, out of the house.

Jack pulled up.

“I thought you might have gotten yourself over here.”

Patrice opened the door and climbed into the car. She was not in her body.

“Let’s go back to the Stevens address,” she said.

“Oh no. No, no, no. We aren’t going there.”

“That’s not what we agreed to,” said Patrice.



Jack insisted on following Patrice as she knocked on every apartment door. A misty-haired blond woman with balled-up features appeared. She didn’t know the Viviers, or Vera Vivier, or Vera Paranteau, or Vera. Had never met her. Had seen no forwarding address. The door shut. Patrice went to the next door. Jack rolled his eyes. At every apartment in the building she got the same answer. No Vera. Patrice walked slowly down the hall, then darted back to one of the apartments. Jack had already gone down the stairs. Nobody had opened the door the first time. She knocked on the door again, this time softly.

“Come on, let’s go,” called Jack from the stairs.

“Who is it?” said a voice, very low, on the other side of the door.

“It’s the waterjack,” said Patrice to the voice.

The door opened. The woman who opened was gaunt, and bald. Jack came running down the hall. Before the door slammed shut a voice from the next room cried, “Who’s at the door, Hilda?”