Different Seasons(81)

Fifteen minutes crawled by. The pain had begun to abate somewhat, but he did not believe he would be able to stand. For the first time he understood all the truths of old age which he had been spared until now. He was terrified almost to the point of whimpering. Death had brushed by him in this dank, smelly cellar; it had touched Dussander with the hem of its robe. It might be back for him yet. But he would not die down here; not if he could help it.

He got up, hands still crossed on his chest, as if to hold the fragile machinery together. He staggered across the open space between the workbench and the stairs. His left foot tripped over the dead wino’s outstretched leg and he went to his knees with a small cry. There was a sullen flare of pain in his chest. He looked up the stairs—the steep, steep stairs. Twelve of them. The square of light at the top was mockingly distant.

“Ein, ” Kurt Dussander said, and pulled himself grimly up onto the first stair-level. “Zwei, Drei,Vier.”

It took him twenty minutes to reach the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Twice, on the stairs, the pain had threatened to come back, and both times Dussander had waited with his eyes closed to see what would happen, perfectly aware that if it came back as strongly as it had come upon him down there, he would probably die. Both times the pain had faded away again.

He crawled across the kitchen floor to the table, avoiding the pools and streaks of blood, which were now congealing. He got the bottle of Ancient Age, took a swallow, and closed his eyes. Something that had been cinched tight in his chest seemed to loosen a little. The pain faded a bit more. After another five minutes he began to work his way slowly down the hall. His telephone sat on a small table halfway down.

It was quarter past nine when the phone rang in the Bowden house. Todd was sitting cross-legged on the couch, going over his notes for the trig final. Trig was a bitch for him, as all maths were and probably always would be. His father was seated across the room, going through the checkbook stubs with a portable calculator on his lap and a mildly disbelieving expression on his face. Monica, closest to the phone, was watching the James Bond movie Todd had taped off HBO two evenings before.

“Hello?” She listened. A faint frown touched her face and she held the handset out to Todd. “It’s Mr. Denker. He sounds excited about something. Or upset.”

Todd’s heart leaped into his throat, but his expression hardly changed. “Really?” He went to the phone and took it from her. “Hi, Mr. Denker.”

Dussander’s voice was hoarse and short. “Come over right away, boy. I’ve had a heart attack. Quite a bad one, I think.”

“Gee,” Todd said, trying to collect his flying thoughts, to see around the fear that now bulked huge in his own mind.

“That’s interesting, all right, but it’s pretty late and I was studying—”

“I understand that you cannot talk,” Dussander said in that harsh, almost barking voice. “But you can listen. I cannot call an ambulance or dial two-two-two, boy ... at least not yet. There is a mess here. I need help... and that means you need help.”

“Well . . . if you put it that way . . .” Todd’s heartbeat had reached a hundred and twenty beats a minute, but his face was calm, almost serene. Hadn’t he known all along that a night like this would come? Yes, of course he had.

“Tell your parents I’ve had a letter,” Dussander said. “An important letter. You understand?”

“Yeah, okay,” Todd said.

“Now we see, boy. We see what you are made of.”

“Sure,” Todd said. He suddenly became aware that his mother was watching him instead of the movie, and he forced a stiff grin onto his face. “Bye.”

Dussander was saying something else now, but Todd hung up on it.

“I’m going over to Mr. Denker’s for awhile,” he said, speaking to both of them but looking at his mother—that faint expression of concern was still on her face. “Can I pick up anything for either of you at the store?”

“Pipe cleaners for me and a small package of fiscal responsibility for your mother,” Dick said.

“Very funny,” Monica said. “Todd, is Mr. Denker—”

“What in the name of God did you get at Fielding’s?” Dick interrupted.

“That knick-knack shelf in the closet. I told you that. There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Denker, is there, Todd? He sounded a little strange.”

“There really are such things as knick-knack shelves? I thought those crazy women who write British mysteries made them up so there would always be a place where the killer could find a blunt instrument.”

“Dick, can I get a word in edgeways?”

“Sure. Be my guest. But for the closet?”

“He’s okay, I guess,” Todd said. He put on his letter jacket and zipped it up. “But he was excited. He got a letter from a nephew of his in Hamburg or Düsseldorf or someplace. He hasn’t heard from any of his people in years, and now he’s got this letter and his eyes aren’t good enough for him to read it.”

“Well isn’t that a bitch,” Dick said. “Go on, Todd. Get over there and ease the man’s mind.”

“I thought he had someone to read to him,” Monica said. “A new boy.”

“He does,” Todd said, suddenly hating his mother, hating the half-informed intuition he saw swimming in her eyes.