Whispers. Part 32

"Is it?"

"That's good, isn't it?"

"Sure."

The siren cut out as the ambulance stopped with a squeal of brakes almost directly below the apartment windows. Frank's voice was getting so weak that Tony had to lean close to hear it. "Tony ... hold me." His grip on Tony's hand slackened. His cold fingers opened. "Hold me, please. Jesus. Hold me, Tony. Will you?"

For an instant, Tony was worried about complicating the man's wounds, but then he knew intuitively that it no longer mattered. He sat down on the floor in the garbage and blood. He put an arm under Frank and lifted him into a sitting position. Frank coughed weakly, and his left hand slid off his belly; the wound was revealed, a hideous and unrepairable hole from which intestines bulged. From the moment Bobby first pulled the trigger, Frank had begun to die; he had never had a hope of survival.

"Hold me."

Tony took Frank into his arms as best he could, held him, held him as a father would hold a frightened child, held him and rocked gently, crooned softly, rea.s.suringly. He kept crooning even after he knew that Frank was dead, crooning and slowly rocking, gently and serenely rocking, rocking.

At four o'clock Monday afternoon, the telephone company serviceman arrived at Hilary's house. She showed him where the five extensions were located. He was just about to begin work on the kitchen phone when it rang.

She was afraid that it was the anonymous caller again. She didn't want to answer it, but the serviceman looked at her expectantly, and on the fifth ring she overcame her fear, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the receiver. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Hilary Thomas?"

"Yes."

"This is Michael Savatino. Savatino's Ristorante?"

"Oh, I don't need reminding. I won't forget you or your wonderful restaurant. We had a perfect dinner."

"Thank you. We try very hard. Listen, Miss Thomas--"

"Please call me Hilary."

"Hilary, then. Have you heard from Tony yet today?"

Suddenly she was aware of the tension in his voice. She knew, almost as a clairvoyant might know, that something awful had happened to Tony. For a moment she was breathless, and fuzzy darkness closed in briefly at the edges of her vision.

"Hilary? Are you there?"

"I haven't heard from him since last night. Why?"

"I don't want to alarm you. There was some trouble--"

"Oh, G.o.d."

"--but Tony wasn't hurt."

"Are you sure?"

"Just a few bruises."

"Is he in the hospital?"

"No, no. He's really all right."

The knot of pressure in her chest loosened a bit.

"What kind of trouble?" she asked.

In a few sentences, Michael told her about the shooting.

It could have been Tony who died. She felt weak.

"Tony's taking it hard," Michael said. "Very hard. When he and Frank first started working together, they didn't get along well. But things have improved. The past few days, they got to know each other better. In fact they'd gotten fairly close."

"Where's Tony now?"

"His apartment. The shooting was at eleven-thirty this morning. He's been at his apartment since two. I was with him until a few minutes ago. I wanted to stay, but he insisted I go to the restaurant as usual. I wanted him to come with me, but he wouldn't. He won't admit it, but he needs someone right now."

"I'll go to him," she said.

"I was hoping you'd say that."

Hilary freshened up and changed clothes. She was ready to leave fifteen minutes before the repairman had finished with the phones, and she never endured a longer quarter-hour.

In the car, on the way to Tony's place, she recalled how she had felt in that dark moment when she'd thought Tony was seriously hurt, perhaps dead. She nearly had been sick to her stomach. An intolerable sense of loss had filled her.

Last night, in bed, awaiting sleep, she had argued with herself about whether or not she loved Tony. Could she possibly love anyone after the physical and psychological torture she had suffered as a child, after what she had learned about the ugly duplicitous nature of most other human beings? And could she love a man she'd known for only a few days? The argument still wasn't settled. But now she knew that she dreaded losing Tony Clemenza in a way and to a degree that she had never feared losing anyone else in her life.

At his apartment complex, she parked beside the blue Jeep.

He lived upstairs in a two-story building. Gla.s.s wind chimes were hung from the balcony near one of the other apartments; they sounded melancholy in the late-afternoon breeze.

When he answered the door, he wasn't surprised to see her. "I guess Michael called you."

"Yes. Why didn't you?" she asked.

"He probably told you I'm a total wreck. As you can see, he exaggerates."

"He's concerned about you."

"I can handle it," he said, forcing a smile. "I'm okay."

In spite of his attempt to play down his reaction to Frank Howard's death, she saw the haunted look in his face and the bleak expression in his eyes.

She wanted to hug him and console him, but she was not very good with people in ordinary circ.u.mstances, let alone in a situation like this. Besides, she sensed that he had to be ready for consolation before she dared offer it, and he was not.

"I'm coping," he insisted.

"Can I come in anyway?"

"Oh. Sure. Sorry."

He lived in a one-bedroom bachelor apartment, but the living room, at least, was large and airy. It had a high ceiling and a row of big windows in the north wall.

"Good northern light for a painter," Hilary said.

"That's why I rented the place."

It looked more like a studio than like a living room. A dozen of his eye-catching paintings hung on the walls. Other canvases were standing on the floor, leaning against the walls, stacks of them in some places, sixty or seventy in all. Two easels held works in progress. There were also a large drawing table, stool, and artist's supply cabinet. Tall shelves were jammed full of oversized art books. The only concessions to ordinary living room decor were two short sofas, two end tables, two lamps, a coffee table--all of which were arranged to form a cozy conversation corner. Although its arrangement was peculiar, the room had great warmth and livability.

"I've decided to get drunk," Tony said as he closed the door. "Very drunk. Totally smashed. I was just pouring my first drink when you rang. Would you like something?"

"What are you drinking?" she asked.

"Bourbon on the rocks."

"Make it the same for me."

While he was in the kitchen preparing drinks, she took a closer look at his paintings. Some of them were ultra-realistic; in these the detail was so fine, so brilliantly observed, so flawlessly rendered that, in terms of realism, the paintings actually transcended mere photography. Several of the canvases were surrealistic, but in a fresh and commanding style that was not at all reminiscent of Dali, Ernst, Miro, or Tanguy. They were closer to the work of Rene Magritte than to anything else, especially the Magritte of The Domain of Arnheim and Ready-Made Bouquet. But Magritte had never used such meticulous detail in his paintings, and it was this realer than real quality in Tony's visions that made the surrealistic elements especially striking and unique.

He returned from the kitchen with two gla.s.ses of bourbon, and as she accepted her drink she said, "Your work is so fresh and exciting."

"Is it?"

"Michael is right. Your paintings will sell as fast as you can create them."

"It's nice to think so. Nice to dream about."

"If you'd only give them a chance--"

"As I said before, you're very kind, but you're not an expert."

He was not at all himself. His voice was drab, wooden. He was dull, washed out, depressed.

She needled him a bit, hoping to bring him to life. "You think you're so smart," she said. "But you're dumb. When it comes to your own work, you're dumb. You're blind to the possibilities."

"I'm just an amateur."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"A fairly good amateur."

"Sometimes you can be so d.a.m.ned infuriating," she said.

"I don't want to talk about art," he said.

He switched on the stereo: Beethoven interpreted by Ormandy. Then he went to one of the sofas in the far corner of the room.

She followed him, sat beside him. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Movies," he said.

"Do you really?"

"Maybe books."

"Really?"

"Or theater."

"What you really want to talk about is what happened to you today."

"No. That's the last thing."

"You need to talk about it, even if you don't want to."

"What I need to do is forget all about it, wipe it out of my mind."

"So you're playing turtle," she said. "You think you can pull your head under your sh.e.l.l and close up tight."

"Exactly," he said.

"Last week, when I wanted to hide from the whole world, when you wanted me to go out with you instead, you said it wasn't healthy for a person to withdraw into himself after an upsetting experience. You said it was best to share your feelings with other people."

"I was wrong," he said.

"You were right."

He closed his eyes, said nothing.

"Do you want me to leave?" she asked.

"No."

"I will if you want me to. No hard feelings."

"Please stay," he said.

"All right. What shall we talk about?"

"Beethoven and bourbon."

"I can take a hint," she said.

They sat silently side by side on the sofa, eyes closed, heads back, listening to the music, sipping the bourbon, as the sunlight turned amber and then muddy orange beyond the large windows. Slowly, the room filled up with shadows.

Early Monday evening, Avril Tannerton discovered someone had broken into Forever View. He made that discovery when he went down to the cellar, where he had a lavishly equipped woodworking shop; he saw that one of the panes in a bas.e.m.e.nt window had been carefully covered with masking tape and then broken to allow the intruder to reach the latch. It was a much smaller-than-average window, hinged at the top, but even a fairly large man could wriggle through it if he was determined.