A Manhattan Ghost Story (11 page)

I made my way over to her; she had her back to me and I was hoping to surprise her, but she turned when I was several yards away, smiled, said “Hello, Abner.” And that is when I realized she had mellowed. Because it was that kind of smile. The kind that is as much internal as external. The kind that is genuine, and inviting. I took it to mean all that I wanted it to mean. And that evening, in my dorm room, we finally finished what we had begun two years before.

She was sitting on a deacon’s bench near the entrance to the bar at the Algonquin when I came in. She saw me, stood, came quickly over, extended her hand—which I thought was a strangely formal gesture—and I took it.

“Hello, Stacy.” I bent forward to kiss her on the cheek; she started to back away, stopped, let me kiss her.

“Hello, Abner. It’s good to see you.”

She was wearing a bulky, long-sleeve, purple and white knit sweater and a knee-length, pastel orange skirt, the kind of stiffly casual outfit she’d been wearing quite a lot in the last few years, since breaking up with Art. “You look nice, Stacy.”

“I feel awful, Abner.” She nodded toward the bar. “Can we go in there, please? I need a drink.”

“Sure.” We started to go in; a hotel employee came forward with what looked like a boy’s-size brown sports jacket in hand. “Here you go, sir.” He smiled a polite, firm smile. I took the jacket, tried to put it on, found that it was much too small, put it over my shoulders, and went with Stacy into the bar.

We found a little table in a corner; I ordered a scotch, she a daiquiri, and when the waiter was gone, Stacy leaned forward, with her elbows on the table and her hands clasped high above it, put her head down, and said, her voice quaking, “That bastard! Goddamn him, Abner—God
damn
him!”

I reached across the table, put my hands on her hands—it was an awkward and uncomfortable gesture. “You mean Art?”

“Of course I mean Art.” She looked up. “Where is he, Abner?”

“He’s in Europe.” I took my hands away. The waiter came with our drinks. I went on, “He’s in Nice. He called me yesterday, in fact—”

Stacy cut in, “There is a man, Abner, who says he’s a detective here in New York, and he came all the way up to Bangor looking for Art. He thought Art was with
me
, for God’s sake! He said Art
killed
someone; he said Art killed a woman and that there’s a warrant out for him.” She stopped, took a breath, closed her eyes, shook her head slowly. “This man came to my house, Abner; he talked to
my
mother and father, and he upset them terribly. So I have come here to find out what exactly is going on.”

“Jesus,” I whispered.

“Do you know anything about it, Abner?”

I hesitated, thought, answered, “Yes, I do. It’s why he called me, in fact.”

“Go on.”

“He said it was manslaughter. He said it was an accident; he said he was cleaning this gun he has—”

 “Oh, horseshit! Art would never own a gun, you know that, Abner. He hates guns!”

I shrugged. “That’s what he told me. He said he was cleaning this gun and it went off. He said that the woman he shot was named Phyllis.” A brief pause. “And he said, Stacy, that he … loved her.”

Stacy chuckled coldly. “Do you believe
everything
Art tells you? He never loved anyone, Abner.”

I shook my head. “I’m merely repeating what he said to me. Just repeating it. I believed him, yes—at least when he said the shooting was accidental. I believed him. I don’t think he’s capable of murder.”

“I do,” she cut in. “I
know
him, Abner.
I
lived with him, so I know him, and I
know
that he’s capable of murder.” She took a quick sip of her daiquiri, grimaced.

“No good?” I asked.

She ignored the question. “He used to hit me, Abner; you know that, of course.”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t know.” I paused. The news surprised me, but not very much, especially after what Phyllis—or at least the woman who called herself Phyllis—had told me. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s why we split up—it’s why I left him.” She took another sip of the daiquiri, licked her lips, went on, “I don’t think that he enjoyed it, the way some men do. I think it was a kind of … aberration. And he didn’t do it often—we were married for five years; he hit me only three times in those five years, and never very hard—a slap across the face. And it hurt, sure, but it didn’t do any damage. Then one day he came home complaining about a taxi driver, about how the guy took him way out of his way and got an extra couple of dollars from him, and I said, ‘Maybe he thought you were a tourist.’ I was just trying to inject some humor into the situation, I guess, because he really was angry, which made me nervous.” She paused, took another sip, nodded at my scotch. “You’re not drinking, Abner.” I picked up the glass, said, “So what did he do then?”

“He—” she grinned crookedly—”punched me out, I guess you’d say.”

“He punched you out?”

She nodded once, that crooked grin still on her lips. “He hit me in the stomach, then in the jaw—with his fists—and then in the stomach again. I doubled over—Jesus, I couldn’t breathe. Then he hit me in the arm. Then in the jaw again.” A short pause. “And that was that. He stalked out of the apartment, and I fell to the floor. I moved out the next day, after spending the night in the Emergency Department at Bellevue. They said I was pretty tough; they said he didn’t do any permanent damage.”

“My God. Nobody ever told me a thing—”

“I didn’t tell anybody, Abner. Not even my parents. I toyed with the idea of having him arrested—maybe I should have …” She shook her head. “I still loved him. I love him even now, I think. I know that’s stupid—but you don’t stop loving someone because they’re messed up, do you, Abner?”

 “No,” I said. “I guess you don’t.”

“And he was messed up. He still is. Except now he’s killed someone, and he’s in trouble.” She downed half of the daiquiri. “Are you going to help me, Abner?”

“Help you?”

She nodded. “Yes, to find him.”

“But he’s in Nice.”

She shook her head, smiled slightly, knowingly. “I doubt that very much, Abner.”

“I don’t. He called me …”

“And have you tried to call him?”

“No. Not yet. But I could.”

She took a pack of Merits from her purse, offered me one.

“No, I stopped smoking; I didn’t know you’d started.”

She nodded. “A little while ago. I don’t like it. I don’t know why I do it.” She lit one of the cigarettes, inhaled of it very deeply.

“This detective who came up to Bangor said that Art’s
here
, in New York.” She took another drag of the cigarette, wiped a tear from her eye, apparently caused by the smoke. “He said Art’s hiding out somewhere. He said Harlem, probably.” She saw that I was shaking my head. “You don’t believe a word of this, do you, Abner?”

“How can I, Stacy? I told you, I’ve
talked
with him in Nice.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Abner.” She angrily butted out the cigarette. “How do you know he was in Nice? How do you know? Did an operator come on the line and say she had a call for you from Nice? Did he reverse the charges? How do you
know
? Shit, don’t be so damned dense.” She shook her head, downed the rest of the daquiri, attempted an apologetic grin. “No, forgive me, Abner. Please. That was uncalled for.”

I picked up my glass of scotch. Some of it sloshed onto my lap. I cursed, dabbed at the stain with the drink napkin. “It’s okay, Stacy. I’ve always been dense. Not stupid. Just dense.”

“And klutzy,” she offered.

“That, too,” I said.

She grinned quickly. “So are you going to help me or not?”

I didn’t answer at once, though I knew what my answer would be. I took a moment, dabbed at the stain some more, glanced around the bar, looked back, said, “I can’t, Stacy. I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m … involved.” I felt a self-conscious smile start and fought it down. “I’m very involved.”

Stacy looked confused. “With your work? You mean you’re involved with your work?”

I shook my head. “No. With a woman,” This time I could not fight that smile down. “A very … special woman.”

Stacy said, “I don’t understand you, Abner.” She was getting upset. “I need your
help
here. I’m asking for your help.”

“It’s a … complicated relationship, Stacy. It’s an awfully complicated relationship—”

 “I don’t give a shit how
complicated
it is! I thought we were friends. Jesus, I thought we were
more
than friends. And I thought Art was your friend, too.”

I took a breath, then said, “I’ve got to go now. I’m sorry.”

“Go? Go where?”

“Home. To Art’s apartment.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m confused, Stacy. I’m very confused. Some things have been happening and I have quite a lot to think about. I’m sorry. I wish I could explain it to you because I do love you. We
are
friends, and if I could help you, I would. But I can’t.”

“Fuck you, Abner!”

I continued looking at her a moment. Then I said, “Whatever you do, Stacy, don’t go into Harlem alone. Promise me that.”

She stood abruptly, glared down at me. She said nothing.

“Stacy,” I said. “Please—”

She cut in, “I’m going to find him, Abner. I
need
to find him!”

“Yes,” I said, “I imagine you do.”

At the Hammet Mausoleum, Halloween, 1965

I asked, “You think it’s mice, Sam?”

“Mice don’t
whisper
,” he said, and grimaced as if at some abominable stupidity. “I think it’s Joe Hammet. I think he’s trying to communicate with us. I think he’s trying to
tell
us something.”

“Like what?”

 “I don’t know. How the hell should I know? Maybe he wants to send out for a pizza. If you’d shut up, maybe I could find out.”

I shut up. We listened a few moments. I heard, faintly, the rush of traffic on Route 23A; I even heard Sam’s breathing. My own, too. I said, at a whisper, “It’s stopped, Sam. I don’t hear it anymore; I don’t hear it anymore.”

“Me neither.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked, still whispering. “You think maybe we should just … go away now?”

“Maybe
we
should try talking to
him
.” Sam was whispering, too. He looked to his right, at the plaque marked “Joseph William Hammet.” He said to it, aloud, “What you want, Joe?” and giggled softly. “You tell us what you want, Joe.” His voice had risen in volume and it echoed hollowly against the cement walls. “C’mon now, don’t be a damn wimp, Joe, just ‘cuz your dead, okay?”

“God, you’re disrespectful, Sam.” I grinned. I liked Sam’s sense of humor, but I thought I had to say something. “They’re gonna getcha for that.”

“Whatchoo want, Joe?” he said to Joe Hammet’s vault. “You want pepperoni; you want anchovies? If you want
anchovies
, you sure as shit better stay away from
me
.” He chuckled quickly. I chuckled. The sound of our chuckling came back to us almost at once from the cement walls.

“Did you really break into that funeral home, Sam?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems kinda … I don’t know, purposeless, I guess.”

He laughed out loud. “You’re a shit, Abner. You’re a real shit.”

I shrugged again. “Maybe,” I said.

“You know what a nebbish is, Abner?”

“Sure I know what a nebbish is, Sam.” I was surprised that Sam knew. “Why?”

” ‘Cuz you’re in real danger of becoming one, that’s why.” Then he turned his head, faced Joe Hammet’s vault again. “C’mon, Joe, don’t be a wimp just ‘cuz you’re dead, okay?”

“Okay,” we heard.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I’m not going to try and make you believe that this is a love story. It isn’t. Not, at least, in the usual sense of the phrase. When I hear the words
love story
, I think of Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, Taylor and Burton, Streisand and Redford. I do not think of Abner W. Cray and Phyllis Pellaprat.

Phyllis didn’t come back that night. When I got back from talking to Stacy, I waited for her. I sat on the big, black leather couch, watched some cable TV—Jesus, I watched Smokey and the Bandit—and, at a little after midnight, I shrugged out of my clothes and went to bed.

I woke at 8:30, called Serena Hitchcock’s office, and begged out of a 10:00 appointment, pleading sickness. “Some kind of flu, Serena; I’m very sorry, but I have quite a few shots for you to take a look at—” which was a lie: I’d done precious little work on the book in the week and a half since I’d last talked to Serena. “Maybe we can get together early next week—Monday or Tuesday, okay?” She said okay, she’d call me. But she was pissed.

I’m not going to tell you, either, that this is a ghost story. Because when I think of a ghost story, I think of the flesh falling off a young woman’s bones like so much wet and coagulated macaroni, and I think of nine-year-old boys floating outside second-story bedroom windows with rictus grins on their mouths, and I think of Nosferatu
et. al
., who try so hard to put something over on Mr. Death.

I do not think of four perilously thin teen-age girls hailing a taxi or of men in gray suits who are caught eternally in the act of asking if an elevator can be held.

Phyllis came back to me that evening. It was past eleven, close to 11:30, and I was lying on top of the blankets, naked—Art’s apartment got pretty warm at night, and I like to sleep naked. I heard the front door being unlocked, then the
clop-clop
of stacked heels on the foyer’s hardwood floor.

Moments later Phyllis appeared in the doorway.

She was dressed in her white coat and green dress—the same outfit she’d worn to her parents’ apartment—and she stood very still in the doorway, one hand on her hip, the other clutching a big, dark leather purse.

Only a soft, diffused light came in through the bedroom and dining room windows, so I saw her mostly in silhouette.