The Caveman's Valentine (29 page)

She said, “Oh shut up. I want you to help me. Help me! This is more of this craziness! Has
everyone
lost his mind? Please God, what is this?”

“Everyone has lost his mind. I used to think I still had mine, but nope, mine’s gone, too. Go away, Miz Peasley. Go home.”

“For God’s sake! Can’t you do
anything?”

She was gone for an hour or maybe all afternoon before he put down his notebooks again, and answered her:

“Yeah, I can do this for you. I can get them to kill me, too.”

A
gain he called Moira.

“I’m sorry I flew off the handle at you.”

“Oh. Well.” She spoke slowly. She picked her way carefully. “Rom, I don’t think I should talk to you anymore. OK?”

“That’s fine. We’ll just sign off, right?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey I understand. We’ll meet in another life. But before you walk out on me, my darling, could you do me one tiny favor? Tiny tiny?”

“I don’t know, Rom. I’ll try.”

“It’s easy. I want you to give your brother a message.”

“
Please,
Rom.”

“Just tell him the psycho Caveman’s been bothering you again. Tell him I called up and you’ve got to get your number changed ’cause I was ranting and raving. And tell him that this is what I raved: tell him I said
I made a copy of the videotape.
Right? Where I was staying in North Carolina, I made a copy of Scotty Gates’s videotape. Joey took the original, but I’ve got the copy. If he wants it, I’ve got it. Will you tell him that?”

“Rom!”

“I’ll never ask anything again. Just tell him what the madman ranted and raved.”

T
hen he went back to the library and wrote down everything he knew about the death of Andrew Scott Gates in one of his notebooks. Then he wrote a letter to his daughter, Lulu. He went to the post office and mailed it. He went back to the cave and hid his notebooks in the beech tree. He tidied up. Cyclops came by, and he told her if she showed her hideous face here again, he’d have her arrested. He watched her limp away. He sat on his mattress. He threw pastry crumbs to the chickadees. He had not eaten in two days. He stared at the tiny pale leaves of the beech. He waited.

When they came to call, they’d find him at home.

T
he letter was waiting for Lulu when she got home from her shift. It was on the kitchen table. Mama sat with a cup of coffee, didn’t say anything. She must have seen it, must have known it was Daddy’s handwriting, and you could tell Daddy was in a bad way just by his handwriting on the envelope. But Mama didn’t say anything. She was quiet. She asked Lulu about her day, but she didn’t listen to the answer.

Lulu took the letter into the bedroom.

Darling daughter,

By the time you read this I’ll already be murdered. There won’t be any body, they’ll say I’m missing persons, but no, I’ll be dead.

Go see Matthew Donofrio. Tell him you know all about the no-face men, and tell him that for the sake of your father’s divinity, he must come forward.

Then go talk to Elon, the retarded man who lives with Leppenraub. Tell him you want to see the needle. Take the needle to the lab, and find out what was in it.

Go to Mrs. Peasley in Lent, North Carolina, and tell her the Caveman is dead and for the sake of his honor and divinity to tell you the truth. Tell her that her son is dead, that this the Caveman swears on his own grave, and so there’s nothing any more to be afraid of.

Then take all this truth you’ve gathered and with it drive Leppenraub through the gates of hell. I’ll meet him there, just inside, and deal with him.

Leave Stuyvesant alone. You’re not strong enough to take on Stuyvesant directly. Not by yourself. Not yet. But keep looking for the prophet who will deliver us. As I go now, I tell you that prophet is coming.

At this very moment, Lulu (at the moment I write this, I mean) in some other chord of time, I live not in a cave but in a treehouse, a treehouse built in a beech tree of great proportions, and it’s by the sea, and you and I are down on the sand making a castle and your mother is wading through the shallows gathering enough sand dollars to make us all filthy rich.

I love you.

Daddy

The New York Public

Library, Inwood Branch

Sometime near the Vernal 

Equinox

“Oh Daddy,” she said.

It took Mama two hours to bring herself to ask. They were watching the news and a headache ad came on, and finally Mama said:

“So what damn-fool nonsense is your father writing you?”

“Mama. He’s pretty sick.”

“He’s always been sick. Sick before I knew him, if I’d had the eyes to see.”

Lulu said, “Mama, I think . . . I mean I think we’re going to . . .”

“What do you want to say, girl?”

Lulu sighed. “There’s nothing I want to say.”

“Well what are you
trying
to say?”

“That I’m going to have him committed.”

A bad thing happened to Mama’s lips. She gave them a fierce tug downward, then let them slide slowly back into place while she watched the rest of the ads. She glared at Peter Jennings for a while. Then she went into her room and shut the door.

B
ut at the cave, that very evening, Romulus was still waiting.

Days had gone by, and they still hadn’t shown.

Tonight, he thought. Tonight would be a good night for them. Right, Seraphs?

The Moth-Seraphs, those that were still alive, seethed.

Romulus watched it get dark.

He watched the moon come up.

The neighborhood mockingbird chose that night to perform one of its bitter, beautiful routines. Sitting up at the tiptop of the beech and slamming everybody it knew. Mockers had drifted into New York recently, but they were at home here. Even cabdrivers couldn’t surpass their knack for nastiness. They had the
gift.

Romulus leaned back against the stone and drank in this bird’s music.

He was trying to remember the names of all his great-uncles and aunts. That had been his strange occupation the last few days, dredging up the names of his kin. And all the random shreds of their history that his mother had passed down to him. He had no idea why he was doing this. But it served to pass the time.

Along about one in the morning, he went for a walk. He hated leaving the cave—he might miss his visitors!—but his limbs were restless and there was a trio of crocuses on the slope behind the cave and he wanted to check on them. He walked around the top of the ridge and came down to the little grove of ironwood, and the crocuses were under there, waxed with moonlight, perfect.

Also the ironwood leaves, which he appraised with his fingers, were coming along. Though they were still so small they scarcely registered to his touch.

He heard footsteps. He looked down the slope. The two No-faces were coming up the hill.

He shrank back into the shadow of the ironwoods, and they passed within a yard of him and didn’t see him. It was such an easy game, it was all he could do to keep from giggling.

But once they’d gone past, there was no point in playing any longer.

“Gentlemen,” he called. “Would you be heading by any chance to the Caveman’s place? I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind. I’d be grateful for the company. It’s a dark night, and I have fears that evil might be afoot.”

The larger No-face produced a pistol. Pulled it from the pocket of his loose dark windbreaker, and aimed it at Romulus.

Said Romulus, “So you yourselves are highwaymen? Just my luck. I might have known.”

“The videotape, Caveman.”

“Ah. So you’d like to make a purchase?”

The greater No-face looked to the lesser. The lesser nodded. The greater said, “How much?”

“Well, I’m inclined to be fair, since the tape’s of no value to
me
at all. Shall we say a million dollars?”

No response.

“Plus
that,
of course.”

Romulus pointed upward. The greater No-face followed the angle of his finger and found the moon.

Then he came very close to Romulus.

“We don’t have no time to fuck around. Where’s the tape?”

“I don’t negotiate with underlings. Tell your friend to speak up, I’ll talk to him.”

The lesser No-face made some kind of impatient gesture, and the greater No-face cracked the side of Romulus’s head with the pistol, just under the rim of his pot hat. The hat went flying.

The moonlight turned to oil, swirled and sloshed.

“You’ll do what we fucking
tell
you to. Now where’s the fucking tape?”

Romulus was on his knees. He put his hand down, and the moonlight stopped rocking, and he rose. “I will not tell you. You better kill me now. It’s a good time, a good place. In a minute, you might lose the opportunity. A word to the wise—this park is well patrolled. Do it now.”

The big No-face brought his face close to Romulus. Romulus stared, but all he saw were the tiers of gauze.

Said No-face, “You’re going to tell us. You understand?”

“No. Explain it to me. Are you going to torture me? Fine, let’s get to work. I’ll consider it a challenge.”

Said No-face, “What, do you think we’re crude? We’re not going to torture
you.
We’re going to torture your daughter.”

Romulus stopped breathing. Terror took hold of him from behind and squeezed all the air out of his chest.

No-face was saying, “Little Lulu. 135 Cole Street, Ozone Park, Queens. We’re on our way there right now. You want to come? You want to watch?”

Romulus’s hands lashed out and he grabbed the smaller fucker, the silent one, the boss, by the throat. It was a small throat and it would have taken Romulus only six seconds to kill him. But he didn’t have that long. Somebody started knocking on the door, knock-knocking insistently, and that pounding was so annoying it distracted Romulus from his murdering. He turned to see who it was.

It was the moon. He was gazing up at the moon, and his head was in flames, and through smoke he saw those white faces, except they were dark now, against the light sky. They were standing over him.

“You don’t
have
to come, Caveman. If you want, we’ll take you someplace and tie you up, and we’ll go by ourselves to see your daughter. But you really ought to come. We’re going to party with that girl all night long.”

Think.

Forget the flames, the howling in your skull, the smell of your own blood, the feel of it as it trickles into your ear.

Climb above all this, and think.

What’s important here is that you can’t afford to die. Not yet. You can’t let them kill you before you’ve warned her. You’ve got to warn Lulu.

“What?” said the greater No-face.

“I said, I’ve got to make a call.”

“You’re not calling nobody.”

“No, I’ve got to. I’ve . . . the tape is . . . with a friend. I told him if anything happens to me to give it to the cops.”

“Give us your friend’s name.”

“Yeah, I could do that.”

“Then do it.”

“But you’d have to kill him, and his wife, and the guard in his apartment house, and maybe his children—”

“We don’t have to kill anyone. We’ll handle it real smooth. Who?”

“And it’d get messy. Too fucking messy for you guys. And for me. I can’t do it.”

“Then we play with Lulu.”

“Do what you have to. But I asked him as a favor. I’m going to let you kill his whole family? Little part of the favor I didn’t tell him about?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, fuck
you.”

The No-face was frustrated. He gave Romulus a kick. Romulus took the pain, folded and refolded it, and put it away.

He got his breath back, and he tried to sound reasonable when he said, “Look, what’s . . . what’s the problem? You let me call him, I’ll tell him to make the drop. We’ve got a drop all worked out. He’ll do it any time I ask. I’ll tell him to make the drop, all we’ve got to do is go pick it up.”

The big No-face kicked him again.

But then the smaller, the silent one, put a hand on his colleague’s arm.

For a moment the figures swam out of Romulus’s vision. Then he felt himself being hauled to his feet. The greater No-face was lifting him up by his lapels. Saying, “Listen to me, fucker. If you’re trying to fuck with us . . .”

Said Romulus, “What would be the point? I cross you, you kill me, and you get Lulu. So what would I get out of crossing you? For God’s sake, let me just get over this. I was being stupid, all right? I was playing some stupid game, trying to make a few dollars, and now I see that was dumb. I’m persuaded, all right? Let me make the call.”

N
ot a soul on Payson Street. He stood at the little three-sided telephone coop, and pressed his ear hard against the receiver so the No-faces wouldn’t hear, and started to dial.

But the big one was watching his fingers. Romulus hung up.

“Stand back,” he said. “Don’t watch.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Romulus insisted. “I’m not getting my friend involved. If you involve him, the deal’s off.”

The No-face stepped back again. Romulus cupped one hand over the numbers and dialed again.

Don’t answer, Sheila. Let Lulu pick it up.

A groggy, pissed-off voice. “Hello.”

Of course it was Sheila.

“Hey. This is Romulus.”

“Oh you crazy goddamn son of a bitch. What the hell are you doing—you know what time it is? What are you calling for? Not one soul on earth’s got any patience for you. Not one soul on earth feels sorry for you.”

“Darling, I’ve got to speak to the Cap’n.”

“The who? The
Cap’n?
Who the hell is the Cap’n? Jesus Christ, Romulus. Jesus Christ.”

Then she just breathed.

He said, “I know it’s late, but I’ve got to talk to him. I’m sorry.”

Sheila. It’s our little girl, they’re going to kill her. If you don’t help me, they’ll do this thing.

Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.