The Fourth Wall (25 page)

The shadow pressed down on me even heavier. Who the hell was I to call Michael Crown a hack? How could I disavow responsibility for his death? I felt … chastised. Ashamed. Even guilty. The way so many rape victims feel. I knew exactly what was happening to me—after all, I was writing a play about it. The relentless voice of accusation had indeed created its own authority, and I was ashamed. I was perfectly aware I was slipping into a morbid distortion of guilt and innocence, that my responses were being controlled by what was happening now and not by the events of nine years ago—I knew all this
and I couldn't do a damned thing to stop it
.

Days passed. The phone and the doorbell rang at times; I ignored them both. I remember opening a can of something occasionally and eating, thinking all the time of how good things used to taste when I was a child: fresh salt-rising bread, tomatoes with real flavor, transparent pie. I don't remember going to bed, but I sometimes woke up in an armchair. I do remember noticing I needed a shower.

I stood under the hot spray and listened to somebody singing. Me. Singing in the shower. I wasn't singing the Toby line—Toby had been dislodged by a new tune, an old-new tune:
Cream of Wheat is so good to eat, yes, we have it every day
. The theme song from an old radio show for children—which one was it? “Let's Pretend.”

As soon as I'd identified the tune I stopped singing, I stopped washing, I almost stopped breathing. I stood stock-still in the shower, the water running over me. Had I regressed that far? Were memories and tunes from the past the only source of comfort I had to draw upon? I'd wrapped myself in the cocoon of my childhood, a time when no monsters roamed the earth seeking to destroy me.

You spend your life trying to grow, trying to build something, trying to accept the responsibilities of the adult world. And all the time you're scared to death someone will look at you and see that inside you're still a little girl. And in spite of your best efforts, when the moment of real crisis comes, it's the child who takes over.

I was in trouble.

The doorbell was ringing as I stepped out of the shower, and this time I would answer it. I had to start facing people again. I slipped on John Reddick's terry-cloth robe and went to look through the peephole in the door. It was Leo Gunn, carrying a large cardboard box. With him were two plain-clothes men. I let them in.

“This came for you at the theater,” Leo said as he put the box down. He introduced his two guards. “They took it to the station and X-rayed it. It's okay. No bomb.”

The police certainly were bomb-conscious; Lieutenant Goodlow had had my television checked for a bomb.

Leo looked worried. “Abby, are you all right?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “I think I am now.”

“I've been trying to get you on the phone. Nobody's heard from you. Cavanaugh said he and Lieutenant Goodlow came over here a couple of times, but you must have been out.”

“No, I was here. Hiding, I'm afraid. But it's all right now.” Yes, it was all right now. I was coming out of my Slough of Despond. “I'm over the hump—I just needed a little time. I'll be all right, Leo. Truly.”

The tension went out of his face. “You know, I think you will. I'm glad, Abby.”

I went over and hugged him—this good, concerned man whom, for a moment, I had stupidly thought of as a possible enemy.

Leo was due at the theater. When he and his guards had left, I hunkered down on the floor by the box. A letter was taped to the outside, with Claudia Knight's name and address in the upper left-hand corner. I opened the box.

Books.

The Hardin Craig edition of Shakespeare. Block and Shedd's
Masters of Modern Drama
. A dictionary.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry
. An anthology of Restoration plays. C. Walter Hodges's
The Globe Restored
. Paperbacks of all the Greek tragedies.

The letter was brief:

I was horrified to hear what had happened to you. I've been thinking of you and wondering what you must be feeling. Perhaps these books will help a little when you start to rebuild
.

Claudia

For the first time since the whole ugly mess started, I broke down and cried.

I sat on the floor a while, reading the chorus speeches from
Agamemnon. Start rebuilding immediately
, Ian Cavanaugh had said.
Don't wait
. Claudia Knight's act of kindness said the same thing. I got up and dressed; I had a lot of rebuilding to do.

At first I thought of going to the theater, but something told me surrounding myself with familiar faces wouldn't do the trick. I had to make myself talk to strangers, to force myself to stop being afraid. I left the apartment building and wandered until I came to a Hungarian restaurant. For the first time in days I was hungry. I went inside and had a big dish of exotic something. Then I left and started walking west on Seventy-sixth Street until I came to a decent-looking watering place. Inside it was dark and noisy; everyone there seemed to be talking a mile a minute. Just what I needed.

I took a place at the bar and was soon involved in a long and not at all threatening conversation with a hearing-aid salesman from Trenton. We were joined by a man who ran a pizza parlor in the Village. (He was uptown slumming, he said.) We talked about the dirty streets, taxes, public television, Reggie Jackson, automobiles, and the wing span of sea gulls. The evening passed swiftly until it was time for the eleven o'clock news. I looked up at the television set and saw Gene Ramsay on the screen.

“The police are doing nothing, absolutely nothing,” he was saying into a microphone held by a disembodied arm. “These attacks have got to be stopped. Some lunatic is methodically attacking the
Foxfire
company, one by one. Abigail James had to go out of town on business, and look what happened the minute her back was turned. I want to know why we aren't getting any protection.”

“Not again,” complained the hearing-aid salesman. “They run that same story every night. Why so much fuss about a bunch of books?”

“Shhhh,” I said. “I want to hear this.”

Gene Ramsay's face had been replaced by that of a reporter. “Death, disfigurement, destruction,” he intoned solemnly. “Why is
Foxfire
being persecuted in this way? And by whom?
Foxfire
's struggle to survive against such overwhelming odds has caught the attention of the entire country. Producer Gene Ramsay is not alone is asking why the police are so helpless to prevent these outrages.”

Then Lieutenant Goodlow appeared on the screen, answering questions. “No, we're not thinking of closing the play. What good would it do? Sylvia Markey was backstage when she was disfigured, but the rest of the attacks have taken place away from the theater. Rosemary Odell was killed at home. John Reddick was attacked in a steam bath. Abigail James was in California when her home was trashed. We do have a new lead, and we're tracking it down now.”

A new lead. Michael Crown's lover.

“Did you see that play?” the pizza man asked me. I said I had. “Is it any good?”

“It's excellent,” I answered deadpan. “In fact, I've seen it more than once.”

The bartender had come up and was staring at me. “You're her,” he said. “The one whose place got tore up.”

“Goodbye,” I said and escaped, embarrassed at being caught out.

10

The next few weeks were a protracted scene from
Grotesque Procession
. I had interviews with the police, the press, the insurance company. I turned into the American Consumer Extraordinaire—I had to buy everything. First a bed to sleep on. Then a typewriter. Then dishes to eat off of and kitchen utensils and pots and pans to cook with. Towels and sheets. Bookshelves. Clothing. I had no idea how dependent I was on
things
until I had to replace them all. When I hurried away from San Francisco, I'd neglected to withdraw permission for Brian Simpson to produce
Double Play
—a fortunate oversight, as it turned out. A few sessions with the insurance boys made it clear I was going to need every cent I could lay my hands on.

I checked on the cleaning service that was working at making my home livable again. Some of the paint stains on the floor couldn't be removed, even though the cleaners had sanded all the way down to the nail heads. So I'd have to buy more carpeting than I had before. But the trash had all been cleared out and most of the walls repainted. I'd be able to move back in before long, with my new lares and penates.

When I got around to checking my answering service, the girl immediately switched me to her supervisor—a frigid-voiced woman who informed me my monthly bill would be quadruple its usual amount. She'd had to put on an extra girl just to take my calls, and she seemed to expect me to apologize for causing her this inconvenience. Instead I congratulated her on her efficiency and asked to be given my calls. Back to the girl who'd answered the phone. It took her nearly two hours to read me my messages. Everyone in the
Foxfire
company had tried to get in touch with me at least once. Friends and my scattered relatives had called, as well as strangers in the news media. People in other parts of the country whom I hadn't seen for years had called. My aunt in Boston had called twenty-seven times.

That long list of callers cheered me up as nothing else could have done. It was a little thing, picking up a phone and calling someone who had trouble. But it made a difference. It really did. I had a lot of calls to make, starting with my distraught aunt and Claudia Knight.

Then Leo Gunn called me at John Reddick's apartment. He wanted my permission to send over a crew to work on my place. They were from an outfit that specialized in installing metal doors and iron grill-work over the windows.

“And I don't want to hear any of that crap about turning your home into a prison,” Leo said. “I've just had them fix up my place. We're under attack, Abby, and we've got to protect ourselves.”

I didn't argue. “What about Ian? He might want to—”

“He's the one who told me about these people. He says his house looks like a fortress.”

So I said go ahead. According to Lieutenant Goodlow's line of reasoning, our enemy had “got” me, so presumably I had nothing further to fear. Sure. A man who'd killed at least once was still on the loose and was mad at me. I wasn't about to trust my safety to the hope that a madman would honor the Lieutenant's line of reasoning.

When I first saw the metal doors and grillwork a few days later, I was appalled. My home
had
been turned into a prison, no two ways about it—even without furniture taking up space, I began to feel cramped, confined. The sunlight cast prison bar shadows on the refinished floors; and even with the new white paint on the walls, the place seemed darker than before. But it was something I would have to learn to live with.

I hadn't picked up my mail for a while and the mailbox in the outside alcove was full. I opened an envelope from the insurance company first. The check they sent would cover maybe half my expenses. Also in the envelope was a notice of cancellation. Surprise, surprise. I flipped through the rest of the mail and stopped to look at a picture postcard showing a grandiose Southern mansion surrounded by weeping willows. The card had been mailed in Natchez, Mississippi, and carried a brief written message:
I'm all right
.

There was no signature, but I'd know that scrawl anywhere. It was John Reddick's handwriting.

“One thing we can be sure of,” Lieutenant Goodlow was saying, “is that he's not in Natchez. Probably mailed the card on his way out of town. Why Mississippi? Does he have any connections there?”

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“Could be part of an arbitrary pattern. Or he could be heading for Mexico, intending to work his way down to South America. He may have his passport with him, remember. Central America or South America—a good possibility.”

Where he could lose himself forever. “I hope not,” I said. “That kind of disappearance has a permanent air to it. Wouldn't he stay in the States? So he can hear if you ever catch this man?”

This time the Lieutenant didn't call me on saying “if.” Just then a man knocked on the Lieutenant's door and stuck his head in. “Ian Cavanaugh wants to see you. Says it's important.”

Ian shouldered his way in. “Lieutenant, I got a postcard from John Reddick!” he announced.

Ian's card had been posted in Jackson, Mississippi, and said the same thing mine did:
I'm all right
. It had been mailed the day after mine.

Lieutenant Goodlow opened his office door and called, “Wexler, bring me an atlas!” When the book came, the Lieutenant sat at his desk and flipped through the pages until he came to Mississippi. “Hm. Jackson's northeast of Natchez. So he's not heading for Mexico after all. Unless this is a diversionary tactic.”

“Could be,” said Ian. “John can be devious if he has to. He's not going to leave an easy trail.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked the Lieutenant.

“Send out a bulletin to apprehend and hold him as a material witness. He's seen this man we're after, and maybe he can tell us something.”

Ian and I exchanged glances. This wasn't what we'd bargained for.

“Send out a bulletin where?” I asked.

Lieutenant Goodlow consulted his atlas. “Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama. He's long gone from Mississippi, I'll bet, but maybe we can pick him up in one of the adjoining states. He's probably working his way from town to town, odd-jobbing it.”

Ian cleared his throat. “It didn't occur to me you'd try to bring him back.”

“We won't bring him back. We'll just have him questioned and released.”

Well, maybe that wasn't so bad. “All right, then,” said Ian, as if the Lieutenant had asked his permission.