SHUDDERVILLE FOUR (2 page)

Mandelbaum found the old woman’s house at the end of the lane and knocked. Olga greeted him warmly at the door—a rail-thin old lady who seemed cursed to shake forever. “Why, good afternoon, Mr. Mandelbaum. Please come in. Wipe your feet.”

He took off his salt-stained hat and dutifully wiped his feet on the welcome mat. Olga looked so frail and fragile, he imagined flicking her away with his finger. And yet she terrified him. A seer. Who saw things. What things?

Now she stood smiling up at him, revealing a set of narrow teeth inside her shriveled, consumptive face. She wore bright white orthopedic shoes and a quilted dressing gown that was frazzled from repeated washings. Her spindly legs had varicose veins running through them. She shuffled into the living room and plopped down in the nearest chair, as if she couldn’t make it any further into the house.

There was a tray on the coffee table, with a teapot and china cups, a delicate bowl of sugar and a tiny pitcher of milk, and also a plate of warm cinnamon buns.

“I made these for you,” she said with a prideful smile.

“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” He set his box on the table next to the tea tray and picked up the teapot. He poured them both a cup of tea, added milk and sugar without asking, and handed Olga her cup and saucer, along with a cloth napkin and an elegant silver spoon. “Here you go. Just the way you like it.”

“How do you know what I like?” she asked, surprised.

Mandelbaum shook his head. “I can tell you like things sweet and creamy. I’m looking around your place, and I see you have many comforts here. Many toss pillows and footstools and such. Lacy curtains and deep-pile carpets. Knick-knacks with cherubic faces. It keeps death at bay—cream and sugar. It cushions the loneliness.”

Her hands trembled and the china made a loud clattering sound as she took a few sips and then set the saucer on the edge of the table. “Sit and talk,” she commanded.

He picked up his cup and saucer, his spoon, his napkin, and sat down. He told her about his journey. He told her everything.

She strained to catch every word.

“And you remember my wife, Estelle?” he asked politely.

It took her so long to respond, he thought for a moment she hadn’t heard him.

“Of course. A lovely girl. So full of life. And yet so barren. Well. Until, that is... well.” She peered at him, her calcified jaw setting moodily. “It’s
terrible
. No?” She turned away, the color rising in her withered cheeks. Her coifed hair was white as snow. Her eyes were pale and shiny. She was oddly beautiful in her old age, like a scratched marble. It almost made him want to purchase her from an antique dealer’s shelf. She tugged the fringed ends of her quilted robe closer together and repeated, “It’s terrible.”

“That’s one word for it, I suppose.”

She pointed at the box on the table. “Show me.”

“But you haven’t finished drinking your tea.”

“Yes. With cream and sugar. I know. Show me,” she thundered, shaking so badly her bony knee hit the table and her teacup threatened to overspill.

Mandelbaum quickly got up and scooped it away from the edge of the table and set it back down on the tray. “I will show you,” he said quietly.

“Good.” She nodded, calmer now.

His hands wouldn’t stop trembling as he opened the box and parted the tissue paper. He gingerly lifted the leathery, mummified little body out of the box and laid it on the polished mahogany table.

Olga pressed her hands together. “Closer,” she said.

Obeying, he handed her the little body, and she rested it in her paltry lap and studied the perfect eyelids, the strangely pointed ears, the miraculous fingernails and toenails.

Fright traveled in waves through his stomach. “We named him Teddy.”

Olga said nothing.

Mandelbaum sat in miserable silence.

Finally she waved him over and whispered, “I picture a brutal killing machine. A man shut off from the rest of the world. A loner. Dead inside. Driven to madness. He can’t sleep. He can’t eat. He can’t stop thinking about his wife. He can’t stop imagining how she died. How she suffered. He tried to bury his son. He cobbled together the coffin himself. It was horrible. The smell alone. The despair. Something snapped inside of him. He couldn’t do it. Broken and alone. He’s lost his mind. My gift to you—an explanation. Only one among many. Just a guess. Based on nothing but air.” She tapped her thinning, white-haired skull.

Words nudged out of his mouth, reluctant sentiments. “Yes. Pity. But what can you do?”

The wise seer took a few scratchy breaths. She was very old. “You must bury your son. After all these years—why hang on? Why cling? A formal burial. Of course, it will cost you.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“Good. I will preside.”

“Yes,” he agreed immediately. “That was my hope.”

“You can’t carry him around forever in a box,” she said with such force it made him feel ashamed. “Was that your
plan
?”

“No, you’re right.”

“We will give him a proper burial.” She raised her hands above the little corpse in her lap. “Please. Take it.”

He picked up his son, and the thought of Estelle’s barren womb filled him with sadness. For years they’d tried to have children, to no avail. They’d done everything in their power. But then something miraculous had happened. He and the Judge discovered the secret. In 1966, Mandelbaum did something a man should never do. He lied and cheated and stole. And worse than that. Much worse. Yes, it was indeed terrible. And then he went home and told Estelle to make a wish. One wish.

A boy and a girl, Toby! A little devil and a little angel!

Mandelbaum had been overjoyed at his newfound abilities. His amazing godlike power. He could grant wishes. As a matter of fact, that had been his one wish—to grant people wishes! He thought it would be a good thing—a generous offering to mankind. Sort of like an ordination. He could minister to people’s needs. Cure their diseases. Fight their causes. He could help people—only now he knew that evil grew from seeds of goodness and purity. Evil inevitably grew out of a desire to help others. Not right away. But over time.

And the very first person he’d granted a wish to had been his wife. Estelle. He’d hurried home that very day and asked her—what do you want most in this world? What is your fondest desire? Anything. Anything at all.

Her wish was crystal clear.
I want two children,
Toby. A boy and a girl.
What could be simpler? Twins. Fraternal twins. Why not? They’d waited so long. No more prayers. No more heartache.

It hurt him to remember. It pierced him like a pin being pushed into his chest. He was falling into something that had no clear bottom. He could feel the adrenaline pulsing through his body in waves of apprehension, like a motor revving and dying. He felt the old shame and humiliation. He still had questions.

With a sharp intake of breath, he said, “Yes, I will hold the burial tomorrow, and you will preside.”

“Tonight,” she hissed. “As soon as possible. You have kept him so long. He needs to be blessed tonight.”

His brain buzzed like a tuning fork. It was his fault the boy had been born so damaged.
A little devil.
They realized right away that they had to kill it—they both knew that. He could read the horror in Estelle’s eyes shortly before she died. Now he ran his fingers along the twig-like limbs, too repulsed to continue, too fascinated to stop. He examined the tiny hands, the opposable thumbs.
Goodbye, my son.

And where was Bella? His angel daughter? Where was she now? What did she look like? Could she fly at long last? Who had taken her away from him? Or had she died the night she’d wandered off?

He stood completely powerless over the box, his rapid heartbeat animating his entire body. So much so, he throbbed like a bullfrog in the muddy heat of summer.

“Did you hear me, Mr. Mandelbaum? Are you listening?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He deferred to her age and status. “I hear you.”

She was leaning forward, shaking her tiny fist at him. “You’ll do exactly as I tell you. Not one iota more.”

“Yes. Tonight. I’ll make the arrangements.”

Finally satisfied with his answer, she collapsed against her seat like a scarf in a magic act. Poof. She landed in a boneless heap inside her frazzled quilted robe. “Good,” she whispered. “Good boy.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

His many fears subsided in small increments. The little corpse reminded him of a police chalk drawing on the sidewalk. So simple and pathetic, and yet it had the power to terrify. He placed it carefully inside its box and folded over the brittle tissue paper. “Rest in peace,” he whispered as he lowered the lid.

*

Sophie yawned and checked the street signs. It was one o’clock in the morning. She was parked a couple of blocks away from a house where several police cruisers tossed their beacons around the neighborhood like red-and-blue strokes of lightning. Investigators were at the scene. A body had been taken away. A detective was interviewing witnesses.

Sophie observed the detective carefully. A man with a dense brow and dark cagey eyes. His shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, and he was perspiring profusely in the balmy night. The moon was three-quarters full. Beads of sweat popped out on the detective’s forehead, and his back muscles pulled and strained against his jacket.

Sophie drew a troubled breath and held it in her lungs. She didn’t know what to make of this scene. Not yet. She only knew that all hell was about to break loose.

She drove to Mandelbaum’s seaside home, parked on the street and stepped out of her air-conditioned car into the muggy heat. She took the chipped flagstone walkway toward the dark and silent residence. A pink stucco bungalow. Oceanfront property.

Looking nervously over her shoulder, she went around the side of the house, where she put her nose to the glass and nearly leapt out of her skin. Mandelbaum stood peering back at her with his face pressed to the glass. He stared at her through the window, smiling at her confusion and fright. He motioned her inside.

She met him at the front door. He wore baggy shorts and an unbuttoned shirt. His sandals were made of leather, and his wrinkled chest was the texture of roasted turkey. “I saw you walking around the side of the house,” he said with a laugh. “You should’ve seen your face, Sophie.”

“Who died tonight? In that house?”

He shrugged. “Come on in and we’ll talk about it.”

“Did you kill her? That old lady?”

“No.” He sighed. “I didn’t kill anyone. Are you coming in or what?”

She rooted around in her backpack and clumsily pulled out a gun. She aimed it at his chest and motioned him inside.

She followed him through the living room and noticed the gauzy drapes ruffling in the breeze. The French doors were open. The air smelled heavily of salt and faintly of dead flowers. The living room was decorated with lots of blonde wood and framed art prints. Picasso, Hopper, Miro.

He didn’t seem surprised. “Won’t you have a seat?”

“Don’t move,” she said, aiming the gun at his head.

His teeth were stained from drinking endless cups of coffee. He had a rail-thin body and slate-white hair that snaked unpleasantly from his skull. “Pull up a chair,” he said cordially enough. “Would you like something to drink?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Mind if I do?”

“No.” She sat heavily.

“Tired?”

“Shut up. Just get yourself a drink and tell me where Jayla is.”

“Ah,” he said. “You want to know about Jayla.”

“What else?” She’d had it with him. Fear flared in her eyes, but she tried not to show it. She steadied her gun at his chest.

Mandelbaum’s mouth turned down at the corners as he slowly buttoned up his Hawaiian shirt. His cagey eyes were surrounded by crow’s-feet and topped off by two fading white eyebrows. She could see the red veins on his nose. She could count the blackheads on his chin. There was a hurtful tenderness in her bones. She felt like a coiled spring, ready to pop.

“Let’s be honest,” he said. “We’ve both suffered great losses. Sure you wouldn’t like a drink? Bourbon? Tequila?”

She licked her parched lips. “Just tell me where she is and I’ll leave you alone. Tell me now, or I swear to God…” The gun wavered in her hand. Could she do it? Pull the trigger? Maybe. Was this how people died? Some person with a gun who honestly didn’t know if they could pull the trigger or not, until they finally did?

There were plug-in air fresheners in the living room, and the maroon cotton sofa was jauntily angled between two matching armchairs. The tufted wall-to-wall carpeting was speckled like birds’ eggs.

“Bourbon. The best. Cheers.” Mandelbaum finished his drink in several greedy gulps and poured himself another. He scratched the back of his neck with his thumb and exhaled loudly. “I’m not the man I used to be, ever since Estelle died. Here she is. This picture was taken forty years ago. Forty, is it? How time flies.” He handed Sophie the framed photograph of a pregnant young woman with impish eyes and a poodle cap of hair. “Be still my heart.”

Sophie nodded, not entirely unsympathetic.

“She was a snob, but she liked me okay.”

She handed the picture back. “What happened to her?”

“She died giving birth to our firstborns. Twins. She never made it to the hospital. They were two months premature. She miscarried inside the house, and the babies didn’t make it. Bless their souls. A boy and a girl. That’s what Estelle wanted. Mind?” He poured himself another drink.

Sophie kept the gun directed toward him at all times. “What does any of this have to do with my daughter?” she said angrily, blood pulsing through her chest.

He raised his chin and squinted. “There was a time when I couldn’t imagine life without Estelle. But what are you going to do? You go on living, no matter what. You think you’ll die of grief, but then you don’t. You wake up the next day. It’s the darnedest thing.” He took the decanter with him and sat in one of the matching armchairs. He settled in and said, “Look around you. This is how you grow old. Lazy-Boy recliner. Metamucil. Icy Hot. Reminiscing about old times. I’m an official citizen of Geezer Land.”