Strange Eons (9 page)

“Of course.” Kay pushed back her chair and rose. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“Not at the moment. I’ve kept the key to his safety-deposit box, of course. Apparently he didn’t carry insurance.”

“He must have let the policies lapse after the divorce went through.” Kay sighed. “There wasn’t much point in keeping them up any more, was there?”

For the first time, as she spoke, Kay felt a surge of sentiment, although she couldn’t identify its precise nature. Sorrow because Albert was dead? No, in utter honesty, she was unable to summon anything as strong as grief. Perhaps pity was a shade closer to the truth—pity for a man who died so far away and so utterly alone. But then Albert Keith had always been far away and alone, even when they were married. If she’d pitied him then, if she’d been able to understand, perhaps he might still be alive. Damn it, she did recognize her emotional reaction now—it was
guilt!
If guilt is an emotion. No matter, she had no reason to feel guilty; ex-husband or not, she’d never really known Albert; she couldn’t mourn him either for what he was or for what he might have been.

With a start, Kay realized Heisinger was speaking to her, had been for some time.

“—once the inventory is completed I’ll have the attorney draw up the necessary papers for probate. We’ll be in touch.”

“Thank you again for all you’ve done.”

“No trouble.” Heisinger rose and escorted Kay to the office door. “We’re here to serve you.”

His thin lips relaxed in a fraction of a smile; Kay found herself translating it into decimal terms as she nodded and stepped out into the corridor.

Five percent of a smile for five percent of the estate. Fair enough, she supposed. She still retained ninety-five percent of everything—including the responsibility of finding out just what might have happened.

But she
wasn’t
responsible, Kay reminded herself. The divorce put an end to that, and she had the papers, the legal documents that proved it. If legal documents can really prove anything. Damn it, why was she feeling so guilty?

The smart thing to do would be to walk away from the whole affair. Let the executor and the attorney and the tax people make an inventory and a settlement, then pick up her ninety-five percent and enjoy. She didn’t love Albert, he didn’t love her. And even if they’d had the greatest relationship since Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra or Sonny and Cher, it didn’t matter now. Albert was dead, she couldn’t bring him back again, and if there was something fishy about the way he died—

Something fishy.

Oh Jesus,
that
was it!

Hurrying out of the building, emerging into the warm sunlight, the cold chill struck.

Kay trembled, and remembered.

Remembered the little girl, five years old, standing on the bank of the Colorado River before the picnic grounds and watching the state troopers dragging the
thing
up from the shadows and across the sand. The grappling-hooks had left their marks, but that wasn’t what left the mark on her memory, scored it and scarred it over all these years. It was the
absence
of marks that had haunted her nightmares; the swollen smoothness of the
thing
that flopped wet and dripping upon the bank. Long immersion in the water had eroded all resemblance to humanity; the bloated flesh was muddy gray, arms and legs were flopping flippers ended in fingerless, toeless blobs, and fish had feasted on the face.

That
was the horror; the thought of the feasting fishes. The five-year-old girl had stared and screamed and now that scream still echoed through the long corridors of memory.

Yes, the smart thing to do was to walk away.

But Kay’s legs trembled until she was safely seated in her car, pulling out of the parking lot. And she couldn’t walk away—couldn’t run away, because she wasn’t five years old anymore—couldn’t get away from the thought of Albert. Albert’s death and how he died; drowning there in the deep where the fish swarmed and the serrated teeth tore into the foundered flesh—

She couldn’t walk away. Nor drive away, either.

Turning west at the corner, the car headed toward the haze-shrouded hills.

Entering the canyon, Kay found herself gradually relaxing, as though the decision itself had put an end to both guilt and memory. In their place, however, came something very much akin to
déjà vu.

She had taken this route many times before, but not during the past few years, and true memory was dimmed. Twice she lost her way in the winding confusion of dead ends and roadways that circled back upon themselves; the late afternoon shadows were lengthening and blending into dusk when finally she drew up before the place she had once called home.

Or had she? Again the
déjà vu
feeling. She recognized this house and yet she didn’t truly associate it with past reality. Perhaps she’d dreamed of living here; perhaps she shared someone else’s memories and mistook them for her own.

Heisinger was right. People change.

Albert had changed, no doubt about it. She remembered best his brief bravado before their marriage, a sort of dominating demanding, which hinted at the strength of his desire. It was, of course, nothing of the sort; merely an indication of a perenially spoiled child’s need to possess whatever he found attractive at the moment. But she’d
wanted
him to be possessive, she’d needed the feeling of belonging to someone. Unfortunately, his urge, or instinct—or collector’s mania, perhaps that’s what it really was—proved to be a temporary phenomenon. Children tire of toys, however attractive, particularly when owning them involves responsibilities. Albert soon lapsed into his habitual pattern of introversion, and this was the chief factor leading to their separation and divorce.

But she had changed too. As Albert’s alienation increased, her own gregarious inclinations expanded. At the time of their marriage she’d been a timid, inhibited loner, unsure of her ability to cope with day-to-day contact with the business world and even less sure of her sexuality. From her early teens onward men had found Kay attractive, but her self-image was always that of an ugly duckling. More to the point, she’d never consciously yearned to become a swan.

And Albert Keith, ironically enough, had awakened her. The physical relationship of which he so quickly seemed to tire had brought her to self-awareness and the need for fulfillment.

But Albert didn’t respond. His demands on her lessened; she might just as well have remained an ugly duckling because his life-style didn’t even impose the necessity of pretending swandom. No need to act the well-groomed, stylishly accoutered and totally artificial product of Women’s Lib.

Perversely, however, this was exactly the image Kay set out to establish. The extension courses she took out of boredom led to the modeling classes and the classes led to the professional assignments.

The rest was inevitable. From model to muddle in one easy step. Or one uneasy year. The divorce, when it came, was amicable—that was the word Albert used; he was always so good about finding the right word for the wrong action—they had gone their separate ways.

Her way had not been easy, but during the past few years it had led her, step by step, toward emotional maturity. Kay knew that now, and was content.

And yet she found herself wondering. Which way had Albert gone?

Opening the front door, stepping into the living room, Kay confronted the answer.

More exactly—more exotically, there in the gathering darkness—the answer confronted her. From the window beyond, the last red rays of the setting sun dappled the bulging eyes and snarling mouths of the masks mounted on the walls.

For a moment she stood startled, but she was not afraid of what she saw; the shrunken head dangling in the dusk and the figures crouching in the Chinese cabinet held no horror.

These were toys, not terrors. The kind of thing little boys order by mail from the ads in the back pages of the comic magazines. Although the masks were authentic rather than plastic replicas, their menace was synthetic; the shrunken head, whatever its origin, could not harm her.

But could it have harmed Albert? Harmed him because his interest in such things became obsessive, because it led him to retreat into a world of childish make-believe?

I grew up,
Kay told herself.
Albert grew down.

Why? What had happened to cause his withdrawal from reality?

I happened to him. Our marriage happened. He couldn’t cope, so he got out. He couldn’t face me, so he surrounded himself with what he could face. Masks that do not see, do not speak; eyes and mouths that hold no criticism or contempt. A shrunken head with a shriveled brain that thinks no secret thoughts to threaten one’s self-image.

Kay shook her head.
Since when did you become a parlor psychoanalyst? But maybe it’s true. The world seems to be full of people nowadays who can’t cope with their problems. Drugs and alcohol help blur the distinction between reality and fantasy, but it’s not enough. Not enough to forget the fears, remove the rage, exorcise the daily demons. So they hit balls instead of faces, smash bowling-pins instead of heads, and wallow in vicarious violence while staring at a screen.

Albert hadn’t gone that route, but then he didn’t have to. He had enough money to purchase perpetual privacy; here in his hideaway he could surround himself with the symbols of security. If you’re afraid to live with people, then live with things instead. Dead things, things that remind you of death but do not threaten your existence because they can be controlled. You
own
them, and they can’t harm you.

You’re making him sound like a candidate for the rubber room,
Kay told herself.
He wasn’t crazy.

It was what happened to him that was crazy. The way he dropped out, disappeared, died.

And yet there might be a rational explanation for this too; an explanation that tied in directly with his desire to escape. Suppose he’d gone to Tahiti seeking some spot physically remote from the everyday world, searching for the simplistic solution that had lured Gauguin to the islands? Perhaps the earthquake triggered his sudden decision to take off.

If so, even the mystery surrounding his death could be easily evaporated. Albert might have found the Tahiti of today a tourist trap; chartering a boat, he decided to look for a more isolated island setting. As for the drinking, it might merely have been an antidote to the heat. He wasn’t used to liquor, she remembered, and the combination of sun and alcohol could have been enough to make him careless.

Careless.

She
was the careless one, standing here in this empty house and daydreaming.

Nightdreaming,
rather, because the sun was gone now, and the shadows were everywhere. Creeping out of the corners, slithering from the walls, crawling across the floor, looming all around her. In the shadows the masks could move their mouths, the figures in the cabinet stared through the glass, the face of the shrunken head contorted in a ghastly grin. Logic blossoms in the light of day, but when the night comes it withers quickly at a shadow’s touch. Then the darker flowers bloom and writhe, pouring forth the perfume of fear. They sway in the shadows, and the shadows sway with them.

Jesus, where did that come from?
Kay smiled self-consciously, then moved toward the wall switch. All that stuff about maturity sounded good, but here she was, little scaredy-cat, afraid of her own shadow.

Only it wasn’t her own shadow.

This
shadow moved.

It emerged from the hall doorway, coming toward her.

“Good evening, Mrs. Keith,” said the shadow. “Turn on the light.”

Kay pressed the switch and the shadow disappeared. In its place she saw a stockily built man of perhaps thirty-five. Short hair, high cheekbones cushioning slitted gray eyes, barrel-chested body almost bursting the conservative confines of a brown business suit. That much she noted at first glance, but it wasn’t enough to offset the prickle of apprehension caused by his presence. She tried to keep her voice calm.

“Who are you—what are you doing here?”

“Ben Powers.” The man nodded casually. “Didn’t Heisinger tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m with the bank. Estate and trustees department.” He reached into his jacket, producing a wallet, then flipped it open to display a card behind a glassine holder. Kay waved it aside impatiently.

“How did you get in here?”

“The same way you did, I imagine.” Powers’s hand dipped into another jacket pocket and emerged holding a key. “We all have duplicates.”

“We?”

“It’s a team operation, Mrs. Keith. We’re taking inventory here—got to make up a list to submit when we file for probate.”

“At this hour?”

“I’ve been here most of the afternoon. Back in the bedrooms. Guess I didn’t hear you come in.” Powers grinned. “When I did, I got a little spooked—thought maybe it was some prowler. That’s why I sneaked up on you.”

“How did you know who I am?”

“From your pictures. Found an old photo-album in one of the drawers.”

“What else did you find?”

“Not much. Your ex-husband apparently wasn’t the type who keeps careful records.”

Kay frowned. “I don’t understand. What would that have to do with an inventory?”

Ben Powers gestured at the artifacts in the cabinet. “Might give us some idea of what he paid for all this stuff. And where it came from. Would you happen to know—”

“Sorry.” Kay shook her head. “Most of these things were purchased after I left.” She glanced at her watch. “Which reminds me—I’m leaving now.”

“So am I. Didn’t realize how late it is.” The appraiser moved to the front door. “Let me see you to your car.” He flicked off the light.

They stepped out into the darkness and Ben Powers locked the door behind them. Kay moved to the side of her little red Honda, then glanced at her companion. “Where are you parked?” she said.

“Down the street.” He smiled at her. “In this business it pays to keep a low profile. Neighbors might get uptight seeing a strange car pulling in here day after day.”