Chapter 32
OCTOBER 30. 7:30 A.M
The next morning, Cadence was cruising the shelves at Orkney’s Grocery on West Fifty-fifth Street. Her hands moved briskly, selecting edibles for Osley. She planned to keep him fueled up and going strong to avoid any more fried circuits. She had resolved to quietly finish out the string of this trip. Tomorrow she would gather up (hopefully) the last of the translations and pack her bags and go. Nice and simple.
The “dinner party” exercise had been entertaining, and it let Osley blow off some steam, but the only real thing left to do was nurture him along until he tracked Ara’s destiny down to the end, if it even existed. The manuscripts might peter out, her story just another path lost in Mirkwood.
As she glided along the store shelves she even began to rationalize the confusing — her mind had already downgraded it from horrifying — events in the subway tunnel. A track fire. OK, scary but natural. The rest? Well, darkness like that is like a theatre screen. Your mind can throw whatever it wants up there. Her reasoning had only one sticking point: why a spider?
If she were to imagine elemental monsters in the dark, they wouldn’t include a spider. Maybe Morlocks or bubble-headed Martian Invaders, or the veiny-headed mutant under-people from Beneath the Planet of the Apes. She could even conjure up the Mud Men, oozing out of sticky cave walls in Flash Gordon.
But the spider? That came from somebody else’s imagination.
And Ara, the wavering vision in the pool? She should have followed her instincts and done something right there. Now she would have to see where Ara’s written trail led. Most likely nowhere. Cadence felt again that need — beyond admiration, beyond role model — that need to connect with Ara. She felt their crossed destinies were already entwining.
She carried her basket up to the counter. Bacon and egg burritos and double-stuffed Oreos would keep Osley focused this morning, like a bloodhound on Ara’s trail. She left the store, turned the corner, and stopped.
In the midst of a flowing crowd, a man stood still and stared at her. His look was not the moon-eyed hunger for recognition typical of the don’t-make-eye-contact-with-them cast-offs of the city.
She stood still for maybe three seconds to confirm the gut-raw certainty that this was real. It was a man, but what she really saw was the unwavering focus of a wolf looking out from the eyeholes of a man-mask.
The look was exacting, the binocular stare of the predator that detects distance by the centimeter, that reads bearing, alertness, and fear like beloved poetry.
This particular rendition of a derelict human was different from the wild taxicab driver of her fist night in the city. This … thing was inexplicably fat, almost corpulent. He had hair that looked like moldy hay. He was dressed in a filthy blanket, billowy and bearing witness to hygienic breakdown. But the eyes revealed that it was all a costume. They said here lies a true monster, a thing sent, a creature capable of surprising quickness that was unstoppably coming for her.
She turned and clambered aboard a waiting bus. Anything to get away, anywhere. The door whooshed shut, and the bus rumbled into traffic. She watched the large man dwindle on the street corner, turning to study the colored route map of the city bus system.
Cadence dug in her purse for Bossier Thornton’s card.
His phone rolled to voice mail. She paused then said, “… Uh, Bossier, this is Cadence Grande. From yesterday. Could you please give me a call? It’s … urgent.” She left her number and hung up.
After exiting the bus a dozen blocks from where she saw the strange man, Cadence walked directionless as a disturbed ant. She finally stopped looking over her shoulder and bumping into people. She sat, exhausted, in a space amidst a long row of lunch-eaters perched on the edge of a fountain. Through a high cleft in skyscrapers, sunshine shot down, creating a narrow hall of bright light. The light and the crowd made her feel safer.
She regulated her breathing and tried to assemble the jigsaw puzzle. The careful reasoning of a few moments ago was out the window now.
Her cell phone rang: 213 area code. L.A. Absolutely the last person she wanted to talk to. She listened until the last ring and took the call.
As usual, no hello.
“Cadence, Mel. Listen. Great news. I’ve received an offer for the manuscripts. Through another agent. Anonymous client. It’s a sale. A hundred grand for all the documents. As is, just the way they are. That’s a hell of a deal! Especially when you have nothing, really. They could take all this away with a court order.”
“Who said anything was for sale?” Her anger momentarily pushed back the tide of fear.
“Cadence, that’s my job. I’m not a potted plant here. What did you expect me to do?”
“I guess be like you are, like everyone else. Bois-Gilbert put a lot of money on the table just for spilling my guts on French TV. Even more for letting them have all the documents.”
“And?”
“I knew you’d say that. Just that way. It would help pay off my grandfather’s debts. But it would sell out what he left. I said no. I don’t trust them.”
“You’re right. Bois-Gilbert is an idiot. I was just playing there. Here’s a real deal. Maybe we should counter. Keep some rights, sure. But how am I gonna help you if—”
“Tell them no.”
“Look, if we don’t act now, there could be no residuals for anyone.”
“Jesus, Mel.”
“Come on kid. This—”
Click. Man, that felt good.
The phone rang again. She thought it would be Mel, but it wasn’t. She answered.
“Cadence? Bossier Thornton.”
“Oh yes, thank you! It’s been … very hectic … since I saw you.”
“You sound nervous. You all right?”
“Well, to be honest I’ve been worried that someone is following me, a stalker type. He’s gone now. I just thought I’d call you.”
“You did the right thing. Are you in danger now?”
“Oh no, I’m in a public place, corner of Sixth Avenue and Fifty-second Street.”
“OK, good. Just be careful and stay with the crowd in public places. Are you sure you’re safe?”
“Yes. I’m all right. Thank you for calling back.”
“I can be there if you want …”
“No, I’m all right for now.”
“Call me if he shows up again. It was nice meeting you the other day. Did you find out anything else about your documents?”
“More that I would have imagined. These seem to be very interesting to a lot of people. I appreciate your help. The library just told me to come on over. I hope I didn’t intrude.”
“Not at all. I’m only there once a week. Sort of a volunteer thing. NYPD lets me do it so I can practice with their gizmos.”
They said good-bye. She felt better, knowing there was a decent, slightly oddball, sane person to turn to. The Algonquin was only a few blocks away. She decided not to trouble Osley with her latest scare. He needed to concentrate.
Unfortunately, waiting for her when she checked on him in his room, was Osley the Wrecked. He looked like he’d slept, if at all, on a rack of nails.
“Osley, what gives?”
“I haven’t slept so well. Looking at, working with these documents, after so long. At first they seemed like old, interesting friends. But then I felt their spell. A siren song that is turning into a maddening screech in my head.”
She set out the food from Orkney’s and made him stop and eat.
After awhile he recovered to ragged good spirits. He resumed his work. His eye and hand once again became a relentless team as the pile of translations grew. Pieces of a time and a world emerged, some from the middle and some from the beginning, but none telling of Ara. He gave her a report. “Her fate seems lost. A fate of its own kind.” Then he resumed with dogged intensity until, without explanation he just stood up.