Carol O'Connell - Mallory's Oracle

Hours later, she was walking unsteadily down the hall to bed. She was suddenly very tired, passing by the open door to the kitchen and the crude letters on the wall above the stove, paying them no attention, eyes already closing to sleep again before she opened the door on her bedroom and left the red garish message at her back.

Margot sank down at the foot of a stone lion which guarded the entrance to the public library. So many hours had passed since she left the bank, but she could feel the soreness in the bones of her legs from the hard pounding on the sidewalk. She was out of shape. When had she last been to dancing practice? Could she be that far gone in only a few days?

That little bastard of a banker had probably called the cops and told them she had pulled a knife on him. Well, that would prick their ears up. Suppose they went to her apartment and saw all the damn knives?

No, he wouldn't call. He'd been a jerk to jump the alarm. And he wouldn't risk the possibility that she might be who she said she was. Henry would know how to fix this. He'd at least be good for a loan to tide her over. But he hadn't answered the phone in the dozen times she'd called his apartment. Damn Henry who sometimes left his phone off the hook for days at a time. What a miserable twit he was, a bastard, her only friend, her confessor, and sometimes God to her.

She would go back to the apartment in the early morning hours, maybe break a window. Yeah, when there was less chance of being seen. The cops avoided her neighborhood at the dangerous hours. She picked another paper cup up from the sidewalk and jingled her last pennies for the late-working stragglers until the coins swelled into a subway fare.

She rode uptown and down, wondering about the time but having lost the sense of it. She had no idea what hour it might be. She leaned over to read a passenger's watch. Twenty to ten? Could she have been riding that long? The pain in her gut said it was so. How long with no food? She stared into the faces of the other passengers until their eyes met hers and their glances crashed, and then fell away from her eyes, which had gone to a sleep-starved glaze.

Days ago she had believed she would never ride the subway again. She drifted into the light sleep of the longtime subway-rider.

The train slowed to a stop. The bell sounded and another passenger got on. She jerked awake and lifted her head to look at the boarding passenger. She came hideously awake. It was him. Of course it was. It was the same train, the same time of night.

The man was not so tall as she remembered him, nor so broad at the shoulders, but then, he had become almost mythic over the past two years, growing with each nightmare. She had forgotten how very human he was, with his acne scars and his runny, large brown eyes. Was his knife also smaller than she remembered it? The knife, the knife dancing up to her eye, then ripping down her face. Perhaps he had come back for her, to cut her on the other side and make her twisted smile symmetrical.

She drew her legs up to her chest and closed into a ball. The passengers on either side of her got up and moved to the far ends of the car when she began to whimper and rock, face drawn into her chest, hidden behind her knees. Her eyes darted from side to side, watching her abandonment in the ever-increasing circle of alone. You're on your own, said this new seating arrangement.

The train was slowing. She might make it to the door before she was hurt too badly. And then what? Would he catch up to her and drag her by the hair again, ripping handfuls from her head. There would be no cop on the platform. There hadn't been one the first time.

The train stopped. She bolted for the door. It was still closed as he came up behind her. She banged her fists on the metal until it parted, sliding back into the walls of the car. She ran through the opening, colliding with another man on the platform who was boarding. The man of the dancing knife walked past her, glancing in her direction, looking through her, and then was gone. He didn't know her.

How was that possible? He was on rape-and-cut terms with her, how could he not remember her?

He was climbing the stairs. She followed after him, up and out of the subway. How could he not remember her? She followed him down the street. When he entered the office building on Seventh Avenue, she watched through the glass door as he showed his pass to the security guard. So he worked the ten-to-six shift. She moved back away from the doors and crossed the street, melding in with the darkness and the trash at the curb, hearing the rats but not fearing them, settling in to keep company with vermin.

Warm rectangles of light showed from the windows of the house. Television voices emanated from within, and Mallory could smell twice-blooming roses by the porch railing. It was a living memory of the Markowitz house when people lived there – when they lived. Before she could ring the bell, the door opened and she was staring into Helen's smiling eyes. This older woman must be Brenda's mother. She was a less exact copy of Helen, only rounding out at the hips now the way Helen had rounded into middle age.

"Sergeant Mallory?"

"Yes," she said, relieved that it was not Helen's voice. She dug into her back pocket for the shield.

Mrs Mancusi didn't wait for the identification. "Please come in," she said, standing to one side of the wide-open door.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late in the evening." She followed Mrs Mancusi into the wide living room. It was arranged for comfort in the grouping of massive furniture and hassocks. A folded-back newspaper lay discarded by the recliner chair. Dinner smells had not yet evaporated. The interrupted carving of a Halloween pumpkin lay on the table, knife and seeds, pulp and one triangular eye cut from the orange fruit.

"You're not bothering me at all, Sergeant. Brenda called to say she's running a bit late, but she'll be home in a few minutes. I only wish my husband was here. It's his late night at the clinic." She picked up a ball of yarn and a bit of knitting off the seat of the recliner. "Sit here, Sergeant. It's the most comfortable chair." Mrs Mancusi sat down on the couch opposite the recliner. "You must be tired working these late hours. That chair leans back. Put your feet up if you like. I know what you need, a snack. Can I get you something? Coffee? I have half a pie in the kitchen."

"Thank you, no." This woman might not have Helen's voice, but her conversation was very Helen-like, all comfort and sympathy and a belief in the healing powers of pie.

"We'd like to help you all we can. Louis Markowitz was a lovely man. I cried when I heard the dead man was Louis."

"You knew him well?"

"For a few months. We had him to dinner every two weeks or so. Brenda's known him much longer of course. He was the one who talked her into coming back to us. She was only sixteen when she ran away."

"When he came to dinner, I don't suppose he ever discussed his work with you? It would be natural for you to be curious about a high-profile case."

"Louis never talked about business – well, police work."

"What did he talk about?"

"His family. His wife died a few years ago, and he missed her terribly. He had a daughter, though. She's very smart, and very beautiful. He was so proud of her, you could hear it in his voice. When I read about the funeral in the paper, I tried to call her. I called every Markowitz in the phone book. You have no idea how many there are. But I couldn't find her. That poor child must have been wild with grief."

There was that catch in Mrs Mancusi's voice to say that grief had come to this house, too.

"Brenda should be home soon. She goes to school during the day, and what do you think she does at night? She dances at the Metropolitan Opera. Louis got her the job. Said it was nothing, he'd just called in a favor. They have operas with grand ballroom scenes, and my Brenda dances. Sort of like an extra on a movie set. During the day she dances at school. That's different of course. She's studying modern dance and classical ballet."