Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

You could hear a taxi-horn chirp three blocks away. You could hear a straggler trying to whistle up somebody all the way down at the next corner.

The stars were out in full array; cruel, glinting Spanish stars, with something fierce and revengeful in their brightness.

“Do you want to take a cab there?” Freshman asked him.

Jones tilted his face.

“Let’s walk it. The air smells good.”

“And any time you can say that in Spain, you better say it,” his custodian grunted. “It ain’t often.”

It was in the residential sector up past the Rambla — “uptown” you might have called it, at least away from the city’s heart; concrete apartment houses with funny rounded edges, and private homes nestled in their own shrubbery behind high iron railings.

There wasn’t a sound here. Not a car on the streets.

“How we doing?” Freshman asked at last.

They stopped by a light, and Jones took out the note and consulted it for verification.

“One-twenty-six,” he said.

There was a sudden metallic clash, knife-sharp, almost at their very feet. The sound made them both jump slightly. The complete silence had magnified it out of all proportion. They both started, looking around.

“There it is, over there.” Jones went and picked it up, brought it back. A door key.

Freshman was looking up. “And this is the house. That window up there just closed. I saw it move.”

It was a six-story flat, bone-white in the starlight, flush with the Street; night-blind, not a light showing.

“Well—” Jones said dubiously. “Here goes!” He half turned to leave, as if he expected Freshman to wait out there on the sidewalk.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” Freshman let him know, turning with him. “I’m going in with you. I’ll do my waiting upstairs, outside the flat door itself. There’s such a thing as a back way out, you know.”

“Help yourself,” was all the bandsman said, noncommittally.

An iron-ribbed glass outer door opened at hand-pressure. An inner, wooden door required the key. It opened easily. They went up a flight of tiled stairs, Freshman letting Jones take the lead. Night lights were burning on each of the successive floors they ascended to. They stopped at the fourth.

“There it is, up that way,” Jones whispered. “Forty, forty-two, forty-four—”

“I’ll take you right up to it,” Freshman said adamantly.

“It’s open,” Jones said. “I can see the black running down the edge of it, from here.”

“All right,” Freshman said when they’d arrived in front of it. “I’ll knock off here. You’re on your own from here on in.”

Jones just stood there. Then he looked down.

“My garter came undone.”

“You’re just stalling,” Freshman said with a skeptical grimace. “Are you afraid to go in there?”

“No, I’m not. Look at it.” He planted one foot against the wall, caught at a dangling strip of elastic, refastened it. “Been dragging half the way over here.”

“Then why didn’t you fix it before?”

“I was afraid to bend down too suddenly with you keeping your hand in your pocket.”

“Maybe you were right,” Freshman admitted. “Let’s get it straight. I know there are things you could do. Take my advice, don’t do them. The balconies in front. I can beat you down to the doorway from here, and I’ll just shoot from there. Or if she has a gun in there, don’t try to borrow it. I’m a professional. You’re just an amateur. I’m telling you for your own good, Jones. The only way you’ll leave is by this same door you’re going in now.”

Jones straightened the shoulders of his coat uncomfortably.

“I don’t feel like a man going in to his last date. I can’t get from one mood into the other. Maybe it’s because you’re with me.”

“Come on back, then. No one’s making you.”

“I’d better go. This is the last one I’ll ever have.”

Freshman looked at his watch.

“Four forty-two on the nose,” he said. “I’ll give you until five. When you hear me rap on the door, come on out. If you don’t, I’ll come in and get you, handcuffs and all, right in front of her.”

Jones straightened his tie. Then he reached for the doorknob, widened the already-open door, and stepped into the engulfing darkness beyond.

The door closed after him, this time fully.

There was nothing. Just blackness. It was like being executed already, and in the other world.

Then a soft voice said, “You?”

“Me,” Jones answered.

A moment’s wait. Then the voice came again.

“You took so long.”

“Where is the light? I can’t find it.”

He felt in his pocket for his lighter, then remembered that he’d given it away.

She must have guessed his intention.

“No, don’t. I don’t want any.”

“But I can’t see my way.”

“There is no further need to. Your way is ended. You are here. I have always dreamed of it this way, ever since I first saw you.”

“But I can’t see you.”

“I have seen you. I know you well. I have seen you night after night. My heart doesn’t need any lights.”

“But what about me?”

“You have seen me, too. You have seen me many times and well. Are you afraid I am ugly? I assure you I’m not. Are you afraid I am old?”

“No,” he said politely. “No.”

“Then give me your word. No matches, no lighter, please. You will spoil the mood.”

“All right, I promise,” he said.

“Who is the other one, waiting outside?”

“Oh, you saw him? A friend.”

“You did not trust me? You were afraid to come here alone?”

“I couldn’t get rid of him. He — manages me. He’s afraid to leave me out of his sight, day or night.”

“Oh,” she said. “An artist’s representative. I understand. Come closer. Don’t just stand there.”

“But I’m afraid I’ll stumble over something. I can’t even see where I’m putting my foot.”

“Just move slowly forward from the door. There is nothing between us. And you will finally come to me.”

Bodiless hands found his in the dark. Ghost-hands, soft as silk, light as moths. They linked with his, then drew him gently forward.

And this, he thought, is my last night of freedom in this world.

Freshman blew cigarette-smoke in the emptiness of the hall. He turned his head a little, and looked at the inscrutable door just behind his shoulder. Then he turned away again. He was feeling extremely tired of standing still in one place.

Finally he heard the street-door open, floors below. Someone started to come up the stairs. He’d been afraid of this all along.

“Now what do I do?” he wondered, uneasily.

He could pretend he was waiting to be let in; turn around and face the door expectantly.

Or he could pretend he was just leaving and make a false start toward the stairs as the intruder went by, then double back later to his present position.

In the end he did neither one. His profession emboldened him. It was his business to be standing stock-still in a strange hallway, in a strange house, in the middle of the night. He just stood there as he was, alongside the door, and put the burden of explanation on the other party.

It was a man. Middle-aged or better. He was not drunk, but there was wine on his breath, and his eyes were smoky from it.

He reached the landing and moved straight ahead. For a moment Freshman had an uneasy premonition he was making for that very same door. But he went on toward the foot of the next flight, and turned there, to go up.

He looked at Freshman as he went by.

“Evening,” he muttered.

“Evening,” Freshman answered, and looked him squarely in the eye.

The man glanced at him again, this time from a slightly higher level, as he started up the final flight. Then he nodded, in comradely understanding, as if he had solved it all to his own satisfaction.