Frank De Felitta: Audrey Rose

For Eileen, my daughter

HOOVER’S EYES WERE FIXED ON THE TORMENTED CHILD.

He critically observed every movement and gesture she made, listening to the rasping, thoroughly exhausted voice repeating, “Mommydaddy mommydaddy hothothot mommydaddy mommydaddy.”

Janice felt Bill’s hand stiffen in hers as he, too, turned and planted a stern warning look on the interloper.

But Hoover ignored them both, his eyes and mind wholly devoted to their daughter, trying to define the meaning of the terrible hallucination in which she was caught. And then a look of inexpressible sadness swept across his face. His eyes grew large and haunted as he uttered, “My God,” in a barely audible breath.

He quickly stepped past them into the room and worked his way closer to Ivy, who was reeling about dizzily near the window, her hands seeking the glass, reaching for it, gropingly, each time pulling back in pain and fear, as if it were molten lava.

“Audrey!” The word burst out of Hoover like a shot: “Audrey Rose! It’s Daddy!”

Pittsburgh Post Gazette, August 4, 1964 (Page 6)

Harrisburg, PA (UP)—A woman and her young daughter were killed and 2 persons were slightly injured after their cars collided with each other on the Penna. Turnpike during a sudden hail storm.

Police have withheld the identities of the dead woman and child pending notification of relatives.

He was there again, standing among the glut of waiting mothers who arrived each day at ten to three and milled about in their separate worlds, waiting for their children to be released from school.

Until today he was merely a presence to Janice Templeton, just another parent standing in the cold, outside the Ethical Culture School, waiting for his sprite to emerge. Today, however, Janice found herself noticing him—a lone male in a sea of females—and wondering why it was always he who showed up, and not his wife.

He was standing now with his back half turned to her, gazing expectantly up at the big doors of the school building. Somewhere in his early forties, Janice guessed, and not at all bad-looking. He wore a thick mustache and carefully trimmed sideburns and had the lean, hard body of an athlete.

She wondered who his child might be and made a mental note to find out.

The school bell rang.

The parade of children tumbling through the doors was, each day, a bittersweet experience for Janice. It made her realize how quickly time sped by, how swiftly the child of yesterday was becoming the adolescent of tomorrow.

Tall, lithe, strikingly beautiful, ten-year-old Ivy Templeton possessed a feminine elegance that seemed out of place for her young age. A sweep of blond hair—pure to the roots—fell back past the line of her shoulders, framing a face of exquisite features. The delicate pallor of her skin formed the perfect background for the large deep-gray eyes. The shape of her mouth was clearcut, a sensual mouth until she smiled, restoring childhood and innocence. Janice never ceased to marvel over the beauty of her daughter and never ceased to wonder about the genetic miracle that had formed her.

“Can I get a Coke?”

“I’ve got Cokes in the refrigerator,” Janice said, kissing Ivy’s hair.

Hand in hand, they started their walk up Central Park West when Janice stopped, remembering the man. Glancing over her shoulder to see which child’s hand might be linked to his, she froze. The man was standing immediately behind them, close enough to touch, close enough to feel the plumes of his breath, and in his eyes a manic glint of desperate need—of inexpressible longing—directed exclusively at Ivy. At Ivy!

“Excuse me,” Janice gasped inanely and in shock, her heart pounding as she clutched Ivy’s arm and hurried up Central Park West toward Des Artistes, five blocks away, without once looking back to see if the man was following them.

“Who was he, Mom?”

“I don’t know,” Janice panted.

The thought of what might have happened had she not been there to meet Ivy brought Janice to a sudden stop at the corner of their street. What if she had given in to Ivy’s persistent demands and had allowed her to walk home alone like Bettina Carew and some of the others in her class?

“Why have we stopped, Mom?”

Janice took a deep breath to regain control of herself, smiled wanly, and together, they crossed the street and entered the old building, Des Artistes.

The Fortress, Bill called it.

Built at the turn of the century at the whim of a group of painters and sculptors who purchased the land, hired an architectural firm, approved of the plans, and arranged for the mortgage, each level of the twenty-story building contained six master apartments of various sizes, featuring huge, high-ceilinged studios with galleries facing large floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a diversified selection of city views. A number of these windows admitted the northern light, a must for the painters. The decor of the apartments was lavish, imaginative, and fulfilled the esthetic and emotional needs of their owners. Some studios took on a baroque character, displaying vaulted ceilings replete with inset pediments and slavering gargoyles. Others went a more frivolous rococo route, featuring painted ceilings with rich, gilded moldings. A few apartments followed a somber Tudor pattern and were intricately paneled in darkly stained veneers.

A magnificent restaurant in the lobby of the building amply satisfied the artists’ appetites and even delivered exquisitely prepared dinners to each apartment via a network of dumbwaiters scattered throughout the building.

During the Depression, Des Artistes was sold to a cooperative association, and the new people who purchased apartments began to remodel them. The space in midair was valuable to them and was quickly subdivided, providing a large living room downstairs and enough room for two or three bedrooms upstairs.

With all the changes and departures from the artists’ original concepts, the one thing no tenant could ever alter was the inherent charm and grandeur of the building. Like the superb restaurant off the main lobby, the original atmosphere remained intact.

Janice’s first act upon entering the apartment was to double lock and bolt the door. After pouring Ivy’s Coke and sending her upstairs to do her homework, she poured herself a straight scotch. The man at the school had really rattled her. This was a new sensation for Janice. She realized that life was filled with pockets of danger, but thus far she had been spared.

She carried her scotch into the living room and sat in her favorite chair—an overstuffed antique rocker that had belonged to her grandmother. As she sipped the drink, her mind reformed the face, the expression in the man’s eyes as he stood looking down at Ivy. There was nothing sexual in his look, or depraved; it was more a look that spoke of great loss—sad, hopeless, desperate. That was it, desperate.

Janice shivered visibly and took a large swallow of scotch. She could feel the spreading, soothing, warming sensation of the alcohol throughout her body as she rose and walked to the window. Her eyes ferreted among the antlike figures scurrying about on the sidewalks far below. Might he be down there? Watching? Waiting? She would tell Bill about it as soon as he came home.

Sipping the last of her scotch, Janice turned from the window and gazed at the long length of the living room in the soft, waning light of the autumn afternoon. The thirty-eight-foot expanse of dark-stained pegged floor led the eye to a huge stuccoed walk-in fireplace, a practical, wood-burning, marshmallow-toasting fireplace that warmed their souls on cold winter evenings. Next to the fireplace was a narrow flight of carpeted stairs leading up to two bedrooms and a small study. The banister and rail posts harkened back to the days of the artists and were fancifully carved; the newel post featured the bulbous head of a Viking chieftain.