Darkfall

He sighed, nodded. “All right, all right, Mr. Hampton. But I sure wish—”

“Now, damnit, now!” Hampton shouted.

Jack got out of there.

V

The door to Rada slammed behind him.

In the snow-quieted street, the sound was like a rifle blast.

Jack turned and looked back, saw Carver Hampton drawing down the shade that covered the glass panel in the center of the door. In bold white letters on the dark canvas, one word was printed: CLOSED.

A moment later the lights went out in the shop.

The snow on the sidewalk was now half an inch deep, twice what it had been when he had gone into Hampton's store. It was still coming down fast, too, out of a sky that was even more somber and more claustrophobically close than it had been twenty minutes ago.

Cautiously negotiating the slippery pavement, Jack started toward the patrol car that was waiting for him at the curb, white exhaust trail pluming up from it. He had taken only three steps when he was stopped by a sound that struck him as being out of place here on the wintry street: a ringing telephone. He looked right, left, and saw a pay phone near the corner, twenty feet behind the waiting black-and-white. In the uncitylike stillness that the muffling snow brought to the street, the ringing was so loud that it seemed to be issuing from the air immediately in front of him.

He stared at the phone. It wasn't in a booth. There weren't many real booths around these days, the kind with the folding door, like a small closet, that offered privacy; too expensive, Ma Bell said. This was a phone on a pole, with a scoop-shaped sound battle bending around three sides of it. Over the years, he had passed a few other public telephones that had been ringing when there was no one waiting nearby to answer them; on those occasions, he had never given them a second glance, had never been the least bit tempted to lift the receiver and find out who was there; it had been none of his business. Just as this was none of his business. And yet… this time was somehow… different. The ringing snaked out like a lariat of sound, roping him, snaring him, holding him.

Ringing…

Ringing…

Insistent.

Beckoning.

Hypnotic.

Ringing…

A strange and disturbing transformation occurred in the Harlem neighborhood around him. Only three things remained solid and real: the telephone, a narrow stretch of snow-covered pavement leading to the telephone, and Jack himself. The rest of the world seemed to recede into a mist that rose out of nowhere. The buildings appeared to fade away, dissolving as if this were a film in which one scene was fading out to be replaced by another. The few cars progressing hesitantly along the snowy street began to… evaporate; they were replaced by the creeping mist, a white-white mist that was like a movie theater screen splashed with brilliant light but with no images. The pedestrians, heads bent, shoulders hunched, struggled against the wind and stinging snow; and gradually they receded and faded, as well. Only Jack was real. And the narrow pathway to the phone. And the telephone itself.

Ringing…

He was drawn.

Ringing…

Drawn toward the phone.

He tried to resist.

Ringing…

He suddenly realized he'd taken a step. Toward the phone.

And another.

A third.

He felt as if he were floating.

Ringing…

He was moving as if in a dream or a fever.

He took another step.

He tried to stop. Couldn't.

He tried to turn toward the patrol car. Couldn't.

His heart was hammering.

He was dizzy, disoriented.

In spite of the frigid air, he was sweating along the back of his neck.

The ringing of the telephone was analogous to the rhythmic, glittering, pendulum movement of a hypnotist's pocketwatch. The sound drew him relentlessly forward as surely as, in ancient times, the sirens' songs had pulled unwary sailors to their death upon the reefs.

He knew the call was for him. Knew it without understanding how he knew it.

He picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Detective Dawson! I'm delighted to have this opportunity to speak with you. My good man, we are most definitely overdue for a chat.”

The voice was deep, although not a bass voice, and smooth and elegant, characterized by an educated British accent filtered through the lilting patterns of speech common to tropical zones, so that words like “man” came out as “man.” Clearly a Caribbean accent.

Jack said, “Lavelle?”

“Why, of course! Who else?”

“But how did you know—”

“That you were there? My dear fellow, in an offhanded sort of way, I am keeping tabs on you.”

“You're here, aren't you? Somewhere along the street, in one of the apartment buildings here.

“Far from it. Harlem is not to my taste.”

“I'd like to talk to you,” Jack said.

“We are talking.”

“I mean, face-to-face.”

“Oh, I hardly think that's necessary.”

“I wouldn't arrest you.”

“You couldn't. No evidence.”

“Well, then—”

“But you'd detain me for a day or two on one excuse or another.”

“No.”

“And I don't wish to be detained. I've work to do.”

“I give you my word we'd only hold you a couple of hours, just for questioning.”

“Is that so?”

“You can trust my word when I give it. I don't give it lightly.”

“Oddly enough, I'm quite sure that's true.”

“Then why not come in, answer some questions, and clear the air, remove the suspicion from yourself?”

“Well, of course, I can't remove the suspicion because, in fact, I'm guilty,” Lavelle said. He laughed.

“You're telling me you're behind the murders?”

“Certainly. Isn't that what everyone's been telling you? “

“You've called me to confess?”