The Eyes of Darkness Page 4

  She usually worked during the day, not at night. This afternoon, however, she’d been playing a pair of lucky slot machines at the Mirage Hotel, and she hadn’t wanted to walk away from them while they were paying off so generously. Some people for whom she cleaned house insisted that she keep regularly scheduled appointments, and they did a slow burn if she showed up more than a few minutes late. But Tina Evans was sympathetic; she knew how important the slot machines were to Vivienne, and she wasn’t upset if Vivienne occasionally had to reschedule her visit.

  Vivienne was a nickel duchess. That was the term by which casino employees still referred to local, elderly women whose social lives revolved around an obsessive interest in one-armed bandits, even though the nickel machines were pretty much ancient history. Nickel duchesses always played the cheap slot machines — nickels and dimes in the old days, now quarters — never the dollar- or five-dollar slots. They pulled the handles for hours at a time, often making a twenty-dollar bill last a long afternoon. Their gaming philosophy was simple: It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, as long as you stay in the game. With that attitude plus a few money-management skills, they were able to hang on longer than most slot players who plunged at the dollar machines after getting nowhere with quarters, and because of their patience and perseverance, the duchesses won more jackpots than did the tide of tourists that ebbed and flowed around them. Even these days, when most machines could be played with electronically validated value cards, the nickel duchesses wore black gloves to keep their hands from becoming filthy after hours of handling coins and pulling levers; they always sat on stools while they played, and they remembered to alternate hands when operating the machines in order not to strain the muscles of one arm, and they carried bottles of liniment just in case.

  The duchesses, who for the most part were widows and spinsters, often ate lunch and dinner together. They cheered one another on those rare occasions when one of them hit a really large jackpot; and when one of them died, the others went to the funeral en masse. Together they formed an odd but solid community, with a satisfying sense of belonging. In a country that worshiped youth, most elderly Americans devoutly desired to discover a place where they belonged, but unlike the duchesses, many of them never found it.

  Vivienne had a daughter, a son-in-law, and three grandchildren in Sacramento. For five years, ever since her sixty-fifth birthday, they had been pressuring her to live with them. She loved them as much as life itself, and she knew they truly wanted her with them; they were not inviting her out of a misguided sense of guilt and obligation. Nevertheless, she didn’t want to live in Sacramento. After several visits there, she had decided that it must be one of the dullest cities in the world. Vivienne liked the action, noise, lights, and excitement of Las Vegas. Besides, living in Sacramento, she wouldn’t be a nickel duchess any longer; she wouldn’t be anyone special; she would be just another elderly lady, living with her daughter’s family, playing grandma, marking time, waiting to die.

  A life like that would be intolerable.

  Vivienne valued her independence more than anything else. She prayed that she would remain healthy enough to continue working and living on her own until, at last, her time came and all the little windows on the machine of life produced lemons.

  As she was mopping the last corner of the kitchen floor, as she was thinking about how dreary life would be without her friends and her slot machines, she heard a sound in another part of the house. Toward the front. The living room.

  She froze, listening.

  The refrigerator motor stopped running. A clock ticked softly.

  After a long silence, a brief clattering echoed through the house from another room, startling Vivienne. Then silence again.

  She went to the drawer next to the sink and selected a long, sharp blade from an assortment of knives.

  She didn’t even consider calling the police. If she phoned for them and then ran out of the house, they might not find an intruder when they came. They would think she was just a foolish old woman. Vivienne Neddler refused to give anyone reason to think her a fool.

  Besides, for the past twenty-one years, ever since her Harry died, she had always taken care of herself. She had done a pretty damn good job of it too.

  She stepped out of the kitchen and found the light switch to the right of the doorway. The dining room was deserted.

  In the living room, she clicked on a Stifel lamp. No one was there.

  She was about to head for the den when she noticed something odd about four framed eight-by-ten photographs that were grouped on the wall above the sofa. This display had always contained six pictures, not just four. But the fact that two were missing wasn’t what drew Vivienne’s attention. All four of the remaining photos were swinging back and forth on the picture hooks that held them. No one was near them, yet suddenly two photos began to rattle violently against the wall, and then both flew off their mountings and clattered to the floor behind the beige, brushed-corduroy sofa.

  This was the sound she had heard when she’d been in the kitchen — this clatter.

  “What the hell?”

  The remaining two photographs abruptly flung themselves off the wall. One dropped behind the sofa, and the other tumbled onto it.

  Vivienne blinked in amazement, unable to understand what she had seen. An earthquake? But she hadn’t felt the house move; the windows hadn’t rattled. Any tremor too mild to be felt would also be too mild to tear the photographs from the wall.

  She went to the sofa and picked up the photo that had dropped onto the cushions. She knew it well. She had dusted it many times. It was a portrait of Danny Evans, as were the other five that usually hung around it. In this one, he was ten or eleven years old, a sweet brown-haired boy with dark eyes and a lovely smile.

  Vivienne wondered if there had been a nuclear test; maybe that was what had shaken things up. The Nevada Nuclear Test Site, where underground detonations were conducted several times a year, was less than a hundred miles north of Las Vegas. Whenever the military exploded a high-yield weapon, the tall hotels swayed in Vegas, and every house in town shuddered a little.

  But, no, she was stuck in the past: The Cold War was over, and nuclear tests hadn’t been conducted out in the desert for a long time. Besides, the house hadn’t shuddered just a minute ago; only the photos had been affected.

  Puzzled, frowning thoughtfully, Vivienne put down the knife, pulled one end of the sofa away from the wall, and collected the framed eight-by-tens that were on the floor behind it. There were five photographs in addition to the one that had dropped onto the sofa; two were responsible for the noises that had drawn her into the living room, and the other three were those that she had seen popping off the picture hooks. She put them back where they belonged, then slid the sofa into place.

  A burst of high-pitched electronic noise blared through the house: Aiii-eee… aiii-eee… aiii-eee…

  Vivienne gasped, turned. She was still alone.

  Her first thought was: Burglar alarm.

  But the Evans house didn’t have an alarm system.

  Vivienne winced as the shrill electronic squeal grew louder, a piercing oscillation. The nearby windows and the thick glass top of the coffee table were vibrating. She felt a sympathetic resonance in her teeth and bones.

  She wasn’t able to identify the source of the sound. It seemed to be coming from every corner of the house.

  “What in the blue devil is going on here?”

  She didn’t bother picking up the knife, because she was sure the problem wasn’t an intruder. It was something else, something weird.

  She crossed the room to the hallway that served the bedrooms, bathrooms, and den. She snapped on the light. The noise was louder in the corridor than it had been in the living room. The nerve-fraying sound bounced off the walls of the narrow passage, echoing and re-echoing.

  Vivienne looked both ways, then moved to the right, toward the closed door at the end of the hall. Toward Danny’s old room. />
  The air was cooler in the hallway than it was in the rest of the house. At first Vivienne thought that she was imagining the change in temperature, but the closer she drew to the end of the corridor, the colder it got. By the time she reached the closed door, her skin was goose-pimpled, and her teeth were chattering.

  Step by step, her curiosity gave way to fear. Something was very wrong here. An ominous pressure seemed to compress the air around her.

  Aiii-eee… aiii-eee…

  The wisest thing she could do would be to turn back, walk away from the door and out of the house. But she wasn’t completely in control of herself; she felt a bit like a sleepwalker. In spite of her anxiety, a power she could sense — but which she could not define — drew her inexorably to Danny’s room.

  Aiii-eee… aiii-eee… aiii-eee…

  Vivienne reached for the doorknob but stopped before touching it, unable to believe what she was seeing. She blinked rapidly, closed her eyes, opened them again, but still the doorknob appeared to be sheathed in a thin, irregular jacket of ice.

  She finally touched it. Ice. Her skin almost stuck to the knob. She pulled her hand away and examined her damp fingers. Moisture had condensed on the metal and then had frozen.

  But how was that possible? How in the name of God could there be ice here, in a well-heated house and on a night when the outside temperature was at least twenty degrees above the freezing point?

  The electronic squeal began to warble faster, but it was no quieter, no less bone-penetrating than it had been.

  Stop, Vivienne told herself. Get away from here. Get out as fast as you can.

  But she ignored her own advice. She pulled her blouse out of her slacks and used the tail to protect her hand from the icy metal doorknob. The knob turned, but the door wouldn’t open. The intense cold had caused the wood to contract and warp. She put her shoulder against it, pushed gently, then harder, and finally the door swung inward.

  Chapter Six

  Magyck! was the most entertaining Vegas show that Elliot Stryker had ever seen.

  The program opened with an electrifying rendition of “That Old Black Magic.” Singers and dancers, brilliantly costumed, performed in a stunning set constructed of mirrored steps and mirrored panels. When the stage lights were periodically dimmed, a score of revolving crystal ballroom chandeliers cast swirling splinters of color that seemed to coalesce into supernatural forms that capered under the proscenium arch. The choreography was complex, and the two lead singers had strong, clear voices.

  The opening number was followed by a first-rate magic act in front of the drawn curtains. Less than ten minutes later, when the curtains opened again, the mirrors had been taken away, and the stage had been transformed into an ice rink; the second production number was done on skates against a winter backdrop so real that it made Elliot shiver.

  Although Magyck! excited the imagination and commanded the eye, Elliot wasn’t able to give his undivided attention to it. He kept looking at Christina Evans, who was as dazzling as the show she had created.

  She watched the performers intently, unaware of his gaze. A flickering, nervous scowl played across her face, alternating with a tentative smile that appeared when the audience laughed, applauded, or gasped in surprise.

  She was singularly beautiful. Her shoulder-length hair — deep brown, almost black, glossy — swept across her brow, feathered back at the sides, and framed her face as though it were a painting by a great master. The bone structure of that face was delicate, clearly defined, quintessentially feminine. Dusky, olive complexion. Full, sensuous mouth. And her eyes… She would have been lovely enough if her eyes had been dark, in harmony with the shade of her hair and skin, but they were crystalline blue. The contrast between her Italian good looks and her Nordic eyes was devastating.

  Elliot supposed that other people might find flaws in her face. Perhaps some would say that her brow was too wide. Her nose was so straight that some might think it was severe. Others might say that her mouth was too wide, her chin too pointed. To Elliot, however, her face was perfect.

  But her physical beauty was not what most excited him. He was interested primarily in learning more about the mind that could create a work like Magyck! He had seen less than one-fourth of the program, yet he knew it was a hit — and far superior to others of its kind. A Vegas stage extravaganza could easily go off the rails. If the gigantic sets and lavish costumes and intricate choreography were overdone, or if any element was improperly executed, the production would quickly stumble across the thin line between captivating show-biz flash and sheer vulgarity. A glittery fantasy could metamorphose into a crude, tasteless, and stupid bore if the wrong hand guided it. Elliot wanted to know more about Christina Evans — and on a more fundamental level, he just wanted her.

  No woman had affected him so strongly since Nancy, his wife, who had died three years ago.

  Sitting in the dark theater, he smiled, not at the comic magician who was performing in front of the closed stage curtains, but at his own sudden, youthful exuberance.

  Chapter Seven

  The warped door groaned and creaked as Vivienne Neddler forced it open.

  Aiii-eee, aiii-eee…

  A wave of frigid air washed out of the dark room, into the hallway.

  Vivienne reached inside, fumbled for the light switch, found it, and entered warily. The room was deserted.

  Aiii-eee, aii-eee…

  Baseball stars and horror-movie monsters gazed at Vivienne from posters stapled to the walls. Three intricate model airplanes were suspended from the ceiling. These things were as they always had been, since she had first come to work here, before Danny had died.

  Aiii-eee, aiii-eee, aiii-eee…

  The maddening electronic squeal issued from a pair of small stereo speakers that hung on the wall behind the bed. The CD player and an accompanying AM-FM tuner and amplifier were stacked on one of the nightstands.

  Although Vivienne could see where the noise originated, she couldn’t locate any source for the bitterly cold air. Neither window was open, and even if one had been raised, the night wasn’t frigid enough to account for the chill.

  Just as she reached the AM-FM tuner, the banshee wail stopped. The sudden silence had an oppressive weight.

  Gradually, as her ears stopped ringing, Vivienne perceived the soft empty hiss of the stereo speakers. Then she heard the thumping of her own heart.

  The metal casing of the radio gleamed with a brittle crust of ice. She touched it wonderingly. A sliver of ice broke loose under her finger and fell onto the nightstand. It didn’t begin to melt; the room was cold.

  The window was frosted. The dresser mirror was frosted too, and her reflection was dim and distorted and strange.

  Outside, the night was cool but not wintry. Maybe fifty degrees. Maybe even fifty-five.

  The radio’s digital display began to change, the orange numbers escalating across the frequency band, sweeping through one station after another. Scraps of music, split-second flashes of disc jockeys’ chatter, single words from different somber-voiced newscasters, and fragments of commercial jingles blended in a cacophonous jumble of meaningless sound. The indicator reached the end of the band width, and the digital display began to sequence backward.

  Trembling, Vivienne switched off the radio.

  As soon as she took her finger off the push switch, the radio turned itself on again.

  She stared at it, frightened and bewildered.

  The digital display began to sequence up the band once more, and scraps of music blasted from the speakers.

  She pressed the ON-OFF bar again.

  After a brief silence, the radio turned on spontaneously.

  “This is crazy,” she said shakily.

  When she shut off the radio the third time, she kept her finger pressed against the ON-OFF bar. For several seconds she was certain that she could feel the switch straining under her fingertip as it tried to pop on.

  Overhead, the three model airp
lanes began to move. Each was hung from the ceiling on a length of fishing line, and the upper end of each line was knotted to its own eye-hook that had been screwed firmly into the dry wall. The planes jiggled, jerked, twisted, and trembled.

  Just a draft.

  But she didn’t feel a draft.

  The model planes began to bounce violently up and down on the ends of their lines.

  “God help me,” Vivienne said.

  One of the planes swung in tight circles, faster and faster, then in wider circles, steadily decreasing the angle between the line on which it was suspended and the bedroom ceiling. After a moment the other two models ceased their erratic dancing and began to spin around and around, like the first plane, as if they were actually flying, and there was no mistaking this deliberate movement for the random effects of a draft.

  Ghosts? A poltergeist?

  But she didn’t believe in ghosts. There were no such things. She believed in death and taxes, in the inevitability of slot-machine jackpots, in all-you-can-eat casino buffets for $5.95 per person, in the Lord God Almighty, in the truth of alien abductions and Big Foot, but she didn’t believe in ghosts.

  The sliding closet doors began to move on their runners, and Vivienne Neddler had the feeling that some awful thing was going to come out of the dark space, its eyes as red as blood and its razor-sharp teeth gnashing. She felt a presence, something that wanted her, and she cried out as the door came all the way open.

  But there wasn’t a monster in the closet. It contained only clothes. Only clothes.

  Nevertheless, untouched, the doors glided shut… and then open again…

  The model planes went around, around.

  The air grew even colder.

  The bed started to shake. The legs at the foot rose three or four inches before crashing back into the casters that had been put under them to protect the carpet. They rose up again. Hovered above the floor. The springs began to sing as if metal fingers were strumming them.

  Vivienne backed into the wall, eyes wide, hands fisted at her sides.