Floating Dragon by Peter Straub
Atop the dresser were strewn coins, books of matches, loose collar stays, rolled belts, a pair of suspenders, and a red Swiss Army knife Stony had given him years before. He seized the knife and sat on the bed.
Leo pulled out the smaller of the two blades and scraped at one of the specks. The white stuff gathered transparently on the blade and instantly began to replenish itself. He scraped again, to the same effect. More recklessly, he jabbed the point of the little blade into the speck at the base of his little finger and revolved it. A second’s flash of minor pain: blood welled out from the cavity. When he dabbed at the spot with his handkerchief he saw that the bleeding had stopped. A tiny spot of white lay at the center of the red pit.
Leo ran into the bathroom to inspect his face in the mirror. Some dark webbing beneath his eyes, no white spots. He tore off his shirt and pushed down his jeans. One of the little specks rode just above the bone on his left shoulder, another rested in the fat part of his upper left arm. Below his waist there was nothing.
Again and with perfect clarity Leo saw the white lathery sponge which had been Tom Gay’s head—saw it leaking into the drain.
But that had happened instantly. Maybe these few spots on his own body were unrelated to the fate of Tom Gay; maybe they were just some kind of infection? He experimentally squeezed the spot on the underside of his left arm. A trace of blood appeared through the whiteness, which told him nothing. Naked, Leo went back to the bedroom and took the matches off the dresser.
Seated at the desk, he lit a match and applied the flame to one of the spots on his left hand. The pain made him squirm.
“Burn it out,” he said to himself. He lit another match and touched it to three more of the spots. Sweating, he used another match to sear the last speck on his left hand. He smelled burned flesh. His left hand was now in agony. It looked like an illustration from a medical textbook. Grimacing, he went back into the bathroom and held his hand under the cold tap. When the pain had subsided, Leo wrapped the injured hand in a towel and sat on the edge of the tub. Cold porcelain on his buttocks. He closed his eyes, and his head was swimming. He tasted bile and a cottony afterwash of whiskey. Like his head, the floor too seemed to wobble.
At length he dared to unwrap the towel. The back of his left hand looked appallingly unfamiliar. Blisters surmounted blackened and reddened flesh from which clear fluid drained. Leo closed his eyes again. He had seen no whiteness. After a moment, he got up to bandage his hand and return to the matches.
7
From the journals of Richard Allbee:
* * *
Today I heard from the bank—we have the mortgage we wanted, at a rate that is almost reasonable for these days. We called Ronnie, who was jubilant, and celebrated with a bottle of champagne. So it is settled: we’re in the land of our fathers and grandfathers.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to shed what seems to be my obsession with Daddy’s Here. I know what it is now—it’s going back to where Michael Allbee lived and waking up everything about him I buried inside me without even knowing it. Daddy’s Here. Daddy’s here. It’s got to be that simple. But knowing the reason does not keep me from having those dreams about Carter Oldfield battering at the bedroom door with an ax and poor Billy outside in the rain. Billy in bed with Laura, Billy coming toward the window to break in. The theme is the same: chaos, violence, disorder are out there and I have to keep them from breaking in.
Stray thought: maybe it is Laura I fear for, not myself. Pregnant and in a strange place . . . it is unsettling for her.
But I don’t dream of Laura in danger.
Unless, another thought, Laura is the house in these dreams. . . . I don’t know where to take this idea. Restoring our new house = restoring Laura to her old self? Saving the house = saving Laura? I can see that she is close to tears often, in a state where boredom and depression are very close. When we talk, she says only that she misses London, misses it in almost a physical way, wants to see Kensington High Street and Holland Park, to walk down Ilchester Place. She wants to go to the Standard Restaurant for an Indian meal, take the tube into the West End for lunch, go back to her office in Covent Garden. She knows the name of the hospital where our baby should be born—that big new hospital on the Holland Road. That is where her thoughts went while we drank champagne to our new house.
I didn’t want to put this down, but now I guess I have to. The other day Laura and I were in one of the shopping centers on the Post Road. Our arms were full of grocery bags. We were going up toward our car. We passed a sort of café—what I’m used to calling a caff. A diner. A counter in front, little tables in the back. I glanced in. Laura said, “What’s the matter?” I shook my head. I followed her to the car. Nothing was the matter. But I didn’t tell her that for a second, when I first looked in the window, I’d seen Carter Oldfield, Ruth Branden, and Billy sitting at one of the little tables in the rear—seen them very clearly. I could describe the clothes they were wearing. Billy was in his urban-waif clothes, a tweed cap on his head, and he was looking at me.
And the expression on his face . . . triumph, pure triumph.
As soon as I shook my head, my little family transformed themselves into the teenage boys they had been all along. One of them, the one not a monster, was staring at me, but after all, I had been staring at him, no doubt with a peculiar expression on my face. Our glances held, and I was sure that the boy, who was slight and fair-haired, knew me or thought he knew me—there was recognition in his face, but there was also pure fright. One of the twin monsters, the one with bib overalls, jabbed his hand with a fork, and the boy’s eyes jerked away from mine.
No dreams tonight, I hope.
8
From the journals of Richard Allbee:
* * *
Nice days, terrible nights. My subconscious ignored my plea for relief from those absurd nightmares about Carter Oldfield and Billy Bentley. Evidently I’m still worried at some level about the effect of this move on Laura and me, about chaos vs. order, the legacy of Michael Allbee—who probably never spent a minute of his life worrying about such things. There have been two cases of chaos intruding on our little version of order here, one slight, one serious, but I’ll get to those.
I met the famous Sarah Spry near the produce counter in Greenblatt’s grocery. She said, “Allbee. Richard Allbee. You look just the same. I’ve been meaning to call you. I hope you saw your name in my column.” She’s about fifty, very tiny and energetic, with owlish glasses and skinned-back hair redder than Laura’s. She knew we were buying the old Sayre house. “John Sayre killed himself, you know,” she said. “Lovely man. No wonder poor Bonnie went crackers afterward. When can you give me an interview? I’d like to do it as soon as you move in.” She’s not a woman you can fob off with vague excuses, so I’m being interviewed on the day we move. Half an hour, she said, nobody’s life being so interesting that it should take more than thirty minutes of her time. What she didn’t say was that in half an hour she’d wring anybody dry. But maybe the interview will drum up some new business.
On Sunday night we’re invited to another house very near our new one, an evening Ronnie Riggley arranged. The people are named McCallum? McClaren? Ronnie sold them their house too. We’ll finally meet Bobo, something I look forward to.
Now for the two intrusions. Our mailbox here on Fairytale Lane was pounded to a pulp last night. We heard the noise about ten o’clock, and it scared both of us. I went outside and saw a black car streaking off. Besides the mailbox, the vandals also broke a half-dozen pickets in the fence, just snapped them in half. They must have used a baseball bat or something similar. It’s funny how even minor violence upsets you—as though it promises more to come, when of course it’s just kids who roam the streets looking for something to break. But I’ll have to repair the pickets and buy a new mailbox.
And to save the worst for last, there’s been another murder. This happened yesterday, Friday the thirtieth. As before, a woman was killed in her house. R
Whoever he is, I hope they catch him fast.
9
From Mount Avenue the Allbees turned into Beach Trail, went past Cannon Road, looked speculatively and pridefully at their new house, turned into Charleston Road and found number 3 just where Ronnie had said it was—a long two-story house with brown shingles on a short lawn beside a stained split-rail fence. The blue Datsun with RONNI plates was already pulled around the side of the house, and Richard swung in beside it so that he too was parked facing the double garage doors. A magnolia beside the drive had dropped a carpeting of pink tear-shaped petals over the grass and the asphalt, and Richard and Laura walked over these as they left their car.
“Did Ronnie tell you anything about the McCallisters?”
“Their name is McCloud,” Laura said. “Patsy and Les McCloud. Ronnie sold them their house, and she says they’re ‘a lot of fun,’ whatever that means. I guess Les McCloud is some kind of executive, and they’ve moved around a lot.”
“Real Patchin County people,” Richard said, and rang the bell.
A giant opened the door. At least six-foot-six, he wore a tan corduroy jacket and a chocolate turtleneck over a massive chest. With his wide white smile, fuzzy mustache, and frothy curly hair, he looked no older than twenty-five. “Hey there,” he said. “Come on in.”
“Mr. McCloud?”
The giant laughed, gripping Richard’s hand. “Jeez no, I’m just Bobo Farnsworth, the neighborhood cop. Les is up there in the kitchen and Patsy and my girlfriend are in the game room.” He ushered them into the little entry. Now they were crowded into an area about three feet square, in fact a landing on a staircase that led up to the main part of the house and down to a family room that shared a wall with the garage. “You must be Richard, the famous actor guy. And I guess you’re Laura.” He beamed down at her. Richard saw that Bobo was well suited for Ronnie Riggley.
“If you’re the neighborhood cop, I feel safer already,” Richard said.
Bobo laughed again, motioning them toward the stairs. “I take tall pills.”
Richard led the way up. As soon as he entered the living room—long modular sofa with zigzag purple and blue stripes and shiny black coffee table on a dark blue carpet, a framed poster of a Steinberg New Yorker cover—he heard a voice shouting, “Is that Dick Allbee? I’ll be right out!”
A man six inches shorter than Bobo Farnsworth strode into the room, holding out a damp hand. He had close-cut sandy hair, a beefy face of the sort that always looks tan. “Patsy!” he yelled. “Dick Allbee’s here!”
The cold wet hand closed, and Les McCloud put his face within three inches of Richard’s as he pumped his arm. A clear wave of alcohol, also of somehow possessive intimacy, came from him. “Loved your show, just loved it—that was a helluva good series, you know? Patsy!” (this over his shoulder.) “I gotta respect what you people can do, you know? I’m Les McCloud, welcome, welcome. You met the fuzz here? Good. And this must be your Frau. Nice to meet you. Laura? Great. Patsy’ll be here in a sec, and you can talk woman talk. Hey, Dick, you got all dressed up.”
Les was wearing a pink crewneck sweater and cuffed wash pants. He looked like Dartmouth, vintage ’59. “Get that tie off, Dick. Or do they call you Dickie?”
“Richard.”
“Whatever.” McCloud finally let go of Richard’s hand. “Just putting ice cubes in glasses. What do you fancy? How about you, Laura? I make the best martinis in the whole of Connecticut.”
“Nothing for me,” Laura said, and “Just a beer,” from Richard.
“You want that nothing with olives or a twist? Are you in the theater too, Laura?”
“No, I—”
“Two nondrinkers tonight. What do you people do to unwind? Do you sail or do you flail?” He was still staring directly into Richard’s face with friendliness so aggressive it was like hostility.
“Neither one,” Richard said. “We don’t have a boat, and it’s been a long time since we played tennis.”
“What a relief,” said Patsy McCloud, and both the Allbees turned to her. Standing next to Ronnie Riggley’s large-boned blond health, she looked fragile, with her thin exposed shoulders and enormous brown eyes under lank, rather untidy dark hair. Her face was very finely drawn. Nearly invisible creases bracketed her mouth when she smiled. The smile exposed small white slightly irregular teeth. She looked like her husband’s appetizer. “Now please tell me that you don’t jog either. I’m Patsy McCloud. Welcome, Richard and Laura.” Her handshake was fleeting and graceful.
“I don’t jog, and Laura can’t,” Richard said.
“Anybody can jog,” Les asserted.
“Not pregnant women,” Patsy said. “At least, I don’t think so. Do you have any other children?”
Laura’s face relaxed at Patsy’s intuitive remark. “No, it’s our first.”
Les ducked away into the kitchen and Ronnie kissed both Allbees. “I’m so happy you two are moving here.”
“Thanks.”
“Yes.”
“Have you and your husband been here long?” Richard asked.
“Two years. Before that, we were in Los Angeles for a year. Before that, England. Les has been very successful.” This last seemed ambiguous to Richard, as if Patsy were distancing herself from her husband’s travels as well as his career.
“We were in Belgravia,” Patsy went on. “Les hated it. He couldn’t wait to get back here. He absolutely detested England. I was in no condition to argue with him.” She wrapped long fingers around the chunky glass she carried. “I’d just had a miscarriage.”
Even Bobo Farnsworth seemed chastened for a moment, and when Les came back in with Richard’s beer, he said, “What a dead bunch. Patsy must have said something. My wife can murder cheerfulness like nobody’s business. Happen to tell these good folks something gloomy, little girl?” His jaw colored: Richard finally saw that the man was already drunk. The evening would be a torture. “Let’s do it now, honey. What do you say?”
Patsy nodded in a gloomy, distant manner.
Les McCloud looked up and beamed fiercely at Richard. The class bully, grown up. “Hey, Dick, do us a favor, will you? Say what you used to say. Say Hey, Mom, I want a whole plate of cookies.”
“Hey, Mom, I want a whole plate of cookies,” Richard said. He was grateful for Ronnie Riggley’s laugh.
“Gotcha,” Les said, and ran back to the kitchen. He returned with a bowl filled with Oreos. “Go on, take one. I got them for you.”
Bobo Farnsworth: “Oh, no.” But Les pushed the bowl toward Richard, who took one and slipped it into his pocket. Patsy McCloud, in evident desperation, asked, “Would you like the obligatory tour of the house?”
The evening toiled on. They toured the house, admired the pinball machines and jukebox in the game room, made the appropriate noises during dinner, which had a hasty, absentminded quality. The fettuccine (“Pasta is prologue,” Richard said, winning one of Patsy McCloud’s best smiles) was overcooked, and the lamb raw in the middle. Les McCloud drank unceasingly, refilling Patsy’s glass only slightly less frequently than his own. Laura grew exhausted early, and Richard wanted only to get her home.
Bobo Farnsworth almost saved the evening. Unquenchably good-tempered, he drank Coke, ate hugely, and talked funnily about police work. Like Ronnie, he had taken to the Allbees on sight. Anecdotes poured from him. “Here I am in the patrol car, cruising down the Post Road behind this runaway horse, and I turned on my lights. Pull over, buddy, I said to the horse . . .” Bobo was doing his best to lighten the evening, and the Allbees were grateful for his presence. Patsy McCloud winced when Les, competing with Bobo
“Okay, you don’t like jokes,” Les said. “I don’t like the way you do police work. Why don’t you catch that guy who’s killing women? That’s what you’re paid for. You’re not paid to sit here and eat my food, you’re supposed to be out there catching creeps.”
“And there are a lot of creeps out there, Les,” Bobo said in a magnanimous tone. “We’re working on it.”
“Hey, why don’t we all go sailing next weekend?” Les asked. “This is a great bunch. We’ll go out on the boat, and my wife will do her party trick.”
Patsy looked down at her plate.
“She won’t tell you what it is. Hell, she doesn’t even want me to tell you.”
“I don’t do any tricks.” Patsy looked genuinely discomfited.
“Her trick is she’s weird,” Les said, and smiled as if he said something funny. “Dick, you and Patsy have something in common. Didn’t Ronnie say that your family helped found this area? Well, Patsy’s family did too. She was a Tayler. They moved in here even before the real estate had any value. But that’s not why she’s weird. Listen to this. When we were in college, Patsy used to be able to predict how I’d do on my exams to the exact number! A couple of times, she guessed the football scores, too.” Les looked at all of them immobile in their chairs. “Does that run in your old swamp-Yankee families? You ever do anything like that, Dick?”
Patsy McCloud’s discomfiture had multiplied itself into embarrassment. She looked pale, stricken. The enormous brown eyes in her grown-up child’s face seemed to reach out to Richard, begging for help. He thought she might faint, or cry out—it was as though her husband had struck her.