Night Freight

"One hundred nineteen, one hundred twenty . . ."

The need to go to her, touch her, is exquisite. But how will she react when she sees me? I mustn't frighten her.

Slowly I cross the room. Yet as I draw near, the image of myself that I expect to see behind hers does not materialize. Then I am standing close to her, closer than ever before—and still she is alone in the glass.

"One hundred forty-eight, one hundred forty—"

Abruptly she stops counting, holding the brush against the silkiness of her hair. Her smile fades; small ridge lines appear on her forehead.

"Judith," I whisper. "Judith, my love."

She frowns at the mirror, puts down the brush.

"I'm here, darling."

And I reach out with trembling fingers, touch the softness of her shoulder.

She shivers, as though it were not I but a sudden chill draft that caressed her. She turns, looks around the bedroom—and it is then I accept the truth. She can't see me, or hear me, or feel the gentle pressure of my hand. Perhaps it is because I am not strong enough yet. And perhaps

it is McAnally.

I know then that this is so. He is still alive, he still stands between us—now like a wall between our two worlds.

Always, always, that bastard McAnally!

Judith rises from her chair, crosses to the window, secures the lock. Then she sheds her dressing gown, and the silhouette of her body beneath her thin nightdress fills me with rapture. I watch her put out the lights, get into bed, and lie with the coverlet drawn up to her chin.

After a time, the rhythm of her breathing grows regular. When I am certain she is asleep I walk to the bed and sit down beside her.

She stirs but does not open her eyes.

With great care I lift the coverlet. This is the moment I have ached for most of all, the moment that makes even my death inconsequential.

I take her in my arms.

She moans softly, shivers, tries to turn away in her sleep. I continue to hold her in a tender embrace. "Judith," I whisper in her ear, "it's all right. I'm growing stronger, and when I'm strong enough I'll find another way to kill Fred. A push down the basement steps, a falling object from the platform in the garage—I'll find a way."

More moans come from her, but I hear them now as murmurs of love. I kiss the warm hollow of her throat, and my hand finds her breast, and in ecstasy I lie there with her, waiting.

Waiting.

First, for McAnally.

But most of all for that time when my love will come awake and see and hear and feel me at last, lying beside her in the warm silent hours of the night . . .

The simplest ideas are often the best ones, a truism I think is demonstrated by several stories in this collection. "Black Wind," like the others, therefore depends for its effects on mood and character. And thus another truism: It's all in the handling. The story, incidentally, was the basis for a pretty good short-subject film several years ago. As far as I know, my luck and the movie industry being what they are, the only people who ever saw it, besides members of the production company, were me and my immediate family.

Black Wind

It was one of those freezing, late-November nights, just before the winter snows, when a fu

Well, there are a lot of superstitions in our part of upstate New York; nobody pays much mind to them in this modern age. Or if they do, they won't admit it even to themselves. The fact is, though, that when the black wind blows, the local folks stay pretty close to home, and the village, like as not, is deserted after dusk.

That was the way it was on this night. I hadn't had a customer in my diner in more than an hour, since just before seven o'clock, and I had about decided to close up early and go on home. To a glass of brandy and a good hot fire.

I was pouring myself a last cup of coffee when the headlights swung into the diner's parking lot.

They whipped in fast, off the county highway, and I heard the squeal of brakes on the gravel just out front. Kids, I thought, because that was the way a lot of them drove, even around here—fast and a little reckless. But it wasn't kids. It turned out instead to be a man and a woman in their late thirties, strangers, both of them bundled up in winter coats and mufflers, the woman carrying a big, fancy alligator purse.

The wind came in with them, shrieking and swirling. I could feel the numbing chill of it even in the few seconds the door was open; it cuts through you like the blade of a knife, that wind, right straight to the bone.

The man clumped immediately to where I was standing behind the counter, letting the woman close the door. He was handsome in a suave, barbered city way; but his face was closed up into a mask of controlled rage.

"Coffee," he said. The word came out in a voice that matched his expression—hard and angry, like a threat.

"Sure thing. Two coffees."

"One coffee," he said. "Let her order her own."

The woman had come up on his left, but not close to him—one stool between them. She was nice-looking in the same kind of made-up, city way. Or she would have been if her face wasn't pinched up worse than his; the skin across her cheekbones was stretched so tight it seemed ready to split. Her eyes glistened like a pair of wet stones and didn't blink at all.

"Black coffee," she said to me.

I looked at her, at him, and I started to feel a little uneasy. There was a kind of savage tension between them, thick and crackling; I could feel it like static electricity. I wet my lips, not saying anything, and reached behind me for the coffeepot and two mugs.

The man said, "I'll have a ham-and-cheese sandwich on rye bread. No mustard, no mayo

"Yes, sir. How about you, ma'am?"

"Tuna fish on white," she said thinly. She had close-cropped blonde hair, wind-tangled under a loose scarf; she kept brushing at it with an agitated hand. "I'll eat it here."

"No, she won't," the man said to me. "Make it to go, just like mine."

She threw him an ugly look. "I want to eat here."

"Fine," he said—to me again; it was as if she weren't there. "But I'm leaving in five minutes, as soon as I drink my coffee. I want that ham-and-cheese ready by then."

"Yes sir."

I finished pouring out the coffee and set the two mugs on the counter. The man took his, swung around, and stomped over to one of the tables. He sat down and stared at the door, blowing into the mug, using it to warm his hands.

"All right," the woman said, "all right, all right. All right." Four times like that, all to herself. Her eyes had cold little lights in them now, like spots of fox fire.

I said hesitantly, "Ma'am? You still want the tuna sandwich to eat here?"

She blinked then, for the first time, and focused on me. "No. To hell with it. I don't want anything to eat." She caught up her mug and took it to another of the tables, two away from the one he was sitting at.