Darkroom by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page B

‘All I expect you to do is to answer this question.’
    â€˜Maybe they’re ghosts,’ said Edward Truscott.
    â€˜There’s only one spook in this class and that’s you,’ retorted Shadow.
    Jim sat down. ‘If you think they’re ghosts, say so. Write whatever you like … so long as it’s thoughtful, and honest, and it comes from the heart.’
    Vanilla King put up her hand. ‘Mr Rook, sir. Do
you
believe in ghosts?’
    Jim looked at Vanilla for a long time, with his hand partly covering his mouth, saying nothing. She was just about to ask the question again when he gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

Four
    â€˜Y ou are going to
so
love this place,’ said Vinnie as he parked his bright-red Pontiac GTO and switched off
Nessun Dorma
, which he had been playing at full volume all the way from West Grove to Venice.
    Jim climbed out of the car and looked up at the gloomy 1930s apartment building which took up the entire block between Willard and Divine. When he had lived on Electric Avenue he had driven past this way almost every day, but he couldn’t remember having noticed this building before, in spite of its monstrous bulk. It seemed to keep itself aloof from the busy, brightly colored neighborhood around it. It was five stories high, built of dark reddish-brown brick, with tiny diamond-leaded windows and twisted barley-sugar pillars. When he looked up, Jim saw dozens of gargoyles leaning over the parapets, and the chimneys bristling with elaborate lightning rods, as if the residents were trying to protect themselves from the wrath of God.
    A discolored bronze plaque over the main entrance announced Benandanti Building, 1935.
    â€˜Forty years my uncle Giovanni lived here,’ said Vinnie, bounding up the front steps and pushing open the heavy oak doors. ‘He was old and he was sick, and his apartment was way too big for him, but he absolutely refused to move. He said he had to live here until he died. He never told us why, silly old coot.’
    As the oak doors swung shut behind them, Jim was overwhelmed by the sudden silence. It was total. He listened and listened, but he couldn’t even hear a TV playing or the sound of the traffic outside. ‘It’s like a church,’ he said, stepping forward into the hallway. His footstep echoed, and re-echoed.
    The hallway looked like a church and it even smelled like a church. It was octagonal, with pillars of streaky red marble, and a matching marble floor. The walls were paneled in decoratively carved oak, with bunches of grapes and wild roses and human faces, all of them Italian-looking men with hawk-like noses and highly disdainful expressions. Even the elevator doors were covered in bas-reliefs of trees and brambles and pictures of distant castles.
    At one side of the hallway stood a creamy-colored statue of a naked man, about three-quarters of life size, with one hand raised in front of his eyes as if he were trying to stop himself from being blinded by the sun. In his other hand he was holding a square box, about four inches along each side.
    â€˜Interesting statue,’ said Jim. ‘Any idea what it’s supposed to be? Michelangelo’s David is Deeply Disappointed with his Bar-Mitzvah Present?’
    â€˜I don’t have any idea. All I know is that my mother always kept her back to it when we were waiting for the elevator. I think she was embarrassed by the size of his schlong.’
    â€˜Well, he
is
pretty well endowed, isn’t he? But there’s an inscription on the side here. L IGHT S NARETH THE S OUL . What does that mean?’
    â€˜Don’t ask me,’ said Vinnie. ‘I asked Uncle Giovanni about it once, and all he said was “don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.”’
    â€˜How were you supposed to know you didn’t want to know the answer unless he told you what it was?’
    â€˜That’s what
I
said. But