by Jason Allen
Gina kept wandering, barely aware of her surroundings until she stopped beside the deep sink in the hall between the dining room and kitchen and hunched over. A sheen of sweat coated her face. Her hand shook as the faucet handle turned. She cupped her fingers under the rushing stream. I can’t do this, she thought, meaning sobriety, then realized she meant her job as well, as she ladled the cold water to her lips.
TWENTY
By dinnertime, Corey had finished his shift at the estate and finally returned home for a nap. After an hour of coma-like sleep in his bed, he awoke to his brother telling him that Mick was on the phone, and then, as he sat up, Dylan handed him a shiny new key to the front door.
“Wait, why do we have new keys?”
“Mom had someone change the locks today, so Ray can’t just walk in anymore.”
Corey squinted at the dust-coated clock on his bureau, groggy as hell when he took Dylan’s cell phone and said to Mick, “What’s up. I’m sleeping.”
“Yo, I need you to drive me to Layne’s for a bag. I’ll smoke you up for it.”
“Sorry, can’t. I gotta be somewhere in a little while.”
“Ah, come on, man. How about I spot you a couple of fat spliffs just for the quick run over there? Then, you know, I’ll just need you to drop me at the bonfire—before you take off for wherever the fuck you need to be.”
Corey looked at the clock once more, relieved that he still had some time before he was supposed to pick up Angelique, and reluctantly agreed.
A half hour later, with Dylan wedged in the middle and Mick in the passenger seat, Corey downshifted his pickup as they went snaking through dense woods, bouncing and swerving down Layne’s long dirt driveway with muddy water splashing up the tires from the deeper, wider holes. He slowed where a space opened up in the woods and rolled to a stop in front of the porch light glaring above the rickety screen door. A late-eighties Crown Vic with a cracked windshield and a slightly newer Corolla with a missing hubcap were parked at angles by the house. They belonged to a couple of the local burnouts Corey had known most of his life, guys so perpetually stoned that at times they could be mistaken for furniture. But the pimped-out black Ford pickup off to the right belonged to Ray, and for Ray to end up out there scoring weed or whatever else from Layne, Corey figured he must already be coked to the gills and wasted from hours of pints and bourbons at Gilligan’s.
One of the knuckles on his right hand cracked when he unconsciously tightened it into a fist. His other hand tilted back the tallboy can of Bud he’d been holding between his legs. He finished it off while opening his driver’s-side door, and he and Mick stepped out.
Although he’d told his brother to wait for them, Dylan hopped out of the truck and grabbed his arm. “Hang on, Core. Ray’s inside. You sure you want to go in?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t see how crazy he looked today, though. Mom even told me she’s getting a restraining order.”
“Good,” Corey said.
“Just don’t get into it with him, alright? It’s not worth it.”
A sea of crickets chirped all around them, their backdrop broken by the metallic whine of the screen door’s hinges, and the heavy clomping sound when Layne, their forty-year-old weed dealer, stepped out. Dressed in his usual dirty white tank and jeans, his sleeves of tattoos exposed, his feet in unlaced work boots, he stood staring at them from the lopsided porch, grinning as he raised a pipe to his mouth. He flicked his lighter and touched the flame to the bowl, stifled a cough and released a plume.
Corey nudged his brother’s shoulder to convey that everything would be okay, and joined Mick on the path to the house. The two walked up the slatted old porch steps and each fist-bumped Layne, who greeted them through another burst of smoke from his lungs, each of his words squeezed while he continued the long exhale. “What, just you two? Where’re the girls?”
Mick shook his head and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a bad man, my friend. I’m ashamed to be associated with you. Let me get a hit of that.”
Layne’s laughter resumed, a choppy, goatlike sound that scared most people who didn’t know him and weirded out practically every girl he ever encountered. Mick lit the bowl and with his elbow swung open the screen door, and the three of them entered the front room.
Red-faced and red-eyed, Ray smiled from his couch seat and raised a hand. “Well, well. Looky who we got here. Hey, tough guy. Long time no see.”
Corey kept his hands in his jean pockets, concerned that he might finally haul off on him otherwise. “You’re not funny.”
His smile already fading, Ray leaned back with his arm slung along the top of the couch. “Okeydoke, then, whatcha up to, tough guy? Checking up on me?”
“I don’t give a shit what you do,” Corey said. “And stop fucking calling me that.”
Ray held a green long-necked bottle gripped between his thumb and two fingers, and tilted it back as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Your mom ask about me? She’s missing me now, huh?” His smile returned, but went unacknowledged as Corey and Mick followed Layne down the hall to his bedroom, where he kept his stash in a bowling ball bag in the closet.
The deal took less than a minute, and with his quarter-ounce bag of hydro stuffed in his pocket, Mick entered the front room first and opened the screen door. Corey trailed closely behind and tried not to make eye contact with Ray again, thinking no good at all could come from it, but his soon-to-be ex-stepdad quickly stood from the couch and blocked his path, stinking like a brewery floor when he placed a hand on Corey’s shoulder and leaned in as if to tell him a secret.
“Shouldn’t do drugs, Core,” he whispered, his eyes bulging.
“Like you’re one to talk.”
“Hey,” he said with a rush of anger, “let me tell you something. I can handle my shit. And you’re just a piss-ant kid who’s living at home, and I’m the sucker who went and married your crazy fucked-in-the-head mom.”
“Yeah? Well, she kicked your loser ass out. And guess what—No, she doesn’t fucking miss you. None of us do.”
“Why you always gotta be such a little prick.” He leaned closer, his forehead almost touching Corey’s. “Huh? What was that? Speak into the mic.” He tapped Corey’s head with his knuckle. “Answer me. Why you always—gotta be—such a little—bitty...prick.”
Tempted to shove Ray’s arm to the side or bull his way past, Corey leveled his stare.
He’d promised Dylan.
Be the bigger man.
And he was also about to meet up with Angelique.
He’s not worth it.
He took a step toward the door, feeling calmer but still ready for a fight. “This’s been fun and all,” he said, “but I’m out.” He managed to squeeze past Ray, and with the next step he shoved the screen door open.
Halfway to his truck, Ray jogged up from behind and grabbed him by the shoulder. “Hold up. Fucking hear me out for a minute.” He let go when Corey turned and let the crickets answer for him. Then he hoisted his bottle for another sip but saw that it was empty and dropped it on the ground, quick to grab Corey again by his shirt. “You didn’t answer my question in there.”
“Dude, take your fucking hands off me.”
“You can go, after you tell me why you’re such a fucking little prick to me all the time.”
“I only have one thing left to say to you,” Corey said, shoving him and taking a step back, too sick of holding the anger in to censor himself anymore. “Fuck-the-fuck off, Ray. Forever.”
Ray’s eyes blazed as he stepped toward him. Corey kept backing away.
“You think you can talk to me like that and just walk off?” Ray’s voice had risen, oddly high-pitched, his jaw flexing and nostrils flared when he reached back to his beltline. “You think you’re tough, huh?” Then suddenly his hand thrust forward and th
e barrel of a black handgun was aimed dead-center between Corey’s eyes. “Who’s the fucking tough guy now?”
Corey raised his hands. “Whoa, chill,” he said, taking a half step back. “You’re not gonna shoot me. Just put that shit down.”
“Look at my face and tell me I’m lying.”
The truck doors opened and Mick and Dylan stepped out, his brother saying, “Hey, let’s just go, Core, alright? We’ll just go now, Ray.”
“Not till your prick older brother says he’s sorry.”
Corey stepped backward, slowly, wedging his hands in his pockets without breaking eye contact. As Mick and Dylan returned to the truck through the passenger-side door and gently pulled it shut, he crept around to the driver’s side, still looking at the drunk and strung-out guy with the gun pointed at his head. Standing beside his door, he raised his hand, unsure if Ray had slid into a blackout or had snapped, possibly now in the midst of a total mental breakdown. With his palm out he offered a casual wave, hoping to diffuse the bombs in Ray’s eyes, and called out as calmly as he could, “I’ll see ya, Ray.”
That’s when the gun finally shifted away from him, but only slightly. Ray pulled the trigger—Bang! Bang! Bang!—three bullets shot into an oak trunk a few feet from Corey’s front bumper, the bark splintering off close enough for some to graze his cheek.
Mick whispered loudly, “Get the fuck in, man!” and without a moment’s hesitation Corey ducked in, turned his key, flipped on the headlights and jammed down on the clutch, shifting into Reverse, his back tires spinning even before his door swung closed. Ray fired again into the woods, shouting between shots, “See you soon, tough guy!”
After he’d whipped the truck around, in the rearview Corey kept his focus on the drunk, coked-up maniac behind him who hadn’t moved from that spot in front of Layne’s house and also hadn’t lowered the gun. Moths fluttered around the bare bulb over the porch while he yelled something incoherent, his frame shrinking in the mirror as the truck sped away—though if the gun had a fully loaded clip, not fast enough. Flooring it across the uneven ground and shallow mud puddles, Corey saw Ray step forward and level the gun at the truck’s rear window. “Mick, get down!” he yelled, pushing his brother’s head forward just as Ray fired the gun once more.
The bullet blasted the driver’s-side mirror and sent it dangling by a wire. The boys shouted all at once.
“Holy fuck!”
“Go, man!”
“Fucking shit!”
With the tires spinning and the chassis rocking and creaking, the pickup raced into the mouth of the dirt drive, the three of them thrown wildly about as the gun fired one last time and a tree branch splintered off to the right.
No one made a sound once they were finally swallowed by the woods, safely out of sight. Dylan had his knees angled away from the gearshift, he and Mick both with their hands pressed flat against the dashboard while Corey kept the pedal to the floor. The tires churned up a steady spray of pebbles and the axles went slamming and jockeying from one deep depression to another, until suddenly the woods opened up at the road.
Once they were cruising for a minute, Dylan faced the windshield and muttered, “What a fuckin’ nut-bag.”
Then Mick leaned behind him to catch Corey’s eye. “Hey, you good?”
He kept looking straight ahead, lit a cigarette before he answered. “What do you mean?”
“I mean with Ray.”
He shrugged. His tongue felt swollen. The headlights slashed across the oaks bordering the road as they leaned into a curve. Even if he could have spoken then, he had no words. Had it ever been good with Ray around? Had he, Corey, ever been good? Other than the one long night he’d spent with Angelique at the ocean, after she leaned in and kissed him, he couldn’t remember a time when all his muscles weren’t tight, as if his natural state had always been to walk through life braced for the next lightning strike. Just now Ray had held his life in his hand, and drunk as he was, Corey—or his brother—could have been killed before ever knowing anything outside this suffocating place. How stupid would it have been to die there tonight?
He considered telling Gina about this in the morning, but then thought about how Dylan had described her shuffling into the house last night after her time in the hospital. Hearing that Ray had threatened him with a gun and went so far as to fire it toward both her sons would only send her the rest of the way over the edge. She’d told Dylan she was getting a restraining order, so she must already know that her ex had officially flown off the rails. Maybe that would keep her and Dylan safe from now on. Otherwise, Corey wouldn’t be able to leave. And he was hoping Angelique might consider leaving with him instead of on her own. Goddamn... He needed to escape this place...this crazy townie bullshit that he’d been enduring here his entire fucking life.
The road was all curves until he slowed and made a left turn toward the bay. He had to drop off Mick and Dylan at the dead-end road nearby where some of the surfers and other burners had a bonfire going, and then hightail it to Southampton to meet Angelique outside the Sheffields’ gates. She’d be waiting there in twenty minutes. He could make it there in fifteen.
Tonight they’d talk out the money exchange with Leo and toss around ideas about where she should go once she had it. Could he go with her? Whether she felt comfortable with him taking off with her or not, he couldn’t imagine staying here one more day. And after being at the estate since early that morning and confronting Mr. Sheffield so many hours ago, Angelique probably needed to get away just as much as Corey needed to get back to her. And like him, he imagined, she wouldn’t be able to breathe a full breath until she did.
TWENTY-ONE
Leo awoke in his bed, confused by the faint voices outside the windows until he recognized them as Sheila and a handful of her friends chatting ground-level on the lake side of the house. He squinted at the French doors and through the space between the drapes above the balcony railing. The dark sky and general stillness inside the house oriented him enough to assume that he’d slept through dinner, rising now after many of the kids’ friends and his company employees had departed and the six or eight remaining guests had transitioned to brandy and cognac and port wines out on the porch.
He pressed his hand to the bandage taped to the back of his head, quick needle stabs resuming along the track of stitches when he eased his legs over and pressed his feet to the hardwood. With his robe slipped on, he stepped as quietly as he could across the bedroom floor while Sheila and the guests maintained their steady murmuring outside. It hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since Henry’s death, but Leo couldn’t leave him in the pines much longer. Someone could so easily wander out there, and now, Gina had overheard his conversation with Angelique and wanted the full story. He had to move Henry off the property—tonight, if possible—but how?
Entering the hall by the soft red haze from the night-light plugged in at the baseboard, he stepped toes-first along the creaking floorboards, his arm extended toward the banister like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline, and step by step he crept even more cautiously down the stairs. Thankfully, no one reentered the house while Leo rifled through kitchen drawers for a flashlight. He eased the kitchen door closed behind him and loped across the lawn under the cover of darkness, toward the archway in the garden wall where he’d stumbled into Gina that afternoon. He figured that at this late hour she must have gone for the night, but if she hadn’t, and if she knew he’d left his bed, she’d push him to tell her everything.
The thought of confessing to her that he’d dragged Henry to the farthest corner of the property and left him there—dead—triggered him to pick up his pace past the sculptures and tennis courts. Then he pushed harder, running, suddenly terrified that his father’s voice would transmogrify from his conscience once more. Braced for another psychological beating, he looked over his shoulder toward the house and the pool and the lake receding in the distan
ce. He needed to get to Henry, but just as much, he needed to outrun the old man. Propelled by the desperate hope of avoiding his father’s ghostly descent from the treetops or ascent from the soil, Leo pressed on, his robe flapping behind, his head throbbing so intensely beneath the bandage that he feared he might pass out. Dizzy as hell, he finally slowed just before the pine boughs, which loomed as a jagged border to the star-dotted sky.
He veered from the lawn and advanced until the heavy canopy of limbs covered him and blocked the view of the house. When he reached the area where he’d tried to dig, he flicked the flashlight on and followed the cone of light along the route he’d taken while dragging Henry into the woods. The path, he could see now, would be far too easy for a curious guest to follow; he’d left a drag trail through the fallen needles, over the root-gnarled ground, all the way from the lawn to the densely wooded property line.
He’d intended to leave Henry as well hidden as possible, but damn, what a piss-poor job he’d done to conceal him in the dark. He knelt down and swept the flashlight beam along Henry’s body. The loose blanket no longer fully covered his head, and a sizable scrap of the wool was missing after it somehow had been torn away. Scanning his surroundings, Leo found items strewn around that he had no memory of leaving behind, each of which could be cataloged as evidence—the shovel, the empty Glenlivet bottle, the garbage bag with Henry’s cell phone and wallet and his clothes spilled out on the ground—each item undoubtedly covered by dozens of Leo’s fingerprints.
The flashlight returned to Henry’s face, his half-closed eye, his slack bottom lip, the pine needles crosshatched over his ear. For quite some time, Leo stared at him through a watery blur, as though rain had begun sliding down a windowpane, while his memory steadily pieced back together a film reel summary of the day they’d met...the company party on that cold, windy evening before the Thanksgiving holiday. One of the less-than-memorable employees introducing Henry and a minute later excusing himself to freshen his drink, leaving Leo to stand there with the smiling young man. The attraction on his side he’d tried to ignore. No one at Seri-Corp knew Leo preferred the company of men to begin with, and then, as the boss, he also had to tread extra cautiously as far as flirting with an employee of any gender. As handsome as Henry was, Leo assumed he had a girlfriend, or possibly a boyfriend, though even if he didn’t, surely a good-looking man in his midtwenties wasn’t thinking about Leo as he would have hoped.
