by Robb T White
A thrill coursed through him. Charley had built a wall around his monkish existence. But an attractive female in close proximity knocked down his defenses like a melting sand-drip castle at the beach.
‘Have a seat,’ Wöissell said.
He pulled out a fold-away metal disc from the side of the prep table; it was the seat where he planned his attacks.
‘You are so polite,’ Reggie said. ‘Look, I hope you don’t think we’re gonna be keepin’ you up at night with our fighting and such.’
‘No, no, I hadn’t given it a thought.’
‘I work nights at a gentlemen’s club in Buffalo,’ Reggie told him. ‘Danny, he’s my boyfriend. He works these god awful twelve-hour shifts, so we almost never see each other. Danny’s a boiler tender, but he’s really a good cabinet maker. Just ain’t no work right now.’
‘I know how it is,’ Wöissell said, falling into his Teddy role. ‘I used to serve lots of people. Now it’s a dozen here, there.’
He handed her a Styrofoam cup of coffee and pushed a plastic bottle of creamer and a couple of sugar packets toward her.
‘Tough, ain’t it, I mean all over. People trying to get by.’
She suddenly brought her knees up and hugged them in a feline move that put all her center mass on the tiny disc. ‘Good coffee, Teddy.’
‘Not really but thank you for saying it,’ he said.
The tanned underside of her leg went all the way up to the pink panties, exposing a labial lip and spiky tendrils the same color as the mop of her head. Shit, she caught him looking.
She checked the thin silver watch on her wrist. ‘Better git on out of here if I’m going to make it on time,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a couple extra sets to do tonight. One of the girls is sick and I’m covering for her. Thanks for the coffee, Teddy.’
‘That’s too bad,’ he said. ‘I mean, extra … work.’
Pole-dancing slut. The words rippled across his mind in neon-bright LED display, but he was dizzy with desire and didn’t dare to stand up for fear of showing his erection.
When the door shut behind her, the cup in his hand exploded. Fragmented white pieces of Styrofoam burst free like cabbage moths. Scalding coffee burned his hand.
Control, discipline, he told himself. But the chitin he’d sealed around himself like an insect for protection had dropped from his skin, shed in a single layer, exposing him naked and weak.
He busied himself for the next three hours, cleaning every surface and washing every utensil twice. He went into the truck cab and washed the windows, inside and out; he applied a vinyl polish to the fabric on the dashboard and used a small vacuum cleaner to suck up every speck of dirt under the seats. He washed the exterior of the truck, oblivious to the gaze of neighbors.
He retired early that night on his cot set between the fryolator and the cooking stove. For the first time in years, he was unable to trick himself into sleep. When it came, a warm black embrace, she was standing in the center.
He awoke from a ragged sleep, lathered in sweat despite the ticking of the air-conditioning unit overhead. His nocturnal emission had glued the thin sheet of his bed to his thighs. His first urination was painful—semen dried in the urethra; his testes were colluding with the rest of his body’s revolt. Everything was on overdrive now because of her.
Played with him, just for the sake of using her female power. She had no idea, the little bitch, what he could do to her with his power.
An adage from Euripides: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
He looked in the mirror to see if his face looked different from yesterday. The same brown eyes stared back, the sandy hair gone to a flat, dusty brown, some reddish highlights in the week-old beard. An ordinary face, a nobody’s face. Wöissell was grateful no one paid much attention to him unless he wanted them to see him.
He kept staring into the mirror. There had to be something—how did she do it?
Chapter 17
‘WHY THE CHARITY, CEE?’
Shaughnessy was riffling through interview reports of all the canvassing and looked up.
‘You mean the Burchess widow, right?’
‘I don’t get it,’ Jade said. ‘This guy should be climbing the drapes with his secret fantasy life, according to our profile of a sexual sadist. Yet he murders two men with ruthless efficiency, mutilates a third, and instead of high-tailing it out of town, he drives fifty miles to the home of the third victim, drops off a sack of money, and boogies on up to Pennsylvania, where he executes a hood rat who just happened to pick the wrong guy to mug. What am I missing?’
‘Me, for one thing,’ Cee said. ‘I got word this morning my SAC is reassigning me. Assistant Director of the Secret Service is up to his ass over some names on the terrorist watch list who have connections here. I’ve got some door-knocking in my future. Much as I love working for you in my spare time, Jade.’
‘Rats,’ Jade said.
‘Them’s the breaks,’ Shaughnessy said.
‘I’ll miss working with you. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have real cooperation, somebody working with me on a case.’
‘What’s next?’
‘I’ve got to find the sandwich man’s pattern. What was he doing in Fayetteville, Arkansas? McKees Rocks was a probably a transit stop, but Fayetteville meant something. He didn’t drive there to kill Coy Burchess. I’ve asked Behavioral Sciences to update their profile to include Pittsburgh.’
Shaughnessy laughed. ‘Such dedication. When you hang up your spurs, Annie Oakley, what will you do next?’
Jade thought for a second. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. How about you?’
‘When I get done with my stint in this boys’ gun club, I’m going to find the biggest, most lucrative security gig I can land. I got my law degree in Norman, Oklahoma, so I don’t have as many choices as an ivy league snob like you.’
‘You don’t think you’ll get bored?’ Jade asked.
‘Not unless they have a dress code,’ Shaughnessy said.
‘Meaning if you have to wear a dress, I take it? I wish I had the name of that food truck. Nothing stood a check—all the vendors’ names for that—what was it? Some bluegrass festival.’
Shaughnessy said, ‘Did you consider that might be why he was in Fayetteville?’
Jade said, ‘No, actually I hadn’t, but you might be on to something. Think about it, Cee. He has all these phony names to sell food, obtain license plates, even driver’s licenses, if he’s that methodical. He could be in a hundred databases under assumed names for all we know. Where would he go next? Think Clay Tiedman will let us hypnotize him?’
‘Lord, I don’t understand why Chicago doesn’t keep you on a leash or you’d ever think of leaving the Bureau. You eat, sleep, and dream FBI, don’t you?’
‘I’m focused,’ Jade said.
‘That wasn’t a compliment, Betty Bureau,’ Shaughnessy said.
Chapter 18
WÖISSELL’S STEADY HAND WITH a judo throw, a Raptor hunting bow, or a slingshot made him a decent craftsman with a paintbrush, too. He could look at a style and imitate it to almost a professional look. No mural on the sides of his truck with happy hot dogs waiting to be devoured or soda cans sprouting fizzy hairdos. The secret was a soft grip and the dexterity of his flexor carpi radialis muscle in the wrist. His strength might be the genetic gift from some far-gone ancestor but developing it and keeping it were a result of his dedication. He was so used to driving one-handed with the other squeezing the hand grip, he no longer noticed it, as natural as breathing.
He finished the other side and was working on the side next to the older couple. Their dog, a Westie named Nefertiti, yapped at passersby strolling dogs down at this end of the park. The sign beyond their Gulfstream motor home said Reserved for Dog Exercising, a euphemism for the place to bring your dogs to crap.
He never gave much thought to the names he used: Taco Terry’s, Bob’s Burgers, Joe King’s Royal Frankfurters, Sam’s Sandwiche
s & Sodas. Like the cardboard sign he taped in the window for the customers, he would change it only when it was obvious his prices were becoming too low. A new locale demanded a new name.
Today he was the owner-operator of Leo’s Food Truck and Catering Service in a font copied from a flyer he’d picked up at the Piggly Wiggly that morning. Leo was for the seasonal constellation. Simplicity here, as in most things, was best. The Rothenburg Decorative font, however, was a challenge; the flowery capitals seemed to burst open like ripening petals and spilled pollen. When he realized what a colossal Freudian joke that was, he smudged a downward sloping serif.
She bloomed in the periphery of his vision as he was reaching for the thinner.
‘Hey, Teddy,’ Reggie said. ‘Hope I didn’t cause you to mess that up. Looks pretty good.’
‘No,’ Wöissell said, adding a self-deprecating Teddy Wassermann laugh, ‘I’m just a sloppy painter.’
‘Don’t look it to me,’ Reggie said. ‘You’re pretty good.’
‘Thank you.’
‘How come it don’t say Teddy’s? Why’s it say Leo’s?’
‘Leo is my middle name. Theodore Leo Wassermann. I thought I’d change my luck, get more customers with it.’
She must have just got up. Her hair was freshly washed and tied off in a ponytail that reached down her back.
‘Working nights is killin’ me, man,’ Reggie complained. ‘I try to get a few hours’ sleep when I get home but I’m too wired.’
‘They say the night shift plays havoc with your circadian rhythm,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘My what rhythm? Cir-circadoolian?’
What is wrong with me? I can’t think straight … Laughing at me—
His right hand clenched; the brush handle snapped in two.
‘Oh, dang, look what I made you do,’ Reggie said.
His right pant leg was spattered with red paint from thigh to tennis shoe; he thought of blood spatter with comma tails showing velocity and direction from guns and clubs.
‘It’s OK,’ Wöissell said. ‘I’m a clutz.’
Perfect teeth, sweet-faced smile, her dirty sensuality—everything he should despise.
Yet there she stood, a hand covering her mouth in childish delight; winsome, Charley thought. She might not be capable of splitting the atom anytime soon, but she deserved better than that lunk boyfriend.
‘I better leave you alone to finish your painting,’ Reggie said.
‘Goodbye, Reg.’
Wöissell didn’t know if he was smiling, leering, looking stoic, or braindead. His right hand was still clenched around the broken handle in a cadaveric-like spasm; he opened it and saw the embedded splinters like tiny porcupine needles sticking in his palm.
The day didn’t get better. Rude city clerks gave him the runaround—shunting him from one department to the other until it was 4.30 and too late to get a vendor’s license. He decided to cruise some potential places in Cheektowaga’s industrial zone for more creative opportunities.
He scanned professional and medical buildings on Union Avenue but nothing that looked viable for a truck like his. He preferred to stay away from the bigger cities because there was too much to learn and too many variables to be considered. Being ten miles from downtown Buffalo made that a negligible concern.
He pulled into the campground entrance just as the outside pole lights came on. People sat outside in their plastic Walmart chairs, eating meals cooked on grills. A group of six were talking around an outdoor barrel stove, drinking beer from cans. He heard televisions and radios playing inside campers. He was careful to observe the ten miles per hour speed limit inside the campground. The closer to his space, the less like the fifties it sounded. The music turned harder, voices louder. His section was apparently reserved for the less reputable crowd. Reggie’s camper was lit when he backed in. Loud voices testified to another spat.
He shut off the motor. Sounds filled the vacuum: chirring of insects in the woods behind, the ticking of the engine as it cooled, angry words, soprano and baritone, discerned from the fighting couple next door. A song lyric floating down on the night breeze. Even Nefertiti’s yipping from the other side. Sounds and smells blended, reinforced each other, drifted apart.
Rather than submit to the loud argument, he thought a drink and a shower would be his best option after the failure of his recon. He gathered up some clean clothes and his shower sandals and a pair of towels. The cement-block facilities marked for men and women were located near the entrance at the front of the campground’s U, so he would have to walk a hundred yards or so.
He slipped out the back door rather than risk being seen by her. In the morning, he’d find another place, maybe on the Niagara side of Buffalo. Lockport, farther north, being another industrial city knocked on its heels by the recession and the outsourcing of jobs to Mexico and China. He’d figure it out in the morning but getting away from those two was paramount.
The shower was lukewarm, hardly more than a spritzing, but it eased the tension building in his back and shoulders since his painting mishap that morning.
No, that’s a lie … it’s her, Reggie, doing it to me.
He willed himself not to think of her in the shower. The picture-making mechanism in his head zoomed on the outline of her pudenda against the fabric of her shorts. Like the curlicues of his truck lettering, the loose hairs of her pubic ruff stamped themselves into his brain camera. For the first time in years, he was afraid, and he could not put a name to his fear.
He was more resolved than ever to make the move the next day at dawn when he caught the glowing tip of a cigarette on the small steps of their camper as he approached the turn. He was too close to turn back so he maintained his pace and hoped the smoker would not call out to him as he passed.
‘Hey, man, what’s up?’
Shit. Too late.
‘Come on over. Have a beer,’ the voice said, the husky baritone of Reggie’s boyfriend.
‘Thanks very much, but it’s late, and I have to get up early—’
‘Aw, come on, Teddy, have a beer.’
Reggie’s voice from the dark. He didn’t see her there.
‘OK, I guess one won’t hurt,’ he said. He remembered to smile when he got close enough to see their faces.
‘Atta boy,’ Reggie’s mate said.
Reggie introduced Danny and said they had been living in the campground for the last three months since they got kicked out of their apartment.
‘Dumbass here,’ said Reggie, ‘got his ass fired at the factory for fighting.’
‘Don’t call me that, bitch,’ Dan said. He smiled at Teddy. One man sharing misogyny with another. Up close, Dan’s faded t-shirt revealed a smiling plumber with a pipe wrench and the caption I’m Just Here to Lay Pipe.
Wöissell had strayed into the argument at halftime. He hoped to endure a few more minutes of their company and make his excuse, hope they didn’t draw the cops.
‘Reggie tells me you make cabinets,’ he said. Instead of distracting him, it lent fuel to the fire of his jealousy.
‘Oh, she did, huh?’ Dan said.
He whipped his head around to stare at Reggie stretched out in a chaise lounge. ‘What else did you two talk about while I was off working in some fuckin’ hole in the ground?’
Reggie laughed. ‘Danny’s working for a swimming pool company now. He digs holes. Hard work, ain’t it, hon?’
‘Fucking-A, it’s hard work!’
Danny told Wöissell what it was like to be up to his knees in muck, shoveling out shit as fast as it fell back into the hole. He’d had a rough day; ‘some motherfucker’ hit him with the spray nozzle while he was placing rebar against the sides.
Danny stripped off his shirt and twisted around to show him.
‘He’s not a cat, dummy,’ Reggie said. ‘He can’t see in the dark.’
‘Gimme the goddamn flashlight so’s I can show him, you stupid monkey,’ Dan said.
He beamed a diagonal of light across his
back and Wöissell made the appropriate clucking noises over the bruised skin.
‘Hurts worse than that fuckin’ road rash from my bike spill,’ Dan said. ‘Goddamn cement comin’ out of that nozzle at Mach One speed. Hurt like a bitch, man.’
‘Poor baby,’ Reggie cooed sarcastically.
‘Shut the fuck up, you Asperger bitch.’ He turned to Wöissell. ‘She got this thing, a mental disease called Asperger’s syndrome. It makes her say batshit crazy stuff.’
‘You fucking moron,’ Reggie said.
Her voice had dropped an octave; it was barely recognizable from the voice she had used that morning. Wöissell guessed she was very drunk.
‘She thinks sticking her ass in alla them losers’ faces at her tittie bar makes her hot shit.’ He turned to her. ‘Baby, they just want to fuck you is all. You can’t be that stupid.’
‘Thank you for the beer. I really need to get some sleep,’ Wöissell said.
‘Hey, man, it’s early! Don’t go,’ Dan pleaded. ‘Reggie says you make these little whistling noises. Show me some, hey.’
‘I have to start early. I need my sleep.’
Wöissell left. He was fuming. He’d skipped his medication and had a bout of Tourette’s last night.
He was almost at the Chevy’s back door when he heard the full can of beer explode against the side of his truck.
‘Stay the fuck away from my girl, burger boy! I don’t want to hear you been talkin’ to her again while I’m gone!’
Reggie’s shriek from the dark. ‘Danny, you fucking asshole!’
‘Aw, baby, I’m just havin’ a little fun with your boyfriend. I want to hear him do those squeaking noises you told me about.’
Safe inside. His stomach roiled; his fists clenched and unclenched uncontrollably. He pressed his back against the door and ordered his mind to be calm. Dan would drink himself into a stupor and he could pull out in a few hours while he and Reggie slept it off.
He stripped, turned the air conditioning up to maximum and hoped the chilled air would keep his mind alert, not allow himself to drift backward to the unpleasantness next door, and lay on his cot to wait for dawn. He kept checking his watch, its radioactive hands glowing visibly on the countertop as waves dispensed their radioactive emissions into the dark: miniature pulsars in blackest space. Light, dark, waves or particles of photons signifying nothing.
