Coldwater

by Tom Pitts

  Gary chewed and swallowed the food in his mouth. “Maybe.”

  “Try to forget about them. You’re getting that look on your face when you obsess over something. They’re just a bunch of assholes. Karma or the cops will take care of them, don’t worry. Let’s just go to bed early tonight, watch some TV, and not think about it. All right?”

  “Okay,” Gary said.

  She was right. She was always right.

  Ever since San Francisco, ever since they’d lost the baby, he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. That stony sense of regret that somehow it’d been his fault, that he’d done something, made some terrible decision, engaged in some selfish act that caused the loss of life. That their baby, their future, their hope of a family was confiscated to punish him.

  Linda too, in her own way, wondered why. What had she done to deserve this fate? Because it had to be them—Linda or Gary. Some hubris, some taunting of the Gods—because it couldn’t be the baby’s fault, the innocent child who had no chance to do wrong, to displease the Gods. The fault must lie with either her or Gary.

  “So what’s the plan now?” Bomber was halfway through his forty and sucking on the end of a cigarette.

  The three of them were dug in, slunk down in a cement aqueduct, a miniature version of the big manmade waterways Bomber remembered in LA. The small one they sat in now so out of use vines and vegetation reached down its sharp-angled banks and gave the small creek bed a claustrophobic feel. They’d been down there for hours, chain-smoking and nursing their beers, like three soldiers stuck in an oblong foxhole.

  The kid asked, “You think there’s rats down here?”

  “Oh, there’s definitely rats down here. Fucking big ones too.” Bomber paused to take another pull off the cigarette butt. “You hear that?”

  “What?” the kid said.

  “That scratching sound? The gnawing, nibbling sound?”

  “Fuck you, Bomber. Stop teasing the kid. And give me a cigarette.”

  “We’re out,” Bomber said. “I’m smoking one of the kid’s snipes.”

  “Fuck,” Jason said.

  Without being asked, the kid pulled his battered pack of Camels from his pocket and offered the longest and straightest stogie to Jason. With a flourish, Jason whisked his Zippo lighter against his leg and lit the smoke.

  “Thanks, kid. Okay, here’s the plan. We’re going to sit here for a while longer. The cops are still up there, I can see their lights still reflecting off those trees.” He pointed to show them, but they’d already been watching those lights for hours. “Then we got to go back and get the car. That fucker across the street called the cops on us and if his description is even close to the one that fat fucker I sliced gave, then they’ll be all over that house. After we get the car we’ll go and do the all-night Denny’s parking lot thing.”

  “What about Juliet?” the kid asked.

  “Fuck Juliet. She took off with the phone. She’ll have to find us. She fucked us good this time. We’re going to have to rely on pay phones to cop. You know how hard it is to find a working pay phone in this shitburg?”

  Bomber and the kid both nodded solemnly before going back to their second-hand cigarettes. Jason crouched down and leaned back onto the cement at the only comfortable angle available. He was starting to get dopesick. And he blamed Juliet. She’d taken their phone, their lifeline to the dealer. He blamed those two suburbanites across the street too. He wouldn’t be out here sitting in an oversized gutter getting sick if that fucker across the street hadn’t called the cops. Chills crawled up his spine and a cord of clear snot ran over his lip. The other two had no idea what withdrawals were like. Bomber used once in a while, but his thing was speed. And the kid, the kid didn’t know shit. He did dope whenever they were flush, smoking it off foil, but he usually got sick and spent his high doubled over and dry heaving.

  Jason waited as long as he could before telling the other two it was time to go back. It may have been a bit premature, but he’d hidden some cottons in the car, and the car was in the garage. The cottons were old, dry, and hard, but if he pounded them it was enough to get him well. You had to have an insurance policy. And when his head was straight, he’d be able to focus on what to do next.

  Linda fell asleep first. Gary lay beside her watching a sitcom they usually enjoyed. Tonight though, he was distracted. The jokes fell flat and the laugh track sounded tinny and false. An internal debate raged inside his head whether he should sneak out the front door and have a cigarette. The show played on and his eyes started to burn with exhaustion. He decided against the cigarette and shut his eyes without turning off the TV.

  His sleep was dense and dreamless. A fitful recharge he desperately needed.

  Something tugged at him in his sleep. A coarse, rhythmic cough pleading with him to wake up. Gary opened his eyes, but sleep paralysis held him fast. As his mind cleared, the sound became more crisp and familiar.

  The dog was barking.

  Usually Barney’s barking set off an alarm in Gary that immediately pulled him from unconsciousness, but tonight, perhaps because of how deep he was under, it couldn’t quite tug him awake. As he came to, he realized the dog sounded far away, like the animal was in another dream. It confused his already disoriented brain.

  There was something else too. An insect in his ear. Or a warm wind.

  His eyes opened wide.

  Someone was blowing in his ear.

  Gary tried to sit up, but a cold hand pressed across his throat, holding him down.

  “You called the cops on me, motherfucker. You do that again and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  Gary turned his head to the right. The man from across the street, the one he’d had the confrontation with earlier today, was inches from his face.

  “That’s right. I can reach out and touch you any time I like.” With Gary’s attention fixed, Jason licked his lips. “Or your wife. I can reach out and do more than touch her.”

  Gary tried to sit up again, but something in the darkness held him back. The man’s flat hand now pushed down on his chest.

  “Don’t fuckin’ move, neighbor. I got a razor in my hand and I’ll fucking slice you like bacon.”

  Gary held still, fear quaking in his chest. The man rose up from his position kneeling beside the bed and towered over Gary. The razor was now visible in the blue light of the TV. Gary tried to see his face, but it flickered in and out of focus with the television.

  “A good neighbor minds his own fucking business.”

  Linda rustled the blanket beside Gary. She murmured and rolled over onto her side.

  “Goodnight, Gary Carson,” the man said, and he walked out the bedroom door.

  Chapter Seven

  “You have to call the police, Gary. He was in our home. Our home. If you don’t call ’em, I will.” Linda paced back and forth in an oversized T-shirt serving as a nightgown.

  Gary sat on the couch with Barney. He stroked the dog’s head as it dozed off in his lap. They’d found the animal locked in the hall closet. The pup was uninjured, but Gary wasn’t yet convinced it hadn’t been drugged.

  “They walked right in, Gary. They fucking stuck our watchdog in a closet like he was a stuffed animal. No fear. They were in our bedroom. We could have been killed.”

  “Shit, Linda, I’m the one he threatened, I’m the one who felt his hand on my throat. I’m the one…” Gary looked at his wife and realized he was only underscoring her point. He was just pissed. Pissed that it’d happened, pissed that he’d gone over there in the first place. He felt like he’d invited the devil right into their home. “All right,” he said, and pushed the dog off him. He got up and lifted his cell phone from the kitchen table. “I’m calling.”

  The police arrived in minutes and in force. Several patrol cars lit up the sky with red and blue, strobing the block in a wash of urgent color. Gary saw lights flick on in houses on
both sides of the street. There were cars in front of his house and the Perkins’ too. They seemed to know right where to go.

  Gary greeted them at his front door. As he started to explain why he’d called, he heard the heavy banging of police fists on the door of the house across the street. An officer invited him back into his own home to take a statement. Gary saw another cop lift a battering ram from the trunk of his car. Policemen were already stepping into people’s driveways, warning them to stay inside their homes. Gary’s neighbors. The people he didn’t know and hadn’t bothered the entire time he’d lived there.

  Seated around the kitchen table, Gary went over the story for Deputy Nguyen and Deputy Delphie. They were patient while they listened to him go over the details of what happened during the past week, but they seemed most concerned about the appearance of the man who’d broken into their home. A third officer, one who hadn’t introduced himself, examined their doors and windows, trying to determine where the break-in originated.

  Deputy Delphie took the statement, jotted down some notes, and asked again about the assailant’s physical description. Gary described him, then described him again. Deputy Nguyen seemed to take meticulous notes too, scratching them down on a yellow pad of legal paper.

  “What’s going on?” Gary asked. “Why all the troops tonight? When I called today, only one car showed up.”

  “There was an incident earlier,” Delphie said with a tone implying he was imparting confidential information, “at the liquor store. Discount Liquors. You know the one? By the donut shop?”

  Gary nodded, yes, he knew the place.

  “The owner of the store called in a disturbance earlier tonight. The suspect in the assault, or apparent assault, fits your description of this guy pretty good.”

  Linda asked, “What happened?”

  Nguyen cut in, “Seems like a young gentleman had a run-in with your neighbor and ended up cut pretty bad.”

  Gary wanted to remind the deputies this asshole was not their neighbor, but Linda spoke first saying, “Cut?”

  “With a razor. He’s at Mercy San Juan right now getting stitched up,” Delphie said.

  “Razor?” Gary said. “That’s what I told you. He said he had a razor and he was going to slice me up—”

  “Like bacon. So you told the 911 operator. That’s why we’re here, Mr. Carson. We think this may be the same character.”

  “Think? Of course it is.”

  Deputy Delphie plucked a card from his shirt pocket. “This is my cell number. I want you to call me if you see this guy anywhere.”

  “That’s it?” Gary asked.

  “For the moment. We’re still checking inside the house across the street. We’ve got units looking all over your neighborhood. But we had this search up hours before he turned up here. He’s a slippery character, Mr. Larson.”

  “Carson.”

  Delphie held up his hand and the two officers conferred with the third, the one inspecting the house. They spoke in hushed tones while Gary and Linda tried to overhear. Finally, Delphie said, “Gary, do you normally leave your sliding glass door open?”

  “No,” Gary said. “Sometimes I slip out at night for a cigarette, but I’m pretty sure I locked it tonight.”

  The third deputy waved him over to the glass door that opened onto the backyard. “You must have left it open tonight, screen door too, because there’s no sign of the locks being forced, but this is definitely the way he came.”

  “How do you know?” Gary said.

  The deputy slid open the door and pointed to the screen door. There was a long, straight slice down the middle of the mesh.

  “Why would he cut it if the doors weren’t locked?”

  “Because,” the third officer said, speaking directly to Gary for the first time, “he wanted to remind you about that razor.”

  Calper Dennings sat down the block in a rented Ford Taurus. He flicked peanut after peanut into his mouth while he patiently watched the police go about their business. A police scanner crackled with activity, drowning out the talk radio station playing on the car radio. Calper jotted down a few notes, names and police codes mostly. He checked the time on the dashboard once more before returning the key to the off position. He’d wait. He crinkled up the packaging for the peanuts and tossed it on the floor with the rest of his garbage. Eventually all the law enforcement personnel would be gone and he’d have a face-to-face chat with the Carsons.

  As the patrol cars pulled past him, he wasn’t surprised no one looked him over. Local yokels. When the last car had departed, he started the Taurus and pulled up in front of the Carsons’ home. Before he walked up to their door, he turned and looked at the house across the street. The front door had been boarded with a sign from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department stapled at eye level. The plywood looked solid and impenetrable, but he knew it wouldn’t stop whoever wanted to get back in.

  He rang the Carsons’ doorbell. When the door opened, he took a step back and introduced himself. “Hello, Mr. Carson. My name is Calper Dennings and I’m a detective. I know the Sheriff deputies have been eating up a lot of your patience tonight, but I just have a couple more questions.”

  Gary Carson looked tired. Calper knew he’d have to keep this quick. Gary looked him up and down and reluctantly invited him in. As soon as he entered, Linda Carson appeared in the hallway that led to the back of the house.

  “Hi. You must be Linda.” He’d heard both their names read across the police scanner earlier and he thought addressing them might jump a hurdle of suspicion. “I’m Calper Dennings. The last thing I want to do is keep you guys up after such a long night, so I’ll keep this brief.”

  “Did I hear you say you’re a detective?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you’re with the Sheriff’s Department?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m a private detective.”

  Gary started to say something, but Linda spoke first. “How can we help you? Calper, is it?”

  “I’m trying to confirm some of the details about what happened tonight.”

  Linda said, “Do you have some ID, or a card or something?”

  Dennings said, “Sure thing,” and while he dug into his jacket for a card, he told them, “I think I know who it was that broke into your home tonight.”

  “The police didn’t know. How would you know?” Linda said. “If you do know who it is, then why didn’t you tell them?”

  “The police won’t help you here. They told you to call if you see him again, right?”

  Linda and Gary both nodded.

  “But they won’t be looking for him. I mean, if I told them his name—which I have, by the way—they won’t add him to an APB. Not on my word or yours. Yeah, they’ll keep on the lookout for anyone matching his description for a day or so, but giving them a name without anything to back it up? They’ll say it’ll get looked into, but it won’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Gary said. “They won’t help? They don’t care?”

  “What’s your opinion, Mr. Carson? How much did they care earlier when you asked them for help? They’ll do their job, sure. But that’s it. I’ve been dealing with local law enforcement in towns across California for the better part of thirty years, and I know how they operate. They’re police, it’s what they do. They don’t investigate. You mind if I sit down?”

  Linda held up a finger to interject. “Wait, why are you looking for this creep?”

  Dennings took a chair from the kitchen table and sat down anyway. He drew a small pad of paper and a pen from the same jacket pocket where he kept the business cards and placed them on the table. “The man’s name is Jason DeWildt. He’s a mean son of a bitch with a rap sheet to prove it. This guy’s been bumping around Northern California for years, terrorizing and hurting folks. He’s a hardcore drug abuser and will do anything to make sure he gets his fix. Anything. He’s a sociopath and a
liar. Worst part of it is: the fucker is smart.” Calper glanced at Linda to see if his language offended her. “He’s let himself settle into a pattern lately—probably because he’s strung out on heroin again—and he’s pulled this squatter act before.”

  “Squatter? You think they’re squatting over there? The cops checked the house, they said it was empty.”

  “Squatter act. They’re not squatting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like squatting, but it’s not.”

  “What do you mean it’s like squatting?”

  “Let me put it this way, it may very well be empty now, but Jason and his crew—whoever they are—think they’ve planted a flag and they’ll be back, I guarantee you. And when they do, if you even dream they’re there, you call me.”

  Gary smirked and shot a quick look at Linda. “But that’s what the police said to do. You said it’d be no help.”

  “I said they’d be no help. You see, I believe you. I know this piece of shit. I know what he’s capable of.” Calper stood up from the table. “If I haven’t already found him, and he shows up here, you call me and I’ll take care of it. The police can only do so much.”

  Calper pocketed his pen and paper, and began to show himself out.

  “I thought you wanted to ask some questions?” Linda said.

  Calper turned and asked, “He have a girl with him?”

  “Yeah. Skinny little drugged-out thing,” Linda said.

  “And two others,” Gary added. “A kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen and some big lumbering fuck. Walked like he had a lobotomy.”

  Calper smiled at the comment.

  Gary said, “Anything else?”

  “No, I think I got what I need. You two take care. Be safe.”

  Chapter Eight

  He wasn’t sure whether Mommy and Daddy’s fights became more regular or whether their clashes began to break through the membrane of his consciousness more often. After all, he was almost seven now. A big boy. Gone was the tottering, clumsy boy who was shouted at every time he spilled something. He was blooming into something else, something unique and separate from his parents. He went to school and everything. Mommy took him, usually. Dropping him off early in the morning and smothering him with wet kisses. Sometimes she’d convulse with sobs and not want to let him go.