by J L Aarne
He couldn’t really judge. With his own lifestyle and urges, he couldn’t even honestly claim to disapprove. Caleb was a messed up kid. Getting drunk and fucking strippers wasn’t as bad as some of things he could have been doing. Some of the things that, when he had been much younger, Rainer had been sure he would be doing by seventeen.
Rainer finished his cigarette and flicked it away. “Have a good day,” he said.
Betty watched him go with an uncertain little frown on her pretty face. “Uh, thanks. You too.”
Rainer showered, got dressed and packed his books and papers into his messenger bag for work. Betty wasn’t there anymore when he walked back outside and Caleb was once more standing there. He looked a little better after throwing up. He was holding a glass of ice water in one hand and staring across the parking lot at the traffic passing by the building.
“See you later, Mr. Bryssengur,” he said as Rainer went down the stairs.
“Go to school, Caleb,” Rainer said.
Caleb smiled. “Maybe,” he said.
Rainer picked up a half dozen assorted muffins at a bakery he liked and drove to Cosra’s house. He still had a key and after he had knocked twice, rang the bell once and received no answer, he used it and went inside. He started the coffee pot because he knew that Cosra would hear him if he hadn’t already and come downstairs in a little while. When he did, he would be hungover just like Caleb and Betty. Well, perhaps not just like them as he was a much older, more experienced drunkard, but he would not be happy.
Besides, the coffee went well with the muffins.
He was sitting at the kitchen table reading Cosra’s newspaper, eating a blueberry muffin with a hot cup of coffee beside him when Cosra came downstairs and entered the kitchen. He saw Rainer and halted inside the doorway. Rainer lowered the paper and regarded him over the top of it.
“Good morning,” he said. “There’s coffee.”
“What the bloody damn hell are you doing?” Cosra demanded.
Rainer raised an eyebrow and nudged the pastry box toward him. “I brought breakfast.”
“Yes,” Cosra said, eyeing the muffin box suspiciously, “I see that. But why are you here?”
“To see you,” Rainer said. “Obviously.”
“Yes, but we had a goddamn fight!” Cosra said, nearly shouting it in his impatience to make Rainer understand him. He instantly regretted it and held his head. “Fuck. My poor head. Look what you’ve done. We had a fight. I distinctly remember there being a fight. A bad fight. There was screaming involved and you broke my fucking vase. You owe me two hundred dollars for that fucking vase.”
Cosra and Rainer had been involved in a casual way since he had been Cosra’s TA at the university. It had never been all that serious. They were friends, they were both attractive and liked each other and enjoyed sex, but they had completely separate lives and neither of them had ever expressed any interest in making it more than that. It had been a perfect arrangement in theory. It would have gone on being perfect, but then Rainer dropped by to see him one weekend and found Cosra with another man. Rainer had known Cosra did it, they both had sex with other people, but it was the difference between knowing and seeing it, which with him made all the difference. He was territorial and possessive and he had been in a foul mood already.
It hadn’t been pretty.
“Oh, that,” Rainer said. He shrugged and picked up his coffee. “I’m over it.”
Cosra stared at him with his mouth slightly gape. “You’re over it,” he repeated. His eyes narrowed. “Well, I’m not fucking over it, how about that?”
“Why?” Rainer asked, honestly baffled.
“I—You know what, I’ll tell you why,” Cosra said. Then he stopped to think about it. “Because I’m Irish. We hold grudges, we do. You… You’re fucking insane, Rainer, you know that, don’t you?”
Rainer huffed out a laugh and returned his eyes to the newspaper.
“And another thing,” Cosra said. He reached over the table and snatched the paper out of Rainer’s hands. “I never get to read my own damn newspaper first.”
Rainer sighed and ate a piece of his muffin. “I haven’t seen you in almost a month,” he said. “You’ve been reading it first all this time.”
“That’s not the point, is it?”
“Do you even know the point you’re trying to make?”
“Shut it,” Cosra snapped. He flipped open the muffin box and took a honey bran muffin. Then he sat down across from Rainer and made a show of opening the newspaper. “I’m going to read my fucking newspaper right now. You hush.”
Rainer grinned and peeled the wrapper off a side of his muffin to break off some. “Okay,” he said.
Cosra looked at the newspaper for a few minutes, but he eventually gave it up and put it aside. “You know a cop came by my office the other day asking questions about you,” he said.
“Yeah? What kind of questions?” Rainer asked.
“Well, he didn’t get to the questions themselves,” Cosra said. “I told him to go hang and threw him out first. But he was wanting to ask questions about you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Rainer, what’ve you done?”
“I haven’t done anything,” he lied.
“Oh, right. Excuse me. Don’t know why I’d think you’d done anything,” Cosra said sarcastically. “Big strapping FBI agent comes sniffing around about you, it’s nothing. Misunderstanding, am I right?”
“That’s what I told him,” Rainer said.
“Ugh, fine, whatever,” Cosra said. He ate some of his muffin and drank some of his whiskey-laced coffee. “What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
“Hell. I have a class.” He consulted the clock on the microwave with a frown. “But not until two. You have a class though.”
“I’ll go in a bit,” Rainer said.
“Maybe you should teach mine for me while you’re at it since you’re wanting to make nice with me and all.”
Rainer shook his head.
“Bah. The hell with you then,” Cosra muttered. “I’m getting a new parrot this weekend. An African Gray. Lovely bird.”
Cosra already had two peacocks and a canary. Rainer didn’t understand his love for birds, but he did love them.
“So, you’ll have a bird that can talk back to you,” Rainer said. “Wonderful.”
“I will,” Cosra said. “A smart bird. Maybe I’ll name him after you.”
“No,” Rainer said, lips twitching with amusement at the threat.
“Sure and why not? What’s your middle name?”
“Maria.”
Cosra stared at him. “No it isn’t.”
“Yeah,” Rainer said, “it is.”
“Well I can’t name him that. He’ll be confused and think he’s a girl.”
Rainer popped the last of his muffin into his mouth and chewed.
“What the hell kind of name is Maria for a boy anyway?” Cosra asked. “What’s wrong with your mother?”
“She’s a poet,” Rainer said. “Thomas’s middle name is Stearns.”
“Yes, I get it,” Cosra said. “But still.”
“I know,” Rainer said.
They drank their coffee and Rainer reached over to pick up the newspaper again. Cosra didn’t say anything about it and he read the rest of the article he had been on when it was snatched away from him.
“My stupid fucking agent wants me to do a summer book tour,” Cosra said.
Rainer looked at him over the top of the paper. Then put it aside. “Does she?” he said. “Let me guess what your answer was: No.”
“You’re damn right it was no,” Cosra said. “Hell no. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the bitch suggests I start a blog. A blog. Me. What would I do with a blog? Talk about my students? Give a play-by-play of a day in the life of an alcoholic writer? Fucking social media. No one wants to socialize with me on the Internet, let me tell you. I’m an asshole.”
“They might like to so
cialize with you for that reason,” Rainer suggested. “Who knows?”
“Aye, not me, and I don’t care,” Cosra said. “I don’t want to talk to them. The last time I was online trying to socialize, I got into an argument with some poncy asshole who owns a peacock farm. A farm where they pluck the feathers off the peacocks and sell them for things like those hideous earrings or arts and crafts. It’s disgusting and I told him so.”
“All right. So, maybe talk about birds,” Rainer said. “Or whatever you’re thinking about. That’s what they’re for.”
“Fuck that nonsense. I think I’ll fire the bitch instead, that’s what I’ll do,” Cosra said. He got up to refill his coffee cup with whiskey and poured a little coffee on top of it. “Got class today. Damn it. Can’t drink all this, much as I’d like to, but I can take a nap. There’s time enough for that.”
Rainer finished his coffee and got up to put the cup in the sink. “I’ll go then and let you do that.”
“I’m keeping the muffins,” Cosra said.
“They’re for you anyway,” Rainer said. “I’m keeping the key.”
Cosra scowled at him, but he did not demand Rainer return it to him, which was all the permission he needed. “Fine then.”
They were good. They were friends still and that was all that Rainer had really wanted to know.
He smiled at him and headed for the door. “I’ll see you later.”
Cosra grunted in an affirmative way and drank his whiskey, watching him go.
Chapter 10
Tuesday evening, after his run, after he fed the cat and had a shower and read over the story he had assigned his interpreting lit students and made some notes, Rainer called a girl he had met the week before at the supermarket. She had started a conversation with him about organic food, been horrified by the contents of his grocery basket—a loaf of white bread, a package of deli pastrami and a box of sugary cereal—but she had laughed about it. Not in a mean way so much as a “men have no idea how to take care of themselves” way that some women had.
Her name was Jill. She had given Rainer her number and he had kept it, but not because he had any interest in dating her.
He picked her up about eight o’clock, but instead of taking her to dinner, he slipped a needle into the side of her neck and took her to a foreclosed home on the other side of the city. He had never killed anyone for any reason other than his own enjoyment and pleasure, and while he did enjoy killing Jill, he had another motive this time. She was his move. His opening pawn.
Ezekiel Herod would get this call, he had no doubt. Even if he didn’t, he’d come calling because he knew. He knew but he could prove nothing and that just would not stand for long.
And so they would play.
Rainer burned the body and left. He went home, cleaned up and decided to spend the night with Thomas. He hadn’t seen Thomas since their Friday date night. He was wired and wide-awake and intolerably aroused and he didn’t feel like going out again either. He needed Thomas.
He drove to Thomas’s house, still thinking about Jill, filled to the brim with excitement and anticipation. There was something different about Ezekiel Herod. Something off. Jill was Rainer’s way of poking at it and he couldn’t wait to see what happened. He ran several scenarios through his head while he drove. He imagined Ezekiel showing up at his office or his apartment with more questions, more pointed statements meant to lead him into slipping up or confessing or giving anything at all away. He imagined being arrested, questioned, released, then what? Ezekiel wouldn’t let it go that easy. He didn’t have to know the guy to know that about him.
Rather than making him wary of the man, it intrigued Rainer. He wondered if there wasn’t just a touch of something dark in Ezekiel Herod. He thought so. He thought he’d glimpsed it briefly a few times in little ways.
Rainer pulled into Thomas’s driveway and got out of the car. Only then did he see Jasmine’s silver BMW parked in front of the house. He stared at it for a minute before crossing the gravel drive. This time he didn’t knock; he used his key.
The lights were off in the house and Rainer left them off. He passed through the rooms without hesitation. He knew Thomas’s house as well as his own apartment. In Thomas’s bedroom, the blinds were cracked enough to let in some light.
Enough light to see that Jasmine was in bed sleeping beside Thomas.
Rainer stood at the foot of the bed on her side and stared at her sleeping there. She was pretty and she was smart and sweet and she had stuck with Thomas longer than any other girls or boys had in a long time. Thomas liked her.
Rainer lit a cigarette and calmly smoked it. He watched her sleeping and hated her.
The scent of the burning tobacco woke her up, but it took Jasmine a couple of seconds to really become aware. When she did, when she realized that she wasn’t dreaming and that someone was standing beside the bed in the dark, she sat up with a little cry of alarm.
“Who the hell are you?” she asked, then immediately began shaking Thomas. “Thomas. Thomas, there’s someone in the house.”
“You need to leave,” Rainer said. “Now.”
Jasmine recognized his voice and said, “Oh, my god, it’s your brother.”
Thomas was already sitting up and turning on the bedside lamp. “Yeah, he does this,” he said. “Rainer, what are you doing?”
Instead of answering him, Rainer pointed at Jasmine and said again, “You need to leave now. Right now.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jasmine said. She threw the covers off and started to get out of the bed, but Thomas’s hand darted out and he caught her wrist, stopping her. “It’s the middle of the fucking night. You don’t even knock? You just come into our room and stand there in the dark like a creeper and now you’re telling me to leave? I don’t think so. You get the hell out.”
Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Rainer took a step toward her, practically vibrating with rage, and shouted, “You get the fuck out! Right now! Who the fuck do you think you are, you bitch?! You’re no one! NO ONE!”
Jasmine recoiled from him as though he had slapped her. Thomas sighed and got up, moving around the bed toward Rainer as he said, “Jazz, you should go.”
She stared at him in shock. “What?”
“You should go,” Thomas repeated. “I’ve got to handle this.”
Rainer watched him out the corner of his eye, but he kept his gaze fixed on the girl. When she didn’t move, he took another step toward the bed, but Thomas reached him and took his arm. He stopped.
Jasmine looked between them, incredulous and outraged. “You’re serious? You’re throwing me out? Because of your brother?”
“Look, he’s upset and I’m not going to be able to get him to calm down with you here, so—”
“You are fucking shitting me!” Jasmine shouted. She got off the bed and walked toward him, her anger directed at Thomas now. So much so that she didn’t even look at Rainer as she drew near them. “He’s your brother. I’m your girlfriend. You’re going to throw me out so you can take care of your lunatic brother? What the hell is wrong with you, Thomas? This… He breaks into your house in the middle of the night and you don’t even—That is weird. Weird and creepy and illegal.”
Rainer shoved Thomas, trying to free his arm, and Jasmine saw the expression on his face, noted his body language and backed away. Thomas held onto him and took his other arm by the wrist, restraining him.
“You need to fucking go,” he told Jasmine. “Now.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “Do you see what I’m talking about?” she demanded, pointing at Rainer, who had subsided for the moment but continued to glare at her. “He’s violent. He’s… God, he’s dangerous, Thomas, anyone can see that. Look at him. What’s wrong with him?”
“Thomas, you let me go right now,” Rainer snapped, pushing against him.
“No,” Thomas said. “No, I don’t think so. Jasmine, get your shit and get the fuck out.”
“I am serious,” Thomas said.
“Get out!” Rainer shouted at her. “Get out now! Leave, you fucking whore!”
“Jesus, Rainer,” Thomas muttered.
“You motherfucker,” Jasmine said. “I can’t believe you. This is—”
“Get the fuck out!” Rainer screamed at her, cutting her off. “Get out and don’t fucking come back here or I’ll kill you!”
“Whoa, Rainer,” Thomas said, pulling him back as he tried to get away from him again and go after Jasmine. Rainer carried knives, he at least had one in his pocket most of the time, and he tried to get it, but Thomas stopped him and held his arm up. “Don’t you dare,” he told him. “Jasmine, get dressed and go. Now. You’re only making shit worse.”
“Fuck you, Thomas,” Jasmine said, crossing back to the bed to gather her clothes off the floor and pick up her shoes. “You’re unbelievable. I put up with all your weird quirks and phobias for months and I thought I was finally getting somewhere and maybe this was something more than—”
Rainer twisted his arms trying to get away from Thomas and Thomas had to let go of one to grab him around the waist and hold onto him. “You’re nothing!” he screamed at her. “He’s mine! You’re nobody! Get out!”
Jasmine edged around the foot of the bed and went toward the door. “I’m leaving,” she said tightly. “You can have each other, you disgusting psychos. I’m—”
Irritated beyond endurance, Thomas turned his head and snarled at her, the sound of it loud and rumbling as thunder like the snarl of a big, vicious dog. Jasmine stumbled away from him and nearly fell as she finally ran out of the room. They both watched her leave, but Thomas didn’t let Rainer go until the front door slammed and he heard her car start outside in the driveway.
Then he released Rainer with a sigh and rubbed over his right eyebrow. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
Rainer opened his hands and examined the palm of the right one where he had crushed the cherry of his cigarette into his fist and burned himself. He wiped the pieces of paper and tobacco away with a frown. “I hate her,” he said.
