by J L Aarne
“Get the fuck off me, asshole!” Caleb shouted. There was a scuffle and something glass broke.
Rainer got up, went to the door and pulled it open. “What the fuck’s going on out here?” he demanded.
Caleb was on the ground, back up against the wall, and Lance was leaning over him, the collar of Caleb’s T-shirt bunched in one fist. On the ground nearby was a shattered drinking glass.
“You mind your own fucking business if you know what’s good for you,” Lance told Rainer.
Rainer looked between red-faced Lance and Caleb, who was flinching away, expecting a blow to the face. He already had a bruise on his forehead and a scrape across his nose. Rainer stepped out onto the walkway and took his cell phone out of his pocket.
“See, that’s a problem I have,” he said. “I never do know what’s good for me. My brother’s always telling me I don’t eat right, I smoke too much…”
“What are you doing?” Lance asked. His hold on Caleb’s shirt loosened and Caleb pulled free and darted away down the stairs before he could catch him. Lance went to the top of the stairs and shouted after him, “Don’t you fucking come back, either!”
“You remember that FBI friend of mine, Lancey?” Rainer asked.
“Yeah…” Lance looked around like he expected Ezekiel to jump out at him. “So?”
“So, this is his number,” Rainer said, showing him his phone with a random phone number from his contacts on it. “I think I’ll just call him. He’d want to know that you came back.”
“Fuck. Don’t do that, man. I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet,” Lance said.
Rainer raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, Lance. But I’m gonna hold you to it.”
Lance muttered unintelligibly under his breath and went into Laura Carver’s apartment, slamming the door behind him.
Rainer put his phone back in his pocket and went back to grading papers. Something was going to have to be done about Lance LaRoche and soon. Something permanent.
He put his work aside and turned on the TV at 7:00 p.m. He was in the kitchen warming up dinner—Thomas’s chicken, mushroom and spinach four cheese alfredo lasagna—when there was a heavy knock at his door.
“That better not be you, Lancey,” he muttered to himself as he went to answer it.
Ezekiel stood there on the doorstep, one hand lifted to knock again. He lowered it when Rainer opened the door and said, “Hi. Can I come in?”
Rainer stepped back from the open door, turned and walked back into the kitchen. “You hungry? I was making dinner. Well, reheating it. Either way, man cannot live by coffee alone.”
Ezekiel closed the door and followed him into the kitchen then stood in the doorway. “Sure. I could eat. What’s for dinner?”
“Lasagna and there’s cake for dessert,” Rainer said.
He checked the food, found it still not hot enough for his taste, closed the oven again and leaned back against the counter, looking Ezekiel over thoughtfully. “So, haven’t seen you in a while,” he said. “Either you’ve become more stealthy in your stalking or I’ve become less interesting. What’s the matter? You don’t think I’m a serial killer anymore, Ezekiel?”
Ezekiel looked frankly back at him. “Oh, I still think you’re a serial killer, Rainer. Don’t worry about that.”
“I’m not,” Rainer said. He liked the sound of his name in Ezekiel’s mouth. “Though I have to wonder; if you still think I’m your killer, what are you doing in my apartment making social calls?”
“You want me to leave?” Ezekiel asked.
“Don’t be absurd, I just invited you to dinner,” Rainer said. “It’s just odd.”
“I suppose it is.”
“Thomas believes you want to kill me.”
Ezekiel stared at him for a minute without speaking. Finally he said, “Do you think I’m going to kill you? That seems like it would be really dumb of you to invite me in for dinner if you thought I was going to kill you.”
“Want and will is not the same thing,” Rainer said. “But no, I do not think you’re going to kill me.”
“And why is that?” Ezekiel asked.
Rainer’s lips twitched in a brief, teasing smirk of amusement. “The same reason I won’t kill you,” he said. He leaned a little toward him and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “You’re too much fun.”
Ezekiel smiled and said nothing. He watched Rainer check the food in the oven again, take it out and begin putting it on plates.
“I did a lecture Friday on William Blake,” Rainer said conversationally. He found the little sprigs of fresh basil that Thomas had garnished the dish with endearing. They had wilted while the lasagna was in the fridge and burned to a crisp in the oven. He picked them off and flicked them in the trash. “Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night,” he murmured. “Anyway, quite a lot of it devolved into debate about that particular poem. That always happens. Freshmen are so passionate and full of ideals.”
“Only freshmen?” Ezekiel asked.
Rainer put their plates on the large round kitchen table. “No, not only. In any case, I spent a good deal of time discussing theology in a class that’s supposed to be about literature.”
“Uh-huh,” Ezekiel said. He wondered where this was going.
Rainer got them each a beer, popped the top off the bottles and sat down. He gestured at the seat across from him and waited for Ezekiel to sit. “My point—as I’m sure you’re wondering—is that Mr. Blake, in his search for meaning, his unending quest for God, asked a question that has more to do with evolution than creation. How can the same God who made such beauty also be the creator of such evil?”
Rainer picked up his fork and began to eat. He pointed with the end of his fork at Ezekiel’s plate when he didn’t immediately join him. “Go on, try it. It’s really wonderful. I could eat this every day. Of course, I’d get disgustingly fat in no time if I did, but it might be worth it.”
Ezekiel took a bite and was surprised by how good it really was. He made an appreciative sound in his throat as the flavor of cheese filled his mouth. He very nearly forgot the question he was going to ask Rainer.
“I know,” Rainer said. He grinned and ate another bite.
“So, you don’t believe in God. How do you have a theological discussion?” Ezekiel asked.
“I never said I don’t believe in God,” Rainer said.
Ezekiel eyed him doubtfully. “Oh, yeah?”
“I don’t think it matters if there’s a God or if there isn’t one. If there is, He doesn’t care. Pray to Him all day long and the church might still fall down on your head. The point that Blake makes though is that God created all things, the good and the bad. Satan was his most beloved angel, after all. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. If we contend that God is omnipotent and omniscient, we have to begin to question Him: Why did He create the devil? Why did He place the Tree of Knowledge in the garden if we weren’t supposed to eat the fruit?” Rainer shrugged and picked up his beer to drink. “And to question God is blasphemy. It’s a paradox.”
“Like you,” Ezekiel said. “That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?”
Rainer smiled. “Is it?” he asked. “Perhaps I’m merely making conversation.”
“It’s a strange topic of conversation for a psychopath,” Ezekiel said. “In my experience, they have a hard time grasping such abstract ideas.”
“They know the words but not the music, yes, I’ve heard that. They also do not typically go into academia,” Rainer said. “Careful, you might have to start questioning your own beliefs, Ezekiel.”
Ezekiel picked up his own beer and took a long swallow. The lasagna was delicious but it was also extremely rich. “You’re a psychopath. There’s no question in my mind at all about that,” he said when he put the bottle down again.
Rainer shrugged a shoulder and smiled lazily, unconcerned. “You’ve got psychopaths in big business, on Wall Street, in politics, religious leaders, psychologists, law enforcement… Psychopaths
make the world go ‘round if you think about it.”
“So?”
“So, I could be in worse company.”
Ezekiel laughed. They finished their dinner and Rainer took the dishes to the sink. Then he brought out the cake. It was Thomas’s tres leches cake, one of Rainer’s favorites. Ezekiel took one bite and moaned in a way that was enticingly sexual. Rainer let his own cake sit untouched and watched him eat.
“You eat stuff like this all the time, don’t you?” Ezekiel asked, catching him watching him.
“Not all the time,” Rainer said. “I sometimes make bologna or pastrami sandwiches or I put a frozen pizza in the oven or I open a can of soup like a normal person. Thomas is a snob about such things though. He’s been known to throw my pastrami in the trash.”
“That guy hates me,” Ezekiel said. He licked his fork.
“That is your own fault,” Rainer said. “Though, to be fair, it doesn’t take much. Thomas is something of a misanthrope. If you wanted him to like you, well, you should have taken a different approach.”
“Doesn’t matter if he hates me,” Ezekiel said. “This cake is awesome.”
“It matters if I hate you, but not if he does,” Rainer mused. He picked up his fork and started eating his cake. “You are such a contradiction.”
“Who says it matters to me if you hate me?” Ezekiel asked.
“I do,” Rainer said. “Tell me something, what did it feel like the first time you shot someone?”
“What did it feel like the first time you stabbed someone?” Ezekiel countered.
“I wouldn’t know,” Rainer said. He went back to his cake, disappointed.
“What did it feel like when you killed your mother’s cat?” Ezekiel asked.
Rainer went still. Then he finished the bite of cake in his mouth, swallowed and set his fork down. He steepled his fingers and rested his chin against them. “It was thrilling and powerful,” he confessed. “Yet, at the same time, deeply unsatisfying.”
“Because it was just a cat,” Ezekiel guessed.
Rainer smiled enigmatically. Ezekiel met his gaze and held it. They fell into a silent staring contest for several minutes. Rainer did not often encounter people who could hold eye contact with him for long. Elijah could and Thomas could, though he was too impatient to last for long at it.
Ezekiel could and he did.
Their dessert plates sat on the table between them, the sound of cinematic gunfire reached them from the living room and they just sat there watching each other, evaluating, contemplating, wondering.
A soft repetitive squeaking sound broke their concentration some time later and they looked around for the source.
“What is that?” Ezekiel asked.
Rainer got up to look and found Pogo on the back of the sofa, his front paws braced on the window while he licked it. “It’s my cat,” Rainer said.
“What’s he doing?”
“Licking the window.”
Ezekiel got up to stand with Rainer and look, too. “Why?”
Rainer sighed. “I think he’s stupid,” he said.
Rainer went into the living room and shooed the cat down from the window. Ezekiel sat down with him on the sofa and they watched the beginning of a Law & Order rerun. Testing, and because he remembered that he liked it, Rainer reached over and ran his fingers through Ezekiel’s hair. Ezekiel shivered and leaned into the touch before he remembered himself. Then he took Rainer’s wrist and pulled his hand away.
“Stop it.”
“You don’t want me to stop it,” Rainer said. Ezekiel continued holding his wrist.
“Stop it anyway,” Ezekiel said. He tilted his head toward the TV. “It’s confession time.”
Rainer returned his attention to the show, but Ezekiel didn’t let go of his wrist. He didn’t remind him and his fingers lightly stroked the soft, sensitive skin over the vein on the underside. Rainer let him until Ezekiel realized he was doing it and made himself stop. They didn’t talk about it, but it was there and they were aware of it as they watched bad cop show reruns.
Chapter 31
By the next weekend, a vague sort of plan regarding Lance had formed and Rainer called Thomas. He had an idea about Lance, an ironic and rather perfect idea about how to deal with him. For this, his usual tools would not suffice.
“Thomas, I need to borrow your baseball bat,” he said when Thomas answered his phone.
“You what? What for?” Thomas asked.
Thomas had played sports in school and still sometimes did such things with a handful of like-minded friends and acquaintances when he had the time. Rainer had never played sports in school and would have laughed if anyone had suggested he take up the practice at this late juncture in his life. His only concession to their parents’ insistence that he participate in extracurricular activities had been joining the drama club his senior year. He had been a surprisingly good actor.
“Do you really want me to tell you what I need it for?” Rainer asked.
Thomas was quiet for a moment. Then he sighed and said, “No.” Then, “Really? Don’t you have… I don’t know, knives and shit for that?”
“I do, but this is different.”
“How?”
“Thomas, if you really want to talk about it, I’ll come over and we can talk about it.”
“Right, right. Not on the phone. What with you being followed by the FBI and all. No, I don’t care. You can borrow it, but you clean it and disinfect it before you bring it back. And don’t crack it or chip it.”
“I will take the very best care of it,” Rainer promised. He made a mental note to avoid hitting Lance in the teeth. “I will return it to you good as ever. I promise.”
“Fine,” Thomas said. “It’s in the closet in my bedroom.”
“Thank you, Thomas.”
Rainer hung up, put his phone in his pocket and left the apartment. He drove over to Thomas’s, used his key to go inside and retrieved the bat. It was a very nice, well balanced wood bat with “Louisville Slugger” on the side. Their father had given it to Thomas for his birthday the year before he started high school. It was exactly where Thomas had said he would find it, on the shelf at the top of the closet.
Rainer put it in the trunk of his car and drove back to his building. Lance had been leaving the apartment where he was squatting with his ex-wife and son every day around noon and returning home in the evenings about dinner time. Rainer had watched his comings and goings with interest for the past week and there was a pattern to it. Schedules and habits like that were such dangerous things for people to get into. Rainer knew within fifteen minutes the approximate time he would return. He made a point of being outside sitting on the steps when he did.
“Hey, Lance,” he said when he drew close enough to hear him.
Lance recognized him and stopped. He had a very deer-in-headlights look on his face for a moment. “Uh. Hey, man. What’s… going on?”
Rainer finished the cigarette he was smoking and rubbed it out on the step by his foot. “Nothing much. So, I was thinking…”
“Man, don’t give me any trouble, all right?” Lance said. “I don’t need any shit right now.”
Rainer held up his hands. “No trouble. I was just thinking, we kinda got off on the wrong foot,” he said. “We’re neighbors and well, we should get along. You know, be neighborly.”
Lance eyed him suspiciously. “What are you getting at?”
“I thought maybe we could go get a drink,” Rainer suggested. “Talk. You know, friendly shit like that.”
Lance looked him over, then turned his head and looked behind himself at the courtyard like he suspected this was some kind of joke and any moment someone was going to hop out and start laughing and pointing at him. When no one did, he returned his attention to Rainer.
“I don’t know,” he hedged.
“It’s just a drink, Lance. Some conversation without the wife and the kid whining in the background. Maybe a few laughs.”
&nbs
p; Lance wanted to, but he was skittish. Part of that was prison, but part of that was who he was.
“Who knows?” Rainer said. “We might hit it off.”
Lance was still doubtful, but he said, “Sure. Sure, why not? You’re driving though. I ain’t got a car.”
Rainer took his keys out of his back pocket and flipped them on their ring. The keychain was a silicone shrunken head. He walked by Lance to his car and got in. Lance followed him a little more slowly.
“What is this thing?” he asked of the car.
“I don’t know. Late nineties Dodge something or other,” Rainer said. He cranked it and pulled out of the parking lot. “Why?”
“It’s kind of a piece of shit,” Lance said. “No offense. I just thought you’d drive some kind of nice car. You’re a teacher or something, huh? That’s what my kid says.”
Rainer shrugged. Every once in a while Thomas or their mother would suggest Rainer buy a new car and Rainer would say he’d think about it. Then he’d promptly forget about it until someone brought it up again. “I guess it’s a piece of shit,” he said. “I might buy a new one for Christmas.”
“Like a gift to yourself?” Lance asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Didn’t think teachers made that kind of money.”
Rainer did not make that kind of money as a teacher. His parents had that kind of money though and if he asked for it for the purpose of buying a new car, his mother and father would be more than happy to give it to him. He knew that, he just usually didn’t think about it.
He took Lance outside of the city to a roadhouse called The Lam. The Lam had a dance floor and live music, but there wasn’t a stage, there was just a space up front enclosed in protective wire mesh. In case the drunks got lively and the music was so bad they turned homicidal, Rainer supposed. The bar was old and wood, but scuffed and chipped from a million toes tapping and bumping against it and a thousand rowdy bar fights. There were tables along the wall, but they were cheap, heavy wood things. Sturdy to withstand abuse.
Rainer loved the place. It was trashy, but it had character. There was a young, scruffy looking man reading a book at the bar. The bartender was a young woman with fake tits and the red lace of her bra popping out of a white tank top. She had a sweet smile and a dark chocolate mole above her lip like Marilyn Monroe. She flirted with Rainer and just for kicks Rainer flirted back.
