“You haven’t lost me,” she said.
“Weren’t you listening? I’m—”
“I killed a man once.”
“No.” Nate’s fingers tightened on the sides of her head.
“Yes. I think I did, anyway. I try to tell myself he might’ve lived. Every day, I try to tell myself that. But I don’t really believe it. My knife’s big, and I shoved it right into the middle of his chest. Maybe he didn’t die. He probably did, though.”
Groaning, Nate drew her forward. Robin climbed onto him and straddled his lap. He slipped his arms around her and held her tightly. “Aw, Jesus,” he murmured close to her ear. “Robin, Robin.”
“He attacked me,” she said. Voice cracking, she added, “Doesn’t make it any better, though.”
“Aw…aw. God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“We’re a hell of a pair, huh?”
His body began to shake against her. He was crying. Holding her tight and jerking with sobs, his breath hitching. Robin cried too.
Caressed by the hot throbbing water, they hugged one another and wept.
Thirty-eight
At eleven o’clock Jeremy’s mother set her book aside and started to watch the television news.
“I guess I’ll go on to bed,” Jeremy said.
She looked surprised. “What about Saturday Night Live?”
“Not on,” he reminded her. “And its summer replacement stinks. Besides, I’m really tired.”
She arched her eyebrow. “I can’t imagine why, getting home in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah.” He kissed her, told her good night, and went to his bedroom. With his door shut, he gathered the clothes he would wear later. He slipped his Swiss Army knife into a front pocket of his corduroy pants. From the bottom drawer of his desk he took Tanya’s razor blade. Keep this with you to remember, she’d said. It was still wrapped in his handkerchief. The white cloth was smeared and blotched with dried brown blood.
He unwrapped the blade and looked at it. Memories of last night rushed in, seizing him with fear and desire.
Who needs the razor as a reminder? he thought. Who’s going to forget that?
But Tanya had asked him to keep the razor with him.
He wound the handkerchief around the blade and tucked it into a pocket of his cords.
Then he rolled up his clothes and pushed the bundle under his bed. He tossed his robe over the back of a chair. He turned off the light and got into bed.
The glowing face of the clock on his nightstand showed eleven-fifteen. Half an hour before time to get dressed and sneak out.
The minutes crawled by.
His mind seethed with fevered images. Tanya and Shiner. Their faces, their bodies, their smells, their voices. Shiner and Tanya. And detours into memories of the troll falling from the Ferris wheel, Tanya straightening his broken legs, Jeremy earlier snapping the guy’s finger to pay him back for striking Shiner. Detours into Jasper’s Oddities, Cowboy shaking the jar of the fetus, the huge awful spider, the leathery remains of the mummy, Cowboy’s wisecracks, the chase and the fight and jerking the shirt off the wild girl and feeling her breasts. A detour to Karen dancing at the party, sweaty in her transparent bra and panties. A detour to the dry, amused voice of the troll calling Tha’s a fack from the darkness under the boardwalk. Every detour led him back, soon, to Tanya. To Shiner. The thoughts of Shiner hurt him with guilt and loss. The thoughts of Tanya strained him with hard desire. He wanted her, he ached for her. He felt dirty for choosing her instead of Shiner. And afraid.
The sound of footfalls in the hallway released Jeremy from the dark turmoil of his thoughts. He heard a door close, running water, the flush of the toilet, and finally his mother’s footsteps passing his door as she went to her bedroom.
Eleven-thirty-five.
He waited for the minutes to pass, his mind occupied now with thoughts of sneaking out, but sometimes slipping into fearful wonder about what might happen in his rendezvous with Tanya.
At a quarter to twelve he rolled silently out of bed. He stuffed his pajamas and robe under the covers. Naked and shaking, he knelt beside the bed and reached beneath it for his clothes. He sat on the carpet and put them on.
Then he crept to his door. He eased it open. The hallway was dark, even in front of his mother’s room. But he suspected she hadn’t fallen asleep. Holding his breath, pulse pounding in his head, he trailed his fingertips along the wall to help guide him, and made his way forward, the rubber soles of his shoes silent on the floor.
At the front door he slipped the guard chain off its runner and lowered it gently. He turned the latch. The tongue of the dead bolt made a quiet thump. He turned the knob, swung the door slowly open, stepped onto the porch, and closed the door behind him.
Beyond the porch screens, the street was bright with lamplight. A few cars were parked along the curbs. One of them might be Tanya’s. He knew he was early, though. Maybe she hadn’t arrived yet.
Maybe she wouldn’t come.
The thought filled him with hope, ripped him with agony.
He shut the screen door carefully and stepped down the stairs.
If she doesn’t come, he told himself, I could walk over to Shiner’s.
Look, I changed my mind. Can I come in?
Hell, I don’t even know her address.
Across the street, the headlights of a parked car shot bright beams and then went dark.
Jeremy’s heart jumped.
He quickened his pace. At the sidewalk he glanced back at his house, half-hoping to see lights bloom in the windows, the door fly open, his mother rush out yelling, And just what do you think you’re doing, young man?
The house was dark. He’d made a clean escape.
He stepped into the street. An arm waved to him from the open driver’s window of the car that had flashed its lights. He returned the wave. He rushed around the car’s front, noting that it was an old Ford LTD. The passenger door swung open as he approached it, but the interior remained dark. The dome light was either out of order or Tanya had disconnected it on purpose.
Stopping beside the door, he crouched and peered in. Tanya was shrouded in shadow, her features masked and blurred, but familiar enough to wrench Jeremy’s breath away. He dropped onto the passenger seat. He tugged the door shut.
“Here,” Tanya said.
He scooted toward her. The engine was running, but not smoothly. He could feel the car vibrating under him. Though the windows were rolled down, unpleasant odors of gasoline and stale cigarette smoke lingered in the air. And there was another scent, musky and humid, strange to him but somehow making him think of jungle nights and savages. It came from Tanya.
She turned to face him. She wore a dark sweatshirt and sweatpants. She took hold of Jeremy’s hand—the one he had cut with the razor—and pressed it to her lips. With her other hand she pulled the loose front of her sweatshirt away from her body. She guided Jeremy’s hand under the shirt, up her hot bare skin to her breast. Leaving it there, she put her arms around him and leaned toward him and kissed him. Her mouth seemed to engulf him. She moaned as he fondled her breast. It was so incredibly smooth, its nipple big and jutting and springy. He rubbed his hand all over it while her tongue swirled into his mouth. He squeezed it. He fingered the slick scar below the nipple and traced it downward, stopping only when he reached the drawstring of her pants, wanting to follow the scar lower but not daring. He glided his hand up again, felt the whistle tumble beneath it, and swept his hand toward her other breast. Suddenly he didn’t dare touch it. He clutched the whistle.
Tanya’s mouth went away.
“We have to get going,” she whispered. “Later. We’ll have time later. For everything.”
Jeremy nodded. He took his hand out of her sweatshirt.
She kissed him gently, her lips slick against him. Then she took something out of the pouchlike pocket at her belly. “These are for you,” she said.
Jeremy held the flimsy packet up to the win
dshield.
“Surgical gloves,” Tanya explained. “We don’t want to leave fingerprints.” She took another packet out of her pouch, opened it, and put the gloves on.
“We have to wear them now?” Jeremy asked. He didn’t want his hands covered. He wanted them bare and feeling Tanya.
“The car’s hot,” she said.
“Oh,” he muttered. His stomach seemed to tighten. He could feel his penis start to shrink. “You mean you stole it?” he asked.
“Of course.”
He squinted at the ignition. There was no key in it, but the car was running.
“Jeez,” he said.
She turned to the front, released the emergency brake, tugged down the shift lever, and swung the car away from the curb. “We’ll be leaving it at Funland,” she said. “Don’t worry, the owners will get it back. But we can’t take a car they might trace to me.”
“What’re we going to do?” Jeremy asked.
“Get us a troll,” she said. “I know right where to find the perfect troll for tonight.”
“Really? Where?”
“Nate’s house.”
Robin, braced up with an elbow against the mattress, gazed at Nate. He looked as peaceful as a child. His arms and legs were spread out, just as they’d been when he fell asleep beneath her a while ago. His chest rose and fell slowly with long breaths. Robin rested a hand on his chest. Though his skin looked golden and warm in the wavering candlelight, it was cool to the touch.
She rolled cautiously away from him and left the bed. At the foot of it she picked up the sheet and covers that had been kicked to the floor while they made love. She spread them over him. He didn’t move.
Robin smiled.
The poor guy is wiped out, she thought.
Who isn’t?
She felt weak all over, herself. Her muscles were warm and shaky, as if they’d been turned into pudding. The area around her mouth felt puffy and tingling from the ceaseless kissing. Her cheeks burned slightly from the chafe of his whiskers. So did her shoulders, and the sides of her neck, and her breasts. Her nipples were tender and achy. She felt mushy and a little raw inside.
Maybe we overdid it just a little bit, she thought, and smiled again.
She walked toward the dresser, watching her slow progress in the mirror. The way she held herself and hobbled, she looked as if she expected any quick movement to jostle something loose. When she reached the dresser, she bent over and puffed out each of the candles. Then she made her way to the nightstand on Nate’s side of the bed and blew out that candle. She was tempted to crawl over him, but she didn’t want to disturb his sleep. So she forced her weary, aching body to circle the bed. Before snuffing the last candle, she bent over and carefully eased Nate’s arm down against his side.
At last she blew out the candle and slipped under the covers. She rolled toward Nate in the darkness, squirmed closer until she felt the heat of his skin, and rested her arm gently on his chest. She listened to his breathing. She kissed his shoulder.
He made a quiet whimpery sound.
Dreaming a bad dream.
Robin rubbed his chest, hoping to distract him from whatever bad images had seized his sleeping mind. The sound of his breathing didn’t change. He still slept. Robin listened, ready to wake him if he should whimper again.
Was he dreaming of Poppinsack’s fall?
She wished she could make it go away for him. Kiss him and make him well.
If love could only cure him…
But he was doomed to live with the guilt. He had his burden, and Robin had hers.
Thank God we told each other, she thought.
She had loved him before, but the sharing of their awful secrets had been like a fire that fused their souls to one another.
She remembered herself in the spa with him, clutching his racked body tight against her while she sobbed, their tears mingling, and how she had felt as if they were one person, and how they had kept crying while they kissed.
As her mind lingered on the memories, she slipped into sleep.
Tanya shut off the headlights. Darkness collapsed over the road ahead. She swung onto a narrow driveway that rose in front of the car like a dim gray path through the woods. She shifted to a lower gear, but didn’t accelerate, apparently to prevent a swell of engine noise that might warn of their approach.
“Are you sure they’re here?” Jeremy whispered.
“They’re here,” Tanya said. “It was supposed to be me.”
“Huh?”
“We had it all planned. His folks are gone till Wednesday. I was going to stay with him.”
“Gosh.”
“The rotten shit.”
“He must be crazy, dumping you for that girl.”
“Bad mistake. He’s gonna find out how bad.”
They came to the top of the slope. The house beyond the clearing was a vague shape of steep roofs. All its lights were out. Moonlight gleamed on some of the windows. It looked gloomy and abandoned.
Jeremy hoped it was abandoned.
He felt sick with dread.
He had to stand by Tanya, no matter what, but it would be so wonderful if they got into the house and nobody was there.
He rubbed his sweaty hands on the legs of his corduroys, but they were encased in the gloves and stayed wet.
It’ll be all right, he told himself.
She’d said she would take care of Nate. Jeremy only had to worry about the girl. That shouldn’t be a problem. He’d taken on two of them in front of the Oddities—and loved it. Here was his chance to fight the banjo girl.
So strange. After his first encounter with her on the boardwalk, he’d imagined how it would be.
Tanya seemed to be breathing life into his wildest dreams, making them real with her dark magic.
I don’t want to fight that girl, he thought. I don’t want it real.
He trembled with fear, trembled with a sharp ache of desire.
Please, let nobody be home.
The car glided to a stop in front of the house’s porch. Tanya shifted to Park and set the emergency brake. The engine rumbled quietly as she opened her door and climbed out. Jeremy almost reminded her to turn it off, but realized she had no key.
He got out. He moved on shaky legs to the front of the car while Tanya removed something from the backseat. She came toward him carrying a paper sack at her side.
“What’s in that?” he whispered.
“Stuff,” she said. “You’ll see.”
He followed her up the porch stairs to the front door. With a key from her sweatshirt pocket, she unlocked it.
At least we don’t have to break in, Jeremy thought.
Tanya swung the door open. Inside was darkness.
They entered the foyer, and she shut the door without making a sound.
Jeremy heard only the drumming of his heart. It pounded so hard he thought he could feel the blood surging through his vessels.
Tanya squatted down. She set the bag on the floor. When she reached into it, there came a quiet metallic rattle. Jeremy recognized the sound and thought of the old bum. In the faint light from the windows he saw Tanya’s arm come out and lift toward him. He saw the dangling bracelet of a handcuff. She gave the cuffs to him and slipped a second pair into her sweatshirt pouch.
She pulled a hammer out of the bag and handed it to Jeremy.
He felt his breath squeeze out. His stomach knotted. Icy fingers seemed to clench his scrotum.
She took out a hatchet for herself and stood up, leaving the bag on the floor.
Jeremy whispered in a choked voice, “We aren’t going to kill them, are we?”
“What’s the fun of that?”
“What’re we gonna do?”
“The girl comes with us. Nate doesn’t. Come on.”
Shivering and weak, he followed Tanya to a stairway. They climbed slowly toward the second floor. Each time a stair creaked, Jeremy flinched. Somehow, the mad thud of his heart was causing a dry clicking noise in
his throat. He swallowed hard, and the sound stopped.
The stairway seemed endless.
I could’ve been at Shiner’s right now, Jeremy thought. God, why didn’t I go there instead?
Handcuffs. A hammer. A hatchet.
It was worse than he could’ve imagined.
He pictured himself whirling around and racing down the stairs—running from the house and from Tanya and from whatever form of madness waited for him in the minutes ahead.
Then he remembered his hand inside her sweatshirt.
We’ll have time later. For everything.
She was three stairs above him, barely visible in the darkness. He knew that she was naked under the sweatclothes.
He knew that he wouldn’t run.
She waited for him at the top of the stairway. “Don’t do anything till I say so,” she whispered.
Jeremy nodded. He pushed the handcuffs into a pocket of his jacket.
Side by side, they walked down the hall. Tanya stopped at the open door of a bedroom. She peered inside. For a long time she didn’t move. Then she pressed the head of the hatchet against Jeremy’s back and nudged him forward. He entered the room. In the dim moonlight from the windows, he saw a bed. The covers were mounded.
It’s them.
Tanya was right. They’re here.
What if she lied about killing them?
What am I doing here?
She closed the door. She nudged Jeremy’s left forearm with the hatchet, then put it into his hand. Why wasn’t she keeping it for herself?
She wants both hands free, Jeremy realized as he watched her sneak across the room, not toward the bed but toward a dresser by the wall. At the end of the dresser was a straight-backed chair. She picked it up and started to return.
Funland Page 34
