After Midnight

by Richard Laymon

  When I got in range of Tony’s car, I twisted the nozzle. The spray tightened into a stiff tube of water that reached all the way. My aim was too high, at first. The water slammed against the rear window and seemed to explode off the glass, sending a shower skyward while most of the water sluiced down the top of the trunk. I lowered the nozzle slightly and hit the edge of the trunk lid dead on, nailed it where I’d touched it the most and where it was most bloody. The water blasted it, rumbling and bursting away.

  Then I did the rear bumper, then the back tires.

  Done with the car, I adjusted the nozzle to make a soft spray. For a while, I watered the lawn. Along with the lawn, I watered whatever of Tony was spread around. Even in the lousy yellow light from the porch and nearby lamps, I could see rusty stains on the grass, and small bits of him. My vomit, too.

  Soon, the grass looked green again.

  I carried the hose back to its place near the front of the house, arranged it in a proper coil, gave my hands a final rinse, then reached in between the bushes and shut the water off.

  Not much remained to be done.

  I gathered the two denim legs that I’d cut from Tony’s jeans. With one of them, I wiped the saber.

  I thought about taking the saber into the house, but I was naked and dripping and didn’t want to bother. I certainly couldn’t take it with me. So I slid it inside the severed legs of the jeans and hid it in the bushes.

  That was pretty much the end of the clean up.

  8

  TONY GOES HOME

  I was still wet when I put on Tony’s jeans and shirt. They stuck to me. I slipped my feet into his loafers, then climbed into the driver’s seat.

  The car started fine. With a couple of easy maneuvers, I straightened it out. It ended up with its front toward the road.

  Before taking off, I gave the lawn a final glance.

  Everything looked okay.

  Daylight might be another story, but I intended to take a good, long look at the whole area after the sun came up and make sure nothing showed that shouldn’t.

  Feeling weary but good, the job nearly done—and the worst of it definitely over—I gave the car some gas and headed for the road.

  At the top of the driveway, I turned left. There was no traffic in sight, so I kept the headlights off and drove along the two-lane country road by moonlight. With the windows wide open, the night air rushed in. It felt wonderful, blowing against me. And it smelled so fine, too. Sweet and moist and woodsy.

  I almost turned on the radio. It would’ve been great to be tooling along through the darkness with a summertime song in my ears. But I was on a stealth mission. I kept the radio off, so the only sounds came from the car’s engine and the hiss of its tires on the pavement and the wind rushing by.

  It was lovely, even without a song.

  It made me want to go out every night—but not with a dismembered body in the trunk.

  Just drive and drive along the empty country roads in the moonlight, smelling the smells of the night, feeling the soft rush of the wind. Just roam with nowhere to go. And with nothing to give me that tingly little scared feeling deep down inside.

  Of course, maybe the scared feeling gave the trip a little extra flavor.

  It’s hard to tell the difference, sometimes, between fear and excitement.

  Anyway, the good part of the trip only lasted a few minutes. Coming to the town limits, I had to slow down and put the headlights on. Then I headed for Little Oak Lane, which I figured was in the newer residential area on the other side of town.

  If I hadn’t been in Tony’s car (with him in the trunk), I probably would’ve made a straight shot through the middle of downtown on Central Street. I like to call it “the scenic tour,” because there’s nothing worth seeing in downtown Chester. (Not the town’s real name. I’ve dubbed it Chester in honor of Chester from Gunsmoke—because it’s a really lame town that just limps along.)

  Downtown Chester fills both sides of Central Street for five blocks. And that’s about it. The street gets pretty crowded during the day, though I can’t imagine why. Maybe it’s people looking to buy discount lamps or old-lady shoes. For any serious shopping, you go elsewhere. Like to the Ralph’s supermarket or the mall or the Wal-Mart or Home Depot—none of which is anywhere near Chester’s business district.

  When I came to Central, I slowed down and looked. The street was well lighted, and almost empty. But not empty enough. A couple of drinking establishments must’ve still been open. I spotted about a dozen parked cars, two or three people roaming around, and even one car heading toward me.

  So I got away from Central and drove an extra block before turning.

  On this road, nothing was open. I saw nobody milling about. No cars were coming, either. I glimpsed some activity when I looked down sidestreets, but nothing to worry me.

  I only had two real concerns about the drive. First, that somebody would recognize Tony’s car and remember that it was on the move that night. Second, that I might be seen behind the wheel.

  Neither problem was likely to arise unless somebody got pretty close to us.

  Which never happened, as far as I could tell.

  I did take detours, a couple of times, to avoid approaching vehicles. Once, I even pulled to the curb, shut off the engine and headlights, and ducked until a car’d gone by. Later, driving past a jogger, I turned my head aside so he wouldn’t be able to see my face.

  I also had to wait at an intersection for an old bum lady to push her shopping cart across the street in front of me. Normally, a person like that would’ve given me the creeps.

  But she didn’t spook me at all.

  I just worried that she might get a good look at me. Hunched over her shopping cart, though, she never glanced in my direction.

  Soon after she’d gone by, I came to Little Oak Lane. Stopping under a street light, I pulled the slip of paper out of Tony’s wallet and checked the address.

  645 Little Oak Lane, Apt. 12.

  It was only a block away.

  A two-story, stucco apartment house with a subterranean parking lot.

  Near the entrance, a driveway swooped into the lot.

  Rolling slowly past it, I glanced down the concrete ramp.

  Awfully well-lighted down there.

  The little tremor in my belly grew large.

  I drove around the block to give myself time to think. On the one hand, the building’s lot seemed like the perfect place to drop off Tony’s car. He probably had an assigned parking space in there.

  Where better to leave his car than precisely where it should be?

  Seeing it there in the morning, who would ever guess he’d gone somewhere in the middle of the night and gotten himself killed?

  And his body might not be discovered for days.

  On the other hand, someone might enter the parking lot and see me.

  Which would screw up everything.

  What are the chances?

  Slim, I told myself. Very slim. The danger would only last for a minute or two—long enough to drive in, locate Tony’s space, park his car, jump out and run back up the ramp to get outside.

  Worth the risk.

  I came to that conclusion just in time to make the turn.

  Oh, God, here we go!

  I swung to the right and drove slowly down the ramp into the lot. Nobody seemed to be coming or going. The place looked deserted except for the parked cars. Lots of them. I began to worry about finding a space for Tony’s car.

  That turned out not to be the problem.

  Among the twenty or so parked cars, I found three empty spaces. But they were labelled with letters, not numbers.

  L, R and W.

  That was the problem.

  One of them had to be reserved for Tony’s car.

  But which one? He rented apartment 12, not apartment L, R or W.

  After making one full loop through the lot, I stopped and tried to think.

  I sure didn’t want to leave Tony�
�s car in the wrong slot. That would make it really conspicuous. Better to abandon it on a street than to leave it in someone else’s space.

  A one-in-three chance of getting it right made for lousy odds.

  I needed a clue, and fast. At any moment, one of the two missing cars might return and I’d be seen.

  Think!

  If Tony had been worried about forgetting the letter of his parking space, wouldn’t he have written it on the same paper as his address?

  I hauled out the paper again and double-checked it.

  645 Little Oak Lane, Apt. 12.

  No L, no R, no W. Nothing except the address.

  Forget it! Park and get out of here!

  No, wait!

  Could there be a correlation between Tony’s apartment number and any of the letters?

  With the help of my fingers, I counted to the twelfth letter of the alphabet.

  12 was L!

  Fabulous!

  It didn’t make anything certain, but at least it was a clue.

  I swung his car into space L, shut off the headlights, killed the engine, put the keys in my pocket, and pulled out Tony’s handkerchief. With that, I wiped the steering wheel, shift lever, interior door handle, and every other surface that I might’ve touched. Then I climbed out, locked the door, and shut it so gently that it hardly made a noise.

  For the next minute or so, I used the hanky to wipe the outside. The rear of the car was still wet from getting hosed. That didn’t worry me much. It was just water. It would dry soon enough.

  I saw no traces of blood.

  Tucking the hanky into my pocket, I headed for the driveway ramp. It seemed like an endless distance away. I listened for sounds of approaching cars. And for footfalls. The only sounds came from Tony’s loafers on my feet, clumping along the concrete. They sounded loud and hollow.

  Finally, I reached the ramp.

  My legs felt shaky as I hurried to the top.

  Suddenly, I was out!

  In and out, slick as a whistle, unseen!

  I almost clapped my hands, but didn’t. Someone might glance out a window to see who’d made the noise.

  Feeling light and free, I quickened my pace.

  I’d be home in an hour.

  Five, six miles.

  Maybe a little longer than an hour. At a good pace, I can make four miles in an hour. But it might take an hour and a half for six miles.

  Then I got to thinking.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t certain of the mileage.

  The drive had felt like a lot more than six miles. I must’ve been in the car for half an hour.

  Half an hour, averaging about thirty miles per hour…

  Fifteen miles!

  But I did make those detours, pull over once, drive around the block while I was trying to make up my mind, and sit in parking lot for a few minutes trying to figure out which slot to use.

  So maybe the distance was more like ten or twelve miles.

  It can’t possibly be that far!

  But I had no way of knowing for sure.

  During the drive over, I hadn’t paid any attention to the clock or to the odometer.

  If only I’d checked the odometer before starting out from home…

  Or set the tripometer.

  Oh, my God!

  I stopped walking.

  Was Tony’s car equipped with a tripometer?

  I tried to call up an image of the dashboard. I pictured a dashboard, okay, and it had a tripometer, but I didn’t know whether my picture was accurate. Maybe I was just imagining the device.

  But if Tony did have one, and if he’d set it to zero before coming to my rescue…

  I had to go back.

  9

  THE LOST DETAIL

  So many little details to think about.

  And if you don’t think about them, too bad, tough toenails, you’re done for.

  Just don’t kill anyone. That’s my big advice to you, if you’re reading this. I’ve heard that books are supposed to be meaningful and help a person gain insights into themselves, or life, or something. So maybe that’s what you should get from my book—don’t kill anyone or you’ll be sorry.

  Of course, I guess any person with half an ounce of sense knows that already.

  The bad part is, even if you know better, you might end up doing it anyway.

  Like me.

  I sure never set out to split open Tony’s head. It could have happened to anyone. It’s all a matter of circumstances.

  Just like we’re all at the mercy of our genes—which pretty much decide everything about how we look and act and even what diseases we’ll probably get—we’re also at the mercy of circumstances.

  All of a sudden, WHAM! and we’ve killed someone.

  You might be pretty smug and sure you’ll never do it, but just try popping out of your house in the middle of the night and finding a stranger on your doorstep about to grab you. See what happens then.

  See what you’d do.

  It’s you or him, and you figure he’s there to rape or kill you.

  If you don’t get him fast, he’ll get you.

  I bet you’d whack him if you could.

  And then what would you do, after he’s splayed out on your lawn as dead as a carp?

  I know, you’d call the cops.

  And ruin your life.

  The thing is—do you want the straight scoop?

  Even if you’re a goody-two-shoes who has never been in trouble in your life, you’ll be walking into a nightmare if you bring the cops into the picture. For one thing, maybe the courts won’t see the killing as self-defense. You might get convicted of murder or manslaughter and end up in jail. But suppose you make out fine with the legal system? They either don’t hit you with criminal charges at all, or you get acquitted. Great. Congratulations. But what about the friends and relatives of the guy you killed?

  Ever hear of a wrongful death lawsuit?

  Ever hear of revenge?

  I think about stuff like this.

  I bet you’d think about it, too, if you ever killed somebody.

  Even by accident.

  You’d sure better think about it. Do you really want to call the cops? Especially considering this: if you don’t call them—and you’re smart and lucky and have the guts to do whatever it takes—the whole situation might go away.

  Just like it never happened.

  Me, that’s what I wanted.

  I wanted it to go away.

  I would’ve done anything to make it go away, and that included making a return trip to Tony’s car in the parking lot. I hated to go back, but I had to.

  With a simple push of a button, the tripometer’s wheels would spin to 000 and the cops would lose their best clue about where Tony got killed.

  I was sure glad I’d thought of it.

  On my way to the parking lot, I tried to think of any other details that needed my attention.

  I came up with nothing else in connection with Tony’s car or apartment. Just set back the tripometer, and leave.

  But several details would need to be taken care of, back home.

  I made a mental list of them.

  1. Immediately retrieve the saber from where I hid it in the bushes.

  2. First thing in the morning, check the lawn carefully and clean up any remaining blood or debris. Whatever little pieces of Tony I might find in the grass (and there shouldn’t be much) could go down the garbage disposal in Serena’s kitchen.

  3. Make sure to clean off the glass door where the stranger made his mess. (This had nothing to do with covering up Tony’s death, but was for my own peace of mind.)

  4. Clean the saber and return it to its proper place on the living room wall.

  5. Get rid of Tony’s stuff. If suspicion somehow ended up falling on me, I’d better not get caught with his jeans, shirt, wallet, shoes, etc.

  That was all I could think of.

  But I felt as if I must be forgetting something.

  I kept going
over the list in my mind, wondering what I’d missed.

  And came up with:

  6. Check the street in front of the house, just in case. He’d parked there. Maybe he’d dropped something.

  7. Check the driveway.

  Hell, check everywhere. And double-check. Make sure there’s absolutely nothing that might lead anyone to think Tony was there, or that anybody’d gotten killed.

  That should cover it.

  But I still had an uneasy sensation that I’d forgotten a very important piece of evidence.

  What could it be?

  Maybe nothing. Have you ever started off on a trip feeling absolutely certain you’d forgotten something? Maybe you’d neglected to turn off the coffee pot, or you’d left behind your swimsuit or toothbrush? But you can’t think of what it is, so you don’t go back? Then it turns out that you hadn’t forgotten anything at all?

  I’ve had that happen to me.

  Just as often, though, it turns out that the feeling was right and you did forget something.

  Anyway, I still hadn’t thought of it by the time I arrived back at Tony’s building.

  Then I had bigger things to worry about, such as being seen in the parking lot. I’d been lucky, last time. Going back down would be pressing my luck. Tempting fate. I didn’t like it.

  But I did it.

  Dripping sweat, breathing hard and trembling, I walked to the bottom of the driveway. Nobody seemed to be around, so I ran all the way to Tony’s car. I stopped beside it, huffing, and dug the keys out of my pocket. Then I unlocked the door, opened it, leaned in and stared at the dashboard.

  A tripometer!

  He did have one, and it showed 14.2 miles.

  Divide it in half, you get 7.1 miles.

  Almost certainly, that was the distance to Serena and Charlie’s house.

  Tony had set his tripometer.

  My God! I thought. What if I hadn’t thought of it?

  Reaching into the car, I stabbed the reset button with my forefinger. The numbers spun back to form a row of zeros.

  The evidence was erased.

  With the hanky, I wiped the front of the button.

  Erased?

  Something about that word.

  I locked and shut the car door and wiped its handle.