The Murderer Next Door

by Rafael Yglesias

  You’re weak, that’s all, I chided myself. You’re making up excuses for being a do-nothing.

  “Molly…?” Naomi’s tone was soft, but urgent. She sat with her legs underneath her, resting her head sideways against the seat, watching me wistfully. “Did you see Mommy?”

  “See…?” Her question scared me: what did she mean?

  “You know…after. Did you see her…?”

  I couldn’t think. B.J.’s lights were blinding me everywhere, even in my head. “Go away,” I said to the rearview.

  “Who?” Naomi said.

  “He’s still following us.”

  “I know,” she said. “Well…?”

  “What?”

  “Did you see her? Where is she?”

  I couldn’t tell her that Ben had incinerated Wendy, couldn’t say it—my heart would have stopped forever. The traffic had thinned out, the highway’s shoulders looked flat, the road was straight. The fog light switch was just to the left of the steering wheel. I put my finger on it and glanced in the rearview: the white light was impenetrable. My eyes hurt.

  “Molly!” Naomi whined.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, blinking at the road, finger ready. I slowed a bit, hoping to get us down to seventy or sixty-five. B.J. was insane—he seemed to ride up the Volvo’s trunk, refusing to ease up. “Give me some room!” I said to the rearview, and got a slap of brilliant light for an answer. “I think he’s got his brights on.”

  “How do you know Mommy is dead?”

  This shocked me. I looked at Naomi to check whether it was really her. She was unnaturally calm.

  “You didn’t see her,” she argued.

  “Did your daddy tell—”

  “No!” she shouted.

  “Okay—”

  “He says she’s not alive anymore. He says I can’t see her. But I think he’s lying. He doesn’t know. He didn’t see her either.”

  But he did. He identified the body. They had checked, there was no question. What was I thinking? He killed her. “What do you mean, Nommy?”

  “Nothing.” She folded her arms, a portrait of childlike stubbornness.

  B.J. honked at me.

  “What?” I shouted at him. “I can’t keep going this fast!”

  “He can’t hear you,” Naomi said.

  I put my finger on the switch. The road was empty and flat. Even if he lost control there was nothing to hit.

  “How do you know she’s really dead?” someone asked.

  “What!” I yelled at Naomi. “Who said that!” I peered into the rear seat—B.J.’s lights were two huge eyes glaring at me.

  “I said it!” Naomi screamed, grabbing on to my arm and burying her head. “I said it. I’m sorry.”

  I lifted my foot off the accelerator. “You don’t think your mother is dead?”

  B.J. honked. His brights flared on and off, taunting. I accelerated. He speeded up too, right on my back, hounding me.

  “Maybe she’s lost.” Naomi spoke into my body, scared of my reaction. No tears. Her tone was awed, ardently wishful: “Maybe she got lost. Maybe it’s somebody else they found. Maybe she’ll remember who she is, and she’ll come back.”

  I flipped the switch.

  NAOMI HEARD THE SQUEALS (DESPERATE, DYING) OF HIS tires, and, of course, the silverware clatter of smashing metal as B.J.’s truck rolled over and over on the dark concrete.

  And she noticed his lights were gone. For all my horror at his fate (I felt it, believe me, and remorse too), I sighed with pleasure at the return of soft comforting darkness behind me. The back of my head was no longer seared: I could think again.

  “What happened to him?” Naomi wondered, struggling to turn in her seatbelt, and then to get her head above the level of the headrest. By the time she managed it the accident had diminished to a speck. “Did he hit something?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I guess I didn’t really. Was he alive? His lights had swerved wildly across the road, he had turned sideways and then seemed to flip over without cause, as if his truck did tricks…only the smashing sounds proved it was no stunt.

  We drove back the rest of the way in silence. Naomi did not fall asleep, although it was past one-thirty when we arrived. I was happy, after all, to see New York’s lights. How bright and beautiful the city is when its people want to sleep. She forced herself to stay up. I guess she wanted to make sure I took her home. That was what I had accomplished: losing her trust.

  I made a judgment of myself (I hear your sarcasm: finally!)—I was bad. I had tried hard all my life not to be, but the evidence was pretty conclusive. Bad people raised me and I was one too, despite Naomi Perlman’s charity.

  Know thyself, the Lord tells me. Thanks a lot.

  “Home!” She applauded as we drove past our building en route to the garage. I did not feel like celebrating. Among other reasons, I noticed the lieutenant’s smelly car was parked out front.

  He was in the apartment with Ben. It was weird. Naomi ran into her father’s arms. I dropped her shopping bag of toys on the floor and started making excuses while, to my surprise, I noticed that Ben seemed to have been crying, the lieutenant seemed to have made himself at home (there were two cups of coffee and a half-empty box of doughnuts on the table), and that both men regarded me with cold looks of suspicion and hostility.

  “Mr. Fliess called in a missing-person report. I’m—” The lieutenant cut off my bumbling story of getting lost in Jersey and introduced himself as if we had never met, which, as far as Ben was concerned, we shouldn’t have. “He thought you didn’t intend to return.”

  “Everything’s okay,” I said to Ben. His face was devastated—drawn, eyes red, arms clutching Naomi. A pathetic figure: Depression-era father holding waif; concentration-camp survivor liberated and reunited with daughter; social-service victim protecting her against a cruel bureaucrat.

  I had become the villain.

  “It was fun, Daddy.” Naomi lied so well. She had already learned not to provoke his anger. “We made a snowwoman. Remember?”

  Ben frowned at the memory.

  “We made pink lips—”

  “Oh yeah,” Ben said. “Come on. It’s practically morning. Let’s get into bed.”

  “Well, if it’s practically morning I should stay up,” Naomi the sophist said; but she looked pale, ill with fatigue.

  “You’re going to sleep. Molly, wait here, I have to talk to you,” Ben said sharply, in complete command. “Good night,” he dismissed the lieutenant. “Thanks for your concern.” Ben opened the door, offering an exit.

  The lieutenant hesitated, raising a knuckle to the tiny pimples lined across his forehead. He touched each one, testing them, lost in thought. “Don’t you think I should ask some questions?” he mused.

  “No,” Ben said. “I don’t. I got panicky. That’s understandable. Good night.”

  The lieutenant departed sideways, showing me a look of worry and doubt, then turning a bland face to Ben.

  I thought about having a cigarette while waiting for Ben to emerge from Naomi’s bedroom. Hadn’t had one in four years. Hadn’t wanted one since the first few months after quitting. I could no longer vividly recall its evils—cancer, stale mouth, smoky clothes, sore throats, long drawn-out congestion. Instead I remembered its masturbatory pleasure, inhaling the tangy air, filling me up, a moment’s relief, a private thrill done in public, another dose only a gesture away. “Why did you come back?” Ben’s voice came from behind, deep and commanding.

  I couldn’t see him. I was seated in the armchair facing the windows, looking at that same damn antique mirror Wendy and I had hung. It showed the empty hallway leading to Naomi’s room.

  “She wants to be here,” I answered.

  “She loves me,” the voice at my back said.

  “Don’t be so impressed. Children are loyal. Even to the worst parents.”

  That caused a silence. Perhaps a blow to my head would be next. Did he kill Wendy from behind? Or was it an act of rag
e, a smash across the face, slamming her into something? That would be so close to an accident, why conceal it? No, he must have come up from behind, like now. Can’t you see him approach me with a hammer, or one of Naomi’s blocks, and batter my skull? “I could get her to tell me what really happened.” He had moved closer. He was right behind me. His belt buckle touched my head. At least I hoped it was that: something small and metal and cool.

  “Okay, Ben, what do you want?”

  He touched my hair. Gently, the way I had stroked Naomi’s. His fingers lightly brushed from the top to the back. He caressed both sides, holding the body of my hair in the air, as if carrying a bride’s train. “So beautiful,” he said.

  What did this rapture represent? I wondered. Desire for me, or envy of my hair? Is this foreplay or window-shopping?

  “I want—” His voice was hoarse with desire. He dropped down so that his mouth was at my ear: “I want to fuck you,” he whispered.

  I wanted to tell him I had killed someone. At least I might have, and that was the important part. Not that I thought—not for a second—my flipping a fog light switch on a Volvo was the equivalent of Ben battering Wendy to death. We had nothing in common in that sense. Perhaps I wanted to warn him. He was the kind of man who hated women, but didn’t really think us dangerous, not that way. It would be pleasant to shake him up.

  “You don’t really have anything to threaten me with, Ben.”

  “Come on, Molly,” he whispered into my ear. “Why are you here? Why are you helping me?”

  “I’m helping Nommy.”

  “That’s bullshit. If you wanted to run away with her, you would have kept going. You wouldn’t have paid attention—”

  “Like you, right? Say or do anything to get my way.”

  His hand came down my shoulder and covered my right breast. He put no pressure; touching, in possession and control, yet lightly, prepared to flee. “Wonderful,” his hoarse voice spoke. “I wanted to for so many years.…” Now there a gentle pressure all around my breast. “It’s so wonderful to touch you.”

  “Honestly,” I said in a loud clear tone. “I really don’t want to. I find you sexless.”

  Ben searched for my nipple with his index finger and thumb. He tweaked the tip, apparently hoping to arouse it. Men like all kinds of erections, I thought coldly. His touch was compelling because it had so much tension and grace and passion, but he couldn’t excite me. I was glad and relieved.

  “That hurts,” I lied.

  “It does?” His fingers opened, his hand withdrew in horror. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  “You’d better start working out,” I said. I kept my head facing forward.

  His breathing bellowed out, hot, panting, on my neck. “You want me to have big muscles?” he whispered.

  “Build yourself up. Maybe you should take karate. You’ll have to defend yourself in prison.” I allowed this to sink in, with all its horrifying imagery. “They’ll know about the clothes,” I added quietly.

  “I won’t be going to prison.” His tone was deep and resolute. He walked away from me: no murder tonight. Soon I heard the refrigerator and the whoosh of a bottle being opened. Ben reappeared with a beer. He passed me, heading for the couch, and mumbled, “Molly, Molly, Molly. Good girl, Molly. I think you’re full of shit,” he told me mildly, and collapsed onto the couch; I winced at its agonized plea for mercy. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you want me to do? You want to live here, right? Everybody’s gonna think we’re having sex. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “I thought you don’t care what people think.”

  “I don’t. But I thought you did.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  He brought the green funnel of the beer to his small red lips and half kissed its opening, about to raise the bottle. “Good for you,” he praised me, and drank.

  “Is she asleep?” I asked, thinking I should have kissed her good night and thanked her for not betraying me.

  “Yeah, she passed out while I read to her. Hasn’t done that since she was two.” He sneered at me, toasting me sarcastically with his beer. “You certainly made her birthday exciting.”

  “Did you cry while the lieutenant was here?”

  He stared at me, found no answer, peered at the bottle as if it could talk, then came back to ask, “How did you know that?”

  “You look like you were crying.”

  He got up and went to the mirror and studied himself. “I don’t see how you could tell,” he wondered.

  “Was the lieutenant impressed? Did he feel sorry for you?”

  Ben groaned. “Give me a break, okay? You’re pissed off, then go home.”

  “I don’t want to go home.”

  “Then don’t be such a pain in the ass about everything. I thought you had kidnapped my daughter. I thought he was going to accuse me of killing her and you. I was sure that was your plan.”

  Not a bad idea. I wished I had thought of it: maybe I should have kept going, in spite of Naomi’s desires.

  “So I cried,” Ben continued, strutting, lecturing with his beer bottle. “Doesn’t Stefan cry? I bet he cries all the time.”

  “No, it was Wendy who cried all the time.”

  “Whoa!” Ben chuckled. He clutched the bottle by its neck and pointed to me. “You’re ahead, one-nothing. I like this. You give as good as you get. I really admire that.”

  “Really?” I challenged.

  “Yeah, really,” he said, but he paused in his swagger, bottle clutched modestly at his waist, like a prayer book. He waited for my benediction.

  “I’d like to see you dressed up.” I said it easily enough, confident and calm. Unfortunately, my throat walled up after it was gone; I wouldn’t be able to say another thing. My heart pounded as I watched him react.

  Ben was amazed. He blinked, he swallowed, his shoulders fell; the bottle sagged below his stomach to his groin, a green sweating penis. “Are you serious?” he squeaked in a high voice, scared.

  I nodded, forcing a smug smile. I concentrated on clearing my throat.

  “I don’t trust you,” he said.

  “You’re chicken,” I grumbled, forcing the words out.

  He shook his head, scorning my accusation. “Why? Why do you want to?”

  “I think it’s sexy,” I said, and my heart went wild, aching in my breast, squeezing itself frantically. The blood throbbed in my neck, choking me.

  “You’re sick,” Ben said with a kind of wonder and happiness in his tone. “You’re a sick person. Wendy and I used to try to figure you out all the time. We talked about you a lot, especially after sex. You know why? I was thinking about it while you were gone. You know why we talked about you so much? Because we were both in love with you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I whispered, hoarse. Blood pulsed violently in my neck, in my arms; my spongy heart was squeezing itself dry.

  “Wendy was no lesbian, but she would have gone to bed with you.”

  “It won’t work, Ben. You’ll never convince me Wendy was the person you say she was—I’ll never believe you were right to kill her.”

  “Did I say that!” He put the beer down with a clink on the coffee table and inhaled, revving up his rage: “Fuck you!” He shot out the obscenity. The anger was staged. Frightening, to be sure, with that big body arched toward me, his head snapping words like a gigantic malevolent turtle. But the rage was unauthentic; a tactic, not passion.

  “Are you scared to show me?” My blood coursed thickly again, swelling in me. “Is that why you’re pretending to be angry?”

  “Jesus,” he said, and turned away, embarrassed.

  Such delicacy of feeling: he gambles, he dresses up like a woman, he kills his wife, but he blushes.

  “Why do you want to?” he asked, his back still to me.

  “I want to understand,” I told him, and that was the truth. Believe it or not. I wanted to know why he had kept so complete a secret, what had been so precious he
would kill to preserve it.

  “It’s not what you think,” his voice quavered pathetically.

  “Okay,” I soothed him. “I want to know what’s really going on. I want to understand.” I meant these words. I couldn’t destroy him; I couldn’t ignore him; perhaps I could know him, know him in a way no one else had, not Wendy, not Joan, not his mother—certainly not Naomi, the one person who loved him.

  Ben turned and evaluated me for while. He stood still, hands in front, an attentive schoolboy at assembly, studying my face.

  “I came back, Ben,” I told him. I had no trouble with my blood anymore: I was calm. “I didn’t have to. Let me in.”

  “If you laugh I’ll kill you,” he said at last.

  “I won’t laugh,” I answered without irony.

  He said nothing more, but walked purposefully toward the bedrooms. He paused at the hallway, inviting me to follow. I got up and my heart squeezed again.

  No turning back now, girlie, I heard in my people’s voice, sarcastic and sad, daring and afraid.

  Ben paused at Naomi’s room and walked in. I entered a step or two. She breathed heavily, audible even at that distance, panting in her rest, her face sagging with exhaustion. Ben kissed her brow.

  I thought of B.J. splattered somewhere on the highway. Was he cursing me?

  We went into his bedroom, Wendy’s old bedroom, unchanged except for its care. The dresser top was dull and dusty; the rug looked as if it could use a vacuuming. He had fired the cleaning woman, doing a good job with the rest of the apartment. Here, he had given up except to make the bed. Ben went into the closet, pulled on the chain to light the old-fashioned bare bulb, opened a stepladder, and rummaged about on the top shelf. He came down with a large box.

  “Wait here,” he told me sharply. Before carrying it into the bathroom and locking himself in, he turned off the ceiling fixture. That left Wendy’s bedside lamp as the only illumination. Its pink shade cast a demure, flattering light.

  He was busy in there for more than half an hour. It was funny thinking about what was going on inside; I smiled at how long he took. I heard some noises—the sharp clatter of glass bottles on porcelain, presumably cosmetics; Ben grunting along with the swishing sound of fabric. It was silly and it was worrisome.