“Guy?” the little skinny kid with the shaved head said. “What guy?”
Caleb frowned. “The guy who was killed.”
Another amused glance at one another. Caleb felt his temper rising.
“Wasn’t no guy, man,” the kid with the shaved head said. “It was a girl.”
Relief washed over Caleb, his rising temper instantly extinguished. It was, however, short-lived. For any relief he might have felt at this new knowledge that these two boys had not seen him dump the bartender’s body was immediately replaced with yet more questions. Chief of them being the boys themselves. Their curious amusement. Their curious manner. Their curious decision to visit someplace they clearly didn’t belong. His gut feeling grew stronger still, the feeling’s ambiguity taunting him further still.
It was time to go. Caleb knew that. Whatever these boys were up to, he now knew it had nothing to do with him. Unless they were planning on robbing him. But like their fish-out-of-water status, that prospect too didn’t fit. And if they were, despite his logic, planning on robbing him, then bring it on, boys—Caleb was sure he could take the skinny kid with the shaved head alone with one arm.
“Sucks for her,” Caleb said. “I’ll see you later, fellas.”
“We’ll be seeing you…” the one with hair said.
“…Before you see us,” the one with the shaved head finished.
Both boys grinned.
Had he just been challenged? Caleb felt his temper click back on. “You guys got a fucking problem?”
The one with hair showed Caleb his palms. “No problem, man. We were just leaving.”
The two boys turned and casually strolled away. Caleb’s gut feeling was now stronger than ever. He followed them. And when he watched the two boys climb into the white van parked at the end of the block and drive off, his mouth dropped open. There could be any number of reasons for those boys having the van. Only none of them fit:
They’d happened upon it last night and stolen it.
Didn’t fit.
The boys were friends of the bartender. Claimed the van for him when they hadn’t heard from him since last night.
Didn’t fit.
It wasn’t the van; he’d been mistaken.
Only it was; he recognized the sizable dent on its front fender.
(Why don’t you go ahead with what DOES fit? Your gut feeling?)
Although it brought him no great satisfaction, Caleb put the pieces together all the same.
The dead girl the boys spoke of was her.
They took her van after killing her.
They were visiting the same spot as him to relive the moment.
And then the crusher. The unexplainable thing he recognized in them yet could not, until now, identify. The old axiom of it takes one to know one crushing him that much harder: All three shared the urge to kill.
That was it. Those boys had been killers. But that wasn’t it, was it? Their shared amusement. Their sly smiles. Christ, even the shaved head on one of them…
It was like the fuckers who’d started the shit storm that had become his life had been reborn before his very eyes.
(And you all but immediately made them for who they were like a goddamn psychic. Takes one to know one indeed.)
NO.
(But you did.)
Caleb closed his eyes and shook his head. They were clearly nurturing their urge. I’m doing everything I can to fight it.
(You were getting hard at the thought of last night right before they showed.)
“NO!” he cried out.
(So, what are you going to do? Wait until the next full moon and let it happen again? Or are you going to eat that silver bullet?)
Caleb dropped to his knees and wept. A young man alone, crying on all fours in a dingy lot, contemplating suicide.
(Do you really want to become the very thing that ruined your life?)
He was sobbing now, snot hanging from his nose, not bothering to wipe it away.
(Unless…)
Unless what???
(Unless you point that silver bullet at others who are slaves to the full moon.)
The very thing I’m trying NOT to do???
(There’s a difference between killing to satisfy an urge and killing those who need killing.)
The bartender needed killing.
(No, he didn’t. He needed a one-way ticket to prison, or at the very least, a good ass-kicking.)
I intended to only kick his ass. But once I started…
(You were drunk.)
That’s an acceptable excuse now?
(Aren’t we just a little bit desperate for excuses here?)
The hypocrisy here is making me physically sick.
(Eat the silver bullet yourself, or feed it to those who deserve it. I really don’t see any other options. You can try to just stop altogether, fight the urges that haunt you, or…)
Or…?
(I got nothing else. You’re at the end of your rope, man. What the hell do you have to lose?)
16
They kept the van two streets over from Charlie’s house, in common-area parking that was never full.
The van, they mused, was heaven sent. A delicious bit of irony since both had given up on God years ago—the impetus starting at ripe young ages when incessant prayers went unanswered after the greatest bullies of all, their parents, had begun to sink their claws in, still unabated to this day.
Yes, whatever power had gifted them the van resided anywhere but heaven. Much like the idols they worshipped believed, Andy and Charlie were beginning to believe they were put on Earth for a purpose. Believed the same power that had watched over Arty and Jim Fannelli was now watching over them. Or perhaps, somehow, it was Arty and Jim themselves? Perhaps pure evil could never be destroyed. The flesh might have been gone, but the evil remained, looking for a new host.
And who better than them? Yes, so much better to think of their newfound power coming from Arty and Jim themselves, guiding them in their way. Perhaps it had been a simple matter of showing their worth to the Fannelli brothers first, the whore a sacrifice of sorts. What other gifts would be bestowed upon them with each new sacrifice? they wondered. New tools, if you will, to make their newfound purpose that much easier to fulfill?
Running into the guy from last night this afternoon had been exceptionally unexpected. But, as their newfound faith was leading them to believe, it likely happened for a reason. And it was for this reason that they did not second-guess mentioning the murder of the whore the man had been with. While it was a risky thing to do, carrying the distinct possibility of giving themselves away, they simply couldn’t resist. Besides, the guy had been with a whore—not the type of man to go babbling to police about this and that. Take it one step further, and they believed it was a moot point altogether—the same power that had gifted them the van would gift them the invisibility to escape speculation.
Still, it had been an astounding coincidence, and they did wonder what the man was doing there in that dingy alley with his eyes closed as though freaking meditating standing up. An astounding coincidence and downright weird.
Or perhaps, Andy mentioned, he was there for the same reason they’d been. To relive last night. Him—the weirdo—recalling his moment with a whore; them recalling the moment when they’d bagged their first kill.
They’d wanted to go to the actual place they’d taken her life, of course, but this felt far too dicey. As much as they bathed in the notion that some unseen force (and the idea that the unseen force could be Arty and Jim themselves grew lovelier by the second) was looking out for them, there was utilizing that force, and then there was being downright stupid. For all they knew, the whore had been discovered in the dumpster after all. And fast food or not—as Arty and Jim had so delightfully put it—police still had a job to do, no matter how cheap the food was. If they’d showed up to the precise spot where the whore had been dumped, looking like the suburban white boys they were, snooping around, it was all but askin
g for unwanted attention by a police presence that was still almost assuredly there.
Assuming her body had been discovered, that is.
But they, in the arms of their growing egos, felt that she had not. That Arty and Jim had somehow seen to it that the fast-food wrapper had gone out with the trash unseen. The end. On to the next one.
And it was now time for the next one.
Time to watch more tapes.
Time to see what kind of sacrifice they could offer their malevolent idols next.
17
“So, are we going to talk about last night or…?”
Amy, in her office working, swiveled in her chair and faced Allan, who stood in the doorway. “Discuss what?”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “You know what.”
She turned back to her laptop and spoke to him with her eyes on the screen. “I’ve got nothing to say.”
“So, then what? We’re going to just do the eggshells thing for a while?”
“I’m not walking on eggshells.”
“I am.”
“That’s your problem.”
“Amy.”
She looked at him again. “Allan.” He would have preferred a slap to her patronizing manner. The latter stung and irritated far greater.
“I know you’re upset about Caleb—”
“Oh good. Thank you for granting me that exemption to the eggshells I’m throwing at your feet.”
He fought to remain composed. “Why are you doing this? Same team here, Amy. Same team.”
“Same team about what? About why I wouldn’t spread my legs for you last night? I don’t remember joining that team.”
“Should I come back when you’re ready to talk about this like an adult? Or do you want to keep sniping at me like some teenager?”
She turned back to her laptop and said nothing.
Allan’s struggle was with two alternatives. Two familiar alternatives. Stay strong to his convictions, or bottle them up. Bottle them up as he often did to smooth things over, despite any misgivings he might have. The latter way kept the machine running, but the parts and labor were cheap; he knew in the long run the machine would only break down again. It was up to him to demand quality parts, pricey as they were. Management—Amy—did not like pricey parts.
He held on to his convictions this time. Chose the former. “I want to discuss all of it,” he said. “Caleb, the incident between us in bed last night…”
Eyes still on her laptop, she said: “The incident last night needs no discussing. I was upset, and you tried for a piece of ass. It was inappropriate. If you think otherwise, fine. I’m not bending on that.”
“Maybe my trying to make love last night was inappropriate under the circumstances—”
She snorted. “Make love,” she mocked. “Such melodrama.”
His fist clenched at his side. “But, I meant every damn word of what I said concerning every time I try to—what works for you, Amy?—fuck you?”
“‘Fuck’ works for me.”
“So is that it, then? We just fuck buddies? Friends with benefits?”
She didn’t reply.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
She groaned and faced him again. “Would you stop with all the drama?”
“Do you?”
“You know I do.”
“How do you love me?”
Her face wrinkled. “Huh?”
“How do you love me?” he said again. “How would you label our relationship?”
“I wouldn’t,” she said. “Labels are ridiculous.”
“Humor me, then,” he said.
“We’ve been together for nearly ten years. If you don’t have some sort of grasp as to what our relationship is, then that’s on you.”
“I don’t have a grasp. It’s pretty damn evident I don’t have a grasp. So I’m asking you to define it for me. Can’t you give me that?”
“This is so fucking lame,” she said. “You’re the one acting like a teenager now.” She then pretended to be chewing gum, started twirling her hair. “‘Ooh, does she like, like me?’”
“You’re baiting me into a fight so you can avoid the issue. I’m not taking the bait, Amy.”
Back to her laptop. “Good for you, Allan.”
He wanted to leave. So badly wanted to leave. To turn and stomp away, maybe even shout a “fuck you” before storming off. Only he’d be giving her exactly what she wanted. He couldn’t think of a dignified reply, and even walking—not stomping—off would be giving her precisely what she wanted, too. So he just stood there, staring at her, hoping his silence would offer the reply that was not forthcoming.
Only she didn’t take his bait. She seemed quite content to ignore his silent station by the door.
After a good minute of silence, his stick-to-itiveness began to crack. He cursed himself for it. “So, nothing then? Gonna just keep sprinkling those eggshells until Amy Lambert, as she does, feels the matter has been sufficiently suppressed?”
She said nothing.
“Maybe I should go,” he said.
“Please.”
“No, I mean go-go.”
She threw up her hands. “Oh my God! You can be such a fucking vagina sometimes! Fine, you want to talk?” She kicked back her chair and stood. “I love my husband.”
“And I love my wife,” he answered immediately. “I’ll always love my wife. Even if you and I married tomorrow, I would still love my wife. Do you honestly think I would ever expect you to love me more than you ever loved Patrick?”
She just stared at him.
“Life goes on, Amy. We’re never getting Sam and Patrick back.”
“My life is shit right now.”
“Our life is shit right now.”
“Would you stop making this about you?!”
“I’m not! I’m making it about us. You’re in pain, and therefore, I’m in pain. This lone-wolf shit you pull every time things get rough, it doesn’t do a damn thing except make things harder.”
“Lone wolf? I talk to you. I always talk to you. I tried talking to you last night, but you were more interested in sticking your hand down my—”
“Stop. Just stop with that, okay? Last night was my bad. I’ll accept that. It was my bad. You have my sincerest apology for it.”
“But you still want to talk about our sex life in general, isn’t that right? Why you say I only ever give it up when I’m drunk?”
“I—yes, I would like to discuss that.”
“Then you are making it about you!”
“My wanting to have a healthy sex life with you is not about me! The whole thing is indicative of the wavering status of our relationship, can’t you see that? And sure, you talk to me. I’m a shoulder to cry on, but that’s all I seem to be. You never let me try to help you.”
“Help me? How the hell are you going to help me?”
He froze, mouth hanging open as though she’d spit on him. It wasn’t just her words, but how she’d said them: How are YOU going to help ME? It didn’t just emasculate him, it made him feel useless. He wanted—needed—to believe that it was just frustration talking, but something deep down told him different. Told him she not only didn’t believe he could help her, but that she also didn’t want him to help her.
And that’s when Allan was presented with two more alternatives: either stay in this relationship as is, a relationship that would forever exist without labels and solidarity, enjoying the good times—hollow as he was now beginning to believe they were—or move on and accept that what he and Amy had wasn’t nearly as special to her as it was to him.
And this raised a question. A big one. Was his trademark way of bottling things up the reason he’d been sticking around all this time? The need to make things better at the cost of his own happiness? Was he, in a bizarre way, the spouse to Amy’s mob boss? Unconditionally loyal and thus compensated for it as long as he didn’t “ask her about her business”? It seemed like such a silly metaphor, yet at the same time
it didn’t. Right now, it felt pretty damn fitting.
And so it all came down to those last two alternatives: stay on board as Amy the mob boss’s spouse, enjoy whatever compensations she threw your way, and don’t ask too many questions, or…
“Move on,” he whispered.
“What?” she asked.
He couldn’t fight the tears in his eyes. “It might be time for me to move on.”
“Move on? You mean leave? For good?”
He nodded.
“Is that what you want?” she asked.
“Is that what you want?” A tear broke free and rolled down his cheek.
Amy did something just then that made up Allan’s mind. She looked him up and down with a disgusted expression, as though his visible sorrow repulsed her.
Allan swallowed hard. “Time for me to move on.”
• • •
When Caleb eventually came home that evening, he got one hell of a surprise. Amy and Carrie were sitting in the den, waiting for him.
At first, Caleb panicked, fearing they knew something. Fearing they knew everything. That this was a bizarre sort of intervention, Carrie making the trip home from college for the occasion. He noticed Allan was not in attendance and thought this odd. Allan was always trying to win Caleb over. If this was an intervention of sorts, Allan would be front and center. Probably running the show.
“Hey, Sis,” he said to Carrie. He didn’t ask why she was home. Instead, to Amy: “Where’s Allan?”
The answer he received shocked him. The addendums Amy tacked onto that answer shocked him further still.
“Allan’s gone,” Amy said to her son. “It’s over.” Her tone was low and indifferent. Caleb wondered whether she’d been drinking. Amy turned her head towards Carrie. “Your sister got kicked out of school. She’s gonna be home for a while, like you.” Back to Caleb. “Just the three of us now, kiddo. One big happy Lambert reunion. All we have to do now is sit tight and wait for the bad shit to start like it always fucking does with this cursed family.”
18
“You ready?” Andy Franklin asked Charlie Hall this question while smirking and brandishing the next as-yet-unseen tape concerning the exploits of Arty and Jim Fannelli in his hand.
Bad Games- The Complete Series Page 101
