“Come on, we’re having a meeting, everyone’s invited, including the campaigners,” he said.
“How democratic,” I muttered.
The meeting was just a pep rally for Charles. He talked about his speech and the conference, how he’d met half a dozen senators, congressmen, and governors. He told us that we should all be ready to see some big changes in CAW in the coming months. CAW was going to be adopted by influential people within the GOP as a counterweight to Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, who were firmly in the Democratic camp. It would mean more money, more work, more potential for growth. He didn’t mention August 6, but he was itching to, I could see that.
My eyes flitted down the table to Amber. Dressed in burgundy slacks and a tight silk cream sweater, her hair piled under a beret, it was a look I hadn’t seen her pull off before. She resembled Faye Dunaway in one of those films from the seventies. She mustn’t have had time to fix her hair before Charles had unexpectedly shown up. That would have been fun if he’d appeared even sooner, interesting seeing her talk her way out of that one. Would Charles’s violent streak extend also to the killing of his wife and her lover in their marital bed? No, a bit too clichéd for him. It would not serve his future self.
The meeting broke up, and although Amber looked nervy, I needed to speak to her. I pushed through the crowd.
“Nice hat,” I said, just as Abe bumped into her, making her spill her tea.
“What?” she said, glaring at Abe.
“Sorry,” Abe said, chastened.
“Forget it,” Amber said, recovering her poise and giving me a nod.
“What did you say, Alex?” she asked.
“I like your chapeau,” I said.
“Thank you, Alexander.”
“You look like Faye Dunaway,” I said.
“Faye Dunaway?”
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t she always play the villainess?”
“No, I don’t think so. She was the victim in Chinatown.”
“Well, that’s not good either,” she said with a tight smile.
“Hey, it was cool about Charles, wasn’t it, apparently he was a big hit,” I said.
“He was, I really should have been there, it was selfish of me to go to the play,” she said almost to herself.
“But you would have put him off,” I said.
“Yes, that’s what he said,” she muttered.
“Next time, maybe he’ll want all of us there, as his confidence grows,” I said.
“Perhaps,” she said, and looked at me for the first time. Abe, Robert, and Charles began laughing at something. I took the opportunity to lead Amber to the windows at the far side of the room. I kept my eye on the trio behind us. Maybe we were looking at the gray clouds, debating the possibility of rain. Denver needed rain badly.
“How soon did he get there after I left?” I whispered.
“About an hour, it was close,” she said.
“Jesus,” I said. “But everything was ok?”
“No, I don’t feel well at all. After you left, I threw up. Revolting,” Amber said.
“Maybe the whisky,” I said, but of course I knew it was the heroin. That was a dumb move on my part, I was lucky I didn’t give her a bloody heart attack.
“Alexander, I don’t know what to think about last night,” she said softly.
“I know, I know,” I said stupidly.
“It’s confusing. I, I think, perhaps, we shouldn’t try to see each other again for a while,” she said.
I looked at her. She was so beautiful and at a loss. I was surprised. I thought she was going to say either “Alexander, I need to talk to you” or “Alexander, this was a terrible mistake” or “Alexander, I can’t see you again.” But not confusion. That was unexpected.
“Do you want to see me again?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I had a wonderful time,” I said, perplexed.
“Me, too,” she said, and smiled so sweetly that it made my dick skip a beat. Was I falling in love with her?
“And you hid everything? And he has no idea?” I asked.
“No idea, he was talking all about his speech, all about himself,” she said.
“Good,” I said.
She touched my hand. This, I saw, would be one of those moments I would always remember. Robert, Abe, Charles, fifteen feet from me. Charles’s wife touching the back of my hand. Five people in this room. Charles laughing. Amber looking at me with sadness in her eyes. What was betrayed on my face? What emotions was I revealing? Could she read me like I was supposedly reading her?
Aye, the moment.
The room. Denver out the window. The Rocky Mountains. The rest of the great North American continent curving away to the horizon.
Amber.
Amber’s husband. Victoria Patawasti’s killer. With those hands. With that fingertip he squeezed the trigger. With that laughing face. Standing there, grim, in Victoria’s apartment. Standing there. Perhaps admiring his handiwork or perhaps recoiling at the horror of it. Stepping back, remembering to drop the driving license, walking out, closing the door, taking the elevator, holding on to the gun. Amber, the devoted wife saving the day. Drop it in the nearest river. Cherry Creek. Drop it. Get rid of it.
Amber. Her lips parted slightly. Breathing out. Her finger on the back of my hand. If time could freeze then we all survive and the bad things don’t happen and it doesn’t get worse. But time can’t freeze….
Amber lifted her finger from the back of my hand, leaned back. Charles was looking at us.
“What are you two conspiring about over there?” he asked, grinning.
“Maybe it’s going to rain. Make a change. Be nice, be like real Irish weather,” I said, meteorology always a good fallback.
“When we were in Dublin it didn’t rain at all, did it, Robert?”
“It did not,” Robert agreed. “We c-could do with a good downpour here, forty days and forty nights, if we’re lucky. They haven’t let me water m-my lawn since March of last year.”
Amber turned away from the window and walked back to the others.
“I’m very proud of you, darling,” she said to Charles.
“Maybe we’ll all get to go to the next conference, or even the convention in San Diego,” Abe said, getting between Charles and her.
“It’s possible,” she said, examining the tabletop like it was the Risk map of the world and she was in trouble in Central Asia. She couldn’t look at him. I walked over and joined the merry group.
Charles finished his conversation with Abe, put his arms around his wife, and lifted her up in the air.
“I was really something, honey,” he said.
“I’m sure you were,” she said, laughing.
“No, really, they were terribly impressed, not just with the speech but the handouts, the whole package. I do believe we are on a roll,” Charles said.
“That’s wonderful, darling,” Amber said, and kissed him on the lips. He kissed her back and I decided to fade into the background. I had never seen Amber kiss Charles in the office before. Not in front of everyone. Perhaps she was just happy for him, perhaps it was because of me. I wanted to deck the bastard. The girl killer. And his accomplice.
“It’s all thanks to you, darling,” Charles was saying.
“No, darling, it’s you, all your hard work,” Amber said.
“I love you,” Charles said.
“And I love you, darling,” Amber said as I finally made it out the conference room door. I was seething. I wanted to get away from everyone. In the main office, Robert had found a cigar clipper and was offering it to anyone who wanted to use it. Abe and he were smoking provocatively under the No Smoking sign. I went to the bathroom, filled the sink, dunked my head, held it there longer than was strictly necessary.
A long, boring day stuffing envelopes.
That night we drove all the way down to Colorado Springs again. Robert, Abe, and Steve West taking the vans, both Ch
arles and Amber staying home. Amber still not feeling well. Robert bossing us about. Like a lot of weak people, Robert was a bit of a bully.
When I’d got enough memberships, I went to look for Robert. I had a couple of things I wanted to ask him. He was glad to see me, he wasn’t making much headway.
“I’m done, Robert, I did every house twice, got fifteen members, I thought I’d keep someone company, you’re the first one I’ve found,” I said.
“Fifteen members, good job, very good job. Charles w-will be pleased,” Robert said.
I hung out and did some of his doors for him. In between we talked about the woeful state of his garden and how well CAW was doing. Finally, I got him off the environment and onto the topic of crime. Two or three questions in, I asked the lead.
“You know, I worry about some of the girls or someone like Amber out on her own, going door to door, you never know who could answer, once when I knocked someone came to the door with a loaded gun. Or there’s vicious dogs. Shouldn’t she have some protection?”
“Amber? Oh, don’t worry about her, she can look after herself. She’s a b-brown belt in one of those martial arts.”
“Yeah, well, not if the guy has a gun. The guy who hassled me the other night. He thought he was James Bond, he was carrying a Walther PPK.”
“Oh, well, I know Charles gave Amber a p-pistol when she moved to Colorado, the gun laws are very liberal here, not like Boston, both Charles and m-myself own rifles, although neither of us were any good. Papa tried to take us hunting once, dreadful, we both cried. They drummed us out of the ROTC, you know—”
“Yeah, so you said. So Amber carries a pistol?”
“I don’t know if she carries it, she should, a .22-caliber revolver.”
“She owns a .22?”
“Oh, yes. Charles had it handmade in Italy. Gold inlay. Work of art, really. His and her initials. Beretta, I think. Anyway, I d-don’t know much about that; Charles and I both learned how to shoot rifles. Totally different thing. We’re both NRA members, have to be if you’re going to run with the big boys in the GOP. Keep that under your h-hat, by the way, August sixth, Alex. Just a few weeks away, hush hush.”
I smiled, talked about the NRA and hunting, changed the subject back to the weather….
So had Charles killed Victoria with Amber’s .22? Had Amber told him to toss it in the nearest river—Cherry Creek? If so, by now it was nudged halfway down the goddamn Mississippi River for all I bloody knew.
I chatted with Robert about politics and CAW and other things, but he was done with his revelations.
We met the others, stopped for pizza, drove the long ride home.
Colfax Avenue. My building. On the third floor I was so exhausted I had to stop for a breather.
With heavy legs I made it up two more flights.
I opened the apartment door, went in. All I wanted to do now was sleep, but I could hear John and Areea, in my room, screwing. That shit, what did he think he was doing? I was going to go in and kick the bastard out, but I stopped myself. Why should I interfere, what business was it of mine? They couldn’t do it in her place because of her folks, they could hardly do it in the pullout bed in the middle of the living room. John had every right to be in the bedroom. I sighed. But if I gave in tonight, I would be giving him the room with its cooling cross breezes for the whole rest of the summer. I eased myself onto the sofa and listened to them. They weren’t talking, they weren’t being dramatic, they were just having good, beautiful sex. Slow and wonderful lovemaking between two people who were very fond of each other. When was the last time I did that? Last night? I wasn’t sure.
I sat there and wondered what to do. Was Areea going to stay there all night? It seemed unlikely, sooner or later she’d probably slip back down to her apartment.
I felt I had intruded and it made me uncomfortable. The apartment had only limited space and you could hear everything. I backed out of the living room and walked down the hall, closing the door quietly behind me.
I looked at my watch. It was twelve-fifteen. I walked all the way along the corridor and around the bend to Pat’s place.
I knocked gently on the door in case he was asleep.
“Yeah,” he said, almost immediately.
“Pat, you’re up,” I said.
“Alex, is that you? What’s up?”
“John-Areea-fucking-my-place.”
Pat opened the door. He was wearing his day clothes, but he had wrapped a huge duvet about him. It wasn’t cold, I felt the chill more than most and it wasn’t bad, so Pat must have been really feeling under the weather.
“Drink?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“What?”
“What are you having?”
“I’m drinking rum and coke, it’s a nostalgia thing,” he said.
He poured me a glass, and I sat on the sofa in front of the TV.
“What’s on?” I asked him.
“You ever see the Tonight show?”
“Yeah, once or twice, I think,” I said.
“Used to be good, now they got those Dancing Judge Itos on all the time,” Pat said.
I had no idea what Pat was talking about, but he switched over to Letterman anyway
“What was that?” Pat asked during a commercial.
“A beer ad,” I said.
“No, I heard something,” Pat said.
I listened, but I couldn’t hear anything. Letterman came back on. A few minutes later we both heard a girl’s scream.
“What the hell was that?” I said, getting up.
“You better check it out, tell John to keep his woman under control, and if it’s a bad scene come back,” Pat said calmly.
* * *
A bad scene. I trudged down the corridor, got my key, but the apartment door was already open. Even in the ambient light coming through the windows I knew that it felt wrong. Something smelled bad. There was something the roaches liked.
I hit the light switch. Blood on the doormat and floor tiles and a smeared blood trail that led from the front door and down the hall. Someone had been stabbed or shot, had fallen, had lain there for a moment, had dragged himself backward down the hall.
“John,” I said. I ran in.
The blood pooled in the living room in an ugly, confused mess that led to the bedroom.
“John,” I called out.
I heard movement.
I skidded into and opened the bedroom door. It smelled like a butcher’s yard. I turned on the light. Blood everywhere, on the bed, on the floor, on the walls. John, leaning halfway out the window of the fire escape. He was naked, there was a hunting knife sticking out of his chest, sticking out of his heart. John had tried to pull it out, but it was a six-inch serrated blade.
Incredibly, he was still breathing.
Tiny, impossible, desperate breaths.
Blood on his tongue, forming bubbles. Blood in his eyes, hair, everywhere.
Suddenly I couldn’t stand.
I sat on the floor, next to him, my jeans soaking up John’s blood. I took his cold, naked, gore-coated hand.
“John,” I said.
His head turned to look at me. He was trying to speak. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. He was in pain, shock. His mouth moved, blood trickled out of it, his teeth coated, his lips dyed.
I don’t know what I was thinking. I tried to pull out the knife. But the pain writhed through him. He thrashed, gasped. I took his hand again. I wanted to run away. I couldn’t look at him.
I had seen crime scenes before. I had watched my mother die. But I had never seen anything like this. Not the murder of a friend, his body warmth still leaving him. I pulled him close. I held him.
“Pat,” I screamed down the hall, “Pat.”
John’s eyes glazed. He started to convulse.
“John, I’m going to call for help, I’m going to go get help,” I told him.
“Sssssstay,” he managed, heroically, to say, and his dead man’s hand
s held me tight.
I looked at the knife. No, no sense trying to remove it. Wouldn’t help. The blood from his chest wound was a trickle now. I pulled him closer. I held him. Oh, God, John, I am so sorry. I got you into this. I got you into this. His body shook, shuddered, he reached for what? The window, the closet, something.
“What is it?”
He pointed.
“What is it?”
His arm reached out and fell, his head slumped forward onto the window ledge.
He was dead.
I looked at him. The knife, his white face. I closed his eyes.
A whimper.
And I turned to look at the closet.
Areea.
I opened the closet door. Crouching there. Naked. Covered in his blood. She was terrified. She screamed when she saw me. Stood, pushed past me, I tried to grab her.
“Wait, what happened? Tell me what happened!” I yelled at her.
Her breasts, her long arms and legs, all soaked red. It looked like she’d just given birth. She slid past, dry-heaved when she stepped over John, ran naked across the living room and down the hall. I went after her, slipped on John’s blood, skidded, fell heavily on my side.
“Wait,” I called after her, “what the fuck happened? Wait.”
She didn’t come back. I got up and ran down the hall and then halted. No point. No fucking point. I stopped there and looked at the footprints in the blood. Hers, mine. No one else’s. The murderer had not followed John into the apartment. Not even a hint of an extra footprint in the fresh blood trail into the apartment.
And I saw how it was done.
The murderer had knocked at the door, John had got up, walked naked down the hall, opened the door, been stabbed once, immediately, in the dark of the landing. The killer, of course, didn’t know that I lived with a roommate and assumed that the figure at the door was me. One massive puncture wound, right in the heart. John had had no chance. He’d fallen backward into the apartment. The killer had bolted down the stairs, run out of the building as fast as he could. Not a professional hit. A professional would have stepped into the apartment to confirm the identity, removed the knife, cut John’s throat, and taken the murder weapon with him.
Hidden River (Five Star Paperback) Page 26
