Killing Everybody

by Mark Harris

  “Who still opened the gate, however?” Lala asked.

  “Yes,” said Phelps.

  They cruised. They wound about several streets. At Twenty-Third & Eureka Streets, slightly hesitating, Phelps chose the downhill route, his theory being, as he said, that any dog, having wandered this far, will choose to continue down, not up. “He’d be tired,” he said.

  “Dog tired,” said Iris.

  “He’d have been tired long before here,” said Lala. “He was out of condition. He never exercised. Can you imagine Harold exercising him? Harold won’t walk three feet.”

  “Harold bowls,” said Iris.

  “Paprika doesn’t even bowl,” said Lala.

  “I’ll run us back,” said Officer Phelps. “I don’t seem to be seeing any dogs at all to speak of.”

  But his promise to “run us back” was unaccompanied by any alteration of his direction. It was as if he had made a promise he was privately unprepared to keep, and Brown began to feel a certain irritation toward Phelps. Why was Phelps being so helpful? Was his eye on his young passenger Lala? But Brown knew himself to be unentitled to irritation, for, had he not spirited Paprika away, this whole excursion would never have occurred. On the other hand, he’d have suffered “a certain irritation” no matter what. Perhaps it was the chemistry of his body. Perhaps he knew too much. Perhaps his ambition was too altruistic, too little selfish: he lived unrequited by the luxuries society bestowed for good behavior. Sometimes he felt that he would be unable to live one hour longer without bursting of irritation, without exploding into rage — overflowing with violence into the face of things. The contrasts were too great between the mighty and the humble, the rich and the poor, the well and the ill, the living and the dead. Why was Phelps alive and Junie dead? “Take me home,” he said.

  Officer Phelps, hearing the sharpness in Brown’s tone, met his eyes in the rear-view mirror. He saw him as Junie’s father, a kind man with “a sophisticated moral code,” entitled now to some irritation he need not explain, and he said to Brown most courteously, “Yes sir, I will if you like.”

  Lala Ferne, beside the officer, hearing the sharpness or irritation of Brown’s voice, adjusted her mirror, too, so that she could see Brown’s eyes, and she said, “I know it was some neighbor that let him loose. I could swear to it. It might have been some irritable neighbor irritated by the barking.”

  “Harold says he didn’t bark.” said Iris.

  “Oh, mother, he was a barker,” said Lala. “It might have been some neighbor who was a day sleeper,” Lala continued, fixing her eyes upon Brown’s in the mirror.

  “He was a barker all right,” said Brown, swatting his knee with his copy of Life rolled in his damp hand. He continued to meet her eyes with his own in her mirror, and yet he might not have been staring into her eyes at all — she might be mistaken — but somewhere else, as if, while looking out the window, his eyes only appeared to be staring into the mirror. Lala couldn’t be sure. He said, “Election Day is always a lovely day,” as if he were looking out the window at the weather.

  “Somebody wrote us a letter once telling us to make him stop barking,” Lala said.

  “I remember that,” said Iris.

  “Somebody in the neighborhood,” said Lala. “It didn’t upset Harold, but it upset me.”

  Because Harold can’t read, thought Iris.

  “People do things like that,” said Officer Phelps.

  “I suppose you get a lot of such cases,” said Brown, pretending casualness, unrolling his Life and turning irresistibly to the pages featuring a visit with Cronkite, where Brown’s eye met the headline:

  His “faked” college football broadcasts made him a celebrity in Kansas City

  Faked? Yes. Faked indeed. Why put quotation marks around “faked” when faked it was, and no mistake? He faked it to make the broadcast and advance his career. “Cronkite cannot resist games,” Brown read. “He likes Pro Football. He likes Waterloo. He likes Battle of the Bulge. He likes Yacht Race and Civil War.” Was Brown to believe this? It was worse than he had supposed. His horror grew. Waterloo, Battle of the Bulge, Civil War, were these games? Why no game called “Vietnam?” Wasn’t it popular enough? Couldn’t they design a sufficiently attractive package? Or perhaps it never existed. Perhaps Cronkite had only faked it to make himself a celebrity. Then where was Junie? If Vietnam had been only a game then it was time for Junie to come home. It was recently said that the government was “winding down” the war in Vietnam. Then it was a wind-up game such as you’d buy at Mordecai’s Toys. When Junie arrives home from his game no doubt Cronkite will take him for a ride on his yacht, a visit with a nice guy, but not dead, as Junie was, and out came Sevareid from wherever he was, having seen Walter shot. Off the Air. On the Air. Eric’s perplexed, he blinks, bang, bang, back up, back out, close the door behind you, put your gun in your pocket with your flesh-colored gloves, seventeen floors to go, walk carefully, so much for faking the news in Kansas City.

  “Yes,” said Officer Phelps, “we get a certain number of cases like that.”

  “What can be done about them?” Brown asked while reading Life.

  “There’s not an awful lot you can do about them,” said the young policeman. “If they contain a threat you can try to keep an eye on the object of the threat if you can. Usually a person that writes a threat won’t carry it out.”

  “Then in that case probably the person that wrote the letter wasn’t the same person that let Paprika loose,” said Lala.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” said Phelps with precision. “As I recall, I said usually, but I wouldn’t guarantee a thing. It’s a strange world. Just as soon as you think one thing is true it isn’t. There’s no telling in these matters. Nothing is beyond belief.”

  “I’ll say,” said Iris.

  “What about anonymous telephone calls?” Lala asked. “Can they be traced?”

  “Not easily,” Officer Phelps replied.

  Lala was relieved. This morning she had made an anonymous obscene telephone call. In her mirror her eyes met Brown’s — but no, she could not be sure their eyes were meeting. “Don’t forget to vote,” she said, perhaps looking into the eyes of Mr. Brown, perhaps not. Perhaps he was the “day sleeper” in question. Perhaps not. “Did Paprika ever keep you awake, Mr. Brown?” she asked.

  “Nothing ever keeps me awake,” said Brown.

  Mirrors are funny that way, she thought. She was pleased by the shape of his mouth, which seemed to wish to smile, waiting only for something to smile about. Was he looking into her eyes? Had she “caught his eye,” as the expression goes? Because of the oddity of mirrors she could not answer her own questions. “Are you looking at me?” she asked, staring straight into the eyes in her mirror, but he offered no sign of recognition, neither appearing to see her eyes nor appearing to hear her question; or so it appeared to her.

  They returned via Castro Street, up Eighteenth, now “over Clover” (Junie’s rhyme), up Caselli, up Yukon. “I’m not satisfied with our little excursion,” Brown said. “I’m going to go find him. Mrs. Ferne, will you lend me your little car?”

  “I’ll lend you my big one,” said Iris McCoy.

  “I’ll shave and then go,” said Brown.

  “You don’t need a shave to drive my car,” said Iris. It wasn’t her car. It was Harold.’s.

  He voted first, speaking his name to a lady at a table, although she had found his name upon the poll-book even before he had entered Mr. Maxim’s garage. She in turn spoke his name to her associates, ladies of the neighborhood, too, whom Brown saw year by year upon the streets and in the markets of the neighborhood, and once a year in Mr. Maxim’s garage. He signed his name on the designated line. He was the fifty-ninth voter of the day. He searched for Luella’s name. She had been the twenty-second voter. Below Luella’s signature Mrs. Ferne’s appeared. For whom would Mrs. Ferne have voted?
For McGinley? Such a matter was difficult of speculation. People live hidden lives. Luella was different, for she was simpler. She had voted for McGinley because he had called her “my pretty lady” and shaken her hand. For that she put his sign in her window. She fell for that. She never put two and two together. McGinley, Chairman of the Draft Board, sent Junie to war. “It was only his job,” Luella said.

  Before the polling booth Brown waited his turn, twirling Iris McCoy’s Cadillac keys upon his finger. Inside the booth an elderly gentleman voted at his leisure while Brown turned pages in Luella’s old Life. Whitney Young dead at forty-nine. Now Brown viewed a photographic gallery of prostitutes of New Orleans, 1912. Letters to the Editors Sirs: What kind of country have we become that people pick up the tab and give VIP treatment to a man who murdered old men, women and tiny children without any apparent disturbance to his conscience? Winston’s Down Home Taste. End of a Company Town. In quest of the deadliest creature in the seas Great White Shark The Whites came down a mile-long slick of blood. A book by Wallace Stegner is reviewed. Brown had met Stegner at the Press Club years ago. He read nothing, turning pages only, advertisements, solicitations, coupons to tear out, cigarettes named True. My Very Dear German Shepherd Dog Owner, I released your dog from his confinement because of his troublesome barking, I then secretly advised your neighbor Brown how to find him, as your neighbor is a soft-hearted and sympathetic person. This is the last time, however, so let it be a warning. If your dog wakes me again I’ll finish him off. Day Sleeper.

  Brown entered the polling booth, pulling the curtain closed behind him. Now he would vote for McGinley’s opponent, who might be no better than McGinley, who might corrupt the Constitution, too. It was only politics. What had Luella said, sweet, good-hearted Luella? “Well, he’s the one that’s running.” That he should rule me! Brown thought. “Die,” he said, voting.

  Seven

  Among Lala’s “private papers in the attic, thousands of items of various sorts,” were receipts for paid bills for ten years past, Louisa’s and Catherine’s schoolwork from the beginning of their careers, souvenirs relating to Lala’s own short life of outside work (as a fat hostess for Pacific Southwest), and letters from friends, acquaintances, and relatives, such as her mother. Iris, who was beside Lala in the attic now, searching with her through these masses of paper accumulated and preserved through the years. “What for?” asked Iris.

  “So I’d have them when I wanted them,” said Lala.

  “You’ll never find it,” Iris said, who never expressed confidence in anything Lala undertook.

  “I’ve found other things,” said Lala. “Sometimes you don’t find what you’re looking for, but you find something else.”

  “Who sent it to you?” Iris asked.

  “That’s what I don’t know,” Lala said. “It was anonymous. That’s the meaning of anonymous, mother.”

  “I know what anonymous means,” said Iris. “Do you think I’m an idiot? We might send an anonymous letter up the street to Christopher’s parents. There’s an idea for you.”

  “No, I don’t think you’re an idiot,” said Lala, sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by thousands of pieces of paper shaken from boxes. “I’ll know it if I see it,” she said. “It was white. The envelope was addressed to Harold. It’s really frightening to get an anonymous letter. Did you ever get one?”

  “That’s why we should send one to Christopher’s parents,” said Iris. “To frighten them to death. To make them take care of him,” Officer Phelps’s whitened neck, freshly shaved, persisted in her mind. “No, I never received an anonymous letter,” she said, although she had; it was years ago, a very brief message, hardly a letter, in the small city where she was raised, and she remembered the sensation with perfect recall, deploring the memory, offended even to this day not by the letter itself but by the memory of the sensation it had produced in her. The letter was this:

  FAT WHORE

  screaming at her from the page, leaping out. Instantly she had lit a match to the page without ever truly destroying it or the memory of its sensation. The message had been written in True Blue ink, but its description of her was inaccurate. She was no whore. True, she was “running around,” as one might say; always had; but a whore failed of love, whereas Iris, as far as she knew, loved every boy or man she ran with; and a whore was promiscuous, whereas Iris ran only with one boy or one man at one time.

  “Then you’re lucky,” Lala said.

  “I never did anything to provoke one,” said Iris virtuously. “I behaved myself.” For a moment her mind dwelled on Harold’s bowling shoes on the television set in the living room. “You’re sweating,” she said.

  “I always sweat when I sit on the floor,” said Lala.

  “All that paper is a fire hazard,” said Iris.

  “That’s why I keep it up here,” said Lala, who was under the impression that fire burned upward only — an attic fire might burn itself up, but spare the house below.

  “That’s wise,” her mother said, for it was Iris who had told Lala years and years ago that things burn upward only. Only the roof would burn. They believed it.

  “Here it is!” said Lala. She found the letter at last, in a white envelope addressed to Harold, and she handed it to her mother, who read it:

  My Very Dear German Shepherd Dog Owner:

  Your dog barks continuously and keeps us awake. You had better muzzle him and keep him quiet or we will come around with a handful of sleeping pills and he’ll be still forever.

  DAY SLEEPER

  “Then what’s poor Mr. Brown doing running around trying to find him for?” Iris asked. “He’ll only find a poisoned dog.”

  “Notice how he signs off,” said Lala. “Day sleeper. Does that ring any bells in your head?”

  “What bells should it ring?”

  “Mr. Brown bells,” said Lala.

  “I don’t get you. He seems very nice.”

  “He is,” said Lala, as she began to gather the papers lying about the floor of the attic, squatting and gathering up all the papers within the radius of her arms, then waddling along like a frog to the vicinity of another mass of papers.

  Iris smiled, for this was how Lala had always cleared a floor, waddling like a frog from one pile of work to the next. “I only said seems very nice,” said Iris. “They always seem very nice until they get what they’re after.”

  “You know, mother,” said Lala, rising with effort to her feet (her legs were stiff from having squatted so long on the floor), “men aren’t always after you the way you always told me they were.”

  “I suppose it depends on the person,” Iris proudly said.

  “Not after me, anyhow,” said Lala meekly. “He saw the police car out of his window and came across the street and got trapped in the whole business against his will, I’m sure. Unless I’m wrong and he wrote the letter.”

  “A man doesn’t run around looking for a woman’s dog without some attitude toward the woman,” said Iris. “If he’s poisoned maybe he’ll find the body somewhere.”

  “They gather them up awfully fast,” Lala said. “I’d like to know if he’s dead or alive, that’s all. If he’s dead I’d like to know it and not keep going around thinking he might turn up any minute. Of course, if he was poisoned, why take him away? They could have poisoned him in the middle of the night. That’d be ghastly to wake up to.”

  “What’s his wife like?” Iris asked.

  “She’s very sweet,” said Lala. “I don’t see her much. I voted right in back of her this morning. She’s in real estate. I wonder if you have to go down and identify a dog’s body.”

  “I don’t think you want to look at a whole bunch of dead dogs,” her mother said. “I can’t make out the postmark. When did this come?”

  “Before the phone calls started,” Lala said. “Paprika was a lot more trouble than he was worth, G
od love him.”

  “He’s handsome,” Iris said.

  “He has a rugged look,” said Lala.

  “Because he wasn’t shaved,” Iris replied. If Lala appeared to admire a man, Iris denounced him. It was a mother’s habit.

  “How old would you guess he is?” Lala inquired. Her mother was expert at guessing ages.

  “Don’t go getting ideas,” Iris replied.

  “About what?” Lala asked. It was true that she often had “ideas” about gentlemen, especially in the morning at the height of her rippling. They passed with the day, unless they increased. As for Mr. Brown, until today she had hardly noticed him. He was a quiet sort, slightly distinguished in her eyes since she had learned that he worked for the Chronicle: she was a sucker for artists. In the presence of her mother, however, she always denied having “ideas,” for Lala, in her mother’s presence, always reverted, so to speak, to her childhood, her girlhood, speaking only as a “good girl” should, to please her mother. Lala had yet to entertain her first suspicion that her mother was less than a “good girl” — that her mother was a very “bad girl” indeed.

  Beneath Iris the sturdy ladder groaned. She descended carefully from the attic, lecturing as she came. “You’d better not be getting any ideas about a neighbor, though, or you’re in real trouble. If you get any ideas about anybody you’d better take them out of the neighborhood. People gossip like mad.”

  “Since I never get out of the neighborhood much,” said Lala, tripping up the ladder again to switch off the light, “I don’t get many ideas except ideas I might see passing by the window. And this is a quiet neighborhood. Some big ideas I get in Safeway. There’s a very attractive checker at the cash register, lovely arms. One of the tellers at the Hibernia Bank turns me on.”

  “You’re mad,” said Iris, but not with conviction, for she herself received all kinds of tormenting ideas in strange places where one was supposed to be attending to business: at Safeway as well as anywhere else, at Star Pharmacy, in the doctor’s office, at the gas station, in the beauty parlor. These young men with their hands in your hair! There ought to be places where young men put their hands elsewhere, too.