All the Dead Lie Down

by Mary Willis Walker

  “I hate to say this,” Jo Beth said. “Go ahead.”

  “I used to think having a gun gave you bad karma, that just having it would attract trouble.”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean,” Molly said.

  “You know how often I work late.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Every time I walk into that parking garage I’m scared shitless. And I stay scared until I’m out of there with my car doors locked.”

  Molly nodded, keeping her eyes on the road.

  “I hate feeling that way. So powerless.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If I had a gun and knew how to shoot it, I wouldn’t be so scared. I think I’ll buy one when we get our licenses,” Jo Beth said. “I’ll practice regularly so I won’t be a menace.”

  “You won’t be a menace.”

  “No, but you might.”

  Molly looked over and was glad to see Jo Beth was smiling. “Oh, I’ll get better. Just watch.”

  “I thought I agreed to this to humor you,” Jo Beth said, “but maybe I was glad to have an excuse to check it out. And I enjoyed it.”

  “Me too. Controlling all that power.”

  “But you’re still opposed to it,” Jo Beth said.

  “Reacting to crime by letting people carry guns seems to me like reacting to the sewers backing up by letting people piss in the streets.”

  “You’re softening though, aren’t you?”

  “I guess. When we get down to specifics like Gracie and Helen and you, I sure can see the benefits of self-protection.”

  “And you, Mom.”

  “Yeah. And me.”

  “So basically you’re a WIC. You believe in doing exactly what they’ve been doing—carrying illegally.”

  Molly didn’t answer right away. There was no way to defend her inconsistency. “I’m not sure,” she replied.

  “Wow! I love it—something you’re not sure about.”

  Molly glanced over at her daughter. “Am I really so opinionated?”

  “Yes.”

  They rode in silence while Molly considered feeling hurt, but she decided not to be.

  Molly hadn’t yet told Jo Beth about her conversation with Franny Lawrence, but she needed to now. “Jo Beth, this morning I went out to Lakeway to talk with Franny Lawrence Quinlan, who was engaged to my daddy at the time he died.” She glanced sideways at Jo Beth. “She thinks he committed suicide.”

  “Oh, Mom.”

  Molly told her Franny’s version of Vernon Cates’s last week on earth.

  When she was done, Jo Beth said, “Mom, would it be so awful if he really did kill himself?”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Okay. But just suppose for a minute that she’s right. It wouldn’t change how you feel about him, would it? I mean, don’t you think everyone has moments when they might do it if the conditions were right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did Rose and Parnell say they thought he did?”

  “Rose didn’t say much of anything. Parnell said everybody thought it, but he never actually said that he thought it.”

  Molly could feel Jo Beth studying her profile. Finally Jo Beth said, “Mom, are you going to take this any further?”

  “No. I wouldn’t know where to take it.”

  “Good. It would drive Dad crazy. Last time it drove him away.”

  Molly was startled by this. She had never told her daughter what had gone wrong with the marriage. “What makes you think that?”

  “I’m not stupid, Mom.”

  “You certainly aren’t, but you were too young to remember all that.”

  “I remember a lot of it.”

  “Jo Beth, you were only two. You remember what your father told you happened.”

  “No. He never talks about it. I remember that you were gone all the time. I remember living with Aunt Harriet. I remember it as a bad time.”

  Molly drove in silence. It had been the worst time of her life. In trying to be a good daughter, she had been a bad mother and a bad wife. In the end she’d failed at all three. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Jo Beth smiled at her. “I forgive you. Just don’t let it happen again.”

  “PUSSY-CAT, PUSSY-CAT.

  WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

  “I’VE BEEN TO LONDON

  TO LOOK AT THE QUEEN.”

  “PUSSY-CAT, PUSSY-CAT.

  WHAT DID YOU THERE?”

  “I FRIGHTENED A LITTLE MOUSE

  UNDER THE CHAIR.”

  —MOTHER GOOSE

  Sarah Jane Hurley is in her magic carpet place, that dreamy alcohol-induced drift somewhere between waking and sleeping, between heaven and earth, flesh and spirit. She’s lying on a soft oriental carpet gliding through the air, her body light-limbed and cool, in tune with the carpet as it undulates along the contours of the earth below. When she feels herself beginning to come down, she tries to stop the descent. Sometimes she can prolong the sensation by lying still and keeping her eyes closed.

  But voices and the clump of feet overhead bring her crashing to earth. She wakes up cold and trembling. Her earth-bound body aches in the worst way. The harsh light shining through the cracks stabs her eyes. The footsteps above pound to a stop right over her head.

  Damn. People up there on her deck. Talking. Loud and pushy, thinking they own the world.

  “Here, let me just wipe that chair off for you, sir. And this one. You’re expecting the other gentleman again?”

  “Mr. Vogel. Yeah.”

  “There you are. I’ll let him know you’re out here, sir.”

  “Keep it private, pardner. Here.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir.”

  Sarah Jane can tell by the suck-up tone that an exchange of money has just taken place.

  One set of footsteps walks away, the door into the Creek-side Grill shuts, and the night is quiet again. She closes her eyes. Maybe she can still get back there, to the magic carpet. She has some float time left from Tin Can’s pint of scotch. Hard liquor is a rare treat, so she doesn’t want to waste a single second of it. There was an old woman tossed up in a basket, seventeen times as high as the moon. She starts to feel drifty. It might work. But a noise stops her—a tapping, an infuriating, nervous tapping. It drags her back to earth. She looks up and sees the light flicker. A toe is drumming on the deck. It’s him again—that asshole Toe-tapper. She’d nearly forgotten him.

  God, that fidgety noise makes her nerves twang. Her bites are stinging, infected maybe from the picking and scratching she can’t seem to stop herself from doing. And she’s all shivery, even though the air is hot and muggy. She feels like one enormous exposed nerve. She wraps her arms around herself and is alarmed to find she’s not wearing her coat. Where is it? She looks around for it in the light leaking through the slats. It’s not here. It’s gone. Her cow coat with the black and white spots and the shiny black buttons. She’s worn it for the whole year she’s been in Austin. Got it out of a Dumpster behind a fancy women’s store, brand new, with the price tag—two hundred ninety-five bucks—still on it. She likes that coat, depends on it. It’s so soft and long and roomy—a cloth coat, just the right light weight for summer. She likes the way it wrapped around her and made her feel better, the way it hid her body. It was comforting, a protective second skin. That’s what it was—comforting—and there isn’t much left in the world that is comforting anymore. Just the magic carpet, her rhymes, and her coat. And now the coat’s gone and her nerves are exposed.

  Then she remembers: Tin Can’s got it. That fucking Lufkin made her give it to Tin Can—some stupid experiment, and then Tin Can gave her the pint of scotch whiskey so she could keep it. And Sarah Jane agreed. Now she has no coat and the pint is gone and so is the drift.

  Overhead, the deck shakes with heavy footsteps.

  “Here he is. Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?”

  Two male voices order drinks—a bourbon and branch and a Heineken. The voice ordering the Heineken is the d
eep, accented voice from before, old Billy Goat Gruff, the one that likes nekkid art.

  Just the sound of drinks being ordered makes her body tense with craving. She’d like a beer too. Oh, would she ever! She licks her dry lips. Her throat contracts with desire. Her hand twitches to close around a cold beer bottle, her lips part to suck at it, her tongue waits to feel the liquid flow over it, cold and hot at the same time. Every part of her body desires it, right down to her blood and bones.

  The waiter leaves, and it’s quiet on the deck.

  “Did you—”

  “Wait!” It’s the deep voice. A heavy thumping moves around the deck. He must weigh a ton and he’s got to be wearing boots to make a ruckus like that. She follows with her eyes the flicker of his feet as he walks the perimeter. He stops and starts, seems to be looking over the rail, checking for something. Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. She holds her breath. Surely she’s safe. There’s no way he can see her under here.

  She hears the distinctive flick of a lighter.

  Finally the big man clumps back to the table. A chair scrapes the wood. “Just making sure,” he says, his deep voice a raspy whisper.

  “We’re alone, pardner. Relax.”

  “In my business, pardner, you don’t relax—ever. Keep your voice down.”

  “You do your homework?” Even though Toe-tapper is talking real low, Sarah Jane can still hear every word—unfortunately. She’s right underneath them so she can’t avoid hearing. She can even smell the smoke from the cigarette Billy Goat Gruff has lit.

  “Took the tour, like you said,” says Billy Goat.

  “Good man.”

  “Security’s fucking pathetic. After Oklahoma City you’d think they’d beef it up, but no. You could bring a howitzer in there. We’ll set it up in the gallery, looks just like camera equipment. We’ll fire the projectiles with timers. I got them all ready. You got my press badge?”

  “Right here. And the date’s set, pardner. Monday.”

  “Monday. Good. I’m ready.”

  Toe-tapper lowers his voice. “Something I been wondering: how much does it take?”

  “What?”

  “How much soman to kill a man?”

  “A particle of mist will do it.”

  “How much for the Senate chamber?”

  “You could fit it in a beer bottle.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. It’s a higher form of killing.”

  “How, exactly, does it kill?”

  It’s a question she’d expect of Toe-tapper. To know him is to hate him.

  The restaurant door opens and footsteps thud across the deck. “Here you go, gentlemen. A Heineken, a bourbon and branch, a bowl of pretzels. Anything else?”

  After his footsteps recede, there is silence for a while. Sarah Jane hears the tinkle of ice, a sound that always gives her a little anticipatory shiver. She thinks she can smell the bourbon fumes. She breathes deeply to capture what she can.

  Toe-tapper says, “How does it work? I’d like to know.”

  “Well,” the gruff voice says, “inhaled or absorbed through skin—it’s deadly either way.”

  “But how do people die?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do want to know.”

  “Asphyxiation.”

  “But what does that look like? Since I don’t plan on being there.” He chuckles.

  “Convulsions. They clench up tight, fall down, get paralyzed. Then they die. From asphyxiation. Can’t breathe.”

  “Goddamn!”

  “Yah.”

  Sarah Jane rolls her eyes. Men are such bullshitters. Who would believe this crap?

  “Yah,” Billy Goat says again. “You know, even Adolf Hitler wouldn’t use this stuff. He had stockpiles of it he could of used in the war, but he was morally offended by it.”

  “Hitler was morally offended?”

  “Yah. He got a taste of mustard gas in the first war, in 1918, when he was a corporal in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry. Blinded him for a few hours.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. My hobby’s military history.”

  “Yeah, I can see.”

  “Another thing—there’s no treatment. The posse aware of that?”

  “Sure. So what?”

  “When I was taking that tour, there was kids down on the floor—pages, I think—and up in the gallery there was school groups and tourists all over the place. Makes no difference to me, but those people are gonna get hit too. I just want to make sure you know that.”

  Ice tinkles in a glass. And some moving shadows right above, a scraping sound. Sarah Jane blinks. Some sparks are drifting down toward her face. Reflexively, she closes her eyes and turns her head. Then something pings her on the cheek, stings, and bounces off. Jesus. His cigarette butt. Still lighted. He’s pushed it through the slats. Panic flutters in her chest. Maybe he knows she’s here. No, he couldn’t. This discussion is making her jumpy.

  “So it’ll take everyone out?” Toe-tapper says.

  “Yah. People down on the floor will get it first. But it rises quick.”

  “Will people in the gallery be able to get out if they see it?”

  “Maybe. But once you get the smallest whiff of it, well, you never recover.”

  “You ain’t worth shooting, huh?” He laughs.

  There is a pause. Sarah Jane feels her breathing coming hard. She doesn’t believe any of this bullshit but, still, she wishes she were anyplace else.

  Toe-tapper speaks. “Don’t worry about it, pardner. Remember, you’re the exterminator man. Your job is to kill cockroaches—big ones, little ones—what does it matter? Did they worry about that at Waco? You know what I’m saying, pardner?”

  Sarah Jane is trembling. She closes her eyes and rolls the eyeballs back, trying to drift, so she doesn’t have to hear it. This is just men big-dogging it like they do, from their balls, not their heads. None of it is true. Anyway, it doesn’t have anything to do with her. She’s just going to drift off and ignore it all. To bed, to bed, says Sleepyhead.

  “How about my expenses?” rumbles Billy Goat.

  “I can take care of that little matter right now, pardner,” says Toe-tapper. A chair scrapes and something rustles. “Compliments of the posse.”

  There is a long silence. “Looks okay,” says Billy Goat. “The rest right after delivery?”

  “As agreed, pardner. You do right well for yourself.”

  Billy Goat grunts. “Big expenses. Special Hastelloy vats from Germany, raw materials cost a fortune. And the risk. In this business, one mistake and pfuut.”

  “So we hear, pardner. So we hear. But the posse appreciates this. It’s gonna be big, pardner. Like Oklahoma City, but better.”

  Sarah Jane stiffens. Someone is crawling under the deck toward her. Making a swishing noise. Christ, what is this—Grand Central Station? If those two up top hear, she’s dog meat. She lifts her head to see. In the light spilling through the cracks, she recognizes Tin Can. She’s got that mangy cat Silky in one arm, and she’s wearing Sarah Jane’s cow coat.

  In the dark Sarah Jane gestures to Tin Can to stop.

  Above, a harsh voice whispers, “You hear something, man?”

  “Where?”

  “Down there. Listen.”

  Tin Can keeps coming, swishing through the dirt. God, she’s dumb as a rock.

  As soon as Tin Can gets into range, Sarah Jane reaches out and grabs her hair to stop her. Tin Can lets out a whine. Silky leaps out of her arm and darts off.

  Sarah Jane sees Tin Can’s mouth open to call out. She clamps a hand over the open mouth. Tin Can looks at her with wide, terrified eyes.

  Above them, there’s a loud thud, like a chair falling over. “Jesus H. Christ. There! Hear that?”

  “Yah! Under the deck.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah Jane sees a dark blur of motion. It’s Silky dashing out and leaping up to the deck.

  “Oh, sh
it! A cat. It’s a goddamn cat, a fucking cat.” Toe-tapper gives out his braying laugh. “Just a cat. Christ, that gave me a scare. Here, kitty. Come here. Kitty want a nice pretzel?”

  Tin Can’s big eyes roll upward, showing the whites in panic. She dotes on that dumb beast. Sarah Jane shakes her head in warning.

  “Come here.” It’s Toe-tapper calling in a falsetto. “Nice kitty-witty. Come to Daddy, so I can break your neck for scaring us like that.”

  Tin Can jerks back from Sarah Jane’s hand. “No, don’t,” she squeals in her high-pitched voice. “Silky! Come to Mama.”

  Up on the deck, there’s a screeching of chairs and a rapid thudding of feet.

  Sarah Jane is frozen to her spot. Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

  The men above are on the move, thundering around the deck. “What the hell? Oh, m’God, someone’s under the deck!”

  Tin Can slithers backward on her stomach, faster than Sarah Jane has ever seen her move. She shrieks, “Silky!” and crawls out from under the deck into the bushes that are in the darkness, just outside the circle of light radiating out from the deck.

  “Silky!” Tin Can wails again. Amazingly, the cat comes to her call. Sarah Jane hears him gallop across the deck. He leaps from the deck and races into the bushes. Tin Can scoops him up and, with the cat clutched to her breast, runs toward the bank that leads down to the creek. She can move surprisingly fast for such a retard. The black and white coat flaps behind her.

  Sarah Jane wants to run too, but the two men are standing at the edge of the deck. She’d have to run right past them. They’d see her. She flattens herself into the earth and tries to stop breathing. Her heart is pounding so loud that she has to hug her arms to her chest to mute the racket.

  On the deck Toe-tapper says, “Christ, the bitch was right under the deck.”

  “She heard us,” Billy Goat growls.

  “She saw us,” Toe-tapper says. “All lighted up here like a goddamn stage. Shit, shit, shit!”

  The restaurant door squeaks open and the toady voice calls, “Is there a problem out here, sir?”

  “Goddamn right there is,” Toe-tapper says. “We were attacked by a wild cat and some crazy woman just came bursting out from under the deck.”