The Guilty (2008)
Page 20
“You don’t know anything. You know what you do, Henry
Parker? You write about history. Me?” he said with a sharp
laugh. “I am history. I decide what makes tomorrow’s headlines. Without me you’d have nothing to write about Athena
Paradis, her shitty singing, and David Loverne screwing some
whore instead of his wife. Without me Jeffrey Lourdes would
have nothing to write about except no-talent hacks getting
high and crashing their cars. Fact is, guys like you need a guy
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like me to survive in this world. You reap what I sow. Nothing
you can do to change that.”
“So why are you here?” I said, the words spilling out of
my mouth. “You say I can’t live without you, but I didn’t
break into your home and whack you over the head.”
He laughed, one time, sharply.
“See my problem is, ungrateful asshole like you doesn’t
even know I’m doing you a favor. You might not be able to
see it past your six-dollar coffee cup, but Athena Paradis,
Lourdes, those people are ruining this place. You take the
spotlight off of them you find what really matters. You talk
about maggots? They’re the vermin. Guys like you put a spotlight on the vermin, pretend you can’t see how diseased they
are. Then they infect you and everyone else. And what do you
do? Blame people like me. And since you, Parker, are too
chicken-shit to do it yourself, I’m going to do it for you. At
some point there won’t be no Athenas left. No more maggots
to celebrate. And then you’ll thank me.”
“So why are you here, exactly?You have some grudge against
the world?You didn’t get laid until you were eighteen ’cause the
girls didn’t like some freak with a chip on his shoulder?”
He looked at me, as though confused and saddened by my
ignorance. “You’re even dimmer than I thought. Maybe I
would be doing folks a favor ’n’ get rid of you.”
“Then go ahead, get rid of me or get the fuck out of here.”
“Trust me, I have something better in mind.” His mouth
curved into a vicious smile that made my skin crawl. “The
real reason I’m here is because there’s some history best
stayed buried. I’ve seen you going to talk to all those people.
I watched you leave that college professor’s office this
morning. And you know what I was thinking when you left?
When I saw that broad’s face watch you from her dirty
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window? I pictured what her head might look like with a rifle
slug going through it at five hundred feet per second.”
“A magnum slug,” I said. “From your Winchester, you freak.”
“That’s right,” the boy said. He took a step back. “I know
about your woman. Amanda, right? Pretty hair, got that cute
little birthmark under her neck. I know how she saved your
life, Henry. Funny, she keeps your ass out of the ground and
all you do is keep bringing ‘maggots’ like me into her world.
What I’m wondering, Henry, is if her skin is that pretty on
the inside. Rifles aren’t the only things I know how to use
pretty well. You don’t get any smarter, we’re going to find out
what her skin looks like when we turn that girl inside out.”
“Amanda,” I breathed. “You go anywhere near her…”
“I could walk up to her on the street right now and stick a
knife into her heart and you’d still be stuck here wriggling like
a stupid fucking fish on a hook. If I go anywhere near her you
can’t do goddamn anything. ”
The boy’s face seemed to unwind, the tautness leaving it.
In other light it might have even looked kind.
“Amanda,” he repeated. “Amanda Davies. Daughter of
Harriet and Lawrence Stein of St. Louis. I got her name from
someone at your office, that newspaper you work for that’s
going down the drain. People there are awful free with information. I know where she works, I know what train she takes
to get to her office in the morning so she can save all the little
children whose mommies and daddies didn’t love them
enough. Kind of like you and Amanda, right?
“That’s right, smart guy. So listen, Henry, you and me,
we’re on the same page, right? You can do all the storytelling
you want, hell there must be a million stories out there in this
big bad city. I’m asking nicely, stay away from this one. And
as a token of my friendship, I’ll make it a little easier on you.”
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The boy stepped around to where I was sitting. I saw something shiny, the glint of metal. He held a knife in his hands.
I tried to crane my neck but I couldn’t see him as he leaned
down and reached toward where my hands were bound.
I started bucking like crazy, but between my head and the
bonds my strength was gone. I felt a hand clamp down on my
right wrist, holding it to the floor. I jerked my shoulder and
tried to free it, gritted my teeth and attempted to pull away.
Suddenly I felt a searing pain on my right hand and a shout
escaped my lips as the blade sliced through my skin. I cried
out again as the blade kept cutting, tearing through me for
what seemed like hours. I felt hot blood dripping through my
fingers, I bit my lips to keep from screaming.
Finally the blade stopped. The boy stood back up over me.
His hands and the blade were covered in my blood. I thought
my heart was going to burst through my chest, the room
fading away as blood leaked from my veins.
“Now I’m going to just use your bathroom, clean all this
mess up and then I’ll be on my way.” He stepped away and I
heard running water. The pain was unbearable, blood leaving
my body with every heartbeat.
Then he came back. Squatted down. Pressed the tip of the
knife against my chest, hard enough so I could feel the point
digging in between two of my ribs. One small shove and he
would pierce my heart.
“You have a lot to lose, Henry. Think about where you’re
going. Take one bad step,” he said, before walking out the
door, “and you’ll know what bad means.”
33
I sat still as the nurse sewed my hand back together. After
sinking the blade into my flesh, the man had traced every
finger, carving a gruesome glove on my palm. He hadn’t severed any tendons, and he’d missed or purposefully ignored
the major blood vessels in my wrist. He wanted me hurt. Not
dead.
Curt Sheffield sat on a stool next to me, watching as the
black threads closed the wounds. He winced every time the
needle pierced my skin, which was slightly disconcerting
since between the novocaine numbing my hand and the extrastrength aspirin for my head, I wouldn’t have felt it if someone
hit me with a two-by-four.
“Glad to know the boys in blue get squeamish at the sight
of blood,” I said to Curt.
“Blood? Uh-uh. I’m just wincing in sympathy ’cause
you’re gonna have one ugly-ass hand once those stitches
come out.” Curt looked
at me, shaking his head as if he
couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Least I still have my looks.”
“Yeah, right. I’d say you look like hell, but I don’t want to
hurt hell’s feelings.”
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“Mmph,” I replied, as another nurse placed an ice pack on
my head and secured it with an Ace bandage.
“You’re lucky Amanda came home when she did,” Sheffield added. “Docs said if you lost any more blood they might
have had to amputate the hand.”
“They didn’t really say that,” I said. “Did they?”
“Nah, just jerking your chain.”
“Please, just go away. I bet there are some strangers in the
waiting room who’d find you just hilarious.”
But Curt was right. Amanda had come home to try and
make things right, only to find me passed out on the floor, my
hand flayed open, blood everywhere. I couldn’t bear to think
what it must have felt like for her to see me like that. Because
I knew how I would feel if the tables were turned.
“Where is Amanda?” I asked. “Curt, is she here? Excuse
me, Nurse? Are you sure you can’t give me any more novocaine? I think it’s wearing off.” The look the nurse gave me
confirmed that if she gave me any more novocaine I wouldn’t
feel anything for a long time. She kept on sewing.
“Amanda’s waiting outside,” Curt said. “Girl’s all broken
up, crying like she sprung a leak. Docs asked her to wait
outside while they finished upholstering you.”
“Christ,” I muttered. There was a dull throbbing in my
head, and my hand was stiff as a plank of wood. I watched as
the stitches were sewn in, knowing they would undoubtedly
leave one hell of an ugly scar.
“In the meantime,” Curt said, “we have a security escort
looking after Agnes Trimble. Our guy would have to be crazy
or stupid to go after her now.”
“He’s definitely crazy,” I said, “but not stupid. And he’s
not going to touch her. That was just a threat. He’s killing
people for a reason, and that doesn’t involve spite.”
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“Nothing more dangerous in this world than a fool with a
cause.”
Prior to being loaded with painkiller, I’d managed to give a
sketch artist the best description I could of my assailant. Of
course, due to my being knocked silly and his bandanna, it
could have been any tan young white guy in New York City.
The nurse began laying strips of adhesive tape over the
sutures. I watched with detached curiosity, like it was somebody else’s hand being sewn up. From the corner of my eye I
saw Curt playing with a spool of stitching. He was threading
it between his hands and wrapping it around his fingers.
“Those are absorbable stitches,” the nurse said to Sheffield.
“What’s that mean?”
“They’re made from specially prepared beef and sheep
intestine.”
Curt smiled and gently placed the spool back on the table.
Once the nurse finished taping me up, she said, “Keep it
dry and clean for twenty-four hours. You can bathe again in
forty-eight hours, unless the wounds begin to bleed or you
notice a discharge leaking through the adhesive. The tape
should fall off on its own in about five days. You need to come
back in ten days to have the sutures removed, unless you break
a stitch during that time. But try not to. You also have a grade
one concussion. You’ll have a bad headache for a few days,
but nothing that some extra-strength Tylenol shouldn’t help.
If you still feel dizzy or disoriented after a week, or you find
you can’t remember certain things, come back immediately.”
Sheffield looked concerned. “Gonna be awful hard to type
with all that junk in your hand. Not to mention your brain
floating around in your head.” The nurse shot him a look.
“I think that was the idea,” I said. “Make my job a little
harder.”
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“I heard they’ve made some really good advances in voice
recognition software,” Curt added. “Or maybe you can hire
a helper monkey or something.”
“I think I’ll manage.” The nurse gave me a gentle pat on the
arm to let me know she was finished. I stood up tentatively.
My equilibrium was still off, and I had to lean on Curt for
support. “You think this kind of thing ever happened to
Woodward?”
“Not unless Bernstein got frisky with a tire iron. Besides,
shadowy parking lots are much safer than the gutters you go
digging in. But, hey, Amanda’s waiting for you outside,” he
said. “I swear, that girl gains Hulk-like strength when she
needs it. They practically had to handcuff her to the bench to
keep her in the waiting room.”
“I don’t know if I can see her,” I said. “Not like this.”
“Shut the hell up,” Curt snapped. “You still have your hand
’cause of that girl. That shit happened to me I’d be writing
parking tickets with a hook. Get your ass out there. Give her
a hug. Let her know her big stupid boyfriend appreciates the
fact that in a few weeks he’ll be able to cop a feel with both
hands.”
“I got it, now give me a hand.”
I wrapped an arm around Curt’s shoulder as he led me
through the bright white corridors, navigating me around corners and blue-robed doctors until we reached the waiting room.
“I can stand,” I said. Curt moved away, then opened the
door.
Amanda was sitting in the waiting room, tucked into a
beige chair, her feet tapping relentlessly. As soon as she saw
me she leapt up, ran over and threw her arms around me. I
winced as the blood flowed to my head, but I wrapped my
good arm around her and squeezed as hard as I could.
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“I’m tired of you being unconscious,” she whispered into my
ear. I could hear the pain and relief in her voice. I wanted to find
the man who’d done this, who made Amanda feel this way.
“I’m okay,” I said. “A little banged up. And I might need
you to open my soda cans for a few weeks.”
“Not a problem,” she said. Amanda unwrapped herself
and stepped back, wiping her face with her sleeve. Her eyes
were red, a clump of tissues falling from her hand. “Let’s go
home.”
I said goodbye to Curt and thanked him for his help. He
told me he’d give me a call in a few hours to make sure my
brain hadn’t started leaking out of my ears. Nothing like a
good friend to help cheer you up when you’re in pain.
We hailed a cab outside the emergency room of New
York/Columbia Presbyterian hospital. Amanda helped me
inside, as I made sure not to grip anything with my maimed
appendage. When we pulled up to our apartment, Amanda
again held the door and pulled me out of the cab. She paid
and all but carried me upstairs.
I fell into the couch as Amanda took off her coat and hung
it up. I took deep, slow breaths, closed my eyes, smelled something sweet. There was a mess of dried blood congealed by
the radiator along with the twine Amanda had cut from my
wrists. She saw what I was looking at and said, “I didn’t have
time to clean up. I called an ambulance as soon as I found you.”
She was standing over me, her face a mess of confusion,
fear and relief. “That’s the second time you saved me,” I said.
“Or is it the third?”
“I don’t care,” Amanda said, leaning down. Her hands
rested on my thighs, sending waves of electricity up my body.
“I’m sorry for leaving the other night. But when I saw you
and Mya outside, I—”
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“Stop,” I said. “You don’t have to explain anything.” I
wanted to stroke her hair with both hands, to hold her face
with unscarred palms. “About Mya, it was nothing, it…”
“Stop. I don’t want to talk about her. Not now, not ever.”
I nodded. She was still wearing her work clothes—a smart
black skirt, a white blouse under a fitted black vest. I remembered the first time I met her—Amanda sitting in her car,
wearing a simple tank top fit to her toned body, the floor of
her Toyota strewn with empty fast-food wrappers. There
weren’t many girls like her, who could look stunning both in
elegant work clothes and pajamas. Who looked beautiful
when they tried, and even more so when they didn’t.
I mustered up some strength, leaned forward and gently
kissed her on the lips. She was slightly surprised, but after a
moment she pressed back hard. I could taste her strawberry
lip gloss, felt her hand as it came up to cradle my face. The
throbbing in my head and my hand quieted to a dull ache as
Amanda straddled my legs, supported her body against my
chest and kissed me harder and more passionately than she
had in a long time.
Adrenaline began to kick in, and keeping my injured hand to
the side I began to slide my good hand along her body. Up her
side, across her chest, between her breasts. I felt her heart beating
faster, her breath quickening. She ground against me, started to
kiss my neck. I brought my right hand up, careful not to flex it
too much, but Amanda took it and held it against the sofa.
“This stays here,” she said between ragged breaths. She
raised her arms and eased off her vest. I eased off her blouse