Twice Dying

by Neil Mcmahon

  Monks’s right hand moved to his coat pocket, touching the Beretta. In a worst-case scenario, it lust might provide the leverage to get them out of there.

  He corrected himself. Worst case was that Caymas would have to dig a hole big enough for two bodies, not one, back in the dank redwood forests.

  “Dennis O’Dwyer heard a rumor that when Robby Vandenard was a kid, they couldn’t keep pets around,” Monks said. “They’d end up dead.”

  “It all fits with what’s been creeping up on me, about Robby. Men like him almost never commit suicide.”

  Monks drove a distance further before the implication hit him. When he turned, she was watching him patiently.

  “Robby had a lot of nasty stuff on Jephson,” she said. “I’m not saying Jephson had him killed, but I bet he didn’t weep at the news.”

  Two miles later the headlights found the number, hand-painted in red on a battered mailbox shaped like a small Quonset hut. A dirt road led into the woods. They followed it two hundred yards before it curved to reveal a sprawling, wood-sided house with lit windows and smoking chimney.

  Several vehicles were parked in no apparent order: pickup trucks, a dark customized van on its way to being trashed, a newish mini-station wagon, a fifties-era ton-and-a-half with wooden slat side racks and a flattened tire that made it list to one side. The shapes of other buildings, sheds and shacks and a looming hulk that might have been a barn, merged into the darkness beyond, with a few lights visible in the distance. The overwhelming sense was of a compound of hostiles.

  The bark of a large dog boomed out, instantly picked up by others. Several low shapes appeared on the run, big black and yellow mutts with bared teeth and bristled spines, lunging through the light cast by the headlamps.

  The front door of the house opened. There was no porch light: only a shadowed shape just visible, waiting inside. They got out, Alison fending off the growling dogs swarming her legs and thrusting noses in her crotch. She walked ahead of Monks to the porch, a hand purse clasped in front of her.

  The woman waiting for them was in her fifties, buxom, well-preserved, wearing a multicolored peasant skirt. This would be the brood mare, Monks thought: Haven Schulte. One hand was on her hip, the other out of sight, as if gripping the barrel of a shotgun. Behind her came the sound of a television, voices and laugh track suggesting a sitcom. Another shape appeared behind her: a man, younger, watching them intently. He turned and spoke to someone unseen in the house. Monks felt a drop of sweat from his right armpit hit his flank. It was very cold.

  “I am sorry to disturb you good people,” Alison said. Her accent had gone unobtrusively Southern. “I’m Sister Helen and this is Brother Roy. We’re from the First Denominational Pentecostal Church of Santa Rosa, and we’ve come to call on—” She opened a slip of paper and squinted at it in the dimness. “Tanager Shoo—Shool—”

  Haven Schulte said wearily, “We’ve told you everything we have to tell you.”

  “Ma’am”?

  “You’re cops, right?”

  “No’m,” Alison said, puzzled. “We leave collection boxes in public places. People fill out forms asking to talk to us. To bring the Lord into their lives.” She held the slip of paper up tentatively.

  Haven Schulte’s gaze remained on her several seconds longer, then moved to Monks. He was having no trouble looking somber.

  Over her shoulder, Haven said, “Get your brother.”

  The man behind her walked outside, brushing past Monks with careful insolence. He was in his late twenties, with lank stringy hair and a presence thick enough for Monks to feel. The dogs fell in with him as he disappeared into shadow toward the compound’s rear.

  “We have some literature we’d like to leave with you,” Alison said, opening her purse. She took out several pamphlets and offered them forward, but Haven folded her arms.

  “You can wait here.” She turned and went back in the direction of her interrupted TV show.

  The night was peaceful and had a pleasant chill, with the soothing scent of pine smoke lacing the air. It brought Monks an abrupt memory of camping in the Sierras with Gail and the kids, all of them still young.

  He kept his gaze centered on nothing, alert for movement at the edges, listening hard.

  Minutes later, he picked out human footsteps among the patter of dog paws before the figures came into sight. The brother who had gone was back followed by a teenaged boy wearing huge baggy shorts and a knee-length T-shirt with a down vest over it, an outfit that made him took at the same time knobby and shapeless. His hair was cut floppy on top and close on the sides. His face was an unformed white oval that expressed bewilderment.

  Tanager. Just about the same age, Monks realized, as his own son.

  “I didn’t fill out any paper,” Tanager said. The brother, on his way back inside, stopped and waited just at the point where the dim light faded to shadow.

  “It might have been someone else, thinking of you,” Alison said quickly. “Somebody you might not even know cares about you. We’re not asking you for anything. We just thought you might want to talk a minute.” She turned to the older brother. “The rest of your family too, if they’d like. The Lord can light up a dark night like this.”

  He gave a throaty barking laugh and climbed the porch stairs, boot heels coming down with emphasis. The dogs followed him to the door, then milled uncertainly.

  “Somebody who might think you’re lonesome,” Alison said to Tanager. She moved closer to him, her face earnest and concerned, a teenaged bo y’s wet dream, if marred somewhat by the presence of Monks and, perhaps, Jesus. “We all have things that hurt us, that we feel like we can’t tell anybody.”

  Monks tried to look compassionate, which under other circumstances would have been easy. He held the doorway at the edge of his sight. There was no one visible now. Whoever the brother had spoken to had never appeared. Might still be in the house. Might have gone out a back door into the night.

  More quietly, Alison said, “That person who cares about you? She put her name on this paper.”

  Tanager’s gaze turned surprised. “Who?”

  Alison shivered. “I’d love a chance to wann up, just for a minute. Do you have a room?”

  Tanager lowered his head with shy pride. “I have my own cabin. With a stove.”

  Alison smiled.

  They followed the boy past the rear of the house, where uncurtained windows gave a view of a large kitchen, empty of humans, with dishes stacked on the drainboard. The dirt path led on past a rail-fenced corral. Snufflings and a musty odor suggested horses or pigs. After that came an aging single-wide trailer, with paint shedding in patches from ridged aluminum siding. The windows gave off the blue-white light of another television. On a couch watching it sat two young men with a girl between them. She looked to be about fourteen years old and about seven months pregnant.

  Ahead another fifty yards, standing alone, the shape of a small cabin with a single lit window was coming visible. The path narrowed to a foot trail through the dense trees. Monks restrained his body’s urge to pant.

  “You live out here by yourself?” Alison said.

  “Nobody else wants it. It’s too far and there’s no plumbing.”

  “You must be very brave. I’d be scared to death.”

  “I fixed it up,” Tanager said with sudden eagerness. He opened the door. The spreading light revealed old rough-sawn board-and-batten siding that had been patched with newer wood. The door and window trim were freshly painted, a hopeful red. A shed roof extended out a few feet from one wall, protecting a stack of firewood and the carefully tarped shape of a motorcycle.

  The inside was a single small room with a bunk, a few shelves of books, a small boom box, and a Nintendo game on the screen of a small TV A large poster of Michael Jordan was tacked above an old school desk, stacked with high school texts and papers. It was a world, a sanctuary, and it cried out his need to escape.

  One corner was lined with galvanized sheet metal,
with a sheepherder’s stove set on a brick hearth. The aged black iron radiated heat and the wood inside crackled comfortingly. Alison stepped toward it. Monks remained by the door, doing his best to stay invisible.

  “That feels wonderful,” she sighed. “I can’t believe you fixed this place up yourself. How long did it take you?”

  Tanager’s gaze shifted awkwardly around the room, not quite meeting hers. His face was round, unformed, just beginning to sprout brindle whiskers.

  “A couple months. My brothers helped with some stuff.”

  “I’ll bet your girlfriends love it.”

  His face reddened with pleased embarrassment. “Not really.”

  “Come on. Have you asked anybody up here?”

  “No,” he said, the word half-swallowed.

  “Well, they would.”

  Monks smiled gravely, senses bristling for the stealthy footstep, the shadow crossing the window.

  “Lord, now I’m starving,” she said. She took a Cadbury chocolate bar from her purse, broke it, and offered half to Tanager. He accepted with mumbled thanks.

  “Are you nervous about asking girls out?”

  He nodded, eyes downcast.

  “Let me tell you something. Girls like boys who’re shy. It means there’s somebody important underneath. They want to get to know you, who you really are. Go for walks. Listen to music. Just talk. You’ll find out.”

  Mouth full of chocolate, Tanager watched her hopefully, not seeming to find it bizarre that a pretty missionary was giving him advice on how to get laid.

  “You said somebody put their name on that paper?”

  She nodded. “Can you guess who?”

  Her tone was subtly different: the teasing still there, but betraying tension. Tanager’s face went wary.

  “All right,” she said. “Here.”

  She held out the slip of paper. He stepped to her hesitantly and took it. His lips moved to silently pronounce the name;

  Alison.

  He looked up swiftly, now alarmed.

  “Don’t be scared, Tanager,” she said. She moved toward him a step. “Tell me who Alison is,”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is she a girl who likes you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why does that name make you nervous? Did somebody give you a message? Something you’re supposed to tell Alison?”

  She took another slow step, as if she were trying to gentle a colt, hand outstretched.

  “You can tell me. Because I’m Alison. I’m not from any church, Tanager. I’m a doctor. I worked with your brother Caymas.”

  He jerked away from her touch, eyes glistening. “You lied.”

  “I didn’t want to scare you,” she said quickly. “I’ll leave if you want, but I think you have something to tell me. Is it about Caymas? Do you know what happened to him?”

  “He’s at the hospital!”

  “No, he’s not. I work there. I’d know.”

  Tanager broke at that, bolting for the door, running into the night as if fleeing from the sheaf of light that spilled out.

  Or from Alison’s words, calling after him:

  “Caymas hurt you too, didn’t he?”

  For half a minute she stood without moving. Monks waited with her, listening, staring into the dark.

  Then she said softly, “Come back, Tanager.” She stepped to the desk and scribbled something on a sheet of notebook paper.

  Monks went first on the path this time. They were almost past the trailer, the figures still unmoving on the couch, when he heard Alison suck in her breath. He spun around. Something had appeared in a darkened window beside them, a pale oval, a face. Monks’s fingers rugged with idiot clumsiness at the pistol.

  Then stopped. The face was ancient, wrinkled, its mouth a toothless black gap which, he realized, was smiling. He glimpsed through the glass a tiny room, lit by a plastic statue of Christ opening His breast to expose a glowing crimson heart. There was a mattress on the floor, along with a tray containing a partial glass of milk and a bowl of what looked like baby food.

  He did his best to smile back, and raised a hand in greeting. They moved along the silent path to the Bronco, where the dogs discovered them all over again, but no human presence came forward.

  Out on the road, she pulled off the scarf, shook out her hair, then lit up a cigarette.

  “I’ve been wanting one of these.” She rolled down her window to exhale. A rush of air blew through the vehicle, touching the sweaty back of his neck. “That too cold?”

  “It feels good.” His gaze flicked restlessly to the mirror, watching for headlights. He recalled that locals sometimes knew these roads well enough to cruise without them.

  “I’ve got a bottle of Finlandia in my room. Join me?” She was gazing straight ahead.

  Monks said, “I could use a drink.”

  They did not speak again until they reached the motel.

  Monks drank icy vodka, watching her undress. She took her time, making sure he saw. She looked unchanged, breasts heavy and rose-nippled, belly with a slight curve, full hips and strong thighs, a body that embraced with effortless power.

  Finished, she sat back against the bedboard, knees drawn up, and reached for her own glass of wine.

  “You just going to sit there?”

  “For a minute,” Monks said. “You would, too.”

  She laughed and stretched luxuriously, like a cat inviting play.

  “I miss your cock.”

  He stood and came to sit in the curve of her body. Her arms went around him, fingers tugging at his shin buttons. Monks leaned over and inhaled her scent from the soft place where her neck met her shoulder. He scraped her nipples lightly with his teeth, then harder, and moved on down, delicate flesh parting under his tongue with a faint acidic taste until she twisted, gasped, and lay still.

  “I missed that, too,” she said. “Come here.”

  Together they pulled off the rest of his clothes. She pushed him onto his back and crouched over him. Monks gazed back into her fierce eyes, amazed at the power this mysterious creature held over him.

  She started to move, and thought left his mind.

  Chapter 9

  Monks shifted carefully in the room’s interior twilight. He lay on his back, his left arm around Alison. She had gone quiet, perhaps sleeping.

  The worries of the day were rising in his mind again, quickly compounding themselves. But her hair was fragrant, her cheek warm against his skin, and his hand just fit in the curve of her waist. He waited, savoring again the last minutes: her astride him, hands on his chest, eyes closed, teeth biting her lower lip, hips moving slowly.

  He rolled his head toward the sliding door onto the balcony, aware of a bit of sensory data out of place, like a subliminal but jarring sound. Light from the parking lot filtered in through the translucent curtain, outlining a squat shadow shaped like a fire hydrant. Perhaps a chair.

  Monks stopped breathing. There were no chairs on the balcony.

  He sat up. The shadow rose suddenly, too, expanding upward like a seal thrusting itself from the water.

  He heaved himself across Alison, groping for his coat in the gloom, remembering in the same instant that he had locked the pistol in the Bronco—Christ. He lunged for the sliding door and threw his weight against it, fingers clawing to make sure it was latched. The shadow moved back.

  He jerked the curtain open several inches, and stared at the frightened face of a teenaged boy, crouched with hands on the balcony railing, about to vault back over and once again flee.

  Monks exhaled shakily. “It’s Tanager.”

  He pulled the door open, wondering how the hell the boy had found them, then remembering her scribbled note. Alison stepped past him, wrapped in the bedspread. She hugged Tanager to her, pulling him inside.

  “How’d you get here, Tanager?”

  “Motorcycle.”

  “Motorcycle? My God, you must be freezing.”

  He had exchanged his sh
orts for long pants and put on a ski jacket, but they were soaked with rain. His face was milk white. She wrapped the bedspread around him and pressed him into a chair, then walked nude, with no trace of self-consciousness, to pick up her dress from the floor. Monks hastily pulled on his own clothes.

  Tanager sat with hands clasped between his knees, thighs hugging his forearms, face turned aside, as if that way he could not really be seen. Alison knelt beside him, smoothing his hair like a mother or a nurse. In the quiet, Monks heard him swallow.

  Alison said, “Why’d you get so scared?”

  “She told me she was taking Caymas back to the hospital. Then you said he wasn’t there.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “The other lady, who was here before you. Naia.”

  Tanager pronounced it to rhyme with eye-uh. Monks had never heard the name, or any cognate for the word. He glanced questioningly at Alison. She shook her head.

  “Don’t you know her?” Tanager said. “She knows you.”

  “Does she have another name?”

  “That’s all she told me.”

  Naia. A new player.

  “Maybe I do know her,” Alison said. “Maybe that’s a nickname. Tell us what happened.”

  Monks listened silently, groping to interpret the boy’s halting words.

  Caymas had come home from Clevinger the previous fall. He quickly stopped taking his required medications, and instead was getting into the other kinds of drugs that pervaded the area. He was irrational, aggressive, dangerous. Far worse, it was clear that Alison had hit a nerve: Tanager had been his brother’s victim in the past, and he was afraid it would start happening again. He spent as much time as he could away from home, especially at a deserted stretch of beach.

  One afternoon he met a woman named Naia walking there. She was hard for the boy to describe: older than Alison, heavy makeup, slender, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. At first, there was no clue that this was anything but accident.

  She asked him his age. He was almost sixteen. What would he get for his birthday, if he could have anything? A motorcycle that an older friend wanted to sell.

  Monks remembered the crotch-rocket shape, carefully tarped beside the cabin: the bike Tanager had ridden here.