With an Extreme Burning

by Bill Pronzini

  “I'm not seeing anybody, for God's sake! How many times do you want me to tell you that?”

  “Then why are you carrying condoms in your purse?”

  The question surprised her as much as it did her daughter. She hadn't intended to ask it, it had just come spitting out. Amy was staring at her openmouthed, color staining her cheeks—embarrassed and angry. She had Chet's dark good looks and smoky eyes, and at moments like this she looked just like him. Acted like him, too: flew off the handle, became aggressively defensive. The time Cecca had caught Chet with the waitress from LeGrande's … his expression of flustered outrage had been the same as Amy's was now.

  “You've been in my purse. How could you do that?”

  “No, I haven't. You left it on the dining room table the other afternoon, right on the edge. I brushed against it accidentally and things spilled out when it fell.”

  “Oh, sure, right. Accidentally.”

  “I'm not lying to you. Now don't you lie to me. Why're you carrying condoms around with you?”

  “What's the next question? Am I still a virgin?”

  “That isn't the point—”

  “Isn't it? Sure it is. But I'm not going to tell you. What I carry in my purse is my business and what I do with my body is my business. Okay? All right? And don't you ever go through my personal stuff again. Don't you ever!”

  “Listen to me—”

  “No,” Amy said, and grabbed up her shopping bags and stormed out of the kitchen.

  Cecca sat at the table. She'd handled things badly; Eileen would probably say she couldn't have handled them any worse. It had taken so long to mend the painful rift that the divorce had caused, and now she'd let that damned phone call rip it open again. Why hadn't she just told Amy the truth instead of letting herself slide into the mother-from-hell role?

  Too late to tell her now? Maybe not. She took another minute to compose herself and then went upstairs to Amy's room. The door was shut; she knocked and tried the knob. It wasn't locked.

  Amy was in her bra and panties. The shopping bags and their contents were all over the room, as if she'd hurled them around in a demonstration of her anger. Glaring, she said, “Now what? You want to search my room, too?”

  “No. I want to apologize.”

  “Oh, you do? Isn't it a little late for that?”

  “I don't mean about your purse. That really was an accident; I wasn't snooping. And you're right, your personal life is your own and you're entitled to your privacy. If you want to tell me about the condoms, fine, but I won't ask you again. Is that fair?”

  “… I guess.” But Amy wasn't mollified. When she felt wronged she had a tendency to nurse her anger. Just like her father in that respect, too.

  Cecca said, “I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm sorry for that, too. But I had a reason.”

  “What reason?”

  “Another one of those calls this afternoon. Only this time he said something that upset me. Something ugly.”

  “What did he say?”

  Cecca told her.

  “God, what a dickhead creep,” Amy said. She plunked herself down on the edge of her bed. “But you should have known it was just crap.”

  “I can't help worrying. I love you, you know that. The thought of anything happening to you …”

  “Nothing's going to happen to me. I mean, he wanted you to worry. That's how those weirdos get off.”

  “I know that.”

  “So don't let him get to you, okay? If he calls again, which he probably will.”

  “If he does and you answer, don't say anything to him.”

  “Why not? I'd like to tell him some things.”

  “We talked about this before. Talking back will only provoke him. Promise me you'll just hang up.”

  Amy scowled. But then she said, “All right. It's no big deal anyway. He'll go away eventually. Chris Ullman's mother had an obscene caller last year and he said all kinds of crazy things to her. And he went away after a few weeks. This one will, too.”

  Will he? Cecca thought as she returned to the kitchen. Yes, probably. Except that he's not a random caller. He knows my name, he knows Amy's name, he knows where we live.

  What if he's more than just a telephone freak?

  What if he's some kind of psycho?

  They went to the new Tom Cruise movie. Kimberley wanted to see it, she was a big Tom Cruise fan, and there wasn't anything else playing that excited Amy much. It was all right. Funny in parts; once Amy even laughed out loud. Lots of sex. But every other word was “fuck” or “shit,” like a lot of movies you went to, and it got to be pretty monotonous and silly. People didn't really talk like that, and if they did, who wanted to listen to them? It just wasn't very intelligent. Kids' stuff. She wasn't a kid anymore, even if Mom insisted on treating her like one sometimes. Like tonight. Big scene in the kitchen with Owen there, and then going ballistic about the rubbers. And all because the creep on the phone had upset her and she'd been worried. There wasn't anything to worry about, for God's sake. Besides, she could take care of herself. The divorce had turned her into an adult a long time ago, more than three years ago. The divorce, and then Davey Penner.

  After the movie Amy wanted to go to Big Red's for something to eat, but Kimberley didn't. Kim thought she was getting fat. She wasn't, she was positively anorexic, but that was the way she was. So they drove around instead. Cruising (Tom Cruising, Kim said, ha-ha), which was technically illegal in Los Alegres, but the cops didn't hassle you as long as you didn't ride in packs. Amy didn't mind. She liked to drive. In fact, she loved it. The Honda handled like a dream. Not much power, but she wasn't into fast driving like some of her friends were. That was kids' stuff, too. Adults, if they had any brains, didn't drive like maniacs and endanger other people's lives.

  They went over to the east side once, to see if anything was going on at Sonny's Pizza Shack (nothing was), but mostly they cruised the full two-mile length of the Main Street. Not much was happening there either. Kimberley thought Brian might be out cruising, too, but he wasn't. Amy knew it wouldn't have mattered much if he had been, even if Kim didn't know it, but there wasn't anything else to do and she didn't mind playing the game. Let Kim go on thinking she and Brian were going to get back together if it made her happy. Everybody knew they weren't. Not with Brian making it with Tara Sims. If you could believe the skinny—and Amy believed it—Tara did things with guys that Kimberley never even dreamed of.

  “That Tom Cruise,” Kim said for about the hundredth time. “Man, what a hunk.”

  Amy didn't think he was much of a hunk at all. But she didn't say anything.

  “I'll bet he's hung like a horse.”

  Who cares? Amy thought. “Probably,” she said.

  “If I ever saw it, I'd probably die. Right on the spot.”

  “Probably.”

  “Wouldn't you? I mean, Tom Cruise's dick!”

  Silly, Amy thought.

  “The only one I've ever seen is Brian's,” Kimberley said. “It was kind of disappointing, you know? Not nearly as big as I thought it would be.”

  “Mmm.”

  “What about Davey's? You never said what it was like.”

  “I don't want to talk about Davey.”

  “Come on, Amy, tell me. Was it big?”

  Amy sighed. “Huge,” she said.

  “Didn't it hurt a lot?”

  The radio was playing a rap song. Ice-T or somebody. Amy reached out and fiddled with the dial and got an oldies station.

  “Why'd you do that?” Kim asked. “I like rap.”

  “I don't.”

  “Well, excuse me.”

  “Oh God, Kim, don't you get pissy.”

  “I'm not pissy. You're the one who's pissy. The way you've been lately, it's been like going around with my mother.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Well? You don't want to talk about anything, you don't want to do anything, you just want to mope around, looking deep.”

  “I
haven't been moping around.”

  “Well, you have been deep. Half buried.”

  “I've got things on my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like things, different things.”

  “Davey?”

  “Davey and I are history.”

  “Then what? Some other guy?”

  “No.”

  “I'll bet it is. Some other guy, right?”

  “No.”

  “What's his name?”

  “Oh, balls, Kim.”

  “Come on, what's his name?”

  “Wouldn't you like to know?” And wouldn't you just crap if I told you?

  “Steve Payton? I saw you talking to him at Safeway the other day.”

  “Steve Payton's a nerd.”

  “Then what were you talking to him about?”

  “Ice cream, if you have to know. Tom and Jerry's versus Häagen-Dazs. Big deal.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Think what you want. I don't care what you think.”

  “So who is he, really?” Kimberley asked.

  “Who?”

  “Your mystery lover.”

  “I don't have a mystery lover.”

  “But you'd like to, right?”

  Maybe, Amy thought. Maybe I would.

  “Well?”

  “Look,” Amy said abruptly, “there's Brian!”

  “Oh, shit, where?”

  “In that Ford that just passed. In the backseat.”

  “Turn around, quick!”

  Amy drove around the block instead of making an illegal U-turn; she wanted the Ford to get far ahead of them so it would take time to catch up to it. Brian wasn't in it; Brian was probably parked somewhere by now, screwing Tara Sims's brains out with his not-nearly-as-big-as-Kim-thought dick. But for a while, at least, she wouldn't have to fend off any more of Kimberley's questions.

  She wasn't about to tell Kim about him, not now and probably not ever.

  Kim would think she was crazy.

  Maybe she was.

  She worried her lower lip, wondering again if she could be wrong about the way he felt about her. No, she was sure she wasn't. The looks he gave her, the smiles, the occasional wink … and the warmth in his voice when he was alone with her … and the time he'd held her hand for a few seconds and it had been like electricity shooting up her arm .. it was body heat, pure and simple. She'd sent out signals, too, in spite of herself at first and then, lately, on purpose. So what if he was old enough to be her father? What difference did that make anyway, people's ages? The important thing was how they felt about each other. He didn't treat her like a kid, either; he treated her like a woman. Thought of her as a woman. That was plain, too, in everything he said and did, in every look and smile.

  Of course, he hadn't tried to hit on her yet. Not yet. And he'd have to be the one because she wasn't that bold, or that sure of herself. What if she made the first move and she was wrong after all and he blew her off cold? He might even tell Mom. God, she'd die of mortification.

  Would he come on to her?

  The idea thrilled and frightened her at the same time. What would she do if he did? Say yes right away? Play hard to get? Lose her nerve and blow him off cold? Did she even want him to make a move? Because if he did, and she melted, it meant going all the way. All the way.

  Her thoughts shifted to the package of rubbers in her purse. She'd got them from the machine in the women's rest room at Big Red's, right after the last time with Davey. The first three times he'd had rubbers, so there was no problem, but not that last time. She hadn't wanted to let him then, but he'd kept playing with her, getting her hotter and hotter, and finally she'd given in. I won't come inside you, he'd promised. Hah. Boys were such liars. So then she'd had to worry about AIDS and getting pregnant and she'd vowed it would never happen again without protection and then they'd had that big fight about Davey doing coke and broke up. Four months ago, and the package of rubbers was still unopened. She wasn't going to do it with just anybody, no matter what Mom might think. It had to be somebody she cared about, somebody who cared about her.

  Him?

  “There's the Ford!” Kimberley shouted. “Pull up alongside, I want to see if Brian's with that bitch Tara.”

  Silly. So silly.

  Kids' stuff.

  FIVE

  Early Sunday morning Dix spent an hour going through what was left of Katy's things.

  He had already boxed up her clothing, cosmetics, items like that; the cartons were in the garage, waiting for him to summon the wherewithal to call Goodwill or one of the homeless shelters. But he hadn't been able to bring himself to pack the remainder of her belongings. For that matter, to even go into her office and studio. The packing had to be done sooner or later—but not today. Today, all he was doing was looking.

  The room was cluttered with canvases, finished and unfinished. All were oils; she'd been studying watercolors with Louise Kanvitz, Los Alegres's resident art expert, but none that she'd done had been worth bringing home to show him, she'd said. And all were the quirky abstracts that several knowledgeable people besides Louise praised as showing genuine talent. It had been Louise's lofty assessment, in fact, that had led Katy to trade full-time high-school counseling for part-time teaching so she could devote more hours to her painting. He'd been supportive. Would have been even without Louise and the showing at Louise's Bright Winds Gallery last December and the three paintings she'd sold for Katy at $350 each. The drop in household income hadn't been a problem, not with a moderate mortgage and few other debts. He'd been proud of her, and willing to do anything within reason to make her happy. Anything within reason to shore up the unstable foundation of their marriage.

  In one corner was her desk, with its littered surfaces and bulging drawers. He started to it first, changed his mind, and went to the closet instead. It wasn't the storage boxes or the painting supplies or the old ledgers that drew him; it was her treasure box. That had been her name for it, the hammered copper box where she kept all the little mementoes that she'd accumulated over the years. She had shown it to him once, a long time ago, but she hadn't let him look inside. He had never tried to look on his own. He'd respected her privacy, just as she had respected his.

  He opened the treasure box first. Photographs, dozens of them: Katy when she was a toddler, a little girl in her father's arms, a teenager in her prom dress, a student at Balboa State, the two of them at a community dance, on Tom Birnam's sailboat in San Francisco Bay, in atrocious Heckel and Jeckel costumes at a Halloween party, in other places and in the company of other friends and relatives. The joke engagement ring he'd presented to her—a pot-metal thing bought at Woolworth's—when she'd accepted his proposal, in lieu of the diamond to come. A sappy and mildly obscene Valentine's Day card he'd given her so many years ago he'd totally forgotten it. A tiny gold nugget she'd found on a pack-trip in the Sierras. A McGovern for President button. The plastic penis, Eileen Harrell's birthday gift one year, that hopped around like a toad when you wound it up and that had sent Katy into hysterics the first time she tried it. Other things, some he recognized and some he didn't, that had been significant to her but that meant little or nothing to him.

  The desk next. Drawers, cubbyholes, accordion files; canceled checks, paid bills—by mutual consent she had done most of the bill-paying—and correspondence. Then the boxes in the closet: old tax records, old Christmas and holiday cards, and little else. He even poked through the cartons of paint supplies and the two sketchpads, one filled, one partially filled, of her charcoal drawings of places, objects, people.

  Memories, little surprises and curiosities—nothing else.

  Nothing incriminating.

  Well, what the hell had he expected to find? A diary full of steamy references to a lover? A packet of compromising letters? Nude photos, for Christ's sake?

  He felt relieved, yet vaguely disappointed and angry at himself for being disappointed. Not finding proof of infidelity should have helped put the dou
bts to rest, but it hadn't; they still lingered, like splinters under the surface of his mind. Maybe at some level he wanted to believe Katy was guilty, that her death had been a kind of divine punishment; at least that would give it some meaning, some justification however frail and hateful. Down deep he was angry at her, too. For dying, for leaving him alone.

  His head ached. And he still felt foggy—fuzzy-skulled, Katy had termed it—from the Nembutal he'd taken the previous night. He always had that next-day reaction to sleeping pills, but it was either take one or spend the whole night lying awake, thinking too much. Maybe a swim would help clear his head. He hadn't done his fifty morning laps yet.

  Outside, on the terrace, he could hear church bells in the distance. Old St. Thomas, down on Park Street, where he'd once been an altar boy. Where Katy's funeral services had been held. She hadn't been particularly religious, but she had gone to services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve, and it had been her wish to have a Catholic funeral and to be buried in consecrated ground. None of that for him, though. Lapsed Catholic. Lost his faith somewhere along the way. He hadn't even felt comfortable at the service, sitting and kneeling in the front pew, fingering Katy's rosary and Bible, listening to the priest talk about God the Father and Christ the first fruits and life everlasting, and thinking only: She's gone, she's gone, I'll never see her again in this life or any other.

  Now, listening to the tolling of the bells, he found himself remembering his childhood, all those Sunday mornings when he'd had to get up at five A.M., in the cold dark, so his father could drive him to St. Thomas's in time for six o'clock Mass. Putting on the black and white cassock and the surplice. Preparing the Eucharist, the bread and wine that were the body and soul of Jesus Christ. The liturgy was still in Latin in those days: the robed priest with his back to the laity, chanting Dominus vobiscum, and then replying along with the congregation, Et cum spiritu tuo. The opening words of the Lord's Prayer in Latin, indelible even after all these years: Pater noster, quies in caelis; sanctificeteur nomen tuum; adveniat regnum tuum; fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra. Fingering his own beads while he pondered the fifteen meditations on the mysteries in the lives of Jesus and Mary; while he recited an Ave Maria in English: “Hail Mary full of grace … blessed art thou amongst women … Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen.” Those words were indelible, too, and yet he hadn't been able to speak them at the funeral service. Kyrie eleison. She's gone, she's gone.…