by P. N. Elrod
It was something simple to respond to, something undemanding. I got up and walked. In the kitchen he pulled a chair out for me. I sat.
He unlocked the door and went out. His voice and Gordy’s drifted in. I could guess what was being said, but didn’t want to distinguish the words because that would make it real as well. I stared at a bent spoon fallen from the counter. My arm brushed against a tray on the table and tipped over a coffee cup. I righted it again. There was lip rouge on the rim, I recognized the color.
The crash inside was louder than the storm and brought Escott and Gordy right away, but by then it was over. The table and all the junk on it were now in a shattered heap with the wheelchair in the living room. I pushed past them into the rain. Water streamed down my face. It was a good enough surrogate for tears that would not come.
Escott and Gordy trudged into sight, their figures distorted by the water on the windows. They got in, the car shaking a little from their combined weight and movements.
“Jack.”
It was hard to raise my eyes, and when I did, Escott didn’t like what he found there. He didn’t ask me if I was all right; he could see for himself I wasn’t.
“Jack.”
I shook my head and looked out a window that faced away from the house, a window full of darkness and rain. I watched a drop slither down on the inside and disappear into the frame and waited to see if another would follow.
“I’d like to take him home.”
Gordy looked at me uncomfortably. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m gonna stick around until she comes back for her box.” He handed over the key and got out.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t quite shut the door. “He gonna be all right?”
Escott slid over to the driver’s side and put the key in the ignition. “I’ll park it behind my building, you can pick it up later.”
The door slammed, he started the motor, and made a U-turn. I closed my eyes in time to avoid looking at the house.
The sky opened up in earnest as we crawled home. The streetlights did little more than mark where the sidewalks began, and lightning flashed overhead as though God were taking pictures of it all. Between the water hammering the roof and the thunder, conversation was impossible, but neither of us felt like talking. Escott refrained from the usual phrases of sympathy, his silence was infinitely more comforting. He would leave me alone or stick around, whatever was needed. He seemed to understand grief.
He pulled the car around the house, triple-parking behind the Nash and my Buick. He must have picked it up from the warehouse sometime during the day. He cut the motor and considered without enthusiasm the soaking dash to the door.
“I suppose we can’t get any more wet,” he said, but hesitated.
Maybe he was thinking about standing in the downpour and struggling with the stiff lock on the back door; it was that or the necessity of having to leave me alone for a few minutes. He opened his mouth again, but the sound died as his attention focused rigidly on something in the mirror. His head whipped around.
“Oh, good God,” he whispered.
I stared out the back window. A pale shape lurched toward the car. Rain streamed past, blurring the view. The shape stumbled and fell against glass, and the face, anxious and white, looked inside. Our eyes locked with mutual incredulity.
Numbed only for a second, I tore out of the car, afraid she’d disappear, but she came into my arms, solid and real, moving, laughing, crying.
Alive.
Some joys are too much for the heart to hold and can even supersede grief for intensity. The tears that had not come before now burned my eyes and finally spilled out onto Bobbi’s upturned face.
We clung to each other in the car while Escott watched with a mixture of happy indulgence and indecision. He looked ready to leave us alone, but Bobbi saw his intent, hooked an arm around his neck, and held him in place with a hug.
“Good heavens,” he mumbled, embarrassed and pleased, and unsuccessfully tried to suppress his smile.
She finally released him and turned back to me. Her face was swollen and red from crying, and her chopped-off hair was limp and dripping, but honest to God, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Escott offered her a handkerchief and she gratefully accepted and blew her nose.
“I thought they’d killed you,” she told me with a hiccup.
“We had drawn the same conclusion about you,” said Escott.
“What do you mean?”
“We traced down Malcolm’s house. There’s a woman’s body there, wearing your red dress.”
“Jesus, no wonder Jack looked so strange.”
“Who was it? What happened?”
“That was Norma. We had a fight and she lost.”
“Could you be a little less succinct?”
“Easy, Charles, she’s all in,” I said, annoyed.
“No,” she gulped, “it’s okay. The other two left, the man and old woman.”
“She’s still old?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I only heard her voice. I’d heard what they wanted you for, what they wanted you to do.... Did you?”
“Yes.”
She paused, her thoughts on her face.
“I had to, Bobbi.”
Her fingers brushed my temple, and I caught her hand and kissed it.
“I heard you,” she said. “I think it was you. It was after she pulled me from the water, that’s when they said you were dead.”
“They were wrong. Charles found me in time to save my ass. Just tell me what happened to you.”
“It’s hazy; I was drugged a lot of the time. They kept me tied up in that bedroom all day, and once in a while the man would come in and check on me. The woman, Norma, sometimes shoved some cotton wadding over my nose and I’d hold my breath.”
“Chloroform?”
She nodded. “I didn’t think it was perfume, so I faked sleeping, and they left me alone most of the day. I spent the time getting untied. When it got dark I heard them again, the other woman, Gaylen—”
“What was her voice like? Old or young?”
She thought a moment. “Young, I think. I was still pretty woozy, but it was strong, at least. She and the man left, and then it was just me and Norma. When she came in to check on me she had the shotgun, but I hardly saw it because she was prancing around in my new red silk. It was a stupid thing to get mad about after thinking you were dead, but it just set me off. I jumped her, the gun came up, I pushed it away, and it—just—”
I held her tight. “It’s okay, we know.”
“God, I was sick and I had to get out. I pulled on one of her dresses and started walking. I didn’t know where I was and the rain—”
“How did you get here?” asked Escott.
“Some couple in a car saw me, stopped, and offered a lift.” She began to laugh—with relief, not hysteria. “I told ’em I had to walk home from a bad date and they believed it. They took me here, because I had to see Charles about you.”
“Do you know where Gaylen went?”
“No.”
“Probably the Stockyards,” said Escott.
I agreed with him and looked at Bobbi. “Come on, let’s get you inside before you freeze.”
“Could we go to my place?”
“Anywhere you want.”
“And Marza, she looked so awful when they grabbed me. Could you call her? Please, I know she’s worried sick.”
Escott fingered his waistcoat pocket. “My key—”
“Won’t need it.” I grinned and left the car, dashed up the back steps, and sieved through, re-forming again inside the kitchen. I opened the door and waved at them through the screen, showing off. They couldn’t see me very well, what with the darkness and rain—
“Hey . . . Escott.” A man’s voice. Behind me.
Again, no warning.
They must have been expecting him to come in the front way and been waiting there, then heard the back door open and quietly come up from behind. It m
ight have been avoidable with no rain or with the lights on, but then the right man would have been killed. I might have even stepped out of it, but my thoughts were elsewhere, and all the emotional shocks had made me sluggish. There was no time to react before something like a sledgehammer slammed into my back at kidney level. The breath was pushed right out of me. I staggered sideways against a wall and slid down, my back on fire.
Legs gave out and crumbled with no strength, right arm hanging loose and useless, left one twitching—my nervous system was shot all to hell. What was it, what was wrong with my back? My hand flailed around the source of the pain and my fingers brushed against hard metal. It was sticking out of my back at a firm right angle and I didn’t realize what it was at first. When I did, I moaned and felt a sudden sympathy with Escott’s squeamishness.
Two other people were with me, but only one was breathing. I kept my head down and went very still.
“Is he dead?” She was across the kitchen. Any closer and she’d see who I was.
Malcolm’s hand pressed my wrist. He was close enough, but it was dark and he didn’t have her night eyes—not yet. “Yeah, let’s go.”
I had to wait. No matter how badly I wanted them dead, I had to let them get clear and hope Escott and Bobbi stayed out in the car. I might be able to protect them from Malcolm, but not from her.
The front door slammed shut behind them.
Get up, go after them. Push against the wall, get the legs under the body. Stand up, get control, walk.
It was more of a drunken reel. The table got in the way.
Rest a second. It’s not that bad. Now move.
I shoved the table away and went to the front of the house, trying to ignore my back. I made it to the door and twisted the knob. They were down the steps and walking quickly to their car parked down the street. Her coat was too long, but her figure fit it; it might have been one of Norma’s spares. Her hair was full and dark, her walk light and strong. I didn’t have to see her face; it would look like the photo she’d given Escott. Her skin firm and smooth again, an image of a girl in her pretty youth.
Their heads were down because of the rain, so neither of them saw it coming.
A narrow alley ran between Escott’s house and the next; kids were always charging through it in their games. Malcolm, no gentleman, was on the inside of the walk and closest to the opening when a noise like thunder, but much louder and briefer, happened there. Raindrops were caught and frozen for an instant in the flash before smoke and darkness obscured them.
It had been Escott. He’d seen something from the car and had gone around to ambush them. Unfortunately, Malcolm’s body was in the way for the crucial second and took most of the blast.
He was thrown hard against Gaylen. She screamed from surprise or pain or both, and they went down together. She rolled clear, her coat full of small holes. He pitched onto his face, his head and part of one shoulder hanging over the curb in the runoff water.
Gaylen got to her feet, dazed and staring at Malcolm, then looked down the alley. She took a half-step toward it, but lights were coming on in the surrounding houses. Malcolm moved and moaned, pushing himself up and reaching for her. She hesitated; there was blood all over his left side, head to toe, but he was somehow still alive. He sobbed her name. She made her decision and got him standing and helped him unsteadily toward the car. They were too busy to notice as I followed in roughly the same condition. I glanced down the alley in passing, but Escott had sensibly left.
Gaylen started the car and began rolling away. It paused undecided at the end of the street, enabling me to catch up, but not long enough to get inside. I grabbed the spare-tire cover and got my feet up on the bumper’s narrow edge, with most of my weight resting on the slick angle of the trunk. It was not the most comfortable or secure position I’d ever been in, much less in a rainstorm with a knife in my back.
The gears were grinding, I dug in with my hands and held on tight. The metal began to bend under the pressure. I tried to vanish and slip inside the car, but the knife was screwing that up somehow. I tried to find a way to hang on with one hand so that I could pull it out, but things were too precarious. Literally and figuratively, I was stuck with it.
Dirty water flew up in my eyes, blurring the spinning pavement. I squeezed them shut, not daring to spare a hand to wipe them. Headlights flashed briefly, then peeled away. A horn honked. The Ford sped up, skidded on a corner, and straightened with a jerk. My foot came loose from the fender. The damaged muscles in my back protested the sudden movement and again at the effort required to put the foot back again. Wind caught Escott’s borrowed hat and sent it spinning. My hair got soaked and dribbled into my eyes. Bobbi had said I needed to cut it.
Bobbi—
Not now, I couldn’t think of even her now. I had to hold—
A short skid, more headlights. A truck coming from the other direction; its spray blinding, its roar deafening.
A speed change. Brakes.
We slow and stop. Stoplight.
I stick a foot on the road for balance and reach around. Can’t find it—there—close the fingers—pull.
The initial pain returns. I nearly fall, nearly scream. Bite my lip instead. There’s no end to the damned blade.
Pull.
Fingers slipping, gripping, no time to baby it out.
Pull.
It’s a goddamned sword.... There . . . the edge catches on something....
There.
Gears. Car lurching forward. Grab at the wheel cover. Rest.
It didn’t hurt so much now, but the nerves were suffering from the aftershock. I looked at the thing. It wasn’t a sword, just eight inches of good-quality steel and heavy enough not to easily break. A solid chef’s knife that was meant to be slipped between Escott’s ribs so he couldn’t tell anyone what he learned in Kingsburg. After the first hideous shock he wouldn’t have felt much, maybe just a little surprise as the floor came up. Malcolm was an efficient killer, he liked to do it quick and then get away before the fuss started.
We made another turn, and the streets looked familiar. How’d that story go about the man walking backward so that he could see where he’d been? We were approaching the neighborhood where Malcolm’s house was, where she had left her box of earth, where Gordy and his men were waiting.
12
THE car cruised past the correct turn and took the next one a quarter mile down the road. The shotgun blast had made Gaylen cautious. Someone knew about her and her changed nature and knew how to fight her. She was going to be careful not to approach her box openly. We rolled into an area thick with trees and darkness. Branches and leaves stirring constantly in the wind made it all seem alive and aware. We stopped cold in the middle of a deserted mud-washed road, the motor died, and their voices rose up in the relative quiet.
“Don’t leave me here!”
“I’ll be right back. I have to see that it’s clear.”
“God, I’m dying. You can’t go now.”
“You’ll be all right.” Her door opened.
“No! Do it now! You said you would—you promised! Gaylen!”
She got out. I was flat on the ground by the rear passenger tire pretending to be a rock. The door slammed shut on Malcolm’s protests. From under the car I saw her feet slip on the mud, regain balance, and walk away. When I no longer heard her I stood up.
Malcolm was on his side across the length of the seat and hardly noticed when his door opened. He was still alive, and that was all that mattered to me.
His wounds were scattered and colorful and he was bleeding freely in several spots. The little skin showing through the blood was white and clammy with shock. He and Gaylen had been outside the lethal range of the wood pellets, though. His claims of dying were premature, at least for the moment.
“Gaylen, please—”
“She’s gone, all you’ve got left is me.” I wanted him to know, to see it coming.
He didn’t know me at first, I was only an unexpect
ed intrusion, then his eyes rolled fully open and he started to scream. My hand smothered his mouth and part of his nose.
“You said you wanted it. Does it matter where it comes from?”
He couldn’t move. He was that scared and hardly flinched when my hand slid down his face to close around his neck.
“You want to be a dead man like me? I can do that for you, Malcolm.” My fingers tightened.
He struggled for air, imagining my grip to be stronger than it was.
“I’m not as good at killing as you are, though. It won’t be quick, and believe me—it’s gonna hurt.”
Simple words he could understand, and now simple actions. I brought the knife up so he could see. The blade was clean and shining now, the edge was so sharp that it hurt to look at it. He recognized the thing and realized the mistake he’d made in Escott’s kitchen. I let it hover next to his face. He shrank back into the car seat, and when he could go no farther, the first pathetic mewlings of sound began deep in his throat.
“Where do you want it first? Your eyelids?” I pressed the flat of the blade against his temple, the razor edge brushing his eyebrow. “I could cut them away, top and bottom.”
He jerked at the touch of the steel, causing a tiny nick in the skin. I drew back and let him recover. His breath was coming too fast, and I didn’t want him passing out.
“That’d hurt, but there are better nerve centers to play with. I want you to know what I went through in that stairwell. I want you to know what you gave Braxton and Bobbi. You think you’re hurting now—in a minute you’re gonna wish it was this good.”
I threw the knife in the backseat and used my bare hands and, God help me, I was laughing.
I crawled from the car like a drunk and leaned against it, still shaking a little from what I’d done. Maybe I should have been sickened by my actions, but nothing so normal as that touched me now.
The wind was damp and cool as it washed over my face.
I’d stopped in time. He was still alive. Somehow I just managed to shake free of the insanity that had taken me over. Malcolm hadn’t been so lucky. I’d paid him back for all that he’d done and then some. I was free of the nightmare. He would always be its prisoner.
