Stranger in the House

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “You better come over here,” said Rambo, his eyes darting around the sloping emerald hillocks of the course. “I want to talk to you.”

  Edward glared at the man and replied with an icy, imperious formality. “If you have any business being here, sir, you had better make it known to me immediately. If not, please leave these grounds. They are private, and you are interrupting my game.”

  Rambo stared at Edward. He raised one finger and shook it at him. “The word of the Lord is my business,” Rambo chanted at him. “The Lord’s justice is my aim!”

  Edward heaved his shoulders in a sigh and shook his head. “If you know what’s good for you, sir,” said Edward, “you will go peddle your shibboleths elsewhere and get off this golf course this instant.” He turned his back on Rambo and addressed the half-buried golf ball.

  “The Lord has spoke to me. The Lord has given me a sign, not once, but twice, that I must render His justice unto you.”

  “I’m warning you,” said Edward in a menacing voice.

  “Your evil, your wicked ways. Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man—”

  “That’s it,” said Edward, jamming his club in the sand and turning around to shake a finger at Rambo. “I’m having you bodily thrown out of here.”

  Rambo took a step back. “I saw you,” Rambo hissed at him. “That day on the highway. Eleven years ago. I know what you did.”

  Edward stopped short. His face turned ashen under the brim of his golf cap. His knuckles went white as he gripped the shaft of the club for support.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edward whispered.

  “To the boy, your friend’s son,” said Rambo, flinging his arm wildly back behind him, the direction in which Paul had gone. “I was there in the bushes that day taking a leak. I saw it all.”

  Edward stared at the man, his body vibrating like a violin string. Suddenly he realized why the man looked vaguely familiar. Newspaper pictures of the wiry man, always wearing a hat. “Rambo,” he breathed.

  “That’s right,” cried Rambo triumphantly. “Albert Rambo. The voice of the Lord on this earth.”

  An incredible gnawing had started in Edward’s stomach as he tried to absorb the shock of Rambo’s words. It occurred to him, as his mind raced, that Rambo must be mad to have dared come here with Thomas and the boy so close by. He is mad, Edward thought.

  But he knows.

  Edward licked his lips several times and tried to think. But his brain seemed able to register nothing but glaring lights, offering only exposure, not refuge. “You are mistaken, sir,” said Edward indignantly. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “The Lord has a mission for me,” Rambo cried. “I have work to do. I must complete His work. Yesterday the Lord spoke to me through the television…”

  Edward felt as if an avenging angel had swooped down on him, threatening to destroy all he had gained. The day that he had always secretly dreaded had now come to pass. He forced himself to remain calm, reminding himself that this was a madman in front of him. “You heard God’s voice through the television. Come now, Mr. Rambo,” he said, with a condescending chuckle. “I doubt they would entertain that kind of testimony in court.”

  Rambo gazed down at the man in the sand trap. “I will have justice. The sword of righteousness will descend upon you. All the elders of the temple will see and know that the blood is on your hands and I am innocent as the lamb….”

  A shudder raced through Edward as the man raved on. His stomach was churning, but he knew that he needed to regain control of this situation. “Come now, Mr. Rambo. You’re no innocent lamb and neither amI. If justice was all you wanted, you would have gone to the police. Why are you really here?” he said. “Is it possible that there is a certain price tag for your silence?”

  “Filthy lucre?” Rambo thundered. “The truth has a price beyond rubies….”

  “Who else knows about this?” Edward demanded. “Get a hold of yourself and answer me.”

  Edward’s bluntness seemed to jolt Albert back into reality for a moment. “Nobody. Just me. Dorothy Lee knew. She was with me when it happened. But she’s gone now. And the boy knows, I guess you could say.” Albert nodded to himself and rocked back and forth.

  “You told him what happened?”

  “He was there, wasn’t he? Maybe he remembers. I don’t know. Otherwise, nobody.”

  “You were following the boy and you recognized me,” Edward said, half to himself.

  “No,” Rambo scoffed. “I told you. I saw you on the TV. You and your fancy car. On the news.”

  “The TV?” For a moment, Edward was confused. Then, he recalled the interview at the Langes’, his Cadillac visible behind them in the driveway. He stifled a groan, remembering how he had been convinced to appear in the interview. There was a roaring in his head, but he spoke calmly.

  “Mr. Rambo, you seem to have it in your head that I committed some sort of crime, when in fact, you are the man whom the police are looking for. I don’t really understand,” he said, picking up the golf ball and rolling it around in the palm of his hand, “how you figure you can go to the police with your so-called information. Given the fact that you face life in prison for kidnapping if you are caught.”

  “Well,” Rambo dissembled, “I might not tell them directly.”

  Edward stared at his tormentor, and for the first time he began to feel his power, his control, returning. Rambo was a shabby, pathetic little man. A weak, sniveling creature. He reminded himself that he was infinitely superior to this nobody who threatened him. “How are you going to tell them?” Edward inquired. “Call in an anonymous tip?”

  “I’ve got a way,” Rambo insisted defiantly. He kneaded one bony hand with the other.

  Edward trained his steely gaze on Rambo, who was shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. He seemed disoriented and a little frightened, as if he were the one who had been cornered. “I don’t think so,” said Edward in a cold voice. “I don’t think you do.”

  Rambo’s face sagged as his voice rose. “Just give me some money,” he cried, “or I’ll show you.” He fumbled in the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a cigarette and some matches. He thrust the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He drew on the cigarette furiously, as if it were providing oxygen, rather than cutting it off.

  “Let me tell you something, Mr. Rambo,” said Edward in a cutting voice. “I belong to the finest social circles in this town. I have money and power, to be blunt. Who do you think would take your word over mine?”

  A dose of spirit seemed to revive Rambo at Edward’s words. “What will you do on the day of punishment?” he railed. “To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your wealth?”

  Edward drew himself up and thundered over Rambo’s chant, “You are a criminal on the run. A fugitive. A wanted man.”

  Rambo’s shoulders slumped, as if his last outburst had exhausted him.

  Edward felt the battle waning. “When you really think about it,” said Edward slowly, “it’s a preposterous idea.”

  Rambo stared helplessly at his intended quarry. “I need some money,” he whined.

  “I’m sure you do,” Edward snarled. “But you won’t get it from me. I’m not afraid of you. Now get out of here, before I call the police.”

  Rambo gaped at him for a moment as if trying to formulate a reply. “The day of punishment is at…” he mumbled.

  “Now,” Edward commanded. Rambo began to back away. When he reached the bushes, he turned and bolted into the trees. Edward could hear him crashing through the rough, like a rabbit fleeing from a pack of hounds.

  Edward looked down at the golf ball in his hand. Drawing his arm back behind him, he threw the ball up and away, as far as he could toward the fairway. Then he scrambled out of the sand trap.

  He saw Thomas standing up near the green, scanning the course. Plastering a smile on his face, Edward waved to Thomas, indicating that he
was out of the trap and about to make his next shot. He selected a club from his bag.

  As he was about to position himself over the ball, he noticed a little square of white on the edge of the grass bordering the sand trap. He walked over to it, squatted down carefully, and picked it up. Then he examined it. The object he held in his hand was a matchbook with LA-Z PINES MOTEL, KINGSBURGH, NEW YORK printed on it in letters formed by miniature logs. GUS DEBLAKEY, PROP. He stuffed the matchbook deliberately into his pocket.

  Edward licked his lips and then gazed into the bushes where Rambo had disappeared. He saw it all, Edward thought again with a shudder. He saw me. He knows what I did.

  “Do you like the beach, Paul?” Anna asked as Tracy and Paul got out of the car and Tracy started across the narrow road to the boardwalk that protected the dunes.

  “I’ve never been,” he replied, shouldering the aluminum-framed beach chair.

  He looks like a waif, Anna thought. He was standing beside the car, wearing high sneakers without socks, a pair of black cutoffs, and his camouflage vest, despite the heat.

  Anna lifted the plastic picnic basket out of the trunk. “I’ll bet you’ll be coming to the beach a lot from now on. We’ll get you a beach pass and a bathing suit. Right, Tom?”

  Thomas shut the door on the driver’s side and adjusted his sunglasses over his eyes. “What?”

  Anna handed the picnic basket to Thomas as Paul followed Tracy across the road. “You’re awfully quiet,” she said.

  “Just thinking,” he said as they followed the path of the teenagers.

  “You didn’t say much about your game this morning,” she observed. “Did Paul enjoy it?”

  Thomas peered at the boy, who was disappearing over the ramp down to the beach area. “I don’t know. I guess he did.”

  As they came over the dunes, they could see the calm waters of Long Island Sound stretching out across the horizon. Anna walked up beside Paul.

  “Well, what do you think?” she asked him.

  The boy looked out over the pleasant summer landscape and nodded. “It’s pretty cool,” he said.

  Anna felt a surge of happiness at his reaction. She turned to Thomas, who was setting up their chairs on the sand, to see if he had noticed, but Thomas did not look up.

  “Well, spread your towel out,” Anna instructed Paul matter-of-factly.

  Tracy had found a group of friends who were oiled and giggling, sunning themselves at the foot of the life-guard’s chair. She avoided looking back at her family.

  “You’d better put some lotion on,” said Anna, eyeing Paul’s white skin as he removed his vest.

  “I’m going to look around,” he said. Anna could see from the comer of her eye that Tracy’s friends were whispering among themselves. One of them pointed to Paul’s high tops and snickered. This started the whole group of them laughing. Paul did not acknowledge them, but Anna was filled with the sick feeling that he knew what they were up to.

  Anna watched her son. He made a funny face at a child in terry-cloth trunks who was shoveling sand not far from the foot of his towel. The child laughed delightedly and pointed his shovel at Paul. The young mother, who was keeping a close eye on her toddler, smiled at Paul and then glanced over at Anna as Paul passed by.

  “Is that your son?” the woman asked Anna. Anna watched the boy making his way down the beach toward the water. His skin was sickly pale in contrast with the browned bodies on the blankets. She tore her gaze from Paul and smiled at the young mother. “Yes,” she replied.

  “Nice young man,” said the woman.

  “He’s fifteen,” Anna said softly. “How old is your little fellow?”

  The woman rolled her eyes and laughed. “Just two years, and he’s into everything.” As if to prove her point, the little boy waddled down and began to wrestle a pail away from a girl who was playing near a tide pool.

  “Jeremy,” the woman cried, and rushed over to separate them. “Give the little girl back her bucket.”

  The child settled in a heap near his new friend, and the woman returned to her towel. Anna smiled at her.

  “You’re so lucky,” the woman said. “You don’t have to watch him anymore. I can’t wait until Jeremy’s old enough that I don’t have to keep my eye on him every minute.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. They grow up so fast,” said Anna, her eyes traveling back to the water’s edge, seeking Paul. For a moment she could not find him. Her heart began to race. She scanned the shoreline anxiously. Then she spotted him. He was wading near the edge of the water, looking out at the ocean. She sighed and turned toward Thomas, who was sitting in a low beach chair, looking through the newspaper.

  Anna sank onto the blanket next to his chair. She patted him on the knee, and he lowered his paper.

  “Do you want me to put some lotion on your back?” he asked.

  Anna nodded and handed him the bottle. He squirted some lotion into his palm, and he began to massage it in a circular motion on her bare back.

  “Oh, that feels good,” said Anna, leaning her head back, although she kept her half-closed eyes on the shoreline, where Paul was standing ankle-deep in the sea. “I think I’ll sit and read a few pages of my book.”

  “You look tired,” said Tom. “Why don’t you catch a nap for a few minutes?”

  “I don’t know,” said Anna. “I want to keep an eye on him.”

  “What for?” Thomas cried, tossing the bottle of lotion down on the towel. “He’s not a baby, Anna.”

  “I forgot to ask him if he could swim.”

  Thomas studied Paul, wading at the water’s edge. “It’s not like he’s going to be swept out to sea,” he said.

  Anna heard the impatience in his voice and tried to appease him. “I do need to relax,” she said. “You’re right.” She opened her book, but she looked up surreptitiously every few sentences.

  The sun was hot and soothing on her body, and it began to have a soporific effect. After laying the open book on the blanket, she stretched out and gazed across the sand. She had hardly slept all night, and weariness stole over her. The sounds of laughter and radios merged into a pleasant hum as her eyelids started to droop. She began to dream of a small boy in a pool of water and light.

  Suddenly a horrible shrieking pierced her dream, frightening the dream child and then dissolving him, as Anna awakened with a jolt. The shrill squawking continued as she scrambled up from slumber, foggy and disoriented, searching for the source. The wail of a child filled her with dread. She looked around and saw a sea gull, perched on the edge of a wire mesh trash basket, a fragment of food in its beak.

  “I’ll get you another cookie.” Jeremy’s mother soothed him as the child decried the audacious bird’s theft.

  “Shoo,” cried the mother, flapping her hands at the impassive bird, which eyeballed them from its perch.

  With a sigh Anna sank down again to her towel. Then she remembered Paul. Immediately she turned over, and her eyes scanned the beach. For a moment she could not see him. Then she realized why.

  Paul had not moved far from where he was before, but now a man wearing a loose-fitting shirt, dark glasses, and a baseball cap was standing directly behind him. Both Paul and the man in the hat had their backs to her. The man’s hands were clamped on Paul’s narrow shoulders. “Tom!” Anna exclaimed. “Look.”

  “What?” Thomas asked, lowering a corner of his paper.

  “That man,” said Anna, rising to her feet, her heart beginning to hammer.

  “Where are you going?” Thomas asked as Anna started to run down the beach, her gaze fixed on her son and the man behind him.

  She approached the man and the boy and spoke in a voice so loud it made them both jump. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  Paul and the man in the hat turned around and stared at Anna. Paul lowered the binoculars that the man had offered to him and backed away from her. The man, who had been guiding the boy’s sights, frowned.

  “I was showing him…” the man said
.

  Anna tried to grab her boy’s arm, but Paul squirmed away from her.

  “What’s the matter?” the boy cried out. “He’s letting me look.”

  Anna turned on the man. “What do you want with my son?” she demanded.

  “Nothing…” the man protested.

  “He was showing me those fish,” Paul shouted.

  The people nearby on the beach were staring at them now. All activity around them seemed to have stopped, as the bathers watched the scene.

  “Come on, Paul,” Anna insisted, trying to shepherd her son away.

  “Leave me alone,” Paul cried, pulling away from her. “Get away from me.”

  Anna’s hands dropped, and she looked helplessly from the boy to the man.

  The man in the hat drew himself up and took a deep breath. “Look,” he said severely, “your boy asked to look through my binoculars. You’re embarrassing me in front of all these people.”

  Anna felt herself shrink as her fright and anger oozed away. She passed her hand over her eyes. Her shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Little overprotective, aren’t you?” said the man, slinging his binoculars back around his own neck.

  “I’m sorry,” Anna repeated. “I’m not myself. I was afraid…” Her hands hung limply at her sides. She stared down at an airhole in the sand where some clam was burrowing, wishing she herself could disappear into the cool, dense muck.

  “All right,” said the man, pulling down the tails of his shirt. “You should be sorry.”

  Anna turned around, her eyes downcast, as Paul staggered up the beach, his pale cheeks flaming. Thomas stood in her path. He was watching her with grim, disbelieving eyes.

  Anna shook her head, as if she could not begin to explain.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They walked in silence up the beach, past Tracy, who was hiding her face from the curious stares of her friends. “Do you want a ride home, Tracy?” Thomas asked.