Headaches and Bad Dreams (A Story From the Dark Side)

by Lawrence Block

  “A basement!” Her eyes were closed, her heart pounding. “A house, but they haven’t finished building it yet. The outer walls are up but that’s all.”

  “A building site.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the body’s in the basement.”

  “Under a pile of rags,” she said.

  “Under a pile of rags. Any sense of where, Ms. Belgrave? There are a lot of houses under construction. It would help if we knew what part of town to search.”

  She tried to get her bearings, then realized she didn’t need them. Her hand, of its own accord, found the direction and pointed.

  “North and west,” he said. “Let’s see, where’s there a house under construction, ideally one they stopped work on? Seems to me there’s one just off Radbourne Road about a quarter of a mile past Six Mile Road. You think that might be the house, Ms. Belgrave?”

  She opened her eyes. He was reaching across to take the teddy bear from her. She had to will her fingers to open to release it.

  “We’ve got some witnesses,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “A teenager mowing a lawn who saw Eric Ackerman getting into a blue Taurus just like the one you’ve got parked across the street. He even noticed the license plate, but then it’s the kind you notice, isn’t it? 2ND SITE. Second sight, eh? Perfect for your line of work.”

  God, her head was throbbing.

  “A woman in a passing car saw you carrying the boy to the house. She didn’t spot the vanity plate, but she furnished a good description of the car, and of you, Ms. Belgrave. She thought it was odd, you see. The way you were carrying him, as if he was unconscious, or even dead. Was he dead by then?”

  “Yes.”

  “You killed him first thing? Smothered him?”

  “With a pillow,” she said. “I wanted to do it right away, before he became afraid. And I didn’t want him to suffer.”

  “Real considerate.”

  “He struggled,” she said, “and then he was still. But I didn’t realize just how much he suffered. It was over so quickly, you see, that I told myself he didn’t really suffer a great deal at all.”

  “And?”

  “And I was wrong,” she said. “I found that out in the dreams. And just now, holding the bear...”

  He was saying something but she couldn’t hear it. She was trembling, and the headache was too much to be borne, and she couldn’t follow his words. He brought her a glass of water and she drank it, and that helped a little.

  “There were other witnesses, too,” he said, “once we found the body, and knew about the car and the license plate. People who saw your car going to and from the construction site. The chief wanted to have you picked up right away, but I talked him into waiting. I figured you’d come in and tell us all about it yourself.”

  “And here I am,” she heard herself say.

  “And here you are. You want to tell me about it from the beginning?”

  She told it all simply and directly, how she’d selected the boy, how she got him to come into the car with her, how she’d killed him and dumped the body in the spot she’d selected in advance. How she’d gone home, and washed her hands, and waited through three days and nights of headaches and bad dreams.

  “Ever kill anybody before, Ms. Belgrave?”

  “No,” she said. “No, of course not.”

  “Ever have anything to do with Eric Ackerman or his parents?”

  “No.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “Second sight,” she said.

  “Second...”

  “Second sight. Vanity plates. Vanity.”

  “Vanity?”

  “All is vanity,” she said, and closed her eyes for a moment. “I never made more than a hundred fifty dollars a week,” she said, “and nobody knew me or paid me a moment’s attention, but that was all right. And then Melissa Sporran was killed, and I was afraid to come in but I came in anyway. And everything changed.”

  “You got famous.”

  “For a little while,” she said. “And my phone started ringing, and I raised my rates, and my phone rang even more. And I was able to help people, more people than I’d ever helped before, and they were making use of what I gave them, they were taking it seriously.”

  “And you bought a new car.”

  “I bought a new car,” she said, “and I bought some other things, and I stopped being famous, and the ones who only came because they were curious stopped coming when they stopped being curious, and old customers came less often because they couldn’t afford it, and...”

  “And business dropped off.”

  “And I thought, I could help so many more people if, if it happened again.”

  “If a child died.”

  “Yes.”

  “And if you helped.”

  “Yes. And I waited, you know, for something to happen. And there were crimes, there are always crimes. There were even murders, but there was nothing that gave me the dreams and the headaches.”

  “So you decided to do it yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you’d be able to help so many more people.”

  “That’s what I told myself,” she said. “But I was just fooling myself. I did it because I’m having trouble making the payments on my new car, a car I didn’t need in the first place. But I need the car now, and I need the phone ringing, and I need—” She frowned, put her head in her hands. “I need aspirin,” she said. “That first time, when I told you about Melissa Sporran, the headache went away. But I’ve told you everything about Eric Ackerman, more than I ever planned to tell you, and the headache hasn’t gone away. It’s worse than ever.”

  He told her it would pass, but she shook her head. She knew it wouldn’t, or the bad dreams, either. Some things you just knew.

  I hope you enjoyed

  ● Headaches and Bad Dreams ●

  A Story From The Dark Side, by Lawrence Block

  Lawrence Block is a Grandmaster of the Mystery Writers of America, and winner of multiple awards, including the Edgar and the Shamus awards for his novels.

  I hope you enjoyed this story. If so, I’d love to hear from you.

  Email: lawbloc@gmail.com

  Twitter: @LawrenceBlock

  Blog:

  http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/

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  www.lawrenceblock.com

  If you did in fact like this story, you might enjoy more of my short fiction. Three collections of my short fiction are available as ebooks:

  Enough Rope

  One Night Stands & Lost Weekends

  Ehrengraf for the Defense

  Also available as special edition ebooks are Single Short Stories, Novellas, and a play. Subscribe to LB’s blog and sign up for the newsletter to get the latest updates on sales, new releases and special offers.

  Stories From the Dark Side

  “Catch & Release” (a fisherman)

  “A Chance to Get Even” (a poker game)

  “Dolly’s Trash & Treasures” (a hoarder)

  “Headaches and Bad Dreams” (a psychic)

  “In For a Penny” (New York noir)

  “Like a Bone in the Throat” (revenge)

  “Scenarios” (a man with imagination)

  “Sweet Little Hands” (a cheating wife)

  “Three In The Side Pocket” (a failed scam)

  “Welcome to the Real World” (a golfer)

  “Who Knows Where It Goes” (a job hunter)

  “You Don’t Even Feel It” (a boxer’s wife)

  Bernie Rhodenbarr

  “The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke”

  “Like a Thief in the Night”

  Chip Harrison

  “As Dark As Christmas Gets”

  Ehrengraf For The Defense

  “The Ehrengraf Defense”

  “The Eh
rengraf Presumption”

  “The Ehrengraf Experience”

  “The Ehrengraf Apointment”

  “The Ehrengraf Riposte”

  “The Ehrengraf Obligation”

  “The Ehrengraf Alternative”

  “The Ehrengraf Nostrum”

  “The Ehrengraf Affirmation”

  “The Ehrengraf Reverse”

  “The Ehrengraf Settlement

  Keller

  “Keller in Dallas”

  Four-Part Novellas

  “Speaking of Greed”

  “Speaking of Lust”

  A One-Act Stage Play

  “How Far”

  Short Stories

  “Almost Perfect” (baseball and adultery)

  “A Bad Night for Burglars” (a bad-luck burglar)

  “Terrible Tommy Terhune” (a tennis player)

  “A Vision in White” (another tennis player)

  For a list of all my available fiction, with my series novels listed in chronological order, go to About LB’s Fiction. And if you LOVE any of these stories, I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell your friends—including the friends you haven’t met, by blogging, posting an online review, or otherwise spreading the word.

  Thanks!

  Lawrence Block

  Available Now! The complete collection of Martin H. Ehrengraf stories.

  Includes the newest story, The Ehrengraf Settlement.

  You've never met a lawyer like Martin Ehrengraf. He never loses a case, and rarely sees the inside of a courtroom. Nor does he pass his hours poring over dusty legal volumes, or searching the Lexis database. Ehrengraf is a criminal lawyer who takes cases on a contingency basis; he collects a fee only when his client goes free. And that somehow never fails to happen happens, because his clients always turn out to be innocent.

  Ehrengraf's debut came in 1978, in Ellery Queen. Ten stories appeared between then and 2003, and now, after almost a decade, the dapper little lawyer is back (only in eBook form, and only for Kindle) in "The Ehrengraf Settlement." All eleven Ehrengraf stories, exclusively eVailable as Kindle Select titles, have now been gathered up into this full-length eBook.

  In 1994, when there were only eight stories about the fellow, a small press collected them in a limited edition of Ehrengraf for the Defense. (That little volume commands $250 to $1250 on the collector market—if you can find it.) Edward D. Hoch, acknowledged master of short mystery fiction, wrote an appreciative introduction, and Lawrence Block added an afterword. Hoch's introduction is reprinted in our new enlarged eDition of the stories, and Block has updated his afterword.

  Lawrence Block has peopled his fictional universe with a host of memorable characters. If you want a walk through the dark and gritty streets of Manhattan and the outer boroughs, Matt Scudder's your man. If you need a lighthearted and lightfingered companion to lift something from a safe in a triple-locked apartment, you want Bernie Rhodenbarr. If you have to get someone out of your hair once and for all, you'd better get Keller on the case.

  But if you're facing a murder charge, and if the evidence is overwhelming, you want the one man who's not only prepared to believe in your innocence but able to demonstrate it to the world. You want Ehrengraf.

  Just make sure you pay his fee...

  Available now on Amazon

  Ehrengraf For The Defense

  The Complete Short Story Collection