The Edge of Sleep jb-3

by David Wiltse

  “And I hated every second of it. Why do you think I went into the Bureau?”

  “A thirst for justice and social equality?”

  “This isn’t funny! I hate it! Why don’t you stop being a fucking wit and help me?”

  “All right,” Becker said. “I’ll talk to them.”

  He started toward the conference room. Karen caught him by the arm and yanked.

  “I’ll do it,” she said angrily. “I said I hated it; I didn’t say I couldn’t do it.” She started toward the door, then paused with her hand on the handle.

  “And I know that was a ploy,” she said. “Trying to shame me into it.”

  “I know you know.”

  “It didn’t work. I’m not so easily manipulated.”

  “Never thought you were,” he said.

  “Just so you know,” she said. She glanced up and down the corridor to be sure they were alone, then she put her hand briefly in his crotch.

  “For luck,” she said, grinning. She entered the room with Becker’s laughter sounding behind her.

  Karen strode into the conference room and listened to the quality of the conversational drone change as the men caught sight of her. When she took the podium the drone rose to a quizzical buzz.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said. Her voice caught in her throat as she cleared it, cursing herself for a coward.

  “I am Karen Crist, Deputy First Assistant for Kidnapping for the Bureau out of New York.”

  They had stopped their murmuring and were looking at her now with curiosity and skepticism. Waiting for me to step on my own tongue, she thought.

  The Deputy Chief of the Connecticut state police sat in the front row in a uniform so crisply starched and ironed that it appeared to be made of fresh cardboard. Next to him slouched the chief of one of the local forces, a fat, aging, balding man whose belly slopped over his belt like so much runaway bread dough yeasting beyond the rising bowl. As she watched, the chief unconsciously tugged at his crotch.

  Assholes of the world united. Karen thought to herself and wondered if she were in the right profession.

  She did not allow the doubts to linger, however. Looking up from the chief at the assembled waiting faces, she began.

  “How many of you have children?” she asked.

  Chapter 14

  Bobby awoke to find himself in the bathtub with Ash kneeling beside him on the bathroom floor. The big man was gently cradling the boy’s head in one hand, holding it above the surface of the water while the boy’s naked body stretched full length in the tub.

  “It’s all right.” Ash said when he saw the boy’s eyelids flutter. Bobby awoke in fright and confusion.

  “You’re all right,” Ash said. “Everything’s all right.” Bobby tried to sit up and the pain struck him hard. Ash was ready and he had his free hand over Bobby’s mouth before the scream could emerge. Bobby could taste the plastic of Ash’s glove.

  “Shhh, shhh,” Ash said gently. “It will go away.”

  “It hurts,” the boy said. His forehead was wrinkled with an effort to control it. He did not need Ash to be any more specific to realize that noise would bring Dee into the room, her face wild with fury. He remembered the beating now, and each cut and welt upon his back seemed to be throbbing as if he were being struck again. No, not that badly. Bobby thought. Nothing had ever hurt as much as being struck the first time. He remembered the beating. Dee’s insane rhythmic chanting, her grunts of effort, the nonstop rain of lashes. He did not recall passing out, had no recollection of Ash holding him in his arms, carrying him to the bathroom, easing him into the tepid water.

  “It hurts,” he said again, looking into Ash’s face for comfort, or sympathy, or understanding. He saw all three as well as a brute acceptance of things as they were.

  “It will go away,” Ash said. “I promise.”

  He eased Bobby back down into the water and began to rub him all over with a bar of soap in his gloved hand. Dec had told him to always wash a cut before applying disinfectant and he was thorough in his work. Bobby winced and gasped and moaned when the wounds were touched, but he did not cry out. He’s a good one. Ash thought. Dee would like this one better than some. She would let him last longer than some. As for Ash, he loved them all.

  “Where is she now?” Bobby asked quietly.

  “She’s asleep,” Ash said. “She was very sad. You made her very sad. Tommy.”

  “I didn’t run,” Bobby said.

  “I know. That was good. But you made her sad anyway.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  Ash shrugged philosophically. “Sometimes we just do.”

  Bobby looked at the water. Ash had opened the drain and let the faucet run as he scrubbed Bobby. The water had maintained the same level, but the color had gradually changed. It was just barely pink now; in another minute or two it would be clear.

  Ash touched the medallion on Bobby’s chest.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a good luck charm,” Bobby explained. He lifted the medallion and looked at it, then turned it to Ash. The big man studied the face of John F. Kennedy stamped on the silver coin. Someone had punched a hole in the half dollar and threaded a cheap dime-store chain through it. The coin still shone brightly after all the years, but the chain had turned a tarnished shade of brown.

  “What’s it for?”

  “It’s for good luck,” Bobby said.

  “What does it do?”

  “It gives me good luck.” Bobby said.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, it just does. Nothing bad can happen to me as long as I wear it. That’s why I never take it off.” Ash held the coin gingerly between gloved finger and thumb, trying to imagine what bad things it had warded off for Bobby. For a moment Ash wondered if the boy was teasing him, but he seemed utterly convinced of his good fortune.

  “You should get one, Ash,” Bobby said.

  “Would it work for me?”

  “Not this one, this one only works for me.”

  Ash nodded solemnly, as if he understood.

  “But you could get one for yourself,” Bobby explained. “I could help you find one if you want.”

  “Okay.”

  Bobby took the coin from Ash’s finger and put it back in its proper place on his chest. Ash regarded the coin with new respect.

  “That’s sure a nice…” Ash groped for the proper word.

  “Good luck charm,” Bobby offered.

  “Good luck charm,” Ash repeated. “That’s sure a nice good luck charm.”

  “It’s the best. It’s never let me down. I found a five-dollar bill on the sidewalk once.”

  “Really?”

  “Honest. Just lying there.”

  “I wish I had one.”

  “We’ll get you one,” Bobby said.

  “Then I’ll be as lucky as you,” Ash said.

  “Maybe,” Bobby said. “It depends on how good your charm is.”

  Ash stood the boy in the tub and let the water continue to run as he poured disinfectant over his back and legs. Bobby bit down on a wadded washcloth, but the pain was mild compared to all that had gone before, scarcely more than a sting.

  “How come you wear those silly gloves in the water?” Bobby asked.

  “Dee says,” Ash replied.

  “How come, though?”

  “Dee knows all about these things. She says it’s for everybody’s safety.”

  Afterwards Ash wrapped a towel around the boy and used another to dry the boy’s hair. They stayed in the bathroom to keep from waking Dee. They could hear her make noises now and again in the agitation of her dreams.

  “How come you never sleep?” Bobby asked.

  “I can’t.”

  “Don’t you get tired?”

  “Sure. I get tired all the time, but I can’t let myself go to sleep because of what happens.”

  “What happens?”

  Ash looked away. He wished the conversation had never
started.

  “What happens when you go to sleep. Ash?”

  Ash shook his head stubbornly.

  “Do you have bad dreams?”

  “I don’t have dreams. I don’t sleep.”

  “Because I have bad dreams sometimes,” Bobby said. “But I sleep anyway. I don’t have them all the time, just sometimes, and besides, they’re not really real.”

  “I don’t have bad dreams.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t want to tell you.”

  “Oh, come on, Ash. I tell you things, don’t I?”

  “Yes… ”

  “I won’t tell anyone else, I promise.”

  “Dee knows,” Ash said. As far as he was concerned, there was no one else in their world to tell.

  “Well then. If she knows, why can’t I?”

  “I kill people.” Ash said in a rush.

  “You don’t either.”

  “I do. When I go to sleep I do.”

  “You don’t either.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “If you’re asleep, how do you know?”

  “Dee told me.” Ash said.

  “How does she know?”

  “Everyone knows,” Ash said. “I’m famous.”

  “You’re not either.”

  “I fell asleep a long time ago and killed my family.”

  “How?”

  “When I woke up, they were all dead.”

  “Your whole family?”

  “My mother and father and sister and brother.”

  “You couldn’t kill them,” Bobby insisted. “You were just a little boy.”

  “No, I wasn’t. I was sixteen. I was big. I wasn’t old enough to be tried as an adult, though. Dee says I was lucky, ’cause if I was any older they would have cooked me.”

  “Cooked you! They wouldn’t do that, no one would do that.”

  “That’s what Dee says. She said I was lucky I didn’t fry.”

  “They don’t fry people,” Bobby said uncertainly.

  “She said they would have fried me, but I was too young so they sent me to the hospital instead. That’s where Dee found me. She worked there.”

  “Were you sick?”

  “They said I was sick to kill my family.”

  “You’re not sick. Ash.”

  “I don’t always understand things the way I should.”

  “I know. But you’re not sick. I think you’re nice.”

  Ash smiled brightly, revealing his teeth. Two of them were jagged and darkened at the roots, and Ash hid them behind his hand as he continued to smile.

  “I think you’re nice, too,” Ash said.

  “Was Dee sick, too?”

  “Dee isn’t sick,” Ash said hastily, the smile vanishing. “She has a controllable condition. She has pills. We both have pills. I’m controllable, too… Sometimes Dee doesn’t take her pills. But I always take mine.”

  “Why was she in the hospital if she wasn’t sick?”

  “It was a special hospital for people like me. You wouldn’t go there if you was just sick. Dee worked there. She was allowed to take us out sometimes, and once she just didn’t take me back. We ran away.”

  “You love Dee, don’t you?” Bobby asked.

  “Of course,” Ash said, amazed by the question.

  “I don’t,” Bobby said. Ash gasped and put his finger to his mouth. “She’s mean.”

  “Dee loves you. Tommy. She loves you. Of all the boys in the world she could have had, she chose you.”

  “That’s just something she told you.”

  “It’s true. She picked you. Tommy.”

  “My name is Bobby.”

  “I know. But pretend, okay?”

  “Why do I have to?”

  “Because Dee wants you to be her Tommy.” The big man shrugged at the obvious inevitability of it all.

  “She hates me,” Bobby said.

  “She loves you. She really does. I know.”

  “Why did she hit me so much?”

  Ash stared at the closed door for a moment, trying to recall the right answer.

  “Well, that’s because it’s for your own good. There are some things children have to be taught, and that’s the best way.”

  “You wouldn’t ever hit me, would you, Ash?”

  Ash was stung by the suggestion. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t hurt you. Tommy.”

  “I would never hit you, Ash.”

  Bobby leaned against the big man and felt Ash’s arm move awkwardly around his shoulders.

  “I wouldn’t ever hurt you,” Ash said. “I promise.”

  “Then why does Dee?”

  “It’s her job as a parent.” Ash spoke slowly, trying hard to say it all correctly. “A parent owes her child discipline, which teaches it what its boundaries are. It’s one of the ways for a mother to show her boy she loves him enough to do the right thing for him.”

  Ash nodded, pleased that he had gotten it right.

  “She’s not my mother. Why doesn’t she do it to her own boy?”

  “They took her boy away from her,” Ash said.

  “Who did?”

  “It was so unfair,” Ash explained. “She was so, so sad. She almost died, she was so sad when they took her Tommy.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I wasn’t there. She told me about it.”

  “Why did they take him?”

  Ash studied the door again. “They didn’t understand about discipline.”

  “Where did they take him to?” the boy asked.

  Ash shrugged. “They gave him to the State.”

  They fell into a silence. Bobby leaned more fully against Ash, taking comfort from the man’s size and warmth. He felt a security with the man’s arm on his shoulders not unlike the sense of invulnerability he got when he cloaked himself in his special blanket at home. He had long ago dubbed the blanket bulletproof and in times of stress he would wrap it around himself and peer out, immune to the dangers of the outside world. He tried to burrow into Ash now, seeking the same haven of instant safety. The big man pulled him tightly into his body with the arm on his shoulders and with his other hand he rubbed Bobby’s head.

  “How did you kill your family?” Bobby asked after a time.

  Ash seemed prepared for the question, as if he, too, had been thinking about it.

  “I stabbed my mother and father while they were asleep and I smothered my brother and sister.” he said matter-of-factly.

  Bobby thought for a moment. He finally said the only response he could think of. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I know. That’s why I never sleep.”

  “You wouldn’t do it again, now that you’re grown up, would you?”

  “I take my pills and I never sleep.” Ash said.

  “I know, but even if, let’s say you forgot your pills, you still wouldn’t kill anybody else, would you. Ash?”

  Ash turned his head away from the boy and studied the crack where the floor tiles joined the wall.

  “Would you. Ash?” the boy insisted. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  Ash’s silence grew. Bobby felt the uneasy quality of hesitation in the big man. It seemed to transmit itself directly through his body into the boy’s own.

  Bobby tried to look at his friend, but Ash turned his head away, hiding his face.

  The door opened abruptly and Dee stood there, her eyes bright and shining.

  “There he is!” she cried. “There’s my darling boy!”

  George stood in the motel driveway chatting with the state trooper as if he were a long-lost friend. Reggie watched from the office window until her curiosity got the best of her and she stepped onto the porch. George turned his back slightly, subtly keeping her from the conversation. As if it were some kind of clubby man’s thing, she thought. Both George and the trooper had a foot propped up on the squad car’s front bumper. The trooper had both hands tucked into his broad gun belt and George had stuck his in his hip pockets. They looked to Re
ggie as if they were trying to emulate a scene from a western movie, two old pardners in the saloon with their boots resting on the brass rail.

  George looked annoyed when she approached them but Reggie was certain she detected relief in the trooper’s face. I’ll bet George has talked the man’s ear half off by now, she thought. Posing like some macho jerk, as if he had anything in common with a cop. Pathetic, she thought. Little boys to the end, all of them.

  The trooper dropped his foot as she neared them and came to a rough approximation of attention. He dipped his head in greeting.

  “Ma’am.”

  “Ah. Reggie,” George exuded. As if he hadn’t seen her all the time. “Officer here’s asking for our help.”

  “He’s certainly come to the right man,” Reggie said, scarcely able to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  “I told him I’d do all I could,” George said.

  Poor trooper then, Reggie thought. He’s no help around here. I’d like to see how he could help anyone else.

  “We’re looking for a man,” the trooper said. “I was just telling your husband, he’s a big man, unusually strong, probably well developed as if he’d been pumping iron.”

  George was already shaking his head negatively as if each descriptive phrase merely served to put the suspect farther away from the motel.

  “He’d be alone,” the trooper said. His attention had drifted from Reggie, back to George.

  “Nawp,” said George, studying the ground now as if he could see the man’s face in the gravel.

  “Or might have a boy with him.”

  “Nawp,” said George.

  “How old a boy?” Reggie asked. The trooper looked at her reluctantly.

  “Doesn’t matter,” George said. “No boys here.”

  “Nine years old.” said the trooper. “Have you had any boys here in the last two weeks?”

  “Nawp,” said George, shaking his head.

  “I couldn’t say for sure,” Reggie said.

  “We haven’t had any,” George said. “I’d know it.”

  “Not necessarily, dear,” Reggie said sweetly. She paused until she had the trooper’s full attention. He removed his dark glasses for the first time. His eyes were a pale brown. Reggie decided he was cute in a traditional sort of way, but not impressive.