The Tutor

by Peter Abrahams

  “Then who would you like to come over?” D’Amario took a list from his pocket. “Whole lot of people been calling—your uncle and aunt, a woman named—”

  “Does anybody have to come?” Brandon said. Ruby understood—she didn’t want someone else staying there, didn’t want it stranger than it already was.

  “Aren’t you guys going to be here?” she said.

  “Of course,” said D’Amario. “Cruiser out front and foot patrol out back, plus someone inside to monitor the phone.”

  “We’ll be fine like that,” Brandon said.

  Ruby nodded.

  “Just for tonight, then.” D’Amario rose.

  “Why would it go on longer than that?” Brandon said. “You said finding cars was easy.”

  “So where are they?” said Ruby.

  “That’s what we’re working on,” said Sergeant D’Amario.

  “What can’t you find easy?” said Ruby.

  Brandon tore the last Subway sub in half. “Hungry?” he said, and handed it to Ruby. They sat at the kitchen table, Ruby in her pajamas, hair still wet from the shower, Brandon in sweats. Her filthy, blackened clothes—blue jacket with yellow trim, hat with the stars, all of it—lay in a heap in the upstairs bathroom, and the water spiraling down the shower drain had run black for a long time. Yet she hadn’t realized how dirty she’d been and no one, not Brandon, Sergeant D’Amario or the other cops, had said anything or even given her an odd look. She took that for a bad sign and put down the sub after a single bite.

  “Not eating that?” said Brandon. He started on her half. How could he be so hungry at a time like this?

  “Aren’t you scared?” Ruby said.

  He put down the sub. They sat together, not talking, but she could feel their thoughts, similar ones, mingling in the air.

  A cop came in, handed her the portable. “For you,” he said.

  “You all right?” Kyla said.

  “Yeah. The cops are here.”

  “It was on TV,” Kyla said. “They had a picture, from his driver’s license application or something. My dad recognized him.”

  “How come?”

  “He thought he was the VC guy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A money guy—about that stock.”

  “Codexco?”

  “Yeah,” said Kyla. “We’re not rich anymore. Neither are you, my dad says.”

  “I don’t feel any different,” Ruby said.

  Kyla laughed that funny laugh of hers, a quick little giggle, really amused. “Me either,” she said. Then there was a silence. “I’m going to say a prayer for you before I go to bed,” Kyla said.

  “You pray?”

  “Course not,” said Kyla. “Tonight’s the only time.”

  Ruby knew all about that already, from Zippy. It didn’t work.

  At Home. An epic masterpiece required an epic feat by the hero. Julian, calm, although not as calm as he might have been with a cigarette glowing between his fingers, considered epic feats by epic heroes. Disappointing in the main, the ending so often coupling spiritual triumph with physical demise, Samson being a good example, if thicker-witted than most.

  Was the second part, physical demise, really necessary? Or did it merely signify imaginative failure on the part of the artist, an inability to go far enough? The best artists—he recalled his own thought, warmed to it—those artists who changed the world, were always excessive. This, then, this predicament, what lesser men would call a predicament, was in fact an opportunity, a test of his special greatness. How he would relish this moment in future years! The moment in the living novel, the final chapter, in which the artist suddenly reveals himself, takes the stage, a flesh-and-blood giant striding over the paper puppets of his own creation. Even inside the greatest artist burns the need for recognition. He was only human.

  Oh, the thrill of it: his finest hour. But not his last. Without life there could be no sequels, each one slightly more disappointing than the last. A funny thought at such a time, so insouciant: he came close to laughing aloud, despite everything. Insouciant, calm—a remarkable man, as anyone would have to acknowledge. As for a plan? The work of seconds. Demeaning to escape under cover of darkness: the epic hero, the epic hero with a brain, exits under cover of light.

  They went to bed, Ruby in her bedroom, Brandon in his. A huge, heavy force overwhelmed her the moment she lay down, sleep coming like one of those tides with the Japanese name; it would come to her in a minute. She curled up in a ball. Her eyes closed.

  Ruby awoke in the night. She heard the crackle of belt walkie-talkies through her window: the cops down below, in the yard. Everything came back to her, right away. She got up and went downstairs.

  The cop in the hall was sitting on that tiny French chair from one of Mom’s antiquing trips, eyes closed.

  “Excuse me,” Ruby said.

  His eyes opened.

  “Sergeant D’Amario around?”

  “Be back later.”

  “Can you get him a message?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell him to check the parking lot at Killington.”

  “Yeah?” His eyelids were puffy, might have weighed a pound each.

  Ruby went back upstairs, lay down, pulled up the covers. The parking lot at Killington. That didn’t make sense, but something like it did. She tried to think what, but couldn’t, and closed her eyes, had to make them close this time. They popped back open. She got up, went down the hall to Brandon’s room.

  “Bran? You awake?”

  Brandon’s voice came out of the darkness. “Yeah.”

  “I can’t sleep,” Ruby said.

  Silence. Then Bran said, “There’s this murderer who says to Macbeth, ‘We are men, my liege,’ and Macbeth says, ‘Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.’ ”

  More silence.

  “When’s it going to be light?” Ruby said.

  “In a while.”

  “We already had enough death in this family.”

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So this time it’s going to be okay?” Brandon said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re pretty smart, Ruby.”

  “Thanks.”

  “ ’Night.”

  “ ’Night.”

  Ruby went back to her room. Murderer. She opened the closet, took her bow and quiver off the hook, lay down with them beside her; closed her eyes.

  In The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, there was never that big a deal about why the villain did what he did. Always pretty much the same: he didn’t get what he wanted, got frustrated and did what he had to to get it. There wasn’t much talk about resentments or unsatisfied parents. The villain had bad in him and was smarter than everyone else, knew how to get the better of everyone else, all except for Sherlock Holmes. Holmes outwitted the villains and had fun doing it. Ruby realized that was what she liked best about the stories—the fun he had. That fun part was also the difference between a story and what was happening right now. Where were they?

  Snow was falling harder; Ruby could hear its soft thudding on the window, like a tiny drumbeat. Snow led her into the cave dream, snow falling inside and out, and her all safe and warm. The storm rose and rose, howling over the drumbeat now, so loud it made noises on the roof of the cave, but it couldn’t touch her. She was a cavewoman, safe and warm, so the storm could howl all it wanted, howl and howl; in fact, the more it howled, the safer and warmer she felt. Now it was shaking the roof of the cave, trying to punch a hole through, but that was impossible, of course, and she was safe: snow, peace, nothing. Heavy, heavy nothing.

  And then something real bad happened. A fat, fat snake with a squat diamond-shaped head and puffed neck stirred somewhere in the cave. Ruby opened her eyes. But they were already open. She was dreaming with her eyes open. She must have been, because in her dream a long thick ropelike thing was suspended in midair, or maybe dangling above her. In a dreamlike way it did something no rope could
ever do, curling back up on itself in a kind of fishhook shape. Then came a hissing sound, so real.

  It fell. The long thick thing fell and landed on her pillow, coiling through her hair. She felt its cold, hard heavy body; a light tongue flickered against her cheek, so fast, something she wouldn’t have known how to dream. Ruby screamed, screamed the scream of her life, but kept it inside: she wanted to live.

  Ruby lay still, like she was already dead. It hissed again, started moving, little imperfections in its skin catching the edge of her ear, its muscles flexing under her chin, over her throat, across her shoulder, all at the same time, muscles more supple than human muscles and much stronger, and then it mostly slid off to the side, toward the wall. Now? Now.

  Ruby rolled away, or jerked, panicking completely, trying to spring out of bed and throw the covers over it in one motion. Everything got all mixed up. It—not it, but the speckled band—reared out of the blankets, head high above her and hissing. She swatted with her quiver. Arrows flew everywhere, most of them backward.

  The speckled band got mad, came at her in two quick spasms of its lower half, opened its mouth gaping wide, tongue motionless between the fangs. Ruby stuck out her bow just as it struck, struck so hard that the impact of its fangs vibrated up the bow and into her arm. Then she was running as fast as she could, out of her bedroom, into the hall. Another strike, a hard crack, but on the door just as she slammed it behind her.

  Julian, crouched in the doorway of Adam’s room, looked up. He was mostly a silhouette, lit by little flames behind him, a silhouette with a gas can in his hand, the one Dad used for the lawnmower and weed whacker. He rose, in no particular hurry, and walked toward her. Brandon came out of his room. Julian swung the gas can at his head, not even looking at him, connected with a sickening sound. Brandon fell back inside.

  Julian kept coming. Ruby backed up, stepped on something. An arrow, one of the arrows flung from the quiver. She snatched it up, raised her bow. Raised her bow and nocked the arrow, not too snug, and drew as Jeanette had taught her, string barely touching the tip of her nose, anchored.

  “What are you doing up at this hour?” Julian said, still moving forward, but slower, like the floor was slippery. He didn’t have a shirt on and she could see an ugly bruise on his shoulder, surrounding a crescent-shaped pattern of little scabs. Zippy was a hero.

  “You’re feverish, poor kid,” he said. Was the gas can held a little higher now, like he was getting ready to throw it? Flames rose behind him. They had voices all of a sudden, like a crowd getting louder and louder, a big, hot crowd.

  “Stop,” Ruby said. Confused sounds rose from below.

  “Would you really kill a human being, Ruby, a living thing?” Julian said. “You’ll have nightmares the rest of your life.” He had a sympathetic smile on his face, like they were friends.

  “I see a gold circle inside a red one,” Ruby said, feeling the bowstring against her lips.

  The smile vanished. More noise now, on the stairs; and a split second later a big boom from Adam’s room that shook the house. Julian threw the gas can, gas suddenly igniting in midair like liquid fire, and sprang at her, so quick. Ruby saw a gold circle inside a red one, really did. And then came the string’s little kiss good-bye.

  Her aim was true. Julian stopped, stopped like she wanted, stopped like she told him.

  “Nightmares,” he said.

  Then life left his eyes; all kinds of expressions, like flicking through a deck of scary cards, the last one puzzled.

  Gas was everywhere, flames in Adam’s room, Brandon’s, the hall. Ruby stepped over Julian into Brandon’s room. The downstairs cop came charging up, gun drawn.

  “In the attic,” Ruby said. She had to shout over the voice of the fire. “They’re in the attic.”

  More cops. Brandon sat up, head all bloody. “You all right?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  But he needed her help to get up. They went into the hall. Big flames now, spreading from Adam’s room. Lots of yelling, lots of sirens. A cop with enormous arms stood on a chair, banging at the painted-in hatch cover with all his strength. Something cracked. The hatch opened. He pulled himself through. Then came grunting sounds from above, and a mummy appeared, feet first, wrapped all in duct tape except for the nose. Other cops took the mummy, carried it downstairs. And then a second mummy, a little bigger. The mummies made sounds.

  Something roared in Adam’s room. A giant flame burst through his wall. D’Amario pushed past a bunch of cops. “Get the kids out of here. Everybody out.” He lifted Ruby in his arms, carried her toward the stairs.

  “Any quick thing you want to grab?” he said as they went by her room.

  “Don’t open the door.”

  Out on Robin Road, Dad, Mom, Brandon, and Ruby watched the firemen save some of the house—the garage, kitchen, mudroom, a little more. Mom and Dad were bawling their eyes out.

  “We’re sorry,” Mom said.

  “So sorry,” said Dad.

  “For what?” said Brandon.

  “It’s insured, right, Dad?” said Ruby. He was in the business, after all. Mom and Dad mixed in some laughing with the crying. They all kind of hugged. Ruby did her crying later, when the nightmares came.

  Dad had written an excellent policy for 37 Robin Road, covering complete rebuilding costs including the renovation, plus a little padding he’d snuck in. Gram lent him money to pay off the Codexco debt. He got a job with John Hancock in Hartford.

  Mom went to work for Larry at Skyway, made more money. There were changes between Mom and Dad, hard to understand. First came finding Dad sleeping on the couch if Ruby happened to get up early; then lots of talking by Mom and Dad in low voices; after that a kiss once in a while around the house.

  Brandon took the SAT again and got in the fifty-ninth percentile. He took it once more, not hung over, and made the ninety-first.

  They didn’t find Mom’s Jeep until the Strombolis came home from Florida and opened their garage. Mom’s gray coat with the fur collar and Dad’s leather jacket were inside.

  No reptilian body ever turned up, a big concern to the neighbors. A real estate agent used it to explain away a disappointing offer over on Poplar Drive.

  Unka Death remained in a coma.

  D’Amario sent divers back to the pond twice but they didn’t find Zippy. When the weather warmed up, Ruby went in herself, did no better. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Ruby kept an eye out for Zippy.

  After some months of that, Brandon came home with a dog from the pound. Ruby had nothing to do with it. This dog didn’t look at all like Zippy, was very ugly and kind of fat. One day when they were alone, he came up to her room with an unopened can of Sprite in his mouth, tail wagging. He wasn’t ugly, really, more homely. She named him Watson.

  About the Author

  Peter Abrahams is the author of ten previous novels, including Crying Wolf, A Perfect Crime, The Fan, Revolution #9, and Lights Out, which was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife and four children.

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2002 by Pas de Deux

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada

  by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Abrahams, Peter, 1947–

  The tutor / Peter Abrahams.

  p. cm.

  I. Title.

  PS3551.B64 T88 2002

  813′.54—dc21 2002019537

  eISBN: 978-0-345-45955-8

  v3.0