Thought You Were Dead

by Nick Craine

  He choked and stuttered to a stop. It felt as if he’d inhaled his tonsils. Or swallowed his chin. Had Laney heard him? He was deeply, squirmingly embarrassed. How could he steal her from the Big V if he snored like an old fart? Was he already an old fart? Didn’t women have to fall in love with you before your gut started to hang pendulously over your belt and you left all your hair in the sink and your teeth in a glass by the bed? If your honey signed on when you were still boy-fresh and svelte, then she wouldn’t have the energy or the attitude to leave later. She’d be stuck to you with nostalgic glue, that fond, sentimental adhesive.

  It then occurred to him that he hadn’t once thought about stealing Laney away in the last week. He’d been disloyal to her. He’d committed a rare form of adultery, premarital and wannabe. He was as bad as Moe. If only he could be as good as Moe. What were Vaughan and Elaine doing right now? He listened and all was silent . . . not a mouse was stirring, not in this secured domicile, and not with Noir on the job (Pinky was terrified of mice, such a wuss puss). The only thing making a racket was his own brain. Don’t think, he chided himself, then began to wonder if the mother imposter, that coven-of-one, had set up camp at his place. He wondered where Bethany was, what was going on, what was, what . . . .

  Chellis parachuted into wakefulness again, the pyjamas adhering to him like a gaudy bruise suit. He heard a thin, needling noise near his head. A mosquito? Christ, not that. The only sort of female who would find him desirable had found him. She sounded close, homing in, so he hunkered down under the covers. She whined on and on, clearly smitten, out for his blood. He threw the covers back, sat up and switched on the bedside light. “You go girl,” he said. “Find Vaughan. West Nile delivery? He’s your man.” He checked the room, peering up at the ceiling and in the corners, but couldn’t find her. He then realized that the noise was issuing from a small digital alarm clock that sat beside the lamp. It was flashing 5:00! 5:00! 5:00! and emitting the ulta-irritating mosquito aria. An array of buttons were clustered on top of the alarm, so Chellis reached over to press one. The alarm didn’t stop, but immediately switched from insect sound to human, a woman screaming in terror. He hastily hit another button and got an air raid siren, loud enough to wake the dead and send them scurrying down to a deeper level of oblivion. The next was the sound of a car hitting the brakes, skidding, screeching . . . he cut that one off before the crash, but the next was worse: the gut-wrenching agony of an animal caught in a trap.

  “Did you like my Alarm Alarm?” Elaine asked cheerily. Early morning and she was getting the coffee started.

  “No,” said Chellis. He stormed through the kitchen and kept on going.

  “Disembogue, man.”

  Chellis considered this to be a winning opener. Spit it out, tell all, unleash the news, lighten your burden, let’er rip.

  Hunt responded with a crotchety, almost wifely complaint, “Where were you last night?”

  Unless the surgeons had also removed his affable organ, Chellis reckoned that Hunt’s grumpiness had more to do with the meagre post-heart-op breakfast he’d been served than his own neglect. The set of playhouse dishes that sat on his bed-table had contained nothing but the white, the thin, the bland. Now they contained nothing at all, having been scraped, and possibly licked, clean. Hunt had been rendered shrewish in suffering a shrew’s constant hunger. Chellis realized too late that he should have smuggled in some contraband for his buddy. A pat of butter, golden key to the kingdom of satisfaction, would have been most welcome. Even the word ‘pat,’ especially in the plural, is consoling.

  Seeing as Chellis was musing over the breakfast tray, Hunt said, petulantly, “Skin milk. That’s what our daughter calls it.”

  “Your – ?” Chellis understood that they grew up too fast, the kids, but carumba. He hadn’t pulled a Rip-Van-Winkle last night, had he? Having spent the night in Laney’s theatre-of-cruelty guest room, he’d barely slept.

  “According to Moe. She’s thinking ahead.”

  “Usually a commendable policy, but don’t the little ones get to come up with their own adorable mis-sayings?”

  “That’s Moe for you. She’s pretty thorough once she has something on the go.”

  “She is.” Chellis didn’t want to think what kind of mother she’d make. One of those helicopter parents who hover and hover, until some other project snags her attention? No, not this time.

  “So where were you? Why didn’t you call?”

  “Elaine’s. Long story.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Chellis was therefore the one to disembogue. He didn’t gush, though. What he related was a modest, if peculiar, stream of events, a stream upon which his sister had been carried away. A stream that also seemed to have an unfathomable undercurrent.

  “You’re lucky,” Hunt said after he heard the tale.

  “Lucky? I’m lucky?”

  “Last night, talk about worry, I thought you might’ve been . . . well, let’s just say I know her.”

  “Bethany? No you don’t, how could you?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Wait a minute, Hunt. Was this . . . did you see her at some strip club? She told me about that gig, confessed all. Why you sly dog, getting trashy kicks in some scummy dive. Didn’t know you went in for that sort of thing.”

  “We both go in for that, Chel, remember? But no, that’s not it. I met her a couple of weeks ago. Saw her, anyway.”

  “So? She was in town hunting for me.”

  “Wrong again. She was in Claymore, house-hunting. With Dick Major.”

  “What! You’re crazy.”

  “I saw her. I dropped in on Adam Smith’s open house to talk over a deal for a client of mine, and came in behind them. They didn’t see me, I don’t think. Did I want to talk to Dick, rehash old times? No thanks. So I ducked into the mud room, kept out of their way while they looked around.”

  “Adam Smith is dead.”

  “Not this one. He got a serious boner eyeing her up. Tried to hide it behind the realty spec sheets.”

  “That was someone else! Some babe of Dick’s. Get serious, Hunt, you’ve never met my sister. All you’ve seen is a photo, and not a great one, either. Doesn’t even look like her.”

  “I overheard Dick calling her Bebe. She ever use that name?”

  Chellis drove home at a speed appropriate for a funeral procession, a solemn, respectful, and sorrowing velocity. More deceleration was involved than acceleration, more old codger at the wheel than hot dog. He caused some disturbance on account of it, as all the other hurried and harried drivers overtook him with horns blatting and hands expressing their dismay. Their rude dismay. He didn’t notice. He didn’t care. Bethany was dead, gone, kaput. He’d pushed her down the hospital stairs himself. (He broke her neck trying to reach her heart.) What he’d actually done was given her a fatal overdose of his home-brewed acrimony. He’d washed his hands of her, but not quite his mind, where she hung around still, looking so lovely, so convincing, so his.

  Did he believe Hunt? Yes, yes, fuck.

  Fool.

  After what seemed like days, he pulled into his driveway and sat for a spell with his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, trying to draw some succour out of the vinyl. If his “mother” (had scare quotes ever been more apt?) was still in his house he thought he might as well kill her, too. Sister, mother, his ever-constricting family circle of female fictions. Finishing them off would be easy: simply close the cursed book. The end.

  He trudged leaden-footed into the house, like Herman Munster only a lot less jolly.

  She was there – of course she was – clacking toward him in her silver heels with a ciggie in one hand and a can of coke in the other. A grotesque replacement for the other greeters – Bethany, Elaine – he had encountered recently.

  “Lord, you’re a disappointment,” she said.

  “No argument there.” He breezed past her, resisting the impulse to elbow her into the wall. What was it about the post-menopausal wearin
g leopard-skin leggings and bug spray perfume that brought out one’s more goonish tendencies? He strode into the living room and stopped short. It was a mess, stuff tossed all over the place, books on the floor, CD’s scattered, couch cushions upended as though she’d been trying to build a fort.

  “Gee-zus, what happened here? You have the hag’s book club over last night or something?”

  “Watch your mouth. What d’you expect? Cops all over the place.”

  “Cops?”

  “Yeah, cops. And if I was gonna bump somebody off, I’d be a little more careful about it, eh.”

  “What’s in that coke?”

  “Don’t get smart with me. I saved your ass.”

  “You did, eh? How can I ever thank you?”

  “You can start by showing some respect for your old Ma. I’m not the joke you think I am. You could start by cleaning up your room once a year, huh.”

  “You were in my room? Snooping in my room?”

  “Damn good thing too, or they woulda found this.” She set her stimulants on the coffee table, snatched up her orange purse and unclasped it. From its depths she then pulled out a man’s white polo shirt. Although not pure white, for when she held it up he saw that it was splattered with dried blood, as if the tiny alligator logo had suffered a massive hemorrhage. “Found this in a garbage bag in the back of your closet. Great place to hide it, eh. You musta got your brain cells from your old man’s side.”

  “That’s not my shirt. Corporate logo? Leisure wear? Who do you think I am, some sort of accountant? Forget it, I wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those.”

  “Good Christ, son. Oh, duh.”

  21

  More Cutlery

  “CHEL, OPEN UP.”

  “Why? Do you have to go?”

  “No, but you’ve been in there for over an hour.”

  “Can’t.”

  “You should eat more fruit?”

  “Very funny. Listen, will Vaughan bail me out?”

  “Of the bathroom?”

  “The slammer, Laney. The clink. I’ll need a lawyer.”

  “Vaughan does patents, not criminal law.”

  “I’m not a criminal.”

  “Agreed. So come out.” Elaine rattled the doorknob. “It’s only me out here, not the police. We have work to do, you’re wasting time.”

  “They’ll see me, they’ll reach across town with the long arm of the law and nab me and the next thing you know I’ll be reclining in an electric chair. In Texas. What work? I refuse to be an experimental subject unless it involves me getting a face transplant.”

  “Done.”

  “On second thought . . .” Chellis unlocked the bathroom door and peeked out. “Za za zen! That’s a sexy getup.”

  “I’m undercover.”

  “Hardly.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “You look absolutely – ”

  “Beautiful?”

  “Nope, that is – ”

  “Fat?”

  “I don’t think anyone can be absolutely fat, although I could be wrong. But what’s the story here? Wait, let me guess, you’ve invented a new method of contraception and you’re getting me all het up so we can test it out.”

  He had seen her fiddling with a condom-sized device when he’d passed rapidly through her kitchen once again, this time with nary a word, to take refuge in the Champion’s loo. It was the safest hideout he could think of, seeing as no one else in their right mind would dare set foot in it. Once in, he’d resisted the temptation to weigh himself, touch the towel bar, or wash his hands. He’d opted for standing frozen at the mirror and, using his Romper Room inside-voice, asking it repeatedly how he’d gotten into this fix. No answers had been forthcoming, other than those that Fiona had proffered, if she was to be believed. But then, why else would some guy’s bloody shirt turn up in his closet, if not to incriminate him?

  “Could tell that little gal friend of yours was up to no good the minute I set eyes on her,” Fiona had said. “Sure as shit.”

  She had also said that the cops had taken some things of his and that he’d better get lost because they’d be back. “Listen to your mother for once, eh.” She may have said this because she was planning on cleaning him out herself, but he’d taken off as ordered by the ersatz maternal unit.

  “Is that a catsuit? You’re not competing with Noir for Vaughan’s attention, are you?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Elaine tugged down a snugly fitting, spandex sleeve, a tweaking that somehow made the whole ensemble fit even more snugly.

  “And you’ve grown your hair! How did you do that?”

  “Wig.”

  “That’s cheating. So okay, I give up, what’s this in aid of? You’re embarrassed to be seen with me? Manqueller of the day.”

  “What’s a . . . what did you say?”

  “Translates as murderer.”

  “They can’t pin anything on you, Chel. You didn’t do anything.”

  “I’m pinned already, tail on the donkey. Ass, more like.” He gazed at his funny friend – she looked wonderfully ridiculous, which helped him feel less conspicuously ridiculous himself. They were true partners, after all. “That was your specialty in the good old days, wasn’t it? Remember those wild birthday parties at my place?”

  She nodded, smiled. “I hated them. And loved them. Do you want a disguise?”

  “I’ll go as myself. No one will recognize me in . . . Morocco? Uh, Norway? Where are we off to?”

  “Claymore.”

  “Claymore? Not there. You’ve knocked my heart into my loafers. Why, for God’s . . . no, don’t tell me, I know how your mind works. Its outlying regions anyway, if not its throbbing urban centre. Hunt told you about the house, right, the love nest, and you want to catch Dick and Bethany there so you can report back to Di, the wronged wife? Who will then skin Dick alive.”

  “How astute.”

  “I’m not going. You think I want to see Bethany again? Ever?”

  “The double-crossing bitch.”

  “You said it.”

  She did say it, and greatly enjoyed doing so.

  “We don’t even know if they took the place.”

  “They did, or she did anyway. I checked it out at the realtor’s.”

  Chellis slipped his hands into his pockets, stared at the floor, thinking about those days Bethany had rushed out of the house for “job interviews.” He also thought about some troubling details vis-à-vis the events of the past few weeks. Details that didn’t add up, or might have if he hadn’t been so besotted and determined to ignore them. As well, there was the not insignificant detail of the bloody shirt, although Fiona herself may have pulled that out of her bag of tricks to serve her own mysterious motives. Taking into account what he did know, he did some elementary math on the spot, some figuring of the one plus one equals three variety, and said, “What a nitwitted fellow am I.” Sure as shit. “Laney, you’re right, we do have to go to Claymore, and pronto. Your car or mine? Wait, hang on.” He touched her arm lightly. “Do you smell something burning?”

  By the time they’d hustled outside, they discovered that his first question was no longer relevant, while his second was all too. Yes, something was burning, and doing so consummately, as if it were made of paper rather than metal and glass. (Make that plastic and fibreglass.) Chellis had parked his much maligned, but worthy vehicle by the curb in case he had to make a quick getaway, and now it was getting away all on its own as it disappeared into another element. A great little ball of fire.

  He grabbed Elaine’s hand and began running, pulling her toward her car, parked in the driveway.

  Contrary as usual, she dug in her heels and insisted on calling the fire department.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll find it.” He gave her arm a sharp tug. “What you need to worry about at the moment are projectile auto parts.”

  “Ow! Watch it. Let go!”

  “I hate to tell you this, but gas cylinders are going to start blasting
off my car like rockets. The bumper, too. No kidding, you can get impaled. Tires exploding, poisonous gases. No end of fun. So are you coming?”

  “How do you know all that?” Elaine asked shortly after, gunning it, her ritzy, soft-focus neighbourhood blurring as they zoomed by. She was in such a rush that she even made her SmartCar zoom. Chellis himself had the unsettling sensation of being trapped in a blender.

  “Lazar got his Lamborghini torched once. I’m the one responsible for the fantastic authenticity of the crime. I sometimes wonder what the fictional bad guys would do without me. You didn’t read that one?”

  “Guess not. But Chel, what about the real ones, the bad guys who don’t need your research skills? What is going on? I mean, your car?”

  “They are becoming a bit of a problem, aren’t they? We’ll simply have to put our pretty heads together and see what we can do.” Bravely spoken, he thought, if nothing else.

  When they passed the Claymore town sign with its smattering of rusted bullet holes and visitor-discouraging, piss-off subtext, they did shift closer to one another for protection.

  “What a place,” Elaine shuddered.

  “Home of the depraved.”

  “Do you remember the Claymore hockey team that used to come to play our high school?”

  “Do I remember Charles Manson and his team players? What were those Claymore guys called? Satan’s Iceholes, something like that? They used their skate blades for cutlery in the cafeteria.”

  Elaine white-knuckled the steering wheel. “I checked out the street on MapQuest, 17 Boswell, shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  “You found Claymore on MapQuest? The vile thorp wasn’t censored, lurking somewhere on the undernet? Well we’d better find this house before your car gets incinerated. Or melted down for tools. A SmartCar’s pretty advanced for people still living in the Iron Age.”