Harlan Coben

by The Best American Mystery Stories 2011

  Afterward they made me wash my face and get dressed. I wasn’t even crying anymore. I was numb, in shock.

  “White Fence,” Smiley said right before he walked back out into the party, into the music and laughter. “Don’t you forget.” A warning pure and simple. An ugly threat.

  I never told my friends what happened, never told my family, never told my husband. What could they possibly have said or done that would’ve helped? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. The sooner you learn it, the better: some loads you carry on your own.

  They make a big show of it when they come for Puppet. Must be six cop cars, a helicopter, TV cameras. That detective wasn’t lying: all it took was an anonymous phone call. “I saw who killed the baby.”

  One minute Puppet is preening on the corner with his homies, acting like he owns the street; the next he’s face-down on the hot asphalt, hands cuffed tight behind his back.

  I run outside as soon as I hear the commotion. I want to see. Lorena and Brianna come too, whispering, “Oh my God, what’s happening?”

  “It’s the bastard who shot little Antonio,” says an old man carrying a bottle in a bag.

  We stand at the fence and watch with the rest of the neighborhood as they lift Puppet off the ground and slam him against a police car. Then, suddenly, Brianna is crying. “No,” she moans and opens the gate like she’s going to run to him. “No.” Lorena grabs her arm and yanks her back into the yard.

  “José,” Brianna yells. His real name.

  He can’t hear her, though, not with all the shouting and sirens and the chop chop chop of the helicopter circling overhead. And I’m glad. He doesn’t deserve her tears, her reckless love. Instead, I hope the last thing he sees before they drive him off is my satisfied smile and the hatred in my eyes, and I hope it burns him like fire, night and day, for as long as he fouls this earth.

  It’s Friday evening, and what a week. The freezer at work broke down, Maple changed the rules on vacation time, and one of the boys cut his finger to the bone, chopping onions. There was some good news too: looks like Puppet isn’t going to be back. As soon as they picked him up, his boy Cheeks flipped on him and told the cops everything. A few punks still hang out on the corner and stare the neighborhood down, but none of them know that it’s me who took out their homie.

  I fall asleep on the couch when I get home and don’t wake up until a few hours later, but that’s okay, because I’m off tomorrow, so I can go to bed whenever I want tonight and sleep in. I couldn’t do that when Lorena and Brianna were here. They’d be banging around in the kitchen or blasting the TV every time I tried to rest. Or I’d be cooking for them or doing their laundry.

  I love them, but I wasn’t sad to see them go when they moved out last week. They’re in Alhambra now, living with a fireman Lorena met on the computer. He’s really great, she says, with a big house, a swimming pool, and an RV. And so good with Brianna. I was thinking she should ask him about his ex-wife, find out why she’s not around anymore, but I kept it to myself.

  When I get up, I finish watering the garden and pick a bunch of tomatoes. The sun has just set, leaving the sky a pretty blue, but it’s going to be one of those nights when it doesn’t cool down until past midnight. The kids used to sleep out in the yard when it was like this. Manuel would cut up a watermelon he’d kept on ice all day, and the juice would run down their faces and drip onto the grass.

  I sit on the back porch and watch the stars come out. There’s a little moon up there too, a little silver smile in the sky. Oso barks next door, and another dog answers. Music floats over from Rudolfo’s shop, old ranchero stuff, and I think, You know, I’ll never eat all these tomatoes myself.

  Rudolfo looks up from the newspaper he’s reading as I come down the driveway, trailed by Oso.

  “Blanca,” he says. “Buenas noches”

  He reaches out and turns the radio down a bit. He’s drinking a beer, and a cigar smolders in an ashtray on the workbench. Picking up the ashtray, he moves to carry it outside.

  “Go ahead and smoke,” I say.

  “You’re sure?”

  “No problem.”

  He lived next door for years before I found out that he had a wife and son back in El Salvador. He got in trouble with the government there and had to leave. The plan was that he’d go to the U.S. and get settled, then his family would join him. But a few years later, when it was time, his wife decided that she was happy where she was and refused to move north. I remember he told this like it had happened to another person, but I could see in his eyes how it hurt him.

  “I brought you some tomatoes,” I say, setting the bag on the workbench. “I’ve got them coming out of my ears.”

  “You want a beer?” he asks.

  “Sure,” I say, and lower myself onto a stool.

  He reaches into a cooler and lifts out a Tecate, uses his bandanna to wipe the can dry.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have any lime,” he says as he passes it to me.

  “It’s good like this,” I reply.

  He lifts his can and says, “Salud”

  I take a sip, and boy, does it go down easy. Oso presses his cold nose against my leg and makes me jump. I’m wearing a new skirt. A new blouse too.

  “Another wild Friday night, huh?” I say.

  Rudolfo laughs. He runs his fingers slowly through his hair and shakes his head. “I might have a few more in me,” he says. “But I’m saving them up for when I really need them.”

  He asks about Lorena and Brianna, how they’re doing at the new place, and wonders if I’m lonely now that they’re gone. I admit that I’m not.

  “You get used to being by yourself,” I say.

  “Yeah, but that’s not the same as enjoying it,” he replies, something sad in his voice.

  I like the way we talk to each other. It feels honest. Things were different with Manuel. One of us always had to win. Husbands and wives do that, worry more about being right than being truthful. What goes on between Rudolfo and me is what I always imagined flirting would be like. It’s kind of a game. We hint at what’s inside us, each hoping the other picks up on the clues.

  I didn’t learn to flirt when I was young. I didn’t have time. One year after that party I was engaged to Manuel, and the last thing I wanted him to know were my secrets.

  A moth flutters against the bare light bulb suspended above us, its wings tapping urgent messages on the thin glass. Rudolfo tells me about something funny that happened to him at Home Depot, how this guy swiped his shopping cart. It’s his story I’m laughing at when he finishes, but I’m also just happy to be here with this handsome man, drinking this beer, listening to this music. It feels like there are bubbles in my blood.

  A song my mom used to play comes on the radio.

  “Hey,” I say. “Let’s dance.”

  “I don’t know, it’s been years,” Rudolfo replies.

  “Come on.” I stand and wiggle my hips, reach out for him.

  He puts down his beer and wraps his arms around me. I pull him close and whisper the lyrics to the song in his ear as we sway so smoothly together. You forget what that feels like. It seems impossible, but you do.

  “Blanca,” he says.

  “Mmmmmm?” I reply.

  “I’m seeing a lady in Pacoima.”

  “Shhh,” I say.

  “I’ve been seeing her for years.”

  “Shhh.”

  I lay my head on his chest, listen to his heart. Sawdust and smoke swirl around us. Qué bonita amor, goes the song, qué bonita cielo, qué bonita luna, qué bonita sol. God wants to see me cry. He must have his reasons. But for now, Lord, please, give me just one more minute. One more minute of this.

  The Stars are Falling

  Joe R. Lansdale

  FROM Stories

  BEFORE DEEL ARROWSMITH came back from the dead, he was crossing a field by late moonlight in search of his home. His surroundings were familiar, but at the same time different. It was as if he had left as a child and retu
rned as an adult to examine old property only to find the tree swing gone, the apple tree cut down, the grass grown high, and an outhouse erected over the mound where his best dog was buried.

  As he crossed, the dropping moon turned thin, like cheap candy licked too long, and the sun bled through the trees. There were spots of frost on the drooping green grass and on the taller weeds, yellow as ripe corn. In his mind’s eye he saw not the East Texas field before him or the dark rows of oaks and pines beyond it, or even the clay path that twisted across the field toward the trees like a ribbon of blood.

  He saw a field in France where there was a long, deep trench, and in the trench were bloodied bodies, some of them missing limbs and with bits of brains scattered about like spilled oatmeal. The air filled with the stinging stench of rotting meat and wafting gun smoke, the residue of poison gas, and the buzz of flies. The back of his throat tasted of burning copper. His stomach was a knot. The trees were like the shadowy shades of soldiers charging toward him, and for a moment, he thought to meet their charge, even though he no longer carried a gun.

  He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, shook his head. When he opened them the stench had passed and his nostrils filled with the nip of early morning. The last of the moon faded like a melting snowflake. Puffy white clouds sailed along the heavens and light tripped across the tops of the trees, fell between them, made shadows run low along the trunks and across the ground. The sky turned light blue and the frost dried off the drooping grass and it sprang to attention. Birds began to sing. Grasshoppers began to jump.

  He continued down the path that crossed the field and split the trees. As he went, he tried to remember exactly where his house was and how it looked and how it smelled, and most important, how he felt when he was inside it. He tried to remember his wife and how she looked and how he felt when he was inside her, and all he could find in the back of his mind was a cipher of a woman younger than he was in a long, colorless dress in a house with three rooms. He couldn’t even remember her nakedness, the shape of her breasts and the length of her legs. It was as if they had met only once, and in passing.

  When he came through the trees and out on the other side, the field was there as it should be, and it was full of bright blue and yellow flowers. Once it had been filled with tall corn and green bursts of beans and peas. It hadn’t been plowed now in years, most likely since he left. He followed the trail and trudged toward his house. It stood where he had left it. It had not improved with age. The chimney was black at the top and the unpainted lumber was stripping like shedding snakeskin. He had cut the trees and split them and made the lumber for the house, and like everything else he had seen since he had returned, it was smaller than he remembered. Behind it was the smokehouse he had made of logs, and far out to the left was the outhouse he had built. He had read many a magazine there while having his morning constitutional.

  Out front, near the well, which had been built up with stones and now had a roof over it supported on four stout poles, was a young boy. He knew immediately it was his son. The boy was probably eight. He had been four years old when Deel had left to fight in the Great War, sailed across the vast dark ocean. The boy had a bucket in his hand, held by the handle. He set it down and raced toward the house, yelling something Deel couldn’t define.

  A moment later she came out of the house and his memory filled up. He kept walking, and the closer he came to her, standing framed in the doorway, the tighter his heart felt. She was blond and tall and lean and dressed in a light-colored dress on which were printed flowers much duller than those in the field. But her face was brighter than the sun, and he knew now how she looked naked and in bed, and all that had been lost came back to him, and he knew he was home again.

  When he was ten feet away the boy, frightened, grabbed his mother and held her, and she said, “Deel, is that you?”

  He stopped and stood, and said nothing. He just looked at her, drinking her in like a cool beer. Finally he said, “Worn and tired, but me.”

  “I thought…”

  “I didn’t write ‘cause I can’t.”

  “I know … but…”

  “I’m back, Mary Lou.”

  They sat stiffly at the kitchen table. Deel had a plate in front of him and he had eaten the beans that had been on it. The front door was open and they could see out and past the well and into the flower-covered field. The window across the way was open too, and there was a light breeze ruffling the edges of the pulled-back curtains framing it. Deel had the sensation he’d had before when crossing the field and passing through the trees, and when he had first seen the outside of the house. And now, inside, the roof felt too low and the room was too small and the walls were too close. It was all too small.

  But there was Mary Lou. She sat across the table from him. Her face was clean of lines and her shoulders were as narrow as the boy’s. Her eyes were bright, like the blue flowers in the field.

  The boy, Winston, was to his left, but he had pulled his chair close to his mother. The boy studied him carefully, and in turn Deel studied the boy. Deel could see Mary Lou in him, and nothing of himself.

  “Have I changed that much?” Deel said, in response to the way they were looking at him. Both of them had their hands in their laps, as if he might leap across the table at any moment and bite them.

  “You’re very thin,” Mary Lou said.

  “I was too heavy when I left. I’m too skinny now. Soon I hope to be just right.” He tried to smile, but the smile dripped off. He took a deep breath. “So, how you been?”

  “Been?”

  “Yeah. You know. How you been?”

  “Oh. Fine,” she said. “Good. I been good.”

  “The boy?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Does he talk?”

  “Sure he talks. Say hello to your daddy, Winston.”

  The boy didn’t speak.

  “Say hello,” his mother said.

  The boy didn’t respond.

  “That’s all right,” Deel said. “It’s been a while. He doesn’t remember me. It’s only natural.”

  “You joined up through Canada?”

  “Like I said I would.”

  “I couldn’t be sure,” she said.

  “I know. I got in with the Americans, a year or so back. It didn’t matter who I was with. It was bad.”

  “I see,” she said, but Deel could tell she didn’t see at all. And he didn’t blame her. He had been caught up in the enthusiasm of war and adventure, gone up to Canada and got in on it, left his family in the lurch, thinking life was passing him by and he was missing out. Life had been right here and he hadn’t even recognized it.

  Mary Lou stood up and shuffled around the table and heaped fresh beans onto his plate and went to the oven and brought back cornbread and put it next to the beans. He watched her every move. Her hair was a little sweaty on her forehead and it clung there, like wet hay.

  “How old are you now?” he asked her.

  “How old?” she said, returning to her spot at the table. “Deel, you know how old I am. I’m twenty-eight, older than when you left.”

  “I’m ashamed to say it, but I’ve forgotten your birthday. I’ve forgotten his. I don’t hardly know how old I am.”

  She told him the dates of their births.

  “I’ll be,” he said. “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “I … I thought you were dead.”

  She had said it several times since he had come home. He said, “I’m still not dead, Mary Lou. I’m in the flesh.”

  “You are. You certainly are.”

  She didn’t eat what was on her plate. She just sat there looking at it, as if it might transform.

  Deel said, “Who fixed the well, built the roof over it?”

  “Tom Smites,” she said.

  “Tom? He’s a kid.”

  “Not anymore,” she said. “He was eighteen when you left. He wasn’t any kid then, not really.”

  “I reckon not,” Deel sai
d.

  After dinner, she gave him his pipe the way she used to, and he found a cane rocker that he didn’t remember being there before, took it outside and sat and looked toward the trees and smoked his pipe and rocked.

  He was thinking of then and he was thinking of now and he was thinking of later, when it would be nighttime and he would go to bed, and he wasn’t certain how to approach the matter. She was his wife, but he hadn’t been with her for years, and now he was home, and he wanted it to be like before, but he didn’t really remember how it was before. He knew how to do what he wanted to do, but he didn’t know how to make it love. He feared she would feel that he was like a mangy cat that had come in through the window to lie there and expected petting.

  He sat and smoked and thought and rocked.

  The boy came out of the house and stood to the side and watched him.

  The boy had the gold hair of his mother and he was built sturdy for a boy so young. He had a bit of a birthmark in front of his right ear, on the jawline, like a little strawberry. Deel didn’t remember that. The boy had been a baby, of course, but he didn’t remember that at all. Then again, he couldn’t remember a lot of things, except for the things he didn’t want to remember. Those things he remembered. And Mary Lou’s skin. That he remembered. How soft it was to the touch, like butter.

  “Do you remember me, boy?” Deel asked.

  “No.”

  “Not at all?”

  “No.”

  “‘Course not. You were very young. Has your mother told you about me?”

  “Not really.”

  “Nothing.”

  “She said you got killed in the war.”

  “I see … Well, I didn’t.”

  Deel turned and looked back through the open door. He could see Mary Lou at the washbasin pouring water into the wash pan, water she had heated on the stove. It steamed as she poured. He thought then he should have brought wood for her to make the fire. He should have helped make the fire and heat the water. But being close to her made him nervous. The boy made him nervous.