“Need a coffee?” he said.
“That’s a very kind offer,” Paulo answered, tossing his pen onto the desk and giving his arms a stretch.
They talked as they walked.
“You taking any medication?” Paulo said.
Again, Patrick half-ignored the question. Telling girls about the pink pills for a little sympathy was one thing, but did he want a detailed conversation about it with some elder-statesman?
In the end Paulo plugged the gap of silence.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,” he said. “It’s private. It’s just that some drugs can interfere with your sleeping patterns. Not that I know much about the subject. I’m a constant seven hours kinda guy myself. In the sack at eleven, asleep at two minutes past, up with the birds and the rest of the early morning commuters.”
Patrick pressed the button for the strongest coffee available, two sugars, no milk. “I get the feeling nothing really bothers you.”
“That’s pretty much it. I come to work. I don’t exactly enjoy it after all these years, but I accept it. Then I go home and have a life of sorts. I don’t get myself worked up and don’t have any ambition to speak of.”
He took the cup Patrick handed to him. “Thanks, buddy. So what about you? What’s beefing you so much?”
“What?”
“Hey, come on. I know something is.”
“Is it that obvious?”
Paulo put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “You don’t need to tell me. I can understand. I could tell from the other day you must miss your folks. Are you planning on taking a break anytime soon to see them?”
Should he tell Paulo about his family? And his dreams?
“Perhaps you’re just missing that fine British tea of yours?” Paulo said with a cheesy guffaw.
And that was when the moment – the opportunity for Patrick to tell someone – was lost.
They drank and talked of travel. Paulo spoke for way too long about where he took his family on vacations, and Patrick thought quickly and said most of his childhood holidays had been spent on the coastal resorts around northern England. Then they returned to their desks and resumed work.
That evening, Patrick went home, watched the news, then grabbed a glass of water and took out his little brown bottle.
He tipped two tablets onto the table. He picked one of them up and held it up to the light. He held it close to his eyes and rotated it between his finger and thumb, but it was no good, there was no writing.
There was, however, a name on the bottle. He checked the name on the internet. They were painkillers – simple straightforward painkillers – exactly as his doctor had told him when he first came to America. It was like he’d told Joni; the tablets had been prescribed for the pains he’d been experiencing from the minor operations he’d had on his face as a child – something to do with a growth spurt in late adolescence putting strain on the small strips of scar tissue. The doctor suggested keeping him on a low dose and warned him against coming off them without consulting a physician.
Patrick spent forty minutes scouring the internet for more details of the drug, for any scare stories of side effects, particularly of sleep disturbances, but the only recorded contraindications were stomach problems – ranging from minor indigestion to bowel cancer when taken in large doses – and minor skin irritations in susceptible people. The irony of the latter put a flicker of a smile on Patrick’s face.
He took the tablets, which reminded him of his conversation with Paulo.
He’d made up the talk of holidays in the north of England. He’d had to. Jesus, for a moment he couldn’t remember his life before the dreams had started.
Then he did. Yes. Don’t be dumb, Patrick. He was at college, and before that he was back home in England, with Declan, in a foster home.
Declan. He had to contact Declan. Had to keep those ties alive. But it was too late in the evening now. He could call him another day.
Thoughts of back home reminded him of his favourite meal.
He cooked himself baked beans on toast, and then watched a documentary on rock music.
At the end of that he eyed his guitar – a Gibson Les Paul perched on a wooden stand in the corner of the room.
He carefully picked it up from its stand, and got comfortable with it. He slid the fingers of his left hand up and down the fretboard a few times, then poised a plectrum over the pickup.
His fingers tried a few combinations, and he spent some time simply admiring how the black edges faded into dark brown toward the middle of the body.
Somehow it just wasn’t coming.
He gave up trying and went to bed.
For once he dreamed of nothing disturbing, moreover nothing he could even remember when he woke up.
11
The following day Patrick had another pleasant, constructive, but ultimately uneventful, day at work. But it was so constructive he worked late and caught something to eat on the way home.
As he sat, eating in front of the TV, the guitar seemed to be staring at him, mocking him, so he put it in a cupboard.
Then he took his tablets, and had time to shower and catch another hour of TV before going to bed.
He’d completed a long and hard day’s work, and that led to a sense of cool relaxation as soon as the lights were out.
He fell asleep immediately, and descended into a dream.
*
For Carrie Carlini this day was just the best.
Shirley and Lana, both of whom she liked to think of as her equal best friends, had accepted the sleepover invitation for next week. And on that day they would swap stories of loves and hates well into the night.
She stepped off the schoolbus and turned to wave at all her friends, but especially Shirley and Lana. The bus drove off and Carrie looked up. Yes, today the sky was made of candy, the clouds were marshmallows, and the sun was one great big giant lemon cupcake.
Her schoolbag swung around her neck and shoulder as she skipped along the edge of the park towards her drive. On her road all of the front gardens had neat and colourful borders, every lawn was the same lush green, and there was not a piece of litter to be seen. In addition to everything else it was a glorious summer’s evening and it was Friday. Friday was the day Mom and Dad were going to take her and her two brothers to the mall, then onto the pizza parlour, then to see the movie that anyone who was anyone just had to see.
In her head she was already settled into that cossetting velour seat, eating popcorn from a bottomless bucket, and watching the opening credits.
But Carrie didn’t know someone was watching her step off the bus. And she had no way of knowing that the person doing the watching had been told all about her by her parents.
She stepped around the side of the house and reached for the door handle.
“Hiya, Noodle!” she said, pulling her hand back and looking down.
Noodle returned a deep purr and gave Carrie’s knee a welcoming head-butt.
“Hey, don’t knock me over, big boy.” She crouched down as Noodle turned onto his back and pushed his claws up into the air towards her, producing and retracting his claws in time with his purring.
A few seconds later Noodle’s eyes and ears alerted, and he flipped onto his feet and bolted to the bottom of the garden.
“Please yourself,” Carrie said, and went inside.
It was silent.
“Mom?”
No music. No TV.
“Dad?”
She dropped her schoolbag in the corner of the kitchen and ran into the living room.
At that moment Carrie’s world turned upside down, as she felt a hand that smelt of earthy sweat clasp itself over her mouth, and then her whole body was scooped up into the air. She gave a long scream, and the hand pressed itself more tightly to her face, its grip digging into her jawbone. She shook her head free for a second, spattering tears in all directions. A slap silenced her.
In front of her, sitting in four tight balls underneath the
front window were her mother, father, and two brothers.
She looked up to her captor. The man holding her was big even for an adult, and the arm that was wrapped around her waist ended in a shiny black pistol. Another unclean man, also with a pistol, stood nearby fidgeting and twitching.
The man holding her leaned his face down to hers. It was grubby, with flaky bits of skin stuck in the stubble and snot caked along the edge of one nostril like the sulphur powder along the ridge of the volcano they’d studied in geography earlier that month. His breath stank like that of old Billy-Bob, the hobo that had once asked Carrie’s mom if she’d got any spare food, while all the time holding his whisky bottle behind his back. The voice wasn’t like Billy-Bob’s at all; it was an accent she’d only ever heard before on TV.
“What have we got here?” Patrick said. “The full set, I think.” He turned Carrie over and planted her feet back on the floor. “That’s right, isn’t it?” he said to the man standing next to him.
“Th… th… three kids,” the other man said, contorting his face as he struggled to speak. “That’s all there i… is.”
“Good,” Patrick said. “Now we know we won’t get disturbed.”
“Come here, Carrie,” her mother said, tension sharpening her speech to a shriek.
A fresh stream of tears started to flow over Carrie’s face and she ran towards her mother. But her run was checked after two paces as Patrick held onto her arm and pulled her back.
“You stay over here with me, sweetheart,” he said, grinning and pushing the fingers holding the gun through her blonde locks.
“Hey, let her come over with us,” Carrie’s father said. “She’s no use to you.”
“The thing is,” Patrick said, “when I first asked you where your home-safe was, you just told me to go fuck myself, which I thought a little rude.”
Carrie’s mother turned to her father. “You said what? For Christ’s sake, Tony, give the bastards what they want.”
“This was before you got here,” he replied. “The pair of assholes were waiting for me as soon as I got back from work, ambushed me just like they did you.”
“Did that hurt your pride?” Patrick said to him with a grin. He turned to Carrie’s mother. “See, he’s just upset he can’t play the big man in front of his family. Makes him look like his dick’s tiny.”
“We’ll give you what you want,” Carrie’s mother said. “The safe’s down in the basement. The code for it’s down there too – written backwards on the back of an old painting.”
“I told him all this,” her husband said.
Patrick poked the gun in his direction. “Your husband’s right. He told us once he’d calmed down. We know where everything is, we’re just waiting so as we won’t get disturbed.”
“Oh, you’re disturbed all right,” Mr Carlini said. “You and your inbred cousin here. Well now you got us all here, just take the money and get the fuck outta here.”
“Yeah,” the other man with the gun said. “C’mon P… P… Patrick, let’s g… git.”
“Shut up!” Patrick said. He dragged Carrie, now whimpering uncontrollably, with him as he stepped over to the window and looked up and down the road. Carrie yelped as she was pushed down onto the floor next to her father. Patrick pointed the gun to the middle of the man’s forehead. While the two young boys cowered, covering their faces, Mrs Carlini let out another scream which quickly disintegrated into a hoarse bawl, then simply stared, her eyes hopping between her husband, Patrick, and the gun halfway between them.
“Fuck you,” Mr Carlini said, spitting the words out.
His wife’s throat locked for a second before she found her voice again: “Stop it, Tony!” She leaned towards Patrick, instinctively lowering her head and looking upwards to his face. “Look, mister. He doesn’t mean it. Please. Just take our money and go.”
Patrick hadn’t taken his eyes off Mr Carlini, the man defying the barrel aimed at his forehead, the man returning Patrick’s glare with interest. Patrick slowly brought the gun round to the side of the man’s head and pressed it against his temple, forcing his head to one side.
The wail of three screaming children only seemed to make Patrick even more resolute. A desperately sobbing Mrs Carlini, a dark dribble of mascara now falling from each eye, screamed at him.
“Please!” she said. “Please don’t hurt him. For God’s sake just take the money!”
“Yeah,” Patrick’s accomplice said. “Let’s just get the money and g… g… go, while we can.”
And still Mr Carlini held a bitter stare at Patrick.
Patrick withdrew the gun from his head and grabbed Carrie again, dragging her with him as he slowly stepped back to the other side of the room. “You think you’re a tough guy, don’t you,” he said to Mr Carlini.
“You better believe it, buddy.”
Mrs Carlini started pawing her husband, her tears of fear now turning into tears of relief. Only now did Mr Carlini avert his gaze from Patrick – just for a second – to look into his wife’s eyes, to give her some measure of assurance.
When they both looked over to the other side of the room they saw Patrick stroking Carrie’s hair, drawing it behind her head, then drifting his dirty fingertips across her unblemished face.
“Of course,” Patrick said quietly, “there’s more than one way to see how tough your father really is.”
At that moment Patrick’s accomplice stepped over to him. “Hey, I didn’t come here to—”
He stopped talking when Patrick waved the gun towards his face.
“Jack. Just shut up, get back, and wait for instructions.”
He did, and Patrick turned his attentions back to Carrie. His hand moved down and along the contours of her torso, his eyes following its path, as if measuring the flesh.
“Oh, no,” Mrs Carlini said. “Please God, no.” And then her voice rose to a raucous shout. “Why can’t you just take… the goddam… money… and LEAVE!”
Patrick gave a cruel half grin. “Sure, we’ll do that. But a guy needs a little job satisfaction too.” He rested a greasy hand on Carrie’s chest, squeezing the developing bud that lay there. Carrie struggled. Patrick slapped her face.
“Now just you fucking hold on, punk,” Mr Carlini said, getting to his feet and stepping forward.
Patrick pointed the gun at him and he retreated, still standing, wagging an angry finger.
“Listen to me,” he said, his voice now wavering. “Listen to me for a second before you do anything stupid and this gets outta hand. You can take the money – we’re insured, just take it, we won’t try to stop you – but think about what you’re doing. This is an eleven-year-old girl, for Christ’s sake.”
Patrick pulled Carrie towards him and gave her shoulders a slight squeeze. “You mean… I’d be the first?”
“Jesus Christ.” Carrie’s father now stepped side to side, pacing but going nowhere. “Well, let me put it another way. You may have the gun here and now, mister. You may be in charge, but let me tell you – no, let me promise you – and listen to me properly here – if you do anything…” A hand covered his mouth for a second, then wiped his eyes. He convulsed for a few seconds then recovered with a sniff and a gulp. “If you do anything to hurt my daughter, if you do so much as harm a hair on her pretty head, so help me God I will find you, and I will kill you. Are you listening?”
“I’m listening,” Patrick said, his hand now venturing down to Carrie’s slim, pre-pubescent hips and tight butt.
Mr Carlini put his arm around his wife, who had now buried her head in her hands. His voice started to regain its previous strength. “Well I hope you fucking hear me! I’m telling you, if you… if you do anything I will hunt you down wherever you are, and I will fucking kill you, I swear to God I will put you down like a rabid dog.”
Patrick put on a puzzled expression and casually leaned on one hip. “Really?”
“Just you fucking try me.”
Patrick gave a single nod. “Okay.”
He pointed the barrel of the gun down onto the crown of Carrie’s head and pulled the trigger.
In an instant Carrie’s bawling ceased – like a radio being switched off in the middle of a rock song – and all her dreams of best friends, sleepovers and giant lemon cupcakes ended with a single bullet. Half of her face exploded outwards, streaming particles of bone, flesh and brain into the room, and a large dark crater appeared where her collar bone used to be.
And then all noise in the room stopped. It was as if they were all showing some belated respect to Carrie, allowing her one final ostentatious performance, as the bloody mess of her small body slumped to the floor like a side of beef being dumped on a butcher’s table.
A cackle of laughter came from Patrick’s lips, as his blood-splattered face stared over to Mr Carlini, whose own face was now crimson and fit to burst.
“So, come on, big man,” Patrick said. “Come and hunt me down. I’m a rabid dog, so kill me. I’m waiting.”
The man held a distant, unfocussed gaze for a second, then looked up and charged forward with a roar and a barrelled-out chest. Patrick held his gun up and the man launched himself onto both Patrick and his gun. Two gunshots rang out in quick succession and Patrick felt the man’s still pulsing corpse engulf him in darkness.
*
Then Patrick woke up, staggered to the bathroom and threw up.
12
Back in the Lake’s End coffee shop Maggie pursed her lips in distaste, her nostrils twitching.
“That’s disgusting,” she said. “Who would even think about doing things like that?”
“I know,” the man said.
“Killing a poor sick old man was bad enough, but doing… doing whatever to a little girl is just… eugh!”
The man held a finger up to her. “But remember,” he said. “He didn’t do any of that – they were only dreams.”
Maggie gave a quick shiver. “I know, but it makes me sick. I mean, what sort of a person has dreams like that, and in so much detail?”
Slow Burning Lies - A Dark Psychological Thriller Page 5
