WIDOW

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  “Meet me,” Shadow said quickly.

  “I don't think so.” He sounded amused.

  ‘Please. We have to talk.”

  “No, that's quite impossible.”

  “But. . .”

  “This is important, I said!” The dancer's voice bordered on a screech. Her face was fox-like, feral and pointed, eyes squinted. Shadow wanted to slap her.

  “It's your turn,” Son said. “If you don't do it, I will.” Then he hung up and Shadow took the receiver and knocked it once, hard, against the wall.

  The woman standing behind her said, “Well, shit, don't get pissed, I have to call my babysitter. She called while I was on stage and told Bruce my baby's running a fever.”

  Shadow glared at her before stalking away. This fucking place, she thought. These fucking people.

  That fucking lunatic calling her, ordering her around . . .

  ~*~

  After her set, with the drowning tune of an AC/DC song echoing in her ears, and the strobe lights blinding her, Shadow received word in the dressing room that Mitch wanted to see her out front at his table. So he was here, all right.

  The lingering flicking of the strobe lights, the thundering music, the roomful of smoke, the tension that came into her belly when Son called, it had not gone away, and now all of it conspired to bring on the headache. She swallowed three aspirin, chased by Coke, before dressing and going to him. She had to say something, but she wasn't yet sure what.

  It felt as if she were on a merry-go-round and it was spinning out of control, faster and faster. The world blurred by, unreal, intangible. She couldn't get a firm grip on anything, especially her thoughts. They twirled and eddied so that she was talking to herself in her head, talking in snatches about first Son and then Charlene and, next, she was preparing a speech for Mitchell, something to make him give up on her, but then she'd argue with herself, not wanting him to give up at all. It was like having multiple personalities, she guessed, where a dozen conversations at once went on in her head. It was all mind-numbing static in the end, none of the internal dialogue helpful to her.

  She stepped from the wings of the stage and took the two steps down to the club floor. She couldn't see a damn thing. The new lighting lit up the club, then plunged it into darkness, over and over again. She stood frozen, realizing she couldn't even move through the tables because she couldn't see them long enough to navigate her way. She had no idea where Mitch was sitting. She'd trip and break her neck trying to find him. She briefly considered turning around and leaving the club by the alley door. Couldn't she just skip some of the problems that plagued her?

  A male hand came around the tender flesh of her forearm and she suddenly jerked away, afraid it was one of the drunken customers manhandling her. “Shadow, it's me.”

  It was him. She let him lead her through the tables to his own. She felt for a chair with both her hands outstretched in front of her, blinded each time the strobe flashed. He helped her be seated. She thought, I can't work here if Bruce keeps those lights. I'll have to go somewhere else.

  “I tried calling you,” Mitch said. “You were never here and the manager wouldn't give out your number. It's unlisted, isn't it?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “What's wrong?”

  His hands came around hers where she had them over her face. “I can't see you anymore, go out with you, become involved with you,” she said.

  He laughed and she wanted to jump up and move around the table into his arms, tell him, yes, it's just a joke, I'm testing you. But she said, “I mean it.”

  His hands fell away from hers. “I don't see how you can really want that.”

  “But, I do. It's just not . . . it won't work out.”

  “Why the hell not? What's changed your mind?”

  “I can't talk now. I have to leave. My head's killing me.” She came to her feet, avoiding looking at him, and was not more than two feet away from the table when she ran into an occupied chair. Someone said, “Hey, baby, how you doin'?” and she moved on, bumping into tables, chairs, people, until she stumbled her way into the dressing room.

  “That funny light's making everybody blind,” Mom said, coming to guide her. “How you been, girl? Haven't seen you in the place for days on end.”

  Shadow sat down and closed her eyes. “I have a headache.”

  “Want some aspirin? I think I have a bottle of Bayer around here somewhere. I might even have some extra-strength Excedrin.”

  “No, I already took something. Just let me . . . I have to be quiet.”

  Mom made reassuring sounds and went back to arranging the cosmetics in their Tupperware bowls while Shadow dealt with a headache that was nothing compared to the throbbing that rampaged through her heart.

  ~*~

  Son had called her from the St John, a club that was new, up and coming, featuring some of the most talented girls in the business. It was going to give the Blue Boa a run for its money.

  He sat at a booth in disguise, almost hoping the cop would come in. The cop wouldn't recognize him at all with the mustache and extra weight padded around his midsection. He might not have remembered him even without the disguise, after all it had been years since he interviewed him at the station.

  Son didn't mean to be on the hunt or pick up a victim tonight. He just didn't want to spend time at home. With Mother. It broke his heart every time he moved past her closed door. He couldn't stand it.

  Could. Not. Stand it.

  He should call a funeral home, he knew that. He would do it presently, really, just as soon as this other was out of his way. He was too busy right now to handle all the tedious details of burying his mother. He'd have to pick out a coffin, find a dress for her to be buried in, select a monument. Wood coffin or steel? Her pale pink dress with the rounded collar at the neck or the robin's-egg blue she favored for sunny spring days? An angel atop a square granite stone or a nice, restrained plaque with just her name, and the dates of birth and death? He didn't know, he couldn't decide, he wondered, when he could ever decide all those details . . .

  Oh, he couldn't handle these thoughts. If he did. If he took care of those things, she would . . .

  haunt him

  . . . be gone forever.

  He expected she would be angry if she knew . . .

  she knew she knew

  . . . he had left her lying in her death bed, but what could he do? He was too busy. There were so many noises in his head begging to be . . .

  heard

  . . . silenced.

  Lost in these jingle-jangle thoughts, Son didn't know the man was sitting at the table with him until he spoke.

  “You got a light?”

  Son came out of his reverie and saw the speaker. A fag, cruising for a one-night stand. The lifestyle screamed from the stranger's tone of voice, the look, the posture. He was slight in body, about thirty, receding hairline that created a sharp widow's peak. He was dressed well in pressed slacks and a cream silk shirt underneath a good quality sports jacket. Son almost said something rude and insulting like do I look gay to you? but thought better of it. He should not turn away a true victim when he presented himself, a gift from the gods.

  “Sure, I have a pack of matches here somewhere.” Son felt around in his pants pocket until he brought up the matchbook with “Blue Boa” inscribed in blue gothic letters across the front. He handed it over.

  The other man made a production of lighting a cigarette, a Virginia Slim, for chrissakes, one of those mile-long sticks of tobacco for neurotic women. The stranger sucked hard on the filter until he had it going. He handed the matchbook back, but Son shook his head. “Keep it. I don't smoke.”

  The fag sighed. “There's so many of you nowadays. We smokers have become second-class citizens, highly discriminated against. So is it all right if I smoke at your table?”

  Son said he didn't mind. He almost smiled thinking how a homosexual should be used to being treated in a second-class way, since the minority he belon
ged to had always gotten the same raw deal from society. But he didn't. He commiserated and helped start the conversation.

  It was not long before Son had conned the victim to follow him to his car where they could be afforded a little privacy for the sexual act, the resultant fee having been mutually agreed upon.

  ~*~

  Son had never indulged in a homosexual experience. On the way to the car, he wondered what it might be like. No one would know, what was the difference? If he didn't like it, he could always call a stop at any point during the transaction, couldn't he?

  In slang terms, they called it the “kneel and bob,” but in this instance it could have been called the “bend and knock your head—bang, bang—on the steering wheel.” It was horribly uncomfortable and a distinct turnoff. Son's member was as wilted and shrunken as a dead peony. An idea came into his head before things were underway too seriously.

  “Let's get out of here and go to my place.”

  The other man, going by the improbable name of Cato, rose from where he had his head buried in Son's lap and said, “Oh, God, am I glad you said that. This furtive shit in cars gives me a real pain in the neck. Literally.”

  Son grinned, zipped his pants, and started the car. On the way to the house, he talked about being a writer just to pass the time.

  “Really? I never met a real published writer before. One of my friends, well, actually he was my former lover, but anyway, he's been working on a book . . .”

  Son tuned out. He had heard that a million times. My friend, lover, ex-wife, parent, cousin, grandfather, child is writing a book. Yeah, right. Half the world was writing a book, hear tell it. The sad thing was, they really were. The whole goddamn nation had turned into a land of scribblers. Tell-all books, histories, memoirs, confessions, and a plethora of imaginative novels penned by those who thought they actually knew something to write about. Not that he was any better. Cribbing from the dead didn't exactly make him into a Nobel winner of literature.

  What would Cato say if he told him he plagiarized everything?

  “So what do you write, westerns, or horror maybe, like Stephen King?”

  “More like John D. MacDonald,” Son said, slowing for a light.

  Son sighed. “I write mystery. Have you seen the movie Cape Fear? That came from a book by MacDonald called The Executioners.”

  “Oh, right! De Niro, man, he's ace, isn't he? I love movies. I've always been a film buff. Any of your books been made into movies?”

  Son shook his head. “Hollywood's not that interested in whodunits. They like more gore and sex than you can find in a mystery, The Executioners notwithstanding.”

  They discussed movies, good, bad, indifferent, until Son turned into his driveway. He had never brought a victim to his house. His neighbors were abed and asleep by this time of night, but still, it was risky to walk in with someone and then carry him back out again.

  What the hell.

  He wanted Cato to meet his mother.

  ~*~

  After Cato had finished going down on him, Son decided that the old kneel and bob wasn't as great as banging away at Sherilee, but it would do in a pinch. Now he could see why homosexuality had its adherents. Not that he would switch over permanently, but it wasn't as disgusting as he'd thought before he tried it.

  Lying back on the sofa, Cato between his knees panting, Son said, “Want to see where I work?”

  Cato rose to his feet. “You got anything to drink first?” He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his moist lips.

  “Sure. Have a seat, I'll go find something.” In the kitchen he pulled out another bottle of the California wine, poured half a glass into a water tumbler. He found the rat poison in the pantry and put an even teaspoon of it into the glass, then stirred the concoction vigorously. He sniffed the wine. Didn't smell too bad. There wasn't enough poison in it to kill Cato, but it would certainly serve to debilitate him so that Son could pour some stronger stuff down him later.

  “Here,” he said, offering the glass to his guest. “I'm sorry it's not chilled.”

  “Burgundy? You don't have any white wine, do you?”

  “No, sorry.” White wine. Of course. How stereotypical.

  “You're not drinking?”

  “I don't drink. Go ahead without me. When you're done, I'll show you my office.”

  “Great!” Cato lifted the glass to his lips, tipped forward the blood-red liquid, took a big, lusty swallow. He grimaced, rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.

  “What's the matter? The liquor store told me this was the best wine they had from California vineyards.”

  “Well, hey, you won't catch me disputing a liquor clerk.” He smiled at the weak joke.

  Son shrugged. “I don't know a thing about wines.”

  Cato tried another swallow, obviously out of courtesy. He then set the glass on the coffee table. “You know, maybe the clerk was pulling your leg. I'm afraid what we have here is some bad-tasting fermentation. No offense, of course.”

  “None taken. C'mon, my office is down this way.”

  Cato made appreciative sounds while looking at Son's computer, the stack of typed pages neatly piled to the right of the machine, the walls of books, the odd looking little bust of Edgar Allan Poe. “Nice,” he said. “It must be wonderful to work at home and not have to put up with a boss.”

  “Listen, my mother's usually awake most of the night. How would you like to meet her?”

  “Your mother! You live here with your mother? Jesus, she could have walked in on us.”

  “No chance. She's an invalid. I should have told you she was here, I guess. I just take it for granted and didn't think about it. She's a swell old lady, you'll like her.” Son moved from the office into the hallway. Behind him, Cato followed, protesting.

  “I really think we ought not disturb her. I should be getting back to the club, you know, find my friends, be getting home . . .”

  “This won't take long. Mother would never forgive me if I didn't introduce my company.”

  Son didn't know quite what he was doing taking the stranger down the hall to the closed bedroom door. He wanted him to be shocked, yes, he wanted to note his reaction to a dead woman lying on a bed. The man would never have the chance to report it, but was it wise? It meant more things could go wrong.

  Son acknowledged he was taking all kinds of new risks he had never chanced before. A pinnacle of excitement, though, climbed so high inside him he thought he might burst out into song. This was better than any kind of sex, any day.

  He opened the door, crossed to his mother's night table, and did not hesitate to flip on the lamp switch. The body emerged into view, bathed in a soft pink glow. She looked so peaceful. Even naked, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. If it wasn't for the smell emanating from her decaying flesh, she might be an aged goddess, an elderly Sleeping Beauty awaiting the kiss from her prince while reclining against the hand-crocheted pillows.

  He turned to watch Cato's face. “Cato, meet my mother. Mother, this is Cato, a little friend of mine.”

  “Oh good Christ.” The man was frozen in place, a rictus of horror holding his features in thrall.

  “I'll tell you something else about me, Cato. A secret even Mother didn't know. I love to copy, to mimic, duplicate, reproduce, imitate. I've been doing it for years. Maybe since I was a kid. I copy books, movie scenes and plots.

  “For instance, this scene you now witness is very similar to the one in the movie Psycho, don't you think? Did you ever see Psycho? You said you were a movie buff. That famous movie came from a Robert Bloch book, you know, not from the scriptwriter and not from the mind of Alfred Hitchcock. The best movies come from books, from authors.

  “Remember Norman Bates in the movie? Anthony Perkins? How he had his mother stuffed and sitting in the rocking chair in the cellar? Don't you think I've done a good job with the materials I had to work with? I don't have a cellar, you understand.

  “But
I do have a dead mother, the poor old dear.”

  During Son's recital, Cato went from frozen terror to sudden frenzied action. He swiveled, knocking a doily from the back of the easy chair, bumped into the door facing, staggered into the hall, gained control of his feet and, like a sprinter in a race, hunkered down to dash for the side door leading outside, to where Son had parked the car.

  Son took his time in pursuit. No hurry. The door was locked. By the time Cato discovered how to unlock it, he would be restrained.

  Son walked right up to him, wrapped an arm around his neck, hauled him off his feet, and dragged him, his scream a mangled gurgle, to the living room. He threw him onto the sofa, onto his back. He climbed on top, to straddle him with his knees, effectively pinning him to the cushions.

  There he proceeded to choke him unconscious while murmuring into his horrified face, “There . . . there . . . shhhh . . . hush now . . . there . . . isn't that better?”

  Thirty-Five

  It was a feeding frenzy. Mitchell Samson presided over a room where eight detectives sat talking nonstop. Outside the door marked “private” waited a gang from the press corps, including three reporters from the local television stations with all their gear and cameramen. Samson hoped the lieutenant was giving them the promised statement right now, otherwise they'd still be out there waiting to descend on him and his men once the meeting was over.