“You said two days,” I tell him. “Now get off my property.”
Starks gets within ten feet of us and stops. “Who’s your boyfriend?”
“I’m her brother, asshole.”
“Whoa, some mouth on this kid.”
I whisper to Thomas. “Take it easy.”
I take two steps toward Starks. Be the aggressor.
“Careful there, sexy.” Starks lifts one hand halfway out of his coat pocket, enough so I can see the handle of a gun. “You might be able to use your kung fu shit on me, but a bullet wins every time.”
“You said two days,” I repeat.
He shrugs. “So I lied. What the fuck you want from me?”
I can hear Thomas breathing heavily behind me, and I’m aware that I’m effectively shielding him from Starks’s line of sight.
“Go in the house, Thomas,” I say.
“No,” he says.
Starks says, “I’m bored here, Alice. I want to go home. The way I figure it, you made a decision whether or not to pay me in about five minutes after I left you. So another day doesn’t really matter, does it? You either have my money or you don’t, and me spending another night here isn’t going to change that.”
“We’re getting the money for you,” Thomas says. “But we can’t do anything about it on a Sunday. You’ll have to wait.”
Starks loses his smug expression in an instant. Stripped away, all that’s left is the snarl of an animal.
“Don’t you fucking tell me what I have to do, kid,” he says. “I do what I want, and if I’m saying you pay now, then you pay now.”
I inch forward, weight on my back leg, trying to let my years of training control my movements. Trying to fight the fear, or at least use the fear to focus me. I’ve taken self-defense classes where I’ve bested large men with weapons; the key is getting close enough to have a chance. I shift my focus between his groin and trachea; either one of those will do.
“We don’t have fifteen thousand dollars in cash today,” I say. “And no number of threats is going to make that happen. If you want it, you need to wait.”
Now Starks takes the gun out of his jacket and holds it by his side. It’s late afternoon, but I don’t see anyone else on the snow-caked street. Then I wonder about Richard. Is he watching from upstairs?
“Maybe I don’t really want the money,” Starks says. “Maybe I’ve got plenty already, and I don’t need yours. Maybe all I want is to hurt someone.”
Starks takes another step. I need him about five feet closer before I have a chance of striking first.
“Get in the house,” he says. “We’ll talk there.”
“No,” I say.
He wiggles his gun in his hand. “Are you fucking blind, bitch? Or just stupid? Get in the fucking house, and move slowly.”
I hear Thomas moving behind me. “Alice,” he says. “Let’s just go in the house. I’ll get the key from the planter.”
“You see, Alice? Just listen to your brother. Maybe he’s the smart one of your family. Though he don’t look it.”
I turn my back to Starks, the last thing I want to do. But this way, I can see Thomas’s position and adjust my body to block Starks’s view of what Thomas is doing. Thomas leans down and scrapes through the top layer of snow in the planter. I step toward him and a bit to my right. Thomas finds the plastic bag and opens it up.
We need to get into the house without Starks. Don’t shoot him, Thomas, I think. Just point the gun at him long enough for me to disarm him. Once we get inside, we’ll be safe.
Thomas slowly pulls out the gun. Suddenly I see this all going horribly wrong. Thomas doesn’t know how to use a gun, and we don’t even know if it’s loaded. The moment Starks sees it, he’ll kill both of us before Thomas can even point the gun at him. I need to do something. If I stand here, we’re going to die.
I turn and charge at Starks.
His expression changes into one of surprise, but that doesn’t keep him from bringing his arm up and leveling his weapon at me.
I’m closing in fast. Another second and I might have a chance to knock his arm before he can fire. I plant on my right foot and swing my left leg around in a sweeping arc. Starks pulls back his arm before he fires, avoiding my kick. He takes a step back, just out of my range, and brings the gun up again.
“Stupid bitch,” he says.
I lunge at him.
A single gunshot smashes my eardrums.
Just before I reach Starks, an invisible force sends him reeling backward. His gun skitters along the ice as he collapses on my driveway.
Blood pools, coating the top layer of snow like cherry syrup on a snow cone.
It almost looks pretty.
Twenty-Three
“Thomas!”
“He was going to shoot us, Alice! You saw that. I had to.”
Starks on the ground, writhing and groaning, blood leaching into snow. Stomach wound, I think.
I scan the street, seeing no one. A small miracle. I peer up at my house. No Richard. Then I realize his car isn’t even here, so he must have gone out when we were at the Rose.
“Thomas, we have to get him inside. Right now.”
“Alice, I don’t think—”
I spin toward him. “Thomas, put the gun away and help me get him inside. Now.”
Thomas tries the door but can’t open it.
“It’s locked.”
I toss him the keys from my jacket pocket, but he doesn’t know which one is to my front door. He tries one at a time, and my head nearly bursts from frustration.
Finally, the door flies open. Alarm chirping.
“Four seven six five three,” I tell him. “Turn off the alarm.”
“Wait, what? Four seven what?”
“Goddamn it.” I race past him and disarm the system. “Put the gun inside.”
He does.
Then we both run out to Starks, who’s trying to stand but failing. His gun is out of reach, but I still grab it and toss it inside my house.
“We’ll each grab an arm and drag him,” I say.
Thomas nods without saying a word. He looks like he might vomit.
“You fucking shot me, you goddamn…” Starks scrunches his face in a fresh volley of pain and doesn’t complete his sentence.
I grab one of Starks’s arms, and he yanks back with only weak force. Thomas grabs the other.
“Hold tight,” I say.
“Fuck you,” Starks moans. “I’ll kill both of you.” Then he pulls back hard, releasing both of his arms from our grips. He manages to twist onto his side, offering me a perfect opportunity.
I kick him directly in the stomach, perhaps on the entry wound itself. Starks howls. Loud. I should have thought of that.
Miraculously, we are still alone on the street.
We grab his arms again, and this time, Starks offers no resistance. We flip him onto his back and drag him to the door. Up, over the threshold, into the entryway, across the hardwood, and onto the thick, cotton area rug, colored not too differently from the blood beginning to spill onto it. I look back at our path and see a few dribbles of blood along the way, though thankfully not an abundance of it. This all strikes me as a scene from a movie. Certainly not reality. Perhaps that’s why I’m as calm as I am. None of this can be real.
“Go outside and cover up his blood,” I tell Thomas. “Use the snow shovel near the door.”
“What are we going to do with him?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Just go.”
And he does. While he’s outside, Starks uses the opportunity to threaten me more, but his venomous hatred slowly becomes peppered more and more with pleas for help. He says it hurts. He says he doesn’t want to die.
“I’ll help you,” I say, standing over him. “But first you have to help me.”
He swipes at my leg with his hand, but I sidestep it easily, then deliver another kick, this time to his side. More blood on my rug. I don’t care. I’m zoned in.
“Anything. Jesus, just call an ambulance. I’m bleeding out here.”
I lean over him.
“How did you find me?” I ask. “Someone told you, right?”
He places his hand over his stomach, and the cracks between his fingers are quickly breached by a red stream.
“Oh God. Oh Jesus.”
“Listen to me,” I say. “Who told you where I was?”
“I-I don’t know. Some guy came…up to me. I didn’t know him. Just named you and Jimmy, and gave me your address. Then took the fuck off.”
“What did he look like?”
“I dunno.” Another wince of pain. “White guy. Older.”
“That’s it? How old?”
“Fuck, bitch, I’m dying here.”
“How old?” I ready myself to kick him again.
“No…no. Okay, shit, maybe fifty, sixty. Who knows?”
“But you went to Jimmy first, even though you didn’t have his address?”
“He wasn’t hard to track down, and he was in Boston. Can you help me now? I don’t know anything.”
Some older white guy tracked Starks down and told him about my involvement that night. This man is certainly Mr. Interested. But the question is, how does Mr. Interested even know about that?
Starks lashes out with his legs, a swift and clean arc sweep, and I’m too late to react. I crash to the ground, knocking the back of my head against the hardwood floor. The impact stuns me, and in an instant, I taste the salt of warm blood in my mouth, flowing from where I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek. I try rolling away, but Starks snakes his thick arm around my neck from behind, squeezing me in the crook of his elbow. I swing an elbow back, which lands on his ribs. He grunts but does not let up. He is wounded but strong. I try to fight the fear, try to relax my body and understand which parts of his body are vulnerable and how I might attack them.
But I can’t breathe.
My throat threatens to implode at any moment. Panic is here, and it paralyzes me as much as Starks’s power.
I exhale but can’t bring in fresh air to replace it. The helplessness of this moment is beyond any panic attack I’ve ever had.
I try the elbow again, but I may as well be fighting underwater. All that training, all my strength, and how quickly it evaporates. Seconds.
Starks’s voice in my ear. Hot breath on my face. “This is what I came here for, Alice.”
I kick, but my legs don’t connect with anything. My fingers claw at his arm, digging impotently into his overcoat. I swing for his head. It’s out of reach.
I try screaming, but nothing comes. The only sound from me is a rattle deep in my lungs. My eyes feel like water balloons filled beyond capacity, ready to burst any moment.
Then a crack, a crunching sound. A wet, gagging sound comes from Starks, lasting only a heartbeat. His grip releases from my neck, and his hands mercifully slide from me. I gasp. Jump to my feet, spin around.
Starks doesn’t move.
Thomas stands over him, the snow shovel held in both fists, the business end hovering a foot above Starks’s head. There’s fresh blood on the blade.
He’s not dead. He’s still breathing. Pulsating blood bubbles on his lips.
“Thomas,” I say. My voice is a croak. I don’t know what to add. This is too surreal for coherent sentences.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I reach up and touch my neck, raw and burning.
“I-I think so.”
“He’s still alive,” Thomas says.
Just then, two things happen. Starks’s right arm starts twitching, the only part of his body that does so. And my phone rings.
Thomas looks down at the coffee table where my phone vibrates and scoots along the smooth wooden surface. He reads the contact on the screen to me.
“It’s Mom,” he says.
“Oh, good God.”
“Should we answer it?”
“No, we don’t answer it. There’s a man bleeding to death in my living room.”
The phone vibrates a few more times and then falls silent.
“Alice, what do we do?” Thomas drops the shovel to the floor and closes the front door.
“Is the blood outside covered up?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Did anyone see you out there?”
“I don’t think so. But what do we do about him?”
“I don’t know.” But I do know, don’t I? We do nothing, and by doing nothing, he dies. It’s what we do afterward that stumps me.
“He was killing you, Alice. I had to do something.”
I take three steps over to my brother, and I hug him. He seems little more than a scarecrow, skin so cold, it’s a wonder blood flows through him at all. Neither of us is equipped to deal with what’s happening now, but it suddenly hits me how little of the real world Thomas ever has to handle.
“Thomas, it’s okay.” I rub my hands on his back. “You saved me. He would have killed me for certain. You…you did the right thing.”
“I think I’m gonna puke,” he says.
“Don’t puke. We’ve got enough to clean up.”
He gives a small laugh, which might just be enough of a pressure relief to keep both of us from collapsing under the weight of all this.
My brother releases from me and runs his fingers through his hair. As he does, my phone buzzes a second time.
“It’s Mom again,” he says. “You should get it. Otherwise, maybe she’ll come here.”
He’s right. She has a second car. As much as I don’t want to talk to her right now, I answer the call.
“Hi.”
“Oh, Alice dear, thank God you’re there. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Those words coming at this time make me clench all my muscles.
“What do you mean?”
“I was so awful to you and Thomas. I’m so sorry. And I need him to come home. There’s no telling what type of problems he’ll get into without me. He needs his medication. Alice, I need to take care of him. Can I talk to him?”
“He’s…busy right now.”
“Just send him home, Alice. Will you do that for me? Very soon.”
“Mom, I think he needs to spend some more time here. Maybe a few days.”
“Oh, I couldn’t bear that. You don’t know how to take care of him like I do.”
“He’s twenty-four years old. He drove here. He’s got”—I look at the bloody snow shovel on the floor—“capabilities.”
Her voice is softer, almost a whisper. “Oh no, Alice. He’s just a boy. Just a helpless, innocent boy. He can’t survive without me. Like a cub alone in the woods.”
At that moment, I look over to my brother, and as I do, the antique wall clock chimes the five o’clock hour in its hollow, lonely tone. Thomas looks down upon Starks, wearing spray from the man’s blood on his coat. Thomas is still, a ghastly mannequin, his head tilted slightly to one side, as he gazes at Starks with wonder.
“He’s fine, Mom,” I say, not believing it at all.
“He needs his medication,” she replies. “He’s not right without it.”
“He can go a couple of days without it.”
“He can’t,” she says. “I’m coming there to get him.”
“No.” God no, not that. “He has your other car anyway—he would still need to drive it to get back home. Let him spend the night here, and he can come home tomorrow morning.”
Thomas snaps out of his reverie, looks to me, and shakes his head. I hold a finger up and mouth, It’s okay.
“Alice—”
“Mom, it’s okay to have a break. For both of
you. It will make things better. Just give it a night, and we’ll call you first thing in the morning.”
Suddenly, Starks makes a low, moaning noise. I turn and look at him, and his eyes shoot open. The noise lasts maybe two seconds, but it petrifies me. Thomas grabs the shovel and holds it over his head to strike again, but I wave him off. The moaning stops, but Starks’s eyes remain fixed open, like a creature futilely trying to see in the dark.
“Oh, Alice,” my mother says, “I suppose one night is all right. But I’m telling you, he’s not going to sleep a wink in any place other than his bedroom.”
“He’ll be fine.”
A long sigh from her. “All right, dear. And I know he’s standing there but doesn’t want to talk to me. You never were good at fibbing, you know.”
I say nothing to this. There is nothing to say.
“Call me in the morning, okay, dear? First thing, Alice.”
“First thing,” I say, then tell her goodbye and hang up the phone.
I’m turning to say something to Thomas when the only sound worse than a ringing phone fills the room.
Another fucking knock at my door.
Twenty-Four
“Who’s that?” Thomas hisses at me.
I raise my finger to my lips.
Shhhh.
Silence. Then, another knock.
I look at the two guns on the floor. I assume Starks’s gun is loaded, but I know for sure the one from the planter box is.
I slowly creep toward the guns, trying not to make noise on the freshly bloodied floorboards.
“Alice?”
I know that voice.
“Alice? Are you in there?”
Richard. God, what does he want? Is the damn water heater out again?
Then I remember.
It’s five o’clock. I invited him over at five, promising a glass of wine and a long story. I was going to spill my guts tonight.
I look over at Starks, thinking he’s the one who spilled his. He’s looking directly at me but not moving. Eyes wide open, likely paralyzed in shock.
“Don’t answer,” Thomas whispers.
“I know,” I whisper back.
Mister Tender's Girl Page 10
