Dreamthorp

by Williamson, Chet

  "Whatever he wants, Miss Minnie. I'm all his." She smiled at the boy, but felt something very much like fear lance through her when she saw his answering expression. He smiled, but it was an icy smile, edged with cruelty. Miss Minnie did not see it, for when she turned around it lightened like the sun spearing through clouds. She ushered him into the room, then went out, closing the door behind her.

  "Hi," she said. "Well, here we are."

  His smile vanished now. He nodded.

  "Do you, uh . . . want to come over here and sit down with me?"

  "I want you to take your clothes off," he said flatly.

  She nodded, stood up, and began to undress, stopping with her panties.

  "Everything," he said, and she slipped them off as well, then sat down on the bed, leaning back in a practiced, languorous pose.

  "You want to come over here with me?" she said. "It's lonely on this big bed all by myself." He walked to the bed and stood beside it, looking down at her, his gaze roaming over her light mocha skin, the large breasts, narrow waist, slim, almost boyish hips. "I can . . . take you in my mouth," she said. "You don't have to wear a condom for that."

  He looked down at her, and finally said, "I'll wear a condom. Where is it?"

  Cindy reached over to the small nightstand beside the bed and pulled open a drawer. From it she took a small, foil-wrapped object and held it out to the man. "It's sheepskin. They're more expensive, but they feel a lot better. It'll feel like you're not wearing anything at all."

  The man weighed the wrapped condom in his hand for a moment, then tore open the package and withdrew it, dropping the foil on the carpet next to the bed. He unfolded it and let it dangle. Then he slipped a finger into the opening, and another, and another, pulling it and stretching it around his hand like a tight mitten. Cindy gasped when he took a knife from his pocket and opened the blade, but he used it only to cut the string at the opening, to widen it so that he could slip his hand further inside. Now he had all four fingers encased, but try as he might, he could not get his thumb in. The tough, resistant membrane would not stretch that far.

  At last he gave up his effort, and held up his hand. Through the layer of sheep gut, it looked like the hand of a dead man, pale yellow, glistening with lubricant.

  "It's safe now," he said. "Safe sex."

  He leaned down and she closed her eyes, remembering that it had never hurt before, not really, and praying that this time would be no different, even as she knew beyond a doubt that it would. This, she feared, would be very, very different indeed.

  The howling of the winter wind outside increases the warm satisfaction of a man in bed, but this satisfaction is succeeded by quite another feeling when the wind grows into a tempest, and threatens to blow the house down.

  —Alexander Smith, Dreamthorp

  Dreamthorp welcomed Laura home with a mother's love. At least it seemed that way to her as she drove into its warm and leafy embrace. It was a haven of normality in a world of chaos, and even the recent deaths could not change that. The killings were an affliction, a cancer that would be discovered and expunged, so that everything would be normal again. The killer would be found, she knew that. Dreamthorp would not allow such things to happen for long.

  The last two days of her five-day sojourn in Philadelphia had been the best of the lot. Although she felt like hell Thursday morning, she had taken command nonetheless, and, with her cold fury that allowed for nothing less than perfection, had completely terrified Kevin and even cowed Billy. She had no concern over whether Kevin or Billy thought she was a dyke, for she knew now that she was not, at least not in the casual and carnal sense of the women at The Venus. She considered that she was still capable of a lesbian love—after all, she had experienced one—but she rationalized it by telling herself what she firmly believed to be the truth, that anyone was capable of any act under a certain set of circumstances, and decided that she would no longer worry about herself sexually.

  At least she would try not to.

  It was noon when she arrived in Dreamthorp. She had the master three-quarter-inch videotape in her briefcase, and she felt she had sweated blood to get it. By Friday afternoon she was satisfied with the final edit, and had driven over to Renco's headquarters to show it to the CEO. When the thirty-second spot was over, he turned to her, gave a tight-lipped smile, and nodded. "Damn nice bear," he said, and she knew she had him.

  Now she had a pleasant afternoon of being a porch potato to look forward to, and going to dinner and the theatre with Tom Brewer that evening. As she walked up her cottage steps, her relief at being home again was so great that she nearly cried. What was supposed to have been two days had turned into a budget-busting week. Oh well, she thought, it had happened before and would happen again. They might actually lose a bit of money on this one, but they had a new and satisfied client, so it was worth it.

  Laura made a light lunch, then went onto the porch, sat on the swing, and read for an hour, after which she went inside and took a deep and satisfying nap. The phone woke her at four o'clock. It was Tom, who sounded as happy to hear her voice as she was to hear his. He told her that he had tried to call several times beginning Wednesday evening to make sure that they were still on for tonight, and promised to be at her place at six o'clock.

  He was punctual, and they had dinner and arrived early at the Hall of Culture. She told him about the nightmares of her week in Philadelphia, leaving out only the dinner with Billy and the subsequent visit to The Venus. He was appropriately amused and sympathetic, and by the time the first act of Ten Little Indians began, they had regained the rapport she had felt the last time they were together, and she decided that she liked Tom Brewer immensely.

  After the play, they went again to the Ice Cream Shoppe, and then Laura invited Tom back to her cottage for a drink, claiming that it was her turn to provide the hospitality. They mixed the drinks in the kitchen—a gin and tonic for Laura, a scotch on the rocks for Tom—then took them onto the porch, where they sat side by side on the swing and sipped them slowly. Tom told her what little there was to tell about the quiet week in Dreamthorp, and about Josh's reaction to his suggestion that they undergo therapy together. Laura took his hand then and told him that it was easy to understand why the boy would feel that way, but that it must not let Tom change his plans. Josh had to have help, whether he realized it or not, and Tom agreed.

  Laura did not take her hand away, and neither did Tom. They sat there silently, looking into the dark street. "I feel like your parents should be inside peeking at us from behind the curtain," Tom finally said, and they both laughed.

  "It does have that Victorian feel to it, doesn't it," Laura said more quietly. "The swing, the porch, the summer night . . ."

  He squeezed her hand gently, and she returned the pressure, not looking at his face. Then she felt his hand touch her chin, and she turned her head and looked into his soft eyes. He leaned toward her and they kissed, close-mouthed and chastely with warmth, not lust, although she felt a flicker of passion deep within her. But she felt too that Tom's kiss was not offered as a prelude to sex but simply as an expression of warmth, even love, she thought, and, she was surprised to find, she hoped.

  They drew away from each other then, and a look passed between them that told Laura that there was no hurry, that they had time, the rest of their lives. He would not push her. There would be no haste, for there was no need of it.

  His look was so serene, so filled with patience, that she nearly asked him to take her inside then and there and make love to her. But she did not. Something held her back.

  When she was able to speak again, she said, "It's getting late."

  "Yeah," he said. "It is." He sighed and smiled. "Maybe I should leave."

  She made her face grow serious. "You . . . have quite a long walk ahead of you." They both laughed then. "Do you want another drink?"

  "No, not really." He looked at her for a moment, and she could tell he very much liked what he saw. "I should go." H
e paused. "Shouldn't I?"

  "Yes. I guess so. Before my parents chase you home." They stood up then, and he took her in his arms. She put her arms around him, loving the girth and the strength that she felt in him, and they kissed again, more deeply this time. Afterward, he touched her hair and whispered good night, then turned and walked away, looking back to wave to her.

  Laura slept deeply and well that night. She awoke only once, thinking for an excited and pleasant moment that Tom was lying beside her, and, when she realized she was alone, went back to sleep and dreamed him there.

  "But what did he do to her?"

  "I don't know, Danny. Fuckin' Minnie wouldn't tell me."

  "Well, did he hurt her at all?"

  "I don't think so. If he had, she woulda yowled."

  "Well, what the hell'd he do, Freddy?"

  "He scared her. That's what Minnie said."

  "He scared her with what, though? A fifteen-inch dick? Shit, man, why didn't you make her tell you?"

  "Why didn't you, you such a tough guy?"

  "I was gone, man. You know how 'Becca gets when I come home too late. Sniffin' around me like a bitch in heat, smellin' for other women. And hell, I come out of Peaches' room and the kid is sittin' there in the hall, I figure he's done, pay for him and me and give him a lift back to his hotel. I don't see that little whore Cindy at all."

  "That's because she's in there cryin' for a while, Minnie says. Shit, she near to tore my head off, I come outta the room. 'Don't you never bring that boy back here again, I ain't havin' none of that sick shit pesterin' my girls' and on and on and I don't know what the hell she talkin' about and she ain't gonna tell me, just that he scared poor little Cindy half outta her wits and he come in there again she have Big Jim drop him offa the fuckin' roof. So I don't argue, I just pay and get the hell outta there before she tell Big Jim to drop me offa the roof because the kid come in with me. So let's not take him back there, okay?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, sure. I don't think he enjoyed it all that much anyway. He said he did, but I could tell he was lyin'. No. Hell, no. We don't take him back there again."

  "I don't want to take him nowhere again, Danny. That boy is weird. He can be nice, but I don't trust him. He's just . . . freaky somehow."

  "He's okay."

  "Shit my ass. He's weird."

  "Aw, you're a goddam old woman. So Johnny treats whores a little strange, a lot of people treat whores strange. That's why whores charge money, to do things that wives and girlfriends don't like to do. Hazards of the trade, man."

  "Well, I just want him out of my face."

  "I say he's all right."

  "What the fuck? You sweet on him or somethin'?"

  "I can beat you, Freddy. I can whip your black ass, and you know I can because I've done it. And I can do it again. Right now, right here in this bar if you say somethin' like that again. Now Johnny's all right, I tell you. Don't you badmouth him anymore."

  "All right. All right, that's the way you feel."

  "That's the way I feel. I don't really know why, but it is. That's all there is to it. We don't take him back to Minnie's, but he comes to the Blue Light often as he wants."

  "Okay . . . okay. Now don't get pissed off, but why you like this kid so much, Danny?"

  "I . . . shit, I don't know."

  "Well, shit, I don't know either."

  The love of fathers for their sons, Tom Brewer thought, could excuse a great many mistakes and weaknesses. He lay in bed thinking of several things, among them his feelings for Laura Stark and how his son would react to them. That Laura was much closer to his own age was an advantage, as was the fact that she was a resident of Dreamthorp. Familiarity would be easy to come by, with her only two houses away. With such close proximity, it would be, Tom thought, like the widowed master of the house falling for the governess.

  And too, Laura seemed to like Josh, from the little he had seen of the two of them together. And even if she didn't, at least she was sympathetic toward his problems, certainly more so than Karen had ever been. There had been an adversarial relationship from the beginning between those two. He berated himself for the hundredth time, wondering why he had ever started the affair, thinking that the sex he had gotten had in no way been worth the problems it had caused Josh. What a selfish son of a bitch he was.

  He looked at the clock and saw that it was just after 11:30.

  Though he had an early class the next day, he could not sleep. The last three nights had been the same. His head was full of Laura Stark, Laura Stark and whatever the future might hold for the pair of them. He realized that he was taking a good deal for granted on the basis of two dates and as many kisses, but Tom, without a spouse, was a romantic, with the unwanted and anxiety-laden ability to view every woman with whom he came into contact as not so much a bedmate as a possible life mate. And Laura Stark seemed a highly favorable prospect.

  He felt like a mooning teenager lying in his bed, wondering if he loved her and how she felt about him, if they could have a honeymoon, and if Josh would mind if they went off by themselves for a few days. He would not, he swore to himself, make the mistake of considering the boy a second-class citizen again. He was his dearest blood, his son, and by God he would never again treat him so shabbily.

  On the edge of sleep, Tom heard the sound. It was faraway, and sounded like a paper bag popping, but it was loud enough for him to sit up and listen for a repetition that did not come. He heard the creaking of his parents' bed in the room across the hall, but there was nothing more until the siren began fifteen minutes later.

  Concerned over the possibility of fire, he leaped from his bed and went to the window. The siren grew louder, and he realized that it was not the fire siren and thanked God for it. But from the flashes of red that ripped through the darkness, he also knew that two bubble-topped vehicles, perhaps a police car and an ambulance, were climbing toward the top of the hill. He continued to listen through the screen, and from the sound decided that they must have turned onto Longfellow or Channing.

  He sat by the window for a few minutes, torn between wanting to go back to bed and wanting to get dressed to see what had happened. Finally he compromised by going to the bathroom and getting a drink. On the way back to his room, he listened at Josh's door, but heard nothing. Pushing it open a crack, he saw the familiar form under the sheet, but also noticed that the screen was pushed up slightly, and wondered why, since Josh hated bugs in his room.

  Silently, he crossed the room and slid the screen back down until it was tight against the frame, then stood beside Josh's bed. In the dim light from the hall, he could see that something was not right, that the form beneath the sheet was not that of his son. Suddenly afraid, he tugged back the sheet and saw blankets and a pillow artlessly rolled to a rough approximation of the human shape. At that moment, his door bell rang.

  Fear went deeper into him, like a hook with barbs that twisted into the flesh and would not let go, and he remembered that other night, less than a year before, and felt that if a policeman was somberly standing on his porch, that he would die of sorrow in that instant.

  Tom Brewer did not die, though the policeman was there. It was Bret Walters, and the look on his face was so pained that Tom immediately knew what had happened.

  "Josh?" Tom said thickly.

  Bret licked his lips and nodded.

  From upstairs Tom could hear his mother's voice through the loud rushing in his ears. "Tom? Is anything wrong?"

  "Go back to bed, Mom. Everything's all right." He could not cope with her reactions to whatever had happened. He had to be alone with it first. He was afraid that he would strike her.

  "But I heard those sirens . . ."

  "Go back to bed!" He heard her gasp, and then the bedroom door slammed shut. "What happened?" he asked Bret.

  The chief of police shook his head. "Not sure how it all happened, but . . . your boy . . . Josh . . . he was shot."

  "Is he dead?"

  Bret Walters hesitated, then nodd
ed. "I'm sorry, Tom."

  Tom nodded back. He felt empty, incapable of speech. He walked to the clothes tree, took down his raincoat, and slipped it on over his lightweight pajamas. Then he joined Bret Walters on the porch. He started to walk down the steps, but his legs trembled, and he sat helplessly, shaking his head.

  "The bastard . . ." Tom whispered. "The bastard killed my boy . . . that . . . fucking . . . maniac." He grabbed the hem of Bret's khaki jacket. "You've got to stop him, Bret, you've got to find that son of a bitch and stop him . . ."

  Bret looked horribly surprised. He sat down next to Tom and put an arm around his shoulder. Tom could tell that the gesture made Bret uncomfortable, but he did it anyway. "No, Tom . . . you got it wrong. We know who killed Josh."

  Tom's body stiffened. "Who?"

  "Ralph Goodwin."

  "Ralph. . . Ralph Goodwin?" Ralph Goodwin, his neighbor? Friendly, short, balding Ralph Goodwin with the pretty wife and the red MG? Ralph Goodwin the man who had eviscerated Sam Hershey and mutilated Martha Sipling? And now killed Josh? It wasn't possible. It couldn't be. "Ralph Goodwin? The . . . the killer?"

  Bret Walter's face was a study in frustration. He shook his lead savagely. "Ralph shot your boy from his bedroom, Tom. Josh was outside his window. Up in a tree. He had a knife,

  "I . . . I don't . . ."

  "The state police are here, Tom. They think your boy's been the prowler. Maybe even . . ." Bret paused and released a huge sigh, then spoke very softly, ". . . the killer."

  "That's . . ." The words came as if from out of a deep well. "That's a lie."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know, Tom. But I mean look at the circumstances—they find him up a tree with a knife, and, goddamit, you know that everybody's edgy as hell with these killings and all—"

  "That's a lie, Bret!"

  "Tom?" someone said. Tom turned and saw Charlie Lewis over on his porch. "What happened?"

  Tom couldn't speak. "There's been . . . an accident," Bret lid. "Tom's boy's been shot."