Strange Weather

by Joe Hill

  “Who knows what I might say to her?”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It would teach you something, wouldn’t it?” What she wanted to say was, if his wife knew about them, then there wouldn’t be any reason to break up anymore. If it was a choice between his wife’s forty-eight-year-old pussy and hers, she had a pretty good idea which one Rog would pick.

  “Don’t go there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want this to be nice. I’m trying to end it nice. I’m trying to protect us both. You go to her with a story about us sleeping together, she’ll think you’re just a disgruntled clerk who got busted.”

  “I didn’t steal your boat, douchebag. You think she’d believe that shit if she talked to me?”

  “I think she’d believe you walked out of here with a pair of eight-hundred-dollar diamond earrings, since you used your pass card to log them out of the store in December and they never came back.”

  “The fuck are you talking about? I never stole any eight-hundred-dollar earrings.”

  “Christmas,” he said. “The hotel.”

  “The hotel?” she asked. She didn’t get it—and then she did, remembered the night he gave her the ivory-handled pistol, the night she draped herself in almost half a million dollars of gems for him.

  “When I took all that jewelry for us to play with, I used your security card, not mine. I guess we missed the earrings when we cleaned up the room. Honest accident. We were both pretty trashed. The point is, they went missing after you checked them out.”

  That thought—and everything that came with it—took a moment to settle upon her.

  “You knew you were going to break up with me all the way back in December,” she said in a soft, disbelieving voice. Speaking to herself more than to him. “Half a year ago. You already knew you were going to blow me off, so you planned some bullshit to make me look like a thief. You were plotting this blackmail shit half a year ago.” She didn’t believe for one second those earrings had been carelessly left behind at the hotel. They weren’t an accident; they were insurance.

  He shook his head. “No, Bean. It’s terrible you’d even think that.”

  “What’d you do with them? The earrings?”

  “I dunno what happened to them. I honestly don’t. All I know is they never came back. Come on. I hate that I even have to say any of this. My marriage is older than you are, and I’m not going to let some hysterical, vindictive kid tear up my life just because she wants something she can’t have.”

  She felt cold, shivery, so cold she almost expected to see her own breath. “You can’t do this to someone. It isn’t right.”

  He cocked himself back in his chair, turning slightly, sticking out his legs and crossing his ankles. For the first time, she noticed he had a little beer belly, a soft roll of fat hanging over his belt.

  “I want you to go home, kid. You’re upset. You need some time to be alone, feel what you got to feel. Believe it or not, I’m in mourning, too. You’re not the only one who lost out here.”

  “What did you lose out on? You haven’t lost out. You have everything you ever had.”

  “I don’t have you. I’m mourning that.” He looked at her through lowered eyelashes. “Go on. Be good. Don’t try to contact me, and for God’s sake, don’t try to contact my wife. Let’s not be stupid. I just want what’s best for both of us.”

  “You’re in mourning? You’re in fucking mourning?”

  “Believe it or not, I am. It makes me sick we can’t end things on a . . . a more positive note.”

  She quivered. She felt fevered one moment and frozen the next. She really thought she was going to be sick.

  “I’m not mourning you,” she said. “And no one else is going to either.”

  He looked a question at her, furrowing his brow, but she didn’t say any more. She didn’t know she was backing up until her hip struck the edge of the open door. The impact turned her partly away from him, and she let it, swung around, and went out into the shop. She did not run. She walked very stiffly, without bending her legs, in no hurry.

  She was gone for only about thirty minutes.

  10:03 A.M.

  Becki didn’t cry.

  For a long time, she sat clutching the steering wheel, holding it so tightly her knuckles were white, even though she wasn’t going anywhere. She was just sitting there in the parking lot, looking at a bank of black Plexiglas doors leading into the mall. There were moments when rage seemed to push down on her whole body, as if she were an astronaut experiencing the gravity of some larger, denser, more terrible world. She was squeezed, felt the air being crushed out of her.

  When he left work, Rog usually came out on this side of the mall. If she saw him now, if he stepped through those shiny black doors, squinting into the morning sunlight, she’d start the car and stamp on the gas and launch her little VW right into him. The thought of hitting him with the car—the thud, the yelp, the crunch of the tires going over him—thrilled her and made it easier to stand up against that cruel alien gravity.

  He had fucked her for months while he was figuring out how to get rid of her. He came in her face, in her hair, and she acted like she enjoyed it, batting her eyelashes at him and purring, and it struck her now that he thought she was pathetic and childish, and he was right. It made her want to scream until her throat hurt. Gravity doubled. Tripled. She could feel it squashing her organs.

  It maddened her, how easy it had been for him to stomp on her, to squash her under his heel. He had boxed her in with such tidy efficiency. He was probably on the phone with the wife now, telling her some story about how he’d confronted her, how hard it had been to fire her while she begged and wept and made excuses. The wife was probably comforting him, as if he were the one who’d been through something awful this morning. It wasn’t right.

  “It. Isn’t. Right,” she said through her teeth, unconsciously pumping her foot on the gas pedal to punctuate each word. The car wasn’t running, but she mashed the pedal anyway. “It. Isn’t. Right.”

  She needed something to steady her and yanked open the glove compartment, fumbled around, and found a bottle of Rog’s Putumayo cocaine, razor-blade-sharp stuff he’d picked up himself on an emerald-buying trip to Colombia. The coke went off like a bullet in the brain.

  Becki spotted her black lace panties crumpled in the open glove compartment. The sight of them was vaguely humiliating, and she grabbed for them to put them back on. They’d gotten tangled around the butt of her Christmas gun, and it came tumbling out with them. The .357 was shoved into the thigh holster with the straps and buckles, which was the way she kept it, although she’d never worn it anywhere.

  The sight of it was like drawing a deep breath. She took it in her hands and held it and was very still.

  As a child, in the days before Christmas, Becki would sometimes pick up a favorite snow globe, showing a little pond and people in nineteenth-century dress skating amid the glitter, and she would crank the key in the base and listen to the music—“Noel, Noel”—and tell herself stories about the people under the glass.

  She found herself doing the same thing now, only with the gun instead of a snow globe. She stared down at its etched-silver barrel and pictured herself walking into Devotion Diamonds with it. In her imagination Rog was still in the office, on the phone with his wife, wasn’t aware of her entering the store. She floated to the extension in the customer-fulfillment nook and picked up the line.

  “Mrs. Lewis?” she said in a pleasantly social voice. “Hi. It’s Becki. I just wanted you to know that whatever Roger told you about me isn’t true. He just doesn’t want you to know he was fucking me. He said if I ever tried to tell you the truth about us, he’d make it look like I stole things from the store and have me arrested. But I know I couldn’t survive even one day in jail, not even overnight, and I feel sick to have committed the sin of adultery with him. I can’t ever make it up to you, but I can apologize. And I am so sorry, Mrs. Lewis. Yo
u will never understand how much.” And then she’d shoot herself, right in his store, right by the phone. That would stick it to him. Leave him with a corpse and blood all over the white shag carpet.

  Or maybe she’d march into his office and jam the gun into her temple and pull the trigger in front of him. She wanted to hear him scream before she did it. She’d been in the car screaming the word “No!” over and over again in her head for almost half an hour. Now it was his turn. She felt if she could hear him scream it just once—NO!—it would almost be worth it to blow her brains out. She needed to see some horror on his face, needed him to know he didn’t have control of everything.

  But then if she wanted to see some horror in his face, it might be better to point the gun at him. Point it at his cock. See if he’d plead like she had pleaded. Or make him text the truth to his wife. Make him eat ten thousand dollars of diamonds. Make him write an e-mail to everyone at Devotion Diamonds and apologize to them personally for fucking a twenty-year-old employee, disgracing himself in the eyes of his wife and the Lord. The possibilities swirled, like bright flecks of snow in a snow globe, like bright flecks of diamond-bright Putumayo cocaine.

  At some point she wriggled back into her underwear. She felt a little less dirty then. The sun was well up over the trees, and it was getting stuffy in the car, and suddenly she needed to get out into cooler air. She brought the gun with her.

  The hazy bright of late morning made her head ache. She reached back into the car for her cheap pink sunglasses. Better. It would hide her bloodshot eyes, too. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she knew she wanted to look good doing it. She leaned back into the car, collected the flower-print do-rag she wore to the gun range, and wrapped her hair to keep it out of her face. Last she rucked up her skirt and buckled the holster onto her thigh.

  It was still early, and it wasn’t busy inside the mall. A scattering of people strolled among the shops. Her heels cracked on the marble like gunshots. With each step she felt she was leaving all thought behind, all anxiety.

  Becki climbed the stairs in the atrium for the second time that morning. She was halfway up when the holster began to slip down her thigh. She was hardly aware of it happening until it abruptly dropped to her knee. She tugged it awkwardly back up without slowing. She wasn’t looking where she was going, and her shoulder thudded into a guy going down the stairs past her. It was the tall, skinny black kid who worked in Boost Yer Game, carrying a pair of frosty coffee drinks. She didn’t make eye contact with him and didn’t look back as she wrestled the holster into place. She had a sense he’d stopped walking and was staring at her.

  She didn’t feel emotional at all. She felt as glassy and inanimate as one of the skaters in her old snow globe. So it surprised her when, at the very top of the stairs, she turned her ankle and stumbled. She hadn’t known that her legs were trembling. A fat dude with curly hair came out of nowhere to grab her elbow and steady her. He had a breakfast Crunchwrap in his free hand. Scrambled eggs fell out of it and spattered across the floor.

  “You okay?” he asked her. He was a pimply, moon-faced boy in a too-tight striped polo that clung to his man boobs. He smelled of hot salsa and virginity.

  “Fuck off me,” she said, and jerked her arm out of his soft hand. It was horrible to be touched.

  He lurched aside, and she clacked unsteadily along, but the holster had slipped down to her knee again, the fucking thing. She hadn’t cinched the straps tight enough. Becki cursed, pulled at the buckles, tore the holster off, and clutched the whole mess to her stomach. Anyone who looked might think it was a purse.

  Devotion Diamonds was a labyrinth of glass display cases, bulletproof coffins for artfully arranged bracelets and earrings and crosses and medallions. Rog was at the fulfillment center in a back corner. He was completing a transaction with a pretty, dark-skinned lady in a dove-colored cloak or dress and one of those head scarves the Arabs wore. A hijab, that was the word. Becki was obscurely proud of herself for knowing it. She wasn’t as ignorant as Rog thought.

  Rog took the Muslim woman’s order with an air of hushed calm, speaking in the fond, approving tone he always used when someone was about to give him money. He had left the panel into the back office open, and Becki aimed herself at it, keeping her hands low, the gun beneath the level of the display cases, where he couldn’t see it. She caught his eye on the way past, nodded for him to follow.

  His jaw tightened. The Muslim saw his change of expression and glanced around. Becki took in that the Muslim lady had an infant in a BabyBjörn, worn against her chest. The baby was facing inward, asleep beneath a striped blue cap. The mom had enormous eyelashes above her dark eyes and was really very pretty. Becki wondered if she had tried something on and Rog had told her she was unblemished.

  She swept by them both and into the office, pushing the panel partway shut behind her. She shook with adrenaline. She hadn’t thought about other people being around. The window overlooking the rear lot was still open wide, and Becki went behind the desk, thinking that another deep breath of the outside air might calm her.

  Then Becki was in a position to see what was on the screen of Rog’s iMac, and she went very still. She took off her sunglasses, put them down, blinked at the screen.

  “One moment, ma’am,” Rog was saying in his smooth, hushed voice, but Becki knew him well enough to recognize the barely suppressed urgency just beneath the surface. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, perfect, perfect. One more moment and we’ll get you rung out. Thanks. Thanks so much.”

  Becki heard him murmuring away, but it hardly registered. It was only background noise, like the whoosh of the air-conditioning vents.

  A messaging program was open on the big iMac. Rog had been trading texts with someone named Bo. The most recent was a picture of Becki on her knees in slick silver panties, mouth open, hair blown across her face, leaning forward for some cock. Beneath that was Rog’s most recent text: At least I’ll always have this to remember her by. Plus, she LOVED it up the ass. I didn’t even have to ask. Second date.

  And Bo’s reply: Shit, dude, I hate you. How come good things never happen to me?

  Rog slipped into the office, saw her staring at the computer, and deflated.

  “Okay,” he said. “I admit, that was inconsiderate. I shouldn’t have shared that photo with anyone. I was depressed and trying to cheer myself up by being callous and nasty. So shoot me for having feelings.”

  Becki barked with laughter.

  10:37 A.M.

  When he heard the first shot, Kellaway slopped his coffee. He didn’t react to the second shot at all, just stood midway down the food court, head cocked, listening. Independence Day was barely over, and the thought was in his mind that it might be kids fucking off with some firecrackers. He’d managed to scald the shit out of his hand, but he made no move, letting the sounds sink in. When the gun went off a third time, he threw his cup at the wastebasket. He missed—the paper cup hit the side of the can and erupted—but he wasn’t around to see coffee going everywhere. By then he was running in a crouch toward the sound of pistol fire.

  He ran past Spencer Gifts and Sunglass Hut and Lids, saw women and their kids crouched behind pillars and displays, and felt his heartbeat thudding in his eardrums. Everyone knew the drill, had seen it all on TV. Get down, be ready to run if the shooter comes in sight. Kellaway’s walkie-talkie awoke in a blast of noise, frightened voices, and feedback.

  “What is that, guys? Guys? Guys? Anyone know—”

  “Oh, fuck! Shots fired! That’s shots fired! Holy fuck!”

  “I’m in Sears—should we lock it down? Can someone tell me if we’re in a lockdown situation or am I sending people to the exits or—”

  “Mr. Kellaway? Mr. Kellaway, it’s Ed Dowling. What’s your twenty? Repeat, what’s your—”

  Kellaway turned his walkie-talkie off.

  A fat twenty-something—a kid who kind of looked
like that actor Jonah Hill—was sprawled facedown on the glossy stone floor, just outside Devotion Diamonds. He heard Kellaway coming, looked back, and began waving one hand in a gesture that seemed to mean, Get down, get down. He had a wrapped sandwich or burrito in the other hand.

  Kellaway dropped to one knee, thinking it had to be an armed robbery. He imagined men in balaclavas, using sledgehammers to smash the display cases, grabbing jewels by the fistful. His right hand went to the heavy iron on his left ankle.

  Fat kid gasped for breath, was having trouble getting words out. He flailed one hand toward Devotion Diamonds.

  “Tell me what you know,” Kellaway whispered. “Who’s in there?”

  The fat kid said, “Muslim female shooter. And the owner, he’s dead, I think.”

  Kellaway’s own breath whistled thin and fast. A fucking al-Qaeda thing, then. He had thought he’d left the black veils and the suicide bombers in Iraq, but here they were. He jerked up his pant leg and unsnapped the Ruger Federal that Jim Hirst let him have for a hundred and twenty bucks. He tugged its lovely weight out of the ankle holster.

  Kellaway scuttled to a mirrored column at the entrance to the shop, pressed himself against it so hard his breath clouded the glass. He darted a look around the corner. Display cases divided the floor into zigzagging corridors. The paneled door into the private office at the rear was open. A black-tinted globe on the ceiling hid the camera that monitored the store floor. That wasn’t one of the mall’s cameras, which watched only common areas. That would be Devotion Diamonds’ private security. Kellaway couldn’t see anyone in the store, not another soul.

  He moved, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled into the shop. The air smelled of gun smoke. Kellaway heard a rustle of movement to his right, in the corner, near the fulfillment nook. He didn’t have a good angle on it, not where he was. He made it to the end of one Z-shaped display counter. The open office door was just a yard away. This was the moment. Maybe the last moment. He closed his eyes. He thought of his son, thought of George, saw him clearly, squeezing a stuffed penguin to his chest, then holding it up for Daddy to kiss.