by David Beers
“Then tell me what the hell is going on. I haven’t told Diane yet, but one of us is going to, John. I can’t live knowing about this and I can’t watch what it’s doing to your family.”
“The person from work, it’s a guy.”
“Oh my God, you’re kidding?” Alicia said.
“Just listen. I’m not gay. It’s not an affair.”
The car came to a red light, John slowing down to a complete stop.
“I go over there a few times a month just to get away.”
“Ha!” Harry shouted from the backseat. “That’s your plan! This is like something out of a romantic comedy! Oh, I bet she buys that, John!”
“To get away?” she said. “What does that even mean?”
“From it all. To get away from Diane, from the kids. We watch movies, eat junk food. He has a few beers. We do guy shit,” he said and finally looked over to her. “I don’t tell Diane because it’ll hurt her. If I didn’t have that outlet, though, I’d go back to drinking.”
Harry looked to her too. “She’s fucking buying it, John. I can’t believe it, but she is. And just when I was about to say you’re going to have to kill her.”
“You swear to me?” Alicia said.
“I swear on everything.”
“On Mom?”
“Oh, dear,” Harry said. “That’s the atomic bomb.”
“Yes, on Mom. There’s nothing going on. You can come over if you want and see for yourself.”
“Keep talking, John. Keep it up. We’re going to have to put her down, too,” Harry said, smiling in the back. John glanced in the rearview and a chill moved down his spine like an ice-born slithering snake.
“You going to keep following me?” John said as they pulled back into the parking garage.
“No,” Alicia smiled, wiping tears from her eyes with a tissue John gave her from the glovebox. “I’m just happy that nothing is happening. I was so disappointed in you.” She looked to him. “I love you, John, and I’ve always looked up to you.”
John reached over and hugged her, closing his eyes as he did. He breathed in the smell of her hair and tried to hold himself in the moment, not wanting to let a single piece go. He wanted to cling to it forever, because he knew what awaited when he released.
Eventually, though, he did let go and Alicia got out of the car.
He listened as Harry stepped out of the backseat, watched in his mirror as Harry walked around the back of the car, and then got in the passenger’s seat.
Harry closed the door.
“It’s over,” John said. “Everything.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s going to find out. There’s no way to keep it from her forever. I already fucked up all those years ago, when I had her come pick me up—if this comes out? The cops coming to my goddamn office? She’ll know soon. It’s over, Harry.”
John stared out his window, eyes watering. Harry looked at him, cocking his head slightly to the left. “Stop being such a pussy. This is far from over. If she finds out, and if she doesn’t want to play along, then there’s more fun to be had there—”
“Shut your damn mouth,” John said, his own voice low and grave.
“No. I won’t. Because you’ve gotten us into this. You and your silly mistakes. Calling her all those years ago. Not keeping a close lookout the other night. Even today, your story was something a high school kid would have made up for his teacher. I’m not going down because you can’t hold it together.”
John closed his eyes and put his hands on the steering wheel. He knew that he needed to start the car and drive out of the parking garage; if Alicia was still here, she would see him sitting by himself, not moving. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to put his hand on the key and start the ignition.
“We’re just getting warmed up, John,” Harry whispered. “We still have the little Starbucks’ girl to handle. Now that Detective Dick Face is after us, there’s fun to be had there. Just think about it for a second. All these people for you to dispatch … imagine how it will feel if you use a knife this time, on Tremock. We’ve stayed away from using those because it creates more risk, but just think about if we planned it right, so that we could use a knife and personally put it into his flesh. He’s the one doing all this, the whole thing. He’s the one who brought Starbucks’ girl into the mix. He’s the one making you have to worry about old Larry.”
John couldn’t help it.
He wanted to, truly. He would have loved to pray—to do anything other than imagine what Harry suggested.
Except, he couldn’t. Harry’s words filled his head like a bloody sunrise, spraying blasts of red liquid all over his mind instead of light rays. He saw the knife in his hand, the blade shining. He pictured it splitting Tremock’s neck, watching his arteries open and hearing him gurgle as John cut through his windpipe. He saw Tremock’s hands twitching as blood spouted from his mouth and rolled down his chin to meet his open throat.
“See. That’ll be a lot more fun than giving up now, won’t it?”
“It can’t be done. There’s no way to pull all this off,” John said.
“What does your God say? You can move mountains if you have the faith of a mustard seed?”
“What are we going to do, then?”
4
Present Day
Harry liked John. He really did. Without John, Harry wouldn’t exist, and he knew that. He never took the time to truly investigate how it happened, as Harry’s thoughts remained preoccupied on … other things. That part of the puzzle didn’t matter to him. Things were the way they were and to question them was pointless.
What Harry started concerning himself with was Detective Dick Face. Alicia mattered, the Starbucks’ girl mattered, but Detective Don’tcha Wanna Dick In Your Face was what Harry would call the Big Enchilada. The force of this investigation lay on his shoulders, because he pushed it forward the way a man moving a boulder up a hill might. Stubbornly. Against all odds.
Harry knew John felt they shouldn’t have killed the other cop five years ago. John thought it was stupid, irrational, and would only bring more heat—though it was necessary. John had been right, but Harry knew his time was almost up, so he wanted more.
Now, John’s feelings had become reality and Harry needed to deal with it. Which he would. Harry didn’t spend too much time wracking his brain about Detective Dick Face, because when you had a hammer, everything looked like a nail. They needed to kill him and that meant Harry had to start watching him.
Which was where another problem developed.
Watching the man who was watching you could prove to be difficult.
Harry had to figure out a way to do this, and while he realized John possessed a lot of worries with his wife, Harry didn’t really give two fucks. Things had to be done and little Diane could wait until they were finished.
Unless she wanted to be visiting John with a piece of glass in between them.
Though, truthfully, Harry didn’t care much about that either. He told John those things because it made John more likely to move. To act. To kill.
Harry needed to watch the detective, because the detective needed killing and was going to die one way or another. Harry could tell John was nearing a breaking point, and perhaps that was fine, too. Perhaps their run was almost finished, and while Harry didn’t want that, he could accept it if the finale was big enough.
A Portrait of a Young Man
Years Earlier
Dr. Vondi felt odd about his last conversation with John.
He hadn’t said anything to Lori when he saw her next, instead he told her everything was fine, and that he would need more time to truly understand John.
Dr. Vondi didn’t believe that, though. Everything, in his professional opinion, wasn’t fine. Dr. Vondi didn’t know if the problem was stemmed from Lori or John, though. Certainly, it wasn’t fine that the boy knew his mother thought him complicit in his friend’s death.
That’s what worri
ed Vondi. The almost prescient knowledge the boy possessed. At thirteen, to sit there and say what he said, like he said it … wasn’t chilling, necessarily, but certainly not warming either.
The other thing weighing on Dr. Vondi was that he didn’t want to see John again.
He hadn’t told Lori that, either.
So when Dr. Vondi heard the knock on his door, he didn’t exactly jump with excitement to answer it.
“Hi, John,” he said.
“Hey,” the boy said as he walked into the room.
Vondi watched him go to the couch and sit down, while Vondi remained at the door for a second longer than usual.
Finally, he took his chair.
“Have a good week?” Vondi said.
“Was okay.”
“How are things at school?”
“Things are as good as they can be, I guess,” John said.
“I get it,” Vondi said and then let the room fall silent for a moment. “Have you talked to your mom about Harry since we spoke?”
John shook his head. “She doesn’t want to talk to me about it.”
“Do you want to talk about it with her?”
“Not really.”
“What about with me?”
John met his eyes. Normally brown eyes were associated with warmth and intelligence, but Vondi saw cold running beneath these.
“We can, if you want,” John said.
“How does it make you feel, thinking your mom feels you had something to do with Harry’s death?”
“I don’t feel she does. She does.”
“Well, why do you say that?”
“Because I know her.”
“I understand,” Vondi said, “but why would she ever think you were capable of something like murder? I mean, that’s a very, very big charge against someone.”
“I think she’s found some things and she believes I did it.”
“Like what?”
“A dead animal in the woods behind our house. I saw it one day and I think she may have too.”
“Animals die every day, John—why would she be concerned with it or think you had anything do with it?”
“Well,” John said, “It didn’t die … normally, I guess. The thing’s eyes were carved out and it had been skinned.”
Dr. Vondi nodded and tried to keep his face calm, but felt his eyebrows raising at the thought of a raw, fly covered, skinned animal. The boy couldn’t know if it had been skinned alive, but why else would someone skin a rodent, if not torture—especially if they left the body?
“Has she said anything about it to you?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think she feels that way?” Dr. Vondi said.
“Because if I saw it, then I’m sure she did, too.”
Vondi nodded again; something about this conversation made him not want to venture any further, plus a dead animal really shouldn’t take precedent over a dead friend.
“Would you mind talking about what happened with Harry?”
“No, we can if you want.”
“What happened at the beach house?”
John looked out the window to the right, just as so many other clients did. “He drowned.”
“You saw it?”
John nodded.
“How did it make you feel? How does it make you feel now?”
“I dream about it,” he said. “At night, every night. I see him out there and I hear him calling for me. I want to help him, but I don’t.”
“Why not?”
John didn’t say anything for thirty seconds or so, only stared out the window, thinking. Vondi couldn’t read the boy yet. It always took longer than one or two meetings to know what was going through people’s heads, but … he wondered if he would ever see into this kid?
“I don’t want to talk about that,” John said finally.
“Why not?”
“It scares me.”
“What does?”
“Why I don’t save him. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I won’t judge you,” Vondi said. “That’s not why I’m here, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”
John turned to him again. “I don’t want you to know what’s going on.”
6
Present Day
Kaitlin stood at her living room window, the blinds drawn, but looking through the small cracks. She held a cigarette in her right hand, a few inches from her mouth, with her left hand folded across her stomach just below her breasts. The ash at the end of the cigarette had grown long.
She didn’t see anything outside the window, but that didn’t matter really. She knew what she felt and Kaitlin relied on her feelings more than anyone else she knew. On her right shoulder blade, a tattoo read intuition, and Kaitlin only put art on her body that she felt strongly about.
She felt extremely strong about her intuition.
Right now it told her something was wrong. Something with that customer’s murder and something involving her.
She should never have gone to the cops. She should have said she served the guy but didn’t pay any attention to what he did after and let the whole thing go.
Someone was watching her. She’d felt it for a few days now and it had come on very strong tonight. Kaitlin lived alone because roommates were shit and she’d rather be with her cat. Less complaints. Now, though, with this feeling spreading over her like a diseased blanket, she wished she had a roommate or a boyfriend, or anything at all to give her comfort.
Nothing, though.
Just her, these blinds, and whatever was outside.
She thought about calling the police, but why? This whole thing was because of them, that and her big mouth.
The ash dropped from the cigarette and Kaitlin’s eyes flashed to it.
“Damn it,” she said, looking at the scattered gray across her otherwise clean carpet. She took a drag on the cigarette and then walked to the kitchen. Kaitlin placed the half finished cigarette into an ashtray and sat down at her small kitchen table.
She didn’t know what to do.
And, she was scared to death.
She picked up the small phone sitting alone on the table and found Eve’s number.
“Hello?” Eve answered, her voice a whisper, asleep.
“Hey,” Kaitlin said. “I’m waking you up aren’t I?”
“Yeah, you are. What’s up?”
“I think someone is following me.”
“What?” Eve’s voice strengthened, the comment pulling her out of sleep like a rope to a person in quicksand.
“Yeah, I just have a feeling that I’m being watched. What time do you work tomorrow?”
“I don’t. I’m off. Do you want me to come over?”
“Yes, please. I’m sorry. I’m just scared and don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Eve said and Kaitlin could hear her getting out of bed. “I’ll be over in twenty, okay? Will you make coffee?”
“Sure. Thank you, Eve.”
“No worries. See ya in a minute.”
Diane was becoming a problem.
John didn’t realize it yet, but Harry certainly did.
She was making it harder and harder to get out of the house and Harry didn’t like it one bit. Tonight, for example, she woke up when Harry was walking out of the room, fully clothed, ready to go. She asked what he was doing and Harry—for the first time—spoke to John’s wife.
“Going to get some air,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
He hadn’t waited for a response because he didn’t know what else to say. John would already be pissed, and if somehow Diane started to think something else might be wrong—well, the problem she created would grow much more severe.
Harry would deal with Diane later, though he wasn’t sure how to break it to John.
Now, though, he breathed in the fresh air of Royal Lane and looked up at Kaitlin Rickiment’s apartment. He stood across the street, his car parked a mile down the road
, far away so that no one could associate it with where he sat. A small park was located across the street from the chick’s apartment, something for the kiddos to play on while the mommies and daddies did whatever they did—Harry didn’t know and Harry didn’t care.
He sat at the top of one of the ladders, a play thing that had a box around the top platform just before the kids went down the slide. The box was plastic and solid red for the most part … except for the side looking at Kaitlin’s apartment. That piece was transparent, and Harry could get a clear view of the complex, lit up by street lights all around the place—for safety of course. No one inside the complex could see him, though, because the lights in the playground shut down shortly after sunset.
Harry thought she was looking for him, though. He thought Ms. Starbucks’ Girl had an inkling that she messed up, and that she might be in for trouble. An hour ago, at about one in the morning, she had lifted up the blinds and peered out for a few seconds, before letting the blinds close and backing away.
He didn’t know what he’d done to give himself away, but he thought she knew she was being watched. Maybe not by him personally, maybe not John, but she knew something was up.
Which was okay, of course. Harry didn’t sweat the small stuff, ever. That was for the birds. And John.
Regardless of what Ms. Starbucks’ Girl did, in the end, she would die. Harry was realizing he didn’t care too much if she sunk John’s whole ship—indeed, had either of them really thought anything else would ever come out of this? No, all that mattered was that she died.
Everything else … well, that shit could fall by the proverbial wayside.
7
Present Day
“What did he say?” Susan asked.
Alan had been thinking about that for hours. What John Hilt said. Marie had told him some very important things—all of which Alan listened to and agreed with, logically. He wanted to give her the life she deserved, but as the night crept on and he couldn’t find sleep, John Hilt’s words slowly replaced his wife’s.