These Violent Delights

by Micah Nemerever

  “I had a feeling.” Paul wished Benton would stop smiling. “Do you remember if you saw anything funny that day? Anyone acting as if they weren’t supposed to be there?”

  He had given Paul a chance to lie, so welcoming that he knew it was a trap. Julian might have taken the risk and spun a clever story, an I’m sure it was nothing and a description of a stranger too hazy to be of any use. But Paul knew from their chess games that Julian was prone to flashy gambits that he didn’t quite have the skill to manage. It was better to be cautious; he couldn’t afford to give Benton another inch.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. He spoke in a flat monotone; he hoped it would pass for boyish indifference. “Just people I see around all the time.”

  “Are you sure?” Benton prompted, and Paul was certain now that he was baiting a hook. “Your classmate, Mr. Eisenberg, wasn’t he there around the same time?”

  Paul attempted an apologetic smile. He couldn’t tell if it was a mistake.

  “I see him there all the time, too, sir,” he said. “It wouldn’t have registered.”

  He wasn’t kept much longer, which did nothing to reassure him. There were no veiled accusations or questions about his whereabouts. Instead Benton offered a few banal, inexplicable questions about school, as if he were a second cousin visiting from out of town who didn’t know Paul well enough to ask anything more insightful. He wanted to be reminded how many sisters Paul had, and whether Paul was the one with the butterfly hobby; then he was curious how Paul collected his specimens, and was surprised, as people often were, that he didn’t use a killing jar.

  Just as Paul feared that the conversation had taken a dangerous turn, Benton rose and extended his hand again. He held a business card between his two forefingers, and Paul only belatedly registered that he was supposed to take it.

  “Well, I’m glad you and your family are holding up well,” said Benton kindly. “Pass on my regards to your mother. That number’s my direct line, just in case you happen to remember anything.”

  It occurred to Paul, almost too late, that an innocent person would wonder what was going on. Not every civilian would dare to ask, but he was supposed to be inured to the mystique of the police. They were the men who invited his family to backyard cookouts and went to Pirates games with Paul and his father—sometimes brusque or vulgar, but never intimidating, not to him. He had been too circumspect and deferential, nothing like a police officer’s son. He couldn’t imagine it escaping Benton’s attention.

  “Those must have been some drugs they stole,” he said.

  This time Benton didn’t smile.

  “I’m afraid it’s much worse than that,” he said. “Sorry I can’t get into detail. But I really hope, if you remember something, that you’ll give me a call.”

  When he emerged, Eisenberg had already gone, and the other forebears were preparing to follow him. Sullivan greeted him by gingerly patting his shoulder. They exchanged a look, incredulous and uncomfortable, as if they were trapped at the same awkward party, and Paul had to stifle the giddy urge to laugh.

  “You can head home if you want,” said Sullivan. “The exam is due on Monday at five—hopefully plenty of time for everyone to get their heads screwed back on.”

  She was trying to remember her adult authority, the way Paul always had to when he was touring a group of young children through the botanical garden. He felt monstrous watching Sullivan try to shield him from whatever she knew—as if she absolutely trusted that he had some kind of innocence to preserve.

  “I’m going to get some air first, I think,” he said.

  Paul walked unseeingly into the cold, until he was deep enough into the trees that he could no longer see the station behind him. One glove had fallen from his pocket, but rather than turn back to find it, he threw its mate into the dead leaves. He found Benton’s business card in the same pocket, already beginning to flake from friction. It announced Benton’s first name as Anthony; the police department coat of arms was printed in black and yellow inks that didn’t quite align.

  He crumpled the card and cast it aside. Then he hit himself as hard as he could. He tried again, methodically, until the numbness finally left his face. He had to deliberately drum himself into a panic. The scale of the disaster was so immense that he could barely accept it as real.

  Julian’s apartment hadn’t been empty for long. The radiator was turned down, but it still clicked with heat. There were two crumpled hot chocolate packets on the counter, and the kettle was warm.

  The chill hadn’t left Paul’s bones, but when he refilled the kettle and set it to boil, the smell of the steam was so sickening that he quickly shut it off again. Instead he filled his mug with half a can of Dr Pepper and three fingers of bourbon from the freezer. That wouldn’t do much to settle his stomach either, but he swallowed a revolting mouthful. It cheered him up to think how much he would regret it later. When he switched on the stereo and sat down to wait, Paul finally noticed what was amiss. There were two chocolate-stained cups on the coffee table, one kissed at the rim by sherbet-orange lipstick. The color appeared again in the ashtray, around the end of a spent cigarette—a strange one, all white, lollipop-stick thin.

  Julian’s day planner lay open on his dresser, a grocery receipt clipped to the page (ginger ale, mandarin oranges, pancake mix). Beneath it, in Julian’s familiar flowing cursive, two notes: JG plane 11:15a and PBT 6:00p.

  Julian had arranged the intrusion in advance, and hadn’t bothered to tell him. Even though the visitor was someone Paul knew, even though her presence breached between present and past in a way too jarring not to acknowledge. They were no longer supposed to have secrets, and the very insignificance of this one frightened him. He imagined worse things that Julian might be keeping from him.

  Paul switched off everything but the stove light and dropped back into his chair. By the end of the Françoise Hardy record he’d drained his drink, every sickly-sweet, musty drop of it. He made another and forced himself through as much of it as he could, until the world churned around him and he knew he would throw up if he tried to finish.

  He didn’t remember falling asleep—there were no dreams, even bad ones. But the clack of the deadbolt startled him upright. The soreness in his face had worsened, and his teeth ached as if he’d been clenching them.

  The door swung open, and they spilled in with the light. The girl was watching Julian over her shoulder, laughing. It was Julian who saw him first. The tension took hold of his body, visible even in the dark.

  Joy Greenwood turned to follow Julian’s gaze. She made a small Oh! of surprise and picked her way toward Paul through the clutter. When the lights flicked on, Paul saw that she was flushed and beaming, unsteady in her knee-high white boots.

  “There you are, lovely.” She leaned up and flung an arm briefly but firmly around his neck. She smelled like peach perfume and sloe gin. Her white suede trench coat was lined with real fur. “I didn’t think I’d get a chance to see you, Julian said you wouldn’t be able to come with us.”

  “I didn’t think he could,” answered Julian before Paul could speak. “Or that he’d want to, particularly.”

  It was taking Julian longer than usual to fit his pieces together. He was slow following Joy inside, and his smile had an impatient edge that he would normally have tucked away unseen. He was trying to pretend that he hadn’t been drinking. For a hideous instant Paul could see himself through Julian’s eyes—hands shivering, weak and fearful in the wake of his own failure. Of course Julian could tell something was wrong.

  “It was only the Nutcracker.” Joy was suddenly intensely concerned that his feelings might have been hurt. “I promise you didn’t miss anything, it was all drearily provincial.”

  “I—it’s fine. I don’t really like things where people dance around in costumes.”

  “Oh god, Julian, he’s such a boy, how can you stand it?” Joy flung herself into a chair and lit one of her cigarettes; her hands were a flurry of flame and gleami
ng jewelry, graceful despite the drink. She looked up at Paul with a fond smile, and he felt a pang of guilt amid the frustration.

  Julian was in the kitchen, filling three glasses with ice. When Paul drew near him, he took a long, slow breath. By the time he met Paul’s gaze, his eyes were defensively opaque.

  “I don’t want to hear it.” He turned on the faucet so that Joy wouldn’t hear them.

  “You need to get rid of her.”

  Julian wore a grim, tight smile that reminded Paul of Mrs. Fromme. “I’m not going to be cruel to her.” He handed Paul a glass of ice water and turned back to the sink. “She’s my friend. I’m entitled to those.”

  Paul was still a little drunk himself, but he didn’t bother to try and temper it. “You didn’t even tell me she was coming.” It wasn’t the point, but it was easier to make himself angry than to admit what the point actually was.

  “I thought I might avoid one of those charming meltdowns you have when I pay the slightest attention to anything besides you.” Julian filled another glass without looking at him. “If you’re trying to convince me I made the right decision, you’re doing a stellar job.”

  “Juli, do you have enough cigarettes?” There was a faint conciliatory note to Joy’s voice, as if she’d picked up on the tension. “I can pop out to the gas station for you.”

  “Stay put, you lush, you’d never find it. I don’t want to have to fish you out of the river.”

  The drink in Paul’s stomach turned syrup-thick. He set his glass aside and took hold of Julian’s arm.

  “Something is wrong.” Even at an undertone, he could barely keep his voice from breaking. “Please, Julian.” Julian was stone-faced, eyes wide, so tense he might snap. Paul had thought it was anger. As Julian smiled again, unblinking, he suddenly recognized it as fear.

  “I know,” said Julian. “Wait.”

  Joy was sitting at the outermost edge of the curved cushion, elbows on her knees, chewing at a loose flake of orange nail polish between puffs from her cigarette. She gave Julian a worried, puppyish look; Julian shook his head and touched her shoulder, and she relaxed back into her seat. It wasn’t unlike the moments that sometimes passed between Paul and Laurie, the wordless and ineffable exchanges of meaning that accompanied long years of familiarity. His understanding of Julian felt abruptly small.

  The two of them sat together in the other chair and spent a while putting Joy at ease—or rather, Julian did, while Paul just tried to make his monosyllabic replies sound as friendly as he could. After a few gentle attempts to include him in the conversation, Joy decided to leave him be. She and Julian chatted about the artistic defects of the ballet production and her family’s plans for Christmas. Julian had his arm around Paul’s shoulders and reached up now and then to touch his hair, but neither of them looked at each other; Paul knew if he saw the fear in Julian’s face again, he might not be able to keep his own from boiling over.

  Finally they found an excuse to step out—hot chocolate, breakfast cereal, something forgettable that could have waited till morning. Before they left, Joy caught Paul by the wrist. Julian, rather than wait beside him, returned to the kitchen and gathered up his wallet and keys.

  “Listen,” said Joy in a plaintive undertone. “I know he’s hopeless at showing it, and god knows he can be a pest, but—he really is wild about you. I don’t doubt it for a minute.”

  It was such a small fragment of evidence that Paul couldn’t quite piece together what Julian might have told her. Even if he could, he wouldn’t know what to feel. Dread swelled into his every corner; there was no space left for him to feel anything else.

  Julian led him to the very bottom of the stairwell, to a basement landing outside the padlocked grate door of a boiler room. Paul watched him light a cigarette. In the stark light he looked thin—there were shadows beneath his cheekbones that Paul didn’t remember being there before. Paul lingered on the second stair. He could only bear the sound of his own voice by ignoring it in favor of the smaller other sounds around it, the creak of the boiler and the thrum of the lights.

  Julian worked slowly through the cigarette as he listened, not speaking. He shook free a flake of ash. Paul couldn’t see his eyes in the dim light—just the sickly shade underneath them, the spidery interlace of his eyelashes. When Paul fell silent, Julian exhaled slowly and crushed his cigarette against the heel of his boot. He folded his arms and paused before speaking. Look at me, Paul pleaded silently, but he didn’t.

  “Well. I guess this is what the alibi is for.”

  “Should we go over it?” Look at me. Fucking look at me. “I’m just worried that—”

  “There’s no need for them to talk to me at all,” said Julian. “Remember? Charlie marked off Wednesday on his calendar like a good little soldier. You have an airtight alibi that doesn’t rely on me in the least. You’re safe.”

  Paul’s hands fell to his sides. There was no mistaking now that Julian was thinner than he’d been before. Paul didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed sooner. The cruelest thing was that there was nothing unkind at all about his smile—it was the same one he wore when he was being reassuring and gentle, managing him, and wanted Paul to know it.

  “What a face.” Julian was relaxed and cajoling, as if he could trick Paul into believing nothing was wrong by pretending it was true. “Chin up, Pablo. It’s nowhere near as bad as you had me thinking it would be.”

  All Paul’s energy went toward keeping his feet rooted to the ground, and there was nothing left to keep his voice from shaking.

  “The day before, though—we’re supposed to have each other covered for the day before, you said, you promised—”

  “For Christ’s sake. Don’t be an idiot.” Julian was annoyed now, and incredulous. “I’ll talk to them if necessary,” he said tersely, “though I’d appreciate the courtesy of a warning if you think it’s coming. All I was trying to do was remind you of your first line of defense, which is frankly much more credible than whatever I’d be able to give you. Would you like to calm down now?”

  Paul drew a sharp breath and held it until he could remember how to exhale. Julian dropped the stub of his cigarette and joined him on the stairs. He put his hand on Paul’s shoulder, as if to reassure him, but as he drew closer he tightened his grasp.

  “You already know,” he said at Paul’s ear, “what I’m willing to do for you. Maybe you can start counting that in my favor going forward. Okay, Pablo?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He just smiled again—a bracing, expectant smile—and brushed past him on his way back up the stairs. Paul didn’t try to follow him. He sank down to sit at the bottom of the basement steps, listening to Julian’s footfalls overhead as he headed out into the snow.

  6.

  Julian hadn’t said where they were going, and Paul hadn’t asked. They’d planned it in advance, supposedly, though Paul had no memory of it; the two days that had passed since then might as well have been years. “We’re going for a drive, remember?” Julian had prompted, while Paul stood in the doorway in his nightclothes and realized he was too exhausted to contradict it. Even if it was a lie, it meant Julian was in control; if Julian was in control, that meant at least one of them was.

  In his weakness, Paul had yearned for the old order of things. He’d missed the way Julian would decide what would happen and what was true, and proceed as if Paul already agreed with him. Of course you’ll wear the blue sweater, of course you’ll let me pay for lunch, of course you want to kiss me. Of course we’re going for a drive, and of course you’ll go back inside and change so we can get out of town before rush hour. “Don’t keep me waiting,” Julian had said, and he didn’t.

  They were traveling west, beneath the cloud-rippled sky and flat silver sun. Julian followed the highway across the state line, and for hours they sped past decaying places where even Paul struggled to see the beauty—white dormant soybean fields, ragged trees glittering with snow, the low rooflines and yellowing roadside signs of Pentecos
tal churches. Paul couldn’t make sense of what they were doing here. He could feel Julian steeling himself against it, the way he always did when they drove through places where neither of them were welcome.

  But there were no bitter comments or scathing jokes. Julian was quiet, steering one-handed with the sunlight at his back. His right arm was draped over the back of Paul’s seat, but they didn’t quite touch.

  “You look better,” said Paul. “How are you sleeping?”

  Julian looked at him sideways—puzzled, or pretending to be. Paul understood belatedly that it had been a deliberately needling question, just shy of picking a fight. Julian smiled as if they were teasing each other, and Paul knew he was trying to neutralize the threat.

  “Joy left me a few 714s,” he answered, so dryly that Paul couldn’t tell if he was kidding. “I woke up at four in the afternoon yesterday, it was marvelous.”

  “It’s better though, isn’t it?” Paul felt a sudden and violent compulsion to keep talking, though the sound of his own voice was infuriating. “Isn’t it sort of a relief now that something’s finally gone wrong? I think it is at least, I always knew that if something went wrong it was going to be my fault, and now I finally—”

  “Pablo.”

  Julian seemed to know he’d spoken too harshly, and with visible effort he recalibrated; then he traced his fingertips down the side of Paul’s face. It was the first time either of them had touched the other all morning.

  “That subject is getting so tedious.” Julian held Paul’s face for a moment even after he’d turned his gaze back toward the road. “It’s going to be fine—if you can’t trust yourself, then at least trust me. That’s all I want to hear about it today. Agreed?”

  It wasn’t that Paul believed him; he felt so far from the world of tangible things that he didn’t believe in anything. But in the imperious remove of Julian’s voice he remembered how he’d felt in the early days, when he still thought Julian was unbreakable. He remembered his faith in the steadiness of Julian’s hands and in the way winter light lensed through the thin skin of his wrists, and it was enough—or nearly enough—for Paul to feel self-contained.