by Paul Cleave
For a few seconds the world sways. He grabs hold of the showerhead and then the wall until things settle. He looks down and can’t see how dark blood can be good. The water makes it disappear. It makes him think that something inside his stomach has been damaged. Isn’t there a kidney there somewhere? Or a liver? What about his actual stomach? He realizes he’s eaten very little over the last few days, and when he does his stomach burns. Why is that? He studies the skin with his fingers, pulling and poking. It is black in areas, white in others, hard all over, and he isn’t sure which color represents the infection. He lets the hot water wash over it.
He gets out of the shower and sits on the bathroom floor with his back against the bathtub and his towel beneath him. He swabs the wound with disinfectant and it stings like a bitch. He places some medical gauze over the wound, some padding over the gauze, and wraps bandaging around his torso to hold everything in place. He’s going to be moving around some more later, so he wraps some duct tape around it all too, just to be sure. When he gets up he doesn’t feel like the new man he was hoping for, but it’s sure as shit better than seeing dark blood fall out of him.
He wraps the towel around him and goes and checks on his wife. She’s awake. She’s staring at the TV, but not really looking at it. He’s seen her do this before.
“Hey, babe,” he says, and the words feel numb, they sound like they’re not coming from him.
“Where’s Ba-e?” she asks.
She’s referring to Billy. Billy was her cat when she was a child. She told him about Billy years ago. Billy has been dead for thirty years. “He’s sitting out in the sun,” he says.
“Ba-e,” she says, and she smiles.
“Are you. .” he says, then another trip on the morphine wave, and he has to grab hold of the wall to stay balanced. Shit.
“Side-Russ and Ba-e sitting in a tree,” she says. “K-I. . I. . I forget.”
“It’s okay,” he tells her.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I dot mean to forget.”
“It’s okay,” he tells her, and he sits down on the side of the bed and strokes her hair. Something on the TV makes her smile. She forgets all about being sad that she forgets things.
He moves to his bedroom. He runs his hands over the dressing on his stomach. The wound is clean and patched and the pain seems to be just a shadow of what it was earlier. A packet of aspirin sits on the nightstand along with a packet of sleeping pills. Both are nearly empty. He doesn’t think he’ll need them. He sets the alarm clock. He has a meeting tonight, but right now he can’t think exactly what for. He climbs onto the bed. The sheets are damp and he thinks about making a note to wash them, but before he can make one and after he forgets what the note would be for anyway, he falls asleep.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The temperature is rising and I have the air-conditioning turned to high. In this heat it’s easy to forget I nearly froze to death two nights ago, but easy to remember that Hell is waiting around the corner.
I stop at a coffee shop and insert myself inside another slice of normal life, the type of slice where normal people are doing normal things on a day-to-day basis that doesn’t include blood. It’s a more upscale café than the one I sat at two mornings ago. All the furniture is made from shiny metal and shiny wood, and several mirrors and paintings have been jammed up on the wall, each an identical distance from the last. I sit at a window where I can keep an eye on the car because the gun is beneath the front seat. I order some lunch from a waitress who’s obviously psychic because she says things like See you’re reading the paper and Nice day outside. I especially like it when she tells me I look as though I’ve been through the wars. I want to ask what her thoughts are on tonight, but decide I might not like her predictions.
I drink coffee and, in a rare moment of healthy consumption, I have a glass of orange juice. I read my ten-thousand-dollar newspaper. It offers up stories about politics and about companies going broke, and it makes me think of Arthur and the economic downturn that is forcing him to sell guns to guys like me, and I wonder how much of what he said is true. I stare at the crossword I would probably half complete if I had a pen. When my bacon and eggs arrive I nearly inhale them off the plate before the waitress can put them down. When I finish I trap a twenty-dollar note beneath the plate as a tip because I’m awestruck by her psychic abilities, and I think how cool it would be to improve at least one person’s day, the same way the traffic cop improved mine yesterday. It’s a small step, but perhaps I can change the world.
I drive home at a casual speed. I’m in no hurry to be anywhere yet I feel as though I’m running at a hectic pace. When I get home, my next-door neighbor, a man in his late seventies who I see putting golf clubs into his car at least three times every week, catches me in the driveway and starts making conversation. We talk about the weather. He asks how I’m enjoying living in the neighborhood. He tells me if there’s anything he or his wife can do for me, just to let him know. I wonder how far his offer would stretch if I told him what I had planned.
When I get inside I start playing with the Glock. It feels more comfortable than it did in the store because I don’t have to pretend I know what I’m looking at. Holding it in my hands I feel liberated. I feel like I’ve beaten the system designed to keep people like myself from owning such a weapon. I also feel like I’m on the right track, that the Glock has evened the playing field. I turn it over in my hand, studying the lines and textures. The cold metal isn’t quite metal, according to Arthur, but a high-impact synthetic material that he didn’t name. He nicknamed the Glock the plastic pistol, but it doesn’t feel like plastic. In fact the feeling it gives me is that things might turn out okay.
I pick up the magazine and check to make sure it’s empty. I slip it into the gun and slap the butt of it, clicking it into place. Then I play. I point it around the kitchen, the dining room, the lounge. Action Man is having fun. Though fun probably isn’t quite the right word. I point it at things. I pull the trigger. The slide pulls back. It clicks into place. On each pull my face tightens and my eyes half close as I expect to hear thunder. I feel like a kid playing war. I move around corners, keeping the gun low like they do in movies.
I wonder if I should test it. I could go over to the pasture where I buried the cardboard box and fire off a few shots if nobody is around, but I decide against it. I can’t squeeze the drama of being caught into my schedule. I would be charged, fingerprinted, and my fingerprints would quickly match those found at the two dead girls’ homes.
I drop the gun into my pocket when there’s knocking at the door. It’s the carpenter. He’s right on time. He’s a young guy, maybe only twenty, who talks like a teenager and thinks I must be one too. He calls me man every few minutes or so and talks about surfboards as he fixes my back door. I guess I ought to be flattered he thinks I’m young enough to understand. While he works, I put the gun up into the ceiling with the cash hidden up there. Then I change into shorts and a T-shirt. I wait around for the guy to finish. It takes him two hours to strip out the broken door frame and cut and fit the replacement pieces. The door itself is okay. So are the handle and lock.
“You’ll have to get in a painter to do the rest,” he says. I pay him in cash. “You don’t need an invoice, right?”
“No,” I tell him.
He smiles the smile of a man who knows he’s gotten away with something the tax department doesn’t have to know about. I smile the smile of a man who knows that having his door fixed is the act of somebody who is confident they’re going to be around long enough to enjoy it. He packs up his gear and leaves and I lock up the house and head outside.
I drive out to New Brighton, the radio off the whole time because nobody can say or sing or advertise anything that’ll make me feel any better. I listen to the traffic and to my thoughts and don’t really like the sound of those either. The temperature has peaked in the early seventies, but hasn’t started its decline yet.
New Brighton has a ni
ce beach that’s often ruined by a really killer wind. Sand is always on the move, the wind using it to assault the swimmers and sunbathers. The houses in the area are mainly bungalows and cottages that are stained with sea salt. Anything made from metal is either rusting or in danger of rusting. The gardens that make Christchurch famous don’t extend their roots out here. What little greenery there was has dried up and turned to brown weed that crackles underfoot, each piece a potential matchstick.
I park near the mall. Brighton Mall is the only outdoor mall in the city. It used to be vibrant back when I was a kid. I remember my parents bringing me out here. The shops were different from other malls, you had the smell of fish and chips, the sun on your back, the sound of breaking waves only feet away. Now the mall has more empty shops than sales assistants. It’s a sign of bad times. It’s just like Arthur was saying.
I walk down the mall, I can’t help but feel saddened by all the For Sale and For Lease signs that I pass. Just before the end of the millennium a three-hundred-meter concrete pier was built out here, as though that would bring people back to a dying suburb, but so far the only thing it has attracted is fishermen. They renovated the surrounding blocks, threw up palm trees and slapped paint on the storefronts and walkways. And it worked. For a few months. Until it stopped working. The pier is still here and has been built so solidly that it probably always will be. It’s opposite the mall, heading out from above the sand dunes into the ocean. It stands two storeys high with flights of concrete stairs leading up from the walkway. A library and cafés are built into the base of it. I climb the stairs and the warm breeze from below disappears, replaced by air currents that are several degrees cooler. With the library behind me, its thousands of books perhaps offering plenty of solutions as to what I could try tonight, I head out over the incoming tide, passing people who have their lines over the side to catch whatever fish are dumb enough to still be hanging around. There are lampposts every twenty yards: their lights will help me out tonight. Up here the smell of seaweed is gone, replaced by the smell of blood, fish guts, rotting skin, and cigarette smoke. People gut their fish directly onto the asphalt. Teenagers throw fish heads at their friends.
I walk out to the end, past wooden seats with peeling paint and rusting trash bins. I walk to a small non-fishing zone where people are fishing, leaning against the railing and looking out over the water. I watch the waves crashing into the concrete foundations below and feel them shake through the pillars. The shattering rollers spray plumes of water into the air like dust. The wind, colder out here, is coming from the east, and it reaches me without picking up the scent of dead fish on the way. The water near the shore is gray, but blue beyond the breakers. I look for shapes moving beneath the surface, but see nothing. The cool breeze snaps my clothes back and forth.
I savor the moment, though I keep it short. I bet wherever Jo is, she doesn’t have a view of the ocean. Unless she’s already in it. I turn around and look at the guys fishing behind me. They look exactly like the kind of guys you don’t want to make eye contact with. Cigarettes dripping from their mouths, their hands and necks covered in tattoos, the fishing lines they’re using are probably stolen. A sign next to them says No Overhead Casting. But signs are like rules for these guys: there to be ignored, and they take pleasure in the knowledge they can do something illegal even in the simple act of fishing. A guy wearing a T-shirt that says Tonight I’m going to party like you’re nine stares at me as if deciding whether or not I’d make good bait. Head down, eyes down, unmolested I reach the library. I head back to the sand and head north.
Swimmers and sunbathers and kids throwing around a ratty old football make this just another trip to the seaside. A guy throwing a red Frisbee high into the breeze and catching it as it flies back gets in the way of people trying to relax. On the weekend this place will be packed. I walk a hundred yards, then turn around and study the pier. I study the foundations below, the angle where the beach hits the base of the pier where a concrete wall climbs between the two. This is where I’m going to be tonight. I want to know my ground. I need to know my escape routes.
I walk back through the mall to the parking lot. I drive around the surrounding warren of streets to become familiar with them. When I’ve absorbed all I can I head home. It’s nice to see neither of the doors have been kicked in. I make sure my house is secure, then attach pieces of string to the doors and windows, tying the other ends to an assortment of pots and pans. It’s a cheap alarm system, but effective.
I bring down the gun. I grab a handful of ammunition and load it into the magazine, slap the magazine into the gun, then set it next to my bed. The day isn’t as young anymore, but it still has a long way to go. Knowing I’ll need all the energy I can get I lie on top of my bed and set my alarm clock for seven. The sun streams through the window directly on top of me. I put on a pair of sunglasses, prop a pillow beneath my head, and close my eyes.
The sun feels great. Relaxing. It seems easy to forget that another killing hour is on the way. The only question is who is going to be around at the end of it.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The basement is cold, and Jo can’t stop shivering. She’s tired, but can’t fall asleep. Other than two bathroom breaks that Cyris gave her, she’s been roped up against the same drum since coming back here the other night. Which was. . she isn’t sure. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re locked in a basement with no view.
When she used the bathroom, she had to leave the door open. Cyris stood with his back to her to at least give her some privacy. The first time, she couldn’t bring herself to go. She just sat on the toilet too scared for anything to happen. The second time she barely sat down before things started flowing.
Each time she was brought into the hall, she could hear cartoons going and a woman laughing from a bedroom. She thought about calling out for help, but she didn’t. She couldn’t face meeting Cyris’s girlfriend. The woman had to know Jo was here against her will, she would have heard her, which could only mean one of two things: the wife was okay with the fact her husband would bring women home and tie them up, or the wife herself was tied up and couldn’t do anything about it. If the second of those two options were true, then why the laughter? And now that she was questioning things, why would his girlfriend be watching children’s cartoons? The answer to that was obvious-she wouldn’t be. Which means the laughter wasn’t coming from a woman, but a little girl.
None of it made sense.
Her trips to the bathroom gave her some idea of the time. It was afternoon. Probably around three or four o’clock, but perhaps later. Down in the basement it’s all the same. In this dark place on this concrete floor where the cold seeps slowly and forcefully into her body it’s easy to imagine that it’s permanent midnight. Her wrists are sore. He replaced the gag she had in her mouth with duct tape, and at the same time he gave her the bathroom breaks, he also gave her water to drink. She doesn’t struggle against the ropes anymore. In fact she hardly even moves her hands or wrists. The skin there is just too raw. There are moments where she thinks about how easy it would be to give up. To accept her fate might just mean dying won’t be so difficult. These moments are brief. She would never give up. Never make it easy for Cyris. Somehow, she’s going to get out of this. She will see her family again. Her friends. And Charlie?
She doesn’t know. Things can never be the same between them, but what exactly does that mean? She can’t forgive him for what he did to her on Monday night. Can she? No. No, of course not. However, the fact she’s questioning just how much she can forgive tells her something important-she’s not over him. And he’s not over her either. He still has photographs of her on the walls and he’s still wearing his wedding ring.
She hears the basement door starting to open before she sees it. She looks up as light spills into the room, then has to close her eyes and look away as the light hurts her. Cyris has reached her by the time she can see anything without having to squint. The scent of soap and swea
t overpowers her as he leans down, and a moment later a knife touches the ropes that bind her. He tells her to stand, but her legs give way and she falls on her side. He hisses the command at her again, this time adding the sight of his knife as an incentive. It works, and when she gets to her feet he tosses something at her that she can’t identify until they hit the ground. Handcuffs. Maybe he has a whole drawer full of them.
When he tells her to pick them up she doesn’t refuse. The refusal begins when he tells her to put them on. Handcuffed she will be no match for him. He takes a step toward her and she watches his face as anger and insanity blossom behind his eyes, and she realizes that handcuffed or not she’s in the same situation, and that if she pushes the point he’ll get those cuffs snapped onto her wrists anyway and beat the hell out of her in the process. The cold metal ratchets into place as she cuffs her hands in front of her.
He leads her up the stairs into the hallway. She can hear the cartoons again, and in the distance a neighbor is mowing lawns, and somewhere between those two noises a chorus of barking from several dogs. The curtains are drawn, but around the edges she can see the dull fading of sunlight. It has to be around six thirty, maybe seven o’clock, she thinks.
He leads her through to the adjoining garage, which looks clinical white under the glow of eight fluorescent tubes. Brand-new tools are hanging neatly on a Peg-Board. Some look new, some look well used. There’s a wheelchair lying on its side jammed under the workbench. Did he kill somebody who couldn’t walk? Is the wheelchair a souvenir? On the bench is a pile of metal shavings and an open box of shotgun shells, next to them a hacksaw.
“Take off the tape,” he tells her.
She reaches up and pulls it away. It hurts. “Please,” she says, “please let me go.”