The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  When she reached down and felt his erection, she stopped kissing him for a moment and pulled back, smiling broadly.

  “Wow!” she said, groping his member. “Is that all for me?”

  Joe Tibbits smiled. “That’s up to you,” he said.

  Jill blinked. She enjoyed dancing with this stranger, and there was something about him that she found exciting, and perhaps even a little dangerous, but even as the room to drifted and swayed around her, she realized that her flirting had gone too far. It wasn’t his fault, she thought. She enjoyed the attention he'd paid her, but it had to stop there.

  “Wait a second,” she said. She withdrew her hand and placed it on his chest as she unwrapped her legs from around his waist and steadied herself against the bar.

  “Is that it?” Joe asked, the disappointment obvious in his voice. “I thought we were having fun.”

  “I know,” Jill said. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  Joe didn’t say anything as he considered her words and his throbbing erection. He wanted to tell her what he was thinking— that she was a whore and a tease— but that wasn’t what this night was about. Tonight was about something bigger than proving to yet another woman that she can’t simply say no to him and walk away. He drew a deep breath and looked at the petite brunette’s lovely face, beautiful despite the guilt that suddenly registered upon it, or perhaps even more appealing because of it. Instead of displaying the rage that was mounting inside him, his expression softened, and he offered her a kind smile. He touched her hand.

  “No, you’re probably right,” he told her. “We were going a little fast.”

  She'd expected him to be angry. His understanding was an unexpected and welcome relief.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Hell, no!” he lied. “A little disappointed, and very turned on, but not mad.” He looked over at the table where her friends had been. Two of them were sitting at the table, now flanked by two boys, townies who had staked their claim. The others were on the dance floor, dancing to another up tempo song. None of them were paying even the slightest attention to her at the bar.

  “Listen,” Joe said. “I’m gonna go use the bathroom and then get a little fresh air and then if you want to just sit and talk, or dance, or if you just want to go back to your friends, that’s okay. Whatever you want.”

  Jill considered her options. He was very sweet, and she really didn’t want their time together to come to such an abrupt end. She just didn’t want to keep leading him on.

  “A little fresh air sounds good,” she said.

  Joe Tibbits helped her off the stool and steadied her as he guided her down a long hallway to the bathrooms. The ladies’ room was at the far end of the hall, and he escorted her all the way to the entrance before setting her free.

  “You’re not gonna fall, are you?” he asked her as he let her go.

  “I think I’m okay,” she assured him as she walked unsteadily into the fluorescent glow of the ladies room.

  At the end of the hall, just beyond the entrance to the ladies room was an exterior door. Joe Tibbits leaned his back against the release bar and pushed the door open. He felt the cool evening air wafting in through the opening and brushing across the back of his neck, and he turned and peered outside into the darkness. He could smell the garbage in the open dumpster, and he spotted a few parked cars, most likely belonging to the employees, but there were no people; no sign of activity. Just as importantly, no alarm sounded when he’d opened the door. He pulled it shut and waited.

  When Jill finally staggered out of the ladies’ room, Joe reached out and took her hand, which momentarily startled her. He pulled her toward him and leaned against the door jam.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to have a little fun?” he asked.

  She tipped her head back. “I know. I’m acting like a tease. I’m really sorry.”

  Joe smiled. “Just had to ask.”

  There was no one in view in the small hallway, so he pressed his back against the release bar again and swung the door open, stepping backward into the darkness and pulling the drunken girl with him. The door slammed shut before Jill even realized they were outside in the dark parking lot. He pushed her backward and leaned her against the cinder block wall of the club and pressed his mouth against hers. When she attempted to move away, he pressed harder, causing the back of her head to smack against the cement.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. Given the amount of alcohol she’d consumed in the last two hours, her efforts to extract herself from Joe Tibbits’ grip proved futile.

  “If you don’t want to act like a tease, then don’t,” Joe snarled.

  Even through the tequila haze, she could hear the change in his tone and it frightened her.

  He reached down with one hand and lifted the hem of her skirt, slipping his fingers under her panties. Her attempt to slap his hand away had no effect.

  “Hey!” she yelled.

  Joe Tibbits placed his other hand against her throat and squeezed until she grew quiet, save for the slight gurgling sound as she gasped for air. She clawed at his fingers and grabbed at his wrist, desperately trying to free herself, her eyes bulging as she struggled for a breath.

  “You’ll be quiet now?” Joe asked. His voice was calm, nearly a whisper.

  Realizing he wasn’t about to release her, she nodded. As he loosened his grip on her throat, she felt the cool evening air filling her lungs again.

  “Good girl,” he said. Before she could recover, he pulled her again and she stumbled against him until he practically carried her to the far side of the dumpster, out of the view of the door. He pushed her down onto the ground. It was dark, and the stench was stronger there as she lay amidst the discarded garbage that had spilled over the dumpster and landed on the pavement. She felt for a moment that she was about to vomit, but she couldn’t be sure whether that was a reaction to the stench of the rotting garbage or to the sudden realization of what was happening to her.

  As Joe Tibbits lay on top of her, she pressed her hands against him, first against his chest and arms, and then his face, trying to fend him off, but he was too strong. She curled her fingers and scratched his face, leaving three deep gashes that started at his right eyebrow and traveled diagonally across his eyelid and cheek. He raised up slightly and touched his hand to his face, which was already bleeding, and then he delivered a backhand, his fist clenched tightly, to her left cheek.

  Before she could cry out, he clasped her throat again with his free hand, the same one he’d struck her with, and he leaned forward so his face was directly above hers. She felt as if his entire weight was upon her throat as she gasped for air. Joe Tibbits' bleeding face hovered over her as her world began to go dark. The last thing she heard before she passed out was his voice, still as calm as it had been earlier when he’d been flirting with her.

  “How the fuck did that little midget Cochrane ever get a girl like you?” he wondered aloud.

  Two days earlier, as Joe Tibbits sat alone in the shade with his lunch and his newspaper, he overheard the conversation between Mike Cochrane, his miserable little midget of a foreman, and two of the other men. It was clear by the conversation that they were unaware Joe was sitting within earshot. When he heard Cochrane’s voice suddenly fall to a hushed tone, he listened more intently to their conversation.

  “By the way,” Cochrane said, “I’m having a few guys over Friday night for a little poker if you’re interested.”

  One of the men laughed. “You’re not going out with Jill?”

  “No,” Cochrane said. “She’s going up to Slick Willie’s with some friends, so I have a fun pass for the night.”

  Joe listened as they made their arrangements. He considered standing up and accepting the foreman’s invitation— he’d be more than happy to take their money— but before he could he heard Cochrane’s voice again.

  “Just do me a favor,” he said. “Don’t let that fucki
n’ asshole Tibbits get wind of it. I don’t want that fucker showing up and ruining it.”

  The others agreed not to mention it, but it wouldn’t have mattered. By the time Joe Tibbits had finished his sandwich and returned to work, he’d already decided he would be fired on Friday morning. Just as importantly, he already knew how he’d be spending his Friday night.

  Most of the women who were unfortunate enough to be momentarily charmed by Joe Tibbits kept the outcome of their final encounter with him to themselves. Not all of them were raped. Some of them were just beaten and frightened. But the sad truth of it was that most of them were attractive young girls who, like Jill Ouellette, were observed drinking a bit too much or flirting a bit too overtly, or both. So there would always be those people would wonder if, to some degree, the young ladies had done something to encourage or provoke whoever did this to them. It was something that a handful of those women, Jill Ouellette among them, would wonder as well.

  In small town Maine— or small town anywhere for that matter— the stigma in the community could inevitably last far longer than the bruises, at least the visible ones. There were some that would never heal. In the aftermath of what had happened to them, they were forced to decide if their desire for justice was strong enough to withstand the labels and the insinuations that would inevitably come with it. Even more, for women like Jill Ouellette who weren’t fortunate enough to have been the victims of a ‘simple beating’, there was the additional burden of keeping the details from their loved ones for fear of how a husband or, in Jill’s case, a fiancé might react. Would Mike Cochrane consider her damaged goods, she wondered? Would he be one of those who speculated, without wanting to, if she’d done something to invite such an encounter? It was something she, like so many women, never wanted to learn.

  So, she decided Mike would never know the truth of the events of that night. In the version of the story he would hear, Jill had had a bit too much to drink and had simply fallen down. She managed to hide the bruises on her throat with makeup along with scarves and turtleneck sweaters. In one respect, it meant that Joe Tibbits’ plan had failed; Joe had taken something from Cochrane,, but Cochrane would never know. The only damage he’d inflicted had been on Jill Ouellette, who would carry not only the scars of that unfortunate evening, but also the burden of keeping them a secret.

  By the time his latest victim had made her decision to keep her encounter with him to herself, Joe Tibbits was long gone. He’d taken the time to pack his belongings into his pickup truck before he went to the bar that night, suspecting how the evening would likely play out. If his suspicions were correct, he knew it would be best to make yet another hasty exit. So while Jill was still recovering in the darkness behind the dumpster, adjusting and then discarding her blood-soaked panties and stumbling back to her friends who eventually encountered her in the parking lot, Joe Tibbits was already behind the wheel of his truck, driving south on the Maine Turnpike with all of his belongings. If he had any regrets, it was only that he couldn’t have spent more time with the petite brunette, whom he rather liked.

  As he drove, he occasionally dabbed at the scratches on his face and at his watering eye, contemplating the exit signs as they drifted past the glow of his headlights. A single thought penetrated the cacophony in his troubled mind so strongly that he occasionally muttered the words aloud, albeit quietly:

  “Where the fuck are you, Moody?”

  8

  Leap Of Faith

  On Thanksgiving Day, James joined Jean and Christina Berkhardt for the Langston’s traditional holiday meal. Annie was in her glory, having her two boys at home together for the first time in months. James met Harry first, and he wasn’t at all surprised to find that the eldest son had inherited his father’s massive proportions. Except for his father’s beard and additional girth around the middle, Harry resembled his father in almost every way.

  Michael, the younger son, was smaller in stature, with more chiseled good looks than his brother. When he smiled, James recognized Annie’s features, including the mischievous glint in the eyes that Annie had once used to finally capture Peter’s attention that evening in front of the ice cream shop on Main Street. Michael had clearly inherited more Price than Langston genes, and the irony wasn’t entirely lost on anyone that the younger son, who was named after no one in particular, bore a much stronger resemblance to his Uncle Harry than did his elder brother, Harry’s namesake.

  It was immediately evident that Annie, who was dwarfed even by her smaller son, ruled the house. Whenever she asked one of the boys to help her— whether it was to clear the table or to fetch something from the kitchen— the boys never hesitated, dutifully leaping to her assistance.

  They showed Jean the same respect and kindness they showed their mother, and it was abundantly clear they were both smitten with Christina. They strutted like peacocks whenever they were in the same room with her, but Christina, who had known them nearly all her life, regarded them more like siblings. She adored them both, but she wasn’t even remotely interested in either of them in any romantic way.

  “Harry and Michael are like the older brothers Christina never had,” Jean explained to James.

  “Or wanted,” Christina added playfully so the boys could hear.

  After dinner, Michael and Harry disappeared into the kitchen to wash the dishes. It was an annual tradition in the Langston home— Annie cooked, the boys cleaned, and Peter watched football, this year with James and Christina, while Jean and Annie talked over coffee in the dining room.

  In previous years, Edward and Gloria hosted Thanksgiving dinner, which, according to Edward, was one of the two times each year that they actually dined in their elegant dining room. Kate and Kenny, who hosted Christmas dinner at their home, always joined them for Thanksgiving, as did Tracy whenever she didn’t return to South Portland to spend the holiday with her parents. Before his stroke, Bud Moody dined with them on the holidays and always complimented Gloria on “the spread”, as he liked to put it. Gloria always accepted his praise graciously, assuming he was referring not only to the meal but also to her presentation and her tastefully decorated table.

  “It’s nice to know one of the Moody men appreciates it,” she would say, a remark intended more for Edward than for his father.

  Edward knew his father’s compliment was directed solely at the food, and the abundance of it. Like Edward, Bud had little use for affectation; the expensive silver and china and the crystal that dressed the holiday table were wasted on the Moody men. Bud Moody would be satisfied eating from a trough if it contained turkey with mashed potatoes and stuffing swimming in gravy. Still, Edward allowed Gloria to interpret the compliment any way she wished, smiling and remaining silent whenever she attempted to throw Bud’s misinterpreted praise in his face.

  After Bud Moody’s stroke a few years earlier, they began a tradition of dining earlier in the day, afterward bringing Bud a plate of food at the nursing home and helping him eat while they watched football on television. Bud always looked forward to those holiday visits; perhaps more for the food than the company since the Alzheimer’s was slowly robbing him of his increasingly tenuous connection to them.

  This year, the first without Edward, Gloria accepted an invitation from Tom Kendall to join him and his grown children for dinner. Kate and Kenny shared Thanksgiving dinner alone for the first time, and then prepared the traditional plate for Bud.

  For some reason, Bud Moody was tired and irritable that year. He was far more welcoming of the turkey dinner, which he devoured, than he was of Kate and Kenny, who he mistook for employees of the nursing home. So they kept their visit short.

  They returned home to a ringing phone. It was Linda, Tracy’s roommate, and her tone was desperate. Linda had returned home to find Tracy drunk in her room, which in itself was no longer a surprise to her. Tracy was on her bed, dressed in a blouse and a long skirt as if she was planning to go out. She was lying on her side with her back to the door,
her feet dangling over the edge of the bed as if she’d been sitting and had simply toppled over.

  It was only when Linda walked around to the far side of the bed to check on her that she noticed the bottle of sleeping pills cradled in Tracy’s limp fingers. Linda gasped and shouted Tracy’s name, certain she was too late. She took the bottle from Tracy’s hand, and pausing for a moment to listen to the reassuring sound of Tracy’s slow and steady breathing, she opened the bottle and peered inside. Pouring the contents of the bottle onto the nightstand, she quickly counted out the pills. None were missing, and she assumed that Tracy had either changed her mind or had simply passed out before she was able to open the bottle.

  That was when she called Kate.

  When Kate and Kenny arrived at the apartment, Linda ushered them in, handing Kate the bottle of pills as she led them into Tracy’s bedroom. Kate positioned herself on the edge of the bed, where she sat stroking Tracy’s hair and speaking her name, softly at first, and then more firmly, trying to elicit some response. Tracy stirred and muttered something incomprehensible.

  They sat with her for two hours, trying to coax her from her stupor with only moderate success. Kate decided to stay with Tracy through the night, just to make certain she would have someone with her when she awoke, as well as to provide Linda with a chance for a more restful night than she’d had in weeks, without the worry of what she would discover in the morning. Kate instructed Kenny to return home, which he reluctantly did, telling him she would call him in the morning to decide what to do next.

  The truth was that Kate knew exactly what needed to be done.

  Kate spent the night in a chair near the door. She dozed occasionally, but any sleep she found was shallow, and she awoke quickly whenever Tracy stirred. Most of the time, she sat quietly in the dim glow of a lamp on the nightstand watching Tracy sleep.