Static!

by Michael R Collings

  Payne smiled. Good. The old man wasn’t about to let this account slide, that much was obvious. Offering house calls and after-hours checks. Damned good.

  “That will be fine,” Payne began, then remembered that he would not be at home that evening. He would be with Cathy. For an instant, he felt a strong pull to call Cathy and cancel; he almost said something about it to Tasco when he shook off the impulse. What the hell, he thought, Tasco’s been in the house often enough. He should be trustworthy if anyone is. “That will be fine,” he repeated, “but I won’t be home this evening.”

  “It would be much better if you could be there, to point out what was wrong.”

  “I won’t be there,” Payne said, suddenly and irrationally angry at Tasco’s interfering tone. “I just told you that. And I’ll tell you right now what is wrong. I hadn’t set the players up at all. No discs, power off. In the middle of the night the monitor came on and showed a....”

  “But that’s impossible. There’s no way that....”

  “The monitor came on,” Payne repeated forcefully, “and showed a...a pornographic film, I suppose from the After-21 channel or something.”

  “But your system isn’t connected to any of those. They require special decoders that....”

  “I know that,” Payne said, his voice rising to a hollow screech as he yelled into the receiver. “But the damned thing played a skin flick anyway. I want you to get your ass over here and fix it. Understood?”

  “Yes, Mr. Gunnison. I’ll have to send my assistant....”

  “I don’t care who the hell you send. Just fix the damned thing!”

  He stopped and forced his voice back down into its normal ranges. When he spoke again, he sounded like Payne Gunnison rather than like a harridan-voiced shrew. “I’ll leave the key next door with Mr. Wheeler.”

  “All right.” Tasco sounded emphatically less enthusiastic and more rigidly courteous than he had. “Tonight, Mr. Gunnison.”

  Good, Payne thought, time to remind him who’s boss, never let him forget that I pay him, not the other way around. Keep him on a short leash and make sure he gets the work done.

  “Tonight, then.” Payne dropped the receiver into the cradle and turned around.

  Nick was standing in the door way, staring at Payne.

  “‘I’ll leave the key next door with Mr. Wheeler,’” Nick repeated sullenly. “What key? When?”

  “The key to my place,” Payne said. “Tasco’s man is coming over here tonight to check out a problem with the system. He’ll pick up the key from you.”

  “No,” Nick said abruptly, turning away and disappearing into the kitchen.

  Payne followed him. “What do you mean, ‘No,’” Payne demanded.

  “Just what I said. I don’t want to have anything to do with Tasco or that...that psycho he has working for him.”

  “Come on, Nick, all you have to do is hand the man a key.”

  “No, I don’t want to. And I resent the fact that I seem to be turning into your secretary. Pick up this, Nick. Deliver that, Nick. Wait around for something else, Nick. Stay at home to be at my beck and call, Nick. Did you think to check to see if I was even going to be home tonight?”

  “Are you?” Payne’s voice was cold.

  “Well...yes, I guess so. But I wish you had asked me first, anyway. I don’t like that guy. I don’t want to be anywhere near him.”

  For a moment, Payne felt like forcing the issue. I own this house, I can kick you out on your ass whenever I want to, send you packing with all of your precious books. You better do what I say or else I’ll.... Then he realized that this was Nick he was talking to, Nick Wheeler, the guy who was still his best friend in LA, probably the only friend he had right at this point. Instead of threatening, he nodded his head.

  “Okay,” he said. “You’re right. I was out of line. I don’t know why I didn’t check first. Maybe it was just because I was on the phone and you were in the other room. I’ll put the key in an envelope under the mat on the porch and leave a note for Tasco’s man on the door. Would you mind keeping an eye out for him, though? You don’t have to say anything, just make sure no strangers wander onto the porch and find the key. Tasco said he’d send him over some time after seven.”

  Nick nodded. “Okay. That much I can do.”

  “Good.” Payne glanced at his watch. “Hey, it’s getting late. I’ve got to get going. Thanks for the help. See you later.”

  With that he left the kitchen. Nick didn’t follow. He didn’t even see Payne to the door.

  That’s all right Payne told himself as he closed the front door. He’ll settle down later. I’ll have to invite him over, maybe tomorrow night. Have some dinner. Watch a film or two. Play a little game of chess.

  Whistling a low tune, Payne crossed the lawn to his house.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  By six-thirty, Payne’s house appeared empty of all life. It was still bright daylight outside, California summer-daylight, golden and warm. But the house looked dark and cold, Nick thought as he glanced up from his desk at the shadowed porch. Even squinting he could only barely make out a small blot of white fluttering next to the door. It was probably the envelope with the note for Tasco.

  Or Tasco’s psycho helper.

  Nick still didn’t feel comfortable with the arrangements, not even with just having to watch for the guy. As far as Nick was concerned, the bastard could take a long walk off a short pier; he could stick his head in a bucket of water three times and bring it up twice; he could take a flying leap from any bell-tower on any campus in the glorious state of California. Nick thought of a couple more possibilities, feeling better with each one, until finally his mood broke and the house next door seemed less threatening and less shadowy.

  He turned his attention to his books and read steadily for nearly forty-five minutes. He was just turning the page when the squeal of brakes sounded through the open window. He looked up. Along the edge of the window he could just make out the front bumper and tire of a van the same color and make as Tasco’s.

  It probably was Tasco’s, he thought dispiritedly.

  Until that moment, he had half hoped that no one would show. He dropped his hand and the page fluttered down as well. He sat back in his chair, watching to make sure the guy found the note.

  No one appeared on the sidewalk.

  He must be checking a work roster or something, Nick decided. He leaned forward, just enough to see the passenger window. Sunlight reflected from the glass, turning it opaque. And the angle was wrong anyway, so he could not tell for certain whether or not anyone was still in the van. He leaned further forward, letting his hands support his weight.

  The front door rattled. Nick straightened and spun around, scattering his book and note cards onto the floor. His heart thumped unaccountably and his hand shook. Someone thumped insistently and impatiently on the door again.

  “Just a minute,” Nick yelled and half-ran out of the room.

  He was breathing heavily by the time he pulled the door open.

  “Tasco’s,” Ric said, his mouth twisted into what Nick could only think of as an evil grin.

  Nick stared.

  “The key, man. For next door. You got the key, right.”

  Nick stared. He shifted his weight until his body was mostly hidden by the door.

  “Look, man, I got a job to do. I need the freakin’ key!”

  “I don’t have it,” Nick blurted out. “Payne...Mr. Gunnison left it under the mat. On his porch.”

  He slammed the door and leaned heavily against it. That creep was one scary bastard! Nick didn’t know how or why, but Ric seemed threatening just standing in the doorway. Nick listened but did not hear any movement on the porch. In a cold sweat, he ran through the living room and into his bedroom and leaned over the desk and looked out the window.

  Ric was just stepping up onto Payne’s porch, one foot mashing down with what seemed unreasonable violence against the rough concrete. Nick watched intently
to make sure that the man found the key. He didn’t want anyone from Tasco’s coming back to knock at his door.

  At that moment, the man turned his head and looked into Nick’s window. Their eyes caught for an instant—an infinitely horrifying instant for Nick, who felt all of his pent-up dread and horror concentrating in that single unwanted interchange before breaking and flooding through him. He drew back, then leaned forward only long enough to slam the window closed and shut the curtains.

  By that time Ric was in the shadows of Payne’s porch.

  Nick stood numbly in the middle of his room for a long while. His hands trembled but otherwise he did not move. Finally, he stared around him, looking for all the world like someone just coming out of a coma, a Johnny Smith suddenly impelled back into this time and this place.

  He glanced toward the closed and draped window.

  Even though the material was translucent enough that the streetlights sometimes bothered him at night, he could see nothing of the house next door, not even a dark form penetrating vaguely through the curtains.

  He breathed deeply and realized that his hands were shaking and that his heart was pumping wildly.

  Forget Payne, he decided suddenly. I’m getting the hell out of here! He grabbed his wallet and checked on his money—three twenties and his credit cards. That would be plenty. The way he felt right now, two nickels and a plastic spoon would have been enough.

  He rummaged up a pair of pants, an extra shirt, a pair of underwear, and a blue windbreaker with UCLA stamped in cracking white letters on the front and ran with them into the kitchen. Fortunately, he had parked his car on the side driveway for a change; usually he just left it out front where it was easier to get in and out. His driveway was barely single-car width, and the house on the other side—the non-Payne side—was bordered by ancient hibiscus plants that overhung Nick’s driveway like the shadow of doom. He had meant to say something to the owners, but he had only seen someone in the house once or twice in the past year. Apparently they (if it was them and not just him or her) rose early, worked late, and spent most of their free time somewhere else.

  For whatever the reason, he had never spoken to them about the bushes, had barely spoken to them at all in the time he had lived there. And besides, as he would have been the first to admit, the bright reds and yellows and pinks during the summer months created a beautiful view from his kitchen and through the side living-room window. So, finally, it was just easier and more convenient for him to park along the front curb. This once, though, because the last time he had driven it he had done his monthly shopping and didn’t want to carry the heavy bags any farther than necessary, his car was parked between the two houses, with the bulk of his own place between him and the man at Payne’s.

  Nick slid into the front seat and started the engine. He backed up, reversing his usual direction and angling the rear of his car in front of his own house so that he could head down Greensward and away from Payne’s. In the rear-view mirror, he saw the back of Tasco’s truck. He couldn’t see any of Payne’s house.

  Without knowing where he was going, except that he didn’t plan on returning until late, late that night, maybe not even until well into the next day, Nick eased the car into first and drove slowly, quietly down Greensward, making as little noise as possible, like a nervous bridegroom trying to elope with an equally nervous bride under the nose of an irreconcilably angry future father-in-law.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Ric didn’t even try to keep the smirk from wrinkling his face as he stomped up the sidewalk toward Gunnison’s. He had known all along.

  The little pansy, coming on to me like that, like I was a queer or something. I was right about that one, and I’m not gonna let him get away with it.

  As he started up the steps to the house, he felt someone watching him. The back of his neck prickled and his skin grew warm along his neck. He turned in time to see Wheeler staring at him through the window, leaning so far forward that his goddam nose almost touched the glass, like he couldn’t get enough of watching Ric, watching his shoulders and arms in the sleeveless T-shirt Ric had worn on purpose, watching his ass in his tight jeans. Ric shot a look that should have blistered his pervo eyes right out of the sockets, but Wheeler just kept looking so Ric turned and climbed the steps. He had plans for Wheeler but they would have to keep. Someone might see him if he went back now. It was still daylight. If he got inside Gunnison’s place and puttered around in there until it was dark and no one could see him, he could slip across the bit of grass and teach that little rosebud a lesson, teach him that some people don’t appreciate.... Later later later later, Ric promised himself. He grinned at the prospect.

  In the meantime, there was an envelope flapping like a surrender flag from a tack in the door frame. He ripped it down and opened it, dropping the envelope at his feet. A gust of wind picked it up and swirled it around the porch until it finally landed smack in the seat of an old rusted swing.

  Ric barely noticed. He studied the letter for a while before dropping to one knee and turning up the corner of the woven fiber mat. There he found another envelope, smaller than the first. A shape that felt like a key slid to one corner when he grabbed the envelope. He ripped it open, too, shook the key into his palm, and dropped the torn scraps of paper. This time there was no breeze. The paper lay where it fell.

  He held the key up and examined it. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a Playboy Bunny keychain. A single key dangled from it. The two keys were identical.

  “Damn,” Ric said, “blew a buck-fifty on making that copy, and now Gunnison leaves me his own key, opens up the house for me. What a waste. Damn!”

  He worked the copy loose from the key chain, hefted it in his hand, and then threw it into the bushes that lined the edge of the porch.

  The other key fit smoothly—sometimes they didn’t and you had to jiggle and twist but this one fit smoothly just like slipping it into a chick—and Ric turned it easily. The door swung opened. The house was surprisingly dark inside, almost pitch black, even though the sun was still a long way from setting. Ric walked on in, closing the door behind him and locking it from the inside. He slipped Gunnison’s key onto the Bunny keychain and dropped the whole thing into his hip pocket.

  He knew where the electronics systems were. He had been there before, of course, but this time he was alone. This time he was as interested in the rest of the house as he was in what waited in the back room. He felt for a light switch and turned the light on.

  The living room gleamed so brightly that he had to close his eyes for a couple of moments. His eyes must have gotten adjusted to the shady porch, and now all this light reflecting from the white nearly blinded him.

  The first thing he did was cross the room to check out the monitor on the wall. Not bad. New. Good condition. He reached up to the mounting screws that held the bracket to the plaster. His fingers examined the smooth paint that covered the screws. Philips head. Three. No problem. This monitor alone should bring a couple hundred bucks or so. And there were more of them in the other rooms.

  He glanced around. Four video cameras pointed toward the center of the room from brackets in each corner. He stood in front of one of them. The lens was wide enough that he could see himself in it as a dark blot against a white background. His body was distorted and his head foreshortened by the angle of the lens. On a quick guess, he figured he could get maybe two hundred each for the cameras.

  Shit, nearly a thousand bucks, maybe more, just in this room!

  There was nothing else, though. Nothing worth stealing.

  He went down the hall, checking the rooms as he came to them, turning on the lights and stepping inside to survey the possibilities. There were monitors and cameras everywhere, at least one of each in every room. He could see his money roll growing thicker with each room.

  Except for the video stuff, the place offered pretty slim pickings. A chair and a couch in one room. Nothing much in the bathroom except another monitor and
camera.

  “What does the guy do in here, anyway?” Ric asked himself aloud.

  The echo from white plaster walls and white porcelain fixtures sounded spooky. He didn’t say anything out loud for a long time after that. Still, he had asked what he figured to be an interesting question, and he began to imagine some equally interesting and arousing answers.

  The room across from the bathroom was apparently Gunnison’s bedroom. It looked too fussily prissy for Ric’s taste. Effeminate, although he didn’t consciously frame the word; in fact, he did not even know the word. He was content to look his contempt at the dinky little bed that just needed ruffles on the covers to make it look like it belonged to a Sweet Sixteen And Never Been Screwed. Otherwise there was only a dresser and a closet.

  He opened the closet and rummaged through the clothes. There was nothing there of interest. Gunnison had shitty taste in clothes, Ric decided. Everything was too small for him anyway.

  He crossed to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Same here. Boring and bland. He saw neat rows of neat white crew socks with neat white heels and soles—Ric’s own socks tended toward shades of gray and brown, depending on how long he went before finding some chick who would kill to do his washing for him. Next to them were rows of black dress socks folded not rolled, elastic tops facing outward. Ric tugged one top experimentally and ended up with a pair of dress socks hanging from his fingers. He flung them back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

  He tried the next drawer. It was full of white T-shirts. Along the edge there was a stack of hankies ironed and folded like Ric’s grandma used to do with his grandpa’s when Ric was a kid. He snorted his growing scorn.

  The next drawer afforded the first surprise of his visit. It was stuffed full of underwear. If he had thought about it, Ric would have expected Gunnison to stock up on plain white boxer shorts, probably starched and ironed and stacked exactly one on top of the other, just like everything else. At the very worst, there would be Jockeys, whiter and crisper than Ric was used to pulling on (when he bothered with underwear at all, which was rarely).