An Occasional Hell

by Silvis, Randall;

  And here you are, DeWalt, feeling sorry for yourself because you’re out of shape and short of breath. You make me sick.

  He went out to the lake road, and with as much nonchalance as he could muster, he sauntered toward the mall. Every now and then he would take a quick glance over his shoulder, scanning the individual driveways for a glimpse of Fox’s 4X4. Otherwise he kept his face to the lake.

  During the first five minutes he was passed by a dozen or more golf carts, all occupied by couples or a solitary male. Finally one approached driven by a woman, the passenger seat empty. He turned and flagged her down.

  “Out of gas?” she asked. She was in her sixties, a jowly pixie clad in a velvet jogging suit only slightly pinker than her hair, her face a crinkled chamois.

  “In more ways than one,” said DeWalt. “Listen, I’m new here, and I went out for a walk, and I seem to have lost my bearings. Could you point me in the direction of the Fox cottage, please?”

  “I know a Wolfe but not any Foxes. What’s the address?”

  He grinned sheepishly. “I don’t think I remember.”

  “Is it lakefront or wooded?”

  He hoped his smile made him look charmingly stupid. “You’d think a person would remember something like that, wouldn’t you?” In the cart’s cup holder was a highball glass, empty but for a sliver of ice cube and a wedge of lime. “The truth is,” he said, “there’s not a lot about the last twenty-four hours that I do remember. Except that I’m staying at the Fox place, and that it’s not wise to drink a quart of Chivas on an empty stomach.”

  She laughed brightly. “You just hop in here with me, honey. There’s a directory over at the store. We’ll get you home again, don’t you worry.”

  By the time they reached the store she had driven off the edge of the road eight times, each time whipping the cart back on so forcefully that DeWalt’s head jangled. During this tumultuous ride he learned that she was married to a radiologist, her third husband, that she had a handicap of fourteen, had recently acquired enough red points in bridge to qualify as a master, that her present mission was to secure a quart of Gilbey’s, and that if she didn’t get to a bathroom lickety-split she was going to raise Honey Lake another three inches.

  She guessed that he was a doctor too. Probably a chiropractor. “Now how did you know that?” he asked.

  “It’s your hands. A man’s hands don’t lie.”

  He placed one on the back of her neck and squeezed the muscle. “I give good massage too,” he said.

  “Boy, could I ever use a good rubdown! Bucky, he’s my husband, he rubs me too but it’s always the wrong way.”

  “If you use warm coconut oil, there is no wrong way.” DeWalt squeezed her neck again, which sent the golf cart veering off the road.

  “Whoops,” she said. “You’re going to be a lot of fun, I can tell that already.”

  “Fun is my middle name.”

  “And what’s your first name?”

  “Richard,” he said. “But please, call me Dick.”

  “Ooooh,” she said, and squirmed on the seat. “If I didn’t have to pee so bad I’d take you into the woods with me right this minute.”

  “First things first,” he said.

  Without slowing she veered sharply into the covered parking lot adjacent to the store, narrowly missing a row of golf carts. She then slammed on the brake, bringing them squealing to a halt, but not before they struck the store’s cement block wall with sufficient force to send the cart rebounding a yard back.

  “Whoopsie doo!” she said.

  DeWalt tried to smile as he rubbed his knee.

  “That’s the directory right there in front of you, Dickie. I’m gonna pee and pick up some goodies. Don’t you run away, you hear?”

  “I don’t think I can run,” he said. “I don’t think I can walk.”

  She laughed and slapped his kneecap. “That part of the body isn’t important anyway. Both of mine are stainless steel!”

  According to the resort directory, which was mounted on the store wall not two feet from DeWalt’s face, three Foxes owned property in Honey Lake. There was James Paul Fox, Ireta Fox, and William C. Fox.

  C. for Craig, he thought, and hoped. William C. Fox, #2 Raspberry Lane.

  Ten minutes later, his driver had not yet returned. He flirted with the idea of stealing her cart—she had left the key in the ignition. Instead he went inside the store. He found her standing before the soft drinks, a bottle of Schwepp’s Tonic Water in one hand, a bottle of Canada Dry tonic in the other, a quart of gin tucked under her arm.

  “Isn’t it strange?” she asked. “I’ve forgotten which brand of tonic Buck prefers.”

  “Why not get both? Whatever’s left over we can take a shower with.”

  “Oh, Dickie,” she said, “you’re going to get me into a world of trouble, I can tell. And I do love trouble!”

  Along the way to the checkout counter he plucked a pair of aviator glasses off a rack, then a Honey Lake baseball cap. He chose a bright yellow one—suitable for a chiropractor, he thought.

  Out in the golf cart he donned the glasses and cap. “How do I look?”

  “Good enough to eat. Where should I take the first bite?”

  “Tell you what. Drive me home so that I can get cleaned up a bit, and we’ll meet for a drink later on. It’s number two Raspberry Lane.”

  “Raspberry! I’m on #9 Plum! How about that?”

  “How about that?”

  “Plum is the road right in front of yours! We’re only seven cottages apart.”

  “I’m a lucky man,” he told her. “Always have been.”

  “I think I’m the one who’s gonna get lucky.” She backed out of the parking space so abruptly that his head snapped forward and the sunglasses popped into his lap. She laughed and shifted into forward. Speeding away she said, “I give a hell of a ride, don’t I?”

  He put the sunglasses on. “I’ll ask Buck when I see him.”

  “You do that, Dickiepoo.”

  He braced himself and held on tight.

  It never failed to amaze DeWalt how easily some people revealed themselves to strangers. Maybe in this case it was the gin and tonic, but he doubted it. He guessed she would be just as voluble sober. Some people use talk—and drink and sex—as a kind of lifeline to wrap themselves around other people, to rope them together, to create an illusion of unity. DeWalt had never been able to do that. For him, dialogue was a shield. Even in the days when he had been a fairly heavy drinker, alcohol had not allowed him to open up, to extend his grasp beyond that enclosing awareness of self.

  He imagined it must be nice. A warm and comforting place. And addictive. Which was why so many people so gladly engaged in the loquacious kind of silliness this woman did. It was why they prattled on insensibly, lewdly, suggestively, harmlessly, intelligently, didactically, idly, desultorily, drunkenly, soberly, desperately—for the contact; the reassurance; the illusion.

  “There’s the gang!” she said. She shouted “Beep! Beep!” and pretended to blow a nonexistent horn. The five people standing on the deck of #9 Plum returned her wave.

  “Nuts,” she said to DeWalt. “I was hoping we could slip past unnoticed. Then we could sneak over to your place for that rubdown you promised.”

  “Anyway,” he said, and patted her leg, “we’ll always have Paris.”

  She turned left at the next intersection. At the junction with Raspberry Lane he asked her to stop. “But that’s only number seven, honey. We’ve got a ways to go yet.”

  He was out of the cart before it stopped moving. “I need to stretch my legs again. Poor circulation.”

  “Barbecue tonight at #7 Plum. BYOB. Five-ish. You play bridge?”

  “Badly.”

  “How about Battleship?”

  He could tell by the twinkle in her eye that she was setting him up. “That’s a kid’s game, isn’t it?”

  “Not the way I play it. In my version, you get into the hot tub, and I blow you
out of the water.”

  “I’ll bring my life preserver,” he told her. “You’re dangerous.”

  He sent her away laughing and that pleased him. He hadn’t sent a woman away satisfied for quite some time. Flattery was so easy and so salubrious; he had learned its benefits from a black Georgian lady in Chicago, a thin almond-eyed gracious woman who flattered him, barely more than a boy, for a week and two days. Then, unable to stomach the city’s rudeness any longer, she returned to Atlanta. But in that short time she taught him what balm kind words can be, what a salve to cool the friction burns of too much humanity scraping against each other.

  There were not many kind words spoken these days, it seemed. Comedians made fortunes by slinging insults. Politicians blackened one another with dirty epithets. Newspapers thrived on the shit of slander. Court dockets bulged with libel suits. When, DeWalt wondered, had we become this country of denigrators?

  Save that puzzle for tomorrow, he told himself then. You’ve got other business to attend to now. He pulled the bill of his cap low over his sunglasses, stuck his hands in his pockets, affected what he hoped was a casual chiropractic posture, and ambled down Raspberry Lane.

  Very slowly he walked, counting the cottages that lay ahead. He saw it then, #2, the flat-roofed saltbox, the next-to-the last cottage on the road. On the roof deck were two figures: Fox at the forward railing, gazing across the lake, turning occasionally to speak over his shoulder. Behind him, seated on a lawn chair, hunched forward, elbows on his knees, was another man, an individual DeWalt had never seen before.

  Gillen, he thought. Okay, you saw him. He’s here. Now get your ass back to the store and call Abbott.

  But he had not actually seen Gillen. Not close enough to match his face with the face in the photograph Abbott had shown him. What if DeWalt called in the cavalry? Would they come charging over the hill with sirens trumpeting and banners waving, only to have a hundred aging and inebriated vacationers mistake the police sirens for ambulance sirens, clutch their hearts and wonder which of them was checking out this time? No; the police would arrive without fanfare. First an unmarked car. Then a backup. Seal off all exits. Stroll in and make the arrest.

  Still, what if all this transpired, and the second man on the terrace turned out to be Fox’s brother? or father? or lover? or some other hapless innocent?

  Get a closer look, DeWalt. What have you really seen? You’ve seen nothing. Forget about that tremor in your hands, those quivering knees. Forget about being unarmed and defenseless against two strong young men. Don’t worry about getting shot in the gut again, there’s nothing left in there to be hurt. So get along, little doggie, get along.

  He crossed uphill between cottages #7 and #6, then followed along the edge of the woods parallel to Raspberry Lane. Both men now had their backs to him. He stayed in the woods until he was directly behind the Fox cottage. Now he could see that the second individual was slightly built, had a thin muscular body, long dark hair pulled into a ponytail. Not William C. Fox, in any case.

  It’s Gillen, he told himself. You know damn well it’s Gillen. So go on, turn around, you’re closer to your car now, go to it. Your safe little air-conditioned stereophonic womb. Come on, man, retreat. Retreat, you fucking coward. You gutshot chicken. You overweight snoop.

  Briskly he walked down the grassy incline to the rear of the cottage, trying not to move too fast lest he lose his footing, fall and roll like a battered garbage can to bang into the wall. But he managed to get there standing up. At the rear corner he hunkered against the wall and tried to steady his breath. He waited, he listened. There had been no sudden movements above, nobody running to see who it was down there wheezing and gasping for air.

  He could hear their voices as if from the clouds, the alternating hum of words as one man spoke and then the other, a sonorant drone of conversation distinguishable only by its tone of argument. An occasional obscenity, a vehement “No!” They were not discussing whether to barbecue steaks or chicken for dinner; of that, and little else, DeWalt was certain.

  Gingerly he crept along the side wall, pausing every few seconds to glance up at the roof edge, to hold his breath, to listen. Then he continued on, one foot softly in front of the other. Steady, boy, steady as she goes.

  “Who the fuck …,” DeWalt heard, and suddenly froze, his heart wild with adrenalin. In a glance he calculated that he could never outrace the boys to the woods, and so decided to head for the lake instead, the safety of conspicuity. He waited, poised, ready to run, hoping they would not attack from both sides at once.

  But neither boy appeared. Above him, the staccato buzz of disagreement continued. DeWalt allowed his heart another fifteen seconds to either fibrillate or slow, and then, finding himself still erect, still functional, he inched forward again, his shoulder to the wall.

  The front screen door was closed, the wooden door standing open. Fortunately the front porch was a slab of concrete; no boards to creak beneath DeWalt’s clumsy weight. He felt as graceful as a hippo as he moved to the door, as he gently squeezed the latch, eased the door open.

  Inside, the floor was of bare polished hardwood, here and there an Oriental rug. Knotty pine paneling. Pine beams and textured plastered ceiling. A huge fieldstone fireplace. Stark Scandinavian furniture. A kitchen twice the size of DeWalt’s.

  There were two bedrooms on the ground floor. In the larger of the two, the one with a private bath, the bed was unmade, striped sheets twisted and hanging to the floor. The bathroom light was on, the window in the shower stall open, as was the shower door. Through this window he could hear the voices from above, amplified but still garbled as they echoed over the bathroom tiles.

  On the nightstand beside the bed lay a .22 revolver. DeWalt stared at it a long time. He knew he should pick it up. Unload it. Pocket the shells. It was just a pipsqueak of a gun, but such an ugly thing. He knew it would be cold to the touch. He knew how it would smell; taste. Just looking at it caused a shiver to race up his spine.

  The nightstand drawer was slightly open; he opened it the rest of the way. Inside was a bag of grass, matches and papers. Another bag, smaller, of coke. A razor blade and small silver tray. A packet of photos.

  With the photographs in hand he returned to the bathroom. The light was better there and he thought that with an ear to the window he might be able to hear if Fox or Gillen came down off the roof deck. The photos were from two different batches but mixed together, one group duplicates of the ones Elizabeth Catanzaro had shown him, the others shot with an Instamatic instead of with Alex’s 35mm Olympia, shot indoors, either here in this cottage or in the Gillen’s apartment. The subjects were Craig Fox and Jeri Gillen. The theme did not vary; only the postures changed. In three of the photos a small calico cat could be seen. The photographer, DeWalt guessed, had been Rodney Gillen.

  Minutes later DeWalt realized that he had been paying too much attention to the photographs. He leaned into the shower, put his head close to the shower window, heard nothing. At that moment the screen door banged open. Gillen was already on his way into the bedroom. As he strode in briskly, angrily, DeWalt flattened himself in the bathroom’s forward corner, the cold edge of the lavatory jutting into his side. He hoped the toes of his shoes did not extend beyond the doorframe. From his perspective, looking down, it seemed that they did. But his heels were tight to the wall, he dared not move.

  Gillen sat heavily on the edge of the bed. DeWalt could not chance a peek around the doorframe and so had no idea which way the boy faced. In DeWalt’s hand was the packet of photos. He tried to remember if he had reclosed the nightstand drawer. Was Gillen looking at it even now, wondering how it had come to be open? Had he glanced inside the drawer, noticed the photographs missing?

  Now Fox entered through the front door. DeWalt paid particular attention to the footsteps; over carpet, bare hardwood, over kitchen tile. The refrigerator door popped open. From the kitchen Fox called out, “I’ll get you some food to take. You hurry up and pack.”
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br />   “I’m not leaving here on my own!” Gillen said.

  “I said I’d drive you, didn’t I? Just hurry up and decide where you want to go. I need to be back on campus by nine in the morning.”

  To this Gillen mumbled, “I’m running for my life and you’re worried about missing a fucking class.” DeWalt heard this and knew that Fox had not; that the words were not meant for Fox, they were meant for Gillen himself, an encouragement, incitement, a justification for what he would do next.

  There was a creak of mattress springs as Gillen leaned slightly forward. The click of the revolver barrel against the top of the nightstand as the gun was picked up.

  Be clumsy, DeWalt prayed, and drop the gun. Give me two seconds. Or change your mind and lay it down again. Or decide to take a piss first; give me one clean shot at your chin.

  From Gillen came only silence, a terrible lack of sound.

  Fox sat down somewhere in the living room. “The sooner we get started,” he called, “the sooner it’s over with.”

  Gillen laughed softly. “I guess that’s right.”

  Silently, DeWalt groaned.

  Again the mattress squeaked. Gillen took a few steps forward, toward the living room. DeWalt, with his nose to the doorframe, leaned forward half an inch. Gillen was standing just back from the living room threshold, the revolver in his right hand, pressed behind his thigh. In his right hand was a pillow from the bed.

  DeWalt knew two things: first, that real people toting a gun are always more frightened and uncertain of their actions than are movie/TV/paper people toting guns; and secondly, that their own fear precludes the realization of how terrified and probably foolhardy is the person who confronts them.

  DeWalt laid the photos in the lavatory and reached for the most convenient weapon, which turned out to be a thick-handled six-inch black comb.