An Occasional Hell
Page 19
You’re out of your mind, DeWalt. Risking your life for a yuppie? Do the world a favor and let Gillen finish him off first. Then you can stroll out and comb him into submission, or whatever it is you plan to do.
He might think it’s a gun, it’s been known to happen. I’ve got the element of surprise on my side.
The only thing you have on your side, DeWalt, is the lack of a next-of-kin.
“Freeze!” DeWalt barked. Was it his imagination, or did he sound more like Nervous Mary than Dirty Harry? He stepped around the doorjamb, armed with his comb. “Don’t move. Don’t even blink.”
Unfortunately, he had misjudged Gillen’s position. When substituting the photos for the comb he had heard Gillen move another step and had assumed it was a forward movement. But Gillen had backed up. So that now, when DeWalt stepped through the bathroom doorway, he was directly parallel to Gillen. Gillen had only to look out the corner of his eyes to see DeWalt coming toward him.
Another thing DeWalt knew was that you should never give a frightened man sufficient time to become ashamed of his fear, and so he strode toward Gillen briskly and authoritatively. He was two arm’s lengths from him when he realized another thing: don’t give a man, frightened or otherwise, sufficient time to recognize that a haircomb is not a gun.
Gillen pointed the revolver at DeWalt’s chest. “Who the fuck are you supposed to be?”
DeWalt was about to say, “Vidal Sassoon,” but before he could speak he smelled old blood pooling on a Turkish carpet, he tasted metal and stale smoke. Suddenly heavy with resignation, punch-weary, tired beyond utterance, he said nothing at all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Fox bound DeWalt’s hands with a couple of silk ties from the closet. “Man oh man,” Fox moaned as he cinched the knots tight, “there goes my career, there goes my future, there goes—”
“Shut up,” said Gillen.
“Sure, what do you have to lose? I’m the one who—”
“I said shut up, fuckhead! Sit down there on the bed and put your hands behind your back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re the one who led him here, idiot! He followed you!”
“Well what do you think, I did it on purpose?”
“Just shut up, man. Don’t say another word.”
“If you think—”
Gillen stuck the pistol in Fox’s ear. “I said shut up and I mean it, fucker! Just shut up or I’ll blow your asshole head off!”
He was a very agitated young man. Trying to be decisive but with not the faintest idea of what to do. He fumbled for a moment with a yellow silk tie, attempting with one hand to bind Fox’s hands behind his back; finally he laid the gun aside and quickly completed the task. Had Fox himself not been scared witless he could have spun around during those ten seconds when Gillen was unarmed and wrestled him for the gun, could have taken the chance, quite possibly the only one he would be given.
You would have taken that chance, wouldn’t you, DeWalt? Which is exactly why you were not given the opportunity. Because Fate knows a fool when it sees one.
“What are you doing this to me for?” Fox whined. “Man, I thought we were partners in this.”
Gillen bound Fox’s feet and did not answer.
“In case it escaped your notice,” DeWalt said, “he was on his way into the living room to shoot you when I stopped him.”
“Yeah, right,” said Fox.
Gillen said, “It’s true, asshole, I was. And I might still do it if you don’t shut the hell up for awhile.”
He left both men sitting on the bed, DeWalt at the foot of the bed and Fox on the side, and went into the living room. DeWalt could hear him moving around out there, nervously pacing, muttering, locking doors, drawing curtains, occasionally banging his fist against the wall, occasionally kicking a chair. It was not long before he returned for the bag of cocaine in the nightstand.
“Rodney,” Fox began.
“Shut up! Don’t talk to me now!” He grabbed the bag and left the room.
Two minutes later DeWalt heard him snorting the powder, sniffing up his courage. A dangerous time, thought DeWalt. The sudden rush of invulnerability. It could all end right now.
DeWalt’s next few minutes contained enough regret to last a lifetime. He went outside on the sound of somebody’s lawn-mower purring, he went home to smell the hay he and his uncle had cut that morning, slender stalks of stiffened sunlight. He looked through the window of his boyhood home and saw his mother there dressed in black, head down on the kitchen table. He saw his mother in a wheelchair, she was wearing the new flannel nightgown he had sent her two Christmases ago, she was an emaciated scarecrow, eyes empty of memory, void of recognition, she sat staring at a beige wall in an antiseptic hallway, there is nothing in her head now but the ghost of a child, I thought I had a son didn’t I, will somebody hold my hand?
DeWalt had never been so cold in his life. He wondered how his blood kept running. When he came back inside on the sound of Fox’s whimpers, on the movement of the bed as it vibrated to the boy’s sobs, he realized that several minutes had passed. Gillen’s rush would be fading into the sunset now. His sense of omnipotence dragging a shadow of doubt.
The living room was quiet, as still as concrete. An occasional voice, a trill of laughter, skipped across the lake.
Fox asked, whispering in a voice stiff and husky with fear, “What do you think he’s going to do to us?”
DeWalt was glad to hear that the yuppie had stopped worrying about his career. First things first. Stay alive; then think about promotion.
The door to the living room stood open. DeWalt could not see Gillen out there but suspected that he sat facing the door, probably on the leather chair twelve feet from the threshold, revolver in his hand.
DeWalt did not whisper. “That depends on how smart he is.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’d be crazy to shoot us here. No matter how careful he is, he’ll incriminate himself. Besides the blood splatter, and there’s always a little bit of blood, no matter what. But besides that, he’s all over this cottage already. Hairs, clothing fibers—those DNA boys can nail somebody on a single flake of dead skin. Whether he knows it or not, he’s already written his name all over this place.”
After the rush comes doubt. Susceptibility. Paranoia. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
“The only thing he has going for him is that the cops don’t know he’s here. They have no reason to comb the place for evidence unless he gives them a reason. But if he shoots us and leaves the bodies here, that’s an open invitation to being identified. They’d nail him as the murderer in two seconds flat.”
“All that means is that he’ll probably shoot us and then take our bodies out and dump them somewhere.”
“Even if he manages to lug our bodies out of here without being seen, or leaving some kind of trail, all of which is highly unlikely, he won’t get far.”
“How do you know that?”
“A couple of hours ago, when I was following you, I lost sight of you for awhile. So I pulled over and called the police, gave them the make, model and license number of your 4x4. Ten minutes after that vehicle leaves Honey Lake, it’s going to be surrounded by blue-and-whites.”
“What if he takes your car instead?”
“That’s why I lost you, it broke down about three miles from here. What’s the name of that little town a couple of miles up the road?”
“Pigeonola?”
DeWalt nodded. “That’s where I called the police from. Then I happened to go into this convenience store where I saw a stack of advertising brochures for Honey Lake. Seemed like the kind of place I might find a guy like you. So I hitched a ride. And here we are. Your folks use this place much?”
“So maybe you’d better tell him that, don’t you think? I mean how’s he going to know about my truck unless you tell him?”
“You think he’ll believe anything I tell him? It’ll sound like I made
it up just to keep him from shooting us.”
Fox’s voice rose in pitch. “What choice do we have? Just let him go ahead and kill us?”
“If it’s any consolation, Craig, I guarantee he won’t get away with it. We can look down from Heaven and watch him sizzling in the chair. Or at least I’ll look down from Heaven. You might have to apply for a travel visa.”
“I don’t want to look down from Heaven, man. I mean fuck that; if you don’t tell him about my truck, I will!”
“Relax, he’s not going to shoot us here. He’d be stupid to shoot us at all. Powder burns, the noise, it’s a very messy business, believe me. At best, he’ll be looking at thirty years in a 6x10 room, where the only forms of entertainment are buttfucking and giving blowjobs to big sweaty men with tattoos on their lips.”
Fox’s eyes grew visibly wider. He shivered. DeWalt almost laughed out loud.
“So what’s he going to do?” Fox asked.
“He’s got three valid options here. The first one is to give himself up.”
“Yeah, like he’s really going to do that.”
“I agree. It’s the smartest choice, but I don’t think he’s smart enough to make it. His second choice is to leave us tied up and to try to get away on foot. Fill a bag with goodies from the cupboard, and take a hike. That’s what I’d do if I were in his shoes.”
“Not me, man. There’s bears in these woods. Plus, if the cops are looking for my truck, they’re going to be looking for him too, right? I mean they’ve already got an APB or whatever it’s called out on him. How far’s he going to get at three miles an hour?”
Thank you for your assistance, dimwit.
“His only other option is the lake.”
“How’s that?”
“Your folks keep a boat at the dock?”
“A sailboat, yeah. A twenty-six footer.”
“What I would do, then, if I were in his place, is to do nothing until nightfall. Then I’d deck myself out in some nice respectable clothes there from the closet, and I’d march you and me down to the dock, and I’d make you sail that thing—you do know how to sail it, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“So I’d make you and me sail him uplake to the opposite shore. Are there any towns up at that end?”
“Chelton.”
“How big is it?”
“Not very. Eight or nine thousand, I guess.”
“But big enough to have a car rental agency.”
“I doubt it.”
Help me out here, nimrod! “A bus station then. Every town’s got a bus station.”
“I don’t know, I guess so.”
“So we sail him up there, he takes all our money plus your identification, he gets on a bus, and he has breakfast in Toronto. Lots of coke, lots of music—it would be a good city for a guy like him to get lost in.”
“So … do you think he knows all that, though? I mean, do you think he’s thought about that as a possibility?”
“I hope not.”
“Why?”
“Because the cops couldn’t touch him in Toronto. He walks across the border and he’s free. No extradition.” Don’t contradict me now, kid, unless you’re in the market for a head-butt. “It’s the safest place in the world for him, and it’s only a couple of hours away.”
Fox was silent for a minute. So too was the living room. DeWalt could almost see Gillen leaning forward to listen, considering it, finding hope, a rescue, salvation stolen from the enemy.
“But what’s he going to do with us?” Fox asked. “I mean he can’t just leave us there on shore, can he? So what’s he going to do? He’s going to fucking shoot us and dump us in the lake, that’s what. So we sink into the mud for a couple of days, and by the time we swell up and bob to the surface, he’s partying in Canada. Great, that sounds great, man. Well I’m not going to do it. I won’t. I won’t sail him anywhere. No way.”
“Fine, don’t. I know how to sail. Consider yourself expendable.”
At that, Fox began to sob again. It continued for a long time and DeWalt was almost moved to comfort him. Then Gillen appeared on the threshold. He looked in at them, he smiled. The revolver was tucked into his belt now. He went into the bathroom, urinated, came back out zipping up his jeans, relieved. On his return to the living room he pulled shut the bedroom door.
DeWalt lay back on the bed and inched his way up to the pillow. He lay on his side, his back to Fox. There were lots of pleasant sounds outside that he could listen to, to drown out Fox’s sticky warble of grief. He tried to get some rest.
The afternoon is long but it is as timeless as a dream. Aromas of meat-laden barbecue grills filter into the room, the dinner hour, highballs and blackened steaks, the sweet numb optimism of leisurely intoxication. Over on #9 Plum, Bucky the radiologist and his perky wife and friends are probably moving into the pink nether regions of alcohol by now, the slur-heavy magnet of gin sweeping up the metal filings of their day.
DeWalt is heavy too but with another kind of poison. This is a natural poison, indigenous, endemic, and as it filters into his bloodstream his lethargy will increase. He will become so heavy with surrender that no hope can escape, a human black hole, he will collapse into his own despair.
In actuality there is no great harm in missing a bag exchange or two, no real physical danger for awhile. But he is connected psychologically as well as physically to the bag; he is bound to the routine, it is his solace as well as his torture, his asylum as well as his prison.
Gillen brings them both a sandwich. One at a time he unties their hands, sits across the room on a straightback chair, gun in hand, watches them eat. Fox eats first, he nibbles, no appetite, he mourns for a world that can be so easily circumvented by inferiors.
Good sandwich, DeWalt thinks. “You make a good sandwich, Rodney.” Grainy brown pub mustard, lettuce, swiss cheese, a thick pile of chipped Virginia baked ham. Very generous executioner we have here.
But soon the sandwich is gone, a lingering taste of mustard. Gillen tells him to lie flat on the bed, face down, hands behind the back so that they can be retied.
“There’s something I need to do in the bathroom, Rodney.”
“You’ve got two minutes. Leave the door open.”
“I can’t do it in two minutes. It takes twenty.”
Gillen laughs. “Yeah, right.”
“I can do it here if you prefer. It doesn’t matter.”
“Do what? What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to lift my shirt to show you something. I’ll use my left hand. Don’t get nervous.”
The clear plastic bag and the length of thin tubing. The pink scars. Gillen flinches, looks away. He looks again. “What the fuck is that, man?”
“My kidneys don’t work, Rodney. This is how I get rid of the waste fluids in my body. It drains into this bag. I have to do it four times a day.”
“I don’t want to watch something like that.”
“That’s why I suggested I go into the bathroom.”
“What if I don’t let you do it?”
“At first, nothing. I get very tired. Then weak. Sick. It’s a relatively gradual process.”
“How gradual?”
“I’d really rather not find out, Rodney.”
“Maybe I ought to let you find out. Leave you here tied up while him and me go for a boat ride.”
“Craig is a fine young man, Rodney, but do you really want to trust your life to him? He’s been weeping now for what, three hours? Weepers, I’m afraid, aren’t terribly reliable in a pinch.”
At this, Fox puffs up indignantly. With a quivering voice, he says, “I’d be just as reliable as you.”
“Of course you would, Craig. You’ve proven that already, haven’t you? Anyway, Rodney, is that your plan then? You’re going to escape by water?”
“None of your business. I’ll tell you when you need to know.”
“Any chance I could talk you into leaving both of us here, tied up of
course, while you sail away?”
“He can’t sail,” Fox says. “He can’t even swim!”
“Shut up, asshole! If I only need one of you, it’s not going to be you.”
“It’s my boat! He doesn’t even know which slip it’s in!”
“Could we get back to the matter at hand, Rodney? I’d really like to dialysize myself now, if you don’t mind.”
Rodney has a glance at the bathroom window. Too small for a man to climb through. He cranks the louvres shut, closes the shower stall. “Leave the door open,” he says.
DeWalt goes inside and sits on the toilet seat lid. He unwinds the tube and bag, lays the bag in the sink, makes it appear that something is happening. But nothing is happening, for DeWalt has no full bag of dialysate with which to complete the exchange. It is a charade, nothing more. A chance to think with hands untied; a chance, perhaps, to act. These are sad times for a tired old man, he thinks. These are sad, sad times.
There is a smell of marijuana smoke, sweet familiar gray. Get mellow, Rodney. Mellow out, man, we’ve got a ways to go yet, you and me. We’ve got some hours to kill yet in this sad sweet timeless time.
DeWalt sits there on the toilet lid, enjoying the smell of Rodney’s high. The smoke scent helps him to put the stories together, the three voices, Fox’s, Gillen’s, Elizabeth Catanzaro’s. The three stories become one. He knows what Abbott will say later, if there is a later, if DeWalt can make one: the dovetail joints are too neat, DeWalt, the seams too flush. Truth is never as smooth as a handpolished lie.
And yet, DeWalt is inclined to believe.
Fox’s version had been garnered easily, all but volunteered by the blubbering boy as, hours earlier, he and DeWalt lay side by side on the bed. Then came Gillen’s version, not conspicuously dissimilar but delivered with less alacrity, coaxed from him word by word not more than an hour ago after DeWalt had hopped comically into the living room and requested something to eat, and then in the kitchen, sandwiches being made, where he had assumed the role of handtied buddy, empathetic prisoner, victim-to-victim, and had found Gillen wonderfully voluble in the end, an eager confessor of sins, made garrulous by fear.