As she carried Alma's tray up the stairs, she tried to reason through her negative feelings. She'd started out viewing Bobby as a human resource, someone who'd help her to understand what had happened on the island, perhaps give her insights that would strengthen the story she planned to write. Well, Bobby was providing her with all sorts of insights, many of them almost too grisly to bear, and, at the same time, demonstrating an incisive homespun kind of wisdom. Eva had to admit she was impressed by the fact that, despite the ugliness of her experiences, Bobby was capable of affectionate displays. She was substantially deeper than Eva had imagined she would be. What bothered her, Eva suddenly realized, was Bobby's willingness to trust her. She should have been more cautious, shouldn't have been so quick to reveal so much. Because, had their positions been reversed, Eva certainly would never have capitulated as readily and as completely as Bobby had.
And there it was! she thought, at last getting to the root of her upset. She was angry with Bobby for not behaving as she, Eva, would have under the same circumstances. Which was insane, absolutely insane. You didn't go around condemning people because they weren't like you. How on earth was she going to resolve this? she asked herself as she reached to open the door to her aunt's room.
"I want you to drive me over to Len Morgan's office this afternoon," Alma told her as Eva set the tray on her lap. "I've got a one-thirty appointment."
"What for?"
"Just some papers to sign," Alma said offhandedly, picking up a triangle of toast.
"What papers?" Eva asked, sitting in the chair by the window with her coffee.
"Just papers," Alma said testily. "It won't take long."
"What're you up to?" Eva asked, mildly suspicious.
"If you must know, I've had Len prepare a codicil, making provision for Penny's future." She faced Eva down as if expecting an argument.
"That's wonderful of you," Eva said softly, and felt like weeping. How typical of her aunt, she thought, to put her caring to such practical effect. It made her present feelings about Bobby even more reprehensible. Her shame was growing deeper by the minute. Bobby wasn't going to be leaving this house in the immediate future. Somehow, Eva was going to have to come to terms with that fact. For a moment she longed to tell her aunt everything, to confess what she'd done and admit her terrible ambivalence. But just as she'd feared saying anything to lower herself in Charlie's estimation, she also feared appearing small-minded and harshly judgmental in her aunt's.
"It's simply good sense," Alma said gruffly. "Penny deserves every opportunity."
Eva got up and crossed the room to kiss her aunt on the forehead. "You're a good old stick. You know that?"
"Go sit down and let me eat!" Alma said, then had to smile because she was feeling particularly well. She'd always derived immense pleasure from seeing things through to completion.
Eva sat down again and reached for her coffee, thinking how close she'd been to turning Bobby away that first afternoon she'd come to the door. She hadn't done it because she hadn't had the heart to add to Bobby's visible suffering. She'd never been able to ignore pain, had never been able to walk past homeless people pretending not to see them. So she'd opened the door and allowed Bobby inside. And now she had no idea how she was going to be able to live with the consequences of her own actions. She'd never felt so ashamed.
Thirty
The morning after whacking Helen, he got up as usual, showered, dressed, went out to the car, and drove to work. He was already walking through the plant door when he remembered he hadn't planned to come back. But since he was already there he figured what the hell and clocked in. One more day of this rotten job wouldn't kill him, and it'd give him some extra time to plan things out.
He spent the day working on automatic pilot, getting the job done without thinking about it. He was preoccupied with figuring out his moves, and he got through the eight hours without even noticing the time passing. By the end of his shift he'd made up his mind to set off the next morning. His plan was to go about halfway, then check into a motel for some sack time, sleep in late for a change, and get to Connecticut late Thursday or early Friday. There was no rush. He'd take his time, get a motel room in the area, then check out the address he'd taken off Helen, cruise the place and get some kind of fix on the setup, then revamp his moves if necessary. He wanted this to be perfect.
He saw the cruiser parked out front of the house as soon as he turned into his street, and couldn't believe they were on to him already. But they were, they had to be. Why the hell else would they be here? He got this nasty jolt in the chest and immediately started sweating, his mouth dry, hands wet. Son of a bitch! he muttered under his breath. He couldn't fucking believe it! Stay cool, he told himself. Don't get thrown. Think!
He could pull in, park, and play it innocent, talk to the cops. They couldn't prove squat. But maybe they could. Maybe he'd left something personal, something incriminating in the house. What, though? He did a quick mental replay of everything that had gone down the night before and couldn't come up with a thing. But that didn't matter to these goons. They'd haul his ass in, maybe put him in a lineup, take up valuable time he couldn't afford to lose. He had a gut feeling he was only going to get one shot at Bobby and he intended to make good on it. Nothing was going to stop him. If they took him in they might keep him, and he'd never have another chance to finish what he'd started. He had to finish. It was all he wanted now, all he could think about. He didn't give a shit about anything else. It was like his whole life had been time he'd clocked on, just getting through it, until he could do this one thing.
There was only one smart way to go. He just cruised on by. As he passed the house, keeping his speed nice and steady at your basic residential-neighborhood twenty-five, he took a quick look and saw one cop at the front door and another going up the driveway to check out the back. He drove past, his mind racing. Obviously he was going to have to take off now and hope every cop in the state wasn't out looking for him. It pissed him off royally because he'd wanted to take a shower, get into clean clothes, pack some stuff, go over everything in his mind
at a nice, slow pace, then set off in the morning after a good night's sleep. Now he wasn't going to be able to do any of that. Luckily his munitions were in the trunk or he'd have really been fucked. Okay. That's the way things were. Fine. He'd just have to improvise from now on, he thought, heading out of town. His underarms were wet, his shirt sticking to him, and his goddamned mouth was dry as dust.
Passing a mall, he flashed on the K-Mart, wheeled into the lot, parked the Firebird, and strolled into the store. He'd been paid on Friday, so he had plenty of folding money. He used some of it to buy a pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, some socks and underwear, a package of disposable razors, a can of shaving cream, a toothbrush, and some Crest. If he needed anything else, he'd pick it up along the way. This was going to work out fine after all.
After stowing his purchases in the trunk, he climbed behind the wheel and took off for Route 17. It irritated the living shit out of him but he kept his speed down to sixty. No way was he going to get pulled over for speeding only to have some cop run his plate and find out he was wanted. So he kept it down even though his whole goddamned leg was shaking, and now that he was finally on the road and putting some distance between himself and the local cops, he was absolutely furious with the way things were going. Instead of starting out relaxed and fresh he was stuck in his stinking work clothes, smelling bad, and wiped out after working all day. He could smell himself and hated it. It reminded him of that time his goddamned mother had rubbed shit in his face. He couldn't get the scene out of his mind, and he felt like he was smothering, rage and panic squeezing at his lungs.
He cranked the window down a few inches and fired up a smoke, telling himself to chill out. Nobody knew where he was. And, even more beautiful, nobody—except maybe that goddamned Lor knew where Bobby was. Lor was the wild card, the one person who might warm Bobby he was on his way. But he'd take that cha
nce. He'd take care of Bobby, then disappear. Yeah. He loved the idea of that, and had an image of himself being the invisible man, vanishing like smoke. Get himself a new set of plates for the car and he could go anywhere, maybe cruise on up the east coast, even cross the border into Canada. All he had to do was keep his speed down, take his time, study his moves, and everything would work out.
"Be cool, man," he told himself, fiddling with the tuner knob on the radio. "Just be cool." He thought about the fantastic high he'd had the night before, and sniffed his fingers for the smell of cordite. But all he could smell was the god-damned gritty shit he'd used to clean his hands at the shop. He wiped each palm in turn on his pant legs, then took another drag on the smoke, feeling himself getting calmer. Imagining the look on Bobby's face when he caught up with her, he smiled, and felt even better. It was like all his life he'd been waiting for this. It felt right, one hundred percent right.
* "Getting her to do those exercises is starting to pay off," Dennis was saying. "She's a lot stronger, especially the left leg."
"She doesn't make such a fuss about doing them anymore," Bobby said, unwilling to take any credit for Alma's efforts. Dennis drank some of his coffee and gave her a smile. "You really are pretty bad at accepting compliments," he said, "even backhanded ones."
"I know," she admitted, a bit more relaxed in his company each time she saw him. "I didn't used to be this way. My grandpa always used to tell me, 'Just say thank you and be done with it,' and I got pretty good at that for a while, although it seemed to me it was like saying thank you to people for noticing you had on a nice sweater, or blue eyes, or something. But if you said thank you, people sort of got past wanting to compliment you and went on to other things. So that was okay."
"But you still didn't like accepting compliments," Dennis persisted, his expression one of fond amusement.
"I guess not," she agreed, realizing that she and this man had become friends. It was a first in her life: friendship with a man. "Anyway, after being with Joe for so long, I got to believing there wasn't anything about me worth complimenting. You know?" She looked to see how he took this, not wanting him to think she used Joe as an excuse for every last little thing. She could remember in high school all the kids with the different excuses for why they weren't popular: They were too fat, or they had bad skin, or they were the wrong color. None of it had been true. Sometimes people just didn't like each other, for no reason at all. And that was the way Eva had been acting the past few days, as if for no good reason she'd stopped liking her. Things were almost back to the way they'd been at the beginning, when Bobby had first come, and she couldn't figure out why.
"I understand," Dennis said, meeting her eyes straight on, then looked at his watch.
"You've got to go."
"Afraid so.”
"The client in Norwalk," she said, kind of relieved that he was going. She needed time to herself to think about the situation with Eva and what, if anything, she'd done to make her mad. "I've got to run out to the supermarket. I'm making the dinner tonight."
"Oh, yeah? What're you making?"
"Just spaghetti. Nothing special."
"That depends. Are you a good cook?"
She saw Joe heaving the plate of spaghetti at the wall, blinked away the image and said, "Not bad. One of these times I'll cook for you."
"That'd be nice."
"You like what you do, don't you, Dennis?" she asked, giving in to her curiosity about him. She wondered for a few seconds if maybe he could explain what was going on with Eva. But that was dumb. Even if she told him about it, the best he'd be able to do was guess at the reasons.
"A lot," he confirmed. "I'm my own boss and I get to see results most of the time. Sometimes it takes a while, but it's a real kick to see one of my people making progress. It makes me think I'm actually accomplishing something, and that's a good feeling."
"Not too many people like their work," she said, getting up to walk with him to the door. "Joe used to complain every single day about his job. He hated it, and he hated everyone he worked with." There was rarely a night when he hadn't come in raging about how he'd like to kill so-and-so, how he'd like to teach the son of a bitch a lesson he'd never forget.
"You and I are two of the lucky ones."
"That's true," she said, thinking maybe she and Pen wouldn't be around here much longer if Eva had anything to say about it. She wished she knew what was wrong. She hesitated for a moment, picturing herself loading their stuff into the Honda, driving off to God-only-knew-where. It made her chest ache. She wanted to stay here more than she'd ever wanted anything. "I hope you don't mind me talking about Joe."
"I don't mind. He used to be part of your life, after all."
Used to be, she thought. She imagined getting a telephone call and someone on the other end of the line saying Joe was no more, he'd simply ceased to exist. How wonderful that would be!
"I'll pick you up tomorrow night at seven-thirty. Okay?"
"That'll be fine."
He pulled on his coat, then took hold of her hand and bent to give her a quick kiss on the mouth. Without stopping to think about it, she hugged him, in need of comfort. Then, realizing the gesture might be misconstrued, she stepped away from him, sudden heat rising into her face. It was dangerous, what she'd done. She was getting used to him, letting down her guard, and that was when things could go wrong.
"Guess you surprised yourself, huh?" he said, smiling sympathetically, as if he actually understood.
"I wouldn't want you to think …" She trailed off, not sure what she wanted to say.
"Don't worry about it. I don't think anything. See you tomorrow," he said, reaching to open the door.
"I'll be waiting," she said.
He tooted the horn before driving off, the way he always did, and she closed the door wondering why she'd believed for eight long years that she deserved the treatment she'd had from Joe. Why had she thought that? Why had she allowed herself to be convinced? Somewhere along the line things had become completely turned around and she'd accepted Joe's version of the facts. Why? Now Eva was acting funny. She was polite and she smiled, but she'd stopped looking Bobby in the eye. Eva wouldn't tell her what she'd done wrong, and it was making her feel the exact same way Joe used to.
She returned to the kitchen and sat again at the table, reaching automatically for her mug. Drinking the coffee without tasting it, she thought of the countless times Joe had laughed nastily about something she'd said, the times he'd said she was "just a goddamned woman," as if women were inferior in every way. She'd believed him. Why? Well, one thing she knew for sure: It wasn't right. Not at all. And no matter what happened, nobody ever again was going to tell her she was no good and stupid just because she was female. And that included Eva, too. One way or another, she was going to find out what was wrong and try to fix it.
Having reached this conclusion and feeling marginally better, she put on her coat and went out to the car.
Eva could feel a buzzing beneath her skin, and every few minutes she experienced a kind of low-grade electric sizzling shock to her brain. It was the excitement she felt every time she was about to begin work on a new book, and it would build, daily, hourly, until the moment she sat down and actually commenced writing. It was her excitement that had been lacking for some time.
Now it was back, and she loved it. Not even making love had the same sort of giddy expectation. The only problem was that her mixed feelings about Bobby kept short-circuiting the excitement. She couldn't sustain that positive, creative mood. The pressure was building and she felt she might explode at any moment. She kept thinking about the Montaverdeans hauling in that net full of fish, and feeling she was as trapped and entangled as those frenzied, thrashing creatures.
While she watched Bobby prepare spaghetti sauce, her mind was operating on two distinct levels. On one level she was observing, noting the economy of the small woman's gestures, approving objectively of the organized way in which Bobby approached her
cooking. On the other level she was fairly frazzled by anxiety, wanting Bobby gone. If she'd only go away, everything would be all right. It was appalling, but she could barely tolerate Bobby's presence in the kitchen. What the hell's the matter with you? she asked herself, hating her meanness of spirit, her lack of compassion. She'd never been particularly adept at hiding her feelings. Ken had always been able to read her accurately. Melissa could too. So could Charlie. And Alma had that uncanny parental radar. It was only a matter of hours or days before Alma demanded an explanation of her behavior, of her less-than-cordial treatment of Bobby. What could she possible tell her? She didn't dare admit that she was suffering from overexposure to the details of Bobby's life, that she kept seeing Bobby naked on her hands and knees. For God's sake, it was ridiculous! She herself had a hearty sexual appetite and had made love in any number of ways, any number of times, and the recollection had never bothered her. But of course no one had forced her; there'd been no pain involved; and she'd certainly never been sodomized. For Bobby, sex was merely another form of abuse. Which was why the images were so upsetting. They had nothing to do with lovemaking and everything to do with bestiality.
"I'll do the salad," she announced, automatically going to the refrigerator to remove the crisper drawer.
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