Devil's Redhead

by David Corbett

  Waxman glanced down at the photographs of Shel he was holding. He nodded.

  “She only did three and change, wandered around for four years, then bumped into your average cranker. Some garden variety mutt, low chump on the totem pole, didn’t-know-what-I-was-getting-into sort of guy. The gang he ran with, based out in east CoCo County, they were heavy folks. Biker equivalent of Blut und Ehre. Pushing meth in the Delta, had the market to themselves. Then the Mexicans showed up. Boom, it’s war. And this little mutt, his mother was Chicano I guess, he had sympathies, he got greedy, whatever the reason, he tried to play it both ways. Now he’s in a spot. A spot where he’s had to kill to get back into good graces.”

  He paused to judge the effect he was making. Waxman refused to look at him.

  “You heard about the Briscoe family, bigwigs up in Lodi. Lost a pair of twins. Whacked. Guess who: same guy we’re talking about here. Same guy who did what you’re looking at.” He picked up one of the photographs and flicked it with his finger. “You’re going to hear word in the next day or two of some shoot-’em-up over in the Delta, too. Some kind of gunfight gone wrong. Again, guess who. Think like a prosecutor, Wax. Start with the little guy, the mutt who did this. Snap that link, then move up the chain. You’ll have the story of your career.” Abatangelo put the picture back down. “I’ve got some other pictures, too. One of a sixteen-wheeler rolling out of a compound at midnight from the property where these guys operate. What do you think the driver was carrying, Wax? Maybe we should trace the license, go ask him.”

  Waxman reached up beneath his glasses and pinched his eyes, letting go with a long, burdened groan. “You talk the most incredible trash.”

  “Make a few calls on your own,” Abatangelo urged. “Check it out.”

  Waxman flinched, uttered a scoffing laugh, then seemed to suffer the inner onslaught of a dozen competing voices. Abatangelo inferred from this he was thinking it over. After a moment, returning his attention to the pictures, Waxman said, “This woman,” raising his hand to his glasses again, this time to lift them onto his brow, the better to study a close-up, “she has haunted eyes.” He ran his fingertip around her face. “I remember her better now.” Rubbing his hand across his mouth, he closed his eyes and said with forced irony, “It’s tawdry. It’s timely.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Wax.”

  “You’ll never see it out front.” Waxman shook his head, waved his hand. “Buried in back. Below the fold. Maybe just a column inch in the briefs.”

  “I can live with that. For now. Come on, Wax. I know what you can do. This isn’t some chickenshit sidebar passed down through six other guys who don’t want it. It has your name all over it. And I’ll be right there with you. I’m no stranger to a camera. Look at these. I can do your art.”

  Waxman frowned uneasily. And yet a certain willingness animated his eyes. Abatangelo felt something turn. He glanced at his watch. Shel had been alone for hours, but he couldn’t leave Waxman sitting there without a draft down on paper. Devoid of record, the impulse would die.

  “Let’s hash something out right now, Wax.” There were paper place mats stacked atop a nearby piano. He pulled one down and took out a pen. “What’s our tag? Wax, hey.”

  Waxman hugged his drink. He looked down at Shel’s pictures.

  “If we are going to use this woman as bait for the reader’s sympathy,” he said, “we will have to make her a little less the moll.”

  Abatangelo, poised to write, said, “Bait?”

  “It’s the yuppie factor,” Waxman explained. “The new wealth, the young folks earning it, they’re sneakily conservative. Fallen women do not appeal to sentiment quite the way they used to. And these days one must, above all else, appeal to sentiment. Trust me.”

  “Wax, you’re driving at what, exactly?”

  Waxman shrugged. “I mean, well, not to be morbid. It’s just ironic. She needs to be human to be sympathetic. And she would be human instantly if she were dead.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  Asleep in Abatangelo’s bed, Shel dreamed she stood alone in an abandoned foundry, her reflection gazing back at her from a rust—spotted washroom mirror. The cement floor, sooty and broken, grated against the soles of her bare feet. The sink was dry and flecked with cold ash. She felt a terrifying premonition that It was about to happen. And yet, in her paralysis, she felt ready. Sunlight broke through a grainy skylight. A sharp, rattled banging rushed toward her through the silence.

  She convulsed, bolting upright. Instantly her head rang in pain, worse than before. Taking in gulps of air, she blinked her eyes open, staring through tears. The walls drifted around as sleep gave way to a grating half-sleep. The sense she was returning from a distance lingered, and for a moment the room seemed more remembered than seen.

  Light from a streetlamp filtered in through wafting blinds. A smell of winter rain seeped into the room through a window crack.

  She was supposed to be up in an hour, an hour when? She found the alarm clock beside the bed and it told her the time was well past five. No, she thought, putting the clock back down. Can’t be. Not possible. Then she remembered, she’d turned off the alarm as soon as Danny’d left. Dumb, she thought. Pissy and dumb.

  She rose up on one elbow, rubbing the grit from her eyes. She tried to sit up but her body felt thick, the pain confused her. That was when the pretense fled and the panic set in.

  If every fear she had ever known had suddenly assumed bodily form and crashed through the door that minute, she would not have run. She would have said: What took you?

  This pain has got to go, she thought, it’s giving you the willies. Wind scraped the roof and windows. The rain had returned, pattering against the building.

  She lowered her feet to the floor and tested her weight. Movement had a watery feel; she quivered, standing. Stumbling room to room, she checked the bathroom for painkillers, the kitchen for a bit more liquor, the front room for Danny, flicking the overhead lights on then off.

  Feeling chilled, she stumbled to the window and closed it. The room pivoted and folded into shapes, she had to close her eyes finally to keep from falling. Braced by the window frame, she looked down toward the street and spotted in a shallow doorway a homeless man with stone-colored skin, propped on a cane and draped in a blanket, smoking a cigarette. The ash glowed bright red in the haze. A bed of damp newspaper and oily cardboard lay around his feet. As though sensing her watching him, the man’s face rose and he stared up at her window. The blanket fell away from around his head as their eyes locked. He had thin, haggard features, close—cut gray hair, deep—set piercing eyes of a pale blue color.

  Good God, Shel thought. It’s Felix.

  She gagged and her legs gave way beneath her. Catching herself against the wall, she clutched the window frame, checking the man’s features again, thinking, No. She stared long and hard, the man staring right back, his face brightened by the ash of his cigarette as he took a long drag, then obscured in a smoky plume as he exhaled. Shel waited him out, studying everything about him, the cock of his head, the size of his hands, the angle of his body as he leaned on his cane. She convinced herself she’d been wrong. It wasn’t Felix at all. Strangely, however, as the illusion drained away, the dread intensified. She pulled the blind and went front to check the door lock.

  Where’s Danny? she thought. We have to talk about Felix.

  She returned to his room and sat back down on the bed, tallying up the things she felt reasonably certain were true. First, the fact Frank had come back alone last night meant something had gone wrong. Very wrong. Second, the fact none of the Akers brothers in particular had come back with Frank suggested one or more of them was dead. Third, all that meant there would be hell to pay. And Felix wouldn’t take two minutes to decide who was going to pay it.

  Sure, they’d track down Frank, and there was no two ways about it, he was running now. After three years of trying to get him to the next safe place, she thought, all you accomplished
was helping him sign his own death warrant. What a pitiless waste. Maybe they’ll write that on your gravestone, dear. Because Frank won’t be the one they really want now. Not those boys. Once they’ve put their faith in a woman who’s fucked up, they can’t get back at her fast enough.

  Felix had made it clear, he would find her. And not just her. That one little offhand remark he’d made: I’m not gonna worry about my manners. People’ll get hurt. She had to believe Felix knew about Danny. They’d tracked down her case file or her probation report or some damn thing, bribed some bent cop for it. If they hadn’t already, they would quick. And when they did they’d have her life story in their hands and if they couldn’t find her right off one way, they’d flush her out another. Come for Danny. Her mother in Texas. Eddy Igo, any number of people.

  As though picking at a scab, she went to the window again, peeked out behind the blind and saw the crippled homeless man leaning in the doorway exactly where he had before. Go, she thought. Run.

  But running was ludicrous. They’d last a couple weeks at best. She had two hundred dollars to her name and that was back at the house. Might as well be on Mars. Danny, from the look of his apartment, was worse off than her, and he was on probation regardless. Not only would Felix be hunting for them, the law would, too, and regardless of which one got there first, Felix would mete out revenge. She could be killed in custody easy as anywhere else. Hell, easier. Double that for Danny.

  It’s not his price to pay, she thought. You can’t do this to him. Go back.

  She turned from the window, ran to the toilet and vomited. Her head rang, the bile was clear and sour. She couldn’t tell if it was her fear or something wrong with her head that brought this on. As though it matters, she thought. She collapsed onto her haunch on the cold tile floor.

  The situation had a certain storybook quality, she decided. The maiden who descends into Hell to beg back her soul from the Devil. If memory served, the story did not end well. The maiden gets screwed. And that, she supposed—to use Frank’s expression—is fitting and fair.

  If they didn’t already have Frank in hand, they’d use her for bait. Picturing what was likely to follow, she felt sick with terror again and hoisted herself up, preparing to retch, but nothing came. The perfect posture, she thought, for realizing you have no choice. She felt in need of a prayer. In need of a saint who would listen to it. St. Dismal.

  She rose, rinsed her face and mouth with cold water then staggered back down the hallway to the bedroom. She looked around one final time. Calling to mind the words on Abatangelo’s scapular, she told herself: Remember me. Remember me, Danny, because I love you. And that’s why I can’t stay. I can’t bring my nightmare here. I’ll take it back where it belongs.

  She drove with one hand on the wheel, the other clutching her head, focusing on the road’s white lines. A dull throbbing tinged with nausea was interrupted by a flare of pain from behind one eye. She winced and struggled to keep a grip on the wheel. She wasn’t entirely sure what was happening, but the headache was getting worse, and every time one of these flare-ups occurred, she felt dizzy and everything blurred.

  To combat her growing fear she picked a song, the first that came to mind, a number she loved from the old days, Rickie Lee Jones: “We Belong Together.” She sang it to herself, over and over, the way a mother sings to a child in a storm.

  And I can hear him in every footstep’s passing sigh

  He goes crazy these nights

  watching heartbeats go by

  and they whisper—We belong together

  You’re not gonna look back, she told herself, you’re not gonna whine and whimper, you’re gonna feel good about seeing Danny one last time, letting him know what he means to you, then do what needs to get done. You’re gonna face Felix, you’re gonna tell him the whole deal, you’re gonna get square with him or die. Tell him: You want revenge, here it is.

  And you told her to stand tall when you kissed her …

  No need to go hunting, Felix. Leave Danny out of it. Leave everybody but me out of it. The deal was you and me. I keep Frank in the saddle, I live, he lives. At least for a while. Can’t say I know all the facts, but I’d be willing to bet “in the saddle” is a reach. So here I am. It ain’t marriage, Felix, granted, but it’s what I bring to the table. I may be a lot of things, but one thing I am not is some two-faced sob sister trying to squeeze pity out of a rock. I don’t try to crawl back over a bridge I just burned down. I don’t beg back my last chance. And if that means I’m stuck, well hey. I can dig it. I’m stuck.

  She reached the ranch house an hour later, by which time the song lyrics and monologue had done the trick. She felt braced for the worst. And that inspired a state of mind that strangely calmed her.

  She gained the doorway after a dizzying effort on the porch stairs. Rowena stood at the very center of the kitchen, cigarette in one hand, book of matches in the other, looking for all the world as though she’d been standing in exactly that spot for days. A smell like burnt gum lingered in the air. A tin can full of menthol butts rested on the stove. From further within the house the babble of Duval’s television leaked from beyond his bedroom door.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” Rowena said as Shel entered the light. Her tone of voice suggested she actually meant to ask: Is it going to happen to me? Shel didn’t answer, but instead concerted her strength to work her way along the wall to the breakfast nook where she took a seat. Setting her head on the tabletop, she closed her eyes.

  “Where’s Roy?” Rowena asked, her voice rising. “I been over to the house, walked the whole damn way and back, over a mile. Nobody there. Not Roy, not Lyle. I been back to the compound, three times since dark. Nobody there, neither. I got a bad feeling. You know something, tell me. I got a right to know. I got a kid, remember?” She waited for an answer, and getting none, moved closer. “To hell with you. To hell with Frank.” She clutched the side of the table and shook it. “You hear me? Things were fine, they were going goddamn fine, then Frank. Fuck him and you, the two of you, I got no place to go, I got no money, no car, I had to hitch my ass back here from the movie me and Duval got shipped to last night. You tell me and you tell me now what the hell’s going on.”

  She made a halfhearted lunge at Shel, then changed tack and started ransacking her pockets.

  “You got money, you give it to me. Give it!”

  Her hands pecked at Shel’s clothing. Shel tried and failed to fend her off. In the end she put her hands up, thinking, God help me, touching her hair. Her head felt like it was going to come apart.

  “The truck,” Shel said finally. “Maybe …”

  Rowena found Shel’s keys in her pant pocket. She ripped them out and backed away from the table.

  “’Bout time,” she said. She gathered her coat from the back of a chair and strode to the rear doorway, calling out, “Duval, you stay put, hear? I’ll be back.” She struggled with her coat then turned to face Shel. “Look at you,” she said with disgust. “Come back looking like a punching bag. You’re pathetic, know that? You deserve what you get.”

  Shortly Shel heard the truck start up and the tires throwing gravel. She set her head back down on the table and looked about the kitchen as though for the last time. The wall clock ticked, the refrigerator hummed. A cobweb hung like a strand of hair in the ceiling corner. On the window ledge, a tiny fern she’d bought at Walgreens struggled to grow inside a Mickey Mouse cup. The ageless mouse smiled back at her with berserk joy. I’ve come back here to save the people I love, she told Mickey. I’ve come back to state my case to the Devil.

  She found herself singing again, the same tune as before. “We belong together,” she repeated, over and over, eyes closed. Outside, the wind picked up. Tree limbs scraped the walls of the house, banging the gutters along the roof. The noise roused her, she opened her eyes.

  Duval stood just beyond the table’s edge, staring at her.

  “Hey,” Shel whispered. She worked up a smile and reached out
her hand. The boy backed away.

  “Now don’t,” she said. She struggled upright. The room swam. “Help Aunt Shel to her feet, all right? She’s got some medicine in the basement. She’ll feel worlds better if you just give her a hand.”

  Duval continued edging away. All of sudden, with the same blank expression he wore for everyone, he spun around and lunged from the room, fleeing back down the hall. Shortly his door slammed shut and the latch was thrown.

  Got a real streak going with the fellas right now, Shel thought.

  She gained her balance and removed her shoes, the better to feel the floor beneath her. Using the wall, she edged down the hallway, stumbled to the narrow door, and peered down the wood plank stairway to the cellar. Vertigo greeted her at the bottom. Who put this chasm in my house? The overhead lamp swayed back and forth, tipped by her own hand reaching for the chain. Shadows ballooned then shrank on opposite walls. She drew a breath so deep it made her cough, then gripped the handrail, sliding down step by step.

  At the bottom the concrete floor was clammy and freezing cold. A disgusting shiver rifled up her legs at the same time a thunderclap of pain shot down from her head. She faltered, one knee gave way and, holding out her arm, she managed to hit the floor softly, whispering, “Whoa, boy.”

  Despite her best effort to be stoic, her face was wet with tears. Every inch of her skin bled sweat, and she sat there panting, holding her head and wondering, Good God, what is this?

  After several minutes the pain at least became a known quantity, she could think. Where oh where did I put that stash, she wondered, Frank’s old meds, from the times I took him to the hospital. Unable to reach her feet again, she crawled around the back of the stairwell and found the old blue suitcase in a clutter of sagging boxes. She fumbled with the clasps, then just threw it down, busting it open in a cloud of vaguely familiar clothes. Tucked into the inner flap she found the small brown prescription bottle, inside of which she found Haldol, some Pavulon, Nembutal, a Darvocet. Quite a brew, she thought. Not a painkiller in the crowd, but given the circumstances, I’ll settle for numb.