by Ed Gorman
Such as the sort of trouble he was contemplating for tonight, just so that he would get his first opportunity to slide inside the most elusive girl in town, Angie Fuller.
“Hey, man, somebody’s comin’.”
“Yeah, it’s me,” Dave said. “I’m comin’. I’m thinkin’ of how good Angie’s gonna taste tonight.”
Bobby, who wore glasses, weighed not much more than a concentration camp victim, and was generally considered to be a pioneer in the ways of dorkiness, could only shake his head in envy. Bobby’s role was that of go-fer. By seventh grade he had learned that his only hope of surviving the cruel and capricious world of teenagers was to be a supplicant, to attach himself to the most powerful and popular kid he could. In return for Bobby’s services, he would receive protection and a measure of power himself. Which was just what he got from his relationship from Dave. Nobody picked on Bobby, because they knew if they did they would have to answer to Dave, something few sane kids in school wanted to do.
Usually, Bobby didn’t mind the role he played, except for stray moments, like now, when he got jealous of Dave and all the things Dave could do.
Such as fuck Angie Fuller, a sumptuous, teasing red-haired girl whose breasts and genitals Bobby had once seen outlined perfectly in a wet bathing suit. Since that time, he had suffered innumerable heartbreaking erections over her.
And now Dave, another notch in his gun, was going to pick her off—and all he had to do was break into the Foster mansion and walk around in the basement.
“Hurry up, man!” Bobby shouted.
Footsteps slapped down the hallway. Closer. Ever closer.
Dave finished the joint, killed the fire between his thumb and forefinger, then swallowed the roach.
By the time Mr. Sanders, the math teacher, came into the toilet, Dave was zipping his pants just as if nothing had been going on at all.
Bobby was the one who gave it away. Mr. Sanders took one look at him, sniffed the air, and Bobby started flushing and sweating and averting his eyes.
“What’s that I smell?” Mr. Sanders said. A tall man with thinning hair and a very sincere face, he was generally considered to be a “nice” teacher.
“Nothin’, Mr. Sanders,” Bobby said in his best hangdog voice.
“Is that marijuana, Bobby?”
Bobby looked desperately at Mr. Sanders.
“No, Mr. Sanders.”
Sanders paid no attention to either of them. He walked around in little circles, sniffing the air like a police dog on the prowl for drugs.
“That is marijuana,” Mr. Sanders concluded.
He walked over to Dave.
Unlike his friend Bobby, Dave seemed to be enjoying this thoroughly. His golden locks appeared to dance and his blue eyes sparkled. With a great deal of contempt and amusement, he said, “No offense, Mr. Sanders, but I don’t think you’d know marijuana if it came up and bit you on the ass.”
Dave glanced at Bobby for some laughs. But Bobby was too scared to laugh.
Mr. Sanders sniffed again.
“Being in possession of marijuana will get you expelled, Evans. In case you’ve forgotten. Which would mean you wouldn’t graduate.”
Despite the smile that remained on his lips, Dave’s heart began hammering and he felt a small, annoying tic start flicking his left eyelid.
Not graduating.
His father, a prominent local businessman, would be ashamed beyond belief. Not graduating would mean that his family had been reduced to the status of “the dirtballs,” as his father often referred to people of less fortune than the Evanses.
Dave checked out Bobby again.
Bobby was in a case of terminal shock.
“Were you smoking marijuana, Evans?”
Sanders stood no more than inches away from Dave’s face. So easy to reach out and smash the pisshead. One punch and the wimpy bastard would drop for sure.
But Dave knew better. All he had to do was think of all the things the old man would take away from him—the Trans-Am, the late-night hours, the thirty dollars a week spending money—and he knew better than to follow his instincts and punch out the math teacher, Mr. Nerd Sanders.
“No, I wasn’t, sir.”
Dave tried to swallow the “sir,” so that Bobby woudn’t hear him. To control somebody like Bobby, to keep him under your strict command, you had to convince them that you were totally fearless.
Saying “sir” didn’t do a lot to further that impression.
“You’re lying, Evans.”
The word “lying” startled Dave. That he could recall, nobody had ever accused him of lying before, even though it was something he did often.
“Are you calling me a liar, sir?” Dave felt blood fill his cheeks, felt his hands become stonelike fists eager to pound in the angular face of this nobody sonofabitch standing in front of him.
“Yes, I am.”
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
Sensing the rage in his friend, Bobby said nervously, “Hey, Dave, just keep—”
“Shut up!” Dave snapped. He wheeled toward the teacher. Brought his fist up so that Sanders couldn’t help but notice it. “Now, man, you want to call me a liar again!”
“You think you can get away with anything, don’t you, Evans?”
Dave inched forward, purposely breathing on the teacher’s face.
The first inklings of fear began to show in Sanders’s face. He was not a brave man. He had spoken a few words in anger. But now that Dave was challenging those words, Sanders did not seem so brave.
“I wanna hear you say it again,” Dave said. “C’mon, call me a liar again.”
“That won’t be necessary. You heard me the first time.”
“C’mon. Just one more time, Sanders. Call me a liar again.”
Sanders had begun to sweat, to avert his eyes.
Dave had begun to smirk. He could hear how Bobby would tell this story later to all the guys. More coin of the realm for Dave.
“You think you coulda been wrong?” Dave asked, bringing up his other fist.
Sanders looked at it, looked over to Bobby who stood absolutely still, watching.
“Wrong?” Sanders said weakly.
“About smelling marijuana in here?”
Dave was so close now the teacher had to back up.
Perfect.
“No,” Sanders said, “I wasn’t wrong, Evans.”
Then Sanders stopped moving backwards and returned Dave’s glare.
“I’m not going to report you this time, but not because I’m afraid of you.”
The smirk did not leave Dave’s face. “Oh, yeah, then why aren’t you going to report me?”
“Because I don’t happen to agree with the marijuana laws.” The teacher smiled. “I’ve been known to take a toke or two on occasion myself.”
Bobby burst out laughing.
With that, the teacher left the boys’ room.
Dave stood there furious, not at all amused.
Sputtering, he said, “Bullshit, he uses it himself. I scared him is what happened. You see him start to sweat?”
Bobby muttered something or other.
Dave lashed out and grabbed his smaller friend by the shirtfront.
“I asked you if you saw him start to sweat?”
“Yeah, I saw him, Dave.”
“He left because I scared him, right?”
Bobby nodded. “Sure, Dave. That’s exactly why he left.”
Dave, still enraged, let go of Bobby, then walked over to the sink.
Combing his hair, studying himself in the mirror, had a soothing effect on him.
Bobby came up in the mirror behind him. Obviously he wanted to make it up to Dave for laughing when he shouldn’t have. He didn’t want Dave pissed at him. No way.
“Man, you really going up to the Foster house tonight?”
At first, Dave wouldn’t talk to him. Just sneered.
“You really going to, Dave?”
Through
his teeth, still combing his hair, Dave said, “Yeah, asshole, I am.”
“Man, you really got balls, you really do. That place scares the shit out of me.”
There. That was a little more like it, the kind of treatment a guy expected to get from somebody like Bobby.
But he didn’t want to give in too easy.
He just kept combing his hair, watching the punk Bobby watching him.
“Angie going with you?”
“That’s what she says.” Dave smiled his best shark smile. “Then afterward—”
Bobby laughed. “Oh, that’s right, the bet. If you find out what’s in the basement of the place she—”
Dave cut him off. He didn’t want some jerk like Bobby laying his tongue on a swell chick like Angie, even if only in conversation.
“Then afterwards is none of your fucking business,” Dave said.
Bobby shrugged, crushed, and walked out of the mirror.
Then in seconds, he was back, “I want to go with you two tonight.”
For the first time, Dave laughed his natural loud laugh.
Bobby. Going with them. To the spook house.
Punk Bobby.
Yeah. Right.
5
The man looked as if he wanted to choke her.
That was Carnes’s first impression as he came awake in the overstuffed armchair in Beth Daye’s apartment. Having dozed off while Beth was fixing him breakfast, he regained his senses only in time to fling himself from the chair and start toward the man who seemed to be endangering Beth.
But as sleep drained from his eyes, he saw a peculiar thing happen.
Instead of following through as if he were going to strangle her, the man brought something from behind his back and waved it in front of her face.
A dandelion.
Carnes stopped moving, knowing now that he didn’t comprehend this scene, no matter what his eyes had related at first.
Beth, trembling, said, “It’s all right. I didn’t hear him come in. He just startled me. That’s why I screamed.”
Carnes sighed, shaking his head. “I thought—”
“I know what you thought, and thanks for coming to my rescue so quickly.” She turned to the tall, odd, grubby man who stood scarecrow-still, staring at her with fond, inscrutable eyes.
“This is Richard,” she said. “He’s a very special man.”
Obviously not wanting to say anything that would hurt Richard, she used the word “special” as a code to Carnes.
Carnes nodded. Put out his hand.
After long moments, finally understanding that it was the proper thing to do even though nobody had ever done it to him before, Richard put out his own hand. The two men shook. Richard smiled, seeming inordinately pleased.
“Now you two,” Beth said pleasantly, “how about some breakfast?”
An hour later, still sitting at the table, Beth said, “Would you like to go to the bathroom, Richard?”
Sometimes the man forgot his toilet training and you had to remind him.
Richard nodded.
Beth got up, showed him the way.
She returned and sat across from Carnes. “You ready for some sleep?”
Carnes yawned, as if on cue. “I’m afraid so.”
“Afraid?”
“Something might happen with Deirdre—”
“I’ll phone the sheriff, tell him you’re here. He’ll call me right away.”
“Well—” Carnes said.
“It’ll do you good. Help you think more clearly. The strain—”
Carnes nodded, had to agree she was correct. He angled his head toward the bathroom. “I guess you’ll be safe enough with Richard.”
“Very safe. He’s a sweet man. Innocent in his way.”
Beth thought uneasily of the blood on Richard’s hands last night.
“Well—” Carnes said again.
“C’mon,” Beth said.
Her bedroom was a tidy affair of pinks and whites. In its frilly pillows and stuffed animals, Carnes could see the young girl she’d been not too many years earlier.
Beth pulled back the covers for him. He started to unbutton his shirt. He was exhausted, almost punchy.
He dropped on to the bed.
Beth stood over him, smiling in a sad sort of way.
He tried to return the smile.
There wasn’t time.
Sleep overcame him.
When she was sure he was out, Beth left the room and slipped across the apartment to the wall phone in the kitchen.
She punched the digits for the sheriff’s office. Deputy Vince Reeves answered.
“May I speak to the sheriff, please, Vince?”
He recognized her voice. “Not here,” he said. “He had a long night. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to get a little sleep for himself.”
Vince, whom she liked, sounded odd today. Strained. Anxious. Nervous.
“You all right, Vince?”
He was lying. Obviously. “Sure, Beth. Just a bit tired myself.”
“Could you come over to my apartment?”
This was a kind of test question. The playful Vince she knew would usually make a harmless sexual innuendo of her request.
Today all he said was, “Sure, if you need me to.”
“I do.”
“What’s up?”
“Richard.”
“Our Richard?”
“Our Richard.”
“What, is something wrong with him?”
“I’ll explain when you get here. Please hurry as fast as you can.”
“Sure,” he said, “sure.”
Chapter Five
1
There had been a town pageant a few years back, and, on a hot July night, root beer and hot dog in hand, Jake had sat on a park bench and learned more about local history than he ever had before.
He thought of that now as he walked along the downtown sidewalks.
Merchants sweeping the sidewalks in front of their stores.
Mothers pulling children along the streets.
Old men already taking their places in chairs on the front porch of the Penrod Hotel.
This was Jake’s town, and he never wanted to leave it.
He liked the way the sunlight angled across the store windows, creating glass of pure gold.
He liked the way the bandstand looked in the center of the town square, like a boat buoyed on a river of green.
He liked the War Memorial with its thrilling statue of Marines lofting the American flag.
He liked everything about the town but the slight air of tension he sensed this morning.
The girl missing.
People shouldn’t let such things affect them—there was nothing they could do about them, such events were beyond their control. Didn’t they ever read those articles in People magazine about controlling stress? But they sure did let this missing girl affect them.
You could see it in their eyes. Hear it in their voices. Even see it in the way some of them walked this morning.
A little tight.
A little edgy.
Usually they smiled at Jake, offered him any number of verbal goodies, from jokes to backslaps, but this morning they were all over at Delia’s Diner scowling.
On his way to the bakery, where he planned to get Ruth and Minerva some very special treats, he paused outside the diner and waved inside.
A few people waved back.
But he could tell they weren’t in the right moods.
They didn’t even wave exactly. Just little squiggles with a few fingers. Not even their whole hands.
Jake hated days like this—in the spring sometimes you got days on end like this, when there were floods in the flatlands, or following a nearby tornado.
This close a brush with unexpected death seemed to do something to people. Make them shrivel up inside. Turn an inward eye toward their own waiting graves.
Jake shrugged, walked on.
Above the bakery door was a b
ell that tinkled when Jake walked in.
Fat and red-cheeked Mr. Baines was behind the glass counter. He was so red-faced it was as if he scoured his face with Bon-Ami or something.
But that was why he made such a good Santa Claus at all the Christmas functions.
Fat, funny, merry—that was Mr. Baines.
Before he even said anything, Baines pushed across a platter of tiny donuts—his specialty, and the way he always greeted people, offering the little donuts.
“Thanks, Mr. Baines,” Jake said, taking one.
Mr. Baines smiled. “You can’t fool me.”
“What?” Mr. Baines’s statement sounded faintly threatening to Jake.
Mr. Baines nodded to the donut tray. “You want more than one, don’t you?”
Jake sighed. “Oh, sure. The donuts. More than one. You bet.”
Mr. Baines laughed. “How about two?”
“Two would be nice.”
“How about three, then?”
Jake smiled. Mr. Baines loved games. “Three would be even nicer, I guess.”
“Help yourself.”
With that he put the plate down for Jake to pick and choose from. There were several different kinds of icing, after all.
The phone rang and Mr. Baines went to get it. Within seconds he was booming out a laugh and treating his caller to a “snappy” story about a woman whose breasts were as large as balloons.
Jake looked at the sunlight on the sidewalk.
He loved sunlight.
Most people didn’t realize that sunlight came in different colors and textures.
They couldn’t even tell the difference between March sunlight, say, and August sunlight.
Jake had a set of Funk and Wagnall’s Encyclopedias that he’d gotten one-a-week at the supermarket, and he knew about many things, sunlight included.
Staring now, he thought of how sunlight must have looked millions and millions of years ago when dinosaurs roamed the planet (the big beasts were another object Jake was fond of reading about).
Golden light shining on strange ferns ...
Then he thought of how sunlight used to stream into his bedroom when he was a boy and how he’d lingered so warmly in it, lazy as a cat....