by Ed Gorman
Mrs. Williams put out a big hand and patted Dora Jean’s knee.
Dora Jean smiled her vague smile.
Carnes said, “If you don’t mind, I’d still like to know who Kenny is.”
“A friend of hers. In her younger years. A playmate. But it wasn’t Kenny in the park that night.”
“How can you be sure?”
Mrs. Williams frowned. She turned to Beth Daye for support. “Your friend here is getting awfully rude, if you ask me.”
“He’s only concerned for his daughter, Mrs. Williams. Surely you can understand that.”
“I can understand it, but that doesn’t excuse rudeness. This is my house and I mean to be treated with some respect.”
Carnes sighed. “Mrs. Williams, I apologize if I irritated you.”
Mrs. Williams glowered. “I let you in here, I let you ask her questions, and you treat me like this.”
Carnes felt compassion for the woman. He heard years of irritation and loneliness in her voice. The woman was a prisoner of her daughter. No matter how much she loved Dora Jean, the mother lived her life at great sacrifice.
“I apologize,” Carnes said again.
Mrs. Williams shrugged. “All right, Mr. Carnes, I accept your apology.”
Now the mother turned back to the daughter. “Honey, was that Kenny in the park that night?”
Dora Jean looed at her mother dumbly. “Kenny?”
Dora Jean had phased out again.
“Yes, honey, Kenny. Do you remember him? Blond hair, he rode a big blue bicycle and sometimes he took you riding on it?”
“Kenny.”
“Yes, honey, Kenny.”
But Dora Jean looked blank again.
“Do you remember who was in the park that night?”
Dora Jean shook her head.
“There, Mr. Carnes,” Mrs. Williams said wearily.
“There you see what I’ve seen for the past few decades. She’s been like this ever since it happened. Kenny wasn’t in the park that night. Whoever it was, now we’ll never know.”
“Maybe the same man who took my daughter.”
“I’m sorry to say this, Mr. Carnes, but I find that extremely unlikely.”
Carnes turned his attention back to Dora Jean for a moment.
“Dora Jean, do you remember the color of the man’s hair?”
The desperation in his voice was embarrassing, even to himself.
Beth put a hand on his arm.
“Adam, maybe it’s time we leave,” she said.
Anger coursed through him. He felt blood rise in his cheeks.
Then he calmed down, realizing she was right.
Dora Jean sat there a virtual cripple in her rocking chair, only occasionally lucid.
And he was trying to pump her as if she were a state’s witness and he the prosecutor.
“Yeah,” he said, “I guess it is time to leave.”
Mrs. Williams rose, put out her hand. They shook. “Sorry she wasn’t more helpful, Mr. Carnes.”
“I knew when I came over here it was probably not going to help me a great deal. But—”
Mrs. Williams’s eyes shone. “I understand, Mr. Carnes. Remember, I’ve got a daughter of my own.”
Carnes nodded.
In the car, he said, “She was hiding something.”
Beth said, “I don’t think so.”
“She went to a great deal of trouble to not exactly talk about Kenny, whoever he is.”
“I thought she explained that pretty well,” Beth said in a cautious, kindly tone.
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
“I think, understandably, you’re overwrought.”
“So I’m imagining that this Kenny is important somehow, and I’m also imagining that Mrs. Williams is keeping something from me?”
“I don’t think she’s keeping anything from you.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He sat there and stared at her. A tenderness came into his eyes. “I couldn’t make it through all this without you, I hope you realize that.”
“You need a friend.” She sighed. “As a matter of fact, so do I. We’re fulfilling a need.”
“I hope it’s a little more than that.”
She touched his arm, smiled wanly.
“Now I’ve got to get it over with,” he said.
“What?”
“The phone call. To my ex-wife.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
He sighed. “It’s going to tear her apart.”
“I think you owe it to her, though.”
“Would you want to know?”
“Yes. At least, I think so.”
He put the car in gear.
They went looking for the first phone booth they could find.
2
“How old am I?”
“You’re eight.”
“Do I have blond hair?”
“Very blond hair.”
“Am I pretty?”
“You’re beautiful.”
“Do boys like me?”
“Boys love you. They chase you all the time.”
“Will I be a movie star some day?”
“Someday you’ll be the biggest movie star of all. You’ll win the Academy Award and then right on national TV you’ll thank me for being such a good mother.”
“And I’ll buy you a car.”
“Thank you, honey.”
“A huge car. A block long.”
“I appreciate that. G’nite now.”
“Good night.”
This was much the same conversation that Mrs. Williams had had with Dora Jean ever since the incident in the park—
Mrs. Williams went out into the kitchen, after putting Dora Jean to bed, and got herself a beer.
Then she came back in and picked up her National Enquirer and settled down for some reading.
She had gotten only two paragraphs into the story about the cure-for-all-illnesses-that-had-been-sent-down-here-on-a-UFO-except-the-Pentagon-refused- to-acknowledge-the-ship’s-existence when her mind went back to the man Carnes and his cohort, Beth Daye.
Though they had left here an hour ago, the air still stank of them.
Mrs. Williams did not like visitors.
In her modest way, she lived a comfortable life.
Most folks thought it was because of her dead husband’s railroad pension.
Instead, it was because of the money certain people had given her ever since the time that Kenny had—
One thousand dollars a month.
Not a fortune, certainly, but enough to keep you in biscuits and beer when your mortgage was all paid up (again thanks to “certain people”) and you didn’t want much, and your idea of a good time was having Pizza Delight deliver a pizza.
That’s why she’d gotten so upset tonight.
The Carnes man with his prying ways was trying to upset her way of life.
The ability to sit here, like now, with nothing more to worry about than what the Enquirer had to say ...
She liked her life ... the “movie star” conversation with her daughter ... the old movies on TV ... the knowledge that she had enough money to keep a fresh carton of Pall Malls in the cupboard and a good jug of Mogen David in the fridge.
And now this Carnes guy—
Mrs. Williams had never understood for sure exactly why they were paying her the money.
She just knew that she didn’t want them to stop.
3
At the last minute, just before Sheriff Wayman came up to the trailer door, just before she saw that Vince was actually going to open fire, Donna Reeves grabbed her husband’s gun and ripped it out of his hand.
His eyes had widened not in anger but in fear. He stared at the door as if a monster waited on the other side of it.
So she answered the sheriff’s knock, let him in, while Vince lurked in the back room.
She had never seen him this way before. Was terrified of how he was behaving.
<
br /> Sheriff Wayman was their longtime friend.
And here her husband had been ready to open fire on the man.
She knew that mental illness ran on one side of Vince’s family, the maternal side.
She knew enough about the subject from her reading in magazines to know that Vince could well be subject to such illness, too.
She had gotten rid of Sheriff Wayman as soon as possible but not before he’d had time to ask, “Where’s Vince? Isn’t that his car outside?”
“Oh, he’s in the bathroom.” She’d lowered her voice, the way she would have if she’d been telling him the truth. “He’s got a touch of the stomach flu. The runs, you know.”
The sheriff had smiled. “Had a touch of that myself a few weeks ago. No fun at all, is it?”
Still, there had been something obstinate in the way he’d looked around, as if he’d suspected that she hadn’t been telling him the truth.
She began to wonder if Vince was right, that maybe somebody, maybe the sheriff himself, was after him.
At the last the sheriff had, just like Donna, lowered his voice.
“Well, see, actually I just wanted to—” He scratched his head uneasily.
“Yes, Sheriff?”
“I just wanted to check up on him.”
“Check up?”
“Yes. Seems some of the other men at the office are kind of worried about Vince.”
“Why?”
“Apparently he just hasn’t been himself lately.
Have you noticed that, Donna?”
She lied. “No, I haven’t, Sheriff.”
“Well, the men, they worry about each other, naturally. They’re just like a family.”
At this she almost laughed.
Vince did not get along well with his peers at the sheriff’s office. There was something about the military-type operations that seemed to inspire bickering. Vince liked the sheriff, of course, or at least he used to, but now—
“You’d feel free to talk to me, wouldn’t you, Donna, if something was wrong?”
“Sure.”
“Just the last month or so—”
About that the sheriff was indeed right. The last month or so ...
She thought of what Vince had said about “knowing” something that could get him killed.
Now she was starting to believe him. The longer the sheriff stood here, the more convinced she became that her husband was right.
“Well,” the sheriff had said, and sighed. He could see that he was going to get no place with Donna, and so he had left.
Within moments of the front door’s closing, Vince had appeared, his twelve gauge shotgun cradled in his arms.
Vince looked bad. Pasty. Sweaty. Twitchy. She had always thought of him as a brave man. Now she knew better.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
“Texas?”
“Texas.”
He was surprised that she wasn’t arguing with him. “You change your mind about my story?”
“Yes,” she said. “I guess I did.” She spoke in a slow, confident voice that was unlike her natural tone. She had realized a few minutes ago that she was going to have to be brave for both of them.
She had heard in the sheriff’s voice and seen in his eyes the truth of Vince’s words.
And now she was angry, protective, like a mother bear when her cub is challenged.
She went over and touched the shotgun and said, “I want something I can carry.”
“A weapon?”
She nodded.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Maybe it’d be better for you if I went alone. They don’t want you. They want me.”
“I’m your wife.”
He thought of his miserable performances in bed lately. “I haven’t been much of a husband the past month or so.”
She put out a hand. Touched it coolly to his cheek. “I love you, Vince.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“You’re not?”
“I’m mad. This is our home. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know they’re driving us out of our home.”
“Better call Texas.”
She nodded.
“Vince.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to be all right. Honest.”
“Sure.”
“You’ve got to have faith.”
“Like those ministers you listen to on TV?”
“Just like them.”
He smiled. Kissed her. “I love you, hon.”
“And I love you.”
She had just moved away from the kiss, heading toward the bedroom, when the crunch of gravel came again.
Vince heard it, too.
He ran to the window.
“Damn,” he said.
Her heart hammered. “What?”
“It’s Wayman,” he said, “and one of his deputies.”
4
She still had no idea who had slammed the door shut or who had started to come in, apparently to do her harm, and then decided to back away.
Minerva was sweating enough that she wondered if she was running a fever.
All she knew now was that she wanted out of the basement. Upstairs the sunlight would be slanting across the real Persian rugs of the living room and a cat would be lazing on one of the window sills.
And that was where Minerva wanted to be.
Before starting off she went back into the cubicle to retrieve the flashlight that had fallen from her hands and shattered.
Sighing, wishing now that she’d listened to Ruth and just left well enough alone, Minerva started feeling in the damp darkness for the cylinder of the flashlight.
But instead of touching the flash, her hands found something else.
One concrete block in the floor seemed to jut up.
Its rough edges cut at her fingers.
When she bent again, her fingers stinging, she found that it was not only a single block sticking up, but a formation of blocks that reminded her of—
—of a trapdoor.
Back in her southern girlhood, trapdoors had been commonplace among the fancy houses of the wealthy. Many people stored valuables down there. Others, or so she’d always heard tell, used the subbasement level as a place for orgies of various and disgusting kinds.
It was not all that improbable that this mansion would contain a subbasement of its own.
She thought of the animal sounds....
... the wailing ...
... the moaning ...
The noises had always sounded muffled to her. What better reason for them to be muffled than that they were coming up through several layers of concrete and dirt and—
Which was when she heard it again.
The sound of a cry.
So faint as to be scarcely audible.
But there on the air, just the same.
She was bending over, trying to hear better for the sound that seemed to be coming from beneath her, when she heard the sound of leather again.
Instantly, she froze, realizing what a terrible position she was in—no trouble for somebody to walk up behind her and club her.
She jumped up from the floor, forgetting the moaning sound.
She left the basement as quickly as she could, stumbling several times, bruising herself, but keeping on running anyway.
She was overcome with a sense of evil—a sense she used to get at Mardi Gras when the devil masks became prominent—and she just wanted out of there, at any cost.
She made it upstairs panting, sheened with sweat and convinced she would never venture into the basement again, no matter what sounds she heard.
She didn’t want to know what was down there.
5
Dave Evans had seen it in a teen movie once, and it had worked great for the hero.
Dave figured that, by now, he didn’t have anything to lose.
He circled his Trans-Am around the beautiful figure of Angie
Fuller.
Circle after circle.
Drawing ever tighter.
She moved one way, she moved another.
But he always caught her.
Her car was parked at the opposite end of the parking lot. Plenty of room in the big empty lot for Dave to come on like a showboat and interrupt her plans.
A few times she glowered at him, but gradually he began to see that she was smiling beneath her frown.
That was when he knew he had at least some chance of getting back in her graces.
He pulled up beside her, slamming on the brakes.
“Hey.”
“Why don’t you just fuck off?” she said.
“Hey, is that any way for a lady to talk?”
“Who said I was a lady?”
“That’s the impression I got.”
Or at least that was the impression Dave Evans had wanted. He did not like girls who swore like boys. He had decided ideas about what was feminine and what was not.
She started to turn away. He grabbed her arm, pulled her back to him.
“I just wanted you to know that you’re right about Bobby Coughlin.”
She smirked, sensing victory.
“What about him?” she said.
“He’s just as creepy as you say.”
The smirk broadened.
“Do you always do what girls tell you to do?”
“Only certain girls.”
“Like me?”
“Just like you.”
Beneath the material of her sweater he could see the round tips of her nipples. His mouth went dry. His crotch ached. He wanted to spread those legs and taste the wine of her....
“I want to know about tonight,” he said.
“What about tonight?”
“We had a deal.”
“Did we?”
“You bet we did.”
“I don’t seem to recall.”
“I go up to the Foster estate, climb the fence and sneak into the basement and in return—” Now it was his turn to smirk. “And in return, you and me go out to Hoover Lane and make out.”