Messages, a Psychological Thriller

  Chapter 11

  James sits in the parking lot of Brother’s Pizza, where he’d seen the teenagers last night. He watches the Ranger drive past on the highway. The driver is the same guy who had been sitting in the Taurus at 18 Oak Ave. The ass that had honked the horn.

  Normally, James would have avoided someone like the driver of the Ranger, even avoided eye contact. The guy looked like trouble. Mid to late-twenties. Unshaven. Wallet-on-a-chain type of dude. Bad clothes. Bad attitude. Guys like that always had a chip and a flash-fire temper.

  But James found himself, well…pissed. Really pissed. This is the first real work of his life, the first work that means something, and was he really going to let this gas-jockey, bowling-alley, beer-from-a-can low-life ruin that? A stubborn rage tightens his muscles. No way. No way would he let this interfere. So what if he’d seen James and his car. So had that old guy farting around in his garage. What had that guy been up to, anyway? Sneaking around that garage…Christ, these kinds of neighborhoods are rife with shady characters.

  That’s why James avoids areas like this as much as possible.

  But he can’t avoid it now. He has to find out what that kid knows. He has a flash of unease. How could that kid know anything? How could he possibly figure into it? He’s just a trash kid from a trash neighborhood in a trash town. Was it possible that it was just some kind of coincidence? The cop and the kid being there, the name of the street and the address? Or not even coincidence, could he have misconstrued everything? Or worse still, was he even thinking straight? This seems kind of crazy, if you stop to look at it. His behavior has been…and his thought processes…it all seems so…

  James looks down, concentrating. He closes his eyes. He rocks slightly forward and back. He pulls his hands from the steering wheel and puts them over his ears, shutting out the noise of the traffic picking up on the highway.

  “Ma,” he says. Halfway between a moan and a croak. Not even sure why he said it. So he says it again.

  “Ma.

  “Ma, I’m sick, I’m…”

  “You’re sick, baby,” His mom’s voice. “You’re not feeling well.”

  “Ma,” he says. It’s muffled, pulled from his throat in a chunk. “I’m not feeling well.”

  “It’s all right, baby,” she says. “Mama’s here to help you sleep. Sleep, baby, sleep now.”

  He feels a hand, a big hand, across his nose and mouth, covering the entire lower part of his face, another hand, impossibly big, cradles the back of his head. The hand over his face is not rough and not gentle. It just is. He can’t pull in breath. Clouds form at the edges of his vision. White-gray and soft. He hitches his chest, but again, no breath comes. The clouds darken and begin to close in. Red sparks begin to snap through his vision. Small snaps and then extended bursts: red lightning. He heaves and bucks, but that hand is there, there, it’s there…“baby, sleep, shhh, baby, sleep for Mama…”

  And the hand is here, it’s here, and James feels drained and swollen, drained of air but stuffed with hot blood, the hand is here, it’s here, god help me, I can’t breathe…

  James snaps forward and bangs his head on the steering wheel. His hands fall away from his nose and mouth, and he pulls in a huge breath. His lungs fill to capacity, until they burn, and he lets that breath out and pulls another breath in and feels the blood leave his face, leave his head. The white-gray clouds move in again, and he thinks he will pass out. He sits back and tilts his head back onto the headrest. His eyes are closed, and he takes smaller breaths. Drinking the air like water. He closes his hands and feels the damp.

  Shaking, he brings his hands up to eye level. The palm of his right hand is slick with saliva. James squints, confusion and fear drawing his features down and together. He must have been dreaming or something, and had his own hand covering his mouth, smothering himself. Was that even possible? Was it possible to smother yourself?

  What had he been dreaming?

  He can’t really remember. Something about clouds and lightning. He’d felt sick and…feeling sick had…he starts to see something; vague, a vague shape; big hair and a big face. Terror floods his stomach in a cold wave, and he jerks upright. He slaps his cheek and then slaps it again.

  “Red cars go,” he whispers through clenched teeth as a red car speeds past on the highway. It’s good, a good number, the three syllables dividing into the nine letters for a calm-inducing three, and he sits straighter and clutches his hands together in his lap, under the steering wheel.

  “The truck runs.”

  He brings his shaking hand up and wipes it over his face. He divides the letters by the syllables. He sighs, and tension leaks out of his shoulders.

  “Blue car stops.” He is looking at a light blue Corolla at the red light twenty yards away.

  “Green to go.”

  That’s a good one, too. Three syllables divided into the nine letters. “Excellent,” he says, and the light changes. The cars go on the green.

  “Excellent,” he says, throat still tight, but starting to relax, the ache melting away. He sees the three divide into the nine, the remainder appearing like good magic. It is almost a color. Calm green. A hint of soothing blue.

  “Good time to go,” he says. He laughs, but just a little. That’s four into twelve. Very nice. Soothing. He feels his mood lightening, brightening.

  “Nice to see you,” he says, but that isn’t as satisfying. The numbers are great, but the phrase doesn’t make sense. There is no context. There’s no one here but him.

  He tries to always put phrases, these combinations, together naturally. Not forced. Not calculated, you could say. But sometimes, he has to just arrange. Like designing, as Lacey has described it to him. Putting things together in a way that feels right.

  He feels calm now. Sure again. Sure that he is doing the right thing. The important thing.

  He glances at the clock, and some of his sureness fades. He has been sitting here for over an hour. James blinks, thinking. He can account for maybe fifteen minutes, twenty at the very most. He must have actually fallen asleep…can you forget that you fell asleep? Wake up unaware that you’d been asleep at all?

  He pulls from the lot and back onto Mossy Lane. He is going to drive past 18 Oak Ave one more time to see if he can’t come up with an idea of what the next step might be. He feels sure that it will reveal itself, if he is diligent, if he is careful, if he does everything just right.

  He pulls onto Oak and glides slowly, slowly, looking at every house. If someone should see him, take note of him, he will just look as though he is lost, looking for an address. Nearing 18, he takes his foot from the gas and slows to a crawl. He examines the house. The Taurus is still in the street. There is a pickup truck in the driveway. There are no lights in any of the windows, even though it’s now going on eight in the morning. Shouldn’t the kid be coming out to go to school?

  As he thinks it, the kid comes from a side door attached to the enclosed porch off the back of the house. He turns and puts a key in the top lock. He shoves the key in his pocket and slings a backpack over his right shoulder.

  James observes him closely, breath held, as the kid bends to tuck his pants deeper into his boots. His pants look painted on, and James wonders how the kid can breathe. The skinny-looking jeans make the black leather motorcycle boots on his feet look enormous, ridiculous with chains and spikes. He stands and pushes a shock of dead-black hair off his face and turns toward the street. Coming down the driveway, his head is lowered. The hair has flopped back over his face, obscuring his features. James notes that the kid is holding a phone in his right hand, thumb moving rapidly. Texting someone.

  For the second time that day, James is startled by a car horn. He has drifted into the middle of the road, and a driver coming the other way honks once in irritation. James mashes his foot down on the brake, looking at the other car and then quickly back to the kid. The kid is eight feet from James’ passenger window, looking right at him, the phone sagging forgotten in hi
s hand.

  Without thinking, James powers down his passenger window. “Hey, can you help me? I’m looking for someone, and I’m afraid I’m a little lost.”

  Arch stands for a minute, unsure. Years of ‘stranger danger’ schooling lock his feet to the ground. But I’m not a little kid, he thinks. I’m seventeen. And this guy sure doesn’t look dangerous.

  “Yeah? Who are you looking for?”

  James makes up a name on the spot. “Ralph Hodgson? You know him by any chance? I’m pretty sure this is his street.” He puts the car in park and leans over a little more so he can see the kid better.

  Arch sees the car settle as it is put into park, and he takes a small step back. Then he catches himself. Fuck, I’m not a baby. Dude just needs directions or something. He goes to the car and leans over and opens his mouth to say it’s a long street, mister, when he realizes he recognizes him—this is the same guy that was sitting outside Brother’s, the same guy he’d seen a couple times before Brother’s.

  There is a flutter of fear in Arch’s stomach, and he stands up, taking a step back.

  “Whoa, you all right?” the guy asks.

  “Uh…” It isn’t what Arch thought he would say. “I’m fine. Are you following me or something?”

  The guy’s face takes on a startled look, eyebrows going up. “Following you? Why would I do that?”

  “I dunno. ’Cause you’re some kind of psycho or something?” Arch takes another step back, scaring himself with the word ‘psycho’. This guy could be a psycho after all. That shit happens. Arch has seen it on TV.

  But the guy laughs and sits back in the driver’s seat.

  “No, I’m not a psycho. My friend lives around here, and I’ve been in this area,” James says, inspiration spurring him on, “but I’ve never been to his house. We usually meet at a pizza place right up there on the highway. Brother’s? I think it’s called?”

  Arch relaxes. “Uh, yeah, it’s Brother’s Pizza. Do you know what street you’re looking for? Are you sure he lives on Oak?”

  The guy shakes his head a little, then leans back over, looking at Arch through the passenger window. “Yeah, I don’t know…maybe not. He might be the next one over or something.”

  “Mr. S might know, he’s been in this neighborhood, like, forever,” Arch says and gestures to the Simonellis’ house behind his own. “He lives on Willow.”

  It is early morning, overcast, so Arch doesn’t see the blood drain from James’ face. He doesn’t notice that James has gone still as death itself. But Arch does see the nod, the small but very deliberate nod James gives him. Something about it strikes Arch as odd, as off.

  It’s almost as though he told the guy a secret.

  Chapter 12

  He lives on Willow, he lives on Willow, he lives on Willow…pounds in James’ head. Five syllables divided into fifteen letters…three echoes and echoes in his mind. James is once again in the parking lot of Brother’s Pizza. Gray morning light drains the color from everything, but James doesn’t really notice. His mind is alive with electricity, clarity, and relief…a relief so intense it feels like gratitude. And he is grateful…grateful that he has received another link, another clue. He’d been right to push past the confusion and despair. He’d been right!

  This last thought is savage in its intensity. Deep in James’ mind, so deep he doesn’t acknowledge it, is a childish cry of I told you! I told you so!

  Tears run in hot tracks down James’ cheeks, and he wipes them away with the palm of his hand. The savagery of his feelings is fading, and the gratitude takes over fully, relaxing him. He begins to shake as the adrenaline that had poured into his system at the kid’s last sentence now begins to recede.

  He lives on Willow.

  James feels another flood of gratitude, and fresh tears roll down his cheeks. This time, he lets them, keeping his hands clasped together at his diaphragm. He lives on Willow…it’s perfect, it’s the perfect…not clue, that’s not the right word…it’s the perfect arrow! Yes! Pointing him in the right direction!

  Now James understands why he was led here this morning; why he saw that man, fumbling around in the garage, doing something secret, obviously, otherwise why would he have been so sly? So mysterious? Hiding in the dark like that, putting himself in the shadows…no question, there is something in that garage. Something that old guy doesn’t want seen. Something he doesn’t want James to see. Because isn’t that the look he’d given James when he’d driven by? He’d looked suspicious, yes, but shocked, too! And guilty!

  Fat drops splat onto the windshield, and the morning, just brightening, darkens again. James hears thunder rumble low and to the west. Too far away to be able to see the lightning.

  James puts his car in gear, and once more, turns onto Mossy. This time he goes past Oak to Willow and turns onto it. It’s still very early, but most of the people who work on this street have left for their jobs. The houses are dark. What little light that comes from them comes from the back, where the kitchens are. Even the school busses have come and gone by now.

  James parks three houses down from his target and on the opposite side of the street. He is glad to see there are no lights on at his target or at either house that neighbors it. He leaves his car and pulls his light jacket over his head–the rain has increased, and the temperature has dropped enough to chill him as soon as he steps from his car.

  He trots quickly to the house and up the driveway. There is a side door to the garage, and it is screened from the neighbors by a stand of evergreens. James takes a credit card from his wallet and slides it into the jamb at the door handle. He’s already seen that there is no dead bolt, but it could be locked in some other fashion on the inside–chained or even padlocked. If it is, then he’s stuck until he can decide on another way in.

  But the doorknob turns in his hand as the card pushes the latch back, and the door opens easily inward. The smells of gasoline, rusting metal, oil, and old grass clippings surround him as he steps into the garage. He pulls the door closed behind him. There is a small amount of light that comes through a row of windows across the top of the garage door. Enough to see the outlines of two rakes, one shovel, one leaf blower, one workbench. Rows of neatly spaced tools hang on a pegboard above the bench. James appreciates the precision, the neat way each is held in its own outline of thin, painted line. An image flashes into his mind of his apartment, each piece of furniture outlined where it sits against the wall, each foot outlined where they connect with the floor. He pictures each print on the wall outlined, each glass in the cupboard, each plate. Then he pictures Lacey, lying on the couch, reading, outlined. Held in place. He would always know exactly where to find her. She’d never again appear unannounced in the kitchen while his back is turned or in the doorway to his office.

  A memory turns in his mind like a stranger on the street, turning toward you, and you realize that you know them. This is no stranger. James’ memory is of a doorway. A dark rectangle seen through soft bars. The anticipation and the terror, waiting for someone to come through that opening.

  Sweat breaks out at his hairline, and he rubs viciously, hating the tickling itch. The memory leaves him nervous, shaken. The feeling of anticipation tempered by fear stays. It is familiar, he can nearly smell it, taste it at the back of his throat. It reminds him of extreme hunger. Isolation. Terror.

  James swallows and takes a step further into the center of the garage. He shakes himself, trying to get the feeling of the memory to slide from his shoulders and away. He wants to drop it as though it were a wet, stinking blanket. Too heavy and too uncomfortable.

  As his eyes adjust to the gloom, he sees a black filing cabinet tucked under the workbench. There is a small corona of light around it and relief floods James mind, pushing the old memory aside. Assuaging his discomfort.

  He pulls out the top drawer. Slowly, gently, one hand on the pull, the other supporting the weight. There are rows of files hanging on tracks, neatly labeled. SNOWBLOWER, WEEDWACKER, CHAINSA
W…each folder contains a manual, a warranty, a receipt.

  James closes the top drawer and opens the middle drawer. This one is filled with plastic bags, the kind you would use to store food in the freezer. The first contains plastic zip ties in various colors and lengths. Another contains three coils of phone cable. Still another holds plastic collar stays. There must be hundreds of them in there, James thinks. He has a desire to count them. He thinks about dumping the bag out on the floor, stacking the stays in groups of ten, adding up the tens, taking out the last few that don’t add up to ten…but where would he put them? The odd ones? He couldn’t burn them, they’re plastic. Could he shuffle them into another bag? No. That makes no sense. He’d have to take them with him, scatter them somewhere, one by one. The subway. He’s done it before. When he’s had oddball bits of things that don’t fit into the scheme.

  Then it occurs to him that it’s an odd find: a bag of collar stays? Who has a bag of collar stays? How could anyone have accumulated this many? Then he realizes with a sinking stomach that they were put here to try and trip him up. To slow him down. If he’d turned over that bag and begun counting…

  He closes that drawer and moves onto the third, the bottom-most drawer. He can’t keep his hand under it as he slides it out; it is too close to the ground. There is a muffled squealing noise of the small wheels on their metal track. James stops and listens. The sound the drawer made was not loud. It would never have been heard outside of the garage. Probably you wouldn’t have been able to hear it even if you were standing on the other side of the garage, James thinks. But then, at the thought of someone standing on the other side of the garage, he has to turn and check. Make sure there is no one standing there. Of course there isn’t, he thinks. Almost scoffing at himself. But of course, it is easy to scoff, now that he has seen with his own eyes that there is no one standing behind him.

  He eases the drawer out, slipping his fingers under the front to take at least some of the weight. The wheels make a soft grinding noise and nothing more.