Peaceable Kingdom (mobi)

by Jack Ketchum

  They had hit him twenty-four times in succession, one after the other. Toward the end they’d become more sporting, bashing him two or three times before surrendering up the bat. Trying swings.

  His skull was fractured in sixteen places, his collarbone was shattered and his windpipe. They’d broken his shoulder, vertebra and hip. The blow to the hip had been Bernice’s. She’d been trying out her golf grip, skylarking a bit.

  Blood and brains splashed across the walls and windows with each successive blow to the head—and it was immediately after delivering one of these that Ramona had her little accident. She’s said nothing to Bernice. Just leaned against the door and waited until the flashing stopped.

  She wondered if she’d ever need sex again.

  The place was a mess. Howard was dead and enough was enough. Ramona called a halt.

  She took some cotton from her first-aid kit in the bathroom and stuffed it into his ears, nose and mouth to stop the bleeding. She wrapped his head turban-style in a pink bath towel and then waited to see if his brains would seep through. They did.

  She took another towel from the linen closet and wrapped it around the first one.

  Meanwhile Bernice dressed him in his favorite black-and-red checked hunting jacket, a pair of old blue jeans, red shirt, and green socks. The cowboy boots were a problem. Ramona had to help her.

  They taped his wrists together over his hard beer-glutted stomach so they wouldn’t just dangle. Taped his ankles together so they’d be easier to grip when they started lugging. Ramona wound gauze and more tape over the towels. Round and round. Howard looked like a mummy dressed for Opening Day of rabbit season.

  They finished their coffee downstairs, took a breather, and then went back for the body. They pushed and pulled. Finally Howard lay face-up on the porch in back of the house, with a trail of blood and brain-matter leading back upstairs to the bedroom as though he’d forgotten something.

  “Bring the car around,” said Ramona, “while I clean up a little.”

  “Got enough paper towels?”

  “I think. I may have to borrow from you, though.”

  “That’s okay.”

  By the time Bernice returned the flies were buzzing. Ramona was on the staircase with a roll of paper towels and a box of SOS. Bernice shooed flies as best she could.

  It was a mistake. In the warm, gulf-stream turbulence of her flailing arms two of them were propelled upstairs toward Ramona crouched intent upon flecks and smears on her off-white staircase, and then beyond—some primitive homing instinct impelling them toward a candy-store bedroom full of fresh gore, buzzing their rapture into the San Diego night.

  In less than an hour the room was filled with flying mosquitoes, houseflies, mites and midges, partying on the remains of Howard.

  While Bernice drove twenty-five miles out of town, removed Howard’s tape and turbans, dumped him off a cliff significant enough to cause major increased damage to his body and then drove back to town, Ramona struggled with the blood and insects.

  While Bernice cleaned the car and porch, Ramona continued same.

  Finally Bernice came up with the bug spray and another roll of paper towels. It helped.

  By sunup, six hours later, the blood on the windowsills and the shiny silver wallpaper had turned a light, coral pink and they decided to quit. They took out the garbage. Ramona poured them drinks.

  They drank ’til about 8:30.

  “Think it’s safe to call now?” asked Bernice.

  “I guess. It’s just a missing persons thing. They’re not gonna come looking for him just yet. Later on we can buy some paint. Fix things up a little.”

  “Won’t that look suspicious, ’Mona?”

  “Nah. We’ll get waterbase. It dries faster. Dial ’em. And then I think I’d better call and cancel that date with Stanley. I’m bushed.”

  Ramona sipped her scotch. Bernice dialed, handed her the receiver and sat down to her gin. Tasted it. Stared at it.

  Looking sort of puzzled.

  The number rang.

  “ ’Mona?” said Bernice.

  “Shhh. Wait. I’ve got them.”

  She finished her drink while Ramona spoke to the sergeant. Got up and filled her own glass and ’Mona’s again. She listened. Except for what was bothering her, things seemed to be going smoothly.

  Her husband had been out all night, Ramona said. This was very unusual for him. She was worried, she said, afraid something had happened. No, she hadn’t checked with the hospitals yet. She assumed the first thing you did was call the police.

  Sure, she’d hold a minute.

  “This is easy,” she said to Bernice. “Cop’s real nice. Real polite.”

  “ ’Mona?” said Bernice. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Wait.” The cop was back again.

  Ramona gave him her own name and Howard’s and then their address and phone number. She could hear him typing in the background. He was slow. Two fingers, probably.

  The cop wanted to know what he was wearing.

  She made it sound uncertain. Red shirt, jeans, hunting jacket, boots or maybe sneakers. He asked for a general description. She gave it to him.

  He put her on hold again.

  “Mona, I got to ask you something,” said Bernice.

  “What.” Ramona was annoyed with her. It was probably lack of sleep. Made her fucking cranky.

  Bernice looked agitated.

  “ ’Mona, I seem to remember you put cotton or something in his mouth, in his ears and stuff. Did you?”

  “Of course I did. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. Didn’t you . . .?”

  “I didn’t see it! I mean, I didn’t want to look at him, you know? At his face? I mean, I saw it there when you did it but then I just forgot, I just pulled off the tape and towels and stuff and . . .”

  “Jesus Christ, Bernice! It’s supposed to be a fucking accident!”

  “Oh God! Oh God!”

  Ramona was thinking. Fast.

  “It’s all right. It’s all right. We’ll find him. We’ll get to him before the cops do and we’ll get the stuff out of him and . . . hello?”

  “You talking to me?” asked the cop.

  “I . . . uh, no. I’ve got a friend here. I’m a little shook, you know?”

  “Sure.” The voice was reassuring. “It’s good you got a buddy there. I just thought maybe you was talking to me. It wouldn’t matter, of course. Soon as I get off the phone with you, see, I play back the tape, check to see if I missed somethin’.”

  “Tape?”

  “Yeah, we pick up all 911s these days. Routine. Tape hold and all. It’s a good thing, really. What if somethin’ was to happen to you while I’ve got you stuck on hold? No good. This way we know.”

  She shouldn’t worry about Howard, he said. Usually they just took a ride, had a few and then came back again. Ramona thanked him. He was really very nice.

  She replaced the princess phone. She looked at Bernice, weepy-eyed and sniffing. The red of Bernice’s eyes seemed to inflame the soft pale flesh around them, seemed to seep into nose and cheeks. Her friend looked like one of those sad disgusting disposable old men who play Santa Claus in department stores at Christmas time.

  Her own face composed itself.

  Too bad, she thought, that she still had to depend on her.

  Maybe they could find a way around that.

  “Just remember,” she said. “The fucker beat me.”

  The Holding Cell

  Only one of them looked or acted crazy.

  Only one of them even looked dangerous.

  Two out of six, he thought.

  It could be worse.

  The door slid shut behind him, clanging into place.

  “Cell,” muttered the crazy guy, head swaying side to side, his long matted hair swaying too. That was how he knew the guy was crazy—saying “cell” like that and swaying back and forth. “You’re in it now.”

  Well, he knew that too.

  The walls of
the holding cell were cinderblock, painted white. Before that they had been red. The underpaint showed through like veins in a bloodshot eye.

  “You’re in it now.”

  He walked past them and sat on a wooden bench in back, one of only four benches for the seven of them, aware of their eyes on him, on his new silk shirt and two-tone Paul Stuart shoes. How come they didn’t take the laces? he thought, along with his belt and tie and blazer.

  You could hang yourself with a pair of laces, right?

  Not that he was about to hang himself over a DUI. Even if it was his first. Still, he considered it a strange omission.

  Somebody else could hang you.

  The others were all wearing jeans and running shoes in various states of repair. Teeshirts. A black kid in a tie-dye muscle-shirt. Even the little thin guy in back with glasses—jeans, a teeshirt and running shoes. Variations on a theme. What had he expected? Imagination? Everybody but the tall, sandy-haired guy sitting in front, across from the enormous sleeping fat kid. The sandy-haired guy was wearing prison orange and a red ID bracelet on his wrist. He looked like a hospital attendant, only nastier.

  He did have the Reeboks, though.

  He was aware of class distinctions.

  The cell smelled of pine disinfectant, human shit and more faintly, urine. A metal-frame toilet sat in the middle of the room—aside from the benches its only item of furniture. Apparently it had been recently used. He hoped he wouldn’t need to.

  He sat back against the wall, closed his eyes and tried to sleep. The walls were moist, damp, almost sticky. But he knew that sleep was the best thing now. Sleep would see him through.

  It was going to be a long night.

  His arresting officer, J. Johansson of the SPD, badge number 42789, had explained to him that under Florida State Law DUI carried a minimum of eight hours dry-out before you could even make bail.

  It was now, he guessed, about three in the morning. That was only an estimate. They’d taken his watch and he’d seen no clocks around anywhere. Already his sense of time was tenuous. Probably they had planned it that way. But assuming it was three that meant it would be eleven, minimum, before he could get out of there, even if everything was all right with Ann, if she’d found her way home all right and was working on bail.

  And that was not wholly certain.

  She was new in town for one thing. Brand new job in a brand new state. Didn’t even know all the streets yet. And the layout of the town didn’t help. From what he could see it was a fucking maze—old bumpy roads intersecting into new stretches of highway, half of them one-way, the other half unmarked. Swamp to the left and swamp to the right.

  He bet these roads ate out-of-towners.

  He wondered where she was. Or if she even knew where she was.

  It wasn’t her fault. He couldn’t even blame her for getting them lost and then telling him to turn when it was really too late to turn, so that he had to slam on the brakes and veer from the left lane into the right, which was what had got him noticed by the cruiser in the first place. She was new. He was just a visitor. It was a case of the blind leading the blind, both of them drinking—moderately, he’d thought, and then only wine—from four-thirty that evening to about two in the morning at her office Christmas party.

  He’d blown a hefty .165 on the intoxilyzer.

  He guessed that, moderately or not, seven to eight hours was a lot of drinking.

  Jesus. I hope you made it, Annie . . . .

  Because there was also the fact that she’d given the cops one hell of a hard time. It wasn’t too difficult to imagine her sitting in county jail herself—women’s division. He remembered her leaning out the driver’s side window, halfway out the window, looking like she was about to climb out the rest of the way and punch somebody as they told him to recite the alphabet and close his eyes and touch his nose and walk the line heel to toe, heel to toe, frisked him and cuffed him and stuffed him into he squad car. He remembered her screaming, what the hell are you doing to him? crazy about her for her relentless Irish temper even as he was scared for her when Johansson said to get back in the car! Right! Now! hand on his revolver and command-voice up full throttle, no doubt fully aware that he would not be the first or last cop to be blown away by some irate lady on the occasion of her husband’s arrest.

  He was worried about her. She was angry. She was easily as high as he was. And as of a few minutes ago, she was not home.

  At the station they’d booked him, printed him, taken mug shots, relieved him of his cigarettes and valuables, frisked him a second time, read him his Miranda, had him sign six or seven forms he was much too wired and basically disoriented to even bother reading, questioned him, and then allowed him his phone call.

  He left a message on her answering machine. Help! probably sounding a lot more cheerful than he felt because by then the headache had kicked in in a big way and he was cold without his blazer, shivering with nerves and the cold damp of the station house, and he had just been booked for committing a crime for the very first time in his forty-five year-old life.

  He felt no guilt about it. He had somehow contrived to feel guilt about almost nothing these days.

  He could try to phone again later, they said.

  Great.

  It was something, he guessed, to look forward to.

  He gazed around the holding cell. He did not like the look of the crazy guy, who was unfortunately sharing his bench, sprawled across it lying on his back and leaving him only a narrow spot against the wall, staring up wide-eyed at the ceiling, eyes glazed, pupils darting like flies trapped under milky glass. He did not like the way the lips moved soundlessly.

  “Whatcha in for?”

  It was the guy sitting across from him.

  The guy looked middle-aged, maybe fifty-five—and harmless enough. His jeans and Nikes were new and clean and he did not seem to need to glare or mutter.

  “DUI.”

  The guy shook his head knowingly. “Me too,” he said. “You want to hear the worst fucking thing though? It was my goddamn wife who turned me in. You believe that? I go out for a six-pack, she calls the cops and tells them I’m fucking drunk out there and driving without a license. Tells them right where I’m headed. Do you believe that shit?”

  He had the attention of everybody in the cell, all except the fat kid up front sleeping off his drunk. Even the crazy guy had turned in his direction. Everybody smiling. Amused.

  The guy himself was not amused.

  “I get out of here, I’m gonna cut her tits off!”

  “First time?” It was the sandy-haired guy wearing prison orange. Getting up and walking over, laughing. Then squatting, digging in his shoe and pulling out a cigarette from one side and a book of matches from the other.

  He took a glance toward the narrow cell window, cupped the smoke and lit it.

  “Nah.”

  “Guess you should of cut ’em off last time then.”

  “You’re right. I should’ve. Jesus! I been dying for one of these! What you in for?”

  He took a deep drag and passed it to the guy. He spoke with a deep southern accent. “Skipped bail on a second-offense armed robbery. Guess I’ll be around awhile. Fuck it.”

  They smoked in silence, waving the cigarette like kids in a high school boy’s room to make it less conspicuous.

  The crazy guy got up, walked over and held out his hand. The hand was black with matted filth. “Mind?”

  “Fuck it.” The con in prison orange handed him the butt. “Finish the damn thing.”

  The crazy guy took two deep drags. Then the cigarette disappeared into his clenched fist, ember and all. He lay down again. The fist went up to his mouth. He commenced chewing.

  They’re all crazy, he thought.

  It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he could have been in bed with Ann by now. Every fine, smooth, fragrant inch of her.

  Just sleep, he thought. Get some sleep. In a while try to make your call again. Meantime, tr
y to pass the night. Sleep. Get yourself lost. Get the hell out of here . . . .

  And miraculously, he did sleep.

  Maybe it was the alcohol working or the late hour or the nerves exhausting him or all of these together but he slept, head pressed back against the sticky cinderblock wall.

  He slept fitfully. Waking often.

  There were snatches of conversation.

  “Jesus! What time is it? You’d think they’d give you a fucking clock at least!”

  “. . . ran a warrant for beating up on her.”

  “. . . second offense. Let’s see. I think it’s a $500 minimum and ninety days. I’m not sure though. . . .”

  “Did you taste that stuff? What the hell was that stuff?”

  “Peanut butter.”

  “Peanut butter? The fuck it was peanut butter!”

  From time to time the door would slide open and a guard would call one of them outside. They’d be gone a while and then come back holding a single sheet of paper. He was not even curious as to what was written on the paper. He assumed he’d find out, eventually.

  Instead, he was wholly engulfed by a single urgent need to escape the whole damn thing. The only escape available to him was sleep. The crazy guy was snoring. So was the kid with the enormous belly. He envied them the thoroughness of their immersion.

  Finally, he heard his name.

  He got up and saw that they’d all been sleeping, the sound of his name and the sliding metal door blinking everyone suddenly awake.

  The sullen black kid in the tie-dye muscle-shirt was gone. It didn’t even occur to him to wonder where or why. The rules here, the everyday reality of the place, were unknown to him.

  In the hall a guard handed him two sheets of computer paper mounted on a clipboard and told him to sign the top copy. The other one was his. NOTICE TO APPEAR FOR ARRAIGNMENT the papers said. They noted the charge, the date, his docket number, and the amount of his bond. The bond was all that interested him—$369.00. He felt relieved. It was not going to be a problem. Ann would have that much on hand.

  If he could reach her.

  “Can I try that call again now?” he asked.

  “What call?”

  “I couldn’t get through before. They said I could try a little later.”