Robin was pleased about the marriage, because that meant the bitch wouldn’t be hovering around icky Ricky at night like she did now.
The cold-water smell grew stronger, and he turned toward it, smiling in the dark. “Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi,” he called wishfully. The new moon held little power, and he neither expected any answers nor received them, but ever since he’d discovered that very occasionally he could hear the greenjacks’ song, he was compelled to try. He treasured the times he had sensed the presence of the jacks. It was a salve for his loneliness.
Legs legs legs legs legs. Hatred for icky Ricky, with his long legs and special senses, washed over him. He’d get the cowardly little shit eventually, get him good. He could get him anytime with a pillow over the face or a conk on the head, especially after Carmen moved out, but what he really wanted was to get him on Halloween, to give him a trickertreat he’d never forget.
Robin waited until later, when they were in their beds, to tell old Icky he was going to make sure he never lived through another Halloween. Ricky didn’t say anything, just jumped up and hightailed it for his precious Carmen’s room.
But Robin meant what he said. This Halloween he’d do the big trickertreat, or if something went wrong, the next. He could wait a long, long time.
Sniggering, he started down the path that led from the backyard, down through the long, narrow side yard, with its thick border of oleanders and liquid amber trees, and finally to the front corner of the house. The front was even bigger than the back, covering three acres, and so surrounded with willows, elms, pines, and filled with fruit trees, flowers, ferns, and exotic broad-leafed tropicals, that you couldn’t even see the street, Via Matanza, beyond them.
The yard that icky Ricky so hated was a park crisscrossed with brick and stone paths that were constantly overgrown by the grass and bushes, no matter how often Hector pruned or mowed. To Robin the place was a paradise, the plant life an announcement that the greenjacks were present. Again he took in the scents, the blend of aromas from the plants and the trees and the koi pond, the wonderful koi pond, a hundred feet distant.
Ignoring the light-lined brick path that led to the pool, Robin moved across the yard, enjoying the thick dampness of the lawn beneath his hands. He paused, reveling in the spongy coolness, and noted how his nails dug into the moist earth, snickering when he detected the cold wriggling sliminess of a night crawler as it passed between his fingers.
Reaching the flagstones that surrounded the koi pond, he crossed them—hard, cold, interesting. The pond itself had originally been a kidney-shaped built-in swimming pool, so it was huge and deep. But many years ago, Grandfather Piper, who hated to swim, had painted it dark blue, put the rocky rustic edge on it, and built the tall stony waterfall right over the tall diving platform. And then he had filled it with fish and water lilies.
At the water’s edge, Robin halted, lowering himself onto his stomach to lie between the colored lights on the cold stone so that he could stare at the water, smell it, and dangle his fingers in it to attract the fish.
“Boy kois, toy kois, fishies, fishies, fishies!” He wiggled his fingers and they came, the fishies, gold and red and bronze and black, kissing his fingers, looking for food. Finally his favorite arrived, the huge white one that everyone called the Professor. It had black circles around its eyes that looked like spectacles. He waited for it to mouth his fingers, then deftly he snatched the fish up in both hands and lifted it from the water.
“Hi, fishie, fishie!”
The koi barely wriggled in his powerful grip, and he fancied that it studied him as intently as he did it. Gently he kissed the creature, and found it cold and wet but full of life. Its odor was of algae and dark, cool water. It gasped, needing to breathe, suffocating on air, and quickly Robin ran his tongue over the creature’s scaly side, tasting salt and stagnant water. “ ’Bye, fish, go, fish,” he whispered, and thrust it into the water, watching until the sleek white shape disappeared into the bubbles of the waterfall on the far side of the pond.
He loved the fishes. On warm nights he’d slip into the water and swim with them. The thought made him remember Ricky, locked away up in their room, and he turned and gazed up at the bedroom window. The light was out, but he thought he saw the curtain move behind the glass. Hoping he was watching, Robin waved, then pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it behind him. A moment later, his shorts—the mother made them for him with a little fly and no leg holes—and underpants lay beside it. He waved again, loving the way the air felt against his skin.
Ribbet. At the sound of the frog, he flipped himself silently upright. Ribbet. Near, he thought. Ribbet. Near and nearer. Another frog answered, in a deeper voice, from somewhere near the waterfall. Still another joined in and another, and soon the air was full of ribbets and robbets, croaking music high and low and in between. Pleased, he listened to the symphony, and when it was at its peak, he rose on his hands and lifted all the way to his fingers, his version of tippy-toes. Fingers aching with effort, he moved silently around the pond to the rocky waterfall, watching for a frog. Despite the Malibu lights, it was difficult to spot even one, for they sought out the shadows.
The invisible singers continued their melody as Robin settled his body next to the waterfall. He waited, listening, and while he did, he glanced up at the house and saw the bedroom light come on. Icky Ricky was up for sure. Grinning, he thought his scaredy-cat brother probably had to go pee, because he always had to turn on the light before he could even get out of bed.
Ribbet ribbet. Something moved in the darkness, and suddenly, right in front of him, he saw the dark shape of a large amphibian. It hopped even closer, and Robin grabbed it, squeezing hard to keep it from slipping out of his grasp.
The other singers fell silent.
He touched the frog. smelled it and tasted it, then spat at the bitterness. Then he worked its legs, pumping them up and down, up and down, fascinated. Legs legs legs legs legs. He petted it, stuck his fingers in its mouth, and looked up and smiled when he saw Ricky’s silhouette in the bedroom window. Probably Ricky couldn’t see him right now, but he could certainly remedy that.
Sticking the frog’s legs in his mouth, ignoring the bitter, moldy flavor, he clamped his teeth down on them so that, no matter how hard it kicked, it couldn’t get away. He rose on his hands, moved around to the back of the waterfall, and nimbly climbed to the top.
Settling his body on the smooth stone just above the water spout, he waved at his brother. Icky Ricky saw him, but didn’t wave back. That was fine by Robin.
Legs legs legs legs legs. He took the frog from his mouth, wiping his lips and spitting, then held it up for Ricky to see, one little foot in each hand.
“Legs legs legs legs legs,” he whispered, holding the frog up above his head. Slowly he began to pull the legs apart. The frog made a sound, a funny little froggy-scream. Then, after a long moment, its skin made a ripping sound and the creature came apart. Blood spattered like raindrops across Robin’s face and into his open mouth. “Legs legs legs legs legs,” he said, tossing the dismembered halves into the pond.
He lifted himself up on his hands. “Icky Ricky, icky Ricky, come out and play,” he called, his voice melding with the waterfall and the night breeze. “Come out and swim with me.” Laughing, he propelled himself over the waterfall, into the pond, surprising the fishies, and washing frog’s blood from his skin. Legs legs legs legs legs.
7
June 1, Today
Locusts. The air hissed with their high, dry sounds, rasping, phoneline electric, screaming outside the car. Rick Piper cringed as he closed the window. He hated the locusts. He hated the desert.
Until he turned right on Vegas Boulevard and saw that the thermometer on the First Interstate Bank read 104 degrees, he wasn’t even aware that his shirt was plastered to his body. You’re losing it, Piper. Sighing, he loosened his tie, switched on the air conditioner, and let the chill air turn his sweat to ice.
Sinatra dobedob
edoed at him when he turned on the radio. Wincing—a reflex born in childhood—he switched to the news. The stations rarely played any music he liked, and carrying cassettes in the car in this heat was a bad idea; they melted.
The desert, thought Rick, sucks. Clear, sunny, and hot, the weatherman was saying, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It never changed. When he was a kid, he’d thought Southern California had no weather. Lord, had he been wrong about that.
If you don’t like it, you can move. He glanced at the envelope on the seat beside him. The letter from George McCall, his attorney, had arrived two weeks ago, and he still hadn’t answered it. He didn’t know how. It was about Aunt Jade and her deteriorating mental state, about the house and its own state of deterioration, about sewer lines, property taxes, and a host of other aggravations related to home ownership.
The house in Santo Verde provided all the frustrations and none of the benefits, but that was his own fault. Sell it, he thought. Put crazy old Jade in a rest home with part of the proceeds. He should have done it years ago, but he just kept putting it off. He’d had title to the place since his twenty-first birthday, but he hadn’t been back since he’d left for college. Time flies. He realized he hadn’t seen it in nearly twenty years.
LOOSE SLOTS! a computerized sign blazed as he passed. Shaking his head, he thought, You hate this place, for maybe the hundredth time since the letter had arrived and maybe the millionth since he’d moved here in ’82. You hate the heat. Christ it’s only June first and it’s over one hundred. He squinted into the sun, a headache coming on. You hate having your kids grow up here with gambling and drinking and sex advertised on every other billboard. Shelly’s attitudes had already been affected by her surroundings, and he knew it was only a matter of time before it rubbed off on Cody, too. He could take them back to Santo Verde, enroll them in good schools, fix up the house, and live a normal life again. That was something they hadn’t done since Laura was killed by a drunk driver, when Cody was barely a year old. The poor kid didn’t even remember his mother.
He’d been considering a move for sometime, and now the time had come to make the decision. His contract with the local station would be up for renewal at the end of the month, and though he liked doing the show, he didn’t need the work. Too, in the last few weeks, pressure from station management—a group of disturbingly sharp, closely related men who referred to themselves as “the boys”—to sign a contract that would tie him up for three years had increased to the point that he was coming home with headaches and acid stomach nearly every evening. Lately he’d been wondering if he might wake up some morning and find himself nose to nose with a horse’s head.
Moving to California to take care of family matters was something “the boys” would probably understand.
Since he’d started hosting the program, a show that was similar in style to “Consumer Crusader,” his syndicated newspaper column, he’d been away from home more often than not, leaving Shelly to her own questionable devices and Cody to sitters he never quite trusted. No, he didn’t need the show. Besides, if he really needed the money—or the ego gratification—he’d already been approached by a Los Angeles station about doing a five-minute spot several times a week on a local morning news show. It paid almost as well as his weekly half hour, required far less work, but unfortunately would require him to get up at three in the morning Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Still, it was his if he wanted.
All you need, Piper, is your column. Ten more newspapers had just contracted for “Crusader,” and that meant he’d soon be appearing in virtually every major metropolitan area in the nation every Sunday. What more could he need? And if he just did the column, he’d be home a lot more, which meant he wouldn’t feel so guilty all the time.
He knew the kids needed a more wholesome environment; a world-class gambling town wasn’t a fit place for a teenage girl or a little boy ready for kindergarten. It wasn’t a fit place for a single father, either. He shook his head. Better be careful, Piper, or you’ll talk yourself into this move.
Joe Piscopo, bulging with obscene, oily muscles, smiled smugly down at him from a billboard by the MGM. Yeah, Rick thought, he hated it here. Except for one thing, the one reason he had moved here in the first place: It never got dark on the Strip.
He turned left on Flamingo Road, wondering if he was ever going to stop carrying around a childhood fear of the dark—the greenjacks will get you if you don’t watch out. A simple fear of the dark ruled his life, deciding where he could or couldn’t live, letting it control his every move. Ridiculous.
Don’t think about it! Abruptly his memory tried to shut down, just as it always did when he thought too much about his past.
Not this time, he ordered himself. Not this time, no. He had to think about it because it was time—past time—for him to take control of his life. At. seventeen, when he first came here, his fear was ridiculous, but to continue to carry it around all these years was borderline psychotic, or something equally abnormal. “Hell,” he said, and hung another left.
A moment later, Rick pulled into the garage beneath the Paradise Towers, found a space, and parked. Home, sweet home. He stepped out of the air-conditioned Celica and into the shadowed, cloying heat. The air smelled like stale cigarettes—not just in the garage, but everywhere in the vicinity of the Strip. That was another good reason to return to California—not that the air was more healthful, it just smelled like it was, especially in Santo Verde in the spring when the citrus orchards were in full blossom. Despite himself, he smiled as he grabbed his briefcase, locked the car, and crossed to the elevator.
The refrigerated air in the hall on the fourteenth floor outside his apartment smelled like stale cigarettes, too, and spilled booze. “Shelly?” he called as he unlocked the door. “Shelly? You here?” Sometimes the ventilation screwed up and he’d wake up in the night smelling old smoke from Dakota and Lil’s apartment next door, or worse, dog-shit cigars from his other neighbor, a fat, froggy guy named Mancuso who worked weird hours and wore dark suits, even in August. “Shelly? Cody?” He tossed his briefcase on the couch.
Except for Quint, his huge orange cat, who was fast asleep in the center of the dining room table, the place was deserted. “Scat, cat!” he ordered by rote, and as usual, Quint blinked at him with utter boredom and went back to sleep. “Cheeky bastard,” Rick said, completing the ritual.
He glanced at his watch. Six-ten. Shelly had promised to pick up her brother by five and bring him straight home. Irritated, he dialed the sitter’s number and found out, as he expected, that Cody was still there.
The current sitter lived on the fifth floor, and precisely three minutes and forty-five seconds elapsed between the time Rick hung up the phone and when he rang the bell. Tapping his foot, checking his watch, waiting for the door to open, he realized that his darling daughter had been late coming home four nights out of five this week.
“Mr. Piper! Come in, come in!”
The door opened and Marlene Poom beamed at him through a blue tobacco haze,
“Mrs. Poom, I’m sorry about this.”
She took his arm and leaned familiarly against him. “I’m just going to have to take you over my knee and give you a good spanking if you don’t remember to call me Marlene,” she told him, batting her eyelashes.
Now, there was a horrifying thought. “Marlene,” he said quickly, “I don’t know what kept Shelly. She should have been here over an hour ago.”
Mrs. Poom, her big-boned face mummy brown from the desert and tautly stretched from the plastic surgeon, beamed at him and blew a smoke ring in his face. Rick was only five nine, and that gave old Marlene a good half inch on him. That was another good reason to move: Most of the women in the building were performers and stood about six foot four. Mrs. Poom claimed to be a former show girl herself—probably from around the time of the last gold rush. He tried to avoid another face full of smoke.
“Shelly’s a pretty young girl, and she probably has lots and lots of boyf
riends,” Marlene Poom was telling him.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Daddy!”
“Hey, Cody!” Rick squatted, and the little boy careened into his arms. The brim of his red cowboy hat smacked into Rick’s nose, bringing tears to his eyes. He stifled the urge to swear. Cody probably heard enough of that from Marlene.
Cody took his hug and pulled back, filled with dimples and glee. Except for the Piper dimples and dark blue eyes, the boy looked so much like his mother with his straight gold hair, full lower lip, and turned-up nose. Sometimes it hurt to look at him. He still missed her so much that sometimes in the middle of the night he’d wake up in a panic because he’d reach for her and she wasn’t there.
Mr. Piper. I’m afraid we have some bad news . . . Your wife’s been in an accident . . . A drunk driver on the wrong side of the divider . . . Sir, we think it would be best if you didn’t look at the body . . . He’d never seen her again, he knew Shelly still missed her and wished Cody could have known her . . . sweet Laura. Keep it up, Piper, and you’re going to lose it in front of the dragon lady! He cleared his throat. “I had a hard day, kid,” Rick grunted. “I need another hug.”
Cody obliged.
What if you take him to Santo Verde and he sees them too?
“Dad-dy!”
“Huh?” Rick plastered a smile on his face and focused on his son. Get a grip! There’s nothing to see!
“Lookit what Marlene gave me.” Cody dangled a pair of fuzzy pink dice in front of his eyes. “We went to Carnival Town today and played the racehorse game and Marlene won and she gave them to me. Wanna bet, Daddy? Double or nothing?”
Rick cringed. “Not today, buddy.” Carnival Town had a kiddieland above the casino with live circus acts, which were fine, and carnival games that somehow seemed harmless at a county fair but like a gamblers’ training center inside the casino. He glanced at Marlene Poom, who smiled at him as she lit a fresh cigarette off the old one. “Uh, Marlene, I’d really prefer that you don’t take Cody into the casinos.”
Bad Things Page 6