The Crimson Sky

by Joel Rosenberg

  So he picked up the newspaper again.

  10:57.

  Okay. If you couldn’t do anything useful in a given situation, it made sense to do something else, even if that something was only entertaining yourself. If you were needed, you’d be more useful well-rested than you would with nails bitten down to your wrists.

  An idle thought crossed his mind. After all, if the two of them really needed to relax …

  No. Not a good idea. He and Maggie were here to watch out for each other, and that wouldn’t count as watching out. Besides, there was something vaguely obscene about the idea.

  And, more to the point, Maggie would say no.

  More clatter from the kitchen.

  He found he had been reading the same line in a story about the Vikings over and over again, and couldn’t even keep it in his head long enough to consider what it meant. And who cared, anyway? A bunch of bull-necked millionaires in tight pants fighting over a football.

  Shit. He leaned back and closed his eyes tightly.

  Torrie was trying to relax his neck muscles when the phone on the coffee table next to him rang, and he thought he was going to jump out of his skin.

  “Don’t pick it up!” Maggie shouted from the kitchen. “I’ll get it.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Torrie shot back, irritated. It was Maggie’s phone, after all, and if she was afraid that her parents would call, find some guy answering the phone, and draw all the right conclusions, well, so be it.

  On the other hand, the two of them shouting at each other was not okay; it looked like Torrie wasn’t the only one on edge.

  He rose and walked to the kitchen, to apologize.

  “… oh, no, Daddy—everything’s fine. It’s just been a long day—tests and stuff…”

  Sorry I snapped at you, Torrie mouthed. I’m just a little on edge.

  A little? That was like saying that if you slam a hammer on your thumb, it’s going to sting a touch.

  She kept talking into the phone as she raised her hand, and smiled and nodded, mouthing “It’s okay” during a pause in her side of the conversation. Torrie backed out of the kitchen, closing the usually open swinging door behind him to give her at least the illusion of some privacy while she talked to her father.

  That was nicely done, if I do say so myself, he thought. Yes, she had snapped at him first, and she hadn’t apologized, and probably wouldn’t. But that was part of getting along with Maggie, and he could live with that. All you had to do was be willing to let her be right even when she was in the wrong, and while she wouldn’t come out and admit that she was equally or more at fault—not directly—she knew that she had been.

  It was one of the reasons he had never worried about Ian and Maggie, not even when he had first started seeing her. There had been a bit of a temptation to be uneasy—Maggie had just started fencing then, and Ian was always better with a foil than Torrie was—but Torrie had quickly realized that not only was Ian focused on other matters, but that his stiff-neckedness was definitely a turnoff for Maggie.

  It wasn’t a problem for Torrie; doing right had always been a lot more important to him than being right, and one of the things you learned early living in a small town was that you couldn’t afford the luxury of always being right, not only because you weren’t, but because it was much more important to get along with your neighbors, because neither you nor they were going anywhere, taking bad blood with you.

  Shit, Torrie had learned that one so early that he hadn’t even realized it until he’d started college and found himself among a bunch of city folk, a lot of who figured that it didn’t much matter if you didn’t get along with the guy down the hall or down the stairs, because neither of you was going to be around the other long.

  It seemed to get worse, the bigger the city was. New York was—

  Bzzzzt. He spun around at the sound of the doorbell, his right hand dropping to where the hilt of his sword should have been.

  Who the hell was dropping by? A Son, perhaps, hoping to find them defenseless?

  He swung back through the kitchen door.

  Could you get that? she mouthed.

  “Everything okay?” he whispered.

  She frowned disapprovingly at his having talked. “Hang on a second, Daddy—I’ve got to turn down a pot on the stove.” She held the receiver against her chest. “It’s just some family stuff,” she said, quietly. “Can you get the door?”

  “Yes,” he said, just as quietly, “and I’ll do that just as soon as I see a gun in your hand.”

  It’s not paranoid to be concerned when you’ve got Sons seeking your blood. Ringing the doorbell in front, then running around the back and crashing in that way might not be the most subtle of deceptions, but if it worked …

  She frowned and reached behind her back, coming out with a small automatic, which she held properly, her finger outside the trigger guard. “Happy?” She turned her back on him and brought the phone back to her ear.

  Torrie bounded for the front door and the stairs, pausing only to grab his coat and use it to cover the snubnose. Answering the door with a sword in his hand was the sort of thing that was liable to get you talked about.

  The man out in the cold looked familiar, but it took Torrie a moment to place him. He was wearing a black leather trench coat with the belt tied around the waist, not buckled, and a hat that looked like it was something that Sam Spade would have worn pulled down low over the eyes, either for effect or to protect against the wind.

  But then Billy Olson raised his head and smiled, and Torrie relaxed and reached for the doorknob.

  The cold wind accompanied Billy inside.

  “Billy,” Torrie said, “I’m sorry. For a moment, I didn’t recognize you.”

  “If you’ll invite me in and feed me some hot cocoa, I’ll be happy to change into dungarees and a T-shirt, if that’ll make you feel better.” Billy pulled the front door closed behind him, waiting for the click before he turned back. “Honestly, Torrie, I thought I was going to freeze to death out there, waiting for you to answer the door.”

  “I said I was sorry, and I am, honest. Come on up,” Torrie said, adjusting the jacket around the pistol. This wasn’t a great time for a visit, but there was no way to say that, and he wasn’t about to leave Billy out in the cold.

  “If you’re on your way out, I’m glad I caught you,” Billy said. “It’s fucking cold out there; you’ll need more than a light jacket.”

  Torrie patted at the jacket. “Nah. It’s not that.” Then what is it? Quickly, quickly. “A friend of Maggie’s was going to be dropping by with some tools, and I figured I’d help him carry them in.”

  “Some things never change,” Billy said.

  “Eh?”

  “Never mind.”

  Torrie had always liked Billy Olson, but Billy had never quite gotten over the image of Torrie as the little kid that used to tag along with him and Jeff and Davy, and if Billy was talking about things that had never changed, being irritating hadn’t changed, either.

  “It’s good to see you,” Torrie said, which was only the polite thing to say, after all. But then he realized that it was true.

  “I was just thinking that myself,” Billy said with a quirked smile.

  Torrie led Billy inside the apartment, and while Billy had his back turned, removing his coat, Torrie stuck the pistol in his right pants pocket and pulled his shirt out of his pants to cover the butt of the gun.

  That was the trouble with these damn things. You had to worry about hiding them, because in the city, at least, if anybody saw somebody with a gun, they’d piss all over themselves in panic, as though it was some sort of metallic demon that would leap up and bite them without warning.

  Which was exactly backwards. A good sword, even a good practice epée, had a kind of soul, a spirit to it. It came alive in your hand, leaping and moving swiftly and surely, as though of its own volition, its forte and foible coming to your defense, its tip probing for weakness, like an extension o
f your finger.

  But a gun was just a piece of dead metal. Point it, pull the trigger, and there was a loud sound and a hole somewhere. If you’d pointed it right, maybe the hole was even in what you were pointing at.

  Maggie came through the swinging kitchen door, her right hand behind her back for just a moment.

  “Billy!” she almost squealed, as though they were long-lost friends.

  “Hello, Maggie,” Billy said. “I was in the neighborhood, and I figured I’d drop by and say hi for just a moment. If that isn’t a problem—if the two of you aren’t on your way out somewhere, or… busy with something?”

  She laughed at Torrie’s obvious discomfort. “No, we’re spending a quiet evening in,” she said, gesturing at the pieces of the Stickley buffet, neatly laid out on spread newspaper. “Working on some refinishing.”

  Pleasantries exchanged, hot cocoa for Billy and coffee for Torrie and Maggie poured and tasted, Billy sat back on the couch, next to Maggie, and looked from Torrie to Maggie, and then back again.

  “I guess I could have called,” Billy said, “but I couldn’t find a number for you, Maggie.”

  “It’s under my roommate’s name,” she said, as she sipped at her coffee. “But you’re welcome to have it—do you have a memory like Torrie’s, or should I write it down?”

  “Paper, please.”

  They all sat quietly while she found a small notebook and a Bic pen in the scattering of newspapers and magazines on the coffee table, opened the notebook, and wrote down the number.

  “I think this is one of those awkward silences,” Billy said, his smile too light, too easy.

  “Shit, Billy…”

  “Such language, Torrie.” I could ask you why you haven’t called or stopped by in the past three years, Billy’s expression said. “No,” he said, lifting a palm, “I’m not here to give you a hard time, although there is a temptation. I guess it’s partly because I enjoyed tweaking Jeff a little bit with Maggie…”

  Maggie snickered. “You should have seen him, Torrie. He looked like he was going to jump out of his skin.”

  “You have a mean streak, Maggie,” Billy said. “I like that.”

  Torrie felt disloyal sitting and listening to the two of them making fun of Jeff, while Jeff was out using himself like a worm on a hook, hoping that the Son would bite at the right wriggle.

  Torrie glared at Maggie, who ignored him.

  “That’s not fair,” Torrie said. “And you know it. Both of you know it.” So much for getting along, and not insisting on being right.

  But it was unfair.

  “Life is unfair,” Billy said. “I don’t mind the city. In fact, I like it. There’s a lot here that I… didn’t know about.” He lifted a finger. “And I’m not just talking about men, either.” He shrugged and sighed. “I just wish I felt like I could go home, every now and then.”

  Oh, dammit, Billy. You always have to be so—“You can come home any time you want to,” Torrie said. “If your folks don’t have the room—”

  “They do. And you know Mom and Dad. They might find it awkward to have me around. People will talk.”

  Torrie didn’t know the details around Billy’s leaving. It had something to do, he was fairly sure, with something that had happened with one of the Quist twins. He knew that Billy and Nathan had gotten caught by somebody doing something, and didn’t really want to know anything more. Both Billy and Nathan had gone off to the city to finish high school, and Torrie hadn’t seen Billy since.

  Everybody knew, of course. But you didn’t rub people’s noses in it.

  “You’re always welcome in my home,” Torrie said. “And you know that. But I can’t make you feel comfortable”.

  Billy bit his lip; he closed his eyes and held up his hand. “Please don’t tell me about being comfortable or uncomfortable until you’ve… minced about in my shoes.” Billy was angry, but he was still Billy. “That’s not really what I’m here about, although if you want to meet for coffee sometime and talk—about that, or about anything else—it’ll be good to see you.”

  “If not that, then what?”

  “What do you think? Jeff Bjerke shows up on my front door, and needs a place to stay but can’t—or won’t—talk about what he’s doing in town. Obviously there’s some problem, and a serious one, or he wouldn’t even be here, much less taking a shower in a bathroom where he’s afraid to drop the soap.”

  Maggie nodded. “I see.”

  Torrie didn’t. “It’s nothing that I can talk about; I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, we never talk about Private Family Secrets, whether it’s a couple of strangers who move to town, one of whom doesn’t even speak the language—or Bob Aarsted all of a sudden having a teenaged daughter that nobody’s ever seen before, from a first marriage that nobody ever heard of before; or that queer Olson boy who disappears because there really is no place for queers in a little town, is there?” When Billy got this angry, his voice had a hint of the old Norski accent that his mom and dad still had, even though neither of them actually spoke any Norwegian.

  “But I know,” Billy went on. “We don’t discuss any of it. We keep our secrets. And I’m not asking for any secrets, Torrie.” Was that a tear in the corner of Billy’s right eye?

  “I’m not asking you to tell me anything,” Billy said. “I don’t need to know anything. I didn’t come over here to pry any of your precious secrets out of you—or to share any of mine, for that matter. I didn’t walk here in the freezing cold for gossip, although I’ll tell you that I really, really miss gossip from home. I’m just asking,” Billy said, his words shaming Torrie with every syllable, “I’m just asking if there’s anything I can do to help. I—”

  He was interrupted by a loud, liquid scream from outside, high and terrified.

  Torrie was on his feet in an instant, Maggie barely a fraction of a second behind.

  Again, somebody screamed outside.

  Billy had gone city; he was already reaching for the phone, punching 911. It was a city thing, but not a bad idea.

  “Yes,” he said, “the alley behind Bryant, just south of Lake. Somebody outside just screamed, I mean really screamed. No, I don’t know …”

  Billy’s eyes widened as he saw Torrie and Maggie, both with guns in their hands.

  Torrie shut off the lights in the kitchen and moved to the back door, unbolted it.

  The damn hallway window frosted over immediately. Shit, shit, shit.

  Maggie lived in a quiet neighborhood, for the city, but this was a city, after all.

  Again, the scream came, high and shrill.

  Shit. Back home, there would be people all over the place by now, but this wasn’t home.

  And the timing of this was very suspicious.

  “No, no, it’s not in here, it’s outside,” Billy’s voice was shrill and penetrating. He was scared, but he was functioning, and Torrie was distantly ashamed of himself for the vague sense of surprise at that.

  “To the south, in the alley, I think. I don’t know—no, I won’t stay on the line; I’m going to go see what’s happening and see if somebody needs help. Just get the police here, and quickly.”

  “Torrie?” Maggie was framed in the doorway of her bedroom. “I can’t see anything out there. The windows are too frosted.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “Billy,” he said, still rubbing his hand against the window, “get in here, and bring my cue case.”

  He had expected some argument, some discussion—it was Billy, after all—but Billy was there, with Torrie’s cue case in hand. Torrie handed him the snubnose and took the cue case in hand. “Okay, both of you. Stay together, and watch where you point those things.”

  He had his sword in his hand, and while there wasn’t much in the universe you could count on, you could count on being able to follow the point of your sword out into the night.

  You had to.

  He took the stairs two at a time, then forced himself to slow down. This wasn’t a time
to be tripping down the stairs and breaking a leg.

  The bolt on the outside door was intact, and the landlord’s damn dog was nowhere to be seen. Not that Torrie blamed it. He would rather have been somewhere else. Almost anywhere else.

  He didn’t wait for Billy and Maggie—he wanted them behind him, not ahead of him—as he pushed on the door. Damn thing had frozen shut; he hit it hard with his shoulder once, twice, then took a step back and kicked at it, flat-footed, right under the lock.

  Wood splintered and ice cracked as it gave. He had expected the door to fly open when it gave, but it stuck, again, only a few inches open, probably on some hunk of ice or snow, so he kicked it again, harder.

  As he lunged out into the backyard behind the point of his sword, bright lights came on overhead, dazzling his eyes. The asshole of a landlord had put motion-sensor lights not just on the apartment building itself but also on a post of the backyard fence, although Torrie couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to.

  The gate to the fence hung open, which was not the way it had been left before dark—Dad had made sure it was latched—and he dashed through, counting on Maggie and Billy to deal with anything that he had left behind him. There were times to go slowly and carefully, and there were times when you just had to launch yourself headfirst into things.

  With any luck, this was one of those times.

  He slid on ice that lined the wheel ruts of the alley, barely keeping his balance, riding in and out of the ruts like a skier on a set of moguls, his feet solidly underneath him. He hadn’t questioned why Dad had had them spar outside sometimes during the winter, but he hadn’t thought much about why, either.

  Thanks, Dad.

  Dark, backlit faces peered over the edge of the fence across the alley, and somewhere off in the distance a car alarm was hooting. He held his sword down and out, the flat of the blade pointing skyward. With no light flashing off it at them, it was unlikely that the bystanders would even notice that he had a sword.

  But where had the scream come from? He had thought that the sound had come from down the alley, and he wasn’t doing any good standing here freezing in the cold, so he broke into a quick trot down the alley.