Mr. X

by Peter Straub

  She wiped tears off her cheeks and smiled at the other side of the room. “We have gone through childhood, such as it was, which means we come to the next really good part, adolescence. Esther went to Fairfax, and I went to L.A. High, so I never saw her again, but L.A. High was full of dopers, you could get anything you wanted. One day in English class, I said to the teacher, ‘I’m the Queen of Heaven, and you’re a pimple on the ass of God.’ My exact words. She threw me out of class. I started walking home. But home wasn’t home, it was just the dump where I lived with Morry. I stood right where I was for about four hours. When a cop drove up and asked me my name, I told him I was the Queen of Heaven.”

  Laurie started giggling, and more tears spilled from her eyes. I brushed them off with the tips of my fingers. “Thank you. I wound up in the hospital. At least I told the cops about Morry, and Morry went to the slammer, three cheers for the L.A. child-welfare system.

  “There isn’t much to say about the hospital except I started getting a little more clarity. A wonderful man named Dr. Deering, a psychiatrist who was about sixty years old, told me I had a placement in a halfway house, but he and his wife would take me in, if I liked the idea. Dr. Deering was the only man in the world I trusted, and I only trusted him a little bit, but I said I’d give it a try. And after that, everything was different. No matter how paranoid and suspicious I got, they were always patient. I understood the deal, you know? I said to myself, These are nice people, and they’re probably your last chance to have a decent life. Don’t mess up.”

  Laurie drank some wine, and her face filled with resentment. “To Stewart Hatch, of course, this means I was some kind of parasite. But I loved the Deerings. I was this person I can hardly remember anymore, and they took care of me. They hired tutors. They suffered through dinners when I screamed at them. They talked to me. When I learned how to act like a normal person, they put me in a private school and helped with my homework. College seemed completely remote, so when I graduated, they found me a job as a receptionist at a medical center in San Francisco. David and Patsy Deering. God bless them.”

  We clinked glasses.

  “Did Stewart tell you I ran away? He did, didn’t he?”

  I said I didn’t remember.

  “Dr. Deering drove me to San Francisco. We found an apartment. I called them at least once a week for the next year, when I guess God decided to drop me into the hole again. David and Patsy were killed in an automobile accident, driving home from a party. It was terrible. When I came back from their funeral, I was so depressed I hardly got out of bed for a month. No more job, of course. So there I was, feeling like something the cat threw up, but I stumbled into a job in an art gallery, and one night at an opening I happened to meet Teddy Wainwright.

  “Stewart undoubtedly implied that I took advantage of Teddy. There’s no point in going over the whole thing, but I realized later, of course I fell in love with an older man, I couldn’t have fallen in love with anything but an older man. Teddy was a father figure, so what? He loved me. Oh, God, Teddy did, he did love me. I think … Teddy helped me put myself together just by being such a great guy. I wish he was still alive, so I could introduce you to him. You would have liked each other.”

  “Back when you first met Stewart, did he remind you of Teddy Wainwright?”

  Laurie slid closer and collapsed against my shoulder. “Wasn’t that dumb? Hmm. On second thought, I don’t like this. You’re too perceptive.”

  “You don’t dislike it that much.”

  She put her hand on my thigh. “The guy was from this town in the middle of nowhere. He seemed sort of square, but I thought that was almost charming, in a way. Little did I know how sick he was. He is sick, he likes hurting people.” Laurie swung her arm across my chest and pressed her face against mine. Her body felt as hot as a feverish child’s.

  95

  After midnight, I rolled over and noticed a shape beside the bed. Stewart, I thought, and shot upright. Stewart Hatch moved toward me and bent down to reveal Robert’s grinning face.

  “Want to change places?” he whispered.

  “Get out. No, don’t. I have to talk to you.”

  Laurie mumbled, “Whuzz?”

  “I’m going downstairs for a glass of milk,” I said, and she lapsed back into sleep.

  I slipped into my shirt and pants. The gun, which I had hidden beneath my trousers, went into one of the blazer’s pockets. Robert kept grinning at me. My limitations amused him.

  We padded past Posy’s and Cobbie’s bedrooms and down the stairs. I switched on the light over the butcher-block counter and took a glass to the liquor cabinet, where I found a half-empty liter of Johnnie Walker Black.

  Robert eased into one of the chairs in the alcove. “Does our Laurie have a tendency to hit the bottle? You’re putting away more than usual, too.”

  “Maybe a little. It’s been a hell of a week.” I lifted the glass. “Anyhow, to Toby Kraft. I guess he was a crook, but he sure did his best for Star. And me, come to think of it.”

  “Certainly looks that way,” Robert said.

  A little belligerently, I took the chair opposite his. “That’s interesting. I want to explore what you mean by that remark, but first you have to keep your mouth shut and listen to me. Last night, you were waiting for me in my room, looking at Rinehart’s book. You said something like, ‘Old Dad was a lousy writer, wasn’t he?’ How did you know Rinehart was our father? I didn’t tell you.”

  “Am I allowed to talk now? How did I learn about Rinehart? The same way you did, I suppose. From Star. You’re not her only son, after all.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Don’t forget, you had dinner up in the lounge with Nettie and May.”

  “And you came to the hospital?”

  “How do you think the poker money wound up in your pocket? Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I couldn’t resist. Then I went in and said goodbye to Star, and she told me about Rinehart. Obviously, she was going to tell you the same thing. I was sure I could count on you to take it from there. For all your flaws, you’re a dependable lad.”

  I could only stare at him. “You knew you could count on me.”

  “To take the next step. I’ll shut up again, and you can fill me in.”

  “Oh, I’ll fill you in,” I said. “Edward Rinehart was Howard Dunstan’s son. I’m pretty sure he was illegitimate. He’s been looking for us most of our lives.” I described what Howard Dunstan had said to me by pretending that I had heard it from Joy. I told him about meeting Max Edison at the V.A. Hospital with Laurie. “Edison was still afraid of Rinehart, and so was Toby. Toby didn’t want me to mention his name. I’ll never say this to Laurie, but I think we got him killed. She said his name.”

  Robert absorbed it all. “You don’t know that Rinehart killed Toby Kraft, and you shouldn’t blame yourself. You thought Rinehart was dead. Besides, Toby was in a dangerous profession, and I don’t mean pawnbroking. Concentrate on being grateful for the money he left you.”

  “How do you know about that, I wonder?”

  “I went into his safe, remember? When I took out Hatch’s papers, I came across Toby’s will and his insurance policies. With the real estate, it must come to about two million. Think of it as your dowry.”

  “Too bad I gave most of it away,” I said.

  Robert looked at me in genuine dismay. Then his eyes narrowed and his mouth lifted in a smile. “You’re joking.”

  I told him about asking Creech to divide the money.

  “What possessed you to do a ridiculous thing like that?”

  I explained and said, “After all, Star should have inherited the money, not me.”

  “I wish I didn’t believe it. Did the lawyer suggest that the money revert to you when the old girls kick the bucket?”

  “C. Clayton Creech doesn’t miss a trick.”

  “Could be another twenty years.”

  “The aunts don’t spend money,” I said. “They use a one-way barter syst
em.”

  “Once they get their hands on a few hundred thousand, they might turn into model citizens. I can see Clark buying the biggest car in sight. Joy will put Clarence in a nursing home. Eventually, all three are going to wind up in nursing homes.”

  “Good,” I said. “If they need nursing homes, they’ll be able to afford decent ones. That’s what the money is for.”

  “It was supposed to be yours. Ours.”

  “I hope you’re not thinking of killing them for it,” I said. What I thought was a joke earned me a sizzling glance of disgust. Robert shook his head and looked away.

  “Robert, you didn’t kill Toby, did you?”

  He sighed and shook his head again. “I should give up on you.”

  “Tell me you didn’t murder him because you knew I would inherit his money.”

  “It would get you off the hook, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t have any reason to wallow in guilt, or to blame Laurie.”

  I thought about the timing of Toby’s death, and the world seemed to stop moving.

  “But to answer your question, no. I did not murder Toby Kraft. Sorry, you’ll have to live with your guilt.”

  “When I found him, he was sitting at his desk. Which means that he was killed before he went upstairs to his apartment. He was already dead by the time you got there.”

  “Not a pretty sight. But then, Toby never was much to look at. I wish you hadn’t given away three-fourths of his estate.”

  “A shadow doesn’t need money,” I said.

  “How would you know? I’m getting tired of being on the edges. I’d like more stability, more continuity. You’re my retirement plan. My pension fund.”

  “You could go into any bank in the world and walk out with a fortune. Why bother setting me up with Ashleigh Ashton and Laurie Hatch?”

  “I promised Star I’d look out for you. She didn’t warn you about me, did she? Once we get past our birthday, we can carry on, apart and together, together and apart, for the rest of our lives.”

  I did not believe Robert. “This afternoon, I walked past a bar called the Peep Inn and saw you talking to a girl. Something happened to me. I started to disappear.”

  “I disappear all the time. How far did it get?”

  “I could see through my hands.”

  “No one ever prepared you for certain aspects of Dunstan life. Probably means you’re getting a little stronger.”

  “Did it have anything to do with seeing you?”

  “You’re seeing me now. More to the point, I can also see you.”

  “The day I came here, you were in bed with a woman, and I felt everything you did. I was making love to a woman who wasn’t there.”

  Robert’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” He was not unhappy to have this information.

  “You didn’t know you were doing it.”

  “No.” He smiled. “That’s an interesting phenomenon.” The whites of his eyes seemed whiter, and his teeth shone as if they came to points. When he noticed my unease, he moved out of the chair. “Don’t plan on seeing me at the funeral, but I’ll be there. Tomorrow night we’ll discuss our birthday. In the meantime, please try to stay alive.”

  “Don’t underestimate me, Robert,” I said.

  “I’m not sure I could.” He gave me an ironic smile and faded through the door like a phantom.

  I regarded the back door. It consisted of a tall wooden panel separated into two equal portions by a recessed horizontal division. I stood up, walked around the table, and aimed my index finger at the center of the upper panel. My finger met solid wood. Telling myself I was a Dunstan, I tried to will my finger through the surface of the door. My fingertip flattened and bent upward.

  96

  I sat at Laurie’s table, staring at my glass and thinking about my brother, my shadow, whose absence had shaped the entire course of my life. He had known what would happen to me at Middlemount and saved me from death by starvation or exposure—it was Robert who had flirted with Horst while I was drinking myself into a stupor. He had set up my encounter with Ashleigh because he knew it would lead to dinner with Laurie Hatch at Le Madrigal. Yet he had not known that I would give away three-quarters of what had come to me from Toby Kraft, and he had been surprised to hear of my visit to New Providence Road. Robert wanted me to think that he knew everything about me, but he had not known about my semidisappearance on Word Street or my new ability to eat time.

  Robert seemed blind to the moments when I acted in accordance with my Dunstan legacy, especially what had come directly from Star. Virtually everything I had learned since arriving in Edgerton distanced me from his unseen claim on my being. The parts of myself least familiar to me were out of his range.

  But Robert had been delighted to hear that I’d participated in his sexual adventures and had watched my hands disappear on Word Street—maybe he wanted me to disappear altogether. For thirty-five years, Robert had lived on the fringes of human existence like a starving wolf: what could be more natural than that he demand more? Did I think he intended to marry Laurie Hatch, get his hands on Stewart’s family trust, and then dispose of both Laurie and Cobbie? A final sip of whiskey made this farfetched idea almost entirely implausible. Yet enough of it lingered so that I could not spend the night in Laurie’s bed.

  97

  I put on the rest of my clothes in the dark. In a sleepy voice, Laurie said, “You’re always going somewhere.”

  “I have to be ready for the funeral.”

  She raised her head for a kiss.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “That’s what the guy last night said.”

  I drove on past dark houses to the highway. Eighteen-wheelers loomed up from behind like yellow-eyed monsters and swung out to wash by before sailing ahead to become red dots poised at the edge of infinity. A handful of cars ghosted along the streets of Edgerton. I found a parking place in front of the Speedway, crossed the street, and entered Turnip Lane.

  In my haste, I nearly stumbled over a figure like a heap of discarded clothes. I bent down, thinking that if he was Piney Woods, I would give him the price of a bed at the Hotel Paris. The odors of unwashed flesh and alcohol floated up from a stranger with matted hair and scabs on his cheeks. His eyelids twitched, as if he sensed me looking at him. Somewhere near, a man snored in bursts like the starting and stopping of a chain saw.

  On Leather Lane, a man reeled out of a doorway and collapsed facedown on the cobbles. A woman’s voice rose from a basement room, saying, It’s always the same, always the same. It is always the same, exact story, and I’m sick of it. Somewhere a toilet flushed. Under the feeble illumination of an iron street lamp, I turned into Fish.

  I had gone about thirty feet between the huddled buildings when, in a signal as old as childhood, someone whistled two notes, the second an octave down from the first. I turned around and saw an empty lane. I turned back. About twenty feet away, Joe Staggers was lurching into Fish out of Lavender Lane. He laughed, steadied himself, and planted his feet.

  “Well. Well, now. Looks like party time.” With the fluidity of practice, Staggers drew a knife from his back pocket and snapped his wrist. The blade locked into place with a heavy metallic clunk.

  I looked over my shoulder. Yuk Yuk—Shorty—stood beneath the light at the other end.

  “Are you ready, Dunstan? Are you, little pal?” Staggers said. “No fancy bullshit tonight.” He stepped forward.

  I yanked the pistol out of the holster, pushed down the safety, and aimed at Staggers. “Stop right there.” I looked at Shorty, who had not moved, and chambered the first bullet. “Drop the knife.”

  “Whoa, boy. Are you gonna shoot me?”

  “If I have to.” I swung the pistol across the front of my body and pointed it at Shorty. “Get out of here. Now.”

  “He won’t shoot,” Staggers said. “That’s Gospel.”

  “He busted in Minor’s head,” Shorty said.

  “This guy never fired a gun in his life. But he chea
ted us out of our money, in case you forgot.”

  “Not enough money to get killed for.”

  I swung the barrel back to Staggers. He had advanced a couple of feet.

  “Forget the money, think about being a man for a change,” Staggers said. “If he shoots anybody, it’ll be me.”

  I looked at Shorty without taking the gun off Staggers. When I glanced back at Staggers, he was in a crouch, his arms at his sides, smiling at me. “Shorty,” I said, “take off while you can.”

  Staggers said, “Fancy boy ain’t gonna hit anything. Come ahead.”

  I heard Shorty take a hesitant step forward, rotated, and aimed at his chest. Then I sighted an inch to the left and pulled the trigger. A red flare came from the barrel, and the explosion kicked the pistol upward. The bullet smacked into a brick wall, ricocheted across the lane, and struck a boarded window. Shorty lumbered off. I chambered another round and heard the shell case ping off a cobble.

  Still crouching, Joe Staggers was within four yards of me, the knife edge-up in his lightly extended hand. “Missed him on purpose, you dipshit.”

  “I won’t miss you,” I said.

  “Suppose I drop the knife and you drop the gun. Suppose we take it from there.”

  “Suppose you get out of here before I put a bullet in your head,” I said.

  A crablike step brought him closer.

  I aimed the pistol at his forehead. “Put it down.”

  “Guess I’ll do that.”

  Staggers lowered his knife hand, glanced up at me, and vaulted forward, like a frog. I aimed at the big plaid shape speeding over the cobbles. There was a flash of red, an explosion, the sound of a bullet pinging off a stone. Staggers rammed into my legs and knocked me onto my back.

  Now, I thought, do it now!

  My stomach cramped. Pain blossomed in my head. The fabric of the world melted into yielding softness, and I fell through sixty years, more or less, with Joe Staggers clinging to my legs.