The Third Victim

by Collin Wilcox

  And then the bedroom door had burst open. His mother had tumbled into the dark room, fallen to her knees, struggled to her feet. In the light from the hallway, her jaw-broken face had been a stranger’s, lopsided, bloodied. Screaming, she’d pawed at the tangled blankets until she’d finally found him. Trailing a long white bedsheet across the littered floor, she’d carried him out into the blinding light of the hallway, staggering. His father’s figure had loomed suddenly, reeling toward them. He’d felt the shock of a blow crashing into his mother’s body, felt himself falling with her, striking the floor. Looking up, he’d seen his father’s foot swinging forward to crash into his mother’s body, lying close beside him. Crawling, he’d reached the first door—a closet door. Inside the pitch-black closet, listening, he’d heard nothing but the wet, heavy sound of breathing, just outside the door. Was it his mother, dying? Was it his father, panting like a raging animal?

  He couldn’t cry out—couldn’t sob. He could only lie on the floor, eyes fixed on the line of light at the bottom of the door. The darkness surrounded him like something solid, pressing him down—like black, heavy dirt, shoveled into a grave.

  He hadn’t heard the police come—hadn’t heard them taken away: his mother on a stretcher, unconscious, his father in handcuffs, a drunken, raving prisoner. When he’d opened his eyes, he could see only the blackness. Behind his eyes, in front of his eyes, the blackness was the same. The line of light at the bottom of the door came only with daytime. It had been two days, someone said, before they’d found him—two days before his mother could talk and tell them where to find him. When they’d come for him, one of the policemen, swearing, had said softly, “It’s like he’s an animal. A goddamn animal. Just smell him.”

  They’d taken him to a shelter—to a tiny cubicle with white walls and a white floor. And when his mother had finally come for him, her head had been mummy-bandaged. She’d—

  Footsteps were creaking close overhead—two pairs of heavy footsteps. The front door was opening. A man’s voice, rumbling, was saying, “Good-bye, Mr. Rossiter. I’ll be in touch.” Now the door was closing. The child’s footsteps were coming—lightly, swiftly.

  Mr. Rossiter…

  Her husband?

  Had it been her husband last night, shouting in the darkness? Had her husband come back?

  The others were moving out. Leaving. Afraid of Tarot, they were packing their belongings in boxes and barrels and moving out. But her husband had come back. Why?

  TAROT HYSTERIA GRIPS CITY

  Standing still now, directly above, the man and the boy were talking softly. The boy’s voice was high, excited. The man’s voice was lower, slower. They were talking about the beach—about time, about hurrying.

  And about Tarot.

  The boy’s voice, excited, was talking about Tarot. Other words, other phrases were lost. But “Tarot,” over and over, came clearly down through the floor.

  And Tarot, listening, could smile.

  Because, once more, Tarot could control them. Once more, force fields followed force fields, locked into phase. Tarot’s energy patterns overlapped all others, forcing their alignment. Even if the miniature sword on his desk was touched by hostile hands, the patterns would hold. Everything was in phase.

  Because finally the energy was Tarot’s.

  Entirely Tarot’s now.

  Ipso.

  Kevin watched the detective gingerly slip the knife, still open, into the clear plastic bag, using his handkerchief to hold it. It was a hackneyed sequence from the Late-Late Show: the burly, beetle-browed detective, the clean white handkerchief held so delicately in stubby fingers, the knife with its long, lethal blade, disappearing now into the detective’s inside pocket.

  Besides his own, whose fingerprints would be found?

  He watched Connoly moving purposefully toward him, walking down the hallway from the kitchen. At the door of his room, Josh’s hopeful face peeped out. With his door open, the boy had doubtless heard the entire interrogation.

  Catching Connoly’s eyes, Kevin mutely petitioned for the boy’s release. Connoly nodded permission. Avidly watching, Josh immediately came to stand beside him, slightly behind.

  “Well,” Connoly said heavily, stepping around the untidy pile of Josh’s beach paraphernalia, “I guess that about does it, Mr. Rossiter. I’ll take this downtown.” He gestured to the concealed knife. “And we’ll see what the lab says. Will you be here all day?”

  “I—yes. Most of the day. We were just going to the beach. But we’ll be back in an hour or—”

  “We don’t have to go, Daddy. I’d rather stay here.”

  Unexpectedly, Connoly was smiling down at the boy. “Go ahead, sonny. You go to the beach. Enjoy yourself.” With his amorphous nose and slightly flattened lips, the detective looked like a boxer might, brokenly smiling.

  Was this implacable policeman a family man—a doting grandfather, perhaps? Until that moment, it had seemed impossible.

  “But I saw Tarot last night, too,” Josh insisted. “I saw him right there—right behind you. So you should ask me questions too.”

  Connoly turned, looked gravely at the spot opposite Josh’s doorway, then turned back to face the boy.

  “That was me, Josh,” Kevin interposed quickly. And to the detective: “He saw me in the hallway last night.”

  “But it was someone else,” Josh protested. “It was. I saw him.”

  “Tarot, you mean.” Connoly’s face was expressionless. It was a masterful performance, mock-seriously going along with the boy’s game.

  Josh nodded vehemently. “Tarot. I told them.”

  “This was in the middle of the night. Right?”

  Again Josh nodded.

  Connoly glanced speculatively from son to father, then back to the son. “You just saw a shape, I guess. A man’s shape in the hallway here. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Josh admitted.

  “It could’ve been anyone.”

  Frowning now, Josh reluctantly agreed. Then: “But I saw a man riding that kind of a motorcycle, too. Just like the one you asked my daddy about.”

  “When was that?” Connoly asked equably, at the same time glancing covertly at his watch.

  “It was—” Plainly caught up in his rapt invention, Josh stood with mouth slightly open, staring at Connoly’s stomach. “It was a week ago, I guess. I forget exactly. But I saw him riding about a block from here.”

  “How would you describe this motorcycle that you saw?”

  “It was like you said. It was low in the middle. Like a girl’s bike.”

  “Do you remember the color?”

  “Orange, I think. Or maybe yellow.”

  “Could it have been green?”

  “Well…” Josh looked up at the detective, hopeful of a cue. “Well, maybe…”

  Winking at Kevin aside, Connoly reached forward to tousle the boy’s hair. “You keep your eyes open, sonny,” Connoly said, at the same time stepping toward the living room. “You’re a smart boy.”

  Following the detective’s broad back into the living room, Kevin drew Josh into step beside him. With his arm on the boy’s shoulder, he could feel the dispirited droop of Josh’s disappointment. Yet Connoly had been considerate while dissecting the boy’s fantasies.

  In the entryway, Connoly turned again to face them. From outside came the growl of a garbage truck and the clatter of trash cans. It was Wednesday afternoon. Garbage time.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Rossiter. I’ll be in touch.” Connoly stepped out onto the stoop, then turned back to Josh. “Good-bye, sonny. Keep your eyes open, now.”

  With his gaze on the trash man hunched beneath his huge metal collection can, Josh only nodded. Since he’d been a toddler, Josh had been fascinated by garbage men. Kevin watched Connoly stride down the sidewalk toward a nondescript blue sedan. Another man sat behind the steering wheel. Connoly swung open the passenger door and levered his bulk inside, then casually waved as the car pulled away from the curb. At the side o
f the house, the service door was already open; the trash man was already in the basement, raucously clattering metal on metal. Finally the trash man reappeared. He was an aging black man with gray wool hair and a deeply lined, sweat-sheened face. Balancing the trash-laden can on his shoulder with one hand, the black man used his free hand to deftly snap the padlock.

  “He didn’t believe me,” Josh was saying somberly. “That man didn’t believe me, what I said.”

  “It’s not that he didn’t believe you, Josh. It’s just that a whole lot of people, these days, are telling the police that they’ve seen Tarot. Hundreds of people. Thousands, maybe. And the police get confused.”

  “But I did see that man riding a funny-looking motorcycle, just like he said. I did.”

  “I know, Josh. But there’re lots of those motorcycles—just like there’re lots of people who think they saw Tarot. Come on.” He dropped a hand onto his son’s head, turning him back inside the house. “Come on, let’s get your stuff and get to the beach.”

  Above, the sound of their voices faded. They were on the small porch in front, outside. There were three voices: the boy’s voice, the husband’s voice, the stranger’s voice.

  Were they searching for Tarot? Had they discovered a flaw in the energy pattern? Had Tarot permitted an energy break?

  The stranger’s voice had a low, slow, rumbling sound—a policeman’s sound. It was a sound that had come sometimes in the daytime, sometimes at night. Policemen’s eyes were hard; their mouths never smiled. Their hands never strayed far from their guns, ready to kill. Even when they’d first opened the closet, they’d cursed as they looked down from high above him. Later, in the small white room with its white-tiled floor, they’d stared at him with the same hard, suspicious eyes. And when their mouths opened, words tumbled out like hard, cruel stones.

  Sticks and stones and bullets and words—they all broke bones. Voices could call to others, like dogs howling in packs. All in a tight, shrieking circle, with their mouths animal-wide, they could scream for blood. Fists could pummel, feet could punish. He’d looked down to see blood droplets spattering the playground concrete. The blood had been his own.

  But he’d found sticks and stones.

  To break their bones.

  And soon they couldn’t hurt him. They couldn’t—

  Across the basement, sounds banged, clattered, jangled. Through the inch-wide box crack, the gleam of basement light was brighter. The door was suddenly open; footsteps scuffled across concrete. Before his eyes, dully gleaming, the blade of his knife was trembling.

  Were their guns trembling, too? Were they…

  Close by, someone was breathing hard. Cans clattered. The odor of garbage was stronger. A bottle clinked on the concrete, falling, bouncing.

  The knife blade was no longer trembling. His heart no longer thudded; his ears no longer whined. Because the trash man was whistling now.

  Whistling

  With the knife placed carefully beside his right knee, he was raising both hands to the box lid. With hands spread, fingers stiffened, he was slowly lifting the lid, inch by inch. First his forehead must appear, then his eyebrows.

  And now his eyes.

  A black man was crouched beneath a gleaming silver barrel, hoisted high on his shoulders. Turning beneath the burden, the black man stepped through the sunshine-soaked doorway. Turning again, the black man was facing back into the basement. A brown hand flipped the padlock from its hook, gripped the door’s knob, pulled the door quickly closed.

  Through the sudden dimness came a sharp metallic snap.

  It was the padlock.

  Locked.

  Slowly, the heavy box lid was lowering until only the inch-wide line of light remained.

  In the closet, long ago, the line had been lower, slimmer, dimmer. At night, the line had disappeared.

  Slimmer.

  Dimmer.

  Slimmerdimmer.

  Was it a rhyme? A joke? Was laughter beginning? If he drew a long, deep breath, eyes closed, he could decide. He could control the deep, secret muscle-ripples that threatened to break through, laughing. Because now, hidden, his eyes could close. Control was possible. With the knife in his hand, with the muttering of only the two voices above, with the stranger gone, control was possible. Tarot could bring force patterns, energized, into true concentration. Energy fields were forming, faltering, reforming.

  Because the husband and the child completed the pattern. The black-faced garbage man, clattering his cans and snapping the padlock, was an innocent part of the pattern. The black man had been secretly used. The husband and the boy had been used, too. They were pawns, playing a game that only she could finish. She, and Tarot.

  Because now the padlock was snapped.

  Soon darkness would come—sure, certain darkness, settling like a shroud.

  And, when darkness came, Tarot could escape only through her apartment. The other doors were padlocked from the outside, one in the front, one in the back. The small, high windows were barred. The padlocks and the bars made a dungeon, with only one way out—into her kitchen, where he’d entered last night.

  It was part of the pattern—the final part.

  Ipso.

  Wednesday Evening

  AS JOANNA STOOD IN the living-room archway, she saw Kevin glance covertly at his watch. The time was quarter to eight. Kevin was “expected” in “about an hour.” In his room, bathed and pajamaed, Josh was watching TV. All evening, Josh had been following his father closely around the house, puppy-dog fashion. Discussing the fuel pump and Connoly’s visit, their father-and-son dialogues had become subtly man-to-man. And, self-importantly, Josh had told her about installing the bolt, to “make them safe.” Now, though, bedtime threatened. Josh was lowering his profile, keeping out of sight.

  While she’d been bathing Josh, Kevin had done the dinner dishes. Now Kevin sat on one end of the couch—the end he always chose, closest to the floor lamp. The evening paper lay on the end table, neatly folded. When they’d first gotten married, he’d scattered newspapers and magazines on the floor. And scripts, too. Everything.

  “Thanks for doing the dishes.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks for fixing the car, too.” Tentatively, she smiled.

  “You’re welcome, too.”

  Still she stood in the archway. Did he expect her to sit beside him? The couch was small; they’d be crowded close together. But the easy chair might be too far away.

  Yet the chair, she knew, was the inevitable choice. Double-thinking, she’d defeated herself. Why did it always happen?

  Crossing to the chair, she said, “Josh can’t seem to think about anything but Sergeant Connoly.”

  Kevin’s smile slipped, lopsidedly rueful now. “I know how he feels. But for different reasons. Whatever I said, it seemed to sound wrong. Guilty as hell.”

  “Oh—” She gestured sharply. “That’s ridiculous. There’s no way—no way at all—that he could possibly think you’re Tarot. It’s absolutely bizarre.”

  “Try to tell Connoly that.”

  “I did, this morning.”

  “Did you?”

  “Certainly.” Eye-to-eye, she looked at him. “How could you even ask?”

  “Well”—his own gesture was wan—“I got the impression, last night, that…” He let it go unfinished.

  “Last night, I was sleepy. And”—she frowned—“and disoriented.”

  “Still, I didn’t think you believed me, about the prowler. And I’m not sure Connoly believes me, either. Especially with my fingerprints on that goddamn knife.”

  “Of course he believes you.”

  He sighed, then shook his head. “In a way, I can’t blame him. The more I talked—the longer he questioned me—the worse performance I gave. I was sweating. Really sweating.”

  “It’s his business to question people like that.”

  “Is he going to give you protection tonight? You and Josh?”

  “A car’s going
to drive by every half-hour. A police car. Sergeant Connoly called me at the office to tell me.”

  “I’d think they’d post a car outside, for God’s sake. On stakeout.”

  “Sergeant Connoly said that if they did, they’d run out of cars. Everyone’s jumpy.”

  “Everyone’s jumpy, maybe. But you’ve got an excuse to be jumpy.”

  She shrugged. Then, remembering: “Oh, thanks for putting the bolt on, too. It’s a very professional-looking job.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  During a short, suddenly barren silence, they avoided each others’ eyes. Finally, clearing his throat, Kevin said, “I could, ah, stay again tonight. If you’re worried.”

  “I—” Suddenly her throat closed. Helplessly, her gaze quickly sought his, then fell away, defeated. Had he seen hope fugitive in her eyes? Did he know that, secretly, she was empty at the core?

  “I thought you were expected.” Saying it, she couldn’t raise her eyes—couldn’t confront him—couldn’t accuse him. Her voice had faltered, finally fallen, cravenly.

  Why?

  He was the guilty party, not her. He was the one who’d—

  “I—I could come back.”

  “Like you did last night?” Now she heard sudden anger flare uncontrolled in her voice—uncontrolled, and unexpected. Then, worse, she heard herself saying bitterly, “No, thanks.”

  “Joanna, I—”

  “If you want to visit us, fine. Josh loves it when you visit. And I—I’m glad to have the bolt put on, and the car fixed. But don’t come when you’re drunk, Kevin. And don’t—” Suddenly her voice caught. Her eyes were hot, her throat unbearably tight. “Don’t come after we’re all in bed, and scare us half to death. It—it’s hard enough, this—this divorce, or whatever it is we’re doing. But you don’t have to—”

  “What’d you mean, scare you half to death? What’s that supposed to mean, anyhow?” Confronting her, he was leaning far forward on the couch. His eyes were baleful. Resting one on either thigh, his fists were tightly clenched. “I thought you said that—”