Joe R Lansdale

by Act of Love (2011)

  THURSDAY . . . SAME TIME 7:05 p.m.

  Herman Park was bathed in comfortable darkness. Milo enjoyed the dark as much as the babe enjoys the womb. It was soothing and gave him time to think. In the background a late night symphony was entertaining an open air audience, and closer to him came the nocturnal prowlings of the zoo animals, roaring and moaning out for a lost world and a freedom most of them had never known. Milo thought if they were free they wouldn't even know what to do with it. He felt equally caged, not by bars but by his inability to live up to the code he had so cherished early in life. Honesty had flown out the window. He rationalized now. Always a good reason for this, a good reason for that. And he couldn't even stand by his word. He had told Barlowe no more, but when that long green danced beneath his nose his word had been weaker than an Egyptian mummy's shroud. Characterless, that's what I am. Characterless.

  Out of the shadows at the end of the trail that terminated at his park bench, Milo saw a human form move his way. The roll to the walk was enough to give the man away had he been trying to hide himself. Which he wasn't. Milo looked at his watch. They had planned on 7:15; Barlowe, as usual, was on time.

  Barlowe had his hands in his jean pockets, and the tee-shirt he was wearing, an army- green affair, surprised Milo by revealing Barlowe as stoutly built. Somehow, he had always assumed that the man was a wimp.

  "Anything for me," Barlowe said taking a seat next to Milo on the bench.

  "They caught me, or rather Joe Clark did."

  "The nigger's partner?"

  "Come on, will you?"

  "It's not like they're your buddies."

  "They're cops, just like me. Only difference," Milo snarled, "is that I'm dirty and they're not."

  "For all you know."

  "No. They're not. I know."

  "You in hot water?"

  "Maybe. Clark let me go. He said he wouldn't tell."

  "Then you didn't get a thing for me?"

  Milo turned to look at Barlowe full in the face. "I was caught, fuckhead. I told you that. I was lucky to get out with my head. I hate myself enough for going back on my word before. I said no more last time."

  "All right. You were caught. He didn't turn you in. You're home free. You lay low for awhile, and then when they figure you've quit, well, you start back. The money will keep coming."

  "No it won't."

  "My editor—"

  "That's not what I mean. I don't want your money. Go wipe your ass on it. I'm through."

  "I just might send the cops a little note expressing my appreciation for all you've done."

  Milo grabbed Barlowe's tee-shirt. "Go ahead."

  "I'm going to let you let go of that shirt all by yourself. 'Cause if you don't I'm going to help you."

  "You don't scare me, Barlowe. Here take your shirt." Milo released him and stood up.

  "You write your little note, fuckhead. See if I care. I'm through. Nothing more from me."

  "You're safe, Milo. I was trying to get that extra inch."

  Milo shook his head. "Push just as far as you can don't you?"

  "That's right," Barlowe said draping his arms over the back of the park bench. "Just as far as I can. That's part of being a reporter. I'm good at it."

  "You certainly are."

  "I wouldn't report you because it might dry up the rest of my sources if I got to be known as a louse."

  "I don't think you have to advertise about being a louse, Barlowe. Folks recognize it right off."

  "So be it."

  Milo turned and started down the dark trail.

  Barlowe yelled to him, "Give my regards to your lad, Jello."

  Milo trembled, thought, no, he's baiting me. I'm through with him all the way. He kept walking toward the glow of the street lights.

  THURSDAY ... 8 p.m.

  Before heading for home he cruised for a victim down Astrodome way. Passing that landmark monstrosity, it made him think of a huge breast. Now one that size would be fun. It would take forever to carve it into slabs of red, wet meat. An eternity of fun.

  A blue '68 Mustang convertible went by him on the right hand side. Long brown hair whipped up into the night wind. The street lights, bright as day, danced off her naked back. She was wearing a bathing suit top, dark green in color. He wondered what she was wearing below. Bathing suit bottoms? Shorts? Jeans? He would soon know.

  She took an off ramp.

  He moved quickly to the right lane, and at a bit too accelerated a speed, he took the off ramp behind her.

  Part Three:

  The End of It All

  Vengeance is without foresight

  —Napoleon I

  Justice is truth in action.

  —Joubert

  Self-defense is a virtue, sole bulwark of all right.

  —Byron

  No man ever did a designed injury to another without doing a greater to himself.

  —Henry Home

  I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge."

  —Sherlock Holmes

  THURSDAY ... 8 p.m.

  Patricia Quentin had no idea she was being followed.

  The day had been one of perfection for her. The lake had been like a giant blue liniment for her bruised and battered soul. She no longer hated Roger, not at all, and by the same token, she knew she no longer loved him. It was as if this day was the punctuation mark that ended her pain.

  Just like my Old Man told me, she thought. "Roger's no good. Not worth a dried cow turd." True enough.

  I have a new life before me now. As the saying goes: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

  Wrapped in the joys of emotional freedom, Patricia didn't notice that the same car had been following her for miles, holding back approximately three car lengths. When she reached the residential street where she lived, she was aware of lights hard on the tail of her Mustang, but she wasn't frightened. Not yet.

  Driving a bit faster than she cared to, she whipped into her driveway to avoid the car up her tailpipe, and killed the engine. She sat for a moment with her arm thrown back over the seat watching the car that had been behind her.

  She was curious, nothing more.

  The car went past. She didn't recognize it.

  It didn't frighten her when it slowed down at the end of the block and hesitated longer than it needed at the Stop sign, then with a sudden spurge, turned right and speeded off. For a moment she thought it might be Roger, drunk again, back to try and satisfy his lust and slash her feelings with his cutting remarks. But if so, he had backed out at the last moment and gone his way.

  She got out of the Mustang and closed the door. She wore only a bathing suit. A sharp stone went into the ball of her bare foot, and this demanded her attention. Using one hand to support herself against the hood of the Mustang, she used the other to pluck the rock from her foot.

  Headlights bobbed at the far corner of the block, slit the street wide open with light.

  Could he have circled? Patricia wondered.

  The car was moving slowly, half-way up the block now.

  To hell with him, she thought. If it's Roger I'll give him the quick brush off. From now on he's like so much air to me.

  Patricia squeezed out a drop of blood from the wound, made a sound like "yetch." Patricia had a weak stomach and hated the sight of blood, especially her own.

  Own fault, she thought, locking up your sandals with your towel and tanning lotion. What good are sandals in the trunk?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car door closing.

  Thinking it was Roger after all, she placed her injured foot on the ground and turned angrily. By God, she'd had it. This was the showdown . . .

  The man from the car wasn't Roger. He was coming across the lawn toward her. The car at the curb was most certainly the one that had been tailgating her. Still she didn't recognize it. She kept thinking it would come to her.

  The man was h
alfway across the lawn now. The shadows clung to him like leeches.

  An odd and unaccountable tentacle of fear reached into her brain. "Can I help you?" she asked, immediately wishing the words hadn't come out of her mouth. That was what she said at work when people came into the shoe department. Worse yet, her voice had trembled.

  "Yes," the man's voice was pleasant enough, dry and husky but certainly not sinister. He was smiling. Against the night the teeth were as white as alabaster. "I'm afraid I'm lost," the man continued. "Not my neighborhood at all. I have a friend name of Gaston lives over this way. You know them? Has a wife, Jean, a little girl named Alice."

  "No. I don't believe they live around here."

  The man was almost to her.

  "Oh, I'm certain it's around here somewhere. I mean I may not know this area, least not immediately, but this is the right end of Houston."

  "No one by that name around here," Patricia said. She could see now that the package beneath his arm was not a package at all. It was a bundled up raincoat. It seemed like an odd thing for a man to carry on a perfectly clear, warm night.

  The man was an arm's length away now.

  "Stop right there," came out of Patricia's mouth before she could prevent it.

  The man stopped, put a puzzled look on his face. "Sure."

  Suddenly he moved . . . and was on her. His left hand grasped her throat, his right clamped down over her mouth.

  Patricia tried to scream but couldn't.

  The raincoat had fallen from beneath the man's arm and struck the driveway with a clank. Out of the corner of her eye the struggling Patricia could see something had partially fallen from the folds of the raincoat. Something that glimmered. Something metal. Something sharp.

  Patricia kicked the man in the shins. Hard.

  He made a pained sound, jerked the hand from her throat and brought it back into her face as a fist.

  She kicked once more, weakly this time.

  The fist came back again; then it was gone, then back again. Red, white and black flashed alternately before her eyes before flashing together in a pinwheel of color . . . then she fell into unconsciousness. Her last thought before the plunge was that something warm and wet had fallen on her face.

  *

  Her eyes, while alert, had been big—big blue china plates of fear. He had enjoyed that immensely. Now the moon and the smog- ridden stars and the street lights shone in her suddenly less wide eyes with a dull, flat glare. He looked about him quickly. Saw no one. He dragged her to the house, propped her against the door. He went back to reclaim the raincoat and bayonet. He picked up her ring of keys from where she had dropped them, went back and unlocked the door. Patricia fell back against the floor with a thud.

  Taking a firm grip on her thick hair, he pulled her inside and closed the door.

  He put the raincoat aside, bent over her and grasped the bottom of her bathing suit, tugged it off in one quick move. Ripping the bathing suit top apart with a frenzied jerk, he stood for a moment basking in her nakedness. Blood was running in slow rivulets from her mouth and nose, branching out at her neck and chin, rolling toward the floor.

  He kicked off his shoes, hastily began removing his trousers, so hastily in fact that he ripped his zipper free of the lining. With his pants in a heap on the floor, he pulled on the raincoat, not bothering to remove his shirt. He was much too anxious for a delay.

  Any moment someone might show up, a roommate or parent, even. He was certain, because the house had been dark and her car was the only one in the drive, that she was alone. At least for now.

  He pulled her legs apart and arranged his penis between the folds of the raincoat. Dropping to his knees between her legs, he watched, mesmerized, as the blood on her face began to widen on her cheeks. Pure beauty.

  For a brief moment he felt foolish. Perhaps someone was in the house. Maybe his caution was out the window, a servant to his lust. Certainly this had been a random strike. No careful planning here . . . But the thought melted. He stretched out on top of her and mounted her with a grunt.

  He reached the bayonet to him, placed it against her throat, rested both palms on top of the flat side, watched as her eyes tried to draw consciousness to them.

  Patricia was aware of pain between her legs and all over her face. Suddenly her vision cleared and she looked up into the eyes of Satan, aware only that something cold was against her throat. She wanted to scream, but only a gurgle came out.

  *

  He began the moment he thought she was aware, pressing gently at first.

  Beads of blood, like cheap ruby-red costume jewelry, formed at her throat; then her entire neck was a slash of crimson. Her mouth was opening wordlessly. Her eyes were like big china blue plates again.

  Timing it simultaneously with the thrust of his hips, he pushed the blade down with all his might.

  Her neck exploded in a fountain of red. Blasted his face, the carpet, the walls. The torso, the head hanging to it by only a shred of flesh and bone, began to twist and lurch convulsively.

  As the spasms jerked their last he climaxed with a groan. Then, as he lay atop the body bathed in ecstasy, he began to lap the blood from the stump of her neck with a frenzied tongue.

  FRIDAY ... 6 p.m.

  When he got home from work, the first thing he did was take the head and hand out of the freezer compartment of his refrigerator. He somewhat regretted not keeping the other hand, but he had other plans for it, and wasteful as it seemed at the moment, he was sure it would have the desired effect he wanted. He dismissed that. He would think no more of the other hand. He had the left one and the head.

  He took the head and hand, wrapped and frozen inside separate plastic bags, and placed them in the sink. He was about to run warm water over them for thawing when he suddenly hesitated. He took the bag containing the woman's head from the sink, and brushing away the frost with his palm, looked long and hard at it.

  The eyes were like cracked blue marbles seen through a thin film of milky water. Lovely now in a different way. And the blood . . . he was glad he hadn't washed it off. It had frozen into lovely patterns. It swept out of her nostrils in rust colored rivers of ice. Her mouth was sealed with it; a red-brown plug of silence.

  It was almost a pity to thaw it.

  He returned the head to the sink, turned the hot water on it. While the water ran, he got down his cookbook. So far the recipes for pork had worked fine for human flesh; therefore, he saw no reason to deviate.

  SATURDAY . . . 7:45 p.m.

  Rachel was worried about Marvin. At first she thought it was overwork, but as time went on he became worse. More sullen. More withdrawn. It was almost as if there were two of him. One, the man she loved; the other, a remote and nervous soul. And that other was slowly devouring the one she loved.

  He had taken to erratic habits. Before, he'd been content to read in his library, or watch an occasional television show, or take her out to eat or to the movies. Now he avoided these things. He came home, preferred to be alone, and then at odd moments would become restless and leave.

  "Going down to the drugstore for a magazine," he would say. But he never came back with magazines.

  "Going to get a chocolate bar, or something," he would say. But if anything, he was losing weight, not gaining. He hardly touched his food at home.

  As for sex. He hardly seemed aware of her. The bed was for sleeping, nothing more—when he came to bed. Often she would awake and not find him there. He had still not come upstairs. And when he did come to bed she was seldom, if ever, aware of it. She knew he was getting less than three hours of sleep a night. He just sat below in the den and worried, and it was all since this Hacker stuff.

  Even now he was gone, had been for an hour and a half.

  "I'm going to drive around a bit," he said. "Don't fix supper for me. I'll be back late. Might drop by and see Warren." And then with a look of pain in his eyes, "I've just got to do something. Can't sit. It eats at me if I do." Suddenly he was gone. />
  At first she thought it might be another woman, but no, she knew him too well for that. Or at least she thought she did . . .

  "Mamma?"

  Rachel stood at the sink with her arms in dishwashing suds up to the elbow. "Oh . . . I'm sorry, baby. Have you been standing there long?" '

  "No longer than a couple of weeks. I've been calling you."

  Rachel took her hands from the water, shook off the suds, dried them on a hand towel. "What is it, JoAnna?"

  "How do I look?"

  Rachel surveyed the tight green bell bottoms, the ruffled, white blouse with the low- cut front. "Maybe," Rachel said, "you look a little too good. Know what I mean?"

  "Sexy?" Jo Anna said with a grin.

  "I guess so. I don't think I like you looking sexy."

  "You don't exactly dress like Little Black Sambo yourself."

  Rachel laughed. "When's Tommy coming by?"

  "Eight."

  "Where you going tonight?"

  "Movie."

  "Do I have to ask which one?"

  "No. You don't have to check on me like a little girl, though."

  "You are a little girl, little girl."

  "The Redland."

  "A drive-in?"

  "Last time I looked."

  "Daddy doesn't like you going to drive-ins."

  "Afraid I'll get sick from the draft."

  "Don't get smart," Rachel said, but she could hardly help smiling. "As long as you stay well dressed you won't get sick . . . about nine months later. Know what I mean?"

  "Oh, mamma. You know me better than that."

  Rachel leaned against the cabinet. "Baby. I don't know anybody better than that. At least at an in-door theater you have to consider modesty."

  "Mother!"

  "Daughter!"

  Jo Anna frowned. "All right. I'll tell Tommy to forget the drive-in."

  Rachel made a motion like a bow being drawn across a violin, made a sad whining noise to go with it.