Lavelle sat at the kitchen table, staring at the radio.
Wind shook the old house.
To the unseen presence using the radio as a contact point with this world, Lavelle said, “Should I have his children murdered now, tonight, without further delay?”
“Yessss.”
“But if I kill his children, isn't there a danger that Dawson will be more determined than ever to find me?”
“Kill them.”
“Do you mean killing them might break Dawson?”
“Yessss.”
“Contribute to an emotional or mental collapse?”
“Yessss.”
“Destroy him?”
“Yessss.”
“There is no doubt about that?”
“He lovessss them very muchhhh.”
“And there's no doubt what it would do to him?” Lavelle pressed.
“Kill them.”
“I want to be sure.”
“Kill them. Brutally. It musssst be esssspecccially brutal.”
“I see. The brutality of it is the thing that will make Dawson snap. Is that it?”
“Yessss.”
“I'll do anything to get him out of my way, but I want to be absolutely sure it'll work the way I want it to work.”
“Kill them. Ssssmasssh them. Break their bonessss and tear out their eyessss. Rip out their tonguessss. Gut them assss if they were two pigssssfor butchhhhering.”
VII
Rebecca's bedroom.
Spicules of snow tapped softly on the window.
They lay on their backs, side by side on the bed, holding hands, in the butterscotch-colored light.
Rebecca said, “I didn't think it would happen again.”
“What?”
“This.”
“Oh.”
“I thought last night was an… aberration.”
“Really?”
“I was sure we'd never make love again.”
“But we did.”
“We sure did.”
“God, did we ever!”
She was silent.
He said, “Are you sorry we did?”
“No.”
“You don't think this was the last time, do you?”
“No.”
“Can't be the last. Not as good as we are together.”
“So good together.”
“You can be so soft.”
“And you can be so hard.”
“Crude.”
“But true.”
A pause.
Then she said, “What's happened to us?”
“Isn't that clear?”
“Not entirely.”
“We've fallen for each other.”
“But how could it happen so fast?”
“It wasn't fast.”
“All this time, just cops, just partners—”
“More than partners.”
“-then all of a sudden-wham!”
“It wasn't sudden. I've been falling a long time.”
“Have you?”
“For a couple of months, anyway.
“I didn't realize it.”
“A long, long, slow fall.”
“Why didn't I realize?”
“You realized. Subconsciously.”
“Maybe.”
“What I wonder is why you resisted it so strenuously.”
She didn't reply.
He said, “I thought maybe you found me repellent.”
“I find you irresistible.”
“Then why'd you resist?”
“It scares me.”
“What scares you?”
“This. Having someone. Caring about someone.”
“Why's that scare you?”
“The chance of losing it.”
“But that's silly.”
“It is not.”
“You’ve got to risk losing a thing—”
“I know, “
“-or else never have it in the first place.”
“Maybe that's best.”
“Not having it at all?”
“Yes.”
“That philosophy makes for a damned lonely life.”
“It still scares me.”
“We won't lose this, Rebecca.”
“Nothing lasts forever.”
“That's not what you'd call a good attitude.”
“Well, nothing does.”
“If you've been hurt by other guys—”
“It isn't that.”
“Then what is it?”
She dodged the question. “Kiss me.”
He kissed her. Again and again.
They weren't passionate kisses. Tender. Sweet.
After a while he said, “I love you.”
“Don't say that.”
“I'm not just saying it. I mean it.”
“Just don't say it.”
“I'm not a guy who says things he doesn't mean.”
“I know.”
“And I'm not saying it before I'm sure.”
She wouldn't look at him.
He said, “I'm sure, Rebecca. I love you.”
“I asked you not to say that.”
“I'm not asking to hear it from you.”
She bit her lip.
“I'm not asking for a commitment,” he said.
“Jack—”
“Just say you don't hate me.”
“Will you stop—”
“Can't you please just say you don't hate me?”
She sighed. “I don't hate you.”
He grinned. “Just say you don't loathe me too much.”
“I don't loathe you too much.”
“Just say you like me a little bit.”
“I like you a little bit.”
“Maybe more than a little bit.”
“Maybe more than a little bit.”
“All right. I can live with that for now.”
“Good.”
“Meanwhile, I love you.”
“Damnit, Jack!”
She pulled away from him.
She drew the sheet over herself, all the way up to her chin.
“Don't be cold with me, Rebecca.”
“I'm not being cold.”
“Don't treat me like you treated me all day today.”
She met his eyes.
He said, “I thought you were sorry last night ever happened.”
She shook her head: no.
“It hurt me, the way you were, today,” he said. “I thought you were disgusted with me, with yourself, for what we'd done.”
“No. Never.”
“I know that now, but here — you are drawing away again, keeping me at arm's length. What's wrong?”
She chewed on her thumb. Like a little girl.
“Rebecca?”
“I don't know how to say it. I don't know how to explain. I've never had to put it into words for anyone before.”
“I'm a good listener.”
“I need a little time to think.”
“So take your time.”
“Just a little time. A few minutes.”
“Take all the time you want.”
She stared at the ceiling, thinking.
He got under the sheet with her and pulled the blanket over both of them.
They lay in silence for a while.
Outside, the wind sang a two-note serenade.
She said, “My father died when I was six.”
“I'm sorry. That's terrible. You never really had a chance to know him, then.”
“True. And yet, odd as it seems, I still sometimes miss him so bad, you know, even after all these years — even a father I never really knew and can hardly remember. I miss him, anyway.”
Jack thought of his own little Davey, not even quite six when his mother had died.
He squeezed Rebecca's hand gently.
She said, “But my father dying when I was six — in a way, that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is that I saw him die. I was there when it happened.”
“Well… he and Mama owned a sandwich shop. A small place. Four little tables. Mostly take-out business. Sandwiches, potato salad, macaroni salad, a few desserts. It's hard to make a go of it in that business unless you have two things, right at the start: enough start-up capital to see you through a couple of lean years at the beginning, and a good location with lots of foot traffic passing by or office workers in the neighborhood. But my folks were poor. They had very little capital. They couldn't pay the high rent in a good location, so they started in a bad one and kept moving whenever they could afford to, three times in three years, each time to a slightly better spot. They worked hard, so hard…. My father held down another job, too, janitorial work, late at night, after the shop closed, until just before dawn. Then he'd come home, sleep four or five hours, and go open the shop for the lunch trade. Mama cooked a lot of the food that was served, and she worked behind the counter, too, but she also did some house cleaning for other people, to bring in a few extra dollars. Finally, the shop began to pay off. My dad was able to drop his janitorial job, and Mama gave up the house cleaning. In fact, business started getting so good that they were looking for their first employee; they couldn't handle the shop all by themselves any more. The future looked bright. And then… one afternoon… during the slack time between the lunch and dinner crowds, when Mama was out on an errand and I was alone in the shop with my father… this guy came in… with a gun…”
“Oh, shit,” Jack said. He knew the rest of it. He'd seen it all before, many times. Dead storekeepers, sprawled in pools of their own blood, beside their emptied cash registers.
“There was something strange about this creep,” Rebecca said. “Even though I was only six years old, I could tell there was something wrong with him the moment he came in, and I went to the kitchen and peeked out at him through the curtain. He was fidgety… pale… funny around the eyes.
“A junkie?”
“That's the way it turned out, yeah. If I close my eyes now, I can still see his pale face, the way his mouth twitched. The awful thing is… I can see it clearer than I can see my own father's face. Those terrible eyes.”
She shuddered.
Jack said, “You don't have to go on.”
“Yes. I do. I have to tell you. So you'll understand why… why I am like I am about certain things.”
“Okay. If you're sure—”
“I'm sure.”
“Then… did your father refuse to hand over the money to this son of a bitch — or what? ”
“No. Dad gave him the money. All of it.”
“He offered no resistance at all?”
“None.”
“But cooperation didn't save him.”
“No. This junkie had a bad itch, a real bad need. The need was like something nasty crawling around in his head, I guess, and it made him irritable, mean, crazymad at the world. You know how they get. So I think maybe he wanted to kill somebody even more than he wanted the money. So… he just… pulled the trigger.”
Jack put an arm around her, drew her against him.
She said, “Two shots. Then the bastard ran. Only one of the slugs hit my father. But it… hit him… in the face.”
“Jesus,” Jack said softly, thinking of six-year-old Rebecca in the sandwich shop's kitchen, peering through the parted curtain, watching as her father's face exploded.
“It was a.45,” she said.
Jack winced, thinking of the power of the gun.
“Hollow-point bullets,” she said.
“Oh, Christ.”
“Dad didn't have a chance at point-blank range.”
“Don't torture yourself with—”
“Blew his head off,” she said.
“Don't think about it any more now,” Jack said.
“Brain tissue…”
“Put it out of your mind now.”
“… pieces of his skull…”
“It was a long time ago.”
“… blood all over the wall.”
“Hush now. Hush.”
“There's more to tell.”
“You don't have to pour it out all at once.”
“I want you to understand.”
“Take your time. I'll be here. I'll wait. Take your time.”
VIII
In the corrugated metal shed, leaning over the pit, using two pair of ceremonial scissors with malachite handles, Lavelle snipped both ends of the cord simultaneously.
The photographs of Penny and Davey Dawson fell into the hole, vanished in the flickering orange light.
A shrill, unhuman cry came from the depths.
“Kill them,” Lavelle said.
IX
Still in Rebecca's bed.
Still holding each other.
She said, “The police only had my description to go on.”
“A six-year-old child doesn't make the best witness.”
“They worked hard, trying to get a lead on the creep who'd shot Daddy. They really worked hard.”
“They ever catch him?”
“Yes. But too late. Much too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“See, he got two hundred bucks when he robbed the shop.”
“So?”
“That was over twenty-two years ago.”
“Yeah?”
“Two hundred was a lot more money then. Not a fortune. But a lot more than it is now.”
“I still don't see what you're driving at.”
“It looked like an easy score to him.”
“Not too damned easy. He killed a man.”
“But he wouldn't have had to. He wanted to kill someone that day.”
“Okay. Right. So, twisted as he is, he figures it was easy.”
“Six months went by…”
“And the cops never got close to him?”
“No. So it looks easier and easier to the creep.”
A sickening dread filled Jack. His stomach turned over.
He said, “You don't mean…?”
“Yes.”
“He came back.”
“With a gun. The same gun.”
“But he'd have to've been nuts!”
“All junkies are nuts.”
Jack waited. He didn't want to hear the rest of it, but he knew she would tell him; had to tell him; was compelled to tell him.
She said, “My mother was at the cash register.”
“No,” he said softly, as if a protest from him could somehow alter the tragic history of her family.
“He blew her away.”
“Rebecca…”
“Fired five shots into her.”
“You didn't… see this one?”
“No. I wasn't in the shop that day.”
“Thank God.”
“This time they caught him.”
“Too late for you.”
“Much too late. But it was after that when I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a cop, so I could stop people like that junkie, stop them from killing the mothers and fathers of other little girls and boys. There weren't women cops back then, you know, not real cops, just office workers in police stations, radio dispatchers, that sort of thing. I had no role models. But I knew I'd make it someday. I was determined. All the time I was growing up, there was never once when I thought about being anything else but a cop. I never even considered getting married, being a wife, having kids, being a mother, because I knew someone would only come along and shoot my husband or take my kids away from me or take me away from my kids. So what was the point in it? I would be a cop. Nothing else. A cop. And that's what I became. I think I felt guilty about my father's murder. I think I believed that there must've been something I could have done that day to save him. And I know I felt guilty about my mother's death. I hated myself for not giving the police a better description of the man who shot my dad, hated myself for being numb and useless, because if I had been of more help to them, maybe they'd have gotten the gu
y before he killed Mama. Being a cop, stopping other creeps like that junkie, it was a way to atone for my guilt. Maybe that's amateur psychology. But not far off the mark. I'm sure it's part of what motivates me.”
“But you haven't any reason at all to feel guilty,” Jack assured her. “You did all you possibly could've done. You were only six!”
“I know. I understand that. But the guilt is there nevertheless. Still sharp, at times. I guess it'll always be there, fading year by year, but never fading away altogether.”
Jack was, at last, beginning to understand Rebecca Chandler — why she was the way she was. He even saw the reason for the overstocked refrigerator; after a childhood filled with so much bad news and unanticipated shocks and instability, keeping a well-supplied larder was one way to buy at least a small measure of security, a way to feel safe. Understanding increased his respect and already deep affection for her. She was a very special woman.
He had a feeling that this night was one of the most important of his life. The long loneliness after Linda's passing was finally drawing to an end. Here, with Rebecca, he was making a new beginning. A good beginning. Few men were fortunate enough to find two good women and be given two chances at happiness in their lives. He was very lucky, and he knew it, and that knowledge made him exuberant. In spite of a day filled with blood and mutilated bodies and threats of death, he sensed a golden future out there ahead of them. Everything was going to work out fine, after all. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing could go wrong now.
X
“Kill them, kill them,” Lavelle said.
His voice echoed down into the pit, echoed and echoed, as if it had been cast into a deep shaft.
The indistinct, pulsing, shifting, amorphous floor of the pit suddenly became more active. It bubbled surged, churned. Out of that molten, lavalike substance — which might have been within arm's reach or, instead, miles below — something began to take shape.
Something monstrous.
XI
“When your mother was killed, you were only—”
“Seven years old. Turned seven the month before she died.”
“Who raised you after that?”
“I went to live with my grandparents, my mother's folks.”
“Did that work out?”
“They loved me. So it worked for a while.”
“Only for a while?”
“My grandfather died.”
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