The Killing Lessons

by Saul Black

  But she would be alive, however not the same it was, and that was all that mattered.

  ‘He’s not here,’ she said. Technically not a lie. ‘It’s OK. Don’t move. You’re going to be OK. Just stay with me, OK?’

  Claudia blinked. There was too much. Valerie had seen it before. The return from death. The unbelievable withdrawal of death. She’d seen it before, but not often enough. Mostly she just saw death.

  ‘I’m…’ Claudia faltered. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Valerie repeated. ‘You’re safe.’ She brushed Claudia’s hair out of her eyes. ‘Stay with me, honey. They’re coming.’

  With sirens, she could hear, despite her instructions. Right now, she loved them for it.

  SEVENTY-NINE

  Xander’s hand was on fire. Everything had gone wrong. It was in his head like an orchestra playing out of tune. It was as if for all these years everything had been fooling him with freedom while secretly planning for this, this rearrangement of the scenery, this shift that had taken, what, minutes? Seconds? Everything had tricked him. And what had started the trick? Fucking Colorado. Fucking Paulie.

  The kid. The little girl. She saw you and she got away.

  What fucking kid? There was no fucking kid.

  Except the half-painted room must have been hers. Being redecorated. That smell of new paint.

  His mind went in circles. He wanted to go somewhere quiet and sleep.

  Oh, sure, Mama Jean said. Take a nap. Why don’t you just pull over? You’ve got all the time in the world, right?

  He’d taken the van. The RV was… It outraged him, the idea of that bitch cop finding his house. It made him feel stupid.

  But she was dead, so fuck her. She was dead and the cunt in the cellar was dead and he’d got the jug right.

  Yeah, except the jug should have been in Colorado.

  And he hadn’t had time. It sent more heat through his hand, that there hadn’t been time to do it properly. He’d been tempted, shoving her top up and seeing those little tits, feeling the wriggle in her hips when he pulled down her pants. It was a waste. It would have been the best so far. He would have sent her into herself and let her come back so many times.

  He had to get his hand fixed. He couldn’t. Gunshot wounds they had to report. The van’s steering wheel was slippery from his blood. Not even a fucking Band-Aid. He’d torn the sleeve off his shirt and wrapped that around it, but that was no good. It hurt so much. He had to find a gas station, a store, a fucking pharmacy. You keep the bad hand in your pocket and pay with the good hand. He had money in his wallet. All that money and everything could still fucking…

  Think straight, for Christ’s sake. Find a gas station, wash up. A motel. Fix this. Fix it.

  The shotgun was in the trunk. The machete. Pistol and a dozen clips. But the objects from the shopping bags had tipped out onto the passenger seat next to him and wouldn’t leave him alone.

  Paulie wasn’t lying, Mama Jean said, when he glanced in the rear-view. You want to fix this, you need to start with that.

  It was then that he realised he’d forgotten the most important thing of all.

  He’d left the alphabet chart in the basement.

  EIGHTY

  The world was not ideal, granted, but its randomness conferred gifts as well as curses: Angelo found the remains of a packet of Advil in his overcoat pocket. Five liqui-gel capsules still sealed in their foil backing.

  ‘Here,’ he said to Nell, handing her one with the tin mug filled with water. ‘It’s not much, but it might help the pain for a couple of hours.’

  She looked wary.

  ‘It’s just Advil,’ he said. ‘Here, look, you can see on the back of the wrapper. It’s fine, I promise.’

  Her hesitation, he knew, was partly that she’d no doubt been told never to take medicines unless OK’d by her mom, and partly her weighing up if refusing it would hurt his feelings. He was planning on saving all of them for her, over the hours ahead, but to reassure her, he took one himself. ‘I take these for my pain,’ he said. ‘They do help. I wouldn’t give this to you if it wasn’t safe. But I understand if you don’t feel you can take it. It’s OK either way.’

  She thought about it a few moments, then popped the pill into her mouth and drank.

  ‘Do you think someone will come today?’ she said.

  The question was a permanent presence in his head. Nell had been quiet all afternoon, just lying on her side and staring out the window. A numbness was insinuating itself in her, he knew. Like a submerged rock becoming visible as the last of hope drained away. He resisted the urge to say: I’m sure of it. If he said that and no one came it would be a failure and a betrayal. In the absence of anyone else, he needed her to have faith in him.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. Then amended: ‘Can’t be much longer.’

  Could it be much longer? How long could someone lie wounded or dead in their house without someone noticing they’d dropped off the radar? It was, by his reckoning, Christmas Eve. Weren’t these the days when folks were in and out of each other’s houses, delivering last-minute presents and borrowing crucial ingredients for the feast?

  ‘It can’t be much longer,’ he repeated.

  That night Nell dreamed a dream of faces and voices. Sometimes she was in the cabin. Other times in her bed at home. Angelo leaned over her, saying, Drink some water. Please try. The details of his face were sharp, the pores of his skin, the cracked moist green of his eyes. His beard hair was rough silver. She tried to tell him that the bristles reminded her of the paintbrushes her mom had got out of the shed when the redecorating of her room had begun, but he didn’t seem to understand. Her mom came and went, too, in her dressing gown. Heat lay on her like a soft, heavy body. She kept trying to get out from under it. A maddening game. Josh came in wearing his school football gear, his face flecked with mud from the field: Just get on your feet, doofus, he told her. You can walk out of here. Up the ravine to the tree. You can get across that tree easy. You can stroll across that tree, Nellie, Jesus. Take that crap off your ankle. What’s the matter with you? In the dream she plucked at the splints on her ankle, but Angelo’s hands got in the way. His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. His hands were enormous. Her own felt tiny. The splints were very annoying to her. The splints, she thought, were stopping her from getting up. When she looked down, she saw they were attached to the floor. Why would he do that? Nail her to the floor like that?

  The golden hare from her bracelet rose up next to her, life-size. It was made, she now saw, from the same yellow-orangey light that came when you scribbled in the dark air with a sparkler. I grant you safe travel, the hare said, moving liquidly around her. There is nothing to fear. You’re old enough now. She could see herself moving across the tree, the hare weaving between her feet. Her feet barely touched the fir’s bark.

  Angelo hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he’d slept so little and so brokenly over the last three days that he hadn’t even been aware of it taking him. When he’d lain down on the couch to rest his back the last of the day’s light was waning. Now it was wholly dark outside. The oil lamp’s light threw tremulous shadows.

  Nell was on her feet.

  Or rather, foot. She’d removed the splints and put her boots on, and was, with both hands gripped around his stick, moving in small, visibly excruciating steps, across the cabin floor, dragging the bad ankle.

  ‘Jesus,’ Angelo said. ‘Nell? What are you doing?’

  She lifted her head and looked at him. Her face was pale, drawn, wet with tears. Her eyes were raw.

  ‘I can walk,’ she said. ‘I have to go across.’

  ‘Across?’

  ‘I’m going to the tree.’

  It stunned him, that she’d come to this while he’d slept. It was terrible, the thought of her lying there, gathering her resolve, removing the splints, squeezing her foot into the boot.

  ‘Give me another pill,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t hurt so much now. I can w
alk. I have to go.’

  Angelo stared at her. He could see exactly how much it hurt. The Advil might have taken the finest edge off, but it still sickened him to think of what these movements were costing her. Kids were so strong. Women. Women and children first. Maybe not because we thought they were weak, but because deep down we knew they were strong. Carried the best of the species.

  ‘Nell, you can’t,’ he said, biting back a cry as he began to lower himself from the couch. He’d moved too quickly. Christ, there was no let-up. The inexhaustible persistence of his own pain enraged him. The single Advil hadn’t touched it. He gritted his teeth. Made it to the floor. Breathed.

  ‘I can,’ she said, and took another half-hop, half-shuffle towards him. ‘I can do it.’

  He had to think. Careful. Don’t scare her. Try to stop her by force and she’ll go crazy.

  She took another step. Grabbed the edge of the table. Steadied herself. It was amazing: she was training herself to withstand the pain.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘It’s night. It’s dark. You can’t do it in the dark. You can’t go across in the dark. You’ll fall.’

  Nell glanced out of the window as if she’d lost the awareness that it was dark.

  ‘Think about it,’ Angelo said. (Don’t tell her she can’t do it. Tell her there’s a better way. Buy some time.) ‘Think about it. There’s no way you’ll get across if you can’t see. Wait until morning. You’ll have a better chance. You’ll have a much better chance in the morning.’

  He watched the sense of this forcing itself on her, against her will. She might be in delayed shock or unhinged by grief, but she wasn’t stupid.

  ‘In the morning,’ he said, gently, ‘we’ll figure it out properly. I’ll help you. But we have to be able to see what we’re doing. OK?’

  She thought about it.

  ‘You’ll be stronger in the morning,’ Angelo said. ‘You can eat something. And the tablets work better on a full stomach. Get some rest now. Get some sleep. We’ll wait until it’s light, and then we’ll try.’

  It took him a while, but eventually he persuaded her. To his advantage, the Advil and the exertion had taken its toll. She was asleep within minutes. In the morning, he knew, he would take the remaining pills himself and try again for the fallen tree. It wouldn’t be enough. It would be impossible. But there was nothing to do but try.

  He drank the cold remains of the evening’s coffee and propped himself on the couch.

  Stay awake, Sylvia said. Watch her. Keep her safe.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  ‘He didn’t take the RV,’ Will Fraser said to Valerie. ‘The dead guy’s been ID’d as Paul Stokes, and there’s a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan registered to him, so we’ve got the plates out on that. We’re waiting on DNA confirmation here, but it’s pretty obvious he’s the other half of the team.’

  ‘There was a van,’ Valerie said. ‘It was on the other side of the house.’

  She was in a five-bed ward at the Dixie Regional Medical Center back in St George. The wound on the side of her head had been stitched and dressed under local anaesthetic, but they were keeping her in overnight for concussion. She had a lump on the back of her skull the size of an egg. Claudia Grey was in recovery in the ICU, after four hours on the operating table. She was going to live. Will and Carla had flown in by helicopter. Carla was at Claudia’s bedside, waiting for her to wake up.

  ‘Lloyd Conway gave him a chunk when he sold the company,’ Will said. ‘A hundred and thirty grand, to be precise. Presumably because the Lord thought it would be a good idea.’

  ‘I had him,’ Valerie said. ‘I fucking had him, Will.’

  ‘There’s a twenty-six-year-old girl down the hall alive right now, thanks to you,’ Will said. ‘He’s fucked up. We’ll get him. Love the punk look, by the way.’ They’d shaved the left side of Valerie’s head to deal with the wound. ‘Not many women your age could carry it off.’

  ‘I’m going to ask them to do the other side,’ Valerie said. ‘Full mohawk. Ow. Smiling makes this itch.’

  ‘How’d you get the name?’ Will asked.

  ‘Movie poster. Russell Crowe,’ Valerie said. ‘And I still don’t like him.’

  ‘Marion got a little hot for him in Gladiator, but she said she’d only sleep with him if she was punishing herself for something.’

  ‘I know Marion hates me,’ Valerie said, ‘but I like her.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her about it. She’s entered a sort of pornographic phase. I think she could go for you now you’ve shaved half your head.’

  Valerie felt tender towards the world. It was the way of it, when you’d nearly lost the world.

  Her phone rang. It was Nick.

  ‘I’ll go and get coffee,’ Will said. ‘I’ll let you know when the kid wakes up.’

  Valerie picked up the call. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘They shaved my head.’

  ‘Just your head?’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Tell me you’re OK.’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m getting dressed and out of here in a minute.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Will told me you’ve got concussion.’

  ‘What does Will know?’

  ‘Don’t make me come down there.’

  ‘I miss you.’

  It was out before she could stop herself. A short pause followed. She imagined him at his desk. Wondered if the guy who shared his lab was in the room. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t—’

  ‘Shut up. I miss you too.’

  A longer pause. Valerie swallowing tears that had ambushed her. The last time she’d been in a hospital bed was three years ago. Everything she’d been holding onto for those three years was starting to leave her. Almost. The almostness hurt her heart. For a few moments she couldn’t speak.

  ‘How about I take you out to dinner when you get back?’ Blasko said.

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how good it is to hear your voice?’

  ‘Don’t be nice to me,’ she said. ‘I can’t take it.’

  ‘What if I’m nice to you now but I promise to be an asshole when I see you?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘When are you coming back?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s out there. We’re waiting for the girl to come around.’

  ‘Yeah, Will told me she made it. You did a good thing.’

  Valerie swallowed again. It was terrible to receive kindness when you were in this state.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m trying.’

  ‘It’s going to be OK.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, but let’s assume that it is.’

  ‘OK.’

  A phone rang on his end of the line.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘Shit. Sorry, I have to take this. You sure you’re OK?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Stay in bed.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll call you back. Meantime, think about where you want to go for dinner.’

  A few minutes after they’d hung up, Will appeared in the ward doorway, pointing down the hall: Claudia was awake.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  In a painfully bright Rite Aid on the edge of Grand Junction Xander bought a home first-aid kit in a crappy white plastic box with a red cross on it for $35.95. He bought scissors, a brand new electric razor, batteries, water. He was thirsty all the time. The whole business took only a few minutes (he’d washed himself up as best he could in a Texaco a couple of miles back) but he was aware of the cashier, a bald guy in his sixties with steel-rimmed glasses, looking at him funny. He had to keep his right hand in his pocket throughout the transaction and his face was wet with sweat.

  ‘How’re you doing tonight, sir?’ the cashier said.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Long drive, huh?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ the cash
ier said. ‘We all do it, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘In the dark, too. I know it. Used to drive a truck myself. Those new headlamps shouldn’t even be legal if you ask me. You got far to go?’

  ‘Not far.’

  ‘Well, if you need a rest, there’s a Motel 6 just a couple miles down the road.’

  ‘What’s the total?’ Xander said. He realised when he’d said it that it was slightly wrong. He’d been slightly wrong with these things his whole life. The guy’s smile dissolved – then recovered – but everything between them had changed.

  ‘Your total’s $127.89. And will that be cash or card, sir?’

  ‘Cash,’ Xander said. He’d got four fifties ready on the counter. The cashier did his thing with the till, paused, slid one of the fifties back to Xander without a word, then handed him the rest of his change. Xander had to deal with the change before he could pick up the carrier bag. He could see the guy wondering what was wrong with his right hand, and how could a one-handed guy drive?

  ‘Thanks for the motel tip,’ Xander said, but he knew he couldn’t put it right with the cashier. The cashier smiled when he said: ‘You bet,’ but Xander could tell that something had closed down in him.

  S was for scissors. That one he was absolutely sure of. Mama Jean had put the S on him with sharp scissors. Hold still, goddammit, this is a curvy one.

  So now he had the scissors, too, though they were quite a long way off. Almost as far as the violin and the xylophone. The violin and the xylophone revolved around each other. He didn’t know which came first.

  Back in the van in the parking lot (there was a couple of feet on snow on the ground, and it had begun snowing hard again) he did what he could for his hand. Disinfectant that burned so bad he sat there shuddering for a few seconds with his jaws clamped together and tears brimming. There were packs of dressings, Band-Aids, tape, rubber gloves, some black liquid in a little bottle, a roll of bandage, a thermometer and another pair of scissors, so it was a waste of money buying the first pair. He taped a sterile dressing to each side of the wound and wrapped a length of bandage around it tight. It hurt like hell. He still couldn’t use it to drive. He drank the bottle of water and set off again.