by Farris, John
The bus doors wheezed open in front of Hero. He looked at the driver, a husky black man wearing shades with sapphire-blue lenses.
“Come on,” the black man said. “What is you waiting for? Ain’t no more buses tonight, this here’s the only one.”
“Are you going to Georgia Avenue?”
The black man laughed. “If you say so. I’m just driving this thing wherever it is the two of you wants to go.”
“The two of us?” Hero said, looking around. He seemed to be alone.
“Sho’. Why else ride the bus? Y’all don’t need me to where it is you’re going.” He snapped his fingers. “Man, you can go anywheres, just that quick.”
“I don’t think I’m allowed to go with you,” Hero said. “Don’t worry none about that pretty blue cord.” Hero never worried about the cord, which took care of itself. The cord didn’t become wrapped around lamp posts, tangled in bushes, caught in revolving doors. It was always just there, unobtrusively. “You is safe, long as you stays on the bus,” the black man assured him. “And she do need to talk to you, hear?”
“Where is she?” Hero asked.
The black man jerked a thumb over one shoulder. “Right back there. Let’s get on with it, now; I got a schedule to maintain.”
As soon as Hero was aboard he saw Taryn Melwood on the bench seat in the rear of the bus. She was doing her nails. She put down the bottle of polish and gestured cheerily.
At the mortuary they had washed her body and closed all the wounds. Dressed her in something pretty, a shell-pink dress. With two strands of cultured pearls. Fixed her hair, re-shaped and made up her face. But the Daimler brothers hadn’t done her nails for her. And, Taryn explained, she liked for her nails to look good.
“We’re not supposed to be meeting like this,” Hero said.
The bus pulled away from the curb. Outside, the courthouse and all the other buildings along West Fourth Street began to vanish in a thick, dismal fog.
Taryn waggled the nails of her left hand so the polish would dry faster. “Listen, we have a problem, and we need to do something about it.”
“I need to do something,” Hero corrected. “And I’m not in a very good position to do anything.”
“I’m going to help you,” Taryn said.
“How?”
“Karma. Don’t you recognize me yet? I mean, who I was back then?”
“Back when—?”
“Here’s a clue. Babylonia, 1354 B.C. I was employed in the household of a merchant in the tin trade, but I, uh, got it on with the Master, and his wife decided to have me, what’s the phrase? Nun’ sha telgrit.”
“Turned into a zombie for the slave trade.”
“Now do you remember me, Tawn L’uit?”
“I remember ... a young nursemaid too beautiful to be ... disabled so cruelly. So I ...”
“Pressed a little too hard and broke my neck. Hey, don’t give it another thought! You did me a favor. Now I’m doing you one.”
“Why are you still here, Taryn?”
“I’m not, really.” She grimaced and glanced out the rear window of the bus, at the gray void through which they were traveling. Not entirely a void, because it was occasionally punctuated by little streaking lights, like meteor showers. “I mean, where is here, for Chrissake? Anyway, I have a Dispensation, I think they call it, but only for a couple of days. Exactly two days, because once that first shovelful of dirt hits the coffin, that’s it, I’m gone. You know what I mean. I hear the light’s better over there. No old buses, either. Anyway, I’m trying to help you. I don’t need any help. The nice thing about being dead is, there’s nothing left to be afraid of.”
“Why did he kill you, Taryn?”
“Do you like this shade of nail polish? It doesn’t exactly match my dress, but I don’t think it’s too bad.”
“Can’t you answer any of my questions?”
“It won’t help you if I answer them,” she said matter-of-factly. “It won’t help her, either.”
“Who?”
“The next one he’s going to kill, sure as God made little green apples.”
“There’s going to be another one?” Hero said, horrified. “No bout a’ doubt it,” Taryn chirped. “Unless you’re really on your toes.”
“But I—I don’t know what to do. Help me, you said you’d help me!”
The black bus driver looked over his shoulder at them and called out, “Georgia Avenue! This is the next and only stop.”
Taryn, tongue between her teeth, concentrated on drawing a line of polish around the lower rim of her pinky nail. “Perfect! Okay, reckon I’m ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Ready for what?”
“For my funeral.” She looked him sternly in the eye. “Be there. That’s where we’ll get him.”
“How?”
“I’m still working on that one,” Taryn admitted.
Taryn lifted her chin and showed him her profile. Despite artful applications of mortician’s wax, knife wounds were faintly visible.
“Don’t you think they did a pretty good job?” she said wistfully. “I ought to be in pictures, huh?”
“Boss,” the driver moaned. “Time for you to de-part. This ain’t no taxicab. I got me a schedule to maintain.”
“Go on,” Taryn said, giving Hero a psychic push. Close as they were, there was no possibility of them touching each other. “But stay out of his mind, Hero. It ain’t pretty in there.”
The bus doors whooshed open. Hero got up. When he looked again Taryn was lying down on the seat, wearing her pleated pink dress, hands folded below her breasts, a slight permanent smile on her face. Her eyes were closed. He walked to the rear doors and stepped down into the gray void. There was a twinkling-of light like starfall and he felt himself tilting, as if he were standing on the deck of a ship in heavy seas. He instinctively knew he couldn’t fall, but he reached out anyway as the neighborhood of Georgia Avenue warped into focus all around him.
He looked the other way and saw a pretty blond girl on the sidewalk a dozen feet away, staring at him. She was out walking one of those squat snitty little dogs with too much hair. The dog was barking its head off at the end of a glittering leash.
Hero discovered that he had a death-grip on a stop sign. He hung his head as if he were drunk. The girl scolded her noisy dog but quickly jogged him to the other side of the street. Hero continued to lean on the stop sign until he heard her well down the block, talking to the dog, whose name, apparently, was Cheezit. He looked up then, in time to see the girl dragging Cheezit up the walk to the front porch of the house at 322 Georgia Avenue—
The home of Sheriff John Stone.
• 9 •
Edie and Roberta
“Uncle, there’s a drunk man on the corner. I don’t think he lives around here. Anyway, I never have seen him before. Cheezit, now hush! I’ll get you your bedtime snack.”
“What was he doing?” Stone asked the girl. “Sitting on the curb? Lying down?”
“No, sir, he was sort of leaning against the stop sign like he was fixing to collapse.” She shuddered eloquently. “He gave me the willies. Just sort of appeared out of nowhere. Cheezit and me was almost on top of him before we even noticed him.” Edie went up on her toes to reach a box of the crackers her Pomeranian doted on and had been named for. She was a slender girl just into puberty, but her figure was developing fast.
Stone came up behind her, braced her lightly at the waist, and reached over her head to get the box down for her.
“Thanks, Uncle John.”
“You’re not feeding him too many of those things, are you?” Stone had bought Edie the Pomeranian as a Christmas present, banishing the faithful but failing Beauregard to his office.
“No, sir, I’m real careful about his diet after what the vet had to say.” She scooped up her pet from the floor and nuzzled him. “Don’t want to upset his tummy-tum, do we? No-no-no.”
“Believe I’ll go outside and have a look around for this drun
k you saw.”
Edie said disapprovingly, “The way he looked, he’s mostly bum. Cinch he doesn’t belong in this neighborhood. Now looky here, don’t be biting my fingers half off. Okay, here’s your treat, you bozo.”
Stone took his roast beef sandwich with him and had a couple of quick bites on his way to the porch. The roast beef was delicious. Edie wasn’t fourteen yet, but already she could cook with a flair that would be the envy of most housewives. She knew how to can jellies and vegetables, and was looking to win a prize in her age group at the county fair in September. Cooking was just one of Edie’s God-given talents. She sang in the church choir and painted pretty watercolors and also ran the household, supervising the nigger who came in to clean and do the washing. Most importantly, Edie had taken on much of the responsibility for Roberta. Stone could afford to have a practical nurse only two full days a week, half day on Saturday.
Outside he scanned the street but didn’t see anyone. Apparently the drunk who had startled Edie had moved on.
Stone heard Edie whistling as she left the kitchen and bounded upstairs. Although at the moment his spirits were weighted with rocks and sunk in dark waters, Edie was a ray of light even at those depths. She called him “’Uncle,” but they were not related. She had been a runaway from Tumblestone Mountain, Georgia, whom he had plucked off the streets two years ago, then taken into his own home. Edie had worked out far better than Stone dared to hope. Roberta adored her. And his own feelings—
Stone sat wearily on the edge of a glider with the Italian-bread sandwich in his hands. He had not eaten all day. In the kitchen he had thought he was ravenous, but after a couple of bites he just couldn’t swallow any more. He blamed this lack of appetite on strain and fatigue. On arriving home from work he’d shut himself in his bedroom and had such a shaking fit he was frightened it would bring on a heart attack. Now he had difficulty focusing his thoughts on the girl, his angel whom he had rescued from the brink of Perdition. A young girl, forced out of her home, with no place to go—he had been in Law Enforcement for most of his life, and knew the terrible statistics, the fate of poor girls like Edie. He was so proud of her now—but when he thought about all that she meant to him, something corrupt and sickening welled up in his throat, he nearly gagged.
Taryn. Taryn was still in the way, though she had left his house more than eight years ago. He could never be truly happy with Edie until—but she was dead, damn her, finally—how long must he continue to suffer for Taryn's sinful ways, how long would he be cast down in the prime of his manhood because of what she had done to him?
Cheezit the Pommie was barking monotonously when he should have settled down for the night in his fancy basket-bed in the laundry room. Stone didn’t have much affection for the dog, who was frequently underfoot and easy to step on. He’d always owned stalwart hunters or shepherds like Beau. But Edie had fallen in love, cuddling that little bit of fluff at the pet store; and he’d promised her any dog she wanted.
Anything, he would give her anything as long as she stayed with him!
Now that Taryn was close to being in her grave, her satanic grip on him released, he would soon be restored to his full dignity. And then he and Edie—
Why wouldn't that yapping dog shut up?
Stone went back into the house. The Pomeranian was at the bottom of the steps in the foyer, staring into the darkened parlor, his eyes bugged and froth on his lips. “Stop that! Hell is the matter with you?”
“Uncle John?” Edie called from the top of the stairs. “He can’t come up, I’m fixing to take my bath now.”
“Well, I’m going to shut him in the laundry room so we can have some peace.”
Stone gathered up the squirming dog with one hand and carried him back to the kitchen. Cheezit calmed down when the kitchen door swung shut behind them, though he was still uneasy. In the laundry room Stone put the dog in his basket. Cheezit looked at him with liquid, alarmed eyes, quivering and whimpering. Damn dog was nothing but a bundle of nerves, Stone thought. Edie spoiled him rotten. But then, Edie spoiled everybody—it was her nature to please. A lovelorn pang turned into a cramp and the bleakness of his soul appalled him. Rejoice, he thought, why can’t you be joyful now that it’s done? He took a stuffed Odie from the laundry room shelf and put it in the basket, company for the dog. He dialed fifteen minutes’ worth of time and turned the dryer on. Damn foolish waste of electricity—but the sound of the dryer always lulled Cheezit to sleep. He left the light on too, and closed the door.
As Stone crossed the kitchen to drop his uneaten sandwich into the garbage disposal, he glanced casually at the cutting board and the carving knife he’d left there, slathered with mayonnaise. But it wasn’t mayonnaise he saw. The knife was dripping blood.
He went rigid from shock, and his heart seemed to detonate icily in his chest. He was a moment away from screaming when he also noticed the catsup bottle Edie had taken off the shelf to fix her own favorite before-bed snack—a catsup, piccalilli, and white bread sandwich.
The scream was choked off. He stood there gasping, face lurid with blood, thinking: Why did she leave the knife like that, for me to see?
Because Edie suspected—everyone did—that he had killed Taryn ... come across her lonely on the road on the way to his favorite fishing spot—and let it happen, just let it happen! Now every living soul he’d known in his life had congregated, they were all around his house but invisible as deathwatch beetles, and they were waiting for his scream of guilt; when they heard it they’d scuttle in like a horde of nightmare scavengers, drag him naked into the street and devour him.
How badly he needed to scream, to get the sickness out of his gut, this new horror off his mind! The effort not to scream and give himself away was the most excruciating labor of his life. It was worse than the night he’d dragged himself for three miles in subzero weather after breaking his right leg and hip falling off a cliff in Korea. Time seemed to pass almost as slowly for Stone now, until he could get to the light switch and throw the kitchen into darkness.
He was better in the dark, although the pressure in his chest, so rigid a cannonball would have bounced off it, made breathing an ordeal. Gradually his heartbeat subsided, regulated by the ticking of the wall clock.
The darkness discouraged them; but they wouldn't leave now.
They would continue to observe him, hoping for self betrayal.
No, I’m too strong for you, Stone thought, nevertheless resisting the impulse to look around defiantly at those he had called friends, now there to mock and despise him. None of you know what she did to me! But the bitch-child is dead, and you can die too, for all I care! All of you!
But not Edie. No, no, never Edie! If he could only hold her now, just for a few seconds, and explain why he’d had to kill Taryn, she would understand, and forgive him with kisses ...
She was taking her bath now. Just the sight of Edie would be reassuring; it was necessary. For a few moments he enjoyed his greed, his voluptuous sorrow. If he could get through the night, despite the lurkers all around him, and tomorrow, then the next day—
Taryn would be buried. Placed in earth for a silent Eternity. And in the ritual of her passing he would enjoy rebirth.
Stone left the kitchen quietly as the dryer stopped. Cheezit whimpered but it was a dream-complaint, the dog had gone to sleep. Stone went up the stairs to the second floor and paused by the bathroom. He heard water running slowly, not much more than a trickle, and Edie humming to herself. He put a hand on the doorknob. There was a punishing fire in his groin, but no hint of an erection. He had cold sweat on the back of his neck. No, it was the wrong time, no matter how desperately he needed the child’s forgiveness, her lovely sympathy, her sweetly chaste embrace. He pictured her looking at him as he came in, her expression not glad but startled, perhaps frightened. He was afraid too, but deeply excited. What if she screamed? What would he do then? He felt confused, and angry at being confused.
He took his hand from the doorknob. His han
d trembled.
That made him angrier, so he struck himself sharply in the face, closing his right eye. He did it again. Still the fire burned in his testicles, there was no relief. Stone went down the hall and opened the door to the third floor, which consisted of unfinished attic space. Two bare bulbs hung from the rafters furnished light. He went cautiously across the floorboards to the mattress he’d placed there years ago, when Taryn had come into the house. He kneeled, then stretched out facedown and took up a loose floor board.
Light from the bathroom below, passing through thick squares of opaque glass block, illuminated his face. He removed the bit of tape that covered the peephole he’d installed. It was a common wide-angle type frequently found in apartment houses and hotel room doors, concealed in a mortared corner of the glass block ceiling. The bathtub, with Evie in it, was directly below. She was sitting in the waist-deep water with her pale hair bound up, water running over a bare foot she held under the tap.
He had not spied on her for a while. He was shocked to see the size of her breasts, the caterpillar-like fuzz on her pudendum. Child no longer. Men would want her now. He was grieved and distraught. He squirmed on the mattress, maddened by the fire that smouldered in his groin and testicles, while his penis remained soft.
Edie cocked a foot on the side of the deep old tub and dreamily stroked the underside of her thigh with the soapy washcloth. She had used a touch of bubblebath, and the bubbles gleamed on her upstart breasts. Her nipples were not petite, as he had imagined them. They were surrounded by very large aureolae. Now the cloth was between her legs, and, God, what was she doing? Stroking herself with an insolent forefinger, eyes half closed as she gazed almost directly up at him, a mesmerized smile on her face.
Stone sat up clumsily, pain spearing through his head. He was salivating uncontrollably, like a sick animal. Grief and confusion racked him. Ah, not Edie! How could she torment him this way? She’d been so slender only a few months ago—so chastely made. Now look at her, whorishly involved with her own body.