by Ed Kurtz
They flew past a filling station, a hole in the wall bar called Tiny’s and a restaurant with corrugated metal siding called The Rib Shack. Leon’s mouth watered at the thought of pork ribs in front of him.
“Let’s stop there for lunch,” Leon weakly suggested.
“No dice,” Lisa said. “The plan’s set. We’re going to live like millionaires tonight, Leon.”
“Millionaires,” he said. “Sure.”
He remained silent for the remainder of the drive to the westernmost part of town, though Lisa occasionally piped up with some inane suggestion or another, mostly having to do with the illicit acquisition of other people’s money. Leon ignored her entirely.
As they pulled into a grandiose community with enormous brick walls on either side of the road and a garish golden sign designating it Riverside Hills, Leon’s stomach tightened. He felt bored and restless already, and deeply uncertain about his newfound association with this wild woman he barely knew. More than that, for the first time since his extranormal acumen manifested itself, Leon felt that he had lost control.
He shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead, thinking, I’ll have to do something about that.
22
Frank Shelton watched Jim Petras sip at a glass of white wine and laughed.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a beer?” Frank asked him. “Just because Angelica wants everybody to drink her snooty wine doesn’t mean you’re obligated.”
Jim smiled and said, “Oh, it’s not so bad. Beats the hell out of that swill you call beer, at any rate.”
“Swill! I’ll have you know this isn’t just swill—it’s first rate American swill, sir!”
Both men enjoyed a hearty chuckle, at which Angelica rolled her eyes. Beside her on the leather L-shaped sofa, Martina fell into a relaxed smile and popped a steamed clam into her mouth. No one else was touching them, leaving the entire plate to her.
“Easy on those,” Jim warned her. “You don’t want to eat the whole lot, do you?”
“Lighten up, Jim,” she snapped back, her mouth full of half-masticated clam. “It’s a party.”
Verdi’s La primavera came to a close on the surround sound speakers, hidden throughout the enormous three-story house, giving way momentarily to the first movement of L’estate. Frank poured the last of his beer down his throat and made an about-face for the kitchen to retrieve another one.
“He doesn’t normally drink much,” Angelica said by way of apology. “He’s only celebrating.”
Martina and Jim exchanged a cursory glance.
“It’s all right,” Jim said. “Everyone’s having a good time. That’s all that matters.”
Martina nodded and flashed an assuring smile at Angelica. Frank came traipsing back into the room with a mild stumble in his step and a bottle of Stroh’s in his hand.
“Jesus, haven’t we had enough of this fancy classical crap?” he boomed. “Who’s up for some Frampton?”
He immediately fell into an air guitar solo that resulted in the bottle dropping out of his hand and shattering on the hardwood floor.
“For God’s sake, Frank,” Angelica moaned as she got up from the sofa.
Jim sighed and Martina averted her eyes as though nothing happened.
Then the door bell chimed.
Martina perked up and exclaimed, “Ooh, it looks like the Zimmermans came, after all!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Angelica snapped as she wiped up the mess on the floor. “Those idiots have gone off to Austin or some fool place like that.”
Martina’s head sank with shame.
“Chrissakes,” Frank slurred. He turned on his heel and made a staggering jolt for the foyer. “I guess I’ll get it, then.”
“That’ll make a great impression,” Angelica muttered.
Jim raised his glass and said, “Well, this is fun.”
In the foyer, Frank fumbled for the door handle as the doorbell chimed a second time.
“All right, all right,” he groused as he opened the door.
It was not the Zimmermans.
Rather, it was a slight, blonde haired man and his female companion, a thin young woman with curly brown hair and a wide grin plastered across her face.
She said, “Hiya, pops!”
And she reared back and punched Frank in the nose.
Frank felt the cartilage crunch and he staggered backward, his eyes filling up with hot tears. He let out a throaty moan and waved his arms, struggling for balance. From the main room, Angelica shouted, “Well, who is it, Frank?”
Leon seized Lisa by the shoulder and glared angrily at her.
“What’d you do that for?” he cried.
“We’re not here to make nice, Leon. This is our time. Let’s go in.”
She advanced into the foyer, craning her neck to take in the high domed ceiling and white plaster walls. The floor was marble and her pumps clacked with every step. She whistled.
“Christ,” she said. “Think you got enough bread?”
Leon followed her in and shut the door. His gaze went directly to the man who had answered the door. Flailing his hands at his bloody face, he fell into a heap between the foyer and a spacious, well lit room just beyond it. Three other people were there, two of them standing and a particularly shocked woman hugging her knees on the gigantic sofa. All of them stared with disbelief.
“What is this?” Angelica asked defiantly.
“Sorry to bash up your tea party, Missus Rockefeller,” Lisa announced. “But we’re moving in.”
Leon felt his stomach contract and turn sour at the expressions of terror and confusion on the people’s faces. Only the defiant woman looked genuinely angry—the other man and the woman on the sofa only looked frightened. He did not blame them. Leon would have been frightened too, were he in their shoes.
“There’s hardly any cash in the house,” Angelica said ruefully.
Jim withdrew his wallet from his pants pocket and started to pull out bills. Martina burst into tears.
“Oh, oh, Jim,” she blubbered.
Lisa turned to Leon and whispered, “Calm her down, would you?”
Leon’s eyes fell to the floor for a moment and he filled his chest with air, holding it there until his heartbeat slowed to a more moderate pace. He then walked across the room to the table between himself and Martina, his mind immediately flashing back to Cheryl Minchillo crashing through her own glass top coffee table. He swallowed.
“Settle down,” he commanded Martina. “Stop crying. You’re going to be fine.”
Right away the tears stopped and Martina looked up at Leon with wide, wet eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh,” she said. “Thank goodness.”
“Here,” Jim said, shoving over a handful of folded bills. “Take it all. No sense in taking the credit cards, but you can have all the cash.”
Lisa snatched it up and said, “Thanks. Now sit down.”
Jim’s face darkened as he looked at her and then over to Leon.
Leon said, “Go ahead, sit down.”
Jim obeyed.
Lisa’s grin stretched wider still.
“So you can make ‘em do anything? Anything at all?” she asked Leon.
“I haven’t failed yet,” Leon said hesitantly.
Angelica planted her fists on her hips and stamped her foot on the floor.
“Just what the hell do you people want from us?” she bellowed.
Lisa narrowed her eyes and crossed the room until her face was mere inches from Angelica’s.
“We just want to have some fun, lady,” she said softly.
* * *
The first time she knocked, Ami used her knuckles like everybody else. The fourth time, she beat on the door with the soft side of her fist. It was two fists the fifth and sixth times. Then she even tried the doorknob, though she was not surprised to find it locked.
If Naila wasn’t at home, why were half the lights on in the house? Ami peered through the narrow space between the
mostly drawn curtains in the front window. She could see the living room, everything neat and clean and in its place. On the small, polished wood table in front of the wicker loveseat was a large, leather-bound bible, opened and laid flat. Glory hallelujah, Ami thought, somewhat derisively. She then noticed the glass on the floor, its contents spilled out onto the carpet.
Either she’d only just knocked it over and she left it there, or someone else did it. As if Naila would have anyone else in her private little prayer space, Ami silently groused. She waited for a few minutes to see if Naila—or anyone—would come back to clean it up. No one did.
“Weird,” Ami muttered.
She stepped back from the window and scanned the front of the house, the well-kempt yard, the driveway and carport. Naila’s hatchback was nowhere to be seen, which would indicate that she wasn’t at home, but left the lights and the spill a mystery. Ami shrugged and walked back to the stone walkway that curved around the front yard to the curb, where she was parked. Before she stepped on the first stone, however, she was mildly startled by the sound of a slamming door.
Ami spun around to find the house just as it was. She rushed back to the window and cupped her hands on either side of her face as she looked inside. She had not noticed it before, but she could see straight through the house, through the living room and kitchen to the back door, which stood wide open. It must have been the screen door that slammed. Ami scrambled around to the back of the house.
A light breeze picked up, rustling through the leaves in the trees that bordered Naila’s small backyard. It also blew the screen door open a few inches, which then crashed back against the frame. Ami hurried up to the door and pulled it open.
“Hello?” she called into the house. “Naila? Are you home?”
She stepped into the kitchen and let the screen door slam shut behind her.
“Naila? It’s Ami…”
The kitchen appeared undisturbed. Ami went into the living room and picked up the glass. The carpet was stained dark red. Ami assumed it was grape juice. She touched the damp spot with her finger and sniffed it, confirming her suspicion.
She heard something shift in one of the back rooms, then rustle. Ami shot up.
“Naila?”
The rustling expanded into a rhythmic shuffling, punctuated by short, hard breaths. Someone was back there.
Ami gritted her teeth and padded quietly to the hall at the back of the room. The hall was dark, and all but one of the doors in it were shut. The door at the very end was open and a weak, yellow light spilled out. A long, thin shadow moved back and forth on the carpet. Ami frowned.
God, I hope that’s her, she thought as she proceeded down the hallway. It could be a murderer. Someone who broke in and killed her. And if I don’t get the hell out he’ll murder me, too.
For a few seconds, Ami paused. She watched the swaying shadow on the floor and listened, holding her breath. Nothing changed. Ami slowly let the breath out and went the rest of the way down the hall. A large, colorful cross hung on the wall facing her, the words jesus saves painted in looping letters on the face of it. Ami steeled herself and turned into the room.
There stood Naila in a white slip, swaying from side to side with her arms hanging in the air as though supported by a puppeteer’s strings. Her eyes were red and swollen, her dark, gaunt face glistening with tears.
“Naila…” Ami said, her voice barely audible.
“I don’t…,” Naila began, her words slurry and low. “I don’t…want to dance…anymore.”
“Naila, what’s wrong? I knocked…the back door was open.”
“Don’t want…dance anymore…”
Yet in spite of her desire to stop, Naila kept on, swaying her hips and letting her thin, naked arms float sleepily in the air. Ami gasped and leapt at her sister, grabbing her arms and pulling her in for a tight embrace. Even in the confines of her sister’s arms, Naila wiggled and squirmed.
“God,” Ami moaned, “what’s happened to you?”
Naila’s head dropped against Ami’s shoulder and she closed her eyes. Ami held on to her, and in a minute Naila was asleep.
And still dancing.
Ami squeezed her tight and whispered, “Leon.”
* * *
“Make them fuck,” Lisa hissed.
Leon shook his head violently and said, “No.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll do almost anything, but not that. Think of something else.”
“Christ,” Lisa complained. “It’s not like you’re such a pure saint anymore.”
She leaned in close to Martina on the sofa and smiled at her.
“You know he was a virgin yesterday?” Lisa asked the terrified woman. “Yesterday? This morning! Then he took me to that fuck shack on University, and what do you know? Our boy Leon is a regular love doctor.”
Leon’s cheeks bloomed pink and he furrowed his brow.
“Cut it out,” he said.
“What, I can’t even talk about fucking? Shit, Leon—you’re such a prude all of a sudden.”
“Think of something else,” Leon reiterated.
“All right, fine,” she grumbled. “It’s not like I get turned on by old people screwing or anything. I just wanted…”
“…to have some fun,” Leon interrupted. “Right. I know.”
Lisa rolled her eyes and turned back to the terrorized quartet on the couch. Jim and Martina huddled close together, while Frank held a blood-soaked cloth to his face and Angelica scowled at her tormenters.
“You,” she said, pointing at Angelica. “This is your place, isn’t it?”
Angelica nodded, still scowling.
“You got a gun around here?”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t be lying now, would you?”
“I’m not lying. We…we don’t like guns. We’re not gun people.”
“They’re not gun people,” Lisa said to Leon. “You ask her. She won’t lie to you.”
“What for? Why do you want a gun?”
“I got an idea, okay? You said think of something else, so I thought of something else. So ask her.”
“But a gun?”
Somewhere in the depths of his memory he heard the echoes of Dane Honeycutt’s .38 ringing out through the forest. Through his brain.
“What are we doing here, then?” Lisa snapped.
Leon cleared his throat and directed a stern gaze at Angelica.
“Tell me the truth,” he said. “Is there a gun in this house?”
“N—no,” Angelica said, her face scrunching up into a pug-dog mask of puzzlement.
“There,” Leon said. “See?”
“We’re not gun people,” Angelica mumbled, as though it was an oft-repeated phrase for her.
Frank patted his wife’s knee, but she did not respond in any way.
“…not gun people,” she said again.
“We got it,” Lisa barked at her.
“Okay,” Leon said, rubbing his hands together. “No gun. Any other bright ideas?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Let’s have it.”
Lisa smirked smugly and said, “Let’s get to know these assholes, shall we?”
* * *
It was only a matter of moments before all four of them were under Leon’s control. He spoke to them slowly and deliberately, like a stage magician, informing them each in their turn that they were now his to command. As they froze up and glassed over, one by one, Lisa watched with astonished amusement and giggled relentlessly. She was enraptured by the spectacle of it.
“Now what?” he asked Lisa.
“We start asking questions—after I get a beer. Want one?”
She headed for the kitchen.
Leon said, “Sure. What do you want me to ask?”
“You know, it’s a goddamn shame that someone with such an incredible ability like yours should be so damned unimaginative.”
Leon hung his head and sulked. Lisa pulled two bottles of Stroh’s
out of the fridge and came traipsing back to him. They each took big swigs. Leon wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Let’s try this.”
He sat down on the edge of the coffee table, testing it nervously before giving it his full weight, and faced the entranced foursome. He addressed Frank first.
“What’s your name?”
“Frank…Frank Shelton.”
“Tell me what’s the worst thing you ever did, Frank.”
For several seconds Frank was silent, working through the haze of Leon’s control to sift through the foggy memories in his brain. His eyes grew less and less focused, until at last he snapped back to the present and opened his mouth.
“Uh…,” he stammered, staring blankly across the room. “Elaine.”
“Elaine?” Lisa asked. “Who’s Elaine?”
Leon said, “Shh.” He then repeated her question to Frank.
“My sister,” Frank said.
“Oh, Jesus,” Lisa said.
“What’d you do to Elaine, Frank?”
“He banged her,” Lisa crowed. “Holy fuck, he banged his own sister.”
Frank brought his eyebrows together in a crowded bunch and shook his head.
“I killed her,” he said.
“Whoops,” Lisa said.
Martina giggled.
Frank said, “It was an accident.”
Lisa frowned. “You sure about that?”
Frank nodded slowly. Leon tipped his bottled back and swallowed noisily.
“We were kids. Young. Got to rough-housing.” He dropped his head suddenly and began to cry. “Her neck broke under my weight. I was such a fat kid, I just crushed her…”
“Borrrrrrrring…,” Lisa sang, rolling her eyes.
Leon looked away, up at the high windows that ascended with the curving stairs, and decided that he was already feeling a little buzz. His head felt light, his eyes watery and weirdly disconnected from the rest of him, as though they were floating freely in the center of the sockets. He smiled wanly and looked back at Lisa.
“Try someone else,” she said testily. “This guy is a bore.”