Burning Down the House

by Lev Raphael

  “I just want it to stop,” I said—but hadn’t I been thinking of revenge, too?

  “It amounts to the same thing. Enough temporizing. I

  have a plan. A little while ago I sent you an e-mail that I know who was driving the SUV, and that I’m going to the police tomorrow morning to lay it all out.”

  “What?”

  Juno cackled. “And I said I’d gone to a hypnotist who put me under and helped me remember all the details of the accident.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “Of course I am! I didn’t send you the mail. I posted the message to the EAR listserv. ‘By mistake.’ Then I sent another e-mail apologizing for posting personal mail to the whole department.” Things like that happened all the time with our keyboard-happy faculty.

  “But why would anyone believe you’d wait?”

  “I said in the phony e-mail that I was feeling too woozy and weak from the painkillers to go today or even call. Who would doubt that? Nick, I’m sure someone will be alarmed and want to stop me—I’m bound to have a visitor tonight.”

  “And you’re not afraid?”

  “I have a Glock. Remember? When are you coming to

  join me? I’ll need a witness.”

  Fool that I was, I felt excited by the reckless little plan Juno had cooked up. At least we were doing something, taking action, not passively waiting for the next incident or attack, or for what seemed less likely—the Michiganapolis or campus police to find the culprit. But I wished I had applied for my gun permit sooner, visited Mrs. Fennebresque’s gun shop sooner. I wanted to be armed for the coming evening, which I was sure would bear some very strange fruit, but it had to be too soon to call Records. Even though there was no way they’d find out anything about me in a background check that would bar me from owning a gun, if I called this soon, it might get someone thinking I was too eager, and possibly a threat.

  Of course I shared nothing about Juno’s scheme with

  Stefan, who would try vetoing the plan, if he didn’t have me committed. We ate dinner and watched the news while I calculated what lie would be the easiest to tell. I was relieved when Stefan said he had plans to meet Peter de Jonge for coffee in town, and waited until he was gone a full ten minutes to call Juno and tell her that I was on my way. I left Stefan a note that I’d gone out shopping for some jeans. It wasn’t just a lame excuse, it was paraplegic, but I couldn’t come up with anything better.

  It was after dark when I parked down the street from

  Juno’s house, and she was very keyed up, though she looked elegant in a black velvet warmup suit with a leopard-print headband keeping her wild hair down. As she pulled me inside and slammed the door, her sweet perfume enveloping me, she said, “Can you stay the night?”

  “What?” I looked down at her right hand, which held

  what I assumed was a Glock. It looked larger and more ominous than semiautomatics did in movies, perhaps because I was closer, and perhaps because it wasn’t the typical accessory I associated with Juno. The barrel wasn’t leopard print, just plain black steel.

  “Whoever it is may not make a move until it’s very late.”

  We headed into the living room, and I sat on the couch. I decided to deal with the possibility of staying overnight only if it was necessary, but I did have to say, “Juno, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  She put her hands on her hips and looked down her nose at me. “It’s a bit late to bring that up, isn’t it?”

  I nodded reluctantly.

  “People think that hypnosis is magic, so whoever’s

  responsible will be terrified and come after me. It’s got to work.”

  “Why wouldn’t he—or she—get out of town instead?”

  “Really, why are you asking all these fucking questions now?”

  “But if it were you, wouldn’t you just run away?”

  “No, because it would make me look guilty. And besides, we’re not talking about a bank robbery or murder, it’s not that serious.”

  “It felt serious to me, being beaten up. And you thought having your car smashed was serious.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I know all that!” Juno stalked back and forth in front of the couch, and I almost felt we were some couple whose relationship—or marriage—was disintegrating for reasons neither of us completely understood. This anger and frustration felt unfocused, and that much stronger because of its fuzziness. I think an outside observer would have concluded that Juno wasn’t playing with a full deck, and that I didn’t even know what the game was anymore, if I ever did.

  I was starting to feel like I was back in grade school, swayed by a more popular and commanding student to steal candy from a store. Back then my parents had tried to warn me that I was too impressionable and shouldn’t follow other kids just because they were magnetic, and I thought I’d learned to avoid that. Apparently not; this was the result. I was in the living room of an armed and slightly hysterical sex bomb, hoping to trap a criminal and suddenly, profoundly distracted from our mission.

  As she ranted, I stared at her body in the clinging velvet, imagining peeling it off and sinking down, down, into her flesh. I might have been naive, but I imagined that with Juno we would go almost right to it, that anything other than intercourse would only be a detour. Sex with Stefan, and with the men before him, had never been that predictable or direct.

  Many things could happen, and did, since nothing was

  preordained like the basic linkage of a man and a woman. Sex with a woman could be inventive, I thought; with a man, wasn’t it that and invention as well?

  So, was that what I wanted, then? A simple fuck? Not so simple, though.

  “Hey, where’s Turandot?”

  “She’s being groomed and staying there overnight. I

  wanted to make sure she was safe.”

  “Good move. Let’s check the doors.” Juno and I

  surveyed the house. There was no back door, just the door from the kitchen into the garage, the sliding doors from the living room, and the front door. All of them were secure, so I didn’t think we could be easily surprised, but I regretted not being able to set up any booby traps.

  Suddenly she seemed uncertain. “Should we turn down

  the lights?”

  We did, and sat in the dim living room waiting. For what, exactly? An armed assault? Scrabbling at the chimney? I was starting to feel almost hysterical myself, so when Juno suggested gin and tonics, I said yes. To my relief, she carried the gun with her into the kitchen. Even though I knew drinking and guns didn’t mix, I was desperate to take the edge off.

  “Your gun?” I asked when she brought the drinks.

  “I’ll get it when I make the next round,” she said.

  “Maybe we could watch some TV,” I suggested. We sat

  there checking the menu on her 32-inch Sony, and even though we weren’t sitting next to each other, I remembered some awkward nights in high school with friends who might have been interested in me but weren’t about to make a first move. And I hadn’t been either, so that years later I’d still wonder about the nuances of what we had said and our body language.

  “Wonderful!” Juno applauded when she found Alien, which was already under way. She didn’t ask if I wanted to see it, and I suppose it was as good a movie as any for that evening. Given her fixed gaze and frequent gasps, I wasn’t sure if Juno was rooting for Sigourney Weaver or the

  creature, and before I could ask her, the doorbell rang.

  We shut off the TV, and Juno grabbed my arm and

  waved at the door. I reluctantly followed her order and went to open it as warily as if some slavering tentacled beast was about to pounce.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Cash Jurevicius said, grinning. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  Startled, I turned to ask Juno what she thought but Cash bulled right by me, and I slammed the door shut and hurried after him. Was he the one? Cash? And he’d just come to the fr
ont door and rung the bell? How could he be so cocky?

  Juno’s gun wasn’t in sight, and she was looking up at Cash like a graceful hostess pretending to be delighted by a surprise guest. Then she flinched as Cash drew a very small gun from his coat pocket and pointed it at her. I froze.

  “Turn up the lights,” Cash ordered me. “And then sit

  down.”

  I brought the rheostat up to full and edged around where he stood to join Juno on the couch. She cast me a panicky glance and flicked her head ever-so-slightly in the direction of the kitchen. Her gun was still there. I cursed myself. Why hadn’t I applied for a permit the day after learning Juno had a gun? Why had I been ambivalent? Why the hell had I waited?

  16

  CASH sat opposite, keeping the gun aimed at us. From its diminutive size I assumed it was a .22, but it didn’t look like any I’d seen at Mrs. Fennebresque’s shop.

  In the movies one of us would have rushed him at this point or hurled a lamp at him, jumped into the kitchen, grabbed the Glock, and blown him away, but I was too

  crippled now by fear, and I sensed Juno drawing in on herself. Cash was less than ten feet away from us. He could kill us. This was real. I tried not to gasp for air, but I felt a constriction in my throat, and my ears were starting to ring.

  “What do you want?” Juno asked him.

  “I want you to stay away from the police. You’re not

  going to let anyone interview you. It’s over. Let it go.”

  “Why?” Juno asked softly, her voice regaining just an edge of its usual steel.

  He squinted at her. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? I have a gun. That’s why.”

  “I can see that. But why have you been harassing me and Nick?”

  He snorted. “To scare you into leaving! But you just

  weren’t getting the message. I’m sick of you, sick of people like you. You’ve turned this department into a joke, the both of you. You, dressing like a cheap whore! And you!” He pointed his chin at me as dismissively as if I were a bug smeared on his windshield. “Masquerading as a scholar.

  Bibliographer? You’re just a glorified list maker. You don’t know the first thing about real scholarship.”

  This was not the time for me to make fun of the French criticism he swore by, or to tell him that the hypnosis story was just bait.

  Cash glared at Juno. “And you don’t know how to

  behave like a professor. Neither one of you should ever have been hired. It’s an absolute disgrace. My grandmother would be revolted to see what you’ve done to her department.

  You’ve turned it into a zoo.”

  “It’s not her department. It never was,” Juno retorted, sitting up straighter.

  Easy, I thought. Don’t make him any angrier.

  “Bullshit. EAR owes everything to my grandmother! She fought for more positions, a larger budget, everything. She set an example, she was a genius, everyone loved her, she was a saint.”

  “So threatening us, attacking us, is how you’re honoring her name?” I asked quietly, trying to reason with him. I was astonished at how utterly deranged he was, and more, that he could be so hostile to me after how kind I’d been to him in the past. The recent past, in fact. So all that meant nothing. He probably loathed me even more because I’d done him a favor when he didn’t deserve it. Was Cash still enraged because the Grace Jurevicius Memorial Library had been dismantled when the EAR department needed the office space?

  “Don’t play word games,” Cash jeered, his gun

  wavering. We were all silent, and I was starting to feel numb.

  Juno took my hand, and I was glad, even though her fingers were cold. Would we die like this? Side by side? Hand in hand? No, surely not. One of us would be able to get to him, but which one? Whom did he hate more, me or Juno?

  “Holding hands. That’s sweet.” Cash sounded as mean-spirited as Rusty Dominguez-St. John.

  “Not as sweet as that pussy-ass gun,” Juno snapped, her hand tightening around mine. Was she trying to send me some kind of message?

  “Bitch! My grandmother left me this gun!”

  “That’s what you used at the campus center, isn’t it?”

  she said mockingly. “Why? Afraid to hold a real gun?” Juno laughed, and I had a sudden image of Bette Midler in Ruthless People turning the tables on her inept kidnappers. But Cash wasn’t stupid, he was seething. His face was blotched with red, and I wondered if Juno’s tactic was to goad him into some move that she and I could turn against him. I hoped she didn’t goad him into shooting us. Was I starting to dissociate?

  I almost felt I was watching my thoughts appear like subtitles in a film, superimposed over the scene of Cash holding us hostage—or whatever it was he was doing.

  “You blame us for your not having tenure,” I observed, feeling my pulse slowing down, wondering where the

  comment had even come from. “You think it’s our fault you’re on the bottom. It’s the system. And what about me?

  I’m in the basement. And I’ll never get tenure.”

  “You don’t deserve tenure! You don’t deserve a job!”

  His face was so twisted with disgust that I half expected him to rave on and say I didn’t deserve to live, either, but I was beginning to suspect the gun was just window dressing, or a gesture. He wanted to intimidate us, and he needed the gun.

  “God, I loved going after you. After both of you.” He almost laughed. If he’d had a mustache, now would have been the time to twirl one end. I thought of all those times I’d read mysteries where the villain bragged about what he’s done; I’d always wondered at some level if people actually behaved like that. Obviously they did. I started to relax—a little. I bet he had no intention of harming us further, now that he’d revealed he was behind the attacks. He was having his vindictive triumph, and that was the payoff. Making us squirm while he watched. A kind of torture.

  He grinned. “You’re figuring it out, aren’t you?” he said, as if he could read my mind. Goddamn, I was sick of people thinking my eyes were so revealing.

  I said, “I’m figuring something out.” Cash seemed bizarrely confident, and I wasn’t sure why. It was more than the gun, much more—but what?

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Juno asked, eyeing us with confusion, breathing heavily.

  “I don’t think he’s serious,” I said. “About the gun, I mean. It may not even be loaded tonight.”

  Cash shrugged. I had once thought of him as handsome, a pouty Ryan Phillippe type, but now he struck me as hard, with the kind of brutally untouched face that would make him believable as Dorian Gray.

  “There’s something else, right?” I said. “You’ve got an ace in the hole, but I don’t know what it is. That’s why you’re convinced Juno’s going to shut up.”

  “Bravo. You should work as a phone psychic.”

  Juno was flummoxed by the way the tension had started to drain out of the room. “What the hell is going on here? Is this a practical joke?”

  “No joke. I brought the gun to get your attention. To make a point. I want you to shut up about the—about the accident, and everything else that’s happened to both of you.”

  “And tonight, too? Pretend you didn’t storm in here and threaten us?”

  “I rang the doorbell, you answered and let me in. That’s all that happened.” Now he leaned back as expansively as a fisherman about to tell the story of his greatest catch. “Let’s face it, neither one of you has any credibility in the department. No one will believe you if you start to blab.”

  He was right. Juno’s and my story was so improbable no one would believe it. As the powerful Angelo tells Isabella in Measure for Measure, “Say what you will, My false will o’erweigh your true.”

  Juno bristled. “You’re just a gypsy scholar—you’re

  nobody.”

  His lips twitched as if he were suppressing a grin. “Not for long.”

  Juno looked as suspicious as I was. I spoke firs
t: “What are you up to? Are you in cahoots with the provost?”

  Cash said smugly, “There’s a new order at SUM, and

  I’m not going to be left out.”

  “Wait—what about your grandmother?” I said. “What

  would she say?”

  I had heard Cash publicly decry EAR’s academic deadwood and target Summerscale for his loathing, so how could he approve of Merry Glinka? Was it all about shame?

  Because he’d been scorned in a department that his

  grandmother had put her stamp on, had seen her legacy damaged, he was now intriguing to rise above that? I felt slightly nauseous at what he might do if he got any power in his hands; I couldn’t imagine he would be a gracious victor.

  Cash didn’t answer my question—how could he? But he

  seemed to be boiling over with mischief and contempt. “I’ve been talking to the provost about a plan to create a special assistant for diversity affairs.” He looked delighted.

  Juno guffawed. “You? You’re a white male!”

  “And part Ojibway and part Mexican. A long time ago,

  and a very small part of each, but it’ll look great on paper.

  And she wants to use my grandmother’s name—it still means a lot around here.”

  “You’re making this up,” I said, feeling sure that he wasn’t.

  “So,” Cash said, standing. “I’d like you to stay where you are while I let myself out, and remember, there’s nothing to connect me to what’s been going on—I’ve made sure of that—and I don’t think either of you was smart enough to be hooked up with a tape recorder.”

  I thought he might back away from us and turn as he

  left, but he was so confident he strutted to the front door. I glanced at Juno who sat looking slumped and defeated. And I couldn’t stand that Cash was getting away with no

  punishment at all—for shooting at Juno, beating me up, smashing her car—all of it. Feeling that burst of energy I sometimes got in the pool when I pushed myself to take one more lap and suddenly felt unimaginably stronger and did two, then three extra laps, I rushed from the couch and slammed Cash forward against the front door. I grabbed his left arm, yanked it back, and pulled it up between his shoulders, wanting to break him apart. I heard him drop the gun, and Juno shouted, “No!”