“He must really trust you,” said Paulo.
Alene gave a short burst of laughter, “You don't know the half of it.”
“What? Asked Paulo. “What don't I know.”
Alene sat up in the bed. She turned and leaned over Paulo, “I'll tell you, but you can't say anything,” Alene said seriously. “Not a word, I mean it.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Paulo. “I'm a bank vault. I'm Fort Knox. You can trust me.”
Alene put her back to him, “Oh, I don't know. I promised I wouldn't say anything,” Alene was toying with him now.
“Come on. Really. You can trust me.”
“Alright” said Alene, deliberately pausing for a moment before continuing. “The old man loves me.”
“He loves you? So what he loves you. That's supposed to be a fucking secret?”
“No. I mean he really loves me.”
“Okay, he loves you. He loves DDT, what do I care?”
Alene grinned in the darkness. “Ask me how much.”
Paulo gave an annoyed grunt, but he played along, “How much?”
“Everything,” Alene almost sang.
“What do you mean everything?”
“I mean everything,” Alene repeated.
“No,” said Paulo “No way. You don't mean...”
“Yep,” Alene could sense Paulo's surprise even in the black room. It came off of him in waves. “He gave it all to me. As soon as he's dead I get everything.”
“So you've seen his will. You signed it?”
“Sure I saw it.”
“So you know how much everything is worth? You know how much the old man has?” Paulo was becoming very excited.
“Down to the dime, baby. And it's a lot. However much you think the old man is worth, triple it.”
Paulo was silent for a moment before asking timidly, “When you saw the will, when you were signing it. Did you see... was there anything ...” Paulo trailed off.
“Was there anything for you?” Alene finished for him. She didn't need the lights on to know that Paulo was nodding his head. “Not one red fucking cent.” She heard Paulo's heart breaking, it was a low rush of breath leaving his body as if it had been forced out by a fist.
“So he left it all to you. Like all all.”
“Yeah, it's going to be all mine. But who knows when. Like you said: the old man's tough. He could outlive us all.”
“Yeah. Maybe you actually need a soul to die. Cheap fuck. ”
“But he doesn't have to,” Alene said, as if she were thinking out loud. “He could have an accident. Accidents happen all the time. Especially to old people living in run-down houses. Right?”
“Right,” said Paulo.
“And if he did, you know, have an accident, if he wasn't going to be around anymore, I could help you out, financially. I'd feel so awful if you weren't taken care of.”
“How taken care of?” Asked Paulo
Alene lay back on the mattress, she draped an arm over Paulo's naked chest and put her mouth next to his ear, “I'm not greedy, Paulo. I could give you...half.”
“Half? Paulo said. “How much is half?”
“How high can you count? We're talking old money. Old money. Like so much money that it makes money just sitting in a bank.”
Paulo got up out of bed and pulled on some pants he picked up off the floor.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“Where the fuck do you think I'm going? That old man's about to have an accident right now.”
“Don't be a fucking idiot,” Alene hissed at him. “It has to look real, or we go to jail and we won't get shit.”
“What the fuck did you just call me?” Said Paulo. He reached out for Alene's face and grabbed her around her mouth, slamming the back of her head into the wall hard enough to rattle the jars on the shelf above them. “Did you forget who the fuck you're talkin' to? Maybe I should remind you,” he squeezed her lips together between his thumb and forefinger and leaned into her, drawing his face a few inches from her own. “You want me to do something for you? Kill the old man. That's fine, I probably would have ended up killing him anyway, so I'll do it. But that don't change nothing between us. As long as we're still here, the old man's alive, and you haven't put money in my hands, you are fucking property. You got a big red brand on your ass that says Paulo. You understand?”
Paulo released his grip and Alene put her hand to her mouth. The only sound for a long while was her heavy breathing in the darkness. She could feel sticky blood on her fingertips from her split lip. “Fuck!” She said, wiping at her mouth again. “I just meant you shouldn't go off all half-cocked and do something stu... do something you might regret. We have to be smart about this. Even if we did make it look like a convincing enough accident, it's so soon after him changing the will that it'll still cast a lot of unwanted suspicion. Right?”
Paulo sighed, frustrated, “Then what the fuck do you want to do, then? Maybe if we wait around long enough he'll just die of old age.”
“It won't be that long. I think we should talk about this some more. Talk about, you know, how to do it. But I do know we need to wait. I think pretty soon the time will be right. But it just isn't now.”
Paulo was silent, sitting on the side of the bed with his back to her. “Whatever,” he said finally.
“The sun'll be up in a little while. I'm going to go try and get some sleep. We'll figure this out later. Tomorrow,” she said. Alene got up, searched the floor for her robe, put it on and walked out the door.
Walking down the hall to her room, she could barely contain her glee. She entered her room and flopped down on the bed. She had to stifle a squeal of delight. It couldn't have gone better if they were reading from a script. Her whole body tingled with excitement. It was as if she had finally seen a little bit of daylight shining through an endless, dark cavern. Paulo. Fucking Paulo. She couldn't believe how easy it was to get him to betray the old man. And for what? A too-good-to-be-true promise of money. Alene smiled to herself. There was no money. The old man had never shown her a will. She doubted he even had any money left. If he did, he would probably be pumping it into his garden.
The hardest thing she had done that night was stopping Paulo from immediately murdering the old man in his sleep. She had considered it for a brief second, but decided she really did need it to look like an accident. It would be safer that way. And after that, after the old man was dead, it would only be a matter of ditching Paulo. If she could get away from him, she was sure he would be too dumb to ever track her down. And if she couldn't get away from him, she would just have to cut his throat in his sleep. She wasn't sure, but she thought she could do it. She could kill him, and if she was smart about it, hide his body where no one would ever find it. Who the fuck would be looking for an immigrant gardener?
Well, there was one person who would be looking. One sizable hangup. The cop. She didn't know what to do about him yet, and that was a problem. He was the free radical, the only person besides Paulo and the old man that knew she was here. And it would be a lot more difficult to avoid someone with his resources if she ended up having to kill Paulo- which, the more she thought about it, was looking more and more likely.
Alene woke in darkness to a low rumbling from above. She looked out of her window to see huge black clouds gathering in the sky, lit with the sporadic flicker of lightning. The air outside was still, like a small animal, petrified by fear, waiting for something to lash out at it with snarling teeth, and pull it into its jaws.
She found the old man downstairs. He too, was staring out a window, transfixed by the imminent storm, absent with taciturn reverie. He looked lost, confused. Like he would look up at her, startled, not knowing who or where he was. She had never seen him look so frail, with his hollow-eyed stare, the rough growth of white stubble poking through the skin of his face, his narrow, fragile, yellow-nailed fingers clutching the armrest of his wheelchair. His oxygen mask hung down around his neck, dangling below the collar of hi
s stained white T-shirt.
“Looks like we're going to get some weather,” said Alene, looking out of the window with the old man.
He made a noise, acknowledging her without looking up.
“It might be nice. I'm kind of looking forward to it. After so many sunny days in a row, it might be nice to have a change,” said Alene.
“The thing about change is, it changes things,” the old man said.
“Wow, that's so... zen.”
“Shut up,” said the old man. “I've been looking out of this window for longer than I'm able to remember. The view has never changed. This window has always look out over my everlasting garden, just these thin panes of glass separating us. From here, it looks so beautiful. Lush and lustrous. It's really not fair how something so magnificent can be hiding something else so loathsome and ugly. How can it be? What is it about beauty that begs to be corrupted? How can these vile worms dig into the bed of innocence?”
“I don't know,” said Alene. “Maybe beauty, the way you're talking about it, purity, doesn't really exist. Maybe there's always something ugly lingering. Even your garden, if it wasn't teeming with insects eating away at it, it would still be fertilized with a hundred miscarriages. And if it wasn't, it would just be an ugly, bare field. If you want something nice, like take a picture, and look at that.”
The sky above them roared with thunder, and the first drops of rain fell, spattering the window in front of them.
“Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm pining for something that was never really there. I'm going to miss it, though,” the old man sighed and said no more.
Alene took him to his room and she stayed there with him for most of the day. She tried to cheer him up by reading from one of the vast volumes of books that lined the walls of his room. She selected one at random and opened it to the middle. It was written in Latin and when she slammed it shut, a cloud of dust stirred from the cover. She was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling when she heard something move outside the door. She sat up and looked at the old man. He was sitting, staring at the wall with the same pathetic, sad look he had been wearing all day; he had the grim demeanor of a prisoner watching a gallows being erected from the window in his cell. He hadn't heard the noise. She got up and went to the door, opened and pulled it shut quietly behind her.
Paulo was sitting in the hallway with his back leaned against the wall, balancing an old-looking pillow on his knees.
Alene looked down at him, “What the fuck are you doing out here?”
“I'm gonna to do it. I'm gonna smother him. It'll be easy,” Paulo said without looking up.
“You can't,” Alene moved away from the door and lowered her voice. “You can't. They can tell if you do something like that. They'll know his death wasn't natural.”
“They can? How?”
“I don't know, I saw it on TV, one of those cop shows. Somebody tried that and they didn't get away. Besides, he has the oxygen mask.”
“Well, yeah,” said Paulo, “That's what I was thinking, see. I'll suffocate him, then I'll switch on his oxygen full blast, you know, so the tank runs out. That way it'll look like he just got careless and then died in his sleep. It's perfect.”
“No,” Alene shook her head, “It'll look like we were negligent. “Like we got careless and didn't check his tank. That's manslaughter, negligent homicide, probably elderly abuse and a shitload of other stuff we don't even know about.”
Paulo went to his feet, shoved the pillow into Alene's hands, “Do you want to fuckin' do this or not?”
“Yes,” said Alene, “Maybe. I don't know. I just need some more time to think about this. Things are getting... I don't know.”
“Well you need to figure it out. As far as I'm concerned, I could get rid of the both of you and be on my way without a second thought, that's how I'm feelin'. The old man's already dead in my mind. I'm not gonna wait much longer, so think fast.”
As Paulo walked away, Alene called behind him, “What the fuck made us so ugly?”
He stopped and turned, “Baby, it's just our nature.”
Alene stood by herself in the hallway, holding the pillow. A crash of thunder boomed outside and the lights flickered. She threw the pillow away and went back inside the old man's room.
The old man seemed more alert now, looking up at her as she came back into the room. He didn't say anything, just glanced at her, then to the bed. There was a white box sitting on top of the bedspread.
“What's this?” Alene asked with genuine curiosity; as long as she had been here the old man had never given her so much as the toothbrush she asked for. She had been rubbing toothpaste onto her teeth with her finger for months.
“Why don't you open it and see?” The old man beamed.
She gave the old man a leery glance, and opened the package. Inside was a hideous peach-colored gown, like a girl would wear to her high school prom 60 years ago. It had puffy sleeves and an oversized belted sash tied in a bow, like she would be a present waiting to be unwrapped.
“This is...” Alene didn't know how to finish the sentence. “Thanks?”
“Do you really like it?” The old man asked, putting his hands together. “I've been saving it for a special occasion, and I don't think I'm going to have another opportunity,” he said sadly.
Christ, thought Alene. Does he know? Did he overhear us talking last night? No, it's not possible. Something else is causing him to act this way.
Outside, the wind picked up and howled in hurricane gusts that rattled the windows.
Alene put the dress up against her body, “It's really lovely,” she lied, “Do you want me to wear it tonight?”
“Yes, please,” the old man said, making for the door. I've got to talk to Paulo. When you're ready, would you be so kind as to join us for dinner?”
“I'll be there,” said Alene.
Alene put the dress on and fixed herself up as best she could. She didn't have any makeup or hair products, so she couldn't do much. She had a broken half of a comb with gaps where some of the teeth had snapped off. She ran it through her hair, something she had been neglecting to do lately, so her hair was a mass of tangles that she struggled to get out till her arms got tired and she had to rest them at her sides before starting again.
There were matching shoes in the box beneath the dress, but when she tried them on, they were at least a size-and-a-half too small, so she came to dinner barefoot, wearing her outdated peach ball gown, with her damp hair hanging limp and stringy, looking like she was 40 years too late to the hillbilly prom. Paulo and the old man were already seated. They waited for her before the covered, silver serving trays Paulo had brought out on her first night here, a million years ago. The storm was raging outside the big bay window. The pitch black of night lit up an eerie blue for brief instances every time the lightning struck. The wind screamed in a high whistle and the rain battered the house in a constant roar.
Alene sat down and looked across the table at Paulo and the old man. They were both in ill-fitting tuxedos; Paulo's was tight enough to strangle him and the old man was swimming in his.
Despite their attire, the cuisine was still the same. Alene lifted the lid off her serving tray and looked down, unsurprised at the TV dinner. They ate in silence. Alene had learned long ago how to use the soggy texture and formlessness of the food to her advantage; chewing each bite once or twice and letting the soft paste of slurry creep down her throat. It was amazing she hadn't choked to death; if she was eating food with any consistency she supposed she probably would have. The old man was savoring his, dipping his spoon into the gravy and sucking it down noisily, smacking his lips with his eyes closed.
Outside, the lightning sparked long enough to reveal the cascade of water spilling down the glass.
Thunder crashed like a tympani above them as the lights flicker and went out completely.
“It has begun,” the old man's voice called out from the darkness.
Alene waited, her body tense and rigid,
for what she could not say, but she felt something coming. She was possessed by the sensation of falling, a panic throughout her body as if she were about to crash into the ground.
The only sound amidst the pounding rain and the rumble of thunder was Paulo, grunting as he finished off the TV dinner, completely disinterested in both the storm and the old man's psychosis.
And then the wind broke loose in a burst of fury that shook the entire house on its foundation. Paulo's fork hit the table as another gust rocked the house. And then they heard the crack of splintering wood, loud as an explosion, as part of the roof tore away and rain began to leak down from the ceiling.
“Come take me then,” the old man screamed. “I could never abhor anything as much as nature abhors me. Let the winds take me, lets the flood drown me. I'm ready.”
Paulo stood up, watching the ceiling bow outward above them as it filled with rainwater. “That's my room right above us,” he said. “I'm going to go see how bad it is. See what's even left up there.” He left the room.
Alene was alone in the dark with the old man, who was continually raving, screaming nonsense. When the lightning flashed across the sky she could see the colorful debris of leaves and flower petals, torn away from the flowerbeds, blowing in the gale. The old man saw this too, and howled in a pitch to match the wind. As if to mock him, the wind switched direction and plastered the wet bay window with the bright symbols of the old man's mortality. He backed away from the window while the ceiling above them groaned under the weight of the flood.
“Maybe we should go to a different room,” said Alene, staring at the ceiling.
“No room in this house will keep us safe from the hand of death as it sweeps across the sky,” said the old man.
A bolt of lightning struck one of the weeping cherry trees. It burst into flames and by its light they could see the garden had been torn away, Withd by a ruin of muddy earth.
“It's gone,” the old man whimpered. “It's all gone, and I'm done for.”
There was a crack above them like a great seam being split apart. Alene looked up to see a tiny fissure, hair-thin spread across the ceiling. The fissure widened, and in an instant the ceiling caved in and with it a torrent of cold black water. Pieces of wood rained down with chunks of plaster. Paulo's bed came crashing to the floor along with his myriad jars of insects. All around them the jars shattered and insects exploded outward like grenade shrapnel.
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