He left the room, leaving the light on.
Two separate times, Ted saw Blaine creeping stealthily through the hall. The second time, he thought he caught a glimpse of something shiny in Blaine’s right hand. It was only a matter of time before Blaine would check the guest room. Ted reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out the knife he had planned to stab him with in his sleep. An eye for an eye, he thought.
Some ten minutes later Blaine stood in the doorway, and he was in fact packing a gun. For a second Ted was sure that he’d been spotted, that Blaine had looked straight at the closet and noticed that the door was ajar. But when he came in, he again sat down on the bed with his back to the closet, and he picked up the phone he’d left on the bed.
“Hey, Tony. Everything’s cool. Yeah, just wanted you to know. Tomorrow I’ll figure out which of my neighbors fucked with Magnus. But I gotta leave it for tomorrow—I’m too wiped out to do it tonight. Two days, no sleep. Sure, of course. Yeah. Told you I would. Don’t worry about it. Later, Tony.”
He went back out. This time he turned off the light.
Ted kept the knife out. Could it be a trap? Why hadn’t Blaine checked the closet? He forced himself to wait half an hour to be sure Blaine was asleep.
He slowly pushed the closet door open. Leaving the guest room, he cut across the living room and headed for the stairs. Little light was filtering in through the windows. Magnus had stopped whimpering and no cars were to be heard on the street. Any misstep or stumble, the slightest noise, could tip off Blaine. He climbed the stairs with great care, stepping as close to the wall as possible to avoid creaks. The wood didn’t give him away. The hardest part was over, he thought; the second floor was all carpeted.
Blaine’s bedroom was at the end of a narrow hall. Peeking in, Ted saw Blaine’s unmistakable form under a white sheet. Light from a streetlamp streamed through the open window, allowing Ted to move through the room without fear of bumping into anything. He tightened his grip on the hilt of the knife and began to bring it up to strike, when—
“Move and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
The voice came from behind. The muzzle of a gun pressed into the back of Ted’s head. The lights came on, blinding him. When he was able to see again, he realized that the Blaine under the bedsheets was a pile of pillows.
This is your chance. Turn around and throw your knife at him. If he shoots you in the head, you’ll be getting what you wanted, right? Your brain won’t mind too much if a bullet blows it apart…
In his pants pocket he kept the note from the desk. It’s your only way out.
“Drop the knife,” Blaine said. “Good. Don’t turn around. Raise your hands.”
It looked like he would be getting some Hollywood dialogue after all.
Ted didn’t feel nervous. Blaine hadn’t shot him yet, so he must have had some doubts. Must have been wondering who the guy trying to kill him was. Surely he also knew that the last thing he needed was for a dead body to turn up in his own house, not to mention that a gunshot would wake up the neighbors. Ted was amazed at the number of thoughts lining up to file through his brain, as if this were the most normal situation in the world. He felt like a superhero. And in the midst of this series of rational arguments, he realized that he didn’t want to die at this guy’s hands. There was something unseemly about having Blaine do him in; now that he was being held with a gun to his back, defenseless, he finally understood. It was one thing to agree to Lynch’s conditions and let himself be killed by a stranger, perhaps easing his family’s grief to some degree. But by Blaine? Maybe it was just his survival instinct kicking in. Maybe.
“You saw me, didn’t you?” Ted asked in a steady voice. “When you came into the room to talk on the phone—you saw me.”
“Who sent you?”
“Why do you think anybody sent me?”
“If nobody sent you, tell me so, and your life ends right now. Tell me who sent you and you’ll live a little longer. One way or the other, you’re not leaving this room alive.”
“Not such a good deal on my end.”
Ted started turning around, very slowly.
“I told you not to move!”
Ted stopped.
“Sorry. Just wanted you to see me. You and I know each other.”
An instant of doubt.
“I don’t recognize your voice.”
“I know. As soon as you see my face you’ll understand. Believe me.”
Ted had him now: he’d swallowed the bait, he was hooked. All Ted had to do now was haul him out of the water. Blaine was intrigued, wondering about Ted’s face, thinking it through, trying to work out an unsolvable riddle.
“Okay,” said Blaine. “Turn around. Slow! And keep your hands up.”
Ted began to twist around, as slowly as he could. He calculated the precise moment when his half-raised arms would be lined up. An easy trick. Blaine was focusing all his attention on Ted’s face, which Ted deliberately rotated more slowly than the rest of his body. There was a fraction of a second when Ted allowed his face to be seen and, at the same time, surreptitiously lowered his hidden arm and reached into the jacket pocket where he kept the Browning. Blaine noticed the move only when Ted finished turning around with the gun held chest high and fired, all in a single, fluid, unhesitating motion. It was a difficult shot, with his arm bent and at an uncomfortable height, but even so, he pegged Blaine in the middle of the forehead. The blast shattered the quiet of the night. That bullet was meant for me, Ted thought as Blaine collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
From another pocket he pulled out a photo of Amanda Herdman. He placed it on Blaine’s chest.
Ted stood there, unable to take his eyes off the body. Blaine didn’t die instantly; his body twitched for several seconds before falling still.
A noise in the living room put him back on the alert. He wasn’t sure exactly what he had heard—maybe a chair being moved. He put the Browning away and picked up the knife. Walking down the hall to the banister, he carefully leaned over to get an overview of the living room. What he saw gave him such a start, he didn’t even reflexively try to hide. A thin black man in a lab coat stood in the center of the room. He was watching Ted as if he’d known that Ted would be leaning over the railing at just that moment. He flashed a creepy smile.
“Hello, Ted,” he said in a deep voice. He waved a hand in greeting.
It wasn’t too surprising that he knew Ted’s name. That seemed to be the new norm among strangers.
Ted headed downstairs without taking his eyes off the man.
“Do you work for them?” he asked when he reached the bottom. He leaned against the banister, the Browning by his side. Something told him this guy wasn’t a threat.
Out the windows, nothing moved. It was too soon for the police to arrive. Magnus had definitely noticed that there were strangers in the house, because he was whimpering again from time to time. Could he know that his master had died? Can a dog smell blood at such a distance? Possibly. With apparent effort, the dog turned his whimpering into short barks.
“Who the hell are you?”
The man smiled.
“I’m Roger, Ted.”
“Roger what? Just Roger? The other guy at least told me his last name.” Ted rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but the police will be showing up any minute now. There’s a dead guy upstairs and a drugged-up rottweiler outside. I’m clearing out.”
Roger showed an almost paternal smile.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Ted insisted.
“Why don’t we sit down and talk it over?”
Ted stared, dumbfounded. What was this guy doing here? Why was he checking up on him like this?
“I can’t believe it. You’re nuts. Didn’t you hear the gun fire?”
“That was Blaine, wasn’t it?” Roger recited the words as if they were a line from a computer program.
“Yeah. Who else?”
The guy must have heard the shot. Ted didn’t reply.
“Lucky thing you had the gun with you,” Roger declared.
“Always be prepared. You never know.”
By this point Ted didn’t even know why he wasn’t running away already. There was something about the way the man spoke, a mesmerizing cadence to it.
“You’re also wearing gloves,” Roger tossed off, pointing at Ted’s hands. “A knife and a gun, for emergencies. Did you sedate the dog?”
Ted quietly nodded his head in amazement.
“You wanted him to be killed, didn’t you?” Ted grew indignant.
“Did you leave a photo on the corpse this time?”
This time?
“Yes.” Ted felt resigned. What sense did it make to wonder whether the man had been watching him or had a crystal ball? “If you don’t mind, Roger, I’m going to leave. Is that okay with you? I’d think you’d do the same.”
Ted went to the front door. But something was wrong. Through a tiny window in the door he caught sight of a man’s form leaving the yard and running across the street at top speed toward a car. The light from a streetlamp shone directly on him, and his striped polo shirt came into full view. It was Lynch.
The car started, revved, and sped off.
Why were they keeping tabs on him?
Ted turned to look at Roger, demanding answers, though he hadn’t formulated any questions aloud. Roger shrugged.
5
The possum had chosen the backyard picnic table as the perfect spot to consume the amputated limb. It waved its tail just enough to activate the motion sensor on the porch light, making the hair-raising spectacle visible from inside the house.
Ted stood on the other side of the patio door. He watched in disbelief as the possum sank its needlelike teeth into the dead flesh, its eyes looking mechanically, almost uninterestedly in every direction, ripping the rosy skin from Holly’s leg. Ted could see perfectly well that it was his wife’s leg. The toes were swollen and bloody, red as maraschino cherries; the uneven edge where the leg had been cut off below the knee was a tattered skein of tendons and broken bone. But he knew it anyway. No need to see a birthmark or a tattoo. He had massaged that leg, kissed it, pulled stockings off it a million times; he would recognize it anywhere, even in a dream. The fucking possum was gnawing on Holly’s leg! Ted beat against the glass pane with his open palms. The possum quickly turned to look, stared for a moment at the figure standing behind the glass, but didn’t seem to feel threatened. Its jaws were crudely daubed with reddish purple, like ghastly lipstick. Its curiosity satisfied, it went back to gnawing on the leg. Ted banged on the glass again, but this time the animal didn’t even stir.
Then he heard the ocean. The Atlantic was many miles from his house, but that didn’t matter. He reached over and flicked on the outdoor lights, which revealed that, indeed, the ocean was right there in his own backyard. The gently rising hill he enjoyed seeing every morning when he sat down to read the business section had been replaced by a roaring, foaming expanse of water. On the beach of sand and geraniums stood Holly, stock-still, like a wax statue. The possum had devoured a good portion of her calf, leaving the shiny rounded end of a bone sticking out. She was wearing the red bikini—Ted’s favorite—and held her arms out wide, her body tilting slightly to the left. Her hair floated behind her as if held up by invisible hands. Her expression was joyous despite the phantom leg.
Ted slid the patio door open. The possum withdrew to the farthest corner of the table. Now it really did seem concerned about Ted’s presence, though not enough to leave its meal behind. It waited, crouching, baring its teeth, ready to run off if need be. Ted made a brusque movement, but it did no good, so he looked around for something to throw. By the barbecue grill he found a wooden box that he immediately recognized, and though he should have felt surprised because he hadn’t seen it since he was a kid, it seemed natural to find it casually lying around at his home now that he was grown.
He went over and picked it up as if it were a relic—and in a sense it was. A chessboard was painted on the box, half on the top and half on the bottom, so that it formed a complete board when open. It was lined inside with green velvet, and each chess piece had its own slot. Ted picked out a bishop and flung it. He missed. How could he have missed the foul creature from less than ten feet away? He grabbed another piece and tried again, this time with much more force than was necessary. Again, he missed. Something about his efforts disconcerted him. The projectiles followed unpredictable arcs and seemed determined to dodge the possum an instant before impact. But Ted didn’t give up and kept hurling the pieces, one after another, like a man possessed.
The possum must have noticed that the laws of physics were bending in its favor, for it obnoxiously returned to the center of the table and again tucked into its deluxe meal. Its thick white tail wriggled behind it like a snake. Ted had thrown maybe a hundred objects at it, all without success, when he gave up and dropped the box. Looking at the box where it lay on the ground, he could see all the chessmen still in their proper places.
He watched Holly. He wanted to tell her how he felt, that he had done all he could to get her leg back. What kind of husband was he if he couldn’t meet his family’s needs? He felt so terrible he nearly broke down crying, but then he realized that he still had a way out. How hadn’t he seen it before? His right arm grew heavier, and he felt the grip of the Browning in his hand. He raised the pistol and examined it, fascinated. Then, holding the gun with both hands, he took deliberate, almost poetic aim at the possum, savoring the moments before letting off a shot. The animal had lifted its head as if it sensed that the end was near. The bullet hit it right in the back, and the possum exploded like a balloon filled with blood and entrails. Ted dropped the gun and ran to the table, never taking his eyes off Holly’s leg; he picked it up with both hands like a surgeon handling an organ about to be transplanted. Now that he could examine it close-up he saw that the leg ended in a threaded bolt, just as he had imagined. Everything was going to be okay, he thought. He’d just have to bring it to Holly and screw it back on. He’d be the perfect husband.
He ran down the two steps from the porch and looked up. Holly was still there, except that now a gigantic, glowing yellow frame hung between them. The bottom of the frame floated about a foot and a half off the ground, and Ted knew he could easily step over it, but even so, he stopped just before doing so. The ocean behind Holly, some ten yards off, was growing turbulent, and his need to give her back her leg and hug her was unbearable. He lifted his own leg and stepped over the yellow frame. For an instant he had the wild sense that he wouldn’t be able to get through, but he did. He knew that so long as he didn’t touch it he wouldn’t run into problems. Once past the yellow frame, he came up against a second frame, green this time, and he repeated the same actions, and again he looked up and saw Holly in the same position, still ten yards away, waiting for him, and another frame, and another, red, purple—Ted no longer needed to look closely to get past them. He could almost do it with his eyes closed, but not closed, always looking straight ahead, straight at Holly, another yellow frame, then sky blue, “Almost there, love,” ten yards to go, a frame as black as night, “Holly…” Ted wasn’t walking anymore; he was running, jumping through the frames that came in constant succession, one after another, like a competitive athlete leaping hurdles, never stopping, Holly, never stopping, Holly…
And the last frame swallowed him whole, then spit him out with a shout somewhere else.
He was on the sofa.
Ted sat up with a jolt. He anxiously felt for his leg. It was there. Had he dreamt that he was missing a leg? He was starting to forget. He scrutinized the dark room, and then he saw the wrinkled T-shirt and the uncomfortable jacket he was wearing. He stood up and, not really knowing why, walked over to the patio door that opened onto the backyard. He stood there awhile, examining the small hill that melted away into the night. Whe
n he came near the glass, the motion sensor turned on the lights and lit up the picnic table and chairs. Ted was assailed by the bizarre vision of a woman’s leg. Had he dreamt that Holly was missing a leg? He smiled and made a note of it so he’d remember to tell her when they talked this afternoon. He wondered what time it was; must not be seven yet, because the sun hadn’t risen, he thought. He looked instinctively at his wrist, but his watch wasn’t there.
As he opened the door, a memory hit him like an arrow, piercing the merciful blanket of forgetfulness that his mind kept trying to spread. He turned sharply and checked under the grill. The chess box wasn’t there anymore, but his memory of it was too detailed. Though he’d just had a nightmare in which Holly was missing a leg, it was the detail of the chess box that made his blood run cold.
6
If he was putting off his departure from this world, better to keep up his usual routine, and that included a session with Laura Hill, his therapist. In a way, he was happy, because his relationship with her had improved over time; what had started as a series of visits ordered by his doctor had become an almost pleasant experience. Ted would never have agreed to see a therapist if Dr. Carmichael hadn’t insisted, and the doctor had been very insistent and persuasive. “Anybody faced with this sort of news, Ted, will need to be restrained”—those had been his exact words. Ted had translated this as, “A man with an inoperable tumor will think, sooner or later, of blowing out his brains.” And Carmichael had been right.
The tumor wasn’t really inoperable, strictly speaking; an operation was about as likely to succeed as he was to make a basket from a hundred feet away. Dr. Carmichael didn’t choose that metaphor, because he tried to use his words to kindle a flame of hope, but Ted, analytical and practical, quickly put things in their place. His choices were: he could risk everything on an operation and hope for a miracle, or he could keep going as if nothing had changed. It didn’t take Ted long to think it over. It was a decision he had already come to ahead of time, reflexively, long before the headaches began, before Carmichael delivered the results of the tests in the tone that doctors use for giving devastating news. Maybe he’d made his decision decades earlier, when he watched the ending of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with Mac moving his head like a puppet without a puppet master. Or maybe it was some other time—not that it matters. He would live his final months in dignity. And if he went to that first session with Dr. Hill, it was to make Carmichael believe that everything was going according to plan. Carmichael’s plan, that is. Because like any good doctor, Carmichael believed in doing everything in his power to prolong human life to the last possible moment. Whether it meant shooting a basket from a hundred feet away or from a thousand.
Kill the Next One Page 3