A Soft Barren Aftershock

by F. Paul Wilson

  “At least let me get, like, a message to LuAnn. Please, Bruno.”

  Bruno’s grin vanished like a pulse from one of the strobes winking over the Spee’s dance floor. “Miz Lu’s gone home. The real Marc Chevignon would know where dat is. Now lose yourself afore I kick your butt downa Chinatown.”

  Doug stumbled away through the rain in shocked disbelief. What was happening here? Why didn’t Bruno recognize him?

  He stopped and checked his reflection in the darkened grimy window of a plumbing supply place. He couldn’t see himself too well, but he knew he looked right. The same tweed slacks, same leather coat, same white shirt. What was wrong?

  At first he’d thought it was because Bruno hadn’t seen him leave, but there was more to it than that. They’d stood within a foot of each other and Bruno thought he was somebody else.

  LuAnn! He had to see LuAnn. Bruno had said she’d gone home. Early for her, but maybe she was looking for Marc.

  Well, okay. She was going to find him.

  Doug flagged down a cruising cab and rode it up to the West Eighties. LuAnn’s condo was in a refurbished old apartment house with high-tech security. Doug knew the routine. He rang her bell in the building’s foyer and waited under operating-room floodlights while the camera ogled him from its high corner perch.

  “Marc!” her voiced squawked from the speaker. “Great! Come on up!”

  On the eighth floor the elevator opened onto a three-door atrium. The middle was LuAnn’s. She must have heard the elevator because her door opened before Doug reached it.

  Her smile was bright, welcoming. “Marky! Where on earth did you disappear to? I was—”

  And then the smile was gone and she was backing away.

  “Hey! What is this? You’re not Marc!”

  As she turned and started to close the door, Doug leapt forward. He wasn’t going to be shut out twice tonight. He had to convince her he was Marc.

  “No! LuAnn, wait!” He jammed his foot against the closing door. “It’s me! Marc! Don’t do this to me!”

  “I don’t know what your game is, buddy, but I’m going to start screaming bloody murder in a minute if you don’t back off right now!”

  Doug could see how scared she was. Her lips were white and she was puffing like a locomotive. He had to calm her down.

  “Look, Lu,” he said softly. “I don’t unnerstand what’s come over you, but if I, like, step back, will you, like, leave the door open just a crack so we can talk and I can prove I’m Marc? Okay. Ain’t that fair?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he pulled his foot free of the door, took the promised step back, and held his hands up, under-arrest style. When he saw LuAnn relax, he started talking. In a low voice, he described how they’d made it last night, the positions they’d used, the hard-core videos she’d insisted on running, even the yellow rose tattooed on her left cheek. But instead of wonder and recognition in her eyes, he saw growing disgust. She was looking at him like he might look at a sink one of the tenants had tried to fix on his own.

  “I don’t know what your game is, clown, and I don’t know what Marc’s up to, but you can tell him LuAnn is not amused.”

  “But I am Marc.”

  “You don’t even come close. And get some diction lessons before you try to pull this off again, okay?”

  With that she slammed the door. Doug pounded on it.

  “LuAnn! Please!”

  “I’m calling security right now,” she said through the door. “Beat it!”

  Doug beat it. He didn’t want no police problems. No way.

  And when he got outside to the street, he felt awfully small, while the city looked awfully, awfully big.

  It didn’t seem the least little bit like an oyster.

  “What d’ya need, Marc?” Doug said softly over the bucket once he was home and back in the bathroom.

  Something awful had occurred to him on his way home. What if Marc was sick? Or worse yet—dying?

  The thought had been a sucker punch to the gut.

  “Just lemme know an’ I’ll get it for you. Anything. Anything at all.”

  But Marc wasn’t talking. Marc could talk only when Doug was wearing him. So Doug shoved his hand and forearm into the bucket again, deep, all the way to the bottom. He noticed how the goo was even cooler than before. Another bad sign.

  “Come on, Marc. Make me say what you need. I’ll hear it and then I’ll get it for you. What d’ya need?”

  Nothing. Doug’s lips remained slack, forming not even a syllable. Frustration bubbling into anger, he yanked his arm free, rose to his feet, and smashed his moist fist into the mirror. The glass spider-webbed, slicing up his reflection. His knuckles stung . . . and bled.

  He stared at the crimson puddles forming between his knuckles and dripping into the sink. He turned to look at the bucket.

  And had an idea.

  “This what y’want?” he said. “Blood? You want my blood? Awright. I’ll give it to you.”

  So saying, he jammed his fist back into the bucket and let the blood flow into the goo. When the bottom of the bucket turned red, he withdrew his hand and looked at it. The cuts had stopped bleeding and were almost healed.

  Doug tried to stand but felt a little woozy, so he sat on the toilet seat cover and stared into the reddened goo.

  Marc wanted blood—needed blood. That had to be it. Maybe the goo was some sort of vampire or something. Didn’t matter. If Marc wanted blood, Doug would find it for him. He’d said he’d get anything Marc needed, hadn’t he? Well, he meant it. Problem was . . . where?

  As he watched the goo that was Marc he noticed the red of his blood begin to swirl and coalesce in its depths, flowing to a central point until all the red was concentrated in a single golf ball–sized globule. And then the globule began to rise. As it approached the surface it angled toward the edge of the bucket. It broke the surface next to the lip and spilled its contents over the side. The rejected blood ran down over the metal and puddled stark red against the white bathroom tiles.

  A cold bleakness settled in his chest.

  “All right. So you don’t want no blood. What do you want, man?”

  Marc lay silent in his galvanized metal quarters.

  “You’re sick, aren’t you? Well, who the hell do I take you to? A vet?”

  And then it hit him: Maybe Marc wanted to go home.

  Aw, man. No way. He couldn’t let Marc go. Without him, he was nothing.

  Which was pretty much what he was now. But maybe . . .

  Slowly, reluctantly, Doug lifted the bucket by its handle and trudged through his apartment, out into the hall, down to the basement. Wet down here again, but the floor drain wasn’t backed up. Not yet, anyway. He knelt by the grate, lifted the bucket—And paused. This was pretty radical. Pouring Marc down the drain . . . no coming back from that. Once he was back down there it was pretty good odds he was gone for good.

  Or maybe not. Maybe he’d come back. Who knew? What choice did Doug have anyway? Maybe Marc just needed to get back to the drain to re-charge his batteries. Maybe he had friends or family down there. Might as well put him back where he came from because he’d didn’t look like he was gonna last too much longer up here.

  Doug lifted the grate and tipped the bucket. The goo almost leapt over the side, diving for the opening. It slid through the grate, oozed down the pipe, and splashed when it hit the water in the trap below.

  Doug sat down and waited, wishing, hoping, praying for Marc to come bubbling back up the drain and crawl onto his arm again. He didn’t know how long it would take, maybe days, maybe weeks, but he’d keep waiting. What else could he do? Without Marc he’d have to be Doug all the time.

  And he didn’t want to be Doug anymore.

  SLASHER

  I saved the rage.

  I let them bury my grief with Jessica. It cocooned her in her coffin, cushioned her, pillowed her head. There it would stay, doing what little it could to protect her from the cold, the damp, the conque
ror worm.

  But I saved the rage. I nurtured it. I honed its edge until it was fine and tough and sharp. Sharp enough to cut one day through the darkness encrusting my soul.

  Martha was on the far side of the grave, supported by her mother and father and two brothers—Jessie’s grandparents and uncles. I stood alone on my side. A few friends from the office were there, standing behind me, but they weren’t really with me. I was alone, in every sense of the word.

  I stared at the top of the tiny coffin that had remained closed during the wake and the funeral mass because of the mutilated state of the little body within. I watched it disappear by tiny increments beneath a growing tangle of color as sobbing mourners each took a turn at tossing a flower on it. Jessica, my Jessica. Only five years old, cut to ribbons by some filthy rotten stinking lousy—

  “Bastard!”

  The grating voice wrenched my gaze away from the coffin. I knew that voice. Oh, how I knew that voice. I looked up and met Martha’s hate-filled eyes. Her face was pale and drawn, her cheeks were black with eyeliner that had flowed with her tears. Her blond hair was masked by her black hat and veil.

  “It’s your fault! She’s dead because of you! You had her only every other weekend and you couldn’t even pay attention to her! It should be you in there!”

  “Easy, Martha,” one of her brothers told her in a low voice. “You’ll only upset yourself more.”

  But I could see it in his eyes, too—in everybody’s eyes. They all agreed with her. Even I agreed with her.

  “No!” she screamed, shaking off her brother’s hand and pointing at me. “You were a lousy husband and a lousier father. And now Jessie’s dead because of you! You!”

  Then she broke down into uncontrollable sobbing and was led off by her parents and brothers. Embarrassed, the rest of the mourners began to drift away, leaving me alone with my dead Jessie. Alone with my rage. Alone with my guilt.

  I hadn’t been the best father in the world. But who could be? Either you don’t give them enough love or you overindulge them. You can’t seem to win. But I do admit that there were too many times when something else seemed more important than being with Jessie, some deal, some account that needed attention right away, so Jessie would have to wait. I’d make it up to her later—that was the promise. I’d play catch-up next week. But now there wouldn’t be any later. No more next weeks for Jessica Santos. No catching up on the hugs and the playing and the I-love-yous.

  If only . . .

  If only I hadn’t left her on the curb to go get her that goddamn ice cream cone.

  We’d been watching the Fourth of July fireworks down at the harbor front. Jessie was thrilled and fascinated by the bright flashes blooming and booming in the sky. She’d wanted an ice cream, and being a divorced daddy who didn’t get to see her very often, I couldn’t say no. So I carried her back to the pushcart vendor near the entrance to Crosby’s Marina. She couldn’t see the fireworks from the end of the line so I let her stand back by the curb to watch while I queued up. While she kept her eyes on the sky, I kept an eye on her all the time I was on line. I wasn’t worried about someone grabbing her—the thought never entered my mind. I just didn’t want her wandering into the street for an even better view. The only time I looked away was when I placed the order and paid the guy.

  When I turned around, a cone in each hand, Jessie was gone.

  No one had seen anything. For two days the police and a horde of volunteers combed all of Monroe and most of northern Nassau county. They found her—what was left of her—on the edge of old man Haskins’s marshes.

  A manhunt was still on for the killer, but with each passing day, the trail got colder.

  So now I stood by my Jessica’s grave in Tall Oaks Cemetery, sweating in my dark suit under the obscenely bright sun as I fought my guilt and nurtured my hate, praying for the day they caught the scum who had slashed my Jessica to ribbons. I renewed the vow I had made before—the guy was never going to get to trial. I would find a way to get to him while he was out on bail, or even in jail, if it came to that, and I would do to him what he’d done to my Jessica. And then I would dare the courts to find a jury that would convict me.

  When everyone was gone, I said my final good-bye to Jessie. I’d wanted to erect a huge angelic monument to her, but Tall Oaks didn’t allow that sort of thing. A little plaque would have to suffice. It didn’t seem right.

  As I turned to go, I noticed a man leaning against a tree a hundred feet or so away. He was watching me. As I started down the grassy slope, he began walking, too. Our paths intersected at my car.

  “Mr. Santos?” he said.

  I turned. He was a big man, six-two at least, mid-forties, maybe two-fifty, with most of it settled around his gut. He wore a white shirt under a rumpled gray suit. His thinning brown hair was slick with sweat. I looked at him but said nothing. If he was another reporter—

  “I’m Gerald Caskie, FBI. Can we talk a minute?”

  “You found him?” I said, my spirits readying for a leap. I stepped closer and grabbed two fistfuls of his suit jacket. “You’ve got him?”

  He pulled his jacket free of my grasp.

  “We can talk in my car. It’s cooler.”

  I followed about fifty yards along the curving asphalt path to where a monotone Ford two-door sedan waited in the shade of one of the cemetery’s eponymous trees. The motor was running. He indicated the passenger side. I joined him in the front seat of the Ford. The air conditioner was blasting. It was freezing inside.

  “That’s better,” he said, adjusting one of the vents to blow directly on his face.

  “All right,” I said, unable to contain my impatience any longer. “We’re here. Tell me: Do you have him?”

  He looked at me with basset hound brown eyes.

  “What I’m about to tell you is off the record, agreed?”

  “What are you—?”

  “Agreed? You must never reveal what I’m about to tell you. Do I have your word as a man that what I tell you will never go beyond this car?”

  “No. I have to know what it’s about, first.”

  He shifted in his seat and put the Ford in gear.

  “Forget it. I’ll drive you back to your car.

  “No. Wait. All right. I promise. But enough with the games, already.”

  He threw the gear shift back into Park.

  “This isn’t a game, Mr. Santos. I could lose my job, even be brought up on criminal charges for what I’m going to tell you. And if you do try to spill it, I’ll deny we’ve ever met.”

  “What is it, goddamn it?”

  “We know who killed your daughter.”

  The words hit me like a sledge to the gut. I felt almost sick with relief.

  “Have you got him? Have you arrested him?”

  “No. And we won’t be. Not for some time to come.”

  It took a while for the words to sink in, probably because my mind didn’t want to accept them. But when it did, I was ready to go for his throat. I reined in my fury, however. I didn’t want to get hit with assault and battery on a federal officer. At least not yet.

  “You’d better explain that,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “The killer is presently a protected witness in an immensely important federal trial. Can’t be touched until all the testimony is in and we get our conviction.”

  “Why the hell not? My daughter’s death has nothing to do with your trial!”

  “The killer’s a psycho—that’s obvious. Think how a child-killing charge will taint the testimony. The jury will throw it out. We’ve got to wait.”

  “How long?”

  “Less than a year if we lose the case. If we get a conviction, we’ll have to wait out all the appeals. So we could be looking at five years, maybe more.”

  Cool as it was in the car, I felt a different kind of cold seep through me.

  “Who is he?”

  “Forget it. I can’t tell you that.”

  I couldn’t
help it—I went for his throat.

  “Tell me, goddamn it!”

  He pushed me off. He was a lot bigger than I—I’m just a bantamweight accountant, one-fifty soaking wet.

  “Back off, Santos! No way I’m going to give you a name. You’ll have it in all the papers within hours.”

  I folded. I crumpled. I turned away and pressed my head against the cool of the side window. I thought I was going to cry, but I didn’t. I’d left all my tears with Jessie.

  “Why did you tell me any of this if you’re not going to tell me his name?

  “Because I know you’re hurting,” he said in a soft voice. “I saw what you did to that reporter on TV.”

  Right. The reporter. Mel Padner. My claim to fame. As I walked out of the morgue after identifying Jessica’s tattered body, I was greeted by an array of cameras and reporters. Most of them kept a respectful distance, but not Padner. He stuck a mike in my face and asked me how I felt about my daughter’s death. I had the microphone halfway down his throat before they pulled me off him. His own station never ran the footage, but all the others did, including CNN. I was still getting cards and telegrams telling me how I should have shoved it up Padner’s other end instead.

  “And this is supposed to make me feel better?” I said to Caskie.

  “I thought it would. Because otherwise the weeks and months would go on and on with no one finding the killer, and you’d sink deeper and deeper into depression. At least I know I would. I’ve got a daughter myself, and if anything ever happened to her like . . . well, if anything happened to her, that’s the way I’d feel. I just thought I’d try to give you some peace of mind. I thought you’d be able to hang in there better knowing that we already have the killer in a custody of sorts, and that, as one father to another, justice will be done.”

  I turned and stared at him. It’s a comment on our age, I suppose, that decency from a stranger is so shocking.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Maybe that will make a difference later when I think about it some. Right now all I’m thinking is how I want to take the biggest, sharpest carving knife I can find and chop this guy into hamburger.”