by Tabitha King
Travis buried his head between her breasts and clung to her.
She reached over him for the phone on the end table. “I’m calling Walter now,” she said. “He’ll come and stay with us. Tomorrow, we’ll go home.”
Travis raised his face. “Good,” he said.
Liv put the phone to her ear. The line was dead.
Chapter 11
FIREFIGHT
Rough Cut #5
Night again, flurrying snow melts on the pavement and the blind windows of the darkened bar and then refreezes to a fragile glaze, floating on a skin of water, so the glaze crackles and moves with the water, a study in plate tectonics in microcosm. The streetlights glimmer on the slick wetness. The street is as empty as the bar. The neon sign is crusted with the unstable snow like something brought up from the ocean bottom rimed with the salt and minerals that in the sea seem to grow as easily as organisms. A man's weak night shadow, courtesy of the streetlights, falls like a ghost on a hand-lettered sign taped to the inside of the glass door: CLOSED BECAUSE OF DEATH.
The shadow-man darkens a narrow alley between the bar and the parking garage next to it that leads through a parade of garbage cans and smashed cardboard boxes to a thick, scarred back door. The shadow-man passes by it, and corners the building. In the thick cement wall there is but one window, like a cellar window, but much higher. It is not barred, but the glass in it is thick and rippled. The cement sill is deep and slanted downward. The shadow-man feels of the sill, and then withdraws. He is back in seconds, with a wooden crate from the trash around the corner. It is a precarious perch; the crate cracks audibly under his weight and he freezes. There is a long moment while he holds his breath. At last he moves again, so delicately and carefully that his movements seem stylized. In his hand there is a glass cutter. He removes the glass in one piece. As he steps carefully off, the box collapses, he staggers, and nearly drops the glass. But he recovers, and stands motionless until he is satisfied he is yet undiscovered. Dispensing with the broken crate, he leaps for the sill, catches it, and hauls himself through the opening. On the other side of the frame, he drops into impenetrable darkness.
Again he waits, breathing a little harshly at first but almost immediately dampening it down, forcing himself to inhale and exhale evenly and quietly. In due course he permits himself a few seconds' light from the narrow beam of a tiny flashlight. In those few seconds of light he sees the entire room: a high-ceilinged shallow rectangle containing three urinals and two doorless stalls. The floor is tiled, the walls grimy and graffitoed but in such scant light the scrawls are unreadable abstractions. Nor can the color of the walls or the tile be discerned. The flashlight renders the room in chiaroscuro, like a moody black-and-white snapshot of the grim-and-gross-is-real school of artistic photography.
The shadow-man crosses the room. He slips his hand into his jacket in the vicinity of his heart, and when he withdraws there is something black and dense in it. He sidles out the door. Now he depends on night vision and sense of touch as uncanny as a blind man's to guide him through a no-man's-land mined with liquor cases. A swinging door, opened very slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, opens to the barroom. Here the streetlights leak in and outline the room: the horseshoe shape of the bar from the inside, the big rectangular windows with neon advertising, black scrawls of names written backward in them, the round edges of tables, the shoulders of chairs, the sharp corners of the walls of booths, and the blackness within them.
The shadow-man slips, crouching, through the swinging door, and into the U of the bar. He sits there on his haunches for long moments. He cannot see, but he can listen, and the bar protects him on three sides. A glimmer of light from the streetlights bounces off the object in his hand.
In preternatural silence, he hears his own heartbeat, his own breathing. And then, another's.
There is a rustle across the room, from the booths, and he flattens himself to the floor and edges around the bar.
Straining now to hear anything that might reveal the location of the other, he is a snake waiting to strike.
And then there is cold iron at the back of his neck.
"Don't move, you son of a bitch," the other growls.
The shadow-man tenses, and as suddenly relaxes, goes limp. He slowly extends his left hand, which holds his own gun loosely. "You win, you bastard," he says out loud, and laughs and rolls over on his back and grabs the muzzle of the gun and thrusts it upward with all his strength.
The explosion of the bullet from the chamber is deafening. But the bullet is directed toward the ceiling; it will do no harm. The shadow-man twists the gun from the other's hand, and flips it around so it is now pointed at his assailant. The shadow-man produces his little flashlight and turns it on, to reveal the face of Ratcliffe, the black policeman.
"Ah, Ratty," the shadow-man says, and his voice and accent identify him as Denny.
"Motherfucker," Ratcliffe says.
Denny laughs. "I knew you'd be here, Ratty."
Ratcliffe is silent for a second, then says, "I wish I'd blown your motherfuckin' head off."
Denny clucks reproachfully. "Where's your sense of brotherhood, Ratty. We're in this together, you know."
"The fuck we are," Ratcliffe says. "You done it, you got The Man on our backs. You the one oughta have his balls stomped."
The safety clicks on the gun Denny has taken away from him. "There," says Denny. He turns the gun toward himself and extends it to Ratcliffe. "Your weapon, my man. I ain't your enemy, Ratty."
Ratcliffe leans forward to take the gun back. "How'd you know I'd be here?"
Denny grins. "You was the one taught me the safest place was at the bottom of a pile of corpses. Best jungle fighter I ever met."
Ratcliffe's hand snakes out of the dark and has Denny by the throat before Denny can do more than get up the side of his hand in protection.
"Tell you somethin' else, you piece of white trash," Ratcliffe growls. "Best thing I could do is cut your miserable lyin' throat wide enough so you got two stupid grins instead of one. The Man, Court, he be satisfied then, and leave me alone. That's something I never taught you, boy, on account of you can't be trusted. Sometimes the only way to survive, boy, is to give the enemy what he wants."
Denny is motionless under Rat's hand. But his eyes are bright. He shows all his teeth in a carnivorous grin.
"Hey, Ratty," he protests. "I don't believe it. See the day Ratty was scared of old Court."
"I'm smarter than you," Ratcliffe says, "is why."
"Yeah, maybe you are," Denny says. "You're right about one thing."
"What's that?" Ratcliffe asks.
"Ain't your fight, Ratty," Denny says. "Between me and Court. So whyn't you let me settle it?"
Ratcliffe releases Denny's throat and hunkers back. "Court don't know yet it's between you and him."
"Yeah," says Denny, and his hand tightens around his own gun reflexively, and it rises in a slow-motion arc as Ratcliffe reacts and dives under it, and Denny reaches with the other hand for Ratcliffe's gun, and Ratcliffe loses it, as Denny's gun comes down and catches him on the temple, with a sound like an apple hitting a wood floor, and Ratcliffe collapses.
Denny rises over him. "An' you ain't going to ever tell Court it's between him and me, Mr. Almighty Smart Nigger, who ain't smart enough."
And he bends close to Ratcliffe's head and pulls the trigger.
In the dark out of doors, the three machines snarled through twisting veils of snow. The beams of their headlights did not really illuminate the darkness but rather the myriad snowflakes, so many that they made a gauzy fabric to the eye, though they were more like cobwebs that melted in stings of cold against exposed flesh. Mere transparent fragments made substantial by their uncountable numbers, they reflected the light and absorbed it at the same instant. They drew all the light into their crystalline structure, until they seemed less mirrors than sources, galaxies spewed through space in black-and-white photographs taken outside the distorting atm
osphere of the planet. The dark of night was only the emptiness, like outer space, the snow filled up. A frenzied wind drove the snow in every direction at once.
The machines stopped and huddled together. The three men met in the pooled light of the headlamps. Their ski masks were drawn down against the lacerating windchill. They dropped instinctively to their haunches and bent their heads together.
“I can’t see a frigging goddamn thing!” Ricky bawled at Rand.
Rand squatted easily on his haunches and forced a glove-thickened hand inside his snowmobile suit. He drew out his pack of cigarettes and his lighter. He had to shove his face nearly into the flame, holding the lighter in the windbreak of his own body, to light the cigarette.
“Sure is a bitch,” he said calmly.
“How we gonna find daddy in this shit?” Ricky demanded.
Gordy Teed’s eyeballs showed white as he cast a fearful skittish glance around them. “We ain’t never gonna find your daddy in this shit,” he said.
Rand looked at him. “That’s right, Gordy. We best lay up someplace until this dies down.”
“But daddy’ll be looking for us,” Ricky protested.
Rand flicked cigarette ash directly in front of him. Ricky flinched. “Daddy’s warming his fat ass by the fire, don’t you worry,” he said.
Ricky shifted on his haunches and looked around. The visibility was no more than a few feet, and that shifting with every whim of the wind. “Where to, Randy? We can’t see if we’re coming or going.”
Rand drew thoughtfully at his cigarette before answering. “Best go back the way we came. We ain’t come too far.”
Gordy Teed’s mouth dropped open. A string of saliva glistened against the malodorous stumps of his teeth in the artificial light of the headlamps.
Ricky giggled. “Jesus Christ, Rand. By now that bitch’ll have called the cops. Or her hubby or maybe old Walter. Somebuddy, anyway.”
“No she won’t,” Rand said. “I pulled the telephone line while you two were frigging around starting your machines.”
Ricky hooted and dug an elbow into Gordy Teed. Gordy Teed flinched.
“I don’t wanna go back there, Rand,” he whined.
“It’s warm back there,” Rand said.
“She ain’t gonna welcome us with open arms,” Ricky said. “You know it. We’ll have to break in. We’ll get in a heap of trouble doing that. If we ain’t already.”
“Ain’t you the cynical little bastard,” Rand said. “Missus Russell is a decent Christian woman. She ain’t gonna let us freeze on a night like this.”
“Sure,” Ricky said. “She’s gonna open the door and say, ‘Come on in, fellas. How ‘bout a drink?’”
“She might,” Rand said.
Ricky hooted again. “Then she’s gonna offer to keep us all warm, that right, Rand? Cuddle right up?”
Rand examined the butt of his cigarette. “She might.”
“Me first,” Ricky said.
Rand stared at him.
Ricky stood up and kicked the snow. “Second then.”
“We’ll get in a heap of trouble,” Gordy Teed said. “Won’t we?”
Rand stood up and shook snow off his shoulders. “You two fuckin’ animals behave yourself, we won’t.”
Gordy struggled to his feet.
“First thing is, you ain’t gonna act like a coupla barbarians. Act like you’re civilized. Shake out your please and thank-yous. Just get it through your thick skulls, what we got here is a woman alone out here with a kid. Now why ain’t her hubby with her? ‘Cause they ain’t getting along, is why.”
“How do you know that?” Ricky demanded.
Rand smiled. “I can smell it on her,” he said.
Ricky hooted derisively. “On them panties, huh?”
“I’m saying we play our cards right, she might be real nice to us. One of us, or maybe all of us. Just remember, it was my idea is all. I found her. I say who gets her.”
“Sounds like you mean to keep her for yourself,” Ricky said sulkily.
“What if I do?” Rand said. “I’m entitled, ain’t I?”
“Act like it,” Ricky said. “Talk like it, don’t you?”
“Goddamn right,” Rand said.
“What you gonna do, Mister Big, if she yells rape?” Ricky said.
“She’s gotta prove it, stupid. It’s her against us.”
“Like with Loretta Buck?”
“Like with old Loretta,” Rand agreed.
“She sure did squeal a lot, didn’t she?” Ricky asked, overtaken by sudden reminiscence.
“Come on,” Rand said. “I’m freezing my balls off.”
Slowly they groped their way back toward the shore, toward the Russells’ summer house. Leaving the machines pulled up on the snow-layered beach, they moved as soundlessly as they could toward the house. The curtains had been drawn; they could not see in.
“What do we do?” Ricky whispered to Rand. “Bust a window?”
“You really are a fuckin’ barbarian,” Rand said contemptuously. “We’re gonna knock on the friggin’ door.”
“Sure,” Ricky said. “I gotta see this.”
The three men tramped around to the back porch. Rand opened the storm door and rapped casually at the inside door. He shot a quick bright smile at Ricky over his shoulder.
Liv heard the tail end of the knock from the bathroom where she was checking on Travis in his bath. Tightening his grip on the bar of soap to a stranglehold, he looked up at her nervously at the sound.
“Maybe it’s Walter, checking on us,” Liv said.
Relief showed in Travis’ eyes. “Maybe it’s daddy,” he said.
Liv stooped to brush his hair across his clear wide brow.
“I’ll find out,” she said. “Don’t worry, okay?”
Travis nodded, and dug his nails into the bar of soap.
Liv wiped her hands on the legs of her jeans and forced herself to leave the warm well-lit bathroom. She hesitated, then flicked off the hall light and walked in darkness toward the back door. She could not help glancing nervously from side to side, or edging around the corners. At the same time she was glad she had drawn the shades so no one could look at them; she was dismayed to realize she could not see out. There was no way for her to know if someone was creeping around the house outside. Nothing could be heard above the howl of the wind and the resisting creak of the house. She passed the back door and went into the kitchen without turning on the lights and sidled up next to the window that looked out on the back porch. Of course, she had left the light on, when she and Travis had gone to the village and she knew the daylight would be going when they returned, and it was still on. For an instant she thought she was going to faint, she felt her heart jolt at the sight of them, and then Rand was looking right at her by the light of the porch. She shuddered and backed away.
She had wanted to believe it was the wind that had taken out her telephone line, but here they were again. Taking another step backward, and one to the side, she snapped off the porch light. She froze, unable to breath or think what to do next. She wished desperately for a gun, then remembered the kitchen knives. Creeping noiselessly back into the kitchen, she groped by memory in the proper drawer and took out the carving knife. She crept back to the kitchen door and then she waited.
When the light went out on the porch, Rand cursed under his breath.
Ricky started to swear out loud. Rand stomped on his foot and he shut up.
Gordy Teed whimpered. “She ain’t gonna let us in,” he whispered hopefully to Rand. “Let’s go som’eres else to lay up. The old dyke’s, maybe.”
Rand ignored him and rapped at the door again, more urgently. When there was no answer, he rapped again and called out, “Missus Russell, we don’t mean you no harm. We’re freezing, Missus Russell. Won’t you let us use your telephone to call my daddy to come and get us?”
Ricky poked him, giggling.
Rand stomped on his foot, harder, and Ricky backed off, limping a
nd muttering.
On the other side of the door, Liv tried to breathe. If he did not know the telephone line was out, perhaps he had not cut it. Or perhaps he was trying to fool her. However the service had been interrupted, he wasn’t going to be able to call Arden Nighswander if she did open the door, so why should she? She couldn’t tell him that the telephone was dead, though, because of what he might do if he knew she had no contact with the outside world. Then again, if he knew, if he had done it, he might do the very same things anyway. Break in, force his way in. Then what? It was more than she could bear thinking about.
Rand rapped again. “Please, Missus Russell. We’ll get lost in this storm. We might freeze to death out here.”
She closed her eyes but saw nothing anymore clearly. Did a woman with a small child, afraid and alone, have the right to refuse shelter to strangers, to more-than-strangers, to enemies? What if they did freeze to death? Would that be murder? Manslaughter, she decided. It would be manslaughter and people went to jail for it, even if they were the mothers of small children. Even if the people they killed were thieves and vandals or worse.
She did not hear sloshing water, or the small footsteps slapping on the bathroom tile, or the bathroom door opening. Suddenly there was a short naked ghost, slick and dripping water and soap foam on the carpet, materializing out of the dark hallway.
“Mum?” Travis said, his voice quavering.
She put down the knife on the counter behind her and stooped down and held out her arms. Holding his slippery body in her arms, feeling the slick round torso, the solidity of him, she thought, I’m Mum again, for the first time since he was three, and it only took half-scaring him to death.
Fists crashed angrily against the door and they jumped.
“Missus Russell,” Rand bawled. “We’re freezing!”
Travis clutched her frantically. “It’s them,” he said, and the terror in his voice made up her mind for her.
She hugged him tight, then nudged him toward the hall. “Go back in the bathroom,” she whispered. “Lock the door. Don’t open it or come out until I tell you.”