Sparkle (22 page)

For Eddie, it was an important day and a troubling one. He’d botched his experiment with Jolie and let himself get talked into another promise. And he couldn’t think his way around avoiding his promise to Lucy much longer. He’d have to look at what she’d given him soon. He’d have to do something about it. Thank goodness today was a work day. Especially since he’d missed yesterday and he owed it to Joe to make things right. It seemed clear that he should grab his bottle of Shiny Gold, move forward, and go back to work. Maybe cleaning would bring some relief, or even some answers about what was happening to him.

He cleaned the basement and got ready for the day’s work. His heart didn’t seem to want to stay in place. It felt twice its normal size. A yearning for his mom kept knocking around inside him, and Lucy and Jolie’s voices were ringing somewhere in the back of his head. But there was nothing he could do about it, other than force himself to keep moving through as ordinary a routine as possible. Putting on his pants was tough. He hadn’t washed them since the Silver house, and he knew he’d have to keep wearing them until he worked up the energy to look at what Lucy had given him. It took him nearly ten minutes, but once the rumpled, tired khakis were on, the rest of his dressing went pretty well.

Once he was dressed he did everything else by the book. He brought Joe his morning coffee. He didn’t ask why Joe was already dressed, sitting with his head hanging down on the edge of his bed. They didn’t speak. They hardly looked at each other.

Joe loaded up the van, grunting and muttering under his breath. Joe held the door while Eddie climbed in. He slammed it shut. Eddie put on his seat belt and sunglasses. Joe got in, started the van, and lit a Pall Mall. They drove off. Neither of them said a word.

Fairly normal.

After a block, though, Joe was digging around in the glove box for the bottle of Advil he’d stashed there. It made Eddie feel agitated. It wasn’t so much that Joe wasn’t paying attention to the road, but that he was leaning into Eddie’s space, messing up the contents of the glove box that Eddie had so carefully organized. —not least because Joe was not paying much attention to the road—but he did his best to ignore it. Finally, Joe found the bottle, slammed the glove box shut, and got out of Eddie’s lap. Joe wrestled the top off the bottle and shook some pills down his throat as if they were M&Ms.

Eddie looked out the window. He began to bump his head against it gently, for almost a minute.

“That makes my head hurt, Eddie,” Joe snapped when he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Eddie bumped five more times, then stopped.

“Yesterday was a bad day.” Joe was trying hard to change his tone, but he still sounded pissed off. “Just a very, very crummy day. So let’s just forget about yesterday, all right? I’ll forget about it, you forget about it. We’ll both just forget about it. All right?”

Eddie kept staring looking out the window, seeing nothing. He didn’t have it in him to comfort Joe now. He was uncomfortable himself, and confused, and things weren’t coming together. He wanted to get to the job, settle in, and find a place where things would make sense, where he knew how to do something that felt good and had purpose.

Joe was desperate to make the ride as ordinary as possible. He turned on the radio to AM 1010, Seattle’s 24-hour sports station. A local talk show was on, and within two minutes one of the hometown “experts” made a comment about Edgar Martinez that was so damn dumb, Joe snapped off the radio in disgust. He pulled out his recorder and starting mumbling into it. He’d only spoken for a moment when the thing clicked off by itself. The tape had run out.

The sound was almost inaudible, but Eddie had heard it. He held out his hand automatically, and Joe gave him the recorder just as automatically. Eddie smoothly took out the spent tape and set it carefully on the middle of the dash, then he leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. Despite the mess Joe had just made, Eddie easily found one of the tiny blank tapes, slid it efficiently into the recorder, and held the thing to his mouth.

“Testing, one, two, three,” he said. Without looking, he rewound the tape and hit play. “Testing, one, two, three,” it parroted, thin but clear. Eddie snapped the thing off and handed it back to Joe. Then he looked out the window again.

“Thanks Eddie.” The familiar but somewhat infrequent routine made Joe feel a bit better, closer to Eddie. “Yesterday,” he began, searching for the right words, “well, it’s no big deal, all right? You’re not going to do that again, right?”

He waited for Eddie’s answer. It didn’t come.

“We’re back on track, all right?”

Eddie kept looking out the window.

Chapter 31

There was a motive for the six murders at the Red Lotus card room, but it wasn’t the kind that the police or anyone else would ever be able to figure out. It was too pure.

None of the stories in the Seattle Times or P.I. had it close to right. They assumed the killings had something to do with drugs or gambling. Why else would somebody line up six people on their knees and shoot them in the back of the head, one after the other?

The reason was too simple and unadulterated for anyone to figure out. Which was why the killer would—like always—get away with it clean. The victims had been on the list for a long time. Or, if not the specific victims who died, at least those who patronized the high-stakes, illicit club. But the target was very low priority. No, the killings at the Red Lotus were done for one reason: To help erase the nagging memory of a murder of a little girl that somehow would just not sit right.

The killer put down the newspaper and sipped a grandé soy latté appreciatively. The soy milk was supposed to be healthier, and the taste had grown familiar. Starbucks was crowded today and they were playing the music too loud again.

The killer looked out the window onto the busy street and allowed a smile. So many people. Some good. Some bad. But none of them knew they were being watched and judged, judged fit to live or die.

The Red Lotus job had been riskier than usual, but it had gone off like clockwork. The victims had thought they were being robbed, not murdered. It was over almost before it began. Like sheep, on their knees, faces down, pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Then back down the line with second shots to finish it off. Totally untraceable, silenced gun. Impeccable disguise.

It was satisfying. But was it enough? The familiar playback was happening, where the killings could play and replay like a movie, but there wasn’t much drama, much nuance to keep the other thing at bay.

“Hi there.” It was a pretty Latino barista holding out a tray with miniature cups on it. “Would you like to try a sample of our new mocha mint strawberry Frappuccino?

The killer looked up at her and smiled. “No thanks. Too sweet for me.”

An image of Lucy Silver’s expressionless face popped up and it was hard to keep from wincing visibly.

The barista offered a strange look. “They’re not that sweet,” she said.

“I’m diabetic,” the killer lied, rubbing a suddenly pounding forehead.

“Oh. Sorry,” she said. Then she walked to the next table.

The owner of the Red Lotus—a tight-lipped Hong Kong native with a vaguely British accent—led Joe and Eddie through his empty restaurant toward the back room when they arrived. The killings had been a terrible blow. Gambling never happened until late at night, after the restaurant was closed. It was illegal, of course. So there was that. And the feng shui was clearly very bad. It could very well be the end of the business. But he had to at least give it a go. Which meant cleaning the place up before anything else.

Joe pushed a cart loaded with the big-job cleaning gear, including the bulky, biohazard-approved wet-dry vacuum. Eddie followed silently.

“I’ve heard some…interesting things about your business,” the owner said. “Your brother…he’s fully capable?” He pulled aside the crime-scene tape at the card room door.

Joe bit his tongue. He could think of about twenty smart-ass comebacks, although what he most wanted to say was a simple, “Fuck you.”

“Yeah, pal,” he said instead. “He’s figured it out.”

“Just asking,” the owner shot back, defensively. This janitor did not want to get into it with him. He turned the key and opened the door slightly. “Nasty in there.” He waited expectantly.

“Did Detective Louis tell you my brother has to be left alone? Nobody’s to go anywhere near the room when he’s cleaning. No exceptions.”

“Seems rather spooky.”

“If you don’t like it, find somebody else to clean up your mess.”

“Not big on customer relations, are you?” the owner commented.

“We don’t get much repeat business.” Joe said. “We’ll be out by six.”

The owner considered his position and decided there wasn’t much point in making a point. “Just get the damn thing done,” he said curtly, shaking his head as he walked away.

Joe pushed open the door and forced himself inside. The room was dark. Long, sheer red curtains covered a wall of windows. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out the chalk outlines of six bodies, huge bloodstains overflowing the heads. One narrow beam of sun illuminated what appeared to be a small lump of dried gore.

Better fucking not be brains. Homicide and the coroner were supposed to make sure there was nothing but blood left by the time the cleaners showed up. No identifiable remains. If they screwed up, Joe was supposed to notify them, meaning cleanup would have to wait for at least another day. There was no way in hell they were going to wait another day. Eddie can handle it. So what if it’s brains? Tough shit.

All of a sudden, Joe felt as if he was going to puke. “Oh, lord,” he said out loud, rubbing his aching head.

What the fuck was he thinking? People died here. But part of him couldn’t help it. No matter how many times he did this, he couldn’t escape feeling a strange, occasional, disgusted anger toward the victims. He wearily pushed the cart through the door, and started to unload and prepare the supplies.

Is it remains? Again, Joe decided to ignore it. Let other people worry about their jobs. His was hard enough as it was. Besides, it was too important to get Eddie right back into a routine after yesterday. Joe found outlets and plugged in the machines with long orange cords. Eddie stood quietly just inside the threshold.

Joe felt a vague relief as he launched into his catechism. He’d be able to leave soon.

“It’s almost eight,” he said. “Don’t forget to eat at noon, okay? I’ll be back right at five.”

All of a sudden a serious, unexpected wave of dread washed over him. It was entirely different from his normal discomfort at a crime scene. He was afraid for himself and afraid for Eddie. He broke the rhythm. “If you don’t want…to do this—” he began.

“Bye-bye, stains,” Eddie interrupted.

Yeah, right. Apparently Eddie was good to go. Couldn’t really tell, though, he was so far away. Joe couldn’t seem to connect with Eddie at all. Still, he couldn’t choke back his uneasy feeling. Things were off. Sunday at the ball game had been weird, and yesterday had been even weirder. He had no idea where Eddie had gone—or why. “Nobody’s forcing you, Eddie, okay? I just…need to know.”

“Go away, Joe. Leave me alone.”

Joe was stunned. Leave me alone. Just what he’d said to LaVonne. Joe looked at his brother, wide-eyed, but Eddie turned his back and faced the room. For a moment, Eddie had sounded so…normal.

Joe wanted to say more. But what? He was in Eddie’s territory now, and the time had come when he was no longer welcome. He backed out, closed the door, and hung his No Entrance sign on it. He considered the knob, and then slowly reached for it.

“Go away, Joe,” Eddie said loudly from inside.

Definitely not normal. Joe lit a cigarette with shaky fingers and walked quickly away.

Once Joe was gone, Eddie carefully stripped and folded his clothes. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Even though it was taking longer than normal, and Joe had once again managed to add a thin frosting of difficulty to a situation that was already extremely difficult to deal with, Eddie was moving steadily into the zone he craved so deeply and knew so well.

Even so, the nagging anxiety at the back of his brain wasn’t stopping. Lucy Silver’s plaintive, incoherent voice was making a constant background hum in his head and the hot thumping in his heart that made him think of his mom wouldn’t let up. He was used to that hitting him for a moment just before he went in to work—but it had never really let up since he’d left Jolie’s house. And he still had to worry about Jolie possibly telling Joe what he’d done. It was going to be a tough day.

Eddie gazed down at his bare leg. It was still pink and raw-looking where Jolie had touched him. He forced himself to go still, to open up and give all his concentration to what was in front of him. Mercifully, before long the room started to change. First it faded slowly to a negative image of itself. Gradually, everything got softer and less solid. Objects began to waver like smoke. The smears of blood, as Eddie penetrated them with his new senses, revealed vaguely suggestive patterns and pictures. They seemed to sway and move almost imperceptibly, like gentle waves against an indistinct shore.

At last, the Shiny Gold music started to play. Eddie’s breath became slower and more even. He bonked himself gently on the head with the new plastic spray bottle of Shiny Gold.

“Bye-bye, stains,” he said, hopefully.

Eddie reached out with his mind, and pale blue wisps revealed themselves, painfully pinned under a hungry weight of angry, pulsing, freezing red on the floor. A precious part of each victim, all six of them, was still trapped here, right where they had fallen. Eddie felt a dank chill, sharp and penetrating, radiating out from the center of the room. Despite the evil here, he relaxed a bit, freed from his anxiety as his entire being became engrossed by the challenge in front of him. This was something he knew. The blood began to glow. It gave off a powerful, musky smell.

There was a tiny blotch at his feet, and Eddie knelt to it. He felt his power and confidence rising. Inside his head, the grinding chatter quieted and moved into the background, giving him blessed relief and adding to his strength.