The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel (10 page)

Dale had her door locked. I could pick it in eight seconds but didn’t want to push her level of mistrust any deeper into the red zone.

The house swelled heavily with history. The walls were packed with busted scams. The hidden crawl spaces could hide a hundred bodies.

Gramp was still awake. Or at least his eyes were open. I opened the window, sat on the sill, and spilled. It was good to have a c the only one I had leftc himselfonfidant who would never betray your confidence. I whispered to him about everything that had gone down over the last couple of days. I went on and on and could barely hear myself. Every so often he intoned some odd phrase.

I woke at dawn to find my mother sitting on the
edge of the bed, staring at me with her hand sweeping through my white patch.

She’d been crying. Her bright hazel eyes were a little swollen, shot through with red.

“You don’t have to go,” I said.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

My side was on fire. I never should have gone jogging. What a fucking stupid thing to do. All I wanted were the Percs. I was going to need the pills for another week at least. I was going to burn through them.

She kept plying my gray curls. She had the same streak in her own hair and had been dyeing it since junior high. I realized that when she toyed with my hair it wasn’t just a signature way to comfort me. Maybe it always made her think of her brother and father. All this time it hadn’t been a moment being shared just by the two of us, but also by the">“No,” I saidplasse outsiders.

Her smile was tinged with turmoil and excitement, the kind that hits you all at once on mornings like this, when you prepare yourself to face someone you thought you hated, and who you knew hated you. “He’s my father.”

“Does that matter? You haven’t seen him in more than thirty years.”

“Of course it matters. He’s always been my father. He’ll always be my father.”

“John says he’s hard as steel.”

“Not anymore,” she said, smiling sadly. “Not if he’s asking for me.”

“Just because he’s had a stroke doesn’t mean he’ll be a sweetheart.”

“He’ll never be that.”

“John is bad news. Don’t trust his goofball act. All that hugging and back-patting. All that laughing. I get the feeling we’re going to run up against him in a bad way before this is through.”

“I think he had a rough start and straightened himself out. It’s a rare thing. He doesn’t have any siblings or cousins. He’s only looking for family.”

I sat up against the headboard. Shifting hurt like hell but I didn’t let it show. We Rands could do amazing things in order to hide the truth. “And seeing your mother again. And your brother. What’s that going to be like?”

She angled her chin away and shadows of beaded rain fell across her face. “They never had anything to do with it. My father was a small tyrant. I was happy to be gone. If he hadn’t disowned me over the man I loved he would’ve disowned me for some other reason. It was inevitable. And I suppose it was inescapable that I’d go back someday.”

“I’m going with you, Ma.”

“That’s not necessary, Terry.”

“I want to. I want to see these people.”

“They’re just strangers. They’re not your family. They’re not your enemies. He’s dying. I don’t need you starting up all kinds of dramatics.”

“Me?” I asked. “Am I the kind of person who would start up dramatics?”

“You are absolutely the kind of person who would start up dramatics, Terrier.”

“I’m still going.”

She touched the side of my face, prodded some of the damage.
“Do you want to tell me which of Chub’s friends punched you out? And why?”

“Not just at the moment.”

“Follow me.”

I got out of bed and followed her into my bathroom. She peeled off the pieces of tape and swabbed my cuts and bruises with astringent. She had done this many times before for me and Collie, for my father and uncles. “There’s not much swelling, and only a little discoloration. You iced up yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’ve been favoring your right side.”

“A couple of banged-up ribs.”

“Take off your T-shirt.” this many times before to be Q

I did as she told me. Her hands went to work on my side gently. She had a well-practiced touch.

“You should have told me yesterday. Don’t keep these kinds of things from your mother.”

“Sorry,” I told her, and I was.

“You didn’t tape this up yourself,” she stated. “Whoever it was did a good job. You should leave it for another day or two, then I’ll change it. Try not to let your side get soaked when you shower. Do you still have any Percocet?”

“Yes.”

“Two every four hours, Terrier. Don’t pop them the way you were yesterday. Your eyes were practically spinning.”

“Okay.” I got the bottle and took two dry.

“With a glass of water,” she said.

“Right.” I got a glass of water from the bathroom tap.

My ma went to my dresser and laid out my clothes for me like I was five years old again. For some reason I found it just as reassuring as annoying. “Are you certain you want to come with me today?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ll leave after breakfast.”

“Okay.” It hit me then. “I don’t even know your maiden name, Ma.”

She moved to the door, took an extra second to answer as if she had trouble remembering, and said, “It’s Crowe.”

She left and I ran the name around in my head for a while. I hopped in the shower and tried not to let my side get soaked. I washed the dried blood from my hair. I sponged off the remnants of Darla’s intimacy. When I got out I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked down the hall to Grey’s room.

My uncle was supposed to be on the long grift. I’d packed up some of his clothes in a fancy set of luggage and filled an overnight kit with hair care effects. He’d gone on the gambling circuit before, twice for as long as six months at a clip. I still had a little time before my father would get suspicious.

I’d cut every label out of those shirts, suits, and even his underwear. Then I’d driven to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and left the baggage sitting in the farthest stall of the men’s room. Nothing could disappear without a trace any faster than that.

I splashed my face with Grey’s aftershave and used his double wooden brushes to swipe my hair back and forth across my head. I put on some of his threads. They fit well and looked good. Let the shrinks say whatever they wanted. One of the last times I’d spoken with my uncle, while he was still in his right head, he’d told me to raid his closet anytime I liked.

Dale heard me in his room and peeked in while I finished dressing.

“You’re going to go with her,” she said. “Good, I don’t think Ma should be alone.” She hung back in the doorway and watched me getting ready. She tilted her head one way and then the other, appraising me. “You look nice.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” I asked. “I have school.”

“Ditch for the day.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Of course you do that, you’re a teenager.”

“I hardly ever do it, and I’m not doing it today. You’ll make sure you’re back for my show tonight, right?”

“Right.”

“Eight o’clock?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“I really want you there. It’s important to me that you’re there. You and Ma. You understand. You know what I’m saying, Terry?”

“I know what you’re saying.”

“Good.”

I caught her eyes in the mirror as I finished buttoning my cuffs. She continued to hover in the doorway. We faced each other across the room, too reserved to hug, too bound by remorse to talk at length. I filled the room with a question. “Dale, who’s Roger?”

“Roger? I don’t know any Roger.” She stared at me curiously. “Who’s Roger?”

“Roge.”

“Roge?”

“R-O-G. Who’s R-O-G, Dale?”

She pulled a face and glared at me. She stepped in. She closed the door behind her. She lowered her voice. “You’ve checked my phone. You’ve been creeping me again.”

“I wanted to mention it.” And I always did what I wanted. “You call the guy a lot.”

“How do you know it’s a guy?”

“Whoever it is. That’s what I’m asking. Who is it?”

“And what business is that of yours?”

“You’re my sister. Everything about you reaming, or tr

She let out a weary snicker. “What balls!”

“Dale—”

“You really have no idea how to deal with people, Terry. Even if I wanted to share that with you, do you really believe I would now? After you’ve been checking my phone? Searching my room? What makes you think that would instill trust in you?”

So far as I knew, my father hadn’t yet said a word
about my mother returning to her childhood home. He rarely said a word about anything, but I expected him to expound at least a little about this. I was still waiting for him to share. He sat at the kitchen table looking thoughtful and grim. He was a touch scary when he was grim. Or thoughtful. He caught me watching him and his face cleared. He set his gaze on me. He knew where I’d fall when it came to this topic.

My old man considered my clothes and said, “Snazzy.”

“Grey said I could borrow anything in his closet.”

“Yeah. You look good. You should dress like that all the time.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded, mopped up his eggs with toast, drank some juice, drank some herbal tea the color of seaweed. Beside his napkin were three pills of various sizes and colors. “I’m glad you’re going with her.”

“Sure.”

“She shouldn’t be alone.”

“No, probably not.”

“I’d go, but—”

There were only so many things to say when you weren’t talking to somebody about something they couldn’t talk about. “I understand.”

I waited and tried to figure out what I could do to help him. I couldn’t come up with anything. JFK sensed my father’s mood and nosed into his right hand. My father patted him slowly, heavily on the head.

We finished eating. My old man gulped his pills. A truck horn
blew in the street. Dale came down, pecked our mother on the cheek, and said with great intensity, “Good luck. Don’t let anyone push you around or make you feel guilty. If anyone tries, walk out. Right?”

“Right,” Ma said.

“SeeUncle Pinscher?” l for a while you at the play?”

“We wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

Dale rushed out the door and down the walk and into Tony’s 4×4. They kissed deeply for five Mississippis.

My mother took my father’s hands in her own. She leaned down and they touched foreheads and she spoke quietly for a moment. I moved out onto the veranda, lit a cigarette, took a drag, and flicked it over the rail. I turned back to check on them and saw her kiss him gently. She peeled away and thumbed tears from beneath her eyes. She shouldered out the screen door, across the porch, and down the stairs. She looked like she needed a second to compose herself so I let her get into my car and reapply her makeup in the passenger-side mirror.

My father came to the door. He waved to her and gave a wholly false smile. He backed up a step so he was out of her view. He glanced at me and his lips dropped into a frown and the frown fell in on itself. He gave me a firm nod. I nodded back. Then he made his way through the house and out the back door to the garage, where he would dust and mull over his figurine collection and think about delicate creations made during terrible times. He would think of what he owned and what he didn’t own. What he could get and what he could never have.

I drove my mother back to the family she hadn’t seen in more than three decades. It turned out to be less than twenty minutes from our house. I thought of what that must’ve been like for her, living that close to her family for all these years.

I knew the upscale neighborhood pretty well. As a teenager I’d
robbed at least a couple of houses within a half-mile radius. The area had some serious wealth sunk into it.

The Crowe house turned out to be a huge old Victorian restored to perfection. The other side of the family had some cash, and they protected it. The place had a lot of exterior lighting, including four motion-detector spots. Two to illuminate the front yard, and one along each side in case anybody jumped a fence and crossed the backyard. I could see from here that the windows were wired with glass-breaking alarms. The security system would be tied in to a local company, probably APS, American Protection Services. Their offices were over on Jerusalem Avenue, and they could probably make this address in under four minutes.

The house was surrounded by a seven-foot-high black spear fence tipped with nasty barbed points. It was too tall to be aesthetically pleasing and way too aggressive to be only a matter of privacy. It was meant to be intimidating, imposing as hell. My mother stared with a subtly despondent, angry expression.

I said, “It looks like your old man always expected dad to come here one day and empty the place out.”

“It’s very different from when I grew up here,” she admitted. “My mother used to love gardening. She had beds of flowers all over the yard. There was a white split-rail fence along the sidewalk, not this hideous metal thing with knives at the top.”

“Those chevron barbs are meant to hang a burglar up. Guy swings his leg over the top and spikes himself on it, he’s trapped.” It was such an obvious message it made me snicker. “Did he really think this could stop Dad if he wanted to juke the place?”

“My father had very dim notions of most people.”

Set between two looming stone pillars was a gate made of the same metal spears. The gate was open, maybe in an effort to make my mother feel welcome. I’d seen jails less f);
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“I’m guessing they don’t throw many cocktail parties,” I said.