Authors: Jack Ketchum
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He sighed and hunched over his beer. “Hope you’re right, partner.”
Schilling looked at him. “What’s going on, Ed? This isn’t just Danny Hardcuff on your mind. It’s Sally, right?”
Ed sighed again and shifted on his barstool. “Yeah. I been a hell of a fool, Charlie. Thing is, I figure I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I ask her to come back and she
does
come back, which she might or might not do at this point, I’m gonna feel guilty all over again. If I don’t ask her, I’m just gonna feel
bad
, period.”
“Guilt’s for suckers, Ed. Or the guys who are guilty. You’re neither one.”
There was a fine irony here and Schilling was well aware of it.
All along I’m worried about Ed seeing this girl much too young for him and now I’m trying to convince him to start seeing her again. I’m worried about him
not
seeing the girl
.
Go figure.
The irony wasn’t lost on Ed either.
“You’re telling me I should call her? I’m really hearing this?”
“Yeah, Ed. I’m telling you you should call her. And wipe that goddamn smirk off your face. Whoever said I had to be consistent? If I were you though, I’d wait till the beers settle. Have some dinner. Do it stone cold. . . .”
“Sober. Yeah, you’re right about that. You really think I should call her, huh?”
“Yeah. I do.”
And Schilling had to laugh. Not just at the look on Ed’s face, like a guy who’s just been told he’s
not
going to jail after all, he’s going to Palm Springs instead all expenses paid but also at the thought that it was impossible in life to predict anybody’s behavior. Not even his own.
He wondered for just a moment if the thought should have any wider application for him, one he somehow wasn’t getting.
But by then the third scotch was down and working in him and the moment fled into the whiskey like a rabbit from a hunter on a winter day and disappeared.
“
I
was going to call
you
,” he said.
It was so good, she thought, to hear his voice and even better to hear him say what he was saying. She lay back on the bed and relaxed.
“You were, huh?”
“I just finished dinner. I was going to clean up and then phone you.”
“Bouillabaisse?”
“What?”
“For dinner. Bouillabaisse?”
“Oh, I threw that out. Some I gave to the cat.”
“Shame.”
“The cat didn’t think so.”
“So what were you going to say to me?”
“You called me, remember?”
“Let’s hear it, Ed. Indulge me.”
She heard him clear his throat. It made him sound stern and gruff, which was the last thing he was and which now amused her.
“I was going to say that I acted like a goddamn dope and that I’ve been hurting for it ever since. I was going to say I’m sorry.”
“That’s it?”
“Okay. That and that I’d like to spend the rest of this time with you, what time you have left here. That you’re an adult and I don’t have any right to say what you should or shouldn’t be doing. That I miss you. And that I don’t give a damn what people are saying about us. That I want you around if you still want to be here.”
She gave it a beat. Figured let him stew a second.
“Gee Ed, that’s a lot. I was just gonna say I forgive you.”
“You do? Well hell, that’s plenty!”
They laughed.
“Can you come over?”
“Can’t. Not tonight. I promised Tonianne I’d take her out for burgers and a movie. Sort of a thank-you for getting me the job.”
“How’s that working out?”
“It’s not the most interesting thing in the world. But Sam’s a nice guy and an easy guy to work for. And it’s fun when Tonianne’s around. You know. We get in some girl talk. It’s a whole lot better than making beds and vacuuming floors and collecting dirty linen. I could come over tomorrow if you want. After I finish up there.”
“Good. I’ll make us dinner.”
“No you
won’t
make us dinner. You’ll drive us over to Hopatcong for a couple of steaks. Deal?”
“Deal. Sal?”
“Yeah.”
“I just can’t say how glad I am we talked. I mean, lord, what a relief!”
“I am too, Ed. Real glad.”
“So you have a good time with Tonianne tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow. Good night, you.”
“G’night.”
She hung up and thought,
Well that was easy
. They were back together.
Just like that.
She felt warm and snug and safe again.
She also felt like an ice-cold Pepsi. With a wedge of lemon to cut the sweetness. There was always a lemon or two in the fridge for her mother’s vodka tonics. She crossed the room barefoot and smiling.
Her father was standing just outside the doorway.
The door had been open a crack. It wasn’t a mistake she usually made. Had he opened it without her hearing?
“Daddy?”
He’d obviously just come from the bathroom. He was standing in the hall flossing his teeth, one of the many habits of his she casually detested. Flossing wasn’t a thing you did in public, even with family. You kept it in the goddamn bathroom.
“Who’s Ed?” he said “And why in god’s name are you going all the way to Hopatcong for a steak? Perfectly good steak at the White Horse Grill. Plus we know the owner.”
“You were
listening
to me?”
He shrugged. “Just passing by.”
She’d always wondered how he’d come so far in real estate. As far as she was concerned he was a lousy liar. There wasn’t any point calling him on it though.
“So. Who’s Ed?”
“A man I know.”
“A
man
you know? How old a man we talking about?”
She had the feeling she understood where this was going and felt a chill that he should know. If he did it couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t going to change anything. If he was only fishing she wasn’t about to help him. She decided to try cutting this off before it went any farther. It was usually as easy to get around her father as it was to get around her mother.
She didn’t want to know what or how much he knew.
She didn’t care.
“Men my age aren’t
boys
anymore, daddy. Try to move a little with the times, okay? And it’s none of your business anyhow. I’m leaving for college in a month or so. You going to want to know who I’m seeing in Boston too?”
“Maybe.”
“Well I won’t have any more intention of discussing it with you then than I do right now. At the moment I’m thirsty. Excuse me.”
She walked around him and down the stairs. Left him standing there, floss dangling from his fingers.
“And the steaks at the White Horse Grill are awful,” she said.
It was dusk. With dusk the need to get out of the tree had conquered all her apprehension. Her belly rumbled. There were night predators far more suited to trees than she was.
She chose to go down on the same side she’d come up. As she had done many times before she placed her front paws against the bark and dug in with her claws as best she could and inched along, only this time when she’d stretched her full length down along the tree trunk she retracted the claws and allowed herself to fall. She arched her spine and raised her head and lowered her shoulders, her legs seeking the ground. For a moment she felt sudden wind and perfect balance and then the jagged earth hit her and she yowled in pain.
The cat had great tolerance for pain but this was unlike any she’d ever had before. A deep dull throb ran from her right front foreleg to her shoulder. When she placed the pad of her foot tentatively to the ground the pain became an electric red-hot streak that dizzied her so much that she fell sideways onto her hip into tall tufts of scrubgrass and then awkwardly had to work her way up again.
The right front leg was useless to her.
Her only thought was to get back to the house where the man was and where there was a comfortable place to lie down.
She was deep in the woods.
She hobbled three-legged in the house’s direction. Each footfall brought new pain, a combination of the bone-deep throbbing and a lesser version of the earlier sharp agony that had caused her to fall to her side into the grass. She felt thirsty now, not hungry and made her way slowly through the woods. No longer quite herself anymore. Not quite the same cat she had known herself to be.
Diminished.
Black
.
All black
.
Black silk shirt buttoned to the neck, tight black jeans, black string tie, shiny black boots, onyx ring in a silver setting on the index finger of his left hand
.
He looks into the mirror and sees a handsome young Black Knight freshly showered and shaved, teeth brushed, hair combed and patted gently into place and sprayed to hold. His eyeliner, shadow and mascara are somewhat heavier than usual though still in very good taste he thinks so that the eyes are the first thing you notice, their dark glitter the first thing you see. A touch of rouge on the powdered cheeks. The mole carefully painted with the tip of an eyebrow pencil wetted with his own saliva—his witch’s mark, his Mark of Cain
.
He removes the mirror, turns the four silver clamps that hold it in place so that they no longer do so and sets the mirror on the floor so that it leans against the toilet. In removing the mirror he reveals a large, deep hole and inside the hole, a horizontal brace against a vertical stud. Along the length of the brace there lies, first, a .38 Smith & Wesson Ladysmith revolver with a frosted stainless finish and a rosewood grip. Behind it are two full boxes of cartridges, one for the Ladysmith and the other for the Remington bolt action .22 long rifle with the beautiful checkered walnut stock that lies behind them
.
Each day as Ray has been looking into the mirror he has simultaneously been looking at these
.
No one, not even Tim, knows they are there. Tim thinks they’re long since thrown away. Ray has oiled, cleaned and polished them once a year on the anniversary of the night at Turner’s Pool and then thrown out the materials he purchased to do so. He has covered his tracks
.
He takes out the Ladysmith and the boxes of shells and places them on the toilet seat. He reaches in deep and grips the Remington by its smooth slim stock and stands it by the sink. He picks up the mirror and clamps it back in place. He opens the box of .38 shells and sets it on the sink and picks up the Ladysmith and watches himself in the mirror as he loads it
.
Empty, the Ladysmith weighs only a pound and a half, its barrel just two inches long. But it feels heavier in his hand. A thing of fine balanced weight. He slides the five bullets into the cylinder and when he is finished snaps it shut
.
He closes the box of shells and puts those and the handgun back on the toilet seat and opens the second box of shells, picks up the rifle and releases the magazine and fills it with four shells and slides it back into the magazine floor plate. To do this he must pay attention to the rifle and not himself in the mirror. When he’s through he slings the rifle over his shoulder by its soft leather strap and closes the second box of shells and picks up the Ladysmith and then his gaze returns to the mirror to his reflection in the mirror to the Black Knight in the mirror to Ray, Death-Ray in the mirror and the now-empty hole behind the mirror, he regards all this and then takes up the boxes and turns away smiling the Elvis grin, the Evil Elvis grin and walks out of the bathroom and through his bedroom and living room past his waterbed and his television and his stereo set and his wet bar and out his door into the brightness of the motel-parking-lot lights to greet his defected fans
.
Ray walked from his car to the top of the hill and clicked off the safety on the rife and watched the lights from the television flicker in the living room. He walked through the door to the big house where his mother and father had raised him and saw her sitting on the sofa watching Ed Sullivan. Ed was talking with Dinah Shore following her number, and the audience applauded and his mother blinked at him standing in the doorway and frowned and started to say something as Dinah exited and the audience applauded and Ed went to a commercial waving to the audience and Ray shot her through the heart and threw the bolt. The .22’s spent cartridge made no sound whatsoever on the welcome mat and he raised the rifle and sighted and shot her again.