I’d anticipated this, and had a ready explanation. “Earlier today, Jack’s boss came by and asked if he could put a dumpster in our driveway for a couple of hours.”
“A dumpster?”
“I guess he had more trash than he could haul away in his flatbed. It was still there when I got back.”
“Oh. Okay.”
It was a risk, saying this, but just a slight one. I could not see any reason for Stas to ever bring it up with Jack’s boss. And I knew Stas wouldn’t care enough about the Pontiac to bother moving it. He liked to have our own cars in the garage at night, but the Pontiac was old and belonged to someone else; we weren’t even formally liable for it.
The real reason I’d parked at the curb was to throw Jack off. He wouldn’t know the car was mine, and tomorrow it would look like I wasn’t home. The idea of a full day’s reprieve from Jack was worth a meaningless lie to Stas.
Rae’s question at the bar came back to me:
how much longer could that job last?
The only real exchange I’d had with the boss had to do with just how long he and Jack might be there.
“So how soon do you think we can expect new neighbors?” I’d asked, as if looking forward to meeting a nice family instead of counting the days until the work was done and Jack was gone.
“Oh, you know what they say,” the boss said cheerfully. “There are three speeds in construction: slow, dead and reverse.” He chuckled, saying this. “We’ve got a ways to go yet.”
I thought of calling Rae, but how could she help me? I had yet to heed the advice she had already given me: to tell Stas about the way things were with Jack. I thought of calling my sister, but
Payback
wasn’t something I could talk about with her.
In bed that night beside Stas, I could not get warm. Panic lodged in my throat, made it hard to draw a deep breath. I clutched at him with icy fingertips, pressed my feet against his legs.
“Leda, do you feel all right?” he asked.
“Stas, hold me,” I whispered.
His arms encircled me in the dark.
“Is something the matter?”
“I think I might be getting sick,” I said. My teeth were chattering.
“Poor little girl.”
Within another minute, he was asleep again.
* * *
The next morning I woke to a heavy thud, as if something had been dropped on the floor downstairs. I sat up with the blanket held to my chest, eyes wide, heart pounding.
I was alone in the house. Stas had brought Clara to preschool on his way to work; they were long gone.
A minute went by, maybe two, and I heard nothing else. I wondered if I had dreamed it. I wondered too if the situation with Jack weren’t making me a little crazy.
Just as I lay back down, a definite clattering. Like an object made of flimsy metal striking wood. And then the unmistakable sound of footsteps: a man’s, heavy and deliberate. Coming from below, from inside the house.
Even in the midst of my fear, which flooded my mouth with a metallic tang, it occurred to me that whoever was downstairs was making no effort to be stealthy. Maybe Stas had forgotten something and come back for it.
It felt especially compromising to be in bed. Clad only in underwear and a long t-shirt, with bare legs and no bra.
In the bottom drawer of the night table beside the bed was Stas’ handgun. Soon after Clara was born, he’d taken me to a shooting range and showed me how to use it. Even at the time, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it under duress. The chamber was hard to manipulate and just loading it had frightened me. If Clara were here, if she were in the house and her safety was at stake, I might manage it. As it was, I never even considered taking it out of the drawer.
But where was my cell phone? For maybe the twentieth time, I regretted that we had no land line and that I didn’t make a point of keeping my cell by the bed. Right now it was in my purse, which was in the kitchen. Twitching with fear, I eased out of bed and reached for the nearest clothes, those at the top of the laundry basket. Stas’ plaid boxers, which served as a flimsy pair of shorts. A Guatemalan sweater of rough red and orange wool, which I pulled on over my t-shirt; this wasn’t the time to fumble with a bra. My heart was hammering, my breath coming in shallow little gasps.
And now, from the ground level of the house, came the sound of our portable radio, tuned to a country station. Would a rapist or burglar turn on the radio? I made myself peer around the door of my bedroom, where I could see down the steps and into the kitchen. My purse was on the kitchen counter, just where I’d left it the night before. Would a robber leave a purse untouched? There was a clear path to the door; no one was in sight. I could dash down the stairs and out to the street. Barefoot and shivering, a strange sight in the bright sweater and oversized plaid boxers, but safe from harm in any case—safe from whoever had invaded the house.
Yes. That was what I would do.
And then, without warning, Jack strolled into view and I screamed.
“Oh, hey! Oh hey, oh man, I’m sorry,” he said, backing away and holding up both hands as if to show he wasn’t armed. “I didn’t know you were here. I left a note on the door saying I was inside.”
I stood there staring at him and trying to get my breath back.
“I need to go to Yakima tonight on an emergency,” he continued. “And I couldn’t see leaving you guys hanging in the middle of the job, with a half-painted room. I just thought I’d get in here, get it done. I didn’t think you’d mind. I never meant to surprise you or scare you. Like I said, there’s a note right on your front door.”
Finally I found my voice. “How did you get in?” I asked faintly.
“I got a key. I’ve had it so long I never even thought to mention it. Forgot I even had it, to tell the truth. I just remembered this morning because I was wishing I could get in here and then it came to me that I
could
get in. Walt gave it to me back in the day. Here, take it.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out a mass of keys, and began working one of them loose. “Look, I’m real sorry. I wish I’d waited. I just wanted to do the right thing.” He slid a key off its ring and held it out. “Here you go.”
I took it wordlessly before turning away. Back in the bedroom, I quietly locked the door behind me. Then I stood in the middle of the floor, clutching the key, and started to cry. I was still crying half an hour later as I called my husband on his cell. “There are things I haven’t told you,” I said, and then I told him everything.
* * *
“Listen to what I say. I will be there in twenty minutes. I want you to go out to that car they gave you, and sit in it until I come home. Just stay there on the street in front of the house and make sure he does not steal anything. When you see that I have arrived, I want you to drive away. All right?”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“Go any place you want.”
“What will you do?”
“I am going to put a stop to this.”
“How?”
“Do not worry about this,” Stas told me. “It is not any longer your concern. And do not speak about this to anyone.”
“But Stas—”
He hung up.
* * *
I went out without a word to Jack and got into the Pontiac. As Stas had ordered, I sat there waiting. The morning was very warm.
I understood that whatever happened next, nothing would be the same. This phase of the game was over; no more pretense of neighborly ease would be required.
It was very hot in the Pontiac, but I kept the engine off, the windows up. People passed the car: skateboarders, dog-walkers, women with strollers. It occurred to me that anyone who noticed me might wonder why I was sitting there. No one could know that the house I was watching was my own. During the brief time we’d been here, I’d met none of our neighbors.
After about twenty minutes, my husband’s black Civic appeared in my rearview mirror. He was at the wheel and beside him was a man it took a moment for me to place. It was the man from the warehouse, the one who had cut the stone for Stas that day. The scar running the length of his face made him unmistakable. I hadn’t known they were in touch; Stas had not mentioned him since. He had short silver hair, a hard face, narrowed eyes. I had the impression that he was someone who seemed older than he truly was. That he might be in his late thirties while looking forty-five or even fifty: Russian men tended to age hard. Why was he here? To stand next to Stas and look intimidating? If that was the case, and I hoped it was, he would surely be very effective.
Both men nodded to me as they climbed out of the car but neither of them came over. It was as if I were incidental to whatever was about to happen. The man from the warehouse put on a pair of shades. As they walked together toward the house, I put the key into the ignition, shifted into drive, and pulled into the street.
It’s done,
I thought then, and though I wasn’t sure just what these words might mean, they seemed weighted with finality and portent and peril. I drove away.
There are things I haven’t told you.
That was my opening line upon calling Stas earlier. And then I recounted Jack’s relentless overtures, his insinuation, his aggression. Even now, I wondered if I’d blown the whole thing out of proportion.
Who was the man with the scar? Was he part of the Russian mob? And what was Stas doing with him?
In a North Portland diner known for its blue cornmeal pancakes, I sat next to a window with a cup of decaf and stared at the white cherry tree across the street. By now, any confrontation in our home was likely over. Had Stas and the other man merely threatened Jack? Or could they possibly have hurt him?
Sitting there, a memory came to me, of the day that an angry ex-employee named Fred came looking for Stas. Fred was the initial answer to Bryce’s ongoing conundrum: what meticulous, reliable person could stand to build the same computer hundreds or even thousands of times, forty to sixty hours a week, in a windowless room for minimum wage?
“I need Rain Man,” he said. “No, seriously. And I think I found him. I talked to him on the phone this morning and I’m telling you he’s the one.” He slipped into a rendition of Fred’s high robotic whine:
I built boxes for Compaq for five years and Hewlett Packard for eight years and Sony for six years and Dell for three years. I have my own T15 reversible torque screwdriver
—
(Here Bryce had interrupted him to say, “If you’re rocking back and forth right now, you’re hired.”)
But while Fred did indeed prove to be fastidious and tireless, Stas couldn’t stand him. The ancient transistor radio he kept on his desk (despite Bryce’s offer to buy him a Walkman or iPod) was always on, always tuned to an opera station. He had overwhelming body odor, was always muttering under his breath and often burst into high-pitched laughter for no reason. Michiko, Stas’ most valuable employee, was afraid of him. For that matter, no one ever wanted to be alone with him.
After two months of this, Stas went to Bryce with the idea of outsourcing Kaiser Tech’s computer assembly. He had compiled a list of vendors offering this service and Bryce had no trouble deciding on a fly-by-night operation favoring gray market parts and illegal immigrant labor at very competitive rates.
Three days after Stas fired him, Fred returned to the office. I was in the room when he appeared in his dirty trench coat. Stas was on the phone and he swiveled to face his former worker but did not hang up. Everyone stared as Fred lumbered over to Stas and unsheathed a blade from his pocketknife.
“Very good, Linda,” Stas said into the receiver. “I will be in touch with you next week. In the meantime, do not hesitate to let me know if I can help in any other way.”
Only after several more pleasantries did he replace the phone in its cradle. Then he stood with no apparent hurry or alarm.
“Hello, Stas,” Fred said. He held the pocketknife in a loose grip and jiggled it as he spoke.
“Hello, Fred.” Stas’ voice was matter-of-fact, his gaze direct and perhaps a little pitying.
“How’s it going, Stas?”
“Everything is all right, Fred. How are things going for you?”
Everyone else in the room was unmoving, eyes darting back and forth between the two men.
“How about your boxes, Stas? How are the factory boxes coming along?”
“They are fine, Fred. Why do you ask?”
And so it went, back and forth. Stas kept an even tone and continued to respond as if Fred were making friendly conversation. After a few more exchanges of this kind, Fred abruptly wheeled around and walked out.
Bryce was the first to speak. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “We should call the police.”
It occurred to me then that he hadn’t moved to intervene or protect Stas in any way.
“Do not bother,” Stas said. “He will not be back.”
Remembering this now, I wondered again why Stas had not been afraid. Was it his own knife, the one he carried in his left boot? Was it just his ability to read people? And how had he honed that instinct? All he ever said in explanation was: “I knew that Fred would do nothing in the end.”
* * *
When I came home, no one ambushed me on the driveway or tried to trail me into the house. There was no one inside the house either. Two of the walls in the nursery-in-progress were pale yellow and two remained a grayish-white. No traces of Jack were left in the room.
The silence and stillness felt like a benediction. I raised the blinds and the afternoon sunlight slanted in.
Stas did not answer his phone for the rest of the day and he did not return home until late that evening. When he came in, Clara was already asleep and I was waiting for him at the kitchen table.
“Stas,” I said, as soon as his jacket was off. “Where have you been?”
He took the seat across from me. “Listen,” he said. “This morning you said there was something you had not told me. Well, as it happens, there is something I have not told you in return.”
I looked at him, waiting.
“The man who accompanied me earlier,” he said. “His name is Vladimir.”
“He’s the one who trimmed our marble countertop.”
“Yes. That is correct. And Vladimir is running his own business here in Vancouver. He is a contractor and he supplies building materials. Many of his clients are Russian.”