Authors: Ray Garton
Reznick smelled something else, too – just a whiff of it, a slight hint. Something ... disturbing.
“Ni-nice to meet you, Kendra,” he said, barely getting it out. He looked at the gentle slope of her back, the rise of her ass in the small patch of blue denim, the dimples on the backs of her knees.
“Just stretch out beside Kendra, there,” Anna said. “There’s room.”
“Here,” Kendra said, “I’ll pour you some tea.” She picked up the pitcher of ice tea in front of her. The ice cubes in it clattered and clinked as she poured some into his glass.
“Thank you,” he said, and it came out as a whisper.
“What’s your doggy’s name?” Kendra said.
“Conan.”
“He’s
so
cute! Oh, Conan, you’re so cute, you know that?”
Conan wagged his butt and lapped up the attention and affection.
“You haven’t been here long, have you, Marc?” Anna said.
“About a month.”
“I guess I haven’t been very neighborly,” she said. “I should’ve come over and introduced myself, or something.”
“Don’t feel bad,” he said. “I’m not very neighborly myself. I guess I’m kind of ... a hermit.”
“Being neighborly is a lost art, I think,” Anna said.
Reznick nodded. “Part of another time.”
If he tipped his head forward, he could see Anna’s face beyond Kendra’s. He could see where Kendra got her good looks. Anna was lovely, and quite young. She had long auburn hair and big catlike eyes. She and Kendra shared full lips and a delicately upturned nose. She looked almost young enough to pass for Kendra’s sister.
“What kind of work do you do, Marc?”
“I’m a private investigator.”
Anna’s face broke open in a broad smile. “No kidding? A real private investigator?”
“What’s a private investigator?” Kendra said. She had not stopped looking at him since he’d stretched out beside her. She kept petting Conan, but she looked at Reznick. He felt naked under her gaze, and unable to return it. He felt if he did, if he met her eyes and looked in them for very long, he would burst into flames.
“You know,” he said, looking at his ice tea, “a private detective?”
Kendra said nothing for a moment, and he stole a look at her. She frowned – two little creases appeared between her gracefully curved eyebrows – and cocked her head. It was a childlike gesture – a childlike gesture above the swell of a woman’s cleavage coming up out of that halter top.
“Is it interesting?” Kendra said.
“Well, yes, I suppose it is. It’s not boring, anyway.”
“Do you make lots of money doing it?”
“Kendra, that’s not very polite,” Anna said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, as if she truly had no idea it wasn’t a polite thing to ask.
Reznick frowned a moment. There was something different about Kendra, something odd. He couldn’t put his finger on it yet.
“I’ll put it this way,” he said. “I’m not getting rich.”
“Ah, look at the sun,” Anna said.
There was a break in the trees just ahead, and far beyond it was a line of purple mountains in the distance. Just above it stretched some flat clouds that glowed a bright pink as the sun set.
A moment later, the shadows were deeper and the park’s shade became darker. The sun had set, leaving only a golden glow behind the mountains which was already dimming. The pink drained from the clouds, leaving behind a rich deep purple.
“It doesn’t last long, but it’s sure nice while it does,” Anna said. “It’s free and it’s something beautiful. Something to be appreciated, you know?”
Reznick gave Kendra a sidelong look. She was still looking at him. Her mouth was hanging open again, but her eyes were smiling at him. Once again, she ran her tongue around her lips. Had she even looked at the sunset, he wondered?
A breeze blew over them, and that smell returned.
It was stronger this time.
More distinct.
It hit Reznick like a kick to the stomach, then a baseball bat to the forehead. For a moment, he actually thought he was going to be sick.
He turned to Kendra. Her smile grew larger and she tilted her head again. Was she flirting with him? There was something so girlish about her – so
little
girlish.
But that smell.
It overpowered him. The memories flooded into his mind as if a dam had broken. The pain they brought with them was real and physical.
“What ... what’s that perfume you’re wearing?” Reznick said, staring straight ahead.
“Oh, that’s Ice,” Anna said. “You like it?”
“Yes,” he said, but once again, his voice came out in a whisper.
He clumsily got up and said, “I’ve got to go.”
“Yes, so do I,” Anna said. “I’ve got to take Kendra to my sister’s, then go to work.”
Reznick nearly fell off the trailer trying to pick up Conan. He was partway down the ladder when Kendra said, “Your glass!”
“I’ll get it later,” he said, and his voice quavered. He hoped they could not see the tears that were welling in his eyes. “I’ve gotta go. Gotta make a phone call. Forgot all about it.”
The perfume’s fragrance clogged his nostrils. It clung to him, pulled at him.
He carried Conan down the ladder, then went around the trailer and back to his own. He tripped on the steps going in and almost dropped Conan. He put the dog down and staggered over to his recliner. He fell into it and sobbed into his hands as the pain tore through him, the pain of memories he’d tried to bury with alcohol, memories he’d tried desperately to keep away during his year of sobriety. They flooded in now and he gasped like a man drowning. Even here in his living room, the fragrance of Anna’s perfume clung to him, engulfed him, clogged his throat and choked him. It burned his eyes and made his heart ache. He gasped for air but all he sucked in was the smell of that perfume, Ice
Conan stood and stared at him with his little head tilted to one side.
Four
Ice.
It had been Victoria’s perfume. Reznick had bought her a bottle of it one Christmas. It was a cool fragrance, smooth and fresh. It had been in the air whenever he was with her. It quickly had become a part of her.
Reznick had read somewhere once that smell was the strongest trigger of vivid memories. That scent had created a painful explosion of memories in his mind, vivid, clawing memories that dug at the backs of his eyes. When he lowered his eyelids, he could see her. He wished to God that he could see her as she’d been, the Victoria he’d loved and planned to marry. He wished he could see the fair-skinned, freckled face and the wide smile, which had been too rare, the sad green eyes – the sadness never left them, and it was that sadness that killed her – and the long, luxurious red hair, which he’d taken great pleasure in brushing for her. But he never saw that when he thought of Victoria.
No, it was never that Victoria, it was the last he’d seen of her. It was the day he’d come home early to surprise her. No telling how long she’d been sitting on the bed trying to muster the nerve to do it. When she heard him come in, she’d resolved herself to do it at that moment. She’d known he would stop her, talk her out of it, take the gun away from her. Sitting there on the edge of the bed, she’d fired the gun into her temple at point blank range just as he walked into the bedroom. Just in time for Reznick to flinch at the explosive gunshot, and see half of her head disappear, see her brains splash over the wall and headboard. The dark red-black matter hit the wall with a splash and then began to dribble downward in tiny lumps and gobs as blood gushed from Victoria’s nose and she was thrown to the side on the bed. The gun fell from her hand, a .44 magnum –
his
gun.
He’d screamed then, but his voice sounded far away to him. He rushed to her side, but of course, she was gone. Her suddenly-bulging, bloody eyes stared up at the ceiling. The blood from her nose glistened around her open mouth and on her chin like a black-red goatee.
A sheet of blood-speckled paper was on the bed beside her with some of her handwriting on it. Reznick couldn’t read it for awhile, because he couldn’t stop sobbing and screaming. He’d reached for the phone and called 911. He’d finally gotten all the information out to the operator, but when he was done, he could not get the phone back on its base because his eyes were bleary and his hands were shaking, so he let it drop to the floor.
Finally, he wiped his eyes and picked up the paper. Still sobbing, he read the note:
Dear Marc,
I’m so very sorry. I just can’t take the
pain anymore. I can’t. I know you’ll
understand because you love me. I
love you so much. And I’m sorry.
With all my heart and soul,
Her signature was shaky and unclear, but it was hers. Her last words, written in a wobbly cursive on a page stained with her blood and something else – maybe tears.
He had tried to help her. He’d taken her to his doctor, who had diagnosed her as suffering from severe clinical depression. He’d tried several different medications out on her, but she’d had bad reactions to all of them and couldn’t take them. She refused to see a therapist. There were days when the sadness lifted and she was able to smile a little bigger smile than usual, even laugh a little. But most of the time, that sadness started in her eyes and spread over her whole face.
Reznick had met her in a movie theater, where she’d worked the ticket booth. She’d kept her sadness to herself, even when it showed on her face. She managed to smile in spite of it, but it was a muted smile. It was still a beautiful smile, though. Everything about her had been beautiful – her ears, her nose, her hands, her breasts, her legs, even her feet.
And even her perfume, the perfume he’d given her.
Ice.
Three months after Victoria’s suicide, Reznick’s parents had gone into the Tower Mart off of Highway 273 in Anderson on their way to see Reznick’s sister, her husband, and their children in Anderson Heights. They’d stopped at the convenience store to get some candy for their grandchildren, and a couple cold drinks for themselves. A robbery had taken place while they were standing in line at the register. The robber had panicked and started shooting. He’d shot and killed four people, Reznick’s parents included.
Seeing Victoria kill herself had damaged Reznick. It had driven a spike deep into his brain. The loss of his parents only did more damage. That was when he’d fallen into the bottle and his whole life had fallen apart. His sister didn’t care. She was his foster sister, actually, and they had never gotten along. She’d always resented Reznick for being, unlike her, their parents’ blood. So he’d fallen into the bottle alone.
A bottle. A bottle of vodka, that was what he needed. It was a short drive to the Handi-Spot Market on North Street. They sold liquor there.
He pulled his lips inward and ran his tongue around them. He could taste it. On ice, nice and cold.
Conan hopped into his lap and curled up. Reznick absently stroked the little dog for a while, then he put Conan on the floor and stood. He went to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He took two Xanax with a drink of water from the glass he kept by the sink. He also saw a bottle of NyQuil in the cabinet. He took it out, took the small cup off the bottle’s top, filled it, and drank it down. He repeated the process, then exhaled hard between puffed cheeks. He replaced the NyQuil and closed the cabinet.
The cough syrup created a spreading warmth in his belly not unlike the warmth created by a swig of vodka. He thought it would help, but it just made him crave the vodka even more.
He looked at his face in the cabinet mirror. He wondered if he’d lost weight lately – his face seemed thinner. He had short, wavy brown hair, a rectangular forehead and a straight patrician nose. His jaw was square, his shoulders broad. There was really nothing special about him. He wasn’t homely, but neither was he especially handsome, he thought. He wondered what Victoria had seen in him. What had attracted her to him at first? He’d never asked her. There were so many things he’d never asked her, never told her. His eyes crinkled on the corners as they narrowed and the corners of his mouth pulled back and his shoulders hitched as more tears spilled down his glistening-wet cheeks. He put his hands on the counter, elbows locked, and let his head fall forward between his shoulders.
“Victoria,” he whispered hoarsely as he sobbed. “Victoria.”
Later, the two Xanax kicked in. Reznick stretched out in his recliner, and turned on the television. With Conan curled up on his belly, he fell asleep as silent tears continued to spill from his eyes.
Five
The trailer was dark, but it was always dark, even during the day. During the daylight hours, the darkness in the trailer seemed almost malignant to Sherry Manning – harsh halos of pale sunlight glowed around the edges of the blankets and towels hanging in all the windows – except for the one living room window where the swamp cooler was – and the glow made the smoke from a cigarette someone was smoking look like something sinister as it oozed through the air, then was swept away suddenly by the current of the cooler.