Stunts, page 19
“Yes.”
“Get in.”
He pulled and hauled himself around the car, fell into the driver’s seat and waited. She hadn’t moved.
“Addie, for god’s sake!”
After a moment, waking from a dream, she came to the door, bent over to look through the open window. “He needs help, Evan. He needs—”
“He wants murder,” he answered sharply. “There’s no help for him now, believe me.”
She reached in and he grabbed the key ring, fumbled for the right key and started the engine. Switched on the headlamps. Pounded the steering wheel and said, “Addie, get in!”
He could see her torso, nothing more, arm positioned as if her hand were on the handle, but he knew she was looking for her husband. She needed to see him. Nothing Evan could say would convince her she couldn’t help.
“Addie.”
He twisted to look over the back of the seat and saw something move back there, up the lane.
“Addie!”
He leaned over and pushed the door open, forcing her to move away, her face freckled with dusk, biting on her lower lip.
“Addie, for god’s sake, he’s going to kill you.”
Straightening, gunning the engine, checking the rearview mirror and seeing Paul in the middle of the lane, at the bend. The rising moon turning his flesh to bone, his red scalp to blood, his coat and hat to tatters.
Addie gasped.
Paul waved.
She scrambled into the car and Evan pulled away before she’d closed the door, fishtailing, thumping onto the verge before he found control.
“Where?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. The police.”
“They’ll do nothing.”
“He’s here now. They can catch him, force him to get help.”
Rearview mirror—dark, nothing more.
He manhandled the car onto the road that became the High Street. “We’ll stay in view. A pub, someplace. He won’t do anything then.”
“And wait?”
He glanced over; she wasn’t looking at him.
“And wait.”
“Until?”
“For god’s sake, Addie, how the hell should I know?”
Twenty-Three
The moon, flat and dead.
A leaf caught by the wind and teased over the street like a broken-wing bat.
No lights in the room, the flowered curtains parted, John in a rocking chair nearly as old as he, listening to the dresser clock in the bedroom chime an hour before midnight. He stared out at Forest Road, and knew he could destroy it all—fire, flood, earthquake, pestilence.
He could do it.
Goddamn kids.
He wore his hat, his topcoat, speckled with dead grass and dark stains.
He stared at the way the streetlamp dropped pale white to the blacktop, filled in the lawn’s gaps with shadows to make it lush, made the willows seem solid.
He could destroy it all.
A creak of wood, and he pushed himself easily to his feet, buttoned his coat, adjusted his hat, a youthful swipe to the brim. A single step took him to the window where he placed his hands on the broad sill and stared at them. Looked up without raising his head and saw Brian and that chunky redhead, Cross, standing on the sidewalk, talking quietly, slapping shoulders, parting, Brian unzipping his jacket as he hurried up the driveway and slipped out of sight.
Kids.
Bile rose in his throat. He turned his head and spat, heard the splatter on the floor and didn’t care. Let the old bitch clean it up, that’s what he paid her for, though god knows she seemed to think the rent gave her something more, rights to his life she had no business expecting.
The old witch.
A sneer, spitting again and chuckling; he pulled away from the window and hunched his shoulders, tucked his hands into his pockets and left. He took the stairs easily, frowning only once—when he reached the ground and looked over his shoulder, trying to remember how he’d done that, how it used to be going up, grunting while his hands flared and cursing every step until he’d practically fall into his room.
A door slammed.
He walked.
Something …
A tingling in his hands, and he flexed them in their pockets, curled them into fists.
A dark car sped past; the guttering of a bus.
He walked.
The moon followed.
A group of kids on a corner beneath a streetlamp, laughing quietly, quieting abruptly when he passed them, and laughing again.
He glared back at them.
They were gone.
Tingling.
He knew it then, and nearly cried out in pain, in terror, in joy—he could destroy them.
He could destroy them all.
You’re crazy.
He stopped. Blinked. Found himself back on Forest Road, standing just inside the trees across from his house. His home. No lights on anywhere.
You’re crazy.
Of course he was crazy. Of course he was. He couldn’t kill anybody. He was John Naze, born and raised and probably dying in this town. How the hell could he kill anybody?
He began to tremble. First his arms, then his shoulders; his head twitched, his hat threatened to fall; his left knee buckled and he grabbed the nearest trunk, felt the rough bark against his palm; his right leg jumped, and he stamped it several times. Stamped his left leg until the knee locked.
A tear unexpectedly popped from one eye and ran cold down his cheek. It was followed by another. He had no idea why he was weeping, only a vague sensation that something … a tingling … something had been lost.
A Siamese cat, fat and rolling, slinked from the shadows into the street, stopped at the white line and looked side to side before peering into the trees.
John stared back.
The trembling, the quivering, the tears stopped.
Behind him, in the dark, the hunting cry of an owl.
The cat puffed its dark brown tail, arched its back, as it backed away slowly, fangs exposed and dead white in the dead light of the moon.
Dear God, John thought, how could I kill anybody?
Easy.
Oh god, it would be so easy.
He stepped out of the trees.
Twenty-Four
In the middle of the night, in the middle of a nightmare, Brian sat up, sweating, and heard a cat scream.
Soldier? he thought, and listened; Soldier, that you?
When the cry wasn’t repeated, he lay back and inhaled slowly, deeply, and blew the breath out sharply as he wiped a forearm across his eyes. A dream; just a dream.
Moonlight slipped around the edges of the window shade, a lighter shade of black on the wall opposite his bed. Around it, objects began to assume slow definition as his vision adjusted so that the hole to the window’s right became the outline of a poster, the gashes on the left a series of baseball pennants. The footboard was still invisible. The door not seen at all. Tall chest of drawers, drafting table for a desk, Salvation Army armchair, the glass cabinet stereo, none of it real yet, yet all of it there. Sensed. Waiting.
He rolled onto his stomach and punched his pillow, crushed his cheek into it, and closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep. He yawned mightily each time he thought about how long he had lain there, trying. He needed to sleep. Neeba had declared that his day off would be yard day—he had to finish wrapping all the shrubs in burlap, raking leaves, scattering wood chips where they were needed in Neeba’s garden. That last was less for the plants than it was for Soldier, who his grandmother had decided needed something to dig in when the ground had finally frozen. But cat or no cat, damnit, he needed to sleep. If he didn’t, even for an hour, he would be a zombie before noon.
The furnace rumbled on.
Who the hell did Blue think he was, trying to start trouble by hooking him with Galiano, talking about Mickie that way, trying to …
Damn.
He flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling, tried to imagine what Miss Atkins looked like, in her bed, upstairs. He couldn’t. So he tried picturing Miss Gough without her artist’s smock, without the red crayon forever tucked behind one ear, and the smear of paint that somehow always managed to find the tip of her broad nose. He couldn’t.
He shifted to his right side.
Nothing.
Cheek back to the pillow, arms under his head.
Nuts.
Okay, count sheep, think of Mickie, write a letter in your head to Mr. Kendal and ask him why he hadn’t called; fifteen ways to make love, twelve ways to strike a batter out, three ways to get out of raking the yard; nine ways to take care of Mr. Linholm, the son of a bitch, starting with a frozen needle slowly driven into each eye, fire-hot pliers applied to each ear, hands tied and thrust into beehives, large magnifying lenses taped to his naked chest after he had been staked out in the mid-July sun, acid dripping onto his knees through a narrow glass tube, splinters coated with salt shoved under his nails, a claw hammer—
“Jesus!”
He sat up and swallowed, put his palms to his cheeks and blew out several breaths.
“Jesus.”
He felt as if he’d just sprinted from one end of town to the other, and had finished by skidding to a nerve-racking halt at the edge of the river cliff, toes hanging over, rocks and water waiting to take him. Cold puckered his skin; the shade snapped as a gust slipped under the sash. He drew the blanket to his chest and held it there, shifted his legs, leaned back against the headboard.
Jesus.
He must have fallen asleep at last. But god, he’d never had nightmares like that before. Usually, when he had them at all, they were about his parents; usually, they were about his failure to keep the airplane from taking off, soaring, crashing. He woke from them screaming, or trying to, or whimpering.
This one was worse.
In this one there was no terror; in this one there was excitement.
An image: Linholm in his office, his head in a clear plastic bag in which someone … in which Brian had placed several dozen scorpions.
His stomach lurched violently and he threw the bedclothes aside, staggered to his door and leaned against it, gripped it, gasping and licking his lips and swallowing the bile that bubbled toward his mouth. Deep breaths to hold it down, calm him down, smelling sour, tasting sour.
An image: Linholm shackled to the weight-room wall at school, and Brian at the opposite end, casually tossing Indian clubs at his already bloodied head.
He yanked the door open and ran down the hall, lunged into the bathroom, and just managed to get the toilet seat up before he vomited, letting the tears come as his throat became raw, letting his sobs come as he scrabbled for the handle, flushed, and threw up again. Until the water turned to blood, and his mouth tasted like copper, and when he looked into the bowl, Mr. Linholm looked back, grinning.
He screamed.
He sat up.
He leapt from the bed and raced into the bathroom, banged up the toilet lid, and threw up, and tried to scream.
He had liked it.
Oh Jesus oh god, he had liked everything he had done.
Twenty-Five
1
“If we sit here long enough,” said Addie, “people will talk.”
What can he do, Evan thought; what can Paul really do to them? He’s falling apart. He’s literally falling apart. I don’t believe it. Jesus, I don’t believe it.
“Of course, there’s always the chance Paul will walk in with a shotgun and blast us both to heaven.”
He drank, and felt his bladder complain.
A part of him insisted stubbornly, almost whining, that they ought to be running, not sitting in a pub making sure people were with them, could see them, could, if necessary, protect them; or they ought to be out looking for Paul, driving up and down all the streets, shining lights into alleys, knocking on doors.
They ought to be doing something.
Anything.
Not just sitting.
“Evan, I swear to God right now that if you don’t talk to me, I’m going to walk out. I will, you know. I’ll walk out.”
“Back in a sec,” he told her with an unsteady smile and unsteadily made his way to the men’s room. No one was there. He made sure the small window high over the stall was closed and locked, the stall itself empty, before he stood at the urinal and counted the wall tiles, made shapes of faint stains.
What can he do?
Addie was gone when he returned, and in a panic he fled outside, saw her leaning against the wall, watching a red bus trying to make a U-turn.
“Fool,” she said when he joined her. “Don’t know what the hell he’s up to.”
“Addie.”
The driver gave up and continued down the High Street, blaring his horn.
She turned to him. “Do you understand the phrase ‘scared shitless,’ Ev? It’s universal, I gather.” A deep breath. “If he really wants to kill us, do you think we ought to be standing out here?”
The lights went out behind them.
“Time, gentlemen,” he muttered.
The police had duly noted their report of Paul’s return, though the sleepy-eyed sergeant on night duty had been openly skeptical of Evan’s claims of impending murder.
“Let us be the judge of that, sir, if you don’t mind.”
All patrols would be notified, eyes peeled, a few discreet inquiries made, don’t you worry. There wasn’t much else they could do. Bettin Wells was small, but the night made it large. Go home, then, and wait for us to call, Mrs. Burwin, there’s nothing you can do here. The implication in tone and expression was clear: Professor Burwin may be ill, ma’am, but he’s no killer, you’re just upset.
For an hour they had driven, in slow silence, along the High Street, up and down Wellington Road, out as far as the hospital. Evan worried aloud about Josie, but Addie told him the waitress was already home. Back again, shop lights dimming, the hotels luring back their guests, the cinema closing down. The police were right; no sense in this, but nothing would send them home. Where Paul might be. Or might be watching. They decided to stay in public, and split the rest of the next few hours between the Queen’s Garter and the Cross and Sword, and Evan hadn’t been very good about nursing his drinks.
“Will he use a gun, do you think?”
“Addie, for Christ’s sake!”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake yourself,” she retorted, grabbed his arm and pulled him close. Her expression alternated between anger and uneasiness. “I’m doing this on faith, you know. What you told me, about Paul, this is all on faith, on your say-so. For all I know all he wants is a good hot bath and a soft place to lie down.” She snatched her hand away, shoving him back in the process.
“You saw him,” he said.
After a moment, she nodded.
“I told you what he said.”
She nodded again, then slipped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. Briefly. Long enough. Pulled back and gestured that they should walk down the street.
Light and dark, streetlamp and space between, slowing at each corner, hurrying across to the other side. Stopping at a late-night fish ’n’ chips for a plastic cup of coffee then only half-finished before tossing in the trash.
A cat prowling a trash can in an alley yowled at them to keep their distance.
The night wind grew colder.
Their footsteps sounded like thin cracking ice.
What can he do?
Evan knew, and shuddered.
“If I just knew why,” Addie said once, more perplexed than worried. “If I could only see why.”
“He said he was the hunter, remember.”
She made a disgusted noise. “And what the hell does that mean, Ev? Some obscure reference to some ridiculously obscure song. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Whatever he has,” she said firmly, “it’s madness that makes him talk like that. Hunter. Jesus, Evan.”
Indeed, he thought. Forget the damn song, just pray he’s caught. Then, and only then, would they know what was wrong.
“We’ll go back to the police,” Addie decided ten minutes later. “We’ve been looking, haven’t found him, I’ll be the dutifully distraught wife who just can’t sit at home and wait.” She sighed. “They won’t kick us out for a while, I shouldn’t think. These days, I can almost cry on command.”
He took her hand and held it, knowing there would probably never be a right time. “Listen. About last night.”
“Evan, if you say anything that sounds like ‘I’m sorry,’ I’ll have your head.”
A glance.
Passing a newsagent’s whose lights snapped out with a muffled buzzing.
“No, actually I was going to say that while it’s true there’s some guilt here, I’d be in coma if there wasn’t, I do not regret it.” More than a glance. An inhalation. “What I’m trying to say is—if Paul is jealous, he has reason to be.”
She lowered her head. If she answered, he couldn’t hear her. But at least she didn’t cry again, or slap him, or deny what they had done.
It could have meant anything; it served to make him feel better.
He brushed a hand over her arm. “You—”
“Cried, yes.” She gathered her hair in one hand, pulled it over her shoulder, threw it back and shook her head. “Ask me about it someday. Not now. I’ll tell you why.”
“On the other hand, you did run away.” He grinned. “Wham, bam, thank you, sir.”
“It doesn’t rhyme,” she scolded flatly without meeting his gaze.
“It makes me feel cheap.”
“Bastard.” She smiled, head up. “It was nice though, wasn’t it.”
“Very.”
“Oh yes. Very.” The smile faded. “Do you have any idea, Evan Kendal, how godawful stage British we sound just now?”
“Yep.”
Without stopping, she yanked him down, kissed his cheek. Released his hand as they approached the station. Ran fingers through her hair. Rubbed her cheeks vigorously with her palms. They stepped inside, and PC Purdy rose from his desk, tunic unbuttoned halfway down. He told them before they could ask that there was no word of Professor Burwin though the patrols were still looking.
