“But isn’t that what happens to crazy people?” Marsh asked. “You have to look at it from his point of view. He knows we love him, and he knows we care for him, but he doesn’t know what that means. All he knows is what he’s read, and he’s read about mental institutions.” His voice suddenly broke. “Hell,” he muttered. “He reads damned near everything, and remembers it all. But he just doesn’t know what anything means.”
María Torres shifted the heavy weight of her shopping bag from her right hand to her left, then sighed and lowered it to the sidewalk for a moment.
Ramón had promised to come that evening and take her shopping, but then he’d telephoned and said he wasn’t coming. Something had come up with his patient, and he had to stay in his office. His patient, she thought bitterly. His patient was Alejandro, and there was nothing wrong with the boy. But Ramón couldn’t see that, not for all his schooling. Ramón had forgotten. Forgotten so much. But someday he would understand. Someday soon, Ramón would know that all the hatreds she had carefully nursed in him were still there. But for now, he still pretended to be a gringo.
And tonight, the shopping still had to be done, even though she was tired after working all day, so she’d walked the five blocks to the store, which wasn’t too bad. It was the five blocks home, with the full shopping bag, that was the hard part. Her arms aching with arthritis, she picked up the bag and was about to continue on her way when a car pulled up to the curb next to her. She glanced at it with little interest, then looked again as she recognized the driver.
It was the boy.
And he was returning her gaze, his eyes studying her. He knew who she was, and the saints — her saints — had sent him. It was an omen: though Ramón had not come to her tonight, Alejandro had. She stepped forward, and bent down to put her head through the open window of the car.
“Vámos,” she whispered, her rheumy eyes glowing. “Vámos a matar.”
The words echoed in Alex’s ears, and he understood them. We go to kill. Deep in his mind, a memory stirred and the mists began gathering around him once again. He reached across the front seat and pushed the door open. María Torres settled herself into the seat beside him, and pulled the door closed. As the old woman whispered to him, he put the car in gear and started slowly up into the hills above the town.
Fifteen minutes later, he parked the car, still listening to the words María was whispering in his ears. And then he was alone, and María Torres was walking slowly away from the car, her bag of groceries clutched close to her breast.
Only when she had finally disappeared around a bend in the road did Alex, too, leave the car, and step through the gate into Valerie Benson’s patio.
In the dark recesses of his throbbing brain, the familiar voices took up María’s ancient litany …
Venganza … venganza …
Vaguely he became aware of another sound, and turned to see a woman standing framed in the light of an open doorway.
“Alex?” Valerie Benson asked. “Alex, are you all right?”
She’d heard the gate open, and waited for the doorbell to ring. When it hadn’t, she’d gone to the door and pressed her eye to the peephole. There, standing in the patio, she’d seen Alex Lonsdale, and opened the door. But when she’d spoken, he hadn’t replied, so she’d stepped outside and called to him.
Now he was looking at her, but she still wasn’t sure he’d heard her words.
“Alex, what is it? Has something happened?”
“Ladrones,” Alex whispered. “Asesinos …”
Valerie frowned, and stepped back, uneasy. What was he talking about? Thieves? Murderers? It sounded like the ravings of a paranoiac.
“K-Kate’s not here,” she stammered, backing toward the front door. “If you’re looking for her, she’s gone out.”
She was inside and the door was halfway closed when Alex hurled himself forward, his weight slamming into the door, sending Valerie sprawling to the floor while the door itself smashed back against the wall.
Valerie tried to scramble away across the red quarry tile of the foyer, but it was too late.
Alex’s fingers closed around her neck, and he began to squeeze.
“Venganza …” he muttered once more. And then again, as Valerie Benson died: “Venganza …”
*
Alex stepped through the door of Jakes and glanced around. In the booth in the far corner, he saw Kate Lewis and Bob Carey sitting with Lisa Cochran and a couple of other kids. Carefully composing his features into a smile, he crossed the room.
“Hi. Is it a private party, or can anybody join?”
The six occupants of the booth fell silent. Alex saw the uneasy glances that passed between them, but he kept his smile carefully in place. Finally Bob Carey shrugged and squeezed closer to Kate to make room at the end of the booth. Still no one said anything. When the silence was finally broken, it was Lisa, announcing that she had to go home.
Alex carefully changed his expression, letting his smile dissolve into a look of disappointment. “But I just got here,” he said.
Lisa hesitated, her eyes fixing suspiciously on Alex. “I didn’t think you’d care if I stayed or not,” she said. “In fact, none of us thought you cared about anything anymore.”
Alex nodded, and hoped that when he spoke his voice would have the right inflection. “I know,” he said. “But I think things are starting to change. I think …” He dropped his eyes to the table, as he’d seen other people do when they seemed to be having trouble saying something. “I think I’m starting to feel things again.” Then, making himself stammer slightly, he went on. “I … well, I really like you guys, and I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
Once again the rest of the kids glanced at each other, their self-consciousness only worsening at Alex’s words.
It was Bob Carey who broke the embarrassed silence. “Hey, come on. Don’t go all weird on us the other way now.”
And suddenly everything was all right again, and Alex knew he’d won.
They’d believed his performance.
But slowly, as the conversation went on, he began to wonder, for Lisa Cochran still seemed to be avoiding talking to him.
Lisa herself was not about to tell him that she was wondering exactly what he was up to.
Long ago, before the accident, she’d heard Alex stammer and seen him look away when he was talking about his feelings.
And always, when he did that, he’d blushed.
This time, everything had been fine except for that one thing.
This time, Alex hadn’t blushed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Come in with me.”
Bob Carey couldn’t see Kate’s face in the darkness, but the tremor in her voice revealed that she was frightened. His eyes moved past her silhouette, focusing on the house beyond. Everything, he thought, looked normal. Except for the gate.
The patio gate stood open, and both he and Kate clearly remembered closing it when they had left earlier in the evening.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he assured her, trying to make his voice sound more confident than he was actually feeling. “Maybe we didn’t really latch it.”
“We did,” Kate breathed. “I know we did.”
Bob got out of the car and went around to open the other door for Kate, but instead of getting out, she only gazed past him at the ominously open gate. “Maybe … maybe we ought to call the police,” she whispered.
“Just because the gate’s open?” Bob asked with a bravado he wasn’t feeling. “They’d think we were nuts.”