Well, it was what she needed after all that build-up, he supposed. The scene in the porn video was still going on, as he could hear. He thought about the littleness of his dick, compared to porn actors anyway, about his lack of stir in the bedroom, and found he couldn’t move at all. She pulled her hand up, licked her fingers and palm and wiped them off on the hem of the robe.
“You know what?” she said. “You got some scary shit around here.”
“What do you mean?” He still didn’t think he could move.
“Duh! Like that bedpost with big nails driven into it?”
“Oh, that.” It was an old wooden bedpost with several very large nails driven into it at the top, pitched at different directions, leaning against the wall near the front door. “Someone made it because they were having a problem with a neighbor a few years ago. I kind of inherited it.” In fact, Shannon had come up with the thing years back when he was having a bitter conflict with Bud Junior, one of the older Tales brothers, over a parking space near both their houses.
“What about that axe?” She pointed at the large ax in a decorative stand by the fireplace.
“That’s for chopping wood for the fireplace. I never do, it’s just a decoration now.”
He wasn’t going to tell her about the other dangerous items he owned—his collection of switchblades and ninja throwing stars or the sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun he traded his old Danelectro bass for when he gave up on music. He liked to collect stuff like that. Old cars, too, but he didn’t have any cars anymore except the Thunderbird, which Shannon was using.
“Okay. Well, I guess that’s cool then.”
“Hmmm. Well, we need more wine, so I’m going to the store,” he said. “Would you like me to get something else? Something to eat later?”
“Do they have salads?”
“Like, prepared salads? Yeah, I guess they do.” They used to, because Clare used to get them.
“That’d be great,” she said. “Oh, and Todd? Some oysters.” She made a somewhat wicked face.
He paused. Oysters. “Okay.”
“Do you like oysters?”
“Not sure I’ve had them.”
“Get two or three tins of them, if you would.”
“Sure.” Hmm.
He put on his coat, headed for the door. “Hurry back,” she said, looking over her shoulder and smiling with her full face. Those strange, intense eyes.
CHAPTER 19
JAIME IN TODD’S CAR
Jaime was a little surprised at how hard to steer the big car was. He’d only driven two cars before, both of them pretty little, though he didn’t know what kind they were. One was light blue and the other kind of dark red, except for one door which was white with dribbled brown stains on it. He told himself he knew all about driving, was really good at it, but just didn’t get a chance to do it that much. His brother Marlon had sneered at him and said he couldn’t drive at all ’cause he was stupid and chickenshit, but Marlon was always saying putdowns, to him and to everybody. But especially to him. But if Marlon could see him now, he’d be impressed, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
He kept thinking about what to say to Clare when he saw her, trying to compose his sentences beforehand so he didn’t mess up. The reason he was doing this was because she’d asked him to before she’d left Stankerton. It was one night at the Limbo when she and Veronica were there together. They both seemed to be upset and were talking in hushed but emotional voices. Veronica kept saying something like “I don’t blame you, but Clare, seriously, this other stuff isn’t real,” and Clare kept going on and on, sounding mad but saying stuff he couldn’t make out, though Veronica seemed to want to break in and kept shaking her head no. Finally, Veronica got up and left, said, “Okay, call me though. Okay? Clare?” But Clare didn’t say anything. After Clare left, Heather went over and tried to talk to Clare, but Clare must have said something nasty, because Heather said, “Fine,” like she was offended, and walked back into the kitchen.
That left Clare and Jaime alone in the Limbo for a minute. He was still watching her, and she looked up at him, grabbed her purse and came over, like she was mad at him, which alarmed him. She put her hands on the table he sat at, leaned into his face and said, in a real angry voice, “If you want to watch people, watch Todd Dewolf. Watch him and let me know when she shows up.”
“Okay,” he’d said meekly, though he wasn’t sure who she meant. Veronica?
“I’ll be down at Aunt Beulah’s in Dayville. My real aunt, your uncle’s widow. Come and tell me when she does. Cousin.” She said the word like she was spitting it out, turned and left.
So he wasn’t really “telling,” like a tattletale, that his brothers used to wail on him about, and that his mom even smacked him for once when she didn’t want to hear what he was telling her about how he’d seen Cheryl Sue and that woman she worked with at the old folks home kissing on each other in that car with the white door. He only told because he was baffled over why they’d be doing that, since they were both girls. Both ugly, too.
So that was one of the only reasons he had to take Todd’s car from Shannon and drive down to Dayville, and the other only reason was that Todd might be the Westside Slasher if that China girl was one of his victims like they said on TV. He had to be careful, though, not to say too much about what happened after what he saw Shannon and Todd do in the woods.
But how did Clare know this girl was going to come and stay with Todd? She must have known her before. It all didn’t make sense.
He had to take the car, and it seemed like he was somehow supposed to, when he saw those keys on the Ms. Pac-Man machine just when he was thinking about how in the world he was going to get to Dayville to call Clare. But now he was more and more worried the cops might be after him, especially since he’d been driving around for longer than it should have taken to get there because he thought maybe he was lost.
Jaime had been nervous through most of the trip, driving down the highway past endless sweeps of forestland and farms that seemed to go on forever. He thought he knew what highway to take from back when they used to go see Maamaw in Dayville, and sometimes Aunt Beulah, though they didn’t always get along with her, and Maamaw didn’t like her at all, though they were half-sisters, Beulah being a lot younger. It was the one with the exit sign that said “New Ashville 25 miles.” It used to be on the one he thought he was on, because it was right past where the old Wink-O Lanes bowling place was, and he had seen that building, but now everything was different. Could that be the wrong side of the building?
But before long, to his great relief, he saw the milestone he’d remembered, a life-size cow on a high post advertising a dairy and restaurant. He’d never seen those places because when you saw the cow you looked for the exit to Dubert Avenue off the highway. That took you pretty quick to a big cemetery, and on the other side of the street was first a strip mall, which, yep, there it was, though it looked like it was all closed now, and then a large and very rundown trailer park. A couple blocks past that were some houses, spread far apart. Aunt Beulah’s house, he remembered, was green and the house number 1616 was painted on the mailbox by the road in big black letters.
As he approached it, he saw the house was faded to a kind of green-gray, the paint was chipping off, the lawn was overgrown in places and gouged out elsewhere, but the mailbox still bore those numbers. He made it! He did pretty good time, too. He was pleased he’d managed this—see, he could drive real good. But now he had to go knock on the door and talk to somebody.
He went up to the door and was astonished when his Maamaw answered it. How could it be? She was dead! And she scowled at him angrily, which wasn’t like her, even after she got sick.