“I was joking.”
“Only women don’t go for you. Just streetwalkers, that’s what you said. That’s why you hate them all.”
“I don’t hate anyone.”
“You wouldn’t have to pay Irene, would you? You could take her for free.”
Billy didn’t answer.
“I bet she thought you were cute,” Max said. “A grown man her size? I bet she thought you were harmless. But you’re not, are you?”
Nothing.
“I said, you’re not harmless, are you?” Max leaned in so close that his words left bits of spittle on the man’s cheeks.
“No,” Billy whispered.
“You’re strong. Strong as hell for a little guy. You can lift your own weight over your head. I’ve seen it. You picked up that wrestler, what’s his name — Tiny Roe? — you picked him up like nothing and spun him around and threw him right out of the ring. Didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So a girl like Irene, you could have done anything you wanted.”
“But I didn’t want to.”
“Maybe not at first. You were nice to her at first, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Hear that? He said yes, the little bastard.
“A pretty little girl like that. I saw her picture in her house. I saw how pretty she was. I bet she smelled good. Did she smell good, Billy? Did she?”
“I guess.”
I’ve got you now, you lying piece of shit.
“You guess? You’d only know if you got real close. How close did you get? This close?” Max put his mouth against Billy’s bloody nose and bared his teeth, breathed out as if trying to fog a mirror.
“Please,” Billy said.
“Please what?”
“Let me up. Let me out of this bed.”
“Why? Am I too close?”
“Yes.”
“Were you this close to Irene?”
“I have to piss.”
“Tell me first how close you were, then I’ll let you up.”
“I need to piss.”
“Piss in your bed, it doesn’t matter. You’re never going to sleep in it again. You’re going to be dead or in jail by lunchtime.”
“Okay. If I tell you what happened, you gotta understand...”
“Understand what?”
“I just wanted...”
“What! Spit it out, Billy.”
“It’s like you said! After I moved in here, I saw her from the window sometimes. Saw her on the street. Once or twice I said hello to her and she said hello back. That’s all, nothing to it. But you could tell she was sweet. Some of the other kids made fun of me, but not her. And I guess she was curious about me. The other day...”
“The day she went missing?”
“Yeah. That day. She was walking home and I was walking home and we got to talking and she asked me — straight out, not mean — why I was the size I was. So we talked about it. I told her what it was like to be small and she asked me about the Midgets Palace. Got that? She asked me. She’d walked past there on her way to the park and she was curious about it, I didn’t offer to take her there or anywhere else.”
“But she asked and you said yes.”
“I had nothing else to do. No fights lined up, no social life to attend to. Jan just sits and reads most of the time. I’m going fucking nuts here. So we’re walking and she asks if everything is the right size for me where I live. I say no, everything at Jan’s is normal size. And she takes my hand and says she’s sorry. Okay? She takes my hand. This is important because I’ve never gone after kids, ever. Never even thought about sex with them, I swear. But there we are, walking together, holding hands, and for the first time in my life, I feel — Christ, I don’t know what I felt. But I wasn’t with a prostie. She wasn’t looking at me like a freak. It was like having a girlfriend. For once in my life, I was walking down the street with a normal girl.”
“A girl your size.”
“That’s right. A girl my size. So maybe I started to feel something I shouldn’t have. We stopped at Mentana, waiting to cross, and suddenly I wanted to kiss her. Just kiss her and hold her. I didn’t even want to fuck her, I don’t think. I mean, I had a hard-on, but I don’t think I would have done it to her. I just wanted to stand against her and hold her tight. Maybe just cum in my pants.”
Max felt his hand tighten around the grip of his .38.
“I told her we should go down the laneway for a minute. Told her there was a guy who kept rabbits in a hutch in his yard. Told her maybe the guy would let her take one home. And she got this beautiful look on her face, this big smile. Because what kid doesn’t love rabbits?”
Later that day, Max sat in the office of his commander, his hands trembling in his lap. He told Bellechasse everything that Billy had told him: how he had walked Irene down the lane and into a shed whose door was unlocked; how he had tried to kiss her and how she had pushed him away and spit on the ground; how he had hit her and kept hitting her long after her body had slumped to the concrete floor, pounding her with his powerful fists and kicking her until his volcanic rage had subsided.
When he was done, Max took a cigarette from a pack on Bellechasse’s desk. The commander slid a lighter across the surface. Max needed both hands to work it.
“The pathologist thinks she was probably unconscious after the first blow. I doubt she felt much pain,” Bellechasse said.
Max thought of Irene walking down the lane to find a rabbit to take home. “Tell me another one.”
Other People’s Secrets
by Tess Fragoulis
Sherbrooke Street
As Catalina Thwaite stood before the black wooden doors of the stately town house on Sherbrooke Street, she decided her past and future would never meet. She pressed the button on the brass doorbell and ran her finger over Dr. Schmidt’s nameplate, wiping the print she’d left with the sleeve of her jacket. Her name would replace it soon enough. The stone lion’s head looming above the doorway seemed indifferent to such vicissitudes; it stared at its counterpart across the street — a frowning satyr with curled horns and a face sooted by the elements. The satyr was much more fearsome and discouraging than the empty-eyed lion. Just as well, thought Catalina. People seeking therapy had enough anxieties and neuroses without the added pressure of the devil snarling at them at the gate.
She rang the bell a second time, irritated that her lawyer’s office had yet to forward her a set of keys. She took a mental note of the first offense committed by Dr. Schmidt’s secretary, Mrs. Dubois, who had been given some time off after her employer’s sudden exit. During this time, Catalina had sorted out the paperwork and prepared for the transition into his practice. She’d left a message on Friday, asking Mrs. Dubois to come in on Monday morning at 9 a.m. sharp to begin sorting and reviving the temporarily dormant files. The old secretary was either late for their meeting — an intolerable quality to Catalina, who was pathologically punctual — or had not shown up at all, perhaps unable to digest the fact that the man she had assisted for thirty years was dead. This would surely have given the secretary intimations of her own mortality, or at least of the unlikelihood of her continued employment. Catalina considered dismissing Mrs. Dubois right away, but she had enough to do in the next few weeks without worrying about hiring a new secretary. No, it was better to keep the old dog around until things were settled and she was no longer of use. Then she could be put gently out of her misery.