Kitchen. He stood there blinking, trying to focus, so scared he was shaking all over. She came in behind him, looped around to one of those breakfast bar counters a few feet away. She had a gun, all right. Little silver automatic that caught the light and seemed to be winking at him.
“Sit down at the table over there,” she said.
Still blinking, he started over to the table. Then he stopped and swung his head toward her again. Now she had a cordless phone in her other hand. Her eyes shifted back and forth between him and the phone, her face all scrunched up and hot-eyed, and she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen anymore, she wasn’t even pretty, she was a hag as ugly as he was getting ready to have him arrested, put in prison —
He lunged at her. Didn’t think about what he was doing, just did it. She swung the gun up and squeezed the trigger point blank. She’d’ve killed him sure, shot him down like a dog, except that the little automatic must’ve jammed, it didn’t go off, and in the next second he was on her.
He knocked the fuckin’ gun out of her hand, yanked the phone away from her. She opened up her mouth to scream. He jammed his hand over it, dragged her body in tight against his. Even then, even after she’d tried to blow his brains out, he didn’t have any idea of hurting her, only wanted to keep her from yelling somehow so he could get away. But she fought and squirmed, kicking his shins, clawing his arm, it was like he had hold of a wildcat. She got one arm all the way loose and those long nails slashed up and ripped furrows in his neck. That hurt, really hurt. Made him mad and kind of wild himself. He couldn’t hold her, and she twisted her body and pulled loose and tried to break his balls with her knee.
The next thing he knew he was hitting her with the phone. Hitting her, hitting her, hitting her until she quit making noises and quit fighting and fell down on the floor on her back. There was blood all over her face and head and her eyes were wide open with a lot of the white showing. He saw that and he wasn’t wild anymore. He stared at her, stared at the blood, stared at the bloody phone in his hand. He made the same kind of sound he’d made outside and dropped the phone and went down on one knee beside her. Picked up one of her wrists — limp, no pulse — and put his fingers against her neck and didn’t feel any pulse there, either.
Dead!
Then he ran. Ran like there was a pack of junkyard dogs on his heels. Out of the kitchen, across the yard, through the bushes, across the creek, through the fence gate, across the schoolyard and out to where he’d parked his wheels. Not caring how much noise he made or if anybody saw him, not caring about anything except getting far away from there.
He didn’t remember driving home. He was running and then he was at the car and then he was in his apartment putting on the dead bolt and the chain lock. He was shaking so hard he could hear a clicking sound, his teeth knocking together or maybe the bones rattling inside his skin. When he put on the light he saw blood on his hands, on his shirt and jacket. He ripped all his clothes off and got into the shower and scrubbed and scrubbed, but he couldn’t make himself feel clean. He couldn’t get warm, either, not even lying in bed with the electric blanket turned all the way up.
He lay there in the dark, his head full of pictures of her lying on her kitchen floor all bloody and dead. But it wasn’t his fault. She’d tried to kill him, hadn’t she? Clawed him, tried to break his balls? He hadn’t wanted to hurt her — she’d made him do it in self-defense. Her fault, not his. Hers, hers, hers!
He kept listening for the doorbell. Waiting for the cops to come. He’d tell them it wasn’t his fault, but he knew they’d take him to jail anyway
Only the cops didn’t come. He lay wide awake the whole night, waiting, and in the morning he was amazed he was still alone.
He called up his boss, Mr. Mossman, and said he was sick, he wouldn’t be in today. Then he put on his robe and sat in his recliner with the TV going for noise and waited for the cops to show up.
All day he sat there and still no cops.
At six o’clock he switched over to the news and pretty soon he heard her name, saw her picture flash on the screen. Julie Brock, twenty-seven, found dead in her rented bungalow on Acacia Street, bludgeoned to death with a cordless phone. Neighbors had heard noises, one of them saw a man running away but couldn’t describe him because it’d been too dark. The TV guy said the police were working on several leads and expected to make an arrest soon. Maybe that was the truth and maybe it wasn’t. All he could do was sit scared, wait scared to find out.
He waited four whole days, there in the apartment the whole time. Told Mr. Mossman he had the flu and Mr. Mossman said take care of himself, get plenty of rest, drink plenty of liquids. He drank plenty of liquids, all right. Beer, wine, scotch, every kind of alcohol he had in the place. Watched TV, drank, threw up most of what he ate, and waited.
The cops never did show up.
On the fifth day he wasn’t so scared anymore. On the sixth day he was hardly scared at all and he went out for the first time to buy some more beer and booze. On the seventh day he knew they weren’t going to come and arrest him, not ever. He couldn’t say how he knew that, he just did.
The furrows on his neck were mostly healed by then, but he put on a high-necked shirt and buttoned the top button to make sure the marks didn’t show. Then he went back to work. Mr. Mossman said it was good to have him back. That night, when he went to the Starlite Tavern, his buddies said the same thing and bought him a couple of rounds of drinks and he won eight bucks shooting pool.
Things settled down to normal again. He worked and went to the Starlite and Freedom Lanes and Henson’s Card Room, the same as he used to, and the whole crazy thing with Julie Brock faded and faded until he wasn’t thinking about her at all anymore. It was as if none of it ever happened. Not just that last night in her bungalow — all the nights before it, the whole crazy business. He couldn’t even remember what she looked like.
A lot more time passed, and his life was just the way it’d been before, good sometimes, boring sometimes, lonely sometimes. And then one day he was working behind the counter at the hardware store and he looked up and this babe was standing there. A redhead — oh, man, the most gorgeous redhead he’d ever seen. His eyes bugged out like they were on stalks. Young, slim, that red hair like fire around her head, white skin smooth as cream, a great rack poking out the front of her sweater, her mouth big and soft and smiling at him. He stared and stared, but she didn’t stop smiling. Real friendly type, wanted to buy a space heater and some other stuff for her new apartment.
He showed her around, helped her pick out the best items, wrote up her order. She wanted to know could she have it delivered, and he said sure, you bet, and she gave him her address along with her credit card. He watched her walk out, the way her ass swung under her green skirt, and his mouth was dry and he felt all hot and cold inside and his johnson was having fits in his shorts.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her all day. She was the most beautiful, exciting woman he’d ever feasted his eyes on. Before he got off work he packed up her order so he could deliver it himself, personally. He had to see her again, see where she lived. There wasn’t any harm in that, was there?
Just looking?
What Happened to Mary?
When you live in a small town and something way out of the ordinary happens, it’s bound to cause a pretty big fuss. Such as a woman everybody knows and some like and some don’t disappearing all of a sudden, without any warning or explanation. Tongues wag and rumors start flying. Folks can’t seem to talk about anything else.