Captain Quad (26 page)

But now. . .

Since that night with Will—a night that still chilled her in its convoluted reality—Peter had. . . come back.

Back to her dreams.

At first it had been good, within the context of dreaming at least, as fond wishes warmly fulfilled. She'd felt so close to him in those dreams, bonded in every sense, at one with him in a way that only dreams could allow. He filled up her ache, like gold in a hollowed tooth.

But since the day she'd visited the hospital—an abortive mission that had induced its own breed of nightmare—the tone of her dreams had undergone a vulgar transformation. Not infrequently over the past several nights she had awakened in a frenzy of masturbation, drenched with sweat and moaning Peter's name, her legs spiked back and her fingers buried deep in her vagina, Peter's presence so palpable inside her—and that was the operative word here, "inside," as if somehow he shared her skin—she wanted to scream with the sense of violation. Her orgasms came like cold dollops of ice cream dropped on her belly and then she turned on her side and wept, despising his intrusions and loathing herself and yet stricken by his passing from her shell. And slowly, some hateful part of her began to look forward to this carnal delirium, to actively seek it out.

And the dreams weren't the sum of it. There were other things, events more subtle and difficult to define. Like the feeling she got sometimes when she was alone and the wind was snuffling at the fireplace doors, the feeling—sudden and lacking any basis in reality—that there was someone right behind her, the skin-prickling sense that unseen hands reached out for her neck. When these phantom sensations came, she would whirl from whatever she was doing—on one near-disastrous occasion she'd been stirring pasta into boiling water and had knocked the pot to the floor, splashing her jeans and almost scalding the cat—and affrightedly scan the room, certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that someone had just darted out of the room. Then she would prowl the entire house, the Louisville Slugger she'd kept at her bedside in Kingston clasped murderously in her sweating hands.

But there was never anyone there.

There were subtle stirrings—pockets of electric air, sudden, intimate rushes—and throughout the house, objects seemed constantly. . . out of place. Though neat by nature, Kelly had never been one of those fussy housekeepers. When she vacuumed or dusted, she took no great pains to replace every plant or ornament precisely in its original place. Yet even with that she'd begun to get the unsettling sense that things had been shifted while she was out or asleep. A potted plant displaced three or four inches from its usual spot. The glasses in the cupboard rearranged. The boots in the rack slyly shifted. She would look at these things and in her increasingly agitated state be hard pressed to trust her own memory—and at the same time swoon with the awful certainty that someone had access to her home and was screwing with her mind, softening her up for the kill. God help her, it had even occurred to her that it might be Will, crazy with jealousy or rage. Jesus. Sweet, innocent Will.

Oh, yeah, she was losing her mind all right.

She turned in her seat and looked at Marti. In the silence, the defroster had cooked two oblong eyeholes in the windscreen.

"Forget it," Kelly said. "I just get a little nostalgic around Christmastime. You know how it is."

Marti started to protest, but she knew Kelly well enough to read the signal. When Kelly dismissed an issue out of hand like this, no matter how obvious it was that she was hurting, there was no point in trying to push her any further. It would all come out in due time.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Marti said, deciding to test the water just a little.

"Right as rain," Kelly answered, mustering a smile that felt like a muscle cramp. "Let's go find us some Christmas cheer."

"I'm here for you, babe," Marti said, touching Kelly's hand. "I don't want you to forget that."

"Thanks," Kelly said. "But I just need some time to think."

"Ten-four," Marti said, and clunked the Firebird into gear.

THREE

ON WICKED

WINGS

TWENTY-SEVEN

The Lockerby cab dropped Leona Gardner in front of the church. She paid her fare—part of it in quarters she'd pilfered from Sammy's piggy bank—then stepped out into the gentle snowfall. Fat flakes seesawed to the pavement like thistledown, and for a moment Leona was reminded of her girlhood, of the first time she'd taken a close look at snowflakes and marveled at their intricate shapes. In the orangey glow of a street lamp, she squinted at a giant flake that had settled on her coat sleeve, trying to snag the receding tail of that sweet memory. But her vision was blurry, and before she could focus on it the flake collapsed into a featureless droplet of water. Stalled on the steps, already five minutes late for mass, Leona realized that she'd forgotten having had a childhood. Her memory contained only misery.

She clopped up the long cement staircase, adding her boot prints to the hundreds of others in the light dusting of snow. Winded, she paused before the hand-carved doors and dug in her purse for her flask. One last puff to carry me through, she thought. Midnight mass was a long one, and the incense always made her feel ill.

Beyond the doors, organ music boomed in the cavernous nave, the voices of the choir rising in solemn harmony.

With a practiced twist, Leona uncapped the flask. A tip, a guzzle, another twist, and the flask disappeared again. Exhaling hot vapor, she composed her face, straightened her back, and entered Saint Joseph's Cathedral.

The caroling had barely begun, but some vestige of pride prevented Leona from entering the main body of the church. It was packed in there, and she could see herself being forced to march all the way up to the altar in search of a seat. After adjusting her hat—the same one she'd worn to her son's funeral, God rest his precious soul—she headed for the big wrought-iron candelabrum that stood just inside the left aisle entryway. The entire church was adorned with these flickering monuments, each of them presided over by a plaster-cast statue of an apostle or saint, which stood in a dusty alcove in the wall above. Through some secret irony, Leona had chosen Saint Peter's allocation of candles. Hands spread in blessing and welcome, the sober-faced saint huckstered coins in inanimate silence. Dutifully Leona rummaged in her purse for the last of Sammy's quarters. She deposited them, fifty cents' worth, in the strongbox, then lit a candle in her dead son's name. She knelt, muttered a Hail Mary, then shuffled to the north tower staircase. When the family was together, they had always sat in the balcony. The organist was up there, and Peter had insisted on sitting close to her, often paying more attention to her playing than to the incomprehensible phases of the mass.

Leona found a seat on the aisle about two-thirds of the way down. Catching a whiff of her, the woman she crowded in next to widened a disparaging eye, but Leona didn't notice. She unbuttoned her coat, let it droop off her shoulders, and reached for the hymnbook tucked into the rack in front of her. They were just starting "Away in a Manger," one of her favorites. She took up the chorus lustily, her voice gratingly off key.

"Skipping midnight mass?" Peter said as his brother wobbled into the room, his gray eyes barely visible over the stack of gifts he was lugging.

Sam snored. "The last time I went to midnight mass was the last time you went, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," Peter said as Sam set the gifts on the foot of the bed. "The incense made you sick and you had to leave. In a hurry."

"That's right," Sam said, grinning in remembered embarrassment. "Just made it out the door before I blew mom's turkey all over the front step."

Sam held his breath, afraid Peter might clam up at his accidental mention of their mother and the evening would be spoiled before it had a chance to begin. But it seemed those days were over. Oddly, Sam felt little comfort in that. He took off his coat and pulled up a chair.

"Christ, yes," Peter said, taken up in the grisly reminiscence. "Amazing, isn't it, how ingrained us poor Catholic kids become with the fear of God. No way can a kid toss his cookies in God's holy condo and still expect a pass at the Pearly Gates. Shit, I can still see you thumping up that middle aisle with your hands clapped over your mouth and your cheeks puffed full of puke."

"Fuckin' A," Sam agreed, recalling the terrible sensation of impending eruption, the horror of trying to hold it all in. "'Member the spray? I geysered hours-old stuffing all over the last three rows."

"Can it," Peter said, laughing. "You're making me sick."

"You ever seen what cranberry sauce looks like the second time around? The way it kind of curdles—"

"Fuck off," Peter roared good-naturedly, "or I'll spit in your eye."

Mom's going to midnight mass, Sam came close to blurting. Whatever else she was, she was still their mother, and Sam felt they should at least be able to discuss her. She was a sick woman, an alcoholic, and sometimes Sam felt unable to cope with her on his own. In a way, Peter's "visits" had made her worse—for days after that séance she'd been practically certifiable—and Sam felt that his brother should share the responsibility, even if only with advice. Peter was nothing if not an intelligent, insightful human being.

But a dark look stole over Peter's face, as if he'd read his brother's thoughts, and Sam plowed ahead before the sudden tension could gain a foothold.

"Wanna see what Santa brought you?"

Peter brightened a little. Good old Sam. He plainly refused to let anything die. For the past six years Christmas had meant little more to Peter than June first or the twenty-ninth of February. It was just another day spent as a prisoner in this nerveless bag of a body. But Sam always made it that tiny bit brighter.

"Not another toothbrush," Peter said in that cruel breed of humor Sam had still not gotten used to, and probably never would.

"Nope," Sam said. He patted the larger of three foil-wrapped boxes. "You'll never guess."

"So show me," Peter said, deciding to play along. If he knew Sam, the kid had gone to considerable expense to brighten his Christmas. The least he could do was pretend to be happy. "Could it be. . . a lifetime supply of Swedish Erotica tapes for the VCR? Olga Gobbles the Home Guard?"

Sam grinned. He loved his brother mightily. "Nope. Not even close."

"Okay," Peter said, rolling his eyes in a parody of concentration. "Could it be. . . a new pair of shoes? No, wait. . . a spanking new flight helmet! Yeah, that's it."

"Wrong and wrong again." Sam glanced at his watch. "Too bad you'll have to wait another. . . eighteen minutes to find out."

"Cruel," Peter protested. "Nurse! Call a cop!"

"Well. . .” Sam said grandly. "Okay. Let's have a look-see."

Ignoring the parcels at the foot of the bed, Sam reached into a plastic IGA bag on the floor by his feet. He came up holding a foil-wrapped package about the size of a cigar box. He made a show of examining the name card.

"Oh! Here's one for me! 'To Sam from Pecker Pete.' Hey, man, thanks a bunch! Can I open it now?"

Grinning, Peter nodded. Every year Sam pulled the same crazy stunt. Since Peter had almost no way of shopping for Sam, short of browsing through the tedious fare in the gift shop downstairs, the kid always bought a present for himself and scribbled Peter's name on the card. Usually it was some sort of gag. Last year it had been a peaked cap—peaked caps were big in the north—but this one had a huge coil of fake dogshit glued to the bill, real enough looking that you sort of breathed through your mouth for a couple of beats until you were sure it was only plastic. The year before that it had been a huge rubber dildo in the shape of a rocket.

Sam tore off the paper with a flourish. He lifted the lid, peeked inside, and beamed like a delighted child. "Check—it—out!" Daintily, with forefinger and thumb, he produced a flesh-colored harmonica in the shape of a penis, complete with grotesque ropy veins. "A bone-a-phone!" He blew a couple of discordant notes.

"Play dat funky music, white boy!" Peter cried, caught up in the fun in spite of himself. The kid always got through to him. "Man! Lookit the helmet on that. Blow those skin-harp blues!"

"Hairy sax," Sam said with a grin, waggling the thing in the air.

"Flesh flute," Peter shot back.

"Cock clarinet."

"Pistol whistle."

"Okay," Sam said, showing his palms in surrender. "I give."

"C'mon," Peter said, genuinely curious now. "What's in dem boxes?"

"All right," Sam said. "We'll start with the big one."

The caroling went on for a good half hour, the raised voices of the congregation almost drowning out the high-pitched trill of the choir, all of it underpinned by the reverberating chords of the organ. By the time the singing was done, Leona could barely contain her tears. Both Peter and Sammy had done stints as altar boys, and when the procession filed out of the vestry—the priest resplendent in the red and white silks of the season, the sober-faced altar boys balancing tall golden candlesticks—she lost it completely, sobbing like a child, honking every few minutes into a crumpled hankie. The woman beside her elbowed her bespectacled husband, who'd been drowsing, and dragged him off to another pew. Leona didn't mind. The stuffy bitch's perfume had been cloying.

The opening prayers gave way to the first of the Old Testament liturgies, which the plump monsignor recited in a booming basso profundo. At first Leona did her best to follow. But her throat was parched, and an all-too-familiar drumming had begun against the delicate skins of her temples.

She needed a drink.

"You crazy son of a bitch," Peter said in unaffected surprise. This was miles more extravagant than anything he'd expected. "This must have cost you a fortune!"

"Nah," Sam said, blushing furiously. "I stole the sucker." It was an Apple computer, complete with keyboard, color monitor, and all the handy-dandy attachments one needed to run the sweetheart with no hands. Peter could tell it was used, but it was in mint condition.

"You crazy son of a bitch."