Demon's Door (7 page)

Elvira had been waving her arm for nearly half a minute to attract his attention. ‘Sir? Michael McClure says here, “Men feed mustangs to dogs, and whales to cats.” What does he mean by that?'

Jim said, ‘So far as I can make out, he's pointing out that we nourish our domesticated pets with the flesh of wild animals. He wants us to think about the rights and the wrongs of it. Most of us humans eat animals, too – some of them tame, like cows, some of them wild, like deer. Is it morally right for us to do that?'

‘I think it's morally wrong for us to eat anything that can't put up any kind of a fight,' said T.D. ‘You know, like carrots. Or baked beans.'

‘Carrots and baked beans don't have emotions,' Janice Sticky protested.

‘Yeah, but Big Macs don't have emotions, neither. Did you ever see a Big Mac cry?'

‘Just get on and finish the text,' Jim put in. ‘We can talk about vegetarianism later.'

All the same, the next Death Row menu he picked up had only one word written on it, and that word was ‘Lettis.'

The name on the top of the paper was Patsy-Jean Waller. Jim looked up at her. She was sitting in the front row, at the opposite end from Kim Dong Wook. All the euphemisms in the dictionary couldn't have disguised the fact that she was obese, well over two hundred and twenty pounds, with curly brown hair scraped back with a yellow plastic Alice band, and eyes that were little more than slits. She was wearing a loose brown smock to cover her enormous breasts and her protuberant stomach, and underneath she was wearing tight white leggings and yellow vinyl Crocs.

Jim stood up and went across to Patsy-Jean's desk. She was reading the Michael McClure text with intense concentration, moving her lips as she did so, and she didn't realize for nearly half a minute that Jim was standing next to her.

‘Patsy-Jean?' said Jim, very gently.

She looked up at him, and blinked, her mouth turned downward as if she had done something wrong without knowing what it was.

‘I just read what you wanted for your last meal,' he told her.

She swallowed hard, and her double chins wobbled. ‘Did I spell it wrong?' she asked him in a hoarse voice. ‘I can never spell it right.'

‘Yes, you spelled it wrong,' Jim told her, with a smile. ‘But don't worry about it. By the time I'm through with you, you'll be spelling “radicchio” with your eyes closed.'

Patsy-Jean tried to smile, but it was obvious that she still felt anxious. Jim said, ‘It really wasn't much of a meal, was it? Lettuce. Didn't you even want some tomatoes with it? Maybe a couple of scallions, or half an egg?'

Patsy-Jean's cheeks flushed red. ‘I want God to know that I'd repented.'

‘And
lettuce
? That's your penance?'

She nodded. ‘I've been eating too much all of my life and it's a sin. I didn't put on the freshman fifteen when I started college. I put on about fifty.'

‘What are you talking about? Eating too much isn't a sin, it's a disorder. At the very worst, it's a lack of self-discipline. People do far worse things in this world than eat too many chocolate fudge sundaes. People
kill
people, and actually get medals for it.'

Jim hunkered down beside her and said, ‘Listen, Patsy-Jean, one of the things I always do with Special Class Two is have each student stand up and explain what they want to change about themselves, and why. I'm not trying to play psychiatrist, or social worker. I'm trying to teach you how to express how you feel to other people. Once you've done that – once you can clearly describe to your classmates who you are and why you eat too much – I believe that you won't be asking for lettuce for your last meal. Maybe a diet burger without the bun, and a jacket potato instead of fries, but that's not too much of a penance, is it?'

Patsy-Jean's slitty little eyes suddenly filled up with tears. Jim took hold of her hand and squeezed it. ‘I'm on your side, Patsy-Jean. We're all on your side. You wait. Tomorrow you'll get roses, I promise you.'

Halfway through the lesson, Maria put up her hand, and said, ‘Sir?'

Jim looked up from the notes he was jotting about Judii Rogers' Death Row supper (a KFC family bucket, all for herself, with family-size fries, but with Moët champagne instead of Coke, and an Oreo cookie ice-cream pie to finish). ‘Maria?' he asked her.

‘Can I leave the room, sir?'

Jim frowned at her. All the color had drained out of her face, so that the two spots of rouge on her cheeks looked almost like clown make-up, and her eyes were glassy black.

‘Are you OK there, Maria? You're looking a little
peaky
, if you don't mind me saying so.'

‘I'm OK,' she nodded. ‘I just need to leave the room, that's all.'

‘Sure you can. Do you want one of the other girls to go with you?'

‘No, thank you, sir. I'll be fine.'

Maria stood up and tottered unsteadily out of the classroom, taking her gold vinyl bag with her. She had to pull at the door twice before she managed to close it. Jim checked his watch. Ten after three. He frequently had trouble with his students taking drugs – anything from their mothers' tranquilizers to crystal meth. Maria wasn't the usual type he would have flagged as a substance abuser, but she had spoken to him very aggressively when he asked her about winning the lottery and getting married, and she did have those crimson bruises on her wrists and her cheek. She obviously had
some
underlying problem, even if it wasn't simply drugs.

He carried on writing comments about the Death Row menus. Like the last meals ordered by real condemned murderers, most of them were very plain, with a predominance of cheeseburgers, steaks and fries. He wondered what
he
would order, himself, if he were about to be executed. He would have to have a large slice of his mother's key lime pie – or he would do if his mother was still alive.

Kim raised his hand and said, ‘
This
idea is very interesting, Mr Rook. “Each Self Is Many Selves.”'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘Do you think he means that our self changes day by day? Tomorrow we will be different self from now? Or does he mean that we are many different selves all at once? I am child that I was, but also old man that I will be?'

Jim cleared his throat and tried to look as if he understood what Kim was talking about. ‘What do
you
think?' he asked him.

‘I think that life is similar to book. Beginning of story and end of story exist at same time. You can read beginning, then turn to end. Or maybe you can read end first. You can read half of book, and never finish, but end still exists. It is still there. If you wanted to, you could pick book up again and read it. Or not.'

‘I don't think I'm entirely sure what you're trying to say here, Kim,' said Jim.

‘I am saying that tomorrow is today, and yesterday is today. And the day we were born is today. And the day we die is today.'

‘Pretty busy day we're having today,' put in Teddy, without looking up from his frantic scribbling.

Kim turned around in his chair and said, ‘It is not difficult. All you have to do is open door.'

Jim was about to ask him to explain further, although he could see by the baffled expressions on the faces of the rest of Special Class Two that he had already left them way behind.

Arthur said, ‘If yesterday is today, what am I doing here in class? I should still be bowling.'

‘Don't worry about it,' T.D. told him. ‘Tomorrow is yesterday, too, so you'll be bowling tomorrow.'

‘Yes, but I'm going to be
born
tomorrow. I won't have the time to go bowling. And I won't know how to. And I'll be much too little.'

‘OK, OK, that's enough!' said Jim. He checked his watch again. Maria had been gone for over ten minutes. ‘Janice . . . do you mind going to the restroom and making sure that Maria is OK?'

‘Hey, I'll go,' Billy volunteered. ‘I love those Latin looks. Penélope Cruz, mmm-mmmh!'

‘Penélope Cruz is a vegetarian,' said T.D. ‘She eats things that can't fight back.'

‘Who cares? With an ass like that? You could serve lunch for six people off of that ass.'

Jim raised both hands for quiet. ‘Let's get back to Mr McClure, shall we? We can finish our existential discussions tomorrow. Those of us who are not going bowling, anyhow.'

He was sitting down again when Janice came back in. ‘Maria's not there, sir. I knocked on all of the stalls, but she's not in any of them.'

‘OK,' said Jim. ‘She wasn't looking too good, was she? Maybe she went to the infirmary, or went home. I'll go check in a minute.'

But he had only just lifted up his pen again when the classroom door burst open with a shuddering crash. Judii and Tamara both screamed, and even Leon said, ‘Shit, man!'

Maria was standing in the open doorway, holding out both of her hands as if she were pleading for mercy. She was stark naked, and she was smothered in blood from head to foot. Her hair was a riot of bloody black curls, and her eyes were staring white out of a scarlet mask. She was criss-crossed with gaping cuts and covered in huge red bruises.

She had left an erratic trail of bloody footprints on the vinyl floor behind her, and two bloody handprints on the door.

Her mouth was stretched wide open but she said nothing – just stood there, with her hands held out.

Jim jumped up from his desk, went across to her and took her in his arms.

‘
Teddy!
' he shouted. ‘Call nine-one-one! Paramedics and police! Do it now! Grant – go to the infirmary and fetch Nurse Okeke! Tell her to bring blankets and a stretcher and a first-aid kit!'

Maria's knees gave way, and she started to sag. Her skin was growing tacky as the blood started to congeal, and Jim felt as if they were stuck together in some kind of unholy embrace. He lowered her gently to the floor and said, ‘Kim – my coat!'

Kim lifted Jim's crumpled linen coat from the back of his chair and spread it out. Jim lifted Maria a little and laid her head down on it.

‘Here,' said Arthur, ‘you can cover her up with this,' and he handed Jim his Michael Jackson sweatshirt.

Maria's eyes were still wide open and staring, but she didn't seem to be focusing. She opened her lips and a bubble of blood formed between them, and then softly burst.

‘Maria,' Jim urged her. ‘Maria – can you hear me?'

Maria's eyes rolled toward him, although he couldn't tell for sure if she could see him.

‘Maria, what the hell happened? Who did this to you? Maria!'

Maria opened her lips again and mouthed something, but there was a sudden clatter and squeak of running feet in the corridor outside the classroom, and Jim couldn't hear what it was.

‘What did you say?' Jim asked her. ‘What happened, sweetheart? Who did this?'

‘
Door
,' she whispered. ‘
Door.
'

FIVE

L
ieutenant Harris arrived ten minutes after the squad car and the paramedics. He climbed out of his bronze Crown Victoria and walked across to the ambulance, where Jim was standing with Dr Ehrlichman, the principal, and Nurse Okeke.

Two uniformed officers had assembled Special Class Two under the cedar tree, and were taking notes. One of them had hay fever and kept sneezing. Lieutenant Harris gave them a wave and called out, ‘See you in a minute, you guys.'

Lieutenant Harris was short and almost square, bull-necked, with a gingery buzz-cut, and a gingery suit to match. ‘What happened?' he asked, patting his perspiring forehead with a balled-up Kleenex. ‘I picked up the call as I was driving home.'

‘One of my students got herself badly cut up,' said Jim. He raised his arms to show Lieutenant Harris all the dried blood on his shirt, like a dark red map of the Balkans. ‘Maria Lopez, seventeen years old. We don't know how it happened, but the paramedics are trying to make her comfortable before they take her off to the hospital.'

Lieutenant Harris peered inside the ambulance. ‘Is it life-threatening?'

‘I don't know. I hope not. But she has lacerations all over and she's pretty seriously bruised.'

‘So how did she get that way?'

‘Search me,' said Jim. ‘She excused herself to go to the restroom. She took so long that I sent one of the other girls to go look for her. She wasn't there. But a couple of minutes later she came bursting in through the door totally naked and covered in blood.'

Lieutenant Harris looked around the grounds, his lips tightly compressed, as if he were searching for some kind of a sign. A burning bush, maybe, or an angel holding up a sacred text. When he turned back, he said, ‘Does anything
normal
ever happen in your class, Mr Rook? Every time we get called out here to West Grove, it always involves
you
, and it's always something spooky.'

Dr Ehrlichman gave a sharp, disapproving cough. ‘I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation for this, Lieutenant. It's my first guess that Ms Lopez was attacked at random by some intruder from outside the campus.'

The sun was bouncing brightly off the top of Dr Ehrlichman's bald head. These days he wore rimless spectacles and he had shaved off his droopy moustache, because a woman friend had told him after too many vodkatinis that he looked as if he had bought it in a joke store. As far as Jim was concerned, he now looked like a six-month-old baby that was just about to burst into tears.

‘We don't yet know if she was – ah – sexually interfered with,' Dr Ehrlichman added. ‘No doubt we'll discover that when the doctors have been able to examine her.'