Blood Music (15 page)

Mrs. Thuringen picked up her scissors and began snipping at stray threads along the purple hem. “If every man who said terrible things about women were a serial killer,” she said gently, “there wouldn't be a single one of us left.” She scrutinized the hem, her head tilted to one side; she looked like a bird and Zelly started to cry again.

“And darling,” her mother went on, “you know you could probably come up with ten different ways to kill somebody without even thinking about it, what with all of your reading. Pat's just been listening to you too long.”

“That's what a friend said at the time. But there's more. You know that I think that murder up on Stevens' campus was done by the Slasher. That's something. The killer's got to be from Hoboken or familiar with Hoboken—”

“I don't really see—”

“But I haven't told you everything. Pat has a terrible pornography collection.”

Her mother was quiet for a moment. “Zelly,” she said at last, sadly, “a lot of men have pornography in the house.”

“I know. But it's all rape and knives.” It didn't sound like anything. Pat has a terrible pornography collection. When so many men have
Playboy, Penthouse.
There must be a woman who wore lavender silk, size five. There must. Zelly was miserable with shame. “And then there were the panties.”

Her mother said nothing, lips pursed, snipping. “But my explanation is a little more believable than that Pat is a serial killer.”

“First I thought maybe he must have sent away to one of those places where you get used underwear through the mail.”

“One of those—don't tell me. I don't want to know. That sounds much more farfetched than what I said.”

“There are places like that.”

“I said don't tell me.” Zelly and her mother laughed again.

“This already sounds stupid,” Zelly said, “but he talked in his sleep the other night.”

“What did he say exactly?”

“He said he was sorry. I couldn't sleep—I was just lying there. And all of a sudden he said, ‘I'm sorry.' And then something I couldn't understand, ‘I will,' or something—I thought later it could have been ‘I kill.' And then he said, ‘You killed me too.' He said that twice. And he hit the wall.”

“You were frightened.”

“I was scared out of my wits. He didn't even wake up. It sounded like he was talking about killing people.”

“You know what people say in their sleep doesn't mean anything, Zelly.” Her mother was looking carefully at every stitch along the hem. “If he hit the wall I'd say he's got a lot of unresolved anger, but the part about killing—”

“I know. It's just that it was all beginning to look like something, when I put it together.”

“Darling,” said her mother, “you do have something strange going on here. If your father ever thought I might like being throttled—well. You have enough to warrant going to a marriage counselor, that's for sure, especially if what you thought about the lingerie is true—that he sent away for it. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, you know. Do you need saving stamps for something like that?”

Zelly smiled again into her mug.

“But, you know, I think it's all something much more easily explained,” her mother was saying. She had put her sewing down. “I can imagine how you might actually convince yourself of such terrible things about Pat—because the very ordinary truth is, in a way, so much more terrible. Pat's not a monster, Zelly, he's a man. He's not a serial killer—but he may very well be an adulterer. And that's a hard, hard fact to swallow.

“Now, I want you and the baby to stay here with me tonight, and in the morning you can think about what you want to do. What you
really
want. You have to sit down and do some serious thinking about what's going on in your marriage. If things are bad enough so that you start having these fantasies—you're alone with the baby and you don't see enough people and your mind starts running away with your brain, if you know what I mean.” Again she reached to pat Zelly's hand. “I think Pat is having an affair, darling. That's what all the signs point to. The question is, are you sure? And even if you are sure, are you certain you want to leave your husband?”

“I don't know what I want. I was sure of something this afternoon. It all seemed to make such sense. Now I—I don't know. You must think I'm a real idiot.”

“No, I never think you're an idiot. I know how hard this is for you, believe me. You're going to have to make some very hard decisions. Why don't we see how you feel about it tomorrow?”

“I guess I was being a little melodramatic.”

“With the serial killer thing, yes. It's those books you read, I've been meaning to talk to you about—” The phone rang. Zelly took the last sip of her hot chocolate. The phone rang again and they both knew it was Pat. They looked at each other for a moment and then they both started to laugh. “It's the Slasher, Mama. You want me to get it?”

“I thought it was the Hillside Strangler,” her mother said, getting up.

“Maybe it's the Green River Killer.”

“Or the Boston Strangler.”

“Or the Nightstalker.”

“Or Ted Bundy.”

“He's dead,” Zelly said, and they dissolved in laughter and her mother went to answer the phone.

T
he message on the answering machine said, “We're at my mother's house. I don't know when we're coming home. I think we have to stay here for a couple of days. Please don't worry. I'll call you as soon as I can.” There were tears in his wife's voice.

He listened to the dead air and the click of the machine and his wife's voice echoed in his head. He would kill her before he would let her go. A wave of anger rose up over his consciousness, a sunrise of adrenaline and rage. He stood immobile in front of the telephone. His fingers stiffened and clenched. He reached for the receiver. He heard the noises of traffic outside the window like the roar of a seashell; when a voice answered he was surprised. He heard himself ask the old woman to speak to his wife and then he heard nothing but the seashell roaring and the rage welling up from somewhere unfathomable.

“Pat?” Zelly's voice was entirely unfamiliar. I can let her go and be free. I can forget her. She repeated his name. “Pat?”

“Zelly, what's going on?”

“Pat. I didn't expect you to get in in time to call tonight.”

“Zelly, I want to know what's going on.”

“I—I just thought I should get away for a couple of days. Things have been—Pat, I think we have to talk.”

“What do we have to talk about?”

“I've got some things I've got to get sorted out in my mind.”

“What things?” There was a long pause, and he filled it with remembered screams. What did she want? Was she leaving him? His face was hot, it burned. “Are you leaving me?”

“Oh, Pat. No. I just—I've got to have some time to think. I didn't expect you to call until tomorrow morning. I guess I just don't know what to say. Things haven't been—we haven't been communicating, Pat.” You have no idea how well I communicate, with what music I play my sweet message, on what instruments.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Zel. I know I've been preoccupied with business—you know, being the sole provider for two lives is not an easy thing.” His voice sounded stilted in his own ears.

“I know, I know.” You do not know what they know, now.

“It's just that—you've been gone an awful lot, and we're still where we were six months ago. I have to borrow more money from my mother, but that's not it, that's not the problem, you're just gone so much—” The lights against the eyes, bright and dark, bright and dark. Driving, the thousand uncounted hours outside of even thought.

“Zelly, you know I have to take late calls. Like a doctor. And I don't understand, if I drive around some nights to clear my head—you don't know what a responsibility it is, taking care of you and the baby.”

“Well—” The silence was relenting in his ear. There was rage in his head and there was a need, overpowering even rage, to keep at least his home inviolable, unchanged by the passions that ruled him. But there was still rage.

“I miss you and the baby.” You are mine: you promised yourself to me.

“I just need a little time to think.” I could snap your neck like a chicken bone.

“You and the baby belong with me.” I will say when you leave.

“I just think I want to stay at my mother's for a few days.”

“I know I haven't been there for you and the baby. It's just that business hasn't been going well and I know I haven't been—”

“I found women's underwear in the closet.”

The phone would break if it were bone. The trophy—a prize of the kill. Tainted now, its sweet memories tainted by innocence. “Honey, I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking about underwear! Panties. I found a bag in the closet.”

“Way in the back?” You interfering bitch I will break your neck. “That might be stuff Karen left, at the old apartment. Zelly, is all this about underwear? I'm sure my old girlfriend must have left it—the one I lived with before we got together. Karen. I thought I threw all her shit out. Honey, you can't really have gone to your mother's because you found underwear in the closet. There's got to be a real reason.” On the other end of the phone Zelly was crying. “You're not giving me a chance here. The least you could do is come home and talk about it. I deserve that, at least.”

“You haven't talked to me in such a long time.”

“Give me a chance before you run away. I deserve a chance.”

“Pat, I don't know.”

“I want my girls home with me tonight.”

How long does a baby cry before it dies?

“Oh, Pat. I guess I didn't think about how hard this would be on you.”

But no, the baby's breath was soft like flowers, like fur.

“Zelly, I just want you and the baby to come home.”

Zelly sighed. Her breath was soft, too. “We'll come home in the morning.”

“No, now.” My wife, my baby.

“But Pat, the baby's sleeping.”

“Zelly, I want you now. It's been a long time since I made love with my wife. I'm sorry about the other day—you know—that was just an experiment. I know you thought it was too kinky—that's one of the reasons you're doing this, isn't it?”

“Yes.” The voice so ashamed—as though she were the one who had done something wrong. It would be a pity to kill her.

“I need my girls home.”

“Okay, Pat.” The silence was breathing again. “You can come get us.”

“T
hank you for meeting me here today.” John sounded stiff; he felt stiff, when all he'd wanted was to see her again. To see her somewhere outside the unfamiliar streets that were her home, where everywhere he looked he saw melodramatic death. He saw her everywhere now, on the express bus on his way to work, her half-profile lit golden by the morning sun in the window; he saw her out the window, walking a dog, turning a corner, turning away, moving away always; the nape of the neck, the line of the hip, the flag of hair blown out straight by the wind.

For ten days Madeleine had escorted John around the West Village and SoHo. The mid-June weather favored long nighttime walks. They had seen the corners where the hookers stood at night, the gay bars, the all-night delis, the thousand separate places where a killer could hide and wait. They visited the spots where the bodies had been found—even Cheryl's. Madeleine had stood silently while John cried, helplessly staring out over the river toward the undistinguished Jersey coast—a long green building, a train station or a factory; a low arched building half demolished; the Maxwell House sign, a never-ending drip into a giant tilted cup:
GOOD TO THE LAST DROP
.

She had agreed to meet him at the Twenty-sixth Street Sunday flea market. There were card tables set out in the sun, laden with every imaginable thing; there were overstuffed Empire chairs and ornate mirrors, cartons of books on tables and under them, boxes of ends of lace, of sweaters and old metal pots and rusted keys delicately engraved, rows and rows of blue glass, green glass, murky yellow glass, rows of flowered, chipped plates, of salt shakers and little metal pill-boxes and porcelain pillboxes and sorry old stuffed Mickeys and mechanical banks and painted cannisters and stereoscopic slides. John saw Madeleine disappearing into the subway kiosk at Fifty-seventh Street, he saw her waiting for the light on Queens Boulevard. When he thought about Cheryl he sometimes saw Madeleine's face instead. He hated his shallow and unfaithful memory: at times Cheryl came back to him with a paralyzing, fantastic instantaneousness—the whole of Cheryl, palpable and engulfing—and he was left with a miserable emptiness and dejected guilt.

Madeleine had begun to seep into the fissures of his grief. When his wife, Molly, had left him, the grief he felt was not this subterranean pain, molten-lava pain, seeping relentlessly over his heart, searing his heart. He had missed Molly and then he had not missed her, like a habit. Cheryl had worn a rosy scent; he could not say what Molly had worn. Madeleine wore iris, and iris permeated the emptiness of his grief, the depth of it, and the color of her hair, the line of her naked forearm, permeated the emptiness. The void—palpable—became for instants again only memory, when it was filled, obliterated, with memories of Madeleine.

“I love flea markets,” she was saying. “My father and I used to drive all over Muscatine County when I was a kid, looking for lawn sales.” He did not tell her how much Cheryl had liked flea markets, that he had been here before.