“You remember what you told me—”
“Vic, please—”
“I almost forgot myself, what you told me, and then you were on your way down the walk and I remembered.”
“We’ve got to go, Vic.”
“You told me not to give the kids to anyone if Paige wasn’t with them. Not anyone. You remember what you said?”
Marty carried two large suitcases downstairs, into the kitchen.
The Beretta 9mm Parabellum was stuffed under the waistband of his chinos. It pressed uncomfortably against his belly. He wore a reindeer-pattern wool sweater, which concealed the gun. His red-and-black ski jacket was unzipped, so he could reach the pistol easily, just by dropping the bags.
Paige entered the kitchen behind him. She was carrying one suitcase and the Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun.
“Don’t open the outer door,” Marty told her as he went through the small connecting door between the kitchen and the dark garage.
He didn’t want the two-bay door open while they loaded the car because then it would become a point of vulnerability. As far as he knew, The Other might have crept back when the cops had left, might be outside at that very minute.
Following him into the garage, Paige switched on the overhead fluorescent panels. The long bulbs flickered but didn’t immediately catch because the starters were bad. Shadows leaped and spun along the walls, between the cars, in the open rafters.
Torturing his injured neck, Marty involuntarily turned his head sharply toward each leaping phantom. None of them had a face at all, let alone a face identical to his.
The fluorescent came on all the way. The hard white light, cold and flat as a winter-morning sun, brought the shadow dancers to a sudden halt.
He is within a few feet of the Buick, holding tightly to his kids’ hands, so close to getting away with them. His Charlotte. His Emily. His future, his destiny, so close, so infuriatingly close.
But Vic won’t let go. The guy is a leech. Follows them all the way from the house, as if oblivious of the rain, continuously babbling, asking questions, a nosy bastard.
So close to the car. The engine running, headlights on. Emily in one hand, Charlotte in the other, and they love him, they really love him. They were hugging and kissing him back there in the foyer, so happy to see him, his little girls. They know their daddy, their
real
daddy. If he can just get into the car, close the doors, and drive away, they’re his forever.
Maybe he can kill Vic, the nosy bastard. Then it would be so easy to escape. But he’s not sure he can pull it off.
“You told me not to give the kids to anyone if Paige wasn’t with them,” Vic says. “Not anyone. You remember what you said?”
He stares at Vic, not thinking about an answer as much as about wasting the son of a bitch. But he’s hungry again, shaky and weak in the knees, starting to crave the candy bars on the front seat, sugar, carbohydrates, more energy for the repairs he’s still undergoing.
“Marty? You remember what you said?”
He has no gun, either, which wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem. He’s been well-trained to kill with his hands. He might even have enough strength to do so, in spite of his condition and the fact that Vic appears to be tough enough to put up a fight.
“I thought it was strange,” Vic says, “but you told me, you said not even to give them to
you
unless Paige was with you.”
The problem is that the bastard
does
have a gun. And he’s suspicious.
Second by second, all hope of escape is crumbling, washing away in the rain. The girls are still holding his hand. He’s got a firm grip on them, yes, but they’re about to start slipping away, and he doesn’t know what to do. He gapes at Vic, mind spinning, as stuck for something to say as he was stuck for something to write when he sat in his office earlier in the day and tried to begin a new book.
Move, move, confront, challenge, grapple, and prevail.
Abruptly he realizes that to confront this problem and prevail, he needs to act like a friend, the way friends treat each other and talk with each other in the movies. That will allay all suspicion.
A river of movie memories rushes through his mind, and he flows with them. “Vic, good heavens, Vic, did I ... did I say that?” He imagines he is Jimmy Stewart because everyone likes and trusts Jimmy Stewart. “I don’t know what I meant, musta been outta my head with worry. Gosh, it’s just that . . . just that I’ve been so darned crazy scared with all this stuff that’s been happening, this crazy stuff.”
“What
has
been happening, Marty?”
Fearful but still gracious, halting but sincere, Jimmy Stewart in a Hitchcock film: “It’s complicated, Vic, it’s all . . . it’s screwy, unbelievable, I half don’t believe it myself. It’d take an hour to tell you, and I don’t have an hour, don’t have an hour, no sir, not now, I sure don’t. My kids, these kids, they’re in danger, Vic, and God help me if anything happens to them. I wouldn’t want to live.”
He can see that his new manner is having the desired effect. He hustles the kids the last few steps to the car, confident that the neighbor isn’t going to stop them.
But Vic follows, splashing through a puddle. “Can’t you tell me
anything?”
Opening the back door of the Buick, ushering the girls inside, he turns to Vic once more. “I’m ashamed to say this, but it’s me put them in danger, me, their father, because of what I do for a living.”
Vic looks baffled. “You write books.”
“Vic, you know what an obsessive fan is?”
Vic’s eyes widen, then narrow as a gust of wind flings raindrops in his face. “Like that woman and Michael J. Fox a few years ago.”
“That’s it, that’s right, like Michael J. Fox.” The girls are both in the car. He slams the door. “Only it’s a guy bothering us, not some crazy woman, and tonight he goes too far, breaks in the house, he’s violent, I had to hurt him. Me. You imagine
me
having to hurt anybody, Vic? Now I’m afraid he’ll be back, and I’ve got to get the girls away from here.”
“My God,” Vic says, totally suckered by the tale.
“Now that’s all I have time to tell you, Vic,
more
than I have time to tell you, so you just . . . you just . . . you go back inside there before you catch your death of pneumonia. I’ll call you in a few days, I’ll tell you the rest.”
Vic hesitates. “If we can do anything to help—”
“Go on now, go on, I appreciate what you’ve done already, but the only thing more you can do to help is get out of this rain. Look at you, you’re drenched, for heaven’s sake. Go get out of this rain, so I don’t have to worry about you comin’ down with pneumonia on account of me.”
Joining Marty at the back of the BMW, where he had dropped the bags, Paige put down the third suitcase and the Mossberg. When he unlocked and raised the trunk lid, she saw the three boxes inside. “What’re those?”
He said, “Stuff we might need.”
“Like what?”
“I’ll explain later.” He heaved the suitcases into the trunk.
When only two of the three would fit, she said, “The stuff I’ve packed is all bare necessities. At least one box has to go.”
“No. I’ll put the smallest suitcase in the back seat, on the floor, under Emily’s feet. Her feet don’t reach the floor anyway.”
Halfway to the house, Vic looks back toward the Buick.
Still playing Jimmy Stewart: “Go on, Vic, go on now. There’s Kathy on the stoop, gonna catch her death, too, if you don’t get inside, the both of you.”
He turns away, rounds the back of the Buick, and only looks at the house again when he reaches the driver’s door.
Vic is on the stoop with Kathy, too far away now to prevent his escape, with or without a gun.
He waves at the Delorios, and they wave back. He gets into the Buick, behind the steering wheel, the oversize raincoat bunching up around him. He pulls the door shut.
Across the street, in his own house, lights are aglow upstairs and down. The imposter is in there with Paige. His beautiful Paige. He can’t do anything about that, not yet, not without a gun.
When he turns to look into the back seat, he sees that Charlotte and Emily have already buckled themselves into the safety harnesses. They are good girls. And so cute in their yellow raincoats and matching vinyl hats. Even in their picture, they are not this cute.
They both start talking, Charlotte first: “Where’re we going, Daddy, where’d we get this car?”
Emily says, “Where’s Mommy?”
Before he can answer them, they launch an unmerciful salvo of questions:
“What happened, who’d you shoot, did you kill anybody? ”
“Was it Mrs. Sanchez?”
“Did she go berserk like Hannibal the Cannibal, Daddy, was she really whacko?” Charlotte asked.
Peering through the passenger-side window, he sees the Delorios go into their house together and close the front door.
Emily says, “Daddy, is it true?”
“Yeah, Daddy, is it true, what you told Mr. Delorio, like with Michael J. Fox, is it true? He’s cute.”
“Just be quiet,” he tells them impatiently. He shifts the Buick into gear, tramps the accelerator. The car bucks in place because he’s forgotten to release the handbrake, which he does, but then the car jolts forward and stalls.
“Why isn’t Mom with you?” Emily asks.
Charlotte’s excitement is growing, and the sound of her voice is making him dizzy: “Boy, you had blood all over your shirt, you sure must’ve shot
somebody,
it was really disgusting, maximum gross.”
The craving for food is intense. His hands are shaking so badly that the keys jangle noisily when he tries to restart the engine. Although the hunger won’t be nearly as bad this time as previously, he’ll be able to go only a few blocks before he’ll be overwhelmed with a need for those candy bars.
“Where’s Mommy?”
“He must’ve tried to shoot you first, did he try to shoot you first, did he have a knife, that would’ve been scary, a knife, what did he have, Daddy?”
The starter grinds, the car chugs, but the engine won’t turn over, as if he has flooded it.
“Where’s Mommy?”
“Did you actually fight him with your bare hands, take a knife away from him or something, Daddy, how could you do that, do you know karate, do you?”
“Where’s Mommy? I want to know where Mommy is.”
Rain thumps off the car roof. Pongs off the hood. The flooded engine is maddeningly unresponsive:
ruuurrrrr-ruuurrrrr -ruuurrrrr.
Windshield wipers thudding, thudding. Back and forth. Back and forth. Pounding incessantly. Girlish voices in the back seat, increasingly shrill. Like the strident buzzing of bees.
Buzz-buzz-buzz.
Has to concentrate to keep his trembling hand firmly on the key. Sweaty, spastic fingers keep slipping off. Afraid of overcompensating, maybe snap the key off in the ignition.
Ruuurrrrr-ruuurrrrr.
Starving. Need to eat. Need to get away from here. Thump. Pong. Incessant pounding. Pain revives in his nearly healed wounds. Hurts to breathe. Damn engine.
Ruuurrrrr.
Won’t start.
Ruuurrrrr-ruuurrrrr.
Daddy-Daddy-Daddy-Daddy -Daddy,
buzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Frustration to anger, anger to hatred, hatred to violence. Violence sometimes soothes.
Itching to hit something, anything, he turns in his seat, glares back at the girls, screams at them,
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
They are stunned. As if he has never spoken to them like this before.
The little one bites her lip, can’t bear to look at him, turns her face to the side window.
“Quiet, for Christ’s sake, be quiet!”
When he faces forward again and tries to start the car, the older girl bursts into tears as if she’s a baby. Wipers thudding, starter grinding, engine wallowing, the steady thump of rain, and now her whiny weeping, so piercing, grating, just too much to bear. He screams wordlessly at her, loud enough to drown out her crying and all the other sounds for a moment. He considers climbing into the back seat with the damn shrieking little thing, make it stop, hit it, shake it, clamp one hand over its nose and mouth until it can’t make a sound of any kind, until it finally stops crying, stops struggling, just stops, stops—
—and abruptly the engine chugs, turns over, purrs sweetly.
“I’ll be right back,” Paige said as Marty put the suitcase on the floor behind the driver’s seat of the BMW.
He looked up in time to see that she was heading into the house. “Wait, what’re you doing?”
“Got to turn off all the lights.”
“To hell with that. Don’t go back in there.”
It was a moment from fiction, straight out of a novel or movie, and Marty recognized it as such. Having packed, having gotten as far as the car,
that
close to escaping unscathed, they would return to the house to complete an inessential task, confident of their safety, and somehow the psychopath would be in there, either because he had returned while they were in the garage or because he had successfully hidden in some cleverly concealed niche throughout the police search of the premises. They would move from room to room, switching off the lights, letting darkness spill through the house—whereupon the look-alike would materialize, a shadow out of shadows, wielding a large butcher’s knife taken from the rack of implements in their own kitchen, slashing, stabbing, killing one or both of them.
Marty knew real life was neither as extravagantly colorful as the most eventful fiction nor half as drab as the average academic novel—and less predictable than either. His fear of returning to the house to switch off the lights was irrational, the product of a too-fertile imagination and a novelist’s predilection to anticipate drama, malevolence, and tragedy in every turn of human affairs, in every change of weather, plan, dream, hope, or roll of dice.
Nevertheless, they weren’t going back into the damn house. No way in hell.