Of Daughter and Demon (10 page)

“Don’t touch me, Bobby.”

Bobby raised his hands up. “Come on, Harry,
I’m sorry. Let’s just, let’s go have a drink, and we’ll talk, and
I’ll take you back to that hospital your doctor works in. What was
his name again?”

“You shouldn’t drink on the job, Bobby.”

“Well, listen to the boy scout. Listen to Mr.
Perfect, the fuckin’ poster-boy for the police, at least until that
disability check comes through.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means most of us ain’t got the luxury of
milking our dead kid for four years a pension.”

I dropped the Book then and grabbed him by
the collar and spun his around and slammed him into the wall,
pulled him away and slammed him again.

“Don’t you ever talk about my Alice that way
again, Bobby.” I let go of him and smoothed his coat and turned to
pick up the Book I dropped, but I was ready through. I don’t know
what got into Bobby but if he said that about you, Alice, he’d do
anything, so I was ready if he came at me. He didn’t though. But he
kept talkin’.

“She told me you’re cracking up again, Harry.
I don’t buy it though. I think you’re faking it, I think your
acting all fucked up in the head because you’re too god damn
chicken-shit to get back out on the street. You gone soft, Harry,
that’s what I think.”

“You gone soft in the head, Bobby.”

He made a grab for the Book I was holding,
the one I needed, and I pulled it outta his reach. The look in his
eyes was clear and cold, like it was in your Ma’s when she was
sayin’ all them confusing things to me earlier.

“You’re the one soft in the head, Mitchell,
can’t even remember when his little kid got killed.”

“Shut your mouth, Bobby.”

“I was with you when you found her! Don’t
tell me you don’t remember Harry, cuz I was right there when you
started bawling, and I was right there when you beat the fuckin’
crippled puke to death--”

I turned to leave and he kept talkin’.

“I was there last time you pretended to go
off your fuckin’ nut, all that shit about gods and demons and
boo-hoo, my little girl just got killed yesterday, not four FUCKIN
years ago and you know what, Harry?” he reached out and grabbed me
by the arm. “You know what? I’m glad she’s dead because it got you
off the force.”

I turned and punched him in the face. His
eyes crossed and I punched him again, he started sayin’ I wouldn’t
get away with this and I punched him again, some teeth clicked
against the floor and I punched him again, he fell to his knees and
stopped himself from falling by hanging onto my arm. I looked in
his eyes, but they wasn’t Bobby’s eyes. These eyes was a deep,
burning red, these eyes had smoke comin’ out the corners like tears
in hell, and these eyes, whoever eyes these was, these were the
eyes of the puke that killed you, Alice, and I couldn’t help but
punch ‘em.

I shook my head and Bobby’s eyes were clear
as he collapsed. His mouth was a bleeding hole, his nose a mashed
tomato. His face was lumped and ugly, but I can only take credit
for part of that.

“I’m sorry Bobby, but you shouldn’t of laid
hands on me.” And I
was
sorry, because it wasn’t really
Bobby that said them things about you, Alice, not your Uncle Bobby,
he loved you, he couldn’t never have no kids of his own. I need
you, Alice, I need you to help me get outta this place. I tucked
the Book in one of the pockets of my coat and walked out the back
without seeing anyone. I kept the hand I punched Bobby with in my
pocket too, cuz it had blood on it, some his, some mine from cuts I
got punching his teeth, and I didn’t have time to wash it off.

The cab was gone, bastard took my twenty
bucks, but it woulda cost a lot more to be caught in there throwing
Bob-o a beating, so I don’t mind that he left. I walked about six
blocks and caught another cab, my second ride ever and twice in one
night, he took me back to the bar. I didn’t go in to see Fifties
Chick or none of the boys that come in, the regulars, I just went
up the back stairs and sat on my bed for the longest time, Alice, I
just held that Book Of The Dead in both hands, covers closed, and
looked at it. I had to get ready for what it might mean. If your
name isn’t in here, Alice, it means I been doing a lot a bad things
for no reason at all, and it means I was all wrong about your Ma,
about everything, and it means I’m crazy, real, real crazy.

But it means you didn’t have to suffer as
much, that it was only a day instead of four years of hell on
earth.

But if you’re in this book, it means I just
found you dead a couple nights ago. It maybe means you been killed
by a demon, cuz what I seen in Bobby’s eyes, if it was real, it’s
gone a long ways to convincing me, cuz those eyes wasn’t human, not
at all. And even if it weren’t no demon that done it, no actual
real
demon
, it still means there’s a monster out there, a
normal monster like any of the millions walking around the streets
of the world, a monster like that puke, Bradley, a monster I still
gotta find and kill. I took a deep breath and opened the book,
Alice, and you won’t believe the first name that I saw.

I opened the Book to the last page, not the
last one in the Book, but the last one that was written on. They
always use a bookmark, a simple thing with the Lord’s Prayer on it,
so you don’t hafta thumb through the whole thing every time a junky
gets a hot shot or a old man dies in his sleep.

The page that was marked was about half way
through the Book and was about half full of names and dates and
lives, and how them lives was ended. I looked down to the last name
on the list.

Mitchell, Harrison P...A Fellow
Officer...Murdered

My name, Alice. There wasn’t a date, and it
was different than the other names, mine was written in red ink,
red like blood, and since the tradition started, entries in The
Book Of The Dead was always made in black. I closed my eyes tight.
Alice, please help your old man, huh? Is that there, or is it just
in my head? Whattaya mean both? I opened my eyes and my name was
gone. I had to wonder if I ever even seen it there, but I know I
did, same as I know I seen all the fire of hell in them eyes that
wasn’t Bobby’s.

Whether it had been there or not, it was gone
now, so I looked up the list. I didn’t think this many people
woulda died in just two days. I turned back a page where your name,
your sweet, beautiful name, shoulda been. Instead there was a big
black stain, ink it looked like, covering five or six names. The
next one I can read was from the day before I found you. Or thought
I found you. I don’t know what this means, Alice. Is your name
written under that stain, or is it in a book four years ago? Fuck,
I shoulda found that one, too.

I feel totally lost, numb, I’d expected to
feel relieved, maybe, seeing the proof I wasn’t crazy right there
in black an’ white, but that wasn’t the case. Instead, I was filled
with this kinda slow dread and sadness too heavy for me to bear. I
cried again for you, Alice, I cried because I just don’t know
anymore.

I don’t know if for
four years
, for
four years, for
half
of your
life
, you was holed up
with some puke with no one to love you or tuck you in, no one to
read to you at night, or make sure you brushed your teeth an’
washed up, and was eatin’ good; no one there to hold you when you
woke up scared, no one to tell you there wasn’t no monsters under
the bed, or in the closet, or outside the window, cuz you know
different than that now, don’t you?

I didn’t mean to lie to you, I swear, I was
just tryin’ to keep you from layin’ awake all night thinkin’ of
things you didn’t need to think of, all the things you shoulda had
the rest a your life as a grown up to think of. We tole you about
strangers, me an your Ma, and when you was older I was gonna sit
you down, when I knew you’d be able to understand without gettin'
scared, and explain the ways of the world as I know it, and the
world as I know it ain’t such a good one. There’s nothin’ but
people hurtin’ each other and themselves, people that are ruinin’
the land and the ocean, people goin’ to war for God, or land, or
oil, or money, or just because they can’t think of anything else
they should do. I woulda told you to watch out for the pushers and
the pukes and those that only pretend to be friendly cuz they want
somethin’.

But I woulda tole you other things too, about
how somethin’ so small as a baby girl can make all the shit in the
world worth wadin’ through, how when you find a person to love,
even if it don’t last forever, you gotta just take a deep breath
and love ‘em with all your heart. Like with me an’ your Ma, we was
only together for about three years all told, but I loved her like
no one I ever had up till then. Nothin’ is forever, Alice, you know
that prolly better’n me now, but I woulda tole you that when you
get the chance to love someone and be happy, no matter for how
long, you gotta grab it as tight as you can, love it as much as you
can, and never let go.

And I woulda tole you that sometimes you get
lucky, sometimes you meet someone who you can love and be with
forever, like how my parent’s was. Your Gramma and Grampa, they was
married and in love every day for sixty years, longer’n I even been
alive, and they was right next to each other the whole time, and
when my dad, your Grampa, died, my Ma couldn’t take it, and she
died only a week later. Sure, it was sad for me, but it woulda been
sadder for her to hafta go on livin’ without him.

So I cried when I saw that ink stain, because
I don’t know if your name was there with all the others. I don’t
know if I’m off meds I forgot I was sposed to be takin’, I don’t
know if I’m a raving fucking loony just like some a the pukes I put
away over the years.

All I know for sure, is that four years ago
or not, demon or not, me bein’ crazy or not…you’re still dead
Alice, and I don’t know what else to do.

I closed the Book Of The Dead, set it down on
the floor, took your picture down from the little table next to the
bed and gave you a kiss, turned over on my side and fell into a
long, dreamless sleep.

I woke up with the feeling I was being
watched. I rolled over and Fifties Chick was sitting in the chair
by the window, but she wasn’t watching me, she was reading a book.
The sunlight streaming in made her glow. She looked up after a
minute and smiled to see me awake.

“Hey, good morning,” she said.

“Any cops been by here?” I asked.

“No, why? What happened?”

“No one called?”

“No, Harry. What’d you find out?”

“Maybe something, maybe nothing. That book I
needed? It was all marked up where Alice’s name shoulda been.”

“You couldn’t read it?”

I shook my head.

“That’s something right there, isn’t it?”
Fifties Chick asked.

“Could be.”

“Then, what do I know,” she said, smiling
this little smile that just killed me. “I’m just a voice in your
head, right Harry?”

“You’re right though. Somethin’ is goin’ on.
Somethin’ bad. My ex, she knows about it, I think, and so does
Bobby Johns.”

“That cop, the one that sold you the bar?”
Fifties Chick asked.

“Yeah.”

“Harry, he was on the news this morning.”

“Whattaya mean?” I asked.

“Oh, shit, it was you wasn’t it?”

“
What
?”

“There was thing on the news this morning,
Harry, they found this cop all beat up in the station last night,
said they thought it was someone he’d arrested or something, that
got away from him.”

“He didn’t say who it was?”

“He’s in a coma, Harry. They said he had a
fractured skull and it caused some kind of swelling or something in
his head. They said he might be brain damaged.”

“Where’s he at? They say what hospital he was
at?”

“They wouldn’t, they--”

“I gotta find him.” I got up off the bed,
still wearin’ the same clothes as yesterday.

“When is this gonna be over?” she asked in a
sad voice, not looking me in the eye.

“When I get whoever done that to Alice. You
know that.”

“It’s just...”

“What?” I asked.

“I can’t stand to see you out there like
this. Like you’re possessed. I can’t stand sewing you up every day,
or picking you up off the ground because you got beat
unconscious.”

“It’s close, don’t worry. I’m real close. A
week tops, I think, and all this should be over.”

“Yeah?” She finally raised her eyes and the
hope in them was like a warm soft hand around my heart.

“Yeah. Then me an’ you could get to know each
other. You could start by tellin’ me your real name, you know.”

She smiled. “Hey, slow down, mister. We’ve
only known each other what, a couple years now?”

I nodded, serious now, because I thought
about Fifties Chick a lot, Alice, an’ I always wondered about her
and worried about her, and wanted to know more about her,
all
about her. I wanted to know why she knows how to sew me
up and check to see if I got a concussion, how she learned to flip
them bottles around behind the bar when she’s in the right mood,
just like in a movie. I wanna know who gave her that scar across
her throat, and what the symbols tattooed on her arm mean. No way,
there is no
way
what Angie said about her can be true.

Right, Alice?

“You runnin’ from somethin’?” I asked. “That
why you won’t tell nobody your name?”

“We’re all running from something, Harry.
Come on, I’ll make you some coffee.”

We went down to the bar and she brewed a pot
and I made us some breakfast. I ate quick and got on the phone to
the station. It took a few minutes before I was transferred to
someone I knew, and also knew what was happenin’ with Bobby, and
they told me he was at the hospital up on 23rd, so that’s where I
had to go.