The Last Tomorrow (35 page)

Seymour takes a second step back, fear overwhelming him.

And then the violence begins.

5

Leland yanks the wheel to the right, but the goddamn pickup’s going too fast to make the turn. Instead of swinging into the driveway, it jumps up the curb and comes to a
skidding stop in the middle of their front yard. Leland lets it stay there. He kills the engine and steps from the vehicle. His hands are covered in blood, some of it his own from split knuckles,
most of it the district attorney’s. His face and shirt are speckled with more of it.

He walks to the front door and into the house. He stands by the doorway, sweaty and bloody and feeling frantic.

‘Viv,’ he says.

If she’s left for work he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but she shouldn’t have left quite yet. It’s too early. He tries to remember whether he saw her car parked out
on the street, but isn’t sure. He didn’t look.

He calls her name again.

She walks out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her torso and another on her head. ‘What is it?’

‘Do you love me, darlin?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Do you love me?’

‘Of course. What is it?’

‘Would you love me even if I done something terrible?’

‘Is that blood?’

‘I done something terrible. I need to leave town.’

‘What did you do?’

Leland licks his lips. His entire body shakes with adrenalin. He tries to calm himself, tries to think. He closes his eyes. He opens them. He can’t bring himself to tell her what he
did.

‘You said you always wanted to see where I come from.’

Vivian, silent for a very long time, searches his face for answers.

Finally she nods.

‘Okay,’ she says.

1

Candice reaches into her dress and lifts her breasts, pushing them together to create more cleavage. They’re sticky with sweat and feel heavy in her hands. She leans
forward slightly and looks at herself in the mirror, tries to smile but can’t make it look real, can’t bring light into her eyes. She hopes the makeup can at least hide their puffy
redness, the fact that she’s been crying.

She’ll do the best she can tonight.

Maybe once the evening begins in earnest she’ll forget about her real life. Maybe the music, flirtation, dancing, and drinks, watered-down though they are, will help her briefly forget
everything. She doesn’t think so, doesn’t think anything could make her forget that her husband is dead, doesn’t think anything could make her forget that her thirteen-year-old
son is a murderer, or that he’s missing, doesn’t think even the junk Carl shoots into his veins could make her forget those things, but maybe she’s wrong. Maybe there will be a
moment, just one, in which she’s able to feel like herself again. Maybe something will make her laugh. Or distract her enough that, for a time, she’s completely free of thought and
worry.

She picks up a compact and clicks it open, loads the applicator with powder, and is bringing it toward her face when a knock at the front door stops her. She sets the compact back down on the
counter.

She hopes she doesn’t find Carl on the other side. It’d be one thing if she didn’t care for him. She could slam the door in his face and that would be that. That’s the
way it should be. But it was difficult to shut him out the way she did. It was difficult, and she doesn’t know if she has the strength to do it again. A big part of her wants him around to
lean on. But she knows, too, that he isn’t really present most of the time. He’s only a husk, and there’s no point leaning on a husk. There’s nothing solid within to support
you. It could blow away in the wind. Certainly it would crumble beneath your weight. You might as well try leaning on a column of smoke.

Anyway, she hopes it isn’t Carl.

She walks to the front door and looks through the peephole but sees no one and nothing but empty space. After a moment’s hesitation she pulls open the door. The welcome mat is empty but
for a small bundle of white flowers. Several of them still have brown clods of dirt hanging from them, held in place by thin roots.

She leans down and picks them up and smells them, earthy and pleasant with a slight pollen sharpness. It reminds her of being a teenager. When she was fifteen she was courted by an
eighteen-year-old Mexican boy named Albert. He gave her flowers like this and they went for walks. Once they did more than walk. She lay back and let him take her virginity. It was sweet and
awkward and brief. She wonders what happened to him, but supposes she’ll never know.

She smells the flowers again. She wants to bring them into the house and put them in water, but something tells her she shouldn’t. They’re sure to be from Carl, she can think of no
one else who’d leave flowers for her, and she doesn’t want to be reminded of him every time she looks at them over the course of the next week.

He was a mistake and she doesn’t want to think about it.

She tosses them aside, into the dirt to the left of the porch, looks toward them briefly with some regret, and closes the door.

Then she heads back to the bathroom. She has to finish getting ready for work.

2

Sandy watches from down the street, from behind a car. His mother opens the front door, looks around briefly, and then looks down. She picks up the flowers he left for her and
smells them. It makes him smile to see her there. He misses her very much. Seeing her makes a large part of him wish that he could take it all back. If he could take it all back he could run up to
her right now and hug her. He knows he’s supposed to be strong now. He knows the gun tucked into his pants is supposed to make him bigger than he really is. But seeing his mother makes him
feel like a little boy.

She throws the flowers to the ground, steps inside, shuts the door.

She hates him now. She must hate him now to throw his flowers away. He left them for her to let her know he was okay, to let her know he loved her, and she didn’t care. She threw them to
the ground and shut the door.

That’s it, then. He needs to stop thinking about her. He really
is
on his own. He knew he couldn’t go home, knew he couldn’t talk to her no matter how much he wanted to,
but he thought he still had a mother somewhere. Now he knows he doesn’t. He has no one. He closes his eyes. He tells himself that men don’t cry. Men are big and strong. They don’t
say please, they don’t say thank you, and they never, ever cry.

He turns and walks away from there, walks down to Macy Street and heads west, toward Hollywood.

He never should have come here. It’s getting late. It’s getting dark. Unless he goes back to the house he broke into earlier he has nowhere to sleep, and it doesn’t seem worth
it. It’s far away, and he has no car and no money. He’s hungry again. He wishes he could steal a car like hoodlums in movies do, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how
to do anything. He’s just a stupid little kid and he doesn’t know how to do anything and he was stupid for thinking he did. He was stupid for thinking he could do this on his own. He
wishes he was tough and crazy like James Cagney, but he isn’t. He’s just a stupid little kid. No wonder everybody hates him. No wonder the other kids wipe boogers on his clothes and
push him and punch him. He’s no good. He never was any good. It was only a matter of time before his mother saw it too. No wonder she threw those flowers away. If he was her he’d have
thrown them away too. And ground them into the dirt with his foot. If he was tough like James Cagney he would’ve pulled out his gun earlier and taken all the money from that stupid shop. He
wouldn’t have run. That’s not what toughs do. But he isn’t a tough, is he? He tries to be but he isn’t.

He wipes at his eyes with the heels of his hands and tells himself to stop being a baby. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his packet of cigarettes. He lights one. He takes a drag,
inhaling the smoke, and coughs. He takes a second drag.

He can be tough like James Cagney if he wants to be. He can be crazy like him too. He knows he can. He can make it on his own.

He’s a vicious dog. He’s a wild horse.

He’s killed people.

He doesn’t need anybody.

He reaches into his pants and pulls out the gun. It feels heavy in his hand. He rubs his thumb against the hammer spur, feeling the grooves in the metal. He can see a liquor store up ahead.
There are lights on. He’s going to rob it.

He’s going to take all their money.

And he won’t say please.

And he won’t say thank you.

3

Candice parks her car in the lot behind the Sugar Cube and steps into the night. She looks toward the dark sky. She likes its depth, the way it just goes on and on. She closes
her eyes and experiences the same depth in the other direction. That she likes less. She opens her eyes and walks into the bar through the back door. She makes her way through the stock room, past
boxes of liquor and wine and beer, into the front of the place. It’s just beginning to come to life with talk and laughter.

She scans the room for Vivian, but there’s no sign of her.

She does, however, see Heath sitting at a table sipping a glass of Johnnie Walker Black and watching the room.

She walks over and asks about Vivian.

‘She called in.’

‘She all right?’

‘Didn’t say.’

‘How’d she sound?’

‘Fine. But you don’t need to worry about it. You been through too much as it is. I don’t even think you should be back at work yet.’

‘I don’t have anything else to do.’

He doesn’t respond. Eventually he looks away.

She stands there a moment, then turns toward the bar. There she sees a gentleman in a suit sitting alone, sipping his drink, looking around the room. She walks over and slides onto the stool to
his right, hoping he can help her temporarily escape herself.

‘You look lonely,’ she says.

He turns toward her and smiles.

Eugene twists the key, listens to the thwack of the deadbolt as it retracts, and pushes open the door. He knows the room’s supposed to be empty, but his mouth is dry and
his heart beats erratically in his chest. Last time he did something like this he ended up stumbling upon a couple corpses, and is still wanted by the police because of it.

He steps inside and closes the door behind him. No one else is here.

A bed fills the room, nightstands resting against the wall to its left and right. A Gold Medal paperback, something called
The Brass Cupcake
by John D. MacDonald, sits open on one of the
nightstands, its narrow spine broken. A chair sits in the far right corner with a pinstriped suit coat draped over its arm. A desk and a lamp. An oak dresser with two suitcases resting on top of
it, laundry piled high on the floor beside it.

A lived-in hotel room.

He pulls the switchblade knife from his pocket and walks to the nearest nightstand. He opens the drawer. But for a Gideon bible the drawer is empty. He sets the switchblade knife in the drawer
beside the bible and pushes it closed. He walks to the dresser. A large leather suitcase sits on top of it beside a small square leatherette case. He begins with the large suitcase, unlatching it
and looking through the contents. He finds socks, underpants, some T-shirts, half a bottle of whiskey, and a dress shirt. The dress shirt’s presence in the suitcase is strange. It’s the
only piece of clothing which should be on a hanger. It’s the only piece of clothing that looks to have been worn. He picks it up. A bit of color catches his eye, blood on the left cuff. A few
drops like an ellipsis. But enough for the police to find if they search the room thoroughly.

Evelyn might be right. They might simply be able to pin those murders on Louis Lynch. They belong to him, anyway. Come here, sweetie, let Momma stick this note to your shirt so you don’t
lose it on the way to school.

But Eugene doesn’t think a switchblade knife and a shirt with blood on it will be enough to do the job. That police detective, Bachman, saw him at the murder scene, saw him drop one of the
murder weapons. A knife and a few splashes of blood won’t convince him that someone else did the murders. Without a story to make them mean something, a knife and a shirt are just random
items. Even if the police searched this room and found them, Eugene would remain the most likely suspect. The police have a story for him. They have motive, and they have him at the scene. They
search this room, what do they have? A switchblade knife like a million other switchblade knives and a few drops of blood that could be the result of careless shaving.

He closes the suitcase. He needs more.

He looks to the small leatherette case. He unlatches it and pulls open the top, revealing a black Royal typewriter. He looks down at its QWERTY grin.

What were you expecting, the queen of England?

For some time he merely stands there unthinking. Then turns in a circle, looking around the room, not quite sure what he’s looking for. Then once more looking at the typewriter it comes to
him. He needs a piece of paper. He walks to the desk and finds a few sheets of hotel stationery there. He peels off the top sheet and rolls it into the typewriter. He stares down at the keys for a
long time, puts his fingers against them. The gloves provide a distance he doesn’t like. It makes him feel disconnected from what he’s doing. He misses the feel of cool plastic against
the pads of his fingers. He begins typing, simply banging out the first words that come to mind:

He looks down at the words hammered into the paper. The ribbon needs replacing. The letters are light gray and difficult to read. The ‘t’ is angled to the right, making it look like
a malformed ‘x’. The ‘h’ sits higher on the line than the other letters.

This, he can do something with. He knows it. But he needs a story and he has no idea what that story will be.

Could he simply call the police and let them know this room is here? Would they create their own story? This typewriter is the typewriter on which his blackmail note was hammered out. He left
the note on his table at home, so the police are certain to have picked it up. The switchblade knife in the nightstand is of the same kind as that which was used to stab the cop who he is suspected
of murdering. The blood on the shirt cuff is evidence that something happened. It is, at least, if you add in the other evidence. And the police should be able to match the blood type to one of the
victims. Would a simple phone call be enough? He thinks there’s a chance it would.