Authors: Jack Ketchum
Finally!
The house was silent.
He considered a moment and then slid out from behind the wheel, walked the path to the steps and up them and pressed the doorbell right away before he lost his nerve. He waited, wetted a forefinger with his tongue and ran it over his eyebrows. He breathed into the palm of his hand and decided his breath was fine.
After a while the door opened and it was the man he’d seen in photos in her living room. Her father was a big man. That was what hit him right away. Six feet or more. Imposing. Second thing, that the guy had been crying. His eyes were rimmed red and puffy. That a stranger should see him like this didn’t seem to bother him. Ray put out his hand and her father stared at it a moment and then gave it a brief shake. The grasp was neither particularly strong nor weak.
“My name’s Ray Pye, Mr. Wallace. A friend of Katherine’s. I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”
“Thank you.”
The man just stared at him as though dazed, didn’t invite him in. Like he was waiting for Ray to do or say something else. His white shirt was rumpled and his pants had lost their crease. Ray didn’t get it. The wife had died over a week ago. What would a big successful guy like this be doing still all bent out of shape after all this time? Get on with it for godsakes. He guessed Katherine got her nerve from her crazy mother.
He could see their bags in the hallway.
He guessed they’d just got in.
“Is Kath . . . is she available? I’d like to give her my condolences.”
He nodded. “Certainly. Come inside.”
About fucking time.
“Katherine?” He called up the stairs but she didn’t answer. “Someone to see you, Kath. Please, sit down Mr. Pye.”
He pointed to the sofa where a week ago she’d straddled him.
“I have some papers, some things to do in the study. I’m sure she won’t be long.”
He shuffled along down the hall and through a doorway to a room he’d never been in. Ray had the uncomfortable feeling that throughout their entire exchange not once had the guy really seen him. Like to this guy he was invisible. Some voice on the doorstep.
He heard her footsteps on the stairs. He turned and saw her stop and look at him and then glance down the hall toward the study where her father had just gone and he couldn’t tell if she was happy to see him or what so he just stood and smiled.
“Hey, Kath.”
“Ray, what are you doing here? We just got back.” She glanced down the hall again. “Come on, come on outside with me.”
He made the smile into a grin. “I just got
in
side.”
“Come on, Ray.” She took him by the arm and led him back out through the door. They stood on the porch and he could see she was nervous. He figured some sympathy was probably in order.
“He doesn’t look too good, Kath. I guess he’s still pretty messed up about this thing, isn’t he.”
“Yes. He is.”
Like
of course
he is. Like
it goes without saying
.
He didn’t get that either. But he knew he’d better let it slide.
“How about you? You okay?”
“I’m okay. I’m fine. But you shouldn’t be here, Ray. I mean, we just walked through the door half an hour ago, you know?”
“I needed to see you, Kath. Man, you don’t know how much I did. Why didn’t you call me? I
missed
you.”
“I couldn’t call you.”
“Why not? A phone call?”
“Look Ray, we’ll talk. We’ll talk later. I’ll . . . I’ll phone you tomorrow once we’re settled in, okay?”
“Tomorrow? Christ, Kath. You been gone a whole week.”
“All right. Okay, tonight. I’ll phone you tonight, all right? But you’ve really got to go, Ray. Really.”
“What? You ashamed of me all of a sudden?” He smiled again.
She didn’t.
And for a moment he thought,
Uh-oh, she fucking is
and then he thought,
she can’t be. Not after all we did. She’s just upset about her father. That’s all
.
“I’ll call you tonight and we’ll talk. Okay? ’Bye, Ray.”
She stepped inside and closed the door. Standing there he could hear birds in the trees and a car a few blocks away somewhere heading down the mountain and that was all. He walked back to the Chevy and got in and sat there a moment before turning the key in the ignition, feeling a slow black suspicion creep over him like a shadow. The back of his white cotton shirt was damp with sweat.
She was playing him. Playing him like a goddamn guitar
.
How the hell could that be?
You couldn’t play Ray Pye.
He
did the playing.
Fuck it. Wait until tonight, he thought. She’s got some explaining to do, that’s all. Don’t even give it a thought until then.
But he was
always
waiting on her it seemed and that was going to have to stop. He’d tell her that when she phoned him. Enough with the
wait until this, wait until that
. No fucking chick was going to keep telling him to wait all the time. Not even Katherine. She was going to have to revise her behavior.
At the red light in front of Sam’s Sporting Goods he glanced in through the shop window and saw Sally Richmond behind the counter ringing something up on the register for some asshole kid in cutoff denims and a khaki fishing cap. Under the fishing cap the guy’s hair was longer than Sally’s was and under the hair was a bushy brown beard. Sally was smiling. So was the fucking hippie. So the little bitch had got herself another job already. Pretty fast in a town this size. He wondered who she had to fuck in order to get it.
It was nice being able to keep track of her, though. To know where she was in case he felt like fucking her up sometime. Which he just might one of these days. What he’d ever thought he needed from some snotty little cunt like her he couldn’t imagine unless it was to rip her fucking heart out and shove it down her throat but he guessed that was always an option.
Fifteen minutes later just before the beginning of Happy Hour at Teddy Panik’s Ed drove by Sam’s too and saw Sally inside with Sam and watched her concentrating, checking off items on an invoice sheet. She had her hair in a ponytail pulled back tight. As usual she wore no makeup and to Ed it looked like her beautiful pale skin was glowing under the fluorescent lights. Not even fluorescents could paste-out Sally Richmond.
You should go apologize to her, you damn fool
, he thought.
You should park the car and wait till Sam’s in back and there’s nobody else around and go in there and just say you’re sorry and be done with it. Say your piece and walk away. Then it’s in her hands as to whether you get yourself forgiven or not. There’s weeks yet before she goes to school. How many really good weeks are you going to see in this life? You want to spend this next month gardening?
You damned fool
.
The light went green and he slowly pulled away.
Most working folks in Sparta ate dinner early so Schilling gave it till six-thirty when he figured the Bess family would be finished with their meal and then drove over. He parked on the downhill side next to a scraggly old maple tree that had seen better days. The tent caterpillars were bad this year and the maple was going to have to struggle to make it through the coming winter.
The Bess place had seen better days too. Cracks on the walk and on the stairs. White paint peeling on the porch. The hedges needed trimming. Somebody’d recently mown the lawn and that was about it. He knew it wasn’t that Lenny Bess didn’t have the time but that repairs cost money. He remembered he’d promised him to keep an eye out for some work for him. He hadn’t.
When he knocked it was Lenny who opened the screen door and let him in, Lenny smiling, welcoming, wearing a worn white T-shirt, scuffed shoes and dirty khakis, the uniform of the working carpenter, Lenny asking him would he like a beer or a cup of coffee and him refusing and it was simple guilt he guessed because practically the first thing out of Schilling’s mouth was to wonder if maybe he could make a little time this week to come over to his place to have a look at one of his kitchen cabinets, it was out of plumb and falling off its hinges—true enough, he’d noticed it cleaning up this morning—but simple guilt anyway for not asking around for work for him when easily he could have and guilt for what he was about to do to Lenny’s son:
Their television set was a black-and-white Zenith. The evening news was on. Their living room was vintage Sears but Clara kept it tidy. He could see her in the kitchen cleaning up the dinner dishes, unaware of him over the din of running water and the television. Lenny gestured to an overstuffed easy chair and moved to turn the news off but Schilling said that’s all right, leave it on.
“It’s Tim I’m really here to see, Lenny.”
He watched the man’s face turn serious.
“Is there some kind of trouble?”
“No trouble. Not that I know of. I just want to ask him a few questions. He around?”
“Upstairs in his room.”
“You mind calling him down here?”
“He’s probably got his TV on. I’ll go get him.”
He wondered if Tim’s TV was color.
He watched Lenny disappear up the stairs and realized how strange a body the man had, thick long arms and bandy legs and stooped shoulders. The work, maybe, had a tendency to deform you. On the news they were wrapping up a story about the Los Angeles arrest of twenty-six suspects in an auto-theft ring on some abandoned movie set called the Spahn Ranch, way out in the middle of nowhere. Its owner was an eighty-year-old blind man who said he knew that there were people living on the ranch but was unaware of how many or of any criminal activity going on. The suspects had been stealing Volkswagens and converting them into dune buggies. A sizable arsenal of weapons had been found.
They were moving on to a piece about the Woodstock Festival, which looked to Schilling like a nightmare of mud, traffic and bad sanitation, when Bess came down the stairs walking behind his son. Tim was barefoot, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt. He looked pale and startled and trying hard not to show it. They sat down on the couch across from him.
“No problem, right?” Lenny said. His smile was strained.
“That’s right. Just like I said. How are you, Tim?”
Tim shrugged and spoke to the floor. “Okay.”
“Working for your dad?”
“Sometimes. You know. When he needs a hand.”
Schilling heard the water go off in the kitchen. In a minute Clara’d be out here. He didn’t want that. It would tend to complicate things.
“Lenny, could I ask you a big favor?”
“Sure.”
“Could I speak to Tim alone for a few minutes? It won’t take long, I promise.”
Bess didn’t like the idea much, that was obvious. He sat back and spread his big scarred hands.
“I dunno, Charlie. What’s all this about?”
“Trust me on this one. It’s just going to be harder for Tim to speak freely to me with his parents around. You can understand that, can’t you? From his point of view?”
“Sure. I guess.” He hesitated. “But I dunno. I’m his father. You’re sure he’s not in any trouble? Because if he is . . .”
“He isn’t. You have my word on it. This is all about somebody he knows, not about Tim.”
Comprehension lit his face. “Ray Pye. Just like last time. Got to be.”
Schilling just looked at him. “Please. Could we have a couple of minutes, Len?”
“All right.”
He got up and went into the kitchen and Schilling heard murmured voices, Clara’s voice worried, Lenny’s reassuring. Tim was still staring at the floor. He was sprawled spread-legged on the couch, fiddling with an elastic band between his fingers. The picture of adolescent nonchalance. Which was the same as saying he was nervous as hell.
“Tell me about Jennifer Fitch, Tim.”
The kid was expecting this to be about Ray. It was a curve ball and it got his attention.
“Jennifer?”
“That’s right. What can you tell me about her? Where she lives. Who her friends are. That kind of thing.”
“Jeez, I dunno. She lives with the Griffiths over on Poplar Avenue. Mr. and Mrs. Griffth. Jennifer’s like an orphan, y’know?”
“So we’re talking foster home here?”
“Yeah.”
“She showed me her ID. She’s old enough to be out on her own. So how come the Griffiths?”
“The Griffiths are just . . . nice people I guess. They let her stay.”
“She have a job? Contribute any money?”
“I dunno. I think she works sometimes. Part-time. Stuff like that.”
“You sound like you don’t know her too well.”
He shrugged.
“I can find out one way or another. Might as well talk to me, Tim.”
“I guess . . . yeah, I know her pretty well I guess.”
“She deal any drugs?”