A quarter of a mile from the Bowden house was the freeway, running eight lanes wide. A steep and brushy bank led down to it. There was plenty of good cover on the bank. His father had given him a Winchester .30-.30 for Christmas, and it had a removable telescopic sight. During rush hour, when all eight lanes were jammed, he could pick a spot on that bank and ... why, he could easily...
Do what?
Commit suicide?
Destroy everything he had worked for these last four years? Say what?
No sir, no ma'am, no way.
It is, as they say, to laugh.
Sure it was ... but the impulse remained.
One Saturday a few weeks before his high school graduation, Todd cased the .30-.30 after carefully emptying the magazine. He put the rifle in the back seat of his father's new toy--a used Porsche. He drove to the spot where the brushy slope dropped steeply down to the freeway. His mother and father had taken the station wagon and had driven to L.A. for the weekend. Dick, now a full partner, would be holding discussions with the Hyatt people about a new Reno hotel.
Todd's heart bumped in his chest and his mouth was full of sour, electric spit as he worked his way down the grade with the cased rifle in his arms. He came to a fallen tree and sat cross-legged behind it. He uncased the rifle and laid it on the dead tree's smooth trunk. A branch jutting off at an angle made a nice rest for the barrel. He snugged the buttplate into the hollow of his right shoulder and peered into the telescopic sight.
Stupid! his mind screamed at him. Boy, this is really stupid! If someone sees you, it's not going to matter if the gun's loaded or not! You'll get in plenty of trouble, maybe even end up with some Chippie shooting at you!
It was mid-morning and the Saturday traffic was light. He settled the crosshairs on a woman behind the wheel of a blue Toyota. The woman's window was half-open and the round collar of her sleeveless blouse was fluttering. Todd centered the crosshairs on her temple and dry-fired. It was bad for the firing-pin, but what the fuck.
"Pow," he whispered as the Toyota disappeared beneath the underpass half a mile up from the slope where Todd sat. He swallowed around a lump that tasted like a stuck-together mass of pennies.
Here came a man behind the wheel of a Subaru Brat pickup truck. This man had a scuzzy-looking gray beard and was wearing a San Diego Padres baseball hat.
"You're . . . you're a dirty rat... the dirty rat that shot my bruddah," Todd whispered, giggling a little, and dry-fired the .30-.30 again.
He shot at five others, the impotent snap of the hammer spoiling the illusion at the end of each "kill." Then he cased the rifle again. He carried it back up the slope, bending low to keep from being seen. He put it into the back of the Porsche. There was a dry hot pounding in his temples. He drove home. Went up to his room. Masturbated.
17
The stewbum was wearing a ragged, unravelling reindeer sweater that looked so startling it almost seemed surreal here in southern California. He also wore seaman's issue bluejeans which were out at the knees, showing white, hairy flesh and a number of peeling scabs. He raised the jelly-glass--Fred and Wilma, Barney and Betty dancing around the rim in what might have been some grotesque fertility rite--and tossed off the knock of Ancient Age at a gulp. He smacked his lips for the last time in this world.
"Mister, that hits the old spot. I don't mind saying so."
"I always enjoy a drink in the evening," Dussander agreed from behind him, and then rammed the butcher knife into the stewbum's neck. There was the sound of ripping gristle, a sound like a drumstick being torn enthusiastically from a freshly roasted chicken. The jelly-glass fell from the stewbum's hand and onto the table. It rolled toward the edge, its movement enhancing the illusion that the cartoon characters on it were dancing.
The stewbum threw his head back and tried to scream. Nothing came out but a hideous whistling sound. His eyes widened, widened . . . and then his head thumped soggily onto the red and white oilcloth check that covered Dussander's kitchen table. The stewbum's upper plate slithered halfway out of his mouth like a semi-detachable grin.
Dussander yanked the knife free--he had to use both hands to do it--and crossed to the kitchen sink. It was filled with hot water, Lemon Fresh Joy, and dirty supper dishes. The knife disappeared into a billow of citrus-smelling suds like a very small fighter plane diving into a cloud.
He crossed to the table again and paused there, resting one hand on the dead stewbum's shoulder while a spasm of coughing rattled through him. He took his handkerchief from his back pocket and spat yellowish-brown phlegm into it. He had been smoking too much lately. He always did when he was making up his mind to do another one. But this one had gone smoothly; really very smoothly. He had been afraid after the mess he had made with the last one that he might be tempting fate sorely to try it again.
Now, if he hurried, he would still be able to watch the second half of Lawrence Welk.
He bustled across the kitchen, opened the cellar door, and turned on the light switch. He went back to the sink and got the package of green plastic garbage bags from the cupboard beneath. He shook one out as he walked back to the slumped wino. Blood had run across the oilcloth in all directions. It had puddled in the wino's lap and on the hilly, faded linoleum. It would be on the chair, too, but all of those things would clean up.
Dussander grabbed the stewbum by the hair and yanked his head up. It came with boneless ease, and a moment later the wino was lolling backwards, like a man about to get a pre-haircut shampoo. Dussander pulled the garbage bag down over the wino's head, over his shoulders, and down his arms to the elbows. That was as far as it would go. He unbuckled his late guest's belt and pulled it free of the fraying belt-loops. He wrapped the belt around the garbage bag two or three inches above the elbows and buckled it tight. Plastic rustled. Dussander began to hum under his breath.
The wino's feet were clad in scuffed and dirty Hush Puppies. They made a limp V on the floor as Dussander seized the belt and dragged the corpse toward the cellar door. Something white tumbled out of the plastic bag and clicked on the floor. It was the stewbum's upper plate, Dussander saw. He picked it up and stuffed it into one of the wino's front pockets.
He laid the wino down in the cellar doorway with his head now lolling backward onto the second stair-level. Dussander climbed around the body and gave it three healthy kicks. The body moved slightly on the first two, and the third sent it slithering bonelessly down the stairs. Halfway down, the feet flew up over the head and the body executed an acrobatic roll. It belly-whopped onto the packed dirt of the cellar floor with a solid thud. One Hush Puppy flew off, and Dussander made a mental note to pick it up.
He went down the stairs, skirted the body, and approached his toolbench. To the left of the bench a spade, a rake, and a hoe leaned against the wall in a neat rank. Dussander selected the spade. A little exercise was good for an old man. A little exercise could make you feel young.
The smell down here was not good, but it didn't bother him much. He limed the place once a month (once every three days after he had "done" one of his winos) and he had gotten a fan which he ran upstairs to keep the smell from permeating the house on very warm still days. Josef Kramer, he remembered, had been fond of saying that the dead speak, but we hear them with our noses.
Dussander picked a spot in the cellar's north comer and went to work. The dimensions of the grave were two and a half feet by six feet. He had gotten to a depth of two feet, half deep enough, when the first paralyzing pain struck him in the chest like a shotgun blast. He straightened up, eyes flaring wide. Then the pain rolled down his arm ... unbelievable pain, as if an invisible hand had seized all the blood-vessels in there and was now pulling them. He watched the spade tumble sideways and felt his knees buckle. For one horrible moment he felt sure that he was going to fall into the grave himself.
Somehow he staggered backwards three paces and sat down on his workbench with a plop. There was an expression of stupid surprise on his face--he could feel it--and he
thought he must look like one of those silent movie comedians after he'd been hit by the swinging door or stepped in the cow patty. He put his head down between his knees and gasped.
Fifteen minutes crawled by. The pain had begun to abate somewhat, but he did not believe he would be able to stand. For the first time he understood all the truths of old age which he had been spared until now. He was terrified almost to the point of whimpering. Death had brushed by him in this dank, smelly cellar; it had touched Dussander with the hem of its robe. It might be back for him yet. But he would not die down here; not if he could help it.
He got up, hands still crossed on his chest, as if to hold the fragile machinery together. He staggered across the open space between the workbench and the stairs. His left foot tripped over the dead wino's outstretched leg and he went to his knees with a small cry. There was a sullen flare of pain in his chest. He looked up the stairs--the steep, steep stairs. Twelve of them. The square of light at the top was mockingly distant.
"Ein, " Kurt Dussander said, and pulled himself grimly up onto the first stair-level. "Zwei, Drei,Vier."
It took him twenty minutes to reach the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Twice, on the stairs, the pain had threatened to come back, and both times Dussander had waited with his eyes closed to see what would happen, perfectly aware that if it came back as strongly as it had come upon him down there, he would probably die. Both times the pain had faded away again.
He crawled across the kitchen floor to the table, avoiding the pools and streaks of blood, which were now congealing. He got the bottle of Ancient Age, took a swallow, and closed his eyes. Something that had been cinched tight in his chest seemed to loosen a little. The pain faded a bit more. After another five minutes he began to work his way slowly down the hall. His telephone sat on a small table halfway down.
It was quarter past nine when the phone rang in the Bowden house. Todd was sitting cross-legged on the couch, going over his notes for the trig final. Trig was a bitch for him, as all maths were and probably always would be. His father was seated across the room, going through the checkbook stubs with a portable calculator on his lap and a mildly disbelieving expression on his face. Monica, closest to the phone, was watching the James Bond movie Todd had taped off HBO two evenings before.
"Hello?" She listened. A faint frown touched her face and she held the handset out to Todd. "It's Mr. Denker. He sounds excited about something. Or upset."
Todd's heart leaped into his throat, but his expression hardly changed. "Really?" He went to the phone and took it from her. "Hi, Mr. Denker."
Dussander's voice was hoarse and short. "Come over right away, boy. I've had a heart attack. Quite a bad one, I think."
"Gee," Todd said, trying to collect his flying thoughts, to see around the fear that now bulked huge in his own mind.
"That's interesting, all right, but it's pretty late and I was studying--"
"I understand that you cannot talk," Dussander said in that harsh, almost barking voice. "But you can listen. I cannot call an ambulance or dial two-two-two, boy ... at least not yet. There is a mess here. I need help... and that means you need help."
"Well . . . if you put it that way . . ." Todd's heartbeat had reached a hundred and twenty beats a minute, but his face was calm, almost serene. Hadn't he known all along that a night like this would come? Yes, of course he had.
"Tell your parents I've had a letter," Dussander said. "An important letter. You understand?"
"Yeah, okay," Todd said.
"Now we see, boy. We see what you are made of."
"Sure," Todd said. He suddenly became aware that his mother was watching him instead of the movie, and he forced a stiff grin onto his face. "Bye."
Dussander was saying something else now, but Todd hung up on it.
"I'm going over to Mr. Denker's for awhile," he said, speaking to both of them but looking at his mother--that faint expression of concern was still on her face. "Can I pick up anything for either of you at the store?"
"Pipe cleaners for me and a small package of fiscal responsibility for your mother," Dick said.
"Very funny," Monica said. "Todd, is Mr. Denker--"
"What in the name of God did you get at Fielding's?" Dick interrupted.
"That knick-knack shelf in the closet. I told you that. There's nothing wrong with Mr. Denker, is there, Todd? He sounded a little strange."
"There really are such things as knick-knack shelves? I thought those crazy women who write British mysteries made them up so there would always be a place where the killer could find a blunt instrument."
"Dick, can I get a word in edgeways?"
"Sure. Be my guest. But for the closet?"
"He's okay, I guess," Todd said. He put on his letter jacket and zipped it up. "But he was excited. He got a letter from a nephew of his in Hamburg or Dusseldorf or someplace. He hasn't heard from any of his people in years, and now he's got this letter and his eyes aren't good enough for him to read it."
"Well isn't that a bitch," Dick said. "Go on, Todd. Get over there and ease the man's mind."
"I thought he had someone to read to him," Monica said. "A new boy."
"He does," Todd said, suddenly hating his mother, hating the half-informed intuition he saw swimming in her eyes.
"Maybe he wasn't home, or maybe he couldn't come over this late."
"Oh. Well ... go on, then. But be careful."
"I will. You don't need anything at the store?"
"No. How's your studying for that calculus final going?"
"It's trig," Todd said. "Okay, I guess. I was just getting ready to call it a night." This was a rather large lie.
"You want to take the Porsche?" Dick asked.
"No, I'll ride my bike." He wanted the extra five minutes to collect his thoughts and get his emotions under control--to try, at least. And in his present state, he would probably drive the Porsche into a telephone pole.
"Strap your reflector-patch on your knee," Monica said, "and tell Mr. Denker hello for us."
"Okay."
That doubt was still in his mother's eyes but it was less evident now. He blew her a kiss and then went out to the garage where his bike--a racing-style Italian bike rather than a Schwinn now--was parked. His heart was still racing in his chest, and he felt a mad urge to take the .30-.30 back into the house and shoot both of his parents and then go down to the slope overlooking the freeway. No more worrying about Dussander. No more bad dreams, no more winos. He would shoot and shoot and shoot, only saving one bullet back for the end.
Then reason came back to him and he rode away toward Dussander's, his reflector-patch revolving up and down just above his knee, his long blonde hair streaming back from his brow.
"Holy Christ!" Todd nearly screamed.
He was standing in the kitchen door. Dussander was slumped on his elbows, his china cup between them. Large drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. But it was not Dussander Todd was looking at. It was the blood. There seemed to be blood everywhere--it was puddled on the table, on the empty kitchen chair, on the floor.
"Where are you bleeding?" Todd shouted, at last getting his frozen feet to move again--it seemed to him that he had been standing in the doorway for at least a thousand years. This is the end, he was thinking, this is the absolute end of everything. The balloon is going up high, baby, all the way to the sky, baby, and it's toot-toot-tootsie, goodbye. All the same, he was careful not to step in any of the blood. "I thought you said you had a fucking heart attack!"
"It's not my blood," Dussander muttered.
"What?" Todd stopped. "What did you say?"
"Go downstairs. You will see what has to be done."
"What the hell is this?" Todd asked. A sudden terrible idea had come into his head.
"Don't waste our time, boy. I think you will not be too surprised at what you find downstairs. I think you have had experience in such matters as the one in my cellar. First-hand experience."
Todd looked at him, unbeli
eving, for another moment, and then he plunged down the cellar stairs two by two. His first look in the feeble yellow glow of the basement's only light made him think that Dussander had pushed a bag of garbage down here. Then he saw the protruding legs, and the dirty hands held down at the sides by the cinched belt.
"Holy Christ," he repeated, but this time the words had no force at all--they emerged in a slight, skeletal whisper.
He pressed the back of his right hand against lips that were as dry as sandpaper. He closed his eyes for a moment... and when he opened them again, he felt in control of himself at last.
Todd started moving.
He saw the spade-handle protruding from a shallow hole in the far corner and understood at once what Dussander had been doing when his ticker had seized up. A moment later he became fully aware of the cellar's fetid aroma--a smell like rotting tomatoes. He had smelled it before, but upstairs it was much fainter--and, of course, he hadn't been here very often over the past couple of years. Now he understood exactly what that smell meant and for several moments he had to struggle with his gorge. A series of choked gagging sounds, muffled by the hand he had clapped over his mouth and nose, came from him.
Little by little he got control of himself again.
He seized the wino's legs and dragged him across to the edge of the hole. He dropped them, skidded sweat from his forehead with the heel of his left hand, and stood absolutely still for a moment, thinking harder than he ever had in his life.
Then he seized the spade and began to deepen the hole. When it was five feet deep, he got out and shoved the derelict's body in with his foot. Todd stood at the edge of the grave, looking down. Tattered bluejeans. Filthy, scab-encrusted hands. It was a stewbum, all right. The irony was almost funny. So funny a person could scream with laughter.
He ran back upstairs.
"How are you?" he asked Dussander.
"I'll be all right. Have you taken care of it?"
"I'm doing it, okay?"
"Be quick. There's still up here."
"I'd like to find some pigs and feed you to them," Todd said, and went back down cellar before Dussander could reply.