He had almost completely covered the wino when he began to think there was something wrong. He stared into the grave, grasping the spade's handle with one hand. The wino's legs stuck partway out of the mound of dirt, as did the tips of his feet--one old shoe, possibly a Hush Puppy, and one filthy athletic sock that might actually have been white around the time that Taft was President.
One Hush Puppy? One?
Todd half-ran back around the furnace to the foot of the stairs. He glanced around wildly. A headache was beginning to thud against his temples, dull drillbits trying to work their way out. He spotted the old shoe five feet away, overturned in the shadow of some abandoned shelving. Todd grabbed it, ran back to the grave with it, and threw it in. Then he started to shovel again. He covered the shoe, the legs, everything.
When all the dirt was back in the hole, he slammed the spade down repeatedly to tamp it. Then he grabbed the rake and ran it back and forth, trying to disguise the fact the earth here had been recently turned. Not much use; without good camouflage, a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in always looks like a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in. Still, no one would have any occasion to come down here, would they? He and Dussander would damn well have to hope not.
Todd ran back upstairs. He was starting to pant.
Dussander's elbows had spread wide and his head had sagged down to the table. His eyes were closed, the lids a shiny purple--the color of asters.
"Dussander!" Todd shouted. There was a hot, juicy taste in his mouth--the taste of fear mixed with adrenaline and pulsing hot blood. "Don't you dare die on me, you old fuck!"
"Keep your voice down," Dussander said without opening his eyes. "You'll have everyone on the block over here."
"Where's your cleaner? Lestoil ... Top Job ... something like that. And rags. I need rags."
"All that is under the sink."
A lot of the blood had now dried on. Dussander raised his head and watched as Todd crawled across the floor, scrubbing first at the puddle on the linoleum and then at the drips that had straggled down the legs of the chair the wino had been sitting in. The boy was biting compulsively at his lips, champing at them, almost, like a horse at a bit. At last the job was finished. The astringent smell of cleaner filled the room.
"There is a box of old rags under the stairs," Dussander said. "Put those bloody ones on the bottom. Don't forget to wash your hands."
"I don't need your advice. You got me into this."
"Did I? I must say you took hold well." For a moment the old mockery was in Dussander's voice, and then a bitter grimace pulled his face into a new shape. "Hurry."
Todd took care of the rags, then hurried up the cellar stairs for the last time. He looked nervously down the stairs for a moment, then snapped off the light and closed the door. He went to the sink, rolled up his sleeves, and washed in the hottest water he could stand. He plunged his hands into the suds ... and came up holding the butcher knife Dussander had used.
"I'd like to cut your throat with this," Todd said grimly.
"Yes, and then feed me to the pigs. I have no doubt of it."
Todd rinsed the knife, dried it, and put it away. He did the rest of the dishes quickly, let the water out, and rinsed the sink. He looked at the clock as he dried his hands and saw it was twenty minutes after ten.
He went to the phone in the hallway, picked up the receiver, and looked at it thoughtfully. The idea that he had forgotten something--something as potentially damning as the wino's shoe--nagged unpleasantly at his mind. What? He didn't know. If not for the headache, he might be able to get it. The triple-damned headache. It wasn't like him to forget things, and it was scary.
He dialed 222 and after a single ring, a voice answered:
"This is Santo Donato MED-Q. Do you have a medical problem?"
"My name is Todd Bowden. I'm at 963 Claremont Street. I need an ambulance."
"What's the problem, son?"
"It's my friend, Mr. D--" He bit down on his lip so hard that it squirted blood, and for a moment he was lost, drowning in the pulses of pain from his head. Dussander. He had almost given this anonymous MED-Q voice Dussander's real name.
"Calm down, son," the voice said. "Take it slow and you'll be fine."
"My friend Mr. Denker," Todd said. "I think he's had a heart attack."
"His symptoms?"
Todd began to give them, but the voice had heard enough as soon as Todd described the chest pain that had migrated to the left arm. He told Todd the ambulance would arrive in ten to twenty minutes, depending on the traffic. Todd hung up and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"Did you get it?" Dussander called weakly.
"Yes!" Todd screamed. "Yes, I got it! Yes goddammit yes! Yes yes yes! Just shut up!"
He pressed his hands even harder against his eyes, creating first senseless starflashes of light and then a bright field of red. Get hold of yourself, Todd-baby. Get down, get funky, get cool. Dig it.
He opened his eyes and picked up the telephone again. Now the hard part. Now it was time to call home.
"Hello?" Monica's soft, cultured voice in his ear. For a moment--just a moment--he saw himself slamming the muzzle of the .30-.30 into her nose and pulling the trigger into the first flow of blood.
"It's Todd, Mommy. Let me talk to Dad, quick."
He didn't call her mommy anymore. He knew she would get that signal quicker than anything else, and she did. "What's the matter? Is something wrong, Todd?"
"Just let me talk to him!"
"But what--"
The phone rattled and clunked. He heard his mother saying something to his father. Todd got ready.
"It's Mr. Denker, Daddy. He ... it's a heart attack, I think. I'm pretty sure it is."
"Jesus!" His father's voice lagged away for a moment and Todd heard him repeating the information to his wife. Then he was back. "He's still alive? As far as you can tell?"
"He's alive. Conscious."
"All right, thank God for that. Call an ambulance."
"I just did."
"Two-two-two?"
"Yes."
"Good boy. How bad is he, can you tell?"
"I don't know, Dad. They said the ambulance would be here soon, but... I'm sorta scared. Can you come over and wait with me?"
"You bet. Give me four minutes."
Todd could hear his mother saying something else as his father hung up, breaking the connection. Todd replaced the receiver on his end.
Four minutes.
Four minutes to do anything that had been left undone. Four minutes to remember whatever it was that had been forgotten. Or had he forgotten anything? Maybe it was just nerves. God, he wished he hadn't had to call his father. But it was the natural thing to do, wasn't it? Sure. Was there some natural thing that he hadn't done? Something--?
"Oh, you shit-for-brains!" he suddenly moaned, and bolted back into the kitchen. Dussander's head lay on the table, his eyes half-open, sluggish.
"Dussander!" Todd cried. He shook Dussander roughly, and the old man groaned. "Wake up! Wake up, you stinking old bastard!"
"What? Is it the ambulance?"
"The letter! My father is coming over, he'll be here in no time. Where's the fucking letter?"
"What . . . what letter?"
"You told me to tell them you got an important letter. I said ..." His heart sank. "I said it came from overseas ... from Germany. Christ!" Todd ran his hands through his hair.
"A letter." Dussander raised his head with slow difficulty. His seamed cheeks were an unhealthy yellowish-white, his lips blue. "From Willi, I think. Willi Frankel. Dear ... dear Willi."
Todd looked at his watch and saw that already two minutes had passed since he had hung up the phone. His father would not, could not make it from their house to Dussander's in four minutes, but he could do it damn fast in the Porsche. Fast, that was it. Everything was moving too fast. And there was still something wrong here; he felt it. But there was no time to sto
p and hunt around for the loophole.
"Yes, okay, I was reading it to you, and you got excited and had this heart attack. Good. Where is it?"
Dussander looked at him blankly.
"The letter! Where is it?"
"What letter?" Dussander asked vacantly, and Todd's hands itched to throttle the drunken old monster.
"The one I was reading to you! The one from Willi What's-his-face! Where is it?"
They both looked at the table, as if expecting to see the letter materialize there.
"Upstairs," Dussander said finally. "Look in my dresser. The third drawer. There is a small wooden box in the bottom of that drawer. You will have to break it open. I lost the key a long time ago. There are some very old letters from a friend of mine. None signed. None dated. All in German. A page or two will serve for window-fittings, as you would say. If you hurry--"
"Are you crazy?" Todd raged. "I don't understand German! How could I read you a letter written in German, you numb fuck?"
"Why would Willi write me in English?" Dussander countered wearily. "If you read me the letter in German, I would understand it even if you did not. Of course your pronunciation would be butchery, but still, I could--"
Dussander was right--right again, and Todd didn't wait to hear more. Even after a heart attack the old man was a step ahead. Todd raced down the hall to the stairs, pausing just long enough by the front door to make sure his father's Porsche wasn't pulling up even now. It wasn't, but Todd's watch told him just how tight things were getting; it had been five minutes now.
He took the stairs two at a time and burst into Dussander's bedroom. He had never been up here before, hadn't even been curious, and for a moment he only looked wildly around at the unfamiliar territory. Then he saw the dresser, a cheap item done in the style his father called Discount Store Modern. He fell on his knees in front of it and yanked at the third drawer. It came halfway out, then jigged sideways in its slot and stuck firmly.
"Goddam you," he whispered at it. His face was dead pale except for the spots of dark, bloody color flaring at each cheek and his blue eyes, which looked as dark as Atlantic storm-clouds. "Goddam you fucking thing come out!"
He yanked so hard that the entire dresser tottered forward and almost fell on him before deciding to settle back. The drawer shot all the way out and landed in Todd's lap. Dussander's socks and underwear and handkerchiefs spilled out all around him. He pawed through the stuff that was still in the drawer and came out with a wooden box about nine inches long and three inches deep. He tried to pull up the lid. Nothing happened. It was locked, just as Dussander had said. Nothing was free tonight.
He stuffed the spilled clothes back into the drawer and then rammed the drawer back into its oblong slot. It stuck again. Todd worked to free it, wiggling it back and forth, sweat running freely down his face. At last he was able to slam it shut. He got up with the box. How much time had passed now?
Dussander's bed was the type with posts at the foot and Todd brought the lock side of the box down on one of these posts as hard as he could, grinning at the shock of pain that vibrated in his hands and travelled all the way up to his elbows. He looked at the lock. The lock looked a bit dented, but it was intact. He brought it down on the post again, even harder this time, heedless of the pain. This time a chunk of wood flew off the bedpost, but the lock still didn't give. Todd uttered a little shriek of laughter and took the box to the other end of the bed. He raised it high over his head this time and brought it down with all his strength. This time the lock splintered.
As he flipped the lid up, headlights splashed across Dussander's window.
He pawed wildly through the box. Postcards. A locket. A much-folded picture of a woman wearing frilly black garters and nothing else. An old billfold. Several sets of ID. An empty leather passport folder. At the bottom, letters.
The lights grew brighter, and now he heard the distinctive beat of the Porsche's engine. It grew louder... and then cut off.
Todd grabbed three sheets of airmail-type stationery, closely written in German on both sides of each sheet, and ran out of the room again. He had almost gotten to the stairs when he realized he had left the forced box lying on Dussander's bed. He ran back, grabbed it, and opened the third dresser drawer.
It stuck again, this time with a firm shriek of wood against wood.
Out front, he heard the ratchet of the Porsche's emergency brake, the opening of the driver's side door, the slam shut.
Faintly, Todd could hear himself moaning. He put the box in the askew drawer, stood up, and lashed out at it with his foot. The drawer closed neatly. He stood blinking at it for a moment and then fled back down the hall. He raced down the stairs. Halfway down them, he heard the rapid rattle of his father's shoes on Dussander's walk. Todd vaulted over the bannister, landed lightly, and ran into the kitchen, the airmail pages fluttering from his hand.
A hammering on the door. "Todd? Todd, it's me!"
And he could hear an ambulance siren in the distance as well. Dussander had drifted away into semi-consciousness again.
"Coming, Dad!" Todd shouted.
He put the airmail pages on the table, fanning them a little as if they had been dropped in a hurry, and then he went back down the hall and let his father in.
"Where is he?" Dick Bowden asked, shouldering past Todd.
"In the kitchen."
"You did everything just right, Todd," his father said, and hugged him in a rough, embarrassed way.
"I just hope I remembered everything," Todd said modestly, and then followed his father down the hall and into the kitchen.
In the rush to get Dussander out of the house, the letter was almost completely ignored. Todd's father picked it up briefly, then put it down when the medics came in with the stretcher. Todd and his father followed the ambulance, and his explanation of what had happened was accepted without question by the doctor attending Dussander's case. "Mr. Denker" was, after all, eighty years old, and his habits were not the best. The doctor also offered Todd a brusque commendation for his quick thinking and action. Todd thanked him wanly and then asked his father if they could go home.
As they rode back, Dick told him again how proud of him he was. Todd barely heard him. He was thinking about his .30-.30 again.
18
That was the same day Morris Heisel broke his back.
Morris had never intended to break his back; all he had intended to do was nail up the comer of the rain-gutter on the west side of his house. Breaking his back was the furthest thing from his mind, he had had enough grief in his life without that, thank you very much. His first wife had died at the age of twenty-five, and both of their daughters were also dead. His brother was dead, killed in a tragic car accident not far from Disneyland in 1971. Morris himself was nearing sixty, and had a case of arthritis that was worsening early and fast. He also had warts on both hands, warts that seemed to grow back as fast as the doctor could burn them off. He was also prone to migraine headaches, and in the last couple of years, that potzer Rogan next door had taken to calling him "Morris the Cat." Morris had wondered aloud to Lydia, his second wife, how Rogan would like it if Morris took up calling him "Rogan the hemorrhoid."
"Quit it, Morris," Lydia said on these occasions. "You can't take a joke, you never could take a joke, sometimes I wonder how I could marry a man with absolutely no sense of humor. We go to Las Vegas," Lydia had said, addressing the empty kitchen as if an invisible horde of spectators which only she could see were standing there, "we see Buddy Hackett, and Morris doesn't laugh once."
Besides arthritis, warts, and migraines, Morris also had Lydia, who, God love her, had developed into something of a nag over the last five years or so ... ever since her hysterectomy. So he had plenty of sorrows and plenty of problems without adding a broken back.
"Morris!" Lydia cried, coming to the back door and wiping suds from her hands with a dishtowel. "Morris, you come down off that ladder right now!"
"What?" He twisted his head so
he could see her. He was almost at the top of his aluminum stepladder. There was a bright yellow sticker on this step which said: DANGER! BALANCE MAY SHIFT WITHOUT WARNING ABOVE THIS STEP! Morris was wearing his carpenter's apron with the wide pockets, one of the pockets filled with nails and the other filled with heavy-duty staples. The ground under the stepladder's feet was slightly uneven and the ladder rocked a little when he moved. His neck ached with the unlovely prelude to one of his migraines. He was out of temper. "What?"
"Come down from there, I said, before you break your back."
"I'm almost finished."
"You're rocking on that ladder like you were on a boat, Morris. Come down."
"I'll come down when I'm done!" he said angrily. "Leave me alone!"
"You'll break your back," she reiterated dolefully, and went into the house again.
Ten minutes later, as he was hammering the last nail into the rain-gutter, tipped back nearly to the point of overbalancing, he heard a feline yowl followed by fierce barking.
"What in God's name--?"
He looked around and the stepladder rocked alarmingly. At that same moment, their cat--it was named Lover Boy, not Morris--tore around the comer of the garage, its fur bushed out into hackles and its green eyes flaring. The Rogans' collie pup was in hot pursuit, its tongue hanging out and its leash dragging behind it.
Lover Boy, apparently not superstitious; ran under the stepladder. The collie pup followed.
"Look out, look out, you dumb mutt!" Morris shouted.
The ladder rocked. The pup bunted it with the side of its body. The ladder tipped over and Morris tipped with it, uttering a howl of dismay. Nails and staples flew out of his carpenter's apron. He landed half on and half off the concrete driveway, and a gigantic agony flared in his back. He did not so much hear his spine snap as feel it happen. Then the world grayed out for awhile.
When things swam back into focus, he was still lying half on and half off the driveway in a litter of nails and staples. Lydia was kneeling over him, weeping. Rogan from next door was there, too, his face as white as a shroud.
"I told you!" Lydia babbled. "I told you to come down off that ladder! Now look! Now look at this!"
Morris found he had absolutely no desire to look. A suffocating, throbbing band of pain had cinched itself around his middle like a belt, and that was bad, but there was something much worse: he could feel nothing below that belt of pain--nothing at all.