I leaned over. ‘Hey, guys, could you keep it clean? I got a kid here.’
They ignored me and kept talking. If anything, the volume increased, and they managed to squeeze in a few more swear words, separating syllables where necessary to accommodate them.
‘Guys, I asked you nicely,’ I said.
‘It’s after nine,’ said the older of the two. ‘Your kid should be at home.’
‘It’s an ice-cream parlor,’ said Angel. ‘You ought to watch your fucking language.’
‘Was that helpful?’ I said to him. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Sorry.’
I returned my attention to the men nearby.
‘I won’t ask you again,’ I told them.
‘And what are you going to do if we don’t?’ asked the same man. He was tall and broad, and his features had an alcoholic blur to them. His friend, whose back had been to us, turned around, and his eyes widened slightly at the sight of Louis. He looked more sober than his friend, and smarter too.
‘My daddy will shoot you,’ said Sam. She made a little gun with her fingers, pointed it at the man who had spoken, and said ‘Bang!’
I looked at her. Good grief.
‘And then I’ll shoot you too,’ said Louis.
He grinned, and the temperature dropped.
‘Bang,’ Louis added, for effect. He too had made a gun with his fingers. He aimed it at the big man’s groin.
‘Bang’, he repeated: at his chest.
‘Bang’: closing one eye to focus, at his head.
Both men visibly blanched.
‘Not a Yankees fan,’ explained Angel.
‘Go find a bar, fellas,’ I said, and they left.
‘I like bullying people,’ said Angel. ‘When I grow up, I’m going to do nothing else all day long.’
‘Bang,’ said Sam. ‘They’re dead.’
Angel, Louis and I exchanged glances. Angel shrugged.
‘She must get it from her mother.’
Sam was staying with me that night. When she had finished brushing her teeth, and her two rag dolls were tucked up to her satisfaction alongside her, I sat on the edge of the bed and touched her cheek.
‘You warm enough?’
‘Yes.’
‘You feel cold.’
‘That’s because it’s cold outside, but I’m not cold. I’m warm inside.’
It sounded plausible.
‘Look, I think it might be best if you didn’t tell your mom about what happened tonight.’
‘About the pizza? Why?’
‘No, the pizza’s fine. I mean what happened after, when we went for ice cream.’
‘You mean about the two men?’
‘Yes.’
‘What part?’
‘The part about you saying that I would shoot them. You can’t talk like that to strangers, honey. You can’t talk like that to anyone. It’s not just rude: it’ll get Daddy into trouble.’
‘With Mommy?’
‘Absolutely with Mommy, but also maybe with the people you say it to. They won’t like it. That’s how fights start.’
She considered this.
‘But you have a gun.’
‘Yes. I try not to shoot people with it, though.’
‘Then why do you have it?’
‘Because sometimes, in my job, I have to show it to people to make them behave themselves.’ God, I felt like a spokesman for the NRA.
‘But you have shot people with your gun. I heard Mommy say.’
This was new. ‘When did you hear that?’
‘When she was talking to Jeff about you.’
‘Sam, were you listening when you shouldn’t have been listening?’
Sam squirmed. She knew that she had said too much.
She shook her head. ‘It was a accident.’
‘An accident.’ A spokesman for the Society for Better English too, it seemed. Still, it gave me time to think.
‘Look, that’s true, Sam, but I didn’t like doing it, and those people left me with no other choice. I’d be happy if I never had to do it again, and I hope that I don’t. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Were they bad people?’
‘Yes, they were very bad people.’
I watched her face carefully. She was building up to something, skirting the subject warily, like a dog circling a snake, uncertain of whether it were dead and harmless, or alive and capable of striking.
‘Was one of them the man who made Jennifer and her mommy dead?’
She always called them that: Jennifer and her mommy. Although she knew Susan’s name, she felt uncomfortable using it. Susan was an adult unfamiliar to her, a grown-up, and grown-ups had names that began with Mr or Mrs, Aunt or Uncle, Grandma or Grandpa. Sam had chosen to define her as Jennifer’s mommy because Jennifer had been a little girl just like her, but a little girl who had died. The subject held a kind of awful fascination for her, not simply because Jennifer had been my child and, by extension, a half-sister to Sam, but because Sam did not know of any other children who had died. It seemed somehow impossible to her that a child could die – that anyone she knew of could die – but this one had.
Sam understood a little of what had happened to my wife and my daughter. She had picked up nuggets of information gleaned from other overheard conversations and hidden them away, examining them in solitude, trying to understand their meaning and their value, and only recently had she revealed her conclusions to her mother and me. She knew that something awful had happened to them, that one man had been responsible, and that man was now dead. We had tried to deal with it as carefully yet as honestly as possible. Our concern was that she might fear for her own safety, but she did not seem to make that particular connection. Her focus was entirely on Jennifer and, to a lesser extent, her mommy. She was, she told us, ‘sad for them’, and sad for me.
‘I—’ Speaking of Jennifer and Susan with her was difficult for me at the best of times, but this was new and dangerous territory. ‘I think he would have hurt me if I had not,’ I said at last. ‘And he would have kept on hurting other people too. He gave me no choice.’
I swallowed the taste of the lie, even if it was a lie of omission. He gave me no choice, but neither did I give him a choice. I had wanted it that way.
‘So does that make it all right?’
Although Sam was a precocious, unusual child, that was still a very adult question, one that plumbed murky moral depths. Even her tone was adult. This was not coming from Sam. There was the voice of another under her own.
‘Is that one of your questions, Sam?’
Again, a shake of the head. ‘It was what Jeff asked Mommy when they were talking about how you shot people.’
‘And what did Mommy say?’ I asked despite myself, and I was ashamed.
‘She said that you always tried to do the right thing.’
I bet Jeff didn’t like that.
‘After that, I had to go pee,’ said Sam.
‘Good. Well, no more listening to conversations that aren’t your business, all right? And no more talking about shooting people. We clear?’
‘Yes. I won’t tell Mommy.’
‘She’d just worry, and you don’t want to get Daddy into trouble.’
‘No.’ She frowned. ‘Can I tell her about Uncle Angel saying a bad word?’
I thought about it.
‘Sure, why not?’
I went downstairs, where Angel and Louis had opened a bottle of red wine.
‘Make yourselves at home.’
Angel waved a glass at me. ‘You want some?’
‘No, I’m good.’
Louis poured, sipped, tasted, made a face, shrugged resignedly, and filled two glasses.
‘Hey,’ said Angel, ‘Sam’s not going to tell Rachel I swore at those guys, is she?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘you’re in the clear.’
He looked relieved. ‘Thank Christ. I wouldn’t want to get in trouble with Rachel.’
While they dr
ank, I called Marielle Vetters. The phone rang four times, then went to the machine. I left a short message to tell her that I’d be heading up there to talk with her the next day, and she should go over all that her father had told her in case she’d forgotten to share with me anything that might be useful. I asked her to give Ernie Scollay a nudge too, on the off-chance that he might recall something that his brother had said. I kept the message deliberately vague, just in case she had company or someone else, like Marielle’s brother, happened to hear it.
After an hour of conversation I went to my room, but not before looking in on the strange, beautiful, empathic child fast asleep in her bed, and I felt that I had never loved her more, or understood her less.
38
Marielle heard the phone ring at the same time as her doorbell. For a moment she was torn between the two, but clearly the phone could wait while the doorbell could not.
‘You want me to see who it is?’ asked Ernie Scollay.
He had come over earlier, seemingly still troubled by the amount they had revealed down at the bar in Portland, but Marielle knew that he was also lonely. A shy man, and one who did not care much for either of the local bars, he had formed a bond with Marielle’s father following his brother’s suicide, and when Harlan Vetters in turn had died, he had transferred his affection for the father to Marielle. She did not mind. Apart from being kind, if cautious, company, Ernie was good at fixing anything from a stubborn hinge to a car engine, and Marielle’s old car needed more attention than most. Her brother’s best friend, Teddy Gattle, had frequently offered to look after it for her at no charge, but Marielle knew better than to take him up on it. Ever since they were teenagers, Teddy had eyed her with a mixture of adoration and barely concealed lust. According to her brother, Teddy had cried more than her own mother had on the day Marielle got married, and he had celebrated her divorce with a drunk that lasted three days. No, even if Ernie Scollay had not been around, she would have paid money she could little afford to maintain her car – would, in fact, have set the car on fire and walked to her two jobs – rather than accept a favor from Teddy Gattle.
Marielle stepped out of the kitchen and looked down the hall. Her brother’s familiar, rangy figure stood outside, although she could not see him clearly because the exterior light wasn’t working. Odd, she thought: I only changed that bulb last week. There must be a fault with the wiring. Another job for Ernie, she supposed.
‘It’s okay, it’s just Grady,’ she said.
He’d probably come to apologize, she figured. About time too. He’d had enough of Teddy Gattle’s hospitality, and realized what a jerk he’d been for bringing that vacant space in female form into her house. She’d been tempted to burn the sheets once Grady and whatever-her-name was had departed, the skank. Ivy, was that what Grady had said? Holly? What an idiot. What a pair of idiots.
But she loved her brother, for all his flaws, and now they were all that was left of the family. Two failures: he in art, she in marriage, both in life. She didn’t want to lose him again. Even when absent, whether at college or trying to make it as an artist in New York, and, finally, lost to his addictions for a time, a part of him had always been with her. They had been so close as children, and although he was her little brother, he had done his best to take care of her. When her marriage finally ended, he had trudged back to Falls End to console her, and they had spent a couple of days drinking, and smoking, and talking, and she had felt better for it. But then he had drifted away again, and when he came back their father was already dying.
The machine picked up the call, and she heard a voice that was kind of familiar, but she wasn’t quick enough to catch the caller’s name.
The doorbell rang for a second time.
‘Coming!’ she said. ‘I’m coming. God, Grady, you could have a little patience, you know . . .’
She opened the door and the light from the lamp in the hall caught his face. He looked sorrowful and scared. He also looked doped up. He was swaying, and having trouble staying focussed on her.
‘Ah, Grady, for crying out loud,’ she said. ‘No, no. You jerk. You stupid—’
Grady flew at her. She reacted fast enough to step back, one hand instinctively outstretched to ward him off, but he was too big and heavy for her. His weight carried them both to the floor, and her head bounced hard on the boards.
‘Jesus, Grady!’ she cried, trying to push him from her even as he struggled to find his own footing.
Two people appeared in the doorway, a woman and a child. Even in the soft lamplight Marielle could tell that the woman’s face was damaged, and the child, a boy, had a strange, ugly swelling at his neck, and bruising to his nose and eyes.
In the woman’s right hand was a gun.
‘Who are you?’ said Marielle. ‘What do you want?’
But as the woman advanced, Marielle knew who she was. Although she had never met her, Marielle had heard her described. She was no longer beautiful, not with her burned, glistening skin, but enough of her former looks remained for Marielle to imagine her as she once had been, drawing men to her, buying drinks in return for stories of lost planes. Her left eye was a different color from her right: most of the color had gone from it, and it reminded Marielle of a raw shellfish dotted with Tabasco sauce.
Ernie Scollay appeared in the hall. He took a single look at the woman and the boy, then turned to run. Darina Flores shot twice him in the back. Ernie fell on his face and tried to crawl to safety, but the third shot stilled him forever.
Darina and the boy stepped inside and closed the door behind them. The boy locked it and pulled down the blind, cutting them off from the world. By now, Marielle had managed to get out from under Grady. She knelt before the intruders, afraid to move. Blood began to spread from under Ernie Scollay, flowing across the boards and dripping between the gaps into the darkness below. Grady lay against the wall, and she could see him trying to overcome whatever drug was in his system.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t . . .’
While Darina and the boy watched, unspeaking, she went to her brother and held him, and she hardly felt the needle as it entered her arm.
They did not inject her with as much of the drug as they had given to her brother. They wanted her to be coherent, but to present no risk to them. They were a woman and a child in a room with two grown adults, and Darina had to ensure that there was no risk of either Marielle or Grady Vetters fighting back. Once again, they secured their captives’ hands behind them with plastic ties, just to be certain. Darina poured the boy a glass of milk, and gave him a freshly baked cookie from a tray beside the stove. He sat at the dining table and nibbled the cookie, eating around the edges, his small teeth following the line of the frosting, examining his efforts as he went, just like a normal boy.
Marielle lay supine on the couch with a cushion beneath her head. She was watching all that was taking place, seeking any possible advantage, but there was none. Her eyes were just slightly heavy, her responses dulled, but she was still thinking clearly, if slowly. Grady Vetters sat in an armchair beside the TV, his eyes barely open, a string of spittle connecting his chest to his chin. He glimpsed his own reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall, and wiped his chin on his shirt. The effort seemed to bring him more clarity. He sat up a little straighter and tried to find a smile for his sister, but she took no reassurance from it.
Darina pulled up a chair beside Marielle. She held the gun loosely in her right hand, and with her left brushed some stray strands of hair from Marielle’s face.
‘Are you comfortable?’ she asked.
‘What did you inject me with?’
Her words were not remotely slurred. Darina wondered if they shouldn’t have given her a bigger dose.
‘Just something to help you relax. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable, or too frightened.’
Behind Darina, Marielle could see Ernie Scollay’s outstretched arm. The rest of his body was hidden by the wall. Darina saw her looki
ng at it, and called to the boy.
‘Move that, would you? It’s distracting.’
The boy put down the cookie, wiped the crumbs from his hands, and went into the hallway through the alcove beside the kitchen. There was a dragging sound as Ernie Scollay’s feet were lifted and his body began to move. The boy was stronger than he looked, and the arm disappeared.
‘Better?’ said Darina.
‘He was just an old man,’ said Marielle. ‘You didn’t have to kill him.’
‘Even old men can run,’ said Darina. ‘Old men can talk. Old men can call the police. So, yes, we did have to kill him, but there doesn’t have to be any more killing. If you answer my questions, and answer them honestly, I’ll spare you and your brother. That’s a basement under the stairs, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s where we’ll leave you, then. I’ll put water and food in bowls, and you can feed yourselves like dogs, but you’ll be alive. We won’t be in town for long: a day or two at most. The more you share with me, the easier our task will be, and the sooner we’ll be gone. I give you my word.’
Marielle shook her head in dismissal.
‘We’ve seen you,’ said Marielle. ‘We know who you are. We saw you kill Ernie, saw you shoot him in the back.’
Grady stirred in his chair again.
‘They killed Teddy too,’ he said. ‘She killed Teddy.’
Marielle flinched. Poor, sad, pathetic Teddy Gattle. He might have been irritating, and besotted with her, but he had been loyal to her brother, and he had meant no harm to anyone.
‘He was the one who led us here,’ said Darina, ‘if it makes his loss any easier to bear. It was Teddy Gattle who alerted us to the truth about your father, and the plane.’
Marielle turned on her brother.
‘You told Teddy?’ Teddy Gattle couldn’t hold a secret for longer than it took to draw another breath. He was a human sieve.
‘I’m sorry,’ was all Grady could mumble, again.
‘But my offer stands,’ said Darina. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but I have no interest in killing you. Once that plane is found, and I get what I want, we’ll disappear, and you can tell the police anything you like. You can describe us down to the last hair, and it won’t matter. We’ll be long gone, and we hide ourselves well. I won’t even look like myself any more.’ She pointed a finger at her ruined face. ‘Would you want to stay like this? No, Marielle, they won’t find us. You’ll live, and so will we. All you have to do is talk. I know a lot already, but I want to hear it all from you as well: every word, every detail that your father shared with you, anything that might enable me to find that airplane. And don’t lie to me. If you lie, there will be consequences, both for you and for your brother.’