Kick, Page 26

  Afraid and confused, Erika said, “End up? Where—”

  “Just remember my words, ok? Remember I tried to help you.”

  “End up where? I’m not going anywhere! What are you talking about? Listen, just let me go, ok? I don’t even want the money. I’m sorry Rob killed your lover, really. I’m sorry—I’m really, really sorry, please don’t do anything stupid.”

  The world went hazy for a moment, stretched flat and weird like it does sometimes after being kicked…

  Blinking furiously, I found myself on the floor with Erika on top prying at my hand, trying to get the gun from me.

  I held on, barely, and then tried to get to my feet.

  Erika gave up, falling back. Before I could stop her, she unzipped her purse and pulled out the Kimber. With no hesitation, she pointed it at me and pulled the trigger.

  I was right—she wasn’t left handed.

  Even from three feet away, she missed me, aiming for my head. All I felt was hot wind and a sharp, stinging sensation in my neck. The recoil surprised her, it being a .45 and Erika, untrained. Since I wasn’t trained either, I aimed slow and careful, hitting her high in the chest. The force of the round pushed her back on the couch where she sat gasping for breath, her expression confused and afraid. I knew how she felt, having been there once tonight already.

  “You,” she said. “You did that…at the wedding…your eyes…”

  All I could do was watch, helpless, as she struggled for life in a body too broken to continue. Since that night in college I’d done everything I could to avoid women, lest the evil I knew I was capable of somehow manifest itself again, and now it had.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. To Erika and Sandra, both.

  Erika looked at me, glaring, her expression a reproduction of the one from my dream: lovely and evil and boiling with hatred.

  Backing up, I shot her again two more times.

  When I finally lifted my eyes, I noticed the camera right away, sitting out plain as day on top of Rob’s DVD player. Despite everything, I wondered how she missed it. Or myself, for that matter. When she first said to look for it, I glanced automatically toward Rob’s entertainment setup. On later reflection in the Great Wherever, I replayed that passing glance to where it now rested. The camera hadn’t been there before I killed Erika, of that I was certain.

  Lifting the spooky camera by its leather strap, I placed it gently in Erika’s lap. The police needed to see what was on it. If Nate lived, he deserved to know why his brother had tried to kill him and why his fiancée wasn’t worthy of his sorrow.

  Being unworthy myself, I’d mourn her for him.

  Chapter 35

  In America, thanks to energy-conscious insulation and multipane storm windows, one can safely fire .45 caliber hand-cannons in the middle of the night without anyone waking up or noticing. Or rather, maybe someone did hear and decided it made more sense to stay in bed. Either way, my escape from Rob’s house and Erika’s last words went uneventfully. Well yeah, I did see a string of six police cars, lights flashing, exiting off the highway as I was getting on. But they could have been going anywhere.

  I found an all-night gas station with public facilities and used that to throw away the handcuffs and gun, after first wiping them down. Then I checked Peter’s neck. Other than a bright red spot where a piece of hot powder had connected, it looked fine. With two kicks so close together, I knew I wouldn’t be in Centreville come morning, but that little red mark would remain. I just hoped Peter wasn’t the type to run off to the doctor for every little thing.

  I washed my face and hands thoroughly, trying my best to get the smell of gunpowder off. Thank goodness for Peter’s vanity and his silly shaved-head look or I would have had to worry about washing my hair. My clothes had made it through the night free of blood and bullet holes, so I could hardly complain.

  I weighed the idea of driving past Nate’s house, then realized even I wasn’t dumb enough to do that. Instead, I found an empty parking lot and just sat there, quietly wasting time. I wasn’t ready to go back to Peter’s house. The reason was obvious enough: that’s where Sandra was—safe and happy, if those pictures were any indication. I may have fooled myself into thinking my old madness had faded, but learning the truth about Sandra and Peter had shattered that illusion. Something inside me felt betrayed. An angry thing, mean and jealous, and it hated that it had given up everything only to see her happy with someone else. It had been that way in college.

  Kick!

  ***

  Sandra and Dan got along famously that first year. They hung out all the time and everything was going well. She was the first girl he ever slept with. Or dated. He could see himself marrying her one day, but…she had issues. She talked a long time with certain professors after class. She also liked hanging out with her friends, none of whom liked him.

  By the second year, Sandra seemed to have gotten worse. She’d often ignore Dan’s calls or go out of her way to visit her parents on weekends and holidays. Then one day, after he learned she was going away yet again—this time for Spring Break—he found out through her sister that it would be with Peter. Her sister assured Dan they were just friends, but he knew what that meant. Sandra didn’t love him anymore. She had essentially dumped him but was too afraid to say it to his face. Somehow, she didn’t realize how perfect they were for each other. It bothered him because he knew nobody else would have the patience or maturity to see past her faults and grow to love her the way he did.

  ***

  “Crap,” I said, blinking until my vision cleared. I looked suspiciously at the sky and said, “What the hell was that?”

  The rules were changing again. Normally a kick is just a kick, a sigh is but a sigh. Never before had one sent me into full-on auto-replay like that.

  Time was running out. If I got kicked out while driving and Peter woke up bleeding in a ditch…well I didn’t know what I’d do. Hate myself more, I suppose. After a while, the additional self-loathing turns into more of an inventory project than anything else.

  It took me a while to find the right house. Thank goodness Peter’s parking space didn’t have a vacancy next to it or the goof could have awoken to another mystery to go with his sore neck.

  Before I got out, I gave the car a once over to make sure I hadn’t messed anything up or left something behind, and that’s when I saw the briefcase. Peter’s briefcase, full of things about my old rival I couldn’t help but wonder about. I snagged it from the back seat and tried clicking the release, but it was locked.

  “He leaves his briefcase in the car where it can get stolen,” I said. “But he keeps it locked…to stop thieves?”

  It didn’t occur to me that he could have left it behind accidentally. That would imply I could look at Peter and not immediately find fault—a waste of a free opportunity, if you ask me.

  I spun each number on the cylinder down one spot, trying the lock each time with no luck. Then I tried it the other direction and that didn’t work, either. I felt around the floor behind the driver’s seat and then on the other side and discovered a small, rigid ice scraper.

  Staring at the lock, I prepared for a struggle with my better nature but he never showed up. Probably out shooting women or poisoning junkies.

  The ice scraper fit snug between the seams of the briefcase, and I used it to open a gap big enough for my fingers. After that it was easy to bend the corner up to get at the contents. Some papers and folders spilled to the floor. I set the briefcase aside and stacked them on my lap.

  “Ok Pecker,” I said. “Let’s just have a look at all this, shall we?”

  Term papers. A thick stack of them, each on the role of symbolism in the writings of Leo Tolstoy. I shook my head, disgusted. There was also a grade book, a course syllabus and some old tests—none of which offered any multiple choice questions. The sadistic son of a bitch.

  When I reached for the briefcase to put everything back, the top popped right open. Without an unbent frame to keep the c
atch in place, it had come free. I now had easy access to all the snapped and zippered inner compartments. In one pocket, I found a baggie of what could have been oregano but was probably marijuana. In another, a baggie of smooth white pills that didn’t look like vitamins. Or oregano.

  Peter, a drug user?

  I found it hard to believe, but unless pharmacists had started dispensing medicine in child-safe baggies, I had to accept what was in front of me. Just in case I was rushing to judgment, I opened the bag of maybejuana and sniffed, on the off chance Peter was going for the professor-and-pipe look these days. He wasn’t.

  This was the guy who’d taken Sandra from me? Some lousy drug addict? It galled me—this jerk who’d won the girl. I needed to do something about it. For Sandra, for their children, and even Peter. For all of them. I needed to…

  I needed to pretend I hadn’t seen anything and go inside and await my final kick. This wasn’t my life, it was Peter’s. His and Sandra’s. For good or bad, I didn’t have a right to get involved. I’d been sent back to deal with Erika and save Nate if I could and I’d done that. Whatever problems Peter and Sandra had, they didn’t need the kind of mayhem I was likely to bring down on them by “helping.” No, they’d have to work it out like other couples did: through shouting matches, marriage counseling, bitter separation, divorce lawyers, arguments over child support and visitation rights, and all the other fun traditions of today’s post-modern family.

  So I did the right thing. I closed the briefcase as best I could and left it where I found it. I left the car unlocked and disposed of the drugs in a nearby gutter. What he made of it all in the morning was his business.

  Slipping around back, I entered through the still-unlocked sliding glass door. I was half afraid I’d walk in on Sandra, waiting for me. You know, like in every movie where the husband slips in at three in the morning, guilty on some account, to find his wife sitting in the dark with a bottle of whiskey and an ashtray full of butts. But the house was just as quiet as I left it.

  I returned Peter’s keys, then stripped down to my boxers and dumped the shirt and pants in the laundry room. Then I slipped into the bathroom. When I stepped out and closed the door, someone was there, watching me. A little girl. A tiny little Sandra, maybe seven years old, with light blond hair and mommy’s cute nose.

  “Daddy, what time is it?”

  The poor little sprout. Who would have thought an ugly mug like Peter could have brought such an adorable person into the world?

  I placed my hands on my knees and looked her in the eyes.

  “Too late for you to be up, now go on back to sleep,” I said, quietly, trying to sound stern.

  “But I want some water.”

  Looking at her tiny face, I suddenly realized I wanted some water too.

  “Come on then,” I said. “Let’s get you a drink.”

  She didn’t smile or say anything, she just followed along, taking me for granted. I may as well have been her own personal robot. It felt great.

  She sat down at the table on her own and waited for me to come back with her water. Instead, I came back with a cup of milk and two small, chocolate chip cookies.

  She shook her head.

  “I only want water, daddy. I don’t want to get toot-decay.”

  “Are you sure? They look pretty good,” I said, eying the cookies myself and wondering if she’d stick to her principles.

  Gravely, she nodded.

  I got her some water.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “So what’s your name today? Is it Bunky Wuggernugget?” Kids love it when you say stuff like that.

  “No, silly daddy—I’m Danielle.”

  I froze, cookie halfway to my mouth. Danielle? Of all the names Sandra could have chosen, she just happened to choose the girl form of Daniel? Eyes stinging, I looked away. I didn’t want to alarm this little girl. A powerful shame and sadness overcame me, and a fit of longing so seductive it frightened me. Peter didn’t deserve this life. More than anything in the world, I wanted to remain in my rival’s body and continue his life with Sandra. My pathetic reaction on waking in Nate’s boy-toy body was a soft clap in a thunderstorm, compared with this. Thank goodness for the dim lighting. A kid that young shouldn’t have to watch her father crying in his underwear.

  I couldn’t understand what he wanted from me. Why drop me here, of all places? They say he moves in mysterious ways, sure, but did those ways have to be sadistic?

  “Ok,” I said, taking her cup to the sink. “Now go to bed. Daddy loves you.”

  “All right,” Danielle said, coming around for a hug and breaking my heart to pieces at the same time.

  I watched her leave the kitchen, feeling a little like the Grinch pretending to be Santa—though Danielle twice as cute as that hack Cindy Lou Who. One thing Danielle hadn’t done was look at me with some kind of weird, supernatural insight and creepily ask what I’d done with her daddy. That had happened once before, but only because the kid knew his dad well and I hadn’t been acting like him. Otherwise, kids are easier to fool than adults, which only makes sense.

  After waiting a bit to make sure Danielle wouldn’t come back out, I got dressed again, found a note pad and a pen and stormed back outside to the car. Furious, I sat down inside and wrote:

  “Pecker Colon. You see that little red burn on your neck? It didn’t wake you up when I gave it to you, did it? Think about that. Just a little warning to show I mean business. I can get to you anywhere. You ARE going to stop using drugs. You WILL be there for your family. Danielle needs her daddy and Sandra needs a husband, and they both need an addict in their lives like YOU need a bunch of tiny burns in the center of your brain. Either turn yourself around now or I will murder you. You’ve been warned.”

  I signed it, “Dan Jenkins,” then folded it small and slipped it into the zippered pocket where I found the white pills. Then I locked the door and rushed back to the house before my brain kicked in and made me to do something intelligent.

  After stripping back down, I padded silently down the short, night-lit hallway to Peter and Sandra’s room. Pausing only briefly, I crossed the threshold, then tiptoed around to Peter’s side and slipped into bed.

  Sandra’s breathing came deep and regular, and I lay there listening to it for a good five minutes. Finally, I let my eyes close, beyond overwhelmed by the events of the last several hours.

  The revelations about Peter were disturbing, but it had allowed me to avoid thinking about something even more troubling: I’d killed Erika. Never mind that I did it in self-defense. If I hadn’t been kicked I would have done it in cold blood, to save Tim. I could have called the cops and kept her in Rob’s house at gunpoint, but then it would have involved Peter, and I wasn’t about to disrupt his family just because I had problems executing young women.

  Somehow, it didn’t matter that Erika was a twisted, vile person who’d hatched a plot to kill the three brothers. What mattered was the relative ease with which I could judge and dole out punishment to others. Me, of all people. And telling myself it was fine because some higher power sanctioned it or that death is “but a beginning,” well, if that’s all it took to ease my guilt then Erika and I had more in common than I cared to admit.

  The bed shook as Sandra shifted to her other side.

  “…everything all right?” a familiar, sleepy voice next to me said, one I’d never expected to hear again in this life or any other.

  “Everything’s fine,” I whispered, hoping she’d go back to sleep.

  Sandra put her hand lightly on my chest, her fingers tracing a circular pattern. I turned to look at her and saw her eyes were half open, a lazy smile on her worry-free face. A smile meant for someone else, witnessed through the eyes of a life that could have been mine but that I’d thrown away like garbage.

  Looking at her, I became aware of an important realization. I didn’t love Sandra. No—I adored her, which is different. And without the wisdom that comes with love, frightening and dang
erous. I knew that, whatever threats I’d made to Peter in my madness, I needed to remove myself from their lives forever.

  In time, I closed my eyes. In more time, I was overcome by a contentedness I thought all but lost to me. I realized that, contrary to my fears, Sandra hadn’t been crippled by what I’d done to her. I should have known she was too strong for that. Lying beside her, rather than resent her for her strength, I clung to it.

  The things I’d done to her were unforgivable. Yet after meeting Danielle, I believed Sandra had forgiven me. In a way, she gave me a new faith. One to guide me wherever I go, whomever I meet, be they ordinary or Great.

  Mysterious ways indeed.

  Epilogue

  Dear Minister Hendricks,

  By now, if you’ve read my manuscript, it should come as no surprise I know your real name. I promise not to use it to wither your crops or sour your milk. For obvious reasons, I suggest you don’t share my story with the police or you’ll quickly find yourself a suspect. Maybe send it to the Vatican? Wouldn’t it be cool if they took it and formed a secret society?

  Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop with Internet access in one of the square-shaped states, writing this on my latest ride’s laptop. He’s a fat one, and a real sick bastard. He’s also broke, so I have to sleep in his awful house—awful for reasons beyond general filth. In case this email caught you after eating, I’ll say only that this is one of the more unpleasant experiences I’ve had and that’s saying something. I’m going to cut my stay artificially short this time and too bad for him.

  I’m happy to learn Nate lived, though sorry to see him turned into the media flavor of the week after what he’s been through. I’m not sure what you’ve told him, but if he knows anything at all about the truth, please pass along my condolences about Erika—as well as my email address. Moving money by Western Union has definite possibilities, and being friends with a wealthy man who owes me his life is a fortunate thing, wouldn’t you say?