Hunter's Moon.htm (6 page)

Wow. That takes effort. I've lived next to some real annoying people, but could never get them kicked out.

"Once I found my current house she started making requests. Just little ones, you know, like 'Oh Suzi, could you help me with my medicines? I can't remember which ones I've taken today.' I figured if her memory was failing, it would probably be best for me to take control of her medicine. You know, so she didn't overdose."

I nodded.

"And little by little, she just infringed into my space. 'Oh, no, Suzi, you can't buy that soap. I'm terribly allergic to it.' And, 'Suzi, dear, must you play that rock music? It's so difficult to concentrate.' I tried to make her feel like a guest but she didn't want guest status. She wanted to run the show. No, that's not right either," she said, shaking her head. "She wanted to run the backstage, and have me in front of the camera running the show."

The beer had run through me. I excused myself to the bathroom. She nodded politely and sat staring into space running a slow fingertip around the lip of her glass.

I didn't waste any time. I wanted to get right back. I was enjoying her company, despite my better judgment. I even liked her. I spent the minute or two trying to figure out what it was. She had a certain— I don't know, maybe stamina that was refreshing. A "grin and bear it" attitude. But if she wanted to die then things had taken a turn for the worse. I wanted to hear chapter two.

I returned to the living room. Her glass was full again. A glance at the clear bottle of rum on the bar confirmed that it was another full strength job. Nearly a quarter fifth gone in three drinks.

I walked over and took the drink out of her hand. She looked at me, startled. "Slow down a little," I said. "If you pass out, you can't talk. You're plenty relaxed now." I put the drink on the bar and poured a second glass of just Diet Coke. She took the glass, nodded, and sipped the soda. Then she began talking again as if she hadn't stopped and I had missed part of the conversation when I left the room.

"Becky was the pretty one. Tall and athletic with blonde hair to her waist. She could have anyone she wanted. I wasn't born pretty. I'm not tall or blonde. I got reminded of it every day. That was Becky downstairs."

"Well," I responded glibly, "At least you have manners."

She smiled at that. Smiled at me. A fog of spiced tangerines drifted to my nose. Happiness stronger than gratitude. "Becky's never had to be polite. She's pretty. People excuse bad behavior in pretty people." I shrugged. I couldn't disagree.

"Becky thinks that I'm just being selfish. That I want to have this wild life or something now that I've got money. She's just sure I want to throw Mom into the street."

"Do you?"

"Honestly? Sometimes. But I can't. And I probably wouldn't, given the choice. After I won the money I bought a big house, way larger than I needed. I figured that Mom could have space and I would have a room or two where I could be alone. I've always liked being alone. But Mom can't be alone. Actually can't. It drives her nuts. I sit down to take a bath and she's knocking on the door, wanting to come in to talk. It drives me insane!"

"Well, if she really can live alone, why don't you buy her a place of her own? Move her out and be done with it."

She shook her head so hard that her hair whipped with the force. The alcohol, I thought— her movements were getting bigger, stronger, as if overcompensating.

"Don't you think I tried? That was the first thing I thought of. I have two doctors on my side and they're very well respected. When I got the money, the first thing I did was hire a team of doctors to give her a full exam. I mean a full exam." Her arm swept the air and almost knocked the drink out of her other hand.

"X-rays, CTs, blood tests, the works. I got a neurological specialist because she said she was losing feeling in her fingers. She swore she was growing taller so she had an MRI to see if she had a tumor. All negative. Oh, and her eyes are just fine. But if she had a license I wouldn't have to drive her. The doctor confirmed that she is as healthy as a racehorse. Healthy for someone half her age. More healthy than me. She called them quacks and demanded we see some Chinese herbalist that a friend told her about. I couldn't imagine what friend told her that. She doesn't have any friends. I wish she did!"

She shook her head wearily. "I thought the money would help. But things are even worse. I finally convinced the family to let her try to live alone. I bought her an apartment. I even offered to pay for a full-time nurse." She sputtered angrily. "You know what she did? Huh?"

"I can't imagine."

"She broke her hip!"

I raised my eyebrows. "Not intentionally, I'm sure."

Her eyes were cold but calm. "She absolutely, intentionally broke her hip. I was finally going to be free and she just couldn't stand it." She said it as if it was a fact, not merely suspicion.

I began to understand.

Chapter 5

"How do you know she hurt her hip intentionally?" I asked.

"She was taped." She waited for a reaction. I carefully leaned forward and set my stein on the table. Then I leaned back and put up the footrest. The slow movements were meant to cover surprise. This was getting even more interesting.

"You videotaped her?"

She smelled embarrassed. "Not on purpose. When I bought the house, there were six months left on a security contract. You know, a burglar alarm company?"

I nodded knowingly.

"Part of the contract is to replace tapes in the hidden monitors around the house every few weeks. It's a real expensive house, but I have them set on pretty low-resolution and on the longest run time since I don't really have much to steal. I don't even think mom knows they exist. Anyway, I was out making the final arrangements on the apartment. She helped pick the colors and the wallpaper. She seemed excited about having her own place again. Something that didn't remind her of Dad. When I got back, she was nearly unconscious on the floor. I couldn't move her. I called an ambulance."

Sue was quiet for a moment. Her scent shifted again. The burned coffee of anger twined with the sour, bitter smell of guilt.

"I felt horrible," she said at last. "Just horrible. I really did feel selfish. When I was out that morning I had been feeling so smug. I was going to be free of her. Then I found her on the floor with her leg bent wrong. She was whimpering."

"When did you get the tape?"

She ignored the question at first. She was in her own little world. Another dose of emotions. Too many to sort out. Time for another long sniff of beer.

"She looked so helpless. I couldn't help. Not even a little. She's a big woman. I couldn't even move her. I was afraid to. So I waited for help. I sat on the floor next to her and tried to make her comfortable. I felt so guilty. I wondered if I had imagined all of the mind games. Whether I really was the selfish one for wanting my own space when she needed me." Tears came to her eyes and she didn't bother to wipe them away. They ran down her face unchecked.

She snuffled and then coughed. I leaned over to the table next to my chair, rummaged a moment, then tossed her a box of tissues. She missed the box but it landed on the floor within reach. She set her drink on the table, grabbed a tissue, and blew her nose. Unlike most people, she actually cried well. Her face flushed and looked better than normal, even with red-rimmed eyes.

"I got a call from the insurance company months after her fall. I had been acting so apologetic. She just ate it up. I bought the apartment anyway; I had a contract. But I never finished the decorations. I stayed home all the time in case she needed something. She had to have a hip replacement. It took months to heal. I literally put my life on hold for three months."

"What did the insurance company tell you?"

"I guess they routinely investigate accidents like this. They saw the monitor in the hallway when they came to the house and checked with the security company. They said they were denying the claim because it was faked. Not the injury. It was real. But the accident was set up. I didn't believe them. Not at first."

She hesitated and I prodded gently. "But they convinced you, didn't they?"

"They showed me the tape. There was no mistaking it. In clear black and white. She knelt down at the top of the bannister and removed the screws from the handrail. She jiggled it to make sure it was loose. Then she calmly climbed the stairs and started back down. When she got to a certain point right near the top she pushed her whole body weight sideways and went right through the banister. It was so cold and calculated. She said something when she was wiggling the banister. Even though it's not the kind of system that picks up sound, her face was clear on the camera. It showed her lips moving."

She looked up at me, very intent. "I never told her that the monitors worked. It never came up. I haven't told her since. I took the hit on the medical. Luckily, I can afford it now. Then I took a copy of the tape to a deaf school. They read her lips." Her eyes were tearing up again. She smelled of anger and heartbreak. Like she wished it never happened.

"What did she say?"

She pursed her lips angrily but her eyes were pained. "She said, 'Now let's see her kick me out.' Is that cold, or what?" Crystal tears glittered at the edge of her swollen lids.

I tried to absorb that. Tried to fathom a family member doing that. My mind rebelled. Family just didn't do that. I spoke before I thought. "That sort of makes me glad I don't have parents."

"They're dead?" She wiped at her face with a handful of tissues. Her voice was already more steady.

I nodded. "When I was ten. Well, my mom anyway. My father died before I was born."

"Who raised you?"

"My father's people. He was a small-time courier for the Family." I said it to imply the capital F.

She dropped her tissues in the wastebasket and shuddered visibly. "I'm really glad they were run out of town."

That made me glare at her with a surprising amount of venom. "I'm not! I had a home with them!" She winced and looked away again.

I took a deep breath and tried to explain. It was probably better if she didn't know about my past but the odds were good that I'd do the job for her, especially if she knew too much. That's what I told myself. And hey, I felt talkative. "They didn't have to take me in. My father was a two-bit hood, a wanna-be. My mom was a whore." She didn't say anything but I could hear her stiffen on the couch and smelled the sharpness of her shock, underlain with the dusty smell of shame.

I shrugged in response to the scent. "Prostitutes are moms too, you know. The Family didn't have to do anything. I was nothing to them. But my father got killed on a run. They felt responsible. He had told someone high up about this real lady that he was seeing. He was one of her regulars. He told everyone how beautiful she was and how he was going to make 'an honest woman' out of her and that they had already started a family. Patrone took him at his word. Gave me a home when she died of syphilis. Treated me like blood."

Her smell shifted again; wet, foggy, but not sorrow. Not exactly. "You're right. They didn't have to do that. I'm sorry for what I said. Is that why you do what you do?"

I shrugged again. "It's what I know. It's what I was raised with. Like, the boys in the Appalachians who don't know that they're not supposed to sleep with their sisters until they get into the outside world and find out it's considered deviant. It's the same in the Family. It's the way things are."

"But," she said, looking truly confused. "How can you take another person's life?"

I smiled coldly. "It's supply and demand. If there was no demand for killing, there'd be no supply. I don't wish anyone ill, but others do. I only carry out other people's bad intentions."

She shifted position again, tense, disapproving. I didn't have to smell it to sense it and it made me uncomfortable. I shifted the subject away from me. "The Family had standards." She gave me a disbelieving look. "No. really. Before two years ago, did you ever see a drive-by shooting of a little kid? Or graffiti sprayed on street signs?"

She thought briefly and shook her head. "Not really."

"Exactly!" I held a finger in the air to accentuate my words. "We kept our business internal. Our fights stayed within our factions. The general public saw few, if any, signs of our presence. These new gangs have no respect for anything or anybody. Before, if someone was killed, there was a reason. Now it's open season on little kids and the elderly. The gangs are scavengers; they take down the weakest. Anyone they can get. We allowed the weak and the innocent to pass by unharmed. We concentrated on our equals. It was the Family that kept the gangs under control. They feared us; respected us." I leaned forward in my chair again, my gaze intent on her.

"I know that most people wanted them out of town. But right or wrong, they were my people. I'm sorry they went to jail. They're family. You stand by them even when they do wrong. I'll stand by them again when they get out."

She nodded, accepting that without question. "I wish I had family that would stand by me. I want them to like me, to love me. But they just don't."

"Oh, I doubt that. I'm sure they love you."

"No," she disagreed, "they really don't! They have no respect for me. No empathy for me; no desire to know about me or my life. You can't feel love for someone if you're not even interested in them." She said it very matter-of-factly. "They don't care. All my life they've told me I'm worthless. Not smart enough, not talented enough, not pretty enough. I'm apparently just not enough of anything to make them love me. My only purpose in life is what they can use me for."

Tears glittered again in her eyes and she stood and walked to the bar. Even without the wolf senses, I could feel her hurt at saying those words. She made herself another drink, ignoring the one from earlier. I watched her in the mirror as she took a healthy swallow. I didn't feel pity for her. She intrigued me, even broken like this.

Then she abruptly began talking again. "It was hard when Robert left me. Harder still when it was Becky he left me for." That made my eyebrows climb.