Mr. X (57 page)

He glanced over his shoulder and, past the figure of his enraged double, looked through a transparent wall to see Mr. X striding away from the triangular hump of “Michael Anscombe’s” body to invade a room stacked with cardboard boxes. The woman with tangled hair shuffled forward, holding
Goodnight Moon
to her chest like a talisman.

Robert saw the double’s fingers pass through the knob of his bedroom door and knew that he was not
real
. The
real
Ned Dunstan dreamed on in Edgerton, and what had been sent to Boulder was an illusory replica. For the first time in his peculiar life, Robert found himself capable of setting resentment aside long enough to grasp that although his mother’s darling was not physically present, some aspect of Ned Dunstan had been delivered to him, and that this
figment
, this
duplicate
, was what he needed to get out of this house.

Robert spun on his heel to observe exactly what his brother had seen a moment before.

A second after Robert took off down the hall, Ned followed, expecting his double to dash into the living room and melt through the front door. Robert reached the end of the hallway and disappeared. Baffled, Ned moved a few steps forward and saw the woman still plodding across the bedroom. Mr. X plunged on into the new addition. “Michael Anscombe’s” corpse bent over its knees in a widening pool of blood. Frank Sinatra was making clear his intention to kiss those lips that he adored. Ned looked across the living room and, on the other side of the half partition that separated it from the kitchen, saw Robert glaring at him. He raced out of the hallway.

*  *  *

Robert couldn’t believe it. His brother—his brother’s
replica—
was gawking like a tourist at the Grand Canyon. Just when Robert had begun to think he would have to throw the toaster at the kid to get his attention, Ned looked into the kitchen and saw him.
Come on
, Robert urged, and his brother started to move at last. Robert went to the sink, squatted down, pushed aside bottles of cleaning supplies, and opened a secret compartment some previous owner had installed to hide his wife’s jewelry. His hand closed around the edges of a metal box.

Ned couldn’t believe what he was seeing. With his back to the opening in the wall, his double was kneeling in front of the sink and rooting around in the washing supplies. In about a second and a half, either the woman or Mr. X, or both of them, would come into the living room.

“Stop messing around,” he whispered.

“Shhh,” the double whispered back.

Ned moved into an alcove for a washer and dryer next to the back door and watched Robert emerge from the sink cabinet holding a flat metal box. He opened the lid and took out two stacks of bills. He reached into the box again, and his body tensed. His head snapped to the side.

They were going to die. That was it. The double’s greed had killed them.

Robert watched “Alice Anscombe” stumble into view and swing her head toward the kitchen. Her eyes went flat with shock. “Shit on a shingle,” she said.

“Alice” dreamily turned her head to the hallway, smiled, and said, “Who the hell are you, Bob Hope?”

Robert and Ned felt the atmosphere about them intensify and mysteriously seem to brighten. The only other living being in the house had heard “Alice Anscombe’s” words.

A voice in Ned’s mind said,
I can’t be killed, I’m not here, but he can
, and he stepped out of the alcove. The instant he did so, Ned at last understood his baffling double to be precisely that which he had missed and yearned for all his life. He was looking at his brother.

*  *  *

Robert jumped to his feet, thrusting wads of bills into his pockets. “Alice” waded into the lake of blood, came bemused to a halt, and looked down. Robert thought he saw the corners of her mouth lift when she took in her husband’s body, but the smile, if it was a smile, faded. The book fell from her hands, and blood splashed over the tops of her feet. “Alice” turned her head to the empty hallway.

Frank Sinatra sang:

and Ned felt himself begin to fade out of existence with the abruptness of a raindrop on a hot sidewalk. He held out his hands and through their hazy, lightly tinted fabric saw the tiles of the kitchen floor.

The madwoman in the living room shouted, “Why are you doing this? Don’t you understand I’m already in hell?”