Supernatural Noir (29 page)

“You want me,” she said.

She was a kid, but she was a beautiful and alluring one, and she had the added draw of being her mother’s daughter. I heard a strange, moaning lament and realized it was coming from my throat. She laughed at me again. She kissed my throat and placed the gun under my ear. It made me groan louder. I had been helpless in the hands of her mother, and now it was happening all over again. Except this time instead of a crazed, adult carnal bitch I was being manipulated by a lonely, insecure girl. A part of me cared about the difference, and a part of me didn’t. I wasn’t a good man. I’d done a lot of things that I’d one day have to pay for, but I’d never done anything like this. I waited on the edge of the razor to see which half of myself would win.

She made the choice for me. She climbed into bed and laid across the sheets, trying to bewitch me, the laughter in her throat as ugly as her mother’s. I’d made love to Katy in this room, in her and Ronnie’s bed, wasted on coke and wine, with M-16s stacked in the closet. Katy had never brought a gun to bed with her, but she did like knives. She used to dig grooves and half-moon gashes along my ribs. Afterward the sheets would look like someone had been butchered.

Even as my erection grew my stomach tumbled. I laid beside her and pulled her to me. The pistol wavered between us. She kissed my chin and attempted some dirty talk, but I shushed her and held her, and kept holding her, until a wild sob welled inside her and finally broke free. She cried for twenty minutes straight while I rubbed her back. I took the gun away from her and put it in my nightstand drawer.

“Ghosts walk these rooms,” she said.

“That’s true of every house,” I said. “Not just this one.”

“But mine are here. They have been for years. They’re with us now. I can hear my mom.”

“Emily, you—”

“Can you hear her? She’s saying thank you. For helping me. She’s under your bed right now. She says you were always the nicest one of the guys she used to fuck.”

I gripped her by her shoulders and gave her one vicious shake. “Enough of that shit, all right?”

“I need to find who killed my parents,” she said.

It was generally believed that Dell Bishop, the number-two guy of the Brothers of Bedlam, had murdered Emily’s parents in order to take over the club. No one held it against him. Ron and Katy had been branching farther and farther out, making deals with the mob, the pushers, other clubs considered to be enemies of the brotherhood. The feds caught wind of the gunrunning. They were all over town for months, questioning the civilians, but they never found any hard evidence. The chop shops were raided and marijuana crops burned. There was no connection back to the brothers, but it stirred a lot of misery. The townsfolk, who’d once considered the club to be vigilantes protecting their borders, worried that even more problems were bound to come down on them.

A lot of people believed Dell had iced Katy and Ron to ensure the future of both the town and the MC, but I never did. Dell always proclaimed his innocence, even when we were alone and drunk. He’d been loyal, bound by deed and blood. He also said that he believed he was Emily’s biological dad, and I couldn’t see him killing Katy no matter how much trouble she brought the club. I thought he loved her, the way I had, the way we all had.

“Let that go, Emily,” I whispered. “You’ve wasted enough of your life to grief. Give it up. Do whatever the doctors at Sojourner tell you to do. Play the game. Pretend if you have to. But get out. I can help you with that. I did it myself. I can show you how.”

“I can’t go back there,” she said. “Not right now. Please.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, shushing her again. I hummed to her the way I thought I remembered my mother humming to me. I held her, but the way that a friend would. It had been a long time since I’d held anyone that way.

“Can I sleep here?” she asked. “I’m tired.”

“Yes, of course.”

I watched over her for a couple of hours. The sun started to come up. It bathed her face in a rosy golden light that washed away all the distress and anxiety. She curled up under my arm and I shut my eyes.

——

The dead have a way of waking up along with you. I listened to their hisses. The weight of nightmare was still on me. I couldn’t move yet. The whispering grew louder. It might’ve been Katy’s voice. She smiled at me with a mouth full of blood as she flicked open a switchblade. I was snoring. I made an effort to rear off the bed but I couldn’t. I tried to open my eyes but I wasn’t quite there yet. I heard scratching and the ringing chimes of the box spring. I was asleep and I knew it. I snorted and sipped air. Emily spoke to me.

I’m pregnant
, she said.

My eyes snapped open.

I asked, “What? What did you say?”

I checked beside me. She wasn’t there. I touched the outline of her body in the blankets. There was no warmth.

“Emily?”

I got out of bed. Her clothes were still on the floor where she’d left them. The bathroom was empty. The pistol was in my nightstand drawer where I’d put it.

I sniffed and gagged. I raised the back of my hand to cover my nose. I knew the smell. It was coming from under my bed.

I crouched down and peered underneath and saw Emily wedged there with her eyes and mouth open. She’d cut her wrists with the pocketknife I kept in an ashtray on my dresser. It hadn’t been very sharp and she’d really had to saw into herself. I counted four vertical slashes on each wrist. She’d had to start over and over as the wounds crusted. Ron and Katy’s shitty shag carpet had soaked her blood up thirstily. She’d bled out beneath me while I’d slept and dreamed of her mother.

I disturbed the scene by reaching for Emily and touching her cheek. She was still warm. She’d been dead no more than an hour.

She’d said she was pregnant. But when had she told me? It felt like she’d woken me with those words. Her lips were drawn back, not so much into a grimace as a real, true smile. She looked much happier than she had while talking with me. She seemed more lively as well. Her eyes hadn’t turned dull and hard yet. Amusement played there.

It took me a minute to get my bearings and find my cell. I called 911. When I was asked for my name it took me three tries before I could say it. I told them what had happened, gave my address, and disconnected.

I threw water on my face and regained my footing. I found her PJs and the ragged slippers and went through it all. The only thing I found of note was a small plastic purple house that looked like it belonged to a board game. I tried to imagine what significance it held for her. Did it remind her of her childhood? Was it a symbol of a perfect family and home life?

I laid on the floor and stared at the suicided girl under my bed and wondered just how I could have failed her so miserably.

——

I told the story seven times from start to finish, beginning with Cecil’s fatal overfeeding and ending when I phoned 911. I left out Emily’s attempt at seduction and my near enticement. The cops tried to shake me and couldn’t. They didn’t bother starting off acting friendly. They went straight to threats and shouted in my face and tried to get me to drink coffee so they could withhold bathroom privileges. They said they knew I’d killed Emily. They knew I’d tried to hide her body under my own bed. They knew I’d knocked off her parents and was perverted enough to move into the house afterward. They said she’d probably seen me do it and that’s why, all these years later, I’d felt the sudden burning compulsion to murder the only eyewitness.

After four hours they phoned my boss at the garage, told him about my past as a car thief, and had me fired. They got a little rough but didn’t seem to know how to go about it. One detective smacked me with a sloppy open palm. His hand was soft and smelled of aloe. Afterward, he looked like he wanted to apologize. Another cop tried to work my kidneys but he couldn’t find them. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or disgusted.

After nine hours they cut me loose. It was eight p.m. and I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in more than a day. I hadn’t even made it to the curb before I heard the roar of motorcycle engines heading up the street. I lit a cigarette and got in a nice, long drag before Dell and a half dozen of his men pulled up. He waved me over. If the brotherhood decided to play rough, they’d have no trouble working my kidneys. Their hands weren’t soft. I hesitated a moment and decided,
fuck it
, got on the back of his bike and held on as the pack moved as one back to the clubhouse.

——

They had warehouses all around town under false-front corporations and did most of their dirty dealings there, but they still had a nice security setup at the MC base. It was a converted barroom where they partied and schemed and got laid. It’s also where they got a little bloody when they had to. There was a back room with a stained concrete floor and a drain in the center. If it even looked like they were planning to corral me there, I was going to have to do something stupid and desperate.

Instead Dell led me to the bar while the other brothers went to shoot pool. On the far wall were photos of all the current members and all the ones who were in jail or dead. I was a little shocked to see that the dead now outnumbered the living.

Dell grabbed a bottle of Glenlivet off the top shelf and poured us each three fingers.

“Okay,” he said. “So tell me what happened.”

There was nothing inherently threatening in his attitude, but I knew better than to lie to him. I gave it to him pretty much the same way I gave it to the cops, except I also mentioned how she’d come on to me. I didn’t tell him I had nearly accepted the offer. I didn’t have to. I also didn’t tell him that I’d heard her say she was pregnant. That her voice had woken me—or Katy’s whispers had—an hour after the girl was dead.

I watched him closely. He went 220 of near-solid muscle, and his knuckles had been flattened from all the times he’d broken his hands in brawls. I couldn’t see any guns on him, but I knew he had to be packing at least two. There was no chance I’d get out alive if he decided this situation should go nuclear, but I wasn’t about to go down without a fight. I pulled the bottle closer to me and poured myself another two fingers. I kept the bottle within easy reach.

Dell said, “Thank you.”

It surprised me so much I asked, “For what?”

“For not kicking her out. For not calling the white wagon to come get her.”

A pause lengthened between us. I let it roll on and on until I felt it was time to ask, “Were you really her father?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t know. Probably not. It doesn’t make any difference.”

“It might have to her.”

“I kept in touch,” he said. “I visited her a couple times a year. Sent care packages. Cards on holidays, her birthday. It wasn’t much but it was something. I thought it was important.” He finished his drink and stared at himself in the mirror behind the bar for a minute. “Did she look in the root cellar?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know about that part of it.”

“That’s good.”

We kept drinking. The liquor was hitting me hard since I’d had no food for so long. I flashed on the idea that this might have been his intention all along, to catch me with my defenses down. Except he didn’t need me to have my defenses down. He had six men across the room who’d shotgun me to death if he gave the word.

“Where did she get the piece?” He wasn’t really asking me. “And what the hell was that about her parents under the bed?”

“She was a sick girl,” I said.

He pawed at his face and shook his head. “That image, it’s sticking with me. That she would dream that kind of stuff, man. She never told me anything like that. I can picture her trying to drop off, awake in the dark, thinking her parents were whispering under her bed. Jesus Christ, the poor kid. That fucking hospital. More than six years she was there, and this is the best they could do for her?”

The wind kicked up again. The bar rafters rasped and complained. The sound made me flinch. I finished another glass.

With my throat burning I said, “She needs me to find out who did it.”

As soon as it was out I knew I’d made a mistake. I spoke in the present tense. It was stupid. I sounded a little unhinged. The MC had more than enough crazy to go around; Dell didn’t need even more. But I couldn’t seem to stop. “I failed her. That’s going to hang with me unless I do something about it.”

“It’s not your burden.”

“I think it is.”

His heavy brow knit into a frown. “You’re not gonna find an answer. I’ve been trying for years and I haven’t found it. You think I haven’t looked into it? Just to clear my name?”

“Was that important to you?”

“It was to the brotherhood. I didn’t want any doubts. I couldn’t have my men thinking I would go rogue and kill our leader, even if it was for the good of the MC. It still crosses me up to this day. The original members, they forget what Ron and Katy were like at the time, the kind of trouble they hammered down on us. They just remember how much money he brought in and how good she could suck dick.”

He didn’t know about Emily being pregnant. He wouldn’t until the autopsy results came back. Then he’d understand why I was so adamant on trying to help her, and he’d be pissed at me for not telling him the whole truth. My gut clenched in expectation for a real beating, but that was for later.

“You’re not going to find an answer,” he repeated. “I don’t think there is one.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The bottle was empty. Dell staggered to his feet, crossed behind the bar, and dug around on the shelf until he found a bottle of Glenfiddich. “You know the kind of life the brotherhood lives. Running guns, hijacking trucks, giving kickbacks to the cops, fighting the wops and the wetbacks and the Koreans and the skinheads. We have a lot of enemies. Ron brought most of that down on us before we managed to contain it. Katy, she had her own bad wiring. She screwed a lot of guys, right? There is no answer because it’s too small to see. It’s . . .” He had to steel himself to say the word properly.

“. . . inconsequential. Some greaser put out the call on them, or some cop who wanted more of a cut, or maybe some white-collar citizen blew his gasket.”