The Caveman's Valentine (25 page)

“
Tough
luck. I mean it, I’m telling you, for the next few years you’ll be wanting to sleep with the light on.”

“So why didn’t you destroy it?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought one day it might come in handy. Somehow.”

“It’d come in handy right now. You could let the world know what kind of man David Leppenraub is.”

“Oh, yeah? Why should I do that? What’s the world’s interest in this?”

“He killed Scotty Gates.”

Joey dropped his gaze. His voice changed. “Yeah. So Mama told me.”

He shook his head. Back and forth, to get a thought out of it.

He asked Romulus, “Did the police find the copy of this that I made for Scotty?”

“No. I guess that’s what Leppenraub killed him for. Leppenraub must have it.”

Joey sat on Lavonia’s battered couch.

He said, “So I killed him. After everything else I did, I had to do that, too.”

“
You
didn’t kill him.”

“Sure I did, I gave him the damn tape. That was so stupid. So
stupid.
I should have known he’d try to use it. He was so naive. He was the dumbest hick you ever saw. I thought I knew hicks growing up around here. But he was incredible. He thought he could threaten a man like Leppenraub.
Stupid! Jesus.
After everything else I did to him, I had to do this, too.”

“What else did you do to him, Joey?”

B
ut then Millie called from the door.

“Can I come in now?”

Romulus didn’t turn, but he called back to her: “What d’you get, Millie?”

“M&Ms.”

“Will you save me a few?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s that lady that’s supposed to take care of you?”

“She’s not here yet. What color you want? Green?”

“Green’s OK. Could you wait out there for her?”

Reluctantly: “Yes.”

He heard her dragging down the steps.

W
hen her steps had faded, Joey asked him:

“Who are you? I mean, you’re not a cop, you’re not a detective, so what are you looking for? You want to send Leppenraub to jail?”

“That’s a start.”

“You got any evidence besides this?”

“Not in truth.”

“Well then, you lose. Look, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. A lot of nights. The tape isn’t enough—this won’t hold up. David’s got a pack of million-dollar lawyers, you know they’d tear this tape to shreds. They’d say it was just a show. They’d say it was all makeup and special effects. So forget it. Unless you’re just looking to make a few bucks. You could sell this to the
Weekly World News
maybe.
SHUTTERBUG IN SADIST SEX SCANDAL
. Is that what you want? A few bucks?”

“No.”

“Then what
are
you looking for?”

“I’d like to know the truth.”

“Why?”

“Because those lies they’re telling . . . they dishonor Scotty Gates.”

“Dishonor?
Huh. I haven’t heard that word in quite a while. You know, my mother thinks you’re crazy.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s true?”

“It’s true I have done crazy things.”

“You sure sound crazy.
Dishonor.”

They sat in silence. A car stopped outside. It was Miz Grey, the woman come to pick up Millie. Millie ran in, dropped three green M&Ms into Romulus’s hand, gave him a hug, and ran out again. The car drove off.

Joey shook his head, slowly. “All right. You want to know why I held on to this? If I tell you, will you go away and leave me alone?”

Romulus just looked at him. Joey seemed to take his look for an assent. He said, “OK. It had nothing to do with Leppenraub. It was for
me.
It was to remind me. So if I started to forget I could watch it and then I’d remember again. Not what Leppenraub did. What
I
did.

“Because I took those pictures.

“Nobody forced me. Nobody held a gun to my head. I did it because it meant that David Leppenraub trusted me, that he wanted me in his little circle. You understand? That’s all I wanted. I . . . I didn’t just love that man, I
revered
him. I thought he was the greatest artist of the human psyche who ever lived. I thought he had us all figured out. That he knew what it is that attracts people to suffering. Why people seem to
reach out
to it, you know, like suffering’s some kind of holy mercy—David understood that, and to me that meant he understood everything. And
I
was one of his right-hand men. Fucking Joey Peasley from Lent, North Carolina. You wouldn’t believe how proud that made me. He was like my father. He was like my Christ. I was his disciple.

“And so was Scotty.

“I mean Scotty always seemed . . . kind of
excited
by what we were doing. That wasn’t the first weekend we hurt him. But he never scrammed. You get this? He could have just taken off, but he didn’t, he stuck around. No matter what we did to him, he stayed. So I thought that meant it was OK, somehow. Though sometimes we came damn close to killing him. I say we, because I’ve got to say we, because I was part of it, I can’t let myself forget that, ever.
Ever.
But I wasn’t the one who actually hurt him. I just worked the camera. I wasn’t honored enough to be the one hurting him. David’s
special
boys did that. They did anything he wanted. They did everything they could think of, so long as it didn’t leave a mark.

“See, David didn’t want Scotty marked. Oh, every now and then a little scratch or bruise couldn’t be helped, and internal injury—that was no problem. But he didn’t want any permanent scars that would show.

“David just had a thing for Scotty. For hours, I mean endlessly, he could look at that kid. When he was tired of torturing him, he’d take him in his arms to comfort him, and he’d just keep looking at him and calling him ‘my little piece of heaven.’

“Maybe also, though, the reason David didn’t want to leave scars was he was afraid he’d push it too far someday and Scotty would rat out, and David didn’t want any incriminating evidence. You know?

“But I didn’t think Scotty would ever rat out. Oh, he’d whine a lot, he’d cry and he’d beg David to leave him alone, to let somebody else be the Pain-Challenger. That’s what we called him—like these were some kind of sacred rites, and civilization was rotting because it had turned its back on the sacrament of pain, and here on this farm we were keeping the spark alive.

“And Scotty, he’d curse and cry and say we were killing him. But he never beat it out of there.

“I was working in Leppenraub’s little theater up there, I guess you know that? For the summer. Assistant director. I’d be in rehearsal and one of the boys would stop by, and say David needed my expertise, and I’d come running back to the farm and they’d have the kid on the pool table, and David’s boys had worked up some new torture. They were ‘challenging the godhead,’ that’s what they called it. They used to read books on torture. I mean it—they used to read reports from Amnesty International—that’s where they got some of their ideas.

“We were sick beyond your worst nightmare, mister.

“Every one of us. We were sick, we were out of our skulls, and I was back behind the camera and I don’t think I could have done those things to him myself but how do I
know
that? I was never asked. I just stayed there behind the viewfinder and watched, and I think that makes me sicker than any of them. I thought these things that David Leppenraub was teaching me would make me the greatest director that ever lived. ’Cause I was looking into the very soul of human desire, and . . . horror, and suffering and—you know? And, see, David had friends who were Hollywood producers, and one day I just knew he was going to say to me, ‘Your apprenticeship is finished,’ and snap his fingers and I’d have a fucking job like that. OK?

“I just had to be patient. Be helpful. Believe in the fucking challenge.

“But then one day I had to go over to the farm to help Scotty climb a tree. ’Cause Scotty couldn’t do it by himself—he was too weak. And I was watching the way he was moving and I realized, He’s all busted up in there, he’s moving like an old man. And I had to practically carry him up that tree. David didn’t give a shit. He was fiddling with the camera, figuring out the f-stop.

“So here I am, I’m carrying this kid like a monkey on my back, and I get him way up there and tie him to a limb like he’s crucified. And I wipe the sweat off his face with a towel. And climb down out of the frame, and I’m looking down at David. David keeps fiddling with his lenses. Finally he gives this disgusted look and he calls up, ‘Scotty, what’s the matter with you?’ ‘Nothing,’ says Scotty, ‘why?’ And David says, ‘You look like you’re about fifty years old. You look sick. You’re not taking care of yourself.’ Scotty says, ‘I’m all right, David.’ And David says, ‘If you won’t take care of yourself, I’m sure not taking care of you.’ And then he says to me, ‘Get him down. I can’t use him.’

“So I help him out of the tree, and I’ll be goddamned if I know how I did it, ’cause he’s a mess, he’s bawling all over me and he’s made of rubber, and the only thing that kept him alive is he was so scared he just clutched on to me like a tick all the way down.

“And then David says to me, ‘Clive, would you go up? You know, you look an awful lot like Scotty. Would you be willing to go up?’

“And so just like that I was David Leppenraub’s new angel. His little piece of heaven.

“I flew up that tree. And David himself climbed up to tie me on. We had the shot in less than an hour. And I came down and Scotty was still sitting there, up against this stone wall. I helped him stand up. Then we walked back. I had to carry a lot of these bird cages, these props, I don’t know what they were for. And Scotty walked beside me, and David was still back at the tree, taking another shot.

“And something happened to me then. I don’t know what it was. Or maybe it happened when I was hanging on that tree. But I knew that I was done with this. I didn’t want to be David’s angel. I didn’t even want to be a director. I just wanted to get out of there.

“And I asked Scotty, I said, ‘Scotty, why don’t you run away?’ He didn’t say anything. He just kept walking. Sort of hobbling. And I said it again. ‘Why don’t you fucking run away?’ And then he said, ‘Where am I going to run
to?
’

“See, he didn’t know shit about the world. He thought he didn’t have any world but what David Leppenraub told him was his world. And anywhere he went, he knew, David’s boys would find him.

“And I guess he was right about that. They did find him. Maybe they wouldn’t have if I hadn’t given him that videotape. But I did. And you know, one of these days they’re going to find me, too. That’s their new challenge, and they’re clever boys. And when they find me they’re sure as shit going to kill me.”

T
hey sat, Romulus in the exploded armchair and Joey in the white-lacquered captain’s chair, and they stared at the empty TV screen.

Joey said, “So is that enough for you?”

“Yeah, I guess. Except . . .”

But Romulus scarcely had a voice. He cleared his throat. He said, “The needle. What about that?”

“Huh?”

“What was in the needle, Joey? The needle hanging from his arm.”

“I don’t know. Some shit. Some shit to make it even scarier for Scotty. But cooking up the shit, that wasn’t my department.”

“Whose was it?”

“The boys—one of the boys.”

“Which one? Vlad? Was Vlad one of the boys?”

Joey almost smiled.

“Vlad. So you’ve met Vlad. Good man, isn’t he? Level-headed. Easygoing. Huh? A real pearl of a man.”

“Was Vlad one of the boys?”

Still Joey wouldn’t answer. The very name seemed to spook him. “I’d rather not talk about Vlad, all right? In fact, I think I’ve talked way too much already.”

“But I need your help, Joey. I need the tape.”

“Why? So they can kill
you,
too?”

“Maybe they won’t kill anybody if we can put the bastards in jail.”

Joey shrugged. “Yeah, sure—but we can’t. Not with just this tape.”

“But you’re an eyewitness! If
you’ll
testify—”

“Yeah. If I’d just be willing to testify at my own execution . . .”

Joey rose. He tucked the tape back into its cardboard container.

“Look, I got to go. I got a long drive ahead of me, and then I got to get back to work. I got a life to grind out here. Did Mama tell you what I did? I type. All day long. I couldn’t tell you what I type. I just enter what they put in front of me. I was sick of it the first day. I bet in another twenty, thirty years, it’ll
really
get to me. So I kind of hope they find me soon, you know? Listen, will you do me a favor? Will you never tell another soul what you saw here? Or you can tell them
what,
but just don’t ever tell them
where
you saw this. I’m worried, you know? Not about me—about my mama.”

He headed for the door. Romulus went with him. Trying to think of something to say, some argument, but nothing came to mind. On the steps Joey stopped to look at him. To study him. The young man’s eyes, those arctic blue eyes, were as grabby as his mother’s—but they held on to things a lot longer.

Then he offered:

“Hey look, if you ever find some other evidence, I mean proof, you know, something
solid,
something that could really put the fuckers away—then I would do it. Then I’d give you the tape.”

Romulus shrugged. “You mean, if I don’t need it, I can have it? If it doesn’t matter?”

“Oh, it’ll matter. On its own, the tape won’t swing a jury. But it’ll give them nightmares—it’ll put them in the mood. Still, you got to have something else to back it up. Otherwise, what’s the point? What’s the sense in getting us all killed?”

“How would I find you?”

“Call Mama.”

“She won’t have your number.”

“I’ll check in with her now and then. Just tell her the man who lives in a cave is looking for me, and I’ll find you. And now if you’ll excuse me, I got this fucking life to grind out.”

R
omulus left eight dollars in quarters on his bed. Added twelve quarters for breakfast. He had already paid for last night’s supper. He left a note.