Blood in the Water and Other Secrets Read online

  Her husband took an afternoon train into the city, and Debra changed into her jogging clothes as soon as the sun set in red and smoggy glory. It was full dark by the time she parked her car. No one noticed her running along the sidewalk— faster than normal, all her muscles alert— nor remarked on a woman alone moving quickly through the Sedgwick Elms parking lots and behind the hedge of trimmed pines to the scrap of lawn overlooked by the decks. She stood on the grass until her eyes grew accustomed to the harsh contrasts between the security spots and glowing windows and the shadowed grass and black leaves of the trees. The first floor neighbor was out; the apartment dark. Debra felt her legs tense as if anticipating the effort of stepping up onto the first floor deck, balancing on the rail, and reaching for the floor of the deck above. That’s what the Strangler would do, before a brief operation with the screwdriver— which had been bouncing and bruising her leg with every stride— opened the glass slider with a click.

  She stepped back and ducked around the hedge. She would take the easier route and hit the buzzer. “I was just passing,” she said, when Gwen opened the door. “Out for a run.”

  Gwen did not look particularly pleased to see her. “You’re still running at night!”

  “The heat,” Debra said.

  Gwen stood in the doorway unmoving.

  “I thought we might talk,” Debra said, and added, “business.”

  Gwen stepped aside and held the door open. When she turned to snap the dead bolt, Debra reached into the pocket of her black running shorts for the nylon stocking.

  * * * *

  She was back in her own living room just over an hour later with nothing but a slight scrape from climbing over the railing around Gwen’s deck. Debra took the stocking out of her pocket and laid it on the coffee table, her hands trembling a little from excitement. Her legs felt stiff, as if she had run an exceptionally long way. Excitement and fatigue, that was all, which was sort of amazing, considering. She looked at her watch, 10:15, almost exactly an hour since she’d backed the Mercedes out of the garage to change everything: her life, her attitude, her future.

  Debra was a little surprised that she didn’t feel more than an admittedly unseemly exhilaration, but then she supposed that a good many lies are told about all strong emotions. We imagine what we’ll feel at intense moments, based on what we’ve been told by books and movies. When the real experience comes, we often discover that everything is quite, quite different and that we don’t feel anything like what we’re supposed to.

  Without doubt, what Debra felt was satisfaction, a satisfaction increased by the fact that on some level the events of the evening were the Strangler’s doing, not hers. The door locked from the inside, the catch on the slider sprung, the victim’s own stocking taken from her emptied lingerie drawer: those were the Strangler’s trademarks, his fault.

  Debra went into the kitchen and opened a celebratory bottle of white wine and poured herself a glass, which she drank quickly, standing by the sink. The yard beyond was dark; she had not bothered to put on the outside lights, being now, herself, a creature of the darkness. She poured another glass of wine. As she was corking the bottle, she thought she heard a rustle, a click, and walked into the living room but found nothing amiss amongst the handsome lamps, the fine oriental carpet, the matching modern sofas, the quiet purr of the air-conditioning. The rustle must have been one of the shrubs rubbing against a window. The rhodies were getting overgrown and lanky enough, perhaps, to catch a stray breeze, though the night had so far been as still, stagnant, and humid as most that summer.

  Back in the kitchen, Debra took another long drink from her wineglass. She was thirsty, as well she might be. She took the cork out of the bottle and topped up her glass. She would drink the whole thing, and it was just too bad she hadn’t anything better on hand than this quite mediocre Chablis. Champagne was what she really needed. Champagne and a shower; then she’d better wash her running clothes and her sneakers, too. She carried her drink into the living room, thinking that she’d turn on the shower as soon as the washer filled up. Then she’d lie on her bed, finishing the wine and remembering the night shadows under her running feet and the rush of power she’d felt in Gwen Romani’s apartment.

  As Debra walked down the hall toward the laundry room, she remembered the stocking, which would also have to be washed. She returned to the living room, but the coffee table was bare. The stocking was gone, and she was struck by the absurdity of that absence. She had carried the stocking home in her pocket and placed it like a trophy on the coffee table. Could it been knocked off? She searched the floor but saw only the red and cream arabesque of the rug.

  She felt her pockets, then went into the kitchen and swept her hand along the black granite counters, as if a pale nylon stocking would not be obvious against the stone. She reached for the phone on the counter, then thought better of that. In the excitement, she might have laid the stocking anywhere. Perhaps she had even left it in the car. Perhaps she had simply been mistaken. The car was an idea in any case, she thought, and she stepped into the hall.

  But this time, Debra was in no doubt about the sound. It was a rapid step, behind her and to her left, followed immediately by a sudden blow to her throat that took her breath and brought her hands up, clawing in panic. She tried to scream, to protest, to explain that this was all wrong, but she could not get out a sound. So she was able to hear, quite distinctly and clearly, a male voice. It was soft and seductive, surprisingly mild, far milder than hers had been when she had struggled with Gwen. “I’ve been waiting so long for you,” the voice said, “and you even left me a stocking.”

  My Life in Crime

  It started the day Billy J showed up at school in a real leather jacket and a pair of Nike Zoom LeBron II’s. The leather was class, man, but LeBron II’s! The coolest shoes on the planet. I’m not the biggest kid on court, but I got a killer outside shot and I’d sure fly with shoes like those. As I kept telling Mama, all I needed to take my game to the next level was better equipment. But Mama, who wasn’t my mom at all but my grandmother, had old fashioned ideas and was all the time telling me that Payless sneaks were good enough if they ‘kept the wet off my feet.’

  So there I’m dreaming of LeBron II’s with the special support straps that would lift my game, when in comes Billy J, fresh from a trip to Sportslocker and the top leather shop in the mall. He’s wearing a four hundred dollar bomber jacket and my LeBron II shoes. Mine. Are me and the guys interested? Do we want to know how this could have happened when Billy J’s so dumb the corner dealers won’t touch him for a runner? Sure we do. Fortunately, Mitch, who lacks the cool and self-restraint that gives me a bigger game than you’d expect from my size, comes right out and asks him.

  Billy J, moving and styling like some new born rap star, says, “It’s the settlement.”

  And being that dumb, he tells us the rest, starting with how his cousin knows a guy who knew another guy, plus confusing legal and medical stuff with relatives’ contacts we don’t need to bother with here. Some of my guys are losing interest before Billy J gets to the point, but I still got one eye on the LeBron II’s and I keep my ears open. The deal was pretty simple once Billy J finally spits it out. The night of the accident, his brother Wesley drives the family car along South Main at 8 P.M. “Eight exactly,” says Billy J. “No later, no earlier. Super important.” He goes on about this til we get the picture.

  Anyway, Wesley’s on his way to his night shift at McDonald’s, and he has his sister Meghan with him, giving her a lift to a friend’s house. They’re rolling along Main, right at the speed limit, which impressed Billy J, “Cause my brother’s a speed king,” when “Boom! Bang! Crash!”

  Billy J’s got minimum verbal, as you can soon tell from talking with him. What’s happened is that the guy who knew the other guy who’s some far off Billy J relative has come out of a side street and lost his brakes and piled into the back quarter panel of the Billy J family car.

  “The bullet ca
r was done professional,” says Billy J, like this is some sort of job, a career path like Mr. Dawkins is always going on about, how we need a “career path” to take us from where we are to someplace none of us can imagine. Perhaps I can put out down “bullet car driver” next time.

  “They hurt?” I ask.

  Billy J gives me a look. It’s a scary thing, I tell you, to see a loser like Billy J in fancy gear with a scornful look. “I told you, done professional. Not a mark on them.”

  “How you get money for that?” asks Kev.

  “Whiplash,” says Billy J and nods his head. “The doctor said Wes was one bad case and Meghan was almost worse. They’ve had to have therapy and everything.”

  “You got to pay for that,” says Mitch. “How they get health insurance?”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with them,” says Billy J. “And the auto insurance pays for everything.”

  “Sure, you say,” says Kev. “I don’t think there was an accident. I think you lifted that jacket and run out of the mall.”

  “No way. You ask my Aunt Bessie. She ‘bout hit the roof we didn’t add her daughter as a jump in.”

  “I wouldn’t want to jump her daughter,” says Kev and everyone laughs.

  “A jump in ain’t even in the car. Just on the accident report. I’m telling you them insurance companies got the money.”

  Kev and Mitch weren’t impressed, but I could sort of see how it worked. Course you had to have a doctor, and a lawyer was good, too, cause nobody in their right mind would take Wesley Durfen’s word for anything with cash involved. Major connections required, and even with the LeBron shoes, I’d probably have forgotten the whole thing, if other guys around hadn’t started sporting fancy gear. Then the Ramondis got a hot tub and Hector’s dad got his teeth done. Tanya Morris managed a new car and her brother-in-law got a set of tools and started doing cut rate roofing jobs.

  Pretty soon everyone at school and around the basketball court is talking settlements and the finer points of rear end crashes. I learn a whole lot about whiplash injuries and back pain and rear quarter panel damage— human and automotive. One night when Mama is complaining about the electric bill and telling me for the millionth time I can’t get a cell phone, I come right out and say, “What we need is a settlement.”

  “We’re already next to a housing project,” says Mama. “A settlement’s more than I need.”

  The thing with Mama is you’re not always sure if she’s onto you and making a joke, or if like most folk her age, everything new and big’s passed her by.

  “I’m talking about an insurance settlement. Like everybody’s been getting.”

  “You’re talking about a bunch of no good gangbangers,” says Mama.

  “Mr. Ventilla’s no gangbanger. He got his teeth fixed cause he was in a car accident.”

  “He gets hurt in an accident, he deserves to get his teeth fixed,” says Mama, refusing to see what’s right in front of her.

  “It wasn’t an accident. Hector was in on it, too, and I saw him last month with one of those cool little Kawasakis.”

  “He’ll have a real accident with that,” says Mama, which I thought was likely but wouldn’t admit. “Then where will he be? Wishing he’d left the damn thing alone.”

  This is off topic for sure, but that’s how Mama talks til you find yourself blocks away from cell phones or a way to tap into insurance. I spell out the details for her about Billy J and the lawyer and New Life Chiropractic, Inc, a little storefront down on River Street that’s all of a sudden doing business like Walmart. I’m getting into whiplash and why it’s the best injury of all, when Mama cuts me off.

  “I don’t want to hear another word more now or ever,” she says. “We don’t have much but we’re going to live honest.”

  She stuck to that, although when she had to cut back her hours cleaning at the motel, we had lots of bean and rice dinners, and I had to put my can money and circular delivery cash into groceries instead of a cell phone or LeBron II’s.

  “Be up to LeBron III’s,” says Mama when I complain. “You get yourself a better pair by waiting.”

  I grouse to Kev and Mitch, but they aren’t much better off. Kev’s dad’s been gone even longer than mine and Mitch’s working the Walmart loading dock. “We gotta get ourselves a settlement,” says Mitch.

  “Mama’d about kill me. She’d tattoo my ass,” I says, and ‘cause neither Kev nor Mitch has initiative, the settlement stays just so much bull around the court and in the hallways. Then one day Mama’s home from the Hampton Inn one day before I get back from school. I open the door and I can tell right then that something’s wrong. The apartment feels different, like the air has gone out of it, and it’s quiet in a different way, too. Not the quiet of the tv or my boom box waiting to be turned on or the frige opened and a soda cracked. Something else was waiting.

  “Who’s there?” I call. I’m maybe even a little nervous. You don’t always know what you come home to in our neighborhood.

  “That you, Davis?” Mama’s voice sounds different, like when she took pneumonia three winters ago.

  She’s lying on the bed in her room looking very white and very old. I never think of Mama as being any particular age except when she’s sick. “What happened? You get the flu that’s going around?” I’m worried, but I’m also thinking now I can’t crank up the boom box and have Mitch and Kev over.

  “Maybe. Probably that’s it,” Mama said. But she doesn’t sound convinced. “I’ve got this pain.”

  I forget my afternoon plans and start to get worried. When Mama says she hurts, it’s something serious.

  “Should we go to the ER?” I ask.

  She doesn’t know. She says yes and then no, and I have a bad feeling about deciding either way. Finally, so I don’t have to be the one, I says I’ll ask Mrs. Perez. She’s our next door neighbor, a little short woman with neat black hair, who has a night shift job in the hospital laundry. By default, she’s the medical resource for our block. Mrs. Perez comes in, takes one look at Mama, puts her hand on her forehead, which I hadn’t thought to do, and says, “I drive you to the ER.”

  “I don’t want to bother you,” says Mama.

  “I drive you and Davis stays with you. I gotta be here for Luisa getting home.” Luisa’s in the elementary and gets home later cause of the bus routes.

  So we get into Mrs. Perez’s ancient Subaru. Mama looks green and winces every time we hit a pothole. In the ER, we meet Dr. Patel, an intern, who has a round brown face that gets serious when he talks to Mama, and we get a referral to an oncologist, which sounds like a funny specialty but which turns out to be as bad as you can get. It’s like Mama says, you think you have worries, then you get real trouble and you realize things weren’t so bad before.

  Now I got to come home every day after school, pronto, to shop and do the dinner; no hanging around the basketball court, working on my outside shot and my quick moves to the hoop. I gotta consult with Mama on the shopping, of course, because I’m too young to get a regular job and she’s had to quit at the motel. “Just for a few months,” she says. “Til I get over the surgery.”

  I don’t know about that, but in the meantime, we’re living on welfare. Mama scours the coupons and flyers and gets on me to take the bus out to the big supermarket instead of shopping the Jiffy Mart or the Vietnamese market. A trip like that takes up the afternoon, and I usually make it on check day.

  Mama has regular visits to the hospital for her chemo, too. I go with her unless its during school time, ‘cause Mama’s dead set on my staying in school. I have feelings both ways; I feel I should go and make sure she gets there in the old car and has somebody to be with her when there’s needles and doctors. On the other hand, I hate the smells of the hospital and the tight feeling in the air like everybody’s facing some bad scary thing, which they are, for sure. Things I don’t even want to think about too much.

  Anyway, Mama gets through the chemo and starts with the radiation. “Do me up like t
hat new meat, doesn’t ever go bad,” she says, sounding like herself. But in the meantime she can’t go back to the Hampton Inn and making beds and cleaning, and she keeps mentioning my Aunt Rita, who lives outside of Jacksonville. Mama keeps saying things like how nice Aunt Rita is and how kind and how she has a boy, Brian, just about my age.

  Last thing in the world I want is to go to Jacksonville, Florida and live with Aunt Rita, who I don’t know— or her kid, Brian, either. What we need is a settlement and we need one now. We got an old junker of a Ford that Mama used to drive to her work and now takes to the hospital. It’s ideal for the purpose, but Mama won’t consider it and I’m not old enough for my license.

  “She’ll never do it,” I say to Billy J. I’m so desperate, I’ve talked to him about the lawyer and the chiropractor and getting the job done professional.

  “Up front money for that,” says Billy J.

  “If I had money I wouldn’t need a settlement,” I says.

  He says he’ll think about it, like this is some big favor. I’d about given up hearing anything, when, one day when Mama is feeling ok, and no radiation on the schedule, and the shopping is done, I’m down at the court, missing everything because I’m so out of practice, and this guy comes over. He’s skinny with a yellowish face and a thin moustache and he’s smoking a green cigar. His waist is so little his pants are all bunched around his belt, and he doesn’t look like much except for his arms which are ropey with muscle like he’s lifted serious weight.

  He watches me for a while, then raises his chin and gestures to show he wants to talk to me. Privately.

  I’m not enthusiastic. He’s no bigger than I am but he gives off a kind of warning vibe like a video game villain with a pulsing bad aura. I come over to the fence.

  “You Davis? Friend of Billy J’s?”

  I says yeah and there he is: Victor, the guy who makes accidents happen, who has arrangements with lawyers and chiropractors, who can do serious rear quarter panel and axel damage without creating fatalities. He’s some kind of foreign, Viet or Thai or maybe some weird Indian-Hispanic. I don’t know what I expected a bullet car driver to be like. But this is it: thin, smelling of cigar smoke, with narrow eyes and a cold stare.