Oh, Jesus, he thought.
Iris and Mary Ann had Mindy pinned to the floor and she was sobbing.
Patrick ran into the living room. The TV had fallen from its stand and burst. Glass vases and cut flowers littered the floor and several of Iris’s new electric candles bravely continued to beam in the wet debris. Salimony and Messina had Marcos backed into a bookcase, blows and books and photographs and knickknacks all raining down on him. Patrick shouldered in, kicked Marcos squarely in the groin, and showered him with his fists and elbows. When Marcos fell, the three men dragged him, groaning, outside to the porch, then down the steps and dropped him into the planter. Iris and her two friends lugged unstruggling Mindy down the porch steps, her wedge shoes clunking down each craftsman plank, then launched her on to the grass. “Get out of here and don’t ever come back!” Iris screamed. Her face was a grimace and her fury sent a sobering jolt through Patrick. What should he have done? “And you bastards get out of here too and don’t you ever come back. And you, Patrick, Patrick Norris? You never come back here again or I’ll call the cops and file charges. I swear to God I will!”
Patrick watched Natalie and Mary Ann squeeze through the front door and into the house. Iris gave him one last furious look before she slammed the door and drove the deadbolt home.
Grier had pulled Marcos to his feet and they staggered toward a white Camaro parked at the curb.
“Sorry, Pat,” said Salimony. His new shirt was torn and splattered with blood.
“Yeah, Pat, sorry,” said Messina, who had bloodshot eyes and a jaggedly split lip. “We gotta help fix it. We gotta.”
“You heard her,” said Patrick. “Get the hell out of here. Go.”
Patrick waited until the Camaro and Messina’s Mustang had both disappeared down the hill. He listened for sirens and was surprised to hear only silence. Neighbors left, right, and across the street stood on their lit porches and neat lawns, looking at him, their voices riding softly on the damp night air.
He strode back onto the porch and knocked on Iris’s front door, then knocked again harder. Natalie called through the wood, “You better go, Pat. You better go like now.”
Chapter twenty-six
Evelyn looked up from her desk at Anders Wealth Management to find Ted Norris standing in the doorway of her office. She flinched. The morning light coming through her windows illuminated him. “Ted?”
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?
“I’m good as new.”
“Can I help you?”
“I want to get a few things off my chest.”
“I’ll let Brian know you’re here.”
“But I don’t want to talk to Brian.”
“You’re not here looking for trouble, are you?”
“No. Not in any way.”
Brian appeared in the middle distance behind Ted, glancing up from his tablet. He gave Ted an interrogatory stare. Ted sensed him without turning. “Don’t worry, Mr. Anders. I come in peace.”
“I’m sorry for what happened,” said Brian. “I saw it on the Village View Web site.”
“I lost eighty dollars but saved my life by fighting hand to hand.”
“The sheriffs are going to step up the downtown patrol,” said Brian. “Not everyone can do what you did.”
“I’m not a hero and I don’t want to be.” Ted folded his hands together at his waist. He was wearing another baggy Hawaiian shirt and loose jeans and his huge therapeutic shoes. The shirt hung oddly distended on his right side.
“Come in and take a seat then,” said Evelyn. “I have an appointment in half an hour.”
Ted stepped in and put a hand on the doorknob.
“Leave it open.”
“I was going to.”
Brian circled his index finger around his ear then made the “call me” sign with his free hand and walked toward his office. A spark of fear flickered inside her and she wished that Brian had done something more. But what? Call security? The landlord had terminated the service months ago, and the tenants couldn’t afford security on their own. She’d put PATROLLED BY FALLBROOK SECURITY stickers on the windows and a larger sign by the mailboxes in the ground-floor entry, but any bad guy with half a brain would figure them for what they were — bogus.
Ted sat heavily in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “I’m not drawing any more cartoons of you.”
“Thank you, Ted. Good decision.”
“Patrick ordered me not to.”
“Then I thank both of you.”
Ted adjusted himself on the chair, as if something was physically bothering him. “I disagree with almost everything you’ve done as my mayor.”
Evelyn felt instantly crushed, but the feeling disappeared quickly. Four years in elected office had made her skin much thicker. Still, there was pain in disagreement: democracy hurt. “I’m sorry to hear that. But I was elected for what I believe. And I’m expected to act on those beliefs, for the good of Fallbrook.”
“I’ll probably have to vote for Walt Rood.”
“That’s your right.”
“I like your campaign posters. Your picture is nice.”
“You should vote your... I’d like to have your heart, Ted.”
“Have my heart? You really would?”
“I meant your vote. I was going to say, you should vote your heart — but then I tried to say something else and it came out mixed up.”
“I do that all the time. The big important words in your thoughts, they come out, but some of the other ones don’t. So what you say isn’t complete. It isn’t what you tried to say.”
Evelyn smiled. Ted really did have a good heart in there. “No, things come out wrong all the time. I’d still love your vote, though.”
Ted looked at her with an unreadable expression. He half-stood, reached under his shirt. Before Evelyn fully registered what he was doing, Ted drew a plastic sandwich box and held it up toward her. “I brought this for you,” he said. Something thick and slow moved inside the opaque container. “It’s a tarantula.”
“Oh! Well, I’m really not a big tarantula fan, Ted. Incredible as that may seem.”
“This one is a female. The males are skinny and die. These females are plump and live a long, long time. She eats crickets you can buy at the pet store.”
“I’m... can you keep it for me? Or can I let it go in the nature preserve or somewhere?”
“Let her go?”
“Just asking.”
Ted reached out and set the container on Evelyn’s desk. She watched the thing feeling its away around. “When I was young I fell in love with you,” he said.