His heart was racing, racing. He walked to the rear of the store, pausing at the display of auto care products to pick up a quart can of motor oil. He stationed himself in front of a glass-fronted food locker full of frozen burritos and pizzas. He called out, “Miss? Could you come here a minute?”
“What’s the matter?”
“I need your help with something.”
She was not quite his height. Young — maybe twenty-six, twenty-eight. He could smell her perfume and her sweat.
“What is it?”
Her name was Cindi. It said so on her little plastic name badge.
“Back there. Do you see where I’m pointing?”
“Where?”
She looked, frowning, leaning forward, and he swung the can of motor oil in a vicious arc, connecting solidly with the back of her head. She fell without a sound, and as she dropped one leg swung out behind her and dislodged a couple packages of Beer Nuts from a display.
He thought, Now, quickly, before anyone comes in. But he wanted her awake, he wanted her knowing what was happening. He caught her up under the arms and half carried, half dragged her into the back, where two doors set in a wall of unfinished concrete block opened into restrooms. In the men’s room, he propped her up against the sink. He stood between her legs and put his hands on her body, filling his senses with her.
She was still out, and for a moment he was afraid she was dead. But he could see a pulse working in the hollow of her throat.
He tore a couple of paper towels from the dispenser, wadded them up and crammed them into her mouth. He said, “Cindi?” When she failed to respond he ran water in the sink and splashed a little on her face. He said, “Cindi? Open your eyes, Cindi. Open them.”
She stirred. Her eyes fluttered, then opened. Brown eyes, not too well focused yet. Perspiration beading her upper lip.
He leaned his lower body against her. He settled a hand on either side of her throat. Her eyes were bringing his image into focus and he saw the fear coming into them now, the terror, and he said, “You look at me, Cindi, you look at me, darling,” and he held her eyes with his and ground his hips into hers as he choked the life out of her.
He wiped the faucets, the sink, the doorknob. With a paper towel around his hand he pressed the button to lock the door behind him, and he kept the towel over his hand as he pushed the door shut. He used it again to wipe off the can of motor oil, which he returned to its proper place on the way out of the store.
Two customers were waiting at the register, another was heating something in the microwave, and one of them asked Mark if he knew where the clerk was.
“In back,” he said. “She’ll be out in a minute.”
Back at the Radisson, the concierge greeted him by name as he got off the elevator. Well, that was part of what you paid extra for, that sort of personal touch.
He showered again and put on a robe. He sat at the desk for half an hour, going over his schedule for the next day, checking through the real estate listings. He caught the eleven o’clock news and the first few minutes of the Tonight show, turning it off at the end of Carson’s monologue.
In bed, he went over the day’s events as if they were on videotape. He pushed the mental fast-forward button during the dull spots, then moved to slow-motion from the point where he walked into the 7-Eleven. He did a freeze-frame on her face at the end, the knowledge and raw fear coming into her eyes, then the light going out of them.
He clung to that image and slid off to sleep with it.
Three
Sara Duskin dozed off in the taxi. She wasn’t tired, really, but she had things on her mind and her thoughts just wound inward and inward, curling on themselves until they had led her far away from consciousness. When the taxi stopped in front of her house she awoke instantly, and her eyes were open by the time the driver turned to tell her they had arrived.
She turned her head to look at the meter, turned her head again to look down at her purse. She paid him, tipped him, and walked up the driveway to the door.
She heard Thom dribbling a basketball, then looked and saw him arcing a shot at the basket mounted on the garage. She was fitting her key in the lock when he caught sight of her and ran to her.
“I thought you were home,” he said accusingly. “I saw the car and I thought you were home.”
“Didn’t I tell you I was going to the doctor?”
“Yeah, but I thought you came back ’cause the car was in the garage. And then the door was locked, and I rang and rang and you didn’t open it.”
“Wasn’t the key on the hook? In the garage?”
“Yeah, but I thought you were home, see, so why would I bother with the key? And then I figured you were asleep, so I got the key and went in, and you weren’t home, and it was spooky.”
“Were you scared?”
“I didn’t say I was scared, just that it was spooky.” He followed her into the house, and while she heated water for tea he poured himself a glass of milk and helped himself to a handful of Oreos.
“I won’t spoil my dinner,” he said.
“I don’t care if you do.”
“You don’t? What’d you get from the doctor, drugs?”
“You guessed it, sport. A little coke, a little smack—”
“What’s smack?”
“Heroin. Gosh, don’t they teach you anything in that school of yours?”
“I could buy heroin, Mom. You want me to buy some without leaving the school building?”
“In Fort Wayne?”
“Right here in beautiful downtown Fort Wayne. You want me to buy some what-did-you-call-it? Smack?”
“Don’t do me any favors. The doctor gives me a good price.”
“I’ll bet.” He looked down at his glass of milk. “How come you didn’t take the car?”
“I got a ride.”
“I thought you took a cab.”
“I did. That’s what I got a ride in.”
“How come?”
“Oh, I thought I might be tired, and it might be easier to let somebody else drive.”
“Is that the truth, Mom?”
He had such an earnest gaze, and he was such a fine looking boy. Thirteen years old, tall for his age, and blond, and with such clean-cut chiseled features. It was such a joy to see him; it was so good to be able to see him—
“Mom?”
“It’s the truth,” she said, “but it’s not the whole truth.”
“What’s the whole truth?”
“I don’t think I can drive anymore, Thom.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“He didn’t say anything good.”
“What do you mean?”
She took the teabag from the cup, set it in the saucer. She reached for his glass of milk and added a little to her tea.
“There’s crumbs in it,” he said. “From the cookies, I dunked them and there’s crumbs.”
“So?”
“So now you’ve got cookie crumbs in your tea.”
“So?”
“So nothing. What did the doctor say?”
“He says I definitely don’t have glaucoma.”
“Isn’t that good?”
“Not in this case, because they can arrest glaucoma. There are drops they give you, and if you take them regularly your vision doesn’t get any worse.”
“He gave you drops last week.”
“Right.”
“Even though he didn’t think it was glaucoma.”
“Right. Because the eyeball pressure wasn’t elevated, but he thought the drops might arrest the symptoms just as if the pressure were elevated as in true glaucoma.”
“But it didn’t?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“What does that mean exactly? Your eyes are worse than they were last week?”