'So keep it handy,' he said. He handed the gun back, glanced at the quilt on the bed, said, 'Old-fashioned girl, huh?'
She opened her mouth to say something when the doorbell rang. They both looked at the head of the stairs: 'Uh-oh.'
'Probably not Aunt Pansy with a fruit pie,' Harper said, glancing at his watch.
'You think a killer is gonna ring the doorbell at'she glanced at her watch, too'five-oh-five in the morning?'
'Probably not,' he said. 'Let's go see. you go first.'
'Why me?'
''Cause you've got the gun.'
That seemed practical, if not particularly chivalrous. She led the way down, feeling slightly silly, gun in her hand, paused in the hallway, then whispered back, 'Now what?'
'Get away from the door and yell,' Harper suggested.
The doorbell rang again as they stepped into the kitchen and Anna shouted, 'Who is it?'
'Me. Creek.' Creek's voice, all right.
'Oh, boy,' Anna said. She went to the door, slipped the chain and pulled it open. Creek slouched on the porch, and his eyes stopped briefly on Anna and then flicked back to Harper.
'Just thought I'd check,' Creek said. To Harper, 'You all done?'
'Yeah, I'm done. I need to talk to Anna for a minute, alone. Then I'll be out of here.'
Creek nodded and stepped back on the porch, and pulled the door shut.
'Sorry about that,' Anna said. And she was thinking that Creek showed up at fairly inconvenient times.
'Yeah, no problem.' Harper took a slender leather wallet out of his jacket pocket, took out a thin gold pen, found a card and scribbled on it. 'My home phone. The office phone is on the front. Call me if anything comes up.'
'And you've got my card,' Anna said drily. He must've taken it from her purse.
'Yup.' Unembarrassed.
'I think we should let the police.'
She was talking over him, and only caught the last part: '. boyfriend stay over, it'd be another layer.'
She stopped: 'What?'
'Maybe you oughta have your boyfriend stay over,' he repeated. 'He'd be another layer between you and the killer. He's a big guy.'
'He's not my boyfriend. Creek's a friend.'
'Yeah? But you can trust him?'
'With my life.'
Harper bobbed his head, and said, Then you might think about it, even if he drives you nuts. I'll tell you what: This guy isn't gonna go away. This nut. He's thinking about you all the time. Sooner or laterhe'll turn up.'
Chapter 9
The two-faced man sat in the dirt, a hedge brushing his right ear, a fender a foot from his left. The spot was guarded, out of sight, and had the feel of a den. He was comfortable in it; he put the pistol barrel beside his nose, drew a breath scented with gunpowder and oil.
He waited; and as he waited, he lapsed into a fantasy.
He was invisible, drifting through Anna's house, hanging a few inches above the floor, like a wisp, or a genie. She was in the bathroom, naked, doing her face, bending over a counter, looking in the mirror.
Could she feel him there, so close, coming up behind? He reached out to touch the smooth bumps made by her vertebrae.
Mmm. no. She had to be totally unknowing. Unknowing, he'd be witness to her most intimate moments. Perfect moments.
But it'd be kind of neat if he could materialize, too. Not just an ethereal eye, watching, but somebody who had the power to materialize right behind her.
He edited: now he could materialize.
And she'd be naked, there, bending over the bathroom counter, putting on lipstick.
No. Edit again.
She'd be wearing nylons, with a garter belt, but that's all, nylons and a garter belt, no underwear, putting on lipstick, and he'd come up behind her and the first thing she'd feel would be his fingers trailing down her spine like a cold draft.
All right, he liked that. Return. He drifted in the door, set down beside her. She was leaning over the sink, her breasts free, nipples pink, a dark shadow where her legs joined; he put out a hand, touched her spine.
When he was a child, years before, he'd been captured by the image of Humpty Dumpty. Not the fall, but the shell. Because that's how he knew himself to be.
He had two faces, not one. The outer face looked to the worlda somber face, even when he was a child, but pretty, and forthright. The inner face was something else: dark, moody, fetid, closed. The inner face contemplated only himself. He might have been whole, once. But the wholeness had been beaten out of him, shattered like Humpty Dumpty.
His father had sold cars. Thousands of cars.
His father had been on television every night, prime time, with his fake nose and white painted face, his oversized shoes and Raggedy-Ann hair.
He was the most famous clown in the world, reeling across the sales floor with a gallon-sized jug marked XXX: 'Hey, you think Big Bandy is jes' being funny when he sez you can get this like-new Camaro for the low-low price of $6,240? What'd I say? Did I say $5,740? Another Bandy slip-o-the-tongue, that's old Bandy getting into the old brandy again, makin' mistakes like saying this like-new Camaro only $5,240. Whoops. There I go again. Get down here quick and you could get this Camaro for. Whoo, that's good stuff. Old Bandy may be into the old brandy again, but I'm as good as my word, so whatever ridiculous price I just said, that's all you'll pay.'
He could take the ridicule at school, Old Bandy being his father, because everybody knew that Old Bandy was making millions. What he couldn't take was when Old Bandy got into the old brandy at home, and beat the shit out of him.
His mother was worse. His mother was a small, dark-haired devil who drank more old brandy than Old Bandy did, and she'd turn him in'You know what your son did today?'as though he wasn't also her son.
And the things he did, that every kid did, would somehow boil in his father's brain, and he'd open the bedroom door in fear and find the old man standing there with a stick in his hands and a darkness around his eyes.
His parents' sex life was as bad as the beatings: they'd get drunk and screw on the couch, or the floor, or the stairs, and if everything wasn't going just right, his father might hit her with an open hand, bat her around. She seemed to approve of it, taunt him until he hit her. Their ravings were impossible to escape: a shattering scream would drag him into the hallway, and there they'd be, sweating, bleeding, drunk, naked.
Whatever happened at home, the family had an outer face for the world: Mom gave money to the symphony and the art museum and was something in the Junior League and every other goddamn silly group willing to ignore her character in return for her money.
The young boy created the two faces as a means of survivaclass="underline" the outer face was bland, careful, somber and never raised its voice to his parents; never commented on the sex or the beatings; not after the first few times with the stick.
But the inner face raged against them.
The inner face wanted to kill them.
His father had a.45 automatic, a big blue Colt. He kept it hidden in a leather holster fastened behind the headboard of his bed. His father took it out every once in a while, to look at it, hold it, aim it at the TV, dry-fire it. Then he'd go into the bedroom, reload it and hide it.
In the sixth grade, two-face dreamed of killing his parents with the.45. The dream had become part of his daily reality, the inner face pleading with the outer. The outer face prevailed, with logic: if he killed his parents, they'd lock him in a room somewhere, and that would be all for him. Even the inner face recognized the unacceptability of that outcome.
Still, the power of the killing mood was so strong that he took the shells out of the.45 and threw them down a sewer. Not because he didn't want to kill them; but because neither face wanted to go to jail.