That was twenty minutes of my life right there, but I was once again the most handsome sonofabitch who’d ever lived, mustache and all.
Before I dressed, I turned the radio up, hoping to hear some good news. I listened as I went around with my bucket of soapy water, cleaning up the bloody floors with a few rags. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a go at the doorknobs too, so I started cleaning those. A special report came over about another body found up by the Crowley property, but details were nonexistent. I smiled. I even laughed. It was just like those crazy motherfuckers, going back to the scene of the crime.
“Probably to get himself off,” I said out loud. “Good riddance.”
In the bedroom, I rolled up the stinking tarp and put it in a black Hefty bag. After I scrubbed the floor, I pulled the rug into place and got dressed in my blue jeans and an old Motorhead shirt. I put my belt on, my boots, got the keys to the truck, and headed out. The day was proving to be very sunny. It matched my mood.
I turned the key in the truck, and the engine coughed.
“C’mon, you fucking worm! Fucking work!”
God came down, and the truck came back to life.
“Thank you, Jesus.”
I went to work. In four weeks, there’d be another full moon, and another chance to make someone pay. Before that, I’d have to pick another target and do the same thing all over again.
The radio in the truck didn’t work. Nor did the air-conditioning, but that’s why I had been able to afford the thing. I wasn’t worried, though. I’d get the full report from Pearce by the end of the week.
Actually, I’m lying. I was worried just a little bit about killing someone within the confines of Evelyn two months in a row. That was something I never wanted to do, for hysteria’s sake, and that’s why I got the newspapers from so many neighboring places—so I could spread the love around. This time, it was unavoidable. The Rose Killer had forced me to make an executive decision, and I didn’t regret it. The killer was an abomination who had to be stopped.
I drove through town and stopped at my newsstands just like I always did.
A few minutes later, I pulled up outside the restaurant and saw I was the first one there that day. I thought it was strange and kind of off-putting that I had somehow become the responsible one at that place. I was still late, but not as late as Abraham, and he liked his job.
I unlocked the door and turned the lights on. I put my stack of newspapers on the stool in the kitchen and fired up the grill. By the time I started taking the chairs down off the tables, Abraham showed up.
I was happy to be the first one that day. The day after—and it has never stopped, this feeling—I always struggle to act as normal as possible, because I’m a fucking paranoid. I missed having my motorcycle. The urge to take off was sometimes overwhelming. I missed the road. The wind. I’ve always had this useless worry that someone would come after me, as if the beast and I had some kind of passing resemblance. As if someone would be fortunate enough to live after seeing the goddamn thing and say “Hey, that animal that just tore apart old man Burns looks a hell of a lot like that guy from the restaurant!”
In my calmer moments I believe this will never happen, but when you grow up on G-man movies, you can’t help but think you come off like a suspect no matter what.
“Hey, brother,” I said.
“You’re one cold motherfucker, starting in with the ‘brother’ shit on a morning like this.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
“You don’t know?”
“What?” I said, giving a great performance of being genuinely pissed.
“I don’t know how to say this, but don’t you have a television? Contact with the outside world at all?”
“I get smoke signals, but they’ve been on the fritz lately.” Abe took off his cap and stared at the floor. “Your man Pearce bought it, man.”
My heart sunk somewhere below my bowels, and the taste of a dinner I couldn’t remember having came up into my mouth. My legs turned to spaghetti.
The word “What?” came up out of my mouth.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. He got attacked last night, this morning. Some kind of animal or something like that, like that shit you dudes was talking about a while back. It’s all over the fucking news, man.”
I sank onto a stool at the counter.
I couldn’t think of anything to say. Me, Marlowe Higgins, the man of a thousand four-letter words, was speechless. And I couldn’t think of anything to feel. Nothing felt appropriate. Nothing felt true. I rested my head in my hands. I couldn’t do anything else.
Abraham came over and put a hand on my shoulder the way men do. I let out a groan from somewhere deep. An old place I didn’t like to visit.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I can’t fucking believe it,” I said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You want a moment?”
“God, I don’t know. I don’t know. I think … I think I gotta get outta here.”
“You want I should call Carlos to take over for you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I think you’re gonna have to.”
“Done,” he said, and he went and got on the horn.
As he was talking on the phone, I oozed off the stool and headed toward the door. Crossing the black-and-white tiles made me dizzy. It was as if my sense of equilibrium had been destroyed, and everything appeared as if through a kaleidoscope.
I reached for the doorknob like a lifeline and made it out into the warm air. The bell jangled, and then I was outside in the blaring sun. I felt blinded, on display, ashamed. It was a feeling I hadn’t known so closely in many years.
I got to the truck, took out my keys, and then stopped myself. I went back to the restaurant, got my papers from the stool in the kitchen, and slithered back out, not saying a word to Abraham. He didn’t say anything to me either.
I started the truck up and backed out of the space slowly, not being quite too sure of my movements, and how true they would be. My hands were shaking.
I started driving toward the center of town, toward the buildings and the radios and the police and the people, but I couldn’t do it. I made a left and went down to Old Sherman Road, driving slowly.
I took Old Sherman west, and then it curved around and started going north. After a few minutes of driving, I passed my block and just kept going. I made the full loop around town, just like Bill Parker used to do before he was killed. It was then that I realized that some part of that man that I had killed had become a part of me, because here I was doing my worrying on that long and winding road.
I pulled over on the shoulder.
As if everything prior had been shock, I realized, as in it truly hit me, that Pearce had been wiped out, butchered, ripped apart, maimed unrecognizable, and that it had been me that had done it to him. I felt the parts of his body that were still in my stomach react to the coffee I’d drunk, and it twisted me up inside.
“Martha,” I said out loud without thinking to.
I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my hand.
“Martha, are you okay?”
I was being invaded by a memory of his.
I saw it all through his eyes. Rushing into the living room from the office, and there she was on the couch, holding her belly. She had that one wrinkle on her forehead—a deep crease that only existed when she was hurting. The sunlight was pouring in through the windows.
“She kicked,” Martha said.
I sat next to her and placed my hand on her belly. I felt my baby’s power as it shifted an arm or a leg, as it kicked out. My baby’s getting ready to hatch, Pearce thought. I rested my head on her stomach. I heard my wife’s heart, and I think, somewhere down deep, I heard my baby’s.