Then, seeing I was not much of a threat, the desk clerk stepped into the bathroom. I recall him shaking his head at me and saying: “What an asshole. Okay, it’s time for Mr. Sandman.”
And it was, too. Lights went out all over the world, just like in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
You know you’re fucked when it’s hard to tell which part of your body you’d like to have amputated first. I voted for the guillotine; kill the head and the body dies. Why bother doing it piecemeal? When I lifted myself off the tile, the lifting didn’t last long. The earth was spinning again. I made it to the sink and buried my head in a basin full of cold water. I can’t say that it felt good. I’d say it made things feel less horrible. When I picked my head out of the sink, I saw that the water had turned pinkish. One peek in mirror showed me why. My face was covered in jagged scratches, most not very deep, but some had drawn blood.
Seeing those scratches got me very scared for myself, but mostly for Kira. I could feel the nausea rising in me as I tried lying to myself about what I would find in the bedroom. Kira would be fine, I told myself. They had just taken her as a warning to me to let things go, to give up my search for Zak. Or maybe they had just slapped her around a bit to show me they could get to me. I wasn’t a very good liar, especially to myself. I had read too many books using this scenario. Raymond Chandler had used it in a short story before he had even created Philip Marlowe. I had used it in They Don’t Play Stickball in Milwaukee.
I was rigid, my hands glued to the sink. I could not force myself to look at what I knew I would find in the bedroom. No matter what games I played, no matter the ploy, I could not move. And then, as if on cue, I heard sirens in the distance. Of course, they would play out the scenario all the way. Now, if I wanted to survive, I had no choice but to move.
There would be no wedding. There would be no bride. There would be no drunken party at the Rusty Scupper with MacClough crying in the middle of his toast to me and to my bride. There would be no one to lift us up on chairs as the klezmer band-one that knew some traditional Japanese folk songs-played a hora. There would be no confused in-laws trying to reconcile sushi with pickled herring. There would be no laughter over silly gifts. There would be no kiss at the altar nor broken glasses nor mazel tovs nor whatever they say in Japanese for luck. Kira was dead.
I didn’t dwell on her. She was gone to someplace better. It was only her body there hanging off the bed headfirst. I knew what the police would find. My skin and blood would be under her fingernails. My semen would be in her vagina. They would comb her pubis and find my hair. She would be bruised, cut maybe, to show there had been a fierce struggle. The cops would find the emptied champagne bottle and probably some planted drugs. I noticed I was crying when I said goodbye.
I ran up to MacClough’s room. As I ran, my grief turned to self-loathing. Not only had I managed to get Kira killed, but I had made myself the world’s most incredibly stupid and perfect suspect. When the cops began investigating the crime, they would find a pattern of behavior on my part that would suggest stalking. The waitress, Sandra, would claim I had spent the morning questioning her about Kira. She would claim, with a clear conscience, that she had told me about Kira because she was afraid of me and that I had been acting paranoid; something about men trying to follow me. She had taken my bribe only to humor me. The guy in the clothing store would say I had bought a disguise-”You wouldn’t recognize your own mother in that outfit with those glasses”-and would say I had acted irrationally about sending the old clothing back to Sound Hill. The woman at the register would say I had acted oddly about her simple request to drink coffee out of a coffee container. Students would come forward to say that they remembered me lingering outside all of Kira’s classes that day, some would recall me following her. And as the piece de resistance, Prof. Jane Courteau would recount my rather weird story about wanting to use Kira’s artwork on my next book. Obviously, I was irrational, obsessed, paranoid. The shrinks would the orize that I had been deeply affected by my recent failure in Hollywood, my father’s tragic death, and the disappearance of my beloved nephew:
“Discovering that his nephew had had a previous relationship with the girl, Mr. Klein, due to his precarious mental health, became fixated with Ms. Wantanabe, believing that she was in some way responsible for the disappearance of his nephew. As the fixation turned to obsession, Mr. Klein’s paranoid delusions grew in scope and intensity until he became convinced that Ms. Wantanabe was not only responsible for the nephew’s disappearance, but had ultimately to suffer the consequences for her actions.”
I was nude but for a bloody bath towel. I was unsure why I was running to MacClough’s room nor had I any idea of what I’d do when I got there. But MacClough’s sense of anticipation was legendary and, like his old buddies used to tell me, Johnny could see trouble coming around the corner before they could see the corner. I knew he wasn’t there, but I prayed he had left a spare key tucked away somewhere. I was clutching at straws. Straws, however, seem like fine options when your only other choice is a blood-soaked bath towel.
And when the doorknob turned in my hand, I thought MacClough had proved his legend once again. Under other circumstances I might’ve entered more cautiously, but cautiously wasn’t on the menu this morning. I rushed in without hesitation. The place was a mess, ransacked like Zak’s rooms and Caliparri’s place. So much for MacClough’s anticipation. I threw on any clothes I could find and a pair of John’s too-small shoes.
I ran to the end of the hall and climbed down the back fire escape. It was snowing like a son of a bitch and the wind nearly blew me off the bottom ladder. I jumped into a snow-drift. Brushing myself off, I heard sirens blaring around the front of the inn. I thought about making a run for it in my rental, but I couldn’t have gotten very far very fast in this kind of storm. I took off on foot under the murky light of dawn. I needed to buy myself a few hours. There were debts that needed paying. I would hide behind the snowflakes if I had to.
Crimes of the Ancient Mariner
The late-season blizzard and the confusion caused by the fire at Cyclone Ridge had worked for me. I had stopped at a pay phone and called for a taxi to pick me up and take me to the airport. Because of the blowing snow, the driver didn’t get a good look at my scratched face until after I was in the backseat and we were well on our way. He was a bald man in his mid to late fifties who looked like the only exercise he got involved walking to and from the doughnut shop. He chewed on the unlit butt end of a cigar and kept a yellow pencil tucked behind his right ear. He kind of reminded me of my dad.
I watched his dull brown eyes get wide and shiny in the rearview mirror when he noticed my face. I read his name off his pictured license and pressed my knuckle as hard as I could into the back of his seat.
“You got a wife and kids, Milton?” I asked with icy cool curiosity.
“Two grown kids and three grand kids. Wife’s dead.”
“Mine too. . Now.”
That got his attention as I had intended it to and he began chomping vigorously on his cigar.
“Listen, Milton,” I said, pressing his seat back, “we can do this hard or easy. I’ve had enough hard for one day. What do you say to easy.”
“I like easy.”
“Good. Drive me to the border.”
I made him give me his coat and the cap he kept on the seat next to him. I took twenty dollars and vowed to get it all back to him, the money with interest. He said that wouldn’t be necessary. When we were several miles out of Riversborough, I pulled my fist out of the vinyl seat and pretended to put the phantom gun in my pocket.