Walking Alone Read online

  I nodded.

  “Now I understand.” There was rage in her voice, and she busied herself picking up a handful of dirt from the floor and sprinkling it into the holes that had been Fredericks’ eyes. She mumbled something I couldn’t make out.

  “Why is Sutton hiding in that closet? Why’s he so…scared? Because he knew what you’d do if you found out?”

  “Because he’s an amateur,” Mart said scornfully. “He couldn’t handle what came with being an intermediary.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She used one long fingernail to draw blood from her misshapen chest. “I’m going to set things right.” The fingernail drew a pattern on Fredericks’ feet.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I’m going to get Ed out of this. And I’m not going to use an intermediary.”

  “So…”

  “I won’t survive,” she said flatly. “Neither will Gil.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. She was going to do what she was going to do, no matter what I said, but I’d been conditioned by movies and books and family and society to think it was my obligation to try and talk her out of it, to tell her that she shouldn’t go through with her plans.

  Instead, I said, “You’d do that for Ed?”

  “I love him,” she said simply.

  “Do it,” I told her.

  She was moving her hands in the air, making strange motions that seemed nonsensical but nevertheless spoke to me and chilled me to the bone. Fredericks’ corpse was shaking slightly, as though going into convulsions, and I could feel the vibrations in my gut. I backed toward the door. “I’ll tell him,” I said. “I’ll tell him what you did.”

  Mart looked at me. “Don’t.”

  It was the last human word she spoke, and I hurried out of the house and across the sand to my car. Outside, it was light, but the influence of Mart’s lair stretched even to here, and the air felt strange, thick, heavy.

  I got in the car and sped away.

  Demons, spells and a love quadrangle.

  They’ll fuck things up every time.

  The Shady Palm wasn’t really on my way back downtown, but I went by anyway. Even before I turned onto Van Buren, I saw the smoke. Sure enough, the motel was in flames, Squeaky Fromm screaming out front, the hooker trying to pull her away from the blaze. In the distance, I heard the sound of sirens.

  I didn’t even slow down as I passed the site. I just kept driving.

  By the time I reached the County complex, it had all been taken care of. The paperwork, everything. I marveled at the extent of it. The cops who let Ed out were apologetic and deferential. The reporters who two days ago had been calling for Ed’s execution were now bullying County officials, asking how a miscarriage of justice like this could occur. Even that racist asshole Armstrong was being conciliatory. The entire world had reconformed to Mart’s dictates, and the history of the past several days had been scratched and rewritten. This magic was some damn powerful stuff, and I wondered how much of this went on without me knowing about it, how many times a week the reality around me was reconfigured without my knowledge.

  As near as I could gather, Sutton was now believed to have committed the murder. He’d burned down the motel and killed himself out of remorse when he found that the planning commissioner’s death was being blamed on his old friend Ed Hernandez.

  On the development front, the Sunworks Corporation was out and Ed was back in business. Only Ed had never been out of business. In this brave new world, he had gotten the contract fair and square, and Sunworks had never even bid on the project.

  I thought of Mart, debating whether or not to tell Ed what had happened. He deserved to know, I thought, and I decided to give him a bare bones outline but spare him the hurtful details. There was no need to describe what Mart had become after death, what she looked like in demon form, and I thought it was best to let him live with his old image of her.

  I met him inside, while he was collecting his belongings, and we stood for a few minutes in the vestibule, away from the reporters and the lawyers and the administrators and the cops. I told him that Mart had been alive, that she had used him to kill Fredericks, but that she had done so in order to avenge the wrong the planning commissioner had perpetrated on him. She hadn’t known he would be involved, though, and she had sacrificed herself to free Ed once she found out.

  I made no mention of Sutton.

  Ed nodded, said nothing. I knew he still had questions, but he didn’t really want to know the answers and I sure as hell didn’t want to tell him.

  “Thanks,” he told me. “Thanks for everything.”

  “What are friends for?” We walked outside, down the steps to the sidewalk. “I guess the piano player does have fingers,” I said.

  He looked up at the hot blue sky, looked at me and smiled sadly. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess he does.”

  THE MAN WHO

  WATCHED CARTOONS

  (1999)

  The Smurfs were on. Watering the lawn, Marilyn could hear the bastardization of classical music which served as the soundtrack to the blue creatures’ lives, the tunes coming from both her own house and from the open window of Mr. Gault’s next door. She hated the Smurfs, had hated them while she was growing up and hated them even more now that reruns had been recycled on cable for her daughter’s consumption. Bugs Bunny was fine, as were The Jetsons, The Flintstones and Tom and Jerry. Even some of the newer ones were okay.

  But The Smurfs grated on her. She hated the monotony of the voices, the monotony of the animation, the monotony of the stories. Jenny loved the cartoon, however, and Marilyn reluctantly allowed her daughter to watch it.

  She wasn’t sure why Mr. Gault tuned in the cartoon. Movies were being broadcast on other channels, sports were on…there were other things he could have been watching.

  But he, too, liked The Smurfs. He liked cartoons in general, she noticed. After his stroke last year, he had become partially paralyzed, and it was difficult for him to move around. When he did come outside, it was at his wife’s side and in his wheelchair. More and more, however, he stayed inside, watching TV, watching cartoons.

  Watching the damn Smurfs.

  A commercial came on, and Jenny stuck her head out the side window of the living room.

  “Hi!” she called out to Mr. Gault.

  The old man responded with a throaty chuckle. “Hi there, sprout!”

  A second later, the screen door banged open, and Jenny came racing out the front of the house. “Can I go to Mr. Gault’s?” she asked breathlessly. “He’s watching cartoons, too, and he has a bigger TV.”

  Marilyn laughed. “All right,” she said. “But you come back when The Smurfs are over. Don’t tire out Mr. Gault. He needs his rest.”

  Jenny was off and running after “All right,” and Marilyn called after her, “Slow down! You’ll trip!”

  The girl did not slow down, however, but rushed next door so she’d be seated in front of the television before the commercial ended. Marilyn waited a moment, and as she heard no scream or cry or panicked outburst, she assumed Jenny had made it safely to the Gaults’ couch.

  Marilyn moved over to water the tulips that marked the border of the two yards. Warm weather had caused the bulbs to bloom early this year, and though tulip season was just starting, hers were in full blossom. She switched hands, moving the hose from her left to her right, and checked her watch. Ten o’clock. Stepping forward, she heard Jenny’s high thin laugh and Mr. Gault’s low rough voice below the noise of the cartoon. She smiled, moving closer, pulling the hose with her until she was between the two houses and almost under the window.

  “Damn,” Jenny said.

  Marilyn stopped.

  “Bitch.”

  Her mind went blank, and it felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach. Her first thought was that she had not heard correctly, that her mind or her ears had transformed perfectly innocent words into profanity, but when she heard her daughter’s h
igh voice say, “Damn the bitch to hell,” that rationalization went out the window.

  She looked up at the Gaults’ house. She and David never swore in front of their daughter, and they did not take Jenny to movies in which profanity was used. Even her television viewing was closely monitored.

  Mr. Gault said something she could not quite catch.

  “My ass,” Jenny said.

  Mr. Gault laughed.

  Marilyn dropped the hose and hurried as quickly as she could over the tulip barrier and up the porch steps of her neighbors’ house. She stormed inside without knocking, saw her daughter and the old man seated side-by-side on the couch in front of the television. “What are you teaching my daughter?” she demanded.

  The old man looked up at her innocently. “What do you mean, Marilyn?”

  “I heard what she was saying!” She motioned to Jenny. “Get over here! Now!”

  “Damn,” Jenny said, scooting off the couch.

  Marilyn’s eyes widened, and she was afraid her voice would crack. “What did you say?”

  “That’s what a beaver builds,” Mr. Gault offered.

  Jenny grinned. “Beaver!”

  The old man chuckled. “That’s right. Now what do we call a boy chicken, a rooster?”

  “A cock!” the girl said, laughing.

  “A cat?”

  “Pussy! Pussy, pussy, pussy!”

  “We’re going,” Marilyn said, grabbing her daughter’s hand. She was shaking, with fear as well as anger, and she wanted to get out of this house as quickly as possible so she could think, so she could decide how to deal with this. Jenny’s little hand seemed warm in hers, and as they walked out on the porch and onto the lawn, she realized that she was mad at her daughter. She was afraid for Jenny, but she was angry with her as well, and the second they stepped onto their own lawn, she stopped walking and looked down at the girl. “What were you doing in there?” she demanded.

  “Watching cartoons.”

  “I heard what you were saying.”

  Jenny shrugged.

  “Did Mr. Gault teach you those words?”

  “What words?”

  Marilyn could feel her anger rise. “Don’t play games with me, young lady. You know very well what words.”

  “Pussy?”

  “That’s a bad word. I don’t want to ever hear you say that again.”

  “What’s bad about it?”

  “Did Mr. Gault teach you that word?”

  Jenny looked up at her innocently. “Are all pussies hairy?”

  “That’s it.” Marilyn grabbed her arm. “We’re going to talk to your father.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Why?”

  Marilyn did not bother to answer. She was angry with her daughter, but she realized that a lot of that was probably displaced. It was toward Mr. Gault that her feelings were really directed. She wanted to kill the old man. Underneath his guise of kindly neighborhood invalid, he was a pervert, probably a pedophile. God knew how long this had been going on or how many other neighborhood children had been corrupted. She didn’t know if she had legal recourse, if she could have him arrested, but she was damn sure going to talk to David and make sure they did something to punish the sicko.

  They walked up the porch. Jenny was starting to get worried. “Are you really going to tell Daddy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell him what?”

  “I’m going to tell your father what you said.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You know.”

  “Pee?” she said. “Cock? Pussy?”

  Marilyn’s mouth grew tight. They stepped into the family room, where David was watching a game on TV. “Shut that off,” she told him.

  He must have sensed the seriousness in her tone, because he used the remote to turn off the set without question. He stood. “What is it?”

  She told him, explaining how she’d been watering and had allowed Jenny to go next door to watch cartoons with Mr. Gault and how she’d overheard their daughter spouting obscenities. David seemed incredulous, particularly when she described the almost gleeful way in which the old man had goaded Jenny into saying even more nasty words in front of her.

  Still, the two of them had always presented a united front in dealings with their daughter, and David looked stern. “Is this true, Jenny?”

  “I don’t know what Mommy’s talking about.” The girl’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I was watching The Smurfs with Mr. Gault and Mommy started screaming at me and dragged me out.”

  “She knows exactly what I’m talking about, and I don’t know why she’s covering for that old pervert, but that just proves how much influence he has over her. It scares the hell out of me, David, and if you were there and heard what I heard, you’d be scared, too.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Jenny cried. She stamped her foot in frustration.

  Marilyn whirled to face her. “One more lie like that, young lady, and you won’t be leaving your room for a month!”

  “Marilyn…” David said. It was clear that he did not believe her, that he wanted to discuss this in private, away from Jenny, but Marilyn could not allow the girl to see this as any kind of victory, could not allow her daughter to think that she could do something wrong and get away with it by lying.

  Marilyn leaned forward. “Do you know what she said right before we walked into this room?” She whispered in David’s ear: “Pee. Cock. Pussy.”

  Jenny obviously overheard, and she looked innocently up at her father, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Peacock,” she said. “It’s a bird. A bird with a pretty tail.”

  “What about the other word?” Marilyn demanded.

  “Pussy? What’s wrong with that? What’s so bad about a pussycat?”

  David smiled at Jenny. “You go and play, sweetie. Mommy and Daddy need to talk.”

  The girl turned away, and David lowered his voice. “You should be ashamed of yourself.” He glared at Marilyn. “You have a dirty mind.” His jaw was set; she could see the pulsing of agitated muscles on the side of his face as he gritted his teeth.

  “I know what I heard.”

  He strode out of the room, saying nothing more, and Marilyn quickly hurried after him.

  “Eat me,” Jenny said softly behind her. “Eat my beaver.”

  Marilyn grabbed David’s shoulder. “You didn’t hear what she just said?”

  He shook his head.

  “She said, ‘Eat my beaver.’”

  “What if she did? She’s a child, for God’s sake. It’s probably part of some nursery rhyme or Dr. Seuss story. She’s talking about the animals who build dams, furry guys with buck teeth. Jesus, how can you be so sick? She’s only a little girl. Stop trying to push her into—”

  “Push her?” Marilyn yelled. “I’m trying to protect her from the pervert next door, and you’re not doing a damn thing to help me!”

  “Damn,” Jenny repeated behind them.

  “That’s where she gets it from,” David said, pointing.

  “Oh, now it’s my fault, is it? Jesus, I can’t believe this!”

  “Then stop putting a sick spin on everything everyone says. You’ve always been overprotective, and now you’re acting just plain crazy. Our next-door neighbor, an old man confined to a wheelchair, is teaching our daughter obscene words while they watch cartoons together? Does that make any sense?” He shook his head. “You’re overreacting to things that aren’t even there.”

  “I’m not overreacting!”

  He met her eyes. “Yes. You are.”

  They glared at each other for a moment, then David turned away. She stood there, watching him walk down the hall to the bathroom, before turning around and looking back into the family room.

  Jenny smiled.

  ****

  That afternoon, after feeding David and Jenny lunch, after seeing them off on a trip to the grocery store, Marilyn walked over to the Gaults’ and knocked determinedly on the do
or. Mrs. Gault answered, and she seemed surprised at Marilyn’s tone when she told the old woman that she had to speak to her, alone, about her husband. Mr. Gault, as usual, was watching television in the living room, and the two of them repaired to the kitchen.

  She had no idea where to start or how to begin, so Marilyn simply explained what happened, describing how she’d been watering the side yard between the houses and overheard Jenny and Mr. Gault.

  “Your husband was talking to her,” Marilyn said, eyeing the open doorway to the living room. “About sex.”

  The other woman’s mouth tightened. “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not joking. I’m dead serious. And I thought you should know.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “I’m not lying. That’s the truth. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it, but my daughter is never coming over here again, and if I ever see your husband trying to talk to her, I will call the police and have him arrested.”

  “Get out of this house!” Mrs. Gault yelled. “Get out of this house and never come back! You are not welcome here, and I never want to see you again!”

  Marilyn was surprised by the vehemence of the old woman’s reaction. She’d expected doubt, defensiveness, disbelief, but she was not prepared for this wholesale rejection of everything she’d said.

  “Your husband’s sick.”

  “Get out!” Mrs. Gault screamed.

  She left, exiting the house the way she’d come in. Passing by the living room on her way out, she heard Mr. Gault chuckling. “Bitch,” he said.

  That night, she let David read Jenny a story before going to bed.

  ****

  The next week was tense. She and David stayed out of each other’s way, speaking only when necessary. She knew what had really gone on, however, and she refused to give in, refused to back down, and she could tell that the conflicting signals Jenny was getting from her parents made their daughter uneasy. It was as if she’d expected to have gained the upper hand in the constant power struggle with her mother and had counted on her father as an ally, but was now discomfited because though Marilyn and David didn’t speak with a single voice, their mixed messages carried equal weight.

  By the following weekend, things had settled down some, though. At breakfast on Saturday, David actually made an effort to talk to her in a normal manner, as though nothing had happened and they were one big happy family, and she met him halfway by going along with it. As she rinsed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, he walked past and touched her shoulder, giving her a small squeeze, and she knew that the hostilities were over.