Bad People (39 page)

She did as he said. He could hear her breathing heavily. She was terrified.

“Keep moving,” he told her. “Only a little farther. All most there.”

And they were. He reached behind himself to feel for the glass door behind him. He had left it open enough, he thought, for them to step back through, one by one without having the push it wider and deal with the sound and sudden movement of the sliding glass.

The bobcats were hesitant. They took a step forward for every two or three Ardiss and S/D took.

But S/D also knew the distance between them all was nothing for the bobcats if they decided to charge.

“Okay, we’re here,” he said. “Step behind me. Watch out for the sliding door track.” She did as he said, but forgot she was holding the shovel still, horizontal across her body. The spade slammed to the doorframe and she screamed.

The bobcats charged. S/D turned around, pushed Ardiss inside with one hand, stepped through himself, and slammed the door shut.

The bobcats raced across the yard, losing their footing as their claws clacked and slid across the concrete. The closer one’s legs went sideways. It spun on its back unable to right itself. It slid into the pool. It bounded back up the pool steps an instant later.

The other bobcat slid all the way to the door. It pounced, smashing both it front paws against the glass. The glass rattled and shook, but held.

Ardiss screamed and jumped back at the sound.

The other bobcat reached the glass. It made less of a leap, having had its charge interrupted by the tumble into the pool, but it impacted the glass as well.

Holding itself there, the bobcat’s disturbingly long, thin body stretched out, and its white eyes glaring at the two human beings inside the kitchen.

It growled and mewled at the them before pushing itself off and slinking back.

The two bobcats padded around the porch, in concentric paths, several long moments before they settled, lying down to keep watch on the inside.

“They’re hungry,” said S/D.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ardiss.

“Neither have I.”

“Haven’t you? Then how did you know what to do?”

“It just made sense. We should go.”

“No! How do we get out?”

“Same way we came. Side window. They won’t be able to get over the fence.”

“You’re
sure
about that?”

He thought about it. “Uh. No.”

“We have to go out through the front.”

“We can’t. I don’t have the key.”

“It’s not locked from the inside is it?”

“No, but I won’t be able to relock it after we are out.”

“Who cares. We have to get out!”

“We’ll wait a few more minutes and see what they do.”

“I don’t like this, S/D.”

“It’ll be all right.” He crouched and hugged his knees, watching the bobcats. “What were we talking about earlier?”

“What? Hell, I can’t remember!”

“I do. What’s up with you and Luke?”

“None of your business.”

He supposed that was true, and he felt weak by asking. But he had to know. “Anyway I am involved. I should know. Did he put you up to something?”

“Like what?” she said, too defensively. There was more than a hint a surprise in her voice. Incredulity, practically.

“Like this,” he said, waving his finger from himself to her and then back again several times.

“Why? What reason?”

S/D shrugged. “I don’t know. In a weird way it feels like something he would do.”

“What do you mean? You have no reason to think anything like that.”

“It’s a feeling I get.”

“Yeah, but you have no reason to have that feeling.”

“I don’t trust Luke.”

“But you have no reason not to trust him. Has he done anything?”

“That I know of, no. But he’s not right. There’s something off about that guy. You’ve never noticed it?”

“You’re just jealous of him. Or afraid of him.”

S/D
was
afraid of Luke, but he wasn’t jealous, and he certainly did not want to admit to either feeling: neither the true nor the false, so he went with sarcasm: “Yeah, I’m both those things. That’s it.”

“I knew you didn’t know anything.” She said it in a way that reminded him of the girls at school. She didn’t seem like such an adult now. That made him turn his face away from her. He didn’t want to see it.

“What are you thinking now!” she demanded.

“Nothing. I’m not thinking anything. Just calm down; stop moving around so much and the cats will calm down too. Then they’ll leave. Or fall asleep, and we can go.”

She turned back to look again at the bobcats. They were still there. They were licking their forepaws now.

“They have calmed down,” she said.

“All right. We’ll go in a minute. There’s just one thing first.”

“Okay,” she said. She sounded calmer.

He was silent, thinking about what he had to say. It was stupid, but he had had this feeling all along.

“What?” she said. “What is it!” His silence must have been getting to her.

“You knew everything. Before we got here; you already knew everything. About Luke and my Mom, about me. But about this place too. My Dad. You knew about my Dad. Why would Luke tell you all that?”

“He didn’t tell me anything.”

“That’s a lie,” he said. But he didn’t care. He wanted to leave now. That was the end of it. He stood up, and turned toward the glass porch door, to have a last look at the bobcats. They were calm enough, he figured, for Ardiss and him to sneak out the side way now. Behind him he heard Ardiss bend down and pick up the rusty shovel again. He turned. “We won’t need that—” he started to say.

He raised his arms instinctively, but too late. Ardiss was already bringing the shovel sideways at his head.

Chapter 43: Connie

Luke had brought too much food. It actually smelled up the house, but she didn’t mention that. She was being too much of a bitch, and not doing her best not to. Not Luke’s fault about Barry, about her miserable night at the hospital. She thought she should tell Luke about it, not to vent, but she thought it was the right thing to do, to talk about each other’s day, now as she and he unpacked this funereal-sized spread of food he had just shown up at her door with, but she didn’t want to.

That was the problem right there.

She didn’t want to share with him.

She never would.

Still, she couldn’t break up with him tonight. Not after his funeral, not after the day she herself had had.

So she decided to go along. Just go along, probably she would feel different tomorrow.

Probably not, but at least tomorrow she’d have the energy to do the right thing. Not now.

Tonight, just go along to get along. Shades of a certain marriage she was in.

She didn’t want that again.

“The scallion pancakes,” Luke said.

“Oh right,” said Connie. She pretended to hunt for them, but she didn’t care.

The domesticity of the scene felt painful to her. Raw.

Wrong.

And not only wrong within the context of her (to use its true name) widowhood, but something more. Not the age difference between her and Luke, not any one thing really. Everything.

Stephen-David’s laptop was the most recent symptom.

She had transgressed there, talking about her son a little to Luke.

And everything about that incident felt odd. Off.

Something about Luke was off. She had been in a dream state these weeks with him, sex and sneaking around, but now something had invaded that dream. Something pushing at her, like a hungry house cat scratching at her leg, crying for attention. Something was not right about Luke, at least about Luke in this situation. She couldn’t put her finger on it.

She also knew a good chance existed she was projecting.

But in the end it didn’t matter. What she had, whatever was left of herself, she had to protect. No doubt she was a million kind of ways overreacting right now, but no matter. Better to overreact than to be blindsided again. Never again.

“Those are the ones you supposedly like,” said Luke.

Scallion pancakes.

“Yeah.” She put her plate down. “Luke,” she said, “this is the worst possible time for me to do this to you, to say this to you, but—”

The door buzzer sounded and she looked up at it. She pointedly didn’t look at Luke.

“To say what. To
do
what,” Luke demanded.

The buzzer rang a second time and Connie said, “Jesus Christ!” But the fact was she welcomed this interruption no matter what it would be; another reprieve from the hard conversation with Luke, though it was probably nothing more than a wrong ring, that happened every so often. She never got unexpected visitors. Or maybe Stephen-David had locked himself out, although he wasn’t the type of boy that did.

The buzzer came again.

“What do you want to say?” Luke’s voice rose.

“Hold on,” she told him. “Who is that at this time of night!” She went to the receiver.

The last person’s voice she expected to hear when she picked up was Barry’s. Barry whom she had just dropped off for the night less than an hour ago. But she probably
should
have expected it.
Expect the worse and you will never be disappointed
, who used to say that to her?

Expected or not, Barry’s voice came through the receiver. “Connie, are you there alone?”

“No.”

“Can I come up? I need to say something to you.”

“Go home. Not tonight.”

From across the room, Luke spoke. “Who is it,” he said.

She turned her head deeper into the corner, ignoring Luke and dealing with Barry.

Barry’s voice broke. “Connie, it will only take a minute. I need to tell you something. I need to confess something to you.”

Barry believed himself in love with her. She had guessed that at the hospital, but it would blow over, she assumed, if he got some sleep and started putting his life back together.

“Connie, if you won’t let me up, I don’t know what I will do, I really don’t!” He sounded even more raw than he had in the hospital.

“Stay there,” she said. “I’m coming down.” She hung up the phone, picked up her sweater and opened the front door.

“Who is that,” Luke demanded.

“I’ll only be a moment,” she told him.

“Wait,” he said. “You were going to say something to me a moment ago.”

She couldn’t deal with them both pestering her at once. She gave Luke a kind look. “This will only be a minute. Please.” Then she went downstairs to talk to Barry.

She saw him standing at the glass lobby door, holding the crossbar of the door with both hands, looking like he was using it for balance.

He smiled when he saw her and the smile looked like it hurt his face. He had changed out of the clothing from the hospital at least, and was wearing Wrangler jeans and a plaid shirt, but his hair and beard were as matted as ever; he hadn’t bathed.

She came to the door and pushed it open; he stepped back to make way for her to do that, and then shifted forward as if about to step inside, but she only left the door open a bit, and she blocked that opening with her body.

She wrapped her hands inside her sweater and folded her arms across herself. She read his face.

“Barry, whatever it is, I think you should let it wait. Think about it tonight. Sleep on it.”

“I
can’t
sleep. I haven’t slept in months!”

“All the more reason we shouldn’t be having this conversation. Look, even if you don’t sleep everything looks different in the light of day. You know that’s true.”

Barry looked away. “If only it were. The light never comes. Not this time of year.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Connie—”

“Barry, stop. Don’t say it. I have a feeling I know what you want to say, and I don’t want you to say anything you will regret. Barry, we practically grew up together. Whatever you think you are feeling, its all the stress of the past year, that’s all it is.”

Barry looked perplexed and she wondered if she had made an embarrassing and presumptuous statement of her own. Good. If she were wrong, and he hadn’t developed a crush on her, all the better. They could one day laugh about this.

Barry turned his head, looked down the street. He then turned back, but could only meet her gaze for a second before staring down at his shoes. “It’s
so
much more than that. It’s so much more than this year or that year. It’s my whole life. Did you notice, when you were at my house today, did you notice I’d sold all my comics?”