Bad Things (9 page)

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.” Dakota went back across the room and took a bottle of wine and two glasses from a shelf. “Merlot, Cypress. A ninety-nine. I hid it from Lil. She wouldn't appreciate it.” He uncorked the bottle and poured, handed a glass to Rick.

“Thanks again.”

“Welcome again. So what's eating you? When you cut yourself we were talking about Santo Verde. You said you have bad memories. They must be doozies.”

Old memories, presumed dead, old voices,
his
voice, came alive in his head. “No, not especially, but I hadn't thought about all those stories my grandfather used to tell in years.” Rick sipped the wine, then downed half the glass at once. “Going back to Santo Verde is sort of like going to the dentist to get a bad tooth pulled. You don't want to do it, so you put it off, hoping it'll get better. Maybe it seems like it does, sometimes, but it only gets worse and worse until you take care of it, once and for all. Refill, please?”

“You're intriguing the hell out of me, you mysterious man.” Dakota refilled Rick's glass, then topped off his own. He sniffed the wine. “It has a good kick, not to mention the nice bouquet. And the afterbirth is purely delightful.” Suddenly he nailed Rick with a look. “So what was your grandfather, a sadist?”

Rick laughed, his stomach already warm. “No, he was great. He was sort of stuffy like the professor in ‘The Paper Chase,' but he was full of the devil, too. My problem was that I was overly impressionable and ridiculously sensitive. My brother wasn't and, oh, I don't know . . .” Rick swallowed hard.
My brother.
He'd said it aloud.

“I didn't know you had a brother.”

“His name was Robin.” Rick had never told anyone even this much about his past, but suddenly, almost against his will, it came bubbling out. “I was an easy target for Robin. He was . . . precocious and spent a lot of time feeding my fears, telling me that the jacks would steal my body while I was asleep, things like that. He liked to tease.”

“He sounds cruel.”

“Little kids are always crueL” He drained another half glass in one fell swoop; then laughed uneasily. He paused while Dakota crossed the room, stirred the potatoes, then withdrew a fresh bottle of wine from the back of the cupboard and opened it. “Want to smell my cork?” he asked as he returned to the table.

Rick smiled and waited for his refill. He already felt a little smashed, a little better.

“Tell me more.” Dakota's gaze was frank. “Did you hate your brother?”

“Christ, O'Keefe. What kind of question is that? How could I hate my own brother?” The wine went down like water. “I sure got pissed at him. One Halloween Robin pulled this joke on me. He made me think the greenjacks had taken him.”

“How do you mean, ‘taken him'?”

“He pretended to have a new personality—like a jack had possessed his body. And I, idiot that I was, believed it and thought I was next. Isn't that stupid?”

“It's not stupid,” Dakota said. “Could your brother see these things?”

“No.” He finished another glass and swallowed hard. “But I thought I could,” he confessed. “I was the only psycho.”

“Don't get maudlin on me, Piper. It's a waste of good wine. So are you still afraid? Is that why you haven't gone back?”

“Oh, maybe a little.” Rick smiled to imply that he was joking. His whole body was warm now, and the finger had stopped hurting. “It's a lot more than that. My parents died, and the Wicked Witch of the West and her alcoholic husband came to take care of us. I guess I mixed the greenjack stuff into everything else that happened, and it's all left a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Both your parents died?”

Rick nodded.

“An accident?”

“Shit, you're nosy, you know that?”

O'Keefe smiled smugly. “Sorry. If you don't want—”

“They were murdered.”

“God, I'm sorry. I didn't realize—”

“It's okay. You couldn't know.”

“What about your brother? Do you two get along now?”

“He died, too. An accident.” Rick realized he'd hit another hole in his memory. “Anyway, not too long after that, I moved here and enrolled in UNLV. I've never gone back.”

“I'll bet you felt guilty as hell for hating your brother, then having him die and all.”

“I told you, I didn't hate him.”

“Of course you did. Maybe you loved him, too, or maybe you didn't, but you
had
to hate him for scaring you. I would've hated him. It's perfectly natural.”

If he hadn't been drunk, Rick would have been furious over Dakota's words, but the wine allowed him to see their truth. “Dakota, you're either horrible or wonderful, I can't decide which. How can you be so fucking blunt about things like that?”

“I almost succeeded in killing myself once. After that, it was either finish the job or face my problems head-on. I couldn't live with the lies anymore. It hurt too much.” Dakota patted Rick's uninjured hand affectionately. “You're developing quite a gutter mouth, Piper. I'm proud of you. Now, tell me about your brother. I take it he was older than you?”

“No.” He paused. “Well, strictly speaking, yes. By five minutes. Robin was my identical twin. Well, almost identical.”

“Different personalities, obviously.”

Rick nodded. “Also, Robin was handicapped. He was born without legs.”

“My God, you must have been terrified before your kids were born!”

“No, it wasn't inherited. It was a fluke, a condition called Streeter's dysplasia, where part of the fetus gets cut off from—”

“That's enough,” Dakota interrupted, “If you say more, I'm going to toss my cookies.”

“Sorry. The point is, I think that my having legs may have made him a little antagonistic toward me.” He was mortified to hear himself let loose with a stupid drunken giggle.

“Piper, dear, you have a gift for understatement. He probably
hated
your guts because you had the utter audacity to have legs.” He paused.
“I
would have.”

Infinitesimally, the weight in his chest lifted. “You
really
think so?”

“Shit, Piper, you think you're the only person capable of petty thoughts? Hell no. Wanting something someone else has is how wars are started. Of course he hated you. I hated my big sister because she had breasts.” He ran his hand over his torso and grinned. “I'm over it now, of course, because mine are bigger than hers.”

“You hated your sister because she had breasts?” Now,
this
was interesting. “Honest to God?”

“Yeah, I really did. I was horribly jealous because she had what I wanted—a female body. I didn't really understand it at the time. It took a couple years with a good therapist before I got what was going on. Piper, that's what you ought to do. See a therapist. I know a great one in California. He moved there a couple years ago. I can give you his number”

“Thanks. I'll get the name if I think I need it.”

Dakota nodded. “Do you know where Sylvan Heights is?”

Rick looked up, surprised. “Yeah. It's not far from Santo Verde, but I don't care how close this guy is, I'm not interested in—”

“No, no, no. I didn't know exactly where it was. My sister just moved there.”

“The one with the breasts?”

“Watch it, Piper. She might be able to help you.”

Rick made a face. “I don't need any help.”

“She's an optometrist.” Dakota wiped his lips and cocked his head. “I was just thinking—maybe you did see something weird when you were a kid. You ever get your eyes examined?”

“Two months ago. Healthy, normal, twenty-twenty.”

“Still, if you told her about it, she might be able to tell you something.”

“Dakota, if you tell her—or anybody—one word of this, I'll—”

“Your secret's safe with me. You won't have any trouble, anyway,” he added. “You've found an outlet for your imagination with those crazy columns of yours. You'll be fine—I guess I was just looking for an excuse to have you and Audrey meet.”

“I don't—”

“She's just your type, Piper. Divorced, barely fills an A cup, five foot three, HIV negative, and disgustingly well read.” Dakota grinned. “Want her number?”

“I haven't even decided to move for sure. Don't try to fix me up yet!”

Dakota topped their glasses. “You'd like her.”

Rick snorted into his wine. “Jesus, O'Keefe, brothers are supposed to beat up guys who try to screw their sisters.”

“Shit, Piper, I didn't say you could screw her. You know, you're becoming positively vulgar? I said you should meet her.” Dakota set his glass down and examined his lacquered red nails, a Mona Lisa of a smirk plastered on his face. “I've done that.”

“Done what?”

“Punched out a guy who messed with my sister. I pack quite a powerful left hook, you know.”

Rick grinned in amazement. “An obnoxious boyfriend?”

“Her husband.”

“Why?”

“He beat her up, the son of a bitch.” He took a deep breath, then exhaled, relaxing until the pinched look left his features. “Look, enough about that cretinous puddle of scum. I've got to whip these potatoes before they turn to mush. I'm positively starving.”

“You want any help?”

“Thanks, no.” Pans clattered as Dakota fussed around the stove. “You know,” he called, over his shoulder, “you'll probably have trouble with Shelly about this, but it'll work out eventually.”

“O'Keefe?”

“Hmmm?” he asked, stirring gravy.

“That guy, Starman, that bellboy Shelly likes? You checked him out?” he asked guiltily. He hadn't even known the guy existed.

“Took a look, asked some questions. I was afraid he might have, you know, connections . . . to certain unsavory organizations. He doesn't.” Dakota glanced over his shoulder. “You're feeling like you're the world's worst father, aren't you, Piper? Well, don't. Shelly's an adolescent, which automatically means she's not going to tell you squat. Sometimes she confides in me a little.”

“Why you and not me?”

“Because you're her father. Piper, plug in your brain. You were a kid once What teenager tells their parents
anything?”
Dakota smiled and put a hand on his hip. “She talks to me because I'm sort of a big brother to her . . . and big sister.”

“You're right again.” Rick stared at Dakota. He wore no makeup, but his face—its features strong in a woman, delicate in a man—were disturbingly beautiful, genderless in the way of the faces of angels in some Renaissance paintings. Rick thought:
Boy, am I drunk.

“What're you smiling about, Piper?”

“Thanks for looking out for my daughter, Dakota. You're an angel.”

“Thanks. You know, Cody's going to absolutely be in heaven if you do this.”

“I hope so,” Rick replied, thinking about his son's Piper blue eyes.

 

Rick's stomach held an ocean of aspirin, and he was feeling a little seasick. Between his efforts to ease the dull headache, relax his tense neck muscles, and kill the throbbing pain in his hand, he'd taken too many pills. Now, lying on his back at four in the morning, watching the lights from the Strip splash their gaudy reflections against the bedroom window, aware of the warm weight of the cat, who had plastered his furry orange body against his side, Rick reached for the antacids and tumbled out the last two. The bottle had been half-full when he'd gone to bed.

Quint's tail beat angrily against his leg as he crunched the Tums—the feline considered such noises beneath contempt but the thrashing gave way to basso profundo purring as soon as he began scratching behind its ears. The cat, he reflected, had trained him well.

A car alarm began wailing somewhere below. He listened briefly to make sure it wasn't his, then turned his thoughts to the evening and wondered again if it had been worth the physical discomfort he now felt. He decided that maybe it had, in a sort of roundabout, somewhat humiliating, way.

At some point during the long, blurred postdinner conversation, Dakota had called him a control freak. Rick had laughed to hide his annoyance, but now he admitted to himself that O'Keefe was right. He'd never opened up, even as much as he did tonight—but then he'd never gotten so drunk either, not even in college. He never let himself, for fear of . . . for fear of what? Losing control, of course. Tonight's reaction to the liquor had been decidedly weird. He wasn't a teetotaler; he'd split a couple bottles of wine with friends any number of times, and usually it just relaxed him a little and made him sleepy. But tonight . . . tonight, probably because of the stress and moronic finger slicing, he'd slobbered sentimental gratitude on Dakota and, as a result, wasn't sure he'd ever be able to look him in the eye again, despite the fact that Dakota insisted he'd done nothing to be ashamed of.

Voices, a man and a woman arguing, passed by, and a moment later, a door slammed farther down the hall. It was never quiet here. Rick wondered if he could sleep in a place without voices and horns and sirens. And lights.
Grow up, Piper.

He smiled to himself, remembering that he'd told Dakota stories about Aunt Jade's poodles. He hadn't thought of them in years—in fact, he'd forgotten about them until the moment he'd brought them up.

Remembering the dogs had been an eye-opener for him. He'd never seen the humor in them before. If most of the things he'd blocked were as stupid and innocuous as that, then the move home would be a very good thing for him as well as for his kids.

Then again, maybe Dakota was full of shit. Still, it was the first time he'd ever told anyone about his brother. Too, he was glad he'd talked about the dogs. Later, he'd even made a few jokes about Jade's bizarre sexual proclivities, and he was perversely pleased with himself for making fun of a territory so long self-forbidden. The words had tumbled out, nasty little nuances seduced by a nice red wine. And he'd loved it, absolutely loved it, and only wished he'd done it sooner. The wicked delight he had felt—and was still feeling—was as exciting as an altar boy's first forbidden peek in a
Playboy.

All in all, he couldn't remember when he'd had a better time, throbbing hand and all.

“What a miserable little kid I was,” he told the cat as he scratched behind its ears. “I never laughed.” God, he'd been a serious, oversensitive little—

“Be quiet!” he whispered. Acid, hot and burning, seeped into his throat. The unbidden words, as always, delivered in his brother's voice, were nothing but symptoms of his own oversensitivity. He knew that most kids would have laughed off the nasty things his brother said. Most kids—like his brother, for instance—would have delighted in his grandfather's greenjack stories, but not Rick. Sometimes he hated himself for being who he'd been: a cowardly, overly imaginative child who grew up afraid of everything and haunted by untrustworthy memories. Perhaps now, things would begin to change.

For all he knew now, Robin might have been a wonderful kid. Rick's memories of his childhood were deformed, his imagination twisted. If he could imagine seeing and hearing greenjacks, for Christ's sake, certainly he could imagine things about his brother that weren't true. But why? Maybe Dakota was right. Maybe he should talk to someone.

The headache beat against his skull. What did he have to tell, anyway?

Telling O'Keefe about Jade was a joke when compared to the
real
secrets. There were things about Robin and about Carmen—perhaps even about himself—that were too terrible to ever recall. He hoped that seeing Carmen and Hector wouldn't bring any of them back—he doubted that it would. They were purposely buried far in the past.

About death. About murder.

Silent tears blazed trails from the outer corners of his eyes to the pillow beneath his head. How much was real? Any of it? All of it? How much was imagination born of guilt? Maybe Dakota was right, maybe he did hate his brother, even though he had no right to.
After all,
he reminded himself,
I was born with legs.

If you tell, if you tell, if you tell .
. .

His brother's voice, always his brother's voice. He wondered if he would ever be free of it.

No, he thought, as his eyelids grew heavy.
Because it's your voice too.