Busted (20 page)

That he understood well enough. Most kids had a monster somewhere, in their closet or in the attic.

"Well, good thing I'm here," Joe said. He tried to sound as cheerful as he could. "I get to handle monsters all the time at work." Which was sort of true, Joe thought. Some of the people he had to deal with could certainly pull night duty hiding in closets and scaring little kids. "I'll just tell it we don't need it and it can have the night off. So, where's the monster?"

Toby looked up at him. He was clearly torn, part of him wanting to believe Joe, the other part not at all sure.

"Under the bed," he finally said.

"Oh, monster," Joe said as he slid off the bed. "This is Joe. There's been a mixup with the paperwork, and we don't need a monster here any… more?"

Joe had knelt down beside the bed and pulled the edge of the blanket up. He had expected to see dust, a whole lot of toys, and maybe a stuffed animal or two.

He hadn't expected to see something cowering in the furthest corner of the bed, right under where Toby was cowering on top. Something that looked back at him. For a moment he thought maybe it was a squirrel or a cat, some animal that had managed to get into the house and was hiding under the bed. But cats didn’t have three eyes.

Toby was right, there was a monster under his bed, a small bundle of eyes and claws and bristly black fur. The thing looked as terrified as Toby was. The indirect light from the bathroom made it tough to tell, but Joe could almost see through it.

For a moment he had a flashback to college, and the things he'd seen at the frat party, the first time he'd ever gotten drunk. There were real monsters then, thing with claws or tentacles, too many legs or none, lurking everywhere. He thought someone had spiked his beer with acid, but he'd seen them again the next week, when he'd gotten drunk in his dorm room on a bottle of vodka that his roommate had gotten for him, one with the seal still intact.

He'd not gotten drunk, or anywhere close to it, since. Which was a shame, as he really did like the taste of beer.

This monster, though, was rougher, almost unformed. A caricature, the sort of thing a child might imagine. Like Toby.

Joe looked up. Toby was watching him intently. He was still terrified, but there was trust there. Trust that Joe could make the monster go away. Joe was flattered, and a little humbled, that Toby would trust him so much.

"Monster," Joe said firmly. "It's time for you to
go home.
"

The words were enough, the words and the confidence behind them. The monster drew back further into the corner, folded into itself, and faded away.

Joe got back up onto the bed next to Toby.

"The monster's gone," he said. "You're okay now." Joe had a thousand questions, and a few suspicions, but he knew Toby couldn't answer them. He'd have to ask Chris in the morning. He wasn't looking forward to that conversation.

Toby looked uncertain. Joe had banished the monster for him, but he knew monsters came back again, to grab at heels and nip at toes. It was gone now, but what about later? He took Joe's hand, unwilling to let him go. Joe had beaten the monster once. If the monster came back then he could do it again.

It was clear Toby didn't want him to go. "Should I stay, Toby?" he asked the boy.

Toby shook his head yes, squeezing his hand as he did.

"Well, then, let's rearrange things a little and get comfortable."

Joe fluffed the pillows and stacked them in the corner, along with a comforter that was folded over the foot of the bed. He sat back and let Toby settle in. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was comfortable enough. More importantly, Toby was relaxed and felt safe. He was light enough that Joe could support him without a problem all night.

Joe pulled the blanket up, tucked it around them both, and drifted off to sleep with Toby in his arms.

Chris
woke up with a headache so bad he wondered if he might be dead. Probably not, he decided after a few agonizing minutes. If he were dead it wouldn't hurt so bad.

He felt like crap. Besides the pain in his head, he was pretty sure something had crawled into his mouth and died. There was a faint, lingering smell of mustard and vomit, and he felt grubby.

His first attempt to get out of bed was a failure and left him lying on the ground in a pool of sunlight. The fall almost as much as the light, and the twittering birds outside his window.

His second attempt was better. This time he managed to get to his feet, though the floor was still less stable than he'd like.

Staggering to the hall, he was hit with twin revelations: he was still a little drunk, and there was someone besides Toby in Toby's bed. The first scared him a little. He knew he'd had too much to drink the day before. He didn't actually remember anything past about noon, and what he did remember was really fuzzy.

The second scared him in an entirely different way. There was someone else in the house. In
Toby's
room. And he'd been so drunk he hadn't noticed.

Chris shuffled into the room as quietly as he could. He was tempted to go back and get his gun, but he didn't want to take the chance of waking whoever it was in the bed. He wasn't sure he could use it right either.

Blinking to try and clear his eyes, he moved closer to the bed. He was only a few feet away before his addled brain finally figured out who it was.

Joe.

Chris wasn't sure whether to be happy it wasn't some sick burglar, or mad that Joe was in bed with
his
son, when he couldn't be. Toby made a contented little sound in his sleep and snuggled into Joe.

That made the decision. Angry won.

Chris reached over and poked Joe in the shoulder. He would've hauled Joe out if Toby hadn't been wrapped around him. He almost did anyway.

The poke was enough to wake Joe. It was still early, but the sun had been up for a while and there was some light coming through the bedroom windows. Toby was still sound asleep, dead to the world. So was Joe, more or less. Never a morning person, the first few minutes after he woke were always fuzzy for him, as his brain got used to the idea of reality again.

Joe looked over to see who had poked him. Looming over him was a very hung over Chris.

"Get out of his bed," Chris hissed. His breath was foul, and Joe winced.

With Chris glowering at him, Joe carefully extricated himself from around Toby. It wasn't easy. Toby kept trying to hold on, but the boy was asleep and Joe was mostly awake. It took him a minute, but he got free.

As soon as he got out of bed Chris grabbed his arm and hauled him out into the hall. Chris was leaning on him as much as dragging. It was clear he was still a little drunk.

When they got to the hall, Chris turned on Joe. "What the fuck do you think you were doing?"

Joe glared at Chris. He reached over and closed Toby's door. He was going to start shouting, he knew it, but he didn't want to wake Toby if he could help it.

"You're still drunk." Joe said flatly.

"What does that have to do…"

"You're still fucking
drunk!
" As he said it again it sunk in, rousing old, old anger. This was most of his childhood, waking up and wondering where he'd find his mother or father passed out, whether they'd made it to the bedroom. Hell, whether they'd made it to the bathroom.

"You left your goddamn son to fend for himself while you fucking drank the whole day!"

"But you…"

"I
nothing
! You reckless, idiotic, self-absorbed, stupid sonofabitch! What were you
thinking
?" He was furious, and worse than that he felt let down. Chris was insanely frustrating, but he loved his son more than anything. Joe had seen that. He admired it, and it touched him in ways he didn't want to think too much about.

"But I…"

"You
what
? Figured he'd be okay? Figure someone else would clean up your goddamn mess?"

"He would've been…" Guilt stabbed at Chris, and it hurt worse than the pain in his head. On top of everything else, for all his fury, he knew Joe was
disappointed
in him.

"Been
what?
He's four, you jackass. What if something happened? What if he'd been hurt? What if there had been a fire?"

Joe had, inadvertently, hit on Chris' biggest fear. His parents had died in a fire when he was eleven. He had been there, but he'd only remembered bits and pieces of it. They had been drunk. Again. And fighting. Again. Chris had been in the living room, on the couch. He'd had another one of his spells and was barely able to sit up to watch TV.

He hadn't been paying attention to the fight. It was like all the others, two drunks screaming at each other. Some stupid thing one of them had said, or something his dad had seen. Half the time the fights weren't even with each other, they were with whatever hallucination one or the other was having. It wasn't until he was in college that he finally realized his parents were probably psychotic. He tried not to think about what that meant for him. He used to see Alex, after all.

That last fight had ended with a crash. His father had thrown a half-full bottle of rum at something. Then there was screaming, and smoke, and the next thing he remembered he was on the ground outside the trailer, watching it turn into an inferno. Their gas stove had been on, and the fire department figured splashes of alcohol had caught fire.

Chris still had nightmares about that night. The thought that Toby might get caught in a fire haunted his dreams. And here he was, drunk like his parents had been. It was more than his stomach could take. Chris bolted into the bathroom and started throwing up.

Joe had no idea how much what he'd said had struck home, nor how much his words had hurt. All he saw was Chris leaning over the toilet, puking.

"Fucking asshole," he snarled. He stormed out of the house, stopping only to grab his car keys. His clothes and sneakers were still in Chris' washing machine, but he didn't care. Chris could throw them out or burn them, but there was no way in hell he was spending another second in that house.

Steve looked out his living room when he heard the car door slam in his driveway, just in time to see Joe's car peel out, tires squealing. Joe was clearly furious, swearing with some vigor and an awful lot of body language. He just shook his head with a little smile and wondered what exactly Chris had got himself into.

* * *

“Goddamn stupid drunken asshole,” Joe swore as he drove home. He had the steering wheel in a death grip as he whipped his car around corners sharply enough to make the tires squeal. The pedals were hard and uncomfortable against his bare feet — he’d left his vomit covered shoes back at Chris’ house, just one more reason he was furious.

More than angry he felt betrayed. Of all the thing Chris was supposed to be, a drunkard wasn’t one of them. It was just wrong somehow, and the whole world seemed a little off because of it.

The drive to his apartment took remarkably little time, though that may have been because of the stop signs and traffic lights Joe ignored. It was long enough that he’d gotten properly worked up, but not nearly long enough for him to calm down again. He pulled into his parking spot too fast to stop and the car’s tires bounced off the low yellow curb.

“Bastard had damn well better give me my shoes back clean,” Joe groused as he tried to stomp up the walk. He was barefoot and the sidewalk was rough cement, which made his attempt to storm up the path just one more thing to add to his anger.

When he saw the yellow maintenance notice stuck to his door he almost lost it completely.

Resident,

Be aware that the complex is replacing all doors with new fire-resistant safety doors. Over the next few days the doors will be changed. Your locks should remain the same.

The Management

“Fuck me. Not this, too,” Joe snarled. He crumpled the notice and threw it into a corner of the hall.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Joe spun. Standing in the shadows by the stairs to the second floor was a short man in a blue maintenance worker’s outfit. He had a baseball hat on, the bill obscuring his face.

“What?” Joe snapped.

“I’m with the complex, sir,” the man said, rocking back a step. His accent was strange. Joe couldn’t place it, but it definitely wasn’t local, and seemed relatively young. “It’s about the door replacement. The complex wants to make sure we have everything keyed right.” As the man spoke Joe felt a headache start and his eyes start to water.

“Yeah, so? Not my problem,” Joe said.

“It will only take a moment,” said the maintenance man. His tone was reasonable, and Joe felt his anger drain away a little as he spoke. “I promise, this will be quick.” Joe saw the man’s smile, his teeth a dazzling bright white in the shadows of the hat.

“Maybe…” Joe said. His anger had mostly drained away, and he felt a little shaky as his adrenaline ebbed.

“Let’s just go inside,” said the man, “and we can have this over faster than you’d imagine.” His voice still nagged at Joe. It was familiar somehow, but his head was getting fuzzy he couldn’t think clearly enough to work out how.

“Okay, fine,” Joe agreed. If was Sunday, and he didn’t really have anything else he needed to do. “If it’ll only take a minute.”