In the Night Season (26 page)

N
ORA AND
T
RAVIS HAD GONE
through the garage, the shed, the closets, even the kitchen, the pantry with its dozens of cans and glass jars and tins of cookie forms and decorations. And they had found nothing. For her, it was all the more painful that these personal things—these things which came from her life before her husband’s death, the months of grief and worry, and now the invasion of these bad men—that it all looked so meager, so awfully beside the point.

The point, of course, was survival. The point was to make sure somehow that her son escaped unharmed, that her parents stayed alive.

The searching had turned up nothing but a single book page with the name of a bank written on it and a letter from someone who might have been her husband’s lover, or one of them, Travis said, with a wily kind of angry relish. He was getting more and more agitated.

“Shit,” he said at last. He took hold of her, above the elbows. “Okay, look. Here’s the deal. Jack must’ve said something to you.”

“Don’t you get it?” she said. “We were barely talking at the end.”

“This is
before
the end.” He shook her. Then he let go and walked away from her, swinging his arms as if to knock away invisible impediments. He reached into his pocket, brought out a cigarette,
and lighted it; his face shone. She saw the little tail of a scar running from his mouth. They were in the kitchen. It had been dark for a long time.

“I know he was thinking of getting out,” Travis said. “He was looking for a way out. He wanted out.” He drew on the cigarette and sighed the smoke. “We had them in a nice safe place—and it wasn’t any bank, either—” He reached into his pocket again and brought out the folded page. “No. He might’ve been thinking about it, but he didn’t do it. They were in that motel room for weeks, and we were delivering them to him.” He took another draw on the cigarette, thinking. He put the page back in his pocket. “
I
was delivering them.”

“Well, if you know where they are—” she began. His look stopped her.

“The son of a bitch checked out. Put them somewhere and was trying to use them to get out free and clear. He was bargaining with Reuther over the telephone.”

He smoked the cigarette.

She waited for whatever was next. The little hacksaw blade had made a blister on the instep of her foot; it stung every time she moved. Perhaps she was bleeding. During the long hours of their search there had been moments when she experienced an unnerving feeling of cooperation with him in the process of her own destruction, as if they were accomplices.

Now he said, “Reuther.” There was something in his tone, a note of regret, or fear; she couldn’t tell which.

“Jack was backing out,” she said.

“He was
chickening
out.” He turned and ran water on the coal of his cigarette, then put it in the trash bag under the sink. “Come on. Let’s clean this mess up. Make it look natural in here.”

She did not question him. They worked together putting away all the signs of the ransacking they had been engaged in. In the bedroom, he turned the bed over and put the torn parts of the mattress on the floor of the closet. She was setting the books back into the bookcases.

“That woman—that Ruth,” he said abruptly, breathing with the effort of his work.

Nora said nothing.

He was on the other side of the room. “You don’t know her, but those two ladies did. That’s the same Ruth. I saw the expression on your face.”

“I don’t know,” Nora said. “It could be.”

He stood there, thinking. He brought another cigarette out and lighted it. “Maybe it’ll be this simple,” he said. “Maybe she’s got them—”

“I wouldn’t know,” she heard herself say.

“Yeah.” He looked around at the walls. “Jack was a guy with secrets.”

When the house was reasonably back in order, he went to the door and looked out. It was almost dark. There were no streetlamps or any house lights. The Bishop farm was dark. He shut off the lights and then hesitated.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.”

In the car, he made her put her head down again. She began counting to herself, thinking of trying to measure the miles in this fashion, but then he was talking, asking her questions.

“Who worked with Jack?”

“Nobody. He subcontracted.”

“Real estate people?”

“Plumbers, electricians, drywallers.”

“Did he know any real estate people?”

She sat up a little to look at him.

“Put your head down.”

She did so.

“Did he know any real estate people?”

“He knew some, yes. You heard what the James sisters said.”

“What’re the chances this Ruth is the same one?”

“I already said I don’t know,” she said. “How would I possibly know that?”

“Well, think about it.”

They were climbing now, the angle had changed, and he had slowed some. She felt a blast of the cold air; he had opened his window to throw the cigarette out. He shut it again.

“What about other people? Lawyers—did he know any lawyers?”

“Of course.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think,” he said. “Goddammit.”

“He saw lawyers. He was thinking—we were thinking about declaring bankruptcy.”

“Shit!”

The car jerked along a curve, and the wheels made a screeching sound.

“Get pulled over,” she said. “That would be really smart.”

“I’m gonna tell you something,” Travis said. “We don’t find the chips, and we might all end up dead. We gotta find some way to stall Reuther. If this piece of paper—this bank—if this is just it, then we ain’t got any control.”

She sat up. He was staring out.

“I don’t understand.”

He didn’t answer. At some point he had lighted another cigarette. Ahead of them the road seemed to be narrowing in trees and high dirt banks with gnarled roots jutting from them. She did not recognize anything. She tried to see into the woods, to find some sign of other houses, but there was nothing—the shifting gray shapes of trees retreating into the darkness. But the road was inclining upward.

“What’re you saying?” she asked him.

“I’m telling you the truth.” His voice shook.

“He wouldn’t hurt Jason,” she said. “Tell me he wouldn’t hurt my boy.” Trembling, she looked out at the nightmarish twisting of the tree branches reaching into the fan of the headlights.

“You know how my brother is?” he said. “Well—”

“Oh, God,” she said. “No.”

“Look, we have to do some more looking. Hear me? What we do—we say we got interrupted by the cops—those—those women. If you want to survive. You understand? We say we have to go back to the house tomorrow and look through—that we didn’t get to
everything. I need to get those chips in
my
possession, or all kinds of bad stuff will happen.”

“I thought you said you’d get them and we’d never see you again.”

“If
I
get them.” He spoke thinly, as if his throat were closing. Smoke ran out as he went on. “Just follow my lead,” he said.

J
ASON LAY IN THE RAGS AND NEWSpapers
of the upstairs, hazily aware of lapses of time, little blank intervals when the pain was less, the anguish not quite so sharp. Though it hurt to stay awake, he felt the need to fight sleep, and he kept losing the fight. Intermittently he jerked back to consciousness and then had to work to muffle his own cry of alarm.

He heard the car, saw the light at the window. There was activity downstairs. Travis’s voice.

“Mom!” he called.

And her voice rose to him from the stairwell. “Jason? Son?”

There was a scuffling on the steps, then silence.

“Mom?”

Nothing. He tried to move. His arms and legs were almost without sensation, though his back and neck pulsed with sharp pain through each attempted motion. It seemed a long time. But then someone was coming up the stairs.

“Honey?” His mother’s voice. She hurried to him, began working the knots over his wrists. He began to cry, soundlessly. “Are you all right?” she said.

“I’m okay.” His own voice sounded far away to him.

“Come on.” She stood and helped him toward the stairwell.

“Is it over?”

“No.”

They went down into the kitchen. The three men were waiting there, Reuther sitting in the chair, Bags standing by the door, Travis perched on the counter, smoking another cigarette.

“We couldn’t get to everything,” Travis said. “We have to try it again.”

Reuther said, “Why didn’t you stay there until you did get to everything?”

“We got visited once by the cops. She said she was sick. I figured if the place was lit up all night, it might draw some more visitors. We’ll go back early in the morning.”

Jason put his arm around his mother’s middle and held tight. He saw Bags staring at him with that look of complacent malice; Bags was confident that he would get to work his revenge.

“We have to talk to this—Ruth,” Reuther said. He thought a moment. “Travis, you and the lady go back tonight. We’ll keep the boy here.”

“No,” Jason’s mother said. “You can’t.”

“I think so.”

“Why?” Travis said.

“The police may come back through. I would, if I were the police. Wouldn’t you? It’s safer to have somebody there. And maybe leave the lights on. A lady staying in a house next to the murder house—scene of the terrible hate crime.” He took Jason by the arm above the elbow and pulled him close. It was almost an embrace. Jason smelled something lemony and sour. Reuther was looking down at him, smiling.

“The man—the detective,” Jason’s mother said. “He—he knew someone else was—where the—at Mr. Bishop’s house. He wanted to talk to my son.”

“You’ve already been seen there,” Reuther said to Travis.

“Yep. The two ladies saw me.”

He let go of the boy and paced slowly. He stopped before Jason’s mother. “Yes. I think you should go back there. And keep
looking. The police are looking for a cult. The cult called the news media and claimed credit for the crime. The media is crazy with it.”

Travis pushed off the counter. “Okay.”

When the boy’s mother and Travis had gone, Reuther took him upstairs and tied his hands and feet. Jason heard Bags whistling on the stairs, and he murmured to Reuther, “Please don’t leave me alone with him.”

“What?” Reuther spoke in a normal tone.

“Please.”

“Please what?”

“He’ll kill me.”

Bags strolled into the room. Reuther said, without turning, “Go back downstairs, please.”

“I’m comfortable here.”

Reuther stood. “Oh?”

“Think I’ll spend the night up here.”

Reuther seemed to accede to this. He reached down and made one tightening pull on the cord that held the boy’s hands, then stood again. “It’s important to understand the consequences of one’s decisions,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Bags.

Reuther sidled to the other side of the room. “Yes, I’d say it’s crucial.”

“Good for you.”

He took the pistol out of his jacket and held it in the palm of his hand, still moving along the opposite wall. “I’d go back downstairs.”

“Why don’t you?” Bags said. “I’m gonna stay up here and have some fun.”

Reuther put the pistol back and started for the stairwell. “All right,” he said. “But remember he’s no good to us dead.”

“Yeah, I remember,” the fat man said.

Reuther looked back at the boy. “Scary,” he said. “Hmm?”

Then he descended the stairs.

Bags remained where he was for a long minute. He appeared to
be listening. Jason could see him out of the corner of his eye, a blur, through tears. He said, “Please.”

Bags came to him in three heavy leaps. With each one, the boy cried out. Bags leaned down, hands on his knees. “What have we got here, huh?”

“Don’t,” Jason said.

“It’s gonna be a long night, boy. Some fun.” Bags knelt, unzipped his pants, and reached in. Jason tried to turn his face away.

“Come here, cowboy.”

“You can eat shit and die,” the boy said.

“Ain’t you tough?”

The heavy fingers closed on the hair at the crown of his head and turned him slowly. He fought to free himself, and the hand pulled; it felt as though his hair would be torn out at the roots. “No!” he screamed. He felt something warm and wet run down his neck. Somehow he kept his face turned away, flailing in his bonds, choking.

Bags said, “You’re all wet, kid.”

Jason closed his eyes tight, relaxed all his muscles, sliding toward blackness, and abruptly something changed in the room, a roiling. He looked up and saw Bags fall to one side. Reuther had bulled him to the floor and now kicked him where he’d opened his pants. Bags yelled and rolled away, his legs curling toward his heavy stomach. Reuther kicked at him and then stooped to slap his face, his ears, the top of his head. Bags held his groin and bellowed.

Jason saw the barrel of the pistol come down against the side of the fat man’s head, a small, hard striking motion. Reuther held the gun on him. “Now, will we go downstairs like a good piggy?”

Bags whimpered something unintelligible and struggled away, not quite getting to his feet, still holding on to himself. When he was gone, Reuther put the pistol in his belt and turned to the boy.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Are you going to shoot him?” Jason got out. “Shoot him.”

“I would like to. And if I have the chance, I will.” Reuther shook his head, turning to the stairwell. “You are something. Your mother ought to hire you out to be a tough guy.” He brought the pistol from his belt and started down the stairs.

The boy made an effort to hold his breath, to hear. A low muttering came to him and kept on, the same droning sound. It might’ve been a radio, he couldn’t tell. Finally, it gave over to something else, Reuther’s voice, definite, full of malice, controlled. The words weren’t clear. Then the lower sound resumed; it was the subdued drone of the fat man’s higher-pitched voice. It went on. They had apparently come to some arrangement. Finally, Jason thought he heard the distant strains of music. It was a radio. He began to doubt everything and thought he smelled smoke through the acrid, ammonia-like fumes of what Bags had done. His bones were a structure of torment. The cuts on his hand and ankle gave him back his own heartbeat in stabs of discomfort.

He saw something move on the wall, the shadows shifting there, and abruptly he was wide awake, hearing the heavy tread of the fat man on the stairs. Jason shouted Reuther’s name.

And Bags was in the doorway.

The boy tried to work up another shout, but his mouth was dry now—his fright so complete—and with stunning quickness Bags was on him, the full weight of the big knee in the middle of his back. He coughed up something; it was on the floor in front of him.

“Show time,” Bags said. He had opened the knife.

The nerves along the side of Jason’s skull pounded with blood. Everything spun. Bags leaned down, smelling of sausage and beer. “I stuck Reuther,” he said. “And now I’m gonna stick you.”

The boy looked up into the heavy, round face and abruptly it was shoved aside, gone, the weight on his back lifted; he could breathe. The room thundered with footfalls, another struggle, loud breathing, gasping, straining. He could see only the fat man’s bulk, the heavy legs pushing and bending, and then he saw Reuther, swinging once, twice, into the bigger man’s abdomen. Reuther pushed him against the opposite wall, working at him. Bags yelled and went down and crawled along the base of the wall. Reuther followed him, kicking his big side, kneeing him in the side of the head. Then he had the knife, and he seemed to reach with it, like someone stretching to pull something from under a bed, his shoulder low, the hand with the knife in it disappearing into the darkness at the level
of the floor, where Bags was roiling and struggling. The fat man lay flat and was still, his wide-fingered hand lying open. Reuther moved twice more in that odd reaching way, and Bags gave forth a low, animal-coughing sound, a ragged, elephantine gasp of air, then was still.

Reuther stood back, dropped the knife, then kicked at it, missing, almost falling. He came and stood over the boy and seemed to falter again.

“Help me,” Jason said.

“Fucking can’t believe—” Reuther said. “Fucking stupid—”

Jason whimpered. “Untie me.”

Reuther was out of breath. “Pig,” he muttered. He took a step back and then toppled over.

The boy opened his mouth on a long, tearing, whispered shriek. Then he was crying, struggling with the knots that held him.

There was movement on the other side of the room.

Bags stirred. One boot heel scraped the floor. Bags opened his eyes and spit blood. Then he pushed himself to a sitting position against the wall. Blood poured from his mouth. His small green eyes fixed on Reuther. “Fuck with me,” he said. The moronic little laugh came with blood and coughing. And now the pig eyes settled on the boy, who tried again to squirm out of the ropes. Bags tipped over onto his side and reached for the knife. There was blood everywhere. It ran out from where Reuther lay, and it kept coming from the fat man’s mouth, but the fat man had stuck the end of the knife in the floor and was using it to pull himself along. The knife gave way, and he put his head down and gasped. The blood shone on his hands; it was in his hair. He lay there a moment, then stirred again, both hands out in front of him on the floor, the one hand still holding the knife. Bags inched forward, face up now, the lower half of it blotted out with blood, but with a brutal, blood-spattered glitter in the eyes, an almost childlike excitement, as if this were a game—not to let go, not to die of his wounds until he could get to the boy.

Jason watched him come. Almost no actual sound was issuing from his own open mouth—a thin hissing screech—as the fat man came closer, the hand with the knife in it reaching almost to his
back. He closed his eyes. The whole world was stuttering to a stop. He breathed and felt the groping of the fat man, so near now, and it was happening, the hand came down in the middle of his back; he was being murdered.

But the fat man didn’t move, and the hand with the knife in it was deadweight. There was a cut where the knife had glanced him, but everything was still now. He opened his eyes.

Bags was motionless. No breath. No movement. The hand with the knife lay across the boy’s back. He couldn’t stop shaking, lying there with the deadweight of the hand and arm across his back. The minutes stretched and died.

Finally, slowly, coming out of the reaches of panic, he sought, with his blistered and abraded and tied hands, the wet blade. He could just get his fingers on it. Carefully, he brought it along his palm to the handle, cutting himself on the sharp edge. He felt for the cord and dropped the knife. But he managed to roll over on his side and retrieve it. Once more, it cut him. But here, at last, was the tension of something across it; the cord, some part of the binding that held him. He cut. His feet came loose. He used this new freedom to scramble away from the shape of the fat man lying there, and now he was sitting up, the knife had cut him still again, but he was working it to the place where his hands were tied. He cut this, too, cut through, and was free. He dropped the knife, and then remembered to pick it up, backing away, falling and rising again, feeling the raw tissue of his voice as if it were torn, getting himself to the wall next to the door.

Reuther lay face up, eyes closed, mouth partly open. The fat man lay facedown, one arm out. The floor was all blood.

Jason retched dryly on the wall, then made his way to where Reuther was. He opened Reuther’s coat, looking for the revolver. Reuther had no wounds on his front, but his body lay in a wide spreading lake of blood. Jason searched the coat, gasping and trying not to be ill again.

Reuther took hold of his wrist. The grip held him.

Jason tried to scream, to pull away. Reuther stared, dead-eyed, and seemed to be attempting to speak to him. His eyes reflected the
dim light of the hall. He appeared to gape, mouth open wide, as if he wanted to release an enormous sound, but nothing came, and at last the pressure of his grasp lessened. He lay back and let go.

The boy staggered to the stairwell and down into the lighted kitchen. The windows were blackness. He found Reuther’s gun on the floor near the kitchen counter. There were smears of blood, footprints, signs of a frantic moving back and forth. Reuther hadn’t been able to find the gun, evidently, slipping and faltering in the room, in his spilled blood, trying to find it, and finally staggering away to the stairs and on up. Reuther had come, already dying, to kill Bags. Jason put the gun in the belt of his pants, then turned the light off. A wind was blowing outside. He opened the door and stumbled forward into the dark, toward the trees. He kept shaking, faltering, and he thought about how it would be to fall on the knife. He was too woozy to walk. He stopped and held on to the skinny trunk of a pine sapling and took the cold air into his hurting throat. It was too dark to run. He walked a few more steps, leaned on another tree. Beyond the shape of the hill in front of him was a soft glow. Light from some distance. He climbed the hill, still holding the knife. At the crest, he saw water, a large open expanse of it shimmering faintly in the reflection of distant light. Windows, or streetlamps—he couldn’t tell. The cold stung him, and he grew dizzy, gripping the knife and leaning into the hard uneven surface of the base of the tree. The pain had somehow reached past itself; there was something weirdly exquisite about it now, though he had no words for this: he simply felt that he had gone inside it, to another level. It made him feel drunk, as he had felt that time, shortly after his father’s death—one of the first times he had come home from school alone and had got into his father’s whiskey, drinking it to lose himself, to lessen the anxiety and the hurt, as he had seen his father do, and it had made him so sick, dizzy and elated and desperately sick. Now he lay in the dark at the base of the tree, sick again, trying to move away from the small pools of spittle and stomach acid, still pulling and straining to rise. Time had stopped again. All the world around him was terribly still.