Tell My Sorrows to the Stones (12 page)

“And this one?” Craig asked, bending close to point to a small figure just above her navel. “This doesn’t look like an ancient god. It looks . . . modern.”

The moment his eyes had been able to focus, to pick apart the images and examine them for themselves, he had noticed that one illustration. The tattoo was finely detailed, much more so than most of the others. The god wore a black top hat with a bright red band that was dotted with tiny gleaming blades. His teeth were like two rows of shiny needles and he had knives for fingers. His clothes were leather and upon his feet were a pair of human heads.

“What is it? Aztec? But what about the hat?”

“Modern?” Anita asked, and when she laughed it was a hollow, rasping sound like the dry rattle of a smoker on his death bed. “Oh, no. It’s one of the oldest of them all. There have been names for it in many cultures, but none of the scholars know where it originated or what its true name was.”

Craig gazed up at her eyes at last, awed by her. “You’re exquisite. Truly. I’ve never met a woman like you. Never imagined anyone like you existed. I always thought of tattoos as . . . as low . . . crass. But this—”

Anita beamed with pleasure, flattered by his words. She ran her hands over her breasts, over Raven and Coyote, and touched her nipples with just the tips of her fingers. “Thank you,” she whispered. “They’re meant to be seen. That way they won’t be forgotten forever. Usually they’re only for me . . . my husband doesn’t really see them anymore. Doesn’t even notice when I’ve added a new one.”

“He’s a fool, then. It really is art.”

His hands hesitated, hovering in the air. He wanted to touch her, to have his hands follow the paths trailblazed by her own fingers, but he did not know where or how to begin. He was long out of practice and would have been awkward even with an ordinary woman. But Anita was far from ordinary.

There was magic here. Magic that tingled his skin and stole his breath and made him feel thirteen years old again. She was another man’s wife and this moment was not born of genuine emotion but of need and desperation and surrender. And yet the magic swept such concerns away. He thought he would come just from the touch of his fingers upon her skin.

She took his hand and led his fingers between her legs. He felt the smoothness there, that unblossomed flower, and as she pressed his fingers into her he found her warm and glistening wet, and she sighed and leaned down to put her weight on him, sliding her red heels apart so that he could explore her properly.

Anita reached for his belt and hurriedly unbuckled him. She reached inside his pants and gripped him firmly in her hand and he groaned, a noise that came from so far down inside him that he did not recognize the sound as his own. He bent to her, tongue thrusting out, licking the Eye of the Raven, then taking it into his mouth. His free hand slid over her back and cupped the rounded flesh of her ass and he knew he had to trace every line of her art, to study her, to consume her.

He slid from the chair to the ground and pulled her down after him.

Craig had never been with a woman like Anita before. Not with anyone so beautiful, nor with anyone so debauched. She loved it all and he gave it to her willingly. Anything he could conceive of, she was eager to indulge him. And while he took her from behind, or lay her across the desk, or knelt in front of this exotic woman while she sat in his chair, he studied her illustrations, every single line. Every forgotten god.

Yet when at last he was completely spent and all the lust had been drained from him, guilt seeped in to replace it. It didn’t bother him that he had just fucked another man’s wife, though he felt that it should have. No, it was the company that shot tendrils of guilt through him, sent it racing through his veins. He lay there on the floor with his cheek resting on Anita’s stomach and a sickly twist roiled in his gut. Yes, Anita was beautiful and her tattoos were exotic. She was alluring, unlike any woman he had ever made love to before.

But now it was over. His reason had been overwhelmed by lust, such a foolish,
man
thing. His principles were in the toilet. His loyalty to his employees was out the window. When his cock had gotten hard and she’d moved in close to him, nothing else had mattered.

“God,” he whispered with a grimace, fighting despair.

Craig wondered if Anita felt any guilt but he did not want to look into her eyes, now, did not want to see her face. He knew he ought to just get up and dress, but felt as much a captive as if he’d put his foot in a bear trap. What to say to her now that his lust was gone and the rational Craig had returned? How to get her out of there as quickly as possible? And if he should try to fight any further for the jobs of his employees, what might Anita’s husband bring into the conversation? What might his employees and his clients—former employees and former clients—what might they learn about this evening?

The more he thought about it the more paralyzed he felt. Anita touched his hair, gently caressing the back of his neck, as though she cared for him. As though there was something more than business going on here. But Craig knew better. Her belly felt warm beneath his cheek and the softness seemed all a part of the lie he had told himself to make it all right to do this . . . that it would be worth it . . . that there was no more room for negotiation anyway and this was just a bonus. He closed his eyes tightly and breathed in the scent of her.

It had been extraordinary. But worth it? He didn’t think so. Not now. He’d compromised everything he had ever believed in, all of the values his father had instilled within him. He trembled to think of it. What was left of him now? Craig had thought IllumiNet and their negotiator had taken everything away from him but now he realized there had been that one last little bit. His conscience. And that hadn’t been taken away. No. He had thrown it in the gutter himself.

His face twisted up again and he felt the despair overtaking him.

No one can know
, he thought.
No one
. And on the heels of that thought came anger. Pure, undiluted anger, at himself, for all of the bad choices he had made over the years, at the negotiator for being so fucking smug, and at Anita, for seeing his weakness and exploiting it, even as she pretended to admire him. For long minutes he lay there with his eyes closed and his pulse sped up, his breath came more slowly, more deliberately, and his jaw clenched. It was wrong. All of it, so completely wrong. All he had tried to do was take care of people and run an honest business, and it had all turned into a cosmic joke. And
he
was the punchline.

It was too late to save the company. Too late to stop the inevitable. It was far too late for him to save any jobs. The negotiator was full of shit. Craig was certain that only a handful of his people would keep their jobs.

His eyes opened to a splash of rich colours, his cheek pressed against the soft flesh of Anita’s belly, laying upon the pantheon of ancient gods that were tattooed there.
What the hell have I done?

Yet even as the question was posed, it left his mind. He blinked, studying Anita’s belly. The flesh remained still and yet, on her skin, something moved. It was the figure with the top hat, the illustration of the ancient god with needle teeth and knives for fingers.

And it was moving.

The motion was barely perceptible, but Craig was sure the tattoo had turned toward him and it was inching closer to where his flesh touched Anita’s. He held his breath. It was impossible, of course. But he had not had enough to drink to hallucinate. He stared at the forgotten god with the razor fingers and the top hat, and it stared back at him. It grinned, but the result was terrifying, up close like that. He could see so many details that he had missed before.

Then it spoke to him. Softly.

It wanted to negotiate.

Morning had never taken so long to arrive for Sam Morelli, a.k.a. Salvatore, a.k.a The Negotiator. When midnight had come and gone with no sign of Anita returning home he had been unable to pretend to himself any longer. He knew where she had gone and what she had done. Self-loathing had taken root in him years earlier and now it blossomed fully. And yet there was gratitude mixed in there with it, a fact that repulsed him, though there was no escaping it. This was not the first time Anita had put herself on the line for the sake of Sam’s career. Maybe if he had made a bigger deal out of it the first time, protested louder . . . but even that first time, when the truth of it had shocked him, he had been thankful.

That’s how low you can go
, Sam thought, standing at the window in his office at IllumiNet, looking out at the Boston skyline toward the harbour.

But that was bullshit. He could go lower, get dirtier. The true depths of his iniquity had yet to be explored. Other than Anita, Sam loved nothing but success. Victory. And victory, in business, meant money. The cash-out.

Where are you, baby?

The thought had echoed through his mind again and again since last night. Anita had never come home. Sam was sure he knew the reason. The deal wasn’t sealed yet. His wife would do whatever she had to do to close the deal. He was a good negotiator, but she was the best. Absolutely tenacious. Whatever she was up to this morning—or whatever she had done to need to sleep so late—Sam knew it had been all for him, for them. So though
Where are you, baby?
kept coming back into his head over and over, he didn’t really want to know the answer. She would call.

She would call.

She’d better
. Sam winced at the coldness of the thought, but there it was. As stylish as he looked in his brown tailored suit and red tie, as immaculate as his grooming was, he might as well be working in the mailroom for all the pull he’d have at IllumiNet if he couldn’t close this one smoothly. It was damned likely he’d lose his job. So if Anita wanted to continue living the lifestyle she had, she would have to come through for him.

His gaze shifted to the clock on the wall and he shifted anxiously. Going on nine thirty
A.M.
Time was running out. His boss had expected a final report on his desk by ten o’clock.

Hands shoved down into the pockets of his trousers, Sam stared at the phone on his desk. Miraculously, it rang.

He hurried to the desk and slipped on his headset even as he punched the button to pick up the line. “Sam Morelli.”

“Good morning again, Sam.” It was Martha at the front desk. He ought to have checked his caller I.D. “You didn’t want to be interrupted, but there’s a delivery for you out here. Also a manila envelope from NEESS.”

Contracts?
he thought, a hesitant relief awaiting confirmation in the back of his mind.

“Can you send them back with it?”

“Sure. Have a great day.”

Sam smiled to himself, hopeful. “You too.”

Half a minute later there was a rap on the door to his office. Sam hadn’t even bothered to sit down at his desk and was instead staring out at the cityscape when the knock came.

“Come in,” he said, turning around.

A pair of delivery men were carrying a large package whose size and shape—beneath brown paper wrapping and string—suggested a framed canvas. Some kind of art, Sam assumed. What interested him far more was the manila envelope one of the deliverymen clutched in his right hand, pinned against the brown paper-wrapped gift.

Yes
, he thought.
Here we go.

“I’ll take that,” he said, snatching the envelope from the man’s hands, nearly causing him to drop the big frame. He tore the envelope open and slid out a sheaf of documents—all the closing materials on IllumiNet’s takeover of NEESS—then flipped a few pages to find the line where Craig should have signed them. And the signature was there.

Sam Morelli smiled. He riffled pages, rejoicing at the fact that there were no marginal changes stuck in by Craig’s attorney. On the last page, however, there was a note on yellow sticky paper. Two words.
DONE DEAL.

He let out a long sigh of relief. His job was safe.

So focused had he been on the documents that he had barely heard the delivery men tearing the paper and string from the large portrait. He could see the top of the frame and it was lovely, gilt with gold.

Anita, baby, you must have done something right
, he thought, grinning at the gift Craig had sent. The delivery men tore the paper away from the front of the frame in one long rip.

The smile left him. The art was familiar. Each individual illustration was known to him. And why not. He had paid for them.

That large frame was filled with Anita’s tattoos . . . with her skin, stretched tautly over the canvas. The delivery men were staring at it, trying to understand what it was they were seeing. Sam’s mouth hung open and he tried to scream but no sound would come out. He only shook his head in denial and stared, staggering toward the frame against his will, unable to stop himself.

For despite the chaos in his mind, he had noticed something. Grief tore at him, gutted him. He whimpered something, but moved even nearer, and now he saw for certain. There was a clear place just above her navel . . . a place where her beautiful skin was unmarred by ink or tattoo needle. He could make out the shape of the missing tattoo, a hole in the tableau, a vacancy in the pantheon of forgotten gods.

And at last he could scream.

Done deal.

If Teddy had seen the cowboy’s ghost at night, he probably would have wet his pants. When he thought about it later, he had to admit to himself that if he had been in his bedroom, or reading a book in the sitting room, and looked up to see the grey spectre of a gunfighter looming in the doorway or some dark corner—maybe even blocking his ma’s view of the TV, as much as a guy you can see through could block anything—it would have scared him right out of his socks. As it happened, though, the worst he got was a serious case of the chills, and an even bigger dose of curiosity, mostly because, at first, he didn’t even know he was looking at a ghost.

On that early October day, Teddy walked home from school the usual way. He knew from reading and from movies that October could be nice and cool in some parts of America, but in Tucson, Arizona, most days were still warm, like the heat from the long summer had been stored in the ground and didn’t want to leave even when the days turned grey.

He walked with Mike Sedesky and Rachel Beddoes most days, except when Sedesky got in trouble and had to stay after school, which seemed to happen more and more often. The boy just didn’t know how to keep quiet. One time Sedesky had told Teddy that his daddy drank some, and took the belt to him if a note came home from the teacher. Sedesky had taken to writing his own notes back and forging his father’s signature. One of these days, Teddy figured his friend was in for a hiding like none he’d had before, but he did not say that to Sedesky. He could see that Mikey—which was what Rachel called Sedesky—knew exactly where all of it would lead.

Teddy and Sedesky were both ten years old and in the Fifth Grade at Iron Horse Elementary School. Rachel, a year older, had moved on to the upper school right next door, but never seemed to mind walking home with the boys despite the difference in status. Privately, though, the boys had debated whether or not the pleasure of walking home with Rachel—something that did make them stand a little straighter and lift their chins with pride—was worth the beatings it sometimes earned them from Artie Hanson and the goons with whom he palled around.

The older boys didn’t like Rachel spending time with Teddy and Sedesky, and any time they crossed paths after school, Artie and the others would block their way, or worse. Sedesky made noises about giving those guys “the business,” but Teddy had never been able to figure out what “the business” was, unless it included getting their books dumped in the shrubs, their noses bloodied, and their arms twisted behind their backs so hard they’d ache for days afterward.

There were Indian burns and wet willies and cries of “uncle,” and those were the good days. On the worst day, Artie had tried to force Sedesky to promise never to speak to Rachel again, and when Mikey wouldn’t promise, the goon had broken the pinky on his left hand.

Rachel had avoided them for a week after that. For their own good, she said.

After, when she started walking home with them again, none of them brought it up. Teddy assumed that Sedesky had persuaded her that he wasn’t afraid, but he wished that the two of them had consulted with him before any decision had been made. He liked his pinky fingers just the way they were, thank you very much.

On the day he first saw the cowboy’s ghost, they had walked home without encountering any sign of Artie Hanson. Teddy and Sedesky had said goodbye to Rachel at her gate, and then a block later Sedesky had taken off between houses, cutting through backyards on his way home.

Teddy and his mom lived in a small house on a quiet street, but it was neat and tidy and Mr. Graham and Mr. Hess—who lived on either side of them—had pitched in to paint the house just this past spring. They’d said it was the least they could do to help out, what with Teddy’s daddy dying in Korea and his mom ailing. Teddy, who’d still been nine, had been their helper that day. He still remembered it with a smile.

But on the afternoon when he spotted the cowboy in front of his house, his thoughts weren’t on painting or on his daddy. Instead, he mostly thought about Sedesky and Rachel, and how come Rachel seemed not even to see Teddy when Mikey was around. It made him feel bad—kind of small, really—and he didn’t quite know why. Girls were a mystery, and not one he felt in much of a hurry to solve. They just didn’t understand most of the things that were important to him, like cowboy stories and rockets.

With these thoughts in his head, he turned the corner onto Derby Street and noticed the cowboy walking up to his front gate. A smile blossomed on Teddy’s face instantly. The cowboy looked like the real deal, from the hat to the long coat to the tips of his boots. If Sedesky had been there, Teddy would have bet him a quarter that the cowboy carried a Colt revolver. Maybe two of them. He picked up his pace, wanting to talk to the man, wondering why he seemed to be headed to Teddy’s own house.

Two things happened at once. First, Teddy noticed that the sunlight passed through the cowboy—that he could see the fence right through him. Second, the man walked to the front door without opening the gate, just stepped right on up as though the gate did not exist.

Teddy stopped short and stared. The cowboy cast no shadow. The longer Teddy looked, the more transparent the man seemed. It scared him a little, knowing a ghost stood on his front stoop, but with the afternoon sun shining down, and the fact that there could be no denying this was an honest to goodness western gunfighter—maybe someone who’d been shot right here in Tucson—after a couple of minutes he felt a lot more
Wow
than spooked.

The cowboy turned, tipped him a wink, and gave a nod toward the door, as if he wanted Teddy to follow him inside. Then the gunfighter passed through the door and vanished within.

Teddy followed. What else could he do? It was his house.

The weirdest thing about opening the door and stepping into his house was how ordinary it seemed. Dust motes swirled in the shafts of light that came in through the windows and eddied along the floor on a breeze from the open door. Teddy stood on the threshold a few seconds, but nothing seemed amiss. The stairs leading up to the second floor were dark with shadow, the hallway vacant, and from the living room came the sound of the radio playing low.

With a frown, he peeked into the room. His mother lay on the sofa, hands resting on her chest, tuckered out after a long morning. She woke up early every day to fix his lunch and send him off to school and then sat down at her sewing machine. Teddy’s ma did great work as a seamstress—everybody said so—and so her mornings and early afternoons were spent hard at work to earn enough money to buy them food. What little money the government gave her every month—she had explained that they paid the money because Teddy’s daddy had died in the war—covered rent, but not food or clothes.

In the afternoons, she turned on the radio and took a nap, sleeping so deeply Teddy had to shake her awake at half past four so his ma could make dinner. The radio stayed on, then, until dinner was ready. His ma said she liked the voices. They kept her company. Most days, Teddy did his homework at the kitchen table while Ma made dinner, and sometimes she laughed softly at things he either hadn’t heard or didn’t understand. Radio things. Even when he had no idea what had made her laugh, he would smile. Ma had a beautiful laugh.

She looked pretty when she slept, but kind of sad, too, and he always wondered if she were dreaming of his daddy. They didn’t talk much about him. Teddy wanted to, but he had the idea that maybe that would hurt too much for his ma.

So that afternoon after he followed the cowboy’s ghost into the house, it surprised him to find nothing at all out of the ordinary. The radio voices talked and his ma slept on, the sound of her deep breathing filling the living room. A song started to play, one with lots of horns. Teddy always liked music with horns—trumpets, saxophones, anything. Confused, he looked back toward the hallway, but still saw no trace of the ghost. He might have thought he imagined the whole thing if not for the creak of a door opening.

Now Teddy’s heart skipped a beat. He felt his face flush and his breath quickened. The sight of the ghost outside on the street had seemed weird and wonderful, but that creak of hinges made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

With a glance back at the sofa to make sure his ma hadn’t been disturbed, Teddy went to the doorway and peeked out into the hall. He had left the front door open and a light breeze swirled along the floor, gently swaying the door to the closet under the stairs so that the hinges creaked just a little.

Teddy frowned—he didn’t recall ever seeing that door open before. Most of the time he forgot it was even there, but now he walked over and gave it a closer look. The top of the door had a diagonal slant that followed the angle of the stairs. At some point the door had been painted over, so that the iron handle and the deadbolt were thick with the same dark green as covered the wood. Even looking at it now, the deadbolt seemed stuck in place, like it would be hard to move. He doubted he could slide it to the right to lock it again, and wondered how it had come unlocked.

Well, he didn’t wonder much. In fact, a smile spread across his face as he glanced around. It had to have been the cowboy’s ghost. The only other person in the house was his ma, and he could hear her softly snoring in the next room.

“Excellent,” Teddy said, nodding as he stared into the closet. “Totally, totally excellent.”

A single bulb dangled from the ceiling in the closet. He pulled the chain, but the light didn’t come on. Nobody had changed that bulb in forever. Still, enough light came down the hall that he could see inside well enough. There were old pantry shelves, mostly full of dingy coffee cans full of buttons and nails, shoe boxes, and faded old table cloths. Teddy could not remember his ma ever using a table cloth.

Somebody’s moth-eaten sweater hung from a hook on the back of the door. There were other hooks in the closet, to either side of the shelves, and to the right hung the thing that he had focused on since first glancing inside. The gun belt looked worn by age and coated with the same dust that lay over everything else in the closet. The empty holster disappointed him, but he took the belt out anyway, putting it around his waist. His daddy had been a big man and even at ten years old, Teddy had some of his size, so when he cinched the belt as tight as it would go and cocked it at an angle, he just managed to keep it from sliding down over his hips.

Now he felt like a gunfighter. He opened his stance a little and imagined himself preparing for a shoot out at high noon. His hand dropped to the holster and he made a little face when it closed on nothing.
Right. No gun
.

Where had the belt come from? It must have been his daddy’s, maybe the one he had worn in Korea. The thought sent a shiver through him, but the good kind. Curious, now, he investigated the closet shelves more closely and immediately noticed the triangular wooden box with its glass top. Teddy stopped breathing. He took it down from the shelf and looked through the glass at the American flag that had been draped over his daddy’s casket.

Teddy’s eyes felt hot. He didn’t remember much about that day, but now that he saw the flag a memory surfaced of soldiers folding it up and one of them handing it to Ma and then saluting her. The soldier had saluted Ma. Boy, he had loved her that day. Through all the tears he had felt proud.

He slid the wooden triangle box back onto its shelf, sorry to have disturbed it. As he pushed it back into the shadows it knocked against something else. A frown creased his forehead and he moved the flag box aside, stood on his tiptoes, and reached into the back of the closet. His fingers closed on something round and metal and he drew it out, smiling when he discovered it was a Christmas cookie tin. Through the dust he saw the face of old Saint Nick, an antique-y sort of Santa Claus, and he remembered that Christmas was only a couple of months away. Maybe if he took the tin out and cleaned it up, his ma would make some cookies to put in it.

Only the tin felt pretty heavy already, and he wondered what was in it. He crouched and set it down on the floor of the hall with a clunk, and even as he pried off the lid, somehow Teddy knew what he would find inside.

The gun metal had a bluish-grey colour, which surprised him. He had expected it to be black. Teddy’s heart beat loudly in his ears as he lifted the gun out of the cookie tin, glancing over his shoulder to make sure his ma hadn’t gotten up from the sofa. He held the gun in both hands, barrel aimed at the floor, fingers away from the trigger. If there were bullets inside, he didn’t want to fire the gun in the house. As tired as his ma always seemed to be, and even though she hardly ever got mad at him, he had a feeling he’d get whooped worse than Mikey Sedesky if that happened.

He whistled through his teeth, the only way he knew how. The cookie tin had a coating of dust, but the gun looked clean and almost new. Handling it like the snake charmer he’d seen down at the grange hall, he slid the gun into the holster on his daddy’s belt, and it fit just fine.
Daddy’s gun
, he thought. And he knew it had to be true. This was the gun his daddy had taken to war.

All serious now, no smiles, Teddy backed up from the closet, right hand hovering over the gun as if he were about to draw. Partly he wanted to be a gunfighter, and partly a soldier like his daddy. He turned toward the front door, ready to face off against an imaginary enemy.

The cowboy’s ghost stood just inside the door, daylight streaming through him, not much more to him than if he were made of spider-webs.

“Oh,” Teddy said, in a very small voice. He stared, eyes wide, mouth open. He knew he had seen the ghost before, but they were up close now, maybe ten feet apart. “Are you . . . what are you doing here?”

The cowboy narrowed his eyes.

“Wait,” Teddy said, realizing that he’d known all along. “You opened the closet.”

The ghost nodded at him in grim approval, the way Mr. Graham next door always did. Then he turned, gestured for Teddy to follow, and walked out of the house, passing right through the screen door.