Picture Perfect (4 page)

“Don't even think about pulling a fast one, Balog. I know you got money. You think I'm stupid or somethin'? Your old lady was going into Tony's, probably for a pizza and some beer. If you can eat, you can pay your debts.”

Cudge got to his feet, Elva's tape player in hand. He had no plan as he stared at Lenny Lombardi. He could almost hear the creak of the gate that kept his rage penned in the back of his head. His shoulders hunched from the weight pressing against the top of his spinal column. “I ain't got it. If you can't take my word for it, you ain't my friend.”

“Friends don't welch on loans,” Lenny told him. At the look in Balog's eyes, he edged back.

Cudge laughed, an unpleasant sound. Lenny backed up another step, lurching into the kitchen table. His eyes seemed to measure the distance to the door. “Okay, okay. Forget the wheels. I'll give you another week to come up with the scratch. Look, I gotta go now,” he bleated as he put the table between himself and Cudge.

Suddenly the beast was loose. It took off at a gallop, snorting fire. Pressure moved from the back of Cudge's head to a point at the center of his skull. Instinct told him that if he frightened Lenny enough the fifty bucks would be called even, and he could forget about ever paying it back. He took a deliberate step in Lenny's direction, hefting the cassette player in his beefy hand.

It was the sheer terror on Lenny's face more than his words that provoked Balog. “You're crazy, man! Crazy!”

Havoc broke loose in Cudge's brain. He became the beast, sensing his prey, moving in for the kill. Blood surged into his face; his skull throbbed and pounded. Fiery breaths scorched his thoughts; dagger horns gouged and ripped.

Lenny stood speechless, his eyes round with fear. Urine pooled around his shoes. A sound erupted from his throat—a sick, choking sound. He made a run for the door but Balog was there ahead of him, blocking the way.

Cudge snorted; saliva glistened on his chin. Lenny froze. Only his eyes moved as the cassette player lifted and crashed down on top of his skull.

“Take my wheels, will you?” Cudge raged, slamming the cassette player again and again into Lenny's head. “You ain't my friend. Now get your ass out of here before I throw you down four flights of stairs.”

Lenny lay with his face pressed against the floor. Cudge stood over him, seeing only the back of his friend's head. “Get up! Move, you little turd!”

He prodded the still form with his boot, was surprised when there was no movement. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden stab of pain in his temples. When he reopened them he noticed the widening pool of blood on the floor.

Cautiously Cudge crouched to the ground, the cassette player still clutched in his hand. He turned Lenny faceup, thinking how light he felt, how his still form offered little resistance. The wide, staring eyes panicked him and the cassette player fell from his hand.

Jesus. He didn't need anyone to tell him that Lenny was dead. The jerk was dead! Jesus. Oh, Jesus. He had killed his best friend!

 

As Tony punched down the yeasty dough and stretched it over the shiny pan, he watched her. As always, his heart went out to her. She was still a kid. Other girls, by the time they were eighteen, were more woman than child. But not Elva. She would always remain a child, a frightened, winsome, confused child. Too bad she had to meet up with that animal, Balog. A nice guy could be the salvation of a timid kid like Elva, but in the hands of the hulk she was damned. Pity. She wasn't a bad-looking girl. Too skinny, of course, and a little pinched-looking, and her eyes were always on the edge of panic, but she was pretty in a shy sort of way. With a little fixing she could be really pretty. A haircut and a little meat on her bones would make a world of difference. And something, Tony thought, or someone, to take that haunted look from her eyes.

As he scattered mozzarella cheese on the pizza, Tony found a chunk and handed it to Elva, noticing her severely bitten fingernails. She took the cheese from him with a shy smile and nibbled at it. He pushed the prepared pizza into the oven and went back to cleaning the counter. “Elva—what kind of name is that? Ol' Tony never hear it before you come here.”

“It's a name I just like,” she answered between nibbles.

“So, it's not your name?”

“It is now. My name used to be Brenda Kopec,” she said, putting the last morsel into her mouth.

“Brenda! That's a nice name. Soft, like you. So, how come you change it? My own two daughters, they want names like Brandy and Tiffany. What's wrong with Maria and Theresa anyhow? I'm never gonna understand them. So, tell Tony, how come you changed your name?”

“I call myself Elva after Elvis Presley. I heard somewhere that Elva was the girl's name for Elvis.”

“Elvis, huh? He dead long time now, you know.”

“Gone but not forgotten. As far as I'm concerned, he's still the king and I love him!” she said with rare emotion.

Tony glanced up, struck by the sadness in her voice. It held the same note he had heard in his wife's voice whenever she mentioned their own dead son.

“I've read all the books written about him, seen all his old movies, and I've got all his songs on tape. He was a gentleman, Tony. A real gentleman. And generous.” She pulled at her dull brown hair, her fingers working in agitation.

“You like your fellas generous? So what are you doing with that cheap son of a bitch, Balog?”

“He ain't so bad. Sometimes I think he's scared inside, just like me. Only he don't show it like I do.”

Tony shrugged. There was no accounting for these American girls. He only prayed that his own daughters wouldn't end up with anybody like Cudge Balog. If Elva was right about Balog being scared of something, Tony couldn't imagine what it might be. He'd seen guys that Balog had worked over and he knew what the man's fists could do to a face. It was only a matter of time before he killed someone, and Tony hoped that it wouldn't be Elva. She was a good kid, even if she was a little stupid. Maybe if she weren't so scared all the time she wouldn't be so dumb.

Elva hurried back to the apartment, balancing the hot pizza carefully so the gooey cheese wouldn't run to one side. She wondered how long she'd been gone. It seemed like a long time, and Cudge would get mad if she kept him waiting. Suddenly, she couldn't remember if she'd picked up the change from Tony's counter. Cudge was a real stickler when it came to money. She stopped in front of a tenement and propped her leg on the stoop, balancing the pizza on her knee. The heat penetrated the cardboard box and stung her leg as she frantically dug through her pockets, looking for the change. Her panic began to turn to hysteria when she couldn't find it. She thought of going back to Tony's to see if she'd left it on the counter and glanced back along the street. The red light over Tony's door had gone out. What should she do? Maybe she could catch up with him at his car . . . Just then her fingers touched cold metal and relief flooded through her. She'd found it; she hadn't been stupid after all. For safekeeping, Elva dumped the coins into her bra, then gripped the pizza box again and hurried back to Cudge.

She smiled in the darkness. Everything had gone right for a change. Cudge wouldn't have anything to yell about.

When Elva turned down Courtland Street, she recognized the familiar outline of Cudge's Chevy pickup truck and the flat square shape of the pop-up camper hitched to its rear. They rarely went camping, but just a few days ago Cudge had talked about taking a weekend in the country. Like so many things Cudge talked about, Elva never expected to see it come to anything.

She loped up the front stoop of their building and into the dimly lit hallway. Urine and stale cooking odors came to her nostrils. Just as her foot was on the first step leading upstairs, the door to the landlady's apartment swung open.

“Oh, it's you. I thought maybe it was you he was knocking around up there.” Mrs. Fortunati's thin gray hair fell over her eyes and she brushed it away with an impatient gesture of her work-worn hands. “You'd better get your ass up there and see what's going on. I was thinking about calling the cops.”

Elva gulped at the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. The night was ruined; Cudge had done it again. Now it wouldn't matter that she had bought the pizza and brought home the right change and had done everything just exactly right. Cudge was going to be nasty and find something, anything, to be mad about anyway.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get up there! From the sound of it he was tearing the place apart.” She moved to the banister and watched Elva go up the stairs as she issued her last warnings. “I'm telling you now, there better not be any trouble or out you go! The both of you! Him in particular!”

Elva waited outside the door, dreading going in. For all Mrs. Fortunati's ravings, it was quiet now. Only the cries of the baby from up in 4B broke the silence.

She fumbled with the doorknob, balancing the pizza box on her knee. The door opened a mere three inches. Cudge had latched the chain hook. Puzzled, Elva opened her mouth to call him, then winced. The temperamental tooth with its rice grain of decay was going to ache all night.

“Cudge,” she whimpered, “open the door, will you?”

“Elva?” It was a hoarse whisper from the other side of the door.

Something was wrong. Cudge never whispered. He yelled and put his fists through walls, but he never whispered. “Yeah, it's me,” she responded. “What's the matter? Why are you whispering?”

The door was forced shut, jamming against a corner of the pizza box, and she heard him fumbling with the chain latch. Then it swung open again and he grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her into the apartment. The bare lightbulb over the kitchen table swung back and forth, creating wild shadows and rhythmic patterns of light.

“Get in here, dummy. Where the hell were you?” He was angry but he was still whispering, and the annoyance on his face was mingled with something else. Something dreadful she had never seen there before. Now it wouldn't matter that she had done everything exactly right. Nothing would matter except that Cudge was mad and, one way or another, she would pay for it.

“I . . . I went for the pizza like you told me. I even got the change.”

“Shut up. I gotta think!”

Elva shrank back, still clutching the pizza box. Something was wrong, awfully wrong. What? She'd never seen Cudge like this, so quiet and scared. He moved away from her and sank down on the edge of the daybed, his head in his hands. The TV was still on but the sound had been turned off. She watched him, not daring to turn her eyes away.

Then suddenly, like an uncoiled spring, he jumped to his feet and punched the wall, his lips drawn back over his teeth in a frightening grimace.

“Stupid little shit! He never should've tried to bust my hump. He should've known I didn't have fifty bucks to pay him back.” His fist pounded the wall again, punctuating his words. “Thought he'd take my truck and rig. Thought I was stupid or something. He should've known!”

Elva pressed against the wall, eyes wide with terror. In all the time she had lived with Cudge she'd never seen him like this. Cudge was scared. Scared shitless.

“Don't look at me that way!” He turned on her, slamming his fist into the cardboard pizza box, knocking it to the floor.

“You ruined it.” Automatically she bent down to pick up the box but Cudge hoisted her to her feet.

“What the hell are you messing with that for?”

“I . . . I just wanted to clean it up.”

He shook her, almost making her teeth chatter. “Oh, yeah? Well, see what you can do about cleaning
that
up!” He turned her around so she came face-to-face with Lenny Lombardi. Lenny was lying on the floor, his face barely recognizable. If it hadn't been for his familiar trench coat and slick dark hair, she wouldn't have known him.

Elva knelt down beside him, her hands extended in a gesture of helplessness. Lenny wasn't breathing!

Her mouth opened but before the sound could rip from her throat, Cudge had his beefy hand clasped over her lips, covering her nose, cutting off her air. Waiting for her to be quiet, he hissed a warning not to scream.

She stared up at him over his hand, her eyes wild and panicky, then shook her head violently, fighting for breath.

“Will you shut up?” Cudge growled. “ 'Cause if you don't, you'll get some of the same.”

The cords in Elva's neck threatened to burst; she was feeling dizzy and sparks were shooting off inside her head. Frantically, she nodded.

Cudge waited a long moment before removing his hand. For an instant, she believed he never would, that he would hold her there forever and ever. Her feet kicked out, touching the soft, unyielding body wedged against the wall. Sickened, she ceased her struggles.

“Now, shut up. One sound out of you and you'll look just like him!” Cudge warned in that creepy whisper, a scared look narrowing his eyes.

Full of revulsion, Elva made her way to the daybed, away from Lenny—from what used to be Lenny. She clamped her hands over her mouth to stay the questions. Unable to control herself any longer, she began to tremble as the words tumbled out.

“Why? Why'd you kill him? He was your friend! My God! You killed him!”

Cudge raised his hand, threatening her. “I told you to shut up! I don't wanna hear your mouth! Shut up!”

Elva was beyond the point of hysteria, she was verging on dementia. “God! You killed him! You killed Lenny! Your best friend! God!”

“If you don't shut up so I can think, you're gonna get what he got!” Cudge knocked the lamp beside her onto the floor. “One more word, Elva, one more word and you're gonna get it! You stupid broad! I gotta think!”

“But the police! What are you gonna do? They'll find out!”

“Quit your babbling, I gotta think!”