Sex in a Sidecar (28 page)

The gun hung limp at his side.

“Why did you kill those women?” I croaked, curious to the end. How dumb was that?

He shrugged. “I liked it,” he said in a voice raspy and unused. And then he smiled again. His teeth, ragged and uneven, were riddled with decay. “I like killing things.” He had a dreamy look on his face and seemed in no hurry for whatever came next. “I used to kill things back home, chickens and rabbits and things. I liked that. But I like killing those bitches most.” He hefted the gun and stroked it as if it were a woman.

I reefed on the belt. The plastic gave some, yielding a little relief. “Home, where's home?”

“New York State.” He wiped his cheek once more and then studied the blood on the towel. “Used to make steel there…all gone. Everybody left.” He looked at me. “My mother left. I was glad.” The mention of his mother changed his face. “So your father raised you?” I forced my hands further apart and the belt stretched a little more but still my fingers were numb.

He shook his head. “Nah. Never knew who my old man was. Ma likely didn't either.” He tossed the towel aside.

He came over to me, pulled out the other folding chair from the table and sat in front of me. Close, almost intimate, his evil enveloped me.

He placed the gun in his lap and ran his hand along my cheek. “You're pretty.” The blood already smeared across his face by the towel was being overlaid by new lines running down from his head. “Real pretty,” he said tenderly.

I fought down nausea.

His rough hand scraped along my cheek. “And you're nice too.”

“You left those flowers, didn't you?” He smiled again. “You was the only one nice to me.”

“Then don't hurt me, Lester. Please.”

He brushed his hand over my head. “We'll wait here. Dark we'll go away.” He touched me.

I closed my eyes biting down on my lip and pressing my knees hard together, not wanting to see what his hands were doing but unable to deny their creeping invasion. “Water, may I have some water, Lester?” I heard the scrape of his chair and felt him move away from me. I opened my eyes. Lester seemed calm. Relaxed even. He rose and walked away. The gun lay on the table, just inches away.

I tugged harder at the belt, fighting to free my hands, my eyes fixed on the gun, tantalizingly close. Lester stopped. He turned around and looked at me and then came back and picked up the gun. His dry lips stretched in amusement. Tucking the gun in the waistband of his blue work pants, he went to the bureau. He searched through the drawer and brought out a box of plastic bandages. He peeled the bandages and stuck them over his gash almost at random, without looking in a mirror to see where they were ending up.

“Keep him talking,” my brain said. I tried to find the words to save my life. I thought of all the drunks I'd dealt with over the years, mean ones, funny ones, even ones who declared their undying love. This was different. I couldn't get control of this situation. “So you grew up in New York State?” My voice sounded like tumbling gravel, harsh and ragged. Lester didn't reply. Just went on peeling and sticking. “Keep him focused on something besides killing you,” I told myself while I pulled and tugged at the belt cutting into my hands. “Must be pretty there.” Dumb but what else was there? “Why'd you come to Florida?”

“Like to move. Course, with a hobby like mine you need to keep moving.” He gave a wheezing giggle and looked around at me. “Yeah, that's what it is, a hobby.” He peeled another bandage and smoothed it across the cut. “Hobby? What's your hobby?”

“Taking care of the bitches.” He drew a piece of clothing out of the drawer and used it to wipe the blood, still leaking from between the edges of the bandage strips. He tossed the shirt back in the open drawer.

“Gina wasn't a bitch,” I said. “She was a nice woman.” He came towards me. A mishmash row of bandage strips spread over the cut, overlapping and stuck down at odd angles, but the blood still seeped out and around them and flowed over them.

He stood over me. “But she knew…came the day of the hurricane…didn't see my car, thought I was gone. She picked up the crowbar downstairs and came up to break in. I was just leaving. Opened the door to leave and there she was.” He started laughing, a nasty wheezing sound, not a sound of merriment. “She jumped backwards real quick when she saw me.” He hopped backwards, mimicking Gina's shock. “Nearly fell off the stairs.” The memory pleased him. “Thought I'd left. So she was going to break in, trying to find something to prove I done her sister.”

“Did you kill her sister?”

“Bitch deserved killing…more than any other. It was good.”

“You killed Gina with the crowbar.”

“Yup, and I took her gun.” He stroked the gun stuck in the front of his pants. “Found it in her purse. Maybe she wanted to shoot me but I killed her instead.” He liked that thought, made him feel superior. “I like having a gun again.” He sat back down on the chair, legs splayed and at ease.

“After you killed Gina, you put her in her car and drove away.”

“Put her in the trunk…found a whole bunch of stuff there about me.” He smiled. “I was waiting 'til the last minute to leave the island. Thought I'd do a few houses before I went. See what I could pick up.” He frowned. “Storm sure seemed to come awfully quick after it got started.”

“And the tree was across the road. You couldn't get out with Gina's body.”

“Yeah. Wanted her away from the house so no one would come snooping around here.” “But the police did come.”

“Yeah, but I was all right. Those Havertys aren't supposed to have anyone living here. Guess they'd get in trouble if anyone knew so they didn't tell the police about me.”

“But you were trapped out here during the storm, just like me.”

He looked puzzled. “Were you out here too? I didn't know that.” It was a momentary distraction. His thoughts went back to Gina. “I pulled her out of the car like it was an accident. Sure thought the cops would think it was an accident. Why didn't they?”

“What did you do after you left Gina there?”

“No good going back for my car. That tree wouldn't let me drive out. Took the stuff all about me and just kept walking. Broke into a house up the beach and waited out the storm.” He leaned towards me. “Shuddered and shook, thought it was coming down. Waves came in the downstairs. Damn scary.” “And then you just walked back in.”

He nodded. “No one knew I was here all the time.” He smiled and crossed his arms in satisfaction. “The Havertys didn't know?”

“Them!” He gave a harsh snort of disgust. “This old garage was supposed to be torn down with the old house. Wonder the hurricane didn't bring it down. They let me stay here as long as I mow the lawn and clean the pool and stuff. Cheap bastards. All their money.” The Havertys were getting him upset again. I didn't want that.

“This belt is really tight. Couldn't you loosen it just a little?”

At first I thought he was going to refuse but then he climbed to his feet and came around behind me. His fingers worked on the binding and I felt them loosen a notch, not much, but enough.

He sat back on the chair and stared at me. His wet tongue licked across his cracked lips. He was getting real worked up. “Do you still have family back in New York?” A frown furrowed his brows. It must have hurt his gash. He reached up and touched the bandages, dabbing at them with his fingertips and sticking them down again. “Nope. Grandparents dead…good riddance! Mean. Old man beat me for fun. She was no better.” He leaned forward. “Lived in an old dump on the edge of town. No neighbors, no friends and no food if I didn't please Grandpa and Grandma. Always hungry. Winter I was cold.” His eyes were looking at the past, not me. “Made me go into dumpsters behind this big grocery store and toss stuff out…bread, baked stuff…sometimes cans with nothing wrong with them but a little dent. Other stuff too,” he said, looking up at me. “Good stuff.”

My stomach churned.

“Sometimes I still do it.”

I wiggled my fingers. The tingling was subsiding. “Only clothes were the ones I got out of the collection bin. Grandpa would pick me up by the seat of my pants and just drop me in a bin.” “I'm sorry,” I said.

“I threw the stuff out, they took what they wanted. Wouldn't spend money on nothing, although they had it.” He smirked. “Found it and took it with me when I left.”

“Raised rabbits and chickens for food. My job was killing them.” A trickle of blood escaped his line of bandages and he wiped at it. “Liked that…liked killing things.” His face twisted in a weird look of joy. “But I like killing women better. Women like my mother…bitches that tell me what to do.” “I'm not like your mother. You don't want to kill me.”

“Guess I have to now.” Regret.

“No you don't. You gave me flowers.”

“Like watching you,” he said shyly.

I shivered.

“Saw you out on the beach with that man.”

“What were you doing there?'

“Stayed. Wanted to watch you.”

“You were in the trees when I came up the drive.” He smiled at me again, his lips pulling back from crooked rotting teeth.

A small sound came from outside, nothing big, just a small clunk of metal against metal.

Lester froze. His head swiveled to the stairs and he drew the gun out of his belt. Rising to his feet, he crept silently to the door.

“What's wrong?” I asked loudly, hoping my voice would carry outside. “What's the matter? Did you hear something, Lester?” I was shouting now.

“Shuddup,” he hissed, turning on me. My courage failed. There was a small window in the door. He looked out from all angles, searching for the source of the noise, and then he moved quickly to the other end of the room and searched out the window over the laundry tub.

“Maybe the Havertys came home,” I suggested

His body relaxed a little and he lowered the gun.

“Yeah,” he said but he stayed at the window watching.

“May I have that glass of water?”

He hesitated, uncertain and wary.

“Please, Lester.”

He turned on the tap. The tap sputtered and spit out water, the noise from the clanging pipes making enough racket to hide an army on the stairs. He filled the blue plastic top to a thermos bottle with water and brought it to me.

As he put the cup to my lips, drops of his blood fell into the water. Lester saw them fall and laughed.

I tried to close my mouth against the polluted flow but Lester reached out and pinched my nose. “Drink it,” Lester ordered. “Drink it.”

Rusty tepid water flooded my mouth, poured around the edges and down over the front of me. Lester laughed harder. I was choking now, gulping for air then closing my lips against the rushing water, fighting him.

Something hit the tin roof. Lester dropped the cup and looked up.

I spit out the putrid liquid.

“A bird,” he said but he kept looking at the roof. “One of those damn herons.”

He looked back at me. Grinning, he reached for me. My head shot forward and I vomited onto my lap. Lester backed away. Vomit filled my nose. My stomach heaved again and then I turned my head and wiped my mouth on my shoulder, my throat on fire from the corrosive bile.

“Maybe we should go,” Lester said. He canted his head to one side, thinking it through.

“Leave me here, just like this,” I begged. “It will be okay. You can go away. I can't hurt you.” “They don't know you're with me, do they?” he asked. I shook my head and croaked out, “No.” “We could drive right on by in your little car, right by my wreck. They'd never know the difference. Never know it's us.” “Please, Lester. Leave me here . I'll slow you down.”

He picked up the gun off the table and went to the window in the door.

“Looks all right,” Lester said.

He came back to me and pulled me to my feet by the upper arms. My shoulders screamed in pain as Lester pushed me ahead of him towards the door.

“Wait,” he said when I got to the door.

He pushed me up against the wall and fought the door open, gun raised in his right hand. He looked around the door jamb. He leaned out farther.

Fear helped, terror too. I raised my right leg and kicked him square in the center of his back.

He screamed as he shot off the small landing and out into space.

But what if he wasn't dead? What would I do if he came back for me? I used my body to slam the door shut and slid down to the floor, bracing my body back against the door.

But he wasn't coming back. Below me was hollering and shouting. Cops identified themselves and gave orders. I sat with my legs splayed out in front of me and listened.

Seconds later there was a banging on the door. “Sherri,” Styles called, “are you all right?”

I scrabbled away from the door on my behind, crying too hard to answer him.

Styles came through the door with a gun in his hand. Then he saw me on the floor. “Thank God,” he said. He opened his jacket and shoved the gun in under his arm. “What kept you?” I wailed.

Styles knelt down beside me and took me in his arms.