The Edge of Sleep (7 page)

She lost her leverage when she moved and Edgar managed to roll to the side, pushing her off.

“Christ!” He started to rise and was halfway up when she grabbed him from behind, pulling him back. He jerked forward and her nails ripped down his back.

“You stupid bitch!”

He turned and slapped her hard across the face. Blood was already coming from her nose by the time she sat up again. The look on her face was so savage that he recoiled in anticipation of an assault, but she stood without a word and walked into the bathroom.

Edgar hurried to get dressed.

“You made me do that,” he called over his shoulder toward the bathroom. He hopped on one foot, trying to draw his trousers on while holding his underwear. He could put on the underwear later.

“I’m not the kind of guy who hits women,” he said. “But Jesus, you’ve got to calm down. Enough is enough, you know?”

He heard her moving about in the bathroom. Her movements sounded as hurried as his own. The door of the medicine cabinet opened and closed.

“I’m willing to just forget this,” he said, looking for his shoe.

She came out of the bathroom with the blood from her nose running past her chin and dripping onto her chest. She seemed completely unaware of it as she once more stood between him and the door.

“You thinking of going?” she asked.

He saw his shoe against the wall just behind her. Something told him not to bend over to get it and expose his back to her again. But what was he afraid of? A stark-naked woman standing defenselessly between him and the door. She was armed with a slightly demented look in her eyes, but apart from that he should be able to get her out of his way with a well-placed kick.

“Yeah, I’m going,” he said. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“You’re quite a disappointment,” she said, not moving.

“Well, there you go,” he said. “I had a great time. You’re a very sexy lady, but you never know how these things are going to work out.”

He found it very disconcerting that she continued to ignore the blood that dripped from her nose. It trickled slowly down her torso toward her pubic patch. It was eerie that someone could so totally disregard an injury to herself.

“I tell you what,” she said, “since you don’t know how to use that thing of yours, you don’t really need it, do you?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you just leave it behind here with me. You’ll be better off without it. That way you won’t be making any more promises you can’t keep.”

Edgar thought he might very well leave without his shoe. She was getting weirder by the moment.

“What are you talking about?”

“You said you were going to take good care of me,” she said. “You promised.”

“Hey, I tried. You happen to have a little problem there.”

“You disappointed me,” she said. “Everyone is always disappointing me, and frankly. I’m getting just a little tired of it.”

She lifted her right hand to waist height. The thumb and forefinger were clasped around something.

“Come here, sweetie.” she said. “We’re going to relieve you of that thing that’s causing you all that trouble, and then you can run home to your mother.”

Edgar peered at her hand. She held a razor blade between her fingers.

“I told you to come here,” she said, her voice suddenly stem. “Do as you’re told. This instant.”

Dee took a step toward him and Edgar kicked out in panic, aiming for her crotch. His toes struck her in the abdomen and she tumbled forward. The razor blade fell from her fingers and Edgar picked it up off the carpet. She was on all fours, gasping for breath. He had half a mind to slash her on her exposed back just to show her how it would feel.

“You’re crazy!” he yelled at her. “You’re out of your mind!”

She muttered something he did not understand. He leaned over her, his mouth close to her ear.

“You’re crazy! You ought to be locked up!”

Her head hung down like a defeated animal and the blood dripped from her nose directly onto the carpet.

She muttered something again. Edgar bent closer, holding the razor blade as a weapon in case the crazy bitch tried to bite him or something else insane.

“What?”

She caught her breath.

“You think I’m crazy?” she said. She tilted her head up to look him in the face. She sounded amused. The blood ran over her lips, but she still did not seem to notice.

“I know you’re crazy,” he said.

He grabbed the door and yanked it open. The huge man from the restaurant whom he had seen trudging along the highway sat on the stoop in front of the door like a dog awaiting its master.

“You think
I’m
crazy?” she said.

The man stood up, blocking Edgar’s way.

Edgar looked from the man to Dee, who had rolled into a sitting position. He wanted to suggest that things had gone far enough, that he had meant no harm, that there was no need to carry things farther. Edgar tried to grin at her, to demonstrate his good will, his certainty that she bore him no real hard feelings.

Dee looked at him and smiled beatifically. The blood was smudged across her stomach where he had kicked her and the entire lower half of her face now seemed to have been painted red. When she spoke her teeth were smeared.

“He hurt me. Ash,” she said.

Ash grabbed Edgar by the throat and squeezed. Edgar managed to slash at him once with the razor blade before his body was hurled against the wall.

After Ash put the man in the trunk of his car he returned to the room to clean up the mess. Dee was curled up on the bed, still naked, her knees pressed to her chest, her face to the wall.

“We have to go, Dee,” he said. He put all of her clothes into the suitcase, folding them carefully as she had taught him.

“I just want to sleep,” she said. Her voice was so sad that Ash wanted to cry for her.

He put his extra shirt atop her clothes, then went to the bathroom to add their toiletries to the suitcase.

“We have to go before they come,” Ash said.

“I just want to sleep.” Her voice was low and fading, as if she were already deep in slumber. He knew she would be like this for several days, immobilized by lethargy, too depressed to even dress or feed herself. He had to get her away from the motel before she sank too deeply to be roused.

He checked her purse and made sure that her pills and his were still there. He tried to remember how many capsules had been in her vial the last time he checked, but he could not. She must not have taken any in several days, he knew that much. There was no point in trying to make her take one now. He knew from experience he would have to trick one into her somehow, but not when she was this low, and not when she was too high, either. She was too clever then. It was only when she would come out of this depression of her own accord, when she was on the way up but not yet high, and ravenously hungry after days of starvation, that he could slip one of the capsules into her food. After that she would take them herself. For a while. Never for long enough, but at least for a while.

Until she did come out of her depression enough to find them a place to stay, they would have to live in the car. Ash could never check into a motel by himself, he knew that. They would all surely know about him immediately. They would be able to tell as soon as he opened his mouth that he was not competent, that he was not to be trusted. They would laugh at him, or worse, send for the authorities to take care of him.

So he would have to wait until Dee could take care of both of them. He would find a rest stop on the highway where he could get food from the vending machines and water from the toilet facilities, and he would stay there and protect her. It wouldn’t matter to Dee where they were when she was in the worst of it. Any place with shelter would do until she returned to herself to take care of him.

Getting a washcloth to clean the blood from the carpet and the wall, he saw his reflection in the mirror and stared, surprised, at the cut that ran from his cheekbone to his jawline. It was shallow and hairline-thin, and the blood had already dried. He wasn’t aware that the Lyle had cut him. He hadn’t felt a thing.

He only managed to spread the smear on the wall, and the carpet seemed to have absorbed Dee’s blood like a sponge. Ash looked at the washcloth. His blood from the wall and Dee’s from the floor were mixed together into a brownish stain on the cloth. He liked the idea that their blood was mingled.

“We’re packed. Dee,” he said, approaching the bed with the washcloth rinsed and wet again. He rolled her over and began to dab at the blood that had dried on her face. Ash tried not to look at her naked body. It aroused him and it also embarrassed him.

With a sob. Dee threw her arms around his neck and pulled him onto her.

She nipped his ear with her teeth and then whispered directly into it so that Ash felt the effect in his groin, as if her warm breath was traveling all the way through him.

“Come on. Ash,” she whispered. “Come on.”

One hand held his neck and the other was already reaching between their bodies, fumbling with his belt.

Ash squeezed his eyes closed. He was so grateful. First that she was not as far gone as he had feared—although he knew it was just a matter of time—and second that she wanted him again. It was so seldom these days; there had been such a long succession of Lyles since last she had needed Ash.

He did not resist her in any way, but let her use him as she desired. It was the way she preferred it, and he preferred whatever she wanted.

With his eyes shut he imagined her as a bird, a large and beautiful and dangerous bird, graceful and effortless in flight, remorseless in pursuit. Lethal and lovely. She was an eagle.

He was a bear, lurking in a cave. Bears hid. They did terrible things, too. They killed, they clawed and bit, but they hid—because they were afraid. The eagles never hid, she was never afraid. There was nothing in the world that could hurt her. The eagle never hid, never stalked, never lay in wait. She circled overhead, seeking her prey with an eye that could see forever. She could see the terror in the rabbit’s eye from afar and had but to fold her wings to be upon it before it could move.

She could even attack a bear. She could rip him apart with her talons, skewer his eyes, grab his heart. To Ash, a bear was helpless before an eagle. He could not hear her approach as she plummeted from on high, he could not see her before she was upon him with her terrible grace and beauty. He could do awful things with his strength, but never to the eagle. He was powerless under the eagle’s attack.

He felt the eagle upon him, the flutter of the giant wings, the caress of feathers, the ripping of his fur and hide with beak so razor-sharp it gave no pain. His flesh opened out to her as if in blossom and she fed upon him.

And then he heard the beauty of her song ringing out, filling the cave and reverberating off the walls with the richness of her joy.

“Oh. Daddy,” she sang. “Come on, Daddy. Daddy!”

Chapter 5

B
ECKER’S HOME IN
Connecticut was forty-five minutes from the Town Center mall in Stamford. He drove there on the Merritt Parkway and studied the center divider. It was as he had remembered it when talking to Karen. A low guard rail made it impossible to pull a car onto the center strip without severe damage to both the railing and the automobile. There were occasional flower beds on the divider and so many trees there as well as on both sides of the road that the experience was one of driving at high speed through the deciduous forest that still held New England in its grasp. In summer, the parkway was a blur of green, and in autumn it blazed with fall colors, providing sudden vistas that made the road known for its uncommon beauty. As a highway for commuter traffic to New York, it served, although just barely, with four lanes and merely adequate engineering. But as an avenue through the forest, it was Connecticut’s pride and joy, and the state devoted a good deal of effort to keeping the divider well trimmed and clean.

It was no place for pedestrians, however. Anyone walking there would be seen by dozens, if not hundreds, of drivers per minute. Becker made a note to investigate the state employees who tended the strip. Their uniforms would not make them invisible but somewhat less noteworthy.

Becker pulled into the passing lane and rolled down his window. On the passenger seat next to him lay a brown leaf bag that he had purchased that morning. Inside the bag, taped together, were three twenty-five-pound sacks of cat litter. First he tried to lift the dead weight from the seat and across his body with his right hand while steering with his left. He made five attempts, stopping midway each time when it was apparent he was about to lose control of the car.

Next he tried to steer with his knees while handling the heavy bag with both hands. He lost control almost immediately with the exertion necessary for the lift. Finally Becker dragged the litter-filled bag onto his lap and lifted it from there to the open window. Opening the door was out of the question; it would require him to be too far from the divider. After several failed attempts. Becker managed to get the bag balanced on the window opening. The blast of a horn brought him back to the realization of his position. He was swerving dangerously and his speed had dropped to less than forty miles an hour. Angry motorists were passing him on the inside and gesturing as they went past.

And I haven’t even gotten the thing out the window yet, he thought. Nine times out of ten he would have swerved into the guard rail or another car if he’d made the final effort of throwing the bag onto the divider. He knew that throwing was the wrong idea. There was no way he could throw anything this heavy and unwieldy from a sitting position behind a steering wheel, never mind the demands of driving a car at the same time. It would be all he could do to push it far enough away from the car not to fall under the wheels. Becker eased into the right-hand lane, still balancing the bag on the open window, until the line of cars that had built up behind him had passed. Middle-of-the-night reduced traffic would make things somewhat easier, but not enough.

When the road was clearer. Becker pulled into the passing lane once more. Steadying the car with his knees, he pushed the bag as hard as he could with both hands, grabbing the wheel again immediately to avoid a crash. The bag hit the guard rail and split in two. The sacks of litter hit the highway and spilled onto the pavement. He looked at the mess behind him in his rearview mirror. The first car had already reached the mess and was warily swinging wide to avoid the torn sacks and flapping plastic. Any worse push and he would have caused a traffic hazard within minutes. As it was, there would probably be a slowdown for several minutes until the wind of passing cars pulled the plastic free of the litter and sent it winging crazily away from the road. And that was the best I could do, Becker thought. He knew he was stronger than most men because of a lifetime of staying in shape. His arms were conditioned by the rigors of pulling himself up rock faces on a rope. If he had been higher and had more of an arc for the push, the bag might have cleared the rail. From the cab of a diesel semitrailer truck, for instance. But this was the Merritt Parkway and commercial vehicles were prohibited. Driving such a truck here was an open invitation for arrest by the state police. Either the man who had successfully put the Shapiro boy’s body on the divider had carried it across two lanes of traffic and dropped it there, or he was possessed of great strength. Becker wondered if he were chasing a man who was a monster in more than one sense.