The Last Kind Words (39 page)

He didn’t notice me kneeling on the floor. He didn’t seem to notice anything. He went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of Glenlivet. He took a deep pull and then let out a sigh.

“Pinsch?” he called. “Ellie? Anyone still here?”

There was a hint of desperation in his voice. He sounded lonely, even forlorn.

He cocked an ear, waiting for a response. When there wasn’t one, he stepped to the screen door and stared out at the rest of the world. He was cool and handsome, hepcat aristocratic. He was dashing like they didn’t make them anymore, sophisticated swank and suave as he sipped his drink in the sunlight.

After a minute he seemed to soften and slacken a little. He pawed at his face. He said something I didn’t catch. It might’ve been my father’s name again. It might have been mine. His grip on the glass eased and it began to slide out of his hand. I thought it would hit the floor but he managed to hold on. His breathing deepened.

I looked into my grandfather’s eyes. He wasn’t watching the cartoons anymore. He was staring at my face.

I stood and spoke Grey’s name.

He didn’t respond. He seemed to almost be sleeping on his feet. I spoke again, louder. He turned his head toward me.

“What the hell are you doing there?” he asked. “Does he need a change?”

It was like I’d woken him in the middle of the night. He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, took a sip of his drink, and straightened his tie.

The neckties. Maybe I should have known just from the necktie fetish. I thought of him knotting them around his fists, snapping the material in his hands. Following Collie around town on the night of the underneath, guessing what was going to happen.

Worse, I wondered if Grey had somehow actually
pushed
Collie into the underneath.

“You want a drink, kid?”

He must’ve been excited after our night out together at Torchy’s. He had sensed the underneath tugging at me too. He thought it might lead me to going mad dog. He’d wanted to see what I was capable of, if I was ready to be drawn down the same way Collie was. It’s why he pushed so hard for the double date. It had been Grey out there in Eve’s yard. He’d stood at the window and peeked in on me having sex with Eve. Did he want me to attack her? Had he expected me to kill her?

I remembered Grey’s hot eyes during the poker game. I remembered how he had slapped my face and looked at me like he had something to say but was unable to say it. He’d watched me at work during the game, the tension high, ready to fight, ready to snap. He saw me baring my teeth at Danny Thompson, going for his throat.

It had somehow aroused Grey’s sickness. His dementia needed a catalyst to activate it. Since I’d come home he’d been waiting for the underneath to take me down too, so that he could follow along in my blood-drenched wake the way he had in Collie’s.

Mal must’ve seen the agitation in Grey, the growing chaos. After the card game that night, he must’ve recognized how detached Grey was becoming. I imagined him finding Grey outside in the yard, holding a necktie twisted between his fists. I could see Mal reaching for his brother out of love and terror. He’d discovered him out back before, wandering the yard. I could picture Mal being as afraid for his brother’s sanity as for his own.

Maybe he knew what was happening. They had spoken quietly. I could see Grey admitting what had happened, mentioning Rebecca Clarke’s name. Then reaching into his pocket and drawing out the knife.

Collie’s knife, the one he’d yanked out of Douglas Schuller’s chest in the gas station men’s room. Staring at it in the moonlight, I could see the vastness of the truth being too huge for Mal to handle. I imagined him going to grab his brother, maybe to shake him, to hurt him, or only to clench him tightly. So physically strong that the first couple of stabs might’ve only felt like wasp stings. Once he realized he was being murdered, he might have embraced the pain, accepted it, unable to fight
against the person he loved most in the world. Thinking, How is this possible? How is it possible that I’m being killed by my own brother? And Grey still stabbing Mal like he was trying to kill whatever was wrong in himself. So divorced from himself that he not only didn’t know himself but didn’t know who he was killing.

As much as I hated Collie for what he’d done, as much as I’d said that I wanted him to die, in my heart I would never be able to kill my brother.

I backed away.

Grey said, “That drink, yes or no?” He furrowed his brow at me. Not a hair out of place.

I thought of Lin’s files. Could Grey really be responsible for all those murders? Or had he only killed Becky Clarke on a dark, insane night that consumed him and my brother? I thought of Collie pleading with me, setting me in motion. Had he wanted this? Had he spotted Grey behind him at some point during his spree? Had he known about Grey all along?

“Terrier, you’re shaking. You’re pale. Sit down.”

“No, I’m all right.”

“You’re sweating. Let me get you that scotch.”

He started to move across the kitchen and I held my hand up, gestured for him to stay still.

“No,” I said.

“You all right? You sick?”

“Me? Yeah, maybe.” I checked his eyes. He was back, but did his conscience know what he’d done? Was he aware of it, or was the truth hiding deep in his head? “I need to know the truth, Uncle Grey.”

“The truth? The truth about what?”

“About what you’ve done.”

“What I’ve done? What the hell have I done?”

A rush of despair moved through me. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest and held back the flood. “You killed Mal. You snuffed Becky Clarke.”

He grinned crookedly like it was a bad joke and he couldn’t figure
out the punch line. He scoffed and let out a chuckle. Then his face hardened. He finished his drink and slapped the glass down hard enough that it rang like a bell. “What the hell are you saying?”

“You did it, Grey.”

“You’ve got to calm down, kid.”

“I am calm.”

“Your imagination is working overtime. You’re bent all out of shape. Is this what’s been on your shoulders? This is what talking to your brother has done? No wonder you’re acting flighty.”

He moved toward me and I backed up. He kept coming and I kept backing up into the living room. He unbuttoned the top button of his collar. His hands moved incredibly fast. He continued smiling. I stood a little straighter. I stopped trembling. “Don’t do it, Grey.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Look at your hands, Grey.”

He looked down. He found that he was holding his tie twisted between his fists. His chin came up again and he met my eyes.

“Terrier, you need to listen to me. Just calm down, kid. You need to calm down.”

“I am calm.”

“Talk to me.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I asked. I could feel the tears in my throat. “Do you know who I am?”

“Talk to me, Terrier. We can talk this out. We need to talk this out. I’m here for you. I’m here to listen to you.”

“Do you even know who you are anymore?”

He came at me so casually, his face passive. He let the tie go slack between his hands, winked at me the way he used to when I was a kid sitting beside him at a ball game and the team he’d bet on had won the game. He never lost that kind of bet, it was always a sure thing. He’d sit back in the stands with a beer halfway to his lips and he’d give me a wink and hit me with that grin, the one that said nothing could stop us, nothing could ever beat us. I took another step backward. He brought his hands a little higher. I whispered his name. I was strong and fast. He was
sixty-two. He had powerful hands. I could outrun him if I could just get my legs to work. I backed up and passed in front of the television screen. As I blocked out the cartoons, Gramp’s head fell forward, then came back up. I wanted him to look at me again. I wanted him to tell me I was right. I hit the far wall. Maybe I’m wrong, I could be wrong. Grey came closer until our chests were nearly touching, like he wanted a hug.

“Don’t make me do this,” I begged.

“Do what?” Grey asked. “What are you going to do? Tell me.”

He got the tie up to my throat and began to press. He couldn’t get much purchase. He tried to turn me, hoped to get behind me. I coughed and said his name again, tried to push him away. We wrestled across the room, knocking pictures off the wall: Collie graduating from high school, smirking, thinking he had the world by the balls with his stupid blue mortarboard and tassel; Dale and my mother grinning into the camera, my sister about six, missing one front tooth, really giving it her gleeful all; Gramp at twenty-one, hip and not quite handsome, but with amused eyes like he’d already snatched the photographer’s wallet. Glass shattered on the floor.

We bashed up against a curio cabinet that almost went over. I got a flash of Gramp’s eyes and thought I saw a hint of sorrow in there. I wondered how much of his family’s destruction he would hold himself accountable for. I thought of Scooter fifteen years from now, when she’d be a beautiful young brown-haired woman jogging in the park. I thought of Grey still on the prowl. He said, “Stop it, Terry!”

I croaked, “Let go,” and drove the heel of my hand under his chin. It wasn’t enough. I hit him again. Two rivulets of blood poured out the sides of his mouth, but he wouldn’t stop. JFK started barking like mad outside, leaping at the screen. I hooked Grey twice to the belly and he pulled away. His eyes were fiery but without personality. Without any of the Grey I knew in them. He’d vanished that quickly into the underneath.

I hauled off and hit him in the face again. He dropped his tie on the floor and fell back, reaching out to steady himself against the card table. He touched his jacket pocket and drew his hand away as if he’d been
burned. The symbols of our life intensified over time and controlled us right to the end.

He went for his trouser pocket, moving so fast that I barely saw him draw out Collie’s knife.

It was a switchblade. A weak choice—the thin blade tended to break easily—and I wondered why Collie had bought one off Fingers Brown in addition to the pistol. Did he need the feeling of sawing through flesh?

Grey snapped it open and rushed me. I dodged but not quickly enough. He stabbed me in the side. I screamed, or tried to, but the sound stuck in my throat. He tried again, and I lashed out with an uppercut that raised him onto his tiptoes and forced him away. I dropped to all fours and clenched my right hand over the wound and tried not to writhe. As I scurried back, my left hand touched Grey’s tie. I snatched it up and got to my feet. My uncle was coming for me again.

The latch on the screen door snapped and JFK burst through. He barked frantically without any idea of what to do or who to do it to. He circled us as we faced off again.

“Grey—”

“Just calm down,” he said, his jaw broken, the words flailing from his mouth.

He stabbed at me again and I tried to wrap the tie like a cord around his wrists, bind them together, but he fought free. He slashed me across the belly and I barely felt it. My rage and panic were loose. I’d either hauled him down into the darkness or he’d done it to me. We were both going to die and I was fine with that.

I hissed, “Not Scooter, you prick.”

He got me in a choke hold with his left hand and pushed me back against the front window. Glass cracked behind my head and I started to bleed into my ears.

I heard footsteps. I glanced over and saw Dale rushing us, her expression frightened and then not concerned but furious, bitter, as if she too were showing her true self. I could smell beer on her breath and the sweet scent of marijuana on her clothes. She’d been out with friends or
Butch again, and the guy had dropped her off at the curb. By the time she made it to the porch she’d heard the action inside. Instead of running off or calling the cops, she’d jumped into the fight.

JFK continued to bark, so frantic now he was practically out of his head.

The switchblade danced in front of my belly. Grey shifted his weight, ready to thrust through my guts.

My sister’s eyes met mine. I saw her pull the butterfly knife from her pocket, the one she’d wanted for protection. I wondered if she was going to help Grey kill me. I saw a flash of her teeth. I started to count off the major grudges she held against me, but there could be a thousand more I wasn’t aware of. Collie would never know all my resentments. No one would.

I closed my eyes and waited for her to slide her blade into my belly a moment after Grey eased in his. Maybe they’d leave me in the backyard crawling around on the lawn in my own filth. I couldn’t bear the idea of my mother seeing that and I let out a gurgling moan.

Dale shoved the knife into Grey’s back.

He cried out and glared at her over his shoulder. She said, “Oh God—”

She had trouble withdrawing the blade. It stuck between his shoulders for a moment before she finally managed to wrench it loose.

“What are you doing?” she said, her eyes full of confusion. She looked at Grey’s blood on the knife and covering her hands. Then she looked up at me. “Why did you make me do that?”

Grey glowered at her as if seeing her for the first time. A vicious, humorless leer widened across his face like a deep scar. Without turning, he prodded me again with his left hand and I went a little farther through the window. He let out a laugh as the switchblade in his right fist flailed in front of Dale. I’d never heard a laugh like that before. I reached for his wrist, but his hands were so goddamn strong and fast. It took everything I had to move him off a foot, then two, then three, just trying to get him away from my sister.

He wasn’t seeing Dale. No more than he’d seen Becky Clarke when
he’d strangled her in the park. Or Eve’s daughter, Roxie, when he was drinking Glenlivet and slipping through her house. I was certain now. I could see the murder in his eyes. He was seeing the woman who’d broken his heart. I could tell that it was a sweet pain he was feeling. All of his hate flooded through him. The memories, fantasies, and impulses were a riot in his head. I pushed him harder, gagging, and we bumped into Gramp’s chair. Old Shep blinked twice and angled his chin at me. Dale came at us again, trying to break Grey’s grip on me. She held her own blade the wrong way, too tightly instead of loose across her fingers. She slashed at his back twice.