The Tutor (25 page)

Julian made lunch, two English muffins with strawberry jam and a glass of milk, studying the blueprints while he ate.
Questo è l’inizo della fine,
but he had no
fine
in mind. Must an auteur know
Z
before he set down
A
? How limiting—surely it was somewhere in the
LMNOP
’s that the very best
Z
’s were born. You had to give yourself something to work with, even if there were many blanks ahead, must wrestle with the
LMNOP
’s, trusting your talent to find
Z
. It was hard work, and daring. But he was marked for greatness.

Julian took a ride in Linda’s Jeep, the Triumph, his preference, being too conspicuous. He was a nice suburban fellow, driving down to Bridgeport, radio tuned to NPR. He heard a lot of earnest stuff indeed.

Was it a challenge to find a low-life bar in Bridgeport, the kind where after a drink or two—bottled beer only, Julian had no faith in anything else in such a place—the right contact would lead him into an alley where a second contact would make the transaction? No, it was easy. Difficulty in buying drugs would have signified some other country. Julian could barely understand this second contact, a brother citizen no doubt, but his dialect extreme. Money and drugs went in opposite directions, Julian keeping his gloves on the whole time. The contact, runny-nosed, walleyed, a barbarian, pure and simple, made some remark that might have looked toward future commerce. Julian felt momentary empathy with those vegetarians who admitted no human superiority over any other animal.

But of animals: task one, easy; task two, to find the right pet store, was much harder. Hours went by. What’s wrong with this one? they would say. Or that one?

“Not speckled enough,” he would tell them.

“Not speckled enough?”

Night had fallen before he returned to 37 Robin Road.

T
he blueprints showed an attic, but there was no access to it from anywhere but a small painted-over hatch cover in the ceiling of the upstairs hall, totally inconvenient. Julian carried the toolbox to Adam’s room. He was no expert with tools but he understood the concept of tools very well: instruments for getting what you wanted. He opened the toolbox, first reading the card
(Merry Xmas, Daddy. Mom bought this but I thought it was a good idea. Love, Ruby. P.S.: Think treehouse
”
)
. Then, plugging in the saw, he went into the closet and cut a square out of the ceiling, about two feet by two. He rolled in the desk-chair, and standing on it, placed blueprints, tape measure, auger, and flashlight on the surface above. After that he hoisted himself through, pencil in his teeth. Like a studious pirate, he thought: he must have looked rather dashing.

Ten feet six inches, read the blueprint, from the hinge side of the closet door to the wall where the two bedrooms met, Adam’s and Ruby’s. Julian crouched his way along the attic floor, soft and slightly springy from the layer of pink insulation, paying out the measuring tape. Eight feet four inches to the near side of her windows, a pair of double-hungs, five feet two inches more to the far side of the windows; and the head of her bed should be here. He rolled back the insulation, checked his measurements once more, penciled a thick black
X
on the exposed plywood.

Julian bored a half-inch hole with the auger. This was more in the nature of reconnaissance; a bigger hole, although not much bigger, could come later if necessary.
Auger
was completely unrelated to
augur
, two different mother languages, but still he couldn’t help making the pleasant connection. A tiny pile of wood dust accumulated on the floor; then resistance ceased abruptly and the metal bit slid through with a little lurch. He thought of Gail.

Julian bent over the hole, shone the flashlight through. It glowed in the eyes of some animal, down there in Ruby’s dark room, startling him. His eyes made the adjustment: only a bear, a teddy bear, lying on her pillow. Perfect, on the first try. He turned out to be good with tools.

Julian gathered them up, crept back through the attic, lowered himself down through the square hole in the ceiling of Adam’s closet, his feet feeling for the chair. Then came a different shock, far more powerful and unnerving than the teddy bear. Standing just a few feet from the open closet door, watching his descent, was a woman. He recognized her at once: Jeanette. He had no idea how she came to be there, but he understood the deeper meaning of her appearance, or reappearance, certainly reappearance, considering the Starbucks scene: this was Nemesis.

25

J
ulian took the pencil from between his teeth. “Jeanette, if I’m not mistaken?”

She nodded. Somehow the auger overbalanced and fell from the edge of the hole he’d made in the attic, crashing down in the closet behind him. Her eyes went to it, then back up to his. Not up, really: she was almost his height, perhaps an inch or two shorter. She offered no explanation for being in the house, putting him in the absurd position of having to justify his presence first.

“They’ve gone for the weekend,” Julian said. “Well-deserved respite. I’m taking care of Zippy and doing the odd repair, just to make myself useful, et cetera.”

“Yes,” Jeanette said, “Zippy. I was returning Ruby’s bike and I heard him through the garage wall. Heard him from the street, actually.”

“He does like to bark,” Julian said.

“He was howling, not barking,” said Jeanette. She had a direct way of speaking, a direct way about her in general, that he didn’t like at all. “So I looked into the kitchen.”

She paused there, watching him. He’d closed the big garage door, of course, but there was another door at the back of the garage that she must have used. The door from the garage to the kitchen was never locked, and he’d adopted local custom, thoughtlessly perhaps.

“And?” Julian said.

“The dog was in a bad way.”

“He was?” said Julian. He had the saw in his hand, made a rueful little gesture with it. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

She paused again. He noticed that she was wearing bib ski pants over a turtleneck, hazarded a guess.

“On your way up to the mountains?”

“Yes,” she said, peering beyond him, into the closet.

“Skiing should be good,” he said, “if it doesn’t get too cold. Where do you go?”

“Killington,” said Jeanette. “Don’t you want to know what was wrong with your charge?”

“My charge?”

“I thought they left you in charge of the dog.”

“Of course,” he said, “although it’s no charge at all in the sense of burden—he’s such a fun little guy.”

“You think he was having fun, tied up like that?”

“Tied up?”

“Hog-tied is more like it. I’ve got a camera in the truck, and I’m tempted to take a picture the ASPCA might be interested in.”

“Hog-tied? I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“No?” she said. “I’ll show you.” So direct, and clearly a woman of action, too: still, Julian thought he detected a little doubt in eyes unaccustomed to showing any.

He followed her out of Adam’s room, along the hall to the stairs. Julian was close behind as they went down. She was a very fit woman, with trim but well-defined muscles across her shoulders and up the sides of her neck. They were rigid.

A jump rope, now cut in three unequal lengths—perhaps cut in haste or with strong emotion, to judge from how widely scattered they were—lay on the kitchen floor. No sign of the dog at first: but then Julian saw him, back in the shadows under the table.

“There you are, Zipster,” he said. “Come on out, fella.”

The animal shrank under Ruby’s chair, against the wall and out of sight.

“Hey, boy—what’s wrong?” Julian said. He glanced at the lengths of jump rope. “What’s all this?”

“I cut him free,” Jeanette said.

“He was bound with the jump rope?” Julian said.

“You’re pretending not to know anything about this?”

Julian raised his hands, palms up. “I swear.”

“How could you not know he was tied up down here, his four paws all together and his head so far back he could hardly breathe?”

“Oh my God,” Julian said. He blinked a few times, like a strong but sensitive man fighting to contain strong but sensitive emotions. Then he passed his hand over his forehead, looked her in the eye, but humbly, and said, “I’ve got a confession to make.”

Her gaze, hard to begin with, hardened some more. She was a formidable figure, square in front of him in those bib ski pants, a Killington lift ticket dangling from one of the zippers; and her hands were big, weather-roughened, capable.

Julian took a deep breath, sighed. “Zippy ran away this afternoon. I had him outside with me while I was shoveling the walk, and all of a sudden, out of the blue, he just took off. Like a streak. Of course I ran after him, but I’m not much of a runner, Jeanette, and he got away. Clean away.”

“So?” said Jeanette. “What are you saying?”

Julian made a fist, pounded it into his open hand. “Mr. Stromboli,” he said. “That sadistic son of a bitch.”

“Excuse me?” said Jeanette.

“And naturally we can never prove anything, damn it to hell.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mr. Stromboli, across the street. Ruby never mentioned him?”

“What’s Ruby got to do with this?”

“Nothing. I just wondered whether maybe she mentioned him. You know the way she babb . . . The point is Mr. Stromboli hates Zippy. Ruby’s a bit afraid of him, truth to tell. I once had to step in before he struck Zippy with a golf club.”

“Is that true?”

“Ask Ruby. It was a rather unforgettable moment. He was on his lawn in robe and slippers, the club a six iron, I believe.”

“So you’re saying . . . ?”

“He must have,” Julian said. They were starting to think along the same lines at last. “He must have caught Zippy, tied him—done what he did—and delivered him over here. I didn’t hear a thing, busy as I was with the repairs.”

“That’s horrendous,” Jeanette said.

“Poor little dog,” Julian said. He knelt down. “Come on out, pup.” Zippy shrank further into the shadows.

“I’m going right over there,” Jeanette said.

“As I mentioned,” Julian said, “nothing can be proved, and based on my brief but indelible interaction with the man, I’m quite certain he’ll deny everything. My suggestion is to wait for Scott and Linda’s return, offer the information to them in the least upsetting way—no point ending their vacation on a sour note—and allow them to decide a course of action.”

A splendid verbal flow, coming at just the right time: Julian could feel it sweeping away her doubts. “You won’t forget?” Jeanette said.

“Certainly not,” said Julian. “In fact, I’ll jot down a memo at once, to be sure I’ve got the sequence right.” He took out his memo pad and the Mont Blanc pen.

Her gaze went to pad and pen, then his face. “All right,” she said. She bent down, looked under the table. “Come on out, Zippy.”

He didn’t move.

Julian opened Zippy’s cupboard, found one of the rawhide treats. “Here you go, boy,” he said. No response. “Perhaps if we just put it here on the floor for him and leave him alone for a while, he’ll pull himself together.”

“You’re probably right,” Jeanette said, and started toward the mudroom at last.

“Thank God you came over when you did,” Julian said, opening the mudroom door for her. “Have fun on the slopes.”

She nodded and stepped outside. Julian closed the door behind her and went upstairs. Through the window in the master bedroom, he watched her backing the pickup out of the driveway, her skis, boots, and poles lying in the bed of the truck. She drove off down Robin Road, headed in the direction of Indian Ridge and 91, north to Vermont.

J
ulian returned to the attic, widened the hole in Ruby’s ceiling to a diameter of about two inches. He left the flashlight by the hole, shining there to mark the spot, then crept back to his Alice-in-Wonderland entrance in Adam’s closet. He lowered himself down into Adam’s room, and from under Adam’s bed withdrew the terrarium from its quiet resting place. The speckled band lay coiled in its miniature jungle. A cliché, certainly, to find the creature beautiful, yet there was truth in clichés: no worm, despite the similarity in shape if not size, could ever be called beautiful.

“Come, Prettyface,” said Julian, looking down through the steel mesh screen over the terrarium. “Places, everybody.”

He carried the terrarium into the closet, climbed onto the chair, hoisted it up on the attic floor. Then he pulled himself up and, crouching, advanced the terrarium somewhat awkwardly in gentle bumps toward the shining flashlight, a small flashlight but nicely balanced and very bright, a tribute to Linda’s gift-buying skill, her thoroughness, perhaps even her thoughtfulness. No, not that: stop at thoroughness.

“Ready?” he said, sitting himself by the enlarged hole in the attic floor, more than big enough he saw, now that he had the talent on stage. He shone the light on the terrarium. What a calm performer, a trusty old pro! Julian removed the steel mesh screen, no hurry, laid it down. “Set?” he said, and reached in, quick and decisive, the way his father had taught him, grabbing Prettyface firmly but not roughly by the neck, if Prettyface’s strange adaptive bulge could be called a neck.

Prettyface didn’t like that, of course: who would? But this was only a one-dimensional creature, after all, that dimension now erased. How frustrating for it, as Julian could feel from the peristaltic writhings. He lowered Prettyface’s head to the two-inch diameter hole, squeezing perhaps a little harder that necessary, just to show who was boss, or in this case, director, or—to convey the whole truth and nothing but the truth—the auteur. Also—why not admit this?—it felt good. He wasn’t made of stone.

“Go,” he said, and shoved Prettyface’s squat, diamond-shaped head and puffed neck through the hole, encouraging the rest of him along with a two-handed shove, like a card player betting poker chips, a card player with an ace in the hole, as it were. Prettyface vanished with a last panicky flick of the tail.

Julian scrambled to a kneeling position over the hole, shone the light through, angled his eye close. Down below, Prettyface had already landed on the pillow. The whole episode must have been deeply unsettling: Prettyface had turned on the teddy bear, was striking, striking, at those glowing eyes. They stopped glowing.

“Cut,” said Julian. He crawled back to Adam’s closet as fast as he could, dragging the terrarium, dropped through, hurried down the hall to Ruby’s room. He flicked on the lights. Prettyface was on the bed, slithering around in an abrupt fashion, still agitated. Ruby’s quiver hung on the closet doorknob. “There, there,” said Julian, withdrawing an arrow. He advanced on the bed, arrow extended. Prettyface curled up onto it, in the manner of his kind, and easy as that, Julian thrust him down into the terrarium and clapped the steel mesh cover on top.

“What the hell is going on?” said someone behind him.

Julian forced himself not to whirl around, not to succumb to a reptilian panic of his own. Not just someone, but a woman; not just a woman, but Jeanette. He turned slowly, his control complete, at the very summit of the evolutionary chain.

A vein was throbbing in Jeanette’s neck. Her eyes darted around: the terrarium, the hole in the ceiling, the sawdust on the bed, back to him.

“Nothing, really,” Julian said, “merely—”

Her voice rose. “No one’s home at the Strombolis’. The woman next door says they left for Florida yesterday.”

“I’m just baffled,” Julian said. She must have circled the block. He thought furiously, seeking some explanation, innocent yet convincing, of what had happened to Zippy, and now of what she’d seen in the two bedrooms. “Have you met Ruby’s little pal yet?”

“Ruby hates snakes,” Jeanette said. “This is a matter for the police.” She drew a cell phone from the pocket of her ski pants and walked out of the room. Julian needed time to think and she wasn’t giving him any. He hurried after her.

Jeanette was halfway down the stairs, cell phone in one hand, index finger of the other poised over the keypad. “Police?” said Julian, starting down after her. “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? After all—”

Over her shoulder, Julian saw her index finger hit the 9. He continued with whatever reasonable clause came next, but at the same time leaped ahead, reached around her—a kind of punch, to be accurate—and struck the cell phone from her hand. It clattered down into the front hall. Nine-one-one was out of the question—he knew its dangers now.

Jeanette whirled around, balanced there, four or five steps from the bottom. “You’re going to regret that,” she said.

“I hope not,” Julian told her. In fact, he was quite sure: he had the higher ground, another tenet of the military arts. “We really should talk, Jeanette. I think you’re being somewhat unreasonable.”

She gave him a look loaded with negative emotions—anger, suspicion, even contempt, that last closing so many doors in his mind—and turned without a word, headed down the stairs toward the phone. Julian grabbed her shoulder, not violently or even roughly.

Jeanette must have missed that consideration. She batted his hand away with a movement that was rough, was violent, a movement that ended with her elbow jabbing him right below the sternum, leaving him suddenly breathless. The next thing he knew she was down in the hall, scooping up the phone, her fingers at the keypad once more.

Julian dove from where he was, about halfway up. His shoulder caught her in the ribs. He heard a quick and gratifying rip of human tissue—his hearing was acute. They fell together onto the floor, his hands around her neck as they rolled, a roll that ended with him on top. But not quite ending: she gave a little twist, some subtle movement of Asian origin, and the roll kept going. At the same time, Zippy came racing in, barking wildly. Now Jeanette was on top, straddling him, and before he could move a knife appeared in her hand, a wood-handled folding knife, the blade not especially imposing, but pressed against his neck. An outdoorsy woman: why had he assumed she’d cut the jump rope with something from a kitchen drawer?

“Don’t move,” she said. Zippy circled them, barking his head off. Julian didn’t move, although of course he would have to, and soon. Instead he relaxed his body, hoping hers would relax too in unconscious imitation. It did not. Without taking her eyes off him, Jeanette felt around with her free hand, found the cell phone. She brought it into his field of vision, hit the 9 once more.

At that moment, Zippy lunged forward and sank his teeth deep into Julian’s right shoulder. Julian cried out in pain, genuine pain, genuinely felt. Jeanette’s gaze shifted to the dog, and as it did, some clumsy movement of his hindquarters knocked the phone from her hand. For an instant, Julian no longer felt the blade against his neck. The instant to move: and he moved. An instant after that, the knife was in his hand, his left hand but good enough. Another instant—or several more, because more than one thrust was necessary—and Jeanette was no longer in the story. She had no business being in it in the first place.