The_Amazing_Mr._Howard (24 page)

She blinked several times, her eyes glassy with tears. “Is that what you think?”

“Do you want the truth?”

Her gaze went to the floor. “I wish you wouldn’t hurt us all the time.”

“Is that what I do?”

She looked up with determination in her eyes. “Take us to see Mom tomorrow.”

He stared at the computer monitor. How long would it take to fuck the shit out of the woman from the swinger’s website? One hour, two hours? With any luck, she’d be worth an entire afternoon, but he’d never met a woman that good in his entire life. He looked back at Margo. “I need to do something in the morning, but when I return we can go.”

“You’re lying.”

“Hey, I’ve got a pretty important job or haven’t you noticed?”

“Tomorrow’s your day off.”

“Yeah, well, cops don’t get a day off. When I’m finished with my job, I’ll take you kids up to the hospital. In the meantime, I suggest you get your butt to bed.”

“It’s not even eight o ‘clock,” she protested.

“Then you should get plenty of sleep.”

“Asshole.”

“What’d you say?”

“You heard me.”

No twelve-year-old was going to talk to him that way. “Get back here!” He leaped to his feet, fingers working loose the buckle on his belt. Her eyes widened and she fled into the hall. He tore after her and caught up outside her bedroom. Seizing a wrist, he twisted one of her arms behind her.

“Daddy, you’re hurting me!”

Dave peeked out of his bedroom. “What’s going on?”

“Stay out of this!”

“Dave, help!” Margo called.

He glared at his son. “You heard me, boy. Go to bed.”

Dave hesitated before ducking into his room. Willard forced her arm higher.

“Daddy, please no!”

“You think you can sass me? I’ll show you what my daddy did if I got smart with him. I’m going to tan your hide.” He threw his chest against her and drove her inside her room. A hard shove sent her reeling. She crashed against a dresser and folded onto the carpet. He locked the door and finished removing his belt. “Get up, damn it.”

Her cheeks glistened with tears. “No, Daddy, no!”

“Get up!”

She threw out her hands. He swung wildly, the belt striking her palms with a whack. “Ahhhh,” she cried, pulling her hands against her chest.

“That’s what you get for fighting me. Now stretch out on the bed.”

She shook her head. “Please, you’re hurting me.”

He rushed toward her, belt flashing through the air, “I don’t… give a shit...”—
whack, whack
, the belt ripped over her thighs— “…if I’m hurting you. Get on that bed.”

“Daddy, please!”

He grabbed one of her arms and dragged her toward the bed. “Get up there and take it!”

Deep, wailing cries rose from her chest as she scooted on her knees to the mattress and lay down. “Please, Daddy.” Her voice trembled. “Don’t hurt me anymore please.”

There was a knock on the door. “Dad, what’s going on?”

“Get out of here, Dave. This is none of your goddamn business,” he said over his shoulder.

“Is Margo all right?”

“Get out of here, boy, or you’re next!” He waited to hear Dave’s door close before turning his attention back to Margo on the bed. “You damn kids show me no respect. You think I treated your grandpa like that? Hell no, he’d wear me out, just like I’m going to wear you out.”

He swung the belt with all his strength.
Whack, whack, whack,
leather popping against flesh. At first, she howled, her body quivering under the assault, but then she fell silent and stopped moving. He gasped for air, his face speckled with sweat. He looked down at her, suddenly small and insignificant in his eyes, and felt pity. Damn Doris, it was all her fault. She fattened the kids up. She tricked them into believing she was the one who loved them best. One day they would understand. One day they would realize he had their best interests at heart. “Don’t you ever talk back to me again, you hear me?”

She said nothing, the only sound her soft whimpering.

He brought his face close to hers. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Get your ass in bed and don’t get up. If you’re good, just maybe, I’ll take you brats up to the hospital to see your mom. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” She slowly climbed onto the bed, wincing as she swung her legs upward. She curled into a ball, her back toward him. He brought her covers up to her shoulders and leaned down to kiss her wet cheek.

“Good night. I love you.”

No response.

He raised the belt and smacked her again. “I said I love you!”

“I love you,” she whispered.

He slammed her door closed. Outside Dave’s room, he leaned close to shout. “If I hear you coming out of this room, I’ll beat your butt.” He continued to the office where he slumped in his chair. “Fucking kids. Fucking wife. My world is goddamn cesspool and I’m drowning in it.”

Mr. Howard stood on the front porch staring down at the city lights. A warm breeze swirled from the southwest, caressing the back of his neck. The sound of Ravel’s
Bolero
drifted from inside the house. He swayed in rhythm with the melody, the memory of floating like a wayward cloud between Leslie and Jennifer vivid in his mind. Why couldn’t it always be like that? Why couldn’t his life be simple and beautiful, the way it had been before his transformation? Sophie’s soft fingers interlaced with his. The sound of children laughing filling the rooms of his home. A golden sunset reflected on the surface of the Danube.

He walked to a lawn chair and sat. Head in his hands, he thought of future events sure to pass. Why were his actions ruled by death? And then he remembered the line from the Heurigen song,
Der Tod, das muss ein Wiener Sien
—Death himself has got to be a Viennese.

“Don’t pity yourself. You don’t deserve pity.” Ryan’s ghost floated nearby. Mr. Howard couldn’t wait to get rid of Ryan’s corpse and free himself from this torment. Day and night, Ryan crawled like a spider into his brain and spun a web of guilt and accusations.

“You are right, of course, and perhaps my rage went unchecked with you. To cut off your penis was a most unpleasant thing to do, yes. But you played your part in our little drama, did you not? Your abuse of Reann and Gail forced my hand. How can a man with a moral conscience stand by and do nothing in the face of such charges?”

“You plan to kill again.”

Mr. Howard winced as a sharp pain stabbed his right temple. “Why do you always show up to ruin my mood?”

“Who will you kill this time?”

“I plan to kill no one.”

“You are a killer and a liar.”

“And you are dead, which means I may choose to ignore you. Go back to your grave and leave me in peace.”

“The way you left me in peace?”

He whirled toward the spirit and shook his fist. “Go now or I swear, I will never return you to your family.”

Ryan’s ghost faded like a mirage swallowed by the desert sun. Mr. Howard stood. He returned to the balcony railing and leaned forward, the lights of the city a white sea across the darkness before him. He hated specters—everything about them. They typically displayed foresight and the ability to predict parts of his future long before he had a chance to plan it. Ryan was an idiot in life. No surprise he remained an idiot in his afterlife. If Mr. Howard were going to kill anyone, it would be Detective Willard, but that would only complicate an already complicated situation. No, the best way to handle this predicament was to maneuver the pieces on the board to his advantage. He must capture the queen and neutralize the king before they could place him in checkmate.

With this in mind, he wondered why he hadn’t heard back from the PI. Surely, he could dig up dirt on a man like Willard, a miserable civil servant who resented his lot in life. The man must have secrets. Everyone had secrets.

No matter, he could only control certain things, and so he focused his attention on Alicia Whitmore, psychic extraordinaire.

When he first moved to town, Mr. Howard marveled at how empty the streets became at night. Some evenings he drove through the entire city without seeing another car. But then, someone had the bright idea to list the town on one of those ten best lists. A few years later, the town ranked as the best place to live in the entire country. After that, people poured in by the thousands. The crime rate shot up, school testing scores tanked, and the roads became clogged at all hours. At least one good thing came out of the process; the town no longer ranked in the top ten on any of the lists. Being a Friday night, the streets were crowded with late-night traffic, mostly bored college students looking for a party because they were too young to drink in the Old Town bars. If he drove the Mercedes, he risked being spotted by one of his students. Who would recognize him through the dark tinted windows of the panel van?

It took him fifteen minutes to drive to Alicia Whitmore’s house, a small Craftsman-style home, probably built after the Second World War. A high-intensity bulb burned at the front porch casting a wide circle of light across a tidy yard enclosed by a picket fence. Insects flew in and out of the light in a frenzied dance. Several houses down, a group of five or six teenage boys gathered around a car. Offensively loud music spoiled what would be a peaceful night. The boys laughed and whooped while drinking something in shiny silver cans, which he assumed was beer. One boy pissed into the gas tank of a nearby car. Two more wrestled on a lawn, either combatants or lovers in need of a hotel. The scene before him was perfect. No one would notice him. Not that he worried. Vampires could move about without drawing attention, as if invisible to the world. Perhaps the world didn’t want to acknowledge the presence of something so terrible and vile, and so chose to ignore it, the way the British and French ignored Hitler until it was too late. But he wasn’t Hitler with the goal of wiping out a class of people he loathed. Mr. Howard was an equal opportunity killer. If a person possessed what he needed, they could have purple skin and pray to Rafekee the monkey god for all he cared.

He slipped out of the van and walked straight to Alicia’s gate. As suspected, the drunken boys were too busy with their self-indulgence to pay attention to an old man. He didn’t bother unlatching the gate, but instead floated over the fence. Among his many powers, levitation was perhaps his favorite. Countless lovers, their minds clouded by wine, had watched with amazement as he circled above the bed. For an unfortunate few, they soon discovered the graceful eagle was in fact a vulture, but he made certain to keep their suffering at a minimum. And then there was Alexandra, beautiful pale princess of the Russian winter, whose green eyes still haunted his dreams. Unable to bring himself to end her life, in a moment of madness, he transformed her into a vampire. His plan was for them to continue as a couple, traveling the continent while dining on the blood of the rich. How could he foresee she would hate being a vampire almost as much as she came to hate him? She vowed revenge against the one who gave her eternal life, while seeking out the companionship of younger vampires. He had but one choice, and so he fled westward on a moonless night, never returning to Russia’s icy steppes.

He swept into the shadows surrounding Alicia’s house, moving like a breeze that stirred autumn leaves, and made them sound like falling rain. As stealthy as a black cat, he crept from window to window, his predator eyes in search of a prize. There, at last, he found her, asleep in a back room with a light on.

She is afraid of the dark, and rightfully so, but the light will not save her. Evil can be found in the brightest of lights.

He focused his energy, the way a spirit does to move objects, and manipulated the locking mechanism on the back door. A tiny click of steel announced his arrival.

Inside the house, he tip-toed along a wall—as quiet as the Grim Reaper coming to steal away a soul. When he arrived at her bedroom, he found the door closed. A gentle push caused the hinges to squeal and she stirred on the bed. Four steps in, she sat up, eyes bulging, chin toward her chest, fear and resignation in her expression.

“I knew you’d come for me,” she said in a calm voice.

He glanced around the room. “Where is your holy water? Your cross? Your garlic?”

“Would they have done any good?” she asked.

“I would drink the water, kiss the cross, and eat the garlic. Then my breath would kill you.”

Mr. Howard walked to the bed and sat beside her. Her Facebook picture failed to capture her true beauty. She was a harvest moon in the light of stars, casting a warm glow upon a frost covered field. She was the palette that held all the bright hues demanded by a master artist. He could never kill her, despite the threat she represented to him. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. “You saw me in your visions.”

“Yes,” she whispered and looked straight into his eyes. “They call you Mr. Howard. You teach at the university.”

“You are correct. Why did you not share this information with the police?”

“The one policeman, Killgood, is your friend. He would never believe you capable of murder unless he caught you in the act, and even then, he’d have a hard time trusting what he saw.”

“Is that the only reason?”

She wrung her hands on her lap. “I knew the police could never protect me from you, and so, I started to think that maybe if I didn’t reveal your identity, you would grant me a small mercy.”

“You consider sparing your life a small mercy?”

She stopped moving her hands. “I know what you are.”

This brought a smile to his face. “Is it that difficult to say the word?”

“I just never imagined I’d come in contact with a real… vampire.” She grasped his hand. The act surprised him, but he made no attempt to pull back. “For someone who’s dead, you seem so full of life.”

“Do not believe everything you read in books, including mine. When it comes to vampires, most authors are clueless.”

A chuckle passed from her lips before she turned serious again. “You mean to kill me. Promise to make it quick and as painless as possible.”