Three Twisted Stories (6 page)

He stopped at one of the displays in the middle of the aisle. Easter baskets. Colorful pastel wrappers covered chocolate eggs. The fake polyester grass reminded him of Mr. Salmeri’s chest hair. Marshmallow Peeps. He never liked those. He didn’t see the point. Too many empty calories.

Charlie picked up one of the eggs. Saliva filled his mouth. He could almost taste the chocolate. Charlie unpeeled the wrapper and shoved an egg into his mouth. The sugar and cocoa explosion was so intense that he had to close his eyes. He ate another one. Then another one. Before he knew it, the basket was empty except for the Peeps.

Charlie heard a throat being cleared behind him. The woman at the register was giving him the stinkeye. He grabbed up the Peep basket as well as a new one for his daughter. He walked over to the counter.

“Sorry.” Charlie forced a laugh, smiling at the stern brunette. “Couldn’t help myself.”

She didn’t laugh with him. Instead, she rang up the baskets and underwear, hitting the keys hard with her fingers. “Six dollars and twelve cents.”

Charlie reached into his pocket. Instead of the wad of cash he normally kept, there was nothing but lint. Charlie laughed again as he reached for his wallet.

Fuck
. He’d left it on the bureau at home. He could see the fat billfold in his mind’s eye. What was wrong with him? He never walked out without cash.

“Sir?” the woman said.

He read her name off her name tag. “Judy. I have an account here.” Charlie leaned against the counter. “I mean, my wife has an account. Mrs. Charles Lam.”

“Do you have your driver’s license?”

“In my wallet, which I left at home.” Charlie winced as he shrugged. He felt his cheeks getting hot. The woman thought he was poor—or worse, a thief. She didn’t know he had thousands of dollars in the bank. That he ran a successful business. That he had a wife and child.
She thought he was some moocher off the street.

He tried to be pleasant, like this was no big deal. “Can you look up the account?”

Judy snatched up the phone. She tugged the rotary around, dialing in the extension. Charlie looked behind him. There was a line. Three women, all dressed to the nines with pointy high heels and perfectly coiffed hair. He could almost hear them judging him. Charlie wasn’t wearing his best suit. Hell, he wasn’t even wearing his second-best suit. Two hundred dollars off the rack, sure, but he bought them out of the trunk of a traveling salesman’s car for seventy-five bucks, no questions asked.

“Mabel, this is Judy in accessories. Can you look up an account for me?” She tapped her fingers against the counter. Charlie saw her neatly trimmed nails. He wondered if the store made her keep them short. His wife had long fingernails. She had to be careful when she picked up things.

Whatever the store policies, Judy had managed to give herself some flair. Her dark green dress was accented by an emerald-encrusted brooch on her shoulder. The navy blue scarf wrapped around her hair should’ve clashed with the green, but she managed to carry it off.

“Sir?” Judy said.

She was holding out the phone to Charlie. He took the receiver. The nervousness was back. He’d eaten those chocolates. There was no way to return them. Would they call the police?

He cleared his throat. “This is Charles Lam.”

There was nothing on the line except music. Karen Carpenter’s version of “Ticket to Ride.” Jesus Christ on a Peep, Charlie was never gonna get away from that song.

Finally, the music stopped. “Hello?”

“Yes, this is Charles Lam.”

“I have your account information, but I need your wife’s confirmation that you are who you say you are.”

Charlie chuckled, letting her know this was all some sort of misunderstanding. “Of course. Call her at home.”

“We have the number on file. I already tried, but no one picked up.”

Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the waiting women. They looked even angrier than Judy. Charlie felt sweat running down his back and pooling into his underwear.

“Sir?”

Charlie breathed into the phone. “Could you try her again?”

The woman said nothing, but he heard the sharp clicks of a rotary being dialed. Charlie felt his shoulders hunch. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so out of place.

“Hello?”

“I’m here,” Charlie said, but he realized the woman was talking to someone else.

“This is Ms. Cooper at Davison’s department store. I was calling to speak to Mrs. Charles Lam?”

Charlie held his breath. He strained his ears to listen. All he heard was background noise: typewriters whirring and other women talking. He pictured them sitting at their desks making phone calls to husbands to verify that their wives were allowed to spend their money. This was ridiculous. Charlie had a job. Hell, he didn’t just have
a
job, he employed other people. What right did they have to treat him this way? This was all just a misunderstanding. He’d left his wallet at home. It’s not like he was a bank robber.

“Sir?” The woman came back on the line. “I’m sorry. Mrs. Lam wasn’t in.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“The maid, I believe. Can you hand the phone back to Ms. McGuire?”

Charlie did as he was told. He felt hollow inside, like the time he’d shown up to school and all the other kids were gone because their parents had paid for them to take a field trip.

The phone slammed down. Judy glared at him.

Charlie mumbled, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. He walked away from the counter. His shoulders were up around his ears by the time he reached the door. He half expected a security guard to snatch him up by the collar and drag him to the police station. Shit, what would that be like? Waiting in jail with a bunch of other bums, hoping to God his wife would come bail him out?

Speaking of his wife, where the hell was she? Sue was always home. She didn’t trust the maid. She was sure the woman was stealing the change off Charlie’s bureau. He kept it in a jar. Every Christmas, he would count it out and they’d use the money to buy presents for his daughter.

“Shit,” Charlie muttered. He had a strange image pop into his head: Sue banging some guy. Charlie couldn’t see the man’s face, but for the life of him, he couldn’t get the idea out of his head.

Charlie pushed on the door just as a woman was opening it. “I’m sorry, I—”

The woman smiled at him. “Please.” She held open the door.

It was an awkward situation, but Charlie went first. Outside, the sun was even more brutal than before. His head started to pound as he walked through the outdoor eating area. The entire mall was packed with women. What had he been thinking, coming here? He didn’t belong in a place like this.

Charlie picked up the pace. He held up his hand to try to keep the sun from burning his eyeballs. There were footsteps behind him. Charlie turned. He had to blink several times to clear his vision. It was another woman. She was carrying two bags in one hand.

Christ, he was never going to get away from these broads.

Charlie walked faster toward the car. He pulled his keys out of his pocket. He jammed them into the lock. They fell onto the ground.

“Sir?” the woman called. “Can I give you a hand?”

“No, thank you.”

“You’re sure?”

What was he, twelve? “No, thank you.”

He waited for her to leave before he opened the car door. After a moment’s scrambling, he found some change under the Buick’s floor mats. Charlie tucked his hands into his pockets as he headed toward the road. He pulled back the door to the phone booth. He dropped a dime into the slot. He dialed his home number. He waited through six rings before Mary Jane picked up.

“Lam residence.”

“It’s Charlie,” he told the maid. “Is Mrs. Lam home?”

“Nawsir, she’s usually out this time of day.”

“Usually?” he echoed, not liking the way the word sounded. “Usually” meant a routine. “Usually” meant always. “Where does she go?”

Mary Jane hesitated, and in that hesitation, Charlie saw his whole life flash before his eyes. Was she really out banging some guy? Could Sue do that to him? Shit, he’d done it to her, but that was different. Charlie was just letting off some steam. If Sue was fucking some other dude, it was because she felt something for him.

“Sir?” Mary Jane said.

Charlie was sick of being called “sir.” Every woman in his life lately was doing it. He
had a fucking name. “Tell her I called,” he said, then, “No, tell her I’m looking for her.”

Charlie slammed down the receiver. Then he picked it up and slammed it down again.

And then he doubled over.

“Shit!” he hissed. The pain in his gut was unbearable. The knifing sensation was back, but this time it cut through his intestines. His knees buckled. He fell to the floor. The glass panes on either side pressed into him because he was so fucking fat he filled the phone booth.

Charlie tried to get his breathing under control. He was panting. His face was red hot. Sweat had glued his shirt to his back. He felt wet between his legs. Had he bled through? Charlie bent around so he could check the back of his pants. He looked like a dog chasing its tail. He put his hand back there, but he couldn’t tell if he was touching sweat or blood.

With excruciating slowness, the pain ebbed away. He pressed himself up to standing. He opened the door a crack and let the cold air come in. There were tears in his eyes.

What was happening to him? His guts were on fire. He felt like he’d been hit by a Mack truck. Charlie put his hand to his back. The muscles felt tight as a drum. He could almost feel them throbbing under his fingertips. Finkelmeyer had definitely got him. Maybe an elbow. Maybe a fist. Charlie couldn’t remember because it had all happened so fast. The guy must’ve punched him in the back. There was no other explanation.

This is how you end it
.

Charlie put his hand in his jacket pocket. The knife was still there.

Five years, Jo had told him. Five years was how long it had taken for Finkelmeyer to go from being a successful slumlord to a bum living on the streets.

Melvin Finkelmeyer.

The name wasn’t the sort Charlie was used to hearing. He reached under the phone and pulled up the white pages. The chain was too short. He had to balance the book on his knee. He ran his finger down the page. There were more Finkelmeyers than he would’ve thought, but there was only one Melvin.

Charlie put another dime in the coin slot.

“You sounded taller on the phone.” The widow Finkelmeyer was standing on her front porch with a broom in her hands. A cigarette dangled from her lips. She wore an apron like Shirley Booth in
Hazel
. Her hair was wildly corkscrewed under the little white cap. She was rail thin, probably in her fifties, but her heavy makeup gave her the look of a gal who’d been around the block a few times.

“Is this your house?” Charlie asked, because she looked like the maid.

She waved him inside. “Melvin liked it when I dressed up.”

Charlie didn’t think that was any kind of answer, but he went inside anyway. She lived in one of those ranch houses they’d built after the war. Despite her maid getup, the place was a mess. Boxes were piled high around the foyer. Papers spilled onto the floor. There were magazines stacked around the sunken living room. The couch was piled high with glossy photos. Charlie saw the images and blanched.

“Kiddie porn,” the widow said. “Oughta be illegal, but whattaya gonna do?”

Charlie followed her into the kitchen. There were more magazines stacked on the table. Bondage mostly, but he saw some young kids, too.

“Give the people what they want.” The widow shrugged, like it was out of her hands. “People pay good money for that shit. The nastier it is, the more money they pay.” She shrugged again. “I got six kids to feed. One of ’em’s about to go to college. You know how expensive that is?”

Charlie didn’t know, because he’d always assumed Jenny would get married out of high school. Now that he was thinking about it, maybe he should put some money aside. He didn’t want his daughter to have to settle on the first cocksucker who winked her way. If she went to college, she’d be able to support herself. Charlie should be doing everything in his power to make sure she didn’t end up trapped like his mother.

The widow snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You in there, sugar?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Charlie looked around for a place to sit. There was nowhere. “Like I said on the phone, I wanted to talk to you about what happened to your husband.”

She snorted. “What
didn’t
happen to him?”

Charlie waited. And waited. Finally, he said, “The cops told me he’d changed over the last five years.”

She gave a heavy sigh. “My husband made a good living. And then he didn’t.”

“Why?”

She studied him. Smoke from her cigarette drifted into her eyes. “You knew Melvin?”

He shrugged.

“He owe you money? Because I don’t—”

“No.” Charlie didn’t know what to do except to come clean. “I was there yesterday. When it happened.”

“You kill him?”

“Of course not!” Charlie was shocked by the question. “He was trying to kill me.”

She smiled. “That sounds like my Mel. He was an asshole, but he was
my
asshole.”

Charlie leaned against the wall because there was nowhere to sit and he didn’t know how much longer he could go on standing. “Melvin said something to me before he killed himself. That we were the same. That fate brought us together.”

“That’s weird.” She used her foot to push a stack of magazines off a kitchen chair. “Sit down, honey. You don’t look so good.”

Charlie sat. “I think I’ve got a bladder infection.”

“Drink lots of cranberry juice.” She tapped her cigarette in the sink. “Melvin say anything else to you?”

Charlie thought about lying, but there was no point. “He said that I was going to end up like him.”

She nodded like it all made sense now. “He thought he could pass on the curse to you. He was always talking about how to get rid of it, move it on to somebody else.”

“What curse?”

“What curse?” She laughed at the question. “He just about lost everything except for the mail-order business, thank God for me. People weren’t scared of him anymore. They burned down all his buildings, the pimps rolled him every chance they got, and he ended up living on the street.” She gave one of her shrugs. “Sounds like a curse to me.”