Touchy and Feely (Sissy Sawyer Mysteries) (19 page)

Feely nodded. He couldn’t find the words to answer her. He nearly said, ‘I love you,’ but he didn’t know how she would respond. If she laughed at him, he thought that he would probably shrivel up and die of humiliation, like a slug with salt on it.

Serenity turned and opened the door to her room. ‘Maybe I’ll come down later, when I’ve washed my hair. Help yourself to anything you want. You know, beer, Cheezos.’

‘Sure. Thanks.’

Feely went downstairs to the living room. The log that he had wedged into the hearth had left a smoky mark right up the middle of the white-painted fire-surround, and up the wall, too. He picked up the poker and levered the log sideways, so that it wouldn’t stick out so much.

On the TV news, a detective with dark rings under his eyes was saying, ‘—one or two promising leads, and we’re expecting some developments within the next twenty-four hours. We’re keeping an open mind as to motive, but it seems increasingly likely that Mrs Mitchelson’s shooting was a random act of violence by a very disturbed individual.’

Feely sat down at the dining table and opened his blue cardboard folder. Captain Lingo wouldn’t have had any trouble telling Serenity how he felt. But Feely was beginning to think that maybe words weren’t everything. You could know every single word in the English language. You could know ‘piaffer.’ But if you didn’t know how to say ‘I love you’ without the risk of humiliating yourself, what was the point? For the first time, Feely wondered if Father Arcimboldo might have not been telling him the whole truth.

He pulled out a clean but slightly crumpled sheet of art paper, and took the top off his thick black felt-tipped pen. He sketched Orchard Street, and the Bellow house, and the snow. Captain Lingo was walking up toward the front door. He was turning around to Verba and saying, ‘I feel magnetized toward this house, Verba . . . there’s somebody here I have to talk to.’

Verba said, ‘Very well, Captain Lingo . . . I’ll meet you later.’

In the next frame, the front door was opened and Serenity was standing there—an idealized Serenity: slimmer, more bosomy, with much more hair, and feline eyes. ‘I don’t know why,’ she was saying, ‘but I’ve been expecting you.’

Captain Lingo and Serenity go into the living room. Captain Lingo says, ‘You and me have origins of such disparity that it beggars belief that we have even found ourselves in the same room together, let alone the same continental mass.’

Serenity says, ‘
Mmm
 . . .’

Captain Lingo takes Serenity in his arms. ‘If each word of love was a flower, I would be presenting you now with the most abundant bouquet that the world of horticulture has ever had to offer.’

Serenity says, ‘
Ohhhh
 . . .’

In the last frame, Captain Lingo kisses Serenity and says, ‘You are the dictionary definition of “perfection.”’

Feely spent over an hour filling in the background details. When he had finished, he sat back and looked at his work with satisfaction, because he thought he had drawn it very well—especially his idealized Serenity. But he also looked at it with self-doubt, because he wasn’t at all sure that Serenity would like it. She might even be insulted, because he had drawn her waist so tiny and her breasts so big.

Even so, he was determined that he would show it to her. If he couldn’t find a way to tell her that he had fallen in love with her, then Captain Lingo could do it for him. All he needed was courage, and maybe a drink. He went across to the cocktail trolley, unscrewed the cap from the Maker’s Mark, sniffed it, and then took a swig straight from the bottle. Then he stood there for almost half a minute, his eyes crowded with tears, his lungs on fire, coughing and coughing and coughing.

Holy Mary Mother of God, why would anybody want to drink that stuff on purpose?

When he had wiped his eyes and blown his nose on a piece of kitchen towel, he went upstairs. It was very quiet on the landing. He leaned his head against the door of Serenity’s bedroom, but he couldn’t hear anything. No television, no hair dryer, nothing.

Now he didn’t know what to do. If Serenity was asleep, he supposed that he could creep into her bedroom and lay his drawings on her bed. That would be pretty romantic, wouldn’t it? He could gently shake her awake and the first thing she would see when she opened her eyes would be Captain Lingo, telling her that she was the dictionary definition of perfect.

But what if she wasn’t asleep? What if he walked into her bedroom and she thought he was trying to come on to her? He stood outside her door for over a minute, and then he hesitantly knocked. He waited, and waited, but there was no answer. Maybe he hadn’t knocked loud enough. He tried knocking a second time. He waited, but there was still no answer.

It was then that he lost his nerve. He should have gone in and laid his drawings on her bed, but he didn’t have the
cojones
even to take hold of her doorknob. I’ll show her the drawings tomorrow at breakfast, he consoled himself, even though he knew that his chance was already passing him by. Tomorrow at breakfast would be too late, and Robert would be there, with a ten-megaton hangover and his hand still hurting.

Feely didn’t know how long he stood outside her door, trying to make up his mind what to do, but it seemed like about an hour. He was so tired that his neck began to creak. In the end, he tiptoed his way along the landing to the guest bedroom, so that he could check on Robert.

He opened the door, and at first he couldn’t work out what he was looking at. The bedside lamp was on, and the pink quilt had slid off the bed and was heaped on the floor. On the bed itself, naked except for a pair of khaki knee-high socks and a green glass necklace, was Serenity. Behind her, also naked, was Robert. He was holding his bandaged hand out sideways as if he were a motorist, signaling to turn left. His white buttocks were clenched together with effort. The air in the bedroom was almost unbreathable with the pungency of marijuana.

Feely stood in the open doorway feeling as if he had walked into the wrong universe. Robert turned around and saw him, and for a split second he looked mildly surprised. But then he gave him an exaggerated grin, all teeth, and said, ‘Hi there, Feely!’ He didn’t even look embarrassed.

‘I’m—’ said Feely, and reached for the door handle. He just wanted to blot it all out.

But—‘Feely!’ Robert called him. ‘Wait up! Where the hell are you going, Feely?’ and now Serenity opened her eyes and saw him, too. Her cheeks were apple red and her forehead was shiny with perspiration, and she smiled at him, like everything was perfectly normal.

‘Come on, Feely,’ said Robert. ‘Don’t be shy and retiring. Come on in. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?’

‘I, uh—’

‘Come on, Feely! Not like you to be lost for words! We’re having a good time here, aren’t we, Serenity? We’re having a bee-aye-double-ell
ball
! Why don’t you join us?’

Serenity giggled. ‘Come on, Feely!’ she repeated. ‘Come on, Feely!’ Then—to the tune of ‘Hang On, Sloopy’—she sang, ‘Come on, Feely—Feely, come on!’

Feely opened his mouth and closed it again. He had never experienced such an avalanche of emotions, all at once. Embarrassment, jealousy, lust, anger, rage and elation. He felt as if God had opened the top of his head and poured them all in, without even giving him the chance to say
stop!

‘Don’t you Cubans know how to have fun?’ Robert taunted him. ‘I thought Cuba was the land of sex and rum and sex and big fat cigars and sex! Here—come and have a piece of this! How can you refuse?’

Feely lifted up his drawing. ‘I did this for you,’ he said, so weakly that he could hardly hear his own voice. Robert and Serenity obviously couldn’t hear him either, or didn’t care. Robert circled his right arm around Serenity’s flabby waist. He heaved once, he heaved twice, and then he rolled right over onto his back, his left arm still extended, so that Serenity was lying on top of him, facing upward. She kicked her legs and screamed and laughed and shrilled out, ‘You’re crazy! What are you doing? We’re going to fall off the bed!’

Robert laughed at Feely, over Serenity’s shoulder; and Serenity laughed at him too.

‘Here it is, Feely, the promised land. Come and stake your claim.’

‘Come on, Feely—Feely, come on!’ sang Serenity.

Feely didn’t hesitate. He dropped his Captain Lingo drawing onto the floor. He reached behind him and dragged off his polo shirt, inside-out, and dropped that too.

‘Yayy!’ Robert encouraged him, as he unbuttoned his chinos. But then, ‘Don’t forget your socks, Feely! There ain’t nothing more guaranteed to put a girl off than a naked guy wearing nothing but his socks!’

Feely tugged off his socks, and then he stumbled out of his pants. He had to grab the end of the bed to stop himself from falling over. But then he was standing there naked and skinny, and so excited that he could hardly breathe.

‘Here it is, Feely!’ said Robert. All the same he wasn’t sure what Robert and Serenity expected him to do. Feely climbed onto the end of the bed, but he felt inexperienced and thin and unsure of himself and he was convinced that they could actually see his heart beating, under his ribcage.

‘Give the kid a helping hand, will you, darling?’ wheezed Robert. ‘I’m dying of asphyxia under here.’

Serenity lifted herself up a little, even though Robert grunted and said, ‘Squashed to death by an overweight bimbo, that’s what they’ll put on my headstone!’ She reached out and took Feely’s hand, and drew him closer. ‘Come on, Feely,’ she whispered. ‘Feely, come on.’

Feely edged himself closer and closer, and then Serenity guided him inside her. She felt so warm and liquid that Feely thought that there was no sensation in the world which could possibly feel more ecstatic. And she was still looking at him, and still smiling, and she seemed to be so calm and matter-of-fact.

Then they were all together. Robert heaved his hips up, and Serenity arched her back, and at the same time she grasped Feely around the waist and pulled him into her. This was like nothing he had ever felt before, nothing he had imagined before . . .

And suddenly it was over. Robert slumped and let out a deep groan of defeat. ‘God, I’m too drunk . . . God, I’m far too drunk.’ All three of them collapsed and lay there with their arms and their legs entangled. Feely could see a hand and at first he thought it was his, but when it wriggled its fingers he realized it was Serenity’s. Robert was breathing noisily against his neck.

As he lay there, it slowly crept into Feely’s mind that he loved these people. Not just Serenity, because she was a girl, and her breasts had looked enticing in the firelight; but Robert, too; for all that he was so cynical, and he drank so much, and he had nearly killed them both. And it wasn’t because they had all had sex together, either. It was the closeness. It was the feeling of being in a family, where they could say whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted. Feely suddenly understood that he had reached the place where he was going. Here, on this bed, with Robert and Serenity, this was the north.

Eventually Feely sat up. He reached out and stroked Serenity’s hair, and then her shoulder. She looked at him and said, ‘I’m hungry again. Are you hungry?’

‘It’s that dope you smoke,’ said Robert. ‘Personally, I couldn’t eat another thing.’

With that, he let off a loud, complicated fart. Serenity let out a shout of laughter and fell on top of him, and Feely started laughing, too. For nearly five minutes, the three of them lay on the bed, laughing until they had to bang each other on the back.

But Robert suddenly stopped laughing and said, ‘Shit!’ and then ‘Shit!’ and started ferreting wildly through the sheets.

‘What’s wrong, man?’ Feely asked him.

‘My fingers!’ said Robert, in desperation. ‘My goddamned fingers have fallen off!’

 

I
t took them nearly two hours to find 7769 Lamentation Mountain Road, and by then Steve’s left eye was throbbing so much that he could barely open it. He knew it was stress, and he knew he should probably take something for it, but he had never liked pills. His mother had always taken pills. So far as she was concerned, pills were the answer to everything, from chronic disappointment with her choice of husband to a fallen Parmesan soufflé.

When they saw headlights on the Berlin Turnpike less than a mile up ahead of them, Doreen realized that they must have passed the house already. She turned the Tahoe around and drove slowly back the way they had come.

‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she said, peering through the windshield as if she were a lookout on a whaler. ‘Alan’s really going to need your support right now.’

‘I know that, Doreen. But this is a homicide, or even a double homicide. It doesn’t matter who’s involved, homicide has to be a higher priority than sexual assault.’

‘Have you heard yourself? He’s your son!’

‘I know. But if he did it, then he deserves whatever he gets.’

‘You don’t really think that he assaulted that girl, do you? It sounds to me like she made it up, so that her parents wouldn’t give her a hard time for playing mummies and daddies while they were out.’

‘Doreen—I don’t know. I haven’t heard the evidence.’

Doreen drove in silence for a while. But then she said, ‘I don’t entirely blame you. I mean, kids these days. It’s about time they carried their own cans. They always seem to expect that we’re going to do it for them, and then they get chippy with us when we say no.’

Steve was wiping his nose. ‘That doesn’t make me feel any better. But, thanks.’

They turned a rising left-hand bend, and as they did so they saw a track running off to the right, between overgrown bramble bushes. The bushes were thick with snow, which had effectively camouflaged the track when they were approaching it from the opposite direction. Doreen stopped the SUV and said, ‘Logically, 7769 should be here.’