Violence (2 page)

An elderly man watered some hanging plants out on his patio next door. He might have also been antsy to emerge from his hovel, but probably just as keen to catch a glimpse of his striking female neighbor. He cleaned his spectacles, put them back on and gazed admiringly through an opening in his bushes in Karen’s direction. He did not notice his elderly wife had stepped out of the house behind him.

“What are you staring at…” His elderly wife chided him. “…dirty old man.”

The elderly man instantly returned to his watering duties.

Karen, meanwhile, saw none of this, heard none of this. The sylvan sanctuary around her was abuzz with the ubiquitous sound of lawnmowers and leaf blowers. She didn’t even notice that her fourteen-year-old daughter, Tristan, in a new party dress, had clopped on to the pool deck but then again Tristan was trying to sneak up on her mother.

“Ta da!” Tristan exclaimed.

Karen sat up, brightening as Tristan modeled awkwardly in her high heels.

“It looks great!” Karen said as she reached out and steadied her daughter.

Tristan was teetering, holding her mother’s hand yet pushing back at the same time, like a foal learning to stand.

Karen could only think of how unaware her daughter was of her burgeoning sexuality.

“We’re going to have to try and slip this past your dad.“ Karen remarked, referring to Tristan’s revealing yet age-appropriate dress. Then Karen added, regarding the high heels. “You’ll get used to those. Just wear them around the house for the rest of the day.”

Neither Karen nor Tristan saw or heard the dump truck that had turned into the driveway and stopped. Three men jumped out, slimy, unwashed, all of them possessing “joint bodies,” tattooed physiques of steel, overly developed from incessant weightlifting in prison.

Derek Lysander, a brute with dancing, hellish eyes, took a swig of some cheap wine. He bared his yellowed teeth as he grabbed a work order from Ruben Roney, a sinewy bantam and youngest member of the group by a half-dozen years, being in his mid-twenties.

“Don’t fuck with me, man!” Derek hissed at the nonplussed Ruben for no particular reason, just because Derek was a jagoff.

Derek’s antics did produce a smirk in the scarred visage of Gabriel Lysander, Derek’s little brother and fellow carnivore.

“I’ll take it in a little.”

“Mom, it has to be ready for tonight.”

Karen was still sitting on the chaise lounge, checking the waist fitting on Tristan’s dress when she realized they were not alone and looked up, startled.

“Yeah, how ya’ doin’. We’re here for the landscaping.” Derek said, eyes like slits, intense.

“Oh, I thought it was tomorrow.” Karen said as she shot up, suddenly feeling naked standing there in her swimsuit.

Derek didn’t avert his gaze, gave her an unflinching stare. A few seconds passed which seemed like an eternity. He gave Tristan an admiring gaze. Tristan smiled back coyly.

“Ah, why don’t you get started and I’ll be right out.“ Karen said as she herded Tristan off, sensing Derek’s predatory gaze running over her backside as she scurried to some sliding glass doors. It hit her like a stun gun what he said next.

“Is your husband home?” Derek asked as Karen and Tristan disappeared into the house.

Gabriel and Ruben unloaded sod from the rear of the truck, stacking the rolls on a handcart in the driveway.

Derek, with a swagger, returned from the backyard, grinning. “Wait till you see this bitch! I’d like to fuck her right up the ass!” Derek announced. He loved seeing their expressions. He loved seeing their excitement, their eagerness to now lay their eyes on what he, Derek, had seen.

They hoped he wasn’t fucking around.

Karen only had time to put on a cover-up, and was stepping out on to the pool deck as Derek was reappearing with some landscaping plans. He unfurled the plans on the BBQ pit, spreading them out as Karen moved up to scan them.

“This is wrong, I told them I want the bushes all three feet apart…” Karen complained, looking over the diagrams.

The elderly woman next door stared at them inquisitively through her shrubbery. “Is that her husband?”

The elderly man shuffled up next to his nosey wife, happy to have permission to look over at Karen. He squinted, focused, and replied simply, “No, doesn’t look like him.”

“Come on, let’s go inside.” The elderly woman was already heading indoors, her grasp insistent and fingers clamped on to her elderly husband’s sleeve. He dejectedly followed her into their home.

Derek was now moving even closer to Karen, way too close for Karen’s comfort as Gabriel walked into the backyard lugging a pair of bushes whose roots were balled in soil and wrapped with burlap.

“Are those honeysuckle?” Karen asked, happy to step away from Derek. She strode quickly over to inspect the privet bushes, examining the identifying plastic tag on one of the stems. “Oh no, I ordered honeysuckle, these have to go back.”

Gabriel slumped, set the bushes down. Ruben rolled into view with the sod. They exchanged a look. Derek was right. She was fine.

“Let me call and see if they have what I ordered. Maybe we can get this all done today.” Karen told them, heading back into the house.

Tristan was furtively peering out the kitchen window at the workmen as her mother entered through the sliding glass doors.

“Change your clothes.” Karen instructed Tristan. “And put on pants.” There was some real apprehension in Karen’s voice as she pulled the door shut behind her.

Tristan
didn’t
need
to
be
told
twice. She kicked off her high heels and trudged down a hallway after her mother who remembered to take the zipper down on the back of her dress before each of them entered their respective, adjacent bedrooms.

Tristan shut the door behind her. Her bedroom was painted pink, of course. There was a jewelry box, a wooly throw rug, a four-poster bed, a desk, chair, and a laptop perennially turned on to her Facebook page. Tristan slipped out of her dress and draped it over the chair. She quickly threw on a shirt as she started pulling herself into a pair of jeans and was going to check her computer when she noticed the figure of a man moving past her curtained window.
That’s odd, isn’t it? Is he supposed to be there?
Tristan didn’t know what to think.

Derek, meanwhile, was the one who had drifted past Tristan’s window. Outside, he furtively slipped past another window where the curtains were drawn and continued around a corner of the house. There he found a window with a gap in the curtains.

Derek looked into what was the master bedroom where Karen was currently removing her cover-up. Derek couldn’t believe his good fortune as he leered through the window at Karen as she took off her swimsuit.

Karen, inside the master bedroom, could suddenly feel, like an icy breeze, that she was being watched. Head lowered, she quickly scooped up a bra, underwear, jeans and a shirt, and hurriedly entered the bathroom and shut the door.
Was somebody looking through her window?
She didn’t want to think about it. Not this second. Just get dressed and get out there.

Karen had finished dressing and was buttoning her jeans on her way to the kitchen when she was startled to find… Derek waiting for her.

“Oh God, you scared me!” She gasped, feeling like she’d been kicked in the head.

“Can I use your washroom?” Derek said, almost deadpan but with nostrils flared.

“Yes of course, there’s one-” Karen offered, pointing in the direction of the family room but he was already moving past her.

“I’ll find it.” Derek spewed dismissively.

Karen watched anxiously as Derek stepped past Tristan who was emerging from her bedroom, and then headed straight down the hallway to the master bedroom. Karen felt sick.

To Derek it was like finding the Holy Grail. Inside the master bedroom bathroom now, the door shut behind him, he picked up Karen’s swimsuit from the floor.

Outside, in the backyard, Gabriel and Ruben looked over from their sodding duties as Derek stuck his head out the bathroom window, triumphantly holding up Karen’s swimsuit. Their mouths dropped open like dumbfounded cavemen. They were used to his antics but could never be sure if his sociopathic personality, borderline or otherwise, had spilled over into an actual aggravated criminal sexual assault.

Gabriel, garden hose end sprayer in his hand, reflexively and always eager to outdo his brazen brother, put the nozzle by his crotch and dispensed a water stream like he was blowing a load of semen. Laughing, he remembered to toss a look to see if the missus of the manor was about or hell, maybe Derek was actually doing her? Nope. Gabriel could see out of the corner of his eye “the mom” looking in his direction. Better stop fucking around. He dropped the hose.

Karen
was
in the kitchen casting unsettled glances out the screened portion of the sliding glass door in Gabriel and Ruben’s direction. She could see them chuckling at something out of view towards the master bedroom portion of the house. She didn’t want to imagine what they could be laughing at. She picked up her cell phone and dialed a number.

Derek pulled his head back in and shut the master bathroom window. He found the crotch on Karen’s swimsuit and sniffed it. He opened his fly and feverishly began masturbating as he licked gluttonously at the breast pads on the suit.

CHAPTER 3

         A
nderson, in his Mercedes CLS550 coupe, used the integrated Bluetooth phone system to speed dial a number. A woman’s voice came over the car speaker.

“Good morning, Anderson Construction.” It was Joyce, the office secretary and bookkeeper.

“Hi, Joyce, it’s me.” Anderson got right to it. “Couple of things… can you call that private eye we hired, a year ago or so, and see if he’s available to get together? If he is around, ask him if he can meet me at the office later or I can go to his place, he’s not far from us if I remember correctly. It can be anytime this afternoon, but I want to talk to him in person.”

“Will do.” Joyce answered succinctly.

“And put a call into our window supplier.” Anderson continued. “Tell their rep to call me back. They’re going to ask why so let them know I’m ticked off at the delay in delivering our last order, but don’t let them put you off, just have them call me ASAP.”

“Okay, got it.” Joyce responded. “Oh, and your wife just called, she wants you to stop home.”

Anderson pulled into his driveway in his Mercedes, parking just in front of the dump truck. He might as well have driven up in a chauffeured Bentley.

Derek, Gabriel and Ruben looked over resentfully from their landscaping work as Anderson exited the car and headed into the house.

“What a waste!” Derek offered derisively, at a volume that couldn’t be heard by Anderson. “For what that car costs, I could go to Mexico, buy a boat, and drink tequila for the rest of my life!”

Anderson took his key out of the front door lock and shut the solid oak door behind him.

He found Karen in the kitchen in front of a TV busily preparing lunch. She was visibly relieved at his arrival but covered it up as he grabbed the day’s mail above the backsplash to peruse and sat down next to her at the granite-topped island. She casually leaned over and kissed him.

He liked it when she was affectionate, which was most of the time. She’d been that way ever since they met in a night school class studying CAD (“computer-aided-design”). She was working at an architectural firm at the time. He was using some G.I. Bill credits to pay for his studies while he started his own construction company. They did a lab project together and the rest was history. He’d always be grateful she took him even though it was clear he was damaged goods.

“I thought they were coming tomorrow.” Anderson said matter-of-factly regarding the workmen, shooting a glance into the backyard. “Should look great once the grass is in.”

Anderson’s cell phone rang. It was the standard carrier ringtone. His daughter, Tristan, had wanted him to download a cool ringtone. He didn’t do it.

“Hi, this is Noel…” He listened to the caller for a bit before interrupting. “I’m not being unreasonable. Two weeks ago you told my man there was a problem at the factory. Last week you said it shipped-” Anderson had to listen again as the caller broke in, then Anderson cut him off. “I don’t care what the excuse is. We placed this order well in advance as usual. None of this is custom. If you’re pushing us back to fill a bigger order-” The caller said something else and Anderson replied, “Well, whatever you have to do, work it out, but I want those windows by Monday or we find another supplier.” Anderson calmly hung up, forgetting about the call the same instant. He was not one to grind on work problems or bring them home.

Tristan trudged into the kitchen and sat down on one of the high-back bar stools right next to her father. She held a flyer in one hand and a self-help book in the other entitled “The Angel In Us.”

“What are you doing home?” He asked Tristan quizzically.

“I let her stay home. She has her dance tonight.” Karen offered, washing some lettuce for sandwiches.

Tristan spun towards her father on the swivel seat. “Dad, I figured out what you can get me for my graduation.” She declared, tilting her head in an achingly adorable way as she held the flyer up for him to see.

He took the leaflet ad from her, scanned it. “An iPhone?!!”

“It has the internet and everything.“ Tristan expounded.

“You’re in eighth grade. “ He said it as if that’s all that needed saying.

“All the kids are getting them.” Tristan countered.

Karen smiled at her rejoinder. It was simple and to the point.

“It’s what, a four-hundred dollar phone?” Anderson groaned.

“You can get one for two-hundred dollars.” Tristan succinctly informed her father.

“You broke your last two, what, you dropped them?” Anderson sighed. “I bought you the latest model…” He was trying to remember, “…a few months ago?”

“Six months ago.” Tristan corrected him, like it was eons in the past. “But it wasn’t an iPhone.”