You Believers (23 page)

His hand squeezed lightly at her throat. She could see him watching the blood ooze from her wounds.

She heard her own breath panting, could feel how with each pounding beat of her heart, blood trickled out. But she didn’t feel a weakening. Not yet. He mashed one hand down on her chest and with the other hand swiped the knife across her chest, the pain sucking the breath out of her.

He stepped back. “There. Not deep but good enough to bleed.” He winced again, bent over, straightened. “We gotta get this over now. ’Bye, princess.” He squeezed at her neck, and she fought him, thrashed and turned so hard and fast he couldn’t get a good grip. But her mind stayed quiet somehow.
My mother
, she thought,
my father, my life
. All the things she could be shimmered out on the horizon. She could see the shadows of herself, her mother, her father, her life. He squeezed at her throat, but she pushed against the floor with her feet, thrashed, fought. He kept grasping but couldn’t get hold of the place he wanted. She got one leg free, tried to kick but tipped the chair, and the side of her head slammed hard against the floor. The pain took her breath, sent sparks behind her eyes. Then she could see him standing there. He was trying to stand tall, but he bent, one hand rubbing his belly as if to hold something there.

“Damn, girl, where’d you learn to fight? Like you got some super-power shit, man.” He looked her over. “You like a damned cat. How many lives you got left in you?” He nudged at her, but she didn’t have the strength to move. “You ain’t got nothing left now, do you?” He straightened, clenched his jaw, went stiff all over, then breathed. Something was wrong with him. “I’m gonna do this right,” he said. “But I gotta go do something else first. I’m gonna find something in the basement to finish you off.”

He hurried to the hall, went down the stairs to the basement.

Molly lay there sucking in breath. Why wasn’t she dead yet?
Run. You have to get up. Run
. But she didn’t know how she could run. Standing would be impossible. On her side and with her ear
pressed to the floor, she could hear him banging things in the basement. What would he find there? A screwdriver, a hammer, a saw.
It’s your last chance
, the voice whispered.
Please
.

She rolled herself up, saw the knife on the floor. She grabbed it, sawed and poked at the tape on her ankles. She listened, heard the thud of something in the basement. In a few minutes he would kill her. She tore at the tape, kept pushing, pulling against it. If she died, she’d never marry. She’d never have babies. She’d never really get her chance to live. She hadn’t known she wanted marriage, babies. But she wanted it all. She’d have to try anything, pick and pick at the tape, hoping, hoping and praying if she picked at it long enough . . . then she felt it. The tape ripped.

She heard the sound of the toilet flushing in the basement. She clawed the tape loose, stood, and ran to the living room. With her hands on the doorknob, she paused, heard him coming up the stairs. She said the words without thinking: “I’m gonna live,” and she ran naked into the night toward her neighbors’ house. She saw the light on, ran toward it, a small smudge of yellow light. It would save her. She ran up onto the porch, crouched at the door, reached, rang the bell, then pounded.

She looked back for him, saw only the streetlight, shadows, and trees. She pounded again, crouched lower. “Help me, please,” she whispered. She shivered against the concrete of the porch. She was naked and bleeding and holding to the brick of the house with her palms. She was dying. She could feel it, her soul slipping with each pulse pumping her blood out to the air. The door opened. She closed her eyes and fell into the sound of a woman’s scream.

A Man Ought to Be Accountable for His Own Bad Aim

The old woman looked off her back porch, gauged the sunlight left. There would be just enough time to dry her sheets on the clothesline. Sheets dried quick and crisp in the heat. She lifted the clothesbasket on her hip, pushed the screen door open, and headed toward the line. She caught the acrid scent of rot. She scanned her yard to the meadow line. Nothing there. The summer before, a possum had crawled under her porch and died. She lifted her nose to the little bit of breeze and tracked the scent to the line of trees, the patch of woods that stood between the back of her yard and the old farm that was still up for sale and gone fallow. Another wild pig badly shot and left to rot, no doubt. She remembered that smell. Hunters were often in the woods to the west, going for quail, pigs, deer, she didn’t know what all; she’d gotten used to the sounds of guns going off. It wasn’t the season for shooting wild pigs, but no one really paid much mind to the rules. It was poor farm country all around. And she figured a family had to eat. She couldn’t blame a man for shooting a pig out of season if a family had to eat. She stood there, debating about hanging those sheets on the line or throwing them in the dryer. She wondered how many nickels it took to dry a load of sheets. Her husband had
taught her this, to think of nickels falling down a drain every time she left the light on in a room, every time she was too quick to crank on an electric heater when she felt a chill, every time she chose to dry her clothes inside instead of hanging them on a line. He wasn’t stingy, just frugal:
You’ll thank me one day, when I’ve passed on and you’ll get to keep this house with all those nickels I’ve saved
.

She looked up at the blue sky, could feel him watching. “All right, Melvin,” she said as she headed toward the clothesline. She stopped at the wall of stench in the air, a thick reek of rot. A wave of nausea moved through her, making the back of her throat water, leaving a chill up her arms.
There ought to be a law
, she thought,
about leaving a badly shot pig
.
A man should be accountable for his own bad aim
. But she’d heard stories. One man lost a leg when he went into the brush for a wounded pig. It came tearing out, nearly killed him.

She reached into the pocket of her dress, where she always tucked a clean handkerchief to wipe away sweat and dab at the tears that slipped from her eyes on days when the pollen was bad. She tied the handkerchief around her head, covering her nose and mouth so she could get on with the business of drying her sheets the way she liked. They’d be crisp and would smell like sun and heat in the evening in spite of that rotten smell that hung in the air.

Some Kind of Comfort

Billy sat at the bar, his eyes fixed on the “Missing” flyer taped on the mirror, Katy’s face smiling above all those bottles of booze. There was another flyer in the men’s room, and he figured in the ladies’ room too. And there were others at the front entrance, inside and out. If anybody who came to the bar knew anything about Katy, he would have found her by now.

He heard Pete on his cell phone making plans for a fund-raiser. Shelby must have known how to say all the right things to get the old man to post flyers, set out donation jars, and even open the bar on a Sunday to raise money for REV. The event for Katy would be a night of Irish music, everybody drinking and smiling and slapping Billy on the shoulder, saying everything would be all right and then
I’m sorry; I’m so sorry, Billy
. Now he was thinking he’d just stay home.

“Not there,” Pete said, louder now and coming up to the bar. He pointed at the REV donation jar under Katy’s picture. “Move it out here on the bar, where folks can get at it.”

The bartender—Allison was her name—looked pissed, but when she caught Billy’s gaze, she smiled. She was always smiling as if she knew him in that secret way women had. She knew damn
well the only woman he wanted was Katy. She set the jar in front of Billy, gave him a little shrug, then looked at Mike. “Don’t you think somebody might just reach in and steal money just sitting in a jar?”

Pete reached and turned the jar around to show another picture of Katy. “You’re just worried about losing tips. Nobody is going to steal from that jar—nobody, not with Katy smiling like that. Half the men come in here are in love with that girl.” He turned to Billy. “Sorry, Billy, but you know it’s true.”

Billy raised his beer bottle. “I know.” He took a sip. “But I’m the one she’s gonna marry.” He looked at Allison when he said this. She went to the other end of the bar, where a guy was standing, raising an empty glass. He wouldn’t say anything about the man named Randy. They’d traced the number. A Miami number, but the man named Randy Stiller had a place out by Lake Waccamaw. The man named Randy Stiller was gone, no sign of him having been home for weeks. Billy counted the days. Katy had been gone for weeks. They couldn’t say exactly how long the man named Randy had been gone. The man named Randy had canceled his cell. It sucked when your only hope was that your girl had disappeared with a man named Randy.
But she wouldn’t do that
, Livy had said.
She would call
. Livy was right. Katy could do some wild things, but she always called. This was more than some new guy. Billy wouldn’t say it, didn’t need to say it. Something was terribly, unbearably wrong.

Pete moved the jar to a spot where Billy wouldn’t have to look at it. He saw the tears starting to rise up in Pete’s eyes. Billy knew Pete loved Katy too, even though he was old enough to be her dad. Any man could love Katy. Billy figured if something awful happened to Katy, it couldn’t be anyone she knew. He glanced at her face in the photograph and thought of Frank. As far as Billy knew, Frank was the only man who had hurt Katy, but he hadn’t meant to. Frank
was Frank, and Katy wanted him to be something else. She kept slamming herself into him when he’d told her from the start he wasn’t the type to settle, told her she should walk away. Billy wondered if she was still wearing his grandmother’s ring. The detectives had checked the pawnshops. It was as if someone had grabbed her. No signs of a struggle, the cop said. It was like she’d just stepped out of the truck for a minute and disappeared.

He heard Pete say, “She’s a hellion, that one.” Billy realized that Pete had been talking for some time and he hadn’t heard the words. Pete was behind the bar now, pouring a glass of sweet tea. “You can see it in her eyes.”

“Who?” Billy said.

Pete raised his glass. “Shelby Waters. I’ve never seen anything like her.”

Billy sipped his beer. “Yeah, she’s a git-’er-done kind of gal.”

He heard the guy at the end of the bar say, “Nah, that’s for you, hon. You just remember that when I come back in this weekend.”

Allison said something flirty, he figured, because the guy was grinning that dopey drunk grin when he walked back to his table. Billy didn’t see how Katy could stand this job, having to smile at assholes all night. Allison came over, dropped a five and some change into the REV jar. She gave Billy a wink. Billy acted like he hadn’t seen it. Pete came out from behind the bar to sit next to him. He was still smiling. Billy nudged him. “I can get you putting up the flyers and the jar and all. But how did she talk you into giving up the condo?”

Pete shrugged. “It sits empty most of the time.” He shook the ice in his tea. “And you know I’d do about anything for Katy. Shelby said Katy’s mom had a need for it, that she could use a change of scene.” He shook the ice again, studied it as if he were trying to get it just so. Billy knew what he was thinking; he was thinking Livy
probably couldn’t stand to be around Billy. But he said, “It’d be hell to sit in your own daughter’s house, looking at all her stuff, wondering if she’s all right, wondering where she is.”

Billy looked at Katy’s face on the flyer. He’d taken that picture. They had been at Tybee Island. They had ridden bikes on the beach that day. He took some quick swallows of his beer. He looked at Pete. “It’s hell, all right.” He felt Pete looking at him. “Don’t, Pete,” he said. “If I hear one more fucking ‘I’m sorry’ …”

“I was just gonna ask about her mom. Shelby Waters is gonna bring her in here any minute to meet me.”

Billy grinned. “She’s married, Pete.”

“I know she’s married. I’m just curious.”

“Is that what you call it?”

Pete smiled. “So I like to admire the ladies. Doesn’t mean I paw at them like some old dog in need of a scratch.” He looked at the flyer on the mirror. And Billy saw the little wince in his face. “Katy always had nothing but good things to say about her mom. But it must be strange having her in the house. You two get along all right?”

“It’s all right,” Billy said. “She doesn’t like me smoking pot. So I told her that until we find Katy, I’ll stick to beer. Katy would want it that way.” He nudged Pete’s shoulder. “And I’m guessing Katy would think it’s cool, you letting her mom stay at your condo for a while.”

Pete turned to Katy’s flyer and looked at it as if waiting for her approval. “Yeah, it’s like Katy says, it’s never a wasted thing to do a good thing.”

Billy wondered if people were always quoting Katy or he was just noticing it lately.

Pete sipped his tea. “I figure this is a good thing that will ease her mom. She probably needs to get out of that house.”

Billy wasn’t ready for Livy to leave. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to tell Livy that he didn’t want her going, but he’d sound
like some scared little boy. “I guess she will be more comfortable out there.”

The front door opened, and it seemed the whole place stopped to see who was coming in. Billy wondered if Pete had told people that Katy’s mom was coming. Maybe that was why it was so empty. Nobody would want to see Katy’s mom; it just hurt. Gator walked in with that quiet way he had. He was in his sixties but walked tall and smooth. Katy had said only dancers walked like that, but Gator had never been a dancer. He might have been a lot of things, but the only thing he claimed was being a two-tours-of-Vietnam vet, and a drunk and a stoner. Now he was a river guide, could take tourists way back into the canals where only alligators and birds cared to go.

“Hey, man,” Billy said. Gator came over without a word. “I brought your laundry. Katy had it all folded on the dryer.”