Little Mountain (25 page)

         Then he heard a voice, muffled by the rain until the two sounds blended together.
S-s-s-s-s.
So tired and freaked out tonight.
Must have been talking to himself.
Only idiots get spooked by the dark.

         He walked over to the railing and unzipped his fly to take a leak. Twelve inches, he’d told the broad. What a laugh.

         Now it was two-thirty. What was he going to do if the Man didn’t show up? That settled it: this time the Man was really dead.

         Suddenly, Viseth felt a sharp pain in his foot, and heard a soft pop. Shit, that hurt! It almost felt like stupid Rocky had winged him in the ankle with a sharp piece of granite from the curbstone. No, it was even worse than that, almost like--. Next to him, he heard a clang against the railing as the pain in his foot began to blaze. Was someone
shooting
at him? Who the hell would shoot at
him
? He clung to the railing to steady himself. Did he hear a whoosh in the air? Was that a bullet that flew past his ear? He looked around, his eyes wide and frantic, but nothing seemed to move in the darkness. Maybe there was safety behind the maple tree. Or was that where the shots were coming from? How deep was the canal? Maybe he could hide in there. Was
Long
shooting at him?

         Find a shadow. Get out of the light. His only hope was the Man now. He grasped the railing and started to pull himself away from the light. The next sting bit into the calf of his leg as though he’d stepped into a nest of yellow jackets. The pain roared up his leg and out of his mouth.

         The canal leaned on its end, the street lights swirled in jagged patterns, and his head seemed slow to turn at the flap-flap-flap of footsteps. He screamed once as the butt of a pistol crashed onto his right hand. His grip loosened, and the ground rushed up to meet him. The back of his hand was shattered, a white-hot pain that sent a lightning storm across his eyes, brilliant yellows and reds and blues. He couldn’t tell if he was screaming for help or not. Now he felt cold metal inside his mouth, hard against his chattering teeth, and his tears and snot began to flow. A dark figure held a small black box in his left hand. Behind him, the Man held a palm leaf and scratched his balls.

         The Man’s voice was soft. “Would you like to beg for your life?
Angka
would enjoy that.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A rookie patrolman stayed in the hallway outside Julie’s room in case her attacker returned to finish what he had started. Already the hospital had received a call about her: How was Julia Long? What room was she in? They gave the caller no information, the hospital said.

         “Who did this to you, Julia?” Her father’s voice was low and deliberate, every syllable sharp and distinct.

         “Someone looking for me,” Sam said.

         “If I want any shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your head, Mister Long.”

         Julie closed her eyes and turned her face away.

         “For God’s sake, Eric,” Mother said. “Just stop. Sam, I want you and Trish to stay with us tonight. You stay as long as you need.”

         Eric Nordstrom’s eyes drilled a
hole
deep into Sam:
You!
You!
they
seemed to say, like the skull in the lake.

         Her parents stayed for half an hour and offered to take Trish with them. “Thanks, I’ll get the key you gave Julie,” Sam said. “I’ll stay a while longer and let myself in.”

         On his way out, Julie’s father spoke to Sam, his voice in a barely controlled whisper.
“You bastard.
When you get to my house tonight I want a full accounting from you. You fucked up protecting my daughter and grandchild.”

         Sam stayed with Julie in the hospital well after her parents had left with Trish, who’d fallen back to sleep in her grandmother’s arms.

         “Please forgive me,” Sam said.

         “Forgive you for what? This isn’t your fault.”

         “You needed me, and I wasn’t there.”

         “What would you have done? If you had been at home, I might be a widow now. Just be glad we’re all safe.” Julie stroked his hand. On the other side of a curtain, an old woman groaned--a terminal cancer patient, the nurse had said.

         The nurse came in and gave Julie a plastic cup of water and two Tylenol with codeine. Julie fell asleep shortly after the nurse left, and Sam turned out the room lights and sat next to her bed. He held his tears back for as long as her eyes stayed open, and then he let them flow.
Julie, I can’t lose you,
he thought as he held her limp hand.
I won’t let them take you.
But the painful truth was that he almost had. First Sarapon, then Mother and Father, and now he had turned his back on Julie and Trish. He hadn’t stopped Viseth. He hadn’t done his job as husband, father or cop, and now Julie was trying to make
him
feel better.

         In the hallway, Cletus Gower spoke quietly with Higgins. Cletus drove Sam back to his apartment so that Sam could pick up his car keys and a change of clothes from the bedroom dresser. The keys were on the floor in the middle of a spray of splinters. A river of dried blood led across several library books and into the corner where Julie and Trish had hidden.

         He drove to his in-laws’ house where Dottie had promised to make up a bed for him. But there was no way that sleep would come for Sam tonight, and no way that he wanted to face the dreams that awaited him. Sam had never thought he’d need a key to his in-laws’ house, but now he let himself in, removed his shoes, and set them neatly to one side. The light from the foyer shone into the living room onto the baby grand piano. This was the room where he had seen his first--and probably last--Persian rug, Ravel score, and Chagall painting.

         Upstairs he checked on Trish, her face faintly yellow from the nightlight. His fingertips brushed a hair from her cheek,
then
gently touched her eyelids. They were still now, and her breath was cool against his palms. Maybe the terror of that night wouldn’t leave her with bad dreams, but how could it not?

         “Sam.” He turned and saw his mother-in-law silhouetted against the hallway light. Her voice was soft, and she sounded as though she’d been sobbing and might start again. “Your bed is in the next room.” She put her arm around his shoulder and gave him a squeeze.

         “Thank you for helping us,” Sam said. “Was Trish any trouble?”

        
“Heavens, no.
Patricia was as good as gold.” She was silent for a moment,
then
let out a deep sigh.
“God’s honest truth?
She screamed for half an hour. Did Julie finally get to sleep?”

         Sam nodded. They walked downstairs to the kitchen, and she turned on a light. The window air conditioner clicked off, and she pulled her terry cloth robe closer to her. She pulled a Kleenex out of a flowered box and dabbed at her puffy eyes, then wiped her nose. A bottle of vodka sat on the counter, its cap askew. As far as he knew from Julie, Dottie Nordstrom’s worst vice was an occasional Dunhill cigarette. Her husband was a different story.

        
“How about you and Dad?”
“Mom” and “Dad” sounded awkward, but he never knew what to call else to call his in-laws. “Mr. Nordstrom” sounded too formal, “Eric” too familiar, and “Dad” implied a bond that didn’t exist. But right now it didn’t matter.

         “He can just take a pill to go to sleep. I wanted to wait up for you. Have you eaten?”

        
Smirnoff’s and Sominex?
How could Julie’s father treat himself this way? “No, I’d planned to eat after I got home from the gym.”

         “Then let me get you something.”

         Come to think of it, he was hungry. She warmed a plate of veal cordon bleu in the microwave and served it with a glass of milk.

         “Skim,” she said. “Sorry.”

         “No, that’s fine.” He hated milk. “That’s perfect, thanks.
Really, nothing else.
Really.
Please go to bed, Mom.”

         “Are you sure you’re all right?”

         Ever since eight o’clock, he felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Folded in two and left lying in the mud. “Sure, I’m sure.”

         “Do you think Julia...Is she safe in the hospital? Is somebody--” Her lips quivered and her eyes welled up, slate grey, like monsoon clouds.

         “She’s perfectly safe. We have an officer outside her room all night long.”

        
As safe as they knew how to make her until her discharge, probably in five or six days.
Viseth Kim might have been content to think he scared Sam off the case.

         She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You be sure to bring Patricia here tomorrow.”

         “I will.”

         “You two stay as long as you wish.”

         “Thanks, we will.”

         “I will stay home tomorrow and take care of Patricia.”

         Sam clenched his teeth. Did they think he was incapable? “I’ll do it myself, thank you.”

        
“Y-yes, of course.”

         What was he talking about? Julie’s mother could stay home from work if she wanted to. But his tone seemed to jar tears loose from the rims of her eyes.
Water over the dam.
She turned and went upstairs to bed.

         This house made him uncomfortable. Everything about it was strange to Sam, from its paintings to its leftovers. Julie had left it all behind her the day she left Richard--her father would be damned if he would help her at all if she was going to be such a fool. The sooner Sam and Trish could move back home, the better.

         Maybe watching TV would settle his nerves, so he headed to the den. He flipped on the light, stepped quietly downstairs, then stopped and turned around. The sole of his foot pressed into the carpeted tread on the bottom step. That wasn’t how the footprint had looked on Bin Chea’s front stoop. The heel had been in the middle of the tread, and the toe disappeared into a riser.

         Sam had been mistaken. It couldn’t be a footprint, because the next step got in the way.

         It had to be a foot.

         In the den, he picked up the remote and turned on the television. He didn’t bother to take off his leather jacket. Five minutes later he turned off the TV and went down to the cellar to find a ball-peen hammer. He flexed his fingers around the handle, and the hammer felt like an extension of his fist. He tucked the hammer inside his belt, then picked up a flashlight and tested it.

         “What are you doing with my tools, Sam?” Eric Nordstrom stood in his bathrobe at the top of the stairs. He held a paper cup in one hand and two pills in the other. His question sounded more like simple curiosity than a challenge.

         “A project,” Sam said as he zipped up his jacket.

         Eric looked at his wrist, but he wasn’t wearing a watch.
“At this time of night?
What time is it?”

        
“One-something.
I’ll bring them right back.”

         “Where are you going?”

         “Walking,” Sam said. Eric said something else as Sam stepped outside, but Sam let the door close between them. An image of a crushed skull refused to leave his mind. Maybe the rain would wash it away.

         Sam had the freedom to grieve now, which he’d never had when the rest of his family had been snatched from him in Cambodia. This time it was not grief so much as rage and shame.

        
What right do they have to take our mothers and fathers from us?
Our wives, our sisters, our children?
And why can’t I protect them?
Sam’s fists clenched and unclenched as he tried to squeeze the tension out of his muscles and the hatred out of his bones, like a poison that had to be purged from his body. He strode quickly along the sidewalk as the mist angled across the street lights in waves and trickled down his neck. The quiet solitude helped him focus on his guilt as he headed down Westford Street. Damn it, he should have nailed Kim. He should have seen how dangerous the scum was. The way people crossed the street to avoid him. The look of contempt he’d given Sam.
I’m guilty and you can’t prove it,
Kim’s eyes had said.