Resurrection Dreams (20 page)

By eight o’clock in the morning, Charlie seemed ready. Melvin studied the telephone directory, chose a lawyer, and listened while Charlie made the call. An answering machine took the message to meet Charlie at the clinic at nine.

Finally, Charlie drove away. Melvin, exhausted and unwilling to endure another confrontation with Patricia, staggered up to his parents’ bedroom and fell onto their king-sized bed. He slept until mid-afternoon, when he was roused by shouts and pounding from his own room.

He found Patricia breathless and blubbering, her face streaked with tears. In her tantrum, she had raked herself with her fingernails. Her thighs and belly and breasts were lined with welts and scratches, some bleeding. A thread of blood had leaded from a corner of the Mouth of Ram-Chotep as if the ancient deity had snaked and dribbled. Her right forearm was tooth-torn and bleeding.

He had left Patricia alone several times before. Sometimes, he returned to find her asleep. Other times, she was weeping. But she had never done anything like this.

“Are you nuts!” Melvin blurted. He drew back a fist, but she looked so pitiful that he couldn’t bring himself to strike her. Instead, he eased the sobbing girl against him and held her. “It’s all right,” he murmured.

“You don’t love me, anymore.”

“Yeah, sure I do.”

“You’ve got him, now.”

“I don’t care about him.”

“You didn’t…come back all night.”

“I’m here. You shouldn’t go hurting yourself like that.”

“I couldn’t…help it. You locked me in.”

“I can’t be with you all the time. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve gotta do.”

She kept on crying and clinging to him. Melvin stroked her hair. Then, he lifted her and carried her into the bathroom. They stood together beneath the shower. As Melvin gently soaped her wounds, she stopped crying. She peeled the sodden bandages off his shoulders and chest, kissed his bite marks, slid the soap over them, then ran the slippery bar down his body. Staring into his eyes with a look that seemed both solemn and a little shy, she lathered and fondled him.

“I love you so much,” she said.

“I love you, too,” he told her. Watching the spray bounce off her hair and shoulders, seeing the look in her eyes, feeling the slick glide of her hands, he almost believed it.

When they finally went downstairs, it was late afternoon and Melvin’s stomach was growling. He knew he’d better start thinking about ways to rekill Charlie, but the old man wasn’t due back until nine. So he threw a frozen pizza in the oven for himself. When it was ready, he took a T-bone steak from the refrigerator and gave it to Patricia. He began to eat his pizza. Patricia unwrapped her steak over a plate, then wrung it out like a washcloth. When the plate shimmered with a puddle of red juice, she poured it into a wine glass. She sipped it while she dined. She used a napkin frequently to dry her chin. She was starting to become very tidy about her meals, as if making an effort to improve her manners. When she finished, her blue police shirt was still spotless.

It had crossed Melvin’s mind, after dinner, that he should go down to the basement and search the Magdal book for a way to rekill Charlie. But he simply hadn’t felt like it. The task of studying the book seemed like too great a burden. So he took Patricia into the living room and turned on the television and didn’t stir from the couch until the doorbell rang.

Now, it was Charlie watching TV. Standing beside the bed, Melvin wondered just how he would go about rekilling the man. Just go ahead and do it, he told himself. It’ll probably be as easy as it was to kill him in the first place.

“Why don’t we just shoot him?” Patricia suggested.

“It has to look like an accident. I think I’ll take him out in his car.”

“I can come with you, can’t I?”

Here we go again.

“I’d like to let you,” he said. “The thing is, you’ve gotta stay inside. The police are looking for you because of the Pollock murder.”

She seemed to shrink with gloom.

“Don’t start carrying on, honey.”

“You’re going to leave me again.”

“It won’t take long.”

“Oh, sure.”

Melvin sat on the edge of the bed. He slid a hand up her leg, feeling the hard ridges of scabs from last night’s tantrum. “If you don’t want me to go,” he said, “I won’t.”

“Really?”

“Honest.”

She beamed at him.

“Charlie will have to stay with us, though. That okay with you?”

Her smile faded. “I don’t want him here.”

“Me neither. But I’d have to take him somewhere to get rid of him, and I can’t do that without leaving you alone for a little while.”

She seemed to ponder the problem for a few moments. “How long would you be gone?”

“Half an hour, maybe.”

“That isn’t so long.”

“I’d be back before you knew it.”

“Do you have to do it now?”

“I guess not.” He glanced at the clock beside the bed. Nine-thirty. It really was too early. He’d wanted to take care of it right away, get it finished, but there would be far less risk if he waited. The ideal time would be two or three o’clock in the morning.

He didn’t know if he could wait that long.

But the longer he put it off, the better.

“I don’t have to go for a while,” he said.

“Don’t go till after I’m asleep, okay?”

“Okay.”

Patricia rolled over, reached to the nightstand, and snatched up the roll of masking tape. She tore off several strips. She pressed them across her mouth.

Jack took her by the arm and led her toward his car. “Thank you so much,” she said. “Dinner was wonderful.”

“My pleasure. I haven’t had such a great time in…oh, days.”

“Jerk.” She bumped him gently with her elbow.

“If I’d said ‘years,’ you might have thought I was smitten.”

“Smitten?”

“Smote?”

“But you’re not?”

“Actually, I am. But I’m not about to admit it.”

He opened the passenger door for Vicki. She climbed in and leaned across the seat to unlock the driver’s door for him. Starting to fasten her safety harness, she considered going without it and sitting in the center, close to Jack. But if she did that, she might appear too eager.

Let him make the first moves, she thought.

Jack had made it clear during dinner that he found pushy women disagreeable. “I’m all for equal rights,” he’d said. “I’m all for women having careers if that’s what they want. But so many of them these days have this obnoxious ‘takecharge’ attitude that drives me up the wall. It’s as if they see everyone else as a competitors and need to keep the upper hand.”

“You prefer your women meek and submissive?” Vicki had asked, in sympathy with his complaint but feeling obliged to put in a word on behalf of the home team.

“I prefer them like you.”

“And how is that?”

“Aside from all your more obvious attributes, you possess the wonderful, rare quality of being able to laugh at yourself.”

“So, you like clowns.”

“I like people who don’t take themselves too seriously. My impression of you is that you see life as an adventure, not as a war.”

“Uh-oh, there’s a fine distinction.”

“An adventure may be fairly similar to a war in its day-to-day events and hazards…”

“Like running, ducking, getting your butt shot off…”

“Right. But the difference is in a person’s attitude. The warrior sees everything as a battle to be fought and won. The adventurer sees it all as experiences—exciting or scary or funny or sad. The adventurer is moving toward a goal, the warrior toward a conquest.”

“So you prefer the Amelia Earharts of the world as opposed to the Joan of Arcs?”

“Right.”

“They both went up in smoke.”

Jack managed to swallow his mouthful of wine in time to avoid spraying it across the table when the laughter burst out.

Vicki found out later that he’d been married to an attorney who’d decided that having children would put a crimp in her career, only to become pregnant due to a faulty IUD. She terminated the pregnancy against Jack’s protests, and Jack had divorced her. Which explained a lot.

“You haven’t told me much about yourself,” Jack said as he drove out of the restaurant’s parking lot.

“What would you like to know?”

“Have you ever been in jail?”

“Would my ten years on a chain-gang count?”

“What were you in for?”

“Manslaughter.”

He looked at her through the darkness. “Have you been married?”

“Not yet.”

“How many proposals have you turned down?”

“What makes you think there were any?”

“You’re fishing for compliments.”

“Three proposals,” Vicki said.

“But you were determined to finish your schooling and embark on your career…”

She snapped her head toward him. “Hey, now.”

“Perfectly understandable.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“I know how it is. Marriage and children, if any, were relegated to the good old ‘back burner.’ Certainly in the future, you told yourself. Before the good old ‘biological clock’ ran out of time. Thirty—there’s a fine age to start thinking about a family. By thirty, you’d be settled in your career and might be able to find time for such secondary matters.”

He sounded a little malicious, mostly disappointed. He had her all figured out, and he didn’t like what he’d found.

“Thanks,” Vicki muttered. She felt cold and hard inside.

What did you think, she asked herself, you’d found Mr. Right?

This guy must be one hell of a lawyer. Doesn’t know a single goddamn thing about it and decides I’m some kind of super-bitch career broad because I didn’t marry the first guy that popped the question.

Well, screw him.

When hell freezes over.

Her eyes burned and the taillights of the car ahead went blurry. Her breath suddenly hitched. She turned her face to the side window. She gritted her teeth and willed herself not to sob.

The car slowed. It swung to the curb, and stopped. Vicki wiped her eyes. The houses on the block weren’t familiar.

“What’d you stop here for?” she asked.

“You’re crying.”

“No, I’m not.”

He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me.”

He took the hand away.

“Vicki.”

“Go to hell.”

“Why are you acting this way? For God’s sake, all I said…”

“Yeah, I sure want to hear it again.”

“I’m delighted that you turned down those guys.”

“Delighted, my ass.”

“If you hadn’t, you’d be married now, and…”

“Would you please take me home?”

“Not until…”

She opened the door.

“Okay, okay.”

She closed it, and Jack started the car moving again.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he muttered.

She turned and stared at him. “Thought I’d laugh it off? Ha ha? The girl who doesn’t take herself seriously? I’m supposed to just write it off as another episode in the Adventures of Doc Chandler? Only I’m not an adventurer, am I? I don’t fit into that flattering category anymore. Now I’m the warrior. The ball-chopping Amazon. Well, you and the horse you rode in on, buddy.”

Jack shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she was throwing such a fit.

Vicki slugged him in the shoulder.

“Ow! Hey!”

“Amazons like to do that.”

Jack held his shoulder and kept glancing at her as he drove. He said nothing. Neither did Vicki. At last, he stopped the car in front of Ace’s house.

Vicki opened her door.

“Wait.”

“What?” she asked.

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. But that doesn’t make it go away. You don’t stick a knife in someone and say you’re sorry and presto the wound’s gone. It doesn’t work that way.”

“It hurt, Vicki.”

“Good. It was supposed to. That’s what a punch is all about.”

“Not that. I wanted to believe you were different. I didn’t want you to be one of them. But…”

“You don’t know what I am.” She climbed out and slammed the door and ran to the house. As she took out her keys, she heard the car speed away.

She turned around. Jack’s car vanished around a corner. She leaned against the door, sank down feeling the cool painted wood slide on her back, came to rest on the stiff prickly brush of the doormat, raised her knees and hugged them.

“Bastard,” she muttered.

She’d really liked him.

How could he do that, just suddenly lump me in with his ex-wife and all the bitches of the world because I’d turned down those three proposals?

Shouldn’t have told him.

Screw that. I’m not going to lie. If he can’t handle it, that’s his problem.

I could’ve explained.

Who gave me a chance? The creep. He didn’t wait for any explanation, didn’t need any, because he knew. Right, he knew. Career comes first, guys, tough luck.

Who needs him, anyway?

Didn’t even give me the benefit of the doubt. Didn’t even ask why I turned them down.

The bristles of the doormat made her rump itch. With a sigh, she stood up. She rubbed her buttocks, then unlocked the door and entered the house.

Ace, on the couch, looked at her and turned off the television with the remote. “What went wrong?”

The plan had been for Jack to be asked in for drinks—if they didn’t go to his place instead—and Vicki would introduce him to Ace, and then Ace would make herself scarce.

The plan had made Vicki nervous and excited all through dinner. She’d imagined how it would go. The tentative first touches, the first kiss, the inevitable moment when Jack would press a hand to a breast. While they ate, while they talked and laughed, the living room scene played in a back corner of her mind. She saw him sliding the straps of her dress down her arms. She worried about Ace coming into the room. Ace wouldn’t do that, but still she was reluctant to go on with this in the living room. Did she have the nerve to suggest they move to her bedroom? Maybe she should call a halt before it came to that.

Was she sure that she actually wanted to sleep with this man? Yes, she had decided about the time the chocolate mousse arrived at the table. Yes, but it’d be better to hold off. All the more exciting to build up toward it slowly—see him again and again, moving closer each time as if they were taking a long, romantic trip, stopping here and there to enjoy the sights, growing all the time more eager to reach the final destination but savoring each moment along the way.