Strangers (10 page)

“Yes,” Beth said. “They came out and took…the dog. They’re investigating, of course.”

Right, Michael thought. No doubt the local version of Quincy was seeking fingerprints on a deader-than-shit dog this instant.

Michael dipped his head. “I’d better take a walk,” he said. “See how Zeller’s holding UP.”

“I knew you’d do that, Michael,” Beth said.

“Are you okay now,
honey
?”

“Not okay,” Beth answered, “but better. I’ll try to put together some kind of dinner.”

“Not for me,” Michael said. “My appetite is pretty well gone.”

Before Michael left the house, he told Beth to put the chain on the door. He’d knock when he returned.

Beth’s eyes acknowledged the warning and he knew she understood what he wanted her to. Somewhere—outside—
perhaps living in this very neighborhood!
was
a person who killed, a person who killed dogs, who could possibly kill… Why, it might even be someone they knew very well.

Goddamn, it was funny! Michael Louden, the Stranger, laughed to himself as he went next door to be a “good neighbor.”

««—»»

I am
all alone
.
Brad Zeller sat in the kitchen thinking that one thought. His hand was wrapped around a nearly empty glass and only three inches remained in the Imperial bottle on the table. But—not to worry—another fifth waited in the cabinet. Sure, it would be a bitch to walk all the way over there the way the floor was pitching and rolling, but then, journey’s end!
and
he’d reward himself with a drink.
And a drink.
And a drink.
He hoped he might eventually pass out.

And then, well, tomorrow would be another day…

Another day of all alone.
There was a thought for you.
The
thought.

Dusty…

Dusty. Was. Dead.

The hurt tore through Brad Zeller all over again. His glass was empty. His hand floated to the bottle’s neck. With slow, drunken precision, he poured without spilling a single drop.

When the front doorbell rang, Brad struggled to his feet and managed a wide-legged, swaying stance. He staggered from the kitchen. The walls and furniture became handholds and resting points to keep him erect.

He opened the door. He was not all alone.

His friend was here.

“Muh… Michael,” Brad said, working to control lips and tongue.

The floor thrust up under his heels. He rocked forward.

Michael quickly stepped in and caught Brad under the arms. “Steady, big fellow,” he said, easing Zeller around. Michael draped Brad’s flopping arms over his shoulder.

“Sudbody killed Dusty,” Brad mumbled, heavily leaning on Michael. “You hear ‘bout it?”

“Yes, Brad,”
Michael
said. “Believe me, I know all about it. Let’s sit your sagging ass down now, all right?”

“Kitchen,” Zeller insisted. “Got somethin’ to drink in the kitchen.”

“Right you are,” Michael agreed. “You’re a guy who needs a drink, yessir.”

In the kitchen, Michael deposited Zeller in a chair at the table. Brad used both hands to pick up the glass. Some whiskey flowed down his chin but most of it went down his throat.

“Join you for a drinkee, pally,” Michael said. He took a can of Old Milwaukee from the refrigerator and popped the top. He sat down across from Zeller. “Drink up, Brad. That’s the way.”

Brad’s head lolled from side to side as though he were undergoing a slow motion
petit mal
seizure. “Dunno who killed my nice dog, Michael. Figure maybe a kid? Figure some teenage punk sonofabitch of a kid?”

Michael shrugged. “I doubt it. After all, there’s no such thing as a bad boy.”

“A sonofabitch,” Brad said, “that’s who it was.”

“Just remember, Brad, there’s some good in the worst of us and some bad in the best of us. That’s what I think, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Brad said, head bobbing. He wasn’t really sure what it was that Michael had just told him. It was difficult to make sense of the words, connect them up with one another. It didn’t matter, though. Things were better now because Michael was here and someone
did
give a goddamn about Brad Zeller and he, was not all alone.

Brad’s eyes became wet. “You are my friend, Michael. You are my very good friend.”

“Gee,” Michael said, “Golly. Holy smoke. It’s an honor, Brad. No shit and honest Injun, I really mean that.”

“See, a person’s gotta have somebody.”

“That’s true. Everybody needs somebody sometime. Wouldn’t that make a great song title?”

“Used to be times… I get lonely, y’know?

But there was always old Dusty. He was my friend, too. My very good friend.”

“Yes, a dog is man’s best friend, Brad. A fucking shame somebody killed your dog.

“Yeah.”

“Say, you’re crying, Brad.”

“Yeah.” Brad ran his hand over his face, smearing the wetness around. “Got a daughter. Nice kid, Joanie, doesn’t give a damn about me. Lives in California. Never calls. Shit, she didn’t even show for her own mother’s funeral.”

Michael said, “Try to be optimistic, pal. Maybe Joanie will drag her ass here for your funeral.”

Brad squinted. Michael was smiling. Had Michael made a joke, trying to make him feel better? He thought so, but he wasn’t certain.

Brad pushed back from the table, the chair legs squeaking on the floor tiles. “Gotta take a leak.”

“Be my guest, Brad. Man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

“I…” Zeller grinned loosely. “I can’t stand up too good.”

Michael rose. “Hey, I can’t let my chum, my buddy, my
compadre
sit there and piss his pants, can I? That wouldn’t be neighborly.”

Michael hoisted Zeller to his feet. “Here we go,” he said.

As Michael helped him down the hall, Brad Zeller felt the warm, welcome emotion of gratitude filling him. “Thank you, Michael. You are a good man.”

Michael laughed, a crisp bark. “Hell, I’m a fucking angel, Brad. Haven’t you ever noticed my halo?”

Flicking on the bathroom light, Michael propped Brad against the wall. Michael raised the toilet seat. “Okay, buddy. Piss your brains out.”

Brad lurched toward the stool. On his third attempt, he caught the catch of his fly and unzipped his trousers.

“Ah, what the hell,” Michael said to himself. Brad was two feet from the toilet when Michael kicked the back of his left knee.

I’m falling
Brad Zeller thought. He tried to ready himself for the impact. It wasn’t that bad, he thought, not all that much pain as he went down on his knees.

The pain exploded a moment later. Zeller’s head between his hands, Michael grunted with total, all-out exertion, and pushed Brad’s skull forward and down.

Zeller’s forehead smashed into the rim of the toilet bowl. Brad felt a steel net of agony squeeze his brain. A black balloon expanded inside his skull and he thought his eyes were going to pop from their sockets.

Then
Brad
slowly tumbled from his kneeling position, as though he were a penitent yielding to the exhaustion of days of prayer. He rolled onto his side, then to his back.

There was only a smear of scarlet on the toilet rim, but blood welled thickly from the trench in Brad’s crushed forehead.

Michael smiled, gazing down at Zeller. “Most fatal accidents occur right in the home, Brad. Think I saw that pleasant little item in the
Reader’s Digest.”

Brad blinked. The pupil of his left eye was so dilated that the cornea had virtually disappeared. Blood seeped from his ears and trickled from the corner of his mouth.

“Yessir,” Michael said, “damned near every day you hear about some stupid old drunk taking a flop in the bathroom and fracturing his skill. Sure looks like that’s what happened to you, pal.”

Brad’s left leg jerked.

“Next time, you watch your step, hear?” Michael said.

Zeller’s arms flapped. He kicked out, the final actions ordered by his ruined brain. Then the electro-chemical processes of his mind ceased. His chest rose and fell, and deep in his throat, there was the sound of water slipping through a sluggish drain.

“No need to get up, pal. I’ll show myself out,” Michael Louden said to the dead man—and he left.

— | — | —

SIX

MARCY AND Kim had their eggs, scrambled, and, as usual, Kim considered mealtime “time to talk.” If she was at all upset about the killing of the neighbor’s dog, she showed no sign of it. Instead, she had so much to tell her mother and father about camp. Camp PineTop was “Neat!” a “real blast;” it was “such a fun place!”

The children were not yet dressed for the day. Kim, to Michael’s right at the kitchen table, was wearing her Star Wars pajamas; Marcy, across from her, had on Swiss dot shorties. While Kim rattled on and on… so then the canoe tipped over and everyone was screaming but I wasn’t afraid” Marcy fastidiously sliced her sausage’ links, her elbows off the table, her manners as refined as those of a child of the British Royal Family.

At the stove, Beth, in her housecoat, slipped the edge of the spatula under Michael’s over-easy eggs and put them on a plate. Last night had brought a touch of terror to her life that she did not fully comprehend. Only Michael’s assurances and his arms about her in bed, as well as the brandy Michael insisted she drink, had enabled her to get to sleep.

But now, this morning, Beth thought the kitchen had the golden-good feel of bright sunshine and she was working hard to convince herself that what had happened yesterday was…

No, not
impossible,
but certainly
the too
horrid, too awful occurrence that brushes by you only
once
in a lifetime. Someone—some inhuman monster—had killed Brad Zeller’s dog. That was true, a reality. She would come to accept it, eventually, even if she never understood it. But it had to be the one inexplicable horror that filled the quota for the Louden family—
That’s it, The End, thankyou—verymuch
!—
and now it was time to get on with living their normal life.

“Here you are,” Beth said brightly, placing Michael’s eggs and sausages in front of him. Returning from Zeller’s last evening, Michael had said that Brad was in a bad way, as could be expected. They’d have to keep an eye on him; that was all they could do.

“Thanks,” Michael said. “Looks great. This is the kind of breakfast that makes you think morning is a fine time to start the day!”

Primly raising a bite of egg to her mouth, Marcy giggled at his comment. Kim said, “Oh, Dad! That’s stale! Morning’s when you got to start the day!”

“Oh,” Michael said, “live and learn. I never realized that.”

A moment later, Beth had her own breakfast and was seated opposite Michael at the other end of the table.
Now
, she thought,
here we all are and everything is as right as it can be and there’s nothing to worry about, nothing to…