The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories (8 page)

“
Dude, the cops came in
this afternoon. Crazy shit, man. They were asking about
you.”

Calvin’s face flushed. A tense moment
passed. He rubbed his index finger to his thumb and remembered how
her eyes felt. “Me? Why?”

“
Look, can you meet me
later tonight, at the Idle Hour. I don’t feel really comfortable
talking about it over the phone. I thought you might like to
know.”

“
Yeah, how about eight?”
Calvin waited. “Twenty bucks work?”

“
Great. See you
then.”

Calvin stood at the kitchen table for a few
moments, looking at the half-empty containers, and trying to
remember what happened after he touched the eyes. He remembered the
shock, the feeling of electricity, but then what? Calvin held his
hands in front of him, examined the fingers, and scraped a bit of
black dirt from under one nail. He scooped up the leftovers and
stuffed them in the trash. When the kitchen was clean, he found
Gina lying on their bed.

“
Look, I’m sorry.” He held
his head.

She looked up, her eyes puffy and rimmed
with red. She nodded.

“
I don’t know what’s wrong
with me. Really. I understand that you aren’t ready to tell your
folks, okay?” He sat down on the edge of the bed, testing the space
to see if he was welcome. “Congrats on the interviews,
too.”

“
I wasn’t ready…I will be,
soon. It’s not just you—I haven’t even told them about my job.”
Gina held out her hand. “I’m worried about that headache. You never
have headaches.”

“
No worries. I’ll be fine.”
Calvin stretched one arm around her shoulders. “Take your time with
your folks. I’m in no hurry.” He bent lower and focused on her
brown eyes. “I understand, all right?”

Gina nodded.

“
Look, I hate to go…that
call was for work. I have something important to do.”

The inside of Idle Hour was covered with at
least two generations of Coors Light and Budweiser posters, old
enough that some of the women on the posters could easily be
Calvin’s mom. A permanent cigarette haze floated in the air despite
the public smoking ban two years ago. The building stretched half a
city block with billiards tables lined up from front to back and
old vinyl bar stools resting against the walls between a few
upright arcade machines. A small area in front held a couple of
tables for playing cards and the bar.

Calvin looked past the grizzled faces of the
middle-aged regulars and saw Lenny at a billiards table under a
cracked lamp in the middle of the hall. He was lining up for a shot
and nodded toward Calvin as he approached.

“
I thought this would be a
good place.” Lenny looked at the ceiling, indicating the loud
music. “Nobody will overhear us in here.” With a swift thrust, he
sent the cue ball into the nine. “Join me?”

Calvin thrust his hands in his pockets and
shook his head. “No. I’m terrible.” He slipped a twenty out of his
pocket and folded it in his hand. “You’re getting expensive.”

Lenny sidled up to Calvin
and snatched the bill. “Yeah, maybe. But this is good. 14-A, you
know, Jane Doe or whatever, she was wanted for
murder
.” He bent to the table again
and lined up another shot.

Calvin began to sweat and took off his
jacket, tossing it on a chair against the wall. “Maybe I will join
you.” He surveyed a collection of house cue sticks on a rack, held
up a few, and made a choice.

“
Arizona. She was wanted in
Arizona. The car was stolen in Wichita. Sedgwick County plates.” He
cleared the table, knocking the eight ball in the side. “I’ll
rack.”

Calvin’s head swam, and he steadied himself
using the cue stick as a crutch. He looked up, past Lenny and
spotted Brad, Gina’s old boss, guffawing at the bar. Brad was
short, but broad—he hit the local gym every day, mostly to work on
his upper body by the look of his scrawny legs.

“
Hey, zombie-dude, are you
with me? Did you hear what I said?”

Calvin snapped to attention. “Murder,” he
muttered.

Lenny walked around the table and stood
close to Calvin. “Here’s the real crazy shit, okay? She killed this
old dude and his wife. Cut their fuckin’ eyes out and left their
bodies in the goddamn kitchen. The cops out there never found the
eyes.”

Calvin’s eye twitched. “How do you learn all
this?”

“
Springdale’s finest think
I’m some sort of idiot, I guess. They talk right in front of me, me
sitting there with my Spiderman comic, shit. They must think I’m
stupid.”

You’re not stupid—you took
forty bucks from me this week
, Calvin
thought.

“
Can you believe that? She
didn’t look like some cold-blooded, freak killer.” Lenny
chuckled.

“
I need to do something,”
Calvin said, almost in a trance. He drifted away from the billiard
table and through the crowd. Calvin moved straight to Brad and
tapped him on the shoulder.

Brad turned, “Oh, lookie, it’s Ansel
freakin’ Adams. How’s your girlfriend, buddy?”

“
You’re a dick,” Calvin
said before blindsiding him with a right uppercut. Brad slipped off
his stool, stunned by the sudden blow. Steel bands wrapped around
Calvin’s arms before Brad could scramble to his feet.

Joel, the bouncer, dragged Calvin outside
and dropped him on the damp sidewalk. “None of that shit, buddy. Go
home, all right?” He towered over Calvin. Joel had played a few
years of football in college before blowing a knee, and he still
cast an imposing shadow.

Calvin nodded and started to pick himself
off the ground.

Lenny popped out of the door. “What the hell
were you thinking? C’mon, lets get you home before B-rad decides to
come for round two.”

“
Yeah…yeah.” Though sober,
Calvin staggered to his feet, needing some help from his scraggly
accomplice to keep from flopping back to the concrete. He felt
dirty, dragged through a muddy field. Nerves pricked in his arms
and legs like the tiny cuts from rolling in crisp grass.

“
Look, champ. The cops were
asking about you, too. You made the call the night Jane wrecked,
right?”

Calvin nodded, his head swimming. “Yeah,
first on the scene,” he muttered. As Lenny led him down the street,
he imagined that girl—Jane Doe, the murderer—lying in the ditch
with her eyes cut out.

“
Shit, Cal. What were you
thinking?” Gina stood in their bedroom doorway with her arms
crossed, a dour look dragging her lips into a frown.

Calvin shook his head. “I
just…
something
pushed me.” He eyed the room, resting his glance for a moment
on the camera bag on the sofa. “How the hell did you
know?”

She closed her eyes. “Megan called. She was
at the bar, too.” Her eyes opened, looking black in the dim
kitchen. “He’s a jerk, Cal, but starting a bar brawl—”

“
I didn’t start a god-damn
bar brawl. I just decked that asshole, and they tossed me
out.”

“
Whatever. It’s just not
like you.” She uncrossed her arms. “Is it the job, Cal? I was on
the computer today. I stumbled on some pictures by accident…that
young woman…” She shuddered. “Something like that has to…get to
you. That wreck…”

Calvin’s neck burned. He
shivered, feeling hot pinpricks again. Anger. “How
the
fuck
do you know what I’m like?” His voice swelled,
filling the kitchen. “Shit!” He balled his fists and thrust one
through the sheetrock next to the phone. The knuckles stung,
streaked with blood and loose skin. Calvin pushed the throbbing
hand to his mouth and sucked on the wound. Gina disappeared through
the doorway. He heard a slam and the distinct click of his bedroom
door lock.

He stuck the injured hand
under the tap and flipped on the cold, letting the water cool his
hand and his temper. His brain swam inside his skull, lost at sea
somewhere. Thoughts bounced and rocked, but he couldn’t grasp
anything long enough to make sense. Calvin wiped his hand on a
towel and tumbled to the sofa, kicking the camera bag to the
floor.
The camera bag.

He reached for the bag, but the vice
tightened on his head again and his fingers wouldn’t obey.
Something seemed to crawl through his veins, forcing him to lie
down. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, for most of the
night—not asleep, but not quite awake. Toward dawn, he drifted into
a fitful sleep.

Calvin dreamed of Gina. She
held the camera bag over one shoulder. Brad was in the dream too,
bare-chested and smeared with oil like at a body building contest.
He wrapped one well-muscled arm around Gina’s slender waist and
pulled her closer. She giggled. Brad’s eyes swelled, fading to a
sky blue.
Watch this
, she mouthed before poking her thumbs into Brad’s eye
sockets, pressing until an oily black goo squirted out.

Calvin woke in a cold sweat. The clock above
his mantle showed 6:30 AM. He rolled off the couch, snatched his
keys from the counter, and left the house before Gina stirred. He
wanted to be away; something smelled of rot and worked on his
stomach, telling him to go.

The phone nearly knocked Calvin out of his
chair when it rang. He had been dozing at his desk in the newsroom,
but now he recovered, wiped some drool from his lips, and grabbed
the receiver.

“
Sentinel.
Calvin Morris speaking.”

“
Calvin?” Lenny’s voice
questioned. “Shit, Calivn. I figured they’d probably locked you up
by now.”

“
Who?” Calvin shook his
head to break the cobwebs loose.

“
The freakin’ cops, dude.
They just called. They want to question you about the girl. You
know, 14-A, murderous Jane Doe?”

Calvin glanced at his cell phone, noting a
missed message from the Springdale Police Department and one from
his house. “What…did you—”

“
No. Shit no. Security told
them you had been here. Crazy shit, man. Her fucking eyes
were
cut out
.
Rough job too, somebody must’ve done it with a dull butter knife or
something.”

A ball of ice grew in Calvin’s stomach. The
memory grabbed him, and he steadied himself against the desk.
“What?”

“
They want to ask you about
it. They’re looking for something else, some evidence. A jar I
think.”

Calvin scanned the area for
his camera bag.
Not here.
When he glanced up, he spotted two police
officers skirting around desks in the newsroom. “Look, Lenny…I
gotta go.” He dropped the phone on the cradle.

“
Calvin, what’s the good
word buddy?” It was Jimmy Mann, cocky and ignorant, the cheese of
Springdale’s finest.

“
Just catching up on some
paperwork. I’m sure you guys know all about paperwork.”

The other officer chuckled. Jimmy glared at
him and faced Calvin. “Look, we had a little talk with your friend
at the hospital…Lenny? Anyway, I’m sure you had nothing to do with
defacing the body.” A moment passed in awkward silence, a verbal
game of chicken. “Although I am a little curious as to why you had
to go see her in the cooler. We would also like to know if you saw
anything funny at the scene of the accident, before we arrived.
Anything you didn’t tell us in your statement that night.”

Lenny, you lying
bastard.
Calvin straightened in his chair,
meeting Jimmy’s gaze. “No. Why would I go and withhold evidence
from you fellows.”

Jimmy smiled, trying to pull off some
Hollywood-tough demeanor. “I dunno, Calvin.” He leaned forward.
“But Jane was wanted for murder, and anything in that car could’ve
been related to the case, and if you did—”

“
I took something from the
scene—that’s what you’re implying, right? If I did, I’d be dumb
enough to be a member of the Springdale Police Department. Hell, I
cut those fucking eyes out with a spoon. Is that what you want?”
Calvin stood up, his heart rattling inside his chest, pushed past
Jimmy, and turned. “Look, I’m busy, got it? Play Sherlock Holmes on
somebody else’s time.” He held his head against the mounting pain
as he hurried into the afternoon sunshine.

Gina sat at the kitchen table, pale and
washed like a sheet of clean paper. A mason jar rested on the table
in front of her. It was filled with something, a clear fluid like
water. Six eyes floated in the water like bleached grapes, bits of
flesh clinging to each and clouding the fluid. Calvin took a few
steps into the room and noted that two of the eyes had electric
blue irises.

Gina tilted her head toward him. “I found
this in your bag Calvin.” Her hand shook as she pointed at the jar.
“I was going to call you. I thought maybe you needed your stuff for
work.”

The burning started in his toes this time,
slashing through every nerve in his body. He stepped closer to the
table, Gina stood, and the jar seemed to grow. “I—I’m fine.” One
finger touched the glass, and six eyes spun to meet his gaze. He
remembered the whispers. Those eyes had told him what to do the
night of the wreck, they told him what to do that day in the
morgue, but they were quiet now.

“
I found this, too.” She
held out his pocketknife. “I—I think I know why you did it.” She
moved behind Calvin and gently pushed him into a chair. He didn’t
resist. “She had such beautiful eyes—such blue eyes.
Electric.
Intoxicating
.”