Trailer Park Noir (27 page)

“Yeah. I ... hope I can.”

“Well, I think we’re through for the night, Anna.”

She released a long, trembling sigh. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. But don’t forget, Anna – you owe me. You owe me big-time after this. And one day soon, I’ll collect.”

Reznick could not tell for sure in the dark, but it seemed a curious frown passed over her face.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, if you say so.”

Reznick turned to go back to his trailer to close up his shed, throw away his bloody work gloves, and take a long hot shower.

* * * *

Anna went to her trailer. The door was still open. She looked through the screen door and listened.

Kendra was still lying on the couch, snoring softly.

Dexter stood at the door, scratching on the screen.

Anna opened the screen and let Dexter out. He dashed down the steps and went out in the yard. Anna waited while he did his business. When the dog was finished, he came back up the steps and went inside, and Anna followed him.

She quietly went through the living room and hurried to the bedroom. She found a clean tank top and pair of shorts, then went to the bathroom. She pulled the shower curtain aside, reached in, and turned on the shower. Then she turned and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink.

She looked like something out of a horror film. She looked like Carrie after the prom. She looked almost as if she had bathed in blood. It was all over her. Her T-shirt hung on her, heavy with blood. Her hair was matted with it. It covered her face like some kind of exotic cosmetic mask. It was on her arms, and when she looked down, she saw it on her legs. It was caked now, thick on her, like a second sticky skin.

Anna wondered what she was going to do with the clothes. If she had a fireplace, she would burn them. Instead, she would put them in a bag, then put the bag in a garbage bag, and put them in the bottom of the big green garbage can outside.

She peeled the clothes off of her like dead skin. When she got into the shower, the hot water felt so good, she started crying again. But she cried silently. She pressed her lips together until they were white and held back the sobs, still unable to believe what she had done that night, that she had taken a life.

But he had deserved it, she felt no differently about that.

The blood looked black in the bottom of the shower as it swirled around the drain and was sucked out of sight.

Afterward, she dried off with a towel and put the tank top and shorts on. She looked at the flip-flops – they would have to go, too, because they were coated with blood. She went to the kitchen barefoot and got a brown paper bag from under the sink, took it to the bathroom, and stuffed the clothes and flip-flops into it. She went into her bedroom. There was a stapler in the top drawer of her night stand. She got it, folded the top of the brown bag over, and stapled it closed. She replaced the stapler, slipped into her slippers by the bed, and took the bag outside and put it in the big garbage can. Back inside, she went to the kitchen and took the mostly full white garbage bag from the can under the sink. She tied the bag closed, then went to the bathroom and got the garbage in there. She carried the bags out to the green garbage can outside and dropped them in on top of the brown bag containing her bloody clothes.

Back in the trailer, she got herself a beer. She stood by the open refrigerator, enjoying the chill from it, as she drank it.

It felt good to be so clean again. But she was still stained. It was a stain that would never go away. It was the stain of having slid a blade into a man’s gut again and again. The stain of spilling his blood. The stain of ending his life, no matter what he had done to deserve it. She suspected that stain would never go away. Part of it was now knowing how it felt to stick a blade into a man. She could feel it now – the blade pressing the flesh, then piercing it, then sliding in deep, then being twisted. It was a feeling like no other, and it would be with her forever.

She thanked God for Marc Reznick.

But don’t forget, Anna – you owe me,
he’d said.
You owe me big-time after this. And one day, I may collect.

Anna wondered what he’d meant by that. How did he expect to collect? Did he expect her to give him money? What did she have that he would want?
Her
? Did he mean he would want to
sleep
with her? It was the only thing she could think of that he could be implying. She decided she would not be averse to such an arrangement. Marc was a handsome man, and if he wanted to sleep with her, she would not argue or complain. The more she thought about it, the more she decided that was probably what he meant.

“Mommy?”

Anna closed the refrigerator and went into the living room.

“What, honey?” she said.

“Mommy, my finger hurts.” Kendra was sitting up on the couch and her face was tightly screwed up in a look of pain. She held her left wrist with her right hand. “It’s throbbin’ real bad and making my whole hand hurt.”

“Well, it’s been awhile since you’ve had a couple pills. Let’s get you a couple more, okay?”

“Okay.”

The orange bottle was on the kitchen table. Anna went to it and shook out a couple pills. Then she put them in her pocket and went to the counter. She took a slice of bread from the loaf, put it in the toaster, and pressed the lever on the side.

“I’m gonna make you a piece of toast to eat with the pills so you don’t get sick, okay, hon?”

“‘Kay,” Kendra said. There was pain in her voice.

Anna poured milk into a glass and took it and the pills to Anna. “Here you go, sweetheart.”

As Kendra took the pills, Anna watched her and wondered. How did she bring it up with Kendra? How did she approach it? She had posed for those pictures – but how? Why? Surely she had not done it because she
wanted
to. Then again, maybe she really didn’t know any better. Maybe she didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.

Anna remembered all the times her sister Rose had lectured her about having The Talk with Kendra. Maybe if Anna
had
talked with her about the birds and the bees, she never would have posed for those pictures. Anna could not hold Kendra responsible for them, no matter what.

However Anna chose to broach the subject, she could not do it tonight. Her emotions were too close to the surface. She had just
killed
the man, for God’s sake. It would have to wait. Maybe tomorrow night, or the next night, she could talk to Kendra about it without flying apart in a million pieces like a plane slamming into the side of a mountain.

The toast popped up and Anna returned to the kitchen with the empty glass. “Would you like some jam on your toast, or just butter?” she said.

“Jam’s good,” Kendra said. “Do we have raspberry?”

“We sure do, honey. Comin’ right up.”

Anna got raspberry jam from the refrigerator and spread a generous helping on the toast, then put it on a small plate, and took it to Kendra in the living room. She was still watching the Game show Network.
Match Game
was on. Anna sat down beside her and watched her eat the toast. She reached over and ran a hand through Kendra’s long, shiny hair.

Kendra was almost done with her toast when she said, “How come you’re starin’ at me, Mommy?”

“I’m sorry, was I staring?”

Kendra smiled gently, as much as her pain would allow.

“I guess I’m just thinking about how much I love you,” Anna said, her voice breaking. “You know, sweetheart ... there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing.”

“Me, too, Mommy. I mean, there’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you, neither.”

“Either.”

“Either.”

“How’s your toast?”

“It’s good.”

Kendra finished the toast and handed the little plate to Anna.

Unexpectedly, even to Anna, she flung her arms around Kendra and held her tightly. Anna’s eyes stung with tears and her throat felt thick. She kissed Kendra on the forehead, then stood and quickly turned and went back to the kitchen with the plate, before Kendra could see the tears in her eyes.

* * * *

His hair still wet from the shower, Reznick stared at the pictures on his computer screen. He enlarged them one at a time and looked at them, studied them, absorbed them.

It was, indeed, Kendra. She did not appear to be under duress. Her smile seemed genuine, and her eyes sparkled. The sight of her naked body made his heartbeat quicken, made him harden. She was everything he’d expected and more. Her large breasts were firm and unblemished, with rosy, puffy nipples he could imagine touching with his tongue, tasting, sucking on.

Seeing her naked on the computer monitor only frustrated him more. He wanted her naked in front of him where he could touch her, hold her, kiss her.

And he would. He’d told Anna she owed him big-time, and that he would collect. Kendra would be his payment. Anna might never know about it, but if she found out, Reznick would not worry about it. He would not feel guilty as he would have before. Now, Anna was in debt to him in a big way, and if she didn’t like it, a single anonymous phone call would send the cops in her direction.

He looked at the pictures over and over again. The last one was of Kendra’s laughing face spattered with semen. She seemed to be enjoying herself. That was good to know – that she enjoyed that. That meant she would enjoy it even more because, after all, she had a crush on him.

Reznick did not plan to wait around, either. He planned to go to work late the next day, if at all. He planned to drop in on Kendra in the morning.

He would be gentle and loving. Much more than that cretin with the website, he was sure.

That night, Reznick did not sleep well. It was not the heat that kept him awake. It was thoughts of Kendra, of those pictures, and of what he would do the following day.

Twenty-Two

“How about some scrambled eggs, Andy?” Sherry said.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” he said as he sat up in bed. He stretched his arms overhead as he opened his mouth in a big yawn.

Sherry slid her legs off the bed and sat up on the edge. She was naked and had slept without a single cover on. They’d gotten to bed late last night. People kept coming to the door. When Andy had pot to sell, they got a lot of visitors, customers coming to buy weed. Sometimes they stayed and chatted awhile if it was someone they knew, but the strangers only stayed long enough to buy the stuff. They’d come late into the night last night, once word had gotten out that Andy had some weed to sell.

“Hey,” Andy said. He grabbed her upper right arm and pulled her back down on the bed. “I ever tell you how nice it is to wake up to your naked body?”

She smiled tiredly as Andy squeezed a breast, then put his mouth over the nipple and gently gnawed on it.

“Mmm,” Sherry said, closing her eyes. “You want breakfast, or you wanna fool around? Tell you the truth, it’s too hot to fool around. Too hot
already
. Jeez, I hate summers in Shasta County. Why don’t we move to Oregon, or Washington, or somethin’?”

“You wanna move to Oregon or Washington? Maybe we will.”

“Really?”

“Well, it’s not impossible. I got a couple friends in Oregon and one in Seattle. We oughtta think about it, if you want. They like it real good there, my friends do.”

“Really?” she said again.

“We oughtta think about it.”

“Yeah, we oughtta.”

“I’m hungry.”

“I’ll get breakfast goin’.”

“I’m gonna fire up the lab later this evening,” he said, “so get out the fans and open all the windows.”

“Oh, shit. I hate that smell.”

“It pays the bills.”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll call Lissa. Maybe we’ll go to a movie, or somethin’.”

“That’d be good. Get outta the trailer.”

Sherry got out of bed, put on a T-shirt and some shorts, and left the bedroom.

In the kitchen, she turned on the radio on the table, then opened the refrigerator. The icy chill felt good on her.

The radio was tuned to an album rock station, but the news was on. It didn’t catch her attention until she heard the name.

“ ... Arnold Garvis, who was found dead early this morning in his Washington, D.C. apartment, the apparent victim of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. His father, Senator Wilson Garvis, has retreated to his Louisiana home where he and his family are in mourning. Arnold Garvis was twenty-two years old. In the Supreme Court today, there will be ... “

But Sherry had already tuned out. “Andy! Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” he said as he came down the hall.

“On the news just now.”

“No.”

“It just said Arnold Garvis was found dead in his Washington, D.C. apartment early this morning, dead from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. Can you believe that?
Carbon monoxide
!”