Trailer Park Noir (30 page)

But part of it was also those images on the backs of his eyelids, the memory of what he’d done the night before.

His temples began to throb. An ache developed behind his eyes. He frowned as he rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, then rubbed hard circles on his temples with his fingertips.

“Marc?” Kendra called. “Where’d you go?”

Suddenly, he did not want to go back to the bedroom. He’d had his fill for now. He felt far away from amorous. A shadow had fallen over him, a deep, dark shadow that had obliterated his desire.

He sighed and went down the hall to the bedroom.

“Time for you to go home, Kendra,” he said.

“Aw, c’mon, not already,” she said. Her whiny voice made her sound like a little girl, and it rubbed him the wrong way.

“No arguing. You need to get cleaned up and sober for when Mommy comes home. Eat some peanut butter, make sure your breath’s clean.”

“She might go dancing tonight. Can we get together then?”

“Maybe. But for now, you need to go home.”

She sighed as she got out of bed slowly. She came around the bed and pressed her body against his. “You sure.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. “Positive,” he said. “Get your clothes on.”

“But I thought we were – “

”
Get your clothes on
,” he shouted.

Kendra flinched and her smile shattered and she stumbled backward.

Reznick immediately regretted snapping at her. He stepped over to her and put his hands on her shoulders again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got a bad headache. I didn’t mean to bark at you like that. Get dressed and go home, and we can get together tonight while your mommy’s working. Okay?” He tipped forward and kissed her forehead.

Her smile slowly returned. “Okay,” she said. “I ... I had fun today.”

“So did I. You’re a beautiful, incredible girl, Kendra.”

She smiled and bowed her head in embarrassment. “I’ll get dressed now,” she said in a whisper. “Hey,” she said as she dressed, “you wanna coupla my pain pills for your headache?”

Reznick nodded. “Yeah, I’ll take you up on that.”

Kendra carried Dexter home and Reznick followed her. He got a couple codeine pills from her, then went back to his own trailer. He drank them down with a glass of water, then went to the recliner and stretched out, turned on the TV.

He frowned the whole time. His lips were pressed together tightly. He couldn’t get those images and sounds out of his mind. All the blood. The smell of the blood. The reek of fecal matter. Those milky, staring eyes and that yawning mouth – as if it were trying to scream one last time but had no voice, no breath.

Reznick got up and paced for a while.

He went to the refrigerator, took out a cup of blueberry-flavored yogurt, and ate it. He tossed the cup into the garbage, washed the spoon, then paced for a while.

Outside, the wind continued to blow. Even as preoccupied as he was, he could hear the trees whooshing in the wind overhead outside.

Conan went to the screen and walked in lazy circles, then sat facing the door.

“Need to go outside, boy?” Reznick said. He opened the screen door and Conan shot out of the trailer.

He tried to leave the screen door open, but the wind slammed it around, so he closed it and listened for Conan’s scratching as he continued to pace.

Open eyes ... open mouth ... open abdomen ... glistening black guts ... wet, farting sounds ...

Conan scratched at the screen door and yapped once.

Reznick let the dog in, then closed the screen door. He closed the door halfway, leaving it open to create a draft.

He went to the kitchen and found the bottle of vodka. He got a glass from the cupboard, some ice from the freezer, and poured some vodka over the crackling cubes. He put what was left of the vodka in the freezer. He took the glass to the living room and stretched out on the recliner again. He let the vodka stand on the lamp table for a while and chill.

He browsed the TV stations for something to watch and settled on an old movie with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. He watched the movie for awhile, tried to immerse himself in it.

Finally, he took the glass from the lamp table and took a sip. Then a gulp.

“Aaahh,” he sighed, looking at the glass with its beads of sweat dribbling down the sides. “It’s good to have you back.”

Twenty-Four

The day had been hell for Anna.

It had been next to impossible for her to think straight all day. She could not get her mind off the previous night. The events of the night haunted her, at times scorched the inside of her skull with their screams.

You’re a murderer,
she thought again and again. Sometimes it was a nagging whisper, and sometimes it was a thunderous bellow that deafened her for a moment.

All day she had felt like someone with attention deficit disorder. But she did her best to hide it, and she was pretty sure, as she drove home, that she’d pulled it off.

At the wheel of her car, her hand relived the sensation of stabbing Steven Regent. Her ears heard the blade going in again and again.

She jerked her head back and forth, shook her thoughts up.

Anna stopped at the trailer park’s entrance to see if Kendra had gotten the mail. She had not, just as she’d promised. Anna got the mail – junk and bills – got back in the car, and drove to her trailer.

Inside, she found Kendra asleep on the couch with a game show running on TV. Anna decided not to wake her. The codeine pills made her very sleepy. It seemed the cut – which had been quite severe – had taken a lot out of her, as well.

Anna changed into shorts and a T-shirt, then got a beer from the fridge, sat down at the kitchen table, and lit a cigarette. She closed her eyes and went through it again. Her right elbow rested on the table, her hand up, the cigarette between her first two fingers. The cigarette trembled there in her shaking hand as it all happened again in Anna’s mind. The string of smoke that rose from the cigarette jittered in a zigzag pattern as her hand shook.

She realized how much she owed Marc Reznick. She would be in a huge mess without him – and he could be in a huge mess because of her. But throughout the day, it had begun to dawn on her that Reznick now had a terrific amount of power over her. She realized that, if he wanted to, he could destroy her with an anonymous tip to the police. So far as Anna knew, no one even
suspected
 that Steven Regent was dead yet. But there was a bloody, gory mess in his trailer, and if he wanted to, Reznick could point the police straight to it. But why would he? He might be getting himself into some pretty deep shit, too. Unless he simply denied it. He’d covered his own ass pretty well all along. He was a detective, he knew how to do that. She only hoped he never decided to take advantage of his position over her.

She was hungry, but she didn’t feel like cooking. It was too hot to cook. She grabbed her purse and went out to her car. She drove down to KFC and got dinner for her and Kendra.

The wind made traffic lights bob and sway. Trees and bushes bowed to its strength as Anna drove home. Her car was buffeted on the road by the hot, suffocating gusts.

Back in the trailer, she put her purchase on the counter.

Kendra stirred on the couch and slowly sat up, rubbing one eye with a knuckle.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Anna said. “I just bought dinner. Kentucky Fried Chicken sound good?”

“Yeah. How was work, Mommy?”

“It was good. How was
your
day?”

“Okay. I slept a lot. My finger hurt real bad, so I took the pills, and they make me sleepy.”

“I know they do. How’s your finger?”

“It hurts again.”

“Well, let’s eat and maybe you’ll feel a little better. Have you eaten today?”

“I had a peanut butter sammich.”

Anna took the two dinners out of their bags and removed the plastic covers, then put them on the table. “Dinner is served.”

Kendra got up and shuffled to the table. “You gonna dance tonight?”

“Oh, yeah, I have to after missing two nights.”

“You’re gonna let me stay here, aren’t ya?” Kendra said. “I mean, I didn’t even go get the mail today, and I’ve – “

”I noticed that, and I appreciate it. Yes, I’ll let you stay here tonight.”

“Thank you, Mommy.”

They ate without speaking for a while, but not in silence. The wind battered the trailer and branches creaked overhead.

“Did Marc come over today?” Anna said.

“Uh, Marc? Yeah. Marc came over today. He brought Conan to see Dexter. They, uh, they went, uh, outside together.”

“Something the matter?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t know, you just don’t seem ... too sure of yourself all of a sudden.”

“I-I’m sure of myself. Whatta you mean?” Kendra frowned a little.

“Well, don’t get upset.”

Kendra relaxed a little. Her frown receded. “I’m relaxed, I’m not upset.”

Anna smiled. It was that crush again. Kendra got ruffled every time Marc came up in the conversation.

Suddenly she flashed on the photograph of Kendra smiling with Steven Regent’s cock in her mouth. She took a deep breath.

“Kendra,” she said hesitantly.

“What?”

“We ... we need to talk.”

The blade sliding into his gut ... twisting in his insides ...

“About what?” Kendra said.

Anna put her elbows on the table and joined her hands under her chin.

... all that blood ... on her hands and arms ... on her face and in her hair ... splattering everywhere as she stabbed him ... and stabbed him ... and stabbed him ...
 

“Mommy? You don’t look so good all of a sudden.”

Anna didn’t feel so good.

“Excuse me,” she said as she left the table. She went into the bathroom, closed the door, got down on her knees at the toilet, and vomited.

* * * *

Reznick sat up straight in the recliner with a sharp cry, his fingers digging into the vinyl upholstery of the armrests, his body drenched in sweat. His T-shirt clung to him and his shorts were so wet, they felt soiled.

He lifted his hands, palms up, and inspected them. They were not wearing blood-soaked work gloves.

It took him several seconds to realize that he’d been sleeping and having a nightmare.

He reached for the glass of vodka on the lamp table, but it was empty except for a little water left over in the bottom from melted ice cubes.

Reznick straightened up the recliner and stood, went to the kitchen for more vodka. But the bottle stood on the counter, empty. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the bottle, trying to remember finishing it off. He could not.

He put the empty glass on the counter, grabbed his keys and wallet off the table, and left the trailer. He got in his car and drove down to the Handi-Spot market again, where he took a bottle off the shelf. Then he grabbed a second bottle. He thought about it a moment. He put both bottles back on the shelf and instead chose a liter of vodka.

He’d lost that feeling he’d had earlier, that wonderful buoyant feeling, that mind-numbing sensation that liquor bestowed. He wanted it back.

Reznick paid for his purchase and left the store.

A banner advertising Coca-Cola was stretched overhead in the parking lot and it snapped and fluttered in the scorching wind. The wind engulfed him like the fiery breath of a dragon. He got in the car and drove back to the trailer park, his mouth watering for another drink.

* * * *

Sherry and Lissa shared a joint at the bar. Sherry already felt good, having just had Lissa give her a fix from her kit. She was trying to stretch them out, though. She didn’t
want
to be a junky. She was going to fight it, to wean herself off it. Her most recent dose had been a smaller one. The pot helped.

“You heard the news, didn’t you?” Sherry said. “The news about Arnie Garvis?”

“No, what news?”

Sherry told her what she’d heard on the radio that morning.

Lissa’s eyes widened a little. “No shit? Then David was right. They really
did
fake a death.”

“Yep. And now I’m scared shitless. Andy says I’m just paranoid, but I don’t think so.”

“About what? I don’t know what you mean.”

“About them coming back for
us
. We’re the only ones who know how Arnie really died.”

“Oh, yeah. But ... well ... if they were gonna kill us, don’t you think they would’ve done it that night? When they came to get Arnie? That makes more sense to me.”

“Yeah,” Andy said as he came into the kitchen. “Now
that
makes sense. If they was gonna kill ya, they woulda done it that night. You think they give a shit about you? Nobody’s gonna believe anything you say. They don’t care about you. You don’t worry them a bit. So will ya quit worryin’ about it, for cryin’ out loud?”