36. Turbulent Night
Laila heard Frank enter the house but had remained on her sofa, feigning sleep. She did not want to see the face of the man she was going to kill ... to have killed. She’d remained in her deceitful doze as he looked in on her, using every ounce of her will power to keep from opening her eyes, to keep from screaming.
She stood beside the huge marital bed now, watching Frank sleep. He was huddled on the far end looking very small and frail. Shuddering with revulsion, she pulled back the covers on her side and slid under them.
Why was she doing this – why didn’t she go back to her couch?
Because if Frank awoke and didn’t see her he would get suspicious. And suspicion could derail the whole plan for the morning. If his paranoia antennae were up, there was no telling what might happen. And there was another reason, too.
Laila felt a sense of duty, a need to acknowledge the man she’d spent the past eleven years with. It simply wasn’t proper to reject him during his last night on earth. She sighed heavily and pulled the covers up under her chin. She stared at the ceiling with blank eyes.
Frank began tossing and turning, verbalizing garble. He must have taken too much pain medication, Laila reasoned. Dr. Keating had warned her about the drug’s possible side effects.
Frank’s utterances turned coherent:
“Oh, yeah? ...” he muttered. “I’ll get you!”
He trashed about fitfully.
“Getaway fwum me ... sonuvabitch!”
Laila flung the covers aside.
Damn!
She got up and moved across the room to the window. Moonlight shimmered through her negligee, giving her an ethereal aspect. She gazed out toward the dead tree far across the lawn where the ‘accident’ would occur tomorrow. The atmosphere outside was misted and spooky, like in the old Dark Shadows TV show. Wind rushed over the greenery with an menacing Hissss.
Laila chewed on a knuckle nervously, then looked back toward her husband who continued to flay about on his end of the bed. She looked outside again. A bird bath and other masonry scattered about the property had taken on the aspect of grave markers. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand being here another moment. She hurried across the room and out the door.
She rushed down the staircase; it seemed wider and steeper than usual. She recalled the dreadful scene in Gone with the Wind when Scarlett O’Hara tumbled down the stairs, dooming her unborn child.
She didn’t turn on any lamps, relying solely on the dim glow of nightlights as she made her way to the bar area. She was very familiar with the bar now and didn’t need any extra light. She mixed a tall, powerful drink and headed across the funereal ground floor.
Urged on by some strange, unknowable compulsion, Laila crept into the library and flicked on the desk lamp. She set her drink down on the desk and pulled a photo album off a book shelf. She seemed to be moving on autopilot, like a sleepwalker. She sat down and began leafing through pictures of happier days, drawing solace through the straw from her drink ...
She stopped at a photo of her and Frank sitting at a table in the Three Musketeers restaurant. A younger, more naive version of herself in her spiffy cocktail waitress uniform beamed at the camera. She rested a hand on Frank’s shoulder. Standing directly behind them was Sharese; Nichole and Candy flanked them. Everyone was bright and smiling, except for Frank who maintained his dignified ‘take charge type’ persona.
Lila remembered the circumstances of this picture well. Frank had told her that night that he was divorcing Helen and that he’d be “available soon.” It wasn’t a proposal, exactly, but about as romantic as he allowed himself to be. He’d arrived at the restaurant unannounced and insisted on having dinner with her.
Rick had objected to one of his waitresses being taken out of service, but Frank handed him a fat roll of bills, saying: “This should compensate for her time.”
Rick immediately agreed that Laila could be spared for a few hours. Of course, this put added strain on her friends who had to cover her territory. Frank invited them over to pose for this picture, snapped by Rick himself. Just before it was taken, Frank distributed enormous tips to the other Musketelles to, “Help make up for your increased workload.”
Laila had loved him so much that night. He seemed to be the very soul of kindness and generosity. How could things have gone so horribly wrong? Where was her champion now – when had the domineering, grasping, selfish man appeared?
He must have been there all along. She’d just been too blind and star-struck to see him.
She took a stiff swig of her drink; her face started to soften under the influence of the booze and the happy photograph. The house was silent except for the deep ticking of a grandfather clock.
She turned the page to a wedding photo of her and Frank, taken prior to the ceremony with all the benefits of professional lighting and a big studio camera. She looked radiantly happy in her designer gown. Frank was dramatic in all his manly power and custom-tailored outfit.
A tear rolled down Laila’s cheek. Another album on the shelf contained the rest of the wedding pictures, but she couldn’t bear to look at it. Instead, she continued thumbing through the pages of this album. Suddenly, like a ghoul crashing a birthday party, an ugly, out of sequence photo leapt from the page before her. Laila gasped.
What’s this doing here?
It must have been taken in Belize, the year before she and Frank had met. He’d taken his kids there for a vacation away from their boozy, uncontrollable mother. Helen had suffered her second drunk driving crash while they were away. Laila had never seen this awful picture before, but she knew the story behind it.
Frank had chartered a deep sea fishing boat so that he and his kids could enjoy reeling in marlin or some other prize game fish. Instead, they’d caught a shark. In the picture, the hideous creature hung by its tail flanked by the Armstrong clan. The fish’s head had been pulled back to reveal its razor teeth in a macabre grin; Frank, Henry, and Patricia displayed similar predatory smiles.
Beneath the civilized veneer, all of them were of the same carnivorous tribe, and she’d fallen into their trap. Henry had puffed up his chest, in sorry imitation of his father, but there was no mistaking who the biggest fish in this photo was – and it certainly wasn’t the dead shark.
Ugh!
Laila slammed the album closed. Every humiliation she’d ever suffered at the hands of the Armstrongs came flooding back – every snub, smirk, and whispered comment. Every time Frank declined to defend her against the barely submerged hostility of his children. Every time Frank had ignored her needs and wishes, disparaged her opinions, diminished her worth as a human being.
Her heart became hard as granite now; her blood curdled with hot resentment. She stood abruptly and exited the room.
Laila crept through the darkened house, feeling her way along the wall. The booze had hit harder than she realized when she’d been sitting down. Away from the confines of the library, the house had taken on an unfamiliar, surreal aspect.
Wind battered at the windows, bringing the scent of roses with it. The floorboards creaked underfoot. The ticking of the grandfather clock had become unnaturally loud and sonorous. From outside came the insistent tinkling of wind chimes. What wind chimes?
Steady ... it’s just my imagination.
She entered the spacious living room. The slats on the picture window blinds projected a prison-bar pattern onto the wall composed of moonlight and shadow. Laila’s head threw its own shadow among the bars. Then the pattern morphed into a gallows with a figure in a flowing gown hanging from it.
She gasped with horror and stepped back from the apparition.
Her foot tangled on the coffee table leg. Then she was going down, wrenching her knee and banging her shin painfully against the cast iron. Her drink went flying.
“Uh!”
She lay in agony on the deep plush carpet, stroking her injuries. She looked pleadingly toward the staircase. If only her true love would come down tho
se stairs to her side, comfort her, tell her that all was well – that everything would change for the better. She wanted to be swept away on a tide of love and forgiveness.
But nothing happened. The second story remained as silent as a crypt; no hero descended the stairs to her rescue.
Finally, the pain subsided and Laila got unsteadily to her feet. Pain darted through her knee with every step, but she was able to walk.
As she mounted the stairs, the atmosphere began to shimmer around her. She gripped the rail in a trembling hand. The shadows on the stairway wall wavered and formed into a new pattern – a large pile of gold coins.
Laila gaped with astonishment at this new apparition. The shadow pile of gold began to grow as new coins showered upon it. The wind chimes changed to the sound of clinking money. Laila smiled vindictively and climbed the rest of the stairs ...
Back in the master bedroom, she stood looking down at Frank, who had quieted down amid his drug-infested sleep. She shuddered at the idea of joining him in the bed but could not shirk the dark and dreadful duty she had to perform in preparation for her crime.
She laid down on her end of the massive bed, as far away from Frank as possible, and pulled the covers up tight.
“If I could only get some sleep,” she murmured
Suddenly, Frank turned over violently, flailing his arms at some dream enemy.
“Sonuvabitch!” he cried. “Get outta the mirror!”
His cast-covered arm struck Laila in the face, knocking her instantly unconscious. She lay on her back, still as a corpse. Frank rolled away to the far side of the bed. He did not wake up.