Mystic River

  “I just told you, Dave.”

  “Told me what?” He looked up at her and smiled again, but it wasn’t boyish this time. “Told me what, Celeste?”

  “I just felt like thinking. I’m sorry I didn’t call. But it’s been a tough couple of days. I’m not myself.”

  “Nobody’s themselves.”

  “What?”

  “Like this movie?” he said. “They don’t know who the real people are and who the vampires are. I’ve seen parts of this before, right, and that Baldwin brother there? He’s going to fall in love with that blond girl, even though he knows she’s been bitten. So she’s going to turn into a vampire, but he don’t care, right? Because he loves her. Yet she’s a bloodsucker. She’s going to suck his blood and turn him into the walking dead. I mean, that’s the whole thing about vampirism, Celeste—there’s something attractive about it. Even if you know it’ll kill you and damn your soul for an eternity and you’ll have to spend all your time biting people in the neck, and hiding out from the sun and, you know, Vatican hit squads. Maybe one day you wake up and forget what it was to be human. Maybe that happens, and then it’s okay. You’ve been poisoned, but the poison ain’t all that bad once you learn how to live with it.” He propped his feet up on the coffee table, took a long drink from the can. “That’s my opinion anyway.”

  Celeste remained very still, sitting up on the arm of the couch and looking down at her husband. “Dave, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Vampires, sweetie. Werewolves.”

  “Werewolves? You’re not making any sense.”

  “I’m not? You think I killed Katie, Celeste. That’s the kinda sense we’re making these days.”

  “I don’t…Where did you come up with that?”

  He picked at the beer tab with his fingernail. “You could barely look at me in Jimmy’s kitchen before you left. You’re holding her dress up like she’s still inside of it, and you couldn’t even look at me. I start thinking about it. I think, why would my own wife seem repulsed by me? And then it hits me—Sean. He said something to you, didn’t he? Him and that creepy fucking partner of his asked you questions.”

  “No.”

  “No? Bullshit.”

  She didn’t like how calm he was. She could chalk some of that up to the beer, Dave having always been something of a mellow drunk, but there was an ugly air to his calm now, a sense of something coiled too tightly.

  “David—”

  “Oh, it’s ‘David.’”

  “—I don’t think anything. I’m just confused.”

  He tilted his head and looked back up at her. “Well, let’s talk it out then, honey. That’s the key to any good relationship—solid communication.”

  She had $147 in her checking account and a five-hundred-dollar limit on her Visa, with about two-fifty already spent. Even if she could get Michael out of here, they wouldn’t get far. Two or three nights in a motel somewhere, and Dave would find them. He’d never been a stupid man. He could track them, she was sure.

  The bag. She could hand over the trash bag to Sean Devine and he could find blood in the fabric of Dave’s clothes, she was sure. She’d heard all about the advances they’d been making in DNA technology. They’d find Katie’s blood on the clothes and arrest Dave.

  “Come on,” Dave said. “Let’s talk, honey. Let’s hash this out. I’m serious. I want to, what’s it, allay your fears.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You look it.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay.” He brought his heels off the coffee table. “So tell me what’s, uh, bothering you, honey?”

  “You’re drunk.”

  He nodded. “I am. Don’t mean I can’t have a conversation, though.”

  On the TV, the vampire was decapitating someone again, a priest this time.

  Celeste said, “Sean didn’t ask me any questions. I overheard them talking when you went to get Annabeth’s cigarettes. I don’t know what you told them earlier, Dave, but they don’t believe your story. They know you were at the Last Drop around last call.”

  “What else?”

  “Someone saw our car in the parking lot around the time Katie left. And they don’t believe your story about how you bruised your hand.”

  Dave held the hand out in front of him, flexed it. “That it?”

  “That’s all I heard.”

  “And that made you think what?”

  She almost touched him again. For a moment, the threat seemed to have left his body and been replaced by defeat. She could see it in his shoulders and in his back and she wanted to reach out and touch him, but she held back.

  “Dave, just tell them about the mugger.”

  “The mugger.”

  “Yeah. So maybe you’d have to go to court. What’s the big deal? It’s a lot better than having a murder pinned on you.”

  Now’s the time, she thought. Say you didn’t do it. Say you never saw Katie leave the Last Drop. Say it, Dave.

  Instead he said, “I see how your mind’s working. I do. I come home with blood on me the same time Katie’s murdered. I must have killed her.”

  It popped out of Celeste: “Well?”

  Dave put down his beer then and started laughing. His feet came back up off the floor and he fell into the couch cushions and he laughed and laughed. He laughed like he was having a seizure of them, every gasp for breath turning into another giggling peal. He laughed so hard that tears sprang from his eyes, and his entire upper body shook. “I…I…I…I…” He couldn’t get it out. The laughter was too strong. It rolled over him and out of him again and the tears came hard now, pouring down his cheeks and into his open mouth, bubbling on his lips.

  It was official: Celeste had never been more terrified in her life.

  “Ha-ha-ha-Henry,” he said, the laughter finally trailing off into chuckles.

  “What?”

  “Henry,” he said. “Henry and George, Celeste. Those were their names. Isn’t that fucking hilarious? And George, lemme tell ya, he was curious. Henry, though, Henry was just flat-out mean.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Henry and George,” he said brightly. “I’m talking about Henry and George. They took me for a ride. A four-day ride. And they buried me in a cellar with this old ratty sleeping bag on a stone floor, and, man, Celeste, did they have their fucking fun. No one came to help old Dave then. No one burst in to rescue Dave. Dave had to pretend it was happening to someone else. He had to get so fucking strong in his mind that he could split it in two. That’s what Dave did. Hell, Dave died. The kid who came out of that cellar, I don’t know who the fuck he was—well, he’s me, actually—but he’s sure as shit not Dave. Dave’s dead.”

  Celeste couldn’t speak. In eight years, Dave had never talked about what everyone knew had happened to him. He’d told her he’d been playing with Sean and Jimmy and he’d been abducted and he’d escaped and that was all he was ever going to say. She’d never heard the names of the men. She’d never heard about the sleeping bag. She’d never heard any of this. It was as if, right at this moment, they were awakening from a dream life of their marriage and confronting against their wills all the rationalizations, half-lies, submerged wants, and hidden selves they’d built it on. Watching it crumble under the wrecking-ball truth that they’d never known each other, they’d merely hoped they would someday.

  “The thing is, right?” Dave said. “The thing is, it’s like I was saying about the vampires, Celeste. It’s the same thing. The same goddamned thing.”

  “What’s the same thing?” she whispered.

  “It doesn’t come out. Once it’s in you, it stays.” He was looking at the coffee table again and she could feel him fading away on her.

  She touched his arm. “Dave, what doesn’t come out? What’s the same thing?”

  Dave looked at her hand like he was going to sink his teeth into it with a snarl, rip it off at the wrist. “I can’t trust my mind anymore, Celeste. I’m
warning you. I can’t trust my mind.”

  She removed her hand, and it tingled where it had touched his flesh.

  Dave stood up, wavering. He cocked his head and looked at her as if not sure who she was and how she’d gotten there on the edge of his couch. He looked over at the TV as James Woods fired that crossbow into someone’s chest, and Dave whispered, “Blow ’em all away, Slayer. Blow ’em all away.”

  He turned back to Celeste, gave her a drunken grin. “I’m going to go out.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I’m going to go out and think.”

  “Yeah,” Celeste said. “Sure.”

  “If I can just get my head around this, I think it’ll be all okay. I just need to get my head around it.”

  Celeste didn’t ask what “it” was.

  “So, okay then,” he said, and walked to the front door. He opened the door and had crossed the threshold when she saw his hand curl around the wood and he leaned his head back in.

  Just his head, tilted and staring at her, when he said, “Oh, I took care of the trash, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “The trash bag,” he said. “Where you put my clothes and stuff? I took it out earlier and threw it away.”

  “Oh,” she said, and felt the need to vomit again.

  “So, I’ll be seeing you.”

  “Yeah,” she said as he ducked his head back out onto the landing. “I’ll see you.”

  She listened to his footfalls until they reached the bottom landing. She heard the front door creak open and Dave step out onto the porch and descend the steps. She went over the stairs leading up to Michael’s room and she could hear him sleeping up there, his breathing deep. Then she went into the bathroom and threw up.

  HE COULDN’T FIND where Celeste had parked the car. Sometimes, particularly during snowstorms, you might drive eight blocks before you found a parking space, so Celeste could have buried the car as far away as the Point for all Dave knew, even though he noticed some empty spaces not far from the house. It was probably just as well. He was too hammered to drive in all likelihood. Maybe a good long walk would help him clear his head.

  He walked up Crescent to Buckingham Avenue and took a left, wondering what the hell had been going through his head that he’d tried to explain things to Celeste. Christ, he’d even said those names—Henry and George. He’d mentioned werewolves, for crying out loud. Shit.

  And now it was confirmed—the police suspected him. They’d be watching. No more thinking of Sean as an old long-lost friend. They were past that, and Dave could now remember what he hadn’t liked about Sean when they were kids: the sense of entitlement, the sense that he was always sure he was right, like most kids who were lucky enough—and that’s all it was, luck—to have both parents and a nice house and the newest clothes and athletic equipment.

  Fuck Sean. And those eyes of his. And that voice. And the way you could see the women in the kitchen all but drop their panties when he came in the room. Fuck him and his good looks. Fuck him and his morally superior attitude and his funny/cool stories and his cop’s swagger and his name in the paper.

  Dave wasn’t stupid, either. He’d be up to the challenge once he got his head straight. He just needed to get his head straight. If that meant taking it off and screwing it back on tight, then he’d figure out a way to do even that.

  The biggest problem right now was that the Boy Who’d Escaped from Wolves and Grown Up was showing his face too much. Dave had hoped that what he’d done Saturday night would settle that, shut the fucker up, send him back deep into the forest of Dave’s mind. He’d wanted blood that night, the Boy, he’d wanted to cause some fucking pain. So Dave had obliged.

  At first it had just been minor, a few punches, a kick. But then it had gotten out of control, Dave feeling the rage welling up inside of him as the Boy took over. And the Boy was one mean customer. The Boy wasn’t satisfied until he saw pieces of brain.

  But then, once it was over, the Boy receded. He went away and left Dave to clean up the mess. And Dave had done that. He’d done a damn good job of it. (Maybe not as good as he’d hoped, sure, but still pretty good.) And he’d done it—specifically—so the Boy would stay gone for a while.

  But the Boy was a prick. Here was the Boy again, knocking on the door, telling Dave he was coming out, ready or not. We got things to do, Dave.

  The avenue looked a little blurry before him, sliding from side to side as he walked, but Dave knew they were nearing the Last Drop. They were nearing the two-block shithole of freaks and prostitutes, everyone gladly selling what Dave had had torn from him.

  Torn from me, the Boy said. You grew up. Don’t try to carry my cross.

  The worst were the kids. They were like goblins. They darted out from doorways or the shells of cars and offered you blow jobs. They offered you fucks for twenty bucks. They’d do anything.

  The youngest, the one Dave had seen Saturday night, couldn’t have been older than eleven. He had circles of grime around his eyes and white, white skin, and a big bushel of matted red hair on his head, which had only underscored the goblin effect. He should have been home watching sitcoms but he was out here on the street, offering blow jobs to freaks.

  Dave had seen him from across the street as he’d walked out of the Last Drop and stood by his car. The kid stood against a street pole, smoking a cigarette, and when he locked eyes with Dave, Dave felt it. The stirring. The desire to melt. To take the red-haired kid’s hand and find a quiet place together. It would be so easy, so relaxing, so fucking welcome to just give in. Give in to what he’d been feeling for the last decade at least.

  Yes, the Boy said. Do it.

  But (and this is where Dave’s brain always split in half) he knew deep in his soul that this would be the worst sin of all. He knew it would be crossing a line—no matter how inviting—from which he could never come back. He knew that if he crossed that line, he’d never be able to feel whole, that he might just as well have stayed in that basement with Henry and George for the rest of his life. He would tell himself this in times of temptation, passing school bus stops and playgrounds, public swimming pools in the summer. He would tell himself that he was not going to become Henry and George. He was better than that. He was raising a son. He loved his wife. He would be strong. This was what he told himself more and more every year.

  But that wasn’t helping Saturday night. Saturday night, the urge was as strong as he’d ever felt it. The red-haired kid leaning against the light pole seemed to know this. He smiled around his cigarette at Dave, and Dave felt tugged toward the curb. He felt as if he stood barefoot on a slope made of satin.

  And then a car had pulled up across the street, and after some talk, the kid had climbed in after giving Dave a pitying glance over the hood. Dave had watched the car, a two-toned, midnight-blue-and-white Cadillac, pull across the avenue and come toward him into the rear of the Last Drop’s parking lot. Dave climbed into his car, and the Cadillac pulled back by the overgrown trees that spilled over the sagging fence. The driver shut off the lights but left the engine running, and the Boy had whispered in his ear: Henry and George, Henry and George, Henry and George…

  Tonight, before he could reach the Last Drop, Dave turned around even though the Boy was screaming in his ears. The Boy was screaming, I am you, I am you, I am you.

  And Dave wanted to stop and cry. He wanted to put his hand out against the nearest building and weep, because he knew the Boy was right. The Boy Who’d Escaped from Wolves and Grown Up had become a Wolf himself. He’d become Dave.

  Dave the Wolf.

  It must have happened recently, because Dave couldn’t remember any body-racking instance in which he’d felt his soul shift and evaporate to make way for this new entity. But it had happened. Probably while he slept.

  But he couldn’t stop. This section of avenue was too dangerous, too likely to be populated by junkies who’d see Dave, drunk as he was, as an easy mark. There, right now, across the street, he c
ould see a car trolling along slowly, watching him, waiting for him to give off the scent of the victim.

  He sucked in a big breath and straightened his walk, concentrated on looking confident and aloof. He put a bit of rise into his shoulders, gave his eyes a “fuck you” glare and started heading back the way he’d come, back toward home, his head not any clearer, really, what with the Boy still screaming in his ears, but Dave decided to ignore him. He could do that. He was strong. He was Dave the Wolf.

  And the volume of the Boy’s voice did lessen. It became more conversational as Dave walked back through the Flats.

  I am you, the Boy said in the tone of a friend. I am you.

  CELESTE CAME OUT of the house with Michael half-asleep on her shoulder and discovered that Dave had taken the car. She’d parked it half a block up, surprised to get the space this late on a weekday night, but now there was a blue Jeep in its place.

  That hadn’t figured into her plans. She’d seen herself placing Michael in the passenger seat and their bags in the backseat and driving the three miles to the Econo Lodge along the expressway.

  “Shit,” she said aloud, and resisted the urge to scream.

  “Mommy?” Michael mumbled.

  “It’s okay, Mike.”

  And maybe it was, because she looked back up to see a cab turning off Perthshire onto Buckingham Avenue. Celeste raised the hand that held Michael’s bag, and the cab pulled over right in front of her, Celeste thinking she could spare the six bucks for a ride to the Econo Lodge. She could spare a hundred if it got her out of here right now, far enough away to think things through without having to watch for the turn of a doorknob and the return of a man who may have already decided she was a vampire, worthy only of a stake through her heart followed by a swift beheading, just to be sure.

  “Where you going?” the cabbie said as Celeste put her bags on the seat and slid in beside them with Michael on her shoulder.

  Anywhere, she wanted to say. Anywhere but here.

  IV

  GENTRIFICATION