Dead Echo

  Chapter 8: The Neighbor

  Right at twilight he sat very still, enjoying the last breath of day. A soft, dull yellow suffused the sky as he watched his cigarette trail smoke lazily into the blur of the patio ceiling fan. Tomas Lopez sat on a small white wrought-iron chair, hunched over an equally small table. Not because he was a small man, but from the fact that a guy at work had bought a new outdoor seating set and had sold it to him for cheap. Every once in a while he could hear a car or truck buzzing down the street in front of his house; besides that there was only the sound of cicadas in the oaks and crickets in the grass. Even though he was originally from Colombia he could tell the difference in local insects without much of a second thought. He grimaced above the cigarette and snubbed it out in the ashtray. Goddamn filthy habit, he knew, but not one he’d been able to kick. Probably never would either, if the truth be known. But something had to take you to the grave and at least he would see this one coming.

  He coughed once, hard, spit into the grass bordering the exposed aggregate patio. Then he reached for the pack again, flipped it open and extracted another stick. He fired it up with his handy Zippo, then slipped the lighter back to his pocket. The house was dark inside, like he liked it. Nothing but darkness and tenuous shadows. Bright lights always reminded him of flames and he’d never gotten over that one. Like the cigs, he probably never would.

  His lot backed up to an edge of the creek that led out to the concrete bridge where Patsy had fallen asleep but he couldn’t see either from where he sat. Two years ago he’d hired a company to fence in the backyard with eight-foot pine. It gave him the security of isolation, of being sealed off. Of safety.

  This way the place didn’t look so much like he remembered it used to. The streets and homes had helped too, but closing off the backyard had done the most, as far as his peace of mind was concerned. Anonymity, that was the ticket. At least until he could get his mind settled. It’d been a long time coming, and like the cigarettes and the flames, he wondered if it ever really get here.

  Another car passed on the street up front. He grimaced again as the smoke trailed into his eye and he stubbed the practically untouched cigarette out in the ashtray. The hedge clippers were lying right alongside it. He put his eyes on them and stood up, his skin rippling under the twilight chill. He was naked as the day he was born, not even sandals on his feet, and that was another reason he’d had the fence installed; he didn’t like people spying. He reached down and lifted the clippers off the table, studied them for a moment before turning his back on the house. Then he walked off into the dark yard, heading for the cluster of roses he had planted last spring.