Piece of cake, Marino says to himself as he unsnaps a bucktool from his belt and slides it out of its worn leather sheath.
The hinges are the common loose-pin variety, and Marino unfolds a pair of pliers from his all-purpose tool, attacks the pin and works it out of the hinge like a cork out of a bottle. Soon, three pins are on the floor, the door free on the left side. With two powerful yanks, Marino breaks the locks loose from the metal jamb. Inside the apartment, he props the door against the opening to give himself a little privacy. He flips on the overhead lights.
Benton had moved out, leaving nothing behind but food in the cupboards, a refrigerator full of Budweiser and half a bag of trash in the kitchen. May as well grab a beer while I’m here, Marino thinks. The bottle opener is on the counter where Marino saw it last, seeming to welcome him in a generous, affectionate way, like a Christmas stocking. Nothing else is out of place. Even the dishwasher is empty.
Strange.
Benton was careful not to offer so much as a partial fingerprint on windowpanes, tabletops or drinking glasses, dishes, cookware or silverware. Marino continues to hold up objects and look at them in oblique light. Sweep marks of the vacuum cleaner are visible on the carpet. Benton wiped down the entire place, and when Marino digs through the garbage bag, he finds nothing but his own empty Budweiser bottles and the broken glass from the Dos Equis he smashed in the sink. Every piece of glass is clean, the labels wet and soapy.
“What the hell is going on?” Marino asks the living room.
“I don’t know,” a male voice answers from behind the propped-up door. “Everything all right in there?”
Marino recognizes the neighbor from across the hall. “Go to bed,” he gruffly tells him. “And if you and me are gonna get along, you need to mind your own business . . . what’s your name?”
“Dave.”
“That’s funny, I’m Dave, too, as in t-o, not t-w-o.”
“T-o-o.”
“Sorry, I forgot to bring spell-check with me.” Marino glares through the space between the propped-up door and the frame.
Dave appears more curious than frightened, peering in, trying to look around the room. Marino’s considerable size blocks the nosy neighbor’s view.
“Can’t believe the bastard left like this,” Marino says. “How’d you like to break into your own damn apartment?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Not only that, the joint’s a pigpen, and he made off with the silverware, pots and pans, and every bar of soap and roll of toilet paper.”
“Silverware and cookware belong to the apartment,” Dave says disapprovingly. “But from where I’m looking, the place looks quite tidy.”
“Yeah, from where you’re looking.”
“I always thought he was an odd man. I wonder why he took the toilet paper.”
“I only hooked up with him a couple months back, answering his ad for subletting,” Marino comments.
He straightens up and steps away from the door, scanning the inside of the apartment again as Dave peers in. His eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, his cheeks sagging and rosy with broken blood vessels, probably from years of living inside a whiskey bottle.
“Yup,” he says. “He never talked, I mean never, not even when he passed me in the hall or we both just happened to open our doors at the same time. There we are, face-to-face, and the most he ever did was sort of give me a little smile and a jerk of his chin.”
Marino isn’t a great believer in coincidences and suspects Dave listened for Benton to come and go and just happened to open his door when Benton was opening his.
“Where were you this afternoon?” Marino wonders if Dave heard the altercation, a loud one, coming from Benton’s apartment.
“Oh, I don’t know. After lunch, I sleep a lot.”
Drunk, Marino thinks.
“He’s the sort who didn’t have friends,” Dave goes on.
Marino continues looking around, standing near the door while Dave peers through the crack.
“Never saw him have a single visitor, and I’ve been living here five years. Five years and two months. Hate this place. He seemed to go away sometimes. Since I retired from being the head chef at the Lobster House, I have to watch my pennies.”
Marino has no idea how watching pennies has anything to do with the man’s mysterious neighbor.
“You was the head chef there? Every time I come to Boston, I eat at the Lobster House.”
This isn’t true, nor is Marino a frequent visitor to Boston.
“You and the rest of the world, yessir. Well, I wasn’t the head chef, but I damn well should’ve been. I’ll cook for you one of these days.”
“How long did the weirdo live here?”
“Oh.” Dave sighs, his eyes shining through the space as he watches Marino. “I’d say goin’ on two years. On and off. What was your favorite dish at the Lobster House?”
“Two damn years. That’s interesting. Told me he’d just moved in and gotten transferred or something, which is why he had to give up the apartment.”
“Well, probably lobster,” Dave remarks. “All tourists get the lobster and sop it in so much butter it’s a wonder they taste anything but butter, so I was always commenting to the other workers in the kitchen, what was the point of bringing in nice fresh lobsters if nobody tastes anything but the butter?”
“I hate seafood,” Marino says.
“Well, we do have mighty fine steaks. Aged one-hundred-percent-prime Angus.”
“Aged always worries me. In the grocery store, aged means spoiled. You know, clearance buggy shit.”
“Now, he wasn’t here all the time,” Dave says. “In and out, sometimes gone for weeks. But no way he’d just moved in. I’ve seen him coming in and out for two years, like I said.”
“Anything else you can tell me about this homo who locked me out and made off with half the stuff in the joint?” Marino asks. “When I find him, I’m gonna kick his ass.”
Dave shakes his head and disappointment glints. “Sure wish I could help you out, but like I’ve been saying, I didn’t know the man and I’m glad he’s gone, and it’s looking like you and me will be great neighbors, Dave Too.”
“Thick as thieves. Now you go on to bed. Let me get a few things done in here, and I’ll catch you later.”
“So nice to meet you. I guess I’ll be calling you Dave Too from now on, if that’s okay with you.”
“Nighty-night.”
BENTON LIVED HERE TWO YEARS and nobody knew him, not even his lonely, busybody neighbor Dave.
Not that Marino is really surprised, but the realization is a reminder of Benton’s desolate, confining life, which is all the more reason his refusal to return to himself, his friends and those who love him makes no sense. Marino sits on Benton’s perfectly made bed, staring in a glazed way at the mirror over the dresser. As well as Benton knows him, he must have suspected that Marino would come back and rant and rail at him again. Not much could be more wounding than for him to have said he doesn’t want to see Marino again—ever.
He focuses on his big, unhealthy self in the mirror, sweat rolling down his face, and it occurs to him that Benton turned off the air-conditioning in the living room when he and Benton were arguing. But when Marino just broke in, the air-conditioning was back on in that room but turned off in this one. Virtually every move Benton makes is deliberate. That’s the way he is, and for him to crank the air-conditioning on high in the living area and turn it off in the bedroom was for a reason. Marino gets off the bed and walks to the window unit, noticing an envelope taped to the side of it.
Perfectly centered on it in block letters are the initials PM.
Excitement kicks in but is tempered by Marino’s wariness. He returns to the kitchen for a sharp knife. Back in the bedroom, he sets it on top of the air-conditioning unit. Then he heads to the bathroom and yanks off several long sections of toilet paper, wrapping it around his fingers. He returns to the window unit and carefully removes the envelope,
noticing that both ends of the tape are folded over so that they adhere to themselves, the same technique police use to prevent fingerprint tape from sticking to their gloves.
He slits the top of the envelope and pulls out a folded sheet of plain white paper and smooths it open. Written in the same block printing that’s on the envelope is: “Please keep on.”
Baffled, Marino considers for a moment that the note wasn’t intended for him and wasn’t written by Benton. He considers that neither the tape nor the paper is old, and they are very clean, and the folded ends of the tape hint that whoever used it might have been wearing latex gloves. Marino’s initials are PM, and Benton knows that handwriting comparisons are usually foiled by block printing unless a documents examiner is comparing block printing exemplars written by the same individual. Benton also knows that Marino would be hot as hell in this room and would turn on the air conditioner. Or if nothing else, Marino would notice the inconsistency of one window unit left on while the other isn’t and would wonder about it.
“Keep on the air conditioner?” Marino says out loud, frustrated and exhausted.
He returns to the kitchen and snatches open a cupboard where a few minutes earlier he noticed a neat, tidy stack of small paper grocery bags. Shaking one open, he drops the envelope inside it.
“What the hell are you talking about? Are you just fucking with me, you son of a bitch?”
Frustration tightens his chest as he thinks of the way Benton treated him, as if the two of them hadn’t been lifelong friends, buddies, almost like brothers, sharing the same woman but in entirely different ways. In a fantastic and secret part of Marino’s mind, he and Benton were married to Scarpetta—at the same time. Now Marino has exclusive rights to her. But she doesn’t long for him, and that repressed anguish adds to his volatility, his upset. A flutter of panic stirs in his stomach and floats up his throat.
Outside in the dark without a cab in sight, Marino lights a cigarette and weakly sits on a brick wall, breathing hard, his heart pounding violently against his ribs like a boxer pounding him, battering him, knocking the wind out of him. Pain shoots through the left side of his chest, terrifying him, and he takes slow, deep, sharp breaths but can’t get enough air.
An empty taxicab drives by, seems to drift by, as sweat drips from Marino’s face while he sits perfectly still on the wall, eyes wide, hands on his knees. The cigarette drops from his clamped fingers and rolls on cobblestones, stopping in a crack.
BEV CAN’T STOP thinking about her.
She should stay far away from that lamb who just gave her five dollars in the Wal-Mart parking lot. But she can’t. Bev can’t control the compulsion, and although her reaction defies any rational explanation, there is a cause and effect in her black, ugly thoughts. The lamb spurned her. The woman backed away from Bev as if she was repulsive and then dared to degrade her further by giving her money.
Inside Wal-Mart, Bev lingers near a display of insect repellents, picking up bottles, pretending to read the labels as she watches the parking lot through the plate glass. To her surprise, the lamb isn’t driving a new car, but an old forest-green Explorer that for some reason doesn’t seem in character for a spoiled, rich housewife or girlfriend. More interesting yet, she’s sitting inside the SUV with the engine running and the headlights off. Bev is in and out of a dressing room in five minutes, outfitted in a loud Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts—none of it paid for and the sensors cut off with her buck knife. Her rain slicker is inside out and draped over her arm, a cheap plastic rain bonnet over her hair, even though the night is clear. If people notice her at all, they will assume she is either crazy or processing her hair.
The Explorer hasn’t moved. Bev walks directly to Jay’s beat-up, filthy white SUV, confident the lamb doesn’t notice her or at least doesn’t connect her with the woman she encountered and gave money to not even half an hour ago. Driving off, Bev turns left onto Perkins, then crosses Acadian and parks in a small parking lot filled with cars because Caterie is a popular restaurant, especially with university students. She turns off her engine and headlights, waiting, her desire burning hotter the longer the lamb sits in the forest-green Explorer in the Wal-Mart parking lot across the street.
Maybe she is on the phone. Maybe this time she is fighting with her man instead of sounding so disgustingly sweet. Bev is an expert at tailing people. She does it regularly when she is driving Jay’s Cherokee. Before she began biding her time as a fugitive at a fishing camp, she followed people, depending on what needed to be done or just for the hell of it. But in those days, her activities had a purpose, or at least were a means directed toward a useful end. Whatever Bev did, she was following orders.
To some extent, she is following Jay’s orders now, but methods and emotions change when one is asked repeatedly to perform the same task. Bev has begun to indulge herself, entertain her own fantasies and have her own fun. It’s her right.
The Explorer heads into the heart of the Old Garden District. The pretty blonde driver has no idea that the woman with the bad knee is not far behind. This amuses Bev. She smiles as the Explorer slows down and makes a right turn into a dark driveway bordered by tall shrubs. Bev drives past, pulls off the road and gets out. She quickly covers herself in her dark rain slicker and backtracks to the white brick house just in time to see its front door close, the woman safely inside. Bev returns to her Cherokee, writes down the address and cuts across a side road so she doesn’t pass the house again. She waits.
MORE THAN ANYTHING, Jean-Baptiste Chandonne wants a dipole antenna, but he is not allowed commissary privileges, and the commissary is where the antennas are sold.
Inmates who enjoy favored status can buy dipole antennas, headphones, portable radios, an AM/FM booster and a religious medal with a chain. At least some inmates can. Beast, in particular, loves to boast about his portable radio, but he does not own a dipole antenna because inmates are allowed only one item from a special list of the Big Ten, as they call it. On death row, privileges are limited out of fear of inmates fashioning weapons.
Jean-Baptiste does not care about a weapon. His body is his weapon, should he ever decide to uncoil it. Uncoiling it is of no interest, not now. When he is led in restraints to the shower, he has no need to attack officers, which he could most assuredly do because of his magnetism, which is only enhanced when he is led past multiple metal doors with iron bars. His power builds. It throbs in his groin and lifts the top of his skull to a hover above his head. He leaves a visible trail of sparks. The corrections officers never understand what he smiles about, and his demeanor greatly annoys them.
Lights-out was at nine. The officer in the control booth enjoys flipping every switch and throwing the inmates into complete darkness in the pod. Jean-Baptiste has overheard officers comment that darkness gives the “dirtbags” time to think hard about their impending executions, the punishment for what they did when they were on the outside, free and able to satisfy their love. Those who do not kill do not understand that the ultimate union with a woman is to release her, to hear her scream and moan, to cover himself with her blood as he ravishes her body and then poses her, that all people might see, and therefore share in her ecstasy and the marriage of her magnetism to him for all eternity.
He lies on his bunk, sweat soaking through the sheets, his odor filling his small, airless cell, the stainless-steel toilet a toadstool shape against the right side of the back wall. The condemned inmates are quiet, with the exception of Beast. He talks quietly to himself, almost whispers, not realizing that Jean-Baptiste can hear without ears. Beast is transformed at night into the powerless, weak entity that he really is. He will be so much better off when the cocktail settles him to sleep and he no longer needs his weak, flawed flesh.
“. . . Hold still. It’s nice, isn’t it? Feels so nice. Stop it, please stop it. Stop it! That hurts! Don’t cry. This feels good. Don’t you understand, you little bitch. It feels good! I want my mommy! So do I. But she’s a whore. Now you quit crying, you
hear me! You scream one more time . . .”
“Who’s there?” Jean-Baptiste asks the foul-smelling air.
“Shut up. Shut the fuck up. It’s your fault. You had to scream, didn’t you. When I told you not to. Well, no more chewing gum for you. Cinnamon. Dropping the wrapper by the swingset so I know what flavor you like. Stupid little cunt. You stay right here in the shade, okay? I’ve gotta run, gotta run. How’s that for a good one, I gotta run, gotta run, gotta run.” He begins to softly sing. “Gotta run, gotta run, gotta run-run-run . . .”
“Who’s there?”
“Knock, knock, who’s there?” Beast calls back in a searing, mocking tone. “Hairy, hairy, quite contrary, how does your dickie grow? With little nuts hiding in your butt and a weenie smaller than your nose.” Softly, softly singing, but loud enough. “I’m a poet, don’cha know it? You know that, dickless wonder? A real sensitive guy, I am, I am. Green eggs and ham. Cat in the hat. I like ’em meaty but not too fat. A drumroll please.”
“Who’s there?” Jean-Baptiste bares his widely spaced, tiny, pointed teeth. He licks them hard and tastes the salty metallic flavor of his own blood.
“Just me, Hair Ball. Your best pal in the world. Your only pal in the world. You got nobody but me, you know that? You must. Who else talks to you and sends little love notes door to door to door until it’s slid under yours, all dirty and read by everybody?”
Jean-Baptiste listens, sucking blood out of his tongue.
“You got this pow-er-ful family. I heard all about it on my radio. More’an once I heard it.”
Silence. Jean-Baptiste’s ears are satellite dishes.
“Con-nec-tions. Where are those fucking guards when you need ’em?” he mocks the darkness.
His hateful voice flies like tiny bats through the iron bars in Jean-Baptiste’s door. Words flutter around him, and he waves them off with sweeps of his hairy hands.