Cuts

  The man behind the snack counter greeted him with a smile of oddly small teeth and long, pale gums.

  “I’ll have a hot dog and a Dr. Pepper,” Albert said, trying his best to sound like a woman. “Large, please.”

  That would have to do for starters. It wouldn’t look right for a young lady to make a complete hog out of herself.

  “Haven’t seen you ’round here before,” the man said.

  “Neither have I,” replied Albert.

  The man’s smile vanished. His eyes darkened as if he wanted to teach Albert manners, but he said nothing. He set the hot dog and Dr. Pepper on the counter. “That’s a dollar fifty.”

  Albert handed him a pair of bills.

  “Outta two.”

  Albert counted the change carefully. Then he took his snacks off the counter.

  He was squeezing a stream of mustard onto his bun when the doors opened for intermission. He licked a smear of mustard off the side of his thumb and watched the audience come out.

  Except for a couple of old folks and a bearded dirty guy who looked like a wino, the audience was made up of young people. Older than Albert, but young.

  There must be a college near here, he thought.

  Four of those who came out were girls. One had a pouty scowl that turned her good looks sour. She was followed by a couple walking hand in hand. Both had greasy hair and wore faded dresses that hung shapelessly down their thin bodies. They were decorated with lots of multicolored beads. The fourth girl, the only good one of the lot, was holding the arm of a young man who had to duck through the doorway.

  None of them, Albert thought.

  He folded his hot dog into its foil wrapper, entered the auditorium and looked for a seat. He found one he liked near the center, sat down and placed his Dr. Pepper on the floor between his feet.

  The hot dog was warm through its wrapper. He took it out. The vinegar smell of mustard made him pucker. He moaned with pleasure as he took it into his mouth: the warm soft bun, the eye-watering mustard, the wiener that sprayed hot juices into his mouth when he broke its skin. He chewed for a long time, savoring it before swallowing.

  Then came quiet, distant voices.

  He looked over his shoulder. Two women were walking down the aisle.

  “Fantastic,” he muttered.

  One was a blonde at least six feet tall. The head of her friend came up only to her shoulders.

  Albert took another bite of his hot dog and watched them. They entered the row in front of him.

  The tall one wore faded jeans and a denim jacket. The jacket was open, showing a Woody Woodpecker T-shirt pushed forward by a pair of enormous breasts.

  Her friend was a bit chunky, but she looked good in her corduroy trousers and sweatshirt. Wholesome and cute like a puppy. Albert crossed his legs and imagined the feel of a long, smooth thrust into her pudgy stomach.

  The theater darkened. He watched the movie, finished his hot dog, drank his Dr. Pepper and daydreamed about what he would like to do to the women sitting in front of him.

  At intermission, he bought a buttered popcorn and another Dr. Pepper. When he returned, a man was sitting in his row.

  Directly behind the pudgy woman.

  For a moment, Albert stood in the aisle wondering whether to look for a new seat.

  I like mine.

  I was there first.

  The man was slouched so that his knees pressed the back of the seat in front of him.

  “Excuse me,” Albert said.

  “I most certainly will.” The man sat up straight and turned his legs.

  Albert tried to squeeze by without touching, but the backs of his legs brushed against the man’s knee.

  He stepped past one empty seat, then sank down in the seat he’d been using before intermission. The cushion was still warm.

  “What did you think of Zombie Queen?”

  Albert looked over at the man, forced a smile and said, “It was fine.”

  Where was this guy during that movie? What did he do, change seats so he’d be closer to the two gals?

  Or closer to me?

  “The pace wasn’t quite what it should be,” the man said, “but Fung’s photography was superb, as usual. Are you a student?”

  “No.”

  “Your popcorn certainly smells good.”

  Albert almost said, “Then buy some,” but the two women could probably hear everything. “Would you like some?” he asked, and started to extend the tub across the vacant seat.

  “Thank you. All right if I…?” The man moved into the seat beside Albert, then took a handful of popcorn. “I would’ve guessed you must be a frosh.”

  “A what?”

  “A freshman. At State. Freshmen have a certain look about them, a certain innocence and intensity that I find quite refreshing.”

  “I’m just passing through town,” Albert told him.

  “On your way to…?”

  He filled his mouth with popcorn to give himself time to think. After chewing for a while, he said, “Los Angeles. To visit my real father.”

  “Parents divorced?”

  Albert nodded. For a moment, he thought about his mother screaming while he lay hidden under the bed—and how she’d looked when he finally climbed free.

  The man put his hand on Albert’s knee.

  “Don’t feel too bad about that,” he said. “Were you very old when they split up?”

  “It’s been a year.”

  “Terrible thing.” The man patted Albert’s knee. “I’m afraid that most parents have very little concept of the profound trauma they inflict on their children when…”

  “Would you take your hand off me, please?”

  The man didn’t move. Instead, he looked steadily into Albert’s eyes and said, “You shouldn’t be afraid of the human touch. We all need to touch and be touched. Tactile contact is as necessary to human survival as food, as shelter from the cold. Those who fear it are perhaps in even more desperate need…”

  Albert gripped the hand that was stroking his thigh.

  “Get your goddamn hand off me!” he snapped.

  The big blonde in the next row turned her head around. “Knock it off, y’filthy prick, or we’ll call an usher.” Her eyes moved from the startled man to Albert. “C’mon up here, honey. You can sit with us.” Then she glared at the man. “Get the hell outta here, Fred.”

  Albert hurried down the row.

  “Go on,” the blonde continued. “Get your trashy ass outta here. You come in, start hittin’ on strangers. Some kinda fuckin’ pervert.”

  As Albert walked up the next row, he saw the man get up and start to leave.

  “C’mon and sit right here.” The blonde slapped the seat beside her. “Gal can’t go anyplace without some prick trying to get a mitt in her drawers. I’m Karen, this is Tess.”

  The chubby one on the other side of Karen leaned forward, smiling. “Hi,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you.” Albert thought fast. “I’m Alicia.” To Karen, he said, “I sure am grateful for your help.”

  “Fast Freddy oughta be locked in a kennel, the slobberin’ degenerate.”

  “Do you know him?” Albert asked.

  Tess leaned forward and said, “Karen calls everyone Fred.

  “Only nimble-fingered pussy grabbers like him.”

  “You’ll have to excuse her vocabulary.”

  “Bullshit,” Karen said.

  “I don’t mind,” said Albert as the theater darkened for Fangs of the Wolf.

  The film began with an eerie howl in the fog. Albert settled back in his seat. He could feel Karen’s warmth against his arm. He could smell her perfume.

  “My bus doesn’t leave till eight,” Albert said as he followed Karen and Tess out of the movie theater. “How about if I buy us all some dinner?”

  “That sounds real fine, honey. I’d be all for it except I’ve gotta get home. Steppin’ out tonight.”

  “A bath takes her a long time,” Tess said. “The
re’s so much to wash.”

  “Have you got a date, too?” Albert asked.

  Tess shook her head and looked for a moment as if she might cry. “Not tonight.”

  “Well, maybe the two of us should go somewhere for dinner. I hate to…I’m kind of nervous after what happened with that man. I’d hate to just sit alone in the bus terminal.”

  “Over at the depot,” Karen said, “there’d be cruds hit-tin’ on you right ’n left.”

  “I guess we could find a restaurant somewhere,” Tess said.

  “Instead of that,” said Karen, “why don’t you c’mon over to our place for supper? It’ll be cheaper, ’n you won’t have to be fightin’ off the men.”

  Tess smiled an d nodded. “Good idea. We’ve got all that lasagna in the freezer.”

  “You like lasagna, honey?”

  “Sure. It’s great.”

  “After we get done eating,” Tess said, “I can drive you over to the station in time to catch your bus.”

  “Great. That’s just great. Fantastic.”

  He walked with them to their car.

  TWENTY-ONE

  A PRINCE OF A FELLOW

  “I hope you won’t think I’m rude, but I always like to eat with the TV on.” Tess smiled seriously as she turned on the television. “I like to keep up on things.”

  “It’s fine with me,” said Albert.

  Tess started to set up the TV trays. “I just don’t feel right if I’m not up on things, you know?”

  A buzzer sounded, startling Albert. He thought it must be the oven timer, but it buzzed again.

  “Would somebody-goddamnit get the door?” Karen yelled from the bathroom.

  “On my way,” Tess called. She placed a tray in front of Albert. “That’s probably Steve,” she explained as she hurried away.

  The television took a moment to warm up. Then the screen fluttered alive and Albert recognized Gilligan’s Island.

  “Hi, Steve. Karen’ll be ready in a minute.”

  Albert turned and saw a stocky, muscular man.

  “Alicia, I want you to meet Steve Colvert.”

  He strutted over to Albert. “Pleased to meet you, Alicia.”

  “Alicia i s on h er way to Los Angeles,” Tess explained.

  “Okay! Gonna make movies, huh? You’ll look great on the silver screen. I can see you now. Just don’t let yourself get into …Okay! Gilligan’s Island! Hey, this isn’t the one where his tooth turns into a radio, is it? Yeah, sure. I’d know it anywhere. I’ve only seen it five dozen times. One of the best.”

  “We were planning to watch the news,” Tess said, and set up a tray for herself at a chair beside the couch.

  “Are you kidding? This is a goddamn classic! You can’t turn off a classic to watch the news, what’s the matter with you? Only violence and corruption, anyway. This is a deathless classic. You can’t turn off a deathless classic!”

  “I guess we can wait till you leave.”

  He stood beside Albert’s chair, silently watching the television until a commercial came on. Then he said, “Where the hell’s Jake tonight?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Tess said.

  “Whadaya mean, you wouldn’t know?”

  “I don’t know where he is. He isn’t here. I haven’t heard from him.”

  “You guys have a fight or something?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t get sensitive. Sorry I brought it up. God, you gals always get so goddamn sensitive. You would be good for nothing if it wasn’t for your you-know-whats. Am I right, Alicia?”

  Albert shook his head, grinning.

  A bell rang.

  “Excuse me,” Tess said. “The oven.” She hurried out of the room.

  “So, you’re on your way to L. A., huh? Traveling alone?”

  Albert nodded.

  “Aren’t you awful young for that?”

  “I’m almost twenty.”

  “No kidding. You look more like sixteen.”

  “I’m young for my age.”

  “Uh-oh, it’s starting.”

  “Reckon I’m ready as I’ll ever be,” Karen announced as she entered the room.

  “Shhhh. Gilligan’s Island.”

  “Fuck Gilligan’s Island. My tail’s starting to drag from starvation.”

  “Looks okay to me,” Steve said, not taking his eyes from the television.

  “Only okay? Watch I don’t trade you in, numb-nuts.”

  Albert looked over at Karen just as she turned around. Her green dress was tied behind her neck like an apron. It had no back at all until it wrapped around to cling over her buttocks.

  “Say!” Steve said when he finally looked.

  “Like it?”

  “Say!”

  She bent down to pick something off the rug—a potato chip crumb?—and the front of her dress drooped toward the floor, showing a pale side of breast.

  “Christ!” Steve said.

  She turned her head and grinned at him.

  She seemed completely unaware of Albert, giving him plenty of time to stare before she finally straightened up.

  “We’d better get going,” Steve said. “Nice meeting you, Alicia.”

  “Yeah,” said Karen, smiling at Albert. “Have yourself a good trip, honey.”

  “Thank you.” He thought he should stand, but he remained seated because of his erection. “I love your dress.”

  “You oughta get one your own self,” said Karen. “Knocks the fellas dead.”

  “I’m sure it does.”

  “Let’s get going,” Steve said.

  Tess came in from the kitchen carrying a plate of lasagna in each hand. “You guys leaving now?” she asked.

  “We’re just about off,” Karen told her. “Probably won’t see you till Sunday.”

  “Well, have a nice time.”

  “Yeah,” said Albert. “Enjoy yourselves.”

  “We will,” answered Steve. “We sure will.” He put an arm around Karen’s back and walked her toward the door. The top of his head was level with her shoulder, which he kissed just before he opened the door.

  When they were gone, Albert smiled at Tess and asked, “They’re going to spend the weekend together?”

  “Oh, sure. They usually do. If they don’t have a fight, anyway. I think they’ll get engaged one of these days. How about some wine with supper?”

  “Great.”

  He watched Tess go to the kitchen. She still had on the corduroy trousers and sweatshirt she’d worn at the movies, but now she was barefoot. Albert wondered if she was naked under the sweatshirt.

  If she isn’t, I can sure make her that way fast enough.

  She came back with a bottle of Burgundy and two glasses. She set a glass on her tray and brought one to Albert. She poured for him. She smelled of Jean Nate.

  “I personally think the guy’s a dork,” she said, “but Karen’s crazy about him.”

  “He seemed all right to me.”

  “He’s a major dork, take my word for it. Gilligan’s Island!” She turned to a different channel. A commercial. She glanced at her wristwatch. “The news’ll be on in a minute. What time did you say your bus leaves?”

  “Eight.”

  “If we leave here by a quarter past seven, I guess that’ll give us enough time.” She sat in her stuffed chair beside the couch. “So where are you from?” she asked and started to eat.

  “Chicago,” Albert said. He took a bite of the lasagna. It was hot and good.

  “Chicago? I’m from Milwaukee. We’re almost neighbors.” “How’d you end up in Wichita?”

  “Oh, some dork that works for Boeing dragged me here against my better judgement. Boy, was that ever the biggest mistake of my life. We no sooner got into town than he dumped me.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Well, he was a jerk. Most guys are.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Albert said.

  “The good ones are few and far between. And mostly they’re alr
eady taken.”

  “How come you’re still here?”

  “Who knows? Hell, I’m halfway done getting my credential from State.”

  “Credential?”

  “So I can be a teacher. Big mistake number two. Boy, if I’d had any idea…every guy and his brother, sister, cousin and uncle is in teaching. The chances of getting a job, if I ever do get the darned credential, are almost nil.”

  “That’s really…”

  Albert’s voice went dead as he gazed, stunned, at the television screen.

  “…a police artist’s sketch of the suspect, who has been tentatively identified as Albert Mason Prince. Prince, a seventeen-year-old male Caucasian, disappeared Saturday night from the North Glen, Illinois home of his father. In addition to the Kansas City slayings, Prince is now being sought by Illinois authorities in connection with the double stabbing deaths of Mrs. Arnold Broxton and…”

  “Isn’t that something?” Tess said. “He looks enough like you to be your bro…”

  His tray crashed forward as he lunged. He grabbed the wine bottle’s neck and swung, smashing the bottle against the back of Tess’s head and flinging out an arm in time to stop her face from slamming into her plate.

  “…is considered extremely dangerous. Should you recognize the suspect, please notify your local police at once.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE GRAY GHOST

  When the doorbell rang, Janet’s hand jumped. The lipstick gave her a rakish, one-sided mustache.

  “Want me to get it?” Meg called.

  “Thanks, would you?” She wiped the mustache off, finished putting on her lipstick, and gave herself a once-over in the bathroom mirror. The polyester blouse was cheerful with red and blue swirls, but it hung against her skin in a way that showed more than she really liked. Especially her bra.

  Well, better that than a couple of nipples sticking out. Dave used to be at them constantly when she wore this blouse.

  The thought of Dave made her sad and angry.

  He’s gone, she told herself. He might as well be dead, the bastard.

  Except part of him would always be with her.

  Forget it. Pretend he’s dead. Better for the kid to have no dad at all than a creep like Dave.

  She slipped into a pale blue jacket that matched her slacks, flipped a brush through her hair, and left the bathroom.