Bad People (36 page)

“It’s okay,” he said, and reached out his arm.

“Okay,” she said. “I suppose I trust you.”

It hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t— that that would be the issue, but then again, he was an almost stranger, and they were on some weird mysterious adventure. Of course she would be creeped out. Why wouldn’t she be?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you want to come in? We don’t have to. Maybe we should forget it.”

“No, no,” she said. “I’m game.”

She stepped up on the milk crate, then reached out her hand and he pulled her inside. “Whoa,” she said after getting her bearings. “This place was
nice
!”

“Yeah,” said S/D. “It was.”

She touched his hand, as if she already knew this place held dangerous memories, painful for him to relive.

Yet he kept coming here.

She explored the room and caught the full vista of the back yard through the wide windowed doors in the dining room.

“You had a pool! That must have been awesome growing up.” She went to the glass and put her nose to it like a child. “Aw, it’s almost empty.”

The bottom of the pool, which he’d investigated recently, held about a foot and a half of brackish water. He didn’t know if rainfall could have done that, or if someone had tried to fill it up somehow. Maybe it never got properly drained. “Mm, well, it’s not swim weather anyhow,” Ardiss went on. How long did you live here?”

“Not that long. We lived in another house when I was in grammar school. A lot smaller, but there were kids in the neighborhood. I think I liked that place better.”

Ardiss had come back to his side while he was talking. He barely noticed her. The house affected him that way sometimes.

The door past the kitchen pantry, the door to the garage, loomed large.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked.

“Stupid to bring you here.”

“No.”

“I don’t even know why I did it.”

“Yes, you do. You wanted to tell me something. Just go ahead, whatever it is, just tell me.”

“There,” said S/D. He pointed into the pantry and at the door to the garage.

That’s where he had found his Dad’s body.

The pool of blood.

His mother had had that all steamed away, but she wasn’t there at the time. She never saw it right in front of her. The cops made her look at pictures later, sure. That wasn’t seeing it.

Moving out of the house didn’t change any of that.

“You’ve gone all quiet,” she said.

There was no need to tell her everything, why did Ardiss need to be tortured with every little detail?

He sensed he was weirding her out even worse than ever, but he pushed through, forced himself to come out and say it.

“We lived here until my father was murdered,” he said. “In the garage. And then we moved. Me and my Mom. They don’t know who did it, but I guess it turns out my Dad was a flake. He screwed around on my Mom and pretty much fucked her over on money too. So now I live with her in a condo. I’m in high school. I’ll be eighteen next month.”

“Holy shit,” said Ardiss.

She wasn’t looking at him, she was looking out the window in the direction of the hills, and he became terrified. She was going to get out. Or she was going to turn around and laugh at him, or yell at him for all of this.

She turned back to look at him, but could only manage to hold the gaze for a second. Her eyes were wet. “Luke didn’t tell me any of this,” she said.

Chapter 40: Connie, Barry

Connie sat in the emergency room while they sewed up Barry’s leg, and then they allowed her to come in and help him get together. Incredibly, Barry had managed to convince the staff that the deep cut on his leg had happened accidentally while he was cleaning and oiling the knife. Or maybe not so incredibly. If the past few months had taught her anything it was that people, and institutions, really don’t care that much. Stab yourself in the leg? Tape it up and get out. Husband murdered in your home? Ten times out of ten it’s the spouse. Otherwise, who cares? It’s too much work, don’t bother us anymore lady, we’ve got our own issues.

And Barry, it turned out, had even let his insurance lapse. They just wanted to be rid of him as fast as a possible.

The curtain was open at the little area Barry occupied. He was sitting on the end of the bed with his shirt open, and his pants still off.

His shoulders were slumped; he held just about the same posture he had when she’d found him, hours before, bleeding. The wound, despite the blood, had not been terribly deep, and they’d spent most of the hours just waiting for someone to have the time to stitch the wound and give Barry a tetanus shot.

On the bed next to him, Connie saw a brochure on gun safety. She supposed they didn’t have one on knife safety.

“How do you feel?” she asked him.

He shrugged. “Like an idiot.”

That about covered it. “Where are your pants? Oh, here they are.” She picked them up off the plastic molded chair kicked halfway under the bunched-up drawn curtain, and handed them to him. She had collected them, and his shoes and wallet, from his house after she had wrapped him in a blanket and bundled him into her car, after she could see he wasn’t going to bleed to death. And she had given them to a nurse for him.

She did all this on her own, because he seemed unaware of the need for these things. Maybe he was in shock, though the doctor said she didn’t think so. Still he hadn’t managed to get dressed on his own.

“What were you doing, Barry?”

“Being stupid.”

“Barry,” I saw the state of the place. I thought someone had broken in or something—”

“No. I trashed it,” he said quickly. She knew, he had already told her.

“That’s the issue. And what were you doing in your bathrobe in the middle of the day? I mean, you have to step back and take a look at this.”

Barry worked his jaw. He hadn’t been able to meet her gaze much recently, and now was no exception. She thought he was about to cry, and maybe it was better if he did, right there, right then, and get it out.

“Connie? Did you ever feel like you’ve done something so bad you can’t come back from it? No matter what?”

She had had those moments. She still had them. She thought about the fights with S/D. He should be in therapy. Hell, they all should be.

And the Luke situation. That was not working. She needed to end that. Not his fault that she really did not want what he wanted. She couldn’t give it to him. Well, she
could
but the real truth was that she did not want to. She wasn’t stabbing herself in the leg—not yet—but she was screwing up her life and she was hurting people. She did that now.

“What is it, Barry? The business? So what? We will come back. We will.”

“It’s not the business.”

“Okay then. Then whatever it is, it’s not as bad as you think. It never is.”

Now he tried to look at her with his wet eyes. He nose looked like it needed blowing and his out-of-control beard and moustache stuck stringy and damp to his lips.

“It’s really bad.” He broke, putting him arm across his eyes to hide, he burst into tears. “I don’t want you to hate me. Don’t hate me.”

She wanted to recoil, which made her ashamed. She put her hand on his shoulder. It shouldn’t have been so hard to make herself do that.

Something about it felt so wrong. She fought that feeling. He needed her. “I couldn’t hate you anyway,” she said, trying to make a grim joke. “You’re the only friend I’ve got left.”

The cry that came out of him next, was like the roar of some wounded animal. He covered his mouth now, and his eyes, with his two hands. He bent forward as if trying to disappear into his own guts. This got the attention of just about everyone in the ER. The doctor came forward, the same young black woman who had treated Barry.

“He’s just upset,” said Connie.

The doctor put her hand on Barry’s shoulder, and leaned in. “All right? Do you want some water? All right?”

Barry kept crying, almost hyperventilating.

“Deep breathes,” said the Doctor, loudly. “Sir? Listen to me! I need you to take deep breaths. Inhale.” She started to get through to him.

He took in a breath, broken up on the way down by his heaves.

“That’s it,” said the doctor. One…two…three…and out…one…two…”

She looked at Connie.

“Keep him breathing. I’ll send a nurse over with a cup of water.” Then she added, “take as long as you need,” in a way that Connie understood to mean they really needed the bed sooner rather than later. Before leaving, the doctor spoke again to Barry. “Okay now. Okay.”

Barry kept up the breathing regime on his own. It seemed to be working, but that was life for you, just keep breathing and you kept on going. For whatever that was worth.

The nurse came by with a Dixie cup of water on a metal tray. Connie took the cup. She almost asked for one for herself; she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day, and the appearance of the water—it might as well have been a thimble full—made her realize that.

Connie took the cup off the tray and passed it over to Barry. “Drink that,” she told him. The nurse left.

Barry drank, and held the cup in his hand, as if not knowing what to do with it. Connie took it, crushed it, and dropped it in the bin a leg’s length away from him. She picked up Barry’s pants and opened them up. “Come on,” she said. “They need the room.”

She held the pants at the waist and stooped to guide his foot toward it. One leg after the other. The action felt familiar even though she hadn’t done anything like that since before Stephen-David could tie his own shoes. She pushed the pants over Barry’s knees, and then told him to grab them. You are going to have to take it from here big boy.

He wormed the pants up over his boxers, careful around all the gauze and wrapping on his thigh, while remaining seated on the bed. It would have been easier if he had stood, but he acted as if he didn’t dare give up the protection of the cot and stand on his own two feet yet. He pulled the pants, which were tight, he had gained a lot of weight, and closed the snap with a struggle.

Connie got him the slippers he had worn in, from where they rested under the molded chair and lined them up with his feet. The slippers were old and shapeless. At least she wouldn’t have to help him get
those
on.

Nor tie them for him.

Finally, and relatively unprompted, he started buttoning his shirt. When that was done he dropped his hands to his sides. He looked at Connie. “I guess I’m ready,” he said.

“All right,” she said.

He put his hand out to steady himself and rose.

“How’s it feel?” she asked him. The leg.

“It stings.”

“Let’s get you home then.”

He walked slowly, more slowly than she would have thought the stitches warranted, and then she admonished herself for her impatience. She was a bad friend. After all, the loss of the business was much more her fault than Barry’s. Robb had been
her
husband, and she hadn’t suspected a thing. No wonder Barry and Erika had kept the depth of the problem from her as long as they had. They could hardly trust her.

They walked that way, him with his baby steps, and her with her stomach balled in a big knot of guilt, out to her car. It was dark. It had rained, but now it was just cold and damp. Too cold for the time of year. What had happened to global warming? Where did that go when you wanted it?

When they got to the car, she let Barry in the passenger side and, while she walked around to her side, took out her phone and checked messages. Luke had left several. He tended to leave too many messages, especially when it was least convenient.

Yet here too, he was in a bad way. His ex-girlfriend had just died in a car accident after all, and even if there had been no current feelings between them, that had to be a shock.

Had to be a shock to the system when someone you no longer loved is killed. He probably didn’t know what he was supposed to feel. And here she had been thinking how she was going to end it with him as soon as she could.
I am a bad person
, she thought.

She got into the driver’s seat, shutting down her phone as she did so. Barry looked at it.

“I’m keeping you from something,” he said.

“No.” She put the device away. “No, nothing.”

She drove Barry home. She sensed that he really wanted her to come inside with him, but when he issued a
pro forma
protest again her half-hearted offer to do so, she quickly steered the conversation into saying the goodnight.

“I’ll call you in the morning. Or call me when you get up. You probably want to sleep late. But I’ll be up early, so call me anytime, all right Barry?”

He nodded. He took his seatbelt off and opened the door. The alarm dinged, but he left the door hanging open, without getting out, so it kept dinging, while he tried to say what he wanted to say.