Four Live Rounds (3 page)

“Please, Marty. I could never turn you
in.”

Martin seemed to really consider this. He
said, “Where’s Laura?”

“Upstairs.”

Martin cocked his head and shifted into his
right hand the paring knife he’d liberated from the cutlery
block.

“Don’t fuck with me. I was just up
there.”

“You need help, Marty.”

“You think so?”

“Remember that vacation we took to Myrtle
Beach? I was twelve, you were fourteen. We rode the Mad Mouse
roller coaster eight times in a row.”

“That was a great summer.”

“I’m your brother, man. Little Timmy. Look at
yourself. Let me help you.”

As he spoke, Tim noticed that Martin had gone
so far as to put on black glove liners, and there was something so
clinical and deliberate in the act, that for the first time, he
actually felt afraid, a sharp plunging coldness streaking through
his core, and he grew breathless as the long-overdue shot of
adrenaline swept through him, and it suddenly occurred to him that
he was just standing there, leaning back against the counter,
watching Marty shove the curved paring knife in and out of his
abdomen—four, five, six times—and he heard the water glass he’d
been holding shatter on the hardwood floor beside his feet, Martin
still stabbing him, a molten glow blossoming in his stomach, and as
he reached down to touch the source of this tremendous pain, Martin
grabbed a handful of his hair, Tim’s head torqued back, staring at
the ceiling, the phone ringing, and he felt the knifepoint enter
his neck just under his jawbone, smelled the rusty stench of his
blood on the blade, and Martin said as he opened his throat, “I’m
so sorry, Timmy. It’s almost over.”

The taste of metal was strong in Laura’s
mouth, even before she saw the shadow emerge from the corner of the
garage, the floodlights sensor triggered, Martin jogging toward the
cruiser.

She ducked down behind the seats and
flattened herself across the floorboards, her heart pounding under
her pajama top.

The front driver side door opened.

Light flooded the interior.

Martin climbed in, shut the door, sat
motionless behind the wheel until the dome light winked out.

At last, Laura heard the jingle of keys.

The engine cranked, the car backing down the
driveway and tears coming, her eyes welling up with fear and
something even worse—the uncertain horror of what had just happened
in their home while she was locked in the back of this car.

She reached up, her fingers grazing the
backseat upholstery, just touching the leather cell phone case.

When Martin spoke, it startled the hell out
of her and she jerked her arm back down into her chest.

“Hey guys, it’s Marty. Listen, I’m really
concerned based on my conversation with Tim. I’m coming over, and I
hope we can talk about this. You know, I still remember your
wedding day. Been what, eight years? Look, everyone goes through
rocky patches, but this…well, let’s talk in person when I get
there.”

Laura stifled her sobs as the car slowed and
made a long, gentle left turn, wondering if they were driving
through the roundabout at the entrance to the subdivision.

Under his breath, Martin sighed, said, “Where
the fuck are you?”

She grabbed the leather case off the seat,
pried out the phone in the darkness.

The screen lit up. She dialed 911, pressed
talk.

The cruiser eased to a stop.

“Connecting…” appeared on the screen, and she
held the phone to her ear.

The driver door opened and slammed, Laura’s
eyes briefly stinging in the light. She heard Martin’s footsteps
trail away on the pavement and still the phone against her ear had
yet to ring.

She pulled it away, read the message: “Signal
Faded Call Lost.”

In the top left corner of the screen, the
connectivity icon that for some reason resembled a martini glass
displayed zero bars.

The footsteps returned and Martin climbed
back in, put the car into gear.

The acceleration of the hearty V8 pushed
Laura into the base of the backseat.

Martin chuckled.

Laura held the phone up behind Martin’s seat,
glimpsed a single bar on the screen.

“Laura?”

She froze.

“You have to tell me what that skin cream
is,” he said. “Whole car smells like it.”

She didn’t move.

“Come on, I know you’re back there. Saw you
when I got out of the car a minute ago. Now sit the fuck up or
you’re gonna make me angry.”

That lonely bar on the cell phone screen had
vanished.

Laura pushed up off the floorboard, climbed
into the seat.

Martin watched her in the rearview
mirror.

They were driving through the north end of
the subdivision, the porchlights as distant as stars in the heavy,
midnight fog.

Martin turned onto their street.

“What’d you do to my husband?” Laura asked,
fighting tears.

The phone in her lap boasted two strong bars
and very little battery.

She reached down, watched 9-1-1 appear on the
screen as her fingers struggled to find the right buttons in the
dark.

“What were you doing in my cruiser?” Martin
asked. “Looking for this?”

He held up his second cell phone as Laura
pressed talk.

Through the tiny speaker, the phone in her
hand began to ring.

She said, “When did you know?”

“When you played the message.”

Martin turned into their driveway.

“I’m really sorry about all this, Laura. Just
an honest to God…” He stomped the brake so hard that even at that
slow rate of speed, Laura slammed into the partition. “You fucking
bitch.”

Faintly: “Nine-one-one. Where is your
emergency?”

Martin jammed the shifter into park, threw
open the door.

“Oh, God, send someone to—”

The rear passenger door swung open and Martin
dove in, Laura crushed under his weight, his hand cupped over her
mouth, the phone ripped from her hand, and then the side of her
head exploded, her vision jogged into a darkness that sparked with
burning stars.

Laura thought, I’m conscious.

She felt the side of her face resting against
the floor, and when she tried to raise her head, her skin
momentarily adhered to the hardwood.

She sat up, opened her eyes, temples
throbbing.

Four feet away, slumped on the floor beside
the sink, Tim lay staring at her, eyes open and vacant, a black
slit yawning under his chin.

And though she sat in her own kitchen in a
pool of her husband’s blood, legs burgundy below the knees, hair
matted into bloody dreads like some demon Rasta, she didn’t scream
or even cry.

Her yellow teddy was slathered in gore, her
left breast dangling out of a tear across the front. She held a
knife in her left hand that she’d used to skin a kiwi for breakfast
a thousand years ago, Tim’s .357 in her right.

The front door burst open, footsteps pounding
through the foyer, male voices yelling, “Mooresville Police!”

She craned her neck, saw two cops arrive in
the archway between the kitchen and the living room—a short man
with a shaved head and her brother-in-law, wide-eyed and
crying.

The short man said, “Go in the other room,
Martin. You don’t need to see—”

“She’s got a gun!”

“Shit. Drop that right now!”

“Come on, Laura, please!”

“You wanna get shot?”

They were pointing their Glocks at her,
screaming for her to drop the gun, and she was trying, but it had
been super-glued to her hand, and she attempted to sling it across
the room to break the bond, but even her pointer finger had been
cemented to the trigger, the barrel of the .357 making a fleeting
alignment on the policemen, and they would write in their reports
that she was making her move, that deadly force had been the only
option, both lawmen firing—Officer McCullar twice, Officer West
four times—and when the judgment fell, both men were deemed to have
acted reasonably, the hearts of the brass going out to West in
particular, the man having found his little brother murdered and
been forced to shoot the perpetrator, his own sister-in-law.

All things considered, a month of paid leave
and weekly sessions with a therapist was the very least they could
do.

An introduction to “Remaking”

“Remaking” was born in a coffee shop one
afternoon. I was seated at a table toward the back, working at my
laptop, when a conversation slipped into range. I looked up, saw a
young boy of five or six sitting with a middle-aged man. I
eavesdropped, and for some reason, something felt off. Like maybe
that boy wasn’t supposed to be with that man. Was he kidnapped? A
missing child? Then the boy called him “Dad” and a woman joined
them. The familial vibe shone through, and that jolt of uncertainty
passed. But the questions remained. What if the woman had not
joined them? What if I still felt suspicious when the boy and the
man got up to leave? Would I have followed them and tried to
intervene? These thirty seconds of uncertainty were the origin of
“Remaking,” although, as is often the case, when I began to write,
I found the story held a few surprises for me, and that it wasn’t
so simple or straightforward. But that was okay. In the end, those
are the most fun to write.

remaking

Mitchell stared at the page in the notebook,
covered in his messy scrawl, but he wasn’t reading. He’d seen them
walk into the coffeehouse fifteen minutes prior, the man short,
pudgy, and smoothshaven, the boy perhaps five or six and wearing a
long-sleeved Oshkoshbgosh—red with blue stripes.

Now they sat two tables away.

The boy said, “I’m hungry.”

“We’ll get something in a little while.”

“How long is a little while?”

“Until I say.”

“When are you gonna—”

“Joel, do you mind?”

The little boy’s head dropped. The man
stopped typing and looked up from his laptop.

“I’m sorry. Tell you what. Give me five
minutes so I can finish this email, and we’ll go eat
breakfast.”

Mitchell sipped his espresso, snow falling
beyond the storefront windows into this mountain hamlet of eight
hundred souls, Miles Davis squealing through the speakers—one of
the low-key numbers off Kind of Blue.

Mitchell trailed them down the frosted
sidewalk.

One block up, they crossed the street and
disappeared into a diner. Having already eaten in that very
establishment two hours ago, he installed himself on a bench where
he could see the boy and the man sitting at a table by the front
window.

Mitchell fished the cell out of his jacket
and opened the phone, scrolling through ancient numbers as the snow
collected in his hair.

He pressed talk.

Two rings, then, “Mitch? Oh my God, where are
you?”

He made no answer.

“Look, I’m at the office, getting ready for a
big meeting. I can’t do this right now, but will you answer if I
call you back? Please?”

Mitchell closed the phone and shut his
eyes.

They emerged from the diner an hour
later.

Mitchell brushed the inch of snow off his
pants and stood, shivering. He crossed the street and followed the
boy and the man up the sidewalk, passing a candy shop, a grocery, a
depressing bar masquerading as an old west saloon.

They left the sidewalk after another block
and walked up the driveway to the Antlers Motel, disappeared into
113, the middle in a single-story row of nine rooms. The tarp
stretched over the small swimming pool sagged with snow. In an
alcove between the rooms and the office, vending machines hummed
against the hush of the storm.

Ten minutes of brisk walking returned
Mitchell to his motel, the Box Canyon Lodge. He climbed into his
burgundy Jetta, cranked the engine.

“Just for tonight?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll be $69.78 with tax.”

Mitchell handed the woman his credit
card.

Behind the front desk, a row of Hummels stood
in perfect formation atop a black and white television airing “The
Price is Right.”

Mitchell signed the receipt. “Could I have
112 or 114?”

The old woman stubbed out her cigarette in a
glass ashtray and reached for the key cabinet.

Mitchell pressed his ear to the wood
paneling.

A television blared through the thin
wall.

His cell phone vibrated—Lisa calling
again.

Flipped it open.

“Mitch? You don’t have to say anything.
Please just listen—”

He powered off the phone and continued
writing in the notebook.

Afternoon unspooled as the snow piled up in
the parking lot of the Antlers Motel. Mitchell parted the blinds
and stared through the window as the first intimation of dusk began
to blue the sky, the noise of the television next door droning
through the walls.

He lay down on top of the covers and stared
at the ceiling and whispered the Lord’s Prayer.

In the evening, he startled out of sleep to
the sound of a door slamming, sat up too fast, the blood rushing to
his head in a swarm of black spots. He hadn’t intended to
sleep.

Mitchell slid off the bed and walked to the
window, split the blinds, heard the diminishing sound of
footsteps—a single set—squeaking in the snow.

He saw the boy pass through the illumination
of a streetlamp and disappear into the alcove that housed the
vending machines.

The snowflakes stung Mitchell’s cheeks as he
crossed the parking lot, his sneakers swallowed up in six inches of
fresh powder.

The hum of the vending machines intensified,
and he picked out the sound of coins dropping through a slot.

He glanced once over his shoulder at the row
of rooms, the doors all closed, windows dark save slivers of
electric blue from television screens sliding through the
blinds.