KIN (15 page)

"Sheriff—"

"When we got there, he'd burned the place down around himself."

"Sheriff, listen to me. More than one man attacked us. There were at least three, and they were young, the oldest about eighteen, maybe, and the youngest not more than eleven or twelve. You've got this all wrong. Wellman
helped
me."

He smiled uncertainly. "We found remains, Claire. Your friends. In Wellman's basement. And he had access to all kind of—"

Claire stopped listening. She felt that old familiar panic rising in her chest. If there had been some kind of mistake, if the authorities were pinning this on the wrong man as it seemed they had, it meant the real murderers were still out there and the police weren't even looking for them.

But maybe they'll be looking for me
.

Suddenly, the room began to tilt, the dark spots returning, bigger now, like black holes in her vision. Shadows pooled in the corners of the room and began to reach toward the ceiling, dimming the light. Nausea whirled through her. "Oh God..."

"Claire?" Marshall put out a hand to her.

Imagination gave it a knife.

"Oh G—" She turned away from him and vomited over the side of the bed.

-14-

"Goddamn it, Ty. Keep your hands to yourself."

The three workmen in the booth grinned at the fourth, an overweight black man in a padded check shirt and worn navy baseball cap with an M embroidered in the middle. Beneath it, Ty Rogers's broad face settled into one of apology though his large yellow teeth were bared in a grin as he raised his sap-stained hands in a gesture of placation.

"Not my fault, Louise. You keep shaking that fine ass in our faces every time you walk away."

Louise tucked the pencil she'd used to jot down the men's orders into the breast pocket of her pink and white striped shirt and folded her arms.

"Wouldn't mind being that pencil," another of the men muttered and his coworkers sniggered.

Louise, more tired than offended, glared at each of them in turn, until only Ty was looking at her directly.

"Maybe I should give your wife a call," she said, and at his nonchalant shrug, addressed the rest of them. "All of your wives. I'm sure they'd be real interested to hear what you boys get up to on your lunch break."

Ty pouted. It made her want to slap him.

"Aw c'mon now, girl. We were just playing witcha. You should be flattered. I mean, look at the rest of the girls in here." He nodded pointedly toward the counter where the other waitresses, Yvonne and Marcia, hugely overweight and looking forever unhappy about it, scowled over steaming plates of homemade fries, hash, eggs and sausage. In the warming light above the stainless steel counter, they looked like operatic villains.

"Flattered? I should punch you in your fat head," Louise told him and the men erupted into laughter. But Ty's smile faded, just a little. It was enough for Louise to see that she'd gotten to him, hit him where he didn't like to be hit, especially not in front of his friends. Though she'd seen him in here almost every day over the past month, had weathered his innuendo, crude passes, and vulgarity and thought him a pig, she hadn't been afforded this intimate glimpse of the man he most likely was at home. Dirty, abusive. Worse than a pig, she thought. A pig with a violent streak. She was more than familiar with the type.

"Talk like that," he said, "I should put you over my knee."

"With knees like yours, you could put me and everyone else in here on 'em and there'd still be room for a grand piano."

Ty's smile didn't drop any further, but it was frozen in place, as if the muscles responsible for relaxing it had gone into arrest.

"Got an awful smart mouth on you," he said coldly.

"And you got awfully twitchy hands. Keep 'em to yourself from now on you won't have to listen to my smart mouth or any other." She gave him a final withering look, then went to put in their order. Behind her she sensed the man's icy stare, but it wasn't hard to ignore. He could glare and grumble all he wanted and it would never bother her. She had bigger problems, and as The Overrail Diner was her sole solace from a life gone bad, not to mention her only source of income, she was more than willing to deal with whatever took place within its plate glass walls and acoustic-tile ceilings.

She reached the counter, ripped the order free and slid it across to Marcia, who snatched it up and deposited it behind her in the little square hole in the wall separating the business area from the kitchen.

"He giving you trouble?" Marcia asked, though Louise knew she'd seen and heard it all from behind the counter.

"It's no big deal. Pinched my ass, is all. Isn't the first time; won't be the last. I dealt with it."

Marcia glanced over her shoulder. "Way he's looking at you, you might want to watch your back."

Louise leaned against the counter and sighed. "Don't worry about it. Guy got his feelings hurt. He'll get over it."

"Probably," Marcia said, in a tone that said she wasn't convinced. "But be careful is all I'm saying. That's a big bull to have on your tail. And he isn't used to having the girls in here do anything but flirt with him, or at least take it a little better than you did."

Louise found the thought of that nauseating. She was about to say as much when Chet, the cook, appeared at the hatch and cried out in his irritating nasally voice, "Order up!"

Marcia waggled her eyebrows in an "I'm just saying" gesture before she turned and grabbed the two plates Chet had set there. A pair of mushroom omelets threaded steam as the waitress beamed her way down to the booth by the front door.

Outside, the snow had robbed the streets of color, reducing them to a monochrome depiction of quiet streets and tall silent buildings framed by a lead-colored sky. Dirty slush had gathered by the curbs, and what little life moved through that drab watercolor did so wrapped up tight in warm clothing, heads bowed to watch booted feet traversing treacherous ice-limned sidewalks.

This is not my world
, Louise thought, but felt a pang of frustration when it came to her that though she'd had that same thought innumerable times over the years, she had yet to find a place that was. She was adrift and always had been, in a sea of other people's unhappiness, seemingly incapable of finding that single tributary that would lead her away to the place she sought and couldn't name, or even imagine to any encouraging degree.
Elsewhere
, she decided.
Anywhere but here
. But how often had she thought that too? And every single time, she'd picked up her life and moved, buoyed by the promise of light at the end of the tunnel, gold at the end of the rainbow, only to find herself in the same situation again and again and again. Stuck, miserable, and as good as alone, with a view of the future that never extended beyond the next paycheck.

Tomorrow
, she decided, repeating the mantra that kept her from losing her mind.
Tomorrow it'll be better
.

Chet hailed her and she moved around the counter to pick up the order. There were four plates, each loaded with enough cholesterol to kill a horse, and that was before the men doctored their fries with catsup, salt and vinegar, and whatever else they could find to smother the taste. The smell of the food made her stomach turn. She stuffed some knives and forks in napkins, then expertly balanced the plates in both hands and headed for Ty's table.

"Damn that smells good," one of the men said, and rubbed his hands briskly together. "I'm starving here." And while the other men nodded their thanks, or smiled at her in appreciation, hunger bringing back the manners their Mommas had taught them, Ty, his face close to hers as she set the plates down, continued to stare. If he was indeed as pissed as Marcia had seemed to think he was, there was nothing to stop him making it known now through violence. She was all but presenting herself to him, and he could do plenty of damage by the time anyone realized what was happening.

"Somethin' you want to say to me, Ty?" she asked quietly, as she set down the napkin swaddled knives and forks.

"Just looking at that bruise around your eye," he said, his voice equally calm. His tone threw her a little. It was almost one of concern, as if he was preparing to make a conciliatory speech on behalf of his fellow swine.

"What about it?" she asked, and felt her cheeks redden, suddenly self-conscious.

"How'd you get it?"

"That ain't none of your business."

"Well," he said, leaning closer. She could smell cigarettes on his breath. "You should tell your man that his fists aren't doing the trick. You still haven't got no respect."

She felt her face grow hot, and the eyes of the men on her, waiting for a reaction. They said not a word, forks held close to their mouths, still loaded with food as they absorbed what had just occurred. A line had been crossed they would never have crossed themselves it seemed, but perhaps out of fear, they weren't about to point that out to their boss, who showed not the slightest sign that he regretted what he'd said. Louise straightened slowly and brushed absently at some imaginary wrinkles in her skirt. She looked from Ty, and the satisfied smile on his thick rubbery lips, to the cutlery she'd just set down before him, the tips of the knife and fork catching the fluorescent light, and she knew she was going to kill him. The awareness came without fear, or anxiety, or concern for the future she would be denying herself by plunging that knife into his throat. There was no future to squander. There was only now.

"Now get me some A1 sauce for my meat, okay?" Ty said sweetly around his victorious sneer.

She saw herself doing it. Though the fantasy seemed to last forever, she knew the moment itself would not. It would be quick.
Pick up the knife, drive it forward into his throat, step back to avoid the worst of the blood
.

"You hear me?"

Then sit down with a cup of coffee and wait for the cops to come write your future for you, takin' the choice out of your hands for good
.

There had been many men in Louise's life. Too many, she sometimes thought, and yet still not enough to balance out the investment she had put into them. From Louisiana to Alabama to West Virginia and now Michigan, the path to her present could be found by following the trail of shattered dreams, empty promises, buckled pride and heartache. She'd been the sole burlesque performer in a theater filled with dead-eyed men.

And though she had never unlocked her most secret desires for the hulk sitting before her now, his eyes were just as lifeless, reflecting only inward, studying the desires and dreams of the self, incapable of recognizing those of others.

Her hand found the knife. Ty glanced down.

"What do you think you're going to do with that?"

"Is there a problem here?" a voice said, and Louise jerked, her hand splaying, releasing the knife. She felt her muscles relax, even as some other part of her tensed in disappointment. The invisible strings that had been tugging at her heart, her mind, and her arms, encouraging her to cut loose from them in the same swoop that would see the knifepoint piercing the sagging black flesh beneath Ty's double chin, released her. She had to struggle not to collapse from the recession of that furious impulse.

"I said is there a problem here?"

Louise glanced to her right, into the face of Robbie Way, her manager. He was at least ten years her junior and seemed condemned to use his authority to compensate for his lack of good looks, charm, and physique. His skin was pale and supple, slack around the dull gray eyes, and speckled with angry red pimples around the chin and nose. Now those eyes were narrowed, and fixed on Louise.

"There ain't no trouble."

"What?"

"I said there ain't no trouble here."

Robbie turned his attention to the men at the table. All but Ty had resumed eating. The manager watched them for a moment, then sidled up to the big man. "Everything all right, sir?"

Louise felt her guts coil.

Ty, armed with his most winning smile, nodded once and held up a flaccid cheeseburger seething with grease. "Sure is," he said, beaming. "We were just asking Miss Daltry here if she could get us some A1 sauce. Not sure she heard me properly though. It's what I get for eating with my mouth full, I guess." He chuckled, and Robbie smiled. Nobody seemed compelled to point out that the burger was untouched, and that there was no food in Ty's mouth.

"I'll take care of that for you right away," Robbie said, and turned, his thin fingers squeezing Louise's arm as he led her away from the table toward the counter. "What's going on?"

"Nothin'," she replied, sourly.

"Didn't look like nothing." They reached the counter and he plucked a bottle of A-1 from beside the cash register, then looked squarely at her. "This can't keep happening, you know."

"I know."

"No...I don't think you do. This isn't some sleazy bar where you get to back-talk the customers for ogling you, or get up in their faces because they were staring at your tits. This is a
restaurant
, Louise. We serve food. We get kids and old folks in here. Last thing we need is for the place to be in the newspaper because a waitress decked a regular. Case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly roping them in as it is."