Spring Rain (13 page)

She nodded, not surprised. It wasn’t Clay he wanted to talk to; it was Johnny Spenser’s daughter.

“He called me Leigh-Leigh,” she said as Clay reached for her and lifted her to her feet. She grabbed his arms to hold herself steady and stared without seeing at the third button on his shirt. “No one ever called me Leigh-Leigh but my father.”
And he did it because he knew I hated it.

She felt the shock go through Clay as it had gone through her.

“But your father’s dead.”

“I know.” Her teeth were chattering. “It wasn’t him.”

“Someone he knew. From prison?”

“I don’t know,” she managed to whisper.

He led her to the sofa and pushed her gently down. He sat beside her and tried to pull her into his arms. She knew he was just trying to comfort her, and she craved that comfort, oh, how she craved it. But in some small area of her mind, she was enough aware of the danger he represented to stay sitting stiffly on the edge of the cushions.

“He wants the treasure.” She stared at her clasped hands, then up at him.

“The treasure?” Clay frowned. “What treasure?”

She shook her head, dazed.

“You have no idea?”

“None.” And she couldn’t think clearly enough to formulate one.

“Could your father have hidden some money somewhere?”

She thought of her father sitting in front of the TV summer and winter in his sleeveless undershirt, beer in hand. If he had money, he might not have moved from his chair or put on a decent shirt, but he would have drunk better beer, imported beer, designer beer.

“Oh, look at them fancy beers they’re advertising,” he’d sneer. “So la-dee-da.” And he’d look at his bottle with disgust. “Get me a new bottle, Leigh-Leigh. It’ll taste just as good as those. Yeah, it will.”

But it didn’t, or at least he thought it didn’t. And he wanted those fancy beers so much he’d have bought them if there’d been money.

She shook her head at Clay. “We never had money.”

“Maybe he stole it. Before his last job, I mean. And hid it.” Clay looked uncomfortable, as if he didn’t want to hurt her. As if her father’s reputation were a secret or something.

She shook her head again. “I don’t think so. You have to be good at your work or incredibly lucky to steal any amount of money and get away with it. Believe me, Johnny was neither.”

Clay was studying her carefully. She could feel his eyes on her.
Go home
, she thought.
Leave me alone. Don’t be nice. I can’t deal with your being nice.

He shifted on the sofa, and she thought he was rising, preparatory to leaving. She turned to him, knowing her eyes were huge and frightened and needy.

Don’t go! I’m scared!

But he was only turning to face her more directly, his concern for her evident as he placed one of his huge hands over hers. She stared at his hand, so large it overwhelmed her smaller ones. She kept her head lowered to veil the need, the panic, the relief that he wasn’t leaving, and resented the comfort his touch gave her.

Of course, considering the night she’d had, it could be anyone’s touch, and she’d feel better. At that thought she felt relief and let the resentment slip away. All that was left was mind-numbing fear.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” he finally said. “Something he said at the end when you collapsed.”

She shuddered, her hands beneath his gripping each other so tightly that the knuckles were white. “He threatened Billy.”

H
E LAY WITHOUT
moving, as invisible as could be, watching for her to come out of the main house. The dunes were a great hiding place even if the sand got kind of cold after a while. And hard. Funny when sand looked so soft and inviting that it was actually so hard.

He lay on his belly behind a clump of dune grass. The night was real dark except for that little bit of moon, and he was wearing all black. He even had some black stuff on his face like the army guys before a fight. And he wore a black knit cap pulled down over his ears.

He felt safe burrowed in the dunes, even from the ocean. The ocean gave him the creeps. It kept moving all the time. Big waves, little waves, high tide, low tide. It was too much like a living thing for him, like a scary alien or something in one of those space shows on TV. And it was gray-green, not clear and sparkly like a pool. He liked pools. No surprises. With the ocean you couldn’t see what was waiting to get you. He’d seen
Jaws
lots of times and all the other deep-sea creature movies. He knew what lived in there, and he knew you never saw any of them until they grabbed you. No way was he ever going in it!

He shuddered at the very thought and scrunched more deeply into the dune. He sighed, content. He
didn’t have to worry about anyone sneaking up behind him here in his hiding place. There were more dunes between him and the ocean, and the grass added extra cover.

His brother used to like to sneak up behind him.

“Hey, twerp,” he’d yell as he grabbed him around the neck. And squeezed.

The first time Stanley grabbed him like that he’d wet his pants. He’d been so scared! Stanley was big and strong and mean and liked to hurt people and animals. On TV brothers were nice to each other even if they had fights every so often. Stanley was never nice to him. When Stanley got killed in Vietnam, he’d been happy even though he knew from TV that he should be sad.

He bet that even the TV brothers would have been glad if Stanley had been their brother and tried to choke them all the time.

He remembered how he tried to pry Stanley’s fingers off his throat, but he was too little and too weak. He struggled and struggled while his vision grew dimmer and dimmer. Stanley laughed that scary laugh of his as he squeezed, the laugh that meant he was going to hurt someone.

He had hated being that someone!

He never went to his parents for protection or help. He learned that lesson the day he and Stanley were playing carpenter with an old hammer they found. Stanley hit him in the finger with the hammer real hard. Just pounded and pounded.

“Kill it, kill it,” he muttered with every blow.

It hurt real bad and got all swoll up and turned black-and-blue. He learned later that he should have put some ice on it, but he didn’t know that then. He was only five. Stanley was seven.

Crying, his wounded hand cradled in his good hand, he’d gone to the old man who was sitting in his favorite chair watching wrestling.

“It’s your problem. You take care of it,” his father said with a sneer and a backhand across the mouth. “That’s how you learn to be a man.”

“But, Dad,” he sniffed, a tear falling onto his mangled fingers. “It hurts.”

The old man climbed out of his chair and leaned over him, both fists clenched. “Don’t snivel! Do you hear me? Don’t ever snivel! I can’t stand crybabies.” He raised his hand.

Broken fingers held to his chest, he escaped and never complained to his father about Stanley again.

Ma was usually too drunk to be of much help with anything. When she did say something, she always yelled at him even if whatever was going on wasn’t his fault. And it was never his fault.

“What do you mean telling stories about Shtanley like that, you little liar?” she slurred. “He’sh a good boy, Shtanley is. You’re not. He’s big and strong and handsome. You’re little and ugly and a liar.”

So Stanley crept up on him for years.

It was a while before it dawned on him to make choking sounds before he felt like he was choking. He’d make the noises, then just go limp, and his brother would drop him. He’d end up in a heap on the ground, lying as still as he possibly could. He made believe he was dead. He even tried not to breathe. Then his brother would laugh again, a different laugh, a happy laugh, and go away. He thought he’d won.

But Stanley hadn’t won. He’d won, and he loved the feeling of beating Stanley, even if Stanley didn’t know it. Especially if Stanley didn’t know it. It was his private secret. It made him feel smart, like a genius or something, and it gave him power.

Now he was going to beat Leigh-Leigh and get the treasure. If he could beat big, mean Stanley, he knew he could beat her. He was the one with the power. He was the one who would make her afraid. She was only a girl.

He grinned. He sort of liked Leigh-Leigh. He’d been watching her for days now, and she seemed real nice, especially to that Julia lady and the AIDS guy, though how she could be nice to someone sick like that, he didn’t understand. Wasn’t she afraid of catching it?

And she was pretty. Real pretty. He liked her curls. They were always flying all over her face. Maybe she was a bit skinny. Maybe? There was no maybe about it; she was skinny. He grinned. Of course he liked girls like the ones on calendars. Leigh-Leigh’d never make a calendar, never ever. Still she was pretty in her own way. And nice. He wondered why Johnny didn’t like her.

Of course, Johnny was slime. His best friend, but slime.

He watched her to go up to the door, the kid and the brother trailing behind. Here came the good part. His breath came fast. All she had to do was go inside. Would she scream when she got
upstairs? He hoped she’d scream loud enough for him to hear. It’d be so great to make her scream that loud.

But no! They walked back to the big house.
Not there
, he wanted to scream.
Upstairs! Upstairs!

He moved forward into the yard and watched through the window as she used the phone. It was a quick call. Who would she talk to this late?

He almost choked when the door flew open. They were coming out! He rushed back to the dunes and dived behind the first mound of sand he came to, getting a mouthful of grit in the process. Gag! He spit and spit and spit. He rubbed his sleeve across his tongue and tried to work up some more saliva. He knew he was stuck with an ugly mouth for the rest of the night, and it was Leigh-Leigh’s fault. He wouldn’t forget that.

Muttering to himself, he climbed the dune and slowly raised his head to see if they’d seen him. They hadn’t. They were just sitting there on the back step like they were waiting for something, her and the kid and the brother guy. But what was she waiting for?

Women. They never did what you thought they should.

He blinked in surprise when he saw the police car pull into the drive. He rubbed his suddenly sweaty hands over his jeans seat. He always got nervous when he saw the cops. Then he grinned. He’d forgotten. They didn’t know he was here. He was invisible.

He grinned wider as the police went into her apartment alone, just like there was a dangerous person waiting in the dark rooms.

Out here
, he wanted to yell.
Your dangerous person is out here!

Got that, Stanley? I’m dangerous!

Leigh-Leigh, the kid, and the brother guy went in next. He waited with growing impatience and an ever deepening chill. After forever the police finally left, but the brother guy stayed.

He lay there in the sand with his cell phone in his hand and fumed. The brother guy was not part of the plan. Then he thought,
Why can’t the brother guy be there when I call? I’ll just scare him too!

Feeling invincible in the dark, he dialed. Leigh-Leigh answered, and he told her everything he’d planned. He made his voice as low and mean as he could. He could hear that she was afraid, really afraid. He smiled. Power. It was his.

Then the brother guy snatched the phone and yelled at him.
He dropped his own phone on the sand in surprise. He grabbed it and punched off. He slithered backward off his dune and raced to the beach. He ran until he came to the house of the rich guy and his drunk wife, the one with all the windows. He ran into their backyard and hid behind their garage.

When he had the courage to look behind him, he sagged against the garage side when he saw the brother guy wasn’t on his tail. No Stanley tonight.

As he tried to catch his breath from his race across the beach, he replayed the phone conversation in his mind. He smiled. Leigh-Leigh was scared, real scared. Her voice shook and everything. The shaking was almost as good as a scream.

Satisfied with his night’s work, he sneaked from his hiding place, his mind full of the next step in his plan. He’d show her he meant business, he would. When she saw what was going to happen next, she’d run to him with the treasure as fast as her little legs could carry her.

Still grinning, he crept by the big house with all the windows. Movement in the big room with the TV caught his eye. He turned his head and watched the rich guy pop his wife right in the jaw. She went down fast, out cold, spilling her drink all over her husband and the floor. The rich guy stared at her for a minute, then walked from the room. He stared at her for a minute too. When he saw her chest was still moving up and down, he nodded. She’d be all right. He went on his way.

But he knew he’d never hit Leigh-Leigh like that. Never.

She was too nice.

T
WO HOURS LATER
, Leigh stared through the darkness at the ceiling of her bedroom. She was so tired both physically and emotionally that she was desperate for sleep. If she slept, she wouldn’t think, at least not consciously. And she wanted not to think. She needed not to think.

But sleep eluded her.

I’ll pray! That always calms me down. In fact, it calms me so much it sometimes puts me to sleep at night. Sorry, Lord, but it does.

But she couldn’t marshal her thoughts enough to pray. Instead she saw vignettes, little movies unreeling through her mind.

She saw Clay staring at her across Ted’s room, watching … watching.

She saw Clay as he told her she’d make a beautiful blonde.

She saw Clay mopping up the kitchen floor with an old beach towel, wringing it out time after time in the sink.

She saw Clay patiently washing the peanut butter/syrup mess off the kitchen counters, carefully stuffing all the miscellany back into the desk drawer and the end table drawer, replacing the phone on the small table by the stairs after the threatening call.

She saw Clay reaching his arms to hug her and
Billy, and tears burned her eyes. She heard him pray for her and for Billy. It was the height of irony that they were really a family clutching each other, though no one knew it but her.