The People Next Door (16 page)

‘Look who’s back on his feet. How you feelin’, Aquaman?’

Mick emerged from the Straw’s kitchen, where he had been berating Carlos about the size of the side salads they were wasting
on entrees, as well as fuming over a lapse in paper goods inventory that had left the restaurant with no take-out containers,
plastic forks, and paper cups until next Friday when Sysco delivered (if they delivered at all, his account being 127 days
past due), and turned to find a short bald policeman built like a rubber foosball player sitting at the bar.

At last, Sergeant Terrance Fielding of the Boulder PD. Terry was smiling, out of uniform, and Mick had done nothing wrong,
but this did not prevent a cold blade of paranoia from slipping itself into him like a shiv.

‘Dry,’ Mick said. ‘Like it never happened. Get you a beer or some club soda?’ This was a sort of amateur code for, Are you
here to interrogate me on official business or is this just a friendly visit because you’re so concerned about my health?

‘Just finished an iced tea, thanks. Was hoping to get
with you on a couple things before you clocked out, though I figured you’d be laying low for a few weeks.’

Mick shot himself a tumbler of club soda. ‘What am I gonna do at home, Terry? This place is going down the shitter. I want
to enjoy my last few weeks as a businessman.’

Fielding nodded without much sympathy. ‘How are the kids?’

‘Briela’s a brilliant but emotional mess. Kyle hasn’t landed in the back of your cruiser yet, so there’s hope for him.’

‘That cut on his head healing up all right?’

‘Hasn’t slowed him down a bit.’

‘Tough kid.’

Mick nodded.

Fielding removed a cardboard Samuel Adams Light coaster from a neat stack Mick had set on the bar. He always stocked them
in piles of a dozen, a little OCD habit that sustained the illusion of order amid the greater chaos. Like a Vegas dealer with
house chips, Mick could count the stack on sight. Fielding held it between his first two fingers, fanned it like a playing
card, and whizzed it sideways along the bar. Mick watched it twirl and slide up to the condiment tray, braking in a patch
of maraschino cherry juice.

Fielding said, ‘You have any problems around the restaurant lately? Anything weird after hours? Threats, bad customers, creeps
lurking in the parking lot?’

‘No, unless by bad customers you mean not enough good ones. Why?’

‘Oh, could be nothing, could be something. You know Raul down at Casa Miguel’s?’

Mick knew the Mexican restaurant off 30th. ‘Nice place. Amy likes their
carnitas
. But I don’t know Raul or the family. He the owner?’

‘Night manager, owner’s brother,’ Fielding said. ‘He got the hot tamales beat the shit right out of him ’bout three, four
weeks ago. Closing time.’

‘Jesus,’ Mick said. ‘I think I read something about that in the paper.’

‘Yeah. Concussion, broken ribs, punctured lung. He’s going to be fine, but it was scary there for a while. Doctors thought
maybe brain damage, but he’s coming around.’

‘You catch the guy?’

‘Guys. Three of them, we think. Just boys, really. Same kind of thing happened back in March, one of the bartenders down at
Pasta Jay’s. Witness accounts weren’t worth a shit. You know how it is that time of night downtown. Everyone hammered off
their balls. But two college girls leaving the West End said they saw three hot-shot assholes watching the back door about
that time. Same routine as Raul had over there at Casa. Assault, then they go for keys or the safe. Robbery to fund drug habits,
maybe a small-time ring or sizable onetime buy. Easier than robbing a convenience store at gunpoint, where you got the cameras.
We think they hit Chez Thuy in April, but Mr Ngyuen’s not talking, so, yeah, looks like a pattern, possibly moving north.’

‘I’m next. That’s what you’re worried about.’

‘Maybe, but it’s just as likely they moved on. Boulder’s small. Stuff like this tends to stand out. They’d have to be pretty
stupid to hit the same area more than a couple times. But you should keep an eye out, just to be safe. Alert your staff. Always
have two people at closing. Maybe put a light up behind your building.’

‘I’ll do that, Terry. I appreciate the warning.’

Fielding nodded and they studied each other a moment.

‘What the hell happened to Roger?’ Mick said. ‘He and Bonnie just up and vanished out there that day? I find that hard to
believe.’

The cop said nothing for a moment. Was he trying to make Mick squirm? He sighed. ‘I got Wisneski’s statement. Anything else
shaken loose for you?’

‘No,’ Mick said, not sure if this was a lie.

‘Can you think of anything else strange on the boat? Kyle remember any other telling details?’

Mick frowned, the memory of the darkened cabin coming back for the first time. He saw himself standing there, one hand on
the chrome door handle, then the shadowed space, and then the white flash hitting him like a strobe. Then nothing, but something
had been there in between. What the hell was it?

A bloodbath, bodies slumped and sliced open, like a Manson Family Polaroid. Red lines trickling from their eyes and ears.
Bonnie’s mouth like a clown’s, joker red, with clots in her hair, twisting her neck until her dilated black pupil regarded
him with acute recognition and wild-horse fear
.

‘You think of something?’ Terry prompted.

Mick blinked, trying to focus. ‘No, not really. Just seemed weird that no one was on board. If Kyle saw what he saw, it couldn’t
have been more than five minutes that passed before I came back. No one else saw anything?’

Fielding shook his head. ‘Spoke with Roger’s ex-wife Gina, though. She says she hadn’t seen him since May of last year. He
came back on Mother’s Day to get some things out of the garage. They had a blowout, he split. She thinks he’s got a fuckpad
up in the mountains somewheres, but she wouldn’t elaborate.’

Mick experienced some relief that Roger wasn’t confirmed dead. ‘So what does that make it? A missing persons thing?’

‘Gina’s not calling it that, but he could be dead for all we know.’

‘Are you considering that?’ Mick turned his back on the cop to stow a bottle of sweet-and-sour mix. He opened one of the refrigeration
unit’s steel morgue doors and slid the bottle in by the neck. ‘That he might be dead?’

Behind him, Fielding chuckled in a disturbing manner. ‘We’re considering everything, Mick. Every. Little. Thing.’

Including me, Mick thought, while the sound of the policeman’s laughter chilled him to the bone. Mick remembered the baseball
bat he kept under the bar. If it was where he had left it, it would be behind him and about three feet to his left.

‘Let me know how else I can help,’ Mick said, pretending to sort through the bottles of champagne.
Don’t even think about it. Fielding’s carrying a gun and you’re being paranoid
.

‘Oh yeah,’ Fielding said, pulling a Columbo. ‘There is just one other thing I don’t understand …’

Mick stood but paused, unable to turn around. ‘Yeah?’

‘Why didn’t you take that second ambulance in? A scare like you had, I’d’ve made sure I got checked out by a doctor. You’re
lucky to be alive, Mick.’

‘I felt okay,’ Mick said softly. ‘We just wanted to go home.’

He waited for Fielding’s reply, frozen in a pocket of guilt. He hadn’t done anything wrong and yet he knew he was a suspect
now. He closed his eyes and saw the lake, the blinding sun. For a moment he was not here, he was outside, in the heat, running
down a beach, his bare feet flicking white sand. He was in a blind panic, running into the trees. He was lost without his
family in a nightmare jungle …

Mick blinked again, and it took him another minute to remember where he was. Okay, the Straw, behind the bar. Fielding still
had not responded. The bar had gone completely silent. There were no customers. No dishes clinked from the kitchen and the
dishwasher was silent. The music had been turned off. The air was pregnant with cold tension and for a moment Mick was sure
that the policeman had slipped behind the bar and was standing right behind him, breathing on the back of his neck.

Mick raised his head slowly. He looked into the wide saloon mirror set above the three tiers of spirits, his eyes darting
side to side. The reflection belonging to Sergeant Terry Fielding of the Boulder Police Department was not there.

Mick turned, his throat tight. The policeman was not on any of the fifteen stools. He was not in the dining room, the entryway,
or outside on the walk.

He checked the restrooms. The kitchen. The stockroom.

The policeman was not in the restaurant. His entire staff had gone home. The place was empty and Mick was alone.

He went to the bar to pour himself a drink. He held the spigot over a tumbler and froze with his thumb on the button. On the
bar, in front of the seat Terry had occupied, the Samuel Adams coasters sat in a neat pile. The one the cop had flung like
a playing card was not stuck beside the condiment tray. Mick eyeballed the stack.

House chips, an even dozen.

Once they were in the store, she took the lead. He walked half a step behind, like her personal assistant, while she moved
down the bulk-foods aisle, running her hand over the bins of yogurt-covered raisins, dried cranberries, banana chips, pausing
to slip a fireball into her mouth. Only then did she ask him the big question.

‘You have ID or are we knocking?’

‘Knocking?’

‘Knocking off, snaking the beer, robbing the store.’

‘Oh, yeah, right,’ Kyle said. ‘Unless you’re not cool with that.’

She stopped, filling a plastic bag with some kind of nut he didn’t recognize, twirled the bag around her fingers.

‘I’ll pay for this,’ she said. ‘You go to the cooler. When you get to the front, you’ll see me standing at register three.
If it’s clear, I’ll give you the sign. Okay?’

‘Sure.’ Kyle swallowed. How could she be so calm? How many times had she done this? ‘Wait, what’s the sign?’

‘You’ll know it.’ She pushed his hip, turning him away
with an electrical current that made his heart dance. ‘Go on.’

Kyle hurried off, realized he was walking like an asshole, slowed. He walked across the back of the store until he reached
the cooler on the far side. The store was so empty it frightened him, reminded him this was not rush hour. With no crowd to
blend into, they would stand out like the thieves they were. He began to fidget, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt.

A wall of beer. So many flavors, colors, brands, boxes of every size under bright white lights. The cold braced him. It was
a cave filled with treasure, a technicolor display of desire, potions with the power to change the entire mood of the night,
the summer, a life. They all wanted
this
.
This
made everything else possible. Until you had a good supply of
this
, everyone was hiding their real face.
This
opened the door, allowed you to get over yourself, made you funnier, more confident, louder, bigger, the you you wanted to
be. The guy who arrived back at the party with
this
became the star, reaped the adoration of everyone else who was too afraid to make it happen.

His knees felt like rubber bands. No way. He just couldn’t do it.

But Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, with her husky, oh so sensual croon, began singing in his head, and for a moment he was the
Turquoise Boy and Kim Gordon was June whatever her last name was, and they were lying next to each other in Shaheen’s parents’
bed, heads on the same long pillow, cool cotton and warm breath, not
kissing, but staring into each other’s eyes, and June was smiling at him. That’s all he wanted, to make her smile again. And
then it was as simple as 2 + 2 = 4. He would be a man and take
this
, June would see him as the savior of the party, and some night in the near future, maybe not tonight, but some night this
summer, he would lay his head on a pillow next to hers, and they would gaze into each other’s eyes while Kim Gordon sang to
them and Thurston Moore used his guitar to express the longings emblazoned like golden notes across the sheet music of Kyle’s
poor wanting heart.

He stepped forward, lifted a cardboard box containing twenty-four cans of Budweiser in his right hand, paused, walked a little
further, and took a four-pack of Mandalay raspberry wine coolers in his left, and strolled away.

Someone’s mother (and possibly grandmother) in the bakery section looked up from her cart and adjusted the strap of her purse,
staring right at him. Kyle smiled and kept walking toward her. She looked back to her list, registering nothing. His confidence
sprouted wings. He turned, crossing the back of the store again.

‘The spice aisle,’ Will had said earlier. ‘The spice aisle is the key. No one’s ever in it, and it leads you right out the
fucking door.’

Kyle watched the signs hanging from the ceiling. Toilet paper, pet food, bottled water. Baking goods. Spices. There it was,
two rows ahead. He turned right, catching a whiff of nutmeg. He passed tubs of Crisco, not too fast, not too slow, shoulders
loose, grip firm. Don’t let go. Defeat the evil suck. The aisle was a mile
long. He glanced over his shoulder, peeped Aunt Jemima smiling back at him.

The aisle shortened. In fifteen paces he would be at the front. Register three. She said she would be at register three.

Ten paces. Five.

One.

He was in full view, the tobacco and customer service desk off to his left. The manager usually hovered here, changing out
drawers for the cashiers, processing returns. But no one was on duty. He looked to the right.

The creamy thigh, her little black sneaker. June standing sideways in an express lane. Reading a tabloid, bag of nuts dangling
from her left hand. She wasn’t looking up. What was she doing? She flipped a page. What the hell? Was this the sign? He slowed,
ordering her to look up. Shit, shit, shit. She was less than ten feet away and had given no sign. This had to mean bad news.

He stopped, the bright lights glaring off the linoleum, the suitcase suddenly an elephant. He had to put them back. This was
insane. He was never going to make it. He was paralyzed. Going back now would be like recrossing a desert. He would die of
a heart attack and they would find him face down next to the canned tomatoes.

She turned, eyes wide. Surprised? Why would she be surprised! This was the plan! Had he heard her wrong? Jesus! June! I’m
dying here!

She set her magazine back on the rack. The cashier cleared the plastic partition from the rubber conveyer belt and looked
up.

‘Next?’

‘Oh my God!’ June buckled at the knee, sprawling, bag of nuts scattering on the floor. ‘Ow, ow, oh God, it hurts …’

Kyle actually began lowering the beer on his way to help her. She was wounded, his perfect girl was hurt, he had to help her
– he froze.

This was the sign! Of course, you dumbass. Go, go, go now!

‘Oh, honey,’ the cashier was saying. ‘Oh no, are you okay?’

A tall man with a hand basket of oranges and Vanilla Wafers stepped in, blocking June from view.

‘Hold on, kiddo,’ he said. ‘Easy, easy now. Just lie still.’

‘It’s my leg,’ June cried. ‘I was in a car accident. I just had surgery – no, don’t touch it! The floor is wet, I slipped
… oh, ow, it hurts!’

She’s fucking brilliant
.

Kyle’s feet danced over squares of checkered linoleum, silent as a ninja. His heart was a synthesizer and the entire front
of the store took on a hazy white glow, blurring as if he were in a car speeding through a neon city. This was another new
drug, like her smile, the rush of the beer boogie. His pupils spiraled open. His veins throbbed, swishing blood in a hundred
tiny tides. The registers were behind him, the photo booth a yellow fuzzy spot, gone. The huge rectangle that was the front
door opening before him like a steel mouth. The store’s air conditioning blasted him from ceiling and floor and it felt like
threading the needle, motherfuckin’ Luke
Skywalker cannon shot out of the Death Star, yahoo, all clear, kid, out into the warm summer night.

I made it! I made it!
He forced himself not to run.
Be cool, you’re so cool. This was a cakewalk, and I’m not even going to wait to kiss her, I’ll do it in the car and she’ll
let me. We did it!

‘HEY YOU, I SAW THAT! STOP RIGHT THERE, YOU LITTLE SHIT!’

Kyle broke into a run. Footsteps pounded behind him. The parking lot quaking, the world upended, adrenaline splashing his
tongue, his bowels turning to water. He ran, fuck it, no going back, he would run all the way back to the party, using the
neighborhood and golf course to weave and duck and hide. His breath came in heaving gulps. A car honked as he dashed in front
of it.

‘I’M A COP! PUT THAT BEER DOWN RIGHT NOW UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET SHOT IN THE FUCKING HEAD!!!’

Kyle stopped instantly – or tried to. His Vans skidded on loose gravel. He went up and then down, hard on his ass. The suitcase
smacked the ground and the cardboard flaps broke loose, spewing cans that spit and hissed and rolled everywhere. The wine
coolers shattered and slooshed up in a fountain, wetting his lap like he’d pissed himself. He could hear the belt of tools
jingling – keys, cuffs, nightstick, radio, mace, gun. A meaty hand slapped his shoulder.

Rasping, ‘Guess who’s fucked.’

Kyle looked up. The ‘cop’ was a three-hundred-pound
security guard with a stained white shirt, bushy black goatee, and open fly. He was so out of breath his nose was sweating,
and the gun was a Nextel walkie-talkie.

Kyle saw stars of red and purple, dots of black. He couldn’t see, only imagined her stepping out of the store, witnessing
his failure. He waited to be yanked to his feet and hauled off to jail, the humiliation beyond description. He felt trapped
in a cell already, the enormity of what he had done wrong thudding into him. He rocked back and forth, moaning, wishing he
could disappear …

A tremendous forced lifted him up and he was screaming, and the security guard was yelling, grunting, and Kyle thought only
of escape. He thrashed, blind with panic. He felt something release him and he was free, running disoriented, and then he
was lost. He stopped. He was standing by the corner of the building. Behind him was the parking lot, with a few cars but no
people. To his left was the front corner of the store, a train of shopping carts. In front of him, on the north side, blanketed
in darkness where the store’s front lights could not reach, was June.

She was looking down at the security guard, the fat man sprawled before her.

Kyle felt as if he were lifting out of his body as he walked toward her. The man on the ground was rubbing his throat and
a white line of spittle leaked from the corner of his puffy lips. His eyes were scrunched tight inside a bloated red face,
but he made no sounds. His
right leg kicked itself stiff and the toe of his shoe bent toward his knee and stayed that way.

‘What happened?’ Kyle looked back, certain more employees were coming for them, but they were alone.

June did not answer. Her arms hung limp at her sides.

‘How did he get all the way over here? June?’

She looked up at him with eyes as large and dark as eight balls. Her cheeks were greenish white. Her mouth moved but no words
came.

Kyle took her by the shoulders and she flinched. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, releasing her, showing her his palms. ‘I’m not going
to hurt you … My God, what did he do?’

She swallowed, the first tears coming freely. ‘He started to hurt you. You were screaming and he … I tried to stop him and
he grabbed me when I tried to run away. He started to shake me and I pushed him away and I, you … didn’t mean to … this wasn’t
part of the plan …’

‘Didn’t mean what? What did you do?’

‘I think I hit him.’ Her eyes were black slicks sunken deep into her pale doll face. ‘I hit him in the throat.’

Kyle looked down at the man between them. The chest was no longer rising or falling.

‘I can’t stay here,’ June said, near tears. ‘My family can’t have this. You can’t be here. No extra attention of any kind,
it’s not allowed, I have to leave …’

She was backing away, shaking her head, and then she was running, and Kyle was running after her.