Thrust (16 page)

It didn't take long before Jasper's face went through its usual contortions, the fusion of emotion jerking the muscles of his upper lip, his left eye gaining a tic.
 
His passion for literature was made up of equal parts jealousy, love, fear, respect, dream, and morbid suspicion.
 

Looking around at the furnishings, crappy as they might be, and thinking, poetry did all of this.
  
It welcomed you into history and made you immortal—even if only for a little while.
 
The endurance of your work no different than the durability of your skull.
 
It lasts until the minute when it no longer holds.
 

"So when did you two meet?" Chase asked.

"Early last night, before you went on," Dawn said.
 
"We talked for a few hours."

"And made a lunch date," Jasper added.

"Isaac's very thankful for you," Chase told him.
 
"You may have saved his life."

"That's an exaggeration.
 
I just helped him up off the floor."

"I hear your Mom makes a mean bowl of chicken soup."

"She sure does," the kid said, taking pride in his Mama, the way he should.
 
He'd be calling on her with his last breath.

"Did she make the
babaganoush
too?"

Jasper frowned in puzzlement.
 
"What's that?"

"A delicacy in the Middle East.
 
It's a dip, similar to hummus."

"I never had hummus either.
 
No, Mom doesn't make any of that stuff."

"Thanks, man!"
 
Howard shouted from above, not quite as clear this time because he was still in the bedroom.
 
"You're stand-up!
 
We're gonna make it work!
 
Thanks to you!"

"Is that somebody upstairs yelling for you?" Dawn asked.

"My neighbors get a little rowdy this time of the day."

"It's five in the afternoon," Jasper said.

It was the kind of comment only a young, soft man would say, without comprehending that you could flip your fright wig any time, over any damn thing.
 

Jasper held back, toeing the floor, getting a little of the
aww
-gee
fanboy
fluster going.
 
Chase watched as he extracted a folded piece of paper from his back pocket, held it carefully by its corners.
 
Chase could almost recall what it was like, when the first draft of some transient thought and forced rhyme was more important than a college degree, a job, a girlfriend.

"Well," Jasper said hesitantly, his forehead actually flushing.
 
"When you have time, would you, ah… mind… reading my latest piece?"

Chase took the sheet of paper and read.

not my fault

He pretended he saw more on the page and nodded his head as if catching the cadences.
 
He hoped it wasn't a haiku or he'd really look like an ass.
 
Tried to put a faraway look in his eye as if vivid images and bittersweet turns of phrases were working their magic.

His meds were really falling down on the job.

"Do you like it?" Dawn asked.
 

Clearly the girl was catching the mood, feeling for Jasper and wanting to witness him draped in praise.
 
No wonder she had dug Chase the other night.
 
She liked an underdog.

"It's terrific," Chase said, letting his grin ease free.
 
"Gripping conceptions, but subtle and evocative, with some of the most descriptive phrasing I've read in years.
 
You write about important things, Jasper.
 
You're very young to be highlighting the human condition with such maturity."

It was almost word for word what Shake had told him, the first time Chase had gotten up the guts to show him a poem.

Dawn gave a tiny round of applause and embraced Jasper Cox, rocking him side by side as he beamed.
 
The kid reached around her and stuck his hand out.
 
Chase shook it.

The phone rang and Chase said, "Excuse me."
 
He walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

The weight and magnitude of significance was already in the receiver as he touched it, so much so that he had a hard time lifting it to his ear.

He knew the voice instantly although he hadn't heard it since he got out of prison.
 
"This is Ellis."

Chase had the same screwed feeling he had the first time he met Ellis.
 
That there was some energy he was playing off, feeding on.
 
Even the way Ellis spoke conformed to bad theater.
 
Surly but with command, like he was trying to reach the back rows.

"Hello."

"You know that Joe Singleton is out?"

Still no social amenities or small talk.
 
Okay, then.
 
Chase imagined the expressionless curves of Ellis'
Botoxed
face again, the glimmer of sorrow in the center of his self-assured eyes.
 
"Yes."

"You have to watch yourself."

"I know.
 
I promised his wife I would."

"That's why I wanted to phone you.
 
I thought you wouldn't have heard.
 
Keep hold of yourself.
 
She's dead."

The icy shudder started at the base of his spine and worked up through him until the cold settled across his brow.
 
"No."

"It's true.
 
Annie Singleton was murdered last Friday afternoon."

"Oh my Christ."

"She'd taken a job as a waitress at a local
burp'n'slurp
down in
Tuscon
.
 
He caught up with her at her apartment after she'd finished her shift.
 
She lived alone and nobody missed her until the next afternoon."

"How do you know it was him?"

"She was killed with a single knife thrust to the heart."

Chase almost went over on his face but managed to grab hold of the night stand and prop himself against his headboard.
 

Annie Singleton must've gotten lazy.
 

She must've forgotten.
 
The same as he'd done, despite her warnings.

He turned and saw Stacy seated on the edge of his bed.
 
She had her back to him, facing away, but his dresser mirror showed no reflection, so he couldn't even look her in the eye.
 

As though she were weakening, giving up on him after all this time.
 
She'd done what she could and he'd failed every step right down the line.
 
He didn't blame her.
 

The heat flashed up his arms until he was on fire.
 
The familiar crazy rage—thank Christ for it—was still there, blazing inside him.
 
He held the phone to his chest and gritted his teeth until the muscles of his jaws were stinging, as he threw back his head and swallowed down his regret and fury.

He was going to kill Joe Singleton and he was going to enjoy it.

"Are you there?
 
Grayson?"

"Yes."

"What do you plan to do?"

Ellis was almost breathless thinking about it.
 
How the circumstances set in motion half a decade ago were finally about to come to fruition.
 
Waiting for the third act.
 
The sound of silk slithering free
 
hissed over the line.
 
Ellis was unknotting his tie.
 

Chase said, "You're addicted, Ellis."

"What's that?"

"You're a drama junkie."

"What do you...?"

"Check yourself into Garden Falls."

"You crazy bastard—"

"Listen to me."

"I called to warn you!"

"Thanks for that, but listen to me, Ellis.
 
No attorney should be this attached to a case.
 
Get yourself some help.
 
And if they try to stick you in the tub, sue their asses off."

A lengthy pause grew steadily heavier in silence for another ten seconds before Ellis hung up.
 
Maybe he'd heard what Chase was trying to tell him.
 

In the living room, Jasper and Dawn were standing on the couch having a conversation with Howard upstairs.

"Dude, what's all the yelling about?"

"Charlie is the best!"

"Who?"

"Treat Charlie right!"

"I think this guy is seriously stoned," Dawn said.
 

"Hey," Chase said.
 
"That's real fake leather.
 
Get off there."

With a flourish, Jasper hopped down and made a grand gesture of helping the fey blonde over the coffee table.
 
As if this was a ballet that had been performed many times before.
 
Dawn played into it well, realizing she was on the verge of a new arena that would welcome, enthrall, and eventually engulf her.
 
She couldn't wait.

The kid had no sensibility about him, couldn't discern that something might be wrong beyond his sphere of interest.
 
That had always been Jasper's problem, his inability to reach beyond the confines of his fleecy domicile.
 
Delighting in his youth, he maintained sensitivity but lacked empathy.
 
He was still overjoyed with the pat on the back and wouldn't feel anything else for the rest of the night.
 
It made Chase slightly jealous.

"He's a wonderful person," Jasper said, his sloppy pink tongue wavering in his mouth as he gave that wide-open gawk.
 
"Mr. Barth.
 
Without the Narrative Bone Palace I don't know what I would've done."

"You would've stayed at home and gotten it done there, Jasper.
 
It's what a writer does.
 
You need a pen and a page, that's it."

The kid considered and rejected the comment.
 
"No, it's too lonely, too wearing."

"Of course it is.
 
It has to be."

"That's how you do it?"

"Yes."

"God, I'm glad there was a choice.
 
Someplace where I could go to find the words, you know."

Nodding, maybe even mooning, Dawn agreed.
 
"The beauty of the words, and sharing them with people."

"That's right!
 
Meeting others like me, who care about the same things I do."

"I've only been there once," Dawn said, "but I already feel the same."

"You do, right?"

"Yes!"

"It happens that quick.
 
Once you walk in, then you never want to leave again."

"That's how it was for me.
 
I didn't want to go."

Glimmering, with a real heat, Jasper's gaze began to boil, the bitterness finally leaking out.
 
"It's home.
 
The Palace is my real home, the one I've always wanted."

A better home than the one he shared with his mama, who fed him stew and clipped his mittens to his cuffs and watched him like an unyielding hawk ever since his father died.
 
Who no longer fully understood real endearment but knew the ultimate loss, and who tried to protect her son from the storm raging out there.
 

Chase knew then what he should've known all along.

Jasper had knocked Isaac down and kicked hell out of him on the street.
 

It was his way in.
  
Stalkers had to be close to those they loved, even if they were only out to crush them in a bear hug.
 
Even if they eventually suffocated and murdered the source of their infatuation.
 

That's how it was, when you were alone.
 
You had to make the effort to break down whatever barrier kept you from the all-consuming fantasy.
 

This, for love.

But Chase could never prove it and didn't really want to try because Isaac—not being a poet—would never believe it of the boy.
 
Jasper probably didn't even remember attacking Isaac anymore.

When our desire devours us like that, from the inside out, there's no room for the memory of pain.
 
He'd absorbed the incident into his bloodstream, submerged the moment where it would never bother him again.

You were always that close to the big edge.

"Come on, you two," Chase said, "let's get going.
 
I've got a show tonight."