Trauma (18 page)

“We don't own a gun. Well, we did, but Duke sold it.”

“That eliminates
that
possibility, then. But more than anything else, where did they go, even if you killed them? How does a woman dispose of the bodies of two men from a suburban house without anybody seeing her do it? And where are the bodies now? They haven't been found, have they?”

Bonnie brushed back her hair with her hand. “I came to see you because I thought you could give me some kind of explanation.”

“You mean you thought you could lay the blame for what happened to your husband and son on a Mexican demon goddess?”

“Don't you believe in her?”

“Of course I believe in her. But I also believe that ancient demons can't do very much in the modern world unless they're called on.”

“You think that I
summoned
her?”

“It's possible. Perhaps you don't remember doing it. Perhaps you do, but you're pretending that you don't.”

The band struck up a dreamy version of “
La Pesadilla
” Bonnie said, “You don't think it was me, though, do you? If somebody's murdered them, it wasn't me. I mean, even if it was me, I didn't know what I was doing. It was Itzpapalotl.”

“Only you can know that.”

She stood in the living room, her bleached-blond hair shining in the afternoon sunlight. She was staring at a large reproduction of a painting of Elvis that Duke had given her for her thirtieth birthday. It was Elvis in
Love Me Tender
, with his cowboy hat and his buckskin fringes.

She remembered that birthday so vividly. Duke had been working then, and he had taken her out to a country-and-western restaurant for steak and ribs and dancing. They had laughed so much that Duke had been forced to pull onto the side of the road.

He had put his arms around her and kissed her and said, “You and me, we're forever—do you know that? Till death us do fucking part.”

Carefully, she lifted the picture down from the wall. Then she propped it up against the couch and
unscrewed the metal eyes at the back. Carrying the picture wire, she went to the kitchen and took her gardening gloves out of the drawer, and put them on.

Outside, on the patio, Ray was lying back on the sun lounger, his eyes closed, his music playing just as loud as before. Duke was reading the sports pages and starting on another beer.

She slid open the patio door. Ray's music was so deafening that neither of them looked up. She stepped out onto the patio and stood behind Duke's sun lounger for almost half a minute, not moving, the picture wire held behind her back. Duke probably knew she was there, but he didn't acknowledge her. He was sulking because she had discovered that he had been lying about the job at the Century Plaza.

Bonnie thought:
If you look up and smile at me, you'll probably live
. But all he did was turn the page of the sports section and take another swig from his can of beer.

She was a strong woman. All that scrubbing, all that bed carrying, all that vacuuming. She whipped the picture wire over his head and around his neck, and she pulled it tight before he had the chance to get his fingers underneath it. He twisted and kicked and bounced himself up and down in an effort to get free, but Bonnie pulled tighter and tighter until the wire had disappeared into the flesh of his neck and blood was running down his shoulders.

She kept the picture wire tight until Duke gave a small, convulsive shudder, and his head dropped sideways. All this time, Ray hadn't opened his eyes once.

She unwound the picture wire and walked around
to Ray's sun lounger. He was singing silently to himself and popping his fingers. She bent over him and kissed his forehead.

Open your eyes
, she thought.
Look at me. See me for what I am. Then I will spare you
. But Ray simply grinned and kept on silently singing and finger popping.

Afterward, she went into the living room and phoned Esmeralda.

Esmeralda said, “Everything's arranged. Come downtown to see us at eight o'clock.”

“Okay, I'll be there.”

“You don't sound so good. Is everything okay?”

“Sure. I can manage. I'll see you later.”

She looked out of the window, and she could still see Duke and Ray sprawled on their sun loungers.

Bonnie woke up with a start. The first thing she did was reach out to feel if Duke was lying beside her, but he wasn't. It was still early, 5:17 A.M., and the sky was the color of faded blue flowers.

She got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror, her hair all wild, her eyes puffy. She scarcely recognized herself. She could have been one of those old women you see sleeping rough in Echo Park.

That scene out on the patio, with Duke and Ray—that hadn't really happened, had it? It couldn't have. It had been a nightmare, that's all. She couldn't have garroted her own husband and her own son. As Juan Maderas had commented—if she
had
killed them, where were the bodies?

All the same, she found it impossible to go back
to sleep. She went into the kitchen and drank a big swig of freezing-cold orange juice. Then she stood by the window with her palate aching, staring out at the empty sun loungers. She remembered seeing Duke and Ray all sprawled out on them while she phoned Esmeralda. But had they been alive then, or were they already dead?

She went into the living room. The reproduction of Elvis was still hanging in its usual place. She lifted it away from the wall. If she had removed the wire, then she had replaced it so that no one would ever know, including herself.

She switched on the television and sat watching
I Love Lucy
reruns until it began to grow light outside.

Shortly after 8:00 A.M., Ralph called.

“Bonnie? Joyce Bach told me about Duke. You told me he left you.… I didn't realize that he was actually, like,
missing
.”

“I don't know where he's gone, Ralph. I simply don't. And Ray, too. I had a nightmare last night that I murdered them.”

“You sound terrible, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“I feel terrible, Ralph. I feel terrible.”

“Look—I think I've been very unfair. I've been blaming all of my problems on you. Phil Cafagna's a lecherous bastard, and in any case, businesswise, it was pretty stupid of me to put so many of my eggs into one basket.”

“What does this mean, you've changed your mind?”

“It means, I feel like I've let you down. Like, used
you and then thrown you over. But it isn't like that, Bonnie. I swear it. When I said I loved you, I meant it.”

“Well, maybe it was all for the best.”

“Listen, Bonnie, why don't you meet me? We can talk.”

“I'm not exactly one hundred percent today, Ralph.”

“You're always one hundred percent to me, Bonnie. Please. At least give me the chance to explain myself.”

Bonnie looked at the chrysalis inside the screw-top jar, almost ready to transform itself into a butterfly.

“Okay, then. Why don't you come around here?”

“You mean come to your home?”

“Why not? It's private, and the coffee's good.”

“All right. All right, then. I'll see you at—what—twelve-fifteen?”

“I'll be here.”

Bonnie put down the phone. She picked up the glass jar with the chrysalis and said, “What are you? What are you looking for? Souls? Why do we have to sacrifice the people we love the most? What do you get out of it?”

But in a strange way, she knew the answer to that. God had asked Abraham to kill his only son as a test of his belief. Maybe Itzpapalotl was doing the same.

Before Ralph arrived, she went into the bedroom, drawing down the blinds and closing the shutters, so that it was almost completely dark. She turned the bed down and smoothed the bottom sheet, and then she placed the glass jar between the pillows and unscrewed the lid.

“You need someplace out of the light—I know that.”

She closed the bedroom door and went back into the kitchen. She put on a pot of coffee to perk, and she arranged some shortbread and coconut cookies on a plate. Duke had always hated coconut.

She refreshed her makeup in front of the mirror and blew a kiss at Elvis. Almost at the same time, Ralph's glossy blue car arrived outside, and Ralph stepped out.

She dragged Duke off the sun lounger and into the house, his bare heels bumping on the carpet. Then she went back for Ray. She laid them side by side on the kitchen floor and closed and locked the sliding windows. Ray had a swollen, placid expression on his face, but Duke's eyes were wide open and he looked furious.

She went into the living room and unrolled the green vinyl sheeting over the carpet. It made a loud crackling noise as she crawled over it, making sure that it was well pinned down, underneath the chair legs.

She could have chosen to sacrifice Duke and Ray in the kitchen—nice white wipe-clean surface. But even though glazed pottery tiles are impervious, the grouting between them isn't, and even the minutest bloodstain could be found and tested for blood group and DNA.

Now she dragged their bodies into the living room and laid them next to each other and wrestled them out of their clothes. She was good at undressing inert and unhelpful bodies; she had done it almost every night with Duke. Once they were both lying naked on the floor, she went back to the kitchen to choose a carving knife, a black-handled Sabatier with a ten-inch blade.

“Bonnie?” asked Ralph. “Are you okay? I've said hello to you three times now, and you haven't answered once.”

She blinked at him. She was standing by the open
door with a fixed smile on her face, not quite knowing how she had got there. “Ralph, hi.”

“I feel really awkward about this.”

“Awkward? Why should you feel awkward?”

“As always, I overreacted.”

“It's a difficult situation, Ralph. You and me both being married and all.”

“Any news of Duke and Ray?”

“Nothing. Come on in. I've got beer, 7-Up, milk if you want it.”

Ralph came into the living room, glancing quickly around with a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment. “Nice picture,” he said, nodding toward Elvis.

“It's great, isn't it? A friend of Duke's painted it.”

He sat down on the edge of the couch. He was wearing a putty-colored suit and a pink shirt and he was perspiring.

“Want me to take your coat?” she asked him.

“No, thanks. I'm okay.”

“You look really uncomfortable. Let me take your coat.”

“I'm fine, Bonnie, honestly. I can't stay long. But I did want to square things between us.”

“What's to square? I know you know that I didn't make a pass at Phil Cafagna.”

“You do?”

“You didn't end our relationship because of Phil Cafagna. He canceled the order, for sure. But that was just temper. He needs Glamorex products just as much as Glamorex needs him. Where else is he going to find a lip gloss that wholesales for a dollar-twelve
and retails for fifteen-ninety-nine? He'll be back, if he hasn't come back already.”

Ralph said nothing, but took out a clean white handkerchief and dabbed his forehead.

“You lost your nerve, Ralph, that's all. I know that. It's a big step, leaving your partner and setting up with somebody else, especially when you're nearly forty and you're probably going to lose your house and your fancy new automobile and half of your business, too. I understand, Ralph. I thought it was going to change my life forever, as a matter of fact, but then, I have the same kind of responsibilities as you, don't I? Well,
had
… if Duke and Ray never come back.”

“Where do you think they are, Bonnie?”

“I don't know, Ralph. I honestly don't.”

“It seems kind of strange, doesn't it, that you can't even remember them leaving?”

“How do you know that?”

“What?”

“How do you know that I can't remember them leaving?”

“You told me. You told me yourself.”

“I don't remember telling you that.”

“Does it matter? What matters is, what happened to them?”

“I don't know, Ralph. I surely don't. Anyway, what are we talking about them for? I thought you came here to talk about
us
.'

Ralph said, “I love you, Bonnie. You know that. But I've got too much to lose, and I'm too much of a coward to start all over.”

“A coward, huh? I never would have had you down as a coward.”

“I don't have the strength to change my life the way that you did.”

“What does that mean? I didn't change my life.”

“You—you know. You sorted out the Duke situation.”

“I sorted out the Duke situation? I didn't do anything. The Duke situation sorted itself out by walking out the front door.”