Читать книгу Vicious - Kevin O'Brien - Страница 11

“Well, what did this joker look like?” Allen asked. He stood at the gas barbecue on the rental house’s back porch. Moths fluttered around the porch light. Over his navy blue fisherman’s sweater and khakis Allen wore a Hail to the Chef apron they found hanging on a hook in the pantry. He was a tall, ruggedly handsome thirty-eight-year-old. Susan had fallen in love with his thick, wavy salt-and-pepper hair and pale green eyes. He had a scar on his left cheek that looked like a dimple, so it appeared as if Allen were smiling even when he wasn’t. With a pair of tongs, he set four marinated chicken breasts on the grill. That barbecue smell mixed with the crisp, cool night air.

Susan had Tater Tots and French bread in the oven and a salad in the refrigerator. The kitchen had modern, stainless-steel appliances. She’d been expecting to “rough it” in a squat, rustic, bayside shack. But their rental house was a lovely, comfortable, two-story white wood-veneer house with green shutters. The property was surrounded by trees on three sides—and in the back was this quaint porch. In addition to the barbecue, it had a porch swing and a view of the backyard dock on Skagit Bay. That was where Allen had moored her “surprise,” a beautiful sailboat with an indoor cabin—complete with a small galley, dinette, and V-berth sleeping quarters. He’d rented it from a charter place in town, and tomorrow afternoon, they’d go sailing.

Mattie was thrilled about it, of course. At the moment, he was in the sunroom, on the other side of the sliding screen door, watching WALL-E on DVD. So much for roughing it, thought Susan, but she wasn’t complaining one bit.

Susan was wrapped in a russet cardigan sweater. She poured some more pinot noir into Allen’s wineglass, hoping it might take some of the edge off. He seemed far more upset about her Arby’s encounter than she’d been.

“Actually, this guy seemed perfectly normal,” Susan told him. She spoke in a hushed tone so Mattie wouldn’t hear. “In fact, he was good looking—tall, with dark brown hair. I’d say late thirties, and nicely dressed, too. I would have been flattered if he hadn’t been so overly familiar and pushy.”

“He didn’t tell you his name or where he was from? Any clue—in case I want to report this to the police?”

“No, he didn’t say a thing about himself.” She sipped her wine. “But listen, I don’t know about involving the police, Allen. I mean, this man really didn’t do anything wrong. He—”

“What are you talking about?” Allen interrupted hotly. “The guy followed you all the way to Cullen, and then you got a flat—with practically new tires. We just got them—what—three months ago? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.” With the tongs, he flipped over the chicken breasts on the grill. All the while, he was frowning and shaking his head. “I really wish you’d gotten the license plate number off that red MINI Cooper.”

“Sorry, it didn’t occur to me,” Susan murmured. “At the time, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”

“Well, if you remember anything else about this creep that would help us track him down, let me know.”

“All right already, I will,” she sighed. “Y’know, I didn’t encourage the guy—if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking that at all,” Allen replied.

“Well, you act like you’re mad at me.” She took her wineglass and retreated to the edge of the porch.

“I’m not mad at you,” he answered quietly. “I’m just upset thinking about what could have happened.”

Susan didn’t say anything. She gazed out at the moon and the stars—so bright this far away from the lights of the city. Slivers of white and silver reflected on the bay, and the boat gently rocked in the water. Susan leaned against the railing and heard it creak.

Grabbing the top rail, Susan gave it a shake. It groaned again, and she could see a gap in the corner between the top-rail beams. “Better not let Mattie play out here alone,” she said. “It’s not safe. This thing looks like it might give way.”

“Oh, he’ll be fine, babe,” Allen said, focused on his barbecuing. “I’m sure the railing will hold. Besides, the drop’s only two feet. He’d do worse rolling off the sofa.”

“Well, I still don’t want him playing out here unsupervised,” she insisted.

“Yes, cupcake, anything you say, cupcake,” he replied in a whiny, milquetoast voice that sounded a bit like Truman Capote.

She rolled her eyes at him and then started into the house. “God, I hate it when you do your henpecked husband act.”

“Yes, pudding,” he said—with that whiny voice again. “Dinner will be ready in about five minutes, pudding.”

Susan could hear him chuckling as she slid the screen door shut behind her. She didn’t think it was very funny, not when they were discussing the safety of her child.

Lately, she found herself cutting Allen very little slack. She wasn’t quite as enamored of him as she’d been when they’d first met. Then again, maybe that was just what she needed right now. If she wasn’t completely in love with him, she wouldn’t get her heart broken.

Susan set the dining room table—with plaid cloth mats that had seen better days, plain white plates, and mismatched stainless pieces. This was about as close to “roughing it” as they got here. That nice young man she’d met by the restrooms at Rosie’s had been right about this place. It was lovely.

She could smell the Tater Tots cooking; they had about five more minutes. She remembered the Tater Tot casserole she’d made that one time—eighteen months ago. She would probably never make it again.

Walt and she had been invited to a party.

Tater Tot casserole was the “kitsch-dish” Susan had decided to make for Connie and Jim O’Mara’s Fourth of July potluck. The hosts, old friends of Walt’s from college, were barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers. Connie encouraged their guests to bring a side dish or dessert that was some guilty-pleasure comfort food, parish picnic delicacy, or trailer-trash cuisine. Connie had explained to Susan over the phone that one guest was baking a mock apple pie from Ritz crackers. Another guest was bringing a Jell-O ambrosia salad.

“And Melissa Beale is bringing a Seven-Up cake—whatever the hell that is,” Susan said, folding a load of still-warm laundry on the bed while Walt dried off from an after-work shower. Steam wafted out the open bathroom door. Dinner was on the stove, and the kids were in front of the TV in the living room. Susan could hear it blaring. “Anyway, I told Connie we’d be there.”

“I really don’t want to go,” Walt grunted from the bathroom. “Can you call and cancel?”

“But why?” Susan asked while folding a pillowcase. “I figured you’d be all for it. They’re all your old college friends….”

The O’Maras had recently moved into a new luxury condominium on the edge of Capitol Hill. They were supposed to have a spectacular view of the Puget Sound and the fireworks. Kids were invited, too. Connie had hired a nanny to look after the little ones and read them to sleep in the guest room while the adults and older kids enjoyed the fireworks. Susan thought it sounded terrific—what with a sitter for two-year-old Mattie, and Michael, age eight, begging to stay up and watch the fireworks this year. It was an ideal arrangement—and she didn’t even have to cook, except for the Tater Tot casserole.

“I’d just as soon skip it,” Walt sighed, emerging from the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He was working a Q-tip around his ear.

Susan caught him furtively looking at her in the mirror over her dresser, and she could tell something was wrong. She stopped folding one of his T-shirts and tossed it on the bed. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just don’t feel like going to a party on July fourth. Traffic is always a pain in the ass. And the parking…” He snatched a pair of boxer shorts from her pile of laundry, then shed the towel and stepped into his boxers. The whole time his eyes avoided hers. “It’s too much of a hassle. I’d rather not go….”

Folding her arms, Susan stared at him. “Something’s wrong, I can tell. You’re not even looking at me. I’ve never known you to turn down a party. At the risk of repeating myself, what’s going on?”

With a long sigh, he strode across the room and closed the bedroom door. He stood there in his undershorts for a moment, one hand on the doorknob. He looked down at the floor. “Melissa Beale,” he muttered, frowning. “I’d rather not see her.”

“Why?” she asked, half smiling. “Don’t you like Seven-Up cake?”

He kept staring at the floor, and Susan kept waiting for him to say something.

She knew Melissa from the occasional get-togethers with Walt’s college friends. Melissa was a petite, pretty redhead with a killer body. She taught yoga and had a back tattoo (Walt’s old college gang had had a pool party last summer). She also had a younger live-in boyfriend, Jason Something, with a pierced nipple. Susan had asked Walt ages ago if he and Melissa had ever had a thing in college, and he’d told her no.

“I’m trying to avoid her, because she’s been calling me and e-mailing me at the office,” Walt said, finally.

Susan sat down on the edge of the bed. “And exactly why is she doing that?”

“She and Jason broke up,” Walt explained. “She came by the office about two weeks ago—just before lunch. It was a sneak attack. She said she needed a sympathetic ear. At lunch, she got a little buzz on and asked me to drive her home. I—I wasn’t comfortable about it, because clearly she was flirting with me at the restaurant. But we’d taken her car, and I didn’t want her to get in an accident….”

“Always the Good Samaritan,” Susan murmured numbly. She didn’t like where this was going at all. This wasn’t like Walt. She kept waiting for him to burst out laughing and say it was all a joke—a very, very stupid joke. But he was still standing over by the door in his underwear, gazing down at the floor.

“I parked in front of her place over in Wallingford, and she invited me in to wait for a cab.” Walt finally looked at her. “But I said no thanks. I gave her the car keys and I was just about to climb out of the car, and that’s when she kissed me.”

“On the lips?”

He nodded glumly.

“Did you kiss her back?”

“For only about five seconds,” he whispered. “Then I pulled away and got out of the car.”

Dazed, Susan stared at him. “But you kissed her back,” she murmured.

“I’m sorry, honey.” He shook his head. “I told her I was happily married and very much in love with you, and that this wasn’t ever going to happen again. Then I tried to make some kind of joke, because it was just so damn awkward, and I got the hell out of there….”

He kept saying he wasn’t interested in Melissa. He didn’t mean to kiss her back, it “just sort of happened.” He was sorry he didn’t tell her about it, but he didn’t want to upset her over something that meant nothing to him. But the trouble was Melissa had called him at the office the next day to apologize. Then she’d wanted to buy him lunch just to show how sorry she was. He’d given her a polite “No thanks, not a good idea.” But Melissa wasn’t giving up that easily. She was on a campaign. And that was why he didn’t want to go to the damn Fourth of July party.

Susan sat there in a stupor, growing angrier and angrier. She still couldn’t believe he’d kissed that woman back—and for five seconds. It probably went on longer than that, but he didn’t want to admit it. If they hadn’t been invited to this party, would he have ever bothered telling her any of this?

She finally got to her feet. “I need to get out of here, I need to be alone,” she said in a low voice. “You can serve up the kids their dinner. Make up any excuse you want for where I’ve gone. I promised Michael I’d help with his math homework. So you’ll need to do it now. I’m not sure when I’m coming back—”

“Wait, Sue, please,” he said, moving toward her.

She shook her head. “Get the hell out of my way,” she growled, brushing past him as she headed for the door. “I need to be alone. I need to get out of here before I hit you or something….”

Then Susan hurried out of the bedroom. She ducked out the kitchen door, so the boys didn’t see her leave. She drove to a lookout point on Fifteenth, near Lakeview Cemetery. The little park had benches and a panoramic view of Husky Stadium, Lake Washington, and Bellevue. Directly below the park was a wooded ravine with trails. It was just the kind of remote spot she wouldn’t have taken Michael during the heyday of Mama’s Boy. But that night, Susan sat there for three hours. She managed to cool off. It wouldn’t be easy forgiving Walt, but she would. And going to that Fourth of July party would be terribly uncomfortable for him.

But go they would—Walt, the boys, and her. Susan saw to it.

Driving to the O’Maras’ on July Fourth, Susan balanced the Tater Tot casserole in her lap and tried not to kick the two six-packs of Redhook India Pale Ale at her feet in the front passenger seat. Though she and Walt had pretty much made up, he’d been tense and taciturn all day. Clearly, he saw going to this party—with his college friends and Melissa in attendance—as some kind of punishment. And it was. Except for when he yelled at Michael for teasing Mattie in his car seat, Walt said nothing for the duration of the ride. Susan didn’t utter a word either.

She looked for Melissa when they got to the O’Maras’ home, but the pretty redhead yoga instructor wasn’t yet among the thirty or so guests. The O’Maras had a large wooden deck off their living room, and that was where Jim was barbecuing. Though only on the second floor, the condominium stood on a hillside, so the deck was at least four stories above the ground. They looked over the treetops at the Space Needle on the horizon. An occasional skyrocket or firework from some other private party burst against the darkening sky.

Walt opened up a Pale Ale, while she had a Coke and watched for new arrivals. After three doorbell rings and three more couples made their entrance, Melissa finally appeared—in a clingy blue and white striped halter-top dress that she’d accented—no doubt, for Independence Day—with a red belt. She had her stupid 7-Up cake with her—in a Tupperware cake container. Making her way to the kitchen to unload the cake, she smiled and waved at Susan—one of those, Hi-haven’t-got-time-to-talk-now deals. But minutes later, Susan watched her hug Walt out on the deck, kiss his cheek, and then whisper something in his ear.

“She said, ‘Why haven’t you called me?’ and ‘We really need to talk, handsome,’” Walt told Susan under his breath during dinner.

“She called you handsome?” Susan whispered. “She was flirting with you while the kids and I were right there across the room?”

She waited until after the horrid 7-Up cake was served for dessert (even the kids didn’t like it) before she approached Melissa, who, in a rare moment, stood by herself near the guest-room door. She was sipping a glass of red wine. “Melissa, can I show you something?”

“Why, sure, Susan,” she said with a big phony smile. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you all night long. I just had a smidge, but your Tater Tot casserole was to die for!”

“Well, thank you.” Susan opened the guest-room door, then nodded toward the bed. A pretty, brunette teenager was sitting there with an open book in her lap. Two toddlers sat on one side of her, and Mattie was curled up on the other side, just starting to doze off. “I don’t think you’ve had a chance to really see my boys,” Susan whispered. “That sleepyhead is our two-year-old, Matthew….”

“Oh, he’s a darling,” Melissa said.

“Isn’t he though?” Susan replied, quietly closing the door. She pointed to Michael, out on the deck. Holding a sparkler, Michael turned and smiled at her. “And that’s our eight-year-old, Michael. He looks a lot like his dad, doesn’t he?”

“He sure does,” Melissa agreed. “And just look at those eyelashes. He’s going to be a real heartbreaker.”

“Speaking of breaking hearts,” she said, pulling Melissa to the corner of the living room. “Now that you’ve seen my children and talked a little bit with me, I hope you understand what I’m about to say, Melissa. If you come near my husband or try to call him again, I’m going to come after you. And you’ll have a very difficult time teaching your yoga class with two broken arms.”

Melissa let out a bewildered laugh. But then she must have seen the seriousness in Susan’s eyes, because the smile vanished from her face.

“Do you understand?” Susan whispered. “I know what’s been going on. Walt told me everything. I’m only going to say this to you once. Lay off.”

Melissa stared at her and nodded. “All right,” she murmured. Her hand was shaking a bit as she gulped down the rest of her wine. Her eyes avoided Susan’s. “I—I’m really sorry….”

“I’m sorry, too,” Susan said quietly. “And I’m sorry you’re going through a difficult time right now. I hope you figure out some other way to cope with it.”

Susan patted her arm and headed toward the deck to join Walt, Michael, and several others who were waving around sparklers. Walt eyed her nervously. To take the edge off, he’d consumed at least three India Pale Ales. She wasn’t sure of the exact count, but he was feeling no pain. “Is everything all right, my love?” he asked. He’d just started to slip into his fake British accent, which he took on whenever he got tipsy. That was how Susan knew he was too drunk to drive. He didn’t stagger, or slur his words, or get loud; he just got British. And it was the worst imitation of Brit she’d ever heard. His old college friends were used to it, and like Susan they knew, when Walt started referring to other guys as blokes, it was time to cut him off. He hadn’t gotten that far along just yet.

“Everything’s peachy,” she said, sliding an arm around him. “Don’t look now, but I believe Melissa is making her excuses.”

The redhead was indeed talking to their hostess and moving toward the door with an empty Tupperware cake container under her arm. She glanced over her shoulder at the two of them. Susan just smiled and nodded.

“So all is forgiven?” he whispered.

Susan just nodded.

“Any chance for a bit of makeup sex tonight?” he asked in his awful British accent.

“Don’t push your luck, Nigel,” she whispered. “And by the way, I’m driving us home tonight. I don’t want any arguments.”

“Anything you say, old girl.” He kissed her on the cheek.

Susan glanced over at Michael, with a sparkler in his hand and the darkening cityscape behind him. From across the balcony, he smiled at her and Walt. Her sweet son looked so beautiful.

That was when she heard the loud crack. Susan thought it was a firework’s pop, but it was too close. The noise seemed to come directly underneath them. Everyone was looking around for something in the sky.

Then it happened again. Susan realized the sound was wood splintering. The deck floor shook and creaked.

“Oh, my God,” she murmured, a panic sweeping through her.

People started screaming, and they tried to scramble off the faltering deck, but it was too late. Another thunderous crack rang out.

Susan saw Michael on the other side of the deck. “Mom! Dad!” he cried, reaching for them.

She broke away from Walt and tried to get to her son. He was just outside her grasp. Then all at once, the deck’s wood floor opened up beneath her feet.

Suddenly, she was falling. As she plunged toward the ground, Susan heard all these horrible screams around her. Her arms and legs flailing, she felt so helpless—and doomed.

Someone from a neighboring condominium later said that the bodies, wood beams, and broken concrete all toppled down in unison. Some of the people—along with chunks of debris—bounced off the balcony below the O’Maras’ condo. Others careened straight down to the ground.

Susan had no idea of this. She remembered slamming against something hard. Then she must have blacked out from the pain and shock. It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two.

She was still disoriented as she regained consciousness. Her vision was blurred, but she realized she was lying in a pile of debris. She tried to sit up. But a heavy wood beam pressed against her arm and pinned her to the ground.

All of the casualties had landed in an unfinished garden area on the side of the hill—amid piles of dirt and newly planted trees and bushes. The O’Maras had turned off the outside lights to better view the fireworks, and it was dark at the bottom of the building. A cloud of dust and dirt loomed over the scene. It got in Susan’s eyes, and she tasted grit every time she took a breath. She could hear the agonizing screams and moans all around her. A child cried out for his mother. But it wasn’t Michael.

Susan tried to sit up again, but her whole body ached—and as much as she tried, she couldn’t free her left arm. Her hand was ensnared on something. She was pretty certain the arm was broken. Helplessly, she called out for Walt and Michael.

As the dust cleared, she saw the others, mangled in a mess of broken concrete, wooden planks, and dirt. Some of them were moving; others were perfectly still. She couldn’t see Walt or Michael among them. Part of her kept hoping they were okay. She continued to call out for them. But hers was just one of many voices crying out for help.

Finally, she spotted the silhouette of someone climbing over some rubble toward her. She never got a good look at the kind man’s face, but he lifted a few splintered, heavy wood beams—and at last, Susan could move her arm. Blood oozed from a six-inch gash along her forearm. The pain was excruciating. Still, she kept thanking the man. “Have you—have you seen Walt or Michael Blanchette?” she asked anxiously as he helped her to her feet. “Are they okay?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t at the party. I’m a neighbor….”

Susan staggered through the wreckage, desperately searching for her husband and son. She could hardly walk. Every time she found someone, she tried to help them—as much as she could with her left arm out of commission. Everything she’d learned from her days as a nurse back in Harborview’s ER was coming back to her. She tried to identify people’s injuries or, at least, figure out whether or not they could be moved. She asked someone to get some sheets to make bandages and ice for the fractures and breaks. She remembered there had been two coolers full of ice at the party. So many people from the party and from neighboring buildings had rallied together to help. Susan kept looking for Michael—and Walt, hoping against hope he was among those good Samaritans.

The ambulances, cop cars, and two fire trucks finally showed up. But they had to park half a block away from the site. A stone path was the only access to the back of the condominium. Still, the nearby strobe lights from all the emergency vehicles bathed the area in an eerie red glow. The paramedics and firemen were just starting down the slope toward the casualties when Susan heard someone call her name.

She saw a man waving at her from farther down the hill. He stood over a heap of split boards and rubbish. Susan couldn’t see any bodies, but she knew they were there. She hobbled through the twisted ruins on the hillside. Tears streamed down her dirt-smudged face. As she got closer, she recognized Jim O’Mara, standing over Michael’s battered, broken body. Jim was shaking his head. There were tears in his eyes.

Susan plopped down on the ground, and she pulled Michael into her lap with her one good arm. She didn’t want to believe he was dead. She held on to his wrist and kept rocking him. But there was no pulse.

A rocket shot across the sky above them and then burst with a dazzling display of color. Susan glanced up for a moment.

“Walt’s just over here,” she heard Jim O’Mara say. “He’s unconscious. He—he’s still breathing….”

Walt never regained consciousness.

He had an epidural hematoma due to massive head trauma. They took him to Harborview Medical Center, where he died twenty hours later. Susan was at his bedside.

Later, when the lawsuits were filed against the condominium’s designers and builders, Susan remembered one of the arbitration hearings. She sat at a varnished walnut table in the conference room on the twenty-sixth floor of a downtown-Seattle office building. She listened to some hotshot attorney in a three-piece dark blue suit go on and on about how the materials used to build the decks on those condos had been up to code specifications. He kept talking about the odds of such a catastrophic accident ever happening. He said the odds were something like a million and a half to one.

And yet against all the odds, it had happened.

Michael was one of three people who had been killed on the scene. Walt was the fourth casualty. Nine more party-goers were seriously hurt and hospitalized, including Susan. She hadn’t realized the extent of her injuries from the fall until later. She’d been walking around the wreckage with two cracked ribs, a sprained ankle, and several cuts and bruises. Her left arm had been fractured in three places—and bled so profusely that she’d passed out in the ambulance with Walt.

When she came to in the hospital’s ER, it was like waking up from a dream. For a moment, she was reaching out for Michael again.

She’d known back in the ambulance that Walt would never recover—and that Michael was dead. She’d asked about Matthew. They’d told her that her younger son was fine. When the deck had collapsed, he’d been safely in bed with three other toddlers in the O’Maras’ guest room.

Yet when she’d regained consciousness in the emergency room, Susan had convinced herself that Mattie was dead, too. She thought they were lying to her when they said her friends, Jim and Barbara Church, had taken Mattie for the night. She didn’t calm down again until they called the Churches, and Barbara put a tired, confused Mattie on the phone with her.

If it wasn’t for Mattie, she would have completely fallen apart. She had to be brave and carry on for him. But that didn’t stop her from having moments when she’d think about Walt and Michael and start sobbing uncontrollably. Thank God most of these crying jags hit her when she was alone—driving in her car, or in bed at night. But occasionally they snuck up on her—in the checkout line at the supermarket or during her lunch break at the sandwich place near Dr. Chang’s office. All it took sometimes was a song on the radio or the sight of a young dad and his son, and then the damn water-works would start.

It was silly of her to think these awful, empty, heartbreaking episodes would suddenly stop now that Allen was in her life. He didn’t know that she still had those moments. He didn’t ask about Walt much—and for that, she was grateful.

The accident had been almost two years ago, and yet she still couldn’t help worrying that she’d lose Mattie, too. So if she was a bit overprotective of him at times, that was why.

At the kitchen sink, Susan blew her nose and wiped her tears away with a paper towel. Then she splashed some cold water on her face.

With a sigh, she took the Tater Tots and French bread out of the oven and set them out on the warm stove. Then she went back to the sunroom, sat down beside Mattie, and mussed his hair. “We’ll have to put WALL-E on hold for dinner, honey,” she said. “Let’s get your hands washed, okay?”

Gazing wide-eyed at the TV with the Woody doll at his side, Matthew didn’t respond.

“C’mon, Mattie,” Susan said, reaching for the remote. “You can…”

A hammering noise outside silenced her. Susan got to her feet and wandered toward the sliding screen door. She looked out at the porch. On the table by the gas grill was the platter of barbecued chicken breasts with a sheet of tinfoil over it—fluttering slightly in the night breeze.

She saw Allen by the corner of the porch, bent over the faulty balustrade with a hammer in his hand. In his mouth, he had an extra nail. He was repairing the loose railing.

Obviously, he had no idea she was watching him. Every once in a while, Allen stopped his hammering and looked out at the woods surrounding their rental house. Susan figured he was on the lookout for that man who had followed her here from the Arby’s in Mount Vernon. Maybe he was being a bit overprotective himself. But Susan didn’t mind, not at all.

She told herself that Allen was only doing his best to keep them safe—against all the odds.