His crew tightens around him. Now I see who the other members of the Knights of the Black Circle are. They've been here the whole time, but somehow hidden among the gatherers. Not in the corners, I always check the corners. Hiding in plain sight, but somehow not there either. They're shadows without light, they're mutts like all the rest but nothing like the rest at all. Ricky leads them through the throng. They cluster at the far side of the living room and make their way down the corridor to a distant den. They follow him without a word. They seem incapable of speech, like they've been walking the deserts of the earth for ten millennia in silence, with swords drawn. Their lips are set, mouths nothing more than bloodless lines, eyes as empty as Lowers's sockets. They slam the door.
I stand and put my back to the wall and shut my eyes. I press my concentration beyond the noise, the babble, the pizza guy still retching, the rain slashing at glass. I hear Gwen and Linda in the bathroom, washing and bandaging each other. They whimper because the peroxide burns. They whimper because some of the marks are bound to scar. Gwen might need stitches. Linda's knees are still weak. They worry about pregnancy. They worry about what they may mother with me as the father.
I focus hard enough that I can hear Ricky talking to his knights on the other side of the house despite the din.
Ricky's done a little homework. He knows the names of the infernal orders, the black popes, the archdukes that sit in great central dome of Pandemonium. He discusses offerings. Ricky mentions Gwen's name. She's on his kill list. The others concur with the choice. Their voices are guttural and grating. The language they speak hardly sounds like English. More names are tossed into the mix. They're either agreed upon or dismissed.
My focus is so sharp that Ricky notices.
He says, 'Someone's listening.'
The door opens. They check the hallway. Ricky's got to know it's me, but what fun is it not to play a little hide and seek. I fade into the crowd. The Knights of the Black Circle exit and drift among the partygoers. I pretend to dance with a burnout chick with big tits who's barely shuffling in place. I draw her to me and put my lips to her throat. I nibble. I suck. I bite. She grunts and jerks in my arms.
She says, 'I like you. I think you should take me home.'
'Sure.'
'But no fucking. I'm on the rag.'
'Okay.'
'But I'll jack you off if you want. I like you. I'll do that for you.'
'You're sweet.'
I walk her out to the Mustang and the moment she crawls into the passenger seat she passes out. It's just as well. I'm not up for anything else, not even a hand job. I'm raw and clawed. I check her wallet and read her driver's license. I realize her name is on Ricky's kill list. I lift her eyelids and stare at her blank eyes, thinking about them in Ricky's fist, being squeezed, being thrown away.
I drive her home through the storm and leave her sleeping on some Adirondack furniture under a roofed patio. I sit with her smoking a cigarette. I take a drink from the hose. I stuff the stolen bags of PCP into her pockets, thinking, what the hell. Maybe she and her friends can have some fun with it.
I decide not to go home. I don't want to see my father. I don't think I ever want to see my father again.
That night I stay in Cow Harbor Park, under the gazebo less than a half-mile from Lowers's corpse. I stare out at the waters of the Long Island sound and see that someone has already started to carve up the woodwork.
In one of the benches, a full inch deep, are the words SAY YOU LOVE SATAN.
8
My dreams are mostly vapid, sexual half-memories. They mean nothing beyond the obvious. Ricky visits in vivid detail. He tries to set fire to my socks. My mother arrives, her face holding answers, but before she can say anything, I jump awake as a cop taps on the bottom of my sneaker with his billy club.
The crows wait in the trees for my undoing. I nod to the cop but it's not enough. He wants to put me through my paces, go the full route.
'Let's see some ID.'
I hand him my driver's license. It's not enough. It's new, less than a month old. It's so fresh he actually holds it up to his nose. He gestures for me to give him my wallet. I turn it over. He goes through it, checking each fold and pocket. He pulls out a photo of my mother and holds it up close to his eyes, turns it over to see if there's any writing on the back. There isn't.
'You carrying any drugs?'
'No.'
'Why are you sleeping here in the park?'
'I had a fight with my father.'
He leans in and sniffs my breath. I sigh in his face. He seems satisfied there's no liquor on my breath. Any residual stink of marijuana that might be on my clothes is covered over by the water and fresh rain fragrance on the brush.
But he makes me walk the line, say the alphabet backwards, do all the other little monkey dances. I jump through the hoops the way I'm supposed to, even though, technically, my car is parked. I'm not driving drunk. There's no call for this, but he has his mind set.
It's still not enough. He calls it in and learns my history. Then he really starts grilling me.
I don't mind. I answer all his questions amiably and honestly. He's still got my wallet in one hand, my mother's photo in the other. I think about how bad things will go down if I tell him about Lowers. I don't bother. The whole world will know soon enough.
The cop doesn't like mutts like me messing up America's beautiful parks. It's obvious he wants to tune my ass. He's got a lot of steam built up and wants to let it loose by working me over with his nightstick. We had bulls in the can like this. We had orderlies on the ward like this. My father is like this.
The cop loosens his shoulders, cracks his neck. He sticks my mother's photo back in the wallet to free his right hand and throws the wallet at my feet. He's clear to draw his club or his gun. I'm resolved not to let that happen no matter what the cost. He senses I've taken a stand. The summer morning heat is bad. He's sweating and uncomfortable and he's got an edge to him. Probably a bad marriage, a gambling problem, a small coke habit. He's as twitchy as Ricky. He's got a lot on his plate.
We stand there like that for a while, neither giving any ground, the moment lengthening and full of possibility. His hand hovers over his holster. Now we're getting somewhere. I like the direction. He's through with the idea of beating the hell out of me. I wonder how he expects shooting me in the head will change his life for the better. Maybe he thinks it's the first step to the lottery, a stronger marriage, earning his daughter's respect, an easy retirement on the south shore. I represent so much to him now that I'm flattered.
He's not fast enough to draw and shoot before I launch myself and break his neck. He could always run for cover, but retreat will destroy all the amassed power of this instant. He can either do it now or he can't.
His eyes are practically spinning. He grins and it's the grin of my old man. It's my grin. His face flashes with homicide one more time before the idea finally drains away from him as if it was never there at all.
He tells me, 'The park's closed at night. From now on sleep at home, whatever the problem might be.'
'Right.'
'Keep out of trouble.'
'I will.'
He starts to step away but has one last comment to make. 'Your mother is a very handsome woman.'
It freezes me where I stand, like electro-shock, like a lithium shot, like leather straps holding me in place, a twisting knife in the spine. It's just the wrong thing to say. It's the very worst thing to say.
The rage waits for times like these. It skitters out from behind whatever walls and fences I've built around it, and I realize, once again, that I always leave the largest doors unlocked. I think I'm chuckling.
I'm lucky I can't move. If I so much as raise a hand to this man I'll have to murder him. He knows my name.
