the line.
“Thanks,” Bryan said. “I mean it. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Terminator. Maybe you and this Tiffany Hine both wind up in a straitjacket before sunrise. Polyester Rich will be here soon, so let’s make this quick. Who knows? You might actually get your monstery lineup after all.”
The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is …
He had a flashlight pinned under his right armpit, its oblong of illumination dancing madly off a drawing of Jay Parlar taking a fire ax to the stomach. The beam danced because of what Rex was doing with his left hand. It was
Rex’s left hand did the nasty thing. Even though he’d never done it before, he knew it felt wrong.
He was right-handed.
He’d woken up all wet, his blankets soaked with sweat, his breath ragged and his heart beating so loud he heard it.
He’d watched Jay Parlar die.
And that had made his dick hard, so
Naughty, awful,
The fingers of his right hand curled tight against the cast across his palm. He couldn’t think.
The flashlight dropped to the floor. He grabbed at his right hand, pulled, tore, smashed his right arm into his desk making a big
The flashlight no longer lit up the desk, but that didn’t matter; he saw his drawing in his mind — a pencil sketch of Jay Parlar, eyes wide and wet, snot hanging from his nose, mouth open and pleading for his life.
“Hate … you …” Rex said, then his breath locked up in his throat and his thoughts faded away. All sensations vanished, all but the sound of Jay Parlar’s final scream.
Rex’s knees buckled. He caught the edge of the desk to stop from falling. Sweat dripped down his forehead.
He picked up the flashlight and pointed the beam at his drawing. Oh, no … he’d jizzed right on the picture of Jay Parlar’s pleading, terrified face. What did that mean? Rex felt tears well up — what was wrong with him? Why did he have to do the thing that Roberta told him was bad, that she said was
His right arm tingled with cool dampness.
Rex held his right hand in front of the flashlight beam.
The cast was gone.
The skin on his arm goosebumped, still tacky with sweat that had built up inside the plaster. He pointed the flashlight at the floor. The cracked, floppy ruin of his cast lay on the carpet.
He looked at his right arm again. He made a slow fist. The spot where Alex had stomped … it looked fine. It didn’t feel broken anymore. The doctor had said he’d be in the cast for weeks.
The doctor had said that the day before yesterday.
Rex suddenly realized that the aches he’d suffered for days, his pains, his fever … all of it was gone.
But that didn’t matter right now. He had to clean up before Roberta saw what he’d done. Just leaving his bed unmade got three hits with the belt — how bad would she beat him if she saw he’d been jacking off? He’d get the paddle for sure. He was in trouble,
And that cast had been
Maybe he could do that again, go hide in the park or something. Maybe in a few days he could tell her the cast just fell off.
Rex wiped snot away from his nose. He crawled into bed and pulled the blankets tight around him. He shouldn’t have done that nasty thing, but now he felt better. He’d gotten it out of his system. Imagining Oscar’s murder, jizzing to it, that was a onetime thing. It was bad, but he would never do it again.
Never.
But still, what if Roberta
Rex’s breath suddenly stopped. He stared at the ceiling without really seeing it. A thought, so new, so shocking, so …
What if Roberta found out? No.
Father Paul Maloney.
Oscar Woody.
Both of them had hurt Rex. Rex had drawn them, and now they were dead. Roberta hurt Rex all the time … he could draw her, too.
Maybe Rex didn’t need to be afraid anymore.
And tonight, he’d drawn Jay Parlar. Would Jay still be alive tomorrow?
Rex closed his eyes, a smile on his lips as he fell asleep.
Bryan Lets Pookie Do the Talking
Sixty-seven-year-old Tiffany Hine didn’t look a day over sixty-six and a half. Bryan thought her apartment smelled exactly the way you’d think an old lady’s apartment smelled — stale violets, baby powder and medicine. She had a high, soft voice and frizzy silver hair long past a glorious prime. She wore a yellow flowered robe and worn pink slippers. Her eyes looked clear and focused, the kind of eyes that could see right through the bullshit of any child (or grandchild, for that matter). Those eyes sported deep laugh lines. At the moment, the lines on her face showed real fear.
She was old, but she looked sharp. She looked
Pookie and Tiffany sat next to each other on a plastic-covered couch. Bryan stood by, looking out the living room window to Geary Street below — and across the street, to the van where Jay Parlar had died. Bryan’s sour stomach threatened to twist him in knots. His head swam so bad he had to keep a hand on the wall to stop from swaying. It was usually best to let Pookie do the talking; now, it was a necessity.
“Just take it from the beginning, ma’am,” Pookie said.
“I already told the other man, the one with the uniform,” Tiffany said. “You don’t have a uniform. And I might add it’s time for you to get a new jacket, young man. The one you’re wearing probably stopped fitting you twenty pounds ago.”
Pookie smiled. “I’m a homicide inspector, ma’am. We don’t wear uniforms. But I still eat lots of donuts, as you can tell.”
She smiled. It was a genuine smile, although halfhearted and a bit empty. What she had seen affected her to