What Louis saw made him wish that he’d brought the golf club with him. Because Lem’s eyes were flat and black and shiny like those of a rattlesnake right before it strikes. Just like the kid’s eyes…nothing in them.
“ You okay, Lem?” he said again.
Lem squinted, his lips pulled back from his teeth. “No…no I ain’t all right, Louis Shears. I ain’t all right at all. I was thinking…I was thinking about last Christmas…you never left me a tip like you used to do. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s my job to deliver your fucking mail, but a tip tells me you appreciate the job I do. That I bust my ass six days a week in good weather and bad, bringing you you’re fucking mail.”
Louis made ready to spring back inside. “Well, Lem, I’m sorry about that. Last Christmas was a bad time for us. Michelle’s mom got sick and all. Everything was crazy.”
Lem ran his tongue along the fronts of his teeth. “Sure, Louis, sure. Guys like you, they always got an answer for everything, don’t they? Well, don’t you worry, Mr. Louis Shears, I know my job. I do my job. Ain’t nobody that has to tell me how to do my job, least of all you. Here’s your goddamn mail.” He crunched it up in his fist, letters and magazines and fliers, threw at Louis. “There you go, you sonofabitch.”
And then he ambled away, glancing over his shoulder from time to time at Louis like he hated the sight of him. He moved up the sidewalk, talking to himself. The real frightening thing was that he was moving with a rolling, loping gait like that of an ape.
And worse: he was digging in his mailbag and tossing letters in the air.
Tossing them in bunches.
Then he stopped at row of rose bushes at the Merchant’s house next door, unzipped himself and took a piss. Right there in plain view.
Louis just stood there.
There was something in the water, something in the air. He didn’t know what, but they were all starting to lose it. What in the hell was happening? He’d seen it come over Lem, that emptying of all he was or ever had been, leaving something behind that was primal and uncivilized, raging.
He wondered if it was the blood on his shirt.
Lem had been all right until he’d seen the blood. Didn’t they say that the sight and smell of blood could create a sort of aggressive response in animals? In dogs? Was that true for people, too? No, that was ridiculous. There had been a sudden inexplicable aggression in Lem, but it had been more than that. He was like the kid or the cops. Suddenly, somehow, things like ethics and self-control had suddenly vanished, leaving a predatory anger in its void.
Louis shut the door.
Then he locked it.
He peered out the window.
At the Merchant’s house next door, Lem left mail scattered on the lawn. Two houses down at the Loveman’s, he dug into his bag, scratching around in there like an animal rooting in soil for grubs. Then he put a hand to his face and shook. He tossed the bag aside and just wandered away up the walk like he was sunstruck.
It was happening and Louis knew it.
Something horrifying and unknown was taking the town one by one…
10
An easy three blocks away from where Louis Shears was being introduced to the new postal system in Greenlawn, Tessler Avenue crossed Ash Street and right there, right at the bottom of the grassy hill where all the houses were whitewashed and the flowerbeds bloomed lushly with black-eyed susan and rose-pink spider lily, there was a store called Cal’s One-Stop. It was named after Bobby Calhoun, who had run it since just after World War II until his death six months ago. Cal’s was the sort of place to grab a six-pack or a gallon of milk or a pack of smokes, but not much else since everything was vastly overpriced.
When Angie Preen set out for Cal’s, tucking little Danny in the buggy, she did so not because she needed beer or milk or cigarettes or even paper plates or a bottle of ketchup. She had other reasons. None of which were altruistic.
She was going there to turn the screw, as she liked to call it.
And said screw just happened to be firmly lodged in Brandi Welch’s back.
And I’ll twist it in that little witch, God yes, I’ll make her squirm.
“We’re going to the store, Danny,” she announced. “We need some things.”
“We always need things, don’t we, Mommy?” said little Danny and for one uneasy moment there, Angie was almost certain that there was a deep salty rut of sarcasm behind his words. But that was silly. He was barely two- years old.
Paranoia, that’s what.
Besides, it was that time of the month and her flow was heavy. She was moody, quick to anger, ready to scratch out eyes for the least infraction. Some women, she knew, did not get crazy like she did when they were menstruating. Lucky them.
She looked down at Danny, struck, as always, at how much he looked like his father and how little he looked like her. He had his father’s smooth flawless Mediterranean skin and moody, chocolate-dark Sicilian eyes. As such, he was beautiful. Just like his father. Pleasing to behold. One could only hope that he was nothing like his father in every other way.
“I want a candy bar,” Danny said.
“Okay. We’ll get you a Mounds or a Three Musketeers or something.”
Danny seemed satisfied with that, then he furrowed his brow, said, “I want a gun.”
“Stop that!” Angie chided him, a bead of sweat popping at her temple.
“I want a gun so I can shoot people dead!”
Angie stopped the buggy right there, right on Tessler where the streets are handsomely lined with oak and yellow poplar. “Stop it, Danny. Don’t you let me hear you talk like that again. Only bad men shoot people. And bad men get thrown in cages for the rest of their lives. You don’t want that, do you?”
A tear in the corner of his eye, he shook his head.
God, she wondered if he was already becoming his father.
Jimmy Torrio. Angie had met him in Terra Haute. A week later she was sleeping with him and the transition between stranger and lover had been exceptionally smooth. But Jimmy Torrio was nothing if not smooth. He gave her Danny, who was beautiful and precious, but that’s the only thing he had given her.
Then why did you keep spreading your legs for him?
Ah, the question of the day, the year, the century. Why? She had a good job, she was from a good family, at least by Greenlawn standards. Jimmy was an asshole, he was selfish, he was corrupt. He had a criminal record that he had not revealed until she was in too deep to care. He was really good at nothing beyond drinking and gambling and mooching money. He was not even really very good in bed. Yet, Angie had stayed. At least until she’d found out that she was only one of many. Then she ran straight back to Greenlawn, a bun baking in the old oven, no money, and absolutely no self-respect.
Two years later, she was still obsessed by him. Maybe it was smoldering hate now, but they always said that hate was merely the flipside of love.
“Can I have two candy bars?” Danny asked.
“Of course you can,” Angie told him. Why not?
It was a beautiful day and Angie was thinking about Louis Shears who had just driven by, how he always smiled at her, how his eyes flashed like coins in a streambed and behind that look, just behind it, a touch of heat and a touch of interest. Louis was nice. Louis was funny. But he was also married to Michelle who was a very nice lady. So Angie would admire from afar. As always.
Across the street, she saw Dick Starling walk by. He was a very nice man. Everyone loved him. His daughter, Brittany, was on the archery team. Angie had won three state championships in archery when she was in high school and Dick Starling had been instrumental in getting her to take the job of archery coach. Angie hadn’t wanted to at first…but she finally submitted. Putting an arrow in a target was not only a great distraction from the stresses
