'Daniel was the only one who ever showed any interest. I was never pretty. Men made me feel ashamed. But not Daniel. He held me. He talked to me. He made me happy. Whispered my name. Can you understand that?'
'Yes.'
She had a few psychological ploys of her own. Throwing it back in Crease's lap, so he sympathized. Maybe she'd picked it up off her psychiatrists on the mental wards.
'My family didn't approve. They tried to wedge themselves between us. My brother hated Daniel. He kept telling me to wait for someone better, a man who would truly love me. He always stressed the truth of love, but never understood what that meant. The truth of love is that you accept what's wrong and ugly and stupid and tainted in your lover. Sam is a very foolish and naive man. Ultimately, that's the reason why Vera left him.' She glanced over at Crease and said, 'May I have a cigarette?'
He got off the bed and offered her the pack. She stared at it in disgust. 'Are those menthol?'
'All the store had left.'
'Take it away.'
He reseated himself and waited for her to get back into the rhythm of telling her story. It only took a minute.
'But Daniel couldn't control himself. His gambling grew worse. He couldn't stay away from the casinos. He played poker with strangers. No matter how much he had, he always owed more. He got into trouble. He was beaten once, not so badly. Then he was beaten again, much worse.' She started speaking in speedy, clipped sentences devoid of any emotion, exactly as her brother had done. 'Men were going to kill him. I begged my parents for money and they refused. Yes, they refused me. I knew my brother would deny me as well. Daniel couldn't hold off those brutes any longer. So you know what they did? I'll tell you. They tied him to the bumper of his pickup truck and drove it into a cement retaining wall. They crushed his right leg. The doctors had to amputate. He told the police nothing. I cared for him as best I could after that, while he recuperated, playing cards on his hospital bed. But all that mattered was money then. Every knock on the door, every phone call. Everything had become about money, no longer merely the thrill. There was nothing else.'
He didn't want to tell her that it was that way for most people all of the time, so he just nodded.
'And still he owed the men who had taken his leg. That wasn't payment. I thought it would be enough payment in itself, the taking of his leg, but no, I was wrong. It didn't count, you see? It didn't cover a dime of debt, his blood and muscle and bone. His becoming a cripple. He still owed.'
That was standard too. You didn't let the guy off after you broke his arm, cut off his thumb, or burned his house down. That was just the interest, you still had to pay the principal.
'What was his game at the casino? Craps?'
'Blackjack and roulette.'
Daniel Purvis really was a sucker.
'So let me guess,' Crease said. 'He was in a fifteen thousand dollar hole.'
'Ten.'
That surprised Crease. Ten g's usually wasn't enough to get the legbreakers out breaking legs. Then again, in Vermont, who knew. It was a spooky place compared to New York.
It also proved that Sarah Burke wasn't just trying to get the beau out of debt. She'd gotten greedy along the way. Another five grand to give them a head start someplace else, and her brother paying for it. Or maybe it was a show of love to Purvis, giving him the extra five g's as a gift. An extra pop to the addict, fill him full of bliss.
The rest of the house was silent now. Moonlight slashed into the room through the two inches of window pane Crease had uncovered when pulling up the shade. The slice of silver collapsed across the feeble, diseased yellow of the lamp. Shadows clung to the woman like cobwebs.
They sat there like that for a while, facing each other with their separate burdens which had somehow overlapped. Crease knew she was working up to it, to the act that had put her here as an escape from herself.
The mattress was soft and smelled faintly of some kind of citrus detergent, reminding him of Reb's bed.
'It was Daniel's idea,' Sarah Burke said. 'And of course I didn't argue. I didn't mind, not really. I hated my brother too much by then. I didn't put up any kind of resistance. The suggestion made sense, and even if it hadn't, I wouldn't have cared. I'd have done anything for him. That's the truth of love.' She shifted in her seat and her bones rubbed against each other inside her like dry kindling. Crease had seen crack addicts under piles of garbage who looked healthier. He wondered how much longer she could possibly live. 'How did it go down?'
'As easy as warm apple pie. I gathered Mary up in my arms, and Daniel called my brother Sam and demanded the ransom. Fifteen thousand dollars. I knew he had it on hand, in the bank if not in his store safe. I never thought he would call the police and endanger her that way. I thought he would follow our simple set of rules. In fact, at the time, I believed he'd know right off that it was me, and finally realize how much Daniel meant to me. You see, I thought he would give me the money out of understanding and kindness. That he would finally acknowledge how much I loved Daniel. That he would give it to us as a favor. A wedding gift. Mary hardly entered the matter at all. I cared deeply for her, or thought I did, up until that point, you see?'
Crease didn't. He couldn't. He had never loved anyone the way Sarah Burke had loved the one-legged gambler Purvis. Maybe his father. He'd been willing to give up a lot of his life to his father, but only because he hadn't known what else he could possibly do.
'And then?' he urged.
Sarah began to coil again. Her fingers tightened on the arms of the chair, the tiny legs started swinging once more. They were getting down to it now, to the real venom. He knew that in a very real way he was finishing her off.
'And then?' he repeated.
'And then came the part you're most eager to hear about, thirteen,' she said. 'Daniel and I wanted to trade her back for the money up at the old sawmill. It was the perfect setting, no one could possibly sneak up on us there. They were morons to try. My tightwad brother cared more for his money than his daughter, and far more than me. He called the sheriff. He sent that drunk, stumbling thief of a sheriff after us and we were all doomed after that. All of us.'
Crease said, 'It was your fault it went down the way it did. Purvis didn't call your brother soon enough after the snatch. They didn't know it was a snatch at first. They thought she might've just wandered away. That's why Sam called the sheriff. He was there when Purvis finally phoned. Your brother couldn't play it any other way, he had to work with the police. You botched it from the go.'
Another pregnant pause in the room of the needy. Maybe he should check in next door for a while, catch up on his cool, be the thirteen. Nobody even came around to make sure the loonies were tucked into bed.
Sarah Burke's mouth opened and her tongue slid out like a leech. She had spent seventeen years trying to soothe her guilt with the idea that her crime of passion had made it worthwhile. There was enough blame to go around. The bent sheriff, her spiteful brother. She didn't like hearing that Purvis had screwed the pooch from the start. Six-year-old Mary Burke had never stood a chance.
'How do you know so much?' she asked.
'A Ouija board told me. You and Purvis took Mary to the mill together?'
'Yes, we were there, the three of us. We thought-I thought-that my brother would arrive and drop off the money and I would push Mary out to him. He would look in my face and see my love for Daniel and he would leave the ransom behind and go home. I would leave with Daniel and never see either of them again. That's why I kept telling Mary that I loved her and she should always hold in her heart, forever and ever, that Aunt Sarah loved her. I told her that even when she was much older she could always rely on it, you see? That Aunt Sarah was thinking of her, that she would always love her Mary.'
Crease reached down and grabbed the side of the box spring, and his grip tightened until the material began to rip and the springs inside squealed. Sarah looked at him and said, 'Are you sick?'
'Yes, I'm sick.'
'Me too, thirteen. I have some pills here. Would you like some?'
'No,' Crease said.
'Good, they're poison. For me anyway. They're killing me. I'm allergic but they keep giving them to me and I keep taking them. It will make things easier in the end for everyone.'
He shut his eyes and released the mattress, took a few deep breaths until the fever began to pass. 'You were waiting at the mill. You saw the sheriff pull up.'
