Serpent's kiss

Mary Carmelita did not much approve of girls and boys interacting, even on so harmless a level as staring.

Blushing, Kathleen had sat up straight in her desk and looked at the blackboard where the nun had just finished writing the words 'Christopher Columbus.'

She did not look at Bobby the rest of the day, not even at recess when she usually sat beneath a shade tree daintily eating the crisp red autumn apple her mother always poked into the pocket of her blue buttoned sweater.

Three days later, just after school, just at the corner that so many parents complained about, Bobby was struck by a black Ford and killed. One little girl actually saw Bobby's head strike the pavement and heard his skull crack. A little boy insisted that he'd actually seen Bobby's brains ooze out through that crack.

Ever since, Kathleen had felt in some way responsible for Bobby's death. Even if he'd laughed at her-he had usually laughed at most things she'd said-she should have warned him, told him about the strange light around his head and what it portended.

She stood now at the dusk window watching the walk below. In three and a half hours, her daughter Marie would be walking up those stairs, on her way back from the bookstore and what amounted to her first date. The autumn sky-salmon pink and grey streaked with yellow now at evening-struggled to give birth to night.

Kathleen wished now that she'd handled the whole matter better.

In her defence, she thought that she might have been more receptive to the idea of a date-even admittedly an informal one-if only Marie had given her a little warning.

Kathleen shook her head.

Sometimes her life seemed to be little more than a long list of regrets.

These days she wished, for example, that she'd been more compliant with her husband where sex was concerned. He really hadn't asked for much but Kathleen had always been something of a prude and the notion of actually putting his thing in her mouth- Well, without exactly knowing why, the whole idea had always frightened her. Now she wished she'd done it, at least a few times, and at least with the pretence of enjoyment. She'd certainly enjoyed it when he'd put his mouth on her down there and-

So many regrets with Marie these days.

How badly Kathleen wanted to strike the right balance of strict but compassionate. That was the key to raising a teenager well. Strict but compassionate.

Tonight was a milestone of sorts in Marie's life. That's where the compassion should have come in. Kathleen should have shared Marie's obvious excitement for the evening.

And now there was the premonition.

It wasn't a vision. She hadn't seen any curious light around Marie's head this afternoon.

It was just a feeling.

A terrible, fluttering feeling in both her chest and her stomach.

Something awful was going to happen to Marie tonight.

That's where the strict came in.

She should have risked disappointing or even angering Marie and just said it-Even though you think I'm being hysterical honey, I've just got this notion about tonight. This feeling, honey. There's no other way to explain it. I know you think your mother's crazy and old-fashioned and just trying to spoil all your fun but, honey- (And then maybe she'd tell Marie, for the first time ever, about little Bobby Bannock in second grade, and about the terrible thing that had happened to him and about the terrible sin Kathleen had committed by not warning him-)

She continued to stare out the window.

The downtown buildings were outlined in black against a dark blue sky. Somewhere in this evening radiance was her daughter who thought she was so big and impervious but was still this little girl-

Then Kathleen smiled.

She thought of how freaky Marie considered herself. No matter how many times you told her how pretty she was or how bright or how giving or caring-

No matter what you said, Marie always considered herself a freak.

Her foot, of course. That was the culprit.

You couldn't really be pretty or bright and walk with a limp. That was what Marie thought. Believed.

So tonight would be good for her.

She hoped the boy somehow convinced Marie that she was a worthy and desirable person.

Self-esteem, Kathleen thought. Oprah and Phil and Sally Jessy and even Geraldo preached it, and so did most modern psychologists.

Self-esteem: without it you had nothing.

For a time she followed the arc of a small private plane across the very top of the sky.

Flight had always fascinated her, especially at night when the small moving lights on the wings and tail were like stars mysteriously crossing the firmament.

But then her dread premonition returned, and Kathleen forgot all about aeroplanes and stars, and thought again of Marie. Something was going to happen.

She was sure of it.

7

Several blocks from the apartment building, Dobyns came running out from an alley. He was panting, staggering. He was not used to running this way.

He quickly became aware of a young mother pushing a stroller watching him.

He could imagine how he looked.

The mother shook her head in great distaste and hurried on by.

Bitch, Dobyns thought.

Smug fucking bitch.

Another block down, he found a taxi.

Guy was in there behind the wheel reading a paperback in the dim light of the overhead. Wonder the guy wasn't blind by now.

Dobyns got in the back seat. Slammed the door.

The guy put the paperback away with great reluctance, as if he were doing Dobyns here quite a favour.

'Okay,' the guy said, addressing his body to the wheel.

Dobyns gave him the address.

For the first time, the cabbie took a look at Dobyns. A good one, anyway.

In the rear-view, the cabbie's eyes narrowed. Lots of cabbies got murdered these days.

A sweaty, dishevelled, panting man with crazed eyes would seem to fit the profile of Those To Be Avoided.

'You got money?' the cabbie said.

'Yeah.'

'Mind if I see it?'

'Why?'

The cabbie sighed. Picked up the microphone of his two-way radio. 'You want me to call the fuckin' cops, pal?'

'No,' Dobyns said.

'Then let's see your money.'

Dobyns dug into his pants pocket and came up with a fistful of bills.

He found a twenty and handed it over to the driver.

'Sorry,' the man said. 'But these days you got to cover your ass.'

Dobyns said nothing, sat back 'Could you turn off that light?' He wanted to be in darkness.

'The overhead?'