Razzamatazz

'Guess?'

'Yeah. Guess why I thought you'd be a teacher.'

'I can't.'

'You'd better try,' he said sharply.

'I told you I can't think with my hands tied this way.'

Drew jumped up suddenly, the chair falling forward hit Annie's knees. She cried out as he lunged toward her and slapped her across the face backhanded. 'Shut up. Just shut the fuck up. And don't go saying anything about being tied up again.' He stood over her, his body shaking.

Her face stung where he'd hit her, knees too where the chair had struck them. She mustn't make him angry. The only hope she had was to keep him talking, win him over. But he was insane. No rules applied. Her experience with totally mad people was nonexistent.

'Jim, I'm sorry I made you so angry and-'

'I'll bet you are,' he interrupted.

She went on. 'I'd like to know who you really are. Tell me.'

He looked pleased, as if he'd finally won some approval. 'I'll give you a hint,' he said briskly. 'I wanted to be a pilot.'

'A pilot,' she repeated. 'What do you mean, you wanted to be? When you were little?'

'Right.'

The Beatles were singing 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.' It didn't help her concentration. She felt confused. How would what he wanted to be as a child be a hint for her? 'You have me stumped,' she said, smiling.

'That's because I'm smarter than you.'

'I'm sure it is.' She hoped she sounded sincere.

His dark eyes sparked. 'You'd better believe it.'

'I do.'

He rocked on his heels. 'Anyway, I wanted to be a pilot, and you wanted to be a teacher, and we were going to get married.'

She was stunned. It couldn't be. But it was. 'Jamie Perkins,' she said.

'Jamie Drew Perkins.'

'I can't believe it. I was just talking about you ' She trailed off. This wasn't some ordinary meeting of two old friends-a hug and kiss and talk of old times. 'Oh, Jamie, why?'

'Who to?' he asked, ignoring her question. 'Who've you been talking to about me?'

'No one. I mean, no one special,' she fudged.

'Who?' he demanded. He stepped toward her, menacing.

She couldn't tell him, couldn't even say it was someone other than Colin; she didn't know what he might do to the person she named. 'I don't even remember.'

He raised his hand to slap her.

'Please don't,' she begged.

Stopping his downward swing in midair, he looked at her as if he'd seen her for the first time, a stranger suddenly in his line of vision. He dropped his arm to his side. 'Oh, Annie,' he said softly.

She sensed the right time had come. 'Jamie, please, untie me. I won't try to get away, I promise. It just hurts so much.'

He hesitated for only a moment. 'You couldn't get away even if you tried.'

'That's right. But I don't want to get away. We're old friends.'

'Yeah, that's right. You told me you loved me, remember?'

'And I did,' she admitted.

'Okay, Annie. I'm going to trust you.' He walked around her chair and began to undo the rope.

She'd won a second round. Still, the battle wasn't over; she hadn't won the war. Her hands dropped when the rope was removed. As she brought her arms around to the front, pain shot through them. She rubbed her wrists, gently lowering her hands to her lap.

He came back to stand in front of her, his legs touching her knees. 'You don't know what I've been through.' Tears threatened to spill down his cheeks.

'Tell me, Jamie,' she urged. 'Tell me all about it.'

He moved away from her, picked up the fallen chair, and sat down, the back no longer a barrier between them. 'It's been lousy, Annie. Since they died, Mommy and Daddy.'

'It must have been terrible for you.' The longer he talked, the longer she stayed alive. She had to pick her moment carefully. There would only be one.

He gave her a frosty look. 'You wouldn't know.'

'Tell me,' she urged again.

From his jacket pocket he took a crumpled pack of Camels, shook one up, grabbed it with his lips, and returned the package to his pocket. Eyes still on her, he lit up, blew out the match, then dropped it on the floor. 'You really want to know?'

'Yes. Very much.' And she did.

'Okay, then I'll tell you,' he replied, as if she'd offered a reward for information. 'After it happened, after they were burned to crisps,' he pointed out acidly, 'my Grandma and Grandpa Perkins took me in for awhile. But that didn't work out.'

'Why not?' She would ask him lots of questions, get him to expand on whatever he told her.

'They were old. My daddy was what they call a change-of-life baby. She was forty-five when she had him. Anyway, they were old-crotchety. Mean, you could say. They didn't want me to move, it seemed. Every time I tried to play in the house they told me I was making too much noise, stuff like that. So I left there.'

'What do you mean, 'left'?'

'They put me out,' he amplified. 'Sent me to a home. With nuns. My daddy was a Catholic.' He sucked on his cigarette, blew long streams of smoke in the air. 'They beat me up, the nuns.'

'How?'

'With rulers. Metal ones. Then I went to live with some people, the Rogers. That was in New Jersey. She was real fat. He was tall and skinny. I called them Jack Sprat and wife. Remember that rhyme? Jack Sprat would eat no fat, his wife would eat no lean?'

'I remember,' she said.

'They heard me one day. He beat the shit out of me.'

'I'm sorry,' she said, meaning it. For a moment she forgot that sitting before her was a man who'd killed at least four adults and a child. She mustn't let his story seduce her. What she had to do was look for an opening, a vulnerable moment. 'Go on, Jamie.'

His eyes searched hers as if within them he might find the answer to all his pain. 'I like the way you say my name. Nobody's called me Jamie for a very long time.'

'Because you called yourself Jim,' she explained.

'I had to. You can understand that, can't you?'

'No. Tell me.'

'Later.' He dropped his cigarette on the floor, squashed it out with his foot. 'I got sent away from Jack Sprat and wife and went to some people called Schroeder. It was the same. Every place I went, they were all the same.'

'How many homes were you in?'

'Ten, twelve, I don't know. But I got out of it when I was eighteen. I enlisted,' he said proudly. 'I was a Marine.'

'Did you go to Vietnam?'

'No. I just said that.' He looked away from her, shifted uncomfortably in his chair. 'They didn't like me in the Marines either, but I'm not talking about it so don't try to make me.' His eyes were flat now, like slate. 'I bummed around, picking up jobs here and there, and what kept me going was the same thing got me through all those places I'd lived as a kid. If I hadn't had my plan I don't think I would've made it.'

'What plan?'

'My Razzamatazz plan,' he grinned.