they had attended a horror double feature Wednesday afternoon.
Every now and then he caught glimpses of the Colorado River just east of the business district. A few people were still out, water skiing. He saw a houseboat. A shuttle boat was carrying passengers toward the casinos on the Nevada side of the river.
All so familiar, so normal. Larry thought he ought to feel some relief in returning to home turf, leaving behind the strangeness and desolation of the back roads.
But he didn’t.
It’s splitting up with Pete and Barbara, he realized. He didn’t want to part with them. He was
I’m not a kid, he told himself. It’s not dark. We just live next door. And I won’t be going home alone, Jean will be with me and Lane’s probably back by now.
“Why don’t you guys stick around for a while?” Barbara suggested. “We’ll have some cocktails, get the dust out of our throats.”
“Great!” Larry told her, wondering if she, too, was reluctant for the group to break up.
“I’ll make my famous margaritas,” Pete said.
“Sounds good to me,” Jean said.
Larry felt blessed.
Pete left the traffic of Shoreline Drive behind and steered up the curving road to Palm Court. When he turned onto Palm, their houses came into view.
It
Lane appeared from beside the porch. She wore cutoff blue jeans and her white bikini top, and carried a plastic bucket. Apparently she was preparing to wash the Mustang.
Pete beeped the horn as they approached. Lane turned to them and waved.
“Let’s not say anything to her about the you-know-what,” Jean said.
“Mum’s the word,” Pete said. He pulled into his driveway and stopped. Climbing from the van, he called to Lane, “Feel free to do this one when you get through over there.”
“Hardy-har.”
“Have fun shopping?” Jean asked her.
“Yeah, it was okay.” She beamed at Larry as he stepped past the front of the van. “I spent
“Thanks a lot, sweetheart.”
“Consider me a motivating force. So, how was the excursion?”
“Had a good time,” Jean told her. “We’ll be over here for a while.”
“Join us if you’d like,” Barbara said, appearing behind the van with the ice chest in her hand.
“Jeez!” Lane blurted. “What happened to you?”
“Had a little accident.”
“Are you okay?” she asked, frowning.
“Just some scrapes and bruises. I’ll live.”
“Wow.”
“Come on over, if you’d like. We’ll be having some drinks and snacks.”
“Thanks anyway. I want to wash the car.”
“Well, if you change your mind...”
“Sure. Thanks.”
They entered the house. The air-conditioning felt cool and good after the brief walk through the heat. Larry sat in his usual chair at the kitchen table. Jean sat across from him. Pete began to gather bottles from the liquor cupboard.
It was all very familiar, very comforting.
“I’m going to get cleaned up a bit,” Barbara said. “Back in a minute, then I’ll dig up some goodies.”
Pete sang a few lines of “Margaritaville” as he dumped tequila and Triple Sec into his blender. The blender was one of his finds. Someone had put it out for the trashmen. He’d spotted it while driving to work, picked it up and restored it to working order.
It reminded Larry of the jukebox down in the creek bed. He saw himself crouching over it, and then he was on his knees beside the coffin, staring in at the withered brown corpse.
He felt himself start to shrink inside.
It’s history, he told himself. We’re home. It’s all over. That damn thing is fifty, sixty miles away.
“Sure is good to be here,” he said.
“Better than a sharp stick in the eye. Or in the heart, as the case may be.”
Jean grimaced.
Pete split open a couple of limes and squeezed them into the blender, then tossed in some ice cubes. He took long-stemmed margarita glasses down from the cupboard, rubbed their rims with lime, then dipped them into a plastic tub of salt. “Okay, baby, do your stuff,” he told the blender as he capped it and pressed a button. After a few noisy seconds the machine went silent. Pete filled the glasses with his frothy concoction and carried them to the table.
As he sat down, Barbara returned.
“Are you okay?” Jean asked.
“Feeling a lot better.”
She looked a lot better, too.
She was barefoot, wearing red gym shorts and a loose gray T-shirt that was chopped off just below her breasts. Larry guessed that she had taken a washcloth to her legs and belly. The filth and blood were gone, leaving her skin ruddy around the abrasions. The wood had scratched her like an angry cat, and there were broad scuffs that looked as if she’d been given swipes with some heavy-duty sandpaper.
Larry watched as she put together a tray of cheese and crackers.
The back of her looked fine. Tanned, smooth, unblemished.
She brought the snacks to the table and sat down. Pushing out her lower lip, she huffed a breath that stirred the hair on her forehead. “At last,” she said.
Pete raised his glass. “May the vampire rest in peace and never come looking for our necks.”
“I’m gonna brain you,” Barbara said.
“I’ll help,” Jean said.
Pete grinned at Larry. “These gals, they’ve got no sense of humor.”
Six
Larry woke up shivering. The covers were off him, twisted around Jean as she thrashed and whimpered. He shook her gently by the shoulder. She flinched. Gasped, “What’s... what’s?..”
“You were having a nightmare,” Larry whispered.
“Huh? Oh. Okay.” She rolled onto her back. She was still panting for air. “Smothering,” she muttered, and struggled to free herself from the blankets. She shoved and kicked them down to the foot of the bed.
“I’m going to need some of that,” Larry said, sitting up.
“Huh? Oh. Sorry.”
“No problem. I’ll put some light on the subject,” he warned, and gave Jean a moment to shield her eyes before he reached to the nightstand and turned on the lamp.
“Wait. I’ll do it. You’ll mess it up.”
“Fine,” he said, and smiled. Seconds ago Jean had been in the grips of a terrible nightmare. Now she was concerned that he might foul up the job of arranging the sheet and blankets. He leaned back, bracing himself up with locked arms, and watched her climb off the bed.
She looked as if she’d just taken a shower with her nightgown on. Her short hair was matted down, wet
