The rain beyond pattering, crackling.
The shadow raised a fist, rapped on the glass. “Penelope?” he called. “It’s raining out here. I know this is weird, but can’t I come in?”
“I’m calling the police,” Max said. He hovered his hand over the phone. Why await Karen’s approval? Just call. Just call! He watched her creep closer, lean in to the peephole. She turned to him.
“I think I can talk him down.”
“What? K—”
With the security chain still in place, she carefully opened the door. The cacophony of the storm grew two-fold, tearing and smattering. Still an energetic shadow, the man moved fast into the sliver of gray light.
Terror struck Max that he might look in and see him by the bed, so Max left the phone and hurried over behind the television.
You left the gun. Goddammit.
“Penelope?”
“Mr. Cannon,” Karen said, speaking to him through the thin opening. No Southern accent. Penelope dead and buried. “What are you doing?”
Barely audible in the storm. “I want to talk to you. You just up and disappeared.”
“I quit.” She lowered her head. “Please leave me alone. I have the police on hold.”
“The phone’s right there,” he said, pointing inside. “It’s on the hook.”
There was some flirty delight in the man’s patronizing tone, as if he were convinced she was still playing “Penelope” with him. Max stepped closer.
“Why did you quit?” James said. “Aren’t favorite clients entitled to a little notice? What’s your real name?”
“That’s all personal,” she said. “Please leave me alone, or I will call the police.”
She went to close the door, but James reflexively clutched it, resisting.
He’s not gonna leave. You son of a bitch. Max thought nothing else. A great upswell of rage took him, dark noisome contents plunged loose. An ancient, barbaric intelligence took hold of his mind and matter.
He ran at the door. Karen had little time to process but moved deftly against the wall as Max, hands outstretched, put his whole weight into shutting the door. A wooden thunder and crackle-pop of bone and a shrill scream, James’ fingers crushed and quivering in the doorjamb.
“Fuck oh Jesus fuck me! Fuck me!”
Karen gasped, “Holy shit Max—!”
Max threw her a wild furtive glance, then slid open the security chain and thrust open the door. Karen maneuvered out of the way.
The rain crashing hard, so hard. James stumbled back on the walkway, knees bent, right hand twisted and bloody, torn. Tears streaming. Crying. A baby. He looked pale. Maybe he would faint.
Max went to him, landed a blow across his face. Blood dotted cement. Fuck it hurt. Teeth scraping his skin, the harsh impact vibrating up his forearm, yet the pain blended fast with the escalating adrenaline.
“Get out of here!” Max screamed. “Get the fuck out and get out of my house!”
“Jesus Max!” Karen said, light-years behind him. “Max!”
He took James by the collar, rammed him against the wall. Little to no resistance. Still crying. Slammed him a few times more, James’ head once striking the stucco. Yes that’s it bash his skull in. Open his brains right here, let the rain clear ‘em out. Nature you fucked this one up. Take it back. Take it all back. Try again.
“Max—!”
He thrust James back to the walkway, where the man teetered on tenuous feet before collapsing to his knees, the rest of him supported by his single good hand, the other raised and bent and dangling like dead wind chimes.
Max hurried back into the room.
Terribly white, Karen was at the phone, receiver to ear. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
She’s looking at you like she looked at him. Good.
No. Shut up. Calm down.
A figure rose again in the window. A shadow. Him.
“Motherfucker!” James shrieked. “Get back out here! Let me in! Fucker! Fucking cowardly fucker!”
A loud thud, like a bird striking glass. Then a crack. Limbs flailing. In his movements behind the curtain, James became amorphous, a bulky man-thing, a faceless monster siphoned from childhood nightmares.
“He’s breaking the window,” Max breathed.
“He’s coming in,” Karen rasped into the phone. “He’s breaking in!”
One more strike and the window broke, shattered into translucent fangs knocked about on the floor. In whistled wind and cold.
“Motherfuckers!” James screamed. “Fucking pussy faggot!”
Suddenly there was a leaden thud, and the shadow fell, melted below the windowsill. Another stood in its place. Through the whispering hole in the glass, Max heard a voice.
“Now we’re even for my window.”
***
V
He hadn’t drunk coffee in three years, but today gave himself a free pass. Newborn Michael had kept him and Angelica up pretty much all night. Ritter was doped up on the red-eye hour. In this state every surface looked inviting for sleep.
Dazed, with a black coffee in hand and a folded Los Angeles Times tucked under his arm, Ritter rode the elevator up to Ramon Plaza’s third floor, home of Direct Canvas’ fancy new—well, year-old—suite. Long slow day today. But he had a kid. A new purpose and a new dimension to his life and to everything. He was a father. How was that possible?
He occupied himself with the mail stack. More letters about Feldman. About Neo-Naturalism. Child’s drawings, mostly, from eager my-kid-is-a-genius parents. From you’re-going-to-be-the-star-I-never-was parents. Now a parent himself, he thought he understood slightly better the source of this delusion. Probably he would understand even better as Michael grew. Yet still he resented it. Resented Feldman for encouraging it.
After all, the arts were already the target of snickers from the likes of the sciences. “Anyone can do that,” some of the more arrogant might say, “not like brain surgery or aeronautics.” Sure, anyone could do this. But try being Rembrandt. Try summoning Tolstoy to your pen. Can’t learn that. One could learn the numbers and puzzles of brains and rockets. But one couldn’t learn sublimity, couldn’t snatch that spark in a bottle and label it and quantify it. Of course, according to Feldman, sublimity lurked in everyone.
Other mail came from bus drivers, addicts, janitors, policemen, clerks. All kinds
