her over her modesty quick enough.
And he’d do it, too, if it weren’t for his goddamned hand. With his right hand like this he couldn’t screw the cat, much less two haughty rich bitches. That jerk-off with the needle was really beginning to cost him.
Should have killed him. Should have just kept pounding since he’d screwed up the hand anyway. A missed opportunity, just like the one with the women by the pool.
But what really burned him was the real chance he’d missed with the guy. Roger Dyce, that was his name on the driver’s license. Name, address, photo- although he didn’t look much like it now that Eric had rearranged his nose. Why hadn’t he taken his keys? Because it had been too long and Eric was out of practice. Because he was having too much fun? No, bullshit. The truth was he panicked. He hated needles, they scared the shit out of him, and he had just overreacted. Christ, he was in the guy’s pockets anyway. He took the fifty-five dollars, he might as well have taken his keys. Drive over to his address in Clamden while the creep was still lying on his front seat, clean out the place. The son of a bitch deserved it.
The women walked into the house. He loved the way the mother’s ass jiggled. Not too taut, had some cellulite, but not bad, either. She still had a few good years left in her. The daughter didn’t jiggle at all. Juiceless, that was her problem.
They’d be going upstairs now, into their separate Spanish-tiled bathrooms, take a shower, get the chlorine off. Christ, he could slip up there, do them each in the shower, the other’d never know. Give them both some juice.
He tossed the weed trimmer into the back of the wagon and felt a twinge of pain in his hand. That jerk-off. He didn’t need a key. Call the hospital tonight, ask about the condition of Mr. Dyce. If he was Still there, zip over to his house and clean it out. And if he’d checked out, well, that might be even better. Ask him what he planned to do with that syringe before kicking the shit out of him again. Maybe stick a needle in the bastard’s ass-or maybe that’s what he wanted. Either way. Make the call right after this job. No, now. Make the call now, here, use the phone.
Eric rang the front doorbell. Hell yes, do the wife in the kitchen while calling the hospital. The girl hears the moaning, starts downstairs, wrapped in a towel, Eric does her on the carpeted stairs. Make the call, fuck the bitches, then clean out Dyce’s house. That would be a pretty good day for a one-handed man.
Helen had taken the keys from his trousers while he slept. She wasn’t sure he would have given them if she’d asked; he seemed very secretive about his house. Helen had not been there since that first time, not that she wanted to go particularly; she didn’t like the place, but still it was odd that he’d never suggested it. But then Roger was odd in a number of ways.
She had brought all the cleaning equipment she owned with her except a vacuum cleaner. Everyone had a vacuum cleaner, whether they used it or not.
Other than that, she had come prepared; there was no telling what supplies he had on hand.
The smell was so bad she could detect it on the porch. Why had she not noticed it from outside that first night? She was surprised the neighbors didn’t complain. Inside, it was even stronger.
A mouse had died under her refrigerator once and Helen had not been able to move the appliance to get the corpse. This house smelled like that, sickeningly sweet. Disgusting. No one should live like this. In a way, Helen thought, it reflected badly on her. She was not doing much of a job domesticating Roger if she allowed him to come home to this kind of thing.
She put her cleaning supplies in the kitchen and looked around. It was as good a place to start as any. Oddly, the sink was clean. The huge restaurant pot that she had last seen covered with cooking scum was scrubbed spotless.
She turned on the tap and the drain belched once, emitting a blast of putrid air before the water backed up and filled the sink. Helen had dealt with clogged drains before; one learned things living alone or else paid an arm and a leg to every repairman in town. She found his tools in a bottom drawer, including a plumber’s wrench. Surprisingly, the wrench was not rusted shut. It had been oiled and maintained, and the bolt on the sink trap had marks on it as if it had been opened frequently. He must have had trouble with the sink before. It surprised her that Dyce had dealt with the problem himself, however. He didn’t seem the handy type.
Helen turned off the water, placed her bucket under the trap to catch the spill, and began to work. Dyce had stored nothing in the cabinet under the sink except a heavy cleaver. Helen removed the cleaver and felt the flooring give spongily. She tapped it. It sounded hollow. There was obviously a space under the bottom of the cabinet. The kind of place a small animal could get trapped and die, perhaps.
The linoleum covering came off in one piece. The flooring seemed solid, but when Helen touched it, the boards moved slightly, as if they were not nailed down. One of them had a recess where a knot had been. Helen put her finger in the recess and pulled up on the board. It came out easily and underneath it she saw the first bone.
Steadying himself against the bed, Dyce drew on his pants and slipped his feet into his shoes. He stuck the socks into his pocket to be put on when he had more time to do it one-handed. His blood on the shirt had dried to an orange-brown. He buttoned it as quickly as he could, the unpracticed left hand fumbling and skipping some buttons. Shrugging on the jacket, Dyce stood and waited for the dizziness to pass.
A nurse glanced at him on the way down in the elevator, took in his bloody shirt, his stubbled cheeks with four-days’ growth of beard, his bruised face, and thought whatever she thought but said nothing. Dyce could not worry what people thought of him now; he could only get away from this place as quickly as he could manage.
A security guard glanced at him and then away; the fat lady behind the information counter didn’t even deign to look at him.
The sun surprised him and left him blinking. For some reason he had thought it was raining and cold. There were no keys in his pocket, no money in his wallet, and he didn’t know where his car was. It didn’t matter; he couldn’t use the car in any event since they would soon be looking for it. As soon as the calm one, Becker, began to think. There was only one reason to ask his mother’s maiden name. They knew something: They had sensed his pattern, perhaps not all, but some, and some was too much. In days, or minutes, Becker would be back. Or perhaps not. Perhaps they weren’t going to put it together, perhaps Dyce was safe, but it was a chance he couldn’t take.
He turned and walked away from the hospital, going down a long hill to the main road below. He didn’t know where he was going, but then neither did anyone else. The main thing now was not his destination, but his escape.
“You’ll replace this?” Tee asked, detaching the police seal from the front door. “I mean, of course you will. How long you going to be?”
Becker had never seen him so agitated.
“I’m not going to hurt anything, you know that.”
“I know that.”
“If you don’t feel comfortable about this. Tee, you don’t have to let me in.”
“I know you won’t hurt anything. I know you know what you’re doing. I know when the state boys show up in the morning, they’ll never know I let you in.” He paused. “Right?”
“Tee, the house is sealed by the order of the state police, but it’s in your jurisdiction, too. You can break the seal if you want to.”
“I know this.” Tee remembered Captain Drooden, who had slapped the seal on the door only hours before. Hard-nosed bastard. Threatened to remove Tee’s gonads if he so much as breathed on the house before Drooden’s full forensic team could arrive from a murder scene in Greenwich.
“But you still have a problem with this?”
“I don’t have a problem with it. Quit saying I have a problem. I’m not afraid of Drooden, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“1 wasn’t thinking that. You fear no man.”
“It’s those damned brown uniforms the states wear. Makes them act mean. Drooden doesn’t scare me… What are you going to do in there?”
“Nothing.”
Tee eased the door open but stayed on the porch. He had no desire to go in again; once had been enough. Even now the house was virtually untouched since he and Becker had responded to Helen’s panicked telephone
