Edge of Midnight

30



“There isn’t enough mayonnaise on this,” Gladys complained, pushing the plate away. Petulant, she added, “And I don’t like dill pickles. I like sweet gherkins.”

“We’re out of the gherkins, Mother. I’ll go to the store later.” With forced patience, Allan took the turkey and rye and spread another thick layer of mayonnaise onto the sandwich. He sat the plate back in front of her on the table with a testy clank.

Peering suspiciously between the slices of bread, she frowned. “There’s no cheese, either.”

He went to the fridge and pulled out a wrapped slice of American. It was processed—not even real food—but it fit Gladys’s childlike palate. He tossed it onto her plate. “I’m in a mood today. You’d be wise not to push me.”

She snorted, unimpressed, as she unwrapped the cheese with bony fingers. “What’re you going to do? Go hide in that little building of yours?”

Dismissively, she turned up the volume on the small television, shifting her attention to a Sunday afternoon worship program. A minister with a silver pompadour and pinstriped suit bellowed from the pulpit, ranting about demons and dark temptations. Allan wasn’t hungry, so he put the turkey and mayo back into the fridge, the rye into the bread box. As he carefully swept crumbs from the counter, his mind returned to the catastrophic events of the previous night. He’d planned so carefully, conducted surveillance on the apartment building for days before making his move. All of it wasted, now. The woman on the top floor wasn’t even supposed to be home at that hour. He recalled the repeated, dull thud of her head on the concrete. Her price for intervening with fate.

His anger still simmered, however.

“It wouldn’t hurt you to go to church,” Gladys noted once the pipe organ had started up on the television, accompanying a robed choir. “You might meet a good woman and do something with your life.”

Shutting her out, Allan closed his eyes, envisioning Mia at his mercy. It was meant for him to have her. There was simply no other reason for her to have come back into his life. He imagined hurting her, tasting her fear. But the fantasy didn’t last long. Gladys broke into a coughing fit, rocking in her chair as she choked on a bite of sandwich. Little bits of turkey and bread flew from her wrinkled mouth. Patting her back, Allan handed her the glass of milk he’d poured for her earlier.

“Drink this, Mother.”

Finally the coughing spasms subsided. Irritable, she shooed him away and went back to watching the strutting minister as she ate. Her jaw clicked with each mastication, and he noticed a glob of mayonnaise on the front of her housedress. There was another gelatinous drip oozing down the tubing of her oxygen cannula. The Chihuahua stood by her chair, begging in his high-pitched whine. Allan seethed. She was a thankless old woman. He’d moved three states away—lived here for almost three years now—caring for her. Gladys should worship him, not treat him like some kind of impotent failure. He thought again of what he’d done to the curly haired bitch. Was that the work of a weak man?

He didn’t think so.

Allan returned to the sink, tamping down his annoyance as he prepared to marinate chicken for the evening’s dinner. Ritualistically soaping his hands under the faucet’s scalding stream, he looked up as something outside the window caught his attention. Lupita, their so-called housekeeper, was skulking through the backyard, her ample hips jiggling in her stretch pants.

She headed into the pines toward his workshop.

Allan quickly dried his hands on a paper towel and stomped out through the kitchen door, its screen banging.

“I need my pills,” Gladys called after him.

Eyebrows clamped down over his eyes, he marched across the lawn in Lupita’s wake. It was one of her days off—she wasn’t even supposed to be here. The backyard ended at the thicket of trees, which ran parallel to the makeshift gravel road. He traveled into the woods, taking the same beaten-down trail as the housekeeper. A few hundred yards out, the dull gray of cinder blocks and the body of a stripped car peeked out through the foliage. As he approached, he could see Lupita, knocking on the door.

“Meester Levi?” she called in her thick, peasant accent. “You in there?”

He slowed, staying just outside the clearing. The woman knocked again, then twisted the door handle. Allan felt himself vibrate with anger, his hands balling into fists at his sides. She had been clearly instructed never to come down here.

Wait. See what she’s up to.

He took a step farther back into the woods as she looked carefully around. Then she slunk to the side of the building, to the lone window that held the air-conditioning unit. The top pane was covered from the inside with heavy butcher paper, so she bent over, attempting to peek through the half-inch space between the unit and wooden planks used to keep it wedged into the window frame. Fury exploded in Allan’s head, the hard thrum of his pulse propelling him forward. He grasped the housekeeper by one flabby arm and spun her around as she gasped loudly.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he roared.

Her eyes went wide, her mouth gaping open in surprise. “Meester Levi! I—I was just looking for you!”

“You were snooping!”

“No, I—”

“Why didn’t you come to the house?”

“If Miss Gladys sees me, she expects me to stay. You’re always down here. I thought—”

As Allan crowded her she took a step back, her thick shoulders meeting the building’s exterior wall. He was breathing hard, his fingers still biting into her upper arm. “You were told never to come down here! This is my private sanctuary! What are you looking for?”

She cowered, her face growing as white as the laundry hanging on the line in the backyard. “I—I came to get paid! You owe me for two weeks—my son, he needs the money, today!”

Allan stared at her, every nerve in his body crackling with vehement hatred. He thought of pounding Lupita’s thick skull against the ground, too, watching it split open like a ripe melon. He came to the very edge of doing it. But he knew her son would come looking for her. Instead, he punched a hard finger into the center of her chest. Her heavy bosom bounced.

“You never come down here again, you hear me? No aquí!”

She shook her head. Tears filled her eyes. “No, sir, I understand. Please…”

Lupita cried out as he blocked her attempt to creep away. Allan placed one hand on the cinder-block wall above her head, not through terrorizing her. His breath fanned her face. “If I ever catch you down here again, I’ll hang you and skin you alive.”

She whimpered. He reached into his back pocket. Extracting his wallet, he pulled out several bills, cash he had from a recent repair job. He threw them on the ground, watching as she bent, sobbing, to pick them up. Doing so, she rose and scrambled away, bumping her plump hip against the front of the partially disassembled car he had up on blocks. When she believed she’d reached a safe enough distance, she spat on the ground and screamed, “You’re crazy! I quit!”

Allan watched her go. His rage was a living thing now, a snake coiled up inside his belly. Lupita was like kindling on a fire that had been building since his failure last night. He had returned to the crime scene briefly, and he’d witnessed something that struck a chord. Mia running into Eric Macfarlane’s arms. He’d held her like a lover.

If they were together, taking her would be doubly sweet.

She was his missing number eight. The little girl who’d witnessed his maiden voyage.

She belonged to him.

He drew in several deep breaths, trying to bring his spiraling thoughts back under control. As long as he was down here, he might as well be productive.

Going to his van parked on the gravel, he opened its back doors and felt a blast of hot air from its interior meet his face. Then taking out the keys to his workshop, he let himself inside, leaving the entrance open. A short time later he exited again, a mass wrapped in plastic sheeting over one shoulder. He dumped it into the van’s back with a heavy thump, then slammed the doors closed again.

Allan relocked the building. Wiping perspiration from his face with the back of his forearm, he felt a sense of loss that no one had been around to witness his power. He’d wanted Mia tied up and watching. Knowing she would be next. But he’d needed the release too badly last night.

He didn’t have much time until the body began to stink.

Allan walked back up the wooded trail so he could give Gladys her pills and marinate the chicken. After dinner, under the velvet blanket of darkness, he would head out to dispose of the remains and prowl the night.