10
“Come in,” Stu tells Harper, unlocking his door. “Let me pour you a drink or something.”
Harper thinks about it and is about to tell him no, she should really get back, when she finds herself saying the complete opposite. Why not? It’s been a shitty kind of day. I mean, could this day get any worse?
“Alright.”
Stu smiles. “Good. I’ve got Glenfiddich.”
“Even better, then.”
Up in Stu’s apartment, Harper flops onto his sofa as he fixes the drinks. Neat, no ice, no mixer. He hands her the glass, clinking his against hers. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” Harper knocks it back, feels its velvet smoothness in her gullet, the burn as it reaches her insides and the ensuing warmth throughout. “God, that hit the spot.”
“Another?” he asks, draining his glass in the same fashion.
“Please.”
Harper runs her fingers through her hair, kicks her shoes off.
“Here you go,” he says, handing her back the glass. “What a shitty day.”
“Tell me about it. What’re you going to do about Karen?”
Stu thinks for a moment. “Let it blow over. There’s no more point talking to her. I’ll change my number. That way she’s got no way to contact me. She sure as hell won’t come to the station again. We’ve got no ties, she’s got no reason to call me anymore, huh?”
“Other than to give you shit, you mean.”
He laughs. “Yeah, something like that. Anyway, how’s the hair? You’re the one who got roughed up today.”
“I take it you haven’t seen the massive shiner you got.”
“Really?” Stu gets up and finds a mirror. “Ah, damn. That’s a beauty.”
Harper shakes her head, laughing, lifting the glass to her lips. “I confronted Dudley.”
“What? That was my job!”
She puts a hand on his knee. “Calm down. It’s all out in the open. He did it because he was jealous of us.”
“You mean he’s got a thing for you?”
“Uh-huh. That’s why he did it. I don’t think he expected it to go down the way it did at the station, though,” Harper says. “I’ll be interested to see what he does now. Whether he stays and tries to work it out, or gets a transfer.”
“Hopefully the latter,” Stu says, drinking his scotch.
“He’s just a mean little man.” Harper reaches up, rests her palm against the side of his face. “Stud. Your poor eye.”
“It’s nothing.”
Whether it’s the scotch, the emotion that rides in on the wake of a trauma, or just a case of perfect timing, Harper finds herself sitting up, leaning forward. Stu leans into her, his hand going to her waist, everything else forgotten. They kiss, softly at first, then with their lips pressed hard against one another, teeth clashing, tongues exploring, teasing, playing. His hand rides up her shirt, finds her breast, gives it a firm squeeze. Harper traces her fingers down his chest, to his leg, to his groin.
“You’re sure?” Stu asks her, pulling away.
“I need this,” she tells him between heavy breaths, looking deep into his eyes, pulling him back in, wanting him to take her, wanting to feel wanted. If for only the night, she wants all of that.
She wants to forget.
Ida lights a couple of candles, then holds the end of her cigarette to one of the flickering flames. The cigarette smoldering between her pursed lips, she flips through her record collection, letting fate decide.
She smiles when she pulls Blonde on Blonde—long one of her favorites—from the stack. She jumps in with “I Want You,” swaying her hips back and forth to the freewheeling rhythm. She cracks open a cold beer, drinking and smoking as she slow dances around the house. Ida is caught up in the music, in her own thoughts, in the feelings Dylan always manages to expose.
Her favorite comes last, and it makes her more contemplative: “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.”
I am that sad-eyed lady, Ida thinks, finishing her beer, thinking that maybe she’s had too many, but that maybe it’s okay. She should have another. Drink until she sleeps.
Maybe the dream won’t come, then.
Ida sits on her sofa, sets what’s left of her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, and buries her face in her hands. What she felt, visiting the spot where her mother died, has lingered. It was an aching loss, a knowledge of something terrible. She felt what her mother felt, the crushing, desperate panic.
She begins to sob, listening to Dylan’s drawl, the tragedy of the musical arrangement, her ragged breath coming between waves of her grief. Blonde on Blonde comes to an end, the needle arm lifting from the vinyl, the turntable stopping dead, but the speakers still crackling, waiting for their next song. Their next voice.
An old poem surfaces in her mind. Something by Robert Frost she remembers from when she was a teenager:
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
She has spent her entire life waiting to see what will trouble her dreams. Ida slips Blonde on Blonde back in its sleeve and busies herself picking something else. She’s in no hurry to sleep.
Lester has put the mask and belt back in their special place—the stiff white cotton folded the exact same way he always does, shown the respect it deserves. The belt held in his hand, gripping the buckle, then coiling the leather tight around his fist. He put them in the drawer, in the cabinet next to his bed, as he always did.
He tips his head back, drains the last of a beer, then tosses the empty can out across the grass. There’s something fitting about toasting Mack’s body with his own beer. The flies have gathered on his corpse—they cluster around the opening in his skull. It’s like a yawning mouth in the middle of all that white scalp and short, bristly, red hair. The brain matter that sticks to the swing set has already started to dry.
Lester looks at the old trash cans. The remains will never fit in one as he is. Lester goes into the house, where he keeps the log-splitting axe next to the fridge. He walks toward Mack’s body, swinging the axe back and forth, hefting its weight in his hands. Best to remove Mack’s legs and arms, then cut his torso in two. That way he can stuff him into one of the cans, and keep the fire contained to one cylinder.
“Forry, Mack,” he spits, lifting the axe high. The blade flashes in the fading light, and he brings it down with a heavy chomping sound.