CHAPTER 31

Ronald had done a remarkable job of cleaning the place up. All the papers and books in the living room were returned to their rightful place, and I gratefully noticed that there was no trace of Puddy’s blood on the floor where we had found him. The work had to be a bit below Ronald’s job description.

“I set you up in this bedroom,” he said, leading me down the hallway to the first door on the right. “It was probably Stevie’s room since it was the only one that had a bed and dresser in it. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Nah, it’ll be fine,” I answered, looking the room over. It had white painted walls that could use a little touching up. There was a double bed with its headboard against the wall to my right with a bedside table and desk lamp next to it. A simple and rather old looking dresser was to the left, with a wood-framed mirror resting atop it, and an armoire wardrobe cabinet straight ahead next to the only window in the room.

“Like I said, I took the liberty of stopping by your motel room so I could collect your things. The clerk knew me from the dry cleaners--we do their curtains and such--and she let me in. I put them in the drawers,” he said, turning. “The bathroom is this way.”

I remembered where the bathroom was, but silently followed him out of the bedroom down to a door on the opposite side of the hallway.

He stopped and pointed in. “You’re almost out of toilet paper. I’ll pick some up for you.” I looked into the bathroom. It was so clean it practically sparkled and the smell of disinfectant was noticeable. There was no way Stevie had kept it like this.

Ronald continued down the hall toward the kitchen at the back of the house.

“Finally, the stores were all closed this morning so there’s just the few things from Mrs. A’s place--coffee, English muffins, a few eggs--so you could at least make yourself breakfast. If you want to make a list, I’ll get you whatever you want before I come back.”

By now I wasn’t surprised at all to see that the kitchen floor and counter tops were clean as a whistle. It was hard to believe that only hours earlier a near army of police and medical personnel were traipsing mud and dirt through the room and cluttering the place with paper coffee cups. It made me think of my old Irish grandmother, a woman so devoted to cleanliness that she could polish an eight ball into a cue ball using only a rag.

“No, I think I’m good. That sounds like more than enough,” I said.

“Mrs. A wanted you to be comfortable. I wrote my phone number down on that sheet of paper on the counter. You think of anything you need, you give me a call.”

I walked over to a wall phone and picked the receiver up off the cradle. There was no dial tone. “This appears to be dead and I don’t have a phone,” I said.

He gave me quizzical look. “Really? You don’t have a phone?”

“I had one from the place I used to work, but they took it back when they fired me.”

“Okay, well, I’ll pick you up a prepaid one and put some minutes on it.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“No problem. I should be back in a few hours.”

He turned to leave.

“Um, Ronald. When you were cleaning up, you didn’t happen to find anything to drink about the place,” I asked.

Ronald looked at me and I seemed to see the slightest bit of disapproval. I’d grown used to that look on people’s faces.

“Isn’t it a little early?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve been up for almost--” I glanced at the clock on the stove. It read seven a.m. “--eighteen hours. I’d say it’s rather late.”

“In the cabinet over there, above the sink. Think I saw a bottle of something.”

I walked over, opened the cabinet door, and saw a quarter-full bottle of Jack Daniels. That would do. I took it down and then turned back to Ronald. He had started down the hallway.

“Say, Ronald,” I called after him. He stopped and turned. “Thanks for all this.”

He looked at the bottle in my hand, then up at me. “You’re welcome. Just do right by Mrs. A.” He turned and left.

***

Having seen Ronald’s handiwork, I wasn’t surprised to find the ice cube trays in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator full, and, while the cubes had not yet frozen completely, I could get enough ice to fill a small glass. I poured the Jack Daniels over the ice and carried it into Stevie’s bedroom. Now that I was alone, I realized that I was very tired.

I sat the drink on the bedside table, sat on the bed, and took off my shoes, then stood and undressed down to my underwear. I thought about taking a shower, but instead went over to the window and closed the curtains to keep as much of the early sun out of the room as possible.

This had been Stevie’s room for as long as I’d known him and very little had changed. The bare walls no longer held posters of sports teams and muscle cars, but the curtains and furniture were all the same. He’d spent his entire life sleeping in that bed. I opened the wardrobe and saw that there were only a few dress shirts, one suit jacket, and three pairs of slacks hanging inside it. At the bottom there was one pair of black loafers that could use a shine and a pair of Timberland boots. I slid open the bottom drawer and saw clothes that I assumed Ronald had taken out of the dresser to make room for my few things--jeans, T-shirts, underwear, and socks. There wasn’t much. Of course, it was more than I had.

I walked over and picked up my drink. The ice had chilled the alcohol but the brown liquid still burned in my throat as I took a large swallow. I noticed for the first time that there were a few photographs slid into the frame of the mirror on the dresser. I went over to get a closer look.

In the top left corner was one of a smiling adult Stevie proudly holding up two bass by short fishing lines, one in each hand. On the left side a bit below that was a wallet sized headshot of Stevie from maybe the third or fourth grade, taken no doubt on the annual school photo day, right above a similar one of Sue Ellen from about the same time. There was no mistaking that they were sister and brother, their similarities so apparent. That was right about the time I met them.

Tucked into the right side of the frame was an ad with a picture, probably torn out of a boating or fishing magazine, for a Cruiser Yacht 48 Cantilus. It was a nice boat, the kind I could never afford, even if I was holding down a job, considering the asking price was $650,000. It must have been placed in the mirror rather recently because it showed no sign yellowing from the sun like the photos on the left side. Either Stevie was dreaming or he expected to come into a bit of money.

On a hunch, I slid the dresser a little bit from the wall and looked behind the mirror, just in case Stevie had hidden something there. Nothing, but I really didn’t expect to find anything. Way too obvious a place for Stevie to be stashing anything. If there was anything to find, he wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

After I slid the dresser back into place, I caught my reflection in the mirror. What the hell was I doing and how the hell did I end up here? I asked myself. I looked at the picture of Stevie with the bass and actually felt sympathy for those fish. They probably thought they had a great life, just swimming along, lots of other fish to eat, maybe they were the biggest fish in the lake, mating when the need arose. Next thing they knew, they had a hook in their mouth, got reeled in, and somebody with a sharp knife was all set to gut them.

I took a long drink from my glass and drained the last of the whisky. I definitely needed some sleep.

***

I woke up. Somebody was in the room with me. I fumbled to find the switch for the table lamp then turned it on. It was Jan. She was sitting in a chair by my bed, wearing a white lab coat over her scrubs, holding a clip board and looking over the sheets of paper that it held. She looked up as I sat up in bed.

“I was just going over your chart,” she said, beautiful as ever but with obvious concern in her eyes. “This just won’t do. You’ve got to take better care of yourself.”

This was a bit odd. I didn’t remember there being a chair in the room.

“What if I don’t want to?” I answered.

“I’m the one who died, Wesley. You didn’t.”

She only called me Wesley when I had done something to disappoint her, like forgetting to take the chicken we wanted for dinner out of the freezer or neglecting to mail the electric bill payment.

“You sure about that? Maybe you should check that chart again,” I said.

She stood up and there was such sweetness as she looked down at me. “I’m sorry, Wes. I didn’t want this either, but you’re going to have to live with it. Live, darling--for me.”

With that she turned and walked to the window. I tried to get out of bed to follow but couldn’t. It was if I was enveloped in a cocoon. I could only reach out my hand.

“Wait, wait--stop,” I cried out.

She disappeared.

I jerked up, awake, no longer held down. There was a very large man standing at the window looking at me. He held a cordless electric drill in his right hand.

“Wadda ya mean ‘stop’?” he said. “I done all the others and yours is the last one. Surprised ya didn’t hear me. Ya sleep like the dead.”

“Oh, Jesus--you did the others,” was all I could say.

This guy was a large man, as tall as me, maybe say six feet three or four but twice as wide, with a big chest and arms thick and muscular as a body builder, which he might have been. He wore a tight white undershirt, that seemed painted onto his brawny upper body, and loose fitting jeans. The whiteness of the shirt was accentuated by the many colorful tattoos he had on his arms and neck. His eyes were a penetrating brown. His nose, obviously broken more than once over the years, was squashed flatly on his face, and he had a closely trimmed goatee. If I couldn’t overpower a Puddy Salvatore, I didn’t have a shot in hell getting past this guy.

My eyes fixated on the rather large drill bit locked into the portable drill. “Can’t you at least use a knife, like you did on Stevie and Puddy. That’s got to be much quicker--and less painful, I would imagine.”

“Use a knife? This isn’t a job that calls for a knife. How the hell am I supposed to put locks on these windows using a knife? And what are you talkin’ about--me doin’ Stevie and Puddy?” He looked at the glass on the bed table, which now held only water from the melted ice. “How much you had to drink?”

“Probably not enough. Do you mean you’re not here to kill me?” I asked.

“Do ya think we’d even be having this conversation if I was here to off ya?” he answered.

“I wouldn’t know--haven’t been in a bedroom alone with a killer before. Not sure how it all goes down. What’s your name? What are you doing here?”

“Name’s Stacey. Ronald asked me ta come over ta make this place a little more secure, if possible. It’s what I do--or one of the things I do--security. I’ll be done in a minute, then ya can get back to sleep.”

“No, that’s okay. What time is it?”

“I dunno, after three.”

Almost six hours sleep. That was practically a record for the last few days.

“I should be getting up anyway,” I said. In truth, I feared that if I went back to sleep, I’d have another dream about Jan.

I felt more than a little self-conscious as I climbed out of bed, letting the hulking Stacey see my scrawny body as I stood up and searched for my shirt and pants. “I think Ronald said there was some coffee in the house. Can I make you a cup?” I asked Stacey.

“Already had a coupla cups, but thanks. Besides, I’ve still got the doors to make secure and the alarm system to install. This place ain’t exactly Fort Knox.”

“An alarm system? Seems like a lot of work and expense, considering I’m only staying a few days,” I said.

“Wouldn’t know about that. I was told ta make the place safe--cost was no matter,” Stacey said, already at the window and working, his back to me.

I stretched my arms out and back as I went into the hallway and turned into the bathroom.

Odd, but there was a toiletry bag sitting on the sink counter that wasn’t there when I went to bed the night before, as well as a stack of Dixie cups I didn’t remember seeing.

After a very quick shower, I dried off and threw the wet towel on the floor, then brushed my teeth and applied some deodorant. I dressed in the bathroom, while Stacey finished up things in the bedroom. I left the bathroom and headed toward the kitchen. Passing what had been one of the empty rooms, through the open door I saw a military cot, next to which on the floor laid a full duffel bag. I turned and went back to my bedroom. Stacey was testing the new latch on the window.

“Um, Stacey. You wouldn’t by any chance be moving in, would you?” I asked.

“Yeah, ya didn’ know? Ronald asked me ta stick around for a few days--in case there’s any trouble with the alarm system, see what else needs fixin’ up,” he answered, not turning around to look at me.

“I see. You said you were in security. That doesn’t by any chance include being a bodyguard, does it?”

He turned and shrugged his massive shoulders. “Ronald said you might have pissed off some pretty tough customers--the kind a few window and door locks won’t stop, and even with the best security system in the world, it would take someone a little while to get out here if it happened to go off. He thought it couldn’t hurt if I hung out here for a few days--just in case, ya know.”

“And how would Ronald know who I pissed off? I just met him yesterday--er, this morning.”

“No idea. But even I heard things,” Stacey answered.

“You heard things? Where?”

“I bounce at Kenny’s place a coupla nights a week and--”

“You know Kenny? Kenny Burton?” I asked.

“Everybody knows Kenny. Anyway, some of the guys that come in there--they’re not exactly angels, if ya know what I mean--some of ’em probably making money offa the stolen cars. I hear ’em saying the monies dried up, on account of the cops sniffing around after the murders. With time on their hands, they got nothin’ ta do but think of ways to hurt the guy they blame for their trouble,” he said.

“And that would be me. Even though I haven’t done anything except get my car stolen,” I said.

“Don’t take much sometimes. These guys ain’t exactly Einsteins--or need a good reason to bust someone up.”

“Great. That’s just great,” I said.

I found a partially full can of ground coffee in a cabinet, opened it, and took a smell. It was fresh and robust smelling. It would do. I went over to the coffee maker that sat on the kitchen counter near an outlet. I plugged the coffee maker in.

“I’m gonna replace that outlet and the ones in the bathroom with GFCI outlets,” Stacey said.

“Really,” I answered while opening drawers and cabinets looking for the coffee filters.

“Yeah, tell you the truth, though. That’s just a drop in the bucket to what this place needs. Did you see the light switches around here? This wiring in this place is so old--it’s ancient, man--an accident waiting to happen.”

“Uh huh,” I mumbled, still unable to find a coffee filter anywhere. Out of sheer frustration, I opened the lid to the coffee maker and there was a filter. And into the filter, someone, I imagined it could only have been Ronald, had measured out and filled it with ground coffee. The water basin was also full. It was all ready to go. All I had to do was find a coffee cup in one of the other cupboards.

“I mean,” Stacey continued, looking around the room while slightly shaking his head, “I’m gonna get quite a few smoke alarms, but as quick as this place would probably go up, they wouldn’t do much good, all the old wood in this place.”

“What?” I said, forgetting the cup, even the coffee, and turning to look at Stacey. “What are you saying wouldn’t do any--what’s that about the wiring--go up quick?”

“Ah, man, I’m just saying this place needs a lot of work, going to be keeping me busy,” he answered.

“Right,” I said, not quite satisfied with the answer but deciding to pursue it a bit more after my cup of coffee.

I finally opened the right cabinet and saw three ceramic cups to choose from. Each was a little chipped or had a slight crack in the glazing. I picked the largest one.

There was a loud knock on the front door. I looked at Stacey.

“So how’s this work--you handling security and all? You going to answer the door?”

“Oh, sure, you’re safe. Any of these guys--they’ll recognize my truck out front, and they won’t want ta mess with me.”

“Right.” I headed off for the door, secure in the knowledge that, if there happened to be a killer on the other side, it wouldn’t be anyone who knew Stacey.