Stacking in Rivertown Read online

  I sit in his lap and kiss him, which makes his ears go hot pink. Thank God I’m going to get a little distance between the dangers and myself. Josh and Tom and I celebrate after hours that night with a bottle of grand cru.

  That next week, Tom and I start shooting. I found a big gun store with a shooting range a few weeks back and began cultivating the owner, a nasty old lecher it turns out, named Orville of all things. Tom and I go and shoot while Orville slobbers like a pit bull. He feels me up in the booth as he pretends to teach me the finer points of marksmanship.

  Both Tom and I get to be decent shots and more picky about our weapons. It turns out that Orville is happy to move guns around under the table. So I trade the Ladysmith and the semi-automatic for a Walther P99 double-action semiautomatic. Tom springs for an H&K USP compact, using the money he saved to fly home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We talk about our guns as if they’re our dates.

  “She’s aching for a good round,” Tom says, his eyes dreamy.

  “Walther’s feeling punk today.” I sigh. “He got loaded again last night.”

  Because of my double salary, I make enough money to garage the Taurus, which helps to ease my paranoia about Ben finding me. But at Tutti, whenever a limo glides up to the entrance, I get woozy, certain that Ben will step out with that smile on his face. And the undercurrent begins to pull. The ache vibrates. I find myself listening to Miriam Dubois during almost all my free time. At times, I refer to her as Violet in my head.

  Miriam haunts me. Her music runs through my skin like one of the ghosts pricking me. I yearn to find her. I want her to watch me with those eyes. I want to trap her into loving me.

  But it’s Violet that keeps returning, wanting to tell me everything I don’t want to know. I run from her. I take to drinking some nights. In desperation and loneliness, I turn my attention to Josh.

  I’m informed by Cinda, a really blond, really white waitress who could have been from Scranton, that Josh is gay. Cinda, by the way, has all the personal depth of a sheet of paper.

  So what? I think. Why make a big deal about it?

  I begin flirting with Josh, and after I’m introduced to his boyfriend, Greg, who’s another hunk, I start flirting with him, too.

  The three of us begin to go shopping for clothes together. They especially like to help me choose lingerie. I think they’re secretly jealous.

  Even though I’m flirting to beat the band, I’m not getting a rise (so to speak) out of either of them. I begin to make blatant passes, confused, having never been refused by a man before. As the days go by and I fail again and again, I find myself slipping backward, remembering Ben, how he was so good to me at times. I catch myself taking out his card and fingering it. He’s just a phone call away. Some nights I turn Miriam off in a fit of anger, near to tears, the ache choking me, the ghosts coming into my head.

  One night as we’re closing, I reach between Josh’s legs from behind, taking hold of him. He doesn’t move. Ashamed, I remove my hand and walk away, thinking about the S&W I have near my bed. The one with the long barrel. I think of Violet. I think that maybe tonight I’ll finally be able to pull the trigger.

  Josh catches me around the waist from behind. I try to pull away, but he holds me there.

  “Becca,” he says, whispering. “Come over to my place now. Greg is there.” He turns me around and holds me to him. “I won’t give you sex, but I can give you this.”

  I find that tears are filling my eyes. I fight them and try to pull away, but he keeps me there. Then he holds me at arm’s length and stares at me. I turn my face.

  “Will you come?” he says.

  I won’t look at him.

  Josh takes my hand and brings me to his place. By then, I’m seeing lights and hearing Miriam’s voice in my head. Josh wants to talk to me, but I can’t. I don’t know what’s happening to me. All my pieces, so badly held together, like that little blue cup, are coming undone.

  “Come on,” Josh says. “I’m putting you to bed.”

  I shake my head, but he coos to me in French, which reminds me of Mama. I wonder if he’s repeating what his mother said to him when he was a boy and unable to sleep.

  Josh and Greg each take one of my arms and lead me to the bedroom, lying me between them, with Josh still talking singsong in French. I have to work hard to keep from crying. That night, I wake every hour, watching the ghosts dance around the room.

  After that, Josh invites me over to spend the night from time to time. He seems to have some second sense, able to tell when I’m near some edge I can’t define.

  Josh and Greg lie me between the two of them on those nights because they see how much it pleases me. I sometimes wake, thinking I’m back in the two-room, sleeping with Mama and Vin.

  The days pass and November sets in, cool and wet. I let my hair grow out a little, having it bleached just on the tips. That’s when Josh starts commenting about how I look like Clarisse, how I could win one of those look-alike contests and get to meet the star, only too bad, Clarisse Broder is dead. He thinks we should sponsor an afterlife Clarisse Broder book signing at the restaurant as a promotion, with me posing as her.

  I play along, but ignore him when he starts making plans.

  One morning when I’m dressing at Greg’s, Josh walks in by accident. Startled, I turn, wearing only my bra and underwear. He’s halfway out the door when he stops.

  “Becca.”

  He’s staring at my scar.

  “Appendectomy,” I say automatically.

  Greg sticks in his head. “Wrong side,” he says.

  How does everybody know this but me?

  I shrug my shoulders and drop my T-shirt over my head. But Josh walks up to me, lifting the shirt. I pull it down out of his hands and turn to face him. There’s something in his eyes. I know what he’s seen. The other marks, the ones Jeremy never saw because we were in the dark when we had sex, and Tom was too polite to ask. The whip marks, from that first God-awful whipping by Ben.

  “I was in a motorcycle accident,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Slid along the pavement. I was wearing a leather jacket, but it shredded off me.”

  Josh shakes his head and walks out of the room. Neither of them bring it up again.

  But I’m sliding, slipping back toward Violet and her secrets. At times I’m “disappearing,” as Burt calls it. I might be in the kitchen checking the sauces when I start seeing or hearing things I can’t make out.

  Burt takes me into his office again.

  “What’s going on, Becca?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Look,” he says, “I was in Nam. I know that look. I’ve seen it on my buddies. They’ve seen it on me. It took me years to get past the flashbacks. There’s people that can help you with it.”

  So that’s what’s in his eyes.

  I snort. “I wasn’t in Nam, Burt. I was a little kid then.” I’m not liking the way this is going, so my mouth takes over. “By the way, the rest of us call it Vietnam, or just ‘that police action thing.’”

  “Look,” he says again. It’s his favorite word. Maybe he picked it up in Nam. “I know you carry a gun. I saw it the first day. And I know the signs of bad shit in a person’s face. I know you, Becca. Better than you know yourself maybe. After you see enough of your buddies die, you get a second sight.”

  I’m getting dizzy at this moment and feeling my stomach shift. One to five. Count the breaths. Go back again. “Don’t push me, Burt. I just can’t remember something that was really bad. And what I do remember, I’d rather forget.”

  He sits staring at me, and I look away. After awhile, I stand. “Is that all, Dad?”

  “No, that’s not all.” He slams open a drawer and takes out a pad. Then he whips off a name and phone number. He hands it to me. “This woman can help you. She helped me a lot. When you start remembering, you shouldn’t do it by yourself.”

  I take it, rolling my eyes when I turn away. Some weirdo therapist. They’
re a dime a dozen out here.

  I go and sit at my miniature desk squeezed in the back hall by the kitchen, trembling. To distract myself, I open a copy of the Times I bought on the way in to work. On page three is an article about a body found, this one female and floating in the Hudson. The article hints at a connection to the suspected serial killer.

  Flipping to the back, I go through the personals. Sure enough, I find a blurb for Tut from Beefy. Call me, it says.

  I tell Burt that I’ve got to check on some produce. Catching a cab, I buzz over to Hayward as fast as I can. I find a phone booth.

  “Bates,” he says when he picks up his phone.

  “Hi.”

  “Beth. It’s good to talk to you. Read the paper today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We got another witness, not a good look, but someone who narrowed the pictures down for us. We’ve got about fifty possibles. I would love it if you could look at them.”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  He waits. “Have you worked on the memories? Have you been to anybody?”

  “No. I’ve been busy trying to have a normal life.”

  “This isn’t going to go away, Beth. It will follow you around.”

  I think of Miriam’s voice in my head all the time. And Violet. “I know.”

  “Will you look at the pictures?”

  “Let me think about it. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

  The weeds lining the banks sway. Water skimmers trip along the surface. Two vultures circle silent, and the catfish strike our hooks, loaded with crawlers, stripping them away. Mandy and me sit, watching where our lines go down into the water. A cloud of gnats discovers us. We lie down. I cover my eyes.

  The day floats forward slow, almost stopped, almost arrested in motion. The sun hangs in the sky.

  I want to prevent all that has passed since, keeping the seconds held back. I want to take the two of us to Rivertown and make us into stone, Mandy and me, each of us frozen and watching.

  Instead, I have become a toom. Inside, all the bodies are stacked neatly in rows. More of the dead are brought to me each day. I swallow them. I won’t give up their secrets.

  The sweet air beneath the live oaks passes back and forth over me.

  I call Jill that night.

  “It’s Becca,” I say, hoping she hasn’t forgotten me.

  She seems genuinely pleased to hear from me.

  “I need a favor,” I say. “I don’t think it would put you at risk, but I’m not sure. Maybe you could get your dad to do it for me. He’s a police officer, right?”

  “Retired,” she said. “He’d love to do something dangerous. He’s bored to death.”

  “There’s a detective that wants me to look at some pictures to help nail a guy for a murder I witnessed.” I sway a little, sick again. “I don’t want him to know where I am. If the detective drops them somewhere and your dad picks them up, then you could mail them to me.” I wait, holding my breath.

  “That’s no problem, Becca. When, what, and where?”

  “I’ll have to phone you again with the details.”

  We talk about their kids a bit. Before I hang up, she asks me, “How’s Betty and Dave in Dayton?”

  “A little shook up,” I say. “And Dave got an awful rash on his face.”

  I call Bates back the next day.

  “Here’s the deal. Go to the third floor of the Public Library on Forty-second Street. Turn right at the entrance to the reference section and go all the way to the left corner. Place an envelope containing the pictures on one of the tables. Then leave. And no looking. And don’t bring anybody with you or tell anyone what you’re doing. Which reminds me, does anyone else there know that I’m alive and you’ve been talking to me?”

  “No,” he says. “When?”

  “Tomorrow when the library opens. I’ll get the pictures in a couple of days.”

  He thinks this over. “Okay, Beth. And work on those memories. They’ll come out one way or another. It would be better if someone was helping you. As they say, you have to be present to win.”

  I hang up. I’m beginning to like Bates more and more.

  That afternoon, as I’m going over the delivery lists, and Larry is screaming about the tuna, I take out the note Burt gave me. I make the phone call, setting up an appointment for the end of the week.

  During my evening break, I call Jill again and firm up our plans. She tells me her father is in great spirits. That I’ve brought some joy back into his life.

  “My pleasure,” I say. “If only I could do that in my own life.”

  I close that night at Tutti like always. It’s after three by the time I call a cab and have him drive me home. As I step out on the street, I hear the ghosts like they’re all around me. I freak, drawing my gun and racing up the four flights. I check the apartment after I get in. I’m sweating.

  Listening to Miriam, I change into shorts and a T-shirt, curling up with my notebook. I’ve started the stories full swing again. The river is in my head, and Mama and Mandy. I look over at Mama’s picture where I put it on the dresser and wish I had a picture of Mandy, too. I wonder what ever happened to Vin.

  About the time the sky is getting light, I lie down in my only closet, leaving the door open just a crack so that I can see the man when he comes. I know he’ll be wearing gym shoes.

  The pictures arrive at Tutti on Friday. Burt hands the envelope to me and I toss it in my desk. A couple hours later, I take a cab to my “appointment with death,” as I’ve been referring to it in my mind. I tell myself it’s just a joke, but for once, I’m not enjoying my own sense of humor.

  As I’m sitting in the therapist’s office, I decide that, as much as I hate it, I have to be honest.

  “I witnessed a murder,” I say. “The police want more details.”

  I’m really screwed up, I want to add. I’m scared shitless, by the way.

  Near the end of our session, she tells me that I might start feeling worse for awhile. She wants me to see a psychiatrist. I thank her, but say no.

  Just a nervous breakdown. Women have them all the time.

  When I go back in the kitchen, Josh is jumping all over the place.

  “You got to see this,” he says in his lovely accent. His skin is so dark it’s glowing. I want to kiss him, but Cinda is nearby. I wouldn’t want to blow her mind.

  He whips out a Globe magazine.

  “God, do you actually read those things, Josh?”

  “Look at the headline.”

  It says: “Clarisse Broder Seen Alive and Well in Chicago.” Under that I see a faked-up picture of me with the Sears Tower in the background.

  I try to remain calm.

  “Let’s dress you up like Clarisse,” he says. “We’ll get you a wig. We could have some sightings here in Berkeley. You could stand out on the Golden Gate. Scare the shit out of everybody.”

  I throw the magazine at him. “You’re acting like a five-year-old, Josh.” I notice too late that my voice is a bit loud. Josh stares at me. I stalk out of the kitchen.

  Josh gets over my little tirade and asks me over that evening, saying that he and Greg want to see what it’s like to spend time with a walking ghost. I almost decline, but then I think about sleeping in my closet again.

  I tell him I’ll do my best to play the part.

  During my break, I close myself in Burt’s office and take out the pictures. I look at each one a long time. I spread them out and take them en masse.

  None of them look familiar.

  After we close, Josh and I catch a cab over to Greg’s place. I slosh down a double shot of whiskey neat while Josh and Greg chatter about the “appearances” they want to set up. After another couple of doubles, I pass out on the couch, but Josh wakes me in the middle of the night, freaking me. He brings me to bed with them. I fall asleep dreaming about Bates’ pictures floating before my eyes.

  I’m in the limo with Ben. I’ve had a glass of champagne, and I’m thinkin
g about the Senator.

  “He’ll be calling tomorrow is my guess,” says Ben. “He’s head over heels for you, Beth.”

  “He likes the manacles,” I say.

  Ben sits quiet then. I watch him. He keeps chewing his thumb-nail, something I’ve never seen him do before. And he’s rubbing his eyes.