Damnable Page 6

  Lindsay nodded feebly, tears streaming. She didn’t resist as Valentine noisily unrolled the tape around the bar, then around her head a few times above her brow, then around the bar on the other side of her, pinning her head back and securing it in place.

  She saw nothing but the ceiling when she looked straight, could sometimes make out the top of his head if she pushed her eyes down. There were noises of movement, steps ringing on the metal, things being picked up and set down. Then the whine of the drill.

  Oh, God, this is really happening. She shut her eyes, squeezing out tears. Why hadn’t she lived a better life? Why hadn’t she done more? She remembered so many things she hadn’t thought of in years. A boy she loved in high school, that summer with her friends in Florida, those years with her grandmother while her father was drunk and her mother was running around catching up on her own unfinished childhood, too busy for anyone but herself. But what she thought of most of all, much to her surprise, was her grandmother, the woman who practically raised her, the one who dragged her to church all those Sundays, who always preached to her about the wages of sin. Constantly lecturing her on what was important. The old fuddy-duddy she resented so much—no fun, no excitement, nothing to offer but a dreary life of boredom. The one person, she realized, who ever cared about her. The one who tried to teach her. The one she let die alone and forgotten somewhere a few years ago.

  Lindsay wondered if any of those things her grandmother told her could still be true. If it wasn’t too late to make it a little bit right.

  The whine of the drill wound down as Valentine took his finger off the trigger.

  “What did you say?”

  Lindsay swallowed. Her voice was a stuttery whisper. “I forgive you.”

  Valentine hesitated. Then he started laughing. His laughter grew louder and he shook his head, sighing, catching his breath, before erupting with more laughs. He was still laughing when he started the drill again and pressed the cylinder over the X he’d drawn on her chest. The teeth of the round saw ripped through her flesh, spraying a circle of blood. The whirring of the motor deepened as the blade met the chest plate. Valentine pressed against the side handle, steadying the drill, until he felt the bone give. Her body shuddered and shook. He pushed a bit further, let the teeth clear a groove, then pulled the circular blade out. The whir of the drill died out just before his final few chuckles did.

  When he removed the chest plate the heart was still beating. He was quick to cut it out with a long scalpel. He proceeded carefully, dropping the scalpel to grip it with both hands as blood poured from the opening and her body twitched in spasms. He held it out, throbbing, and moved closer to the cage. The long, corded arm of the occupant snatched it and withdrew.

  “Hey, Boss. Guess I’m early. I thought you’d be done by now.”

  Valentine looked over his shoulder. His servant was standing at the entry to the room, a sleeveless shirt stretched tight across his chest, muscles subtly flexing with each movement.

  “Hello, Lucas. I’m just finishing up.”

  “You okay, Boss?” Lucas asked, shifting his swollen frame. He scratched at the top of his bare, pale head.

  “Yes.” Valentine blinked several times, took a breath. “I’m fine. I was just thinking of something funny.”

  “Do you want me to come back later? Give you some, you know, privacy with her, like usual?”

  “No. I’m done here. Take her to the incinerator.”

  Lucas spread his finger and thumb down over his mustache a few times. “The guard has been making noise about wanting more money.”

  “I trust he doesn’t know anything.”

  “No, Boss. Still thinks we’re a lab, disposing of animal carcasses. He’s never around to see any different.”

  “Give him half of whatever he wants, because he’ll be asking for twice as much as he’s willing to take. We are close, Lucas. He’s almost ready. It won’t be long now.”

  “Whatever you say, Boss. Just glad I’ll have a front-row seat.”

  They stood there watching as the thing in the cage finished the heart. It ate it like a piece of fruit, crouched over, shifting its weight on its haunches, hiding partially behind its shoulder, looking sideways at them every few seconds. Between bites.

  “What do you think that tastes like to him?”

  “Bitter,” Valentine said. He glanced over at Lindsay’s body. “That’s why he likes them. Nothing healthy tastes good.”

  Lucas let out a chuckle.

  “Tell me something,” Valentine said. “Do I treat you like a slave?”

  “Me? No, Boss. You pay me well. I ain’t got any complaints.”

  Valentine said nothing. He removed his safety glasses. They were splattered with blood. So was his smock.

  “This sure was a pretty one, huh, Boss? Not so pretty now, though.”

  “No,” Valentine said. He regarded the girl’s body, eyes settling on the ragged hole in her chest. Gristly strips of red and purple hung along the edges of it, dark matter still dripping from the void. “Not so pretty now.”

  CHAPTER 3

  HATCHER DIDN’T NEED TO CHECK THE ADDRESS. IT WAS the right street, and the pink flamingos told the rest. He’d almost forgotten about her thing for those creatures, the mild obsession she’d ceaselessly indulged, taking it with her from place to place, year to year. It was bad enough growing up with the stupid birds always nearby, on the refrigerator, hanging from the rearview mirror, perched on shelves, pinned to her clothes. But having them flocking on the front lawn—gaggles of them stuck in the ground, proudly displayed for everyone in the neighborhood to see—that had been awful. He remembered being enchanted by them as a small child, puzzled by them in elementary school. By fifteen, the whole thing was positively mortifying. New neighborhoods, new neighbors, but always those same damn cheap, gaudy, embarrassing plastic birds.

  The half dozen flamingos leaned at odd angles in front of a small split-level, eyeing him warily from atop their thin metal rods as he made his way up the walk. The house was set back a few yards from the sidewalk in the middle of the block on a sloping street in Queens. Dark siding over painted cinder block, covered with some kind of textured mortar. An older neighborhood, probably built in the ’50s, with large maples and oaks buckling the concrete paths and curbs in various places, the broken canopy above depositing nuts and branches and leaves on to the small lawns and the narrow roadway. Nicer than anything he could remember having lived in as a kid, but that wasn’t saying much.

  He climbed the two cement steps onto the stoop and rang the doorbell. Some faint footfalls, then he heard a latch and the door opened behind the screen.

  Hatcher’s mother stood in the doorway, beaming.

  “Jacob! I can’t believe it’s really you.”

  He had to step back as she flung the screen door open, narrowly avoiding a smack in the head. She bounced onto the stoop and threw her arms around him. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands as she squeezed his midsection and rocked from side to side. Leaving them hanging at his sides seemed too consciously aloof. Hugging her in return would have been disingenuous. He settled on patting the backs of her shoulders. But not for long, and without much enthusiasm.

  She pulled away, sniffling, smiling at him with teary eyes. “You’re so big and strong now.”

  “I eat a lot.”

  The years didn’t melt or peel away as he’d half expected; he didn’t feel dragged into the past. It was more like something he had left behind and hadn’t paid much thought had just leaped a chasm, caught up to him in the here and now. Heavier, older, but still the person he remembered, time now dragging at her skin, pulling at her curves. She must have given up that fight for eternal youth.

  She looked surprisingly domesticated, wearing dark polyester slacks and a light blue knit blouse, a small white apron around her waist. Her hands felt cool and damp as she ran them down his cheeks, like she had hastily wiped them dry. He forced a mild smile, gently took her arms by the wrists,
and lowered them. The silence quickly became awkward.

  “Did you have any trouble finding the place?” she said, finally.

  “No. I took the bus to Queens; it dropped me off a few blocks away.”

  “Where’s my mind gone? Please, come inside.”

  She stepped back, gesturing Hatcher into her home.

  The air was thick with the trapped odor of food. The precise smell was hard to pin down, generations of aromas worked into the walls over years, probably the furniture, too, competing with something more immediate coming from the kitchen. It was a little too much, but not altogether unpleasant.

  “I just put some coffee on. It should be ready in a minute.”

  Hatcher nodded, treading behind her into a small living room.

  Karen Woodard kept a tidy house these days, or at least had tidied up in anticipation of Hatcher’s visit, he couldn’t be sure which. The décor was simple. A bit cluttered, but livable. The stuff of discount stores and consignment sales, early American furniture with wood frames and quilted blankets, wooden tables with gilded lamps and fringed bell shades. A scarred, darkened hardwood floor with small oval rugs stitched in concentric rings. And, of course, flamingos. Pink ones, white ones, tall ones, squat ones, porcelain ones, sewn ones. On the walls, the tables. Flamingos were everywhere, even more so than when he was a kid. She led him to a sofa with a pink flamingo throw pillow and sat. He took a few extra steps and lowered himself into a neighboring chair.

  “There’s so much I want to know about you,” she said, sliding over to be closer to him. “About where you’ve been and what you’ve done.”

  “You mean, why I was in prison.”

  She shook her head, a pained expression washing over her face. “No, no. Just about you in general. Unless, that’s something you want to tell me.”

  “All I really want is to know what’s going on.”

  She stood, brushing her hands down her apron. “Coffee should be ready. Would you like some?”

  Hatcher rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times. He could already sense this was going to be more difficult than he had thought. It had been nine hours since he’d spoken with his mother on the phone from the confinement facility. She had avoided the subject then, she was avoiding it now.

  “Sure. Coffee sounds good.”

  He watched her head into the kitchen, past a small dining area with a table set for three, then leaned forward, forearms on his knees, and swept the room. On the far wall, above a table of framed photos, was a picture of him from high school in his football pads, holding his helmet. Next to it was a photo of a man he didn’t recognize, dark hair and light brown eyes, square-jawed, a controlled smile spreading his lips thin. The teenaged Hatcher wasn’t smiling at all in his.

  His mother returned carrying a tray with cups and a small matching pitcher and sugar bowl. The warm scent of food cooking, meaty and moist, stronger than the odor of the house, followed her. It tickled his nostrils, made a tangy taste juice the sides of his tongue.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Fine.”

  He gestured toward the wall of photos. “You still married to Carl?”

  “Yes. He’ll be home soon.”

  Hatcher nodded. He would have bet a significant amount of money that they were long divorced. He remembered his mother going from a woman in her twenties fishing for love and romance to one in her thirties looking for a meal ticket. He supposed that should have made him feel some sympathy for Carl Woodard, but it didn’t. Then or now.

  She dropped a sugar cube into one of the cups using a tiny pair of tongs, carefully adding some cream. Holding it by the saucer, she offered it to him. It rattled slightly in her hands as he reached for it.

  “Mom,” he said, coughing slightly. The word felt foreign in his mouth, like a hair that had been stuck in the back of his throat, pushed out with his tongue. “It’s time you tell me what’s going on.”

  Karen ran a thumb along the inside of a gold chain around her neck, gently pulling it out. Her throat moved behind it as she swallowed. “It’s been so long, Jacob. I’ve missed you so. You were just a boy, last time.”

  Hatcher said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  “You don’t know how long I’ve been looking forward to this day. I just wish—”

  “Look, it’s nice you’re glad to see me. Really, it is. But right now I just need you to explain things. Starting with what I’m doing here.”

  Karen looked down at the coffee tray, still fondling her necklace. “Garrett was killed.”

  “Yeah, I got that much. Who the hell is Garrett?”

  “Your brother.”

  “And I’ll ask again, just like I did this morning. Are you saying I had a brother I didn’t know about?”

  “Yes.” She raised her eyes, then lowered them. Her body seemed to sag under the crush of what she was thinking. “You did.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  She paused, twisting her head to look out the front window. Her eyes were fixed on some faraway spot. “I had a child before . . .” She paused, took a breath. “Before your father and I got married,” she said.

  Hatcher leaned back into the chair, ran a hand over his hair. He wasn’t shocked by what she said, had even considered the possibility. But he was genuinely confused. Given how she had lived after his father left, he had no reason to think she hadn’t slept with other men before the two of them had met. But it still didn’t make any sense.

  “You said something about my father not taking this well.”

  “Yes.” She took her eyes from the window and peered into her coffee. “I’m worried about how this will affect him.”

  “Okay, this is where you’re losing me. If you had a child before you met my father, how would he even know him?”

  “I didn’t say it was before I met your father. I said it was before I married him. He had left for Vietnam not long after we started dating. I was only in high school and I found out I was pregnant.”

  “And he didn’t want you to have it?”

  She glanced at him with a pained expression. “No, it wasn’t like that. He didn’t know. He’d already shipped out. It was my parents. I put the baby up for adoption.”

  “But you ended up getting married.”

  “He came back a year later. We dated a few times and I felt like I had to tell him. How could I not. I was shocked that he asked me to marry him, right then, right after I explained what had happened, while I was still crying and asking him to forgive me. We talked about trying to get the baby back, and I know he tried very hard to find a way, but it just wasn’t something you did back then.”

  “So, this wasn’t a half sibling we’re talking about?”

  “No,” she said. A little too quickly, Hatcher noted. Insulted, perhaps. “I can show you the birth certificate, if you don’t believe me. I kept a copy. It shows he was your full-blooded brother.”

  He adjusted himself in his seat, leaning forward. “And now he’s dead.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. She let the word to hang out there like it was the first time she had actually considered the possibility.

  “How come I didn’t know about him?”

  “It was complicated. I was going to tell you when you were old enough to understand, but then your father and I split and I was scared. I know I should have. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know how, or if it was even the right thing to do. You were always such an angry child. Always acting out, getting into fights. I didn’t want to confuse you. I guess I didn’t want to give you another reason to hate me.”

  Now it was Hatcher’s turn to stare at his coffee. Angry child. He stifled the urge to say something about that, something he knew she wouldn’t like. A different school almost every year, a different house every few months, a mother who was living with a different guy every time he turned around, meaning he was living with a different guy every time he turned around. And through all of this, a father who was nowhere to be found. What the hell did she expect?<
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  “You know, when I first saw him, I thought he was you. He’s not quite as big as you, but he has your features.” Her gaze slipped down to her hands, interlaced in her lap. “Had your features.”

  “When was this? That you first saw him?”

  “Garrett showed up at my door about ten months ago. He was some kind of security consultant, was good at finding information. Said he found out he’d been adopted and decided to research his birth parents, dug through hospital records. He seemed pleased to learn he had a brother.”

  Hatcher scratched the side of his nose. “Are you sure he was who he said he was?”

  “I think I’d know my own son.”

  Hatcher thought of something he could say to that, but didn’t. “How could you know someone you hadn’t seen in over thirty years? Since he was a newborn baby?”

  “I’d know! I mean, I knew. It was Garrett. I’m not completely dumb. Of course I had a hard time believing him at first. But his eyes. They were so familiar. Your eyes, Jacob.”

  She glanced away, wiped the back of her hand against the corner of her lid, blinking, then started fondling her necklace again. “You always had the greatest eyes.”

  “Did he want anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, when he showed up. Did he ask for anything? Money? A place to live?”

  “Of course not! He wasn’t some bum. He never asked me for a thing. He just wanted to get to know his parents. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

  Hatcher ignored the question, thinking, Yes, very hard. “I saw the name ‘Garrett Hatcher’ on the message.”

  “He started using the name Hatcher after he found your father and me. He said he was going to legally change it back.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? Your father was very happy about it.”

  “Speaking of that, what’s the deal with you and my father? You sound as if you’ve been talking to him.”

  “Yes. It’s not like it used to be, Jacob. Your father and I have been cordial since Garrett came back. We’ve talked on the phone.”