The Best American Mystery Stories 2002
- Автор: Грейди Джеймс, Камински Стюарт Мелвин
- Год: 2002
- Язык: английский
- Год: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- ISBN: 978-0-618-12494-7
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Best American Mystery Stories 2002». Краткое содержание книги:
“Yes,” Lila sings. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Anthony shudders, his body jerks like he’s a spastic. The come collects in his pants.
Danny Boy goes over backward and doesn’t move. Anthony holds up the knife to the moon. The blade runs soft and red.
“Don’t stop, Anthony,” Lila says. “If we throw him in the lake, he’ll just float up and they’ll find him. We have to cut him up, take his insides out, then he’ll sink. I read it somewhere.”
Anthony’s confused. What’s she saying? His beeper goes off.
“Here.” She grabs the knife from him. “I’ll do it.” She’s going through Danny Boy’s pockets, pulling out wallet and papers. She empties the wallet, throws it and the papers into a trash basket, and follows it with a lit match. The trash basket bursts into flames.
Danny Boy’s insides are hanging out of him, all slimy. “Come on, move it,” she says. They throw everything in the lake, but the stuff is slippery and maybe they miss some. Then they each take an arm and drag Danny Boy farther into the lake.
“Everyone out of the park,” comes over a loudspeaker.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lila says, taking off.
The footpaths are pitch black and everything gets very quiet, except for Danny Boy’s howling, which rings in Anthony’s ears. He catches up to Lila and they leave the park together, heading for the side door of her building, where the asshole doorman lets them in.
“Jesus H. Christ!” He’s staring at them in the dim light. “You been in a fight?”
“We were attacked by a crazy bum,” Lila says. “We’ll wash up in the laundry room.”
“I don’t want nothing to do with this,” the doorman says. He turns and leaves them.
Anthony and Lila go to the laundry room and begin to wash the blood and slime off them. “Give me the knife,” she says. “I’ll take care of it.”
He gives her the knife. They put their wet clothes in one of the dryers, drop the coins in, and while everything dries, they wait around wrapped in someone’s clean towels Lila pulled from another dryer. And all the time Lila doesn’t stand still, but paces the room up and down. He gets tired following her and sits on the floor and starts to go to sleep.
“Wake up.” She’s hitting his head like she’s crazy. They get dressed and go up to her apartment the back way, and she tells him, “Take a shower.”
The hot water feels good. He’ll just get dressed and go home. He can hardly hold his head up.
Lila pulls back the shower curtain and steps in, takes the soap and lathers her hands. She grabs his cock with her soapy hands. “You come too soon, dickhead, and I’ll kill you, I swear.”
“I won’t,” he moans.
She jumps him like a monkey, her left hand around his neck, her right hand guiding him inside her. He holds her slippery ass while she puts both arms around his neck and starts banging. He’s going to pass out, for sure.
She digs her nails into his back. “Don’t just stand there, asshole.”
His feet go out from under him and he goes over backward, pulling her down on top of him.
Lila’s screams get drowned out by the water that’s coming down on them. “Think we made an idiot baby?” She laughs, turns the water on freezing cold, and jumps out of the shower.
After Anthony turns the shower off, he just lies there. He can’t move. He hears her talking. Who’s she talking to? He gets out of the shower and wraps one of her towels around him. She’s on the telephone.
“... none of your business,” she says. “I’m just tellin’ you we were attacked by some homeless and I ran and they caught my friend.” She hangs up the phone, when she sees Anthony.
“Why’d you do that?” Anthony asks.
“We should’ve cut his hands off,” she says. “I’m gonna go wash my hair.”
Anthony lies down on her bed and falls asleep. The pounding on the door wakes him. Some man is yelling, “Lila! Come out of there.”
He sees her standing near the bed. She is wearing pajamas. “What do you want? I’m sleepin’,” she says. Her hair hangs in her face.
“Come out at once. The police want to talk to you.”
“Stay here,” she whispers to Anthony. She leaves the room, but the door is half open.
Anthony gets into his clothes, pulls on his Nikes. He wants to leave, but he’s trapped. He looks around the room. There’s no blood that he sees. He goes into the bathroom. No blood. Maybe he can leave by the back way. They wouldn’t be talking in the kitchen. He pushes the door open a crack, and someone grabs his arm and pulls him out.
“Look what we have here, Pierce. Come on out and talk to us.” Anthony can tell he’s a cop, though he’s not in uniform. The cop brings him into a big room where Lila’s parents are sitting on a couch, in bathrobes, both looking at the same time angry and scared. Lila is in a chair near the fireplace and another cop, also not in uniform, is leaning against the fireplace. Lila gives Anthony a terrible look, like she wants to kill him. Anthony can’t stop shivering.
They sit him on a chair next to Lila, and take out notepads and pencils.
“So where were we?” the cop named Pierce says. “Oh, yeah, you made an anonymous phone call to nine-one-one to tell us a friend of yours was attacked in the park.”
Lila doesn’t say anything.
“Is this the friend?” Pierce looks at Anthony.
She gives Anthony another look. “I’ve only known him a couple of weeks.”
Anthony has to pee. He can’t concentrate. What did she do with his knife?
“Your doorman said you both came in the side entrance a couple of hours ago, covered with blood.”
Lila’s mother gasps, her hand over her mouth. Her father, a small guy with thin hair, puts his arm around his wife. They both look sick. Lila glows with a kind of light like Anthony’s seen around the Virgin Mary at St. Anne’s.
“Nice ring,” Pierce says.
Lila looks at her ring.
Pierce takes Lila’s hand. “How’d you get blood on it?”
Anthony can’t believe it, but she starts crying. Her parents rush to her. She’s screaming and throwing herself on the floor.
“We were drinkin’ and he got jealous and did it.” Lila points at Anthony. “I tried to give him mouth to mouth, but it was too late.”
“Stop talking, Lila,” her father says. “You’re incriminating yourself.”
Anthony can’t move. Did she say he did it?
Lila turns on her father, smacking him. “Get away from me, asshole. You think I don’t know they’re writin’ down what I say? I don’t give a fuck.”
“I know my daughter couldn’t—”
Lila shrieks at him, “You don’t know me.”
“Hold up your foot, Anthony,” Hernandez says. Anthony holds up his foot. Hernandez nods at Pierce. “Blood in the grooves.”
“Let’s take a walk, kids,” Pierce says.
“I don’t think—” Lila’s father stops.
“You can come along with us, sir,” Pierce says. “We’re just going to see where the kids got attacked and what happened to their friend.”
“You got a backpack or something?” Hernandez asks Anthony. Anthony nods. “Come along, then, and we’ll get it.” He’s putting on latex gloves.
Lila’s room looks the same only the bed is rumpled where he slept and there are wet towels on the floor. His backpack is next to the bed. He picks it up and Hernandez takes it from him. “Let me help you,” he says, and then he opens it. “Nice blades.” And then, “Your knife?”