The Axeman Cometh Read online

  Now he takes time out to review all of his movements of the last twenty minutes, when he arrived on West Homestead Avenue. He hates mistakes. The discarded surgical mask? Right there in the pocket of the tool bag. He has total recall of every step he's ever taken in each of the four houses he's visited to date. A fat memory book to browse through. But it hasn't been all fun. There are always surprises to deal with. And he can't face the prospect of another botched, useless score.

  Might as well change clothes now, while the party is still going on. He isn't so sure it will be tonight, but there is no sense in not being prepared. So off with the Levi's and boots and the shirt with the mother-of-pearl buttons, adequate camouflage wherever he wanders in the Heartland. He folds and places this clothing neatly in the box. He is wearing white Jockey underwear briefs and white boot socks that come to just below his knees. On the right knee, the trick one, is a protective brace. He pulls on the roomy mechanic's coveralls and does up the snaps, then laces on a pair of bowling shoes; they are light in weight and afford a maximum grip on tile and hardwood floors—some women just can't get enough of waxing their floors, and fresh blood on a newly polished floor can be greased lightning. But from what he has seen of Shannon's house, Ernestine is at best a desultory housekeeper.

  When he is dressed he prepares his ax, using the four-pound hammer to pound a bit tightly down onto the handle. Hearing the rock-and-roll band again, he wishes he'd brought along earplugs. It's the kind of music that puts him in a baleful mood—ugly, edgy, prone to mistakes, to doubts about the sanctity of his pursuit.

  Do you remember that night, Shannon? How well do you remember?

  Can't remember. They're all dead and I don't want to remember

  Oh, but you must. It's inevitable. So is the work we'll finish, together. Before the night ends.

  "Help me help somebody!!! I can't take any more"

  I don't want to die!

  You know that I can get you out of the elevator. I'm the only one who can. Be sensible.

  "Stop torturing me"

  Is it torture to be loved? Adored? Needed? I need you desperately, Shannon.

  "No way. You're not coming back."

  The way out of here, Shannon, is through the back door of your house in Emerson. You're so close now. The party's over. Just walk inside. And I'll be there.

  "I can't go in the house!"

  Of course you can. It's home, Shannon. Come on."

  "Come on, honey."

  "You okay, Dab?"

  "Sure. But it's been a lot of excitement, and I'm feeling kind of tired. I think Ernestine's hit the hay already."

  "What about Uncle Gilmore?"

  "He's happy," Dab says. "Let him be."

  They pause in the back yard, arms around each other, and look at the lawn glider with the fringed vinyl top. Gilmore Hill is sprawled on the glider, his appaloosa-hide Stetson cocked low over his face, a cigar in one hand, a paper cup in the other. Uncle Gilmore brought his own refreshments to the party, and the fifth of Jack Daniel's black label is about empty. For the last half-hour he's been singing softly to himself all of the hoary Western songs he knows.

  "Need anything, Uncle Gilmore?" Shannon calls to him.

  "Doin' just fine," the old cowpuncher replies, waving his cigar in the air. "Believe I'll catch a couple hours' shuteye on your sofa in the living room, light out about four a.m."

  "Might as well stay for breakfast," Dab says. "No telling how long before we see you again."

  "No, no, thanky; fix my own breakfast, that is if Ernestine don't mind my puttering around in her kitchen."

  "You're more than welcome, Gilmore."

  "I'm gonna be sixty next time around. If you think fifty's a bad idea, wait 'til you hit sixty."

  "If you run shy of potables," Dab says, "look in the sideboard in the dining room. And thanks for coming."

  "Why don't you sit down here, and we'll have a talk."

  "Long past my bedtime, and the doc says I've got to get my sleep if I'm going to lick this blood pressure."

  "I always won all the marbles when we were kids, and you never have got over it, have you, Dabber?"

  "Hell," Dab says, good-naturedly, "keep the marbles, Gilmore. Just pay me the World Series bet you owe me."

  "Which World Series?"

  "59. The Dodgers in six, just like I predicted."

  "You know good and goddam well I paid you that fifty dollars."

  "Suppose we separate the flyshit from the pepper here and now."

  "Dab," Shannon says gently, squeezing him at the waist, "blood pressure."

  "I always said they ruined the game forever when they let the niggers play."

  "Oh, hell," Dab says under his breath, "he's just on a toot and there's no sense trying to talk to him. I'm going up." He busses Shannon's cheek. "Thanks for everything, honey."

  Shannon scratches a mosquito bite on a bare ankle, then picks up a piece of ice Allen Ray has dumped out of a washtub as he and Duffy clean up the back yard. She applies the ice to the lump.

  "I'm just glad you had a good time. Mom always says, show you a roomful of people and you get the gruffies."

  "Well, I've got this loner streak in me. Not all that sociable. Runs in my family, as you can see."

  "Where do you want me to put all the presents?"

  "Handkerchiefs and neckties, bedroom I guess. You can do me a favor and carry those boxes of cigars up to my hidey-hole tomorrow."

  "Bury me nottttt on the lone prayereeeee—' Have a nightcap with me, Dab?"

  "You know I don't drink hard liquor."

  "You never have got over the fact I could whip your heinie any time I felt like it."

  "I'm just appalled by your ignorance, Gilmore."

  "I don't know why I drove all the way down here. I must have ticks in my brain."

  "Nice seein' you again, Gilmore. Give my best to Zelma and the perennially unwed Auline."

  This he says in a lower tone of voice; Gilmore doesn't hear him but Shannon has to turn away with both hands over her mouth to keep from belly-laughing. Dab winks at her and trudges off toward the porch. Allen Ray and Chap saunter over. Allen Ray says, "We'll take those lanterns down in the morning."

  "Thanks, Allen Ray."

  "It's early yet. Think I'll pick Sondra up at Patty Ann's and we'll knock around."

  "Just don't knock her up," Chap says, and takes off at top speed with Allen Ray and then Duffy in pursuit of him. "Don't you ever get tired of doing it in cars?" Chap says gleefully over his shoulder as he disappears around a corner of the garage and hops the fence into the Drewerys' yard. "She's got freckles on her, butttt she's pretty!"

  "Uncle Gilmore, going to stay outside for a while?"

  "Might as well, Shannon. Seeing as how nobody appreciates my company."

  "Well—I'll put a blanket and pillow on the couch for you, and if I don't see you in the morning, have a safe trip home."

  Inside the house Shannon takes a critical look around the kitchen, which isn't too bad: a couple of their departed guests have pitched in to fill several garbage bags and stack rinsed dishes beside the sink. She'll finish the job in the morning. Outside, Chap yells; Allen Ray has flushed him from hiding and she wonders if she ought to interfere. But, no, if Chap is big enough to smart off at the mouth like that, then he's big enough to accept the consequences. Shannon's feet hurt. She loves going barefoot, although this usually results in cracked heels before the summer is over. Twice tonight her toes got walked on. She sits down gratefully with a bottle of Nehi orange, rubs her ankles and calves.

  Allen Ray takes off out of the driveway, exhausts burping noisily, tires screeching, getting the most fun out of his four-barrel and Hurst speed shifter. Shannon yawns and smiles to herself, thinking how nice the party was. Entirely up to her expectations, and Dab had a glow around his head that must have been visible from the planet Mars. Now she can't settle down. She doesn't want to watch TV. A cramp is coming on, a big one; and she's still flowing heavily. She goes
upstairs with the bottle of soda and looks for Midol in her room. After she washes down a tablet she goes down the hall to the bathroom with her pajamas. Strips and takes a warm sponge bath in the tub, douches, then inserts a fresh tampon. She thinks about women of bygone days and how they had to cope. A real curse then. Yards and yards of muslin. Old photos of frontier families in front of sod houses, the women are never smiling. No wonder. Spot on her underpants, she rinses it out and hangs the panties up to dry. Puts on a clean pair, then her pajamas. Breasts tender but the cramps fading. When she comes out of the bathroom she sees Chap lying down in his room reading a comic book. Dab is stealing down the hall toward her, a couple of Cuban cigars in his fist, a guilty grin on his face.

  "Just one before I turn in."

  Shannon takes a blanket and pillow from the hall linen closet and goes downstairs to the living room. Uncle Gilmore is still singing to himself in the backyard. She decides to leave the porch light burning so he won't fall and break his neck getting into the house. She also leaves a lamp on in the living room and goes back upstairs feeling a little tired now, but not sleepy. Maybe she ought to wash her hair; but if she does, in the morning it'll look like a fox got into it. She straightens up the room, decides to write a letter to Robert McLaren, although she has high hopes of seeing him again very soon.

  Above her head the attic floor creaks, creaks again. Dab. Halfway through the letter she's composing she can't keep her eyes open.

  Shannon puts the pink clipboard aside and turns out the reading lamp clamped to the wrought-iron headboard, pulls the sheet over her, stretches out catty-corner and facing the windows. They are raised a few inches and a cool breeze comes in. Uncle Gilmore's raspy singing voice has faded to a drunken mumble. The attic floor is still creaking. Cottonwood branches gently scrape the gutter above her windows. The breeze, stirring leaf against leaf along the street, makes a sound like a soft and distant rain falling.

  She is asleep when at last Gilmore comes stumbling up the porch steps into the house, asleep when Dab comes down from the attic drenched in the smoke from a choice cigar and enters the bedroom opposite hers, asleep when Allen Ray arrives at a quarter past one and takes a shower.

  But at twenty-past-two, when everyone else is sleeping, Shannon is awake.

  The breeze has strengthened to a wind, shadows criss-cross the flopping shades, she feels cold in her cotton pajamas. She is lying on her side with her knees drawn up, hugging a pillow. Other than the wind and the crinkle of the in-blown shades, the only sound she identifies is the tick of the clock on her dresser. But there is a prickling of fine hair on the back of her neck; instinctively she knows she is not alone and sits up suddenly, holding the pillow defensively against her breasts.

  "Hey," he says softly.

  "What's that?" Then she smells him, a little of dried boy-sweat, and spice from old cinnamon chewing gum. "Chap?"

  The mattress sags as he crawls onto the vacant side of her bed.

  "Can I sleep with you?"

  "Why?"

  "I just feel like some company."

  "Okay. You can't get under the covers."

  "How come?"

  "Because you kick like a G.D. mule. Last time I had a bruise on my thigh for a week. Not to mention you never trim your toenails."

  "Oh." Chap crawls to the foot of the bed and begins rummaging through the animals there.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Looking for something to sleep with."

  "You're too big to sleep with stuffed animals."

  "How come you still have all these?"

  "Sentimental reasons. Besides, I'm a girl. If you want a stuffed animal, why don't you go get Bubber-Bunny?"

  "I don't have Bubber-Bunny any more. Mom threw him out."

  "I'll bet she did. Bet you got him back, too; since you're always going through the garbage."

  "I have to protect myself."

  "So go get Bubber-Bunny."

  "No, I don't want to go back to my room. Can I have your elephant?"

  "You may not. Elefunk is—personal. Elefunk is for when I'm feeling lousy and need to have a good cry."

  "I'll take this one."

  "Which one?"

  "Feels like a bear."

  "Okay. Settle down, will you?"

  "Could you close the windows?"

  "Yes. Any more requests?"

  "Huh-uh."

  Shannon gets up to close the windows.

  From below there is an intermittent disturbance like a buzz saw working its way through a mountain of clotted cream. "What in the world is that noise?"

  "Uncle Gilmore snores. Woke me up."

  Above them the attic floor creaks. "Been doing that," Chap says.

  "Dab's probably—"

  "He went to bed a long time ago."

  "Since when does the floor need a reason to creak? This house is forty years old. If you wouldn't read those old horror books before you go to bed, you wouldn't get scared."

  "Who says I'm scared?"

  Shannon gets back into bed, shivering a little, pulls up the spread, turns over. "Want some covers?"

  "No, I'm hot."

  She gropes and finds his face, palms his forehead. "You're running a temperature."

  "Hey, don't."

  "Why, does your head hurt?"

  "Allen Ray gave me a knucklerub. Yes, it hurts." Suddenly, he is crying.

  "Aw."

  "Sometime I hate—Allen Ray."

  "No you don't."

  "He so stuck up, I can't talk to him any more. We never—do anything together. He's out every night."

  "Well—Sondra takes up a lot of his time. So does racing. I wonder if you're coming down with something. You don't sound stuffy."

  "I just get hot at night sometimes."

  "I used to. It's puberty, I guess."

  "It's what?"

  "Remember when you had growing pains? This is—a different sort of growing pain. You're not going to be a kid much longer."

  "Oh. I know what you mean. I don't have any hair yet, though. Down there."

  "Another year. Why don't we try to go to sleep?"

  "Shannon?"

  "Huh?"

  "Hold my hand."

  "You're hard to please tonight. You need a bear, you need to hold my hand. Here."

  "I just don't feel good."

  "How many hot dogs?"

  "Four, I think."

  "With pickilily? Big gobs of pickilily, I bet."

  "Yeah."

  "No wonder."

  "I love you. Good night."

  "Good night, Chapman. And good night to you, Uncle Gilmore. Please put a cork in it."

  Four-oh-five a.m.

  Gilmore sits up suddenly on the living room couch, having snorted and slobbered himself into a state of conditional wakefulness. Earlier he had a lot to drink, but he is accustomed to heavy drinking, then rising from long habit well before dawn.

  He knows instantly that he is not alone downstairs. Clears his throat and mutters, "Who's there?" His eyelids are sticky and he rubs them, turning his head just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of someone in the hall. It is still full dark outside, no cockcrow as yet, no restless dogs or lovelorn cats disturbing the peace of West Homestead Avenue. The moon is in its last phase, but enough street-shine comes through the oval of glass in the front door and the partly shaded living room windows to give definition to doorways, picture frames, furniture, the curve of the bannister at the foot of the staircase.

  He saw someone, all right, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. Not Ernestine. And too slender to be Dab. One of the boys, maybe the younger one—Chap?—with the morning paper route. Gilmore is unaware that the local paper, which Chap delivers in partnership with Aaron Wurzheimer, does not have a Saturday edition. He cannot know that Chap is fast asleep, bundled up against his sister in Shannon's bedroom.

  Gilmore reaches for an already well-used paisley handkerchief and attempts to clear his sinuses, a futile task after nearly a fifth of w
hiskey. His throat feels and tastes like rust. Without putting on the boots he has left beside the sofa, he gets up, his knees popping painfully, and gives his stiff left shoulder a probing massage before proceeding to the dining room and then to the kitchen to put coffee on, such an ingrained routine he hardly notices, at this stage of wakefulness, that he is in another man's house. Until he discovers the six-quart enameled pot is not on the back of the stove where it usually is. Shit. Looking around but he can't see much, and doesn't know where to find the light switch. Holding himself now below the belt because all that whiskey is like an ocean in his bladder. The nearest relief is off the back porch steps. His prostate enlarged by years on horseback, it takes a while to void. Dribble, dribble. Shakes it in a melancholy way, stuffs it back behind the fly which he doesn't bother to zip up and returns to the kitchen. Where do they keep the damn coffeepot around here? Two doors. One sticks. He quits tugging at it, turns to the second door, opens it. Pantry. Oh, and somebody's in there.

  The shock nearly blows the gaskets out of Gilmore. His mouth flies open but he can't make a sound. He stares for a second too long at a hard hat, at clear plastic goggles. At the man, moving, hands coming up chest-high; and at the butt end of an ax handle. Of the ax itself he has only the merest glimpse and no chance to react as he is struck in the throat above the collarbone notch. His larynx is crushed. The blow sends him straight back as if whiplashed and crashing down on the kitchen table seven feet away. Pain ignites his brain as he struggles, futilely, to breathe, rolls slowly to his right off the table and fetches up on all fours on the floor. Collapses as he raises a hand to his broken throat. Sees, standing over him, the axeman, goggles a glassy gleam, shoulders lifted for the forceful stroke. The ax, when it appears, is not even a blur, just a sharp curved sliver of light that is mysteriously, secretively there, then gone, in a fraction of a second before his scrawny body is jolted as powerfully as if he has been hit by a car. The back of his head strikes the floor, his feet fly up, and before his heels touch the floor again, Gilmore is dead.