A Visible Darkness - By Jonathon King Page 0,32
making it just fine in her house without her. No, this Ms. Thompson would not be as easy as the others. She’d be more like his momma.
He watched the house from the cover of a ratty hedge. The smell of the alley didn’t bother him. A trail of ants led from one of the trash cans to the base of a shed across the way. Their industry was constant. It was an odd, jiggling ribbon of life that would only be temporarily interrupted when Eddie slapped his boot down, crushing half a dozen. Then he would again study Ms. Thompson’s window lights, marking her habits. He’d push his cart up and down her street. And by the time he came back, the ants would have resumed their marching. Eddie wondered what would happen when a car or truck rolled through the alley and mashed the whole line.
On the third night, the lights in Ms. Thompson’s kitchen went out and Eddie moved. In the darkness he could get closer. He left his cart and took up a position in the side yard. He inspected the grates on the side windows. He knew he could quietly turn those bolts out if he had to. And usually, if he removed the iron grate and set it down on the lawn, the window behind it would be carelessly unlocked. People didn’t care, Eddie thought. They set themselves up for what they got.
He moved again, to the other side of the house into a shadow on the neighbor’s wood slat fence. He could see the carport from here. The old Chrysler looked like it hadn’t moved for years. The windshield was layered with dust. The tires had gone soft and there were cracks in the rubber whitewalls. His eyes moved to the carport door that led into Ms. Thompson’s utility room. It was a louvered door, the dull metal handle and lockset still strong, but there was no grate over the windowpanes. With a couple of panes out he could reach through and snap open the lock.
He waited for an hour. Never dozed off. Never once did he lose his concentration on the inside noises. He saw when the living room lights went off and then the shine of the small bathroom window on the back lawn. He waited that one out, too. Eddie was patient, but the stiff hundred-dollar bills in his pocket seemed to press into his thigh. He needed to see the Brown Man.
When the house had been dark for another hour, he stepped to the carport door and slipped the socks over his hands and started on the jalousies. With his hand inside, he turned the deadbolt and slipped the chain—he would have to remember to refasten it when he left. Inside the small laundry room, the odor of bleach stung his nostrils. He moved, a single wary step at a time. A clock ticked on the kitchen wall. The hallway was carpeted and quiet. The bedroom door was ajar and the bathroom across the hallway smelled oddly of what? Cologne?
Eddie gripped the door, fingers wrapped around its front edge, and pressed it up and tight against the hinges to avoid any squeaking as he eased it open. He was surprised to see a line of light glowing at the bottom of a door inside. Another bathroom. It was wrong for this neighborhood. She must have had it installed, Eddie thought. He had never seen a second bathroom in these houses. He watched the strip for several seconds, soaking up the light, adjusting his eyes. In the high-mounted bed, he could see the line of Ms. Thompson’s body turned away from him. He could see her white hair in the slight glow. Another pillow lay next to her, punched down and indented. Eddie picked it up, assessed the position of the old woman again, and then pushed the material over her face.
He was just beginning to close his eyes to her muffled groans when light burst into the room.
“Abby baby, you purrin’ like a ol’ lioness ain’t too tired…” The man coming out of the lighted bathroom caught a glimpse of the huge thick back bent over the woman he had just recently started calling his girlfriend and yelped “What the hell?…”
The speed of Eddie’s left hand swapped its hold from the woman to the old man’s throat before another syllable could be uttered. The man’s eyes went big. Eddie’s right palm remained on the pillow and the light from the