The Sitter Page 15

“You prick,” Jordan cried as she pushed herself out from under him and stood up.

  He heard his own harsh breathing. Larry sat up on the upholstered seat, cradled his head in his hands. There was a wetness on his cheek where the pain was...some sort of cut. Was his cheek bone broken? He forced an eye open. He could see Jordan standing in front of him, breathing hard and holding onto that big tote, swinging it back and forth.

  The tote! She'd clubbed him with that giant purse of hers. What the hell did she have in that thing anyway? Damn near knocked him cold and the metal trim on it had cut his cheek all to hell. Larry's probing fingers picked up some painful swelling but he didn't think his cheekbone was broken.

  “Prick,” Jordan muttered again, glaring at him and still swinging the tote. Her hair was all spiked up like she'd been standing in a wind tunnel. Her blouse was down off one shoulder and her shorts were ripped and hanging off her hips.

  “Jordan... are ya tryin' to kill me?”

  “What the fuck d'you think you're doing, anyway?” she snarled. “You think you're gonna rape me you sonofabitch?”

  There was no rape--chrissake!

  “It isn't fair... ”Poor-Larry-Cutler heard himself whisper.

  Getting slowly to his feet, he wondered how the situation had gotten so far out of control. All his planning, his careful attention to detail, all turned to shit. As he rose, he saw Jordan swing that tote again, like she was getting ready to haul off and let him have it again.

  “No way,” he growled, lurching toward her as his frustration exploded into rage. Easily blocking the tote with his left arm, Larry put the heel of his right hand against Jordan's left breast and pushed. She gave a cry of surprise and stumbled backwards. He moved in, still pushing. Momentum carried him close, right up into her face. He shifted his hand to her throat. So warm it was, her heart beating crazily under his fingers. Her hands pushed weakly against his chest. Jordan's eyes stared up into his. They were wide with fear. Was there ever a moment like this?

  Her life is right here under my hands. Me.

  He shoved her. He'd knock her down--take her right here on the floor of the gazebo. Larry had never felt this strong!

  But she slipped out of his grasp and stumbled backwards. She fell. A loud crash. Deafening. The table. She fell into the glass table.

  Oh shit, oh Christ, how will I ever explain the table to the McQueens?

  But then--in the fading moonlight--Larry saw that the broken table was the least of his worries.

  *****

  A bit too much to drink tonight, Catherine allowed, fumbling through her purse for her key. Not smart, not when she was the one driving. Well, Emma was home safely now and so was Catherine--no harm done. What time was it anyway, she wondered, bumping her shoulder on the doorway as she entered the living room. She rubbed her shoulder. She could see the clock on the mantle by the light of her prized Tiffany; it was almost midnight. So where in the world was Larry?

  Food, she decided, that was what she needed to stave off a morning hangover as there had been precious little to eat at the worship tonight. In the kitchen she set her purse on the table and opened the refrigerator. Nothing particularly exciting there, but the freezer contained some onion bagels and a half-pound of bacon. Mouth instantly watering, Catherine settled on breakfast as her meal of choice.

  She put the bacon in the microwave to thaw a bit and placed a skillet on the stove. Removing the butter dish from the fridge, she then selected her favorite plate--the one with the daisies--from the cupboard. She draped several slices of the now limp bacon across the bottom of the skillet. That done, Catherine allowed her thoughts to drift back over the evening.

  A fine one it had been. A very young male goat had been sacrificed. Father Warren had used the goat's warm blood to mark the group and that had stimulated a great deal of emotional bonding among the worshipers. Passed around the group as well had been a large silver collection plate fairly brimming with $50's and $100's. Catherine had been proud to place a crisp $50 onto that ornate plate.

  She was delighted with the Church of Personal Peace. Father Warren continued to be especially cordial and thoughtful, and others were attentive to Catherine as well. Her new found sense of importance was still with her, and growing. What a heady, exciting feeling that was! Never in all her life--except perhaps when little Larry was born--had she ever felt so singular, so uniquely important.

  A loud pop from the frying pan brought Catherine back to the present where the bacon was beginning to curl up nicely. She didn't want it too crisp though, so she lifted the slices out of the pan and placed them on the paper towels to drain. Quickly then, she cracked the eggs and plopped them into the bubbling bacon fat. Flooded with sizzling grease, the eggs cooked instantly, their white edges rapidly shriveling into singed brown lace.

  Ravenous now, she put a dish towel over the hot handle of the pan and sloshed the fat over the yolks, searing them. She did so hate runny yolks.

  “Oh!” she cried. “I forgot the bagel.”

  Putting a frozen bagel into the micro, she set the timer for 30 seconds, grabbed her plate and served up the eggs and bacon. She carried it to the counter near the micro.

  “Lordee, so good!” she mumbled through the first fork-full, leaning over the plate while she waited for the bagel. At last the timer dinged. Cramming a second glob of egg and bacon into her mouth, Catherine took a quick test-bite of bagel and attempted to swallow.

  No luck.

  Catherine's throat tightened, rebelling against the onslaught of all that food. Opening her mouth, she tried to cough--to expel it.

  Can't breathe!

  Blood rushed to her head and she was filled with an immediate terror. The plate fell to the floor as Catherine thrashed her arms about, headed for the sink.

  Maybe some water...somehow...

  A whack on her back. Hard. She pitched forward, her body hot against the cool porcelain of the sink. Strong arms went around her waist, hands riding up under her breasts. The hands came together and formed a giant fist that punched into her, strong and harsh. Again and again.

  A retching sound, a visceral squawk, and a blob flew out of her mouth. Air. Blessed air came into her lungs. Catherine sucked at it greedily, retching and spitting as she clutched the edge of the sink.

  “Ma, what the hell...?”

  Larry. “Oh Larry...!” Her baby boy had just saved her life. “You...saved me, Larry.”

  He guided her to the kitchen table. Pulling out a chair, he rubbed the back of her neck as she lowered herself into it. He grabbed the roll of paper towels, tore off two, and set the roll on the table in front of her. She mopped at her face with the towels. Her breathing was easier now, though her throat was raw and burned with acidic bile.

  “Sweet baby Jesus... ” she murmured.

  “How did this happen, Ma?” Larry sat down across from her.

  “I...just choked, I guess.”

  “Why did you take such a big--“

  “Oh, Larry, please don't lecture me!” Catherine tried desperately to regain her composure. She was grateful to Larry of course, but she hated appearing foolish in front of him.

  With effort she raised her head and looked at him with all the dignity she could gather. Opening her mouth to expound on always respecting one's mother no matter what, his appearance stopped her cold. He looked like he'd been in a fight. She pushed back from the table and looked down at the rest of him. His jeans were filthy. And those shoes!

  “Take those tennies off, Larry; they're all muddy,” she said, a mother once again. “What's happened to you?” His cheek was bruised and bloody and looked like he'd taken quite a smack. “Did you fall down?” She slid her chair back in and reached her hand out to touch his face.

  He reared back. “Don't touch it!”

  “All right, all right, I won't!” She looked at her filthy, beaten and bloody son, studying him. “Larry, where have you been?”

  *****

  A sound, jarring me awake. Oh, God; it's
Kevin. He's at my bedside, pulling at the covers, crying. “Baby, Sweetheart... ” I sit up and pull him into bed next to me. Steven stirs beside me. “What is it Sweetie?” holding his warm body close, I stroke his thick hair. I put a soothing hand on his stomach.

  “Better now, Kev?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Dream?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “No,” Kevin says.

  “You know dreams aren't real, don't you, Honey?”

  “Yeah,” he says but he doesn't sound convinced.

  “So,” Steven says softly, “You know you don't really have anything to be afraid of...right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But I did a bad thing.”

  “Oh, Sweetie, I don't think so,” I say.

  “I did, Mommy, I did!”

  “What did you do?”

  “I...I wet the bed.”

  I hug him, trying not to laugh. How wonderful it is that all I have to do is change his sheets and PJs and the 'bad thing' will go away. How wonderful to be presented with a crisis so easily handled!

  “No problem, Kev, none at all.” I help him out of his pajamas. “You lie right here with your daddy while I make your bed all nice again. And, I'll bring you some clean pajamas too...ok?” He snuffles, nods and pops a thumb into his mouth.

  When I return, the two of them are whispering together.

  I lie down next to Kevin and give him a noisy kiss on his cheek. I help him get into his clean jammies.

  “Time for your own bed now, Sport,” Steven says.

  I hate it when Steven calls him 'Sport'. That had been Larry's nickname for Stevie. “He's almost asleep, Honey; let's let him stay--”

  “He has his own room, Babe, his own bed. That's what he needs tonight.”

  Says who? I wonder. But I have no heart for argument, especially in front of Kevin, who doesn't seem at all upset at his father's words. I scoop him up into my arms and carry him off to his room and bed. He's calm as I give him a kiss and tuck him in.

  I slip back into bed and Steven asks me sleepily, “You think he needs a shrink?”

  “My God, no!” I'm startled at the question. “Why?”

  “Nightmares.” His voice is faint.

  “They are not so often now,” I say. “Don't you think they are less frequent?”

  No answer, and I realize he's fallen asleep.

  *****

  Larry sighed and lowered his head into his hands. His mother, ever helpful, wanted to know where he'd been. Fuck...

  Jordan lay on the gazebo floor, motionless. Her head was at a crazy angle that couldn't be; it wasn't possible. At least not in a person whose neck wasn't broken. How did she manage that anyway? Hitting that table just right so she could break her stupid neck!

  The night was quiet, except for the sound of Larry's breath coming ragged and heavy. He groaned aloud and tore at his hair. What am I going to do? This wasn't supposed to happen! He kicked at Jordan's body. Bitch! His tennis shoe smacked against her thigh with a pleasing, solid sound and he kicked her again. He wanted to kick the crap out of her. Larry knew he was dangerously close to losing it. He had to control the panic that was flowing through him. Somehow.

  He took a few deep breaths. His vision began to blur and darken.

  Reeling, he sat down on one of the gazebo seats. The panic in his gut was painful. Gradually his dizziness faded.

  Fact was, Larry slowly realized, he hadn't killed Jordan. She had done it to herself, really. Throwing herself around with that tote, threatening him. But try telling that to her mother or the cops. They'd never buy it. Larry had to take care of this... accident, himself.

  The body. He had to get rid of Jordan's body. Two possibilities. Dump her in the river, or bury her. Since there had been no rain, the river would be very shallow and becoming more so. So his choice was obvious. A good place to bury her would be just off the green belt between the house and the river near the stand of Eucalyptus.

  Hefting Jordan up onto his shoulder, he staggered under her weight coming dangerously close to falling down the gazebo stairs. Balancing her more evenly on his shoulder, he wrapped his arms tightly around her upper thighs, and started off. Larry's cheek was next to Jordan's ample bottom, and her breasts lolled heavily against his back as he walked back the way they had come less than an hour ago. He remembered Jordan said her mother thought she was studying with a friend--thank God for that small piece of luck.

  He walked over to a trio of tall Eucalyptus and laid Jordan down beneath the one in the middle. Larry stood gazing down at her, his breath coming sure and steady once again. His sense of confidence and power had returned and he was now calmly committed to doing what he had to do. How insignificant Jordan was, Larry realized, nothing to him now but a pale blur beneath the tree.

  He turned and trotted back to the McQueen house, up the steps and around the deck to the potting shed in the side yard. He found a pick and a shovel there, and hurried back to Jordan.

  The ground was hard where he wanted to bury her--the pick bounced back at him off the dense earth. He moved the burial site further out from the trees, closer to the grass where the ground was softer. An hour of digging produced a hole he considered big and deep enough and he rolled Jordan off the edge and down into it. There was about a foot clearance above her body. “Should be enough,” Larry whispered to himself. He quickly shoveled the soil back in over her, patting it down nice and firm. He then carefully replaced the grassy sod he'd removed at the start of the job. He scattered the remainder of the dirt at the base of the trees, spreading Eucalyptus leaves over it. He would come back in the daylight to be sure the area looked natural.

  The gazebo though, was another problem and he had been thinking about it. The result of all that thinking was that he'd decided to do nothing. He would leave the broken glass of the table and the disarray of the area the way it was. Vandals. It looked like some kids had a party in the gazebo and got carried away.

  Then his heart kicked in, racing like crazy while his confidence drained away. What about blood? Jordan was probably cut somewhere when she fell, and Larry knew he had a few nicks here and there too.

  Back at the gazebo he stood thinking, moonlight long gone. He couldn't see a thing. The place could be drenched in blood, but he couldn't see it. Well...so what? The vandal kids that had the party—they could be cut, couldn't they? In a wild and crazy party...right? They left whatever blood there was. A gamble sure, but what else could he do?

  Haphazardly, Larry wiped off every surface he thought Jordan may have touched, in case the area was dusted for prints--which he was pretty sure would never happen. His prints were probably there somewhere too but since he worked around the place that would be understandable.

  Much too tired to think clearly, Larry figured he'd done all he could, and left for home.

  Home, where he'd arrived just in time to save his whacko mother from choking to death on a bagel. Now she was asking him where he'd been. Great. Why wasn't she in bed this late like any normal mother? He rubbed his aching eyes with grubby fingers.

  “Guy I know...had trouble with his car,” Larry mumbled. “I said I'd help him out. It turned into a bigger deal than I thought it would be.”

  “So, where was his car, in a swamp somewhere?”

  Larry hated it when his mother tried to be funny. She was not an amusing woman.

  “Out south of here.” He was so exhausted he wanted to lay his head down on the table.

  “How did you get that cut on your cheek?”

  Larry knew his mother. He knew that if he made the effort he could convince her of anything. Thing about Catherine was, she wanted to believe her boy.

  “We were trying to dig his car out where he got stuck and I slipped and fell. Hit my cheek on the side mirror.”

  “Who's this fellow?”

  “You don't know him, Ma.” As she looked at him through bloodshot eyes, Larry imagined her mind sifting through this garbage
much as he sorted through a mouthful of sunflower seeds with his tongue, separating meat from shell.

  “Where did all this happen?”

  “I told you. South. He lives south off a county road near Chula Vista.” How long was this inquisition going to last anyway? “Ma,” he put a sad sincerity into his voice and shook his head slowly. “Haven't we both had a bad enough day without you grillin' me about all this stuff?”

  Staring at him a moment longer, Catherine nodded and squeezed his hand.

  “How's your throat now, Ma? Any better”?

  “Much.” She grasped his hand and squeezed it hard. “You saved my life.” Her eyes clouded with tears and Larry pulled her to her feet before she could rev up a full head of water works.

  “Ah Ma, what are sons for anyway?” said Poor-Larry-Cutler as he put an arm around her shoulders. He guided his mother out of the kitchen and down the hall to their rooms. Sniffing a little, she allowed herself to be led.

  After a healing shower, Larry lay in his bed like a dead man. At last. A few hours to kick it, to give it all up in sleep.

  Exhausted though he was, sleep did not come. What did come to him as he stared up into the sheltering darkness of his room was a moment of clarity. For all his cleverness and brilliant planning, he'd allowed himself to get off-track. His success with Stevie had lulled him--it was that simple. He was on his way back in with Connors as well, and that had lulled him too. Time to quit coasting. It was time to make the next move. And he knew exactly what that was going to be.

  Larry went over it once again. He was due at the Connors tomorrow to hang out with Kevin a while--a supervised 'while' of course--and he hoped he could get Kevin to ask him to stay for dinner. Then Larry would say sure, if that's all right with your mother. Kevin would ask her and she would hesitate a minute, maybe more, and then after Kevin's 'Oh please, Mommy,' she would say yes. Steven would go along with it--he always went along. The old man was drinking some these days, Larry had noticed, and he seemed more depressed than usual.

  At dinner, he had Kevin programmed to ask his mom if he could go trick or treating with Larry and that Larry had a really swell idea for costumes for the two of them. Right about then Kevin would get excited and when that happened, he was one persuasive little fucker.