Calling Mr Lonely Hearts Read online

  She thought of how she’d let that caterpillar crawl into Alice’s hair. She would go to Hell for what she had done, even though it wasn’t her fault Roxanne was so mean.

  As she slipped into the garage, she dropped her book bag gently inside. The smell of cooked sauerkraut came to her through the kitchen door, but she wasn’t hungry. She tripped over her father’s toolbox—the single-car space was stuffed full with boxes and bikes and workshop equipment—and felt something sharp graze her leg. Groping around the shelves by the door, she finally laid her hands on the flashlight they used for camping.

  Del hurried toward the back of the empty park, praying that the pale glow she saw was some trick of the streetlamps or someone using one of the barbeque grills for a winter picnic. But she knew better.

  “Alice,” she whispered.

  The flames clung to the ground in the copse like a brilliant orange blanket. Alice stood in the opening, silhouetted against the light. She cried out, holding her forearm to her eyes against the beam from Del’s flashlight. In the moment before Del jerked the beam from Alice’s face, she saw that Alice’s skin and clothes were streaked with dirt and ash. Bits of leaves poked from her hair. Del thought of the caterpillar, but knew it was the least of Alice’s problems. It was the wild look in Alice’s eyes—a look of fear and anger and confusion—that caused her stomach to clench.

  “Stay away from me,” Alice said. “Go away.”

  “But it’s me,” Del said, slowing her step. She was more afraid of Alice than she was of the dog that had followed her up the road. But it wasn’t actually Alice that she was afraid of. It was whatever had happened to Alice, whatever had changed her. The flashlight’s beam caught one of Alice’s legs, which were covered with dark streaks: blood, maybe, or feces?

  “I saw you,” Alice said. “I saw you run away.”

  “I’m here,” Del said, trying not to look at Alice’s exposed breasts, which were sharply divided by the stripe of noxious salve Roxanne had applied. “We have to leave.”

  The fire didn’t seem to be spreading beyond the copse, but, still, she knew it wouldn’t be long before someone saw it. There would be questions.

  Alice wouldn’t move.

  “You just passed out for a few minutes,” Del said. “It wasn’t even that long.”

  “I was dead,” Alice said, her voice flat.

  “Let’s go home,” Del said. She didn’t like this Alice at all. This Alice frightened her.

  “You both left me here,” Alice said. “And I was dead, but he told me to come back.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Del said. “Just come on. We’ll all be in trouble if you don’t come.” She was on the verge of leaving Alice alone again, now that she knew Alice was alive. It didn’t matter anymore that Alice was the purest of them or that Roxanne had promised that the so-called spell would attract a guy for them, and only for them. She told herself that it was a bunch of bullshit that Roxanne had made up. If only Alice would be quiet about it.

  “He came for us, but you didn’t even wait to see him,” Alice said. “Don’t you want to know what he looks like?”

  “Get your stuff,” Del said. The fire had not yet reached Alice’s coat and sweater and book bag. But it was Del, not Alice, who gathered them. She buttoned Alice’s blouse and stuffed her into the coat as though Alice were an idiot child. Then Del shoved the book bag and sweater into her arms, causing Alice to stumble backward.

  As they left, Del almost tripped over the lost bowl. She kicked at it, driving it several feet away.

  “Stop! Roxanne will be mad if you lose her bowl,” Alice said.

  Roxanne, who was the one who said they should leave Alice in the park, the one who ran away first. Del had known Roxanne since they were both four years old, but she still didn’t completely understand why Roxanne did some of the things she did. Her mother had told her that Roxanne “acted out” because she didn’t know her father, and that she thought she was special because she was “artistic.” But those seemed like lame explanations to Del.

  “I wouldn’t worry about Roxanne, if I were you,” Del said.

  Ignoring her, Alice ran to the bowl and tucked it into her book bag.

  They walked in silence until they reached Alice’s house, one of the grand old mansions overlooking Victoria Park’s duck pond.

  “Fix your hair,” Del said. “You’ve got leaves and stuff in it.”

  Alice bent over and quickly brushed her hands through her hair. When she came back up again, she smiled at Del. There was a smear of dirt across her left cheek, but Del didn’t mention it.

  “Thanks,” Alice said.

  Del didn’t respond, but turned away to walk home. She couldn’t wait to get away from Alice, whose eyes had at last lost their wild look. It was seven-thirty and Del was finally hungry. She didn’t ever want to see Alice again.

  After she’d gone only a few steps, Alice called to her.

  “He looks like an angel,” Alice said. “A perfect angel.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Week 16 4/7

  Dillon got out of the steaming Escort and eyed the expensive-looking car crumpled against its front bumper. He prepared himself to give the asshole who was driving it the scare of his life. Scaring people was one of his chief pleasures, and he had decorated himself accordingly: even the tattoo artist (a nice piece of ass out in San Francisco) had been skeptical about inking the row of blood-dripping fangs across his forehead. He himself was particularly fond of the scrollwork goatee on his chin, but the righteous row of studs on his upper lip, along with the ones over each eyebrow, were, as they say, the icing on the fucking cake.

  He’d been coasting down Gravois Street, a single finger on the wheel, enjoying the raw pleasure of the night wind through the Escort’s open windows. The few hours before dawn were the best, the coolest of the day in what had been a hot Cincinnati summer. In his pocket were a fresh thirty bucks and a couple of hits of Ecstasy he’d picked up playing roadie for The Toasted Bobs. They’d sat around the club drinking a few after-hours beers, but he was hardly even buzzed. Certainly not buzzed enough to miss seeing a car right in front of him. There was a stop sign at the bottom of the hill, which he’d intended to ignore, but no streetlight, and the car had seemed to appear out of the darkness from nowhere.

  Now they were both in the middle of the intersection and his chest hurt like hell because the stupid airbag hadn’t gone off.

  He got out and tapped on the glass to get the attention of the guy inside the other car.

  “Man, where are your fucking lights, man?” he shouted. There were no witnesses, no other cars around except the ones parked curb-side. The houses around them were dark.

  At first he thought the man inside the car was dead or something, the way he was leaning into the car’s steering wheel. Then he sat back, and, without waiting for Dillon to move, pushed the door open.

  “What the fuck?” Dillon said, jumping back.

  He didn’t look to Dillon like someone who’d just been in a car accident. He looked calm, and was dressed in the kind of clothes guys only wore in magazines. Probably a faggot. Probably a fucking lawyer, too, driving a car like this. He could smell the leather from four or five feet away.

  “Are you all right?” the man said.

  “Where’d you come from?” Dillon said. “Where are your fucking lights? You could’ve killed us both!”

  “Did you break something?” the man said, reaching out to touch his arm, which was crossed over his chest. “Maybe you should sit down.”

  Now Dillon was getting aggravated. The guy was acting like he was in charge, just like every other asshole in a suit. He jerked away.

  “Shit,” Dillon said. “This was your fault. And my car’s fucking totaled.”

  “That’s a shame about your car,” the man said.

  He couldn’t bear to stand in front of this smug asshole who didn’t seem to get that his only form of transportation, his only freedom, was gone and that it was his fault. P
roving it would probably be a pain in the ass. People like this guy almost never had to pay for their fuckups. There would have to be police. He wanted to climb back into the Escort to see if there was a joint rolling around. Calm. He needed to keep his shit together and make this suit understand.

  “I’ll tell you right now that my insurance is no good,” Dillon said. “So you’re screwed right off the fucking bat. And they always blame the guy who does the rear-ending, even if it’s the other guy’s fault.” At this, he gave the man a look that said he wasn’t going to take the blame, that he wasn’t somebody to be messed with. “You’re not going to stick me with this bullshit.”

  “So, I take it that you don’t want me to call the police?” the man said.

  Dillon didn’t like that he couldn’t see the man’s eyes in the dark, couldn’t read him. He preferred not to get violent unless he was pushed, but he was ready.

  “That would make your life easier? More pleasant?” the man said.

  He couldn’t tell if the guy was serious or was just taking his time, mocking him with his Eurotrash TV accent.

  “I’m saying that if this shit gets all complicated, you’re not going to get squat out of me anyway,” he said. “So I wouldn’t even bother.”

  “Hm.” The man put his hand to his chin, thoughtful.

  Dillon waited, breathing hard. It bugged him how quiet it was. Nobody on the street had turned on so much as a porch light to see what was going on. But it wasn’t the kind of neighborhood in which people spent a hell of a lot of time outside. The house nearest to them was covered in graffiti and the only car in its driveway was up on blocks. Still, not even a random gangbanger had bothered to check out what was going on. It felt to him like a movie set where the crew was all out of sight, like one of those fake towns where the buildings were just fronts held up by wooden frames. He’d seen enough episodes of The Twilight Zone on the Sci-Fi channel to be a little freaked out. He didn’t like the feeling.

  He watched as the man walked to the back of the car (which he later learned was called an Aston Martin) and stroked its rear end like it was some kind of pet. It looked like the kind of car that would get carried away in a padded truck, rather than hauled up behind a tow. Following him, Dillon saw that maybe the damage wasn’t so bad. The Escort was definitely totaled. There would be no fixing it and it had probably only been worth about five hundred bucks ten minutes earlier.

  But the worst part was that the car didn’t actually belong to him—it was registered in his sister’s name. She was always doing nice things for him like that, covering for him, lending him a little cash when he needed it. This was one more thing he was going to owe her for. She was patient, though. Always patient, even when he really fucked up.

  “I’ll tell you what,” the man said. In the glow of the Escort’s remaining headlight Dillon could see that he was the kind of guy that chicks really went for, with expensive shoes and a hundred-dollar haircut that looked messy.

  “I agree with you that we shouldn’t trouble the police,” he said. “What things of a personal nature do you have in the car? Do you have a screwdriver?”

  “I don’t know,” Dillon said. “The usual shit. Why?”

  In five minutes the Escort was cleaned out and he had the license plates off. It was a beautiful plan, and he wished he’d thought of it himself. Maybe the guy was some kind of mobster who did shit like this all the time. He didn’t like messing with those kinds of guys, but he wasn’t looking to argue. And it occurred to him that his sister’s asshole boyfriend had probably come up with the money for the car, so maybe it wasn’t such a loss. His sister would be sad, but he would make it up to her. She always forgave him in the end.

  The Aston Martin fired up with the kind of muted rumble that those fancy European cars always made. He wasn’t sure yet what the guy wanted from him, why he wanted to help him out. Probably wanted him to suck his dick, and no fucking way was that going to happen! After this was done, he planned to just take off, leaving the guy and the car behind. He was about ten blocks away from the apartment of a keyboard player named Beefheart who he knew well enough. He’d walked farther.

  As the man drove the Aston Martin over to one of the opposite corners, it made a scraping noise against the pavement that lasted a few seconds, then stopped. He could see now that the Escort really had gotten the worst of it. The man left the Aston Martin idling and came back to where Dillon waited. He carried a container of lighter fluid in his hand.

  “Let’s not linger here,” the man said. “You have a cigarette lighter?”

  Dillon dug in his front pocket and held it out.

  “No, you should have the pleasure,” the man said. “But let’s hurry, shall we?”

  It had seemed like a hell of an idea when the guy suggested it: to burn up the car and report it stolen. The man handed Dillon the lighter fluid.

  Dillon gave him a questioning look—what the hell was a guy like this doing with lighter fluid in his fucking expensive car?

  “It’s an excellent spot and stain remover,” the man said.

  “Right,” Dillon said, taking the can.

  He leaned into the Escort and squirted the fluid over the cloth interior and onto the soiled floor mats. He’d always liked the smell of lighter fluid. Once upon a time it had been a cheap kind of high, but that was baby stuff, and besides, it gave him a bitch of a headache.

  He flicked the lighter at the edge of the driver’s seat. It took a moment to catch, and he thought maybe it wasn’t going to work and the guy was playing some kind of trick on him, and maybe this whole thing was a stupid idea. Then it caught, and there was a rush of heat in his face and he felt himself being jerked away from the car.

  He and the man stood a good ten feet back, watching the interior of the car fill with smoke and yellow light. The sight of the burning car gave him an intense feeling of pleasure. In fact, he could feel an erection coming on in his jeans. Fire had never gotten to him like this before. He felt warmth on his face, and liked it. It made him feel alive, this fire. But he knew that if he stood there much longer, it would heat the studs on his lip and dry his eyes out so they felt like sandpaper.

  Across the street, a light came on in one of the houses.

  “Time to go,” the man said, turning his back on Dillon. He moved toward the still-running Aston Martin.

  Forgetting all about his earlier decision to get away from the guy, Dillon followed. He sank into the car’s soft leather passenger seat. It wasn’t the kind of car he’d ever imagined owning, but now that he was inside he could see the appeal of it. The seat seemed to mold itself to him, and the touch of the leather reminded him of his grandfather’s pigskin bomber jacket that hung far back in the coat closet at his sister’s place. He hadn’t oiled down the jacket in a while—if he didn’t get to it soon, it would begin to crack and eventually tear. Someday, he would have a motorcycle, and he would want it then.

  “I could use a drink,” the man said. “You?”

  “Nothing open now,” Dillon said.

  The man backed the car a few feet, and pulled out into the road. Dillon looked back through the rear window at the Escort, which now had smoke billowing out the open door and passenger window.

  “That’s going to be one fucking mess,” Dillon said. But it wasn’t going to be his mess.

  “I was thinking about driving out to one of the casinos,” the man said. “Twenty, thirty minutes.”

  “Yeah,” Dillon said. “But if you try to put a hand on my dick, I’ll fucking cut it off.”

  The man didn’t move in his seat, but kept looking at the road. Dillon didn’t like his smile.

  “That won’t be a problem,” the man said.

  Dillon was drunk, but not drunk enough to miss that the building through which Varick led him sometime after ten o’clock the next morning was a pile of shit. A collage of peeling paint and faded work-safety posters covered the walls; the windowless steel doors they passed were dented, some almost scratched bare
of paint. The hallways smelled of chemicals and rubber and mold. He didn’t like the rustling noises he heard from the building’s recesses. He hated rats—truth was, he was scared as hell of rats—and this place looked like Rat Paradise. Although he had definitely crashed in worse places, this didn’t look like somewhere a guy in a thousand-dollar suit would live. He tripped over a piece of PVC on the floor and fell into Varick, who pushed back at him, hard, like he didn’t like it. Still, Varick smiled, his teeth—teeth that weren’t so pretty as the rest of him—bright in the dusty light of the hallway.

  “Steady there, my friend,” he said.

  “I still feel like I’m on the fucking ship,” Dillon said, as they stepped into a freight elevator. The casino they’d gone to, The Golden Galleon, had a dance floor that spontaneously tipped every few minutes, causing the dancers to suddenly get close to one another. The band was crap but he had danced, while Varick sat by looking bored, because the women in the place had been fucking hotter than he could stand. When one sweetheart with a skirt like a cheerleader’s and a halter-top that barely covered what Varick had called her “assets” came over to the table, he couldn’t refuse her. He remembered guiding her to the edge of the stage and kissing her; her lip gloss was sticky and tasted like a strawberry Popsicle. Then one of her girlfriends had come over and laughingly pushed him away and the girl he’d kissed started dancing with her, ignoring him. He remembered feeling embarrassed and a little confused, but Varick waved him back over and bought him another drink.

  Now, Varick closed the gate on the elevator and took Dillon’s arm to lead him to the back. “Can’t have you falling out,” he said. “Safety first.”

  It freaked him out the way the guy was treating him like some kind of kid brother. Maybe he was a fag after all, and he was just moving slow.

  “No fucking way,” he said.