Cul-de-Sac Read online

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “No but—”

  “Did he show you what’s in Satan’s mouth?”

  “What? Come on, we have to get out of here!” She was holding her purse, waiting impatiently for Paul to slip on his filthy pants and stained shirt. Annie kept an eye on the door to the hall … the intruder obviously had a key. How long had he been in the room before Annie awoke? What’d he mean about being Paul’s partner?… She couldn’t worry about any of that now, all she wanted was to be out of this awful place.

  Paul took Annie’s hand and led her from the bedroom, along the second-floor hallway-balcony. Although he flipped on light circuits at another panel box it was like trying to illuminate a pyramid’s tomb with candles, the bulbs creating more shadows than light as the vast interior of Cul-De-Sac hungrily absorbed that light, wanting more. Annie was trembling, palms wet and mouth dry as she and Paul raced down the stairs, through the central hallway, to the front doors which Paul unlocked, then finally outside.

  The relief jellied her knees, Annie breathing so deeply through her mouth that certain teeth were forced to acknowledge the cold night air.

  As they hurried around toward the side of the building Annie turned and looked at the three levels of moonlit front porches supported by wooden columns and running the full length of Cul-De-Sac. When first driving up here with the Corwoods she’d thought the porches were charming but they looked sinister now … places for goons and vampires to heckle from the railings.

  Reaching the old pickup truck Paul slid a key off the ring and gave it to Annie. She got in and started the engine. He closed the driver’s door but then just stood there. “Go around and get in!” she told him.

  “You find a motel, I’ll—”

  “Paul, get in this truck right now.”

  “You go on, I’ll be fine,” he said with a calmness that, considering the situation, struck Annie as totally demented.

  “Please get in, we’ll drive right to the police—”

  A panicked expression broke his serenity. “Don’t go to the police, don’t call them … promise me you will not contact the police … if you love me, if you’ve ever trusted me, you have to promise you won’t—”

  “There he is!” Over Paul’s shoulder Annie watched horrified as the intruder walked around the corner of the building.

  Paul didn’t even turn to look. “You go to a motel, call me in the morning—”

  She dropped the transmission into gear and urged Paul to jump up on the running board … maddeningly he just stood there. “Look! Will you turn around and look, he’s coming!”

  Paul finally did turn … and when he faced Annie again his expression mixed pain and sadness, as if he regretted having to tell her, “No one’s there.”

  5

  Annie spent what might have been the worst night of her life in a cheesy little motel room several miles from Cul-De-Sac. She debated for hours about calling the police but Paul had been so panic-stricken at the prospect of involving the law that Annie knew he had to be doing something illegal … probably in partnership with that awful man.

  She called Cul-De-Sac off and on through the night, Paul not answering the phone until eight in the morning. Annie begged for an explanation but he remained frustratingly evasive, asking her to be patient for a few days and then all their troubles would be over, warning her not to return to Cul-De-Sac, reminding her again not to go to the police.

  Annie washed the blue dress in the motel’s bathtub and hung it over a heating vent to dry. She’d taken her purse when she fled Cul-De-Sac but left both suitcases and had to buy toothpaste and a toothbrush at the motel office.

  Waiting for the dress to dry Annie got out her address book and looked up a telephone number, a contact in an old network she had established long ago to keep track of the man she’d been in love with for the past twenty-five years. Paul didn’t know about this of course, Annie considered it a harmless indulgence because she never intended to see or speak to the man again … she just liked to hear about him occasionally, it comforted her to know he was still alive.

  Annie punched in the number, a woman in Maryland. Waiting for an answer she realized she was feeling jittery, the prospect of talking about him again, saying his name.

  “Hello.”

  “Barbara?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Annie Milton.”

  “Who?”

  “Annie Locken,” she said, using her maiden name.

  “Annie!”

  They spent several minutes catching up on news, Annie finally slipping in the question she’d called to ask, “Where’s Teddy these days?”

  “Cripes, you’re not still tracking him are you?”

  “I’d heard he was back in the D.C. area.”

  “Is that where you are now?”

  “My husband and I bought some property here.”

  “And you’re going to look up Teddy, introduce him to your husband … that should be cute.”

  “Do you have an address?”

  “Annie, you know what kind of man he was when he dumped you, what kind of man do you figure he is now?”

  The kind of man who can fix the trouble Paul’s in, Annie thought.

  “A tiger doesn’t change his stripes,” her friend said. “I’ll give you the address but I hope you don’t have any illusions … he’ll be the same man he’s always been.”

  6

  A serious man who carried himself carefully, the legacy of old injuries, Teddy Camel was fifty but looked more used than that. His face was weathered and road-mapped, lit by eyes that seemed to have blue lamps shining behind them. He ran cool, seldom raised his voice, didn’t rattle … like he operated on the assumption he was the only man in the room armed.

  Each day at noon Camel came into The Ground Floor where he was well known by the owner, Eddie Neffering. They had an arrangement. If Camel ever failed to show, Eddie would go up to the fourteenth floor and check to see was Camel dead or alive.

  If he died the way he lived, alone, Camel didn’t want his body to lie undiscovered until it gassed a stench along the hallways of the high-rise where he had his office and apartment.

  Camel had been a cop twenty-seven years if you count his army tour as an MP. He’d been sent out on bad-smell calls, usually a dog or rat but sometimes a man. Camel didn’t want to be found that way, strangers standing around covering their noses and mouths, cursing his stink … though you might wonder why … if he didn’t care what people thought of him when he was alive why this concern of offending them in death.

  As soon as Camel reached the bar Eddie brought over a bottle of beer and a glass. When Camel went to drink from the bottle, Eddie said he should pour it in the glass first. “Aroma enhances taste.”

  Camel smiled like it hurt to smile then drank from the bottle “Beer’s warm.”

  “Cold kills taste.”

  “Where you all of sudden getting this gourmet beer information?”

  Eddie shook his head. “Try to educate you … Hey you do your taxes yet?”

  “When’re they due?”

  Eddie started to reply then caught on Camel was ribbing him. “You going to be one of those bozos standing in line at the post office come midnight?”

  Camel grimaced another smile.

  He and Eddie Neffering worked homicide years ago, they stayed friends … Eddie’s the one who got Camel into this building. The vacancy rate was high and Eddie was tight with the building manager, negotiated a sweetheart deal on Camel’s two-office suite.

  “This guy does my taxes, he’s a genius. I could—”

  “It’s all right, I’ll file late.”

  Neffering shook his head the way your old man might if you’re doing something stupid but now you’re too old for him to slip off his belt and teach you a lesson, all he can do is shake his head.

  Eddie was sixty to Camel’s fifty, it frustrated the older man’s sense of success that a talented guy like Teddy should’ve racked up
so many failures … being cashiered out of the department a few years ago at what should’ve been the shank of his career, to name one. Camel was also bad with money, he’d sold his car last week to make expenses. And now he’s not going to file his taxes on time?

  Eddie was different, did things right. He owned the bar-restaurant on the ground floor of the high-rise, called it The Ground Floor and had his slogan printed on matchbooks and napkins: “Get in on The Ground Floor.” It was a big place, like a ballroom. Eddie tried to make it more intimate by installing shoulder-high partitions and tall-backed upholstered booths. He wanted to keep the lighting dim but customers complained they couldn’t read their reports and memos so Eddie put lamps in the booths.

  The building was in an office complex that in turn was part of a shopping center, sixty acres of concrete marched by armies of shoppers and office workers and store clerks … they stopped in The Ground Floor for their morning coffee and bagels, came back for tuna salad sandwiches and iced tea at lunch, then in the evening after work, that’s when the lights in the booths got turned off.

  Unless he told Eddie otherwise, Camel was there every day at noon. This particular noon was Monday, April 15.

  “You gotta get organized.”

  Camel agreed.

  “You know what I’d tell you, you were my kid?”

  “How you managed to father me when you were ten years old?”

  “I’d tell you, you gotta plan your work, work your plan.”

  Eddie’s kids apparently took to heart their old man’s clichés, one son was an M.D., the daughter was a professional golfer number twenty-two last year on the tour, the other son was a real estate broker who if he didn’t have more money than God it was close.

  “When I think of the paperwork I used to do for you,” Eddie said, meaning back when they were detectives.

  “You carried me,” Camel agreed.

  “Not that you weren’t a stand-up guy.”

  “We just operated differently.”

  “That’s the gospel.”

  Eddie for example was smart about money. Retired after he got thirty in, he invested in this bar-restaurant while the building was still under construction. Eddie also kept close to his kids, he had grandchildren who adored him. Camel always said he could’ve learned a lot of what you call those life skills from Eddie Neffering.

  Back when they worked together as detectives, if some citizen cursed Eddie he never took it personally, a supervisor reamed him out and Eddie didn’t let it fester … unlike Camel who filed for future reference every slight against him.

  He used to wake up mad at the world. He hated lies and liars with a depth of emotion usually reached only by religion and Camel still accepted as an article of faith that people are liars on the most fundamental levels … they lie for profit and self-protection, they lie recreationally and out of habit, people lie because they’re bored with the truth. Camel had a talent, or a burden depending on how you looked at it … he could not be lied to. Once known in police circles as the Human Lie Detector he became semifamous because he could spot a lie the way you recognize your mother’s face. The problem with Camel’s talent, he couldn’t turn it off. Most of us, there are times we prefer certain lies over the alternatives: Stop worrying about it, nobody noticed … I came straight home, honest … I never loved anybody like I love you, baby. And in these cases, even when we do suspect we’re being lied to, we can offer a benediction: the benefit of the doubt. All right darlin’ I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. That blessing wasn’t available to Camel. To him all lies, petty or grand, little white ones and big black-hearted ones … they were obvious, hateful, undeniable. After his marriage and career were undermined Camel tried to go numb to lies but that effort turned out to be like a dog trying to abandon the sense of smell. Tell Teddy Camel a lie and he knew it inevitably, instinctively … he could smell it on you.

  Eddie got called down to the end of the bar where a group of young men, red ties and suspenders, were arguing about sports and needed a verdict.

  It surprised Camel a guy like Eddie, old school, could get along so well with the modern young men and women who came into The Ground Floor. His customers listened carefully to his opinions, you could tell they had a lot of respect for the guy.

  Maybe it was his size, couple inches over six feet, couple twenties over two hundred. Camel knew him back when he had hair. In compensation for what he’d lost on top, Eddie had grown a huge walrus-type, red-going-gray mustache that made him look like a jolly pirate. Most of his customers tended toward wispy, in their twenties and thirties, power wanna-be’s, success-oriented … maybe they thought of Eddie as an older brother or a big uncle, an ex-cop who could protect them if it came to that.

  During the past few weeks several of the women who worked in the building had complained to Eddie that a guy was bothering them in the parking garage, making lurid remarks and miming masturbation. Eddie was taking down all the information and establishing a pattern, when the guy hit and what level of the garage he frequented and the type of woman he picked on … Eddie figuring he and Camel could set up stakeouts and catch this pervert.

  When Neffering returned, Camel asked if there was any news on the weenie wagger.

  But instead of answering him Eddie raised his chin and signaled with his eyebrows that someone standing behind Camel wanted his attention.

  When Camel swiveled around on the barstool and saw who it was Eddie heard him give up a little grunt like the kind you hear at ringside when a body punch lands solid.

  7

  She said, “If I have to tell you my name this time, I will by god knock you on your ass.”

  From behind the bar Eddie laughed.

  Camel said, “Annie Locken.”

  “Well you’re half right.”

  He said nothing more, he just kept looking at her. She’d changed of course. When Camel last saw her she was a twenty-one-year-old college student, now she was a woman of thirty-five, but she still had freckles, blue green eyes, dark red hair, and, most important of all, the animations of her face were exactly the same. It had always seemed to him that Annie’s face generated light.

  “The lug ain’t going to introduce us, I’m Ed Neffering.”

  She reached across the bar to shake his hand. “Annie Milton, nice to meet you.” Her face was flush as if she’d run all the way in from the parking garage.

  Eddie said, “How come since he got your name wrong you ain’t going to knock him on his ass like you said?”

  “Aw he didn’t know I got married.”

  Camel wondered if she was going to tell Neffering how old she was when they first met. Not much embarrassed him anymore but that would.

  When Eddie offered to buy Annie a beer she popped up on the barstool … they both looked at Camel but he was accustomed to people waiting in vain for him to say something.

  Eddie brought a bottle and a glass, Annie telling him, “Great mustache.”

  “Tickles the girls.”

  “I bet it does.”

  Unlike some women she didn’t cover her mouth when she laughed, Annie had teeth to be proud of … they were white and straight and when she laughed you could see those perfect teeth against clean gums and you could see her pink tongue too. Most people, you don’t want to look too closely into their mouths but Annie could make you think maybe dentistry wasn’t all that bad to take up as a profession.

  Camel kept rejecting stupid things to say … you’re a sight for sore eyes, what brings you to my neck of the woods …

  A ream of office workers at the other end of the bar clamored for Eddie’s attention, before he left he suggested that Camel take Annie over to a booth where they could have some privacy. Camel picked up the two bottles, Eddie telling him, “Take her glass, schmuck.”

  As soon as they got to the booth Annie found the lamp switch and turned it off. When Camel started to pour the beer she said she’d drink it out of the bottle.

  “Eddie says you pour it in a
glass first you get the aroma and that enhances the taste.”

  She laughed and kept drinking from the bottle.

  In the low light her hair could’ve passed for black, the dimness taking none of the shine from her eyes as she asked him if he was surprised to see her.

  “Fourteen years,” Camel said.

  “Fourteen years and you never returned a call, never answered a letter.” She tipped up the bottle for a deep drink, Camel watching her long freckled throat. After putting the bottle back on the table she looked at him and said, “Not that I expected you would.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I was a sweet little piece of ass, wasn’t I?”

  Camel kept quiet.

  “That’s what you told me.”

  He remembered.

  “When I wanted to marry you, that’s what you told me … instead of saying yes, okay, Annie, I’ll marry you, you said I was a sweet little piece of ass.”

  “What kind of trouble you in?”

  She looked surprised then focused her attention on tearing the label from the beer bottle. “Do you remember something else you told me … you said if I was in hell and you could find your way there, you’d come get me.”

  He remembered.

  “It’s my husband.”

  “He hurt you?”

  “No. But he’s … I think Paul’s having a mental breakdown and I think the reason is, he’s involved in something illegal.”

  Camel waited for her to tell him about it.

  She did … the building they bought in this area, her surprise visit up from North Carolina, Paul’s wrecked condition, the intruder, Paul pleading with her not to contact the police. Then she started crying but so softly if you were watching her from across the room you wouldn’t know it.

  He brought out a clean white handkerchief.

  “Sorry,” she said, accepting the handkerchief which was ironed and neatly folded. “No sleep last night.”

  He nodded. “You want me to go out and talk with your husband, try to find this other guy, the one with the big teeth?”