Ryan Jahn - Low Life

‘Okay.’

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She looked jumpy and alarmed. Her eyes searched his face, he knew not what for. She licked her lips nervously, swallowed.

‘I—’

‘Yes?’

‘I – I did it for your own good, Jeremy. I didn’t want you to disappear again.’

‘My own good?’

‘Fine. If that’s not acceptable, how about my own good – my sanity? I did it so I would know where you were, so I would know you were safe, so I would know—’

‘What is it to you where I am?’

‘I’m your wife.’

‘Are you?’

Simon took a step forward; Samantha took a step back.

‘What are you doing?’

‘That’s my question for you. What are you doing? Have you been drugging me?’

‘What?’

‘Have you?’

‘No. Of course I—’

‘Not that you would admit it even if you were.’

He took another step forward, she took another step back.

‘Don’t do this, Jeremy. You’re scaring me.’

‘Then tell me what’s happening to me.’

‘I don’t know,’ Samantha said. ‘If I did, don’t you think I’d stop it?’

Simon tongued the inside of his cheek and simply looked at her.

Finally he said, ‘How would I know what you’d do? I don’t even know you.’

‘What do you mean?’

He turned back toward the door.

That’s when he saw it.

There was a framed photograph sitting on an end table. Simon recognized it. It was the photograph he’d stolen from the house on that day he’d first sneaked in. It felt like that had happened years ago rather than just over two weeks ago. There were Samantha and Jeremy standing side by side. Samantha’s arm was through Jeremy’s. Jeremy was wearing a suit Simon had worn himself. And he recognized the background – he knew where the picture’d been taken. Two weeks ago he hadn’t, but he did now.

He picked it up and looked at it for a long moment.

‘Where – where did this come from?’

Samantha was holding herself and looking at him with sadness.

‘That woman Marlene Biskind brought it by about twenty minutes ago. It was one of the pictures she took at my show last night and she thought I might want to have it.’

Simon looked from her to the picture in his hand. He could feel it shaking.

‘This is,’ he licked his lips, ‘this is a picture of me?’

‘Who else would it be a picture of?’

He pulled the Saab’s driver’s side door open.

‘I really need that hammer, Jeremy.’

Simon spun around.

He wasn’t jogging now. He was wearing slacks and a tucked-in T-shirt.

Simon pulled out his – Jeremy’s – wallet and looked inside. He grabbed a hundred-dollar bill and thrust it forward.

‘Here. Just buy a hammer.’

‘I don’t want to buy a hammer. I loaned you a hammer and I want it back.’

‘It’s a hundred dollars.’

‘I just want my hammer.’

‘Fine. I’ll get your fucking hammer.’

He slammed the car door shut and stormed toward the house, flung the door open, and started digging around, looking for a hammer in various drawers. He didn’t find one, but he found a Stanley screwdriver, thought he could use it to switch his license plates, keep the cops off him for a while longer, and stuffed it into his overcoat pocket. Then he continued searching.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking for a hammer.’

Samantha disappeared and a moment later emerged from the garage with one.

‘This hammer?’

He took it from her without a word and walked back outside, holding it up.

‘Is this the hammer you want?’ He felt suddenly furious. Rage flushed his cheeks. His chest felt tight. His brain was boiling with anger and thoughtless. ‘Is this the fucking hammer you want?’

‘What other hammer would I—’

Simon swung it down against the side of the son of a bitch’s head.

‘There’s your fucking hammer.’

The guy collapsed to the ground screaming and holding his face. Simon let go of the hammer and it dropped to the driveway and then bounced onto the lawn. After a moment blood began to pour from between the man’s fingers and into the grass. The guy flailed about on his side, staining his jeans and his T-shirt with grass. Neighbors walked from their front doors, asking if everything was okay, wondering if—

Simon got into his car, mumbling under his breath. He was tired of everyone coming at him. He was tired of feeling frantic and lost and not knowing what direction to turn. And everyone coming at him. Samantha. That private detective. Zurasky. And that son of a bitch and his fucking hammer. Goddamn them all.

He drove the car off the curb, and screeched away from there.

He drove around the Fillmore train station parking lot till he found a spot, parked his car, and got out. He dug the screwdriver from his overcoat’s inside pocket and walked to the Ford Explorer beside which he’d just parked. Glancing left and then right, he sat on his haunches and began unscrewing the plates.

He drove along Hollywood Boulevard, past Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Ripley’s museum. There was a crowd in front of the theater.

A cop car drove by going in the opposite direction. Simon’s chest tightened but the cop didn’t even glance at him.

It felt strange. How could he feel so guilty – how could he be so guilty: of killing a man and trying to dispose of the body, of breaking and entering, of two assaults – and not draw the attention of every officer of the law within a hundred miles? Especially when everything was falling apart. It seemed the natural progression, the next step, and yet—

He stuck a cigarette between his dry lips as he drove and reached for his Zippo. It was gone. He had lost it. He thumbed in the car’s built-in lighter and after a few moments it popped back out. He lighted his cigarette and inhaled deeply. The smoke made his lungs feel like overfilled balloons, taut and ready to pop.

He exhaled.

As he drove he tried to wrap his mind around the events of the last couple weeks. He tried to put the clues in some kind of working order. He tried to untangle the ugly, messy knot of events. He couldn’t do it. But as he neared the motel – beige stucco with gray patches of concrete where the exterior had recently been repaired after, from the look of the damage, a car had been driven into the manager’s office – something clicked. And while it didn’t make sense of everything, it gave him something to work with.

Walk the mile. Well, take him.

Yeah, he had something to work with.

He hoped he did.

‘You’re back,’ the guy behind the counter said, then he grabbed a hair from his nostril, plucked it, examined it, and threw it to the floor.

‘I am. But I’d like it if you could forget you ever saw me.’

‘Not a problem. You gotta be forgetful around here.’

Simon nodded.

‘You ditch the fuzz?’

‘Wasn’t the police. Private investigator.’

‘Marital trouble?’

‘What do you know about it?’

‘Nothing, man. Just conversatin’.’

‘Anyways, you got a pen or a marker or something I could write with?’

The guy dug a black marker from a coffee mug and set it on the counter.

‘How long you staying for this time? I can give you a discount if it’s three days or more.’

‘I don’t know how long. We’ll take it day by day.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Simon paid and the guy gave him his key. It was for the same room he’d had last night. One thirteen: bad luck plus one. He was at the manager’s door – looking out into the parking lot – when he stopped and turned around.

‘If anybody asks, who stayed in my room?’

‘Blond fellow with a harelip. Had a birthmark on his neck shaped like Texas.’