Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

Yes. Theodore Tate will do quite nicely for what he has planned.

I drive through town, reaching intersections and having moments where I have no recollection of even driving there. I get caught for ten minutes in boy-racer traffic but I just don’t care. Cars are tooting and cars are weaving in and out of the flow of traffic. My eyes are half-closed and all I want to do is get home and fall into bed. My head is hurting a little and massaging it isn’t really helping. Schroder’s car is an automatic and thank God it is, because if I had to spend mental energy on changing gears I’d break down and cry. When I do make it home I leave Schroder’s car in the driveway.

I still have my keys, other than my car key, which is somewhere with my car back at the station. I fumble my way inside and the only food I can find is a loaf of bread in the freezer that has been there since last year. I make a few slices of toast and eat it while staring out the back window toward the spot in the ground where I had to bury my cat after some psycho killed it the day after I got out of jail. I force the toast into my body to stem the hunger pains. It’s too late for coffee, too complicated to make it anyway, so I settle for water. I reach into my pocket for the painkillers the nurse gave me for the dog bite. I take two of them and tip the rest down the sink, not wanting to risk another addiction, not wanting to hide the symptoms in case there is something wrong inside of me. I can see my reflection in the window, I can still see the hospital room, I can still see my wife wired up to medical equipment like something in a science fiction movie the same way she was three years ago. I sat by her side and held her hand for the five minutes I was allowed, waiting for her eyes to open knowing they wouldn’t-and they didn’t. I finish the toast and head to the bedroom.

I climb into bed. I switch off the lamp and close my eyes and wait for the pills to take effect, feeling the absence of Bridget strongly tonight. The medical equipment, the tubes, all that science keeping her alive. Close-she was so close to being back. What’s the next step?

Sleep. That’s the next step. Tomorrow I’ll figure out the rest.

I hear the footsteps outside the front door before the knocking. I look at the alarm clock and see that I’ve been in bed for two minutes. I close my eyes and wonder if I can just ignore it, then decide that I can’t, even though I give it a good try. I pull the pillow over my head but the knocking doesn’t stop. It’s like I have a woodpecker inside my skull. I guess at quarter to three in the morning, it must be important. Then the idea hits me that it could be a reporter or, worse, a psychic. The woodpecker confirms whoever it is they won’t be ignored. I throw on some clothes and head into the hallway, dragging my feet and almost tripping over them. I can barely keep my eyes open. The knocking stops when I turn on the outside light. I’ve only been in the dark for two minutes but the light hurts. I put one hand against the wall to stay balanced.

“Who is it?” I ask.

“Theodore Tate?” a voice asks, and I recognize that voice, and my first thought is it’s somebody from the hospital, that they’ve come to tell me in person what they should have told me over the phone. Only I get the feeling that’s not where I know the voice from.

And it’s a bad feeling.

“Yeah?” I ask, a little more awake now, but not too much more.

“It’s Caleb Cole,” the voice says, and the response makes my stomach clench and I take my hand off the wall and straighten up. “If you don’t open the door in the next five seconds I’m going to dump a dead girl on your doorstep for you to deal with.”

My cell phone is still in the bedroom. I don’t have a weapon. All I have are two arms that I can barely hold up and eyes that blink open for split seconds rather than blinking closed.

“I mean it,” he says.

I reach out and unlock the door. I swing it inward and, like he suggested, he’s holding on to Katy Stanton. He’s also holding on to a knife. The view wakes me up.

I take a few steps into the hallway and he follows. No matter what happens, it’s time I moved and got an unlisted address-over the last year serial killers, madmen, lawyers, reporters, and also my parents have been showing up at my door. He kicks back with his foot and closes the door behind him. He doesn’t give it quite enough power and it doesn’t latch, and it swings back open an inch.

“I wish I’d never helped you with your car,” I tell him. By helping him I helped him move on to his next victim. I helped him make his way to kidnapping Stanton and his kids.

He opens his mouth to say something, but he can’t seem to figure out what that should be. He closes it, and gives a small acknowledging nod. “Turn on the light,” he says.

I reach out and flick at the light switch. The hallway comes to life.

“Now what?” I ask.

“You have somewhere to sit down?”

I nod. “This way,” I tell him, and I turn around and start walking.

“Don’t try-”

“Yeah, I know,” I tell him. “You said already.” I lead him through to the dining room. “Here okay?” I ask him.

“Sure. Sit down at the opposite side of the table.”

“You don’t have to keep holding the knife against her,” I say, looking at the blade that has taken so much from so many over the last few days. “I’m not going to try anything.”

“Sit down,” he repeats, “and we’ll see what happens.”

“Have you drugged her? Or is she asleep?” I ask, taking a seat.

“She’s fine,” he says, also sitting down. He rests her across his lap. “You’re the one who found Octavia?”

I nod.

“How?” he asks.

“I went there to talk to Tabitha and she didn’t answer the door.”

“So you broke in?”

“Listen, Caleb, I’m way too tired and not in the best of moods, so how about you just tell me what you want?”

“You’re not the only one who’s tired.”

“Yeah, but I’m the only one not holding a knife to a girl. What do you want?”

“Right now I want you to tell me why you went there.”

“Because you sent Ariel Chancellor a letter saying that Tabitha was the one who put Victoria Brown into a coma.”

He thinks about this, nodding slowly the entire time. “That was stupid of me,” he says.

“You’re right,” I tell him. “And not just that, but this,” I say, spreading my arms, “all of this is stupid. You’re hurting all the wrong people.”

“No. I’m hurting the right people. So far nobody innocent has died.”

“What in the hell is wrong with you? Four people have died,” I tell him. “Three of them were only doing their jobs, and the fourth-you didn’t even know him.”

“Well, they shouldn’t have done their jobs as well as they did,” he says. “And that other asshole should have kept his dick in his pants. What is going to happen to Tabitha now that you know what she did?”

I shrug. “It’s out of my hands,” I tell him.

“Do you want her to go to prison?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because it wouldn’t serve any purpose,” I tell him. “What she did was-”

“Illegal,” he says. “She almost killed that woman. In a way, she did. And you want her to get away with it because it’s revenge.”

“That’s not it at all,” I say.

“Isn’t it? Then why?”

I don’t have an answer.

“It’s the same with the others,” he says. “For me. It’s the same kind of revenge.”

“What about Brad Hayward? What about his children. They deserve your revenge too?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

“There’s nobody left in my life,” he eventually says.