Joe Hill - Horns

Lacking that, his second-best plan was to go where the snakes weren’t. He hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, and Glenna worked at the salon Saturday mornings, styling hair and waxing eyebrows. She’d be gone, and he’d have the apartment and her fridge to himself. Besides, he had left cash there, and most of his clothes. Maybe he could leave her a note about Lee (“Dear Glenna-stopped by for a sandwich, got some things, going to be gone a while. Avoid Lee Tourneau, he murdered my last girlfriend, Love, Ig”).

HE CLIMBED INTO THE GREMLIN and stepped out fifteen minutes later on the corner in front of Glenna’s building. The heat walloped into him; it was like throwing open the door to an oven set to broil. Ig didn’t mind it, though.

He wondered if he should’ve circled the block a couple times, to make sure there weren’t cops watching the place for him, ready to pick him up for pulling a knife on Lee Tourneau the day before. Then he thought he’d rather just walk in and take his chances. If Sturtz and Posada were waiting for him, Ig would give them a blast with the horns, have ’em sixty-nine each other. The thought made him grin.

But Ig had no company in the echoing stairwell except his shadow, twelve feet tall and horned, leading the way to the top floor. Glenna had left the door unlocked when she went out, which was unlike her. He wondered if her mind had been on other things when she left the building, if she was worrying about him, wondering where he was. Or maybe she had simply overslept and gone out in a hurry. More likely that was it. Ig was her alarm clock, the one who shook her awake and made the coffee. Glenna wasn’t a morning person.

Ig eased the door inward. He had walked out of the place just yesterday morning, and yet looking at it now, he felt as if he’d never lived here and was seeing Glenna’s rooms for the first time. The furniture was cheap yard-sale stuff: a stained secondhand corduroy couch, a split beanbag with synthetic fluff hanging out. There was hardly anything of himself in this place, no photos or personal items, just some paperbacks on the shelf, a few CDs, and a varnished oar with names written on it. The oar was from his last summer at Camp Galilee-he had taught javelin-when he was voted Counselor of the Year. All the other counselors had signed it, as had the kids in his cabin. Ig couldn’t remember how it had wound up here or what he’d meant to do with it.

He looked into the kitchen by way of the pass-through window. An empty pizza box sat on a crumb-littered counter. The sink was piled with chipped dishes. Flies hummed over them.

She had mentioned to him now and then that they needed new dishes, but Ig hadn’t taken the hint. He tried to remember if he had ever bought Glenna anything nice. The only thing that came to mind was beer. When she was in high school, Lee Tourneau had at least been kind enough to steal her a leather jacket. The idea sickened him: that Lee could’ve been a better man than he was in any way.

He didn’t want Lee in his head right now, making him feel unclean. Ig meant to cook himself a light breakfast, pack his things, clean up the kitchen, write a note, and depart-in that order. He didn’t want to be here if someone came looking for him: his parents, his brother, the police, Lee Tourneau. It was safer back at the foundry, where the likelihood of encountering anyone else was low. And anyway, the dim and still atmosphere of the apartment, the humid, weighted air, disagreed with him. He had never realized it was such a dank little place. But then, the shades were pulled down over the windows, Ig didn’t know why. They hadn’t been pulled down in months.

He found a pot, filled it with water, put it on the stovetop, turned the heat to HI. There were just two eggs left. He settled them into the water and left them to boil. Ig made his way down the short corridor to the bedroom, stepping around a skirt and a pair of panties that Glenna had taken off and left in the hall. The shades were down in the bedroom, too, although that was normal. He didn’t bother with the lights, didn’t need to see. He knew where everything was.

He turned to the dresser, then paused, frowning. The drawers were all hanging out, hers and his both. He didn’t understand, never left his drawers that way. He wondered if someone had been through his things-Terry maybe, his brother trying to figure out what had happened to him. But no, Terry wouldn’t play private detective like that. Ig felt little details connecting to make a larger picture: the front door unlocked, the shades pulled down so no one could see into the apartment, the dresser rifled. These things all went together in some way, but before he could figure out how, he heard the toilet splutter and flush in the bathroom.

He was startled, hadn’t seen Glenna’s car in the side parking lot, couldn’t imagine why she might be home. He was opening his mouth to call to her, let her know he was here, when the door opened and Eric Hannity stepped out of the crapper.

He was holding up his pants with one hand and had a magazine in the other, a Rolling Stone. He lifted his gaze and stared at Ig. Ig stared back. Eric let the Rolling Stone slide out of his hand and fall on the floor. He lifted his pants and buckled his belt. For some reason he was wearing blue latex gloves.

“What are you doing here?” Ig asked.

Eric slid a wooden billy club, cherry-stained, out of a loop on his belt. “Well,” Eric said. “Lee wants to talk to you. You had your say the other day, but he hasn’t had his. And you know Lee Tourneau. He likes to get in the last word.”

“He sent you?”

“Just to watch the apartment. See if you came by.” Eric frowned to himself. “It’s the damndest thing about you showing up at the congressman’s. I think those horns of yours fiddle-fucked with my mind. I forgot right until this minute you even had them. Lee says you and me talked yesterday, but I have no idea what we talked about.” He swung the club slowly back and forth in his right hand. “Not that it really matters. Most talk is bullshit. Lee is a talker. I’m more of a doer.”

“What were you going to do?” Ig asked.

“You.”

Ig’s kidneys felt as if they were floating in very cold water. “I’ll scream.”

“Yeah,” said Eric. “I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

Ig sprang for the door. The exit, though, was in the same wall as the door into the bathroom, and Eric lunged to his right to cut him off. Ig put on a burst of speed, shrinking away from Eric and trying to get out the door ahead of him, and at the same time a shrill, terrible thought flashed through his mind: Not going to make it. Eric had his cherry club back over one arm, as if it were a football and he was about to go long.

Ig’s feet snarled in something, and when he tried to step forward, he couldn’t. His ankles caught, and he plunged off balance. Eric came around with the club, and Ig heard the low whistle of it passing behind his head, then a loud, brittle crunch as it caught the door frame and tore away a chunk of wood the size of a baby’s fist.

He got his forearms up just before he crashed to the floor, which probably saved him from breaking his nose for the second time in his life. He looked down between his elbows and saw that his feet had caught in a pair of Glenna’s discarded panties, black silk with little red devils printed on them. He was already kicking them away. He felt Eric stepping up behind him and knew if he tried to stand, he was going to catch that ironwood club in the back of the head. He didn’t try to stand. He grabbed the floor and pitched himself forward in a kind of mad scramble. The officer of the law put his size-thirteen Timberland in Ig’s ass and shoved, and Ig went down on his chin. He slid on his face across the varnished pine floor. His shoulder batted the oar that was leaned against the wall, and it fell over on top of him.