Jonathon King - A Visible Darkness

He shrugged up into his coat. A car rolled past, the bass from its stereo rippling through him. He pushed on to Second Street and then cruised the back alley of the row, stopping at Louise's Kitchen where he found a plastic bag of bread heels hung up on a hook above the dumpster. Louise put it out there because she knew the bums would root through her garbage if she didn't make it easy for them. So she hung the bread up away from the rats. Eddie knew when the bag came out and he was surprised to see it still there. He sat on the bottom of the steps leading up into the back of the restaurant, chewing through several pieces of the bread. The smell of the alley did not register. His own odor, rising up from his collar all warm and ripe from the body heat trapped under his coat did not register. Mr. Harold, Eddie thought, an idea pulling at him.

When Eddie crossed over the railroad tracks, he had officially crossed over to the east side, and he knew enough to be careful on the east side. By now it was dark, but the street lamps and still-lighted windows in the business buildings pushed Eddie to the shadows. When he made his way to a spot under the Intracoastal bridge he sat there for an hour, tucked back against cold concrete. He wished he'd gotten the heroin before he tried this. He was feeling the need in his stomach. Just a single pop would do.

The smell of the river was a blend of salt and gasoline fumes and damp pilings. Above he could hear the roll of cars on the bridge surface, humming along the concrete and then singing when the tires hit the metal grating in the middle. He checked the time on the watch from deep in his pocket, left the cart and started over to the parking lot of the county jail.

He stayed close to the fence, moving from tree to tree. The east- siders thought landscaping made things look nice, so there was always a dark shadow to slip into. He scanned the lot. Most of the light glowed up off the eight-story white stone facade of the jail. But Eddie could still make out the colors and makes of the cars. The fourth row down and in between the two light poles was Mr. Harold's Caprice.

He knew that the doctor worked the middle shift and would be getting off at 11:00 P.M., plenty of time.

He found a way through the fencing, a gap left open by workers at an adjoining construction site, and moved low and slow along an inside row to the car. He peered up over the line of hoods and watched a single, twirling yellow light moving along the front sidewalk. That was the thing about those security carts, you always knew where they were.

When it disappeared, Eddie moved to the driver's-side door of the Caprice and reached into his pocket for the old tennis ball he'd brought from his cart. He turned the ball in his fingers to find the shaved side and located the small hole that he'd punched into its middle with a nail. Then he positioned the hole over the round key entrance on the door lock. Holding the seal tight with one hand, he took one more wary look around, then banged the ball with the heel of his other hand. The air from the ball rushed into the lock system hard enough to simultaneously pop up all four of the door buttons. Eddie opened the left passenger door and climbed in.

The inside smelled of cigarettes and paper. A box of files sat in the back but there was still room for Eddie behind the driver's seat. He flipped the overhead light off, locked the doors and waited, his nose twitching with the smell of stale nicotine.

Eddie was in the backseat less than an hour when he heard footsteps on the pavement. Mr. Harold fumbled with his keys and then unlocked the doors. He tossed a briefcase onto the front passenger side and was already halfway in when the smell caused his face to screw up and he felt a huge hand clamp onto his upper right arm and pull him in.

The doctor whimpered once before his eyes snapped around to Eddie's and then quickly changed from wide-open shock to a narrow questioning.

"Jesus, Eddie. What the hell are you doing here?" said Harold Marshack, his voice jumping from surprise to consternation. "Didn't I tell you not to come here?"

Eddie stared at him and for the second time in only a few hours, another man's eyes looked back. The psychiatrist could see the edge of panic there.

"Hey, it's not safe for you here, Eddie," Marshack said, his voice now going calm and pitched as if he were speaking to a child.

"You didn't come to the post office," Eddie said.

His big hand was still holding the doctor's arm, a soft grip for Eddie, painful for the recipient. Marshack again changed his voice.

"I'll admit I wasn't sure what to do, Eddie," he said, now patting the big man's hand, hoping to ease the hold.

"A man was killed, Eddie. At Ms. Thompson's. What happened, Eddie? Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Eddie knew the sound of those words. He'd heard that voice that said "Stupid Eddie" all his life. When he was a kid they lured him into the circle with the mock friendship just to steal his money or humiliate him for laughs. The women, the police, even Momma's preacher. Be nice to Eddie, then when his grip loosens, steal what he has. Eddie wasn't stupid.

"I do not know," he said to the doctor.

"Eddie, there's a problem," Marshack said, patting the big man's hand again. But the hand stayed.

"What? I did my job. I need my money," Eddie said. "I did what we said. I need what's mine."

The psychiatrist was quiet, thinking over the possibilities that might be running through his former patient's head.

"The woman's not dead, Eddie. She's still here. The old man's gone but Ms. Thompson is still alive. The police came, Eddie. She isn't dead."

Eddies first reaction was to think "liar." They always lied to him. But his second reaction was to replay the night in his head. The pillow on Ms. Thompson's face. The old man coming out of the bathroom. Eddie's hand on his throat, feeling the bones fold. He'd made sure, damn sure, that the old guy was gone and then laid him out on the bed. Ms. Thompson did not move. She was gone, too. He was trying to see it in his head. No one could lay that still, that quiet, specially the old ladies.

He could feel the doctor's eyes on him.

"I do not know," he finally said. "But I need my money, Mr. Harold."

The doctor could feel the pressure on his arm. The big man's grip tightening with tension.

"OK, Eddie, sure. It was a mistake. We're still friends, right?" He worked his free hand into his jacket pocket and came out with his wallet. He opened the fold and riffled the bills inside with his thumb. In the dim light Eddie could see the corners of twenties flashing.

"Hundreds," Eddie said, his tone gone flat. "I got to have hundreds."

The big man's hand tightened again when he said it. His blunt fingertips had found the artery running under Marshack's biceps. They cut off the flow of blood, and the doctor was losing feeling down in his hand.

"Sure, Eddie. Sure. What was I thinking? In the glove box, the envelope, like always."

Marshack tried to move his arm, to reach for the passenger side. Eddie let his grip loose and the doctor reached over and twisted the lock.

I found Richards's house, rolled slowly past and pulled a U-turn at the intersection and parked across the street. It was a quiet neighborhood of small bungalow-style homes built back in the '40s in what was then a small southern town growing up at the mouth of a river to the ocean. The older houses were mostly wood clapboard with enclosed screen porches and they all sat up on short pilings to get them up off the moist ground. I could smell the oleander in the air and could make out the shapes of live oak canopies backlit by moonlight.

It was almost eleven. I'd been here before. I'd convinced her I was a restaurant idiot and taken her to dinner, her choice. We'd gone to movies she suggested. There was the one with the kid who sees ghosts. The ending had made her quiet afterward. Finally, while we were sitting in a coffee shop afterward, she asked if I believed in such things. "Everybody's got ghosts," I'd said. Brilliant, Freeman. When I'd dropped her off her good-bye caught in her throat.