Шарлин Харрис - Small Kingdoms and Other Stories

And then he felt nothing.

When JimBee woke up he was face down on the road beside his car, which was turned off. His body ached and there was no crate in the road. It was as dark as dark could be.

He hurt all over.

A voice beside him, above him, said, “How does it feel to be on the receiving end?”

“Of what?” he said, as confused as he’d ever been in his life. His face felt stiff when he spoke. Had something fallen on him?

“Of a beating,” the voice said.

And then he felt that the other person on the road with him had moved away. JimBee was sure he was all alone in the dark. And he heard his cell phone ringing in his car, where he’d put it in its clip on the console. He couldn’t move; it went to voice mail.

He managed to move, finally, dragging himself over to his car, though every move was painful and cost him more than he wanted to pay. The receiving end . That was where he was. Though all his thoughts and feelings were bound up in the rapidly mounting pain from various places in his body, he understood (theoretically) that someone had beaten him because he slapped his daughter… and perhaps every now and then, his wife. And just once in a while, his son. But who would do such a thing? The punishment didn’t fit the crime.

The next day, as he lay on the couch in the so-called family room – a room no one but JimBee frequented—he had time to ponder the incident. He was full of Tylenol, with a heating pad under his back and an ice pack on his face. He’d wasted a lot of money on a trip to the emergency room, just to find out that nothing was broken. JimBee was so lost in his thoughts he barely registered the knock at the front door and his wife’s voice.

“The police are back,” Lizzy said as she came into the family room. She helped him sit up. He noticed she was glad to pull her hands away the minute he was upright.

“Bring me some more coffee,” he said, not bothering to thank her for the help. He was angry at everyone. Lizzy would pay for her revulsion. When he was better. So would Sarah, who’d appeared shocked by his appearance when he’d finally staggered into the house. James, who should have been swearing vengeance on anyone who dared to lay hands on his father, had simply seemed confused. And they all swore they’d been together in the house since James had returned from football practice at six.

They hadn’t even scrambled to the phone to call the police until he’d hollered at them.

And here the cops were, back again this morning. JimBee was getting his taxpayer’s dollars’ worth.

But after the police left, JimBee was even angrier, and more puzzled, and more anxious.

“We can’t find tracks of any other car off the road,” Detective Crosby had told him. She was a smart-mouthed woman in her forties. “There’s no crate, as you described, in the trees on either side. So we have no physical evidence that you were attacked where and when you say you were.”

“Goddammit,” JimBee roared, and winced as his whole face hurt. “You think I did this to myself?”

“No sir,” she said, all cool and collected. “But we did wonder if you had been gambling on the side, maybe? Or did you stop into a bar, didn’t want to mention it in front of the wife? Something of that nature? You say you have no enemies, but this whole scenario seems very elaborate and mysterious.”

“I got no enemies, I’m just a tire salesman,” JimBee mumbled, his mouth sore and painful. “I don’t gamble, except for friendly bets on college football games. Nothing more than fifty dollars on those.”

“Are you maybe seeing someone else outside your marriage?” the detective asked, leaning forward confidentially. “Someone who has a boyfriend or husband who might object?”

“Not at the moment,” JimBee said unguardedly. The detective’s face hardened. Uh-huh, he’d hit a nerve there. Bitch had been cheated on, and who could blame the unlucky man who’d gotten saddled with her?

“Who can you think of who has it in for you?” she asked. “If the event happened as you’ve described, someone went to a lot of trouble to give you a beating. Someone must not like you, Mr. Toth. Help us out, here.”

JimBee glared at her. He hadn’t overlooked that “if.” But he was genuinely puzzled.

“I really, truly, don’t have any idea who did this,” he said. Without even checking the clock, JimBee knew he was due to take some more Tylenol. “It happened just like I told you. Believe me, if I knew who had laid into me this bad, I’d tell you in a heartbeat.”

Detective Crosby looked at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. “Okay, Mr. Toth,” she said, getting up from the easy chair. “That’s what we’ve got to go by.”

She didn’t believe him at all. He felt like crying.

Lizzy brought him his medicine when he yelled for her, and when he’d swallowed it she sat down in the easy chair the detective had vacated. “JimBee,” she said, “you know you can tell me if you’re in some kind of trouble.” And she waited.

JimBee’s eyes watered something fierce. He was touched that she cared enough to express concern. “I got no idea who did this. I can’t think of anyone who might have thought I deserved this.”

She looked at him, and he could not decipher her expression. “All right, JimBee,” Lizzy said. She got up and left the room. He called after her, “Heat up some soup for my lunch!”

People were talking about Sarah’s father after the mysterious beating, and in a way that let her know he was not as universally popular as he believed. She was able to act baffled about the whole thing, and to hide her inner exultation at being right.

With her dad at home moaning in front of the television, she and her mom shopped for Sarah’s Homecoming dress and ordered James’s tux at the rental shop with a giddy sense of fun they’d never gotten to enjoy before. Sarah picked a long dark blue dress with sparkles on the bodice. She wasn’t surprised at all that James selected a completely conventional tux or that he seemed morose. He only began smiling when he ordered Mercedes’s wrist corsage.

Unfortunately for the short-lived bliss of the rest of the Toth family, after a week of recovery JimBee felt almost well again. He was anxious to get back to work full-time, anxious to get out of his damn house, and pretty tired of having soup for every meal. Not even homemade! His wife had stocked up on Campbell’s. He was bored.

James was shut up in his room every night. When he did share a room with his dad, he looked grim and anxious. And Sarah spent all her non-studying time on the phone with that Brian boy, talking about the Homecoming dance. No one paid attention to JimBee.

So the next time JimBee spotted Sarah walking around with her cell phone clapped to her ear – smiling to herself, like a bitch in heat – he leaped to his feet, grabbed the phone away from her, and hit her in the back with it. She went sprawling.

Sarah screamed so loud that James came out of his room and looked down the stairs at his dad, and Lizzy ran out of the kitchen. Oddly, James looked relieved.

JimBee realized that for the first time he was facing a wall. It was composed of the other members of his family.

“No more,” his wife said. Her hands were so tense he thought she might actually swing at him. “You said no more, and I believed you.”

“Hey, she asked for…” he began, sounding even to his own ears like he was younger than his son.

“Don’t you dare,” Lizzy said. “Don’t you dare say that.” She was shaking, not only with fear but with rage.

And as suddenly as if they’d discussed it, Lizzy, James, and Sarah scattered to other parts of the house, leaving him by himself.

JimBee remembered tomorrow would be the Homecoming game and dance. He didn’t care if he saw Little Miss Bitch in the damn dress or not. Or even James in his tux. He conceded inwardly that he might go to the game, see if James got something right out on the field.