Jeff Jacobson - Sleep Tight

Martin yanked on the chain, plunging the room into darkness. He couldn’t explain why; it was more of a nervous reaction. Maybe the rat would disappear when he turned the light on again, even though he knew perfectly well the rat was stone dead, lying against the cabinets on the left side of the room. Another click.

The rat hadn’t gone anywhere. Martin’s first impulse was to just shut the door and tell someone, but that would eat up too much of his time. He had to get home. God knew he had to get home. His poor wife was at the end of her rope with the two boys.

So instead, he used the toe of his right shoe to prod and flip the rat out into the hall. He’d have to use some kind of spray and disinfect his shoe later, and just hoped it wouldn’t hurt the cheap leather. He squatted, opened a drawer, and pulled out a fistful of files. He did not see the tiny bugs scattered across the floor, all of them about the size of apple seeds, hiding amongst the dust and scraps of paper.

As he straightened, flipping through the files, five of the closest bugs crawled up the heel of his left shoe, paused at the top, stretched out, and caught hold of his black sock. They pulled themselves across the gap and nestled inside the ribs of the fabric. Some ancient instinct compelled them to hide, tucked away, unmoving, until hours later, as they felt the rhythm of his motions grow slow, when Martin fell asleep on the train. The ride out to Crystal Lake lasted an hour and twenty minutes, and Martin rarely stayed awake for the entire trip.

Hidden by his khakis, the bugs emerged and moved swiftly up his sock, pulled by the irresistible lure of warm, bare flesh. Each unfolded a narrow tube from its segmented body and sank it into his skin. The tube was actually split into two chambers; the larger one was hollow and was used for sucking out the beautiful red blood. The second, smaller tube was used for bathing the skin in an anti-coagulant and a numbing secretion, so the host wouldn’t feel anything as microscopic teeth chewed through the layers of skin until hitting a blood vessel.

Ten minutes later, the bugs were full and swollen to almost twice their original size. They trundled back down to their hiding places in Martin’s sock, where they tucked themselves away and quietly digested their meal.

The conductor woke Martin up at the end of the line and Martin walked tiredly out through the sea of cars in the parking lot, wondering why his leg had started itching.

“I’m hearing some confusing rumors, Lee.”

Lee tried not to jump. His uncle Phil had an inherent distrust of phones, and had a habit of appearing out of nowhere in the massive corridors in City Hall, conferring quietly, then slipping away when his business was finished, disappearing into the cool marble. More than once, Lee had wondered if Phil knew about some kind of secret passages or something in the building.

Lee decided to play dumb and kept walking. He was heading downstairs; his personal trainer was waiting for a quick jog along the lakefront. If nothing else, Lee knew the steady movement would tire Phil out and the conversation would be short. “Oh yeah? How can I help?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. And don’t think that people aren’t noticing. You are treading on some very thin ice here. It’s just a matter of time before some scumbag reporter gets one of your employees drunk and they spill their guts.” Phil sighed. “Do you really think nobody is smart enough to put two and two together? How stupid do you think people are in this city? Or do you have some fantasy that you are untouchable? I’m praying that you didn’t just torpedo your career before it even got started. This goes bad, you’ll be lucky to end up picking up garbage in Peoria.”

Lee rubbed his eyes. “Give it a fucking rest, will ya? They’ll figure out a way to increase my budget. You’ll see. You and your pals pull this crap all the time. The one time I try playing hardball, everybody shits their pants. I mean, seriously, what’s the fucking difference?”

“If you can’t tell the difference, then you’re too stupid for this business. And that’s exactly what this is, a fucking business. You can’t get any more blood from a stone. Thought you understood that.” Phil was silent for a moment. “Get your boys back to work. Tonight.”

“Soon as your pals see things my way. You tell them that I will see those extra zeroes in the budget, or everybody is going to be up to their eyeballs in rats. You tell them that, and you tell them that I’m serious as a fucking heart attack. I’m not kidding. You tell them—”

Lee stopped, just to make sure Phil understood, but Phil was gone.

CHAPTER 17

8:59 PM

April 18

Friday night in Tommy’s house. “Sox game or Svengoolie?”

“S’gooleeee!”

Tommy laughed. “It’s not too scary?” He knew the answer though; Svengoolie was never too scary. Occasionally he might show a classic from the thirties, but most of the time it was grade-D dreck from the fifties and sixties. Tonight it was Beginning of the End , in which Peter Graves squared off against giant grasshoppers that crawled over photos of buildings. Grace barely followed the plots anyway, and waited instead for the moments when crew members threw rubber chickens at Svengoolie. The jokes were so corny and so bad that Grace usually understood them, and she would gleefully zero in on one and ask Tommy the setup question all night, then endlessly repeat the punch line in a flurry of giggles.

Tommy loved being with her so much he didn’t even mind missing the game. “All right then. You go set up the tent, and I’ll get the popcorn.” Grace ran down the hall to the living room to arrange the couch cushions and a blanket so they could lie on the floor, safely ensconced in their “tent.”

In the easy chairs behind the “tent,” Tommy’s parents, Sidney and Francine, snored away.

Tommy hadn’t been able to afford the mortgage payments on their house, so he’d sold that. All of the profits had gone to Kimmy. Now he lived with his parents. It wasn’t so bad. They understood his predicament, and gave him as much time as he needed. He slept in his old room, and since he slept during the day, the constant, thrumming rush of the nearby Dan Ryan Expressway blocked out most of the noise. It was reassuring, like a mother’s heartbeat to a baby.

The divorce had settled into a dull ache that he could ignore most of the time, like a cavity in a back molar. It didn’t bother him much, unless he pushed on it. Things were easier if he just focused on what was right in front of him. He still got to be with Grace on the weekends.

Tommy was enough of a realist to know that this peace couldn’t last forever. Some other shoe would drop eventually. And when it did, life had taught him that it would most likely be in the form of a steel-toed boot, aimed squarely at his head.

Before the movie started, he asked, “How’s Uncle Lee?”

“Good,” Grace said through a mouthful of popcorn.

“Do you see him a lot?”

“Sometimes.”

Sometimes. That could mean anything. Sometimes trying to get an answer with some kind of useful information out of a four-year-old was like trying to track down an honest alderman. Every once in a while, though, they might surprise you.

“Mommy says we’re going to see a lot more of him, ’cause we’re moving downtown. Mommy says he might be my new daddy. You’ll still be my old daddy though.”

Tommy managed to get out, “Sure, honey. Sure.” He swallowed, and said carefully, “Always, okay? I’ll always be your daddy. No matter what.”