Dennis Etchison: The Dark Country

"You're driving down an empty street at three o'clock in the

morning, say. All the TV sets are off. The police cars are parked at the House of Pies. You don't know where you're going. You turn corners. Then you see someone, sooner or later you always do. He could be anyone. He's walking alone, hurrying home under the trees, the leaves are cracking under his feet like bones. You cut the lights and as you pass you feel the gun in your hand and your finger on the trigger and — and it doesn't matter.

"Or maybe you wait until he crosses the street. You dare yourself not to hit the brakes, and — and all there is is a sound. And he's gone. He never was. And it doesn't matter."

Her voice was rhythmic, incantatory.

1 let her go on.

"Or in an all-night laundromat. And the knife is there in your pocket, the way you knew it would be when you needed it. Or you feel your hands on a throat in the back row of a movie theater. Or standing on a cliff over the rocks. And your hands want to push. Or under a pier with only the waves, and you see him and suddenly you feel the rock in your hand. And it doesn't matter. Somewhere, anywhere, even right here, why not? It doesn't matter. In the middle of the night with no one to see…"

I locked my knees. I dug my heels into the jute carpeting and set my back against the wall.

"So why don't you?" I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Why don't you?" she said quickly.

The cigarette tip made a track in the air. I watched it.

"Because you've never understood the feeling," she continued, "until now. It's never been verified. You might be crazy. It's easy to think that. One alone is weak. But two is a point of view."

Her words began to lose all meaning. They might have been sounds made by a pointed stick on a fence at midnight. "So name your price," she said. "Why?"

"Oh, the money will make it easier the first time. It gives you a reason you can live with. That's only practical." Practical.

"Five thousand," she said. "Why?"

"Ten. Oh, I have it, don't worry." "But why me?"

"Your eyes," she said. "The way you kept looking around every time somebody walked by on the pier. As if you almost expected to see yourself."

I just looked at her. I don't know if she could see me.

"Twenty-five thousand dollars," she said. "I can get it. Everyone has his price. Doesn't he."

I tried to walk. The room moved before me. I saw her as if from a great distance, from the ceiling? The top of the head, the part in the hair like a white scar, the high cheekbones, the bony shoulders, the hands holding the knees, the knees like second breasts, the knuckles like worn-down teeth. I moved past her. Outside, a full moon hung over the water.

"Listen," I heard her say, "you won't even have to choose. That's the hard part, isn't it? Well, I've already found one for you. There's one I always see, a man with his dog, back there between the rocks. You'll know him — the dog's crippled. Always the same time, every night. And he's old. It will be so easy. No one will see. Use anything you want."

For a time, I don't know how long, I balanced there. The white sound was blowing in from the ocean.

"You see?" she was saying. "I need someone. I need to know, to be free and know that I'm free. You will be free, too. We will be the fortunate ones, because we'll know no remorse."

I faced her.

"The voice," she said, "remember the voice." She reached to touch me. "Everybody has a price," she said. I had not realized until that moment how unfeeling she was. Her touch was almost cruel; her words were almost kind. "That may be true enough," I said slowly. "How much is it worth, then?" "Nothing." Then I just waited. "And we are?" she said.

I took a long time trying to think of a way to answer her.

Now the circling gulls were gone; only a single kingfisher remained to patrol the waters.

I walked, touching each post on the pier.

At first the sound was so familiar I didn't notice it.

The sound of footsteps.

Without looking up, I stopped by the rail.

The footsteps stopped.

Below the pier, the skin of the sand had been polished to an unearthly sheen. I stood there, looking down. "You got a light, by any chance?" said a voice. It was a man I had seen walking the boards earlier. I told him I didn't.

"Don't ever depend on these throwaway lighters," he said, clicking the wheel uselessly against the flint. "Once they're empty, they're not worth a dime."

He pitched it underhand into the water. It fell end-over-end, disappearing from sight.

"The bar has matches," I said.

He made no move to leave. Instead he leaned his back against the rail. I shifted and glanced around.

Back at the bar, on the other side of the glass, bodies were moving, rearranging. I couldn't help but notice. The filtered moonlight caught one face out of all the others, at the small table by the hall to the cigarette machine and the pay phone.

I must have stared for a long time. Then I got it, finally.

Kirby.

I said it, I thought it, I don't know which. "Who?"

"Kirby," I said, snapping my fingers again. He was old enough to remember, so I went on. "A comic book artist, back in the Forties. See that girl in there, the one with the face like a broken moon? She looks like she was drawn by Jack Kirby." A portrait of Poe's sister, in fact, but I didn't say that.

There was no reason he should have answered. He probably thought I was crazy.

I turned oceanward again.

The moonlight had broken up on the surface of the water now, like so much shattered mercury. I watched the edges of the tide foaming around the pilings, bringing a wet, white reflection to the hidden rocks.

His elbow was almost touching mine. He was already off-balance. It wouldn't have taken much to send him backwards over the edge.

I said to the man, "How would you like to set someone free for me." It was somewhere between a statement and a question. "Lean on, snuff. For money, of course. It'll have to be on the installment plan. But for her, I'll come up with a hell of a down payment."

I felt a laugh starting, deep down.

"Come on, come on," I said, "what's your price, man? Everybody has his price, doesn't he?"

"Yeah," he said right off. He had been following it. "Only sometimes," he said, playing it out, "it may not be worth paying."

I managed a look at him. His face was leathery, but the skin around the eyes was still soft. He squinted, and a hundred tiny crinkles appeared.

"Before you say any more," he said, "I ought to let you in on something. I guess I ought to tell you that I'm what they call a private investigator."

I couldn't read his expression.

"I also ought to give you a free piece of advice," he said. "You seem like a decent guy. Do yourself a favor. Drop it right now."

"What?" I tried to get a fix on him. "Is she a client of yours or something?"

"The husband, pal," he said confidentially.

"I think you're trying to tell me something. So who is he?"

He gazed off down the beach. He gave a nod, meaning, I figured, one of the big stilt houses, the ones with the floodlights aimed at the waves.

Then I noticed something moving.

It looked like a man. I watched as the figure passed between the pilings, laying a long, stooped, crooked shadow over the stones.

"He looks old," I said.

"And rich," said the detective, if that's what he was. "Filthy, like Midas. Otherwise I wouldn't be bothered. Domestic surveillance isn't my style. Can't take the hours anymore."

"Wait a minute," I said. "The old man. The husband." It stuck in my throat. "He has a dog, right? And he takes it for walks. Same time, every night?"

"Take a look. Christ, the mutt's only got three fucking legs. Can you beat that?"