Tim Curran - The Devil Next Door

And I’ll twist it in that little witch, God yes, I’ll make her squirm.

“We’re going to the store, Danny,” she announced. “We need some things.”

“We always need things, don’t we, Mommy?” said little Danny and for one uneasy moment there, Angie was almost certain that there was a deep salty rut of sarcasm behind his words. But that was silly. He was barely two-years old.

Paranoia, that’s what.

Besides, it was that time of the month and her flow was heavy. She was moody, quick to anger, ready to scratch out eyes for the least infraction. Some women, she knew, did not get crazy like she did when they were menstruating. Lucky them.

She looked down at Danny, struck, as always, at how much he looked like his father and how little he looked like her. He had his father’s smooth flawless Mediterranean skin and moody, chocolate-dark Sicilian eyes. As such, he was beautiful. Just like his father. Pleasing to behold. One could only hope that he was nothing like his father in every other way.

“I want a candy bar,” Danny said.

“Okay. We’ll get you a Mounds or a Three Musketeers or something.”

Danny seemed satisfied with that, then he furrowed his brow, said, “I want a gun.”

“Stop that!” Angie chided him, a bead of sweat popping at her temple.

“I want a gun so I can shoot people dead!”

Angie stopped the buggy right there, right on Tessler where the streets are handsomely lined with oak and yellow poplar. “Stop it, Danny. Don’t you let me hear you talk like that again. Only bad men shoot people. And bad men get thrown in cages for the rest of their lives. You don’t want that, do you?”

A tear in the corner of his eye, he shook his head.

God, she wondered if he was already becoming his father.

Jimmy Torrio. Angie had met him in Terra Haute. A week later she was sleeping with him and the transition between stranger and lover had been exceptionally smooth. But Jimmy Torrio was nothing if not smooth. He gave her Danny, who was beautiful and precious, but that’s the only thing he had given her.

Then why did you keep spreading your legs for him?

Ah, the question of the day, the year, the century. Why? She had a good job, she was from a good family, at least by Greenlawn standards. Jimmy was an asshole, he was selfish, he was corrupt. He had a criminal record that he had not revealed until she was in too deep to care. He was really good at nothing beyond drinking and gambling and mooching money. He was not even really very good in bed. Yet, Angie had stayed. At least until she’d found out that she was only one of many. Then she ran straight back to Greenlawn, a bun baking in the old oven, no money, and absolutely no self-respect.

Two years later, she was still obsessed by him. Maybe it was smoldering hate now, but they always said that hate was merely the flipside of love.

“Can I have two candy bars?” Danny asked.

“Of course you can,” Angie told him. Why not?

It was a beautiful day and Angie was thinking about Louis Shears who had just driven by, how he always smiled at her, how his eyes flashed like coins in a streambed and behind that look, just behind it, a touch of heat and a touch of interest. Louis was nice. Louis was funny. But he was also married to Michelle who was a very nice lady. So Angie would admire from afar. As always.

Across the street, she saw Dick Starling walk by. He was a very nice man. Everyone loved him. His daughter, Brittany, was on the archery team. Angie had won three state championships in archery when she was in high school and Dick Starling had been instrumental in getting her to take the job of archery coach. Angie hadn’t wanted to at first…but she finally submitted. Putting an arrow in a target was not only a great distraction from the stresses of life, it was sheer joy when you imagined that the target was in fact Jimmy Torrio. Bullseye every time, heh, heh.

She waved to Dick Starling…he did not wave back. He was gripping his head in his hands and staggering up the sidewalk like he had a good hangover going. Angie decided it was none of her business.

Cal’s was just up the block now.

Angie grinned.

Other than archery, tormenting Brandi was her only true joy in life.

Maybe I should use that bitch for target practice.

Danny’s birthday tomorrow. Maybe Jimmy was already in town. Sometimes he did that. He’s show up in Greenlawn, look up some of his old cronies and throw together a card game, indulge in a little whoring with cheap sluts like Little Miss Saucy Tits Brandi Welch. Asshole. He’d probably screwed the little witch last night. Maybe this morning. You could never tell, oh God in high Heaven, you could just never tell.

Angie pushed her buggy through the door of Cal’s.

There were maybe six or seven people in there, buying bread, examining the beer in the cooler, chit-chatting as people in Greenlawn will do.

Angie swept the store with acidic eyes.

Ha, there she was. Right behind the counter: Little Miss Saucy Tits. Look at them everyone, admire them, see how plump they are. Women, wouldn’t you just love to have a set like these and, men, wouldn’t you just love to squeeze them or bury your face in the sweet valley between, yummy-yummy.

At the sight of her, a slight headache bloomed in the back of Angie’s skull: it was sharp, insistent. It made her squeeze her eyes shut. And for the briefest of moments, it cast a dark shadow over her thoughts. A shadow that she instantly recognized with some fundamental half-submerged awareness that was ancient and misty. It crawled up from within her, breaking the sleep of reason.

Then it was gone.

Brandi looked up from her Soduku magazine, pencil pausing, saw Angie and tensed, God how she tensed.

Angie smiled at her, a lethal meat-eating smile.

Poor Little Miss Saucy Tits. Look how nervous she is. See how her breasts, so jutting and firm, have deflated somewhat. See how her liquid black eyes shift about nervously like those of a rat wary of the cat. She trembles. Her lips so full and pink and juicy are now pulled into a pale gray line of despair.

Poor little thing, Angie thought. It’s nothing truly personal, you know, but you shouldn’t have been fucking my ex. He comes to town maybe once a year and you fuck him and I know it and you know it and I’ll never let you forget it.

Angie lifted Danny from the buggy. “Go find yourself a candy bar,” she said, then turned her full hating attention on Brandi Welch who was already withering away like a flower before October’s first frost.

“ I’d like a lottery ticket,” Angie said.

Brandi swallowed. “Um…which kind?”

“ What kinds do you have?”

Hee, hee. Make her go through the whole list from Megamillions to the state drawings to instant scratch-offs like Pot-o’-Gold and Million-Gazillion and E-Z Street. It took her about five minutes to go through them all and tell Angie how much they cost and how much you could win, all the unnecessary details. And when she was finished, a fine dew of sweat on her brow, Angie said, “No, I’ve changed my mind.”

What Angie badly wanted to do was to read the little whoring witch right out in front of everyone. What a scene it would be with little Danny at her side! Just tell Little Miss Saucy Tits what she thought of her in plain terms. Refer to her openly as that part of the female anatomy that you generally reserved for the worst, evil little shrews, the old Cee-U-Next-Tuesday. Which was a word that Angie would not allow herself to say out loud or in mixed company because, dammit, she was from a good family and she was better than that…wasn’t she?

“ I want some cigarettes.”

“ Cigarettes?”

Angie flashed her the dead smile of a window dummy. “Yes, cigarettes.”