T. Boyle - T. C. Boyle Stories

Ellis didn’t answer. He was thinking of the masked intruder — the maniac disguised as the President — and of his own children, whose heedless squeals of joy came to him like hosannas from the swingset out back. He’d been a fool, he saw that now. How could he have thought, even for a minute, that they’d be safe out here in the suburbs? The world was violent, rotten, corrupt, seething with hatred and perversion, and there was no escaping it. Everything you worked for, everything you loved, had to be locked up as if you were in a castle under siege.

“I wonder what they did to her,” Hilary said.

“Who?”

“The woman — the one with the cigarette lighter. I heard they burn their initials into you.”

Yes, of course they did, he thought — why wouldn’t they? They sold crack in the elementary schools, pissed in the alleys, battered old women for their Social Security checks. They’d cleaned out Denny Davidson while he was in the Bahamas and ripped the stereo out of Phyllis Steubig’s Peugeot. And just last week they’d stolen two brand-new Ironcast aluminum garbage cans from the curb in front of the neighbors’ house — just dumped the trash in the street and drove off with them. “What do you think, Hil?” he said. “We can still get out of it.”

“I don’t care what it costs,” she murmured, her voice drained of emotion. “I won’t be able to sleep till it’s in.”

Ellis crossed the room to gaze out on the sun-dappled backyard. Mifty and Corinne were on the swings, pumping hard, lifting up into the sky and falling back again with a pure rhythmic grace that was suddenly so poignant he could feel a sob rising in his throat. “I won’t either,” he said, turning to his wife and spreading his hands as if in supplication. “We’ve got to have it.”

“Yes,” she said.

“If only for our peace of mind.”

Giselle was pretty good with directions — she had to be, in her business — but still she had to pull over three times to consult her Thomas’ Guide before she found the next address on her list. The house was in a seedy, run-down neighborhood of blasted trees, gutted cars, and tacky little houses, the kind of neighborhood that just made her blood boil — how could people live like that? she wondered, flicking off the tape in disgust. Didn’t they have any self-respect? She hit the accelerator, scattering a pack of snarling, hyenalike dogs, dodged a stained mattress and a pair of overturned trash cans and swung into the driveway of a house that looked as if it had been bombed, partially reconstructed, and then bombed again. There has to be some mistake, she thought. She glanced up and caught the eye of the man sitting on the porch next door. He was fat and shirtless, his chest and arms emblazoned with lurid tattoos, and he was in the act of lifting a beer can to his lips when he saw that she was peering at him from behind the frosted window of her car. Slowly, as if it cost him an enormous effort, he lowered the beer can and raised the middle finger of his free hand.

She rechecked her list. 7718 Picador Drive. There was no number on the house in front of her, but the house to the left was 7716 and the one to the right 7720. This was it, all right. She stepped out of the car with her briefcase, squared her shoulders, and slammed the door, all the while wondering what in god’s name the owner of a place like this would want with an alarm system. These were the sort of people who broke into houses — and here she turned to give the fat man an icy glare — not the ones who had anything to protect. But then what did she care? — a sale was a sale. She set the car alarm with a fierce snap of her wrist, waited for the reassuring bleat of response from the bowels of the car, and marched up the walk.

The man who answered the door was tall and stooped — mid-fifties, she guessed — and he looked like a scholar in his wire-rims and the dingy cardigan with the leather elbow patches. His hair was the color of freshly turned dirt and his eyes, slightly distorted and swimming behind the thick lenses, were as blue as the skies over Oklahoma. “Mr. Coles?” she said.

He looked her up and down, taking his time. “And what’re you supposed to be,” he breathed in a wheezy humorless drawl, “the Avon Lady or something?” It was then that she noticed the nervous little woman frozen in the shadows of the hallway behind him. “Everett,” the woman said in a soft, pleading tone, but the man took no notice of her. “Or don’t tell me,” he said, “you’re selling Girl Scout cookies, right?”

When it came to sales, Giselle was unshakable. She saw her opening and thrust out her hand. “Giselle Nyerges,” she said, “I’m from SecureCo? You contacted us about a home security system?”

The woman vanished. The fat man next door blew into his fist and produced a rude noise and Everett Coles, with a grin that showed too much gum, took her hand and led her into the house.

Inside, the place wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. Kmart taste, of course, furniture made of particle board, hopelessly tacky bric-a-brac, needlepoint homilies on the walls, but at least it was spare. And clean. The man led her through the living room to the open-beam kitchen and threw himself down in a chair at the Formica table. A sliding glass door gave onto the dusty expanse of the backyard. “So,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

“First I want to tell you how happy I am that you’re considering a SecureCo home security system, Mr. Coles,” she said, sitting opposite him and throwing the latches on her briefcase with a professional snap. “I don’t know if you heard about it,” she said, the conspiratorial whisper creeping into her voice, “but just last week they found a couple — both retirees, on a fixed income — bludgeoned to death in their home not three blocks from here. And they’d been security-conscious too — deadbolts on the doors and safety locks on the windows. The killer was this black man — a Negro — and he was wearing a lifelike mask of President Reagan … Well, he found this croquet mallet …”

She faltered. The man was looking at her in the oddest way. Really, he was. He was grinning still — grinning as if she were telling a joke — and there was something wrong with his eyes. They seemed to be jerking back and forth in the sockets, jittering like the shiny little balls in a pinball machine. “I know it’s not a pleasant story, Mr. Coles,” she said, “but I like my customers to know that, that …” Those eyes were driving her crazy. She looked down, shuffling through the papers in her briefcase.

“They crowd you,” he said.

“Pardon?” Looking up again.

“Sons of bitches,” he growled, “they crowd you.”

She found herself gazing over his shoulder at the neat little needlepoint display on the kitchen wall: SEMPER FIDELIS; HOME SWEET HOME; BURN, BABY, BURN.

“You like?” he said.

Burn, Baby, Burn?

“Did them myself.” He dropped the grin and gazed out on nothing. “Got a lot of time on my hands.”

She felt herself slipping. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go at all. She was wondering if she should hit him with another horror story or get down to inspecting the house and writing up an estimate, when he asked if she wanted a drink.

“Thank you, no,” she said. And then, with a smile, “It’s a bit early in the day for me.”

He said nothing, just looked at her with those jumpy blue eyes till she had to turn away. “Shit,” he spat suddenly, “come down off your high horse, lady, let your hair down, loosen up.”

She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, shouldn’t we have a look around so I can assess your needs?”

“Gin,” he said, and his voice was flat and calm again, “it’s the elixir of life.” He made no move to get up from the table. “You’re a good-looking woman, you know that?”