Marie-Helene Bertino - Safe as Houses

“What’s ‘posit?’” he says.

“It’s a fancy-ass word for question, Mars.”

He scratches his ankle again. “And is consternation some kind of pervert thing?”

“Just leave the money there, Mars. Leave it right effing there.”

“You want to ask someone a question, why don’t you just say question?” Mars sighs and produces a flask from his jumpsuit. “I have a headache.” He takes a long, rueful drink.

I remember a comment Jill hurled to the friend about a wine cellar. “Basement,” I say to Mars.

We find the door to the wine cellar in the kitchen. Jake the dog, whose eyes are like popcorn , is back, yelping and sputtering and getting in our way.

“Fucking dog,” Mars growls. I smell the spice of rum. Had he been smeared with diesel grease and walking late into my class, he would have been indistinguishable from my students.

Craig Anderson has racks of pompous-looking California reds and whites. I start with the whites. I don’t know anything about wine. They all sound the same when they hit the floor, which begins to look like a Jackson Pollock. I would say this to Mars but I’m certain there would be an explanation involved and I am suddenly overtaken by a spasm of yawning. I sit the rest of it out. Mars smashes and poses, smashes and poses. Jill’s thong hangs from his back pocket, a red grin.

He hands me the last bottle, a Spanish white, so I can do the honors. Instead, I place it on the empty racks.

“A watermark. Making the others pale in comparison, becoming the reference point for everything else.”

Mars says, “Do you two want to be alone?”

I turn to him, newly surprised by his slovenly appearance.

“Question.” He screws and unscrews the top of his flask. “We’re tearing around all bionic, destroying dolls and shit. To teach them to appreciate the stuff they don’t appreciate? Why don’t you steal what they do care about? Steal their stereos and money so they learn to pay attention to their love letters, or whatever.”

I say, “You don’t understand. The specific nature of…”

Mars shakes his head, sucks from the flask again.

Now we both stare at the bottle. After a moment, Mars says, “These people didn’t kill your wife, man.”

I let out a massive sigh that takes longer than I think it will. “I don’t think the weights I’m using are working.”

He takes another drink, thinks about it. “You’re probably not doing enough cardio.”

…

Back in the Andersons’ kitchen, I do a mental survey. Refrigerator, records, wine bottles: have we forgotten anything?

Jake the dog has lost interest in us and laps water out of his bowl. Mars and I register him at the same time. “All we have to do is shoot the dog and we’re through.”

I am joking.

Mars pulls the gun out of his pants. “Good call.”

“No.” I use my biggest voice. “We don’t do anything with the dog.”

“This wasn’t as much fun as I thought it’d be,” he says, and aims.

…

Anna kissed me whenever we left each other and whenever we, after being apart for even an hour, met up. That day I stood next to the car as she adjusted the driver’s seat and rearview mirror to take into account our differences. Ramon had an abscess on his cheek, a bump I figured would heal by itself. Anna reiterated: it was always better safe than sorry as far as the cat was concerned. I stopped listening in anticipation of her certain, thrilling kiss. Finally she delivered it to my bottom lip. I gave the roof of the car two protective slaps, then watched as she reversed into the street. She was hit by a bus of Fresh Air kids, whose driver didn’t know that in that area of the state driveways spring up like wild violets. I ran. The kids were bellowing out the windows. The cat carrier on the dotted yellow line, swiveling like a nickel.

…

Before I can stop him, Mars pulls the trigger and a bullet goes into the rump of Jake the dog, whose breath smells like bacon and friendship. The dog makes a muted sound and collapses.

“What the fuck?” I startle us both with my volume.

Mars smoothes back a piece of hair. “That’s the point of all of this, right?” His eyes are bright. He is happy.

My hands shake. “You shot the dog.”

“Chillax.”

Chillax, I think. The dog is dead. Pomeranian finito. The Anderson family will come home with tan lines. The dog will still be dead. Jill will cry. Craig will trim his mustache, then die. No one will learn anything. Maria will go to art college and compare sob stories with girlfriends who will say, I hate my calves , and Maria will say, An English professor broke in to my house, desecrated my room, and shot my dog . In the losing game, Maria will always win. Because of me. The dog is dead. Chillax. Chill and relax. Hybrid.

We hear a wheezing sound and turn. Jake’s eyes are open. He lies on the linoleum, stiff, staring out with an unfocused gaze. He tries to raise his head when I kneel next to him but pain halts him.

Mars grunts. “It must have grazed him.”

I stand and lift the receiver of Jill Anderson’s kitchen phone. The dial tone is strong, unwavering.

Mars panics. “Who are you calling? Why are we waiting?” He consults the windows to check if the neighbors have heard the sound of a gun in the middle of the otherwise peaceful Wednesday afternoon.

“Let’s go.” He pulls the arm of my jumpsuit.

A voice answers after two rings. “Nine-one-one-this-is-Theodora-what-is-your-emergency?”

“I’d like to report a robbery,” I say. “And a shooting. A robbery and a shooting.”

Mars’s enormous jaw goes slack.

I give her the information, respelling the name of the street. When it comes to the matter of who I am, there is no reason to be coy. “I’m the robber.”

Theodora says she’s never fielded a call made by the perpetrator of the crime and would it be okay for her to get her manager?

“Theodora,” I say. “Hurry up.”

Mars paces in front of the bare refrigerator. “I ain’t goin’ to jail for this,” he says.

“I’m not going to jail for this.”

He throws up his hands. “Then let’s get the fuck out of here!”

A voice comes on the other end — pert, breath-minty. “This is the manager. Can I ask with whom I am speaking?”

“Sometimes they call me the keepsake klepto, the swindler of sentiment. Send someone who knows about animals. A dog has been shot.” I replace the receiver and face Mars.

“You can do what you want,” I say. “But this is over for me. I’m sorry I cursed at you, but you don’t shoot the effing dog.”

Mars looks shocked. “I thought that’s what we were doing here!”

“You don’t… shoot… the effing… dog.”

A moment passes. Except for the small motor of Jake’s breathing, the house is quiet as a wish.

“I feel bad for you,” he says. “You’re so—”

“Fancy-ass?” I say.

He shakes his head. “Ineffectual.”

The last I see of Mars are the red panties hanging from his back pocket, the final part of him to make it over the Andersons’ vigorously landscaped bushes. Then there is the new horror of a neighbor’s barking retriever, sprinting the length of fence next to him before finding with a sharp pop the end of its chain. Mars disappears. The retriever thinks about it, quiets.

There is nothing to do but wait. I retrieve the watermark Chardonnay from the basement and pour myself a glass.

Blood blooms in the fur near Jake’s tail.

I squat next to him against the cold wall. “Magic dog.”

I turn the glass in my hand. I don’t know what to look for but I’d bet it is a good wine — fruity or woody or mossy or whatever. Even Anna would have appreciated wine like this, though she would have had nothing but disdain for a man who keeps bottles of it loaded like torpedoes in his basement.