Past The Patch Page 9

  Marisa offered Brenda another toe for the kissing.

  Brenda smiled and looked down the road. “Get ready, Lomax. The Fingerbang Quartet is coming, and you are going to pay, you son of a bitch.” Lomax had dressed after his morning shower, tied his shoes, huffing with the effort to reach past a gut that hadn’t been there ten years ago, and then looked at himself in the mirror.

  Christ, he thought. I look like my father. He turned sideways.

  Welcome to Gut City. Then he raised his eyes and looked at his own face.

  There was a time when he avoided his own eyes in the mirror; there had been a hardness there that he really didn’t like. Now that face was gentle.

  Open. Friendly. He smiled, and the smile came easily.

  He patted his gut. A big belly for an easy smile. “Fair trade,” he said, and went downstairs where his rambunctious brood was already running amok, the big screen TV blasting Saturday morning cartoons.

  Lomax went down the hall to the back door. He opened the door and peered through the screen. Lying on a plastic mat Lomax had put down were three prairie dogs, a skunk, and a porcupine. All of the animals looked vital and alive; their necks had been snapped so fast they had not time to react.

  Lomax frowned. Prairie dogs did make a mess of the acreage, and their holes and tunnels were especially dangerous to the horses Lomax kept in the corral, but using the porch as a dumping ground . . . At least they are on the mat, he thought.

  The house was big. Lomax had his bedroom, a den, and a vast bathroom all to himself on the first floor. On the second floor were the girl’s rooms; Claire, Annie and Shae were eleven, twelve and thirteen, and although they all had their own rooms, they usually spent their nights together in one of those rooms. They had been living at Big Sky Estates for a year now, and for these once lonely and abused young girls the thrill of having sisters, even if they were what they called paper-sisters, trumped the thrill of a big bedroom complete with TV, DVD player, and laptop. Despite her young age Claire was the acknowledged master of technology in the house. Annie was the resident girl. She liked nice dresses and fussing with her hair and watching teen dramas on TV. Shae was already mother hen to all the kids, helping Mrs. Mears in the kitchen, making sure the other children had bathed and brushed their teeth, and generally trying to maintain order when the others were getting ramped up over some looming event, as they were late on this Halloween morning.

  On the third floor were rooms for Gary and Lyle and Eddy, although outside of winter Eddy spent most nights on or under the porch. Eddy had been spending more time in his room lately, although he usually slept under the bed, not on it, and he preferred looking out the window or watching shadows on the walls to TV. Eddy was ten. Lyle was nine, and enjoyed watching old black and white movies. Gary was six, and he was happiest with a pencil and paper, drawing whatever came to mind.

  All of the kids had their own rooms, outfitted the same. All of them had been abused in one way or another. They all loved the freedom of the estate; endless miles to roam and no one to fear, and they all loved Lomax.

  Until he took on these kids, Lomax had never been loved. He hadn’t even known what love was until he was forty-five years old. He had been sitting on the big porch at the rear of the house overlooking the back spread of endless open fields, sipping lemonade and enjoying a fresh summer breeze on his face when Eddy came back from his morning run. The boy was wearing nothing but the khaki shorts he called muh britches. He had about twenty pair and from May to October they were all he ever wore.

  “Have fun?” Lomax had asked. Eddy was a tough case and Lomax wanted to give the boy plenty of room with no pressure. Eddy had picked up his water bowl from the bench near Lomax’s rocker, slurped loudly as water trickled down his brown, skinny chest, and then had given Lomax a fierce hug, tucking his shaggy head under Lomax’s chin.

  Now when Lomax looked at his kids he felt strong and weak, protective and proud, and a fluttery something in his stomach made him feel giddy.

  Big Sky’s fourth floor was the cavernous attic, converted into storage rooms, a playroom, and an observatory, with a squat Celestron telescope set up in front of the French doors that led to a widow’s walk.

  There was also a spacious, maze-like basement. Lomax had lived here five years now and he still hadn’t seen all the rooms down there; the original owner of Big Sky had been a bit of a basket case, building room after room underground, expanding far beyond the foundation of the house. There was the laundry room and a caged storage area for valuables and the room holding the massive furnace, and dozens of other halls and tunnels and rooms and cubbyholes.

  Lomax entered the kitchen and said good morning to Shae and Mrs.

  Mears, who were filling cereal bowls, cooking eggs and making toast. Mrs.

  Mears looked at her wristwatch and raised an eyebrow.

  “I slept in because we are celebrating Halloween tonight instead of during the week,” Lomax said.

  Lomax would have preferred to call the woman Sarah, but Mrs. Mears was a strong-willed Texan lady, a widow who was a few years younger than Lomax, patient, attentive, and very proper. She kept house, cooking, cleaning and caring for the kids. She also kept Lomax’s life in order. She had a little three room cottage a half mile to the east on Lomax’s property.

  From what little Lomax had learned she had been a teacher when she was younger, had lost her only child in some unspecified accident, and her husband had committed suicide when his oil venture had gone bust. All of this had happened when she was young. She had been working as a caretaker for young and old ever since and had excellent references.

  “How are the kids, this morning?” Lomax asked her.

  Shae looked over her shoulder and gave him a big smile. She had been born with a cleft palate left uncorrected until Lomax came along. Even after her surgery she had continued to hold one hand over her face until just recently.

  “Annie, Lyle and Claire are in the TV room,” Mrs. Mears said, pointing toward the hallway with a butter knife. “Gary is . . . Gary?”

  “Here,” Gary said softly, his voice coming from behind a big cereal box.

  Lomax walked around the table, seeing the small boy hunched over a sketch pad. The kid had smudges of pencil lead on his fingers and one cheek.

  “My artist-in-residence,” Lomax asked. “What are you drawing?”

  “A horth,” Gary said. “A wild horth.” Apparently this was an important distinction.

  Lomax saw swooping lines, the suggestion of movement and muscle.

  It was more thought than picture, and he was impressed. “Well, that’s just fine,” he said, and Gary gave him a quick grin. Like a secret shared between them. Gary had been almost blind until Lomax paid for corrective surgery and some serious glasses. His parents had money for a wide-screen TV and big shiny SUV, but they let their little boy stumble around their home in a world of ghostly blurs.

  “And Eddy?”

  Mrs. Mears pointed the butter knife in the other direction, the back of the house. “Eddy is outside somewhere, being Eddy.” She gave Lomax the slightest smile.

  Lomax liked that smile. In fact, he liked everything about Mrs. Mears beyond her professional qualities. He guessed she was a couple of years younger than him, and he was just a few years shy of fifty. She was his height, and shapely, with the kind of hourglass figure that might finally be coming back into vogue. Her hair was strawberry blonde, like copper reflecting the sun, and her eyes were a very dark shade of blue.

  “Mr. Lomax?”

  “Yes,” said, startled. A man could spend a lifetime looking in to those eyes. “There are more critters on the back porch,” he said. Lomax was a city boy and he got squeamish dealing with the dead things left outside the back door each morning.

  “I’ll take care of them,” Mrs. Mears said.

  Was she hiding a smile now? Lomax suspected his unwillingness to handle dead things amused her to no end. She had once tried to explain that the kills left on the porch
were offerings; he was the head of the household and was being honored as such. She also said that they were intended as food, and if he wanted she had recipes handed down from her grandmother and knew how to whip up a mean prairie dog stew or porcupine meatballs.

  Lomax had paled when he heard that, and she had laughed.

  “It looks like things are under control here,” he said, looking around the busy kitchen. “I think I’ll help myself to—“

  “Whole wheat toast with just a touch of butter,” Mrs. Mears said to Shae. “Some melon, or berries, and a large glass of orange juice. Decaf, if coffee is necessary. No eggs, no bacon.”

  “Christ,” Lomax said.

  He sat at the table and ate what they served him, reading the morning news on his iPad and watching as the other children came into the kitchen and wolfed down their food, closely watching that crisp bacon shimmering with grease and those perfect fried eggs. The children went back to the TV

  room, ignoring Mrs. Mears’ suggestion that they go play outside and get some fresh air. Lomax chuckled as a seemingly endless volley of you did too—I did not drifted from the other room.

  Two hours later, after checking the markets and writing a few emails while Shae and Mrs. Mears cleaned the kitchen, Lomax stood and stretched.

  For a moment he thought he heard a car coming down the long driveway.

  “That was . . . nice. Not very filling, mind you, but nice.”

  “You’re on a diet, dad,” Shae said with a laugh. “It’s good for you.” Mrs. Mears nodded. “I want to keep you around as long as possible,” she said. “It’s part of my job, of course.”

  Lomax was wondering if the woman was blushing when he heard someone coming up the porch steps in the front of the house. The doorbell rang.

  “Are we expecting any deliveries today?”

  “Not according to my calendar,” Mrs. Mears said.

  Lomax went down the hall, his step almost jaunty. He opened the door with a smile, wondering for a moment why the big woman standing there looked so familiar, and then his good mood vanished in the ether as the woman said his name as if describing something indescribably filthy and clipped him across the face with an automatic pistol.

  “Happy Halloween, motherfucker,” Brenda said.

  Liz hadn’t expected the gun. She knew Brenda was crazy-mean, but she had insisted that they talk to Lomax first, try to reason with him, try to make him see that what he had done was wrong.

  Brenda had looked up at the sun as they started up the steps of the wide porch. “It’s high noon in Payback County,” she had said with a coarse laugh, kicking a carved pumpkin off of the porch.

  Then the door had opened and Brenda made a gun appear from nowhere and lashed out with it.

  Marisa clapped her hands and let out a shout as Brenda pushed Lomax and he stumbled backward, blood running from a nasty cut on his right cheek. She thought Lomax looked fat and soft. She thought this would be easy as she followed Brenda and Liz into the house.

  “Patty, get your ass in here,” Brenda said, and Patty followed, as Patty always did.

  Brenda closed the door.

  A woman stepped into the hall. She was wearing a practical skirt and blouse, and an apron. She stared at the women for a moment.

  “Hey look,” Brenda said with a laugh. “It’s June fuckin Cleav—“ The woman turned and ran, slamming a door shut in her wake.

  Brenda let out a bull roar that filled the hallway. “Get back here you

  cunt!”

  Mrs. Mears grabbed Gary, put his little hand in Shae’s, and gave them a gentle shove toward the TV room. “Get your brothers and sisters down into the basement now. Find a place to hide. There are bad people in the house. Go.”

  She closed the door to the TV room just as the door to the hall was slammed open. A young woman came into the kitchen. She was beautiful, despite the tattoos and the hard look in her eyes.

  “Get out of this house,” Mrs. Mears said.

  “You ain’t in fuckin Kansas no more, bitch,” the woman said.

  “I’m from Texas, you little piece of trash.”

  “You fuck,” Marisa whispered. “I oughta rip that red hair right outta your fuckin head.”

  “Sweetheart, you’d get a lot further in life if you’d let your pretty face do the talking. You are suffering an irreparable deficit of eloquence.”

  “Kick her teeth in, baby,” Brenda said, leading Lomax into the kitchen. “Everyone else, take a seat at the table. Breakfast is served.” Liz and Patty sat down. Brenda shoved Lomax into a chair and sat beside him.

  Marisa stepped closer to Mrs. Mears, who did her damndest to stand her ground. She had to. She had to give the children enough time to get away from these women, whoever they were.

  Marisa reached out and touched a lock of hair that had escaped from Mrs. Mears’ loose braid. “Fuckin color’s probably fake, anyways. Ugly redheaded freak.”

  His head was finally clearing, and when Lomax saw the look on Mrs.

  Mears face he said, “Sarah, don’t—“

  Brenda shouted, “Shut up!”

  “Don’t touch me,” Mrs. Mears said.

  Marisa took something out of her pocket, an honest to God switchblade, and flicked it open. Etched into the shining steel was an image of Christ on the cross.

  “You don’ like being touched?” Marisa asked. With her free hand she squeezed Mrs. Mears’ right breast. “Yo, she’s fuckin stacked,” Marisa said.

  Turning to Lomax she asked, “You hittin this, papi?” Mrs. Mears slapped Marisa’s face. Marisa pushed the woman back against the wall and used the knife to cut off a lock of red hair.

  “I’ll take a bigger souvenir next time if you try doing that again, you stupid bitch.” She shoved the woman toward the table. “Sit fuckin down.” Mrs. Mears sat on Lomax’s other side.

  He was wondering where the children were when an Asian woman spoke up. She was another one of the group who looked familiar. Hell, they all looked familiar.

  “There are a lot of placemats here for just two people.” Mrs. Mears believed in placemats. They helped contain the inevitable mess created by the children.

  Brenda turned the gun on Lomax. “Who else is in the house?”

  “Brenda Creeley,” Lomax said. “I remember you now.” Patty started nibbling on a leftover piece of toast. “Put that down,” Brenda said.

  “And you’re Patty Paulson,” Lomax said. Patty looked away.

  “Mr. Lomax,” Liz said, “We wanted to talk to you about what you did to us in court. We wanted you to hear our side of—

  “Elizabeth Nguyen,” Lomax said. “You gutted a man.” Liz looked hurt.

  Lomax remembered that look as she was sentenced by the judge. He also remembered the coroner’s description of what she had done to her boss.

  She hadn’t simply poked him with the letter opener to ward off his unwanted advances; and chances are that would have worked and she would have gotten off with an assault charge from the man, if any at all. No, she had sawed through layers of the man’s flesh, fat and muscle from the left side of his scrotum, all the way up to his navel. The coroner had testified that the man had bled out fast, but not fast enough to experience excruciating pain.

  Brenda rocked back in her chair, raising it on two legs while she kept the gun on Lomax. She was a big woman and the sturdy wooden chair creaked under her weight.

  “These are nice fucking chairs, lawyer-man. I bet they cost a shitload.”

  She was wearing jeans, work boots, and a flannel shirt under a denim jacket. Her hair was cut very short. She stood and reached into a back pocket. “Good thing I got two of these.” She held up two pairs of handcuffs, tossing one to Marisa. “Cuff June Cleaver to her chair like I do with Ward here. Liz?” Liz stepped close and grimaced when Brenda handed her the gun. “Keep a bead on Lomax. If he tries anything, shoot him.”

  “Hands behind your back,” Brenda said. There was a gap between the frame of the chair back and the backrest.
When Lomax reached back she guided his arms through those gaps and then cuffed his wrists together.

  Marisa watched this, and repeated the procedure with Mrs. Mears.

  “This is your moment of truth, Elizabeth,” Lomax said. His tone was calm and clear. He could have been addressing a jury in one of his patented just between us folks moments. “You can turn that gun on Brenda and Marisa, or you can let them take you down a path that will be dark indeed, and—“

  Brenda stepped in front of Lomax and drove a fist into his gut. “Shut up!”

  Mrs. Mears cried out as if she had been hit. Lomax looked at her and smiled despite the pain. “I guess it’s a good thing I had a light breakfast after all,” he gasped.

  “Gun,” Brenda said to Liz, holding out one hand.

  Liz hesitated, just for a moment, and then gave the automatic to Brenda.

  Brenda turned her own chair around and straddled it, facing Lomax.

  She told Patty to check the other door.

  “Now, tough guy. Who else is in the house?”

  “What a sad creature you are,” Lomax said. He heard Mrs. Mears gasp. He wasn’t trying to be a tough guy. He’d taken two hits and both had hurt like hell. He didn’t want to be hit again, but he wanted the kids to have time to hide in the crazy warren of rooms and corridors down in the basement.

  Brenda only laughed. “This is gonna to be fun.”

  Patty had gone through the door opposite the door they had come in, and now she was back. “There’s cartoons on the TV. And games and stuff in that room.”

  “And there are a lot of dishes and cutlery drying in the dish rack.” Liz said.

  “What,” Brenda said, “Are you two making like ma and pa Walton?” Lomax simply stared at her.

  Marisa reached around Mrs. Mears from behind and squeezed both of the older woman’s breasts this time. “These are nice, considering how old this bitch is. Ain’t no way a buncha babies been sucking on these. I bet Mr.

  Lomax been titty-fucking them though.”

  Brenda glanced at Marisa, clearly annoyed. “Why don’t you let go of her?” Marisa did as told. Brenda laughed again. “I can’t picture Ward here banging away at June, I really can’t, but I guess anything is possible.” Marisa looked at Lomax with loathing. “No way I’d let that cock inside me. Hey, mami, do you let him fuck those titties or do you just lie back and take it for—“