The Survivor

Chapter 25

Cielle’s scream shattered Nate’s sleep, and he bolted up from the couch, slamming his knee into the coffee table. For a moment he had no bearings-apartment or house? nightmare or real? — but then he snapped to awareness, clawing his way past the furniture toward the stairs.

Casper followed him up, two steps at a time, lunging as if fording water. Janie swung out of the master, nearly colliding with Nate at the landing, and then parents and dog were hurtling toward Cielle’s door. They found her backed as far as she could get from the window, turned sideways as if trying to burrow through the wall.

“What is it?”

“Are you okay?”

Cielle was shuddering beneath her T-shirt and boxers. A fall of dark hair covered one eye, the other wide and glossy. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She lifted a hand and pointed to the window.

Shoulders lowered, Casper slunk four steps toward the window and issued a growl seemingly too low even for his deep chest. Janie moved to Cielle and Nate toward the bare pane, setting each foot down slowly, heel to toe. He paused beside the dog, who hummed with menace, a stone grinder rumbling.

Four more cautious steps brought Nate to the sill. There lay the front yard, twin ellipses of mowed grass split by the snake of the front walk. The sturdy magnolia, its wrinkled, elephantine trunk dark with rain. Planters brimming with subdued lavender and juniper. And beyond, the wide street, the friendly facades of Craftsmen and Cape Cods looking on, observers at a parade. This panorama he knew in his bones, each lineament traced in memory, the curves and shapes of a cherished photograph. Comfort exemplified.

Except.

A dark figure stood centered on the patch of grass directly beneath Cielle’s window. From the shadowed head, huffs of cigarette smoke rose, beaten flat by the rain. The face tilted up at the window. Legs confidently spaced. The man did nothing more than stand and smoke, but his presence there, at this hour, was invasive, horrifying. Large boots sank into the saturated sod-sod Nate himself had rolled onto the primed soil a few months after moving in. The sight pinballed around his insides, striking nerves at random, playing fears too primal to be named.

“I got up to pee and…” Cielle’s words flared off.

“What is it?” Janie’s breaths were audible.

Keeping his gaze locked on the dark oval of a face, Nate said, “Yuri.”

The phone’s ring sounded like a scream, scaring Cielle into a yelp. After the second ring, Nate found his legs again and unburied the cordless from a sea of decorative pillows on the futon.

Mrs. Alizadeh’s voice seemed to arrive from a different dimension.

“No, no,” Nate said, moving back to the window. “Everything’s okay. Yes, it’s me. I’m back at the house again.” Across the street, through the diaphanous silk of the old woman’s bedroom curtains, he could make out her silhouette, down to the apprehensive curl of her shoulders. The two of them, like prisoners on their respective second floors, terrorized by a man on a lawn. The ridiculousness of this broke through his alarm, fired the breath in his throat. “It’s probably just some lookie-loo, tracked me down after the whole bank thing. You heard about the bank thing?”

“No,” Mrs. Alizadeh said. “I did not.”

“Better just to ignore whoever it is,” Nate said.

“He’s scaring me. I will call 911.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I do not like this, Mr. Overbay.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Nate said.

He hung up, threw the phone at the futon, and started for the door.

“You’re going out there?” Cielle asked.

“Lock the door behind me.”

Janie and Cielle followed him down. Stepping onto the porch, he waited for the thud of the dead bolt; seconds later two worried faces appeared in the living-room window.

His bare feet squished in the grass. The form waited patiently as Nate neared, the face becoming recognizable by degrees in the dim light.

“Get the fuck off my lawn.”

“It is not even your lawn anymore.” The cigarette flared orange. “Pavlo will watch you and your family as he please. Through my eyes or through someone else.”

Rain spit at them. Nate lifted his eyes past the big man’s shoulders to Mrs. Alizadeh’s perch by her upstairs window. She drew back slightly at his movement. Yuri’s gaze ticked left past Nate, no doubt taking in Janie and Cielle. Two men squaring off on an unlit stage of grass, a can’t-look-away spectacle. The wetness brought up the scent of the night-blooming jasmine. One wrong move and violence would explode here in the perfumed air of Santa Monica.

“You’re scaring the neighbors. Someone’ll call the cops.”

“We don’t worry about police. You must worry about police.” The cigarette bounced at the brink of Yuri’s mouth, a prop from a black-and-white movie. “You must pray we stay free men. If you let us get taken in by police, well…” His lips clamped the cigarette and curled up at the edges. The loglike arms made a slashing gesture, the fists gripping the handle of an imaginary rescue saw.

“Get off my property,” Nate said. “Let me do the job you need me to do.”

“No, I think I will stay awhile. Finish my cigarette.” Yuri splayed a hand toward the house. “Go back to your beautiful women.”

Nate took a step forward, and Yuri stiffened ever so slightly, a gathering beneath his great dark coat. Standing ready, he made a scolding noise through pursed lips, a ticking of the tongue.

Nate’s breath clouded about his face. He let the rain dampen his temper. Let it sizzle the rage until it was safe to move. To retreat.

Walking back, he kept his eyes trained on Janie and Cielle, their faces disembodied behind the pane. When he reached the porch, he finally turned.

The front yard, empty.

A cigarette butt smoldered in the wet blades, a last gasp before it was extinguished by the needling rain.