Tony and Susan

FIVE

Susan has no time for more than a passing thought on the appearance of her own name on the page or to remember that this particular Susan was named by Edward, who didn’t have to do that. There’s time only for a moment to savor the melancholy of Bobby’s camp and think of the pervading grief in all summer places, cabins or cottages in the woods or on the shore, Penobscot Bay or the Cape in childhood, Michigan now, which is not just the memory sadness when childhood is over and the place is gone, nor the generic sadness of boarding up the windows, but sadness of the height of the season, of bright sightseeing days as well as foggy ones in the hammock, of August silence, retreat of the birds, the goldenrod, the goodbye in every greeting. The sad vanity of measuring time by summers, eliding winter and the rest of things.

Assert the present. Snow covering the car tracks in the streets. On the ice, arcs and figure eights with shrieks and music under the high roof. Henry lagging along on buckled ankles watching Elaine of Astolat’s fairy ass in her short skirt sail away a hundred miles an hour into the center with the big boys. As the new cycle begins.

Nocturnal Animals 23

So there was Tony Hastings sitting with a gun in Bobby Andes’s camp, watching Ray Marcus on the cot with handcuffed hands in his lap. There was Susan in her red miniskirt in the wicker chair. There was Ingrid Hale fussing in the alcove. Ray was looking at Susan’s legs with a grin on his face. They were waiting for Bobby Andes, wondering what had happened to him. Tony was thinking, what keeps that man prisoner is his belief that I would use this gun to kill him if he tried to get away.

Susan explained herself to Tony and Ray. “I am Bobby’s cousin. When Leslie kicks me out I come here.”

“Come any time you like,” Ray said.

She was conscious of his eyes on her thighs and she looked at him boldly. “Hey mister,” she said. “Who did you kill?”

“I didn’t kill nobody.”

She asked Tony. “Who did he kill?”

“He killed my wife and daughter.”

Her eyes opened. “When did he do that?”

“A year ago.”

She looked again at the man on the cot, who was instantly different, alien or another species. In a whisper as if to pretend he could not hear though of course he could she said, “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Tony said. “I saw him do it.”

He felt shock in the room, and Ray leaned forward. “Why, you’re a liar, mister, and you know it.”

So Tony told his story again, conscious of his real audience at last on the cot, pretending not to hear, but he felt as if too much telling had made it no longer quite true.

She murmured, “How horrible, how horrible for you.” Then, “Are you back to normal now?”

He almost said yes, then saw the gun in his lap, in the dark strange cabin, with Ray across the room, and said, “No.”

“No?”

He thought, I want to murder everyone in this room. No, that’s stupid. He changed his mind. “I’m all right,” he said.

She cheered up. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a professor of mathematics.”

She didn’t have anything to say about mathematics. He asked, “What about you?” He had a notion she was disreputable, maybe a prostitute, and he wondered how she would put it.

“I’m a singer.”

“Really? Where do you sing?”

“Right now there are no openings. I work in the Green Arrow.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a bar,” Ray said.

“It’s a night club,” she said. Ray smirked.

She yawned. “Excuse me,” she said.

“Bobby, Bobby, it’s so late,” Ingrid said. She looked at Susan. “Maybe you should go to bed.”

“Maybe you should all go to bed,” Ray said.

“You want to sleep in the bedroom?” Ingrid asked Susan.

“Sorry I can’t stay, myself,” Ray said. “I got my sweetie waiting for me.”

“Bobby won’t mind?”

“To hell with Bobby,” Ingrid said.

“That’s telling him,” Ray said. “Way to go.”

“I don’t want to take your bed,” Susan said.

“Use the cot,” Ray said. “Sleep here. We won’t mind.” He looked at Tony and grinned. “Will we, Tony?” Tony remembered he hated him.

“Maybe Tony wants to sleep too,” Ray said. “You and Tony want to lie down on the cot? I won’t mind, Ingrid can guard me, okay Ingrid?”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Susan said.

“Come on, baby, I know the girls in the Green Arrow. Sweet chickies. Ain’t they, Susan?”

“Just ignore him,” Ingrid said. She asked Tony, “Do you know if Bobby was planning to put you up for the night?”

“I have a motel,” Tony said.

“I can sleep on the floor if I have to,” Susan said.

“You can sleep on the cot like I said,” Ray said. “With him. You can turn out the lights and go to town. Me and Ingrid won’t mind.”

“You shut up,” Susan said. “For your information, asshole, there aren’t any chickies in the Green Arrow, I’m the only girl there, so you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned to Tony. “Excuse my language. But an asshole is an asshole.”

Ray was restless, squirming in his chair. He kept moving as if to get up, and every time he did that Tony tightened his grip on the gun. He kept thinking about what this power he was supposed to have depended on. One human being with the means to hold another down: this gun, that human being. He thought, Do I remember how to use it? If I had to, could I aim well enough to hit him before he got me? If he gets up and moves around, can I threaten to kill him? And could I actually do it? And if I did it, what would be my legal excuse? The question startled him, he had not thought of it before. Obeying the lieutenant’s orders, if those orders were outside the law? An act of murder to support an act of kidnapping? He thought, Why, I can’t use this gun. I might as well not have it.

Again he thought: the only thing that keeps us safe is, that man doesn’t know what I’m thinking. He still believes I could use it. That’s the difference between him and me. As soon as he finds out, we’re finished.

The dim webby cabin, he could smell the mold in the wood. Abandoned by Bobby Andes into deep trouble, which according to Andes was not trouble but a clever plan, working fine, Tony bystander and beneficiary. The difference between Bobby Andes and him. He thought Thank God for Ingrid. She sees how it is, she’ll back me up. If only Bobby Andes would hurry up.

He thought, maybe we should put those leg irons back on. Maybe he should suggest that to Ingrid. If it was safe to suggest it in Ray’s presence.

So thank God again a moment later when they heard another car and again the light through the window, and the car door, and voices, male and harsh, and gravel footsteps to the front of the cabin. A man with a black beard came in, the lieutenant behind him with his gun. The man with the beard was Lou Bates, Tony told himself, drawing inferences since he did not instantly recognize him. He was slouching because his wrists were handcuffed behind his back.

Lou Bates looked at everyone, trying to figure it out.

“Son of a bitch,” Ray said.

Bobby Andes gestured Lou to sit next to Ray on the cot. He stared at Susan. “What’s this, a goddamn party?”

“Leslie kicked me out again.”

He glared at Ingrid. “Did you invite her?”

“Where the hell have you been, Bobby?”

“I said, Did you invite her?”

“She came because she always comes.”

“Is it all right?” Susan’s voice was high and tiny.

Tony was wondering when Bobby would notice they had freed Ray from his leg irons.

“I had to go to town,” Bobby said. “Had to get him my-self.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t know. I thought George would be on duty. I thought George would bring him out.” He was full of irritation because other people were so stupid.

“This man?” Ingrid said. “Who’s he?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Why couldn’t one of those other guys bring him out?”

“They weren’t going back,” he said. He spoke with the contempt of a man talking to someone who had no business being there. He stood in the middle of the room looking around at the crowd, his face pale and full of disgust. “Jesus, I’m sick.” He sat down on the wicker chair. The look on Ray’s face was watchful and curious. Bobby never did notice Ray’s legs. He calmed down deliberately and looked at Susan. He said, “I’m sorry to be unhospitable but I’m doing some police work here. I wasn’t figuring on visitors.”

“Mr. Policeman—” Ray said.

“I count on you to maintain the confidentiality of what you see. I may have to send you women into the bedroom later on if you don’t mind.”

“Mr. Policeman, can I go to the bathroom?”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeah, shit. That’s right, Mister Policeman, and pretty quick too.”

Bobby snarled. “Get up,” he said. He led Ray out the back. They heard them clumping across the leaves in the back.

Susan looked questioningly at Ingrid and Tony. Ingrid raised her eyebrows. Lou Bates stared at the floor. Finally Susan turned to him. “Can I ask who you are?” she said.

He didn’t answer. She repeated her question, and he still didn’t answer. Tony said, “That’s Lou Bates. He was the other one who killed my wife and daughter.”

Lou raised his eyes and looked gloomily at Tony, then back to the floor. Susan said, “Oh. I think I begin to get it.”

Ingrid had a book. “You better read,” she advised Susan.

After a while Ray and Bobby came back. Ray’s handcuffs were off now. He sat on the cot next to Lou, and Bobby sat in the wicker chair. Ray looked at Ingrid and said pleasantly, “What you need, lady, is more lime out there. It don’t smell too good for the women and children.”

“Shut up,” Bobby said. He turned to Susan and said, “So, can I trust you?” He was finishing the point he had been trying to make before Ray’s shit interrupted him.

“Who, me? Sure, I guess.”

“Hey,” Ray said. “This don’t sound legal to me. All this confidential shit, that don’t sound good at all, mister.”

“Ha,” Bobby said. “You worried about legality, are you?” His lips were the same color as his cheeks, he was breathing heavily, and he grinned. “I told you not to worry about it.” He leaned back in the wicker chair and looked at them as if enjoying the sight.

Tony looked at them too, Ray and Lou, the same Ray and Lou, prisoners here because of him, paying for what they did to him, since what happened last summer in the woods had not ended then but was still unfolding in ways he never imagined.

“Okay you guys,” Bobby said.

“Hey Lou,” Ray said. “What did you tell this guy?”

“I didn’t tell him nothing.”

“He says you implicated me in the murder of this guy’s wife and kid.”

“Shit man, that’s what he told me about you.”

Ingrid Hale clicked her tongue. She turned her back and read her book fiercely.

Ray laughed, meanly. “You think he was trying to play a trick on us, hey?”

Lou looked at Bobby, outraged, shocked. “You’re supposed to be the law, man. What kind of bullshit is that?”

Bobby Andes laughed. “Fuck off,” he said. “You fellas got anything to say to each other?”

“What’s to say? You told us a bunch of lies.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, an officer of the law,” Lou said. He sounded really aggrieved, disillusioned.

“Let that be a lesson to you.”

“What?”

“The lesson is, everybody in this room knows what you done, so it don’t make the slightest bit of fuckin difference who implicates who. I don’t give a shit what you tell me.”

Nobody said anything.

“I know. That’s all I need. Got that?”

Ray said, “So what are we doing here?”

“That’s what you’re doing here.”

“What?”

“Because I know what you done.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You will. I ain’t got anything to lose. Consider that.”

“You threatening us?”

Bobby Andes laughed again. The laugh was sickly and choked and nasty. “I’m dying of cancer but I expect you to die first.”

“Don’t take it out on us, man.”

“We’re going to have a party.”

Ray looked uneasy now, uneasy. “Man, you better watch it,” he said.

“Tell you something, babies. You thought you were free, Ray, but look at you now. Here you are. Imagine that. Jeeze I feel sorry for you.”

No answer.

Bobby Andes stretched himself, as if he had a belly ache, a kink in his middle. “You’re gonna be kind of sorry you bothered a guy with womenfolks in a car. You may prefer to die, guys. You’re kind of like garbage, you know, you kind of stink. Skunks, yeah, that’s you. Not exactly live skunks, more like dead skunks.” He was twisting and twisting.

Tony Hastings was embarrassed though Bobby was speaking for him, saying what he thought Tony was thinking. But Bobby was ill.

“What’s the matter, Bobby?” Ingrid said.

He looked at Ray Marcus and said, “Have you ever had the stomach flu? Have you ever had the stomach flu on top of cancer of the insides?”

Ingrid whispered, “Bobby?”

Bobby Andes to Ray Marcus: “Don’t you grin at me you fucking bastard.”

Ingrid to Bobby: “Maybe you ought to lie down a while, Bobby?”

Bobby Andes to Lou Bates, “You’re dead, you son a bitch.”

Ingrid touched Bobby’s shoulder.

“You ever had a bullet in your gut?”

He took deep breaths. She brought a wet washrag and put it on his forehead. “Ah shit,” he said. He shoved it aside and turned to Tony.

“I’m thinking of killing them now,” he said.

“Killing them?” Jolt for Tony, the two men too, who stiffened.

“I ain’t quite made up my mind. Do it now or catch them by surprise later on. You know what the law demands. They think they can lawyer their way out of it, but on that point they’re mistaken, the death sentence has been passed, it’s only a question of when it will be executed.” He looked at Ray and Lou. “You know the meaning of that word, don’t you, guys? ‘Executed,’ it means carried out, like when they carry out the body after the electric chair. I wish I could tell you your mode of execution, Ray my man, because it’s much worse not to know, but I’m afraid I can’t.” To Tony again as if to explain, while the two men listened. “You see, if I let them go, it’ll be rough on these poor guys, not knowing how it will come. The police are all around, they have a busy schedule of work. Ray could get killed resisting arrest, for instance. Or breaking into a jewelry store with some guy he thought was his pal. Coming home to his house late at night, he might get shot by a burglar in the kitchen. Who knows? No telling who you can trust, no telling at all.”

“Be careful mister, you got witnesses in this room.”

“You talking about my ladies, man? They know what they’re seeing, don’t you, gals?”

All for Tony’s sake, who felt irrationally ashamed, wondering what Bobby Andes hoped to gain by this scary talk. Wondering how Bobby knew it wouldn’t blow his case against Ray Marcus in any court of law.

Lou with his wrists handcuffed behind him was twisting his shoulders back and forth. “Feeling uncomfortable, son?” Bobby said. He went over, unlocked him, patted him on the shoulder, fatherly. Now both men had their hands free, with Bobby grinning at them through his sickness.

He went back to his chair. Conversational, to Tony: “I’ve been making a study of torture.”

Tony heard Ingrid breathing.

“These guys are good at it, I hear,” Bobby said. “But they’re amateurs. I’ve been studying legal torture. What governments use, which is more efficient than private torture, like what guys like these here perform on women and children.”

“You’ll pay,” Ray murmured.

The possibility hit Tony, if Bobby had actually given up on a legal solution, if he really was intending to execute his own remedies. Which made Tony wonder what to do if that were the case. If he should intervene—if he had ever intervened in anything in his whole life. To intervene he would have to know what he was trying to stop. Tough talk, aggressive police work? Bluster, intimidation, psychological tactics. What would he propose instead?

“In government torture,” Bobby said, “there’s supposed to be a purpose. The purpose is to get a confession. That’s what they have to say, the ostensible purpose. Do you guys know what ostensible means? The real purpose is different. The real purpose is to make them wish they was dead.”

The trouble with intervening was that Bobby was riding a plan like a horse, and no cautious question about legality or charity could stop him now.

“Nobody gives a shit about confession. The great thing about torture, it gives you a maximum awareness of your natural instinctive death wish. How’s that for a definition, Tony?”

So Tony said, “Bobby.”

“What?”

Tony didn’t know. If Bobby was merely talking, Tony would feel like a jackass.

“What should we do with them, Tony?”

“I don’t know.”

Bobby Andes was thinking it over. He looked at his gun, weighed it, picked it up and aimed it experimentally at Ray’s head. Ray ducked, then sat straight. Bobby Andes cocked and uncocked it, aimed again, put it down. He looked a long time at Ray and Lou and Lou and Ray and then got up. He winked at Ray and handed his gun to Ingrid. “Here, hold this.” She handed it back and went into the kitchen alcove. He handed it to Susan, who held it in her fingertips with astonishment. He went to the back and opened the closet door and squatted down, looking for something on the floor.

Ray leaned back on the cot with his hands behind his head while Lou sat on the edge, and Tony with his gun in the straight chair watched. Ray snickered. “You scared, Lou?” he said. He tickled Lou in the ribs. “Cut the fuck that out,” Lou said.

“He ain’t nice, that man of yours. He’s gonna get in big trouble when he grows up,” Ray said. He watched Bobby’s back as he put his old fishing tackle box on the table in the alcove.

In the other wicker chair the girl named Susan, who had no last name, handling Bobby’s gun as if it were a turd, was trying to keep its cold metal from touching her bare white thighs. In the alcove Ingrid was banging around. “I didn’t know I was going to guard a prisoner,” Susan said.

They watched Bobby take something out of the tackle box and hold it up, examining it. He got up and took a rusty sickle out of the closet, felt the edge, put it back and brought what looked like an old automobile battery back to the table. Seated with his back turned, he held up a long piece of wire. He cut something with his knife, then held up the wire to make a loop, then leaned over and scraped something metallic with his pocket knife. He had fishhooks and pieces of wire scattered around him, and Tony could not see what he was doing.

Ingrid was sloshing water in the sink. They heard the tin dishes bang. Susan squeaked. The gun had slid onto her thighs. “I wonder if I could use this thing if I had to,” she said.

Ray sat up.

“It’s a pretty dangerous weapon,” he said. “You gotta be careful how you handle something like that.”

Ray was thinking about something, Tony could see that. He was looking at Lou trying to communicate, but Lou sitting there gloomy didn’t notice. Bobby glanced around, then back to his work. Bent over the table he made a grinding sound.

“Can I go to the potty?” Ray said.

“You just went.”

Ray got up. “Watch it,” Tony said.

“It’s okay, okay, just stretching my legs.” He went to look at the magazine pictures tacked on the wall.

“Sit down,” Tony said.

“Aw jeez, I need to exercise.”

“Sit down.”

“Yes boss.” He sat down.

At the table in the alcove Bobby turned around and looked at them. He had a knife and a pair of wires in his hand. He turned back to his work.

“Better do what the man says,” Bobby said, his back turned.

Ray said, “Did you ever shoot one of them things?”

Tony did not want to answer.

“I bet you never did.” He was talking quietly, but not too quietly for Bobby to hear.

“Hey Tony. If you shot me what excuse would you use?”

“That’s my problem, not yours.”

“This ain’t the law, this is kidnapping. If you shoot me that ain’t a police action, that’s murder.”

Tony chilled, what he had hoped would not occur to Ray. Which would take the gun away from him. He wished Bobby would finish what he was doing.

“Where do you teach, professor?” Ray said. He got up again. “Let’s go, Lou.”

“What?” Lou said.

There was Ray, moving around to the side, along the wall toward the door, “Let’s go, move it!”

Lou looked at Ray, blankly.

“Sit down,” Tony said. “Bobby!”

“Come on you jackass, it’s time to go,” Ray said.

Tony jumped up. He tried to cock the gun and block Ray from the door. In the alcove he saw Bobby Andes stand up in the shadow. “Shoot him, Tony,” Bobby Andes said.

“Let’s go, let’s go.”

“You crazy, man? That’s a gun he’s got.”

“Move man, move.”

Standing in front of the door, Tony got the gun up and pointed it. “Stop. Halt!” he said, while Ray came right at him, and he ducked aside because he was afraid Ray would grab the gun out of his hands. When Lou saw that he jumped up too, and Susan screamed.

The door caught Ray, who fumbled with the catch and broke out. Now Bobby moved, Tony saw him rush forward, grab Susan’s hand, heard him say, “Gimme that,” saw the inner door slam into Lou’s face, heard Ray’s feet running off the screened porch, saw Lou push the door out of his way and run, and Bobby rushing by Tony, shoving him aside and shouting, “Now I got you, bastards.” Then a great explosion just outside the door threw all his perceptions into chaos.

A bomb, he thought, thinking the cardboard ceiling would collapse. He saw the faint blue smoke, smelled the powder, saw the gun in Bobby Andes’s hand held up as he jumped off the step running after Lou. That was Susan who was screaming. He saw her, she had picked up a carving knife, while Ingrid held the dishpan full of soapy water cocked and ready to throw.

Outside another explosion, then another. He ran out to the porch, saw the man standing on the path with hands extended aiming the gun, looked and saw one man running along the river’s edge. One more shot while the man kept going and disappeared down the path by the river, behind the trees. Then Tony noticed the other man lying on the grass near the river.

There was Susan on the porch beside him, gasping, and Ingrid wiping her hands on a towel. There was Bobby Andes on the path, small and fat, tucking in his shirt. He was looking down the river to the woods, where the man had escaped.

“Get the keys,” he said. “We gotta catch that guy.”

“Wait, Bobby,” Ingrid said.

Tony’s car keys were in his pocket. The man on the grass was Lou. He was groaning, trying to get up, his hands on the ground, but he couldn’t make it. He was looking at them, calling. “Somebody help me, please.”

Ingrid went into the house and came back with a towel. Bobby Andes was staring down the river or thinking.

“I’m hurt, man,” Lou said.

“It’s no use,” Bobby said. “We’ll get him later.” He looked at Tony. “Christ. Why didn’t you shoot him?”

A quick answer jumped into his head, “That’s your job,” but he couldn’t say it and couldn’t think of anything else instead. With the towel in her hands, Ingrid went out across the grass to where Lou lay. “Stay away from there,” Bobby said.

“He’s injured. We’ve got to look at him.”

“Get back here.”

“Snap out of it, Bobby, and get dressed. We’ve got to take him to the hospital.”

“Be quiet.”

“He could die while we wait.”

Transfixed, thinking about something. Suddenly Bobby Andes moved. “Stand back,” he said. He walked over to Lou and shot him in the head.

One of the women said, “Mother of God.”

Go back over that. There was Lou on the ground, sobbing from the pain, looking with pleading at Bobby Andes striding toward him like a soldier. There was the executioner’s gun pointing at him, the shocked face and the man hiding his head in his arms trying to roll away. Then the explosion and the body like a jumping bean, falling back with a kick of the legs, then limp.

Susan cried like a child.

There was Bobby, nudging Lou, who would have to be dead, leaning over to look at him, then back at the others on the porch or at something above their heads. He raised his gun, pointed it at them, and fired again. The wild shriek of total terror was Susan, running inside.

“Shut up,” Bobby said, “I’m not shooting at you.”

He held his belly as he hobbled back to them, leaning over, gun hanging in his hand. “Go on in,” he said. “You look like a bunch of idiots.”

Wherever he was aiming that last shot, what he actually hit must have been the door spring, which was hanging loose and vibrating next to a torn piece of screen.