Деннис Лихэйн – Mystic River / Таинственная река (страница 6)

“You see these chicks?” Stanley the Giant said, and Dave looked up and saw two girls standing on the bar, dancing, as a third friend sang. The one on the right… Dave had known her since she was a little girl – Katie Marcus, Jimmy and poor dead Marita's daughter, now the stepdaughter of his wife's cousin Annabeth, but looking all grown up. Watching her dance and laugh, her blond hair over her face, Dave felt a black hope, and it didn't come from nowhere. It came from her. It was radiated from her body to his, from the sudden recognition when her eyes met his and she smiled and gave him a little wave that brushed against his heart.

Dave watched Katie, remembering his glory days. Dave Boyle. Baseball star. Pride of the Flats for three short years. No one thinking of him as that kid who'd been abducted when he was ten anymore. No, he was a local hero. Pretty girls in his bed. Fate on his side.

Dave Boyle. Not knowing then how short futures could be. How quickly they could disappear, leaving you with nothing, with no surprises, with no reason for hope, nothing but dull days.

I will not dream anymore, you said. No more pain. But then you saw a dancing girl who looked like a woman you'd dated in high school – a woman you'd loved and lost – and you said. To hell with it, let's dream just one more time.

When Celeste Boyle had been a teenager, she'd been sure someone would come and take her away from the problems they had in her family. She wasn't bad-looking. She had a good personality, knew how to laugh. She thought it should happen. Problem was, even though she met a few men, they weren't good enough for her. Mostly they were from Buckingham, Point or Flat punks, and one guy from uptown. Her ill mother's health insurance was out, and quite soon Celeste started working simply to try and pay the monstrous medical bills for her mother's monstrous diseases.

It had been Dave who Celeste had chosen. He was goodlooking and funny and calm. When they'd married, he'd had a good job, running the mail room, and later he got another on the loading docks of a downtown hotel and never complained about it. Dave, in fact, never complained about anything and almost never talked about his childhood before high school, which had only begun to seem strange to her in the year since her mother had died. It had been a stroke that had finally done the job, Celeste coming home from the supermarket to find her mother dead.

In the months after the funeral, Celeste comforted herself with the thoughts that at least things would be easier now. But it hadn't worked out that way. Dave's job paid about the same as Celeste's and she would look sadly at the financial crisis in their lives – the bills they'd be paying off for years, the lack of money coming in, the new mountain of bills for schooling Michael, and the destroyed credit.

Sometimes, Celeste found herself sitting on the toilet, trying not to cry and wondering how her life had gotten here. That's what she was doing at three in the morning, early Sunday, when Dave came in with blood all over him.

He seemed shocked to find her there. He jumped back when she stood up.

She gasped, “Honey, what happened?”

“I got cut.”

“Dave, Jesus Christ. What happened?”

He lifted the shirt and Celeste stared at a long cut along his ribs that was bloody red.

“Jesus, you have to go to the hospital.”

“No, no,” he said. “Look, it's not that deep. It's just bleeding like hell.”

He was right. On a second look, she noticed it wasn't that bad. But it was long. And it was bloody. Though not enough to explain all the blood on his shirt and neck.

“Who did this?”

“Some junkie psycho,” he said, and took off the shirt. “The guy tried to mug me. That's when he cut me, and then…” He paused to drink some tap water. “I freaked.[22] I mean, I freaked seriously, babe. I think I might've killed this guy.”

“You what…?”

“I just went crazy when I felt the knife in my side. You know? I knocked him down, got on top of him, and, baby, I exploded.”

“So it was self-defense?”

“I don't think the court would see it that way, tell you the truth.”

“I can't believe this. Honey, tell me exactly what happened.”

“I'm walking to my car,” he said, and Celeste sat back on the closed toilet as he knelt in front of her, “and this guy comes up to me, asks me for a light. I say I don't smoke.”

Celeste nodded.

“So, my heart starts beating fast right then. Because there's no one around but me and him. And that's when I see the knife and he says, 'Your wallet or your life. I'm leaving with one of them.'”

“That's what he said?”

Dave leaned back. “Yeah. Why?”

“Nothing.” Celeste was thinking it just sounded funny for some reason, too clever maybe, like in the movies.

“So… so then,” Dave said, “I'm like, 'Come on, man. Just let me get in my car and go home,' which was dumb because now he wants my car keys, too. And I just, I don't know, honey, I get mad instead of scared. And I try to get past him and that's when he pushes and cuts me.” He kissed her hand. “So, uh, he pushes me against the car and cuts me, and I feel the knife going through my skin and I, I just go crazy. I hit him in the side of the head with my fist, and I hit again, like the side of his neck. And he falls. And I jump on him, and, and, and…”

Dave stared into space, his mouth still open.

“What?” Celeste asked, still trying to see the whole picture. “What did you do?”

Dave looked at her knees. “I went nuts on him, babe. I might've killed him for all I know. I was so mad and so scared and all I could think about was you and Michael and how I might not have come home alive, like I could've died in some parking lot.” He looked in her eyes and said it again: “I might've killed him, honey.”

Dave needs me now, Celeste thought. And at that moment she realized why she was bothered: he never complained. When you complained to someone, you were, in a way, asking for help, asking for that person to fix what troubled you. But Dave had never needed her before, so he'd never complained, not after lost jobs. But now, kneeling before her, saying that he may have killed a man, he was asking her to tell him it was all right. And it was. Wasn't it? You tried to mug an honest man, and if it didn't go the way you planned, then too bad you might have died.

She kissed her husband's forehead. “Baby,” she whispered, “you take a shower. I'll take care of your clothes.” “What are you going to do with them?”

She had no idea. Burn them? Sure, but where? Not in the apartment. So maybe in the backyard. But someone would notice her burning clothes in the backyard at 3 A.M. Or at any time, really.

“I'll wash them.” She said it as the idea came to her. “I'll wash them well and then I'll put them in a trash bag and we'll bury it.”

“Bury it?”

“Take it to the dump, then. Or we'll hide the bag till Tuesday morning. Trash day, right?”

“Right.”

“I know when they come. Seven-fifteen, every week…”

“Okay. Look. I might have killed someone, honey. Jesus.

You all right with this?”

She wanted to touch him. She wanted to get out of the room. She wanted to tell him it would be okay. She wanted to run away.

She stayed where she was. “Yeah. I'll wash the clothes.”

She found some plastic gloves under the sink and she put them on. Then she took his shirt and his jeans from the floor. The jeans were dark with blood, too.

“How did you get the blood on your jeans?”

He shrugged. “I was kneeling over him.”

She took the clothes to the kitchen where she put them in the sink and ran the water, watching the blood and pieces of flesh and, oh Christ, maybe pieces of brain, wash down the drain. It amazed her how much the human body could bleed. And all this blood was from one head. She poured dishwashing liquid all over the T-shirt, then squeezed it out and went through the whole process again until the water was clear. She did the same with the jeans, and by that time Dave was out of the shower and sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, watching her.

“Why aren't you using the washing machine?” he asked.

She looked at him, smiled nervously and said, “Evidence, honey.”

“Damn, babe,” he said. “You're a genius.”

Four in the morning, and she was more awake than she'd been in years. Her blood was caffeine. Your whole life you wished for something like this. You told yourself you didn't, but you did. To be involved in a drama. And not the drama of unpaid bills and quarrels. No. This was real life, but bigger than real life. Her husband may have killed a bad man. And if that bad man really was dead, the police would want to find out who did it. And if they did, they'd need evidence.

She could see them sitting at the kitchen table, asking her and Dave questions. They'd be polite. And she and Dave would be polite back and calm. Because all they ever need is evidence. And she'd just washed the evidence into the kitchen sink drain. In the morning, she'd take the drain pipe from under the sink and wash that too with bleach and put it back in place. She'd put the shirt and jeans into a plastic trash bag and hide it until Tuesday morning and then throw it into the back of the garbage truck where it would be lost. She'd do this and feel good.