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Eliot put a piece of cake in his mouth and shrugged. «It's just a thought.»
«Yeah, but what if you're right?»
The front door slammed and Da
Da
«Hiya, kids! How many pieces of cake has Eliot had? Cul, I've got some interesting news for you. Has a guy from the police called you yet? A guy named Flossma
«_Flossma
Eliot got up. «Should I go?»
Da
«Axe Boy wants to write to me? What for?»
«Oh Cullen, you lucky _thing!_ Axe Boy never writes to me!»
«Shut up, Eliot! Why does Alvin Williams want to write to me, Dan?»
Both men wore full, shit-eating grins on their pusses. When they looked at each other across my discomfort, the grins widened appreciably.
«Cut it out! This isn't a joke, is it?» I glared at Da
Da
«Flossma
«Lonely and loony! Uh-uh! I've got enough problems, Da
Standing behind Da
«You know where _I_ was when he killed his mother? In the laundry room, doing a white wash. By the time I came upstairs again, everyone interesting had left. Typical me!»
«Da
«Because he was afraid the idea would upset you. He wanted to know if you were the nervous type.»
«Nervous type? Me? Not me! Hi, Axe Boy! You wa
«Cullen, you don't have to say yes.»
«Of course I do, Da
«You remember that song we heard the other day? 'You've got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight'?»
«Da
The first letter arrived on a Monday, along with another postcard from Weber. I read the card first, so that I'd have a nice feeling before I leapt into the dark soup of Alvin Williams land. What a pair of pen pals!
Cullen,
I met a Countess von So-and-So today who's interested in financing my next film. I don't understand why people are so delighted to find that one of their ancestors was a Duke or a Count. All it means is a long time ago somebody did something horrible to someone else and was rewarded for it by some monstrous or syphilitic king.
Here's a quote I came across today that made me think of you: «As long as I know that you understand,» he whispered. «But of course you do. It's a great satisfaction to have got somebody to understand. You seem to have been there on purpose.» And in the same whisper, as if we two whenever we talked had to say things to each other which were not fit for the world to hear, he added, «It's very wonderful.» It's from Conrad's _The Secret Sharer_.
I've given you my address here twice. Are you ever going to write?
I scratched my head and flirted with the idea of sending him back a postcard with the word «No» written on it.
I put my hand on the letter from Williams and pushed it back and forth across the desk. The address had been written with a typewriter, which somehow made everything more cold and creepy. How could an axe murderer very calmly sit down and plunk out a letter on a typewriter? The careful spacing and precision of the letters and sentences all in sharp black order were so much the opposite of what he had done to his poor mother and sister.
On the other hand, I realized I had no desire to see the actual handwriting of this person. That would have been more naked and distressing, maybe even obscene.
Dear Mrs. James,
It was very nice of you to allow me to write to you like this. But I've heard there are autograph collectors out there in the world who pay a lot of money for letters from people like me. What you can do is _sell_ them this letter after you've read it a couple of times. Buy your daughter Mae a toy with the money. Just make sure to tell her it comes partly from her friend Alvin Williams! Ha ha!
I've been thinking about that day when we met on the street in front of our house. Do you remember? It was cloudy and su
Very sincerely yours,
Alvin Williams
«Da
«Cullen, honey, we're just driving to your parents' house, not Siberia.»
«I know, but I worry.»
«Yes, I noticed. . . .»
Eliot sat in the backseat with Mae on his lap. «Cullen, will you please get in? Your husband will take very good care of us. If you ever let him.»
I sighed and opened the car door. The sky was slush gray and threatened all kinds of snow. It had been my bright idea to round up the gang and spend a weekend at my parents' house on Long Island, but now I wasn't so thrilled. I envisioned bullying snowdrifts and silvery iced roads way out there in the wilds, where no one in their right mind _ever_ went before May 1.
Typical me. It hadn't snowed in the city since March had arrived two weeks before. Winter's cold was still around, but the days lived longer and Mae woke at six each morning because the light was everywhere in the apartment by then.
I put my hand on the back of Da
He smiled and put the car in gear. His hair was longer than ever and his face was full of mischief. It was hard to believe that a year before, we were living in Milan without a child and my husband was making hook shots for a living.
The ride out of town was on pleasantly empty roads that welcomed our company all the way out past the two airports and onto the Long Island Expressway.
Whenever I traveled this route, I remembered trips with my parents as a girl. Already in my swimsuit as the car pulled out of Manhattan, I would perch like a parrot between the folks' seats and keep up a two-hour ru