Blvd. of Blood

Book 4, chapters 6–8

(Upcoming appearances: July 15, 6–7:30, author talk, Old Stone Church, 251 Main St., East Haven CT) | July 19, 10–3, Book Walk, Main St., Old Wethersfield CT)

Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.

(The story so far: It’s April 10: showtime. Colin Lang leave has arrived at Bernie Feldstein’s house.)

6.

Bernie opened the door to a horrible surprise. A misshapen, puffy faced man with He-Man’s haircut and the mustache of a TV villain stood there in a dark janitor jumpsuit. He didn’t know what to make of this. No stranger ever rang his doorbell except religious nuts, and they’d never come after ten at night. That left only the police, but if this freak was the police—what kind of world would let this freak be the police?

The freak handed Bernie a post-it note. It read:

“Do you have a cell phone in this room? If so, remove the battery now.”

“It’s in the bathroom,” said Bernie, puzzled.

The man snatched the post-it out of Bernie’s grasp. “Good. Let me in quickly.”

“Who are you?” He was afraid, of course, that he knew the answer.

“Don’t you remember me, Bernie?” the freak said in a strange, muffled voice. “I’m Theodore Anderson.”

“You are not.”

“I’m in disguise,” the freak continued. “Let me in.”

And a few moments later, the man was sitting on Bernie’s couch. Bernie sat on a chair, a high-backed upholstered chair that had once, he’d been told, belonged to his grandmother, and in which he may well have never sat before. That’s how confused he was.

“I thought you were coming this morning,” Bernie said.

“I never said that.” The man leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees, and spoke quietly. “Now listen. Go to the bathroom, take the battery out of your phone. Then leave it there and come right back.”

When Bernie returned, the freak was up and drawing the shades, both windows.

“I don’t think the battery comes out,” Bernie said.

“Then power it off and go stick it far away, whatever room is away from here. Upstairs, maybe. Your bedroom?” Bernie nodded. “Under your mattress, then. Powered off, remember.”

Then the man pulled apart. His hair came off, and his mustache, too. Out of his mouth he pulled several wads, and as he did his cheeks sank in and his upper lip unsneered. The whole shape of his face changed. The nose, which was the worst part, peeled away with a gummy twist. In a manner of seconds, the uncanny being was revealed to be Theodore Anderson in a jumpsuit.

“Phone. Upstairs,” he said. “Hurry.”

Bernie obediently fetched the phone and carried it upstairs with his thumb on the power button. He could feel Anderson’s eyes on him as he trudged up the steps. He was about to put the inert phone in his room, but then decided that his brother’s old room, so rarely entered, just storage and half-forgotten clothes now, felt more distant. He tucked the phone behind a pile of old blankets he’d once been meaning to wash. Then he went downstairs.

Anderson was standing in the exact same place he had been when Bernie left. He was breathing perhaps a little heavier than he had been, but it slowed down quickly enough. “Listen very closely, Bernie,” he said, with the woodenness of a man who has been practicing, like a telemarketer, his exact words. “Have you told anyone at all that I’ll be here tonight?”

“No one, I swear!”

“Or that we had a plan, an arrangement?”

“No one!”

“Are you quite alone?”

“Yes!”

“Excellent. Will you take me on a tour of your house? I want to get the layout down in case we need it as a theater of operations.”

“A theater?” Bernie asked.

“I mean, Bernard, in case we need to do things.”

“Call me Bernie.” And Bernie quickly showed the man around the house. It was not a large house, and yet Bernie used very little of it. His parents’ old room, on the ground floor, was pretty much the same as it had been when they were alive. His brother’s room upstairs with the phone.

“The phone’s in here,” Bernie whispered, and Anderson held a finger to his lips. He didn’t say a word. He looked in every closet and even under the bed.

They went back downstairs, and into the bathroom. Anderson took a post-it from a pocket, the one with the cell phone question, tore it to tiny pieces, and flushed them down the toilet. Several flushes followed.

Finally there was the basement. Anderson walked around the basement, which was just a grim collection of spider webs, too scary for Bernie to ever go down into. There had been snow shovels down there, and after his parents died, Bernie just bought new snow shovels. But Anderson was unconcerned.

“A fine house,” he said. “Now I need you to do two things for me. First, your garbage can, your toter. Can you bring it in? Bring it into the backyard.”

Bernie was mystified, but he was in no position to disobey someone who sounded like he knew what he was doing. When he rolled the toter around to the back yard, Anderson was already there. He had come out the kitchen door. He tilted the toter onto its back and pulled out two bags. Then he set the toter upright. Bernie noticed he was still wearing gloves. They went into the kitchen.

“Next,” said the man, “can you check to make sure your gas tank is full, or at least half full.”

“It’s pretty full,” said Bernie.

“Please take your keys and go check.”

“Okay, but. But what’s in those bags? What was the deal with the phone?”

“Smart phones are listening devices. They listen to everything you say, and then try to sell you products. They also track your every movement.”

“You’re paranoid, man.”

“I’m alive because I’m paranoid. I don’t need to tell you what my job is. I’m paid to be paranoid.”

“Fair enough, fair enough.” Bernie must not have been paying attention when Anderson’s precise job came up, but Bernie knew enough to play along.

“Now please go check the gas.”

So Bernie did. It was three quarters, and that was fine. Everything was fine, except for the fact that Bernie didn’t know what was going on.

The man didn’t stop to explain, though. He just nodded and said, “I’ll stay here tonight and we’ll be ready for action in the morning.”

Bernie wasn’t sure he was allowed to ask. This man might be a ranking government agent. Possibly a colonel? But he’d been waiting so long…

“What,” he said, “what are we going to do tomorrow? For action.”

Certainly Bernie had been afraid he’d get yelled at here. He was always getting yelled at. But Colin bused out an enormous smile.

“First you’re going to drive while I shoot a lot of people, and then we’ll turn around and I’ll drive while you shoot a lot of people,” he said.

“On Blande Boulevard though?”

“Yes.”

“Word,” said Bernie.

7.

Oberman’s shift had ended hours ago, but he kept his uniform on. This was somewhat against the rules, but a lot of things were somewhat against the rules. As long as it was only somewhat against the rules you could get away with it.

He dropped Campbell off and just drove around in the black and white, listening to the radio. He was aware he had staked his reputation on a disaster; he hadn’t meant to, but somehow it had happened.

Noticing the time, he called Tabitha to tell her he’d be late. He mumbled something about a work emergency.

“The massacre?” Tabitha asked. The rising inflection in her voice was hard to read. Was it excitement?

“No, no. Paperwork emergency.”

When he got tired of driving through the darkening streets he pulled over into a parking lot. Then he realized it was a Dunkin Donuts parking lot, so, just to avoid the cliché, he left and chose another parking lot. It was a bagel place, which was pretty close, but far enough away that it was not embarrassing.

The radio was silent. Oberman fished one of Campbell’s cigarettes out of the crack in the seat—there was always a spare or two hidden there—and sat there looking at it. The only light was the blue neon Schlegel’s Bagels sign. Oberman looked at the blue-tinted cigarette and thought about lighting it and waited.

8.

Colin had been ready, if anyone extra were at Bernie’s house, to abort. He’d explain there was a big misunderstanding, use Bernie’s house phone to call a cab, and get ferried back to his parked car. He had a cab company’s number memorized. The bags could stay in the garbage. He’d drive home and forget the last six months had ever happened.

It would be so easy. He was already dead, and he would stay dead every day, his legs walking him around the house like a wind-up toy. “Hello, Carol. My mother’s doing much better etc.”

Bernie had always been the weak link in the plan. There were a thousand possible hitches, and some nighttime dog walker could have seen him in the dark. Lightning bolts or meteors could strike him down. You can’t plan for everything. Colin wasn’t crazy. But Bernie had always been the biggest risk.

And here the biggest risk, Bernard Feldstein, was playing along. The two confederates sat pleasantly in a rather squalid and congested room. There were so many boxes and items lying around, and Colin couldn’t even figure out what most of them were for.

“You smoke?” Bernie asked.

“Not since high school.”

“Mind if I do?”

“Knock yourself out. Just stand a little away from me please.” He couldn’t very well say that he didn’t want his mother to smell smoke in his hair.

Bernie went to the kitchen to get some cigarettes. Colin could see clouds of cigarette smoke billowing out through the doorway. He must be puffing hard.

Colin looked around. The furniture, he noticed, was nice, or had been nice. It had “good bones” but it was stained and ratty. There were posters on the walls, but the tacks were falling out and the posters were sagging or three-cornered.

Bernie returned, cigarette expertly dangling off his lower lip. “Want something to drink?” he asked.

“We’re going to stay sober. Tomorrow morning we can have coffee.”

“I have lots of coffee.”

“We should get a good night’s sleep tonight, though. Sleepy?”

“I stay up late,” Bernie said. He was looking around the room like a bad liar.

Colin knew he wasn’t going to bed until Bernie was in bed. “Well, we have a lot to do first.”

Continued here.