Dastardly Bastard(21)

“Oh, muh gosh!” She felt her cheeks flush. “I’m sooooooooo sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

His blue eyes, like cool pools, found hers. He kept his hair loose around his head, not slicked back like the Armenian weightlifting bartender who was currently refilling her drink. She checked his nametag—Paul.

Paul reached up and placed his finger over the name tag on her right breast, pushing softly. “You’re Marsha.”

She nodded. She had no idea if overindulgence gave her the proverbial beer goggles, or if Paul really was as handsome as she found him. Either way, she knew she was taking him home.

Debra ended up leaving with her old high school fling, so Marsha let Paul give her a ride. At some point on the way home, she passed out.



Paul must have carried her inside, as the next morning she found a note on the fridge.



Hey, it’s Paul from last night. I hope you remember me this morning, or this is going to sound way creepy. I used the keys in your purse to open your door so I could get you inside. I’m glad your license had your correct address, or we might not have made it here. Don’t worry. I put them back. Nothing happened, either, if you’re wondering. Though it wouldn’t have been a bad thing. So if you remember me, and I’m still as handsome as I seemed to be to you last night, I’ll let you grab my crotch another time. My number’s in the Rolodex on your desk under Paul Lake. Talk to you soon?



They had talked soon. And he made good on his promise to let her fondle him again. That was, after all, how Lyle was conceived. The romance was whirlwind quick, swooping her up and away, carrying her off to a land more marvelous than Oz, more mysterious than Wonderland. Dorothy and Alice would just have to be jealous, for Marsha had found Heaven on Earth.

“Paul?” Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, and her chest tightened.

“Good. Now you know who this is.”

Marsha clapped her hand over her mouth and began chewing on the inside of her palm.

After a brief burst of static, another voice broke in, “Now give the phone to the kid, bitch!”

Marsha dropped the phone and regarded it as if it were some kind of alien thing. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, trapped in the insanity of the moment, mind reeling. Frozen in place, she watched Lyle pick the phone up off the ground.





17


DONALD’S HEAD FELT ALL FUNNY, as if fish were swimming around in his gray matter. Everything after moving past Marsha and Lyle was lost to him. All he could remember was cursing and the boy hearing it. Fast forward to Jaleel asking him what he’d said. Other events were stricken from the report. Before that, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

Poof! Gone!

The tour guide had lost his marbles, spinning around and singing some bullshit nursery rhyme Donald had never heard. He’d seen the kid try for the edge, then Tubby taking the fall instead. The black girl had lost her shit. There was a commotion over the kid’s phone.

Sporadic images fired and misfired inside Donald’s head. Nothing seemed real anymore. It all felt disjointed, as if he were looking at life through a cracked fishbowl. Again he thought there must be aquatic life floating around in his brain. Something seemed… fishy.

Strange. Even as he stood watching everyone watch the woman on her cell, he couldn’t focus his attention. Those damn fish wouldn’t calm down!

“Pssst!” came from behind him.

The group was in front of him, every one of them, so the sound made him jump. No one should be further down the slope.

Donald turned slowly, looking over his shoulder.

“Pssst, Squirt!”

Donald could see him clearly down there at the bottom where the trail curved out of sight behind an outcropping of rock. From a jutting of stone, Tubby peeked his head out, smiling.

“Squirt! Over here.”

Tubby’s head disappeared behind the rock face.

Donald tried to wrap his mind around what was happening, but those blasted fish cut through his thoughts again. He felt like a marionette, an unseen puppeteer moving him along.

He’d seen the fat guy go over the side. If the chasm really was as deep as Jaleel had pointed out—the fact that no one had ever been to the bottom—Donald felt sure there was no way Mark could have survived his tumble into the abyss.

The thought occurred to him that he should tell everyone he was going to see what Tubby wanted. It seemed like a good idea, but he was already to the outcropping and had turned the corner.

Twenty feet ahead, the back of Tubby’s shirt shimmered like asphalt in the middle of July. The big guy moved at a brisk clip, walking much faster than Donald thought a man of his size could. Tubby was headed for a flat area that looked three times as wide as the current trail. The guard wire stopped there, commencing again ten feet further down the trail. Donald felt like he knew the place.

“Come on, Squirt.” Mark waved over his shoulder. “This way.”

Donald followed absentmindedly. Not caring about what lay ahead, he let the fat man lead him down the trail.

Once Tubby arrived at the larger section, he sat down on an abutment of rock that looked, oddly enough, like a throne, armrests and all. Tubby smiled, beckoning Donald. “Wanna show you something, Squirt.” Tubby’s voice was silky smooth, almost erotic. His words sang to Donald, caressed his ears, penetrated his mind. They burrowed, those words, snaking around, becoming more than just spoken things.