The Night Visitors(48)
“You weren’t wrong, darling.”
The voice—his voice—curdles my stomach. I look up and see Davis on the stairs at the other end of the basement. He’s got a flashlight in one hand, a gun in the other, and a smug, satisfied look on his face.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mattie
I START TO reach for the gun, which I’d lain down on the floor, but I hear the click of a hammer being pulled back along with a soft tsk.
“I wouldn’t do that, darling, unless you want me to put a bullet through your head.” The man comes down the stairs, aiming the revolver straight at my forehead. I force myself to look away from him, glancing at Alice to see her staring at him with sheer hatred. Ah.
“Davis, I presume,” I say, turning my attention to the man’s face. He’s slight, in his mid-thirties, with feathery brown hair and a wispy goatee, wearing jeans and an unbuttoned flannel shirt over a Nirvana T-shirt. He looks like half a dozen interns I’ve trained over the years.
“No shit,” he snarls. Then he points the gun at Jason. “Who’s this asshole?”
The asshole himself answers. “Hey, man, this nosy bitch got up in my face defending a towel-head at the Stewart’s. She’s one of those nosy social workers. I came out here to teach her a lesson.”
“That so?” Davis asks, kneeling to pick up the other gun from the floor. He slides it into his back pocket, then pokes his gun in my face. “Is that what you get off on, bitch? Defending women from nasty men? Is that what you’ve been doing with my Allie? Cuddling her to your bosom?”
When he says bosom he moves the gun to my left breast. My skin crawls.
“Aw, you’re blushing! Have I figured out your big secret? As if all you ‘domestic abuse’ sob sisters”—he makes air quotes with both hands—“weren’t just dykes out for some damaged pussy.”
He points the gun at Alice’s groin and I can feel her tense beside me. He’s groping us with his words, and he’s had a lot of practice at it. But I’ve had practice dealing with this kind of man. “You sound like you’ve had experience with domestic violence services before,” I say.
He tilts back his head, revealing a scrawny neck pitted with acne, and laughs. “If by ‘domestic violence services’ you mean the legion of feminazis who like to butt their fat asses into a man’s business because they’re jealous they don’t have a man, then yes, I’ve encountered my share.”
I’m tempted to point out the inconsistency in his characterization of social workers as lesbians being jealous of not having a man, but I hear Doreen’s voice in my head suggesting I listen for the emotions beneath the words. “I can hear a lot of pain and loss in your voice,” I say.
He’s dead quiet for a moment, and I think maybe this could work. I’ve been trained to talk to people in crisis, after all. I just have to keep him talking until Frank gets here—
Then Davis swings back his arm and hits me on the side of the head with the butt of the gun. As I go over I hear Alice shriek and Jason snicker. A darkness swells in my head, black satin spreading over my eyes, and suddenly I’m in that basement cell at Hudson where they sent the bad girls for punishment. I can smell piss and mold and fear. I can hear the steps of the guard on the stairs, feel his arm on my arm—
No, please, I plead.
What’s the problem, sweetheart? This is what you were sent here for. I read your file. Making out with your boyfriend in the backseat of his daddy’s car. Little slut—
“No, please.” It’s not me pleading now; it’s Alice. I can’t make out all her words over the ringing in my ears but I hear the fear and desperation in her voice. It’s my voice all those years ago, pleading with the guard not to hurt me. But it didn’t work then and it won’t work now. Men like that guard and Davis feed on the powerlessness of women and children because they need to feel better than someone else. Someone made them feel weak once, and the only way they can make that feeling go away is by hurting a weaker person.
I open my eyes and try to focus on a spot ten inches in front of me, which turns out to be Jason’s ear. So he came out to teach me a lesson, did he? I bet he didn’t bargain on getting involved in this shit storm.
Jason looks back at me, then flicks his gaze up and down rapidly. I follow his downward movement to his waist and glimpse a wood-grained handle protruding from his pocket. A knife. I give Jason a terse and tiny nod, then inch my hand steadily toward his pocket.
As the ringing in my ears abates I can make out more of what Davis is saying now, something about how Alice has alienated his son’s affections and is a lying no-good cunt that he should never have taken in. Poor Alice is crying.
“You’re right,” Alice chokes out between sobs. “I made Oren come with me. It was all my idea. Just leave him alone.”
Poor Alice. She thinks she can protect Oren if she sacrifices herself.
“Where is the little shit, anyway?” Davis demands.
Where indeed? I wonder as my fingers touch the knife handle in Jason’s pocket. Hiding, I hope, in the old back stairs. Lucky I pushed back the boxes in front of them. Maybe he’s gotten up to the attic. A smart little kid like Oren could make himself vanish up there. Caleb always could. When my father was on the warpath Caleb could vanish for days. I used to worry that he would starve to death before he came out.