Lights Out

Eddie drew back the mosquito netting and rose quietly, without disturbing Karen. There was moonlight, enough to differentiate the shadows. Eddie entered the square shadow that marked the top of the stairs, went down. The last footboard creaked beneath him. The moon shone through the window on his face.

There were more shadows in the living room. One was bigger than the rest. The big shadow moved, eclipsing the moon. A man spoke.

“Surprise.”

Jack.

33

A surprise? Not really.

Eddie had buried deep in his subconscious the idea that Jack might have survived, too deep for his thoughts to reach, but not deep enough to keep it from giving off a faint miasma of anxiety, anxiety that had stayed with him all the way to Saint Amour. Now unfettered it ballooned inside him. He had abandoned not a dead body but his brother, bleeding on the chicken-farm road.

“Say something, bro.”

A horrible betrayal. But since that night on the chicken-farm road, he had learned what Jack had done to him. That was the first complicating factor. The second was that Jack couldn’t have survived alone, couldn’t have gotten away by himself: who had helped him? The third complicating factor was Karen, sleeping upstairs.

“Eddie? You awake?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said in a low voice. “I’m awake.”

“Got a babe upstairs? The jitney boy said something about that.”

“She’s gone,” Eddie said, moving toward the screened porch. He saw the overgrown lawn, trees, more shadows. They could have been the normal shadows of night. Out on the water, the lights of the cruiser still shone. El Liberador. His real name is Simon, after the Liberator.

Eddie went into the kitchen, looked out the door. There was a shadow in the front seat of Karen’s car.

“Gave me up for dead, didn’t you?” Jack said, following him. “But I’m a tough old nut. They fixed me up real good.”

“Who is they?”

A geometry problem, as on the chicken-farm road: Jack down here, Karen upstairs, something else outside. This one he couldn’t solve.

“The doc, of course,” Jack said.

“What doc?”

“It was just superficial. Lots of blood, but once they stopped it I was fine.” Jack’s voice broke, as though he was about to sob.

Eddie went past him, to the foot of the stairs.

“Where’re you going?”

“Getting my stuff,” Eddie said.

“Why?”

Without replying, Eddie climbed the stairs, opened the netting, leaned in. His lips touched Karen’s ear. “Karen,” he said, barely mouthing the words: “Don’t speak. Don’t move until you hear noise. Then climb out the window and run.”

Karen lay still, but he sensed the sudden tension in her body, knew she was awake.

Eddie picked up the backpack, started down. Jack was waiting at the bottom. He wore something white around his neck.

“Wouldn’t have a gun in there?” he said. Eddie brushed past him. “You don’t seem happy to see me,” Jack said. “I’m happy you’re alive. But it gives you the chance to do it to me again, doesn’t it, Jack?”

“Do what?”

“Your seven-and-a-half-percent trick.” Pause. “You lost me.”

“You can stop lying to me now,” Eddie said. “I’ve talked to a few people-JFK and the detective, Brice. I know everything. I just don’t know how you could have done it.”

Eddie stepped onto the screened-in porch. A massive, silver-edged cloud slid over the moon, darkening the night. The wind was rising. He picked up the rusted kettle barbecue. There wasn’t going to be a better moment.

Jack came closer. “Don’t be like this, bro. I was just a kid. I got scared. I panicked.”

Panic. That had been Mandy’s excuse. Did panic justify anything that came after? Eddie turned on him. “What about Switzerland?” His voice shook.

“Switzerland?” But Jack knew what he meant.

“You weren’t a kid then.”

Jack was silent. There was just enough light to illuminate his teeth and the bandage around his neck.

“But that’s history now,” Eddie said. “What’s your reason this time?”

“This time?”

Something thumped outside. It could have been another coconut falling; it could have been someone stubbing his toe. Eddie said: “And don’t call me bro.” Then he hurled the barbecue through the screen and dove out after it, the backpack in his hand.

He hit the ground hard, lost his grip on the backpack, lay there for a moment waiting for the sound of gunfire, running men, clubs swishing through the air at his head. All he heard was his own heart, beating against the earth. He got up, shouldered the pack, and started running.

Eddie ran away from the house, away from the lane. He came to the edge of the bluff, saw the road, a faint charcoal strip in the blackness below. No lights shone on the water. That didn’t mean El Liberador was gone. Eddie turned and crawled feet first over the edge.