AN UNKNOWN HUNGER
- - -
The body lay face down on the sidewalk, hands pointing at ten and two. Puffy red sports-jacket, bluejeans, workboots with the rubber worn down at the toe. Officer Packer crouched, lifted the dead man's head as gently as he could. Black goatee, black eye. Even in life he would've looked rough. Brick-chin bouncer material. The snag of a broken tooth jabbed through the upper lip.
Footsteps to his right. Officer Elliot's heavy, flatfooted gait. "I'm just saying. He fell, hit his head. It was a cold night. Write it up."
Packer rolled the body over. The only blood on the concrete was from the dead man's lip, dried dark as rust. "Why are his hands up? Robbery?"
"What, scared to death?"
"It's happened. Or maybe he tried to crawl."
Elliot grinned. "Have fun, Holmes. Five bucks says heart attack and hypothermia."
A young sikh man in a turban frowned from the doorway of the milk bar, rolling a cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. "You gonna move him? Can't open up till you move him."
"Five minutes." Above the doorway, nestled in a dark corner, the gleam of a CCTV lens. Done by lunch, if he was lucky. Plastic sheeting crinkled across the sidewalk. "Elliot. You want to come on the doorknock?"
"What, you know him?"
"Seen him around." In the distance, over the tiled rooftops and coughing chimneys, was the first blush of sunrise.
* * *
Con Stannis jerked upright in bed to the buzzing of cicadas. His bedroom was layered in blue and grey and corners of deep shadow. The alarm clock read 05:42 and the early morning chill settled heavy on his chest. "I was in the scouts," he said to his sleeping wife. "I was a boy. In my dream, I mean. I made First Class. I'd forgotten 'til now." The room was silent apart from his breathing. He reached out to tangle her soft hair in his fingers but his knuckles bumped the wall and he remembered that his bed was only a single these days, that the space beside him was always cold.
He stood to look out the window. The street was empty. Of course. Nobody awake at this hour. But, for a moment, he'd been certain there would be someone waiting below. A man with a gun in his hand, staring upwards, patient, unmoving.
That was just another dream. Nobody waited for him any more. Not for many years.
In the morning he sat naked on the edge of the bed holding a cup of coffee, the heat seeping through the porcelain into his hands, up his arms, down his spine. He looked at himself in the closet mirror. His paunch was growing a little heavier every week, starting to sag and fold. The hairs on his chest were greying. Not white, he told himself. Still life in there.
His knees popped as he forced them into his bluejeans. A shirt one size too large covered up everything else. When he sucked in his gut and squared his shoulders he looked almost respectable. Time to face the day.
The lobby was almost empty. A few kids in corduroy pants and collared shirts tugged on the leaves of a plastic plant. The young receptionist said hello as he passed and he waved back. "Quiet day?"
"Everyone hides inside this time of year." She tapped the counter with painted nails. Couldn't have been more than twenty-five, her eyes still bright, hair pulled back in a black bun. He tried not to stare at how her breasts pressed tight against the buttons of her shirt. He could just make out the outline of her bra. "Sir?"
"Sorry. Just tired." He glanced away, not wanting to meet her eyes. How did he ever manage to talk to Marilyn, back in college? "I don't have any letters waiting, do I?"
"Um." She fiddled with stacks of mail. "Nothing yet. Is that bad?"
He tried to smile. "You have a good day, miss."
The line at the supermarket moved in jerks and fits and by the time he was outside the sun was cresting and the sidewalk smoked under his shoes. He sat on a bench and drank chocolate milk from the carton, cold and sweet. Sweat broke out across his forehead.
"We drank milk on the day of the derby," he said suddenly. "Soapbox derby. Silver trophy. Goddamn." He hadn't thought about that day in years. If someone had reminded him about it he would have said they were mistaken.
A strip of yellow police tape wriggled across the concrete, coiled around a street sign, and was carried away by the wind.
* * *
The coroner called at lunchtime. "Possibly a stroke. Possibly heart attack. It's unlikely the bruising around the right eye and the broken tooth were from an assault. Probably the fall. No other wounds, though. I'll do the full autopsy tomorrow."
"Cheers." Alan Packer had a TV above his desk. On the screen was the sidewalk outside the milkbar, night shadows stretching over the gutter. A clock in the corner of the screen read 02:23:45 16:07:2007. A man in a sportsjacket entered from the left, hunched against the summer wind. Robbie Olive. Thirty nine, once married, never divorced. His wife had sobbed and calmed herself and then sobbed again and grabbed at Packer's hands, and he'd wished not for the first time that he could bring Yelena along to these things. She always knew what to say.
Robbie's back was to the camera, which meant that Packer had a perfect view of the second man.
Forty, forty-five, maybe older from the way the skin hung off his cheeks. Knit jumper, chinos, belly hanging over his belt. Hands clasped before him like he was clutching a rosary, counting off prayers. Dragging his left foot with every step, the toe of his shoe grinding into the pavement.
Robbie stopped. The other man continued. Step, shuffle, drag. Then he stopped too.
The man in the woollen jumper opened his mouth. If Robbie said anything in reply, Packer couldn't see. Then Robbie threw his hands in the air and fell, first to his knees and then onto his face. There was no sound but Packer imagined he heard the sharp crick as Robbie's teeth snapped. His left hand brushed the other man's right foot.
In the corner of the screen the clock ticked off a full minute before the man in the jumper turned away. Step, shuffle, drag. Out of frame.
The video ran another three hours but Robbie didn't twitch once.
Packer rewound the tape, watched again. The second man kept his hands together. Then, in the last moment, a flash of movement. A gun in his hand? A knife? Impossible to tell.
He printed the second man's face as large as he could and called Elliot. "You busy, Watson? Work to do."
* * *
Con was stretched out on the couches in the foyer with a copy of Darkness at Noon when the two men in charcoal suits arrived. He watched them march to the front desk, lean over the counter to speak to the girl with the tight black bun. She pointed across the foyer to Con, and he felt a cold hand twist in his guts.
Their shoes clicked on the tiles. "Mr Stannis?" The first man flipped open a leather pouch to show his badge. "You free?"
"I-" He glanced over to the girl at reception. She met his eyes and then busied herself in her papers. "Yeah, I've got a minute."
The first officer looked young despite the grey bags under his eyes, the way his smile pinched at his cheeks. Thirty at most. It was a fake smile, a polite little mask hiding his distaste. It made Con feel a fraud. Underneath the neat shirt and polished shoes he was still old and broken and he had no right pretending otherwise.
The one with the badge leaned in. "I'm Officer Packer. We won't keep you, Mr. Stannis. If it's not too much bother... where were you the night before last?"
"Night before last? Well. I..."
Con froze, tongue rooted in place, as he realised that he didn't know.
A grainy printout. Two figures under a streetlamp, right on the edge of the pool of light. Only one was facing the camera. Con felt the room beginning to tilt around him. "I don't know. I wasn't there."
The two policemen looked at each other, grinned. "Do you have a twin, Mr. Stannis?"
"Look, it's not me!"
"Do you own those clothes?"
"Yes, but that-" He pressed his fingers into his temples. There was some way for this to make sense. "I... sleepwalk."
"To the milk bar? In your good shoes?"
Con swallowed. "Okay. I don't sleepwalk. I drink. A lot. I don't remember that guy. I don't even remember going out."
"So you were there."
"I might've been. Could've gone anywhere. Hell, that barely looks like me." He knew his voice was climbing higher, whining, but he couldn't help it. "I was asleep. I never saw him."
The officers exchanged another look that Con knew meant this guy is fucked. "Sir," Officer Packer said, "Failing to administer aid isn't a criminal offence. Public intoxication, perhaps. But we don't want to arrest you. Just tell me. Did you speak to or touch this man at any point?"
Con ground his teeth. "Maybe I went out. But I never touched him. I never hurt anyone."
"Hrm," said Packer, and then, "I see." He gathered up the printouts. "We'll be in touch. This is my number. Call if you'd like to talk about anything."
Con didn't reply. His hands dangled numb in his lap.
"Stay safe, Mr. Stannis."
* * *
"Al. Hey, Al. You were-"
"You want to drive?"
"Yeah. Sure." Elliot settled in behind the wheel. "You were getting intense, in there."
"What do you think?"
Elliot shrugged. "Olive had a stroke, Stannis was drunk, he freaked."
"Didn't look freaked." Packer shuffled through the printouts. "See? He's not running away. Calm."
"Not worth my time, Al. Or yours."
Packer stared at the printout. Something nagged at the back of his mind. He looked back through the glass sliding doors of the apartment complex to where Stannis was still hunched over on the couch. "He was rattled."
"Yeah. I would be too. Look, I'll drop you back... Al?"
"Whatever." Packer pulled a grey box from the pocket of his coat. He rolled up his sleeve, peeled away the clear patch just above his elbow. From the box came another. "It doesn't work, you know. I could go a carton right now."
"Ten bucks you don't last the week."
"Like I have ten to lose."
"Then don't lose," said Elliot. The apartment complex vanished in their exhaust.
* * *
The receptionist cringed behind the desk. "I'm sorry. They didn't even say they were police."
Con sighed. "They surprised me too. Sorry. God, I need a beer." The girl didn't reply. "Look, I didn't... I'm not angry."
"You look angry."
"Headache." It was true. Pain pounded behind his left temple.
"What were they asking about?"
He waved her away. "Nothing important." He couldn't remember half the questions they'd asked and all his answers were blurring too. The day before yesterday still refused to come back. Delayed hangover? Could you drink enough to lose a whole day and night?
"I'm sorry. I should've warned you."
"Thanks." He leaned over to read her name-tag. "Serena?"
"That's me." She laced her fingers together. "You really don't look so good, Mr. Stannis."
"Nap and a beer, I'll be fine."
She laughed, high pitched and pretty like chimes. "I know the feeling." Her smile was wide, lips painted strawberry red, and a long-dead fire in his chest flared up. He realised his hands were sweating.
"When you finish," he said, feeling that peculiar teenage flutter, "would you like to get a drink?"
Her smile wobbled for just a moment. "Sorry. Company policies."
"Of course." The fire sputtered down to embers.
Where were you the night before last?
How often do you drink, Mr Stannis?
Do you often forget where you spend your nights, Mr Stannis?
He'd already forgotten the name of the dead man. Something to do with cocktails? He stacked the juice, eggs and what remained of his chocolate milk in the bar-fridge and lay on the bed, unable to fall asleep. The numbers on the alarm clock flashed red, counting off hours. He thought of Serena, filling out forms with her hair done up tight. He thought of how he'd strutted through the hallways of his college twenty years before, and how that strut had vanished.
The headache was fading.
Serena was packing her books and papers into a backpack when he returned. The linoleum shone pink with dusk light. "Hey, Mr Stannis. Feeling any better?"
"Afternoon nap always helps." He looked her up and down. Pin-stripe skirt and doc martens. Marilyn had worn much the same, twenty years before. "Shift over? You're dressed for a beer."
"I know, isn't the heat a killer?"
"My treat?"
She smiled, and he knew it was forced. "Company policies, Mr Stannis."
"It's a beer, not a... a date. I'm too old for dating." He looked at himself in the mirror behind the reception desk. The skin around his eyes was dark and baggy, like elephant skin. "Misery loves company, yeah?"
She looked at him a while, and he felt like he was back in high school, being measured up as a suitor for the dance. Finally, she pressed a finger to her painted lips. "Okay. But I'll be gone by seven."
He said that it sounded just fine.
* * *
She kissed Packer on the cheek as he came through the door. "Nikki's forgotten your name again."
"What, you want me to wear a nametag?"
"You'd lose it."
"I'll write it on my forehead." He ducked in for another kiss but she pushed him away. "What?"
"You smell like mustard. I talked to my mother, I told her all you eat is those nasty hotdogs. She says, Yelena, I find you new man who never eats hotdogs. I said-"
"Hush." He grabbed her with both hands, pulled her face to his, tasted her lips. "No more about the mother," he said, after they broke apart. "Not today."
"Bad?"
"No, no. Good day. Interesting. Where's my girl?"
"Asleep. I took her to the park and taught her all about ducks. Now she wants to be a duck. No," she said, as he moved towards the stairs. "Leave her. Come here." She took his arm and led him to the couch. "Do it," she said, and nipped his earlobe. "I missed you, Al."
He sat alone on the couch afterwards, sweat running down his arms, pooling in the small of his back. He felt lightheaded, like he'd just been for a run. Yelena sashayed about the kitchen, humming. "Tea?"
"Please." Al took the printouts from his suitcase and spread them across the coffee table. In the centre was the image of Robbie Olive with his hands over his head; Stannis with his hands clasped before him, bemused. Olive, fit, in reasonable health, with a wife and a house. Stannis, a drunkard and a widower, living two blocks from the milk bar in a rented apartment.
Not an assault. Stannis looked beat-down, staggering through his days. Olive would have broken him in half. Armed robbery was still possible, but why wouldn't Olive have just run? The hands over his head...
His phone buzzed. "Hello?"
"Officer Packer? This is Johnny, from the coroner's office? You brought in a white male-"
"Olive?"
"Yeah. We've finished the autopsy early, thought you might be interested."
He snatched up a pen. "Shoot."
"Well, absolutely no signs of assault. All injuries consistent with a fall, maybe fainting. But there was also no sign of stroke, blood clots, or any conditions symptomatic with heart failure. Blood alcohol content was low. No medical problems on his record."
"So... he just died?"
"Just died. Not much more I can say. Sorry."
"Alright. Thanks." He hung up and shuffled through the papers again. What was it about Stannis that itched so bad? His eyes were almost blank, shoulders hunched, non-threatening. Someone to ignore if you passed them in the street. One of a thousand invisible old men. Hand cupped beneath his belly. Almost a junkie pose.
He clutched his stomach like he was hungry.
Packer rubbed his eyes. It was already late. He stacked the papers, stuffed them in his briefcase, and slipped upstairs.
Nikki was curled on her side on the bottom bunk, moonlight soft and pale across her cheek, a bubble of spit on her lips. Packer knelt beside the bed and brushed Nikki's hair back from her temple, traced the scar above her ear where she'd split her skull on the kitchen tiles. He whispered to her and he thought he saw her little pink lips curl into a smile.
When he looked over his shoulder Yelena was standing in the doorway. "She always hears, when I walk in. You're too quiet."
Packer grinned. "I'm a panther."
"Better than a big slobbering dog. Ai!" He swept her up, spun her in the hallway. "Boy, you hungry or not?"
He kissed her.
* * *
The bar was musty and lit by chains of aging Christmas lights blinking red then blue then green and red again, a constant flash of colour that made Con's eyes hurt. The barman's arms were almost black with hair and he leered as he poured the drinks. Serena was still nursing her first pint but Con was on his third. "It was my birthday last week," she explained. "I drank enough for ten. So I have to behave."
Which birthday? Her twenty-fourth. Did she have a party? No, not really. Why not? She shrugged. "A bit pointless, after the twenty-first."
"My twenty-first was... apocalyptic."
"When you drink, you drink big, huh?"
He wanted to say, less while I was with Marilyn. More now. But that wouldn't be appropriate. He swirled the dregs of his beer and watched them foam. Was this making up for lost time?
Serena was staring. "Sorry," he said. "I'm being a gloomy old fart."
"Aww, you're not gloomy." She flashed her neat white teeth. Everyone had perfect smiles these days. "So, what did they want?"
"Eh?"
She cocked her head. "The cops. What'd you do?"
"Nothing," he said. Perhaps a little too quickly, because she leaned in, eyes eager, arms crossed beneath her breasts. He waved for a refill. "Really."
"Come on. You don't have the killer stare, so... bank job? Getaway driver?"
"They just wanted to chat."
"Fine." Her slender fingers played up and down the glass, tracing paths in the condensation. Her nails were cherry-red and suddenly he wanted to have them digging into the flesh of his back, those soft fingertips cutting lines down his chest, stroking cords of muscle he no longer had.
You dirty bastard, he thought, but he didn't stop imagining.
He whispered something to nobody.
"What?"
He cleared his throat. "I used to be young."
"Yeah, so did we all."
He spun to look into her eyes. "That's not even funny. I'm on the... the border? Yeah. Right between being you, and..." He pointed out a man huddled in the corner, beard stained yellow by nicotine, hands twisted with arthritis. "It's not real to you yet, right? But I see where I'm going. It's like..."
He stopped. Serena leaned back on her seat, eyes wide. Scared? It was only the truth. The words were hard to shape. "You remember the day when you woke up and looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror and you thought, shit, I'm not a kid any more?" She nodded. "It's the same. There's somebody else in the mirror, and he's old. And you say..."
He tasted beer at the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and when he opened his mouth what came out was: "My wife is dead."
Serena's hand shot up to her mouth. Five red nails shone under the lights. "Oh! I'm sorry. How did-"
"Don't. Not right now. God."
"That was too personal, wasn't it? I should be going."
"Please don't," he said, and was ashamed at how pitiful he sounded. "It's been... ages, since I just talked. I don't get to talk too much. Feels like my birthday again. Getting drunk alone is no fun. But..." He stopped. "But Tommo threw up in the garden."
She stared, her nails ringing on the counter. "What?"
"Tommo, Thomas Lee. At my birthday." He held his head. It throbbed under his fingers. This was a hangover in advance. "I saw him. Over the side of the balcony..."
"Was it a different party?"
"I had a cake." A horrible washing-machine churning began in his guts. "Mom brought me out a cake. They wrote 21 in candles. But they didn't." He gripped the edge of the bar to keep the world from spinning. "Because I was in my room. Mom was dead. She was already dead."
She asked if he was feeling ill, her voice booming off the walls, and in reply he staggered into the Mens and threw up in the urinal. He rinsed his mouth and stared into in the mirror. A red-eyed sallow-cheeked drunkard stared back.
He vomited again.
When he came out of the toilets she was gone.
That night Con tangled himself in the sheets and dreamed of graduation. The wind flicked the tassel on his cap against his face. His two best friends stood on either side, robes hanging heavy. Their faces were blank skin, no eyes, no smiles, like half-formed mannequins.
He woke and sat in the darkness, and thought of those friends. Their names were whispers in the back of his mind, flitting about too fast to catch.
* * *
It was the awful ass-end of summer where the afternoons were sticky-hot but the mornings still held enough chill to make the hairs Packer's arms stand up. The steering wheel was a ring of ice. Elliot was waiting for him outside the office. "Coffee?"
"I owe you ten," said Packer.
Elliot grinned. "Forget it. Spend it on your wife, you cheap gringo."
"Anything tasty today?"
"Well," Elliot said, "we woulda been doorknocking up in Flemington, except the kid that held up those gas stations turned himself in last night. Crying, too. So, my diary is open."
"You mind if-"
"Stannis again?" Elliot stretched his hands over his head, yawned. "Whatever you say, Holmes."
* * *
Serena glared from behind the counter. "You were drunk. Totally drunk."
He apologised with his eyes to the floor.
"Forget it. I have work to do."
He waited a while, studying the way her fingers flickered across the keyboard. Somehow they weren't half as sexy as they had been under the twinkle of Christmas lights, wreathed in cigarette smoke.
"I just came over ill," he said. "I wasn't that drunk."
She didn't reply.
He sat on a bench outside the supermarket and ate crisps, suddenly aware of his sagging belly, the veins on the back of his hands. The weight of almost fifty years pressed on his heart. He thought of Marilyn, and what she would have said. Stop being an idiot, most likely. He remembered her crooked-tooth grin. Curls of strawberry blonde heaped on the pillow. You only ever had one twenty-first birthday. You were never exciting enough for two. Help me peel these spuds. She'd introduced herself as Marilyn but her real name was Sam, and it never felt right for her. She even grimaced on their wedding day as the minister read her name, do you solemnly vow...
He remembered lifting her veil, his father squeezed into a charcoal suit clapping so loud, his shoes pinching and the smell of the roses almost dizzying, all the applause, so many hands...
But. But.
He stopped. There were no hands. Just himself and the woman by his side in a red brick chapel that smelled of pine. Her fingers were light and smooth against his neck as he lifted the veil, and her hair spilled down her back as dark as the ebony of piano keys. She kissed him with a fury.
But she hadn't. It was a church kiss, mouth closed, delicate and slow. Applause. More kisses that night, the bed ringed by candles. Petals of condensation blooming on an ice bucket. Her groans.
No. Cheap motel. Stains on the carpet, ash on the bedside table. They burned through a pack of menthols together. Long black hair tangled in his fingers as they fucked.
"Christ," he said, recalling the taste of both women's mouths. "Christ almighty."
When Con returned to the complex it was closing on noon, the sun slow-roasting the back of his ears. He stopped in the street. The dark-suited policemen were in the lobby, notebooks open. They had Serena on the lounge by the door. He couldn't tell what she was saying, but he could guess.
The other woman was still buzzing in the back of his head. He shrank back from the entrance and went around to the fire stairs. Every step rattled, ready to collapse. The door to his floor was unlocked and the cool rush of air conditioners made him shiver all the way to his toes.
He locked the door to his apartment and sat on the bed with a stack of post-it notes. He scribbled down Sam. Married 1993 died 2003. He crossed out Sam and wrote Marilyn. He stuck it on the fridge. On a fresh square, Black hair cheap chapel. The pen was running low on ink.Black hair, he wrote again, and then the house was too small and the roof leaked but there was lavender in the garden.
Yes. He'd sat in the yard with a car magazine under one arm and run his fingers through the lavender. She'd brought him sandwiches. But what was her name? He remembered photos in frames on the coffee table, flimsy lace curtains, the washing machine rattling. He was a mechanic when he wasn't on welfare. She signed her name with sharp letters. Connie.
The pen tore through paper. Connie. Con and Connie. He stared at the words. He crossed out Con and chewed the end of the pen. What was it they'd carved on the elm out back? R+C. When he dropped the plates she tutted him, Robbie, we won't have any left if you keep that up.Yes, that was his name. Robert. He wrote it down.
Where were you the night before last?
Robert. He'd heard the name before. Did you speak to, or touch this man at any point? His name was Robert Olive.
He had called himself Robert Olive, and he was Con Stannis, and neither was a lie.
For the second time in two days, he ran to the toilet and threw up.
* * *
"So he told you-"
"He said his wife was dead. And his Mom was dead too. He wasn't making much sense."
Elliot scribbled furiously. "Did he make any threats towards you? Did he grab you?"
Serena shook her head, her black ponytail flipping over her shoulders. "He didn't want me to leave, though. I tried to walk out and he said I had to stay. I wasn't scared, or anything..."
"Are you sure?"
She brought a finger to her lips. "Well. It was worrying, I guess."
"Okay. Al?"
Packer chewed on the end of his pen. "Could you take us to his apartment?"
"Sure. I mean, if I have to. I'd have to call up first, see if he's in..."
"Whatever you have to do."
Serena ran back across the lobby and Elliot whispered, "I still don't know why you're bothering."
"There was no damn reason for Olive to die. Maybe Stannis saw something. I'd like to be able to tell his wife anything more solid than sorry, his brain just turned off."
Elliot snorted. "You care too much."
"Suck it."
Serena was coming back, nodding. "He's there. Hung up without saying anything." She laced her fingers together. "I'm sure he didn't hurt anyone. He was drunk, but not, you know, dangerous."
"I'm sure you're right." Packer's right hand hovered over the pistol at his belt. "I'm sure it'll be just fine."
* * *
The TV gibbered in the background while he sat on the bed and remembered.
College. Law-school girls in shoulder pads. The front doors of the refectory creaking on rusted hinges. Accounting was boring, but it paid well enough for Marilyn to buy the car that would eventually kill her.
He'd also been a mechanic. Bills spread on the table, third notices, final notices. Connie brought home enough from temping to keep the phone connected. She'd finished high-school; he'd dropped out. Engine grease in the lines of his palms.
They met for the first time at the bus stop, and the ringlets of her hair caught the afternoon sun like leaves in autumn.
They met in a park; she was chasing down a golden retriever. She said she was third-generation Chinese, but he could barely tell.
They had never had any pets. He hated dogs.
He loved dogs.
"I'm going mad."
The phone rang and for a moment he thought it was Connie, always ringing at three to ask what he wanted for dinner that night, whether he would be in the shop late. But when he brought the receiver to his ear he heard Serena. "Mister Stannis? Hello? There are some people here to see you... Mister Stannis?"
He hung up. Sweat beaded across his forehead. He imagined walking down the stairs into the foyer. I remembered. I'm Robert Olive. I need to see my wife.
But they thought Robert Olive was dead. Con turned out his wallet over the bedspread. Nothing inside but twenty dollar bills. They wouldn't believe him. Nobody would. And in the back of his head, that nagging voice, what if you did it? What if they're right?
No. He'd never hurt anybody, never even raised his hand against Marilyn when she'd been in one of her moods. And there was still one person who believed. There was Connie.
He was already flipping through the phone book before he realised he knew her address, because it was his address. The little two-bedroom with the paint peeling off the doorframe and the stink of cigarettes in every room, no matter how much air freshener they used. Barely four miles away.
So where did Con Stannis live?
He unlocked the door with trembling fingers. The hallway was empty. So was the fire escape. He wanted to leap down the stairs, but that was a trick for teenagers, and he was forty two. Or was that Robbie? No, not quite. Robbie was thirty nine. "Don't even know how old I am." The stairs shook from side to side. "Jesus fuck."
He ran across the parking lot bent double and peered around the corner. One police car, empty. He waited for a break in traffic and pelted across the road. Only when he was through to the safety of the trees did he chance a look back at the complex. Seven stories up was his window. A shadow moved behind the curtains.
Con ran, the yelping car horns drowned out by the jackhammer of his heart.
* * *
Packer had been expecting an apartment littered with empty bottles, the stink of cheap whisky soaked into the wallpaper. Instead the door swung open onto a pristine living-room, still rich with the chemical-tang of carpet shampoo. "Mr. Stannis?" Packer knocked once more before stepping inside. "Con?"
A coffee-table dulled by dust. A single bed, sheets folded neat. In the cupboard, two blue-checked shirts, two pairs of khaki slacks. Two pairs of socks. The wool-knit jumper from the video was bunched at the foot of the bed. "Con?"
"He ran, Al."
"Well, shit." In the fridge, two cartons of milk, unopened. A block of cheese, uneaten. Three packets of chocolate digestives still in the wrapper. "He's got to be sick."
Elliot rifled through the cupboard. "Serena... how long did you say Mr. Stannis had been staying here?"
"Less than a week, I think. I should probably go..."
"Go." Packer shut the fridge and stared at the mass of post-its. "Oh, fuck," he said. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
A single square. Con and Connie. Con crossed out, replaced with Robert.
* * *
He met Connie in her driveway as she stepped from a dented Ford sedan. She was stooped, a fat bag of groceries clutched to her chest, eyes bloodshot and shadowed. Strands of black hair were plastered to her cheeks. For a moment they stood, staring, and he thought she was just as beautiful as the day they married in that little red-brick chapel.
The gnawing in his stomach was half worry and half hunger. There was a need growing in him he didn't understand, some longing that was spreading through his chest with claws and suckers. It hurt to breathe.
"Hello," he said.
She sighed, long and tired. "What do you want?"
"I came..."
Her eyes widened. "Are you from the police?"
"Not police." He stepped closer. "I don't know if you want to see me. I can't remember what happened. I don't know if I ran out or if you kicked me out or whatever."
She glanced to her front door, then back to him, and again to the front door. "I don't know what you're talking about. Did you come about Robert?"
Every word was a punch to the gut. "Connie... I don't get it. What did I do?"
"I think you should go."
He swallowed. The claws in his lungs dug in deeper. "Did you forget too? It's me."
"What?"
"I'm Robert," he said. "I remember it, almost everything. I love you." He stretched his arms out to hold her, hold her while she cried after her mother died, when the doctor told them he was infertile, when the repo men took the television. Hold her every night after they made love.
She dropped her shopping with a clatter. "I'll call the cops," she said, and ran for the doorway. The keys jangled in her hand. "You're mad," she said, louder now, "I'm calling them. I am!" Then she slammed the door behind her, leaving cans scattered in the driveway.
The sirens began almost instantly, a long low ululation like a battlecry. Con looked for the cars, the flash of red and blue. He ran to the door and shook the handle. "Connie! Please! It's me, Robert!" There was no reply.
The sirens were coming from the east, so he ran west, sneakers slapping on the pavement. Wind blew cold beads of sweat into his eyes. It was just like this, on the last night. The moon only a sliver in the sky, laces flapping around his ankles. His chest burned. He counted off the house numbers as he grew closer to home.
He remembered it all.
He stopped in the middle of the road and shuddered as it washed through. Everything that Robbie Olive ever knew was laid out before him like a film reel. He saw every forgotten anniversary and hot dinner and every sleepless night. He saw how it ended.
Tires squealed against the macadam. His shadow was thrown out before him and the edges of his fingers shone red and blue and red and blue.
* * *
"Yeah. It's going to go late. Keep that dessert in the fridge. How's Nikki?"
Yelena's voice was tinny, distorted. "In the bath. Playing animals."
"Is she a duck?"
"She changed her mind. Ducks are ugly. Tonight, she's a swan."
"Love you." Packer hung up, gave Elliot a sheepish grin. "She made tiramisu."
"I love tiramisu. I need a wife. How much for yours?"
"Fuck you. Start the tape."
He slipped into the interview room where Con Stannis sat, steel cuffs around his wrists, the chain dangling in his lap. "Evening. Going to be cooperative?"
Con ducked away. "I will."
Packer frowned, trying to read anything from the man's expression. Nothing there but fear. He undid the cuffs and Con rubbed his wrists. "You didn't need to do that," Con said.
"You expect any different, turning up at that poor woman's house?"
"I d-didn't know."
"You didn't know? Yesterday you didn't know Robert Olive and today you're at his house?"
"I didn't kill him."
Packer snorted. "You watched a man die and then went to harass his wife? You're a prick. I'll come back when you're bored of being an asshole." He waved to Elliot behind the glass and locked the door behind him as he left. His hands were shaking. "Goddamn. Fuckin' goddamn." He reached for the cigarette pack that wasn't there.
* * *
Con Stannis was alone. The room was only a few paces each side, just big enough for a table and two chairs. He'd expected it to be cold steel and concrete, like on TV, but everything here was cheap plastic and chipboard. Taking the weight off his feet was an instant relief. It was the running that did it. Too long without exercise. Everything ached.
He closed his eyes. He laid his hands upon the table and felt his pulse through his fingertips.
The hunger swelled, and he understood it.
He remembered the fights with Connie, peaking with screaming and ending with skin pressed against skin, gasps in the darkness. It was hard, but sometimes hard was good.
Memories in strobe. Losing track of what went where. The sun on his back as he repaired the shingles. His first attempt at roast lamb, blackening in the oven, the stink getting into the curtains.
Five years ago he buried Marilyn. They did an incredible job on her face, rebuilt all the shattered bone. It looked like she was sleeping. The minister used her real name in the eulogy and he dug his fingernails into the flesh of his palms.
Five years ago he was Robert, and Connie was introducing him to the spaghetti western. Clint Eastwood seemed the kind of guy he could have a beer with. He dreamed of the unending sand of the west.
He was so terribly hungry.
A week ago he'd been eating takeaway Thai in his apartment, alone. But a week ago Connie had cooked lasagne.
And then...
Three nights back he'd gone for a walk. T-shirt and running pants and dusty sneakers with the sole flapping off. He'd played pool at the local till the two am lockout. Connie would be waiting under the covers, ready to welcome him in. She always was. She could be a bitch sometimes, a real straight-edge stick up his ass, but that was alright, because she knew what he wanted to say before he said it and she dreamed the same dreams. He believed she loved him almost as much as he loved her.
He turned the corner that signalled three blocks from home. Traffic was dead. The streetlights hummed in long rows.
Then a man stepped from nowhere and he was face to face with himself.
He remembered being Con looking into Robert's eyes, and Robert looking into Con's, and that was the last Robert saw.
He hadn't really lied to the cop. Not really.
The hunger curled his hands into claws. It had come back so quick, much faster than before. The need was greater. Maybe it was because he was getting old. And the look in Connie's eyes...
"Can't d-do this m-m-much longer," he whispered. It wasn't a town for folk his age. A hard place to wake up not knowing who or what you were. Maybe this time he'd remember something. Keep hold of some little scrap. Maybe he'd try to remember Marilyn. She was worth it.
He could smell the men in the next room, and his mouth filled with saliva.
The door opened and the cop called Packer walked in, papers in hand, coffee in the other. "Ready to chat?"
He swallowed the spit. "How did you find me?"
"You left a post-it."
"Ah," he said. "Stupid. I... I..."
"Don't play dead on me now."
The need was a screw twisting in his gut. His words came out in gasps. "I don't want to d-do this."
"Mm?"
Con's hand was a blur. He grabbed Packer around the wrist and the cop had time to shout before Con pulled him close and breathed him in. Packer went stiff, the cords in his neck taut. Then it was over. Packer fell. His head hit the floor with a hollow smack.
Con stood, feeling sweat and purpose and memories bubble in his chest, and he tasted and relished them all. Digesting would take a while. He heard movement in the next room. The door handle turned very slowly. He ignored it. He had all the time in the world.
Two concepts jostled for space in the forefront of his mind. One had called itself Robert Olive, and the other Conrad Stannis. They were distracting. There was only room for one, and Conrad was getting tired. All his parts worn down and creaking. His memories were dimming. A single bulb flickering in a long hall, waiting to finally sputter out.
He let Conrad go, breathed him out to mingle with the air and dust. There was nothing to see.
The door opened. The man on the other side flapped his mouth. He didn't hear the words. They didn't matter. Humans were slow, doddering creatures, and the only life they had was their own.
He pounced.
* * *
Robert Olive rolled out of bed swaddled in sheets. His right arm throbbed with pins and needles, and he shook it until the blood began to flow. The room was silent. Connie must have already been up and cooking breakfast.
"Connie." No reply. "Hey, Connie. You up?" Still no reply. He wandered into the kitchen. "You know that dream? The one about my birthday? I had it again."
The kitchen was empty, neon reflecting on linoleum. He remembered. "Dork," he said. "Rambling on to nobody."
He made breakfast in the dark, hands working by instinct. Then he froze. His fingers tangled. The bowl fell to the floor. Milk puddled cold around his toes.
"Nikki," he said. It was a name that didn't mean anything. Maybe a face in his dream. Maybe nothing at all.
Still, it was a nice name. He said it again, and then cleaned the floor and made his breakfast a second time. There was a long day ahead.