In the House of Spite Ch. 17

It was quiet again for a while. Then Darren asked, "Why the hell did he pretend to be me?"

"I don't know," Pearl said. "Even his hands and fingernails were like yours."

"Huh. That's fucked up, but kind of funny too." Darren put a light kiss on her brow. She looked up and saw absolutely nothing gentle in his face. His lips didn't even twitch with a smile's beginning. "I got a hold of him on the phone once. He said he loved me. I told him I loved him too, but that was a lie." His fingertips slid around her jawline. "I was just trying to keep him from getting angry."

Pearl reached up to put an arm around his shoulders. Even though he'd just recently said some horrible things, she still loved being close to him. There was too much of a positive history with him. "You think he might be mentally ill or something?"

"Maybe, but an asylum would be just as bad as a prison. Too risky."

"So what do we do now?"

"You," Darren said with a particular emphasis, "are going to stay home as much as possible. Don't leave the house alone unless you need to, like if there's an emergency."

"What are you going to do?"

He kissed her face again. "Well, I'm too worried to tell you much. I think Shawn might be doing a crazy stalker thing. The less said out loud, the better."

It felt as if all of Pearl's flesh had been sliced off like soft glycerin soap chunks and put in a freezer. She quivered and tried not to gag. Then she said, "Oh shit. He's been watching us?"

"I bought some more time with the bullet in the leg," Darren said, "but he might pay people to keep an eye on us. I'm not sure."

Kicking her feet a little, Pearl told him, "You shouldn't have told me that! Now I'm going to be paranoid twenty-four hours a day!"

"Just stay home," Darren said. "Maybe don't go outside much either."

Pearl didn't think she'd sleep well for a good while.

***

Pearl was home alone the next afternoon. She was in the living room, playing an older Civilization game and listening to the dogs wrestle with each other on the carpet. When Darren came home, he was with someone. Mr. Booker. His blue eyes weren't just old anymore. They were sad.

Pearl paused the game and sat with the men. She waited for someone else to bring the disconcerting issue up. Mr. Booker did it, his withered and shaking hand gripping one of the couch's arms. He looked away from everyone, seeming haunted, as he said, "I don't know how Shawn got this way. He's good at hiding everything behind his smile."

Darren sat beside him. His spine was uncomfortably stiff. "He has a house around here, a big one."

"He'll probably leave it," Mr. Booker said as his face pointed down. "Might even sell it as soon as he can. He's proud, but about different things. Darren wouldn't sell his house even if it was haunted."

Pearl put on a weak smile and said, "He'd probably scare the ghosts or at least make friends." She heard Gunner snort and leave Baby Blue. Pearl watched the dog plop down at Darren's feet. "Do you have any idea where he might be now?"

"Nope." Mr. Booker rubbed his lips with his palm and looked up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry this happened." His voice was creaky.

Gunner was sniffing one of Darren's socked feet. Darren slid his foot backward. "Maybe I can start looking where the pretty Hispanic girls are, well, the ones that don't speak English worth a damn and only accept cash."

Hopefully, Pearl thought, those girls weren't minors.

"Maybe you should look in some really bad parts," Mr. Booker suggested. "Sniff around where there's a lot of bud or coke, but don't sniff too hard." His chest heaved with a dry chuckle. "Anyway, an obviously not Hispanic fellow buying Hispanic girls, probably even using other Hispanics to keep the girls from running away, that's going to get some people talking."

"I don't get what you mean," Pearl said as Gunner got up and walked over to her. She was petting his head and rubbing his pointed ears when she asked, "What's race got to do with it?"

"He's half Black," Darren said. "Mexicans are racist as shit, and not just to Black folks." Pearl didn't know if he literally meant Mexicans or Central Americans in general, but she was fairly certain he didn't mean that ALL Mexicans/Central Americans were racist. Still, this made Pearl remember something.

"When I was first dating Jeffery," she said, "I had a job at a chicken processing plant, in sanitation. It was mostly Black and Hispanic guys, and none of the Hispanic guys would speak enough English for us to understand them. One Black guy, he was very sweet, but he once had a rant in the break room because of how the Hispanic workers were treating him. Later, he told me that he that Mexicans, and he actually said Mexicans, just don't like Black people, or not the Mexicans that work in plants."

Mr. Booker turned his head to her and put on a very serious look. "Shawn's racist too. He hates Hispanics, except Spanish people. He calls them, 'good people.' He just works with the illegals from over the border because they're easy to use. But he'll get women from around here sometimes. White, Black, Indian, whatever, as long as they're pretty enough and vulnerable. He mostly sells them to people from other countries."

They talked for some more time, coming up with ideas and then shooting said ideas down. Mr. Booker had to leave eventually. He gave both Darren and Pearl a hug. Then he left with a very slow gait. Pearl went to pet Gunner a bit more and then she almost randomly said, "You know, I've heard a lot of illegals do come here legally, but they overstay their visas."

"Doesn't matter," Darren said as he got in his recliner. "They didn't go home when they were supposed to. They're staying here illegally. It's just as bad as sneaking over."

Pearl sighed and ran her palm down Gunner's back. Then, as she remembered a few more things about Darren's family, she suddenly guessed out loud, "Your brother's not a church person. I'll bet you a quarter he's not."

"You're right, he's not." Darren was holding the remote and turning on the TV. "He seemed to start hating church just before we found out he was so fucked in the head."

"And your family thinks that was the problem? Not going to church?"

"Maybe. I'm different. I mean, I don't know what the cause was," Darren said, "but I'm pretty sure he didn't turn evil because he didn't listen to a preacher whine about some woman rubbing hair and perfume on Jesus' feet."

Pearl giggled. "You forgot the tears."

"Don't care," he grumbled.

Some time later, Pearl's brain seemed to slap her cheek into remembering a flaw in Darren's logic. "Hey," she said to him. "Shawn isn't just hurting illegals. Your Daddy said so."

Darren's face took on a haunting expression very similar to his father's. His body became rigid for a moment. Pearl stared at him, waiting for his brain to finish clicking and twirling. Finally, his breath softened his body, and he said, "I'm still not calling the police or ICE, but I'll definitely kill him."

Maybe, up until then, Darren had liked to pretend citizens weren't being victimized, and then he made himself forget it. Maybe it was an extra way for him to justify not reporting the disgusting horror. Even so, Pearl understood why he didn't want the government involved.

***