The Neighbor - Lisa Gardner [103]
You never forget the sounds of prison.
And I hear prison sounds right now, coming from the other side of the yard.
My hair is on fire. I don’t notice it at the time, and that’s probably what saves my neighbor’s life: me, tearing around to the front of the house, my arms waving wildly while my hair begins to spark bright orange flames.
I come careening around the corner and three guys look up at once.
“Aidan,” the first one says stupidly. His name is Carlos; I recognize his voice immediately: he works at the garage.
Then they simultaneously glance down at the black heap on the sidewalk. “Oh shit,” the second guy says.
“But if he’s Aidan,” the third guy starts, clearly not the sharpest tool in the box. He has his booted foot on the downed man’s back, and he’s bent over with his right arm drawn back, captured mid-punch.
I realize at that moment that I’m still holding the Maker’s Mark bottle, so I do the sensible thing and smash the bottom on the corner of Mrs. H.’s vinyl-sided house. Then I hold the jagged remains above my head, and hyped up on cheap whiskey and unrequited love, I launch into the fray, screaming like a banshee.
Three black-clad figures scatter, Carlos leaping out to an early lead, his arms pumping. Bachelor number three proves once again to be slow and stupid. I catch him across the upper arm with my impromptu weapon, and he screeches like a cat as I draw blood.
“Shit, shit, shit,” guy number two keeps saying. I jab him in the side. He jumps clear. I slash down and catch part of his thigh. “Carlos,” he’s screaming now. “Carlos, Carlos, what the fuck?”
I’m wild. I’m drunk and pissed off and tired of being a doormat in the game of life. I’m swinging at Stupid Slow Guy, I’m slashing at Screeching, Oh Shit Guy. I’m going nuts and the only thing that saves them is that I’m the world’s worst brawler when I’m sober, let alone when I’m drunk. I’m all fire and no focus.
Soon enough, the two dudes manage to pull free from my wind-milling madness and bolt down the darkened street in Carlos’s long-gone wake. That just leaves me, lunging at shadows and roaring obscene death threats until finally I realize my skull is screaming in agony and I smell something terrible.
Next thing I know, I’ve dropped the shattered whiskey bottle and I’m hopping up and down in the middle of the street, trying to suffocate the embers smoldering in my melted hair.
“Shit. Oh shit, shit, shit.” My turn to be the doofus. I pat frantically at my head until it feels like the worst of the heat has subsided. Then, breathing ragged, as moment passes into moment, I realize the full extent of my crime spree. I’m drunk. I’ve singed off most of my hair. My arms are riddled with black soot and fresh burn blisters. My whole body hurts like hell.
The black heap on the sidewalk is finally groaning his way back to life.
I cross to the man, roll him over onto his back.
And meet my neighbor, Jason Jones.
“What the fuck are you doing out this time of night?” I demand to know ten minutes later. I’ve managed to drag Jones inside my apartment, where I got him propped up on Mrs. H.’s floral love seat with one ice pack on his head and another against his left ribs.
Guy’s left eye is already half-swollen and there’s a bandage that suggests tonight hasn’t been his first beating of the day.
“Are you a fucking idiot?” I want to know. I’m coming down off my adrenaline high. I pace back and forth in front of the tiny kitchenette, snapping at the green elastic and wishing I could crawl out of my own skin.
“What the hell did you do to your hair?” Jones croaks out.
“Forget my fucking hair. What the hell are you doing skulking around the neighborhood dressed like a suburban ninja? Isn’t the freak show at your house enough for you?”
“You mean the media?”
“Cannibals.”
“Given that I’m one of them, and they’re clearly feeding off me, an apt analogy.”
I scowl harder. In my current mood, I don’t give a rat’s ass for apt analogies. “What the hell are you doing?” I try again.
“Looking for you.”
“Why?”
“You said you saw something