Free Cage of Night by Ed Gorman Page B

frightened and moved me.
    In the Army, I saw a man go berserk after he'd learned that his wife had left him. He took a straight razor to his wrists in the shower. We found him huddled in the corner, beneath the water, weeping.
    Myles reminded me of that forlorn man—only Myles sounded much sadder and more desperate, more primal and animal-like.
    She got him to his feet somehow, and then she took him to her as if he were her child rather than her lover.
    And the odd thing was, I didn't feel my usual jealousy now, seeing him in her arms this way.
    For the moment anyway, I wanted her to soothe and succor him. I was being selfish. I couldn't take hearing any more of his strange wailing.
    Gradually, his sobbing began to wane but still she held him, even rocking him back and forth a little, gently, gently, once again as if she were the mother and he the child.
    It ended then as abruptly as it began. Myles looked spent and dropped to the ground on his knees. There was nothing more to see—or nothing more I cared to see anyway.
    Had something in the well set Myles off? Or was he simply caught up in her mood as I'd been when I imagined the voices.
    I laughed out loud.
    Certainly, it had been nothing in the well. There was nothing in the well but water, and dirty, undrinkable water at that.
    So he'd been more imaginative than I'd given him credit for—so imaginative that he fell victim to himself—imagined that something had possessed him, and overwhelmed him.
    But his cries had been pretty convincing.
    Damned convincing.
    I was glad to be out of the woods, and in my car, and heading back home.
    Popcorn and Pepsi and Late Night With David Letterman sounded damned good about now.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

    But they didn't work for me, neither popcorn nor David Letterman.
    I sat on the moonlit screened-in back porch. It was mild as a spring night and it was November. I wanted to be a kid again. I wanted to be anybody but who I was at that moment.
    I thought about her and how I'd never be able to love anybody ever again the way I loved her. My first affair and it had lasted all of a week.
    There had been a basketball game tonight. I should have gone to that, seen Josh play. It was heading to midnight now. He was likely out with his girlfriend.
    A weariness overcame me. I felt a kind of paralysis. The night air was so sweet and sentimental, I didn't want to go inside.
    I put my head back and closed my eyes.
    I tasted her, tasted her mouth, tasted her sex. I didn't think I'd done especially well at oral sex—I really was a virgin—despite her claims that I'd been "wonderful."
    A car pulled into the driveway, headlights illuminating the closed white garage door. Josh.
    He put the car away, shut up the garage, and walked up on the back porch.
    "How's it going, Romeo?"
    That's what he'd started calling me after he found out I was taking Cindy out.
    He sat in the chair next to mine.
    "You shouldn't call me that anymore."
    "No? How come?"
    "She dumped me."
    "Dumped you? Shit, you've only had about four or five dates with her." He grinned. "Nobody could get sick of you that fast."
    I had to smile, though it was painful. "She went back with Myles."
    "You're kidding. He beat her up all the time."
    "I know."
    "You sure about that?"
    "I saw them together. And Garrett told me."
    "Garrett the cop?"
    "Yeah," I said.
    "No offense, but when I was a little kid and he was always hanging around here—I thought he was the biggest dweeb of all."
    "Yeah, I guess I did, too."
    "And he grows up to be a cop." He grinned again. "I saw him strutting around downtown in his uniform yesterday. Always got his hand on the butt of his pistol. Like a western gunfighter."
    "Yeah, I noticed that."
    He stuck out his very long legs.
    "Give her a call tomorrow," he said.
    "Who?"
    "Who? Cindy."
    "Call her?"
    "Damned right call her. Tell her it's Saturday and you want to meet her downtown on your lunch hour. No offense, Romeo, but you've got to be forceful with women."
    Once again,