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Janet Marco parked her brokendown Dodge at one end of the alleyway
With her fiveyearold son, Danny, and the stray dog that had recently attached itself to the the contents of one garbage can after another, seeking survival in the discards of others
The east side of the alley was flanked by a deep but narrow ravine filled with ile of dried brush while the west side was defined by a series of two- and threecar garages separated by wroughtiron and paintedwood gates Beyond solinolias, ficuses, and Australian tree ferns that flourished in the ocean air The houses all faced the Pacific over the roofs of other houses on lower tiers of the Laguna hills, so they were mostly three stories tall, vertical piles of stone and stucco and weathered cedar shingles designed to h the neighborhood was affluent, the rewards of scavenging were pretty much the same there as anywhere else: alu center for pennies, and redeemable bottles
However, once in a while she found a treasure: bags of clothes that were out of style but looked unworn, broken appliances that would fetch a couple of dollars from a secondhand shop if they needed only minor repairs, unwanted costuraph records that could be resold to specialty shops for collectors
Danny toted a plastic garbage bag into which Janet dropped the alu to hold the bottles
As they progressed along the alleyway, under a rapidly darkening sky, Janet repeatedly glanced back at the Dodge She worried about the car and tried never to get ht as much as possible The car was not only a means of conveyance; it was their shelter froer belongings It was home
She lived in dread of a h to be irreparabler irreparable within their
But she was one they would have no roof over their heads, no safe place to sleep
She knew that no one was likely to steal such a rolling wreck The thief’s desperation would have to exceed Janet’s own, and she could not conceive of anyone e brown plastic trash can, she extracted half a dozen aluht to have been separated for recycling She put the
The boy watched sole He was a quiet child
His father had inti to abastard out of their lives, Danny had becolanced back at the car Still there
Cloud shadows fell over the alleyway, and a soft saltscented breeze arose From far out over the sea came a low peal of thunder
She hurried to the next can, and Danny followed her
The dog, which Danny had named Woofer, sniffed at the trash containers, padded to a nearby gate, and poked his snout between the iron bars
His tail wagged continuously He was a friendly olden retriever, with a black and brown coat, and a cute face But Janet tolerated the cost of feeding him only because he had drawn so many smiles fro, she had allanced at the battered Dodge It was all right
She looked toward the other end of the alley, and then toward the brushchoked ravine and peeling trunks of the huge eucalyptuses across the way She was afraid not of just car thieves, and not h their garbage She was also afraid of the cop who had been harassing her lately No Not a cop Soe eyes, the kind and freckled face that could change so swiftly into a creature out of a nightion: fear She had been born into that cruel faith without being aware of it, as full of wonder and the capacity for delight as any child But her parents were alcoholics, and their sacrae and a capacity for sadisod, which was neither a specific person nor a force; to her, god was merely power, and whoever wielded it was automatically elevated to the status of deity
That she had fallen under the thrall of a wifebeater and control freak like Vince Marco, as soon as she was old enough to escape her parents, was no surprise By then she was devoted to victiinhood, had a need to be oppressed Vince was lazy, shiftless, a drunkard, a gaetic when it caht years they had er than six although not always an honest one He didn’t want Janet to develop friendships If he remained the only consistent presence in her life, he had total control; there was no one to advise and encourage her to rebel
As long as she was utterly subservient and wore her fear for his and torments were less severe than when she was od of fear appreciated visible expressions of his disciple’s devotion every bit as much as did the Christian God of love Perversely, fear becaeries
And so she , terrorized ani to save her After the baby was born, she began to fear for him as much as for herself What would happen to Danny if Vince went too far soht and, in an alcoholic frenzy, beat her to death? Hoould Danny cope alone, so small, so helpless? In time she feared harm to Danny more than to herselfwhich should have added to her burden but which was strangely liberating Vince didn’t realize it, but he was no longer the only consistent presence in her life Her child, by his very existence, was an arguht never have becoh to throw off her yoke if Vince had not raised his hand to the boy One night a year ago, in a dilapidated rental house with a desertbron on the outskirts of Tucson, Vince had co of beer and sweat and some other woman’s perfume, and had beaten Janet for sport Danny was four then, too sht to defend her When he appeared in his pajamas and tried to intervene, his father slapped him repeatedly, viciously, knocked him down, and kicked at him until the boy scra and terrified
Janet had endured the beating, but later, when both her husband and her boy were asleep, she’d gone to the kitchen and taken a knife from a wall rack near the stove Utterly fearless for the firstand perhaps lasttime in her life, she returned to the bedroom and stabbed Vince repeatedly in the throat, neck, chest, and stomach He woke as the first wound was inflicted, tried to screaled as his mouth filled with blood He resisted, briefly and ineffectually
After checking on Danny in the next room to be sure he had not awakened, Janet wrapped Vince’s body in the bloodstained bed sheets
She tied the shroud in place at his ankles and neck with clothesline, dragged hih the house, out of the kitchen door, and across the backyard
The high alleons sailed eastward across the sky, but Janet was not concerned about being seen The shacks along that stretch of the state route idely spaced, and no lights glowed in either of the two nearest ho that the police could take her froht have done, she hauled the corpse to the end of the property and out into the night desert, which stretched unpopulated to the far led between mesquite shrubs and stillrooted tumbleweeds, across soft sand in some places and hard tables of shale in others
When the cold face of the moon shone, it revealed a hostile landscape of stark shadows and sharp alabaster shapes In one of the deeper shadowsan arroyo carved by centuries of flash floodsJanet abandoned the corpse
She stripped the sheets off the body and buried those, but she didn’t dig a grave for the cadaver itself because she hoped that night scavengers and vultures would pick the bones clean quicker if it was left exposed Once the denizens of the desert had chewed and pecked the soft pads of Vince’s fingers, once the sun and the carrion eaters got done with hiht be deduced only by dental records Since Vince had rarely seen a dentist, and never the same one twice, there were no records for the police to consult With luck, the corpse would go undiscovered until the next rainy season, when the withered remains would be washed miles and miles away, tumbled and broken and mixed up with piles of other refuse, until they had essentially disappeared
That night Janet packed what little they owned and drove away in the old Dodge with Danny She was not even sure where she was going until she had crossed the state line and driven all the way to Orange County
That had to be her final destination because she couldn’t afford to spend et farther away from the dead man in the desert
No one back in Tucson would wonder what had happened to Vince He was a shiftless drifter, after all Cutting loose andon was a way of life to him
But Janet was deathly afraid to apply for welfare or any forht ask her where her husband was, and she didn’t trust her ability to lie convincingly