Horns by Joe Hill
“I’m not going in to see anyone. I’m going to wait outside,” Ig said, already backing away for the door, conscious of a cool flop sweat under his arms. His palms were slippery. As he nudged the door open with one elbow, the flare slipped, and for one terrifying moment he thought it was going to slide out in front of Hannity and fall to the floor, but he was able to grab it with his thumb and hold it in place.
Eric Hannity watched with an almost-animal look of hunger on his face as Ig backed out into the sunlight.
The transition from the chill of the office to the baking heat of the afternoon made Ig briefly dizzy. The sky brightened, then dimmed, then brightened again.
He had known just what he was doing when he drove to the congressman’s office. It had seemed simple, had seemed right. He saw now, though, that it had been a mistake. He was not going to kill Lee Tourneau with a highway flare (itself a comically absurd idea). Lee wasn’t even going to come out to talk to him.
As he crossed the lot, Ig’s stride quickened, along with the beat of his heart. The thing to do was leave, take the back roads to Gideon. Find a place to be alone, to be quiet and do some thinking. Get his head right. After the day he’d been through, he desperately needed to get his head right. Coming here was an act so thoroughly reckless and impulsive that it frightened him to think he’d allowed himself to do it. There was a part of him that thought there was a good chance Eric Hannity was already rallying backup and that if Ig didn’t go soon, he wouldn’t be able to go at all. (Another part, though, cooed softly, In ten minutes Eric won’t remember you were here. He was never even talking to you. He was talking with his own devil.)
Ig tossed the flare into the back of the Gremlin, slammed the hatchback. He had made it around to the driver’s-side door before he heard Lee call to him.
“Iggy?”
Ig’s internal temperature changed at the sound of Lee’s voice, fell by several degrees, as if he had too quickly swallowed a very cold drink. Ig turned and stared. He saw Lee through the wavering heat rising off the blacktop, a rippled, distorted figure, flickering in and out of existence, a soul and not a man. His short golden hair burned hot and white, as if he were aflame. Eric Hannity stood next to him, his bald pate throwing glare, his arms crossed over his barrel chest, hands hidden beneath his armpits.
Hannity remained by the entrance to the congressman’s offices, but Lee started toward Ig, seeming to walk not on the ground but on air, to be flowing like liquid through the smothering heat of day. As he got closer, however, his form became more solid, so that he was no longer a streaming, insubstantial spirit, a thing shaped out of heat and distorted sunlight, but finally only a man, with his feet on the ground. He wore jeans and a white shirt, a blue-collar costume that had the effect of making him look more like a carpenter than a political shill. He removed a pair of mirrored sunglasses as he came close. A thin gold chain glittered at his throat.
The blue of Lee’s right eye was the exact shade of the burnt August sky above. The damage to the left eye had not resulted in the usual sort of cataract, which appeared as a creamy white film across the retina. Lee had developed a cortical cataract, which manifested itself as a sunburst of palest blue—a terrible white star opening in the black ink of his pupil. The right eye was clear and watchful, fixed upon Ig, but the other was turned slightly inward and seemed to gaze off into the distance. Lee said he could see through it, if unclearly. He said it was like looking through a soap-covered window. Lee seemed to take Ig in with his right eye. Who knew what the left eye was looking at.
“I got your message,” Lee said. “So. You know.”
Ig was taken aback, hadn’t imagined that even under the influence of the horns Lee would admit to it so bluntly. It disarmed him, too, the shy, half-smiling look of apology on Lee’s face, an expression that seemed almost embarrassed, as if raping and murdering Ig’s girlfriend had been a graceless social faux pas, like tracking mud onto a new carpet.
“I know everything, you fuck,” Ig said, his voice shaking.
Lee paled; spots of color bloomed in his cheeks. He held up his left hand, palm out, in a wait-a-minute gesture. “Ig. I’m not going to make excuses. I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I had a little too much to drink, and she looked like she needed a friend, and things got out of hand.”
“That’s all you have to say for yourself? Things got out of fucking hand? You know I’m here to kill you.”
Lee stared for a moment, then glanced over his shoulder at Eric Hannity and back to Ig. “Given your history, Ig, you shouldn’t joke. After what you’ve been through over Merrin, you want to be careful what you say in the presence of a lawman. Especially a lawman like Eric. He doesn’t get irony.”
“I’m not being ironic.”
Lee picked at the golden chain around his throat and said, “For what it’s worth, I feel lousy about it. At the same time, a small part of me is glad you found out. You don’t need her in your life, Ig. You’re better off without her.”
Ig couldn’t help himself, made a low, agonized sound of rage in his throat and started toward Lee. He expected Lee to back away, but Lee held his ground, just pointed another glance back at Eric, who nodded in return. Ig shot a look at Eric himself—and went still. For the first time, he saw that Eric Hannity’s holster was empty. The reason it was empty was that he had the revolver in one hand, and he was hiding it in his armpit. Ig couldn’t actually see the gun but sensed it there, could feel the weight of it as if he held it himself. Eric would use it, too, Ig had no doubt. He wanted to shoot Terry Perrish’s brother, get in the paper—HERO COP SLAYS ALLEGED SEX KILLER—and if Ig put his hands on Lee, it would be all the excuse he needed. The horns would do the rest, compelling Hannity to fulfill his ugliest impulses. That’s how they worked.
“I didn’t know you cared so much,” Lee said finally, taking slow, steady breaths. “Jesus, Ig, she’s trash. I mean, she has a good heart, but Glenna’s always been trash. I thought the only reason you were living with her was to get out of your parents’ house.”
Ig had no idea what he was talking about. For a moment the day seemed to catch in place; even the dreadful sawing of the locusts seemed to pause. Then Ig understood, remembered what Glenna had admitted to him that morning, the first confession the horns had compelled. It seemed impossible it had been only that morning.
“I’m not talking about her,” Ig said. “How could you think I’m talking about her?”
“Who are you talking about, then?”
Ig didn’t understand. They all told. As soon as they saw Ig, saw his horns, the secrets tumbled forth. They couldn’t help themselves. The receptionist wanted to wear his mother’s underwear, and Eric Hannity wanted an excuse to shoot Ig and get in the paper, and now it was Lee’s turn, and the only thing Lee had to confess to was being on the receiving end of a drunken blow job.
“Merrin,” Ig said hoarsely. “I’m talking about what you did to Merrin.”
Lee tilted his head, just a little, so his right ear was pointed toward the sky—like a dog listening for a faraway sound. He let out a soft, sighing breath. Then he gave his head the tiniest shake.
“Lost me, Ig. What am I supposed to have done to—”
“Fucking killed her. I know it was you. You killed her and made Terry keep quiet about it.”
Lee gave Ig a long, measured look. He glanced again toward Eric Hannity—checking, Ig thought, to see if Eric was close enough to hear their conversation. He was not. Then Lee looked back, and when he did, his face was dead and blank. The change was so jarring that Ig almost shouted in fear—a comical reaction, a devil afraid of a man, when it was supposed to be the other way around.
“Terry told you this?” Lee said. “If he did, he’s a goddamn liar.”
Lee was closed off from the horns in some way Ig didn’t understand. There was a wall up, and the horns couldn’t poke through. Ig tried to will the horns to work, and for a moment they filled with a dense swell of heat and blood and pressure, but it d
Lee went on, “I hope he hasn’t been telling anyone else that. And I hope you haven’t either.”
“Not yet. But soon everyone will know what you did.” Could Lee even see the horns? He hadn’t mentioned them. Hadn’t even seemed to look at them.
“They’d better not,” Lee said. Then the muscles flexed at the corners of his jaw as an idea occurred to him, and he said, “Are you recording this?”
“Yes,” Ig said, but he was too slow, and anyway, that was the wrong answer; no one who was attempting entrapment would admit to recording a conversation.
“No you aren’t. You never did learn to lie, Ig,” Lee said, and smiled. His left hand was fingering the gold chain around his throat. The other was in his pocket. “Too bad for you, though. If you were recording this conversation, you might get somewhere. As it is, I don’t think you can prove anything. Maybe your brother said something to you while he was drunk, I don’t know, but whatever he told you, I’d just put it out of your mind. I definitely wouldn’t go around repeating it. Tales out of school never do anyone any good. Think about it. Can you imagine Terry going to the police with some crazy story about me killing Merrin, with nothing but his word against mine, and him silent a whole year? No evidence to back him up? ’Cause there isn’t any, Ig, it’s all gone. If he goes out with that story, best-case scenario it’s the end of his career. Worst-case scenario maybe we both wind up in jail. I promise there’s no way I’d be going without him.”
Lee slipped a hand out of his pocket long enough to rub a knuckle in his good eye, as if to clear some dust from it. For a moment the right eye was shut, and he was staring at Ig through the damaged eye, the eye shot through with those spokes of white. And for the first time, Ig understood what was so terrible about that eye, what had always been so terrible about it. It wasn’t that it was dead. It was just…occupied with other matters. As if there were two Lee Tourneaus. The first was the man who’d been Ig’s friend for more than a decade, a man who could admit to children he was a sinner and who donated blood to the Red Cross three times a year. The second Lee was a person who gazed at the world around him with all the empathy of a trout.
Lee cleared whatever was in his right eye and let the hand fall to his side. He casually replaced it in his pocket. He was coming forward again. Ig retreated, staying out of arm’s reach. He wasn’t sure why he was backing off, didn’t know why it suddenly seemed a matter of life and death to keep at least a few feet of blacktop between himself and Lee Tourneau. The locusts droned in the trees, a terrible, maddening buzz that filled Ig’s head.
“She was your friend, Lee,” Ig said as he retreated around the front end of the car. “She trusted you, and you raped her and killed her and left her in the woods. How could you do that?”
“You’ve got one thing wrong, Ig,” Lee said in a calm, steady, low voice. “It wasn’t rape. I’m sure you’d like to believe that, but honestly, she wanted me to fuck her. She was coming on to me for months. Sending me messages. Playing little word games. She had this whole cocktease business going on behind your back. She was just waiting for you to go to London so we could have our thing.”
“No,” Ig said, a sick heat rising to his face, rising behind the horns. “She might’ve slept with someone else, but she wouldn’t have slept with you, Lee.”
“She told you that she wanted to sleep with other people. Who do you think she was talking about? I mean, honestly, this seems to be a running theme with your girls, Ig. Merrin, Glenna—sooner or later they all wind up on the end of my dick.” Opening his mouth in a toothy, aggressive grin that had no humor in it.
“She fought you.”
“I know you probably won’t believe this, Ig, but she wanted that, too, wanted me to take the lead, push past her objections. Maybe she needed that. It was the only way she could get over her inhibitions. Everybody has a dark side. That was hers. You know she came when we fucked, don’t you? Out there in the woods with me? She came hard. I think it was a fantasy of hers. Being taken in the gloomy ol’ forest. A little bit of scratch and wrestle.”
“And then a rock in the head?” Ig asked. He had by now backed all the way around the front end of the Gremlin to the passenger side, and Lee had followed him step by step. “That part of the fantasy?”
Lee stopped walking and stood there. “You’ll have to ask Terry. He was the one who did that part.”
“That’s a lie,” Ig whispered.
“But there really is no truth. None that matters,” Lee said. His left hand came out of his shirt. He wore a gold cross, which flashed in the sunlight. He put it in his mouth and sucked on it for a moment, then let it fall and said, “No one knows what went down that evening. If I smashed her with the rock, or if Terry did it, or if you did it…no one is ever going to know what really happened. You don’t have a case to make, and I’m not going to cut some deal with either of you, so what do you want?”
“I want to see you die hopeless and scared in the dirt,” Ig said. “Just like she did.”
Lee smiled, as if he had been offered a compliment.
“Do it, then,” he said. “Come on and do it.” He took a quick step forward, lunging at Ig, and Ig opened the passenger-side door between them, flinging it into Lee.
It crashed into Lee’s legs with a bang, and something hit the asphalt—rattle-clatter-tchok! Ig had a glimpse of a red Swiss Army knife with a three-inch blade, spinning away across the ground. Lee staggered and made a harsh whuffing sound, exhaling sharply, and Ig used the chance to scramble into the car, across the passenger seat, and behind the wheel. He didn’t even bother to close the passenger door.
“Eric!” Lee shouted. “Eric, he’s got a knife!”
But the Gremlin came to life in a rasping, grinding burst, and Ig’s foot found the gas before he was even settled in the seat. The Gremlin lurched forward, and the passenger door thudded shut. Ig’s gaze darted to the rearview mirror, and he saw Eric Hannity trotting across the lot, pistol in his hand, barrel pointed at the ground.
Chunks of asphalt flew from the back tires and glittered in the sunlight, skeins of gold. As Ig pulled out, he shot another glance at the rearview mirror and saw Lee and Eric standing in the dust cloud. Lee’s good right eye was closed again, and he was waving a hand at the billowing grit. The half-blind left eye, though, was open and staring after Ig with an alien sort of fascination.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HE STAYED OFF THE INTERSTATE on the way back—back where? He didn’t know. Ig drove automatically, with no conscious thought to direction. He wasn’t sure what had just happened to him. Or, rather, he knew what had happened but not what it meant. It wasn’t anything Lee had said or done; it was what he hadn’t said, hadn’t done. The horns hadn’t touched him. Lee alone, of all the people Ig had dealt with today, had told Ig only what he wanted to tell; his confession had been a considered decision, not a helpless impulse.
Ig wanted off the road, as soon as possible. Would Lee call the police and tell them Ig had shown up in a deranged state and come at him with a knife? No, actually, Ig didn’t think he would. Lee wouldn’t bring the law into this if he could avoid it. Still, Ig kept to the speed limit and watched his rearview mirror for police cruisers.
He wished he could be coolly in control, could handle his getaway like Dr. Dre—be a stone-cold badass—but his nerves were jangled and his breath was short. He had finally come up against the edge of emotional exhaustion. Crucial systems were shutting down. He couldn’t keep going like this. He needed to get a handle on what was happening to him. He needed a fucking saw, a sharp-toothed saw, needed to cut the miserable things off his head.
The sun beat at the window in flashes, a soothing, hypnotic repetition. Images beat the same way in Ig’s mind. The open Swiss Army knife on the ground, Vera riding her wheelchair down the hill, Merrin flashing her cross at him th
Ig restlessly twisted at his goatee, wondering if it might be as simple as that, if Merrin’s cross had turned off the horns (muted them) in some way. Crosses held back vampires, didn’t they? No, that was worse than garbage, that was nonsense. He had walked into the house of the Lord earlier that morning, and Father Mould and Sister Bennett had fallen all over themselves to tell him their secrets and ask his permission to sin.
But Father Mould and Sister Bennett hadn’t been in the church. They had been beneath it. That wasn’t a holy place. It was a gym. Had they worn crosses, had they dressed themselves in any sign of their faith? Ig remembered Father Mould’s cross, hanging from one end of the twenty-pound bar set across the bench press, and Sister Bennett’s bare throat. What do you say to that, Ig Perrish? Ig Perrish didn’t say anything; he drove.
A boarded-up Dunkin’ Donuts flashed by on his left, and he realized he was near the town woods, not far from the road running up to the old foundry. He was less than half a mile from where Merrin had been murdered, the very same place he’d gone last night to curse and rave and piss and pass out. It was as if the day’s whole motion had merely described a great circle that was always, inevitably, going to lead him back to where he had started.