Текст книги "Supernatural Noir "

Автор книги: Paul Tremblay

Соавторы: Caitlin Rebekah Kiernan,Brian Evenson,Joe R. Lansdale,Lucius Shepard,Laird Barron,Nate Southard,Gregory Frost,John Langan,Richard Bowes,Tom Piccirilli
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

A lot of people believed Dell had iced Katy and Ron to ensure the future of both the town and the MC, but I never did. Dell always proclaimed his innocence, even when we were alone and drunk. He’d been loyal, bound by deed and blood. He also said that he believed he was Emily’s biological dad, and I couldn’t see him killing Katy no matter how much trouble she brought the club. I thought he loved her, the way I had, the way we all had.

“Let that go, Emily,” I whispered. “You’ve wasted enough of your life to grief. Give it up. Do whatever the doctors at Sojourner tell you to do. Play the game. Pretend if you have to. But get out. I can help you with that. I did it myself. I can show you how.”

“I can’t go back there,” she said. “Not right now. Please.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, shushing her again. I hummed to her the way I thought I remembered my mother humming to me. I held her, but the way that a friend would. It had been a long time since I’d held anyone that way.

“Can I sleep here?” she asked. “I’m tired.”

“Yes, of course.”

I watched over her for a couple of hours. The sun started to come up. It bathed her face in a rosy golden light that washed away all the distress and anxiety. She curled up under my arm and I shut my eyes.

–

The dead have a way of waking up along with you. I listened to their hisses. The weight of nightmare was still on me. I couldn’t move yet. The whispering grew louder. It might’ve been Katy’s voice. She smiled at me with a mouth full of blood as she flicked open a switchblade. I was snoring. I made an effort to rear off the bed but I couldn’t. I tried to open my eyes but I wasn’t quite there yet. I heard scratching and the ringing chimes of the box spring. I was asleep and I knew it. I snorted and sipped air. Emily spoke to me.

I’m pregnant, she said.

My eyes snapped open.

I asked, “What? What did you say?”

I checked beside me. She wasn’t there. I touched the outline of her body in the blankets. There was no warmth.

“Emily?”

I got out of bed. Her clothes were still on the floor where she’d left them. The bathroom was empty. The pistol was in my nightstand drawer where I’d put it.

I sniffed and gagged. I raised the back of my hand to cover my nose. I knew the smell. It was coming from under my bed.

I crouched down and peered underneath and saw Emily wedged there with her eyes and mouth open. She’d cut her wrists with the pocketknife I kept in an ashtray on my dresser. It hadn’t been very sharp and she’d really had to saw into herself. I counted four vertical slashes on each wrist. She’d had to start over and over as the wounds crusted. Ron and Katy’s shitty shag carpet had soaked her blood up thirstily. She’d bled out beneath me while I’d slept and dreamed of her mother.

I disturbed the scene by reaching for Emily and touching her cheek. She was still warm. She’d been dead no more than an hour.

She’d said she was pregnant. But when had she told me? It felt like she’d woken me with those words. Her lips were drawn back, not so much into a grimace as a real, true smile. She looked much happier than she had while talking with me. She seemed more lively as well. Her eyes hadn’t turned dull and hard yet. Amusement played there.

It took me a minute to get my bearings and find my cell. I called 911. When I was asked for my name it took me three tries before I could say it. I told them what had happened, gave my address, and disconnected.

I threw water on my face and regained my footing. I found her PJs and the ragged slippers and went through it all. The only thing I found of note was a small plastic purple house that looked like it belonged to a board game. I tried to imagine what significance it held for her. Did it remind her of her childhood? Was it a symbol of a perfect family and home life?

I laid on the floor and stared at the suicided girl under my bed and wondered just how I could have failed her so miserably.

–

I told the story seven times from start to finish, beginning with Cecil’s fatal overfeeding and ending when I phoned 911. I left out Emily’s attempt at seduction and my near enticement. The cops tried to shake me and couldn’t. They didn’t bother starting off acting friendly. They went straight to threats and shouted in my face and tried to get me to drink coffee so they could withhold bathroom privileges. They said they knew I’d killed Emily. They knew I’d tried to hide her body under my own bed. They knew I’d knocked off her parents and was perverted enough to move into the house afterward. They said she’d probably seen me do it and that’s why, all these years later, I’d felt the sudden burning compulsion to murder the only eyewitness.

After four hours they phoned my boss at the garage, told him about my past as a car thief, and had me fired. They got a little rough but didn’t seem to know how to go about it. One detective smacked me with a sloppy open palm. His hand was soft and smelled of aloe. Afterward, he looked like he wanted to apologize. Another cop tried to work my kidneys but he couldn’t find them. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or disgusted.

After nine hours they cut me loose. It was eight p.m. and I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in more than a day. I hadn’t even made it to the curb before I heard the roar of motorcycle engines heading up the street. I lit a cigarette and got in a nice, long drag before Dell and a half dozen of his men pulled up. He waved me over. If the brotherhood decided to play rough, they’d have no trouble working my kidneys. Their hands weren’t soft. I hesitated a moment and decided, fuck it, got on the back of his bike and held on as the pack moved as one back to the clubhouse.

–

They had warehouses all around town under false-front corporations and did most of their dirty dealings there, but they still had a nice security setup at the MC base. It was a converted barroom where they partied and schemed and got laid. It’s also where they got a little bloody when they had to. There was a back room with a stained concrete floor and a drain in the center. If it even looked like they were planning to corral me there, I was going to have to do something stupid and desperate.

Instead Dell led me to the bar while the other brothers went to shoot pool. On the far wall were photos of all the current members and all the ones who were in jail or dead. I was a little shocked to see that the dead now outnumbered the living.

Dell grabbed a bottle of Glenlivet off the top shelf and poured us each three fingers.

“Okay,” he said. “So tell me what happened.”

There was nothing inherently threatening in his attitude, but I knew better than to lie to him. I gave it to him pretty much the same way I gave it to the cops, except I also mentioned how she’d come on to me. I didn’t tell him I had nearly accepted the offer. I didn’t have to. I also didn’t tell him that I’d heard her say she was pregnant. That her voice had woken me—or Katy’s whispers had—an hour after the girl was dead.

I watched him closely. He went 220 of near-solid muscle, and his knuckles had been flattened from all the times he’d broken his hands in brawls. I couldn’t see any guns on him, but I knew he had to be packing at least two. There was no chance I’d get out alive if he decided this situation should go nuclear, but I wasn’t about to go down without a fight. I pulled the bottle closer to me and poured myself another two fingers. I kept the bottle within easy reach.

Dell said, “Thank you.”

It surprised me so much I asked, “For what?”

“For not kicking her out. For not calling the white wagon to come get her.”

A pause lengthened between us. I let it roll on and on until I felt it was time to ask, “Were you really her father?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t know. Probably not. It doesn’t make any difference.”

“It might have to her.”

“I kept in touch,” he said. “I visited her a couple times a year. Sent care packages. Cards on holidays, her birthday. It wasn’t much but it was something. I thought it was important.” He finished his drink and stared at himself in the mirror behind the bar for a minute. “Did she look in the root cellar?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know about that part of it.”

“That’s good.”

We kept drinking. The liquor was hitting me hard since I’d had no food for so long. I flashed on the idea that this might have been his intention all along, to catch me with my defenses down. Except he didn’t need me to have my defenses down. He had six men across the room who’d shotgun me to death if he gave the word.

“Where did she get the piece?” He wasn’t really asking me. “And what the hell was that about her parents under the bed?”

“She was a sick girl,” I said.

He pawed at his face and shook his head. “That image, it’s sticking with me. That she would dream that kind of stuff, man. She never told me anything like that. I can picture her trying to drop off, awake in the dark, thinking her parents were whispering under her bed. Jesus Christ, the poor kid. That fucking hospital. More than six years she was there, and this is the best they could do for her?”

The wind kicked up again. The bar rafters rasped and complained. The sound made me flinch. I finished another glass.

With my throat burning I said, “She needs me to find out who did it.”

As soon as it was out I knew I’d made a mistake. I spoke in the present tense. It was stupid. I sounded a little unhinged. The MC had more than enough crazy to go around; Dell didn’t need even more. But I couldn’t seem to stop. “I failed her. That’s going to hang with me unless I do something about it.”

“It’s not your burden.”

“I think it is.”

His heavy brow knit into a frown. “You’re not gonna find an answer. I’ve been trying for years and I haven’t found it. You think I haven’t looked into it? Just to clear my name?”

“Was that important to you?”

“It was to the brotherhood. I didn’t want any doubts. I couldn’t have my men thinking I would go rogue and kill our leader, even if it was for the good of the MC. It still crosses me up to this day. The original members, they forget what Ron and Katy were like at the time, the kind of trouble they hammered down on us. They just remember how much money he brought in and how good she could suck dick.”

He didn’t know about Emily being pregnant. He wouldn’t until the autopsy results came back. Then he’d understand why I was so adamant on trying to help her, and he’d be pissed at me for not telling him the whole truth. My gut clenched in expectation for a real beating, but that was for later.

“You’re not going to find an answer,” he repeated. “I don’t think there is one.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

The bottle was empty. Dell staggered to his feet, crossed behind the bar, and dug around on the shelf until he found a bottle of Glenfiddich. “You know the kind of life the brotherhood lives. Running guns, hijacking trucks, giving kickbacks to the cops, fighting the wops and the wetbacks and the Koreans and the skinheads. We have a lot of enemies. Ron brought most of that down on us before we managed to contain it. Katy, she had her own bad wiring. She screwed a lot of guys, right? There is no answer because it’s too small to see. It’s . . .” He had to steel himself to say the word properly.

“. . . inconsequential. Some greaser put out the call on them, or some cop who wanted more of a cut, or maybe some white-collar citizen blew his gasket.”

“Ron’s hamstrings were cut. Katy’s face was bashed to pieces. What average citizen is going to do that? Has the capacity for doing that?”

“Anyone,” Dell said, “is capable of anything, if they hate somebody enough. Ron was probably drunk, as usual, and couldn’t fight back. Katy zonked on crank. Anyone could have done it.” He lowered his voice. “Maybe one of the brothers had a beef. It’s been six years. You know how many of us are in the ground right along beside them now? More than a dozen. Whoever did it had their reasons, and we’ll never know what they were. There are questions we’ll never know the answer to.”

I thought he was right. I glanced at the photos of the brothers on the wall. A lot of them were on death row or dying of emphysema or cancer or failing livers or kidneys. Ron and Katy lived the MC life and died because of it. I knew I’d never find out who had murdered them. Not only had too much time passed, but the truth was that I really didn’t give a shit about them.

But I felt I owed Emily something. I had never said I would help her, and I should’ve. It might have made all the difference.

–

Dell let me take one of the MC’s drop cars home. It would have clean plates and a clean registration, but if they ever needed to abandon it for whatever reason, it couldn’t be traced back to the brotherhood. I drove to an all-night diner, wolfed down a couple of burgers and a jug of coffee, and stared out the plate-glass window up the highway in the direction of Sojourner.

The story of Emily’s escape and suicide hadn’t broken nationwide yet, but it would by morning. It would stir up all the bad news about Katy and Ron’s unsolved murder, and the cops would be buzzing like hornets while trying to dodge news crews. The hospital directors and chairpersons would be holed up in an all-night board meeting someplace. They’d be gearing up for reporters and potential lawsuits. They’d be plotting with attorneys for hours, shoring up their stories, preparing their pretexts. In another day or two nobody would be able to break through their line of defense. I had to go in now.

I drove over to Sojourner and parked off one of the back roads at the far side of the hospital, along a wide field bordered by the high safety fence. I walked along the fence until I came to a spot where the links had been cut low to the ground so it could be peeled up a few inches and someone could crawl through. No matter how many times they repaired it there’d always be a place like this somewhere along the perimeter. Orderlies brought in contraband this way. I was certain it was how Emily Wright had managed to escape the ward. I’d seen the scratches along her back from the loose fence wire.

I’d made a break from Sojourner this way myself many years ago. Standing here now, staring up at the building with its hundreds of cube windows, its harsh white lights burning across time and memory, knowing the kinds of things that went on in there, a sudden rush of rage surged through my chest. I crawled under the fencing and made my way to the employee exit.

I crept along the side of the building, just out of range of the bright security lights. I stood in the shadows and waited. Twenty minutes later an orderly stepped out the door, propped it open with a folding chair, leaned against the jamb, and lit a joint. You could see why they’d hired him. He was tall and massive, with thick arms and wrists covered in twisting black veins. I kept hoping he’d sit and relax, but he wouldn’t. He just smoked his J and stared out at the night looking mean.

Had he been the one? Had he been the one who had crept into bed with her one night and climbed on top of her while she stared over his shoulder and listened to her mother and father talking to her from the other end of hell?

I moved fast, came up on him from the left and hooked him twice under the heart. It was like punching welded steel plating. His breath exploded from his lungs and the sweet scent of marijuana blew into my face. He bounced off the jamb and recovered almost instantly. This wasn’t going to be easy. I worked his short ribs with rapid-fire jabs. He said, “The fuck . . . ?” and swept out one of those tremendous fists. I ducked and he tried again. I dodged and brought a roundhouse up from my knees directly onto the point of his chin. It rocked him. He threw his arms out like he was trying to keep balance on a high wire. It didn’t help. He fell over on his ass with a puzzled expression. He grunted a threat and tried to lumber to his feet. I kicked him once in the throat and twice in the face, and he was out.

I checked his belt and found his keys, then I stepped inside and shut the door.

The sound of the lock engaging put the shits up me. I walked along the empty halls, glancing into the community day room, the group-discussion room, the work room. I could smell the clay they were using to make ashtrays and potholders. The floorboards were thick with shreds of wicker from their weaving of baskets and mats. It’s really what they gave the lunatics to do in order to keep their hands busy.

I unlocked each security door I came to and slid through. Normally there would be three other orderlies on duty, a couple of night nurses, maybe a doctor. I suspected the staff would be light tonight. I eased up the hall and peered around the corner at the nurse’s station. I could hear the soft, fast padding of footsteps far up the corridor. Sounded like a young, heavy woman with an austere purpose. She’d be checking rooms and giving out midnight medication and sedatives to whoever needed it. I stepped toward the nurse’s station thinking maybe I’d get lucky and have time to check through their computer files. I was almost there when an orderly stepped out of the men’s room and turned towards me.

I didn’t give him time to react. I clutched the heavy key ring tightly in my fist and broke his nose. He doubled over, gagging on blood, and I swept his feet out from under him. He went down hard but not hard enough to quit struggling. I gripped him by his hair and banged his head twice on the tile floor until his eyes rolled back into his skull. I dragged him into the nurse’s station and stuffed him halfway behind a filing cabinet.

There were only five possibilities, so far as I could see, of who might have gotten Emily pregnant. A doctor, an orderly, some other staff member, a patient, or a visitor.

The computer system was simple. I did a search and came up with Emily’s file. I went through her list of visitors. There hadn’t been any in six months. Before that, on her birthday, Dell had signed in. He stayed for twenty minutes. I went back further. He’d done the same thing last year, and the year before.

I kept scrolling through the pages reading reports. It all seemed like the same thing. Emily would have moments of lucidity, then fall back into a dissociative state where she was delusional. She’d escaped once before, three months ago, and they put her on a suicide watch.

They tried some serious drugs on her. I thought of her frail frame with all those chemicals punching through her veins. I reached down and gripped the edge of the desk and tightened my hold, the impotent fury heavy in me.

The nurse stepped back in. She had a face like an iron frying pan and arms nearly as thick as mine. She rushed over to me with her hands up like she wanted to box. I jumped to my feet and got in her face. She didn’t intimidate easily and raised her chin to meet me.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

I said, “Someone who spent some time here, which means you definitely shouldn’t fuck with me.”

“I’m calling security.”

I blocked her as she went for the phone. “The two orderlies covering the ward tonight are sleeping. Let’s leave them that way, right?”

Her eyes darted to the pair of feet jutting from behind the filing cabinet.

Even that didn’t spook her much. Everyone who worked at Sojourner was hard. “What do you want?”

“I want to know about Emily Wright.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t give out any information. Leave now, or I’ll call the police.”

I looked at her. She held my gaze for thirty seconds and then turned aside. I chucked her under the chin and stared deep into her face. “You know she’s dead, don’t you? They told you that. A hurricane of shit is about to sweep through this place. I can either make it better or worse. Now, show me her room.”

She led me down the twining corridors, past the dwellings of the other patients. Some would be on the floor lying in shredded sheets like nests. Others managed to sleep standing up. I listened in and heard the same kind of nightly whines, whimpers, cries, chatter, and grousing that I’d listened to when I’d been locked up here.

“This is her room,” the nurse said.

It was smaller than a jail cell. I knew. I’d lived in both. This was worse. I went through her two-drawer dresser and checked her clothing. What they called “visitor’s-day wear.” You had to put on a show for the family or anybody else who came by. The rest of the time you walked around in loose-fitting garments, pajamas or sweats or scrubs or nighties. I didn’t find anything. I went through her personal effects. She didn’t have many. Some state-made jewelry, makeup, brushes, hair clips, toothbrush. I checked under her pillow and went through the blankets.

“Check under the bed,” I told the nurse.

“Why?”

I kept my voice steady. “Just do it, all right?”

“Why don’t you?”

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders and got up close and braced her. “Remember what I said about not fucking with me, lady?”

She got on her hands and knees and peered under the bed. “There’s nothing here.”

When she stood again I showed her the tiny purple plastic house. “This looks like it goes to a board game. Any idea what?”

“No, I’ve never seen that before.”

“Was she close to any of the other patients?”

“No.”

I reared on her. “Think for a goddamn minute before you answer, right? Now, mull it over. Was she close to anyone?”

“I swear, she wasn’t.”

“Any sexual deviants in this wing? Masturbators? Rapists? Flashers, perverts, pedophiles?”

“No. No mental abnormalities or sexual proclivities of that sort. They’re kept in the C wing, where there’s more security. We don’t allow those patients to mix with the rest. Especially not with young girls like Emily.”

“Okay. Any escapees in the last few months?”

She hesitated. “No, not in years.”

“Before her, you mean. She cut out three months ago.”

“Yes, before her.”

“How’d she get out?”

“We don’t know. Maybe the same way you got in.”

I tightened one fist on the keys and the other on the little house. “Was there someone who could have had a sexual relationship with her? A staff member? One of these no-neck attendant fuckers?”

“She was only sixteen.”

“I know how old she was. Answer the question.”

“No. We have strict protocol. There are always several orderlies on hand, and nurses, and doctors. Tonight is—”

“Right, a special case.” I looked through the little cube window of Emily’s cell. You could barely see the glimmer of the moon. “She had a gun with her. Any idea where she could have gotten it?”

“No, none at all.”

“Who was her primary therapist?”

“Dr. Wilkins.”

I remembered that prick. He was old school. A sucker for hydrotherapy back in the day who used to keep the patients in lukewarm bathtubs with canvas covers to force us to stay down. He was the only psychiatrist still performing shock treatment anywhere in the country. I wondered if he was still at it. I wondered how many times Emily had had her pubescent brain singed.

“Is Wilkins here?”

“No.”

He didn’t know how lucky he was. The mood I was in, I wasn’t sure what I might do to him.

I sat on Emily’s bed and laid back and thought about what it might have been like for her to imagine her parents under her small bed, scratching and whispering. I could see Emily doing the same kind of thing that I had done in my time. Curling up in a ball and begging for Mommy.

I walked out past the nurse and let her go rushing back to her station where she’d hit the panic button and get the cops down here. Guards from other wards and wings would come running, but I’d be gone by the time anyone got close.

I walked the halls, unlocked the security doors as I came to them, and slipped out the back door past the orderly I’d knocked out. He was starting to come around. I stepped past him and stuck to the shadows. More lights flashed on across the grounds but I knew my way around them. I made my way back to Dell’s drop car, got in, and drove towards town.

I’d been stupid. I should’ve started with the thing that had caught my attention right at the beginning, a moment after I set eyes on Cecil’s corpse.

The popgun .22.

–

Dell had friends of the club inside the police department. He’d have the autopsy report and paperwork on the gun probably before the sheriff did. I showed up at the clubhouse for three days straight waiting for him to get the call.

When it came I was having a beer with him in the clubhouse, watching the Friday-night town girls playing strip nine-ball with a couple of the brothers.

Dell answered his cell. I watched his eyes darken and knew he was getting the word. His responses were terse. He disconnected. He said nothing for a long time.

“Was she pregnant?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “How’d you know? Did she tell you?”

“How far along?”

“Three months.”

It was time to tell him about my visit to the ward. “She had no visitors, not since the last time you showed up on her birthday. But she slipped out of Sojourner at least once that they knew about. Three months ago. She could have gotten out plenty of other times before she showed up at my place.”

I watched him. He sipped his beer and stared into the scarred wood of the bar top. His blunt features hardened and twitched through a few subtle expressions before his face became stony again.

“She did, didn’t she, Dell? She came to see you.”

He chuckled sadly but with some relief. He wanted to talk about it. “Kid walked here. Can you believe that? About a month ago. Shows up at two in the morning, barefoot and bleeding. She tried the same thing on me that she tried with you.” He gripped his beer mug so hard that he put a hairline crack in it.

“It’s why you thanked me,” I said. “You thanked me for not sending her back. Is it because you did?”

The crack grew larger and beer started to seep out of the side of the mug. “I was ashamed. She laid in the back like one of our weekend whores and tried to make me. And I watched her get undressed, man. Christ, she looked just like Katy. I watched her for longer than I should have before I finally told her no. And then I proved what a worthless piece of shit I am. I drove her back to the hospital. Some of those fucking orderlies buy crank from us, and I shelled out some cash and had her slipped inside again. I’ve heard stories of what goes on there, and I sent her right back to that asylum.”

I nodded and couldn’t seem to stop. It was like my neck muscles had been cut. My heart slammed at my ribs. This prick had always said he thought he was her father, but when she came to him for help he dodged his responsibility. He’d never know just what he’d done. Unless he’d been inside, he’d never realize.

“Did you give her the gun?” I asked.

“No.”

We continued to drink. I decided that Dell and I would have to throw down one of these nights.

“If she came to see us she might’ve gone to visit others,” I said. “She must’ve met with someone three months ago. Who?”

“Whoever he is,” Dell said, “he’s dead.”

I kept running names and faces of my neighbors through my head. Who would a disturbed teenage girl listening to the veil-choked whispers of her dead parents go to in order to find out who killed them? Who else would she think might help her? Who had fallen off the razor’s edge into bed with her?

“You think it might be one of yours?” I asked. “The .22?”

“Our friend in the sheriff’s department said the serial numbers were filed and burned out with acid. That probably makes it one of mine.”

“You sell any recently?”

“The last six months?” He scoffed. “Dozens. They’re not worth shit to us. They’re not worth shit to anybody. You know that. No firepower.”

I nodded. “Unless you were going to swallow the barrel. She probably stole it from him.”

“So did she get it from him three months ago? Could she have hidden it that long?”

“No,” I said.

I’d failed again. I was being stupid, again. I feared I’d never smarten up no matter what was on the line. I was still going at this all wrong.

“She got it from him right before she came to see me. She stopped at his place first.”

I held up the little plastic purple house that looked like it belonged to a board game. I showed it to Dell.

“You ever seen something like this before?”

He had. He had a lot of contacts. He was involved with a lot of crooked deals and a few legit ones. He told me he’d seen this in a shop window on Main Street. It went along with a raffle. You fill out the paperwork and your name goes into a box for a drawing. He couldn’t remember what you won and he couldn’t remember the name of the business.

It didn’t matter. I thought I knew. I drove up Main Street until I found the right storefront. I parked and walked around back to the separate apartment behind the shop. Two windows bordered the back door. One to the left and one to the right. The left was new, with a plastic-frame screen instead of wood like the others.

Emily hadn’t known about any secret key stashed under a rock in the family yard. She’d visited here three months ago and smashed a window in. She’d come back before seeing me and gotten the gun. This is where she’d gotten the little house. It’s where she found a small gun and thought its power might help her to discover the answer to the question that haunted and tainted her life. It’s where she fell into bed with a man and whispered in his ear that her dead mother was asking for his help. It’s where the father of her baby lived.

–

I’d never been much of a burglar but I didn’t have to be. The new window was open. I slid it open and climbed inside.

John Acton—Remember, Acton means action for your Home Buying Needs!—lay naked in his bathtub with an X-Acto blade pressed to his wrists. He glanced up at me as I entered but said nothing. Emily’s death had given him the idea. There were hesitation cuts all up and down his forearms. It looked like he’d been trying to slash his wrists for days, but he wasn’t nearly as strong or single-minded as she had been.

He let the blade slip from his fingers and started to cry.

I closed the toilet lid and sat and listened to him weep. I lit a cigarette and smoked and stared at him, noting the half-moon scars on his chest and back made by a fierce woman who liked to cause her men to bleed.