Текст книги "Blood And Bone"

Автор книги: William Lashner

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

He had parked the Buick behind a hedge beneath a wide sycamore about half a mile from the Truscott estate. He hadn’t killed the mother and child—some remnant of Robert had stilled his hand– and by now the police would have the model and license plate in their computer. But he needed the car to start off his journey after he took care of business here, so he had made sure it was well hidden before he walked the rest of the way to the mansion. At the black iron fence, he had thrown his bag over and then climbed after it. Now he was batting fat-fingered rhododendron leaves away from his face as he maneuvered himself into position to have a view of the mansion’s front door.

His plan was simple. He’d stay out here until the Byrne boy came and went. Bobby imagined that Byrne would have a file in his hand on the way in and a briefcase full of money on his way out. It was this briefcase that she had promised to Bobby as payment for all his services, as if he were a mere handyman who’d been patiently waiting all this time for a cash payment. Well, he’d take the payment all right, killing the boy in the process, but that wouldn’t be the end of it, that would be just the start. And irony of ironies, it would be her hush money that would finance all the rest. He’d trade in the Buick for a Maserati, he’d slip hundred-dollar tips to strippers, he’d tour the country killing Truscotts, starting with a broken-down old whore. Just the thought of it sent a shiver through his veins.

A final yank of the bag and he was through, to the wide front lawn

342 WILLIAM LASHNER

that led to the great house with its majestic pillars, the house that had been the repository of all his fondest hopes for decades now. He knew its lines and curves, the texture of its skin, knew it as intimately as a lover. Every perfect piece of stone, every lovely blemish in its mortar. He adored the house, its shape, its scent, the movement through its rooms. Maybe when this was all over, he’d come back and blow it into splinters.

The driveway itself was flanked with gardens framed by low walls of boxwood. Bobby looked left, looked right, and then, like an infantryman advancing on Omaha Beach, ran toward the garden in a zigzag pattern, bent low at the waist with the bag clutched to his chest. When he reached the closest of the gardens, he jumped over the boxwood and rolled toward the house, knocking down pink-tipped Cleome like he was a scythe.

He peeked over the evergreen hedge just in time to see the great gate at the front of the property open. A car slowly made its way up the drive, its tires grinding at the gravel, its headlights painting the stone white before the car entered the circle and the headlights suddenly veered to the left, pointing straight at his garden. He ducked down and listened. A door opening and closing, a few words from a voice he recognized. The headlights washed by him as the car turned out of the circle and back up the drive.

He raised his head again to see the tall, lanky figure of Senator Francis Truscott IV entering the house.

Bobby dropped to the ground, spun around, took a deep breath. What the hell was Francis doing here? He was supposed to be at some sort of fund-raiser. Bobby panicked for a moment at the unexpected development before he pulled himself together. This was good. This was great. This made everything easier. Of course the senator would be here at the exchange. It was his crime they were covering up, after all. And now Bobby wouldn’t have to go hunting for Francis. He’d be right here, in Bobby’s sights. Perfect.

Bobby checked his watch. It was after nine. He turned around and lifted his head over the hedge and looked down the drive. It was just a matter now of waiting, waiting like a hyena for his prey, fighting not to laugh out loud.

CHAPTER 53

I FEEL LIKE THERE ARE ANTS crawling across my chest,” said Kyle as he drove along a dark, private street.

“It’s just the tape,” said his father. “You’ll get used to it. I put it on tight so the thing won’t come loose in the middle of it all and give away the game.”

“I think they’ll figure out I’m wearing a transmitter when they see me scratching like an idiot.”

“Then don’t scratch. Show some control.”

“We should just tell the cops everything and let them deal with it.”

“That won’t do it. They’ll get away with what they’ve done, the two of them, if it’s only your words against theirs. In this world theirs count more. I should have known that the mother was involved. She might have been responsible for the killings without her son knowing. That would be quite politic of the old crone. Plausible deniability. Nixon still haunts the sordid edge of politics, I suppose. Will we never be free of that ghost?”

“What was so bad about Nixon anyway?”

“Ah, the sad ignorance of youth. But you’re a swift one, you’ll get her to admit everything, and I’ll have it right here on tape. Except don’t you dare forget, boyo, it only works if you bring out the money.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I told you, yes. That’s the key to everything. Tapes can be disputed, but the money is proof of their guilt. You bring back the money, and we’ll take it, along with the tape, to that police detective you go on about so much. That will jolt her career. She’ll be grateful, you can bet, and she’ll show it, too.”

“You sound like a pimp.”

Liam Byrne laughed. “Life is sweet, boyo, and you shouldn’t be denying yourself all of its pleasures. But reward or no, it’s a grand thing we’re doing here. Father and son, working together to right ancient wrongs. In all my days, I never thought I’d see it. I have to tell you, I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited.”

Kyle turned and looked at his father in the glow from the dashboard. His face was ruddy and beaming. One hand was shaking with excitement, the other was clutching the file on his lap. This was a moment Kyle would always remember, father and son on a bold mission of justice, bonded at last. No matter how it ended.

“And after?” said Kyle.

“Then it’s time for me to lie low. That’s why I already packed my bag. Just get me to a bus station, and I’ll be on my way.”

“You don’t want to maybe stay around a bit?”

“Too dangerous. They’ll be hunting me for sure.”

“Who?”

“The senator, his mother, that little killer the cops told you about.” He glanced to the side as if suddenly scared and lowered his voice. “Not to mention the first Mrs. Byrne, if she ever got an inkling of the truth. Trust me on this, that would be a frightening thing indeed.” “Tell me about it.”

“No, boyo, I’ve been too long here already. Remember the scare at Ponzio’s? It’s time I get back on the road.”

“Dad?”

“Kyle, son, I’ve got no choice. But you can come along if you choose. I’ve enough for two tickets. Have you ever seen the way the country unfurls on a slow trip west?”

“No.”

“It’s a grand sight, boyo, something to share and build on. But those considerations are for after. We need to focus on the here and the now. It will be dangerous in there. You need to keep your wits about you. And we’re agreed on the plan?”

“Sure,” said Kyle, “we’re agreed.”

“And everything’s clear?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Now, that must be the gate. I’ll duck down so the cameras don’t catch me.”

Kyle pulled up to the gate, leaned over and pushed the button to the squawk box. There was no response, so he pushed it again. And again. He waited, figuring that a fourth time might be rude, but after a few moments he thought what the hell and pushed it once more. He looked around for the camera, saw it turning like a robot’s head above the gate. He gave it a wave, and at that very moment the gate slowly swung open. Kyle drove through.

The lawn was wide and open as it rose toward a cold stone monstrosity of a mansion with huge gray pillars and wings wrapped around it like a great Gothic bat. Lights dimly illuminated the circular gravel drive, leaving dark blobs of shadow across the pillars and the front door. The windows in front were all dark. Kyle drove into the circular drive, stopped in a gulf of shadows between two weak patches of light, killed the engine. He tapped his father’s knee, and his father sat back up in the front seat.

“I guess this is it,” said Kyle. He looked into his father’s eyes once more before he opened the door. The car beeped, and he pulled out the key to silence it. He pocketed the key as he climbed out of the car and slammed shut the door. He leaned into the open window.

“Whatever happens in there, I’m really glad you came back.”

“As am I, son.”

“Whatever happens, know that I love you.”

“Nothing but good will happen, don’t you worry.”

“Okay,” said Kyle. “I won’t.” Pause. “I suppose I’ll need the file now.”

“Of course, yes,” said his father as he raised his hand and offered the black folder. When Kyle took hold, it was the first time he had touched the file since he had given it to his father in his old house. He had to tug twice till the old man released it.

“Good luck, boyo,” said Liam Byrne. “And remember the plan.”

“I’ll remember,” said Kyle before straightening up, looking at the creepy old place. He heard something rustling to the left of the house. His breath caught, and his head turned quickly. He could just make out a small garden there, but nothing else. A squirrel, most likely. Or a chipmunk, a frightening little chipmunk. He took a deep breath to settle his nerves. This was delicate work, he couldn’t be so jumpy. Calm down, boy, he told himself.

Inside the car his father put on a set of headphones connected to the receiver. Kyle tapped his chest, his father raised a thumb. It was time. He took another deep breath, and then, with file in hand, he headed across the drive, up the stairs to the portico, past the pillars and to the front door. He knocked a couple of times, heard nothing, reached to the handle, pressed down the latch.

The lock released, the door opened. Kyle Byrne stepped inside, into the darkness.

CHAPTER 54

BOBBY PEEKED OVER the hedge and saw the Byrne boy get out of the car.

He could pop the little bastard now, one pump, one shot, and he’d be free to take care of the two Truscotts inside. Ram the shotgun up their throats and fire away and away and away, spattering their flesh and blood on the walls and columns until it was only the spatters that were getting ecstatically spattered. His breath quickened as he imagined it.

But taking out the Byrne boy now would be sloppy. They might hear the gunfire from outside and call the police. They might hide the money before he made his grand entrance. Even as Bobby lay in the mud, his clothes stained with rotted vegetables and his hair stinking of garbage, even as the flies buzzed around him as if he were a pile of feces, he prided himself on not being sloppy.

But wait a second, there was someone else in the car. How could he have missed it at first? Because the second man had been ducking down to avoid the camera at the gate, that’s how. Bobby watched as Byrne leaned toward the car window, reached in, and pulled out something. A file. The file. So this was the other man, the accomplice. And what was the accomplice putting on now? Earmuffs? No, headphones.

Which meant that Byrne would be wearing a wire. How delicious was

that? A wire. The only disappointment was that Bobby hadn’t thought of it first. The whole enterprise would be recorded for posterity.

The Byrne boy straightened up with the file in his hand, hesitated for a moment before heading for the front door of the mansion. Bobby would wait until he got inside, then scuttle over to the car and kill the accomplice. He’d do it quietly, silent as a ninja, just a quick slice of the neck so as not to alert the primary players inside. When Byrne entered the house and closed the door behind him, Bobby rose to his knees, opened the bag, pulled out a knife the size of a squirrel’s tail, a knife still stained with Malcolm’s blood. With blade in hand, he slithered through an opening between two of the boxwood plants and crawled toward the car.

Halfway there he stopped and stared. It was the man in the car, there was something familiar about him. Round face, a mop of gray hair, something knowing in the tilt of the head. At the house, before the fire, Bobby had seen only the outline of the figure, and yet even that had seemed familiar. But now he knew he had seen this face before. Where? Where?

When the answer came to him, his body tensed with such excitement that he almost stabbed his own chest with the knife.

It was impossible. He was dead. Robert had even gone to his funeral. But Robert hadn’t killed him, he knew that, despite what he had led his aunt to believe, so the impossible was indeed a possibility. And in its own perverse way, it made so much sense. How else could the boy have gotten his hands on the file? How else could the boy have known exactly what to do with it? Because he had been guided all the time by the venal hand of his father.

Liam Byrne had known he was targeted after the O’Malley girl drowned and his car was run off the road. He must have taken the half million paid out by the senator, faked his death, and run away with the cash. Amazing. And for his long run to end at Bobby’s hand fourteen years after he had first escaped Robert’s grasp . . . well, the irony was too perfect to ignore.

With renewed purpose Bobby crawled closer to the car. He would come around to the passenger side, rise onto his haunches, jerk open the door, and grab the old bastard by his forehead with one hand as he slid the knife across the neck with the other. It was so simple, so tasty.

He looked up again, could see the old man’s head through the windshield, his eyes closed as he tapped one of the headphones, trying to hear. He was the one listening, the one charged with making the tape. Bobby could just imagine it all as it imprinted itself on the magnetic ribbon. Her sweet and deceitful mewings, the senator’s fraudulent oratory, the Byrne boy’s demands for money, the whole story of the rape and its cover-up spilled to the waiting tape. And then Bobby Spangler arriving heroically to punish all for their sins, to save a grateful nation, to raise again the banner of the Spanglers. The tape would be played nationwide, all day long, over and over again on cable television. Even as he ran off with the money, first to wreak havoc on the Truscotts and then maybe to Mexico, maybe to Peru, his legend would rise.

But if he killed Liam Byrne now, who would take care of the tape? If he killed Liam Byrne, who would make sure the truth was known? And wouldn’t the pain he inflicted be all the sweeter if Liam Byrne were forced to hear the death of his son through the headphones?

Bobby took a deep breath and then backed away, backed away, slithered through the grass and back between the boxwoods, where his black bag awaited.

CHAPTER 55

THE HOUSE KYLE BYRNE found himself inside smelled ancient, dank, and strangely like licorice. There were no lights burning in the hall, but a sliver of light slipped out around a door frame back through the house to the right, so he made his way toward it. He banged a knee into some hunchbacked piece of furniture placed smack in the middle of the hall, felt his way around the piece, and kept going.

When he reached the wide door, he heard the low hum of conversation coming from the other side. There was no handle, but he placed his hand into the gap and slid the door open.

“Ah, there you are,” said an old woman in a voice Kyle recognized. She was sitting regally on a high-backed chair, her bony body twisted and shivery, arms and neck jerking hither and yon as she sat there. She looked vaguely familiar, with her tall gray hair and twitching limbs, and he stared a bit before realizing he’d seen her before, sitting next to the widow at Laszlo Toth’s funeral.

“No need to be shy,” she said. “Come in, come in. We’ve been discussing you. Would you like a drink?”

“Not really,” said Kyle. “I only drink with friends, or at least with people who haven’t been trying to kill me.”

“Oh, you must be exaggerating, Mr. Byrne. Why would anyone want to kill you? Now, your father always loved a stiff drink. I admired that in him. But come in, come in, dear, and let us get our business out of the way.”

The room was a large parlor, with blue walls, twin crystal chandeliers, fancy French furnishings perched on dark, delicate legs. There were grand landscape paintings on the walls, thick rugs on the floors, vases the size of ponies. In its day that room had been quite the fancy place, but its day was not this day. The paintings were browned with grime and age, the rugs in some spots were worn through. And the smell of licorice was overpowering.

When he stepped into the room, he looked to his left and then did a double take. Standing by a fireplace, his arm on the mantel, was Francis Truscott IV. Above the senator was a painting of a blustery man in hunting clothes and with a bully’s lip leaning on that very same mantel.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Senator,” said Kyle. “I thought you would be on your knees in front of a pack of fat cats, working for your money.”

“I ducked out of the fund-raiser,” said Senator Truscott. “Our discussion raised a number of questions that I needed to ask my mother.”

“Did you get your answers?”

“Yes.”

Kyle looked back at the old woman. The phone call had convinced him that the murder of Colleen O’Malley, the attempted murder of his father, the murder of Laszlo Toth, all of it had been at her insistence. “I wouldn’t rely too much on what she told you, if I were you.”

“Is that it?” she snapped. “Is that the O’Malley file?”

“This is it,” said Kyle. “The whole caboodle.”

“A ny copies?”

“Not that I made.”

“How about your . . . accomplice?”

“Accompl ice?”

“The man you were with. Your partner in crime. Oh, one needn’t be a genius to know you’ve not been alone. It would take more than the likes of you to get this far.”

“There are no copies,” said Kyle.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll trust you, because you are young and I am idealistic. But be forewarned, Mr. Byrne, you’d be wise not to trifle with me.”

“No chance of that,” said Kyle with a wink. Then he turned from her and walked over to the senator. “I thought you weren’t buying.”

“I’m not,” said Truscott.

“But she is. Isn’t it the same thing?”

“I don’t have control over what she does.”

“But she apparently has control over you.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” said the woman, interjecting herself forcefully into the conversation. “He is a United States senator, and I am nothing but an old lady.”

“Don’t sell yourself short for my benefit,” said Kyle, still looking at the senator, whose chiseled face turned even more stony under Kyle’s gaze. “You might be as old as dust, but you’re no lady.”

“Feisty for a messenger boy, aren’t you?”

“This is all her doing,” said the senator. “I didn’t even know about it until you showed up. But I admit I’ve had second thoughts since we spoke. I believe I can do more good in the Senate than out on the street.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Kyle. “You wouldn’t want to deprive the republic of your irreplaceable value. Your patriotism warms my heart.”

“I simply began to see that maybe it is not the worst thing for everyone if the file disappears once and for all.”

“She’s persuasive, isn’t she? I suppose she keeps your balls quite safe in her pocketbook.”

“That’s enough,” she hissed from her side of the room.

Kyle turned his head toward her. “What, now you’re going to tell me you don’t like feisty?”

“Let’s get this done and you on your pathetic way.”

“Fine by me,” said Kyle. “But I must say, I’m disappointed in you, Senator. You impressed the hell out of me this afternoon. I thought I had actually met a politician with sincerity, but I suppose that’s like a vampire with sincerity—does it really matter if he sincerely wants to suck your blood?”

“I meant what I said this afternoon.”

“That means you were against buying the file before you were for it. Those questions you had for your mother. Were they about what happened to Colleen O’Malley?”

“My mother assured me that she wasn’t involved.”

“How about Laszlo Toth? What did she say about him?”

“My mother is not a murderer.”

“She didn’t pull the trigger, if that’s what you mean. I guess she’s in no condition to do her own wet work. But I’ve watched enough TV to know that you don’t have to pull the trigger to be guilty of murder.”

“Can we end these mad ravings and make our deal?” said Mrs. Truscott. “And then, dear, I have a psychiatrist I can recommend. He is quite fashionable—all the best loons see him.”

“What are you getting at, Byrne?” said the senator.

“You know a Spangler?”

“Spangler?” He looked at his mother. “What about it?”

“There’s a Spangler wanted in the killing of Laszlo Toth. And I’d bet he was involved in Colleen O’Malley’s strange drowning death, too. And the funny thing is, if you look in this file, the lawyer opposing my father, the one representing your interests in the O’Malley matter, was a Spangler, too. Want to look?”

“What’s he talking about?”

“I don’t know, dear.”

“Mother?”

“I have no idea what this maniac is talking about.”

“Well, there you go, Senator. Another mystery for you to solve, or to sweep under the family carpet, though I imagine it’s getting pretty lumpy by now. Here’s another lump.”

Kyle spun the file in the air toward the senator. Truscott didn’t move to catch it. The file hit the floor with a plunk, and he just stared at it while a briefcase appeared, as if magically, in the old lady’s twitchy hands.

“Take your money and get the hell out of my house,” she said.

Kyle gazed at the briefcase for a moment, thought of all the dreams contained within its flat gray walls, the new car, the trip to Aruba, a real start in life. And he also thought of his father outside, listening intently to the headphones as the scene audibly played out for him.

“Keep it,” said Kyle finally. He could almost see the wince on his father’s face, as if he’d been slapped. “Spruce the place up. Buy another pillar for outside, you can never have too many. I don’t want your damn money.”

The senator looked up, his face creased in bewilderment.

“Don’t look so puzzled, Senator,” said Kyle. “You’re the one who convinced me. You told me you weren’t going to turn me into a blackmailer. After talking to you, I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone else do it either.” Another shot across his father’s jaw. “So take the file. For free. This story belonged to Colleen O’Malley, not my father. He didn’t have the right to use it for his own gain, and neither do I. My father was wrong to bring it out fourteen years ago, and I’m trying to right the wrong by giving it back to you.” Slap, slap, slap.

“If you don’t want the money,” said the senator, “why did you come?”

“To put Colleen’s ghost to rest,” said Kyle. “And to see what I could learn about Spangler.” And to tell Liam Byrne over the wire what Kyle couldn’t tell him face-to-face: that he loved him, yes, but he wasn’t going to be him.

“My mother’s maiden name is Spangler,” said the senator. “And the lawyer whose name you saw in the file is my cousin Robert, my mother’s nephew. But he’s hardly a murderer. If you could meet him, you’d know that. He’s a harmless old man, I’m sure.”

“Don’t be, because he’s now on the run and considered armed and dangerous.”

“Mother?”

“I don’t know what he is talking about,” said the old lady, her chin jerking spasmodically upward. And now, strangely, beneath the licorice scent floated a line of something fetid, as if the rot at the heart of this old woman’s ambitions for her son were finally being exposed.

“Mother?” said the senator.

“Look at me, dear. I am telling you the truth. I don’t know what he is talking about. But whatever Robert might have done under an excess of zeal, he did it without my knowledge. You must believe me, dear. You must.”

“Oh, yes, you must,” said a voice from the doorway to the room. Kyle turned quickly, and there, with a bulky black bag in his hand, was O’Malley. His clothes were streaked with stains, an obviously false hairpiece was comically out of place, his face was filthy, and he smelled god-awful.

“Robert?” said the senator.

“O’Malley?” said Kyle.

The man sneered and gave the bag a quick hoist as if it were quite heavy. The bag’s zipper was open, and something shifted so that the thick black barrel of a shotgun poked out of the end.

“I wondered when you’d show up,” said Mrs. Truscott, even as she curled into herself and away from the stench. “Unfortunately, Bobby, we have ourselves a problem.”

CHAPTER 56

THERE WAS A TIME, during his youth in Iowa, when Robert Spangler became intoxicated with Script ure. A s he followed along with the preachers in their crowded tents, the words glowed on the pages of his Bible and spoke to the deepest yearnings of his immature heart: faith, love, redemption, sacrifice. And even in this new incarnation that owed more to Nietzsche than to Luke, the old stories lived as counterpoint to the dreams he had finally found courage enough to summon into reality. Now, as Bobby stood in the dark hallway, staring in at the scene playing out before him, it was as if one of those stories had sprung fully to life.

“Look at me, dear,” said the wellspring of Robert’s love and his cursed ambition, her fierce attention pressed wholly and urgently on the son, Francis, passing entirely over Bobby’s presence in the doorway just as it had passed over Robert lo these many years. “I am telling you the truth. I don’t know what he is talking about. But whatever Robert might have done under an excess of zeal, he did it without my knowledge.”

And somewhere a cock crowed.

“You must believe me, dear,” she said, her voice trembling with her delicious insincerity. “You must.”

“Oh, yes, you must,” said Bobby as he stepped forward and took his rightful place in this elegant room, the very room of power where she had made her promises about Robert’s future over and again and where, in the next few moments, that future would finally come to its blood-spangled fruition. They all turned toward him with a start– the son who had stolen all her love and all his glory, the interloping Byrne boy, and she, too, the object of all their fantasies, fixing him with a blue-eyed stare both malevolent and full of desire. A stare that brought him instantly hard.

“Robert?” said Cousin Francis.

“O’Malley?” said the Byrne boy.

Bobby shifted the bag to cover his erection, and in his so doing,

the barrel of his shotgun slipped out of the bag’s open edge. He looked down at the gun and back up at the two men, who had become transfixed by the sight as an understanding dawned of exactly whom they now were facing. No longer would they see him as little Robert Spangler. He was new and newly powerful.

“I wondered when you’d show up,” she said, as if she were happy to see him, even as that magnificent tortured body involuntarily pulled away at the same time. “Unfortunately, Bobby, we have ourselves a problem.”

“You maybe,” said Bobby, “but I’ve never been better. Isn’t this cozy? A family reunion. But where was my invitation? Oh, that’s right, no Spanglers need apply. I haven’t seen you, Francis, in . . . oh, ages and ages. No time for your cousin?”

“What is going on, Robert?” said Francis. “What have you done?” “Only what I needed to do to protect the future you almost threw away on some Catholic-school skank. Isn’t that what family does? Though while I was out paving the way for your sparkling career, what was being done for me? Tell me, Francis, how have you shown your appreciation to the poor side of the family, you ungrateful snot?”

“Careful,” she said, as if she still had any hold on him. “Why should I be careful, Aunt Gloria? I’m sure we can speak freely. There are no secrets here. We’re all family. Except for Byrne, who has secrets of his own—like the one waiting for him outside.”

Bobby liked how Byrne’s face froze. It was the way you looked when your deepest secrets spilled out onto the floor like steaming intestines from a split gut.

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“Call me Bobby, my one true love, and I’ll slip you a treat when this is all over.”

“Robert, did you kill Colleen?” said Francis.

“That little whore?” said Bobby.

Francis’s face twisted into a politician’s pretend look of righteous anger, and he took a step forward toward Bobby, as if the mama’s boy had the wherewithal to do anything in support of his false emotions. Even so, just to freeze him in place, Bobby pulled the shotgun out of the bag. He dropped the bag and gave the gun a pump, loading a cartridge.

“Save your annoying Truscott self-righteousness for Meet the Press,” he spit out. “It’s amazing how ungrateful you can be when everything is handed to you on a silver serving dish. I did what I had to do to protect your career. I did what you would have wanted me to do if only you had the courage to see inside your blighted soul. And let me tell you something, Francis. Nothing cuts right to the core of your soul more than blood.”

“So who are you going to kill today?” said Byrne, stepping into a conversation in which he had no business. “Me?”

“Yes, for starters, you foolish tool. But I won’t stop there.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

“Oh, I was, sweet Gloria, but I’m not anymore. The blood has changed me. Before, I wouldn’t have dared to walk into this house and take my rightful place by your side. But now I have the courage of a cougar, now I dance naked in the moonlight.”

“Stop talking like a cretin,” she said, her voice arrogant and dismissive even in its shaking. “And what happened to you? You look and smell like you rolled around in a garbage heap.” She waved at the air in front of her nose. “I think I’m going to be nauseous.”

“I would think you’d be proud of me, Auntie dear,” he said, “finally standing up for what’s mine, taking initiative, like you’ve always told me to do. But the truth is, right now I don’t give a damn what you think,” and he realized that, for the first time in his adulthood, he truly didn’t. He didn’t care about her or her disappointment or the favors she could grant. It was complete, the transformation, he was finally free of her power and his own failed expectations.